City for Ransom ar-1

by Robert Harris Walker

  Gabby wondered how she might somehow maintain contact with Alastair. She wanted so to learn from him and from his connections all about police work and police science and police medicine, and to end her own lies with her mother about how her studies at NU were going so well.

  Mother can be such a fool, but Gabby saw in Alastair far more than all the stories that orbited around him. She saw so much vulnerability in him, so much hurt and pain and the years of service and misery and professionalism and results.

  He was so much more than the story of a killing before Haymarket, a killing that may or may not have precipitated the bomb that had killed his mates.

  Ransom fumed all the way home. He’d finally been cornered to sit for Tewes’s phrenology and magnetic therapy, had placed his misshapen, suffering head unknowingly in Jane Francis’s hands, to “take the cure” and not only had Dr.

  Tewes’s touch— her touch—cured his recurrent headaches and the localized pain Muldoon had put on him, but the session proved instructive. There might well be something to this magnetism stuff after all. Maybe.

  The session had been, he privately confessed, decidedly and strangely appealing and intriguing, and perhaps for Jane as well—for both partners in this unusual coupling of “detectives” searching amid chaos. In her way, she, too, searched for form and structure in a world devoid of shape 262

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  or sense. Alastair continued to feel a pull toward Jane Francis and their topsy-turvy, fascinating if bizarre relationship.

  Now that Ransom had learned the truth, a whole new dy-namic between them might naturally arise. So much made sense to him now. From the beginning there’d been a sexual tension, as when he’d become so outrageous in the train station, planting that head against Tewes’s— her clean white suit, even then there’d been a layer of conflict at work that he’d not fully understood—until now! The wonders of hindsight, and at the back of his head—a head that felt so much better, and a head yearning for her touch again, and filled with a sad truth: If ever she touches me again, and me knowing it’s her touch, how much more wonderful?

  Alastair must work to overcome anger both at the deception and an inability to’ve discovered it, when all along, it’d been staring him in the face—as all the clues had been there.

  “Open and shut case,” Ransom told himself now, arriving at home. “What in hell was I thinking?”

  This made the cabbie and his horse each look back at Ransom. “Begging your pardon, sir?” asked the cabbie.

  “Something amiss?”

  Ransom looked at the man for the first time, a noticeably striking pair of black eyes like olive-sized grapes without seeds. The man’s forehead was large as well, his hairy single brow a ledge over the eyes. The man looked like one of Lombroso’s supposed villainous types—a real Cro-Magnon.

  In the old days, and sometimes even now, under conditions of ignorance, police arrested men for their brutish looks, and the stains on their teeth and on their aprons—even if they were butchers—many for brutal rapes, murders, assassinations, and anarchy, like the man Ransom had once killed while hog-tied to a chair. Yes, the cabbie could easily be arrested for a multiple murderer with a garrote and a can of kerosene on his ugly looks alone, and when his picture was splashed across every neighborhood paper in every conceivable language across the city, everyone could sleep better, knowing the Chicago PD had their man under lock and key.

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  Yes, a man like this fellow would do fine for the Phantom of the Fair; he’d be so easily inked-in by Thom Carmichael’s sketch artist. The cabbie even had the attire of a gent, decked in high boots, black cape, and top hat. But then his horse was an ugly creature, too, so maybe the horse would do just as well for the killer. But then, should a horse be arrested for looking suspicious? Should a man?

  How anyone could use facial features as an indicator, or the size of a man, or the fact he made a living with an axe or a blade, was beyond Ransom.

  “Was it something else you wanted, sir?” again asked the cabbie. “I can hold here for you, if it’s your wish, Captain.”

  “No . . . no, nothing more, my friend. Feed your horse well.” He tipped the man an additional two bits.

  Ransom opened the door on his flat on Des Plaines Street to the tune of the horse’s hooves against cobblestones. He liked his private life, liked the place here, what he had surrounded himself with, his collection of books, paintings, his gramophone on which he played operatic symphonies. He liked being surrounded by his collection of guns and rifles, most hanging on walls or lying under glass. His furnishings had been his father’s, mostly heavy oak and leather. His place was warm and brown, and his shelves had daguerreotypes of his mother and father. The neighborhood was pleasant, tree-lined, green, and well kept. He liked the people in the area, mostly Germans—“Dunkers”—who kept pretty much to themselves, were industrious, opened businesses like food kiosks and beer gardens, and Ransom liked their music and the colorful steins they served their beer in, not to mention the great wienersnitzel prepared at the Frauhouse or Mirabella’s.

  All close to the Des Plaines police station where he worked.

  Once inside, Ransom found his soap and indoor shower.

  Not everyone enjoyed such luxuries, certainly not in Chicago, but Ransom had long ago had the shower installed and more recently the indoor toilet, a Thomas Crapper invention.

  A shower and a shave and what was nowadays being called a crap all in the privacy of one’s own home.

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  In the shower, Ransom soaked up and rinsed down, and he thought of nothing but Jane Francis, and he wondered why life is as it is, follows a straight path to disappointment and misadventure. Why’d she feel compelled to lie all this time, passing herself off as Tewes? Why’d she get herself into such a quandary with Nathan—to lie for him. Why he hadn’t met Jane far sooner, to’ve been there when she needed him most? He struggled against a knee-jerk reaction of anger toward her; all anger reserved now for the real fool here—himself! “And that little creep Bosch . . . right all along,” he said to the shower stall.

  He toweled off and looked at the clock. Eleven-twenty already and he’d not reported in, but who was watching? He often worked the street, checked with snitches, talked to the neighborhood vendors, merchants, tavern owners to learn what was up, and who was doing what to whom, and how often and where and when, and in the end why. So no one would think it strange that he’d not checked in, and if anyone needed him, they could ring the bell or make a call now, as he’d had a phone installed.

  He found clean clothes, a nice suit not slept in. A glance at his pocket watch on the end of its fob told him it was half past noon, and his stomach concurred. He wandered out and down the street to Mirabella’s, a German restaurant with outside tables and chairs. Along the way, he’d picked up a copy of the latest Chicago Tribune, seeing that its headline screamed news of the double murder at the lagoon alongside a photo depicting the flaming boat at the tunnel entrance.

  Some Johnny-on-the-spot reporter had caught the sight moments before police doused the flames. No doubt whoever the photographer was, he’d collected a fine reward for the startling shot. But nowhere in the frame could a killer be found.

  Once seated with a beer in hand, Thom Carmichael stood over him and declared, “Tribune’s behind the Herald! Take a look at a real scoop!” He dropped his paper onto Ransom’s table, the headline screaming: arrest made in world’s CITY FOR RANSOM

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  fair phantom case. A logline below this read: “Chief Nathan Kohler nabs suspected multiple murderer.” This made Ransom sit up and almost spill his beer. “An arrest made? By Kohler?” People at other tables overheard. The more curious waited to hear more.

  “Appears Kohler’s scored big. For the sake of the city and future victims, I pray it is a good arrest, but I have me doubts, Alastair.”

  But Alastair only half heard
as his rage erupted on reading the name of the accused: Philo Keane.

  Cursing Kohler, Ransom stood, swilled the last of his beer, tossed down a coin, and rushed for the station house, shouting back, “Where’re they holding Philo? Bloody fools!

  And why didn’t you get this news to me sooner?”

  “Your own house, of course! Des Plaines lockup—the Bridewell. The story’s selling newspapers!”

  When he got to the station house, she was there—Dr. Jane Francis, but dressed as Tewes. “Whatever are you doing here like this? I thought once your ruse was up, that you’d’ve the decency to—”

  “I came to plead your case with Kohler, but Kohler is out for your head, you fool, and you go about as if he were manageable. And meanwhile, people around the two of you get hurt.”

  “Hurt. You speak to me of hurt?”

  Police around them began to look askance. What must the lads be making of this, he wondered. “Don’t dare put yourself between Nathan and me,” he said, leading her down a set of steps to a basement area that housed cold case files. “It can only get you trouble beyond your imaginings.” “Alastair, you’ve not said a word about when we were children together.”

  “Children . . . you and me?”

  “For a brief time, we shared the same teacher, Mrs.

  Ornery, my father called her.”

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  “Mrs. Onar?” he asked.

  “Then you do recall the mad Mrs. Onar?”

  “She kept a whiskey bottle in her bottom left drawer. Yes, I recall her.”

  “Good, then you must recall little Jane? Little Jane Francis? Me!”

  “I remember the dour old teacher, but you. Francis . . .

  Jane Francis, I . . . I’m sorry.”

  “I was pulled from the school, put in St. Albans, as Father could not abide Mrs. Onar and her rules and her lack of imagination and human compassion.”

  “The milk of kindness she never knew.”

  “My father was Dr. William Francis. You must remember him?”

  “Not a whole lot about those years I’ve chosen to remember.”

  “I never forgot you. You were instantly kind to me. You rescued me.”

  “Rescued?”

  “There was a bully named Evan . . . Evan Kingsbury.”

  “Sorry . . . don’t recall him either.”

  There lingered an awkward moment of silence during which their eyes met. He quickly broke off eye contact and said, “So explain to me now why . . . why all this charade, this living a lie?”

  “Economic need mostly. People won’t go to a female doctor, unless, I suppose there is no other. I had thought to go westward—”

  “California?”

  “But there’s little hope of good medical schools out west for Gabby, so . . . so . . .”

  “So you concocted an even crazier notion?”

  “It would’ve served me well but for Nathan.”

  “But how did he find you out when—”

  “When you found it impossible?”

  “Hold on. I was onto you . . . after a while.”

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  “Yes, after I confessed.” She began to laugh.

  He looked piqued at her laughter, then angry eyed, then he was fighting back his own laugh until he could contain it no more.

  People heard their laughter rising up the stairwell, bouncing off stone walls.

  When settled, he slapped open the Herald’s headline.

  “Have you seen this? Damn fools’ve arrested Philo Keane for the murders?”

  “Keane? No! Isn’t he the fellow with the enormous tripod at the train station?” She scanned the news account. “Says here he knew two of the victims intimately. Chesley Mandor and Polly Pete.”

  “No, Philo paid them for posing.”

  “Intimates, he took more than their picture according to—”

  “Bloody Carmichael will write anything if he thinks it’d sell a paper. I first met Merielle from one of Philo’s photos, and it was Philo who set me on a path of having her.”

  “She had a very different version of events. Alastair, she felt as indentured to you as she did to Jervis. She had a problem with men.”

  “But I tell you, Philo would never harm a woman.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Nathan Kohler is trying to bait me and using people I care about to do it, and he’s doing a fine job of it. He used you, now Philo. Who’s next? Who is safe? Only those who distance themselves from me as Griffin has done.” “Drimmer?”

  “According to the paper, Drimmer assisted Kohler in the arrest.”

  While further scanning the newspaper, she said, “They must’ve had some provocation, some proof to move on the man . . . I mean police act only if they have something to go on. I mean to raid his home and arrest him.” “I know of many a case where men’ve been sent off to prison on flimsy evidence, foolish assumptions, prejudices, 268

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  wrong conclusions, nonsense beaten out of a suspect when all else fails. I also know of cases in which a man was put to death on eyewitness accounts that later proved false.”

  “If you believe in Mr. Keane’s innocence, then you must fight for him.”

  “Have to see what they have concluded. Why they targeted Philo.”

  “He’ll need a lawyer.”

  “A good Chicago lawyer, one who knows every loophole.”

  “I know just the man. Malachi Quintin McCumbler.”

  “Then hire him on Philo’s behalf, and I’ll go find where they’ve got Philo. I fear incarceration alone will kill him. He is an artist, after all.”

  “I quite understand. Go to him. Tell him others believe in him and are working on his behalf.”

  She started up the stairwell, but he grabbed her hand and held on. “Why are you doing this? You hardly know Philo.”

  “But I know you.” She skipped up the stairs, so obviously feminine now to his eye that everyone in the building must know of her ruse. And by extension all of Chicago.

  “How could I’ve been so confounded blind?” Maybe I’m losing my edge . . . maybe it’s time to find a pasture, Rance.

  As if to answer himself, Alastair added, “You mean like the one in Nathan’s dreams? So not right. . . .”

  CHAPTER 23

  Dr. Tewes’s daughter’s infatuation with the burgeoning police sciences—from fingerprinting to use of first communications between U.S. cities like New York and Chicago—had not set well with Jane. Not anymore than when Gabrielle confessed a desire to go into a program at Rush Medical under Dr. Christian Fenger to become a pathologist and eventually a coroner rather than a general practitioner or surgeon.

  Much to her mother’s chagrin, Inspector Ransom had taken it upon himself to instruct Gabby in such matters. Her mother’s response only meant a new reason to distance herself from Inspector Ransom. Jane had tried to dissuade her daughter from such prurient interests as she exhibited for pathological medicine, and she’d started out this morning on a major plan to nip it in the bud.

  “Why would you trade a medical practice that dealt with health and life for one dealing entirely with cadavers?” she pleaded with Gabby.

  “Cadavers don’t talk back?” she quipped.

  “Give it up, this notion! Along with the insufferable suffragettes.”

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  neither. Her mother followed her into her room. “You’ll finish your studies at NU, young lady.”

  “No! I’ll either work with Dr. Fenger or I’ll quit medicine altogether!”

  “And do what?”

  “Help the cause of women’s suffrage!”

  This only heightened the tension. Mother and daughter glared at one another—Jane having just left Alastair, and having again dressed as Tewes. Gabby, losing all patience, shouted, “I do not intend going through life as a man! And what
good’ve you done, Mother, for women in medicine or—” “What are you saying?”

  “—or for women’s suffrage in living a lie like this?”

  Her voice shaking, hurt, Jane said, “If you’re going to throw away your chance at NU . . . and you believe you would prefer working under Dr. Fenger’s tutelage, then I—

  I’ll not stand in your way. But—”

  “Naturally, there’s a but—”

  “But this is the deal: You do not parade about this city in a show of bras, breasts, bloomers, and buttocks in public. Is that understood?”

  Gabby frowned. “Really, Mother, you understand so little of public opinion, and you’ve fallen for the popular view against us.”

  “Do we have a deal?”

  “But, Mother, you make it sound as if we’ll be stoned as prostitutes in biblical times.”

  “Do we have a deal?”

  “Iiii-yyyeah, I guess . . .”

  “Then I guess I’d best get out and drum up some work for Dr. Tewes.”

  “But I thought . . . I mean, with a police inspector knowing, and Chief Kohler knowing . . . that you’d be arrested if you went back to impersonating a male doctor.”

  “I’ve checked. There is no law on the books to stop me, as I am not impersonating a doctor, as I am a doctor, and I have a lawyer now who tells me that in fact, a legal suit against CITY FOR RANSOM

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  me could bring publicity, and publicity could be made to work for me. So for now, Dr. Tewes is a fixture, my corporate figurehead if you will, and that makes it all quite legal.”

  “But why?”

  “Foolish child, how else can I afford the famous Dr.

  Fenger and Rush Medical School?”

  That is how they’d ended it. Now Gabby crept out while Dr.

  Tewes was on errand. Gabby’d made a beeline for the suffrage meeting. The group intended a march straight through the fairway at the Columbian Exposition. Their leader had made a stirring speech a few days before, printed in two papers daring to support a woman’s right to the vote—one in Ukrainian, one in Polish. The speech spoke of the irony of Chicago’s hosting a world’s fair when women in Chicago, and all across America, were denied equality and equal voting rights. “And how barbaric it all is,” Gabby confided to a sympathetic cabbie who’d gotten her to the meeting on time.