Michael Prescott

Riptide

I must lie down where all the ladders start

In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.

— W. B. Yeats

1891

Edward Hare sat alone at a corner table, nursing a mug of beer and warding off the blandishments of harlots. It was ten o’clock on a Thursday night, and the sailors and migrants who infested the dockside slums were out carousing. He was familiar with their kind. Some things were the same in every country-the smoky taverns, the alleyways scuttling with rats, the hard faces of those who called this cesspool their home.

The barroom occupied the ground floor of the East River Hotel, a faded hostelry three blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge. The clientele consisted of the human vermin that made their living on the docks, manning ships, lading cargo, and, in the case of the women, servicing dockworkers, passengers, and crews.

The ring of a bell drew his attention. One of the hotel staff, whom the regulars called Mary, opened the main door, and two new arrivals entered, hugging themselves, chilled from the April night.

The pair intrigued him. They were so obviously mismatched. The whore was a gray-haired shopworn hag tottering under the influence of liquor. The man on her arm was twenty years her junior, thin, sharp-faced, with a blond mustache and a shabby black bowler, its crown dented. He had the look of a foreigner, but then nearly everyone in this district was from some other part of the world. Himself included, Hare reflected. In England he had often complained about the hordes of pauper aliens invading the city. Now he was the interloper, his boots planted on foreign soil.

Mary exchanged friendly words with the crone, who tossed back her head and emitted a raven’s caw of laughter. The gentleman ducked low, hiding under his battered billycock, as if ashamed. As well he should be ashamed, to consort with a creature of the streets.

After a few moments of these pleasantries, the gentleman dug in his pants pocket and produced a coin. Payment for a night’s lodging, Hare presumed-although in an establishment of this kind, rooms were likely to be let by the hour.

Mary disappeared into the stairwell and returned bearing a key, a candle, and a tin pail rattling with two bottles of mixed ale on ice. The man took the pail in one hand, holding fast to his rented sweetheart with the other, and Mary led them up the stairs.

Hare watched them go, the woman still screeching, the man silent and slow. Whatever intimacy they would find together would carry no significance for either one.

Time passed, and finally his cup of beer was drained. It was after eleven. Hare was customarily an early riser, except for those nights when business required him to work odd hours. He had no business in Manhattan. He decided to take a room and get some rest.

Mary was at work clearing a table. He approached her and asked the nightly rate. “Two bits,” she said pertly.

He paid the coin. As it vanished into her hand, unaccountably he was reminded of Charon, boatman of the River Styx, who must collect his fare.

Mary smilingly told him to wait there while she got a room for him. Hare lingered by the stairway as she ascended to an office on the first floor landing. She poked her head out of the door and chirped, “Forgot to ask your name. Need it for the register.”

He gave the name of Wilson. Surely this was not the first time a man had used an alias in this establishment. Tonight he had no need of subterfuge, but old habits died hard.

Mary emerged with key and candle, returning to the ground floor to ask if he would like a bit of refreshment in his room. No, he said. With a broad smirk she inquired if he was certain. The hotel offered all manner of diversions for the discriminating gentleman.

Her meaning was unmistakable. Now he knew why he’d thought of Charon the ferryman when she palmed his coin. She was one of the living dead who roamed the streets and haunted the taverns. A fallen woman, whose services at the East River Hotel included nightly visitations to the customers’ rooms.

“I require no diversions,” he said.

She smiled, her crooked teeth repulsive in her splotchy face. “You’re a Brit, ain’t you? Plenty of Brits stop in here. Brits and others. People from all over the world.”

This provoked his first extended response. “Yes. The detritus of the earth. The lees in humanity’s punch bowl.”

Her smile tipped into a scowl. She hadn’t quite understood him, but she had caught his tone. “You lookin’ down yer nose at me, mister?”

“I should hope so.”

“Think you’re better’n the rest of us? If you’re so super, what are you doing here?”

It was a fair question. What was he doing here? He had thrown away his former life, voyaged across the sea-Liverpool to New York, seasick all the way-and at the terminus of his travel he had found only a feculent cot in a dockside doss-house for twenty-five cents at night.

He should not have come. But he was past the point of choosing rightly, or at all. He was master of himself no longer.

“Just give me the goddamned key,” he said. He would not engage this wretch in further conversation.

“I got to show you to your room.”

“Room number’s on the key, isn’t it? I can find it for myself.”

Stern-faced, she handed over key and candle. As he headed for the stairs, he heard her say loudly to those around her, “Feller thinks he’s a big man. I’ll bet he ain’t so big where it counts.”

The remark was met with drunken laughter from the hags and hang-abouts in the saloon. He flushed but kept walking. Let the mob howl.

The room number on his key was thirty-two. He thought it would be on the third story, but it surprised him by being on the fifth, the top floor. He wandered down a dingy flyspecked hall and let himself in. His candle illumined a narrow cave with a bare floor, a washbowl in one corner, and a single window framing blackness. The room, it appeared, had once been part of a larger space, which had been subdivided with thin plywood walls in the name of economy.

He had no baggage with him, having left it in a storage locker until he could get settled. He was shrugging off his jacket when he heard noises through the plywood board. A creak of bed springs and the familiar screeching laugh.

The gray-haired whore’s lodgings were adjacent to his own.

Her consort’s voice came through also. He spoke in German, or was it a Scandinavian tongue? Some continental jibber-jabber.

Hare didn’t want to listen to them. Didn’t want to picture them together, flesh against flesh.

He sat on the bed, head in hands, while the awful noises went on. He thought of his London life, the quiet evenings, the civilized atmosphere. His favorite walks and haunts. His books.

Gone now. Here he was, in a new country, with no employment and little money, and himself not so young anymore. Maybe he didn’t have the strength for it, this starting over. And yet there was no turning back. He was like Macbeth, caught in midstream …

“Stepped in so far,” he whispered, “that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

There was no more speech from the room next door, only the rhythmic rise and fall of the bed, playing as an undercurrent to a medley of groans and gasps-the whore earning her pay, which she would spend on gin or beer. Whores were no different in any land. Unlike Mr. Darwin’s finches, they exhibited no territorial variations. They were always and everywhere the same.

Hare felt a slow, steady pounding at his temples.

And when he rose from bed, he knew what he would do.

He rummaged in his jacket until he found the knife-a black wooden handle and a sharp blade, ground to a deadly point.

Knife in hand, he left his room and stepped along the empty corridor to the door nearest his own.

His blade, inserted between door and jamb, made quick work of the latch, springing it silently. He eased the door ajar and peered inside.

The room was lit by a single guttering candle on the nightstand. Its glow reached the bed but not the farther corners.

Amid the tangled sheets, his back to the door, the foreigner was humping the crone. The hag had not even troubled to undress, had merely lifted her copious garments over her hips to expose the devil’s mouth between her thighs.

Preoccupied with carnality, neither of them had seen him.

Hare swung the door wide and burst into the room. A crashing blow with the knife handle caught the foreigner on the back of his skull and sent him tumbling to the floor. Hare scrambled over the fallen man onto the bed where the whore, dazed with drink and lust, had only just registered his arrival. He seized her disheveled clothes and jerked them higher, covering her face, then twisted the loose folds of her chemise into a knot and wound it tight. She was both strangled and smothered, her fists beating on the mattress until they could beat no more.

He climbed off her, leaving her as she’d died, her face shrouded, her body nude below the armpits.

Her death had been quick. He hadn’t wanted her to suffer. She could not help being what she was. She was no more responsible for the despoliation she caused than was a toxic bacillus. She must simply be eliminated, cleanly and swiftly, in the name of preserving health.

Hare checked the hall. Still empty. No alarum had been raised. No one had seen or heard. He shut the door and locked it, then took stock of the situation.

The foreigner was his most immediate concern. Half dressed, hatless, he lay outstretched and inert. Dead? No, blood ticked in the carotid at the side of the neck. The man lived.

Hare returned his attention to the harlot. His gaze settled on the forbidden area, the deep hollow of her sex. She had used that secret place to lure men astray. Even in death, it was the source of her power. But not for long.

He stripped to his underwear, neatly folding his clothes. He meant to do the job carefully, methodically, but he was out of practice and the first incision was clumsy, missing the central part of her abdomen and slip-sliding along her left side in a long curling gash that opened her up from the breastbone to the base of the spine. Her insides were hot-he could warm his hands over them-hot and reeking with the charnel-house odor that drove him mad. His twitching hands plunged inside her and found the slick ropes of her intestines, and he was unpacking her corpse, opening a path to her inmost female parts.

He turned her inside out, found one of her ovaries, tore it free. He would unsex her. She had been a cunt, nothing more. Now she would not be even that much.

“Not even that,” he whispered as sweat slimed his face.

His blade took savage bites out of her. He jabbed again and again, perforating her body, then rolled her onto her side and slashed a furious X into her left buttock.

X marks the spot, said the treasure maps. There was no treasure in her. X marked only her bloody rump.

Finally, exhausted, he threw down the knife. Breathing hard, he gathered himself. The room was suddenly hot and close. He propped open the window with one of the whore’s shoes. A moist breeze seeped in, carrying distant drunken cries.

When he looked back at the bed, he saw something only half-human amid the sheets.

Blood was everywhere, gouts of it, drenching the mattress, staining his hands and wrists.

And there was still the foreigner to be dispatched.

Unless a better alternative presented itself.

Hare’s knife lay on the floor. He did not retrieve it. He sat naked on the bed, formulating a plan.

Then carefully he wiped himself clean on the foreigner’s shirt and trouser legs. When he was done, it was the blond man who reeked of blood.

Hare dressed, then left the room. Of course he could not stay the night. He must find lodging elsewhere. The doors to the street would be locked at midnight. After that, the foreigner would be trapped in the hotel, unable to leave without the assistance of the night porter. His bloody clothes would shout for attention. Mary or some other minion would eye him shrewdly: “Whose blood is that, mister?” Imagine the blond ape struggling to answer in his pidgin English, his rude face flashing fear. The room would be entered, the knife and its victim found. The case was open-and-shut.

It was best that way. Best if the crime could be solved this very night. The authorities would not inquire too closely if a scapegoat lay conveniently to hand.

At a few minutes to midnight Hare descended the stairs. The office on the first-floor landing was fortuitously unoccupied, but the tavern on the lobby level was more crowded and boisterous than before. He avoided it, slipping down an adjacent corridor to an outside door. He crossed Water Street and walked along Catherine Slip, keeping clear of the street lights.

No one saw him. No one ever saw him. He was invisible, blending with the fog.

one

She had been in the water for less than twelve hours, but already the fish had begun to feed. Men in wetsuits gently cut her loose from the snarl of fishing lines, separating her from the piling. As she bobbed to the surface, her head fell back, exposing her face to the sun.

The plastic bag was still tied in place, ribboned with kelp, a caul pasted to her features. Her eyes bulged, bloodshot with petechial hemorrhages. Her swollen tongue lay against the plastic like a purple snake.

High above the water, Jennifer Silence stood on the Venice Fishing Pier, hands in the pockets of the nylon windbreaker that beat against her chest.

Beside her, Draper said, “I don’t know why you had to see this.”

“I had to see her.”

“Seen enough?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll take you to her house.”

***

The house was a Craftsman bungalow on Centinela Avenue in Mar Vista. Three black-and-whites were slant-parked on the street outside. No coroner’s van, no SID unit-not yet. Draper had brought her in before the house had been processed.

A uniformed Pacific Area cop guarded the front door, the radio on his hip chattering unintelligibly. Down the hall, in the dining area, there were more uniforms, laughing and joking, their joviality somehow obscene after what Jennifer had seen in the water.

Draper led her into the bedroom at the rear of the cottage. The room had been vandalized. The desktop computer-a Mac, she noted-lay in pieces on the carpet. The mirror over the dresser was spider-webbed with cracks. Chairs were overturned, hanging plants yanked off their ceiling hooks and strewn around the floor, trailing dirt-encrusted roots. A bookcase had been pulled down, scattering its contents-not many books, mostly CDs and videos and a couple of snapshots in metal frames.

On another tabletop lay a spray of porcelain pieces from smashed figurines. Enough recognizable parts remained to identify the figures as owls. On the floor was a larger owl in carved ironwood, and another one chiseled out of some dark green stone.

The many owls’ wide watchful eyes stared up at her in speechless inquiry. They must have been watching last night, when the occupant of this house died on the bathroom floor.

Jennifer knew how it happened. The woman was in bed when the intruder entered the premises. She awoke, hearing a noise. She reached for the bedside phone-now off the hook-but the telco line had been cut outside the house.

She must have known she was in trouble then. She left the bed and tried to reach the bathroom, hoping to lock herself inside. The bed sheets tripped her up, and she fell sprawling. She kicked free and propelled herself onto the bathroom tiles-cheap linoleum, yellowing with age, their corners curling up. She grabbed a towel rack and tried to rise, dislodging the rack from the wall.

Then he was on top of her and she had no chance.

Straddling her, pinning her down and restraining her flailing arms, he slipped the plastic bag over her head and twisted it tight, until the air in the bag was gone.

He trashed the room after that, a senseless show of dominance or rage. Then he carried her out of the bungalow and drove her to the beach.

All this took place sometime last night or early this morning-late Monday or early Tuesday, March 3 or 4. Even in L.A., the nights were cold in March, and her neighbors’ windows were shut. Nobody heard a thing.

Jennifer stood unmoving for a long moment, feeling nothing but emptiness-and a need to make things right.

“Any idea where he dumped her?” she asked.

“Could have been anywhere. He might have thrown her off Santa Monica Pier, or off a boat, or just tossed her into the surf at the shoreline. Around midnight the tide was going out. He was probably hoping she’d be carried out to sea.”

“Why wasn’t she?”

“Got caught in a riptide. It pulled her south to the Venice Pier. You saw those tangled fishing lines. People get their lines snarled and have to cut them off the reel. The lines stay wrapped around the pilings. She got fouled up in them, and someone spotted her this morning.”

Jennifer thought of the woman in the water. She had worn flower-patterned pajamas, light blue, silky. Her feet were bare, the neatly pedicured toenails painted cherry red.

Marilyn Diaz. Insurance agent. Divorced, no kids. Thirty-four years old.

Four years older than I am, Jennifer thought.

Draper stepped closer. She looked up at him. At six feet, he stood a good ten inches taller than her diminutive self. People called him the prince of darkness, a tribute to his saturnine countenance, his dark swept-back hair.

“Thanks for getting there so quickly,” Draper said. “Though it really wasn’t necessary for you to come at all.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“Because it’s always true.”

He was looking around the room, his face impassive. He never displayed emotion at a crime scene. He gave an impression of detachment verging on indifference. But once, she had caught him lifting a small silver crucifix from under his shirt collar and giving it a surreptitious kiss. She knew then that he cared more than he let on.

“I still don’t see why you wanted to be there,” he added. “Or here, for that matter.”

“You know how I work, Roy. I need to see where she lived, how she lived. I need to find out who she was.”

“And what have you learned?”

She liked owls, Jennifer thought. “She was neat, well organized, well groomed. She had family.” Her finger pointed out the framed snapshots from the bookcase. “Not much of a reader, more into movies and music. Probably spent a lot of evenings curled up with a DVD. I think she was attractive, though it’s hard to tell now.”

“Is any of that helpful?”

“I don’t know what may be helpful. I deal in intuition. It’s not an exact science.”

“That’s for sure.” Draper said it with too much asperity.

“For somebody who’s got such doubts about my abilities, you sure do make a habit of calling me in.”

“You’ve given us a couple of leads,” he conceded.

“More than a couple.”

“A couple that panned out. A couple that didn’t.”

“Like I said, not an exact science.”

“And like I said, that’s for damn sure.”

“You didn’t say damn.”

“I was thinking it.”

“Care to guess what word I’m thinking of now?”

“I’m pretty sure I know. See? I can be intuitive, too.”

She gave up and asked how the intruder had gained access.

“Broke a side window, reached in, unlatched the door.”

“The breaking window is probably what woke her. If she’d run for the front door instead of grabbing the phone — ”

“Wouldn’t have made any difference. He was in position to intercept her if she left the room.”

“Do you suppose he knew that?”

“You mean did he know the layout? Had he been in the house before? No idea. Maybe your voodoo science will tell us.”

She wasn’t crazy about the voodoo comment, but she let it go. Draper had a way of pushing her buttons. She wasn’t sure what that was all about. At times she wondered if maybe he was interested in her. But he’d never said anything, and he didn’t strike her as shy.

Unless he was gun-shy-burned once too often, afraid to touch the stove for fear it was still hot. It was possible. There was an odd tension between them that was not entirely disagreeable, like the flutter of discomfort she felt on a first date, a nervous self-awareness. She wondered what a real first date with Roy Draper would be like.

“She lived alone,” Jennifer said, not phrasing it as a question because the truth of it was obvious.

“A lot of people do.” Something in Draper’s voice told her it was more than a general observation.

“I know I do. How about you, Roy?”

“Me? Yeah, I’m flying solo now.”

“Divorced?” She’d never asked.

“No, but I was in a long-term relationship. It ended. Obviously. Or I wouldn’t be alone.” The words were spoken lightly but sounded sad.

“How long were you with her?”

“Three years.”

“When did it go south?”

“Last November. November seventeenth. I still have the date marked on my calendar. Never turned the page. How’s that for the perfect metaphor of a guy who can’t get on with his life?”

“You’ll move on eventually.”

“So they tell me…. I don’t know how we started talking about this.”

She knew he was embarrassed, and she also knew her hot-stove theory was correct. Maybe one of these days he’d work up the nerve to touch the burners again.

“I’m guessing there’s a reason you brought me in,” she said.

“When we went through the bills and junk mail on her dining table, we found something. Original’s being tested for prints. This is a copy.”

He removed a single folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. One side was covered from top to bottom by a handwritten message in a spidery, minuscule script. The note was unsigned.

She glanced at the document long enough to ascertain that it was unmistakably a threat message. “Nothing on the back?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a scratch mark, a smudge? Because even the most trivial-”

“There’s nothing, Jen. This is it.”

“Was there an envelope?”

“If there was, we haven’t found it.”

“Go through her trash? Sorry. Of course you did.”

“Nothing in the garbage. I don’t think she would have thrown out an envelope anyway. Anybody who’s ever watched CSI knows you don’t destroy evidence.”

“There may not have been an envelope. The note didn’t have to be mailed. It could have been pushed through her mail slot or left on her windshield. Obviously she didn’t report it, or you would already know how it got to her.”

“There’s no record of any report.”

“That’s odd, don’t you think? A person gets a message like this, the first thing you’d expect them to do is call the police.”

Draper shrugged. “My guess is, she thought it was something she could deal with on her own.”

Jennifer thought of the white, staring face with its clear plastic mask.

“Then she was wrong,” she said.

two

Jennifer made it back to her house in Venice in twenty minutes, catching only green lights. She felt fine as she unlocked the door, and she continued to feel fine as she crossed the living room and went past the kitchen and down the rear hall into the powder room, where she leaned over, eyes closed, and threw up into the sink.

The bloodshot eyes under plastic…the swollen mass of her tongue…

She retched again, dry heaving because luckily she’d had little breakfast and there was nothing left in her gut.

She never got used to it, and it took its toll on her. Her friend Maura was always telling her to pack it in, get a nice, safe private practice, stop going to crime scenes and traumatizing herself. Sensible advice, but she wouldn’t listen.

Cupping her hands under the spigot, she splashed cold water on her face. The sting, hard as a slap, centered her.

When she raised her head, she saw her reflection in the mirror, a pale ghost image framed in wheat-colored hair. In January she’d turned thirty, but she looked younger. She had a child’s face with a child’s large eyes. She expended a lot of energy making people treat her as a grownup. Maybe that was one reason she wouldn't walk away from her job.

Leaving the bathroom, she deposited the photocopied threat message in her study, a small businesslike room overlooking a backyard garden in need of tending. There had been a tool shed in the backyard once, many years ago. Her mother had removed it and planted flowers on the ground where it stood. She tended those flowers until the day she died.

Jennifer had grown up in this house and knew every squeaky floorboard. It was a Queen Anne Victorian, tall and narrow, two stories of cedar oak shingles and gingerbread trim topped by a high gable and slanted roof. The house was planted on a narrow lot edged by a tangle of sweet pea vines and a low hedge resembling a hunk of moldy cheese.

The House of Silence. That was how she had always thought of it, because of the long, tense silences of her childhood.

It had gone up in 1908, at the start of Venice’s prosperity. After a long decline, the district had now entered a new, affluent phase, in which old homes were purchased as seven-figure teardowns. Real estate developers were constantly after her, but she refused to sell. The house had been built by her great-grandfather and handed down through the generations. With her parents dead, it was her last link to her family.

Besides Richard, of course.

She wondered how much longer she could hold out. The cost of living was rising, and her income wasn’t keeping up. She would stay as long as she could, and not just out of family loyalty. She loved the sea, the wet breeze and misty mornings, the cheerful chaos of the Venice boardwalk, and she loved the old house for its faded, funky charm, its narrow hallways and strange angles.

Upstairs she stripped, then stood in the shower and ran the water hot until the old pipes were banging. Steam rose, white and scalding. The water cascaded over her, burning the last traces of the crime scene off her body.

The hot water ran out abruptly, replaced by a chilly downpour. Damn water heater.

She toweled her hair dry in the bedroom. The high stained glass windows over her bed gave the room an aura of sanctity that was somewhat offset by the montage of erotic 1920s postcards on the wall.

From her closet she grabbed a pair of baggy woolen pajama bottoms she wore as pants, and a peach blouse two sizes too big. Like every shirt she owned, the blouse had long sleeves that concealed the four-inch rope of scar tissue on her left forearm.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard raucous barking from across the street. The nasty Rottweiler owned by her newest neighbors, penned in a side yard.

She glanced out the front window and saw the dog at the gate, gnashing its teeth. A few yards away, a child no older than five was approaching cautiously, but not cautiously enough.

Then she was out the door, sprinting barefoot across the street.

The kid-a boy, she could see that now-waggled his fingers at the dog in a friendly greeting. The Rottweiler retreated a couple of steps and stopped barking, but Jennifer knew this was only a feint, a ruse to disarm the victim.

The boy extended one hand to pet the doggie. He had just begun to insert his hand between the wrought-iron twinings of the gate when Jennifer reached him. She yanked him back, and the Rottweiler, cheated of its prey, launched itself at the gate, barking and snapping ferociously.

The gate shook under the dog’s weight as the fanged head thrust between the bars, white teeth gleaming.

The boy started to cry.

Jennifer held him. “It’s okay. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

When the boy was calm, she knelt by him and asked if his mommy or daddy was around. Mutely he pointed to the house.

She took him by the hand and led him to the front door, which hung ajar. She rang the bell and waited until a heavyset housekeeper appeared.

The woman saw the little boy and broke into a flurry of excited recriminations. Jennifer didn’t speak Spanish, but she got the idea. The boy was her son, and he had wandered off without permission.

He went inside, running past his mother to escape further chastisement. The housekeeper looked at Jennifer with a grateful smile. “He was cause trouble?” she asked in halting English.

“No,” Jennifer lied. “No trouble. I just thought he shouldn’t be out on his own.”

She crossed the street, returning home. It was the first time she had ever rung that doorbell. She had no idea who owned the new house. She had never seen them, only their vehicles going in and out of the three-car garage.

As recently as ten years ago, everyone on the street knew each other. Now almost all her old neighbors were gone. The new arrivals hid behind fences and multiple locks. There was a new unfriendliness in the neighborhood. More wealth-but less joy.

She wondered if that was true everywhere.

three

By two o’clock she was ensconced in her study, bending over an anonymous letter from a man with murder on his mind.

When she was at work, there was nothing else, no outside world, no past or future, only the white examination table and the sheet of lined paper in the glow of the full-spectrum lamp.

Though the message was unpunctuated, badly spelled, without margins or paragraph breaks, it conveyed the writer’s thoughts quite effectively.

I am going to hunt you down bitch amp; take you out it will hurt don’t make plans for the futur you wont be around long ennough for it to matter…

And much more in that vein.

Immediately she pegged the writer as male. Women used intensifiers-“I am so angry…you are such a good friend”-and emotive language, laden with “I feel” statements. They qualified their remarks, even in the heat of strong emotion. No such markers were present in the note on her examination table.

It wasn’t difficult to isolate the letter’s key motifs. The most obvious was resentment of the victim for her superiority.

even perfect people die…maybe everrybody wants you but I only want you dead…before you die I will spit in your perfect face

She wondered if he actually did spit in her face when he killed her. It might be possible to do a DNA test. The plastic bag could have protected the evidence even after the body went into the water. She made a note of it.

His fixation on her appearance suggested that he regarded his own looks as inadequate. It also strongly suggested a sexual obsession with the victim, an impression reinforced by other language.

I pity you bitch I feel sorry for you beccause I know whats coming amp; its coming down hard

It didn't take a psychology degree to see the repetition of the word coming and its proximity to the word hard.

There was a second motif-rejection.

Your not going to walk away, he warned, perhaps recalling a time when she had in fact walked away from him. Youll be humiliated no pride amp; youll begg me for mercy.

He wanted to humiliate her-probably because she’d humiliated him by rebuffing his advances. I am going to hunt you down bitch amp; take you out… Yeah, he had wanted to take her out, all right. Whoever wrote this letter had made an attempt-probably an inept attempt-to initiate a relationship. She had said no. Now he wanted to strike back.

And what were the odds that somebody who misspelled simple words like future and everybody and even beg would have no trouble spelling humiliated? Or that such a person would have the know-how to use an ampersand?

He was smarter and better educated than he wanted to let on. Playing dumb was harder than it looked.

Smile while you can, he wrote, beccause soon I am going to make mona lisa moan. An uneducated person would not think naturally of Mona Lisa or perform an alliterative play on Mona and moan.

The other motif in the letter was the writer’s proximity to the victim. You can feel death breatheing down youre neck…up close amp; personal…

One passage combined all three motifs.

did I get your attention? are you scared? you think your safe in youre perfect world youre plastic bubble but its nearly time for the bubble to burst closer to the end than you think

The last words could be an unconscious confession, his way of saying, “I am closer to you than you think.” He might live near her or work in the same office.

Another phrase stood out: its nearly time for the bubble to burst. An expression that might occur to someone in the financial or real estate markets.

Marilyn Diaz had been an insurance agent. Had she worked in an office complex with Realtors, stockbrokers?

Jennifer sat back in her chair, notepad in hand. She jotted down her conclusions.

• Market-oriented business, financial/realty

• Lived or worked near victim

• Educated, intelligent

• Sense of inadequacy about physical appearance

• Unsuccessful attempt at a sexual advance

That was what she knew about him. And he was, of course, dangerous. Marilyn Diaz might not have realized it, but the signs were there.

He had disguised his handwriting, as evidenced by the telltale shakiness of his script. Concealing his identity suggested foresight and planning. And he had made no specific threat. People whose plans for revenge went no further than daydreams would share their fantasies. The ones who were more serious kept the details to themselves.

He had, however, left inadvertent hints of how he planned to do it. He’d written of looking into her face as she died, of death breathing down her back. The constellation of images-face to face, neck, breathing-suggested he had already been thinking of the plastic bag, the slow asphyxiation. He’d meant to choke her to death while he stared into her eyes.

When he broke the window-when Marilyn heard him coming down the hall-she must have known it was the man who’d written the note. She must have known he had come to kill her.

I am going to hunt you down bitch amp; take you out…

He might have left no clues at the scene. He might have hoped the surf would wash off any trace evidence on the body. But in this note he’d given away much more than he realized.

She could put the police on this man’s scent. Most people would never know it. Her testimony would not be permitted at his trial. Her analysis, which still had no legal standing, could not be submitted as evidence. But it could be used to develop leads. And when he was in prison, he would know that his own words had locked him up for life.

That was the power of the work she did. It was more than document analysis. Officially, her role was special psychological consultant to various law enforcement agencies throughout the Los Angeles area.

Her skill was psycholinguistic analysis. She read between the lines.

Psycholinguistics could yield data on the writer’s background and education, the books and magazines he read, the work he did. But another kind of information was embedded in a text. Self-image, private obsessions, hidden fears and hopes.

She remembered the exact moment when she first understood the process. She was in a crowded bar with a college boyfriend named Sean, complaining that she had to shout to be heard. Abruptly it occurred to her that she wasn’t concerned about the ambient noise. Her actual complaint was that Sean couldn’t hear her, ever. He was too self-involved to listen. She hadn’t been consciously aware of the problem. But her unconscious mind knew-and found a way to communicate the message. To shout it, in fact.

That night she reread her journal and found the same message repeated again and again. Her subliminal mind had been sending out a distress signal for weeks, but her conscious mind, busy with rationalizations and denial, hadn’t grasped it.

The realization gave her a creepy feeling, as if she had discovered a second personality cohabiting her body. For a while, she was reluctant to pursue the idea. But when she read about the cutting-edge discipline of psycholinguistics in her psych classes, she was hooked.

The unconscious, she learned, was wiser than the conscious mind. It expressed truths that conscious thought tried to hide, truths that emerged as coded messages, a series of red flags. The “red thread,” it was called. Like Einstein’s God, the unconscious was subtle but not malicious. Its secrets could be teased out, if a reader had the skill to follow the red thread.

Some cops appreciated her contribution. Some didn’t. Most, like Roy Draper, utilized her insights while remaining skeptical of her methods. Resistance, she thought, arose mainly because people didn’t want to believe that they revealed themselves with everything they said and wrote. What she did was too much like mind reading-a scary prospect for people who wanted to keep secrets.

And everybody had secrets. She touched her left arm, feeling the scar beneath her sleeve. Everybody.

Her arm began to shake. She watched it, bewildered. Then she became aware that the examination table was shaking, too.

The whole damn room was shaking.

A wrenching jolt slammed the table to the left, knocking the lamp askew. Her chair pivoted under her. Somewhere nearby came the tinkle of breaking glass. Her UV light, which could reveal erasures and scratched-out words, had fallen.

“Hell,” she muttered. The lighting element was expensive and a pain to replace.

The table lurched again with a prolonged burp of its legs against the hardwood floor. Car alarms, jostled by the quake, began a clangor of honks and whoops on the street.

And then it was over. The last of the tremors passed away, rolling underneath the house like a slow comber spending itself on the beach. She sat and listened as the car alarms hit their automatic cutoffs one by one. Then there was stillness.

Slowly she released a breath. Though she had grown up in Los Angeles, she had never gotten used to earthquakes. It wasn’t a fear of being crushed under debris. It was more basic than that.

Whenever she felt the shifting of tectonic plates, she couldn’t escape the feeling that some primordial evil had just shuddered forth from the bowels of the earth.

four

The house was still standing. Jennifer verified as much with a walk-through of the ground floor.

Her power was on. Ditto her phone. In the living room her collection of sea glass, the product of years of studious beach-combing, had been dislodged from the fireplace mantle, dropping like hailstones onto the flagstone apron. The jars holding her treasures had shattered, but the sea glass itself-broken glassware from shipwrecks, tumbled and sanded smooth by wave action-appeared undamaged.

The photos lining the wall of the stairwell had been jostled from their hooks. They lay scattered on the steps. For an instant she was back in Marilyn Diaz’s bedroom, looking at the framed snapshots on the floor.

From the streets came the distant wail of a siren. Fire engine or ambulance. In quakes, gas mains broke and people had heart attacks. A second siren arose, competing with the first.

Upstairs she found two fallen lamps in the bedroom and a thin but worrisome crack snaking up the plaster wall. The view from the deck revealed a few red roof tiles strewn in the backyard. Her power had failed momentarily, and the display screen of her DVR was blinking.

She went downstairs, tuned the kitchen TV to Channel 4-her cable hadn’t gone out-and watched enough of the coverage to learn that the quake was a relatively minor 5.2 on the Richter scale. Preliminary reports indicated that Venice received the worst of the shaking. The newscasters reminded viewers to check for gas leaks. Jennifer sniffed. No sour smell.

She wondered if she should look in on her neighbors. But she didn’t know any of them.

One thing she could do was call Richard. She was reaching for the phone when she remembered the cellar.

Cellars were rare in southern California, except in older homes. In the early 1900s Venice had been populated largely by transplants from the Midwest, people who grew up with storm cellars and fruit cellars. They wanted the kind of houses they were used to.

The entry to the cellar was a trapdoor in the floor of the pantry, next to the kitchen. Kneeling, she grasped the handle and pulled it open. On the underside of the trapdoor was a dead bolt that could secure the cellar from the inside. She had never understood why anyone would feel the need to do that.

A stairway plunged into darkness. When she flicked the light switch at the top of the stairs, nothing happened. The bulb in the ceiling had burned out. She hadn’t known. The cellar was musty and claustrophobic, and she hadn’t been down there in years.

From the kitchen she retrieved a flashlight, then returned to the trapdoor and angled the beam down the stairs. The cone of light picked out a brick wall wreathed in cobwebs and a concrete floor strewn with dead insects. No damage was visible from this vantage point.

She descended the creaking stairs, inhaling the odor of mildew. At the bottom she let her eyesight adjust to the dimness, then stepped forward into the gloom. Dry beetles crackled under her shoes.

Slowly she fanned the flashlight beam over the grimy walls and along a ceiling crisscrossed with exposed plumbing pipes. The room measured nine by thirteen feet, and the ceiling was uncomfortably low. It occurred to her that an aftershock could take place at any time, and underground would be the worst place to be.

At the center of the cellar, she turned in a slow pivot, her flashlight coming to rest on the wall below the staircase.

Part of the wall had crumbled, the old bricks tumbling out to expose a dark cavity three feet wide.

Here was genuine damage, which she couldn’t afford. Like most Angelenos she had no earthquake insurance, trusting that the Big One would hold off for her lifetime.

She played the beam along the underside of the staircase, wondering if she should be worried about the stairs collapsing under her when she went back up. But they looked secure enough. It was only the wall that had failed, and not much of the wall, at that. Possibly she wasn’t looking at more than a minor repair job.

She moved closer to the wall. Something was inside. Something yellowish, whorled in cobwebs, a strangely complicated assemblage of shapes. Straight lines and curves and acute angles…

Bones.

That was what she saw. Not the small bones of vermin. These were human remains. A human skeleton, entombed in the wall.

She didn’t react in any particular way. The reality of what she was seeing was too difficult to process.

Her flashlight picked out a jawless skull, the eye sockets strangely white, not hollow, as if cloudy eyeballs still occupied the holes. There were no eyes, of course, only layers of gossamer spinnings from a succession of insects who had cocooned in the sockets.

Eerie, though-how the eyes seemed to watch her. How the milky strands of webbing reflected the flashlight’s glow.

She felt her first twitch of panic. She jerked the flashlight away from the skull, letting the beam fall elsewhere inside the cavity.

Another pair of eyes.

Two skeletons.

Suddenly it seemed important to make no sudden moves. She was on the brink of a precipice. She must tread with care.

She guided the flashlight to the left and came across a third skull and a fourth. Behind those, there were others. How many in all? She couldn’t tell. A half dozen, at least. Interred here, in the cellar under her house.

Somebody had broken a hole in the wall and dug out an earthen cavity about two feet deep, then deposited the remains and sealed them inside. Probably the reconstructed portion hadn’t been as strong as the original, so it had failed when the rest of the cellar had held up.

She counted six skulls. There might be more. She couldn’t be certain. The bones were disarticulated, disarranged. A spoils heap.

The bones were mottled in mold. Some had crumbled into whitish gray powder. They were old. Decades old.

She didn’t know if her great-grandfather was the original owner of the house. But if he was…

Then someone in her family had done this.

five

As a child, Jennifer occasionally had the sense that her life was a movie and she was watching it. She had the same feeling now, as she climbed out of the cellar-a strange conviction of unreality. She lowered the trapdoor and knelt there, running her palm over the smooth wood, simply to feel something firm and solid.

It was hard to keep her thoughts clear. There were bodies in her cellar. She had to do something about that. There must be some action she could take.…

But first she had to check on Richard.

She called his number, letting the phone ring for over a minute. No answer.

He had to be home. He never went anywhere. He hated walking the streets, and he had neither a driver’s license nor a car. She saw to it that food and other essentials were delivered to his door.

She called twice more with the same result, then tried the building manager. Brusquely he assured her that everything was fine. “The place didn’t fall down, okay? It wasn’t that that big of a quake. Now if you don’t mind, I need to get back to work, okay? And hey, your crazy brother’s late on his rent again. It’s due on the first of the month, every month. Okay?”

Click.

That wasn’t good enough. She needed to know why Richard wasn’t answering his phone.

She dug her keys out of her pants pocket-she never carried a purse, too much of an encumbrance-and left the house through the kitchen door, entering the garage, a 1940s add-on. Raising the garage door, she scanned the street for signs of damage.

The day was bright and cool, the morning fog long gone. Seagulls flocked around an overturned curbside trash can. A For Sale sign stood on the sandy front yard of Mr. Beschel’s house down the street; the owner himself had already moved to an island off the Washington coast. Taggers’ marks and gang intaglios defaced tree trunks and utility poles.

There were no downed utility lines, no fires. Her street had come through unscathed. She heard the Rottweiler howling, disturbed by the event. She hoped the little boy and his mother weren’t too badly shaken up.

Her Toyota Prius was undamaged. She drove north, her radio tuned to KFWB. The newscasters were saying that the quake’s epicenter was in Culver City, on the western end of the Puente Hills Fault. Another segment of the same fault line had ruptured in 1987, damaging ten thousand structures citywide and causing eight fatalities. Today’s event was much smaller. So far there were no reported deaths.

Two blocks north of her address, a crowd of people were holding an impromptu barbecue, using up whatever meat and poultry they had on hand because their power was out. That was the thing about earthquakes-the damage was always scattershot, hopscotching from street to street.

Driving through Venice, she saw additional signs of hard shaking. Though the epicenter was several miles to the east, the coastal areas were particularly vulnerable to seismic waves. The tremors could literally churn the sandy soil into quicksand. Venice, built on swampland, faced the most serious hazard.

She passed the splintered remnants of someone’s deck, which had plunged onto the patio below. Farther down the block, a front gate had been wrenched askew, while across the street a palm tree had canted into the side wall of a two-story Mediterranean home.

All around her there was the same uncanny quiet she remembered from the aftermath of other quakes. Birds did not sing. There was an eerie calm, surreal as the stillness in the eye of a hurricane.

She put these thoughts out of her mind. It was best to be alert. She was entering Dogtown.

In the 1970s, when Venice had been a sprawling seaside ghetto with redevelopment still decades away, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods was the no-man’s-land straddling the district’s border with the city of Santa Monica. Some quirk of the law had left the jurisdiction of the area north of Navy Street and south of Pier Avenue undecided. Since neither the Santa Monica Police Department nor the LAPD could confidently claim authority there, the narrow slice of coastal land had gone largely unpatrolled.

Some of Dogtown had been reclaimed by the developers, but not all. The Oakwood neighborhood, in particular, was a nest of blight where tenacious gangbangers hung on in rent-controlled apartments while new buildings went up around them. The new arrivals lived behind locked doors, protected by security fences and dogs-like her new neighbors, she realized. Maybe Richard’s neighborhood wasn’t so different from hers, after all.

She parked outside the Oakwood Chateau, a ridiculously misnamed Art Deco pile, three stories of peeling paint and rusted fire escapes. The building had a security door and an intercom system, but both were broken, as usual. She entered the sour-smelling lobby and found an out of order sign tacked to the elevator. She didn’t want to ride the elevator, anyway. Being trapped in a confined space wasn’t the safest strategy in the Oakwood Chateau, and not just because of aftershocks.

She took the stairs. In the past she had sometimes encountered people sleeping on the landings, but today the stairwell was empty, any sleepers presumably having been roused by the quake. Weak bulbs screened by wire cages cast a dull yellowish glow over the concrete steps and graffiti-covered walls.

On the third floor she exited into the hallway. Most of the apartments had their doors open for a cross breeze. The screams of crying infants and the blare of television sets in many languages assaulted her.

The door to apartment 32 was closed. She gave the door a single sharp rap.

From inside came a low, suspicious growl. “Yeah?”

“It’s me,” she said.

“Who?”

“Jennifer. Your sister.”

“What do you want?”

“Just seeing if you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“There was an earthquake, Richard. Open the door, please.”

She wondered if he would just ignore her. Then she heard a tread of footsteps on creaky floorboards.

The door opened, just wide enough to pull the security chain taut. Richard stared at her through the gap. Though he was only five foot eight, he had the lanky build of a taller man-long bones, thin wrists and ankles, a narrow neck perched on coat-hanger shoulders. His chestnut hair was prematurely thinning on top, making him look older than twenty-eight.

“I’m fine. See?”

The door began to close. Jennifer jammed one sneaker against it. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Why?”

“I came over here to see you.”

“You’ve seen me.”

“To visit, Richard.”

Grudgingly he unhooked the chain and walked away, leaving her to push the door open and enter.

His apartment was a sad, dusty hole. No paintings on the walls. Minimal furnishings. An old portable TV on a battered stand. The windows looked out on a rusty fire escape above an alley lined with trash bins. There was a bedroom and a tiny kitchen, but the whole place was scarcely bigger than a closet. At night vagrants gathered in the alley, yelling drunkenly and peeing against the wall.

She felt the familiar ache in her heart. She hated being here. Hated seeing him like this. She couldn’t help remembering how he used to be. It was impossible to make sense of a world where something like this could happen to her baby brother.

At least the place was intact. She saw no cracked plaster, no broken glass.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Hanging in there.”

“Taking your meds?”

“Is that what this is? Checking up? Spying on me? You’re always spying on me.”

“I’m not spying, Richard.”

“Bullshit. You come around all the time, asking questions.”

She often stopped by, just to be sure he was okay. She drove him to the psychiatrist at the clinic for his weekly sessions. She dropped off his prescriptions.

“Goddamned doctor sent you here, didn’t he? Fucker’s never trusted me.”

“No one sent me. I’m just worried about you.”

“I’m taking the damn meds.”

He was on olanzapine, an antidepressant. When taking the drug, he displayed hand tremors and tics of the mouth and eyebrows. She wasn’t seeing those side effects today.

That was the trouble with treating schizophrenia. The patient was his own worst enemy. Richard was too paranoid to dose himself on a regular basis. He got to thinking the meds were poison.

If he were in a supervised environment, he would have to take the pills. But she couldn’t have him committed unless he’d been determined to be a danger to himself or others. Otherwise, he could check himself out of an institution at any time.

Besides, there were times when he was lucid. Those times gave her hope, even though objectively she knew that schizophrenia was cyclical, varying from dormancy to the more dangerous active phases.

He appeared to be in an active phase now.

“It’s important to stay on your dosage, Richard.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I just hope you aren’t — ”

“I said, you don’t have to tell me!”

Nothing would be gained by bullying him. If she came on too strong, he would simply retreat further. The trick was to speak slowly, to be gentle and supportive. And not to let him see how much it hurt her to be here with him.

“The manager says your rent is overdue,” she said.

“Fuck him.”

“It’s March fourth. You’re supposed to pay on the first of the month. We’ve talked about this.”

“Talk, talk, all you ever do is talk.”

“We can set up automatic payments from your bank account, the way we discussed — ”

“I don’t want any damn computers digging around in my money. They’ll steal it. Like you want to.”

“I don’t want your money, Richard.”

“Like hell you don’t.” He jerked away from her, shoulders hunching. “That’s all you care about. It’s the only reason you’re here.”

Richard, still unaffected by the disease when their mother died, had inherited the liquid assets and family papers. By now he should have been ruled incompetent to handle the money, but she knew that if she ever tried, it would only exacerbate his paranoia. Anyway, there wasn’t a lot of money left.

The thought of the family documents in his possession raised a possibility in her mind. “Did you ever look through those old papers? The ones Mom passed down to you?”

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”

“Was there anything in there about our great-grandfather?”

“Who cares about him? He’s dead, dead as a door nail, dead and buried.”

The word dead reverberated in her, eliciting a series of sympathetic vibrations that brought up images of the skeletons in the crypt. “I know he’s dead, but…did any of the documents say when he moved into the house? Was he the original owner?”

He gave her a shrewd look. “Lots of questions. Why so curious?”

“I found something in the cellar that may have belonged to him.”

“Found what?”

“It’s not important.”

“So it’s a secret.”

“Richard …”

He picked up a pair of scissors from a table. Large scissors with long sharp blades. He worked the handles, snipping at the air.

“You’re always keeping secrets from me,” he said, his voice sliding into a lower register, a dangerous rasp. “Hiding things behind my back.”

She stayed very still, trying not to fixate on the scissors. “Do you remember anything about our great grandfather? Anything at all?”

He kept opening and shutting the scissors, snip snip snip. “If I do, I’m not telling. I can keep secrets, too.”

No help there.

A wordless interval stretched between them. “Are you sleeping okay?” she asked.

“What is this, an interrogation? You want a urine sample? Want to run an ink blot test on me?”

The scissors flashed, catching the light from the window.

She watched him. He was uncomfortably close to her. He could be on top of her in one long stride.

In psychology, a variant of political correctness insisted that schizophrenics were less dangerous than the general population. A comforting thought, except it wasn’t true. Schizophrenics were paranoid, and paranoid people could be violent. They could lash out unpredictably, ripping, biting-stabbing.

She knew the warning signs. Rapid breathing. Loud talk. Restlessness. Richard was showing all those signs now.

“I’m just making conversation.” She held her voice steady.

“Mom sent you here.” He waved the scissors, quick slashing strokes. “I fucking know it. Mom’s always on my case, telling me to get it together, take my meds, be a good little boy.”

“Mom’s dead, Richard. She’s been dead for five years.”

“Oh…right.” He planted the tips of the scissors on the window sill and twirled them. “Right.”

“I called you a little while ago. I called three times. Why didn’t you pick up?”

“Didn’t know who was calling.”

“The only way to know is to pick up. Or get an answering machine.”

“Answering machines record your conversations. Not just conversations on the phone. All your conversations, with everybody. It’s their way of keeping tabs on people.”

She didn’t ask who they were. “If the phone rings, you need to answer it.”

He took a step toward her. “I’ll answer the phone when I want to. Right now I don’t want to. There’s nothing you can do about it. So just back off.”

“I’m concerned about your welfare, Richard. That’s all.”

“Yeah.” He snorted, like an agitated horse. “Real concerned. You care so much.”

“I do care.” She wanted to reach out to him, but she knew physical contact would be a mistake. “You make it hard sometimes.”

“Blame me. Always me.” He switched the scissors from hand to hand, back and forth.

“Maybe you should put those down.”

“I’m not a kid anymore. It’s not like I’m running with scissors.” He clicked the blades like castanets. “You’re dirty,” he added. “All scuffed up, like an old shoe.”

Cobwebs and dust were all over her. “I was in the cellar. There was damage from the quake.”

“Damage to the seller. What was he selling?”

“The basement. Of our house.”

“Yeah, like I don’t know what a cellar is. Like everything has to be explained.” He set down the scissors on a table. “I’m a doctor, you know. I’m an MD. That’s more than you are.” He’d been halfway through his first-year residency when his life went off course. Medication had only slowed-not halted-his decline. “You can’t even stand the sight of blood. That’s why you quit.”

“It wasn’t blood. It was a cadaver. A dead body.”

“Dead body? Where? In the cellar?”

She looked at him, startled. “Why would you say that?”

He ignored the question. “You found something that belonged to our great-grandfather in the cellar. Damage down there. What kind of damage?”

“Part of a wall fell down. Just some old bricks.”

“Bricks. Bridge. London Bridge.” He sang tunelessly. “London Bridge is falling down…”

“Why did you ask about a body in the cellar?” It had to have been one of his quirky associative jumps. He said so many crazy things that sometimes he hit on the truth by chance.

“Belonged to our great-grandfather,” he repeated. “He came over from London. Falling down, falling down …”

“Stop that. Answer me. What do you know about him? What made you say what you said?”

“London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady …!” He fixed her with his stare. “Was it a fair lady in the cellar? Did she fall down?”

“Richard,” she said slowly, “if you know anything about the cellar or our great-grandfather, I want you to tell me. Please.”

“What’ll you give me if I do?”

“Anything, whatever you want.”

“I want the house.”

“You know you can’t live there. You can barely manage this place. Just tell me whatever you know.”

“I know it should have been my house. That’s what I know.”

She decided he had no secret information. He was only free-associating, riffing on her own conversational tacks.

“You know how that worked,” she said. “You got the money, I got the house. You thought it was fair at the time. You didn’t even want the house, remember?”

“Bullshit. Why wouldn’t I want the house? Think I want to live here? Like this? In this shit? You took everything from me. It all worked out pretty good for you, didn’t it?”

She felt a burning pressure behind her eyes. “I’m not happy about-about how things have worked out.”

“Save it. I know you’re lying. You think I’m stupid, but I have news for you. I’m smarter than you think. I know things you don’t.”

“Richard…”

“I’m an MD.”

“I know you are.”

“I was a better doctor than Dad ever was. Him with his walk-in patients with no insurance, and then he puts a gun in his mouth. Right after I was born. Guess he really didn’t want a boy.” He laughed, an awful sound, empty of amusement.

“It’s not funny,” she said.

“Sure it is. Everything’s funny. Because we think we’re always going to be the same person. But then you get older, and your brain…it changes. And suddenly you’re somebody else.”

The pressure on the backs of her eyes burned hotter. It pained her to know that he understood this much about himself. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Maybe you’ll change, too. Like Dad. Like me.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“If you were an MD, you’d know about genetics.”

“I do know about genetics, Richard.”

“Then you know it runs in the family. Like father, like son. Maybe like daughter, too.”

“I’m thirty, Richard. The…change typically starts by the mid-twenties. That’s how it was for Dad. And you.”

His face changed. He picked up the scissors again. The cutting blades gleamed with dangerous scintillation. “Numbers? You’re counting on numbers to save you? What we have, the thing that changes us-it’s in our blood.”

“Our father was twenty-five when he began to show symptoms. You were twenty-six. I’m thirty.”

“It’s not too late for you.”

“I think it is.”

“Never too late. It’s in our blood.” He punctuated the last word with a swing of his hand that passed the scissors within two feet of her. She shrank back. She couldn’t help it.

He would never assault her. He was her little brother.

Except he wasn’t so little anymore. He was six inches taller than she was, and he was paranoid, delusional, crazy.

He stepped closer. The hand holding the scissors was tightly clenched, the knuckles squeezed white.

She reached for the door. “I need to be going.”

“You’re afraid. Afraid of me.”

“I just have things to do.”

“Afraid,” he said again, and with his free hand he grabbed her by the wrist.

“Please let go of me,” she said without inflection.

After a long moment he released her. “Don’t let me keep you. I never wanted you here. You’re a nuisance. Get out. Run away.”

She opened the door and stepped into the hall, daring a backward look. “Take care of yourself, Richard, okay?”

“Fuck you.” He filled the doorway, his face distorted. “You took the house from me. You took everything and left me to rot in hell, so fuck you, bitch, fuck you!”

He slammed the scissors into the door frame, planting them in the cheap wood. She recoiled, stumbling. He laughed, a raging idiot laughter that echoed down the hall, pursuing her as she fled.

She didn’t start crying until she was on the stairs.

six

By the time Jennifer left the lobby she had composed herself. Whatever Richard had been thinking, she was still sure he would never harm her, or anyone.

“Checkin’ up on him?”

The voice came from behind. She turned and saw the building manager, a heavyset bald man with a perpetual stubble of beard.

“I told ya the goddamn building didn’t fall down,” he added as he walked up to her, his mouth working on a wad of something black.

“I needed to see for myself.”

“Right. You don’t trust me. Hey, if you’re so concerned about your crazy-ass brother, why ya got him living in this pile?”

It was uncomfortably close to what Richard himself had said. “He likes it here.”

“Yeah? Well, I wish he didn’t. The rest of my tenants ain’t too wild about him bein’ around. ’Specially the ones in number twenty-two, right below him.”

“What complaint could they possibly have?”

“Only that he makes a racket late at night. Every night, at least recently. We’re talking two, three in the A.M., okay? He comes stomping in, all agitated. It drives ’em crazy, hearing all that shit from upstairs.”

“Richard goes out at night?”

“That’s what I’m tellin’ ya, genius. He’s a fuckin’ tomcat, always on the prowl.”

“I had no idea.”

“Yeah, I guess it would be asking too much to have you keep an eye on the crazy son of a bitch.”

“I do keep an eye on him. He’s always around whenever I come by.”

“Try coming by at night. Or in the morning, early. That’s when he hangs out at the graveyard.”

“Graveyard?”

“The one on Pico and 14th. You know it?”

“I know it.” Her voice was low.

“Lady in number sixteen goes jogging every day. Runs through the cemetery. Says he’s there a lot, just standing around, talking to himself. Or maybe he’s talking to the dead, for all I know.” The manager spit out a chunk of whatever he was chewing. “She wants him outta the building. Everybody does. I’d kick his ass out on the street in a minute if the law would let me. Speaking of which, he don’t pay the rent, I’m having him evicted, okay?”

“He’ll pay you. He’s just…forgetful.”

“He’s non compost mentis, is what he is,” he said, getting it wrong. “He’s a freakin’ nutjob, okay? You shoulda had him committed a long time ago.”

“He’s my brother.”

“So what?”

Jennifer turned away without answering. She was halfway down the front walk when she heard him call after her.

“Hey. He ain’t violent, is he?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Some of the women, they say he gives ’em the evil eye. Hostile. Real scary.”

“He’s not violent.”

He couldn’t be.

***

When she got back to the house, her phone was ringing. She picked up before her machine could intercept the call. “Hello?”

“So you survived the quake.” It was Casey.

“Still have all my fingers and toes. You?”

“I’ve got all my appendages. And I do mean all.”

“This is how they came up with the expression, call someone who cares.”

“Harsh, Pee-wee. Very harsh.”

“But accurate. And don’t call me Pee-wee. According to the news, Pacific Area got the worst of shaking. How bad is it?”

“Well, it’s not Northridge, but way worse than Chino Hills. A lot of old buildings are gonna be red-tagged. Hopefully not yours.”

“This house is solid,” she said with pride. “It’s survived a century of seismic events.”

“You’d better hope your luck holds. Anyway, I’m riding patrol for the rest of the day. Emergency protocol. You know the drill, nobody on patrol side goes home. My advice is to stay off the streets. Traffic’s a mess.”

“It didn’t seem too bad to me.”

“You’ve been out already? Gawking at the damage like every other lookie-loo?”

“I had to check on my brother.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother. He okay?”

“Yes, he’s…fine.” As fine as he ever was.

“See, I’m learning more about you every day.”

“I’m endlessly fascinating.”

“You are,” he said over a crackle of radio crosstalk. “You’re an exotic riddle, like the Sphinx. A woman of mystery and intrigue — ”

“Enough with the compliments.”

“It’s never enough. Just give me time. I’ll wear you down, Silence.”

“Don’t count on it, Wilkes.”

“You know you want me. You’re just making me work for it.”

“Self-delusion is a terrible thing.”

“You should know. So you’re sure there was no damage to your place? Did you check everywhere?”

“I checked.” She decided she had to tell someone and it might as well be him. “Part of my cellar wall crumbled. And you’re not going to believe what I found.”

“I’ve been wearing a uniform for eight years. There’s nothing I haven’t seen or won’t believe.”

She told him. When she was through, there was a brief silence on his end.

“Shit,” he said finally.

Childishly she was pleased to get a reaction out of him. “Is that your professional opinion?”

“How the hell did they get there?”

“Maybe it’s some kind of family crypt from way back when.”

“I’m coming over.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“I think it is. See you in five.”

“Really, I — ”

Dead phone.

It was nice of him to worry, she guessed. But she wished he wouldn’t.

With a dustpan she swept up the mess under the fireplace. Shards from the decorative jars were intermingled with the sea glass. She would have to sift through the fragments later. It was easy enough to tell them apart. Sea glass developed a frosted patina of minute crystalline formations. What began as a fragment of an ordinary bottle underwent a magical transformation into a gem. A sea change.

Next she tackled the family photos on the stairs. Most of the glass plates had cracked, but the frames were undamaged. She gathered up the pictures, stacking them neatly. It was funny how rarely she noticed these photographs, though she passed them several times each day. There were shots of her mother on Santa Monica Pier and at a picnic in the Angeles National Forest. She had been a small woman, like Jennifer herself, with the same fragile doll-like quality, but without the assertiveness to compensate for it.

And there was her father, a harried, rumpled man in a loose-fitting suit, his gaze far away.

She had just one memory of her father. She couldn’t even be certain it was a real memory, and not some trick of the mind. She saw herself as a very little girl, riding the carousel on Santa Monica Pier in her father’s lap. The horses whirled, and she was laughing, her father’s strong arms around her waist, holding her tight.

She didn’t want to think about her father. Yet she couldn’t help it. He was so much a part of her life, this man she’d barely known.

Aldrich Silence graduated from USC’s School of Medicine near the top of his class. Though he could have had his pick of lucrative positions, he chose to open a small private practice in Venice. Most of his patients were uninsured, impoverished, or actually homeless. He didn’t make a lot of money. He didn’t care.

He met Marjorie Taylor on a blind date arranged by friends. Unlike other women he’d met, Marjorie didn’t try to convince him to better himself by moving to Beverly Hills. She didn’t think he needed to better himself. She liked him the way he was.

They were married in a hippie style ceremony on the beach. Jennifer was born four years later. By then Aldrich’s practice had begun to fail. The problem wasn’t his uninsured patients. It was Aldrich himself.

He’d started to act “funny,” as Jennifer’s mother would always put it, around the time he turned twenty-six. This was fairly late for the onset of schizophrenia, and the symptoms weren’t correctly diagnosed until they were unmistakable.

In the early years of the illness, he had long periods of normality interspersed with brief spells of irrational behavior. At those times he was uncommunicative and morose. His conversation didn’t track. He would make strange associative leaps. He would get angry for no reason. Occasionally he was violent, breaking small items, slamming doors. On the rare occasions when Marjorie spoke of it, years later, she stressed that he never laid a hand on her. But she was afraid he might.

Aldrich became unpredictable. Some days he didn’t show up at the office. When he did see patients, he would forget their names, ask the same questions over and over, misunderstand their responses. Challenged, he would erupt in rage. Once, he began screaming at the white-haired nurse who ran his reception desk. She quit, and he couldn’t find a replacement.

After the illness was finally diagnosed, Aldrich was sent away to a private psychiatric clinic. He came back seeming clearheaded and calm, almost normal. But the improvements didn’t last.

When Jennifer was two years old, Marjorie gave birth to a second child. A son this time.

Perhaps it was the added responsibility that pushed Aldrich over the edge of the precipice he’d been walking. Or perhaps he had been headed over the edge for so long that even the birth of a son couldn’t save him.

A week after Marjorie returned from the hospital, Aldrich went out to the tool shed in the backyard, and there was a single percussive noise, startling the doves that congregated by the birdbath. Marjorie found him with the gun still in his mouth, his hands gripping the barrel, his fingers clamped down in a final nervous spasm. The back of his head had come off with a gout of blood that sprayed the hammers and power drills pegged to the wall.

Jennifer was home at the time, but at age two she had no understanding of what had happened. Her daddy was there in the morning, and he was not there in the afternoon. That was all.

When she was a little older, she grasped that her daddy hadn’t just gone away. He died. He was taken up to heaven. She knew no details. Perhaps some nascent intuitive sense prevented her from asking.

She was nine years old when a gossipy student in her third-grade homeroom told her the story. Your daddy shot himself. I heard my parents talk about it. They said he went crazy and blew his brains out. Bang!

Jennifer ran crying out of the room. The teacher found her in the bathroom, slumped on the floor and sobbing.

Her mother was called to pick her up early. In the living room, Marjorie sat down with her and told her it was true.

Why’d he do it, Mommy?

I don’t know, Jenny. He’d been acting funny for a long time.

Funny how?

Just…different. He was sick. And the medicine they gave him wasn’t working.

He was a doctor. Doctors don’t get sick.

Sometimes they do.

It wasn’t much of an explanation. But to this day, it was all she had.

seven

The buzz of the doorbell brought her back. She put down the stack of photos and opened the door.

Casey Wilkes stood there, a blue-uniformed figure nearly blocking the view of the black-and-white squad car parked at a hydrant. That was one advantage of being a cop; he never got a ticket. And as a sergeant, he typically rode alone.

“You okay?” he asked.

“They’re dead people, Casey. They’re not going to hurt me.”

He stepped inside, instantly dominating her space without even trying. He wore all his gear-Sam Browne belt with its holstered service pistol and baton; portable radio; handcuffs clinking as he walked. She was always amazed at how much stuff a patrol cop had on, the sheer weight of it, like a suit of chain mail.

For all that, he was lithe, not bulky. His training routine, he’d told her, focused on aerobic conditioning; he had the lean, toned physique of a swimmer. No paunch, no baby fat, nothing soft about him except his wispy blondish hair.

He glanced around the living room. “Where’s the cellar?”

“Over there. But-”

“I’ll check it out.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Stop telling me what I don’t have to do.”

He strode to the trapdoor, which she’d left open. He stepped onto the stairs and tried the light switch.

“Bulb’s dead,” she said.

He gave her a look. “Good home maintenance skills, Silence.”

“Unlike one of us, I’m a white-collar professional, Wilkes.”

He pulled out his flashlight, one of the small rubber models that had replaced the bulky steel MagLites of earlier years. As he proceeded down the stairs, she knelt behind him and put her foot on the topmost tread. He looked back. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Downstairs with you.”

“You need a second look at these bad boys?”

“Not really.”

“So stay put. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

“Did you just say jiffy?”

“I have a prodigious vocabulary. It’s one of my many appealing qualities that you’ve so far failed to detect.”

“Me and everybody else.”

“You’re just full of snappy comebacks today, aren’t you, Munchkin?” He reached the bottom of the stairs and disappeared.

“Don’t call me Munchkin,” she said after him.

She’d met Casey at one of Draper’s crime scenes while he was commanding the day watch. He was thirty-four, brash, and approximately as good-looking as he believed himself to be. He’d asked her out; she’d demurred. On subsequent occasions when they’d run into each other, this ritual was repeated. Their relationship had developed a peculiar dynamic-he was always on the make, she was always brushing him off. She’d made her lack of interest clear enough, but out of some combination of stubbornness and masochism he refused to be deterred.

An uncomfortably long period of time had passed with no sound from below. “You all right down there?” she called.

His voice came back to her. “Right as rain. I’ve confirmed one fact, at least. They’re definitely dead.”

“What gave it away, the lack of flesh tones or the lack of flesh?”

“And I don’t think they were buried in any sort of family crypt.”

“Why not?”

He appeared at the base of the staircase. “Because in a proper burial, the corpse isn’t naked. I didn’t see any clothes, did you?”

“Clothes can disintegrate over time.”

“In a damp environment.” He climbed the stairs, angling his flashlight downward so it wouldn’t blind her. “That wall cavity is nice and dry. Besides, even if the fabric disintegrated, there would be buttons, zippers.” He emerged from the cellar and got to his feet. “And shoes,” he added.

“Shoes. Right.”

“There aren’t any shoes, Short Round. Which suggests to me that this wasn’t a formal burial. And there’s another thing.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear it. And don’t call me Short Round.”

He stepped a little too close to her. She smelled chili dogs on his breath. She moved back, though the smell wasn’t bad. Onions and beans.

“The bones are all mixed up together. Bits and pieces. These people weren’t laid out neatly side by side. They were tossed in there, one on top of the other.”

“Maybe there was an epidemic…or an accident. Something where there were a lot of fatalities, and the bodies had to be buried quickly.” She knew she was reaching even as she said it.

He laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles one at a time, the pops reminding her of cartilage, of bone.

“If it was an epidemic,” he said, “the remains would have been burned, not buried. And if it was a disaster, like a quake, there would have been time afterwards for a proper disposal of the bodies.” He cracked the last knuckle. “Health codes in the olden days might not have been what they are now, but I doubt anybody would be allowed to inter a bunch of dead bodies in a fruit cellar. Society frowns on that kind of thing.”

“I guess you’re right. Which means they were…” She didn’t want to say murdered.

“Yeah. That’s what it means. Hey, why the long face? You didn’t do it.”

“This house has been in my family a long time.”

He saw where she was going. “How long?” he asked in a softer tone.

“Forever. My great-grandfather lived here. He may have been the original owner. But we don’t have any records that go back that far.” Or at least, she didn’t have the records. Richard might.

Casey frowned. “Well…let’s not go jumping to any conclusions.”

“It looks like the conclusions are jumping to us.”

“There may be some perfectly innocent explanation.”

“Any suggestions as to what it might be?”

“Let’s wait till we know more. Traffic stops and drug busts I can handle. DBs are someone else’s job.”

Dead bodies. DBs. She wished he hadn’t put it like that. It objectified the victims, made them less than persons.

He shifted his balance, the cuffs on his belt tinkling. “Is there any history of, um, criminal activity in your family?”

She didn’t answer immediately. “No.”

“Why the hesitation?”

She was thinking there was a history of mental illness. But she didn’t want to tell him so. “We’re not a family of criminals,” she said brusquely.

“I didn’t say-”

“Nobody in my family had anything to do with this.”

His hands went up. “All right, I hear you.”

“No, you don’t hear me. You never hear me. I told you it wasn’t necessary for you to come over. You’re here, anyway. I told you it wasn’t necessary to look in the cellar. You looked. And now you’re telling me things-”

“That you don’t want to know.”

She turned away, her shoulders stiff. “I’m keeping you from your job, Sergeant.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do.”

“Right. You do.” He walked to the front door. “I’ll have someone over here as soon as possible. A detective and an ME. What with the quake, it won’t be right away. Everything’s all fouled up. Roads, phone lines, you name it.”

“It’s no problem.”

“Tomorrow, probably. We can get them here tomorrow.”

“Great.”

“Problem?”

“I guess I’m not crazy about having a bunch of dead people in my cellar overnight.”

“You can bunk at my place. I have a foldout couch-not that we’d need it.”

“I’d rather sleep with the skeletons.”

“Ouch. That’s a wicked tongue you’ve got there, Mini-Me. Okay, enjoy your night in a haunted house. And don’t touch anything down there, don’t disturb the remains-”

“I was planning to take out the skulls and make them into Halloween lanterns. Not a good idea?”

“I would take a pass on that. At least until the ME has had a look.” He stepped outside with a parting wave. “See you.”

“Hey, Casey?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t call me Mini-Me.”

She watched him return to his squad car and drive away. She wondered, not for the first time, exactly why she kept sending him signals to back off. Maybe because he really didn’t hear her. Didn’t listen. Refused to take her seriously. Like Sean, her college beau.

Still, she still liked him. His persistence was comically ingratiating. The truth was, she didn’t know what the hell she wanted. Some psychologist she was. She could read the minds of strangers, but not her own.

In the pantry, the trapdoor was still open. She almost shut it, and then Richard’s voice came back to her: You can’t even stand the sight of blood.

It wasn’t blood. It was a cadaver…

A body under a sheet, wheeled in on a gurney. She remembered how the wheels squeaked on the tile floor. The instructor whisked off the sheet, revealing the body of an old man, spindly and gnarled, tufts of white clinging to his sunken chest. A cadaver for dissection.

She was chosen to make the first incision. Probably the prof saw how nervous she was, blanched with fear. He might have found it amusing to hand her the scalpel.

She stood over the dead man, unable to depress the blade into the waxy flesh. Finally she handed back the scalpel and left the room.

The next day she gave up her pursuit of an MD and shifted her sights to psychology.

There was no reason for her to be ashamed of the episode. But she was. She came from a family of doctors. Her grandfather, father, and brother had practiced medicine. She’d wanted to be the first woman in the family to do likewise. And it still bugged her that she hadn’t stayed in the room with the dead man.

Well, she had been in rooms with dead people since then. She had been to crime scenes. She had seen Marilyn Diaz pulled from the water.

She wouldn’t be scared off by a bunch of rotting bones.

Flashlight in hand, she descended into the cellar. At least now she had an explanation for the dead bolt on the underside of the trapdoor. Whoever interred these bodies made sure he wouldn’t be disturbed in his work.

She reached the scatter of fallen bricks and, kneeling, peered at the nest of skeletons. The floor of the burial chamber was loose sandy soil. The back wall was a sandstone outcrop. She scanned the crypt with her flashlight and saw small scuttling things among the bones. Their black carapaces gleamed like shards of onyx.

Nothing to fear. No reason to be creeped out.

She tracked one beetle as hurried over the mound. A small obstruction blocked its path, and it skittered to one side.

The obstruction was something silver, metallic. Nearly invisible, a fleck of metal in the dirt.

She reached in, stretching her arm over the bone pile, and touched the thing. The metal was smooth, rusted in spots. It extended under the soil. Something was buried there.

Deliberately buried? She didn’t think so. It appeared as if loose dirt had cascaded down from the roof of the crypt, dislodged by today’s quake or any of the seismic events of the past century, or just the slow passage of time.

She swept away some of the dirt, exposing more of the metal surface. Her fingers brushed against something sharp. A corner.

Carefully she cleaned off the rest of it. The thing was a rectangle, ten inches square.

The lid of a tin box.

She probed the dirt until she found a handle, like the handle of a lunch bucket.

Casey had told her not to disturb the scene. But the tin intrigued her.

She tested its weight, lifting it by the handle. Not heavy. She could remove it without disrupting the remains.

She pulled a little harder, and the lid popped up. A rusted clasp on the front had opened.

She couldn’t resist the temptation to look inside. Probably a bad idea-Pandora’s box, and all that. She did it anyway, angling the flashlight to reveal the tin’s contents.

What she saw was a book. Frayed black covers. Faint smell of mold.

Paper deteriorated rapidly when stored in adverse conditions, but the tin had kept the book safe from vermin, sealed away from visible light and airborne pollutants. The crypt would be cool year round, and the space was dry enough to inhibit excessive mold formation. The box itself would have prevented too many mold spores from settling on the book and foxing its pages.

She looked more closely at the volume. Embossed in gilt Gothic on the front cover was the word Journal.

She knew then that she had to examine it.

Lowering the lid, she put both hands around the tin and lifted it free. It was crusted in earth, dragging clumps of loose soil and a single black beetle that fell off the bottom and scuttled away.

A diary, left with the dead. Hidden away for years, read by no one-except the ghosts interred with their bones.

eight

In her study, she placed the box on the examination table and lifted out the diary. Her hands trembled a little.

The book was ready to fall apart. The binding was badly cracked. The covers were calfskin, black, dry, stiff with age. Other than the gilt word Journal there was no lettering on the front cover, and no decoration except a band of silver running down the spine. Some of the silver had flaked away.

The leaves of the book had yellowed with age. Their edges were brittle, breaking off in powdery fragments. A few starbursts of gray mold mottled the edges of the pages, but the fungus did not appear to have made further inroads.

Carefully she opened the book. On the flyleaf pasted to the inside front cover was a heavy horizontal smear of ink. Something had been written there-an inscription or a signature, perhaps-and then blacked out. Once she got a replacement light fixture for her UV lamp, she might be able to fluoresce the hidden writing.

She turned past the flyleaf. Handwritten notes stretched neatly across the unlined paper. The entries, neither signed nor dated, were written in a neat, scholarly hand, with ornate Victorian flourishes. She estimated there were sixty pages in all. The early pages were missing, having fallen out or been torn loose, and the diary now began in the middle of a sentence.

— of my strange dreams lately. Dreams of blood. More precisely of women’s blood rushing out from between their legs and bathing my bare hands. Ghastly images. I wake in a fever. I shiver as though with ague. What is worst of all, the women all have the same face. It is Kitty's face. She haunts me.

Elaborate diction, rendered in meticulous copperplate, though with a paucity of punctuation. The writer seemed averse to commas, perhaps a sign of a racing mind.

I have taken to drink in the evenings. Without a touch of spirits, sleep eludes me. I fear to sleep, fear the dreams. The women who are Kitty with their bleeding female parts. It must be the onset of cerebral disease. I see a dread prevision of myself in a lunatic asylum, a jabbering maniac. This I fear above all.

Kitty is to blame. I feel certain of it. She infected my soul, planted an evil germ. Perhaps it is her revenge on me, her curse. But this too is madness.

The dreams have not visited me for some time but now they start again. It is because of the incident last Friday. The fallen woman in the street. She so much resembled Kitty from afar. I was certain it was she. Only when I drew near did I apprehend my mistake.

Yet how could I have been so self-deceived? Kitty is no whore. Whatever else she may be, she is above suspicion in that respect.

Dare not sleep. Perambulate all night. In my rooms at first, but later in the streets. Thrice I've been accosted by harlots. Each time I was briefly persuaded the woman’s face was Kitty's.

Perhaps I should not have broken off with her. Perhaps I should have proceeded with arrangements. She would now be my bride, and I would not be hounded by phantoms and phantasies.

Can not rid myself of these horrors. They harry me incessantly. There is a permanent shudder in my blood, a finger of ice running always along my spine. I live with a perpetual smothering anguish. I fear the night. I endure the day.

Wisp has noted my condition. The fool believes I merely need to quicken my circulation with activities outside the school. He has no inkling of my nocturnal torments.

Difficult to maintain mental concentration on my classes. As always surrounded by fools. Despicable creatures. People speak of the innocence of children but it is not innocence, rather it is the bovine blankness of stockyard animals. I hate them all, their oily faces, their pink hands. They plague me, squealing for the sow’s teats.

He had nicknames for the children.

Vole was especially stupid today, fumbling through his Virgil like an illiterate farm boy. Weed and Splotch did no better. Arma virumque cano-Splotch thought it was something about a dog. Cano not canis you blind fool. Weasel got it right but I cannot abide his obsequious fawning as if to translate a few verses ex tempore would earn my eternal gratitude. I did not make Feeble translate at all, there’s no point, even the sport of seeing him fail has grown tedious.

He was a schoolteacher, obviously. All his students seemed to be male. An all-boys school?

The headmaster was the man nicknamed Wisp. He flitted in and out of the entries, a perpetual nuisance to the diarist. But then, everyone was a nuisance to him, “a plague and a contention” as he wrote. The diarist hated everybody-students, employers, colleagues, people he passed on the streets.

His seething hostility perhaps found expression in his bloody dreams. If so, the imagery of violence was intimately bound up in his mind with the symbolism of sex. Possibly it was his struggle to avoid facing the full implications of the dreams that caused them to return night after night. He did not want to admit that he could have fantasies of violence. He did not want to unleash the killer inside.

But the killer was there. The writer needed only to unlock the door to his deepest urges. In the next entry he had found the key.

I know now why I see her face in my dreams and in the streets. It is a message to me, flashed as if by semaphore. An intuition of the truth.

To-night as I walked the streets, I came upon her lodgings. I felt I must see her at once, despite the lateness of the hour. I pounded on the door until a woman answered, Amelia her roommate. I enquired after Kitty. Amelia amazed me by saying Kitty was not at home. She was not expected back at any particular time. No purpose would be served if I were to wait.

What decent woman would be out and about in the dead of night?

I saw it then. I saw her true nature, and how narrowly I had escaped disaster.

She is a whore. She walks the streets at night, taking coins from eager customers. She sells herself for the price of a pint, shameless as an alley cat.

I see now that in my heart I always knew. It was why I threw her over. At the time I had no clear conception of my motives. Now all is clear.

She was whoring even then, behind my back. She and Amelia also. Their virginal modesty is a sham. They are as chaste as goats. Pure as ditch water. Clean as soot.

In his paranoia and delusion he had misinterpreted the roommate's understandable reluctance to let him enter. Most likely Kitty had been there all along, and Amelia was simply covering for her. But he couldn't see the obvious truth.

His next entry explored his epiphany. The neat penmanship of earlier passages was gone. Now she saw many of the distinguishing traits of criminal handwriting. Dot grinding, the deep indentation of periods and similar shapes produced by jabbing pen into paper. Variable pressure, as the writer at times allowed his pen to flow lightly, then abruptly bore down. Extreme angularity, the script slanting hard to the right. Harpoons-fishhook-shaped strokes originating well below the baseline.

The stroke analysis suggested an explosive personality, boiling with rage.

I find my mind so crowded with thoughts-strange new linkages of ideas all unifying into a comprehensive overview. I see-everything. The world is a sump of vice and filth, women lowering themselves like beasts, men sharing their degradation-illness and debauchery! Pestilence and pollution! We are fleshly things. What is the female? What gives her this power? The blood in her which is her life. They are called the weaker sex, the gentle sex-a lie! If they are so weak why do they rule us with their cunts?

We’re told it is conscience that distinguishes Mankind from lower animals. A sanctimonious lie. Conscience is but a weakness imbued in us by those who would control us. Remember poor Augustine: ’Give me chastity and continence but not yet!’ Conscience places the natural man at war with himself, his hardy spirit made impotent by social doctrine, strait-jacketed. Meantime what of the men who break free? They are made to wear actual strait jackets, confined to hospitals, shut up in cages.

Can not keep it to myself. It is my calling, my mission.

The others won’t know-no one will know. It will be my secret. My private undertaking ha ha there’s a good word. I am the undertaker indeed. I will give the penny-a-liners something to write about and the public some better entertainment than Mr Mansfield’s play.

Absurd that a worthless piece of baggage like Kitty should have got me thinking clearly for the first time in my life. Or had I worked it out already without knowing? Like Moliere’s middle-class gentleman who spoke prose without realising, have I been dreaming murders my whole life long all unaware? Those continental alienists are right, the mind is a fascinating instrument, we shall never plumb its depths.

I am laughing. It is all so comical, a fever dream, brain fever as the doctors call it-but I need no doctor. It is humanity that ails and I am to provide the succour.

Whirling thoughts, weird associative leaps, unfocused hostility.

Schizophrenia. That was where the clues pointed. He might have been experiencing his first psychotic break. If so, he’d been no older than his mid-twenties. An Englishman-that much was obvious from Britishisms like penny-a-liner, as well as spellings like succour.

Her great-grandfather, Graham Silence, had immigrated from England to America sometime in the late nineteenth century. And schizophrenia ran in the family.

To-night I do it. There will be no backing down. If I am a man I write my next entry in blood.

She felt a slow chill move through her, as though these words had been whispered in her ear, not set down in writing by a man long dead. She found herself touching the long rope of scar tissue beneath her shirt sleeve.

The next undated entry recorded a kill.

Deed is done. Dead is done. Dead is deed, deed is death-indeed.

My thirsty knife swallowed up her life.

I’m a rhymer and a two-timer.

I make verse-and worse.

And laughter…after!

I must maintain my self-possession. But it is all so hilarious and wonderful. I had not expected-I hadn’t guessed-there was not much blood, the creature was nearly dead before I cut her throat-tilted her head away from me so I wouldn’t be splashed-got none on me, not a drop. Not then. But unsexing her-messy work. Much blood. I drained her dry, every drop. Blood is life. All her power, all her life washing my hands as in my dreams. I left her hollow as a gourd.

So damnably easy. I had thought it would be hard but she put up no struggle, merely twitched and shook as I squeezed her neck from behind. A thousand times I’ve imagined what could go wrong, every miscue and disaster but my imaginings were airy foolishness. I could kill a dozen a night and no one would ever spot me. Maybe I will kill a dozen next time. I am so eager to start again, my knife’s so sharp, it cuts so well and makes no sound. Opening her up-like slicing gabardine. I can still feel the warmth of her insides as the folds of flesh parted. Could’ve toasted cheese in that heat. A bit of her-how would she taste? She smelled good inside like stew.

She drew a breath. She realized she was shaking.

Was it poor Kitty he'd murdered, or Amelia? She almost didn’t want to know.

The entry that followed was brief and factual, and it surprised her.

Written up in the papers today. Mary Ann Nichols was her name. Called Polly by friends.

So he hadn't targeted his fiancee or her roommate. He had gone after a stranger.

In the following pages he entertained himself by mocking the police-“such tremendous fools, such splendid jackanapes.”

Halfway through the diary, she turned a page and saw a string of unpunctuated, uncapitalized words, scrawled in a feverish hand.

claimed another whore

Below it lay an irregular rust-colored blot and a second spidery line of script.

fresh out of whitechapel a few drops from my knife

It came together for her like a door slamming. England, Whitechapel, blood, knife, whores.

Jennifer looked up slowly.

It was just possible that the diary in her hands was written by Jack the Ripper.

1891

The poet Robert Burns was right. The best laid plans o’ mice and men, and all that.

Hare had expected to read of the foreigner’s arrest in the first news accounts of the murder at the East River Hotel. Instead he encountered quite a different story.

The dead woman had been found in the morning by the hotel staff. She was known as a regular patron of the establishment, a certain Carrie Brown.

But the man who had lodged with her was not in police custody. He had disappeared. Only his name was known, or at least the name signed in the hotel registry: C. Kniclo.

The police had surmised how Kniclo made his escape. He could not have left via the hotel’s main door, locked as it was after midnight. Apparently he opened a trapdoor in the ceiling of his room, which led to the roof; bloodstains were found on the scuttle. From the roof he descended to the street via a fire escape. Later that night a bloodstained man matching Kniclo’s description appeared in the lobby of the Glenmore Hotel a few blocks away. Told there were no accommodations, he tried to use the lavatory to wash up, but was ejected from the premises.

Kniclo must have regained consciousness only to find himself covered in blood in a room with a murdered woman. Rather then panicking as expected, he had proved distressingly resourceful.

His disappearance was bad enough. Worse was speculation in the press that Kniclo might not be the killer at all. It was suggested that he had left the hotel earlier, and that some other party had attacked Carrie Brown when she was alone in her room. Accordingly, suspicion had fallen on the other guests of the hotel that night, especially those who had lodged on the fifth floor. This included “Mr. Wilson,” the impromptu alias Hare adopted when the hostess, Mary Miniter, filled in the registry.

There was nothing to connect Hare to the name Wilson, but Mary Miniter had gotten a good look at him, and from news accounts it was obvious she was talking to the authorities. She could provide them with a good description. He had admitted to being a Brit. If the steamer records were searched, and the authorities in London were contacted…

The damnably elusive Mr. Kniclo had put a crimp in a Hare’s plans, opening the door to exactly the hysteria he had hoped to avoid.

The headline of the New York Times on April 25 framed the matter concisely.

Choked, Then Mutilated

A Murder Like One of ‘Jack the Ripper’s’ Deeds.

Whitechapel’s Horrors Recorded in an East Side Lodging House.

The Herald, not to be outdone, countered with its own headline.

Ghastly Butchery by a ‘Jack the Ripper’

Murder and Mutilation in Local Whitechapel Almost Identical with the Terrible Work of the Mysterious London Fiend

Strangled First, Then Cut to Pieces

Not only did the press trumpet this alarum, but the police seemed to take the connection to Whitechapel quite seriously. The coroner told reporters that the crime could be the work of “the fiend of London.” There were rumors of transatlantic cables flying between the New York Police Department and New Scotland Yard. A manhunt was underway throughout the city, far surpassing the effort that would be made in any ordinary slaying.

It was ironic. He had come to the States to escape the attention of the authorities, and on his first night he had stirred up a new hornets’ nest. And all for a gray-haired crone who in a saner world would never be mourned. A crone, he learned to his amusement, who was known to her few friends as “Old Shakespeare” for her habit of reciting doggerel.

It was said Old Shakespeare came to New York seeking fame on the stage; failing in this ambition, she gave herself up to drink and debauchery. Well, she occupied the limelight now.

The situation was grave. All thirty-five hundred members of the NYPD had been mobilized to search every hotel and flophouse for anyone who’d lodged at the East River Hotel on the night of April 23.

After leaving the scene of the crime, Hare took a room at a doss-house four blocks away-a safe enough distance, he thought, given the certainty of the blond foreigner’s arrest. But there was no arrest, and he had to leave the doss-house the next day, forfeiting the two bits he’d put down in advance for his second night. He had seen plainclothes detectives going from door to door in the neighborhood.

He relocated outside the Fourth Ward, believing that the dragnet would not extend beyond the precinct. But he had barely settled into a slum boardinghouse called the Anderson Inn when he heard rapping on his door. More police officers, these in uniform. He answered their questions smoothly, claiming to have arrived by ship that very day, but he wasn’t sure he persuaded them. Once they were gone, he went on the run again, surrendering another two bits.

He passed that night in an alley. On the following day he took the ferry to Jersey City, where he found another boardinghouse. There he hoped to be undisturbed, but reports appeared in the press of a possible Jersey City connection to the killing. He had no way to know if the police were on his trail, or if this new investigative avenue was merely a coincidence.

Either way, it was obvious the furor was not diminishing. The chief of police was under mounting pressure. Hundreds of possible “suspects” had been rounded up. It seemed as if every foreigner in the New York area was at risk of arrest. If he were caught up in the general melee, and then identified by that bitch Mary Miniter…

His heart was racing all the time. He could scarcely sleep. He awoke at every stray noise. He expected capture at any moment.

Every day he bought a full complement of newspapers-the Times, the Sun, the World, the Herald, the Tribune, the Broadway Eagle, the Morning Journal. He read and reread every article, obsessively teasing out hidden meanings.

A hunted Hare, he joked grimly to himself. That was what he was.

Matters could not continue down this road. Disaster lay in sight.

On Monday, April 27, he returned to New York City, retrieved his baggage from the storage locker, and took a taxi to Grand Central Station, where he boarded a New York Central train bound for Chicago. He carried little with him except some clothes, his London diary, and a handful of keepsakes acquired through the years. There was a white handkerchief from Polly Nichols, the first whore gutted by his knife, and a miscellany of items belonging to the others: a small tin of sugar, a comb, a pawn ticket never redeemed, and two brass rings pulled from Annie Chapman’s hand.

The train bore him north through New York state, branching west at Albany and continuing through lush valleys that bristled with the first green shoots of springtime. He passed Syracuse, Buffalo, and Detroit, heading into the nation’s great open spaces, its prairies and grain fields. An endless horizon beckoned. By the time he reached Chicago he was refreshed. The world was made anew, and all things were possible.

Even so, he kept an eye on the news from New York, less from concern than from curiosity. The case had turned amusing, and it appeared a foreigner would pay for the crime after all. Not the blond Swede or German or whatever he had been, but a different foreigner altogether. The prevailing attitude seemed to be that one was as good as another.

The suspicions of the police had fallen on a certain Algerian, Ameer Ben Ali, who had the misfortune of taking room 33, across the hall from the murder site, on the fatal night. Ali was the sort of character one encountered everywhere in dockside slums, a drifter, possibly a small-time hoodlum. It was claimed that a trail of blood led from Carrie Brown’s abattoir to Ali’s room, though more sober reports suggested that the crowd of reporters themselves had tracked the blood across the hallway.

Be that as it may, the unfortunate Ali was seized by the police and subjected to a dubious trial in which he defended himself in laughably broken English much as C. Kniclo might have done. By now all thoughts of a blond blood-spotted foreigner had been put aside, and press and public clamored for conviction of the Algerian rogue. The jury obliged, sentencing Ali to life imprisonment at a penal institution known by the peculiar nomenclature of Sing Sing.

Hare received word of the jury’s verdict in July, as he languished in Chicago, planning his next move. He took the development as a favorable omen. Life in his new country had commenced on a most promising note. He could only hope he would be so fortunate in his escapades with other victims.

For there would be others, of course.

There always were.

nine

Jennifer pushed her chair away from the table and sat looking at the book.

Jack the Ripper’s diary. That was crazy. Right?

“Right,” she murmured.

But she wasn’t sure.

If somehow this book was the authentic testament of history’s most infamous serial killer, then she had to assume that the bodies in the cellar were the Ripper’s work, as well.

Jack the Ripper in California.

She ran her fingertips over a page of the diary and felt the faint rise of the lettering characteristic of iron-gall, a common 19th-century ink. The ink wasn’t washed out, as it would be if it had been diluted to simulate aging. There was obvious bronzing-iron-based inks oxidized naturally within eighteen months-and significant feathering; the ink had bled into the paper, a sign of age.

The writing was smooth and showed none of the “tremble” seen in attempts to disguise one’s handwriting. In some forgeries of old documents, flourishes were added to the handwriting to produce a more antique appearance. She saw no decorative additions here.

But why would there be artificial flourishes? The diary was no conscious imitation. It was real. It might be the product of the Ripper, or of someone who believed himself to be the Ripper, but it was not written to fool her. It was not left in a tin box underneath a heap of skeletons to play mind games with a psycholinguistic analyst in the 21st century.

The vault of bones was a time capsule left by the killer, whoever he was. The diary and the bodies were his message to the future, his mocking announcement that he’d gotten away with it and was forever beyond capture.

She wondered if he had murdered them here. Had lured them to the house, killed them in its confines. In a back room, perhaps, where their cries would be unheard. This room…

If she lifted the carpet, would she find bloodstains on the hardwood floor? If she peeled back the wallpaper, would she find scratches grooved by clawing fingernails? If she closed her eyes, would she hear screams…?

At the front of the house, the doorbell buzzed.

The noise startled her. She took a steadying breath, then left the study and made her way through the house to the front door. She opened it, and Maura was there.

“Oh,” Jennifer said. “What are you doing here?”

“And hello to you, too. I was coming by to check on you. And it looks like it was a good idea. You seem pretty frazzled. But at least you’re alive. You could have called to let me know.”

“Sorry.” Jennifer ran a distracted hand through her hair. “It’s been a hectic day.”

“Tell me about it. I’m showing a two-bedroom condo the size of a file cabinet to a lovely young couple who’ll soon be in debt up to their earlobes, when all of a sudden the place starts boogying. The lady had a freakout, and the last I saw of her, she was insisting they move to Seattle.”

“Seattle has earthquakes, too.”

“I mentioned that, but she wasn’t in a mood to be reasonable.”

Maura Lowell, thirty-seven, was a real estate agent who worked Venice and Ocean Park. She’d met Jennifer through Richard, back when Richard was looking for a condo of his own. She and Richard dated for a while, one of the many times when Richard went out with a woman older than himself.

“And of course,” Maura added, “right away I was worried about you. I mean, look at this place.” She rapped the doorframe. “A stiff breeze could knock the thing over. I figured a quake would do you in for certain.”

“It would take more than a quake to bring down this house.”

“Yeah, yeah, they don’t build ’em like this anymore. Well, you’re alive, and I’m hungry, so let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere food is served. It’s after six o’clock, kiddo. Chow time. Unless you’ve got something better to do?”

Jennifer thought of the diary, the skeletons. “Not a thing.”

ten

They ate in downtown Venice at the Reality Bites Cafe, an offbeat little bistro where TVs suspended from the ceiling displayed movies shot locally. At their corner table Jennifer faced Touch of Evil, the Orson Welles classic that used Venice as a stand-in for a decaying Mexican border town. In the 1950s it hadn’t been much of a stretch.

“I love that flick.” Maura pointed to the screen behind Jennifer, where a different movie was playing. She looked over her shoulder long enough to identify it as White Men Can’t Jump.

When Jennifer turned back, Maura was flirting with the busboy again. He was a tanned, muscular surfer type with peroxide blond hair and a slack, goofy expression.

“You and me, we should go somewhere,” Maura was saying. “The night is young, and so are you. It’s a winning combination.”

The surfing busboy kept glancing at Maura’s StairMaster legs and carefully exposed cleavage. “Sorry, I’m on the clock tonight.”

“They can’t work you all night. Eventually you have to get off.” She placed an emphasis on the last two words.

“Around midnight, yeah.”

“I may be back around midnight.”

“I’ll be here,” he said with a dopey leer.

“Are you seriously coming back?” Jennifer asked when the busboy had left.

“Why not? Look at that ass. He can ride me like a surfboard any day.”

Jennifer laughed. “He’s a teenager.”

“That’s the way I like ’em, young and horny and not too bright.”

“You don’t care much about the social niceties, do you?”

“Let me tell you about the social niceties. Last week I hooked up with this new guy in our sales office. We’re in the elevator and we just decide to go at it. So we hit the stop button, freeze the elevator between floors, and have a little ooh-la-la.”

“You didn’t.”

“We did. I don’t know about niceties, but it was nice, all right.”

“You have no shame.”

“I haven’t told you the best part. He’s just zipping up when I noticed the goddamned security camera in the ceiling. We gave somebody one hell of the show.”

“I would never be able to show my face there again.”

“The way I figure it, it wasn’t my face they were looking at. Besides, it’s L.A., the land of sunny hedonism-surf, sand, and sex, not in that order.” She regarded Jennifer appraisingly. “When was the last time you got the sweet end of the lollipop?”

“It’s been a while.”

“Maybe I should fix you up with the busboy. You need him more than I do.”

“You can have him. Besides, we don’t know anything about the guy. He could be crazy, for we all know.”

“Now don’t go acting prejudiced, kiddo. Just because Venice is a mecca for every psycho nut job and schizo head case …” She looked stricken. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry.”

“Not a problem,” Jennifer said stiffly.

“I wasn’t talking about him.”

“I know. We never talk about him. Do we?”

“Should we? Do you want to?”

Jennifer almost pursued the subject. Almost said she couldn’t entirely forgive Maura for walking out on Richard in the early months of his illness. No, it wasn’t as if they were that serious, and their relationship probably wouldn’t have lasted anyway, but there was something unseemly about Maura’s rush for the exit at the first sign of trouble.

But there was no point in saying it now. She other things to deal with.

“No,” she said. “Forget it. It’s not important.”

“Then how come you’re so pensive all of a sudden?”

“You reminded me of something that happened today.”

“Involving … Richard?” It was rare for her to speak his name.

“No, involving the earthquake. I checked for damage, and I–I found something in the cellar.”

“Buried treasure?”

“You’re half right.”

“So it’s treasure, at least?”

“No, but it’s buried. Bodies. Skeletons.”

She told the story, all of it, even the discovery of the diary and what it might mean.

“You’re pulling my leg,” Maura said when she was finished.

“Wish I were.”

“Jack the freakin’ Ripper?”

“Not so loud.”

“Come on, Jen. Things like this just don’t happen. Am I on one of those reality shows? Is Ryan Seacrest hiding somewhere?”

“It’s for real. I told Casey, but with the quake, the police are all tied up till tomorrow.”

“Well, you can’t stay there, not as long as those things are in the house. You can bunk with me. We’ll have a pajama party.”

“Thanks, but I’m not worried about being in the house. I’ve seen bodies before.”

“Dead bodies at a crime scene are one thing. Dead bodies in your crib are another.”

“Did you say crib?”

“Hey, I can talk street. I just keep it on the down-low. Seriously, you can’t stay at home right now. It’s just…icky.”

“They’ve been in my house all along, Maura. For years.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know about it. It’s like, I’ve got no problem eating in a restaurant as long as I haven’t seen the kitchen. But if I saw what went on in there, with the rats and roaches and the waiters peeing in the soup, forget about it.” Someone at the next table had picked up on the last few words. She glanced at the eavesdropper and reassured him, “Not this place. This place is fine.”

Jennifer decided not to eat the last of her cheeseburger. “I admit it’s a little…unnerving. But I can deal with it.”

“I still say you should unload that house, buy a nice little bungalow in the Valley. I can get you a great deal on a fixer-upper with potential. This skeleton thing is a sign from God.”

“In the Valley you can’t smell the salt air. Besides, the house has been in my family forever.”

“I know, but-hey, wait a minute. How’d those dead guys get there?”

“You mean, which one of my forebears put them there? That’s what I’d like to know. It couldn’t have been my father. The bones are older than that. That leaves my grandfather, Frederick Silence, and my great-grandfather, Graham Silence. He immigrated from England and married here in the U.S.”

“You know your genealogy? Impressive. I can barely remember my mother’s maiden name.”

“After I learned how my father died-well, I needed to know as much as possible about our past. About whether the illness was hereditary. Turns out, it is.”

“So if one of these people wrote the diary, it would have to be old great-grandpappy Graham?”

“If we assume that the diarist really did live in England, and wasn’t just fantasizing that part of the story…then yes.”

“Did Graham come over to these shores in the right time frame?”

“It was sometime in the late nineteenth century, but I don’t have the date.”

“There must be a record somewhere.”

“Richard inherited the family papers. God knows what he’s done with them. Let’s change the subject, okay?”

“Are you kidding me? I hawk condos for a living. This is the most interesting thing that’s happened in my world in months. Makes today’s shaker look like a hiccup.” She took another swig of her Malibu Bay Breeze. “Tell me more about this diary. You think it’s for real?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what do you know?”

“Ordinarily, if I’d come across anything like this in, say, an antiquities shop, I would figure there are three possibilities. The book might be a modern forgery. Or it might have been written a century ago by someone who followed the case at the time and deluded himself into believing he was Jack the Ripper. Or it could be the confession of the Ripper himself.”

“I take it we can rule out forgery. I mean, given the circumstances.”

“Yeah, he sure didn’t forge those skeletons. But the second possibility is a live option. Suppose the diarist lived in Venice and only imagined he was the Ripper. An overactive fantasy life isn’t uncommon in psychopaths.”

“But we know he was a real killer, not just a Walter Mitty type.”

“Even so, he might have begun by writing the diary as an exercise in fantasy. Later, he could have progressed to actual murders.”

“A copycat? Some psycho who idolized Jack so much he wanted to be him?”

“It could make more sense than thinking the real Ripper ended up thousands of miles from home.”

“We’re talking about the most wanted man in the world. He might have had good reasons to hightail it out of England.”

Jennifer was dubious. “I’ve never heard anything about Jack the Ripper operating outside London.”

“How much do you really know about him?”

“Not much. Hardly anything, in fact.”

“That’s gotta change.”

“I intend to do some research, obviously.”

“Of course you do. And you’re going to start tonight.”

The Purloined Letter Bookshop was two blocks down from the cafe. The store specialized in mystery and true-crime, offering both new and used books, shelved together, with no discount on used editions.

“May I help you?” the proprietor asked as they entered. He was a small man with narrow shoulders and a narrow face.

“We’re looking for something on Jack the Ripper,” Maura said.

“Oh, I have plenty of those.”

The narrow man led them down a narrow aisle to a narrow bookcase where a special section had been reserved for Ripper books. Dozens, scores, of titles.

“Any you’d recommend?” Jennifer asked, bewildered by the array of choices.

“Depends on what you’re looking for. If it’s a straightforward, factual presentation of the case you’re after, Sugden’s Complete History is your best bet.” He handed her a thick paperbound book. “For the original documents reproduced verbatim, there’s Evans and Skinner.” He gave her an even thicker paperback, as chunky as a brick. “Then there are the letters attributed to Jack-another Evans and Skinner title, Letters from Hell.” He produced a large hardcover and added it to her armload of books. “Or there are the more speculative ones. Cornwell’s Portrait of a Killer-controversial, claims to have solved the case.” A smaller paperback was added to the pile. “Or we have The American Murders of Jack the Ripper, a book that says Jack migrated to the US for a time.”

Migrated to the US. Jennifer was happy to let him stack that book on top of the others.

“And The Diary of Jack the Ripper, another controversial title.”

Maura interjected, “They found his diary?”

“Some folks said so.” He set the book atop the pile in Jennifer’s arms, which was now both heavy and precarious. “The diary’s been examined, though-chemical analysis and whatnot. The tests show it’s a fake. Too bad. Be quite a thing, wouldn’t it? To find the real diary?”

Maura nodded vigorously. “Sure would. Wouldn’t that be something, Jen?”

Jennifer ignored her.

“Now I realize,” the proprietor said, “you won’t want more than one or two of these. I’ll give you time to decide.”

“No, that’s all right,” Maura said. “We’ll take them.”

He blinked. “Which ones?”

“All of them.”

“Okay.” He pronounced the word slowly in two distinct syllables. “Well, let’s ring ’er up, then.”

“You’re pretty free with my money,” Jennifer whispered when the man had walked away.

“Just saving you time, kiddo. You know you’d end up buying all of them eventually.”

At the counter Jennifer thumbed through the books while the owner wrote up the order on a clipboard. In The Ultimate Jack The Ripper Companion, she came across a photo section. Ghastly photos of the dead. She had seen autopsy shots before, but something about 19th-century mortuary shots creeped her out.

Maura pointed to a display bin near the register. “You know what? This is the guy you need to talk to.” The bin was stocked with paperback copies of A Hollywood Murder, by Harrison Sirk. “He lives in L.A., and he knows everything about local crime.”

“He’s a TV star. I can’t just call him up.”

“I can. He’s a friend of mine. Every now and then I spend an afternoon escorting him to high-end properties. He’s not in the market to buy. He just likes to snoop. But it’s cool, ’cause he pays me for my time. Anyway, he’ll take my call.”

“I don’t know.”

“I know. I’ll set everything up. Besides, he’d love to meet you. You have at least two qualities he’ll appreciate.”

“Let me guess.” Jennifer pushed her boobs together. “These qualities?”

“No, smarty. Number one, you’re into psycholing-whatsis, which from everything you’ve told me is an up-and-coming area of criminal profiling. And number two, you’ve got a mystery to solve. Sirk loves a mystery. Maybe he’ll see a book in it.”

“I don’t want a book.”

“Then be discreet. Don’t tell him anything more than what he needs to know.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Maura grabbed one of the Sirk books and put it on the counter. “She’ll take this, too.”

Jennifer frowned. “I will?”

“It never hurts to tell an author you’ve read his book.”

She looked at the photo on the back cover, showing Sirk posed on a balcony overlooking Sunset Boulevard, the smoggy cityscape stretching behind his obese but sartorially impeccable figure.

The proprietor read off the total. She paid with a credit card. He glanced at it. “Silence. Unusual name.”

“Yes.”

“Family from England?”

“Originally.”

“So was Jack, of course.” He smiled. “You two have something in common.”

“Maybe more than you think,” Maura said cheerfully, and Jennifer shot her a glare.

eleven

It was after ten PM when Jennifer e-mailed Draper her report on the Diaz case. She knew she ought to rest and take a fresh look at the diary in the morning. But she couldn’t leave the rest of it unread.

Carefully she turned to the last page she’d seen, marked with a dried splotch of blood “fresh out of whitechapel,” the word rendered in lowercase.

The blood, noted the diarist in a subsequent entry, had belonged to Annie Chapman.

A timeline of events was included in one of the books she’d purchased. The Ripper’s second victim was Annie Chapman, killed in the backyard of an East End home.

And the first victim was Mary Ann Nichols, known as Polly to her friends.

The names matched. Whoever wrote the diary either was Jack the Ripper-or thought he was.

She continued reading. Some of the lines were struck through-an increasing number as time went on. The handwriting grew more frenzied and illegible, the forward thrust of the cursive becoming almost savage. The man’s self-control was breaking down.

There were frequent references to the Met. It seemed to stand for the Metropolitan Police, who investigated some of the Ripper murders.

In other passages the word costermonger cropped up, straight out of Dickens. Street names were hyphenated-Hanbury-street, Aden-yard, Mile-end-road. Presumably this was good Victorian usage.

Throughout, the diarist’s rage became more palpable, his grandiosity more exaggerated.

Brainless blue bottles have no more chance of buckling me than of nabbing their own shadows.

They call me wicked, fiend, ruffian. Hypocrites, double-faced asses! I do what they desire to do. They would follow in my footsteps if they had the will.

Next one I do I’ll be up her arse and shoot sponk up her then tickle up her ovaries with my fine sharp knife.

By the time he reported the next victory in his war against the “unfortunates” of the streets, his mood was giddy.

To-night a triumph-two of them dead-Berner-street and Mitre-square-two of the filthy creatures permanently suppressed-two less of the deuced vermin to fill the cots of the padding kens-

Couldn’t finish the first as I’d hoped-she was a fighter, had a knife of her own-I snatched it away, used it on her ha ha turnabout is fair play-short knife, not like mine-didn’t cut deep-no good for draining blood-would have done her properly but some Yid carman interrupted-him and his pony and cart-

Damnable shame not finishing the first but it turned all right-

My blood still hot I found another-did her good-she had no more blood in her than a stone when I was through-I took away a piece of her in my tobacco pouch-

She had eyes like Kitty's-wide staring eyes-

According to the timeline, two prostitutes-Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes-were killed on the same night. Eddowes’ kidney had been taken.

Fried up part of the kidney. Was greasy. Needed salt.

Jennifer felt her stomach recoil.

Now they say I hate Jews. All because of some nonsense scribbled on a doorway. Donkeys!! I left no message. The bit of bloody apron they found by the door-I must have dropped it-carelessness, no more.

Anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered near a scrap of Eddowes’ apron.

The woman on Berner-street is said to have been accosted by some ruffian while another lurked in the shadows-ha ha- another false trail for the bloodhounds. It must have happened before I met her. No wonder she had her short knife ready.

The diarist no longer bothered to record his victims’ names. They were not people to him.

They make it all so complicated-conspiracies-slanders on the Jews-lookouts in the shadows-political motives, religious mania. They can not conceive of how simple it is.

Betrayed by a whore, I seek satisfaction from all their kind. And from Kitty herself, one day.

But not yet. Not whilst she still may be linked to me. I am clever, superlatively crafty. I bide my time and outwit them all.

His megalomania was escalating. She expected further signs of overstimulation and personality disintegration.

Drinking too much. Can’t sleep. Out at all hours. Come home late. Pace floor.

Passed woman on street. She shrank from me. Saw something in my eyes. Must beware of giving myself away.

Wisp and the others regard me strangely. Students whisper. They don’t suspect. They only know I’m not myself.

Kidney is gone. What happened to it? I remember nothing.

Mystery solved. Lusk, head of the vigilance committee, got the kidney in the post. Wrapped in a note. I have no memory of writing it. Damned lucky I didn’t give myself away.

Half a kidney in a brown pasteboard parcel was mailed anonymously to George Lusk, who had started a kind of neighborhood watch organization to combat the Ripper. It was accompanied by a semicoherent note datelined “from hell.”

The note gave her an idea. She opened a book that reproduced letters purportedly from the Ripper. Thumbing through the pages, she found a large photo of the most famous one, known as the “Dear Boss letter,” in which the name Jack the Ripper first appeared. She compared the handwriting with that of the diarist.

She was no graphologist, but as best she could tell, the writing matched the careful copperplate of the diary’s earlier entries. There were the same oversized capitals-especially the word I, narcissistically enlarged-the same dangling descenders, the same tendency to underline key words for emphasis, the same minuscule periods and apostrophes that often nearly vanished altogether. There was minimal punctuation, notably a scarcity of commas. And there was the repeated and underlined interjection ha ha.

A postcard followed the letter. Though it had been lost, a photo of it, taken by police at the time, remained extant and was reproduced in the book. The card had been written quickly, with none of the panache of the first letter, but the writing seemed to match that of the Dear Boss letter and the less disciplined diary passages.

She kept turning pages until she found the cover note from the package with the kidney. This one was written in a frenetic scrawl. The diarist had implied he was drunk when he composed it. The ragged scribbles matched the wildest entries in the diary, the ones showing the greatest decay of self-control.

In the days after mailing his ominous parcel, his condition worsened.

Go out nightly. Roam the streets. Constables everywhere. No opportunities. My head rarely clear. Thoughts run like a millrace. Too much gin and ale. Insufficient nourishment. Wasting away. Must put myself together. Scarcely recognise myself in the cheval-glass. Even Vole remarked on it. Asked if I were ill. Smirked when he said it. They mock me. They don’t know who they are dealing with. I am more than any of them. I have thrown the city into a panic. Every policeman hunts me. Every whore imagines my fingers on her throat. Newsboys cry themselves hoarse on every footway seeking to slake the disgustful curiousity of the multitude.

His penmanship was wildly erratic now, many of the words barely legible. He was breaking down-breaking apart.

This night will bring a great new victory. I sense it. As if with psychical powers I foresee the future.

Oceans of blood.

A blank page followed, as if to mark the momentous event. On the next page there was just one line of small, neat, careful script.

Done. It is done. Can not write of it this morning. There are no words…

The Ripper’s fifth victim was Mary Kelly. Photos had been taken of the crime scene, grainy black-and-white images of appalling slaughter. The woman had been torn to pieces in her bed.

Her pretty face-now no face at all. In the dance of the fireglow from the hearth I obliterated her. She did scream once. ‘Murder’ she cried. I feared someone would come. But this was Miller’s-court. The inhabitants are animals. They cowered in their dens.

What he’d said about the victim was accurate. Her face had been eradicated.

Two days have passed.

I partake of food again. I shun the bottle.

My frenzy has passed like a summer storm and I am whole and healed. No longer do I explore the nocturnal streets.

The last one has left me sated though not forever. I am like unto a man who has downed a great feast and imagines he will never know hunger again. But the pangs will come. When they do, I will answer them.

The savage strokes of his pen, mimicking the strokes of his knife, had given way to the meticulous copperplate of the early entries. But when he wrote again, much time must have passed. Some of the old unsteadiness was back, the forward slant, the heavy underlining.

I fear the city has forgotten me. To-night they will have a reminder.

I did kill one but there was no satisfaction in it. She was a haggard thing with a tobacco stench and a raucous laugh. Foul. To kill her was a mercy but it was not the same.

Alice McKenzie, “Clay Pipe” Alice, was killed on July 17, 1889. The murder wasn’t generally attributed to the Ripper, because there was only superficial mutilation of the abdomen. But the relative absence of postmortem violence could have reflected the killer’s lack of commitment.

Possibly I have lost the taste for it. I forbear to think so. I would not want my best days to lie behind me.

The last two passages were written listlessly, the words lightly rendered, t’s left uncrossed and i’s undotted. The next entry was neat and controlled.

It has been so long. I hardly think I will prowl again. I have settled into a comfortable schedule. I am fit and self-possessed. I look back on the autumn of ’88 and that one other night and I think it was a spell of madness. Yet I regret none of it. On those nights I breathed fire. I outstared the basilisk. I lived.

Not again, perhaps. Never again.

I am thinking I shall burn this book.

It is a new year and I feel something growing in me. The old familiar urge. I had thought it was gone for good. But there may be life in me yet. Life for me, death for others.

Last night I again walked the streets of the East End. Little has changed. Little ever changes there.

I saw few policemen.

Many whores.

From the transition to shorter sentences and more jagged script, she knew what would come next.

Under the railway arch I took her-glorious-I was wrong to think I ever had lost my spirit-the knife felt so right in my hand, a part of me-the first incision like a lover’s kiss-the hot stink of her, the charnel-house reek-

But I left it uncompleted. Left her dead but mostly intact. Sheer bad luck, a constable coming by. I heard the clop of his boots and ran. He found her moments later. It was a near thing.

But glorious.

This had to be Frances Coles, dead on February 13, 1891. The day before Valentine’s Day.

Some say too much time has passed. They say this is the work of some other fiend.

Let them prattle. The next one will bear my signature.

I see now that I can never return to what I was. One spark animates me. One engine moves me. I can not deny my deepest nature. I must do what I am called to do. I am a sleepwalker otherwise. I am awake only on nights like these. To desist is to die.

Never again will I be less than what I am.

And shortly it will be Kitty who feels my knife. Her time has come. I will do her as I did the one in Miller's-court.

But the timeline listed no more victims. The killer’s plans must have changed. Jennifer turned the page and saw why.

Disaster. How could they know? I made no mistakes, not one.

They don’t know. If they did I should have been arrested by now. They are only sniffing round. I am patient. I can wait them out.

And now I see. It was Vole. Dull Vole, sleepy Vole, smirking Vole. He slipped out of his bedchamber and went carousing in the city. He saw me there on the night of the whore’s death. He saw me and he talked, not to the police but to his stupid chattering friends who contacted the authorities.

And so they came by to speak with me. And they continue coming by.

Wisp has put me on leave. The noose tightens.

How much did Vole see? How much has he told?

They shadow me. Two inspectors. They dog my footsteps. But I will outmanoeuvre them. I have packed my essentials in a trunk small enough to carry by hand.

I will consign this memoir to the fire. Then slip away in the night, when my watchers have dropped their guard. Book passage on a steamer under an assumed name. America is a large country, large enough to get lost in. Once there I will cover my trail, change identities again. They’ll not find me.

And Kitty, dear Kitty, must wait. But not forever. I shall come back for her.

That was the final entry. Obviously, he had been unable to destroy the precious record of his crimes. Perhaps it was then that the name on the inside cover was blacked out, the early pages removed, to preserve some degree of anonymity. The diary would have gone into the trunk, to be carried across the Atlantic. And farther west, all the way to California, to this house. The House of Silence, which had kept the secret all these years.

She stood up. Her mind was working fast-running like a millrace, as the diarist put it. The man who filled these pages with his thoughts showed the classic symptoms of schizophrenia, the cyclical swings between lucidity and manic paranoia. In the acute phases he was hostile, violent, homicidal. He went out every night, came back late, paced the floor. Women shrank from his gaze. People feared him.

Like Richard. Richard, whose nocturnal footsteps disturbed the downstairs neighbors. Richard, who gave female tenants “the evil eye.” Richard, who was in the acute phase of his illness now.

The same pattern. If the diarist was Graham Silence, he had passed on his disease through the generations, to her father, and now to her brother.

Aldrich had killed himself. His rage had been turned inward.

And Richard? How was he channeling his violent impulses?

And what did he do when he went out at night?

twelve

She had it.

He was almost sure she did.

Someone like her would not be able to resist the temptation of such a prize.

And she would keep it to herself, the scheming bitch.

She might be reading it right now. Reading long into the night. Retracing the byways of old Jack’s thoughts. Reliving the momentous events of ’88 and later.

He himself had no need to read of such things. He already knew everything that mattered, knew by intuition, by inheritance, by blood.

He knew Jack.

Was Jack, he sometimes thought. Jack’s ghost, summoned forth from the underworld to animate a new body.

He did feel like a ghost, often enough, and more and more often these days.

Something not quite dead, not quite alive. Inhabiting the gray borderland between the quick and the dead. A dismal land.

A shadow land.

And he himself, a shadow among shadows.

No, he didn't need to read the book. But he wanted no one else to have it. For it to be scanned by unworthy eyes was sacrilege.

Her eyes. She was unworthy.

And in justice she might have to pay for her transgression.

He imagined her eyes, those undeserving eyes, wide open and unblinking, staring sightlessly. She would be a broken thing, a discarded toy, like one of old Jack’s victims, the flophouse floozies he slaughtered in back alleys.

But not cut up as they were. Not eviscerated. Unlike his predecessor, he had no need to soil his hands.

He knew the interior of the human body. He knew that it was blood and bile and shit.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, said St. Paul. But St. Paul was wrong. There was no treasure. There was only filth and muck.

No need to disassemble them as old Jack did. Making them dead was accomplishment enough.

And now he might have to make her dead.

Possibly. He hoped it would not be necessary.

But it might be.

It just might.

thirteen

Jennifer woke shortly after sunrise, the residue of a nightmare already fading from memory. She’d been running through a maze of fogbound alleys, and a man with a knife was after her, and she slipped on the wet street and he was slashing at her, opening a long rip in her left arm, and she saw his face and it was Richard.

She needed to talk to him. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe just to convince herself that he wasn’t capable of the violence in her dream.

If she called, wouldn’t answer. She tossed on yesterday’s clothes and drove to Dogtown, parking outside the Oakwood Chateau. She took the stairs to the third story and rapped on his door.

“Richard, I know you’re in there. It’s Jennifer. Open up.”

She kept on banging until she was convinced he wasn’t home. He could be anywhere. But the manager said he often went to the cemetery in the morning. It wasn’t far.

She parked on a side street and walked through the gateway, past a sign half obscured by dripping foliage. Traffic hummed on the Santa Monica Freeway, immediately to the north. A homeless man wheeled a shopping cart past the mausoleum, his head bent low.

No one else was in sight. She spent a long moment looking in every direction, but saw no sign of Richard.

There wasn’t any reason to linger. Still, she made her way farther into the graveyard.

Woodlawn Cemetery dated to the early 1800s. Buried here was Venice’s founder, Abbot Kinney, a tobacco mogul who patterned the town after its namesake, complete with Italianate palazzos and sixteen miles of canals navigated by gondolas. “Venice-of-America” was meant to be a cultural showcase, but the public wanted carnivals, roller coasters, and sideshow attractions, and Venice became “the Coney Island of the Pacific.” In the Depression most of the canals were filled in and paved over. Only six were spared. Now they had been dredged and reclaimed, and with amazing speed Venice was being transformed into something close to what Kinney intended-a pleasure garden for a moneyed elite.

Jennifer went past rows of Gothic headstones into a section reserved for bronze plaques set in the earth. Two of the plaques marked the places where her mother and father lay.

Marjorie Ellen Silence. Aldrich Graham Silence.

She rarely came here. Now that she stood over the graves, she wasn’t sure what to do. Say a prayer? She didn’t know any. She contented herself with a whispered, “Rest in peace.” Not the most original sentiment, but she meant it. There had not been much peace for her parents. Aldrich was shattered by mental illness. His suicide left Marjorie an emotional wreck, prone to insomnia and crying jags. She could be a harsh disciplinarian. She and Richard quarreled constantly. Jennifer sometimes thought Marjorie saw too much of Aldrich in her son, and the recognition pained her. Or did it scare her?

Richard was too young to escape the House of Silence. Jennifer was not. She partied nightly. Venice in the early ’90s was still “the sewer by the sea,” as locals called it. No McMansions back then, only decaying buildings and dry canals lined with trash. Drugs were everywhere. At fifteen she was doing coke and speed. At sixteen she ran away from home-for good, she thought.

A girlfriend drove her to San Francisco. They were going to live in Haight-Ashbury in a shared apartment. Or so they assumed until they learned what the rent was like. Her friend ran out on her a few days later, taking the car. Jennifer was alone. She could call home, but she was too scared and too stubborn. She ate at a soup kitchen, cadged dollar bills in public parks. She found a place to live-the utility room in a shopping center, where she could sneak in and out without being seen by the custodial staff. Or perhaps they did see her, but let her stay out of pity. After two months of this, she was a ragged, dirty, emaciated mess.

Then she was raped.

She never knew who did it. On a rainy evening he ambushed her beneath an overpass. It was dark, and she was scared and crying as he jerked down her pants and put himself in her. His cock was flaccid, and he barely got off. He blamed her for struggling too much. He had a knife. She remembered the hot wire of pain along her left arm, then the splash of his sneakers as he ran away.

He’d opened her arm almost from elbow to wrist, a long red slit, oozing blood. She pulled up her pants and applied pressure to her arm, trying to stanch the flow. It didn’t work. She hid inside the mall till closing time, then found a pay phone. With her last few coins she called home. Richard answered. She didn’t know what to say, except that she was in bad shape and she didn’t think she’d be coming back. “I love you,” she said. “Tell Mom I’m sorry.” She hung up while he was asking where she was.

Then she found the utility room and crawled inside to die.

She bled out slowly. The wound was long but not deep. There was time to call for an ambulance, but she didn’t want an ambulance. After the E.R. patched her up, they would reunite her with her mother. She couldn’t go back. It was easier to die.

But she didn’t die, and she had Richard to thank for it.

She blinked, coming out of these memories. Slowly she turned away from the graves and headed back to her car. A folded flyer, a menu for a Thai restaurant, was wedged beneath the wiper blades. Something made her open it. Written across it in a brisk angular hand were six words, all in capitals.

I KNOW YOU HAVE MY BOOK.

She felt nothing at first, only numb unreality, as if the flyer were a figment in a dream. The numbness lasted just long enough for her to identify it as a defense mechanism against shock. With that thought, she snapped out of it.

She jerked around, looking everywhere at once, but whoever had left the note was gone. Or out of sight-hiding, watching her.

Her breath was coming hard and fast, and there was a funny weakness in her knees. She fumbled the car key out of her pocket and got the driver’s door open and slipped behind the wheel. She pulled the door shut, locking it.

The note shook in her hand. Over and over she read those same six words. They shouted at her.

But did they shout in Richard’s voice?

fourteen

She arrived home at 9:30, after picking up a replacement bulb for her UV lamp. Her message machine was blinking; Draper had called to say that he and a pathologist would be at the house at eleven to examine the human remains. She wondered why he hadn’t tried her cell, then realized she’d set it on vibrate during her dinner with Maura and had forgotten to change it back. It must have been buzzing away in her glove compartment.

There was still an hour and a half until his arrival. She installed the bulb, switched on the UV light, and studied the flyleaf pasted to the diary’s inside front cover. The signature, if there was one, failed to fluoresce; it remained hidden under a thick coat of black ink.

There was another test she could try. Sometimes concealed ink would emit infrared light when UV light was used as an exciter source. The technique was called IR fluorescence.

She got out her digital camera and fitted the lens adapter with an infrared filter. With the camera mounted on a tripod, she took a time exposure of the flyleaf. She transferred the purple-red image to her laptop and converted it to grayscale.

Success. The technique had brought out the canceled writing.

It was a signature, neatly written in a steady hand: Edward Hare.

Since the early pages of the diary had been removed, she guessed that Hare had begun the journal with no expectation that it would contain anything incriminating. When his thoughts had turned in a criminal direction, he must have torn out the initial pages and obliterated his signature.

It was probably his real name, then. Not an alias.

And not her great-grandfather’s name. She should have felt relieved about that, but the diarist had written that he was traveling to America under an assumed name. That name might have been Graham Silence.

Silence-an appropriate name for a man keeping secrets.

She flipped through the indexes of her Ripper books but found no mention of Edward Hare. Next stop, the Internet. She typed “Jack the Ripper and Edward Hare” into a search engine. No hits.

The name “Edward Hare” alone brought up a few hundred hits, but nothing that seemed relevant.

“Jack the Ripper” on its own brought up nearly two million pages. Scrolling through the first twenty, she found a site called Ripperwalk, billed as “a comprehensive guide to Ripperology.” She searched the site for “Edward Hare” without success.

A large part of Ripperwalk was devoted to message boards. She created an account, using the screen name Jeneratrix, and started a thread titled “Possible Suspect: Edward Hare?”

Is anyone familiar with a possible suspect in the Ripper murders named Edward Hare? He lived in London during the appropriate time period and may also have spent time in the United States. I believe he was a teacher at a boys’ school. Any information would be appreciated.

She posted the message and went offline. It was a long shot, but she had nothing to lose.

Then she turned to the paper left on her windshield.

She didn’t want to deal with it. But she had to.

She spread out the note on the examination table. She’d already observed the angular writing, slanted forty degrees from the vertical. Extreme angularity was a sign of aggression.

The note was written in haste. The words were slashed into the flyer, almost spilling off the right-hand side. The characters were printed entirely in uppercase, large and narrow, irregularly spaced. The writer had been bearing down hard. Heavy pressure could indicate an antisocial personality defined by power and control issues. The period at the end of the sentence was pounded into the paper, dimpling the other side.

Speed. Emotional intensity. Anger. A demand to be heard.

The writing implement had been a ballpoint pen. Black ink. The writer hadn’t planned to jot down the note, or he would have brought his own paper. It had been an impulse, prompted by the availability of the flyer. All he’d needed was a pen, and lots of people carried pens.

The size of the letters represented a demand for attention. The varying size and spacing of the words also held meaning. The words I and my were larger than the rest, and my was widely distanced from the words on either side. Egocentrism, narcissism. I, me, mine were the center of the writer’s life. Well, that only narrowed it down to everybody in L.A.

Some graphologists believed narrow letters were indicative of a criminal personality. She didn’t necessarily endorse that view, but she did find the tall, steeply sloped characters suggestive of an agitated mind.

There was little roundness in the writing. Even letters like w and u had been rendered in crisp straight lines, harsh and angular. The lines were slashed into the paper in quick, angry strokes, like the cuts of a knife.

The choice to write the note in capital letters could suggest prudence on the writer’s part. It would be impossible to compare the note to any ordinary handwriting. A decision to disguise his identity argued for consciousness of guilt.

She pushed her chair back from the table and took in the note as a whole. It consisted of two lines:

I KNOW YOU

HAVE MY BOOK.

Although it was one statement, the first three words could be separated from the rest. I know you suggested a personal relationship. Either the writer desired to create the impression of closeness, even intimacy, or he actually was close to her. Richard was always saying he was smarter than his sister. He liked to play mind games. This might be one more.

The second line, have my book, placed a strong emphasis on possessiveness. He could have written found my book or are hiding my book, but he’d used the word have. That was his focus.

And it was my book. The diary purportedly belonged to Jack the Ripper. So what did the writer mean by the word my? Did he think he was Jack the Ripper? Or did he mean that, as a descendant of Jack the Ripper, he was entitled to the book?

Richard had inherited the family papers. The diary could be said to belong to him.

Except he didn’t know about the diary. No one did.

No one.

It was five minutes to eleven. She filed the note, closed her laptop, and put the diary back into its tin, securing the clasp. The book had survived for a long time in that container, and she was prepared to leave it there a little longer.

She almost placed the box with her other papers but hesitated. If Richard-or someone-was aware of the diary, she might be better off hiding it. After a moment’s thought she carried it into the pantry and placed it on a shelf behind a row of spray cleaners.

She was waiting on the porch when Draper arrived. He greeted her briskly, saying that the pathologist was following him in his own vehicle. She led him inside.

“I’ve never been here,” he said, looking around. “But I guess you knew that.”

“Is it everything you expected it to be?”

“I didn’t have any particular expectations. But the place suits you. It’s…reserved.”

“You should see my bedroom.” She was thinking of her collage of erotic antique postcards. Then she realized how it sounded. “Um, you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“Just that it might not be what you expect. Not that you expect anything…” This was not going well.

He rescued her with a change of subject. “I got your e-mail. You may have given us some usable leads.”

“Don’t thank me.”

“I won’t-unless the leads pan out.”

“Maybe not even then.”

“Maybe not.” He was smiling.

“So who are you looking at?” she asked.

“Certain people.”

“Now who’s being reserved?”

“Being reserved is a good thing. It’s a sign of maturity. Toddlers and criminals never hold back.”

“This is California, Roy. No one’s supposed to hold back.”

“That’s what makes the two of us so unusual.”

She wanted to argue. She wanted to tell him that she, at least, did not hold back. Then she thought of the tin in the pantry.

She was cautious. She kept things to herself. Her years of stifled communication in the House of Silence had taught her to be wary, self-contained.

And he was the same way. Yesterday when he’d opened up about his failed relationship, it had been a rare moment, a risk.

If he could take a risk, so could she. She could ask him out. At the very least she’d prove she wasn’t quite as reserved as he thought.

“You never did tell me her name,” she said.

“Whose name?”

“The woman you were with for three years.”

“Diana.”

“Was she reserved?”

“Just the opposite. That was the problem. She and I wanted different things. She wanted…excitement. Fun.”

“You don’t like fun?”

“I like catching bad guys.”

“There’s more to life than work.”

“Is there?”

“Well, there ought to be.” She took a breath. “You know, would it be crazy if-”

The telephone rang, and the moment was lost.

“I’ll take it in the kitchen,” she said, worried that it might be Maura calling for an update on the case. “You can let the ME in.”

She answered the phone and heard a cultured baritone. “Good morning. This is Harrison Sirk.”

“Oh. Hello, Mr. Sirk.”

“Maura Lowell put me in touch with you. You’re looking into some darker aspects of the history of Venice, I understand.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m happy to be of service. Is it convenient for you to drop by my house? Say, this afternoon? If you’re free, that is.”

“I’m surprised you’re free.”

“I have nothing on schedule but my usual Roman orgy of unbridled debauchery, which I am happy to postpone if I may render a service to a lady. A different kind of service, let me add.”

She jotted down his address on the whiteboard in the kitchen, promising to be there at two.

“Excellent. I look forward to a stimulating conversation on a subject of mutual interest.”

“So you’re interested in Venice’s history, too?”

“That wasn’t the subject I had in mind.”

“What was it, then?”

“Why, Jack the Ripper, of course.”

“Maura told you that?”

“Not at all. She didn’t say a thing.”

“Then how-”

But he had already hung up.

fifteen

She was halfway down the cellar stairs when she heard Casey’s voice from below. He must have accompanied the ME. As the watch commander, he had every right to be here. Still, she felt annoyed with him, though she wasn’t sure why.

Draper stood by the crypt, flashlight in hand. Casey was next to him, while a man in civilian clothes, down on his knees, peered into the hole.

“You know Sergeant Wilkes, of course,” Draper said.

Casey tossed off a wave, but he wasn’t smiling. She had a feeling he was still angry about yesterday’s argument.

Draper added with a nod at the kneeling man, “And this is Dr. Alan Parkinson. We’re lucky to have him. It’s supposed to be his day off.”

“When the sergeant told me what he’d seen down here”-Parkinson spoke in a high, thin voice-“I had to take a look. Something like this doesn’t come along very often.”

He sounded excited, and though Jennifer understood his curiosity, she couldn’t help resenting him for it.

She looked past him, into the sepulcher. They were still there, of course-the bones of the dead. A few small skittering bugs played in the flashlight’s glow.

“You know what they say about L.A.,” Casey deadpanned. “Everybody’s got a few skeletons in the closet.”

Draper looked at him. “You’ve been waiting to use that line.”

“Well, yeah.”

Draper took out a pocket camera and snapped some photos, the flashbulb illuminating the remains.

“Are you calling in SID?” Jennifer asked him. The criminalists of the Scientific Investigation Division didn’t work as many cases in real life as they did on TV, but a multiple murder ought to ensure their participation.

“Only if this turns out to be a crime scene.”

“You mean, it might be a family burial plot or something?”

“No chance of that,” Parkinson said. “These are homicide victims. Look here.” He fingered the tip of a humerus bone. “See that angular fracture? That’s a tool mark. He cut them at the joints.”

“They were dismembered?”

“Very thoroughly.” Parkinson seemed professionally impressed. “He disarticulated the skeletons by cutting through the major tendons. Occasionally his knife slipped-hence the nicks on bone.”

“Why take them apart?”

“Presumably for more compact storage.”

“Well, you can’t argue with efficiency,” Casey quipped.

Everyone ignored him.

“Male or female?” Draper asked the pathologist.

“Oh, they were women.”

Jennifer would have guessed as much. The Ripper always killed women. Still, she was surprised Parkinson could determine their sex at a glance. She said so.

Parkinson smiled up at her. “I know something of your work, Doctor. The officers have filled me in. You read between the lines. Well, so do I.” He turned to the bone pile. “See the skulls? The brow ridges and mastoid bones would be more robust in the male. And the pelvises? Low and bowl-shaped, with a wide sciatic notch.”

“I thought you were pre-med, Silence,” Casey said disdainfully. “Shouldn’t you know this stuff?”

Jennifer glared at him. “I guess I missed that class.”

“That’s not all we can tell about these women.” Parkinson had slipped into lecture mode. “Look here. Incomplete epiphyseal fusion. The ends of the long bones are incompletely fused to the shafts. By age twenty-five, fusion would be complete.” He tapped one of the skulls. “See the teeth? Minimal wear. Another sign of youth. Judging by the gap between the pubis bones, I’d place the age of this specimen at fifteen to nineteen. A young but post-pubescent female.”

She hated the clinical detachment of his voice. Staring past him into the tomb, she thought of everything these girls had lost. Marriage, children, a life. All of that had been taken from them. They’d been cut down and left here in the dark under the stairs.

Draper was silent. She glanced at his profile, his mouth set, eyes far away. Maybe he felt what she did, bewilderment and sadness.

“You’re saying all of them were young?” Casey asked. “Maybe it was a pajama party that got out of control.”

It wasn’t like him to be this way. Draper sensed it, too. Irritated, he glanced at Casey.

“Not all of them, no,” Parkinson said. “I would say one or two of the victims had passed the age of twenty five. After that point, age becomes almost impossible to judge, at least until visible signs of old age set in.”

“How long have they been here?” Jennifer asked.

“I can’t determine the postmortem interval precisely. To do that, we would need some datable material-coins or an old newspaper, say.”

Or a diary, she thought.

“But,” he continued, “I’m willing to state that they have been in situ longer than seventy-five years.”

“And that means it’s not a crime scene,” Draper said. He saw Jennifer’s questioning look. “Are you familiar with the Safe Environmental Quality Act?”

“Should I be?”

“It’s a set of California statutes that establish the protocol for dealing with exposed human remains. Those dating back more than seventy-five years aren’t handled as police business. When that much time has passed…”

“It’s history,” she said, understanding.

Draper nodded. “That’s the cutoff point. After seventy-five years, whoever’s responsible is presumed to be past the point of prosecution. The law has no further interest in the matter.”

She wondered if the law would feel different after seeing the diary.

Casey looked dubious. “So we’re looking at a serial killer. From seventy-five years ago.”

“Or longer,” Parkinson said. “The remains could date back to the earliest days when this house was inhabited.” He looked at Jennifer. “You don’t happen to know when that was?”

“I believe the house went up in 1908.”

“A full century ago. That would be the earliest possible date.”

“You’d think a multiple murderer operating back then would get some attention,” Casey said. “I mean, Jack the Ripper sure as hell did.”

The mention of that name startled her. She had to remind herself that the Ripper was probably the only old-time serial killer who was still generally known.

“Jack the Ripper left his victims in plain view,” Draper said. “This guy was craftier. He kept them hidden.”

“Even so, this many disappearances in a small community had to send up a major red flag.”

“Not if they were widely spaced. Let’s say the victims were targeted one at a time, at irregular intervals, in different jurisdictions, with no consistent victimology or M.O. The authorities might have had no clue that the cases were connected.”

“Yeah, but serial killers don’t work that way. They don’t change their M.O.”

Draper waved off the objection. “They don’t change their signature. The M.O. can vary. Look at the Zodiac Killer. No consistent M.O. He used whatever weapon was available. The M.O. is selected opportunistically-whatever works. The signature is what they can’t control.”

Jennifer was familiar with the distinction. The modus operandi was the practical plan used by the criminal. The signature was a personal touch that served no purpose other than the satisfaction of some deep-seated urge. Binding a victim with duct tape was an M.O. Urinating on the victim was a signature.

Jack the Ripper’s signature was the postmortem mutilation of the bodies. He could have done it just as easily in this cellar as in the street.

Much more easily, in fact, with no risk of detection. And since the bodies were hidden forever, no one might know that the maniac was at large. The disappearances might be chalked up to a variety of causes. There would be none of the extra police surveillance that the notoriety of the London murders had brought.

If he really was the Ripper, Edward Hare had learned from his mistakes in England. By the time he reached Venice, he was more cunning, more sophisticated. He could kill a half dozen women and girls, and the crimes would never be fitted into any pattern.

“Well, there’s one bright spot, Silence,” Casey said. “At least your ancestor was smart.”

She bristled. “Nice and tactful. Thanks.”

“Your ancestor?” Parkinson asked.

“Her family’s owned this house forever.” Casey’s shoulder lifted in an insolent shrug. “Didn’t she mention that detail?”

“I didn’t have the chance.”

“I guess it’s not something you’d want to brag about.”

Draper stared him down. “That’s enough, Sergeant.”

Casey smirked and turned away. Jennifer hated him. She could have punched his face.

“I don’t know exactly when my great-grandfather took possession of the house,” she said. “It could have been 1908. He could have been the original owner. Or maybe not. There are family records where the information might be listed, but I–I’m having trouble tracking them down.”

“Who has those records?” Draper asked.

“My brother, Richard. At least, he’s supposed to have them. He inherited them. But he may have lost them by now.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He’s…not well. He has schizophrenia.”

Parkinson looked interested. “Does mental illness run in your family?”

“Jesus, Alan,” Draper said.

Jennifer met the man’s eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it does.”

There was a tense stillness in the cellar, broken when Draper said, “Well, if you do recover those records, let me know.”

“I thought the law had no interest in the matter.”

“The law may not. But I do.”

She remembered his secret habit of kissing a crucifix for luck at a crime scene. He cared, even when he didn’t have to.

“So if this isn’t a police case,” she asked, “what do we do? Call a museum, a funeral parlor…?”

“County has a forensic anthropologist on staff,” Parkinson said. “Even though it’s not technically a crime scene, it still has to be handled with due diligence. A lot of evidence can be lost if the bodies are disinterred incorrectly. Their precise positioning has to be recorded. Then the bones are bagged and labeled, and-hold on. This area appears to have been disturbed.”

He pointed at the spot where the tin box had lain.

“You see that, Roy?” Parkinson asked. “The dirt’s been sifted.”

Draper bent down for a better look. “There are dust and cobwebs on the rest of the soil, except for that patch. Sergeant Wilkes, you didn’t disturb the scene?”

“I didn’t touch a thing,” Casey said. “And I specifically instructed her to keep her hands off.”

The edge in his voice irked her, and she responded a little too sharply. “I didn’t require any instructions from you.” The fact that she was being totally hypocritical didn’t prevent her from being pissed off.

“It almost looks as if an item was buried here, and removed.” Parkinson glanced at Jennifer. “You’re quite certain you didn’t… find anything?”

She could tell them, of course. She could reveal all. Show them the diary, let them take it from her. There would be no serious consequences. Draper had said it wasn’t a crime scene.

But she couldn’t share her secret, not yet. Not until she knew how it impacted her family-above all, Richard.

“All I found was a nest of skeletons in my cellar,” she said. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Of course it is.” Draper didn’t sound quite sure.

“Well”-Parkinson started to rise-“I suppose it could just be…”

His voice trailed away as Jennifer became aware of a peculiar thrumming sound.

“Oh hell,” Parkinson added. “I hate these.”

Hate what? she thought, and then an aftershock shuddered through the cellar, rattling the walls, dislodging showers of dust from the plumbing pipes in the ceiling.

She took a step toward the staircase, but when no one else moved she forced herself to stand still and wait it out.

Slowly the wave passed, leaving the cellar intact.

“I hate them, too,” she heard herself say. It seemed strange to comment on something Parkinson had said hours ago. Except it hadn’t been hours, but only a few seconds.

“I kind of enjoy them.” That was Casey. “They’re a nice little break in the day.”

“That’s probably why the ground was disturbed,” Draper said. “Either the quake itself or an aftershock spilled fresh dirt onto that spot.”

“Yes.” Parkinson resumed rising. “That must be it.”

Casey reached out to assist him, but Draper warned him off with a shake of his head. As the pathologist rose, Jennifer saw that he’d stashed a pair of metal crutches by his side. He leaned on them as he struggled upright.

Jennifer glanced down and saw plastic leg braces extending below the pathologist’s pants legs to his shoes. When she looked up, she saw Parkinson watching her eyes.

“M.S.,” he said wryly. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“How so?”

“That it’s not Parkinson’s. You’d think if I had to have a degenerative nerve disease, I’d at least get the one bearing my name.”

Multiple sclerosis could strike at any age, but typically the first symptoms appeared before age forty. Parkinson looked to be about forty-five. “How long have you had it?” she asked.

“Onset was two years ago. It’s progressing fast. No remissions as yet. And yes, it’s likely to get a lot worse.”

She thought of Richard, the rapid progress of his disease, and how it had destroyed his life. She thought that healthy people didn’t appreciate how lucky they were. They should give thanks every day. Every single day.

The four of them started up the stairs, climbing without hurry in deference to Parkinson’s slow gait.

She fell into step in front of Casey. Over her shoulder she murmured to him. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

His position on the lower stair served to equalize their height. His breath tickled her ear. “Who says I’m acting?”

“Look, I’m sorry if I was rude yesterday-”

“Rude? Rude’s nothing. I deal with rude all the time. That’s no biggie.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is…forget it.”

“Just tell me.”

“The problem is, you know how I feel about you. And you don’t take it seriously. You treat me like a joke.”

That stung. “I don’t mean to.”

“Exactly what did I do yesterday that was so unacceptable? I mean, besides rushing over here to check out your problem when I had a million other priorities?”

“I never asked you-”

“You didn’t have to ask. I wanted to help.”

“Now you’ve got me feeling like an asshole.”

“Turnabout is fair play, Tiny Dancer.”

“Don’t call me Tiny Dancer,” she said automatically, but her heart wasn’t in it.

They emerged from the cellar through the trapdoor. “For the time being,” Parkinson said as Draper helped him up, “the remains will have to be left where they are. Later today, or first thing tomorrow, our forensic anthropologist will disinter the specimens.”

Jennifer wished he wouldn’t call them specimens. “Is there any chance they can be identified from medical records?”

“Unfortunately, no. Hospitals sold off their old X-rays back in the seventies, for their silver content.”

“What’s the point, anyway?” Casey asked. “Like Roy said, there’s nobody to prosecute.”

“The point”-Parkinson’s tone turned frosty-“would be to give these women a proper burial.”

“Does that really matter?”

Draper answered. “It matters. When you think about it, it’s the very least they deserve.”

sixteen

The shaken city was a traffic-snarled mess. It took her an hour to reach Sirk’s house in the Hollywood Hills.

Small but immaculately landscaped, the house lay at the end of a cul-de-sac, overhanging one of the canyons on stilts that looked no stronger than matchsticks.

When she rang the bell, the door opened almost at once.

“Jennifer,” Harrison Sirk said with a slightly bleary smile. Though it was only two o’clock, he seemed to have been drinking. “Good of you to come so promptly.”

“My pleasure.” She extended her hand, but he didn’t take it.

“Sorry, I don’t shake hands. Germs, you know. It’s nothing personal.” Weaving a little, he led her inside. “I’ve always been averse to dirt and disease. Hospitals terrify me. All those sick people-frightful.”

The house was uncomfortably warm, the thermostat dialed high. Cats-at least three of them-slinked among a clutter of modernistic statuary and potted ferns. The heat, the profusion of plants, and the glare through the wide windows made her feel she was in a hothouse.

“And yet you’ve been to crime scenes,” she said.

“Oh, crime scenes don’t trouble me at all. I would rather spend two hours at a homicide scene than two minutes in a doctor’s waiting room. I suppose a psychologist could explain why. But then, you’re a psychologist, aren’t you?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning to diagnose you.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. There are some depths best left unplumbed. I much prefer to remain an enigma, to others and myself.”

He escorted her into his den, its curtains shut against the light. It was even hotter, and there were two more cats. The walls were crowded with framed book covers-his own, naturally-and photos from L.A.’s past.

She settled on a sofa. He offered her a drink. She declined.

“Now what can I do for you?” he asked as he lowered himself into an overstuffed armchair like a king taking his throne. A cocktail glass rested on the adjacent table, ice cubes melting in what was probably scotch.

“To begin with, you can tell me how you knew I have an interest in Jack the Ripper.”

“I could perhaps convince you that I possess psychic powers, but the truth is more mundane. I’m a regular patron of the Purloined Letter Bookshop. I was in there earlier today. As is my wont, I inquired of the proprietor if anyone had purchased one of my books. He told me he’d made a sale to a charming young lady, who also bought a slew of books on Jack the Ripper. Rather indiscreetly, he mentioned that the lady’s companion had promised to broker a meeting with me. And so I put the pieces together, much like Sherlock Holmes, whose methods were equally unremarkable once explained.”

He picked up his drink and swallowed a third of it in a noisy slurp.

“Maura tells me,” he added, “that you’re a consultant to law enforcement agencies. A sort of document examiner cum handwriting analyst cum behavioral profiler.”

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

“Still, a most interesting career path. You dissect the criminal mind. Shine a searchlight into the dark crevasses.”

She couldn’t tell if he was mocking her. “It’s a living.”

“I would imagine it’s your family background that got you interested in such matters.”

“My family?”

“Your father, I mean.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Perhaps I’m mistaken. I’d assumed your father was Aldrich Silence. Your surname is not a very common one-”

“Aldrich Silence was my father.” She leaned forward. “What are you driving at?”

“Oh. It’s nothing. Never mind me.”

“What about my father, Mr. Sirk?”

“Well, I had assumed you knew… Surely you’ve been informed… But then I suppose you might not have been. He was never named as a suspect.”

Her throat was dry. “A suspect in what?”

“This is very awkward.”

“Tell me.”

He took another drink. “There was a series of murders in Venice and the surrounding area in the late 1970s. Women and girls, found mutilated, eviscerated with almost surgical skill. Four in all, as I remember. Back in the day, it was the fashion to append a nickname to a serial killer. This one was the Devil’s Henchman.”

“I’ve heard that name,” she whispered.

“It was taken from a rather undistinguished 1949 B-picture that happened to be playing at the Fox Venice Theatre, the old revival house, when the first murder occurred. The killer was believed to roam the neighborhood on foot. At least, no vehicles were ever witnessed in the vicinity of his crimes. And no one ever got a look at him. He was a faceless figure, a boogeyman haunting the night.”

Like Jack the Ripper, she thought.

“The case attracted considerable notoriety at the time. The police believed the culprit was a white male in his late twenties to mid thirties, mentally ill, with some medical training, who resided in Venice or nearby. A number of suspects were considered.”

“And my father was one of them?”

“I’m afraid so, yes.” He waved a doughy hand. “It was all very preliminary. His involvement never made the news. I know about it only because I researched the subject for a book I considered writing. But I gave it up.”

“Why?”

“Because there was no ending. The Devil’s Henchman was never apprehended, never identified. The case remains unsolved.”

“After my father died…did the killings stop?”

“Actually they had stopped some months before.”

“And there were no more, after his death?”

“No. But that could, of course, be merely a coincidence. There are a great many coincidences in life.” He peered at her over his glass. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

“It’s all right.”

“Given your line of work, I thought you would be aware… It was rather stupid of me, though. The case is decades old, and you would have no reason to know anything about it.”

“I know about it now.”

“Please don’t trouble yourself. There was never any evidence linking Aldrich Silence to the crimes. It was purely a matter of his fitting the profile. And he was far from the only one to do so. In Venice there is never any shortage of…well…”

“Lunatics?”

He flushed. “Perhaps I had better say nothing further. I fear I’ve gotten our meeting off to a most uncomfortable commencement.”

She was thinking of her mother. Had she known? She must have. If the police had come asking about Aldrich, she would have been interviewed. She was the only one who could establish an alibi. If there was an alibi. And if there wasn’t…

Her mother never said anything. Never even hinted at it, not once in all the years after Aldrich’s death.

His death. A suicide. Had the pressure of being a suspect in a murder investigation driven him into the tool shed with a gun in his hand?

Or was it guilt?

“Now tell me, Jennifer-why would a research project involving Venice’s history inspire you to study up on a man who victimized Whitechapel whores twenty years before Venice even existed?”

“I live in a very old house in Venice,” she said slowly, “one that dates back about a hundred years. I’ve found some things hidden in the house that suggest the original owner may have committed crimes. Murders. I know it sounds stupid, but the crimes might be similar to Jack the Ripper’s. And so I thought…”

“That old Jack might have resided at your address, back in the day?”

“I told you it sounds stupid.”

“On the contrary, it’s most intriguing. But what things have you found in the house to set you on the Ripper’s trail?”

She hesitated. “Human remains.”

“Ah. The plot thickens. Females?”

“Apparently.”

“A century old?”

“They may be.”

“Brought to light by Poseidon’s fury, I presume?”

“What?”

“The earthquake, my dear. Poseidon was the god of seismic events.”

“Oh. Yes, it was the quake.”

“So you have forensic evidence of a homicidal maniac at work in Abbot Kinney’s Venice. How Grand Guignol. But as you surely realize, a proclivity for acts of violence against the fairer sex is not unique to our man Jack. Your killer might have been anybody.”

“Well, there are…other possible connections.”

“Pray tell.”

“I’d rather not. At least not right now.”

His fixed smile had taken on the quality of a grimace. She took a certain malicious pleasure in withholding morsels of information from this man’s snapping jaws. She couldn’t entirely escape the suspicion that he’d known very well that the news about her father would throw her off balance.

Sirk produced a dissatisfied sigh that segued into a wheeze. “Very well. I shall contain my curiosity-for the time being. Patience, however, is not among my very short list of virtues.”

She believed him. He was only an obese silver-haired raconteur, but when she looked at him, she saw a shark scenting blood.

“What I’m mainly interested in,” she said, “is any information you might have on murders in the Venice area around 1908 or 1910-that general time frame.”

“That’s easily answered. I have no information at all. As far as I know, there was never any suspicion of a serial killer at work in Venice, or anywhere in the Los Angeles area, at that time.”

“Would you know about it, if there had been?”

“Naturally. It’s my life’s work. I know all the dark corners of this city’s past.”

“Well, then I guess I’ve taken up your time for nothing. Sorry about that-”

“No need for apologies. And no need to rush off, either. My company isn’t so appalling as all that, now, is it?”

“Certainly not,” she lied.

“I may not be able to fill you in on evil doings in turn-of-the-century Venice, but I can answer any questions about old Jack.”

“I have a stack of books that will give me those details.”

“Have you read them?”

“Not yet. I’ve looked at some photos and a timeline, that’s all.”

“Then let me give you a proper introduction to the Ripper. It’s the least I can do, after you’ve come all this way.” He leaned back in his chair, hands folded on his lap. “When you think of Jack the Ripper, what’s the image that comes to your mind?”

“I suppose…a man in black, wearing a top hat, maybe a cape, creeping along some alley in the fog.”

“Very good. A most evocative visualization. And entirely inaccurate. Jack the Ripper wore neither a top hat nor a cape. Such accoutrements would have stood out altogether too obviously in London’s East End, a neighborhood not known for its well-dressed habitues. Most likely he wore a deerstalker hat or perhaps a bowler-what Americans call a derby.”

Sirk himself was American, Jennifer thought, but apparently he didn’t think of himself as one.

“The murders took place in street corners and courtyards, not in alleys. And fog? Not a single one of the Ripper’s canonical murders occurred on a foggy night.”

“Canonical?”

“The ones that are indisputably his. No one can agree on when the Ripper started killing. The conventional wisdom is that he killed five, his last victim being Mary Kelly in November of 1888. But some people aver that Jack’s career continued until as late as 1891. There are even a few fanciful souls-now this will interest you-who claim he relocated to the United States in that year. They credit him with the murder and mutilation of a certain Carrie Brown, an aged and rather down-at-her-heels prostitute in New York City.”

“You don’t buy the idea?”

“It’s a bit of a stretch, I would say. Although if Carrie Brown had been murdered in London in the right time frame, there would be little doubt she was one of the Ripper’s girls. Photos were taken of the scene. Here, I’ll show you.”

He rose, grunting with effort, and searched a crowded bookcase until he found a large hardbound volume. He flipped it open to the photo section and thrust the book at her.

There were two grainy photographs, both taken in a cheap hotel room. One glance at the pictures showed why some people pegged the New York murder as the Ripper’s work. It was the same butchery seen in Mary Kelly’s bedroom. Carrie Brown lay in a tangle of her own clothes pulled up over her hips, her limbs in disarray. She had been opened up and hollowed out.

She stared at the photos while Sirk resumed his seat. “The Devil’s Henchman mutilated his victims too,” she said finally.

Sirk lifted a silvery brow. “Why, yes.”

“Like this?”

“There are only so many ways to disembowel a woman, I’m afraid. Just as there are only so many ways to make love to her.” His face blossomed in a sickly leer. “What else do you know about old Saucy Jacky?”

“He wrote letters to the police. Taunted them.”

“Not necessarily. Yes, the police received numerous letters purportedly from the killer, but the great majority of them-quite possibly all of them-were hoaxes. The authorities had made the mistake of printing up some of the earlier letters as broadsheets and distributing them around the city. This inspired people to try their hand at the communications. It became a fad.”

“He sent Catharine Eddowes’ kidney to somebody.”

“Half a kidney was posted to the chairman of an ad hoc vigilance committee. It may have been Kate Eddowes’ kidney, or only another hoax, perhaps perpetrated by a fun-loving medical student. People had a robust sense of humor in those days.”

If the diary could be trusted, the kidney was no hoax. “But he did take some of his victims’ organs.”

“Yes, on occasion.”

“So he must have used the alleys to escape, at least. He could hardly stroll down a major thoroughfare covered in blood.”

“Jack would not have been covered in blood. He would asphyxiate the woman before he began to cut. When the heart stops beating, blood stops pumping. Spatter would have been minimal. And the organs he took were easily concealed in a watertight tobacco pouch, a common appurtenance of the period.”

“If he’d been stopped and searched-”

“Most likely he would not have been stopped, because he was not the sort of man the constabulary was on the lookout for. He may have been too respectable, too genteel. It was widely assumed that the killer was an obvious degenerate, a drooling maniac. And the upper classes maintained that men of a certain station did not patronize whores.”

“They couldn’t have really believed that.”

“Perhaps not, but they intended to be seen as believing it. Antipathy toward the ’unfortunates,’ as they were dubbed, was a common feature of Victorian thinking. Quite a few men held that women were congenitally inferior, the ebb and flow of the menstrual tide rendering them slaves to emotion. If this was true of the average middle-class female, it was doubly true of those who sold their bodies for coins.”

“Then maybe the authorities should have made some effort to get them off the streets,” Jennifer said with a touch of bitterness.

“And put them where? In the workhouses, which were no better than prisons? Or perhaps in the prisons themselves? Some ended up there. Though prostitution was not illegal, loitering for purposes of prostitution was illegal. It would take a keen legal mind indeed to draw this distinction, but the jurors of the period were apparently up to the task.”

“It wasn’t a good time to be a woman, I guess.”

“But then, it so rarely is.” Sirk heaved himself upright. “If you don’t mind, I find that all this talk has put me in need of additional refreshment. You’re sure you don’t want anything?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

She tried not to think about her father while Sirk was out of the room. Instead she got up and examined the photos on the wall. There was a street scene of speakeasies and gambling joints, captioned “Culver City, the Heart of Screenland.” A reproduction of a 1920 newspaper announcing the suicide of Olive Thomas, a silent movie star. A woman in a fur coat at the wheel of a luxury automobile. An obese man, grinning hugely.

Sirk returned with another brimming glass of scotch.

“Just admiring your collection,” she said.

“My museum of horrors?” He raised the glass to his lips. “Delightful, aren’t they?”

She pointed toward the fat man. “Who was he?”

“Dear, dear, you don’t recognize Fatty Arbuckle? One of silent cinema’s biggest stars-biggest in all respects, not least his formidable girth. When he procured a three-million-dollar contract, he took his entourage to San Francisco for an orgiastic celebration, during which he enjoyed violent coitus with a young starlet, Virginia Rappe, whose last name, minus one p, proved tragically prescient. Miss Rappe died of internal injuries. It transpired that Fatty’s prodigious girth had crushed her internal organs. There were darker rumors, however, one of them being that it was not Fatty’s weight that did her in, but his use of a Coca-Cola bottle as a makeshift dildo. Which, you know, gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘product placement.’”

He produced a mellow chortle. She tried not to show her distaste as she took her seat.

“I have a theory about Fatty,” Sirk added, still standing. “I believe he implanted in the public psyche the archetype of the jovial fat man with a sinister side. Thus paving the way for Sidney Greenstreet, Alfred Hitchcock, and, not to make invidious comparisons, myself.”

He surprised her by sitting on the sofa next to her.

“I hope you don’t mind. That armchair is far less comfortable than it looks. It seems to play havoc with my gout.”

She wasn’t thrilled to have him seated beside her. But she couldn’t object, even if the house did seem suddenly hotter than before. From up close, she could hear his stertorous breathing.

“Here are some other things you know about Jack the Ripper that are not true. He was a surgeon. He was a sadist. He was the first serial killer in history. He was the only serial killer in London at that time. He preyed on young, pretty women who had their whole lives ahead of them.”

“And the truth is?”

“He showed no particular surgical skill. His facility with the knife was no more than one might expect from a competent butcher. Did you know that an experienced slaughterman can gut a cow in under four minutes? Butchers and slaughtermen were among the authorities’ top suspects. Of course, Jack may simply have purchased a copy of Gray’s Anatomy. The book was in print by 1888.”

“You implied he wasn’t a sadist.”

“He didn’t make his victims suffer. There’s no reason to suppose he showed the slightest interest in them while they were alive. Most likely, he never engaged them in conversation, never spoke to them face-to-face. He crept up from behind, and they never even got a look at him. Quite possibly no one got a look at him. The few eyewitness descriptions are contradictory and of doubtful merit.”

“If he wasn’t a sadist, why did he kill them?”

“For the postmortem evisceration, of course. He choked the woman to death, cut her throat for good measure, and proceeded to what really interested him. He would take a woman apart, piece by piece, the way a curious child might take apart a clockwork mechanism to see what makes it tick.”

Jennifer wasn’t sure she liked the analogy. It seemed much too wholesome.

“In this respect,” Sirk added, “he differed from most other serial killers who courted the newspapers’ affections, then and since. And of course there were serial killers before Jack-think of the notorious Burke and Hare-and serial killers operating concurrently with him, notably the mysterious Torso Murderer. Merry old England, you know.”

“And the victims?”

“What about them?” Sirk asked, seeming lost for the first time.

“You said they weren’t young or pretty.”

“Oh, quite right. Well, by all accounts Mary Kelly had been pretty enough before Jack’s knife did its work. The others, however, had lived on the street for years, overindulging in drink and debauchery, contracting a variety of diseases, suffering from malnutrition, receiving no medical or dental care. None of them would be, let us say, cover model material for Modern Bride. Their average age was about forty-five-and this in a district of London where life expectancy was only twenty-nine.”

His dismissive tone of voice rankled her. “They were people, though,” Jennifer said. “Their lives mattered.”

“Did they? Perhaps to themselves they mattered. Or perhaps not. It’s doubtful that their continued existence was an issue of poignant concern to anyone else. One might say Jack did those hags a favor. Their names would have been long forgotten had it not been for his kindly dispensations. He made them immortal.”

“I’m beginning to think you’re not a very nice person, Mr. Sirk.”

“Has it taken you this long? I had imagined you would be quicker on the uptake.”

Jennifer was tired of this man. He was sybaritic, odious, amoral. He reminded her of those Roman patricians who would vomit up each course of a banquet before starting on the next. She wanted to be done with him.

“What else can you tell me about Jack the Ripper?” she asked evenly.

“Oh dear, what can’t I tell you? Were I to relate the complete history, we should be here long into the night-and somehow I doubt you fancy the prospect of spending the night with me. So let me summarize.”

He steepled his hands.

“Between August and November of 1888, a serial killer targeted prostitutes in the poorest part of London, the East End, home to nine hundred thousand souls, many of them immigrants, ten percent of them homeless, all of them indigent. Many were children, known colorfully as street Arabs. More than half the children born in the East End died before age five. The rest found work in sweatshops and factories or learned to shift for themselves, shoplifting and pick-pocketing. It was all very Oliver Twist.

“Despite multiplicitous conspiracy theories, most of the evidence suggests that Jack, like Oswald, acted alone. Prior to being immortalized as the Ripper, he was variously known as the Whitechapel Murderer, the Whitechapel Demon, the Whitechapel Fiend, and Leather Apron, this last appellation inspired by the discovery of a butcher’s apron near one of the bodies. The apron in question, however, was owned by a local tradesmen and was not connected with the crime. The killings took place within an area of only one square mile, yet managed to overlap two police jurisdictions-that of Scotland Yard, known officially as the Metropolitan Police, and that of the City of London. Cooperation between the two departments was strained. The victims were killed on weekends and holidays, perhaps indicating that the killer held down a regular job.”

Like a schoolteacher, Jennifer thought.

“Although there was little sympathy for the victims while they lived, the rash of mutilated bodies did catch the public’s attention. Every inquest ended with the same maddening refrain: ‘willful murder by some person or persons unknown.’ The sheer fact that the killer kept getting away with it drove the populace into a frenzy. None of the foregoing is of great interest, though.”

“Isn’t it?” She had found it interesting enough.

“What is of interest,” he said with a languid wave, “are the oddities of the case that make for clever conversation. For instance”-his hand came to rest on the sofa, occupying the space between them, uncomfortably close to her bare leg-“there’s Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. He was living at the Royal London Hospital in the East End, at the very time when Jack the Ripper was on the prowl. Some people even thought he was Jack. Of course, poor Merrick was in no condition to mount violent attacks on women, nor was he likely to blend into the crowd.” His hand twitched nearer. “Then there’s the business of the sneakers.”

“Sneakers?” She tried not to look at his pale, fleshy fingers.

“The first sneakers were improvised by the police in an effort to apprehend the Ripper. Their leather boots announced their approach, so they cut up bicycle tires and nailed the rubber strips to the soles of their boots. The case inspired innovations of other sorts. There were amateurish attempts at psychological profiling. One theory was that Jack had been inspired by a play about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which had recently opened in London.”

“Mr. Mansfield’s play,” Jennifer said, hardly realizing she’d spoken aloud.

Sirk gave her a quizzical look. “Now, how is it that you would happen to have that obscure item of information at your disposal?”

She hadn’t meant to quote the diary. “It’s just something that came up.”

“Did it?” He watched her for a long moment. “You’re aptly named, Miss Silence. You do like to keep mum. Well, you’re right. The actor Richard Mansfield brought a dramatization of Robert Louis Stevenson’s story to the Lyceum Theatre. Many people ventured the opinion that the play had warped the killer’s mind. The stage manager of the Lyceum, by the way, was an Irishman named Bram Stoker, who later wrote Dracula. Was Stoker inspired by Jack the Ripper’s deeds? Perhaps he was Jack the Ripper himself.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“It’s no more far-fetched then some of the other candidates. Lewis Carroll, Arthur Conan Doyle, the royal physician Sir William Gull, the Duke of Clarence, the seer Madame Blavatsky, a mad midwife, a Russian eunuch, and an escaped orangutan reenacting Poe’s ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ have been among the suspects proposed.”

“Who do you think it was?”

“In my opinion, Jack the Ripper was a mere nobody, some disappointingly run-of-the-mill psychopath who would be altogether forgotten had it not been for his nickname-a nickname that quite possibly was the invention of a letter-writing hoaxer. Really, as multiple murderers go, he is quite routine.”

His hand was now up against her leg. She glanced down at it, then caught him watching her. His expression was hard to read, some mixture of amusement and need.

“Well,” she said briskly, rising from the sofa, “you’ve certainly brought him to life for me. Thanks for your time. I’d better be going now.”

Disappointment crossed Sirk’s face. “So soon?”

It couldn’t be soon enough. “Afraid so.”

He rose. “Please call if you need further assistance. Or if you choose to unburden yourself of your secrets.”

“I will.”

He smiled suddenly. “You won’t solve it, you know.”

“What?”

“The Ripper case. It’s a set of Russian dolls. Those peculiar dolls that nest, one inside the other. The whole matter seems so simple when you first look at it, but as you take it apart, you find another doll, and another. Yet there is an irresistible compulsion to keep working on it. To pull one more thread, if I may mix my metaphors, in the hope that the entire mystery will magically unravel.”

“Maybe someday it will.”

“I very much doubt it.” His gaze was far away. “Some years ago there was a series of novelty books called Whatever Became Of. They would tell you what had happened to the actor who played Sam in Casablanca or the gypsy woman in The Wolf Man. Which was all very interesting, but it was never the question I wished to have answered.”

He looked at her and smiled again, almost fondly.

“Whatever became of Jack the Ripper? Now there’s a mystery worth solving. Whatever became of dear old Jack?”

1896

Chicago was a fine place. Near the stockyards the reek of slaughtered hogs rose like a miasma in the congested air. It was a city of butchers, where Hare felt very much at home.

This evening he dined alone, as was his custom, in his room at the Lexington Hotel. He had taken up semipermanent residence at the Lexington shortly after it opened in ’92. He rented his room by the month, and found it most satisfactory. From his window he could gaze down on the ceaseless flow of traffic on the wide thoroughfare. Everyone was on the move, pursuing wealth with the fanatical ardor that medieval saints had brought to the pursuit of grace. It was all so very American.

He had become something of an American himself. The constant throbbing beat of the city had quickened something in him, made him a new man, a practical man on the rise in the great world of business. His drab and studious ways seemed far behind him now, as distant as the swing of the bat on the cricket field. He had nearly forgotten his former life.

But he did not mean to be forgotten by those he had left behind.

Hare dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, savored another bite of the excellent roast pheasant, and wondered what the police in London thought of his latest letter.

He had sent only a handful of previous communications under his nom de plume. In his first missive, mailed in the heady days of 1888, he merely wished to introduce himself to his public. He posted the letter to the Central News Agency, because he was afraid the police would hush it up if it went to them directly. It was a bit of a lark. He played loose with grammar and punctuation, preferring to pass as a less educated man. It would hardly do to have the authorities hunting a schoolmaster.

Dear Boss,

I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet… I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn’t you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work then give it out straight. My knife’s so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck.

Yours truly

Jack the Ripper

Don’t mind me giving the trade name

Jack the Ripper-a fine sobriquet, he had always thought. Jack was a name long associated with the criminal class, most famously with the legendary Springheeled Jack, the terror of Britain in the 1830s. And the Ripper-because he ripped up his victims, of course, but ripper was also street argot for a well-dressed gentlemen, a man about town. The name blended violence and mystery, and was spiced with humor. He really was most fond of it.

When his letter did not appear in print directly, he followed up with a postcard that further established his bona fides.

I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip. You’ll hear about saucy Jacky’s work tomorrow. Double event this time. Number one squealed a bit. Couldn’t finish straight off. Had not time to get ears for police. Thanks for keeping back last letter till I got to work again-Jack the Ripper

He’d been pleased with that one. The nickname “saucy Jacky” had come to him from Shakespeare’s sonnets-sonnet 128, if he was not mistaken: Since saucy jacks so happy are in this… A marvelous touch, but unappreciated. To his knowledge no one had picked up the reference.

That message, at least, did the trick. The two communiques became famous throughout England-even throughout the world.

Except for his regrettable decision, taken while inebriated, to post the better part of Eddowes’s kidney to Mr. Lusk, he had not felt the impulse to write again until a year later, when the whore Alice McKenzie fell to his knife. By that time the police were saying old Jack was no longer at his game, and Alice was the work of some other “fiend.” This was most unfair. A man wanted credit for his work.

DEAR BOSS,

I am very sorry I have given you all the trouble I have, but my thirst for blood must be satisfied, when I have slaughtered 6 more I shall give myself up to your dogs, before this month is gone you will hear of me again, this time it shall be Kings Cross where a few of the whores want thinning. Boss your dogs are too hot for me at Whitechapel or I should have done the rest there…

He had intended never to write again. The business had become altogether too risky. Innovations were in the wind. People spoke of detecting a man’s finger marks on items he’d touched and matching them to the man himself; it was claimed no two men’s digits bore the same pattern of loops and whorls. And to think he had intentionally stamped his bloody thumb print on the postcard sent in 1888… The card must still be on file in the police office, and if he were ever apprehended, some enterprising detective might think of making a comparison.

In spite of his misgivings, he did send another message. Honor required it. In September of ’89 a woman’s torso turned up on Pinchin Street, and some fool suggested that Jack the Ripper did the deed. Of course it was not his work at all. Most likely the bitch fell prey to the criminal gangs that sought to control the prostitution trade. Determined to escape blame for such an inartistic piece of work, he scribbled a quick note in pencil on a postcard and dropped it in the nearest pillar-box, addressed to the Evening News and Post.

Dear Boss

The Ripper scare this morning is an infernal scandal on me you know. I never do my ripping in that fashion but give them a chance to catch me ha ha I’d show you again soon won’t be long…

His last victim in London was nearly his undoing. By sheer bad luck a constable came plodding by while the blood was fresh. Then there was the business with Vole and the police, and he made his desperate flight to New York City.

He had expected never to see London again. But his prospering business enterprises had widened his circle of friends and opened up many new opportunities. It was in the pursuit of one such venture that he had made a brief return to England within the past two months.

Naturally he used his “American” name, as he thought of it. And just as naturally, he meant to combine business with pleasure. He meant to see Kitty again.

And he brought his knife.

Tracking her down was more difficult than he anticipated. She was long gone from her lodgings, and now married. But he sniffed out her hiding place, a cottage in a respectable neighborhood, with a fenced-in garden blooming with roses.

Through the decorative loopholes in the garden gate he spied on her. She wore a bonnet and a pale blue dress, and she was singing songs to a child, a girl of two or three who giggled riotously on any pretext.

None of this was what he had expected. He felt the passion die in him. She was not the girl he remembered. She meant nothing to him now, either for good or ill.

He did not enter the garden, nor did he return at night.

But before leaving for the States, he did post two quick notes. The first was addressed to Kitty's husband.

Sir,

This is to inform you that your loving life is a dirty whore. Make enquiries of her past and you shall see.

Yours respectfully,

A Friend

The second was posted directly to the police. Good old Abberline had retired years ago, sad to say, and Sir Charles Warren, the hapless commissioner, was long gone, but Swanson perhaps remained in the game, and a few others.

Dear Boss,

You will be surprised to find that this comes from yours of old Jack-the-Ripper. Ha. Ha. If my old friend Mr Warren is dead you can read it. You might remember me if you try and think a little Ha Ha. The last job was a bad one and no mistake nearly buckled, and meant it to be the best of the lot curse it, Ha Ha. Im alive yet and you’ll soon find it out. I mean to go on again when I get the chance. Wont it be nice dear old Boss to have the good old times once again. You never caught me and you never will. Ha Ha

You police are a smart lot, the lot of you couldnt catch one man Where have I been Dear Boss youd like to know. Abroad, if you would like to know, and just come back…

And so on in similar fashion. It was signed with a flourish:

Yours truly

Jack-the-Ripper

That was three weeks ago. By now the letter would have been received and read and studied and worried over. It would have made the rounds, he thought, passing from hand to hand, circulating among all the inspectors still on the force who remembered the autumn of ’88.

Finishing his meal, Hare reclined in his chair with a glass of cognac. A guileless smile rode his lips. He believed, quite sincerely, that the police had been glad to get his note.

It was always pleasant to hear from an old friend.

Gazing out the window as the street lights winked on, he wondered how much longer he would remain in Chicago. In recent months he had felt something stir in him, a restlessness. The West called out, with its deserts and mountains and, at the end of it all, the serene Pacific. Soon, he thought, he would move on.

Though he would leave Chicago, he would not forget his debt to the city that gave him a fresh start. And Chicago had been good for him in another way. It opened his eyes to a new and better approach to his secret trade. He had Herman Mudgett to thank for that.

Mudgett, more widely known as H. H. Holmes, came to Chicago in the ’80s, procuring a chemist’s shop by the expedient method of murdering its owner. In 1892 he completed construction of the World’s Fair Hotel, a building later known as the Murder Castle. To all appearances an ordinary hostelry, it was in fact a “chamber of horrors” and a “charnel house,” as the excited press would observe. The hotel contained soundproofed rooms in which Holmes’s victims could be gassed to death, and torture racks, and greased chutes for the conveyance of bodies, and a copious cellar with furnaces and lime pits for their disposal.

The facility was open for business during the Great Exposition of ’93. Two dozen tourists, mostly females, perished in Mr. Holmes’s hotel.

Owing to plain bad luck, Holmes was arrested on other charges in ’94, while traveling on the East Coast. Investigation into his background widened the scope of his crimes. Convicted after a five-day trial in Philadelphia, he was hanged last May.

The publicity afforded Holmes rankled Hare just a bit. He was particularly vexed by the prosecutor’s long-winded closing argument, in which he dubbed Holmes “the most dangerous man in the world.” Hare resented that title. It was one he meant to reserve for himself.

Nevertheless, he was grateful to Mr. Mudgett, a.k.a. Dr. Holmes, for having stimulated a most rewarding train of thought.

It was the cellar, of course. The cellar, which Holmes had equipped with a dissecting table and surgical instruments. The bothersome human remains had been eliminated with masterful efficiency. Had Holmes left his victims on the street, the city would have been in an uproar. As it was, he operated unsuspected.

In Chicago and surrounding towns, Hare indulged his habits occasionally, though with less feverish compulsion than before. Always he chose his victims circumspectly-human trash whose disappearance would never make the papers. He concealed the bodies in deep woods, plentiful in this land, or in lakes or caves. He did not wish to leave a trail to follow.

Such outings were rare. He had entered a quiet phase. Discretion was best. And as long as he remained at the Lexington, he could hardly use his home as a killing ground.

Someday, however, he would have a house of his own. A house with a cellar.

He would be sure of that.

seventeen

When she got back home, the bones were still there, and so was the diary, and so was yesterday’s threatening note.

Everything Sirk told her dovetailed with the diarist’s account. She checked one of her Ripper books and found the murder of Carrie Brown covered in detail. It happened on April 23, 1891, in the East River Hotel. The murder of Frances Coles in London took place only two months before.

Hare wrote that he would take a steamship to the United States. The hotel was near the docks. He might have killed Carrie Brown on his first night in his new country.

The American connection meant Edward Hare quite possibly was Jack the Ripper. She couldn’t prove it, but she had no grounds to dispute it. For now, at least, she would have to accept it as true.

Sometime after his arrival, Hare headed west, somehow ending up in California. He could have gone on killing for years, under his new identity. Was it Graham Silence? All the evidence said yes.

If Hare was her ancestor, he must have passed down his insanity. To her father. To her brother.

And if her father had been the Devil’s Henchman-if, if, if-then Hare’s homicidal impulses had been passed down, as well.

To Richard also?

Where did he go at night?

There were unsolved crimes in Venice, of course. But as far as she knew, there was no pattern to suggest a serial killer. Unless the pattern was disguised. She remembered Draper saying that a crafty killer could vary his M.O., alter the victim profile, confuse the authorities. He was talking about 1908, but the same could be true today. Maybe there was a pattern, but no one was looking for it.

She went online and searched for “Venice, California” plus “homicide.” Too many hits.

One of the first items listed was a press release put out by Sandra Price. Jennifer had heard of her. She was a community activist who was always staging rallies and town meetings to demand more police resources. The local cops thought she was a pain in the ass. Maura disliked her for putting a negative spin on Venice and making it harder to move real estate. That’s the old Venice, Maura liked to say. Gangbangers and druggies-1990s stuff, off-message for today.

But Sandra Price didn’t care who she pissed off or what the official message was supposed to be. She only wanted results. If anyone would have the details on unsolved crimes in this locale, she would.

The press release was linked to the homepage of C.A.S.T., Citizens Against Street Crime. Founder and director: Sandra Price. A phone number was provided. Jennifer called it. A receptionist answered.

“Sandra Price, please,” Jennifer said.

“That’s me.”

Maybe community action groups didn’t have receptionists.

She hadn’t expected to get right through. Now she had to improvise.

“Sandra, my name is Jennifer Silence. I’m a psychologist in Venice who works as a consultant to the LAPD. I’m doing some background work”-that ought to be vague enough-“on local crimes that haven’t been cleared yet. I know that’s an area of interest to you.”

“Yeah, you could say that.” Sandra produced a throaty chuckle.

“I was wondering if we could get together and review the outstanding cases.”

“Review, huh? You’re a police consultant, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you review the cases with your cop buddies?”

“This is something I’m handling on my own.”

“Uh-huh. So you’re playing Nancy Drew, huh?”

“I’m just trying to collect some facts…”

“You’re shining me on, is what you’re doing. Look, I got enough on my plate without fielding crank calls.”

“This isn’t-”

Dial tone. Sandra had hung up.

Well, that could have gone better. She frowned at the phone for a moment, then hit redial. After two rings she heard Sandra’s raspy hello.

“Me again.”

“I told you-”

“Here’s the thing. I really am a consultant to the police, but I’ve come across something that’s kind of…sensitive. Something I don’t want to bring to their attention yet, because it involves a person who’s close to me, and who may be-in fact I hope he is-completely innocent. You with me so far?”

“I’m still on the phone, aren’t I?”

“Good. So I need more information before I can make any decisions on what to do. And I thought no one outside the police department knows more about unsolved local crimes than you.”

“Now you’re just flattering me.”

“Is it working?”

“A little. I don’t get flattered too often.”

“I’d like to sit down with you for a half hour and get the lowdown on unsolved crimes in this area. Specifically, violent crimes.”

“How violent?”

“Assault. Homicide.” She thought of the bodies in the cellar. “And disappearances.”

“Sounds like you’re working on quite a theory.”

“It could be nothing. Of course, if you’re too busy, I can track down the info another way. Online or in back issues of the newspaper-”

“Don’t waste your time. The news stories never go into detail, and half of what they do report is wrong. And if it’s assaults and disappearances you’re after, some of them didn’t even make the news.”

“Really?”

“This isn’t Westwood, honey. A purse snatching there gets live satellite coverage. Dead body in Dogtown gets a stringer from the L.A. Times, who may or may not get a one-paragraph item on page B14.”

The reference to Richard’s neighborhood made her nervous. “Is that where these crimes are concentrated? Dogtown?”

“Dogtown’s where everything is concentrated.” A sigh. “Look, I can help you out. But I’ve got a little thing I have to do first. We’re holding a neighborhood meeting tonight at the Venice High School gym. Should last from six to seven. After that, I’m free. What do you say you meet me at the gym after the meeting, and we’ll take it from there?”

“Will do.”

“Okey-doke. By the way, you been to one of our community meetings?”

“Not recently.”

“Be warned. It’s a free-for-all. I’m just hoping Lady Godiva doesn’t attend.”

“Who?”

But Sandra had already ended the call.

She returned to her computer and checked the Ripperwalk site. She found three responses on the message thread she’d started.

Somebody with the screen name downinthedumps had posted, Just what we need, another suspect. Why does every newbie feel the urge to waste our time with a pet theory?

She wondered how he knew she was a newbie, until she noticed that her online identity, Jeneratrix, was credited with a grand total of one post.

The second respondent, ominously named AxMan, tried for humor. Edward Hare? He changed his name to Edward Scissorhands. A real cut-up. Could be our guy.

“Dork,” Jennifer muttered.

The third was a pedant named MSturbridgeMD. Are you by any chance thinking of William (not Edward) Hare, who partnered with William Burke? Burke and Hare were notorious body snatchers, but they predated the Ripper case by 60 years.

At least the condescending MSturbridgeMD had taken her seriously. There were no other replies.

It appeared her Web inquiry was going nowhere. Maybe no one had ever heard of Edward Hare. Which meant no one had ever suspected him of being the Ripper. No one in more than a hundred years.

Until now.

eighteen

Jennifer was running late. She’d spent too much time online hunting down details on the Devil’s Henchman. The Web archives of the L.A. Times didn’t go back that far, and there was little information elsewhere. One site had a brief review of the crimes, specifying the number of victims-four, all female-and the condition of the bodies. Reading the summary, she thought of Mary Kelly and Carrie Brown.

On her way to the high school, she stopped at Richard’s apartment. He wasn’t there. On the stairs she ran into the manager, who informed her that her brother hadn’t been seen all day. “Good fuckin’ riddance. And he still hasn’t paid his rent, okay?”

She was starting to fear he had disappeared. He might have been scared off by her visit yesterday, when she told him there was damage to the cellar. Of course she’d said nothing about the bodies, and she hadn’t even known about the diary at the time.

But he might have known. If the family papers mentioned the crypt and the diary, Richard might have guessed that the earthquake would open up the weakest part of the cellar wall, the rebuilt section, exposing the bones and the book. He’d even mentioned a body in the cellar, though she had chalked it up to coincidence.

She wasn’t sure it was a coincidence anymore.

At six-thirty she arrived at the Venice High School gym. The meeting had been in progress for a half hour. She took a seat near the door.

More than a hundred people were seated in the bleachers. On a low, wheeled dais parked in the middle of the basketball court, a stout black woman who was Sandra Price paced and gesticulated. Her voice was loud enough to fill the hall without amplification.

“We are talking three homicides in the last eighteen months, people. Three cases still outstanding. No suspects, no persons of interest. Now I’m asking you, if there were three murders in Bel Air or Pacific Palisades, and they were still unsolved after all this time, don’t you think you’d be hearing about it?”

The audience erupted in whoops and yells. A chorus of churchgoers released a volley of amens.

Many attendees were teens, wearing gangsta garb, their faces sullen and hostile. The older people looked like aging hippies, with long gray hair, granny glasses and Che Guevara T-shirts. The sickly sweet aroma of pot wafted down from the higher tiers. At the far end of the bleachers, one solitary figure in a hooded sweatshirt sat silently, rocking back and forth.

“You know we would.” Sandra’s gaze swept the stands. “It would be on the local news, on talk radio, in the paper-everywhere. And the police would be doing something about it. But when it’s Dogtown or Skate Town or Ghost Town, no one cares. Everyone looks the other way. It’s someone else’s problem. The police don’t allocate the resources. They don’t prioritize us. They don’t give us what we need.”

Heads bobbed in agreement. Applause popped like firecrackers. Above the dais big flying bugs whirled among the lights.

“We had an earthquake and it was on the news night and day, every channel. You know how many people died? Zero. Not one single person. But when people are getting murdered around here, it doesn’t make the news…”

Behind her, Jennifer heard a husky baritone say quietly, “Check her out.”

“Tight little ass. But I can’t see her face. Could be a skank.”

“So? Do her doggy style. If she be fugly, you ain’t gotta look.”

With a start she realized they were talking about her. She flashed on a memory of San Francisco-the rainswept streets, the dark underpass, the faceless stranger throwing her down-

Slowly she crossed her legs.

“See that, bro? She’s covering up. She don’t want you poking around in her snatch.”

The two of them laughed.

“So that’s where we are, people.” Sandra was winding up a long harangue. “Too poor to get protection, too middle-class to attract any media attention.”

On cue, a bored photographer clicked off a few flash photos. He seemed to be the only member of the press in attendance.

“We’re not as sexy as Rampart or South-Central, and away from the canal district we’re sure as hell not as affluent as Westwood and Los Feliz.”

One of the creeps behind her started touching Jennifer’s hair. She jerked her head away.

“We get lost in the shuffle. And that’s why we need to get together as a community and take action, put pressure on the authorities, make our voices heard.”

She stopped, giving the audience a chance to be heard right now. More amens blew through the room. A tall man in gray dreadlocks raised a fist and yelled, “Right on!” The sweatshirted figure rocked faster.

Someone was touching Jennifer’s hair again. She whirled to face him. “Quit it, asshole,” she hissed.

The guy and his friend couldn’t be older than seventeen. They laughed at her-stupid, giggly laughter-but at least the hand was withdrawn.

“All right, then. Now I know we want to be fair and balanced, as a certain right-wing news operation says”-boos from the crowd-“so I’ve invited representatives of the LAPD’s Pacific Area station to address these issues. Two officers have kindly consented to join us. Sergeant Casey Wilkes and Detective Roy Draper, please come on down and face the music.”

She said it with a humorous flourish that drew a few halfhearted chuckles, sounding like dry coughs. The rest of the crowd was unnervingly quiet.

Jennifer’s own relief surprised her. It felt good to have allies in the room.

Casey and Draper stood up from the front row of bleachers and made their way to the stage. From her vantage point she hadn’t seen them, but it made sense that they would be here. Casey, as watch commander, often pulled public-relations duty. And Draper was a homicide cop.

She wished the crowd hadn’t fallen so silent, though.

Casey, in uniform, was first to speak. He observed that police resources were stretched thin all over, which was why residents of affluent communities like Bel Air typically hired private security patrols.

“We ain’t rich enough for rent-a-cops, so we’re outta luck?” The shout came from one of the two guys directly behind her.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Casey answered.

“It’s what you’re thinkin’, man.”

“You cops don’t give a shit about us,” his friend chimed in. “You don’t even live in the neighborhood.”

Someone from the top row called out, “They live in Simi Valley with all the other fascists!”

“How ’bout it, Porky,” yelled the first guy, the one who’d touched her hair, “you live in these parts?”

His friend echoed the question. “Yeah, Porky, what say you? Huh? What say you?”

The word “Porky” excited the other malcontents scattered throughout the audience. They started to chant the word. Casey shifted his weight, his face reddening.

“Porky… Porky… Porky…”

The hippies were getting into it, too. For them it would always be 1968.

Sandra waved her arms as if semaphoring. “Let the officer speak.” Her plea quieted the crowd for the moment.

Casey cited the department’s COMPSTAT figures to explain that violent crime rates had actually declined in Pacific Area. A woman with a reedy voice shrieked that the cops were cooking the books. She’d seen an article about it in the L.A. Reader.

“No one is fudging any numbers,” Casey said. “Our area commanders are just as concerned about safety as you are. They’ve seen a significant, ongoing downtrend in crimes across the board, especially violent crimes-”

The pair behind Jennifer started stamping on the bleachers.

“No way, man, my nephew was shot just last week!”

“Cops want us shot! More of us get killed, easier it is for white folks to move in and take over!”

“What d’ya say ’bout that, Porky?”

“Porky… Porky… Porky…”

Casey gave up and yielded the floor to Draper, who didn’t look happy about it.

Draper was smart enough not to compete with the crowd. He stood facing them in cold silence until the commotion died away. In the unflattering overhead light his face looked more sallow than usual, his eyes lost in dark hollows. He seemed to unman the noisier elements of the audience.

“Sandra Price is right,” he began, speaking softly enough that people were obliged to stay quiet if they wanted to hear. “There are three unsolved homicides in this division. The most recent was on Centinela Avenue in Mar Vista. That one happened on Monday night.”

He was talking about the Diaz killing. Jennifer thought of the bloated tongue, the bloodshot eyes.

“The other two occurred seven months and eighteen months ago, respectively. We believe they were so-called stranger homicides, meaning the victims didn’t know their assailants. Those are the most difficult cases to clear. In the same time period we’ve had three other homicides in Pacific Area, and solved them all. We-”

“You didn’t solve nothing!” screamed someone in the top row. “You rigged them scenes. You put cases on them people!”

“You framed those brothers!” another man shouted.

Instantly the kids behind Jennifer were on their feet, shouting, “Frame, frame, frame!” They stamped on the bench where she was seated, their heavy sneakers slamming down on both sides of her. “Frame, frame, frame!”

Chaos rippled through the stands. Other chants broke out, a babble of slogans competing with each other. The man in gray dreadlocks repeated his war cry: “Right on!” The sweatshirted figure swayed frantically, clutching his knees.

Jennifer eyed the exit, estimating her distance to the door. She wasn’t sure she dared leave. The men behind her might follow. She could be safer in here…unless a riot broke out…

Above the hubbub rose a long earsplitting shriek: “An-ar-chy!!!”

The shrieker was a young woman strategically positioned in the middle row, directly opposite the dais, who rose to her feet and unzipped her nylon jacket. She wore nothing underneath. Her bare breasts, several sizes too large for her, sprang into view. She shrugged off the jacket, let it fall, and stood topless, arms raised. “An-ar-chy! An-ar-chy!!!”

The crowd burst into whistles and hoots. The photographer, no longer bored, snapped off a rapid series of shots.

Lady Godiva had made the scene.

Draper and Casey exchanged a glance, shrugged, and walked off the dais and out of the room with as much dignity as possible. As Casey passed Jennifer’s seat, he nodded to her almost imperceptibly. Draper didn’t look her way at all. Then they were out the door, pursued by the topless anarchist’s screams.

Jennifer knew why they hadn’t openly acknowledged her. In this crowd it wasn’t safe to be pegged as a friend of the police.

With the enemy no longer in the building, the protesters lost their enthusiasm. Sandra Price had given up trying to speak. She looked sad and disgusted.

Jennifer felt likewise. And for the first time in a long while, she didn’t feel good about living in Venice.

nineteen

The restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall Tex-Mex dive a few blocks from the high school. Sandra must have chosen it solely for its proximity. Certainly it wasn’t the atmosphere, which consisted of drunken men playing pool while mariachi music blared through tinny ceiling speakers.

Jennifer wasn’t complaining. She’d expected Sandra to beg off their meeting after the debacle in the gym. But the woman was resilient. She dismissed her disappointment with a shrug. “Some nights are asshole nights. Goes with the territory.”

It was her only comment about the evening until she and Jennifer were seated at a corner table, dipping blue corn chips into a bowl of salsa.

“What a piss-poor excuse for a rally,” Sandra said, contemplating the undipped chip in her hand as if it were a tarot card. “Piss-fucking-poor.”

“It might not have been so bad without the exhibitionist,” Jennifer offered.

“Hell, no. She saved the day. Served as a release valve for the tension. I’m honestly grateful to her.”

“You expected her to show up, I guess.”

“Yeah, she’s always there. I’ve probably seen her titties more times than her boyfriend has. They’re real, too.”

“How would you know?”

“I asked her once. She offered to let me cop a feel. What the hell, I took her up on it. There’s no silicone in those funbags.”

Jennifer laughed. Sandra reminded her of Maura, only in a socially conscious edition. Both women were brassy and loud and unconcerned with anyone’s opinion. They would probably hate each other’s guts. She remembered a passage in Sandra’s speech about gentrification as a symptom of capitalism run amok. Yes, she and Maura definitely would not see eye to eye.

“It’s too bad Draper got drowned out,” Jennifer said. “He could have connected with them, if they’d given him a chance.” She wasn’t so sure about Casey.

Sandra pursed her lips. “I don’t know. The cops were part of the problem, too.”

“How so?”

“They could have been more diplomatic. What was that crap about the crime rates going down in Venice?”

“Most crimes are down-”

“Not here, honey. If the statistics don’t show it, it’s because people just aren’t reporting all the bad stuff that goes on.”

“If they don’t report it, how can they expect the police to help?”

“Why should they report it when the police never help, anyway?”

“That’s a pretty fatalistic attitude.”

“It’s reality.” Sandra blew out a deep breath. From a distance she’d appeared to be Jennifer’s age, but up close she looked at least ten years older. “The cops don’t give a damn.”

“I’ve seen Draper at work. I consulted on one of those homicides he cleared. He put in a lot of hours, really knocked himself out. He cares.”

“None of them care about us. They care about the rich people in their upscale digs. Neighborhoods like Dogtown are just a sewer to them.”

“The case Draper solved was in Dogtown.”

“So you know all about Dogtown, do you? That where you live?”

“Well…no.”

“Didn’t think so. Bet you don’t even live in Venice. You’re over in Brentwood or West Hollywood.”

“I’ve lived in Venice all my life, except for college.” She regretted the qualifying phrase. It sounded snobbish.

“Canal district?” Sandra challenged.

Jennifer held her gaze, refusing to be guilt-tripped. “That’s right.”

“Not nearly the same thing as Oakwood or Dogtown. Those are the trouble spots. You don’t live there, and you don’t even know anybody who does live there. Right, honey?”

“My brother-” She stopped herself. She didn’t want to drag Richard into this, especially since she’d already said she suspected someone close to her of criminal acts. She tried another tack. “When I was a kid, the canal district hadn’t been gentrified. It was a mess, like every other part of Venice. Back then, every neighborhood was high-crime. Things are getting better.”

“Sure-in those neighborhoods. You know why? Because they’re moving all the poor people out. All the black people, all the Latino people, all the people who don’t fit in. Shipping them off to South-Central or East L.A., as far from the beach as possible. Wouldn’t want any undesirables spoiling the scenery for the tourists and the millionaires.”

No, Sandra and Maura definitely would not get along. “The district is changing,” Jennifer said. “So what?”

“It’s not just changing. It’s losing its soul.”

“If you’re so concerned about crime, you ought to be glad the gangbangers are moving out.”

“Gangbangers being a polite way of saying minority teenagers.”

“Don’t give me that crap. You saw the people who showed up at your meeting. Are you going to cry if some of them have to relocate?”

“You don’t see the real issues, because to you it’s all about other people. It’s not about you. You’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

“That’s the oldest cliche in left-wing politics.”

“Hey, honey, if the shoe fits…”

“So who am I, then? One of the tourists or the millionaires?”

“One of the white folks who’re glad their property values are going up. Glad the skin tones in this community are getting lighter.”

Jennifer took a breath. “Look, are you going to help me or not? Because I didn’t sign up for sensitivity training.”

To her surprise, Sandra laughed. “Sensitivity training. I like that. I like the way you redialed me after I blew you off, too. You ever see that episode of Mary Tyler Moore where Mr. Grant tells Mary she’s got spunk? That’s what you’ve got. You’re Mary Tyler Moore.”

Jennifer had trouble picturing Sandra Price settling in for a night of classic TV comedy. “Well…thanks. I guess.”

“Of course, you know what Mr. Grant says right after that. He goes, ‘I hate spunk.’”

Sandra laughed again, a hearty laugh, and Jennifer found herself smiling.

“I get a little emotional,” Sandra said. “Some of the stuff I say is just frustration talking. There’s a lot of frustration. A whole damn lot.” She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “Okay. Unsolved crimes. Here we go.”

For the next half hour, while dining on an enchilada and refried beans, Jennifer filled her notepad with names, dates, and details. Sandra knew the cases intimately. She had studied them with obsessive thoroughness. She’d spoken to neighbors and relatives of victims and somehow obtained information that could only have come from the coroner’s office. She knew at least as much as any cop.

Her disquisition covered three unsolved homicides, six assaults, and four disappearances.

The first homicide victim, eighteen months ago, was Mary Ellison, a secretary who stayed late at the office, typing documents for a conference in the morning. After midnight she left the building and walked to her car. She made it halfway across the parking lot before her skull was crushed from behind by what might have been a brick or a cinder block. The weapon was never found. There was no postmortem mutilation, no sign of theft, and her clothing had not been removed or disarranged.

The second victim, seven months ago, was Elizabeth Custer, a teenage runaway living on Venice Beach. She was found strangled in an alley off Ocean Front Walk, Venice’s concrete boardwalk. Her time of death was estimated as two AM. Again, no mutilation or molestation, no theft-not that the ragged seventeen-year-old had owned anything worth stealing.

Jennifer listened, saying nothing. She was acutely aware that twelve years ago it could have been her own name in a police report, her body found beneath an underpass or in the utility room of a shopping mall.

The police had not connected the two murders. The M.O.’s were different-blunt force trauma, strangulation-as were the victim profiles and the neighborhoods in which the crimes occurred.

It was assumed that Mary Ellison had been the victim of a mugging gone bad; when the assailant realized he’d killed her, he panicked and fled. Elizabeth Custer’s death was obviously intentional. Given the people she associated with-junkies, prostitutes, johns-the most likely explanation was that someone in her circle of acquaintances had turned violent.

That was how the LAPD saw it. They might be right. But if Richard were roaming the streets and choosing victims at random, based on an opportunity to strike, these were the kinds of victims he would select. Women, alone, unprotected, at night.

The third homicide was the Diaz case. Jennifer knew about that one. She didn’t think it was part of any pattern. The threat message argued for a killer who knew the victim, someone who lived or worked near her. And the body could not have been moved without a vehicle. Richard had no car.

Besides the murders, there were assaults and disappearances. Most of the assault victims were male. Jennifer thought she could rule them out, at least for now. Edward Hare had killed only women, as had the Devil’s Henchman, and she was guessing that Richard-if he was guilty-would do the same.

Of the assaults on women, only one could conceivably fit the pattern she was looking for. A year ago, around midnight, Ann Powell let her terrier outside in the fenced backyard of her duplex. When the dog didn’t come in, she tried switching on the flood light, but it didn’t work. Later it was established that the bulb had been unscrewed. She went out to check on the dog and found the rear gate open. That was when she sensed someone behind her in the dark. A fist struck a glancing blow to her head. She staggered inside and called the police. By the time they arrived, the assailant was gone. The dog turned up unharmed an hour later.

The incident could be meaningless; there was no shortage of crazies roaming Venice at night. Or it could have been an attempt to duplicate the Ellison killing, this time without the benefit of a blunt instrument.

That brought Sandra to the disappearances. Two of the vics were male; they could be ignored for now. One of the women had been having marital problems; her husband was an unofficial suspect, according to Sandra’s inside info. That case could be set aside also.

Then there was Chatty Cathy.

That was the name by which she was known in the pocket park where she lived. Her worldly goods were stashed in a shopping cart. She talked loudly to herself day and night. Even the other homeless people kept their distance.

One night three months ago she disappeared. Her cart was still there, but she was gone. It seemed unlikely she would leave without the collection of junk she prized. But her body never turned up, and there were no signs of foul play.

“Would the body have to be transported by car?” Jennifer asked.

“Not necessarily. There’s a big old dump bin in the alley right across from the park. A body wrapped in trash bags could be tossed in there, and if the sanitation crew wasn’t paying attention-and why would they? — it could be dumped into the garbage truck without anybody noticing. By now, Chatty Cathy could be in a landfill.”

All the crimes had occurred within the last year and a half. Jennifer asked if the cutoff date was arbitrary.

“No, it really seems like more bad things than usual started happening around eighteen months ago. Not all at once, mind you. But that’s when the cream started to curdle.”

“Any idea why?”

“Pacific Area lost two detectives around that time. Reassigned downtown. Not replaced. Less manpower means lower solve rates. That’s why I say they need to prioritize this district. Allocate the personnel.” She produced one of her heavy sighs. “Hell, you know how the song goes by now. I’ve been singing it long enough.”

“You sing it well.”

“A little off-key, but at least you can make out the words.”

“Are there any leads in the cases that interest me?”

“Not really. There was a sighting of a person unknown, probably a vagrant, near the spot where Elizabeth Custer was killed. No description, except the guy was hooded. Might’ve been the killer. Might’ve been nobody. Witnesses heard a noise the night Chatty Cathy went missing. A woman’s cry, from the park. Was it her? Did it mean anything? Who knows?”

“So basically all those cases are dead ends.”

“Unless you’ve got a new angle. Do you?”

“I’m not sure. I need to see if I can find a pattern.”

“Your buddies in the department are treating each case as a standalone. They’re probably right.”

“Probably,” Jennifer said, hoping it was true.

“This suspect of yours-”

“Possible suspect.”

“Whatever. This guy-I’m assuming it’s a guy-does he live in Dogtown?”

“Yes.”

“Got any priors?”

“No.”

“Why put a spotlight on him, then?”

“He’s mentally ill.”

“Violent?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Sandra was unimpressed. “Lots of head cases in Venice, and not just in Dogtown. Lots of violent, antisocial males. Gangbangers, sociopaths. Druggies who’d kill you for the dollar in your pocket or the sneakers on your feet. No shortage of suspects. Or possible suspects, if you prefer.”

“So you think I’m imagining things?”

“That’s the way I’d bet.”

“I’d be happy to find out I’m being paranoid.”

“Of course, if you are wrong, those cases will continue to be unsolved.”

“That’s the downside.”

“On the other hand, there could be an even bigger downside to being right.”

“Which is?”

“If the bad guy knows you’re on to him-you could be next in line.”

Jennifer thought of the note on her windshield. “That’s a chance I’ll have to take.”

“See, that’s what I mean. You’ve got spunk.”

“And you hate spunk.”

“No, that was Mr. Grant. Me, I like spunk. As long as it doesn’t get you killed, honey.”

The words lingered in Jennifer’s mind as she picked up the tab and said goodbye. Before leaving the restaurant, she took a chance on using the ladies’ room. It was surprisingly clean.

Leaving the bathroom, she spotted Draper eating alone in the rear of the restaurant. From where he was seated, he had a decent view of the table she and Sandra had shared. She approached him, unsmiling.

“Spying on me?” she asked.

Draper dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “Just grabbing a bite.”

“And you just happened to pick this place?”

“It’s close to the high school. I assume that’s why you picked it.”

“So you did know I was here?”

“I saw you. Talking with Sandra Price. I didn’t realize the two of you were friends.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“No doubt. It could be a problem, though.”

“Meaning what?”

“Sandra isn’t exactly in tight with the department. She’s regarded as a thorn in our side. If you’re associating with her, it might make it difficult to continue hiring you.”

“First you follow me here, now you’re threatening me.”

“I didn’t follow you. And I’m not threatening. But whatever you tell us as a consultant has to remain confidential. It can’t be shared with civilian outsiders. Especially a civilian whose racket is baiting the department.”

“I don’t think it’s a racket. She just wants these cases solved.”

“That’s what we all want. What were you two talking about, anyway?”

“None of your business.”

“It wasn’t a casual conversation. You were taking notes.”

“Maybe she was giving me recipes.”

Draper shook his head. “That’s not the kind of answer my supervisors would accept.”

“Are they going to know about this?”

“Should they? Why were you meeting with Sandra Price? Why the sudden interest in community activism?”

“Don’t interrogate me, Roy. I’m not one of your suspects.”

“No, you’re a colleague. And I need to be able to trust the people I work with. If I can’t trust you, I won’t be able to recommend your services anymore.”

“I’ll survive.”

“I’ve tried to help you out by bringing you in on my cases whenever possible.”

“Don’t do me any favors.”

“I guess I won’t, in the future. Unless you level with me about what’s going on.”

“I had an enchilada for dinner. Now I’m leaving. That’s what’s going on. And by the way, nice technique at the meeting tonight. Way to win friends and influence people.”

“I wasn’t trying to win friends.”

“Too bad. You could use some.”

She walked away, her eyes burning. She couldn’t believe she’d defended him to Sandra less than an hour before. Or that she’d considered putting the moves on him. There must be something wrong with her.

She was stalking angrily down the street when she heard Draper’s voice. “Hey, Jennifer. Wait a second.”

She spun around, not interested in more repartee. “I already said goodnight.”

Draper stepped up to her. “Actually, you didn’t.”

“Okay, well-goodnight.” She started to turn away.

“I trust you,” Draper said.

The words caught her in mid-turn. “What?”

“I know you wouldn’t betray a confidence. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.”

“You did more than suggest.”

“I’m only worried about how other people might look at it, if this gets back to them. The higher-ups. I don’t want to see you blackballed.”

“What difference does it make to you?”

“I think you know.”

She paused, registering this. “Do I?”

“You ought to,” Draper said, and he leaned in and kissed her, a hard, hot kiss like a branding iron. “If you didn’t,” he added, “you do now.”

With that, he turned and walked back inside the restaurant.

She stared after him, astonished.

twenty

Three more comments were waiting on the Ripperwalk thread when Jennifer got home. The first two were dumb jokes left by idiots. The third was different.

Someone calling himself Abberline, whose avatar was a male face in silhouette, had written a single line.

If you’d like to discuss Mr. Edward Hare, please IM me.

An ICQ contact name was provided.

It could be another joke. If Abberline had anything serious to contribute, why not post it publicly? Still, she was intrigued. And she already had an ICQ account, though she hadn’t used it in a while. She couldn’t even remember her password, but she had it written down in a little spiral-bound notebook she kept in the top drawer of her file cabinet.

She found the notebook and was closing the drawer when she noticed something odd. The folders in the drawer seemed to be out of order.

They were filed alphabetically, or should have been. Now D came before C. She could have misfiled it, of course. She removed the folder and scanned its contents. Old cases for the LAPD and Santa Monica PD. All cleared now, of no interest to anyone.

Nothing of hers would interest anyone, except the diary.

But the word diary began with D, didn’t it? Someone looking for the diary might think to find a clue in this file.

Silly thought. No one had been in here. If anyone had come looking, the house would have been left in a state of disorder.

Unless she wasn’t supposed to know someone had searched.

She riffled through the rest of the folders and found two more out of sequence. R and H.

Ripper.

Hare.

Her archival boxes were stored inside a nearby cabinet. She looked them over and saw that two of the lids had been improperly replaced.

Someone had been here. Had looked through her files and the boxes.

In the pantry she pushed aside the row of household cleansers and found the hidden metal box. The diary was safely inside. The intruder hadn’t thought to look here.

Could it be Richard? He knew the old house, knew its weak points. The side window, the one that could never be properly latched. Or the back door, which lacked a dead bolt. Its latch could be slipped with a credit card or knife.

She checked the door first but saw no sign of tampering. The window was a different matter. It was open a crack, though she knew she’d shut it completely, and there was a scuff mark on the sill, left when the intruder climbed in or out.

She doubted he was still here. Most likely he wouldn’t have closed the window till he left. Even so, she explored the house room by room, turning on all the lights. She even opened the trapdoor and peered into the cellar with a flashlight.

She was alone. But someone had come earlier. It might have happened during the day, while she was visiting Harrison Sirk, but more likely the break-in occurred while she was at the rally, or afterward, when she talked to Sandra Price.

It was a funny feeling, to know someone had been in her home, pawing through her things, looking at the photos on the walls, the clothes in her closet, the books on the shelves. And yet the traces left behind were subtle. She could never prove a B amp;E. A few misplaced files and a dirty windowsill would establish nothing to anybody else.

But she knew.

Richard had come-it had to be Richard-looking for the diary. He knew about it somehow. Knew about the Ripper…and Edward Hare.

She remembered Abberline’s comment. Returning to her office, she logged onto her ICQ account, entered his name into her contact list, and was told he was online. She sent him a message.

What can you tell me re: Edward Hare? — Jeneratrix.

In moments he responded. You’re the first person I’ve encountered who knows that name. How did you come across it?

It came up in an old document, she answered.

A document I’d like to see.

Prefer to keep it to myself for now.

As you wish, Jeneratrix. You’re female, I presume?

Last time I checked.

I might have to double check.:)

Even with the smiley face, this comment struck her as weird. But there were a lot of creeps on the Net.

American? he asked.

Yes.

What part of the States do you hail from?

California.

Rather far from the Ripper’s territory, isn’t it?

His legend is everywhere, she wrote, thinking that California might not be as far from Jack’s turf as Abberline thought.

Yes, it has even reached sunny California. You must have a lovely tan.

She didn’t know how to respond to that.

I hope there are nude beaches in your vicinity, he continued. A tan is never satisfactory unless it covers all of you.

She definitely needed to get the conversation on track. He’d referred to America as “the States.” It sounded like something a Brit would say.

Are you in England? she asked.

London.

There was an eight-hour time difference between London and L.A. She typed, Must be nearly 5 a.m. there.

I’m an early riser. The curse of old age.

Been investigating Jack long?

I’m a veteran Ripperologist. No longer having to earn a livelihood, I pass my days studying archival files. Perhaps you found your document in an archive?

Not exactly.

Where, then?

I came across it by accident.

That is less than informative.

I thought you were the one offering info.

Very well. It would never do to disappoint a lady. Not that I ever have, in any way that counts.

She didn’t like interacting with this man. She could picture him, hunched over his computer, smiling as he squeezed out another sexual innuendo.

Edward Bateman Hare. Born 1860, Bournemouth. No photos extant. An only child. Family of modest means. Mother died in childbirth.

Jennifer thought of Hare’s dreams of blood. His mother must have bled out during delivery. Throughout his life, he would have been obsessed by guilt, which he projected outward, blaming his mother for abandoning him. Blood and birth, sex and rage, and an irrational animus toward women would have coalesced in his mind.

Attended New College, Oxford. Became asst. schoolmaster at Wm. Winton’s boarding school for boys in Blackheath. Lodged at school during term.

William Winton must have been the man known in the diary as Wisp.

Taught Eng. comp. amp; lit. appreciation. Never married. Just possibly descended from Wm. Hare, Burke’s partner.

The body snatcher? Jennifer asked.

And murderer. Wm. Hare, pardoned for testifying against Burke, left Scotland for parts unknown. If he alighted in England, his grandson could have been EH.

She typed, But no proof?

None I’ve found. And believe me, I’ve looked, Jeneratrix. Does Jen stand for Jennifer?

The change of topic took her by surprise. Yes.

A most alluring name. You are young, I imagine. I most enjoy the company of youth.

This seemed to be her day for dealing with dirty old men. First Harrison Sirk, now this.

Her image of Abberline was uncomfortably vivid now. She saw gray stubble on his cheeks, thin pursed lips, glittering magpie eyes. He was all bones and taut skin, a fairy-tale miser, and he lived in a dusty place crowded with worthless flotsam he wouldn’t throw out.

Anything to tie Hare to the Ripper? she typed, resolutely pursuing the conversation.

He vanished shortly after Frances Coles’ murder. Never seen or heard from again.

Still, he wasn't an official suspect, she wrote.

The police couldn’t see a schoolmaster as a killer. EH was protected by his respectability. A real-life Dr. Jekyll-of whom history has found not Hyde nor Hare.

The play on words seemed disturbingly close to the diarist’s style of expression.

Do forgive the dreadful pun, he added.

She typed, Surprised no one else knows about him.

He’s terribly obscure. And by 1891 my namesake had retired, consequently no mention of EH in Insp. Abberline’s memoirs.

How did you find out about him?

It came up in an old document.

She recognized the sardonic echo of her own words. Abberline was no more willing to reveal his sources than she was.

She decided to test him, see how much he knew. Most people say Coles wasn’t a true Ripper murder.

That’s why police didn’t try harder to apprehend EH. They thought at worst he was the butcher of just one prostitute.

Do you have reason to suspect he killed others?

Not yet, but I continue to dig, dig, dig.

She was sure he did.

You’re a dogged investigator-living up to your screen name, she wrote. From skimming the Ripper books, she knew Frederick Abberline was the lead detective in the case.

Thank you. The inspector fascinates me. He was at the center of the Ripper case-yet there are no photos, portraits, likenesses. He is a man without a face.

Like Jack, she offered. And like the cyberspace Abberline’s avatar.

Abberline is Jack’s Doppelganger. Intimately familiar with the East End. Remembered for his activities in autumn ’88. Retired for no clear reason.

Maybe Abberline was the Ripper.;) She added the winking smiley so he would know it was a joke.

I place my money on EH. This is why I persist in looking for clues. Who can say what other documents may turn up? Such as yours.

Mine isn’t very interesting.

I’d prefer to judge for myself. You will not let me see it? I’ll return the favor.

What do you mean?

A trade. Digital pix of my document in exchange for pix of yours.

I’ll think about it.

Our relationship cannot be one-way. I’ve helped you. I deserve assistance in return.

The material I have is difficult to put online.

Anything can be put online, Jeneratrix.

The truth is, the info is of a personal nature.

You have a personal connection to EH?

Possibly.

I really must know the details.

Not now.

You cannot keep it to yourself.

She didn’t like where this was headed. Have to go, she wrote.

You give me Hare’s name but no details. Is this fair?

I made no promises.

You play games, Jeneratrix. You’re nothing but a cocktease.

It was as if he’d hissed the word in her ear. I’m logging off, she typed.

Don’t run away you damn little whore

She signed off.

Whore, he’d called her. The Ripper’s word. Abberline had been spending too much time in the mind of a killer.

She returned to his comment on the Ripperwalk thread. Under his screen name was a running total of his posts, 327 to date. He’d been busy. Obsessive.

She checked the log of their conversation, taking notes on the salient points. Whatever his deficiencies as a pen pal, Abberline had sketched a portrait of Edward Hare. Born in 1860, he would have been twenty-eight when the Ripper went to work. That was late, but not impossibly so, for the onset of schizophrenia.

Richard was twenty-eight now. With traumas of his own in his past. And with a medical degree, as he never tired of reminding her.

And he was gone. The building manager hadn’t seen him. He could be anywhere, doing anything. Recreating the crimes of his ancestor, perhaps as Aldrich before him had done. Like father, like son, a hereditary madness like the blood curse of a Greek tragedy. First the House of Atreus. Now the House of Silence-

The phone rang, startling her. “Hello?”

“Hi, big sister.”

She froze.

“Richard,” she said.

twenty-one

Caller ID wasn’t displaying any information. He must have used star-67 to shield his number. He could be calling from anywhere.

“Richard,” she repeated slowly, “it’s really good to hear from you.”

“Save it. I saw you tonight. At the rally.”

“You were there? I didn’t see you.”

“I was in disguise.” A motorcycle rumbled through the background of the call. She heard voices, the honk of a horn. “Nobody sees me when I don’t want them to. I’m the invisible man.”

The thought struck her that Jack the Ripper must have felt exactly the same way.

“Why did you need a disguise?” she asked.

“As if you don’t know. You’re working with her.”

“With who?”

“That busybody, that bitch. I saw you talking to her.”

“Sandra Price? So what if I talked to her?”

“I know what she’s up to. She’s after me.”

“Why would she be after you? You haven’t done anything. Have you?”

“Who knows what I’ve done?”

“You’ve been going out at night. Late at night. Where do you go?”

“You’d like to know. But I’ll never tell.”

“Richard, I’m afraid for you.”

“You should be afraid of me.”

“Why? Would you hurt me?” There was no answer. “Have you hurt other people?”

“You always hurt the ones you love.”

“Who have you hurt, Richard?”

“Ask your friend Sandra.”

“She doesn’t know the first thing about you.”

“Oh, she knows. I see the posters she puts all over the neighborhood. Posters with my picture on them.”

Jennifer had seen those posters, printed by C.A.S.T. They featured a computer-generated sketch of the suspect in a series of robberies. The picture was generic enough to look like almost anybody. It bore no particular resemblance to Richard, except in his mind.

“That’s not you,” she said. “That’s somebody else.”

“I know my own goddamned face.”

“Richard, you need to get back on your medication.”

“Sure, I know what that’s about. Keep me doped up so I won’t suspect what’s going on.”

“What do you think is going on?”

“You’re trying to frame me. You and Sandra Price. You want to put me in jail.”

“I don’t want you in jail.”

“Liar.”

“I’ve gone by your place a couple of times, and you’re never there. Why don’t you go home?”

“I am home. I’m home right now.”

“I hear traffic. You’re at a pay phone.”

“Guess I can’t put one over one you, can I?”

“You can’t stay out on the street. It’s dangerous.”

“I’m safe as long as you can’t find me. You and Sandra Price.”

“Richard, you’re smarter than this. You know you’re not thinking clearly.”

“All I know is what I saw tonight. You and Sandy, best pals. It explains a lot. You helped her put up those pictures of me. I’ll bet it was your idea. But I’m on to you now.”

Hearing him talk like this-it broke her heart. Once again she tried to get an answer to her question. “What do you do at night?”

“I walk. I ride the bus.”

That was responsive, at least. “Where do you go?”

“I get around.”

“Where?”

“Around and around and around…”

“Have you been to mom and dad’s graves?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Did you see me there this morning? Did you leave something on my car?”

“Like bird shit?”

“Did you leave a note?”

“Yes, it was C minor.”

“Richard, I want to know if you left a note on my windshield.”

“You ask stupid questions. You’ve always been stupid and useless. I was the smart one. I’m the real doctor. I’m an M.D.”

“Just tell me if you were at the graveyard today.”

“So you can track my movements? Put a homing beacon on me?”

“How about my house? Have you been here? Have you been inside the house?”

“It’s not your house. It’s mine. It should have been mine.”

“Did you break in? Did you come here after the rally-”

“Serves you right if I did. You shouldn’t be mixed up with her. She’s against me. If she’s your friend, it means you’re against me too.”

“Richard, I want you to listen to me. The posters don’t have your picture on them. Nobody is looking for you because of any crimes. I’m not working with Sandra Price.”

“I saw you with her. Who am I supposed to believe, you or my own eyes? You want me put away, and you want my money. You want the money I inherited from Mom.”

“There’s hardly any money left.”

“And the family papers too. The family papers you care about so much.”

“Have you looked through those papers? Have you read them?”

“I can read. I’m an M.D.”

“How much do you know about our family? Our father?”

“He’s the father of lies.”

“What does that mean?”

“The devil is the father of lies.”

“Was our father the devil?”

“He killed himself. And not just himself.”

“Who else did he kill?”

“You and me. And Mom. He killed us all.”

“Anyone else?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Richard, please trust me. I’m on your side.”

“Lying bitch.”

“You saved me in San Francisco.” She gripped her left arm, feeling the scar. “Remember that? Now I’m trying to save you.”

“Save yourself.”

“I’m not the one in trouble.”

“Yes, you are, big sister. Yes, you are.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re part of this family. You can’t escape.” He sucked in a breath. “I’ll be going now. Got places to be.”

“Richard!” Her voice broke. “Don’t hang up, please don’t-”

Click, and he was gone.

She sank to the floor, her head down, her body numb. She’d lost him. He might never call again.

twenty-two

In a corner of the darkness he lay curled in a fetal ball, rocking slowly back and forth, hugging his knees.

Like a fetus in the womb, awaiting birth.

Or rebirth, possibly.

At times he thought-was almost sure-that he had been born once before, as old Jack. And now, though he was a new man, he was still the old one.

At other times he thought this was a snare and a delusion, that old Jack was dead and he was only who and what he was.

But what he was-that was the true miracle. His calling, his destiny was unique in the world.

For years he’d fought against it, waging a lonely, secret battle.

At last he had yielded, and by yielding, he had won.

Now he was free. He contended against himself no longer.

It was illness that liberated him. His weakness was his strength.

People looked at him as a sad freak, a ruined shell. They pointed and mocked. But he was stronger than they knew.

Take what he had done tonight, for instance. Following little Jennifer to the gymnasium, watching her from the bleachers, in plain view of everyone, but unseen, because he wanted to be unseen.

And afterward, while she lingered over supper with that whore Sandra Price, he had returned to the house, slipping in so easily through the window.

He’d thought for sure he could find the diary. Take it from her, away from her unworthy eyes.

But it was nowhere. Nowhere.

She was a clever bitch. She’d hidden the treasure. Hidden it so craftily he could not find it.

He could have waited for her to return. Could have made her show it to him. But then he would have had to kill her. And he wasn't sure he was prepared to do that.

Not quite yet.

Soon, perhaps. His patience was great, but not inexhaustible. And he would weary of their telephone games eventually.

When he was ready, he would do it.

And he would make old Red Jack proud.

1902

It was springtime in Denver, and Edward Hare was getting married.

He stood before the dark and wavy mirror over his dresser, adjusting the knot of his tie. He had been barbered and bathed and beautified, and he was pleased with the reflection in the glass.

Though he was in middle age now, forty-two years old, he had the bearing of a younger man. Hard living had kept him fit, and the mountain air had cleaned the soot from his lungs. He had even forsaken smoking, convinced that cigarettes left him winded.

Nothing must abbreviate his life. There was yet much work to do.

Satisfied with his necktie, he checked his pocket watch and found himself with an hour to spare before he was needed at the chapel. He poured a whiskey and reclined in his favorite armchair with yesterday’s Post, which he had not had time to read. The usual controversies over pastureland and water rights took up the headlines. But on an inside page he discovered an item of greater interest.

A wire-service story datelined Albany, New York, reported that Governor Benjamin B. Odell had commuted the sentence of Ameer Ben Ali, now believed to have been wrongly convicted in the murder of Carrie Brown.

Certain industrious journalists had pursued the matter for years, insisting that the telltale trail of blood to Ali’s hotel room had not been present when they first visited the scene. One of them had sworn out an affidavit to this effect.

And then there was the farmer’s tale. A Mr. George Damon of Cranford, New Jersey, had come forward to claim that a Danish immigrant in his employ was out of the house on the night of the whore’s murder. A few days later the Dane vanished for good, allegedly leaving behind a bloody shirt and a key from the East River Hotel, its label reading 31, the murdered woman’s room number.

“Danish,” Hare muttered. “I knew it was some continental jabber.”

He had no doubt that this Cranford hireling was the blond foreigner who should have been framed for the crime. It was sheer bad luck the man had gotten away, though this misfortune had been offset by the apprehension and speedy conviction of the Algerian, Ali.

Now Ali was in the clear-en route back to Algeria, the story said. The case was once again officially unsolved, but the authorities would never concern themselves with it. They had more pressing business. Besides, he could not be tracked down here, or tied to an event of eleven years ago. He had a new name, a new life. He was a prosperous and respected businessman, a pillar of the community.

He checked his watch again. It was nearly time to go. He decided to leave early, if only to escape the sudden closeness of his room.

At the doorway he paused, key in hand. When next he saw these quarters, he would be a married man, the last brick in the edifice of his respectability set firmly in place.

And he would have a woman-the thought prickled him with disquiet and strange anticipation-a woman all his own.

***

The ceremony was brief and solemn, the minister first asking Hare if he would love, cherish, and protect his wife, then asking her if she would love, honor, and obey her husband. Each affirmed, “I will.”

Smiling fiercely, Hare kissed the bride.

He did love her, which was to say, he loved possessing her. He enjoyed dangling her before other men like an expensive bauble on a chain. He relished their envy, thrived on their salacious jokes. With the approach of his wedding day-and more particularly his wedding night-such jests had been increasingly frequent. What the jesters did not know was that the prospect of conjugal relations repulsed him. Though he had known women with his knife, he had never explored their questionable charms with a lover’s hand. He supposed he must simply shut his eyes and do his duty. The bedroom would be dark, and he could make it quick.

Maddie was good breeding stock, at least-long-boned, wide-hipped, healthy, strong, and twenty years his junior. His years among ranchers had not been wasted. He was a fair judge of cattle.

She would bear him sons-the prospect of daughters never entered his mind-and in his sons, his blood would live on. His blood and, he believed, his mission.

The wedding feast followed the ceremony. In a sunlit hall, the long tables were decked with flowers and starched napkins, platters of flesh and fowl, bowls of cabbage, piles of bread. Whiskey was poured. Cigars were lit. Speeches were made. In a corner of the room, a trio of musicians played fife and fiddle and dulcimer.

Over and over he was informed of his great good fortune in choosing such a splendid wife. He accepted the compliments, the hard claps on the back, the manly winks and nods.

“How’d you ever charm her papa? You must be the very devil himself.”

“You’re a regular lady-killer, old man.”

“Got to hand it to you, chum. You do know the way to a woman’s heart.”

Indeed he did. His knife had mapped that territory many times.

He traded quips and pledges, relaxing in the warmth of conviviality. He had never been a social man, but today he saw why people took pleasure in one another’s company.

Madeleine’s father approached him. The man was only a year or two older than Hare, but luxury and self-indulgence had taken their toll. With his white beard and flushed cheeks and his stomach overspilling his belt, he might have been old Saint Nick. And he was sotted.

“Congratulations, my boy, congratulations. It’s a great day, a great day.” He had the habit of repeating his words. “You’ll make my daughter very happy, very happy.”

“I’ll do my best,” Hare promised.

“Know you will, know you will. I must say”-he leaned closer, speaking confidentially-“I never doubted you a bit. Always saw you as a man of affairs, a man to reckon with.” His shaggy head nodded. “To reckon with. Yes. And I’m proud-proud to call you my son.”

Hare pumped the man’s hand, which was greasy and hot. He thought Maddie’s father was an imbecile.

Her mother, however, was a different story. A sharp one, she was. From the start she had looked askance at the man courting her only child. Her clear, cool gaze had studied him in a manner that was distinctly unsettling.

When Hare glanced down the length of the table, he saw that she was studying him now.

He felt he ought to say something. Mend fences, as the saying went. He walked over to her and lightly took her hand. She was younger than himself by several years, and it seemed odd to think of her as his mother-in-law.

“Evelyn,” he said courteously, “believe me when I tell you that your daughter is all the world to me.”

“Is she?” Those watchful eyes would not look away. “I had not imagined there was room in your world for anyone besides yourself.”

He bristled. Here he was assaying diplomacy, and she would have none of it. Well, he knew a way to wound her.

“You wrong me,” he said with fawning sincerity. “For me, the world is only Madeleine. She is my sunrise and my sunset, and will ever be, no matter how far we travel.”

She picked up on the last word. “Travel…down the road of life, you mean?”

“We have in mind more definite travel plans than that.”

She stiffened in her chair. For the first time he saw anxiety in her face. “What are you saying? You’re not taking her away?”

“Sadly, I must pursue my business opportunities wherever they lead. They are taking me to California, and your daughter with me.”

“California?”

He might as well have said the moons of Mars. “That is where we are headed, she and I. We have already discussed it. She is most eager to go. She has never seen the ocean. And”-he could not resist a twist of the knife-“she is weary of these parts. The provincial life chafes her.”

Evelyn’s face was taut. “You mean she regards us as rubes.”

“I would never use such a word.”

“You filled her head with these thoughts. You turned her against us. Against her family.”

Hare smiled. It was a smile of genuine pleasure. “I am her family now..”

“Where in California are you taking her?” she asked bleakly. “San Francisco?”

“Los Angeles. Now there’s a town that’s growing fast. They’ve two hundred thousand people there at last count.”

“It’s so far away.”

“Now, now, Evelyn. I’m sure you’ll visit us someday. And think of the lovely postcards you’ll receive.”

He withdrew, returning to his seat. When he looked her way again, he saw that she was weeping.

No one else noticed. It was natural for a mother to weep on her daughter’s wedding day.

When plates were empty and bellies were full, the tables were carried out of the room to make space for dancing. Hare and his wife shared the first waltz. Some among the guests chuckled at his missteps, but for once he didn’t mind being laughed at.

He remembered his first night on American soil, alone in a flophouse, his head in his hands as he mourned the life he’d lost. Never could he have imagined the triumphs that awaited him. His success had taken him by surprise even as it unfolded. He had seen no reason for it.

But latterly, he had understood. He knew why he had risen in business. He possessed the very traits of character required of the successful competitor. He was ruthless, unscrupulous, and when necessary, savage. The men who came up against him might fancy themselves sharp operators, but none of them had ever sunk a steel blade into a whore’s belly.

He disarmed them with his charm, his becoming modesty. He recited poetry. He attended church. He allowed himself to be rated a fop and a naif. Only after he had outmaneuvered his rivals and driven their enterprises into bankruptcy did they understand with whom-with what-they had been dealing. By then it was too late.

His financial success was gratifying. But it was the blood sport that fascinated him. He savored the game. In Iowa he harried a man to suicide after taking his business and his home. No one thought less of him for it. On the contrary, he was respected all the more. He embodied the prevailing ethic, the domination of the weak by the strong. A society that coddled weakness would encourage its own degeneracy. This, at least, was the substance of countless editorials and stump speeches and even the occasional sermon.

It was the one moral lesson in which Hare needed no instruction. He was, by nature, a man who knew how to get ahead in life. Americans honored such men. They were an uncouth people, easily impressed by an English accent and a smattering of erudition, and still more impressed by riches and the will to increase them. Hare could have been their king, their god. Had he not been of foreign origin, he might have been their president.

Jack the Ripper in the White House. The thought made him smile.

“Darling, where are you?”

It was Maddie, gazing at him as she swayed in his arms. “Right here, my love.”

“I don’t think so. You seem so distant. And your expression-I don’t know whether it was a grin or a grimace.”

“A smile, I assure you. There will be only smiles for you.”

“You wouldn’t keep secrets from me?”

“Never.”

“Promise?”

“From you, Maddie, there will be no secrets, ever. No secrets and no lies.”

The answer satisfied her. She believed him implicitly. She was such a fool.

By ten o’clock, though the party continued, Hare knew it was time to bed his bride.

His bride. Of all women before Madeleine, only Kitty had come close to earning that appellation. It had been a near thing with Kitty, but he had escaped her thrall. Wiser now, he had selected a companion whose chastity could not be doubted.

Even so, he did not want to leave the festivities. Far better to while away the night in revelry, dancing quadrilles and singing sentimental songs. But he knew what was expected of him.

He found Maddie at the center of a gaggle of female friends and drew her away while the geese tittered and clucked.

“Shall we?” he asked simply.

He expected shyness from her and was bemused-and a trifle alarmed-by her upraised face and frank expression. “Of course, darling.”

Boarding a hired motorcar, they left in a hail of salutations. They said little as they rode through the streets. The moon was big and nearly full, and the snowy peaks of the Rockies gleamed like chalk. He was very far from London, from the congested slum courts, the vagrants huddled under railway arches, the bobbies with their bull’s-eye lanterns, the clop of hooves on cobblestones.

Their driver chauffeured them to the Brown Palace Hotel, the city’s finest. The bridal suite was more than satisfactory. Hare tipped the bellman, and then he was alone with his wife.

“Well,” he said, “here we are.”

“It’s lovely. So romantic.”

“Yes, well,” he said, then stopped, at a lack for words.

She smiled at him. “I shall make myself ready.” She disappeared into the bedchamber.

He sat in his armchair. A long time passed. Hare drummed his knee.

He thought of Whitechapel.

Whores.

Kitty, so pristine in the garden of her cottage, concealing her sinful past. A pious masquerade, a whitewashed sepulcher.

He really should have killed her. Forbearance had been a weakness on his part.

“Darling.” A seductive whisper from the next room. “I’m ready now.”

He stood. His balance was unsteady. There was a peculiar heaving in his gut. He thought perhaps he had overindulged in food and drink.

It didn’t matter. He need only do his duty.

He took a step toward the bedroom. The narrow doorway became the gate to a fenced backyard, stinking with trash, the yard where he killed Annie Chapman. He remembered pulling her backward against the fence as he throttled her from behind-the thump of their bodies against the rotten wood. Later the papers reported that a man on the other side of that fence heard the noise but lacked the curiosity to investigate. He had run a grave risk, killing her in such a public place, and yet he’d felt no fear.

But now…

Now he was afraid.

“Dearest?” Maddie’s voice.

He straightened his shoulders. Fear would not unman him. He had carved up whores; surely he could bed one. No, that was all wrong-not a whore-she wasn’t a whore. She was his wife, and a virgin. Or so he had assumed. But the way she had looked at him tonight, so boldly…

Perhaps not a virgin.

How would he know? They said if the woman bled on her wedding night, then she was chaste.

If she bled…

But they always bled. Chapman and Kelly and Brown, and the others. Always there was blood and more blood; it was all women were made of, it seemed; they bled with the cycles of the moon; they bled in childbirth; they bled when he gutted them with his fine, sharp blade…

He reached the doorway of the bedchamber. The room was dark. In the shadows Maddie was a dim, pale shape amid the bedclothes.

The image flickered, and it was Mary Kelly he saw, her face stripped away. Shapes shifted, and now it was Carrie Brown, Old Shakespeare, legs spread wide, dress hitched up over her hips.

“Darling? Are you all right?”

He didn’t answer. He stared into the darkness, seeing other women on other nights. Different names, different faces. Yet all the same. Peel away their disguises, and they were all whores, every one.

“You disgust me,” he whispered.

She sat up. “What?”

His voice was low and firm, and he felt no more fear, only a deliriously righteous certainty. “You are an abomination. I would not sully myself with your touch.”

“You-you can’t mean that…”

“I mean every word.”

He left her. As he returned to the parlor, he heard her quiet sobs. She was the second woman he’d reduced to tears tonight.

Without undressing, he stretched out on the divan. He would sleep here until they departed for California. In their new home they would have separate bedrooms. He need never share a pillow with her. She might protest, but it would make no difference.

He was her master now.

twenty-three

Jennifer woke in darkness, gulping air.

Her hand groped for the bedside lamp and switched it on. Already the memory of the dream was fading. She recalled only fragments. It was like the dream she’d had last night. Running from a man with a knife.

But this time it wasn’t Richard.

It was Jack.

Not dead, even after all these years. Never dead, not while his legend lived.

She was up against an alley wall, nowhere to run, Jack closing in. He had grown old and withered, his skin stretched taut against his bones, leathery like the cover of his diary, mottled with mold like the edges of its pages.

Cornered, she faced the sickly rictus of his smile, the red blade in his hand. I’ll kill you, she said. Somehow I will.

His eyes glittered with insane merriment. His voice was a whisper. I’ll return the favor.

And she was awake and scared, his last words still floating in the shadows.

The same words Abberline had used when bargaining to see the diary.

She couldn’t imagine why those words had forced their way into her nightmare. But there had to be a reason. The unconscious mind, she knew, did nothing by chance.

Downstairs, she booted up her laptop and reread the log file of the instant message dialogue. She found the statement she remembered, shimmering on the LCD screen.

I’ll return the favor.

An Englishman would spell it favour.

She reviewed the conversation and found other Americanisms. Center should have been spelled centre, and William should have been abbreviated Wm, with no period at the end. Abberline made the same mistake in his comment on the message board, referring to “Mr. Edward Hare.” British usage eschewed a period in both instances.

Abberline wasn’t British. Which meant he probably wasn’t located in London. Probably wasn’t a harmless retiree combing through archives. He could be anyone, anywhere.

He could be Richard.

Richard, using a public computer or a cell phone. Playing games.

When he spoke to her on the phone, she’d known he was calling from outdoors. Maybe he had been using a cell, not a pay phone. The same cell he used to send the text messages.

It was possible. She hadn’t thought he owned a cell, but she was starting to realize how little she knew about him.

She read the dialogue more carefully, evaluating it the way she would evaluate any threatening correspondence. She saw hostility toward women disguised as sexual innuendo, finally coming out into the open with the word whore. He talked about Jack the Ripper as Inspector Abberline’s doppelganger. Was this an unconscious admission that he himself was a killer?

If Richard knew about Edward Hare from the papers he inherited, he could have developed a secret interest in Jack the Ripper. Could have participated in online discussions for years, at Ripperwalk and other sites.

His phone call had come only minutes after she ended her online talk with Abberline. had he phoned to keep the dialogue going?

That was all speculation. Richard might have nothing to do with it. Abberline could be anybody. All she knew about him was that he was on to Hare and was desperate for information.

Desperate…like Harrison Sirk. He’d pressed her for details just as Abberline had. He’d spoken of what “Americans” would say, as if he weren’t one of them; he might feel comfortable impersonating a Brit. He was a crime historian. Perhaps he’d come across Hare’s name in his research.

Or Abberline might be someone else entirely. He could be thousands of miles away-or right down the street. He was one of millions of electronic ciphers who could assume any identity with no fear of being caught.

Yet there was a way to catch them. She’d done it before, when analyzing threats received by e-mail or instant messaging.

She spent a few minutes laying the trap. Once it was set, all she could do was hope he took the bait.

There was no possibility of going back to sleep. The sun was just breaking the horizon. She went for a walk on the beach.

At the edge of the sand she kicked off her shoes, then made her way to the shoreline, where seagulls and sanderlings pecked at clumps of kelp. A homeless camp lay to the south. She avoided the campsite and the Venice Pier, where Marilyn was found. Instead she walked north toward the Santa Monica Pier, the spokes of the Ferris wheel standing out against the pale pink sky. On her way back, she collected a fragment of sea glass, cornflower blue. Blue pieces were rare. She wondered what shipwreck had released this treasure from its hold.

As the homeless camp again came into view, she slowed her steps, asking herself if Richard could be there.

She didn’t think he was living in his apartment these days. He had to be finding shelter someplace. And he was familiar with this stretch of beach.

Cautiously she approached the camp. It was a tent city, the tents made of plastic trash bags taped together. She tried counting the tents but gave up after two dozen.

Not everyone had a tent. Some lay in sleeping bags or under blankets. Others slept without any cover.

She circled the perimeter, looking at each sleeping figure. Nearly all were men, most sporting the matted beards of Biblical prophets. The rare women, leathery and sandblasted, probably weren’t any older than Jennifer herself. She saw no children.

It was hard to tell one person from another. Their bodies had a shapeless look, the result of wearing layers of clothing. The only way to hang on to their clothes was to wear all of them at all times. The prostitutes of Jack the Ripper’s day had done the same thing.

Suddenly Whitechapel didn’t seem so far away.

She completed her circuit of the camp’s boundary. Richard might be deeper inside. Nearly everyone inside the camp was asleep. She would risk a quick look.

She threaded her way among the tents and prostrate human forms. Someone stirred inside a tent; she caught suspicious eyes watching her. Not Richard’s eyes. A man with long stringy hair was coming awake beside a shopping cart. His head snapped up when he spotted her. He bared his canines, growling.

Imitation of animal behavior was a symptom of schizophrenia. She looked away, avoiding eye contact.

Someone else was staring at her. A young beardless man with a hungry look.

This wasn’t good. She’d been noticed. She headed toward an area where the tents were more sparsely distributed.

In her path a man stood up, blinking, not overtly hostile, but not stepping aside to let her pass.

She detoured around another row of tents. A man picking at his toes with a dirty thumbnail glared up at her with red-rimmed eyes.

She was nearly out of the camp when three men stepped forward, blocking her path. She glanced behind her and saw two more men at her back.

She was supposed to be an expert in communication. It was time to communicate.

“Sorry to disturb you.” She hoped she sounded calm. “I’m looking for my brother.”

None of the men spoke.

She took out her wallet and removed a photo of Richard, the last one taken before illness consumed his life. “This is him. Have any of you seen him?”

She held out the photo, waiting to see if anyone would come look.

One of the men in front of her shuffled his sneakers in the sand, then plodded forward. He studied the photo, shook his head, and stepped back, never saying a word.

“Anyone else? I really need to find him.”

“Let me see it.” The voice came from behind her.

She turned and gave the picture to one of the two men who’d approached her from the rear. He held the photo an inch from his face, blinking.

“Haven’t seen him,” he said.

His companion snorted. “You ain’t seen shit since you lost your glasses.”

He grabbed the photo and regarded it coolly. His expression was unreadable. A triangular port-wine stain discolored the left side of his face from his forehead to his chin.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know this guy.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“I’m his sister. I’m trying to help him.”

The man gazed at her with empty eyes. “I had a sister. I fucking hated her.” He handed back the photo.

“You won’t help me?”

“I think you should get going, lady.”

“If you could just give me some idea — ”

“Get lost.” His teeth flashed, yellow against his purple skin.

She wasn’t going to argue, not when she was surrounded by men with hate in their eyes.

“Thanks for your help,” she said bitterly. She turned away and walked directly toward the three men in front of her. This was the moment of maximum danger. If they refused to let her pass, she would be embroiled in a confrontation.

She was close enough to breathe the ripe tang of their body odor when they stepped aside. She kept walking, her heart pumping hard. She passed a few more tents and a shaky cardboard fort, and then she was in the clear. She kept going at a steady pace, afraid to run and perhaps draw pursuit. When she was a safe distance away, she glanced back and saw the same five men standing amid the tents, staring after her.

She’d taken a big chance. A stupid thing to do.

But she thought the man with the port-wine stain did know Richard, and maybe even knew where he was.

twenty-four

At home, she reviewed her notes from the interview with Sandra Price. She detached the pages from her notepad and spread them across the living room floor, organizing the cases by type: homicides, assaults, disappearances. The first homicide was eighteen months ago. That was around the time Richard stopped driving and sold his car. He had retreated into his apartment, or so she’d believed. But maybe not. Maybe even then he had started riding the bus or walking the streets.

But was it possible for someone without a car to carry out a series of attacks in different parts of town?

Of course it was. Edward Hare never had a car in London, and he’d done just fine. The Devil’s Henchman was believed to have traveled on foot, as well.

A man dripping with blood could hardly board an MTA bus. But these crimes weren’t bloody. Mary Ellison was dropped with a blow from a blunt instrument. Elizabeth Custer was strangled. Marilyn Diaz was asphyxiated by a plastic bag.

She still didn’t think the Diaz case was related. The other two were more worrisome, as were the assault on Ann Powell and the disappearance of Chatty Cathy.

It was possible that all four women were victimized by the same assailant. But nothing definite linked the cases. At times she almost thought she saw a pattern….

The phone shrilled. Richard could be calling again. She snatched the handset from the cradle on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, kiddo.” Maura’s voice.

“Oh…it’s you.”

“You know, with greetings like that, a girl could get the feeling she’s not wanted.”

“Sorry. I’m kind of distracted.”

“Just messin’ with you. By the way, our surfer busboy hangs ten in the sack. And I mean that literally. I measured.”

Despite everything, Jennifer laughed.

“That’s it,” Maura said, “chortle at my love life.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it love.”

“It’ll do till the real thing comes knocking. Look, I just got a call from Harrison. He would’ve called you, but he misplaced your number. Which is typical. He can remember every detail of the Hillside Strangler case, but not where he left his car keys.”

“Why did he want to reach me?” she asked warily.

“Why the note of suspicion?”

“It’s just-I’m not sure I want to see him again.”

“You’re kidding. He’s a hoot.”

“I think by the end of our interview he was trying to feel me up.”

“Oh, sure, he’s a lech. But harmless. Anyway, this wasn’t a booty call. Whatever you told him got his curiosity piqued. He did some research and found disappearances of local gals in the right time frame.”

“Really?”

“He’ll be at the TV studio from eleven to two, taping his show. Said you should stop by, and he’ll hand over the goods. Be warned, through. He’ll probably grill you for more info. He’s like a bloodhound on a scent.”

Or a shark in the water, Jennifer thought. “What studio does he work at?”

“Some independent facility at Sunset and Cahuenga. If you don’t mind, I’d like to tag along. I want to see what Harrison’s found.”

“Okay. I’ll head over. But there’s a stop I have to make first.”

“Anyplace exciting?”

“Richard’s apartment.”

“To check on him?”

“Not exactly. He’s…well, he’s run away. I think he’s living on the street.”

“Then why are you going to his place?”

“There’s something of his I need to look at. Family papers. I’m hoping he keeps them there.”

“You have a key to his apartment?”

“No, he’s too paranoid to share. But I can get the manager to open up. At least I hope I can.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s making people cooperate. The manager will be happy to let you in when I’m through with him.”

Jennifer gave her the address, hearing a sad little sigh. Maura had recognized it as an address in Dogtown, of course, and if Richard was living there, it meant he had fallen farther than she’d feared.

“You know, kiddo, I understand your feelings and all, but you do spend a hell of a lot of time looking after your brother.”

“And you think I shouldn’t?”

“I’m just saying family loyalty is not a suicide pact. At some point you have to live your life.”

Jennifer felt something inside her pull tight. “What do you know about loyalty? You abandoned Richard as soon as he started having problems.”

“Whoa, hold on.”

“I guess it wasn’t convenient for you to be with him anymore. His illness was cramping your style. What the hell, there are always more busboys to fuck.”

“Calm down, Jen. You don’t know what went on between your brother and me.”

“I know you walked out on him.”

“It’s not as if he didn’t give me a good reason.”

“What reason?”

“Look, I don’t want to talk about this over the phone.”

“Are you saying he abused you?” Until this moment the idea had never occurred to her.

“He never hit me, but…”

“But what?”

“There are other kinds of abuse.”

“What does that mean?”

“Why don’t we talk about it when we get together? That is, if you want to talk about it at all.”

The words lingered in Jennifer’s mind as she fixed breakfast, showered, and changed. She checked yesterday’s mail and found two business matters that required her urgent attention. She ignored them.

She was on her way out when the doorbell rang. Casey, in his street clothes.

“Hey.” She smiled, hoping his resentment had ebbed by now. “Shouldn’t you be at work? Or is this your day off?”

He didn’t return the smile. “I’m working the mid-PM watch. Ten to six-thirty.”

“Come on in.”

“No, thanks, Short Stuff. I don’t think I’m very welcome in your house.”

“Casey, I already apologized. And don’t call me Short Stuff.”

“I’m just here on business. Got two pieces of news. One good, one not so good.”

She felt awkward, talking to him on the porch. “Give me the not-so-good first.”

“The forensic anthropologist under contract with the county is away till tomorrow. Digging up Indian burial grounds or something.”

“I didn’t think you were allowed to do that.”

Casey shrugged, irritated. “I don’t know what the hell he’s digging up. I just know he’s out of town. Can you stand another night with a cellar full of bones?”

“Guess I’ll have to.”

“It won’t be so bad. You’d rather sleep with the skeletons than with me, right? Isn’t that how you put it?”

“I was joking.”

“Sure you were. Okay, the good news. We got a break in the Diaz case. And before you ask, yes, your document analysis, or whatever the hell it is you do, played a role. It got Draper looking at the people who worked in Diaz’s office complex.”

“Who’s the suspect?”

“Mortgage broker. He came on to Marilyn a few times and she blew him off. Her coworkers forgot about it till Draper started asking questions. Best guess is she assumed the note was from him and didn’t take it seriously. He’s a nerdy little guy, seems harmless. But here’s the thing. He was convicted in Phoenix six years ago on a stalking charge. Another office situation.”

The suspect dovetailed with her analysis. He worked in a financial field and was rejected after making a romantic advance. “Has he been charged?”

“No, but we’re leaning on him. He says he’s being railroaded because of his prior. That’s what they always say.”

“So we don’t know for sure he’s the guy?”

“Draper thinks it’s a pretty safe bet.”

“I saw Draper last night. He didn’t mention any of this to me.”

“We were waiting for the guy’s records to come in from out of state.”

“He still could have said something.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to get your hopes up. Or maybe he wasn’t thrilled about you hanging out with Sandra Price. I saw you leave the gym with her. Two gal pals chatting it up.”

“I live in this community, Casey. I have a right to take an interest in local affairs.”

He produced a noncommittal grunt. “How’d you hook up with Draper, anyway?”

“We didn’t exactly hook up. I ran into him at the restaurant where Sandra and I were eating.” She didn’t say she thought Draper had followed them, spied on them. It sounded like something Richard would say.

Casey gave her a hard stare. “You two are getting pretty close, I guess.”

“I hardly know Sandra Price.”

“I meant you and Draper.”

“Oh. Close?” She thought of the impromptu kiss on the sidewalk. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

Another grunt. “Well, my advice, you might want to keep your distance. Roy’s a good cop, but he has issues.”

“Everybody has issues.”

“His might be more serious than most. His girlfriend-well, maybe I shouldn’t be talking out of school.”

“If you have something to say, just say it.”

He snagged his thumbs in his belt loops. “Okay, it’s like this. When Draper broke up with his girlfriend a few months ago, he told everybody it was the usual story-he’s a workaholic, no time for her, blah blah. But I’ve got a friend in Devonshire who has a different take.”

“Why would a Valley cop know anything?”

“Because Draper’s girlfriend lives in the Valley. One night she calls nine-one-one, reports a domestic abuse incident. Responding unit finds her with a black eye and a bloody nose. Draper’d smacked the shit out of her.”

“You’re saying Roy is violent?” It seemed impossible. Yet she remembered the surprise of his touch as he pulled her in and pressed his lips to hers. A romantic impulse, she’d thought. Or was it? A move like that could be seen as controlling, even aggressive.

“It’s not the first time the issue has come up,” Casey said. “When he was working patrol, there were excess force complaints. Of course, anybody can throw a brutality charge. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But sometimes where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“Why haven’t I heard about this before?”

“His personnel records are confidential. And the girlfriend didn’t press charges. The officers had the impression she was afraid of Draper. Of course, him being a fellow cop, they weren’t too keen on bringing him up on charges anyway, so they probably didn’t push very hard.” He paused, then added with a note of finality, “She and Draper broke up right after that.”

“I find this pretty hard to believe.”

“Why? Because Draper’s never hit you? You’re not his girlfriend.”

“He just doesn’t come across…”

“As a guy who’d beat up a woman? Can’t always tell about people. You know that. You deal with enough threat messages from guys who seem normal.”

“Yes. I do.” She was thinking of the quiet schoolmaster, Edward Hare.

“Anyway, just wanted to give you a heads-up. Draper’s a good guy and all, for the most part, but maybe not the best person to get close to.”

“I haven’t gotten close to him. It’s none of your business, anyway.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your undies in a knot. I’m just looking out for you.”

“Well, quit it.” She was tired of being told who she could talk to. “I can look out for myself.”

“Right. You don’t need me. You don’t need anybody. I got it.”

He started down the sidewalk, then glanced back. “Oh, by the way, it’s probably not the greatest idea to leave the backyard gate open in this neighborhood. Not that you need my advice.”

He got into his car-his civilian car, a Mustang-and drove off, the engine burring angrily.

She didn’t know what that last crack had been about. She always kept the gate shut and locked. But when she checked, she found the gate hanging ajar, creaking softly in the breeze.

The lock had been forced. Someone had inserted a screwdriver or similar tool into the keyhole and jimmied it open.

She entered the yard, passing the lawn mower, which sat amid clumps of tall grass in need of trimming. She saw no signs of intrusion at the back door and the rear window, but on the steps to the deck she found a clump of damp earth from the garden.

The intruder had climbed the steps. Had been on the deck, directly outside her bedroom.

Last night he must have tried entering the house from the rear, but finding no windows unlocked, he’d gone around to the side. There he’d found the one window with the broken latch.

It changed nothing. She’d already known he had been in the house. But somehow the thought of him on the deck, so near to her bed…

She thought of Marilyn Diaz, surprised in her bedroom. Marilyn, who’d kept her problems from the police, who’d been so sure she could handle things by herself.

Marilyn, plucked from the surf with a plastic bag pasted over her unseeing eyes.

twenty-five

At nine-thirty she met Maura in the lobby of Richard’s building. “Manager’s waiting for us upstairs,” Maura said. “He gave me all kinds of grief about opening up. I wasn’t impressed.” She stabbed the elevator button.

“I always take the stairs,” Jennifer said.

“Stairs are for losers. This is the twenty-first century.”

“This elevator isn’t the most reliable-”

“If it breaks down, I’ll climb out the trapdoor in the ceiling and shimmy up the cable. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

The elevator rose slowly with a good deal of rattling that did not inspire confidence. Maura didn’t seem to notice. She flashed a rather tacky bracelet at Jennifer, a band of copper studded with turquoise. “Like my newest trinket? Josh gave it to me.”

“Who’s Josh?”

“My surfing busboy. Come on, girl, try to keep up.”

“You just met him last night, and already he’s buying you presents?”

“He didn’t exactly buy it. A former girlfriend left it at his place. But he did give it to me.”

“How sweet,” Jennifer said dubiously.

“I thought so. It’s amazing how a little thing like a blow job can bring out the romance in a man.”

Despite Jennifer’s misgivings, they reached the third floor without incident. The manager was standing by Richard’s door, a heavy set of keys jingling in his hand. “I shouldn’t do this,” he said.

“Of course you should,” Maura countered. “This is the guy’s sister. And I’m a big wheel in the neighborhood. You should do whatever we say.”

The man thought about contesting the matter, then seemed to decide he didn’t give a shit. With a shrug he unlocked the door.

Jennifer entered first. “Richard?”

“He ain’t here.” The manager made a phlegmatic noise. “Ain’t been around since the last time you saw him. If he abandons the place, I’m entitled to sell his stuff.”

“You’re not selling anything,” Maura warned.

“He don’t come back, I can rent out his unit. That’s all I’m saying. He still owes me for this month’s rent.”

Jennifer pulled out her wallet and found a blank check. “I’ll pay it.” She plucked a pen from his shirt pocket and filled it out. “There. Satisfied?”

“That covers March, but what about next month?”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we have to.”

The manager blew out a wheezy sigh. “My luck, he’ll show up again. Just when I thought I was rid of that freak.”

Maura’s face was hard. “Get the hell out of here.”

“I should stay with you while you-”

“Go.”

He went. Maura closed the door after him. When she turned back, Jennifer caught her expression, the shocked sadness in her eyes. This was the first time she had seen the way Richard lived now.

“Pretty bad, huh?” Jennifer said.

Maura dropped her gaze. “Yeah. Pretty bad.” Her voice was small. “Is he…happy? I mean, ordinarily?”

“I don’t think he’s ever happy. I don’t think he can be.” She picked up a book from a disorderly pile, glancing at the cover. Something about government conspiracies. “Schizophrenia tends to dull the affect. Cancels out the pleasure center in the brain. The patient feels fear, rage-negative emotions. But not happiness. It’s called anhedonia.”

The book was from the Santa Monica Public Library-the main branch, some distance away. He really was more mobile than she’d thought.

“So where are these papers we’re looking for?” Maura asked.

“No idea. I’m just assuming he keeps them here. I don’t know where else they could be.”

Jennifer opened drawers in the living room and kitchen, finding nothing. From the bedroom Maura called, “File cabinet in here.”

The bedroom was neater than the living room, but the musty smell was worse. And there was another odor, one Jennifer couldn’t identify.

The file cabinet stood in a corner. Maura was tugging on the handle of the top drawer. “Locked.”

“That’s got to be where he stashed them. We just need the key.”

A thorough search turned up no keys in the apartment. “How about this?” Maura lifted a butter knife from the kitchen sink.

“What good does that do us?”

“It gives us leverage. Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, yadda yadda.”

Maura inserted the blade between the cabinet drawer and the frame. She pushed up, straining. Jennifer thought of the lock on her gate, the tool inserted into the keyhole.

Maura gave a final push, and the drawer clattered open. It was empty.

“Shit,” Maura murmured.

With the top drawer open, the bottom offered no resistance. She slid it forward. Nothing was inside.

“We’re coming up snake eyes, kiddo. But he had something in here.”

Jennifer saw wisps and shavings of paper scattered inside the drawer, and a few loose paperclips and bent staples. “He must have moved them.”

“Why would he do that?”

“We talked about the papers the other day. He was very paranoid about them. And last night, on the phone, he evaded my question when I asked about them.”

“You talked to him on the phone? Is he okay?”

“He’s never okay.” She looked around the bedroom, trying to imagine what Richard would have done with the documents. Her glance fell on a metal wastebasket used as a doorstop.

The bottom of the basket was dark with a coat of ash. Slivers of charred paper clung to the sides.

“He burned them.” The unidentifiable smell was the lingering odor of smoldering paper and scorched metal.

“All your family records? A whole file cabinet’s worth?”

“Looks that way.”

“Just because he was paranoid?”

“Or because he was covering something up.”

“Like what?”

Jennifer looked at her. “Crimes,” she said.

She sat with Maura in Richard’s living room, explaining it all. She left nothing out. She talked about the note on her windshield, the unsolved murders, Richard’s paranoia about the wanted posters. The contents of the diary, and the confirmation of the essential elements of Edward Hare’s tale by an online source. The family history, and how Richard’s illness and her father’s might be traceable to Edward Hare.

“So you’re telling me,” Maura said when she was through, “you’re Jack the Ripper’s great-granddaughter?”

Jennifer rubbed her forehead, fighting a headache. “I hadn’t thought of it exactly like that.”

“I don’t know, kiddo. Sounds like you’re reaching.”

“You didn’t read the diary.”

“The diary might not be what it’s cracked up to be. And you can’t be sure your ancestor wrote it.”

“The house goes back a long way in our family. I know my great-grandparents lived there.”

“Were they the original occupants?”

“I don’t know. The family papers might have told me. Why would Robert burn them unless there was something in them he needed to cover up?”

“He’s irrational. He could’ve torched the papers for any number of reasons. He could’ve done it just because you were asking about them.”

“So you think I’m overreacting?” She hoped so. She wanted to believe she was making too much of this.

But Maura disappointed her. “Given everything that’s happened-and especially that creepy note you found on your car-I’d say you might not be reacting enough.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means it’s time to call the cops.”

“No, I can’t do that.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because if I’m wrong, I’ll have exposed Richard to all kinds of trouble. Legal trouble. They could lock him up. If not for any crimes, then just for being a danger to himself and others.”

“Maybe he is a danger.”

“But we don’t know that. Not for certain. And there’s a chance he’d resist arrest. He’s not thinking clearly, he’s sure everyone’s out to get him. He could fight the police if they try to bring him in. He could be killed.”

“If he’s responsible for even one of those unsolved homicides, then you need to get him off the street before someone else is killed.”

“He’s my brother. I’m supposed to take care of him. I’ve always taken care of him.”

“It might be time you stopped.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that today.”

“Yeah, and it didn’t go over so hot the first time, did it? Even so, loyalty to your bro only goes so far.”

Jennifer touched her left arm. “Not for me it doesn’t. For me it goes all the way.” She took a breath, knowing she had to ask the question she’d been dreading. “Why did you leave him?”

“He cheated on me. And he didn’t much care if I found out. Actually I think he wanted me to find out.”

“That’s crazy. Richard’s not like that.”

“Yeah, kiddo. He is. And it wasn’t a one-time thing. A few months later I ran into another gal who was with him before I came into the picture. Guess what? He cheated on her, too.”

“You’re saying it was a pattern?”

Maura nodded. “He wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship. In fact I’d say he was terrified of it. Didn’t you ever wonder why he went through so many girlfriends?”

“He was popular-a good-looking guy, smart, a doctor-”

“Amen to all that. But he was also a guy who never had a relationship that lasted more than three or four months. Am I right?”

Jennifer thought about it. “Probably. I mean, it’s not as if I ever quizzed him on his love life.”

“I didn’t have to quiz him. I lived it. Here’s the deal, Jen. He sabotaged his relationships. When they started to get serious, he went out and found himself a new girl, and made sure it didn’t stay a secret. And as long as I’m being brutally honest, I’ll tell you something else. He enjoyed it.”

“Enjoyed…what?”

“Humiliating me. And the others. He got a kick out of it.”

“No way. He would never…”

“Your brother has issues with women, and they started long before he showed any symptoms of schizophrenia.”

There was that word again, the word Casey had used in discussing Draper. Issues.

But of course Richard had issues. How could it be otherwise? Growing up fatherless in the House of Silence, enduring constant run-ins with their mother, hiding in his room and nursing grudges…

Throughout his life he’d dated women who were slightly older. Mother figures. With each new relationship he was trying to heal the breach with his mother. And failing each time, because it was a breach that couldn’t be healed.

Then lashing out, finding a new lover and humiliating the one who’d disappointed him. A compulsive pattern.

She was trained in psychology. She should have seen it long ago. Only, she hadn’t wanted to see it.

When Richard’s illness began to change him, did his resentment of women metamorphose into rage? Into violence?

“I’m sorry I had to tell you,” Maura said. “I never wanted to. But with all that’s happening, maybe it’s for the best if you know.”

“Nothing about this is for the best.”

“You need to bring in the police.”

“Not yet.”

“If he’s dangerous, he could come after you.”

“He wouldn’t,” she said, thinking of the open gate, the shoe print on her windowsill, the misplaced files.

“You don’t know what he’s capable of. You don’t know him. You only know what you want him to be. Not what he is.”

Jennifer felt a sting of tears. “Stop.”

“Promise you’ll go to the cops.”

“Not until I’m sure.”

“By then it could be too late.”

“He won’t hurt me. He would never hurt me. He saved-he saved my-” She couldn’t talk about this. “He’s not a killer.”

Maura took her hand. “Kiddo, I hope you’re right.”

twenty-six

The TV studio was on the twelfth floor of a Sunset Boulevard high-rise. The receptionist cleared Jennifer and Maura, then directed them to a small makeup room, where Sirk was seated grandly in a barber’s chair, “enduring the ministrations of my cosmetician.” The cosmetician in question, a petite redhead, was dabbing liquid foundation on Sirk’s face. “She is a genius in her way,” Sirk added. “With her charms and spells this wee sorceress can almost conceal the ravages of my debauched life.”

The makeup artist showed a diplomatic smile, but her eyes were flat. Jennifer had the impression she didn’t like Sirk. Given his behavior yesterday, it was easy enough to guess why.

“Hi, Harrison,” Maura said cheerfully. She, at least, genuinely enjoyed his company.

“Good morning to you both. I hadn’t expected to be graced by your dual presence.”

Maura spread her hands. “You know me. Always up for an adventure.”

“Yes, you are the Marguerite Harrison of our day. Remarkable woman, Marguerite Harrison, and I don’t say that merely because we share a name in common. Have you heard of her? No? What about you, dear?”

The question was directed at the makeup artist, who shook her head and busied herself rubbing in the foundation, perhaps a bit more aggressively than necessary.

“Marguerite was an explorer who ventured into Kurdish territory, following a nomadic tribe’s migration. Before that, she served as a spy, an actual spy, twice imprisoned by the Russians, once nearly executed for her pains.”

“I doubt I can match her exploits,” Maura said, “though driving in L.A. is a little risky.”

Jennifer wasn’t interested in Sirk’s banter. “Maura says you found something.”

“Why, yes. I have news.” He pronounced the word as if he could taste it and liked the flavor. “What you told me-and even more so, what you declined to tell-put me on the scent of a good story. Another book, perhaps.”

“I’m not interested in a book.”

“But I am. Books are my bread and butter, and”-he patted his ample lap-“I require considerable quantities of both. And so I investigated the early years of Abbot Kinney’s Venice for news accounts of missing women. Actually, I should not say that I investigated it. Grunt work of that sort is what archival researchers are for. I put two of them on the case, combing through microfilm copies of old newspapers.”

“What did they find?”

“There was a series of unexplained disappearances of young females during the appropriate time period. Of course, careful records were not kept back then, and police resources were limited. Few inquiries were made. It is quite likely that some of the women in question simply left town for one reason or another. Flighty creatures, women-Marguerite Harrison to the contrary notwithstanding. They are always getting it in their empty heads to run off somewhere.”

The makeup artist managed to brush some powder a little too close to Sirk’s eyes, producing momentary irritation. “Sorry,” she deadpanned.

“At any rate,” Sirk continued when he had wiped his eyes with a pocket square, “I can’t vouch for any criminal implications to these disappearances, but some of them could be deemed suspicious. You’ll see why when you read the reports.”

“You have them with you?” Jennifer asked.

“My researchers printed out the relevant pages and made copies. Said copies are in my attache case. Unclasp it and you’ll find a manila envelope.”

Jennifer retrieved the envelope. It felt disappointingly light. There weren’t many pages inside.

“They didn’t find much,” Sirk said as if reading her thoughts. “The stories were not given much play. There was a great deal of crime in Venice and surrounding areas in those halcyon days, and only the juiciest tidbits made the headlines. A missing woman, who was inconsiderate enough not to leave behind any bloodstains or shredded undergarments for public titillation, was strictly small beer. Still, you’ll find names, locations, and dates. Take a look. And keep them in order, please. They are arranged chronologically.”

Jennifer pulled out the contents of the envelope. Eight pages in all. The articles, brief items from the inside pages of the newspapers, were circled in red ink on the photocopies. She read the first one.

The Los Angeles Examiner, January 16, 1908. Venice-of-America. Police authorities are making inquiries relative to the unexplained disappearance of Marianne Sorensen, a waitress presently employed at St. Mark’s Hotel. Miss Sorenson is described as twenty years of age, with dark brown hair, regular features, and a compact figure, standing slightly below medium height. She was last seen boarding a northbound electric car at about five o’clock Tuesday evening. The car was to have delivered her to the vicinity of Dimmick Avenue, where she had been staying with friends. She did not arrive, and has not been seen in subsequent days. It is conjectured that because she had a recent falling out with her boyfriend, she may have done herself harm….

“What the heck is an electric car?” Maura asked, reading over Jennifer’s shoulder

Sirk answered. “A trolley. They were the principal means of local transportation at the time.”

The second article was on a new subject.

The Los Angeles Express, August 7, 1908. Venice-of-America. Questions have been raised pertaining to the disappearance of Annette Thurmond, a young woman commonly known in the strand as the “flower girl,” because she customarily sells bouquets of flowers outside the Auditorium…. The supposition is that Miss Thurmond, who had often spoken of plying her trade in San Diego, may have departed for that city on a whim….

“It looks like nobody really gave a damn,” Maura said.

“Quite right,” Sirk agreed. “In a bustling young community there were higher priorities then a few disappearances. Even if crime had been suspected, it would hardly do to advertise the fact and possibly damage the tourist trade.”

The first two items have been dated 1908. The third was the following year.

The Los Angeles Daily Times, March 18, 1909. Venice-of-America. There is much speculation among the idly curious about the disappearances of three or four young ladies of dissolute character over the past two months. Wild rumors and exaggerated conjecture have been patiently addressed by the police authorities, who are of the mind that such women are habitually on the move, rarely sojourning in one community for very long. With the regrettable decline of the strand’s business activity in recent months, it is hardly surprising that some of the parasitic class who require a steady supply of tourists and sightseers would seek out more hospitable climes….

“Three or four women,” Jennifer said. “And that doesn’t include the victims in the first two reports.”

“If they were victims,” Sirk observed.

The makeup artist powdered Sirk’s ears, then stepped away. Sirk untied the bib around his neck and inspected his countenance in the mirror.

“Excellent work, Helen. Whoever said the camera never lies must have been unfamiliar with your magic arts.”

Helen left the room without a word.

The next two stories were datelined Santa Monica and its southernmost neighborhood, Ocean Park.

The Los Angeles Herald, November 5, 1909. Santa Monica. The family of Mrs. John Wright are requesting the assistance of the public in determining her whereabouts. Mrs. Wright, known familiarly as Kathleen, was last seen at the fruit and vegetable market at the end of the Long Wharf, early on Wednesday morning. One witness says he saw her speaking with a dark-complected man of medium height, but as this witness is a vagrant known for his intimate familiarity with the bottle, the authorities are disinclined to credit his report….

The Santa Monica Outlook, May 17, 1910. Ocean Park. A woman’s screams were reported by residents of the 400 block of Pier Avenue last night at about 10 o’clock. Investigating officers found no signs of disturbance and believe the sounds in question may have been drunken laughter….

“That one could be nothing,” Maura said. Jennifer nodded. She flipped to the next pages.

The Los Angeles Sunday Times, October 16, 1910. Venice-of-America. A tourist from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mrs. Thomas Mayhew, has been reported missing by her husband. Authorities fear that Mrs. Mayhew, an inexpert swimmer, may have drowned in the heavy surf off Venice Beach. As yet, her body has not been found…

The Los Angeles Examiner, March 3, 1911. Venice-of-America. Employers of Miss Mary Hatton are concerned for her welfare after her repeated failure to report for her duties at the bathing pavilion, where she worked as a towel girl in the women’s changing rooms. Miss Hatton, described by her employers as “a little thing and rather delicate,” was well liked by the ladies who frequent the pavilion….

The Venice Vanguard, June 3, 1911. Venice-of-America. The police of this city are inquiring into the disappearance of Mrs. Ronald Paynter, wife of a businessman who recently purchased a home on Park Avenue after relocating from Glendale. Mrs. Paynter vanished more than a month ago, but her husband at first chose to retain a private investigator in hope of locating her. These efforts having failed, he has belatedly brought the matter to the attention of police. By now the trail is believed to be quite cold….

There were no other reports. The articles ran from the beginning of 1908 to the early summer of 1911. Viewed all at once, they suggested a rash of disappearances, but spread over three and a half years, in more than one community, and involving women of varying ages, backgrounds, and social positions, they would not have suggested an epidemic at the time-especially in an era when the very concept of a serial killer was barely understood.

It was doubtful that all these women had been Edward Hare’s victims. Perhaps the unfortunate Mrs. Mayhew really had drowned in the surf, and perhaps Mrs. Paynter had run away with another man-which would explain why her husband tried to keep the matter confidential. But it was a safe bet that some of the half-dozen skeletons in the cellar had been named in these newspaper accounts.

Marianne Sorensen…Annette Thurmond…Kathleen Wright… Mary Hatton.

Names for the moldering bones in the crypt. Names that made them people, not just relics.

Names…

“You see something,” Sirk said.

She glanced up and caught him watching her reflection in the mirror.

“No, not really.”

“You’re prevaricating, Jennifer. I saw it in your face-recognition. Of what?”

“Just an idea that occurred to me. I don’t know if it means anything.”

“Why not share it with the rest of the class?”

“I’m not sure it’s worth sharing.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Abberline had said nearly the same thing to her. Perhaps Sirk really was the faceless man on the Internet. She wouldn’t put it past him.

“I’ll tell you when I’m ready.” She slipped the papers back into the envelope. “I appreciate your help, but this is something I need to handle on my own.”

“Oh, I hardly think that answer is satisfactory.” Sirk heaved himself out of the barber’s chair. “As Maura can attest, I never do anything out of the goodness of my heart. I believe I suffer from the same congenital malady as Dr. Seuss’s Grinch, who, as you may recall, was born with a heart two sizes too small. As with any good deed that emanates from my person, there is a quid pro quo. I’ve helped you, and now you are to help me.”

“Help you how?”

“By telling me the rest of your story, of course.” He stepped closer, and Jennifer smelled alcohol on his breath. “No more secrecy, no more evasions. You and I are partners now.”

Maura waved a hand. “Hold on, Harrison. All I ever asked you to do was talk to my friend. I wasn’t trying to midwife some kind of business arrangement.”

“And yet you have done so, without even trying. Such is your skill as a businesswoman.”

Jennifer stood her ground. “I’m not going to tell you anything more.”

“I didn’t engage my research assistants in a full day of work for a rather hefty fee merely to get nothing in return.”

Maura snorted. “You don’t pay your research assistants a hefty fee. You pay them squat.”

“How can you possibly claim to know that?”

“Because I know you. You’re a cheap bastard.”

“And you are a purveyor of dirt. That’s all real estate is, ultimately. You’ve built your life on dirt.”

“You’ve built yours on blood,” Jennifer said, while Maura stepped back, speechless for once.

Sirk wheeled in her direction. “I would be careful, Miss Silence, about leveling such an accusation. Given your family history.”

“My family is none of your business.”

“Everything related to crime in our fair metropolis is my business. Including the Devil’s Henchman.” His eyes narrowed with malicious merriment. “You know, there is one detail about that case that never made the papers. I should have mentioned it yesterday, but I was hamstrung by discretion.”

“What detail?”

“Only this. The Devil’s Henchman abused his victims. I mean to say, he used them…sexually.”

She refused to let him see any reaction. “He raped them?”

“In a manner of speaking. They were already dead, you see, so the coitus was entirely postmortem.”

“And why are you telling me this?”

“I thought you deserved to know. You do have a rather pertinent interest in the case. I use the term interest in the dual sense of curiosity and of a personal stake in the outcome.”

“You’re just trying to hurt me.”

“Not at all. It’s not as if I said your father was a butchering pervert who had sex with corpses. For all I know, the dear man was altogether innocent.”

“Jesus, Harrison,” Maura mumbled, aghast.

“Is there a problem?” His eyes had not left Jennifer’s face. “I should think you would welcome any fresh data in your fearless quest for truth.”

She held his gaze. “Maybe you can tell me if the killer used the missionary position.”

“Actually, my understanding is that he took them from behind. Perhaps he preferred not to see their faces. Incidentally, Jack the Ripper throttled his victims from behind. Remarkable how many parallels one can draw between old Jack and the Devil’s Henchman, isn’t it?”

“Like you said”-her voice was even, betraying nothing-“there are only so many ways to disembowel a woman.”

“Yes, but consider. The Venice killer roamed the streets on foot-like Jack. Preyed on down-and-out females-like Jack. Eviscerated them-like Jack. Was thought to show the skills of a surgeon or a slaughterman-like Jack. Took his victims from behind-like Jack. Of course, Jack didn’t rape them, so the similarities end there.”

“And what’s the point of listing all these details?”

“Merely to suggest that you may have a more personal connection to the Ripper case than I had imagined.”

“My father was born several decades too late to have been Jack the Ripper.”

“But not too late to be descended from him.”

It required all her willpower to keep her gaze level. “That’s crazy.”

“Before yesterday, I would have thought so. Today I’m not so sure. Seeing your face right now, I’m even less sure.”

“Harrison,” Maura hissed, “you’re behaving like a total shit.”

“No, my dear, I’m behaving like a historian of crime whose sensitive proboscis is beginning to catch the scent of the biggest story he could possibly hope for. The kind of story that would crown a career.”

“There’s no story,” Jennifer said.

“My every instinct tells me otherwise. And my instincts are rarely mistaken. They have earned me a great deal of money and brought me a fair degree of fame.”

“But not enough?” she asked.

He smiled, a paper-thin smile that spoke of limitless appetites. “My child, it is never enough.”

twenty-seven

It was one o’clock when Jennifer boarded the elevator with Maura and descended to the parking garage.

“Heading home?” Jennifer asked. They had taken separate cars to Hollywood. It wasn’t safe to leave a vehicle parked in Dogtown for too long.

Maura shook her head without answering. She had said little since Sirk’s outburst.

Jennifer tried to get the conversation started. “Got plans?”

“I’m going downtown.” Maura looked away. “Business stuff.”

She seemed to be hiding something, but Jennifer couldn’t imagine what.

They got off at the garage level. A few steps from the elevator, Maura stopped. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry for what?”

“For hooking you up with Harrison. I didn’t know-I never saw that side of him-”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. But I’ll make it up to you.”

“How?”

“Never mind. I just will. And you need to call the cops.”

“So far I have nothing but suspicions.”

“So report your suspicions.”

“Not yet.”

“Damn. You are the stubborn one.” Unexpectedly she gave Jennifer a hug. “Take care of yourself, kiddo. And remember, there are wolves in the woods.”

Jennifer watched her walk away, her flat-soled shoes echoing on the concrete floor. In the past, she’d resented Maura for abandoning Richard. It had never occurred to her that Maura was the aggrieved party. And she had stayed quiet about Richard’s transgressions, preferring not to sully his image in the eyes of his sister. There was nobility in her tactfulness, and simple kindness that was rare anywhere-perhaps especially so in Los Angeles, a city with a warm climate and a cold heart.

She arrived home by two P.M. and went immediately to the back of the house. Her laptop had been left on; so far there had been no reply by Abberline to her instant message. It wasn’t her highest priority now.

What she’d seen when she looked at Sirk’s news clippings was more than a hunch, less than proof. But the proof might be waiting here, in her study.

She took out the loose pages of her notes from the meeting with Sandra Price. She arranged the four crimes-two homicides, one assault, one disappearance-in chronological order, then wrote three lists.

First, the Ripper’s five initial victims in London.

Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols

Annie Chapman

Elizabeth Stride

Catharine Eddowes

Mary Jane Kelly

Then four of the missing women in Venice a hundred years ago.

Marianne Sorenson

Annette Thurmond

Kathleen Wright

Mary Hatton

Finally, the local women who had been attacked or who had disappeared within the past eighteen months.

Mary Ellison-eighteen months ago

Ann Powell-twelve months ago

Elizabeth Custer-seven months ago

Chatty Cathy-three months ago

The first victim in each sequence was Mary Ann, Marianne, or Mary. The second was Annie, Annette, or Ann. The third was Elizabeth Stride in 1888 and Elizabeth Custer recently; there was no corresponding name in the old news accounts Sirk’s people had dug up, but that point in the chronology matched the reported disappearances of “three or four” anonymous women of low repute. One of them could easily have been Elizabeth or Liz or Beth.

Fourth came Catharine or Kathleen or Cathy. Fifth, Mary Jane in 1888, Mary in 1911. There hadn’t been a fifth homicide in the newest series. Not yet.

The police wouldn’t have seen it, of course-not in the early 1900s, and not today. In neither instance would they have been looking for the parallels.

According to his diary, Hare had not known his victims’ names in London until after the fact. But once in Venice, years older, he must have recreated the glories of his youth, deliberately targeting women with the same-or similar-names. As a lark? More likely, it was a message for the future, a code to be deciphered. He hadn’t wanted his work to be uncredited and unappreciated for all time. He must have hoped that someone, someday, would see the pattern-perhaps after finding the crypt and the diary, his secret time capsule.

If so, she was doing only what he had wanted her to do. She was his puppet, her strings pulled by a dead man.

She wondered if the Devil’s Henchman had repeated the pattern. Somehow she would find the details. But even if that case didn’t fit, it made no difference. The new killer-the nameless modern-day Ripper-was clearly emulating his forebear. And no one would guess. No one would see.

Richard would have counted on that.

It had to be Richard. Who else could it be?

Sirk was right about the parallels between the Ripper case and the Devil’s Henchman murders. The diary was the connection. It linked Aldrich Silence to the Ripper. It implied a taste for blood that had persisted across generations-and persisted today.

She had uncovered an ongoing series of murders committed by her own brother.

In London, Hare left his victims in the open; in Venice, he hid them in a cellar. The first method brought him notoriety but advertised his activities to the police. The second method allowed him to keep a low profile, but cheated him of the fame he thought he deserved. Richard had found a third way. Some victims were found, while others went missing. His approach varied so the crimes could not be linked.

He had learned from his father’s mistakes, which had made Aldrich a suspect and driven him to suicide. Richard, it seemed, would outdo his father. Perhaps he meant to outdo Jack himself.

He had always been ambitious. Always proud of his cleverness, his brains.

Her head hurt. It was all too much. She was caught up in a sequence of events driving her to a conclusion she hated-caught in a riptide that was entangling her in her brother’s crimes, as surely as another current had borne Marilyn Diaz into the fishing lines under the Venice Pier.

Ever since finding the bodies and reading the diary, she had been rationalizing, fearful of reaching this moment. Now that she had, she was faced with a choice. She could turn Richard over to the police, and let him go to prison or maybe die.

Or she could do…nothing.

Run away, leave the city, leave the state-and let him go on killing.

Impossible. She couldn’t do that. Or could she? The people he murdered…she didn’t know them. She owed them nothing. She owed Richard-she touched her arm-everything.

Maybe she could let him go. His victims were only strangers. And he…

“He’s family,” she whispered, eyes shut against tears.

Her laptop pinged, announcing an instant message.

She gathered herself. Opened the dialogue box. It was Abberline, responding to the message she’d sent this morning. The trap she’d laid.

I decided I was being unfair, she’d written. So I put some digital pix online. Part of my doc. I can send you a link.

His reply glimmered on the screen: I am eager to see it.

“I’ll bet you are,” she said.

From memory she entered an URL she’d used before-a dummy link, a Web address that went nowhere.

For ten dollars a month, she subscribed to a tracking service that could pinpoint the origin of e-mails and instant messages. Instant messages did not carry routing information, and e-mails could have their routing info disguised or removed. But the sender could be tricked into revealing his location by opening a dummy link maintained by the tracking service. As soon as he clicked on the link, his IP address would be sent to their servers. Once the IP address was known, his whereabouts could be determined-sometimes only within a certain ZIP code, but other times narrowed down to a city block or even a particular building.

She waited. Within sixty seconds her e-mail program notified her of incoming mail. It was a message from the tracking service, and it included a link to the traceroute results.

She followed the link. Abberline’s IP address was associated with the domain name SMPL.org.

According to the WHOIS database, the domain was registered to the Santa Monica Public Library at 601 Santa Monica Boulevard, Santa Monica, California.

He was using a public computer at the library, less than four miles from her house.

She remembered the overdue library books in Richard’s apartment.

He was Abberline.

Just another of his games.

She shut off the laptop so any new instant messages would be forwarded to her cell phone. She ran for her car. Luckily she hadn’t bothered to close the garage door, making it easier to make a quick exit. She shot down a side street to Venice Boulevard and headed east, then took a left onto Abbot Kinney Boulevard and a right onto California Avenue. At Lincoln Boulevard she went north.

Lincoln was always crowded, but it was the main thoroughfare in the neighborhood, and she would just have to hope the traffic wasn’t too bad.

She remembered her first online conversation with Abberline, which ended just before nine PM. The library’s main branch remained open until nine on weeknights. He must have stayed at the terminal until almost the last minute.

She was crossing Rose Avenue when her phone rang. Not an SMS alert. This was an incoming call. Caller ID showed Maura’s cell.

She couldn’t talk to Maura now. She let voicemail take the call. As she reached Ocean Park Boulevard a text came through.

Link did not work. Tried several times.

She braced the steering wheel between her elbows, freeing her hands to type a reply. Her phone, in T9 mode, allowed her to tap out words quickly, with word completion and letter prediction.

Maybe I uploaded the file wrong. Let me check.

That would buy some time. She passed Pico Boulevard and sped over the freeway. Getting close.

She couldn’t wait any longer or he might suspect something. OK fixed it. Try again.

The traffic in downtown Santa Monica was snarled. She was stuck at the intersection of Lincoln and Colorado for two minutes. Her dashboard clock clicked past 2:30.

Still no success, he wrote.

I don’t understand.

Perhaps if you explain the nature of this document?

I’d rather you see for yourself.

As would I.

Traffic was moving again. She was across Broadway, nearing Santa Monica Boulevard.

You wouldn’t be toying with me? he asked.

No.

I dislike games.

Me too.

You are a poor liar.

Turning west onto Santa Monica Boulevard. The library ahead.

I’m not lying. Why would you say that?

Around the corner. Behind the big new library complex. Praying for a place to park on the street because the underground garage would take too long.

Whores lie. And you are a whore.

She swung into a lot on the street and parked illegally in a handicapped space.

Don’t call me that, she typed. She was out of the car, ignoring the parking meter as she ran, the phone in her hand.

The library was a modernistic pile, shiny and new. She sprinted into the lobby, her shoes clacking on the glossy tile floor.

You are all whores. You and the others.

What others?

You know.

The terminals were on the second story. She took the stairs because the elevator would be too slow.

I’m down on whores and I shan’t quit ripping them.

She recognized the quotation from one of the Ripper’s letters.

He was still on the computer. He had to be here. She ran toward the periodicals room. In front of it was a line of tables arrayed with flat-screen monitors and keyboards. A handful of people sat using the machines.

Richard wasn’t one of them.

Are you there yet? Abberline asked.

Am I where?

Library.

He knew.

The link was clever. You traced me through it. I knew it was a trap.

He had left the library. Was using another computer. Somewhere in the neighborhood, undoubtedly. He hadn’t had time to go far.

But there were Internet cafes and WiFi hotspots all over, and copy stores that rented computer time. She wouldn’t find him.

Unless she could convince him to give up.

Richard, she typed, is that you?

Not my name.

Who are you?

CALL ME JACK.

The words blazed. She stared at them for a long moment, then wrote, You need help.

Doing fine without. Having the time of my life.

Please turn yourself in.

Never.

Please.

Catch me when you can.

Another quotation, this one from the letter datelined “from Hell,” which had come with Catharine Eddowes’ kidney.

She texted him again and again, but there was no response. The conversation was over.

He must have moved on as soon as he figured out what she was doing.

Unless he hadn’t. He might have lingered here. Not using a computer. Texting on a cell phone, as she was.

He would have wanted a computer to view and perhaps print out the file she claimed to have uploaded. But to continue the conversation, a cell phone would have been all he needed.

She approached a librarian and pulled out her photo of Richard, asking if he had been here today.

“Yes, I saw him. He hangs out here a lot.”

“Did you see where he went?”

“He went into the stacks.” The woman pointed to the labyrinth of books. “He looked kind of agitated. But, well…”

“He always does.” Jennifer understood. “How long ago was this?”

“A few minutes, that’s all. He’s not dangerous, is he?”

“No. Not dangerous. Thanks for your help.”

She headed into the stacks. Richard could have left since then, but there was a chance he was still here.

She moved from aisle to aisle, pausing to study every patron, even the homeless man in camo fatigues stretched out on the carpet and emitting a stench of body odor. He wasn’t Richard.

Toward the rear of the stacks there were fewer people. One of the overhead fluorescents had gone out, and another was winking fitfully. If Richard were hiding, he would probably be back here, in the solitude and the uncertain light.

She explored the darkest corner of the maze. No one was there. Yet she couldn’t escape the feeling that he was close. She could almost sense his eyes on her.

“Richard?” she whispered.

He could be hiding in one of the nearby aisles, watching her through gaps in the rows of books. But if she went chasing around aimlessly, he would stay one step ahead. He had been one step ahead all along.

Unless he wasn’t in the stacks. There was another possibility.

In the corner, under the defective light panel, was a closed door marked Employees Only. Probably it was kept locked, but Richard might be able to get in.

She approached the door. With her hand on the knob she hesitated. Suppose he was inside. He would be cornered, trapped. No telling how he would react.

But he wouldn’t hurt her. He couldn’t.

Anyway, she had to take the chance. Maura would say she was crazy.

But, hell…he was her brother.

She turned the knob, noting without surprise that the door was unlocked. It swung open, revealing a small storage closet, mops and brooms, dust pans, a vacuum cleaner, nothing else.

He wasn’t there. The closet was empty.

She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. Probably it had been foolhardy to risk entry. Probably she should be glad-

A noise. Rustle of clothing.

Behind her.

She started to turn but it was already too late.

twenty-eight

She had no idea how long she was out. She came to without confusion or grogginess-a snap into consciousness and she was back, fully alert, remembering everything except the blow to her head. She knew about that only because the back of her skull still pounded in time with her pulse.

She could see only darkness and a pale horizontal glimmer at the lower periphery of her vision. Blindfolded, a little light seeping in from below.

Bound, too. Her wrists were lashed behind her back with electrical cord. There was something in her mouth, stiff and foul-tasting like a bundle of rags. She might be able to spit it out….

She heard the tread of a step.

He was with her, in a small, enclosed space-she could feel the nearness of the walls. The supply closet.

She wanted to talk to him, but even if she could spit out the gag, she knew he wouldn’t listen. Any words she found would only make him angry.

She heard his low, quick breathing. Smelled his sweat, cloying and close.

He paced before the door. Restless, trying to decide what to do with her. Whether to add her name to the roster of victims.

She remembered feeling sorry for him, wanting to help him, but that was all behind her now, and there was only the furious demand of self-preservation. She would have shot him if she could. Later she might have regretted it, even hated herself, but not now.

She was seated on the floor, her back to a wall, knees drawn up. She tried shifting her legs to prevent a cramp, and her shoe nudged something, a pail or a bucket, which slid with a low grating sound.

Instantly he was crouching beside her, breathing in her ear.

He knew she was awake. And he knew-must know-that she wanted him to speak, to say something. He kept silent, simply to torture her. He was cruel. From what Maura had told her, he had always been cruel. It wasn’t just his illness. It was who he was, and she hadn’t seen it because she hadn’t wanted to see.

Blind. Willfully blind.

Now she was going to die here, in a closet in a public building, a place not so different from the utility room where, years ago, she’d curled up to bleed out from an open wound.

She’d been rescued then. No salvation this time.

The breathing in her ear was fierce, hot, a tiger’s breath. She wanted to scream at him to get it over with, but the gag was still in place and she lacked the strength to work it free.

Then the blindfold was stripped off her face, and she was staring into his eyes from inches away.

It was her brother, but she had never seen him like this. His eyes were wider than she’d thought possible, his mouth twisted in a humorless smile. He was shaking all over as he knelt by her, his face level with hers.

“Stupid bitch.” The breath issuing from between his teeth was foul. “What the hell were you trying to prove?”

A gleam of metal in his hand. She had no chance to see what it was, but she felt it against her neck. The subtlest tickle, the lightest kiss.

A knife, teasing her throat.

The blade passed slowly over her skin, testing its suppleness, pressing down for an instant, then easing up.

Another of his games. She swallowed and felt the knife more keenly against the sudden gulping motion.

“Following me,” he said. “Spying on me. You couldn’t leave me alone.”

She wanted to pivot away from him, protect herself, but she knew it would be no use. He would only grab her by the hair and pull her head back, the better to slice open her neck. He would enjoy the struggle, and she wouldn’t give him that pleasure.

Slowly the knife traveled lower, its tip probing the hollow at the base of her throat. It pushed in deep, pinching like a needle, drawing blood. She bit back a gasp, not of pain but of fear.

It had started. He was cutting her.

He thought he was Jack the Ripper and he would kill her-not in an alley but in a supply closet, where she would be found not by a patrolling constable but by a janitor on the night crew.

“You want me arrested. There’s family loyalty for you. First you steal the house and then you come after me.”

The knife climbed her neck, tracing her jawline, the blade’s touch feather soft. He would open the carotids at the sides of her neck-it wouldn’t be hard-a little nick would do it.

“Should’ve killed you years ago. You’ve always been against me.”

The hiss of his breath, the lilting craziness of his voice.

“And now what’s stopping me? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing can stop me.”

Then do it, she thought with hopeless desperation. Do it already.

“I ought to,” he said as if reading her mind. “I damn well should.”

The knife hesitated, then withdrew.

“But…not yet.”

There it was again, that twisted smile, so much like a wince of pain. There were dark depths in his eyes she’d never seen before. It was like staring into an abyss.

He held her gaze for a breath or two, then sprang to his feet, pocketing the knife. The door shut behind him as he made his exit.

Only when he’d left did she start to shake. A swarm of tremors traveled through her, microcosmic earthquakes shifting her inner landscape. She let the shaking subside in its own time, not fighting it.

He hadn’t killed her. Maybe there was some hope for him, then.

But she knew that was nonsense. There could be no hope, not anymore.

She coughed out the gag. If she yelled for help, someone was sure to hear. But then there would be chaos and wasted time. And it was already too late to apprehend him. He would be long gone.

She set to work wriggling free of the cord that bound her hands. Once untied, she would drive to the police station and file an official report.

Catch me when you can, he’d written.

“I will, Richard,” she whispered. “I promise you, I will.”

twenty-nine

It took her an hour to tell the story to Draper and Casey. She kept her voice even, her face expressionless.

They listened, asking few questions. Draper sat on the edge of the desk, in a sport jacket and denim pants. Casey, in uniform, occupied the desk chair in the watch commander’s office.

Jennifer stood, her body rigid, her emotions held in check. This was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she wouldn’t let it break her, and she wouldn’t let them see.

By the time she finished talking, it was four P.M., and her throat was sore. She had been speaking almost continuously since three.

“He attacked you with a knife?” Draper asked.

“After knocking me out, yes. He put the knife to my throat. Even pricked me a little-here.” She pointed to a dab of blood near her collarbone.

“And he said, ’Not yet’? Any idea why he-well, why he didn’t go through with it then and there?”

“I’d like to think he still has some small emotional connection with me.”

Casey gave her a sharp look. “Is that what you think?”

“Not really, no. I think he’s just confused and irrational. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He thinks he’s Jack the Ripper.”

“We don’t know that,” Draper said.

“It’s obvious. The four victims-their first names…”

Casey shrugged. “Those are pretty common names.”

“It’s not just the names. They’re in the correct chronological order, and there are other details that match. The Ripper’s second victim, Annie Chapman, was attacked in a fenced-in backyard, and so was Ann Powell-the woman who was lured outside when her dog went missing. Catharine Eddowes was a street person, just like the bag lady, Chatty Cathy. There may be other parallels. If you let me see the files-”

Draper shook his head. “You’re not seeing any files.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re too worked up about this as it is. You need to calm down and get some perspective.”

“I have perspective.”

“What you have are some similar names.” His fingers drummed the desk. “Very common names, as the sergeant said. If you go through enough crimes, you’ll find all sorts of apparent patterns that don’t mean anything.”

“You don’t get it. You’re not listening. He was on a Ripper site because he’s obsessed with Jack the Ripper. He wrote, Call me Jack. He quoted from the Ripper’s letters. Said he was ‘down on whores’ and wouldn’t stop killing them.”

Draper frowned. “None of the local women you mentioned was a prostitute.”

“He told me all women are whores.”

“Do you have a record of this conversation?”

“No, I was texting. My phone doesn’t store the messages. You think I’m making it up?” She could hear the thin leading edge of hysteria in her voice.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Draper soothed. “It would be useful to read the transcript, that’s all. You’re a document analyst. You know that.”

“Sorry. You’re right. It’s just-there’s not a lot of time. The intervals between the attacks have been getting shorter. Six months between Mary Ann Ellison and Ann Powell. Five months between Powell and Elizabeth Custer. Three months between Custer and Chatty Cathy. And three months have passed since then. He’s due-he’s overdue-to strike. He nearly killed me. And now he’s run off somewhere in an acute phase of his illness. He’s preparing to kill again.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Draper said. “You’re adding two plus two and getting five.”

“You mean you don’t believe me?”

“I believe you about what happened in the library. Your brother is dangerous. He has to be picked up. Whether or not he’s connected with any of these other cases remains to be seen.”

She almost argued the point, then realized it didn’t matter. The only priority was to get Richard off the street. The details would come out later.

“All right,” she said. “As long as you’re going after him.”

“Naturally we’re going after him. He held you at knifepoint. That’s enough for now.”

“He have a car?” Casey asked.

“Not unless he’s stolen one. Otherwise he walks or takes the bus.”

“Since he was at the library, it’s a safe bet he’s still local. You think he’ll stay close to home even now that he knows you’re on to him?”

“The library is as far as he’ll go, I think. Mostly he’ll stay in Venice. It’s his home turf. “

“Have you got a photo of him?”

Her hand was trembling as she removed the picture from her wallet. “This is the most recent one.”

Draper studied it, then passed it to Casey. “I’ll make copies,” Casey said, “and have them circulated at roll call. We can put out a BOLO for units in the field right now.”

“I don’t want him hurt,” she whispered. “I mean-even with everything that’s happened, and everything I suspect, I still…”

Casey understood. “I’ll tell all units that if anyone spots him, they’re to contact me immediately before taking any action. I’ll personally supervise, all right? I’ll make sure things don’t get out of hand.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Draper was staring out the window into the squad room, the neat maze of cubicles with waist-high partitions. “How much of this did you tell Sandra Price?”

The question surprised her. “None of it, really. I just said I had concerns about someone close to me.”

“Good. We don’t need any vigilantes looking for your brother.”

“She’s not a vigilante.”

“She’s not a cop, either. This is a job for law enforcement, not community activists.”

She wanted to say that maybe if they chose to work with Sandra Price instead of against her… But now was the wrong time.

“Anyone else know about this?” Casey asked.

“Well, there’s a friend of mine, Maura Lowell. She dated Richard for a while, before he started showing symptoms. She’s worried about him, too.”

“We’ll need contact information for her, as well as your brother’s address. For the time being, you shouldn’t go home. You can stay with a friend or-”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m waiting right here until you find him.”

“That could be hours. Or days.”

“Then I’ll wait hours. Or days. Casey, he’s my brother.” She nearly lost her composure as she said it.

Casey looked away too quickly, and she knew he had read the expression on her face.

“Okay, Silence,” he said, his voice low. “Okay.”

thirty

Jennifer sat in the detectives’ squad room amid the ringing telephones and the clatter of footsteps. Casey and Draper had left on separate missions more than an hour ago. She had no one to talk to, no one to share her fears with. Fears of what Richard might be planning to do when the sun went down. Or sooner.

She remembered missing Maura’s call. There were no messages on her voicemail. She tried Maura’s cell, then her home phone. No answer. Probably showing a house, not taking calls.

It seemed unfair. The one time when she needed companionship and reassurance, and she was alone.

She felt a presence beside her and looked up. Draper was there.

“News?” she asked, rising.

“I went to the library. Richard’s card was used on one of the computers during the appropriate time frame. And a patron found a cell phone in the stacks, turned it in to lost-and-found.”

“Richard’s phone?”

“Probably, but don’t get too excited. It’s one of those cheap throwaways with prepaid minutes that you can buy in any drugstore. No calling plan, no way to trace the owner.”

“Why would he leave it behind?”

“He was probably afraid we could identify the phone from your cell records and then zero in on his GPS signal.”

“Yes, he’s smart enough to think of that. How about the patrol units?”

“No sightings yet. Like Casey said, it could take days. Your brother could be anywhere. Living in an alley or on the beach-”

She remembered. “The beach.”

“What about it?”

“This morning I ran into a homeless man in a tent city on the beach. He claimed he’d seen Richard around, but he wouldn’t tell me where. Of course, he could’ve been shining me on.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Even better-I can point him out to you, if he’s still there.”

“I don’t normally bring along a civilian when I’m questioning a witness.”

“I’m not exactly a civilian, Roy. I’m a police consultant. I’ve been to crime scenes. I know how to keep out of your way.”

“You’ll just ID him, then stand back and let me handle it?”

She raised her hand as if swearing an oath. “Promise.”

He gave her a sour look. “How come I don’t believe you?”

“You’re very quiet,” Draper said.

She turned to him. He was driving south along the beach, the westering sun shooting orange spears through the passenger window. “Just thinking.”

“About Richard? The two of you must have been pretty close.”

“We were. Before…” She didn’t have to say more.

“You’re sure you can’t provide a better description of what he was wearing?”

“I didn’t pay much attention to his clothes. Loose shirt, faded color. Casual pants. They could have been jeans.”

“Okay.”

“You still think I’m wrong about the murders, don’t you?”

“Probably. It’s easy to get carried away when you’re under strain.”

“I haven’t been-” She stopped. Of course she had been under strain. The earthquake, the skeletons, the diary, Richard’s disappearance, Sirk’s revelation about her father… “I’m not imagining things,” she said.

“We’ll see.”

He parked within a short walk of Venice Pier. They trekked onto the sand, toward the sad scatter of trash-bag tents. The tent city was smaller than it had been this morning. Many of the inhabitants must be on the streets or the boardwalk, cadging spare change, and they’d taken their possessions-even the makeshift tents-with them.

But the man with the port-wine stain was still there. She saw him standing in a huddled group of men who watched their approach with hostile eyes.

“That’s him,” she said. “With the birthmark.”

“All right. You remember our agreement, right? You stand back and let me handle it.”

“Of course.”

“Stay right here.” He traced a line in the sand with the toe of his shoe. “Don’t cross this line.”

She looked at him and saw him grinning. His little joke.

Draper strode into the camp with an easy gait, his posture authoritative but unthreatening, his sport jacket flapping in the sea breeze. “Hey, buddy. Need to talk to you for a second.”

The others in the circle backed off but stayed near enough to take in the show.

“I ain’t done nothing,” the man with the birthmark said.

“Didn’t say you had.”

The man looked past Draper, at Jennifer. She knew he recognized her. “What’s she doing here? She a cop, too?”

Draper hadn’t identified himself as a cop, but the guy seemed to know it intuitively.

“She’s looking for her brother, and so am I. You told her you knew where he’s hanging.”

“Bitch is crazy. Jerking your chain.”

Draper was close to him now, and smiling. “What’s your name?”

“Eddie.”

“You know what I think, Eddie? I think you’re the one jerking my chain.” His hand shot out and grabbed Eddie’s left arm, wrenching it behind his back. “That’s what I think,” Draper added conversationally.

Jennifer’s heart sped up. She remembered the excess force complaints in Draper’s file.

“Shit, man, lemme go.”

“Talk to me straight.” Draper twisted harder. “Where’s her brother?”

“Fuck, that hurts, let go!”

“I’ll let go when you talk to me.”

Eddie waved his free arm in surrender. “Okay, okay…ease up, and I’ll tell you.”

Draper complied, but only a little. “Talk.”

“I seen him flopping at the old hotel by the boardwalk. You know the one they red-tagged ’cause of the quake? It’s, what do you call it, evacuated.”

“He’s in there?”

“I seen him go in.”

“When?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“How’d he get in if the hotel is closed up?”

“Anyone can get into that shit hole. You know that.”

“Just tell me how.”

“Side window. Half the windows in that place don’t even close, and the other half don’t open. He got in through one of the open ones. I seen him crawling through.”

Draper still hadn’t released his hold on Eddie’s arm. “You wouldn’t be shitting me?”

“No way, I swear.”

“Because I don’t like having my time wasted by bullshit. If your info doesn’t pan out, I’ll be pissed.”

“I can’t swear he’s still there, but that’s where he was yesterday.”

“And you just happened to notice him when he went through the window? It made a big impression on you? Come on, that’s a lot of crap.”

Eddie swallowed. Even from a distance Jennifer could see the heavy jerk of his Adam’s apple. “Okay, I was thinking-thinking I might roll him, you know? He had good shoes. Better’n mine.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“ ’Cause he gave off this vibe. This crazy vibe. You know what I’m saying? Like he’s a nut case. And crazy people, they ain’t worth the trouble.”

Draper let him go. Eddie staggered back, rubbing his arm.

“That wasn’t cool, man. I could make a call, get you in trouble for pulling shit like that.”

“Sure you could. Maybe you can use some of these guys as witnesses.” Draper’s arm swept the ragged crowd of onlookers. “Their testimony will be real credible, won’t it? Oh, I’m in some deep shit now.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Draper smiled. “Fuck me.”

He walked back to Jennifer, looking not at all perturbed, as if this were literally just another day at the beach. He took her by the shoulder, leading her away. After a moment she pulled free.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“I never pictured you doing anything like that.”

“I worked patrol for ten years, Jen. I’m not a choirboy.” He read her eyes and added, “I wouldn’t have really hurt him. Not in any serious way.”

“It looked like you were ready to break his arm.”

“Not even close. It’s a standard maneuver. Well within departmental policy. They teach it at the academy.”

“To subdue a violent suspect. That man wasn’t violent.”

“It’s up to the officer’s discretion.”

“It was unnecessary. You could have gotten him to talk without hurting him.”

“Think so? Did he talk to you this morning?”

She couldn’t argue with that.

They climbed back into the car. Draper called the station and learned that Casey was out cruising, then used the radio to ask the RTO to hail 14-l-50 and request him to switch to tactical frequency five. Casey’s voice came on. “Go, fifty.”

Draper brought him up to speed. “It’s the Fortezza,” he concluded.

Casey grunted. “Where else?”

Jennifer didn’t have to ask what he meant. The Fortezza had a reputation, and it wasn’t good.

The hotel was among Venice’s oldest buildings, erected in 1905 in time for Abbot Kinney’s gala celebration of his new city on the Fourth of July. It had been elegant then, a four-story Italianate tower, home to visiting opera divas and yachtsmen.

Today it was a faded relic, a hostel and fifth-rate tourist trap periodically written up for health violations. The mattresses crawled with bedbugs. The drawers were lined with roaches. Vagrants gathered in the alley behind the building to drink and curse long into the night. Prostitutes rented rooms by the hour.

The earthquake had caused structural damage. The hotel had been condemned and vacated. Only squatters roosted there. Richard could be one of them.

If he was there now, he would soon be in custody.

In custody-or dead.

thirty-one

Draper pulled alongside the hotel at 5:45 as the sun brushed the horizon.

“You think he’ll still be here?” Jennifer asked him as he double-parked, blocking in an SUV at the curb.

“When these guys find a spot that’s safe, they tend to stick around. And if he’s mainly nocturnal, there’s a good chance he’ll be here during daylight hours.”

“If he’s inside, he may see the patrol cars.” Draper’s car was unmarked, but the cruisers would stand out.

“Cops aren’t exactly a rare phenomenon in this neighborhood. There are police cars going up and down this street all day. By the time he realizes we’re entering his building, he’ll be stuck.”

“If he’s cornered, he may fight.”

“We can handle him.”

“Don’t let him get hurt.”

“I’ll do everything I can.”

She thought of how he’d roughed up the man on the beach. She said nothing.

A black-and-white rolled to a stop beside them. Casey stepped out as two more squad cars rounded the corner. None of them used lights and siren. They weren't advertising their arrival.

She heard Casey report to dispatch. “Fourteen-L-fifty to Control One, show us code six at Sunset and Speedway.”

Draper briefed him, both men looking away from the hotel to avoid betraying any interest in it.

“It’s a big building,” Casey said. “And the power’s off. It’ll be dark inside.”

“So?”

“So it’s a tricky business. We might be better off with another couple units.”

“That’ll just raise a red flag. We’re already drawing a crowd.”

He nodded toward the spectators congregating outside the coffee shop across the street. More people were drifting down from the boardwalk.

“So what’s your plan?” Casey asked. “Crash the hotel and do a room-to-room search?”

Draper fingered the service Beretta in the shoulder holster under his sport coat. “You got a better one? If we call out SWAT, there’ll be time for him to book.”

“Okay, but I’m calling the shots inside.”

“Understood.”

“And I’ll have to station two officers outside to watch the front and rear exits. That means just four of us to search the interior.”

“Five of us,” Jennifer said. “I’m going too.”

Casey turned to her. “Like hell you are.”

“I may need to talk to him. If he tries to resist, I may be able to talk him down.”

“You think this is a movie? In real life we don’t bring in the suspect’s sister to get through to him. You’re staying here. End of discussion.”

He motioned to one of the patrolmen, a lanky kid with P2 stripes.

“Sullivan. You and Hanes are posted outside. One in front, one in back. Watch the exits. Anybody tries getting out through a window, grab him. We’ll give you periodic updates on tac five. Otherwise we’ll stay off the air as much as possible, and you do the same. And keep an eye on Miss Silence here. She is not to enter the hotel.”

Jennifer bristled. “You don’t need to treat me like a child.”

Casey ignored her. “Cox, Jorgensen, we’re going in.”

Sullivan sent his partner around to the rear and took up a position where he could watch the lobby door. Casey and Draper led the other two patrol officers up the steps.

“We don’t know what this mope is carrying,” Casey said to the uniforms. “If he resists, light him up.” He indicated the taser carried by one of the men, who nodded.

“Lot of trouble just to roust a bum,” one of the cops groused.

Jennifer felt a flash of anger that anyone would refer to Richard that way. Then she remembered that he was something much worse.

Casey produced a set of keys, one of which unlocked the hotel’s front door. It wasn’t unusual for cops to have master keys to buildings in a high-crime district.

“Watch your six,” Casey said.

The men entered, the door closing behind them. Jennifer moved close to Sullivan, listening to updates on the tactical frequency. In the ground-floor windows she saw movement. The police were checking one room at a time.

Casey’s voice crackled over Sullivan’s radio. “First floor clear. Heading up.”

She surveyed the scene. Maura and other civic boosters might talk about Venice’s comeback, but there was no sign of it here. Shopping-card people and zoned-out addicts wandered the street and adjacent alleys, scrounging in trash cans. Rap music throbbed from the coffee shop in a steady stream of expletives. Next door to the cafe was a tattoo parlor, and beyond it was an S amp; M shop, its storefront windows displaying nude mannequins in bondage poses. An abandoned movie theater completed the row of buildings, the letters on its marquee spelling out Goodbye Cruel World.

The concrete promenade called Ocean Front Walk was bustling with even more activity than usual for a warm Friday evening. The overflow from the boardwalk was swelling the crowd of lookie-loos. She wished no one were watching. She didn’t want Richard’s arrest to be a public spectacle. But of course everything in his life would soon be public knowledge, fodder for the 24-hour news channels and the tabloids.

“We’re on the second floor,” Casey reported. “Found a squatter. Not our guy. We’re sending him down to the lobby and proceeding to the third floor.”

She couldn’t endure just waiting. To distract herself, she scanned the crowd. She saw a drag queen in a feather boa, a shirtless guy with a swastika tattoo on his chest, a pair of tourists with fidgety children. A stoner grooving to his iPod. An obese woman with a faded T-shirt stretched taut across her boobs, bearing the slogan Meat is Murder. At the back of the crowd, a nervous figure in a hooded gray sweatshirt, swaying rhythmically.

“Hotel’s clear.” Casey’s voice on the radio. “I want Officer Sullivan to bring Jennifer Silence to meet us on the fourth floor. We think we found the room the suspect was using. Maybe she can confirm that the items in the room belong to him.”

Sullivan escorted her inside the Fortezza. The lobby was dark except for Sullivan’s flashlight. The beam passed over a ragged man clutching a backpack and looking lost. The squatter from the second floor.

At the foot of the staircase, Jennifer saw an old poster captured in the wavering circle of light. Hot salt water in every room as a therapeutic bonus, the sign boasted. Every amenity available in Venice-of-America, birthplace of the American Renaissance.

That was a long time ago.

They climbed the stairs. The banisters were grimed with filth, and there was a bad smell coming from the carpeted treads.

“You shouldn’t have to be in here,” Sullivan said with quiet solicitude.

“I’ve been in worse places.” She was thinking of the utility room in San Francisco.

The odor was worse in the fourth floor hallway, a potpourri of mildew and urine. They passed a row of doors, the room numbers written in black Magic Marker. Halfway down the corridor they found Draper and Casey in one of the rooms. The door had been forced-no great trick, given the cheap lock and wobbly frame.

Jennifer stopped just inside the doorway. She’d thought the Dogtown apartment was bad, but it was a luxury suite compared to this nasty hole. The bed lay against a wall, near a window looking out on a fire escape. A glance into the bathroom revealed an unflushed toilet and a shower stall without a curtain or shower head. The room reeked of trapped body odor.

This was what he’d been reduced to. She wanted to cry.

“Is the stuff his?” Casey asked, reminding her why she was here.

Sullivan handed over his flashlight. She examined the items left behind in the room. On a rickety chair lay a library book about the Illuminati and Freemasons. Conspiracy theories. She flipped through it and found copious underlining and spidery marginal notes. Richard’s handwriting, she thought.

On the bureau, a dilapidated antique that listed drunkenly, she found a few other items. Some candy bars. One of the wanted posters put out by C.A.S.T., ripped off a utility pole or fence, the suspect’s computer-generated face slashed out.

And heartbreakingly, or perhaps ominously, a Polaroid of their father, the colors long ago faded to purple. In the picture, Aldrich Silence was smiling, but there was something strange about his eyes, something indefinable but wrong.

“They’re his things,” she said.

Draper seemed unsurprised. “This was the only room that showed signs of occupancy, other than the one the squatter was using.”

She looked around her. “It’s so awful,” she said softly, speaking mostly to herself.

The daylight was nearly gone by the time she left the hotel with Draper and Casey. The crowd of onlookers had thinned. But the drag queen was still there, and the stoner with the iPod, and the person in the hooded sweatshirt, almost lost to sight in the gathering dusk.

She paused, focusing on that sweatshirt. She had seen it before.

Sandra Price’s rally, in the gymnasium. The nervous figure rocking in a distant corner of the bleachers.

Richard had attended that event. In disguise. He’d told her so.

Casey was saying something, possibly to her, possibly to Draper. She didn’t hear it. His voice was far away, and all around her was an unnatural quiet, like the stillness in the streets after the earthquake.

She took a step toward the onlookers, walking slowly, her arms at her sides, her head lowered, sending every body-language signal of disinterest. The hooded figure didn’t move, didn’t react.

She remembered Sandra Price saying that an unknown person in a hood had been spotted near one of the crime scenes. It must be the disguise Richard used when he went trolling for victims, or when he spied on her.

As he was doing now.

She entered the crowd, slipping past a large man with a porn-star mustache and a skinny kid fingering a GameBoy. Still the hooded figure hadn’t stirred. She threaded among the spectators, closing in. The face beneath the hood was invisible, a shadow face. She thought of Abberline’s avatar, the faceless man.

She was less than ten feet away when the figure broke into a run.

“Richard!” she screamed. “Stop!”

She ran in pursuit.

He covered ground awkwardly in an ungainly loping stride. Though he had a head start, she thought she could catch him. Then he veered onto the wide concrete strip of the boardwalk and cut past startled pedestrians, racing north. She followed, but in the sudden crush of people she lost sight of him. A banner was strung along the shop fronts: March Festival. That was why the crowd was so heavy-one of the numerous open-air events sponsored by the city.

She glimpsed him once, the gray hood bobbing in the sea of heads.

Behind her, Casey appeared. “It’s him,” she gasped, pointing. “Gray sweatshirt.”

Casey gave chase. People darted out of his way, opening a path for a cop in uniform, and she had a momentary hope that he might catch up with his quarry.

Then he stopped. He reached down for something crumpled on the ground. As she ran up to him, she saw that it was the gray sweatshirt. He’d shed it as he ran.

She scanned the promenade in the sunset’s dimming afterglow. Richard had vanished.

“You’re sure it was him?” Casey asked.

She nodded.

He keyed his radio and reported that the subject had been seen outside the building. “Last seen northbound on foot on Ocean Front Walk. Too many peds-I lost him in the crowd.”

Draper ran up as Casey asked dispatch to request all available Pacific units in the vicinity to proceed to Sunset and Speedway.

“You think they’ll get him?” she asked Draper.

He shook his head. “Too many places he can run. Side streets, alleys, the beach, other red-tagged buildings…”

She nodded. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

She turned and saw a teenager with pierced lips, pierced nostrils, pierced eyebrows, and a surprisingly respectful expression.

“That guy you were chasing dropped this.” He handed her a bracelet. “What’d he do, boost it off you?”

She stared at the object, catching a gleam of copper and turquoise. She didn’t answer.

“Jennifer?” Draper asked.

She looked at the teenager. “Thanks,” she managed to say. “Thanks very much.”

Casey was watching her now. “Is it yours?”

She shook her head. Couldn’t speak.

“Talk to us, Jen,” Draper said.

“It’s not mine. It belongs-it belongs to Maura. Maura Lowell.”

“The woman he used to go out with?”

“Yes.”

Casey shifted his weight. “Maybe he stole it from her, back when they were seeing each other.”

“No. She just got it. She was wearing it this morning. There’s no way Richard could have this.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“You told us she’s a friend of yours,” Draper said, his voice low.

Jennifer nodded, still staring at the bracelet, unable to look away. “My best friend,” she whispered, realizing it only now.

thirty-two

Maura lived in a condo on Windward Avenue. It was a security building, and Casey didn’t have a key. A helpful tenant let them in.

The apartment was on the second floor at the end of a hallway lit by green-shaded lamps in brass sconces. Jennifer had walked this hall many times, but her knees had never trembled the way they did now, as she followed Draper, Casey, and the two patrolmen who’d come from the hotel.

Casey rang Maura’s doorbell and rapped on the door. No answer. He tested the knob.

“Unlocked,” he said, then pulled his hand away. His palm was marked with a purplish stain.

Blood.

Jennifer knew then. The world seemed to drop away, and she felt a sudden unreal detachment, as if she were observing someone else’s life.

“Stay outside,” Draper warned. It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her.

Casey pushed open the door and stepped in, followed by Draper and the uniformed cops. Jennifer, standing in the hall, heard a gasp, and a voice saying, “Jesus,” two or three times.

Slowly she approached the doorway. No one tried to stop her. No one was paying her any attention. The four men stood and stared, immobile, at whatever lay in the apartment.

She crossed the threshold and looked for herself.

At first she couldn’t react. Like the cops, she was shocked into passivity. The scene before her wasn’t anything real. It was impossible to take in, impossible to process. A shock cut in a movie. Or a picture in a book. A photograph, grainy, black-and-white…

She thought of that, and she knew what this was. It was the rented flat in Miller’s Court. It was the room in the East River Hotel. It was Mary Kelly. It was Carrie Brown.

What the Ripper had done to those women, her brother had done to Maura Lowell. The same frenzied obliteration, the same horrific disfigurement. He had carved her open and emptied her out, leaving pieces of her strewn around the living room-hunks of bloody tissue.

Maura lay sprawled on the sofa. Her head rested on a pillow which had been white and now was burgundy. There was no expression on her face, because there was no face. Her breasts, which she flaunted for the benefit of the surfer busboy only two nights ago, had been slashed off. The skin had been peeled from one arm, the arm that had flaunted the bracelet. Her clothes had been ribboned by the killer’s knife, their tatters falling among the glistening ropes of her intestines which had unspooled across the carpet in a lake of blood.

“God…” whispered a small shocked voice, her own.

Draper turned. “I told you to stay out.”

She barely heard him. She was looking at one pale hand that lay palm up, the fingers open as if in surrender.

Then Draper’s arm was around her shoulders, and he was guiding her into the hall. “You need to get out of here.”

“I don’t want to leave her alone,” she said stupidly.

“She’s not alone. We’re with her.”

“She doesn’t know you.”

“It’ll be all right, Jen.”

Neither his words nor her own made any sense.

“Richard couldn’t to do this.” She shook her head, insisting on denial. “He couldn’t.”

“You need to sit down.”

She didn’t know why he was saying this, except that her legs felt suddenly weak. She allowed to Draper to ease her to a sitting position against the wall of the corridor.

“Couldn’t,” she said again, though she knew the word was a lie.

Draper knelt beside her. “We need to find him. Right now. Do you have any idea where he might go?”

“No.”

“Think.”

“I have thought about it. It’s all I’ve thought about. He could be anyplace local. Anyplace at all.”

“Okay. We’ll find him.” He started to rise.

“He saved me,” she whispered.

“What?”

“He came and found me, and he got me help. I’m alive only because of him. Because of my brother.”

“I understand.”

He didn’t, of course. Neither did she.

No one could understand.

thirty-three

That had been close. He’d never thought the persistent little bitch would spot him in the crowd, much less give chase. After what had happened in the library, he would have thought she’d show more sense.

He still wasn’t sure how she’d noticed him. He’d been wearing his cloak of invisibility. That was how he thought of the hooded sweatshirt with the long, loose, baggy sleeves. The garment covered his head and hands, made him a faceless thing-like Abberline, or like old Jack. Of course an observer might still see his face up close, but that was the wonder of it. No one ever got close. They saw him in his hood, bopping to the music in his head, and they assumed he was crazy. No one made eye contact with a crazy person. No one wanted to see him, or even to acknowledge his existence. In his cloak of invisibility he was anonymous, blending with his surroundings as seamlessly as a chameleon, safe from any threat.

But she had seen him. Almost caught him, too.

What was worse, in the chase he’d dropped his souvenir. He’d wanted it. Maura had died so nicely, and the aftermath had been so fine. He never danced, not anymore, but in her living room, awash in the slippery muck, he had danced like a shaman, danced naked, as Jack himself must have danced in Mary Kelly’s flat.

Mary then. Maura now. Perfect.

He wished now that he had disemboweled the others. It would not have been practical, given the circumstances-outdoors, in public places, where anyone might come along. And it would have set the authorities on his trail much sooner. Yes, there were sound logical and logistical reasons not to have done it, but irrationally he wished he had, because-well, because it was so goddamned much fun.

Jennifer would never understand that kind of fun. She had no soul, that one.

But she did have courage. To come after him, into the stacks, was bold enough. To pursue again, even after her ordeal in the supply closet…

He almost respected her for it. But he respected no one. Except Edward Hare.

He didn’t underestimate her, though. That was why he’d burned the family papers, torching them methodically in the flaming pyre of a metal wastebasket. There was information in those papers that might have helped a clever, crafty, sly little trollop like her.

He burned it all, the entire contents of the file cabinet, with one exception. He kept a newspaper clipping from a few years ago, a yellowed scrap torn from a local rag. Under the small black-and-white photo ran the caption: “Local Realtor Maura Lowell and Dr. Richard Silence were among the attendees at the Venice Historical Society’s charity ball.”

Two smiling faces. A long time ago.

The scrap of newspaper had gone into his pocket, but all the rest had been fed to the flames. A shrewd move. It had bought him time. But now the hounds were baying. His revels were nearly done.

One more adventure, one more ritual of predation and purgation, was all he would be allowed.

Until now he had paid homage to his ancestor, re-creating the crimes as closely as he dared. Parallel names, similar locations. But he was through with all that. His last murder would be his original creation. His days as an apprentice were over. Now he was a full-fledged master of his art, ready to carve his magnum opus and emblazon his signature across an appalled world.

It would be Jennifer, of course. Who else could it be?

He would take her and he would kill her, but in this one case he would do it slowly. It would not be a dissection, but a vivisection. She would be alive and aware as he turned her inside out and sliced and diced her and left her obscenely exposed. She would feel it, every last plunge of the knife, every excision of her vital parts, until the glorious climax when he wrested the seat of life itself from her chest and left her lifeless and hollow.

He had lost Maura’s bracelet, but soon he would have a new and better token.

Soon he would have Jennifer’s heart.

1904

Hare sat at the bar, nursing a drink and a toothache. The ache throbbed in his lower jaw and progressed like a hot wire up his cheek and into his ear. He would have to see a dentist. The prospect worried him. They were butchers, dentists.

The toothache had put him in a foul frame of mind, and a night in Chinatown had done nothing to improve his humor. For two hours he had played chuck-a-luck in a back room of this saloon, losing steadily, feeling the slow escalation of his wrath. The damnable rice eaters took his money with nary a word. How he hated them, with their skullcaps and pigtails, their mocking faces, their air of inscrutable superiority.

Even so, he found himself spending much of his time in their company. Of late he had not been sleeping well, and he had taken to exploring the nocturnal dives of Los Angeles, most often in Chinatown, where liquor flowed at fifteen cents a glass and fan-tan, pie gow, and chuck-a-luck could divert a restless man.

For patrons of establishments like this one, there were other diversions in the form of porcelain-skinned harlots, graceful as geishas, eager to please. Hare never partook of their services. He had, however, slaughtered two of them, some months apart. Though he left both bodies in the street, cunningly dissected and readily found, neither crime made the papers. The police had made few inroads here, and the locals preferred to keep such matters quiet.

He finished his drink and ordered another, communicating in curt gestures. The new drink was poured. He sipped it, tasting its fire and watching a blank-faced opium fiend drift past. Not one of the coolies; this was a white man. He had the blank stare and pallid countenance of an undead creature, Mr. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, perhaps. Hare knew he was in no position to cast aspersions. He himself had become a vampire of sorts, haunting the darkest corners of the night.

He wondered if he had lost his immortal soul, or indeed if he’d ever had a soul to lose. He was agnostic about such things. But suppose a life after this one did await him. How would he be received? Would he be honored as a saint for his holy work of purification, or condemned to everlasting punishment for the suffering he had inflicted? Would he stand in judgment before God-or before the harlots he’d suppressed?

These were strange thoughts, unnatural. He was not ordinarily so pensive. He must be well in his cups to muse this way. Best to be getting home to his loving wife. The thought made him grimace as he rose unsteadily and made his way out of the bar into a street lined with red lanterns.

A few steps down the street, he became aware of voices in the gloom. He paused, wary, but it was only a whore and her john standing at the entrance to an alley, one of countless side passageways that ramified the district.

Ordinarily the Chinese whores plied their trade in bordellos, but sometimes a man with money in his pocket would hire one as an escort, roving from one saloon or dog-fight pit to another, finally consummating the deal in a bed or back alley. The two ladies of joy Hare killed had been returning from excursions of that kind.

As Hare watched, the girl reached for the man with a pleading gesture. He shook her off and finished buttoning his trousers. “You’re no use to me,” he snapped. “Good riddance and be glad I don’t have you whipped!” She clung to him. He shook her loose and stalked off.

“You all right, miss?” Hare inquired.

The girl spun at the sound of his voice, then stood trembling.

He came closer. “Everything all right?”

She nodded.

“Not very nice, the way that fellow treated you. I’ll be more of a gentleman, I promise.”

Her eyes were large. “You…pay?”

Hare produced a billfold, still retaining a few dollars he hadn’t lost to the pigtails. “I’ll pay plenty. You give me a good ride, yes?”

She held out her hand. Suddenly she was all business. “Pay first.”

He peeled off a bill and pressed it into her palm. Her fingers closed over it like a trap.

She pointed down the street. “House.”

“No house. Right here.” He gestured toward the alley.

Her mouth tipped downward. “No.”

“Yes.” He dangled another bill in front of her.

With a sigh she acquiesced. He gave her the bill, then led her into the alley. Trash moldered in the far corners, rustling with rats. Hare recalled hearing that Chinamen ate rodents. If so, this passage could supply a veritable banquet.

The whore lifted her dress over her hips. Deftly he stepped behind her, the knife in his hand, and with one stroke he parted her throat.

In his London outings he strangled his victims, but as his finesse with the knife improved, he had learned to cut a throat so skillfully that no blood would touch him. It was all a matter of taking the victim by surprise.

She made a strangled sound, an attempted scream that never rose higher than her severed windpipe. A bright splash of blood decorated the alley wall, the dirty pavement, but Hare, strategically positioned at her back, was left unsoiled. The arterial spray geysered briefly, then slowed to a dribble as her heart gave out. She went limp in his arms.

No one had seen or heard. He could take his time with her, unsex her wholly, explore her inmost parts.

He lowered her to the ground and knelt, throwing back her skirt. He was surprised to see she wore an undergarment of some kind. Most whores did not. Looking closer, he saw that it was no garment, merely a wadded rag, stuffed inside her private parts like a cork in a bottle. He pulled at it, and it came free, clotted with blood. For a baffled moment he wondered how a wound to her throat could have made her bleed down there. But of course it couldn’t have. This was menstrual blood.

He knew something of a woman’s tidal changes, though the subject was never discussed in polite society. Vaguely he knew that Maddie wore some such garment as this for a few days each month. Naturally he had not laid eyes on her in that condition. He was careful never to see his wife in any state of undress, a practice greatly simplified by their separate bedrooms.

Now he understood why the john hadn’t wanted this one. Having discovered she was bleeding, he’d given her the brush-off. Normally a whore would not proffer her services when she was bloody, but this one must have needed the money more than most.

Curious, he unfolded the rag for a better look at what it contained.

So much blood.

The blood of her reproductive parts, the blood that would nourish new life in the womb. Her lifeblood, far more so than her heart’s blood, because this was the seedbed of the race.

A mother’s blood.

He allowed himself to touch it, feel its wetness. It tingled on his fingers’ ends.

His dreams came back to him, the dreams that started it all. In the summer of ’88 he was plagued by dreams of dark red blood spurting like ichor from between women’s thighs, dousing him, staining his hands….

On impulse he lathered his hands with the rag, swabbing the rich scarlet elixir over his fingers and knuckles and palms. He poked inside her and his fingers came out steeped in blood. He inhaled its odor. Life in its chemical essence. The mystery of creation, the secret power of the female. Nutritive, generative, miraculous.

He knelt for a long time, hands dripping, the knife forgotten on the pavement. Finally he roused himself, aware of a brightening, the arrival of dawn.

He looked at his hands, coated in gore. A line of Shakespeare recurred to him: And almost thence my nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.

Quickly he wiped his hands on her clothes, recovered his knife, and escaped from the alley, having left her body intact and undefiled.

A few blocks away he caught a Red Car trolley. He headed north, then east, changing cars more than once. In South Pasadena he got off and completed his journey on foot. The sun was up, and no doubt his wife had risen with it.

They lived in a rented house, a situation that was merely temporary. Business reversals had delayed his acquisition of a home of their own. For the moment the little bungalow with its two bedrooms and its small garden would have to do. Maddie seemed pleased with it, even if she was pleased with nothing else.

He reached the house and entered through the front door. In the kitchen he found Maddie frying eggs on the stove. She glanced at him, her face registering a mixture of regret and contempt.

“Out tomcatting again,” she said. It was not a question.

He stopped a few feet away. He stared in silent fascination until she turned.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Are you bleeding?”

“What did you say?”

“Is it your time of the month?”

“You can’t ask such a thing. It’s horrid.”

“Just tell me.”

“I certainly will not.” She turned back to her eggs on the stove. “The very idea. You must be sotted, as usual-”

He seized her from behind, as he had seized the Chinese whore, and tilted up her head so her eyes stared into his.

“Are you?”

She hitched in a gasp. “Yes, if you must know.”

It was what he wanted to hear. What he had hoped for, fairly prayed for, throughout his ride home.

He threw her to the floor, straddling her, unhooking her nightgown, his fingers fumbling until in frustration he tore the damned thing off. He removed the sanitary towel she wore in lieu of a rag and cast it aside, smelling blood, the intoxicating odor of it, the scent of birth and life.

She chattered in hysteria. “My God, what are you doing, what are you doing-”

“Taking you,” he grunted, “as my wife.”

He thrust inside, his manhood spearing her. She cried out, a sound that was very nearly a scream, and he shot his hot seed in a surge of painful pleasure that left him spent.

He pulled free. She trembled all over, dazed and scared.

“There,” he said with satisfaction. “Now we’re joined in holy union.”

His toothache, he observed, had entirely disappeared.

thirty-four

Jennifer stood in a corner, her eyes closed against the bedlam around her, aware of nothing but pain.

With the building manager’s cooperation, a vacant apartment two doors down from Maura’s unit had been commandeered as a command post and now hosted a swarm of cops, uniformed and plainclothes. Forensic technicians worked the crime scene. The assistant district attorney had shown up, and a pathologist was on the way. The captain of the Pacific Area station was here, as was his overboss, the commander of Operations-West.

Arriving personnel were logged in by a patrol officer posted at the elevator. As residents drifted home from work, they were intercepted by detectives in the lobby and questioned. The tenants on Maura’s floor had been kept away from their homes for the time being.

Everything was being handled according to procedure. She might have found some reassurance in that fact. At other crime scenes, she would listen to the chatter of police radios and take comfort in the imposition of order on chaos. Death had struck, but life went on. That was what she would tell herself. She didn’t believe it now.

A memory came to her, Maura’s voice calling her “kiddo,” the word as sharp and clear as if it had been spoken in her ear.

She’d suffered other shocks and traumas, but none of them had been like this. Whatever loss she had endured, she’d always felt she could recover.

Not this time. This time she was numb to the point of catatonia. She felt as if she’d died along with Maura, and what was left of her was only a shell, a hollow vessel. She thought of the glass jars that tumbled off her mantel during the earthquake. She was like that-shattered, in pieces-and there was no one to sweep up the mess.

Distantly she told herself to get it together. She couldn’t be out of action, relegated to the sidelines while Richard’s fate was decided. The words sounded right, but she couldn’t make them real. She was worn out. She was done.

“I don’t think we want to go public yet.” That was Casey, his voice rising over the babble of conversation.

He was arguing with a man she didn’t recognize. She tuned in to the discussion and gathered that it concerned the possible release of Richard’s photo to the media. The other man wanted the photo shown on the late TV news. Maybe an alert viewer would call in a tip. Casey didn’t agree. They would have to set up a telephone hotline. They would be deluged with false sightings. It would be a waste of resources.

“The public needs to be involved,” the other man insisted.

They’re already involved, Jennifer thought. They’re getting killed.

She turned away. Two days ago the prospect of Richard’s photo on the news would have reduced her to tears. She was past all that.

Catch me when you can, he’d told her.

She hadn’t caught him. But others would. He would be arrested, or he would die resisting arrest. Then the whole story would come out. Their family’s history. Their father’s crimes. Edward Hare. Everything.

How long before the spotlight transfixed her in its glare? Possibly she was the only person in Los Angeles who’d never wanted to be famous. Soon she would be. Nothing would ever be the same, but somehow she just didn't care.

A loud voice attracted her attention. Someone was asking how Richard had gotten inside the building when the lobby doors were locked. It was a fair question. None of the residents would have opened the door for a street person. But people were always finding ways around security doors. Maybe a tenant had failed to close it completely, or had propped it open with a rock while unloading his car.

“Fifty-one-fifty,” the loud man kept saying. “The fuckin’ guy is fifty-one-fifty.” It took her a moment to remember that 5150 was LAPD radio code for mental case.

Yes, she thought, he’s fifty-one-fifty, all right.

She stepped out of the room, into the hallway, to escape the din of voices. The hall was empty. The door to Maura’s apartment remained open, but she refused to look in that direction.

Lightning flashed at the edge of her vision. She wondered if it was raining outside. No, it wasn’t lightning, only bursts of illumination from a flashbulb-the evidence-team photographer snapping photos of the crime scene.

Draper was still in the apartment, supervising the evidence search. There was talk of bringing in Homicide Special from downtown, but for now he was primary on the case. She didn’t know if he wanted to be. Maybe he would be glad to be rid of it. And rid of her.

She heard the rhythmic clunk of leg braces and looked up to see Dr. Parkinson plodding down the hall.

“Dr. Silence.” He blinked at her. “What are you doing here?”

“The deceased”-it felt surreal to refer to Maura that way-“was a friend of mine.”

“I’m very sorry.” He stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say. She found herself appreciating his mute sympathy more than any words of consolation. “Very sorry,” he said again, moving past her into the condo.

Looking after him, she got an unwanted glimpse of the horror on the living room sofa, still in plain sight. Her brother’s work.

They had been so close to catching him. He must have returned to the hotel only a few minutes after their arrival. Seeing the police out front, he had watched from the crowd, trusting his disguise to preserve his anonymity.

Probably he’d come straight from the murder scene. Somehow he had managed to avoid being spattered with blood. Some writers theorized that Jack stripped naked before commencing the postmortem mutilation of Mary Kelly.

Mary. An M name. Like Maura.

The pattern continued. Richard’s fifth kill in L.A. paralleled the Ripper’s fifth victim in London.

Was that why Maura was chosen? Because of a stupid, meaningless coincidence? Richard knew where she lived. He could have picked her simply because she was convenient.

“Jennifer.”

She turned. Casey was there. She managed a smile. “What, I’m not Half-Pint, or Small Change, or Pixie?”

“Not tonight,” he said soberly. “I’m headed over to the station. I’d like you to come along.”

“What for?”

“So you can give me a full statement. We need you to go over the whole story from the beginning.”

“I can do that here.”

“No, you can’t. This place is a zoo. And it’s only going to get worse. We, uh, we have word the media’s on the way.”

“Oh.”

“Once this hits TV…”

“I know.”

“Let’s get going, then.”

They got out before the first TV crew arrived. Jennifer caught sight of a KABC truck rounding the corner just as Casey pulled away. She had watched the news on many nights, feeling vaguely guilty as she snatched voyeuristic glimpses of other people’s tragedies. Now the rest of the city would be watching her.

The ride to the station house was brief and quiet. The only words were the crackling transmissions on the cruiser’s radio. As Casey turned into the parking lot, Jennifer asked, “Shouldn’t you be off-duty by now?”

“Guess I’ll put in some overtime. I can use it.”

“Sure, you’re just in it for the money.”

He shut off the engine. They sat in the sudden stillness.

“He’ll get help now,” Casey said.

“Unless he gets killed first.”

“My people are professionals. They’ll make every effort to see he isn’t hurt. And once he’s off the street, no one else will be hurt, either.”

He opened the door, but she made no move to unbuckle her seatbelt.

“I should have come to you sooner,” she said.

“Before the library? You still weren’t sure.”

“I was sure enough.”

“Without proof, we might not have listened.”

“I’d have made you listen.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“Yes, I can. I was trying to protect him. And now this has happened. And it’s my fault.”

“No one would ever say that.”

She lowered her head. “I’m saying it.”

thirty-five

Casey left her in the break room of the station house, suggesting she get herself something to eat. It seemed odd to think about sustenance. She rummaged in the cabinets and found Saltines. Crunching the dry crackers, she thought about guilt.

Casey was right; no one would blame her. Yet she blamed herself. Maybe she was just obsessive by nature.

She remembered the long hours she’d spent in the Santa Monica Library-the old library, not the modernistic palace that replaced it-scrolling through newspapers on microfilm, researching her father’s suicide. She’d done it in secret, telling no one, not her mother, not even Richard. She talked to the neighbors who had known him. She learned everything she could, though the task was painful and pointless.

Yet not entirely pointless. She had a purpose, one she had scarcely admitted even to herself. She was driven by fear of inheriting her father’s insanity. And so she needed to know all about it, to know the warning signs, the timetable. From her late teens onward, she’d been on guard against the onset of schizophrenia, relaxing only when she entered her late twenties and statistics said she was at minimal risk. She had been spared.

Then Richard had been taken. It was Richard the disease wanted, not her.

And part of her-part of her had felt grateful.

Even as she grieved for her brother, part of her had stood back, thinking, Thank God it’s not me.

She had never quite admitted it to herself-how thankful she’d been. How selfishly pleased that the hand of fate had passed her by and fingered Richard instead.

She wondered why the revelation would hit her now, of all times. Maybe because her defenses were down, all rationalizations stripped bare.

If she could change places with him…if she could be the crazy one…would she do it? Would she make the trade?

No point in thinking about it. Thoughts like that would only-she shook her head-would only make her nuts.

The cell phone in her pocket let out the special ring tone that signaled an SMS alert. She had a text message.

From Abberline.

She stared at the phone, reading the words on the display screen.

Need to talk.

For a moment she couldn’t react. This was just a new facet of her nightmare. It wasn’t real, and even if it was, she couldn’t deal with it.

But this was Richard. Reaching out to her.

She had promised herself she would always be there for him. And yet she couldn’t break that promise, even now.

Her fingers trembled as she tapped a response. I’m here.

You chased me. You brought the police after me.

I have to stop you, Richard. I don’t want you to kill anymore.

There was a long pause. She feared he’d gone away. Then he answered, I don’t want to, either.

She needed to believe him. But she forced herself to be analytical, to approach the communication the same way she’d approached the threat letter to Marilyn Diaz. To follow the red thread wherever it might lead.

He’d already noted her association with the police. If the police were his enemies, then so was she. Why would he open up to someone working against him?

That’s good, Richard, she wrote cautiously. That’s the right way to feel.

Can’t run forever.

OK.

Need to turn myself in.

OK.

They’ll put me in a hospital.

She couldn’t dispute this. He was too smart to tolerate any lies. In the hospital you can get better, she answered.

I’ll never be free again. I’ll be alone.

Not alone. I’ll come see you.

You’re just telling me what I want to hear.

She wondered about that statement. He’d already said he wanted to stop killing. Was he just telling her what she wanted to hear? It wasn’t uncommon for a writer to project his own state of mind onto others.

I’m telling you the truth, she typed.

You’re a liar. Setting me up.

I’m being honest, Richard. The next move is up to you.

Another long pause. Genuine, or for dramatic effect?

I’ll surrender to you, he wrote. No one else. Just you. At the house.

He wanted her alone behind closed doors. He’d said she was setting him up. It looked more like it was the other way around.

Unless he was sincere. She couldn’t rule it out.

We’ll have to go to the police, she told him, just to test his reaction.

I know. You swear you won’t let them hurt me?

I’ve always looked out for you. Haven’t I?

You should have looked out for yourself. (Was his subconscious telling her to look out for herself now?) You would have lived a better life. (Look out for herself if she wanted to live?) You wouldn’t have been trapped in that old house with those old bones. (Look out for herself or be trapped like those victims from long ago?)

That’s all in the past, she wrote. We have to work together now. Will you come to the house?

I’ll come. 10 PM.

She checked her watch. It was after nine already. I’ll be there, she wrote.

Just you.

Just me.

There were no more messages. She slipped the phone into her pocket and stood thinking.

Yes, she might feel guilty. Maybe she had good reason to feel that way. But she couldn’t let guilt skew her judgment or stifle her intuition.

If anyone but her brother had sent that message, she would have read it as a threat, a trap. That was how she had to read it now. After what he’d done to Maura, she could give him no benefit of the doubt.

She found Casey in a corner of the squad room studying a map of the division. He glanced up as she approached.

“No news,” he said. “We’ve got every unit looking for him, and additional squad cars redeployed from other areas. We’re working the streets, beaches-everywhere. It’s only a matter of time.”

“I was just in contact with him.”

“What?”

“He texted me on my cell. Says he wants to give himself up. Wants to meet me alone at my house at ten PM.”

“No way. That’s not going to happen.”

“I know it’s not. But if we send a platoon of cops, he’ll never go through with it. It has to be handled differently.”

“Handled how?”

“I want you to arrest him.”

“I’ll supervise.”

“No. Just you.”

“I can’t do it alone, Jennifer. Maybe…if we bring in Draper…”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I don’t trust him to handle the situation so Richard doesn’t get hurt.”

“Because of what I told you about the civilian complaints?”

“And the domestic abuse.” And what she’d seen when she was with him today.

“Roy’s a good cop. Forget what I said. I was just blowing off steam.”

“I can’t forget. If we’re doing this, we’re going to make sure Richard doesn’t get hurt.”

“It’s impossible to guarantee that.”

“I trust you to try your best. I trust you,” she stressed. “And only you.”

“I don’t know,” Casey kept his voice low. “It’s not exactly standard procedure.”

“Screw standard procedure.” Her own vehemence surprised her. “Standard procedure is what you tried at the hotel. We can’t let him run again. We may not have another opportunity like this.”

He thought it over. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll take care of it. But you’re not coming. That’s nonnegotiable. If you insist on tagging along, the deal’s off.”

She’d expected as much. “I understand.”

“You’re staying here in the station until I get back. And you have to keep your mouth shut about what’s going on. We’re looking at some serious blowback unless this is handled just right.”

“Got it.” She handed over her house keys. “These will let you in. You might want to use the back door so nobody sees you enter. The smallest key fits the lock on the gate to the backyard.”

Casey pocketed the keys. “Sit tight. With any luck, this’ll all be over soon.”

She watched him walk away. She gave him five minutes to get into his car and drive off.

Then she walked out of the squad room and down the hall to the rear door that led to the parking lot. Her car was still parked where she’d left it after driving over from the library. And though she’d given Casey her house keys, she’d retained the car key, which she kept on a separate ring.

She got into the Prius and started the engine.

Of course she wasn’t going to sit around until Richard was in custody. He had been there for her when she needed him most, and she would be there for him now, whatever the risk. It might be guilt that was motivating her, or it might be love.

When it came to family, maybe there was no difference.

thirty-six

At quarter to ten Jennifer pulled into her garage. By now Casey must be in the house, though the curtains over the front windows were closed and she could see only a faint light from within.

Richard might be here as well. She was acutely aware of the possibility of an ambush. She didn’t relax until the garage door had lowered behind her.

She got out of the car. Before she could knock on the door to the kitchen, it swung open and Casey confronted her, red-faced.

“Was there some ambiguity in my instructions?”

“No, you made yourself very clear.”

“God damn it, I ought to abort this operation right now.”

“But you won’t.”

“No. I won’t. Come on in.”

She followed him into the kitchen. “I noticed you closed the curtains.”

“Your brother may scope out the house. I don’t want him seeing any cops inside-or any cop cars on this street. I parked two blocks away.”

“Good idea.”

“We may only get one chance at this. When it goes down, you have to swear to me-I mean seriously swear to me-that you will stay out of the way. No matter what happens.”

“I’m not going to interfere.”

“You’re interfering already, just by showing up.”

She tilted her head. “Are you still mad at me for the other day?”

He paused, considering the question. “No, I guess I’m just pissed off in general. I don’t like seeing a person butchered like that. It rubs me the wrong way.”

She thought of the mortuary photos from the nineteenth century. “At least now we know how people felt in 1888.”

“Is that when Jack the Ripper was on the prowl?”

“A hundred twenty years ago. Five murders that year, and two more in the following years. Then he came to America. It’s all in the diary.”

“Yeah, the diary. I need to take that.”

“I hid it in the pantry.”

She opened the cabinet and moved the cleaning supplies out of the way, revealing the tin. Carefully she lifted it off the shelf. Casey pulled a large plastic evidence bag from his pocket and put the metal box inside the bag. He sealed the bag and labeled it with a felt-tip marker from the kitchen.

“Plastic isn’t the ideal environment for an old document,” she said. “Especially when it’s sealed.”

“It won’t be in plastic very long. It’s going straight to the crime lab. We have people there who know all about document handling.”

“I hope they know about old documents. This one is fragile. It’s a miracle it’s held up as well as it has.”

“You’re not the only expert,” he said grouchily. “They know what they’re doing. You said something about a note you received?”

“What?”

“A note on your windshield, something about the diary?”

“Oh, yes.” It had been part of her statement. “It’s in my study, at the back of the house.”

“I’ll get it. You wait here. If there’s a knock on the door, you come get me.”

“The note’s in the drawer of my desk,” she told him as he headed down the hall with the tin under one arm.

She returned to the living room, where she noticed that a light on her message machine was blinking. Could someone from the media have found out about her involvement in the case so soon? She pressed Play, her hand poised over the Erase button.

But the voice over the speakers didn’t belong to a reporter. It was a voice she thought she would never hear again.

“Hey, kiddo. Tried your cell, but you didn’t pick up. I’m on my way back from downtown. Told you I’d make amends for getting you mixed up with Harrison. Spent the afternoon going through the city archives. Those women all disappeared between 1908 and 1911, and guess what? Your great-grandpappy didn’t take possession of the house till 1912. So you’re in the clear. The original owner was a Mr. Henry Parkinson. He designed the place and built it, and I guess he made sure there was a cellar…”

The message continued, but Jennifer didn’t hear it.

Mr. Henry Parkinson. The man who built this house. A man who shared his last name with the medical examiner who’d inspected the bones in situ. Who’d come in to do it, even though it was his day off. Who’d been interested in her family history…and in Richard.

Parkinson, with his legs weakened by MS. Yet he could walk, climb the cellar stairs, maybe even run-with the awkward loping gait of the figure in the sweatshirt.

“No,” she whispered. “Impossible.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

She looked up and he was there, at the entrance to the hallway, with a gun in one hand and the metal box in the other. Standing erect, no braces on his legs.

The expression on his face was like nothing she’d ever seen before, a mask of glee and hatred.

“You,” she said, feeling stupid and confused.

“Me,” he agreed, much too cheerfully.

“But it can’t be…”

“Why not? Because I’m a cripple? You’d be surprised what a crip can do. Anyway, MS comes and goes. It’s in remission now. For the past few weeks I haven’t even needed the leg braces. I wore them for effect. To avoid any possible suspicion. Now I want you to reach into your pocket and take out your cell phone.”

“My phone?” She still couldn’t quite grasp it, couldn’t understand.

“Come on, Doctor. Take it out.”

The gun was trained on her. She couldn’t refuse. Fumbling in her pocket, she found the phone.

“Now toss it away. You won’t be needing it. There’ll be no more text messages from Abberline.”

“You’re Abberline,” she said, her mind working with molasses slowness as she tried to put it together.

“Of course I’m Abberline. I’ve been fascinated by the Ripper case my whole life. I participate in many online forums, and when I saw the new thread about Edward Hare, I knew you had posted it. Now throw the goddamned phone away.”

He was still smiling, always smiling, his face a frozen mask.

She pitched the phone into a corner, heard its distant clatter.

“Where’s Casey?” she asked.

“Unconscious. I brained him with that UV lamp of yours.”

Absurdly she thought she’d just replaced the lighting element and now it was probably broken again.

“I hid in the study,” he went on, “after I gained entrance to your house via the window. You really ought to fix that latch.”

“Yes. Yes, I should.” She was staring at the gun in his hand. Casey’s gun, she realized.

“Okay, now we’re going down into the cellar.”

“Why?”

“Because I like it down there. I think of it as a shrine to Henry Parkinson, formerly known as Edward Hare.”

She thought about running, but she could never get out of the room in time. He might not be a great shot, but at this range he wouldn’t miss.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked as she approached the pantry and the trapdoor.

“I told you, I like the cellar. It’s a sacred place to me.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean, why Maura? And the others? Just…why?”

“Open the trapdoor.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“Some things are too precious to be shared.”

She knelt and lifted the door, exposing the flight of stairs that descended into the dark.

“The light bulb’s dead,” she said, then wished she had used some other word.

“I have a flashlight. Go down. I’ll be right behind you.”

Yes, she would go down. But he wouldn’t be behind her. If she let him follow her into the dark, she would never come up again. She would be left with the skeletons, just another cadaver under the stairs.

She lowered herself onto the staircase and took a step. Parkinson moved closer, still standing in the pantry. She descended two more steps and heard him shift his stance to follow.

Before his foot could find the top step, she pivoted and shoved out at him with both arms.

She caught him by surprise and knocked him backwards. His disease might be in remission, but his legs weren’t strong. They folded under him and he hit the floor with a yell. The gun came up, and she ducked, flinging the trapdoor shut.

She heard him throw himself across the floor, his fingers scrabbling at the trapdoor’s handle, but before he could open it, she slammed the dead bolt into place.

She hugged herself, enveloped in the cellar’s absolute black. On the other side, Parkinson shook the handle.

“This won’t stop me,” he said conversationally.

“They’ll know it was you,” she shouted up at him. “They’ll know you did it.”

“Not at all. They’ll assume it was your demented brother. I hardly think I’ve been wasting my time on this meticulous frame-up. I’ve got everybody thinking it’s him. Even you.”

Something large and heavy smacked against the trapdoor. It shuddered. The door itself was solid oak like the rest of the flooring, but the lock and hinges were old.

“There’s a phone down here,” she bluffed. “I’m calling nine-one-one.”

“No, you’re not. There’s no fucking phone.” He struck the door again. “I’ve been in the cellar, remember?”

Another impact rocked the door. A gritty rain of dirt and splinters showered her. The dead bolt jingled ominously, the screws coming loose.

She retreated down the stairs, working her way by feel. In the darkness she had no sense of distance. It was a small shock when her shoes touched the concrete floor.

One last crash, and he yanked the trapdoor open. He thumped onto the stairs, his figure in silhouette against the light from the pantry.

“Now the fun begins. The kind of fun I had with Maura. She died so well. I butchered her like a steer.”

“You sick motherfucker!” she screamed.

“She was good…but you’ll be better.”

He started down the stairs, his flashlight snapping on. She backed away. There was no place to hide in the windowless room. No way out except the staircase that he blocked. Nothing to use as a weapon. Only blank walls and a concrete floor and the cache of skeletons.

She stumbled toward the crypt, dropping on hands and knees, climbing inside in the impossible hope that somehow he wouldn’t see her. The old bones fractured under her, raising wisps of chalky dust.

The flashlight reached the bottom of the stairs. It swung slowly, panning the room, and came to rest on her pitiful hiding place.

“There you are, with the other dead girls,” Parkinson said.

He moved forward.

She groped in the bone pile for something she could use in self-defense. Her hands came up only with loose dirt and scattered bones and teeth.

When she looked up, he was closer. He held the flashlight in his left hand. The right hand was empty. He wasn’t holding the gun. Must have snagged it in his waistband behind his back.

He didn't want to shoot her. That wasn't the Ripper’s way.

She dug deeper in the dirt.

He came nearer, smiling, always smiling.

“You’re only making things harder on yourself, Doctor.”

The cyclops eye of the flashlight expanded, wiping out her world, total blackness replaced by an undifferentiated field of white.

Out of the light came Parkinson’s hand. He seized her by the blouse and pulled her halfway to her feet, his face materializing in the glare.

He grinned. “Shall we dance?”

“Let’s,” she said, and her fist flew out from behind her back. In her hand was a broken piece of long bone-a leg or an arm, jagged at one end where it had been cut apart.

She plunged the severed end into his face.

He released her and staggered back with a wail of pain. The bone in her hand came away bloodied.

“You bitch, you almost took my eye out!”

She jabbed at him again, aiming for the flashlight this time, shattering the lens.

Darkness.

The last thing she saw before the light went out was Parkinson pulling out the gun.

She threw herself into a corner of the crypt, curling up in a protective ball, and the gun fired-again-again-again-the shots wild, blowing puffs of dirt out of the walls, scattering pebbles and bone. The noise was impossibly loud, the muzzle flashes tinting the darkness purple.

She thought he might go on firing until the gun was empty or until she went insane.

But he stopped. He was as blind as she was, and deafened by the reports. He didn’t know-couldn’t know-if he had hit her or not, and he couldn’t risk probing the dark to find out.

Instead he retreated, groping his way back to the stairs. She could see him faintly limned by the fall of light down the staircase. She heard the slow march of feet as he climbed to ground level.

“Looks like I can’t do you the way I’d prefer,” he said, his voice reaching her over the chiming in her ears. “But that’s all right. I have a backup plan.”

He paused, no doubt hoping she would ask a question and establish that she was alive. She said nothing.

“Staying mum, are you? I’ll tell you anyway. I saw how chummy you were with Sandra Price. I watched you break bread with her. Since I can’t have my way with you, I’ll have to take it out on her.”

Another pause. She was tempted to argue, to tell him she hardly knew Sandra, that Maura had been her friend and he’d already taken her. But she knew if she said anything, she would only be playing into his hands.

He resumed his march up the stairs. “If you can hear me, if you’re still alive, then think about what’s going to happen to Sandra. It’s on your head, Dr. Silence.”

The trapdoor slammed down again, all light was gone, and she was alone in the blackness.

She felt herself all over, probing for a wound. Sometimes a person could be shot and not even know it. The tissue damage had a numbing effect, at least at first. But she discovered no damage other than small nicks and scrapes. The shots had missed.

Had she won then? Was he giving up on her? She didn’t believe it. Edward Hare would not have given up, and neither would this man.

She crawled out of the crypt. Over the diminishing clamor in her ears, she heard something big and ponderous being dragged across the floor above her. The sofa in the living room, probably. He was blocking the trapdoor, shutting her in.

His footsteps retreated to the rear of the house, then returned. She listened to him circling the living room, his tread slow and deliberate.

Then he went down the rear hall again, and she heard the slam of the back door.

No more sounds after that. He was gone.

She climbed the stairs in the dark and tried to push the trapdoor open. As she’d expected, it was blocked from above. She had no leverage, and the sofa was too heavy for her to lift unaided.

Then she smelled smoke.

thirty-seven

Fire.

He’d started a fire in the house, and the old wood, the antique furniture, the century-old drywall would go up like so much tinder.

She pushed on the trapdoor, trying to force it open, but made no headway.

The smell of smoke was stronger. She was going to die in here. Die in the House of Silence.

She ought to have been afraid. What she felt was rage.

Since childhood she’d been trapped in this house, trapped by memories and family history, bloodlines and madness. She’d tried to make peace with the past, but still it smothered her, choked off her life like the tendrils of smoke curling through the crack in the door.

Maura was right. Family loyalty was not a suicide pact.

And she was damned if she would let this goddamned house kill her now.

She braced her shoulder against the trapdoor and shoved with more strength than she’d known she had.

And the door moved. Only an inch, but it yielded. Red glare, flickering wildly, shone through the gap.

Then the weight of the sofa overwhelmed her, and the trapdoor dropped shut again.

The house still wouldn’t let her go. It would hold her till the end.

“Fuck you!” she screamed.

She tried again, lifting the door two or three inches. The cellar brightened, waves of heat pulsing through the opening like the blast of an oven, the sofa’s legs grinding in protest as they shuddered across the pantry floor.

She was going to do it. Another few seconds-

The sofa stopped with a thud.

She strained against the trapdoor, but the sofa surrendered no more ground.

It must have hit the wall. It was wedged in place. She couldn’t move it.

Maybe she didn’t have to. Though the door wasn’t fully raised, there was an opening that might be wide enough to crawl through.

She wriggled through the gap, twisting and turning as she hauled herself into an orange blaze thick with clots of smoke.

Halfway out now, her upper body stretched across the floor, only her hips and legs still trapped below. She was caught on something. Her fingers probed for the snag. Found it-her blouse, speared by splinters of wood around the smashed dead bolt. She tore her shirt free and climbed the rest of the way out, snaking past the sofa, then rising to her feet, bent double to keep her head low and avoid the worst of the smoke.

In the pantry there was a fire extinguisher. She grabbed it before heading into the living room. The walls and drapes were ablaze. Everything was on fire, the heat beyond belief.

With the fire extinguisher, she might be able to get through the scrim of flame that hung between her and the front door. But Casey was still in the house.

She turned toward the rear hallway. Both sides were blazing, but a narrow aisle down the middle remained open.

Gulping air, fighting the sting of tears from the acrid smoke, she plunged into the corridor.

The heat here was even more intense. It was like standing on the sun. Lurid red-orange glare surrounded her. Choking smoke hung in gray drifts of poison cloud. She couldn’t breathe, the air was too hot, it seared her throat. Squinting against smoke and light, she squeezed the fire extinguisher’s handle. The white spray cleared a path as she made her way down the hall.

The cylinder was getting lighter, its contents disappearing all too quickly. She moved faster, trying to ration the remaining spray but needing it to make any progress at all. She stumbled once, on a floorboard warping in the heat, and nearly fell. Time slowed as she struggled for balance, knowing that if she fell against the wall she would be instantly immersed in flame.

Somehow she kept her footing and reached the end of the hall. The study lay to one side. Before her was the back door. The instinct to flee into the backyard was almost irresistible. She willed herself to enter the study.

Casey was there, the broken lamp alongside him on the floor. There was no fire in here, not yet. She could breathe. She drew in a great swallow of air, too much, and coughed uncontrollably, expelling a viscid stream of black ooze.

The fire extinguisher was empty. She pitched it aside, crouched, felt Casey’s head, found a bulbous bruise on his scalp. No blood, no indication that his skull had been opened. A sluggish pulse beat in the carotid artery at the side of his neck.

He lay face down, eyes shut. She shook him. Slapped his cheek. No response. And the room was getting hotter, smokier, the flames advancing this way.

She shouted in his ear. “Casey!”

He groaned, and his eyelids twitched, but he was still out.

She couldn’t rouse him. And he was too big and heavy for her to carry. But she could drag him. Maybe.

She rolled him onto his back, grabbed his arms and tried pulling him across the floor. Damn, he weighed a ton. He was weighted down by boots and belt, and she didn’t have time to strip him of his gear. The room was becoming an oven, and the smoke was thicker, and there was an awful stink in the air.

Gasoline. That was what she smelled.

Now she understood how the flames had spread so fast. She didn’t know where Parkinson had obtained the gas, and she couldn’t stop to puzzle it out now. All she knew was that the house would be completely engulfed in flame before long.

She struggled with Casey, fighting to haul him across the carpet, but it seemed impossible to make any progress. She had exhausted much of her strength, and the heat and smoke were rapidly sapping what was left.

She wouldn’t leave him, though. She would rather die than abandon him to burn.

The muscles of her arms and back screamed with effort. Somehow she managed to drag him to the doorway of the study.

The main part of the hall was fully ablaze now. No going back that way. But the fire hadn’t reached the very rear of the house, except for a few smoldering spots ignited by wafted embers.

She might have a chance, if she could get him to the back door.

Again she tried to rouse him. “Casey, wake up!”

Casey mumbled something, but when she peeled back one eyelid, his eye was still rolled up in its socket.

If she’d had water, she would have splashed it in his face, but there was no water, only heat and smoke and flame.

She took his arms and resumed pulling. She got him halfway through the door of the study before his gun belt caught on the frame. It cost her precious seconds to work him free.

More embers floated past like clouds of fireflies. Spot fires were breaking out. The rear of the house was starting to catch. She dared a glance toward the back door and saw sparks falling lazily onto the surrounding walls, setting the wallpaper aflame.

She had him out of the study now. She ran to the back door. Parkinson had left it unlocked. She tried to pull it open. It wouldn’t yield. She tugged harder at the knob, but the door remained stuck.

The heat must have warped the frame, wedging the door, sealing it shut. She couldn’t get it open. She couldn’t get out.

She turned to face the hallway, a tunnel of roaring flame.

Fear left her, and anger, and desperation. She saw how simple it was.

She was going to die here. It was how she’d always been meant to die. The house had wanted her all of these years. It had bided its time, and now at last it would claim her as its prize.

She returned to Casey, knelt by him. The heat was very bad. She wondered which would kill her first, heat or fumes or flames.

She hoped it wasn’t the flames. Burning to death-that was a bad way to go. But it didn’t matter.

“I tried, Casey,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

The door crashed open.

An inrush of air from outside, a shout of flame from the hall, and a hand grasping hers, pulling her to her feet.

Draper.

“Go!” he shouted.

The door leaned on broken hinges. He’d smashed it open with a chair from her patio, a piece of heavy cast iron lawn furniture.

When she glanced back, she saw him lifting Casey, hooking an arm around his waist and carrying him. It looked so easy.

He hauled Casey outside, joining her in the yard, while the house crackled and sputtered impotently behind them.

“Through the gate,” he yelled. “Out front!”

She wanted only to stop and rest in the coolness of the yard, but she knew the fire could reach them even here. If the fence started to burn, they would be trapped like penned animals.

She almost tripped over something at her feet. Her lawn mower, disassembled. Parkinson had taken the gas tank, used the fuel to feed the fire.

The gate came up before her, standing open-Draper had kicked it in, shattering the lock-and then she was in the front yard, on the sidewalk, collapsing by the curb, where Draper’s Crown Victoria was slant-parked, engine idling.

Some of her neighbors, newcomers she had never met, people who kept themselves hidden behind walls, were venturing into the street to watch the house burn. Sirens sounded, an ambulance or a fire engine. Across the street the evil Rottweiler howled in jubilation.

Draper arrived beside her, laying Casey on the lawn.

“He was hit on the head,” she managed to say.

The effort of speech cost her too much. She leaned forward, resting on one arm, and wheezed helplessly. She wondered how much smoke she’d inhaled, what her lungs looked like.

Her throat was horribly parched. She would have given anything for a drink of water, though she wasn’t sure she could keep it down.

“Hang on, Jen,” Draper said. “The paramedics are coming. They’ll get you and Casey to a hospital.”

But she didn’t want to go to a hospital. There was something she had to do, something important, if only she could remember what it was. She shut her eyes, and it came to her.

“Sandra Price.” Her voice was a croak.

Draper looked toward the house. “Is she in there too?”

She shook her head. “She’s the next victim.”

“He told you that?”

She nodded.

“Damn it.” Draper looked around uncertainly. “I have to intercept him. You wait here with Casey. The paramedics-”

“I’m not waiting.” She pushed herself upright. “I’m going with you.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Tough.”

She swayed a little as she made her way to Draper’s car. She climbed in on the passenger side, shutting the door with as much authority as she could muster.

“Hell.” Draper saw the futility of arguing. To the crowd he called out, “Anyone have medical training?”

“I know CPR,” one man ventured.

“Watch this officer till the EMTs arrive. Tell them he received a blow to the head and inhaled smoke.”

He slipped behind the wheel, slammed the sedan into gear, and accelerated.

Beside him, Jennifer struggled to gather her thoughts. “The killer-it’s not Richard.”

“It’s Parkinson. I know.”

“How?”

“I found some papers in Maura’s purse. She did some research downtown and took notes. Your house was originally owned-”

“By someone named Parkinson. That doesn’t explain how you knew I’d be at the house.”

“You weren’t at the station. No one knew where you’d gone, or Casey, either. The house was the first place I thought of.”

She released another flurry of coughs and spat up something into her palm. She checked it in the glow of a passing street light. The mucus was clear now, a good sign.

“He could be killing Sandra right now,” she said. “And we don’t even know where she is.”

“She’ll be at C.A.S.T. headquarters.”

“At this hour?”

“Their office is on the boardwalk. The March Festival is still going on. She always keeps her doors open late when there’s a crowd.”

That was true. Jennifer had seen it herself. “Will Parkinson know that?”

“Probably. He lives around here.”

“Does he?”

“A Venice native.”

Of course he was. He could never stray too far from his ancestral hunting ground.

“He’s armed,” she said. “He took Casey’s service pistol. Fired it three or four times. Right after I gouged his face.”

“Good for you.”

“Shouldn’t you call for backup?”

“Parkinson has a police radio. He’ll be monitoring the traffic. That must be how he knew we were at the Fortezza. If he hears the call go out, it’ll spook him. We don’t want him running. We need to end this now.”

Another coughing spell took hold of her, then subsided.

“Smoke inhalation is nothing to fool around with.” Draper sounded worried. “It can get a whole lot worse in a hurry.”

“I’m all right.”

She sank back in her seat. Her eyes burned. She wished she could douse her whole head in a basin of cool water.

“What was Casey doing there?” he asked.

“I thought I’d arranged a rendezvous with Richard. We were going to bring him in.”

“Why wasn’t I invited?”

She hesitated. “I didn’t want Richard hurt.”

“You mean, you were worried about that little squeeze play on the beach?”

“Not just that. Casey told me-well, he told me there have been civilian complaints.”

“No more than any cop gets.”

“And he said there was an incident of domestic abuse. You beat up your girlfriend.”

“Casey’s been talking out of school.”

“Look, you just saved my life. I’m not trying to cause trouble-”

“It’s okay. He’s right. I did hit her. I’d been with her for three years, and the whole time she swore up and down she was clean. Then one night I walk in on her and she’s got a fistful of coke up her nose. She’d been using, for months, behind my back. I lost it. Started yelling. She was high and crazy, and she came at me. So yeah, I hit her. Hard. Then she locked herself in a bedroom and called nine-one-one. By the time the unit arrived, she’d figured out she couldn’t press charges without copping to possession and assault. So she made up a story and the patrol guys went away. And I broke up with her.”

“I see.”

“There were better ways to handle it. I admit that. But she was violent and out of control. And she’d been lying to me. Playing me. I was pissed off. I don’t like being played.”

“Neither do I,” Jennifer said, thinking of Abberline.

thirty-eight

Ocean Front Walk was a mad whirl. The crowd was larger than before. The wide concrete strip was packed with performers, spectators, vendors, beggars, scam artists, crazies.

Jennifer trailed Draper as he elbowed his way into the crush of bodies. Music blared from T-shirt shops and record stores. A folk guitarist competed with the din, wailing about riding the blue train. A fire eater plunged flaming shish kebabs down his throat. Jennifer looked away, the image bringing back the memory of her burning house. It must be ashes now.

They kept going, moving north. They passed a team of jugglers tossing knives. A midget on rollerblades. A man on stilts, dressed like a tree, shouting about global warming. An African drumming ensemble. An old man and his equally old dog, both riding skateboards. A harlequin figure, his costume festooned with jangling bells.

They were nearing a searchlight that illuminated a stream of giant bubbles rising toward the sky when a homeless man lurched out of the crowd. “Open-heart surgery!” he was yelling. He lifted his shirt to expose a mass of bandages. Jennifer pulled away before he could ask for money, and he disappeared in the swirl of people.

Moving on. An immensely fat woman tap-danced to a beat banged out by a monkey on a snare drum. A man in an Uncle Sam suit handed out fliers. Teens played a pickup basketball game under the lights. An inebriate of indeterminate sex threw up into a garbage can, then reared back and let loose a coyote howl.

Lights and noise and craziness, an insane carnival.

The C.A.S.T. headquarters lay just ahead, its banner visible above a faded storefront. The lights in the front windows were on and the door was open, but there was no movement inside.

Jennifer’s view was blocked for a moment by a band of aging hippies in troubadour getups, and then they had streamed past, and at the door of the office she spotted a figure in a hooded sweatshirt.

He’d appeared out of nowhere. He might be entering or leaving-she couldn’t tell.

Draper broke into a sprint, drawing his gun.

Parkinson turned. Saw them.

Then he was running in the familiar awkward lope, his shoes pounding the concrete.

They gave chase. Parkinson weaved through the crowd, knocking down a man on a unicycle, sidestepping a crowd of sullen teenagers.

A big man in a Malcolm X shirt obstructed Draper’s progress. Draper pushed him aside, and the man pushed back, shouting, “What the fuck?” Draper showed him his gun. The guy backed off.

And Parkinson was gone.

“Where’d he go?” Draper yelled.

Jennifer, panting at his side, shook her head.

Draper started running again, Jennifer behind him, trying to keep pace. The crowd thinned. Shops and vendors’ stalls gave way to decrepit apartment buildings lining the landward side of the promenade.

Draper stopped at a break in the row of buildings, peering down an alley.

Parkinson must have gone in there. It was the only exit.

“This time,” Draper hissed, “you stay back.”

He stepped into the alley and took out a pocket flashlight. The beam explored the passageway, long and narrow, bracketed by windowless brick walls. Along one wall stood clumps of oleander and trash bins overflowing with debris. The opposite wall was lined with rusted bicycle parts and corrugated boxes. At the far end a chicken-wire fence screened off a parking lot.

Parkinson could have scaled the fence, if he had the strength. Or he might be concealed inside a trash bin or among the cardboard boxes.

Jennifer watched Draper creep down the middle of the alley, his flash ticking from side to side, and for a surreal moment he wasn’t an LAPD officer anymore. He was a bobby in Jack the Ripper’s London, exploring one of Whitechapel’s back lanes with his bull’s-eye lantern. He was the constable who’d come across Frances Coles in February of 1891, arriving so soon after the killer had done his work that he could hear Jack’s retreating footsteps. He was Inspector Abberline hunting Edward Hare in the sooty labyrinth of East End, where life was cheaper than gin.

So little had changed. Even the victims’ names were nearly the same.

Draper was halfway down the alley. There was no movement but his steady forward progress, no sound but his footfalls on asphalt.

His flashlight swept the ground along the rear fence, where some sort of tarpaulin lay discarded. The tarp was not flat against the ground. It bulged in irregular places.

Parkinson could be underneath.

Draper paused, the flashlight beam picking out the tarp only for a moment before traveling on. If his quarry was there, Draper didn’t want him to know he’d been discovered.

Jennifer stood on the threshold of the alley, watching Draper’s slow advance, thinking of constables in the East End, and Hare on the prowl, and prostitutes unsexed and gutted, their throats cut as they were grabbed from behind….

From behind.

Her gaze shifted to the nearest trash bin, and she saw a rustle of oleander.

“Behind you!” she screamed.

Draper spun in a crouch as Parkinson emerged from the shrubbery.

A single gunshot slapped the alley walls in a volley of percussive echoes. She didn’t know which man had fired until Parkinson fell.

Draper approached him and kicked his gun away, then rolled Parkinson onto his back, exposing a red gash in his throat. His breath came in bubbling wheezes.

Jennifer stepped into the alley. She stared at Parkinson, his face still bloody where she had gouged him, his neck a broken stalk. She smelled the copper-penny scent of blood. Draper applied pressure to the wound, an empty gesture. Parkinson lay unmoving except for the heave of his chest and a faint fluttering motion of his right hand. He was reaching for his shoe-no, his pants leg.

Three paces, and she knelt beside him, grasping his wrist. She rolled up the trouser leg and found a knife strapped to his shin. Carefully she extracted it. The blade was dark with crusted blood. Maura’s blood.

She stood. Parkinson looked up at her. His mouth twisted in a grimace of pure malice, then relaxed. Even the effort of hating her was too much for him now.

“Evidence,” she said to Draper, handing him the knife.

“Thanks.” He set down the knife out of Parkinson’s reach, then got on the radio, requesting medical attention. When he was through, he replaced his hand on Parkinson’s neck, maintaining pressure.

“How long till an ambulance gets here?” Jennifer asked.

“Four or five minutes.”

“Will he make it that long?”

“That long? Yes.” The unspoken addendum was, But not much longer.

“I’m going to check on Sandra.”

“You may not like what you find.”

“I know.’

She retraced her steps, wending through the crowd. She still didn’t know if Parkinson had been about to enter the C.A.S.T. office or had just left. The difference was slight enough, but it was the difference between life and death for Sandra Price.

She arrived at the door, still open. She reassured herself that he hadn’t had time to do to Sandra what he’d done in Maura’s condo.

Whatever lay inside, it wouldn’t be as bad as that.

thirty-nine

“Sandra?” she called, entering.

From the rear of the building, a soft metallic creak.

She moved in the direction of the noise, navigating a narrow hall.

“It’s Jennifer. Are you okay?”

“Go away.” Sandra’s voice, weak and low, coming from the open door at the end of the corridor.

“Is everything all right?” Jennifer asked.

“Just…go away. Please.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jennifer said, and she stepped through the doorway and found Sandra Price seated at a small metal desk, her hands resting on a careworn blotter, a knife held against her throat.

“She told you to go away,” Richard said. “But you never would listen to anybody.”

He stood behind Sandra, his eyes staring with unfocused hostility. Eyes that hated the whole world.

Jennifer stopped inside the doorway. She spent a long moment studying those eyes. “What’s going on?”

“You tell her, Sandra. You tell my big sister what’s going on.”

Sandra shifted in her seat, and the swivel chair creaked. That was the noise Jennifer had heard. “He came in a half hour ago. Found me back here. Since then, we’ve been getting to know each other.”

“Has he…hurt you?”

“No. We’ve been having a little chat, is all. He’s quite the raconteur.” She tried to smile, couldn’t pull it off.

“What are you doing here, Richard?”

His lip curled in a sneer. “You know. If anyone knows, you do.”

She took a step closer. “Tell me.”

“You sent them after me. This bitch-and the other one.”

“What other one?”

“The one who was spying on me. Following me. He was in the library today. So were you. That’s when I knew for sure that you were in it together.”

“I had nothing to do with that man. Neither did Sandra.”

He barked a sharp laugh. “You’re so full of shit.” The knife trembled in his grasp, its blade gleaming in the glow of the desk lamp. “She put up those posters with my face on them. And you talked to her. And now you’re here.”

“I’m here because I thought Sandra was in trouble.”

“You were right. I’m going to cut her. Cut you, too.”

“Sandra and I weren’t following you. The man who did that is in police custody now. He won’t bother you again.”

“You’re lying. You always lie. You’re in league with this bitch and that other one. All three of you, in your little conspiracy. You think you had me fooled. But I know.”

His hand jerked, and Sandra winced as a thread of blood appeared on her throat.

“You’re all working against me. Just admit it, and I’ll let her go.”

She would not admit to anything. It would only reinforce his paranoia.

“You’re imagining things,” she said.

Sandra spoke in a dry whisper. “Honey, that is not what the man wants to hear.”

“No more bullshit.” His red-rimmed eyes glared at her. “You want to destroy me. You want me dead. Just say it!”

“That’s what you want to hear me say?” Jennifer asked. “That I’m your enemy?”

“Yes, God damn it!”

“I would never hurt you, Richard.”

Sandra inhaled sharply, scared by this answer.

His face was wild. “You want me to cut her throat? Is that what you want?”

Jennifer didn’t reply. She was rolling up the sleeve on her left arm. She stepped closer, letting him see the scar. “Remember this? Remember how you saved me?”

He stared at her arm, transfixed by the scar. His voice was quieter when he said, “That was a long time ago.”

“But I haven’t forgotten. Have you?”

“No.”

“I’ll always remember hearing your voice. You were calling for me, and I thought it was a dream, so I didn’t answer. You found me anyway. I never asked you how you knew I was in the utility room.”

“It was the blood.” His eyes were far away. “Spots of blood on the floor.”

She took another step, and now she was three feet from the desk.

“You picked me up and carried me to a car. I didn’t even know whose car it was. You didn’t have a license. You were only fourteen.”

“It was Jim Hobarth’s car. I borrowed it.”

“And drove three hundred fifty miles to San Francisco. You’d talked the operator into tracing the call to the pay phone in the shopping center.”

“She didn’t want to do it. I said it was life-and-death. She got her supervisor to approve….”

“You made it to the shopping center and got inside somehow.”

“Through a back window.”

“And you found me and drove me to the hospital, and later when I’d had a transfusion, I woke up and found you in the room with me. You know what you said? Remember the words?”

He shook his head.

“You said, ‘I knew you were in bad shape. You needed me.’ That’s all.”

She closed the gap with the desk, and now he was within her reach.

“I was-everything was different then.” His face hardened. “You were different. You weren’t after my money. You weren’t trying to put me away.”

“There’s hardly any money left, Richard. You’ve spent almost all of it.”

“You’re hiding it from me. You want it for yourself.”

“It’s nearly gone. And our house-it’s gone, too.”

His lower lip quivered. “You’re a lying whore.”

“It burned tonight. It’s all gone, and the family papers are gone, and soon the money will be gone. And you know what? I’m glad.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“I don’t want anything holding on to us anymore. I want a fresh start. Remember how we used to play miniature golf, and you’d give me a do-over if I hit a bad shot? That’s what I want. A do-over.”

“We don’t get do-overs.”

“Sometimes we do. We just have to ask. How about you? Would you like a new start?”

He reared back, and Sandra shut her eyes. “I’m going to cut this bitch’s throat, and then I’m going to cut yours.”

Jennifer held his gaze from a yard away. “No, you’re not.”

“Who says?”

“You’re not a killer, Richard. I thought you were, but I was wrong. You’re not going to hurt Sandra or me.” She extended her hand, her left hand, so he could follow the seam of the scar down her arm. “Are you?”

Her fingertips brushed his chest. He stared at them, at the pale vulnerability of her offered hand.

“Everyone’s against me,” he said, the words so soft they almost went unheard.

“I’m not.”

Doubt flickered on his face. “Then why’d you come after me? Why’d you hunt me down? Why wouldn’t you leave me alone?”

“I knew you were in bad shape,” she said. “You needed me.”

He heard the words, and their echo from years ago.

Slowly he handed over the knife, dropping it into her upraised palm.

Sandra exhaled.

Jennifer withdrew her hand. “Thank you, Richard.”

“You’d better not be fucking with me,” he muttered.

“I think both of us have been fucked with quite enough.”

1911

Hare was dying.

He had known it for some time. The pain in his belly had become progressively worse, stealing his breath and his heart’s blood. Over the past several months he had been stricken intermittently with spells of weakness. The movements of his bowels were bloody and agonizing. He had trouble keeping food down. Of late he had subsisted on corn mush and warm beer.

He was fifty-one years old. His great work was at an end. Never again would he prowl the streets, purging them of the female element. The whores…and they were all whores, every last one. Toward the end he no longer singled out streetwalkers. Any woman would do, if she was young and had life in her.

His thinking in this regard had changed after the consummation of his marriage on the kitchen floor. He brooded long over the significance of the act. He had never meant to defile himself. It was her blood that overmastered him, robbed him of sense and self-control. It was her blood that made her a harlot.

And all women bled.

Even knowing this, he could not resist her wiles. He continued to take her from time to time, and not always when she was bleeding. He hated himself for it but could not stop. Thankfully, his illness had accomplished what his willpower could not-cleansed him of carnal desire.

He carried on with his work as late as possible. Only last month he claimed the sixth of his victims to be interred in his cellar. The sixth and last. He would not hunt again.

But his work would continue. He would see to that.

“Are you ready, Papa?” a small voice called from the top of the stairs.

Hare smiled. The lad was eager for his promised birthday present. It would be a grand surprise, his father had assured him.

No one was ever permitted in the cellar. In the three and a half years since his family took up residence in the house he’d commissioned in Venice, both his wife and his son had been absolutely barred from entry. The cellar’s trapdoor was ordinarily secured with a padlock to which Hare alone possessed the key, and when he was in the cellar, he secured the door from below with a dead bolt.

But today, on the occasion of his boy’s seventh birthday, Hare had left the trapdoor unbolted. He had lit the room with a kerosene lamp. And he was indeed ready.

“You may come,” he summoned.

The boy raced down the stairs so precipitously Hare feared he might break his neck. He reached the bottom, flushed with joy.

Hare knelt by him, fighting the pulse of agony that throbbed continually in his midsection. As yet he had not let the boy see what was under the stairs. It was necessary to prepare him for the sight.

“You’re a man now,” he said, laying a hand on the child’s shoulder. “You deserve to see my secret room, and to learn its mysteries.”

The boy was awed. “Yes, Papa.”

Hare picked up a metal box and held it in outstretched hands. “This is for you.”

His son fumbled open the clasp and peered inside, registering disappointment when he saw the contents. “A book?”

“Not just any book,” Hare said. “It is my diary from my years in London when I was a younger man. A record of the things I did there. Secret things. Famous things.”

“How can they be secret and famous?” the boy asked, sensibly enough.

“The deeds were famous, but my role in them has never been known. You are the first and only one to learn of my past.”

The boy ran his fingers over the diary’s black calfskin cover. “Were you…a pirate?”

“Not a pirate, lad. Something much better. I was old Red Jack.”

“Your name’s not Jack.”

“No, that was only a nickname I bestowed upon myself. Have you heard of Jack the Ripper, boy?”

The solemn eyes widened with startlement and something like fear. “The one who killed ladies and…cut them into bits?”

“You know of him, then. You know his legend.”

“Yes.”

“I am he.”

The boy stood speechless. “But he was wicked,” he said finally.

“That’s only what some people say. The truth of the matter is altogether different. It was a public good, ridding the world of fallen women. Of all women. They are harlots and temptresses, all of them.”

“Not Mother.”

“Yes, even she.”

He shook his head. “No.”

Hare felt a stab of frustration. But he reminded himself that the boy was young, the teaching difficult. “Even your mother,” he said slowly. “She cannot help it. Vice is inborn in her.”

“I don’t believe you.” Sudden tears stood in the boy’s eyes. “You’re telling tales to frighten me.”

The sight of tears maddened Hare. To cry was unmanly. The boy had been coddled excessively.

“These are no tales.” He snatched the child’s hand. “I’ll show you.”

He pulled his son under the staircase, where the crypt in the cellar wall lay exposed in the lamp’s flickering glow.

His six beauties were piled inside, their limbs severed from their trunks. Those on the bottom had rotted, their delicate skin shrinking into mummified folds. Those near the top were more fresh. The latest one showed almost no signs of decay. She might have been a wax figure, disassembled for storage. The pink was still in her cheeks.

“See?” Hare said, the word echoing in the cellar’s confines, a shout of triumph.

The boy screamed and would have run, had Hare not clutched his hand in a firm grip.

It was the scream that dismayed Hare most of all. Tears could be dried, doubts could be answered, but such spontaneous revulsion and terror might prove impervious to persuasion.

“They can’t hurt you,” Hare snapped. “They’re dead and gone.”

Another scream, this one trailing into infantile sobs.

“You’re a damn coward.” Hare pronounced the words like a verdict. “You’re a weakling. You’re no better than a woman.” It was the final insult.

“Let me go.” The boy tugged at his father’s hand. “Let me go!”

“This is your legacy. Your destiny. You cannot escape it. You must embrace it.”

“Let me go, Papa, please!”

“I offer you greatness. I offer you a chance to change the world.”

The boy hung his head and wept.

Hare spoke to him for a long time. He told him of his London adventures and of his travels. He told him that he had once been Edward Hare, though now he bore another name, a made-up name of his own choosing. He told him that someday he would understand the awful responsibility he had inherited, the opportunities it afforded, and the price it would exact.

The boy listened, but he did not understand. Terror remained stamped on his face, the threat of more tears looming in his eyes.

“I have been an agent of purification,” Hare concluded. “And when you are old enough, you will recommence my work.”

The boy looked away in stubborn denial. “I’ll never be mad like you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Blood will tell. You are more like me than you know.”

“Never,” the boy repeated.

Finally Hare extracted a promise from him to tell no one, not even Mother. And he let him go. The boy scampered up the stairs, leaving the diary behind.

Hare sighed. He had done his best. But the boy was too young. Had the illness not come on so fast…had he been granted another five years…

Perhaps on his twelfth birthday the boy would have understood. Or perhaps the case was forever hopeless. There might be too much of his mother in him. Too much of her thin and tainted blood.

He passed some little time thumbing through his diary, remembering the first days of his calling, days he commemorated in his last six kills. Although his role in these most recent murders must remain hidden, someday the clues might be deciphered and proper credit given. A hundred years from now, or more. He would not be forgotten. And possibly his son would come around. He himself had been twenty-eight before he felt the stirrings of his missionary impulses. Given time, the lad might follow in his footsteps, and his son after him.

At last he shut the tin, securing the clasp, and planted it in the loose earth of the crypt. It would be here for his son to find, should the desire seize him. If not, it might yet come to light by another’s efforts.

Someday.

He closed up the wall, stacking the bricks and troweling the mortar. He worked for a long time, sealing away the bodies and the book.

Finished, he mounted the stairs. He was weary. He needed rest. Rest from all his labors. Rest forevermore.

In the backyard the lad was playing with his little red wagon. Hare stood at the window, watching, until the child felt his stare and looked at him.

Fear flickered in the young face, but only for a moment. Tentatively, tremulously, the boy smiled.

Then Hare knew that it would be all right, and that his work would go on.

forty

The House of Silence burned to the ground.

Jennifer spent much of the next day sifting the ashes in search of salvageable remains. She found little. Her Prius had been ruined, her family heirlooms and mementos erased from existence. Her collection of sea glass was gone, too. None of that mattered. The house had held on to her for too long. Now she was free.

In its death throes the house had collapsed into the cellar, destroying the crypt, cremating Edward Hare’s victims. Only a few blackened teeth survived.

“And the diary?” Jennifer asked Draper as they dined in a Santa Monica restaurant that night, safely away from the TV reporters.

Draper shrugged. “It wasn’t in Parkinson’s car or on his person. He may have left it in the house to burn. It would only have incriminated him by implicating his ancestor.”

“Without the diary…”

“There’s no way to prove he was a blood relation of Jack the Ripper, or that Jack was ever in Venice-or even in America, for that matter. Of course, Parkinson's personal effects provide plenty of evidence that he was obsessed with the Ripper case. We found more than two hundred books on the Ripper in his house, and he’d been visiting the Ripperwalk site, and others like it, for years. But that in itself proves nothing.”

“So before he started killing, Parkinson could have been just an ordinary guy with an interest in Jack the Ripper?”

“Not quite. We know his father was the Devil’s Henchman. And Parkinson knew it too. In the house there were…souvenirs from the case, hand-me-downs.” He saw her questioning gaze and waved his hand. “It’s not something to discuss while we’re eating. Believe me.”

“Okay.” She thought of Catharine Eddowes’ kidney. Suddenly her liver pate seemed less appetizing. “I guess we’ll never know why he did it. Or how he framed Richard so perfectly.”

“We can make a pretty fair guess about Richard, at least. Let’s say Parkinson knows, from family lore, that his ancestor Edward Hare left a cache of bodies and a diary somewhere in Venice. What he doesn't know is the exact location. Then he hears about the discovery in your cellar. He makes sure he’s the one who processes the remains. He looks for the diary. Remember how he noticed some of the dirt had been disturbed?”

“Yes. I pretended I didn’t know anything about it.”

“But he suspected you were lying-and that, as a document analyst, you couldn’t resist the temptation to study the book. He must have watched your house early that morning and followed you to the cemetery. He left the note on your car to test your reaction. He couldn't have been a hundred percent sure until he saw your message on the Ripperwalk site. The reference to Edward Hare confirmed his suspicions. He knew you were the only one who could know that name-and only if you had the book."

"And he also knew about my brother, because the subject came up when we were in the cellar. So he tracked down Richard…”

“And spied on him. Richard was paranoid to begin with, and when he realized he was being watched, it spooked him. He left his apartment and went on the run, convinced he was being stalked."

Jennifer nodded. It wouldn't have taken much to set Richard off. Once he was out of his apartment, Parkinson must have picked the lock and burned the files. In the cellar she'd mentioned that Richard had kept the family papers, and that they might include a record of when Graham Silence purchased the house. Parkinson would have wanted to destroy that evidence, if it existed.

In going though the files, he must have found a record of Richard's library card number and the associated PIN. That was how he’d logged on to the system using Richard's ID.

“I guess,” she said, “it was just a coincidence that Richard and Parkinson were at the library at the same time.”

"No, I don't think so. Remember, there were library books in Richard's apartment, which Parkinson would have seen. He knew Richard liked to hang out there. Parkinson needed an untraceable public computer to download the file you said you’d put online, and he probably chose the Santa Monica Library because there was a good chance Richard would be there. And because he could use Richard's log-on info to cement the frame-up."

She thought of her brother, already panicking in the certainty-correct for once-that someone was out to get him. Then he spotted his pursuer in the library. He fled into the stacks, and when Jennifer came after him, he was convinced she was part of the plot.

She wondered if Parkinson had already chosen Maura as his next victim. He could have found some reference to Maura in Richard's files. Getting into her building would have been no problem. He needed only to identify himself as a police consultant, and Maura would have buzzed him in.

"You're very quiet," Draper said.

She realized she'd been picking at her food, lost in thought. Without looking up, she asked, “Did he have any children?”

“No. Never married. No offspring.”

“Brothers, sisters?”

“He was an only child. The last of the line, Jen. Edward Hare died with him.”

“He must have known about the Ripper connection since he was a boy. But he didn’t act on it until eighteen months ago. Any idea why?”

“We’ve looked at his medical records. He was diagnosed with MS six years ago, but only began to develop seriously debilitating symptoms within the last two years. It looks like his illness was the trigger. He realized it was now or never. Whenever the disease was in remission, he would strike.”

“His illness alone, and even his family background, wouldn't account for his hostility to women.”

“From what we've learned, he had only one serious relationship with a woman, years ago. They were planning to get married. Then he broke it off. He seems to have found out she was unfaithful, or at least he thought she was.”

Like Hare, she thought, and poor blameless Kitty.

“The shrinks say his failed relationship could have turned him against women in general.” Draper shrugged. “That's their theory, anyway. Who knows?”

“You don’t trust shrinks?” she said, smiling.

“Some of them are okay.”

“Any in particular?”

“The pretty ones.”

“Well, aren’t you the smooth talker.”

“I’m very suave. Get used to it.”

“It may take a little time.”

“You’ll have all the time you need.”

She fiddled with her fork, watching the tines catch the light. “It still doesn’t explain why he did it. What motivated him.”

“Did Edward Hare’s diary explain his motives?”

“Not really. It was kind of a power trip combined with a moral mission. Unleashing his animal instincts while purging the world of vice. But I don’t know if any of that was the real reason.”

“What was it, then?”

She let the fork drop. “I think the son of a bitch just enjoyed it. I think he was having fun.”

“And that may be as good an explanation for Parkinson as any. He got to fool the whole department-people he worked with every day. We all felt sorry for him because of his illness, and secretly he was laughing at us. He was the one in the know, and the rest of us were in the dark.”

“How about now? Who’s in the know?”

Draper didn’t follow. “Everybody knows Parkinson was the killer-”

“But they don’t know he was Jack’s great-grandson. They don’t know about the diary or all the rest of it, do they?”

He got it now. “The only ones who know, or ever knew, are you, me, Casey, Parkinson, and Maura.”

“And now there’s no proof.”

“True. But you could tell your story anyway. Some people will believe you. Harrison Sirk probably would. He could get a book deal out of it, cut you in on the profits. Or…”

“Yes?”

“Not every case has to be solved. The world has done without a solution to the Ripper murders for better than a hundred years.”

She thought about this throughout the next few weeks, as March bled into April. She was living in a residential hotel in Marina del Rey and visiting Richard daily at St. John’s Hospital, where he was undergoing mandatory psychiatric treatment. Forced to take his meds, he had regained a measure of lucidity. He was eating regularly and gaining weight. He would never be the man he was, but she hadn’t lied when she said he could have a new start. And maybe someday he could be moved to a halfway house and resume something close to a normal life. Maybe.

Casey was back on the job. If it bothered him that she was seeing Draper, he kept it to himself.

Only once did he mention the fire. “I heard what you did for me,” he said in a serious tone. “Trying to get me out, rather than saving yourself. That was a standup thing to do.”

“The smoke clouded my brain. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“That’s it, Pocket-Size. Keep messing with me.”

“It’s what I do. And don’t call me Pocket-Size.”

Media interest in the case was intense for a few days, then predictably died down. Harrison Sirk tried to buttonhole her at Maura’s memorial service. Jennifer told him to fuck off.

Draper arrested his prime suspect in the murder of Marilyn Diaz. A search of the man’s house turned up a rough draft of the threat message. He confessed. His motive was just what Jennifer had predicted. He had made advances and had been rebuffed. It was such a little thing, but large enough to end a woman’s life.

A real estate agent from Maura’s office told Jennifer that her parcel of land was worth one and a half million dollars. Jennifer put it on the market. She just might buy the bungalow in the Valley that Maura had always talked about.

For now, she was still near the sea. She walked on the beach one April evening and thought one last time about Draper’s words. He was right. There was no need to tell the world about the diary, no need to reopen the case and refocus the media’s cameras on her family. No need to revisit the past. The past was dead. It was dust and ashes. To cling to it was to die inside. Life moved on.

When the sun was gone and the sky was deep purple fading to black, she walked out onto Venice pier. At the end of the pier, she reached into her tote bag and brought out a rusty tin box.

Parkinson had indeed left the diary in the house to burn, but the box had protected it. The pages, though scorched, were readable. She had found it in her salvage hunt and had told no one, not even Draper. Probably it wasn’t good to start off their relationship with a lie, even if only a lie of omission. But he was a cop, and he might insist that the diary be booked into evidence, and then the whole story would come out.

Alone on the pier, Jennifer leaned over the railing and dropped the tin straight down, well away from the pilings with their tangled fishing lines. It hit the water with a splash, bobbed on the waves, and drifted away into the dark. Perhaps it would be carried out to sea, or perhaps, like Marilyn Diaz, it would be caught in a riptide and returned shoreward. She would let time and chance decide.

She hoped, though, that it would be lost in the ocean’s distant depths. Not every case had to be solved, as Draper said. Let Jack the Ripper remain a mystery. Let him be remembered not as what he was, not as Edward Hare with his motherless childhood and his lurid dreams of blood, but as what the world wanted him to be-a tall man in a top hat and black cloak, striding down an alley, retreating forever into the fog.

Content

Michael Prescott
Riptide

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