Sergeant Martin Merlo is a composite character, based largely on two dedicated homicide detectives, Martin Zalewski and Peter Merylo. Merylo never gave up on the case and spent much of his spare time, until his death in 1959, searching for the killer. He believed the Butcher to be responsible for torso killings in other American communities, including perhaps the most famous torso slaying of all, the Black Dahlia.
Among the historical figures included here under their real names are Coroner Samuel Gerber, Chief George Matowitz, Mayor Harold Burton, and Executive Assistant Safety Director Robert Chamberlin. While their portraits herein are drawn from research, those portraits should be viewed as fictionalized. In some cases, a single newspaper "personality profile" provided the basis for my characterization, so I request that these depictions not be viewed as definitive.
Vivian Chalmers and Evelyn MacMillan are fictional characters with real-life counterparts.
The real names (when known) of the actual Butcher victims have been used, as have been the details surrounding their deaths (with some minor, occasional fictional reshaping).
Both Lloyd Watterson and his father are fictional characters. They would seem, obviously, to have factual counterparts.
The polygraph sequence was suggested by material in Men Against Crime (1946), John J. Floherty; Criminal Investigation (1974), Paul B. Weston and Kenneth M. Well; and Basic Law Enforcement (1972), Harry Caldwell.
A number of books proved helpful in depicting the world of the hobo, including The Hobo (1923), Nels Anderson; The Second Oldest Profession (1931), Dr. Ben L. Reitman; Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Box-Car Bertha (1937), Dr. Ben L. Reitman; and Good Company (1982), Douglas Harper. Always helpful are two first-rate "oral histories" of the Depression, Hard Times (1970), Studs Terkel, and First Person America (1980), Ann Banks.
Numerous books on mass murderers, specifically serial killers, were consulted, but two in particular deserve singling out: Mass Murder (1985), Jack Levin and James A. Fox; and Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer (1986), by Tim Cahill with Russ Ewing, which deals with John Wayne Gacy, upon whom Lloyd Watterson is patterned to a degree.
I continue to find extremely helpful the excellent article on Ness by Peter Jeddick, collected in his Cleveland: Where the East Coast Meets the Midwest (1980). Another basic tool is the Ness chapter in Cleveland: The Best Kept Secret by George E. Condon, who recently published a fine Ness article, "The Last American Hero," in Cleveland Magazine (August 1987). Other Ness material has been drawn from Cleveland: Confused City on a Seesaw (1976) by Philip W. Porter, who-like Condon-was a Plain Dealer reporter who knew Ness. Also consulted was the unpublished article written in 1983 for the Cleveland Police Historical Society, "Eliot Ness: A Man of a Different Era," Anthony J. Coyne and Nancy L. Hubbert.
Also, I continue to read and reread the unpublished, twenty-two-page article written by Ness himself on his Capone days, provided to his coauthor/ghost Oscar Fraley as background material for The Untouchables. It remains a valuable link to this private public man.
I perhaps should note that this novel has its roots in a short story of mine, "The Strawberry Teardrop," published by Mysterious Press in the first Private Eye Writers of America anthology, The Eyes Have It (1984) edited by Robert J. Randisi. In that story my detective hero Nathan Heller (who made an appearance in The Dark City) fulfills the role that Sam Wild plays in the final section of this novel. Readers who are following both the Nathan Heller and Eliot Ness stories may find this continuity glitch troublesome; I apologize to them and can say only that the needs of this novel superseded any such concerns.
I would like to thank my editor, Coleen O'Shea, for her tough-mindedness and dedication, as well as her assistant Becky Cabaza, who has been unfailingly helpful; and my agent, Dominick Abel, whose advice and friendship I value.
And, as always, the final tip of the fedora goes to my best critic and best friend: my wife, Barbara Collins, whose love, help, and support makes the work possible.