I got to know De Strange even better on those road trips. He was a hulk of a man, but like many big men he was graceful in movement and gesture. Since the war he had sprouted a thick beard that seemed to fit his new character; all he needed was a robe and a couple of stone tablets. His eyes were deep, piercing, seeking — eyes that had seen, and read The Message.
And there was his voice, a virtuoso instrument. Yet it had no flash value; it wasn’t employed to awe people into belief. The Message was pure exposition, delivered clearly and with conviction. A session would usually end with a simple, “Go, be His hands.” There might be a hymn or two as the commitment cards were signed if Dortia, who acted as advance agent, could scare up a volunteer chorus or band.
That was it then, I concluded. The operation was clean, no one was on the take, no one wanted to exploit anything or anyone. It was just a pure, simple message. It seemed too good to be true, and I could understand my editor’s skepticism, but I believed Butch when he said he wanted to change people within themselves and through existing institutions. He didn’t want to tear anything down, merely to strengthen it. He was building temples, he told me. Every commitment card was the blueprint for a temple.
And that’s the way I wrote it: nothing exciting, but the truth.
That was in 1947 and that was when Butch and I parted company. He and Dortia went on to other rallies, other cities, collecting commitment cards, and I went on to new stories.
It wasn’t until three years later that our paths crossed again. In mid-1950 the wire services gave us the bare bones of a story about Butch de Strange. He had traveled to California, presumably to seek out a man named Harry Gossett. He had traced Gossett to an area near a small town in the Rockies foothills. He had stayed one night in a hotel in that town, asked around about Gossett, and the next day trudged up the hills to Gossett’s cabin. The day after that he was back in town, closeted in his hotel room, where he stayed for four days until they came to get him. Gossett’s body had been found, his head parted with a hatchet found in the cabin and later identified as belonging to De Strange. Some items of small value missing from Gossett’s cabin were found in De Strange’s hotel room. Butch was being held on murder one.
I remember registering incredulity. This wasn’t the De Strange I knew and had traveled with. In the three years between 1947 and 1950 the Crusade had become big, had developed into a force. De Strange was getting to the people who counted, people in elective office, people strong in industry and the unions, people who could really put The Message to work. And then the leader blew it all with murder and petty theft. It was unbelievable.
But I had other things on my mind then — the chance for a column, the possibility of syndication, a professional interest in something that had just started up in Korea. De Strange and his troubles occupied little of my time or my thoughts until some months later when my editor summoned me.
“You got to know this De Strange pretty well,” he said.
“Pretty well. Back then.”
“I want you to cover his trial.”
“I’m not sure I want to.”
“A story like this can make it for you, Monahan — give you a lock on that column.”
So I covered the trial.
Not that it was much of a trial. Butch didn’t want counsel, so counsel was appointed. Butch wouldn’t cooperate, wanted to plead guilty, so a plea of not guilty was entered for him.
The young court-appointed defense counsel did all he could for him, but Butch did precious little for him. The lawyer tried for insanity but it wouldn’t stick. The prosecutor’s case was very strong. De Strange journeyed to that foothills town seeking out Harry Gossett. He set out with the death weapon strapped to his belt. Gossett’s valuables, minor indeed, were found in De Strange’s room. The jury was out a shamefully short time.
That night I got word that Butch wanted to see me. I had been reporting the trial from the press table, and though we had never gotten together he must have noticed me there. In one of his brief statements, he had said he would talk to no one. I hadn’t tried to get to him — not out of delicacy but because I knew that when he said something he meant it.
Now he wanted to talk to me. Any reporter would have gladly donated to charity the bonus he would surely get for an exclusive interview with Buttolph de Strange. Yet I was reluctant to go.
Reluctant, but not crazy. I went.
He hadn’t changed much. Except for the eyes. They were kind of drawn-in and watery. Why not, I thought — he must know of the reports. The Crusade was falling apart. Gossett’s murder was too off-trail, too puzzling. And Butch had offered no explanations. The Crusaders had been prepared for anything but weakness from De Strange; they weren’t ready for the revelation that he was, after all, human. No one stepped in to take over. Even Dortia Brand failed. She was found early one morning in her bathroom with both wrists slashed — a suicide attempt thwarted then only to succeed decades later.
After half-hearted greetings, I asked Butch about the breakup of the Hands Crusade.
“It would have happened anyway,” he said.
“I don’t understand. What does that mean?” I asked him.
When he didn’t answer, I asked why he sent for me if he wasn’t going to talk.
“For old times’ sake, Oscar. We had some good sessions back then, some good talks. And you were fair — you didn’t find things where there was nothing to find. Even though you didn’t — couldn’t find anything wrong, you might have written a funny story, poked fun at the Crusade. You didn’t. Others weren’t so charitable.” He turned those watery eyes on me. “Why did I send for you? Do they still call them scoops?”
“Our younger people sometimes do.”
“I want to give you a scoop.”
“Okay, give me the details.”
He thought a while, then said, “How will a step-by-step account of the murder do? The anatomy of a killing, something like that?”
I replied that that would do nicely. I was right, too. Because of that story, I’m told, I almost won a Pulitzer. I also got the column, wide syndication, lots of visibility. That interview was my making in spite of the fact that I was dissatisfied with it. It merely reinforced the illogic of Butch’s act. I told him that, told him the story was short on motive.
“That’s all you can print — what I told you,” he said. “For now, anyway. If I told you more, could you keep it under wraps at least until the Crusade is forgotten, until all this is just so much uninteresting history?”
“Off the record? Sure. But don’t tell me anything you don’t want to tell me.”
He looked grim. “I have to tell someone. So someone will know why I did it. Before I’m a dead man.”
“There are appeals.”
“Not for me.”
“At least one is automatic. Isn’t that the way it works?”
“Maybe, but it won’t change things.”
“You want to die.”
“Yes. For what I did to Gossett. No one has that right. I found that out in Europe. You must know I fixed the trail that led them to me.”
“Why?”
“I stole those things to cover up the real reason I killed him. The hatchet was just a woodsman’s tool. When I started out, I had no thought of using it that way. Do you know who Gossett was? Can you guess?”
I shook my head, but in my mind I examined the possibility that Gossett had succeeded where others had failed and had dug up something about Butch and Dortia.
But it wasn’t that. Butch explained. “He’s the one who painted that sign and hung it on the statue. I’ve been trying since the beginning of the Crusade to find that man. I had expected him to come forward of his own free will and share the triumph of the Crusade with me. A number of men claimed to have hung the sign, but their stories didn’t check. But I had been getting leads, piecing them together, until Gossett’s name surfaced. No one else knew — only I knew. People gave me bits of information, but only I put them all together and got Harry Gossett. It was fairly easy to trace him once I had his name.