Ripper

by Stefan Petrucha

  Carver blinked, rubbed his head and pulled himself to sitting.

  “Did the girl help?”

  “Yes, we found…”

  “Not with the case, with you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ve got some time away from Echols and his photographers. Tell me what you’ve learned and then ask your questions.”

  If Hawking was impressed with the clues Carver found, he didn’t show it. He simply nodded. When Carver finished, Hawking said, “Your turn. Ask your questions.”

  “How long did you know about my father?”

  “About as long as you should have.”

  “Why are you working for Echols?”

  “Same reason everyone works. For money.”

  Carver narrowed his eyes. “You said he was a lizard. Do you need money so badly?”

  Hawking lowered himself into a chair and looked around with an odd expression. “The money’s not for me, you imbecile. It’s for you.”

  “I don’t need any money,” Carver said. “I just want—”

  “I know what you want. I’m talking about what I want for you,” Hawking snapped back. “I don’t have many plans left, and these last few days they’ve all come close to unraveling. Echols gave me a substantial retainer, enough to set you up even if the New Pinkertons are gone. Even after I’ve gone.”

  “Gone? Are you going somewhere?”

  “Where I go and when I go is my business,” Hawking said, looking even grimmer than usual. “But I suppose the rest isn’t. Things have gotten darker than you know, and I’m not talking about your hobgoblin of a father. The Times decided to print their letter this evening, alongside the one from Scotland Yard. It came out a few hours ago, in their evening edition.”

  “The panic…,” Carver said.

  “I told you the nights would get longer,” he said. “Tudd was half-right when he said the game passed me by. It passed us both by. We’re relics. Do you know what’s going on out there? I’ve always said the city was a madhouse, and now it’s beginning to show. Vigilante committees are forming.” He eyed Carver. “I’m going to put you at the center of that storm. If it goes well, the winds will lift you above it all. If not, well, at least you’ll have Echols’s money to show for my efforts.”

  Carver shook his head. “But I don’t want it,” he said. “I don’t want any of it. All I want is—”

  “You’re not being asked.”

  The phone rang. His mentor answered and listened intently.

  “Of course,” Hawking said. “Thank you, Mr. Echols. I’ll head there immediately.”

  He put the speaker back on its cradle and looked at Carver, his face grim. “Do you want to lie down in case you feel faint before I tell you what he said?”

  Carver shook his head. “I’m all right. Tell me.”

  “Another body’s been found.”

  A fruit bowl sat on the desk beside the phone. Hawking grabbed an apple from it, buffed it on his jacket and then, thinking better of it, put it in his pocket for later.

  61

  AFTER THEY hailed a hansom cab clopping along Broadway, Carver asked, “Where was the body found?”

  Hawking gave his answer to the driver, “Mulberry Street, number 300.”

  “Police headquarters?” Carver said as he helped the hunched man through the door. “You’re taking us to police headquarters?”

  Hawking waved off the question, settled back and closed his eyes. “I preferred it when you were more afraid of me, boy. Don’t make me think about smashing something just to earn a respectful tone. I don’t frustrate you without purpose. I simply don’t want you prejudiced by anyone’s half-assed theories, even my own. You’ve got eyes and you can put them to use soon enough.”

  Not so much mollified as stymied, Carver quieted. With the man’s eyes closed, Carver took the opportunity to give his mentor a good look. He noticed it’d been harder to get him into the cab than usual. He was more unsteady. Was it the longer day? The blow to his head? How hard had Tudd’s death hit him? Why was he talking about leaving?

  One father at a time. The killer was still out there, more daring than ever. Another body—this one found at Mulberry Street. Had Tudd been right about a beast driving him? No, it was too reasoned, too complicated. It felt like another move in the game. But what was the point? Was his father showing off so Carver would want to be with him? If so, the effect was the opposite. More than ever, Carver wanted to catch him. Aside from stopping the murders, it would prove he wasn’t anything like the man. It also felt like the only way to purge his own guilt, not only about Tudd, but also because he’d been so wrapped up in the killings, he felt somehow responsible.

  As they neared their destination, the street was as dark as any other. The cab slowed, progress blocked by carriages jockeying for curb space and a growing crowd. He pressed against the window, looked around and up.

  There was a white haze on the roof. The moving shadows told him it was full of activity.

  “He left it up there,” Carver said.

  Hawking opened one eye. “Left it? You don’t think he killed her there?”

  The answer came with frightening ease. “No, he’d have been heard. He must have carried her up there, maybe left her in the snow.”

  Hawking rapped his cane on the roof. “Driver! Make a left at Mott and leave us at the Health Department.” He pointed out the window. “Squint a bit and count the shadows, boy. The rooftops left and right are full of reporters. The Health Department abuts police headquarters from the rear, making it our best bet for a closer look. You’ll have to help me manage the steps.”

  After navigating a U-turn, the carriage traveled around the corner, eventually depositing them at a large institutional building, its tan stones gray and black in the night. Finding an open side door, Carver helped Hawking inside. The detective grunted loudly with each step.

  His mind was still sharp as ever, though. The darkened rooftop they soon reached gave them a perfect view of the light-washed 300 Mulberry Street. The slightly lower roof seemed again a crowded theater stage. Hidden by a wide brick chimney, they walked closer.

  There were ten or so suited detectives at the scene. There were at least twenty uniforms and, of course, center stage, the square pacing figure of Theodore Roosevelt. All attention was focused on the new body. Again drained of color and humanity by the blaring light, it was wrapped in some sort of cloth. An arm and a pleasant round face jutted out at strange angles, the rest half-buried in a pile of snow.

  The powder flashes from a police photographer’s camera intensified the bright arc lamps.

  “Confound it! Confound it! Right here all along!” Roosevelt cried.

  Carver turned to Hawking and whispered, “All along?”

  “Echols said they think this woman was killed the same night as Rowena Parker. A double event,” Hawking said softly.

  Double event. It sounded familiar. Carver grabbed Hawking’s shoulder. “That was what the papers later called the Whitechapel murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, both killed on the same night.”

  His mentor nodded, either in acknowledgment or approval, then pointed back to the scene.

  Roosevelt could barely contain himself. “We’d never have found her without that letter! I told you it was real! A newsboy could have identified that handwriting. A challenge to everything decent. Do we have the woman’s name yet?”

  “Another letter?” Carver asked.

  “Hush! No need to repeat what you’ve just heard. I want to hear the name if they have it,” Hawking said.

  “Petko? Reza? Is it Russian? Locate the poor woman’s relatives immediately,” Roosevelt said. He stepped closer to the body and shook his head.

  “Parker and Petko!” he declared, rounding on his detectives. “Both begin with P. Does that tell us anything? Eh?”

  The detectives lowered their heads in unison. They continued to earn Roosevelt’s expectant stare until he offered, “Could he be going through
the social pages? Alphabetically?

  “It’s a thought, at least,” Roosevelt said. Raising his head, he spotted the moving shadows on the neighboring roofs. “It seems we’re giving an interview to every paper in the city!” He waved. “Hello, Mr. Ribe! If I can spot a rhino in the brush, I can certainly see you! Go home along with the rest of you! You’ll all have to wait for the official report! I will learn to speak softly one day, but when I do, I promise you, I will also be carrying a very big stick!”

  He motioned all the detectives toward the rear of the roof, away from the reporters but nearer to where Carver and Hawking hid. He also made good on the promise to lower his voice. As they huddled, the last few words Carver could make out were, “And no one knows yet that the…”

  If only he were a little closer. He stepped on the ledge, braced himself against the chimney and lifted himself. The move would’ve been silent if his shoe hadn’t settled on a loose brick. It flew free and thudded loudly onto the roof less than two yards from Roosevelt.

  62

  WITH surprising force, Hawking yanked Carver behind the chimney and pulled himself up onto the ledge. “Boy!” he hissed. “Stay put!”

  When the misshapen man appeared on a roof they thought vacant, twenty or so uniformed officers drew their pistols. Though his balance seemed precarious, Hawking didn’t move.

  “Excellent reflexes, men,” Roosevelt said. Carver was close enough to see water vapor coming from his mouth. “But we’ll have to work on your thinking. Guns down and turn a light on him.”

  With a metallic creak, an arc lamp spun toward Hawking. “Tilt it up. We don’t want to blind anyone!”

  The light dimmed slightly. Roosevelt’s face registered recognition. “You, sir, are my nemesis, aren’t you? Echols’s great detective? Former Pinkerton?”

  Hawking nodded, but barely.

  The commissioner offered a toothy grin. “I know something of the work. In Medora, North Dakota, more than ten years ago I was a deputy sheriff. I hunted down the three outlaws who stole my boat. Caught them, could have hanged them, according to the law, but I guarded them for forty hours until assistance could arrive. Read Tolstoy to keep myself awake. I did it, because I put my faith in the system, not vigilantism. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Tolstoy puts me to sleep,” Hawking said, in an equally loud voice. “I prefer Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, especially the punishment.”

  He put his cane to the slightly lower ground of the Mulberry Street roof and, with difficulty, climbed down. “Oh, but to punish the guilty, you’d need to catch the criminal, wouldn’t you? That’s why Echols hired me.”

  Carver had seen Roosevelt angry, but never so stone-faced. He raised his index finger to Hawking. “In our great nation, Mr. Echols is free to say what he likes, both to the press and to his servants. Yet he is not free to act in contradiction to the law. I will not tolerate any interference in this investigation.”

  Hawking lowered his voice. “I’ve no such intention, Commissioner, none at all.”

  Roosevelt narrowed his eyes. “How, then, do you intend to fulfill your obligation to your employer?”

  “As an asthmatic child, your doctor warned you against a strenuous life, did he not? You rejected that advice, with great results, so I’ll assume you’re familiar with the expression don’t just sit there, do something?”

  “It is a favorite,” Roosevelt said.

  “You may not have heard the dictum, since it is my own, don’t just do something, sit there. That, sir, is my intention.”

  To Carver it sounded like the strangest thing his mentor ever said. It didn’t make any sense.

  Roosevelt’s small eyes glowed as he scanned Hawking’s face, taking his measure the way Carver had seen Hawking do dozens of times. All at once, as if he’d stumbled upon something unexpectedly vile, the commissioner took a step back. He wiped his mustache with his thick hand and then stiffened to attention.

  “Sir, I misjudged you. You are not in the way of this investigation, you are nothing to it. There is no fire in your belly, none at all. You ask no questions, you provide no information. If I thought he’d listen, I’d instruct Echols to get his money back and spend it on a more useful tracker, like a bloodhound. Any animal at all, really.”

  It was the worst insult Carver could imagine. Roosevelt paused, waiting for a reaction, but none came. “Your attorney informed us that you and your ward will be at his office at nine a.m. sharp for a complete interrogation. If you do not appear, I will have you arrested. If you remain here now, I will also have you arrested, whereupon you may sit and do your great nothing in one of our fine prison cells.”

  Roosevelt spun back to the detectives. Hawking clambered back over the ledge.

  “Time to head home, boy,” Hawking whispered to Carver. “We’ll have to hurry before the reporters make it around the block.”

  Carver was confused to say the least. “That’s it? We barely looked at the murder scene. There must be a clue here from my father. And what was all that about doing nothing? Are you feeling all right?”

  “What we need to know will be in the papers. It’s far too crowded, the light too bright.”

  Hawking ambled toward the stairs. Carver followed. “You sounded as if you don’t intend to find the killer at all.”

  “I don’t intend to find the killer,” Hawking said, not even slowing his descent.

  Comfortable they were out of earshot, Carver said, “What? How can you stand there… how can you… say something like that as if it’s obvious, as if it’s adding two and two to get four? People are dying! Is this some kind of game for you, too?”

  As if Carver weren’t even there, Hawking calmly leaned against the wall and withdrew the apple from his pocket. He sliced off a piece and popped it into his mouth.

  As he chewed, he said, “A game for me? No, boy, not at all. As you said yourself, it’s a game for you. Apple?”

  63

  CARVER and Hawking barely exchanged words as they headed back to the abandoned New Pinkerton headquarters. Carver wanted to scream, to grab Hawking’s cane and beat him with it until he made sense. Instead, he just felt nauseated. Had the blow to his head, Tudd’s death, or both left the man completely insane? Carver couldn’t do this alone. He needed help.

  After a fitful night and equally wordless breakfast, they headed to the attorney Sabatier’s office on Centre Street. Hawking hadn’t even told Carver how to handle the questioning.

  The tension on the streets was even more palpable. News of the fourth killing spread like wildfire. The fear seemed writ as large on people’s faces as it was in the headlines. Pedestrians walked faster, rudely shoved one another, seemed ready to fight at the smallest slight. Newsboys shouted reminders, calling out every word of the letter sent not to some paper, but directly to the police:

  His father wasn’t even bothering to conceal his identity anymore. From his reading, Carver knew the middle part of the letter was practically a quote from the “Saucy Jack” postcard the Ripper sent in London on October 1, 1888. He was too furious to even mention it to Hawking. He didn’t want to disturb him while he was so busy “doing nothing.”

  Echols was waiting for them in the marble lobby of the law office. While he wasn’t surrounded by photographers, as usual, he also wasn’t alone. Finn was with him. It was an awkward surprise. Carver hadn’t seen the powerful redhead since the night he’d helped him break into the editor’s office. So much time had passed, so much had happened, he had no idea how to react to his old nemesis.

  “I trust we have no worries here, Mr. Hawking?” Echols said, holding out his hand. Hawking balanced on his cane and put his good left hand forward.

  “Not a care in the world,” Hawking said.

  They fell to whispering, their murmurs echoing in the gilded lobby. Carver wanted to try to hear what they were saying, but a sudden tug on his arm turned him toward Finn.

  They grunted hellos, Finn seeming as uncomfortable as Carver. Delia said t
he bully had tried to lie to protect them, so Carver felt he owed him an apology for getting him in trouble in the first place, but the words wouldn’t come.

  With a sneer, Finn nodded toward Hawking. “So that’s the best detective in the world? The only reason my… Mr. Echols… hired him was to get more photos of himself in the papers. He couldn’t care less about catching your dad. So what’s been going on?”

  Though mad at Hawking himself, Carver did not care for Finn’s tone. The last thing he wanted to do was confide in his former tormentor about Hawking’s bizarre speech last night.

  “Nothing,” Carver said.

  Finn looked confused. “Nothing? Did we break into that office for nothing?”

  Many emotions fought for control over Carver. “We? It looked to me like you did it to impress Delia. Beside, when did you ever care what you might be stealing?”

  Carver realized he was being ridiculous. He was trying to think of some way to say so when Finn moved to slam him in the shoulder. No longer a frightened little boy, Carver blocked his meaty hand.

  If Finn was surprised, he didn’t show it. “You’re helping Echols and you’re still lying about me being a thief?”

  He shoved Carver with both hands. Carver shoved back. “You did steal that necklace. Why can’t you just admit that much at least?”

  “You still haven’t told anyone about that letter from your old man, have you? What does that make you?”

  Without thinking, Carver socked Finn in the jaw. As he did, a sharp pain traveled from his knuckles, along the back of his hand and up along his arm. But it was Finn’s jaw that took most of the blow. The large youth’s head snapped sideways, his eyes widening in disbelief and fury.

  After that, things happened so quickly, it took time for the adults to react. In response, Finn reminded him exactly what scrawny meant. He grabbed the slighter boy by the belt and lapel, lifted and threw him three feet into the wall. Carver’s back hit hard, winding him. He fell but scrambled to his feet, still ready to fight.

  Finn came forward with his left. The meatier fist barely grazed his chin, but Finn followed up by forcing the top of his skull into Carver’s abdomen. He wrapped his thick arms around Carver’s waist, planning to slam him down onto the hard, expensive marble tiles.