Killing Time Read online

  “Yet you remember his name.”

  Melrose admitted that fact to be incontestable. “But not primarily because he was defendant in this trial. M’Naghten himself is historically of little importance. His name merely provides the designation for the formula subsequently drawn up to define legal insanity, ‘To establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.’”

  “That is certainly clear,” said Detweiler. “And obviously M’Naghten did not know what he was doing if he shot the wrong man.”

  “I wonder if you get the point,” asked Melrose.

  “There’s no question about the morality: it is wrong to kill, but I was thinking of M’Naghten, the man and not the Rule. How strange it must have seemed to him. Whether he was right about the conspiracy turned out to be irrelevant in the light of Time. He set out to achieve a certain end, failed, and became a historical principle.”

  “No,” Melrose said relentlessly, “you haven’t got it. The law in this state is still based on the M’Naghten Rule.”

  “You know,” Detweiler said, “it strikes me that the Law is pretty fair. It punishes only those people who agree with it and doesn’t waste its time on the fellow who is thoroughly independent. Rather goodhumoredly it calls him crazy and excuses what he does.”

  “On the assumption that he cannot help himself,” said Melrose. “Punishment is supposed to deter other people from committing the same crime, but presumably it would not deter such a man as M’Naghten, who cannot control himself. To punish him for committing an act which he doesn’t understand is criminal would be merely vengeance.”

  “Call it what you will,” Detweiler said. “If he were executed, he could not kill again in this life. I think in that respect the law is tolerant to the point of irresponsibility. The alternative isn’t vengeance; it’s simply common sense; it’s order, and if the Law doesn’t provide that, what good is it?”

  Melrose said, “I tell you frankly, Joe, whether you like it or not I’m going to prove to the satisfaction of the jury that you are legally insane.”

  They were sitting at a little table in a counselor’s room, or cell. Detweiler could not get at him in that situation, so the killer stood up. However, he decided to make one last plea to Melrose.

  “Look,” he said, “if I am judged to be crazy, then everything I believe in, all my work, will be thought insane too. I can’t let that happen and become just another maniac like M’Naghten, maybe giving my name to another Rule that is as nutty as the first one. Why is not knowing the difference between right and wrong an excuse? Nature gives no such immunity. You will be killed by a hungry man-eating tiger irrespective of whether you know he is harmless. Killing as such is neither here nor there; it is a natural function. But if you start to arrange it rationally, then you should be consistent. If it is wrong for one citizen, then it is wrong for the next. No wonder there is a lack of respect for the Law among certain elements. If it is to be interpreted by means of tricks and illusions, then the clever will have the edge, and by that I specifically mean you, Mr. Melrose, men who deal in language.

  “But killing is not a word. It is an act. It has nothing to do with speech; it is more like running or swimming. It is pure motion, and then a halt. There is little in common to saying the word light’ and then looking at the sun.

  “I’m not disparaging language, though. Beautiful things can be done with it, points can be made.”

  “In fact, said Melrose laconically, “you’re using it now, aren’t you.”

  “Well, I tried,” Detweiler said, “but to outdo you in the area of your specialty is not likely even for another lawyer: your record proves that. I can only put the argument in my own way. Unfortunately, there will be some pain, but I guess hurting is always part of learning.”

  He seized Melrose’s thick neck, just above the lovely lemon-yellow shirt collar. His fingers were too short to meet around the stout pillar, but they dug in at the sides, and his thumbs pressed together against the windpipe. Every strangulation was different and revealed certain qualities of the victim hitherto unnoticed: Mrs. Starr had a finer throat than Billie despite the disparity in age; Melrose’s had looked fat, but proved solid, massive, with great tendons and robust musculature, owing probably to all his speaking. His eyes were of rich amber-brown. He had profound jaws, with the beginnings of dewlaps like some noble dog. His color, normally high, was darkening interestingly against his crown of white hair. He was shaven immaculately, no stubble under the nose or at the lip-ends. Detweiler was really fascinated.

  Melrose had never been seized by the throat his life long. He had not engaged in physical violence since boyhood, and then, undersized, he did not favor it as a mode of intercourse with his fellow creatures, as he had implied in the story he told Detweiler on their first meeting. Later he had fleshed out, but from his early twenties onward he had rarely taken any exercise worth the name. He habitually ate rich foods and drank hearty wines. In the bathtub he was not as sleek as when buttoned into his English suits. He was corpulent, his blood pressure ran high, and any quickening of foot pace cost him an effort in breath. He had never received instruction in techniques of self-defense.

  Added to these disadvantages, his present role as victim of an attack was an absolute reversal of values to him and hence severely shocking; his profession was to be above the battle.

  Nonetheless, no sooner had Detweiler’s fingertips made contact with his neck than Melrose was at work, formulating new arguments, considering how best to use this latest evidence that Detweiler was mad, so mad he would assault his own lawyer for trying to save his life, a fact that would impress any jury, all the more so because it was inadmissible. One of Melrose’s great specialties was fixing in the minds of jurors that which was stricken from the record. In consequence the transcripts of his victories were often lifeless. His was an evanescent art. Future generations of law students, poring over the records, would get little sense of his quality: tone, attire, attitude of body, inclination of head, response to the very temperature of the courtroom—he could perspire at will, if in so doing he might establish an affinity with the inhabitants of an overheated jury box; though when under the incendiary attack by a prosecutor who was roasting a defense witness, Melrose could sit cool as a gray rock splashed by white surf. All this was lost to Time, like the sound of Paganini’s violin.

  But he who could not accept transience was mad. Had not Melrose possessed an absolute command of his faculties, he, a man of the moment, might have been rendered timeless thereupon. But a maniac could not cope; and if he seemed to be doing so, he should be thwarted. This was Melrose’s thesis, and he would live to prove it.

  He rose against the pressure, and with difficulty, because his suit had not been cut to facilitate that type of action, he raised both arms, joined his hands to form a large, compound fist, and brought this natural weapon down with great force upon the crown of Detweiler’s pale head.

  Immediately Detweiler lost his grasp and stood stunned, like a bird who had crashed into a window, blinking, motionless. Now that the clutching fingers had gone, Melrose could feel their ten discrete points of place, as if his neck were serrated. He adjusted his collar. Detweiler remained in the condition of a toy man that does something at the touch of a button and ceases on a similar signal. Melrose pushed him into a chair.

  This had all been quietly managed from the beginning. The guard was out of sight beyond the door, to ensure the privacy of lawyer-client relations. He would have heard not even a grunt or gasp.

  Detweiler finally raised his guileless eyes to Melrose’s and said, sleepily: “Wow. Have I got a headache.”

  Melrose said: “I’ve got a sore throat.”

  Detweiler closed his eyes and breathed ten or tw
elve times and appeared to be exerting a tension on the muscles of his thorax. Then he lowered himself to the floor and proceeded to stand on his head.

  “O.K.,” he said, springing up. “It might interest you to know that I am training for the electric chair. You see, it is my theory that what kills is the shock of thousands of volts suddenly introduced into the body—not the electricity itself, not the flow, but the initial impact. If one could survive that, the body would serve as a conductor, and the current would circulate through it and return to the chair. But you probably believe that that sort of opinion makes me crazy.”

  Melrose gingerly touched his own neck, found a polka dot of pain and winced. “As if I needed any further evidence! First, you have stated you had no real motive for killing Mrs. Starr or Billie. Next you say: but it wasn’t murder. Then you want to plead guilty to first-degree homicide and be executed. Finally, you say you can short-circuit the electric chair and render it harmless.”

  “I don’t know,” Detweiler said, “I have to keep in motion, to meet various challenges as they appear, changing conditions. Time is ever on the move. Try to catch it in one place, it flees to another. I know I ought to be despondent, but usually I can’t overwhelm my joy.”

  “At what?”

  “At things the way they are, were, and will be,” Detweiler said. “At the profusion of life and its persistence. At Time, bitter adversary and yet much beloved.”

  Melrose offered to shake his hand, saying: “My congratulations.”

  Detweiler noted: “I hope there’s no hard feelings because I tried to kill you. It was just an idea.”

  Melrose said: “I find your attempt on my life easiest of all to forgive. What I hold against you is your lack of discrimination.”

  “You mean, I might do the same for anybody?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So,” said Detweiler, “that’s really why you think I’m crazy.”

  Melrose was still shaking Detweiler’s hand. He now returned it to him, having no reason to believe the killer would ever retract it on his own. Detweiler specialized in making himself available.

  Melrose said: “The astonishing thing is that we somehow do end up in agreement…. I’m going to send some psychiatrists down to see you, Joe, and I want you to cooperate with them because we will need their testimony in court. Now, at the same time, I suspect the state will set up their own inquiry, a so-called lunacy commission, the purpose of which will be to prove your legal sanity.”

  Detweiler chuckled and said: “It’s quite a contest.”

  “I have no intention of letting the state commission get hold of you,” Melrose assured him, and then, because this statement seemed to disturb the killer, he explained the Constitutional guarantee that no man could be compelled to be a witness against himself.

  “And I’m crazy,” said Detweiler. “Who would be better able to testify than the man himself? Somebody else?”

  “We’ll talk about that some other time.”

  “When you say cooperate with the doctors, what do you mean?”

  “Just act natural,” said Melrose.

  “Whew!” Detweiler exclaimed. “That’s a relief.”

  Melrose was good as his word. He brought around a psychiatrist and introduced him as Dr. Brixton. Detweiler remembered him immediately.

  “Doctor,” he said, “I suppose you don’t recall, but some time ago I came into the outpatient clinic of the hospital where you work, with the purpose of getting my penis amputated, and I was referred to you.”

  Brixton was gray all over, hair, mustache, suit, tie. He looked sternly at Detweiler and said: “I’m not likely to forget that. You came thereafter for a few appointments and then you never returned.”

  “That is true,” said Detweiler. “I didn’t want to take up any more of your time. I couldn’t forgive myself for sitting around chewing the fat when there were patients who needed you, and you were too polite to remind me of it.”

  Brixton was so generous of spirit as now to assure Detweiler that this interpretation was in error, that Detweiler had indeed been one of his patients who needed him most, that he only regretted having lost sight of him. But he couldn’t fool Detweiler.

  “You are too kind, Doctor. I’ll bet a lot of people try to take advantage of you.”

  Melrose said: “I must be going now. Are you O.K., Joe? May I bring you anything?”

  “I was never better,” Detweiler said. “You know, it’s funny, for years I wandered around seeking peace and quiet in which to work and could seldom find it. Instead I was distracted by sex, or somebody’s radio in the next room, or right in the middle of something important I would get hungry. Then jobs. I’ve had all sorts. The last work I did was dishwashing in a restaurant. The trouble was, I’d always get too fascinated in what I was doing. Do you realize that every dirty dish has its own identity? One has the stain of fried eggs, another the green streak of peas, a white trace of mashed potatoes with a tiny rivulet of pork gravy. Each is like a road map, and then you lift the little soapy dish-mop and run it around and you obliterate the cartography. What speculations this gives rise to! I used to play a game. There was a window by the sink, and some of the diners would go past it if they proceeded west after leaving the restaurant. I would try to guess who had eaten what, on the basis of their appearance and the dishes that had just come in.”

  Melrose said: “That must have been fun. Well, now you tell Dr. Brixton what he wants to know.”

  “Sure,” said Detweiler. “But wait a moment. I won once! I saw a man coming by, vigorously picking his teeth. The window was always open because the hot dishwater kept it warm in there. I shouted: ‘I bet you had the corned-beef hash with a poached egg.’ ‘Right you are!’ he said. Reason I knew that is they didn’t use the canned stuff there, but made hash from what was left over from the whole corned beef of the day before, and that meat is always stringy so that it sticks in the teeth.”

  Melrose nodded.

  Detweiler said sharply: “Are you listening?”

  “I know better than that.”

  “What I am leading up to is that on the outside I was always being distracted. But it is perfect here: bed and board and extended periods of the most fruitful solitude…. What do you mean, you ‘know better’?”

  “Than to get involved in an argument with you,” said Melrose. “Unfortunately, you and I begin with such divergent viewpoints that I cannot merely listen without responding. That’s more than a lawyer can bear.”

  Detweiler shrugged and looked pleasantly at Dr. Brixton. “Mr. Melrose is a terrific guy. Last time he was here he hit me so hard in the head that it still aches. He and I are friendly opponents.”

  “A mutual admiration society,” said Melrose, “to coin a phrase. But don’t let that fool you. We’re out to do each other in, right, Joe?”

  Brixton was soberly watching Detweiler all the while.

  “Wrong!” said Detweiler, though he knew Melrose was kidding and bore him no ill will. However Detweiler himself never joked, unless you could call strangulation a comic device. He said: “I must admit I am coming around to your way of thinking, at least insofar as the electric chair is concerned. But I’ll tell you this: I don’t want to go free. Can you promise you won’t do anything clever that will make me leave jail?”

  Melrose said: “I can’t promise anything of the kind. The world might come to an end tomorrow and then I’d look like a fool. You’ll have to take your chances with the rest of us, Joe. Meanwhile, I wish you’d talk to Dr. Brixton.” The guard let him out.

  Detweiler stated to the doctor: “For some reason he is getting very witty these days. Mr. Melrose is ostensibly an exceedingly complex man, with a very subtle mind.”

  The doctor sat down across the table from the killer. “What is he really, in your opinion?”

  “Very simple, actually. I don’t mean simple-minded in the sense of idiocy. I mean that his basic proposition is not at all complicated. He believes in right and wrong.
”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course. But he doesn’t believe I do, or that anyone else does, for that matter. He has no faith that justice will be done. That’s why he is a lawyer. Pretty arrogant of him, wouldn’t you say? Yet he’s the kindest man I have ever known. But he’s not as fair as Tierney, and that’s why I don’t trust him.”

  “Who is Tierney?”

  “Well, he never comes around to see me, but—”

  “Joe,” said Dr. Brixton, “do you remember our talks of two years ago? I was just rereading my files last night—”

  “Excuse me,” said Detweiler. “Tierney is a policeman, a detective.”

  “You like him, do you?”

  “It’s not a matter of liking. I just think he does a good job.”

  “Has he hurt you? Beat you or slapped you around?”

  “What a question!”

  “Well, has he?”

  “If he had done that, I would hardly think he was doing a good job.”

  “Oh?” Brixton said, brow-lines appearing in the grayness of his countenance. Detweiler doubted he was as old as he looked, and he looked exactly as you would expect a doctor to.

  “I recall our talks very well,” said Detweiler. “You were intrigued by my sex life. I wish I could have remembered more of it for you, but if anything is a victim of Time, that’s it. Here today, gone tomorrow: that’s sex.”

  “Joe, your victims were female. Why women?”

  “Pure chance. Because they were there.”

  “Sure about that? Would you have strangled Tierney if he had been there?”

  Detweiler laughed. “I wouldn’t have got far. He carries a gun.”

  “Joe, have you ever had sexual relations with another man?”

  “You asked me that one other time,” said Detweiler. “I remember.”