The Unknown Beloved(39)

He kills nobodies.

Malone’s lists tended to get longer and longer with every victim, his need to include the smallest details derailing him. He resisted the urge to describe the tattoos for his current list and wrote down the man’s age, height, and weight—between twenty and twenty-five, five eleven, 165 pounds—and moved on to Victim #5.

Victim #5, yet another male with longish brown hair—this one estimated to be about forty years old, five foot five inches tall, and 145 pounds—was found about six weeks after the tattooed man. On July 22, 1936, the body was discovered in a wooded area by a seventeen-year-old girl out for a walk. Time of death put the deaths of Victim #4 and Victim #5 right around the same time. Had they died together and their remains been separated? From the file, it seemed the authorities—both police and coroners—were becoming numb to it all.

There was nothing on #5 to identify him. Fingerprints were impossible because the body was badly decomposed, except for the man’s back, legs, and buttocks, which looked like seared hot dogs in the crime scene photo. He lay on his chest, though not facedown because his head had been removed. A detective found it about twenty feet away sitting merrily on top of what appeared to be a pile of the man’s clothing, which included a double-breasted gray suit. His shirt and socks had matched; both were pale blue.

A man who matched his shirt and his socks cared about more than daily survival. Victim #5 was no Flo Polillo trying to get through each day in a beat-down, alcoholic fog. Malone had already noted that observation on a different list.

The police determined the man had died at the scene, just like Victim #4, and he too was in possession of all his limbs and his genitals. He was also the only victim found on the West Side, outside Cleveland city proper. Malone found that fascinating. The westsiders were a little “higher class,” though the naked body had been found among the remains of hobo campfires. Still, it was like the Butcher was leaving folks where he thought they belonged, and some victims had been treated with more savagery than the others. Victims #4 and #5 were decapitated, which was hardly humane, but they hadn’t been hacked up or emasculated, and that was new. Malone put that in his pile of unsubstantiated opinions and stood from his desk, in need of a break.

He checked the clock on his wall. Dinner was at seven and it was a quarter till. Close enough. He washed, then climbed the stairs, but Lenka was the only one seated at the dining room table.

“Sit down, Mr. Malone. Daniela had a late fitting. Zuzana is in a snit. So it is just you and me for supper.” He groaned inwardly. He would have stayed in his room had he known. He liked Lenka well enough, better than Zuzana, though he preferred Zuzana’s disdain to Lenka’s keen interest.

Margaret was a welcome third, though she simply bustled about them and retreated to the kitchen when the food was on the table.

“I’ll be going home now, Miss Lenka,” she said, reappearing a moment later. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good night, dear.”

“I didn’t put a note beneath your door, Mr. Malone. But your laundry is done and hanging in the washroom.”

“Thank you, Margaret,” he said, and Lenka shooed her away.

“We are a little too casual around here, aren’t we?” Lenka sipped at her soup, her pinky finger lifted as though she drank tea with the queen. He cleared his throat.

“We talk about laundry at the dinner table.” She sighed. “When I was a young woman, dinner was a formal event. My mother would have dismissed Margaret on the spot for what she just did. But I prefer straight talk. Don’t you, Mr. Malone?”

He really didn’t. Not with nosy old women who had obvious agendas.

“Hmm,” he replied, and continued spooning up his own soup.

“You should not doubt her, Mr. Malone.”

“Hmm?” he said.

“Daniela. You should not doubt her.”

He nodded and stuffed a hunk of bread in his mouth, hoping Lenka Kos would leave him alone.

“She is quite beautiful, isn’t she?”

The bite caught in his throat, and he reached for his coffee, frantic, sloshing it over the edge and onto his hand. It burned and he swore, and Lenka let him recover.

He apologized for the curse when he’d taken a sufficient, crumb-free breath.

“She hasn’t had many suitors. Men are fools. And opportunities are limited.”

“I see,” he said. He didn’t. Not really. He didn’t want to talk about Dani’s suitors. He ate faster.

“My husband was three decades older than me,” Lenka said.

He choked again. That comment seemed very pointed.

“For goodness’ sake, Mr. Malone,” she chided. “Slow down. Enjoy your meal.”

“I was not aware you had ever married,” he said.

Her lips quirked. “He did die rather early in the relationship. It was never even consummated. I never forgave him for that.”

Good Lord. “A reason, perhaps, that young girls should not marry old men,” he said.

“Hmm,” she murmured, foiled, and she was mercifully silent for several minutes.

“Do you want children, Mr. Malone?” she asked, circling again.

He sighed and finished his mouthful. She waited, her fork in the air, her eyes trained on his face.

“I did. Once.”