City for Ransom

Ransom referred to the now famous Dr. Cesare Lombroso, the Italian psychiatrist and criminalist who’d studied hundreds of thousands of convicted felons, taking measurements of their heads and facial features in an attempt to prove all criminals were evolutionary throwbacks—Cro-Magnons among civilized society.

“He does have a sizable pair of ears and that brow is as deep as a canyon, hiding menacing eyes,” Tewes said.

“Not exactly the most reliable method of identifying a criminal, Doctor.”

“No, I am sure of that. Still, I’ve read Dr. Lombroso’s CITY FOR RANSOM

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work, his L’uomo delinquente. ” The book created a stir among scientists the world over. “Even if he is wrong, Lombroso has created more interest in criminal science than anyone living.” “Well, give it time. Science in detection will mature, but I remain skeptical of body measurement identification techniques.”

“Really? Then that tape measure my daughter saw hanging from your coat pocket the other night was what, for show?” Tewes put up a hand to curtail rebuttal. “Look, we can agree, Lombroso’s evidence is riddled with suppositions, as is Bertillon’s method.” “You mean, what else do we have to work with? Shall we arrest Darby there for the Phantom, here and now, on his looks?”

“Lombroso is a first mewling step, and others with even less to go on have only cataloged known offenders, stating no two men can possibly exist with the same physical measurements outside the phenomena of twins.” Ransom began listening more intently. Apparently, Tewes was a serious student of Dr. Lombroso and the first criminal identification system in history, and why not? It lent credence to the study of phrenology. “To be sure,” Tewes continued, “his studies remain extremely controversial, as—” “As well his theories should!” he countered.

“—as his theories are based on measurements and statistics derived from insane asylums across Europe, but Lombroso used the science of phrenology—skull reading—to determine whether or not a true criminal was under his thumb or not.” “That’s funny.” Ransom downed the final half of his second Pabst.

“Lombroso measured the forehead and skull, and his findings said that a certain percentage of the population remain nihilistic cave men in heredity—where it counts! Here.”

Tewes pointed to his brain. “That evolution is not so tidy a business as it is haphazard, random even. De- evolution may play a major part.”

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“And others say we’re all descended from a meat-eating killer ape. Ever e’t raw meat, Doctor?”

“Regardless of mad notions that we’re all descended from murderous apes, Lombroso’s theories and statistics say that criminals are born—often with telltale knots on their cranial bones.” “My God, that would not include me.” Ransom gingerly touched the knot left by Muldoon. “So we put away anyone with a knot on his head? Please, Dr. Tewes, I was just beginning to take you seriously, and now this. You can’t honestly subscribe to the theory that killers are born and not nurtured?” “I do and I don’t. I think it a bit of both.”

“Then you can’t seriously go by Lombroso!”

“Only one technique of many I use. I combine a number of approaches to reach my conclusions.”

“But deciding a man is guilty by the size of his brow, how deep set the eyes? How many bumps on the head? Isn’t that extreme . . . like stepping back in time, say to . . . to the Salem witchcraft trials and spectral evidence?” “It’s only a starting point to jump off. We’re all of us working in the dark, and thank God for the microscope, so that one day in the not too distant future—in the early 1900s I predict—we’ll be capable of distinguishing animal from human blood.” “To separate the murderer from the neighborhood butcher, yes. That would be a boon. You’ve no idea how many guilty blokes’ve got off claiming chicken blood!”

Tewes stopped short, realizing Ransom was engaged with the man at the bar, their eyes locked. Jane watched the small drama unfold: Ransom raises a glass to Tug, and Tug offers his up and drains it. Each sizing up the other, each knowing their paths will cross again in a less amiable setting. Tug tosses down a coin and stalks out. Ransom’s eyes never leave him until he is completely gone, but he continues to speak. “If a man is apelike in appearance, perhaps he is a gentle giant. But not your man Tug.”

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“But suppose others who react to your gentle giant have treated him like an ape all of his life due to his very appearance? Doesn’t it make sense for him to commit a crime to get back at a society that condemns him for his deformities?” “He who is treated like an animal becomes one?”

“Yes.”

“Like that elephant man in London?”

“All right, there is an example. When treated with respect and dignity, he became a gentleman, but treated as a sideshow freak, he lived life as a carnival animal.”

“Hmmm . . . point taken.” Ransom finished his coffee and then downed another beer that’d appeared. “Sounds as if we agree more than we disagree on Lombroso, Doctor. But tell me, why’d you get involved in this case?” “I thought it a quick way to build a reputation, to use my phrenology in a manner . . . well as a way to —”

“Bombast the public? Scam, hoax?”

“All right. I was getting desperate, and it does not speak well of me, but I saw or rather felt I must do it, not for myself but for Gabby. Tuition and clothes and all her medical books.”

“And the whole show with the head, a freak show?”

“Not entirely. I’ve had more people coming to me for help, and I’ve helped more than I’ve harmed.”

“Yes . . . well, your dubious services did not take with my Merielle, now in her grave.”

“She’s not the first patient who’s come to me in a state of deep emotional distress and depression that has lingered for years without relief. Sometimes I don’t get them soon enough.

Sometimes they come as last resort, when only if they’d come sooner, then perhaps . . . well . . . it’s all supposition.”

“I’ve some notion of this killer myself. I’ve feelings that are like his, feelings of wanting to kill someone or some thing. And I feel him near.”

“That’s . . . well frankly . . . frightening.”

“As well it should be, Doctor. I glimpse only small snatches of Merielle’s attacker. The fellow who once 184

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pimped her out, Jervis, I hear from my snitch, that he’s left the city fearful I’m coming for ’im.”

“Do you think this fellow Jervis killed her?”

“He’d never have the guts. So afraid now, according to O’Malley, that he ran on the assumption I’d be coming for him.”

“What sense then do you have of this multiple killer, Ransom?”

“What sense do you have of this killer?”

“Vague . . . a dark presence at her back, a fleeting glimpse of a cape. Expensive, well-polished boots, something out of a State Street window.”

“You talked to the homeless fellow who grabbed the wallet, didn’t you, Tewes?”

Jane confessed she had. “It may not’ve been a coincidence that mirror coming down with her head.”

“Meaning?”

“Her place was no larger than the men’s room at the train station.”

Ransom considered this. “She spent a lot of time before that mirror.”

“She’d’ve been held against the mirror in the same manner as the boy.”

“Blind me . . . looking into her eyes as she died.”

“In top hat and cape, he’d pass for a real gent in Polly’s eyes.”

“And he whistles tunes.” Ransom held out a small coin but it was no coin. It was a silvery metal button with the letters CPS stamped on it.