By Reason of Insanity

by Shane Stevens

  “Ding, I want you to backtrack some of the people on the crime and the trial. Talk to a few, get some direct quotes. You know the game. Adam, you handle the twelve years in the death house and the execution.”

  “What about our other work?”

  “Finish what you can today and drop the rest back a week. I’ll talk to Daniels in Assignment. Any other questions?”

  Ding ponderously struggled forward in his chair. “Just one,” he said softly.

  Lavery, knowing the man, waited expectantly.

  “This Chessman story will come down pretty hard on capital punishment. He didn’t kill, he didn’t kidnap as we know it today, and he spent a short lifetime dying a little every day.”

  “So?”

  “So what do we do for the other side?”

  Lavery allowed himself a big smile. “That’s easy,” he said quickly. “When the next real nut comes along, we’ll scream bloody murder for fast execution. Society must be protected.”

  He stood up. “Anything else?”

  At about the same time as the briefing in Los Angeles, another meeting dealing with life and death was taking place in a California town some six hundred miles north of the movie capital. Hillside had grown rapidly after World War II, going from a sleepy hamlet of a few thousand peaceful souls to a full-fledged city of 35,000 lawful and scheming individuals. With it came industry, unemployment, delinquency and crime. Where once fertile fields at the town’s southern edge gave an unobstructed view of the far horizon, now rows of claptrap housing and murky warehouses framed the area in commercial squalor. Like many such towns newly sprung from old traditions, Hillside had its tensions between early settlers and latecomers, between the north side and the south side, between well-to-do and destitute and, as anywhere, between young and old.

  Over the years the city fathers had tried their best to cope with the growth pains, and while nobody accepted all the solutions, almost everybody agreed on the problems. On a sun-drenched June morning Lieutenant John Spanner of the Hillside Police Department discussed some of the more recent problems with his men.

  Spanner, newly back from a fishing vacation that had given him renewed interest in life, was still a small-town cop at heart. Coming out of the army after the war, he returned to his hometown and joined the police force when it was just a five-man operation. With trepidation and some alarm he watched the town grow until now, as the number two man in the department, he rode in the cars with flashing lights and sophisticated communications, and routinely sent fingerprints to Washington and blood samples to laboratories and computer printouts to metropolitan centers.

  Yet he still believed in the personal approach to police work, the individual touch, the friendly hand and the stern lecture, the slow, steady gathering of evidence from many sources until an assumption became a conclusion. At fifty-five, with too many years on the job and a lifetime of watching people, Spanner knew that they usually operated from hidden motives not easily seen, often not even by themselves. What was needed for good police work was patience and imagination and the steady buildup of seemingly inconsequential facts.

  He constantly tried to get his men to see the truth, and on this particular morning he pointed out that the shooting on Redwood Road might be the result of a love triangle, since the husband was frequently away on business; that the series of amateurish house burglaries on the south side could be the work of an addict desperately seeking drug money; that the recent wave of muggings might come from a juvenile gang forming in the area. All would require patient checking, he told them, and a lot of legwork. Two of the younger cops, aware of his fine record of convictions but still addicted to the idea of guns and forced confessions, looked at each other in mock dismay. The lieutenant was at it again.

  Seven miles south of Hillside but still in the town’s jurisdiction, in a state hospital for the criminally insane referred to by townspeople simply as the Willows, two young men went about their normal routine. For one of them, however, there was an addition to the routine, a visit to a clump of bushes on the east lawn behind the main building. His hands hurriedly dug into the soft ground, soon unearthing a rusted tool. Two months earlier he had found it in almost the same spot, left by some forgetful gardener. Relieved, he slipped the tool inside the laundry he carried and returned to his ward, where he put it in the lockbox under his bed. Then he went back to waiting.

  Three days later his wait was over. The rain began precisely at 4:55 P.M. on July 3. By evening the fluke thunderstorm had drowned the land, making a marsh of the grounds around the buildings. Water invaded everything, flooded drainpipes, ran down walls, entered hidden cracks in the foundation. Inside, wetness clung to the skin and men sat in elemental fear of nature’s attack. Looking out at the terrifying night, Thomas Bishop knew that his time had come.

  Earlier he had informed Vincent Mungo that they would be leaving now, this very night. At his insistence they had exchanged a set of uniforms that they were to wear in the escape. Mungo was told only that it would help confuse their captors. He was also told where he would be met at the appointed hour.

  Midnight came and went, and Bishop lay on his bed preparing himself for the long journey ahead. He felt no sense of excitement. In his mind he knew what must be done, what he was destined to do. Every few minutes he glanced at his watch. At 12:15 he reached under the bed and pulled out the lockbox. Mentally he ran over the contents: a jacket, some books, his extra clothes, a pair of shoes, a few other things of no importance. He took out the jacket, it would be some protection in the rain. Then he took out the axe, rusted but still sharp. He held it in his hand a moment before sticking it in his pants under the belt. Finally he checked his pockets. He was wearing Mungo’s uniform and he had everything he needed. He was ready.

  At 12:30 Bishop walked away from his home for the last time, past sleeping men dreaming impossible dreams. Stealthily he opened the door to the ward, softly so the night guard in the hail office would not hear. Snaking through, he crept toward the door to the stairs. Again he passed through noiselessly.

  On the stairs he quickly climbed to the second floor. Mungo was waiting. In silence they hurried up a final flight leading to the roof. Suddenly Mungo pointed to a huge metal door directly in front of them. In whispers Bishop told him that the door was unlocked from the inside, it would open. All they had to do was get past the alarm system.

  From a pocket he carefully removed an aerosol spray can, holding it tightly in both hands. He pressed off the cap. Slowly, methodically, he saturated the alarm box on the door jamb with whipped cream. Thick, heavy, glutinous cream oozed everywhere. Mungo, next to him, watched in childlike fascination. The can was empty before he stopped.

  A moment later, after a few healthy shoves, the metal door opened, noiselessly, silently. A quick push outward and they were on the roof. In the rain.

  Bishop closed the metal door carefully, listening for the snap of the lock that sealed it from the outside. There would be no turning back. Then he walked across the flat roof to the edge and peered over. He saw what he had expected. Below was a sea of mud—dirty, slimy, but also soft enough to cushion their fall. He motioned to his partner to jump.

  “I can’t,” Mungo shouted at him above the crashing of the rain. “It’s too high. I’m afraid.” Bishop glared at him. “It’s too high,” Mungo repeated, whimpering. Bishop nodded to himself. Now was the time, it had to be now. He reached out for Mungo, took him by the arm to the edge, reassuring him, talking calmly to him. It’s only a short drop and the ground is soft, that’s why we waited for rain, see? All you do is hang over the side and let yourself drop. There’s nothing to it. You want to be free, don’t you? This is your chance. Just hang over the edge and drop down. There’s nothing to it. You want to be free, don’t you?

  Little by little he talked Mungo back to the edge. It was taking time and Bishop had no time to waste. Slowly, slowly he got Mungo to ease himself over the side, first one leg, that’s it, then the other, good. As he did so
Mungo looked down at the ground below. It still seemed awfully far. Suspended in air, hanging by his arms from a roof, soaking wet and frightened, Vincent Mungo turned his gaze upward for a last reassurance from his friend.

  He froze in horror. High over his head the great axe arced downward like an avenging demon. It broke through his forehead, splitting his skull almost to the jawbone, spilling brain and blood everywhere. The eyes died a split second before the rest of him. There was no scream as the lifeless body fell to earth.

  Landing nearby, Bishop set about the grim task, his axe rising and falling with insane fury. Again and again he hacked away at the head, crashing through nose and mouth and ear until only bits of indistinguishable bone were left. Blow after blow breaking bone, smashing skull, mutilating all till nothing was left that had been human.

  Only then was Bishop satisfied. Breathing heavily, he rested a moment before checking the pockets. He found nothing. He put his harmonica in the right rear pocket, his comb in the shirt. Straightening up, he surveyed his work. With the face gone, the height and weight were his. The body wore his clothes, with his name sewn in each garment. It held his harmonica and comb, both distinctive. He paused. Only two things still to do.

  Carefully he took out a frayed wallet, shielding it from the rain. Inside was a picture of his mother that he had carried around for fifteen years, one that all the attendants had seen many times. He stooped over the body and shoved the wallet in the left rear pocket.

  Then he took his axe to the body again and calmly chopped off the right index finger at the knuckle. After letting the blood drip for a moment he placed the finger in an empty cigarette pack he had found earlier and put it in his jacket. Finally he ran off across the south lawn, shrouded in a driving rain, toward the big gray wall a hundred yards away, and escape.

  The direction in which he ran was far removed from the main entrance, with its huge iron gates and sentry boxes always manned by guards. The hospital had originally been built on a hill, the landscape gently rolling down to the surrounding walls. To prevent flooding, a drain had long ago been dug under the south lawn to carry off excess water to a nearby creek. Years before, Bishop had accidentally discovered where the drain sluiced under the south wall, and he had safely lodged it in his memory.

  Now at the spot, he scurried through the underbrush, frantically seeking where the ground gave way. On his hands and knees he stumbled down the embankment until he came to the wall. A wiremesh fence had been installed across the drain under the wall. He wanted to scream. He couldn’t go back and he couldn’t go ahead. What to do, what to do? He looked around helplessly for a moment, a solitary figure in a watery grave. No, he would not go back. He didn’t know how to swim, had never been in water in his life, but he would not go back. Making his decision, he leaped into the rushing water and sank below.

  In the water he opened his eyes. They burned fiercely. Ahead, dim and murky, he saw the fence. The bottom was about a foot above the bed of the drain. Hysterical now, panic setting in, he clawed his way along the bottom of the drain and pushed his body under the fence. It would not fit. With his last strength he turned over on his back and squeezed his body through. Lungs bursting, he pushed himself upward. A second later his head bobbed to the surface on the other side of the wall. He was free.

  Gasping, he fought his way to the water’s edge and hurled himself onto the slope. After a long while he fumbled to his feet and continued on his way. He was finally free, and he would stay free; of that he was sure. The escape would not be discovered before morning; by then he would be far away and lost in civilization. All he needed was a quick change of clothes and some money, easy enough to get on a big holiday when people went visiting and left houses unattended. After all, it was July Fourth.

  First he would hide the axe in the woods where no one would ever find it. He would bury his watch and ring. Once he got clothes he would burn the uniform. In new clothes he would be just another man, free to go where he wanted. They would be looking for a maniac named Vincent Mungo, who would probably be wearing a birthstone ring and a silver watch. He didn’t wear a ring or a watch. And he looked nothing like Vincent Mungo.

  Seized with a wild joy, Thomas William Bishop set out on a new life and what he believed to be his life’s work.

  What he had left behind in his old life was discovered at exactly 6:14 that morning. At 6:29 Dr. Henry Baylor, director of Willows State Hospital, was awakened by his wife, who talked of an urgent telephone call. Now, at 8:30 on the morning of a hospital holiday, Dr. Baylor sat in his spacious office in the administration building ruminating possible legal complications. The brutal murder appalled him, gave him a feeling of helplessness in the face of overwhelming evil. Yet as a psychiatrist he knew better than to indulge in prolonged emotional binges.

  It was the escape that was more worrisome to the administrator in him. Escape always meant outside authorities, which invariably led to a certain amount of disorder. In such an institution as his, disorder could quickly become chaos. The thought made him shudder. He hated disorder.

  Across the desk the chief of staff glanced nervously at his watch. Only two hours and already he felt years older. Nine years, almost ten, he had been at Willows, three of them as chief of staff. Good years, all of them, with good work done. Now this, and on July 4. He wondered why that should have meaning for him.

  When the guard had called him in his bedroom in the staff wing he hadn’t understood at first what was being said. Something about mother, somebody’s mother. He had asked the guard to repeat the message. Even then the enormity of the matter had escaped him for some seconds.

  Hurriedly dressing, he had literally run on the still wet ground to the experimental building and around the side. One look had sickened him. A doctor for twentyfive years, he had never seen anything like that. Leaving the guard holding the few possessions taken from the body, he had returned to his room and telephoned the director. Looking at Baylor now he wondered what he was thinking.

  Since his arrival Dr. Baylor had found out what he could, what he needed to know for the authorities. He had questioned the guard who discovered the body, the guard at the main gate, and the available attendants in the building. The dead man was Thomas Bishop, who had committed matricide at age ten and was regarded as still having homicidal tendencies. The escapee was Vincent Mungo, a recent transfer patient who had shown violent traits. Seated now at his desk, waiting for what he already knew he would find disagreeable, Dr. Baylor sighed inwardly. With all we know of the mind, he reflected, we still can’t even predict behavior. The thought depressed him further.

  In the reception hall a middle-aged man in civilian clothes, still tanned, introduced himself to the nurse at the booth, who directed him to Baylor’s office. A moment later he was opening an oak door. “I’m Lieutenant Spanner,” he said politely to the woman behind the desk. “From Hillside? Doctor Baylor is expecting me.”

  The woman stopped her work and entered a door on her right, closing it behind her, while Spanner surveyed the room with a professional eye. In a moment she returned with a water pitcher, leaving the door open for him. The lieutenant smiled in thanks and entered the office. At the other end of the room Dr. Baylor rose to greet him.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant.”

  “Doctor Baylor.”

  As they shook hands Spanner noted the several objects on the desk that didn’t seem to belong there. He wished people would leave things alone at the scene of a homicide.

  Fifteen miles away a police car was screaming down the highway toward Willows. Weaving in and out across two lanes, it passed cars and tractor trailers with equal abandon. In the jump seat sat James T. Oates of the California Sheriff’s Office. Big, blond and immensely affable, Sheriff Oates was a cigar-chomping, gum-chewing, plainspoken man of political ambition whose intellect was often hidden behind his gruff manner. At this moment he was on his way to investigate an escape at the state hospital and he didn’t intend to let anything get between him and
his duty.

  “Goddam it, Earl. Swing round that bus.”

  Earl turned to him. “But it’s a school bus in the wrong lane, Jim.”

  “Well, what you gonna do,” Oates wheezed in exasperation, “stop and give it a ticket? Swing round it.”

  The driver spat out an expletive and swung the car over into the right lane. Jamming the accelerator down, he zoomed past the bus and quickly doubled back into the fast lane with only inches to spare.

  Oates looked at him silently for a while.

  “That’s better, boy,” he said finally.

  Twelve minutes later they turned into the main entrance and Earl cut the siren. At the administrative building Oates jumped out and bustled up the steps. Inside he raced over to the reception booth. “Where’s Baylor?” he barked, cigar clamped in mouth.

  “Doctor Baylor’s office is down the hall on the right,” replied the nurse icily, but by the time she had finished he was already gone.

  At the end of the hall he stopped, mystified, then quickly retraced his steps. Two doors back he turned a knob and walked in. “This Baylor’s office?”

  Unperturbed, the woman glanced up at him. “He’s in conference now,” she said sweetly.

  “Who’s in there?”

  “A Lieutenant Spanner, I believe.”

  The sheriff let out a grunt. “John Spanner from Hillside?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, already out the door. “Tell them I’m here.”

  Rushing out of the building, he took the steps two at a time. Earl was sitting at the wheel. When he saw the sheriff approach he threw his cigarette out the window.

  Oates leaned into the car. “John Spanner’s inside already, goddam it.”

  Earl frowned. “What’s he doing here?”

  “The murder’s in his jurisdiction.” The sheriff was exasperated again. “You go look at the body. Then I want you to talk to everybody you can, find out what the hell happened around here. I wanna know everything Spanner knows.”