“Eliot, what in the name of all that’s holy is going on?”
Ness looked up at him slowly. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean-” He stopped in midsentence, staring. “Eliot-have you been drinking?”
“Course not.”
“You look horrible. You need a shave.”
“I… had a rough night.” He pushed himself to his feet and tried to stay steady.
“I don’t doubt it. I read what those newspapers had to say. Vile stuff. After all you’ve done for the city. But the fact is, people are scared. They want this monster caught.”
“So do I.”
“But you haven’t been able to bring him in. Mind you, I’m not saying it’s your fault. But this is politics.”
“I thought it was law enforcement.”
“Either way, sometimes you have to toss the people a scapegoat. Cut off the feet to save the head.”
“Am I the feet or the head?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
Ness took a few baby steps around his desk, stopping when he got to the mayor. He looked at him through bleary eyes. “You’ve been talking to Congressman Sweeney, haven’t you?”
Mayor Burton harrumphed. “I’m not sure I’d call it talking. More like listening. He’s very angry.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“First you pull that stunt with his cousin.”
“Best suspect we ever had.”
“Did you ever consider consulting me before you started grilling him?”
“You haven’t been taking my calls.”
“Then you go and torch Shantytown, again without consulting with me first. Then you pull these raids that you and I both know wouldn’t survive judicial scrutiny. Even if you did find the killer we might not be able to convict him.”
“I had all that covered.”
“Maybe, maybe not. The point is, Sweeney is our political opponent, and you’ve been giving him the ammunition to destroy us like it was his birthday.”
“My job is not political.”
“Don’t be infantile, Eliot. You’ve created a serious problem. I’m forced to make a serious response. Much as it pains me-”
“So I’m going to be the scapegoat?”
“You’ve brought this on yourself.”
“I did everything you appointed me to do. And then some.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? But sometimes, everything is not enough. These people play hardball.”
Ness flopped down in the easy chair, sitting sideways and twisting his legs over the arm. “You’re afraid of Sweeney.”
“That’s right, Eliot. I am. And with good reason. I’d like to continue being mayor a while longer, and that man stands between me and what I want. Do you have any idea how powerful he is? How many people he has to do his bidding? How much money he has at his disposal?”
Ness pressed his fingers against his mouth, stifling a hiccup. “I didn’t know congressmen made that much money.”
“Congressmen? What’s that got to do with it? He was born rich. The Sweeneys made their pile years ago, back before Prohibition.”
“Mobsters?”
“No. Perfectly legit. Had a brewery on the riverfront. Not far from where you and your men made your illegal raids.”
Ness sat up, suddenly alert. “Near Kingsbury Run?”
“Not too far.”
“What happened to it?”
“Closed it down when Prohibition came. Took their profits and invested them. Not in the stock market, lucky for them. In land. They’re one of the biggest landlords in all of-”
“Do they still own the brewery?”
“Far as I know. I don’t think they could sell it if they wanted to.”
“And it’s still closed down?”
“Absolutely. Boards on the windows.”
“No one goes there? Large open place? Far from prying eyes?”
“I suppose.”
“Drainage into the lake?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Ness was already halfway into his coat. “I’ll be out of the office for a while.”
“I’m not finished talking to you!”
“You can fire me tomorrow. Or I’ll resign. Whatever you like. Doesn’t matter.”
“Eliot, you’re not making sense. Come back here!”
“Sorry,” Ness said, closing the door behind him. “I’ve got work to do.”
58
It was well past dark by the time he finally located the old abandoned Sweeney brewery. Knowing that it was near Kingsbury and on the shore of the Cuyahoga still left a lot of territory to cover. Most of the buildings in this area were worn out or shut down. Still, Ness reminded himself, he was a trained investigator. Even if he wasn’t in the best possible condition, some things worked instinctively. He tracked it down and confirmed that he was right with a quick phone call.
He considered calling for more officers, but talked himself out of it. It was clear now that there was a leak. Someone was feeding information to the press. Even after he dramatically purged the police department, there was still someone spitting out the skinny on his activities, his hotel room interrogation, the fire warden raids in the Kingsbury neighborhood. He couldn’t take the risk of tipping off the killer-or feeding the press information about yet another failure.
He would go in alone.
He parked well away from the brewery and ran the distance. If he drove anywhere near the brewery itself, anyone inside would hear. It was ridiculously quiet out here, well away from the noise and smoke of the city. A perfect place for someone whose work required privacy.
Slowly he approached the building, careful to make his footfalls light. The gravel on the ground could easily make more noise than he wanted. The windows were all on the upper level and they were indeed boarded up. It was impossible to see inside at any angle, impossible even to tell whether there was a light burning.
On the side facing the river, he found a sliding door unlocked.
Slowly, he depressed the hammer and felt it release. He pushed the door along its runners, slowly, silently. The door did not squeak; it barely made any sound at all.
He entered a dark, cavernous room. The first thing he noticed was the tremendous stench, intense and almost overpowering. The second thing he noticed was that he could not see, not at all, not even an inch in front of himself, nothing. Thank heaven he’d thought to bring a flashlight. He shone it into the bleak darkness. Cavernous wasn’t enough-the room was huge. Once, it had undoubtedly held all kinds of brewing devices, vats and casks and fermenting equipment. He felt disoriented, and it wasn’t simply because of his inability to see anything that wasn’t directly in front of his light. The darkness was so pervasive it took him more than a few moments to figure out what was wrong.
The floor was slanted.
Ness knew why. His experience chasing down rumrunners had given him more than a little information about how alcoholic beverages came to be. The floor was sloped to simplify drainage. He walked to the river side of the room and found what he expected-a removable iron grating covering a tunnel. The tunnel undoubtedly led to the river. A simple and efficient way for a brewer to dispose of waste byproducts.
A simple and efficient way for a killer to get corpses into the river, without any possibility of being seen.
Enough space to do his twisted work. The privacy he required. A way to rinse away the evidence. And when he desired it, a way to dispose of his corpses. Perfect.
Ness knelt down and examined the sloped floor. He found something else with which his years in law enforcement had made him all too familiar. The dark stains were everywhere, and there were splatter patterns on the walls.
Blood. So much blood. More than a single body could possibly contain. More than a dozen bodies could contain. Even if the killer rinsed most of it into the river, the stains remained, seeping into the wooden-plank floor, leaving its indelible reminder of all the lives lost in this sick laboratory.
Ness followed the blood trail to the center of the room, where the stains were darkest and thickest. There were bits of… debris, for want of a better description. Everywhere. Human flesh. Chips of bone.