by B Anders
After exiting the parking garage, they walked in silence toward Northeastern University on the dead end behind the Y. The air was crisp and still, without even a whisper of a breeze. Still, Colby felt cold inside. She reached out and took Jessie's hand in her own. Jessie did not resist, instead she curled her fingers tight around Colby’s palm. Their steps fell into a steady pace with each other’s.
Located on a balding patch of grass surrounded by stubby shrubs across from Churchill Hall, the bronze statue depicting Denton True "Cy" Young stands hunched over on what was once the pitcher's mound of the former Huntington Avenue American League Baseball Grounds. The statue leans forward, eternally poised ready to pitch another perfect game. It was erected by Northeastern University to acknowledge the past while bulldozing its expansion into the future.
It was at the base of this rather unassuming statue, where the broken body was found leaning back against the pitcher's legs. The victim was left for dead without visible external injuries, but with multiple breaks and fractures in the legs and arms. The homicide investigators reporting to the murder scene did not connect the body to the Ripper's Daughter series until the autopsy revealed a mouth stuffed with debris and superglued shut.
"She looked a little like you with mousy brown hair, about the same age. I think she was pre-med too." Colby stated as they stood staring down at the spot where the body was dumped. Brown stained grass matted down from a rough winter stared back.
Jessie shrugged, "Close enough. I was already in the first year of med school when the shit hit the fan. It was a clue. He meant it for you, but you didn't notice. You were too busy with other things."
"I was not very healthy that week."
"You were at McLean, weren't you? I was still under guard at Shattuck.”
Colby stepped back away from Jessie. She racked her brains trying to remember those terrible days following Marty's murder. Her memories of the weeks after Marty's murder were patchy in spots and missing key pieces.
"The brass sent me for rapid detox at MGH. I had my own personal set of watch dogs for the week leading up to the funeral. They wanted me on my best behavior so the press could see a united line of blue. Once Marty was safe in the ground, I was put back on desk duty. They took me out of mothballs once they realized this killing was the Ripper's work which meant you were not the killer.”
“I wasn't the NU coed's killer, is that all that matters to you, Officer Willis? You went on with your life. You had a life. I had … well. I wasn’t getting much in the way of current events back in those days at Shattuck. I had no lawyer, no guardian. Just my CO watch dogs snoozing in a chair and me strapped to a bed 23 hours a day with fluids and drugs pumped in and piss drained out."
“Jessie, I …”
“Shut up, Colby" Jessie couldn't hold her bitterness back. "Look at your fact folder and start reading out loud. I’m getting sick of your face.”
Jessie knelt by the statue while Colby fiddled with the pages in the file. A soft breeze carried the scent of grilled sausages. Voices in the distance were ordering lunch.
"Twenty two year old female, blue and brown, fully dressed, dead at scene with rigor, no obvious sign of trauma."
Looking up from the photo of the body on the fourth page of the report, Colby felt a chill travel down her spine. Jessie was seated at the foot of the statue, mirroring the pose. Quickly shaking off the ominous feeling, Colby turned back to the case details.
"Lena Dodd. Pre-med. No police record. MA resident. Parents, local with strong ties to the community. No financial or political targeting issues. Three siblings all pretty run of the mill suburban life."
Colby sighed in frustration. She had read and reread the report hundreds of times. There was nothing new. She could find nothing that stood out, presenting itself with a hint of insight. Flipping ahead to the autopsy, she read the final paragraph out loud.
"Victim dead between six and ten hours. Arms broken at the shoulders, elbows, wrists. Legs fractured at the knees and ankles. Mouth stuffed with charcoal. Lips sealed with crazy glue. Nose crazy glued as well. Cause of death suffocation."
It defied humanity for somebody to smother a young woman by gluing her mouth and nose shut. The stomach turning sadism of the killing always left Colby on the verge of nausea.
"Nothing?" Jessie asked watching the lighter shade of pale pass over Colby's features.
Colby shook her head. "No. Nothing. Not a clue. "
"Too bad, Colby." Jessie got to her feet, "Come on, times a wasting. We'll have to hit the Fens."
Forsyth Street was bustling with college kids and stray cars trapped in the cull de sac to nowhere. A food truck was parked at the curb. Although, the lunch time rush was far from gearing up yet, Colby could see the barrel chested man inside was working up a sweat.
"Ah, the falafel guy. Have you ever wondered how long he's worked here?" Jessie asked with a grin. "Think anybody ever had the brains to interview him about Lena Dobb?"
Colby stopped walking. There were no reported witnesses in the file. She knew the investigators on the scene hadn’t interview the man. Boston PD only interviewed the campus police. Their offices were located fifteen steps from the murder scene. The campus patrols didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary. The boys in blue had a field day about the ineptitude of the rent-a-cops until the autopsy came back. Another Ripper victim found in the middle of a busy city campus was just what Boston's finest needed to look just as incompetent themselves. To cover their butts, they literally buried Lena Dobb's investigation with the body.
Colby pushed through the crowd of hungry students gathered at the truck. She all but dared any to complain with a feral gleam and wicked snarl. None did.
"You," she shouted at the cook. "How long you been working here?"
He made an abrupt turn to face her. Colby noticed his white shirt was deeply stained under the armpits. The overpowering aroma of garlic and onion hit her in the face like a wave.
"Fifteen years, give a little. What’s it to you?"
Fighting her nausea, Colby pulled Lena Dobb’s high school graduation photo out from her folder. "Ever see this girl before?"
The cook squinted and shook his head with a frown, "I see lots of pretty girl before. Every day. She in the photo pretty, but nothing special. How I remember her out of million and a half?"
Colby pulled the second photo out from the folder, "She special enough now? She's the only one in a million and a half to look like this at the end of the day."
His face went ashen.
"I remember. I called the 911. She sat there too long after her Daddy walked away. Three hours I was here. I tried to wake her up but she cold. Called ambulance. They get fat ass cops to come. Too late. She OD? Drugs? Her Daddy, he was angry. He mad cause of drugs, you think?"
"What did her Daddy look like?" Colby felt like puking.
"Colby," Jessie warned there was a sharpness in her tone, a knife edge, which Colby didn’t catch.
"Tell me," she nearly begged the man.
"White guy. Older man. Good looking. Black leather shoes, nice coat. Expensive. Black cashmere little heavy for warm afternoon." The man thought for a moment as he wiped the sweat from his brow. "Funny, I remember his shoes all muddy but the grass was dry. They must have been walking on the Fens. Trying talking sense into her, maybe. Who know? Hey, you a reporter? You write story for paper? I don’t want no trouble, you hear."
Colby stumbled away without replying. Her head was swimming with images. She could almost see in her mind’s eye the shadowy phantom that haunted her memory. The tall, dark shape stepping into Marty's living room, pausing to look down at the dying man lying on the floor next to the shattered lamp, before starting to turn his head toward her. He was almost facing her. Just a few more inches and she'd see his face reflected in the street light shining in from the open window.
Colby snapped back from her memory into the reality of daylight. She hit the pavement hard. The skin on her knees and palms splitti
ng as flesh connected with concrete. Searing pain brought her back from the brink of oblivion, allowing her to savor the bitter taste at the back of her throat as her gut violently protested her rebirth by throwing up the half-digested contents of her belly.
"I got you," Jessie whispered in her ear as she wrapped her arms around Colby's shuddering frame, careful to keep the other woman’s head up to stop her from choking on her own vomit.
Colby allowed herself to sink into the comfort of Jessie’s embrace, her mouth open and gasping for air between the chunks of regurgitated pizza and bile streaming out of her nose. Her head throbbed, but it was a victory of sorts. She did not cross over to the other world where Marty was sure to greet her with a curse.
"Okay, I'm okay," Colby croaked.
"Right, I believe you. You have orange colored snot coming out of your nose. You’re choking to death in public. You're a friggin' idiot. You gotta take it slow. You're pushing too hard. Give yourself the chance to get to the end of this in one piece. The game’s no fun with me playing by myself. I would miss you too much.”
Jessie gently nuzzled the back of Colby's neck as she spoke. Colby cleared her throat with a cough and spat the mess into the grass. She was going to go for broke, whether she got an answer was irrelevant.
"Who's your financial guardian, Jessie?"
Jessie rocked Colby like a baby and cooed, "Who else could it be?"
It was the closest admission that Colby ever got out of Jessie. Colby let her eyes drift close for a minute, as the buzzing of the street around them began to filter back into her brain.
It was so easy for the pedestrian traffic to step around them. People were used to ignoring what went around them. So used to seeing nothing, hearing nothing. It had become second nature. It was this indifference the killer relied on. An everyday man to be dismissed without a second thought like the honking horns and the young couple pawing each other in the grass on an early spring afternoon. Slowly Colby pulled herself together and eased out of Jessie's hold, getting to her feet with a little support from the other woman.
"Let's get moving. The Fens. I'm beginning to remember. I didn't seize and I'm remembering. Let's go."
Jessie nodded cautiously and took Colby's hand as they headed for Huntington Avenue. Opting not to cross at the intersection where the Green Line trolley clanked nosily along the tracks. They stayed on the Northeastern side for another block until they spied an opening in the traffic.
Grabbing the opportunity, they darted against the lights toward the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The iconic building stood silently waiting to be noticed, her beautiful light grey bricks inviting attention within a sea of drab brownstones.
Neither woman paid heed to the building before them. Their attention focused on the tree lined field and stream stretching away from the stony aura of Guy Lowell’s neoclassical design. Designed by Frederick Olmsted as part of the Emerald Necklace park system, the Fens' wide open expanse of green nestled in between the college crowd racing up and down Huntington and the baseball pilgrims crowding Kenmoore Square often invited runners, lovers, and the occasional, homicidal maniac.
"Eagan was found in a snow heap facing the MFA Fens' entrance," Colby pointed to the tree across the street still sporting the yellow remnants of police tape. "He was banged up pretty bad, even for a Ripper case. Body was mangled and mutilated. The ME couldn't really tell what actually killed him, exposure or blood loss."
"He died three hours after when a snow plow cut him in half. I thought that would have been obvious even to the ME."
Jessie remarked nonchalantly with a smile before leaving a stunned Colby alone on the curb. She was already well across the street when Colby gathered her wits together enough to sprint her way back to Jessie's side. The blare of car horns and the squeal of brakes be damned, Colby would not let Jessie just walk away without an explanation.
"Jessie, you were at the Castle when he was killed. You were not permitted outside contact, so how the shit do you know what happened to him?"
"Colby you’re not listening again. I told you, Swartz was more than happy to share when she came round to visit. She told me all about it during her last visit like it was some big thing, which it wasn’t. Stupid bitch, didn't even know she was going to die next. She thought she was special to him, like I am special. She was so smug, telling me about Eagan threatening to go to the tabloids. It shouldn't have surprised her. Eagan stayed quiet longer than could be expected considering the publicity. Fuckin’ bitch sitting there gossiping instead of working her ass off to get me out of that hellhole."
"Swartz told you Eagan was blackmailing the Ripper?" Colby was still a question behind. "Swartz was involved with the killer?"
Jessie chuckled, "She thought she was, but she read too much into their ‘relationship’. She was jealous of me. She wanted all his attention. He knew. He took real good care of her, didn't he? He told her they were going away, just the two of them. Told her to take a long leave of absence from work. She did as she was told, what a moron. She never suspected. He fucked her in the afternoon and pushed her down the stairs after dinner." Jessie giggled, "I think she may have worked out her flawed logic while she was dying of exposure at the bottom of her own cellar stairs. He sat there and watched her for hours, you know. She is one of the only victims he talked to while she died. I guess he did like her a little. Probably the reason why he handled all the arrangements for the …"
"Funeral?" Colby mumbled absently before the pain slammed like a hammer to the back of her head.
Bent over doubled in shock, she was vaguely aware of someone catching her. They fell together. Colby could taste the metallic blood flooding her mouth as she bit hard on her own tongue. She fought to hold on to the pain. Trying to force herself to stay conscious. She had to stay connected to Jessie.
Marty squatted down next to her. His features aged and grim. The wet blood staining his crisp white shirt a livid crimson.
"He was always a really sharp dresser. It was what Christine first noticed about him."
"You knew? Jesus Christ! How long? How long did you know, you fuckin’ son of a bitch?" She spat the question like an accusation.
Jessie's voice filtered in, "I knew, Marty knew. We both knew long enough, but he was family. Marty didn’t want Christine’s name dragged through the mud. Marty told him to stop, told him to get help. Marty had a big mouth. He should have just gutted him. Neat and tidy. The murders would have been forgotten if the killings stopped."
Colby shook her head and tried to focus back on Marty even as she gagged on her own blood. "Tell me!"
"Listen you skinny, greasy dyke, you're putting my baby girl in danger just sitting there pitching a fit. Get on your goddamned feet and move! You know everything you need to know. You just gotta connect the freakin’ dots!" Marty snarled, "And, if you don't know then fuckin’ look over your shoulder! NOW!"
"Shit," Jessie spat. "He’s coming. We gotta go! Come on, Colby!"
Colby turned and looked. She let her eyes follow the sound of Jessie’s quivering voice. Despite her blurring vision she could make out the expression on the other woman’s face. Jessie was terrified.
Fear fueled her adrenaline push. Jessie roughly hauled Colby's limp useless body to her feet. As her chin swung skyward, a familiar figure in a black Armani suit came into view.
"Cashmere," Colby said before her focus fix on the wearer. "Edwin? It was him all along wasn’t it?"
"Fuck it, it’s too late." Jessie hissed between clenched teeth.
It was futile trying to get Colby moving. Jessie let the taller woman crumble down onto the pavement without a second look. She sprinted toward the approaching man in black as if her struggle was to free herself all along.
"Uncle Eddie, it took you friggin' long enough to show. She's been dragging me around Boston chained like an animal for almost two days. I've had it with the fuckin’ sightseeing. Let's just get out of here, okay? Come on, please take me someplace warm!"
"
NO!" Colby mouthed silently as she tried to roll onto her knees to get to her feet and failed. "Jessie, don’t! He’ll kill you too."
Edwin Dobb grinned and put his arms out to receive Jessie into his embrace. In return, Jessie threw herself at him and planted a big kiss on his cheek. His smile didn't fade but his face hardened. Even at a distance, Colby could see his grip on Jessie tighten as the two of them walked back toward Colby.
"Come on, Uncle Eddie, let's just go. You promised me Mexico or Brazil, remember? We were going to visit Teotihuacan. Let’s go somewhere far away, just you and me. You promised.”
Edwin tightened his hold on Jessie to the point of making her gasp. "Jessie, don't make me hurt you. I hate it when you lie to me. I’m going to have to punish you later. But right now, I have unfinished business with Colby here. So Jessie, keep quiet and don’t whine. You’re not a child, don’t behave like one. I taught you better manners than that.” Jessie opened her mouth to argue but he silenced her with a quiet command, "Please be quiet. Don't make me say it twice."