“Thanks,” Stump said, then pointed to the card I still held. I showed it to him again.
“Some colonel dead?”
“No, no thanks to you. This was in your hands when that German shell knocked you out, as you were strangling Colonel Harding.”
“Who? God, my head hurts.” He tried to raise his head and check out the rest of his body.
“Bad concussion, a bit of shrapnel in the legs. Nothing to worry about,” I said. “It’s over, Stump. We got you dead to rights. Found you next to Harding, with that card in your hand. You were trying to strangle him with his binocular strap. Almost had him, too. Then one of the Tigers blasted the farmhouse, and you got hit on the side of the head.”
“Harding? The colonel who got us out when we were pinned down?”
“The same.”
“Why the hell would I do that? You think I’m Red Heart?” He winced, the effort of speaking painful.
“Why would you have this in your hand?” I held up the king again.
“Dunno. Someone put it there?” His voice was weaker, and his eyes closed.
“That’s what they all say, Stump,” I said, leaning closer. “Tell me the truth. Why did you kill all those people? What did you have against them? What did you have against Louie?”
“Louie? Jesus, he was my pal. What happened?”
“Bullet in the back of the head, close range. You fire your automatic out there?”
“Of course not, we were never close enough to the Krauts for that.”
“It was fired. One round gone. I checked it when I found you.”
“Can’t be. Louie, who’d want to kill Louie?” he said, struggling to keep his eyes open. “Was a major killed? Who?”
“Yeah. Arnold, the day we left Caserta. You know that.”
“No. You mentioned him, said he was alive.”
“I just didn’t say he was dead. How’d you do it, Stump? Get him alone like that?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Why would I?”
“That’s what I want to know. Why strangle Harding after he saved our bacon? Why any of them?”
“You said Harding was choked by his binocular straps?”
“Yes. Do you remember?”
“And that you found me holding that card?”
“Yes.”
“Lieutenant, my head is scrambled, but even I know you’d need two hands free to strangle a guy. You’d grab and twist those leather straps real tight. Hard to do with a playing card in your hand. That one’s a little worn, but it would be badly crumpled if I’d done that. You’d keep it in your pocket until the deed was done. Now leave me alone.”
Maybe that made sense. Maybe I should have thought of it. But I wasn’t taking any chances. I found an MP and had him cuff Stump to the cot. If he was going anywhere, he’d be dragging an army cot along with him.
I wandered outside, wondering what to do next. I could go back to HQ and see if there was any message from Kaz. I could also check with Kearns about Danny’s transfer and see about getting him out of the platoon. It was a dangerous place, with death dealt from both sides of the table. But first I needed some chow. I spotted Cassidy checking charts and asked him where the mess was. He ditched his bloodstained operating gown and said he was buying.
“It’s not much on taste, but there’s plenty of it,” Cassidy said as we filled our mess tins with corned-beef hash and lima beans. The coffee was hot, and there was even sugar, so I couldn’t complain.
“Do you get many cases like that fellow who tried to dig a hole in the floor?” I asked after I got most of the grub down.
“We’re starting to see them. The artillery bombardment has been getting worse real fast. Most of the wounds we treat are shrapnel. It’s the kind of thing that wears on a man.”
“But the Third Division is a veteran outfit. Shouldn’t it take longer for them to be affected?”
“That’s just it, Billy. The Third has been at the sharp end since North Africa. Then Sicily, then the landing at Salerno, where they took a lot of casualties. After that, the Volturno River, and then Cassino. They only had a few weeks’ rest before this landing, and now we’ve got Germans on the high ground shelling us constantly. The replacements don’t know what to expect, the veterans do, and I can’t tell you which is worse.”
“What do you do for them?”
“The GI you saw will be evacuated as soon as a transport is available. He’s got a million-dollar wound, both arms riddled with shrapnel, so he’s going home. It’s the ones without physical wounds I worry about. A short time in a safe rear area is a big help, but there is no safe haven here. Last I heard, the beachhead was only seven miles wide. The Germans can shell us anywhere they want, day or night.”
“How do you doctors decide which wounds are the milliondollar variety?”
“It’s not an official term, Billy. It’s any wound bad enough to get you sent home but not bad enough to be permanently crippling. That guy had severe muscle damage. No way he could heal up well enough to handle a rifle in combat, but with physical therapy he should be okay. Might take a while, so he fits the bill.”
“What do you think about these murders? Does a killer like that have to be crazy?”
“Crazy isn’t an official term either. Well, to a normal person, yes, someone who commits multiple murders is crazy, since they operate outside the norms of society. But these killings were well thought out, and had a distinctive pattern. The killer eluded capture, until now. These are all signs of intelligent planning. Is that crazy?”
“You sound like a lawyer.”
“Goes to show, there are no easy answers when it comes to crazy.”
“Take a look at this, and tell me if this sounds like a lunatic murderer,” I said, handing Cassidy Stump’s unfinished letter to his mother. Cassidy read the letter, nodding a few times. He handed it back.
“I can’t say he’s not a murderer, based on this. There are many reasons for murder, and plenty of them wouldn’t preclude telling your mother a little white lie. He obviously wants her to think he’s safe behind the lines, in Naples, since the Anzio landing will be in the news.”
“What about the lunatic part?”
“That’s harder, Billy. This letter shows genuine concern for another person. I’m just theorizing now, but cold-blooded murders as you’ve described them demonstrate a total disregard for others. No remorse at all. This letter shows the opposite. He could have not written her, or he could have written her the truth, but instead he took a different tack, making up a story to ease her mind.”
“So Stump is normal?”
“Billy, one of the things you learn on a psychiatric ward is that words like normal and insane are essentially worthless. It’s what I find fascinating about the human mind.”
“That’s swell, Doc, but I need answers and I need them now. I’ve got a lunatic on the loose.”
“Well, ‘lunatic’ is not a precise term, but ‘psychopath’ is. I think that may be what you’re looking for.”
“Like I said, crazy.”
“A psychotic is crazy, in the conventional sense; they’re the ones who hear voices, that sort of thing. But a psychopath is different. You could talk with one and you’d never know it. A true psychopath could write that letter, only if it served a specific purpose and was to his benefit. They’re emotional mimics. They don’t feel real emotion, but they are great observers, and know when to act normal. But a psychopath wouldn’t care about his mother’s feelings. He wouldn’t even understand what that meant.”
“So how can you spot one?”
“It’s easy, once they’re caught. They’re great deniers, sometimes telling such outright lies about their guilt that it’s easy to see through them. They usually have a grandiose sense of their own self-worth and capabilities. But otherwise, they can act just like you and me.”