March 12, 7.14 p.m.
Harper walked into the investigation room with Denise Levene. They had to share what they had. They’d both worked through the night, hadn’t slept at all and looked ragged and exhausted. Harper had received a call from Jack Carney. The Hate Crime Unit had picked up some information. The remaining members of Section 88 and a couple of sympathetic organizations were planning a night of attacks to show solidarity with Leo Lukanov. His death was being treated as a martyr’s sacrifice. They also heard that Martin Heming might try to turn up to soak up some of Lukanov’s martyrdom.
Carney and Harper had set a night of joint surveillance between Homicide and Hate Crime. Harper wanted the whole of the task force to get out on the street, trail the Hate Crime Unit and their usual targets and see what these neo-Nazis were capable of. He wanted to help Hate Crime to cut out this terrible cancerous growth of anti-Semitism.
Harper looked across the room at the blank faces of the team who had been working flat out for days. Garcia wasn’t around. He pulled up a chair and sat down in the center of the room. ‘Guys, close in a minute. We’ve got in touch with Becky Glass’s husband. He’s been out of town speaking at a conference with a thousand delegates. He can’t tell us anything.’
Denise sat near the front. There was a freshly printed profile on her knee that she needed to share with Blue Team.
The team turned to face Harper. Harper spoke slowly, conspiratorially. ‘Listen, this is going to take a while to settle. We’ve found some new information about the killer. Denise has been working with Dr Goldenberg. It’s quite unusual stuff, but stick with it.’
Denise filled the team in on the background of Josef Sturbe. She gave his life story and then walked up and down the room. ‘In summary, gentlemen, our killer has assumed an identity. His identity is strange. It is of a man who is so ashamed of his origins and his race, that he becomes an extreme version of those he wants to impress.’
‘What can we use?’ said Swanson. ‘You think our killer is an eighty-seven-year-old man?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Denise. ‘I think he is a deluded narcissist. He wants power, he wants accolades but he’s got a big secret. Perhaps he’s like Sturbe, someone who feels his identity is fake. I’d say we ought to work from two assumptions. The first is that the killer is adopted. The second is that he was adopted from a Jewish to a non-Jewish family.’
‘He’s a modern-day Sturbe?’
‘It’s just a theory. I don’t know what he is. I’ve got a couple of other Nazi elements,’ said Denise. ‘The 88 moniker is code for Heil Hitler, but it’s also a reference to a passage from Mein Kampf, Hitler’s ruminations on power and eugenics. It’s not his name, it’s a salute after his kills, and it’s his mission statement. We’re looking at a man driven to kill by hatred, because somehow he’s got the idea that Jews are the cause of his problems, that they are less than human. But I think it’s himself he feels is inhuman. That’s why he identifies with the Nazis – because he thinks he’s subhuman himself. I think that he’s killing his own identity.’
‘He’s a Jew?’
‘Most serial killers attack their own kind. I’d say, yes, he’s Jewish.’
The room was silent. It was a complex idea to take in. They didn’t know how to respond.
‘We can’t go around saying that the Nazi Jew Killer is a Jew, Denise. We’ll be pulled apart as racists.’
‘You know the Atlanta Child Killer case?’
‘Remind me.’
‘A number of black children were killed over a period of time. Same kind of outrage, and everyone thought it was a racial crime, except that there was no political statement or claim by any group. In the end, they found him. He was a black man. He was attacking his own. That’s what a serial killer is, someone attacking their own identity; that’s why they repeat – it’s a process. It’s themselves they’re killing.’
‘That’s good,’ said Harper. ‘It gives you all some background. Anything else?’
‘How close is that profile to our prime suspect, Martin Heming?’ said Mary Greco.
‘There’s very little match,’ said Denise. She opened her palms. ‘I wish I had something more concrete. I’ll keep trying.’
Harper stood up. ‘You all understand?’ He looked around. ‘No word of this to anyone. We need to be further along before this comes out.’ There were nods throughout the room.
‘Now, why you’re all here. You want to hear about the operation – Operation Sturbe. There’s to be no more waiting around. We need to be out there watching them. We’ve got to find him, people. We’re going out to Brooklyn to work some overtime. We’ve set up a surveillance operation with Hate Crime. We’re going to track them, as many as we can, all across Brooklyn and see what we can find.’