Jaclyn the Ripper (34 page)

“Hey,” he said with a goofy smile. “Help you?”

“I'm so sorry,” said H.G., embarrassed, “I'm looking for the . . . the fax machine.”

The technician gaped at him and then started laughing. “
The
fax machine?”

“Try any office across the hall,” said the other. “And when you find one . . . kill it.”

“Kill it?”

“Set an example.”

They howled with laughter, and a red-faced H.G. spun out of the room, annoyed that he'd been played for the fool.

Tight-lipped, he hurried back up the corridor and finally found Amber in Communications Center A, the room bright with fluorescents, crammed with office hardware. She was waiting at one of six fax machines, watching its LED display. She glanced up as he came inside. “No thanks to you, I'm feeling better.”

Before he could respond, the machine beeped and began spewing out pages of detail on Jack the Ripper—complete with Scotland Yard's imprint.

He was astounded. That the case file could be transmitted through a phone line and sent so quickly from six thousand miles away reminded him of time travel in that reducing a document to an electronic impulse was similar to vaporizing an object or a person and catapulting him along the fourth dimension. True to the theory, the pages kept coming—fed into a machine at one end, reconstituted and copied at the other. The fax beeped again, and then one last page came through: a nineteenth-century police artist's rendering of Jack the Ripper that, quite naturally, looked almost identical to Leslie John Stephenson.

Except it was smudged.

Frowning, H.G. snagged it and studied the face. It appeared shorter, less angular, and one cheek was wider than it should have been. The eyes seemed less menacing—or had the two-dimensional nature of the facsimile made them so? H.G. thought: In reality Stephenson had been “faxed” from the end of time through a wormhole to June, 2010. Did he look the same as he had in 1893 and again in 1979 or had he been “smudged” due to reformulation errors? Indeed, he could be as distorted as his voice was on the telephone, yet there was really no way of telling until they actually came face-to-face. He handed Amber the rendering. “He's not going to look the same, you know.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“I was going to ask the good sergeant to send this out over the wires, or whatever they call them these days. I was going to ask him to distribute it to his men and post it on television.” He shook his head. “Now I don't see the point.”

“Wait a sec,” she said, looking at the portrait. “We've got the basic features here, right?”

“Yes, but they're smudged!”

“Granted, but we've got a pretty good physical description in the file, too,” she added, pointing to page one. “And if all else fails, we ask Scotland Yard to send us another fax.”

“Nobody in 2010
looks
like that!” he exclaimed, shoving his finger in Stephenson's likeness.

“Sometimes you have no sense of imagination,” she said, disgusted. “Come with me.”

 

In another office, this one dimly lit, H.G. and Amber were on either side of a police artist, their faces rapt at his giant computer screen. The artist had scanned Jack the Ripper's portrait into his program and was cleaning off the smudge. He finished, turned to H.G.

“How's that?”

“That's him,” said H.G., astonished. “That's Stephenson.”

“He looks like somebody from an old movie,” the artist joked. “Was he in costume or something?”

“That's the problem,” H.G. responded glibly. “The rendering is from our nineteenth-century archives.” He explained his copycat theory, then added, “Can you show us what he would look like today?”

The artist nodded, intrigued. “Is he the same age?”

“Yes.”

“Any scars or injuries you know about?”

“No.”

Amber shot H.G. a questioning look about reformulation errors, but he shook his head firmly, then had second thoughts. “Wait,” he said to the artist. “His voice won't be the same.”

“Yeah, but he's not the same guy. We're looking for a copycat, right . . . ? And everybody has their own unique voiceprint.”

“I realize that,” H.G. replied, not realizing it at all, “but we've heard this copycat's voice and he sounds more like a, a machine than a human being. He buzzes when he talks.”

“So you're saying he's had a tracheotomy or something.”

“Quite possibly.”

“Well, I dunno.” He went back to the keyboard. “I don't know how that would change appearance or if it would at all. Nobody's ever sent that balloon up before.” He paused. “What the hell. . . . Let's give it a shot.” He saved the Leslie John Stephenson from the 1880s, made a copy, then went to work, pulling up his morph and paint programs and injecting them with every conceivable influence of modern life from health to style to the environment to medical changes with “voice” highlighted. He turned back to H.G. and Amber. “This is gonna take a while.”

They nodded and stayed in their chairs.

 

The present-day version of Leslie John Stephenson emerged with a rounder, smoother, almost bland face common among the entitlement generation. His hair was short and unkempt, his eyes dark and fierce, less sunken into his head. Though still long and narrow, his nose was straight, indicating the ease, the possibility of cosmetic surgery. He wore a smirk instead of a morose frown, and when the artist hit the 3-D button, the composite jumped out as if alive.

“Good Lord,” said H.G., recoiling.

“Check it out.” The artist toggled between the two portraits, obviously pleased with the results. “As you can see, the facial structure is the same—what's changed are things related to diet and style and attitude.”

“What about the voice?” said Amber.

“Like I said, hard to tell.”

The rendering puzzled H.G. He hadn't expected Stephenson to appear so utterly different merely because of the change in centuries. Yes, it was logical, and hopefully the 2010 portrait would help, but he had a bad feeling about it.
Given reformulation errors, what if this whole process is irrelevant? What if Stephenson looks nothing at all like this?
Finally, he remarked, “He looks almost pretty.”

The artist chortled. “Hey, I don't know about killers in the UK, but none of 'em around here are that bad-looking. They blend in, they
become invisible, they're the boy next door, like Jeffery Dahmer, you know what I'm saying?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, not knowing at all.

“Can we get copies of both?” said Amber.

“Sure,” said the artist, clicking on the print icon. “I'll give you a disk as well, and when I get the word from the lieutenant or Sergeant Young, I'll email it to every cop in L.A.”

“Thank you,” said H.G. gratefully. As they left the office and started up the corridor, he turned to Amber. “Honestly, 'Dusa, I can't imagine living in a world where you can't tell the criminals by looking at them.”

She laughed ironically.

 

Sergeant Young studied the composites, going from one to the other, all the while nodding admiration for the artist. “Guy's good, isn't he?”

“I'm quite impressed,” said H.G.

“I'm not gonna wait for the lieutenant.” He swiveled to his computer. “I'm gonna send this out right now.”

“Has anybody heard from him?” said Amber.

“Nobody. . . . His wife doesn't even know where he is.” He grinned sardonically. “Not that she would anymore. . . . In fact—” He turned and shouted out the door. “Hey, Linda, if we don't hear from the lieutenant, say, by lunchtime, would you check with the hospitals?”

“Okay.”

“Psych wards, too.”

H.G. and Amber exchanged looks.

Young shrugged. “The dude's got problems.” Then he pointed at Stephenson's portrait,
circa
2010, his face lighting up with a Cheshire cat smile. “Tell you one thing—this is gonna get the L.A.
Times
off our back for a while.” He nodded at H.G., punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

A detective swung in the doorway. “Hey, Sarge, the lab finally called. They're emailing the dentals on the Venus de Milo Jane Doe.”

 

______

 

“Trattner,” said the detective, staring at the dental report on a laptop in the homicide bay, “Heather Trattner. . . . 1407 Bowling Green Way, Brentwood.”

“Christ,” exclaimed Sergeant Young, “her husband was the one murdered on Sunday.” He turned to the detective. “Get everybody in here.”

Excited, yet confused, H.G. turned to Amber and whispered, “ 'Dusa, how do they
know
. . . ? I understand how Roentgen's discovery of X-rays can lead to radiographs of one's teeth and how they can be like an oral fingerprint, but how in bloody hell do they know which dentist to query?”

“They found the body in Brentwood,” she whispered back, “so the forensics dentist in the lab does postmortem X-rays, then goes online and shoots copies to all the dentists in Brentwood. They're obligated by law to make a comparison. If we don't get a hit from any of them, the guy in the lab widens his circle.”

“We start with the house,” announced Sergeant Young when the detectives had assembled. He lit up the electronic situation board and map, then zoomed to a six-block area bordered on the north by Sunset Boulevard and on the west by Bundy Drive. With a pointer that lit up when he touched the map, he indicated where he wanted the patrol units, how he wanted the Trattner house covered, when the technicians should set up and—above all—who they were looking for. A giant rendering of the present-day Leslie John Stephenson flashed on the screen.

 

Left behind, H.G. was only mildly disappointed. He doubted the police would find Stephenson. Something was missing, a jagged piece of the puzzle; something was horribly awry. The police had no clue, and unfortunately neither did he. He could only hope that someone out there saw the rendering and recognized the Ripper. Hands in his pockets, he browsed the headquarters for new technology, peered in the lieutenant's office and saw the
Scientific American
on the desk, his favorite magazine in 1979. He grinned and felt a rush of pleasure as if he'd just seen an old friend. Intrigued, he picked it up and started reading.

Twenty minutes later, the secretary glanced up and said sympathetically, “You know, I don't think they're going to be back for a while. Want me to call you a cab?”

“No, no, I'm tip-top, thank you.” He looked at the magazine again. “Did you know that female chromosomes are more dominant and complex than male chromosomes . . . ?”

The secretary stared at him.

“Right.” He blushed. “Of course you did.”

Jaclyn had been curled up catlike next to Holland's body for hours, absorbing his death, failing to convince herself that he lived on within her. And now that her passion was gone, she hated herself for what she'd done to him, yet insisted it was an act of love, of supplication.

Then she heard maids in the corridor and grew nervous. She realized she couldn't stay here much longer. She dressed quickly, eased outside and hurried away from Room 317, the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the handle waving in the breeze she left behind.

Instead of the lift, she took the stairs down to subterranean parking. “I miss you and I love you,” she said, starting the Mercedes. The car went up the ramp. “I miss you and I love you, I miss you and I love you,” she whispered until it became a mantra. At the street, she turned left; she drove aimlessly.

She found Edvard Grieg on satellite radio, a sonata for cello and piano. Though a melody lurked somewhere, the music was discordant and eerie—little flights of keys running amok with a hollow string accompaniment of death. It reminded her how much more complex she was than Leslie John. Other than his obsession with Penny, he had never known love. Had he discovered it, he might not have cut up all
those whores.
Ah, but ultimately who gives a damn? Despite my gender, I am him in spirit, and I have been resurrected as an instrument of Satan. Loving Casey Holland was an aberration, a weakness.

Suddenly, new thoughts:
No, no, that's not true. Loving him is akin to a priest falling for Jesus. Loving him is watching him die just like those soldiers aka lovers did at the cross. Besides, haven't I in fact become Jaclyn Smythe? And after last night, am I not sick of blood for blood's sake? Would I not have a grand life here in this chrome, glass and macadam world merely because of my beauty?

Startled, she realized that in her reverie, she had driven to Will Rogers State Park. She recalled that old adage of a criminal returning to the scene of a crime, so instead of going up the hill where she'd left Heather Trattner's body, she stopped farther down the road, got out, walked and drank in the timeless beauty of canyons in chaparral under a hazy, warm sun, the smell of the eucalyptus, the salt air, the quiet.
I love you and I miss you.

I love you and I miss you, I—I can't stand it anymore!

She burst out crying, ran to the car, fumbled in her purse—hands shaking badly—yet found the knife and held it so she could see her eyes reflected in its stainless steel. They were black pools blurred by her tears falling on the blade. She remembered this same knife wet with her lover's blood. She closed her eyes and kissed it.

She cut deep into her left wrist.

A searing pain.

She gasped, dropped the knife, grabbed her wrist, gritted her teeth against the pain. She looked. The wound was deep, blue on the edges; blood rained on the ground, and when she let go of her wrist, it cascaded out. She was horrified. She'd thought it would be easy, so easy. She'd thought she would smile, curl up in the Mercedes, go to sleep and bleed to death with images of her sweet lieutenant guiding her to their place in eternity, but, no, the pain had her doubled over and thrashing like those whores had done when Jack slashed their throats. She couldn't
do
this.