Bits & Pieces: Bitd Und Stücke

By James R. Taylor III

Annabelle Wolfe is used to doing things her way. But in 1890 Ohio, doing things your way isnt always easy. A woman is expected to marry early and be a dutiful wife and mother. Much to her own mothers chagrin, Annabelle wants nothing to do with such a sedentary life. So By the age of twenty, shes graduated college, studied law, and passed the bar.

Unfortunately, now no one will practice law with her, and Annabelle is forced to clerk for her judge father and write detective stories under a male pen name. Life takes an unusual twist when she chances on the dismembered body of a young woman. The police are stymied and, hoping to make her mark, Annabelle decides to catch the killer on her own.

But in the coming months, the body count continues to climb as the murderer foils every attempt at capture. Annabelle finds she not only must match wits with a killer who seems unstoppable, but face an equally hostile public who feels that she is doing a mans job.

Along the way, Annabelle enlists the aid of her younger cousin Rebecca and jaded lawman Jacob Sullivan. But, in the final showdown, with everything in the balance, it is Annabelle Wolfe alone who must face down the killer to save her friends and stop the bloody rampage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475990034

James R. Taylor III

James R. Taylor, III is a retired business professional who was educated at Georgetown College and Xavier University. He lives with his wife, Susan, and four cats in a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. Bits & Pieces is his second published novel.

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Copyright © 2013 James R. Taylor, III.

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Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-9002-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9004-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9003-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013908279

iUniverse rev. date: 7/5/2013

Table of Contents

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

chapter 6

chapter 7

chapter 8

chapter 9

chapter10

chapter 11

chapter 12

chapter 13

chapter 14

chapter 15

chapter 16

chapter 17

chapter 18

chapter 19

chapter 20

chapter 21

chapter 22

chapter 23

It is 1890 and a serial killer is terrorizing this sleepy southern Ohio community. Law enforcement is baffled as the bodies keep mounting. Now it is up to Annabelle Wolfe, this young woman, aspiring lawyer, and writer of mysteries, to step in and solve the case.

For my granddaughters, the real

Annabelle Sue and Rebecca Eloise.

May they growto possess the courage and intelligence that their namesakes show. And with a special thank-you to their grandmother and my wife, Susan, without whose support and encouragement this book would not have been written.

Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go;

And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.

Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.

Ruth 1:16–17 (King James Version)

chapter 1

26074.jpg The Ohio River at Moscow had been at or nearing flood stage for over a week. Though the muddy water had started to recede, crossing it still meant running a gauntlet of floating trees, half-submerged chicken coops, outhouses, and other river junk that threatened at any moment to stove in the hull of any craft foolhardy enough to try to cross the stream.

Alfonzo Judd was an old hand when it came to the river; he had worked on it all his life. Just the same, he was not taking any chances with his new steam-powered ferry the Clermont. Alfonzo had his younger brother, Homer, standing at the bow to keep a sharp watch out for partially submerged trees or anything else that could smash the hull or turn the paddle wheels into kindling. This trip Alfonzo had just one customer. The respected federal jurist J. P. Wolfe and his twenty-year-old daughter Annabelle, or Annie as many called her, were crossing the river to catch the train at Ivor station for a trip into Cincinnati, something they did routinely. While Judge Wolfe sat in the carriage bending the ear of his hired man and driver Gabe, Annabelle was standing at the bow, helping Homer to look out for obstacles.

It started out to be an ordinary late-spring morning; father and daughter had made the crossing over a hundred times with no problems. However, this day would turn out to be different.

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From a distance, the object looked like the bloated body of a cow or some other barnyard animal that had fallen into the river and drowned. It was now floating downstream with the current. Annie pointed the body out to Homer.

What do you think it is? she asked.

I dunno, Homer answered. It looks like a dead pig. It ain’t no cow. Too pink t’ be a cow.

By this time, the floating carcass was less than twenty feet from the boat. Annie had a much better view.

That’s not a pig! Annabelle yelled, It’s the body of a woman. It’s got breasts! She called up to Alonzo to stop the boat.

If Alonzo heard Annabelle’s cry, he did not act as if he did; he was intent on being on time to meet the morning train. Annie yelled again, also without success.

When she saw that she was getting nowhere, Annabelle ran to the carriage and breathlessly exclaimed to her father, Homer and I just saw a body floating down the river. You are going to have to get Alonzo to go after it before it is lost.

Are you sure it was a body? the judge asked incredulously. Are you sure it is not a dead animal dislodged by the current?

Father, I would not say that it was a body if I were not sure that it was a body, Annabelle scolded him.

Very well, grumbled Judge Wolfe as he lumbered down out of his carriage. He made his way over to where he had a good view of the pilothouse and shouted up, Alonzo, until he got the pilot’s attention. I am afraid you are going to have to turn about, Alonzo. Annie thinks she saw a body in the river.

Alonzo called back, If I turn about you will miss your train.

You let me worry about that, the judge shouted. I would rather have the whole courthouse mad at me for delaying a trial than have to listen to my daughter fussing at me all day.

Very well, Alonzo called down from the open window of the pilothouse. It’s your train you are going to miss, not mine. I’m sure glad that I do not have any other paying customers who have to go on this wild-goose chase.

The pilot reached over and rang Full stop on the engine telegraph and then "Reverse/one fourth."

So be it, the judge said. If it is indeed a body, we can’t just leave it to float down the river.

The river current was so swift, that by the time the decision was made to go after the corpse, it had drifted downstream and was out of sight. It took half an hour of chasing and looking before the corpse was spotted again, bobbing among the snags and other drift.

Alonzo was able to get the Clermont close enough so that Homer could snag it with a gaffing pole and hook. Once they dragged the body onboard, Homer and Annie discovered that the corpse was not a complete body. It was the torso of a woman and lacked arms, legs, and a head. The head had been severed just above the shoulders, and the limbs had been amputated by cutting them off at the joints. Part of the flesh in the groin between the hips was also missing. It was impossible to tell if it had been sliced off or was the result of scavengers chewing on the remains. What was there was bloated and misshapen from its time in the water and the effects of the warm weather.

Ever curious, Annabelle leaned over the torso and examined the deceased closely.

Whatever happened, she announced grimly, this was a murder. The missing parts have been severed from the body. It was done with a knife or some other sharp instrument; the cuts are much too clean to be otherwise. I seriously doubt that the arms, legs, and head were gnawed off by some wild animal.

In examining the corpse, or what was left of it, Annabelle found it hard to equate it with a person who had once been a live, breathing, and talking human being. It just seemed to be a blob of rotten meat. Still, it meant murder, and a murder, no matter who the victim might be, had to be interesting.

Annabelle Olivia, the judge exclaimed sternly, it is not very ladylike for one to stare at a corpse as you are doing. That is a job for the law, not you.

But, Father, Annabelle protested, This is the most exciting thing that has happened around here since … since, I can’t remember when.

Just the same, the judge admonished her, you are much too interested in something that should not concern a proper young woman like you.

While everyone was busy gawking at the torso, Alonzo had taken the Clermont close in to the Kentucky shoreline in order to get the boat out of the swift river current. After some thought, Judge Wolfe had Alonzo take the ferry back to its regular landing spot on the Kentucky shore. The morning local had already come and gone when the Wolfes arrived at Ivor station, but Judge Wolfe had Mr. Spaeth, the station agent, telegraph the courthouse in Cincinnati to tell them that the court session would have to be postponed a day. Next, he had Alonzo transport everybody, including the tarp-covered body, back across the river to Moscow.

As the only law official on the scene, the judge was forced to make an arbitrary decision. Though the body was found in the river, which strictly belonged to Kentucky, it had probably washed off the Ohio shore. This meant the murder happened in Ohio. It made sense that it would be up to Ohio law enforcement to investigate. Therefore, when the canvas-covered body was deposited on the Ohio shore, the judge had Gabriel go get the wagon and load the body into it.

In 1890 telephone service still had not made it to Moscow. Telephone lines had reached as far as New Richmond and Batavia. The linemen were hard at work planting poles and stringing wire to expand service, but for now, Moscow was just another tiny burg that stood alone in splendid isolation. In most situations, the judge did not mind being cut off from the world, but sometimes it was a bloody nuisance. This was one of those times. As there was no other alternative, after an early lunch, the judge and Gabriel took the body, or what remained of it, to the sheriff’s office in Batavia, the county seat.

Much to her chagrin, Annabelle was not allowed to ride along. She was told that it would not be very ladylike.

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Annabelle, and her mother Delphillia ca. 1890

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Aunt Mary, I wish that I had been born a man, Annabelle complained to the older woman as she watched Mary, Gabe’s wife and the Wolfe family housekeeper, roll and shape piecrusts for fried peach pies.

Why’s that, child? Aunt Mary asked.

Men get to do everything, Annabelle complained. Father did not want me to even get near the body that we found. He said my interest in it was ‘not very ladylike.’

Aunt Mary shrugged her shoulders and exclaimed, Child, you knows darn well it ain’t. Proper ladies, like yourself, ain’t suppose t’ concern themselves with things like that. You got better things t’ do than stick your nose next to some stinky ole body. Aunt Mary shook her shoulders again. Lord all mighty. It done give me the shivers to think you wanted to go do somethin’ like that.

I want some excitement in my life, Aunt Mary, Annabelle said. The only excitement I get is what I write in my mystery stories, and then it is someone else having all the fun.

Mary said, Don’t you worry none, honey child. Soon you be married like your sisters ’n’ have kids of your own. Then youse have excitement enough. Believe me—you will want no more!

Annabelle sighed. I’m just not ready to settle down yet, Aunty Mary. I need to make my mark. She rose up from the chair she was sitting in next to the kitchen table and pulled her hat down firmly on her head. If anyone comes looking for me, Aunt Mary, tell them I took Thunderbolt down by the river. I’ll be in time for lunch.

I will, Mary said. You be careful. I expect to hear any day that that horse o’ yours done throwed you.

Annabelle laughed. Don’t you worry yourself, Aunt Mary. Thunderbolt and I have an understanding. I keep giving him treats and he does not buck. Annie grabbed several dried peach slices from Aunt Mary’s mixing bowl. She stuck a couple of slices into her mouth, and the rest she took with her to the barn to feed to Thunderbolt.

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As one might suppose, Annabelle Olivia Wolfe was not a typical young woman. Annabelle did not think of herself as a rebel; rather she considered herself an individualist. Being an individualist meant that she had graduated college, read law under her father, and much to most other lawyers’ chagrin, passed the Ohio Bar Exam with the highest score in recent memory. Because most other attorneys refused to practice law with a female, Annabelle was forced to work as her father’s law clerk. She wrote successful mystery novels, though she had to do so under a male pen name. She usually wore dresses tailored so that she could ride astride a horse. She was a crack shot with a rifle and could equal Robin Hood arrow for arrow in a match. In other words, Annabelle did what she pleased, regardless if it fell under the prevue of what a proper female should do.

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While Annabelle and her horse wandered aimlessly along the riverbank, the judge and Gabriel drove what was left of the body to the sheriff’s office in Batavia. When they walked into the sheriff’s office, they found the sheriff, Zeno DeMoss, sitting in his chair with his feet firmly planted among the scattered papers on his desk—he was fast asleep.

J. P. stood about five feet from DeMoss and noisily cleared his throat. The noise startled the sheriff; for an instant, he forgot where he was as he struggled to sit upright.

I was just restin’ my eyes, the sheriff said sheepishly. Can I help you?

Homer Judd and my daughter found a dead body, or what is left of a dead body, floating in the river this morning. It has all the earmarks of a homicide, the judge said.

Judge Wolfe did not maintain too high an opinion of Sheriff DeMoss. J. P. felt that he was just another political hack doing as little as possible to earn his salary. He was glad that Clermont County, overall, was law abiding, as it could not depend on Zeno DeMoss to catch any criminals.

Today was proving to be a case in point. The judge could tell by Sheriff DeMoss’s comments that there was little he planned on doing, or could do for that matter, to investigate the death. DeMoss’s law enforcement experience was limited. Besides someone going off on a drunk, there was little crime he had to deal with. Even if the body had been peppered with bullet holes, there was a dearth of hard evidence to lead to a perpetrator. Judge Wolfe had little hope in seeing the crime solved. After all, this was Zeno DeMoss on the case; the judge was not dealing with Allan Pinkerton.

There was nothing the sheriff had to go on except a partially decomposed torso of a middle-aged woman, who had been a little on the plump side. The lack of a head made identification difficult. Finger printing was rarely done these days, not that it would have been of much help, as the victim was minus her arms and hands. The only thing that the sheriff may have been able to go for identification was if someone had been reported missing. However, there were no reports out on a missing middle-aged woman. All that Sheriff DeMoss could, or would, do was turn the body over to the undertaker for burial in a cheap, wood box to be put in an unmarked grave out in Potter’s Field.

Yes, someone was getting away with murder, but given the paucity of evidence and the lack of detective skills, there was little else DeMoss was going to do.

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The next day the judge and his daughter completed their interrupted trip into Cincinnati. Though nothing else was said on the matter, every time she was on the Clermont, Annabelle kept her eyes peeled for another body. A second body would eventually be discovered, however it would not be Annabelle who discovered it.

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Just down the railroad tracks from Ivor Station was the Marble Cliff Limestone Quarry. The quarry had been in operation since sometime in the 1840s. About ten men worked there, cutting blocks of close-grained dolomite limestone from a cliff face, trimming the blocks to roughly the correct size, and then shipping them downriver to Cincinnati. Once in Cincinnati they were utilized in all sorts of building projects ranging from the new cathedral, Saint Peter Vinculum, to sumptuous mansions being built for the Cincinnati Beer Barons, the likes of Fleishmann, Morlein, and Hudephol.

In the early days of quarry operation the cut stone had been loaded onto flat boats and rafts for the one-way trip downriver; now the shipping was done by steam-powered boats. In the case of this quarry, shipping was done under the auspices of Captain John Fletcher Amiss.

Captain Amiss used an odd-looking craft named the Miss Estelle. Its name really should have been the Phoenix, as the boat kept on rising from the ashes of its demise. The Miss Estelle first saw life as the Junebug. She was built during the Civil War as a tin clad gunboat at James B. Eades’s boatyard in Carondelet, Missouri. Before the Junebug could see any action, the war ended and the Junebug was ordered scrapped. However, before she was dismantled, a St. Louis riverboat owner bought her, stripped off the armor, and rebuilt the gunboat as a traditional riverboat. Under its new name, Pocahontas, it carried passengers and freight between Louisville and Cincinnati for a number of years. It was sold again, this time to another steamboat captain who was headquartered in Portsmouth, Ohio. The Pocahontas, now called the Miss Maybelline, served as a packet boat plying the river between Cincinnati and Portsmouth. However, in 1875 the Miss Maybelline caught fire at the Cincinnati Landing and burned almost to the waterline, destroying most of the superstructure but leaving the boiler and engines largely intact. Again, the boat was ordered to be scrapped, but Captain Amiss stepped in and bought the hulk for next to nothing.

One again the former Junebug was transformed. Captain Amiss had what remained of the superstructure cleared and the hull planked over and reinforced to carry heavy loads. The engines were moved aft and attached to a paddle wheel. A rudimentary pilothouse was installed on poles between the stacks, and the boiler and engines were protected by simple sheds built on the deck. Miss Estelle was not much to look at, but she served the purpose of ferrying the stone blocks to Cincinnati.

Amiss and Miss Estelle made one round trip each day. About seven o’clock in the morning, six days a week, Captain Amiss would fire up the Miss Estelle, cross the river to the quarry, and wait patiently as the previous day’s production of stone blocks were stacked on the deck. Then Captain Amiss would begin the run downstream to Cincinnati. Captain Amiss would usually make a refueling stop at Belmont, another little Ohio River hamlet on the Kentucky shore. He would take on four or five cords of wood, which was normally enough to make the round trip. Day after day, Captain Amiss and Miss Estelle followed the same routine; they made it to the Public Landing in Cincinnati about noon and while his crew ate lunch at one of Cincinnati’s hundreds of saloons, the boat would be unloaded. On occasion Captain Amiss might have freight to transport back up river, but most often, the Miss Estelle ran light upstream. When the boat returned to Moscow, it would be tied up, the fires banked, and the crew would go home to their suppers.

That was the usual routine until one summer’s day in mid-June. The Miss Estelle had just pulled away from the wood stop at Belmont when Captain Amiss saw what looked like a body of a dead animal floating in the water. When he pulled out his spyglass for a closer look, he saw that the body was human. The corpse that Captain Amiss’s crew fished out of the river was similar to the one that Annabelle had seen earlier a headless, limbless torso of a woman; only this time the victim looked to be in her twenties.

Instead of the Clermont County sheriff receiving the body, the Cincinnati Police Department got the call. The city police force was just as stymied as to what action to take as Sheriff DeMoss had been. They had not a clue where to start an investigation.

Annabelle read about the latest discovery in the Cincinnati Commercial. For about a week, the paper was filled with all kinds of speculation. For fear of being accused of playing to its readers’ prurient interests, though, the paper did not report that the torso displayed the same sort of genital mutilation, as was the case with the earlier body. There was one morsel of information that the paper did report which struck Annabelle as an important clue: on the torso’s back at the right shoulder was a tattoo. The tattoo consisted of a red heart about three inches in its longest dimension. In the heart were the markings מגילת רות.

When Annabelle saw the drawing of the markings in the Commercial, she knew immediately that they were Hebrew letters. Annabelle had no idea what the letters said, but she promised herself she would find out what it meant. She made a careful copy of the markings in the notebook she always carried. An answer to their meaning would have to wait until she was able to return to Cincinnati.

chapter 2

26077.jpg It had been about a week since the second of two mangled women’s bodies had been fished from the river. Rebecca Rhodenhiser, Annabelle’s first cousin and closest confidant, had finished her farm chores early before going to Annabelle’s house. The two had gravitated to Annabelle’s bedroom, which was where they usually ended up if nothing else exciting was happening. As usual, Rebecca was sitting cross-legged on her cousin’s four-poster bed, while Annabelle was sitting at her writing desk, absentmindedly doodling the symbols from the tattoo.

Rebecca was curious about what Annabelle was doing, so she left her perch and walked over to the desk. She scooped up the paper from right under Annabelle’s pen and stared at the markings for a minute.

All right, I give up, Rebecca said, shaking her head. What are all those scribbles that you keep writing over and over?

"I copied this from the Commercial, Annabelle explained. The second dead woman had a red heart tattooed on her shoulder. These scribbles formed an inscription written inside the heart. I have no idea what it means, but I have a hunch it has something to do with those two dead bodies."

And your father was no help? Rebecca questioned.

Father can read Latin and Greek, Annabelle said, but not Hebrew. Not even Father Schaeper knows how to read Hebrew. He said that he forgot all of what they tried to teach him in seminary. He said ‘shalom’ is all he remembers.

The two continued to discuss how baffled both the Clermont County sheriff and the Cincinnati police seemed to be with the murders. Annabelle confided in Rebecca that she was dying to investigate the case herself. However, every hint she had dropped seemed to fall on deaf ears. When she finally came out and told her father point blank that she wanted to look into the case, the judge seemed to ignore her entreaties.

That’s nice, my dear, he had said to her. I am sure that you will follow the case closely in the papers. Why, you might even want to incorporate it into one of your stories.

Incorporate into one of my stories, my left foot, Annabelle had thought to herself. If I were given a chance, I know that I could find out the identity of the killer. He cannot hide from me.

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While Annabelle Wolfe fussed and fumed over her forced inactivity, on an isolated Clermont County farm, situated on a bluff high above the Ohio River a few miles upstream from Moscow and just a little way down from Ripley, a human spider, his bite far more deadly than any black widow, began again to spin his web of deceit, mayhem, and death. The farmer kept mainly to himself; few of his neighbors had ever even seen him, as he usually traveled the back roads and seldom went into town. The scant few who had met him knew he called himself Lewis Clapp. Lewis was a cattleman, but his stock was not the beeves one took to market to be turned into steaks and roasts, nor were they milked. No, his were purebred Black Angus cattle used by farmers to improve their herds. Rumor had it that Clapp was partial to his cattle, preferring their company to humans.

At the moment Lewis was writing to a woman he had never met. The woman was one who had answered Clapp’s request. She thought that he was a well-to-do farmer in search of a wife, who had placed a lonely hearts advertisement in an eastern newspaper. The woman was seeking a husband, and Lewis was doing his best to convince her that he could be her one true love.

My dearest Alverda, he wrote. "How my heart sings your name. Oh, how I long to make you mine. My home and my life are so lonesome without you here beside me. Please tell me that you will come as quickly as you are able. I do so wish to make you mein spezielle Braut."

Lewis had instructed Alverda to sell all her property, convert the proceeds into cash, and then take the packet boat from Portsmouth downstream toward Ripley. He asked her to telegraph ahead to let him know what boat she would be on so that he could meet her at the landing and take her to his home. There, he promised, the preacher would be waiting to wed them.

In his closing words to Alverda, Lewis cautioned her against telling her neighbors what she was doing or where she was going.

If you truly want a new life, he wrote her, you must completely sever yourself from the past.

What Lewis did not tell Alverda was that he was a collector. After he got back from posting his letter in Ripley, he intended on visiting his collection.

Few people in the neighborhood had even heard of Lewis Clapp, and even fewer could identify him on sight. He was about six feet five inches and weighed in at more than 275 pounds. To those who had heard of him, his violent temper was legendary.

Lewis Clapp was very much an enigma when he suddenly showed up in Ripley a few summers earlier. He had bought the Old Clary farm just down the road a bit from Liberty Hill, the Rankin place. That he paid cash for it was the rumor going around. What was more, people had heard that he had paid for it in gold—in $20 gold pieces, Double Eagles. The voices twittered even more loudly when it was learned that he had bought twenty-five head of purebred Black Angus cattle, all heifers and a prize Angus breed bull. Paid for them in gold was the word about town.

All this had happened in the early summer of 1885. After he had moved on to the farm, not much was heard from Clapp until the spring of the next year, when he posted a notice in the local paper that he had purebred Angus breeder stock for sale, by appointment only.

If people knew anything about Lewis Clapp’s profession, they knew pitiful little else about him. He would come into town every few weeks to buy supplies. While in town, he would collect his mail and stop by the saloon for a quiet drink or two. He seemed polite enough; he would nod and tip his hat when greeted, but he seldom spoke. When Clapp did speak, it was with a heavy German accent. Mostly he had little to say. Lewis Clapp tended to his business, had his drink of schnapps, got back in his wagon, and drove home. People had pretty well written Lewis off as eccentric and harmless until a warm spring Saturday in 1887.

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Clapp was at Michael Fairley’s Saloon down on Front Street by the landing having his usual two drinks. As always, he drank alone. Normally Clapp would finish his whiskey, nod to the bartender, and head home, but that was not the case today. Clapp happened to catch the eye of Pug O’Dea. Pug was a young Irishman, who worked as a roustabout, loading and unloading the packet boats down on the landing. No one paid much attention to Pug; to most, he was just a big ape of a man who carried boxes around on his shoulders. However, Pug was growing tired of being a nobody. He was determined to build a name for himself, and taking Lewis Clapp down in a fight was going to be his ticket to notoriety.

That afternoon Pug felt there was no time like the present. He gulped down two more shots of liquid courage and sidled up to Clapp who stood at the bar quietly sipping his whiskey. Pug deliberately jostled him enough that the German spilled his drink all over the front of his shirt.

Git outta my way, you thick-headed old Kraut! Pug spoke loudly in a challenging voice. Yer standin’ in my spot.

"Nein Clapp answered sharply, his own temper rising. Ich war hier erst. Sie haben keinen Anspruch auf diesen Platz Anspruch auf diesen Ort. [I was here first. You have no claim on this place.]"

Pug kicked his