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But his kind, quiet wife would never bother him the way brash, opinionated women did.
Ott was starting to feel like he was doing the women in this city a favor by instilling a little more civility among them. Maybe his lesson plan was more than just a hobby.
Chapter 43
My morning commute was a crazed montage of phone calls and texts as I reread the killer
’s letter over and over at every stop in traffic. In the letter, the killer had made it clear he was no phony. And he was not done teaching New Yorkers a lesson in civility and manners.
The letter was short, to the point, and clearly designed to cause panic and confusion. Was he trying to gain attention and notoriety, like the Zodiac Killer, Jack the Ripper, and the Golden State Killer had all done in the past? All of those criminals had reached out to the press. He had also raised a challenge. Think of the one who has killed the most. I considered the prolific serial killer Hollis had mentioned, Samuel Little.
Which killer was Bobby Fisher trying to top?
I was getting sucked into the puzzle. Exactly as the killer wanted me to do.
I had already been on the phone to the NYPD tech department. They were busy talking to the newspaper’s computer staff, trying to figure out the origin of the email.
I decided to make a personal visit to the New York Daily News building to see the individual in charge of editorials and letters to the editor. I drove directly to the paper’s offices, way down by Battery Park and about a mile from One Police Plaza. The editor didn’t seem surprised to see an NYPD detective in his office. He also didn’t seem to care.
The editor was in his early thirties and was dressed surprisingly casually, given his title. I looked over the framed diplomas hanging on the wall: an undergrad degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and an MBA from NYU. There were also several trophies on a low, oak bookshelf—though as I slipped past, I saw one was a soccer trophy with a plate that read FOR PARTICIPATION.
With a murder investigation at stake, this guy was going to have to do better than that.
He had the air of a sharp Wall Street banker working for a fraction of the salary—and, by the look of his degrees, a lot more student debt. His slicked-back dark hair and wire-frame glasses made it seem like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be a hotshot media guy or an intellectual.
I skipped the pleasantries and went straight for the confrontation. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t at least call us for comment before you printed a letter from what could be our lead suspect. What kind of journalism is that?”
“Welcome to the new millennium’s journalism, Detective. In today’s media world, speed is everything. Look, we weren’t trying to screw up your investigation. Fact is, the email sat in the general folder for days before anyone even looked at it. When our techs confirmed it was sent from a New York–area IP address, we became convinced that he’d sent the letter to everyone in town, so we decided to run it before we could be scooped. And the proof is in our circulation. It’s skyrocketing.”
“The NYPD isn’t trying to censor you or inhibit any First Amendment rights. We’re trying to catch a killer. This is an active investigation.”
“Which is going nowhere.” The young editor made a face, but truthfully, I couldn’t read his expression. “When are you going to start doing something about this freak?”
I realized I was getting tired of this kind of conversation, of answering the only question anyone ever asked. “We’re approaching this case from every possible angle,” I said. “Doing everything we can.”
“I admit, Detective, I might not have your experience, but I have a good education and common sense. What about rounding up some suspects? Doing some quick searches? No one cares about search warrants anymore. This shit has got to stop. The people have a right to know that the killer is taunting everyone in New York, including the police. And now that they do know, it’s only a matter of time before they start taking matters into their own hands.”
I chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your belief system. That the Constitution matters only when there is no crisis. That’s not how the world works. We can’t all be hypocrites. We have to follow policies and rules set down for legal investigations.”
The editor said, “I’ll put this argument down to a draw. But the next time the asshole kills someone, Bennett, this conversation goes on the record. And ‘Doing everything we can’ is going to sound a lot like ‘We’re not doing anything.’”
Chapter 44
An hour later, I met Brett Hollis in front of the main branch of the New York Public Library. His face looked much better today. That single strip of tape across his nose didn’t seem so out of place. Maybe I was just getting used to it.
The editor at the New York Daily News was right about one thing: circulation. And not of library books. Everywhere I looked I saw people with a newspaper under their arms or reading news stories on their phones. A cab rolled by with its windows down. I could hear one of the local AM radio hosts—a well-known sports commentator—talking about the letter from the killer.
Hollis had been busy. He’d gotten a report from the NYPD’s Computer Crimes Squad, who had worked with the Daily News IT staff and improved on the staff’s initial findings. They’d figured out that the email’s IP address had originated from a computer inside this library building. The email address provided to the paper was traced back to a newly opened account in the name of Bobby Fisher, no other identifying information attached.
In short, the letter didn’t seem to provide any new information on the killer, other than the challenge he had posed. How was that possible?
“By the way,” Hollis told me, “I also heard that a staff member here was the victim of a homicide up in East Harlem, just a few days ago. But her case doesn’t seem similar to ours. No mutilation, none of our guy’s markers.”
I asked Hollis how he was doing, dealing with John Macy.
