The Unknown Beloved(101)

She dropped her hands and stepped back, coming flush against him.

“No more?” he asked.

“I just need . . . a minute,” she whispered.

“Is it the same Dr. Frank, Dani?” Eliot asked. He didn’t have to explain to her what he meant.

She curled her fingers into the garment again. A second later she nodded. “It’s him. He was there in Flo’s coat and Andrassy’s socks. In the curtains too. The same cold. The same . . . void.”

“Do you know the name Francis Sweeney, Dani?” Malone asked. “Have you ever met him before?”

“I’m not sure. The name sounds familiar. Mrs. Sweeney mentioned a Francis at the coat check. Is he related to her?”

“Yeah. He is,” Eliot answered, grim. “And I don’t think I have to tell you how sensitive that makes all of this.”

She nodded, but Malone wasn’t sure she really understood. Her focus was on the garment.

“What else?” Malone asked, wanting to be done. Wanting Dani away from the whole mess.

“He’s cold. That’s why he drinks. It makes him warm. And when he’s not drinking, the voices drive him mad.”

She gripped the coat like she’d clutched the drapes.

“He is Frank and Francis and Sweeney and Doc. He is Robert and Raymond and Eddie and Ed. Carlos and Chuck and Douglas and David.” The names started tripping from her tongue.

Malone put his hands over hers.

“It’s okay, Michael,” she soothed, glancing up at him. Her eyes were unfocused, the colors dominated by her huge pupils. “I’m okay.”

He removed his hands but remained at her back, wishing he could shield her and realizing in the same instant that she was the one shielding him.

“He is Rose and Flo and Catherine and Dorothy too, though he doesn’t like that they are there. He cuts them into smaller pieces so they won’t come back.”

Goose bumps had begun to rise on her bare arms, the little golden hairs standing at attention. She radiated cold.

“He doesn’t know who he is,” she said. It was the same thing she’d said before. Multiple times.

“What does that mean?” Eliot asked.

“I’m nobody. Are you nobody too?” she quoted.

“Emily Dickinson?” Malone frowned.

“Yes.” She nodded, her hair tickling his chin. “He likes that one. It makes him chuckle.”

“Is he killing them, Dani? Is he the Butcher, or is Francis Sweeney just a sad, sick drunk?” Eliot asked, needing it as plain and unambiguous as she could make it.

“Francis Sweeney is a sad, sick drunk,” she said. “And he is most assuredly killing them.”





24


Francis Sweeney was sprawled across the bed, legs and arms wide, mouth open, wearing a pair of trousers and a white dress shirt and natty striped socks. The dress shirt was ringed with sweat and partially untucked, and sometime in the last two days, he’d soiled himself, leaving his trousers stained and the room reeking.

“We tried to wake him up this morning, but he wasn’t having it. Dr. Grossman thinks it better to let him come around on his own,” Eliot had explained when he’d led Malone into the suite, “but if he doesn’t start coming around soon, we’re going to have to get creative.”

Dr. Royal Grossman was a psychiatrist Eliot seemed to trust, a man who had worked with the Cuyahoga County Probation Department and had attended the Torso Clinic the first coroner, A. J. Pearce, had organized. Malone recognized his name and had read through his assessments in the files.

Eliot had secured the whole floor. Malone didn’t ask what it was costing him—or who was footing the bill—but he was glad of it. The fewer people aware of what was going on, the better. A guard sat at the door and another at the elevator making sure no one got off on the wrong floor. Neither man was anyone Malone recognized, but Eliot claimed they were two of the “Unknowns,” which meant Don’t ask.

The bedroom of the suite opened up into a separate sitting room where Dr. Grossman and David Cowles sat, an ashtray between them, comparing notes. They looked up when Eliot and Malone arrived. Eliot tossed the soiled suitcoat into the corner of the room and made quick introductions.

“Mike, you know David.”

David Cowles nodded once. Whatever he thought of Eliot’s maneuver, he was present and accounted for. His shirtsleeves were rolled and his pate was shiny with perspiration, and from the look he’d tossed at Sweeney’s coat, he knew where they’d been and whose advice they’d sought.

“Royal Grossman, Mike Malone,” Eliot continued. “Dr. Grossman, I know Mike from Chicago. Best undercover man in the business.” That was it. Best undercover man in the business. And Grossman didn’t ask for elaboration.

“I’ve called in another favor from Chicago too, Malone.”

Malone dropped into an empty chair, but Ness remained standing as though his nerves wouldn’t allow the rest. “Leonarde Keeler is on his way with his machine.”

Malone knew Leonarde Keeler. He’d developed what was known as the Keeler polygraph, a lie detector machine that indicated whether a subject, who was connected to the device via a chest belt, an arm band, and a tube that measured respirations, was being truthful. Keeler was respected, and his machine had been widely tested—Malone had been subjected to it in training a time or two—but the polygraph was no more accepted in a court of law than Dani’s magic hands.