The Killings (15 page)

Despite her long legs, Mary Ann struggled to outpace her pursuer. He had leapt off the tracks and was running on the dirt along the side of the tracks and, unimpeded by the railroad tracks, he was moving much faster. Mary Ann could hear her own heartbeat in her chest. She glanced behind her once more, and he was almost directly behind her. His dark skin melted into the night so that it looked like a pair of disembodied eyes floating in the space between his hat and his shirt collar. It was a colored man. That didn’t lessen her fear at all. There were rumors the Ripper might be a Negro man. He stepped onto the tracks and Mary Ann turned to run off the tracks in the opposite direction. She stumbled over one of the train rails and almost fell, touching the ground with one hand and getting gravel embedded in her palm for the effort but managing to avoid falling onto her face where she would have been helpless. The stumble cost her precious time.

As Mary Ann began pumping her arms and legs again, breaking into a full sprint, she felt the man’s fingers snarl in her hair and jerk her backward. Pain shredded through her skull. It felt like he’d torn her hair right out of her scalp. She reached for the knife in her purse, and barely grabbed the handle when her hair was jerked again and she found herself staring up at the sky. There was a flash of metal and then a burning, searing agony ripped across her neck. Her mouth and throat filled with blood, clogging her airway. There was a whistling sound coming from her neck and a warm liquid flowed down her chest.

Oh, God. I can’t breathe! I’m dying!
Mary Ann thought.
Jesus, please! Give me strength. Don’t let me die like this! Help me, Lord!

She put a hand to her throat and felt that same warm liquid gushing from an open wound her fingertips discovered just beneath her chin. The wound seemed to go completely around to the back of her head. She tried to scream but could only make more bubbling, gargling, whistling sounds through a mouth filled with blood. She felt her strength ebbing. She began kicking and scratching at the man who still held her, determined not to die like this. Despite her love for the church and the Lord, she was not yet ready to be called home to Jesus. She dug her nails into his forearm and raked them across his skin, digging long rivulets in his flesh. The knife fell from her hands. She felt the killer’s blade rip across her throat again, cutting deeper this time.

***

The girl was fast. The Fury shrieked in the killer’s skull like a bird of prey as he pumped his legs, running along the side of the railroad tracks, determined not to let her escape. He would make her pay for this. He drew the razor from his pocket as she began to slow, stumbling over the tracks in the darkness, and he slowly caught up to her. She tried to leave the tracks, crossing to the other side to avoid him. He leapt up onto the tracks after her. Her foot struck one of the railings and she stumbled.

“Oh, God! Heeeeeelp!”

And he was upon her. The girl punched and scratched as he tried to grab hold of her. He seized the girl by the hair, jerked back her head, and ripped the razor across her throat, slicing open both arteries and cutting into her esophagus. She fought him savagely, desperate to save her fleeting existence even though it was now far too late. Her bare heels kicked his shins and the object she’d pulled from her purse, which the killer could now see was a long serrated kitchen knife, flashed in the moonlight. The killer fought her for the knife as she began drowning in her own blood. He seized her by the chin, pulling her against his chest and lifting her off the ground. He jerked her head back again and sank the blade into the same wound he’d just created. He sawed at her throat now, slicing from one ear to the other and back and then cutting again and again, trying to saw through her spine.

The girl dropped the knife and went limp in his arms. He threw her down by the side of the tracks and then knelt to enjoy his conquest. He ripped open her shirt and smiled as her large, cinnamon-brown breasts flopped out. He leaned down and licked the blood from each nipple and then sucked them gently. He pulled up the girl’s skirt and tore her panties off. Slowly he slid one finger inside her, then another and another, thrusting in and out of her sex as he continued to suck and lick the cascade of blood raining down over the dead girl’s breasts. The Fury in his mind was singing like a church choir as his erection swelled and then erupted.

The killer lay beside the dead girl, panting heavily, completely sated. After a moment, he rolled over and straddled the dead girl’s legs. He no longer felt the rage that had consumed him when he’d first seen the girl walking alone along the railroad tracks. He took the knife to her breasts and began taking his trophies. When he was done, he wiped the blood off in her hair and folded the razor, placing it back in his pocket.

EIGHTEEN

August 21, 1911, Atlanta, Georgia

The weekend passed quickly for Robert, but Monday was dragging by lethargically, tediously. He walked the streets of Old Manor, going through the motions of investigating the murders. His hopes of solving the case were beginning to wane. He felt trapped by these murders, buried under a mountain of responsibilities and expectations. Doubts and insecurities followed him like a curse as he knocked on doors, questioned merchants and shop owners, and stopped people on the streets to ask them about the killings. No one had anything of value to tell him.

His fears that the killer was some insane loner without friends or a social life at all outside of the murders was beginning to seem more likely. He asked people if they knew of anyone who fit that description - a neighbor who kept mostly to himself and never spoke to anyone, didn’t go to speakeasies or even to church, and, if he did go to church, never testified or went to the picnics or interacted with anyone.

“Yeah, I knows a fella like that,” said an old man selling newspapers, pulp magazines, dime novels, and penny dreadfuls at the corner newsstand. “He don’t never come out the house. Mean sumbitch, always chasin’ kids off his porch and yellin’ out his window at ‘em to get off his scraggly old lawn. His name William Johnson. He live over on Davis Lane.”

“What does this gentleman look like?”

“He prolly about my age. Maybe a bit older. Gray hair, bald spot in the center of his head, got one white eye he can’t see outta.”

Robert nodded. “Thanks a lot, sir. Let me know if you think of anyone else.”

“Don’t you run the barbershop down the street?” the old man asked, squinting suspiciously.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what you doin’ out here playin’ detective?”

“I’m just trying to stop the killings, sir. That’s all.”

“You know there was another one of them killings last week? A young girl by the name of Mary Ann Duncan over in Blantown got her throat cut. Damn shame. You think it’s them Klan boys actin’ up again?”

Robert knew about the murder. He’d heard the news from his neighbors first thing this morning. The police had only found the body yesterday. It had taken all his enthusiasm for the job. The killer was a ghost, a phantom, killing right under their noses despite the police and citizen patrols.

“I don’t know, sir. Listen, you have a good day.” Robert tipped his hat and then turned and walked down the street. His next stop was to the Wheat Street Baptist Church to speak to the pastor and then to speak to Reverend Dr. Edward Randolph Carter at Friendship Baptist Church over on Haynes and Markham streets. If anyone knew someone who fit the description of the killer, it would be one of the deacons or reverends at the church. He’d hit every Negro church in town if need be.

He walked the few blocks to Wheat Baptist Church, along the way passing a dozen or more girls who fit the killer’s tastes - young, light-skinned, slender Negro women. Any one of them could have been the killer’s next victim.

He smiled and tipped his hat at them as he passed. Some he knew by name. “Good morning, Sarah.”

“Morning, Robert.”

“Good morning, Delia.”

“Yes it is, Robert. And good morning to you too.”

Most were unknown to him. He felt a kinship with and a responsibility to all of them. It was his job to catch the killer and so far he had failed them all. Robert watched the women walk past him smiling, full of mirth and hope, not a care in the world, least of all the fear of being raped and mutilated by a stranger. He felt an anger rising inside him unexpectedly.

Why aren’t they afraid? Why aren’t they hiding, locked in their homes with a man to protect them? Why are they out here flaunting themselves for everyone to see, challenging the killer to do his worst? And he would, wouldn’t he? He would catch them and cut out their hearts, carve their bosoms off their chests and bore out their womanhood and they would deserve it for their carelessness and indecency. These wanton harlots deserve everything they get!

Robert stopped in the street. He looked around, wondering where those thoughts had come from, realizing they had come from him. He looked around to make sure no one had heard them. He was embarrassed and ashamed by what he’d been thinking. Those thoughts were completely unlike him. The image of the man with the dark hollow eyes he’d seen in his dreams returned. He could make out his features more clearly now and the feeling that he knew the man, knew him well, quintupled.

Who are you?
he wondered. “Who the fuck are you?” This time he had spoken aloud. Several people stopped and stared at him.

“My name’s Wilson Allen. That’s who I am. Who the fuck are you?” asked a homeless man sitting in front of a dress shop begging for coins. The man was missing a leg and had a crater in his face where his left nostril should have been, where syphilis had eaten it away. The man wore a dusty gray Civil War uniform with the confederate flag on the sleeve. Robert reached into his pocket and tossed a couple pennies into the man’s cup.

“I’m Robert, Robert Jackson. At least, that’s who I think I am.”

NINETEEN

August 21, 2011, Downtown Atlanta 

“What are you doin’ down here alone?”

Carmen stood up quickly, grabbing for her purse. She’d almost retrieved the .38 Colt revolver hidden inside when she recognized the tall, skinny man standing in the doorway. His name was Albert Jacobs. He was another reporter for
The Constitution
.

“Albert! You fucking idiot! You scared the shit out of me!” She stood there trembling, trying to calm her nerves and telling herself how much trouble she’d get in if she’d pulled out her gun and shot the asshole in the face anyway. She’d slipped down into the archives room to do more research on what she’d learned about Robert Jackson and was just getting absorbed in it when Albert walked in on her.

“Sorry. I didn’t know anyone was down here.” Albert was smiling, pleased with himself. His eyes did their ritual roam over Carmen’s curves, and it felt like someone was dragging a wet fish over her skin.

“There’s always someone down here, Albert. It’s a fucking newspaper.” Carmen removed the microfilm from the machine and placed it in the box. She turned the machine off and gathered up her papers. She was going to have to do this some other time.

“What are you working on this late? You still doing that story on the Lust Murderer?”

Carmen had been spending so much time thinking about the past and trying to solve murders that had taken place a hundred years ago that she’d almost forgotten about their very own present-day serial killer.

“Yeah, something like that.” She picked up her purse and crossed the room to the door.

Albert remained in the doorway, blocking her exit. “You want me to walk you to your car? You seem pretty spooked.”

“I’m fine, Albert. You just startled me. I’m just really tired, that’s all.”

Albert remained in the doorway with his eyes racing over Carmen’s curves for a long, uncomfortable ten seconds. There was something odd about his eyes. They seemed hazy and unfocused. Carmen wondered if the man had been drinking. It wouldn’t have surprised her. Albert had always been kind of weird. Alcoholism would not have been out of character. She had the odd suspicion that he might have gotten himself drunk in order to muster the courage to ask her out or hit on her. He’d been making crude sophomoric advances toward her ever since she’d started working there, but he’d never done anything
this
aggressive. He’d always seemed rather nerdy, as if he was overcompensating for feelings of inadequacies with his clumsy sexual innuendoes. Carmen always suspected that if she ever returned his sexual advances he’d turn tail and run or else bust in his pants before she even touched him. His every word and gesture screamed virgin.

She glared at him, and Albert finally smiled and stepped aside. “Okay. Goodnight, Carmen.”

A chill spread over Carmen’s skin as she passed Albert. He was still partly inside the doorway so Carmen had to brush by him to exit. She cringed as her shoulder scraped his bird-like chest. “
Excuse
me!” she said forcefully as she nudged him out of the way.

“You’re excused.”

She hurried down the hall and up the stairs, knowing that Albert was staring at her ass the entire time. For the third or fourth time since she’d started working there, she promised herself that she was going to file a sexual harassment complaint against him with Human Resources in the morning.

Carmen looked down at her watch. It was almost eight o’clock. She’d been looking through rolls of microfilm for almost four hours without a break. She hurried up the stairs to the first floor. The building was dark. Most of the offices she passed had been vacated for the evening. The lobby was empty except for the security guard seated at the welcome desk. He was a large Black man with a shaved head and a barbwire tattoo that spelled out the letters “ATL” in big gothic lettering around his neck that he was trying (and failing) to hide beneath his shirt collar.

“Goodnight,” Carmen said as she hurried past and made her way to the garage.

“Goodnight, ma’am,” the guard said, smiling and raising a hand to wave. She didn’t know his name; the security guards seemed to change all the time, but he seemed friendly enough despite the gangland ink on his neck.