Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

“Next time,” he said, “tell the truth when I ask you a question.”

He was right in my face. I felt no breath coming out of him because, of course, he didn’t breathe. He was just cold. I kept absolutely still until he backed away and walked off. The driver’s screaming stirred me to action. He was out of his car and standing over Boo, saying, “No, no, no . . .”

I stepped into the street, to where Boo was. My legs felt like they weren’t quite connected to my body, but I kept moving forward and got down on the ground next to her. There was some blood on her face from where she’d been cut, but mostly, she looked like she was asleep. Her leg was at a terrible, unnatural angle.

“What was she doing?” the driver cried, grabbing his head. “What was she doing? She jumped—”

“Call for help,” I said.

The man from the car was still clutching his head and having a meltdown, so I had to yell at him. He took out his phone, his hands shaking.

“Boo,” I said, holding her limp hand, “you’re going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay. I promise. You are going to be fine.”

I heard the driver giving the information about where we were, his voice cracking. People hurried up to us. Other people were on phones. But I kept my eyes on Boo, my hand on her hand.

“What happened?” the driver said. “Was she drunk? Did she jump? I don’t understand . . . I don’t understand . . .”

He was almost crying now. Of course he didn’t understand. He’d just been driving his car down the street, and all of a sudden a girl on the sidewalk flung herself into the road. It wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t her fault.

“Do you hear that?” I said to her, listening to the approaching sirens. “Help’s almost here.”

I heard someone running toward us and looked up to see Stephen. He got to his knees and examined Boo quickly. Then he took the phone that was still in Boo’s grasp.

“Come on,” he said, pulling me to my feet.

“I’m not leaving her.”

“There’s an ambulance and several police cars right behind us. You have to move. Now. Now, Rory. If you want to help her, walk with me.”

I took one last look at my roommate lying in the road, then I let him lead me to the awaiting car, and we sped off, lights flashing.

THE TEN BELLS PUB, WHITECHAPEL NOVEMBER 2 8:20 P.M.

DAMN, IT FELT GOOD TO BE A RIPPEROLOGIST.

That was the first time Richard Eakles had ever been able to say that, even to think it. Being a Ripperologist had never been cool. Since he was fifteen years old, Richard had been obsessed with Jack the Ripper. He read every book. He obsessed over every site. He was on the forums. By the time he was seventeen, he was going to conferences. And now, at twenty-one, he was a webmaster of Ripperfiles.com—the Ripper site and database widely regarded as the best in the world. Oh, some people—they need not be named—had laughed at his hobby before. No one was laughing now. Now he was needed. Ripperologists were the only ones who could help. Ripperologists had been conducting the Ripper investigation for over a hundred years.

In fact, tonight had been his idea. He’d posted it on the forum. Maybe they should have a conference, discuss theories? The idea took off like wildfire within the Ripperology community. Then everyone wanted in on the action. The BCC. CNN. Fox. Sky News. Japan News Network. Agence France-Presse. Reuters. The list went on and on. And it wasn’t just the press that wanted in. Scotland Yard was going to be in attendance as well, and—some people said—MI5. Rippercon was the hottest ticket in London tonight, and he was one of the stars.

And they had the perfect venue, the Ten Bells, the famous pub located smack in the middle of the Ripper zone, a pub frequented by several of the victims back in 1888. These days the Ten Bells was overrun by students and tourist groups fresh off the Jack the Ripper tours. The students came for the cheap drinks and run-down sofas and chairs. The tourists came to take in the ornate original tiling and to drink real English beer in a real English pub where Jack the Ripper had probably been .

Tonight, though . . . it was a lot harder to get in. Satellite news vehicles lined the street. There were police and crowds of onlookers and people with cameras. At least a dozen news reporters were outside, giving reports. The pavement was ablaze in camera lights. Richard had to hold up the badge he wore around his neck and squeeze his way in.

Inside, it was even more intense. The Ten Bells was just a normal-sized pub, not the kind of place where you could really fit a major international news conference. The space behind the bar had been converted into a pit for the news cameras, all trained at the one small table at the front of the room, and the small screen and whiteboard that he had requested for his presentation. The windows had all been covered in heavy material so that no one could look inside.

He had done a little quick research online and found that when you went on camera, you weren’t supposed to wear patterned clothing. It made the camera go crazy or some such. So he had settled for a plain black dress shirt over his black REMEMBER 1888 T-shirt. He took a moment to greet a few of the other prominent Ripper bloggers, who had been allowed to have the few remaining tickets, then took his place at the table. They really had assembled an amazing panel for tonight, the top Ripperologists from around the world. Three of them from England, two from America, one from Japan, one from Italy, and one from France—every one of them an expert on the case.

Since Richard had helped to put this event together, he was going to be speaking first. His presentation was the most general, but outsiders needed the basic facts.

After making sure that everyone was in place, Richard stood up and faced the crowd. God, it was hot in here. He was already sweating. He gripped the dry-erase marker tightly in his hand.

“Good evening,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Tonight’s discussion will focus on the fifth canonical murder in 1888. We’ll start with an overview of that night, then we’ll go into some specifics, some theories, and some 3-D re-creations of the scene. So, let me begin . . .”

So many cameras. So many cameras pointing at him. His whole life had been building to this moment.

“Murder number five,” he said. “Mary Jane Kelly. Last seen alive just after two in the morning on the ninth of November, 1888. Her body was discovered in her lodging rooms around ten forty-five the same morning by her landlord, who had come to collect her rent. Kelly was the only victim to be murdered indoors, and her body was considerably mutilated, most likely because the Ripper had the time and privacy to do things in the way that he . . . really wanted. Her clothes were folded neatly on a chair, and her boots placed by the fire. Hers was also the only crime scene to be photographed. We’re going to put those photos up now. Please be warned that even though these photographs are of a very low quality by modern standards, they are still extremely graphic.”

Richard gave the signal for the lights to be turned down. Even though he had seen this photograph hundreds—maybe thousands of times—it never failed to chill him. This was the photograph that showed just how brutal and terrible the Ripper was, why he needed to be identified, even though he was long dead. The skin of her thighs had been removed and set on a table next to the bed. Her internal organs had been removed, some set around her body in a pattern. Mary Kelly needed justice. Maybe, now that all this was happening, maybe now she would finally get it.

The crowd in the Ten Bells stared at the photograph. It had been shown around a lot in the last few weeks. No one was reacting with the appropriate horror as he ran through her extensive injuries. A few reporters and prominent bloggers took notes. The police sat and listened with folded arms.