“It wouldn’t take too much time. If you could get me some of the items you wrote in your notepad, things that were found at the scenes, maybe I could help you learn the victims’ names.”
“You looked at my lists.” Voice flat.
“Yes.”
“That was not an innocent transfer of information. That was not something you couldn’t help.”
“No. It wasn’t. But you have to remember that I was afraid you were in trouble.”
“And what would you have done if I was, huh?” He shook his head like she was hopeless.
“I would have come looking, can’t you see that by now? I would have done my best for you.”
He looked taken aback and his throat worked up and down as he stared at her. She felt like crying for the umpteenth time in the last week. She looked away and steadied herself, pulling her knees further into her chest and looping her arms around them. His legs were spread wide, his oxfords planted on the ground, his hands clasped between his knees, and they both fell into silence once more, and although neither of them moved closer, the air between them had warmed.
“The saddest part of it all,” she whispered, returning the conversation to the victims, “the saddest part, even sadder than their deaths, is that no one knows who most of them were. You know I can help with that, Michael. Even if I can’t help you find the Butcher, I can give his victims back their names. That is important. That is important . . . to me.”
“I don’t want you touched by any of it. This isn’t writing love notes for the dead, Dani. You don’t know what you’re asking for. You might see things that haunt you for the rest of your life. That hurt you for the rest of your life. You want that?”
She looked at him then, tipping her head to the side to study his sober countenance. “It will hurt me more to know I could have done something, and I did nothing. You have given your whole life to your work. Surely you can understand me wanting to do this one, small thing.”
“It is not a small thing,” he mumbled, but she detected concession in his sigh. She jumped on it.
“I will try harder not to touch your things. I’ve actually been trying.”
He scoffed, incredulous.
“I have! But . . . you are a fascinating man, Michael Malone. And, in my defense, I can’t really help it.”
“You can’t stop yourself from shoving your hands in my old boots?”
She blushed. “Well, yes. I can. But sometimes . . . sometimes it’s as simple as catching a whiff of something. You can’t stop your nose from smelling. Can you? Or your ears from hearing or your eyes from seeing?”
“So you are a Peeping Tom—a Peeping Dani—of a different sort.”
The blush intensified; she could feel it seeping down her throat and over her chest. She supposed that was as good a description as any, though she didn’t care for it. “You help people. I just want to help people too. And who is . . . Emil Fronek?” She might as well get it all out in the open.
He gaped, and then closed his mouth and shook his head. He threw up his hands, relenting. “All right. I’ll answer every last one of your questions. I’ll tell you everything. All of it. At least that way I won’t be driven crazy wondering what you already know.” He shook his finger in her face, his eyes narrowed on hers. “And you will not tell anyone. Not those two old ladies upstairs or Margaret downstairs. Not even Charlie. What I say doesn’t get repeated. Ever. And what I say goes. Do you understand? You go only as far as I say. And when I say don’t touch? You. Don’t. Touch.”
“Okay,” she whispered. She zipped her lips, showed him her palms and, folding her arms, tucked them under her armpits, signaling she was locked down tight.
“This is a mistake,” he muttered, but a grin tugged at the corners of his mouth, and she wished he’d just let it go so she could bask in it. Malone’s smile was something to behold.
He didn’t let it go, though. He banked it like he always did and scowled at her. “This is a mistake,” he repeated. “But I don’t think I have much choice in the matter.”
Malone didn’t give Dani a rundown of the murders or the steps he’d taken since arriving in Cleveland. He figured she could ask what she wanted to know. Otherwise, he was just going to assume that she knew it all. But he did tell her the story about Emil Fronek.
He’d told Eliot about Steve Jeziorski’s assertions. He’d also told him about Emil Fronek’s odd encounter with what might prove to be the Butcher, and Eliot had promised to take the “tip” to the detectives assigned to the case. Locating a particular transient in Chicago wouldn’t be easy, but they had a lot more resources and manpower than Malone did. And in Chicago it wasn’t exactly safe for him to go snooping around, asking questions, drawing attention to himself. Especially in the shipyards. The mob had a major presence on the docks. Better to let the Cleveland police reach out to the Chicago police and see what they could find. As far as he knew, Fronek hadn’t been located, but that fact didn’t take away from the impact of the account.