whatever he had been, but a different foreigner altogether. The prevailing attitude seemed to be that one was as good as another.
The suspicions of the police had fallen on a certain Algerian, Ameer Ben Ali, who had the misfortune of taking room 33, across the hall from the murder site, on the fatal night. Ali was the sort of character one encountered everywhere in dockside slums, a drifter, possibly a small-time hoodlum. It was claimed that a trail of blood led from Carrie Brown’s abattoir to Ali’s room, though more sober reports suggested that the crowd of reporters themselves had tracked the blood across the hallway.
Be that as it may, the unfortunate Ali was seized by the police and subjected to a dubious trial in which he defended himself in laughably broken English much as C. Kniclo might have done. By now all thoughts of a blond blood-spotted foreigner had been put aside, and press and public clamored for conviction of the Algerian rogue. The jury obliged, sentencing Ali to life imprisonment at a penal institution known by the peculiar nomenclature of Sing Sing.
Hare received word of the jury’s verdict in July, as he languished in Chicago, planning his next move. He took the development as a favorable omen. Life in his new country had commenced on a most promising note. He could only hope he would be so fortunate in his escapades with other victims.
For there would be others, of course.
There always were.
nine
Jennifer pushed her chair away from the table and sat looking at the book.
Jack the Ripper’s diary. That was crazy. Right?
“Right,” she murmured.
But she wasn’t sure.
If somehow this book was the authentic testament of history’s most infamous serial killer, then she had to assume that the bodies in the cellar were the Ripper’s work, as well.
Jack the Ripper in California.
She ran her fingertips over a page of the diary and felt the faint rise of the lettering characteristic of iron-gall, a common 19th-century ink. The ink wasn’t washed out, as it would be if it had been diluted to simulate aging. There was obvious bronzing-iron-based inks oxidized naturally within eighteen months-and significant feathering; the ink had bled into the paper, a sign of age.
The writing was smooth and showed none of the “tremble” seen in attempts to disguise one’s handwriting. In some forgeries of old documents, flourishes were added to the handwriting to produce a more antique appearance. She saw no decorative additions here.
But why would there be artificial flourishes? The diary was no conscious imitation. It was real. It might be the product of the Ripper, or of someone who believed himself to be the Ripper, but it was not written to fool her. It was not left in a tin box underneath a heap of skeletons to play mind games with a psycholinguistic analyst in the 21st century.
The vault of bones was a time capsule left by the killer, whoever he was. The diary and the bodies were his message to the future, his mocking announcement that he’d gotten away with it and was forever beyond capture.
She wondered if he had murdered them here. Had lured them to the house, killed them in its confines. In a back room, perhaps, where their cries would be unheard. This room…
If she lifted the carpet, would she find bloodstains on the hardwood floor? If she peeled back the wallpaper, would she find scratches grooved by clawing fingernails? If she closed her eyes, would she hear screams…?
At the front of the house, the doorbell buzzed.
The noise startled her. She took a steadying breath, then left the study and made her way through the house to the front door. She opened it, and Maura was there.
“Oh,” Jennifer said. “What are you doing here?”
“And hello to you, too. I was coming by to check on you. And it looks like it was a good idea. You seem pretty frazzled. But at least you’re alive. You could have called to let me know.”
“Sorry.” Jennifer ran a distracted hand through her hair. “It’s been a hectic day.”
“Tell me about it. I’m showing a two-bedroom condo the size of a file cabinet to a lovely young couple who’ll soon be in debt up to their earlobes, when all of a sudden the place starts boogying. The lady had a freakout, and the last I saw of her, she was insisting they move to Seattle.”
“Seattle has earthquakes, too.”
“I mentioned that, but she wasn’t in a mood to be reasonable.”
Maura Lowell, thirty-seven, was a real estate agent who worked Venice and Ocean Park. She’d met Jennifer through Richard, back when Richard was looking for a condo of his own. She and Richard dated for a while, one of the many times when Richard went out with a woman older than himself.
“And of course,” Maura added, “right away I was worried about you. I mean, look at this place.” She rapped the doorframe. “A stiff breeze could knock the thing over. I figured a quake would do you in for certain.”
“It would take more than a quake to bring down this house.”
“Yeah, yeah, they don’t build ’em like this anymore. Well, you’re alive, and I’m hungry, so let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere food is served. It’s after six o’clock, kiddo. Chow time. Unless you’ve got something better to do?”
Jennifer thought of the diary, the skeletons. “Not a thing.”
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
“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
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.”
