The Ripper's Daughter

by B Anders

  “Detect? Don’t feed me a line of shit, Marty. I know all about you and your special arrangements. You had them killed, didn’t you? You were becoming a liability, old and sloppy. They were going to feed you to Internal Affairs, so you had to make some people disappear. You set this up. All this Ripper’s Daughter shit, you and some sicko you roped in to do your dirty work. But, you got greedy, you were going to double cross him, come out a big hero. Only things didn’t go according to plan did it, Marty? “

  “You got some imagination for a washed up punk, I give you that. Now get off your ass before your screwed up body finds a couple more drops of piss to squirt on my one good rug. Do you have any idea what a mutha it was putting that thing down? Freakin' pain in my ass, it was."

  Colby watched him stand and turn away from her. "See you in hell real soon, kid," Marty called over his shoulder. "We have a lot of catching up to do.”

  A kaleidoscope of colored lights flashing obliterated her view of Marty’s sullen features. Colby blinked to clear her vision. The buzzing in her head dulled as her eyes focused on the image of Jessie hanging off the bed by one foot holding her hand.

  Colby was gasping. “I’m having a seizure, right? They’re too close together. I’m dying, right?”

  “That one wasn’t quite as bad,” Jessie reassured her as she clutched Colby’s hand tighter.

  “Maybe from out there,” Colby mumbled around a thick tongue. “In here, it was pretty intense.”

  Jessie flashed a brittle smile betraying the worry lines around her mouth.

  “I’m okay,” Colby whispered reaching out to touch her face.

  “No,” Jessie shook her head, “Colby, you are not okay. You should be in a hospital detoxing. I think this is withdrawal. You need meds and IV fluids.”

  “Not gonna happen, I can’t risk them finding you. Besides, I don’t think that’s the problem,” Colby said.

  Jessie gave a snort of disbelief at the claim.

  “I’m sorry, Jessie for everything. The problem was me. I didn’t … protect you from him. I let him treat you and Jane like trash. And when the shit hit the fan I should have taken you and run. Instead I did everything to cover my own ass. I turned you in. I’m so sorry; we never really had a chance because I took the easy way out. I swear I won’t let them touch you again.”

  Jessie raised an arched eyebrow in surprise.

  “Please, tell me who the killer is so I can finally end this horror show.”

  Jessie began to speak and Colby’s world went black.

  ***

  “What?”

  Jessie was speaking. Her words were starting to filter through into Colby’s fuzzy brain. Colby force her eyes open to look at Jessie.

  “Ah, welcome back to the world of the walking dead, sleeping beauty,” Jessie deadpanned with a glassy grin.

  Colby tried to sit up, but Jessie managed to thwart the effort with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Give it a couple of minutes, Hercules. You’re still groggy.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  “I was talking about you actually. The seizures are psychogenic. They are brought on by stress. If I want you to have a seizure, all I need to do is start to tell you who the k-i-l-l-e-r is. But, don’t worry, I won’t try again. Watching you have the shakes again is low on my list of things to do today. I rather watch Fox News if you don’t mind. They, at least, make me laugh until I piss myself.”

  “So, what’re you saying is? I’m just as crazy as you are?” Colby bitterly spat out the remark as she pushed Jessie’s hand away.

  Jessie smirked in reply as she stood back. She watched Colby struggle to sit up and face her.

  She said with a small chuckle, “Welcome to the group, we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. Honestly, I always thought that you would have been the first one they’d lock up, but let’s get back to your bigger problem.”

  “What?” Colby was dizzy but desperate to pay attention to whatever Jessie was telling her.

  “I was referring to your pathetic need to solve the murders. It must be a cop thing.”

  “Did you manage to tell me before I started to chew my own tongue?”

  “No.”

  "But, you know who it is?" Colby floated the idea like a weather balloon.

  Jessie nodded with an eye roll.

  “Okay, I'm done.” Colby shrugged with relief. “I don’t care if it’s Marty you’re protecting. The bastard’s dead. Put your clothes on. I’ll bring you down to the station and you tell Faust while I stay safely out of earshot.”

  Jessie laughed out loud. “You’ll never change. You’re just like him. I knew you were lying through your teeth about Mexico. Marty used to promise to take Jane out to Florida. It was like a game to him. Every year she would plan the trip, book the hotels and flights. Every year he would cancel because something came up." Jessie grimaced with an unpleasant memory, "One year she didn't bother to book the flight and he beat her black and blue. I fuckin' hate his rotten soul."

  Colby ignored the family confession. “Jessie, listen to me. This isn’t about Marty. This could be your ticket out of the loony bin. Tell Faust who the killer is and we're both free. You might even collect some reward money. We could move away from Boston. Head out to California or Canada or Mexico, anywhere where we could start over. Just think, Jessie a brand new life for you, for us.”

  “Right. Crazy girl reveals the ‘truth’ and the good old Boston PD runs out to save the day? Not with this killer and not in this city. You forget your pals would have been more than happy to pin the killings on me if the murders had just stopped. My only salvation has been the Ripper continues to be a very busy boy.”

  Colby raised both eyebrows. “A man? The killer’s a man?”

  “Don’t be coy with me, Colby. You know as well as I do the Ripper’s Daughter is no chick. You were freakin’ there." Jessie smacked her head with feigned emotion. "Oh, yeah. I forgot you can’t remember or you won’t remember the only important moment in your whole miserable life. You were always a coward when it came to seeing the truth. You never had the stomach for it.”

  “Jessie, I’m …”

  “Quit apologizing. You sound like a broken record. You need to figure this out yourself if you are going to come to terms with what happened to all of us—Marty, you, me.

  A shiver travelled the length of Colby’s body. “Us?”

  Jessie gave her a sympathetic look but did not reply.

  “Fuck it. Let’s take our chances with the Chief,” Colby was unwilling to confront the past.

  “This has nothing to do with me, Colby. I’m not talking to them to save your freakin’ skin. You know very well they’ll call me a liar and lock me away forever. I’m not helping them put me back in the hole, while you get off scot free on a full disability pension. You’d like that, wouldn't you?" Jessie tossed a skyward look. "Screw you. I'm not waiting around for a second time to take the fall. What do you think I am, Colby? Fuckin’ stupid? I am so getting out of here. Across the border to Canada sounds nice, thanks for the tip.”

  “You’re chained to the bedpost, you’re not going anywhere.”

  “That’s what you think, Officer Willis.” Jessie laughed as she flashed the turnkey under Colby’s nose. “My mother didn’t raise a fool. I took it out of the back pocket of your jeans, along with your wallet and your car keys. Now all I have to do is say the magic word and while you’re frying your brains out, I free myself, warp the chain round your neck, and watch you slowly choke on your own tongue. Only I’m thinking I might not be the sort of girl who kisses and kills.”

  The metal handcuff key pinged against the metal ring when Jessie pulled it out of the bedspread. Colby's eyes focused momentarily on the key sparkling in the room’s muted light.

  "C#," Colby said out loud. Jessie stared at her but did not venture a question.

  “If you run, they’ll catch you and send you back. You won’t make it across the border by yourself, without me,” Colby countere
d.

  Jessie flashed a sneer. “At least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ll rot in the fuckin’ cell next to mine. Do you know how it feels, Colby to wake up day after day in a cell without windows to the screams of the man down the corridor being raped? Do you, Colby?" Colby grimaced and Jessie continued, "What do you think the Captain is going to do to you when my lawyer reports me missing? You forgot about the Boy Scout didn’t you? Knowing him, he’s going to have himself a nice big press conference. I like fat boy. You could smell the stench of ambition waffling off him a mile away.”

  Colby’s head was throbbing. She wanted a drink. She wanted the conversation to end. She wanted somebody, other than some goddamned ghost, to tell her what the fuck to do.

  “Honestly, I don't know what to do. I’m open to suggestions.”

  Jessie shrugged, “You never were before. You were always a control freak like Marty down to your shining black boots. Is this part of the sensitive new you I’m beginning to see? Like you said, Colby, the problem is you. You stood by and watched him treat me and Jane like dirt. You turned me in to the pigs to cover your own pathetic ass. Now there’s hell to pay, Colby.”

  “What do you want me to do, Jessie?”

  “Let’s play a game, Colby. Let’s pretend you’re the detective. What would you do if you were looking at the cases for the first time?”

  “Go to the murder scenes,” Colby began and Jessie interrupted.

  “Then let’s go start at the scene of the first murder. You can be Sherlock Holmes and I can be …”

  “WITH ...” Colby shouted to silence her. Once she was sure she had the woman’s attention she finished her demand, “with Marty’s notebook in hand. Where’s the book?”

  Jessie let out an exasperated sigh before she climbed back onto the bed. "Thought you would have realized that by now," she mumbled and began to inspect the cuts the chain made around her ankle. “I am the notebook, Colby. I'm all that's left of Marty’s dirty little secrets."

  *****

  Chapter 12

  The gusty wind howled with a vengeance between the concrete pillars of the Neponset River Bridge as rush hour traffic raced above the dirty banks of the ancient brown water. The nameless, faceless commuters enclosed within their sleek, aerodynamic, metal coffins were happily oblivious to anything below the level of the frozen blacktop.

  Forty years ago nobody noticed Whitey Bulger planting his victims at the foot of I-93's uprights. Then, as now, an idling car belching black smoke into chilled morning air along the same stretch of water wouldn't have raised even an eyebrow of concern.

  Boston was a city with two faces. Behind the heavily promoted 21st century downtown was the rotten core of the city which kept on moving with eyes averted to looming trouble. The city faithful preferred to keep their secrets buried in shallow graves. It was here, in the shadow of Florian Hall and the echo of Whitey Bulger's backhoe that Colby arranged with Pat Pickman to pick up her car.

  Colby glanced at Jessie. She looked infinitely better than when Colby first saw her restrained to the chair in the Castle. She even managed to comb out the snarls in her hair. Sixty hours later, rested, fed, and washed up, Colby was impressed. The Jessie sitting next to her was a very different person than the Jessie who stabbed her with a pen on Friday. There was an assurance, an aggressiveness, in this Jessie that Colby found undeniably attractive.

  The clothes gracing Jessie's narrowed frame were old. They were baggy, hanging like dropped sails off her much leaner physique, but Colby thought they fit well enough for the time being. Jessie made it very clear they would be shopping for new ones once they blew out of this dump. Jessie hated Dorchester. The same streets Marty pounded when he was on the beat. She hated everything that reminded her of Marty.

  Jessie shifted slightly in the seat trying to get more comfortable on the hard vinyl surface. Sunlight glinted off the chains wrapped around her waist shackling her wrists and ankles. The sight of gleaming metal caused Colby’s mouth to go dry. Images of the night before played back like a silent movie in her head. Absently licking her lips, Colby wondered if they had time for a quickie. If Jessie would mind very much if she got onto her knees and pulled the other woman’s sweatpants down. Colby didn't worry too much about her priorities when a flash of arousal sparked deep between her thighs. Life after all was a short exercise in brutality and she intended to get herself some more of Jessie while she was still on this side of death.

  "What are we going to do, Officer Willis?"

  Jessie's question was asked so softly Colby wondered if she were actually meant to hear it. When the grey questioning eyes turned to her demanding an answer, Colby looked away, shy and uncertain like a schoolgirl caught ogling her teacher’s crotch.

  "Well, first off we need to get my car. Then we go to the first murder scene. We trace the killer's dumping sites in order until I can remember something or I die after thirty hours status epilepticus. Whichever comes first?"

  "You've been watching too many medical emergency room soap operas, Officer Willis," Jessie muttered sounding more amused than annoyed.

  "Naw, my medical info comes straight from the horse’s mouth. The Captain had them send me to a neurologist after the first attack. The prognosis was I have the potential to make my exit in a never ending seizure, lucky me."

  Jessie searched Colby's eyes for a lie behind the remark but found only regret. She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. It was nothing she didn’t already know from the morning’s fiasco. Colby’s death or survival was no concern of hers, she told herself.

  "Should you be driving?" Jessie asked coldly as she checked out the approaching vehicle in the side view mirror.

  "Nope and I ain’t letting you drive either."

  The conversation ended as the Charger pulled up in front of them and parked. The mechanic, Pickman, looking as corpulent as ever, took a few minutes to get out of the car.

  Colby pulled the keys out of the ignition before sparing one more look at Jessie. There were fine lines forming around the smooth skin of her pouty mouth as she flashed Colby her brilliant Snow Queen smile, her eyes vacant and glassy as ever. Colby didn't speak. She didn't think there was a need to say what would come next.

  "What are you going to do, Colby?" Jessie asked again with a giggle but didn't wait for an answer before continuing. "What happens when you remember who the killer is, Colby? Are you going to shoot him in the face? Torture him with a chainsaw? Or are you going to do your duty and uphold the law?"

  Colby paused. The idea of catching the killer was nothing more than a remote fantasy for her. It was Marty's obsession, his ticket into the easy life, not hers. She was just some stupid dumb fuck cop caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. What would happen when she remembered the face of the killer? What was she prepared to do?

  Colby shrugged. "Got to remember before I know what to do about it, baby girl."

  She ended the discussion by climbing out of the car. A swift slam of the door made her lose her balance a little. She recovered without a peep, but Pickman noticed anyway.

  "You okay?"

  Colby ignored him. "How's the car?"

  "Fine," he took the hint to mind his own business. "Replaced what needed replacing and tightened the rest. All in all, not terrible considering what you drove into. She could be in worse shape I’ll give you that, but I didn't have the right paint for detailing the scratches. You can give my buddy James a call. He’ll get you fixed up good with the bodywork. I left his number in the glove box."

  She nodded. "What do I owe you?"

  "The whole shebang will set you back $732. That’s a discounted price on account that she’s a classic."

  "Fuck," Colby hissed. "Take a check?"

  Pickman shrugged. He didn't want to take a check but this was a cop, some skinny, greasy Boston PD detective. He didn't want to get all the wrong kind of attention from her kind.

  "Sure. No worries." Pickman replied with a tight smile.

  Colby pu
lled her wallet out and retrieved a loose check she kept there just in case. She was pretty sure it would bounce all the way to Timbuktu, but she didn’t let it concern her. She leaned on the car trunk and filled the blanks in on the nondescript slip of paper. She figured she’ll tell the Captain to add the rubber duckie to her tab when her luck finally ran out. In the meanwhile she didn’t give a shit anymore.

  "Okay, you got everything out of my car?" She asked briskly as she handed over the check.

  "Yeah, pretty much."

  "I need to get my prisoner transferred so I want you to go stand at the rear of your vehicle."