Page 47 of Secrets in the Dark
Della nodded. “I always remember the academy. The statistics. There are twenty-five to fifty serial killers active in just the United States at any given time. That remains terrifying—and doesn’t include domestic killing or events fueled by robberies or revenge or... Mason, this is still so sick. We must end this. We must find this man. We saw this poor girl on the table. Dr. Monroe is right. The violence and brutality escalate. Annie Chapman was horribly mutilated. Again, reading past medical reports, they suspect that he strangled his victims to keep them from crying out before he slashed their throats, deep slashes, almost to sever the head from the body. But with Annie Chapman, Mason, he removed her intestines and laid them on her shoulder and he took parts of the bladder and the vagina that were never found. Elizabeth Stride had her throat slit, but she wasn’t mutilated. Ripperologists through the years believe that he might have feared he was about to be interrupted. She was killed on the night of the double event. He went on to murder Catherine Eddowes, again with the throat slashed, and the stomach ripped open, and this time a kidney gone and... If it had been now, of course, we’d know whether the kidney sent to Mr. Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilante Committee was, indeed, her kidney, or... Well, the killer claimed to have eaten some of it when he sent what they call the From Hell letter, which they suspect might have been written by the real killer. Mason, how far will this man go to play out the past?”
“Not far because we’re not going to let him.”
She smiled. Their escorting inspector was waiting for them. Jeanne and François were coming from behind.
“I wish I could take a shower,” Della murmured.
He grinned. “You’re not too stinky,” he told her.
She made a face at him. “Trust me—I am going to take a shower. Just as soon as we finish with Mr. Gary Hudson!”
“François will accompany me back to the house,” Jeanne said. “We have records from the English vampire killings and we’ll organize. We didn’t mean to take you from such an important interrogation, but Doctor Monroe is deeply disturbed and...”
“Right. We understand,” Mason said. “And we decided on letting our suspect mull on his own for a while.”
“He says he’s a victim, that he needs no legal counsel, and... Well, of course, he’s all into being helpful. But letting him sit long enough...”
“Mais, oui.Get him agitated,” Jeanne agreed. “We will be at the house and expect you when we see you. And then...”
“Tonight, again, all of us out on the street,” Mason said.
He turned to the inspector waiting to drive them back, thanked him, ushered Della into the car and joined her.
She had her phone out and was busy texting.
“What’s up?” he asked her.
She smiled at him. “I’m writing our great research master at headquarters—Angela Crow. There must be something in Gary Hudson’s past—something that caused him to be so hateful. Strange, fathers tend to be the abusers when there has been child abuse, but—oh, and I’m not Gary! I’m not man-bashing—”
Mason grinned. “Statistics are statistics!” he told her.
“Statistically—should have started with that!” she said. “But there are cases, of course, when the mother has done something. Or, perhaps his parents are dead. Or maybe he was just married at one point to someone that they might refer to as a ballbuster. Or—”
“Angela will get something back to us. I know her. It will be fast.”
“Faster than ever!” Della said, looking at her phone. “Wow. She’s amazing. Okay, worse than I thought. His mother killed his father and claimed domestic abuse, but—Cliff notes on this—she didn’t make it through court because a forensic detail gave away her elaborate, premeditated murder plot. Her sentence was reduced because there were many character witnesses to attest to the abuse she had suffered through the years, but apparently, Gary’s father loved the kid, and he hated his mother for what she did to his father. He went into the foster system and bounced around—”
“Wait. Where is the mother now? Did she die under mysterious circumstances?”
“No. She died of cancer when Gary was twelve. He went from foster family to foster family.” She looked at Mason. “Do you think that he feels he never avenged his father’s death? That he wanted to kill women because his mother killed his father and that made him an easy mark for Dante?”
“Could be. We’ll have to ask him,” Mason said.
It was time to have a chat with Gary Hudson.
Mason and Della met up with Edmund and Sean in the observation room.
“I went in,” Sean said. “Hudson has never met me, so we figured that I should be the one to explain that we were sorry, it was going to be a bit. Could I get him tea, coffee, water—anything to make the wait better. He was fine at first. Then he paced the room. Then he started talking to himself. Of course, I politely offered him legal aid again and he said that he’d be working on his own representation—once he got someone to arrest Della, too. I said, of course, that Della was a highly respected guest in our country, and... How the hell has that bloke been a barman, chatting up women every night?”
“How else do you make a fool of anyone?” Della asked quietly. “He’s been wearing a mask a long, long time.” She quickly caught Sean and Edmund up on what they had learned about the man’s past.
“Well, I guess he didn’t have much of a childhood,” Sean said.
“Many people go through terrible childhoods—though that was bad. But many people rise above, too—some of the best law enforcement people I know grew up in rough circumstances,” Edmund said. “Those with strength rise above it.”
“All right, then. Time to not be so pleasant. Sean has kept our detainee politely entertained until now, so, where should we start?” Della mused.
“Twist a little bit harder and harder. I’ll go at him,” Edmund said, nodding gravely. “We can add on and then add on.”
