'Fine,' Ben said, wobbling, not knowing if he should sit down on such an elegant sofa.
'Why don't you help yourself?'
'What?'
'Cold beer in the Frigidaire. Help yourself. I'll get us some whiskey and we'll put our own boilermakers together.'
Ben nodded, smiled. 'Sounds good.'
He wandered on shaky legs down the hallway, past several closed doors, into the small, very clean, very white kitchen; the grayish-white linoleum floor glistened. This guy had money. Trusting soul, too, Ben thought, sliding a hand into this pocket, fingers on his jackknife. It would be easy to take this joe for everything he had. There was money in this place. There just about had to be.
But, drunk or sober, Ben just wasn't that kind, and he knew it.
He snorted a laugh and opened the refrigerator door, and Betsy looked right at him.
Betsy's head, that is.
Her eyes were open, and so was her mouth. Bottles of Hamm's beer sat on the shelf on either side of her.
He was frozen there, for a moment, mouth dropped open as wide as Betsy’s, and just as his drink-clouded mind was forming the thought that he must get the hell out of here, he felt fingers grip the hair atop his head and something thin and cold and sharp pressed against the back of his neck.
The last thing Ben saw was Betsy’s gray face.
Just as Andy's words were the last thing he heard: 'Ben… I have a knife, too.'
CHAPTER 6
By midmorning Thursday, Ness had tied up the loose administrative ends, which would allow him to go out in the field, and was explaining to his executive assistant, Robert Chamberlin, what the setup would be over the coming weeks.
'I'll be in every Monday morning,' Ness said, sitting with his back to his scarred rolltop desk that was against one wall of his roomy wood-and-pebbled-glass office at City Hall. 'I'll sign whatever I have to sign from the week before, make a few phone calls to people we've had to put off, and then we'll go over whatever needs going over for the week ahead.'
Chamberlin, who sat nearby with his back to one of the several conference tables that filled the central area of the room, nodded and said, 'Other than that you'll be unavailable?'
'I may be in and out,' Ness said, and shrugged, 'but I'd say probably your best bet would be trying me at the boathouse, evenings. And even then it will be catch-as-catch-can.'
'Understood,' Chamberlin said with a confident twitch of a smile that made his small black mustache curl up at the ends. He was a tall, rangy man of thirty-seven with an oblong, sharp-featured face set off by a strong round jaw, his dark hair slicked back off a high forehead. Like Ness, he was impeccably dressed, wearing a three-piece suit and snappy tie.
Ness was saying, 'If I haven't come up with anything in a month, well…'
'We should both start looking for other work, I'd imagine,' Chamberlin finished wryly.
'Not a bad idea,' Ness said with a half-smile. 'I guess if my job goes down in flames, I take you with me. Sorry.'
'Don't give that a thought,' Chamberlin said with another twitch of a smile. 'I'll land on my feet. Lawyers always do.'
Ness was grateful for his friends attitude-and Chamberlin was more than just his assistant, was indeed a friend, who'd been handpicked by the safety director when his previous executive assistant had played politics. Oddly, the former holder of that position-John Flynt-physically resembled Chamberlin; they both had the look and manner of British military officers out of Kipling.
Chamberlin checked his watch. 'I'd better be getting back to my own office-you have a meeting in a few minutes.'
'I'd like you to stick around for that. I don't want you cut off from this investigation.'
'Well, thanks. I'll just keep my mouth shut and listen.'
'You do, and you're fired.'
Before long, Ness's secretary, redheaded, bespectacled Wanda, an efficient, attractive young woman he'd stolen away from the Clerk of Public Service office, ushered in Curry and Merlo. Merlo's brown suit was typically rumpled, his face haggard, haunted. Boyish, bashful Curry seemed intimidated by the older man, staying behind him, deferring to his every breath.
'Sit down, gentlemen,' Ness said, gesturing to one of the conference tables, and they did. Chamberlin joined them.
There was a discreet knock at the door, the one that opened on to the hall and said SAFETY DIRECTOR'S OFFICE backward on its pebbled-glass. This door was kept locked, and Ness used a key on his vest chain to open it.
Sam Wild, bow-tied and bright-eyed, shambled in, in his loose-limbed way. He grinned wolfishly at Ness, saying, 'You usually don't wait on me hand and foot like this,' as the safety director closed and locked the door behind him.
Ness turned to Merlo, Curry, and Chamberlin, their expressions reflecting displeasure at the intrusion, Merlo looking the most annoyed. 'I asked Sam to stop by, and to slip in the side door, away from the office staff. I wanted him in on this.
Merlo thought for a moment, his professorly brow creasing, then said, 'Director Ness, I don't think it's advisable to have the press present at what you've described as a 'key briefing.''
Ness gestured for Wild to sit but remained standing himself. 'As you all know, I've worked with Sam on several cases, and he's been very helpful. He practically cracked the cemetery-scam racket single-handedly. And he's covering the Safety Director's office full-time for the Plain Dealer — and now that this investigation is coming under the wing of this office, well, I think it's appropriate for him to be here.'
'Don't worry, gents,' Wild said as he propped a Lucky Strike between his lips, 'I'm under strict orders from your chief here not to write anything up till you've got something solid.'
'Eliot,' Chamberlin said, eyes narrowing, 'I really don't think we should be tipping our hand to the opposition.'
'We won't be,' Ness said. 'But keep in mind that the 'opposition' is a homicidal maniac who has the city in a state of panic, under a reign of terror. Part of our function is public relations.'
Merlo was wide-eyed. 'Public relations?'
'Yes,' Ness said calmly. 'We need to assure our citizens that their police force is on top of the problem. Doing everything it can to remove this madman from their midst. Mr. Wild's function will be to be a part of the investigation-and his investigative skills are considerable-which will lend his eventual reporting an insider's depth and authority.'
Chamberlin said, 'You may alienate the other papers.'
'I'm keeping that in mind,' Ness said. 'I'll be monitoring Sam's output, and we'll be holding periodic press conferences and issuing press releases.'
Chamberlin shrugged and leaned back in his chair; Merlo had an expression of pained skepticism, while Curry-caught between Merlo and Ness, two men he respected-stayed blank.
'We have ten victims, gentlemen,' Ness said. 'Nine are white, all were apparently healthy, able-bodied individuals, in the prime of life-between twenty-five and forty-five years. Six are males. Six were found within two to eight days after death. One was not found for two months.'
Ness sat on the edge of the conference table.
'There was, Coroner Gerber tells me, relatively little hacking of the tissues,' Ness continued, 'and relatively few hesitation marks-but the direction of what marks there were indicates we have a right-handed individual.'
'Hey, that narrows the field,' Wild said cheerfully.
