Authors: J.M. Hall
“Look familiar?” David asked me.
“The Ripper,” I replied. “This is his style.”
Detective Grant quickly took over. The victim was a young woman by the name of Amber Barnes. Twenty-one years old, a native of Sandusky, Ohio, and the mother of a three-year-old girl. Though they didn’t know for sure if she’d been a prostitute or not, the NYPD would be searching Craigslist for any evidence that she’d been using the site to sell sex.
“And what if she was a prostitute?” I asked. “Does that mean being raped and murdered is okay?”
“Of course not,” Caroline said. “In fact, that’s why you’re here.”
I took a close look at Felicia’s body, and after a few moments, I realized there were some inconsistencies regarding this crime and the Long Island’s Ripper preferred method of killing. For one, Felicia had been raped -- aggressively so, given the blood on her thighs and her torn dress. Had the killer used such force before?
And while the preferred method of killing -- strangulation -- was still evident, the killer had also gone out of his way to hack her face with his blade, almost disfiguring her in the process.
“Are you sure this is the Ripper?” I asked. “This seems…”
“Different, I know,” Caroline said. “That’s actually the most disturbing part of this crime. Whoever the ‘Ripper’ is, his crimes are escalating, becoming more violent.”
“Not to mention,” David added, “he’s now committing them in the city.”
“This still doesn’t explain why I’m here,” I said. “You don’t think I had anything to do with this, do you?”
Caroline didn’t answer. Two additional men arrived at the scene and put Felicia’s corpse into one of those black body bags and wheeled her off on a stretcher, presumably to go to the medical examiner’s office where she would undergo an autopsy.
“You’re not a suspect, nor are you under arrest,” Caroline explained. “That said, I’d like you to come back to the station with me. I have a few questions.”
I took a sip of stale coffee in a futile attempt to stay awake. Each second my eyes grew heavier, and it wasn’t long before I caught myself nodding off. I wasn’t under arrest; in fact I was under no obligation to stay and talk with Detective Grant at all. So why didn’t I just get up and leave?
Oh, right. Because David had told her I was a prostitute, which meant she could arrest my ass and hold me for at least twenty-four hours, even without anything in the way of evidence.
I took my phone out of my pocket to see the battery was almost dead -- and then Detective Grant returned.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said. “This won’t take long.”
“Happy to help,” I lied. “Though I would like to be getting home soon.”
“Yes, seems like you had a long night on the job from what David told me.” She spread a number of items across the table: a photograph of the victim, a few business cards, as well as what looked like the victim’s iPhone, though it now sported a cracked screen.
“Jesse, have you ever met Felicia Barnes?”
I shook my head. “No, I haven’t.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” I paused, thought of how to say what came next. “She was in a different tier of sex work than I was.”
“You mean she was a streetwalker whereas you’re an escort?”
“If you want to get granular, than yes.”
“Well, I hate to be cliché about this, Jesse. But I’m not quite sure I believe you. If you didn’t know Felicia, then can you explain why there are photos of you in her phone?”
Detective Grant handed me Felicia’s phone. Even through the cracked screen I could see several photographs of me scattered throughout her photo album. These weren’t the photographs Autumn had taken of me when I first started escorting. These were from my
personal
Facebook albums.
“You look surprised,” Detective Grant said. “I’ve been in this business long enough to know when someone’s faking it.”
“I don’t know why she has these photos of me. I’ve never met her before in my life, and like I pointed out earlier, she and I were on two different sides of sex work.”
“Indeed. You were much, much more fortunate than she was.”
“Because I get paid better?”
“No, Jesse. Because you aren’t dead.”
Detective Grant took back the phone and instead spread a series of photos before me, and I recognized each one. They were the Long Island Ripper’s victims -- young girls who found themselves selling sex over Craigslist without any of the protections or luxuries escorts like Autumn and I enjoyed. I studied each photo, noted that in some of them, there was still a bit of light in the eyes.
No doubt, that light had gone out the night they met their killer.
“Do you recognize these women?”
“Yes, Detective Grant. They’re the Ripper’s victims.”
“And did you have a connection to any of them? Any of them at all?”
“No, I didn’t.” I paused, wondered what else she could be holding up her sleeve. “What, did you find pictures of me on their phones, too?”
“No, we didn’t. However, given your connection to Felicia…”
I stood up, put on my coat. “Detective Grant, I appreciate the fact that you’re trying to solve these murders. But I don’t have a connection to them.”
“The Ripper’s latest victim has personal photos of you on her phone. You don’t call that a connection?”
“Until I can find out how she got them, I’m no use to you here. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to get home.”
Of course, I had an inkling as to how Felicia could have gotten her hands on those photos -- but I needed to get out of the police station to investigate it. Detective Grant knew she had nothing on me, no compelling reason to keep me for additional questioning she I wasn’t in the mood to cooperate.
Eventually, she might find a reason to make me cooperate, but thankfully, I still had some time.
“All right, then. You’re free to go.”
“Thank you,” I said. “If I think of anything, I’ll be in touch.”
She walked me to the main lobby and handed me her business card. If I thought of anything at all, she told me, please give her a call. No worries if it was late at night. She was something of a night owl herself.
“Late nights are something I’m intimately familiar with myself,” I said.
“Is this you trying to flirt with me?”
“Sorry -- force of habit.”
She shook her head and waved me off. I walked out of the police station, slightly embarrassed that I’d been stupid enough to try and flirt with a detective. As a member of law enforcement she likely possessed a finely-tuned bullshit detector, one that wouldn’t be fooled by the half-hearted attempts of a Manhattan gigolo.
I wanted to go home. I wanted to go home, strip off my clothes piece by piece, and cocoon myself into bed and not wake up until noon the next day. Sadly, that wouldn’t be the case. There was one last stop I had to make on this never-ending journey.
I hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take me to the Upper East Side. I didn’t care if Autumn was still awake. She had some explaining to do.
“Jesse, couldn’t this have waited until morning?”
“No,” I replied. “Now are you going to let me in?”
She opened the front door to her apartment and allowed me to enter. I’d caught her at her least glamorous: no make-up, hair in a ponytail, wearing a white tank top with pink pajama bottoms with a floral pattern so cheerful they looked like they belonged to a fifteen-year-old girl.
“I spent some quality time at the police station tonight,” I said, plopping down on her living room sofa. “Seems the Long Island Ripper has arrived in New York.”
“What are you talking about? He only kills streetwalkers out in Gilgo Beach. That’s almost three hours away.”
“Not anymore. Check your phone if you don’t believe me.”
Autumn fiddled with her phone, no doubt checking the Twitter feed for the
New York Post
. I watched as her face fell once she realized I was right. She closed her eyes, took a breath, then turned off her phone and set it on the kitchen counter.
“This doesn’t mean anything, Jesse. That lunatic attacked streetwalkers -- girls who used escorting to support a pimp of a drug habit. Not people like us.”
“Well, at least not the Ripper’s latest victim didn’t have photos of you on her iPhone. That sure as hell was an unwelcome surprise.”
“What…?”
I gave Autumn a summary of what’d occurred on this rather eventful evening. The fact that Felicia had photos of me on her phone is what disconcerted her the most, as well as my questioning whether Felicia somehow had a connection to either of us.
“Are you asking if Felicia was one of my girls?” Autumn said. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t deal in streetwalkers.”
“She had to have gotten those photos from me somehow,” I said. “Maybe she
was
one of your girls awhile back?”
“Hard to tell without a photo of her. It’s not like any of my girls ever give me their real names. We’re a cash-only business.”
Though Detective Grant hadn’t spotted it, I’d managed to take a photo of Felicia’s body at the crime scene. Though dark and not all that sharp, the photo would give Autumn a decent look at who Felicia was before she’d been murdered. I handed her my phone, requested that she take one last look.
“After that, I’ll drop it and never bring it up again,” I promised. “Please.”
Autumn did as I asked -- and after a few moments, she probably wished she hadn’t. She knew who Felicia was. Just as I suspected, Felicia was a former escort of Autumn’s, although Autumn had fired her from the agency after she’d failed to pay the proper commissions for her work.
“Is that it?” I asked. “You booted her because she was holding out on you?”
“No, there was more…”
Autumn sat down at the kitchen table and groaned. It wasn’t just that Felicia wasn’t paying the required thirty-percent commission that kept Autumn in business. There were other things as well. The drugs, for one. Not to mention not showing up for scheduled bookings and leaving Autumn to find the client a suitable replacement on such short notice.
“There were rumors around that girl for a while,” Autumn added. “Things that I couldn’t ignore. Jesse, I don’t know if it’s true, but more than a few people told me that Felicia was HIV-positive.”
“Fuck…”
“My sentiments exactly,” Autumn said. “I may have let her go, but that didn’t mean I wanted the girl dead.”
“Well, sadly that’s just what happened to her.”
“So, what comes next?”
I honestly didn’t know the answer to that question. Truth be told, this was in the hands of Detective Grant and the rest of the NYPD. I could stay out of it and just go about my business, assuming they didn’t haul me in for questioning again. I fished Detective Grant’s card out of my pocket, then pondered if I should give her a call.
“Jesse?”
“I’m thinking,” I said. “It’s not the police I’m worried about. It’s more about David Winter threatening to ‘out’ me and write a tell-all story in
Manhattan
magazine.”
“He’s bluffing, Jesse. Don’t worry about it.”
It was late, and I was tired. I didn’t have the energy to worry, even if that was exactly what I should have been doing. I got up off the sofa, eyes fluttering as they wished for sleep. No sooner did I reach the door did Autumn pull me by the arm, and tell me I could have the guest room across the hall.
“You sure?” I asked. “No company coming over later tonight?”
“If I had company coming over, do you think I would be dressed like this?”
“Touché.”
Like the rest of her apartment, the guest room was beautiful. It had a dark, almost masculine décor of navy-colored walls, wooden furniture and plenty of glass. Given that Autumn could read my mind like no other woman in my life, she provided an explanation before I had to ask.
“Yes, this used to be my boyfriend’s room while he was here,” she said. “He liked having his own space.”
“Your boyfriend? I didn’t know…?”
“Scott,” she said. “You know, Prince Charming in your own version of my Happily Ever After?”
“That was a while ago. You kept the room this way?”
“The sheets are clean, as is the bathroom,” Autumn said, ignoring my question. “Have a good night’s sleep.”
She left me alone in the bedroom to sleep. I stripped off my shirt, jeans and socks, then slipped into bed and watched the twinkling city lights outside the bedroom windows. Another night, another crisis to solve. Still, there was nothing I could do until morning.
Well, almost nothing.
I got out of bed and fished my phone out of my jeans. Leaning against the bedroom wall in nothing but my underwear, I made a call that I didn’t want to make, but it was one that I knew I
needed
to make.
“Kurt? It’s Jesse. I need your help.”