“Not in this matter, you aren’t. You’re a Treasury agent, in case you weren’t aware.”
“I’m aware that I had no communication from you indicating there were any protected persons in the case you knew I was assisting on.” Malone was more surprised by Elmer’s agitation than he was angry, and he easily kept his voice level and his own temper under control.
“You never take a vacation. Your wife had just died. You needed some downtime,” Irey said.
“In Cleveland?” Malone snorted. “I was in the Bahamas, Elmer, but you readily agreed for me to go to Cleveland. If it was for my emotional well-being, you and I have far different definitions of ‘rest.’”
“You were not lead, you were not point, you aren’t even here officially. You have had no oversight—”
“But a month ago, you told me to do whatever I needed to do to end it. You said the big guy wanted it wrapped up.”
“I regret that now.”
“Why?” Malone asked. He’d never seen his boss so agitated, and he’d never given such mixed signals. “We’ve never been an agency that went about investigations in the regular ways. I daresay it’s one of the reasons we’ve been successful. The reason you’ve been successful, Elmer.”
Elmer took off his spectacles and rubbed a large hand over his square face, as though he could reform his features into something less reproving. Then he dropped into a chair. His next words made Malone’s heart sink.
“Lie detector machines and palm readers?” he asked. “Is that the best you could do?”
“Palm readers?” Malone hissed.
“What is it that Daniela Kos does, Malone?”
Malone did not answer. He stared at his boss, not understanding, and for the first time in his career with the department, not . . . trusting.
“You and Eliot Ness pulled a respected doctor into a clandestine interrogation for six days.” Irey raised his hand to quell Malone’s argument. “A doctor whose only documented crimes are that he drinks too much and his wife doesn’t want him anymore. That describes most men, doesn’t it, Malone? Including you and Eliot Ness. You aren’t one to drink too much, but your wife wasn’t too keen on you either, now was she?”
Malone stilled, biting back his affront. Irey getting nasty and personal was the most baffling thing of all. Malone hadn’t believed any part of his life was truly private. The agency didn’t work that way. When you signed up, you turned your life over for inspection, every embarrassing moment. But for Irey to pull out Irene’s rejection and use it as leverage was new.
“What the hell is going on here, Irey?” he whispered.
“You don’t have a real suspect,” Irey said. “And you resorted to methods I can’t condone or defend.”
“Francis Sweeney has killed a dozen—and probably a whole lot more—men and women. He’s hacked off their heads, chopped up their bodies, and deposited them all over Cleveland.”
“You have no evidence.”
“Yes, we do.” They had plenty. Just nothing they could use.
“You kept the man prisoner in a hotel room for almost a week. Against his will.”
“He was detained for good reason. We were unable to question him for days because he was so drunk. He was not tortured or mistreated.”
“His cousin is a US congressman,” Irey ground out. “A US congressman who has been very vocal about the president’s preparations for war and American isolationism. The president needs him on board.”
“So I hear. It’s the reason Francis Sweeney wasn’t hauled in like every other suspect. Special treatment for a special suspect. A whole week in a luxury hotel.”
“You were in the room with Francis Sweeney?”
“Yes.”
“So he can identify all of you—you, Ness, Cowles, Leonarde Keeler, and Royal Grossman? And what about Daniela Kos? Does she know who you are and who you work for?”
Malone knew better than to react to references to Dani, but Cowles had filled Irey in. All the way in. Cowles didn’t work for the Treasury’s intelligence division anymore, but he worked for the Scientific Investigation Bureau, and he knew both worlds and all the players.
“Frank Sweeney was unconscious, sleeping off a drunk, for much of the time that he was in that room. I observed. His interactions were mainly with the psychiatrist, Mr. Keeler, Cowles, and Eliot.”
“What a story that will be. Eliot Ness targeting his political enemies.”
“That isn’t what this is, Elmer.”
“No. It isn’t. I am sure of that. But the truth doesn’t matter in an instance like this, because your actions—all of them completely outrageous and sensational—speak louder than the truth.”
“The truth is that we know who the Butcher is,” Malone shot back. “And we’re trying to stop him.”
Irey sighed and sat back in his chair. “Come on now, Malone. You are not a foolish man. You know how this works.”
Malone didn’t respond. The axe was coming, and he simply waited for it to fall.
“You’re done in Cleveland. Case closed.”
“The case is not closed, as you’ve so plainly outlined,” he said.
“We’re done in Cleveland,” Irey reiterated, changing the pronoun. We’re done. Meaning the agency was done. “And I need you in Chicago.”
“Why?”
“Big money is going into US Steel, money not making it to production levels. With the war coming, the president wants to know why.” Irey’s voice was brisk, matter-of-fact.
What in the hell was he going to tell Dani? What in the hell was he going to tell himself?
“I’ll expect you in Chicago tomorrow. You’ve got somewhere you can stay?” Irey knew he did.
Malone nodded once.
“We’re done here, Malone,” Irey said again. “It’s over.”
26
She was waiting up for him. His lamp was burning, and she was sitting cross-legged on his bed, a dress in her lap, and a tin of beads beside her. She was attaching them, one by one, her needle flying, her hands sure.