Zodiac Killer: Newly Discovered Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Zodiac Killer:

Newly Discovered Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Holy Ghost Writer

Copyright © 2015 Holy Ghost Writer

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1505352150

ISBN-13: 978-1505352153

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922233

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC

To all those, past and present, who tirelessly pursue justice and protect the innocent

Contents

Acknowledgments              I

1              The Fog Came Rolling In              1

2              Following              9

3              Getting Help              11

4              1963—The First              16

5              Cheri Jo              18

6              The Wait              20

7              American Dream              25

8              Letters              28

9              Unknown Victim              32

10              High School              35

11              Vallejo              39

12               Bryan Hartnell              43

13              Mark              45

14               Itch for Blood              49

15              Another Murder              51

16              Maps              54

17              The Search              57

18              Pull Over              61

19              Ready to Run              65

20              The Bank              69

21              The Flight              72

22               Where Is Cooper?              76

23               Finding Cooper              79

Epilogue              84

About the Author                 85

Acknowledgments

Without the many fans of the
Count of Monte Cristo
tales as written by the Holy Ghost Writer, Sherlock Holmes would not live once again on the page in these new adventures. Thank you for being an involved and eager audience.

Chapter 1

The Fog Came Rolling In

June 1969

As the thick fog rolled in, Mark Thomas turned his small face to his mother, Lydia.

“Tell me again, Mom. Why is this part of California so foggy?” His tone was a little skeptical, as if he wanted a different answer than the one Lydia had given countless times before.

“Why, you still don’t believe that your forefather, Sherlock Holmes, brought the London fog with him when he first visited your great-grandmother Black Beauty? He came right here to Monterey when he learned she had given birth to his only son!”

“I love the story,” Mark said earnestly, “but I’m not a baby anymore! Grandpa told me it was true, but that twinkle in his eye made me think he was just telling me another one of his tall tales. And when he said Sherlock Holmes visits now and then and never ages, I knew the story had to be some old family joke.”

“It isn’t a joke, Mark! Listen to me. One day you might walk by him and think he’s just a stranger passing you in the street or on the fishing dock. Even so, he may be watching over you like a hawk. He will never abandon his family, no matter how many generations pass.”

Mark was far more intelligent than the average eight-year-old, and he wondered where the strange story had come from. He had already read several of the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and while he wanted the great detective to somehow be his relation, he couldn’t quite believe it. He said, “I remember hearing Grandpa say that Black Beauty was the most beautiful slave in the South, and that is why the Count of Monte Cristo took her to his plantation. Grandpa also told me Sherlock Holmes was the Count’s student and didn’t even know that Black Beauty’s baby was his. How could the world’s smartest detective not know he had a child?”

“Everyone was young once, my son. Even Sherlock Holmes was a little naïve before he went off to school at Yale, and by the time he met Black Beauty again, enough time had passed for him not to put two and two together. Many years later, it came to him in a dream, and he used his extraordinary investigative powers to track Black Beauty to Monterey, where he finally got to know his son, Jacob. Of course, Jacob was a grown man by that time.”

“But how can it be true that Grandpa was born before the Civil War? He would have to have been over one hundred years old when I was born! None of our family stories make sense, Mom.”

Lydia had been waiting for the day when Mark would begin to ask her hard questions, and she had hoped she would have had a few more years. She was grateful Mark was such a bright child, but it did pose problems when the boy figured out things before she was ready to talk about them.

“Well, Son, I suppose if you’re old enough to ask the question, you’re old enough to hear the answer. Keep an open mind; what I’m about to tell you is even more unbelievable than the fact that Sherlock Holmes is, indeed, your ancestor. And he is more than a legendary detective; he also passed on to us a powerful herb called astralagus, which are the plants growing in the backyard that I squeeze oil from. You remember I told you not to play with those? When people ingest the oil, they stop aging and find themselves in perfect health. That’s why I don’t age, but you do, and why somewhere out in the city, Sherlock Holmes still roams the street.”

Mark looked at his mother in disbelief, temporarily robbed of the power of speech.
Has my mother gone crazy?
he asked himself.

“It may take you a while to accept the secrets of our family,” Lydia said. “When I was a young girl, I didn’t believe your grandfather. I cried and told him he was insane. Eventually, though, I came to see that he was telling the truth. You mustn’t tell anyone, and in time, you will come to believe.”

“No one would believe me even if I said anything,” said Mark. “So you don’t have to worry about me sharing our secrets. I don’t want my friends to think I’m a liar.”

Just then, the two heard a knock at the door. Mark opened it but didn’t see anyone, just the usual view of their street—cars parked parallel to the curb and bright flower beds as far as the eye could see. Mark looked down and noticed the daily newspaper at his feet. In thick black letters, the headline screamed, “Zodiac Killer Strikes Again!” The headline was circled in red ink, as if to make sure any potential readers didn’t miss the most important story of the day.

“Who is it?” Lydia called.

“No one,” Mark answered, “but someone left this on our doorstep.” He showed the paper to his mom, and she unfolded it to see the full story; her eyes skimmed quickly over the text.

“This is creepy, Mom. Who would knock on our door, leave this story marked, and run away?”

“It could be a prankster trying to scare people,” answered Lydia. “Some people love to stir up fear as a joke, and you know the whole city is already on edge with these murders. Or it could be a message from your great-grandfather Sherlock, warning us.”

“Why would he warn us about the Zodiac Killer?”

Lydia’s eyes jumped to a quote attributed to the Zodiac Killer. She read the words from the paper to her son.

This is the Zodiac I have seen the Post and you say

The note Sent to the Post not to any of

The San Francisco Zodiac letters you are

Wrong the handwriting look different it is

One of the same Zodiac one Zodiac

In San Franscisco killed a man in the park with

a

gun and killed a woman with a knife and killed

a man in the taxi cab with a gun.

Lydia paused for a moment and then said, almost to herself, “Grandpa told me that Sherlock Holmes is the one who solved the Jack the Ripper case, but then he didn’t want anyone to know who did it. He sealed the killer’s true identity in an envelope that has been lost to time. This reminds me of that case.”

“Jack the Ripper?” Mark asked. “Who is that?”

“He was a killer in Victorian London,” Lydia answered, “but the story of that monster isn’t appropriate for a little boy. When you’re older, we’ll get you a book from the library, and you can read all about the Ripper. We can even ask Grandpa if he knows any other secrets about that case.”

As Lydia sat the paper down on the end table, her palm brushed across the red ink, leaving a gummy smear down the page.

“Mom,” Mark said, gasping, “is that ink—or is it blood?”

Unbeknown to young Mark or Lydia, who had now enjoyed the trim figure of a woman in her thirties for several decades, the man who had left the newspaper with the headline circled in red was neither friend nor relative, though he had known their family for a long, long time.

Chapter 2

Following

Not far away, at the Del Monte Golf Pavilion, Sherlock Holmes sat sipping a cappuccino and nibbling on a piece of bittersweet dark chocolate. Holmes had founded the now-famous Pebble Beach golf course with Charles Maud way back at the end of the 1800s, and he loved how it had been so elegantly transformed into a place where the richest men and women in America came to idle their days away. Indeed, it was one of his favorite places.

Holmes himself was also transformed—now nearly two centuries old but looking like a robust man in his early sixties. He had impeccably cut silvery-gray hair and sported a neatly trimmed goatee. He was reading the headline about the Zodiac Killer, as was much of San Francisco that morning. The headline upset him because San Francisco was too beautiful a city to be threatened by evil. He thought to himself that someone must do something to stop it. As he pondered the situation, he pulled the day’s mail from where he had tucked it into his satchel and began to go through it when his attention was caught by a letter addressed to him in bold, large letters. What was inside shocked him.

I guess you thot you were done with me. I was far smarter than you thot in London. I found out about the poshun the Count made for you and had that idiot morgue assistant take a few plants from your garden. He wasn’t good for much, but he was a good theif. Did you think nobody would figure out the secret of your immortality? I have been drinking the oil of that strange weed from your garden the same as you, but you might not even recognize me. I’m a modern man now, and my looks have changed. Of course, a person never really changes on the inside, and I am back doing what I love to do. The police still have no clue. You are the only person who might be able to catch me. Are you up for the game? I thought you might ketch on before now, but maybe you have lost a bit of your edge. Read up on my other murders and see if you can stop me from taking any more of those innocent lives a gentleman such as yourself holds so dear. Good luck!

Zodiac/Jack

Holmes was startled out of his shocked thoughts by an approaching caddy. “Hello, Dr. Greystone. Your cart is waiting. Will you golf alone today?”

“I’m sorry, my dear boy. Something has developed that puts me in the eye of a nasty storm, but here’s something for your trouble,” Holmes answered, slipping the young caddy a generous tip.

Dr. Edward Greystone, as Holmes was now known, tucked the newspaper under his arm, smoothed his exquisitely cut gray-and-white-pinstriped three-piece suit, and headed to his classic silver Rolls Royce while signaling his chauffeur to quickly depart.

“James, take us to eight fifty Bryant Street.”