Being the holdout of an old vanguard, Chief Nathan Kohler looked the part of Poe’s most stolid raven: stocky, short, wrapped in a black coat the way a bird wrapped itself in its wings—indicative of how close he played his cards to his chest. A most secretive man, Kohler had been skeptical and resistant to the idea, as his custom dictated, distrusting anything new. Kohler finally put his opinions aside when the scientific evidence became too overwhelming to ignore—in large part due to Ransom’s and Dr. Fenger’s combined persistence and faith in the new science. In another part, due to the coroner’s push for modern techniques and devices, and to wrangling a much larger budget out of the city. Dr.
Fenger, one of the founding members of Cook County Hospital and the city’s preeminent medical examiner, lent credence to Alastair’s war.
The newsmen, held in check at the stairwell, shouted for comments. Ransom counted on big O’Malley to keep the dogs of the press off his back, and while Alastair liked some reporters, and in fact knew a couple who proved better investigators than cops, today he’d immediately cordoned off the crime scene, and thanks to a Chicago miracle—greased with green—the sensational stories of two earlier garrote victims hadn’t been reported in any major paper. All this, ostensibly to safeguard the “integrity of the ongoing world’s fair.” Ransom cared little for such concerns, but he did want to preserve what Dr. Fenger called the “amalgamate area wherein murderer and victim danced” or “the killer’s parlor.” Fenger wrote poetry in moments of relaxation, good poetry in fact. And his poetical nature came through in his work. But Ransom took his meaning—keep undisturbed the 8
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space around the victim in order to do a thorough investigation. A common sense, scientific approach.
So today it was off limits even to his best friends in the press, those he drank with from the
In fact, the sheer number of reporters in Chicago rivaled the vermin and rats. As many as forty-odd newspapers were vying for dominance within the city limits alone.
Naturally, the reporters clamored for a better view of the crime scene now—a closer look for photographs and drawings—but decorum in an investigation of a crime as heinous as this must, in Ransom’s opinion, be maintained even at the risk of the public’s so-called “right to know”—a card the Chicago press played like a two-dollar whore.
When Ransom could, he gave the newsies far more access to the crime scene than Dr. Fenger thought prudent. He in-gratiated himself with the press to gain access to their secrets—how they worked a source, how they got information. The lifeblood of an investigator. But he also nurtured a relationship with good newsmen who held doubts about official details of the city’s investigation of the Haymarket Riot.
Ransom saw that some enterprising newsmen had found another way up to the third-floor promenade, and they now looked down over the kill scene. One or two photographs were taken from the odd angle, most likely useless.
O’Malley, in his nervous stutter, stood beside Ransom, sputtering, “In-in-insp-spec-tor . . . I think you’ve gotta deal with D-d-d-doc-doctor Tewes, sir.”
Ransom rubbed his grizzled chin and fought the redness of eyes that’d seen too much horror and too little sleep, eyes now staring through O’Malley and Dr. Tewes, who’d joined them.
“You must take a moment to read this or—” began Tewes, the huge signature ascot bobbing with each speech.
“Dr. Tewes, we have standards that must be rigorously adhered to and scrupulously upheld to conduct a proper investigation, and they don’t include the likes of—”
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“Sir, I respect the vigor and integrity of your investigative procedure, and your long experience in police work.
However . . .”
“Why must every review end in a
“
Ransom dismissed Tewes—this time with the upraised bone-handled wolf’s-head cane, a gift from his close friend, Philo Keane. He’d carried it since Haymarket, the riot that had ended in the deaths of seven of Ransom’s fellow officers. The cane had become Ransom’s trademark. Stories circulated all about Chicago of how Ransom put down any man who showed the least resistance by pummeling him with that cane. Tewes saw that the filigreed bone handle was cracked down one side.
Ignoring Tewes, Alastair called out to Griffin.
“Where’s Philo?”
“I suspect he’s on his way.”
“Have him take pictures of the blood splatters in the men’s room, the trail to here, and close-ups of that lone handprint. Using the modified identification-records kit, we can attempt to match the palm print to our records of known perverts and felons. How is that for modern, Dr. Tewes?” The ID kit he referred to was a modified French police idea. The French believed a simple record of measurements of body parts kept on arrested felons proved as reliable as any eyewitness report. Many a man had been sent to the gallows via such matchmaking.
Ransom’s examination of a crime scene took longer than any man on the force; he had a reputation for thoroughness but a kind of monkish quality of intense meditation as well.
“Zenlike isn’t he?” Tewes, admiration in his voice, asked Drimmer.
“Not sure what that means,” replied Griffin. “All I know is that Inspector Ransom is the man who modified the modern French Bertillon method of cross-identification cards to include fingerprints on known felons and repeat offenders.”
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Griffin Drimmer took the now infamous note from Dr.
Tewes to examine it.
“The Chicago Police have put to use the Bertillon system?” asked Dr. Tewes. “I’m impressed.”
“As I said, with modifications.”
“Still, you won’t find
“Now look, Dr.
“Tewes,” the small man corrected. “James, sir, James Phineas Murdoch Tewes.”
Ransom erupted again, shouting for the missing photographer, startling everyone.
“His bark as bad as his bite?” asked Tewes, forcing a squint from Griffin.
Meanwhile, Ransom watched Chicago Police civilian photographer Philo Keane, and his new assistant, young Waldo Denton, struggle through the crowd of reporters on the stairwell, their hands full with the remarkable scientific tools of their trade. Ransom found the new art and science of photography—an invention catapulted to prominence during the Civil War—a godsend to police investigators. It’d become another new source of applied science in police detection. But the jaded crowd of reporters and curious on-lookers rudely shouted at the inconvenience Philo and his assistant caused.
Keane and assistant together had hold of a long-legged specialized enormous tripod, which—once the carriage was assembled—stood twelve feet high on three giant legs. An entire ladder attached to it led to the top. This monster, once upright, allowed Keane special vantage point overtop the prone corpse, so as to photograph from above—the end result creating an effect like the eye of God looking in on death.
Ransom knew Keane’s work and thought him an artist, and his equipment state-of-the-art, but the giant ladder-equipped tripod was the size and bulk of a giraffe. Still, the results—if Philo were not rushed and left to his own CITY FOR RANSOM
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devises—often proved remarkable, if not uncanny. Ransom had known grown men on the force who did not
