By Reason of Insanity (53 page)

Before noon Mel Brown called about Louis Terranova. He was out of the picture. Escaped from Lakeland exactly one year earlier, in October 1972, after six years there. First was in Atascadero for sixteen years. Before the matricide lived in Bakersfield with his mother. Was a little funny even as a kid but no police trouble. Didn’t know Caryl Chessman, was not in Los Angeles in 1947—48. Didn’t know Vincent Mungo, was never in Stockton. No record of knowing Mungo in Lakeland. It was a very big place.

So the Chessman angle was out, but not Mungo. Not entirely. They could have known each other, been close friends, without the doctors or anyone being aware. As he said, it was a big place.

Oh, didn’t he mention it? Terranova was black.

Black?

Schwarze
. And his mother was Jewish.

A black Jew? No, he hadn’t mentioned it before.

Part of the researcher’s strange sense of humor.

In the afternoon Kenton read through the material Doris had collected on Chessman, much of it familiar. There was a lot, and more to come. Including copies of his four books. He had received a vast amount of publicity in the last decade of his life. Did Kenton really want all of it? Might as well have everything, but most especially the years 1947 and before. Someplace there had to be a connection to the maniac. It couldn’t have come from the final dozen years in prison, so it had to be while Chessman was still free.

At one point in his reading Kenton had a sudden thought. He looked up Chessman’s birth. St. Joseph, Michigan, 1921. In 1947 he would’ve been only twenty-six. Young enough for anything. But someone around Mungo’s age wouldn’t even have been born yet. So how could the connection be between Chessman and the man he sought? Answer: It couldn’t.

It would have to be someone older. Like the killer’s parents.

Damn! It was always coming back to Vincent Mungo.

His mother supposedly was raped by Caryl Chessman. His father supposedly told him he was Chessman’s bastard son.

But he would not accept Vincent Mungo. No, it was not Mungo. Therefore the connnection was from Chessman to someone else’s parents. When he found it he would know the killer’s identity.

Unless—

He called Los Angeles, a contact in the courts, and asked for the names of those women who had accused Chessman of sexual assault. At the trial or before, perhaps in a police station. Or even any women who had said to anybody that it might have been Chessman.

If Mungo was a possibility because his mother had allegedly been raped by Chessman, then other victims might have borne children from such an attack. He thought of Ding’s idea about Son of Rapist. Maybe not so crazy after all!

Within an hour he had the names he needed and was talking to a California information agency. He wanted to know if any of the women listed had given birth in 1948, and if so, the sex of the infant.

At 3:40 Fred Grimes reported that he had received the okay to collect recent names from the city’s mail drops. Two special peace officers would visit all such places in Manhattan over the next several days. He assumed only Manhattan was wanted.

Kenton said the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens too. But Manhattan first. Staten Island wasn’t needed, because at checkpoints like the ferry terminal everyone could be stopped. But the other four boroughs were impossible to police thoroughly, with subways and buses constantly on the move.

Grimes wondered about New Jersey. Maybe the maniac was staying over there, right across the river. Or Westchester or even Connecticut. Had Kenton thought about that?

He had, but the objection to Staten Island held for those as well. Without a car it was simply too dangerous. And he wouldn’t have a car.

Why not?

He rented cars in Phoenix and probably in other places. He came to New York on the train from Chicago. He couldn’t have much money and he wouldn’t want to get involved in the red tape of owning a car in New York, with registration and parking tickets and the danger of being towed away. He’d be showing proof of his identity all the time. That didn’t fit his pattern of complete anonymity, not at all.

By 4:20 Kenton was hurrying into police headquarters on Centre Street, late for a meeting with a deputy chief If the cops got to Chessman before he did, he wanted first crack at the story. That way, his assignment wouldn’t seem a total failure to the big shots at
Newstime
. It was worth ten thousand to him. What the cops did with the money was their business.

Upstairs he outlined his plan to the official. He just wanted to help out somehow so he could be credited with assisting the police. He was doing a cover story and it would lend a certain authenticity. Which would in turn give the story strong reader appeal. For this he was ready to pay ten thousand cash. Perhaps for the retirement fund.

The deputy chief said he would think about it. There were ways an investigative reporter could help the police, especially if he had vital information. It would be his duty to report whatever he knew to the authorities, who might want him around at the capture.

Just what he had been thinking, said Kenton with a smile.

On the way home he reviewed the meeting. He had struck the right balance of public service and professional interest. He wanted nothing illegal, merely a little preferential treatment for which someone’s retirement fund would come to benefit.

Naturally he said nothing about the Ripper Reference. Or his ideas on the identity of the Chess Man. It was all just insurance anyway. He still hoped to beat everyone to the killer. At least he had one big advantage. He knew who it wasn’t.

SIX HOURS earlier in the same building, though on a different floor, top police brass had met to discuss Vincent Mungo. A special homicide task force was set up, with thirty detectives assigned to the search under a deputy inspector. The command post was to be the i3th Precinct on East 21st Street. Special patrols and stakeouts would be conducted and all leads pursued. Men had already been visiting the city’s lesser hotels and rooming houses, showing pictures of Mungo with and without a full beard. Other men distributed photographs to restaurants and supermarkets. Mungo had to sleep and eat. He would be caught. He also apparently had to kill. Surveillance would be increased in areas where prostitutes walked the streets. He might be captured in the act, preferably beforehand but streetwalkers were always expendable. The main thing was to get the maniac.

The police brass was confident. They had his face and description and M.O. He was a stranger to New York, with little money and no friends. Where could he go? How could he hide? And he was a madman besides—a nut, irrational. How could he stack up against 27,000 of New York’s finest? Someone suggested that if he stuck to preying on local prostitutes he wouldn’t last long at all. They were the toughest in the world.

The meeting ended on a note of assurance. It was just a matter of time and he’d be in their hands. Probably only days, maybe even hours.

BISHOP’S TRAIN pulled into Jersey City’s Journal Square shortly before ten on Tuesday morning. He walked up some steps to the street and found the building that housed the local newspaper. Inside, he pretended to be a journalism major in college who wanted to do a class report on the
Jersey Journal
in the period after the Second World War. Would he be able to look at some back issues? Say between 1945 and 1950?

The clerk was most helpful. All back issues were now on microfilm, one year to a roll. At that time the paper was called the
Jersey Observer
. Any serious reader could certainly review whatever rolls were needed, and even have blowups made of desired pages. Yes, indeed.

Where would he find them?

The public library. The entire microfilm collection could be seen at the main library on Jersey Avenue. The paper kept actual copies around only for the past few years.

Didn’t it have its own set of microfilm?

Yes, but that was just for internal use.

Bishop put on his most innocent expression, his friendliest face. His eyes shone, his smile sparkled. He was all charm and manners.

Could he possibly look at the paper’s film for just an hour? One hour, no more. He was from New York and didn’t know his way around the city. He’d be very quiet and no one would even realize he was there. It would be such a great help to him.

The clerk, a kindly man, knew he should say no. Company policy forbade any reader use of the set. But the boy seemed so helpless, so bewildered. Reminded him of his own youth. He too had often been flustered.

He led the helpless youth to a room in the rear of the building. The microfilm was on a shelf, boxed and dated. He pulled out the years 1945 to 1950 and showed the young man how to operate the viewer, cautioning him to roll each film back to the beginning after he had finished.

“One hour, mind you, and no more,” he said on the way out. The door clicked softly and Bishop turned to 1945.

An hour and forty minutes later he found it. Thomas Wayne Brewster, three, died at the Medical Center on September 1, 1949. The only child of Mary Brewster and the late Andrew T. Brewster, killed two years earlier in an auto accident. Interment in Holy Name Cemetery, Jersey City, on September 4.

It was perfect. Three years old. Only child. Father dead. Mother probably remarried, maybe moved away. No one to remember him. Three years old meant he had almost certainly been born in the city. Now only the birth date was needed.

Another half hour and he stepped from a bus on West Side Avenue. A brisk walk brought him into the Catholic cemetery. Once inside the gates he quickly saw the futility of searching among the headstones. There were thousands of graves, endless rows of plot and stone seemingly stretching to the horizon. He went into the groundkeeper’s office.

Could he be directed to the grave of Thomas Wayne Brewster, buried on September 4, 1949? He had known the family years earlier but had never before visited the cemetery. Now he was in the area and would like to pay his respects to the deceased.

The records book was opened for that time, the name and date checked. Brewster. 1949. September 4.

Within ten minutes he was standing over the grave. The headstone had two wreaths carved on it and in the center a figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Underneath, two names had been chiseled into the smooth surface. The father, Andrew T. Brewster, born 1918, died 1947. The son, Thomas W. Brewster, born 1946, died 1949.

His trip had been for nothing. There was no birth date.

On the return to Journal Square he thought of several ways to learn the child’s correct date of birth but rejected each as too dangerous. He couldn’t afford to draw attention to himself or even be asked for identification. Certainly not at the moment.

An idea finally came that might work with no risk to him. Infants usually were born in hospitals, and hospitals kept records. It was just a question of finding the right one and pressing the right button for the information that he wanted.

The telephone book listed eight hospitals for the city but only one was all maternity and it was part of the city system. Assuming his parents didn’t have much money, the boy could have been born there. Poor people had their babies in city hospitals. He had been born in one, or so he had read in a newspaper months back. Vincent Mungo too.

He called Margaret Hague Maternity from a closed booth. He was Father Foley of St. John’s on the Boulevard, asking about the birth of one of his parishioners years ago. He had been sent a mass card from relatives now living in another state. The mass was due to be said that very week. But he needed the birth date of the deceased. Yes, that’s right. It would be most helpful, thank you.

He gave the name and year and waited patiently. Several minutes later he got his answer. No one with the name of Brewster was listed for 1946. Was he sure it was Margaret Hague? Not positive, no. What about the baptismal certificate, wouldn’t that have the date? Yes, but with the church expansion program everything was misplaced or in transit. He just thought this might be faster. Thanks anyway for the help.

Bishop closed his eyes for a moment. He had to think quickly on that one.

The answer was the same at the Jersey City Medical Center. On the third call he got lucky. Christ Hospital on Palisade Avenue had a 1946 record of Thomas Wayne Brewster. Mother was Mary, father Andrew. Religion was Roman Catholic. The baby weighed eight pounds, eleven ounces.

Date of birth: May 3.

Father Foley thanked the woman and hung up.

At Christ Hospital the middle-aged clerk returned the file to its proper drawer. She was a bit surprised that the parents were Catholic. Now, of course, everything was opening up but that was almost thirty years ago. She didn’t think there were too many Negro Catholic families at that time.

At a nearby post office Thomas Wayne Brewster purchased a fivedollar money order and sent in his request for a birth certificate to the Registrar of Vital Statistics in Jersey City. He had been born on May 3, 1946. The certificate should be sent to him at 654 Bergen Avenue. The address was that of the local YMCA where he had just rented a room, paying for one month in advance.

Back in New York Bishop bought a pair of eyeglasses with heavy brown frames. The lenses were almost clear glass but wearing them gave him a different look. He also bought some hair coloring. He intended to lighten his hair that night. His beard was nearly full. With eyeglasses, sandy hair and a beard he would not really look like Thomas Bishop anymore, just in case they somehow discovered he was not Vincent Mungo. Which, of course, they would never do. He was too clever for them, for any of them.

DON SOLIS called Boise, Idaho, about the time Bishop was returning to New York. It was still morning in California. He had tried the day before but Hansun was out. Now he again asked for Carl Pandel. This time he gave his name instead of saying “a friend.”

Soon a very surprised Carl Hansun was on the line. He listened carefully as Solis gave him the number of a pay phone in Fresno. He was to call there in exactly ten minutes from a safe phone of his own.