by Erin Lee
“EATING ALONE?”
She looks up at me as hives pop up across her neck and I have to laugh about her lack of a poker face. Either she knows exactly who I am or is perfectly in shock of a stranger’s level of bold. It doesn’t matter. With how quickly things are progressing toward the final end with me and Hudson, the time is now. In befriending her, I can learn more. I can frame her too.
“Um, yes,” she says, looking down at the table and putting her hands over her stomach as if she has a shot at covering it.
I humor her and don’t ask.
“I’ve seen you here before,” I say, smiling. “Love this place. Best egg fu young around.”
“For sure,” she says, lifting her eyes to stare back at me. This time, she doesn’t drop them. Challenge accepted.
To anyone watching, it might be awkward that we don’t introduce ourselves or say our names. Instead, I plop down in the booth across from her and ask her if she wants company, as if she has any other choice. She doesn’t really answer me. Instead, she just nods. “I’ll pay. I like to do good deeds.”
“Oh. Okay.”
By the time we’re through the fried dumpling appetizers, Kate’s entirely let her guard down. Whether a symptom of her naïve age or just who she is, she’s told me about her boyfriend – avoiding his name. She’s confessed her pregnancy and frustrations about him being a married man. And, over and over, she’s assured me that she had no idea he was married. I almost believe her. But almost? It isn’t a thing. Whether she knew or not, she didn’t ditch him when she found out about me. She’s no innocent.
I try to play it off, reminding myself Hudson has become more of a habit than a person I love. A business deal gone wrong, maybe, but not someone I’m passionate about. And oddly, it becomes easier to listen. She doesn’t bother to ask about me. Does she know? She has to. Instead, as if playing her shrink, I poke her with gentle questions about her life plan and pregnancy; planting seeds where I see opportunity.
“Don’t you think if he was really going to leave her, he’d be divorced by now? I mean, have you seen any of the court paperwork?”
Kate frowns. “No. He’s kind of secretive. I think he’s also worried about his mom.”
“His mom?” What a fabulous idea. Thanks for the reminder. I’ll call her again tonight – tell her Hudson doesn’t care about me. Fill her in on the pregnancy...
“Well, she doesn’t like the idea of him getting divorced. He came from a broken family. His father left him when his mother was pregnant and he was raised by his stepdad.”
“Well, seems to me that he’d have even more reason to want to be with you and the baby.”
“Daisy.”
“Daisy?”
“Yes. That’s her name. It’s a girl.”
I want to laugh out loud. Hudson always had stupid names and some strange obsession with plants. But this one takes the cake. Leave it to him to come up with the name of a flower for a baby. Poor kid. “Pretty name. Congrats,” I say, sipping warmish tea.
“I don’t know. I’m still not sure about it. If you had a kid, what would you name it?”
“Ingrid for a girl. Jack for a boy.”
“Ingrid?” Her nose twists and it’s her turn to laugh now.
“Well, what’s wrong with it? It’s classic.”
“Yeah. I guess. But it sounds, I don’t know, old fashioned.”
I watch as Kate’s face lights up and she begins to laugh. Her smile is contagious. Her blue eyes sparkle as she asks me if Imogene or Claire would be her middle name. I can’t take my eyes off of her – there’s something magical in her playful honesty. If her kid is anything like her, Daisy will be the perfect name. The question is: He loves her, he loves me not?
An hour passes quickly and we agree to meet at the same time, same place next week. A standing lunch date with my husband’s mistress. Talk about chasing fate. A month with her and everything will change. I’ll see to it.
Chapter Fourteen
Hudson, a month later
On. Off. On. Off. The dance is becoming no different than it was in my marriage. I can’t even think about Kat. Instead, the only thing that races through my head is Mary’s odd comment about me loving blondes. Why would she say such a thing? Mary is a brunette. Does she know? She has to. Was that the reason for everything?
I listen to Kat call me every name in the book patiently. I’m well aware that I’m a cheating bastard. But it’s not exactly my fault Brown ran another vow renewal announcement. I told him not to. Barbara said she’d make sure it didn’t go out: so much for that too. In the end, loyalty always belongs to the person writing the check. I blame Mary for all of it. While I’m the one who committed the wrong, she’s taken things too far. I can’t have Kat stressed out like this. Her pregnancy is high risk and screaming like this can’t be helping the baby.
I stare at a wall in my sterile hotel room and find my moment to interject. “Babe, you have to calm down. Daisy. Remember the baby.”
“Oh! My bad! You care about her now? That’s interesting. Maybe you could show up at appointments? Actions. Not words. But you don’t. And you won’t. You didn’t even bother when you were living at my house. Work. Mary. Always excuses. This just isn’t working. Me and you are done! Win for you. You got what you want!”
I don’t have the energy to try to stop her. Alone in a hotel room for the second week in a row, I’m running out of both patience and money. Between my mother, who won’t speak to me because I’m not making a good enough effort with supposedly pregnant Mary, Mary herself, whose entire life’s purpose is destroying me, and now Kat? Well, if anyone cares, I want to fake my own death.
“You don’t mean that. I tried to warn you that this would get ugly. This is why I was trying to get us a new place. What I want is my life with you and the baby!”
“You can’t afford it. And you don’t care about me anyway. Stop with the bullshit,” Kate yells.
“Why do you say that? I can afford it. I make good money.”
“Your wife probably takes your check and hands you an allowance. Makes sense. Everything does now. She’s been the one in charge all along. Tell me, does she carry your balls in her purse too?”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. She acts like she knows more about Mary than I do. The whole thing is getting old. While Mary has always been the one to manage the bills at home, I’ve easily swung every date and even paid Kate’s rent on a combination of expense checks and overtime money that doesn’t go into the shared account. But it’s not worth arguing. I’d have an easier time with Mary. I do have my pride. I’m not doing this all night.
“Not sure what you want me to do. You know where to find me if you change your mind.”
“Oh, at home? With your wife?”
“At the Marriot. Room 201.”
“Good. Stay there. I’m not interested. I’m blocking you. You’ll hear from the court about support after the baby’s born. That’s if I put you on the birth certificate at all. I haven’t decided. Maybe I should ask your wife. She’s the one running the show now. Hell, always has been.”
My heart sinks.
“You can’t do that. I love Daisy. She needs a father.”
“A cheating bastard who can’t bother to show up? I don’t think so. You want the kid having daddy issues? All set. I’m going to do what I need to do to protect her.”
“I can’t help mandatory meetings. I can’t help Mary’s bullshit court dates either. It’s not like I’ve never been to an appointment.”
“Five. Out of thirty. Great odds? I think not. Actions. Not talk. I’m over it.”
Bitch. I pause, wondering how to respond to that, as the phone goes dead. Fabulous.
Chapter Fifteen
Mary
If I couldn’t get to him—in the future that was—there was only one way to stop him. If I could not rewind because the stupid time machine was broken and I wasn’t quick enough to get the parts I needed, I’d need a backup plan. I’d
have to pull him back. I’d need to find the one thing that would motivate him to come back to the present – to 1889, where the blood of his victims was still fresh in the hearts and minds of Whitechapel and the whole of London.
It clicked faster than any plan I’d hatched on stealing kitchen and other royal supplies. The one thing that motivated him, the thing all his victims had in common was the mutilation. It mattered none to me the theories. Unmasking him made no difference to me. Now, I had to avenge Gretchen’s death. The only way to do it was to draw him back. I could do that with Elizabeth.
My poor wretch of an aunt. She’d been dead six months or so and the only one who he hadn’t had the chance to dismember. It had to haunt him. Every profile I’d read said his joy was in the mutilation. It was exactly why he’d done his best work with his last East End victim. Mary Jane Kelly had allowed him into her boarding room. He’d had more time with her than the others before, slicing up all of her – from chin to eyelids, eyebrows to breasts, he’d butchered her and placed her body pieces around the room. Sicker men, and copycats since, had called the crime scene his masterpiece. In fact, it may have been exactly what kept him dormant so long.
But Aunt Elizabeth had to bother him. She’d been buried nearly fully intact. The undertaker had taken pity on her and sewed her head back into place. She’d even had an open casket. They’d covered the stitches with a scarf like the ones she liked to wear and that he choked her with. I’d heard she looked beautiful, like an angel, even in death. Gretchen and I would not know. We didn’t attend. We were leery of our uncle, a successful porter by then, being there. But those things weren’t important. What was, was getting to her. I needed a way to remind him: He wasn’t done with her.
It, like the first he wrote, would start with a red-penned letter. I wasted no time. For once, I didn’t need to collect my thoughts. I’d studied the pathologies of him enough to know exactly what would set him off. In fact, I threw in extras to be sure. If the possibility of Elizabeth surviving his attack wouldn’t do it, an unmasked person writing in a woman’s hand, aware of the birthmark and mocking his manhood would. For fun, and because of what he’d done to my sister, I even added Boss. I knew how he felt about Scotland Yard. He’d followed along even more closely than I had.
To the accidently uninformed man I came to know in the year 2018 and those intent on unmasking him:
My name is Elizabeth Watts-Stride. I was ‘Jack the Ripper’s’ fifth victim. Don’t believe me? It’s true. You see, for as slippery as my dear Ripper appears to be, he alludes you all. What he did, and didn’t do, to me is proof. History speaks for itself. Do your research and the mystery of him is easy enough to figure out.
For the sake of formalities, I hope this letter finds you in good health, and, like me, in one piece.
The coroner’s report, the notes from the police ambulance too. They tell you all you need to know. He attacked me from behind – afraid to look me in the eye. ‘Jack’ isn’t exactly the kind of man a woman could ever be proud to know. Or, maybe I have that backwards. Maybe he’s truly a gentleman and saw in me what others did not. I like to think it so.
To those who have or will do the research, ask yourselves why? Don’t be fooled. It wasn’t a lack of time. Meaters were watching the courtyard show. My assault was earlier than the others too. No, we had plenty of time. It was more than that. Ripper, you see, was a man of romance too.
Boss,
My, my. What a long time.
I implore you, Ripper, to undo me again. Double dog—for a double event—dare you too. It is your job to free history from a wretched whore like me. Is it not? Come to me. Play with me even. I promise I won’t tell. No one will ever have to know. Like missing pages from a diary, our history will remain forever sealed in the empty pages like the corpse that is not mine buried in the grave you’ve yet to visit.
I’m disappointed, Ripper.
A man, one of virtue and high regard, would take the time to do things right. But fear not, love. We have plenty of time.
Unless you are afraid...
It’s not like I need unmask you. I saw you. I know you. I want to know more. Allow me to win your business, love...
Anxiously awaiting your undoing and mine too. Meet me where we last embraced. This time, year 89.
Don’t believe me? The birthmark is my proof. Remember?
Spring: A time for new beginnings. Shall we have an encore, Boss? Antiquity repeats itself. It always has and probably always will. Care to dance? Together, we could rewrite history. A fiery red-head at your side and fully aware of what drives you. A duo like us would erase all talk of the future’s 1910 Bonnie and Clyde.
Think about it. The choice is yours. I long to see you again by the courtyard.
Yours in depravity and love,
The eternally beautiful, fully intact, and very much alive Elizabeth Watts-Stride
Year, 1989
Satisfied, I sat back and re-read my letter. The pen on the cream colored paper had settled into ink in shades of Ingrid that made me laugh out loud. Gretchen would have been impressed with this unintentional development. I wondered if anyone else would ever pick up on it when they finally figured my identity out. I doubted it. It would likely go with me to my grave, or at the best of scenarios and soon, from my mouth to Gretchen’s. It might even be something we soon laughed about. I hoped so. It wasn’t important now.
Not much was. It mattered none that the Central News Agency would run a check. I was fully aware they may even go to the lengths of digging up my aunt’s grave to prove the letter a scam. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t the reporters’ or authorities’ interest I was after. No. The only one who mattered now was the man everyone called ‘Jack.’ He wouldn’t be able to forget the mysterious, unmasked woman who was now mocking him from the past. I could see the letter now: Scanned into tiny gadgets where people of the future would run their tests. They’d analyze my handwriting and try their best to determine my identity. I didn’t mind that either. I could imagine Dan and others at the FBI spending all night working on it. God, I missed them. All of them. But mostly my sister. I could not think of that.
Don’t. Don’t go there. Wait for the Ripper. Soon, he will be here. Nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter that the queen will surely be pissed off that you’ve left your job. She’ll find a replacement. This is one game you cannot lose. If he kills you, you’ll be reunited with Gretchen in a time and place unreachable in a stupid telephone booth. If he doesn’t and you put an end to him, you’ll wind up with the same: Gretchen will be alive and you can go back to the original plan of living a simple life. It’s that simple. It is him who will lose – a weak man, an opportunist who’s gotten away with malice for far too long. A man who thinks he’s a God and can get away with anything; travelling through the twists and turns of space, fate, and time and never being held accountable. That ends now. You know it does. Say it, Ingrid – ‘the Ripper is mine.’
WAITING WAS THE HARDEST part. To set the perfect trap, I’d need to lure him with the tiny details only he’d be sure to know and respond to. Like Jewish hate speech on filthy cobblestone walls, the best way to finally meet—face to face—with the Whitechapel killer was to make it a game and, ultimately, call a checkmate. I was convinced, even on knowing what he’d done to the others from the past, the present, and even those initial crimes, that I had what it would take to stop him. He’d underestimate me. That much, I was sure of. His hatred for lower society and a woman who’d only been able to secure work as a domestic servant and warehouse maid would work to my advantage. Of course, I’d have to add working girl to the list of labels a perverted killer like Ripper would be sure to throw on me before slicing me into tiny, bite-sized pieces.
I vowed not to be like the others. The thought of him tearing through my flesh and even keeping bits of it to eat made my stomach turn the way it had upon learning of Gretchen’s passing. Even now, a sour bile crept up toward my throat. I swallowed – hard. I focused my atten
tions on setting the scene. To truly lure him in to a boarding room in hopes of killing me, he’d have to believe it.
Knowing it to be hard to fake the stale smell of cigarettes and barroom stank, I closed my eyes and went back to the worst years of both father and mother’s drinking. There were the men. The women too. But those things hadn’t ever reeked the same way the whisky had as it seeped out of father’s skin as if in hopes to run from him. That was the smell I needed to have. That, topped with the cheap perfumes his collars and, often, the front of his pants, reeked of, was the smell I needed to have. This won’t be difficult. You managed to work your way into the royal household. It surely will be easier to go back. Backwards is closer to where you started than where you ended in Buckingham. Accept no failure. You just cannot. Think of Gretchen... Stop him. Rewind. Change everything.
The clock on Cooper’s Pub tower marks time. When it strikes six, I finally manage to collect my thoughts and do something about them. Armed with a semi-plan and determined, I decided I had nothing better to do than to collect my pay for my time in the Queen’s household and set out into the pubs for a little first-hand experience. I had no interest, truly, in doing it. It was just that I knew there was no way he wouldn’t spot my fake if I didn’t learn how to spend my nights as a lady of the night. At the very least, and with little now to lose, I figured I might even manage to pull off a good time.
It would be dangerous, of course. That much I knew. In my months of studying the gruesome murders of woman guilty only of trying to survive, I knew the fate I was putting myself to was grim. Still, other than the Whitechapel killer, even in the East End, most of the assaults of our time were domestic. They weren’t random killings by depraved men with paranoid hate agendas like Ripper’s. God, what an unimaginative name.
