Ripper

  He had built up crippling debts, and knew that it would be pointless to turn to his siblings, who managed the family fortune as though it was their own and carefully controlled the funds to which he had access, arguing that the only thing he knew how to do was spend. He had begged them to sell the Woodside mansion, a crumbling wreck that was impossible to maintain, only to be told that he was ungrateful—he got to live there rent-free. His elder brother had offered to buy the Napa vineyard, “to help keep you afloat,” as he put it, but Alan knew that his motives were far from altruistic: he was simply trying to get the property at a knockdown price. Alan was in bad odor with his bank, which had cut his line of credit, and such things could no longer be sorted out over a round of golf, the way they had been before the economic crisis. A life that until recently had been enviable was beginning to close in on him, and he felt like a fly caught up in a web of difficulties.

  His psychiatrist diagnosed him with a transitory existential crisis—something not uncommon in men of his age—and prescribed testosterone and more pills to treat his anxiety. His worries meant he’d been paying less attention to Indiana, and now he was constantly plagued by jealousy—something that was also perfectly normal, his psychiatrist had told him, though Alan had not admitted that he had once again engaged the services of Samuel Hamilton Jr., private detective.

  He didn’t want to lose Indiana—the very thought of being on his own, of having to start over with another woman, made him weary. He was too old for dating, for subterfuges and skirmishes and concessions in his sex life. His relationship with Indiana was comfortable, and Amanda hated him, luckily, as this absolved him of any responsibility toward her. Amanda would soon be heading off to college, and her mother would be able to devote more time to Alan; but recently Indiana had seemed distracted and distant. She no longer suggested meeting up, and she wasn’t always available when he proposed it. Her admiration for him seemed to have palled; these days she often contradicted him, finding any excuse to argue. While the last thing Alan Keller wanted was a submissive partner, something that would have bored him to death, he could not keep walking on eggshells simply to avoid confrontations with his lover. He had arguments enough to deal with from his staff and his family.

  Ryan Miller was to blame for the change in Indiana’s attitude—there was no other possible explanation, although Alan’s private investigator insisted there was no evidence for this. One look at Miller, with his brutish face and his broken nose, and it was obvious he was up to no good. The thought of this warrior in bed with Indiana made Keller feel physically sick. Did his amputated leg limit the things he could do? Who knew, maybe it worked to his advantage: women are curious, they get excited at the weirdest things. He could not raise these suspicions with Indiana. For someone like him, jealousy was unworthy, it was humiliating. He could barely discuss it with his psychiatrist. Indiana claimed that the soldier was her best friend, which in itself was unacceptable—that was Alan’s role; and besides, he was convinced that platonic friendship between a man like Miller and a woman like Indiana was impossible. He needed to know exactly what went on when they were alone in Treatment Room 8, on the frequent walks they took in the woods, or in Miller’s loft apartment, where Indiana had no business being.

  The reports he was getting from Samuel Hamilton Jr. were too vague. Alan no longer trusted the man like he used to, and suspected him of protecting Indiana. Hamilton had even had the nerve to offer advice, to suggest that rather than spying on Indiana, Alan should try to win her back—as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him. But how could he do this, with Ryan Miller standing in the way? He needed to find a way to be rid of Miller, to eliminate him—something he mentioned in a moment of weakness to the detective: surely he had some contacts, and for the right price could find some trigger-happy Korean gangsters? But Hamilton was peremptory. “Don’t ask me. You want a hit man, go find one yourself.” Resolving the matter in a hail of bullets had never been more than a daydream. Alan had no experience of violence, and besides, when it came to guns, Miller was dangerous. Alan wondered what he would do if he came upon irrefutable proof that Indiana had been unfaithful. The question was like a fly buzzing in his ear. It never gave him any peace.

  It was like the detective said: he had to win Indiana back. Even the phrase “win her back” made his flesh crawl. It sounded like something out of a soap opera—but something had to be done, he couldn’t just stand idly by. He assured his psychiatrist that he could seduce her again, as he had done at the start of their affair, that he had much more to offer her than that gimp, Miller. He knew Indiana better than anyone, knew how to make her happy; not for nothing had he spent the last four years refining her senses and satisfying her as no other man could, certainly not some uncivilized lout like Miller. The psychiatrist listened without saying a word, and with each session Alan began to find his own arguments increasingly hollow.

  At six o’clock that Sunday evening, rather than keeping to their routine of meeting at the Fairmont for an intimate dinner, a movie, and a little lovemaking, Alan decided to surprise Indiana. He picked her up at her father’s house and took her to the de Young Museum to see Masters of Venice—an exhibition of fifty paintings on loan from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Alan had not wanted to brave the crowds to see the exhibition, but, being friends with the director, he managed to get them a private tour while the gallery was closed. The hushed, empty ultramodern building was like a temple in glass, steel, and marble, the vast geometric spaces bathed in light.

  The guide they were assigned turned out to be a young man with bad skin, whose memorized spiel Alan soon silenced with his art historian’s authority. Indiana was wearing a short, tight blue dress that revealed more than it concealed, her usual sand-colored jacket—which she took off once they were inside—and the battered imitation-snakeskin boots that Keller had tried to persuade her to replace with something more presentable, but which she insisted on wearing because they were comfortable. When he first saw her, the guide’s jaw dropped, and he hardly recovered his composure during the rest of their visit. Whenever Indiana asked a question, the guide mumbled something feebly, staring as if hypnotized into the blue eyes of this gorgeous woman, dizzy from her sinful scent of musk and flowers, excited by the tousled blond curls that made her look as though she had just got out of bed, by the defiant sway of her body.

  Had he not been at such a low ebb, Keller might have been amused by the reaction of this guide, whom he had seen a few times in the past. Usually he enjoyed being escorted by a woman other men desired, but tonight he was in no mood for distractions, and he decided to win back Indiana’s respect. Irritated, he got between her and the guide and, gripping her arm more forcefully than necessary, dragged her from one painting to another. He pontificated about the importance of sixteenth-century Venice—an independent republic that had been a hub of commerce and culture for a thousand years before these masters painted their works—and pointed out details to demonstrate how the improvements in oil paint had revolutionized art. Indiana was a willing student, happy to soak up all the things he taught her, from the Kama Sutra to the correct way to eat an artichoke, and especially art history.

  An hour later they were in the final room, standing in front of Tintoretto’s Susanna and the Elders, a canvas that Alan especially wanted to show her. The piece was hung on its own wall, with a bench in front of it where they could sit and contemplate the work while Alan explained that the story of Susanna had been popular in Renaissance paintings. It had been the pornography of the era, he told her, used to portray male lust and the nude female form. Rich men commissioned paintings to hang in their bedrooms, and—for a tip—the artist might be persuaded to give Susanna the face of the patron’s lover.

  “According to legend,” said Alan, “Susanna is a virtuous married woman, surprised by two lustful elders while bathing under a tree in her garden. When she refuses their advances, the old men accuse her of having an affair with a young man. At that time, ad
ultery in women was punishable by death.”

  “Only in women?” Indiana asked.

  “Of course. Supposedly it’s a Bible story, so obviously it’s sexist —though I don’t think it appears in the Old Testament.”

  “So what happened?”

  “A judge questioned the old men separately, and when they couldn’t agree what kind of tree she had been sitting under—one said it was a larch, and the other, an oak, or something like that—it became obvious they were lying, and the noble Susanna’s reputation was restored.”

  “I hope the old scandalmongers were punished,” said Indiana.

  “According to the canonical version they were executed, but there is a different version in which they are simply rebuked. Which would you prefer, Indiana?”

  “I don’t much like either, Alan. I don’t agree with the death penalty, but justice has to be done. How about if they were fined, sent to prison, and had to publicly apologize to Susanna and her husband?”

  “Too lenient,” Keller argued. “Susanna would have been executed if she hadn’t been able to prove her innocence. Surely the fairest thing would be if the two horny old perverts suffered the same punishment.” He was playing devil’s advocate—he too was opposed to the death penalty, except in certain rare cases.

  “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth . . . ,” Indiana replied, taking up the gauntlet. “If that were the law, we’d all be half blind and using false teeth.”

  “Well, in the end, the fate of those liars isn’t the important thing, is it?” said Keller, turning for the first time toward the guide, who nodded mutely. “The lecherous old men are irrelevant; that’s why they’re hidden in the shadowy corners of the canvas. The focus of our attention is Susanna, and only her. Just look at the young woman’s skin: warm, smooth, gilded by the evening sun. Look at the soft body, the languorous posture. This is no virgin we’re looking at: we know she’s married, that she’s been initiated into the mysteries of sex. Tintoretto has achieved the perfect balance between the innocent girl and the sensual woman; in Susanna they coexist for that fleeting moment before time leaves its mark on her. That moment is magical. Just look at her.” Alan spoke directly to the guide. “Don’t you think the old men’s lust is understandable?”

  “I suppose so, sir. . . .”

  “Susanna is confident in her beauty, she cherishes her body. She’s as perfect as a peach plucked from the bough: all fragrance, color, and taste. There is no sign that the processes of maturity, of aging and death, have already begun. See the gold and copper tones in her hair—look at the graceful lines of her hands, her neck, the expression of abandonment on her face. She has clearly just made love and is basking in the memory. She moves languidly, because she wants to prolong the pleasure of her bathing, of the cool water and the warm breeze blowing through the garden. She’s caressing herself; she can feel a faint quivering in her thighs, the moist, throbbing mound between her legs. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I suppose so, sir. . . .”

  “Tell me, Indiana, who does the Susanna in the painting remind you of?”

  “I’ve no idea,” she replied, puzzled by the way Alan was behaving.

  “What about you, young man?” Alan asked the guide, his innocent look belied by the sarcasm in his voice.

  The mortified teenager’s acne scars lit up like craters on his startled face, and he stared at the ground. But Keller was not about to let him off the hook so easily.

  “Come on, young man, don’t be shy. Take a good look at that painting and tell me who the lovely Susanna reminds you of.”

  “Really, sir, I couldn’t say,” the poor boy stammered, ready to bolt.

  “You mean you couldn’t, or you wouldn’t dare? Susanna looks just like my friend Indiana here. You should see her when she’s bathing, as naked as Susanna there . . .” Alan slid a possessive arm around his lover’s shoulders.

  “Alan!” Indiana shouted, pushing him away and stomping out of the room, quickly followed by the terrified guide.

  Alan managed to catch up with her at the entrance and take her to his car, pleading and apologetic, as shocked by what he had done as she was. He did not know what had come over him; it had been a moment of insanity. In his right mind he would never do anything so vulgar, so out of character, he said.

  It was the painting, he thought—the painting was to blame. The contrast between Susanna’s youthful beauty and the disgusting old men ogling her had given him the creeps. He had seen himself as one of those old lechers, infatuated with some woman he couldn’t have and didn’t deserve, and he tasted bile in his throat. The painting was not new to him; he had been to the museum in Vienna, had seen reproductions in art books—but there in the silence and the light of the deserted museum, it had been like seeing his own skull in a mirror. Tintoretto had reached across five centuries and shown him his deepest fears: decay and death.

  Alan and Indiana stood arguing in the parking lot, which was empty by then, until finally he convinced her to come to dinner so they could talk in peace. They found a quiet table in the corner of one of his favorite restaurants, a little place tucked away down an alley off Sacramento Street, which boasted an authentic Italian menu and an excellent wine list. Once her mood had been softened by the first glass of a Piedmont dolcetto, Indiana told him how humiliated she had felt in the museum, paraded like a whore in front of the guide’s eyes.

  “I didn’t realize you could be so cruel, Alan. In all the years we’ve been together, I’ve never seen that side of you. I felt like you were punishing me, and I think that poor boy felt the same.”

  “Don’t take it that way, Indi. Why would I want to punish you? On the contrary, I don’t know how to thank you for all you give me. I thought you’d be flattered by the comparison with the beautiful Susanna.”

  “With that whale of a woman?”

  Alan started to laugh, and Indiana got the giggles too; suddenly the disastrous scene in the museum weighed on them less. Alan waited until dessert to give her the surprise he had arranged: a two-week trip to India, traveling in whatever style she chose, a concession he was willing to make for the sake of love, despite his recent financial problems and the fact that the unspeakable poverty in India terrified him. They could stay in boutique hotels in the converted palaces of maharajas, he said, sleeping in feather beds with silk sheets, waited on hand and foot—or they could bed down with scorpions on the floor of an ashram. Whatever she wanted. Indiana’s spontaneous delight dispelled his fears that the incident at the museum might have ruined the surprise: she kissed him hard, right in front of the amused waiter, who was just then bringing their food. “Are you trying to get me to forgive you for something?” Indiana asked, smiling, little suspecting how prophetic the remark would prove.

  Monday, 16

  It had been some days since the Ripper players had met up online, because Abatha had had a spell in a hospital, tied to the bed, being force-fed through a tube. Her illness was getting worse, and every ounce of body weight she lost took her one step closer to the spirit world, which was where she wanted to dwell anyway. The only thing that distracted her from her determination to die was playing Ripper, and the prospect of solving the San Francisco crimes. Hardly was she out of intensive care and in a private room under twenty-four-hour surveillance than she had asked for her laptop and contacted her only friends—four teenagers and an old man she had never actually met. That night, six computers in various parts of the globe logged in for a new episode, one the games master called the Case of the Electrocuted Man.

  Amanda started by giving them the results of the autopsy, which she had found in her father’s apartment and photographed on her cell phone.

  “Ingrid Dunn’s initial examination of the body of Richard Ashton was at 9:10 a.m., and she estimated time of death to be eight to ten hours earlier—which means at about midnight on Monday, though a few minutes either way are unimportant at this point in the investigation. There are still no leads as to the perpe
trator or the motive for the crime. My dad’s assigned a couple of detectives to the case.”

  “Let’s go over what we know,” said Colonel Paddington.

  “You have permission to speak, Kabel,” Amanda said to her grandfather. “Tell us everything we’ve got.”

  “Richard Ashton died of electrocution from a Taser. The autopsy found several puncture marks surrounded by reddened, irritated skin.”

  “What’s a Taser?” asked Esmeralda.

  “A weapon police use to control aggressive suspects, or to deter rioters,” explained Colonel Paddington, the arms expert. “It’s about the size of a large pistol and fires a pair of electrodes connected to conductive wires.”

  “And it can kill?”

  “Depends on how it’s used. People have died, but it’s rare. The Taser disrupts the nervous system using a powerful electric charge that paralyzes the muscles and knocks the victim out, even at a distance of several meters. You can imagine what effect a number of discharges would have.”

  “It also depends on the victim,” said Amanda. “A Taser can easily kill someone who has a weak heart, but that wasn’t true of Richard Ashton.”

  “Suppose the first electric shock immobilized Ashton, then the murderer tied his hands, covered his mouth with duct tape, and discharged the Taser into him until he died?” Sherlock Holmes suggested.

  “Can a Taser be discharged more than once?” asked Esmeralda.

  “It needs to recharge,” said Colonel Paddington, “which takes about twenty seconds.”

  “So he used two of them,” said Abatha.

  “You’re right, Abatha!” said Sherlock Holmes. “The killer must have had more than one Taser, and given Ashton several successive shocks, without allowing him time to recover, until eventually his heart failed.”

  “Electrocuted . . . ,” said Abatha. “He was executed, like in the electric chair.”