BUTCHER'S DOZEN (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  "Oh, I know."

  "I'm not some easy pickup."

  "I'm sure you aren't!"

  They went to two bars and ended up back at his place, the reconverted surgery on Central. She was a pretty girl, and he hoped he could do the deed with her. They drank some more, especially her, and finally she passed out, probably due to the morphine he slipped in her Scotch. Having her pass out made it easier. He took her clothes off and did it to her while she was passed out. She didn't move at all while he was on her. That helped him do it. She was snoring a little when he climbed off and put his clothes on.

  He was whistling when he went downstairs, flipping the light switch, illuminating the very white room below. The examining room cum surgery was spotless, probably cleaner than when his father had been practicing here. Lloyd had gone over the floor with a scrub brush to make it surgically disinfected as well as to destroy any evidence. He went to the large steel refrigerator and got out the lower torso of a woman and set it down upon the white-enamel examining table. He took from the lab bench his leather pouch of surgical tools that Father had given him and began to cut.

  He didn't hear her on the steps.

  The first thing he heard was her saying, in a slurred voice, "What are you up . . ."

  Then he turned, scapel in hand, and she was standing there, on the stairs, slim and nude, with her eyes and mouth open very wide.

  ". . . to," she finished. Breathlessly. Frozen there.

  He sighed, and moved quickly toward her.

  INTERLUDE

  April 8, 1938

  CHAPTER 14

  Nine months had passed since the discovery of victim number nine—or victim number ten, if you counted (and Ness did) the 1934 torso that had washed up, half of it in a suitcase, on Euclid beach. Nine months since that startled tender in his tower on the Third Street Bridge had seen a dressmaker's dummy float by, only it hadn't been a dressmaker's dummy.

  With the death of Frank Dolezal, and the apparent halt in killings, Eliot Ness had handed the Butcher case over to Merlo and Curry and returned to his duties as safety director. It had not been his idea: the Mayor had suggested that he "distance himself" from the investigation, what with the waters muddied by the sheriff's involvement.

  Still, the Butcher remained a major concern of his, and he kept close tabs on his two detectives, who were (among other things) trying to track several suspects, including the hobo named Ben, the beggar called One-Armed Willie, and the nameless tramp who'd attacked Curry with a jackknife in the shanty town on the Run.

  But none of this was on the mind of the young safety director on this pleasantly cool Saturday in April. Wearing a tux, looking and feeling spiffy, he was in the company of Evelyn MacMillan, a slender, lovely brunette of twenty-five years.

  Ev's father was a well-fixed stockbroker in Chicago where several years back Ness—then head of the Justice Departments Prohibition Bureau in Illinois—had first encountered the MacMillan family socially. He'd been attracted to the girl then, but she'd been just a kid, a student at the Art Institute.

  Last October he and Bob Chamberlin had taken the train to Ann Arbor for the Michigan/Chicago football game. He'd run into Ev and some friends at the stadium, and they'd all gone out to dinner afterward at his hotel. That was where and when Ness got the word that his mother had died in Chicago that afternoon.

  He'd been close to his mother, very close, and it hit him hard, though he didn't think it showed. It showed to Ev, who insisted on taking the train back to Chicago with him. She stayed at his side throughout the next several days. She'd been a good friend to him; settling his family's affairs required several more trips home to Chicago, during which time a warm friendship with Ev blossomed into something even warmer.

  Earlier this week, after much urging from him, she had moved to Cleveland. She was a gifted artist and had already illustrated several children's books for major New York publishers; so he didn't have to pull many strings to get her the job as fashion artist for the Higbee Company, one of city's major department stores.

  This was their first night out on the town together, after her move. Ev wore a sleek black gown with pink and green satin ruffles at the bust, her creamy shoulders bare. She was quiet and rather modest personally, but she always dressed dramatically for an evening out. The fashion illustrator side of her, he supposed.

  "This is a lovely place," Ev said, sipping her after-dinner champagne cocktail.

  They were seated in yellow leather chairs at a corner table near a blue-mirrored wall in the Vogue Room off the lobby of the Hollenden Hotel. The Vogue Room was a streamlined, stainless-steel-trimmed nightclub with subdued, reflected illumination. The only light fixture visible was a steel chandelier over the central dance floor.

  Ness, his back to the mirrored wall, sipped his Scotch and smiled and said, "Not what you'd expect of Cleveland, I guess."

  "The town's not living up to its dull reputation. Very cosmopolitan, if you ask me." She touched his folded hands. "Eliot ... I don't know what to say. I don't know how to thank you."

  "You'll find a way, doll," he said, and smiled again.

  She smiled big, showing pink gums above tiny white teeth; it was not a very cosmopolitan smile, but it appealed a great deal to Eliot Ness. "It sounds so corny when you call me that. 'Doll.'" She shook her head.

  "Do you mind?"

  "I don't mind it at all. It's just ... it sounds like something some . . . movie tough guy would call his 'moll.' Jimmy Cagney or somebody. I'm glad they didn't serve grapefruit tonight."

  He laughed. "Well, I'm supposed to be a gangbuster. Haven't you heard?"

  "Of course I've heard," she said, gently swirling her champagne in its glass, looking down into the liquid as if it were a crystal ball she was trying to see the future in. "It's just that I've never heard it from you."

  "I don't like to bring my work home."

  "I can understand that. You work long hours. But my work is something I can and really have to take home with me."

  "I told you, doll. You can have the tower for your studio. You can cloister yourself there all you want."

  He was referring to the upper floor of the boathouse.

  She squeezed his hand. "Oh, Eliot ... I wish I could move in tomorrow."

  "I wish you could, too. We need to wait awhile."

  She nodded. "Till after the municipal election."

  "I think it would be wise." His divorce hadn't been publicized, but it would be if he remarried, particularly if he remarried soon. He wouldn't care to give Mayor Burton's political enemies any ammunition; Burton had won by a landslide last year, but crucial council seats were at stake.

  "November seems so far away," she sighed.

  "Well, it'll give us a chance to get you acquainted with the city, and the city acquainted with you."

  "I suppose. But darling . . . how much distance do we have to keep?"

  "Well," he said, leaning toward her, whispering in her ear, "I expect you to stay on your side of the bed tonight."

  She kissed her fingertip and placed it on his lips. "I think I can manage that."

  Soon they were out on the dance floor, gliding to the strains of "The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else" as performed, and nicely, by Ina Ray Mutton's all-girl band. The world was bathed in coral lighting. They held each other close; she was a rather tall girl and they made a nice fit.

  As the number was concluding, Ina Ray announcing the band's break, he felt a tap on his shoulder, as if someone were cutting in.

  He turned and looked into the jade-green eyes of Vivian Chalmers.

  "Am I going to have to ask to be introduced?" Viv's voice was cordial and her smile pleasant and white and dazzling; but Ness recognized something hard and hurt lurking in her eyes.

  "Of course not," he said, and gestured. "Vivian Chalmers, this is Evelyn—"

  "MacMillan," Viv finished, smiling tightly but sincerely, shaking Ev's hand. Ev seemed a little embarrassed. "You're the talk of the town."

&n
bsp; "Am I?" Ev asked ingenuously.

  "Why, of course, dear," Viv said. "That's a plum job you pulled down at Higbee's. You must have friends in high places."

  Neither Ness nor Ev knew what to say to that. They just gave her polite smiles, and finally Viv slipped an arm around Ev's shoulder and said, "Come on. Let's not be enemies."

  "Enemies?"

  The two women physically were quite similar; only their hair color and apparel differed. Where Ev wore an evening gown, Viv's slender shape was tucked away in a crisp white flannel mannish suit, pin-striped black, over a black blouse.

  Viv looked sharply at Ness. "Hasn't this insensitive heel even mentioned me to you?"

  "I can't say that he has."

  Ness wished he were anywhere else. Picking torso pieces out of the Cuyahoga, for instance.

  "We were an item," Viv said, walking Ev toward a side table. Ness followed like a pet. "I don't say this to be bitchy. But some bitch will tell you about it—I'm surprised you haven't heard already—so let's get it out in the open."

  "F-fine," Ev said.

  "It's over between this big sap and me. Okay?"

  "Okay," Ev said tentatively.

  "Now why don't you join us," she said, "for a drink."

  Ev glanced desperately at Ness. He shrugged. This was one rescue he couldn't manage.

  And they approached the table where a dark, vaguely dissipated young man in a tux sat gloomily nursing a double Scotch; next to him was a couple, sitting close to each other, holding hands, apparently very much in love. The woman was older than twenty, but not by much, a pretty redhead who worked hard though not successfully at covering her freckles with makeup; she wore a rather low-cut, shiny green gown and, hidden freckles or not, was a fine-looking woman. Her beau was a husky, towheaded guy in white dinner jacket with black tie.

  "I'm sure you folks know our celebrated safety director," Viv said with a casual, almost dismissive nod in Ness's direction, "but I know you haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting his lovely young dinner companion, Evelyn . . . what was it, dear?"

  "MacMillan," Ev said, a little confused, since Viv had known her last name a few minutes ago.

  "She's a fashion illustrator with Higbee's," Viv said. "And this dashing drunken young fellow is Kenneth Morrison—his father is the real estate Morrison, a business which Kenneth seems also to be in, as coincidence would have it."

  The young man smirked at her and lifted his glass.

  "And this charming couple is Jennifer Wainright and Lloyd Watterson. They're engaged, they're in love, they're disgusting."

  Watterson, whose blond, sunburned handsomeness was of a baby-face variety, stood and reached a hand out to Ness.

  "This is a real pleasure," he said with a big white smile. "I've long been an admirer of yours, Mr. Ness."

  Ness shook the somewhat sweaty but very strong hand and smiled back and said, "Call me Eliot. Isn't your father professor of anatomy at Western Reserve?"

  "Why yes he is," Watterson said, his smile turning crooked. He sat back down.

  Ness held a chair for Ev, and then took a chair himself, with his back to the wall, while saying to Watterson, "Your father was of some help to me, not so long ago."

  "Really?" Watterson said. He was sipping at a glass of red wine. "He's very civic-minded, father is. What exactly did he do?"

  "Well," Ness said, sorry he'd brought it up, "that really isn't suitable table conversation."

  Watterson snapped his fingers. "It was that Torso Clinic! He helped you on that 'Mad Doctor of Kingsbury Run' affair."

  Viv laughed. "I never heard him referred to as a 'doctor,' before, Lloyd. Isn't it 'butcher'?"

  "Not according to Lloyd's father," Ness said. "He studied the . . . evidence and said he felt the Butcher had surgical training. But I'm really not so sure this is proper cocktail-party conversation."

  Ev touched his hand. "Eliot doesn't take his business along on social occasions."

  Viv studied the couple over the rim of her glass. "But he always sits with his back to the wall, doesn't he?"

  Ev gave Ness an odd look, realizing that what Viv said was true.

  Ness grinned and shrugged and said, "Old Chicago habits die hard."

  "Does this mean," Kenneth Morrison said, with a sneering little smile, "that our safety directors packing heat?"

  "Oh, no," Viv said, putting her Bacardi glass on the table next to two other empty ones. "He never carries a gun. It's against his philosophy."

  "Is that right?" Watterson said with an interested smile. "Now why is that?"

  Ness smiled shyly back and shrugged.

  Viv said, "Something about people being disinclined to shoot an unarmed man. Besides, he knows judo. Don't you, Eliot?"

  Ness leaned over to her and said, very softly, so that no one else at the table could hear, "Stop it, Viv."

  Viv's lips trembled and her eyelids fluttered nervously. "I'm just a little drunk," she said.

  He smiled charitably. "Happens to the best of us."

  They leaned back away from each other.

  "Do you think the Mad Doctor is dead, Mr. Ness?"

  He turned his attention to Lloyd Watterson, who had posed the question.

  "Lloyd," Ness said firmly, "I don't think this is a topic of conversation that's really suited for—"

  "No! No!" Kenneth Morrison was gesturing rather drunkenly. "It's a fascinating topic! Share the inside dope with us poor outside dopes."

  Ness felt ill at ease, but as he glanced around the table, he saw all eyes on him, none of them belonging to anybody who seemed to feel uncomfortable about the subject.

  And now Viv got into the act.

  "The newspapers," she said, "and the public, too, assume that the Butcher is dead. I mean, he is dead . . . what was his name?"

  "Dolezal," Ness said softly.

  "He hanged himself in the jailhouse," Morrison said cheerfully. "Spared the state the expense and the trouble."

  "I don't know about that."

  All eyes turned toward the pretty redhead at Watterson's side, whose small, high-pitched voice had finally entered the conversation.

  "Everyone seems to think," Jennifer Wainwright said, "that the reign of terror is over. But it seems to me a lot of questions died unanswered with that poor man."

  "Poor man?" Morrison said. "He was a maniac!"

  "He never had a trial," she said reasonably. "How do we know he really was the Butcher?"

  Watterson, his face blank but for intensely interested eyes, said, "Do you think this fellow Dolezal was guilty, Mr. Ness?"

  "Eliot," Ness corrected with a smile, "I have my doubts. The evidence is less than overwhelming."

  "Well, hell, man," Morrison said. "Didn't he confess?"

  "Those confessions were beaten out of him."

  "I thought," Watterson said, "that the coroner's inquest cleared the sheriff in Dolezal's death."

  Ness smiled gently. "Not exactly. In fact, Coroner Gerber's autopsy established that four of the suspect's ribs were broken while he was in custody. It's just that those injuries could also be attributed to Dolezal's two failed suicide attempts."

  "Come on now, Ness," Morrison said, his smile nasty, "aren't you just a little tiny bit bitter?"

  "Bitter?"

  "Hell, man—the sheriff stole your thunder! I remember all that press you got, coming out saying you were personally going to take on the Butcher. Well, the sheriff caught him, and that left you with a whole handful of nothing."

  Viv said sharply, "Kenneth, I hardly think the demise of the prime suspect in the Butcher case made Sheriff O'Connell a hero. The press, the Cleveland Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union . . . they were all, all over him, like a bad smell!"

  Ness was struck by the bittersweet expression Ev wore as she studied Viv. It seemed to both please and sadden her to see Viv stick up for him.

  "Come on, Eliot," Viv was saying. "Defend yourself! Admit it—you think the sheriff got away with murder. Literal murd
er."

  "Maybe," Ness said, his voice barely audible. "But my office can't do a damned thing about it."

  "Well," Viv said, "your pal Sam Wild has. He and half the reporters and editorial writers in town gave O'Connell hell. And they still are, months later."

  "I would say," Morrison said, lifting his glass to Ness, "that the sheriff's reelection possibilities are just about nil."

  Ness raised an eyebrow and his glass to Morrison. "I'll say this much—whether the sheriff killed Mr. Dolezal or not, he's killed his own political future."

  Watterson slid his arm around Jennifer and said pleasantly; "So is the Butcher case open or closed, Mr. Ness—Eliot?"

  "Lloyd, the mayor feels that unless or until bodies begin turning up again, the case should be considered closed—unofficially."

  "Don't you have anyone working the case anymore?"

  "Officially the slayings are unsolved—and I've kept two good men on it."

  "Ah," Watterson said, smiling, as if reassured.

  Ev, who'd been largely silent throughout the conversation, said, "Eliot, you haven't said what you really think. Do you think the Butcher is alive or dead?"

  "Oh, I think he's still out there."

  Viv smirked and said, "So do I. But he'll stay in hiding. He won't be back."

  Ev turned to Viv and asked her why.

  "It's obvious, dear," she said. "He can hide behind a dead man—this fellow Dolezal. Right, Eliot?"

  "I think you're right to this extent, Viv: that's why we haven't heard from him in a number of months. But he'll be back. We have not, I'm afraid, heard the last of him."

  Watterson seemed interested and almost amused by that. "Why's that, Eliot?"

  "Because of the killing. That'll bring him back out in the open."

  "The killing?" Watterson asked, confused. "What about it?"

  "He likes it. Now, if you'll excuse us ... I think the band is coming back from its break."

  They bid the group their good-byes; Ness could feel Viv's eyes on his back as he headed out to the dance floor with Ev. Ina Ray Hutton and her girls were playing "Star Dust" and the lighting had shifted from coral to blue. He held Ev close, but she pulled gently away and looked at him with dark, searching eyes.