White Oaks

PREVIEW - CHAPTER 3

 6:45 PM

December 3, 1935

The body

ELLIOT NESS WAS A MAN OF FEW WORDS. Very few.

          The ride down Somerton Road was uncomfortably quiet. Ness authored no small talk. He said nothing about Doc’s house or his family. He didn’t even ask who the woman was who answered the door.

          As they continued onto Carnegie, the unexpected journey took on a surreal quality. Ness was certainly driving them to a crime scene – but which one?

          When you see this body, you’ll know why.

          When he turned the Packard onto East 55th Doc shifted in his seat.

          “Where is this body? This is my usual route to the hospital.”

          Ness shuddered and surfaced as if from some deep, dominating thought. He glanced at the doctor and issued his first smile. It was almost as if he had forgotten Doc was there.

          “Oh, right. Yes, I guess it would be.”

          Doc relaxed a little and attempted to study the lawman’s face. The passing streetlights provided an intermittent illumination of Ness’s features obscured as they were beneath the shadow of the brim of his charcoal fedora.

They were almost to the spot on 55th. Just before the bridge. The streetlights cast limited circles of light. Just enough light to illuminate the road and the slate sidewalks. Beyond those illuminated discs was where the night kept its secrets. Doc’s eyes puckered and peered into the darkness. He was searching for shrouded figures of ill intent.

It was with no consequence that the Packard rolled past the spot where Doc had murdered the phantom. Again, it appeared as if nothing had happened there. There was no blood – no crushed body -- no carnage at all.  He now realized that every time he traveled this road, he would see that face. Her face.

Did it even happen? Am I losing my fucking mind?

If Ness sensed Doc’s pulse rate quicken, he gave no signal. Rather his inscrutable features remained just so. Only the occasional quiver around his mouth, as he mindlessly chewed at his lower lip, betrayed the tension that resided within.

The Packard rumbled onto the bridge that traversed the wide cut. Below lay the gritty blackness of the railroad yards and the shimmering shallow creek known as Kingsbury Run. Further down the valley flickered the lights and fires of steel mills and foundries.

“We’re almost to the hospital.” Doc observed.

“Yes, I guess we are.”

But that was not their destination. They no sooner exited the bridge than Ness made a right. Whatever dim light the streetlights had offered faded into the rearview mirror. This was a dark, dreary street crowded by small, single-family homes. Yellow lamp light peeked from the edges of drawn drapes and coal smoke leaked from the brick chimneys.

The Packard slowed but kept rolling.

As they rounded a curve the headlights revealed a scattering of police cars. Around them huddled little knots of people. All eyes squinted into the headlamps of the oncoming Packard.

Ness continued slowly until the road petered out near a stand of trees.

“This is it.” He mumbled as he turned off the motor and set the parking brake. He fumbled in the darkness, pinning his badge onto the lapel of his camel hair coat. “C’mon. Grab that other flashlight under your seat.”

As Doc’s eyes became accustomed to the night, he realized that there was a crowd of people to be traversed. Ness pressed into them. With his light-colored coat and his gold badge he stood out in the murk like a knight in shining armor. Before his forceful, commanding step the crowd parted like birds in the park.

The slight light of the flashlights guided their steps until they came to a uniformed police officer with his own light.

“Watch your step here. This hill is fairly steep.”

It was only now that Doc noticed the ground begin to slope. His attention next focused on the dozen flashlight beams sweeping the floor of the ravine about seventy-five feet below.

Ness and Doc managed to traverse the steep slope of what the locals called Jackass Hill. They accomplished it without falling but every step had been a dice roll. The embankment was carpeted with wet, matted grass that clung to their ankles as they maneuvered between the scattered bushes and scrub.

They quickly marched to a spot where three of the flashlight beams were gathered. There, stood another uniformed policeman and two plainclothes detectives.

“Mr. Ness.” They acknowledged the presence of their boss properly but with little enthusiasm. “We found another body after you left.”

“Is it like …?” Ness gestured toward a sheet covered lump on the ground just to the right.

“Just like it.”

“Exactly like it.”

The two detectives shifted their lamps to spot another lump covered by another sheet about thirty feet to the left.

“Only that one’s been here a while.”

“A couple weeks from the looks of it.”

Ness pulled the nearest sheet clear and all the light beams converged on the devil’s fresh handiwork.

Doc shuddered and recoiled at the sight.

The body was lying on its side, naked except for a pair of dark socks. It was stark white and glistened in the lamp light like wet marble. The body appeared at peace -- almost as if it had laid down to nap. That it was male could be surmised even though the pubic region had been cut away.

What had stunned Doc, though, was the lack of a head. In its place there was a horrifying wound. Doc recovered and squatted next to the body. His attention was consumed by the wound and the condition of the shoulders.

“Not much blood.” Ness observed.

“There isn’t any blood.” Doc added. “Not even in the cavity.”

One of the detectives flicked his cigarette into the bushes. “Yeah, the deed was done somewhere else.”

“Here’s his dick.” Doc pointed at the base of the bush where the cigarette still glowed.

“Any sign of the head?” Ness asked.

“Not yet.”  

Doc stood and walked further down by the water. Kingsbury Run splashed and gurgled as he approached. Just a babbling brook tonight but in the Spring when the rains melted the snow, it would flood and its banks would reach up to the butchered bodies.

On the opposite bank the rail yard stretched away in all directions. Dozens of box cars sat cold, dark and silent. To the north and northwest glowed the lights of the city. The Terminal Tower stood flood-lit and tall, its lights twinkling prettily over what could only otherwise be described as a rather grim skyline.

To the left, the ravine opened out onto the industrial flats. The banks of the Cuyahoga River were lined with steel mills, foundries, forges and refineries. The roar of furnaces and the pounding of presses filled the night. The flicker and glow of flames and sparks lit the dirty river as it snaked its way down to Lake Erie.

The grass beneath his feet gave way to gravel as he neared the water. A little patch of grass alone in the gravel caught his eye. It was odd looking grass. He shifted his light on to it and squatted to touch it.

“Elliot! I think I’ve found his head!”

“What? What have you found, Doc?” Ness and the two detectives hustled down to him.

The four torch lights lit the little stand of grass that Doc was tugging at.

“This is human hair.” His fingers scraped and clawed at the surrounding gravel. He was soon joined on hands and knees by the three lawmen and in a frenzied minute the face of the victim emerged from the riverbank.

“They buried the head but left the hair exposed?” Doc wondered aloud.

“They wanted us to find it.” Ness surmised.

One of the detectives regained his feet. “Can we call in the meat wagon now?”

The meat wagon! Oh, God – Bud!

Four hours later …

          Doc sat alone in the study of his house. He had been there for hours.

          He had returned home to a sea of questions but had answered none. Betty had kept his dinner warm for him, but he dismissed it with a wave. Eating had joined sleeping as things he used to do.

          “Did Bud get called out?” he asked her.

          “Yes’im.” She nodded.

          He had returned his hat and coat to their perch in the hall, poured himself a scotch and retreated to his inner sanctum as everyone knew the study to be. They also knew better than to disturb him in there. Anne had followed him as far as the door with a deep look of concern on her face.

          “Doc, is there anything wrong?”

          He shook his head and lied about everything being fine as he closed the door in her face. He dropped into the chair behind his desk, pulled the chain on the small desk lamp and turned to stare out the window.

          It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk about what he had just experienced, but how? Is it not the duty of the father to shield his family from the nightmares of the world? And, if so, was this surely not one of those horrors?

          He was certainly not squeamish and had seen more than his share of mayhem come through the doors of St. Alexis, but even he now wished he could unsee what his eyes had beheld along the banks of Kingsbury Run. If he was trying to forget it then what right did he have to burden his family with it?

          The world could be a terrible place -- and there was such a thing as monsters. These were life lessons that were to be learned in their own good time. And that time was not tonight.

          He sat in the dim light of his study and nursed his scotch while his family sat in the parlor, seated around the radio listening to Amos and Andy then Burns and Allen. He could hear their laughter. He envied them.

          Eating. Sleeping ... Laughing.

          The hours passed and one by one they ascended the stairs to find their beds. Betty knocked softly and asked Doc if there was anything he needed before she went off to bed.

          He thanked her – no. And off she went leaving him with his solitude and his tortured thoughts.

          Outside he heard an approaching motor and a car door slam shut followed by Bud’s footfalls through the grass to the side door. His second son would come in through the kitchens and pass right by the study door.

          Doc rose from the desk to intercept him, but Bud knocked softly.

          “Come in, Bud.”

          The fifteen-year-old opened the door and stepped in.

          “You been workin’?” Doc stood behind the desk.

          “Yeah.” Bud mumbled – his eyes to the floor.

          “Pick your head up! Stand up straight and get the damn hair out of your eyes!”

          Bud followed orders with a sigh. Same shit. Different day.

          “What the hell happened to your face?” Doc cursed. “You been fightin’ in school again.”

          Bud nodded. The left side of his face was nicely swollen from McGill’s punch. The eye was ripening into a first-rate shiner.

          “Damn it, Bud …”

          Bud held up his hand to try to silence the old man. It worked. He carefully closed the study door.

          Bud spoke softly – a not-to-be-overheard whisper.

          “You should know that your woman that you keep shacked up down at the Belvedere is no longer a secret.”

          Doc blanched but said nothing.

          Bud continued. “I was fighting a kid in school over it. I didn’t tell anybody why we were fighting. I don’t want to hurt Anne. We all like Anne. You, on the other hand … well, you might want to move that woman.”

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