The Unclaimed Victim

by D. M. Pulley

  “No, we didn’t, though I can’t say we wasted time looking. Death was knocking on the poor girl’s door.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “We carried her out of course. Finding the way took some doing, but we eventually got back to my office and telephoned the police.”

  “And how long until Sergeants Wilks and Hohman arrived?”

  “Maybe ten minutes.”

  “Did Ethel regain consciousness or speak during that time?”

  “No. She didn’t.”

  “What did you do during that time?”

  “I covered her with a blanket and I prayed.”

  “There is no statement in the sergeant’s report from this mysterious child. Can you explain that?”

  “She’d gone.”

  “She’d gone,” Officer Kessler repeated incredulously. “Where did she go?”

  “Back from whence she came, I’d imagine.”

  The officer blew a stream of air out his nose. “When did you notice her missing?”

  “Right after I found Brother Wenger holding Sister Hattie . . . or rather Ethel, according to your records there. When I turned to ask the girl what had happened, she was gone.”

  “So you’re saying to me that a phantom of a girl just came into your office, led you to a crime scene, and vanished like smoke?”

  “You don’t believe me.” The reverend sighed. “I suppose it does sound unbelievable, but I assure you, my son. It is the truth, so help me God.”

  The detective didn’t speak for a minute as he appraised the man. Finally he said, resigned, “And you don’t know how Ethel Harding got there or who assaulted her?”

  “No, I certainly don’t, but I pray for their souls.”

  “I understand Sergeants Wilks and Hohman then searched the premises and could not find any underground chambers or the mass graves you mention in your report.”

  “I’m afraid that is my fault. I attempted to retrace my steps with them, but after I got turned around once or twice, they decided to suspend the search . . . They said with no eyewitnesses that unless this turned into a homicide case, God forbid, it wasn’t warranted.”

  “And this Brother Wenger? Did he assist them?”

  “The poor brother was quite shaken. Quite a miracle he’d found her at all. He’d just returned from Lancaster . . .” The reverend went silent as though turning this piece of information over in his own head. Ethel stole a glance at the old man. Mary Alice had said Wenger had gone missing. “He refused to leave her side the whole way to the hospital. Of course, you are welcome to talk with him. Perhaps he could show you the way.”

  The detective closed his notebook and stuffed it into his pocket. “Anything else you’d like to share with me before I go question the victim, Reverend?”

  “I have a question of my own, if you’d indulge me.”

  “Of course.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with the body they found in the river the other day, does it?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Our Ethel was found cut up with a knife, the poor girl.”

  “We see it every day at the station. These are violent times, Reverend. Some say we’re on the brink of a Godless revolt of our own.”

  Ethel’s eyes widened at this. Any doubt that this police officer was the one who had sent Rose Wallace to the slaughter vanished.

  “All the same, perhaps I should speak to that other detective. The one looking into the Torso Killings.”

  “Detective Merylo is still dragging the river. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll sit down with him and review this case in the morning. The Cleveland Police Department thanks you for your concern and cooperation, Reverend.”

  “God bless you, my son.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Ethel followed Brother Milton out of the hospital, keeping a safe distance. The man walked at a leisurely pace, stopping to greet strangers on the street, crouching down to pat the heads of children and tell them about his Sunday school in the park. He stopped to speak with the flower merchant and the owner of the corner bakery. Each time he halted to speak to someone, Ethel turned to face the nearest shop window, feigning fascination with the local laundry rate schedule or the cost of tea.

  She had to find some way to get the man alone and tell him all she knew. No detective would listen to her accuse his fellow police officers of a conspiracy. They’d sooner ship her back to the workhouse with all the other whores and bums. But if it came from a man of God, it would be like the gospel truth.

  One block away from the Harmony Mission, a long green Cadillac pulled to a stop on the side of the road. Two men in expensive suits stepped out and approached the good reverend and shook his hand. After a few minutes of the usual pleasantries, Ethel watched in horror as they escorted Brother Milton into their car. She memorized the license plate as it pulled away. A bronze eight-pointed star had been fixed above the rear bumper. It matched the necklace the woman in lace had been wearing while Ethel had hung upside down.

  It’s the Legion. They’re everywhere.

  She started to run after it but stopped short. Drawing attention to herself wouldn’t stop them. They were already gone. All she could do was wait for the reverend to come back. If he ever does come back. As she thought the words, she realized odds were good he wouldn’t. She hung her head for the poor man. For all his lording over spinsters and keeping them under lock and key, he just might’ve been a good man. And if that was the case, he was as good as dead.

  She had to find Johnnie. The sweet girl had saved her life. The poor reverend’s words hung in her mind, When I turned to ask the girl what had happened, she was gone.

  Ethel dragged herself down Thurman Avenue, debating what to do next. If she went to the police, they would simply arrest her. That or hand her over to the Legion. Her feet stopped outside the boarded-up cottage where Rose Wallace had died.

  Ethel glanced over her shoulder, then went to the back of the house and opened the door. “Johnnie?” she whispered. “Are you in here?”

  The menacing hook hung down from the ceiling. Directly below it, bloodstains radiated across the floor. Rose. Ethel felt the cut at the base of her throat and swallowed hard. The Legion would have figured out she’d escaped the hospital by now. They would be hearing the reverend’s tale of the mysterious little Negro girl any minute. They’d be looking for them both.

  “Johnnie!” she said louder. “We have to leave. We have to leave now. You can’t stay here!”

  There was no answer.

  Ethel checked every room, but the girl wasn’t there. She slipped back out behind the house and eyed both sides of the street. The windows of the Harmony Mission loomed over the west end. Somewhere inside, Mary Alice was no doubt on her knees, scrubbing away the blood and praying for God to cleanse away all her sins.

  Ethel darted down the alley back to the other marked house, bigger and half-burnt. As she approached the familiar back door, something was wrong. Fresh boards had been nailed over the broken window, and the doorknob had been removed. Black paint marked a large X over the front door, and a padlock and latch had been installed that could only mean one thing. The house had been condemned. An official-looking piece of paper had been nailed to the doorjamb. Ethel scanned the street and saw four other black marks and notices. They’d all been raided.

  “Shit!” she muttered to herself. She slumped onto the porch. Odds were good the police or fire marshal or whoever had come and found Hortie passed out drunk inside. If they hadn’t found Johnnie, she could be anywhere.

  She eyed the slanted shed doors sticking up out of the grass four houses away. They led down to the basement of the boarded-up hardware store. It was the spot where Johnnie had seen them dump Rose’s body. Was that how the bastards all got out when Brother Milton interrupted their little ceremony?

  She stood up and walked over to the weathered wood planks covering up a hole in the ground. A hole that must lead back to the catacombs. The back en
trance into the empty store behind it stood unmolested. The inspectors had passed over the place, and she could guess why. The Legion. As she got closer, she could see the padlock to the cellar hanging open.

  Someone was still inside.

  Ethel froze and listened. All she could hear was the steady clang and hum of the mission presses churning deep inside the building behind her. She scanned the rubble lying in the yards until she found something useful. A rusted ax lodged in a rotting log sat ten paces away. Not taking her eyes off the cellar doors, she inched her way toward it. The ax pulled out of the bug-riddled wood with only the smallest jerk. She gave it a test swing. The handle and blade held together, weathered but solid.

  The cellar doors didn’t move.

  A car rumbled by on the street out front. Ethel scanned the houses and yards for any sign of Johnnie as guilt twisted in her gut. The girl had saved her life, and she’d left the poor thing all alone.

  Gripping the ax, she pulled open the cellar door.

  A terrible smell wafted up from under the hardware store. Burnt hair and rancid meat. Her stomach heaved into her throat. She forced it back down and tightened her grip on the ax. She took the stone steps down into the dark cellar one at a time. Shelves lined the walls, stocked with large oil cans, wooden barrels, and plump burlap sacks. They packed her up like food. In grain sacks.

  Ethel counted fifteen large oil cans and twenty burlap sacks. Photographs of Flo Polillo’s butchered thighs and Rose’s desiccated bones flickered through her head. The pieces had been found in burlap bags just like the ones lining the walls.

  Outside, the street traffic beeped and bumped along, oblivious to the storeroom of dead bodies fifty feet away. Ethel risked another step inside. “Hello?” she whispered.

  One of the burlap sacks moved.

  Ethel startled, nearly dropping the ax onto the steps.

  A muffled cry came from inside the bag. She scrambled down into the dank chill of the cellar and yanked it out from its shelf. She cut through the twine with the rusted blade until a nappy head of dark hair emerged.

  “Johnnie!” she gasped, pulling the burlap from girl’s ashen face. The girl’s eyes were dilated black and rolled loosely in her head. Ethel gently batted the sides of Johnnie’s face to bring her eyes back around. “What’d they give you? Was it a shot? Shake it off, girl. C’mon. We gotta get you out of here.”

  She pulled the slack girl to her feet, but the poor thing crumpled back to the ground.

  “Johnnie!” She hoisted her up again. “We have to go.”

  “What—what are you doing here?” a weak voice asked from behind the stairs.

  Ethel dropped Johnnie’s arms and grabbed the ax. She swung the blade around, missing Mary Alice’s stricken face by an inch. The pale girl stumbled back.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” Mary Alice’s eyes darted up toward the open shed doors. “They’ll be back. They’re coming back with the truck.”

  Ethel glared at the cowering girl she’d once considered a friend and righted the ax. “The truck?”

  “Yes, we have to . . .” Mary Alice’s hands motioned to the bags and cans and barrels.

  “You have to what? Get rid of the bodies? How the hell could you do this, Mary Alice? How . . .” Ethel’s mouth just hung open as words failed her.

  “It is God’s will.” Mary Alice held out her empty hands in a plea. The bruises on her face and neck belied her conviction. She kept backing up. “He commands us to rid the world of these . . . abominations.”

  “Abominations?” Ethel followed her into the shadow under the stairs.

  “Killers!” she whimpered. “Rapists and thieves—all of them. You’ve seen what men like Eddie Andrassy have done. All of the criminals we vanquished confessed on the cross! They molested women, and God knows how many boys. They were evil. All of them. The end of days is upon us, and we are making way. ‘Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners fr—’”

  Ethel slapped Mary Alice hard enough to send her sprawling onto the dirt floor. “Wake up! You are not the Lord!”

  Mary Alice pulled herself up by a stair tread. “The Lord’s servants are many.”

  “Is that what you tell yourself? Was I evil too? I’m not a killer or a rapist! Am I?” The indignation sounded hollow even to her own ears. She’d murdered her landlord after he’d attacked her little brother. She’d managed to kill her own baby before it was even born by being such an unfit mother.

  “You’re a prostitute,” Mary Alice hissed. “Revelations seventeen, ‘And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.’”

  An abomination. That’s what she was. The ax hung limp from her hand as the weight of her sins pulled on her. “Is that why you killed Rose Wallace? Because she had to feed herself? Is that why you’re ready to kill a little girl, for Christ’s sake?”

  Mary Alice’s eyes fell to Johnnie crumpled on the floor as she inched her way to the foot of the stairs. “She was a thief. The devil’s consort. And the blood of foul children can be telling . . .”

  “The blood of children, Mary Alice?” Ethel gripped the ax in both hands and lunged forward. It didn’t matter if she went straight to hell as long as she took Mary Alice with her. “What does all this murdering make you? A saint? But you’re not a saint, are you? Who was the girl getting it upstairs the other night, Mary Alice? Huh? Was it you?”

  The blood drained from the girl’s face, leaving nothing but bruises as she shook her head. “The sins of the flesh must be exorcised. It is the blood that makes atonement . . .”

  “Is that what he was doing? Bleeding you?” Ethel remembered the angry marks across Mary Alice’s back. The grunts and whimpers she’d heard through her ceiling could have been a flogging. She could still feel Brother Wenger straddling her in the dark prison cell, fully erect with religious fervor. Exorcising her demons was like sex to him. And Mary Alice was his willing whore. “Did he beat the guilt out of you? Huh? Did he enjoy it? You’re no better than me, are you, Mary Alice?”

  “This is a war . . .” Mary Alice struggled for words, her eyes darting for an escape.

  “Whose war?” Ethel narrowed her eyes and raised the ax to swing. “Whose? Brother Wenger’s? The Legion’s? Who are they? Who was the doctor? What’s his name?”

  Mary Alice stumbled back against the basement wall, opening and closing her mouth like a dry fish.

  “Oh, come on now. How will the angels sing his praises if he doesn’t have a name?”

  “He’ll kill me.”

  “That’s funny. ’Cause I’m gonna kill you too.” Ethel pressed the rusty blade into the fool’s neck. “What’s his Goddamned name?”

  The wide-eyed girl swallowed and whispered, “Dr. Dietrich.”

  “Very good. And who was the high-society one all in lace?”

  A trickle of blood trailed down Mary Alice’s neck as Ethel pressed the blade deeper. “A—Adela Rae Wulf.”

  “Good girl.” Ethel clubbed her with the butt of the ax, knocking her hard to the ground. She scooped Johnnie into her arms and mounted the stairs.

  “Please. You don’t understand.” Mary Alice moaned from her heap on the dirt floor. “They’ll kill me. They’ll damn my soul.”

  “Well, then I guess you better do what you do best.”

  “What?”

  Ethel slammed the cellar door and snapped the padlock shut before whispering between the boards, “Pray.”

  PELLEY FACES U.S. TRIAL IN INDIANA

  Silver Shirt Chief Arraigned on Sedition Charge

  New Haven, Conn., April 4—(AP)—William Dudley Pelley, anti-Semite publicist and advocate of totalitarianism for America, was arrested by FBI agents today on charges of sedition, waived examination and was held for trial in the United States District Court at Indianapolis.

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 4, 1942, p. 4A

&nb
sp; CHAPTER 49

  April 10, 1999

  Kris woke to a cold, wet nose pressed to her cheek and hot breath panting in her ear. She opened her eyes to see a familiar ceiling overhead. It was the cracked plaster over her bed in Cleveland. A slimy tongue smeared across her cheek.

  She jerked up to see the muzzle and front two paws of a golden retriever hanging on to the bed. The room pulsed with the pounding of her head. It weighed a hundred pounds. She squinted her swollen eyes through a tunnel of pain. “Gunner? Is that you?”

  Her father’s missing hunting dog wagged his tail furiously and prodded his wet nose under her hand.

  She scratched the top of his head. “What are you doing here?” The graying snout of an aging Labrador popped up from the foot of the bed at the sound of her voice. “Bogie? How did you both get back?”

  The last thing she could remember was running through the sewers. Dogs were chasing them. Dogs. She couldn’t breathe. A blast of light had blinded her from above. And then—

  Her eyes flew to the bedroom door. It was shut.

  She bolted up out of bed but buckled to the floor as the blood rushed out of her pounding head. A dull ache like the punch of a fist radiated between her shoulders. She’d been stung by something. The police raid . . . What happened to Jimmy? She scanned the room, her head a lead balloon on her shoulders. There was no sign of Jimmy or Ben or her shotgun in the closet. Out her window she could see Ben’s Auglaize County sheriff’s cruiser parked on the street. Troy’s pickup truck sat behind it.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, pulling herself to her feet. Down the street the Harmony Mission building towered over the houses. The sky had grown dark, glowing yellow with the streetlights. The police sirens no longer blared. The clock on her bedside table read 9:30 p.m.

  Gunner nuzzled his nose against her hand, demanding more scratches. She bent down to get a better look at him. Ben had said the dogs had been lost the day her father was killed, that they were out somewhere in the woods on their own, fighting for survival. She’d seen stray dogs wandering the streets of Tremont, and Gunner showed no signs of struggle. His face looked no worse for wear. No cuts or scrapes on his body. No broken claws. No scarring around his mouth.