Downtime Read online

  "I hope not." Ezra moved nearer and lowered his voice. "You aren't going to mention..."

  "No," I said with a shake of my head. "I don't think it's going to do us any good to tell Pimblett about your one-on-one with the victim. He's already got his suspicions, no matter how inaccurate they may be. Let's not fan the flames."

  The good inspector caught sight of us in the crowd and, excusing himself from the group of constables he'd been instructing, headed in our direction with a demeanor remarkably similar to my dad's the time I'd wrecked the truck.

  "We don't follow orders particularly well, do we, Mr. Nash?" Apparently it was clear to him who had instigated this unauthorized detour. "Am I mistaken or did I not specifically request that you stay out of Whitechapel?"

  "I haven't left Whitechapel yet," I reasoned, "so I haven't had the opportunity to stay out of it. Technically speaking."

  Faulkner would have busted me down to chief dishwasher for that one. Pimblett looked as though he wished he could. "Since you are a visitor to our fair isle, I will allow for a second error in judgment, but you may trust that a third will bring an investigation upon your head which will involve a considerably longer stay than I imagine you've anticipated. You do take my meaning?"

  "Yes, sir, I do." But something in me couldn't help offering some parting advice. "Inspector, just one more thing. Your perpetrator was interrupted before he could do anything else to this woman besides cut her throat. Don't you think there's a possibility he may be out there looking for another victim, to finish what he started here?"

  Pimblett seemed about to launch into another tirade, then he hesitated. His brows knit and he shook his head. "We have men on every street. If he strikes again tonight, he'll be caught, and he must be aware of it. We are doing everything we can and I think that is apparent even to you."

  "You can do more. Get your scene marked off now and assign one officer the task of keeping everyone outside the perimeter. You're documenting visitors, which is good, but your men weren't quick enough in securing the area around the body. The scene's already been contaminated and you've lost a lot of evidence. I know you don't do trace analysis and you can't run any DNA--but someone's got to be protective of these scenes to the point of neurosis and since you're the senior officer, it's up to you. Photograph everything..." I sighed. Onlookers might have been shuffled out of the way, but several constables still stomped around, mixing in their own hair, fiber, and prints with those of the murderer. Maybe it didn't really matter, since none of it would be collected, but it made me wince anyway. "Look, at the very least, rope off a boundary starting at the gate and at sun-up you can do a thorough spiral from the body outward and collect whatever's left. Here..." I handed over the slip of paper on which I'd made notes. "I documented my own observations. If you want to talk more about this, you know where to reach me."

  Pimblett looked at my notes, then at Ezra blankly. "What the devil is he about?"

  Ezra's face lit with a weary affection. "I'm still mulling that myself, Inspector. He does seem to know what he's talking about, even if we don't. It would do no harm to hear him out."

  A constable who'd been moving in our direction slipped deferentially to Pimblett's side and whispered, "Dr. Phillips is here, sir."

  Pimblett looked as if he still didn't know what to make of me. Finally he shook his head impatiently. "I've finished with these gentlemen, Constable; if you will escort them to the gate and send them on their way."

  Maybe later on, after he'd thought about it, he might decide to contact me. But I had no real expectation that he would. The police were protective of this case and their reputation. I'd seen it before. They weren't about to share the spotlight with any other agency, foreign or domestic, even if that spotlight got a little hot before the case finally broke. Pimblett just didn't know yet that it never would.

  Once past the wicket and left to our own devices, I immediately latched onto Ezra and headed away from the agitated crowd growing ever bigger on Berner Street. All of Whitechapel lay around us and somewhere Jack was closing in on another woman. Maybe just a block over, for all I knew. "Ez, is Sully around?"

  Startled by the question, he took a moment to answer. "I'm afraid not."

  "How about the victim? She's not still around, is she? Or anyone who'd possibly cooperate with us?" I knew my frustration was showing, but I couldn't help it. Enlisting ghosts, there was a new low for Agent Nash. This job was a hell of a lot easier with modern advances, not to mention the law, on your side. If I had a car and the cooperation of the police--hell, even a dog with a good nose...

  Or a psychic with one.

  I stopped in my tracks and Ezra looked at me. "Do I dare ask what is brewing in that head of yours?"

  He was learning to read me all too well. "I was just wishing for a bloodhound and it hit me that I've had one all along."

  He eyed me uneasily. "Have you?"

  I led him to the low wall fronting someone's flower bed. "Sit down. And close your eyes."

  "Close my eyes? Do you intend to conduct a séance?" he asked, half-jokingly.

  Squatting in front of him, I patted his arm. "It'll be all right. I just want you to reach out. Search for a sense of someone in trouble. Or someone bottling up a whole lot of anger," I added, thinking it would be even better to get a fix on Jack himself.

  Ezra didn't seem enamored of the idea. "Reach out?"

  "Yeah. Try to pinpoint a location, if you can." I knew it was a hell of a lot to ask of someone who'd spent his life coping with ghosts hounding him day and night. I wrapped my hand around his, intending to be his anchor this time. "Maybe we can find her before he does."

  Amazingly, that confidence in me was still there. He turned his hand in mine and interlaced our fingers. He closed his eyes and barely a moment later tension reappeared in troubled lines around his mouth. He hunched over and I shifted to my knees to keep an eye on him. Opening himself psychically to all of Whitechapel appeared to be not so much of a hot idea after all. His reaction escalated, physical distress evident in his rapid breathing and even more rapid loss of color.

  "Ezra, never mind. Forget it. Let it go." I grasped his shoulders and his eyes flew open, dark with horrors only he could see. "Ezra?"

  Words seemed beyond him, but not action. He pulled out of my hold and on his feet, plunged past me. There was no hesitation, no pause to get his bearings. I caught up with him but didn't try to stop him, half afraid he'd shove me into the gutter if I did. He'd zeroed in on someone and meant to hunt him down. But I stayed close, determined to grab him before he flew headlong into a killer with a knife.

  The scene we came upon in a dim street several blocks from the murder was not what I expected. There were three of them, the oldest not more than twenty, and the woman they held down on the pavement was even younger. The one on top of her had her skirts pushed to her hips and, undeterred by her furious struggles, was trying to pull off the white sheath of underclothes that covered her from waist to calf. Ezra dragged him off and shoved him away, the momentum carrying him into me. I laid him out and went after the other two. Not as stupid as they looked, they both fled.

  Their intended victim seemed to regard us as just as dangerous. She scrambled away from Ezra's offered hand, then took off running as a police whistle pierced the night. I let her go, sick with the thought that Jack had struck again and we were too late to stop him--again. Ezra stared past me into the darkness and I had a bad feeling he was still channeling all the crimes in progress. His expression reminded me of the victims of violent crimes I'd dealt with in the past. The disbelief, the overwhelming shock, it was all there. I laid my hands on his shoulders and got into his face, trying to draw him back to the present. "Ez? I know I told you to do this, but let it go now. Come out of it."

  He blinked and his gaze shifted to mine. "There is pain in every corner of this place," he whispered.

  "Yeah, I know." I cupped his face in my hands, refusing to relinquish his attention now that I had it back. "I
t was stupid of me to tell you to open yourself up to it. I'm sorry. I had my sights set on Jack. I didn't think about all the common criminals that could slip in with him."

  The confusion lingered in Ezra's face. "He is rather--uncommon." The distracted tone was still there, too, and it worried the hell out of me. I snapped his name with intentional force, trying to pull him free of whatever still had a hold on him. He shivered, but then turned his face into my touch, eyes closing.

  If he needed a lifeline, he had one. I kissed him. "Focus on that," I whispered. "Read my mind if it'll help."

  After a moment, he said in a steadier voice, "Must I? The things that run through your head are surely more disturbing than all of Whitechapel."

  The knot in my gut loosened. "Nice to have you back." I kissed him again, lightly. "If I come up with any more brilliant experiments, feel free to kick my ass."

  "Some good came of this one, then," he murmured.

  I turned his attention to the guy laid out on the pavement. "A lot of good, actually. But it's an experiment we won't be repeating." The whistle called again, northwest of our current location, I realized automatically. And not far away.

  "Jack," Ezra breathed.

  "Yeah. But I don't think you're ready for any more of this and I'm not so sure I am either," I added, flat-out lie though it was.

  "I'm all right." He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, trying to at least look all right. "Anyway, we must go and see. The area will not have been--contaminated?"

  "Ezra--"

  "We must," he said quietly. "If we failed to catch this Ripper the first time, the aid of a federal agent from the future may be just the thing. I cannot sleep with the thought that we might have found him out tonight if we'd only persisted."

  No crowd had gathered yet and only two constables waited near the body in the loneliest corner of a quiet square. The men didn't prowl the scene in search of evidence, nor go near enough to examine the motionless form; they just waited, for a doctor to arrive and pronounce her dead, I assumed.

  Ezra might have agreed to investigate further, but I was intent on making sure he saw nothing else that would ruin his sleep for nights to come. "You all right to stay here for a few minutes?"

  "Stay here?" Ezra took in the police, their lanterns revealing nothing from this distance except a limp hand lying on the pavement. He drew me into the darker shadow of a doorway. "Please don't get into trouble."

  "I'll be careful." I felt confident the constables would be chasing me off within minutes. But I was ready with some bullshit stalling tactics while I got a cursory look at the scene.

  "Be quick," Ezra entreated and let me creep away, across the square to the corner--also near a gate, I noticed. But this gate was locked and the murder had been committed very much in the open. The guy might be nuts, but he was organized nuts, or he'd have been caught for sure. As for his victim--sweet Jesus. What Jack had done to the poor damned woman probably would have compelled most people to look quickly away. I looked away, myself, after a moment, realizing I wasn't as jaded as I liked to think. Apart from the Ripper's signature throat-cutting, the woman had been disemboweled, her intestines strewn near her head. I was glad I'd left Ezra behind. He may have viewed the last scene without flinching, but this one--no.

  "Gentlemen." I nodded in greeting. "Another one, eh?"

  "Yes, sir." They exchanged a dubious look and the other asked, "Who might you be, sir?"

  I went for Faulkner's officious air. It wasn't endearing but it got the job done. "Morgan Nash of the New York Police. I've been called in at Sir Charles' behest, to help you round this fellow up. Hand me that lantern so I can take a look around."

  "Sir Charles?" It was not a tone of respect. The constables exchanged another look, this one disgusted, and I had the feeling I'd chosen the wrong name to throw around. "We ain't heard nothing of it, sir," the older constable continued, the brush of fingers over his moustache only partially hiding the rueful twist of his mouth, "but then, we wouldn't, would we?"

  The other constable snorted and shook his head. "Not likely." There was resentment in his eyes but it seemed less directed at me than at his bosses. He held out his lantern. "Have a look, then, but don't touch her. They'll be calling us down for it, even if it weren't our fault," he muttered to his colleague, who nodded glumly.

  I didn't dare say anything else, but took the lantern and nodded a thanks. I had a vague memory of what the police had gone through with the press reports and angry public, but I hadn't thought much about it. Men and women in law enforcement tolerated that sort of shit all the time and while I'd experienced their frustration myself, I knew it was part of the job and nothing would change it. We were the ones who were charged with keeping the world safe and when we didn't measure up to what was expected, we took it from all quarters.

  And maybe once in a while we did deserve it. But these poor damn guys didn't. It was a challenge for modern day agents to track down serial killers and we had an array of technology, manpower, and forensics on our side. These fellows were wandering around in the dark in every sense. "Cheer up, guys," I murmured out of their hearing. "The first serial killer's always the toughest."

  Settling on the point of entry, I started my walk-through at a snail's pace. The pavement, still wet with rain, would not give up too many clues in the dark and the scant lantern light didn't improve visibility. I knew any footprints I ran across would just as likely belong to the constables or anyone else who'd traipsed through just after the woman's death--which, judging by the liquid state of the blood pooled around her, was mere minutes ago. At her feet, her murderer had arranged her possessions, among them a couple of small tins. I put a hand in my pocket, feeling around for a baggie. But the constables were watching me, and reviving their suspicion by removing evidence wouldn't be the brightest move.

  I focused on a closer look at the ground around the body while I waited for a better opportunity, which came with the arrival of more constables and two men in plainclothes, one of them carrying a doctor's bag. I slipped my own little baggie out of my pocket, along with a handkerchief Ezra had given me and scooped up one of the tins while I had the chance. Whether I could come up with comparison sets to match to any prints was a matter I could work on later. By dawn, there wouldn't be any other evidence worth collecting. Anything else the police found I'd have to read about in the newspaper the next day.

  Concerned that Ezra might be worrying--and even more concerned that the cops might pick him up on suspicion--I left the lantern near the body and slipped into the shadows as the new arrivals appeared in the square. My eyes were still readjusting to the darkness when I realized Ezra was no longer in the doorway where I'd left him.

  "Ez," I hissed, looking around the street. He wouldn't have gone home without me, no matter how justified he might be in doing so. What if he'd spotted Jack still lurking around and had followed him in hopes of catching him? I might have just changed history in a way I couldn't live with.

  In the smallest hour of the morning, word of the murder still spread like fire. People who were just rising or had never gone to bed had gathered in the street in small groups. I could feel the undercurrents of excitement and fear as I passed.

  "Come on, Ez. Where are you?" Damn rookies, they never listened. I should have taken him home. He'd already gotten a heavy duty shot of all the negative vibes in Whitechapel, thanks to me. But that wasn't enough. I had to put him through a breathless run through the cold dark night, to a scene even more horrific than the last one we'd faced. What the hell had I been thinking?

  Ready to retrace my steps on the chance he'd returned to the crime scene looking for me, I heard movement in a narrow alley to my left and saw someone hunched over, relieving himself of his last meal. A familiar someone in a worn coat, his brown hair a soft gleam in the trace of light coming from a window two stories above him. I moved in his direction with care to not startle him and laid a hand on his back. "Ezra?"

  There hadn't been much i
n his stomach to bring up. He leaned heavily against the building and breathed deeply. "I'm sorry," he began in a hollow voice. I cut him off right there.

  "No, I'm the one who should be sorry." I fished his handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to him. "What happened?"

  He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He was in no shape for conversation and I wasn't going to push. I wrapped my arms around him and held him while he calmed down. His head drooped to my shoulder, his breathing, not quite as ragged, warm on my neck. I gave him a squeeze. "I was so caught up, I didn't see you go."

  "Morgan..." His voice was muffled but I could still hear the bewilderment and horror. He tucked his hands under my coat lapels and looked up into my face with a disturbing desperation. "How could he do that? Why would he? Dear God."

  He'd seen her. But he hadn't come anywhere near the body; which meant she had come to him. Regret that I'd left him alone hit me hard. "He does it because he's sick. Sick in a way your era doesn't understand yet. Hell, my era doesn't entirely understand it either." I smoothed the damp hair off his forehead and studied his face for signs of returning color. He was still so pale. "Damn, I'm sorry. I'm in over my head on this. I sure shouldn't be dragging you into the deep end with me."

  "My own fault. I should have known she might." He let out a breath. "Not exactly your Dr. Watson, am I." He met my eyes and mustered a faint smile. "From a story in Beeton's, about a detective chap."

  "Yeah, I know. And trust me, I'm no Sherlock Holmes." I sat down beside him. "Investigation's never been my strong point. Sully usually did most of the figuring out and I did most of the chasing down. Not that he let me get too lazy with the details. He just knew my strengths. I guess I'm a little at a loss without him."

  He nodded and slipped a sympathetic arm under mine. "I know it's difficult, so far from things familiar. But I think you underestimate yourself."

  "Maybe." I looked him over. "How are you feeling?"

  "Well enough to carry on, I think."

  It hit me just how much guilt still swamped him over what he'd done to me. He was worn out and probably still nauseated and despite it all, willing to stick with me through further investigation if I wanted him to. I drew him closer and kissed his curly head. "We're going home. If that's all right with you."