by Jeff Rice
Miss Riegel’s mother and our client have expressed the explicit desire that Miss Riegel’s reputation and her poor mother’s privacy be respected by a minimum of notoriety.
In the event that anything is published to the contrary in your newspaper under your by-line, or by you through any other source, concerning the circumstances of Miss Riegel’s death, it will leave us no alternative but to bring appropriate legal action against you. I certainly hope this will not be necessary.
Respectfully yours,
Louis R. Bregman
Envelope number two contained a check for my last two weeks’ work in May and another for the week of June 1 through June 5. Also inside was a short letter of recommendation personally signed by Llewellyn Cairncross, himself.
The final envelope contained a brief note from Jake Herman’s assistant, Bess Melvin:
Dear Carl
We are going to miss you around here quite a lot.
Things may be somewhat the same after you’re gone. You know, confusing, upsetting and frustrating, but that’s what keeps us all happy and trying, I guess.
If you ever decide to come back rest assured you have at least one friend in the front office. We could sure use you behind an editor’s desk. As things are now… well you know what the Daily’s newsroom is like… you can never tell what will come out of it.
Take good care of yourself and let us know where you are when you settle down.
Regards,
Bess
Well, there it was. The final knot. All the ends nicely tied up.
I decided prolonged good-byes were more than I’d be able to take right then so I threw what clothing I had in the car, started lugging my stereo and TV downstairs, and spent the rest of the day getting things straightened up around the apartment. I called Sam and asked her to meet me at the Dome of the Sea at seven. Might as well have one big, expensive meal to leave town on.
Over dinner I told her what had happened, and told her that I’d let her know where to send my scrapbooks, files and mementos. I added she could sell, give away or take whatever furniture she wanted and send me whatever money it brought in. My rent had been paid for the month so there was no great rush. I asked her to return Dr. Helms’ books to her at the university.
On our way out I gave Frederick, the maitre d’, a ten-dollar bill. Carl Kolchak. The last of the big-time spenders. Then I kissed Sam good-bye and got in my car, laying another dollar tip on the attendant. Before nine o’clock I was on the road to L.A. There wasn’t anything to look back for.
I just considered myself lucky to get out of Las Vegas alive.
EPILOGUE
On Wednesday, September 9, 1970, Bernie Fain, fifty-seven, was found dead in a tool shed behind his nine-room frame house on West Ironsides, a privately owned island in the Thousand Islands in upper New York State. It is reported that he died of an “overdose of sleeping pills” and arrangements were made by some of his former associates for his funeral and subsequent cremation at the Ridgefield Mortuary in Clayton, New York on Friday, September 11, 1970.
• • •
On Thursday, October 15, 1970, Miss Amanda Staley, fifty-nine, a retired nurse residing in Glendale, California, was found dead of an apparent heart attack on the kitchen floor of her apartment at 11472 East Broadway. No funeral services were held and she was cremated at the Eagle Vista Mortuary in Eagle Rock, California, on Saturday, October 17 at about 11:00 A.M. She left no survivors and the arrangements were made by “friends and former associates” in Las Vegas.
• • •
Las Vegas show producer Henri St. Claire reportedly died in the much-publicized crash of an Aeroflot (Soviet) Antonov 24 turboprop airliner during the unsuccessful hijack attempt by two Rumanian nationals on October 19, 1970. St. Claire had been in Rumania negotiating with the manager of the Rumanian National Folk Dancing Company and certain government officials, pursuant to bringing the troupe to Las Vegas for a premiere appearance at the Deauville Hotel in January, 1971. Due to the international complications which have arisen in this matter, there is no further information available at this time and his body has not been recovered.
• • •
On Friday, November 13, Carl Kolchak, forty-eight, former Las Vegas newsman was reported missing from his bachelor apartment in the 1700 block of North Vermont Avenue. His landlady claimed he disappeared owing two months rent. Apparently he left everything behind except the clothes on his back.
I questioned her a few days later and she told me he’d had a visit from one Rupert Koster who claimed to be Kolchak’s close friend. Kolchak was out and Koster left no message but the landlady told Kolchak of the visit. I imagine that is when he took off. Rupert Koster is an assistant district attorney in Las Vegas, and, from what I can gather, is very definitely no friend of Carl Kolchak’s.
I have not seen Kolchak since those meetings we had in his apartment. I don’t even know if he is alive. Nor do I intend to try finding out. If he is alive, I hope he reads this. And I hope he likes it… wherever he is.
Jeff Rice
Hollywood, Calif.
APPENDIX
JACK THE RIPPER
[Next to Janos Skorzeny, I think Jack the Ripper is one of history’s most fascinating villains. Kolchak appears to have been particularly fascinated by the stories of this killer. The material he amassed was far to lengthy to include in a book this size, and he indicated he had hopes, some day, of doing such a book from the viewpoint of a Victorian-era reporter “on the scene.”
I felt that, while interesting, the material that follows had little to do with the events in Las Vegas, so it is included here for readers with a taste for the ghoulish–JR]
Jack the Ripper’s stomping grounds were the areas of Whitechapel and Spitalfields in London’s East End, an area of abject poverty and great violence, regarded by many of the time as one of the most dangerous places, foot for foot, on earth.
On Easter Monday, 1888, a whore named Emma Smith was found on Osborne Street in Whitechapel “hideously mutilated” by a knife. There were no clues.
On the first Tuesday in August, victim number two was discovered at Whitechapel’s Grove-Yard buildings, dead about three hours with no less than thirty-nine stab wounds in her body (much like the New York slaying of Kitty Genovese who was stabbed to death while thirty-nine witnesses did nothing to help her). The London Times called the murderer a “perfect savage.” The victim: a Whitechapel harlot.
On September 1, at about 4:00 A.M., Police Constable Neil (also identified as Neill, O’Neil, and O’Neill) discovered the third victim in a Bucks Row, Whitechapel doorway, her throat slit from ear to ear, the blood still pulsing from her neck. Mary Ann Nichols, streetwalker, dead but still warm.
On September 8, a Spitalfields strumpet named Annie Chapman of Hanbury Street was killed in similar fashion and the September 10 Times said, “her head was almost severed from her body and [the corpse] was completely disemboweled.”
Soon after the killer sent a letter to Scotland Yard: ‘This is the fourth. I will murder sixteen more and then give myself up.” It was signed “Jack the Ripper.”
While the police worked themselves into a frenzy trying everything from using paid informants to disguising themselves as streetwalkers, the “Ripper” sent them letters written (it was later determined by laboratory analysis) in blood, assuring them that “all decent women are perfectly safe.”
He struck again in a double killing on September 30, first cutting the throat of a harlot named Elizabeth Strade in a factory gateway on Berner Street in Whitechapel. Then he swiftly moved on as if interrupted before he could also disembowel her. This was his fifth victim.
On the sixth murder, to again quote The London Times, “She was found lying on her back with her head inclined to the left side. Her left leg was extended. The throat was terribly cut; there was a large gash across the face from the nose to the right angle of the cheek, and part of the right ear had been cut off. There were also other indescriba
ble mutilations. It is stated that some anatomical skills seem to have been displayed in the way in which the lower part of the body was mutilated.” The victim: Catherine Eddowes, whore. From this it was assumed the killer might be a medical student or even a doctor. Or simply, a mad butcher.
On October 2, the Times received a letter from “Jack the Ripper” in which he promised to cut off the ears of his next victim to send to Scotland Yard. On the same day Scotland Yard received a note stating, “I was not coddling, dear old Boss, when I gave you the tip. You’ll next hear about Saucy Jacky’s work tomorrow. Double event this time. Number on squealed a bit. Couldn’t finish it straight off. Had not time to get ears for the police.” Actually, it seems the card was late and the “double event” promised had actually taken place on September 30.
The citizens rose up in arms and vigilance committees were formed. George Lusk headed up the Whitechapel one and in mid-October, he received this message from the “Ripper”: “I write you in black ink, as I have no more of the right stuff. I think you are all asleep in Scotland Yard with your bloodhounds, as I will who you tomorrow night. I am going to do a double event [the September 30 murders], but not in Whitechapel. Got rather too warm there. Had to shift. No more till you hear from me again. Jack the Ripper.”
Some seven days later Lusk received a cardboard box containing a bloody piece of meat along with the following note: “From Hell. Mr. Lusk. Sir, I send you have a Kidne [sic] I took from one woman, prasarved [sic] it for you, tother [sic] piece I fried and ate it; it was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that ook it out if only you will wate [sic] while longer.” It was signed: “CATCH ME WHEN YOU CAN, Mr. Lusk”
The “Ripper’s” worst and final murder was a classic that even latecomers have been hard pressed to equal for sheer ghoulish brutality. On November 9, at 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields, he carved up Mary Jane Kelley, also a whore, but the only one who died in her own lodgings, leading some to contend she knew the “Ripper” personally or at least intended to service him as a “client.” To quote the Times once more: “The poor woman lay on her back on the bed, entirely naked. Her throat was cut from ear to ear right down to the spinal column. The ears and once had been cut clean off. The breasts had also been cut cleanly off and placed upon a table which was by the side of the bed. The stomach and abdomen had been ripped open while the face was slashed about so that the features of the poor creature were beyond all recognition. The kidneys and heart had also been removed from the body and placed on the table by the side of the breasts. The liver had likewise been removed and laid on the right thigh. The lower portion of the body and the uterus had been cut out, and these appeared to be missing. A more horrible or sickening sight could not be imagined.”
After that “Jack the Ripper” disappeared as quietly and suddenly as he had appeared and, though there are reports from several “eyewitnesses” who claimed to have seen him in ensuing weeks, Jack the Ripper was never found and the cases never solved.
[Kolchak once expressed the theory that “Jack the Ripper” might actually have been a woman, “possibly a whore or even an abortionist.” As far as I know at this writing, he is the only one who has ever taken this tack, but that, too, is typical of him. From reading his notes and checking several volumes on the subject, I think “Jack the Ripper” may well have been a member of London’s Scotland Yard, or even the royal family itself. Perhaps, because of my association with Kolchak, and the experiences I had in Las Vegas, I may have become somewhat sensitive to the smell of a cover-up, but I theorize that the “Ripper” was caught, and that he (or she) was someone very prominent, and that it was all hushed up, the killer being quietly “put away” forever.–JR]
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