He went for Christian’s surgery. From there he went to the surgeon’s office, and here he cornered him. “I understand you allowed Jane in to see that awful mess your men are trying to put back together again.”
The senator’s already held a wake without a body; they-he-wants the funeral to come off tonight and the coffin into hallowed ground at the family’s church tomorrow.”
“Look, it’s awful, the whole thing, but Christian, how did you get sucked into this business of accepting money from Chapman for your services? Think what might happen if it got out?”
“I have gambling debts about to eat me alive, Alastair, and…besides, we need a lot of things here at the hospital, and he mentioned a wing in her name.”
“The Anne Chapman wing, heh?”
“Why not?”
“And a trust or a charitable fund set up?”
“Precisely.”
“One that you alone will control?”
“Someone must administer the-” he paused, seeing Ransom’s smirk. “Look, here! Someone’s going to do it, so why shouldn’t those funds come to Rush Medical and Cook County?”
“Ahhh…it comes down to your age-old rivalry with Northwestern, does it?”
“Regardless, Rance, why shouldn’t something good come of this horror? Why shouldn’t decent people benefit in some manner if we do our jobs right?”
“You have no qualms about it in the least?”
“None! Did you see that child’s body?” Christian’s eyes and jaw were firmly set. “What I’d give for a retirement home and a volume of Kipling right now.”
“Christian, when it comes time for us to deliver up this obvious lunatic to Senator Chapman, are you sure you’ll have the stomach for it?”
“I’ll happily light the fire that’ll boil him alive, yes.”
“And Jane-acting as Tewes again? Was that her idea or yours, coming down here to see this atrocity? Have you cut her in on the deal?”
“She has street contacts I don’t have, contacts you should be cultivating right now instead of harassing me.”
“Damn…then you did call her here.”
“I told her the circumstances of the case, and I am asking her to do a…a psychological mock-up of what kind of mind could concoct such a fate for a child. Don’t for a moment think this is the last of the Vanishings.”
“I see…so you are just playing ‘Catcher in the Rye’ to save the future children from harm’s way.”
“Don’t try to get all moral with me, Alastair. Not you!”
“Next you’ll be marching out the bagpipes and singing verses from Robbie Burns, heh?”
“Bull! I know you too well for this, Rance.”
“Or perhaps Kipling. Do a bit of flag-waving, trumpets, drums, all that?”
“You forget, I did the autopsy on what was left of Anne Chapman.”
This stopped Ransom’s joking, and he nodded to his old friend. “I know that must’ve been…must’ve been hell.” Then he repeated, “I saw her remains just now.”
“Butcher is too kind a word for this madman, but, Alastair, there is something else…something I have to share with you.”
“What is it?”
“At the nape of the neck, right here,” he indicated on himself, his hand going to the base of his neck at the back. “Where the vertebra meet the skull.”
“Spit it out, man.”
“She was kept for some time on a hook, dangling like…like a carcass, and there is some justification in believing…God…hard to even voice it.”
“Say it, Doctor.”
“The missing portions of her-cheeks, torso, appendages.”
“Yes, yes?”
“They were taken from her over time.”
“Over time?”
“This was not a single sit down.”
“Whataya saying that-”
“Not a single one-time carving.”
“Jesus-”
“Mary-”
“-and Joseph. These victims were carved on multiple times at different sittings?”
“Proven by each wound carefully examined. Each carving displays a different time frame.”
“My God. You’re saying she was spiked on a nail or a hook in some godforsaken place and carved on like a leg of lamb.”
“Multiple blades used on her as well. Some well after death set in, obviously. Merciful shock will have killed her before the fiend or fiends could make that many stabs and slashes.”
“Does Kohler know all this?”
“He does.”
“And he informed Chapman of this?”
“He did, against my better judgment. I had to tell someone, and you weren’t here. I could not keep absolutely silent on the matter.”
“So you share with Kohler? And then Kohler rushes off to inform Chapman of these awful details better kept in-house to begin with? That’s not standard procedure, Christian, and you know it.”
“I agree but there’s no fetching it back now.”
Alastair shook his head in disdain. “This is what sent the senator over the edge, correct?”
“Afraid so.”
“And now we’re having to deal with-or deal in-an insane wealthy senator…and there’s a fortune to be had. We could likely name our price, heh?”
“Alastair, will you please stop preaching to me? Christ!”
“I tell you, Christian, the whole thing smacks of evil wrapped in evil.”
“I did not for a moment suspect Nathan Kohler would impart the details to Senator Chapman.”
“But he did, and now we have this situation on our hands.”
“And what can we do but make the best of a bad bargain, Alastair. That is all I am hoping for now.”
“It’s a bargain that will haunt you to your grave.”
“Come now! What are we proposing? To see this bastard who did this desecration of a child get precisely what he gave out? At one time that was called justice.”
“Rationalizing it does not change what it is, Christian, and if it got out, you can kiss your career and connection with Cook County and Rush Medical College good-bye.”
“Northwestern could send us all packing, given their growth. Rush needs a major influx of funds.”
“Get off it, man. I believe Christian Fenger needs funds far more than does Cook County or Rush.”
He dropped his gaze. “All right, I need the money as well. Hell, Alastair, you need the money more than any of us.”
“How much of it have you confided to Jane?”
“Not much…the sketchy details.”
“Tell me she knows nothing of this devil’s bargain you’ve struck with Nathan Kohler and Chapman.”
“Nothing.”
“Keep it that way if you wish to keep her respect. Where is she, by the way?”
“She’s two doors down, resting…lying down. Look, Alastair-”
But he was gone, banging down the hallway with his cane, going in search of Jane, his anger at boiling point.
Alastair found Dr. Tewes-Jane incognito-in the room down the hall, recovering from a bruise to the head from when she’d fainted in the morgue. Given the circumstances, the usual odors of that place conspiring with the brutality done to young Anne Chapman, he little wondered that even a surgeon such as Jane could fall faint.
“Are you all right?” was his first question. She was sitting on the edge of the bed they’d placed Tewes in to regain himself. Jane looked out through those unmistakable eyes and from behind her mustache and makeup at Alastair.
“It’s horrible what he did to her.”
“And somehow Fenger thinks you should be involved in all this? Jane, I forbid it.”
“What?”
“You are not to get involved. Not one whit.”
“Hold on. Who do you think you’re addressing?”
“I know who I am addressing.”
“Apparently, you do not.”
“Whatever he’s paying you to do this psychology on this madman, Jane, I will double it if you drop it now.”
“Look here, Alastair. We do not have the sort of relationship in which you order me around.”
“I’m asking you, then.”
“It’s already too late. I’ve made promises to Christian, promises I intend to keep.”