By Reason of Insanity (50 page)

And it was all for nothing.

He held the report in his hand on this grim Friday morning, but he did not have to read it again. Thomas William Owens, a.k.a. Thomas William Bishop, had been routinely circumcised at the hospital in which he was born on April 30, 1948. The mother was listed as Sara Bishop Owens, age twenty-one; the father as Harold Owens, age twentythree. Their religion was Protestant. The baby weighed seven pounds, nine ounces at birth. There were no complications and the child was duly taken home by his parents. End of report.

Within minutes of receiving the information from the downstate police he had called Los Angeles and talked with a hospital administrator. Was there any chance of a mistake, the slightest possibility? Usually none, he was told, at least insofar as the records were concerned. Human fallibility was something else of course. The administrator doublechecked while he waited. The wait would be longer than expected since the file was twentyfive years old and therefore in an annex storage area. His call would be returned as soon as the information was available.

Spanner sat quietly in his office for twenty minutes, dejected, knowing what the answer would be. When it came he was prepared. The report was accurate: Thomas Owens had indeed been circumcised by Dr. Timothy Engles, whose signature attested to the fact. Would the lieutenant wish to talk with Dr. Engles? The administrator would try to get the number for him if the doctor was still practicing or living in the area.

It wasn’t necessary and Spanner thanked him. There was nothing else to do as the invincibility of sheer fact impressed itself anew upon his orderly mind. He had been wrong from the beginning on this one and fact, which could instantly destroy the most beautifully wrought police theory, had finally caught up to him.

That was Thomas Bishop’s circumcised body they had found at Willows on the holiday morning of July 4. And it was Vincent Mungo who had escaped and was presumably killing women.

The pictures missing from Bishop’s file had just been misplaced. Perhaps prints had been made for newspapers when he was killed and the originals stuck in another folder, perhaps simply never returned.

Spanner gave his disappointment a long last sigh and reached for the phone.

IN AN ornate home in Kansas a man sat at his desk and gazed around his study for the hundredth time that Friday morning. The room was dark, the curtains closed; only one small lamp burned in the far corner. On the desk lay heaps of correspondence of every shape and size, all scattered and disordered as though a north wind had blown over them. The bookshelves lining the walls were in disarray, the sofa by the louvered windows groaned under the weight of newspapers from all over the country. More newspapers flooded the carpeted floor, while still others overflowed the three caned chairs in the middle of the room, the most recent being those from New York.

The man closed his eyes in weariness and brought his right hand up to press against them. He had been awake for much of the night and up since five. Lately he hadn’t been sleeping well at all, or eating or working well either. The strain of his daughter’s death, the unbearable grief he was feeling, were beginning to affect his health and had already impaired his work habits and social life.

Beyond even the sense of loss was the feeling of terrible injustice done him. His baby was dead, butchered by a lunatic whom he had paid to have destroyed. Yet Vincent Mungo was still living. After three months he was still hopelessly alive and killing women, with no end in sight. No one seemed able to stop him, even to get near him. The police couldn’t find him, the underworld couldn’t find him.

How was that possible? The underworld was supposed to be able to find anybody. Especially those hiding from the police or society in general. That’s what he had been told, what he had been led to believe all his life. Everyone knew that. The underworld was always “they.” If “they” were after you, you were as good as dead.

Then why wasn’t Vincent Mungo dead?

Were they in league with him? Was it some kind of plot to get money from decent citizens? Were the police in on it too? All those millions and billions spent for police protection and in reality no one was protected but the police themselves. They were never mugged because they carried guns; thieves never burgled their homes because they would be shot, and if a policeman ever was killed a whole city would be turned upside down. But the police had never done anything for his daughter. They hadn’t protected her and they couldn’t find her killer. So what good were they to anybody? He would never again see them as other than scavengers who prey on people, parasites who take all they can and give nothing in return.

At least the underworld didn’t pretend to protect families.

Maybe the money he offered them wasn’t enough. Fifty thousand for Mungo. Maybe they expected more. But how much more? How much could one life be worth? Or one death?

For some weeks now he had been thinking about the money, that perhaps he should offer them even more. He had some savings, some land he could sell. What he needed was peace of mind, that above all else. It would be worth any price.

At 9:30 A.M. Kansas time he dialed Los Angeles, getting the number from a scrap of paper he kept in a locked drawer of the desk.

“Any news about Vincent Mungo?” he asked the gruff voice that answered.

“Who wants to know?”

He gave his name for what seemed the hundredth time in the past few months.

“Nothing yet,” said the voice with disinterest.

“Why can’t they find him?” shouted the man in Kansas in a sudden fit of anger and despair. His voice cracked at the end.

“I just take messages,” came the bored reply.

“All right,” said the Kansan, regaining composure. “I have a message. Tell them George Little will pay double for quick delivery. Do you understand that? Double!”

“Got it,” said the voice. “Double for delivery.”

“Double for
quick
delivery.”

“Sure, sure, double for quick delivery. Got it.”

George Little hung up and buried his face in his hands. In a moment his shoulders shook with grief as his iron reserve crumbled. He could no longer control his sorrow and it eventually ran its course. Afterward he stared into the darkened room for a long time.

IN SACRAMENTO, Jonathan Stoner arose at 10:30 relaxed and refreshed after a late-night political party. He showered and shaved, perfumed and dressed himself in a leisurely manner. There was no need to hurry on this Friday, no need at all. In fact he had the entire weekend free. And even more if needed, since he wouldn’t be leaving for the East until the following Wednesday. That was five days away, five whole days he had to himself. Well, almost. He would have to spend Sunday with his wife; she had seen very little of him in recent months because of his travels and campaigning but not once did she complain. He loved her for her patience and understanding and would never dream of hurting her in any way. Then on Monday he would have to be in the Senate at least for the morning on an important roll-call vote concerning capital punishment. And of course the usual last-minute preparations for the tour would take up part of Tuesday no doubt. But in comparison to most other weeks, especially of late, he was as free as a bird.

Except, that was, for the matter of his mistress.

The state senator frowned in thought. There had been some good times with her, some very good moments they had shared and things they had done together. He had used her not only for relief in bed, at which she was extremely capable, but oftentimes as a sounding board for ideas or just somebody to whom he could pour out his frustrations. He had confided much to her during the three years of their relationship, much information as well as his hopes and ambitions and fears and hatreds.

Her bed was a most comfortable place to give verbal vent to his feelings, and it soon became for him a sort of psychiatric couch, with his unwitting bed partner in the role of silent psychiatrist. He sometimes wondered at her easy compliance and submission but each time concluded it was love for him that fueled both her passion and her patience. He suspected a great many women secretly loved him, or could love him, or would love him, and he regarded all this as perfectly natural.

Now she would have to go, and he would miss her heavy breathing and labored sighs. He would miss too her soft, quiet eyes that gazed at him lovingly as he talked after their bouts of passion. But he would be firm. His mind was made up, his decision final.

“We are through.” That’s what he would say and that’s all he would say.

Stoner flirted with the idea of sending her a telegram instead but rejected it as possibly being incriminating. Perhaps a telephone call would do. He dreaded any excess of emotion and women were always getting emotional, especially when men were leaving them. Which was exactly what he intended to do.

For the past several months his star had risen in the East and had not yet set. Indeed, across America his name was beginning to be heard as a protector of fundamental Republican virtues and an ardent foe of what he termed centralism. The capital-punishment issue was itself only part of a still larger split in American political thought between everincreasing centralization of government, with its attendant self-inflating bureaucracies, and a return to the more traditional, local approach to governing bodies. The senator believed he saw what was happening and therefore what was coming, and he regarded himself as the spokesman for all those who were beginning to demand more control over their own lives. He expected to ride his star to the summit, and there was no room for a local mistress.

Still, the idea was to be covered in all things at all times. The mistress would have to go, another take her place. That was only natural. One from the power-struck breed of woman he was now meeting. But what did he do in the meanwhile? He would have no female body for relief, nothing steady anyway. No one to confide in, or talk to, or gloat over. His wife of course. She was an angel, very ethereal and much too pure for him. He could do little with her.

Perhaps he should wait a bit before telling his mistress they were through. How long? Another day? Week? Until he found her replacement?

With a rush of pleasure Stoner recalled their last time together in bed. He had lain naked on his back while she knelt above him. Slowly she lowered herself onto his penis, deeper and deeper, until her skin touched his. For a long moment she remained motionless, as though impaled on him. Then she began to move ever so slowly, rhythmically, her Venus lips expanding and contracting in controlled muscular spasms as his body writhed in sensual delight. What was that he had shouted through clenched teeth, unable to contain himself any longer? “Take me, you bitch.” As he exploded inside her the bitch quickly lifted a hand-held massager out of the ice bucket and ran its icy fingers over his abdomen and chest, sending him into ecstatic shock.

Thinking it over, Stoner wondered if he wasn’t being too hasty. She really was very good at that sort of thing. He shook his head. All the same, she would have to go.

There was only one thing to do. He would tell her, and quickly. That very weekend. Better still, on Monday or Tuesday, just before he left for the East and New York. That way he could get her in bed a few more times.

She would be crushed, naturally. What woman wouldn’t? But he’d give her a few hundred dollars for old times and just say goodbye.

He was moving up in every way.

IT WAS eleven o’clock before Sheriff Oates returned to his office in Forest City. He found the memo from Hillside and immediately called John Spanner.

“Good or bad?” he asked when he finally got through to the lieutenant, who had been interrogating a prisoner in another section of the building.

Spanner couldn’t hide his disappointment. He had expected to be able to tell Oates that the Willows killer was known at last. Instead he was being forced to confess failure once again, and to a man who had never subscribed to his theories or methods. He wouldn’t blame the sheriff for laughing at him.

“It’s all bad,” he replied with sadness in his voice.

“Circumcised?”

“Right down to the bone.”

Oates was not surprised. It would’ve been too much to expect after all this time that they’d come up with the answer so easily. Besides, he didn’t think it was Bishop, though he wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Neither did he think it was Mungo. The best brain in the world couldn’t have survived this long and, from his record, Mungo was no brain. Nor was anyone that lucky. Men disappear all the time but this one was right out there killing women whenever he felt the urge. Only one answer was possible. He hadn’t been caught because he hadn’t been sought. But who was he? And where was Mungo?

“Got any suggestions?” asked Spanner after a moment. “I’m open to anything from now on.”

He was grateful to the sheriff for not laughing. It might indicate a change of mind or perhaps just professional courtesy. Either way he was immensely relieved.

“It could still be Bishop,” said Oates kindly. “Both of them were circumcised and so was the body. We’re no worse off than before.”

“Except we have no proof,” protested Spanner, “and that was the last chance to get any.”

“Maybe the record’s wrong. Hospitals make mistakes, you know.”

“I already checked. No mistake. It’s right in his file, which hadn’t been touched in twentyfive years. Doctor’s name and everything.” His sigh of defeat was long and clearly audible over the phone. “I’ve given up on Bishop. I guess it has to be Mungo.”

“I don’t think so,” said Oates slowly. “Not anymore.”

“Who, then?”

“Damned if I know. But not Mungo. He would’ve been picked up by now.”

“A friend?”

“Or someone he met after he busted out.”

“But what happened to him?”

Oates coughed. “Maybe he got himself killed or went into hiding, I don’t know.”

A pause. Then, Spanner: “You sound like Finch now.”

“Who?”

Spanner reminded him of the Berkeley professor who had figured out the circumcision angle.