Trail Of Blood Part 27

"Curing?"

"War." His gaze lingered on the worn hem of James's coat, on the practically threadbare thighs of his trousers. "And fighting it on one's own terms."

In that instant James wanted nothing more than to pull up a chair and talk, to this man or even to his dog, about the difficulty of coming up with excuses to get out of working protection for a gambling joint or collecting the department's take from a cathouse, about Helen and baby John, about the cold seeping up through the tape around his shoe.

He didn't, of course. He could not bare his soul to another; men didn't do that. And he had some concerns about the tenants of 4950 Pullman. The first two bodies had been found on the slope outside, only a few hundred feet to the west of this building. The man in the blue coat might have come to Corliss looking for work. And Flo Polillo had tended bar at Mike's. "About a job with the railroad, I didn't ask for myself. I am trying to retrace the steps of a man who might have come here looking for work as a mechanic."

A young man with tousled dark locks and a pencil behind one ear bounced in through the door behind James. "Got the grub?"

Corliss held out a sandwich. "Here you go, Mr. Metetsky. Though you know it's a crime to eat corned beef on anything but rye."

"So you say. Did your housekeeper send any biscuits today? No? What a pity." The architect plucked the wrapped food from the man's hand. Then he bounced back out, but not before taking in James's form from the softened hat to the shoelaces mended in three spots. He said nothing, though, and merely added over his shoulder to Corliss, "I'll settle up later, okay?"

"I doubt I'll ever see it," Corliss said to James. "He's a bit of a chizz, that one. Hasn't learned that those who fail to contribute their share fail in their very humanity."

"Young men are often careless." James pulled out his notebook. "The man I'm tr-"

"But there's no excuse, in his case. He earns a good amount of money at his trade. What I paid them in design fees for this building alone could buy a year of sandwiches." Corliss continued to stare at the door as if waiting for the young man to return, and with sufficient coinage this time.

The dog decided to scratch, sending a shower of its yellow hairs onto the floor beneath the radiator. The sound distracted his master.

"Well, young men, as you say." Corliss sliced part of the meal off for himself. "They thrill at nothing so much as getting away with something. Who did you say you were looking for?"

James explained about the man in the blue coat. "He may have come here inquiring about work as a mechanic. It would have been late spring, early summer. June, probably, perhaps July."

"Six months ago? Detective, I get ten men a week begging for work, any work. And those are the skilled ones-the rest apply at the station and never get to me. I'm sorry, but I can't possibly remember-"

"He did have skill-he might have been a mechanical supervisor. And this is the coat." James pulled out the color photograph he had hounded the Bertillon unit into making for him, insisting that the style of the coat would not stick in people's minds, that it became memorable only with the color.

Corliss took the photo with one hand, holding his sandwich in the other. He peered at the blue coat. He set down the sandwich. The hand holding the photo began to quake, very slightly, yet his expression did not change, the helpful curve of his lips still in place.

Louis Odessa appeared in the doorway. "I forgot to get my lunch. You still here, Detective?"

James made no reply, and Odessa didn't seem to care. He picked up his parcel and, unlike the young architect, left his share of the bill on Corliss's desk blotter. Corliss watched him approach, take, and leave, without saying a word.

Then he held the photo out to James. "I've never seen this. Nor do I recall the man you describe. I'm sorry I can't help you, Detective."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure, I'm afraid. I have a fairly good memory for people-not perfect, of course, but good." He held out the wrapped corned beef.

"Here, give this to your partner. You'll need it to lure him from Auralina's charms."

Still stuffed from their restaurant rounds, Walter showed a rare indifference to the food but willingly departed from the medium. Apparently she had a habit of talking money more than sweet flirtations, and Walter didn't care for conquests with an entrepreneurial bent. "Did you show him your little picture?"

"Yep."

"What'd he say?"

"Didn't ring a bell."

"Big surprise there. n.o.body would remember some b.u.m's coat from six months ago. Well, you would, but n.o.body else." They got in the car and began its sliding ascent toward East Fifty-fifth.

"He's lying."

"Huh?"

"He recognized that coat. It startled him. But after his buddy Dr. Louis walks in and out, then he's never seen the coat before. We always wondered how one guy carried two full-grown men down a steep hill. Do you think there could be two of them, working together?"

"I think your imagination is working overtime, that's what I think."

James wrote Corliss lying in his notebook and circled the second word in heavy pencil.

CHAPTER 35.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.

PRESENT DAY.

They drove separately. Frank might have to leave the crime scene at some point to chase down a witness or a lead and Theresa hoped to need the supply of equipment she kept in her trunk. But it also forestalled any conversation.

Perhaps this was just as well. There was nothing she could think of to say that would not sound condescending. She could not tell Frank that their grandfather had loved him as well, because he knew that. She could not tell him that their grandfather had beamed for days after Frank's graduation from the academy, because he knew that. She could not tell him that Theresa had not been the favorite grandchild, because that was not true.

So she would say nothing at all.

Now she drove through the dying light, leaving the Cuyahoga River behind, following the access road to the RTA station and administrative offices. The task force would meet up there, the only place in the valley where cars coming and going would not seem like unusual activity, and it had parking to boot. Frank had suggested they use the building at 4950 Pullman, but Theresa had vetoed him in the hope that their copycat might consider it some sort of shrine and stop in to pay his respects. Cops were secreted in the woods and at the electrical station to keep an eye on it.

She drove past the slope where she had found the two dead men, starting for a moment when her headlights caught a pair of glowing eyes. Racc.o.o.n. She patted her chest, drove under the East Fifty-fifth bridge, and found the employee parking lot.

RTA had loaned them a conference room and set up a number of monitors with feeds from their station platform cameras. All three transit lines-Red, Blue, and Green-pa.s.sed through the East Fifty-fifth station. This might make a getaway easier, or it might not, as the Red Line boarded from the west end of the building and the other two lines at the opposite. At this time of day a train left at least every fifteen minutes. To use them as transportation with cops in pursuit, the killer would have to employ split-second timing and the driver could easily be radioed to stop the train at any point. Theresa figured their killer was smarter than that.

Frank went over the facts of the original case. Angela Sanchez had Theresa use a map to point out the locations of the original body.

"This is guesswork to a large degree," she warned the men. "But I believe they found the head-wrapped in pants, so it might not be immediately obvious-south of the tracks roughly between Fifty-fifth and Kinsman. Directly across from this building, in fact. They found the head just east of the Fifty-fifth bridge, but between the sets of tracks. Those are my calculations, made with case studies and Google Earth. The killer might come to different conclusions, so we need sharp eyes at least a half mile west of Fifty-fifth as well, level with the building on Pullman."

The fifteen or so uniformed and plainclothes cops in the room stared at her without expression. This did not mean they were not listening-she had spent enough time around cops to know that-only that they could not appear impressed by anything except themselves. But she felt good about them. Even the ones who didn't look old enough to drive seemed bright, fit, and a h.e.l.l of a lot more awake than she was. This killer would be caught tonight, webbed in by his own obsessions.

Angela said: "And don't forget about the trains, even the rapid transit. He might use them to arrive or escape. It's unlikely since he needs to bring an abducted male with him. Whether the victim's conscious or unconscious, it would be difficult."

Frank added, "We expect a lot of rubberneckers and reporters. Anyone who's been reading the papers could reach the same conclusions Theresa has and come out to watch the action, so there may be people in the valley tonight who wear dark clothing and don't stop when you shout at them. Go for your Taser first. Picture the headline 'Cop Shoots Innocent Teen in Botched Police Operation' splashed across tomorrow's Plain Dealer."

Angela muttered, "I bet Brandon Jablonski shows up, rain or s.h.i.+ne."

"Who?" one cop asked.

Frank explained about the Web-news reporter and his interest in the case.

"So if he does come around, just escort him out of the area?"

"No," Frank said. "Let's consider him a suspect for now."

Theresa bit her lip before remembering that Jablonski made an ideal suspect. If anyone knew where to leave all the bodies, he did.

The officers all filtered out to their a.s.signed places to make themselves inconspicuous.

She pointed out a spot on the map to Frank. "We should wait here, between what used to be the Nickel Plate Railroad and is now Norfolk Southern, and the RTA rapid tracks, which used to be the New York Central Railroad."

"If he's reading the same books as you, and if he doesn't decide to call it off because he's smart enough to know we're going to be here, or because it's raining out and he likes the idea of us running around like wet idiots. And when did you become such a railroad historian?"

"Since I met Edward Corliss. Come on, we'd better get out there before it gets completely dark."

"What do you mean we? You're going to stay right here."

"Why?"

"Because you have neither a gun nor an S on your chest and I'm not going to have you running around a dark valley with a bunch of trigger-happy cops, not that I don't feel a little itchy-fingered myself."

"But-"

"Besides," he continued, "if you find one more body I'm going to have to bring you in for questioning."

"But-"

"There are no coincidences, isn't that what you're always telling me? Cheer up, cuz. At least you'll stay dry and close to the coffeemaker."

And then she was left alone on the white linoleum of the RTA conference room. Theresa exhaled sharply enough to fluff up her bangs, got a fresh cup of coffee, and turned out all the lights in the room so that she could watch the activity outside.

The room at the east end of the building gave her a wide view of the tracks on both sides and the station platform. The south side of the tracks turned into a steep hill of dense brush, unlit and apparently empty. To the north of her position, at least ten people milled about on the station platform, waiting for either the 8:41 or the 8:42, depending on whether they wanted to head downtown or toward the eastern suburbs. Overhead lights clearly outlined their body language. A girl stood between two pillars, facing Theresa with either a bag or a pile of books clutched tightly in both arms. She did not turn to look at the three young men twenty feet away no matter how much fun they seemed to be having, no matter how boisterous their horseplay seemed to get. A weary soul leaned forward on the bench, feet splayed. Two other men of similar height and weight s.h.i.+fted around, hands in their pockets. They did not speak to anyone and moved slowly but constantly. Everyone else on the platform shrank from them, ever so slightly, whenever they approached. They would be the cops.

The 8:41 arrived. The three young men boarded. The girl remained, but her shoulders relaxed.

Theresa could not see the area to the west of the building, the patch of gra.s.s between the two sets of tracks and just east of the Fifty-fifth Street bridge. This irritated her.

Her shoes squeaked across the floor as she paced from window to window, and she wondered who else remained in the building. The rapids ran more or less all night, pausing only for a short period in the wee hours of the morning. Surely there would be some manager on hand to deal with emergencies, mechanical breakdowns, or a bunch of armed police officers running around his territory.

Theresa had a.s.sumed that the killer would hop a train with his victim, kill him, and then throw the body and head out as the train rumbled through the area. But now other scenarios began to present themselves. What if he dropped the two body parts from the Fifty-fifth bridge? Inelegant, yes, and the head might unroll from the pants during the fall, but perhaps he did not value ritual as much as she a.s.sumed. Did Frank have men on the bridge?

So much depended upon the killer's concern for historical accuracy.

Two older ladies and two teenagers joined the people on the platform. None of the four seemed to be traveling together.

The 8:42 arrived. The girl did not board, but the weary person from the bench got up and shuffled into the car.

Otherwise the killer had to carry a body to the patch of gra.s.s between two wide sets of train tracks. He could drive to the spot, but only through the RTA building lots and past a handful of waiting police officers. It would take nerves of steel. The head, on the other hand, should be left on the outside of the tracks, at the base of the south slope at the far east end of Kingsbury Run. He could wind through that small forest from Bower and Butler avenues and have at least, she estimated from her window, thirteen hundred feet of lush foliage for cover. Frank and the cops had one or two officers watching that stretch of ground. If the killer was so inclined, he could rewrite history a bit and drop the head from the bridge like a macabre depth charge, wait until the cops found it and cl.u.s.tered around, then putter quietly to the end of Berwick and dump the body in the dark and tree-covered spot, instead of putting the body by the bridge and the head on the slope. Then the killer would drive away and leave the cops to explain this failure to the citizenry, already tempted to riot from fear.

The 8:57 arrived, and when it left it took the girl and three others. The girl had simply not wanted to get on the same train as the three young men, though traveling in the same direction. Theresa could remember being that young and that attractive.

And what about the pool of blood? The Tattooed Man had been one of the few victims killed at the scene. How could he possibly take the time to murder his victim on-site without attracting the attention of one of the officers?

Unless the victim was one of the cops.

The victim only had to be a man. There was nothing to say that that man couldn't be in uniform.

What a challenge it would present. Depositing Peggy Hall's body had been only a little risky. He had some leeway there when it came to location, since the original manufacturing plant had ceased to exist, and the cops were not yet convinced that he would stick to his one-a-day schedule. But now he had to know the cops would surround the tracks. How much more delicious it would be to come up behind one of the men who were trying to catch him, slip a loop of razor-sharp wire over his head, and pull on both handles with all his might- Theresa burst from the conference room and through the lobby, out the lobby door, and into the night.

And ran straight into Councilman Greer.

CHAPTER 36.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.

PRESENT DAY.

Kingsbury Run had never been a populous place, in any era. So aside from the RTA riders and employees cl.u.s.tered at the station, the surrounding cops didn't have much activity to keep an eye on.

The officer stationed at the northeast corner of the area had parked his car in the lot behind some kind of old trucking terminal, long fingers of falling-down red brick that could warehouse a host of dead bodies, had he any desire to look through them. He didn't, content to pace along the patch of gra.s.s between Kinsman Road and the railroad tracks and experiment with a pair of night-vision binoculars he'd bought off eBay with his own money. Designed for use in the middle of the woods, they weren't much use in a city where the dark got interrupted at too many points by a bright streetlight or security light, nearly blinding him and overpowering the dimly lit areas he wanted to see. He crossed the weeds to stow them in his car. If any piece of equipment was going to get broken while he tackled a suspect tonight it wasn't going to be something for which he'd sh.e.l.led out his own funds.