Fleet Street Felony

by Bettie Jane

  After nearly an hour of scouring his files, she leaned back in his chair and rubbed her eyes. She needed to catch up on what he’d been collecting for weeks as quickly as possible. She knew, without Jacob having to tell her, that time was of the essence in a murder investigation.

  She collected all the files and loose papers into a thick stack and approached Suzette, the beautiful blonde woman with green eyes and red lipstick.

  “Hi, Suzette? I’m Julia Barlow, and Mr. Thompson said I should let you know if I need anything.”

  “Yes, Miss. You’re here to figure out what happened to our Harry. How can I help?”

  Her voice was small and her eyes looked moist.

  “I’d like to borrow a satchel or a basket to carry Harry’s files. I’ll be going through them in more detail later.”

  “Of course, Miss.” She sniffled, and Julia was certain she was crying. Julia watched her open a cabinet nearby and pull out a tooled leather satchel.

  “Here you are.” She handed a leather satchel. “Will this do?”

  “It’s perfect. Thank you.” Julia took the bag. “I’m sorry for your loss, Suzette. Were you and Harry close?”

  “I—we’ve worked together for a long time. That’s all. He was such a kind man and I simply can’t believe he’s gone. Most of the reporters barely notice the existence of the secretaries, but not Mr. Jones. Sometimes he would even invite me to lunch with him in the St. Bride Churchyard,” she explained as though happy to finally speak of him. “Somehow, he made lunching in the shadow of headstones not at all disturbing. One time he took me after work to the White Hart pub. I believe he lived near there somewhere.”

  Her voice wavered, but she continued. “I simply cannot believe that he is dead. I felt…special, somehow, around him. Special in a way that I’d never felt before.”

  Suzette glanced around the room and then dropped her eyes. If Julia were a betting woman, she’d gamble Suzette had a bit of a crush on Harry Jones. She wondered if Harry had known.

  “I’m so sorry, Suzette. He sounds like a wonderful man. I’m sure he’ll be sorely missed. I’ll bring these files back soon. Take care of yourself. Thank you again for the satchel.”

  There was nothing she could say at this moment that would be adequate, so she walked back to Harry’s desk, gathered all the files and miscellaneous slips of paper, and placed them in the large leather satchel. Julia looked around briefly but didn’t see Mr. Thompson. He must have had other business to attend to, so she left without saying goodbye to anyone other than Suzette.

  He was right. This was no way to meet prospective co-workers. She put the satchel in the boot of her auto before she made her way to Scotland Yard headquarters.

  She dreaded seeing Jacob today. She told herself to keep things professional, focus on Harry and the other murders—anything but the disaster that had become her personal life.

  She walked into the headquarters building as she’d done a dozen other times since she’d met him last November, but this time she felt like a stranger walking into a strange land. This place had come to feel like a second office these last few months. Now she only saw painful reminders of her time here with Jacob.

  She willed herself to find her composure and walked toward Jacob’s desk. He wasn’t there so she sat down and waited. Only about ten minutes passed before Jacob appeared, his assistant right on his heels.

  “Mr. Abernathy, you recall Miss Julia Barlow? Miss Barlow, my assistant Mr. Abernathy. Mr. Abernathy has gathered all the files for you to see on the Dock Murderer case. If you’ll excuse me.”

  To her utter astonishment, Jacob turned on his heel and walked out of the station without looking back.

  She stared at his retreating back until he rounded the corner. If looks could kill, he would surely have hit the floor before he rounded the corner.

  Death by murderous stare.

  She clenched her hands into fists and willed the tears away that had begun forming in her eyes.

  Deep breath, Julia.

  She turned to face Jacob’s well-groomed assistant. “Thank you, Mr. Abernathy. I can take these with me?”

  “No, Miss. These must stay here. I have to stay with the files at all times, but Inspector Gibbs said you should make yourself comfortable at his desk.”

  “Did he? I see. Very well then.”

  She sat down and began looking through the files, but she couldn’t see past her unshed tears.

  “If you’ll excuse me for a minute. I need the ladies room.”

  She stood and practically ran down the hall, trying to get out of sight. She felt utterly humiliated that he’d left her in such a public way. She locked herself in a stall and let the tears silently fall down her cheek. She needed to get herself together. She let herself cry for a few moments and then stood up and rinsed her face at the sink.

  “That’s enough, Julia. No more tears.”

  With that self-admonition, she walked back to Jacob’s desk and spoke to Mr. Abernathy.

  “Since I can’t bring the files home with me, I have some I’ll need to bring in to compare. I’ll be right back.”

  “Yes, Miss.”

  She walked to her auto and retrieved the leather satchel with the contents of Harry’s desk. When she arrived back inside, she spread out her documents and then began looking through the files that Mr. Abernathy so dutifully guarded.

  She spent most of her time looking at the police records since she couldn’t take them with her. Transcripts of interview after interview of families, friends, and co-workers of all the women who’d been murdered. There were a couple women mentioned in the police files who Julia noted were also in Harry’s files, with Harry’s notes being much more comprehensive. The police were not nearly as far as along in their investigation as Harry was. She wondered if Jacob would be annoyed to know that. A newspaper crime reporter was better at policing than the police were.

  She read through each interview and police report without a real hope of being able to remember the pertinent details. She was fuming about Jacob’s brush off and could barely concentrate, but she needed to be sure she wasn’t missing any information. The information detailing where the bodies had been found, all near or on Fleet Street, jumped out at her. Was there a pattern to these different locations or was it random? That’s when she decided she wouldn’t be bound by Jacob’s rules. She was going to take some of this home no matter what the Scotland Yard had to say about it.

  She dropped her pen.

  When Mr. Abernathy bent over to retrieve it, Julia quickly slipped a few documents that looked promising into the leather satchel and hoped that Abernathy wouldn’t want to search it.

  As soon as he stood up, she began gathering the rest of Harry’s documents and putting them into the satchel.

  Her heart pounded while she left the headquarter building and placed the satchel with its purloined papers in the back of her car. If Jacob found out about this, he’d be so angry with her.

  That was fine with her. She shouldn’t be the only one angry.

  5

  Tuesday, February 12th, 1921

  Scotland Yard

  London

  Julia’s heart pounded all the way to Mayfair. She was nervous but simultaneously thrilled at her direct rebellion against Jacob. Somewhere in her mind she was quite aware that she’d have to pay the piper for this at some point, but that would be future Julia’s problem. Right now, operating in complete disrespect for anything Jacob wanted seemed like just the thing.

  Once she was back home, she spread out the contents of her borrowed satchel over her bed. How convenient it would be if she had a full-time office space at home. On that same vein of thought, she considered the possibility of living on her own, rather than staying with the Goodalls. They never treated her like a guest, instead insisting she had a home, and she felt very welcome, but this upset with Jacob had her questioning all of her life choices up to this point.

  She stood back and eyed the contents of her bed-tur
ned-desk. The documents she’d taken from Jacob’s desk that had caught her eye earlier mocked her from their position on her pillow.

  She felt a little foolish for taking the documents, but maybe they’d come in handy.

  The documents she’d procured from Harry’s office were likely the more useful files. He had so much information about the Dock Murders. Honestly, the police files were merely distant echoes of Harry’s. His notes and documents were much more thorough than Scotland Yard’s were. He had clearly done more than his share of research on each of the murder victims. She would have enjoyed working with him.

  There were four victims of the Dock Murderer, which everyone who’d been paying any attention to the headlines knew: Rebecca, Louise, Sharon, and Nicole. Harry had specific files on each woman, detailing everything from eye and hair color, weight, known acquaintances, their work history tracing from most frequent to their first. His files stop at St. Vincent’s orphanage for each of them.

  She flipped through his little black book and read through his most recent notes, which detailed his suspicion about the church connection. Scribbled on one of the last pages was one word that had been scratched through. She felt as though she might be able to make it out if she looked a bit closer, but the harder she tried to focus, the more blurry the image became. In frustration, she closed the book.

  At this point Julia was operating under the assumption that whoever murdered the Dock Girls was also Harry’s murderer. There was always the possibility that his murder was totally unrelated to that. It only made sense for her to consider all the options, so she began compiling a list in her mind of possible suspects.

  She always included, at least in her initial analysis, the person who found the body or reported the murder. In this case, that was Scotty Gibbons, the bartender at Bower and Co. He seemed genuinely distressed by Harry’s death, so it would be easy to eliminate him from suspicion, but she’d made that mistake with Sydney during the Eliza Withers’ investigation.

  She thought back to last night when she’d met the bartender and tried to remember the details he’d provided about when he found Harry.

  Unfortunately, Julia had still been reeling from her own relationship complexities so she hadn’t been at the top of her game. Perhaps another conversation with the bartender was warranted. As of now, he had no motive that Julia was aware of that would place Harry in his sights.

  Recognizing that her own personal drama was interfering with her ability to do her job, she vowed not to worry about Jacob until this investigation was over. She needed a clear head, and allowing herself to worry over Jacob was a weakness she could not afford the luxury of having.

  “Good girl, Julia. Focus on work.” She smiled to herself and re-focused on the papers strewn across her bed.

  If, she assumed for a moment, Harry’s killer was not the Dock Murderer and it wasn’t the bartender, who else floated to the top of her mind as a potential suspect?

  The church-run orphanage. Harry had commented to Scotty that those who ran the orphanage had been less than helpful. If her memory served her, Scotty’s interpretation of Harry’s story was that someone was hiding something. Had he been close to solving the Dock Murders? Was it someone affiliated with the orphanage? Did they know he was on to them and so silenced him before he could point the finger at them?

  Her mind was inundated with possibilities…questions she needed answers to, lines of suspicion to follow. She needed to write this information down. She clearly wasn’t fit right now to try and hold onto these details in her head.

  Damn Jacob and his timing. She needed to focus so she could uncover this murder.

  She searched through her own bag, not the borrowed one from The Daily Telegraph, for her own small black notebook.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake. Where did I put it?”

  She resisted the urge to judge herself for speaking aloud in an empty room and pressed on with the conversation with herself.

  “You are fine, not mad at all, Julia. You are simply distracted with the weight of both the Dock Murders and Harry’s murder, add in the nonsense with Jacob and of course you feel a bit loony.”

  Yes, she thought. That’s it. Important matters rested on her shoulders at a time when she was also under personal distress. She inhaled and exhaled slowly and reminded herself she was going to be fine.

  “You are fine.”

  She nodded to herself, trying to believe her own words of comfort. It wasn’t truly working, but she recalled that she’d used her backup notebook when she’d been at the pub interviewing the bartender.

  A knock on her bedroom door brought her out of her chaotic thoughts.

  “Yes? Come in.”

  The door swung open and Frankie sauntered in with a giant grin on his face.

  “How’s my favorite newspaper girl?”

  “Frankie! You don’t know how good it is to see a friendly face.”

  “We’ve been missing you at our parties lately. Your Jacob been keeping you busy?”

  That was all it took. A caring friend mentioning his name in the light of this very hard day cut through all her distractions, and she practically fell into Frankie’s arms.

  “He—he—Jacob doesn’t want me, Frankie. My heart is positively breaking from this.”

  Frankie held her and gently stroked her hair while she cried into his shoulder until she was out of tears. All the while he offered soothing words that felt like a salve on a recent wound.

  “There, now, Julia. Don’t you worry. I’m here, I’m here.”

  His words were calming, and she remembered why she was so fond of Frankie. He was a sensitive man, having matured into that from a sensitive little boy. He’d always been so great at comforting others and being a support. Her memory flashed briefly to the evening in his father’s study when she’d thought he’d killed Lady Eliza Withers. Now, as he held her in his arms and comforted her, she wondered how she could have ever considered him a murderer. It was quite impossible.

  She backed out of his arms and took the handkerchief he offered her.

  “Thank you, Frankie. You are such a good friend.”

  “And you are a beautiful, intelligent woman. If Jacob doesn’t want you, which I find very hard to believe given that I’ve seen the way he looks at you, but if he doesn’t want you then he’s crazy. I mean, certifiably crazy, dear girl.”

  She sniffed and smiled at him. It did help to name call just a little bit.

  “You know what to say, Frankie.”

  He eyed the papers spread all over her bed. “What are you up to now? Plotting your revenge on the Inspector? I can help. Just ignore me if I get any crazy ideas like stealing a ring from a wealthy lady.”

  They both laughed at that, and she was so grateful that Frankie was clearly not holding any grudges toward her for having accused him. He had been guilty of a bit of foul play, after all. It wasn’t completely out of nowhere that she’d accused him.

  “A journalist was killed last night outside Bower and Co. in Fleet Street,” she told him. “The editor at the paper he worked for asked me to pick up where he left off on his story. He was investigating the Dock Murders. It’s possible he was murdered because he got too close to catching the killer.”

  “You think the Dock Murderer killed the reporter who was writing all the articles about him? That’s a pretty big story.”

  “Yes, it is. I need to figure out everything he knew and quickly. If he was murdered by the Dock Murderer, we need to find him quickly. It makes me nervous to know he is roaming the streets of London.”

  “You are trying to solve the Dock Murders in order to catch your reporter friend’s killer? That sounds easy.” Frankie’s voice was thick with sarcasm.

  “Well, I didn’t say it would be easy, only that it would be necessary. However, it is also possible that his murder is completely unrelated to the Dock Girls. Harry thought there was a connection to St. Vincent’s orphanage in Hampstead, and I think I should follow his most recent lead sin
ce it is likely, or at least possibly, what led to his death.”

  “That sounds like a good strategy, except for the ‘it might get you killed’ part. If the murderer has killed one reporter, what’s to stop him from killing a second?”

  Julia shrugged. “Even if Harry’s murder was connected to the Dock Girls, the killer won’t know I’m investigating for a while. Nobody else, besides you and Inspector Gibbs, knows that Harry’s editor asked me to pick up where Harry left off. I’ve got a jump on him, for now, which is all the more reason to act quickly.”

  “Where will you start? At St. Vincent’s?”

  “Seems like a reasonable place to begin.”

  “Let me come with you?”

  “Surely you have more interesting things to do?”

  “More interesting than help you find a murderous madman? I doubt that. All I’ve got on the agenda are more parties and, while I do enjoy my share of fun, this sounds much more intriguing. Besides, though I hardly consider the great Julia Barlow to be helpless, sometimes there is safety to be found in numbers, don’t you think?”

  Julia considered his idea for a moment. If she thought too long about it, it did frighten her to be hunting a violent criminal alone. Usually she had Jacob around, and she didn’t realize until at that moment that she’d taken strength by having him in her life. It would be rather comforting to have Frankie with her.

  “On one condition, Frankie.”

  “Name it.”

  “Don’t try to big brother me. It’ll be nice having you around, but I can’t have you trying to give me orders or to keep me safe. I’m an adult. Something that Inspector Jacob Gibbs has forgotten.” She could hear the venom creeping into her voice and took a deep breath. “Do we have a deal Frankie?”

  He extended his hand, a playful grin spread across his face.

  “Yes, Miss Barlow, we have a deal. I solemnly swear never to try to keep you safe or boss you around. I will function purely as a companion of dashing good looks and someone to do your bidding. Perhaps, if I’m on my best behavior, you’ll allow me to buy you a drink from time to time.”