Ripper (27 page)

At least he wouldn’t have to go opening any of those. There he was, laid out on a metal gurney near the opposite wall, Septimus Tudd. Eyes closed, hands clasped over his belly, with his bowler hat lying askew on his chest. He looked as if he were napping.

Carver lowered the stack of newspapers against the door, then stepped closer. The more he looked, the more
dead
Tudd appeared. His chest wasn’t moving, of course, but the skin on his sheepdog face drooped even more, in a horribly unnatural way, and his skin was a bluish shade of gray except for the dull purple bruise on his face where Carver had hit him.

“Sorry,” he said softly.

Where should he begin?
How
should he begin?

He had to get ahold of himself, get this over with, just do it. He could get sick about it later. Forcing down some nausea from the chemical smell, he took Tudd’s hat and put it aside. Starting slowly, he patted the left side of Tudd’s jacket, disgusted by how cold the body beneath it felt, how much like a thing.

It got easier as he worked, but not very much. He carefully checked the jacket, the shirt, the sides of the pants, even the shoes. Nothing. Then he spotted the bowler.

He grabbed it. Running his hands along it, he felt an uneven bump beneath the brim. Excited, he worked his fingers into the gap and withdrew a folded envelope. Yes!

His excitement faded when he realized it wasn’t the envelope his father’s letter had been in. It was thicker, and the return address was Scotland Yard. Maybe Tudd had put it inside to better protect it?

Inside was a piece of thick slick paper. He opened it up. It was photographic paper, a facsimile, and on it, he saw another message in his father’s hand.

CARVER
swooned.
Jack the Ripper?
His father was
Jack the Ripper
?

The abyss Hawking warned about opened wide. He felt himself ready to tumble in. The smell of embalming fluid was making him sick. The room began to spin.

A rapping came from the window. It was Hawking. Somehow, Carver dragged himself over and opened it a crack.

“What’s going on?” Hawking whispered.

“My father…,” Carver began.

He staggered closer on wobbly legs. Risking discovery, Hawking turned and kneeled so Carver could see his face. “What did you find? Give it here.”

Weakly, Carver handed him the letter. Hawking gritted his teeth. “The fool was hiding
this
? Did he really expect to catch the Ripper himself?”

“You knew what Tudd suspected? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Of course I knew Tudd’s crazy theory. As for the similarities, I’m surprised you didn’t suspect. A detective fan who’d never heard of the Whitechapel killings? You were seven at the time. Old enough to read the papers. Your father’s letter was from London at the time of the killings. All you had to do was add.”

Carver knew the name Jack the Ripper, of course. His horrible killing spree was the most famous unsolved case of all time. For four months in 1888, he’d butchered prostitutes in a London slum. At one point, he’d even sent the police a human kidney.

He was never caught. The killings simply stopped.

“Miss Petty wouldn’t allow any newspapers in the orphanage during the killings,” Carver said, remembering. “She thought it was too ghastly. I
tried
to read about it, but all I knew was what the cook told me.”

Carver went to his knees. “My father.”

“Boy!” Hawking hissed from the window. “Don’t faint on me! I’ll never get you out of there. Stand up! Stand up now! Get to the door. Get out of there. You need air. Move!”

Carver swayed but managed to numbly rise and follow Hawking’s commands.

His mentor’s voice kept guiding him. “That’s it. Through the door, down the hall. I’ll meet you.”

The next thing Carver remembered was the fresh air hitting his face as he half-fell out the side door. A frantic Hawking grabbed him and quickly pulled him across the street.

“This isn’t a story, boy,” Hawking said as they walked. “It’s life. It hasn’t changed. You have. Welcome to the abyss. Now you have to decide whether to fall in or not. Shall I take you to Blackwell, have you set up in your own padded cell like that poor screaming woman who didn’t care for the play?”

Carver exhaled. “Maybe you should.”

Hawking shook him again, harder. “Don’t be ridiculous. I won’t have you ruining all my hard work. You’ll continue, just as you did when you first suspected your father wasn’t exactly as righteous as Sherlock Holmes. Remember what I said then?”

“I don’t have to be like him.”

Hawking nodded. “I also said you may have inherited some of his cunning. If he’s the Ripper, you may well be brilliant. And, as I said before, the best suited to catch him. Understand that, boy? You wanted to be a detective? That was your dream? Well, here you are. A detective in the best crime lab in the world, in a position to catch the world’s most famous murderer since Cain killed Abel. Now is not the time for weakness!”

But for all his grumpy talk, as they hobbled down the street together, for the first time it was Hawking who helped Carver stay on his feet.

BACK AT the headquarters, Carver sat slumped in a chair. Hawking stormed about, increasingly antsy. “I have to leave. Echols is expecting me.”

“Why are you working for him, anyway?” Carver asked.

“Not now!” Hawking said. “I can’t just leave you alone. In your mood, who knows what you’ll… the girl! Call your reporter friend. Have her meet you outside. Tell her nothing over the phone.”

“But…”

“Just do it.”

Too weak to argue, Carver lifted the receiver of a candlestick phone. “New York Times Building, please.”

As he waited, Hawking waved his good hand in the air. “The newsroom will be flooded with calls, fake leads, fake confessions. Ask for a different department. Where does she work? Say you have a complaint there.”

When the operator answered, Carver said, “I… have a complaint about yesterday’s Word Scramble.”

“I’ll connect you to that department, sir,” a crackly voice said.

As he waited, he closed his eyes.

“Puzzle department,” a poised young voice said.

“Delia?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Carver, where are you? What’s going on?”

He looked at Hawking. “Can you meet me in the park in about five minutes?”

“Five minutes? I don’t have a lunch break for… Fine. I’ll meet you.”

No sooner did he hang up than Hawking hustled him back to the subway. “She can still help you with Roosevelt.”

Carver sighed. “I didn’t find the letter. I failed.”

“You didn’t fail,” Hawking said. “If you couldn’t find the letter, it wasn’t there. You did well, just as you’ve done all along, by and large, and just as you’ll do with what’s to come.”

Carver wanted to thank him for the compliment, but his shock had muted into numbness. The pair stayed silent until they were out on Broadway and Hawking hailed a cab.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” his mentor said as he climbed inside.

Minutes later, Carver was walking Delia through the park, hemming and hawing as he filled her in on the details of the last few days. Her face wrinkled as he spoke, and he feared he’d soon see that look of disgust in her eyes again.

“You had the man you punched put in jail and he
died
?” she said. “And it was your idea?”

Carver squirmed. “Delia, what was I
supposed
to do? You’re the one who said it was wrong to withhold evidence! He told Roosevelt I was crazy! He was concealing the letter!”

She was unmoved. “What is this man training you for exactly, a life of crime detection or a life of crime?”

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Carver said grimly as they crossed Broadway. “I’d still be in chains if it wasn’t for Mr. Hawking. He risked his
life
trying to catch my father.”

“That just means he’s crazy as well as underhanded. And now he’s working for that… that… Echols.”

Carver winced. “He must have a reason! Maybe it’s the excuse he needed to work on the case. But… that’s not even the worst I have to tell you.”

He hesitated as they approached Devlin’s, not knowing where to begin, fearing she would hate him forever. “Have you heard of Jack the Ripper?”

“So you’ve heard about the letters?”

“I’ve heard. And it seems there’s little question. My father… the Tombs killer… and Jack the Ripper—they’re all the same person. Maybe you’re right to hate me. After all, I’m the son of the devil himself.”

All at once, her displeasure melted into sympathy. “Oh, Carver, I’m so sorry. It’s all over the newsroom. They’re still fighting about whether to print the letters or not. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how to reach you. I can imagine what it must be like for you having…
him
for a father. Carver… I don’t know what to say, I just feel so helpless, and I don’t like feeling helpless. I want to
do
something. Wait, what are you doing?”

“There is something you can do.” Carver got down on his knees beside one of the brass tubes. As she watched, fascinated, he
twisted and pulled it in the proper combination. The door behind her popped open.

“That’s spanking fine!” she said.

“Just wait,” he said, motioning her toward the elevator.

Once they were inside the pneumatic subway, Delia was so thrilled she shook. Her excitement was so contagious, it took the edge off his gloom. “Is it the only one? When was it built? Why aren’t they all over the city?”

He put his hands out, trying to stop the barrage. “I’ll tell you whatever you want, but I want you to see something first,” he said.

When they emerged, the look on her face, the rosy color of her cheeks and the twinkle in her eye made Carver feel almost proud.

“It looks better with people in it,” he said.

“Well,
we’re
here now. Carver,
why
are we here?”

He explained as simply as he could. “I don’t want to reveal the New Pinkertons, but I want the police to know as much as I do. I’m their best link to the killer and I have to put it all together in a way that will convince Roosevelt. You’re the writer, so I want your help. It’ll be tough without my father’s letter, but if it works, we can give the story to Jerrik first. Think that’ll help his career?”

Delia beamed. “It’ll do more than that! Thank you for asking me, really. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything so important. How do we get started?”

He led her across the plaza and into the athenaeum. The cavernous space was empty, the massive rows of books daunting.

Even though there was no one to disturb, Carver whispered. “I guess we should start by finding out everything we can about Jack the Ripper.”

HOURS LATER
the oak table was full of notes, books and newspaper articles. They were piled so precariously, Carver imagined Mr. Beckley would explode if he saw it. With the librarian absent, he thought about trying the analytical engine, explaining the punch card system excitedly to Delia. But aside from the fact he didn’t know how to use it, interesting as it was, neither could see how it would help.

Instead, Delia sat opposite him, fountain pen in hand, all business, and they began the same way Carver had when he first visited, listing what they knew: how Carver found the letter, where it was, the date. It was slow work. Each new question required flipping through dozens of pages, each revelation more horrifying than the last. Every fifteen minutes, Carver was ready to give up, but Delia kept pushing.

“Come on, you have to try.” She repeated her last
question. “Your father’s letter was dated July 18, 1889. Does that tally with the end of the Ripper killings, yes or no?”

Carver numbly nodded toward the collection of articles he’d just finished reading. “It depends on who you ask. The last of the five most famous victims, Mary Jane Kelly, was murdered on November 9, 1888, but there were more murders afterward that may or may not have been the Ripper. One of the last was named… McKenzie, I think. I remember because she was killed July 17, 1889, the day before the letter I found was written.”

Delia made a note and then tapped her chin with the pen. “Any other connections between Whitechapel and what’s happening here? Even the obvious ones?”

Carver stared into the dark.

“Carver?”

He shrugged. “They were all women.”

“They say he hates women,” Delia said.

“He certainly doesn’t seem to like them very much” Carver said. “But maybe…”

“What?”

“Don’t get offended, but maybe it was just
easier.
They were weaker. And the women in Whitechapel were poor, desperate, easy prey.”

“Not here,” Delia pointed out. “He’s picked two wealthy socialites.”

Why? He remembered Hawking’s imperative, to think like a killer, like his father. Why would he make that sort of extreme change? Poor. Rich. It couldn’t be a bigger difference.

Was that it? It was so different from Whitechapel, it was like the killer was pointing to it, the same way leaving the body at the Tombs pointed to it. Was it about getting attention? Carver frowned.