Butcher's dozen en-2

by Max Allan Collins

  She nodded. Looked down at her lemonade.

  "Eliot," she admitted.

  "Eliot Ness," Wild confirmed. "So I have to wonder if your wanting to be around me doesn't have something to do with that."

  "Sam…"

  "I guess in my tactless way, I'm asking if last night might've had something to do with wanting to… 'show' Eliot?"

  If she weren't so sophisticated-or trying to be-she would've looked hurt; but her expression managed to get something else across: disappointment in him.

  "Last night had to do with showing you," she said. "And… it had a little to do with too many Bacardis."

  "Okay," he said. "Why don't you tell me about it?"

  "About what?"

  "About what you told Eliot yesterday that he's ignoring like the stuffy, stubborn bastard he is."

  She smirked to herself, sighed elaborately. "It sounds crazy but

  … I think I know who the Butcher is."

  "What?" Wild's eyes narrowed to slits. "I can't picture Eliot ignoring that… it's not like it's just anybody approaching him-you worked for him."

  "Not lately. And he thinks I'm just…"

  "Looking for an excuse to be around him?"

  She nibbled at a little sandwich. Nodded.

  He reached across and patted her hand. "Well, I'm prepared to listen. Tell me about your Butcher."

  She smiled, pleased to be taken seriously, even if a bit condescendingly. She pushed her plate aside and sat forward, green eyes flashing. "You know how the experts, Eliot among them, have been harping on the 'professional' way the bodies have been cut up-they say again and again there's a 'surgical' look to the dismemberments."

  Wild nodded, suddenly glad he'd had such a light lunch.

  She went on: "They've been saying that a doctor-anyway, somebody who'd at least been in medical school for a time-would be a likely candidate for the Butcher."

  "Sure."

  "And medical school's expensive, so, it stands to reason, the Butcher just might run in the same social circles as yours truly."

  "Well, I don't know about…"

  "For the sake of argument?"

  "For the sake of argument." He shrugged. He fired up a Lucky.

  "Do you know Dr. Watterson of the Western Reserve?"

  "We're not exactly close. He's a big shot, I know that… top surgeon, top anatomy professor, serves on various boards of directors, widely respected… hey, you're not suggesting-"

  "No! No."

  "Good. I mean, Viv-Watterson is one of the experts who's worked the case, for cryin' out loud. He was on Eliot's goddamn Torso Clinic!"

  "Not him. Not the father. The son."

  "There's a son?"

  "A son named Lloyd." She seemed embarrassed suddenly; gestured nervously. "I know him socially. He's cheerful, seems like a nice enough guy, if just a little… off."

  "Well, now I guess he'd have to be, if he went around cutting people up, wouldn't he?"

  She frowned; she looked like a little girl whose dollhouse had been messed with. "If you're not going to take this seriously…"

  "I am. I am. Go on, go on."

  "Well. He's a big man, very strong-the kind of strength it might take to do some of the things the Butcher has done."

  "The same could be said of thousands upon thousands of men in this city, Viv."

  "Are you going to listen? Lloyd's an only child, and his father always expected him to be a doctor." She smiled wickedly. "But a few years ago, guess what Lloyd did? He flunked out of medical school."

  Wild sat forward.

  "He's engaged to a friend of mine. But the engagement keeps getting postponed. She's confided in me, a couple of times, that she's afraid they're never going to get married. She says… she says Lloyd never touches her."

  "Touches her how? You mean…?"

  "Sexually. They're very affectionate in public, but in private, he gets all high-tone about waiting until after they're married to 'consummate' their love."

  Wild blew out some cigarette smoke. "Maybe he's old-fashioned."

  "He's also seeing a psychiatrist. Jennifer… that's his fiancee… told me that, too."

  "A lot of people see psychiatrists, Viv."

  "Sam, I was on a double date a few months ago… this guy I was seeing for a while, a typical society loser, never mind about him.. we were out with Jennifer and Lloyd at the Vogue Room, and we ran into Eliot and Ev. They stopped by the table. Well, the conversation got around to the 'Mad Butcher,' though Eliot was reluctant to talk business, as usual; but, anyway, Lloyd seemed overly interested in it, it seemed to me."

  "Surely Eliot would've picked up on that, if that were the case."

  "I don't think so. Eliot was… well, distracted by having both Ev and me around. Also, he wasn't aware of Lloyd's background. And, hell, I didn't think about it much till later, because shortly after that… actually that same night… the first body in some time turned up. So then I found myself going over the conversation again and again in my mind."

  "Maybe you've blown it up out of proportion."

  "Maybe. But one of the things that stuck with me was the way Lloyd referred to the Butcher that night… he consistently called him the 'Mad Doctor.' Not the Butcher. Doctor."

  Wild nodded slowly. "There've been a lot of nicknames for this killer in the papers… the Headhunter, the Torso Killer…"

  "But not 'Mad Doctor.' Sam, Lloyd is a failed doctor. A failed surgeon."

  Wild scratched his chin. "I don't know, Viv. He's a big healthy guy, he flunked out of medical school, he's seeing a psychiatrist, he wants to wait till after he's married to make whoopee with his wife. That doesn't add up to a mass murderer, exactly."

  "There's something else. You see, I… I did a little investigating of public records. Frankly, I think that's what made Eliot a little… well, not angry but put out with me. That I was taking it upon myself to investigate this, when I'm no longer on the city payroll as any kind of investigator."

  "Well, it's a hell of a dangerous case to go poking around in, unofficially. He's probably concerned for your safety."

  "Yes," she said archly, "he's the safety director, after all. Sam, he just listened blankly-didn't write a thing down. Just told me, firmly-almost, God, angry-to stay out of the case. That I was no longer associated with his office. Period. Damn, he was cold."

  "Viv, like I said, this is a hell of a dangerous-"

  "Let me tell you what I found out. Lloyd Watterson manages his father's business affairs. These include certain properties in the Flats and in the Third precinct. Rooming houses."

  The skin on the back of Wild's neck began to tingle.

  "He oversees them," she said. "Collects rent and such from the landladies who manage them. And do you know where he lives?"

  "At home with daddy?"

  "No. He lives on Central Avenue. In the Third precinct. In a building that used to be his father's."

  "His fathers?"

  "Yes. It's where his father first hung out a shingle. It's a goddamn doctor's office, Sam."

  Wild swallowed, stabbing out his cigarette. "Christ. It could be this 'murder lab' they've been looking for…"

  "Eliot Ness doesn't seem to think so," she said tightly. "And you know something else?"

  He was almost afraid to ask, but he did: "What?"

  "Lloyd told Jennifer what he's being treated for. By the psychiatrist. It's what made her start crying and break down in my arms and confide so much in me."

  "So what is Lloyd being treated for, anyway?"

  Her smile was small and smug. "Homosexual tendencies," she said.

  And she sipped her lemonade.

  Lloyd Watterson lived just off Kingsbury Run on Central Avenue in a rooming-house district. From the small but weed-overrun lawn and the boarded-up basement windows, the modest bungalow, its white paint curling off, might have been abandoned. There were signs of inhabitation, though, namely the draped front windows and some mail sticking out of a box by the front doo
r.

  It was midafternoon, and Wild was having second thoughts.

  "What if he comes home?"

  "He isn't home," Viv said. "He and Jennifer are at the club today; I checked it out thoroughly, Sam, and anyway, if he comes home unexpectedly, I'll start honking the horn."

  "Swell. Then what? I'm unarmed."

  "I have a gun," she said, simply, and showed him a small pearl-handled automatic in her purse.

  "Do you know how to use it?"

  "I'm the best female skeet shooter in town."

  "Well, hell-anybody who can shoot female skeet with a twenty-five automatic is Jake with me. He sighed. "Here goes."

  She stayed behind in her little shiny blue Bugatti sports car, which couldn't have been more out of place in this neighborhood. Hers was one of the few cars parked on the street, and the sidewalks were relatively empty as well.

  The game plan was for Wild to get inside that bungalow and snoop around enough to see if there was any possibility that the residence, reconverted from a general practitioners office years ago, might still be a surgery of sorts. To see if it might indeed be a possible "murder lab."

  If Wild felt that was the case, he would tell the director of public safety.

  Wild's say-so, both he and Vivian felt, would be enough to get Eliot off the dime. And if Lloyd turned out to be the Butcher, there would be the scoop of a lifetime in it for Wild. He-not Eliot Ness-would be the man who "got" the Butcher.

  Which was all well and good, but what if there was more substantial evidence of butchery? What if he found a stock of torso parts in cold storage, a virtual human meat locker? What if a half-carved victim lay on a surgical table?

  It was a warm day, but Wild shivered.

  He had a cynical nature, and he had seen about all there was to see in his time. But the small, unprepossessing frame house before him chilled him like nothing he'd ever faced.

  Reluctantly, pitching a spent Lucky behind him into the street, he climbed the half dozen steps, his hand on the rusting rail.

  He didn't care what Viv said, he wanted to make sure Watterson wasn't home; so he knocked. Should Lloyd come to the door, Wild might ask directions to the nearest gas station, or maybe do a man-in-the-street (or on-the-porch) interview about the Butcher. How does it feel living in this neighborhood when it's under the cloud of these killings?

  Of course, right now the cloud the neighborhood was under was from the shantytown fire. The acrid smell of smoke was everywhere.

  He knocked again.

  Nothing.

  Like any good reporter, Wild carried several skeleton keys, and the first he tried worked. Wasn't this his lucky day.

  Just inside, in the foyer, he noted several built-in coat hooks on the wall. What had been the waiting room was off to the right, converted to a small, well-furnished living room. The furnishings looked comfortable but not cheap, and the oriental artwork and tapestries on the walls were more expensive than you would expect to find on Central Avenue. Nothing suspicious, exactly, but this place clearly was a bachelor hideaway of some sort.

  A door off the reconverted waiting room stood open on a room that was larger, but strangely empty. It had been, perhaps still was, an office; a rolltop desk, like Eliot's, and several half-filled bookcases. Several wooden chairs. On the desk, Wild noted, was a stack of ledgers; also an adding machine. In the bookcase, medical texts, books on anatomy. That, and the emptiness of the room, after the homey coziness of the adjacent living room, unnerved him.

  But he stayed with it. He peeked into what he thought would be closets, but turned out to be cubicles with examining tables. The tiny rooms were clean but smelled musty; they didn't seem to have seen recent use.

  He went back through the small living room and into the hall and walked down to the kitchen. It was white and clean, smelling of disinfectant. There was a kitchen table with a newspaper-Wilds paper, the Plain Dealer — folded open to the funnies. Otherwise, there was no sign of anyone's living here. No dishes in the sink or food out on the counter.

  Years ago this place had been set up to be a residence in back and a doctor's office in front; so the bedroom and a small dining room were off the hall and the kitchen respectively. Those rooms remained to be inspected, but, for a moment, Wild thought he should just get the hell out. It wasn't that he was scared: the only thing thus far that really disconcerted him was that big, mostly empty office. And why shouldn't it be mostly empty? Lloyd wasn't a doctor; the only item of any use to him in that room was the desk, and his business ledgers had been on the desktop, just as they should be. Nothing suspicious.

  No, Wild was thinking he'd made a mistake coming here. Lloyd was not a suspect. He was just somebody Viv knew who fit parts of the Butchers projected profile. And both Wild and Viv had axes to grind against Eliot, at the moment, impairing both their judgments.

  He was trespassing for no good reason. He ought to just get the fuck out.

  As he stood in the kitchen contemplating all this, he found himself facing the large Frigidaire refrigerator.

  And now he felt a little nervous. Now his tongue felt thick and his hand trembled as he reached out for the door handle. This would be the test, he told himself. If Lloyds refrigerator shelves bore nothing more than common everyday groceries, Wild would hightail it out of here and write this one off to bad judgment and getting laid.

  He cracked the Frigidaire door, then yanked it open all the way, and the cold air hit him in the face. He bent to look in.

  And saw nothing more than common everyday groceries: some vegetables, milk, eggs, bottles of beer. No meat at all, human or otherwise. Wild felt relief, and chagrin, and a hand on his shoulder.

  He wheeled and the hand fell away, and he looked up at Lloyd Watterson's smiling face. Wild was tall, but Lloyd was taller, a blond man about six three with a baby face and ice-blue eyes and shoulders nearly as wide as the Frigidaire. He wore a kid's grin, on one side of his face. He also wore a white polo shirt and short white pants; he seemed about to say, "Tennis, anyone?"

  But he said nothing, as a matter of fact; he just appraised Wild with ice-blue, somewhat vacant eyes. Wild now knew how it felt for a woman to be ogled-and it was not a good feeling.

  Wild said, "Look, I can explain," knowing he couldn't, brain scrambling for some excuse, coming up with nothing, and Lloyd's hand reached out and grabbed the front of Wilds shirt and pitched the reporter like a horseshoe across the room.

  Wild smacked into a white-tiled kitchen wall and slid down it like food flung there by a brat. His head, the back of his head, hit the tiled wall hard, and he blacked out.

  When he woke up, he had no sense of how long he'd been out, and found himself tied in a chair in a blindingly white room.

  He knew at once he was in the murder lab of the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.

  It was in the basement-the ceiling above showed the open beams and wiring of a basement, though painted out white, and a white-painted wooden stairway that rose to somewhere; the only window was painted out black. There was a white-enamel examining table and white metal medical storage cabinets and a counter with neatly arranged glass vials and tubes and beakers of substances of various colors. A large glass jug on the counter bore a label saying only: FORMALDEHYDE.

  He felt his breath coming fast.

  He turned his head and saw a large, stainless-steel refrigerator; it was humming. He saw his reflection in its door. Clutched by the horror of the moment, bound tightly to the chair, he looked at his own wide-eyed reflection, wondering what-who-was in cold storage, wondering if he would be there soon himself.

  Then he shook his head, pulled himself together, telling himself, You're not dead yet, you asshole, and began straining at the ropes.

  They were snug; not so snug as to cut off his circulation, but snug enough.

  Feet came tramping down the wooden, white-painted stairs. He saw bare legs first, in tennis shorts; unlike the room, the legs weren't white. They were as suntanned as Viv's; and where the hell
was Viv?

  Wild hoped to Christ she wasn't in that goddamn refrigerator.

  Lloyd Watterson was grinning. The white tennis outfit, with its short pants, was like some absurd doctor outfit made for a child. He walked over to the counter and opened a drawer and his hand rustled around amidst metal objects. Then he withdrew something. Held it up in his right hand, catching the electric light.

  A cleaver.

  He turned. Smiled pleasantly.

  "I'm no butcher," he said. His voice was soft, almost gentle. "Don't believe what you've heard…"

  "Do you want to die?" Wild asked.

  Lloyd started. "Of course not."

  "Well, then cut me loose. There's cops all over the place, and if you kill me, they'll shoot you down. Do you know who I am?"

  "Certainly. You're a reporter. It said so in your wallet, and I recognize your name from the paper."

  "Then you know I work with Eliot Ness."

  He thought that over, nodded.

  "If you touch me," Wild said, "Ness and his men will shoot you down like a fucking animal."

  Standing just to one side of Wild, holding up the cold polished steel of the cleaver, in which Wild's frantic reflection looked back at its source, Lloyd said, "I'm no butcher. This is a surgical tool. This is used for amputation, not butchery."

  "I… I can see that."

  "Why did you insist on calling me a butcher, then? In your stories?"

  "Do you want to be caught, Lloyd?"

  "Of course not. I'm no different than you. I serve the public in my own way."

  "How… how do you figure that, Lloyd?" Wild's feet weren't tied to the chair; he could move his legs from the knees down… if Lloyd would just step around in front of him…

  "I only dispose of the flotsam. Not to mention jetsam."

  "Not to mention that."

  "Tramps. Whores. Weeding out the stock. Survival of the fittest. Punishing the wicked. Experimentation. Does anyone mourn a guinea pig?"