Part 3 (2/2)

”Don't worry about that. Leo's smart enough to know that the camera will love your pretty face a lot better than his. He'll make sure you're locked in the cellar if any Hollywood princes call.”

”Me and the rats.”

”I'll rescue you,” he promised.

Theresa said good night to a smoking deskman on the loading dock and walked through the cool night air to her car. She had grabbed the last s.p.a.ce in the farthest corner of the lot, blocked from the streetlights by the building next door, tucked up against the small copse of trees between the M.E.'s and University Hospital's medical school.

She had always loved September, the month of her birth, the end of humid summer days, the start of a new school year, which a bookworm like her did not consider torture. Now she took a deep breath to clear the dust of 1935 from her sinuses. A different age. What would have been the effect of Cleveland's first serial killer on its citizenry and its police force? Surely neither group could fully comprehend what they'd come up against.

The populace simply felt beleaguered, under attack by a faceless monster who lurked in the shadows, a specter they could have written off as an urban myth useful for scaring their children into good behavior, were the tale printed in a storybook instead of the newspaper.

Theresa pulled a heavy sweater more tightly around her body. The police, she knew, had approached the crime as they would any other, searching for men who frequented the areas where the bodies turned up, men with criminal records and a doc.u.mented propensity for violence, men who were ”perverted”-a word defined much more broadly then than in the current day. The second victim, and one of the very few identified, Edward Andra.s.sy, had possibly been bis.e.xual, since rumors of h.o.m.os.e.xuality dogged him. Yet he had also been considered a ladies' man. This started police on a running hunt for perverts and others who lived outside society's norm. Much had changed in three-quarters of a century. If the events of the 1930s occurred today, with the experience of too many serial killers to comfortably count, police would hunt for a man with a minor criminal record or none at all, a man with a steady job, unsuspecting neighbors, and an ordinary appearance who remained quite firmly below the radar.

Different, but not easier. It had taken twenty years to catch the Green River Killer.

Theresa had parked under what turned out to be the only nonfunctioning light in the lot. A few more leaves scuttled by as she reached into her pocket for her keys. A door slammed behind her, most likely the deskman returning to work after his cigarette.

Of course police today might not meet with any more success than in the past. ”That description fit so many people.” She found herself talking aloud, a common exercise for those too often alone. ”Though forensic science-”

A sc.r.a.ping sound behind her, too big to be caused by a leaf, stopped her midsentence.

”h.e.l.lo, ma'am-”

She whirled, hand still in her pocket. The man had at least six inches and seventy pounds on her. He stepped closer, his face thrown into shadow by the light behind him. He wore dark pants and a dark jacket, and carried something in his hand.

Her hand came out of her pocket, clutching a small canister of pepper spray. ”Stop right there! Don't come any closer!”

He stopped and put his hands in the air, dropping whatever it was he held. It fell to the asphalt with a harmless splat. A notebook. ”Whoa, hold it. Don't spray, please. Look, Ms. MacLean-”

”How do you know my name?” She glanced across the lot behind him, hoping the deskman would reappear on the dock, and did not lower the spray.

”That's my job.” He turned slightly, so that the vague light showed her a shock of stylishly tousled brown hair and an angular nose, but his eyes were lost in the shadows of his face. ”I'm a stringer-a researcher for the Plain Dealer. My name is Brandon Jablonski. We heard about you finding another Torso killer victim over on Pullman and want to do an in-depth piece on it, the Torso Murders, the history, the effect on Cleveland. Can I ask you a few questions?” He lowered his hands, scooped up his notebook, and got out a pen in one smooth movement.

But he did not move closer, so she did not depress the tiny plunger. ”Where did you hear that?”

He gave her a grin, with straight teeth and a chiseled jaw, looking less and less like some psychotic stalker every minute. ”I have my sources.

What can you tell me about the victim?”

”Nothing,” she said, ”yet. What makes you think he's a victim of the Torso killer?”

The hands holding his pad and pencil flopped to his sides. ”Come on-decapitated on some kind of autopsy table?”

She wondered again where he got this information. The construction workers? Mr. Lansky? The patrol officers?

He went on: ”The Torso killer terrorized Cleveland for four years, more really. He was America's version of Jack the Ripper, unparalleled in savagery and never caught. He cut off heads, limbs, genitals. But he wasn't some kind of monster.”

”Could have fooled me.”

”I mean, he was a monster, but he wasn't insane. The entire city was keeping an eye out for this guy in a day when no one had televisions or iPods or the Internet-in other words, people actually paid attention to what occurred outside their own doors. People knew their neighbors. People, well, people read the friggin' paper. And he still moved around as if invisible.”

”I know,” she said. ”But I can't-”

”He took his victims, he did whatever he felt like to them, and then he dumped them in public areas. And he still wasn't caught. He was so unique, as serial killers go. I've read book after book on criminal profiling and still can't get a picture of this guy, who he was, what motivated him. Ms. MacLean-” He took a step toward her.

Her arm with the canister had begun to slump, but now it snapped to attention. ”Stay right there.”

”I only want to ask a few-”

”I can't answer them. All inquiries must be directed to Medical Examiner Elliott Stone. I'm sure you know the number. Call in the morning and make an appointment.”

Another step. ”But-”

”No buts. I'm getting into my car now. Do not come any closer.”

”We need to work together on this, Ms. MacLean. I know you must be as obsessed with it as I am-”

She slammed the driver's door shut and cranked the engine until it gave a whining sound. Brandon Jablonski made no attempt to stop her.

She pulled out, careful not to hit him and careful not to get close enough for him to strike one of the windows. In the rearview mirror she saw the man watching her, rooted to his original spot, a contradictory mora.s.s of dark colors and perky smile. Whatever else, he had a healthy respect for pepper spray. It made her wonder if he'd been on the receiving end of it before.

She also wondered if he would skip the helpful ”h.e.l.lo, ma'am” warning next time.

It didn't matter. She could not discuss James Miller's death or its possible connection to the Torso Murders. She might say too much, turn the cop's killing into a media event and reveal too much about herself in the process.

Because she was exactly as obsessed with the case as he was.

CHAPTER 6.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6.

PRESENT DAY.

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