The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

“You’re in the wrong profession,” I said sourly. “You should have been a stand-up comedian. Will you do me a favor?”

“Sure, so long as it’s legal and doesn’t require me to violate medical ethics.”

“It is and doesn’t. But first I want to stress that what I’m going to tell you is strictly confidential.”

He nodded. “Most of what I hear in this office is confidential.”

I took a deep breath. “I think Lyle Barton is the Stocking Killer.”

He gazed at me in astonishment. “Martha’s husband?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And on just what do you base that incredible theory?”

I told him, in detail, including the history of Lyle’s mental illness.

When I finished, he was no longer looking astonished, but only thoughtful. “What’s the favor you want?” he asked.

“I’d like you to check out Lyle’s psychiatric history. Since he has his annual disability checkup at the local V.A. hospital, I assume his Army medical records would be on file there. As a psychiatrist, you’d have better access to them than I.”

“No problem. I’m on the staff out there. His file should include not only his Army medical records, but a detailed report from that Wisconsin mental hospital. Almost certainly the V.A. would have asked for one.”

“When can you get out there?” I asked.

“Not before this evening. I can’t possibly cancel any more appointments, and I’m booked solid right up to five.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “There’s still five days to work on this. Suppose you phone me at Martha’s when you get back from the hospital?”

“I’ll need a little time to evaluate whatever I find in the case record. I’d rather make it in the morning.”

“All right,” I agreed. “But I don’t want to make you cancel any more appointments. Could you get yourself up in time to meet me here at eight a.m.?”

“I’ll make that sacrifice if you’re willing.”

“It’s no sacrifice for me,” I told him. “I check in at the paper at seven-thirty.”

Thursday morning we arrived at Sam’s office simultaneously. Again I took the leather chair and he sat behind his desk with his hands folded across his stomach.

“There were some interesting things in Lyle’s case file,” he said. “Did you know his father strangled his mother, then blew his own brains out?”

“Martha never mentioned that,” I said in surprise. “When?”

“When Lyle was twelve. According to what he told the psychiatrist assigned to him at the Wisconsin mental hospital, he felt his mother deserved it. He hated her and loved his father. He described her as a very beautiful woman, but a cheat. Apparently he became aware at a very early age that she was having numerous lovers. From the case record, I gathered that she made little attempt to conceal it from him, but periodically threatened to beat him senseless if he ever told his father. He never did, but one day he deliberately neglected to give his mother a phone message in the hope that his father would find her out. His father phoned from out of town that he would be home a day earlier than expected, and would arrive around midnight. Because Lyle failed to relay the message, when his father walked in, he found his wife in bed with another man.”

“And killed her?”

“Not right then. He kicked the lover out, stormed out himself and went on a five-day drunk. Then he came back, still drunk, strangled her and shot himself.”

I said, “So Lyle developed a guilt complex because he had caused the tragedy?”

He gave me a mildly irritated look. “You armchair psychiatrists have guilt complexes on the brain. What makes you think everybody who’s mentally disturbed has to have a guilt complex about something? Neither the Wisconsin report nor the considerably briefer and more cursory reports of the various Army and V.A. psychiatrists who have examined him indicate he ever felt the slightest guilt about either parent’s death. He was deeply grieved by his father’s death, but he blamed it on her, not himself, and he was quite happy that he had been indirectly responsible for his mother being killed. He felt he had been an instrument in wiping out evil.”

“All right,” I said. “If no guilt complex, what?”

“Probably a mixed bag of emotions. These things are never simple, but what comes out most clearly is that he had a strong mistrust of good-looking women. At the risk of hurting your feelings, I suggest it’s possible that’s why he chose Martha. He may have felt he could be sure she wouldn’t cheat on him.”

“You can’t hurt my feelings,” I said. “No Conner has ever won a beauty contest. Then his hang-up is simply that he hates beautiful women? Each time he kills one, in fantasy he is killing his mother?”

He got that irritated look on his face again. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Tod. If I could get Lyle on the couch for a half dozen sessions, I might be able to figure out his motives, if indeed he is the Stocking Killer. But I don’t make diagnoses by long-distance. That could be it, and even may be it, but it’s only a guess. Psychologically it has a large hole in it. If he picks victims as substitutes for his despised mother, they should be not only beautiful, but also unfaithful.”