Mask Murder: Killings in the Pandemic

By Michael Sackheim

New York City, 2020. COVID-19 is ravaging the Big Apple, the City is locked down and most citizens are following the advice of public health officials to wear protective masks. On Manhattan's West Side, a madman is on a killing spree, targeting women wearing masks. The first victim's family hires crafty priva

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Sep 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781685150181

Michael Sackheim

Michael Sackheim, a former Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, has practiced law in New York for over 40 years. He has represented clients ranging from multinational corporations accused of attempting to manipulate the country's commodity and currency markets to an inmate on Alabama's death row, for which he received the Thurgood Marshall Award.

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CHAPTER 1:

Monday Night Mayhem

H

e was waiting for someone; unfortunately she happened to come along.

One of the joys of living in a brownstone on Riverside Drive in New York City is your backyard, Riverside Park along the Hudson River. Merle Kramer, a nineteen-year-old English major at the University at Buffalo, the state college in upstate New York, was home from school because of the COVID-19 virus. A few months ago, Merle was a college student working on term papers, studying for finals, participating actively in the French club, and planning a summer trip to Paris with her friends. Buffalo's dormitories were now in lockdown to stop the spread of the virus, so Merle and her fellow students were at home with their parents, attending classes virtually. Merle hoped to follow in her mother's career path to become a teacher. She wanted to combine her love of French literature with teaching at the high-school level. Merle was adopted as an infant; she is a woman of color raised by Jewish parents. Her birth mother was a teenage girl who gave up Merle for adoption within a month of her being born. Merle's mother is a public school sixth grade teacher; her father is a corporate partner at a large law firm in the city.

Merle grew up in a brownstone in New York's Upper West Side, across from Riverside Park and the Hudson River. Riverside Park was designed in the 1870s by Frederick Law Olmsted, the same landscape architect who designed Central Park. Riverside Drive is the first street above the park, the very quiet Manhattan neighborhood where Merle grew up. In the twentieth century, New York developer Robert Moses expanded Riverside Park to cover the old railroad tracks that ran up the west side from the city up to Albany and lengthened the park to cover 59th Street to 155th Street, developed beautiful floral and green landscaping, left a canopy of beautiful American elm trees, and built fifteen children's playgrounds and baseball fields in the park. Merle loved the park since childhood, frequently met her friends there, and when she was home on vacation volunteered to maintain the beautiful community gardens between 83rd and 91st streets. Merle and her friends always viewed Riverside Park in the West 80s as a safe haven. Even the homeless people who slept on the park benches with all their possessions in shopping carts were known to the residents; there was always a friendly relationship.

As a young girl, Merle played with her friends in the park's playgrounds every afternoon after school. Tonight, Merle was running in the park near her home. Even though it was dark, community residents were in the park walking, jogging, riding bikes with headlights, and walking their dogs or just sitting on benches reading on their electronic readers or talking on their cell phones. Riverside Park was safe for the community. But tonight there was a stranger in the park.

At the 89th Street pathway that leads uphill back to the street, built in 1902 to commemorate the Civil War's Union Army and Navy, sits the white marble Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Monument. The memorial, dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt, bears the inscription To the memory of the brave soldiers and sailors who saved the Union. The monument is situated where the street curves on Riverside Drive, across from a Jewish yeshiva, accessible from the street and from the park below. The neighborhood is an ethnic and racial mosaic, very liberal and tolerant from all perspectives.

Merle was dressed in pink running socks, sneakers, green running shorts, a flashing light clipped to her rear waistband, her Buffalo tee shirt, and a white-and-blue mask with Buffalo's bull mascot on the lower right. Merle loved college and was really into Buffalo's sports teams; she bought many tees, sweats, and masks with the school logo. Most of the students were from upstate, but there was a contingent from Manhattan who traveled back and forth from school together during the breaks. Before she left home for her run tonight, Merle looked in the antique mirror hung in the foyer, was pleased with her trim body and cool running attire, kissed her mother, and said she would be back in about an hour. Mom sighed.

She said, I wish you would run in the morning in the light like a normal person.

Merle left, adjusted the mask she wore to protect others in case she had the virus even though she had no symptoms. Merle had a regular jogging route, the path from the park up to the street through the monument. She found it to be tranquil and inspiring. Tonight was no exception. Except Merle never made it back to Riverside Drive.

The stranger was just another jogger in the park, sweating but not from exercise. He wore a green camo bandana over his face, but not because of the virus, and a black headband. He had black baseball grease streaks under his eyes, not to protect from the glare of the sun but because he was a warrior. The killer wasn’t from this neighborhood; he was a man who was mad at the world. The murderer was an army veteran, owned a hardware store that he inherited from his father, but nobody in his neighborhood was shopping because of the lockdown. The big-box stores were allowed to stay open, the malls were open, but the state ordered small stores to be closed. He was obsessed with thinking about New Yorkers who thought they were making the world safe by wearing masks that the government wanted on everyone's face, but they went to the superspreader shopping malls to spend their money while his store was slowly going under. On one of the cable news channels, the talking heads were constantly criticizing mask wearers, one even going so far as to call putting masks on children a form of child abuse that required passersby to call the police to remove the offspring from their parents. The crazies listened all day to the right-wing TV and radio hosts. These hosts were not journalists; they were in the business of getting people so agitated that they would hang on their every word, then stay for the commercials where the stations and the hosts made their fortunes, cha-ching, cha-ching.

When Merle jogged onto the monument's stone floor, she stopped to take a drink from her water bottle. It was not unusual for other joggers and walkers to make a pit stop at the monument, but tonight Merle was alone, except for the runner with the bandana. The killer looked at the monument, looked at the yeshiva across the street, and thought that this was the place he was meant to be. In his eyes, the monument symbolized the coming civil war in America, the yeshiva was where the Jews learned how to control the liberal newspapers and TV stations. He came from around the pillar, grabbed her from behind, and put his arm around her neck. Merle smelled his sweat and saw the swastika tattooed on his forearm. Through her mask Merle told him she had twenty dollars in her pocket and that he could have it. The killer looked at Merle.

I don’t need your money. Someone has to send a message to the politicians. They can’t shut us down. People like you with your masks are playing right into their hands. The politicians in Albany and city hall have their fancy dinners while the rest of us have to eat frozen dinners and wear stupid masks because they say so. I’m sorry it has to be you.

Merle wore a necklace with a Jewish star. He asked Merle if she was Jewish. Merle didn’t reply. The killer thought back to high school; he had a Jewish friend who was not a bad guy. They were on the basketball team together. But that was then. He breathed in the scent of Merle's hair for a few seconds; this was as close to a woman that he had been in years. The killer removed a knife from its leather sheath, which was embossed with US Army. The serrated knife was eleven inches long, with a leather handle and seven inches of blade. The blade was composed of high-carbon steel forged with additional elements for better toughness and wear resistance. It was a popular knife used by the army and marines for hand-to-hand combat and survival in the desert. The killer had a box of six of these at his store that he bought for one hundred dollars for the box, to resell to his friends at his weekend survivalist outings for one hundred dollars each, but tonight the coward would put the knife to his real intended use. In his right hand, he held the knife's serrated edge against Merle's neck, slashed Merle's throat from left to right, and then the ear loops of her mask. Merle stared at the monument, slumped backward dead, her mask and her college tee shirt stained with blood. He let go of her, and she dropped to the ground. Merle's throat might as well have been a stick of butter; the knife cut through her throat and cartilage with ease. The killer bent down, grabbed the mask, placed it back on Merle's face over her eyes, the ear loops dangling down the sides. He looked at her dead body, the blood still seeping onto the stone ground. He started shaking and sweating profusely. I didn’t want to do this. I had no choice. These masks and lockdowns, I’m drowning. The killer looked around, saw nobody, put the bloody knife back in its sheath, and started to head down the wooded path to the path along the river.

CHAPTER 2:

The Killer

T

he killer was six feet tall and muscled from daily weight-lifting sessions. The afternoon of Merle's murder, the killer got dressed in his apartment for the kill. The evening of the murder, he also wore running shorts and sneakers, a black headband, a green camo bandana, and a tee shirt emblazoned with a sun cross. The killer had tattoos on his arms, including an American flag on his right bicep and a Nazi symbol on each forearm. Except for his choice of tattoos, he was just another runner in Riverside Park. But he was a deranged right-wing extremist, a neo-Nazi white supremacist, and a bigot who was furious at his lot in life.

The killer didn’t wear COVID-19 masks, but he had a collection of red, green, black, brown, and camo bandanas that covered his face at survivalist outings and made him look tough. Everyone at the weekend outdoor militia sessions wore face coverings. Not necessarily to protect from the wind and dust, but mainly to hide their identities from the others and any government informants. They were warriors, patriots, protectors of freedom, but they were afraid to let even their fellow extremists know their true names. He was a follower of several extremist and militia groups that he joined when he left the army. When he was serving his tour in Afghanistan, the killer met several white supremacists who tried to convince him to join their cause, but in the army he was always busy and had no time for extremism. Back in civilian life, he saw that the country was going downhill and white citizens like him were being replaced by immigrants from Central America. He knew that the extremist groups talked a good game, but it took one man of action to change the course of history. Great events were triggered by a single person with a vision—men like Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Hitler. He knew he was such a man. The killer stared at Merle for a few seconds, feeling sadness for this young girl. This was as close as he had been to a woman since high school, except for a prostitute he met at a bar a year ago who took $200 for a ten-minute romp in his car. He stared at her body, feeling like he was going to vomit. The killer put the bloody knife back in its leather sheath, wrapped the sheath in a small hand towel, and started walking down the path into the park toward the Hudson River. He headed for the bike path that ran parallel to the water and started jogging. He passed New Yorkers walking, running, and biking under the moonlight strewed across the river. Almost all of these stupid people wore masks even though they were outside and there was a summer breeze from the Hudson River. It was a beautiful, warm July evening, and his heart was beating so hard he thought it would pop out of his chest. The killer kept looking behind, but no one was following him. He was the one, the man of action that would set the country on fire. He passed the 79th Street Boat Basin, a marina located where West 79th Street met the park. There were several sailors on their boats. They all wore masks even though they were on the river and there was a breeze. The murderer was fit; he jogged all the way to 58th Street. He knew that some of the female runners were looking at him as they passed, but tonight was meant for business. The sanitation department had a facility at 58th Street that jutted out into the river, where their trucks lined up to dump the garbage they picked up throughout Manhattan to be loaded onto barges that shipped the stuff to landfills all over the northeast. The killer looked at the lineup of trucks; every driver wore a mask. No one took note of him. He was one of many runners, walkers, and bikers on the bike path. The killer looked at the river. Out sailing in the moonlight, there were sailboats, barges, tugboats, and a few kayakers. He bet that most of those idiots were wearing their masks even on the water. The killer made a left and jogged under the West Side Highway overpass out of the park toward the street where he had left the car that he drove into Manhattan on a side street that allowed nighttime parking. No one took note of the bloody towel in his hand.

The killer's car was a ten-year-old red Toyota he took from his aunt who died a month ago. His aunt, Mary O’Rourke, was a spinster who had no children. She rented an apartment in Kew Gardens, Queens. He visited her twice a year. He tried to be a good nephew. Each time he visited her, he helped himself to a little cash or jewelry that she had in the apartment. She's an old spinster. She's not spending the money; she's not going out on dates. The killer had the keys to her apartment and car. When the killer learned that his aunt died at the hospital of the COVID-19 virus, he went to her apartment, took the jewelry box where Mary kept a few rings and cash inside, grabbed the car keys from the hook in the kitchen, and drove home in her car. Not much money in the jewelry box, but a few rings that might be worth something. He had been driving the car for a few weeks but still had not contacted the insurance company or gone to the local Department of Motor Vehicles to transfer the registration.

When he left the jogging path and headed toward the street where the car was parked, beneath the West Side Highway was a homeless encampment strewed with shopping carts with their belongings and tons of garbage. The garbage smelled from the summer heat. The area was fenced, but the homeless people cut holes in the barriers. The encampment beneath the underpass reeked of urine and other human waste. There were a few homeless people sleeping under blankets or sitting around talking; some had cell phones that were plugged into outdoor charging outlets. Some of them even wore masks. No one paid any attention to him. He took the knife out of the leather sheath, wiped the knife and his hands with the towel, dropped the towel into the street, and put the bloody knife on the ledge, confident that one of the homeless people would take the knife and use it for their own mischief. The killer would not miss the knife; he had several more just like it in the store. He kept the bloody leather sheath as a souvenir of tonight's events. The killer had blood on his hands.

The killer walked to his car on 58th Street, parked alongside a trendy residential building and across from the Con Ed utility's offices, took the keys out, and opened the driver's door to the smell of a Burger King hamburger and fries. There were a few people on the street, either walking their dogs or smoking marijuana. The killer thought that the whole city had gone to pot; people smoked the stuff all over. Blowing smoke that traveled halfway down the block, even these weed heads were wearing masks; they lowered their masks to take a puff. He grabbed the bag with the remnants of his dinner off of the passenger's seat, tossed it into the street, and started the engine, throwing the leather sheath onto the floor on the passenger's side. The killer sat behind the steering wheel for a minute thinking about what he had done. The girl tonight was disposable. She will never know the role she would play in setting everyone free. She was wearing her college tee shirt, but I taught her a real lesson. The killer was a patriot; he was his own militia. He pulled his car out of the