by Jill Jones
“We couldn’t just leave the poor thing to starve, Jonathan,” she admonished, setting the cage on the kitchen counter. “I’m certain someone will adopt him soon. Maybe I’ll ask Janeece Fairchild,” she said, thinking aloud. “In the meantime, I’ll make sure he’s cared for.”
Victoria had made Jonathan stop at a pet supply store, where she’d purchased seed and sanitary papers with which to line the cage. “Keeps it from smelling,” the store owner had assured her. “Better than newspaper.”
Hoping it wasn’t a false claim, Victoria set about cleaning the cage, talking to the bird like it was human and ignoring Jonathan’s grumbles. She pulled out the tray and removed the newspaper that FitzSimmons/Brown had used to line it, and blinked in surprise at what lay beneath.
“Jonathan,” she said, “look at this.”
Under the soiled newspaper in the bird cage was a key attached to a small chain. Jonathan picked it up and rinsed it before examining it closely.
“Looks like a key to a suitcase, or maybe a public locker somewhere. Old Burt Brown is just full of surprises.”
Chapter Fifteen
London
Thirty-one August 1888
My dreams have been filled with crimson lust since the hunt earlier this month with Eddy, and upon awakening, my need for the blood sport is excruciating. I sent guarded messages to Eddy, hinting at my agony and hoping he would join me, but either he never received the word, or could not get away. I could wait no longer, and last night undertook the hunt alone. It was bittersweet without Eddy, and more dangerous, as there was no one to keep watch.
The whore I chose was coarse-looking, middle-aged, and staggering from drink. I followed her for over two hours, carefully watching the movement of the constables on duty. Opportunity came at last in Buck’s Row. I accosted her and immediately engaged her for sex, requesting the back door, for it is easier and cleaner to strangle the prey from behind before beginning the work. Although I did not get the delight of seeing her fear, neither did she have the chance to cry out. She was dead before I laid her upon the ground, so when I cut her, the blood did not spurt in an uncontrolled gush as it did on our last hunt. It is not as exciting this way, but much safer. I found my thrill in sinking my dagger into her belly and carving away the vile essence of her.
As I sit at my desk reminiscing on the event, I am reminded of a tavern song I heard recently at the male brothel on Cleveland Street—
“It was for her no fortune good,
That he should need to root his pud,
And chose her out of all the brood
Of Harlots of Jerusalem.
For though he paid his women well,
This syphilitic spawn of hell
Struck down each year and tolled the bell
For ten Harlots of Jerusalem.”
Ten! I shall strike down ten times ten. Tonight’s hunt has proven that with care, I can effect a kill in complete silence, enjoy the pleasure of the work afterwards, and disappear without a trace. They will never catch me. I am free to kill into infinity.
He showered and shaved and dressed for the evening, his heart already thundering in anticipation. He’d chosen one of Phoenix’s most exclusive country clubs for his venue. Not that he would share the Friday night buffet with the elite of their smarmy little society. No, he would wait until one of them wandered outside. He’d already scoped it out, knew exactly where to park, and how he would get away before anyone had time to discover his work.
A woman stepped out of the building and onto a side patio, where she lit a cigarette. She was a tall blonde. He’d seen her through the windows from his hiding place that afforded a view of the expansive dining room. She was stunning. A model, perhaps. He felt a familiar stirring in his loins. A model. The perfect whore. Selling her body for all the world to see.
“I don’t blame you for escaping. It’s stifling in there,” he said, stepping around the hedge but remaining in shadow.
The woman jumped. “Oh, you startled me. I didn’t know anyone was out here.” She smiled at him. They always did.
“It’s such a lovely evening. Thought I’d take a little walk. Maybe down to the first green. Want to join me?”
She hesitated, but he knew she’d come. She was curious about the mysterious stranger she’d discovered. “Sure. Why not. The party’s a real bore.” She dropped the cigarette and mashed it out with her shoe.
They reached the first green, which earlier he’d found ideal for his mission. Although the golf course was naturally wide open, a large thicket blocked sight of this particular green from the club house.
“Look! There’s a shooting star,” he said, and when she turned to look up into the night sky, his hands encircled her neck. His fingers dug deeply into her flesh, and he could almost feel the breath damming up behind them. It turned him on. She struggled, but he was far stronger. In only moments, her futile flailing stopped and her body slumped, a dead weight against him. “Maybe I should have said ‘fallen star,’” he said as he laid her out on the green. He slashed her throat one, two, three times, just for good measure.
Raising her skirt and pulling away her panties, he propped her legs open. This was his favorite part, for it brought him exquisite sexual pleasure. Inserting his knife just above the mound of pubic curls, he pressed until the blood flowed down her smooth, white abdomen like a river of red semen. His breath quickened as he felt his ecstasy grow. He cut her belly open clear to the ribcage, then made a horizontal slash and cut away the flaps of skin that barred his way to the prize. When he found what he was after, he carefully cut it from her body.
Holding her womb in his hands, he felt himself coming. It was a powerful ejaculation that left him quivering. He looked down on the woman. She was grotesque in the darkness. He spit on her, then took the organ and laid it carefully in the cup at the center of the green.
“A hole in one,” he laughed, “or maybe I should say, a whore in one.” He wiped the bloody knife with a tissue and inserted it into its scabbard. Removing the surgical gloves he wore, he placed them and the soiled tissue in a zipper type plastic bag he’d brought in his pocket. Although the master had worked barehanded, he always wore gloves. What with AIDS and all, one couldn’t be too careful.
He snapped two shots of his work, then headed swiftly through the shadows to where he had parked his car.
Saturday night passed without incident in Whitechapel. Not only were there no Ripper-style murders, there had not been so much as a domestic dispute reported in the area. “I guess the heavy police presence put off even the run-of-the-mill criminals,” Jonathan commented over breakfast on Sunday morning.
“That, or they were terrified that such a murderer might be lurking in the shadows. The bad boys are often afraid of the really-bad boys,” she replied with a yawn.
In spite of the lack of criminal activity that night, she and Jonathan had stayed at the Yard until dawn, just in case. When it appeared that no foul murder had taken place, they’d come back to Jonathan’s flat, where he’d prepared a full English breakfast which she’d eaten with gusto, even though it was cholesterol city.
They sat in silence for a long moment, the only noise coming from the parakeet who made little grinding sounds with his beak from his cage in the corner. Victoria had dubbed him “Dr. Watson.”
Finally, Jonathan spoke. “Sandringham is convinced that FitzSimmons must have been the Whitechapel killer,” he said quietly. “He told me to tell you that you’re free to return to the States.”
Victoria’s heart plummeted, and her throat constricted. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to stifle the emotion that engulfed her. “We’ve both known that time would come,” she managed after a long moment.
“Yeah.”
“I’m still not convinced it was FitzSimmons, although everything points to him.” she said. “I wish we could come up with a sample of his handwriting to see if it matches the Ripper notes.”
“We may have if Hensen can get a
n accurate trace of it from the impressions on the tablet we found in his flat.”
“I’ll bet they don’t match. My money is still on Billy Ray. It might have been a murder of the moment for him, spurred by the symposium. He might never have planned to follow up with another. Maybe once was enough for him. Maybe it made him sick. That would explain why he got out of Dodge so fast.”
“If he did.”
“I think he was gone by the time we got around to interviewing the attendees, although we still have no proof. But if he did it, and if he keeps his mouth shut, he’ll very likely get away with it, and poor old FitzSimmons will take the rap.” She stretched. “At least with that scenario, there won’t be another Ripper-style murder.”
“It may have been FitzSimmons, but he’s gone, and we’ll never know for sure,” Jonathan said. “Ironically, it’s just like before, when the killings stopped as mysteriously as they began, leaving Scotland Yard unable to prove anything. Maybe the Ripper of old got run down by a carriage.”
“Or drowned himself in the Thames,” Victoria added, thinking about the young suspect named Montague John Druitt whose body was found shortly after the murders ceased. “I hate it when an investigation ends like this. Inconclusive.”
Like Meghan’s case.
“At least we can discount Lord Chastain. Although his alibi has changed from wife to mistress, he still has one, and his handwriting is nothing like that on the notes.”
Victoria gave a small, derisive laugh, recalling the rather unpleasant interview they’d had with the man, when they’d learned he had left his wife’s bed the night of the killing and gone to his mistress. He was uncomfortable revealing that, although he came clean about it. But she felt instinctively he was hiding something else. However, she did not think he was the killer.
Jonathan reached for the coffee carafe and started to refill her cup, but she covered it with her hand. “No more for me. I’m wired enough as it is, and we didn’t get any sleep last night.”
Jonathan set the pot on the table and went to stand behind her. She felt his hands begin to massage her shoulders. “I was hoping we could make up for that right now.”
The desire underlying his suggestion was clear, and she forgot about all about sleep. “Sounds like a good idea to me.” She nuzzled the back of his hand, and a now-familiar sexual hunger rippled through her. Would she ever get enough of this man?
Leaving their breakfast things on the table, they went into Jonathan’s bedroom where the bed lay unmade from their extended interlude the day before. “I see the maid didn’t come,” she teased. But when she turned to face him, he was not smiling. His eyes, in fact, looked haunted.
He unfastened the top button of her blouse. “It’d just be a waste of time.”
It had been a week since he’d begun his work. Seven days and four hits. With each, he’d improved and gained confidence. But he still had a long way to go. He was not good enough yet…for her, although he’d done an excellent job on the bitch last night in San Francisco.
Strolling through the airport, killing time until his flight was called, he gazed at the headlines and grew angry that not one newspaper had reported the sensational murder at Fisherman’s Wharf. Well, that would change once the Phoenix Sun published the letter he’d sent from there. Then he’d be all over the news, in every city, on national TV. He could hardly wait.
He settled into a chair, took out a small map of Seattle, and contemplated the work he planned there the following night. Something nagged at him. In spite of his success, it had all been too easy. He must make it more of a challenge.
He was no longer afraid of being caught. With his plan, he doubted even the best of them could stop him, not unless he wanted to be stopped. He thought about Victoria Thomas, the FBI’s hot shot profiler, and stifled a laugh. Surely she must have returned from London by this time. Had they called her in on the investigation yet? He was certain they would as soon as they began to connect the killings. Would she figure it out and call his hand before he made his grand finale? He didn’t think so. She was a smart bitch, but he was smarter. A feeling of pure bliss spread through him. He was powerful. This was his life’s work, his destiny, and no one, especially not Victoria Thomas, would stop him now.
He picked up the phone and dialed her number. It was fun to fuck with her mind. When she didn’t answer, he left a short message. It didn’t matter. He’d get to her soon enough.
It was Tuesday night. Victoria sat on the sofa in jeans and her soft green sweater. She wore no bra. Her feet were bare. She sipped a chilled chardonnay and listened to Jonathan bustling about the kitchen. After their long vigil on Saturday night, he’d negotiated a few days off. Although Scotland Yard had released her, she’d decided to stay on a while.
She would have to leave soon, but when Mike had ordered her to come on this vacation, he’d insisted that she take two full weeks off. She hadn’t been gone that long yet. For once, she would do as ordered. Her moments with Jonathan were too precious to cut short.
These past days had been like a dream, a fantasy that she never wanted to end. Jonathan had at last been able to show her around London as he’d promised the first day she’d met him, but mostly, they’d spent their waning time together in bed.
Jonathan entered the room, and she gazed up at him. He was shirtless and barefoot, wearing only a pair of jeans. Just the sight of him turned her on. Before she’d met him, her libido must have been not merely hungry, but starved, for her appetite for him seemed insatiable.
“Dinner won’t be ready for another hour,” he said.
She set her wine glass on the table and went to him. “That’s plenty of time for a little appetizer,” she said, no longer embarrassed at her boldness. She splayed her fingers across the breadth of his chest and ran her nails lightly over his skin.
“I wouldn’t mind a little something,” he said, running his hands beneath her sweater. She felt her nipples grow hard.
“Free samples in the bedroom,” she whispered. A heated urgency claimed her. “Race you,” she murmured, reaching for the top button on his jeans.
She didn’t know who won, but in only moments they were lying naked beneath the covers. Jonathan’s lips tasted hers, then traveled downward, leaving a trail of kisses along the way. She expected him to stop when he reached her breasts, but instead, after toying with her there unmercifully, he continued on his journey south.
“Jonathan.” She gasped his name when he opened her legs and kissed the most intimate part of her. She’d never experienced the sensations that tremored through her as his tongue worked magic on her body. She lay back and opened to him completely, running her fingers through his hair. Her orgasm came in short, sweet lightning bursts, fulfilling and at the same time building her need.
Playing her body like a fine instrument, Jonathan once again began trailing kisses, this time traveling up until he reached her mouth. Victoria quivered with the most intense desire she had ever experienced. “Come inside me, Jonathan,” she begged in an urgent whisper. “I can’t stand it any longer.”
She felt him slide into her, fitting as if they were two parts of one whole. They moved together, building the heat until the molten core of her very being glowed white hot. The earlier crescendo was as a tiny drop of rain compared to the hurricane force of the orgasm that shook her body in violent release.
She was slick with sweat and crying with emotion when she finally heard the telephone ringing.
“It’s Mosier,” Jonathan said, handing her the phone, dread striking like a fist in the center of his gut. There was only one reason her boss would be calling. He wanted her home.
He went into the bathroom, trying not to listen, but it was impossible.
“Oh, my God,” she said, and he heard the horror in her voice. “When? Do you think it is the same guy?” She was silent for a long time, then said, “I see.” Then, “You’re kidding! He sent a letter?” More silence, followed by, “Yes, I suppose so. Scotland Yard no longer th
inks I’m in any danger here. But it sounds to me like perhaps our perp moved his activities to the States. Did you find Billy Ray? Hummm. I’d almost bet my life he’s our man.”
She rang off a short while later, and Jonathan came out of the bathroom. At the stricken look on her face, he knew their time had come to an end.
“You have to go home,” he said.
She nodded, going into his arms. “It’s horrible, Jonathan. Mike says we’ve got a Ripper-style killer working his way around the United States. We’ve been contacted by the police in four cities, and from their VICAP reports, he’s certain the murders were committed by the same perpetrator. We’re having a meeting at headquarters on Friday with law enforcement officers who are coming in from Chicago, Kansas City, Phoenix and San Francisco, the places the Ripper has struck. He wants me there.”
Jonathan’s blood turned to ice as the truth sank in. “Our killer wasn’t Burt Brown after all.”
Her expression was grave. “I think not. I’ve felt all along that it was Billy Ray. Somehow he got back to the States and is carrying on his bloody business all over the country. I wish we knew more about him so we could build a profile. Mike said nobody’s been able to find out anything about him.”
Jonathan didn’t care about any profile. He cared about Victoria. He recalled the incident in the corridor of the hotel, when Billy Ray accosted Victoria, and he was struck with a sick, awful feeling that the man was just practicing on these other women, waiting for Victoria to return.
If she left, she was going to play right into his hands.
“Don’t go, Victoria.” A lump the size of a boulder caught in his throat. “If the killer is the same one who murdered here, he’s also the sicko who sent you the liver. You’ll be exposing yourself to danger all over again.”
