The Whitechapel Case
Fox-Trot-9

PG-13
Horror/Suspense/Mystery (How-Catch-'Em)
Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt or Death Note.

Part 2: The Connections
Chapter 2

[From here onwards, all papers included in this work, although stemming from the author's fervent imagination, are inspired by several real events in the history of Whitechapel, London and elsewhere in Great Britain. Through diligent research and astute observations, the author aims to create the most comprehensive and realistic overview (a fictionalized casebook, if you will) of several unsolved crimes. I repeat: These papers are completely fictional. Any and all resemblances to actual published papers are solely coincidence and not an act of infringement upon the copyrights of the Guardian and other published papers.]

Day 2—Noll was a mile up the block when Lin went out the front door, still visible along the sunny stretch of sidewalk beside Langley Drive. Lin called out to him and got no reply; he called out again, this time waving his arms, but the kid kept on walking. Figures. He guessed Noll was probably still pissed off about his remark of having two girlfriends. Of course, he assured Luella and Martin that their boy's relationship with them was completely professional, before walking out. Nothing unusual going on amongst the three of them. He ran to catch up, and when he finally reached Noll, he was winded and sweating.

"Noll..." he said, taking a breath in between. "Don't make my life harder than it needs to be... Where are you going?"

"I'm going to the library."

"You mean the one at the Croydon Clocktower?"

"Yes. I'll need to do some research on Jacob Meiler, and anything else that's connected to him."

"But the library there doesn't open until nine a.m."

"That's why we're walking," said Noll; Lin groaned. "What? It's only twelve miles from here. Besides, it's good for you."

He groaned again. His boss was making him sweat it out, all right. "Why Jacob Meiler? Do you think he might be a suspect?"

"No. It's a possibility, but no; it's not plausible, especially when you factor in his reaction when he woke up in his office, yesterday."

"What did you question him on?"

"Among other things, whether he had ESP or not." Lin looked at him. "Yes, like Mai, he has ESP, but of what kind, I'm not sure. But I do think he holds the key to solving this case."

"How did you know that?"

Noll shrugged his shoulders. "Let's just call it a hunch." Believe it or not, given his penchant for skepticism, Noll did believe in hunches, because when the facts seemed out of line with the evidence, when the records became scarce, and when the theories conflicted with each other, hunches can come in real handy. Consider it the investigator's sixth sense, if you will.

With that, the two walked on in silence for the better part of three hours. They passed the houses and the parallel-parked cars, the mom-and-pop shops, the Woodside Green, the Warehouse Theatre and the Croydon College, until (lo and behold) they reached Katherine Street where the famous Clocktower stood beside a big block of a building that is the Croydon Central Library. The library was a monster of red brick and gray marble, constructed in the Gothic Revival style of the 1890's, looking more like a town hall than a library. You can even look it up on Wikipedia; it's there.

Noll knew that place like a book, because he was a regular bookworm there five years ago. He wondered if the old librarian he knew still worked there; he was one of the few people Noll truly respected. On entering the ground floor (the first floor anywhere else), he didn't find him. In the old man's place at the reception desk was a buxom brunette who kept a steady eye on Noll, as he and Lin walked over. She was interested in him, all right; Noll could tell.

"Excuse me, but is Mr. Lean Gordon here?"

"Oh, no. He passed away three years ago... I'm sorry. How can I help you?"

"Lin and I need access to the records on the top floor."

"I need a high-clearance library card from both of you." They handed them to her. "These haven't been renewed in five years. Stay here while I renew these for you, okay?" And she left them and came back eight minutes later, handing them the new ones. "Here you go. Enjoy your stay while you're here, okay?" she said, adding a wink at Noll.

Noll looked at her. "This isn't a hotel."

The woman gaped.

The elevators were under repair, so the two had to use the steps, some three-hundred of them, up the stairs to the top floor, a good workout for Noll and hell for Lin. If Noll didn't have a mile head start, Lin's knees wouldn't be killing him, right now. They got out their cards to show to the attendant at the door and were admitted. On entering, they got an eyeful of twenty feet of Victorian arcading above their heads. Half of the floor space had multiple columns of six to seven rows of shelves, ten to twelve feet high, that held several periodicals. The top floor was the sanctified area of the library, where many of the original records and newspapers were kept. About a quarter of the remaining space housed computer stations, the restricted ones that had access to the police records normally sealed off from the public. Cops, authority figures and academics with high-enough clearance usually used this floor, sometimes to hold conferences, set up investigations, even create some urban projects. Noll and Lin happened to get access thanks to Martin with his academic position.

Lin tackled the computer work, while Noll looked into row after row of dusty shelves. Records upon records of old newspapers and obituaries, interview and signed confession transcripts, telephone transcripts and records and spreadsheets, casebook copies and originals, handwritten case notes and dossiers, old reference books and logs, typed police reports and journal entries, summary sheets and abstracts, files of evidence details and medical reports, conviction and sentencing statutes, overturns and repeals, type-written courtroom manuscripts and drawings, old mug shot photos and sketch portraits, the whole shebang when it came to law enforcement sat in these dusty shelves. In fact, the top floor of the Croydon Central Library was really a repository of Scotland Yard's records; whenever a police department needed to do some spring cleaning and clearing to make room for other cases, they sent their old stuff here. It added up to tedious, time-consuming sifting—with Noll working on the first murderer and Lin on the second. After about three hours of sifting (nearing the 1:00 p.m. mark), Noll found two very peculiar items. He laid them down on the table and read through them.

The first was an unusually long 1977 feature article from the Guardian. Also, it read more like an excerpt from a memoir than an newspaper article, an unusual quality even for a feature article:

"White-Suit Killer at Large"
By Evan Moore
June 9, 1977

London (Spitalfields).—In the three months since the brutal beheadings of the three victims on March—Sherry Mason, Sora Weathercook and Maple Carmyne—that people now dub the Spitalfields Horror, an interesting development has come to us via the gallant actions of two police officers, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Matheson, age 62, and Detective Sergeant Jacob Meiler, age 42. Both men were making their nightly rounds together in the Whitechapel beat at around 9:45 p.m. on June 1st along Harrow Alley, when they heard a woman's scream from White Street, just ahead of them.

"We ran hard toward the sound," said Mr. Matheson, while he was recovering in the Dover Hospital in Spitalfields on June 4th; his wife was there with him, as I recorded our conversation on audio-tape, from which I copy, verbatim. "Jake ran past me, firing off two shots into the pitch-black alleyway, and found the woman alive. God, she was scared beyond anything I've ever seen on a woman's face. Then the assailant ran into White Street, so we called for back-up, but another officer, Kent Morrison, came up."

Mr. Morrison, age 29, confirmed this when I inquired about it after this interview. Mr. Matheson continued, "I told Kent to stay with her, and he obliged. He radioed in more back-up, while Jake and I pursued the assailant. It was so dark that I couldn't see without my flashlight, but Jake had good eyes, and he saw the assailant run across the Tunnel overpass, so I followed him into a warehouse courtyard. We saw the man enter one of the Warehouses, I think Warehouse 3, where we pursued him up the stairs. Jake and I split up to cover more ground and to seal off whatever exit points the man could take. We saw the man running into the third floor, and I was closer to him than Jake, so I bolted as fast as I could to reach him. When I got there, I could barely see the man's silhouette just in time before he could make it to the stairs - I mean, it was so dark, the only reason why I saw him was the white suit he was wearing that reflected the dim moonlight from outside. But I saw enough to aim my gun and fire off two rounds.

"Then I heard a thud, like the thud of a body hitting the floor, so I got out my flashlight and saw the man lying face-first and bleeding on the foot of the stairs. I radioed Jake that the man was dead. I took the flashlight off him to check on my surroundings, so that I could tell Jake exactly where I was. When I put the flashlight back on the man..." Mr. Matheson was clearly distressed by this information, but after a few breaths, he continued, "My GOD, I just... God, I... I have... This man just disappeared on me, for Christ's sake!—I have no other way of putting it, besides what my eyes just saw!"

Clearly, Mr. Matheson was in hysterics at this point, so I tried to calm him down—which he did—and calmly asked him what happened next; he said, after a deep breath—he was still clearly disturbed as he related this—, "I could not believe my eyes. I saw this man, dead and bleeding on the floor, and now he was gone, just like that. I searched around the place, before calling to Jake that the man somehow escaped and must be on the fourth floor. Jake radioed back that he was already on the fourth floor looking for him, and hasn't found anything yet. Then I..." He took a deep breath, then said, "Then I felt paralyzed, as if I were somehow frozen like a statue out of fear, because my heart was beating so fast. I... I reached for my gun, and... and I accidentally pulled the trigger, and it fired, and..."

I tried calming him down again, for he was hyperventilating. As soon as he stopped, I delayed the interview, so Mr. Matheson could recover his compose; when he did, I asked him what happened next. He said, "I'm sorry... I was just... scared, that's all. I collapsed, and my vision began to blur. But I thought I saw a man, a man in a white suit. This man, he... I could not see his face, but this man looked at me with those two horrible eyes! The eyes of Hell, I'm telling you! This man looked at me, and something that the man caused—God knows what it was—made the pain in my hip so intense!... That's... that's all I can put it as! And I kept screaming in agony..." He was beginning to cry, so I let him cry, until he could continue. "After that, I... I remembered... Jake calling for me, and...and... That's all I know."

Later that day, the next person I interviewed—via the same modus operandi—was the victim, a woman named Sonia Chaver, age 32, who confirmed Mr. Matheson's observations and said, "I was walking home earlier than I usually do after I finished doing 'the business' with a few of my clients, when I saw a man walking toward me. I didn't get very much of his features under the street lights, but I did see that he was wearing a white suit. His face wasn't human. Call me crazy, but it seemed... I don't know, creepy, if that's the right word for it; but... but that's not the worst part. It's... it's... I mean, he never laid a hand on me, because I was fifteen feet or so away from him, so I didn't really see his face; it was all kind of blacked out like a shadow, and that scared me. But it was... It was his... those two eyes!" I let her cry, until she composed herself enough to continue. "I was out of there faster than you can say 'Screw you'! I'm serious, here! When I heard the two shots, I just kept running toward whoever made those two shots, even if I was putting my own life in danger. I just wanted to get away from that...that...that man with the two eyes!"

I confirmed these observations in an interview the next day on June 5th with Mr. Matheson's partner, Mr. Meiler. "After we left Ms. Chaver in good hands, Tom and I pursued this man into the courtyard of the Warehouses, where he headed into one of them. Tom and I split up to cover more ground going up the stairwells of the building. I had my gun drawn, as I was looking for anything suspicious or threatening. I stalked up the first four flights through the building, and so far, I hadn't any luck finding the man on my side of the building. Then I heard two gunshots, followed by Tom telling me over the radio that the man was shot dead, already. But... but a short while later—I think it was about...two or three minutes—, Tom said he lost the man; he told me to search the fourth floor, which I did, my gun at the ready. But the man wasn't there.

"I was about to radio back when I heard another gun shot, followed by a scream of pain, and I knew Tom was in trouble. I ran as fast as I could to the third floor without running into anything or tripping and falling down the stairwell. I was calling Tom on the radio, but all I heard were moans of pain on the other end. Then I... I..." Clearly, Mr. Meiler was distressed at this, so I gave him time to compose himself, before he continued, "I heard him screaming so horribly at the other end of the third floor, so I was calling to him as loud as I could manage, and... when I reached him at the foot of the stairs, I saw... Even when it was dark, I saw Tom unconscious and bleeding profusely from his right side. I checked for a pulse and felt it falling fast, so I radioed the ambulance to hightail it to the Warehouses, the third one, at White Street and Harrow Alley; then I radioed for more back-up. I turned on a flashlight and laid it at his side, waiting for what felt like hours for back-up to arrive.

"When back-up finally did arrive to take Tom to safety and tend to his wound, I stalked back up to the fourth floor with my gun at the ready. I sent two other cops to search the premises, going up the stairwell. There, the floor was almost pitch-black, but I had sharp-enough eyes to see through it. I looked through every room, trying to be as quiet as possible, so as to not fall victim to an ambush by the assailant. And then I saw him through the crack within the door of one of the rooms, with his back to me and looking at a wall mirror, so I kicked open the door and ordered him to the ground, but that man didn't do it. He just slowly turned till he faced me, which I found quite odd. I ordered him again to get down, but he refused. That's when I noticed something odd about this man. Even with my eagle eyes, I could not see very much detail beyond the shapes of things in that building, but when I looked at this man, I saw him much too clearly. I... I can't explain it any other way! I just saw these... these..." I must note an observation, during this interview with Mr. Meiler. His hands were shaking, obviously from fear, which is completely understandable. However, he could not continue and wanted to "stop the interview," because his observations were "too blurry," as he put it.

In another interview the next day on June 6th, this time with the two officers, Constable Alexander Gargery, age 22, and Constable Matthew Penton, age 24, they filled in what Mr. Meiler could not. "When Alex and I came up the stairs to the fourth floor," said Mr. Penton, which I also copy from audio tape, "we had to use our flashlights to find our way and not bump into anything. Jake had a good pair of eyes, so he didn't need one. We checked in every room that was in our part of the floor and found nothing. We were about to go up the stairwell to the fifth floor, when we heard some commotion all the way at the other end of the floor. We ran to the noise thinking Jake got the man, but when we heard a scream—and I don't mean just a scream; it was a terrifying, blood-curddling, awful scream—, when we heard that scream, we thought Jake must have been seriously hurt, or worse. When we reached Jake, he was shaking like a rag doll hooked up to an electric chair on the floor. I'm telling you, man, and I'm not bullshitting this. I'm only twenty-four years old with two years on the beat, but in all that time, I have never seen a veteran cop as tough as Jake react so... God, I don't know! It's freaking indescribable!"

Mr. Gargery added, "I tried shaking Jake—no pun intended—to get him to his senses. Then I radioed the rest to get up to the fourth floor where we were and accompanied Jake into the ambulance. After that, we all began as thorough a search as we could do, four of us in each team—you know, the strength in numbers thing—, and searched every nook and cranny of that warehouse. Hell, we even looked in the adjacent warehouses, and that took about three days, and we came up with nothing. No sign of the killer was in the premises. So we sectioned off the premises to about a five-mile radius, and still we haven't found anything. We did interviews with all possible witnesses to the events in and around the Warehouses and got nothing. We're still doing it right now, you see."

Indeed, this is a very unusual development in the investigation into the murders of Sherry Mason, Sora Weathercook and Maple Carmyne, and the attempted abduction and possible murder of Sonia Chaver. But, although this vile perpetrator is yet to be brought to justice, we at least know a gist of his description, however fleeting and abstract it may seem. Scotland Yard and all of London are in debt to these two men, Thomas Matheson and Jacob Meiler, and the help of the others involved in the investigation, for without their courage, this monster would still be walking among us without a face. For the face of evil lies not within the ghosts of folklore and legend, but in humankind's cruelty to itself.

(End of article)

Noll read it over two more times. The article was the first account of a case involving Jacob Meiler that bore any resemblance to the current one. He had many questions about the story, mainly about this man's eyes and Jacob's reaction. Noll knew that this man's gaze was connected to Jacob's reaction; that was the given. The detective was scared - no questions there - , but was he overreacting when the constables saw him? Or was Matthew Penton playing it up? He didn't know. Two variables to account for. But from witnessing Jacob's fortitude, especially after he withstood Andrew's punch back in the MIT building without so much as flinching, Noll knew one thing for sure about Jacob: the guy didn't fuck around. So if Jacob wasn't putting up a show, was this Matthew Penton putting one up? He'll have to contact this person and interview him, later.

Then there was this man's eyes. If Noll believed his gut feeling—that the first murderer was a psychic of some kind—, how does that explain this man's eyes? Sonia Chaver, Thomas Matheson and, Noll assumed, Jacob Meiler saw this man's eyes, eyes that scared the Jesus out of them, but what exactly did they see? And who ever heard of a psychic that had such evil eyes? He had a few guesses, but he needed more evidence to back them, if he was to figure this out. He needed to interview all three. And Noll didn't know why, but he felt that if he figured out this earlier case, he would eventually figure out the current one. It was a long, rocky shot, but there was no other way around it. Damn! At this, he wished he brought Mai with him, so he could get her to dream those all-seeing dreams of hers that usually provided the key to solving his cases, and wallah!—There you have it!—Case closed!—Let's get the hell out of here before I miss my appointment for a better case! He wished it was that simple.

The second item was another long feature article from the Guardian, written by the same person and dated two years later. Again, like the former, this one read much like a memoir:

"A Bloody Twist of Fate"
By Evan Moore
April 12, 1979

London (Whitechapel).—Four days ago on April 8th, a tragedy unfolded on William Street and Cannon Street that involved Detective Inspector Jacob Meiler, age 44, in which he suffered not only an investigational set-back but a personal loss, as well. He and his newly-deceased parter of only two years, Constable Tony Levine, age 26, were investigating the murder of Jennifer Cooley, age 33, the most recent murder victim that the media has now dubbed the "William Street Murders," where eleven other women were found dead for no apparent reason in the streets. I must note, too, that it was unusually foggy that night when the event occurred on 2:11 a.m.

"It was foggy, all right, even foggier than in Chancery Square; and that is nothing to joke about, trust me," said Mr. Meiler, as he was recovering in the Dover Hospital in Spitalfields on April 10th; his wife, Callie, was with him, as I recorded our conversation on audio tape, from which I copy. "As we walked the beat, checking for suspicious activity here and there—you know, the usual stuff—, Tony and I heard a woman screaming to our left on William Street just ahead of us. So we ran toward the sound, and soon a woman—I can't remember her name, but I know what she looked like—came out of the fog." When I asked how Mr. Meiler knew it was a woman and not the killer, he answered, "Come on, Evan. You should've known by now that I have the sharpest eyes of anybody living on this planet." As it turned out, the only reason authorities came over to the place of the incident was that the people complained about all the commotion and called the police in.

"Anyway, after my partner calmed her down a little," he said, "I looked around, and I thought I saw something or someone standing in the middle of William Street. Immediately, I raised my gun and got closer to this guy, shouting at him to, you know, put your hands up, and all that—because I thought he was the assailant, the guy who scared the woman that was now in our custody. The guy didn't move from his spot, but he did put his hands up. I didn't exactly see his face because of the fog—I didn't even see what he looked like—, but I did see this guy put his hands up... Then something unusual happened, something I've never seen in all my twenty years on the beat. This man, whoever he was, ran away, and I mean ran like the Devil himself—he was so God damn fast, I just stood there like an idiot not believing my eyes. I have never ever seen anything like it. God willing, I hope I never will, again."

He paused for an unusual span of time, so I asked him what was the matter; he said, "What do you think? Life happened, as it does to everyone on this earth, in all its pleasures and its pains... This just happens to be one of those pains, and it pains me to say this; but Tony made the mistake of pursuing the man up William Street without any backup, leaving the poor woman behind. He went against proper police protocol just so he could become the stupid hero he wanted to be! He's a hero, all right! But he didn't have to be a martyr!... And it was all my fault, because I failed to stop him!" Callie and I tried calming him down, and when he did, I asked him to continue. He said, "...Tony went after the man, but I could not abandon the woman. So I told her to stay close, which she did."

When I asked him why he did not call backup, he said, "I... I didn't have the time or the luxury. It all happened too fast, so fast in fact that I could not do anything about it, whatsoever. Soon after I saw Tony pursue the man into the fog, I heard gunshots and Tony screaming, so I called out to him. I only heard more gunshots and more screams, in return. Then I heard someone running up the street, and I got scared, and I fired two rounds... only to find out moments later that I fucking killed Tony!... Two fucking holes in that brainless skull of his!" Again, Callie and I tried calming him down, for he was sobbing away his tears; Jacob Meiler could not continue with the interview, so I must leave this part of the account here.

What follows now is the account of Penelope Fowler, widower, age 28, and the only good that came out of this tragedy. "Now I wasn't on that street doing any of that nightly business, I'll have you know. I'm not that kind of woman," said Mrs. Fowler in another interview the next day on April 11th, from which I copy from audio tape. "In fact, I wasn't even on the street, to begin with. I was in my apartment sleeping, when something outside woke me up. It wasn't anything unusual; it was just the wind rustling the clothes hanging on the clothesline out of my balcony. You see, my drier unit was broken, so I had to hang my clothes outside to dry them. Well, the wind was pretty strong that night, strong enough to wake me. When I looked, I saw one of my clothes come loose off the clothesline, so I got out to the balcony to get the remaining clothes out of the wind before they fell. When I looked to see where the garment was on the street, I couldn't see it because of all that fog.

"So I went down the five flights, but not without an overcoat and slippers on—it was drafty and cold out—and not without my flashlight, because of all that fog outside. When I went out of the apartment and into all that fog, I had a devil of a time trying to find that missing garment. I looked everywhere for that garment, looked here and there and all around the vicinity of my apartment for almost an hour and found it not. Soon, I looked a littler further away from the apartment, coming to the curb of an alleyway; I figured it was worth a try, so I looked and didn't find it. But what I did find was nothing short of the devil himself... I tell you, Mr. Moore, there are horrifying things in this world nobody has an inkling about. When I saw that thing, that man, that demon, that... whatever it was, I screamed. I mean, I... I must have dropped the flashlight in my mad rush to get away." I must note here that she was visibly shaken by what she saw. She would not stop stroking her rosary beads.

When I asked her to describe what she saw, she simply said, "Hell, itself...I cannot get those two horrid eyes out of my mind! I could not sleep for the next two nights, afterward! The only time I slept at all was last night, and it was a very bad sleep; I kept tossing and turning all night..." I tried calming her down, and when she did, I bade her to continue. "I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I didn't even notice any shots, for I was so frantic. That's when I saw the two men, one old and the other young. The younger one, Tony I think, calmed me, while the other, this Mr. Meiler... God, save him from his horror. Mr. Meiler shouted orders to that... that thing, and then the other one went and chased after him. Then all these gunshots and screams... Oh, it was horrible!" When Mrs. Fowler began crying, I offered her a Keenex and bade her to continue. "What do you expect me to say for such a tragedy? God, save Mr. Meiler! I can't imagine what he's going through, right now."

Nor I. Nor I. It appears, in light of the twelve dead women of the William Street Murders, that dark times have indeed fallen on Scotland Yard and London. Children don't play around in the neighborhood, like they used to; married men are worried sick about their wives, even going to such lengths as moving out with their families or quitting their full-time jobs for part-time ones, just so they could check on their family. Yes, we have fallen, but through all we persevere. Through this string of tragedy upon tragedy, our paranoia has brought us closer to the ones we love, to cherish the simple things in life, for those little things—beyond riches, beyond fame—are all that matter. So let not our fears burden us, for we will persevere.

Godspeed, everyone. And Godspeed to you, Jake, old friend.

(End of article)

Noll read it over three more times. He couldn't believe a reporter could be so sentimental towards the subject of his reportage. But beyond the faults of the article, he noticed a pattern going on. Though both articles had different subjects (one was more objective, while the other was more personal), though the cases each article detailed were different (one was in Spitalfields, while the other was in Whitechapel two years later), and though the murder methods seemed different (one had beheadings, while the other left no known traces of foul play), both stories had three major connections. One: both involved Jacob Meiler. Two: both involved someone close to Jacob getting hurt, or worse. And three: both had the same enigmatic figure with the evil eyes. And for some reason, these connections shared disturbing parallels to the current case that has now tallied its twenty-third victim and possibly counting.

Coincidence? Not this time. Tony Levine saw something that made him run into Jacob Meiler's friendly fire; was it this man's eyes? Maybe. But what was Jacob Meiler thinking—in other words, what did he remember seeing when he fired into the fog and killed Tony? Was it this man's eyes? Now Noll had something going. And could this unknown man be responsible for seven of the twenty-three current murders, the ones that had no identifiable method of murder, as well as for the murders in 1977 and 1979? To Noll, it was looking more and more plausible the more he thought about it, rolling these connections over and over in his mind. These connections were pointing in the same direction, but he still didn't know where or what it was. He didn't even know exactly how all this was related, but at least he got his part of the investigation going.

Then he said, "Lin, do you have anything on your man?"

"Actually, I do," said Lin.

"What is it?" Noll went over to him, looking over his shoulder at what he had; Lin got access to a few inquests on the computer. "That's the original Whitchapel case, but it's over a hundred years old; how do you know if it has any bearing on the current one we're facing?"

"I don't. But if you remember your father's list of characteristics for both murderers on that summary sheet, this should sound interesting. Of all the cases I looked at that had anything remotely similar to the second murderer's profile, it has to be this one. Now I'm not saying that Jack the Ripper himself is one of the killers behind all this, neither him nor his ghost, but...there's too many similarities between the second murderer that your father profiled and this long-dead killer to be just a coincidence. The use of a long knife, like that of a butcher's knife; the cuts to the throat and abdomen of his victims; the mutilations, including the removal of a few organs; the fact that this second killer is left-handed, just like the inquest at the time thought Jack the Ripper was left-handed; the list goes on and on - all this tells me that someone intimately knows about that case and desperately wants attention from it."

"So you think the second murderer is a copycat?"

"From what I've gathered, yes. This person is looking for attention, just like your father said. So if we follow the example of the Ripper case, it would eventually lead to one of the murderers, if not both if we're lucky enough. The only problem I see is how to relate the first murderer to the second. I mean, these two have been killing independently of each other for at least six months, and then they just decide to team up? It doesn't make sense. You have any ideas?"

Noll thought about it, holding his chin in his hand, trying to relate Lin's findings to his own. "I know; it means we have to fit two sets of seemingly unrelated circumstances into one whole set, which is not an easy task. But I have an idea." Lin looked at his boss, who placed the two feature articles in front of him; Lin read them as Noll said, "The first murderer, the one whose murder method remains unknown, has a real grudge against Jacob Meiler that's at least thirty years old, possibly older. Jacob's first partner was put in the hospital in one case, while his second partner he accidentally shot and killed in another case. This leads me to believe that this first murderer somehow uses or even controls others to do part of his dirty work. I know the connection is a bit tenuous, but it's all I have to work on, right now."

Lin nodded; then he thought of something. "Noll, who do you think this first murderer is?"

"A psychic; but so far, that's only a hunch."

"Do you think this psychic uses spirits to kill people?"

"You got it backwards," said Noll. "This psychic might be dead and holds a grudge against Jacob Meiler for whatever reason, and he wants to revenge it by harming those close to him. This explains why both of his partners were hospitalized or killed, and why the supposed victims of these crimes survived; the killer used them as bait to lure in Jacob Meiler to kill him and those that could revive him, and so far he's been very lucky. But that's not what interests me. It's this first murderer's method of killing—it might have something to do with his eyes."

"You mean the evil eye?" said Lin, barely able to comprehend his assertion; he looked at the kid as if he was joking. "You think it's some spirit possessing the evil eye?"

"Exactly. I know it's hard to believe. Usually only living persons can posses the evil eye, but this man is different. That's why I think the first murderer might be the ghost of an unusual psychic. One that controls the living to torment and eventually kill Jacob Meiler."

"Or a demon?"

"It's possible."

"But why go through all that just to kill someone? Why not just kill him directly if you have something like the evil eye?"

"I don't know, but we'll share our findings with Jacob and the others when we get back," said Noll, going back to the table. "I'll make copies of what I have, and you make printouts of what you have. I'll have to talk to Jacob and a few others about these things."

Lin nodded. While he made the printouts, Noll was about to go to the copier at the far end of the library when he saw something on the table he didn't see before. He picked it up; it was an old, dog-eared page, nearly torn in two and ripped from a journal, something he distinctly remembered not getting from the shelves. And the page had writing on it with many blotches, which Noll assumed were...tears? It had one entry, scribbled and smudged and barely legible enough to read. But he managed it, anyway:

"To Fate"
April 28, 1979

It has all come to an end. What began as a life full of hopes and dreams now ends with the mournful words of this last entry. All hope is lost for me now. Without Callie, I have nothing—no one to come home to, no one to live for, no one care for, no one to love and cherish, no one to have and to hold, no one to die for. So what will this weary old man do now? Kill himself? Put a permanent end to the horror in the hope of meeting his wife in heaven?

What a fucking quaint idea!... (The rest of the paragraph is smudged and not legible.)

Oh God Almighty, All-Powerful, Omnipotent Master of All Creation, Judge and Father! Look at me, look at this wretched figure You have created and destroyed! I raise my hands to You upon bended knees, groveling at Your feet, for You have reduced me so! Is there no hope for this weary old man, this modern-day Job? You have saved me so many times from death, and I was so grateful to You. Even when I lost dear friends to the unspeakable horrors of this world, I was ever grateful to You still, because You allowed me to see the only hope I had left in life that was my wife. But now she is dead; she is dead because of me! I have brought about my own Hell, a Hell I see every fucking second of every fucking minute of every fucking hour of every fucking day for the remaining days of my God-fosaken life!... (The rest is not legible.)

Woe is me, for I became a cop to protect the ones I loved by protecting the city they lived in, and now... (The rest of the sentence is smudged and not legible.) I have nothing left in this world, nothing to believe in. Not even God. No prayers or chants or songs can bring back the love that was so savagely and so wrongly taken away from me. So what need I of religion, and God, and all His made-up glories and His fickle promises? What is fame, and glory, and fortune to me? What is life to me without Callie? God, it's no life at all! I look at myself in the mirror, at the hard lines upon my face, at the weather-beaten brow upon my forehead, at the dull and lifeless orbs that are my eyes, at these two rough and blood-stained, God-fosaken hands of mine!—And all I see in the mirror is that...that... (The rest of the sentence is scribbled out.) All I see before me is a broken shadow of the very man I was and shall never be again.

And though I may still breathe the breath of the living, and walk, and talk, and work, and eat, and go on living this lifeless Purgatory that has become my fate, my chain and my prison, solitude will forever live under my roof, while I brood endlessly over what could have been, what should have been, and what will never be. I can only hope and pray that Callie is in a much happier place, where endless spring and summer, and daisies and roses, and blue, sunny days and peaceful, starry nights, will live on for eternity. As for wretched me, whose drawn-out tragedy is written in these pages, I must say that this is and forever will be...

The End...

(End of article)

Noll didn't have to read it a second time to see the full horror of the consequences involved in this case. Never let a case breath in your face, he always told himself. But at that moment, Noll felt...awkward; he even felt disgusted with himself like he had stumbled into—no, barged into—an intimate scene that was never meant to pass before his eyes. Not because it was so strange. Far from it, in fact. It just cut too close to the bone; it was too personal for him. And that brought back the fear, the fear he had when Martin told him about his mother's stalker. What would that stalker have done to her, if he had gotten close enough to get her? He didn't want to know. So he got out a sheet of paper and wrote down the names of the people he thought were close or connected to Jacob Meiler—Thomas Matheson; Kent Morrison; Evan Moore; Callie Meiler; Alexander Gargery; Matthew Penton; Sonia Chaver; and Penelope Fowler.

"Lin," he said, after he had the printouts; he gave him the list of names. "Do an obituary search for all the names listed on this sheet."

Lin nodded and began typing the names in the search engine. It took about thirty minutes, and then he said, "All right, I have them."

"Read them to me, one by one."

"Okay, the first one, Thomas Matheson, was crippled due to a self-inflicted accidental injury to the hip; he stayed at Dover Hospital until he died six months later on October 2nd of 1977. I couldn't find anything on Kent Morrison, so I think he might be alive and living somewhere. Evan Moore died presumably in his sleep due to natural causes in April 15th of 1979, although the coroner said he was in perfect health when he died. Callie Meiler died in April 20th of 1979 presumably of a heart attack in her sleep, though several people in the press publicly accused Jacob himself of a possible homicide and coverup; he was tried in court for a month, until on May 23rd of that same year the court ruled he was innocent due to 'inconclusive evidence'. I haven't found anything on Alexander Gargery, so I assume he's still alive and living somewhere. Matthew Penton died in January 8th of 1985, as a result of a shoot out at a bank heist; he suffered eighteen bullet wounds and died in the ambulance on its way to Dover Hospital. Sonia Chaver died in November 29th of 2007 in Dover Hospital after contracting Tuberculosis. I didn't find anything on Penelope Fowler, but I did further research and found out she had been traumatized by the events of 1979; she now lives in the Allenshire House for the Insane, about forty miles north of here... What are you thinking?"

"I think we should interview Jacob Meiler, Kent Morrison, Alexander Gargery and Penelope Fowler before anything else happens to them," said Noll, gathering his things; but something more popped into his mind. "Lin, before we go, I need you to do one more search for me." Lin nodded, his fingers ready at the keyboard. "Type in the name, Luella Davis, and see if there's anything related to her stalker."

"You know you shouldn't get personally involved in this case."

"Lin, I'm your boss. Don't tell me what I should and should not do, got it?"

Lin raised his hands in surrender. No need to piss off the boss. So he typed in the name and came up with—"Nothing."

Noll looked at him to see if he was lying, but he was hard to read. "Look thoroughly."

For the next forty-five minutes, he searched every article from November of last year to April of this year; by the end of it, he was bleary-eyed. "Still, nothing. I've looked through every article that had Luella's name on it and found nothing relating her to her stalker, or anything of that sort. Noll, what do you have in mind? What exactly are you thinking about?"

"I think I should interview her, too," said Noll, looking hard at Lin as if to say 'back off, buddy'. "I need all the information I can get, and I mean everything, before I make my move. And if you think my emotions are getting in the way of this case, you are mistaken," and he left the top floor without another word, carrying his findings with him.

Lin followed with his own findings stuffed in a binder. He could not help thinking about what his young boss had in store for everyone. I hope you know what you're doing, Noll. For your parents' sake. And especially for your own.

(To be continued...)

A/N: Here's the 2nd installment of Part 2: The Connections. I hope this isn't too long. Well, maybe it is. I don't know. Anyway, enjoy reading, but try not to read it at night. It's a bit creepy if you know what I mean. Also, this chapter contains a fair example of Holmesian deduction; I just thought you wanted to know that. Anyway, cheers.