Michael Prescott: Riptide

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.

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.