Do No Harm Read online

  I said, “Bay Village is its own suburb. What’s Cullitan got to do with it?”

  “As county prosecutor, he’s got jurisdiction, if he wants it. And the local police chief called for help. There are fifty-nine suburbs and that many little departments. Bay Village has a force of five.”

  “Sounds like the makings of a real bureaucratic stew.”

  “And not a bit tasty,” he said. “Nate, we’re strictly ex officio here, doing a little observing for Cullitan.”

  “Fine by me. I’m not in Cleveland looking for work.”

  We were about halfway to our destination—Bay Village was sixteen miles west of downtown. With its eight-thousand-some, mostly affluent residents, Bay Village sat on a bluff high above Lake Erie, houses often facing the beach below, which was narrow but nonetheless convenient for swimming and boating.

  I asked Eliot, “Does Cullitan call you in like this often?”

  He shook his head. “Only now and then. Frank’s been keeping me posted about any crimes that have the smell of the Butcher on them.”

  “He thinks this is a new torso victim?”

  “He didn’t know much more than I’ve already told you. But he said Gerber is on his way to the scene, and he may want me to keep an eye on our estimable coroner.”

  That was about as close as Eliot came to bad-mouthing anyone he’d worked for or with. But I knew Dr. Samuel Gerber, Cuyahoga County coroner, was someone who’d rubbed Safety Director Ness the wrong way during the original Mad Butcher investigation.

  A little man with a big voice, Gerber had been coroner since 1937. He’d arrived during the height of the torso killings and began spouting off to the press, giving public lectures on the case, and writing articles about it, for True Detective magazine among others. This was exactly at the time Ness and his chief assistant Robert Chamberlin were doing their best to tamp down public panic.

  A Democrat, Gerber was as political as nominal Republican Eliot was not. The coroner stayed readily available to the boys of Cleveland’s three daily newspapers with quotes, tips and even scoops. He was a one-man PR machine who often took reporters out to dinner.

  “If Gerber is interested enough to spend a holiday on this,” Eliot said, hands tight on the steering wheel, “he must think it’s something big.”

  “Like a Butcher victim?”

  Eliot shrugged. “Cullitan doesn’t know. But he wants my take on it.”

  The spacious backyards of the Bay Village homes were more like front yards, with lovely trees and well-tended lawns, facing the two-lane highway, Lake Road, where we now cruised.

  “We’re looking for 28944,” Eliot said. “Sheppard residence.”

  As we glided along the lakefront neighborhood, we were in an idyllic Father Knows Best world, dads with good jobs, moms who were happy homemakers, kids, dogs. On this early Fourth of July morning, the members of these households would be snug in their wee little beds, God in His heaven, all’s right with the world.

  So it seemed, at least, until we neared 28944 Lake Road, where a crowd of neighborhood gawkers milled on the lawn among the maples and an old elm, some rubberneckers in bathrobes and slippers, with uniformed officers here and there looking overwhelmed. Patrol cars, an ambulance and various other vehicles crowded into the driveway and along the road. Everybody was staring at the sprawling two-story white Dutch Colonial house as if it were on fire.

  We parked in front of a cemetery several houses to the west. Neither of us reclaimed our hats from the backseat, a nice breeze coming off the lake, the sky clear. Lovely day. For a murder.

  We made our way through the bathrobe-and-slippers brigade to the front door, or anyway the back door that served as one. Standing on the cement slab porch with a two-pillar overhang were a young uniformed officer, maybe in his mid-twenties, and a heavyset guy with baggy eyes and a baggy suit.

  Eliot had an honorary Public Safety Department badge he could flash, and he did, saying, “County Prosecutor Cullitan sent me.”

  The young cop, a handsome kid, said, “You can go on in.”

  “Just a second,” the older man said. He had heavy black eyebrows and a chin or two to spare. “Let me have a look at that.”

  Eliot showed it to him.

  “Eliot Ness,” the lumpy guardian-at-the-gate said, obviously impressed. “I’m Marsh Dodge—mayor of Bay Village. Also public safety director myself.”

  They shook hands.

  “This is my friend Nate Heller,” Eliot said, nodding to me, “the well-known investigator. He’s visiting from Chicago and I asked him along.”

  Dodge beamed in hale-fellow-well-met fashion. “Well, that’s fine! Fred here—Officer Drenkhan—was first on the scene, if you’d like a word. Really, I guess I was really first on the scene … live just down the street. Sam called me, and Mildred and I came right over.” He shook his head, shuddered. “Hell of a thing.”

  “We don’t know anything,” Eliot said, “except that there’s been a brutal murder of a young woman. The wife, is it?”

  Dodge nodded somberly. “Marilyn. Lovely girl in every way. We were friends, the Sheppards and Mildred and me. I was the first person Sam thought of to call.”

  He seemed a little proud of it.

  I asked, “When was this?”

  “Early. About twenty till six. Still dark. We drove over here, the wife and I, even though we’re only a few houses down. I’ve had a bum leg since I was a kid.”

  The young cop put in, “I was here by a little after six. Dr. Sam was kind of half sitting, half reclining on a red leather chair in his den. He told me he heard his wife scream and remembered going upstairs, of fighting on the stairs, of waking up in the water, and going back upstairs. None of it tied together. I didn’t know what to make of it. He didn’t say anything after. He was holding onto his neck like it hurt. Face looked like he’d been hit. He was in trousers but no shirt.”

  I said, “You call him ‘Dr. Sam’…?”

  Dodge answered for the young cop. “Sam Sheppard’s an osteopath, a surgeon. His family runs a hospital about a mile from here—Bay View. Father and two brothers are osteopaths, too. Very successful.”

  Eliot nodded toward the house. “Is ‘Dr. Sam’ inside?”

  “No,” the cop said. “His brothers, Richard and Steve, they came right away.”

  “I called Richard,” Dodge said. “He was the one who declared Marilyn dead. Then he and Steve hustled Sam to the hospital for treatment and observation.”

  “Hustled?” Eliot said, with a frown. “Were they trying to get him away from the authorities? And into the family hospital?”

  Drenkhan said, “They cleared it with Chief Eaton. Chief’s around here somewhere. It’s been a madhouse! People in and out. Neighbors and friends and reporters and photographers, and even some little kid who wanted to make sure he got his turtle back.”

  Eliot and I said, “What?”

  The cop nodded. “Yeah, he went up and got it out of Chip’s room.”

  Eliot frowned. “Chip?”

  “The Sheppard boy. He slept through everything. The murder. The comings and goings this morning. Didn’t even wake up when the kid retrieved his turtle. Chip’s uncle Richard carried him down and got him out of here, right before they took Dr. Sam to the hospital.”

  A voice cut through the crowd: “Excuse me! Coming through!”

  In a crisp summer suit and a straw fedora with a checkered band, a pocket hanky in his breast pocket, dapper little Samuel Gerber moved through the crowd, a knife through warm butter. Gray-haired, his glasses rimless, a tie pin holding his already neat four-in-hand in place, the county coroner strode toward us like Judgment Day in a five-foot-three package.

  When Eliot and I turned toward him, he broke his stride momentarily, and when he started back up, it was more an amble. Then he came to a stop like a car that almost ran a light.

  Hands on his hips, he gazed up at Eliot. The cement landing gave us a foot on him, and he looked like a well-dressed Munchkin.
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  “Well, Mr. Ness,” Gerber said. “What brings you here?”

  “Frank Cullitan asked me to size up the scene. Hope you don’t mind, Dr. Gerber.”

  Their profound dislike for each other was plastered over with polite smiles and respectful appellations.

  Gerber turned his sharp gaze on me. “You’re Heller, right? Been a while.”

  I had done a few jobs for Eliot in Cleveland in the ’30s; for a while, the department had been so corrupt, calling in outsiders like me had been a necessity. So Gerber and I knew each other a little. But not enough for him to call me “Nate,” or “Heller” minus a “mister,” for that matter.

  But I decided to have more class than this little shit.

  “Nice to see you again, Dr. Gerber,” I said. “I’m tagging along with Eliot. Just happened to be visiting an old friend.”

  “Well, I’m not sure I can approve you joining us inside,” he said to me. “It’s a crime scene, after all. Closed off.”

  The young cop chimed in. “Oh, uh, we haven’t closed the house off, Doctor.”

  I managed not to laugh as Gerber frowned. It was eight A.M. and this had been a crime scene for over two hours and hadn’t been sealed off yet.

  “Sir,” the young cop said awkwardly, “I was the first responder. Perhaps you’d like me to fill you in.”

  “Well, that would be a start.”

  Drenkhan did so, quickly, efficiently.

  “Where do you have this doctor?” Gerber asked testily. “Please tell me you have a man watching him.”

  Dodge answered for the young cop, saying, “Well, he isn’t here. His brothers came and said he needed immediate treatment. They took off to Bay View Hospital for—”

  “You allowed our best suspect to be spirited away to that family’s excuse for a hospital? Before he could be properly questioned?”

  “Chief Eaton cleared it,” Dodge said lamely.

  Drenkhan, perhaps realizing he’d stepped in it, said to the coroner, “I’m sorry we haven’t known how exactly to handle this. I’m the one who called this in to the Cleveland PD. I knew this was too big for us. We haven’t had a homicide in Bay Village in eleven years! And that was way before my time.”

  Gerber, seldom speechless, didn’t know what to say to that.

  Eliot said, “Dr. Gerber, I would like Nate here to accompany us. You probably know he’s an investigator of some national repute.”

  Gerber drew in a breath, then apparently decided this wasn’t a battle worth fighting, particularly since everybody and his duck still had access to this place.

  The little coroner took the lead and then we were inside, in a hallway with closets to the left and a wall to the right. Toward the far end of the hall, a runner seemed to lead to a black leather medical case, upended, yawning open, much of its contents scattered—prescription pads, vials, blood pressure sleeve, stethoscope.

  A little bird-like woman in a yellow T-shirt, pedal pushers and sandals introduced herself as Mildred Dodge, playing hostess at this Fourth of July party. She showed us through the kitchen to the living room. This was just the opposite of Eliot’s small house with so much furniture crammed in; the Sheppard home was large but sparsely furnished, if with attractive antiques.

  Mrs. Dodge positioned herself like a sentry at the bottom of the three steps up to the landing and the stairs, blocking the way. Then she pointed up there and said, “It isn’t pretty.”

  She stood aside and, Gerber in the lead, we went up, leaving her at her post.

  The bedroom was to our right and we stepped in gingerly, arranging ourselves along the foot of the nearest of two wooden non-canopy four-poster twin beds. We kept at as much of a respectful distance as possible. Just behind us in the corner was a rocking chair with some clothes on it—white shorts, bra, a sweater slung over the back; on the floor nearby were white panties and some white moccasin slippers and a pair of blue tennis shoes. Between the twin beds was a small nightstand with a phone and clock; over at our right against a wall was a dresser. The other twin bed had its quilt and covers turned invitingly down. The shades were drawn. Nothing here seemed to have been touched.

  Except the woman on the bed.

  And Mrs. Dodge had been right: it wasn’t pretty. More like something out of Hieronymus Bosch.

  Marilyn Sheppard lay on her back, the top of her wreathed in red on the blood-soaked bed, head to one side as if she were looking at us as we entered, only her face was not really a face anymore, just a blur of clotted blood, her skull battered from a welter of savage blows. Her legs dangled over the foot of the bed, at the knees, as if she’d been pulled up, perhaps caught under the wooden foot rail. Her top was pulled exposing her breasts, her midriff exposed, too, seemingly untouched, but the rest of her was naked, though draped by a sheet, her pajama bottoms pulled off of one leg and bunched at the knee. Bruises on her forearms and hands, and broken fingernails, said she’d fought back. The walls bore so much blood, sent flying there, it might have been a modernistic wallpaper design.

  Gerber approached the corpse. He had a look, but soon turned and nodded to us to leave, which was fine with me. The coroner wore a naturally pallid look. But right now so did Eliot, and I’d wager so did I.

  On the first floor, the daybed against the staircase had a neatly folded corduroy jacket on it. This immediately caught the coroner’s attention.

  Gerber made a disgusted face. “This ‘doctor’ woke up to screams, and ran to his wife—but first folded his jacket?”

  A Cleveland police officer came over and told Gerber a man from the fingerprint unit had arrived. The coroner went over to deal with that while Eliot and I conferred.

  “Not the Butcher,” I said.

  “No. A butcher … but not the butcher. The poor woman was hit twenty or thirty times. But did you notice? Her skull wasn’t crushed—just gashes, crescent-shaped, made while someone tried to … obliterate her face.”

  I frowned. “She was naked from the waist down. Rape, you think? Attempted rape that enraged the attacker, turning him into a madman?”

  “Possible.” Eliot let out a deep sigh. “A madman or someone who really hated her.”

  “She may have got in a few good licks, judging by her arms. Good for her.”

  He nodded.

  Gerber was coming over. “I’m taking a look at the beach. Care to join me? This ‘doctor’ supposedly fought the intruder, presumably all the way down there … since that’s where he says he woke up.”

  “Lead the way,” Eliot said.

  The yard was only thirty feet deep till the slope of the bluff cut it off. Wooden steps through the thick brush and tall grass descended to a platform with a modest bathhouse, then a shorter staircase jogged down from there to a narrow strip of beach, maybe four feet wide. Gerber started down the steps, at a quick pace, though like us he was easily fifty.

  As we took our sweet time, I whispered to Eliot, “What’s that odd English he puts on the ball every time he says ‘doctor?’”

  “Oh, like a lot of medics, Gerber has a thing about osteopaths. To him they’re not real doctors.”

  At the bottom of the second, shorter flight of stairs, we were on the very narrow beach, waves rolling in gently.

  “If the good doctor,” Gerber said, quietly acid, “struggled with the killer here on the beach, where are the signs of it?”

  Eliot said, “Erased, possibly. It can get choppy out here at night, even this time of year. Wind off the bluff howls, and in the moonlight you can see the whitecaps. Thirty-, forty-foot waves can break on this beach.”

  Gerber gave him a look.

  A little embarrassed, Eliot said, “I used to live next door, with the park between. My wife and I walked this beach many times, in all kinds of weather.”

  His first wife.

  Right now the picture Eliot had painted seemed absurd, the sky still clear, the morning cool. That would change, and the day would heat up; but now it was as idyllic as the life the Sheppards seemed to have
been living.

  I said to Gerber, “How about those?”

  I was pointing to footprints in the sand, close to where the bluff rose, heading west. The right foot seemed to have a heavier tread.

  Gerber bent over to have a look. “Well, that’s no damn struggle. And none of those are deep enough to make plaster impressions. I’ll get some pictures taken.” He looked around, squinting behind the rimless glasses. “See any sign of a T-shirt ripped off in the so-called struggle? He was bare-chested, Officer Drenkhan said.”

  “No,” Eliot said, and I shook my head in agreement.

  Gerber grunted. “Let’s head back up.”

  We did.

  The coroner toured the first floor and we were allowed to tag along. Two Cleveland homicide dicks had shown up while we were beach-combing, and they fell in on either side of Gerber. Beaky, narrow-faced Bob Schottke was a veteran detective in his mid-thirties, his boyish oval-faced partner, Patrick Gareau, noticeably younger.

  The living room, otherwise undisturbed, had a desk whose top two drawers were emptied out, the lower drawers pulled out halfway. Stacked in the den were five desk drawers, one emptied out. A green metal box had been tipped over, spilling tools and a woman’s wristwatch. Several shotguns were leaned against one wall, unsecured.

  Gerber’s disgusted expression underscored his assessment: “Staged. No real burglary is this neat, this careful.”

  “Usually,” Schottke said, “the place is trashed. Ransacked.”

  Gareau said, “That medical bag, sitting on its end like that? How do you drop something and have it land so perfect?”

  I said, “What about the broken sports trophies in the study?”

  Schottke said, “Just an afterthought. To make it look good.”

  “Sam Sheppard did this,” Gerber said to the homicide dicks. “Open-and-shut case. I’ll go over to that sham hospital and get a confession out of him. Meantime, you two stick here and supervise … start by sealing off the goddamn house.”

  Then Gerber turned to Eliot and me. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Mr. Ness—I hope you’ve seen enough to satisfy the county prosecutor.” He said nothing to me.