Page 27 of Secrets in the Dark
“And so it is,” Edmund agreed.
“Jeanne and Sean need to head off alone,” Della reminded them. “If Jesse Miller is our killer and stalking victims, we’ll be recognized. We never did change our appearances any.”
“Off you go, then. We’ll follow at a more leisurely rate. Officer Townsend, Miss McDonald, please listen for my call—I will let you know as soon as I’ve heard from Jackson,” Mason told them.
“Thank you!” Sarah McDonald breathed.
“Right now, I’ll let her get some sleep,” Marty Townsend said. He was grim and serious, and Mason believed that he was a dedicated officer and the woman was going to be safe in his hands. Townsend was a tall, well-muscled man in his late twenties.
This “Jack” didn’t want to fight a big man. He wanted to take women by surprise and kill them so quickly they didn’t know what hit them.
As Sean and Jeanne Lapierre moved ahead, Mason and Della followed at a more leisurely pace.
Mason immediately put a call through to Jackson Crow and explained the situation.
“They are throwing all that they can on this, but our witness is frightened silly. I was hoping that Adam would deem her important enough to hire a security—”
“Not to worry. I’ll have someone on a plane as soon as possible,” Jackson promised. “We’ve got people out around the country as usual, but I’m going to send an agent in. I’ll connect with Angela as soon as we finish this call and I’ll let you know who is coming.”
“The plane is here, but going backward and forward—”
“Leave it to me. We do have another plane,” Jackson reminded him. “Let me talk to Angela and find out who we can move the fastest.”
Mason thanked him and ended the call. He caught up with Edmund and Della who were walking just a few feet ahead.
“Jackson is sending someone,” he informed her. “Not sure who yet, but he’ll have someone here by tonight, if I know Jackson.”
Della nodded, looking at Edmund. “Trust me, Mason is right. If Jackson says we have someone, we do.”
“That’s great. I mean, maybe she doesn’t need any security—”
“And maybe she does. And having another Krewe agent here won’t be a bad thing at all,” Mason said.
“All the help we can get,” Edmund assured him.
Mason smiled and linked arms with Della. “Looks like we’re heading straight ahead. Beautiful view of the church from the outdoor seats!”
“We’ll grab those,” Edmund said. “I think we can see who is coming and going and those who are inside through the windows if we can get to that table right there.”
They were able to grab the table they wanted. Edmund ordered for them, determined that they all sip at one of his recommended English brews.
As they sat, Della leaned forward. “I think we’re going to need to always keep in mind that this man is claiming to repeat the past but creating his own version of it. Of course, the general perception is that the women killed were prostitutes. They were—but their lives were so tragic. I saw a picture of Annie Chapman with her husband before her life went to hell—before the hell of her death. It was all so sad! Three children—one died at the age of twelve and one was born disabled. We see things now that are so similar. Some horrible tragedy in life occurs and we’re fragile human beings. Also! There are many who still believe that Martha Tabram or Turner was Jack’s first victim. The mutilation was different, but she was stabbed thirty-nine times.”
“I think her killer was enraged, but the differences...” Edmund said, shaking his head. “When she was killed, though, people took little notice. The East End was horrible at the time. Seventy-eight thousand people crowded into a small area—either immigrants or the poorest of the poor in London. Oh! So, back in the day of the potato famine in Ireland, you had hundreds of thousands of Irish moving to London, not to mention,” he added, “that caused a huge immigration to the US, too. Then, people could be ghastly—anti-Semitism ran high and about ninety percent of the Jewish population lived in the East End. So, imagine, a horribly overcrowded place where people were constantly rioting and the police could barely keep up—where alcoholism was often the only escape from the horror of life and fights and violence were the way of their world. Martha was killed, and then Mary Ann or Polly was killed, and that’s when people took notice and became aware of the Whitechapel Murders.”
“The first mention of Jack the Ripper was in the From Hell letter,” Della murmured. “And, of course, you wound up with the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police—”
“And graffiti evidence on a wall was erased by Sir Charles Warren because he feared it would cause riots in the streets. The writing was found after the double event, or the night in which Liz Stride and Catherine Eddowes were both murdered. But! Was it evidence, or just graffiti? They didn’t know then and they don’t know now. Charles Warren received such condemnation that he resigned his commission and...hmm. There were those who like to stir unrest. And, of course,Juwesmight have referred to Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum—the men who killed Hiram Abiff, a figure in Freemasonry, an allegory story, but the murder of the man was quite violent.”
“‘The Juwes are the men not to be blamed for nothing,’” Mason said, quoting the words that had been written in graffiti after a Ripper murder—and immediately erased for fear of anti-Semitism rising in the area. “But I’m doubting that our Jack was a Freemason. There were those who thought that it was written by someone—having nothing to do with the murders, since there was often graffiti found on the area walls—just to cause more racial unrest. At any rate, I have a feeling our killer is going to stick to notes to the newspaper or media. The killer of the past didn’t need to know much about forensics—this killer is well aware of them.”
“Do you think that it might be Jesse Miller—the man we saw in Brixton?” Edmund asked.
“Something about him bothered me. But that may mean little,” Della said.
“Well, he took off the minute he saw us,” Edmund said. “That might mean something.”
“Which might mean he’s guilty of something. And, of course, it doesn’t help that we can’t find any kind of an address for him or any record of him using credit cards anywhere,” Mason said.
