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.
Richard would have counted on that.
It had to be Richard. Who else
Sirk was right about the parallels between the Ripper case and the Devil’s Henchman murders. The diary was the connection. It linked Aldrich Silence to the Ripper. It implied a taste for blood that had persisted across generations-and persisted today.
She had uncovered an ongoing series of murders committed by her own brother.
In London, Hare left his victims in the open; in Venice, he hid them in a cellar. The first method brought him notoriety but advertised his activities to the police. The second method allowed him to keep a low profile, but cheated him of the fame he thought he deserved. Richard had found a third way. Some victims were found, while others went missing. His approach varied so the crimes could not be linked.
He had learned from his father’s mistakes, which had made Aldrich a suspect and driven him to suicide. Richard, it seemed, would outdo his father. Perhaps he meant to outdo Jack himself.
He had always been ambitious. Always proud of his cleverness, his brains.
Her head hurt. It was all too much. She was caught up in a sequence of events driving her to a conclusion she hated-caught in a riptide that was entangling her in her brother’s crimes, as surely as another current had borne Marilyn Diaz into the fishing lines under the Venice Pier.
Ever since finding the bodies and reading the diary, she had been rationalizing, fearful of reaching this moment. Now that she had, she was faced with a choice. She could turn Richard over to the police, and let him go to prison or maybe die.
Or she could do…nothing.
Run away, leave the city, leave the state-and let him go on killing.
Impossible. She couldn’t do that. Or could she? The people he murdered…she didn’t know them. She owed them nothing. She owed Richard-she touched her arm-
Maybe she could let him go. His victims were only strangers. And he…
“He’s family,” she whispered, eyes shut against tears.
Her laptop pinged, announcing an instant message.
She gathered herself. Opened the dialogue box. It was Abberline, responding to the message she’d sent this morning. The trap she’d laid.
His reply glimmered on the screen:
“I’ll bet you are,” she said.
From memory she entered an URL she’d used before-a dummy link, a Web address that went nowhere.
For ten dollars a month, she subscribed to a tracking service that could pinpoint the origin of e-mails and instant messages. Instant messages did not carry routing information, and e-mails could have their routing info disguised or removed. But the sender could be tricked into revealing his location by opening a dummy link maintained by the tracking service. As soon as he clicked on the link, his IP address would be sent to their servers. Once the IP address was known, his whereabouts could be determined-sometimes only within a certain ZIP code, but other times narrowed down to a city block or even a particular building.
She waited. Within sixty seconds her e-mail program notified her of incoming mail. It was a message from the tracking service, and it included a link to the traceroute results.
She followed the link. Abberline’s IP address was associated with the domain name SMPL.org.
According to the WHOIS database, the domain was registered to the Santa Monica Public Library at 601 Santa Monica Boulevard, Santa Monica, California.
He was using a public computer at the library, less than four miles from her house.
She remembered the overdue library books in Richard’s apartment.
He was Abberline.
Just another of his games.
She shut off the laptop so any new instant messages would be forwarded to her cell phone. She ran for her car. Luckily she hadn’t bothered to close the garage door, making it easier to make a quick exit. She shot down a side street to Venice Boulevard and headed east, then took a left onto Abbot Kinney Boulevard and a right onto California Avenue. At Lincoln Boulevard she went north.
Lincoln was always crowded, but it was the main thoroughfare in the neighborhood, and she would just have to hope the traffic wasn’t too bad.
She remembered her first online conversation with Abberline, which ended just before nine PM. The library’s main branch remained open until nine on weeknights. He must have stayed at the terminal until almost the last minute.
She was crossing Rose Avenue when her phone rang. Not an SMS alert. This was an incoming call. Caller ID showed Maura’s cell.
