by Tom Swyers
“I know they say that cons don’t change—once a con always a con, once a murderer always a murderer. And while that may be true for some of us, it’s not true for all of us. Some of us can change; some of us do change. I did change—I remember changing now. It’s all coming back to me. In prison, I became a law-abiding American, in a way. I didn’t get any disciplinary tickets for years. I didn’t break their prison laws, their prison regulations. Not if I could help it. And, you know, not breaking their rules isn’t easy when you’re locked in a box and the system is stacked against you. But abiding by the rules didn’t make any difference. They kept me in a box anyway because they wanted me to bug out. Then after I went mental, they could point at me and say, ‘See, this guy’s dangerous and needs to be caged and medicated for life.’ But I didn’t fall into their trap.”
Christy eyed his father like he was waiting for him to explain it all.
But David was at a loss for answers. He listened to Phillip, but he was fixated on the small gap between Phillip and his only child, who sat right next to him. What kind of father brings a murderer into the house, introduces him to his son, and allows the two of them to become friends? What do I say to Annie now that Phillip confessed to killing the police officer?
Chapter 14
David didn’t sleep at all that night. He wanted Phillip out of his life. He didn’t know for sure if the ex-con had changed or not during his thirty-year stint, but who wants to wear a bulls-eye on his back to find out for sure? As far as he was concerned, if Phillip had killed once he could kill again. Heck, the guy had already dreamed about killing him. And it wasn’t just a dream anymore if Phillip had killed before. But more than being a threat to him, David saw Phillip as a threat to Christy and Annie. David knew that Phillip did and could act on his dreams—he could kill him, he could kill Christy or Annie. And who had made it all possible? He wanted to kick himself for inviting a murderer into his family.
At the same time, David realized that he had no choice. He had to keep Phillip close now. If he distanced himself, David thought it could push Phillip over the edge. That could cause him to lash out against any one of the three Thompsons. David took to heart the words of Michael Corleone in The Godfather: “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” The more David feared Phillip, the clearer it became that he had to keep him close, much closer than he’d like.
Shortly after dawn the next day, David was slumped at his desk in a blue funk when Annie shuffled down the basement stairs half awake.
“Are you okay?” she asked. Her eyes were at half-mast but her wife radar was on full alert.
“Yes, I’m fine,” he lied. “Just thinking about what happened yesterday.”
“David, I’m afraid. I saw the shop on the TV news last night. You both could have been killed.”
“Yes, I suppose so. . . but we weren’t.”
“That’s a pretty cavalier attitude to have.”
“Maybe. I guess when I hit middle age and I saw our friends and family start to die off, I realized my number could come up at any time—terminal disease, car accident, heart attack.”
“But, David, this is different. It’s not some random event. Someone made that prank call on purpose. Someone wanted to see both you and Phillip get caught in a firefight. What’s going on?”
David knew Annie made a good point. “I’m not sure,” he evaded.
But David wasn’t being forthright and he knew it. He had brought Phillip into the family fold believing that the man was innocent. Yet now it seemed he was far from it. Phillip’s murder confession was persuasive. Although he wasn’t certain, David believed it was more likely than not that Phillip had been the one who killed Officer Carlson.
David felt he had a duty to tell Annie about Phillip’s confession. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He knew she’d plead family first and seek to protect hers from Phillip. She even might suggest turning him in to the police, but David knew if the police didn’t take care of Phillip there would be hell for the Thompsons to pay. David believed in his heart that severing ties with Phillip would not help and could make things worse for his family and even for himself.
Left alone, Phillip sounded like he could dream crazy things and act on them. He could easily dream that one or all of the Thompsons were targets, for whatever reason. A monster created by the system is as unpredictable as it is dangerous. Like it or not, he saw his family’s fate inexorably tied to providing Phillip with a future in a world gone mad. But he knew Annie wouldn’t see it that way. She wouldn’t understand or accept that the system was gunning for him and Phillip. In her mind, the system was flawed but basically good. David thought that this naive belief was too embedded in her psyche to overcome.
Pleading ignorance to Annie was the best option available in David’s mind, though he realized it was like lying about Phillip’s innocence. He hated himself for doing it. He swore off lying to Annie after he lied to protect her from the sordidness of baseball parents who were trying to prevent him from saving the baseball field for the sandlot kids in town. He swore off lying a second time after he concealed from Annie that he was a suspect in Harold Salar’s murder. Now he found himself doing it again with Phillip and he couldn’t help himself. He also had enlisted Christy in his scheme by having him promise to keep quiet. He didn’t feel right about that either. David promised himself if things got really out of hand, he’d tell Annie everything. But hadn’t things gotten out of hand already?
“You need to be careful, David,” she implored. “Maybe you want to talk to our police up at town hall? You know, talk to Pete.” Pete McNeal was the chief of police in Indigo Valley and he was David’s friend.
David decided right then and there that he’d made the right call with Annie because that’s the last thing he wanted to do. For all he knew, the Indigo Valley Police Department was linked to the system too.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
“What about Phillip? Is he okay? Maybe we should invite him over for dinner to make sure he’s all right.”
“He’s fine,” David snapped and then added, more calmly, “He said he needs some down time.” David wanted to keep Phillip away from Annie, away from Christy too, until he figured out what was going on. The phone started to ring. Saved by the bell. The caller ID gave the phone number for Julius. “Annie, I have to take this call.”
“Okay. I’m going up to take a shower.”
As Annie turned back up the stairs, David picked up the phone. “Hi, Julius.”
“I think I figured out the identity of EC,” Julius blurted. “His initials are really DEC—Donald Ewen Cameron. He’s one of those guys who dropped his first name and went with his middle name. Go figure, because I’d take Donald over Ewen any day. What the heck type of name is Ewen anyway?”
“I don’t know. Scottish, maybe?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“How did you figure out DEC and EC are one and the same?”
“You gave me Montreal and Albany as clues. When I ran those two cities through our database coupled with some years from the 1940s, his name popped up in a 1948 loyalty investigation.”
“Who is this guy?”
“He was born and raised in Scotland, got his undergraduate degree and then M.D. with distinction from the University of Glasgow in 1924 and 1936. After getting his medical degree, he moved to Massachusetts to become director of the research division at Worcester State Hospital. In 1938 he moved to Albany, where he became a diplomate in psychiatry and a certified psychiatrist. From 1939 to 1943 he was a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Albany Medical College.”
“Okay, so what’s the connection between him and Kranston Prison and/or Boris Dietrich?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but I have a theory. In 1943, Cameron was invited to Montreal and became the first director of the Allan Memorial Institute, as well as the first chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University. He held that position for twenty-o
ne years until 1964. Now, while working in Montreal, he maintained a presence in the Albany area and commuted—”
“A daily commute? That’s over three hours each way nowadays!”
“No, no. From what I can tell by the report it might have been once a week or more. The agents asked about him at the Anchorage Motel at Rouses Point on Lake Champlain near the Canadian border. It seems he stayed there several times traveling between Albany or Lake Placid—where he had a house—and his Montreal apartment.”
“Why not just move to Canada?”
“He secured his United State’s citizenship in 1942 then moved to work in Montreal, Canada in 1943. Per the report, the Immigration and Naturalization Service advised him that if he failed to maintain a domicile in the USA by the end of 1948, he’d lose it. The report indicated that this citizenship was of utmost importance to him so he did everything necessary to maintain it.”
“So what’s the connection to Kranston?”
“You had to go through Kranston, the town, and past Kranston, the prison, to get from Montreal to Lake Placid or Albany during that time. It was before the construction of Interstate 87. So I imagine he stopped by that town a lot over the span of twenty-one years and made some friends or acquaintances. The report makes note of the fact that Cameron always drove a late model American-made car. A newer car makes sense for him, given all the mileage he was racking up back then. I imagine he was quite the sight rolling into Kranston—a backwater prison town—with a new car and a funky tweed suit he always reportedly wore. He must have gotten to know Boris Dietrich in his travels through Kranston and it sounds as if this guy Dietrich was probably employed by Kranston Prison somehow.”
“But the letters were sent to Dietrich at a Post Office address in Slateville, not to him at Kranston Prison, so we don’t really know for sure that he worked at Kranston Prison.”
“You’re right, I suppose, but why else were the letters found in a drawer at Kranston?”
“I don’t know. What did the FBI report conclude about Cameron?”
“Many neighbors, acquaintances, and colleagues were interviewed and Cameron was universally hailed as unquestionably loyal to the United States and of sound moral character.”
“Whatever happened to him?”
“He died in 1967 from a heart attack while hiking with his son near Lake Placid.”
“So three years after leaving Allan Memorial Institute in 1964, he’s dead. Why did he leave Allan Memorial Institute?”
“It’s not totally clear. I think he saw the end was coming to his research funding there and he wanted to move on. But he did leave abruptly and it was four years before his contract was due to expire.”
“Where did he go after Allan?”
“He went back to Albany again and became the Research Professor of Psychiatry at the Albany Medical School and Director of The Psychiatry and Aging Research Laboratories at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Albany. You know, it’s interesting that there seems to be this Albany-Montreal connection with one of Cameron’s colleagues and successors at McGill, as well. Heinz Lehmann became Deputy Commissioner in the Research Division of the New York State Bureau of Mental Health from 1981 to 1999, when he passed away. That position required regular commuting between Albany and Montreal too. Lehmann is often credited with being one of the first psychiatrists to discover the benefits of using antipsychotic pills. It seems he used them a lot.”
“That’s interesting,” mused David. “According to Dawkins, the Bureau of Mental Health manages the bug-outs in solitary. Lehmann would have been part of the system when Dawkins was incarcerated starting in 1985.”
“The system?”
“Yeah, the prison system. The letters sent to Boris Dietrich are postmark dated from 1964 to 1967, after Cameron left Allan. Did you run across Dietrich’s name in your research?”
“No, but I mainly just looked at the 1948 FBI report because that’s what you were interested in. I stumbled on the Lehmann connection on the internet.”
“What was Cameron researching anyway?”
“The FBI report didn’t touch on that point. The report predated his research and only focused on his loyalty. There was an update in his file in the 1960s that tracked him to his last position and to his death, but nothing about his research except for one thing. In his last job he was focused on rejuvenating memory by experimenting with a memory pill on old veterans.”
“You know, one of the earlier letters from Cameron said he was sorry that Dietrich had to stop, but he had become overzealous. I don’t know the context of the letter. Maybe Dietrich worked with the Allan Memorial Institute. Could you try and track down any record of Dietrich at Allan?”
“What’s this all about, Thompson? I mean I’ve already used FBI resources to help you out. I can’t continue to do this on bureau time without having to open a case file and talk to my boss.”
“Let’s just say my life is at risk here.” David didn’t feel he could tell Julius that Phillip had admitted to killing Officer Carlson because of the attorney-client privilege. Not that Julius would believe him anyway. David didn’t believe for a second that a seasoned FBI agent like Julius would easily accept the idea that New York State might have intentionally set a murderer free. “I can’t say any more at this point. You know something? I’ll look into Dietrich myself. Don’t worry about him. If you’ll just check your archives to see if the FBI had opened a file on the Dawkins murder of Carlson back in 1985. If there was one, check to see if you have any DNA evidence in the file. You shouldn’t have to open a new file just to check the archives.”
“Yeah, I suppose. But any file that old will be in the archives. If it exists, it might take some time before I can get my hands on it.”
“That’s fine. Do what you can. I really appreciate it.”
“Okay. I’ll call you back when I find out anything.”
“Thanks, Julius.”
When David hung up, the word “system” was dancing in his head from his conversation with Julius. He thought about Phillip’s theory that the system was out to get them both—one way or the other. It’s when the word “pill” joined the dance that David picked up the phone and dialed up Phillip at the motel.
“Hello,” a sleepy Phillip answered.
“Phillip, I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“You mentioned to me that you take a vitamin before you go to bed.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“But I’ve never bought you vitamins. Where did you get them?”
“They were in my suit jacket when I was released. I thought the prison pharmacist packed a supply up for me for the transition.”
“Stop taking them.”
“Why? I think I should take them. I took them in prison. They’re good for me.”
“You’re the one who lectured me about the system.”
“Yeah, so—”
“Don’t you get it? The state gave you those pills. If you think the system is trying to kill you, maybe it has something to do with those pills.”
“I never really thought about it that way. Like I said, I thought the vitamins were good for me. I couldn’t get a balanced meal in solitary. Many times it was just the loaf—three servings a day of a dense, tasteless bread—plus a side portion of raw cabbage. So they gave me a vitamin to take.”
“I’ll get you some real vitamins, Phillip. Promise me you won’t take any more of the ones they gave you, okay?”
“All right. You want me to throw them out?”
“No, I want to have them looked at. I’ll come over and get them in a half hour. What else did the state give you when you were released?”
“My red transistor radio and headphones.”
“Don’t use it.”
“Why not? I like to listen to the radio so I can fall asleep.”
“I’ll get you a new radio. You can use that one, all right?”
“It’s just a radio.”
“I
s it? How do you know?”
“Now you sound like the paranoid one.”
“Maybe so, but I want to have a look at the radio, too.”
“If you say so.”
“I do, Phillip. I’ll pick that up along with the vitamins in about thirty minutes.”
“Okay.”
As soon as David hung up, his phone started ringing. Johnny McFadden’s wireless phone number popped up on the caller ID. David picked up.
“Hey, Johnny,” David said.
“Are you okay? I saw what happened to the shop on the news this morning. Holy crap!”
“Yeah, we’re fine. A little shaken up. I need to thank you for the heads up. You probably saved our lives.”
“I never thought they’d come after you like that.”
“You said they were going to raid us, and they did.”
“I thought a few guys would come over and make your life difficult for a few hours max. I never thought they’d come with an army. I never thought they’d use that kind of force.”
“What the heck is going on, Johnny?”
“I don’t know. For every shift I work, I think my lifespan decreases by eight hours.”
“Phillip says it’s the system. I think he’s got a point.”
“Maybe, but don’t ever forget that he’s nuts.”
“Says who?”
“Says everyone I’ve talked to about him here.”
“Maybe you guys made him nuts.”
“Don’t throw me under the bus. I don’t work in solitary, okay?”
“You know who I mean.”
“David, you need to be careful of Dawkins. He’s crazy, like most of the guys in solitary. That’s all I have to say. I warned you about the raid and I was right. I’m warning you about Dawkins now.”
David knew Johnny was right about the raid. But he also knew that he was only half right. He didn’t know that the raid was a SWAT invasion that could have taken their lives. “Do you know what a tactical throwable camera is, Johnny?”
“Yeah, I saw one at the academy.”
“Well, they tossed this thing into the shop and we recorded its audio. It sounds like it’s saying, ‘Kill David Thompson.’”