By Reason of Insanity

by Shane Stevens

  SOME TWENTY hours later Senator Stoner flew out of St. Louis on a silver jet bound for San Francisco and home. He was a bit weary and would be glad to get back. His trip had been an immense success by all standards of publicity and political promise. Even Roger, the perennial pessimist, had to agree he was a smash.

  Stoner wondered if now was the time to get rid of Roger. Lately he was spending most of his hours ingratiating himself with the right people instead of working on them in the senator’s behalf. Besides, the operation now needed a chief of staff who had some national stature. Like Tom Donaldson of Chicago.

  He would have to give that serious thought.

  KENTON WAS impatient. The drawing of Thomas Bishop wouldn’t arrive until the following day, Friday. But at least he could get something from the stringers in Red Bluff. They had spent an entire afternoon and evening in Justin talking to the locals. What had they learned? Sara Bishop was well remembered by many people. A strange woman, not too balanced, maybe a bit sick in the head. Very aloof, frightened of everyone, even hostile. Especially to the men. Kept the boy tied to her. Beat him often, probably whipped him. Burned him too. Everybody knew that. Sometimes the boy would be home from school for a week because of the beatings or burns.

  One day the boy killed his mother. Got her unconscious somehow and put her in the wood stove. Fried her till there was nothing left but bones. When the police came the boy was sitting in front of the stove, full of cuts and dried blood. In his hand was a piece of charred flesh he had been eating—

  What?

  A piece of charred flesh he was eating. Near as they could figure it, he’d been there about three days. Just sitting in front of that dead stove, the fire long gone. The local authorities said only that the mother had died, but everyone in town knew what happened. And apparently no one was surprised either.

  What about the boy?

  Naturally they figured him for crazy so they sent him to Willows, which was the closest state mental hospital. Also, it had a separate section for killer kids.

  What happened to the house and the mother’s possessions?

  The house was closed up, nobody wanted to live in it. Eventually it was sold to newcomers. Some of the stuff was taken by a woman in town who had been the mother’s only friend. She kept it all in boxes, and when she died some of it was auctioned off by a nephew who’d inherited the woman’s home. He still lived there. Far as he knew, about the only things left from that time were a couple cartons of books and junk that he kept in a back shed.

  Kenton wanted them to go through the cartons. Looking for any pictures or letters or diaries or papers of any kind. Anything personal about the Bishop woman and the boy. If the nephew had a list of the people who bought any of her things at the auction, they should be questioned too.

  Red Bluff would reluctantly return to Justin on Sunday. Meanwhile Kenton would receive their typed report.

  He rang Fred Grimes. By Monday he needed pictures of all the twenty-seven suspects being investigated. Pictures by Monday, not later. They should get on that right away, even sooner.

  John Perrone called to give him the go-ahead on the Stoner article. Dunlop agreed they had enough. The tape and notes were on the way back to him.

  With Bishop in the works, Kenton turned to Stoner. He could see nothing but trouble ahead, and he wondered if Martin Dunlop really expected to cut all references to Western Holding in the story. It was either that or sell all investments in the Idaho combine.

  Kenton knew which one he would strongly advise.

  IN HILLSIDE, John Spanner mulled over the information he had just been given. The Newstime reporter had commissioned a special drawing of Thomas Bishop, a memory composite of eyewitness descriptions, to be done by a former police artist in San Francisco. Which meant that somebody else thought Bishop might be the Willows maniac.

  If asked, Spanner would help all he could. He suddenly felt more alive than he had in months.

  THE LINE at the parcel post window was longer than usual for a Friday morning, and the clerks could be heard grumbling in raspy voices. The young bearded man held his package tightly with both hands and moved forward slowly with the line. On the bulletin board against the nearby wall were printed notices of one kind or another, many of them in English and Spanish. He read some of them to while away the time. Most were concerned with various official post office regulations, and he found all of them incomprehensible. Soon he was second in line, and then first.

  He walked up to the windowed ledge and pushed his package forward.

  “Nothing breakable,” he told the clerk. “Just some soft toys.”

  THE COMPOSITE came in the morning mail, heavily encased in cardboard and tape. Kenton slashed open the protective covering with a scissors edge and pulled out the drawing. On the desk next to it he placed the standard police photo of Vincent Mungo.

  They were like night and day.

  Not a shred of similarity in face or eyes or even skin. Mungo was dark, almost swarthy, and slightly menacing. His eyes seemed to be dull reflectors pulled over empty sockets. The lips were full, the nose oversized. Bishop was fair, with finely chiseled features and smooth skin and crystal-clear eyes. The lips were thin, the nose sculptured in the classic Anglo-Saxon mold. He looked as innocent as an uncrushed egg.

  One could never be mistaken for the other, even by someone stone blind. Kenton immediately saw how Bishop was able to travel so freely across the country. He was automatically passed over a thousand times by watchful eyes seeking anyone who remotely resembled Vincent Mungo. With Bishop there wouldn’t be a shimmer of suspicion.

  Kenton saw something else too, though not immediately. How much Vincent Mungo looked like—Caryl Chessman.

  He put the two faces in the safe to await Monday’s arrival of the local pictures.

  In the mail he also found the death notice of Sara Bishop from the Justin weekly paper. It was brief and contained no surprises. He placed it in the new folder marked Bishop.

  Time was running out and yet nothing more could be done until Monday. He was banking everything on coming up with Bishop’s new face and identity in the search of mail-drop clients. If that didn’t work out, he was through. He had lost. There would be nothing else to do and no time to do it. But he was a winner, not a loser. Bishop’s face would be there, staring up at him. Complete with a name and address. He had come too far to be fooled now. He alone knew his man was Bishop, not suspected it, like Spanner and others. He knew it. Knew how it was planned and how it was done. Knew how Bishop thought and what he felt. All the twists of mind and turns of fate that brought him three thousand miles to New York. Brought both of them all the way to New York. And destiny.

  Kenton had run with the fox. And with the tiger too. Over the weekend he would work on the Stoner piece. He was hungry for blood.

  AT 6:30 that evening a bearded young man bought the latest issue of True Detective at a downtown newsstand. The cover promised assorted murders and mayhem and the photograph showed the usual beautiful female in distress. Minutes later, the magazine under his arm, Bishop walked into a restaurant on Spring Street. It was a busy time and no one paid him special attention. He sat at a small table toward the rear. The magazine was placed conspicuously at the table’s edge, its cover showing.

  As he drank his coffee a young woman entered the restaurant, her manner uncertain, her eyes seeming to search. Soon she was at his table.

  “Are you the photographer I’m supposed to meet here?”

  Bishop looked up, nodded. His smile was electric.

  “I’m Helena. We talked on the phone before.”

  He rose slightly and offered her the chair opposite him.

  “Helena. How nice to meet you. I’m Jay Cooper and I have this rush job …”

  SUNDAY NIGHT was Dory’s turn to work the bar, and by the time she finished her shift she was tired. Her feet hurt, her legs hurt, even her crotch hurt. From overwork, she thought meanly, blaming all her ills on the man she was living wi
th. Damn that Johnny Messick anyway. Didn’t he ever get tired of it? She pictured herself going home and falling into bed. He’d be on her before she could turn over. Nothing would stop him either. If she said she had a headache, he told her to shut her eyes. If she was too tired to move, he used her body stonestill. And he never let up on the sex. Sometimes she really believed he was a little sick in the head somewhere. But at least she had a nice place to stay and a car and she didn’t have to work her ass off more than twice a week instead of the usual five or six days straight. It paid to let the boss stick it in. If somebody had to, get the boss and the bread. Only, Christ! he overdid it all by himself. A year of him and she’d have nothing left to give the next boss.

  At the car she fumbled for the keys and didn’t notice the two men until they were on her. The one with the gun shoved her in the front seat, they climbed in around her. She was not to scream, not to say anything. They just wanted her to listen for a minute. She lived with John Messick. He had a letter they wanted. The letter was signed “Don Solis.” Maybe the name was on the envelope. Maybe the envelope was sealed. Maybe there was no envelope. What she had to remember was the name. Don Solis. Papers with that name written somewhere. If she could get that letter they would pay her ten thousand dollars.

  Ten thousand! Just to give them a letter or help them get it. Messick probably kept it somewhere in the house. He wouldn’t put it in a safedeposit box, in case anything suddenly happened to him. And he wouldn’t hand it to someone else since it wasn’t really his. But they had to be sure.

  Did he have a safe at home? Maybe in a wall or inside a desk. Or maybe in his office in the bar. She should keep her eyes open. Even if she couldn’t get the letter herself, if she found out where it was, she would still get the money. Provided they could get to it. But it had to be done fast. She worked again on Tuesday night. They would see her then. If she crossed them, if she told Messick or anyone, they would hurt her. But she had nothing to worry about if she did what they said. And she’d have ten grand for herself.

  Dory was scared. As she drove home her hands shook and her teeth ached. She was also thinking furiously. Ten thousand dollars. She had never had that kind of money. At age twenty-one she had never even seen that much. With ten thousand she could do anything, go anywhere. Go far away.

  IT WAS ten o’clock Monday morning before Fred Grimes got the pictures from the detective agency, twentythree in all. Four others were still being processed and would be delivered later. It had been a costly operation, said the agency manager, very costly, but.

  Grimes nodded. At this point cost was not a consideration. Kenton was on unlimited company funds, and Grimes just paid the bills. In cash.

  By 10:30 Kenton was comparing each photograph with the drawing. Most were tight close-ups taken with a telephoto lens, as had been requested. One by one they were studied, examined, scrutinized. One by one they were rejected. At the end, only three remained possibilities. All wore beards.

  He turned to the reports on the three. One of them lived with his parents and ran a mail-order business from a home workshop. The mail drop was the business address, a changeover from an earlier drop, which had closed when the elderly owner died. Another was a young married man who apparently carried on correspondence affairs with males in other cities. He had received about a dozen such letters since opening the rental box, as well as several magazines that listed names of similar-minded people, who were initially reached through letters sent to the magazine and forwarded. For a fee of course.

  Neither man was Thomas Bishop.

  The third was of more interest. Age twentyfive, lived alone in a downtown tenement. Claimed to be an artist of sorts, no visible means of support. In town about a month. Previous address: Venice, Florida. Name: Curtis Manning.

  Kenton told Grimes to have the agency check Manning out with Florida right away. The particulars of his leaving there, and a picture. He wanted it by the morning.

  When would the last four photos be ready?

  Early afternoon.

  One possibility out of twentythree. And only four more to go. Kenton decided not to panic yet.

  IN THE Daily News building on East 42nd Street the package arrived in the mail room and was routinely sent upstairs to the seventh-floor editorial offices, since it was addressed to the Editor. There an editorial assistant opened it because no individual name was specified. Under the wrapping was a white cake box. A rubber band held the cover down. The editorial assistant removed the rubber band and lifted the cover. Her split-second impression was that they were some strange little cakes or—

  As her hand automatically reached into the box, the scream had already begun somewhere deep in her throat …

  JOHNNY MESSICK slowly awakened to the most wonderful feeling all over his body. For a moment he thought he might be in heaven and he wondered how he had made it. He slowly opened his eyes, not daring to move. As focus returned he saw Dory’s head bobbing up and down in front of him. She was kneeling between his legs, facing him. Her silky hair brushed against his belly. Goddam! She was giving him a blow job, and just the way he liked it too. Waking up to it. She hadn’t done that since the first few weeks they got together. He closed his eyes and relaxed, trying not to think of anything.

  Dory had made herself wake up before him. She had given him sweet sex the night before, tired as she was, without complaints, with much forced passion. Lulled him to sleep with the soft syrupy slurping of body on body. And now this. She slid her tongue along the shaft of his penis to the head, then pursed her lips over the crown, tightening them as she accepted him fully into her mouth. Slowly she ran her taut lips up and down the stem, holding the skin back with her thumb and index finger. As she worked her movements into a rhythm she could already begin feeling the tightening of the scrotum, which would soon send the milky white substance shooting into her waiting mouth.

  At least he came quicker than some others she had known in her young life. Which was a blessing, Dory thought wearily, as his breathing grew heavier. But fast or slow, she would make him so mellow he would tell her anything she wanted to know. And what she wanted to know was worth ten thousand dollars.

  The thought excited her so much she forgot to close her throat muscles as his sperm slammed into her tonsils and sluiced down past pink tissue and all recall.

  IT WAS 12:30 when the news came through from Red Bluff. They sounded excited, both literally talking at the same time. Most of Sunday had been spent in Justin. The nephew had been very cooperative, allowing them to browse through the cartons in the shed at their leisure.

  First they found the usual household junk, all of which could have belonged to anybody. Kitchen utensils, old clothes and linen, a few rusted tools, a Strongboy leather strap, well worn. Stuff like that. A lot of books too, mostly all yellowed with age and falling apart. After a while they looked among the books and found some handwritten notes on sewing, a child’s school notebook, a few drawings. And plenty of papers with figures added up, like somebody going over what money was left.

  Finally they came to a book called The Face of Justice by Caryl Chessman—

  Kenton’s heart quickened.

  —and inside the book were about a dozen pages folded in half, all of them filled with writing about a young girl growing up and all the things that went wrong in her life—

  Had she been raped?

  More than once, it seemed.

  Did she name Caryl Chessman?

  She talked a lot about him.

  Was there someone called Harry Owens?

  He was the guy she married.

  Kenton knew the author, though he had never met her. It was Sara Owens, mother of Thomas Bishop.

  He had found the Chessman connection. The last link, the final piece of the puzzle. It was just as he knew it would be. Through the parents. Except he had thought it was the father, by way of Don Solis. But it had been the mother all along. Sara Bishop Owens.

  He told Red Bluff to send him the pages immediat
ely. Also the other writings. One of them was to go back to Justin and buy the cartons from the nephew and send them on to New York too. And they were not to mention their assignment to anybody. That meant nobody.

  The fox looked around the empty office. Slowly he changed back into the hound.

  INSPECTOR ALEX DIMITRI stared at the female parts in the box. From at least two women, as near as he could tell, maybe more. How the devil could anybody tell? He rubbed his eyes, trying to pull himself together. He had three daughters of his own.

  There was no note, just a name scrawled on the box.

  Chess Man.

  Two questions concerned him at the moment. Did they come from women already found? Parts had been taken from the bodies, so it was possible. But somehow he doubted that. Then where were the new victims? In their homes, not yet discovered? Or—

  He suddenly was chilled to the bone. If Chess Man had a secret place where he not only lived undisturbed but to which he could bring victims unnoticed, he was practically invisible. A rat in a hole. A bat in a cave. He could go on forever storing bodies away. Cutting them up for packages or maybe Christmas gifts—

  Dimitri felt his own sanity slipping away. The boys were right. There was no way the maniac would ever reach a courtroom. He was too dangerous. And not just because of what he was doing. But he touched the insanity in everyone, he fed it. Fed the monster that was in each person from the very beginning, that had been pushed down over millions of years but was always and forever waiting to be released.

  The inspector closed the cover on the cake box. He hoped the forensic people would come soon.

  KENTON HEARD the news of Chess Man’s latest mailing at 1:20, a call from a Daily News friend. At 1:50 he was given the last four photographs from the mail-drop investigation. Four young white men, one of them bearded, all of them clean-cut and strong-eyed. Typical American youth.