“That is what we are leaning toward, yes.”
“Then you’re saying none of the wounds on the Chapman girl were deadly in and of itself, that she died of multiple stab wounds and was then later, after death, carved up?”
“Evidence tells us that some of the carving up went on before the Chapman girl was completely dead.”
“Like the taking of her nose, ears?”
“Correct.”
“How can you know that?”
“It’s a theory but it has to do with the coloration around the wounds,” explained the medical genius, Fenger. “Blood in the living rises to meet the knife, but not in a corpse where we’d see no color. In most of the knife wounds found on Anne Chapman, the color isn’t there.”
“As a result,” said Jane, “we theorize death ensued due to a blow to the head—before any of the major cuts.”
“Earlier, I proved to myself that he dispatched them before he cleaved off their flesh,” added Dr. Fenger.
“How then was the last victim killed? A blow to the head, strangulation? What?”
“Alice Cadin over there was stabbed to death.”
“How was she lured into this?”
“Sorry…we haven’t a clue as to that.” Fenger tugged at his beard.
“No intoxication, no poison?”
“Poison is hard to determine without testing her fluids, and that takes time, but I have a fine man on it. Dr. Joseph Konrath.”
Ransom and Jane both knew that Konrath was a rarity, a man who’d pursued the alliance of the study of poisons—toxicology—and crime fighting, a new direction begun in the 1840s with the breakthrough in the infamous Marie Lafarge case, breakthroughs shared by two men working independently of one another—Frenchman Dr. Mathieu Orfila and Englishman Dr. James Marsh, who invented the process that could detect gas arsine, produced when arsenic is heated to the correct temperature. Konrath carried on a fifty-year-old tradition nowadays of seeking out gases in any number of bodily tissues and fluids to determine if poisoning were present in the deceased.
“But such things as belladonna are easily accessed nowadays.”
“There’ve been no sign of any narcotic or poison in earlier victims, Alastair.”
“Whoever this so-called Leather Apron is, we suspect rampant cannibalism,” said Jane. “I suspect most cannibals don’t stop to use poison. Wouldn’t want to spoil the…the meal.”
“Why’d he take her eyes?”
“Usually the first to go…soft tissues, a delicacy for a cannibal,” said Fenger.
Alastair began tamping his unlit pipe. “Christian, what do you know of cases of cannibalism?”
Fenger took in a deep breath and exhaled. “All right, you’ve found me out, Rance. I’ve not ever handled a case like this, but I am reading up on it, you can bet.”
“Rampant cannibalism of children. God…what has the world come to?” asked Ransom, not expecting an answer.
“Actually, it was not so very long ago that Jonathan Swift wrote his answer to the problem of the homeless children of London,” began Jane, “that the government should round them up and feed them to the populace.”
“Swift was satirizing,” said Christian, “to bring the problem to the attention of Parliament and the Crown.”
“Well, the Vanishings is not satire,” replied Alastair. “This is real.”
Alastair asked again, “OK, so what do you think you know about this madman?”
She ticked off a number of beliefs. “He is ingratiating, charming, luring the victim; he lives in the city and knows every avenue and byway.”
“He likely uses candy or a drink possibly laced with some narcotic we can’t detect,” added Fenger.
“That’s any soft drink on the market,” Ransom said, recalling the boy, Sam, who so easily gulped down the soft drink that he’d been offered.
Jane continued, stating the obvious. “As he uses multiple blades, he is either in a profession relying on blades or is a collector.”
“That narrows it down for us,” he chided. “Look, Jane, have you given thought to the notion that since there’re multiple blades used, that there just might be a violent gang or nutty religious cult using cannibalism as a kind of badge of honor or an initiation, or both? Each gang or cultist with his own blade, racking up points with their leaders.”
“I confess,” began Fenger, “it has crossed our collective minds, yes. Haven’t ruled anything out at this point.”
“Then we are no closer to knowing the truth about Leather Apron or his possible followers, are we?”
Fenger looked tired, his emotion on his face. “What I earlier suggested, some sort of religious cult sacrificing these lambs; perhaps it’s a collective mind at work here?”
“Like a very, very dark mob or lynching party?” asked Alastair, helping secure Tewes’s mustache back into place. “Only this mob likes the blades and cleavers.”
“It is as old as mankind, ritual sacrifice,” said Jane, shivering, “and if it is symbolism you’re out for…well, there you have it. Trust me, the phrase Blood of the Lamb predates Christ.”
“These lambs—our Chicago lambs—are silent witnesses, if that is the case,” replied Ransom. “But do you really think there’s some ancient cult operating here in Chicago, drinking the blood and eating the flesh of these disappearing children?”
Jane fielded the question. “Some pagan cult, something out of Romania or Eastern Europe, Druids perhaps?”
Alastair breathed deeply of the night air. Lights had gone on all across the city and they stood beneath a gaslight at the bridge. The fire boat that’d taken Denton out to the depths tugged by beneath them. He stared back at the little weed patch far below at river’s edge where Dr. Fenger’s attendants finished up, readying to cart the pitiful remains to County Morgue. “I have people in the city working to find out and find out quickly. If there is a sick religious cult at work here, I’ll soon know it, and we’ll hang them all in a public square.”
Even as he said it, he wondered how Kohler, Fenger, and he would deliver an entire religious sect to the senator’s farm to be boiled in oil and skinned alive in the manner of butchering swine. The senator certainly had the equipment out there on that big farm of his, the cauldron, the oil, the tools, and the know-how.
But it had been Alastair’s experience with religious cults that there were more than just men and women involved but whole families, children. He tried to imagine a cultist ritual involving drinking human blood and feeding human organs and chunks of flesh to children—items torn from other children.
He prayed they were all wrong.
He imagined Christian and Jane must also have problems wrapping their minds around the notion, but apparently, they had discussed it at length sometime earlier.
This new victim had not looked in any better shape than had the Chapman girl, but this one had not been in the water as long and more of her clothing had survived. It seemed someone had made a feeble attempt to dress her before laying her into her watery grave.
Dr. Fenger, his sad eyes downcast, grumbled, “I have to leave you two. Must give Shanks and Gwinn strict orders regarding transportation of the body.”
“Do they take directions well, Christian?” Ransom held back a snicker.
“I’m sick to death of seeing attendant bruises and especially broken necks postmortem.” Fenger rushed off on this odious duty. Ransom glanced at Shanks and Gwinn where they stood sharing a stogie.
“Well, Jane…Dr. Tewes,” said Ransom, “have you eaten lately?”
“Don’t think I could swallow a thing save some ale.”
“Then you’ve taken a liking to red ale, have you?” He recalled the night he’d gotten her drunk on ale while investigating her alias, Dr. Tewes. How he’d had to carry her home to Gabby. The same night as he had become attached to Gabby, who was so fiercely protective of her “father,” Dr. Tewes.
“Well, I think a pint would not hurt.”
“I know a nearby place. Shall we?”
After the single pint, Dr. Tewes wanted a refill, but Jane held him to one. Instead she and Ransom enjoyed a horse-drawn cab ride through Lincoln Park and down tree-lined Clark Street. While passing the scenery, he dared ask, “Jane, I thought you finished with this Tewes act. I thought we agreed—made a pact—on the train back from Mackinaw City…remember Mackinac Island? Our getaway?”
“You agreed with yourself, Alastair. Look, first and foremost, I have Gabby to think of, and Tewes is beginning to rake in too much cash right now for me to simply drop the act.”
“And besides, you like it, don’t you? Playing police-adviser.”
“I’m no longer on Nathan’s payroll, if that’s what you mean. I’m being paid by Christian through his Cook County budget.”
“But Christian draws partial payment from the Chicago Police Department. So he actually still works for Nathan, and so then does Dr. J. P. Tewes.”
She laughed lightly at this, her femininity showing through. “And who do you answer to directly at the end of the day?”
Alastair frowned and changed the subject in rapid fashion, asking, “You know what it will sound like among the men at the station house if it gets out I am having moonlight rides through the park with James Phineas Tewes?”
“Oh…please. It may soften your reputation a bit.”
“Will you ever learn? I don’t want some things softened…ever, and my reputation ranks high on that list.”
“Kiss me, Alastair, and shut up.”
He considered following her order but stopped short. “I can’t do it with that mustache on your face. You look too much like my Uncle Fred.”
“You are incorrigible. Take me home.”
“If it is your wish, Doctor.”
They traveled along in silence for a time save for the hooves on bricks outside and the occasional row at a corner tavern. Ransom peeked from behind the window sash and mentally began counting the number of children he saw wandering about so late. Where were the parents. Didn’t they read? Didn’t they have ears? How could they not know of the danger afoot in the city now, the danger lurking for their children. He saw a smaller boy than the one he’d put on his payroll panhandling at one pub. When he had gotten a coin, he shuffled off to a black recessed doorway and handed his beggings to a man, someone who then set him on his mission for another coin, possibly his father or stepfather, reasoned Ransom. Poor bloke was likely down on his luck and had to use his kid to beg a pittance.
It had become brutally competitive to find the least job in the city nowadays. Whole families had wandered in from the various states all around, many from the Illinois prairie land in a bad crop year. There had been destructive weather all round the city and serious flooding in areas along the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers, as well as the Kankakee.
It all conspired to swell the streets of the city with an out-of-control transient population beyond the municipality’s capacity to cope. Chicago, the Gem of the Prairie, was like a beacon to all comers. Stories of land speculation and endless work and new construction and a better life according to advertisements in national magazines had brought about a deluge until the population numbers outstripped any hope of a newcomer making a living here. Many a family went straight to the few churches and shelters about, and many slept on the floor of City Hall, and many wound up in lockups all across Chicago. Meanwhile, the number of police remained woefully inadequate, and many on the force secretly worked for private companies—moonlighting—despite new laws enacted against this.
“Has Christian promised you any, ahhh…unusual bonus…or special remuneration for working on the Vanishings case with him?” Ransom finally asked the question burning inside.
“No…no more than normal.”
“Ahhh…I see.”
“See what?”
“I just mean that…ahhh…” Ransom did not want to tell her about Christian’s meeting with Kohler and Chapman, and if Fenger hadn’t offered to cut her in on the scheme, he certainly did not wish to spill it to her this way. “It’s going to take some time, perhaps a lot of time, away from your—from Tewes’s—practice, so a bit additional seems not out of line, you see.”
“Perhaps I’ll push him on it…next time.”
They arrived at Jane’s door, the sign still proclaiming it to be the clinic and residence of Dr. James Phineas Tewes. She climbed down, and he walked her to the door where, with a glance back at the bored cabbie who was digging out a pipe and feeding an apple to his horse, Alastair kissed her, mustache or no and said, “There…good afternoon and a pleasant good night, then, Doctor.”
“You really know how to charm a girl,” said Jane.
“Get some rest, and we’ll put our heads together on this case tomorrow.”
“Pray there’s not another abducted child by then.”
“Trust me, in some back rooms, Chicago oddsmakers are banking on it. And we both know the Vanishings won’t stop until we put the mad dog down.”
Another good-bye kiss, and Alastair returned to the cabbie, who’d given up on his pipe and had opted for chewing tobacco instead, remaining so intent on his tin that he remained completely oblivious to two kissing men on Tewes’s porch, unlike Gabby at the window.
“Horrible thing, Inspector,” said the cabbie when Alastair began to reboard.
Alastair did a double take, thinking that the man had witnessed him kissing Dr. Tewes after all, and Ransom’s face flushed as red as a Santa Claus advertisement. “Horrible?” he repeated the single word.
“This Vanishing business,” replied the cabbie, scratching his pockmarked face.
“Yes…yes it is horrendous indeed. Look here, you see a lot going about, hear a lot.”
“I do…and am sure this is worse even than the Phantom, I say. I mean this madman’s victims are mere lil’ knickers.”
Ransom pulled forth a five-dollar bill and held it up to the man.
“What’s this?”
“Beyond your charge, Joseph is it?”
“Yes, ’tis my name, but what’s the large tip for?”
“It’s no tip.”
“Then what be it?”
“You’ll have more if you bring me any information you hear on the street regarding these murders.”
“Ahhh…I see, and sure it’s a deal. Where are you off to now?”
“Moose Muldoon’s, just down the—”
“Aye, I know Muldoon’s, Inspector.”
“You’ve learned my habits. Watch the habits of others for me.” Ransom climbed in for the short ride to Muldoon’s, where he intended to drink until midnight to blot out the sight of Alice Cadin’s body so that he might find sleep somewhere in the labyrinth of a horrible struggle going on inside his mind.
CHAPTER 9
Ransom had not been inside Moose Muldoon’s since the night he had cracked its proprietor—Muldoon—in the head with his wolf’s-head cane. Through the grapevine that snaked about Chicago’s streets, Alastair had gotten word that Muldoon had forgiven him and all was square between them now that Alastair was a hero again, now that the Phantom had as mysteriously disappeared as he’d come on the scene. In fact, it was rumored that Muldoon had created an Inspector Ransom drink and had cordoned off a table now designated as the Inspector’s, at which no other man could sit unless invited by Alastair himself.
It was too much to ignore.
Ransom felt moved to learn how much was true and how much embellishment. Among the riffraff that hung about Muldoon’s, Ransom had spotted all levels of criminal and down-and-out, and he was grudgingly acknowledged as their best adversary. Where they called Muldoon the Moose, Ransom was the Bear to such fellows, and to this day they talked of the confrontation between Moose and Bear, their last exchange going to Ransom. Alastair knew the clientele wanted to see a return engagement, and he would not put it past the cursed bunch to have put out these lies just to entice him back into Muldoon’s lair.
All the same, he was drawn to it—moth to flame. The place was, after all,
a hotbed of information about what was afoot in the city. He rationalized a visit on these grounds alone. Besides, it was another diversion from taking a straight course into #13 Des Plaines to face off with Kohler.
As the cab stopped before Muldoon’s tavern, the sign swaying in a breeze coming in off the lake, he admitted, “I’d rather face Moose than Nathan right now.”
The idea of dispatching the Phantom to Lake Michigan without compunction was one fine notion and well accomplished, but this matter with the senator’s bargain that Fenger and Kohler had gone into and wanted him to administer, this was an entirely different matter. In the case of the Phantom, no money had changed hands; no one paid him to kill Waldo Denton. It was just a thing needing to be done, no less true than Jack Houston must kill that horse before skinning and dismembering the carcass, as a matter of survival for himself and his family. Chicago was Ransom’s only family, his job, all he knew. The Phantom had repeatedly harmed his family, and he’d threatened Ransom’s life. The same could be said of the monster or monsters behind the Vanishings, except for the idea of special payment. Had it come in the legitimate way of a bonus, a raise, he would not balk, but this secret, closed-door deal smacked of its own kind of evil and left a stench no less than the yards in his craw. Perhaps if the senator had come to him alone, and they had really secretly worked out a deal, then perhaps he’d be more inclined to take it. However, a conspiracy of this size, involving three other men, all of whom were far more prominent and less expendable than he, simply was not the way Alastair cared to operate.
He could not definitively say why, but a good deal had to do with climbing into bed with the man he most hated in the city—Chief Nathan Kohler. A man who had worked tirelessly to get dirt on Ransom in an effort to discredit him, to see him off the force, and now a man bowing and scraping to a senator. Even in the way Nathan’d handed the senator’s hat to him, dusting it off first, spoke volumes. Money motivated people in strange ways. Take the respectable Dr. Christian Fenger, he thought now. How he could climb into such a morass with Kohler was beyond Ransom’s comprehension. Fenger was the most ethical and moralistic man Alastair had ever known…and now this. It felt like a betrayal, a blow to the chest, despite Christian’s excuses of debt and desperation.
Shadows in the White City Page 13
