by Jill Jones
“You know I have to go.”
He felt the nip of her teeth against his shoulder. “You could quit,” he whispered hoarsely. “Stay here with me.”
She didn’t reply immediately. “It’s tempting, Jonathan. But I can’t do that. I’ve committed my life to stopping just this kind of killer. And I’m good at it. That’s why Mosier wants me back.”
“I could get you a job at the Yard.” He lowered his hands until they cradled her buttocks. He felt hers caress the muscles of his back.
“Sex isn’t everything, you know.”
“This isn’t about sex, and you know it.”
He heard her let out a long sigh. “Then what is it about, Jonathan? It can’t be anything else. We’ve only known each other a little over a week. We’ve had fun, and the sex has been great. But now it’s time to get on with life.”
His gut wrenched at her words. “Do you really mean that, Victoria?”
She didn’t answer.
“You don’t, do you?”
She shook her head. He raised her chin, forcing her to look at him, and saw tears in her eyes. “I love you, Victoria. Please don’t leave me.”
Her eyes widened. “Love?”
Jonathan had never thought it possible that he would fall in love with a woman, much less so hopelessly, irretrievably in love. “Yes. I love you. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I don’t know how it could happen so fast. But I fell in love with you almost from the moment I saw you.”
Her lips tilted in a tremulous smile. “I love you, too, Jonathan. But that doesn’t solve anything, does it? I still have to go home, and you have a life here.”
He knew she was right, but he’d be damned if he let it end here. “I’m coming with you.”
She gave him a skeptical look, but he saw a flicker of encouragement in her eyes. “How are you going to swing that?”
“Our murder case here is no longer resolved. With this turn of events, it would appear that our killer is now on the loose in America. I think I could convince Sandringham to let me follow it up there. Providing, of course,” he added, kissing her full on the lips, “the FBI invites me in on the case.”
Chapter Sixteen
London
Eighth September 1888
It is just past dawn, and I sit exhausted but unable to sleep, whilst Eddy lies in blissful slumber upon my bed. He read in the newspapers of the whore I killed last week and came to me in a rage, demanding to know why I would do such a thing without him. He never received my messages, which disturbs me, for I fear they have been intercepted by those who wish to keep me from him.
To appease him, and to satisfy my own growing need, tonight we made our way once again into the East End, going into Spitalfield this time rather than Whitechapel, which after my last two hunts has attracted too much attention by the police. After coaching Eddy on the technique of strangulation before incision, I offered him the honor of taking first blood, which he eagerly accepted.
While I stood watch, Eddy approached an old whore with a vile, consumptive cough, who was staggering against the wall of a tenement house. I followed them through a doorway at the side that led to a dark and uninhabited back yard. He followed my instructions to the letter, asking her to turn her back to him, whereon he attempted the strangulation. He being slight of build and she a pork pie, he was unable to choke her before she cried out “No!” Before I could come to his aid, however, he had already applied the knife, killing her before she could make another sound. Unfortunately, her blood spurted and soiled his clothing. I have burned them just now in the grate. We must take no chances of discovery.
The souvenir of tonight’s hunt sits before me on the table, sealed in a glycine bag. It is the womb of the old whore that I thought last night in my frenzy to serve up for breakfast, but seeing the disgusting thing now, I will feed it instead to the landlord’s dog.
The air was cool and damp against his cheek as he walked along the quay, watching the fog settle around the luxury yachts berthed at one of the most exclusive marinas in the area. He wondered idly how many millions of dollars were tied up here, bobbing in the dark waters of the cove. Rich men’s toys.
His eyes lifted to the bright lights of the adjacent clubhouse, where those rich men and their whores partied this Saturday night away, unaware that one among them would not see the light of another dawn. Like the others, he had not chosen one in specific, but preferred to let fate deliver its choice into his hands at random. He did not have to wait long. A couple stepped out into the night, arguing furiously.
“I was not flirting with Malcomb,” the woman said in a high-pitched whine, “although he pays more attention to me than you do.” She walked unsteadily and her speech was slurred.
“Shut up, bitch. You haven’t been faithful to me one day since I’ve known you. As far as I’m concerned, this is it. The engagement’s off. You can keep the ring. Hock it if you like. It’s the last dime you’ll ever get out of me.” With that, the man turned and disappeared among the rows of expensive cars in the parking lot, leaving the woman standing alone and bewildered in the shadows.
He strolled up to her. “Rough night?”
She jerked around at the sound of his voice. “Who’re you?”
“New kid on the block. Looks like you could use a friend. Want to take a walk?”
She sniffed, glanced back toward the parking lot, then with one hand tossed back the profusion of golden-red curls that crowned her head. “Sure. Who needs him anyhow? He was nothing but a royal pain in the ass.” She studied his face. “Pretty cute. What’s your name?”
“My friends call me Jack.” He took her by the elbow and led her down the dock. “Any of these yours?” he asked, indicating the rows of yachts.
She shook her head. “Nope. But jerko owns the one down there near the end. Big sucker. Guess he had to buy a great big boat to make up for the size of his teeny-weeny pecker.” He frowned. He didn’t like women who talked like this. He was glad the world would soon be rid of one more of her kind. Her boyfriend was right. She was a bitch. “Think he’d mind if we went on board and made out?”
She looked at him in astonishment, then threw her head back and laughed from her belly. “Do I give a shit if he minds? He’s the one who left me. It’ll serve him right. Come on, honey. And we don’t have to stop at making out.”
She ran down the dock, balancing precariously in high heels shoes, and he was relieved when she finally stopped next to the biggest boat in the marina. Perfect.
“Any security alarms going to go off?” he asked as he joined her, trying not to act like he was in any hurry, although he could feel his cock swelling in anticipation of the event.
He checked the other boats nearby to see if anyone might have seen them, but there was no one around and the boats all appeared unoccupied. He couldn’t be too careful, however. This place was riskier than the others had been, because unless he wanted to swim, he would have to escape back down the dock after the deed. The heightened risk, however, only served to heighten the anticipation.
“No alarms. Not if we don’t go below. But there’s no need. The cockpit cushions will do nicely.”
They climbed the short gangplank and went aboard and into the protective shadows of the enclosed cockpit. She turned to him and smiled seductively. “What’d you say your name was?”
“Jack.”
“Well, come here, Jacky boy, and let me show you what that asshole gave up tonight.”
He slid his hands up her bare arms, across her shoulders, and around her slender neck. He saw the expression in her eyes change from seduction to confusion to terror. It was the terror that lasted the longest, as he played with her, choking her until she was almost unconscious, then allowing her just enough air to revive and remember that he was killing her, a technique he’d learned from the master. She never made a sound, although her mouth was open in a silent scream.
At last he grew tired of the game and finished the kill and laid her out on one of t
he white canvas-covered cushions. He must be extra careful not to get any bloodstains on him tonight, for he wore white trousers with his blue blazer, the unofficial “uniform” of yachties.
His body heat began to rise as he slid the long, finely-honed knife from its hiding place, raised it and slashed the blade across her throat in a clean cut. There was no great spurt of blood as he would have liked, as she was already dead, but he knew this way was safer. It was the master’s design, and the master had never been caught.
He gutted her, thinking it not much different from gutting a large fish, and that gave him an idea. He fed the entrails to the fish as a midnight snack, then found a large gaff hook secured to the roof. Swinging it forcefully at her head, he hooked her through the jaw, then swiveled the instrument up to tear into the roof of her mouth, just to make sure she wouldn’t get away.
He gazed down at his trophy, staring into eyes that were open and sightless as a dead fish. His breath became quick and erratic as he reached sexual climax, and he shuddered when the bloodlust at last released him from its demand. He felt a warm wetness trickle down the inside of his leg.
With shaking hands, he cleaned the knife on the victim’s clothing and slid it lovingly back into its unique scabbard. He secured the plastic gloves in a zipper bag, as he had done each time, photographed his work, then made his way down the dock unobserved.
“He’s not wasting any time,” Victoria said grimly when she learned from Mike Mosier that the killer had struck again just the night before. She and Jonathan had come straight to Quantico from the airport when their flight landed on Wednesday afternoon. She was tired, but anxious to get on this case. She was not afraid of Billy Ray, but she was glad Jonathan had insisted on coming along nonetheless. For more reasons than one.
Mosier briefed them on the events that had taken place in the last week. “There have now been five murders that have so much in common, we can’t dismiss the probability that they were committed by the same individual. All the victims were young women from the upper crust of society. All were strangled, then mutilated. In each case, the killer also made some kind of distinctive mark on the scene, rather like a sick joke.”
“What do you mean?” Until that moment, Victoria had thought this killer was likely the same as the Whitechapel murderer, but he’d left no such mark on that scene.
“For example,” Mosier said, “the victim in Chicago had recently been to the opera. Her body was found in a park several miles away, but the killer must have known where she’d been that evening, because he carved a large music note into her torso. The Chicago PD believes he killed her in the city, then moved the body to a more private place to finish his job.
“In Kansas City, the victim was a young beauty queen who had been at a fundraising bar-b-que. Her body was found near the river not far from the site of the event, her body parts skewered on an iron pole.”
“Oh, my God,” Victoria murmured, sickened.
“In Phoenix, the murder took place on a golf course. The victim’s womb was in the cup at the first green, like a golf ball. In San Francisco, the victim was the daughter of a prominent politician who had just announced plans to run for Governor. Her mutilated body was found in a garbage can along Fisherman’s Wharf, wrapped in newspaper like a dead fish. Her father’s announcement was in that paper.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “And this morning, the Seattle police found a young woman on a yacht. In addition to strangling and eviscerating her, the killer gaffed her like a trophy fish.”
Victoria had been in the business of profiling for a number of years, had seen cases that left her with nightmares for weeks. But none could equal the sheer brutality and inhumanity of what she’d just heard described. Even Jack the Ripper hadn’t been so fiendish.
“Did you find anything on the bodies of the victims that could be used to identify the killer using DNA?” Jonathan wanted to know.
“Nothing yet, although the forensic reports won’t be ready for a while. At first glance, there appear to be no fingerprints. No weapon left behind. No sign of sexual assault. No blood, except for the victims’. He’s good, this one. He’s bold, cold and smart, and he wants us to know it.”
“You said he sent a note to the Phoenix newspaper?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes.” Mike passed a photocopy of the note that had been faxed to him across his desk to Jonathan, who read it aloud.
“Dear Boss, You thought I was an English bloke, but you was wrong. I’m an American pie now. Ha. Ha. There is so much work to do here, I might never finish it all. I will kill into infinity if I must, to play out the game. All the whores must die, especially Her. Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.”
Looking over his shoulder, Victoria drew in a sharp breath. “It’s…it looks like the same handwriting as was on the note that was sent to the London Times, doesn’t it?”
“It could be. It’s very similar,” Jonathan said. “Could we fax this to my men at the Yard? Even though it isn’t a first-hand sample of the writing, the graphologist should be able to verify if it is in the same hand.”
“Of course,” Mosier said. He rubbed his chin. “Obviously, our subject is playing at being Jack the Ripper. You two think this guy is the same one who killed in Whitechapel?”
Victoria nodded slowly. “I think there’s every possibility. It’ll be interesting to see how the handwriting compares. But…” she hesitated a moment, then said, “although the murderer in London had the same MO as Jack the Ripper, strangling his victims before mutilating them, there was no perverted twist at the scene of the crime. This killer’s signature is different, more flamboyant. His territory is certainly larger. It’s like he’s trying to do the old Ripper one better.”
“Good point,” Mike said, noting her comment on the legal pad in front of him.
“The victims are very different, too,” Jonathan pointed out. “The Whitechapel victim was a prostitute, as were all of the original Ripper’s. These victims all appear to be from the opposite end of the social spectrum.”
“True. That’s why we don’t think this is a truck driver or some kind of transient salesman. This is somebody with a grudge against someone of that social level. It could be he is from a society family, or perhaps considers himself to have been victimized by someone like that. Since there were no defense marks on any of the victims, it could be that he was somebody they knew. Or at least he must have appeared to fit in with them. He must have dressed as if he were going to the opera, for instance. Or for a night at the country club. I don’t think our man wears denim or leather, at least not on the job.”
Victoria thought of Billy Ray and found it easier to picture him in gym wear rather than a tux. He was good-looking enough, but he hadn’t demonstrated any particular social acumen when he’d shown up at the costume ball in jeans and a polo shirt. One never knew, however. Maybe he was the black sheep of a wealthy family, and his killings represented his desire to destroy his mother or perhaps a sister who had humiliated him or dominated him somehow. Aunt or grandmother maybe, if he’d been raised by an unloving relative.
“He’s very aggressive,” she noted. “Usually a killer like this will learn the neighborhood where he intends to strike to give him the greatest chance for escape. Sometimes he’ll stalk his victim to learn her ways, so he can attack when she is most vulnerable. But he’s committed five murders in nine days, over a great distance. That’s one every other day. Is that part of the pattern?”
“I would say it is. Which means he’ll strike again tomorrow night. But where?” Mosier turned to a large map of the United States, his face grim. “It’s a big country. Because he’s hit three times now in the western states, we think he may stay out there a while, although that’s pure conjecture. My guess is that he’ll try Los Angeles or Hollywood. He seems fixated on the rich and famous. What better hunting grounds than Southern California?”
“But his first two were in the Midwest. What’s to keep him from hopping a plane back to see how his act play
s in Peoria, Mike?”
He exhaled heavily. “Nothing. He could strike anywhere. We’ve alerted police departments in every major city in the country and asked them to warn those citizens who fit the killer’s profile, but he’ll be hard to stop. Maybe on Friday, when the investigators and profile coordinators come in from around the country, we can get a better handle on him. They’re supposed to be bringing first hand reports from the medical examiners in each case. Hopefully, that’ll give us a leg up with the forensics, and we can come up with an accurate profile.”
“What I want to know is where Victoria fits in his scheme.” Jonathan’s handsome face was marred by a scowl. “He went out of his way to terrorize her in London. I think she’s in danger here.”
Mosier looked across at Victoria. “Blake is right. If it’s the same man who struck in London, you could certainly be at risk. He sent you a human liver, for God’s sake. And what about those other messages you received? Were they also from the killer?”
Victoria shook her head. “Jonathan’s forensic men were able to get an imprint from the tablet we found in the apartment of a man named FitzSimmons, a.k.a. Burt Brown, the man who was killed in the hit-and-run I told you about. He wrote the warning note on the tablet with enough pressure on his pen to leave an impression on the page beneath.” She paced the room. “We both thought he could possibly have been the killer until we learned about these murders. Now we think he must have witnessed the murder and was trying to warn me, although I don’t understand why he chose such an enigmatic way to do it.”
Mosier stood up and came to stand next to Victoria, who was staring at the map on the wall. “You fit the killer’s profile, Victoria,” he said. “You come from the same kind of social background…”
Victoria cut him off. She didn’t want to hear it. “If he wanted to kill me, why didn’t he stay in London and finish me off there? I don’t think he’s after me at all. He must have sent the liver to me because he’d found out at the symposium that I was with the FBI. It was an attention-getting device, nothing more.”