The Ripper's Daughter
Page 1
THE RIPPER’S DAUGHTER
By
ANDERS & PHAIR
KINDLE EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
ANDERS & PHAIR
The Ripper’s Daughter
Copyright © 2012 by ANDERS & PHAIR
Your support and respect for the property of the authors is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Adult Reading Material
*****
The authors wish to acknowledge and thank those without whose help this work could not have been accomplished. This book is dedicated to Maite, Lee and Dan and all those special people out there who were crazy enough to believe.
*****
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Book Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
*****
Book Blurb
Ting.
"F," Colby noted dully.
Daylight to darkness, Detective Colby Willis' descent into oblivion was well greased with drugs, alcohol, and black outs. She was slipping into the abyss ever since her partner, mentor, and friend, Detective Marty Walsh got up close and personal with the Ripper's Daughter. Colby failed him when he needed her most and it cost her, his life.
The Ripper's Daughter, a killer with no pattern, no mythology, and no timetable. Eight bodies in five years and the numbers were sure to increase, leaving the Boston PD helpless to do anything but wait for the next victim to surface.
Jessie Walsh's life became a hell of someone else's making the night her father was butchered. She was found catatonic cradling his body and ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial for murder. Colby always had her doubts about Jessie's mental state. Is Jessie faking a breakdown to beat a murder rap?
If she's not then the Ripper's Daughter may have eyes for her and Colby.
*****
Chapter 1
Sunday, December 20
The snow was a mixed blessing. Jacob used to like it when it snowed. Each drifting flake carried a memory of childhood days rocketing down the frozen white slopes of Mary Hemenway Park, the gleaming red runners of his sled tearing recklessly through the endless virgin snow. He would give up a million dollars to be nine again and back out on that hill. Truth was he would do anything even suck his own dick to be anywhere but here.
He couldn’t stop shivering. The cold made his limbs, muscles, and teeth take on a life of their own, animated by some primitive human instinct bent on survival. What a joke considering the violent shaking inflicted on his body by the involuntary motion was slowly disemboweling him. Each shiver and shudder shook the coils of the slinky looped around his neck and stretching the length of his torso to the grinning wound across the width of his belly. The initial horror slowly turned to benign acceptance over the hours he watched helplessly as the rippling shock waves cascading through the metal toy tugged on his intestines, encouraging them to ooze out onto his lap.
The bastard was fast for a man his age and smooth. It was all second nature for him like taking a piss. Jacob never even got a chance to fight back. The snow was firmly packed in behind him like a tomb by the time he managed his first scream.
"Whimper, not a scream," he silently corrected himself. "Shit face super glued my lips together to make sure of that!"
The entire situation would be laughable except it was real. He had been tasered, kicked in the head, tussled up with duct tape, and dumped in a hollow dug-out in the snowbank. The attack was so sudden and unexpected; he didn't realize he was cut open with a slinky around his neck until he was on his knees inside his snowy grave.
A sliver of street light lit his doom. The bastard punched a hole in the snow at eye level to give Jacob a narrow view of the street. As he lingered verging on death, not a single soul wandered into sight on the frigid Boston night pregnant with whispers of a white Christmas.
He couldn’t feel his legs anymore and the tears of anger and frustration had long since frozen on his face. Still he was grateful the invading numbness was making the agony of his sliced belly easier to bear. He was nearly resigned to his grisly fate when a dark shape stumbled up to an illegally parked car on the Fenway side of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Hope suddenly surged through frozen veins. Heat raced from heart to limbs before flooding out onto his lap as more of his innards spilled onto his thighs. He found the strength to moan, but the figure was too far away to hear the pitiful sound. In desperation, he started smashing his head against the icy wall. The thunk, thunk, thunk against the hard packed snow made no difference to the drunk fumbling with her keys.
He struggled harder in hopes she might somehow hear him, but any noise he made proved no competition to the droning motor of the snow plow which took the right off Longwood Avenue. The plow blade moving the freshly fallen dusting toward the waiting snowbank was briefly delayed by the Charger lurching out into the darkness.
The plow operator demonstrated his clear annoyance by shifting up to increase speed. He intended to push the snow pile back up over the curb to widen his path for the next pass. It was bad enough he had to be out clearing the nearly deserted streets of the City of Boston at this ungodly hour without some two bit drunk slowing him down.
***
Her head was throbbing. The bare 100 watt bulb blazing at the top of the stairwell burned neon halos into her naked eyes. Melissa had little choice but to blink the tears away. Turning away was impossible regardless of how much she willed her broken body to move.
Oxygen was in short supply since she landed on the cellar floor after tumbling down the steep wooden stairs. While her brain continued to beseech her lungs and limbs into action. They remained silent and unmoved by her entreaties.
"Legally, silence is consent," the thought chaffed. "They are obliged to move."
He was there still. She could feel his presence to her left, sitting on the straight back wooden chair she meant to throw away before the holidays, watching her while he finished the rest of his sandwich—chicken mayo on white. He never grew sick of telling her, he was a simple man with simple tastes.
She knew he was enjoying her every labored breath, every bitter tear spilled. He understood how things like this worked. Death was his arena. If their positions were reversed, she would be doing the same. Savoring another person's pain was a dark taste he cultivated in her discriminating palate, although, she was more likely to have chosen a fine French cognac to mark the occasion rather than leftovers.
He knew exactly what would come next. Men like him knew how long it would take for her body to die. He was the expert. She was a novice just beginning to learn his grim trade until he decided to prematurely end their partnership. Her life had only been concerned with the man-made rules of the world until they met.
"Breaking the man-made rules," she corrected in silence.
She heard his chair creak as he shifted. Her body remained motionless on a cold floor she could not feel. If she could swallow she would have spat in his face.
"Fuckin' ghoul didn't even need to glue my mouth shut. Broken neck did all the hard work for him."
The creaking from the chair increased and she realized he was masturbating. Cold
terror filled her mind as her vision dimmed. The last thing she saw in this world was the white ropy discharge as it hit her directly in the eyes.
***
Her fingers were almost numb but she continued struggling to wrench her hand free of the straps fastened securely around her wrists. She frantically twisted her wrist right then left and right again trying to stretch the unyielding leather. Time was growing short and she knew she would not stand a chance tied down on the bare mattress in the center of the room. Without warning the door banged open ending any hope of mounting a resistance to her fate.
"You are going to learn, one way or another, you cannot screw around with me and not suffer the consequences."
She glanced up at her usually unflappable psychiatrist. The woman's face was pinched with anger and her hooded eyes flashed with unnatural excitement. Four uniformed guards surrounded the little woman swaddled in a lab coat two sizes too big. Each rent a cop armed and brandishing a police issued night stick.
Undaunted by the uneven odds, she smirked at the security team facing her. "I'm sorry; I'm not receiving visitors tonight. You can try to book an appointment with my secretary in the morning if you like. I think I might have an opening three days after Satan butt fucks you another A-hole while you blow the thugs you got with you, Dr. Likeshairyass."
One of the guards crossed the room without being directed. Lifting his arm he leveled a heavy hit to her exposed thigh. The crack was so hard she could not contain her scream of pain. He grabbed a fistful of hair and her bruising leg to roughly tug her onto her side. Taking advantage of an opening she managed to sink her teeth into his leg tasting blood, but to no avail. The guard grunted with pain but did not yield his hold. His pull on her hair instead grew harder and she was fairly certain she'd have a bald spot when this was over.
The position exposed her naked ass for the doctor's convenience. Her ability to inflict pain on the man holding her began to fade with each breath as the needle jabbed viciously into her took immediate effect.
"You are going to learn, one way or the other, Jessie. Today, you are going to learn the hard way not to attack one of my staff." The doctor sighed as she slowly caressed the unconscious woman’s smooth white ass, "Well, it's going to be hard for you but we're going to have a very good time while you learn your lesson."
***
Colby stumbled up the stairs of the Dorchester three-decker. Her apartment was at the top. It was getting harder and harder to make the climb after another night of drinking and she didn’t do sober anymore.
"Would you move it?"
The voice behind startled her. She stumbled and went down on one knee. The second floor tenant, a middle aged muscle head sopped up on steroids, pushed past her.
"What's your friggin’ hurry?" She slurred.
He turned and glared at her. His face was bathed in sweat.
"I hit a fuckin' dog with my bike, that's what my problem is. Got blood and shit all over me and I don't got no time to waste watching you crawl up the bleedin’ stairs!"
She grinned, "That's what you get for riding a bike in the snow. No stopping power."
"Fuck you," he snarled.
"Oh, what's a matter, Guido," she slurred as she tugged herself to her feet. "You all traumatized by a dead dog?"
"Naw," he replied as he unlocked his door, "I've seen lots of dead things and soon to be dead things." He glanced at her. "Like you. You're a soon to be a dead thing. It’s written all over your ugly face."
Before she could reply, he disappeared inside his apartment. The door slammed shut.
"Ah, screw you, Guido."
She resumed her stumbling climb to her own apartment, mindless of the bloody foot prints staining the stairs behind her. The trip up left her breathless and light headed. She did not realize she unlocked the door until she was three steps from her bed.
"Wonder if I even shut the damn thing," she muttered.
She was intent on turning. The motion sent her world spinning around her. She could feel her body tilt into the fall. The keys she clutched in her left hand dropped with a metallic clatter to the floor.
"E," she remembered.
*****
Chapter 2
postictal (pst-ktl) adj, altered mental status following seizure, lasting fifteen to thirty minutes, characterized by confusion, headache, nausea, amnesia, memory loss, and hallucination. May last longer with severe or chronic seizure activity.
Friday, March 13th
It was the same dream. She's standing in the old Berkeley Street squad room, frozen in the eye of a storm bustling and swirling around her in a ghostly blue haze. She knew the place well. Hell, she should know it better than the back of her hand. They toiled in the stinking piss hole for more days and nights than she’d cared to remember. It was headquarters for a century before his honor, ‘Da Mayor,’ ordered the whole department to haul ass over to the brand new white elephant on the corner of Ruggles and Tremont. The move was billed in the press as a historic relocation to a state-of-the-art facility at One Schroeder Place; a new building to serve the Boston Police Department and the community for the 21st Century.
Colby Willis, like so many of the rank and file, appreciated the suits at Media Relations and their wicked sense of humor. They all needed a hardy laugh from time to time to sugar coat the shit pouring out of City Hall. But, sometimes Colby thought their spin was enough to send even James Michael Curley twirling right out of his box; God rest his nearly, almost sainted soul.
The office door at the far end of the room was slightly ajar in the stifling summer heat. Through the gap, she could see Marty. Marty Walsh sitting on his big fat ass in his old ratty leather chair, the one with the three squeaky wheels. Sitting as pretty as a King of the city upon a hill just like he did back in the good old, bad old days. His balding head bent over teetering stacks of paperwork scattered like a patchwork quilt from one end of the desk to the other.
Marty always wore heavy, long sleeved, button up white dress shirts. The sweltering dog days of summer were no different from the first snows in January. Marty said fine white shirts were what made him better than his old man.
Colby stood in the doorway watching more than a few papers take to the air on a gust of phantom wind. There was a dirty plastic box fan perched on the sickly green metal file cabinet wedged in tight between the desk and the wall, but Colby could not feel the invisible breeze.
Colby took a moment to study her mentor. He was still the same, in her dreams, twinkling grey eyes over cheeks gone pink with the heat, the bald dome of his head beaded with sweat. Marty sweated like a pig in all seasons, but summer was the worst. Colby remembered with a coy smile the heat making those around him suffer his rising stink as the day dragged slowly on to end of shift.
Sweat stains were nothing new, but Colby saw something was not quite right with Marty. She could see a blossoming spot soaking his crumpled shirt. It was most vivid near his left armpit. The brilliant color fading as it spread out from across his flank like rippling water—rich, bright and red.
Marty dropped his pen with a curse and looked straight up at her. He greeted her with his usual cocky 'I'm way smarter than you are' grin and sat back eliciting a tortured squeak from the wheels. Colby thought the metallic noise was, in its own way, musical.
Ting.
"F," Colby noted dully.
"Imagine what my old man would say if he could see me now," Marty chuckled as he put both feet high up on the desk. "May the friggin' bastard rot in hell for two eternities and a day."
Mickey Walsh was, by all accounts, a friggin' bastard. He pounded the pavement every day of his life until he finally keeled over from a heart attack three months shy of his retirement party. Marty never shed a tear. He hated the old bastard’s guts. His animosity was no secret to Colby or most anybody who spent time with Marty. It was the usual story of the mean drunk Irish beat cop behind the brash Detective.
Marty’s father took his temper along with his billyclub home each
night. Booze made him even meaner and it was never in short supply. Mickey Walsh beat Marty's mother like a carpet. Back in the day when most guys popped their wives now or again, Mickey had a notorious reputation as a wife beater. It went on until Marty was fifteen or so. Once Marty was big enough and angry enough, he grabbed a tire iron during what would be his parents’ last row and delivered on his long standing threat to smash in his father’s head. After that night, Mickey Walsh saw the light and kept his hands to himself.
"You’re dead, Marty." Colby said in her dream.
"We're all dead, kiddo. You just never noticed it before.” Placing his index finger to his mouth, Marty murmured, “Shhh, zip your lips.”