City for Ransom

by Robert W. Walker

  Ransom felt a headache coming on now. He’d begun to perspire despite the coolness of the station. “Look, Dr. Tewes, we’ve danced long enough here with the devil. Time to salvage what little dignity the boy has left, get him to our morgue, and you can examine him there to your heart’s content. Deal?”

  “You don’t begin to understand, do you, Inspector?” Now Tewes sneered his title. “You’ve already wasted precious time.”

  “We need to return the train station to normal, fill out the paperwork, try to determine who the victim is, and get on the trail of his killer before the bastard strikes again, Tewes.”

  “Precisely why I’m here!”

  Ransom turned from Tewes, but this time the smaller man caught his arm and confronted Alastair. “Just hold on there, man!”

  “What in bloody hell do you hope to accomplish here, Tewes?”

  “I have an order allowing me to examine the cranial structure.” Tewes again held the letter up to Ransom’s eyes, the signature unmistakable. “Look, Inspector, I’m not interested in taking over your case or your territory, or whatever it is you fear losing. Shit, all I want—”

  “Fear? I don’t fear anything from you, Tewes, believe me.”

  “If I can have a moment—just a moment—with the dead before all is lost—”

  “Speak to the dead, is it? Through your gifted fingers, Doctor?” Alastair did not take the letter from Tewes but stared into the deep brown eyes of a man he’d been quietly investigating, a man he considered a consummate con artist.

  Philo Keane stepped in when he saw Alastair reach both hands to his head, staving off a stabbing pain. “All right…Doctor, is it?” began Keane. “Time now for you to leave the area to us professionals. You find the morgue as Inspector Ransom says. Tug-o-war it out with Dr. Fenger.”

  Ransom put up a hand to Philo. “Allow me to introduce you, photographic wizard Mr. Philo Keane, Dr. James Phineas Tewes—”

  “Dr. James Phineas Murdoch Tewes to be exact,” corrected Tewes.

  “A man who likely needs all his names to cover his tracks,” added Ransom.

  “Aliases?” asked Philo, taking Alastair’s lead.

  Tewes looked strange, a pale, thin, dismal face, hardly ever given to smile. He made slow movements, and his voice—always deep—somehow never rose above a whispering growl.

  Ransom put a hand on Philo’s shoulder, and spoke to him. “Dr. Tewes is well known in Chicago, mostly from fliers posted on every street lamp and shop window.”

  “Posters? Really?” asked Philo, squinting.

  “The fliers propose that Tewes here can cure madness and depression. A new form of littering so far as I’m concerned.” Ransom mentally flashed on the last such advertisement that he’d seen only that morning, tacked to a telegraph pole outside his police district house on Des Plaines.

  Tewes gladly unfolded a bill now from his breast pocket and handed it to Mr. Keane. It read:

  Phrenological & Magnetic Examiner at his residence, 2nd house north of the Episcopal Church.

  DR. TEWES

  May be consulted in all cases of Nervous or Mental difficulty. Application of the remedies will enable relief or cure any case of Monomania, Insanity or Recent Madness wherein there is no Inflammation or destruction of the Mental Organs. Dr. Tewes’s attention to diseases of the nervous system, such as St. Vitus’s Dance and Spinal Afflictions has resulted in some remarkable cures. Having been engaged for the past ten years in teaching Mental Philosophy, Phrenology, together with numerous Phreno Magnetic Experiments enable Dr. Tewes to give correct and true delineations of Mental Dispositions of different persons. A visit to Dr. Tewes can be profitable to any and all who wish to better understand their own natures, and how best to apply their talents in the world at large.

  Ransom said, “I don’t for a moment believe Dr. Tewes can cure a headache, much less a mental disorder, Mr. Keane, but as you see, he advertises himself a magician, capable of repairing mental disorders!” Ransom then said to Tewes, “What sort of game are you at here, Tewes? No one here has any need of your questionable services. Certainly, not this dead boy.”

  “I am a psychic medium, sir, as well as a phrenologist. I am informed that two similar cases of garroting murders have occurred here. The killer has not been apprehended in either instance, and I fear—”

  “I fail to see how you can help out here.”

  “Kohler informs me this is the third garroted and fired corpse in as many weeks.”

  “My God,” muttered Philo, “Kohler fights against fingerprint identification, but he attaches a medium to the case.”

  “I assure you, none of these cases’ve been definitively linked by evidence,” Alastair lied even as he wondered why Nathan would divulge such information to anyone not on the case.

  “But there are similarities no one can deny—for instance, all three murders occurring at or near the White City fairgrounds.”

  Ransom silently agreed that the geography of these murders was correct. “As I said, no official link has been made.”

  “How can anyone of sense not see the glaring—”

  “The other cases involved a young female—a clerk at Allen & Boynton’s on State Street—and before that a park prostitute. Slash wounds were entirely different, and—”

  “But the heads in either case…they were nearly severed.”

  “Look, both were women…both women sustained multiple stab wounds to upper chest and abdomen. There are none on the boy.”

  “So? It only means he is getting more adept at the garrote,” countered Tewes. “And I’m given to understand that the store clerk was carrying child, making the death toll four.”

  “I see that Kohler has filled you in, but the two women had nothing whatsoever in common.”

  “Perhaps they do have commonalities to the killer. Perhaps their commonality is their mutual killer.” Getting no response, Dr. Tewes, chin held high, added, “Yes, well then…Inspector, while you may be correct in your assumption that these murders are unrelated, if you do not mind, I would like to take a closer look at the boy’s body on site. Your meticulous care, your photographs, your scientific approach not withstanding, you’ll not have anyone in your Bertillon card files to match this killer.”

  Ransom lit his pipe and began smoking the Havana blend that he’d been thumbing in his coat pocket the entire time. Smoking calmed nerves, or so Dr. McKinnette said. He blew smoke into Tewes’s eyes.

  Dr. Tewes’s soft features made determining his age difficult, but Ransom thought him born a conniving adult. The slight man proved unremarkable save how expensively he dressed—a broad Sampson Brothers overcoat layering a three-piece suit and a gold watch fob reflecting light off its surface. His title of medical doctor had been earned supposedly in France, but he had no such degree in America. A background check on the man only went back some seven years, and then nothing, as if he’d not existed before then. A similar check with authorities in France, and still nothing of a Dr. or a Mr. Tewes fitting his description could be found before he turned up at France’s Royal Academy of Medicine. Ransom had made numerous police contacts in the Suréte, the oldest criminal investigation agency in Europe, and Tewes smelled like an alias even to them—as a Dr. François Tewes was reported as having died while imprisoned on charges of having killed a man in a brawl.

  Likely enough, Chicago’s Dr. Tewes was in his late twenties or early thirties; he with his full head of hair below the bowler, his small ears, dimpled chin, thin nose. This man was ambitiously working to build a reputation. What would solving a mystery do for his dubious practice?

  “A garrote killer in New York left six victims in water—dumping their bodies in rivers, lakes,” Tewes calmly maintained.

  “Our Chicago fellow seems more interested in fire than in water,” Ransom replied.

  “He used a garrote?” asked Griffin, who’d rejoined them. “Like our madman here? Double-tiered?”

  Ransom shot a wilting look at Griffin that telegraphe
d his disappointment in Drimmer’s gullibility. “The good doctor here has something on Kohler, Griffin. That’s obvious with his letter of recommendation. Kohler informed him. That’s all there is to it.”

  “It’s no letter of recommendation, Inspector,” countered Tewes. “Read it. It’s a direct order made to you.”

  Griffin tugged at Ransom’s sleeve. “You can’t afford any more trouble.”

  “Double wires,” said Tewes mysteriously, “that crisscrossed in front to create a small diamond incision at or near the voice box in the females, and now the boy’s Adam’s apple. The deadly thing is likely a piano wire connected to two sturdy sticks, which he twists round the neck, making an immediate incision at once three hundred and sixty degrees. The tighter he winds it, the deeper the cut.”

  Ransom now knew for certain that Dr. Tewes had something on Kohler; only blackmail could’ve gotten the scoundrel this far. “I want the two-wire diamond aspect of this murder weapon kept under wraps, Tewes. Do you understand? We must not let the newshounds have it. We must hold some information in abeyance toward the day we pinch this maniac—to identify the killer with absolute—”

  “I can be cooperative, Inspector.”

  “Don’t think that you can blackmail me, Doctor.”

  “Why, Inspector, you give me far too much credit for guile!”

  “If you mean skill in cunning and deceit and a cleverness in trickery, yes, perhaps I do.”

  “Look, I’ve seen the coroner’s notes, true. But I first saw all this happening while laying on of hands to the cranium of a dying woman—”

  “A dead woman now. Whooo…dying woman…how very mysterious,” countered Ransom.

  “A pauper buried in your Potter’s Field a few months ago.”

  “It remains an incredible assertion.”

  “I read heads. It’s what a phrenologist does.”

  “And you receive visions in the process.”

  “Perceptions…not visions, sir, and only sometimes, yes.”

  Griffin now stared at Tewes as if he were a magician. Ransom saw this and grew angry at his partner’s wide-eyed response. “Nothing you’ve told us is new, Dr. Tewes. You may just as well have gotten your information from Kohler or some easily fooled police clerk.”

  “Yes, I suppose I might’ve. I certainly understand your skepticism. After all, you’re paid to be cynical! But look here, I’m telling the truth about New York. And there’s something else.”

  “What?” asked Griffin, eager to hear more.

  “The instrument of death he wields.”

  “Yes?” asked Griff.

  “The killer fashioned it himself. Made it with his own hands.”

  “However can you possibly know that?” asked Griffin, playing into Tewes’s hand.

  “The unique nature of the instrument. I’ve studied garroting devices. None that I have seen utilize two strands crossed into a diamond shape of this nature. X’s yes—but using two strands, this is unique to our killer.”

  “And why the fire?” asked Griffin. “I mean if the victims are already dead…why then set the bodies aflame?”

  “Usual purpose to set a dead man aflame is to obscure any chance at easy identification. Identification often leads to a killer, but this…” began Tewes.

  Ransom cut Tewes short, saying, “Seems the fire was clumsily set, mainly to the torso. Features can still be made out, so whoever did this was not interested in throwing us off identification.”

  Tewes nodded. “I am surprised. He is brazen, this killer. As he was in New York.”

  “How can you be sure it’s the same man?” asked Griffin, bursting to hear more.

  “He follows the same patterns. In his patterns, his ritual, he leaves a distinctive mark of himself.”

  “Dr. Tewes has read some police manuals, I warrant,” said Ransom.

  “On that we can surely agree, Inspector Ransom.”

  “Perhaps we ought to be looking at anyone recently emigrated from New York to here, Alastair?” Griffin looked to Ransom, but Alastair held Tewes in his steely gray gaze.

  “Only if you buy into this snake-oil salesman’s ideas, Griff. Isn’t that right, Dr. Tewes?”

  Tewes frowned and said, “Please, just allow me a moment with the body, before it is too late.”

  Ransom did not like it when a man failed to answer a direct question. Something a man could not get away with in the U.S. Navy or aboard a whaler—two occupations Alastair had tried on as a young man.

  “You may’s well give in to me, Inspector,” Tewes said, getting close enough to breathe on Ransom. “Nathan Kohler is on his way here this minute. He’ll want an accounting if I am not allowed to read the victim’s cranium.”

  Ransom ran his free hand through his bushy hair. A big man with powerful hands, Alastair went to the corpse. He then placed his cane under his arm to free up both hands. He next grabbed on to the corpse’s blackened, singed hairless head at forehead and base of neck. He easily cranked the cranium from side to side, then front to back. With a sickening squish, the garroted neck released its tenuous hold, the head coming off in Ransom’s now sooty, grimy hands to the chorus of gasping reporters who’d pushed the police line to the top of the stairs. Onlookers, cops, and medical personnel who’d rushed to the murder scene joined in a collective gasp, adding to the groans of seasoned crime reporters.

  Photographer Keane flashed his pan and a fiery black plume appeared with the odor of gunpowder all in a single whoosh, getting a shot of Inspector Ransom holding the dead man’s head in his hands.

  “Ransom!” shouted Griff in awe, expecting an oozing gruel to come rushing out of the huge cavity. However, the fire had dehydrated all bodily fluids; nothing but soot lifting and flying off the now completely severed head dirtied Tewes’s white suit. Tewes’s gritted teeth spoke volumes. Still, the doctor accepted and couched the severed head in the cradle of his arms.

  Tewes’s chin quivered like a girl about to burst into tears, his watch fob shivering, as Ransom said, “You wanna read the boy’s skull, Dr. Tewes? Be my guest!”

  Under Ransom’s steady glare, the slight doctor refused to show another moment’s emotion, holding his ground, earning more respect from Inspector Ransom than Griffin thought possible.

  “I—I’ll take it to the stationmaster’s office,” Tewes shakily said, “place it on a desk…for—for stability. You really…really should’ve left it intact, Inspector.”

  “Yes, find a square foot of privacy…. Good idea.” Ransom’s eyes scanned the reporters. “Or have you invited the press as well, Doctor?”

  Dr. Tewes stiffly marched off with his dubious prize. Ransom tried to think of something clever to shout after him, but the absolute gall the man had displayed, in a bizarre way, held Ransom in check. “Hmmm, that Tewes fella, Griff, has more backbone than I’d’ve guessed.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Griffin Drimmer had pushed back the police line to a chorus of questions from reporters, most of them wanting to know who Tewes might be. O’Malley had located a tarp, and crossing himself, the big Irish cop sent the canvas over the now headless, still smoldering corpse. The heavy cloth cascaded over the grim sight and made it disappear, save for the gnarled left hand and foot. Using his police issue boot, O’Malley nudged the errant telltale hand beneath.

  “You can’t cover it, O’Malley!” complained Philo. “I’ve still shots to get.”

  Ransom by contrast had returned to the body with his pipe lit, puffing calmly, and using his cane, he lifted the tarp for a final look at the dead boy.

  “I thought, Rance, what with your having torn off the head…the tarp a good idea,” said O’Malley. “Thought Tewes would wet his pants.” O’Malley’s laugh sounded hollow as it resonated off the vaulted ceiling.

  “Not so much as a blink outta the little weasel,” replied Ransom, “but his damn teeth chattered a bit.”

  Ransom kneeled, holding the tarp up with the scrimshaw tip of his wolf’s-head cane. He stared anew at t
he once fair-skinned boy’s bony body, imagining a child, hardly past a schoolboy, anxious for the bell to ring. “You did the right thing, O’Malley. Now keep those reporters at bay so Philo can take his cuts.”

  “I mean should Chief of Detectives show up…it being unseemly, sir, what with the head off. Not to mention, maybe Keane intends selling that shot of you and Tewes with that ghastly head between yous.”

  Ransom imagined staring at the scene in the Trib or the Herald. “I’ll see to Philo Keane,” Ransom shot back. “I think I know his game by now.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Still nothing of the young victim found in any nearby trash bin?”

  “’Fraid not, sir, but our boys’re still on it.”

  Ransom knew that a certain amount of deference was paid him simply for being a detective on the force, but men like young, round-faced O’Malley foolishly respected him for his part—so-called—in the Haymarket Riot. “God writes plays for each of us, O’Malley,” he’d drunkenly said to Mike at the bar the night before, “and in my script, he gave me Haymarket to suffer through.” Then he’d shouted to the entire pub, “Who remembers the dead I served with?”

  No one in the bar could name any of the fallen police at Haymarket.

  “They erected a statue to them gallant fellows, do you know?” He lifted his glass. “A toast to ’em now! Erected their statue long ’fore your start of service, lads! Do you know where that statue to the common police officer is, O’Malley?”

  “No, sir. ’Fraid not, sir.”

  “Relocated from its dedication pedestal. Buried amid the city’s sprawling buildings and thriving commerce…outside the police station door at the intersection of Jackson and Taylor, where only cops and lowlifes hauled in and out might happen on it. Like a hydrant for dogs to piss on. Like they are ashamed of our boys. From the beginning, top brass, the mayor’s office, didn’t want it on Michigan Avenue, for sure, not in eighty-nine…and not now. “Ransom had heaved a sigh. “Dedicated May fourth in a downpour with a handful of us cripples like me on hand.”