“Reminded me of his wheelchair love. Said she couldn’t catch him once it was over. Scoundrel that he is!”
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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!”
232
ROBERT W. WALKER
“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.”
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“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, ham-burgers, 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?”
234
ROBERT W. WALKER
“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.”
“Prove me a murderer, Nathan, and I’ll willingly sit for shackles. Until such time, I’d appreciate your not characterizing me as this evil bastard’s counterpart.”
“But you just did so yourself!”
“Aye . . . I did, but I’ve not given you carte blanche to do so.” Ransom knew Kohler guilty of at least as much evil as himself, but in a time of war, men did evil for a greater good, or at least what they perceive a greater good. During the “war” with labor, Alastair had interrogated an arsonist and anarchist, a known killer of men who set bombs off to make a political point, a refugee of such activities in France. He’d transplanted to America and had drifted to Chicago when news got out about the labor dissidents at Pullman. All this, CITY FOR RANSOM