The following Monday I was off work so I went with Rick to meet with his Birmingham police friend. Rick was in uniform, and insisted we go in his patrol car.

I was surprised to find we were meeting in an Olive Garden instead of police headquarters. Corporal Jenkins came to our booth ten minutes late, apologizing and waving a server down for sweet tea. He was a tall man without a hair on his head, muscled like a bull. Rick introduced me.

“Nice to meetcha,” he said, shaking my hand over the table. He offered Rick a manila envelope of typewritten paperwork, which Rick immediately buried himself in and ignored us. I made small talk with Jeff Jenkins and occasionally glanced at Rick, trying to read his expression. He only looked up once, to agree on pizza toppings, and then re-read everything from the beginning. He handed the file back and shook his head.

“Pretty much like I told you,” Jeff said. “No one’s going to re-open this as a cold case. I talked to BPD’s crime analyst, just to be sure.”

“Yeah. We’ll never know for sure,” Rick answered. “I’ll always wonder if he did it, though.”

“Want to fill me in?” I asked, annoyed.

“Oh, sorry,” Rick said. “There were no witnesses and there’s no way to know if Chet Wilson was in the area when Dr. Thompson fell down those stairs. His death was ruled accidental almost immediately. The autopsy showed a history of alcohol abuse, and there was definitely a lot of alcohol in his system when he died, officially of head trauma from the fall. The hospital seems to have been in a big hurry to close the case and keep things quiet, for obvious reasons.” He sighed and crossed his arms. “No one had any reason to suspect foul play. The investigators knew nothing about Wilson, and certainly not about his relationship with Violet.”

“So we know nothing,” I said.

“We know that Chet was aware Violet was being abused. We know Chet’s company worked in Birmingham a lot, including commercial electrical service. We know Chet was obsessed with Violet. And we know Tolly liked his afternoon whiskey on the rooftop, but always managed to walk down those concrete stairs without cracking his skull. But yes, we know nothing.” Rick shook his head.

“What if we could get Superior Electric’s records from that time?” I asked.

Jeff Jenkins spoke up. “Tried that. It seems they were destroyed in the nineties.”

“I wonder if anyone who worked with Chet is still around,” Rick said.

“That was a dead end, too, without the records,” Jenkins answered. “I think we have a better chance of finding the real Jack the Ripper. Sorry, y’all.”