Max Collins - Butcher's dozen

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.

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."