By Reason of Insanity (75 page)

And the baby’s name he was interested in?

Brewster. Thomas Wayne Brewster. She had just looked it up again.

Date of birth?

May 3, 1946.

Kenton sucked in his breath. Bishop was born in 1948. Just two years apart. Close enough.

He thanked the woman, told her it was a criminal-investigation story they were working on. He’d keep her informed.

Just one more thing, she said quickly.

Yes?

She thought she should mention that Thomas Wayne Brewster was a Negro.

Kenton’s eyes closed in despair.

A Negro?

She had noticed it at the time because there weren’t that many Negro Catholic families in the forties.

Afterward Mel Brown tried to console him.

“It was a good try.”

“Not good enough.”

“He’ll slip up again. Then you’ll get him.”

“Then the police will get him.”

“So stay on their good side.”

“It’s hard,” said Kenton, “and getting harder.”

Brown agreed. “You think this Foley was our man?”

“It fits. Except the kid was black.”

“Maybe he didn’t know.”

Kenton’s ears opened.

“Maybe he didn’t know before he called the hospital or he wouldn’t have bothered.”

“So the woman told him.”

“Did she say that?”

A minute later Kenton was again talking to Mrs. Majurski. He was sorry to bother her, but did she tell Father Foley that the baby was Negro? It was very important.

She did not.

Was she sure?

Positive. He didn’t ask and besides, she didn’t even notice it until afterward.

Kenton then called a well-placed political contact in Newark. He needed two questions asked of Vital Statistics in Jersey City. Fast.

In twenty minutes he got his two answers. Thomas Wayne Brewster died on September 1, 1949, at age three. Curiously, a birth certificate was issued to Thomas Wayne Brewster on October 26, 1973.

The certificate was mailed to that name at the address given, 654 Bergen Avenue in Jersey City.

Mel Brown quickly determined that the address was the Bergen Avenue YMCA, near Journal Square. With a shaking hand Kenton dialed the Y and asked for Thomas Wayne Brewster’s room. Seconds later he was told that Mr. Brewster was not registered.

But he had been registered there?

Oh yes.

When was his last day?

He had paid to the twentyfifth.

This was the twenty-ninth.

When had the desk clerk last seen him?

Who was asking?

Kenton hung up.

It was Bishop, he was sure of that. He had found his man again. And missed him again, this time by four days. But it might as well have been four years. Slowly he smoked a cigarette. The phone rang twice; he didn’t answer. For the first time he began to smell defeat. He was going to lose Bishop, he knew that now. There would be no more chances.

When he finished the cigarette he dialed downtown.

“Inspector Dimitri.”

BY SIX o’clock that evening Thomas Brewster’s former room at the Jersey City YMCA had been searched and the desk clerk questioned. He had no recollection of the man and was certain he hadn’t seen him in weeks or he would remember. Brewster had paid a month’s rent in advance. He had not returned the room key when the month was up. The cleaning personnel said the bed hadn’t been slept in during that time, except for several nights a few weeks back.

Upon reflection the desk clerk did remember a letter Brewster had received at the very beginning of his stay. He hadn’t noticed the sender’s name or the return address. Since that day he had not seen the man. He had a vague impression of a beard but that was all. He could not positively identify the license photo of Daniel Long as being Thomas Brewster.

The letter had to be the birth certificate. Brewster received no other mail at the Y. Fingerprints in the room matched those known to belong to the maniacal woman slayer.

Chess Man’s latest identity had been discovered.

To no avail. Whether he was Bishop or Brewster or the devil himself, the trail was cold. Even worse, it told police that he had secured a back-up position long before needed. He was obviously taking no chances. Which meant he had any number of them. And probably a different identity to go with each.

Police naturally wanted the discovery kept secret in the hope that Chess Man would use the Brewster name elsewhere, but they were already too late. Someone in the local Vital Statistics office had told the
Jersey Journal
about a corpse getting a birth certificate, And Adam Kenton had called his contact at the
Daily News
right after he talked to Dimitri. He didn’t intend that his efforts be lost in the subsequent police investigation. Especially since he didn’t think he would ever get close to Chess Man again—if indeed he had ever been close at all.

By late evening the news was being broadcast across the nation. Stories in both New York morning papers included mention of Adam Kenton as having once again unmasked the homicidal madman. Primarily because of the continuing and increasingly dramatic Washington findings, investigative journalism was the year’s rage, and Kenton was rapidly becoming a favorite of the New York media.

Inspector Dimitri was furious of course. Possessing the police mentality, he believed that as much as possible should be kept secret from as many as possible for as long as possible. In the matter of Chess Man, that meant everything. If he had his way the public would know nothing at all about such affairs. Which would leave the authorities free to do their job without interference. Since he didn’t have his way he tried his best to be friendly with the press, never knowing when he might need their support. But he didn’t really trust them, any of them. Here he was doing all the worrying about Chess Man, having all the responsibility, and a lousy goddam reporter was getting all the credit. Just because he got there first.

But he had to admit Kenton was good. A reporter with the skills of a detective. Unfortunately, what he needed at the moment were a few detectives with the skills of a detective.

FRIDAY NEWSPAPERS around the country were again featuring the infamous Chess Man. He was considered hot copy and good for extra sales. Sometime after three o’clock that afternoon Bishop bought a paper in Miami. As always, he delighted in reading about himself but this time his delight was tempered with concern. He had worked hard to become Thomas Brewster and now it was useless, wiped out. They were getting close to him, or so it seemed.

He sat at the small counter in the downtown bus station, a young man in cotton slacks and a sport shirt opened at the throat. His winter clothes were in his hotel room and his casual dress in the Miami sunshine occasioned no special interest. He smiled as the woman behind the counter drew near.

“More coffee, please,” he said politely.

To an observer the pleasant-faced youth would not have seemed out of place in a city of easy charm and informal manner. He drank his coffee and read his newspaper and calmly hid his insanity.

Only his eyes showed his force of concentration.

The Brewster discovery was a blow; he hadn’t been prepared for it. At once he had lost all his money and the identity he had fashioned with such great care. Nothing was left except the two new wallets he had secured for future use. At least they gave him an identity.

Nevertheless there was danger. He had no history to go with the new names; they belonged to other men. He would not be able to withstand investigation. And with no money he would not be able to move around.

Bishop liked Miami, had stayed two weeks instead of just the one. Now he was doubly glad he had. In New York he might already have been caught as Thomas Brewster.

He thought of remaining in Miami but quickly decided it was impractical. The city was too open, even though women were plentiful. There was no anonymity as in New York.

Though distressed at his misfortune, Bishop felt rested and relaxed and ready to be about his father’s business again. He would return to New York with his new names and get a cheap place somewhere with the money he had left while he sought more.

He paid for his coffee, showering the woman with another smile. He would leave for home that very day. But first he would have to say goodbye to Miami, just in case he never came back.

If he wasn’t loved, at least he was needed.

Much later on the bus, his eyes drooping, his body relaxed, a hand draped over the armrest, Bishop fell asleep and dreamed of things beyond his control. He fought bravely, as always.

Somewhere in Georgia, a train blew midnight and November turned to December.

Twentythree

ADAM KENTON was dreaming. It was Saturday morning and in his dream he rose from his bed to answer the phone.

“George Homer here. Sorry to bother you like this but I’ve just had an idea about our boy. Got a minute?”

The dream was real.

“Sure,” Kenton grumped, forcing his eyes open. “Go ahead.”

“By now I think I’ve read mostly everything there is on Caryl Chessman. His psychology is fairly obvious, as you probably know; the swaggering and braggadocio typical of someone insecure around other people. In his case, particularly women. And I had this thought, you see, that it might have come from some sexual inadequacy. You even hinted at that in a Chessman article some time back.”

Kenton remembered Ding’s idea about Chessman being impotent. “Go on,” he said quietly.

“Suppose we leak a story to the press that Caryl Chessman couldn’t possibly have been Thomas Bishop’s father. That he was physically incapable of achieving parenthood.”

“Wat’ll it get us?”

“It just might get us Bishop. He glows in the fact that he is Chessman’s son. Suppose we take that fact away from him.”

Kenton saw what Homer meant. Bishop obviously adored Chessman, and being his son gave him the psychological crutch he needed. If that were suddenly taken away from him, he might cave in.

“If Chessman wasn’t his father, who was?”

“Harry Owens, a nobody. Killed in a robbery by one of his own gang. That should bring Bishop’s spirits down a bit. It’s Chessman that keeps him hyped up, that makes his whole insane view of the world work for him. He’s avenging his father. But if his father was just a small-time thief who did nothing, it makes him out to be nothing too.”

It might just work. At the least it would fill him with self-doubt. As the son of Sara and Harry Owens, he was a nobody again. Even worse, all his killing would have been in vain.

“One thing sure,” said Kenton. “When he reads it he’ll blow skyhigh.”

Homer agreed.

“He’ll get in touch with you somehow. He will be forced to, no matter what the danger. Like all mass murderers, he has a compulsion to keep the record straight. That way, when he’s caught he can justify his behavior.”

“You think he wants to be caught?”

“They all do. They kill because they’re alienated; the murders are an extreme expression of their extreme alienation. But they don’t really want to be alienated; no one does. So unconsciously they hope to get caught, which is the only way to end their unbearable isolation.”

Homer paused a moment.

“He’ll get to you,” he repeated ominously, “one way or another.”

That was the plan, then. If Kenton couldn’t get to Bishop, he’d make Bishop come to him. And in the process, when Bishop learned he was not Caryl Chessman’s son, maybe he’d come apart.

“What do you think?” asked Homer.

Kenton thought he was right.

THE NEWS from Florida reached New York at six o’clock that evening. Less than an hour earlier a twenty-eight-year-old Miami woman had been found murdered in her apartment in the city’s northwest section. Murdered and mutilated. The body—what was left of it—had been discovered by a neighbor and the building’s superintendent after repeated calls during the day had proved futile. Miami police suspected the gruesome find might be the work of the celebrated New York woman killer because of the condition of the body. That, and the two words smeared in blood on the refrigerator door. “Chess Man.”

“I just heard,” said Kenton when he finally got through to Dimitri at the 13th Precinct. “You think it’s him?”

The inspector blew into a large handkerchief. He was coming down with something he hoped might be triple pneumonia.

“How could it be?” he answered sarcastically after a moment. “You assured me he didn’t leave town.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“You telling me.”

“So what’s your idea?”

“I don’t have any.”

Kenton wondered if he should mention the plan to lure Chess Man into the open; a little help would be a good thing. But he quickly decided against it. Dimitri might try to stop him.

“It could just be a diversion,” he said softly, and the man on the other end grunted.

“Some diversion.”

“This is where he belongs and he knows it,” continued Kenton, almost adding: It’s where he wants to be caught. But Dimitri would just laugh at him and he wasn’t in the mood for that right now. Too many things to think about. Like how much danger he was walking into, assuming Bishop went for the bait. The more he worried, the stronger became his conviction. It would work.

The
Newstime
investigator sat quietly in his hotel room, racing his mind through all the ways Chess Man could get in touch with him. The phone, a letter, a third person, maybe even a secret meeting. Would he go? Yes, with a gun in his pocket. Maybe even two guns. But he’d go, damn right he would. It was too late to stop now and he had come too far.

The phone rang at 6:30 and Kenton had a flash of Thomas Bishop calling him. He stared at the instrument for a few seconds. Then he slowly reached out for it.

“Who?”

Not his prey, not yet.

He talked to his contact at the
Daily News
, giving him the story about Bishop not being Caryl Chessman’s son. Yes, it was legitimate in the sense that there was some indication that Chessman might have been impotent. But he needed it handled as an interview, that was important. He had to be listed as the source. And his residence was to be included too, the St. Moritz.