All of his suspects had told him they had had no prior trouble with the law, and Sondgard was willing to accept the statements. They were too easily checked. If the Jekyll personality had been involved in any other case, even only in the capacity of witness, he would have said so, and he would have had a story prepared. To lie about it, when the truth was so easily obtained, would only be to direct suspicion at himself.
Which implied a Jekyll who knew about the existence and activities of Hyde, which wasn’t necessarily true. But if Jekyll didn’t know about Hyde, he wouldn’t have any reason to lie because he wouldn’t know there was anything to cover.
Besides, he thought gloomily, it didn’t necessarily have to be a Jekyll-Hyde situation at all. There could very easily be only one personality involved: the killer. Able to present a blameless face to the world, and then to turn around and commit the most brutal murders.
The thing to do was find out whether any of the four had ever had psychiatric treatment. He could put a request through to the police departments in their home towns, and also again to the New York City police department. With Will Henley, that kind of checking might be difficult; Henley was an Army brat, brought up here and there around the world. Well, if he’d had mental disturbances, his father would most likely have brought him to an Army psychiatrist, so Sondgard would send a request for information to the Army, too.
But all these things would take time, time, time. And the killer wasn’t giving them time. He wasn’t one of the old-fashioned slow-working homicidal maniacs who only killed once a month, when the moon was full or his wife had completed a menstrual cycle; this particular maniac had killed twice in two days. And, except for the brutality in both cases, the killings were not at all similar. One was a sex slaying, and the girl was strangled, and it took place in daylight. And the other was the killing of a middle-aged man, and he’d been tom to pieces, and it took place at night. In the first, sex had been the motive; but in the second, there wasn’t really any motive at all.
“If we could find out why he climbed over that gate,” Sondgard muttered to himself, “we might have him. He had to have a reason, no matter how crazy or unreal it was. He had to have a reason, and if we can only figure out what that reason was, we’d—”
He was talking to himself.
He said, “Gahhh!” and rose abruptly from the chair. Talking to himself. He had to finish this thing pretty soon, or they’d be carrying him off instead of the killer.
Talking to himself. Next, he’d be cutting out paper dolls.
Paper dolls. What if—?
Not paper dolls necessarily. But something. Maybe there’d be something, left behind by Hyde.
He made his decision, and strode out of the kitchen. Larry Temple and Mike Tompkins were both standing in the hallway, Larry looking pale and dazed, from a combination of his experiences of the morning and a lack of sleep, and Mike still looking sheepish because of yesterday’s fingerprint fiasco.
They had been that close. One fingerprint away, and Mike had blown it.
The thing was, the killer had made absolutely no attempt to avoid leaving fingerprints. He hadn’t worn gloves, and he hadn’t wiped any surfaces clean before leaving. That was probably another indication of his desire to be caught and stopped. But he’d been excited, nervous, tense, while killing Cissie Walker, and his fingers had been trembling. Smudged prints were everywhere, and none of them useful. Only one print had seemed like a good possibility; a right-thumb print smashed into the bar of soap the killer had used to write on the mirror. The soap was a pale green, and Mike had dusted it lightly with the black powder, bringing out the highlights of the print and seeing that it was probably a pretty good one, though they couldn’t be sure until the photo was enlarged. But then he’d set the bar of soap up to take the picture, and the soap had slipped away as soap will do, and unthinkingly he had lunged for it and grabbed.
It could have happened to anyone. Sondgard had told him so, and had meant it — though he couldn’t entirely hide his disappointment — but Mike hadn’t been able to accept the solace. “Would one of Garrett’s men have loused it up like that?” he’d asked.
No, probably not. Sondgard had had nothing to say.
Because if one of Garrett’s men wouldn’t have loused it up like that, then Mike should no longer feel responsible or take the blame on his own shoulders. It was Sondgard’s responsibility, the blame rested squarely on his shoulders, because it had been his decision not to call Garrett in.
If he’d called Garrett right away, yesterday, as soon as he’d learned the seriousness of the crime, would Garrett have cleaned it up by last night? Would Eddie Cranshaw still be alive?
No, not with the evidence so far. Not even Sherlock Holmes could have found the right man that quickly, and been sure enough to make an arrest.
Except that Garrett would probably have had the print.
If the print had been usable. It could just as readily have been no good at all, like every other print Mike had found. Mike had taken pictures of five different prints, and when enlarged none of them had been worth a damn. So maybe the thumb print on the bar of soap wouldn’t have been worth a damn either. But there was no way to know that for sure, one way or the other, so Mike was still looking sheepish this morning, and Sondgard would never know whether he had been to blame for Cranshaw’s death or not.
They had to get him. They had to get him soon, before he piled any more crimes on Sondgard’s conscience.
What about Garrett now? Why not call him in? In a way, Sondgard would welcome it, would be more than happy to have Garrett relieve him of the responsibility, but in another way he couldn’t do it. Pride was part of it, he had to admit that, and embarrassment at calling Garrett in so late to repair the botched job, but there was also Sondgard’s own stubbornness and his conviction that he was still better qualified than Garrett to catch this particular killer, because this particular killer was not going to be caught by fingerprints or lab work, this particular killer was going to be caught only by an understanding of human nature.
It was Sondgard’s baby, and he was stuck with it.
He came down the hall and said, “Anything out of them?”
Mike shook his head. “Not a peep.”
“They haven’t been told about Cranshaw, have they?”
“Nope. They still think it’s just that kitchen-table deal.”
“All right. Good. I’ll be right back.”
Sondgard slid open the door and stepped into the rehearsal room, closing the door again behind himself. Fifteen people sat on the folding chairs, their heads turned to look at him, their faces curious and troubled. Eleven men and four women. One of four of the men was the killer. Any one of the others could be his next victim.
Sondgard moved up to the front of the room, by the sofa and table, where under normal circumstances these people would be rehearsing their first week’s play right now. Well, maybe not right now; it was barely eight o’clock in the morning. Many of the faces out in front of him showed the marks of too-little sleep and too-rude an awakening. And none of these people had had breakfast yet, or so much as a cup of coffee.
Sondgard had arrived at the house with Larry Temple, having called Joyce to get in touch with Dave Rand and have him take over on the scene of the second murder. Doc Walsh was already there, and the ambulance would be arriving soon, and so would the state technical people. These last were a different proposition from Captain Garrett; since the town hardly had a crime lab of its own, state personnel and state facilities were automatically used for this facet of any local criminal investigation, whereas Captain Garrett of the state CID office couldn’t come in on the case unless requested by Sondgard. (It was unfortunate, Sondgard reflected, that the state technical assistance didn’t extend to the taking of fingerprints, but even a town the size of Cartier Isle could afford the powders and camera, and Mike Tompkins had received training in taking prints at the State Police Academy.)