The Whitechapel Case [abandoned]

Prologue (Part 2)

The Whitechapel Case
Fox-Trot-9

PG-13
Horror/Suspense/Mystery (How-Catch-'Em)
Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt or Death Note.

Prologue
Part 2

Day 1—It was nearing the 12:00 lunch hour at MIT (that is, the Murder Investigation Teams of Scotland Yard), but old Detective Chief Inspector Jacob Meiler had other less appetizing things on his mind: murders. For the past seven months, several brutal murders occurred in or near the vicinity of Whitechapel, London, all of which seemed to be knocking on MIT's doorstep and landing on Jacob's desk. He had been on the investigation team from day one and was feeling the strain of dealing with case after case of some unidentified perpetrator's bloody handiwork. Three casebooks were on his desk, while four others were still filed away in the unsolved section of the archives, downstairs on the ground floor. He was reviewing the contents of the thinnest (thus, the most recent) casebook, about fifty-something pages of interviews and evidence details, but not much more than that.

Before that latest case, before this entire case, Jacob Meiler was clean-shaven, well-groomed, as spick and spam as an old Brit should be, but as these cases piled up, he found himself looking more like a workaholic in serious danger of mental breakdown. And if his appearance wasn't enough, his office was in similar shape. Filing cabinet doors left open. Boxes upon boxes of spreadsheets. Phone numbers and records on the floor. An ever-growing list of names, mug shots and sketch portraits pinned to the wall. The place hasn't even been vacuumed for months. With over forty-five years on the London crime beat, Jacob was as tough as cops can get, a good dose of jadedness and grim perseverance to boot, but this case was eating him alive.

In fact, the details of this most recent case were still simmering in his mind, even after the passage of four days, still as fresh and horrible as the sight of putrid road kill. And that's exactly what it looked like: road kill. He could still remember the night he heard the jangling of the phone, telling him about the latest addition to the a monstrosity of a case. He could remember the rapid beating of his heart, as the constable on the other end described to him the horror of it all in the briefest detail. It wasn't the imagery of it that disturbed him; he knew how to deal with that. It was the familiarity of the whole thing that got to him. Familiar in an insidiously intimate way, cutting close to the bone.

Because unlike the other cases that took place out in the streets, this one happened inside someone's home, inside someone's bedroom with the door and windows shut. In such confined quarters, God knows what went on in that room. But sometimes, even when he didn't want those times to happen, he found himself thinking about how it must have happened.

He found himself awash in delirium as he and another cop went up the stairs to the crime scene, as stale plaster and wallpaper filled the air, almost suffocating. Up the stairs and past the landings, everything seemed to come alive, as old loose boards creaked and cracked in a symphony of horror to the rhythm of your steps. Then turn left, entering the corridor. You move past the ghostly dim of ceiling lamps, wall sconces and doors, as if journeying through the esophagus into the stomach of a hungry beast. And at the end of the hall, you see the door that leads to the murder scene. And as the door gets closer and bigger with every step you take, the air around becomes heavier and heavier, weighed down by the smell of antiseptic, blood and the first stages of decay. All of this hints at the horror that awaits on the other side. And if you had the guts, as Jacob Meiler sure did, you'd reach out your hand to turn the knob.

He pushed open the door.

The mutilated body of a woman lay on the bed. The bed sheets were soaked in blood, drying into an iron flavor of invisible mist. And on three of the four walls closest to the bed, specks of blood dried against the wall, looking like blood diamonds against a sea of white plaster. The body itself was lying face-up, with it's left arm hanging limp down the side of the bed; also, both legs have been severed, a pool of blood still warm and tacky collecting around the midsection, where the insides were taken out. Such descriptions of the horror before Jacob Meiler, let alone such a sight, was enough to make most people hurl, but Jacob handled it pretty well. Now he played his part, dissecting every aspect of the scene with his sharp eyes. But of all this, something else caught his attention.