Stalking Jack the Ripper (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #1)(7)

My attention snagged on what I assumed were Miss Nichols’s clothes. Bloodstains were hard to see on the dark material; however, given the nature of her attack, I knew they were there. Small, lace-up boots were covered in mud, smudging the table on which they rested. They were well-worn, telling of her poverty.

A chill—having nothing to do with the macabre scene unfolding across the room—crawled down my spine. Keeping the temperature quite low in this part of the house was essential, else the specimens rotted too fast.

The less constricting muslin dress I was wearing now offered little in the way of protection against the chilly air, but I preferred working in it over my finer corseted one, even as I rubbed the gooseflesh from my arms.

I scanned the wall opposite me containing medical journals and tools that, to an outside observer, might seem a bit frightening. The curved, scythe-like blade of the amputation knife, the bone saws, and the imposing glass and metal syringes wouldn’t be out of place in a gothic novel such as both Nathaniel’s and my childhood favorite: Frankenstein. They could easily be thought of as the devil’s design, if one was inclined to think such superstitious notions… like Father.

The room’s eerie silence was broken as Uncle called out basic facts such as height, gender, and hair and eye color while scouring the body for other traumas sustained during the murder. Facts I had already memorized from my journal entry.

I watched Thomas write notes onto a medical sheet with mechanical precision, his fingers more ink stained than they were in class. Note taking was generally my area of assistance during these procedures. I stood patiently, breathing in the chemical air and listening to the gentle sounds of flesh splaying, trying to ignore the sick churn of my gut. Settling my nerves always took several moments.

A few breaths later, Uncle noticed me standing in the corner and signaled for me to grab an apron and join them.

As I moved closer to the cadaver, it was as if a door had closed between my heart and head, sealing all emotions on the opposite side. Once I was standing over the body, I no longer saw the person she was in life. I only saw the shell left behind, and curiosity took hold in the worst of ways.

She’d morphed from a kindly enough looking woman into another faceless corpse; I’d had plenty of experience with them this summer. Strips of cloth covered parts of her to keep her decent, though there wasn’t anything decent about her state.

Her skin was paler than the finest hand-painted pottery Mother had inherited from her grandmother in India, except along her jawline where dark bruising was evident. Hard living stole the softness I imagined she once had, and death was not gentle when it took her in its unforgiving embrace.

At least her eyes were closed. That was where the semi-peacefulness ended. According to Uncle she was missing five teeth, and her tongue had also sustained a laceration, indicating she was likely struck to either stun or knock her unconscious before the throat slitting. Those were the kinder injuries.

My gaze drifted to her lower abdomen, where a major injury was located on her left side. Uncle Jonathan hadn’t exaggerated in class; this cut was jagged and extremely deep. A few smaller slices ran along the right side of her torso but weren’t nearly as bad, from what I could tell.

I saw why Uncle thought someone who had use of both hands might be responsible. The bruising on her jaw indicated someone had grabbed her face with the left hand, and the incision on the left side of her body was most likely made by someone using the right. Unless there was more than one butcher on the loose…

I shook my head and focused on her upper body again. The knife wounds to her neck told of an attack bred by violence. They were surprisingly easy to look at in my new emotionally detached state, however, and I wondered briefly if Aunt Amelia would say that was another strike against my moral character.

“Girls should be concerned with lace, not moral disgrace,” she’d say.

I dreamed of a day when girls could wear lace and makeup—or no makeup at all and don burlap sacks if they desired—to their chosen profession without it being deemed inappropriate.

Uncle suddenly jumped back and sneezed. Thoughts of contracting airborne diseases crowded into my brain. I collected myself for a minute. Father’s fears would not become my own and hold me back from what needed to be done.

Uncle snapped his fingers, pointing to one of four surgical knives lying on a metal tray. I snatched it up and handed it to him, grabbing each used tool and setting it in an alcohol bath after he was through with it. When it came time for the organ removal, I had individual trays and specimen glass ready before Uncle asked for them.

I knew my job well.

He grunted his approval then weighed the kidneys one at a time.

“The left kidney is approximately one hundred and thirty-seven grams.” Thomas scratched the information down, quickly returning his focus to my uncle’s next words. He was silent while absorbed in his work, my presence like a piece of furniture, wholly unnoticed until needed. “The right is a bit on the small side, coming in around one hundred nineteen.”

Uncle removed a small piece of each organ, placing them on Petri dishes for further testing. This same routine went on for the heart, liver, intestines, and brain. My uncle’s clean white apron gradually became bloodier, but he methodically washed his hands after each dissection to avoid contaminating the evidence.

There was no proof such contaminations could occur, but Uncle had his own theories on the matter. “Conventional society be damned,” he’d bellow. “I know what I know.”