The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh Read Free Book Online

earlier generation.
    Then there was yet another young man who'd bought a copy of the Mercury and "made suspicious inquiries as to whether or not there were details of the murder in it."
    It was notable that almost all reported suspects--hundreds of them--were youths. Village people obviously saw the murderer of Lynda Mann as someone quite close to her age, and in fact, so did the murder squad commanders. All of them--the punks, Teddy boys, runners, criers, weepers, readers--all of them were teenagers.
    That December a large number of officers volunteered to keep the incident room open during the holidays, even on Christmas Day.
    Supt. David Baker took the occasion to say to the media, "Christmas is a time of year when people start reflecting. Lynda's family will certainly be looking back, and also the person responsible, and his family. We would urge anyone who notices anything manifestly different about family members in the Narborough area to come forward and inform us."
    He then went on to suggest for the first time that Lynda's killer had been known to her: "They were probably acquaintances, and perhaps what started off as a kiss and cuddle developed into something that got out of hand, resulting in Lynda's death. But only the person responsible can tell us what actually happened."
    The police were thus openly offering extenuating circumstances to the killer or to anyone who might be shielding him. There were no takers.
    That Christmas, Kath Eastwood had some presents to give out, presents that had been bought by Lynda. Ever the enterprising, resourceful, and self-sufficient girl, Lynda had taken money she'd saved from baby-sitting and bought the presents well in advance of the holiday. Kath gave them out on Christmas Day.
    By now the Eastwoods desperately sought what most victims of cruel and terrible crimes want: retribution and revenge. Eddie and Kath were always honest enough to admit the latter.
    Eddie told reporters who rang him that Christmas Eve, "We live each day hour by hour, minute by minute. I just hope the man who killed our Lynda is suffering as much as we are. I just hope he's thinking about the damage he has done to our family while he celebrates his Christmas."
    Kath also gave a statement: "This man has got to be punished. And I hope anyone who knows him will think twice about harboring him. We just do not have an existence anymore and he is to blame."
    The huge Edwardian brick buildings of the psychiatric hospital, with their gray slate roofs and eccentric campaniles, looked ugly to some, especially that massive brick chimney towering over the countryside. But Derek Pearce said, "I found the old place quite handsome, except it looked very eerie coming in at night."
    The eeriness was no doubt heightened by thoughts of the poor wretches confined in those buildings. Perhaps even him, the one they hunted.
    More than one detective was to describe driving into the hospital grounds on dark brooding nights, thinking of him and wondering if he was peering out a window. Watching and laughing. If you were tired from overwork, if you'd had a couple of pints, it wasn't impossible to fancy you'd heard a soft demented chuckle in the darkness, from just across the cricket pitch.

    Chapter 7.
    Plea
    By the first week in January the police were desperate enough to ask the Mercury to print more pleas for witnesses to come forth. The first request involved two men and a young woman who'd been observed in a coffee shop on Horsefair Street in Leicester. One of the men had been reading an inside page of the Mercury when he abruptly folded up the paper. After the young woman asked him what was in the news, he hushed her by saying he'd tell her when they got outside. The witness who'd observed the incident told police the page the man had been reading was "probably" , which carried a story on the Lynda Mann inquiry. The young man wore a gold earring in his right ear. There were lots of earring wearers reported.
    Still another