Jack watched him approach and thought the man looked familiar. Jack sat on the front porch drinking coffee most mornings and saw many old men come and go. He assumed the man was one of the many neighbors. When the man reached the foot of the steps to the porch, that opinion changed. Jack knew the man. He also knew why the man was here.
“How are you here?” Jack asked.
“Hello, Jack. It’s been a while,” Phillips answered.
“How are you here?” Jack asked redundantly.
“Jack, it’s not the how it’s the why.”
“Look, I know what I’ve done. But I’ve changed. I…”
Phillips interrupted. “I’m sure you have. Men like you always change. Then, you change back. I am here to end it.”
Phillips pulled a pistol from his pocket.
“Your shot will wake the house and the neighbors. You won’t get away. In the end you’ll be just like me.”
“Jack,” Phillips smiled, “you’re wrong about that. I’d like you to come with me.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll kill you here. It makes no difference to me.”
He’s old. I’m younger, Jack said to himself. If I can distract him, I can take him out. It will be self-defense.
Phillips noticed Jack’s hesitation and smiled as he read his thoughts. “You might think it’s been twenty years for me as well. That’s not true. I arrived here the same way you did.” Wilson pulled the device from the back of his ear and showed it to Jack. “I’m not as old or as slow as you think I am.”
Jack recognized the device. He didn’t know how Phillips acquired the device and honestly it didn’t matter. He had it. He could travel through time.
“Come with me,” Phillips said firmer. “You wouldn’t want any of your new friends to get hurt.”
Jack set down his cup of coffee and rose to his feet. He walked across the porch to Phillips. Phillips stepped back giving Jack space so he wouldn’t get too close. Jack noticed and admired the move. “Where are we going?” Jack asked.
“I’d like to see the Potomac.”
“It stinks.”
“I’ve smelled worse. Now get moving.”
They walked towards the river and Phillips questioned him as they walked. The questions were all about the Ripper murders. Phillips wanted the answers that had eluded him. Jack, to his own surprise, was eager to talk about it. He had held in the guilt and shame of what he had done and it felt good to release it. Several times the tears nearly came but he held them back. He wouldn’t give Phillips a false sense of satisfaction that he was breaking down in the end.
When they reached the river, Jack turned and looked at Phillips. “Now what?”
Phillips answered by raising the gun and shooting Jack in the chest. Jack fell backwards and sprawled onto the ground on his back. Blood spurted from his chest where the bullet had nicked his heart. Jack looked up at Phillips in disbelief. He tried to talk but only blood bubbles came from his lips.
In a moment, he would be dead. Jack had killed enough people to know the symptoms at the end of life. He was displaying all of them. He looked up at Phillips once more and saw Phillips raising the gun. He watched Phillips squeeze the trigger. Then, there was nothing else for Jack.
Phillips shot Jack in the head for good measure and then rolled Jack’s body into the river. With Jack dead, he touched the device behind his ear. He thought of his home in Cardiff and disappeared.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Washington, D.C. – November 1921
“We don’t have much time,” Wilson said, gazing intently across the table. “Jack was killed and it’s only a matter of time before they track him back to us.” The morning newspaper had included a photo of a body found in the river. Body Found in the Potomac was the headline. The swollen face in the photo belonged to Jack.
“How can you be sure of that?” Vincent asked. “He won’t have identification.”
“His photo is in the newspaper,” Wilson replied, “and the people who live in this neighborhood will recognize him. Jack was very public while he was here. He sat on the front porch every morning waving at anyone who came by. There’s no way he won’t be identified. And the question is – what do we do then?”
Vincent shook his head.
“And to make things worse,” Wilson continued, “not only do we have to answer how a murdered man last seen with us ended up in the river, we also have to assume that at some point Jack will be discovered to be the murderer of President Libby Williams.”
Vincent looked up. “What makes you say that?”
“The White House has video cameras that can be turned on for surveillance doesn’t it?”
Vincent started to ask how Wilson knew that when he remembered that in another line of history, Wilson had been the President and although it had not actually happened, Wilson still had the memories. Vincent nodded instead of speaking.
“Those cameras would have begun filming once the alarm was sounded and they would have caught Jack taking Libby.” Wilson started to move on with the conversation but then he remembered to whom he was talking. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“Don’t worry about it. Yes, you’re right. Jack will have been caught on film. And that means they’ll know he is the one killed my wife, just as you said. I can guess who their primary suspect will be in his murder.”
“Since you’ve been seen with him here, you,” Wilson answered, pausing for effect. “So that leads us back to the first question. What do we do now? We can’t just leave. We’d be admitting guilt
