Page 42 of Secrets in the Dark
“Maybe?” he murmured.
“All right. Off to Manor Park Cemetery. And then—”
“Then back to the house. We’ll meet up and everyone can report on their day, any new findings—”
“And there may be...nothing,” Della said.
“There may be nothing to share as yet.”
“And we may be going to Manor Park Cemetery for nothing, but...”
“We have to see what we can see,” Mason agreed quietly. He was silent a minute.
“You don’t think that we have a chance of finding him until night, do you?”
He dialed and a car came for them within a few minutes. The driver was chatty; they chatted back, talking about the landscaping of the cemetery and the odd way tourists liked to visit cemeteries.
Della told him that he’d just have to visit New Orleans, and the atmospheric “cities of the dead” to be found there.
He asked them if they had an English relative or friend buried in the cemetery.
Mason answered that one. “We just heard that it was beautiful. Victorian art and all.”
“And the grave of a Ripper victim, right?” he asked, amused.
“That’s right. Annie Chapman,” Mason said simply.
They were dropped off.
It was true that the cemetery was beautiful. And atmospheric. Grand angels and crosses and other monuments adorned many sections, along with headstones at different angles, twisted in the earth by time and nature.
“Opened in 1874,” Mason said as they wove through pathways and monuments to find the grave of Annie Chapman.
A standing plaque had been erected for the woman.
“‘This plaque is dedicated to the memory of Annie Chapman, died eighth of September 1888, a victim of the infamous Jack the Ripper, her remains are buried within this area,’” Della read. She shook her head, pulling out her phone to read about Annie. “Mason, it’s all just so incredibly sad. She liked alcohol too much from a young age, but apparently managed to clean up with help from her siblings. She was married to a man who had respectable jobs, she had three children, two daughters and a son, and the son was born crippled and had to be put in an institution and one of her daughters died at the age of twelve from meningitis and Annie wound up drinking again. She and her husband separated, but she received a payment from him while he was alive. No life insurance, no help from anywhere after he died. She didn’t grow up thinking, wow, I am going to be a prostitute when I grow up! She crocheted and knitted and tried to sell her wares, but she couldn’t always make enough and she was an alcoholic and as we noted earlier, there was no help back then. There weren’t a lot of job openings for her, but she did try at workhouses and the like. Such a different world. Five feet tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed, she was known as Dark Annie, bright and courteous—when she was sober. Don’t get me wrong, I am a believer in personal responsibility, but... Oh, Mason, what a sad life!”
He nodded and said quietly. “Despite all her problems, she was a fighter, so I’ve read. She intended to be a survivor, but...” His voice dropped low. “Careful, but glance to your left. There is a large winged angel and someone is watching us while hovering behind it.”
Della pretended to study the graves by Annie’s plaque. She saw what Mason had seen—a small portion of the left side of the body of someone standing behind the angel.
“We are being watched,” she murmured.
“All right, we’ll stay together down the path, split right and left.”
She nodded.
They turned to leave the grave. The person behind the angel tried to move slightly, to shield himself—or herself—entirely behind the stone body.
Della spoke as they headed in the direction of the angel, weaving around tombs and artful crosses and other monuments in the area. “Oh, Mason. There—it’s a mass grave for fifty-seven people who died during a bombing in World War II. And there, Sarah Dearman, known as Sarah Chapman, no known relationship—initiated a strike that helped change the world. She was known as the match girl, and started the match girls’ strike because she was able to gather others and start a union that went international and changed dire working situations for women—she was a true pioneer for women’s rights!”
“Impressive,” Mason said. “There is such incredible history to be found in a cemetery. We can learn so much from those who went before us.” He glanced at his own phone as they walked, coming closer to the angel. “That strike was in 1888—the year of the Ripper. But thankfully, Sarah lived a good long life—she died in 1945.”
He gave her a nod. She split off to the left, and he moved to the right. They moved fast.
The person behind the angel took flight. They did the same.
But the cemetery was full of twists and turns between memorials and headstones and tombs. He disappeared. Della continued to the left, slowing when she reached an area where there were multiple angels and crosses and large stone mausoleums. She flattened herself against an angel, easing along to see beyond it.
