Dr. Ferdinand Matthewson was an old man with a leonine mane of white hair, a long nose, and a gentle voice that issued sibilantly from between pursed lips. He wore a dark black suit and he kept his hands, brown with liver spots, tented in front of his face as he sat in a big brown leather chair and watched Hawes intently and suspiciously.
“How long has Mrs. Lasser been ill?” Hawes asked.
“Since 1939,” Matthewson said.
“When in 1939?”
“September.”
“How would you describe her present condition?”
“Paranoid schizophrenia.”
“Do you feel Mrs. Lasser should be institutionalized, sir?”
“Definitely not,” Matthewson said.
“Even though she has been schizophrenic since 1939?”
“She is dangerous neither to herself nor society. There is no reason for her to be institutionalized.”
“Has she ever been institutionalized?”
Matthewson hesitated.
“Doctor?”
“Yes, I heard you.”
“Has she ever been institutionalized?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“In 1939.”
“For how long?”
Again Matthewson hesitated.
“For how long, sir?”
“Three years.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re her family physician, aren’t you?” “I am.”
“Then where was she institutionalized? Can you tell me that?”
“I want no part of this, sir,” Matthewson said suddenly. “I want no part of what you’re trying to do.”
“I’m trying to investigate a murder,” Hawes said.
“No, sir. You are trying to send an old woman back into an institution, and I will not help you to do that. No, sir. There has been too much misery in the lives of the Lassers. I will not help you to add to it. No, sir.”
“Dr. Matthewson, I assure you I am—”
“Why must you do this?” Matthewson asked. “Why won’t you let a sick old woman live out her days in peace, cared for and protected by someone who loves her?”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Matthewson. I’d like to let everybody live out his days in peace. But somebody just wouldn’t allow George Lasser to do that.”
“Estelle Lasser didn’t kill her husband, if that’s what you think.”
“No one said she did.”
“Then why do you want to know about her condition? She’s been hopelessly out of her mind since September 1939 when Tony left for—” Matthewson clamped his mouth shut. “Never mind,” he said. “I wish you’d get out of here, sir. I wish you would leave me alone.”
Hawes continued to sit calmly on the other side of Matthewson’s desk. Calmly he said, “Dr. Matthewson, we are investigating a murder.”
“I don’t care what you—”
“We can bring charges against you for impeding the progress of an investigation, but I would prefer not to do that, sir. I’ll tell you simply that it is entirely within the realm of possibility for Mrs. Lasser to have killed her own husband. It is also within the realm of possibility for Anthony Lasser to have—”
“Both of those suppositions are entirely absurd,” Matthewson said.
“If they’re so damn absurd, sir, maybe you’d like to tell me just why.”
“Because Estelle hasn’t been able to recognize her husband or anyone else since that September in 1939. And Tony Lasser hasn’t stepped out of that house on Westerfield Street since he returned home from Virginia in June 1942. That’s why. You are dealing with a delicately constructed symbiosis here, Mr. Hawes, and if you tamper with it, you are liable to destroy two people who have known enough misery in their lives.”
“Tell me about it,” Hawes said.
“I have told you all I care to tell you. I will contribute nothing further to your cause. I ask you in all humility to please, please leave these people alone. They could not possibly have had anything to do with the murder of George Lasser. If you lift this rock, Mr. Hawes, you will find only blind, albino creatures scurrying helplessly from the sun. I beg you not to do that.”
“Thank you, Dr. Matthewson,” Hawes said.
He rose and left the office.
Hawes was not a firm believer in old adages, but there was an old adage that ran to the tune of “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire,” and there sure as hell seemed to be a lot of smoke gushing up from Estelle Lasser and her son Tony. The first thing that occurred to Hawes was the possibility that someone had lodged a complaint against Estelle before she’d been institutionalized in 1939, so he ambled over to the New Essex Police Station, introduced himself, and asked to see their records for that year. The New Essex Police, always anxious to cooperate with big city detectives—ha!—happily opened their files to him, and Hawes spent a slow hour and a half perusing the misdemeanors and felonies that had plagued that fair hamlet back in the good old days. Unfortunately Mrs. Lasser had committed neither felony nor misdemeanor; nowhere in the records was there listed any official complaint against her. Hawes thanked the police and walked over to the New Essex Hospital, where he similarly requested a look at their voluminous medical files.
An ambulance call had been made to the home of Mr. George Lasser, 1529 Westerfield Street, on the night of September 11, 1939. Mrs. Lasser had been admitted to the hospital at 8:27 P.M. for observation and had been transferred to Buena Vista, in the city, for further tests on September 13, 1939. Hawes thanked the clerk in the records room and then walked to the railroad station. He had a quick hot dog and orange drink at a stand there and then caught the 12:14 back to the city. He changed his seat three times, moving to a different car each time because it seemed someone on the railroad had decided to turn up the air conditioning. This was perfectly reasonable since the system probably hadn’t been functioning properly during July and August and, it now being January, what better time to check it? But Hawes nonetheless changed his seat three times, seeking warmth, and finally found a facsimile of it by concentrating on the crossed legs of a redhead for the remainder of the trip.
The psychiatrist he spoke to at Buena Vista was a youngish man who had been at the hospital for no more than five years and who did not remember Estelle Lasser. He was reluctant to open the hospital files without either a court order or a release from the patient, but Hawes explained that he was seeking information which might be pertinent in a murder case and that he was certain he could obtain the necessary court order simply by making the necessary trip downtown. The psychiatrist was still reluctant to dig out Estelle Lasser’s records because he was fully aware that she could sue him for divulging this information to the police, but Hawes assured the psychiatrist that Mrs. Lasser was still ill and hardly in condition to go suing anyone. With a great deal of muttering and head-shaking, the psychiatrist went to the files and informed Hawes that Mrs. Lasser had indeed undergone a series of psychiatric tests during the month of September in 1939. The doctor looked up at this point and mused that Hitler was invading Poland at about that same time. Hawes nodded and agreed that it sure was a small world.
“Can you tell me the facts of the case?” he asked.
“Yes, certainly. On September 11, 1939, about a week after her young son had been sent off to school, Mrs. Lasser—”
“What school was that? Does it say?”
“Yes. Soames Academy. In Richmond, Virginia.”
“That’s a private school, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Go on,” Hawes said.
“Well, Mrs. Lasser tried to kill herself, that’s all,” the psychiatrist said. “I see.”