Jack the Ripperger

Three days later, they discovered the identity of Jack the Ripperger.

Or, more accurately, Rosie discovered it. This irritated Jace quite immensely.

Not that it surprised him, really- in fact he almost wondered what took her so long. What irritated him was the idea that he had come all the way overseas only to prove his inferiority to a female. Even if she was psychic.

As Davis Nolder drove him to the S4 office, Jace tried to avoid letting it get to him. He did not succeed.

His coolness on the surface belied a volcanic eruption underneath. This was both his strength and his weakness. On the one hand, perception was reality, and getting everyone to buy off on the fact that he was cold, cool, and in control contributed greatly to his success. The other contributions came from willpower, raw talent, and burning emotion. But unless you could read minds, you would never know it.

Rosie knew it. And that was the other hand.

*****

As Jace walked into the S4 offices, he almost ran headfirst into Niles. He wasn’t happy about it. “Hey Jace, how about that Rosie Tracer, eh? Spot on!”

“Yeah, spot on Niles. Get out of my way.”

“You don’t have to be all angry about it! It’s a good thing! We’ve discovered the murderer! Niles glared at him. Jace glared back.

“Ahem.”

Niles moved aside and Jace continued down the hall. He heard Niles muttering behind him. “Too much whiskey last night, I’ll wager. What a grot!”

So what if Niles was right? Jace thought. That was only half the story anyway.

******

Rosie didn’t look up as Jace entered. She sat in a chair facing the wall, as she had done so often in the past.

“I was waiting for you.” was all she said.

Jace moved to the only table in the room, where a coffee pot sat still steaming. He knew it would be good. He poured himself a cup and waited for Rosie to say something else, knowing full well she was waiting for him. It was a game they used to play. However, this time, he wasn’t in the mood to wait for up to 12 hours as it sometimes took. He cleared his throat.

“Well, congratulations. So are you going to tell me how you did it?”
“No.”
Jace sipped his coffee.
Black.
Strong.
He looked out the window and was irritated.
“I’m not going to tell you Jace, because you already know how I did it. You’re irritated because I cracked the code first.” She turned her chair and looked at Jace for the first time. It was true. She didn't need her psychic powers to figure that out.

His answer confirmed her statement.
“I suspected it was an anagram the minute I saw it… I just couldn’t put it together.”
An anagram, Jace thought. A word or phrase which, upon re-arranging the letters, spelled something else- supposedly something with significance.
Jace had once sat down and determined that the letters of his name could spell "Cajun Beetly" or "Jane bet Lucy" - among other things. He didn't know what kind of significance that held. He chuckled silently and remembered two anagrams of Rosie's name - "Secret I Roar" and "A Rector's Ire".

“Pere P.G. Jarreck, H.T.I.” Rosie said, bringing Jace out of his introspection.
Jace was silent. The name sounded vaguely familiar... but he didn't know why.
"Father Pierre Gabriel Jarreck, Honneur le Triese Innocentes." Rosie spoke again.
Jace was silent again. He knew French when he heard it - but that didn't mean he knew French. Rosie continued.
“Father Jarreck is the Catholic Bishop of Liverpool, very well-known and respected, and not just by Catholics. The initials at the end of his name are French for 'Honor of the Innocent Three' meaning of course, the Blessed Trinity."

Jace remembered now that Rosie had explained it.
"It is immediately obvious that this is the only explanation for the message 'Jack the Ripperger'. It is also apparent that he is not the killer.”
Jace frowned.
Rosie looked at him quizzically. "Do you disagree?" she asked.
The American Detective didn't change his expression.
"No. But it just doesn't make sense." He lowered his coffee cup onto the table and folded his arms across his chest.
Rosie clasped her hands in her lap and tilted her head.
"I mean, why would the killer leave a message pointing to someone who is obviously not the killer? Murderers who leave clues typically do it for one of two reasons: to deliberately mislead the authorities by implicating an innocent, albeit possible, suspect; or to leave factual hints about their identity, as a sort of sick game. In this case, neither possibility fits! What's the point?"
Jace was now pacing across the room. He wasn't really asking any questions, he was just talking to himself.
Rosie interrupted while she had the chance.
"Well, somehow Bishop Jarreck must be connected, or at least have some information that the killer thinks is relevant. We need to talk to him."
Jace gave a short laugh.
"That's going to go over real well. Implicating the Bishop in a serial murder case is like accusing the Queen of Treason."
"I didn't say it would be easy, Jace."
He turned and looked at her. She met his gaze steadily, intently. He looked away.
"So the killer has something against Catholics" Jace said, changing the subject. "He kills Catholic girls, and implicates a Catholic Bishop." He paused thoughtfully. "Must be a Lutheran."
Rosie cleared her throat, and shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
"Oh, relax Rosie!" said Jace. "I was just kidding."
Scotland's best detective spoke cautiously. "It’s not that, Jace...”
“Well then, what is it?”
Rosie looked directly at Jace. There was no uncertainty in her voice.
“The killer is a female."Jace raised an eyebrow. "Ah, Rosie, we've been through this already..."
Rosie Tracer sighed heavily. "No Jace, we haven't. I mentioned it briefly the day after the last two murders, and you immediately dismissed it."
"Well it's obvious!" said Jace, gesturing his arms in exasperation. "There is absolutely no way that one female could overpower two others- especially those Germans!" Jace alluded to physique of the first two murder victims, and that Scotland Yard had established only one killer was present at each of the crime scenes. "Rosie, the victims were overcome swiftly and with brutal force. It's rare to find even a man with that kind of power! If there was a female anywhere in this city capable of such actions, we would have found her already!"
"I know Jace, I know" said Rosie "But you've overlooked one critical error."
"Well what's that, Rosie?"
"Jace, the handwriting never changes. It's the same every time."

Jace Buntley opened his mouth, and then closed it. He blinked.
Rosie blinked back.
There was a terrific silence.
"Well then" Jace said slowly "Maybe we should just start arresting every female that weighs over 90 stones." He knew better than to question Rosie's authority on graphology.
Rosie Tracer smiled, and looked down…Jace took another sip from his coffee cup, no longer hot.
"In that case we’ve got the dissection note figured out.” He was referring to the paper they had found at the crime scene that detailed the method of dismemberment.
"If the killer was male, as we first suspected, then the dissection note was his, and he forced the victims to write his sick little message on the wall for him. That would explain the terror behind it.”
Jace paused, and looked into his mug.
“But, if we have correctly determined that the killer is a female, then someone else – a man – wrote the note for her. That means we have an accomplice. That also means we need to explain why the killer would be terrified while writing her own message.”
He looked at Rosie.
Her head was still down.
The room was silence.
Jace sighed and rubbed his temples. There was so much that just didn't make sense! They solved one mystery only to uncover three more.
But they were making progress- together. Just like old times.

Jace looked over at Rosie, still sitting silently in her chair. One hand was laid carelessly in her lap, and the other was on her chin. She was softly, absent-mindedly, biting her index finger. Her cheeks were flushed. Lost in thought.
So quiet.
So demure.
So lovely…Jace remembered when he had last been in England- in Scotland. He remembered the energy he felt when working with her- the power.
Even the toughest cases seemed almost easy. Time flew- nothing was impossible when they were together.

He smiled from pure admiration.
Something he hadn’t felt in a long time surfaced.

“Rose…” Jace began.
Rosie wasn’t listening.

********

"Well then, maybe we should just start arresting every female that weighs over 90 stones."
Rosie played these words over in her head.
She smiled when she first heard them- purely, and genuinely- and not because of the joke.
She smiled because Jace accepted her theory without question, without argument, and without pride. His ability to put his ego aside for the sake of reason had always amazed her, and she respected him immensely for it.

What also amazed her was the complete trust he placed in her abilities. Jace knew the power of her psychic abilities, and the passion with which she pursued her work. She would never make a statement as bold as she had without intense feeling behind it- and Jace knew it.

He knew her.

That’s why he didn’t question her.
And that’s why Rosie Tracer was completely defenseless.
Her cheeks grew hot, her heart pounded in her chest.
She touched her face and looked down.
She remembered that feeling from so many years before, when they had been partners together at the S4 academy. She remembered the time they had spent together, the feelings they shared…

And she remembered that those feelings were gone.

They were cold.

They were black.

They were dark shadows in the memory of her heart, behind closed doors and blood-stained walls.

The raging inferno that once engulfed her heart was reduced to embers by one night in Paris.

Time had extinguished even that....

Deep in the corners of Rosie’s heart, a fire was rekindled.

**************

“Rose…”
Rosie Tracer looked up suddenly.
Jace was smiling like she hadn’t seen in years. Like the day she knew he loved her for the first time.

And he had called her Rose. No one else ever called her that.

For one split second, they met each other’s gaze.
For one split second, Jace Buntley and Rosie Tracer shared a feeling neither had known in over five years.
Rosie’s eyes shone with liquid excitement.
But something was wrong.

Buntely’s face became a mask of pain.

*******

There was a terrible crash as a half-empty mug of cold coffee was thrown against the wall.

A hollow door slammed shut.

Rosie Tracer sobbed in an empty room. Empty footsteps sounded down the hall.

Black liquid dripped from the wall....

That night in Paris.