The Murder Artist: A Novel

By Marcus Wiesner

Josh's weapons are his writerly skills and journalistic instincts. His allegiance is to the "Gods of Journalism," which means he's committed to getting what's newsworthy into print, in this case stories that track a serial murderer. But he encounters roadblocks put up by the city fathers and even his own publisher who are bent on suppressing the Jewish angle for fear of panicking the city. Luckily, he has his foul-mouthed night city editor on his side and sometimes his female sidekick. Their romantic entanglement, added to conflicting loyalties and ambitions, makes their partnership rocky. Working like an investigative reporter works, Josh files stories that bring him closer to identifying the killer, understanding why he embraces the twisted psychology of his idol, Adolph Hitler, and what drives his deadly assaults against Jews connected to the art world.
The game gets turned around with the killer hunting Josh. Who survives a bloody denouement? If it's Josh, will his romance survive the clash of motivations churned up by the chase, and ?and this is key? will the Hitlerite's call for a relentless war against Jews make it into print?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595621514

Marcus Wiesner

Marcus Wiesner, Ph.D., draws from his varied life experiences ?clinical and forensic psychologist, author of a psychological study of Hitler, public relations director of New York City agencies, and as an award-winning journalist? to give real life-flavor to an exciting novel that masterfully fuses these elements.

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Contents

NEW YORK CITY

1997

PRIM DETECTIVE

UNEASY ALLIANCE

THE NON-OBITUARY WRITER

STRATEGY SESSION

CLUED IN

COMPARING NOTES

NOTHING FAILS LIKE SUCCESS

CONSPIRACY THEORY

GUATEMALA

HE STOOPS TO CONQUER

CLASS MATTERS

THREE-FINGER

SKETCHY RESULTS

DEFENSIVE MOVE

DEATH NOTICED

MERGERS AND INQUISITIONS

THROUGH A GLASS, DIMLY

DREAM TEAM

THE TELL-TALE HEART

DISCLOSURE

FIVE-MINUTE HOUR

THE RUNNER TUMBLES

DOGGED PURSUIT

THE GODS OF JOURNALISM

GAME DAY

ARRESTING DEVELOPMENTS

FRONT PAGE BLUES

BACK TO THE PAST

EPILOGUE

NEW YORK CITY

1997

Legacy

How could even his most vehement detractors—Jews and their apologists—not acknowledge the nobility with which he faced death? Unrepentant. Unapologetic. No backing down in his beliefs. A bold endeavor to alter the course of history. To remake the world in a purer form. A world of Aryan men with smooth-muscled physiques akin to those found in the most finely-crafted sculptures; women with bodies of inviting fecundity, curved to fold into men’s embrace. Lives of art and adventure. And the rancid remainder? History would have read that the world had once been densely populated by other two-legged creatures—purged now except for those retained as peasant stock—who thought themselves deserving the title of human. With those infected souls removed, civilization would have advanced according to the natural order of things.

It didn’t happen that way. No fault of his. He had done all he could to rid the world of their pestilential presence. The count was in the millions. An admirable effort.

When the world started to crumble around him, he didn’t look to God. Why should he? He was the closest thing to God that the centuries had brought forth. And who were the fools babbling of Christian love and mercy, those tools of the underclass to keep superior beings from assuming their natural place? Again the Jews! The proof of that? There’s not a reputable scholar who will assert that the Nazarene ever left his tribe.

Now we come to the bracingly heroic part. One thing he didn’t want to happen was to fall into the hands of the Reds. Cunning the way animals are cunning, they would have placed him in a cage and displayed him in the Moscow zoo as if he were the subhuman!

So he took no chances. First, the cyanide pill, then the revolver pressed against his temple. A hero’s death.

But before that, his last recorded words, dictated to his secretary amidst the shattering shriek of relentless bombardment. Still steely-minded, his clarion call to future generations to continue his work. Above all, I charge the leadership of the nation and their followers with the strict observance of the racial laws and with merciless resistance against the poisoners of all peoples, international Jewery.

His summons to unending battle against defilers has been heard.

He once thanked Dame Fortune for the early adversities that hardened him for the work destiny called on him to do in the name of racial and aesthetic purity.

Dame Fortune has smiled on me in a different way. Of all things, a deviant led me to the weaponry needed to carry on. The cost, a mere trifle: the life of a pervert.

Now to prove myself worthy of carrying out his legacy.

PRIM DETECTIVE

Is this private enough?

They were in the backroom of a watering hole on West 29th Street that was none too crowded even at quitting time and here it was 2:30 in the afternoon. The wooden booth had high panels, nobody else in sight, dim light shining through an overhead lamp whose four-cornered shade bore the curlicued slogan of a beer company—Rheinblatt Blue—that for all he knew was long defunct.

She gave Josh Cleary a slow nod of assent.

Still, he felt the need to give her further assurance. To my knowledge, this is not a spot where people on the job hang out. Nor anyone from my office. Just because it’s off the beaten track, it was a convenient place to meet a friend from Jersey, until he moved away, when we had tickets once or twice to see something at the Garden.

Angelina Russo was nervous, which made him nervous.

I’m putting my career on the line talking to you. I need to know whether you can be trusted. Really trusted, ‘cause this is big. Bigger than me. This has huge implications for the city.

Josh looked intently at his companion. She was slim and small, perhaps five-three. A narrow face. Dark complexion, dark hair pulled to a bun. Her mouth was full and her eyes—a surprise—were hazel. When she walked towards him in one of those brightly- patterned gossamer summer dresses that verge on transparency, he had trouble reconciling her appearance with the young woman in a police uniform who had crossed his path five months ago. It became easier when she took off her denim jacket and he heard the thump of a 9mm against the chair next to her. He also noticed that she had small, firm breasts, an observation made without lust, just part of the general accounting that occurred when he would meet a woman.

The score for Angelina: attractive, not a knockout.

Josh took his hands off the cool surface of his beer glass and placed them openly on the worn table top. It was carved and initialed with the shallow markings of lovers and haters who over the course of decades had sought liquid solace in the bar’s dingy back room.

Let me put it this way, he began. I’ve never revealed a source. Of course, I’ve only been working as a journalist for six years—only a-year-and-a-half in the city—but I can’t visualize a circumstance in which I would reveal a source. And when and if it came time to publish, I would be careful to do so in a way that would be protective of you.

The words, time to publish, seemed to cause a quick inhalation.

He wanted to gain her confidence, but at the same time be clear on the realities. I guess what it comes down to is that I’m offering you my word. But there is also an obligation on your part and that is not to leave me hanging. That is, if the story is about to break, I don’t want to have been holding information for weeks, maybe months, and then it’s headlined in the Post or News because if that happens, then I’ll throw myself in front of a tractor-trailer or find some other way to ease the pain.

Angelina was silent.

So silent he was almost going to make a joke … wave his hand in front of her eyes and ask anybody in there? but instead he offered to get her a drink.

A beer? Coffee? Anything you want.

Iced tea, unsweetened.

There was no table service this time of day. He went out front to get the drink and another beer for himself.

A great deal has happened since you wrote the arrest story. Her voice was another surprise. Soft, pleasant, different from the hoarse, cracked sound that emanated from her in the cold, dank alleyway on West 112 Street, between a bodega and a check-cashing store at 3 a.m., where they first met. Then she was in a shooter’s stance, her weapon trained on a six-four Latino about 12 feet away who seemed decidedly ambivalent about obeying her command to keep his hands raised.

Sir, I want you to continue to keep your arms up where I can see them. Don’t even think of going to your waistband. Then the sound was a raspy shout from throat muscles as tense as her posture.

The wail of sirens from at least a couple of squad cars approaching fast seemed to drain him of any other intent, signaled by a slump in his posture.

For a few seconds, they remained alone in the alley: the policewoman, the suspect and Josh.

Where is your partner? he asked.

She hesitated, He … ah … called it in.

Then it was all commotion. The screech of cars arriving, doors slamming, radios blaring with the crackling urgency of police communications, the rush of running feet, masculine shouts turning the alley into a clamor of competing echoes.

It took the cops a moment to sort things out.

Who is this motherfucker? He was grabbed from behind and spun around.

Check the press badge, he shouted. I’m with the Chronicle … just happened by.

A cop, not much taller than his five-ten but with a build manufactured in a muscle emporium, grabbed at the pass that dangled from his neck on a chain.

All right, move the fuck back. His tone suggested reporters had zero stars in his personal rating system, a reflection of the general disdain most cops have for journalists.

Nevertheless, he was still close enough to witness the cops remove a mean looking revolver from the suspect’s middle and cuff him.

Before being shoved roughly into the back seat of a police car, the suspect said to no one in particular: I woulda got away clean if it wasn’t for the cunt. Her pussy partner took off.

Of course, if he had written the story that way, he would have been a pariah to the cops and it would likely have short-circuited any chance of a career in this city as well. His bosses would have lost confidence in him because of his lack of savvy.

The idea that the male half of the team could have taken off, leaving his female partner in danger when a huge suspect came barreling towards them from the side entrance of a check-cashing place, was off-limits as a depiction of police conduct. The myth of the absolute fortitude of male police officers under fire was inviolate.

The version that he was supposed to present to his readers was given to him by a police captain about 15 minutes after the suspect was hustled off. Here’s what happened, the captain said, Officers Nick Simonetti, that’s S-I-M-O-N-E-T-T-I, and Angelina Russo, on patrol, noticed the side door ajar at Paragon Check Cashing and they confronted the armed suspect as he emerged. They held him at gunpoint until backup arrived.

I only saw Officer Russo.

Hey kid, I’m giving you the scoop. Don’t give me trouble. I’ll give you the book on who the guy is. Recently out of Dannemora. Two priors for robbery. Oswaldo Jimenez, 27, street-name Cholo. Over $3,000 in cash recovered. Go write your exclusive.

The look he got said he was supposed to end the conversation—if it had been a conversation—right there.

He would have accepted the official storyline except that as he passed by a black cop as he was talking to his partner, he heard him say, Don’t ever get paired up with that fool Simonetti, even on a day shift. He didn’t stop to call it in ‘til he was two blocks away and his voice was so high-pitched the operator thought she was talking to Russo.

The other cop shook his head in wonderment, and gave a deep chuckle. Complete absence of balls.

That sealed it for Josh. In good conscience, he couldn’t entirely go with the police version.

The story he wrote, which got him his first byline, was a straightforward account. It described a slightly-built Officer Russo in her shooter’s crouch holding at bay an armed and dangerous felon and made no mention of Officer Simonetti at all.

The headline though, which he had nothing to do with, was unfortunate:

PETITE FEMALE COP TAKES MEASURE

OF OVERSIZED DANGEROUS FELON

Josh thought nothing more about it until two days later when he took a call from Simonetti.

I want to know how come you left me out of the arrest story. If you look at the arrest record, you’ll see my name’s there ahead of Russo.

The voice on the other end of the phone contained a hint of anger that Josh suspected was bravado … an attempt at saving face.

Josh thought he would take the easy way out and give him a story he could use with his buddies to ease his embarrassment.

Officer, I had you in a key role and sharing the capture, but the editor seized on the female angle and chopped you out of the story. And you know it’s the editor who writes the headline.

He decided to go the whole way. In fact, I was thinking of calling you to apologize, but I didn’t know how you would feel talking to me. Should have done it.

Fucking editors.

Look, I owe you one. Any time you’re part of something, give me a call. I’ll do my best to give it play. Given Simonetti’s confrontation quotient, Josh thought it would be a long time, if ever, before he heard from him again.

That was the prelude to the present scene, an unexpected reconnection to the officer featured in the story, and her sitting across from him taking her first sip of iced tea.

Well, it’s Detective Russo now, she began. That’s the result of the story. The brass picked up on it and they also wanted to get on record as promoting a female officer for bravery because they were feeling pressure from women’s groups. At least that’s what’s been told to me. Whatever the reason … I personally think I deserved the promotion … it happened and that’s a good thing.

Detective Russo paused as another couple entered the back room. She eyed them carefully, both in their forties, the female limping slightly and complaining about tight shoes.

They settled some distance away, out of earshot, and she resumed.

"The bad thing is it made me a bunch of enemies … not most of the young guys, they know Simonetti is chicken … but Simonetti has relatives in the department, some high up, and these guys never forgive and they want to make me pay.

On my new assignment, the daily greeting I get is, ‘Good morning Detective Cunto … I mean Russo’. Repeating those words seemed to discomfit her and she turned her head away. He was sure he would have detected her face reddening had the light been better. And that’s just how the day begins.

Those lousy fuckers.

Do you have to use that kind of language? Don’t I get enough of it in the squad room?

Sorry.

As tough as it is, that’s not why I’m here. It’s my assignment to this special task force. It’s run by incompetents. They’re screw ups and more people are going to die. Maybe, a lot more.

UNEASY ALLIANCE

Two thoughts arrived simultaneously—if that’s possible—in whatever lobe thoughts were supposed to arrive at when they come into awareness. Josh’s first thought was that he was being hooked into some scheme that Detective Russo had for documenting a sexual harassment lawsuit that would bring her a bundle—a much better deal than the half-pay-and-out pension she’d receive after 20 years on the job. He wanted no part of that. The second was: who the fuck … make that, in deference to present company, who the heck … was she to make the judgment that her bosses were screw ups? The motto on NYPD police cars, Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect, was a laugh line to civil libertarians but some rough edges are what we need to keep the city halfway livable.

Josh considered another beer, but decided against it—he needed to be alert, keep the antennae up.

He said as evenly as possible, Please continue, Detective Russo.

There’s been three murders, she began, "all … Wait I have to back up first.

I was assigned to this special task force set up—these were high profile killings—a week ago Wednesday. Same reason: To avoid criticism from feminists. It doesn’t look good these days to have an all-male unit and I was an ideal choice … newly minted … no connections to higher ups. In the parlance of the department, I have no rabbi. So I could be given all the grunt work, minutes of the daily briefing, any and all things unessential. Or maybe because Donald Harriman, the lieutenant who heads the unit and happens to be Simonetti’s father-in-law, requested it as part of a get-even scheme. Or some combination of the two. Anyway, this is where I landed and I can testify first hand that Harriman is living up to his rep for holding a grudge, abetted by his filthy-mouthed sidekick, a detective named Simon, whom he’s sicced on me. Whatever …..

Josh noticed her eyes clouding up as if she was about to cry. He considered reaching for his handkerchief, but thought better of it. Better not to make his observation known than risk embarrassing her. After all, she had come in her role as an NYPD detective.

Tough, tough spot.

She sat silent, composing herself, biting on her bottom lip so hard he thought it would spurt blood.

"Ok, but let’s put that to the side and let me get to the main point. I told you I was a late addition to the task force and the first thing Harriman does is put me in this little cubby and give me the case files of the murder victims to read, thinking that would keep me out of the way for a few days. Also he knows where I am when there’s a waste-of- time errand to run.

You can imagine, stacks of papers, forms, crime scene photos, interviews, evidence analyses from three separate investigations. A lot of product, a lot to wade through. That was my first thought, but having the totality of this ... this stuff laid out before me--because I was a late arrival--gave me an edge nobody else had. It gave me a chance to spot something that had been overlooked. It seemed clear, it all came together … why these victims had been marked for target practice, what it was that tied them together.

And that was?

Because they were Jews. Someone’s intent on gunning down prominent Jews ... and there’s a lot more left in the city to choose from.

Clang! An alarm bell went off in Josh’s head. He wondered whether Detective Russo had gone off the deep end. He knew immediately which crimes she was referring to because they had prompted a deluge of newspaper and TV stories, because, in fact, the victims were all men of some standing, but no one had come up with the Jewish angle to the slayings. Nor could he even recall any suggestion that the deaths were linked in any way.

"Detective, I can understand the department setting up a special unit because of the editorial heat it’s been under … ‘Notable Citizens Gunned Down’ … ‘No Neighborhood Is a Safe Neighborhood,’ etc. … even more so if there’s a link among the killings, but because the victims had Jewish sounding surnames doesn’t make it a plot against them.

After all, if one in eight New Yorkers is Jewish it stands to reason that … you know … it would be the law of chance … no wait … maybe its probability theory that would say that every once in a while three people of distinction out of the population of Jewish people would be slain in a short period of time.

Josh was pleased that there had finally been a payoff for having broken his brain to squeeze out a C in the statistics course he had taken in his junior year. The term probability theory coming out of nowhere, giving his comment just the touch of reasoned elegance he was looking for.

Angelina Russo just looked at him intently for a long moment, then began to rise.

I guess this was a mistake. Could you possibly forget that we had this conversation?

Instinctively, Josh reached out and grabbed her hand, which felt amazingly soft, and gently guided her back to her seat.

The sudden movement had attracted a waitress who, as the afternoon had progressed, had come on duty. They both sat quietly until she returned with refills.

Surprisingly, it was Angelina who spoke first. The reason I called you was the way you wrote the arrest story said to me you were an honorable guy. I overheard the captain giving you the spiel he wanted you to use, but you figured out what happened and you couldn’t go along with it. And you didn’t write it in a way that killed Simonetti, that showed him to be the coward he is. The way you handled it suggested to me that you are … well, that you’re honorable.

Josh was touched. Who was this young woman? Still in her early 20’s, attractive, rock-solid in that alleyway, ready to mix it up with the underclass, able to hold her own with her fellow officers but still able to be contemplative and have refined sensibilities.

"Let’s go on that assumption until proven otherwise. And let’s take it one piece at a time. Are you saying that it’s not just the press attention that led to forming the task force, that these were … are serial killings?

No question about that.

Same gun?

No. Different guns … so far. But it’s what’s left on the scene of each murder. It’s very unique, very strange. It’s the killer’s calling card. Nobody has seen anything like it, not Smitty, or Malone, none of the senior guys who have been around for a long time. But despite all the attention, all the forensics, nobody has seen what is so clear to me and what makes it evident that the killer is after Jews.

So you saw something on the calling card that the others don’t see. And that is?

Another chew on her lip. I’m not prepared to give that information … anyway, at least not yet. Just too few people know about the calling card, just the eight investigating detectives, Harriman, and the deputy commissioner who put it together. And the standing order is to deny at all cost that the crimes are in any way connected. Because I made such a fuss in bringing up the Jewish angle—which got laughed off—it would be obvious that the leak came from me. You know, from the unit’s pouty discontent.

The alarm bell had sounded again in Josh’s head. How could it be that Detective Russo could notice something that eight seasoned detectives, plus forensic experts couldn’t? But the more immediate question was what she expected of him.

Nothing, right now. I’m all alone on this and these guys are off on the wrong track … whether you can believe that or not. I’m hoping that as things develop, if we can work together discreetly, you might be able to write some things that would force the investigation in the right direction. And if things get bad enough, maybe get the message out to the public.

Josh thought for a moment before responding. Ok, deal. Despite his misgivings, he didn’t see what there was to lose by playing along, although the thought of panicking the city or, at least the Jewish part of it, didn’t appeal to him. Whether Detective Russo was right, partly right or totally wrong, having her as his source might lead to something that could advance his stalled career. He reached out again to that soft hand.

Maybe we should exchange home numbers.

He read her number which had a 718 area code.

"Where’s that? Staten Island, Brooklyn?

Brooklyn, Bensonhurst.

Oh, Bensonhoist, he mimicked. Do I know what dat is? Nah, only the dead know Brooklyn.

It seems like it was her turn to have misgivings. She eyed him squarely. The Thomas Wolfe short story …‘Only the Dead Know Brooklyn’ … appeared in The New Yorker, two guys on a subway train talking….. My degree’s in English from Brooklyn College, 3.8 GPA. Do I have to put up with literary allusions meant to make me feel—because I’m a cop—that I’m in the presence of some superior intelligence?

Sorry. Sorry, it wasn’t meant that way. Sometimes I’m just too much of a wisea… wiseguy. Let’s see if we can get back to where we were.

She seemed to settle down and after a few minutes they exited the bar together, each a little uncertain of each other and of what had transpired between them. She headed toward Broadway, he to Eighth Avenue.

Josh looked back to check her legs, which even in low-strung strawy shoes appeared shapely. But she also had on little white anklets like the kind little girls wear. Was this an in-vogue fashion statement? A weird affectation? He didn’t know.

An NYPD detective, toting a 9mm, wearing anklets!

Among the many questions floating in his head from the afternoon’s proceedings was: Who was this young woman?

THE NON-OBITUARY WRITER

The first thing Josh did when he got to work that evening was to gather all the newspaper articles on the three murders from his paper and the other city dailies. Each had generated at least two or three days of follow-up items before fading from sight, plus, as he had rightly remembered, a spate of editorials calling for increased police action.

He started to read through the printouts, 60 or 70 pages altogether, methodically making notes. He jotted down that he needed to ask Detective Russo why the police were so closed-mouth about the weapons used and why the noise of the shootings seemingly hadn’t attracted the attention of bystanders.

He gave up note-taking after a short while because, after the first day stories, the second and third day articles mostly reworked the information in the originals. The exception was the third victim. Here the tabloids had a field day because the Top Doc Found Slain in Men’s Room had been dining with a young woman who was not his wife. This woman, described by one paper as a 24-year-old Eurasian beauty was also identified in a later story as Doctor Michael Levin’s companion in a tryst that had taken place a month earlier in a Washington hotel. In the article, an unnamed source, apparently a shocked professional acquaintance, described surprising a woozy Doctor Levin and his companion as they were entering their hotel room at 2 a.m. The embarrassed doctor sputtered the explanation that he was attending an important meeting with his dental assistant. This prompted the headline Slain Doc Got Late-Night Flossing.

What a sad postscript to the life of the well-liked, highly-regarded member of the surgical staff of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, to end up face-down on a bathroom floor, now enshrined in the public’s memory as a fool and philanderer … his wife and family reeling under the dual burdens of grief and shame.

This was Josh’s first thought as he placed the clippings in a folder before settling back to consider what, if anything, was useful. He didn’t regret giving up smoking—it had taken months to get rid of a hacking cough—but now he had to do his thinking without watching the slow dissolve of cigarette smoke threading its way upward and that seemed difficult at the moment. Amazingly, even a year after he had quit, this thought still brought back the physical need.

This frightened him and he made a conscious effort to turn his mind away from cigarettes and toward matters at hand. Josh could see clearly why—with the police having suppressed the clues that the killings were linked—it was easy to regard them as separate incidents. There was the adultery twist in Doctor Levin’s case. Joel Jackman, the first victim, had been a leading divorce lawyer and, as one wag put it, the cops only had to follow a trail of empty wallets to come up with a host of suspects. Then there was I. Samuel Rosen, not a heads-on popularity-contest winner either, since he was known for ruthlessly thinning the ranks of employees of the companies he acquired.

So, as far as he knew, only he and a few detectives realized that there was a serial killer on the loose. Even if Detective Russo was dead-wrong about the Jewish angle, the potential was there to be in on something big. And he needed that. At age 27, his career—what he had come to call his erstwhile career—was at a standstill.

Josh considered himself a good reporter, and his editor at the enterprising Pittsburgh daily where he had worked before coming to New York City, thought he was top notch. Still, he always had aimed high and The New York Chronicle, as the city’s premier newspaper, was the pinnacle he aspired to. On three occasions, he had sent in his resume and a portfolio of his stories without getting even a courtesy reply. Then, out of the blue, came the offer of a job, but it was to work on the nightside writing obituaries. As much as he wanted to work for the Chronicle, he recognized the dead-end nature of the slot and would have turned it down cold except that … and here it got painful … the offer came just days after his girlfriend had dumped him. Suddenly, as if there had been a change to the dark tones of a 1930’s-noir movie, color and warmth were drained from the streets he and Molly had traveled, the parks in which they had walked (and made love), the restaurants they had frequented. The expectancy that went with her waiting for him outside his office when he finished work was gone. He caught himself hesitating in the lobby, not moving to the door. It was as if his feet were nailed to the floor.

He grabbed at the Chronicle’s offer as if it were a lifeline. He only confided the truth to his closest friend at the paper, George Mildorf. He alone knew the job offer was a ticket to nowhere. To everyone else on the staff, his leaving for a job on this premier, big city paper spelled success. He