about the infamous Inspector Ransom, anxious anew to tell his friends on the force what he’d witnessed here—how Ransom had literally handed Tewes a handful of what he’d deserved! And to brag that for a few pints the other night that he could now call himself Alastair Ransom’s drinking comrade—
“You really ought to keep a safe distance from the likes of me, Mike,” Ransom whispered in his ear. “I go down, they’ll likely go headhunting for what few friends I have.”
“I’ll not be a fair-weather friend, sir.”
“But you will likely be fearful one day at having to explain our connection to your superiors.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“You’re a good cop, Michael Shaun O’Malley, but you ought to be more careful. And why aren’t you using your head instead of that nightstick?”
“Yes, sir. I’m going to put in to take the detective’s exam like you said.”
“Good . . . good for you, O’Malley,” said Griff, slapping his back. “How did this fella you spoke of who took the valuables, sir,” continued Griff, “just how’d he ever get away with it?”
“Promoted.”
“What?”
The department got ’im off the street and behind a desk, and today . . . well, today there he stands.” Ransom’s segue CITY FOR RANSOM
33
pointed to the chief of police, who rushed for the stationmaster’s office.
“No! Kohler himself, is it?”
“That’s me story, and I’d not lie about a thing like that.”
“You two go way back then,” said O’Malley.
“For a time, he was my training officer. Till I could stomach him no more.”
“How could the department let a thing like that go on and then promote someone so lacking in morals?” asked Griff.
Ransom smiled at his young partner. “You’ve still a lot to learn about the department, Griff.”
“Did things differently in those days, hey?”
“It still goes on, Griff. For Kohler at a higher level. Things don’t reform in Chicago so much as they permutate.”
“They didn’t have evidence manifests in those early days?” asked O’Malley.
“Oh, sure, but they could be doctored, you see, palms greased. Didn’t have photography on every case either, not like they do now. The eyes of the brass are upon you, son.”
“If it’s in Keane’s photos,” added Griff, “it’d better be in a lab or in lockup.”
Alastair laughed. “But if it ain’t in the frame . . . well, then it don’t exist, boys.”
“The fingers . . .” began O’Malley. “None can be mislaid or lost or else, sure, but tell me, what good are they?”
“If our boy here,” he punctuated with his cane, “if he dug his nails in during the struggle, even got hold of the killer‘s wrist or pinky finger and laid a bite on him . . . well, I’ve solved cases by matching a scratch line to the size of a victim’s nails or his dental impression. Fenger claims there’re no two alike.” Griffin objected. “That’s not very scientific. Sounds impossible to prove.”
“Not if the killer
“Voodoo?”
34
ROBERT W. WALKER
“Hell, I tell ’em we’re in the new scientific age . . . I show
’em a vial of animal blood and a vial of human blood . . . I declare which is which by running ’em through a series of tubes and
“No . . . not anywhere but in my head, but when I shove the evidence down their throats, they confess, I tell you.”
“You think the scientists will ever learn to determine animal from human blood?”
“Perhaps . . . some day.”
“In the next century perhaps?”
“Time will tell, but I know there are men in the universities working on it. Just imagine it, lads, a case in which we can get a blood-type match to prove it is indeed human blood on the man’s shoe or apron and not some slaughtered animal.” Griff shook his head. “I still have no clue how they intend ever to do blood typing.”
“Trust me, nobody knows,” replied Ransom. He took a long drag on his pipe. “Now, Michael Shaun, how’d you like to do some detective work under Inspector Drimmer’s guidance?”
“ ’Twould be an honor, sir.”
“Have O’Malley here help you go through the Bertillon cards for a match on that handprint, and boys, go at it with a vengeance.”
O’Malley’s eyes rolled as he realized that Ransom and Griffin had snookered him into doing the most tedious time-consuming, brain-numbing police detection work on the force, going through the Bertillon cards. He silently mouthed a string of curses.
“If he’s never been arrested in our city, Ransom, he won’t be in our card files,” cautioned Griff.
“If not, we try New York’s—with O’Malley’s help.”
CITY FOR RANSOM
35
“Then you think Tewes was telling the truth about New York?”
“Who knows?”
O’Malley mildly protested. “Sir, I—I’ve me own duties, and with the I-ID cards, we’re talking hours, possibly days, and—and me duty sergeant, he—he ain’t likely to OK—”
“And your duty sergeant’s name?”
“P. J. O’Hurley, sir.”
“I’ll smooth it over with the man, Mike. We all want you to make junior grade, and I’m sure O’Hurley, too, has your best interest at heart.”
Griff took Ransom aside. “Do you give any credence to Dr. Tewes’s claims?”
“Sure and why not, Griff? Tewes is as psychic as that Jack terrier of yours.”
“Now you’re getting personal.”
“Our guy, whoever he is, certainly likes playing with fire.”
“So we gotta check for all firebugs in the system first.”
Ransom nodded. “I suspect it’s just his way of adding one more element of the
“After headlines?”
“That or he plain bloody likes to watch ’em burn. Maybe something symbolic in it for the bastard. Shakespeare used fire as a symbol, and Plutarch before him, so why not our killer?”
“Whataya thinking? He’s a gentleman of refinery, knows Shakespeare?”
“Did I say that now?” Ransom scowled across.
“I was just—”
“—thinkin’ aloud? Some sort of evil genius? Evil yes, genius no. Find it odd, though, that the faces in every instance have been spared.”
Ransom thought the victim himself far too young and innocent to have a criminal record. In fact, he looked, beneath all the smut, like a child in a Rembrandt depiction of a Dutch peasant family. A fingerprint from the severed fingers would 36
ROBERT W. WALKER
