Sacred Evil

“Yes.”

Jude passed him a legal pad. “Please, write down everything that you thought you saw. We deeply appreciate your help.”

Tyler looked at the pad and held the pencil awkwardly for a moment, and then started writing. Jude waited patiently with him, and then excused himself while Tyler set about finishing his task.

Jude entered the small chamber where Whitney stood with Green.

“He’s not our killer,” Jude said.

“No,” Green agreed. “From my experience, this man wouldn’t be capable.”

“You’ve introduced yourselves, I presume?” Jude asked. “Deputy Chief Nathaniel Green, Whitney Tremont.”

“We’ve met, thank you,” the deputy chief said. “What do you think about the man he saw? Sounds like the image of the Ripper. Do you think that the media is going to cause everyone out there to start seeing men in stovepipe hats and cloaks, carrying medical bags, around the city?”

“Probably,” Jude said wearily. “But I still wanted to talk to Captain Tyler myself. We believed that he was in the area, and so it was important to know what he had to say. He’s not the killer. From what he’s said, it’s looking more possible that we do have a psycho out there who wants to be the new Jack the Ripper.”

“Ellis Sayer called in right before I joined Miss Tremont. He’s talked to Angus Avery, the director on the film Miss Rockford was working on at the site. He’s arranged to meet you at the old diner up in Soho … He should be here in the next half hour.”

The deputy chief nodded. “Sayer also told me that you’ve set up a meeting with the task force in the morning—let’s hope it’s a quiet night.”

“Let’s hope. We have anything from Forensics?”

“We will soon.”

Jude started out of the room, and then paused. “Sir, do you think we could get someone to—”

“I’ll get an officer to see if we can get Captain Tyler into a shelter for the night. He may refuse our help, but I’ll offer what we can,” Green said.

Jude nodded. He sighed, as if he’d forgotten to pick up a brick he had to carry around his neck.

“Agent Tremont?”

“Sir,” Whitney said to Green. It was nice to meet you or it was a pleasure just seemed wrong under the circumstances.

“Good to have you here, Agent Tremont,” Green told her, and she thanked him.

Once again, she had to hurry to catch up with Jude. He was already moving through the building.

She realized quickly that he didn’t intend to ditch her—brick around his neck or no, he’d been given his orders regarding her federal involvement along with the rest of the team, and as long as she didn’t get in his way, she’d be fine. He simply assumed that she’d follow at his speed.

And so she kept up. She was at the passenger’s side of his car again before he could open the driver’s side.

She buckled in silently. As they pulled out into traffic again, she realized that he glanced at her.

“You heard him, of course.”

“Captain Tyler?”

“Yes.”

“Of course. I hear very well, Detective. Young ears, you know.”

She thought that he almost grinned. “I’m not sure exactly what insights the specialty of your team might provide, but I don’t believe that the ghost of Jack the Ripper has come to murder people in New York City.”

“I don’t believe that, either,” she assured him.

“But you do believe in ghosts,” he said. Lord! She’d heard that tone often enough.

“I believe that, frequently, by looking at the past, we can understand what’s happening in the present,” she said evenly.

He made some kind of snorting sound that was almost beneath his breath.

Whitney held her silence.

“Ghosts,” he muttered after a minute.

She turned to stare at him. “Do you have any religious beliefs, Detective? Are you an atheist?”

She thought his jaw hardened, but it was difficult to tell with him. He hid his emotion well—unless he meant for it to show.

“Do I believe in God? Yes, I suppose I believe in a higher power.”

“Hmm.” She allowed herself a small sniff.

“And what does that mean?”

“Crosby—Irish. I’ll bet you grew up Catholic,” she said.

“Tremont—French? Hmm. New Orleans. Catholic—Baptist, voodooist, vampire Buddhist … Wiccan?”

She shook her head, offering him a smile with just a slight edge. He wasn’t happy that he was saddled with a small woman. She was also a woman of mixed heritage who came from a city known for its alternative beliefs—voodoo, mumbo jumbo, as some thought. “Obviously, my background is mixed,” she told him. “But, you see, my point here is that anyone who grew up Catholic, or in many of the Christian religions, already acknowledges a ‘holy’ ghost in the Nicene Creed. Most of us worship a higher, unseen power. Most people worldwide have some kind of faith in an afterlife, and if we can believe this without seeing what lies beyond, why does it seem so ridiculous that the energy that was life can stay behind?”

His eyes were on the road ahead of him. She saw the muscles in his face twitch. He didn’t believe that energy stayed behind.

“Hell,” he said, glancing her way, “if you can solve this case with ghosts, just go right on and be my guest.”

Whitney smiled, not responding. There was something she liked about him, despite his curt manner with her. He had a good strong jawline and steady eyes. She thought he probably hit a gym now and then and she wondered if he spent time with a punching bag—he had callused knuckles.

“Angus Avery … I know the name. He’s not as big as a Spielberg, but he’s not an unknown,” Whitney said.

“That’s right—your expertise is film.”

“Yeah, I’m good with it—you wait and see,” she told him. “I worked with some excellent people—filmmakers from several of the major educational channels. I’d intended to make documentaries. Eventually, I would have found my own projects.”

“But you woke up one morning and decided you wanted to be an FBI agent?” he asked.

She looked over at him. He glanced her way, but his attention was for driving.

“I like where my life has gone,” she said. “And even you will like Jackson Crow and some of the others.”

He laughed. “Even me?”

“You’re not pleased to have me hanging around.”

To her surprise, he was quiet for a minute. “Sorry. It’s just that Monty—my partner—was like another half of me. We had a situation under control, and some idiot vigilante walked in and one man wound up dead and my partner may never walk again. You’re fine. In fact,” he said, and he grinned broadly, glancing her way again, “I think I’m happier to have you than whoever they might have assigned me. You’re a guest of the city police. You won’t be trying to second-guess me.”

“I may be.”

“Still, you’ll have to bow to my decisions—I’m lead.”

“I’m sure the task force will all bow to you,” Whitney said.

He swerved slightly, avoiding a taxi that didn’t seem to realize that there were lanes on Broadway. A few minutes later, in Soho, he pulled into a spot that had looked too small for the car.

“Diner is up there, on the corner,” he said. He took her elbow, directing her toward the end of the street. Keeping up with him meant long strides, and she took them.

They entered the touristy diner, which was decorated in red plastic and chrome with old movie posters on the walls. Looking around, Jude pointed down a row of glitter-red plastic booths.

“Is that him?” he asked Whitney.

She looked. A lone man was sitting in one of the middle booths. He was on his phone, and he’d doodled all over the napkin at his place setting. He had dark hair that was swept over his forehead in a strange way—hair transplant, gotta keep young, Whitney thought—and gold-rimmed glasses and he seemed to be thirty-five or so.

“I think so,” she said. “Directors don’t have their pictures out there all that often, and I don’t think he’s been nominated for an Academy Award yet.”

Jude edged her ahead of him and she walked toward the booth. “Mr. Avery?” she asked.

He looked up and waved a finger at her, pointing at his phone. She held still politely.

Jude did not.

He flipped out his badge, and reached for Angus Avery’s phone, snapping it shut and returning it.

“Sorry, Mr. Avery. I know that time is money in your line of work, but time could mean someone’s life in mine. I’m Detective Crosby, and this is Agent Tremont.”

Avery took the closure of his phone with little more than a frown, but he seemed perplexed by Whitney’s appearance. “Agent?”

“Agent Tremont is with a special unit of the FBI, Mr. Angus,” Jude explained, urging Whitney into the booth and taking the seat beside her. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” he said.

Angus Avery nodded, and then shook his head sadly. “Hey. This is horrible. But, I have to tell you, I think it’s almost my fault.”

“You killed Miss Rockford?” Jude asked.

“No! No, of course not!” Avery protested. “No, no—I should have stayed away from that location. I should have shot anywhere else in Manhattan—or Brooklyn, the Bronx, New Jersey or Hollywood, for that matter. It’s that damn location. It’s haunted—and it’s cursed. And God knows—the creature haunting the place might just be Jack the Ripper—the real Jack the Ripper!”

He leaned forward. “Don’t you understand? Jack the Ripper left London and came to the United States. And when he did, that’s where he lived!”

4

Film people.

Great. He couldn’t help it, he glanced at Whitney.

She smiled. “Surely, Mr. Angus, you don’t believe that Jack the Ripper has lived all these years and that he’s just starting out to murder women again? At age one hundred plus.”

“I knew all about the history of the location. I just doubted all that mumbo-jumbo ghost stuff, just the way you do.”

“I heard something about the location this morning, but I don’t really know much about it,” Whitney said. She smiled at him. “I went to the film school at NYU, Mr. Angus. I loved living and working up here, but somehow, I never learned about the location you were using for the film shoot yesterday.”

“Well, let me tell you about it,” Avery said, leaning toward Whitney.

Maybe the young woman would turn out to be an odd asset, Jude decided. Angus Avery seemed to like her. She was encouraging him to talk. He did believe—gut feeling—that the movie had something to do with it all. Maybe her background was going to be a good thing.

“The building they just tore down had no history. The Darby Building. It was an ugly old thing—built in the 1920s. No character, no class whatsoever. It should have been torn down. But what was on the site before—that’s where all the trouble comes from.”

“And what was there before?” Whitney asked. “A friend of mine told me that it had been some kind of spiritualist church.”

“An offshoot group of some whacked-out folks—now, I suppose it would be some kind of nondenominational thing—started out building a church. Plain church. Simple pews, no statues, no stained-glass windows. They began in the 1840s, but it was too close to St. Paul’s and Trinity to make the powers that be happy. Anyway, it became a ‘home.’ But it was a home for believers. I think it spent about twenty years becoming an old-fashioned halfway house for the homeless, immigrants, addicts, you name it. But by the end of the last decades of the nineteenth century, spiritualism was coming heavily to the fore, and along with spiritualism, you had devil worshippers, pagan cults and all that rot. So, imagine, you’ve got the House of Spiritualism here, and the Five Points area just blocks away. Slums and a cesspool. So. They start to clean up the Five Points area, and where do you think the real crackpots are going to come? Why, right over to the House of Spiritualism.”

Angus Avery sat back, looking pleased with himself, as if he’d solved everything.

“And the so-called American victim of Jack the Ripper was killed in the Bowery, and again, we’re talking about a matter of blocks,” Whitney said.

Jude spoke up. “Carrie Brown was killed in an old hotel.”

They both looked at him, as if surprised that he was in on their conversation.

“Yes, she was killed in a hotel room. But Jack the Ripper killed Mary Kelly in her apartment. He was better—in his own mind, I’m sure—at his task of ‘ripping’ when he had time and privacy on his side. Well, here’s the thing—and, Detective Crosby, I believe you’ll find this in old police records or in memoirs of the officers of the time—they believed that the Jack the Ripper mimic or Jack the Ripper himself found lodging at the House of Spiritualism.”

“So you believe that by renting the location for your film shoot you awakened the ghost of Jack the Ripper—or Jack the Ripper himself,” Jude said, trying very hard to keep his tone low and even.

Angus Avery shook his head unhappily. “We were finished with the site after that day’s shoot—we’d broken down. We were already planning on moving. But I called off all shooting for today—everywhere in the city. Can you even begin to imagine what that will do to my budget?”

“What made you choose the location?” Jude asked.

“Ah, well, the real shots we could get. And the fact that the financial district is actually shaped more like the Five Points that once was than the area that was Five Points! The movie takes place in the late eighteen hundreds. Shooting there, we could use the streets with some editing and CGI. And I had a great, almost barren landscape for the set designers to create facades. You’d be surprised at what you have when you black out modern additions to downtown.”

“There’s a giant pit at the location—dangerous,” Jude said.

Avery waved a hand in the air. “We had it barricaded during the filming, and all kinds of people keeping watch. Production assistants and city engineers. We had a permit that included working a large section of Broadway,” Avery said. “I knew about the location, but, as I said, I thought it was all a bunch of hogwash.”

“And right next door, you had Blair House. It’s pristine—you could have done some great shooting there,”

Whitney said. “I—”

Jude squeezed her hand beneath the table; he didn’t want her announcing that the team was staying at Blair House. Especially since the team wasn’t all here yet. As the day went by, he found himself more concerned that they had Whitney Tremont housed at Blair House—alone—for tonight.

“Blair House is under federal jurisdiction at the moment. I don’t know exactly which historical association is in charge, but it’s on the national list of historic places. I don’t believe that a permit would have been given out for the use of it right now, no matter what was promised to the city,” he said.

“Precisely,” Avery said with a sigh. He brightened. “But, we did get some great footage of the facade. In fact, the Blair House facade—cleaned up, CGI—will be the house of ill repute where our movie prostitutes were settled.”

“Just what was the movie you were making?” Jude asked.

“Am making. O’Leary’s. I’m afraid the loss of an extra doesn’t stop the giant wheels of a movie turning forever. And don’t think badly of me, please. Movies have been completed when the featured stars have died. Everyone can’t take the hit. Lord knows, in this country, we have to keep people employed and the money moving these days.”

“You’re a humanitarian,” Jude said.

Whitney kicked his ankle.

“And the movie is?” Jude asked.

“A love story,” Avery said. “A love story set amidst the squalor of the final days of the Five Points region of New York City. I mean, seriously, it’s hard to imagine what it was like. Tenements were so crowded that the living often walked over the dead. Gangs were kings … politics were crooked. Sewage was a real killer—disease ran rampant. My movie, O’Leary’s, is about two young people who rise above the horror and corruption to make it to the top.”

“Ah. They moved to Gramercy Park!” Jude said.

Finally, he’d managed something that the filmmaker could seize upon. “Precisely!” Avery said with pleasure.

“Mr. Avery, what time did you leave the set yesterday?” Jude asked him.

Avery was thoughtful. Many people immediately shrank suspiciously from the question, aware that it was not harmless. But the man seemed to be remembering his day. “I left by five. One of my assistant directors worked on a few last shots with the prostitutes. I headed to midtown. I gave a speech to a class from the fashion institute at their dinner at six.”

Jude didn’t ask Avery if there were witnesses; he’d check on it himself.

“Mr. Avery, we have a witness who saw a man in costume on the street—a nineteenth-century cloak and tall hat, like a stovepipe hat,” Jude said.

“Was your witness a wino living on the streets? Or was your witness the killer?” Avery asked.

“You have nineteenth-century costuming on your cast, Mr. Avery,” Whitney said. “Perhaps the killer is stealing from your wardrobe department?”

Avery shook his head. “You may speak to my costume designer and the wardrobe mistress. I insist on all costumes being returned at the end of the day. If a costume wasn’t returned, I’d have known it. I might be making a movie, but any half-baked costume shop in town might have a cloak and a stovepipe hat! Look, please, check my alibi—and check my work record. It couldn’t have been me, and I guarantee you, my wardrobe mistress would have been fired if there had been anything missing.”

Avery’s alibi didn’t actually clear him. He might have given a speech—and returned, Jude thought. New York traffic—always a major “if” factor in the city. And, still, by the time Virginia Rockford had been killed, there had been very little traffic downtown. Avery could have well done everything exactly as he had said—and still arrived back on Broadway in time to commit murder.

“How well did you know Miss Rockford?” Jude asked.

“Know her? I didn’t know her at all,” Avery said. “But she was working on your film,” Jude said. “Directors seldom hire the extras,” Whitney said quietly.

“Oh, right, well, of course not,” Jude said.

“Her death, however, devastates me,” Avery said.

A waitress stopped by their table; Jude ordered coffee and Whitney did the same. Avery already had a cup before him.

When she was gone, Avery became businesslike. “I’ve asked my office to make sure that your fellow officer—Detective Sayer—has a list of everyone associated with the film, and what their position is. Except for poor Miss Rockford, of course.”

“Of course,” Whitney murmured.

“Do you have an idea of anyone else who might have stayed behind last night?”

“We have a guard who stays on until the last actor, costumer, production assistant—even caterer—has left the set for the day. Last night that would have been a fellow named Samuel Vintner. My offices have given Detective Sayer everything he could possibly need—phone numbers, addresses, even social security numbers. We desperately want to see this murder solved.”

“Thank you for your help,” Jude told him.

Angus Avery wagged a finger in the air again, directed at them both. “You mark my words. It’s evil land. I think that they were burying people in the walls and foundations. I think that you’ll find that Jack the Ripper—the real Ripper—is buried somewhere on that location. You have to find the corpse and burn it and say lots of prayers. Maybe that will stop this.”

“We’re hoping to catch a flesh-and-blood killer before anyone else dies,” Jude said.

“Mr. Avery, there might have been someone—someone working on your movie—who had a grudge against Virginia Rockford,” Jude said.

“There might have been. I told you, I didn’t know the girl,” Avery said, sounding impatient at last. “You have the names and office address of the casting directors. Madison and May Casting—they’re actually on Madison. They can tell you all about the extras.” He stood. “If there’s nothing else, I have a date with a bottle of blended scotch whiskey and a friend. This is becoming a nightmare, what with my actors in a stew and the press all over everything in the world … forgive me. Order dinner on my tab, if you like. I need to go now.”

“You noticed nothing unusual on the set at all?” Whitney asked.

“I told you—the location is cursed. We had a fellow die of a heart attack when he was moving set pieces. That was unusual. Natural causes, though, that’s what they said. And we had a few injuries, too. It’s the location. Go dig up the Ripper, burn his bones and the world will be back to normal. Down to a few domestic, drug and gang murders a week!” Avery had grown really impatient. “I’m easy to find, Detective Crosby. But, please, I’m a busy man. Call me only if you believe I can really help you.”

“Sir, police business does take precedence. Rest assured, I don’t like to waste my time. But if I feel that I need you, I will find you, no problem. Wherever you are,” Jude assured him.

Avery’s lips tightened as he rose and walked out, a clipboard in his hands. Jude watched as he headed out to the street—and a waiting stretch limo.

“Are we having dinner on him?” Whitney asked him.

“Nope, and I’m not seeing his movie, either,” Jude said, rising. He looked at the three cups of coffee and laid a bill on the table, and then lifted a hand, hailing their waitress. When she arrived at the table, he said, “Miss, I need that cup, please.”

“What?”

“I’m a police officer. If you need to get the manager, do so. That cup is evidence in a case I’m working.”

“You need a Baggie?” she asked. “The cup is all yours!”

“Thanks. I carry my own,” he told her.

In a few minutes, he’d secured the cup that Avery had been drinking from. “Let’s go.” He flipped his phone out and put through a call. “Ellis? Hey, yes, I’ve met with Angus Avery. I want the limos that worked that film site yesterday impounded. You’ll need warrants, but you won’t have a problem getting them now. I want Forensics going through them.”

He listened for a minute. “I know everyone is working around the clock. Get the limos in anyway. They’ll get to them.” He listened again. “Yep, thanks, Ellis.” He hung up and looked at Whitney.

“Where to now?” she asked.

Jude hesitated, and then offered her a twisted grin. “I’m going to drop off the cup at the lab, and then I’m bringing you home to meet Dad, Whitney. Seems like the thing to do after this conversation.”

Andrew Crosby lived in Hell’s Kitchen, also known as Clinton, which, for some reason, had become a more politically correct term for the area. His home was in a building that appeared to have been built in the late eighteen hundreds. Flowers grew in little patches of earth that might be called a yard, and when they entered the hallway and climbed the stairs to the two second-floor apartments, one of the doors was open.

Jude actually lived in the same building; his was the apartment next door. Years ago, when the place had gone co-op, his father had purchased the apartments. His dad’s foresight was something for which he was eternally grateful. Living in New York was expensive.

At first, too, after his mother’s death, he’d been glad that he was so close. And now, with the life he led, it was still good to be next door. Andrew had never been the type to intrude; he was there when needed.

“Jude, been expecting you all day!” his father said in a booming voice, greeting them at the entry.

“Whitney, meet my dad, Andrew Crosby. Dad, this is Whitney Tremont. She’s with the feds who have been sent down on this case.”

“A fed! Nice,” Andrew said, greeting Whitney warmly. Naturally, Whitney still seemed lost, since he had told his dad that she was there, but hadn’t told her anything about his father other than that he was good at puzzles, knew the city like the back of his hand and would be expecting him. “I have pasta ready for the pot, and I’ve been brewing up a sauce all day. It’s meat sauce. I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you, Agent Tremont. I hope you’re not a vegetarian.”