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  My phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. It was Charlotte.

  That ice water feeling formed in my gut again.

  “Hey, baby!” she said, excited.

  The ice water feeling subsided.

  “Hey honey what’s up?”

  “We heard all about how you caught that cop killer. You are famous. Also we have other news. Burncutt was caught early this morning tried to car-jack an off duty deputy with a knife. The deputy shot and killed him.”

  “Wow,” I said. “A lot has gone on both in New Orleans and here.”

  “Oh yeah.” She tried to sound casual now. “Speaking of New Orleans, Who is Detective Jasmine Coffy?”

  “She is just a New Orleans cop. Something about her kinda reminded me of you all the time I was there. See you soon, Baby.”

  The Atlanta Ripper

  Beatrice Bishop ran as fast as she could; panting; bleeding; and scared for her life. She felt herself getting weaker and her legs about to give out from under her. But he was right there behind her, slowly walking like a hunter following the bloody trail to his kill. She grabbed on to a tree to catch herself from falling. She rested; heaving and trying to catch her breath. She heard the sloshing of slow moving footsteps getting close to her. She started running again; she didn’t know where she was. It was dark and she was in the woods and every direction looked the same except from where the footsteps were coming from. She then noticed a different sound.

  This sound gave her hope and the motivation to keep going. It was the screaming sound of heavy tires beating the asphalt. She kept going until she seen the headlights and tail lights of fast moving vehicles. It was a highway, she thought. She screamed for help as she ran toward the roadway. She threw her hands up, waving her arms and stepping out into the traffic.

  “HELP!” She stood in the path of a fast oncoming vehicle, which happened to have an off-duty police officer behind the wheel. Me. The car swerved and braked hard. There was a thump and the car came to rest a few feet past the woman.

  I looked over at Charlotte. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “Yes, I’m fine,” she responded rubbing her belly, probably communicating with the little guy to assure him they were both all right.

  “Go check on that person back there; they could be hurt bad.” She knew I would anyway, but she was concerned.

  “Okay, I‘ll go back there and you call the police and tell them there has been an accident; that a pedestrian was hit and we need an ambulance also at uhm…” I looked around to find a mile-marker. “Tell them we are at mile-marker 51 on interstate 20.”

  I jumped out of the car and raced back to where the woman was lying on the ground.

  Charlotte picked up her phone and dialed 911. Other passing motorists saw what had happened and pulled over to assist as well.

  She was lying face up. “Miss, are you okay?” I yelled, lightly shaking the young woman. I had to keep her awake if I could, and had to be gentle in case she had a serious injury.

  Her breathing was shallow and she opened her eyes. “Are you ok?”

  Another motorist came over. “Hey I’m a nurse, let me help.”

  I backed out the way and pulled my badge out. The woman saw it. She tried to move and get my attention.

  “She’s trying to say something!” said the nurse.

  I leaned in to her.

  She pointed at my badge and grabbed my ankle as if she was holding on for dear life.

  “Yes I’m a Detective, what is it you want to say?” I asked softly.

  She let go my ankle long enough to point toward the woods and then grabbed it again. She held me with a death grip.

  “Killer, woods, he-he stabbed me.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Who is this killer?”

  “Man—tall,” she said and let go my ankle again and pointed at her face.

  “A tall man in the woods stabbed you and he’s black,” I asked.

  She tried to nod. I glanced over to where she pointed and scanned the area but saw nothing. She saw that I understood and smiled showing her pretty white and straight teeth. That’s how she looked when her spirit left her; smiling and staring into the dark abyss.

  The nurse checked her pulse and her breathing. The young black woman was dead. The nurse looked at me and shook her head.

  “I’m sorry Detective; but she’s gone.”

  I felt bad. She looked so young and full of years. I got up and looked over at the woods again, still I saw nothing. It was dark. I decided to wait for the police to arrive.

  I was so distraught that I didn’t notice Charlotte talking to the nurse. She then walked over to where I was.

  “Are you ok?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just killed someone.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she said, rubbing my back. The nurse said she is sure the lady bled to death from the wound in her back.”

  I looked at Charlotte and then toward the nurse who was walking over to me.

  “Detective, I’m not a coroner, but I believe this young woman was stabbed to death long before your car touched her.”

  I didn’t know what to think.

  “So far I didn’t feel any broken bones. I witnessed the accident. I believe she basically brushed against your car when you swerved,” said the nurse.

  The police and ambulance arrived minutes later and shut down that portion of the interstate for their investigation. A young officer came up to me and I flashed my badge. I told him what had happened. He and another officer walked over to the wood-line and investigated.

  “Hey, we got blood over here. Get a K9 unit.” One of them yelled back to the just arriving officers.

  So she was right, I thought. I told Charlotte to wait with the nurse while I walked over to the wood-line where the two officers were standing with their flashlights shining on the ground.

  “There is a trail of blood. Don’t know how far back,” said on the officers.

  “It looks like she was running, with all the blood scattered like it is.”

  I paused and looked where one of the flashlights had just glossed over.

  “Shine your light over there again.” I pointed at the ground just in front of us.

  “It looks like shoe prints—large shoe prints,” said one of the officers.

  “That is exactly right,” I exclaimed. “Somebody chased this woman and tried to finish killing her and the bastard stood there watching all of us as she died, and he got away with murder, for now.”

  The nurse and I told the homicide investigator everything that the young woman had said before she died and our contact information. I told him the hotel Charlotte and I were going to be staying and that we would be there the weekend until Sunday morning. I also learned that the nurse’s name was Lenora wells and that she was a registered nurse at Emory University Hospital Midtown.

  The drive was different now. Before all this happened, Charlotte and I were listening to the music on the radio, holding hands, and thinking about the great weekend we were going to have doing some sight-seeing, a little shopping, and just having fun. Things had changed and everything in me wanted to turn around and go back home, but I thought about how the young woman looked at my badge and held onto me tight because I was her hope. I was the one she silently asked to find out what happened. To her, I was her hero.

  Chapter 2

  I felt like I had just closed my eyes for only a few minutes until my phone rang the second time. Charlotte was sleeping well with her head on my chest and her arm wrapped around me. I turned and looked at my phone at the third ring hoping it would somehow stop but it didn’t. I knew I had to answer it. I answered it.

  “Hello?” I said in a low raspy tone.

  “Detective Jackson please?” said the woman’s voice on the other end.

  “Yeah, this is he,” I said looking at my watch.

  “I’m sorry to call you so early in the morning; this is Agent Margaret Faulkner with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
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  I wiped my eyes. “If this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny,” I said.

  “I’m afraid not Detective. I know it is early, but I wanted to catch you before you and your wife left out this morning.

  The thought of her knowing my wife was with me was less than comforting.

  “Ok, what do you need from me?” I asked. I looked at the coffee pot on the table and walked over to it.

  “Well, Detective, like I said, I am Agent Margaret Faulkner, and I need for you to meet me this morning in the hotel lobby. It’s about the murder case last night.”

  I filled the pot with water from the sink and listened to her. “Okay, what time?”

  “Shall we say around 8:00 A.M.?”

  “Okay, I’ll be there.” I hung up and poured the water into the coffee maker.

  Charlotte stirred from her sleep.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “A little after five,” I told her.

  She yawned. “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Just the FBI,” I said. I flipped the on button to turn the pot on.

  “FBI?” she asked, surprised.

  “Yep,” the FBI. She wants to meet me in the lobby at 8:00 and talk about that murder case last night.

  “Oh--another ‘she,’ huh?”

  I knew that was coming. She never really got over that I had worked side by side with a beautiful female detective in New Orleans a month ago. Of course, nothing had happened, but she let me know that I at least should have told her and trusted her instead of trying to keep it a secret. She told me a man looked more suspicious when he hides something from his wife. Instead, he should come right out and say it. It actually made sense.

  “At least I’m telling you about it up front this time.”

  I tore the plastic off the cups and placed them by the coffee maker. She smiled.

  “Would you like a cup?” I asked.

  “No, baby, I’m gonna go wash my face.”

  She brushed up against me and patted me on the behind and kissed me on the cheek.

  “All right,” I said. “That’s how you got pregnant in the first place.”

  I kissed her on the cheek. I then held her and tried to kiss her on the lips. She covered my lips with her hand.

  “Uh-uh, after I brush my teeth.”

  She walked in the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

  I poured myself a cup of coffee. I pondered the conversation I just had with Agent Faulkner and wondered what else she knew about me—after all, she was the FBI.

  Chapter 3

  Agent Margaret Faulkner met me in the lobby right on time. She was a white woman, probably 5’2, with brown eyes and brown hair with some gray, and maybe in her late 50’s. I sighed a little in relief. She looked plain.

  “Detective Jackson,” she said extending her hand. Her handshake was firm but her hands were soft. She held out her credentials for me to read them, much longer than I would have. I assumed she was proud of her job.

  “How can I help you?”

  “We need to talk at my office downtown. I would appreciate it if you would join me.”

  I could have probably told her no but I was intrigued as to why the FBI was interested in this case. The case had nothing to do with me except the information I gave the investigators, but it must have had a lot to do with the FBI.

  “Sure, why not.”

  The drive to the FBI building was smooth with not much traffic, probably because it was Saturday morning. She parked her car in the parking deck and we took the elevator up to her floor. She had a small desk with a couple of chairs and her office smelled minty.

  “Can I get you anything—juice, coffee, or water?”

  “Coffee will be fine.”

  While she started to make the coffee, I looked at a photo on her desk. It showed an elderly couple in the center and surrounded by women—one being agent Faulkner.

  “You have a lovely family.”

  She turned around from the coffee pot and saw me looking at her family photo.

  “Thank you.” She turned back toward the coffee pot and finished putting the grounds in the filter. After she was done, she went and sat in the chair behind her desk.

  “My mom passed recently,” she said.

  “I—am—sorry.”

  “It’s quite all right. We just have to keep on keeping on, don’t we?”

  I waited for her to start the conversation. Why I was I there, in her office, on a Saturday morning?

  She opened a drawer and pulled out a stack of files that looked older than her age and mine combined and placed them on her desk.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Before I get into that, Detective, I want you to think back to last night and fill me in on everything the victim Beatrice Bishop had told you before she died.”

  I didn’t know her name. It was a pretty name that matched a pretty face.

  “I already gave my statement to the investigators on the scene.” She was about to say something but I cut her off. “But if you wish, I will repeat it just for you.”

  I gave her the same information I had given the investigators at the scene letter to letter.

  “Detective Jackson, the files you see on my desk are from cold cases dating back to 1911.”

  “Okay, what does that have to do with 2015?”

  “Precisely my point, Detective,” she said pushing to files to me for me to look them over.

  “In those files are crimes similar to the one last night.”

  She took out three more files and laid them on her desk. This is why you are here on a Saturday.

  Those files looked fresh and new.

  “So what does this all mean?” I asked.

  “Have you ever heard about the Atlanta Ripper murders in 1911-1912?”

  “No, I just remember the Atlanta Child Murders back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when I was a kid.”

  I looked at the photo of the lady in the first file. She was black and pretty and probably was in her 20’s.

  “The Atlanta child murders were horrible and we caught that killer, but this guy back at the turn of the century was just like Jack the Ripper in London back in 1889—they both killed many women and vanished into thin air.”

  I could tell she prided herself on being knowledgeable.

  “Okay so, if both of those guys vanished and it’s been well over a hundred years for both men to be alive today, then who is doing the killing?”

  “A copycat,” she said.

  I acknowledged what she said by nodding my head.

  “The victim last night is the only one to have survived long enough to give us some detail as to what this guy may look like. And being that you were told directly by…”

  “Hold on, okay, you want me to say this publicly don’t you?”

  “Detective, I assure you that it is in the best interest of the city right now.”

  “Oh so since I’m black and a detective, and the dead black woman told me that a tall black man stabbed her; you want me the black detective to smooth the possibly upcoming race riot before it starts, right?”

  “Detective, you are an officer of the law; plus I took the liberty of calling your chief and asking him if you could assist us in this matter.”

  I stood up.

  “WHAT! You called my boss without asking me…”

  She threw her hands up in surrender. “Relax detective, I only asked in case you didn’t find the idea of speaking publicly appealing.”

  “You damn right, I don’t!”

  “We need your help on this case then.”

  “How?”

  “You and I will partner up and investigate. I did some checking up on you and you have dealt with psychos before. Besides, it would keep you out the press and the public will see a some-what well-known detective working with the FBI to catch this guy. The public will feel safer and the city will hopefully not be destroyed.”

  “I have my wife with me and we are
here for the weekend.”

  “Sorry detective but we need you and duty calls. Do you want this guy attacking your wife?”

  The words pierced my heart like a hot double edged sword. It reminded me of the time Charlotte was abducted. I calmed down and thought.

  “Okay, I will help, but I want 24 hour protection around my wife starting right now!”

  “That was already done before you got in my car at the hotel. Now let’s get down to business.”

  All I could do was look at her. She was smart and witty. I actually liked her but I wasn’t going to let on.

  Chapter 4

  “I’ll get out in front of the hotel,” I said. Agent Faulkner didn’t say anything. She pulled in front of the hotel double doors and parked.

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  She looked at me with a twisted smile and gave me her contact card.

  “Agents Riley and Jefferson will introduce themselves when you get to your floor. If you have any questions or need anything, please call me.”

  I took the card, nodded, and walked through the double doors.

  When I got up to my floor, it was just as she said. Both agents were standing in the hallway. They wore black suits and had ear pieces in their ears. I assumed she had told them I was coming up. They came over and introduced themselves.

  Agent Riley spoke first. He was young, pale and had a crew cut. Agent Jefferson was tall and black and stood erect, as if he’d been in the military.

  We talked briefly as I slid the key in the door.

  Charlotte met me at the door.

  “Jared, who are these guys?”

  “They are FBI agents.”

  “FBI agents?...Why?”

  “I’ll explain later, but for right now, let’s go down to the restaurant, I’m starved.”

  Charlotte and I walked into the elevator with Riley and Jefferson following close behind. We didn’t say anything on the ride down.

  The restaurant was not crowded and we had our choice of the best tables. The lunch time buffet looked good. Charlotte and I sat down close to the hot bar and salad bar. The agents sat a few tables over to give us some privacy, I suppose.