“I don’t get that at all,” Leland said. “It’s not as complicated as all that. And if Scanlon is insane, better-qualified men than this one will say.”

“I started on the same thing,” his father said. “He asked me to define insanity. We talked about the rule of law that determines sanity, knowing right from wrong. Everybody knows that that’s no good, but you can’t get a consensus on a new rule. So then he said, ‘Suppose we’re not looking at it the right way? Two things govern us, birth and death. They’re the basic rules we have to go by, with everything else the stuff we make up.’ Then he asked me, ‘What about the time between? We know a little about what we are—not what we need, like love and so on, but what we are. We’re cruel and violent without giving it a thought. It’s not just birth and death, but life, too—three things—’”

“It sounds like he really had his fun with you,” Leland said.

“Ah, no, nothing like that. He said he’d stake his professional reputation on what he was saying about Scanlon. He works with the glands, which are supposed to have a lot to do with what we do and feel, but as much as they do, they don’t enter into what he was trying to describe. He wished they did. Then he could settle the question with a needle.

“But while he was talking, Schoenstein was on the telephone arranging to continue to try for the confession before Scanlon collapsed completely. He’s not just under pressure, he’s aiding and abetting. That’s who you talked up, a politician using the case to advance and ingratiate himself. I’m an old man. The trolleys were being pulled by horses when I was a kid, so what should I know about this stuff? He does know. He has the opportunity to advance the public safety. A little, anyway. That’s the great thing about being a cop, isn’t it? But that’s not the point.”

“What is?”

“Scanlon. Maybe these things can’t be prevented. The doctor made a big thing about the difference between our needs and our nature. What a cruel, selfish thing a man can become. I’m going to go down to that hearing, if Scanlon lives long enough. I want to look in his eyes. I won’t forget this past night and I want to be sure for my own sake. I want to see it.”

“There’s nothing the matter with that,” Leland said. “And don’t start calling yourself old. You’re doing better than Dave Schoenstein.”

“That isn’t hard. But he makes me wonder what I’ve spent my life working for. I’m very depressed, Joe. I’m very unhappy with the way this has gone.”