“So far, only some coincidences. But they make for interesting speculation. After I hear from my correspondent, it may be even more interesting.”
Benedetti leaned back in his chair, with the cigar pointing straight up in the air, like a signal beacon. It was his favorite position for receiving reports. When he had attained complete comfort, he said, “You may begin, Ronald,” as he listened to his favorite pupil recite.
SEVEN
IF YOU ASKED JANET HIGGINS why a person like she was, who had gained some acclaim as a musical child prodigy, should toss that aside to become a psychologist, she could give you lots of reasons, like service to humanity, and the chance to do something really important. The real reason was a closely guarded secret—she had become a psychologist to avoid the humiliation of having to consult one.
When Dr. Higgins analyzed herself, as she frequently did (every time she was nervous, for example), she saw herself as a classic inferiority complex, for which she compensated by tremendous drive to prove herself, first in music, then in her work. She excelled at both.
But Janet was faking it (she told herself)—somehow or other, she kept fooling them all. In the back of her mind was the constant fear that someday they would find out what she was—a woman in her late twenties, rapidly approaching spinsterhood (if not there already), pinetree tall, broad of shoulder and shallow of chest; with a bump on her nose, and hair the precise color of mouse fur; looking at the world with brown eyes that bad needed bifocals since childhood; and faking it.
Running up the steps of the Sparta Public Safety Building, Janet tripped and fell, sprawling, scattering her notes to the wind. Good work, Janet! she hissed at herself as she scrambled after the papers. Her coordination vanished at times like this—klutziness was the partner of self-analysis in her nervousness.
And today promised to hit new heights—she had to expound her theories on the case to Professor Niccolo Benedetti, recognized as the world’s top authority on cases like this. What could Benedetti possibly learn from her? Could he suspect her? Janet told herself savagely to cut it out. Her conduct was not becoming to a trained scientist. She’d allow herself the inferiority neurosis, but she drew the line at paranoia.
Still, she couldn’t help speculating about the behavior of Benedetti’s assistant, Gentry his name was. Ever since the professor had been called in, this Gentry had been haunting the library, where Janet did most of her work. He said he was researching a theory of his own, but if that was true, why did she always catch him looking at her? It certainly wasn’t for her beauty.
Janet would have never believed it, but at that moment, in the corridor of the PSB that lead from the evidence room to Inspector Fleisher’s office, Ron Gentry wore a small smile of pleasure at the thought of seeing Dr. Janet Higgins again. The smile had come, unbidden, as soon as Benedetti had stopped cooing over the evidence—the twisted splintered sign; the beer can; the ragged but deadly edge of the ice; and the hypodermic needle. Ron had no time to think of anything but the case, because the old man showed all the signs of actually learning something and Ron wracked his brain trying to figure what it might be.
After that, though, his mind was free to choose its own subject, and it chose Janet. And it was for her beauty. Where Janet saw a bumpy nose and weak eyes, Ron saw an irresistible wistful smile. Where she lamented the nondescript color of her hair, he saw how thick and glossy it was. Where she despaired to see her boyish torso and extreme height, he gloried in the sight of broad, womanly hips and spectacularly long, shapely legs.
Another thing Ron liked about her was that he seemed to be the only one who realized how good-looking she really was. It made him feel like a great detective, and it made him feel superior to all the other clods who hadn’t noticed. He’d have to make sure that the end of the case didn’t mean—
Benedetti was holding open the door to Fleisher’s office. “Coming in, Ronald? Or do you plan to daydream in the hall all day?”
Buell looked out the window as the snowflakes sped by on their way to becoming the nineteenth inch of accumulation. It wasn’t that he enjoyed the sight of the snow so much; it was just that Fleisher’s face was too painful to contemplate. Buell had been the last to arrive, because Diedre, a relative newcomer to Sparta, had used the storm to play “Baby, it’s cold outside,” and had won. He smiled at the memory.
A scowl from Fleisher brought his full attention back to the matter at hand. The inspector was summing up the lines of investigation the police had been following.
“Suspects. Every case brings a new load of suspects. So far, we can’t tie anybody we’ve come across with any of the other incidents. And there isn’t anybody that doesn’t have an ironclad alibi for at least one of the crimes.”
“Including Terry Wilbur?” Ron Gentry asked him.
“Including him. He was at the YMCA when that car crashed and killed the two girls. Which isn’t to say we don’t want to talk to him, bad.
“Witnesses? The only things resembling witnesses we have are Buell, here, the Elleger girl, and this Herbert Frank. We all know what Buell saw; Barbara Elleger remembers the noise when the sign crashed into the car, period; and all the Frank kid can do is tell us Wilbur is our boy.”
“He was there, Inspector,” Benedetti reminded him.
Buell was surprised at the almost deferential respect the inspector had for Benedetti. Fleisher’s expression changed from irritated to quizzical as he said, “Are you saying it might be Wilbur after all, Professor?”
“I haven’t gone that far yet,” the old man said. “But I would consider inadequate any explanation of this case that cannot account for the behavior and disappearance of Terry Wilbur. I can only echo Mr. Frank, and say find Wilbur.”
“Well, we’ll keep doing all we can.” Fleisher picked up his dissertation. “Now about the victims. We can’t find anything they have in common. In age, they run from eight to teenage, to early twenties, to old age. Socially, the Bickell girl was from a rich family; the others are middle class. Religion, Ling was a Lutheran, Salinski Roman Catholic, Watson an all-over Baptist, and Bickell, Episcopal. The Reades don’t go to church. Interests, history, accomplishments, hobbies, jobs? Nothing. Nothing sixteen good detectives can turn up, anyway.”
At the same moment Buell said, “Are you sure, Inspector?” Benedetti said, “No?” Fleisher, naturally, jumped on the professor’s comment. Buell was just as happy. For a lot of reasons, he didn’t want to be the one to make any suggestions to the hard-working inspector.
“What is it, Professor? Have you spotted something?”
“I haven’t,” he said, “but my young colleague has. A rather intriguing discovery. It concerns more than the victims, too.”
The inspector demanded an immediate briefing from the blond detective, and Buell had his pencil poised, ready to take down the story for page one, but Gentry couldn’t be persuaded to talk.
“I want to check it out first,” he kept insisting. “It’s weird, and it probably doesn’t make much difference, anyway.”
Still, Fleisher kept urging Gentry to spill it, until the professor rescued him by asking Fleisher to go on, which he did, although reluctantly.
“Well, it seems to me there are three possibilities. One: Hog has a grudge against each victim separately, a different reason for each.”
“He must have a wide circle of acquaintance,” murmured the professor.
“Exactly,” Fleisher said grimly. “And besides, what could he have against an eight-year-old kid, for crysake? So that one seems to be out. Two: Hog hates all his victims together, all for the same reason. Even more far out. These victims never did anything together.
“So that leaves just one possibility: Hog has nothing against his victims, outside of the fact they belong to the human race. So, smart as he may be (and believe me, anybody who can fake two accidents perfectly and two more almost perfectly is smart), he has to be a nut. Dr. Higgins, I guess that’s your department?”
“Yes,” the
professor said. “I am eager to hear your evaluation of the case.”
Janet spilled her notes as she started to stand up, and felt her face and neck go red hot. As a child, the words she came to fear most were, Play something for us, Janet; and now here she was, giving a recital in a matter of life and death.
Well, she’d learned the only way to get it over with was to go ahead and do it.
“This case,” she began in a voice so clear and confident that she surprised herself hearing it, “differs in some ways from similar cases of the past, and I have to admit I’m not completely sure what those differences mean. But I think I can give some idea of the kind of person we’re looking for.
“The one thing I think we can be sure of is that Hog is a man.”
The professor clapped his hands softly. “Brava!” he said, “an excellent start; we agree already. I have known woman murderers, of course—even woman mass-murderers. But I have never known of one who felt the need to show bravado, to boast of her crimes. Again, brava.”
Janet thanked the professor warmly. She felt that Benedetti couldn’t be faked out—therefore his praise meant she had genuinely accomplished something, though she knew the idea was pretty obvious.
“Physically,” she went on, “the killer is probably less than normal height. DeSalvo, Manson—and Hitler, Napoleon, and Franco, for that matter—all were small men. In certain cases it can reinforce feelings of inadequacy.”
“Inadequate?” Fleisher asked. “You say Hog feels inadequate?”
With her initial nervousness past, Janet had become too involved in her subject to catch nuances like the tiny breath of sarcasm in Fleisher’s voice. She went on.
“Yes; inadequacy, inferiority. It’s very often the pattern of the lives of men who become mass murderers. Hog is probably in his mid to late twenties, or older, the time a man comes face to face with the fact that he’s not a child any more.
“Hog is probably single,” she said. “Either he’s never had a successful relationship with a woman, or he’s too easily successful, and holds them in contempt. If he’s employed, he probably does menial work; work he considers beneath him. He probably has no close friends—his co-workers probably don’t think much about him one way or the other.
“He’s from a broken home, or a bad one. His father may have beaten his mother in his presence, or beaten him. He’s either been forced to participate in, or forced to watch some sex act he would consider humiliating.
“So, to sum up,” she said as she polished her glasses, “past cases show that Hog is someone who is a male, between, say, twenty-five and forty, undersized, from a broken home; a loner, doing work he considers beneath him, unsatisfied sexually, and carrying a massive inferiority complex.”
Benedetti cleared his throat. “Ronald,” he said, “do we know anyone who fits that description?”
Buell answered him in a tone that almost said he was sorry to interrupt. “Well,” he drawled, “I can’t say about his sex life, but physically, that boy Herbert Frank seems to fit the description. And he certainly seems to have it in for this Terry Wilbur, who all the neighbors say is so handsome and charming.”
“You wanna know who feels inferior, for crysake?” Fleisher growled. “Me, I feel inferior.”
Everybody laughed, more or less good naturedly, except the professor. He took a cigar from a case that had been a present from one of this former students, lit up, and said around puffs, “That makes at least two of us, Inspector. This Hog has awakened in me a healthy respect.”
“Why?” Buell wanted to know.
Benedetti made a sign for the inspector to explain.
“Well,” Fleisher said, “with all respect to Dr. Higgins, here,” and now there was more than a breath of sarcasm in his voice, “Hog is something new. Something else.
“I won’t even worry about what he looks like, or why he’s killing these people; let’s just take a look at what we know he’s done.
“He scouted this girl Barbara Elleger, maybe all three of them, right down to what they had in their purses, for crysake. He had to know beforehand; he never had a chance to look afterward. He knows about when they’re going to be under the construction work, and he cuts the sign loose just in time to crash on the car. And he did it without leaving a readable track.
“Two. He makes the acquaintance of old man Watson, gets to know him well enough that he gets to see the upstairs, too. One time, with Watson coming down ahead of him, Hog gives him a little push, and that’s that. And nobody ever sees him. Of course, that’s a neighborhood where minding your own business is the thing to do, but still.
“Three. He gets into Leslie Bickell’s apartment, somehow—”
Buell Tatham interrupted him. “Of course, if it is this Terry Wilbur, there’s no mystery about how he got in.”
“Yeah,” Fleisher conceded, “but there’s still his alibi for the first murder.”
“He did disappear,” Ron chimed in, strictly in the interests of fairness. “And don’t forget what we found in his room.”
Janet was puzzled. “What did you find in Wilbur’s room.”
“Oh, I forgot,” Ron said, “the police didn’t think it was important. I’m going to take the professor out there this afternoon for a look, care to come along?”
“I—I’d be glad to, if the professor doesn’t mind.”
“It will be my pleasure,” Benedetti said. The professor never spoke loud, but there was something about him that made people feel what he had to say was more important than what they had to say. With five words, he had stopped the conversation from running away with itself. Now he said, “I don’t believe the inspector was finished.”
Fleisher grunted. “Thanks, Professor. Now, about Wilbur. He doesn’t feel right to me as Hog. I can’t see him killing three people just to kill his girl friend, then kill an innocent kid, and then disappear.”
“Nevertheless, he did disappear,” the professor said, “and he must be found.”
“I know, I know,” Fleisher said. He was starting to get irritated. “Anyway, to pick up where I was before, he gets into Leslie Bickell’s apartment, gets her half naked, loads up that needle, and lets her have it; and it looks like she cooperated the whole way.
“Now that’s not so hard to believe, if you know junkies. Her right hand was out of commission, that vein in her left arm was the only one she’d found yet, Hog must have looked like a fairy godmother to her. That all adds up.
“But what Hog got away with next is a goddamn miracle for crysake! Leslie Bickell’s body isn’t even cold yet, when Hog spots the Reade kid heading to school early, because he wanted to mail a letter to the Superman fan club. Then, in broad daylight, he gets behind the kid in his own driveway, breaks off that piece of ice, lets him have it, and gets away. In broad daylight. Even though Dmitri says he had to be covered, literally soaked, with blood.
“So, Dr. Higgins,” Fleisher concluded with scornful deference, “if Hog feels inferior, I sure would like to meet the person he feels inferior to. In my book, he isn’t inferior to anybody. He’s only nuts.”
Janet was hurt. She had worked hard on that profile of Hog. If Fleisher thought she was wrong he could just say so. He didn’t have to humiliate her like that. She was about to tell him so, in no uncertain terms, but the professor spoke first.
“Well spoken, Inspector Fleisher,” he said. “You have outlined the problem admirably. But you haven’t mentioned the most remarkable thing Hog has done.”
“What’s that, Professor?” It was everybody’s question; Buell was the one who got the words out first.
Benedetti, Ron saw, was smiling his Mona Lisa smile. He only did that when he was pleased. The professor was also scratching the back of his right hand, slowly, with the fingers of his left. Ron had always found that a feline gesture, like what a cat does before he pounces.
“Well, Mr. Tatham,” the professor said, “at least once, to my knowledge, Hog has taken a souvenir away from the scene of his c
rime.”
EIGHT
FLEISHER WAS SPUTTERING. HE was trying to promise dire consequences to whichever of his men had muffed finding that lead, but he couldn’t get it out past the rage that was choking him.
Ron Gentry was none too pleased with himself, either. He knew the old boy had spotted something, he’d known it earlier; and while he didn’t claim to be a Benedetti, with that much to go on, he should have spotted it. Damn. He was slipping.
Janet Higgins was aware she was a mildly split personality. When spindly, awkward Janet couldn’t cope; competent, professional Dr. Higgins could jump in and bail her out. That’s what had just happened, but the fight she was ready for didn’t materialize. So it was with a much more detached eye than usual that Janet was able to look at the reactions to Professor Benedetti’s bombshell.
She noted Fleisher’s impotent rage with a kind of good-natured spite; and sympathized with Ron Gentry’s self-directed irritation. Buell Tatham’s reaction she noted with a mild scientific surprise; she hadn’t expected him to be such a sensitive individual. He looked almost sick. She soon found out, though, that Tatham was as much sensitive as well read.
He asked her, “That fits the pattern, doesn’t it, Doctor? Didn’t Jack the Ripper take away one of his victim’s breasts?” He pulled himself together, and turned to the inspector. “We’ve got to find him, Fleisher, this is going too far!”
Benedetti chuckled softly. “Please relax your southern sensibilities, Mr. Tatham. I’m not speaking of that kind of souvenir. Hog has been content to kill his victims, however horribly. At least to date.”
“No, what Hog took away inspires no horror or disgust—at least not in me, though I am certainly jaded—but only curiosity. Ronald,” and Janet was surprised at how fast the young man snapped to attention, “show the inspector and the others those photographs we obtained from the laboratory technicians.”
Ron started leafing through a folder. “Which ones, sir?”
The professor’s grin widened. “You can’t say?” He clicked his tongue. “Ah, amico, you must keep your mind on your work, eh?” He made a noise that might have been a chuckle.
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