Part 19 (1/2)
”Nope. Once the war ended they were on their own, and trains were the fastest form of travel.”
She thought about this, watching her step over the gravel. ”It must have been cold in the winter.”
”They looked for cars that had something in them to use as shelter-bales of hay or livestock, mailbags. They'd use anything they could find, sometimes make small fires if they got desperate enough. That's why the railroads worked so hard to rout them out, to keep them from damaging the cargo.”
The cars beside them now moved at a slow crawl.
”That's what they'd call an easy rider,” Corliss went on. ”A slow-moving train, easy to hop. They wouldn't get on and off here in the rail yards, of course, not within sight of the station. They'd wait a couple thousand feet up the line or even outside of town, at any curve or junction where the train would have to slow down.”
She stared at the cars, painted in different, muted colors, coated with the grime of the valley, scratches and scars and rust evident on every surface. When she glanced at Corliss he smiled at her, a hint of mischief around his lips. ”Want to try it?”
”No,” she said. Then, ”Yes.”
”What kind of shoes are you wearing?”
She lifted a battered Reebok.
”Those should give you decent footing. Just hang on to the rungs for a few yards and then jump off, okay? You have to land solid and away from the car. Getting off is a lot more dangerous than getting on-you have to fall away from the wheels, not toward them.”
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. ”Okay.”
The train blocked the river breeze, and she began to sweat. She was in the train yard, the Torso killer's old haunt, and the next victim would be a woman.
”This one.” Corliss pointed to a freight car rolling toward them, a green color with lettering too small to read at that distance. She shook off her mood and watched the train. Ten feet...five feet...she grabbed an upper rung with both hands and half pulled, half jumped up until her feet found a bottom rail, much higher off the ground than she would have expected. The wind tossed her curls into her face and her heart beat wildly, at least until she realized that the train was moving slowly enough for the older Edward Corliss to walk along beside it.
The distance between her and the gravel made her more nervous than the speed. Also, the rungs she used seemed an impossible distance from the sliding door. To swing from the rungs into an open boxcar, you'd have to be both agile and strong. And fearless.
”What do you think?” Corliss called to her.
The vibrations of the heavy cars no longer seemed to be such an a.s.sault on her senses, now that she had become part of the train. The air patted her face with fumes of oil and steel. ”This is kind of fun.”
”Ready to get off?”
She looked down. The ground seemed to be moving faster now that she had to land on it, and it sloped toward the median's center. She needed a more level spot.
”The people driving these things still don't like it when we do this, you know,” he said, prodding further.
She let go and jumped, focusing all of her mind on her two feet and the gravel beneath them, planting them hard and pulling in the arms that one naturally puts out to the side for balance except in cases where to the side rode a large steel machine with huge turning wheels that one should fall away from, not toward- Corliss grabbed her, two firms hands on her waist, and she grasped his sleeves and tottered in a completely ungraceful motion. ”That was cool.”
”There, now.” He kept his hands on her sides until she had steadied, then let go and guided her another few steps back from the train. ”You've ridden the rails.”
They walked, following the train's path toward the station. ”I imagine actually climbing in and out of cars would be a lot more difficult, especially at higher speeds.”
”Oh, yes. It could be quite dangerous-that was the fun of it, for kids. For the down-and-out it was merely an acceptable risk.”
”Thanks for the opportunity.”
”Any time you want to hop a boxcar, Ms. MacLean, just say the word.”
He led her to a small, recently painted building. ”This is the old West Third switch-house-now the headquarters of the American Railroad History Preservation Society.”
The inside had been recently painted as well, with the large, airy s.p.a.ce set up like a museum. Photographs and lithographs filled the wall s.p.a.ce between each set of windows; the pictures showed Cleveland-area railcars from the late 1800s to the present day, as specified by engraved plaques. Large metal pieces of the engines-a cylinder, a pressure gauge-had been restored and placed on pedestals dotting the floor. Theresa paused before a pen-and-ink drawing of a locomotive, marveling at the intricate detail.
Corliss stood beside her. ”That's my favorite. It's a Hudson J Cla.s.s, one of the finest engines ever built. They were developed in the twenties and most were built here in Lima, Ohio. The model city you saw at my house? I have all Hudsons in that array.”
A man emerged from the hallway to their left and Corliss added with a slightly raised voice, ”And here's the man who drew this picture, our resident artist, William Van Horn.”
Theresa offered her hand to the gaunt man with the s.h.a.ggy mustache. He shook it, the muscles of the hand firm beneath thin skin. ”It's beautiful.”
”Thank you. I feel it is one of my better works. Are you interested in becoming a member of our society?”
”Um, no, actually.”
”I'm sorry?” he asked.
”Ms. MacLean needs a crash course in all things trains,” Corliss explained, again raising his voice.
Van Horn beamed a thin smile in her direction. ”Then I would love to help. I have been the president of the Cleveland chapter for eleven years and will continue to be until my retirement, except in the very unlikely event of an upset in the coming election by the VP here.” He waved a dismissive hand in Edward Corliss's direction. ”You will not find anyone in the United States who knows more about railroad history than I do. How can I help you?”
Theresa smiled, the slow, sweet curve that her mother said made her look like the saint she'd been named for. Then she slipped her hand through her guide's tense arm and enunciated clearly: ”Thank you, but Edward is taking quite good care of me.”
The man switched his attention to Corliss, as if wondering how that could be, and Theresa left him to it as she and Corliss wandered toward the back rooms. Her companion seemed to step a little higher and ushered her into a book-filled room with a flourish.
The wooden floors did not give out a single creak. The lead-paned window let in the afternoon sunlight, its beams falling on a small table and three chairs. ”This is our reference collection,” Corliss explained. ”We should be able to find the answer to any question you have in here. What are your questions, by the way?”
”I'm still working on that. This case has-had-so many details that it's impossible to make them all fit one scenario. The killer did many things that made no sense.”
”Like what?”
”Like why did he dismember some corpses and only behead others? Why did he throw some in the river and leave others where they were sure to be found? Why kill both men and women?”
”That's unique?”
”Relatively unusual, yes. Though the Night Stalker in California was all over the board like that, too, with different genders, ages, socioeconomic statuses.” She paused in front of a large, framed map, with lines to ill.u.s.trate the track system for the northeastern United States. ”This is my biggest question, though. New Castle, Pennsylvania.”
Corliss joined her at the map. ”What about it?”
”Before, during, and after the Torso killings in Cleveland, bodies showed up in a swamp in New Castle, Pennsylvania. At least eleven were killed between 1923 and 1941.”
Her companion said nothing, and Theresa glanced at him. At times she forgot that not everyone could discuss violent death as casually as she had become accustomed to doing. But he seemed perplexed, not horrified, and asked: ”Are you allowed to tell me these things?”
She burst out laughing. ”It's a seventy-six-year-old case, one that's been extensively studied. I'm not saying anything-h.e.l.l, I don't know anything-that you couldn't find in a library book. It can't even really be considered an open investigation...more of an intellectual exercise.” He nodded, a bit reluctantly, and she went on. ”I surfed the Internet a bit this week and found that New Castle is a major railroad hub-then and now. Most of the Cleveland victims were a.s.sumed to be transients, hobos. Many were found near the tracks. Three of the New Castle dead were actually found in an unused boxcar. Another one had been left by the rails.”