Interesting People (Interesting Times #3)

by Matthew Storm

  Nevada shrugged. “It’s complicated.” She took her phone out of her pocket, scrolled through a text message, and then put it away. She looked out the window for a moment, a small smile on her face. “Funny.”

  Tyler gulped his caramel latte and wiped foam away from his mouth with the back of his hand. “What’s funny?”

  “This is,” Nevada said. She reached inside her jacket and her hand came out holding a small Glock pistol. She showed it to them. “What do you guys think?”

  Oliver glanced at Tyler nervously. “I guess I don’t think guns are that funny,” he said. “You should put that away before someone thinks you’re trying to rob the place.”

  Nevada smiled. “And you should probably both keep your hands where I can see them.” She nodded at Tyler. “Put the coffee down. Nice and slow.”

  “Detective James…” Oliver started.

  “Forget it, Oliver,” Tyler said. He sat his coffee cup down on the table and moved his hands to either side of it, palms flat on the table. “Do like me.”

  Oliver mimicked what Tyler had done with his hands. Nevada put the gun flat on the table and covered it with her forearm, but kept a firm grip on it. It would have been difficult for anyone passing by to see the weapon, but Oliver could still see the barrel pointing uncomfortably close to his stomach.

  “You guys aren’t FBI,” she said. “Who are you? If you’re reporters, so help me God I’m going to beat you with the butt end of this.”

  “How do you know we aren’t FBI?” Tyler said. “We have badges.”

  Nevada nodded at him. “I actually believe you were a cop,” she said, “but you’re not federal. Your suits came off the rack, your shoes aren’t shined, your hair is too long, and you carry yourselves like two guys who are about to go trick-or-treating. You look like kids dressing up like FBI agents. Or clowns. Take your pick. Everything about you is wrong.”

  “You have no idea,” Oliver said.

  “Also, I just ran your badge numbers past a friend of mine,” she said. She tapped the pocket where her phone had gone earlier. “He tells me your names are in the system, and you’ve got basic stuff a human resources department would know, but that’s it. You’ve never been assigned to an office. You’ve never worked a case. Your names don’t come up anywhere else they should. It’s a good cover, but it doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny.”

  “You memorized our badge numbers?” Oliver asked. “You only saw them for a second.”

  Nevada gave him a stern look. “This isn’t my first day, Oliver.”

  “Wow,” Tyler said. “You’re as good as I remember.”

  Nevada squinted at Tyler, frowning. “You know what’s weird? You really do seem familiar. I’d swear I know you from somewhere, and the really strange thing is I feel like I trust you. And I don’t trust anyone. But then again, I killed my brain with booze a while back. This could be a hallucination for all I know.”

  “I don’t know how to explain this,” Oliver said. “We’re the good guys, though. I promise you that much is true.”

  “We are,” Tyler said. He smiled sheepishly at Nevada. “I know it sounds weird, but we can’t tell you who we are. Would it be enough to tell you we work for the government?”

  Nevada frowned. “CIA? NSA? Something like that?”

  “Something like that.” Oliver nodded.

  Nevada shook her head. “I don’t believe that, either. But…” she hesitated. “I do believe you’re the good guys. The déjà vu here is really freaking me out.”

  Oliver nodded. “We get that a lot. Could you at least put the gun away? We’re not going to try to fight you.”

  “She’s a black belt like ten times over,” Tyler said to Oliver. “She’d clean our clocks, anyway.”

  “How do you know…” Nevada asked. She shook her head. “Forget it.” She put the gun back inside her jacket. “I don’t think either of you is going to try to hurt me. You seem more like puppy dogs than anything else.”

  Oliver glanced at Tyler. That hadn’t been terribly far off. He doubted she’d guessed the other man was a werewolf, but there was something going on here he didn’t understand. This was hardly the time to question it, though. “We just want to know about the killer,” he said. “The people we work for…they think it might be a Jack the Ripper copycat.”

  “Yeah,” Nevada said. “That’s been the thinking here, too, but I don’t know. Copycat is probably the wrong word to use. I might say student.”

  “Why?” Tyler asked.

  “I didn’t know the original Ripper case all that well,” Nevada said, “so I’ve done a lot of research in the past few days. These new killings are…well, I was going to say brutal, but that doesn’t seem like strong enough a word. They’re not like anything I’ve experienced, and I’ve seen some bad ones.”

  “Throats slashed and abdomens opened,” Oliver said. “That much I know from history.”

  “Well, not Elizabeth Stride,” Nevada said. “Her abdomen wasn’t touched, but there’s speculation that the Ripper was interrupted during his procedure and that seems reasonable to me. Yes on the rest of them. Annie Chapman had her uterus removed.”

  “How the hell do you remove a…” Oliver started. “Forget it. I don’t want to know.”

  “Same with Catherine Eddowes, plus one of her kidneys,” Nevada continued. Mary Kelly was missing her heart. There were those that thought a doctor was behind it, but I never bought that. There’s not enough precision. The killer knew what he wanted, but not how to get to it with any efficiency.”

  “He wanted the organs,” Tyler said.

  “Why?” Oliver asked. “Cannibalism? Is that why he was using the stove?”

  Nevada shrugged. “Everyone thinks of Hannibal Lecter these days, but I’ve never heard of anyone eating a uterus. I guess you could eat anything if you really wanted to, though. But think about the uterus and the heart. What’s the common theme?”

  Tyler frowned. Oliver thought about it for a moment, and then said, “Life.”

  “Sure,” Nevada said. She nodded. “The uterus for the generation of life. The heartbeat to keep it going. Why he’d want a kidney is beyond me, but I also couldn’t tell you what the average person knew about anatomy back then. For all I know everyone thought mustard and tainted meat gave you visions of ghosts.”

  Oliver blinked. “Ghosts?”

  Nevada sighed. “It’s a Dickens reference.” She picked up her espresso and downed it in one gulp. “Anyway, if it were a copycat, I’d expect to see the same things in the new victims. Uterus, heart, maybe a kidney missing.”

  Tyler nodded. “Makes sense. But that’s not what happened?”

  Nevada stared at him. “You haven’t even read the file yet?”

  “We didn’t have time,” Oliver said. “We just knew two women were killed.”

  Nevada looked at each of them in turn. “I don’t know who you guys really are,” she said, shaking her head, “but you’ve got to be the worst detectives in history.” She sighed. “Okay. First victim, Kelly Meadows. Throat slashed, abdomen opened, both kidneys and the liver removed. Jack the Ripper never touched a liver before. A copycat wouldn’t do that. It’s new. Second victim, Holly Danielson. Throat slashed, forensics says it’s the same weapon. Abdomen opened, same basic pattern. But this time it’s the liver and lungs that are gone.”

  “What the hell is he doing?” Tyler asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nevada said. “But all the damage is post mortem. He’s not a sadist. He wants something.” She scratched her nose. “It reminds me of someone who’s trying to bake a cake, but he’s never seen a recipe. So he keeps trying different ingredients in the hope that one day he’ll open the oven up and there’s a cake in there. It’s an experiment of some kind.”

  “So…” Oliver said. “Not a copycat.” He wasn’t looking forward to telling Artemis that.

  “Not a typical one,” Nevada said. “It’ll be someone who knows a lot about the original murders and has somehow ta
pped into that same vision. He’s running the same experiment, I guess you’d say. Picking up where the other guy left off. I guess you could say they’re a natural evolution of the Ripper’s killings. I could almost believe Jack the Ripper had left notes behind and somebody found them, except we know that didn’t happen.”

  “Well,” Tyler said. “Probably. None were ever found, that we know of.”

  “Sure,” Nevada said. “Maybe he had a secret lab and somebody found it. It doesn’t seem all that likely, though.” She looked at her empty coffee cup sadly. “You guys need anything else?”

  “I think we got what we came here for,” Oliver said. He looked at Tyler. “You need anything else?”

  Tyler finished his latte and hesitated for a moment. “Did you ever think Jack the Ripper was Walter Sickert?”

  “Of course not,” Nevada said. “Nobody with half a brain thinks it was Walter Sickert. Where did that come from?”

  “Never mind,” Tyler said. “It was just a question.”

  “We should go,” Oliver said. He stood up. “Thanks for the help.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a white business card. “If you think of anything else, would you give me a call?”

  Nevada took the outstretched card and looked it over. “Name and number,” she said, “and nothing else. That’s very organized crime of you.”

  “We’re not organized crime,” Tyler said.

  “I know. That was another one of my funny jokes.” Nevada shook her head. “Nobody thinks I’m funny.”

  “We’re just in a hurry,” Oliver said. “Again, thanks. You’ve been a big help.”

  “A very big help,” Tyler said. “It was great to see you again. Really.”

  “Again?” Nevada asked.

  “Or for the first time,” Tyler said. “Whichever.”

  Nevada gave him a curious look. “Let me know how it works out,” she said. “I have the weirdest feeling like I’m going to see you two again.”

  “It’s a small world,” Oliver said. He nodded at her. “You never know.”

  Chapter 7

  “You want to explain who that was? Why did you call her Commander?” Oliver asked. He and Tyler were nearly back to the car. Oliver figured they had enough information to bring Artemis up to speed.

  “I knew her in the other timeline,” Tyler said. “She was the leader of the San Diego Resistance against the cyborgs.”

  “The one who smuggled you into San Francisco?” Oliver asked. In that timeline, the cyborgs had taken control of most of the West Coast. Getting into the city had been a chore.

  “Yeah. She was a friend. I mean, we weren’t close or anything, but I liked her. She was hard as nails, viciously smart, but…broken somehow. She reminded me a lot of Sally. You’d have liked her.”

  Oliver nodded as he fiddled with his keychain. “That’s why she thought she could trust you?”

  “Yeah,” Tyler said. “Nobody besides us can remember the other timeline, but Artemis warned me there would be echoes of it here. Or déjà vu, I guess. People remember things, but it’s like remembering a dream you had a long time ago.” He sighed. “I kind of wish I didn’t remember, either. Some of that stuff was pretty horrible.”

  “Seven died in that timeline, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah. Right in front of me. It was brutal.”

  Oliver nodded. “The cyborgs did medical experiments on me for a year. I wouldn’t mind forgetting that, either.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Back in the car, Tyler yawned and stretched. “You want to get some lunch before we call in?”

  “Now?” Oliver asked. “We just got done listening to Nevada talk about people being disemboweled, and uteruses, and…” He shuddered. “You’re actually thinking about eating right now?”

  “I just meant some sandwiches or something.”

  “No.” Oliver started the car and pressed a switch on the dashboard that activated the communication system Seven had installed. “Call Artemis.”

  The sound of a phone ringing came over the speakers as Oliver pulled the car into the street and started for the freeway. Artemis answered on the third ring. “What have you learned?” she asked.

  “Hi, boss,” Tyler said. “It’s us.”

  “Yes, hello, Mr. Jacobsen. I had surmised that it was the two of you calling to make your report. What have you learned?”

  Oliver shook his head. “We got a file from Purvis,” he said. “We haven’t gone over it yet, but we talked to a detective who’s been consulting on the case. She seemed pretty competent.”

  “She’s the best,” Tyler interjected.

  “Okay,” Oliver continued. “It’s a little hard to say without us actually catching the guy, but if it’s really possible that Jack the Ripper is running around out there, I’d say this is him. The new killings appear to be, and I’m quoting here, a natural evolution of what he was doing in the 1800’s.”

  “I see,” Artemis said.

  “What was he doing?” Tyler asked. “Or what is he doing, I guess? Why is he taking the organs?”

  “He is attempting to…” Artemis stopped and Oliver heard Bruce Caldwell saying something to her. “It is not important,” she continued. “You have both done well. Thank you.”

  Oliver couldn’t remember the last time Artemis had thanked either of them for anything, but he put that aside. “Do you really want us to not look for him?” he asked. “There’s going to be a third murder, whether it’s Jack the Ripper or not.”

  “No,” Artemis said. “I have new instructions for you. You are to return to San Francisco at once and go to the house on Filbert Street. There you will remain until I contact you.”

  Oliver knew the house on Filbert Street very well. It was a place that existed in its own timeline. From the outside it was invisible; nobody could see it unless they already knew it was there. That made it a great place to hide. “We’re supposed to wait for you?” he asked. “That’s it?”

  “That is it, Mr. Jones. However, I did stock the kitchen recently. Perhaps Mr. Jacobsen will prepare some of his famous blueberry muffins for you to enjoy. I think that would be a good idea.”

  Tyler gave Oliver a confused look. “What the hell?” he whispered.

  Oliver was confused, also. “Is this part of some strategy of yours?” he asked. “We’re going to use the house as a staging area or something like that?”

  “Very astute, Mr. Jones.”

  Oliver glanced at Tyler. “Do we have weapons there?”

  “No,” Tyler said. “Should we pick up some hardware first, boss? Or maybe get something from the Vault?”

  “Unnecessary, Mr. Jacobsen. You only need do as I have instructed. I will contact you in due course. Goodbye, Mr. Jones. Goodbye, Mr. Jacobsen.” She hung up on them.

  Oliver hit the switch to turn the phone off. “That seemed weird.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler said. “You never know with her and her plans, though. We should probably do what she said.”

  Oliver nodded, although he found he didn’t agree. He couldn’t think of a reason going to the house on Filbert Street made sense. Of all the plans to catch Jack the Ripper he might have come up with, none of them involved sitting in an invisible house eating muffins. And Jack the Ripper was just a human being, after all. It wasn’t like they needed to be hiding from him. He wouldn’t even know they existed. “The house on Filbert it is,” he said.

  They were on the freeway a few minutes later. Oliver thought about the Beretta in his jacket. He knew Tyler carried a gun, also. “Do you think she thinks we’re not up to this?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” Tyler said. “It’s only one guy, though, and he’s just a man. We’ve faced a lot worse. But maybe he’s got some skills we don’t know about.”

  “Maybe,” Oliver said. “If that’s true, we could really use Sally for this. It would hardly matter what skills he had then. She’d have more.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler said. “It’s not like we can go pick her up, though.�
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  “I know.”

  “It takes a good eight hours to get to the Island from SFO,” Tyler said, “and then we’d have to drive from the airstrip…”

  “Wait a minute,” Oliver said. “You mean you know how to get there?”

  “Sure. I’ve been there three or four times. Why?”

  Oliver shook his head. “I guess I just thought it was more inaccessible than that. Like the Nether Lands, or wherever else Artemis sends the people she’s really mad at.”

  “Well, it’s not on any map, but it’s here on Earth,” Tyler said. “And it’s…I don’t know how to explain it. It’s kind of on a different wavelength than the rest of the planet. You can’t see it unless you’re actually looking for it. Otherwise you’ll miss it. You’ll even subconsciously go out of your way to avoid it.”

  “Like the house on Filbert Street?”

  “Yeah. Except with none of the weird time stuff that happens there. It’s just sort of there and not there. And then there’s the…”

  The car’s phone rang. Oliver hit the switch to turn the speaker on. “Yeah.”

  Seven’s voice came through. “Where are you?”

  “We’re just coming up on the 101,” Oliver said. “45 minutes to San Francisco.”

  “Is something weird going on?”

  “Weirder than usual?” Tyler asked. “Not really, all things considered. It’s just another day working for Artemis.”

  “Why are you asking?” Oliver asked.

  “I just got new instructions from Artemis,” Seven said. “I’m supposed to go back to Vault 2, seal it, and wait for her to contact me.”

  Oliver merged into the traffic heading south to San Francisco. “She asked you to seal the Vault?” Tyler asked. “With you inside?”

  “Yes. She didn’t give me anything to do besides wait for more instructions.”

  “That’s not right,” Oliver said. “She just told us to go to the house on Filbert Street and wait there for her.”

  “What’s she doing?” Tyler asked.

  Oliver chewed his lip as he thought. “She wants us out of the way,” he said. “There is no plan; we’re just supposed to hide while she goes after Jack the Ripper.”