by H. B. Berlow
“Then you better leave.” She smiled like it was the punch line to a joke.
“I can’t do that. I need to catch this guy.”
“And you’re going to let him stab me?”
“I won’t let it happen.”
“Are you sure?” There were no more jokes to tell. This wasn’t the first show on Saturday night. I had brought the cruelty of the world into her freewheeling fun-loving venue and I felt sick by it. Regrettably, I had no other options.
“I just want to come and visit you periodically. Here at the theater, maybe take you for coffee.”
“Like a date?” She raised an eyebrow, like a suspicious Joan Crawford.
“I wouldn’t be so presumptuous.”
“You might try it some time.”
She stared at me intensely, those blue eyes digging in deep to mine, looking past the scars, and using all her skills to figure out who I was behind the mask. I could see she was strong more than brave. For a brief moment, we were somewhere else, laughing, running, rolling around. She was different than Heather or Natalie. She could take care of herself but preferred to let someone else take care of her. The job temporarily fell on me. My voice was calm but my words were direct like a Sunday school teacher. I tried to not use the word ‘bait’ because I didn’t want her to think she was just an object. The people, or more correctly the men, who came to see her shows, thought of her in such a fashion. I wasn’t going to. I touched her softly on the arm before getting up and moving toward the door.
“Baron.”
“Yes?”
“You’ll tell me about the scars sometime.”
I nodded and left.
It was important I focus on what needed to be done. Jeanette Ross was the ideal next target, and I knew I could lead the killer to her and be prepared for a possible attack. Being enthralled with her was going to cloud my judgment when the time was near.
When I got back, I was expecting to advise Rackler of my plan. Captain Merton was there in the detectives’ office, Rackler standing behind him, hands clasped together, head slightly bowed as though he were paying his respects.
“Officer Witherspoon. Detective Rackler has advised me you have an interesting theory.”
I was a little bothered Rackler had gone to his supervisors after I laid out my ideas, indicating to him it was only speculation and we would need to put a plan into action to see if we could draw the suspect out. Perhaps it was the pressure, political or otherwise, that made him disclose what we discussed. For all I know, he may have been reporting to them directly this entire time in hopes of some consideration if the case were solved. For Rackler, it was never about public service but how the public could serve him.
“It’s just a theory, sir.” He stood stock still, not blinking, a block of stone waiting to be carved. He wanted to hear from me what he had already been told. “I think the killer is Officer Ronald Roché.”
Chapter Forty-One
Merton’s eyes beamed as wide as saucers. With his lower jaw slack, he was ready to catch flies. I figured Rackler felt obligated to let his superiors know the score but I had overestimated his ability to understand completely everything I had outlined. Maybe he didn’t say anything at all to Captain Merton. The point was now there was something definitive to deal with.
“Were you aware his mother was assaulted when she was younger?” Merton simply shook his head. “Well, the result was a pregnancy and the child was Officer Roché. The birth certificate does not list a father.”
“How do you know all this?”
I smiled broadly. I wasn’t the scarred man with a past. I was the cop in charge.
“I did a great deal of research using several sources which is something your detectives should have been doing all along.” I made sure to not look at Rackler directly. Raising my voice slightly made everyone aware of how I felt. “There are plenty of resources available which were completely overlooked. Who knows how many women could have been saved earlier?” I caught a tense look from Rackler out of the corner of my eye. “Apparently Mrs. Roché’s father was well off and allowed her to live at home and raise the child. His own wife had died several years earlier.”
“What’s all this got to do with Ronnie?” Rackler let me know by his tone how upset he was. All he was going to wind up doing was proving he was more fit to be a trash collector.
“The father was extremely religious and instilled the same in his daughter, basically forcing her to repent. We’ve got church records on this, baptisms, and other rituals. But he was mean to his grandson according to several of Ronnie’s teachers I was able to track down. So, you have a wayward woman who got pregnant, was forced to repent, becomes a religious zealot but still wants to be naughty. And you’ve got a child who sees the bad girl got away with it. He doesn’t see any sort of repentance. Nothing real, anyway. He becomes a cop in the hope he can clean up the bad elements. All he winds up doing is menial jobs and never gets a chance to be a true crusader.”
“And from there he becomes a murderer.” Merton didn’t say it like a question but his words didn’t have a lot of force behind them. It was almost as though he were reciting lines, trying to memorize them to explain to someone else who was equally inept.
“I don’t know. Like I said, it’s just a theory.”
“How do we prove this?” Rackler finally sounded like he was onboard or, at the very least, willing to run with this idea considering there was nothing else. Anything as long as the killer was caught and he could stick a feather in his cap.
“Any time he has been assigned to me, he’s followed me around like I’m his big brother. Maybe I’m the father he never had. I can’t tell. I figure if I get close to someone he thinks is a harlot or a sinner, he might do something to, well, protect me.”
“Protect you? From what?” Captain Merton was the type of cop who looked at photos and reports. This kind of thinking was beyond his capability. I began to consider it was beyond most people and kept wondering how it was I could get into the mind of this killer. A scary notion until I realized such a person was hiding behind their own mask, appearing like an average Joe, while being someone completely different inside. It was something I could relate to considering I had done it for twenty years.
“Protect me from sin.”
I told them about Jeanette Ross and how I would meet her now and again and how I would need two detectives beside Rackler to simply follow me, be on the lookout for someone in the shadows because it was how the killer operated, giving Ronnie enough time to see me with her. If he made a move, we could grab him.
“I don’t know,” Rackler said, retreating into doubt the way only someone with a small mind can do. “It seems like a whole lot of effort for a slim chance.”
“You have any better ideas, John? Your former partner was willing to listen, willing to give anything a try.”
Captain Merton stood up tall, straightened his jacket, and returned back into the image of a polished professional.
“Officer Witherspoon is correct. We need to make an effort and see if this…theory has any substance to it. I’ll assign two detectives. But this plan goes no further than the four of you and myself. If this doesn’t prove to be correct, we will have accused an officer of the Wichita Police Department of being a cold-blooded killer.”
Merton walked out without looking back. His word was final, like a pharaoh of Egypt. This was far different than the only other case I worked on three years ago, the one where I couldn’t have guessed sweet Natalie Dixon was on a rampage of revenge. I had no one else to assist me because I didn’t want anyone to know what she had done and, more to the point, because I was starting to fall in love with her. It might have been I understood and possibly agreed with her motives. Now, another person who had gotten close to me had ulterior motives, and I wasn’t sure I could save him either.
Detective Rackler ambled over to me, puffing his chest, acting like the prize bull at the state fair.
“So why is it you
get to cozy up to the burlesque gal?”
I turned and faced him, my hot breath in his face, my eyes pinned to his, watching those eyes follow the lines all over my face.
“From now on, as long as I’m assigned to your department, you do everything I say, when I say it. You see, what’s going to happen is we’re going to catch this guy. You’ll wind up the big hero and I head back to Ark City to live a quiet and cozy life. And all you have to do is keep your mouth shut and follow me on this one. Do you understand me?”
For just the slightest moment, I felt like I was wearing a silk suit and stomping the pavement on North LaSalle with the Market Street Gang and getting respect just from staring everyone down. It was different in the war. You had to fight not only to keep yourself alive but your brothers in arms as well. But Dion O’Banion, the leader of the North Side Gang and the guy who convinced Eric Kimble to fight the Hun and get out of the streets, taught us in the early days a hard look will hold anyone at bay. John Rackler may have been the toughest kid on his street but he was in the big city now going after a killer who had no reason to stop. If my getting close to him put him off, he was never going to make it as a detective. I knew he was fuming but the steam hadn’t yet escaped from the kettle.
I left the detectives’ room and headed for a barber shop to get a shave. I was going to the Warren Theater to meet a lady.
Chapter Forty-Two
There I stood at the crossroads wondering who I was and who I should be. A tough from the North Side. A war hero. A fake identity. A real cop. A detective pressed into service. A hopeful detective. One who entered the minds of killers and thought like them. Why? Maybe because it’s who I was deep down. I certainly wasn’t a husband, a father, a brother, an uncle, a homeowner, an exemplary church-going member of the community. I was Baron Witherspoon, a name, a cop, with some sense of community and absolutely no idea of where I was going.
There was certainly nothing like the Warren Theater in Ark City and nothing at all like Jeanette Ross. Not even the lace covered Mademoiselles during the war compared to the slinky and sultry dancing, covered with feathers and silk scarves. Perhaps she was really nude but probably not. Yet you would never know for sure.
What surprised me the most was her singing. I had only heard opera once or twice from Dr. Brenz when he played it on a phonograph. She didn’t quite hit the highest notes. Instead she sounded more like a songbird, a kind of sweetness and gentility. It was almost like a mother singing a lullaby. While there were a few ornery gents who could do without the song, the majority of the audience seemed captivated.
At the end of the show, Mr. Freedman escorted me discreetly to Miss Ross’ dressing room. It was there I saw her wearing a skintight outfit almost the color of her skin. This was the illusion she had referred to earlier. I counted on her to be able to continue the illusion.
“So, how does this work?” she asked eagerly, hands on her knees, leaning forward in anticipation. Perhaps in order to get through the potential horror of the situation, Jeanette thought of this as just another performance. If that worked for her, it was okay by me.
“I come to the show and take you out to a late supper. Or I meet you in the afternoon to go shopping or to lunch. I just need to be out in public with you to allow us to be seen.”
“By who?”
“By him.”
Her face took on a more serious appearance, the curve of her smile straightened but her brow tightened. I hoped she realized I meant something more than a man, something sick and evil and twisted. Perhaps such monstrosity was something she had never encountered before. She tried to lighten the mood.
“Aren’t you worried about your reputation, Officer Witherspoon?”
“I don’t have one, Miss Ross.”
After a quick change into regular clothes, we went to dinner. She ordered a steak, rare, and I had a plate of spaghetti with meatballs. She ate like she was starving but I knew she was paid well for her work and could afford whatever her pleasures may have been. I wondered where all her energy came from. I had experienced her beauty, her wit, her charm, and her talent. I wasn’t sure if I was getting to know the real Jeanette Ross or a character in a stage show.
“Can I ask you a question?” I nodded. “Do you like being a cop?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Why?”
It struck me because I had never been asked the question before and didn’t have an answer right off the top of my head. I knew for going on twenty years being a beat cop in Ark City was what my life had become and gave me a sense of purpose. For the life of me, I just couldn’t figure out why.
“It gives me something to do.”
She wiped her lips gently with the napkin, pushed the now empty plate forward, and leaned in.
“I have a feeling there’s a lot more to you than you’re letting on. And since we’re going to be spending quite some time together, I’m going to find out what that is.”
What if she found out everything? I wondered. Would she be scared or angry? Would there be a sense of excitement? I was almost to the point of just telling her because I was getting tired. At times the uncertainty felt like heavy stones pressing down on me. For now, I’d allow her to enjoy her game.
Over the next few days, I made sure to provide Officer Roché access to the detectives’ room anytime he wished, if he had more theories or further information to pass along. We wanted to allow him to be part of the investigation and close enough to me to be aware of my relationship with Jeanette.
One afternoon, Rackler and I were reviewing files. It was the same ones we had looked over countless times before. This time it was to make it appear we had a new lead or a new thought on the case. I yawned in the middle of a sentence.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t get any breakfast this morning.”
“Why don’t you head out for lunch?” Rackler said, sounding friendlier and more accommodating than he ever had. Of course I knew it was an act. I looked up at the clock on the wall. Ronnie looked back and forth between me and Rackler.
“I guess I could go meet Jeanette. Afternoon rehearsals are done.”
“Are you seeing her?”
“Well, kind of, I guess. After all, I’m going to be here in Wichita for a while and it’s not often I get a chance to go out with someone like her. They don’t have her type in Ark City.”
Rackler laughed knowingly. Ronnie continued moving his head back and forth like some sort of wide-eyed bird. I patted him on the shoulder as I left. The point was to carry on like everything was normal and allow the other two detectives who were assigned to this case by Captain Merton to follow and report. I got back nearly two hours later meeting Rackler in another office to avoid Ronnie.
“He was following you two.” Rackler pulled out a notebook. “Apparently he got to the theater before you. He put as good a tail on you as the dicks did on him. He left the outside of the restaurant you were at about fifteen minutes before you did. Detective Voth followed him back here to the station while Detective Montgomery waited on you.”
“Just following me, huh? Seems like it’s all we have for now.”
“It’s something. It’s more than we had.”
“It doesn’t prove anything. I’m going to have to push this thing more.”
“How?”
“Start seeing her more like a suitor. Start talking about her in front of him. We need to get a response out of him. At this point, we have no idea how he may have encountered the other victims, what they might have said or done to get him to do what he did. Hell, for all I know, he just might be a puppy dog who’s jealous of me.”
It was a scary thought. If I was wrong I would be ruining this young man’s reputation, his confidence, his whole career on the police force. It seemed to me Ronnie Roché had so little to begin with I didn’t want to take everything away from him.
A few nights later, I was out late with Jeanette, she held onto my arm as though I were some European gentleman, the two of us laughing over a sto
ry she told. I don’t know if Ronnie meant to allow us to see him but I called out to him. Bringing him to us was like sticking a dirty sock in his face. Jeanette represented the wayward side of sin, something not unlike his mother. And I, the representation of an older brother or perhaps a father, was wandering down a path of doom.
“Jeanette, this is Officer Ronald Roché, a bright young man on the force.”
He tipped his cap and responded, “Ma’am.” She wiggled like a worm on a hook but with far more oomph. There was a tight lipped look of contempt on his face, less anger and more like the beginnings of a fire and brimstone sermon.
“What brings you out tonight, Officer Roché?”
“I was looking for you. I recall someone from Sister Celeste’s last meeting who might be a possible suspect.”
“We’ll discuss this in the morning.” My tone was intentionally dismissive. I was attempting to hurt him as much as possible, especially in public and in front of Jeanette to goad him into eventually taking action. I was aware of Detectives Voth and Montgomery in the area and wanted them to witness everything as well.
Ronnie nodded toward me and walked off without looking at Jeanette.
“Is that him?” she asked.
“I think so. I don’t know any more.”
“He looks more the type to stomp his little feet in the ground and hold his breath until he turns blue.”
I held her by the shoulders and turned her toward me.
“Don’t underestimate him. There are dangers you know nothing about.”
She leaned in toward the crook of my left arm, resting against it, while my right arm came up around her. I held her tightly and felt her heartbeat. Or maybe it was mine. I was starting to care about her just a little too much.
Chapter Forty-Three
Over the course of the next two weeks, there were more lunches and dinners and gatherings and walks and a trip to Jeanette’s hotel room where she lived. Nothing happened other than her making me coffee and us really getting to know each other. It started to feel like a real relationship and not a police investigation in which she was the bait for a murderer.