Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt or Death Note.

The Whitechapel Case

Fox-Trot-9

Part 1: The Hypothesis 3

Day 1—The Lord's prayer. Jacob Meiler leaned back on his chair deep in thought. Memories swam through his head. He had not spoken a word of that prayer in over thirty years, not since the death of his wife and his partner, not since the infamous 1979 case of the William Street Murders, known locally as the Devil's Bloody Revenge.

Jacob at the time was forty-four, and his new partner, Tony Levine, was a young gun at twenty-six, just a scant five years off the Scotland Yard Academy. He and Tony had been partners for only two years; Jacob's former partner of the first twenty years of his police career, the legendary Thomas Matheson, was retired at sixty-two with over forty years of service under his belt. Thomas was forced into retirement after a bullet wound to the hip that refused to heal properly rendered him unable to walk without the use of a cane; soon after, the wound became infected, and Thomas was hospitalized and bedridden. In the first months when Tony became Jacob's new partner, Thomas' health gradually weakened, until he died. His last words to him were "Look after that kid the way I looked after you, Jake." And Jacob swore it by his own blood. That's how it was way back when: The old dog teaches the new dog the tricks of the policing trade.

In the two years they had been partners, Tony had always bragged to him that he'd solve a case like no other, one that would put his name in the record books. Of course, that's what all youngsters wanted, Jacob told him. The question was never when will such a case come your way? It's what will you do when it comes knocking at your door?

Both men found out in the William Street Murders. Both were assigned to that case, specifically to the twelfth and most recent case, the murder of Jennifer Cooley. She, along with the other eleven victims, was found dead without the slightest amount of incriminating evidence on her person or in her crime scene. After one of their overnight stays at the newly built MIT building investigating Cooley's murder, the two called it a day and decided to walk their nightly beat in Whitechapel, London. Jacob made it a habit to always have his partner with him for backup, the way the deceased Thomas had him for backup. Two pairs of eyes and ears were always better than one.

So they went on walking the beat like they always did, at night before they had to split for the pad. That night, fog was everywhere, the ground moist with early April dew. Lit by the street lights, the fog seemed to want to play tricks on you, as shadows flew around beneath it. All was quiet, except for Jacob and Tony's footsteps along the sidewalk. For a long hour, they didn't find any commotion; so they figured, what the hell, why not go back to the place where it all started? Why not check out William Street, and if nothing happens there tonight, then they'll call it a day?

So they entered the slums and turned this way and that way past many parallel-parked cars, first through Ellen Street, turning left into Christian Street, then right into Fairclough Street, then another right into Rover Street, then left into James Street, then right into Langdale Street. Not too far now. Just one block away, and they'll be in William Street. Now just half of the block to go. Nothing happening yet. Maybe they're just wasting their breath, maybe it's better to just head back now and continue tomorrow night, when there wasn't so much fog. Maybe it was just paranoia; paranoia is good, but not in unhealthy amounts.

Just as they thought, as they reached William Street: nothing going on here.

Then a high-pitched scream echoed from their left.

And the two sprinted down William Street with their guns drawn. As they got closer to the sound, they heard footsteps, running footsteps coming closer to them through the dense fog. Tony raised his gun to fire, but Jacob prevented him. Jacob saw much farther through the fog than his partner, who saw that it was a young woman coming out of the fog panting and scared and not the killer.

"Jesus, Tony; look first before you shoot!"

A few windows lit up in the apartment buildings surrounding them. The place was waking up.

Tony took the woman and tried to calm her down, while Jacob was still looking through the fog. Then he thought he saw something. He thought it was someone standing, looking at him.

"Hold it right there! Put your hands up where I can see them!"

And by God, this person put his hands up.

When Jacob got closer to him, he could see the outline of his captive appearing as a specter behind all that fog. Then the man ran with ghost-like speed out of William Street towards Cannon Street. So he ran, too, and fired his gun, but his captive got away. But he thought he heard one of his slugs hit him like a gut shot. That's what he hoped for, anyway.

"Don't worry, I'll get him," and Tony ran past him.

"Wait! You need back—"

"Just look after her, okay!"

The woman came up to the older man, saying, "Does he know what he's doing?"

"I hope so," he said. Then he heard more gunshots, then another scream. Tony was in trouble. "Listen. Stay behind me, but not too far that I lose you, okay?"

She nodded. They walked into Cannon Street, Jacob with his gun at the ready. Fog everywhere. Even with ten-ten vision, he found it difficult to see anything. Fog was enveloping them.

"Tony. Tony, are you there?"

Nothing. Then more screaming and more gunshots. Then silence.

Adrenaline pumped through Jacob's veins, and his heart raced. Goose bumps formed on his skin.

"Tony, are you all right? Talk to me!"

Again, nothing but the sound of his quickening heartbeats. He picked up his two-way radio and called him. Nothing on the other end. That's when it began to register in his brain. Tony was dead. He felt his stomach give a grotesque lurch.

Then something ominous came up the street. Footsteps, the drunken, running footsteps of a psychopathic killer got closer and closer.

"Hold it right there! I said HOLD IT!" The woman screamed. And Jacob fired two shots into the fog.

It was followed by the sickening thud of a body hitting moist asphalt. Then all was silent. The assailant was dead.

More windows lit up in the apartments.

Jacob tried to calm the woman down, telling her that it was all right, that the killer was dead and that she had nothing to worry about. And that seemed to do the trick; then both walked up to the body. Through the dense fog, he saw it, the evil monster who killed his partner, the one who killed all twelve of those women, the one he hoped to God will suffer for eternity in Satan's God-forsaken realm.

But as the fog uplifted, he was mistaken.

"TONY! Ah, shit!"

His partner was on the moist ground with two oozing holes in his head, a look of fright or shock frozen into his dead eyes. An expanding pool of blood was collecting around his partner's head. Jacob Meiler felt all emotion draining from his soul and every thought draining from his head. He had damned himself when he thought he was damning the killer. He had violated his own oath to an old friend. So he just stood there in the middle of Cannon Street, in the middle of the ruckus of awakening neighbors and lights turning on in the windows. He didn't know if he wanted vengeance, or remorse, or pity, or just wanted to cry his eyes out. He just felt numb. He just wanted to be alone.

Then he dropped to his knees, not noticing the woman behind him panicking, or the people in their bedrooms bickering for what in the hell was going on outside their windows. He was lost like a child lost in a giant shopping mall, as if his mind had a switch that was turned off against his will. Fading into darkness. He was alone in the little non-existent world of his head, in a mental state of suspended animation, in a kind of limbo where absolutely nothing happens or changes.

Cold. Black. Emptiness.

There he stayed for the next twenty-four hours.

When he came out of it, he found himself in a hospital bed with his wife crying over the railing of his bed. A breathing apparatus covered his mouth, so he took it off. Only then did she notice him move. And she almost lost it, she was that worried, but she composed herself. The wife of a cop always composed herself.

"I'm all right, Callie," he said, placing his hand over hers.

"I know, but..." More tears flooded down her cheeks. "I… I honestly thought—"

"Don't think about that. It will take more than this to break this old boy."

"No, I will not have that way. Why do you keep doing this to me? You act like it's nothing serious when you... you..." Callie couldn't bring herself to say it, so she said in a quieter voice, "Darling, you have a heart condition, remember?"

"I try to forget it most of the time," he said, smiling to show her that he was all right, that he was gonna be okay when all of this blows over.

She sighed. "See, there you go again with that machismo attitude of yours."

"Sometimes it's all I have when I'm on the job."

"I… I know, but... I don't need a cop. I need a husband. I need you, dear."

In the back of his mind, Jacob knew that for a fact. Which he never hid from his wife. Why should he? He married Callie, because she was a no-nonsense woman who can handle a cop like him. But twenty years of diligence on the beat was twenty years of accumulated worry his wife had to endure all those lonely nights when he worked cases late into the gloom, nights when he could have made love to her, days when he could have fathered children of his own, the missed special moments that he could have shared with her—all of this sacrificed to protect and serve under the laws he swore to uphold. Regrets he wished he could redo, if he had the chance.

Then his mind returned to Tony Levine's pitiful end. Shot dead by friendly fire. That was the problem with guns and bullets. There was nothing friendly in friendly fire; a gun does not discriminate in its aim, and a bullet does not respect a single solitary soul. Its only objective is to kill. And the one who shoots has the responsibility of dealing out the Reaper's scythe, to play God over another person's life when necessary, and in his heart Jacob took responsibility for his partners death.

Why didn't I stop him before he went? he thought. Why didn't I see him in that fog?

For the first time since the death of his first partner, Thomas Matheson, he cried. Not a big loud cry, but the little silent one.

His wife knew why he cried. She saw it in the news. "Darling, I'm so sorry. I..."

She fell silent. Jacob could not say anything, only nodding as if to say, "Me too."

Time passed. After the doctor cleared him, he had to go to court and answer questions. After two days of questioning and deliberating of lawyers and jury members, he was cleared of all charges and allowed back on duty. His wife, Callie, wasn't too pleased, but she understood. She was tough, but she also had the patience and understanding of a saint, a rare quality among women these days; she was Jacob Meiler's sweet Mona Lisa.

Then he visited Tony's funeral and gave his grievances to his family, who took it very hard but without malice. When he went back into his office, he still had a case to solve. No other murders happened the rest of that week, so no new cases were assigned to him. He was also waiting for a new partner that hadn't arrived yet. That meant he had to work Jennifer Cooley's case alone for a while. Not a big deal. He wanted to be alone for a while. So without a partner to back him up, he still walked the beat at night, the Whitechapel beat, his beat.

Then one night on a clear, early April morning, he decided to walk back to William Street, just to check it out and maybe to pay his proper respects to Tony Levine, a friend lost on the line of duty. He walked the same brisk walk along the same route he took that fateful night, past the apartments he and his partner had seen in the fog, until he reached the place. He remembered everything in the minutest detail, from the smell of his gun smoke to the salty metallic flavor of Tony's blood.

Then he saw something on one of the walls of the apartments that looked like graffiti. He thought of making a note of that in his log, but that wasn't too bad in a neighborhood like Whitechapel. It looked dark red and more like a message the way he saw it. He got closer to it and saw that it was stained in blood.

Jacob's heart raced, his breathing getting heavier and heavier. Could it be Tony's blood? No, it can't be.

But it was. It was, indeed, a message smeared in his partner's blood. And quite possibly done by the same killer from that accursed night, the killer that got away. And it was fresh, no more than a day old. And for all he knew, it was meant for him to read. It read in all capitals:

NO MEDDLING IN MY AFFAIRS!
ONE MORE, AND YOU WILL REGRET IT!

Jacob gritted his teeth and pulled out his gun to shoot at it, but he didn't. No need to cause any more commotion than he already had. So he holstered his gun and made a mental note to include this detail in his investigation. Maybe it would lead him to the killer himself some day.

Then he walked home to his residence on the Princelet Street some eight miles away. He figured it was good for his heart and for his nerves. So he walked the meandering streets, past the parked cars, the hostels, the pubs, the apartments, the street corners, the clubs, the intersections, until he reached his address of 3489 along Princelet Street facing south.

The lights were out in his house, so Callie must've been sleeping. He opened the front door and went inside, taking care not to wake his wife, who must be at work by seven on the dot to do her part in the brokerage business. He was dead dog-tired when he changed and entered the bedroom. He turned on the lights and saw his wife sleeping peacefully in bed, so he gave her a peck on the forehead before climbing into bed and going to sleep. Believe it or not, he didn't have any nightmares on this night, no tossing and turning, none of that; he just slept like a log without dreaming anything.

When he awoke the next morning, the sun was shining through the blinds, and he was well-rested and ready to go back to work in no time. Then he saw the time on the clock: 8:30 a.m. He had overslept a little, but not too long to be too late for work. Then he happened to look over and saw his wife still in bed. Now that was a bit unusual; Callie had never been more than thirty minutes late for work. He got out of bed and looked at her, all tucked up and peaceful, as beautiful in his eyes as the day he fell in lover with her.

"It's the top of the morning, honey," he said, reaching out to shake her awake.

But she didn't wake up. She must have been very tired last night, he thought. But that was normal for anyone, let alone for someone who goes through the night routine of worrying over a spouse. And after everything that happened, who wouldn't?

He shook her again. Nothing.

Then he noticed the stench of rotten eggs and oysters. It was stench he was familiar with in his line of work. Then he knew...

His wife was dead!

He recoiled from the bed, stumbling off his feet, his heart racing a mile a second. He began to sweat and was hyperventilating.

And before he knew it, he was reciting, "Our F-F-F-Father who art i-i-in heaven, h-hallowed b-b-b-be thy name. Thy..."

As he said this, he saw to his absolute horror on the opposite wall letters, written in blood, beginning to seep through the plaster. He felt his eyes bulge out from their sockets when he saw what they said.

NO MEDDLING IN MY AFFAIRS!
ONE MORE, AND YOU WILL REGRET IT!

He panicked. He screamed. He had to get out of the room. Get out of the room, get out of the room, get out of the God damn room! He scrambled to the door and—Aw, fuck!—hit his knee on the front board of the bed, rocking the bed back and forth, rocking the body on the bed; now he limped to the door. Grabbed the handle and turned it.

It didn't budge! He yanked and wretched at the knob, but it didn't budge.

Then he stopped. Something overtook him, something ominous, something that made his stomach lurch. He felt his heart almost skip a beat. He got goose bumps the size of the chicken pox. And all at once, he felt a sickening icy dread sink into the base of his stomach. No! PLEASE GOD, NO!

He turned his head.

His dead wife was sitting up and staring at him with those two lifeless eyes! So he screamed at the top of his lungs!

That's when he woke up, startling everyone in his office. Bert Grendal was there. And Lin. And Noll.

Bert said, "Jesus, Jake. You seriously need to take a break, man."

(To be continued...)

A/N: This chapter was pretty graphic. This kept me up for two nights in a row, believe me. So please review! If this doesn't get you guys to review, I DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL!