“I suppose,” Monica said, sighing.
“Sure. Only there were no signs of a fight. And nothing had been stolen. A prostitute would at least have nicked the cash, if not the victim’s jewelry, credit cards, and so forth.”
“Maybe she was drugged or doped up.”
“And carefully wiped away all her fingerprints? Not very probable. Especially after the second murder in March. A guy named Frederick Wolheim. At the Hotel Pierce. Same MO. Throat slashed. No signs of a struggle. Nothing stolen.”
“The paper said the victims were mutilated,” Monica said in a small voice.
“Yes,” Delaney said flatly. “Stabbed in the genitals. Many times. While they were dying or after they were dead.”
His wife was silent.
“Black nylon hairs were found,” Delaney continued. “From a wig. Now the prostitute theory was dropped, and it was figured the killer was a homosexual, maybe a transvestite.”
“Women wear wigs, too. More than men.”
“Of course. Also, the weapon used, a short-bladed knife, probably a pocket knife, is a woman’s weapon. It could still figure as a female, but the cops were going by probabilities. There’s no modern history of a psychopathic female murderer who selected victims at random and killed for no apparent reason. Lots of male butchers; no female.”
“But why does it have to be a homosexual? Why not just a man?”
“Because the victims were found naked. So Lieutenant Slavin started hassling the gays, rousting their bars, pulling in the ones with sheets, criminal records. The results have been nil. After the third murder, it was determined the killer was five-five to five-seven. That could be a shortish man.”
“Or a tall woman.”
“Yes. No hard evidence either way. But the hunt is still on for a male killer.”
She looked up at him again.
“But you think it’s a woman?”
“Yes, I do.”
“A prostitute?”
“No. A psychopathic woman. Killing for crazy reasons that maybe don’t even make sense to her. But she’s forced to kill.”
“I don’t believe it,” Monica said firmly.
“Why not?”
“A woman couldn’t do things like that.”
He had anticipated a subjective answer and had vowed not to lose his temper. He had prepared his reply:
“Are you saying a woman would not be capable of such bloody violence?”
“That’s correct. Once maybe. A murder of passion. From jealousy or revenge or hate. But not a series of killings of strangers for no reason.”
“A few weeks ago we were talking about child abuse. You agreed that in half the cases, and probably more, the mother was the aggressor. Holding her child’s hand over an open flame or tossing her infant into scalding water.”
“Edward, that’s different!”
“How different? Where’s the crime of passion there? Where’s the motive of jealousy or revenge or hate?”
“The woman child abuser is under tremendous pressure. She was probably abused herself as a child. Now she’s locked into a life without hope. Made into a drudge. The poor child is the nearest target. She can’t hold her husband’s hand over a flame, as she’d like to, so she takes out all her misery and frustration on her child.”
He made a snorting sound. “A very facile explanation, but hardly a justification for maiming an infant. But forget about motives for a minute. Right now I’m not interested in motives. All I’m trying to do is convince you that women are capable of mindless, bloody violence, just like men.”
She was silent, hands gripping the needles and wool on her lap. Her lips were pressed to thinness, her face stretched tight. Delaney knew that taut look well, but he plunged ahead.
“You know your history,” he said. “Women haven’t always been the subdued, demure, gentle, feminine creatures that art and literature make them out to be. They’ve been soldiers, hard fighters, cruel and bitter foes in many tribes and nations. Still are, in a lot of places on the globe. It used to be that the worst thing that could happen to a captured warrior was to be turned over to the women of the conquering army. I won’t go into the details of his fate.”
“What’s your point?” she snapped.
“Just that there’s nothing inherent in women, nothing in their genes or instincts that would prevent them from becoming vicious killers of strangers if they were driven to it, if they were victims of desires and lusts they couldn’t control. As a matter of fact, I would guess they’d be more prone to violence of that kind than men.”
“That’s the most sexist remark I’ve ever heard you make.”
“Sexist,” he said with a short laugh. “I was wondering how long it would take you to get around to that. The knee-jerk reaction. Any opinion that even suggests women might be less than perfect gets the ‘sexist’ label. Are you saying that women really are the mild, ladylike, ineffectual Galateas that you always claimed men had created by prejudice and discrimination?”
“I’m not saying anything of the kind. Women haven’t developed their full potential because of male attitudes. But that potential doesn’t include becoming mass killers. Women could have done that anytime, but they didn’t. You said yourself that was the reason the police are looking for a male Hotel Ripper. Because there’s no precedent for women being guilty of such crimes.”
He looked at her thoughtfully, putting a fingertip to his lips.
“I just had a wild thought,” he said. “It’s got nothing to do with what we’ve been talking about, but maybe men did their best to keep women subjugated because they were afraid of them. Physically afraid. Maybe it was a matter of self-preservation.”
“You’re impossible!” she cried.
“Could be,” he said, shrugging. “But to get back to what I was saying, will you agree women have the emotional and physical capabilities of being mass killers? That there is nothing in the female psyche that would rule against it? There have been women who killed many times, usually from greed, and they have always been acquainted with their victims. Now I’m asking you to make one small step from that and admit that women would be capable of killing strangers for no apparent reason.”
“No,” she said definitely, “I don’t believe they could do that. You said yourself there are no prior cases. No Daughters of Sam.”
“Right,” he agreed. “The percentages are against it. That’s why, right now, Slavin and Boone and all their men are looking for a male Hotel Ripper. But I think they’re wrong.”
“Just because you believe women are capable of murder?”
“That, plus the woman’s weapon used in the murders, plus the absence of any signs of a fight, plus the fact that apparently heterosexual victims were found naked, plus the wig hairs, plus the estimated height of the killer. And plus something else.”
“What’s that?” she said suspiciously.
“One of the things I checked when Boone told me about the first two murders was the day of the month they had been committed. I thought there might be a connection with the full moon. You know how crime rates soar when the moon is full.”
“Was there a connection?”
“No. And the third killing had no connection either. Then I looked at the intervals between the three murders. Twenty-six days between the first and second, and between the second and the third. Does that suggest anything to you?”
She didn’t answer.
“Sure it does,” he said gently. “Twenty-six days is a fair average for a woman’s menstrual period. I checked it in your guide to gynecology.”
“My God, Edward, you call that evidence?”
“By itself? Not much, I admit. But added to all the other things, it begins to make a pattern: a psychopathic female whose crimes are triggered by her monthly periods.”
“But killing strangers? I still don’t believe it. And you keep saying the percentages are against it.”
“Wait,” he said, “there’s more.”
H
e leaned down, picked up a stack of papers from the floor. He held them on his lap. He donned his reading glasses, began to flip through the pages.
“This may take a little time,” he said, looking up at her. “Would you like a drink of anything?”
“Thank you, no,” she said stiffly.
He nodded, went back to his shuffling until he found the page he wanted. Then he sat back.
“The probabilities are against it,” he agreed. “I admit that. Going by experience, Slavin is doing exactly right in looking for a male killer. But it occurred to me that maybe the percentages are wrong. Not wrong so much as outdated. Obsolete.”
“Oh?”
If she was curious, he thought mournfully, she was hiding it exceedingly well.
He looked at her reflectively. He knew her sharp intelligence and mordant wit. He quailed before the task of trying to elicit her approval of what he was about to propose. At worst, she would react with scorn and contempt; at best, with amused condescension for his dabblings in disciplines beyond his ken.
“I’ve heard you speak many times of the ‘new woman,’ ” he started. “I suppose you mean by that a woman free, or striving to be free, of the restraints imposed by the oppression of men.”
“And society,” she added.
“All right,” he said. “The oppression by individual men and a male-oriented society. The new woman seeks to control and be responsible for her own destiny. Correct? Isn’t that more or less what the women’s liberation movement is all about?”
“More or less.”
“Feminism is a revolution,” he went on, speaking slowly, almost cautiously. “A social revolution perhaps, but all the more significant for that. Revolutions have their excesses. No,” he said hastily, “not excesses; that was a poor choice of words. But revolutions sometimes, usually, have results its leaders and followers did not anticipate. In any upheaval—social, political, artistic, whatever—sometimes the fallout is totally unexpected, and sometimes inimical to the original aims of the revolutionaries.
“When I was puzzling over the possibility of the Hotel Ripper being female, and trying to reconcile that possibility with the absence of a record of women committing similar crimes, it occurred to me that the new woman we were speaking about might be ‘new’ in ways of which we weren’t aware.
“In other words, she might be more independent, assertive, ambitious, courageous, determined, and so forth. But in breaking free from the repression of centuries, she may also have developed other, less desirable traits. And if so, those traits could conceivably make obsolete all our statistics and percentages of what a woman is capable of.”
“I presume,” Monica said haughtily, “you’re talking about crime statistics and crime percentages.”
“Some,” he said, “but not all. I wanted to learn if modern women had changed, were changing, in any ways that might make them predisposed to, uh, self-destructive or antisocial behavior.”
“And what did you find out?”
“Well …” he said, “I won’t claim the evidence is conclusive. I’m not even sure you can call it evidence. But I think it’s persuasive enough to confirm—in my own mind at least—that I’m on the right track. I asked Thomas Handry—he’s the reporter; you’ve met him—to dig out the numbers for me in several areas. I took the past fifteen years as the time period in which to determine if the changes I suspected in women had actually taken place.”
“Why the past fifteen years?”
He looked at her stonily. “You know why. Because that period, roughly, is the length of time the modern feminist movement has been in existence and has affected the lives of so many American women. And men too, of course.”
“You’re blaming everything that’s happened to women in the past fifteen years on women’s liberation?”
“Of course not. I know other factors have been influential. But a lot of those factors, in turn, have been partly or wholly the result of feminism. The huge increase in the women’s work force, for instance. Now do you or do you not want to hear what Handry discovered?”
“I’d feel a lot better if your research had been done by a woman.”
He gave her a hard smile. “She would have found the same numbers Handry did. Let’s start with the most significant statistics …”
He began speaking, consulting pages on his lap, letting them flutter to the floor as he finished with them.
“First,” he said, “let’s look at drugs … Statistics about illegal drugs are notoriously inaccurate. I’m talking now about marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. It’s almost impossible to get exact tallies on the total number of users, let alone a breakdown by sex and age. But from what reports are available, it appears that men and women are about equal in illicit drug use.
“When we turn to legal drugs, particularly psychoactive drugs prescribed by physicians, we can get more accurate totals. They show that of all prescriptions issued for such drugs, about 80 percent of amphetamines, 67 percent of tranquilizers, and 60 percent of barbiturates and sedatives go to women. It is estimated that at least two million women have dependencies—addiction would be a better word—on prescription drugs. More than half of all women convicted of crimes have problems with prescription drug abuse. Twice as many women as men use Valium and Librium. Fifty percent more women than men take barbiturates regularly. They’re a favored method of suicide by women.”
“There’s a good reason for all that,” Monica said sharply. “When you consider the frustrations and—”
“Halt!” Delaney said, showing a palm. “Monica, I’m a policeman, not a sociologist. I’m not interested in the causes. Only in things as they are, and the effect they may have on crime. Okay?”
She was silent.
“Second,” he said, consulting more pages, “the number of known female alcoholics has doubled since World War Two. Alcoholics Anonymous reports that in the past, one in ten members was a woman. Today, the ratio of women to men is about one to one. Statistics on alcoholism are hard to come by and not too accurate, but no one doubts the enormous recent increase of female alcoholics.”
“Only because more women are coming forward and admitting their problem. Up to now, there’s been such social condemnation of women drinkers that they kept it hidden.”
“And still do, I imagine,” he said. “Just as a lot of men keep their alcoholism hidden. But that doesn’t negate all the testimony of authorities in the field reporting a high incidence of female alcoholism. Women make the majority of purchases in package liquor stores. Whiskey makers are beginning to realize what’s going on. Now their ads are designed to attract women drinkers. There’s even a new Scotch, blended expressly for women, to be advertised in women’s magazines.”
“When everyone is drinking more, is it so unusual to find women doing their share?”
“More than their share,” he answered, with as much patience as he could muster. “Read the numbers in these reports Handry collected; it’s all here. Third, deaths from lung cancer have increased about 45 percent for women and only about 4 percent for men. The lung cancer rate for women, not just deaths, has tripled.”
“And pray, what does that prove?”
“For one thing, I think it proves women are smoking a hell of a lot more cigarettes, for whatever reasons, and suffering from it. Monica, as far as I’m concerned, alcohol and nicotine are as much drugs as amphetamines and barbiturates. You can get hooked on booze and cigarettes as easily as you can on uppers and downers.”
She was getting increasingly angry; he could see it in her stiffened posture, the drawn-down corners of her mouth, her narrowed eyes. But having come this far, he had no intention of stopping now.
“All right,” she said in a hard voice, “assuming more women are popping pills, drinking, and smoking—what does that prove?”
“One final set of numbers,” he said, searching through the remaining research. “Here it is … Women constitute about 51 percent of the population. But all the evidence indica
tes they constitute a much higher percentage of the mentally ill. One hundred and seventy-five women for every 100 men are hospitalized for depression, and 238 women for every 100 men are treated as outpatients for depression.”
“Depression!” she said scornfully. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that there’s a good explanation for that? The social roles—”
“Not only depression,” he interrupted, “but mania as well. They’re called ‘affective disorders’ and it’s been estimated that more than twice as many women as men suffer from them.”
“As a result of—”
“Monica!” he cried desperately. “I told you I’m not interested in the causes. If you tell me that drug addiction—including alcohol and nicotine—and poor mental health are due to the past role of women in our culture, I’ll take your word for it. I’m just trying to isolate certain current traits in women. The ‘new women.’ I’m not making a value judgment here. I’m just giving you the numbers. Percentages have no conscience, no ax to grind, no particular point to make. They just exist. They can be interpreted in a hundred different ways.”
“And I know how you interpret them,” she said scathingly. “As a result of the women’s liberation movement.”
“Goddamn it!” he said furiously. “Are you listening to me or are you not? The only interest I have in these numbers is as a statistical background to my theory that the Hotel Ripper is a woman.”
“What the hell is the connection?”
He drew a deep breath. He willed himself to be calm. He tried to speak reasonably. She seemed to be missing the point—or perhaps he was explaining it badly.
“Monica, I’m willing to admit that the things I’ve mentioned about women today may be temporary aberrations. They may be the result of the social upheavals and the rapidly changing role of women in the last few years. Maybe in another ten or fifteen years, women will have settled into their new roles and learned to cope with their new problems. Then their mental health will improve and their drug dependency decrease.
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