All week long, search parties dragged the river and walked the banks, their eyes on the ground, looking for bits of flesh the way the children scoured the grass in Euclid Beach Park for colored eggs. But Easter came and went without a single find. No flesh. No matching leg or severed feet. No head or bisected torso, and no clues about who was dead and who had done it.
Michael must have told Ness about Emil Fronek and the apartment above the clinic because detectives came and searched the premises, interviewing Dr. Peterka and the whole staff. Sybil had come to the shop in a huff looking for Malone and had left with a new hat and a pair of gloves, slightly mollified by her purchases and the chance to spill every morsel of gossip she’d collected. Dani had listened raptly to the office intrigue: the doctors were offended by the detectives’ questions, Peterka had provided police with a list of renters for the last ten years, and they had to close the office for the rest of the week to deal with the upheaval.
The couch had been carried out, the drapes too, and workmen had come in to begin Dr. Peterka’s remodel of the space and change the locks on the door. Malone had made good and sure she wouldn’t be tangling with the curtains again or catching the scent of a killer.
Eliot didn’t know anything more two weeks after the discovery of the woman’s calf than Malone had learned from Coroner Gerber’s press conference the night it was found. But the papers led with the story of the left leg and the latest “work of the Butcher” every single day, rehashing the previous cases, and castigating everyone from President Roosevelt to railroad security for turning their backs on “Cleveland’s most vulnerable.” Cleveland’s Plain Dealer ran a sprawling front page letter to the editor penned by none other than Martin L. Sweeney, congressman of the Twentieth District. He claimed Eliot Ness was more interested in traffic control and courting the press than protecting Clevelanders from madmen.
“He’s playing with his police radio, wasting taxpayer dollars, and organizing wayward boys while the people of this city cower in their homes, wondering who will be next. Cleveland deserves better,” he wrote.
Cleveland did deserve better—nobody deserved what the Butcher did to them—but Malone knew people rarely got what they deserved, good or bad, and Eliot was neither Cleveland’s problem nor Cleveland’s solution, though he’d been hailed as one. Maybe that was the rub. Everyone wanted the man who took down Al Capone, and the Butcher was an entirely different beast. Capone had also been in the government’s crosshairs. This time, there was no target. The Butcher was a phantom nobody wanted to name.
Malone and Ness had a sit-down with David Cowles on Friday, April 22, in Eliot’s office at city hall. It wasn’t the most private of locations, especially going in and out, but Eliot had picked up some persistent tagalongs in the last week and told Malone he better come to him until the storm passed. Malone hadn’t yet told Ness about the “big guy’s” interest or Irey’s ultimatum. Ness didn’t need the added pressure, but at the rate it was going, the storm wasn’t going to pass without a major break.
Cowles was consulting with crime labs and criminologists all over the country, and he brought Malone up to speed on their mostly unhelpful assessments. Eliot listened to the conversation with bruised eyes and slumped shoulders but added little. There was simply no real news and no developments.
“Eliot says you have an expert,” Cowles said to Malone, his gaze curious. Hopeful.
“Yeah. I do,” Malone replied, glancing at Ness. He’d thought maybe Eliot had forgotten the conversation with all the chaos. He obviously hadn’t. Dani hadn’t forgotten either, and she was persistent, even eager, about getting her magic hands on the evidence. But with the new victim and no new information in the last two weeks, reporters were rabid, and Malone had become more and more opposed to the idea of bringing Dani into the investigation in any way.
“I don’t want anyone getting curious about her. It wouldn’t be good for Ness.” It wouldn’t be good for Dani either.
Cowles frowned and Eliot straightened in his chair. “How so?” Cowles asked.
“The papers are clamoring for information. They want stories. They get a whiff of her—if anyone gets a whiff of her—they’ll put it in the papers. They’ve got nothing else to talk about,” Malone said. “So we need to keep it quiet. And private.”
“What kind of expert are we talking about?” Cowles pressed.
“She’s an ugly seamstress,” Eliot said, straight-faced but with a twinkle in his eye. It was the first sign of good humor Malone had seen in him since the leg had been discovered.
“Huh,” Cowles grunted. “All right. Guess it can’t hurt. We’ve traced the laundry marks, though, in the few items that have them. So far nothing’s come of it.”
“Say when, Mike,” Ness said.
“Next Saturday night,” Malone said. “You can get us into the evidence locker without anybody getting too nosy about what we’re doing, right?”
“Next Saturday is the damn Spring Gala at St. Alexis.” Eliot sighed. “Press. Politicos. Fundraising. The diocese and the nuns have turned it into an annual arm twisting, and nobody gets out of it without a public shaming or a huge check, but it keeps the hospital and Catholic charities going, and I have to make an appearance.”
“Even better. It’ll be a good distraction,” Malone said. “We can do it after.”
“You’re right,” Ness agreed. “Everyone will be there, occupied and accounted for. Staff will be light at headquarters, even lighter than usual on a Saturday night. And we won’t have any reporters lurking with the gala in swing.”
“Can you get me two tickets?” Malone asked, an idea surfacing.
Ness raised his brows, surprised. “You want to come to the gala?”
“It’s at St. Alexis itself, the hospital?”