Butcher's dozen en-2 Page 12

  "Frank," Deputy McFarlin said reasonably, brushing off the shoulders of Dolezal's workshirt, "you've already admitted you knew Ed Andrassy. You've already admitted you knew Flo Polillo. Why not give us the rest?"

  Dolezal swallowed and rubbed away some moisture from his stubbly face; he was tapping the floor with one foot. "What rest?"

  The sheriff smacked him in the left rib cage with the hose. Dolezal howled again, but did not fall out of the chair.

  "Tell us how you killed Flo Polillo, Frank."

  Dolezal felt himself begin to shake. Is that why they brought him here?

  The sheriff grabbed him by the back of the hair and made him stare up into the blinding white light.

  "Tell us, Frank!"

  He shut his eyes. "I kill Flo?"

  The sheriff let go of Dolezal's hair, and the man's head flopped forward.

  "Are you askin', Frank, or tellin'?"

  "I… I know somebody chop Flo up."

  "How do you know that?"

  "People talk. Cops around, asking questions."

  "Was it you, Frank?"

  "Me?"

  "Did you kill Flo?"

  "No! No. I no remember…"

  "If you don't remember, how can you say no?"

  "I drink," he said pathetically, "and no remember."

  "Tell us what you do remember about Flo, Frank."

  He tried to think. "I not see her since January."

  The sheriff and the deputy glanced at each other.

  "That's when she was killed, Frank," the sheriff said.

  "I hear that," Dolezal said.

  "When exactly did you see her last?" the sheriff asked.

  He'd seen her ghost the night before; but he knew the sheriff didn't mean that.

  "We was in my room drinking," he told them. "A Friday night. We drink sometimes. She stay my place sometimes."

  "I thought you liked boys, Frank."

  "She was friend. We drink together. She got mad sometimes when she drink."

  "Really, Frank?"

  "She was dressed up to go out. She want some money."

  "Go on."

  He shrugged. "She grab for ten dollars I had in my pocket. I didn't want to give her. She tried to take my money before."

  "What happened then, Frank?"

  "We… had fight."

  "You had a fight?"

  He shrugged again. "I have this butcher knife."

  "Go on, Frank."

  "In drawer at my place, this butcher knife. She went and got it. She came at me with it."

  "Tried to stab you? Tried to kill you?"

  "I don't know. She had it. She wanted ten dollars. But she was too drunk, I take knife away. I hit her."

  "With the knife, Frank?"

  "My fist. I hit with my fist."

  "Is that when you killed her?"

  "I didn't kill her. I didn't kill nobody."

  "Tell us the rest."

  "I can't remember."

  "Did she hit you back?"

  "No. I knock her down."

  "Did she get up?"

  "Can't remember. I drink some more."

  The sheriff and the deputy looked at each other and shrugged with their faces.

  "I tell you enough now? You give me drink?"

  "Frank, the sheriff said, "you're going to have to tell us about it."

  "About what?"

  "About killing Flo Polillo. About cutting her up, Frank, with that butcher knife."

  "No!" Had he done that? Had he killed her?

  "You heard about it. You said so. Heard about her body turning up, all cut up, in pieces. Some of her we haven't found yet. Like her head. Maybe you can tell us where her head is, Frank."

  "No! No!" Had he? Had he done it? Could he do such a thing? People told him, sometimes, of awful things he did when he was drunk-getting violent, fighting with strangers, beating up on people. He awaited such reports with dread. But had he done this? Was he a monster? Was he this Butcher they wanted?

  And those other killings-were they something he had done while blacked out with drink?

  "You worked in a slaughterhouse, Frank," the sheriff said. He was leaning a hand on the chair just behind Dolezal's shoulder; the rubber hose was hidden behind his back.

  "Yes. But that not make me butcher of men."

  "Deputy McFarlin's been asking about you, at your rooming house. Deputy, tell Frank what you've learned, from his neighbors."

  The deputy said, "They say Flo Polillo wasn't the only visitor you had at your room. You knew a colored woman name of Rose Wallace, too."

  He nodded. "Yes. Not see her in long time."

  "She's dead, Frank," the sheriff said pleasantly. "She was just identified as one of the Butcher's victims."

  "No… no…"

  "And," the deputy went on, "your landlady reports seeing a sailor go up with you to your room. A heavily tattooed sailor."

  Dolezal tried to think; he'd known more than one sailor in his time.

  "One of the Butchers victims," the sheriff said matter-of-factly, "was a heavily tattooed sailor, as yet unidentified. Maybe you'd like to see his death mask."

  "No… I… no…"

  "Frank. You should tell us. You should really tell us…" And the sheriff took the rubber hose out from behind his back and began smacking it gently in his palm again. "… really tell us what happened."

  A bad spasm ripped at Dolezal's stomach, doubling him over; the sheriff stood back, startled, as if an invisible rubber hose had struck the prisoner this time, beating the lawman to the punch.

  "Give me goddamn drink!" Dolezal cried out.

  The sheriff swung his left, the hand without the rubber hose, and hit Dolezal in the left eye. The fist was so large it eclipsed Dolezal's face.

  Dolezal fell out of the chair and landed like a sack of flour on the floor and wept there. "Need it to relax… to remember."

  The sheriff and deputy traded looks, sighs. Then the sheriff seemed to nod.

  Soon Dolezal was back in his chair and under the light, gulping greedily at a shot of whiskey; it went down smooth, burning in his stomach but turning into a glow. He sighed. He was trembling, but that was different than shaking. His left eye was swelling shut, but he didn't care.

  "There's more where that came from, Frank," the sheriff said, taking the empty shot glass away from his prisoner.

  "Okay, Dolezal said, "I killed her. Bring me 'nother drink."

  "Tell us more, Frank."

  "Uh… I kill her. She fall when I hit her. Uh, maybe she hit her head."

  The deputy leaned into the bright light. "There was blood on the bathroom floor, Frank, A chemist checked it out for us-human blood."

  "Maybe her head hit bathtub."

  "When she fell, you mean?"

  "Yes. When she fell, yes."

  "Why were you in the bathroom, Frank? Were you drinking in the bathroom?"

  "No… uh…"

  The deputy, eyes flickering with thought, said, "She chased you in there with the knife!"

  "Yes! She chase me. In bathroom, I hit her. She go down. Hit head on tub." He nodded. Smiled. "I think that is what killed her."

  "Why did you cut her up, Frank?"

  "Uh… I need 'nother drink."

  "No, Frank."

  "No remember without drink." He folded his arms.

  The second whiskey went down just as smooth; the world was coming into focus for Dolezal. His stomach stopped clutching. He felt good.

  "Why," the sheriff asked, taking away the empty shot glass, "did you cut her up?"

  "I, uh… cut her up because I don't know what else to do with body."

  "Go on."

  "Go on?"

  "Tell us what you did."

  "I cut up the body."

  "Yes, but how?"

  "With butcher knife."

  "Go on."

  "Go on?"

  "Go on, Frank."

  "Well, I… first I cut off head. Then legs. And then arms." He smiled at them. "Can I
have drink now?"

  "What did you do with the body?"

  "I cut it up."

  "No, Frank. How did you get rid of it? How did you get all those body parts out of your room?"

  "Oh. Well. I… I made plenty trips."

  "Plenty trips?"

  "Two or three trips, carrying stuff out."

  "What did you carry it in?"

  "Uh… in basket?"

  "A basket," the deputy said, smiling. He was taking notes, Dolezal noticed.

  The sheriff said, "What did you do with the torso?"

  "Torso?"

  "The trunk."

  "I no use trunk. I use basket."

  "No, you imbecile. What did you do with the trunk?" And the sheriff gestured to his body from neck to upper legs.

  "You left it behind Hart Manufacturing, didn't you?" the deputy said, pencil poised.

  "That near where I live," Dolezal said.

  "Yes," the sheriff said smugly. "Two hundred and thirty-five yards from your rooming-house doorstep."

  Dolezal nodded. "Okay, I leave trunk in alley behind where you said."

  "What about the rest?"

  "What rest?"

  "Arms, legs, head…"

  "Arms, legs, head. Okay, I dump them in lake."

  "Whereabouts?"

  "Oh. Uh… foot of East Forty-ninth Street. I threw them in lake. Breeze carry them away. Can I have drink now?"

  The deputy was smiling; he closed his little notepad and drummed on it with his pencil. The sheriff was smiling, too. They were smiling at each other, like Dolezal wasn't there.

  So he reminded them that he was: "Can I have drink please?"

  "No, Frank," the sheriff said. "No drinks for a while. You just sit here. We'll have another go-round a little later."

  "I tell you everything you want!"

  "You didn't tell us about Rose Wallace or Eddie Andrassy."

  "I drink with her, I fuck with him! Okay? Drink now?"

  "Later," the sheriff said, smiling, tapping his palm with the rubber hose.

  The two men left.

  Dolezal sat in the bright cone of light.

  He sat there and sweated and the two drinks began to wear off. His stomach began to clutch again. His hands and feet could not stop moving; he was on stage alone, dancing in the spotlight of the overhead lamp, performing to an empty house.

  He had told them what they wanted, but was it the truth? Had he killed Flo? Had he cut her up?

  He could have. He'd seen her ghost in his room, after all. He knew-he shuddered at the thought-he knew he had done bad things during blackout drunks. People had told him. Oh, how they had told him.

  Was he the Butcher?

  He stood and kicked the chair. He kicked the chair out of the light and into the corner and began kicking it savagely, mercilessly, like he was the brutal sheriff and the chair a suspect he was grilling. But the chair was tougher than he was. It remained intact, except for where the sheriff's rubber hose had chipped it.

  Dolezal stood, shaking, waiting for someone to come in from outside and beat him or something. But the noise of his attack on the chair had attracted no one. The cement room, with its heavy door shut, was apparently soundproof.

  He sat in the darkness, on the floor, against the cold cement wall, and thought.

  I'm the Butcher, he told himself.

  Again and again.

  I kill all those people. Grotesque images of animal carnage from his slaughterhouse days flashed through his mind. His stomach clutched.

  He stood. Shaking. He took off his shirt and tore it into wide strips and tied the strips together with heavy knots, like a sailor might make. Then he went and got the chair and stood on it and tried to reach the barred window. Couldn't.

  He was, however, able to reach up above the fairly low-hanging conical lamp, squinting up into the brightness as he tied the rope he'd made from his shirt to the thin shaft of steel from which the lamp hung, and then he tied the shirt-rope around his neck and stepped off the chair.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ness ignored the khaki-clad fellow at the desk in the outer office and went right into the sheriff's sanctuary. Sheriff O'Connell was a whale beached on a leather sofa pushed against a wall decorated with various civic awards from the suburbs he serviced. The sheriff was snoring and a copy of the Police Gazette was draped open across his stomach.

  Ness slammed the door, rattling its glass, keeping the secretary or deputy or whatever-the-hell he was back out in the outer office, and waking up the sheriff of Cuyahoga County.

  O'Connell's tiny dark eyes were wide as he gazed up at the safety director, surprised and disoriented for a moment; then he sat up on the sofa, his eyes turning hard and his face red with anger.

  "Even God needs an appointment to see me," he said, getting up on his feet, looking down at the six-foot Ness.

  Ness looked back at him, making no attempt to hide his disgust. "Well, I'm sure the devil can walk right in," he told the sheriff. "So I took the same liberty. Now why don't you sit down. We have to talk."

  O'Connell glared at Ness, though the red was fading from his face as he said, "All right. But I think I'd like one of my deputies as a witness. To make some notes."

  "I don't think you will." Ness gestured to the sheriff's tidy desk. "Sit down, Sheriff."

  Sighing out his nose, the sheriff moved behind the desk with an agility that belied his size and folded his hands on a green desk blotter. His fingers were thick, the hands massive. His eyes were lidded with contempt.

  It was the Wednesday after Frank Dolezal's arrest. Dolezal, who had made two suicide attempts, was alive and somewhere in this building, in this jail. In all that time Ness had not been able to arrange a meeting with the suspect-or sheriff, for that matter.

  "You have a prisoner I'd like to see," Ness told him.

  "We have a suspect in the Kingsbury Run investigation," O'Connel said blandly, "if that's what you mean."

  "That's what I mean."

  "Nobody sees this suspect but my people."

  "Including a lawyer?" Ness asked with mock innocence.

  They both knew that if the suspect had seen a lawyer, Dolezal would have been released by now, on a writ of habeas corpus.

  "He hasn't been indicted yet," the sheriff said.

  "And the court isn't allowed to appoint an attorney until after he's been indicted. Of course. But a suspect is supposed to be indicted within seventy-two hours. You've had Mr. Dolezal in custody for six days now."

  "It's an unusual case. Now I'm a busy man, Mr. Ness. If you don't mind…"

  "I do mind, and I've only begun. Your nap and the Police Gazette are just going to have wait."

  The sheriff's mouth curled into a sneer, but he said nothing.

  "Yesterday you hauled Mr. Dolezal over to the East Cleveland police department," Ness said, "for a lie detector test. Why did you bother driving over there when just across the way we have a modern facility which Chief Matowitz and I would have been glad to make available to you?"

  "I prefer to keep my investigation of this case separate from yours."

  Ness smiled. "Ah, but Sheriff, there are no rivalries between good men in the pursuit of justice. I haven't been unkind to you in the press, have I?"

  "The hell you haven't. Your detectives have been smearing me from-"

  "My detectives are men with their own minds and their own way of seeing things and expressing themselves. They have a right to say what they wish, to the press or anyone else. There's a document called the Constitution of the United States, with which you apparently aren't familiar, that guarantees them that right."

  The sheriff's mouth twitched. "I have work to do. If you're here to get information about the Dolezal case, I'm afraid I can't give you any. It's confidential."

  "Oh, but I'm here to share some information with you."

  The sheriff arched an eyebrow. "Such as?"

  "Certain scientific findings. As Deputy McFarlin may have told you, I was up in Dolezal's '
murder den,' as you've been referring to it in the papers, the very day you arrested the suspect. I took some scrapings from the bathroom floor."

  "So what? We had a chemist check that for us. He found human blood. On a butcher knife, too. Everybody knows that."

  "Yes, and I understand the chemist is Deputy McFarlin's brother-in-law. He works for a couple of M.D.'s, I understand."

  "That's right."

  "Well, I had my scrapings checked as well. Dr. Eckert, a pathologist at Western Reserve University, a completely objective third party, tested them for me. I just got his findings this afternoon."

  The sheriff snorted derisively. "What took him so long?"

  "He said the high iron content of the deposits around the bathtub feet complicated the tests, made it take days to get accurate results. I have his analysis right here, if you'd like to see it." Ness made a show of reaching for something in his pocket, then abandoned the effort with a wave of one hand, saying, "Actually, it's not complex. I think I can remember exactly the composition of the material, in Dr. Eckert's own scientific phraseology… 'just plain dirt.'"

  The sheriff's tiny eyes bugged and he half-rose from his seat. "What?"

  "Dirt, Sheriff. No blood, human or animal, present."

  O'Connell clearly did not know what to say. Slowly he sat back down.

  Ness gestured with an open hand. "Of course, experts on such matters do disagree."

  The sheriff put on a tight smile and said, "Mr. Ness. All due respect. With or without bloodstains, we got the Butcher, right here in this jail. You may not like it. It may not help your reputation any

  … it may not help you get my job for yourself, for instance… but justice, like you said, is gonna be served."

  "Do tell."

  "Yeah, I do. Those lie detector tests were positive."

  "They're not admissible."

  "They point to Dolezal's guilt, nevertheless." The sheriff began counting off items on his fingers. "Andrassy, Wallace, and Polillo frequented his room; he admits it, and his neighbors confirm. They all frequented that bar at Twentieth and Central. He's an admitted sexual pervert. He's given to fits of violence and rage during drinkin' bouts. He lived in proximity of where some of the body parts was found. He was fixing to move out of a place where his rent was paid up a month in advance, because the neighborhood was being searched by fire wardens. Most important, he's confessed."