The Whitechapel Case
Fox-Trot-9

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

Prologue
Part 2

Day 1—It was nearing the 12:00 lunch hour at MIT (that is, the Murder Investigation Teams of Scotland Yard), but old Detective Chief Inspector Jacob Meiler had other less appetizing things on his mind: murders. For the past seven months, several brutal murders occurred in or near the vicinity of Whitechapel, London, all of which seemed to be knocking on MIT's doorstep and landing on Jacob's desk. He had been on the investigation team from day one and was feeling the strain of dealing with case after case of some unidentified perpetrator's bloody handiwork. Three casebooks were on his desk, while four others were still filed away in the unsolved section of the archives, downstairs on the ground floor. He was reviewing the contents of the thinnest (thus, the most recent) casebook, about fifty-something pages of interviews and evidence details, but not much more than that.

Before that latest case, before this entire case, Jacob Meiler was clean-shaven, well-groomed, as spick and spam as an old Brit should be, but as these cases piled up, he found himself looking more like a workaholic in serious danger of mental breakdown. And if his appearance wasn't enough, his office was in similar shape. Filing cabinet doors left open. Boxes upon boxes of spreadsheets. Phone numbers and records on the floor. An ever-growing list of names, mug shots and sketch portraits pinned to the wall. The place hasn't even been vacuumed for months. With over forty-five years on the London crime beat, Jacob was as tough as cops can get, a good dose of jadedness and grim perseverance to boot, but this case was eating him alive.

In fact, the details of this most recent case were still simmering in his mind, even after the passage of four days, still as fresh and horrible as the sight of putrid road kill. And that's exactly what it looked like: road kill. He could still remember the night he heard the jangling of the phone, telling him about the latest addition to the a monstrosity of a case. He could remember the rapid beating of his heart, as the constable on the other end described to him the horror of it all in the briefest detail. It wasn't the imagery of it that disturbed him; he knew how to deal with that. It was the familiarity of the whole thing that got to him. Familiar in an insidiously intimate way, cutting close to the bone.

Because unlike the other cases that took place out in the streets, this one happened inside someone's home, inside someone's bedroom with the door and windows shut. In such confined quarters, God knows what went on in that room. But sometimes, even when he didn't want those times to happen, he found himself thinking about how it must have happened.

He found himself awash in delirium as he and another cop went up the stairs to the crime scene, as stale plaster and wallpaper filled the air, almost suffocating. Up the stairs and past the landings, everything seemed to come alive, as old loose boards creaked and cracked in a symphony of horror to the rhythm of your steps. Then turn left, entering the corridor. You move past the ghostly dim of ceiling lamps, wall sconces and doors, as if journeying through the esophagus into the stomach of a hungry beast. And at the end of the hall, you see the door that leads to the murder scene. And as the door gets closer and bigger with every step you take, the air around becomes heavier and heavier, weighed down by the smell of antiseptic, blood and the first stages of decay. All of this hints at the horror that awaits on the other side. And if you had the guts, as Jacob Meiler sure did, you'd reach out your hand to turn the knob.

He pushed open the door.

The mutilated body of a woman lay on the bed. The bed sheets were soaked in blood, drying into an iron flavor of invisible mist. And on three of the four walls closest to the bed, specks of blood dried against the wall, looking like blood diamonds against a sea of white plaster. The body itself was lying face-up, with it's left arm hanging limp down the side of the bed; also, both legs have been severed, a pool of blood still warm and tacky collecting around the midsection, where the insides were taken out. Such descriptions of the horror before Jacob Meiler, let alone such a sight, was enough to make most people hurl, but Jacob handled it pretty well. Now he played his part, dissecting every aspect of the scene with his sharp eyes. But of all this, something else caught his attention.

"Do you notice those markings on the chest area?" said Jacob. 

The constable turned around and examined them. "Yes, I do. I think it says seventeen."

"I know, but..." Jacob's words drifted off.

"Maybe it's a body count."

"Maybe your right, but if it's indeed a body count, then...wouldn't it be twenty-three instead of seventeen? As in twenty-three bodies?"

"Maybe the murderer's trying to hide his tracks."

"It doesn't fit the profile, though. If our man was trying to hide his trail, he'd do so by killing through much cleaner means than this."

"But he did manage to get away with it for months now. Maybe he found a way to go around the crime scene or even avoid it altogether."

"You mean a contract killing?" said Jacob, wrinkling his brows.

"It's possible, sir."

"Possible, but not probable. It's not even plausible."

"Then what's your idea?"

Jacob looked at the man, thinking whether he should share it or not; but he chose not to. "I don't know yet," but he was lying through his teeth. The look of this most recent case seemed to confirm his worst fears, but he still wanted to hold out on another explanation. And, by God, I don't want to know.

Jacob sat back in his chair, reflecting on that fateful morning of four days ago, staring up to the cieling. Then a knock on the door dragged him from his thoughts.

"Come in," he said. In came Detective Sergeant Bert Grendal, the youngest cop to hold such a rank at age thirty. Despite his age, you would would have thought he was a throwback to the forties the way he looked: brown pants, plaid shirt, long coat, combed black hair and hat—a plain clothes detective, pulp fiction style. "Have a seat." Which Bert did. "Did you eat anything yet?"

"I had lunch an hour ago."

"Bad start, my boy. This one's not for those with weak stomachs."

"I wouldn't be here if I had one." Bert studied the old man's face; it was grim. "That bad, eh?"

Jacob nodded. "Evisceration, yes. And a God-awful one at that."

"The one that happened on Monday, four days ago? Angela Benton's murder?"

Jacob nodded again and gave him the casebook that was still in the works.

Bert looked at the first two photos on the first flap. One was a picture of a woman's entire mutilated body lying on the bed in it's own blood. The other was a close-up of the opened abdomen of the same woman's body. Jesus!

"Don't tell me I didn't warn you."

"You were one of the first on the scene. Did you notice anything?"

"A lot of things, actually. The man we're after is very methodical in his approach, in this instance as in the others. This man picks out his victims after noting their movements and habits throughout the days he observes them; in other words, he studies them like a scientist studies the actions of rats in comparison to human actions. Also, he commits his crimes on the sly when few people, if any, ever witnessing him; in fact, as you will see, not until Benton's murder did we have any witnesses give a reliable description of our man. You can say that he only made a mistake during Benton's murder; but mark me words, unless we get lucky, he won't make that mistake again. Therefore, I assume he isn't prone to spontaneous murders of passion, calculating his crimes instead."

"But how does that go along with the brutality this particular case?"

"There's only one case the shares any parallel with this one, and that's the Ripper case in the eighteen-nineties, including the fact that all the murders happened in or around Whitechapel at night outside in the streets where the bodies are hidden in dumpsters and such or occasionally in their homes. Specifically, the case of Mary Jane Kelly [*.] who was also found eviscerated in bed and our most recent one in Angela Benton in much the same way. Not to mention all the victims are apparently women."

"Do you think our guy is a copy-cat?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if he was."

Bert leaned back in his seat, weighing the old man's theory in his mind, then said, "Do you think this guy has some kind of fetish for mutilating women the way he does?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure if it's sexual. We found no evidence of DNA through semen, sweat or saliva on the carpet, bed or on the victim's person. And the hair samples we managed to find all belonged to the victim. Also, all the fingerprints not belonging to the victim are either partial or smeared, and whatever DNA samples we could get from those will most likely be inconclusive, just like the rest of them. Now that doesn't mean our man didn't do those things; maybe he did, but the fact that we can't find anything from him in this case or the others makes him a very methodical in my reasoning."

"Maybe he's an old pro at it?"

"I'm beginning to think that, too. But besides the obvious, there's one parallel both the Ripper case and this case share," said Jacob, taking up a photo and handing it to Bert. "Examine that photo and tell me what you see."

He examined it for a bit, taking in all the details and said, "It's a close-up of the chest with roman numerals cut into it. Seventeen."

"Exactly. He's marking the victim in that photo as the seventeenth victim."

"But that doesn't make any sense. Angela Benton was twenty-third murder in this case."

"I know."

"I'm not sure yet, but maybe he's just trying to throw us off."

"I don't think so."

"Then what's your theory?"

Jacob looked at his protege for a moment, thinking whether he should let him in on his hunch but decided against it. "I'll keep that to myself for now, because I don't want to influence your thoughts on it. And I hope to God it's not what I think it is."

Bert looked at his older colleague. "You want a second opinion?"

"An educated one, if you can come up with one at the moment."

"Well, I don't have any just yet." Then silence, as both men thought about Angela's case in conjunction to the rest. After a minute or two, Bert said, "Will Terry Haller be assigned to this, also?"

"Come on, Bert. You know how the economy is; we had to cut back staffing by 25% last year. And that casebook you're looking at is the twenty-fucking-third one for this investigation. And that's on top of the other investigations of this unit."

"Yeah, but—"

"Terry's already working two cases, so no. In fact, half of our staff is working two or more cases at once, and you're only assigned one... for now, that is," said Jacob; then he sighed. "I know we are severely understaffed, but I've talked to Martin Davis on the phone and—"

"Martin Davis? As in the law professor from Oxford Trinity? That Martin Davis?"

"Right on the dot, my boy. He's very good at what he does, although most of his expertise lie in the legal system of law, not in the criminal law enforcement. Think of him a little as a consulting detective; I know most of the detectives here won't have a civilian work a case for them, but he thinks like a lawyer. He presents all his evidence and analyzes it piece by piece as well as a whole. In our case, we need that kind of thinking mind to sort things out."

Well, Bert couldn't argue with that; but he still looked at the old man in hesitation. "Yeah, but he deals with the lesser stuff (like embezzlement and theft if it's criminal investigations), but in murder investigations? Are you willing to stake your career on the expertise of a law professor?"

"At this point, I don't care about careers; I care about saving lives."

Well, Bert couldn't argue with that either.

"I know there are differences, believe me," said Jacob, "but I trust Martin in his judgment and candor. He's not like most of these other investigators we hear about; he is scientific in his approach and objective in his reasoning."

"Yeah, but I also hear he has an interest in paranormal research, including paranormal investigations. You know, the kind of stuff you see in Ghost Hunters or Ghost Lab."

"I'm aware of that, but I'm not sure if he's an associate of the British Society for Psychical Research; maybe, but I'm not sure."

"You willing to stake that, too?"

Jacob sighed, saying, "Bert, I'd stake my very life and soul, if I have to."

I don't know, man. Even if he is as good as you say he is, it might turn everything to shit later on; your case is only as strong as the badge you wear. "Did you talk to the commissioner about this?"

"Of course I did."

"And he actually allowed this?"

"Yes."

"You bribed the commissioner, didn't you?"

Jacob rubbed his temples in an effort to massage away the headaches that had built up on him during this case. "I'll admit that, too. Just don't let the other units know about this, okay?"

"Man, you must be under a hell of a lot of heat."

"Trust me, you have no idea. And I've also convinced Martin to have his son, Oliver Davis, join in our efforts."

Bert felt his heart skip a beat. "Are you...You're kidding me, right? He deals with the paranormal stuff, not in criminal investigations let alone capital crimes."

The old man shook his head. "You don't understand the gravity of the situation, do you? All the cards are on the table, Bert. I have to do everything I can to get this man off the streets, by any and all means necessary."

This is off-the-wall insane, man. "Jake, listen to me. I know you mean well by including people like them in this investigation, but you need to look at yourself in the mirror. Maybe your judgment is a bit out of sync with common sense, since you're deep in the hole with all these murders going on. I mean, look at your office, man. Look at what this case has done to you—"

"Don't give me that; I already know what's at stake," he said, rising from his seat. "I don't need to be reminded of how ugly I look in the mirror, and I sure as hell don't want to know how ugly this God-forsaken investigation has made me. You listen to me, boy. Either you do as you're fucking told and help get this monster off the street,"—now he pointed to the door—"or you can go back to that God-forsaken shit-hole you came from!"

"All right, all right; I'll do it! God damn!" Bert wondered how one of Scotland Yard's top officials could hire a university professor, let alone a paranormal researcher, for a non-paranormal murder investigation without resigning.

"It's not what you're thinking, Bert. Oliver and Martin's involvement will be off the official record. They don't want any recognition for solving this, and you probably know why."

How come you always know what I'm thinking, old man? he thought. "That's good."

"I'm glad to hear it. Martin, Oliver and Lin will be expecting you by two this afternoon, so it's best not to make them wait."

"Wait a minute. Who's Lin?"

"Lin is Oliver's assistant."

"No kidding, eh? That kid's gonna grow up to be his own boss some day."

"He already is." Bert looked at the old man like he was joking, but he knew the old man was not in the mood for joking right now. "Here are the directions to their house," said Jacob, giving them to him, "and for God's sake, keep this information from the press. I don't want any incidents arising from this."

"Don't worry. I might as well grab a cup of coffee on the way. I'm definitely going to need it," and he got up, taking the casebook with him and headed for the door.

"Don't bother. I've heard Eugene makes good tea."

Bert turned and looked at him. "Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"That Eugene was killed in car accident."

"What? Don't give me another heart attack, Bert."

"I'm serious; don't you read any papers besides the Guardian? He's been dead for eight months. They found his body in a lake in Japan last week."

That was the feather that broke Jacob's back; he leaned forward over the desk and buried his face in his hands before slamming the desk with his fist—"Fuck!"

"Calm down, Jake! It's not what you think; it's not in any way connected to this case."

The old man looked up. "You'd be surprised, boy."

"No, man, it's you. Take some days off. These cases have worn you thin," and Bert turned and walked out the door with the casebook.

"I wish I could, my boy," but old Jacob Meiler knew better than to let stuff pile up on him—especially in a case like this. So he looked at the other two casebooks on his desk and reviewed them, page per bloody page.

(To be continued...)

A/N: See what I told you about language? I hope you enjoy this!

(*Mary Jane Kelly. See "Mary Jane Kelly" on Wikipedia.)