By Reason of Insanity (54 page)

Ten minutes later Solis picked up the receiver in a Fresno pay booth. He did most of the talking. There was a letter that would be given to authorities if anything happened to him. In the letter was all the information on Hansun, going back to 1952, including the new name and location. This was not blackmail. He wanted only to be left alone. He had done the job and had been paid off. Nothing further was owed either way. If he wasn’t bothered, the letter would never be seen. His brother was dead and all he wanted now was a quiet life. He would not talk to anybody about the Chessman thing with Stoner. Or anything else. As long as he was left alone.

He hung up after telling Hansun to call off his bloodhounds.

SENATOR STONER had a million things to do on Tuesday evening before he left for the East. And of course he wanted to be home with his family on his final night. Which was why he had a last matinee with his mistress in the afternoon. It was delicious as always. Afterward he told her they were through. He had other plans which did not include her. He was sorry.

He put three bills on the table by the bed. One hundred dollars for each year.

She was expecting it, knowing the senator. He was always predictable. Lately he had been going through all the motions of a male in flight. His new fame was giving him a big head and even bigger ideas. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, stand in his way of course. But it would cost him something to be rid of her.

She asked him to listen to some tapes. Then she told him what she wanted.

Fifty thousand dollars.

She had quite a few tapes.

He could buy all of them, and he would get his money’s worth. She would hold none back. There were no duplicates. Once she got the money, he would never see her again or hear from her. She was not dumb enough to squeeze him, not with the people the senator knew.

Just fifty thousand and he’d be rid of her forever.

If not, she’d give the tapes to his political enemies and to the newspapers. The
San Francisco Chronicle
would love to hear them, not to mention
The New York Times
or the
Washington Post
. Some of the things he had done along the way, the deals, the people, would make interesting reading to authorities as well as the public. Then there were his many comments on the politicians and plain folks, the growers, the laborers, the small businessmen who put him in office. He really did like to talk.

It was either the money or his career, if not his freedom.

She wanted the money before he left on his trip.

IN LOS ANGELES a Republican district leader sent a mailgram to Washington, D.C., before he left his office that afternoon. It went to the congressman from his district. A friend of his in the state penal system had been called by a
Newstime
reporter in New York, who said he was writing a cover story on Vincent Mungo for the magazine. But the odd thing was that the reporter seemed interested only in Caryl Chessman, who had been executed in a Republican national administration. The district leader wondered if there was anything in it. Especially in view of the total animosity displayed by
Newstime
, normally a Republican-oriented magazine, toward the Nixon administration.

WEDNESDAY PROMISED to be a busy day for Kenton and he got to the office a bit early. By nine o’clock he was hearing from Mel Brown. Apparently Carl Pandel was white, Christian and twenty-six years old. His wife had committed suicide two years earlier, which put him in the rest home for five months. Then a year with his parents in Idaho. His father was big in construction among other things.

Young, white, Christian and crazy. Good so far. “Did he kill his mother too?”

“His mother is very much alive. Sorry about that.”

So he didn’t kill her. But he wanted to all those years. Then he drove his wife nuts to where she killed herself. Or maybe he killed her and made it look like suicide.

“Where’s he now?” Kenton asked.

“Right here.”

“What?”

Brown chuckled. “He’s in New York. But—” He paused for effect. “He’s been here for months.”

Down but not out. “When did he get here?”

“July.”

“When in July?”

Brown didn’t know.

“Find out the day he arrived. And how. Also where he lives and what he does for money. If the old man’s that rich, maybe the kid doesn’t work.”

“What’s your idea?”

“He could’ve come here, then gone back on a bus or coach train where there’s no record. And slowly made his way east again.”

“Too complicated for a nut.”

“Who says he’s nuts?”

“Even half.”

“Let’s find out.”

He got Fred Grimes on the fourth ring. They might have a lead. He wanted the best detective outfit in New York, and their best man checking on Carl Pandel. Mel Brown would have an address in a little while. Another dozen should be ready for the mail-drop names when they came in. How was that going?

“Only started yesterday,” said Grimes, “and there’s a lot of drops. Even just Manhattan.”

“When do you think?”

Grimes thought a moment. “Probably Friday. That should do it.”

“Let me know.”

For the rest of the morning, between bouts with the telephone, Kenton listened to George Homer talk of Senator Stoner and Don Solis. Stoner held stock in a half dozen blue chips, perhaps fifty thousand dollars total. He owned two homes, in Sacramento and Beaumont, Washington. Some land in northern California and Idaho worth possibly another forty thousand. All on the surface. Underneath, no one knew for sure. There was talk of deals but that was standard for most politicians. He was a rank opportunist obviously, and probably much more. The trouble was proving it.

His mistress was more interesting, at least for the moment. A model, twentyfive, two years’ college. Had a brain to go with the body. Been with Stoner three years but not exclusively, though he might not know that. Apparently he paid for her apartment. Not known what other arrangement they had.

What was interesting about her?

A while ago she spent over a thousand dollars for recording equipment. Voice-actuated equipment. She had the heavy stuff placed in a closet, hidden out of sight.

Where was the other end?

The bed.

Which meant she probably had tapes of Stoner talking crooked or dirty or both. Tapes she’d want to sell, either to him or someone else.

Kenton had to admit that raised some possibilities. Now what about Don Solis?

Solis killed an accomplice in a payroll robbery in Los Angeles in 1952, a man named Harry Owens. In San Quentin, Solis knew Chessman since they both were on death row. That was the basis for the story he gave the papers about Chessman confessing his guilt.

After a few years Solis switched from death row to life and finally parole. When he got back to Fresno he opened a diner with his brother, who had been in on the robbery. Where the money came from was a mystery; Solis had none. The robbery money had all been recovered except for the one who got away. About a hundred thousand. Now Solis owned a bigger diner and was doing all right. He was not in the rackets that anyone knew about.

Was the money a payoff for something Solis did? Or was the Chessman story a payoff for the money? That would let Stoner out. The money was five years before the story.

Kenton told Homer to check out a rumor about Mungo’s father being a latent homosexual. Also he was to call all the criminologists at the University of California in Berkeley until he found one who didn’t think Mungo was the killer. He should also look further into Stoner’s business affairs, especially the land he owned. When did he get it? From whom? And he should read all the material on Chessman, in case Kenton had missed anything.

At 12:30 P.M. New York time the information agency in California called about possible rape victims who had borne children in 1948. Only one woman who reportedly said Caryl Chessman might have been her attacker gave birth during that year. The infant was a girl.

Dead end.

The killer was a boy.

CARL HANSUN was worried. He lit a Camel and took a deep drag into his one good lung, which sent him into a paroxysm of coughing. It was all the fault of that dumb son of a bitch Soils. Talking to him like that. And how did he know the new name? Only one way. He got the license number from the car that day and traced it back to the company registration. Who owned the company? Carl Pandel. Same first name. Not so dumb at all.

He didn’t like taking the car so deep into California, but even after all these years he still wouldn’t travel to the state by any public transportation. Too dangerous. They might remember his face or discover his real name. It was all in his head of course. He was a new person with a new identity, and nobody cared after twenty years. But he couldn’t help it.

Now Solis knew who he was and had it in a letter, and the old stuff too. Maybe enough to even put him away for a while. He was fifty-seven years old, a rich man, and he couldn’t take chances any more. Solis was the only one who knew about him. No—Johnny Messick too. The last of the old gang. But Johnny was all right; he wouldn’t talk. Besides, he didn’t know anything about Idaho or the new identity.

Solis was the one. He would have to be watched; where he went, who he saw. The letter would turn up somewhere.

Hansun crushed the cigarette. He would get his associates to talk to the mob in Los Angeles.

STONER WAS leaving for Kansas City on a two o’clock flight. At 10 A.M. he took fifty thousand dollars from the wall safe in his home and put it in a manila envelope. Twenty minutes later he gave the envelope to his mistress. In return she gave him fourteen reels of tape in a shoe box. At home again he listened to the tapes in the privacy of his study, just a bit from each to make sure he got the right ones. Then he took them to a nearby woods and burned everything in a roaring fire. He watched fifty thousand dollars go up in smoke, and he was glad he wouldn’t ever see his former mistress again. He was so angry he could easily kill her.

When he left for the airport he kissed his wife and told her that in two weeks he would return the conquering hero.

BISHOP WENT out for a walk that evening. In a Greenwich Village bar he talked to a young woman drinking white wine. It had been a hard day’s work and what she needed more than anything was some civilized talk and nice manners. He had a good face and a fabulous smile. His voice was soft and he seemed very civilized. She accepted a drink from him. Two hours later she accepted his offer to escort her home.

BY THE time Kenton finally left the office he felt he was leaving his voice behind. For almost two hours in the afternoon he had talked into his machine, reviewing his moves. Then to John Perrone, a progress report, and to Christian Porter, who apologized for not calling sooner and wanted to have lunch the next day, and to Mark Hanley, an assistant managing editor, from whom he got the names of the Rockefeller Institute doctors who had prepared the profile on the killer. Several times to Mel Brown, to Fred Grimes, to Otto Klemp, who reminded Kenton that any breach of security would mean the end of the assignment, and to assorted others in and out of the company and around the country. Weary and discouraged, all he sought at the moment was quietness.

He ordered a steak and mushrooms at the Bull and Bear, dining in an alcove well away from the noisy bar. On nearby Park Avenue he hired a working girl to service him, telling her he wanted no talk, no words. He paid her double to lie silently by his side for an extra amount of time. Later at the St. Moritz he sat soundless in an overstuffed chair, the room dark, his eyelids closed.

Was it just his imagination or was there someone following him?

FOR TWO days Deputy Chief Gunther Charles had thought about the proposition. It all seemed reasonable enough. The man was writing an important story for a big magazine. He wanted to make it as authentic as possible and to get all the publicity he could. Helping the police would insure its being accepted as genuine and would certainly guarantee publicity. Especially if he was credited with assisting the police in capturing Vincent Mungo. That should easily be worth ten thousand.

On the other hand, where would he get that kind of money? Reporters didn’t have ten grand to give away. So the magazine would pay. But why? Why all that money for a story? They wouldn’t even get an exclusive out of it. Everybody in town would be writing about Mungo.

Somehow it didn’t sound right.

On Tuesday he had a man look into Adam Kenton even though Fred Grimes had set up the meeting. Everything checked out. Still, it was unusual for a magazine to try to buy police help. Though the proposal was seemingly not unlawful as presented, police acceptance could cause some unwarranted assumptions. Particularly since a lot of money was involved.

On balance, he was for it. Such an arrangement could lead to a whole new source of revenue for the PBA fund to go to families of those officers killed in the line of duty. But it could also become a secret source of graft. He decided to pass it on with his reservations.

Now on this Thursday morning, he picked up the phone and called his counterpart in the detective division.

“Lloyd? Gunther here. You busy for the next five minutes? … Good, I got something for you… . Could you? Yes, I’ll come over.”

Outside his office he told the man on duty where he’d be in case the PC called on that kidnapping.

“Anybody else I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“Right, Chief”

“And tell Anderson I want to see him before the demonstration at City Hall.”

“It’s on at noon.”

“Before, not after.”

The sergeant busied himself as his boss walked away. He didn’t envy the man his job.

Charles talked with Lloyd Geary for almost a half hour about the
Newstime
offer, noting that he was sympathetic in principle though he wasn’t sure how it could be controlled or even if it was legal. Since the offer was concerned with the Mungo search, he thought Geary should know about it.

Deputy Chief Geary had headquarters command over the special task force set up to apprehend Vincent Mungo. He regarded his detectives as the best in the business, and it was mostly due to his influence that his men were under divisional supervision rather than direct control of individual precinct commanders. This gave them greater autonomy and supposedly made for more efficiency, though some in the department felt the reverse was true. Gunther Charles was known to be one of these and Geary, now alone again, carefully reviewed what had been said.