He shrugged. "It's my job."
"Oh, please! Spare me the Gary Cooper baloney! What does Matowitz say?"
"I haven't discussed it with the chief."
"What about Burton?"
"I haven't discussed it with His Honor, either."
"Do you really think he'll approve?"
"I don't know," he said honestly. He was thinking about threatening to resign if Burton vetoed his wish to tackle the Butcher case personally; but he was afraid he valued his job too much to risk it.
"Shit!" she said.
He was about to scold her once more for her language when he realized fat raindrops were plopping down just beyond their umbrella, splashing on them.
"We better get inside," he said, and took her arm and they rushed into the building. They watched the storm on the lake from a glass wall within the landlocked ship, waiting for it to subside so they could make their way to the car. But it finally became apparent the rain would not let up. They had to go out in it. They got very wet.
Rain beat on the roof of the boathouse as they made love through the night, not talking at all. It was still raining in the morning as Vivian packed her bags.
And in the coming days the rains continued, providing a damp Fourth of July for Cleveland and terrible attendance at the expo. The storms seemed as unrelenting as the Butcher himself. The heavy rains washed foliage and garbage and various other objects from the land into the Cuyahoga, and on the morning of the following Friday, the tender on the Third Street Bridge saw something floating on the oily river surface. The tender, John Haggerty, thought at first it was a dressmaker’s form, or a corset dummy like he'd seen in stores.
Then whatever it was took a roll in the current and Haggerty could see that it was a section of a human body- the lower half of a man’s torso.
Pretty soon a leg floated by, and Haggerety called the cops.
CHAPTER 3
The ride from City Hall began on Lakeside Avenue, then moved quickly to West Third, which jogged through the respectable heart of the city, turned into a hill, and fell to the Flats, where West Third leveled out, as did the respectability. The sleek black limo glided like an apparition of affluence through the shabby assembly of warehouses and saloons in the Flats, the bottomland area that was home to the crazily winding Cuyahoga River and the steel mills and factories that crouched there.
Faded brick buildings gave way to an open, overgrown field, alongside of which the limo pulled up. The uniformed police driver got out and was about to open the door for his passenger, but, as usual, that passenger beat him to it.
Mayor Harold Burton did things for himself.
He was a powerfully built, fifty-year-old, wedge-shaped man of medium height, whose broad brow, this sunny Monday morning, was creased in concern, his gray eyes half-circled with sleeplessness as he stood and contemplated the gray shimmer of the Cuyahoga, visible beyond the field. Beyond the river, beyond the industrial valley, fifty-two-story Terminal Tower loomed like a reminder of pre-Depression optimism. With a tight smile and a hand gesture, he indicated to his police driver to stay with the car. Then he started toward the river.
Burton wore a light brown suit, rather rumpled, and a battered gray hat; his wardrobe looked not remotely mayoral, with the possible exception of his dark brown tie and the gold stickpin, the latter presented him by the American Legion. He crossed the field quickly, the earth giving under his feet, still damp from the several days of rain that had let up just before dawn. The land here managed to look predominantly brown, despite patches of green weeds and wildflowers. The sun beat down harshly, though Burton-who had once done both farm work and lumber-jacking-did not mind it, in fact barely noticed it. His feet crunched the gravel and glass around the railroad tracks, which he stepped over, beginning down the very gentle incline toward the river's edge, where four men stood around a wicker basket.
One of the men was a middle-aged fellow in overalls and an engineer's cap; another was a young uniformed police officer. The other two, wearing suits and ties, might have been businessmen. Burton recognized one of them as Detective Albert Curry, who despite his youthful looks was ranked among the best investigators on the department and had for almost a year now been attached to the safety director's office.
The other man, a deceptively mild-looking individual in a smartly cut, dark gray suit and a blue and gray tie, was the director of public safety himself, Eliot Ness. Burton owed this man much-which, at the moment, made the mayor feel uneasy, even guilty, about the job ahead.
Working his way through the brush and the garbage-littered shore, Burton approached Ness, and the two men exchanged tight smiles and shook hands with a certain ceremony. Curry, nervous in the mayor's presence, smiled a little when Burton offered a hand to shake.
"Sorry I had to cancel our appointment," Ness said to the mayor. "But this came up…"
"Think nothing of it," Burton said, waving it off.
In the midst of the small gathering of men, like a fire they might warm their hands at, was a wicker basket; in the basket was a human arm, obviously male, gray and somewhat decomposed, cut cleanly just above the elbow. The hand rested at the edge of the basket, as if about to grip it.
"Beautiful morning for such a grim task," Burton said.
Ness glanced at the sky as if the beauty of the day hadn't occurred to him, nodded, and introduced the man in overalls to Burton.
"This is John Haggerty," Ness said, gesturing to the man. "He's the bridge tender who spotted the torso and the leg Friday morning."
"Pleased to meet you, Your Honor," the man said as he and Burton shook hands. Haggerty's face held a haunted look; the circles under his eyes made Burton look well-rested.
"Your alertness is appreciated," Burton said, not exactly knowing how to commend an individual for spotting body parts floating down the river.
"It's been horrible," Haggerty admitted, clearly shaken, "just horrible. Yesterday some more of him floated by-rest of his torso, they said-stuck in a burlap bag. Then another leg. Then today an arm.. it's enough to make a man call in sick."
"I can understand that," Burton said, patting the fellow on the shoulder.
"What's it gonna be tomorrow?" Haggerty asked, his eyes a window on the horror he'd seen. "The damn head?"
"I wouldn't worry about that," Ness said coolly. "The head almost never turns up."
This seemed scant consolation for Haggerty, who touched his own head with a trembling hand. "If you gents don't need me… I… I better be getting back to work."
Burton glanced at Ness, who shrugged a little.
"Go right ahead," Ness said.
Haggerty walked along the pilings at the river's edge, where the gray Cuyahoga gently lapped, and moved quickly toward the low-slung drawbridge off to the left, retreating to the safety of his watchtower.
"This is a pretty lucky catch," Ness said, smiling, referring to the "fish" in the wicker basket. "The Butcher usually keeps the head and hands, you know. With fingerprints to work with, we may identify this one."
"That would be helpful," Burton said.
Out on the river a Coast Guard launch cruised; against the gray surface of the river with its oily yellow splotches, the white launch trimmed red and blue was an incongruously cheerful and colorful presence. Two sailors in crisp Coast Guard whites were aboard, one guiding the launch, the other watching the water; also on board was a thin man in shirtsleeves.
"That's Merlo," Ness explained.
"He's been on this case from the beginning," Burton said.
"Yes he has. He's a top-notch investigator."
"But he hasn't got the job done," Burton added.