I begin to analyze some of the murder scene photos before me. Kelly glances at the century old snapshots of history, but shortly cringes at the photo’s ghastly contents.
“Let’s go on to another exhibit. This place just gives me the creeps,” she turns her face about sharply.
“Come on, just a while longer and then we’ll go.”
I’m surprised at Kelly’s behavior. One day she is taking pictures of pieces and remains of dead passengers after a plane crash, and then she gets squeamish over a few old murder scene photos.
I’m a little confused. We’ve covered traffic accidents many times before this, not to mention an occasional murder scene. It seems to me that the so-called routine scenes of death we frequently encounter as well as Jack the Ripper’s horrifying misdeeds are both very similar. Yet I must confess; the degree of wickedness demonstrated before me demands a different sense of perception; the perception of someone being willfully unholy.
I continue to hold onto Kelly’s hand. She turns swiftly around, averting her eyes away from the display. She stands there with her back to the exhibit and waits patiently.
Every human soul sooner or later is forced into confronting their own worst fears. It’s the way that we each grapple with these fears that distinguishes us from other human beings. I would say that Kelly waiting patiently amidst her fear without panic is a sign of strength of character. Without her notice, I take a moment to admire her for a moment.
Turning back to the glass cased display once again, I continue to examine the photos of Jack the Ripper’s murder scenes. One such photo catches my eye, and for a moment I take in the contents of the photo, trying to decipher what it might reveal.
Next to an old brick hotel building, a woman’s body is laying on a sidewalk under a gas streetlight. Several policemen are gathered around, hovered over the body. Of course there is the usual crowd of bystanders gawking at the bloodstained sight.
All the policeman in the photo are bent over, preoccupied with viewing the lifeless body of some unfortunate prostitute that has had her throat cut. Yes, all save one. One policeman is leaning against the brick building alongside the corpse.
For some queer reason it appears he is grinning; yes grinning, as if he were at the beach having his picture taken, so that he might preserve a souvenir of his holiday. It is totally uncharacteristic for someone that is viewing the remains of a woman with her throat cut to be offering such a perceptible grin.
Suddenly I feel as though the air has just been knocked out of my lungs. My heart begins pounding faster until I feel the pounding in my head.
The man in the photo looks exactly like the stranger with the penetrating eyes.
The same one I saw at the airport, the same man that was dressed as a Forest Ranger. The same man I saw in the article about the Hindenburg disaster.
How could the same man appear in a Jack the Ripper murder scene photo in the 1800s, then again later in a newspaper article about the Hindenburg disaster?
Even if he could have lived long enough to be present at both historical events, he looks no more than twenty-five years old in each photo. Now throw into this kettle of bewilderment two additional compelling factors. Factor number one is that of me personally and physically knocking this same man down at the Portland airport. Then there is factor number two; the recent reality of seeing this same man right in front of me, impersonating a US Forest Ranger. Both of these events have taken place only weeks before today.
You know the feeling; you’ve experienced it. When there is someone with a bad case of emotional instability that is determined to make your life miserable. Maybe you merely bumped into them and didn’t say you’re sorry or accidentally pulled out in front of them in traffic. Now everything else in their life that was of any importance goes on the back burner. Now, their life is totally devoted to teaching you a lesson. Try as you might, there is nowhere in all of the cosmos to hide from their unrelenting attempts for attention and retribution.
In a bizarre way, I sense that someone I am little acquainted with has a passionate desire to capture my attention. An entity that bewails my existence, yet is positioning for my notice.
Who is the entity? The grinning demented fellow in this murder scene photo, haunting me wherever I go. He has been granted my attention now on several occasions, especially when he has managed to deliver to me his life threatening messages.
I’m beginning to get tired of these encounters. Why do I keep running into him? It’s like dreaming some terrible dream that continues haunting you. You grow weary, because whenever you try to sleep, you dream the same nightmare over and over again.
I wonder if I keep running into him because of something I’ve done, or is it because of something that he has done. It has to be one or the other, doesn’t it?
I study the photo a little further. How and why is this man in this picture, a picture that is concerning Jack the Ripper? I find this very unsettling and difficult to grasp.
Until I know more, until I understand what’s going on, I am going to keep this to myself. No need to upset Kelly. At least not right now.
I pull on Kelly’s hand and head for the exit. Once we’re out side, “You ready for a break, hon? How about getting something to eat?”
“Oh yes, I am starving!” Kelly clasps her hands together as a gesture of joy, looking as if she is about to start praying.
We walk fifty feet or so to a Mexican Taco fast food place. Since it is almost noon, the stand is crowded. I am forced to accept that hordes of people before me have already conquered this taco stand. Now they tauntingly defy anyone, to just try and get in line or take a table. I’m thinking that mealtime for the barbarians of the dark ages, must have been similar to this. Modern technology has done very little to change a thousand years of man’s eating habits, or so it seems.
Both of us are hungry, so we forge ahead and find a small table in amongst the throng of people. We dig in, eating without conversation for a while.
The noise of people is deafening. It sounds as if we are among thousands of geese going south for the winter, each telling the other what they plan to do when they get there.
The food is somewhat edible, although everything on my plate tastes exactly the same. Even my salad has that same counterfeit Aztec look, feel, and taste to it. Cleaning your plate like a good little boy here could very well be rewarded with an unwelcome visit by the curse of Montezuma’s revenge later this evening. After I eat a little, I stop to digest and begin to people watch for a while.
In a twinkling of an eye, I change my existence from being a spectacle into life as a human spectator. In this human hippodrome, all varieties of people are represented. As I pan my 180 degrees of vision, I witness all shapes, sizes, colors, yes and even smells of people in attendance.
In my view, there are too many people here confined into one cage, even though this cage is larger than most. I’d much rather be a free spirit sailing on the Columbia River right now, rather than be present here as a caged animal. I think the only type of creature that was meant to be this close together, are dead sardines in a can. Other than that, I think God meant that each living organism was to have its own allotted personal space. Looking at this crowd though, it doesn’t look like anyone took what God meant very seriously.
Taking a break from spying on people, I raise my eyes up into the rafters of this place. It almost seems to go on for infinity. I’m impressed with the immensity of this exhibit hall building. I’m thinking they could park a couple of 747s in here.
My eyes drop to people level once again. Just as I am about to launch a conversation with Kelly, I notice something in the crowd that seems out of place. Aiming my eyes across the cramped tables of the cafe, I see a man that is partially hidden, sitting behind two large potted palms.
Unless I am imagining things, it seems he is spying on Kelly and I. I pretend as though his activity has not yet been discovered, while I watch him out of the corner of my eye for a while. Every mi
nute or so he peers from behind the potted palms, looks through binoculars, then slithers back behind the shadow of his camouflage.
All of a sudden Kelly speaks up.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Matt?”
Preserving in my periphery the man that has eclipsed into the shade, I reply to Kelly without giving a hint of my discovery.
“Of course I’m enjoying myself.” Holding up the remains of something disguised as a burrito, I continue. “Good food, gorgeous company, besides the excitement of being catapulted into the adventure of a lifetime. I am not only enjoying myself, I am spellbound.” My mellifluous speech is too sickeningly sweet, even for me. It does the trick though. I throw a boomerang of exaggeration at her, and back it comes with one of Kelly’s sweet smiles.
She sits there across from me, quietly shaking her head. Her face is as sweet and dainty as a dove. Suddenly her dainty countenance changes from a sweet dove to a clever and crafty fox.
“You know Matt, when I was a little girl, my grandfather use to tell me a story about catching carp.” My head jerks back with a slap of apprehension and my face awards her with a leery expression.
“Carp, what does carp have to do with anything?” I ask her, being thoroughly baffled.
“Now just wait a minute. I’m not finished.”
“My grandfather would tell me that ‘Carp aren’t good for nothing, nothing at all. If you’re determined to eat one, there’s only one way to be fixin’ ‘um. Get an old rotten wooden board and spread manure on it. Make sure you spread it thick now. Then put the carp on top. Now, throw away the carp, and eat the board.’ For some reason Matt, you just reminded me of that story. I think it was something about spreading it on thick that helped me recall that story to mind.”
‘Touché, Kelly scores another one.
“You’re right as rain. Embellishment has become an intricate and integral part of my soul. It’s all a part of the ego package that comes with the Matthew Brooks model, and at no extra charge.”
As we spend a moment chuckling at one another, I nonchalantly move my eyes back toward the figure once hidden behind the palms. He is gone. I roll my eyes back and forth over the crowd, in search for the same vague image of a man in a hat and a long coat.
A hat and a long coat; my thoughts rush back to other encounters with shadowy figures that have been enrobed with hats and long coats. Wherever I go lately, it seems that I am under constant surveillance by a man with a hat and long coat. Why me?
The man in the hat and long coat, the strange man I keep running in to from the past, and the eccentric threats to my life, seem to all come from the same source. A riddle appears to be germinating before me, out of the fog. I haven’t a single educated guess what the seeds of this puzzle will produce however, or if I honestly want to know.
Like a mirror image, we both stand identically from the table, at the same time. Without saying a word, we begin our weave through the obstacles of tables and people. Because of the ruffling sound of a thousand mingling people, we find any attempt at conversation useless. We head back to the exhibit in silence.
As we approach the Crimes of History exhibit once again, Kelly pulls back and stops. She reminds me of a horse that has just had its reins pulled back hard, causing the metal bit to dig deep into the tenderness of it’s tongue. She stops her forward motion so abruptly, that I continue to walk for three or four steps before I can come to a complete stop.
I make a complete about face, and walk back to Kelly. My eyes create crow’s feet, and my mouth slowly fissures open in confusion. I approach Kelly as if she were some unusual abstract marble sculpture that makes absolutely no sense. With both hands on her hips, Kelly stands there like a statue in protest.
“What in the world?” I know the answer even before I finish saying it. She is extremely reluctant at witnessing anymore displays of bloodthirsty violence, like the Jack the Ripper exhibit had exposed to her before.
“Come on. I promise I won’t make you see any more gore and goo.” I reach out for her with my right arm and walk closer to her. I gently wrap my arm around her, and embrace her soft delicate shoulders.
“I should have known. A man doesn’t subject a lady to such things as Jack the Ripper. I know that wasn’t anything you wanted to get any photos of. Just let me look at the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping exhibit, and then we’ll be off. If you want to sit and wait here while I take a quick look, that’s OK with me.”
Kelly’s stock-still body becomes sequentially fluid once again. She puts her hand on her chin, gesturing that she is giving the choice before her some serious thought.
“I’m tired of waiting on the bench. I think I’ll take my chances and come with you, as long as you keep to your promise. As soon as it starts getting gory at all, we leave; OK?”
§
SIXTEEN
The Charles Lindbergh kidnapping exhibit focuses on the trial of the man charged with committing the crime. In January of 1935, Bruno Richard Hauptmann went on trial for kidnapping and killing Charles Lindbergh’s twenty-month-old, firstborn son. They called it ‘The Trial of the Century.’
It must be a terrible experience to endure I think, to have your son kidnapped, but hardly a crime that would result into ‘The Trial of the Century.’
Then I remind myself that Charles Lindbergh was the most famous celebrity of his day. In his day, being the first man to fly a plane across the Atlantic was as momentous as Neil Armstrong landing on the Moon. Having such a man’s child kidnapped would cause quite a commotion.
Several pictures of the courtroom trial and the people involved are on display. In one glass case, they exhibit a few of the original marked US gold certificates that were part of the ransom money. Right next to the money is the actual ransom note given to Charles Lindbergh.
“Mr. Charles Lindbergh, We have your son. Please find the enclosed pajamas your son was wearing the night of March 1. This has been delivered to you as proof that we indeed have possession of your son. Please deliver $70,000.00 to the Bronx cemetery. Someone will rendezvous with you there on April 2nd at 7:30 pm sharp.
Your son will remain safe, as long as you cooperate.”
I try to imagine how Mr. Lindbergh and his wife must have felt, when they found that their son was missing. They must have been in agony from worry. I wonder what they were feeling when they first read this ransom note?
Every parent at one time or another has thought that unspeakable morbid thought. It’s the thought that parents never allow to come out in the open; the notion of your child actually being abducted by someone. It is like a faint uninvited whisper that every parent attempts to lock away in some forgotten chamber of the mind.
Now, for Mr. Charles Lindbergh his worst fears had somehow been unlocked. The unspeakable reality of it had escaped and stood right in front of him, waiting to be recognized.
After assimilating this dismal circumstance for a moment, I quickly steer my eyes to the bottom of the page of the ransom note, and read the handwritten postscript found there.
“The others too, would not leave our secret alone.
Now they are dead forever, instead of flesh and bone.
To your face, you were forewarned
But a deaf ear you turned, so you must mourn
Something that is dear to you, something fresh and brand new.
Yes! Your child’s life will be taken, instead of you.”
My eyes widen. The inside of my mouth becomes as dry as leather. The commonplace reality that had once encircled me has now been quickly replaced by a surreal presence of mind. I can’t believe what I am reading.
It just can’t be true. I mean here I am, reading a seventy-year old ransom note written to Charles Lindbergh. As I read the postscript of the ransom note, I discover the very same threatening message that Kelly and I received in Montana. It doesn’t only sound like the message we received, nor does it just have similarities. The first two sentences of the postscript contain the exact same message that Kelly and
I received. The exact same message, word for word.
I awake momentarily from my stupor of deep thought. I look around the room for Kelly. About forty feet away, I catch sight of her with her nose pressed up against the glass of a display. As far as I can tell, she is looking at the Lindbergh baby exhibit. It contains a few personal items, such as the pajamas that the kidnappers used as proof that they indeed had Lindbergh’s son.
I center my attention upon Kelly for a moment. Even from this far away, I can tell that she is feeling emotional over something. Perhaps it is the thought of a small helpless child being murdered, for just a few perishable paper dollars. She reaches into her handbag and brings out something to secretively dry her eyes.
I think emotion must be the loudest reason why men and women are so different. Women seem to bear an abundance of emotion, where as men have been sentenced with an inadequate supply of it. I guess that’s why men and women are so drawn to each other. Each one balances the other.
I do concede to the need of emotion, however. With so much heartache and bloodshed on display, emotion really is the only effective tool we possess to deal with such things.
I turn my attention back to the ransom note on display, reading the postscript once again.
“The others too, would not leave our secret alone. Now they are dead forever, instead of flesh and bone.”
“The others would not leave our secret alone.” What secret? I mean, what secret could the author of this letter possibly be referring to? Over seventy years ago, Charles Lindbergh was accused of knowing some forbidden secret. His life was threatened because of something they thought he knew. Identically, Kelly and I have also been accused repeatedly by someone, of knowing some kind of important secret. Because of this, we and Lindbergh both were given the same threatening message.
Wyatt, Richard Page 14
