Part 22 (2/2)
”I know,” James said. ”We had a tour through your lab once.”
”Hey,” Walter called.
James thanked the cop, left him to his tray of dirt, and returned to his partner's side.
Their superior did not look pleased to see them, but he hadn't looked pleased before he saw them, either. James could swear that the man's bald spot expanded and contracted in response to stress. Right now it seemed to be pus.h.i.+ng the fringe of brown hair out until it crowded his ears and forehead like a flapper's bandeau. ”What are you doing here?” the captain asked as he flipped through the small journal.
”Came to help,” Walter said.
”Well, ain't you the Boy Scouts.”
”What did they find on the body?” James asked.
”That her diary?” Walter asked.
”No, it's her money-she made three payments to a doctor named Manzella-and wages, at least the legal ones. This hag worked as a barmaid and waitress in about six different restaurants and juice joints. I'm going to need you to hit every one and question the owner, the busboy, delivery clerks, each and every customer. Got it?”
”Right, Cap.”
”What was found on the body?” James asked again.
The captain gave him a considering look, the kind that usually preceded the comment that perhaps James would be happier in another precinct, but he said only, ”Newspapers-yesterday's News and the Plain Dealer from a day last August. Dog hairs. Fur, I mean, but then that's who made the initial report, so to speak. Found by a dog. h.e.l.l of an epitaph. Besides that there was coal dust and cinders, like maybe she'd been laying on lump coal at some point and it left dents in the skin.”
”A coal car,” James said promptly. ”He killed her down by the tracks, like the other two, and carted her back up here in pieces. He hid the pieces in a coal car until he could go back for them. The coal would absorb the blood and the stains wouldn't show against the black lumps.”
”Great, Miller. By the way, what's your house heated with?”
James's flow of words. .h.i.t a bottleneck. ”Coal.”
”And it's kept where?”
”In the coal cellar.”
”Great place to hide a body, wouldn't it be?”
”Yeah. But, Cap-”
”And the other guys weren't killed by the tracks, were they? Just dumped.”
”We think that because there weren't any pools of blood by the rails. But that could explain what happened to it-he killed them in the coal car, which then rode out of town.”
”Except he didn't only get rid of their blood, he washed it off the bodies as well. And we didn't find any coal or cinders on those two dead guys. Aside from the heads coming off, I see more things different than the same here. The first time, the guy obviously had a s.e.x problem with men, he only took the head off and didn't cover or wrap the bodies in anything. No newspaper, no coal. This time the doc says the cuts were neat-like a doctor or a butcher-but he wrenched the bones apart like he was in some kind of fit.”
Walter made a face and clutched his stomach. ”Don't think about upchucking here, McKenna,” the captain warned him. ”It's got to be some kind of crazy doctor. Who else would know how to do something like that neatly?”
”Someone who's practiced it,” James said, thinking aloud. ”Helen's squeamish about most everything, but she can debone a chicken in minutes with a few quick slices.”
”You think your wife's killing people, Miller?” the captain asked without a smile.
”She grew up on a farm and got good at certain things. Maybe this guy did, too.”
”Nah,” Walter said. ”A chicken's a lot different than a person, and a doctor would have the equipment, the workroom, a car to dump the bodies-”
”Maybe,” the captain said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. ”But this lady wasn't no society Jane, if you catch my drift. She couldn't have afforded no doctor with a car. No, I'm guessing this b.i.t.c.h got on the wrong side of a boyfriend who'll have a line of arrests going back to when he wore short pants. How he learned to cut up bodies, we can ask him when we arrest him. So get out there and find out who she's been making whoopee with. You two ever find the source of that blue coat from the two guys on the hill?”
”Yeah-” James began.
”Bailey's department store had three of them,” Walter cut in, his technique smooth from practice. ”Sold one, and the guy still has it. The other two didn't sell and some do-gooder in the bargain bas.e.m.e.nt donated them to St. Peter's soup kitchen.”
”Not bad. After you report everything there is to learn about Flo Polillo's waitressing career, get to that church and find out where those two other coats went. And, Miller-”
James had half turned and now stepped back. ”Yeah?”
”When you're done with that, you can check out the rail yards. But do the restaurants first.”
Walter brightened more than he had when told to visit the wh.o.r.ehouses. ”Restaurants?”
James sighed.
CHAPTER 30.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.
PRESENT DAY.
The temperature had begun to dip in the mornings, creating a fog that hung over the old steel mill and the river and Kingsbury Run like an unreliable s.h.i.+eld, s.h.i.+fting and dissipating and then, unexpectedly, revealing. Now it lay wet and chilled against the back of Theresa's neck as she gazed out over the weeds poking up between the railroad ties. On her last visit, there had been two dead bodies on this hillside with her. If there were more today, the fog hid them.
Behind her sat the hollowed-out building at 4950 Pullman. On her left, the ravine stretched another mile and a half to the west to end at the Cuyahoga River. To her right, the East Fifty-fifth bridge spanned the gorge, concrete legs picking their way among the train and RTA tracks. Almost nothing had changed in this valley for seventy-five years, except the graffiti.
This place had never given up a clue to the Mad Butcher's ident.i.ty and wouldn't now.
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