Michael Prescott - Riptide

“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.”

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.