by Blake Banner
She frowned. “OK…”
Right on cue, Harry returned with the pints and set them on the table. He glanced at us both as he did it and said, “I’m assuming, John, that you have already told Carmen about The Butcher of Whitechapel…”
I sucked my teeth and shook my head.
His jaw sagged a little. “Nothing at all…?”
I shook my head again.
He looked at me with meaning. “Nothing…?”
“Nothing, Harry. Nothing at all.”
Dehan sighed. “OK, guys, I think we have understood that I have been told nothing at all about the Butcher of Whitechapel. How about we set that right and somebody starts telling me?”
Harry picked up his glass, raised his eyebrows at me and said, “Over to you, me old mucker.”
I nodded.
“This was about fifteen, sixteen years ago, around the time I came over. There was a series of killings, all in Whitechapel. They were all young women in their early twenties, all blonde, pretty, between five foot five and five eight. There were four of them, Cindy Rogers, Amy Porter, Sally-Anne Sterling and Kathleen Dodge. Kathleen Dodge was Canadian, the other three were American. They all worked at the Royal London Hospital, in Whitechapel.”
I paused and took a pull from my pint. As I set the glass down, I went on. “Each one of them had been crucified on the floor in her own apartment. They had been stabbed in the heart with a large kitchen knife, they had each had their womb removed, without skill, and each one had had her eyes perforated post mortem. All the mutilations were post mortem. Each of the women showed signs of having been raped, but presumably he used a condom, because there was no trace of semen. And, each one had a note stabbed into her left eye with a meat skewer, with that same line from American Pie.”
Harry was staring at me. I avoided his eye.
Dehan said, “I’m guessing you didn’t catch him.”
I nodded again. “The guys who were in charge of this end of the exchange program figured we have a lot more serial killers in the States than they have over here, which is true, and so they thought I should be on the task force. So Harry and I worked it together. We had a suspect…”
I hesitated, staring at Harry. He shook his head. “John was never convinced. It was an American chap, Brad Johnson. He was one of those white supremacy militia types. We have them over here too, but we haven’t got any Rocky Mountains where we can lose them and let them play Rambo. God alone knows what he was doing over here, but we’d been keeping an eye on him because he was hooking up with a few radical far right groups, and we were worried about possible terrorist attacks.”
I took over. “It turned out he knew Sally-Anne Sterling. They had met on a dating site. Apparently, after the first date, she didn’t want to know, and he got mad. He sent her a few ugly messages. When we found the emails, we went and had a talk with him. He mouthed off a lot, he was an ugly customer, but I never liked him for the murders. Harry and the rest of the team disagreed. The evidence was inconclusive. In fact there was no forensic evidence—or very little…”
Harry said, “We found Johnson’s prints at the scene, and traces of his DNA on her bed sheets…”
I nodded. “The forensics connected him to her, but we already knew that they were connected. What it didn’t do was connect him to the crime, or to the other girls. He could conceivably have known them, he had no alibi for the nights of the other three killings, he was in London at the time and he lived in the area. But none of that was enough, it was just ifs and maybes. He lawyered up, got a solicitor and a barrister, and shortly after the last killing, he returned to the U.S. After that, the killings stopped, and I returned to New York.”
Harry was staring hard at me. After a moment, he grunted and said, “But he’s back now.”
I frowned at him. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly. We’ve been keeping an eye on him, but as of today I’m going to request a twenty-four hour a day watch. He’s been here for just over three months, promoting some business he’s in or something. You were deeply invested in that case, John. You had a real feel for it.”
I sighed and shook my head. “We are not going to agree, Harry. I still don’t believe he’s our man.”
“I don’t care, you are the man for this job, and I would really appreciate your help.”
I hesitated. “I need to think it over.”
He stared me in the eye, but pointed at Dehan. “And, John, you need to discuss it with your wife. And I mean, everything!” He drained his glass and stood. “I’m going to go and attend to a few things. I will see you back here in about three quarters of an hour. Meanwhile, you ’fess up, me old mate.”
He walked out into the leaden, gray light of the late afternoon. I could feel Dehan staring at me, but I couldn’t meet her eye. Finally, she said, “What the hell is going on, Stone?”
I looked her in the eye. “I think Brad Johnson killed my wife.”
TWO
She stared at me for a long time while I stared at the large glass of dark beer on the table in front of me. Eventually, she said, “Your wife?”
I nodded, still without meeting her eye. “We were only married a very short time.” I finally looked up at her. “I’m sorry. I should have told you a long time ago.” She frowned and I kept talking, trying to preempt her anger and disappointment. “There always seemed to be something else to talk about, or it was inappropriate, or it would have spoiled the mood. It’s not exactly something you bring up on a honeymoon. There never seemed to be a right moment.” I sighed. “Like I said, Carmen, it’s not that I didn’t want to tell you. I guess I’ve just grown used to avoiding it, not thinking about it… I’m sorry.”
She was still frowning. “Hey.”
I looked into her eyes. They were serious.
“You’re my guy. Stop apologizing. I told you once, whatever it was you were not talking about, I’d hear it when you were ready. You don’t need to apologize to me for anything, Stone.”
She held out her fist. I smiled and punched it gently. “You’re one of a kind, kiddo. I should marry you.”
“So, do you still love her?”
I shrugged. “I love her memory. I always will. She was a very special person, and we were good. But it was fifteen years ago. I have laid her to rest.” I shook my head. “It’s not the same…” I gestured at her and then at me. “I’m a different person now. What we have is not like anything…”
She gave me a smug smile. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “I know what we’ve got, Stone. You don’t need to explain.” Then she became serious. “But if we’re going to do this, investigate this murder, you’ll need to tell me what happened. You’ll also have to tell me, honestly, if you can do it. We don’t have to do this. We can go home.”
I thought about it. Eventually, I gave a single nod. “Yeah, knowing you’re there.”
“Always.”
“I met Hattie…” I stopped.
Dehan had given a little start. She smiled and shook her head. “It’s stupid, but, realizing she had a name…”
“Yeah, Henrietta: Hattie. We met soon after I moved out here. We took it slow. I guess we were cautious about my job, and the fact that I lived on another continent. Plus, I was only supposed to be here six months.” I paused and gave a small laugh. “We’re supposed to be checking in and ordering martinis at Heathrow Airport. Instead we’re here, doing this… You sure you’re OK? It’s the past. It’s fifteen years ago…”
“Stone. Look at me…”
I realized I had been talking to the ceiling and sat forward to face her.
“Sometimes, when we don’t confront something that we need to confront, life kicks us in the ass and makes us confront it.”
I smiled. “Is that in the Torah?”
She nodded. “Yeah, in those very words. Exactly like that. It also says, ‘Now cowboy up’.”
I sighed noisily. “After I got my first six months extended, I guess we both decided it was time t
o get a bit more serious, and look at options. I could move here. I like England, the guys at the Yard were getting used to me. We had a good working relationship. Harry was a friend…” I spread my hands. “Or, she could move back to the States with me. She wasn’t crazy about that option. She was a talented artist and illustrator. She was known here, her publisher was here in London…”
I stopped and took a long pull on my drink.
She waited a moment, then said, “So by your seventh month here, you were beginning to get serious.”
I nodded.
“You always were rash and impetuous, even back then…?”
I gave her a lopsided grin. “I guess I was. So we started talking about marriage. We got engaged and I asked for a second extension, got told yes, but that was the last: either I came home or I stayed in London. We decided, whatever we did, whether we stayed in London or moved to New York, we would have to be married. So, that was what we did. I don’t think her family were thrilled. A New York cop from the Bronx wasn’t exactly what they had in mind for their daughter, but they accepted me.”
“Was she from a nice family?”
I nodded. “What they call posh.” I smiled. “Port Out Starboard Home. That’s where the first class cabins were.”
She laughed.
I went on. “She was posh, yeah. Her parents had a house in the country and another in Chelsea. We used to visit them, and with time, they grew to like me, more or less. I don’t think they ever forgave me for not having a huge wedding, but Hattie told them she had better things to spend her money on, and bought me the Jag. She knew I would love it, and it was a subtle way of making it that much more difficult to go back to the States.”
I fell silent. Dehan stood and went to the bar. She came back a couple of minutes later with two more pints and set one of them in front of me. It struck me that she could not have been more different from Hattie. But then, I was no longer that John Stone. She took a pull, smacked her lips, sighed and smiled.
“So meantime, almost a year has gone by. What’s happening at work?”
“That was more than a year. That was about fifteen months, by the time we got married. Meantime, the killer they were now calling the Butcher of Whitechapel was turning into a real nightmare. He had killed his fourth victim, just about everybody on the taskforce was convinced Johnson was our man, but I didn’t buy it. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was a cultural thing. They were locked into the idea that they were ‘American murders’. The victims were American, serial killers are pretty rare here but common in the States, the first victim had had a relationship with an American who just reeked of killer…”
“But you didn’t like him for it.”
I shook my head. “No, because I knew he was more than capable of revenge killing, or killing some guy in a brawl in a bar, or shooting some guy in a heist. But he wasn’t going stick around to perform rituals. Johnson is just a primitive, brutish bad man. The guy who killed these girls is a paranoid schizophrenic. Johnson, in his simple, animal way, is perfectly sane.”
“So what happened?”
“There was a lot of frustration. There was no forensic evidence to move the investigation forward. We had no way of tying Johnson to any of the actual crimes. We pulled him in a few times and each time, they either had me present at the interview, or, the last couple of times, they had me interrogate him. By then, he was claiming police harassment and that we were out to frame him.”
I took another pull and leaned back in my seat. “What made it more complicated was that Johnson was obviously involved in something. You could see that a mile away. I figured he was running small arms for radical, far right groups over here. So that made him look guilty.” I spread my hands. “Because he was. He was guilty, but he was guilty of something else.”
“Did you ever prove anything, find out what he was into?”
I stared over at the cold, empty fireplace and after a while gave my head a slow shake. “No. We’d been married just a few weeks. It was about a week after I had interviewed Johnson the last time. I got home to our apartment and…” I had to stop. I steadied my breathing and shrugged, then shook my head. When I spoke, it came out as almost a whisper. “She’d been murdered while I was at work. In our bedroom.”
We were silent for a long time. Dehan didn’t speak, she just watched me. I waited for the images to subside, tried to see them in my mind as old, black and white photographs in an old newspaper; something that had been reported a long time ago, in another life.
I breathed slowly and steadily, and eventually I was able to talk again. “Again, there was no forensic evidence, but somebody had written on the mirror, in her blood, the words, ‘back off’.”
She reached across and took my hand. “Stone, I am so sorry. I don’t know what to say, what I can do…”
I smiled. “There is nothing anybody can do. You did it already. You married me and gave me a new life.” I spread my hands, trying to stay cool and hold it together. “I went back to the States. I took the Burgundy Bruiser with me. After a couple of weeks, I went to pieces. I took three months, saw a therapist, who helped. Then I went back to work, with the determination that I would be the best cop I could be.” I paused and thought a moment. “And I always had this conviction that it’s not enough just to punish somebody. You have to punish them for what they have done, and they have to know that. Otherwise it is not justice, it’s just revenge.”
She made a face and nodded. “I get that.” Then she leaned back and studied me for a moment. “OK, so if you don’t want to do this, we tell Harry and the Inspector we are sorry, but it just ain’t going to happen, and we go home.”
“No. I do. It’s…” I gave a one-sided shrug. “In some weird way, it’s timely. It will be good to tie this up and resolve it.” I gave her a smile, and couldn’t keep from it fifteen years of weariness, of exhaustion from living with that nightmare ever present. “In obedience to the Torah, according to Carmen Dehan.”
She smiled with rare and genuine tenderness in her huge, brown eyes. “Asshole,” she said.
“You know it’s mutual.”
She leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees. “It’s a hell of a coincidence.”
“That the feeling is mutual? Not really. We are both assholes. The whole precinct knows it and agrees.”
“Shut up, Stone. The fact that the girl has been killed, in the same way, and that Johnson is back in the country.”
I screwed up my face and shrugged one shoulder. “It’s only a coincidence if it’s a coincidence, and then…” I nodded. “It would be one hell of a coincidence.”
She gestured at me with an open hand. “This is either a sign that you are, truly, brilliant, or that you have been drinking too much English beer.”
“I mean, if it were a coincidence, it would be one hell of a coincidence. But what if it’s not? Because, you know, it probably isn’t.”
“That is kind of my point, Stone.”
“No, I know, but think about it. Assume, for the sake of the argument, that it is not a coincidence, but also that I am right and Johnson is not our man. Where does that leave us…?”
She thought about it, frowning hard. “A frame up?”
“That’s one possibility. Dehan, did you look at the note that was pinned to her eye?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know what was going on yet, and I didn’t think I was invited to the party.”
“Get Harry to show you. I want to know what you think. The other thing is, how tall would you say the victim was?”
She thought about it a minute. “Five two?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Shorter than the other four. Not a lot to go on.”
I nodded. “I agree. Brad Johnson lives in Arizona. In a place called Three Points, west of Tucson.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I have kept a file on him for the last fifteen years, well… fourteen years, in fact. After I got
back, I contacted Tucson PD and the Sheriff of Pima County, went to see him, the sheriff, and told him the story. I told him that Scotland Yard suspected Johnson of being a serial killer, but that I thought they were wrong. I did, however, suspect him of gun running, and of having killed my wife. He was sympathetic, and grateful for the heads up. He agreed to keep me in the loop if anything happened.”
“And?”
“Nothing happened. So either he’d just stopped killing or he was the wrong man, as I had always suspected.”
She picked up her beer and sat holding it, staring out the window at the heavy, gray light outside. Finally, she gave a small frown and said, “Or he was killing away from home.”
I made a doubtful face. “Not his MO here.”
She made a doubtful face to match mine, then asked, “What about the gun running?”
I gave a small laugh. “In Arizona, any person twenty-one years of age or older, who is not prohibited possessor, may carry a weapon, openly or concealed, without the need for a license. Arizona is one and a quarter times the size of the U.K., and has slightly less than the population of London. So, if he is buying guns in Arizona and shipping them to the U.K. on a fairly small scale, that would be hard to detect. When it comes to gunrunning, if your name is Ali, or Mustafa, and you have a big, black beard, you’re probably on the radar. If you’re white and blond and your name is Brad Johnson, you’re probably not a member of Al Qaeda, so nobody cares.”
“So you have no hard evidence that he is or was selling guns to the U.K. far right.”
“No. It was just a hunch. A strong hunch, but a hunch. He was doing something, that I am sure of. But that isn’t the point.”
She nodded. “I know. The point is that for fifteen years, there hasn’t been another killing like those four, not near where Johnson was or here.”
“Yeah, until now.” I hesitated. “And the killing is similar, but it’s not identical.”