Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness (10 page)

"Waiting for you."

"You should be in bed. What if I hadn't been able to come home tonight?"

She blew smoke coolly through pursed lips. "Then what difference would it make?"

He crouched down before her and laid his hands gently on her knees. "Honey, what's wrong? What's bothering you?"

"You know what's bothering me." She wasn't even wearing night-clothes. She was wearing the same dress she'd had on the last time he'd seen her. Which, now that he thought about it, had been several days ago. Had she been wearing it continuously? Or had it cycled back around? "This is Chicago all over again."

"That's not fair."

"It's the truth."

"And to tell you the truth, I'm getting a little tired of having people throw Chicago in my face."

"The truth can be painful."

"We did good work in Chicago. We put away Capone. And over a hundred other mobsters."

"At what cost?" Her words had an edge so sharp Ness felt it cutting through his flesh, straight to his heart.

"Honey," he said quietly, "it won't be like this forever. I just started a new job. Of course it takes a while to get everything into place. But all this work will calm down in time and-"

"And you'll start making your raids during business hours?"

"Well... no."

"Do you ever think of me, when you're off at work, doing brilliant important things, saving the world from evildoers?"

He tried to reach for her free hand, but she snatched it away before he could. "Of course I do, sweetheart. I bought you this house."

"I hate it."

"This is a very desirable neighborhood."

"I'm isolated. The buses don't come here. It takes forever to get to the city."

"You have neighbors."

"Not many. And they're all much older than I am."

"It wouldn't hurt you to get to know some of the people who have homes out here. Some of them are very influential-"

"That's your game, Eliot," she said, with as much disdain as she could muster. "Not mine."

Ness sighed. "I bought you furniture. Best we could afford. Clothes."

"I don't care about clothes. You're the clotheshorse."

"Well then, what do you want?"

"Are you entirely deaf, dumb, and blind?" She ground her cigarette bitterly into an ashtray. "I want a husband."

"You have a husband."

"No, I don't!" she screamed, so loudly Ness wondered if any of their few neighbors could hear.

"I took you out to dinner just... a few weeks ago."

"I can't believe you have the gall to even mention that. What a humiliation that was."

"I enjoyed it."

"Of course you did. You ate, enjoyed my company for a few seconds, then ran off to play Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy."

"You're not-"

"Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me? Left alone-dumped-while my dinner date runs off to play cops and robbers?"

"It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up."

"That's the truest thing you've said all night. You can't stop yourself. You're just like the drunkards and gamblers and drug addicts you put away. You have a constant craving for adventure you have to satisfy. Except it's never satisfied, never for long."

"Edna..."

"Another man might be interested in finding a little adventure at home with his wife. In the bedroom."

"Edna!"

"But not you. Never you. At least-not with me."

Ness held his head in his hands. How had he let this happen? How was it possible to be so successful in the world-and such a disaster at home?

It occurred to him that the best course might be to simply put her in bed. But he hated for them to go to sleep mad, especially when they saw so little of each other during the day. He had never been a quitter. He tried again.

"I realize I can't be with you as often as I should. I have to show Cleveland I can do this job. But I will commit to spending as much time with you as is humanly possible. And I will promise you that as soon as I have shown Cleveland that I
can
do this job, everything will change. I will delegate the midnight raids to others. And anything else that's delegable. I will become a regular working stiff, keeping regular hours, home every night by six just as you're putting dinner on the table."

"I've heard this so many times..."

"I mean it."

"I know you do." For a moment, even in the darkness, he saw the faintest traces of a smile play on her lips. "That's what's so sad about you, Eliot. So tragic. You do mean well. But you'll forget everything you've said tonight the first time you get a tip about some third-rate moonshiner. A mere woman can never compete with tomorrow's headlines."

Ness tried to think of something he could say, something that would save the night, save them. But nothing came. For all his education, it was amazing how quickly words deserted him when he needed them most.

"The mayor has invited us to dinner," he offered feebly.

"I don't want to go."

"Did you hear what I said? The mayor!"

"No."

"You said you wanted us to spend more time together."

"That won't be us spending time together. That will be you social climbing, trying to impress the mayor and the mayor's wife. I'm not interested."

Ness pushed himself to his feet. He felt wrung out, exhausted, much too tired to think clearly. He started toward the bedroom.

"Will I be reading about you in the papers tomorrow?"

Ness stopped. "I sincerely hope not."

"That's not the Eliot Ness I know."

"The raid tonight-didn't go so well."

"Eliot." For the first time all night, her voice softened a bit. "No one wins every time. Not even the great Eliot Ness."

"No," he replied quietly. "I suppose not." As he shuffled into the bedroom, he added, just under his breath: "But I can sure as heck try."

Using a pencil to avoid leaving fingerprints or other trace evidence, Merylo carefully unwrapped the last of the newspaper-wrapped bundles they had found in the two half-bushel baskets behind the White Front Meat Market at 2002 Central. They had expected to find meat in them. They had been right.

And terribly terribly wrong.

"You ever seen anything like this before?" Lieutenant Zalewski said in a hushed voice. His face was an ashen white.

"No," Merylo had to admit, "I have not. Not in fifteen years. This is... bizarre."

"You ever hear of the mob doing anything like this?"

"No." Merylo bristled slightly. "But that doesn't mean they didn't. Those boys can be downright inventive sometimes."

Zalewski stretched, glad to pull away from those revolting baskets. "Uniforms find the rest yet?"

"No. Nothing. Not even-"

Merylo didn't want to finish, and he didn't need to finish. They both knew what they were thinking.

No one had found the head.

Once the papers were unwrapped, it became all too clear that they contained the severed pieces of a human body. Tidily wrapped and stored in those two baskets, they found the lower half of a female torso, both thighs, and a right arm.

"Have them fan out," Merylo said. "Widen the search. Get as many men on it as possible."

Zalewski dutifully passed along the commands while Merylo tried to make some sense out of what they had discovered.

Was it the same killer? He wasn't sure what was worse-to imagine that the previous killer had descended to this level, or to imagine that there might be more than one hood capable of doing something like this.

He wondered what this would do to the Cleveland News theory that the first two victims had been the product of a sordid love triangle. They had no evidence in support but lots of glamour, and thus it captured the largest share of the public's imagination. He didn't see how this third victim, a female, fit in. If she was the third side of the triangle, who was doing the killing? A third lover? A morally indignant neighbor? It just didn't make any sense.

Zalewski returned to his side. "I got them on it, sir. There are actually some men volunteering to help. Even as disturbing as it is."

"They're scared," Merylo said quietly. "They want this killer caught. Before he gets to their neighborhood. Their families."

"Anything else I can do?"

"Call Pearce and get him down here as soon as possible. Wrap up that arm and get it to the Bertillon boys."

"But Pearce can be awfully-"

"Zalewski, do you have any idea how important the first forty-eight hours can be? That's when most crimes are solved-if they are solved. After that the trail goes cold. Right now we've got a lot of men-volunteers even-scouring this area. The more information they have, the better. So if Bertillon can identify this corpse, we're going to let them."

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."

"If you learn anything from working with me, son-and I hope you do-you should learn this. A cop has to keep his nose clean. Stay off the take. Follow the rules." He paused. "Except those rules that sometimes have to be broken to keep some butcher like this one from hacking another innocent person to bits. Do you understand me?"

Zalewski swallowed. "Yes, sir. Perfectly."

"Good. Now where is this woman who found the baskets? Angela Felice."

"They took her to the hospital, sir. She went into shock. Might even have some frostbite. After she found the baskets, she passed out. Collapsed in the snow, and she wasn't wearing much. She was discovered some time later by a drunk looking for shelter."

"Did he revive her?"

"No. He shook her, but it didn't work. He was pretty impaired."

"Gotcha."

"He ran into the Meat Market and got help. He was slurring badly so it took them awhile to figure out what he was saying. Finally the owner, Charles Page, came out and found the body parts. He called the police."

"Good thing someone got involved who had the wherewithal to get the word to us. Might've been spring thaw before we were on the scene." He frowned. "You think there's any chance at all this woman-"

"I don't think so, sir. Mrs. Felice was really shaken up. If she was behind the killing, they oughta give her an Academy Award, 'cause she would be the best darn actress in the world."

Of course that was right. Didn't make any sense that she would be involved. Merylo was embarrassed at himself for asking. Showed just how desperate he was for a clue, for any workable theory.

"Look, Zalewski, you go check on her at the hospital, then let's meet back at the office at five and see if any reports have come in from the men working the streets. If we-"

" 'Scuse me. You in charge?"

Merylo looked down at the scrawny man with the camera that was wider then he was. Didn't recognize him, but the brownie said it all. Press.

"I guess I'm in charge, but I don't have anything-"

"My name's O'Rourke. I'm with the Cleveland News. Can you confirm that this is the work of the same killer who left the corpses on Kingsbury Run?"

"I'm not prepared to give interviews at this time."

"Does that mean you affirm or deny?"

"Neither. I-"

"Is there a police cover-up? Are you hiding something?"

"Don't be absurd. It's just-"

"So this is the work of the same killer?"

Merylo cleared his throat. "It's too early to draw any conclusions. In time-"

"Do you think there's one killer, or a gang of them?"

"A gang? Look, this kind of yellow journalism isn't going to help anyone. Let us do our job and if we learn anything-"

"I think you do know something. You're just not telling."

"Listen here, O'Rourke." Merylo could feel his temperature rising. He quickly checked it. Chief Matowitz would not be pleased if he told this man what he thought of him. Of his whole profession. How did Eliot Ness do it? How did he come off so calm, so charming in all those press conferences? He made it look easy and he came off a hero. Merylo always came out looking like a grunting pig. "If we have anything we'll notify the press. We may need your help disseminating pictures or descriptions. Like we did with Andrassy."

"What effect do you think this will have on tourism?"

"None, I hope."

"We've got the Expo coming up. The American Legion convention. Is anyone going to want to come to Cleveland after this gets out?"

Merylo wiped his brow. "Honestly, man, have some sense. More people died last week in traffic accidents than this killer has taken."

"Then you do think this is the work of the same killer?"

Merylo's eyes darkened. "This conversation is over. I'm leaving. If you have any further questions-"

"Do you think these murders are connected to the Lady in the Lake?"

Merylo stopped in his tracks. "What are you talking about?"

"You remember that one, don't you? The Lady in the Lake?"

"You're not talking about King Arthur..."

"I'm talking about September of '35. Guy named LaGassie was walking along the shore of Lake Erie, just east of Bratenahl near Euclid Beach Park. Sees something in the water. Turns out to be the lower half of a woman's torso, legs cut off at the knees. A couple weeks earlier and about thirty miles east, a handyman found vertebrae and ribs with some rotting flesh attached. People assumed they went together, but I don't think anyone was ever really sure."

"When was this?"

O'Rourke checked his notepad. "September 5. Last year." He beamed. "My paper came up with the name, Lady of the Lake. At the time, people were saying the frail musta gotten caught in a boat propeller, some kinda weird accident. But now..."

Merylo looked at him sternly. "Are you sure about this?"

"Course I'm sure. You don't believe me, ask your coroner. Pearce was on duty. He must know all about it."