BUTCHER'S DOZEN (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

Dr. Watterson's darkly handsome features were a mask; if any emotion had touched him upon hearing his son was suspected of being the worst mass murderer in midwesten memory, it was not apparent. Tall, sturdy, dressed impeccably in a three-piece brown silk suit, Watterson offered his hand and a small polite smile.

  Ness shook the hand and gave a polite smile in return. For a moment he thought Watterson hadn't brought Lloyd but Lloyd was there, standing behind his father, hiding, a little boy's smile dancing on his lips. Ness felt suddenly like a grade-school principal.

  They stepped inside. Lloyd was equally well-dressed though his suit was undertaker black. The area around his nose, beneath his eyes, was bruised from the battle with Wild. He said, "Hello, Eliot," and gave his hand to Ness. Ness shook the powerful, clammy hand and studied the man's twitching smile.

  "I appreciate your giving us a chance to clear this matter up," Dr. Watterson said, following Ness into the suite.

  "Well, I appreciate you and your son giving us the chance to do so," Ness said, and smiled in a businesslike manner. He gestured to the sofa where minutes before Chamberlin and Curry had sat.

  Ness again sat in the straight-backed chair. He looked at the father and son and noted that, apart from their size, there was no family resemblance between dark doctor father and fair failed-doctor son.

  "We have a certain amount of circumstantial evidence," Ness began, speaking to the father, "suggesting that your son may have some knowledge pertaining to the ongoing investigation of the so-called Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run."

  Dr. Watterson's smile was a twitch, too, but not a nervous one. "I'm well aware of the case, Mr. Ness. You know very well I've been involved in the pathological workups on several of the victims."

  "Yes. I just feel we should begin at the beginning. I want both you and your son to understand why we find it necessary to trouble you with this. I don't have to tell you of the level of concern in the community over these crimes."

  "You certainly do not," Dr. Watterson said.

  "Also," Ness said diplomatically, "we have a report of violence at your son's home yesterday."

  "I told you on the phone," the doctor said curtly, "what my son's position is on that matter. We're discussing with our attorneys whether or not to bring charges against Mr. Wild and Miss Chalmers."

  Ness nodded slowly. "I can understand that. That might be appropriate. However, it might simply serve to open an embarrassing can of worms."

  Dr. Watterson s patronizing mask slipped just a bit; and Ness noticed that the man's eyes did have some spiderwebbing of red. Lloyd seemed to be trying to suppress the urge to giggle.

  "There can be no doubt," Ness said, "that your son is living in a building once used as a doctor's surgery."

  "We don't deny that," Dr. Watterson said. "It's where I first worked."

  "Yes. And, having been involved with the Butcher investigation, you know that we have been searching for a 'murder lab,' for want of a better term, somewhere in the areas adjoining the Run. Now, and I'm afraid this is a little embarrassing, Dr. Watterson . . . but I've done some checking with the fire wardens."

  Dr. Watterson frowned. Lloyd smiled.

  "You see, I wondered how it could be that my search of those areas by fire wardens, accompanied by homicide detectives, might have missed such an obvious 'murder lab' candidate. I have since learned that you own a number of properties, in addition to your former residence cum surgery, rooming houses, all of which are in the less-than-prosperous areas bordering Kingsbury Run. I have also learned that Lloyd, as the manager of your business affairs, is in charge of those properties; that he calls regularly upon the landladies tending those properties; that he keeps rooms at those properties where he often stays under assumed names."

  Dr. Watterson's pale face became paler. Lloyd was no longer smiling.

  "When the fire wardens were canvassing Central Avenue," Ness said, "one of them received a call from you, Dr. Watterson. Do you recall making it?"

  "I do," Dr. Watterson said stiffly. "I assured the fire warden that my properties were well-maintained and not in need of inspection."

  "You asked that these properties not be disrupted by the rather thorough searches other buildings in the area were being subjected to," Ness said.

  "Yes."

  "And the fire warden with whom you spoke agreed to take care of it."

  "Yes he did."

  "How much did you pay him?"

  "That's an impertinent question."

  "Well, perhaps it is. The fire warden in question has admitted complying with your wishes—apparently you dropped some big names, if not dollars—and I'm inclined not to 'subject' this city employee to further investigation, since he's cooperating with us. Why did you make that call, Dr. Watterson? Why did you make that request?"

  "Well ... I ..."

  "Your son asked you to. Didn't he?"

  Dr. Watterson said nothing. Then he glanced at his son, who smiled nervously.

  "Yes, he did," the doctor said. "But it seemed to me then, and seems to me now, a reasonable request. The searches were an invasion of privacy and a disruption of business."

  "Fair enough," Ness said, nodding again. "But you should also know that a number of shantytown denizens have identified Lloyd's picture, confirming that he went among them under an assumed name, posing as one of them."

  Dr. Watterson gazed unblinkingly at Ness. "My son's avocation is sociological research."

  "Fine. But I think you can understand that we have the disturbing beginnings of a possible case against your son. Or at least the suggestion that in his 'sociological research' in these slum areas, he has encountered evidence that, for whatever reason, he's withheld."

  The father looked at the son again. The son had a blank, vaguely sad expression, as if Ness's evidence—circumstantial though it was—had worn him down.

  "So," Dr. Watterson said. "You're suggesting my son submit to a lie detector test."

  "Yes," Ness said.

  The doctor narrowed his eyes. "Perhaps it would be a good way to put this ridiculous assertion to rest."

  Ness looked at Lloyd and smiled pleasantly. "What do you think, Lloyd? You've been strangely silent about all this."

  Lloyd brightened. "Why, Eliot, I think it's a splendid idea. But, uh . . . why don't we get some lunch first? We can chat a little about this situation."

  Ness shook his head gently no. "I don't really think dismemberments are proper dinner-table conversation, Lloyd."

  "Well, I'd just like you to explain the lie detector to me. I'm interested in science, after all. I don't intend to submit to something that I don't understand."

  "I don't expect you to," Ness said.

  "I only believe in the scientific," Lloyd said. "The proven. Why should I put my life on the line for something pseudopsychic? This smacks of mind reading and fortune-telling to me."

  "All right." Ness said. He looked at his watch. "It is noon."

  Dr. Watterson said, "We could go downstairs to the dining room. Perhaps it would do us all good to talk like civilized people."

  Ness had thought he'd been extremely civilized, considering that in these past minutes he'd lost whatever shred of doubt he might have had about Lloyd's guilt. The big blond young man was the Butcher of Kingsbury Run. Ness would have staked his life on it.

  "Why don't I call down to room service," Ness said, wanting to keep the meeting contained to this room, where it was being taped. "We can eat up here."

  That seemed agreeable to all, and Ness ordered three steak plates.

  "They'll be up soon," he said, and returned to his straight-backed chair. "Why don't you let me explain to you some of the principles of the polygraph, Lloyd."

  Lloyd shrugged. "Why not?"

  Ness explained that the polygraph was a scientific instrument, stressing the word "scientific," measuring physiological reactions of the body to emotion and stress.

  "These measurements," Ness said, "are provided by monitoring blood pressure, heartbeat,
and changes in body chemistry, as reflected by an instrument that records the electrodermal changes in the skin."

  Lloyd sat forward through this, clearly interested. He said, "I agree that emotions do affect the body—fear, anger, grief, joy, they can all make the heart pump more rapidly. But I wouldn't think lying would."

  "The mental process of lying," Ness said, "upsets the emotional balance ever so slightly—but not so slightly that the polygraph can't pick up on it."

  "It sounds improbable," Lloyd said.

  "Here. Let me show you."

  Ness stood and gestured Lloyd over to the polygraph desk. Lloyd seemed the kind of subject who needed to understand the machine before submitting to it, and that was fine with Ness. He removed the central, blotterlike cover and revealed a rectangle of light brown metal with many dials and knobs, as if on an elaborate ham radio outfit, next to which was a roll of paper cross-ruled in brown ink, in chart fashion, about five inches wide. Three slender arms, tipped with red ink, extended from the brown metal panel to the chart paper.

  Ness pointed to the nearest of the three slender arms. "This stylus records heart action." He reached across the desk and threw a switch. A motor hummed; machinery whispered into action. The chart paper began to slowly move, as each stylus point, though motionless, traced continuous red lines.

  "The middle stylus," Ness said, "connects with the electrodermal unit."

  "What does skin have to do with it?" Lloyd asked, smiling smugly, as if proud of knowing what "dermal" referred to.

  "Because liars tend to sweat, Lloyd—and that varies the conductivity of saline-impregnated electrodes placed in contact with the skin."

  "Oh. And this final stylus?"

  "It monitors breathing. The emotions affect breathing, just as they do the heart."

  "What would happen," Lloyd asked slyly, "if you encountered someone in complete control of his emotions?"

  Ness gave him a broad smile. "Well, Lloyd—I suppose he'd beat the machine, now wouldn't he?"

  Lloyd smiled. He turned to his father. "I'm not afraid of this thing."

  The father nodded solemnly.

  A knock at the door announced room service, and the steak luncheons were brought in and trays were set up, the three men sitting to their meals and eating them in near silence. Neither Ness nor Dr. Watterson ate much at all; but Lloyd, brandishing his shiny stainless-steel steak knife like a scalpel, ate his rare steak quickly, greedily, cheerfully.

  Lloyd dabbed his mouth with a napkin and his smile was very white in his suntanned, bruised face. He stood and rubbed his hands together as if about to tackle some challenging project for dessert.

  "Let's get it done," he said. "Let's put these silly notions about the 'Mad Doctor of Kingsbury Run' behind us." He turned and looked at his father. "Right, Father?"

  Dr. Watterson, still seated behind his tray, his meal practically untouched, nodded gravely.

  "Remove your coat, Lloyd," Ness said, and Lloyd did. "Roll your sleeve up, your right sleeve, clear to the shoulder." Lloyd did that, too.

  "Now take a seat in that easy chair, and relax. Just relax."

  Lloyd settled into the brown leather chair, hands on either arm of it, and his smile once again was that of a naughty child. Ness wrapped a cloth and rubber bandage, similar to a doctor's blood-pressure apparatus, snugly around Lloyd's bare arm above the elbow. Then he positioned a rubber cylinder, capped with shiny metal at either end, across Lloyd's chest, fastening it in place. To Lloyd's left hand, with small tonglike clamps, he attached saline-dampened sponge-pads on the palm and below the knuckles.

  Then Ness took his position behind the desk. He sat with one hand poised near the dials and knobs, the other with pencil near the slowly moving chart paper.

  "Now, Lloyd, I'm going to ask you questions that can be answered yes or no. In fact, I'd like you to limit yourself to those responses."

  "All right."

  "You mean, 'yes.'"

  Lloyd grinned. "Yes."

  "All of my questions will be asked only in relation to the events under investigation. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Now I have to establish a normal level of response, so we're going to perform an experiment—with your interests in science and medicine, I think you'll find this interesting. Is that all right?"

  "Yes."

  "It's going to allow me to show you the capability of this machine. All right?"

  "Yes."

  "We're going to do a little card trick. Actually, Lloyd, you're going to do it."

  Ness withdrew a deck of playing cards from his suit coat pocket. He handed the cards to Lloyd, who seemed somewhat surprised, but accepted them.

  Dr. Watterson seated himself on the couch and watched as if hypnotized.

  "Now, Lloyd," Ness said, "I want you to select a card. Don't show it to me."

  Lloyd, grinning goofily, did so.

  "I'm going to ask you some questions about your card. And no matter what the true answer is, I want you to answer 'no.' Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "You're to answer 'no,' in each instance. Understood?"

  "Yes."

  "Is it a red card?"

  "No."

  "Is it a black card?"

  "No."

  "Is it the number ten?"

  "No."

  "Is the card below the number ten?"

  "No."

  "Is the card above the number ten?"

  "No."

  "Is it a face card?"

  "No."

  "Is it a spade?"

  "No."

  "Is it a club?"

  "No."

  "Is it a jack?"

  "No."

  "Is it a queen?"

  "No."

  "Is it a king?"

  "No."

  "Is it an ace?"

  "No."

  "All right, Lloyd. The experiments over. Incidentally, that card you're holding is the jack of spades."

  Lloyd's mouth dropped open and his eyes were wide and round. He swallowed dryly. His hand, holding the card, was trembling. He looked helplessly at his father, showing his father the card, which was indeed the jack of spades.

  Then Lloyd stood up, tearing away the wires and pads and cloths and tubes attached to him, rising like the waking Gulliver caught in the net of the little people.

  Ness stood and said, "Lloyd ..."

  Lloyd made an animal sound, tearing himself free; he lurched away from the brown leather chair and dove for the tray where he'd eaten the rare steak and grabbed the shiny steak knife. He stood there, between his father, who had risen from the couch, and Ness, who had come around the desk—stood there with the juice-stained knife tight in his fist and the expression of a cornered beast distorting his features.

  Then he hurtled toward Ness, steak knife raised like a dagger.

  Ness stepped back but Lloyd was fast and on top of him. The hand with the steak knife slashed and tore Ness's coat sleeve and shirt, without tearing flesh, and Ness got his hand around Lloyd's wrist and with a jujitsu twist sent the knife tumbling from Lloyd's fingers.

  But Lloyd's weight and strength pressed into Ness, pushed him backward, into the desk, across the polygraph, the arms of the stylus digging into Ness's back as Lloyd climbed on him, hands clawing viciously at Ness, at his face, Ness trying to bat the hands away, trying to get his own balance so he could use Lloyd's weight against him.

  Then they were toppling behind the desk, onto the floor, and Lloyd sent a massive fist crashing toward Ness's face, but Ness slipped to one side and Lloyd's fist smashed into carpet; with an animal cry Lloyd lifted Ness by the lapels and hurled him against the window and glass crashed and the air of the outside was on him and even without looking Ness knew the street was fourteen stories below him.

  Then Lloyd suddenly wasn't on him anymore, and Ness almost toppled out the window from lack of being held, and braced his hands on the sides of the window, cutting his right palm on the broken glass.

 
He dropped back into the room and saw that Dr. Watterson had pulled Lloyd away, was pulling him from behind, by both arms. Lloyd, his face red and distorted, was squirming under his father's grasp, but the father was strong and Ness took advantage of it and swung a hard right hand that seemed to take half of Lloyds face off.

  Lloyd crumpled, the fight gone out of him, and began to weep; he tried to talk, but couldn't.

  His father, holding on to him, but more gently now, more holding him up than holding him, said, "I'm afraid you've broken his jaw."

  Angry, Ness ran to the adjoining door and flung it open.

  The connecting room was empty. No Curry. No Chamberlin. What the hell . . . ?

  He went back and picked up the steak knife Lloyd had dropped, put it back on one of the trays. He found a clean napkin and wrapped his bleeding palm with it. Lloyd was sitting on the floor now, weeping, and his father was crouched beside him, examining the son's jaw clinically.

  "What do you think now, Dr. Watterson?" Ness said.

  "We'll handle this," he said. Very softly. "We'll handle this."

  Lloyd was trying to say something, but Ness couldn't understand what it was.

  "Eliot! What in the hell happened in here?"

  Ness turned and Chamberlin, followed by Curry, both of them stunned by the disheveled area by the window, entered quickly from the connecting room.

  "Where the hell were you two?" Ness demanded.

  Chamberlin shrugged. "We heard you say you were going out for lunch. We figured we better get down to the dining room before you did."

  "We went down there," Curry said, "but you never showed."

  "No kidding. Well, I hope you boys had a nice lunch. Mine was medium rare." Ness nodded to them to go back in the adjoining room, which they did, closing the door behind them.

  Ness walked over to Dr. Watterson, but it was obviously not a time for further discussion. The father was cradling the son in his lap, stroking his head, trying to comfort him. Lloyd was still trying to speak, without any success; between the broken jaw, and crying like a baby, Lloyd just couldn't manage it.

  Then suddenly Ness got it: he figured out what word it was that Lloyd was trying to form.

  "Father."

  And Dr. Watterson must've understood it at the same time, because he began to cry, but not like a baby.