Stalking Jack the Ripper

by Kerri Maniscalco

  “I might as well go to him, Uncle. Thomas can finish this lesson for me.”

  I untied my apron and pulled it over my head. There was no need to give Father another reason to shout about my unladylike fascination with forensic medicines. I went to place the apron in the laundry bin, and Thomas gently took it from me, his fingers lingering on my gloveless hands. I lifted my gaze and found him staring down into my eyes. Even in the wake of all I’d lost, my heart found the will to beat rapidly at his touch.

  “It’ll all work out,” he said softly, then grinned. “I could always have a word with your father. I’m not surprised he fancies me. I am rather hard to resist.”

  I snorted, removing my hand from his. “I should like to see you sit down to tea with my father. Perhaps you could even tell him how many times you’ve indecently asked for a kiss.”

  “You mean how I’ve successfully received a kiss, I believe. If that’s what the lady wants, I shall act immediately.” Thomas shrugged and made to walk up the stairs, but I grabbed him and pointed to where Uncle was huffing across the room.

  “If you don’t go over there and assist him”—I nodded in Uncle’s direction—“I fear he may start throwing things.”

  “Admit it. You’re afraid your father will love me and we’ll be betrothed before the night is through.” Thomas leaned closer, his lips tickling my ear in the most inappropriate manner as Uncle cleared his throat. “I rather fancy the thought of more adventures with you, Miss Wadsworth.”

  I shook my head. Of course now he’d address me properly. The fiend. He pressed a chaste kiss to my hand, then stalked off toward my uncle, taking my place near the exposed brain.

  I watched him remove a piece of it before silently making my way upstairs. I’d miss him terribly and a new wave of grief flooded my system. Nathaniel was gone and now Father would banish me from my apprenticeship, taking Uncle and Thomas from me as well. I had nothing.

  I reached the top of the stairs and halted. Father’s broad form blocked the doorway, imposing as ever. I twisted Mother’s ring, all too aware it probably had droplets of dried blood on it.

  Father glanced over my shoulder, then settled his attention on me. He needn’t say a thing. His emotions were clearly written across his face. Anyone could read their meaning. I held a hand up, tired and defeated.

  Nathaniel involved himself in science and ended up buried. Perhaps it was a sign I needed to give it up as well. I was tired of fighting both society and life. Giving in felt weak, but the gaping hole in my chest swallowed any burning desire to carve my own path.

  “Please. Spare me from the lecture this once. I am a shameful creature who does not deserve our good name.” My breath hitched in my throat. I’d not cry now. Not like this. “You were right, Father. Nothing good can come from such wicked pursuits. Perhaps if Nathaniel hadn’t been obsessed with such things he’d still be alive and well now. I will not disobey your wishes again.”

  For the first time, I meant what I said. I was not crossing my fingers behind my back, or willing to beg forgiveness later. I’d find another profession and another path to take in life. I did not fool myself into thinking I’d ever be content with staying home and tending to the house, but I’d search for some other way to fulfill my soul.

  Father reached for me and I flinched. His eyes grew misty. “Have I been so cruel that you fear me?” I shook my head. He’d never hit me, and I felt a new wave of shame for flinching away from him. “I’ve been doing some thinking.”

  He pulled an envelope from his overcoat pocket and inhaled deeply. “After your mother died, it was as if each shadow grew talons and claws and was threatening to steal away everything I loved.”

  Father stared at the envelope in his hands. “Fear is a hungry beast. The more you feed it, the more it grows. My misguided intentions were good, but I’m afraid they didn’t turn out as I’d planned.” He tapped his heart. “I thought by keeping you close, keeping you safe in our home, I could protect you from such monsters.”

  A few moments passed and I longed to reach out and hold him. To say something, but couldn’t. There was something about this moment that felt too fragile, a bubble of soap floating above bath water.

  He stood straighter and finally met my gaze. “Did you know I spoke with your uncle last week?”

  I drew my brows together. “I’m afraid he didn’t mention it.”

  A genuine smile tugged at the corners of Father’s mouth. “It’s about time the ornery fool listened to me.” He handed me the envelope. “I asked him to put in a good word for you. You’re brilliant and beautiful and life has countless possibilities for you. Which is precisely why I’m sending you away.”

  The stairwell spun before my eyes and I nearly swayed backward. This was so much worse than I could’ve imagined. Panic cinched my lungs together.

  “You cannot send me away!” I cried. “I promise I’ll be good. No more corpses or postmortems, or police investigations. I swear!”

  Father came forward and did the very last thing I expected him to do. He wrapped me in his arms and kissed the top of my head.

  “Silly child,” he said, not unkindly. “I’m sending you to a forensic medicines school. It’s one of the very best in Europe. Took all of my connections and your uncle’s good word to secure you a place in the class. You leave for Romania in a week.”

  I pulled back enough to look Father in the eyes. There was something there that stole my breath and boosted my spirit: pride. My father was proud of me, and he was giving me the freedom I so longed for. This time when the tears came they were for an entirely different reason. “Is this truly real? Or am I dreaming?”

  I must’ve looked like a fish taken from the water, gulping at air. I shut my mouth and stared at Father. How he approved of this was truly miraculous. Or a delusion. I studied him, trying to decide if he’d been abusing the tonic again.

  He chuckled at my worried expression. “Thomas has assured us he’ll watch out for you while you’re both away. He’s quite the responsible young gentleman, from what I hear.”

  My brows shot up. “Thomas is… he’s going, too?”

  Father nodded. “It was his idea.”

  “Oh?” I couldn’t believe it. Thomas had won over my father just as he said he would. Clearly, this meant the end times were near. I hugged my father, still not quite believing my luck. “This is all wonderful, but… why?”

  Father held me close. “I’ve tried in my own way to protect you from the harshness and diseases of the world. But men—and young women—weren’t meant to live in gilded cages. There’s always a chance some contagion will find a way in. I trust you to change that. In order to do so you must venture out into the world, my sweet girl. Promise me one thing, will you?”

  “Anything, Father.”

  “Always foster and grow that unquenchable curiosity of yours.”

  I smiled. That was a promise I fully intended to keep.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  HISTORICAL AND CREATIVE LIBERTIES TAKEN

  Newspapers first used the term Leather Apron in regard to Jack the Ripper on September 4, not on August 31, and they referred to suspect John Pizer by name on September 7. I adjusted these dates to better serve my purposes and removed Pizer’s name altogether to avoid muddling the plot with extraneous characters.

  On September 10 there really was a vigilante committee that formed, called The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. Using that idea, I involved Nathaniel and Thomas, giving them a solid reason to be trolling the streets in the nights following the crimes as part of the Knights of Whitechapel. I had them out and about on September 7 (the real-life evening before Annie Chapman’s body was discovered), however, which is another embellishment of the historical timeline as far as the vigilante group is concerned.

  I also don’t mention that John Pizer was arrested on September 10 as “Leather Apron.” There were so many men arrested as suspects, I feared it wouldn’t add anything to the story line other than confusing readers w
ith too many names and dead ends. Arrests were made of the following men in September alone:

  John Pizer

  Edward McKenna

  Jacob Isenschmid (accused of being the Ripper and sentenced to the asylum)

  Charles Ludwig (arrested after reportedly threatening two people with a knife)

  Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols had no history of working for upper-class families in London that I could find while researching her background. I took the liberty of fictionalizing what her life could have been before she left her husband, becoming a prostitute and alcoholic and moving from workhouse to workhouse in the early 1880s. I wanted to show the human side of these women, not just the horrific crime scenes they were a part of at the end of their lives. They were wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters, not just forgotten prostitutes, remembered only in death.

  Emma Elizabeth Smith was someone else I fictionalized greatly. There are conflicting theories of whether she was actually an early victim of Jack the Ripper, but I really wanted her included in this novel because I was fascinated by the vagueness of her life before she became a prostitute. While there are rumors of her coming from an elite background, there’s no concrete proof she was highborn. People who knew her claimed she spoke differently, meaning she had a firm grasp of proper language, which was rare for people living in the East End at that time. She said next to nothing about where she came from, which made me ask the all-important question, What if? What if she really was part of the aristocracy? There are reports that she may have known the perpetrators who had attacked her, giving me the spark of an idea to create a new background for her. The mystery surrounding her life and death was a blank canvas that I could really explore through my imagination.

  Annie Chapman’s murder date and details of what she was wearing were as close to accurate as I could make them. She’d been drinking heavily and had used her rent money for alcohol. The lodging house deputy refused her board until she could pay, so she went out to earn some. Her husband had been paying her ten shillings a week, but that ended in 1886, when he passed away, not in 1888, the year of her death.

  Elizabeth Stride is not mentioned by name in this novel, though she was one of the victims of the infamous double event.

  Catherine Eddowes was the second victim in the double event. I kept the date she was buried and embellished the rest about Robert James Lees meeting Audrey Rose and Thomas at the grave. He offered his assistance to Scotland Yard at this time, so I reimagined it as him offering his assistance to Audrey Rose and Thomas instead.

  Mary Jane Kelly was someone I tried keeping as historically accurate as possible. Some of Jack and Mary Jane Kelly’s conversation and descriptions of what she was wearing the night of her death are included in the novel, although I embellished the times and sequence of how they occurred a bit. She was heard singing “A Violet from Mother’s Grave” once she was already inside her apartment with the Ripper, not outside on the street. She was wearing a red shawl, according to one eyewitness.

  The home on Miller Street wasn’t accessible by carriage during this time, but for the purpose of my story, I made it so, allowing Audrey Rose and Thomas a decent hiding spot for their midnight spying excursion.

  Facsimiles of the “Dear Boss” letter and the “Saucy Jack” postcard were actually printed on October 4 (in the Evening Standard), not October 1. Earlier printings of the letters were text only (on October 1 and 3, in the Star and Daily News), not picture copies of the actual letters.

  The Barnum & Bailey circus didn’t come to London’s Olympia until November 1889 (the fall following this story), but since the queen was a fan of it, and hundreds of Victorian circuses traveled across Europe during this time period, I decided to include it. Poor Jumbo the elephant also passed away in 1885 and wouldn’t have been entertaining the crowds.

  Clairvoyant and spiritualist Robert James Lees was an actual man who offered his assistance to police on several occasions for the Jack the Ripper killings. While spiritualism was still quite popular across the United States and Europe (even after some spiritualists and mediums were proven to be frauds), Scotland Yard did not accept his assistance. It has never been confirmed, but there are rumors he also communicated with Prince Albert for Queen Victoria and had even resided in the palace.

  I also tried keeping all medical terminology and practices as close to the date they were used as possible. Books using the term forensic medicine or forensic science were really printed in the 1800s. And doctors/medical examiners used things such as body temperature to determine time of death, though they were also aware that blood loss and cold temperatures would affect the accuracy of their estimates. Joseph Lister developed the idea to sterilize instruments during surgeries in the 1860s using carbolic acid, and fingerprint identification was discovered in the early 1880s. Though they didn’t have all the tools we have now, police scoured a crime scene and collected evidence much the same way in the nineteenth century as they do today.

  As stated on the New York State Troopers website (under “Crime Laboratory System: Forensic Science History”), the following practices were applied during the 1800s:

  In the 1800s the field of forensic science saw substantial progress. The decade saw:

  The first recorded use of questioned document analysis.

  The development of tests for the presence of blood in a forensic context.

  A bullet comparison used to catch a murderer.

  The first use of toxicology (arsenic detection) in a jury trial.

  The development of the first crystal test for hemoglobin using hemin crystals.

  The development of a presumptive test for blood.

  The first use of photography for the identification of criminals and documentation of evidence and crime scenes.

  The first recorded use of fingerprints to solve a crime.

  The development of the first microscope with a comparison bridge.

  Forensic science was significantly applied in 1888, when doctors in London, England, were allowed to examine the victims of Jack the Ripper for wound patterns.

  Any other historical inaccuracies not mentioned were artistic liberties I took to enrich the world of Stalking Jack the Ripper and better serve my characters.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Without the help of the fiercest agent warrior in the world, Barbara Poelle, these acknowledgments wouldn’t exist. Thank you for unleashing Godzilla Bunny for me, B. We did it! To the entire team at IGLA for being the best agency. To Heather Shapiro for getting my book into the hands of readers across the world.

  Huge thanks to my whip-smart editor and fellow Victorian dress enthusiast, Jenny Bak, for expert precision with making Audrey Rose’s story come to life. My book’s so much stronger because of you. I can’t thank you enough for taking a chance on me and a cadaver-wrangling girl. Excited to see what new adventures Audrey Rose and Thomas take us on next! To Sasha Henriques, for comments that always made me smile. (Gruesome and sexy!)

  To James Patterson for the amazing foreword, and for making me and my novel feel right at home with your imprint. JIMMY Patterson Books means the absolute world to me, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. To Tracy Shaw, whose gorgeous cover caused a flurry of exclamation points and dancing GIFs. To Erinn McGrath, for the exquisite publicity plan. Ned Rust, Sabrina Benun, Peggy Freudenthal, Katie Tucker, and the entire team at JIMMY Patterson Books and Little, Brown and Company—your hard work and dedication are truly humbling. I’ve had the best debut experience because of you all.

  Mom and Dad, thank you for always encouraging me to reach for the stars (or scalpel or paintbrush or pen) and never thinking something was unattainable because of my gender. I know the word “impossible” can be broken down into “I’m possible” because of you both. Kelli, you’re my favorite sister. (Not because you’re my only sister.) Thanks for styling me with Dogwood Lane Boutique clothing for every event and for being my best friend. I’m so very proud of your accomplishments. Love all of you!

 
I dedicated this to Grandma but need to add this: My entire world is built on books and she laid the foundation. I can only hope that she would have adored this story—and the strong female who solved one of the biggest whodunits in history—as much as I do.

  To the Belascos, Cuthbertstons, Diakakises, and Loews—love you! Paula, Jeff, Mike, Matt, Daniel, Anna, Juliet, Katie, and Ben, thank you for all the laughter and shared food. I’m blessed to know each of you. Jacquie, Alyssa, Shannon, and Beth—BFFs, always. There’s no place like home. To fur babies Toby, Miss Libby, and Oliver for their names.

  My mews, Bella, for constantly keeping Mommy on track with writing and giving me the belly, and Gage for being adorable.

  Early readers: Renée Ahdieh, A. G. Howard, and Leah Rae Miller, infinite thanks for your time and insight. Beta team extraordinaire: Kathy and Kelli Maniscalco and Ashlee Supinger, you’re the best. Critique partners Precy Larkins and Alex Villasante—my words and life are richer because of you. To Traci Chee, who, two weeks before Christmas, brainstormed like a complete badass—even though she was under her own deadline—and offered amazing notes and feedback. I’m thrilled to share this journey to publication with you. #goatwub to the goat posse who are the best writing group. The Sweet Sixteens—what a ride! To Stephanie Garber for being my BEA buddy—so happy we got to share the fun in Chicago. Dresses and comfy shoes forever!

  Renée Ahdieh and Beth Revis, your blurbs made my life. Much love to you both!

  Readers, book bloggers, librarians, booksellers, social media friends, and Ava + the Knights of Whitechapel: I owe you piles of gratitude for your incredible response! Thank you for rallying behind a scalpel-wielding girl who adores fancy dresses and justice for women. I’d pluck the stars from the skies for you.

  Chris “Chri,” without your love and support this journey wouldn’t be nearly as sweet. Everything from my cat-lady tendency to my Stormtrooper dreams, floppy socks, and Shakespeare nerding-out are a little less weird because you get it. “Doubt thou the stars are fire, / Doubt that the sun doth move, / Doubt truth to be a liar, / But never doubt I love.” It’s not hard to deduce that you’re the bestest-er-est in my book now and always. (Which is why I saved you for last.)