by S A Falconi
You found her – her of old not of new. The her of new won’t be found, can’t be found. But that which defined the her of old, the source of her malice, lies within. I saw you, Detective, searching high and low for this artifact. I suppose now we may part with it, me and the her of new. May it thwart your endeavors, yet arouse your suspicions.
Although I rather enjoy my anonymity, I will grant you one crumb to lead you deeper into the fox’s den. One man is your beacon. In so many ways, he and I are one. In fact, he and you are one, for that sigil that gilds your breast once gilded his.
The Ripper
P.S. Do give Mr. Billing my deepest gratitude for such an eloquent pseudonym
The letter fell to the desk as Abernathe’s hands plunged into the package. His fingers curled about a damp sack. He removed it and the coroner’s perfume was so strong he could taste it. His fingers opened the sack and dumped its contents, not out of necessity or desire, but fear.
“Shit!” Abernathe exclaimed, shoving his chair back and leaping from his seat.
The detective was no man of medicine, but a course in forensic anatomy at the University of Chicago granted him enough expertise to know that the shriveled pear resting on his desktop was no fruit of any earthly bough. It was a human organ. A woman’s womb.
For several moments, Abernathe stared in disbelief, shock, awe. There before him, resting on a butcher’s sack as if it were a pristine cutlet, was the satchel of life. The bearer and protector of new existence.
Abernathe had told the officers on the banks of Clear Creek that he wanted the victim’s womb found immediately. Why? At first he thought it was because the organ would be that one piece of the puzzle that would transform some ambiguous splatter of color into a discernable, visceral entity. But now, with the piece in place and the puzzle no more perceptible than before, he realized that he just wanted to make the woman whole again.
The fact of the matter was, she was dead. They all were. And nothing was going to change that. But the monster that dissected them, transformed them from innocent women to primal cuts was still out there searching for his next offering.
When the shock subsided, Abernathe stuffed the letter into his pocket and cradled the organ in the butcher’s sack. Careful so as not to rouse interest, Abernathe glided down the staircase. He glanced over at the front desk officer who, at the sight of Abernathe, busied himself with senseless commotion in a desk drawer. Abernathe proceeded across the foyer and jabbed the toe of his boot into Chapman’s office door several times.
“What?” the chief grumbled within.
“It’s Abernathe. Open the door will you?”
The door creaked open, revealing Chapman’s gruff façade.
Abernathe didn’t even grant him time to invite him inside. He nudged by the chief and hurried over to the desk.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” Chapman demanded as he closed the door.
Abernathe placed the butcher’s sack and its contents on the desk and turned so Chapman could see.
“What is …” Chapman began but choked on the words when he fully realized what he was looking at. As if drawn to it by instinct, Chapman approached the desk. “Is that …” he began again, craning his neck to improve his view. “Is that a …”
“Woman’s womb? Yes it is,” Abernathe answered. “Not just any womb. Our third victim’s womb. Here–” Abernathe reached into his pocket and produced the letter.
Chapman, gaze still transfixed on the organ, slowly took the letter from Abernathe. His stare eventually broke and he unfolded and read the letter.
“My God,” he muttered when he finished. “How did you get this?”
Abernathe replied, “Post service.”
Chapman’s brow furrowed. “Post service? From whom? From where?”
“No name was provided, but there was an address. 39 S. Hanbury Avenue.”
The letter tumbled out of Chapman’s grasp and fluttered to the floor. Chapman’s eyes rolled to meet Abernathe’s. A queer grin emerged on Abernathe’s mouth.
“That’s the Hanbury House,” Chapman uttered.
Abernathe nodded, the excitement welling within his being.
“Fred,” Chapman continued, grave, “there’s something I haven’t told you… about this investigation. Something about the first victim.”
“What?”
“We know who she is. I know who she is.”
Abernathe’s grin disappeared. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I was hoping it was irrelevant. But now …” he trailed and sighed, “now I know it’s the most relevant clue of this entire investigation.”
Abernathe stepped forward. “Who is she, Harold?”
Chapman shook his head in disbelief before answering, “Her name’s Molly. Molly Donaghue. Ex-wife of Pete Donaghue.”
“My God,” Abernathe whispered. “It all makes sense now. The victims. Donaghue. It all fits together so abnormally and yet so perfectly.”
Chapman swallowed hard as his eyes returned to the organ on the desktop. “It does,” he mumbled. “Donaghue’s the Ripper.”
~
EXTRA
Ex-Cop the Ripper
New Evidence Links Former-Detective Pete Donaghue
By T.G. Billing
According to Denver Police Chief Harold Chapman, the new person of interest in the East Side Ripper murders is Pete Donaghue, former detective for the Denver Police Department and current bouncer for Ed Maclellan’s Hanbury House. Evidence coupled with Donaghue’s personal connections with the victims makes him a likely suspect. Chapman revealed that the second victim worked as a bath girl at the Hanbury House at the same time as Donaghue. In fact, sources say, Donaghue was known to be quite friendly with the young woman, widowed by an unfortunate mining accident. The third victim was identified as yet another Hanbury House bath girl. Names have not been disclosed as of yet. Most disturbing is Donaghue’s connection to the first victim. Apparently, she was identified as none other than Molly Donaghue, a former employee at the Hanbury House and Pete Donaghue’s allegedly estranged wife. Sources stated that Ms. Donaghue unofficially left the former detective approximately two years ago, roughly around the time of Mr. Donaghue’s investigation and expulsion from law enforcement.
Chief Chapman as well as Detective Abernathe wish to caution the citizens of Denver as Mr. Donaghue has not yet been apprehended or questioned regarding his knowledge of and involvement in the murders. Based upon the brutal nature of the crimes in addition to Donaghue’s infamous temperament, citizens are advised to notify the police immediately if they spot Donaghue. Do not confront him as he is highly dangerous.
Chief Chapman also revealed a second person of interest, Dr. Charles Martin Kraus. The psychoanalyst has recently been seen with Donaghue and is suspected of being an accessory to Mr. Donaghue. Dr. Kraus should also be viewed as impulsively violent due to his involvement in the inexplicable death of a former patient in his native Philadelphia. Again, if you’ve seen either of these men or have knowledge of their whereabouts, notify law enforcement immediately.
Donaghue stared with bewilderment at the newspaper. It had been three hours since he first saw it, and yet, time seemed to only magnify the shock of his imminent demise.
Kraus was the first to see the paper. He noticed it sitting on a stoop that he walked by during an early morning stroll. The words leapt out at him, shrieked at him. From the headline alone, he knew he had to return to his scant apartment and warn Donaghue, asleep on the floor after a drawn and fruitless night of hunting Walter Blackburn. Only after Donaghue read the article in its entirety did they realize that Kraus was in as much danger as Donaghue. Frankly, they were astounded that law enforcement had yet to come to arrest them. But Donaghue figured either the location of the doctor’s apartment was unknown or Billing’s haste to get the article to print was far greater than Abernathe’s haste to apprehend the alleged Ripper.
Regardless, both Donaghue and Kraus knew there was only one thing they
could do – flee. They slithered into the shadows of dawn and caught the next train leaving Central Station. The destination mattered little; they just had to get out of the city as quickly as possible.
As Donaghue continued to stare at the newspaper, Kraus sat across from him and stared out the window of the private compartment. They were fortunate to have a right-side compartment with a window permitting a wondrous view of Clear Creek and the surrounding canyon. Kraus was too preoccupied to notice the beauty of the scene though – the towering granite ramparts, the sentry-like pines, and that roaring, crystal-clear water dissecting the entirety. All he could consider was the threat to his freedom, the threat to his existence.
Donaghue sighed, breaking the silence of the compartment. Kraus turned and looked at his colleague apathetically.
“I don’t even know what to say, Doc,” Donaghue muttered. “I’ve dragged you into this hellish ordeal and for what?”
Kraus shook his head, replying, “I got my own damn self into this mess. And as for you, don’t you dare assume guilt for that which you have no responsibility. They scapegoated Maclellan earlier. That Polish brute before him. You’re the new scapegoat. All it’ll take is for another girl to show up slaughtered in the street for them to realize their false accusation won’t hold water. And where’ll they be when that happens? Up the creek with neither a paddle nor a pot to piss in.”
“I don’t know, Doc. Somehow I can’t help but feel like I am responsible for the murders.”
Kraus’ brow furrowed and he remarked sharply, “How do you suppose that?”
“My connections to the women, all three of them. I should’ve protected them. After all, that was my job wasn’t it? To protect Maclellan’s girls.”
“This has nothing to do with Maclellan’s girls,” Kraus replied. “It has everything to do with Molly.”
Donaghue turned away at the sound of her name.
“What is it you feel so much guilt about?” Kraus added. “She left you. You said it yourself, she chose to leave. How are you responsible for that?”
“You don’t get it,” Donaghue muttered, still looking away from Kraus. “I forced her away. I made her want to leave. I never laid a hand on her despite what that deceitful leech Billing wrote. But I’m guilty of something worse than abuse. I neglected her, Doc. I stopped caring for her. I was so trapped in the bourbon bottle that the one thing I should’ve done everything to keep I neglected the most. She didn’t leave because she wanted to. She left because I gave her no other choice.”
Donaghue was trapped in the worst kind of self-contempt that Kraus had ever seen. It was an affliction that could bring any man, no matter how calloused, straight to his knees. A man in such a state was bound for one thing and one thing only – self-destruction. For Donaghue, that self-destruction came from the liquor bottle. Although Kraus hadn’t said anything, Donaghue hadn’t touched a drop of booze since the hunt for the Ripper began. Kraus knew that was due solely to the fact that the investigation gave Donaghue a new sense of purpose. The hunt drove Donaghue’s being the way trapped steam powered a locomotive. It was a force so formidable, so eminent, that of a purpose in a man’s life. It was the one truth that Kraus came to firmly believe regarding the human psyche, that purpose, above all other entities of the mind, was the essence of human existence and survival. Without it, a man was nothing. A river without water. A book without print. A sail without wind.
“You know what I could use right about now?” Donaghue grumbled. “A drink.” Donaghue stood and slid the compartment door open. “Which way’s the liquor car?” he asked Kraus.
Kraus glared at Donaghue with half disgust and half pity. “What the hell is a drink gonna do for you?”
“Not now, Doc,” Donaghue muttered. “Don’t you dare.”
“What?” Kraus retorted. “Really. What the hell is a drink gonna do for you now? Better yet, what the hell did a drink ever do for you except drive your wife away?”
Donaghue’s brow furrowed and his face flushed with agitation. “Shut your mouth, Doc,” he grumbled. “Shut your mouth ‘fore you say something we’re gonna regret.”
“No, damn it,” Kraus barked as he stood. “You wanna know what’s one of the most spectacular things I’ve learned about you these last few weeks? You haven’t had a drop of liquor since we started this investigation. Probably haven’t even thought about having one am I right? That’s unheard of for a man who drained a bottle a day.”
Donaghue shrugged, answering, “Did it all the time when I was on the force.”
“You haven’t stopped drinking in years.”
“What is this?” Donaghue demanded. “You analyzing me now? Save your breath, Doc. I’m not some neurotic housewife whose only problem is loneliness. There’s nothing to analyze and I sure as hell don’t need some Freud fanatic telling me there is.”
Kraus realized that the beast of addiction was quickly reclaiming Donaghue’s soul and quietly returned to his seat.
“How ‘bout instead of analyzing me,” Donaghue continued, “you analyze yourself.”
Kraus’ shook his head, baffled by the remark. “What do you mean?” he inquired.
“What do I mean? I mean, what really happened to that woman in Philadelphia? Did you kill her, Doc? Drive her to the point where she wore the braided necklace? Huh? What happened?”
Kraus’ head swept back and forth as his mind raced. Donaghue was correct. The only person he should’ve been analyzing was himself. He’d committed the greatest faux pas in his field, the faux pas that Dr. Freud warned would be the downfall of psychoanalysis if not monitored closely. Kraus was still new to the field though. How could he have possibly realized what had happened? Or perhaps, he couldn’t bring himself to admit the fact that the faux pas had been committed in the first place.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Kraus muttered. “But the heart wants what it wants – or else it doesn’t care.” Kraus turned and looked at Donaghue. “Emily Dickinson wrote that…a letter to a Mrs. Samuel Bowles. The heart wants what it wants. How true those words are. You know what Dr. Freud says about love? We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love. It cripples us, Pete. Love. It makes men weak, foolish. The things men do when they’re in love…the things I did.”
Donaghue, seemingly entranced by Kraus’ monologue, stepped back into the compartment, slid the door shut, and placed himself in his seat.
“Freud calls it transference,” Kraus continued. “The emotion that pours from the patient during psychoanalysis is to be deflected by the analyst. Transference is when the emotion is unconsciously absorbed. In this case, it wasn’t just absorbed.”
Kraus paused and sighed. He returned his gaze to the window and saw the beginnings of what was to be the longest tunnel in the world, the Newhouse Tunnel. The tunnel alone appeared to be nothing more than a discrete hole in the mountain wall. But the men scurrying about, in and out of that discrete hole was altogether a monumental feat. It still amazed Kraus that man, as feeble-minded as he was, could devise the means to chisel thousands of feet into solid rock. And for what? A soft, shiny metal that had been deemed the ore of luxury thousands of years before? Kraus’ eyes turned to the rushing waters of Clear Creek. Before the Rush, the water alone carried enough precious ore to make a pharaoh sweat. Now just a few decades later, the waters were nearly depleted. But man’s eagerness for wealth, prosperity, and purpose weren’t about to falter simply because the waters ran dry. When one means became extinct, man discovered the next. That’s how the plan for the Newhouse Tunnel was devised in the first place, ingenuity for the sake of survival. For if such ingenuity didn’t exist, what would come of the men, the ramshackle settlements, and all those who were leeches not by choice but instinct? They too would evaporate.
If there was one chief difference between the East and the West, it was the instinct to survive. In the East, men were as soft as the linens adorning their backs. Many, those with wealth and means at least, were generations r
emoved from the hardships of working the land. They hadn’t earned a blister or a callous in the entirety of their existence, save for one on the thumb from working at a desk too long. They’d forgotten what true, brutish labor was. They lost the will to survive because survival became something wholly different in their minds. Survival wasn’t the bare minimum of nourishment required to keep your guts from twisting into inseparable knots. It wasn’t the bare minimum of water required to keep your tongue from becoming jerky. And it sure as hell wasn’t the bare minimum of oxygen required to keep the mining soot and dynamite smoke from fossilizing your lungs. To the gluttons of the East, survival was comfort. If there was one thing that Kraus had learned, life was anything but comfortable.
“Doc?” Donaghue uttered.
Kraus’ rumination broke and he returned his gaze to Donaghue.
“Still need that drink?” Kraus inquired.
Donaghue’s head shook. “What about the woman?” he probed. “Your patient?”
Kraus shrugged and sighed, answering, “Not much else to it really. I fell in love with her and I doubt if she ever knew it.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
Kraus’ eyes locked on Donaghue’s. “If she knew, why would she have killed herself?”
Donaghue nodded as his own thoughts drifted to Molly. What was her true motive for leaving? Surely his drinking and his work became overbearing, but Molly was never one to just quit. She was a fighter, a survivor. She never let anyone dictate the course of her life. No matter how many obstacles may have stumbled her, blockaded her, she never let them alter the path of her existence. Everything she did was in accordance of her will.
But that still didn’t answer why she left. All Donaghue knew was that whatever her reason, it was enough for her to abandon the life she once had.
“She chose it,” Donaghue absentmindedly uttered.
“What was that?” Kraus inquired, thinking Donaghue was referring to the woman from Philadelphia.
“Molly,” Donaghue muttered. “Wherever she went, she chose to go. Whomever did those things to her, she didn’t just know him. She trusted him. She…” Donaghue sighed as emotion began to rise in his throat. “She…loved him.”