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.
eleven
It was after ten PM when Jennifer e-mailed Draper her report on the Diaz case. She knew she ought to rest and take a fresh look at the diary in the morning. But she couldn’t leave the rest of it unread.
Carefully she turned to the last page she’d seen, marked with a dried splotch of blood “fresh out of whitechapel,” the word rendered in lowercase.
The blood, noted the diarist in a subsequent entry, had belonged to Annie Chapman.
A timeline of events was included in one of the books she’d purchased. The Ripper’s second victim was Annie Chapman, killed in the backyard of an East End home.
And the first victim was Mary Ann Nichols, known as Polly to her friends.
The names matched. Whoever wrote the diary either was Jack the Ripper—or thought he was.
She continued reading. Some of the lines were struck through—an increasing number as time went on. The handwriting grew more frenzied and illegible, the forward thrust of the cursive becoming almost savage. The man’s self-control was breaking down.
There were frequent references to the Met. It seemed to stand for the Metropolitan Police, who investigated some of the Ripper murders.
In other passages the word costermonger cropped up, straight out of Dickens. Street names were hyphenated—Hanbury-street, Aden-yard, Mile-end-road. Presumably this was good Victorian usage.
Throughout, the diarist’s rage became more palpable, his grandiosity more exaggerated.
Brainless blue bottles have no more chance of buckling me than of nabbing their own shadows.
They call me wicked, fiend, ruffian. Hypocrites, double-faced asses! I do what they desire to do. They would follow in my footsteps if they had the will.
Next one I do I’ll be up her arse and shoot sponk up her then tickle up her ovaries with my fine sharp knife.
By the time he reported the next victory in his war against the “unfortunates” of the streets, his mood was giddy.
To-night a triumph—two of them dead—Berner-street and Mitre-square—two of the filthy creatures permanently suppressed—two less of the deuced vermin to fill the cots of the padding kens—
Couldn’t finish the first as I’d hoped—she was a fighter, had a knife of her own—I snatched it away, used it on her ha ha turnabout is fair play—short knife, not like mine—didn’t cut deep—no good for draining blood—would have done her properly but some Yid carman interrupted—him and his pony and cart—
Damnable shame not finishing the first but it turned all right—
My blood still hot I found another—did her good—she had no more blood in her than a stone when I was through—I took away a piece of her in my tobacco pouch—
She had eyes like Kitty's—wide staring eyes—
According to the timeline, two prostitutes—Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes—were killed on the same night. Eddowes’ kidney had been taken.
Fried up part of the kidney. Was greasy. Needed salt.
Jennifer felt her stomach recoil.
Now they say I hate Jews. All because of some nonsense scribbled on a doorway. Donkeys!! I left no message. The bit of bloody apron they found by the door—I must have dropped it—carelessness, no more.
Anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered near a scrap of Eddowes’ apron.
The woman on Berner-street is said to have been accosted by some ruffian while another lurked in the shadows—ha ha— another false trail for the bloodhounds. It must have happened before I met her. No wonder she had her short knife ready.
The diarist no longer bothered to record his victims’ names. They were not people to him.
They make it all so complicated—conspiracies—slanders on the Jews—lookouts in the shadows—political motives, religious mania. They can not conceive of how simple it is.
Betrayed by a whore, I seek satisfaction from all their kind. And from Kitty herself, one day.
But not yet. Not whilst she still may be linked to me. I am clever, superlatively crafty. I bide my time and outwit them all.
His megalomania was escalating. She expected further signs of overstimulation and personality disintegration.
Drinking too much. Can’t sleep. Out at all hours. Come home late. Pace floor.
Passed woman on street. She shrank from me. Saw something in my eyes. Must beware of giving myself away.
Wisp and the others regard me strangely. Students whisper. They don’t suspect. They only know I’m not myself.
Kidney is gone. What happened to it? I remember nothing.
Mystery solved. Lusk, head of the vigilance committee, got the kidney in the post. Wrapped in a note. I have no memory of writing it. Damned lucky I didn’t give myself away.
Half a kidney in a brown pasteboard parcel was mailed anonymously to George Lusk, who had started a kind of neighborhood watch organization to combat the Ripper. It was accompanied by a semicoherent note datelined “from hell.”
The note gave her an idea. She opened a book that reproduced letters purportedly from the Ripper. Thumbing through the pages, she found a large photo of the most famous one, known as the “Dear Boss letter,” in which the name Jack the Ripper first appeared. She compared the handwriting with that of the diarist.