City of the Absent

by Robert W. Walker

  Pinkerton began jotting down words on a pad of paper. “She was. Had substance. But I’m a married man…with children.”

  “Say no more on it. More important to me are your impressions and feelings surrounding her case. Who did she have in her gun sight?”

  “Here’s a list of names you may wish to pursue.”

  Ransom accepted the handwritten note, a mere list that Pinkerton had quickly scribbled. “Good, at last…getting somewhere.”

  “The last I know, she’d been pursuing this strange little fellow Tewes and Insbruckton.”

  The list was long, extensive, and ridiculous. Half the names, Ransom knew to be honorable men, and one an honorable woman. Even Dr. Christian Fenger was on the list. When Ransom called Pinkerton on this, citing that Fenger had no lack of fresh cadavers to work with, Pinkerton snatched the list from him and scratched the name off, muttering, “Somewhat dated list. Dictated to me by Nell over the phone. Sorry.”

  “Dr. Raymond Ian Benson Sutherland? No way anyone connected with Northwestern University has a problem getting honest cadavers donated to that institution. Hell, the alumni are known for giving their last penny and their hides.”

  Again the name was marked off.

  “Anyone else?”

  Ransom called out six more, and all were scratched from the list without the slightest hesitation on Pinkerton’s part. Those remaining, aside from Tewes and a Dr. White Insbruckton of the Oaklawn-Holyhoke and Insbruckton Institute of Surgical Medicine, were:

  Dr. Morris Brashler, GP and Surgeon, private clinic

  Dr. Stanislaus Czerniuk, a Bohemian doctor, private clinic

  Dr. James Phineas Tewes, magnetic healing, Phrenologist, sometime surgeon, private clinic

  Dr. Albert J. Sikking, surgeon, Chicago Pediatric Hospital

  Dr. Kenneth Mason, surgeon & instructor, Glenhaven Medical School

  Dr. and Dean Nehemmia Conklin, Mason’s dean at Glenhaven

  “We can mark off Dean Nehemmia Conklin and Dr. Kenneth Mason now as well,” said Pinkerton.

  “Oh, how so? Isn’t Glenhaven a struggling upstart of a school out West?”

  “It is, but they’ve brokered a deal with Joliet for bodies.”

  “The prison?”

  “Yes, you don’t get bodies from City Hall.”

  “Are you intentionally making me laugh? Is this even legal? Are the prisoners involved willingly signing over their bodies?”

  The two experienced lawmen exchanged a knowing grin once Pinkerton fully realized what Ransom had hinted at, that convicts were easily coerced.

  Ransom added, “In the end, it’s the legislature that must decide this issue of consigning over prisoner remains to medical schools.”

  “All the same, a deal’s been struck, and our views are no matter. Don’t waste your time here. Mason and Conklin are no longer a concern.”

  Ransom relented, saying, “No longer in your collective eye, heh?”

  “Exactly,” and Pinkerton drew a line through these two names. “This leaves only a handful that Nell had her roving eye on.”

  “Until she was murdered.”

  “I’d urge you to look first at Insbruckton,” repeated Pinkerton. “Rather a queer fellow in my estimation, but then again…there’s something not quite square with this Tewes chap either.”

  “You don’t say. So Nell suspected a doctor named White Insbruckton and perhaps this mentalist and fraud Tewes?”

  “Tewes is on more than one of our lists here. We suspect him of a double life.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Like that fellow Holmes, we suspect Tewes is an alias of some sort.”

  “Have you any proof?”

  “Fellow’s cagey, but no. Not yet. Still, Tewes strikes me as being in a category with Holmes.”

  “That pharmacist who claims to be a doctor?”

  “We suspect that Holmes is an alias for Mudd, his real name, but so far we’ve not been able to conclusively connect the names.” Pinkerton sighed heavily at this. “I have a bad feeling about that man.”

  “Then why isn’t Holmes on this list?”

  “Every operative we’ve sent into that place, including one as a plumber, insists there are no operating tables or slabs on which to carve bodies up.”

  “Hmmm…I see, but there are such facilities at the other private clinics?”

  “Yes…yes there are.”

  “Hmmm…I’ve been in Tewes’s clinic and I saw nothing whatever in the way of an operating room.”

  “Basement, we suspect.”

  “Really. It would seem a dirty place to operate on a man.”

  “But not on a corpse.”

  “Hmmm…will have to be more vigilant there.”

  “No one was more vigilant than Nell. Be careful.”

  “And Insbruckton? Never heard of him.”

  “Do you know every surgeon in the city?”

  “I guess not.”

  “He operates a school southwest of downtown, on Ashland Avenue.”

  “Far out.”

  “He’s trying to compete with the majors and finding his chances dismal. Northwestern, Cook County, Fenger’s school—Rush College. The big medical schools outstrip any school that comes up against ’em; they attract the best students, and they have a far better money base and business sense.”

  “It doesn’t hurt County and Rush to have Fenger on staff,” added Ransom. “The man is legend.”

  “Understand he’s managed to keep you alive more than once.”

  “True…quite true.”

  “The deal he cut with the police department for cadavers, unclaimed victims, well, it was a stroke of genius.”

  “Some say every scalpel stroke he takes is genius.”

  “So I’ve heard. Fortunately, I’ve never required his services.”

  “So Nell had her eye on this fellow Insbruckton.”

  “Nell kept most of it in her head. She left scant few details.”

  “Then I’ll amass what I can on Insbruckton and hope we can do her memory justice.”

  “And what is justice for you, sir?”

  Ransom met the other man’s eyes, and he knew that if left to his own devices, William Pinkerton would take out his own brand of justice on Nell’s butcher.

  Pinkerton had taken a liking to Ransom after their talk, and so it being just past noon, he talked Alastair into having lunch with him in his office. “The counterman’s brought up enough for six hefty fellows,” he’d said. When Ransom declined and tried to pull away, Pinkerton insisted so strongly that he’d relented. Once lunch was finished, Ransom stood to go.

  “I wish you well, and of course, all of us at the agency want to see Nell’s killer caught, tried, and hung.”

  Alastair reached across Pinkerton’s desk and nameplate and briskly shook the famous detective’s hand, each man’s grip rivaling the other. Alastair had a great deal of respect for the Pinkerton dynasty. They had ended the careers of untold criminals of every stripe, from rapists and murderers to con men and embezzlers and bank and train robbers. They’d made life hell for such desperados as Jesse and Frank James, and Butch Cassidy and his Hole in the Wall gang, so much so that their reward on Jesse James’s head had gotten him killed, and Frank James had given himself up, while Butch Cassidy with Harry the “Sundance Kid” Longbaugh had left the continent for South America, where they’d reportedly been killed in a gun battle with Federales.

  “You think or you know that Nell followed Insbruckton that night?”

  “She claimed…that is, she felt that she was getting close, yes.”

  “I’ll pick up where she left off,” he again assured Pinkerton.

  “Careful, then. If Nell didn’t see that knife coming, no one could, Ransom. Not even you. Whoever Insbruckton is—as it could be an assumed name—and whoever he has working for him, that man is deadly and as fast as a viper.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “Of course, if we learn any more
in the meantime, I’ll keep you apprised.”

  Like you’ve done so far? wondered Alastair, still sensing that Pinkerton was holding back. Something in the eyes, the speech, the way he moved, told Alastair’s trained sense and experience that the man was hiding something. Strange, he thought, if he so loved the woman, then why was he holding back? And what was he holding back? Ransom instantly believed Nathan Kohler was somehow involved, along with large sums of money. All speculation, but speculation based on years of know-how when it came to interrogating suspects—not that this had been an interrogation or that Bill Pinkerton could be construed at the moment as a suspect in Nell’s death, but Ransom also knew that a chasm of guilt had come of this man’s passion. He himself had been there; he understood it completely.

  Did Pinkerton simply feel guilty in losing a valued partner in the business of the hunt, his operative, as he had lost his partner Griffin Drimmer sometime back? And if so, was it based on Pinkerton’s not backing her a hundred percent in her clandestine endeavor to uncover this man Insbruckton? Or was there more to Pinkerton’s guilt? As there had been more to Philo’s and his own guilt in the death of Chesley Mandor and Polly Pete at the hands of the Phantom last spring? Murdered in large part to cripple him, Ransom knew. Could there be a similar situation at heart in Nell’s murder? Had someone done her in to hurt William Pinkerton, knowing of his fondness for Nell? To bring the man in line? To terrify him and control him?

  Blackmail by murder?

  All these thoughts bulleted through Ransom’s head as he again shook Pinkerton’s hand and made for the door. He could not put such devilish acts past Chief Kohler; the man was without remorse, knew nothing of regret, and had no association with pity, yet his mother’s name must be Guile—a cunning, deceitful, treacherous man born of Guile, who had particular skill in plunging the tender hooks into a man—even a man of William Pinkerton’s stature, or perhaps because of his social rank and standing. That was Nathan Kohler. The man had perfected his cleverness to a magician’s trick, and Ransom had seen him, on occasion, take a dislike to an officer under his command and reduce the poor fellow to a quivering mass of nerves.

  While Pinkerton outwardly did not appear a quivering fish on a hook, the moment Ransom closed the private eye’s door, he decided that fat William had somehow become pinned butterfly fashion on Nathan’s wall. He had to know, what Kohler used for leverage against the detective.

  In the meantime, he’d go in search of a certain Dr. White Insbruckton.

  CHAPTER 23

  Before going to see Dr. White Insbruckton, Ransom paid a visit to Frederick Hake, Nell’s partner, who had stood out as absent in all this affair. It took Ransom all of two sentences to determine that Hake was no friend of Nell’s or the agency, as he’d been fired for not being at her back that night. Disgruntled and upset, all the man had to offer were a fistful of insults for all involved. “Curb your tongue and tone it down, sir, or I’ll have you run in for public indecency,” Ransom told him.

  “Public indecency? You? I’ve seen the file they have on you over at the agency! Ha! You arrest me for pub—”

  Ransom handcuffed the man to the steam pipe in his apartment. “I’ll leave you here to burn if you fail to answer me straight.”

  “All right…all right! What’s it you wanna know about Nell and Pinkerton and her little pet project?”

  “I know all about that! Damn you, man! What’s this about a file Pinkerton has on me?”

  “Pinkerton’s got a file on everyone. It’s no big secret.”

  “Why is he gunning for me?”

  “He’s got a payroll to make, and bringing down a dirty cop…well, let’s just say that City Hall and your superiors’d love to see it.”

  “Bastards. Are they tailing me routinely?”

  “You’re a hard man to tail.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was put on your scent like a bird dog for days.”

  “When?”

  “When they feared you’d find a way to murder that Phantom of the Fair guy. Frankly, I didn’t care for the duty.”

  “And before the Phantom case? Anything?”

  “No, they come to us after that lad you killed disappeared.”

  “What evidence do you have, Hake, that I killed anybody while on duty?”

  “None. We came up empty-bloody-handed.”

  “Off duty, then?”

  “Won’t ya now unchain me and turn off the damn heat?”

  The moment the man relaxed, he got a burn.

  “Off duty!”

  “None! Nothing, I tell you.”

  “Yet they’re running a dossier on me?”

  “Your boss—”

  “Kohler, yeah, I smelled the rat in this infestation.”

  “He won’t let up; he keeps coming back at Pinkerton, throwing more and more money at him. And you throw a little my way, and I’m your Pinkerton agent here out, Inspector.”

  “What good can you do me, Hake? A man who couldn’t back up his own partner?”

  “How’s this? I know the money Kohler is throwing at Pinkerton is coming from another source.”

  “Really?”

  “A sawbuck and I’ll give you my thoughts on it, but damn it, man, pull me loose from here!”

  “How do I trust a thing you say?”

  “Henry Bosch!”

  “What’s Bosch to do with it?”

  “He’ll vouch for me! He’ll recommend me. We’ve talked about it.”

  “Lying roach bastard.”

  “What?”

  “Bosch isn’t in the habit of sharing funds with anyone, and you being on my payroll would only cut into his habit money.”

  “Horses is how we hooked up! We’re thick as…that is, we’re going into business together. He’s got respect for a retired Pinkerton agent.”

  Ransom remained dubious. “I want to hear this money man’s name, and if it is who I suspect, then we have us a deal, Mr. Hake.”

  “Excellent, Inspector, excellent.”

  “Say it; speak the name.”

  Ransom meant to kick the man’s teeth in if it were the wrong name, say Tewes or the deputy mayor, both of whom he trusted, or something equally ridiculous such as Philo Keane or Dr. Christian Fenger.

  “The moneybags is Senator Chapman.”

  It was the name he expected. “We’re in business, Mr. Hake, and from here out, you are watching my back, but ever I should suspect you of pointing a gun to my back, you can count yourself among all those you’ve heard that I have sent to the deep.”

  It stood to reason, Senator Chapman and Chief Kohler, both of whom Ransom knew to be murderers in their own right. Ransom had seen the results of Chapman’s rage and vengeance in his stables out in Evanston, but he’d no way of proving it so long after the fact now, even though Jane had been with him at the time. However, it appeared that both Nathan and Chapman weren’t sleeping nights, worrying that one day Alastair Ransom and Jane Francis Tewes would find a way to indict them on murder in the Leather Apron affair.

  To this end the cold blooded pair had hired the “Eye that Never Sleeps” to watch over Ransom’s every move. Fortunately, that eye had been the bumbling stick of a man, Frederick Hake, the cut of his jib so common that he could, with his guile, fit into any street, alleyway, or wharf scene and never be seen. Perhaps, one day, Hake now on his side, dangerous as that might be, Ransom thought he might well find a good use for him. God knows Nell had none the night she was butchered. Hake, unlike Bosch in so many ways, expressed no sorrow or regret whatsoever over Nell, and Ransom guessed him the sort of man who could feel little and perhaps naught at all. Such a fellow could be called on in a pinch to do the dirtiest of jobs, but could he be trusted to keep his mouth shut?

  For now, Ransom told him, dig up all you can on a Dr. White Insbruckton and deliver it to me tonight at Moose Muldoon’s, last seat at the rear.

  “I know.” It was the creepiest I know Ransom had ever heard, realizing that this piece o
f human vomit had been at his back for some time now. “Told Nell we need to focus on you, not some fool notion about street vermin disappearing for cadavers.”

  “What’d she say to that?”

  “She fought tooth and nail with Pinkerton for his having taken on your case, but the money was good, very good.”

  “I can imagine.” And Alastair did imagine. He made a mental list of all those in Chicago who’d like to see Inspector A. Ransom dragged into a courtroom, pronounced guilty of heinous crimes of murder, and sentenced to die.

  Dr. W. Insbruckton proved a cagey fellow. He gave Ransom a full tour of his school and labs and operating theater. Something about the man gave Ransom an instant dislike, and while he could not put his finger on the cause of this extreme and immediate reaction to Dr. White Insbruckton, he felt it as strongly as a wall of exuding odors emanating from a public toilet that he had encountered at the Chicago World’s Fair one night. Except that the overwhelming odor of urine was replaced by formaldehyde and certain tinctures that, even with his experience, Ransom could not place.

  Insbruckton struck a calm and calculated pose. He’d instantly taken to Alastair, saying, “I am so pleased the distinguished local constable should visit us at Oaklawn Hospital, way out here. Always a comfort to know,” he added, “that an organized force of constables, such as yourself, sir, operate in the district, yes…yes, indeed. You must meet my assistant, Dr. Robert Weinberg, our orderlies, our students.”

  Bullshit, thought Ransom.

  “So good of you to take an interest in our struggling, young surgical school. Of course, we are extremely conscious of the need for law and order here, and sir, be assured if ever there is any way that Holyhoke Hospital of Oaklawn can repay your going out of your way for our benefit, rest assured, the rewards can be great.”

  “I see you’ve familiarized yourself with our ways, here in Chicago,” said Ransom, not missing a beat at the man’s clumsy suggestion of a bribe.

  “Adapt or die, as they say; adaptation is the name of the game, isn’t it, Constable?”

  “Inspector…Inspector Ransom.”

  “Of course, and you’ve come to ‘inspect’ us.”