Riptide

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.