kill Rheta, despite the dose of syph she was carrying. I think it was Earle’s idea. She wouldn’t give him a divorce, good Catholic girl that she was, and Earle’s a good Catholic, too, after all. It’d be hell to get excommunicated, right, Earle? Right, Mom?”
Earle was shaking; his hands clasped, prayerfully. Dr. Wynekoop’s wrinkled face was a stern mask.
“Here’s what happened,” I said, cheerfully. “Earle came to you and asked you to put the little woman to sleep…she was a tortured girl, after all, if it were done painlessly, why, it would be a merciful act. But you refused-you’re a doctor, a healer. It wouldn’t be right.”
Earle’s eyes were shifting from side to side in confirmation of my theory.
I forged ahead: “But Earle came to you again, and said, Mother dear, if you don’t do it, I will. I’ve found father’s old .32, and I’ve tried it…fired two test rounds. It works, and I know how to work it. I’m going to kill Rheta myself.”
Earle’s eyes were wide as was his mouth. I must have come very, very close, even perhaps to his very language. Dr. Alice continued to maintain a poker face.
“So, Mom, you decided to take matters in hand. When Earle came back early from his Grand Canyon photo trip, the two of you rendezvoused away from home-though you were seen, unfortunately-and came up with a plan. Earle would resume his trip, only go no farther than Peoria, where he would establish an alibi.”
Earle’s face was contorted as he took in every damning word.
“On the day of the murder,” I told her, “you had a final private consultation with your daughter-in-law…you overdosed her with chloroform, or smothered her.”
“Mr. Heller,” Dr. Alice said icily, looking away from me, “this fantasy of yours holds no interest whatsoever for me.”
“Well, maybe so-but Earle’s all perked up. Anyway, you left the body downstairs, closing the examining room door, locking it probably, and went on about the business of business as usual…cooking supper for your roomer, spending a quiet evening with her…knowing that Earle would be back after dark, to quietly slip in and, what? Dispose of the body somehow. That was the plan, wasn’t it? The unhappy bride would just disappear. Or perhaps turn up dead in ditch, or…whatever. Only it didn’t happen that way. Because Snny Boy chickened out.”
And now Dr. Alice broke form, momentarily, her eyes turning on Earle for just a moment, giving him one nasty glance, the only time I ever saw her look at the louse with anything but devotion.
“He sent you a telegram in the afternoon, letting you know that he was still in Peoria. And that he was going to stay in Peoria. And you, with a corpse in the basement. Imagine.”
“You have a strange sense of humor, Mr. Heller.”
“You have a strange way of practicing medicine, Dr. Wynekoop. You sent your roomer, Miss Shaunesey, on a fool’s errand-sending her to a drug store where you knew the prescription couldn’t be filled. And you knew conscientious Miss Shaunesey would try another drug store, buying you time.”
“Really,” Dr. Alice said, dryly.
“Really. That’s when you concocted the burglary story. You’re too frail, physically, to go hauling a corpse anywhere. But you remembered that gun, across the hall. So you shot your dead daughter-in-law, adding insult to injury, and faked the robbery-badly, but it was impromptu, after all.”
“I don’t have to listen to this!” Earle said.
“Then don’t,” I said. “What you didn’t remember, Dr. Wynekoop, is that two bullets had already been fired from that weapon, when Earle tested it. And that little anomaly bothered me.”
“Did it,” she said, flatly.
“It did. Your daughter-in-law’s syphilis; the two missing bullets; and the hour you spent alone in the house, while the roomer was away and Rheta was dead in your examining room. Those three factors added up to one thing: your guilt, and your son’s complicity.”
“Are you going to tell your story to anyone?” she asked, blandly.
“No,” I said. “You’re my client.”
“How much?” Earle said, with a nasty, nervous little sneer.
I held my hands up, palms out. “No more. I’m keeping my retainer. I earned it.”
I turned my back on them and began to walk away.
From behind me, I heard her say, with no irony whatsoever, “Thank you, Mr. Heller.”
I turned and looked at her and laughed. “Hey, you’re going to jail, lady. The cops and the D.A. won’t need me to get it done, and all the good publicity you cook up won’t change a thing. I have only one regret.”
I made them ask.
Earle took the honors.
“What’s that?” Earle asked, as he stood there trembling; his mother reached her hand out and patted his nearest hand, soothing him.
I smiled at him-the nastiest smile I could muster. “That you won’t be going to jail with her, you son of a bitch.”
And go to jail she did.
But it took a while. A most frail-looking Dr. Alicecarried into the courtroom on the opening day of the trial; still playing for sympathy in the press, I figured.
Then, after eight days of evidence, Dr. Alice had an apparent heart seizure, when the prosecution hauled the blood-stained examination table into court. A mistrial was declared. When she recovered, though, she got a brand-new one. The press milked the case for all its worth; public opinion polls in the papers indicated half of Chicago considered Dr. Alice guilty, and the other half thought her innocent. The jury, however, was unanimous-it took them only fifteen minutes to find her guilty and two hours to set the sentence at twenty-five years.
Earle didn’t attend the trial. They say that just as Dr. Alice was being ushered in the front gate at the Woman’s Reformatory at Dwight, Illinois, an unshaven, disheveled figure darted from the nearby bushes. Earle kissed his mother goodbye and she brushed away his tears. As usual.
She served thirteen years, denying her guilt all the way; she was released with time off for good behavior. She died on July 4, 1955, in a nursing home, under an assumed name.
Earle changed his name, too. What became of him, I can’t say. There were rumors, of course. One was that he had found work as a garage mechanic.
Another was that he had finally re-married-a beautiful redhead.
Dr. Catherine Wynekoop did not change her name, and went on to a distinguished medical career.
And the house at 3406 West Monroe, the Death Clinic, was torn down in 1947. The year Dr. Alice was released.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Research materials for this fact-based story include “The Wynekoop Case” in
THE PERFECT CRIME
She was the first movie star I ever worked for, but I wasn’t much impressed. If I were that easily impressed, I’d have been impressed by Hollywood itself. And having seen the way Hollywood portrayed my profession on the so-called silver screen, I wasn’t much impressed with Hollywood.
On the other hand, Thelma Todd was the most beautiful woman who ever wanted to hire my services, and that did impress me. Enough so that when she called me, that October, and asked me to drive out to her “sidewalk cafe” nestled under the Palisades in Montemar Vista, I went, wondering if she would be as pretty in the flesh as she was on celluloid.
I’d driven out Pacific Coast Highway that same morning, a clear cool morning with a blue sky lording it over
