Trail of Blood

by Lisa Black

  CHAPTER 22

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

  1935

  James Miller entered the building at 4950 Pullman. It had not changed much in the half a year or so since Irene Schaffer ran from it, screaming and half undressed.

  As before, he and Walter found Dr. Louis Odessa in his office, ushering a well-coiffed lady in a smart wool jacket out the door. She thanked him profusely for whatever services he had offered and departed, trailing promises to take note of every single thing she put in her mouth, every single thing. James shot his partner a warning look, knowing too well the sort of comment Walter would make after an opening like that.

  Odessa invited them in, apparently not concerned about their unexpected appearance. His office still lacked décor but had gained more bottles and books on its shelves. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. What can I do for you?”

  Walter sprawled in one of the cushioned chairs meant for guests—or patients, as no doubt Odessa would have insisted. “We were in the neighborhood, thought we’d stop by and see if you have any young girls tied up in your closet.”

  The man chuckled. It made James’s blood begin to rush at the memory of the day he found the narrow cot exactly as Irene Schaffer had described it. He clenched and unclenched his hands, closed and open.

  “I remember now,” Odessa said. “That excitable girl. At least she embarrassed herself too badly with that wild story to come around here anymore.”

  “So you don’t make a habit of bringing underage girls by to…analyze them?” Walter injected the verb with an insulting amount of skepticism for someone who hadn’t believed Irene Schaffer. He thought her a fast girl who had picked the wrong guy to hustle.

  James, on the other hand, figured if Irene did anything in the street it was probably to play baseball.

  The doctor only made it worse by chuckling again. Most men would not be so cool when accused of mashing, especially of a girl Irene’s age. “A typical example of my clientele left just before you, officers. Do I appear to be a man who needs to waste time with unwashed urchins?”

  James turned away from the smarmy idiot to look over the contents of the shelving, pace a bit, fiddle with the faucet on a small sink at the inner wall, and bounce on his toes, anything to relieve the tension. “Mind if we check?”

  “Go right ahead. There’s nothing in there but paper and empty bottles.” The doctor didn’t even watch as James strode behind him and opened the door to the little room. Smart guys often cooperated with police, thinking it would allay suspicion…which it didn’t.

  No girl stretched on the little cot, of course, and the rest of the area appeared as Odessa described it. James closed the door again and moved back to the shelves.

  “Why do you keep a bed in there, anyway?” Walter asked as if from the idlest curiosity.

  “I catch a nap after lunchtime. It helps with the digestion.”

  “And that’s what you’re all about, isn’t it? Digestion?”

  Odessa spoke to Walter. “Digestion is only half of the puzzle. Coaxing the body into absorbing the right things entails giving it the right things to absorb. Our bodies are incredible machines, but without proper maintenance they do not work at peak efficiency, or they wear out prematurely.”

  “And you’re here to save people from themselves.”

  “Someone must.”

  James stole a glance at the man while pretending to read a bottle label. For the first time, the doctor looked like a doctor, somber and serious as he lectured: “The Great War shook this country from its sleep. We had to go to war and found out that one-third of our eligible soldiers had to be turned down for poor health. One-third, gentlemen. And it’s not only our bodies, but our minds, too—we couldn’t find enough men in the general populace suitable to become officers. That’s why education is now mandatory in all forty-eight states.”

  “But we wind up paying for people who don’t need it.” Taxes were a pet annoyance to Walter. “Like Negroes, and girls.”

  “All are part of the whole,” Odessa argued. “Ignorant people only create more work for those who are not. Raising up individuals raises up the entire society.”

  “What sort of doctor are you?” James asked, both to throw Odessa off stride and because he had no interest in debating education with Walter once again. Baby John would go to school, period, for as long and as well as James could afford.

  “I have a degree in nutrition science,” Odessa said.

  “Is that like an M.D.?” James knew it wasn’t, since he now stared at the framed certificate on the wall and it said nothing about being a bachelor’s or doctorate. He didn’t know much about college but felt fairly certain that real degrees used one of those two words.

  “No. I treat the whole body, the intake and outflow and the interaction of the same with our living cells. I don’t saw off limbs or look at your teeth or deliver babies.” He added this as if such trivialities were beneath him.

  “Vitamins?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you give people vitamins?”

  “Yes. Vitamins—and minerals, too—are the single most important line of defense between ourselves and our graves.”

  Walter took over. “Do you have any vitamin A?”

  “Yes. Why, Detective, do you suffer from night blindness?”

  “Huh?”

  “A deficiency of vitamin A causes night blindness, a difficulty seeing in dim light. But just as importantly, it can interact with—”

  James placed photographs of the two Jackass Hill victims on the man’s desk, hoping especially to shock this smarmy bastard with the half-decomposed face of the second victim. “Do you recognize these men?”

  “No.”

  He had decided that quickly. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Odessa waited for another question, switching eye contact from James to Walter. He did not look at the photographs again.

  A hustler and a transient, James thought, killed by a guy swell enough to own a car with which to transport the bodies. How would a guy like that get acquainted with a punk like Andrassy? He must be a chameleon, or he’s got the kind of job that gets him accepted everywhere. Like a doctor.

  James pulled out the unidentified pill and set it on the desk. “Do you know what this is?”

  Louis Odessa picked up the tiny lump of whiteness and took a magnifying glass from his desk drawer. After a long examination, he set it back down on the edge of his desk and said, “I would guess it’s either niacin or folic acid. I have some here….” After retrieving two bottles from his collection, he pronounced it most similar to the thiamine tablets he bought from a large pharmaceutical company in New York. “Not exactly the same,” he added, though the pill certainly looked identical to those in the bottle as far as James could tell, “but I’ll bet it’s some brand of thiamine. There’s really no way to tell without chemical testing.”

  “Why would a doctor prescribe it?” James tried a little grease. Walter rolled his eyes at the idea of prescribing pills to otherwise healthy people.

  “It works against beriberi—a common disease to Orientals, the poor ones who live on rice—and diabetes. Alcoholics, also, can have a deficiency of thiamine and need supplements.”

  “And you’re sure you’ve never seen these men? Separately or together?” James asked again.

  “No, I haven’t. Would you two care to go over your diets? I have a few minutes before my next patient. No? Are you sure? Because you need either fresh fruit or vitamin C tablets or you’ll wind up with scurvy, and you”—he switched his gaze to Walter—“need to eat less-caloric foods.”

  James’s portly partner did not care for the direction in which the conversation had turned and stood up. “No, thanks. We gotta go. But we’ll be around in case you bring home any more little girlfriends.”

  Odessa continued to smile, but the edges appeared brittle.

  James followed his partner into the hallway. Sunlight streamed in from both the front door to the no
rth and the back door to the south. Lettering on the frosted glass across from Odessa’s office read MADAME MORELLI, MEDIUM. KNOCK TO ENTER. James heard low voices inside, one punctuated with a gasp. Laughter spilled from an open office door while two men stood outside on the south lawn. James tapped Walter’s elbow and went toward them.

  Both doors farther along the hallway had opened. James glanced into the one on his left without making his interest too obvious. Three young men in shirtsleeves drew at sketching tables, two of them throwing mild and apparently amusing insults to each other. They were reproached by a pretty young woman at a typewriter.

  The office on his right held an empty desk, two chairs, a small sink, shelves filled with books and rolled-up drawings and disheveled stacks of newspapers, and a sleeping dog. James walked on and out the south door. Walter did not follow and instead dipped into the architects’ office, no doubt to make the acquaintance of the pretty secretary.

  Of the two men outside, the shorter man had turned away, heading toward Kingsbury Run in a stained cardigan and trousers so frayed that the pattern of his underwear showed through. He had a peculiar step, picking up his right foot higher than his left, and James watched for a moment before he figured it out—the sole of the man’s right shoe had come loose in front so that the wearer had to take care or he’d fold it in half with each step.

  “Good afternoon,” said the other man. His trousers were not threadbare and his white shirt was clean and crisp. He had a full head of brown hair and light blue eyes with even lighter spots. They reminded James of ginger ale, not the color but the fizz. He appeared to be about thirty-five.

  “How are you this beautiful afternoon?”

  “Fine, and yourself?”

  “Quite well.”

  James nodded in the direction of the shuffling man. “Where’s your friend going?”

  The man gave a gentle smile and sat on a low bench, on which sat a plate with two sandwiches and three black soda bottles. “Probably to hop a boxcar back to Pittsburgh to look for work there. I don’t know him, we just got to talking and shared some dinner. I have some corned beef hash here from Mike’s on Thirtieth and some cookies my housekeeper made. Would you like some?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Or some soda pop? It’s Mission Orange. I can’t get enough of the stuff.”

  The man’s gaze came to rest on James’s shoes at the same time that his resolutely friendly tone penetrated James’s mind. This guy had taken him for a hobo. A bum, looking for a handout.

  His stomach chose that moment to growl, a sound loud enough to be heard on the next street. He should have had lunch at the Terminal building with Walter. “I’m a cop.”

  “Oh. I’m…sorry. I should have asked after your occupation. It’s just that so many men who wander through this city don’t really want to talk about who they are.”

  Or remember who they were, James thought. “They know you’re a soft touch?”

  “No, but since we’re next to the tracks we get a lot of men passing through here.” James could see what he meant. The wide valley made a perfect spot to hop on and off the trains for illegal rides across America. “They’re all half starved,” the man went on. “I’ve been lucky in my life, and I feel compelled to share that with my fellow man.”

  “What makes you so lucky?”

  “My name is Arthur Corliss. I own the LEP—the Lake Erie–Pennsylvania Railroad.” He stood again and shook James’s hand with a kindly but crushing grip. As tall as Odessa but with Walter’s weight, in muscle instead of paunch.

  James asked, “You give handouts to the same bums who are going to ride your rails?”

  “It’s not their fault that this country’s situation collapsed into rubble. Besides”—Corliss gave him a sheepish grin—“I convince them to use the B&O lines.”

  James laughed and let go of having been mistaken for a hobo. He knew if he bothered to look in the mirror it wouldn’t be such a stretch. His shirts had been washed and worn for so many years that the weave had loosened. His cheeks had begun to sink into his mouth.

  “Are you familiar with your neighbor Louis Odessa?”

  “Dr. Louis? Yes. Why?”

  James gave him a story, making it sound as if they had consulted Odessa for help identifying the vitamin pill. “He seems to have some highfalutin clients. Does he mind you feeding bums on his stoop?”

  “No, no. Louis is generous in spirit, if not in cash. I merely give them something to eat, but Louis helps them decide what to eat for the rest of their lives.”

  “You’re interested in vitamins and minerals and all that health stuff?”

  “Absolutely. If you don’t guard your health when you’re young, it will be too late when you’re old. At least that’s what Louis says. He tells the architect boys that, too, but they won’t listen.”

  James pulled the photos from his pocket. “Have you seen either of these men?”

  Corliss took the picture, studied it. “No. Good Lord, this one barely looks human. Why do you ask?” A cloud passed over the sun. The darkening sky reflected in his light-colored eyes.

  “We’re doing a routine inquiry.”

  The man stared at James for a moment longer, blankly, no doubt wondering where he had seen the photos before. Every citizen of Cleveland should see them in their sleep, James thought, with the attention the papers are lavishing on the case. The people were both fascinated and repulsed, but most of all they were frightened.

  But Corliss only nodded and solemnly asked, “It’s about the man’s wife, isn’t it?”

  James’s blood picked up speed. “What about his wife?”

  “Or his daughter, or whatever. Louis likes women,” Corliss explained as if it were a condition Odessa couldn’t help and should be pitied for. “Perhaps too much.”

  James merely smiled, nodded, gave up trying to link Louis Odessa to the two dead men on the hill, and went to retrieve Walter from the architects’ office before leaving the building at 4950 Pullman.

  CHAPTER 23

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9

  PRESENT DAY

  Theresa returned to the trace evidence lab. Their secretary huddled over her computer monitor, sneaking in a game of Solitaire while Leo’s voice came as a steady hum from his office. Their boss could rival any teenage girl for hours spent on the phone. Theresa could also hear Don in the DNA rooms to the rear of the lab, singing quietly as he filled microtubes with extracted samples.

  Theresa settled into her nook behind the FTIR and put on a mask before opening the samples she had collected from the two dead men, not to keep her breath from contaminating the fibers but so that an unexpected sneeze or sigh did not scatter them across the lab. Then she placed the glassine paper under the stereomicroscope to unfold it.

  A single fiber, about an inch long, had been stuck to the inside of Richard Dunlop’s wrist. Theresa used a fresh disposable scalpel to cut a piece off, then placed that section between a glass slide and a glass cover slip. A drop of mounting media would hold it together—permanently—and make its form clearly visible under a transmitted light microscope. A red fiber, with a trilobal shape, exactly what she had found stuck to Kim Hammond’s hair. A micrometer scale confirmed the diameter. Because it took only a minute, Theresa switched the slide to the stage of her ancient polarizing microscope, under whose light the fiber appeared in colors of preppy green and pink. Polyester again—like what had been found on Kim Hammond. To confirm this finding Theresa cut another piece of the fiber from Richard Dunlop. It took several minutes and a few muttered curses to get the substance, once flattened, to stick to the window and not to the pick and the roller, but eventually it became situated in the path of the light beam. Polyester. It had to be carpeting; fibers of that thickness and with a trilobal shape would not be used in clothing or upholstery.

  Theresa sighed. On TV a scientist would have a handy database of every carpet ever manufactured in the world and some way to find the customers who bought each one. In her real
and much more inconvenient life, this data did not exist. The closest she could come was to e-mail the fiber’s description and spectrum to the FBI so that they could compare it to their automotive carpet database. It had its limits and involved only carpeting made for automobiles. This fiber seemed too thick and too bright to come from a car, but even a remote possibility was well worth a try. And she liked to stay in touch with the FBI lab. They were friendly and helpful people.

  After that, she would have to take her fiber and its specs and hit every carpeting supplier in the area, a monumental task for which she would never have the time. Surely red could not be a common color—though current interior decorating did seem to favor the jewel tones, especially in restaurants—but most carpets were a combination of colors. The overall color of a particular rug could be anything—say, beige—but with tiny colored flecks here and there. This would not be listed in anyone’s inventory as red.

  She repeated the process with the other fiber found on Dunlop, a round, black thread that turned out to be nylon. It could have come from nearly anything—a coat, a bag, sports equipment, a tarp. The other victim, Forrest, had the red fiber on his ankle and no black fibers.

  Swabs of the adhesive residue from both men told her that it probably belonged to duct tape, an item most criminalists saw far too much of. Every rapist and serial killer kept a roll in their “kit.” She could identify the adhesive as consistent with the killer’s roll of tape, if she had the killer’s roll of tape. Had he bound Forrest’s wrists while he cut off his head? No, bruises would have formed as the victim struggled for life—unless he were still unconscious from the blow to the head. But the killer might also have taped his arms and ankles to make the body easier to work with as he moved it to the hillside. Either way, simply knowing that he had used duct tape would not help them. The stuff was simply too ubiquitous.