City for Ransom (4 page)

Photographer Keane flashed his pan and a fiery black
plume appeared with the odor of gunpowder all in a single
whoosh,
getting a shot of Inspector Ransom holding the dead man's head in his hands.

“Ransom!” shouted Griff in awe, expecting an oozing gruel to come rushing out of the huge cavity. However, the fire had dehydrated all bodily fluids; nothing but soot lifting and flying off the now completely severed head dirtied Tewes's white suit. Tewes's gritted teeth spoke volumes. Still, the doctor accepted and couched the severed head in the cradle of his arms.

Tewes's chin quivered like a girl about to burst into tears, his watch fob shivering, as Ransom said, “You wanna read the boy's skull, Dr. Tewes? Be my guest!”

Under Ransom's steady glare, the slight doctor refused to show another moment's emotion, holding his ground, earning more respect from Inspector Ransom than Griffin thought possible.

“I—I'll take it to the stationmaster's office,” Tewes shakily said, “place it on a desk…for—for stability. You really…really should've left it intact, Inspector.”

“Yes, find a square foot of privacy…. Good idea.” Ransom's eyes scanned the reporters. “Or have you invited the press as well, Doctor?”

Dr. Tewes stiffly marched off with his dubious prize. Ransom tried to think of something clever to shout after him, but the absolute gall the man had displayed, in a bizarre way, held Ransom in check. “Hmmm, that Tewes fella, Griff, has more backbone than I'd've guessed.”

Griffin Drimmer had pushed back the police line
to a chorus of questions from reporters, most of them wanting to know who Tewes might be. O'Malley had located a tarp, and crossing himself, the big Irish cop sent the canvas over the now headless, still smoldering corpse. The heavy cloth cascaded over the grim sight and made it disappear, save for the gnarled left hand and foot. Using his police issue boot, O'Malley nudged the errant telltale hand beneath.

“You can't cover it, O'Malley!” complained Philo. “I've still shots to get.”

Ransom by contrast had returned to the body with his pipe lit, puffing calmly, and using his cane, he lifted the tarp for a final look at the dead boy.

“I thought, Rance, what with your having torn off the head…the tarp a good idea,” said O'Malley. “Thought Tewes would wet his pants.” O'Malley's laugh sounded hollow as it resonated off the vaulted ceiling.

“Not so much as a blink outta the little weasel,” replied Ransom, “but his damn teeth chattered a bit.”

Ransom kneeled, holding the tarp up with the scrimshaw tip of his wolf's-head cane. He stared anew at the once fair-skinned boy's bony body, imagining a child, hardly past a schoolboy, anxious for the bell to ring. “You did the right
thing, O'Malley. Now keep those reporters at bay so Philo can take his cuts.”

“I mean should Chief of Detectives show up…it being unseemly, sir, what with the head off. Not to mention, maybe Keane intends selling that shot of you and Tewes with that ghastly head between yous.”

Ransom imagined staring at the scene in the
Trib
or the
Herald
. “I'll see to Philo Keane,” Ransom shot back. “I think I know his game by now.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Still nothing of the young victim found in any nearby trash bin?”

“'Fraid not, sir, but our boys're still on it.”

Ransom knew that a certain amount of deference was paid him simply for being a detective on the force, but men like young, round-faced O'Malley foolishly respected him for his part—so-called—in the Haymarket Riot. “God writes plays for each of us, O'Malley,” he'd drunkenly said to Mike at the bar the night before, “and in my script, he gave me Haymarket to suffer through.” Then he'd shouted to the entire pub, “Who remembers the dead I served with?”

No one in the bar could name any of the fallen police at Haymarket.

“They erected a statue to them gallant fellows, do you know?” He lifted his glass. “A toast to 'em now! Erected their statue long 'fore your start of service, lads! Do you know where that statue to the common police officer is, O'Malley?”

“No, sir. 'Fraid not, sir.”

“Relocated from its dedication pedestal. Buried amid the city's sprawling buildings and thriving commerce…outside the police station door at the intersection of Jackson and Taylor, where only cops and lowlifes hauled in and out might happen on it. Like a hydrant for dogs to piss on. Like they are ashamed of our boys. From the beginning, top brass, the mayor's office, didn't want it on Michigan Avenue, for sure, not in eighty-nine…and not now. “Ransom had
heaved a sigh. “Dedicated May fourth in a downpour with a handful of us cripples like me on hand.”

“No one wants reminding of Haymarket, old stick,” said Philo at the end of the bar. “No heroes that day.”

“Those men gave their lives,” said Ransom. “And now they're stickin' it to old Birmingham.”

“Birmingham, sir?” O'Malley had asked.

“Oh, Jesus, don't get 'em started on Birmingham!” Philo shouted.

Ransom gathered O'Malley and other young coppers to him. “I was aged thirty-two in eighty-six. Birmingham, he'd been a veteran forever.”

Philo, ever the artist, added, “Birmingham posed for the statue commemorating those killed at Haymarket.”

“A good man working toward a pension till they got something on him,” continued Ransom. “Some nonsense 'bout dereliction of duty. You know what he does today?”

“No sir, what?”

“He guides folks from the White City fair yonder to Haymarket Square; shows 'em sites of the running battle and riot. Gives 'em a firsthand account.”

“Makes most of it up as he goes in that sotted mind of his and—”

“Philo!”

Philo raised a glass. Laughter erupted, but Ransom didn't join in. “And study the man well, Ransom,” Philo kiddingly warned, again toasting, “because you'll be guiding the tour one day if you keep at things so stubborn!”

Ransom ignored these remarks. Too much truth therein. Instead, he'd continued talking to Mike and Griff and the younger men. “Old Willard Birmingham's come a long journey from Liverpool to Chicago. A bloody good man, but he's sure on his way to pennilessness in his old age. We're getting up a fund for him, boys, so pony up—come along, every one of yous.”

Griffin Drimmer gave up a silver dollar to begin the pool
and curry favor. As Griff then worked the crowd for Willard's pitiful pension, he asked Ransom, “How well did you know the men killed at Haymarket, Inspector?”

“We were all of us two-year men. Of the seven killed, only Thomas Redden was more than two year on. None of the killed held supervisory positions, that's sure. Degan had hold of me, helped me from the blast when he collapsed and died, poor bugger—a severed artery killed 'im. A good patrolman of the Lake Street district, he was, a fixture…and the first to go.”

Philo, as old as Ransom, piped in. “Got some great shots, but all were confiscated during the drawn out inquest. Never got them back.”

“Part of the cover-up, I warrant,” said Ransom, beginning to slur his words.

“Cover-up indeed?” asked Griff.

“I tell you, boys! Maybe those pictures show something they don't want no one to see. After the bomb hit…over the next twelve days in hospital I was. Cook County, where George Miller succumbed to his wounds, then John Barrett with his family looking on, and next Timothy Flavian, Nels Hansen, and Nicholas Sheehan. Degan and another of our men died on the street.”

“Must've been hell losing so many comrades,” said O'Malley, Griffin agreeing to a chorus of other cops.

“And a helluva big Irish wake,” added Philo.

“Boys, I don't want to talk about it, not without sufficient drink.” And then they all became sufficiently drunk.

Now a sober Inspector Alastair Ransom, leaning on his cane, contemplated a baffling murder spree. Three dead. All since the opening of the fair on May first. The fingers found lying about the men's room in a pool of blood, two in the porcelain basin, Philo had photographed. Griff held them up in a glass vial to Ransom's eyes.

“You know, Griff…O'Malley,” he quietly said. “I once knew a fellow who'd auction off items like these.”

“What kind of a ghoul was this guy?” Griff erupted.

“A cop…. Unfortunately, all too human. We called him The Reaper.”

“Jesus God.”

Griffin shook his head, hardly believing.

“You know, famous case and all, souvenirs, relics.”

“You'd never do anything like that, sir,” said young O'Malley, his boyish eyes filled with anxious curiosity about the infamous Inspector Ransom, anxious anew to tell his friends on the force what he'd witnessed here—how Ransom had literally handed Tewes a handful of what he'd deserved! And to brag that for a few pints the other night that he could now call himself Alastair Ransom's drinking comrade—
the
Alastair Ransom, a man famous for tracking down all manner of muggers, burglars, rapists, maniacs, killers, and anarchists.

“You really ought to keep a safe distance from the likes of me, Mike,” Ransom whispered in his ear. “I go down, they'll likely go head-hunting for what few friends I have.”

“I'll not be a fair-weather friend, sir.”

“But you will likely be fearful one day at having to explain our connection to your superiors.”

“Not at all, sir.”

“You're a good cop, Michael Shaun O'Malley, but you ought to be more careful. And why aren't you using your head instead of that nightstick?”

“Yes, sir. I'm going to put in to take the detective's exam like you said.”

“Good…good for you, O'Malley,” said Griff, slapping his back. “How did this fella you spoke of who took the valuables, sir,” continued Griff, “just how'd he ever get away with it?”

“Promoted.”

“What?”

The department got 'im off the street and behind a desk, and today…well, today there he stands.” Ransom's segue
pointed to the chief of police, who rushed for the stationmaster's office.

“No! Kohler himself, is it?”

“That's me story, and I'd not lie about a thing like that.”

“You two go way back then,” said O'Malley.

“For a time, he was my training officer. Till I could stomach him no more.”

“How could the department let a thing like that go on and then promote someone so lacking in morals?” asked Griff.

Ransom smiled at his young partner. “You've still a lot to learn about the department, Griff.”

“Did things differently in those days, hey?”

“It still goes on, Griff. For Kohler at a higher level. Things don't reform in Chicago so much as they permutate.”

“They didn't have evidence manifests in those early days?” asked O'Malley.

“Oh, sure, but they could be doctored, you see, palms greased. Didn't have photography on every case either, not like they do now. The eyes of the brass are upon you, son.”

“If it's in Keane's photos,” added Griff, “it'd better be in a lab or in lockup.”

Alastair laughed. “But if it ain't in the frame…well, then it don't exist, boys.”

“The fingers…” began O'Malley. “None can be mislaid or lost or else, sure, but tell me, what good are they?”

“If our boy here,” he punctuated with his cane, “if he dug his nails in during the struggle, even got hold of the killer‘s wrist or pinky finger and laid a bite on him…well, I've solved cases by matching a scratch line to the size of a victim's nails or his dental impression. Fenger claims there're no two alike.”

Griffin objected. “That's not very scientific. Sounds impossible to prove.”

“Not if the killer
thinks
it can be proved. Call it voodoo detection.”

“Voodoo?”

“Hell, I tell 'em we're in the new scientific age…I show 'em a vial of animal blood and a vial of human blood…I declare which is which by running 'em through a series of tubes and
whamo!
The guilty fellow confesses, because he is
found out
.”

“But there's no such science separates animal from human blood, sir.”

“No…not anywhere but in my head, but when I shove the evidence down their throats, they confess, I tell you.”

“You think the scientists will ever learn to determine animal from human blood?”

“Perhaps…some day.”

“In the next century perhaps?”

“Time will tell, but I know there are men in the universities working on it. Just imagine it, lads, a case in which we can get a blood-type match to prove it is indeed human blood on the man's shoe or apron and not some slaughtered animal.”

Griff shook his head. “I still have no clue how they intend ever to do blood typing.”

“Trust me, nobody knows,” replied Ransom. He took a long drag on his pipe. “Now, Michael Shaun, how'd you like to do some detective work under Inspector Drimmer's guidance?”

“'Twould be an honor, sir.”

“Have O'Malley here help you go through the Bertillon cards for a match on that handprint, and boys, go at it with a vengeance.”

O'Malley's eyes rolled as he realized that Ransom and Griffin had snookered him into doing the most tedious time-consuming, brain-numbing police detection work on the force, going through the Bertillon cards. He silently mouthed a string of curses.

“If he's never been arrested in our city, Ransom, he won't be in our card files,” cautioned Griff.

“If not, we try New York's—with O'Malley's help.”

“Then you think Tewes was telling the truth about New York?”

“Who knows?”

O'Malley mildly protested. “Sir, I—I've me own duties, and with the I-ID cards, we're talking hours, possibly days, and—and me duty sergeant, he—he ain't likely to OK—”

“And your duty sergeant's name?”

“P. J. O'Hurley, sir.”

“I'll smooth it over with the man, Mike. We all want you to make junior grade, and I'm sure O'Hurley, too, has your best interest at heart.”

Griff took Ransom aside. “Do you give any credence to Dr. Tewes's claims?”

“Sure and why not, Griff? Tewes is as psychic as that Jack terrier of yours.”

“Now you're getting personal.”

“Our guy, whoever he is, certainly likes playing with fire.”

“So we gotta check for all firebugs in the system first.”

Ransom nodded. “I suspect it's just his way of adding one more element of the
spectacular
to his crime.”

“After headlines?”

“That or he plain bloody likes to watch 'em burn. Maybe something symbolic in it for the bastard. Shakespeare used fire as a symbol, and Plutarch before him, so why not our killer?”

“Whataya thinking? He's a gentleman of refinery, knows Shakespeare?”

“Did I say that now?” Ransom scowled across.

“I was just—”

“—thinkin' aloud? Some sort of evil genius? Evil yes, genius no. Find it odd, though, that the faces in every instance have been spared.”

Ransom thought the victim himself far too young and innocent to have a criminal record. In fact, he looked, beneath all the smut, like a child in a Rembrandt depiction of a Dutch peasant family. A fingerprint from the severed fingers would
in all likelihood prove valueless. Still, that tedious chore of doing something useful in a scientific method with the fingers would be left to the coroner, the now famous, indefatigable Dr. Christian Fenger.