Page 12 of A Treacherous Trade
Blades, bullets… body parts.
Men were possessed of so many body parts that they easily could—and frequently did—turn into weapons. I found it a wonder they needed to mechanize even more to extend their violent reach.
Jane was the first murdered woman I’d ever seen with all of her clothes on, and this realization made me more disgusted than I’d ever been at a murder scene.
All but Mary’s, of course.
Her arrangement wasn’t at all sexual, but… sepulchral. The body was stretched as long as it might be in a tomb, covered with the modest nightdress, feet only slightly splayed as if relaxed in slumber. Her arms were crossed over her chest, but not precisely in the way of those being prepared for burial. Because her fingers stretched and strained, even in death, as if reaching for her neck.
Even that unsettling sight wasn’t the eeriest part.
I could find no evidence of stabbing in the pristine white of her garments, nor were there ligature marks on her slim throat, nor joints or bones out of place suggesting violence. I could find no bruises or abrasions on the skin that had once been alabaster and was now iridescent with death.
Blood oozed like tears not only from her eyes, but from her ears, nose, mouth. Indeed, every visible orificeweptthick crimson rivulets.
Because she lay on her back, the streaks from her eyes ran into her ear, or caked into the fair wisps of curls at her temples. The river from her nose found the curves of her lovely cheekbones and streaked down her neck into the girlish plaits of her hair.
The volcano of blood streaking from her lips flowed down a slim, smooth neck to find the ivory carpet beneath, pooling into misshapen stains.
Drying blood rarely stayed vivid, which meant she hadn’t been deceased for too long.
I wondered if she bled from anywhere else, from other orifices. I considered asking Davies, but I didn’t think that would ingratiate me to him very much. Even homicide detectives seemed to shrink from what I did, or rather, they were repelled by the fact that I didn’t shrink from it myself.
I supposed I’d find out when the body was claimed, judging by the substance of the stains left behind.
Beneath what looked like a mask of pagan war paint, Jane’s dark eyes were not only open, but peeled wide with a desperate terror I’d never seen on the face of the dead.
Most corpses appeared lifeless, stiff, and often at peace. Even murder victims.
But Jane, her mouth twisted into a grimace of agony… I half expected her to spring to life and flee.
The hairs along my arms and down my shins prickled and tingled as I stared at the ghastly, sinister representation of pure, unadulterated dread on such an angelic beauty. It was no wonder at all that even a hardened woman like Beatrice couldn’t bring herself to look upon it.
“What did you see before you died?” I wondered aloud.Or whom?
Not Jack, I knew that much.
As much as I hated for Grayson Croft to be right, I couldn’t attribute this murder to the Ripper.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Davies admitted, sticking his pinky in his ear to alleviate an itch before flicking at the nail with his thumb.
For some reason, I found the sight of such behavior more distasteful than the corpse, and had to smother all wrinkles of disgust from my features.
“She looks like she suffered, don’t she?” His irritating voice smoothed a bit with some semblance of pity, and I found myself glad he possessed a modicum of humanity at least.
I shook my head absently as I studied the unsettling expression. “She looks more frightened than in pain, I think.”
He grunted, though whether in agreement or argument, I couldn’t tell. "Jack the Ripper liked them to suffer, eh? He done ghastly things, like take out their organs and slice up their… more sensitive parts.”
I rippled at the macabre curiosity in his voice, the same tone I heard from so many when they discovered I’d seen the real thing.
They didn’t know the half of the horror, and if they’d been there, their curiosity would have turned to aversion.
“Actually, no,” I replied stiffly.
“No?”
“Any indignities the Ripper victims suffered were postmortem. He slit their throats first, two clean cuts. They all died almost immediately.”
