He spent the rest of the film staring at the screen obediently, her head on his shoulder and her arm tucked through his, but when it was over, he still remembered nothing specific about it. He had no opinion on whether Errol Flynn was a convincing Sir Robin or whether he liked Technicolor, or even if the theater was full. He’d been focused on her.
They walked up Broadway with unhurried steps, Dani’s arm through his. Autumn was here, and Cleveland was beautiful in the fall. God, he loved Cleveland.
Just as he’d predicted, Dani had loved the movie and was caught up in recounting Errol Flynn’s impassioned speech to his Merry Men.
“When he said, ‘Are you with me?’ I wanted to kneel and take the oath with all the others.”
“Oh yes. Politicians are very good at pretty speeches,” Malone said, needling her. He liked her outrage.
“Robin Hood was not a politician,” she huffed.
“No. You’re right. He was a rabble-rouser. It’s much harder to actually lead.”
“But . . . he did lead! He was wonderful.”
“He didn’t solve the problem. He didn’t implement a better system. He didn’t create wealth or opportunity. He just took. Taking is easy.”
She gaped at him. “But he gave what he took to others.”
“And what about when all the bad guys are broke and the money runs out? Who will he take from then?”
“Oh, you! Now you’ve ruined it for me,” she grumbled, giggling. “Why do you do that?”
“I just like to rile you up.”
“Well, you’re awfully good at it.” Her blue eye gleamed and her brown eye deepened, and in the streetlight her hair was gold.
He leaned down and kissed her, not caring that the streetcar was passing and people would see. Not caring that Lenka and Zuzana might be peering out their window, which looked over the front of the house. A man had the right to kiss his wife whenever and wherever he wished, if his wife was willing.
He dearly loved how willing Dani was.
“Can we go again tomorrow?” she asked when he let her catch her breath.
He laughed and said the only thing he ever said anymore.
“Yes, Dani.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Eliot Ness died of a heart attack when he was only fifty-four. He was an interesting figure for me, a man I liked. As so often happens in these historical journeys I take, the sadness of the history often overwhelms me, and I wonder how I’m going to give my readers a happy ending—or even a sense of an ending—when history is messy and hard and often sad. The thing that stands out for me with people like Eliot Ness is that he was good. Not perfect. Not by any stretch. But good. He tried. He wanted to make things better. He wanted to do the right thing, and even though he had his flaws and his selfish ambitions, he was not ruled by them. Maybe that is what makes heroes of regular men and what makes regular men (and women) heroes.
Which brings me to Michael Malone. He was a special agent for the Treasury Department, one of the famed T-men. But he is not at all well-known. The rough sketch of his life that I use in my novel does follow the real man. His older sister, Molly, a side character in this story, was a constant in his life after he lost his mother at a young age. He and his wife, Irene, were estranged for most of their marriage after losing two children, and Michael spent the rest of his life embedded in big cases, doing work that very few people ever knew about. His friendship with Eliot Ness was not documented, nor did Malone help Ness with the Cleveland Torso Murders, but I have no doubt that the two knew one another and worked together on the Capone case, where Michael was undercover for eighteen months and served a pivotal role in bringing the organization down. I made him younger than he would have been in 1938—he was born in 1893—and used creative license with many aspects of his life, but the man and his career highlights are factual.
By all accounts, Michael Malone was a quiet, dedicated crime fighter who never received or wanted the credit. I learned about him in a documentary on Al Capone and the mob and started digging into his story. As always happens, once you start pulling on threads, one leads to another and another. He became my leading man, mostly because I wanted to give his story an ending I felt he deserved. His love and life with Dani was all fiction, but the real Michael Malone earned it, and part of me wonders if Dani and Malone might need to go on a few more adventures together, solve a few more mysteries, and pull a few more secrets from the cloth. I think they make a very good team.
And now for the villains of our story. Even though Francis E. Sweeney is widely believed to have been the Butcher, that case was never brought nor proven. All evidence in the eighty years since those murders occurred only strengthens the case against him. His bio, his connections, his employment, his temporary residence above the medical clinic, and his access to the morgue on Mead Avenue are all factual. I left the details of each of the Butcher’s victims true to the case—the condition they were found in, the details outlined by the detectives, etc. The circumstances around Victim #12—known in this book as Nettie—were just as I described. Unlike all of his other victims, the Butcher did not kill her. She was dead before he got ahold of her. He simply cut her up and left her remains to be found in that tattered yellow quilt, months after her death.
The timeline was as close to the real timeline as I could make it. Eliot Ness had managed to coerce or corral Sweeney into an institution until that August in 1938, when he was once again on the loose, back in the game, leaving the remains of two bodies to be found not far from Eliot Ness’s downtown office. I don’t know if Sweeney took the remains from the morgue on Mead Avenue, but seeing as he had access and it was the perfect spot to carry out his murders, it’s very probable that he did. He seemed to greatly enjoy leaving clues that no one ever understood.