by S A Falconi
The Eye
of the
Devil
A Novel
By S.A. Falconi
Table of Contents
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
I.
Perspiration soaked into the brim of beat officer James Noel's cap as he trudged along the walkway of Hanbury Avenue, the primary artery of the East Side's meat packing district. He stopped and checked his pocket watch in the bright moonlight when Noel reached the corner of Hanbury Avenue and 18th Street. 3:35 a.m. he read. He replaced the timepiece and removed a cigarette and match stick from his breast pocket. Every beat officer had his routine to keep him going through the early morning hours of his route, and for Officer Noel, the reward of a cigarette on the corner of Hanbury and 18th was just what he needed to get him to the next hour. As he stood on the corner and savored the tobacco, his eyes scanned the store fronts, saloons, and gated fortresses of the meat-processing factories around him. Always scanning, that was the way of the beat officer. Always expecting the absolute worst and hoping for the absolute best. More times than not, Noel would catch some tramp passed out drunk on the walkway in front of the Hanbury House or one of the other brothels in the neighborhood and he'd have to drag the poor bastard back to the precinct so he didn't get trampled by a horseman.
Glancing back up Hanbury Avenue, he saw the silhouette of the Hanbury House and thought about the short time he spent working there. Despite his work in the slaughter house, working at the Hanbury House was by far the most revolting for him. Cleaning the toilets, cleaning the spittoons, scrubbing the mud and manure off the floor that had been dragged in by some of the hardest men that the Rocky Mountains had yet to see. By far the worst was seeing some of the girls though. Noel's upbringing taught him three simple rules by which to live: Never fear anything more than God, an honest man earns every step he takes, and every woman is to be treated like the Virgin Mary. At the Hanbury House, no woman was treated like the Virgin. As a matter of fact, the spitoons and floorboards were treated better than the women. On several occasions, Noel found the girls passed out in small rooms or hallway corners with their faces battered or they were simply too drunk to see no less stand. He was always there to assist them, to wipe their bloodied noses, to soothe their bruised cheeks, to nurse them out of inebriation. The girls were grateful for the kind cleaning boy, those who could recall his kindness at least. Most were so deep in the whiskey bottle though no day was a memory to them.
Noel smoked his cigarette to a butt and dropped the remnant on the gravel roadway. With a heavy sigh, he stepped into the road and crossed Hanbury Avenue. Just as he was about to leave Hanbury for good and proceed down 18th Street, his eye caught sight of a peculiar bundle of clothing in the alleyway next to the Hanbury House. He'd seen this countless times before, particularly in this location.
"Drunks..." Noel mumbled as he turned up Hanbury Avenue and made his way toward the alley.
As he approached the bum though, Officer Noel quickly realized the posture of the bundle was incredibly unusual, unlike any he'd seen before. This bundle wasn't huddled and shivering as most tramps were. This one was sprawled out, contorted and lacked any sign of life. Noel's pace quickened. When he got within a few feet of the bundle, the light of the full moon quickly revealed the horror before him.
"My God ..." he whispered in shock.
The bundle was a woman. Although she was fully clothed, her dress and petticoat were pulled up over her waist and her body lay spread-eagle. Blood-stains drenched the front of her dress, transforming the once light-hued fabric into a cloak of darkness. Noel bent down and pulled the woman's dress down to save her decency. Upon reaching to her throat to check her pulse though, he saw what had caused the gruesome blood stains. The woman's throat had been sliced so deeply that she was near decapitation.
Noel did the only thing that his police instinct allowed – he ran. He ran as fast as he could in the direction of the police precinct eight blocks away. He ran because he had no clue what he was to do. He ran because he was absolutely petrified.
Each night, it took Officer Noel several hours to amble around his beat. Now though, with the image of the lifeless woman etched into his mind, the beat was merely a night enshrouded in fog. He hardly noticed the clack of his baton against hip as his legs moved with the swiftness of a skilled reaper’s sickle. Had he been a veteran officer, he might’ve stayed at the scene and searched for the slayer. But he wasn’t a veteran officer. He was green. Green and horrified. He was so horrified that had he caught the culprit red-handed, he probably would’ve ran to the precinct anyway to avoid the confrontation altogether. After all, he wasn’t a seasoned beat officer; he was merely a boy from the windswept plains of eastern Colorado.
Within ten minutes, Officer Noel reached the precinct. It was the fastest he’d ever reached the station, although it seemed as if a week’s time had already passed since discovering the dead woman. Noel was a thunderbolt through the entryway and the resounding thunder of his entrance startled the night watchman out of a heavy slumber.
“Ge-ge-ge-” Noel stammered, breathless with exhaustion and fear.
“What the hell’s going on?” Officer Greevy, the night watchman, growled.
Still panting uncontrollably, Officer Noel uttered, “Get … the … Chief. Now!”
“What’s happened?” Greevy demanded.
Noel scrambled to think of how to word his response, but the only thought that surfaced was the gruesome image of the slaughtered woman.
“Murder!” Noel exclaimed.
~
The shadow of a horseman flew down Hanbury Avenue a few minutes before five that morning. The colt’s hooves kicked up a trail of dust, enshrouding the block in a mystifying haze. The horseman occasionally passed a pedestrian or a miner preparing his horse for the trek up Clear Creek Canyon. These souls were rare exceptions though, and the street was as inhumane as it was a few hours prior.
Much to the horseman’s dismay, an uncharacteristic crowd was gathered near the Hanbury House. He slowed the horse as he approached, dreading the scene he was about to witness. A police officer broke from the crowd and stepped out into the street. The horseman came to a halt just before the officer. The officer grabbed the horse’s reins and the horseman dismounted swiftly.
“Detective,” the police officer mumbled in grave salutation.
The horseman merely nodded in response. He scanned the crowd of people as he entered the mob. It never ceased to amaze him how eclectic a crowd of this nature could be. Class difference seemingly evaporated in the presence of catastrophe. Perhaps it reminded people of the few similarities they shared? That death was one of the few things that carried no class, ethnic, or religious bias. Or maybe people, regardless of class, were simply drawn to catastrophe as moths were drawn to a campfire.
The horseman slithered around lumberjacks and miners, and shoved his way passed businessmen and beggars. He scanned the crowd thoroughly as if he knew the murderer was present. Most likely though, his twenty years in the business just made him skeptical of everyone and everything.
When the horseman finally reached the front of the mass, he saw the man for whom he’d been searching. It was a burly man with a thick tangle of a graying beard. A policeman’s cap was tilted over his brow so as not to look anyone in the eye. For those few who had looked him dead in the eye, it was the closest g
esture of friendship that the man could muster.
“Chief Chapman,” the horseman muttered as he approached.
The chief turned and the look of agitation on his face transformed into a shadowed relief. He offered his hand and the horseman shook it tersely.
“Detective Abernathe,” the chief replied in an equally mournful tone. “Follow me before the newspapers tarnish this crime scene more than they already have.”
As he followed the chief, Detective Abernathe saw the usual gnats trying to hum passed the beat officers to steal as many details as possible for their front page stories. Abernathe viewed these men as pathetic fiends all fighting for the same broad that wanted nothing to do with any of them. Persistence was the virtue with these men though – persistence and deception. The beat officers did everything in their power to hold the journalists back. As was typical, the scribes cursed the officers and demanded that the truth be unveiled to the people. Most of these journalists were nameless though and no amount of hopeless pleading would be effective.
Just as Abernathe was about to reach the crime scene, a portly gentleman in a pristine suit stepped before him. “Tell me, Detective,” the man uttered, “to what do we owe the honor of your presence? I thought you only investigated cases of the upper-class? You must be mistaken. This woman was not a banker’s wife. She was a working woman.”
Abernathe offered no retort, although he wondered how the hefty journalist knew such an intimate detail about the victim.
Chief Chapman took the matter into his own hands and shoved the journalist out of the way. “Get back with the rest of the mongrels, Billing!” he barked.
The plump reporter sneered and exclaimed, “Police brutality! What happened to the First Amendment, Chief Chapman? We have as much of a right to be here as you do.”
Detective Abernathe spun on his heel and stepped toe-to-toe with Billing. The chubby journalist recoiled, not enough to draw notice from bystanders, but enough to show Abernathe that Billing’s pen was far mightier than his sword.
“I’ll be damned,” Abernathe growled, “if I’m going to allow you vermin to pick this poor woman apart. Stay the hell away from this crime scene, and I’ll personally guarantee that your extra will be the finest in the city.”
Billing’s lip curled in agitation but he backed away from Abernathe nonetheless.
“I can’t stand that scoundrel,” Chief Chapman grumbled as he and Abernathe approached the victim.
“I’m sure he was here before the officers even were,” Abernathe replied. “He dresses to the nines and he’s at a crime scene for God’s sake.”
Chapman nodded. “He’s the very definition of a peacock, is he not?”
Abernathe snorted reproachfully. “The feathers of a peacock and the build of a turkey.”
The detective and the chief passed the last beat officer and the crime scene came into its full gloomy and grotesque view. There the woman lay in her crimson death gown as uncharacteristically as ever. Her appendages were splayed outward as if they were the haggard spokes of a crippled stagecoach wheel. Her skirts were pulled tautly down to her bare ankles, so much so that the woman couldn’t have done it so primly herself. As for her head, Abernathe could only stare disbelievingly at the carnage before him. It surely took the precision of a master knifeman to sever the throat so thoroughly without full decapitation. Detective Abernathe sighed heavily with regret and disdain. This investigation was going to be the most trialing of his career yet.
“Have we her identity yet?” he inquired.
Chapman shook his head. “Unfortunately no. And our only witness is one of our own – Officer James Noel.”
Abernathe motioned to the dead woman. “Let’s see what she can tell us first.”
Abernathe began his inspection at the woman’s feet and worked his expert eyes all the way to her shoulders. Although his first glance caught the unnatural display of the woman’s skirts, closer inspection revealed the downward flow of the crimson dye on her dress.
“This woman’s throat was slashed while she was standing,” Abernathe whispered so only he could hear. Most inspectors wrote their observations down on notepads, but Abernathe’s method was left solely to the memorization of his own voice. There once was a time when a pad and pencil were his only associates, but his ever-growing distaste of the modern day journalist and the associative image of his notepad and pencil made him abandon his associates swiftly.
Abernathe made note of the fraying seams and thinning fabric of the woman’s dress. This was likely one of the woman’s only dresses and she had to serve as her own seamstress. Despite his efforts of resistance, Abernathe’s eyes finally went to the gaping slash across the woman’s throat. As he held his breath, he noticed the smooth edges of the flesh. A wound so clean and deep was not performed meticulously; this lethal gash was created with one slash of a hefty blade wielded by an attacker at least twice the size of the victim. The victim likely had neither chance of escape nor scent of her abrupt mortality. Her killer caught her as any cowardly serpent would, unbeknownst to her danger from her rear flank. The murder seemingly played itself out in the detective’s mind now. The killer’s bare hand clasping around the victim’s mouth. Her stifled screams deadened by his cementing grip. The frozen touch of the blade against her throat. That single and final utterance from the woman’s throat as she realized the breath tickling the nape of her neck was the grim reaper’s.
The shudder crawled up the length of Abernathe’s spine and he couldn’t bring himself to look above the wound at the woman’s face. The only sight more grotesque than the wound itself would be the look of sheer disbelief that was surely etched into the woman’s eyes.
Detective Abernathe finally rose and motioned to Chief Chapman. “I’ll speak with Officer Noel now,” he uttered.
When the chief brought Noel over, Abernathe could already sense everything there was to know about the young officer. The man had traded his badge for his emotions and his revolver for his fears. He wore the grimace of a man who’d seen his first stiff and locked eyes with the reaper all in the same glance. There was only one question that the detective truly wanted answered.
“Officer,” Abernathe began, “did you pull the skirts down?”
Noel’s mouth fell open as he realized what he had done earlier that morning. Rather than admitting his fault though, his fear proved stronger than his courage and he shook his head in response.
“You’re telling me the killer pulled this woman’s skirts back down after he ditched her in the alley?”
Noel stammered foolishly. “No, sir. What I meant, sir – ”
Abernathe growled, “Or should I assume, Officer, that you’re merely an accomplice to this murder? Perhaps attempting to hide the nature of this crime?”
“God, no, Detective!” Noel exclaimed. “You don’t understand at all!”
“No, Officer Noel, I understand quite well.”
“Detective,” Officer Noel pled, his voice cracking with the cocktail of emotion flowing through him, “I couldn’t allow for her to be seen in such a – a – ”
Abernathe raised his hand to silence the young officer.
Noel’s head childishly drooped in shame. “Please accept my deepest apologies, Detective.”
Abernathe replied, “Your apologies won’t save the next victims, Officer.” He nodded to the chief who escorted Officer Noel away from the crime scene.
Abernathe turned to look back at the dead young woman. His words reverberated in the chasms of his mind. They haunted him because he knew the only way to solve this brutal murder was for others to have similar catastrophes befall them. How many more was the real question? How many before the ripper blundered?
II.
Peter Donaghue sat at the bar of the Hanbury House early in the afternoon. The extra edition of The East Side Herald lay on the bar next to an empty glass with the tanned remnant of bourbon glistening at the bottom. Donaghue reached across the front page, grabbed the half-empty bourbon
bottle, and refilled his tumbler. He threw the glass of bourbon down his throat and his eyes returned to the front page headline.
Prostitute Found Slaughtered
Ripper Still At Large
By T.G. Billing
Just the sight of the reporter’s name brought an indescribable distaste to Donaghue’s tongue. He quickly grabbed the bottle of bourbon, pressed it to his lips, and gulped the fire several times. He slammed the bottle down, covering the newspaper headline and its author’s identity.
Donaghue’s hatred of T.G. Billing was easily the strongest emotion he’d ever felt in his life. Of course, any man who destroys another man’s livelihood earns his fill of reproach, for such transgressions not only destroy one’s ability to earn a living but also one’s honor and dignity. And that was the root of Donaghue’s bad blood. Billing trampled on former Detective Donaghue’s reputation as the miners ruined the floorboards of the Hanbury House with their filth-slathered boots. Billing, as was customary for journalists of the era, sacrificed Donaghue with half-truths and flagrant lies. Billing’s vendetta against law enforcement was instigated with the defamation of Donaghue. The journalist painted a portrait of Donaghue that was a Picasso painting – disturbingly insightful although severely distorted. As can already be assumed, former Detective Donaghue was the very definition of a drunkard and his methods of enforcing the law, particularly when influenced by the bottle, were as brutal as they were effective. This was the past from which Billing spun his web of lies about Donaghue and the rest of the Denver Police Department.
Luckily for Donaghue, some cared very little about his preferences for the bottle. In fact, Donaghue’s reputation as a man with grit kept him from a life as a vagabond. When word got out that the brutal Detective Donaghue had been relieved of his duties as an enforcer of the law, the Hanbury House’s proprietor, Ed Maclellan, immediately recruited him as the brothel’s bouncer. Maclellan was an Irish boar who raised himself in the filth-ridden streets of Philadelphia before travelling out to Colorado to stake his own claim on the glistening fortunes hiding in the Rocky Mountains. For being a boy of the streets though, Maclellan was slier than a fox and it took him no time to recognize the business opportunity that the booming metropolis of Denver presented. While the foolhardy miners worked harder than slaves in the hills, Maclellan established the Hanbury House, a premier brothel disguised as a poker saloon. Every night, the miners flocked to the Hanbury House like sheep to their shepherd. And it didn’t matter if they had sacks full of gold or sacks full of empty dreams; those poor bastards spent money on broads, booze and wagers faster than Maclellan could snatch the money out of their claws. Soon Maclellan opened similar establishments all over the city. When other entrepreneurs tried staking a claim of Maclellan’s goldmine, he dealt with them swiftly and ruthlessly. After all, money could persuade a man to do pretty much anything, and unlike Philadelphia, the mountains surrounding Denver provided ample real estate for hiding the carcasses of his competition.