Rip

by Paul Sating

  "Are you serious, Janis?" Branson asked. "Have you been paying attention to any of this? The names, the demographics, the killings? Some twisted fuck is replicating them. Anyone in Angelique's position is right to feel threatened."

  "I'm not saying she isn't," Janis snapped. "But we can't just sit here and pile the pressure on her. That's doing nothing for her but stressing her out and making her jump at every shadow. Who can live like that?"

  The phone rang, interrupting any possible response Branson might have had. Monica snatched it out of the cradle. "What's going on? I'm in a meeting." She paused, listening. Then her eyes lit up. "He is? Okay, thanks." She dropped the phone back. "Marshall is on his way up."

  "Why?" Janis asked.

  Monica shook her head. "I have no idea."

  "He's got to be all over this Canonical Five theory. Maybe he found something?" Branson observed, gripping his pen in a fist.

  Monica nodded. "Listen, before he gets here, everyone play nice with each other, okay? Janis, I don't have a problem bringing you back into the story, but this isn't yours anymore. This is a team effort and I'm not wavering on that. The story is too big for any one of us. That includes you, Branson. Don't you go running around with something, setting fire to everything Janis is working on."

  In true Janis form, she protested. "Monica, this is my story. This is a real slap in the face."

  "Well, it's not intended to be an insult, and I'd prefer if you didn't see it like that," Monica's response was even. "As a matter fact, I need you to if you want to stay on the story. I'm not kidding. Both of you are very important to the story, but you're not the story. If you can't play nice until this is done, then I'll make changes. Clear?"

  Branson nodded. "Nice to see you put a foot down, boss."

  But Janis hung her head, preferring to only mutter a quiet response. "Yes."

  Monica pointed at Branson, her eyes, unflinching, challenging him to defy her. "Don't push me, Branson."

  He gestured with remorse and an open hand of apology. "Okay, okay. I was just joking."

  A knock announced Marshall's arrival. Angelique immediately felt calmer when he stepped into the office.

  Marshall strode straight to Monica's desk, dropping a folder amid her paper chaos. "There's what we found this morning."

  Monica opened the folder and instantly pulled back, putting a hand to her mouth. Angelique was on her feet, peering over Monica's desk at the contents in the folder, "Oh my God!"

  Somewhere behind a renewed session of crying, Branson cursed.

  The pictures revealed the remains of Jenna Eddowes. They were grotesque, more brutal than anything Marshall had shown before. Angelique gagged. Not wanting to, but not being able to resist looking at the picture spread across Monica's desk.

  Jenna Eddowes was a younger woman, probably in her early thirties, and she might have been beautiful before the butcher's knife found her. Frozen in death, her eyes stared in a timeless expression of shock. If the woman died suddenly, it was in excruciating pain. As haunting as her face was, it was Jenna's throat that drew Angelique's gaze.

  A red line sliced across Eddowes' throat. Deep and wide, the knife's edge couldn't replicate the thin lines Angelique saw in the few horror movies she dared to watch. This was a gap. But Eddowes' throat was easier to look at than her abdomen, which had been torn open in a crosshair pattern, forming four triangular folds of flesh. Of human flesh. The poor woman, someone's friend, maybe sister, someone's daughter, had the contents of her stomach on display to the world.

  "God, what happened to her?" Even Branson sounded defeated.

  Monica looked at Marshall as if begging him for help, like the madness was finally breaking her. "Our sources told us she'd had her throat slit and her uterus and kidneys removed. This is ... is ..."

  "I know," Marshall nodded understandingly. "These pictures are hard to see. Sometimes I forget to tone it down when dealing with civilians. God, there's so much we need to do. Listen, I need you to work the community involvement angle, okay? Weave that into your stories however you can, but I need your help putting the city on–guard, literally."

  "You still haven't found Roman?" Janis asked

  Marshall's jaw bulged as he ground his teeth. "No, it's like the man is a fucking ghost. Anytime we get a lead on him, he's gone by the time we send a patrol out. With the story getting daily attention, everyone is seeing the damn man all over the city. Yesterday we got fifty five calls of sightings. Fifty five! Do you know how much manpower we wasted on that?"

  Who gave a fuck about resources? This was another woman torn from the world. Now was the time to mobilize the entire goddamn city. Put every able-bodied person out there to search for Byars. "But it's worth it," Angelique argued. "This guy is killing a woman every few weeks!"

  "We're trying everything we can to bring in possible suspects for questioning," Marshall said.

  "Questioning? You need to bring his ass in for a firing squad."

  Marshall slowly shook his head. "We still don't know who is doing this," he replied, pointing at the pictures. "No matter how much I'd love to give the city the murderer's head, we can't give up an innocent person as a sacrificial lamb."

  "There's nothing new? No new clues about him, his whereabouts?" Janis asked.

  "Nothing. And, honestly, I'm not even sure if he's our guy."

  "What do you mean?" Monica asked.

  Marshall took a step back, covering his mouth with a palm before pulling it away. "Remember the third murder, Ms. Stride? The one with a witness?"

  "Yeah."

  Marshall bit his lip, turning lush pink to pinched white. "Well, that person gave us more than a witness."

  "I don't get it." Janis prodded.

  Inside Angelique's head, the world imploded when Marshall answered.

  "They gave us cell phone video of the attack."

  38

  That was that then, wasn't it?

  There was a video of the attack.

  That meant Marshall could identify the attacker. Angelique couldn't believe what she was hearing. This was the first piece of positive news since the killings started, and now, finally, there was a break. A significant one. She could kiss every single person in the office, even Branson. Every single time Marshall had come to brief it was more doom and gloom, always bad news. His visits were becoming synonymous with regression. But now that changed.

  There was video of the goddamn attack!

  "It's not the best video, but it's good enough to see most of what happened even if we can't identify the killer," Marshall said. "It starts after the initial part of the attack, so we don't really know for sure how he got her isolated and subdued. By the time the witness had the wherewithal to pull out her phone, Ms. Stride was very close to dying."

  "Jesus," Angelique exclaimed. Even when there was a break in the case it wasn't a true break. They had video one second, and the next Marshall was telling them it wouldn't provide the clues they needed.

  "The witness was close enough to see Ms. Stride being held down," Marshall continued. "She was kicking but visibly weakened and stopped shortly after, when we approximate her throat was slit. The sick bastard was grunting like an animal, loud enough to be picked up by the phone's mic, like he was actually enjoying what he was doing." Marshall paused, looking away from the group. His face wrinkled in thought and reflection. "Hearing those sounds still makes me shiver. I wouldn't ever ask any of you to listen. That sort of stuff, it really makes you question the nature of God. The witness shot as much of the decimation as they could. It was incredibly gruesome. I've been doing this shit for a long time, been involved in hundreds of murder cases and this, the person behind these killings, isn't human. They can't be."

  The room fell silent as everyone reflected on what Marshall shared. Finally, Branson spoke up. "So there's nothing in the witness video that'll help identify the killer?"

  Marshall shook his head, defeated. Angelique felt her spirit sink along with his apparent morale. "No, no
t really," he answered. There are some clues, disturbing ones, which lead me to believe we're looking in the wrong area, but nothing that will pinpoint someone."

  "Clues? Like what?" Janis asked.

  "The killer wore a hoodie, but it got tussled around and slipped," Marshall's lips pulled up in a sneer. "They had longer hair, much longer than Roman Byers' bald head."

  Branson shrugged. "Could have been a wig."

  "Right. We're not eliminating any possibilities. It's something we didn't expect. From earlier reports, from Janis' experience, we thought we knew who we were looking for. This has slowed everything down and made us re-examine things."

  Hardly. It slowed the Memphis PD down. It slowed down The Times featuring captivating story. But it did not slow everything down, Marshall was wrong about that. "Except for the killing," she murmured.

  Marshall turned to look at her and she swore he even shared a moment of sad acquiescence with her. "Yes, except for the killing," his voice cracked. "We're running another set of forensics on the video, and then we should have more solid information, if the initial findings are confirmed. We'll definitely be able to narrow down our search if we can isolate his voice."

  Janis was on her feet. Angelique jumped. So did Monica. Even Branson flinched at the sudden movement. "You got a voice?"

  "Voice. Hair. Blurred face and full body," Marshall answered, the corners of his mouth turning down. "Enough to eliminate a lot of suspects and just not enough to identify the killer."

  Back to square one. A single killer outsmarting an entire police department. "So he's still out there," Angelique sighed, "laughing at all of us, waiting to kill."

  "We can't be sure about that, Angelique," Marshall replied. There was a slight defensiveness to his voice. "And we're working overtime to beef up patrols for the affected."

  "The affected?" her voice filled the office. "Seriously? You make it sound like we're pariahs or something."

  Marshall shook his head briskly. "Poor word choice. I'm sorry."

  "Yeah, I'm sorry too," she replied, meaning something entirely different. He was a good guy and probably a good cop too, but with each passing minute, her faith in his competence waned.

  Monica waved an open palm over top the pictures on her desk. "What we do with these? I can't publish those! The community will go into lockdown. The Mayor, the board, they'd have my head. Hell, I don't even know how we're going to write about something like that."

  "I don't know Monica," Marshall answered. "You're the wordsmiths, not me. How do you tell a scared population, who are already on edge, that the most recent victim had her throat slashed, her stomach ripped open, and her uterus removed? Not only that, but that the killer wanted to make a statement with her murder? How do you tell a city with over three hundred thousand women that someone out there hates his victims so much that he not only dismembers them, but disfigures them? You tell me how someone writes up a story to tell frightened people an innocent woman had her fucking breasts and face cut off. How do you do that, Monica?"

  No one replied because no one could. Marshall, the wall who shielded them from the deranged, was crumbling. Spread across Monica's desk, the gallery of the grotesque, mocked them, challenging them to put words to the execrable display.

  "I have no idea," Monica finally answered. "I don't imagine any of us do."

  39

  The pictures were exquisite.

  Janis didn't expect anyone else to understand it because she struggled to comprehend it herself. They held a beauty she doubted anyone in the office saw. They saw a mangled and twisted body of a woman in her thirties, but Janis didn't. She saw something different.

  Spread across Monica's desk, the set contained more than just the gruesome remains of another Memphis murder victim; it was the telling of a story, the weaving of a tale just beginning to enrapture Memphis. The feature story, her feature, would shatter the paradigm for everyone in and around the city, stretching across the state. And those pictures captured by eternally framing the sheer violence of the murder scene, freezing it all in time for exploration and analysis. The set of pictures recognized a woman's fate.

  They also immortalized the killer.

  Cementing the killer's status as a legend.

  Monica moved about the office with laser focus, cleaning up her desk, rearranging things but never reaching any level of organization that didn't appear haphazard. The blackness outside her office windows was softened by the orange glow of streetlights, slightly taking the edge off her general feeling. The rest of the floor was vacant, everyone on staff headed home hours ago as the three of them worked this breaking story, readying it for publication. Driving through the shared exhaustion, Janis remained focused on the dawning anticipation that she was the phoenix, that knowledge quenched her burning to rest. This story demanded sacrifice, and she gladly gave.

  "I know it's late," Monica said as she organized various piles of paper, "so I really appreciate you two hanging out. I promise it won't take long. Janis, I like this draft. Only had to make a few edits, but I think you hit the right spirit. The only thing I changed was the section about Ms. Eddowes being disfigured postmortem. That might be a step too far, so I nixed it. Besides that, it's a very tasteful."

  "Thanks." Concern for Monica's editorial preferences was long gone.

  "Branson," Monica shifted, and Branson sat up straighter at mention of his name, "I need you to stay on the research. Look for angles the police aren't thinking of. Keep drilling down into anything you can find on the original victims but don't forget that we're focusing on Memphis' victims. This story is about them. This Jack the Ripper theory is the hook, not the story. Keep that in mind, okay?"

  He nodded like a good puppy. "Not a problem, boss. Actually, I found some interesting stuff today and Janis, if you don't mind, I'd like to clean everything up and get it over to you. Maybe first thing in the morning?"

  The entire world moved on without her during the two week absence. Monica was firmer, stronger, becoming a leader, and it stung. Her increasing confidence would make it more difficult to manipulate the situation. Branson was different too. Gone was the obnoxious cockiness, replaced by a gruff willingness to work with others. When she had the energy, Janis needed to figure out his new angle? There was a darker, deeper motivation there she just hadn't found it yet.

  "Yeah, that's fine," she answered Branson. "I'm not doing any writing tonight. It's been a long day and I've got a lot to get done once I get home."

  Monica finished organizing her desk, leaning against it with pronged fingers extended. "Okay, this sounds great. I appreciate you two taking me seriously and working together on this."

  Branson held up a finger. "A minute, Monica, before we go?"

  "What's up?"

  Branson flipped through his notebook. Janis was half tempted to rip it out of his hands. Who knew what he'd discovered during his prying. Patience would be more advantageous though, the deep well of his research could be explored when he least expected it. Everyone got lazy, even when protecting precious things. He would too. And when he did, Janis would take a peek at the information he'd uncovered.

  "I think I found something," Branson said. "Something that might help the cops, but that will also make front page national news."

  National? "What did you find?" Janis pushed.

  "You're promising big," Monica warned. "What is it?"

  Branson found the page, his face alight with rare excitement. "I went through public records from the national archives, the General Register Office, and what I could get my hands on from the CPS."

  "Crown Prosecution Services?" Monica clarified.

  "Yeah."

  Jesus, he was deep. Given all the resources he had, Janis couldn't be surprised. What else that she missed in the past two weeks?

  "So? What do you have?" she asked.

  When Branson answered Janis forgot to blink.

  "Jack the Ripper's name."

  ***

  Jack the Ripper's name? J
anis stretched and pushed away from her desk. The floor was shrouded in darkness, held at bay only by the lights in her section and a few emergency signs. Monica and Branson had gone home shortly after their meeting concluded to decompress from the story that would drop on the city overnight. Janis stayed behind, hoping Branson would leave his notebook.

  He didn't.

  Jack the Ripper's name.

  She rolled the thought over and over in her head. How truthful was Branson being? What about his accuracy? How close was he, really? Too many questions and never enough answers.

  They left the meeting with Branson promising to do more digging and Monica giving him that allowance. Branson's incessant desire to chase conspiracy theories and Monica's resistance to chaining him passed even moderate levels of annoyance. The pair were now a problem. The explanation to why the story swirled around her lay therein, because the alternative wasn't attractive. If Marshall was feeding the television stations without her knowledge, could it be possible he was also restricting what he gave her, maybe even choosing to feed Branson instead?

  But that couldn't be true. Janis had carefully watched the media releases over the past two weeks and nothing indicated that they were any wiser. In fact, Janis would hazard a guess that the stations lagged behind what they knew at the paper. And after Memphis woke to read her feature, The Times would cement themselves as the news authority on this story. All outlets would swoop in and quickly try to recover, but exclusivity would already be owned by Janis.

  And the best part was, it wasn't over yet.

  She turned off the last lights and headed out to the nearly deserted parking lot. Her car stood as the sole sentry of the lot, just as she was the sole sentry of the story, warding off Branson's interest, Angelique's nosing, and Monica's pathetic mismanagement of the pair. Branson was the unknown factor. But Angelique was the challenge, being six ways-sideways in the story from the beginning. Janis remembered Angelique's obsession with the murders from the first one, before the trend was discovered. Angelique had a sensitivity only heightened as more details came out. Already beyond her ability to stop the momentum, Janis could only hope to corral it. She didn't need Angelique stomping outside her lane. And Angelique's passion and emotional tumult at every turn would keep her engaged until someone put a stop to it. And no matter how strong Monica appeared today, Janis was unconvinced that woman could.