The Unclaimed Victim

by D. M. Pulley

  “Mimi?” He shot her a look that said she was nuts. “Nah, man. She wouldn’t do somethin’ like that. Not for free anyway. I’m tellin’ you, she’s cool.”

  “Well, then I don’t know.” Kris studied Jimmy’s face again, debating how much she could tell him without really sounding like a crazy person. “Have you, um . . . have you ever heard of the Torso Killer?”

  “Sure.” Jimmy’s eyes seemed to darken ever so slightly. “It’s Cleveland’s most famous criminal. All those people getting cut up like that? And they never found the guy.”

  “Right.” Kris drew in a breath. “So my father had all these books about it in his room. And then there’s this chat room where people steal police reports and trade their conspiracy theories about the killer. It’s like some kind of sick obsession with these people.”

  Jimmy’s brows knit themselves into a frown. “I wouldn’t call wanting to solve a murder a ‘sick obsession.’ Not to the folks that lost somebody.”

  “Okay. Fine. Sure. But I’m talking about the people obsessed with the killer, like he’s a celebrity or something.” She backpedaled, a little surprised at his reaction. “It’s just . . . Some guy went looking for my dad right before he disappeared, and he left a bogus business card with torsokillers.com written on it. You know the website?”

  “Yeah, you could say that.” Jimmy replied slowly and studied his hands. “Mimi says there’s a connection between this building and the killer. So of course I’ve poked around online.”

  Kris paused to digest this revelation.

  “Your dad’s still missing, huh?” He looked over at her with sympathy.

  “Yeah.” She dropped her eyes to the floor, not wanting him to see the pain in them, not wanting his pity. “So I went looking for this David Hohman in the chat room. Someone started asking questions about . . . what happened. Then David or some other psycho stole the police report . . . And he threw it up there for all the other psychos to see. It wasn’t just my dad’s information either. My name was listed too.”

  “Wow. So you think that’s how the guy that marked your door found you?” He bent his head, looking physically pained for her.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Mimi said someone was watching me. I mean, if you’re gonna believe what she says. God only knows who goes to those websites.”

  Jimmy ran a hand over his face. “Mostly its families of the missing and history buffs, but . . . I suppose there could be lurkers out there.”

  “Lurkers?”

  “People watching and reading and . . . shit, I don’t know.”

  “Why the hell would anyone want to do that?” She gaped at him, too frustrated to think, then blurted out, “I mean some sick bastard reads that my father might be dead and decides to come and harass me?”

  The words might be dead weren’t lost on Jimmy, she could tell, but he didn’t dwell on it. “Could be just some bored asshole preying on somebody like you for kicks.”

  Kris put her head in her hands. “I just . . . I don’t understand what any of this has to do with my dad. He never talked about this murder stuff. I’d never even heard of the Torso Killer until two days ago. All I know is that someone’s dead. Someone was hacked to pieces just like in those awful pictures, and they think it’s him . . .” Dashed red lines cutting through the police schematic of a human body still lurked on a web server somewhere. Legs and arms segmented into hunks of meat. And the words kept spilling out of her. “He got mixed up in this murder case somehow. He had the books. He was at the archives . . . What if someone decided to resurrect the infamous Torso Killer? What if he decided to copy one of his crimes? They do that, right? Killers copycat all the time, don’t they?”

  “I guess so.” He put his hands on her shoulders as if to brace her. His face had creased into a deep frown. “But the Torso Killer isn’t like Jack the Ripper or Jeffrey Dahmer.”

  Kris wiped her face and stiffened until his hands fell away. “Why not? I mean, he’s a serial killer. He has all these demented fans. What if my father stumbled into that chat room . . . or somewhere else and saw something he wasn’t supposed to? What if he had something on this Hohman guy?” Kris shook her head, not wanting to believe the wild theory that had been percolating in her head ever since she’d logged in to the website. Her father’s best friend was a cop. Surely he would’ve told Ben if he had some evidence of a crime, but Ben didn’t seem to know a thing about it. Besides, if she was right—

  “No, I don’t think you understand.” Jimmy cut through her yammering thoughts. “You need to show me this thing they left on your door. You need to show Mimi.”

  Kris rolled her eyes. The fortune-teller gave her the creeps, and she wasn’t entirely convinced the old lady hadn’t painted the thing just to freak her out. “I don’t know. I mean, I know she’s your friend but . . . Don’t you have to believe in fortune-telling or whatever for it to work?”

  “Hey, you don’t have to believe in the power of that weird star, but somebody else out there does, right? Don’t you want to know what they think it means?”

  “What makes you think Mimi will know?”

  “Trust me. She knows things. Weird symbols are her business.”

  “Sure. She knows how to tell people what they want to hear. For a nice price.”

  Jimmy stopped and leveled his eyes at her. “She’s not gonna charge you, alright? She’s a friend. Besides . . . I’m pretty sure you’re not gonna want to hear what she’s got to say.”

  SEARCH RIVER FOR PARTS OF TORSO VICTIM

  Dr. Gerber Refuses to Permit W.R.U. Experts to Check Gruesome Find

  As detectives searched vainly today for additional portions of Cleveland’s latest torso murder victim, they pondered whether the mad butcher who has baffled them for four years is the owner of a streamlined, expensive car that stopped on the Jefferson Street Bridge the night of March 3.

  —Cleveland Press, April 9, 1938, p. 1

  CHAPTER 28

  April 7, 1938

  Thankfully, it was the middle of the night and the street was empty. Ethel picked her way across littered lawns until she hit pavement. She glanced up and down the road and saw she was at the corner of a larger brick street and an alley. The giant shadow of the Harmony Mission loomed behind her. The windows were all dark. Inside, the sisters were sleeping soundly, no doubt comforted knowing that their dear Hattie and Mary Alice were paying penance to their god.

  Ethel darted up the narrow alley, clutching the torn burlap sack to her chest, searching for a clothesline. Freezing air bit at her bare skin. One tiny house after another flew past. Fences lined the street. She peeked over them all, searching for laundry. A dog pounced up at her from behind its gate, barking like a fiend.

  “Shut up!” she hissed at it and kept running. A light flipped on in a window behind her. On the next block up ahead, sets of linen sheets hung in the dark. It was a laundry house, she realized, and her heart leapt. She pressed her bare back to the side of an old stone church and waited in the shadow there for several moments before streaking across a larger street toward the specters of pale fabric fluttering in the cold night air. She would have to act fast. There would surely be a dog out guarding a whole day’s work.

  Ethel reached over the chest-high fence and snatched the first linen she could reach. The dog on the other side wasted no time sounding the alarm. It slammed itself into the wood slats at top speed, snarling and snapping. Ethel reeled back on her heels with the bedsheet in her hand. The racket echoed up and down the alley. Lights snapped on in the windows.

  Clutching the sheet around her naked shoulders, Ethel took off running for the river. Down an empty brick street, she dashed between the houses. Voices shouted in the distance behind her, but the dog had gone quiet. How far would they chase her for one measly sheet? she wondered, crossing West 5th Street and flying down the hill into the scrub brush.

  Once she’d crossed West 3rd Street, she knew she was safe. Nobody respectable dared cross over into the wastelands down b
y the river known as the hobo jungles. She wrapped the sheet tighter around herself and picked her way in her burlap socks between the broken bottles and strewn garbage.

  Makeshift huts of corrugated tin and slapped-together cardboard dotted the ridge. Some contained families clinging to each other by the thinnest of threads, but most were home to drunken derelicts. She didn’t know a soul down there, and she was worse off than usual. No clothes. No shoes. Freezing wind. The white sheet around her shone like a beacon in the shadows around the river. It was only a matter of time.

  “Are you an angel?” a gruff voice slurred behind her.

  She turned to see a shortish man lumbering toward her. He was missing all but two of his front teeth. An unnatural gleam lit up his eyes, a light that said his mind had come completely unsprung. Ethel breathed a sigh of relief that he was alone.

  “I sure am, sugar.” She flashed him a winning smile. “Have you seen God?”

  He let out an unnerving giggle. “Every day. You wanna see ’im too?”

  “Oh, I do, baby.” She threw him a wink. The smell of him accosted her from three paces away. It was the worst thing about her work. The smell. “You got a place around here? I’m feeling so cold.”

  Sparks flew from his eyes. He’d clearly been prepared to drag her into the bushes, but this was much better. “I got a place. You wanna see it?”

  “I sure do. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a real man like you. Can you make a fire, sweetie?” she cooed, wide-eyed. “I don’t know how.”

  He wrapped an arm around her and squeezed her hard enough to break a rib. “I like fire,” he breathed. His breath could peel paint. The reek of body sweat, rotgut, and a rotting tooth almost made her faint.

  “Will you hold my hand,” she purred into his ear. “I’ve just been so lonely for a real man like you.”

  Befuddled surprise, anger, pride, and finally shame played across his face as he released his grip. For a moment, she panicked he might just strangle her to death right there for letting those ghosts out of his bag. He managed to stuff them back in again and grabbed her wrist.

  “Thanks, darlin’,” she murmured, letting him drag her toward his hovel somewhere in the long grass. He was surprisingly strong for his size. She scanned the area while he pulled her along. Across the river, the city lights twinkled yellow and blue. Gratitude swelled inside her that she could still see after hours of blindness, but it was quickly eclipsed by a familiar fear. There was no sign of any roving gangs, but from the tint of the sky, it was still early. She’d have to work fast. “What’s your name?” she asked her captor.

  “We don’t have names down here,” he growled back.

  She wanted to argue that point but thought better of it. The last thing she needed was to antagonize the man. “What would you like me to call you, sugar?”

  He stopped and gave her a broken grin. “You can call me Papa.”

  Typical. “Oh, I like Papa. Can I ask you a question?”

  “You can try.” He chuckled and then yanked her down a narrow pathway toward the water. Ten shanties were lined up along the river. The breath caught in her throat as she wondered how many belonged to friends of his.

  She waited until he’d led her to a pile of tin and corrugated sheet metal. It was the third from the right. He pulled her through the open end facing the water. Under the roof sat a broken chair and a pile of dirty laundry cobbled together into a sort of bed. The rags smelled just as terrible as he did, but she let him push her down onto them. “Do you know a guy named Slow Tony?” she asked.

  Slow Tony was an Armenian pimp and supplier of all manner of illegal thrills. He was rumored to have killed twenty men and was somewhat of a legend on the West Side. She’d met him sitting with Eddie in some tavern, back before they found Eddie headless down in the Run. Slow Tony had offered her some unappetizing work.

  “Nope.” He took off his coat and eyed the tops of her tits, swelling out over the edge of the bedsheet.

  “Papa, honey.” She let the linen fall ever so slightly. “I’m so cold. Can you make us a fire?”

  The words seemed to cast some sort of spell over him. His unhinged eyes clouded for a moment. He gave her a small nod and scooted himself a foot outside the roof and began to gather up the kindling and scraps from his last fire. A can of industrial lubricant sat on the ground next to him. He threw a few drops on the wood and then threw a gulp of it down his throat. He offered the can to her.

  “Oh, I shouldn’t, Papa.” As bad as she wanted a drink—bad enough that her skin itched—she knew better than to try it. The bums called it white lightning, the industrial juice they’d throw back when even rotgut cost too much. She’d heard it made some of them mad and turned others blind. She gave him a shy smile and wondered how many more drinks he could take before he went black. Large rocks lined the makeshift hearth. She could use one if need be.

  While “Papa” struck a match, Ethel listened. The other shacks lining the river were quiet. Odds were good they were mostly empty and kept up by one or two bums to make it look like there were more of them. Ever since the Mad Butcher started taking heads and cops started their raids, the tramps had thinned out.

  It might be best to wait until morning, she decided. She liked her odds with “Papa” a hell of a lot better than with a gang of toughs or the cold. He at least seemed somewhat controllable. As her brain debated the places she’d go in the morning, “Papa” sidled back up to her. He was still holding the can of lubricant in his hand.

  She held her hands out to the fire and made a show of warming up. “Thanks, Papa. That’s real nice.”

  He threw back another gulp of madness. “What . . . why did it brings you . . . these parts?”

  “I got lost looking for my daddy.” She played along with his sick little fantasy while racking her brain for other folks she knew on the west side of the river. If she was going to get the cops to listen, she needed clothes. She’d met a few working girls from that side of town, but none stuck out in her memory. She couldn’t help but wonder how many of them were dead now. The black-and-white images of Flo’s severed arms and legs flashed in her head, sending Ethel’s gaze darting up and down the river.

  “Lucky you found me. Did you—urp—did you know there’s a killer? A killer out there huntin’ all us.”

  Ethel clutched her sheet and made her eyes go wide like a little girl’s. “A killer?”

  Her tits all pushed up like that distracted him. “Why—ah—you so naked?”

  “Someone took my clothes and shoes and left me here.” She eyed the hazy drunk and wondered if he’d ever actually seen the killer. “Her name was Flo Polillo. Do you know her?”

  A warped recognition lit up his eyes again as the words she’d said slowly processed. “Sounds like . . . a whore.”

  Terrified he might figure her for one as well, she rushed to say, “I thought she’d give me some help and then . . .” Fat tears rolled down her cheeks on command. “She robbed me.”

  “Fuckin’ . . . whore.” His words mashed together in his rotting mouth. “I can . . . new clothes . . . there’s a guy. Pervert under the bridge.”

  She picked his words out of the slurred mess. “You can find me new clothes?”

  He nodded and took another big drink. His eyelids went heavy and the crazed light grew dim. Like so many other drunks she’d known, this one suffered mostly from loneliness and craved a friend more than a whore. Being a friend was easier.

  She wrapped an arm around him. “There’s a man under the bridge?”

  “Likes him the girlie . . . shoes and clothes.”

  “Papa, which bridge has the clothes?” She let her sheet fall to expose more of her breasts to keep him from passing out.

  He turned toward her tits. A thin line of drool hung from his bottom lip. “Huh?”

  “Which bridge?” She lifted his drooping chin with her finger.

  “Lorain to Carn—egie,” he drooled. “He hides up . . . under there. Mean som’ bitch to
o . . . sold me some panties. Pretty . . . pretty pink panties . . .”

  The empty windows of his eyes told her he’d gone to a full blackout. Ethel laid his head down into her lap and kept talking. “That’s real nice, Papa.” She ran her fingertips through his greasy, snarled hair, petting him like a child. “You’re such a big man, Papa. Such a good man. Thank you.”

  Ten minutes of cooing and stroking his back and “Papa” was out. Ethel breathed a sigh of relief. If experience were any guide in the jungle, he’d be out for the better part of the next day. She laid his head down onto his pile of rags and eased herself away from him and his smell. The fire was warm. She hiked her stolen sheet up over her shoulders and watched the city lights dance off the brown water of the Cuyahoga.

  It wasn’t much of a river anymore—the human waste of the hobo jungle mixed with the industrial chemicals of the factories lining the river flats and the blood of the slaughterhouses to the north. Thankfully, the hard chill in the air was enough to keep the stink down.

  She glanced downstream toward the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge where they’d found Rose’s corroded bones in a burlap sack. All she could do was wait until morning.

  CHAPTER 29

  The sound of voices woke Ethel before dawn. She sat up and listened, scarcely daring to breathe. If a gang came to toss the camp, she’d be trapped. Her hands felt the dirt floor of the shanty for something sharp. There was nothing but a tin fork and that half-empty can of white lightning. “Papa” kept on snoring in his dead stupor. She was on her own.

  “What’d he say?” one of the voices asked. She guessed it was about a hundred paces to her right. A low splash sent ripples down the river.

  “Who cares?” Another splash disturbed the water. “It’s twenty dollars. Shit, I’d kill you for ten.”

  “Do you think it was . . . you know?” The first voice rattled with whiskey and fear.