“Really? And another reputation made!”
“Look, Detective, every brain is as different as the fingerprint.”
“It’s a proven fact,” added Kohler.
She went on. “In cases such as this, with no usable print or a match, today you only have Bertillon and Lombroso, but perhaps one day men like you—
“Yeah,” added Ransom, “but as for me, I have to deal with the here and now, and while I find the doctor’s unusual criminal recording interesting, for now I’d best get back to my duties.”
He left Kohler and Tewes to again plot their separate moves in all this. As he turned his back on the odd couple, he felt a definite knife twisting about his spine. Kohler was ever up to no good, and he’d love nothing better than to embarrass Ransom, bring him down, and ultimately put him out to pasture.
In fact, he’d been headhunting Ransom for six years now.
And to this end, he’d enlisted Tewes’s questionable help.
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Ransom also feared that Griffin’d been recruited as well.
It’s a minefield, he thought when he saw that Dr. Christian Fenger had not only arrived but was looking over the murders. It’d become rare—Fenger out of his labs, on scene.
The man had such complete empathy with murdered souls that scenes like this literally hurt him to the quick.
“What of my ring?” Ransom asked him.
“I can assure you, Ransom, my men’re innocent. I skew-ered them, and threatened them.”
“And you’re convinced?”
“They haven’t the ring.”
“And their feelings hurt, I’m sure.”
“At heart the romantic, heh?” Fenger sadly returned to the corpses and severed heads. “The man was not torched, only the woman. Should we read any significance into that?”
“Trelaine’s body fell straightway into the water, his head into the second boat.”
“Heard you did a reenactment. Good a theory as any.”
“The killer would’ve been busy with the woman,” Ransom added, “no doubt shrieking, but strangely, no one heard screams.”
“She might shriek inside her head, but I have it on reliable authority that Chelsey Mandor is—was a mute.”
“A mute? Damn that Philo. Said they’d
“You’ve never
“Damn that Philo. A mute . . . another handicapped woman,” complained Ransom.
“Says as much about Philo as it does about the women who’re attracted to him,” added Fenger.
“Or to his camera,” agreed Ransom. “I asked Philo once if he got involved with handicapped and disabled women because he thought it less an investment on his part.”
“What’d he say?” asked Tewes, curious.
“Reminded me of his
CITY FOR RANSOM
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The three of them laughed and Ransom added, “The story does say a lot about our friend Philo.”
Fenger’s tone went serious. “This Miss Mandor . . . mute from a childhood disease, according to her father—a perfect delicacy for Philo.”
“Her father is here? My God.”
Ransom feared he’d get no new or useful information out of the distraught father. Another wail escaped the man, who beat the earth with fists from a kneeling position on the grass.
Alastair noticed that Tewes’d returned to Kohler, and they were in a controlled but heated discussion. “Look there, Christian,” Ransom said. “I should call on Dr. Tewes tonight, to break the weaker of the two obvious conspirators.” Then of a sudden, Tewes stormed off.
“What’s Nathan’s game?” asked Fenger.
“The game of Get Ransom.”
“Wants an end to talk of an incident that you
Griffin came back to him. “You were right about the lady victim, Ransom. Nothing on her in the manner of jewelry.
Do you think he takes his victim’s jewelry?”
“Until now, I thought Shanks and Gwinn were getting rich off these deaths, but Dr. Fenger assures me otherwise.”
Griff and Fenger acknowledged one another.
“Ransom, so far as the chief goes, I only let him know what I want him to know when I want him to know. Tell ’im, Dr. Fenger.”
Fenger cast his eyes in another direction, but Ransom saw the guilt. “Not you, too, Christian?”
“Kohler runs the man’s budget, Rance,” said Griff.
“Whataya expect?”
Fenger said nothing.
“Let’s just work this case, the three of us, and when it’s concluded, we can reassess where we stand with one another, gentlemen!”
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ROBERT W. WALKER
“Sure, a chance is all I ask . . . a chance to prove myself,”
said Griff but Fenger remained silent.
“Although I’ve none left, Griff, I do understand ambition.
But mark me, young friend, the prize won can leave a man alone with ambition.”
“As may be said of your blind ambition to open the books on Haymarket!” Fenger fired back as if struck.
“Aye . . . touche. You have me there, but who does one trust, Christian, who?”
A deep, painful silence rose among them like an evil child at play. Griffin blasted him. “Alastair, you never put trust in me. Not once’ve you confided a single dirty secret you’ve learned about Haymarket. Just a few drunk stories at the bar, yet you expect sympathy and—” “You’re right, Griff. So much I’ve not confided in
“I want to understand your side of things, Alastair. I do.”
“Perhaps one day soon . . . after we apprehend this fiend.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
Dr. Fenger said, “As to the case at hand . . . I can tell you fellows it’s definitely the work of the same garroter. Down to the diamond shape at the neck here”—he paused to point at his own Adam’s apple—“about here, on both male and female victims. What utter nerve and swiftness in killing he’s perfected . . . practicing his technique over and over to get this efficient.” “What do you suppose he practices on, Doctor?” asked Griffin.
“Melons, fence posts, small animals, who can say, perhaps all and more.”
“Or cadavers in a morgue?” asked Nathan Kohler, who joined them. “Gentlemen, whoever this perverted, twisted bastard is, he destroys the peace and happiness of the fair.
