Michael Prescott - Riptide

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.

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.