Page 39 of Secrets in the Dark
“Of course, they did! He found the body. But he was working under Dante’s tutelage then. He would have seen to it that she was left just as Dante would have left her. He would have learned all about making sure that he didn’t leave any evidence to suggest that he was the killer.”
“But,” Mason reminded her, “if he was using Dante’s methods, he would have needed to get rid of his tools of the trade—his way of removing all the blood from her body.”
“She wasn’t killed there—she was dumped there,” Della reminded him. “Or, I should say, displayed there.”
Mason nodded again. “All right, so...gut-wise, I think that you’re right. What we need to do is find a way to prove it. Curious...” he murmured.
“What’s that?”
“We both believed that he killed the young woman he claimed to have found. Did he kill the others? And is this the Ripper King we’re looking for now?”
“He’s certainly in a good position. He’s a bartender right in the area—”
“Yes, except, remember. A pub closes. The patrons begin to filter out after last call. The staff has to stay until they’ve picked up for the night. And, I still can’t help but think that Jesse Miller is the man trying to perfectly—as perfectly as possible well over a hundred years later—replicate the Jack the Ripper killings.”
Della closed her eyes for a moment. “Mason, this is terrifying. There really might be more than one killer.”
“We’ve already thought of that possibility.”
“But...”
“I know what you’re thinking. There might even be more than two killers out there—two killers who were followers of Stephan Dante. And now, one of them isn’t just being careful not to get caught when he believes the world thinks that the vampire killer has been caught, but who has determined that he’s going to outshine his mentor, prove that he’s the most complicated killer out there—the one to become the most infamous.”
Mason nodded. “Or,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “there could be just two—one who committed one or more of the previous London killings, and one who is now working on becoming a twenty-first century king of Rippers.”
“There’s got to be some kind of evidence somewhere!” Della said.
“Yes. Those cases are still open, and they are the reason Edmund came after the vampire killer and joined our little international group. We need to research all the findings on the vampire killings here again. Every one of us. Something may click with someone.”
“And in the meantime, Jesse Miller is still somewhere.” Della frowned and pulled out her phone, quickly keying something into a search engine. “Mason, Abigail said that she saw a man who may have been Jesse Miller at the City of London Cemetery. And look!” She lifted her phone so that Mason could see the site she’d drawn up. “Isabelle Ainsley, the vampire victim who was local, was buried at the City of London Cemetery as were both Mary Anne—aka Polly—Nichols and Catherine Eddowes. I think we should pay the cemetery a visit.”
“It can’t hurt. In whatever guise, the killer is probably doing his stalking once darkness falls. We’ll head to the cemetery. I’ll call Edmund and we’ll go over records together early this evening, and then we’ll hit the streets.”
He lifted a hand for a cab and she frowned.
“We’re not walking!” he told her.
“Oh, right. I guess we’ll do enough walking tonight. And...”
“And the cemetery may be a lot of walking, too.”
They were picked up and dropped off at the gates. Della had drawn up information on the cemetery but he didn’t need her to tell him that it was large—a two-hundred-acre site—or that it was well thought out and crafted with a stunning entry that offered handsome stonework and spoke of the Victorian age.
“Opened in 1856,” Della murmured. “Not that old as things in Europe may be, but...”
He shrugged. “Human beings have always needed to remember loved ones gone before them. Often, in centuries gone by, people were buried in churches—interred in catacombs or in the walls—or in churchyards. Come the Victorian age and designing beautiful places for people to come and sit and pray or reflect on their loved ones—or life and death perhaps—became a popular concept. Also, they were afraid that the number of decaying corpses would cause diseases to spread. But this place is known for its well-kept roads and pathway, nature and beauty. Not that other cemeteries aren’t...but, anyway, anyone of any religion or ethnicity can still be buried here.”
“Hey, I’m the guide here, remember?” she teased.
“Where first?”
“Let’s find our victims.”
They walked through the cemetery like any other tourists, commenting on beautiful funerary art pieces and the landscaping.
Watching people as they did so.
They passed a family bringing flowers, a young couple, a small group of young adults who appeared to be tourists and a lone older man kneeling at a gravesite, his head bowed in prayer. No one they saw resembled any of Maisie’s sketches, or Jesse Miller as they had seen him at the pub in Brixton.
