City for Ransom

Kohler.

“Dr. Tewes believes the killer has a fire fetish.”

“A fire fetish.”

“A fire bug, yes,” added Griffin.

“Pyromania is how he put it, a deep-seated insatiable need.

Damn, I’m inadequate to the task. Tewes knows the jargon of mental disorder far better than I. I’m, after all, a surgeon.”

“Well, if it is some aberration of the brain, a disorder in here,” Kohler pointed to his wide forehead, “then he cer

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tainly has given into it, carrying about his own portable vial of kerosene.”

“He takes their lives and utterly disfigures them. He not only wants them dead, but to control what happens to them afterward—”

“Afterward?” Kohler’s features crinkled in confusion.

“After they’re dead. A form of necrophilia, Dr. Tewes calls it, but rather than have his way with the dead body, ahhh, in a sexual sense, like you earlier spoke of, having some sort of perversion there, you see, he may be getting his sexual excitement from the fire as much as from the garroting and holding another’s life in his hands.” “Tewes said all that?” asked Ransom, impressed.

“That way no one, not even the best surgeon—”

“Not even you, Dr. Fenger,” added Griffin.

“—can put them peacefully at rest for all eternity. No amount of cosmetics or preservation can help, you see? A burned, dehydrated body cannot e’en be given a proper wake.”

“I see,” replied Kohler.

Fenger absently added, “Given that every artery, every vein is collapsed by the heat of fire, the body can’t receive formaldehydes, and stuffing rags soaked in formaldehyde into body cavities is not really effective.” “It’s a sick desire to destroy the remains,” suggested Ransom. “By decapitation, then fire. Yet he preserves their features as if they are significant.”

“Like photographs,” Griff added.

Dr. Fenger lit a slim cigar and smoke encircled them.

Kohler coughed, Griff rocked on his heels, and Ransom chewed on his unlit pipe. Fenger said, “You fellows could be on to something. But it’s what besets the man . . . the ghosts of his past—according to Tewes—ones gone unfulfilled, ones ne’er put to rest, that have a way of rising from the grave.” Kohler nodded, his mind racing with Fenger’s reply.

“Then, by God, Ransom, get on to this madman’s trail. Find the ghosts that beset him! But first, I need on my desk tomorrow morning a full report for Mayor Harrison!”

CHAPTER 21

The same night at the Tewes residence

“I’m done with it! No more James Phineas Murdock Tewes, no more hiding behind this disguise!” Jane Francis announced when she stormed in. She’d just returned from the fair, walking out on Kohler’s conspiracy against Alastair and on any hope of helping find a killer. “Who am I kidding? They don’t want my help—either of them!” “Who, Mother?”

“Ransom and Nathan! Alastair at least is honest; he never expected anything of me, Tewes that is. Nathan, on the other hand, lied just to use me. He never believed in the idea of profiling the killer. It was all just part of his ruse.” “Whatever are you talking about, Mother?” Gabby followed her as she stormed about the clinic.

“Only wanted information on Ransom. And to grind Ransom into the ground ’til he can stand no more. Damnable man wants my affections, too!”

“Isn’t Chief Kohler married?”

“Yes, but in a Chicago minute, he’d set me up as his mis-tress.”

“Mother! Really!” Gabby tried keeping up as Jane stormed each room, lifted something, banged it or tossed it CITY FOR RANSOM

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and continued on. “Slow down, Mother, my God. What has happened?”

She told Gabby of the new horror at the fair. Gabby reacted in sullen silence, a pained look creasing her features.

“You were at the fair with Ransom?”

When Jane had left Ransom the first time to come home, Gabby had been away with a study group. It was then that Jane had changed to Dr. Tewes and returned to the scene of the double homicide in Lake Park.

“Never again will I be sucked into doing anything that goes ’gainst my better judgment.”

Gabby clapped. “That’s wonderful news!”

“I blame these men ’round me! Kohler, Ransom, Fenger, all of ’em.”

“I like the sound of this.”

“I used to blame your grandfather, for not forcing me to look at reality for what it is! Instead, he taught me to spit in its eye. But too often comes its mocking face, making me the fool!”

“Go ahead, let it all out, dear Mother. You’ve taken on so much, and you’ve sacrificed for my—”

“No, I’ve made my own bed . . . nightmare really. ’Tisn’t any of your doing, child.”

“Please, you’re far too harsh on yourself.”

She paced the foyer, wandered the living room to the kitchen again, still fuming. Gabby remained near, recognizing a pivotal moment.

Finally Jane said, “This is it . . . tonight. I make a resolution.”

“What resolution, Mother?”

“I resolve to end this damnable charade and any further involvement with Nathan and Alastair’s feud.” She thought of Kohler’s final words to her: “String ’im along, Jane . . .

sleep with him if it’ll get ’im talking. . . . One confession of overstepping the law, and by God, we ’ave the bastard!”

Kohler acted in the cold certainty of righteousness, weeding out anyone who had anything whatever to do with Hay

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market. And what of Alastair? Ransom brought scrutiny on himself like a man who, at least secretively, wanted to confess to someone, anyone, and if she were in the right place at the right time, during a vulnerable moment, then perhaps it would be to her that he’d confess his sins. She’d be terrified by it, and she was terrified at the idea of standing in a court docket to testify against Alastair.

Gabby’s excited voice snatched Jane from her thoughts.

“Good for you, Mother. I agree, and I support your action, whatever you decide, you know that.” Gabby hugged Jane, still in Tewes’s clothing.

Jane snatched off the mustache and ascot. “Safer to listen to the fairies in my head! The ones that spoke to me as a child.”

“Mother, I’ll help you if you’ll help me.”

“Help you how?”

“Define the problem in its particulars, and to your own satisfaction, but I cannot engage in another round of emotional tug-o-war.”

Mother and daughter stared into one another’s eyes, each seeking answers. Gabrielle nervously laughed.

“Don’t laugh. I believe the problem is surmountable, but I’m concerned you hide nothing from me, and that I do like-wise, that I should never hide anything, even disturbing, from you if you’ve a right to know, and I am afraid