Part 5 (1/2)
”The chief also figured that since it's the coldest case Cleveland PD's ever worked, the killer has to be as dead as his victim, so publicity won't cause a problem at a trial.”
”I don't know. Some people can be pretty hardy.”
Every time Theresa glanced at the rearview mirror she met Brandon Jablonski's warm brown eyes, as if they shared some secret joke-probably how he thought of scaring the c.r.a.p out of her in the parking lot last night. Now he said, ”What would you do if you find the guy and he's ninety-six years old?”
”Arrest him,” Frank said.
”Really,” the man said thoughtfully.
”Yep.”
Theresa stole another look at Brandon Jablonski. ”PR,” she said.
”Sometimes I swear your chief and Leo must be twins. They never miss a trick.”
”They could be, since that's why you're here as well as Mr. Jablonski.”
”What?”
They continued through Lakewood, crossed the Rocky River, and took a right. ”The chief likes the cousins angle.”
Jablonski added, ”The combination of police work and forensic science, represented by two members of the same family, tackling Cleveland's toughest case. You can't make up stuff better than that.”
Frank made that face again. ”He thinks it's cute.”
”Well, we are sort of cute,” she admitted.
”Especially you.” Jablonski grinned. ”What was that you said about your grandfather?”
Theresa hesitated. Speaking of her family out of pride was one thing, speaking of it for possible publication quite another. But she had opened the door, so she said, ”Our grandfather and great-grandfather were cops.”
”Really,” Jablonski said. ”Did they teach you about the Torso Murders?”
”Not really. They occurred before Grandpa Joe's time, and our great-grandfather was a juvenile probation officer, more of a social worker. He met Eliot Ness, though.”
”Yeah?” The researcher leaned forward, resting his elbows on the back of the front seat like a restless teenager. ”The great man himself?”
”Yeah, when Ness founded the Cleveland Boys' Town. Great-grandpa didn't care for him, though. Too dapper.”
Jablonski frowned. ”Dapper?”
”Something of a ladies' man.”
”Oh.” She could feel his breath on her neck. ”Am I dapper?”
”I wouldn't have any idea. And shouldn't you be wearing a seat belt?”
He sat back, lips curved. ”Still, that's intriguing. Can the current generation solve the crime that stumped their forefathers?”
Frank went on as if neither she nor Jablonski had spoken. ”Also, you see bodies cut open every day. We need to figure out who installed a dismemberment chamber in that building, and you'll probably know what to look for more than I will. Like that drain hole.”
Jablonski promptly returned his face to the back of the front seat. ”You think that was how he got rid of the blood? They always theorized that the Torso killer had to have medical or surgical-or even pathology-training, since he decapitated his victims so neatly.”
Theresa didn't ask how he knew the details of the table in the building, only said, ”Yeah, but I don't buy that. One summer-I call it the Summer of the Stabbings-”
Her cousin gave a small groan. ”Not this story again.”
”One each, in June, July, and August, I had a guy come in dead of a single stab wound. Big guys, healthy guys. All three hit in the upper left shoulder, because when a killer is right-handed and faces their victim for their Norman Bates moment, they stab the left shoulder. The knife went down behind the rib cage and nicked the heart. All three died before help could arrive, even though at least one had another person present who promptly called 911. All three had been stabbed by their girlfriends or ex-girlfriends.”
Frank tried to cut in. ”Now-”
She didn't let him. ”Now, these girls weren't med students, and they certainly weren't doctors.”
”Still,” Jablonski said, his attention pinging back and forth between them, ”it can't be easy to cut someone's head off. So how do you learn to do it without nicking a bone if you're not a doctor or a surgeon, or a butcher?”
”Same way you learn anything else. Practice. And,” she added, ”he practiced a lot.”
”We're here,” Frank said.
Edward Corliss lived in the smallest house on a very expensive street, with nothing on the other side of the structure but Lake Erie. The home had stained gla.s.s in the front door, marble steps, and a modest but expensive dark sedan in the drive, but Theresa considered its prettiest a.s.set to be the sweeping maple tree in the center of the yard, its leaves ablaze in red, yellow, and orange. The private coc.o.o.n of fall foliage nearly hid the neighboring drives, but she could just glimpse a man in a white lab coat stepping into a Mercedes.
She stepped out of the car and sucked in the smell of autumn.
Frank walked beside her and Jablonski took up the rear, following too closely for comfort. She sidled over a bit, uncomfortable with a man both flirtatious and too young for her. She had not encountered one before this. Most men flirting with her these days were in the midst of retirement planning.
Their peal went unanswered. Frank, never one for patience, suggested they look around back.
”It might take him a while to get to the door,” Theresa pointed out. How old is he?”
Already walking away, Frank said, ”Sixty-one. And he sounded hearty enough on the phone.”
Theresa followed her cousin and Jablonski followed her. ”Tell me about your grandfather. He was a cop?”
”Forty years,” she replied. Ivy covered the wall on her left and shrubs lined up to her right. She brushed her hand along their piney branches as they filed to the back. There, the blue expanse of water with the sun reflecting from each wave both greeted and blinded them.
A single dock jutted from the sh.o.r.e, with a small sailboat tied up at its end. Frank had been right; a man made his surefooted way along the bow as he wrapped the sail-though Theresa doubted this could be Edward Corliss. Perhaps he had a son.
When Frank reached the dock and kept going, Theresa followed eagerly. Like any Clevelander, she never needed an excuse to go near the water and breathe in that familiar scent of gasoline and dead fish that meant family vacations on Catawba Island and that feeling of peace a body of water always conferred.
The man on the boat heard them and turned. Wearing a plain burgundy sweats.h.i.+rt and jeans, he had blue eyes and silvered hair and appeared delighted to see them. ”h.e.l.lo! You must be the detectives.”
He leapt to the dock, causing only a minor tremor in the wood, and Frank completed the introductions. Edward Corliss shook hands with each of them, pressing Theresa's gently in his firm fingers. He had an easy smile and the trimness of one who had long ago embraced whole wheat tortillas.
”I'm sorry if you waited at the front-I didn't expect you to get here so quickly.”
”Are you getting it ready for winter?” Frank asked, nodding at the sailboat.