The Unknown Beloved(6)

“I can see why you miss Capone,” Malone murmured.

“I do. Damn it. I do,” Ness said. “Like most everywhere else, the food lines in Cleveland are long and jobs are few, and the misery is everywhere you look. And . . . all of that misery makes sense. I don’t like it, but it makes sense.”

For a moment both men were quiet, thoughtful.

“What doesn’t make sense is a guy who chops people up for seemingly no rhyme or reason,” Ness said, adding, “I don’t even know where to begin with that.”

“It doesn’t make sense to you. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense,” Malone offered. A wise little girl had said that to him once. He’d never forgotten it.

“Yeah?” Ness scoffed. “Well . . . so far it doesn’t make sense to my guys either. We’re all scratching our heads. All the old rules don’t seem to apply with these murders.”

“Like what?”

“The victims don’t have any connection to each other, beyond the fact that they lived in or around Kingsbury Run. The papers have said all the victims were indigent, but that’s not true, not exactly. They were poor, but not so much poorer than anyone else. They frequented establishments that aren’t highbrow, but that’s just the few we were able to identify. The rest could be saints and angels for all we really know.”

“Do you think the Butcher knows them?” Malone pressed.

“You understand how these things usually work. Murders are almost never committed by strangers.”

“But you don’t think that’s what’s going on here?”

“No. None of the people who knew the first victim, Edward Andrassy, are even people of interest at this point. Andrassy wasn’t an especially swell fella, but his family loved him. His parents grieved him. It’s been hell on them, the endless interviews trying to turn something up, anything that would give us a clue as to who killed him so we can connect the dots to the others.”

“How many now?”

“Ten. There was one in September of ’34 that hasn’t been included in the tally. A woman’s torso was found on the shores of Lake Erie. She’s never been identified, and they weren’t even sure she was murdered. They thought it may have been someone who fell overboard, drowned, and her body was possibly torn up by a propeller.”

“The Lady of the Lake.” Malone remembered now. That scenario had never seemed likely to him. A woman falls out of a boat and drowns on Erie, and nobody comes forward?

“That’s what the papers called her. Pretty name for something damn ugly. The man who found her torso was looking for driftwood and found a different kind of trunk.”

“So you think that was the Butcher’s first victim?”

“We didn’t. Not for a long time. But now . . . with all the others since, yeah. I think she was his first.”

Again silence settled around them. Malone rose and stoked the fire and Ness waited for him to return to his chair.

“Maybe he’s showing off,” Malone mused, sitting again.

“Who?” Ness frowned.

“Your Butcher.”

“My Butcher?” Eliot grunted.

Malone shrugged and pushed the bottle toward his friend. “Your city. Your Butcher.”

“Showing off for who?” Eliot said. He picked up the bottle but didn’t take off the cap.

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Didn’t the bodies start turning up right around the time you got into town?”

Eliot frowned at him, his gaze sharp. He set the bottle down with a thump. “What?”

“The bodies started turning up right around the time you got into town, yeah? You said you moved to Cleveland in August of ’34. Lady of the Lake turned up in September of ’34.”

“Ah hell, Malone.” Ness rubbed at his eyes. “This has nothing to do with me. I didn’t even take the job until December of ’35.” But he sounded tired, like he suddenly wasn’t certain.

“The papers love you, Eliot. Young, good-looking, straight as an arrow. Took down Al Capone. Maybe this guy just wants to give you another challenge. I’ve seen plenty of gang hits where the heads are lopped off. What makes you think this isn’t just more of the same stuff we faced here in Chicago?”

“I wish it were. But . . . it isn’t. I’ve stayed out of it and let the dicks handle it. But the mayor, Harold Burton, told me I need to take a more active role.”

“A more visible role?”

“Yeah. He says the whole reason I got the job was because the people believed I could clean things up. I didn’t know I’d be cleaning up severed limbs and dead ends.” He was so morose that Malone handed him his own glass. He wasn’t going to drink it.

Eliot raised his blue eyes to Malone’s almost like he was waiting for Malone to catch up. Malone glowered back.

“What’s this all about, Eliot? I thought you came by because of Irene.”

“I did. But her death . . . gave me an opening. I knew I had to move fast, or you’d be gone again.”

“No,” Malone said. He suddenly knew what Eliot was going to say, and he wasn’t interested. Not at all.

“You’ve always been a details man. You know your onions, and I need some fresh eyes. Do you realize that you are the first person to connect me to the case? I can’t say I like the idea, but it’s a lead. Nobody else put that together. That’s what I’m talking about.”