Sacred Evil

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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.”

“I’m not, but I do have a team member who is, if you ever need to host us all for some reason,” Whitney told him. She was smiling. Well, his father was likable.

As they chatted, Jude saw that Whitney learned that Andrew Crosby had worked his way up the ranks without benefit of higher education, and he had reached the rank of lieutenant. He’d worked the worst streets, the most unusual crimes and, been commended for bravery several times. He’d retired just a decade ago, when Jude’s mother had first been diagnosed with cancer. He’d spent every day at her side until she had slipped away.

“Since you’re having me to dinner, I hope I’m able to return the favor,” Whitney told him.

“Well, I must say, seems that I’d like that, if the rest of your team members are anything like you. But, of course, we’ve got a situation going,” Andrew said. “You two haven’t been watching television, I take it?”

“What now?”

“Here, I’ll show you,” Andrew said.

He led them past the entrance. The apartment was just as it had been a decade ago. Jude had finally convinced his dad—when his mom had been gone two years—that she would have been angry with him if he hadn’t given her clothing and shoes to Goodwill. But the throw she had knitted remained on the couch; her doilies still covered the occasional tables. The only concession his father had made to modern living was the entertainment center; he had a good flat-screen television, a sound stereo system and even Rock Band and a Wii Playstation.

As they followed him into the living room, Andrew picked up the remote control and hit a play button on the television.

Jude frowned, not certain what he was watching at first. Then he realized that the two beautiful young people on the screen were giving a press conference.

“Bobby Walden and Sherry Blanco,” Whitney said.

“Yep,” Andrew said.

“The leads in Angus Avery’s movie?” Jude murmured.

“I knew her only briefly, only in passing,” Bobby said. “But Ginger Rockford was a beautiful person, and we’re all horrified at her death.”

“This movie is dedicated to her memory!” Sherry Blanco put in, dabbing at a tear.

“But aren’t you afraid? Aren’t you afraid to continue filming?” one of the reporters asked. Jude squinted. It appeared as if they’d done the press conference in front of the Plaza. They were standing on red-carpeted steps, and the press was kept at a distance by velvet ropes. It was almost like a premiere night.

“We can’t be afraid,” Bobby said. “We owe it to Ginger to finish the film.”

“And, of course—” a man in a suit—one of their agents?—stepped in front of the microphone “—of course, we’re increasing security on the set. We’re cutting all night hours and doubling up on our security personnel. And we’ve negotiated new locations for the rest of the shoot, though! Rest assured. We will remain in this great city!”

Those words were greeted by a roar of applause.

“There’s a murderer on the streets—a heinous killer—and what really matters is that America’s sweethearts are going to finish a movie,” Jude said thoughtfully.

“Nothing you can do about pop culture, son. I just thought you should see this,” Andrew told him. “She didn’t do it,” Whitney said. “Too small. I don’t think she could have managed the kind of strength needed,” Andrew agreed.

Jude looked at the two of them. They had taken up positions on the sofa, watching as Andrew ran the recorded version of the press conference.

“That’s great. You two have eliminated a suspect. Now we just have to eliminate about another eight million people or so,” Jude said.

“You’ll get it narrowed down,” Andrew said with confidence.

Jude lowered his head, hiding a smile. His father always had confidence. He’d never given up on one of his own cases, though it was true that far too many went unsolved, despite the best work of dedicated people and excellent forensics labs.

The press conference ended with a public service announcement: Sherry Blanco begged the women of New York City to be careful, and to be safe. When two anchors came back on, talking about the celebrity of those involved, Andrew shut the television off.