City for Ransom

medical men. After that something snapped inside him. He ran. Only months after this, he killed that first prostitute at the fair.

Polly made three, Chesley four. Four Chicago women, and now two young men, as well as one unborn child made the total seven. Chesley had proven a quite humorless thing compared to the vivacious Polly. And as for Purvis and now Trelaine . . . each beautiful in his way and so filled with life and love and happiness as it spilled from them with their blood. “Have all to live for,” Trelaine had once confided to the very man who had, this night, taken his life.

He’d shut Trelaine’s joy down with a delight of his own.

As he’d felt with Polly and the others . . . and again with young Chesley Mandor, who’d so wanted to ride in that boat with Trelaine on her arm here at the fair . . . and ’twas a flaming good time she had. . . .

CHAPTER 19

Guiding Jane Francis by the hand, Ransom rushed from the Ferris wheel the moment the gondola stopped. His cane beating an anthem, Alastair shouted over the noise of the fairway. “We need to find a cab stand, get you home! Something’s amiss at the lagoon, and I fear the worst.” “God, not another murder!”

“I pray I’m wrong. But to be safe, you must be off.”

“But Alastair—”

“I don’t want you seeing anything upsetting.”

“I’m no shrinking violet! I’m a midwife; perhaps I can help.”

They failed to notice a man in shadow across from them watching their every move, reading their lips as best he could.

“I will not allow it, Jane.”

“Did you not hear a word I said?”

He relented. “OK, if you’re quite sure. I must get there as quickly as possible.”

“Then why are we wasting time?”

The boat lay half in, half out of the lagoon, the charred remains of the corpse partially covered in the waterlogged 212

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bottom. As Jane began to see the truth of it, the eerily fired body like a discarded heap of trash along the keel of the rowboat, seared clothing did a danse macabre along the surface. She only half heard Ransom’s order: “Jane, stay back . . . do not move from this spot. Promise me.” She held herself in check, saying nothing, her body trembling at the sight that he tried to shield using his frame. Stop trying to spare me, damn you!

Someone foolishly shouted, “Is’re a doctor here?”

Jane wondered at the emotional cost of being Ransom.

And what of being with Ransom as Polly’d been? Still, she instinctively remained close to Alastair, seeing him take charge, ordering reluctant men into the water to grab the gunwales on each side and guide what remained of the boat onto firmer ground. “Easy! Easy! Don’t lose her!” came Ransom’s encouragement to the younger men.

One last thrust grounded the boat, and the waterlogged, burnt bottom split apart.

“Get her outta the muck! Lift below the arms and at the ankles. Use your gloves if you must, but do it.” The uniformed police obeyed, but they seemed Ransom’s children in need of chastising and scolding. “I’ll take a stick to every last one of ya! Do it, do it now.” Together, the younger men lifted her out.

Jane wondered how many killings he’d seen and overseen, and who this latest victim might be.

“Outta the tunnel aflame all on its own, I tell yous,” the shaken attendant kept shouting.

Alastair grabbed the ride attendant by each shoulder, holding him like a plow. “But going out on the water, man!

Who’d she get in the boat with?”

“Fine-looking gent, but he didn’t come back.”

“What’d he look like?”

His description fit the Phantom, but the attendant ended with, “But they looked so in love.”

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“Allow me to help the man with his memory,” came a feminine voice from behind Ransom. He turned to find Jane beside him.

“I told you to stay put.”

“But I’m trained in hypnosis, and we . . . I mean you . . .

you could greatly enhance someone’s memory if—”

“I hardly believe a parlor trick is going to be of any—”

“Give it a chance. No one’s come forward with any useful information. No witnesses beyond this rum-soaked attendant.” She near whispered, “The killer has declared war on us all, Alastair. That could as well be Gabby or me in that flambeed condition!” Even on quinine and opium gotten from Dr. McKinnette, Alastair feels Jane’s sincerity, her genuine desire to help.

Here stands a woman who understands the complexities and vagaries of a cop’s life and work and is accepting of them.

Not only accepting but supporting.

It was a new and odd thing for Ransom.

He felt unsure what to do with it. With her.

What to do with the feelings she imbued in him.

Just how to behave.

Just what to say.

Should I kiss her?

Thank her?

Hold her?

All three?

Say nothing, do nothing, oaf, Jane thought but said, “I’ll get that cab now.” To herself, she muttered, “Had you shown one sign, I’d’ve told you—confessed everything. Men!” “Y-yes . . . get home. Tomorrow, I’ll call ’round.”

“Whether you know it or not, you’ve just lost the best thing you never had,” she shouted back.

“Griffin!” he shouted over her on seeing his young partner push through the crowd. “See that my lady gets home by cab.”

He forced a silver dollar into Griffin Drimmer’s palm. Griffin stared from coin to Alastair to the woman he didn’t know.

“I came as quickly as—”

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“Get the lady to a cab and safely off.” Ransom remained adamant.

“Sure . . . sure . . .”

“I’ll come ’round tomorrow,” Ransom repeated to her.

“Now please, go along with Griff—my right-hand—”

“Dismissed like a pet!” her anger surfaced further.

She went out of view on Griff’s arm, swallowed by the crowds, as Ransom watched, rapt in thoughts of her, a vague idea of life with a woman of substance, but this notion lost out to the moment. Over his shoulder the murder victim stared at him, an obvious connection to the ones before. Maniac’s stepped up his timetable.