By Reason of Insanity (39 page)

He didn’t mention the meeting to his seat companion, who was getting off at Buffalo in the early morning hours and intended to sleep until then.

At 11:30 he was on his second can of beer when she walked into the car. She looked around timidly, saw him and rushed over, as shy people usually do. He made a place for her and they had several quiet drinks together. He bought her a nightcap at midnight, Scotch and water, and another beer for himself, and suggested that perhaps they could finish the drinks in her compartment since the bar car was now closing. She hesitated, but he laughed off her alarm by saying that was the least one weary traveler could do for another who couldn’t sleep in a chair. If he had a private room he would certainly offer its use to her. She blinked a few times in thought and finally agreed, more out of exasperation with herseft than anything else.

He had to get something from his seat and would see her in about five minutes. She told him her compartment letter, two cars forward, and he said he’d be there right away. Walking back to the coach Bishop thought rapidly. He had left because he didn’t want to go forward with her. If anyone had noticed them, they were seen leaving in opposite directions. Now all he had to do was get to her room unseen, at least as himself.

He stopped in the bathroom at the end of the first coach. All the lights were out, people were sleeping. He quickly transformed himself into a bearded man. He waited a few minutes before walking back through the almost empty bar car and the darkened dining car. Tucked under his jacket was the zippered case he always carried with him. The flight bag was left under his seat, out of the way and unnoticed.

In the next car he crept silently down the carpeted aisle. Her room was the last one forward, compartment A. At her door he whisked off the beard and returned it to the pocket and set his face in a mask of boyish innocence.

He knocked softly and the door slowly was opened for him… .

THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF leaned back in his chair and stared at the paintings hanging on the walls of his spacious office. There were four of them, large canvases that depicted famous New York scenes. They were arranged so a viewer could start with the South Ferry panorama and move on to the square at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, the canyons of upper Sixth Avenue, and finally the Hotel Plaza and the beginnings of Central Park.

Each of the paintings seemed to suggest movement and the ceaseless activity of the great city in its headlong rush to unearth the next bit of business. But underneath the sweep of motion could be felt the geometrics of the city, the pattern of unchanged daily life, much like the river that forever flowed yet remained the same. Martin Dunlop envied the artist his comprehensive view of man’s creations, the quick confidence of his judgment. If only life were really so simple!

Outside, the jumble of traffic along Sixth Avenue, the Avenue of the Americas, was its usual Monday-morning mess. Horns blared insanely, oaths were muttered and curses delivered, nerves cracked amid scraped fenders. And hordes of people gave rise to an incessant chatter that was dulled only by the intermittent rumble of the subways underneath the street. Around the corner in Rockefeller Center things were quieter as chauffeurs conversed in conspiratorial tones, their gleaming Cadillacs and Lincoins stretched lazily along the brief boulevard. The editor-in-chief found himself once again wishing that his office was on that side of the building, even though it was high enough for him not to hear anything through the sealed glass windows.

A noise jarred his thoughts and he shifted his eyes from the paintings to a leather couch set against the wall to his right. The whitehaired man cleared his throat again and pushed himself off the couch. Dunlop placed the folder he had been holding back on the desk and sat there motionless, his thick body resting while his mind raced the implications of the subject.

“Do they have anything?” he presently asked.

Managing editor John Perrone, functional head of the newsweekly, was one of the most respected editors in American journalism, as well as one of the most feared. Both the respect and fear came from his often ruthless but totally professional handling of a worldwide network of writers and researchers who strove each week to bring the news to millions of readers. His power was immense, his responsibilities heavy. Generally regarded as being without equal in his dramatic flair for the big story, for tomorrow’s fresh sensation, he was just as often accused of manipulating the news for the benefit of the publishing empire he served so well. Which was why he held his job and kept his power.

“I think so,” he said after a moment. “That’s why I brought it to you.” His tone was subdued, his eyes steady. But he was already feeling the emotional pitch of the story possibilities. “There’s nothing definite about a psychological profile, as we know. But this one seems to match Mungo pretty well so far. If it has any validity as a projection, we might be in for a bloodbath that could make Charles Manson and Richard Speck look like a pair of country preachers. The Institute doctors feel Mungo’s worked himself into a state of megalomania. He thinks he’s invincible, and he’s out to get vengeance for his father on women, any women.”

“It’s not definite that Caryl Chessman was his father at all.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore. Mungo’s made his decision and he’s gone too far to stop now. Blood feeds on blood and if the doctors are right, he’s beyond recall. Wherever he is, all he sees are dead mutilated bodies. What we have to decide is, should we go after him ourselves? We’ve got contacts and connections around the country that even the police don’t have. If we could get him or get to him first”—the fervor grew in his voice—”we’d pull off the story of the year.”

“There was a time,” Dunlop said with a smile, “when we just reported the news.”

“Times change,” growled Perrone. “Besides, I’m not saying we interfere in police business. Just that we run our own parallel investigation. Newsmen are supposed to uncover facts. All we’d need in this case is a concerted effort—a special company task force that would report only to us and work out of the New York office. They’d have no other duties until he was caught, one way or another.”

John Perrone stopped. He had made his plea as strongly as he could. For years he had chafed whenever Dunlop referred to the role of the newsman as a simple reporter of the news. Yet he was never really certain where the man stood on the issue. For himself, he well knew that the media often made the news. Indeed, it was almost impossible for the reporter not to become part of the report. He was painfully aware of the Hawthorne Effect: that is, people under observation perform differently by the very fact that they are being observed. And he believed the same held for anyone questioned after an event. Furthermore, all news was private until made public, and the very gathering of it was already a form of manipulation. That seemed obvious.

Martin Dunlop pressed his lips together in concentration and turned his eyes again to the paintings. There was a feeling to them that suggested the New York of a hundred years earlier, though the technique was modern and the architecture contemporary. Gazing at them, he sometimes wished he were living in the nineteenth century; he had an idea that things were much simpler for an editor then. Not easier; God knows an editor’s life had never been easy since Adam and Eve were penciled out of the Paradise story by the Directing Editor Himself. But things were less complex a century before, if only because there was less of everything. This was the news and that was it. Simple. Direct. The editor-in-chief liked the simple and direct. And one thing he didn’t like was having to make instant decisions involving something that could get out of control. He wished Perrone would go away. The man was the best in the business, but right now he wished his managing editor would just disappear.

Martin Dunlop turned his thoughts to Perrone’s idea. The company perhaps had the resources to ferret this Mungo out. It could mean possibly interfering in police matters and withholding information. It might even prove dangerous, and could certainly lead to charges of manipulation. But it would be a fantastic editorial coup if successful. Dunlop had no illusions about the fierce competition among the news magazines in the tight-money year of 1973.

“All right,” he sighed, still looking at the wall paintings. “I’ll take it upstairs.”

John Perrone said nothing. His boss was a good editor and a brilliant communications businessman. He had expected no less from him.

Dunlop wheeled round. “I’ll get back to you before lunch.” He smiled to indicate the meeting was over. “It is a most interesting idea. I hope we can work something out.”

After Perrone had left, to return to his own office and a dozen pressing problems of the new week’s issue, the editor-in-chief again read the doctors’ report. He closed his eyes at the finish. There was no doubt that Vincent Mungo would kill again, and keep on killing. He would not stop suddenly, like Jack the Ripper. It didn’t take a doctor to see that.

Still frowning, he buzzed his secretary to call upstairs.

THAT SAME morning in Berkeley, California, Amos Finch solved a problem that had been bothering him for many weeks. He finally figured out how to tell if the body of the man found murdered at Willows State Hospital on the morning of July 4 was really that of Thomas Bishop, even though the face had been bludgeoned beyond recognition and the body itself already buried.

AT 10:40 AM. the editor-in-chief of
Newstime
magazine rode the elevator to the twentyfifth floor to see the chairman of the board of Newstime Inc. He expected the meeting to be brief.

As the elevator doors opened on the twentyfifth floor Dunlop stepped into a thickly carpeted foyer with original lithographs on the wood-paneled walls. He turned left and walked into the reception area, smiled briefly at the woman seated behind the silvered desk, and continued along the blue-carpeted hall. Eventually he came to the end, where he rounded a corner into a huge board room.

At the far wall the woman looked up briskly from her desk as he crossed the room.

“Mr. Dunlop. How nice to see you.”

“Mrs. Marsh.” The editor-in-chief glanced toward the closed door to his right. “I’m a minute or two early.”

“He’s expecting you.” She flicked up a switch and announced his presence, waited a moment, then smiled briefly, and Martin Dunlop walked past her desk into James Mackenzie’s private office.

The room appeared just as he had left it the last time, some weeks earlier, and all the times before that. Cluttered, informal, passionately untidy and yet somehow eminently livable. It went with the flowers and a Greek fisherman’s cap and blue tennis shoes and a clay pipe. And all of them, including an urbane charm and grace, went with the rangy man who turned to greet him.

“Martin, good of you to drop in.”

Mackenzie indicated a chair and Dunlop quickly sat down. He was asked about the magazine and the new issue in preparation, and he soon found himself mentioning some ideas he had wanted to keep under wraps a while longer. But a few points scored were a few points gained, and as they talked business he almost forgot his reason for being there.

“Now what’s all this about Vincent Mungo?”

Martin Dunlop instantly switched his thoughts. In minutes he explained that
Newstime
had funded a Rockefeller Institute study of the killer. Based on the Institute profile, and most especially the projection of increased bloodshed, his managing editor believed—and he quite agreed—that the company should set up a large investigative unit aimed at tracking down the madman. If successful it would mean millions of dollars worth of free publicity that couldn’t help but benefit all areas of company operations. And
Newstime
would of course print the whole story, which should bring in much added revenue. He ended his brief explanation by placing the profile on the desk,

Mackenzie reached for the green folder without a word. As he read, his lips pressed together time and again in a show of distaste. When he had finished he pushed the folder back across the desk and sighed loudly.

“What are the negatives for the organization?”

Dunlop recited them quickly. Several times he used the phrases “interfering in police business” and “withholding of information.” He watched Mackenzie’s frown deepen. When he got to the part about “manipulating the news” the frown burst open.

“That is politically indefensible at the moment, as I’m sure you know, Martin. The Nixon administration is just waiting for something they could sink their fangs into. They haven’t forgotten”—the contempt in his voice was unmistakable—” Mr. Agnew’s direction.”

A few more minutes and there was nothing left to say. A big task force was out. A major company effort was out, Any publicity, even any mention of such a project, was out. There must be no interference with police or withholding of information, though in the matter of individual reporters this was often difficult to prove. Finally, there must not even be a suspicion that anything was being done to manipulate the news. God forbid!

Back in his own office, the editor-in-chief summoned his administrative aide. Patrick Henderson, a youngish man of impeccable background and discretion, was often used as a sounding board by his employer. Henderson regarded loyalty as an art to be constantly practiced, and he could be particularly hard on those who strayed or made too many mistakes. Some thought him Dunlop’s hatchet man, and he was admired and hated in about equal proportions. If any of this ever bothered him he managed to hide it quite well, and all that seemed to concern him at the moment was the refusal of James Mackenzie to authorize the plan.

“It’s a mistake. A big mistake. The prestige for the magazine would be enormous, something they’d talk about for years. Just the thought of bringing such a person down in ruins— It’s staggering. Surely Mackenzie must see that.”

The editor-in-chief shook his head in sad reply. “Mac knows what he wants and doesn’t want. And what he doesn’t want most right now is anything that could be used against us in Washington. Which means he doesn’t want a big group in on this thing, or any kind of companywide effort.” He spun his chair around to look out the window. The sky to the west was very blue. “And he doesn’t want any publicity. In fact, if anyone even mentions such a project he’ll probably get fired.” He repeated the chairman’s final words. ” ‘There must be no chance of incident between us and the administration at this time. Or even the police—at least nothing we can admit to. There must be no formal project and no plans.’” Dunlop paused a moment, then added on his own: “No public plans anyway.”