Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness by William Bernhardt Page B

day. He had never been a quitter. He tried again.
    "I realize I can't be with you as often as I should. I have to show Cleveland I can do this job. But I will commit to spending as much time with you as is humanly possible. And I will promise you that as soon as I have shown Cleveland that I can do this job, everything will change. I will delegate the midnight raids to others. And anything else that's delegable. I will become a regular working stiff, keeping regular hours, home every night by six just as you're putting dinner on the table."
    "I've heard this so many times..."
    "I mean it."
    "I know you do." For a moment, even in the darkness, he saw the faintest traces of a smile play on her lips. "That's what's so sad about you, Eliot. So tragic. You do mean well. But you'll forget everything you've said tonight the first time you get a tip about some third-rate moonshiner. A mere woman can never compete with tomorrow's headlines."
    Ness tried to think of something he could say, something that would save the night, save them. But nothing came. For all his education, it was amazing how quickly words deserted him when he needed them most.
    "The mayor has invited us to dinner," he offered feebly.
    "I don't want to go."
    "Did you hear what I said? The mayor!"
    "No."
    "You said you wanted us to spend more time together."
    "That won't be us spending time together. That will be you social climbing, trying to impress the mayor and the mayor's wife. I'm not interested."
    Ness pushed himself to his feet. He felt wrung out, exhausted, much too tired to think clearly. He started toward the bedroom.
    "Will I be reading about you in the papers tomorrow?"
    Ness stopped. "I sincerely hope not."
    "That's not the Eliot Ness I know."
    "The raid tonight-didn't go so well."
    "Eliot." For the first time all night, her voice softened a bit. "No one wins every time. Not even the great Eliot Ness."
    "No," he replied quietly. "I suppose not." As he shuffled into the bedroom, he added, just under his breath: "But I can sure as heck try."

16
    Using a pencil to avoid leaving fingerprints or other trace evidence, Merylo carefully unwrapped the last of the newspaper-wrapped bundles they had found in the two half-bushel baskets behind the White Front Meat Market at 2002 Central. They had expected to find meat in them. They had been right.
    And terribly terribly wrong.
    "You ever seen anything like this before?" Lieutenant Zalewski said in a hushed voice. His face was an ashen white.
    "No," Merylo had to admit, "I have not. Not in fifteen years. This is... bizarre."
    "You ever hear of the mob doing anything like this?"
    "No." Merylo bristled slightly. "But that doesn't mean they didn't. Those boys can be downright inventive sometimes."
    Zalewski stretched, glad to pull away from those revolting baskets. "Uniforms find the rest yet?"
    "No. Nothing. Not even-"
    Merylo didn't want to finish, and he didn't need to finish. They both knew what they were thinking.
    No one had found the head.
    Once the papers were unwrapped, it became all too clear that they contained the severed pieces of a human body. Tidily wrapped and stored in those two baskets, they found the lower half of a female torso, both thighs, and a right arm.
    "Have them fan out," Merylo said. "Widen the search. Get as many men on it as possible."
    Zalewski dutifully passed along the commands while Merylo tried to make some sense out of what they had discovered.
    Was it the same killer? He wasn't sure what was worse-to imagine that the previous killer had descended to this level, or to imagine that there might be more than one hood capable of doing something like this.
    He wondered what this would do to the Cleveland News theory that the first two victims had been the product of a sordid love triangle. They had no evidence in support but lots of glamour, and thus it captured the largest share of the public's imagination. He didn't see how this third victim, a female, fit in. If she was the third side