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 4

[By making fate our choice, the blocks of our existence
Well-spent or wasted, we create our road through this,
A long and winding road of endless cares, a sentence
Of woe that pledges all and gives to none its bliss.
When we set down these stones of mortal destiny
Upon the naked bedrock of our mortal lives,
Oh think before you act upon th' uncertainty
Of endless possibilities that life contrives.
Because no matter what your good or bad intentions,
They matter not to Him that holds the deadly blade;
The question's not how we escape His grim attentions,
For He'll succeed upon our lives, our dues repaid:
          It's how we take our steps to meet Him on the chase,
          Opposing Fate itself, when death breathes in your face.]

Day 2—While Noll, Lin and Bert were heading for the Allenshire House for the Insane, Detective Sergeant Terry Haller and Constable Laurence Grady headed for another place of insanity—the MIT building. The place was crawling with reporters from the Guardian and the Observer to the BBC and others, many of whom spotted their car as it entered the garage and followed it. The two even saw some reporters with microphones, notebooks and pens, as well as their camera crews, closing in on them to get a by-line and maybe a few answers on the "Crisis of the Decade," as some were bound to phrase it in their news reports. Microphones and questions were shoved at them as they got out of their car.

"Sirs...sirs! Is it true that Jacob Meiler bribed the commissioner?" said one.

"Will the commissioner have to let Jacob Meiler go?" said another.

"How will this affect the people's view on law enforcement?" said another.

"Can you make a statement about the alleged fight?" said another.

"How will this affect the current investigation?" said yet another. And on, and on it went... They were becoming a broken record, these questions.

"Jesus, I can't believe these guys," said Terry to himself; fifteen years on the beat with a smoking and drinking habit had cured his voice to a grating bass-baritone. "Listen, my partner and I had just heard about this an hour ago, so we can't answer your questions right now. You're all just gonna have to wait your turn outside this garage, where you should have read the sign not to enter before doing so. Now scram before we arrest you for trespassing on a restricted area!"

A constable who heard the commotion came over and herded the complaining group out like cattle from their green pasture. Many of the reporters were pissed, some enough to threaten the two with a lawsuit for violating the sacred right to free press. Terry and Laurence could care less; instead, they were dreading what was ahead of them as they entered the building. They heard about the news that the West Department of MIT had its legs cut out from under it.

"Damn, Terry," said his partner. "You didn't have to be such a hard ass back there!"

"What do you know about being a hard ass? You're twenty-one, barely a year out of Scotland Yard Academy, and you think I'm a hard ass? No way, kid. I've only put in fifteen years on the beat. But take Old Man Jake or your father: now those two are hard asses."

Laurence knew that first hand; his father was army-strict. 

Once through the door, they walked passed the empty halls and into the main office area of the ground floor, where... Not a soul occupied a single station. Both cops were out doing more interviews the day Andrew and the others stormed out of the MIT building, many of them on bad terms, but they didn't believe the stories in the papers. But now they knew it was true, and that scared them; they looked at the scene before them. Where the building should be the most crowded and noisy (filled with detectives working cases, doing research, shoving paper files, chasing down leads and getting search warrants), without all that activity the place looked deserted and hauntingly quiet. Quiet, that is, until they heard the faint sound of something like a yelling match a few flights up.

They knew what it was; it wasn't hard to guess.

Terry whistled. "Jake and your father must be duking it out up there. You sure you want to join this investigation, because it's not looking very likely, given you father's mood?"

"I didn't get out of the academy with all honors, because of my father's influence. I earned them the right way, and I know he'll understand."

Terry furrowed his brows. "God help us all if you become the next commissioner. Hopefully, I'll be long gone by that time."

"Hey! Come on, I've got the right stuff. Just give me a chance, and I'll prove it to you."

"All right, follow me, kid," and Laurence followed Terry up the stairs, because the elevators were acting up again. Damn elevators, thought Terry. Looks like they quit, too.

As they walked up the flights of stairs, the yelling became more pronounced until it was like listening to two idiot-blokes arguing their lungs out on the fourth floor. When they reached Commissioner Albert Grady's office door, they stood outside and listened to the two old men banter on and on. No wonder many old men lose their hearing so easily in the cop's profession; in addition to banging guns, you had screaming cops. Jake was the exception. God had been kind to his ears.

Then Terry's cell vibrated; he picked up. "Terry here."

"Terry, this is Bert speaking."

"Bert, where the hell are you? Please don't tell me you quit, too."

"No, I didn't quit. I'm still with the case."

Terry sighed. "Thank God. Wait a minute. Are you driving? It sounds like you're driving. Where're you heading to?"

"I'm taking the taxi to a mental institution to interview someone."

"What? Sounds like you should belong there. What good is a mental patient's testimony in court?"

"It's a long story, man. But I got news for you."

"I already know—"

"No, it's not what you think. It has nothing to do with what happened yesterday. There's a break in the case. Cracked it wide open!"

"Holy shit!" said Terry under his breath; it was still loud enough for his partner to take notice. "God, I love you, man. You're a saint, you know that? You're a freaking saint!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know; enough with the mushy stuff already. We found out that there are two killers on the street, not just one."

"Aw shit, man, that's a hell of a way of making today even shittier than it is!"

"I know, but listen. Al least we know we have something, here. We just found that out yesterday; and today, we found out more stuff that will blow your mind. It's gonna sound crazy, but we think we—"

"Wait a minute. Who's 'we'? Who are you with, Bert?"

"You know who the 'unknown party' is? The two persons Jacob bribed the commissioner to include in the investigation?"

"Yeah, I just read about it in the paper an hour ago, and I'm still not believing it." Then his eyes went wide. "Whoa, whoa, wait. Do you have those two in your custody already?"

Laurence looked at Terry, barely believing his ears.

"Yes, and I'm not turning them in," said Bert.

"Are you crazy? Why not? You know you could get charged as an accessory to evasion."

"Not when Commissioner Al and Jake's got their hands in it. I'm sure they'd understand, because the two I'm with have managed to crack this case."

"No, man. It sounds like you just opened a can of worms; I'm telling you, you're playing with fire."

"Look, if you don't believe me, ask Jake. He'll tell you. I've got to go, man—talk to you later, all right?"

"Wait, Bert; don't hang up, yet. I still don't know—" And the phone connection went dead. "God damn it! Why are you always leaping before you fucking look! God, I can't believe that guy!"

"What happened?" said Laurence.

Terry almost didn't know where to begin, taking a breather before continuing. "Bert's got those two, the ones involved in that incident yesterday, with him, and they're investigating as I speak."

Laurence gaped. "No kidding, eh? So it's true. This investigation's gotten so bad, Jake hired two civilians to do a cop's job. Looks like Jake has a lot of explaining to do."

"Him and your father. They were both in on it, remember?"

Laurence nodded in grim acknowledgement. In all his life, he'd dreamed of becoming a cop, emulating the example of his two heroes, the now legendary Jacob Meiler and his equally great father, the top cop of London. He'd never thought, not in a million years, that these fine men would resort to such low means to solve a case, no matter how good their intentions were. He never liked the old-school values of Machiavelli because he had never lived it, that the ends justified the means. He was new-school, untested and thus ignorant of the horrors that can change a person's outlook on life. He had yet to experience the real world outside the influence of the badge's protection; he had yet to experience a case that breathed fear and vengeance into his face.

That's what separated the newbies in uniform like Laurence from the grizzled old guards like Jacob. He was yet to understand that in the real world there was no pure evil just as much as there's no pure good, no such thing as black and white—that's not how the world works; there were only shades of gray. All persons have reasons for the things they did. It's just that some lose sight of those reasons. And there were no store-bought tricks or quick and handy tips to figure out the difference between good intentions and bad consequences, between killing justly and killing wrongly, between public exoneration for taking the right actions and suffering in private for taking responsibility for those actions. It's the difference between the ever-changing shades of twilight as day turns inexplicably into night and vice versa, the difference lying in the depths of your soul and in the strength of your will. The only way to see this difference was to live and survive the horrors of the beat, case after case, crime after crime, shooting after shooting, murder after murder, funeral after funeral, horror after horror, and so on.

Laurence thought about this long and hard.

On the other side of that rumbling door, the two old men were in danger of losing their voices, as well as their hearing. They were screaming their heads off. Albert Grady was somehow still sitting in his chair, which meant that Jacob had not pushed his buttons yet but was getting dangerously close. Given his unusually young age of forty-nine for a commissioner, Albert looked much younger than his petrified mentor screaming in front of him, with his graying hair that was starting to thin into a bald spot on the back of his head. Albert had been screaming at his former partner of over fifteen years (a back and forth war of words between two of MIT's toughest cops Scotland Yard's had since the duo of Jacob Meiler and Thomas Matheson) for the better part of two whole hours. And at such loud decibels, Albert was bound to lose more and more of his hair the further this went on.

"If you want to fire me, then, DAMN IT, FIRE ME!" said Jacob, slamming his fist on Albert's desk. "Just know that without me, this investigation will got to shit because of you!"

"Hey, don't fucking shift the blame on me! You're the one who bribed ME, remember? Or are you so old that you've gotten senile? You won't even listen of the rest of what I have to say, God damn it!"

"All right! All right, partner! I'm all ears; just say it already!"

"Just calm down, first!"

"I AM CALM!"

"No, you're not! You're still screaming your head off, for Christ's sake!"

"That's to be expected," said Jacob, "since I'M THE ONE LOSING MY JOB!"

"No, you're not. You're still going to investigate the case, all right?"

"How the hell do you expect me to do that without a badge?"

"Jesus, Jake! Think, man, just think for second! You can get a private investigator's license just a few blocks from here!"

"Are you kidding me? That won't save my ass from going to jail, if this case boils over! I need more protection that can only be afforded with a badge, and you know it! Or at least have me transferred!"

"Jake, as long as I'm commissioner, you'll have my protection!"

"Your protection? You can't even hit a bull's ass with a handful of rice!"

"Aw, Christ Almighty... Listen to me, Jake! The news hounds outside this building are screaming for my head, and I've got complaint after complaint up my ass in this shit you dragged me into, and they're all expecting me to do something, or else both our asses are in the fire, got it? You think you're deep in the red? I'm down in it up to my damn eyeballs!"

"That's your bullshit, not mine!"

Albert was exasperated to the last straw. "God, I can't believe you!" he said, standing up. "Damn it, Jake, I am giving you a fucking ultimatum, here! You either hand me you're gun and you're badge and get that damn license like I told you,"—now he pointed to the door—"or you can hand me you're gun and you're badge and go home and HANG yourself for all I care! It's your damn choice!"

Jacob looked hard at his one-time protege, then threw his gun and badge at his table and proceeded to the door without a word.

"Jake, I'm not done with you, yet; get back here, NOW!"

"God, Al, what the hell do you want from me?" he said, turning. "I'm tired of—"

"Shut up! For God's sake, shut up! I need to tell you something!"

"Then say it already!" Silence; the commissioner looked at his one-time partner in shock. Sure, he had his disagreements with Jacob that sometime boiled over into heated arguments, but it was nothing like this. "Well?" said Jacob.

Albert sighed. "Jake, do you still remember the day Tony died?"

The older man was taken aback by that question. "Yes, but what does that have to do with this?"

"It has everything to do with this. I became your partner back in '86, when no one wanted to be your partner for seven years after Tony's death. Because back then I still believed in you. I knew when others doubted that you still had the right stuff to be a cop, that you weren't just some washed up has-been. Even when the other cops thought I was nuts, I still believed in you! That was twenty-four years ago. Jake, if you walk out that door and don't come back with that investigator's license, then you can just—"

"What? Go to Hell? I'm already in it, Al, and I've stayed in it longer than your entire career in this building! You think you're deep in the red up to your eyeballs, just because your career is threatened? You think you had it worse than I did? Trust me, you have no fucking idea! I've been buried six feet under the red since my wife was murdered!" said Jacob, slamming his fist on his desk once more. "God knows who did it! There isn't a day that passes by when I don't think of sucking down a bullet just to end the misery of going to an empty house after work! This place has become my Purgatory for thirty years, boy! You should count yourself lucky that you have a wife and a son to go home to, because I have NOTHING outside these damn walls!"

"Look, Jake, I'm sorry, all right? I didn't mean for you to go through that, again. But, damn it, there has to be something you have left besides the badge." Silence; Albert sighed, massaging at his temples. "Jake, when I first became a cop, you once told me that I wasn't a cop because I carried a badge and a gun—I was a cop because I wanted to protect the people of this city, badge or no badge, no matter what the hell happens. Now I'm telling you—hell, I'm pleading you—to be that rogue hero-cop one more time and take these monsters off the streets of London for good!"

"Jesus, you're asking a hell of a lot from a weary, old, broken down, has-been like me. I'm only one man, you see? And there are two of them out there."

"I know, I know—"

"That's why I need your hand in this investigation, but you refused when I asked you the first time."

Then a knock at the door.

"Hey, can't you see we're busy, here?" said Albert. "Sorry, Jake. Those damn reporters are—"

Another knock.

"Hey, what part of 'we're busy' don't you under—?" but before he completed that word, in came Terry and Laurence. "What are you two doing here? I thought... Oh, God no, please don't tell me both of you are quitting, too."

"We're not," said Terry. "We've just heard everything you two have said, and now we want a piece of the action."

"This is not a bribe. Jake and I were discussing something altogether different."

"I know, Dad; I want those two killers off the streets as much as you, or Jake or anybody."

Albert was stunned. He leaned back in his chair looking at Laurence, like he had found the Holy Grail being defiled with bodily fluids. "Boy, this is no walk in the park; you're hardly qualified for this."

"Just give me a chance to prove it to you, that's all."

"Boy, we are dealing with two of the most blood-thirsty monsters London's had since Jack the Ripper. What makes you think I'd let you in on this?"

"What made you think you were good enough to be Jake's partner?"

"God, damn your stubbornness, Laurence!" said Albert, rubbing both hands on his forehead, exasperated to the max that only his own son could push him to. "You're comparing two vastly different things. It was different with me, because the circumstances were different."

"Al," said Jacob, "your son has a point. I didn't have a partner for seven years after Tony's death, because I refused to have one; I refused because they didn't meet up to my standards. I gave you a chance to prove yourself, because I saw something in you I haven't seen in anyone since Thomas Matheson; and I was right. Look at yourself; you're the top cop of London. Give your son that same chance I gave you. Because I need all the help I can get on this case."

He looked up at his old partner, then at Terry who nodded yes, then at his son. "All right. God help me, but all right; you're in."

Laurence felt triumphant for the first time in his life, and he was showing it emphatically.

"But you listen to me, boy. Any screw-ups, and I will take you off this investigation, understand?"

"Yes, sir. I won't let you down. I'll prove it."

"Kid," said Terry, "you don't prove it to anyone except yourself."

Laurence nodded his acknowledgment that he still had a lot to learn.

"So that's it. We're all in, yes?" said Albert.

"That depends on you," said Jacob; Albert looked at him. "We need your support; we need your backing. Forget about what the papers might say. We need you hand in this investigation to get it rolling again."

Albert buried his face in his hands, knowing all too well of the potential fallout an agreement would make on his career. He had quite a bit to think about. "I know I'm going to regret this, but... Anything for the greater good of London's people."

Laurence smiled at his father. He knew his father may be misguided at times, but at least his intentions were as good as his own in this case.

Jacob counted on his fingers how many people were now involved in this case, which added up to—"Eight members. Not bad. This is starting to look more and more like a real investigation by the minute."

"Wait a minute, where did you get eight?" said Albert. "There's only four of us."

"There are four others," said Jacob. "Bert and three others. We'll meet them at their house at Langley Drive this evening. We'll go over what they have," and he walked out of the door, pulling a hat over his balding crown. "Come on, we don't have all day." The rest followed him down the four flights and into the garage, where Terry parked the police cruiser. They all stopped at the cruiser, except Jacob.

"Jake, where are you going? I thought you said we didn't have all day," said Albert.

"You fired me, remember? I need to go down the street to Bookies, so I can get an investigator's license like you told me to. Don't worry; I won't be gone too long," and on he went, while his partners waited in the car, dreading the appearance of those pesky reporters crawling around. Soon, a few of them came to the car, despite the sign outside that said don't enter, and Commissioner Albert Grady of the West Department of MIT got out and braced himself for the onslaught of questions.

Bring it on, he thought. I'll take whatever you bastards can dish out.

Meanwhile, Jacob walked along the street with his head down and his hands in his pockets, trying to look as anonymous as possible to any reporters walking around, sticking to the far side of the curb. He looked like a drifter this way, someone a reporter wouldn't usually suspect of anything other than being a lowly, unimportant man. And that's how he rolled, a living legend that nobody knew was there. That's how he snuck up on most criminals that were unlucky enough to cross his path after committing their crimes, earning him the ghoulish nickname of 'The Ghost' among the convicts. Such stealthy tactics worked from Crane Street to Marlow Drive a little over three blocks away, until he reached the entrance of Bookies, where another long-timer spotted him.

"Are my eyes deceiving me?" said Benny Fashanu, the long-time black clerk of Bookies; he was a former convict that Jacob caught one time off the street and sent to jail back in the turmoil of the 1960's. Only he was let free after his lawyer proved his innocence—it was Jacob's first and only screw-up of his long career on the beat. "I wasn't expecting to see your face, again."

"I know that," said Jacob, "and we're not getting any prettier, it seems."

"I hear you, old man. You look like the Devil himself. So what are you here for?"

"To get my private investigator's credentials."

"So the Ghost of Scotland Yard finally called it quits, huh?"

"I wish it was."

"You were fired? Jesus, that's a hell of a way to go—to be fired by the very boy you taught the ropes to. You handling it all right?"

"I'm still doing an investigation."

"Oh yeah, and what's that?"

"You know what it is. It's been on the news for seven months."

That took the smile off Benny's face. "Oh, man! So it's one of those things, huh?"

"Just trying to cover my white-boy ass, if this whole thing boils over."

"Oh, I know that. Two-thirds of the cops who came here yesterday were talking about it," said Benny, taking Jacob's signature. "I'll be back in a second with the card, okay? Sit tight for me," and Jacob sat tight for a few minutes, until Benny came back with the card. "All right, here you go."

Jacob took it and nodded his farewell salutation. "Thanks. Oh, and... when I arrested you that first time, I never really meant it when I said you were a ni—"

"Don't worry about, old man. Bygones are bygones. You take care, now."

"And you, also, Benny, old chap," and Jacob went back to the MIT building the way he went to Bookies—on the sly.

Benny sighed. But especially you, old man, he thought. I sure hate to see a familiar face in the papers all bloodied up and dead. God, save you, Jake, old friend.

(To be continued...)

A/N: Okay, hope the language wasn't too bad... The next chapter won't be so bad, but watch out for the next two chaptes after... They're gonna be screamers, trust me...