Michael Prescott - Riptide

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.

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.