Couples sat at tables, laughing and talking in German, Italian, Polish, and Greek and Czech. Jungle noises. The girl in Indiana had squeaked some foreign nonsense before she fell silent.
He found an empty table and sat. Waiters in long white aprons carried trays filled with steins. From the garden erupted waves of music from the oompah band, singing, and the thunder of hobnailed boots pounding the wooden dance floor.
He sipped his pilsner. The smell of frying pork nauseated him. He should have asked for a glass of seltzer water. He should have returned to the druggist and bought some aspirin. A few tables away, a father sat between two young girls in matching dresses and floppy blue velvet bows. One of the girls clambered to her feet on her chair, put her hands around her father’s neck, and kissed him. Her father made a face, covering his mouth like Chaplin’s clown, then pecked her cheek as both girls pealed with laughter.
He watched them, suffused with an ache that was inextricably twinned with a darker longing. For an instant he saw his sister’s face, smiling as she clung to him in that filthy room, the soiled mattress where he’d cried inconsolably as he clutched a scrap of his sister’s dress. She don’t need that shimmy now.
“Papa, look at me!” the second girl cried, reaching to kiss him, too. “Papa!”
He quickly looked away before they saw him watching them. The dreamy warmth he’d felt just a short time again dissolved into dread. How could they not notice him? How was it possible he could sit here and not be surrounded by leering, horrified onlookers, the way every other monster in the park was?
It wasn’t possible, he knew that, even if he stopped. And he couldn’t stop, any more than they could stop beckoning him, with their eyes and flower-garden dresses. The dread ballooned inside him, and the mad thought that he should seize that girl now, no one would recognize him, no one knew who he was…
He fumbled for one of the bottles of Dr. James Soothing Cordial from the paper sack, A miracle of the modern Medical Profession, and drew the bottle to his lips. Took one swallow, then another, and replaced the bottle.
He returned to the midway, weaving slightly. The cordial was stronger than he’d anticipated; he’d adjust the dose when he used it on the lemon drops. He licked his lips, gingerly stroked his mustache, and idled along with the crowd toward the Great Lagoon. People mobbed the water’s edge, pointing gleefully as boats raced down the Shoot-the-Chutes, the women on board clutching their hats and screaming. Boys leaned out over the Lagoon, splashing one another. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. The water smelled fetid. Discarded watermelon rinds and paper wrappers floated on its surface. You could get sepsis from touching it.
He moved on. He noted a number of policemen in the crowd—Chicago cops, not the dolts employed by the amusement park. He was unconcerned: there were enough Negroes and vagrants and Gypsies to blame for a thousand murders.
He smiled. His head felt as though it had been pumped full of laughing gas. He was invincible, invisible. A white man in a hat and an ice-cream suit.
The path wound past the Great Train Robbery and to the Sunny South, a long sheltered arcade featuring games of chance. He stopped to observe a black-haired girl manipulating the Digger Claw crane, attempting to pick up a Kewpie doll inside a glass vitrine. She looked about twelve, maybe slightly older—she wore a child’s dress, faded red-and-blue calico, but the blouse strained against her bosom. Her black lace-up boots were scuffed and almost certainly too small for her.
A crowd of younger children watched her eagerly. Any accompanying adults had no doubt headed to the roulette wheel. The crane’s jaws held the doll poised just above the slot, but the girl cranked the handle too quickly. The doll fell and landed beside the chute, and the crane froze in place.
“Bad luck, Gilda!” a boy exclaimed. “You got another nickel?”
She shook her head in disappointment. “No. You?”
“Nah.” Shrugging, the boy walked off. The other children continued to stare at the girl, Gilda, as though waiting for her to prove herself a liar and produce a nickel. But after a bit of bantering among themselves, they, too, dispersed to other parts of the arcade.
He waited to see if Gilda joined them. When she didn’t, he stepped over and dug into his pocket.
“Will this help?”
He held out a nickel. The girl grabbed it, barely looking at him. “Hey, thanks, Mister!”
She turned back to the game and slid the nickel into the coin slot. He stood behind her, nodding as she turned the crank.
“You need to do it more slowly,” he said. He took her hand lightly in his own. “Like this.”
A moment of resistance, and then he felt her hand relax as he guided her. The crane’s jaws closed around the doll, and he moved the controls a fraction of an inch, squeezing them so that the metal jaws opened at just the right instant and the Kewpie dropped down the chute.
“I got it!” Gilda snatched the celluloid doll from the tray. She turned and beamed up at him. “Thanks, Mister!”
She had a pretty face, large dark eyes and a small mouth, baby fat in her cheeks and chin, crooked front teeth. A dimple—he’d never found a doll that had one. Her black hair hung in a thick braid halfway down her back, tied with a scrap of red grosgrain ribbon. She smelled of sun and dirt, like newly turned earth in a garden.
“Where’d your friends go?” He looked around, scanning the arcade.
“Oh, they just ran off.” A lisp made her sound younger than she was. “They’re stupid.”
“Not nice to leave you alone,” he agreed.
“Oh, who cares?” She raised and lowered her shoulders in an exaggerated show of unconcern. “They’re just kids.”
“Did your parents leave you in charge of them?”
“Nah, they’re off at the Casino. They gave me money, but I spent it all.” She gestured at the crane, cradling the Kewpie.
“Are you hungry? Would you like an ice cream?”
Her eyes narrowed and he quickly added, “Only if your parents give permission.”
The girl snorted. “They don’t care what I do, long as I don’t smoke.”
He smiled. “I promise, I won’t let you smoke. Come on, let’s find the ice-cream cart.”
They walked along the Pike, the girl toying with her prize and seeming disinclined to pay him much attention, though she smiled obediently whenever he caught her eye. He took care to weave through the heart of the crowd, to not get too close to her, to affect the pleasant, detached expression of some benign male relative, an uncle or her father. If necessary, within seconds he could lose himself in the mass of Sunday visitors.
But they passed no one the girl knew. And while there might well be people here who knew him, he felt safely hidden behind the anonymity of his hat brim, tipped to shade a face that was utterly unremarkable, save for those occasions when it needed to be. Thousands of men—tens of thousands—surrounded him, each clad almost exactly as he was, in seersucker, white shirt, celluloid collar, bow tie, gun-metal calfskin shoes. He slipped among them like an eel, his gaze seldom leaving the girl beside him.
As they drew near the ice-cream cart, he gave her a dime. “You go and get whatever you want,” he said, lifting his head just enough to reveal his smile beneath the hat’s brim. “I’ll be in the shade over there.”
He gestured to a stand of rhododendrons, watched her run to join the line. He felt as though he stood on a cliff edge, leaning over so as to feel the air rushing up at him from that black place where he could dive and never be followed. Not yet, anyway, not this minute or the next: he would capture as many as he could until time ran out for all of them, himself, too, but he would pluck a garden’s worth of girls before it did.
He headed to the rhododendrons and stepped into the thicket, removed the heroin cordial and a tin of lemon drops. He opened the tin and let a few drops of cordial fall onto each lozenge, closed the tin and shook it, then repeated the process. When he finished, he pocketed the tin, sucking his fingers to remove the sticky r
esidue. He glanced around to make sure no one had seen him, and strolled back to the Pike.
The girl ran up to him, grinning, the Kewpie in one hand and a cone of strawberry ice cream in the other. “Thanks!” she said breathlessly.
“You’re very welcome,” he replied with a smile. “Now, how about a movie?”
She nodded, her mouth full, and they joined the mass of people heading toward the Hippodrome.
Chapter 44
THE ROBEY STREET station house was filled with reporters when Francis arrived. After leaving Cue’s, he’d walked around the neighborhood, mulling over what he’d learned. Could it possibly be true?
The barman had no reason to lie. Dr. Holmes had committed atrocities right here in Chicago during the 1893 exposition, and elsewhere for some years before that, and gotten away with them until his capture. Francis had been a thirteen-year-old boy at the time, utterly captivated by the exposition; one of the few things that made his ignominious transfer to the Riverview force palatable. Riverview was much smaller and, despite Baumgarten’s insistence that it reflect his own clean Lutheran values, quite a bit seedier than the exposition, yet it stirred an echo of the wonder and delight that Francis had partaken of at the White City.
Now he felt the same sick terror he’d felt reading about Holmes’s crimes as a boy: men and women interred alive, then incinerated in the furnace Holmes had installed in his mansion, or their skeletons flensed and sold to medical colleges.
And this was not the first child murder in Chicago in recent years. In 1911, when little Elsie Paroubek disappeared, Francis had joined sergeants and volunteers in one of the biggest manhunts in the city’s history. After a month, her body was discovered in a sewage canal thirty-five miles from the city. The coroner’s report attested that she had been “mistreated,” then smothered, and tossed into the canal in or near Chicago, probably the same day she’d been abducted. No water was found in her lungs, and the official cause of death read Unknown.
Various suspects were questioned. Two committed suicide afterward. Another, a lunatic, fled into the woods. The real killer had never been found.
And two years ago, an Italian child had disappeared from Little Sicily, and after that a Gypsy girl. Both were a bit older than Elsie, but could they possibly be connected to the Riverview murder, and the one Cue had just told him about? Boston was a thousand miles from Chicago, but what were the odds of the same bizarre crime occurring twice within a few years, at such a great distance? He pushed open the station door and stepped inside, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
Most of Robey Street’s force had been sent to Riverview, so the crowd was chiefly made up of reporters who swarmed around the duty sergeant manning the front desk. Francis found a space by an open window to get some fresh air.
“Is that Francis Bacon? How are you, man?”
Francis turned to see a gangly young man in a snappy, if rumpled, checked suit and brown fedora, pencil tucked behind one ear and notebook in hand, a dog-eared magazine poking out of his jacket pocket. “Bennie. You’re looking well.”
Bennie grinned. “Can’t say the same for you, Bacon.”
Francis grimaced wryly, and the two shook hands. He’d known Bennie Hecht since the kid was a picture chaser for the Daily Journal, sneaking onto crime scenes to nab photographs of the victims or their families. Francis had chased him off a few times himself, and once saved him from a beating from another cop, when Bennie tried to make off with the wedding photo of a guy who’d committed suicide upon discovering his wife was actually a man named Waldo Timmins.
Bennie returned the favor. He covered the Black Hand story for the Daily Journal, sharing the names of a few informants with Francis before everything had gone south with Francis’s investigation. Francis hadn’t seen him since.
“It’s been a while,” he admitted. Bennie still looked like a kid, with his floppy dark hair and scruffy mustache. He couldn’t be more than twenty or twenty-one. “You still at the Journal?”
“Nope. Daily News now. This story’s kept me busy since last night. Did it happen on your watch?”
Francis eyed him measuringly, then nodded.
“How’s Baumgarten dealing with it?”
“As you might expect. He’s not.”
Bennie glanced around. “Hear anything new?”
Francis made a noncommittal sound. He stepped closer to Bennie, lowering his voice. “You got the girl’s name, right?”
Bennie glanced at his notebook. “Maria Walewski. Polish girl from St. Hedwig’s parish, the funeral’s Wednesday. She was an only child, her mother saw an ad in the paper saying Essanay was looking for child actors. Only the second time the kid had been at the studio. Not sure if there’s any connection to the movies, but I’m gonna play it up—Chaplin was at the studio yesterday, did you know that? Everyone knows he’s a creep with young girls. You didn’t happen to see him around the park yesterday, did you?”
“Not me. But this is a bum rap—you know that, right? Hauling in Clyde Smithson for this?”
“He’s the colored magician?” Francis nodded. “You know him?”
“Seen his act a few times. Few years back he did a stunt when he buried himself underground in a coffin and got dug up three days later.”
“That could come in handy. You don’t think he did it?”
“I’m sure he didn’t. He was working that ride—between visitors and employees, thirty, forty people must’ve seen him around the time that girl got killed. But no one can identify him because he was wearing a rubber mask.”
“So how come you’re so sure?”
“He’s got a wife and kids. A respectable man. Even if he was a lunatic, which he’s not, why would he commit murder in a place where everyone knows him? He’s hired Roscoe Nelson to represent him, so if he’s got a chance in hell, he might get off. In the meantime, Baumgarten doesn’t want a panic, so Cabell arrests a Negro, and everyone’s happy.”
“Unless it happens again.”
“What if it’s happened before?” countered Francis.
Bennie raised an eyebrow, grinning. “You know something?”
But before he could continue, the door to Cabell’s office opened, and the Robey Street captain strode into the room. He surveyed the room, pointedly ignoring Francis.
“Thank you all for waiting, gentlemen.” Cabell clapped the back of the man from the Herald as he passed him. “It’s a hot day, and I know you’re eager to jump, so I’ll make this short. As you’ve heard, yesterday afternoon a young girl was found murdered in one of the rides at the Riverview Amusement Park. She was—”
“Which ride?” someone shouted.
Cabell raised a hand. “I’m getting to that. She was found inside the Hell Gate attraction. We’re still waiting for the coroner’s final report and autopsy, but it appears that she was smothered. Thanks to quick work by the fine men here at Robey Street, a Negro man has been taken into custody and will be charged with the crime.”
A din of shouted questions rose, then ebbed as Cabell once more raised his hand. “The suspect’s name is Clyde Smithson, that’s S-M-I-T-H-S-O-N. He’s a resident of the freak show. From my understanding, paperwork’s being drawn up now. That’s all I know and all you need to know at this time.”
Some of the reporters turned and dashed from the room. One who remained called out, “Do we know who the girl is?”
“Her name is Maria Walewski. W-A-L-E-W-S-K-I. Her parents are Polish, I don’t know more than that.”
“A Polack.” A man near Francis shook his head. “Figures.”
Someone else yelled, “Who discovered the body?”
Cabell pulled out a cigar and rolled its tip between his fingers. “A boy, another employee of the amusement park.”
“Will Riverview Park remain open?”
Smiling, Cabell turned to point at Francis. “There’s your man! Ask Mr. Bacon, he works at the park. You can also ask him how to beat the lines for the Shoot-the-Chutes.”
>
With a laugh, Cabell headed back toward his office, stopping to chat with the man from the Daily Tribune. A few reporters wandered over to Francis. He assured them the park was open and there was every intention for it to remain so. The men scribbled in their notebooks before hurrying to the door.
Francis glanced at Bennie, who’d remained silent during Cabell’s blather. “It’s like Elsie Paroubek all over again. And that Italian girl two years ago.”
Bennie shrugged. “Yeah, but we got a body this time.”
“We had a body with the Paroubek girl.”
“You think there’s a similarity?”
A shout of laughter rang through the room. “You’ll be the first to know if she does, Malcolm!” Cabell slapped the Tribune’s reporter on the back and waved his unlit cigar. “I’ll make sure of that.”
The man grinned. “Thanks, Rusty.”
Cabell let loose another raucous laugh and walked the reporter to the door. His slack mouth twisted into a smile when he spotted Francis. “Got any free tickets for the freak show, Francis?” he yelled as he headed to his office.
“Let’s go,” said Bennie, and he started for the door. Francis stayed put.
“Captain Cabell.” Francis’s voice echoed in the now-nearly-empty room. “Are you aware that four years ago, a twelve-year-old girl was found murdered inside the Hell Gate attraction at Wonderland Park in Boston?”
Bennie halted, and Cabell, too, stopped in his tracks. The desk sergeant looked up, startled.
“Deirdre Monahan, twelve years old,” Francis went on. “She had been defiled and her clothing removed. They’ve never found her killer.”
Cabell twisted the cigar between his fingers. “Well,” he said. “We’ll have to ask Smithson about that, won’t we?”
“I think you’ll find that Mr. Smithson was here at Riverview at that time.”
Cabell blinked. “This is a police matter, an open investigation—”
“An open investigation, Captain Cabell?” Bennie called out, and the two remaining reporters turned to him. “Yet you’re telling everyone that a colored magician will be charged with the crime. Is that correct?”
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