By Reason of Insanity

by Shane Stevens

  At the checkout counter the girl asked him if he was new to the city.

  “Been here all my life.”

  “Five books on New York?”

  “Born right up the street.”

  “You like to read about it.”

  “Now I live in the Empire State Building.”

  “Nobody lives there.”

  “On the top floor.”

  She smiled in disbelief.

  “I can look in your bedroom window.”

  “You don’t know where I live.”

  “At night I watch you take all your clothes off.”

  Her smile disappeared.

  “I can see everything you do in bed and how much you like to—”

  “That’s ten sixty-five. Out of twenty.”

  She put his change on the counter and started ringing up the next purchase, not looking his way again.

  He picked up the money and the shopping bag with his books.

  “I’ll see you later,” he whispered on the way out.

  When Bishop got home he heated a can of soup and wolfed down a sandwich, then spread the books on his new pallet and began reading about the big city. He was asleep before he finished the first one.

  Sunday dawned bright and beautiful, a perfect October day, and he spent the morning in a long, solitary stroll about the deserted streets. All the way to Battery Park at the southern end of Manhattan. In the Wall Street area he did not see one other person. He felt like the last human on earth, and he wondered if he was being watched by alien eyes behind closed windows. But there were no aliens besides himself, and all the windows were blank.

  Soho, like most of downtown New York on a Sunday, was mostly empty and as he walked the blocks in the afternoon the emptiness hung heaviry in the air. He was reminded of Willows, not the buildings with the men but the wild places, which were lonely beyond endurance. He had once liked to be alone but that was long ago. Now he wanted to be surrounded by herds of people. They were sheep, he saw them as his sheep, and he was the wolf in sheep’s clothing. While he was among them he was safe.

  Eventually he went into a neighborhood bar on Broome Street and West Broadway, where plants hung in the windows and the menu was written on a blackboard in colored chalk. He sat at a table for two. About thirty young people cavorted around him, at the other tables and at the bar itself, and he wondered what the attraction could be. For him a bar was somewhere to go for a specific purpose, and as he looked around he saw very little purpose in the actions of others. The women especially interested him and he watched them with big sheep eyes. Several of them noted his interest, unaware of the sinister possibilities, and instinctively increased their coquetry. All reflex action of course, programmed by nature in the language of love. Which was also survival of the species.

  In that sense Bishop too could be seen as part of nature’s design; weeding out the weak, snaring the strays. Much as the chameleon at the approach of an enemy, he blended into his surroundings to the point of invisibility. And like the beautiful Venus flytrap, he was made by nature in the form most desirable to his prey.

  He smiled at the waitress and ordered a hamburger and a beer. When she brought him the beer he told her he was a newcomer to the area. Moved over to Greene Street after six months uptown. Didn’t like it there. No neighborhood feeling, if she knew what he meant. She nodded, noncommittal to strangers. A smile and a nod, that was all. It was her protection.

  With the hamburger he told her he was a photographer who did his work in his new studio loft. Did she ever do any modeling? She had classic bone structure. And a lovely face, very sensitive.

  She smiled and nodded. No, no modeling. Not interested. But she gave him an extra smile in payment for the compliment. Value given for value received. Seconds later, busy at another table, she forgot him. Just one more hard-on wanting to get laid or sucked. Who needed it? She was in a quiet period, coming down from a love affair. It would be a while before she opened up again.

  When he paid the bill he asked her where she was from. She said Boston and he said Missouri. He was from Missouri, and he hoped to see her again. He left a dollar on the table.

  Later at home he checked his beard in the mirror. Not bad for one week. Really heavier than he had expected. Already he looked different, more worldly, yet more sensitive as well. And certainly more interesting. Another week and it would be full enough. He had now stopped wearing the fake beard, didn’t need it any more. Just one more week and he’d be safe. A different person, to go with all the other different people he already was or had been or would be.

  Staring at himself in the bathroom mirror Bishop was not aware, nor would he ever know, that almost all the truly great mass murderers of modern times wore beards, or beards and mustaches, or just mustaches alone at some point. Lüdke, Vacher, Karl Denke, Albert Fish, Ludwig Tessnow, Peter Kürten, Adolph Seefeld, Bela Kiss, among others. A strange parenthesis to history, whatever its meaning.

  Jack the Ripper?

  Though he was never caught, a few people might have seen him just before or after some of his ghastly murders in London’s Whitechapel during i888. Descriptions of men seen with several of the slain women differ but most speak of some facial hair. Perhaps the most important such description, given by a man named George Hutchinson in the absolutely dreadful murder and mutilation of Mary Kelly, mentions a mustache that was curled up at each end. And of course the major candidates for the identity of Jack the Ripper—Dr. Neill Cream, the Duke of Clarence, Montague Druitt, George Chapman— all sported mustaches or whiskers.

  When Thomas Bishop finally went to bed on Sunday evening, neither knowing nor caring about Jack the Ripper or anyone else, he had a feeling that it was going to be a good week for him. He was settled in his winter quarters and he could now map out his campaign. Like a general in battle, he would marshal his forces for attack.

  He would awaken in the morning and it would be Monday, and Monday would be the start of a new week. And a new life.

  Fourteen

  BY WEDNESDAY morning Adam Kenton had his WATS line, his dictaphone machine and his telephone recorder. The safe with the double combination lock and the second desk would come later in the day. He looked around his temporary office with grim satisfaction. There was something cheerless and deadening about such places, sterile was the proper word for them. All smoothness and glass and angles. All eminently functional but nothing more. No curves or softness or subtlety. Nothing to please the eye, only the orderly mind. He hated the modern office buildings with their glass skins and angular momentum, and he always felt trapped inside them. The same with the high-rise apartment buildings. He would never live in them, not if he had a choice.

  Right now he had none and, trapped or not, the work awaited him. He sighed and settled in behind his desk. At least he could call people, that was some consolation. And he could dictate thoughts and ideas on the Ripper Reference for later playback, a habit picked up in earlier days when he ran fast and worked on so many stories that he would lose the thread of some of them. Information was his currency, and anything lost or forgotten was money down the drain. Talking into a machine that could later talk back to him kept his mind clear for new facts. It also served as a continuing progress report.

  He picked up the receiver to check the telephone recorder. The tape began to turn. He tried it several times. Each time the tape would stop when he replaced the receiver. A cable ran from the telephone junction box to the monitor outlet on the specially adapted recorder, causing it to function only when the phone was in use. Both sides of conversations could now be taped for future reference.

  His first few calls were inside the plant. He reminded John Perrone that he needed the list of all Newstime reporters and stringers in the country, as well as the confidential list of informational sources. Both were promised within the hour.

  He called Mel Brown about the computer check on matricide cases in California during the past twentyfive years. Not ready yet.

  �
�What’s holding it up?”

  “Incomplete listings mostly. California lumps matricide with patricide. In the case of mental institutions, they also separate insanity convictions, so to speak, from incompetency commitments. The ones who go right to the funny farm without any trial have their records sealed as far as any mental-health information is concerned.”

  Kenton groaned.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds. The record is sealed only to prevent outside exploitation or some well-meaning soul from torturing the poor son of a bitch with what he did. It’s really done as part of the psychiatric therapy. But the killing itself is a matter of public record of course, with the police and the courts and even the newspapers. So it’s just a question of getting it from other sources and then matching it up with the lists of those in the mental hospitals around the state.”

  “Sounds like it could take forever.”

  “Not really,” said Brown. “We don’t have to go through all the institutions, remember. Even that wouldn’t be much for the computer. But all we need are the places where they put the nuts that kill. There aren’t that many. I should have it all wrapped up for you tomorrow.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “During the Ming Dynasty of ancient China somebody scrawled on a wall ‘Never promise; never disappoint.’ That’s still good advice. I’ll do the best I can for you.”

  Kenton snapped on the dictaphone machine, and for the next fifty minutes he talked about what he knew of Vincent Mungo and what he had learned in the past twentyfour hours. He referred often to a sheet of paper filled with notes from his reading of the previous day. Basically it appeared that Vincent Mungo had escaped from Willows State Hospital after killing another patient. Someone then took the name to disguise his own identity. But how did he know Mungo wouldn’t be quickly caught? Or give himself up? Or write a letter denouncing the impostor? Only one way. The impostor had to know Mungo was already dead. How? He had already killed him. Which meant he knew Mungo. From where? The home? One of the institutions?

  Next point. Why would the killer want to disguise his own identity? The logical conclusion: he was someone known to authorities. Someone they already were looking for or would be looking for at the slightest suspicion. Someone with a record of some kind in the hands of authorities of some kind. Perhaps someone who had already killed women. Perhaps already killed—his own mother?

  Next point. Why assume Mungo’s identity? Police were searching everywhere for him. Conclusion: it had to be Mungo because of some direct connection between the two men. If Mungo were sought the killer would go free. But what were the specific circumstances of that connection? It had to be something they were in together at some time. A partnership? A homosexual relationship? Look for somebody Mungo was close to, a male. When? Primarily in recent years because the killer had to be somehow connected to Mungo and known to authorities, and Mungo was only twentyfour years old.

  Next point. In the killer’s letter to the Los Angeles bureau—the letter addressed From Hell—he had written a strange sentence: “I miss him and never saw him till now.” Never saw him till now. Why? Chessman’s picture was in plenty of newspapers and magazines at the time. He was a famous man. People all over the world knew about him. Anyone could have seen his picture. Unless, that is, it was somehow impossible because someone was locked up or shut away. Prison? An institution?

  Next point. The horrific mutilations are perhaps attempts at destroying the womb, indicating the killer’s fearful hatred of his mother. They are so indicative of derangement that he could be acting out what he had experienced earlier as a child. Conclusion: he killed his mother. But what of the time between the matricide and now? Why wasn’t he killing all along? Strong possibility: he could not. If he killed his mother he would’ve been placed in a mental home.

  Final point. Why pick on Caryl Chessman? The killer seemed really to believe that Chessman was his father. There must be a connection between them, something that links them together. What was the Chessman connection?

  Analysis. Vincent Mungo was dead, killed by someone who knew him well in the fairly recent past. Someone from either his home life or the institutional years. Someone sought by police or open to immediate suspicion if Mungo was not the killer. Someone with a record, police or mental. Perhaps for killing women. Someone who could not see a picture of Gary! Chessman, probably because of being confined. Someone who had a link to Chessman at some point. Someone who perhaps killed his mother at an early age. Someone from a mental ward, who would not have access to Chessman’s picture. And would be known to police and quickly suspected. And would thus have to come from Vincent Mungo’s institutional life.

  Action: Look for someone who was recently released—within the past few years—or who escaped from a mental hospital that also housed Vincent Mungo. Look for someone to whom Mungo was noticeably close while inside. Look for someone who killed his mother at a young age, or who was so obsessed with the thought of having killed her that he was institutionalized and now acted out the obsession. Look for someone who had a connection to Caryl Chessman.

  That final thought intrigued Kenton the most. He had a feeling that Chessman was somehow the key. Everything else seemed roughly in order, though there were a million loopholes and inconsistencies in the theory he had developed. An insane mental patient who kept killing his mother and who knew Vincent Mungo. That paralleled the known facts quite well. And all his further deductions and conclusions were based on that premise. So it was sound, although full of the paradoxes that made life interesting.

  But the Chessman part came out of nowhere. Beyond the publicity angle to show the world his dreadful fight for survival, what need did Chessman serve the killer? The recent discovery that Mungo might be Chessman’s bastard son was irrelevant since Mungo was not the killer. Whatever the answer, it had to come from the killer himself That much was certain. Wasn’t it?

  Kenton knew from sad experience that all the pieces of a theory had to fit or it would prove worthless. But Caryl Chessman was the stumbling block, the piece that didn’t fit, the riddle. He would solve it or he would have to start over again. His gut instinct told him his interpretation of the facts was correct, his educated guesses accurate. So the link he sought to Chessman was there. He had only to find it.

  With his thoughts spelled out verbally, Kenton placed the sheet of notepaper in the electric shredder that had conveniently appeared behind his desk during the night. He turned to the two lists that had finally come down from Perrone’s office, sealed and marked confidential. Inside also were the names of those who knew of the assignment that had brought him to New York. He glanced over the names and titles and was quickly impressed. Apparently a lot of money really was riding on his tail. He wondered what they would say if they knew it wasn’t Mungo they wanted at all.

  And what they would do if he didn’t come up with the right name.

  In a half hour he had checked off dozens of people he intended to call. He also made his own list of those who might prove helpful, the majority of them in California. He silently thanked the gods that he was already deep into the story, and that much of it had taken place where he knew a great many important people.

  His research assistant came in with more clippings on Vincent Mungo. He told her to dig up everything she could find on Caryl Chessman. Remember Chessman? She shook her head. Too young at the time. But she had heard of him. Executed in California for murder, wasn’t it?

  He corrected her. Not murder. Chessman didn’t kill anybody. Some sex crime, then. She blushed. No, not that either, he told her. Actually, Chessman was killed because of a crazy law that specified death for robbery with bodily harm. The most brutal rape, with the girl beaten and left for dead, was not punishable by death. But slap someone while stealing a penny! That was a capital crime.

  Her feminism flared up. How horrible!

  That’s California for you!

  He mentioned that he had a special assignment that might require some thi
ngs beyond the scope of a cover story. Could she do whatever was needed and keep her mouth shut? He coughed delicately. What he meant was, without a lot of questions. He had no time for questions right now.

  She smiled at his male insecurity. What exactly did he have in mind for her?

  Research of course. He looked at her closely for the first time. She was young and pretty. And very desirable. Perhaps sometime when he—

  “If it’s research, sure. I know my job and when to talk and not talk.”

  He also wanted all the mental institutions Vincent Mungo had been in during his life. With the dates and names of staff doctors who saw him. That was urgent. Also a list of all patients released from those places over the past five years. And those who escaped too. Mel Brown could probably help work that up.

  And which should keep her busy for a bit, he thought approvingly.

  Fred Grimes called. He would be down later to give Kenton the names of New York’s top cops and the mayor’s administrative aides.

  Anything else he could do at the moment?

  Yes, he could use his contacts to find out if anybody new in town had been looking for identification documents in the past two days. Or more probably, over the rest of the week. Their man might need new papers and try to get them through one of the independent retailers who buy whole blocks of such documents from organized crime.

  If he’s not Mungo why would he need them? Why not just go under his own name since he’s unknown?

  “Except he is known, though the police might not know it yet. He’s a mental patient—”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “No, a real one who either escaped or was released. Someone who got close to Mungo while they were in together.”

  In California he posed as Daniel Long. When that was discovered he somehow got another set of identity papers. Now he might be looking for a new name, just in case. If so, he might try to get it from a local supply.

  “Who would they look for?”

  “He’d be fairly young, say between twenty and forty. White, probably Christian—”