“The man has confessed, Ransom! Confessed to multiple murder!” protested Griffin.
“And it will stick to the end.” Kohler’s smug look was that of a preening rooster.
“I’m taking him outta here,” Ransom declared.
“Try it and you’ll be arrested and stripped of rank!”
shouted Kohler.
“Alastair,” said Griffin, putting up both his hands in a gesture of pleading.
Kohler pulled out a Smith & Wesson .32 caliber and pointed it at Ransom. “One attempt to take our confessed prisoner from custody, Inspector, and you will be shot.”
“He needs no further provocation, Ransom,” declared Griffin.
“Why wasn’t I consulted? Why did I have to learn of this idiocy from Thom only this morning?”
“We tried to locate you, but afraid—” began Griff.
“You bloody know Kohler didn’t want me on hand. Else there’d’ve been a fight when you attempted an arrest! Right, Nathan?”
“Give you enough rope . . .” Kohler glared across at him, his gun still pointed at Ransom’s chest.
“You arrest a man for murder just to bait me?”
“Sheer babbling nonsense from the brook of insanity.”
“And you, Griff, you Judas!”
“We have proof, evidence,” Griff countered.
“Coincidence only cuts so much ice,” said Kohler.
“What proof? What evidence?”
Griff grabbed a closed file lying on the table and spilled forth its contents. “Photos of several of the victims in the nude.”
“Jesus! The man makes his living as a blasted photographer! Women go to him for this express purpose. The girls pay for copies, and they in turn sell them for extra cash.”
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“It’s obscene,” said Kohler. “Disgusting. Against all decency! He’s e’en got the pregnant victim posing in the nude.”
“Obscene to you, but they fail as evidence in a court of law.”
“You’re now a lawyer?” challenged Kohler, still pointing his gun.
“Please, Chief, put the gun down,” cautioned Griff, seeing the older man’s finger tighten about the trigger.
“What other coincidence have you?” challenged Ransom.
“His words, his own words. Several witnesses heard him at the scene the other night.” Griffin breathed easier seeing that the chief had lowered his weapon.
“Philo was speaking only of his loss, his grief.” Running both hands through his hair, Ransom paced the room like an angry lion. It looked as if he might break down a wall.
Kohler countered with, “He spoke of his involvement with two victims, and now we know of a third.”
“I know what he said!”
“You’ve not sat and read his confession. You ripped it up instead! Pick it up, piece it together and bloody read it, Inspector!” Nathan shouted across the table at him.
Ransom reluctantly found the scattered pieces and puz-zled it back together, then scanned the bogus document.
“This is crap,” he challenged Kohler.
“Crap? What do you mean, crap?”
“What else do you have on Philo?”
“He knew Trelaine and they argued—repeatedly—on each occasion of their meeting, according to the landlord.”
Griffin added, “At the top of their lungs.”
“What the bloody hell else do you have? Because you take this garbage into a Chicago courtroom, this flimsy bull, and you, Chief, you’ll be laughed out of the building. You’d be lucky to land a job selling plumbing fixtures.” Suddenly, Philo shouted out, “I’ve pleaded with them all night and all day, Alastair. I could not kill my love, never!
Trelaine, yes, but never—”
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“Shut up, Philo! You’ll dig your own grave with these fools!”
The room fell into a deep silence at this.
Still, Ransom saw that Philo had been beaten, and that he’d been deprived of sleep, food, water, facilities. He could well imagine what they’d been telling Philo. Lies, half-truths, and deception in the hands of a skilled interrogator proved powerful tools. What might normally seem absolute nonsense—like elves born of drink and hallucination—became absolute fact over the course of rough interrogation.
Ransom knew this too well. He’d employed the same methods to win a much wanted confession and subsequent conviction. These men were trained so well that they could convince an innocent man of any guilt they wished.
Seeing the result of this type of pressure applied to a man he loved, Ransom felt a pang of guilt and shame in himself. Further, he condemned himself on Philo’s behalf.
Why in the name of all that was holy hadn’t he seen this subterfuge reaching toward Philo in its snaking course toward Ransom himself? Foresight appeared to have abandoned him.
Looking across the bare table now at Philo, seeing him stripped of all personal dignity this way—stripped of his cameras, his shield in a sense, and stripped of his gift and his confident manner, left without his calling, without his art—the man looked a child. This image tore at Ransom like a pair of horns coming out of nowhere; terribly disheartening as it was, he could not imagine the depth of Philo’s own feelings at what he’d endured here. How much fear Philo must be harboring. Fear not so much over losing his life on the gallows, but losing his art and all future time with his craft.
Ransom stared into Kohler’s eyes and spoke to him. “Unless you have some more compelling evidence, I’m taking this man home.”
“Home,” Philo repeated the single word, his dry throat cracking.
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“He blackmailed Trelaine with a series of disgusting nude photos of Miss Mandor. She did not have them made for du-plicating, but he kept the negatives, and without her consent or knowledge, he sent a set to Trelaine and attempted to ex-tort money.” Ransom gritted his teeth and recalled Philo’s new camera.
For a moment he thought of lashing out at Philo, but it would serve no purpose here and now.
“I swear it is a lie,” said Philo, sensing Ransom’s disappointment. “It is all a lie, all of it, including my bogus confession starved and sweated from me!”
“Don’t you see, Ransom,” said Griffin. “He knew Polly . . . knew Miss Mandor . . . knew Trelaine.”
“And the Polish girl, likely pregnant with his seed!” added Kohler.
“So he is guilty of knowing too many people?”
“Too many dead people, yes.”
“Two of whom he admits to having had sex with!” added Kohler.
Ransom’s eyes did a saber dance with his one-time trusted partner, Griffin. “Do you have one thing, one document, one fingerprint match, one object, anything to link him to the killings? Does his handprint match the two we found?” “What of this?” asked Kohler, shaking a small envelope and letting its contents, a ring, roll free. This act surprised everyone in the room.
“Whose is it?” asked Philo.
Nathan dug in. “I trust you can identify the ring, Inspector Ransom.”
Ransom had frozen in place, staring at the ring. His mind trying to wrap around the power of this incriminating diamond ring.
Kohler dug in deeper. “After all, it belonged to your Polly Pureheart, your Merielle, did it not?”
“You found this where?” he croaked, lifting the ring.
“In your friend’s pocket.” Kohler’s look of triumph was clean and cold. Ransom hated him for it.
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“In his pocket, Rance,” began Griff, “as he was brought in, as you always taught me—log all possessions taken.”
Ransom grabbed Philo roughly by the lapels, lifting his friend from his seat with the sudden surge of power. “Where did you come by the ring?”