City for Ransom (23 page)

“Griff, did you send for Philo?”

“Sent our biggest lads to fetch him, yes.”

“He's likely talked them into a drink.”

“Damn, they'll be all night.”

“I'm confident they'll have 'im back and waiting for us at the dock.”

“We'll have to row him out to the tunnel entrance.”

“I can manage that.”

“Thanks, Griff, and for earlier…for walking my lady friend to a cab.”

“Do you know the address she gave the cabbie, Alastair?”

“I do.”

“And?”

“She's Dr. Tewes's sister.”

“Really?”

“Yes, keeps house for Tewes, perhaps a bit of nursing…looks after his daughter.”

“
Ahhh
…I see, working the relatives, pumping her for information. Smart police work!”

Ransom bristled but also thought of his having measured Tewes. “Old-fashioned foot-to-heel police work. Which reminds me: Did you send those measurements off?”

“Telegraphed. Marvelous invention. Phoned New York, too, just to ask around about Tewes. Didn't he say he spent some time there? But nothing's come of it, not so far anyway.”

Back now through the tunnel, where they bobbed beneath the concrete and fieldstone overpass each eyeing the bloody print marking the killer's escape. Then they were back with Trelaine's parts. His remains were laid out near Chesley Mandor's.

Philo showed up, a brawny cop on each side of him. He'd not brought his usual equipment, carrying instead a hefty handheld camera like a small accordion, no doubt his latest acquisition.

“Hello, my friend,” Ransom's weary voice reached Philo. “We've sad work aplenty for you.”

“As I heard, but look here, Alastair.” He held up his new camera. “Isn't she lovely? It's the latest, a Kombi Night-Hawk detective camera, created for just such work as we engage in, you see?”

“Well and good, so long as you get the cuts, Philo. One's gonna require a boat ride and a bit of balancing, so I'm glad you brought the smaller camera.”

“It possesses all the latest improvements known to modern photography, man.”

“I'll take your word for it. It's a beauty.”

“Morocco leather, my friend, and further, it's fitted with the new rapid rectilinear lens.”

The man speaks his own language,
Ransom thought. “Let's just get started, Philo.”

“It's fitted with a new regulation timer and instantaneous shutter, Alastair, with bulb attachment and—”

Philo, who'd followed Ransom to the corpse, suddenly fell silent, staring, shaking. On seeing the woman's charred remains, he gasped and dropped his camera, and went to his knees.

The victim has a familiar face, Alastair guessed from Philo's contrition, and now apologetic words spewed from the photographer, his hands clasped in the universal gesture of prayer, his body wracked with sobbing. “Chesley!
OhGodno-please-notmysweet Chesley!
Please forgive me! Please forgive…ahhhh-haaa.”

“My God,” said Nathan Kohler now on scene.

Ransom whispered in Philo's ear, a hand on him, trying to get him away and composed, “Tell me she was not one of your models, Philo.”

Philo shook off Ransom's touch; he refused help, refused getting up from his kneeling position over the charred body and still lovely face, his hands extended, hovering over the torso and garroted head.

Reporters on scene snapped pictures. Others jotted notes, trying to transcribe Philo Keane's litany of apologies. Ransom knew from experience that a man displaying such vulnerability—beaten and broken in spirit—soon learned how few friends he actually had in this life. Ransom smelled sharks in the water. “Get Philo outta here, Griff,” Alastair barked.

“But the photograph of the handprint?”

“Get one of the reporters, anyone. Just get Philo away.”

Philo stumbled to his feet, dizzy with death and drink, shouting, “It's Trelaine's doing! That scrawny prick is the garroter! All the while pretending to love her!”

“
Youyouyou
knew both victims?” asked Griffin, but Philo was hearing nothing and understanding less.

“A vile, greedy little man! Joseph Trelaine. I'll swear out a warrant here, now, Ransom! They must've quarreled. He…he must've thought after killing her to make it look the work of this Phantom. Dear Ches rejected the prig for me after all, and it…I got her killed. No doubt of it!”

Each blathering word another nail in his coffin as Ransom read the feeding frenzy among the press and possibly in both Griffin's and Kohler's heads. Philo had few friends in the press and fewer on the force.

“Here is Trelaine lying dead and headless himself, Philo!” shouted Alastair. “Someone meant to drown 'im after beheading him!”

Kohler added, “He's hardly the cause of her death and his own.”

Even young Callahan noticed the triangle here. Philo and Trelaine both vying for Miss Mandor. Philo's reputation for bedding his models, and she sitting for him, rejecting his advances, and Trelaine learning of the sordidness. This is how it played out this moment in curious, disparate interpretations.

Alastair grabbed Philo and marched him off to stand below an enormous tree that'd escaped leveling as the perfect
herald of the Agricultural Exhibit. Below the sign of the exhibit, Alastair put it to him. “From where do you know Miss Mandor and this Trelaine chap? Tell me the whole story, and leave nothing out.”

“He brought her round after a while.”

“After a while?

“He's my accountant for Ward's Department Store, oversees all advertising.”

“Ahhh…you worked for him.”

“Indirectly…OK, yes. Insipid man without imagination, turning back all my best ideas. I tell you, Alastair, there were times when I'd've beheaded him, had I an axe.”

“Quiet such talk, man!”

“I met privately with Ches, having slipped her a note. I felt…thought this was the answer. A way around Trelaine.”

“The answer?”

Griffin joined them at the tree.

“You see, he made me test every product before doing a photographic ad. This meant visits to his uncle's farm to test some vet tools. I did all he asked and, God, finally a plumb assignment was offered.”

“Which was?”

“Ladies' corsets and bloomers.”

“And this is where Miss Mandor came in?” asked Griff.

“Precisely.”

“She wanted to do some modeling…wanted it badly, I believed at the time.”

Ransom gritted his teeth. “I see…and you were just the man to initiate her into
ahhh
…modeling.”

“I posed her in artistic and tasteful displays, showing her incredible beauty and the corsets and stockings and—”

“And made advances,” said Griff.

“No, no, no…not like that…not in that way.”

“You mean not like you did with all the others, Polly included?” asked Ransom.

“This is…was a lady. I confess love in the air, such beauty and form, and so malleable and willing. I took count
less shots, but I ne'er sullied her. She was special…laughed at my jokes, and we…we talked, Ransom, all night we—”

“Talked?”

“Of hopes, dreams, plans. It felt so…so right.”

“So what happened?”

“Her body was so expressive. The way she moved.”

“Get to the point, Philo!”

“Well, I mean when she put her clothes back on, it was as if…well…she became a completely different person. Cold and reserved. She made it clear she meant to marry Trelaine for position and wealth—both things she did not dream of, did not pray for, did not speak of when…when she lay there before me naked.”

“Damn…so when did Trelaine discover the nude photos? Did she show them to him?”

“She did not. He never knew.”

“But he told you to stay away from her, and you argued.”

“I merely told him she was a grown woman, fully capable of making her own decisions, despite her…silence on the matter as a whole.”

“You mean you
showed
him the photos?”

“Are you kidding? They've made a small fortune.”

“You mean you
sold
the photos? to Trelaine?”

“Lock, stock, and barrel…save the few I kept in a secret place.”

“Do you know how all this looks, Philo? Do you know how this might play in the newspapers should it come out? How it might play in a courtroom?”

“I've never given one goddamn how things appear. Appearances are for fools and are always wrong, right?”

“The appearance of impropriety in the minds of most
is
impropriety, and the appearance of jealousy, anger, murder…is in the mind of the beholder truth,
fact,
whether it makes sense or no. And once in the mind, damn hard to disprove.”

“What're you saying, Ransom? That I
look
guilty for murder? For garroting Chesley and—and Trelaine? That's…why it's preposterous, an outright lie.”

“Philo, I want you to go home.”

“What? I have cuts yet to make.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” A reporter had drifted toward them, and his ear alerted like a hunting dog at Philo's last words:
I have cuts yet to make.

“I'm putting another photographer on the case.”

“What? Why that's—”

“Standard practice! You're far too personally involved. You obviously loved her, as much as you
can
love. Now make yourself scarce. You're fired tonight! Go home.”

He searched Ransom's eyes and cast a glance at Griff. “I can't believe you…that this…this is gone so…so strangely for us.”

“I know you would never do this, Philo. Others who don't know you may perceive otherwise. Now go. Trust me!”

He turned and walked dejectedly off, passing Callahan, who held out his new Wards wonder camera, saying, “You don't wanna forget this, Mr. Keane.”

Philo looked at it as if he'd never seen it before. He said to Ransom, “This was what he gave me, free and clear, Alastair, if I'd never see Chesley again…and believing she meant what she'd said…I took the damn thing.”

Ransom didn't know what to say to this. “Take your prize home then, Philo, and either get drunk or get sober, but do it privately.”

“Alastair, this is none of my doing, no more than Polly's murder was any of your doing.” He threw the camera at Ransom's feet. “Give it to my replacement.”

“I can't take your camera, Philo.”

“The other man will. Just do it.”

Philo rushed away on shaky legs, a dazed stork.

“Poor bastard,” muttered Griffin, “but then he always did rush into walls, didn't he? What do you think of his knowing both victims?”

“I knew the last victim. Does that make me a suspect?” Ransom knew the general thinking, that Philo courted problems, but he couldn't be called a murderer on the basis of
character defects or bad judgment! He marched off with the camera, Griffin following, saying, “I've a ready replacement for Keane.”

“Trust me, Griff, you'll never replace Keane's attention to detail and care in his work.”

“Perhaps…when he's sober.”

“Just get the cuts of the handprint and the bodies. Who's doing the work?”

“Philo's apprentice has volunteered.”

“Ahhh…Denton.”

“He's at the ready…came when he heard the news.”

“I'm sure he'll do then.”

“He's Philo's able
assistant
, as I am your able assistant, Alastair.”

“All right, get the
assistant
on it if he can keep from puking.”

“He'll do fine.”

“Stay with him then, and give him this to work with.” He handed over Philo's ill-gotten camera.

“Nathan Kohler seems to be studying your handling of matters, Rance. Go carefully, I daresay. Watch your back.”

Ransom noticed something new in Griffin's demeanor and tone; something intangible yet cool wafting ghostlike between them. Had Kohler gotten to Griffin? But he was too worried at Kohler's assessment of Philo's show of emotion to pay close attention. “You get Waldo set up at the tunnel. I'll see to Nathan Kohler.”

Griffin became stiff, his eyes filling with a fire. “You're not a man easy to like, Alastair…”

“What?”

“…never giving, never offering a hand, or to buy a cup of coffee, to ask after my day, my family's health, my take on things, life…”

“And you think this is the time?”

Griffin marched off with Philo's camera, shouting, “Denton! Come with me!”

Ransom realized that the young detective was right about
his having made little time for him, and that he should treat Griffin with more deference and respect. Worrisome. But he hadn't time at the moment. He had enough on his plate.
Gotta worry about Philo now
, he thought, seeing young Denton salivating over the damned new camera handed him.

“Gawd…its morocco leather,” Waldo wailed.

Ransom found a park bench where he'd collapsed
, fully expecting Nathan Kohler to join him, and he expected a fight, at least an argument. He expected Kohler to tell him that an infusion of fresh perspective was sorely needed as he, Ransom, had gotten not a grain closer.

So when he sensed someone drop onto the bench beside him, he didn't look up until he heard the irritating voice of Dr. Tewes. “I called Dr. Fenger…pleaded with him to come to the scene…to examine the bodies immediately, but I fear, he's exhausted and burnt out on murder.”

“Dr. Tewes…how good of you to come.” Ransom's sarcasm sounded harsher than he'd meant.

“Take out all your frustration on me…if it gets you onto what you do best.”

“Drinking.”

“No, tracking…focus on your gift for the hunt, and trust your instincts.”

“Until recently, that is how I managed, but lately…the headaches have become non-stop, the worse since Muldoon's sap.”

Tewes ran a hand through Ransom's hair until he found the knot.

“Ouch! Damn!”

“You're not kidding. No wonder you've a headache.”

“Reduce another man to tears.” Ransom gave in to Tewes's fingers—both hands now caressing his cranium. Tewes's touch felt light, his hands caring. Alastair gave in further, submitting, too tired to protest. Strangely, he didn't wish it to end.

“I
could
help you.” Ransom only half heard as Tewes continued a light massage, careful not to strike the palpitating bulge. “Left you unconscious. Hope they throw the book at Muldoon.”

“For striking down a cop?”

“You're the most cynical man I've ever met.”

“Cynical or realistic?”

“Do you think everyone is out to get you?”

“Aren't you?”

“I'm not your enemy, Inspector.”

“No, you're only spyin' for Nathan Kohler?”

“I…I've read your record. You're a fine detective.”

“What've you got on Kohler?”

“I'll not say.”

“He expects you to muck up my case.”

“There is that, yes. But Alastair, I've not sold you out.”

“How heartening. You only
spy
for him; you don't
tell
him anything.”

“The other day, at the fire scene, I told him I was done with collusion.”

“But you're here now.”

“I only want to help.”

“To help me?” He began laughing. “Like at the train station?”

“Just catch this bastard before his insanity touches us all in ways unimaginable.”

“He seems bent on…on destroying me…”

“Question is,” said Nathan Kohler, standing over them now, “who's next?”

“He's going for larger game,” said Ransom. “His pattern has been to go up the social scale.”

“We should build a record, Alastair,” said Tewes. “Should
we ever have this monster in custody…well, it could act in our favor.”

“Act as a kind of Bertillon measurement of the killer's mind, you think?” he asked Tewes. “And I 'spose you'd like to run hands over this maniac's head?”

“Doing so with enough such madmen, who knows, perhaps over time, if diligent records are kept, similarities in the bone structure, or areas of abnormality in the brain—areas of weak magnetism, for instance—” Jane realized that both men only stared. “But who can say without long-term study?”

“This is why we at top asked Dr. Tewes's assistance, Alastair,” Nathan said. “To give our investigation a rigorous scientific, ahhh…appearance.”

“I see…how blind I've been.” Ransom grimaced.

“It could have a bearing on the Lombroso controversy, my study,” she added.

“Really? And another reputation made!”

“Look, Detective, every brain is as different as the fingerprint.”

“It's a proven fact,” added Kohler.

She went on. “In cases such as this, with no usable print or a match, today you only have Bertillon and Lombroso, but perhaps one day men like you—
hunters
—will routinely turn to men like me—
scientists
—for answers.”

“Glad you're concerned with the future, Dr. Tewes,” said Kohler.

“Yeah,” added Ransom, “but as for me, I have to deal with the here and now, and while I find the doctor's unusual criminal recording interesting, for now I'd best get back to my duties.”

He left Kohler and Tewes to again plot their separate moves in all this. As he turned his back on the odd couple, he felt a definite knife twisting about his spine. Kohler was ever up to no good, and he'd love nothing better than to embarrass Ransom, bring him down, and ultimately put him out to pasture. In fact, he'd been headhunting Ransom for six years now. And to this end, he'd enlisted Tewes's questionable help.
Ransom also feared that Griffin'd been recruited as well.

It's a minefield, he thought when he saw that Dr. Christian Fenger had not only arrived but was looking over the murders. It'd become rare—Fenger out of his labs, on scene. The man had such complete empathy with murdered souls that scenes like this literally hurt him to the quick.

“What of my ring?” Ransom asked him.

“I can assure you, Ransom, my men're innocent. I skewered them, and threatened them.”

“And you're convinced?”

“They haven't the ring.”

“And their feelings hurt, I'm sure.”
If this were true, then the monster has Merielle's ring.
“I'd hoped to bury her with it.”

“At heart the romantic, heh?” Fenger sadly returned to the corpses and severed heads. “The man was not torched, only the woman. Should we read any significance into that?”

“Trelaine's body fell straightway into the water, his head into the second boat.”

“Heard you did a reenactment. Good a theory as any.”

“The killer would've been busy with the woman,” Ransom added, “no doubt shrieking, but strangely, no one heard screams.”

“She might shriek inside her head, but I have it on reliable authority that Chelsey Mandor is—was a mute.”

“A mute? Damn that Philo. Said they'd
talked
all night.”

“You've never
spoken
all night without a word?” asked Tewes, joining them. “There're many ways to ‘talk.'”

“Damn that Philo. A mute…another handicapped woman,” complained Ransom.

“Says as much about Philo as it does about the women who're attracted to him,” added Fenger.

“Or to his camera,” agreed Ransom. “I asked Philo once if he got involved with handicapped and disabled women because he thought it less an investment on his part.”

“What'd he say?” asked Tewes, curious.

“Reminded me of his
wheelchair love
. Said she couldn't catch him once it was over. Scoundrel that he is!”

The three of them laughed and Ransom added, “The story does say a lot about our friend Philo.”

Fenger's tone went serious. “This Miss Mandor…mute from a childhood disease, according to her father—a perfect delicacy for Philo.”

“Her father is here? My God.”

 

Ransom feared he'd get no new or useful information out of the distraught father. Another wail escaped the man, who beat the earth with fists from a kneeling position on the grass.

Alastair noticed that Tewes'd returned to Kohler, and they were in a controlled but heated discussion. “Look there, Christian,” Ransom said. “I should call on Dr. Tewes tonight, to break the weaker of the two obvious conspirators.”

Then of a sudden, Tewes stormed off.

“What's Nathan's game?” asked Fenger.

“The game of Get Ransom.”

“Wants an end to talk of an incident that you
alone
want dredged up.”

Griffin came back to him. “You were right about the lady victim, Ransom. Nothing on her in the manner of jewelry. Do you think he takes his victim's jewelry?”

“Until now, I thought Shanks and Gwinn were getting rich off these deaths, but Dr. Fenger assures me otherwise.”

Griff and Fenger acknowledged one another.

“Ransom, so far as the chief goes, I only let him know what I want him to know when I want him to know. Tell 'im, Dr. Fenger.”

Fenger cast his eyes in another direction, but Ransom saw the guilt. “Not you, too, Christian?”

“Kohler runs the man's budget, Rance,” said Griff. “Whataya expect?”

Fenger said nothing.

“Let's just work this case, the three of us, and when it's concluded, we can reassess where we stand with one another, gentlemen!”

“Sure, a chance is all I ask…a chance to prove myself,” said Griff but Fenger remained silent.

“Although I've none left, Griff, I do understand ambition. But mark me, young friend, the prize won can leave a man alone with ambition.”

“As may be said of your blind ambition to open the books on Haymarket!” Fenger fired back as if struck.

“Aye…touché. You have me there, but who does one trust, Christian, who?”

A deep, painful silence rose among them like an evil child at play. Griffin blasted him. “Alastair, you never put trust in me. Not once've you confided a single dirty secret you've learned about Haymarket. Just a few drunk stories at the bar, yet you expect sympathy and—”

“You're right, Griff. So much I've not confided in
anyone
for fear it'd get back to Kohler. Nathan has a way of getting at people, controlling 'em.”

“I want to understand your side of things, Alastair. I do.”

“Perhaps one day soon…after we apprehend this fiend.”

“I'll hold you to it.”

Dr. Fenger said, “As to the case at hand…I can tell you fellows it's definitely the work of the same garroter. Down to the diamond shape at the neck here”—he paused to point at his own Adam's apple—“about here, on both male and female victims. What utter nerve and swiftness in killing he's perfected…practicing his technique over and over to get this efficient.”

“What do you suppose he practices on, Doctor?” asked Griffin.

“Melons, fence posts, small animals, who can say, perhaps all and more.”

“Or cadavers in a morgue?” asked Nathan Kohler, who joined them. “Gentlemen, whoever this perverted, twisted bastard is, he destroys the peace and happiness of the fair. This kind of thing, four deaths now on fairgrounds, two similar deaths within a cab's ride! It has to stop and stop immediately.”

“Not to be contrary,” began Ransom, “but it's seven deaths all toll, sir, and I've seen no evidence these killings've made any dent in the number of hotdogs, hamburgers, or trinkets sold, or a decrease in fair attendance.”

“In fact, the numbers have increased!” added Fenger.

“Where the deuce're your Resurrection Men, Fenger?” Kohler barked. “Get these unseemly bodies and heads out of here now, now!”

Fenger took great exception to Shanks and Gwinn being called his Resurrection Men, and he stood face-to-face with Kohler on the issue. “Look here, we do not rob cadavers from their sanctified graves!”

“You chest cutters're never satisfied.”

“Whatever you're talking about—”

“Potter's Field! A recent disturbance,” countered Kohler.

“I was sent to investigate,” Griff added. “A woman's body…taken without a trace.”

“How sick is that?” asked Kohler.

“I recall the incident,” said Ransom.

“Who was she, and what end came of it?” Fenger asked.

“No end, open case still,
Drimmer
!” complained Nathan.

“Remains a mystery, even her identity,” said Griff. “She was a numbered grave—an elderly Jane Doe.”

“And the body in question never turned up?”

“Afraid not.”

“Someone likely made a stew of her,” suggested Ransom.

Fenger nodded. “Not farfetched, given how swollen our streets are with the homeless, and the city doing nothing to relieve the problem.”

“Now they're calling him the Phantom of the Fair over at the
Tribune,
” said Kohler in disgust. “Flood gates've opened! Imagine all the ink devoted to this deviant! From what Christian tells me, he doesn't rape his victims—alive or dead! How deviant is that?”

“My God, Nathan, do you think raping his victims might make him a better chap?” asked Fenger. “Somehow more like us and less a monster, somehow less sadistic?”

“Somehow, yes, in my mind.”

“Somehow? In your mind.” Ransom, his cane beating the pavement here, controlled the urge to reach out and strangle Kohler.
Throw in rape with your murderous act and it somehow made murder more palatable? Normal?
Ransom had to walk off in a circle to not explode.

“At least if he raped them first, we might understand his motive is my point. It'd point to a clear purpose in these
senseless
attacks.” Nathan straightened and stood taller. “At the moment, what possible motive have we for his bloodletting?”

“He likes blood…likes the smell of it, the consistency of it, likes to wash his hands in it,” suggested Fenger.

“Likes the garrote,” added Griff, “likes the heft of it, the cunning of it, the handiness of it, the genius behind it. Maybe the history of it.”

Ransom shouted, “Come on, he likes the feel of the kill, same as you and I when we hunt deer with a Winchester. He likes the process of the hunt itself…the hooking of the bait, the lure, all of it.”

“To gain the moment in which his prey is under absolute control,” added Fenger.

“Yes, you would understand him, wouldn't you,” Kohler coldly replied to Alastair's summing up. “Takes a killer to catch one, or at least to know how one will behave.”