The Stockton Insane Asylum Murder Read online

  One must always make it profitable for the state-run institution, even if it means a little discomfort during enforcement. A recent statistical survey Bertha read had uncovered the fact that more patient accidents occurred because of there being no restraints, and the screaming dashes made by manic lunatics were not to be allowed. It was Bertha’s goal, however, to lift the rock of outside speculation in order to explore the stark reality of the asylum’s daily life, which was squirming from the mental disease called fear.

  Chapter 2: The Home Fires

  The Hopkins Mansion, One Nob Hill, San Francisco, April 23, 1887.

  When the woman from the Stockton Insane Asylum came to the door, Samuel Cortland Foltz, nineteen, was playing cribbage with the butler, Hannigan. Samuel heard the voice of the woman, and he knew she was the attractive messenger paid for by his mother’s suffragist friends. Samuel waved off the butler when he started to answer the door. The written epistle from his sister, Bertha May, would be handed to his mother, Clara Shortridge Foltz, Esq., and then the formal “Walk to the Library” would ensue. As Clara made her journey, inevitably, family members would begin to trail in after her until the chairs around the Library reference table were occupied, waiting for the grand reading by the attorney and leader of the investigative team.

  Samuel was without his girlfriend, Adeline Quantrill. The eighteen-year-old psychic orphan, with whom he fell in love during the spiritualist murders case, was interviewing for a research post with Dr. Richard Lobe, the Ichthyologist, who worked directly for railroad millionaire, Leland Stanford. Samuel also knew Adeline was being used by his mother to investigate more closely into what their team was now referring to as the “Mad Money Exposé.”

  Five of the usual investigative members were there, and they were seated to Clara’s right and left. On the right sat Clara’s beaux, Captain of Detectives, Isaiah Lees, his usually serious demeanor being attacked by the jubilant woman next to him, Ah Toy, Clara’s long-time friend and former Chinatown Madame. On Clara’s left were her son, Samuel, her daughter, Trella Evelyn, and, down on the end, the owner and benefactress to them all, Mrs. Mary Hopkins, who seemed to be amusing herself by speaking for an improvised napkin puppet, which the old woman was bouncing against Trella’s back. The young woman, used to the magical world of Mary’s dementia, was not perturbed.

  “Please, may we have some decorum? Or, I may be initiating immediate insanity hearings against Ah Toy and Trella Evelyn for having maniacal and fluctuating changes in their menstrual and uterine habits!”

  All the women, except Mrs. Hopkins, began to guffaw loudly and strike the table with their fists or purses. Menstruation and uterine disease were listed reasons for women to be declared insane by California officials, as the group knew.

  Clara pounded her fist louder. “Enough! I must now impart the reading.” She turned to look down at Captain Lees. He was staring up at her like an Irish Setter at the feet of his mistress. “Go ahead. I know that pleading face. You have more information about our case from the city officials. We usually don’t aspire to such lofty heights around here, but, go ahead, Isaiah. Tell us what you know.”

  Clara sat down and kept her eyes on Lees as he stood to address the gathering. He was wearing the outfit he wore on cases: a brown frock coat and vest with checkered pants and spit-shined Oxfords. Clara wished he paid as much attention to her as he did to his Oxfords, his guns, and the Bowie knife that he kept under his vest.

  “Thank you, Madame Investigator. I am certain you are all familiar with our former mayor, and now California’s governor, Mr. Washington Bartlett. In the first case Attorney Foltz took on, we had the mayor on our prime murder suspect list up until the last moment. He did, in fact, impede the investigation into the murders of eight women, for which he was never prosecuted.” Lees nodded to Clara, who was waving at him.

  “I want to get back to our present murder case. How is Governor Bartlett a factor?” Clara said.

  Captain Lees was ready for that question. “I understand. Governor Bartlett is connected to our present investigation. I just found out from his office, in fact, that the City of San Francisco will not be seeking any criminal grand jury indictment in the homicide of Winnifred Cotton, even though there is reason to believe the victim was pushed down the stairs and did not fall of her own accord.”

  “Winnie Cotton was a tomboy. She could out-wrestle and out-climb any boy her age. She would never trip.” Trella Evelyn pointed out.

  Lees continued, “It has also been resolved by the mayor’s office that the commitment of Polly Bedford by her parents was legal and proper. Therefore, unless we can discover some evidence that gives us a witness at the scene of the girl’s fall, or we get a sane confession from Miss Bedford as to this killer’s identity, then Bertha May and Polly will have served their time in the asylum for nought.”

  Samuel decided to stand and deliver as well. “We began this inquiry when Polly’s aunt, Mrs. Jeanne Forester, told mother that she overheard her sister, Louise, and her husband, Ronald Bedford, discussing the commitment of their daughter, Polly. The words Mrs. Forester heard were ‘she can’t be questioned by the police.’ Now we have Bertha inside this asylum risking her life, and Adeline is away to infiltrate the halls of academe, while all we seem to be doing is laughing at suffragette humor.”

  Clara arose from her chair like an invigorated spirit of human rights. “Enough! We must focus on our present activities.” She looked down at the report from her daughter at the Stockton hospital. It was the third such report since Clara had her strategically committed.

  Samuel realized that his mother knew that her family and friends looked to her for guidance. They knew that Clara, along with fellow lawyer Laura de Force Gordon, had worked to get the law passed which accepted women into California law schools and gave women the right to enter any profession for which they were qualified. They also knew that Clara and her best friend, Ah Toy, were working to address the injustices of the sexist and racist culture that surrounded them. This case involved women and children being used as chattel in order to incarcerate them for free into mental asylums. These commitments were being done so the husbands or other relatives could profit, either directly or indirectly, from such confinement.

  “Bertha May sends her love, and here is her report for this week. ‘I was able to converse with Polly yesterday, but I believe the drugs they give her are dulling her senses and her intellect.’ I shall now paraphrase.” Clara looked up from the paper at her audience. “Polly describes the murderer of Winnie Cotton as being none other than Satan himself. No horns or other beastly persona for Miss Polly, however. Bertha says that, according to Polly, this devil murderer’s face was a constantly moving display of different human faces. Polly also was certain this visitor was slicing into something just before the murder.”

  “The Great Liar lives amongst us!” Mrs. Hopkins shouted from the end of the table.

  “From what my daughter says about the administration at Stockton, we can at least be assured of getting possible witnesses who will testify that they saw asylum staff selling narcotics to the wealthy female residents in the top floor suites.” Clara, always looking for pathways of greed, had been taught well as to the motivation of corrupt persons, especially those who work for the government.

  Both her father Elias Shortridge, and her lover, Captain Lees, had in the past been arrested for disobeying arbitrary laws meant to protect the corrupt overseers. And, as the Women’s Suffrage Movement also knew, females were seen as the weaker sex for a reason. Without the ability to get out of the home in order to pursue her calling, a woman was also an institutionalized citizen, ripened for the plunder.

  Ah Toy raised her hand, and Clara nodded at her. She seemed very poised in her red silk cheongsam. Her English was eloquent and well pronounced. “Back in China, the Manchu would have workers join committees that were supposed to root out favoritism and corruption, but the rulers used that information to arrest those who would blame others. In C
hina, if you were committed, it usually meant you would die. In this country, it seems, the institutionalization of humans can mean a profitable enterprise for those who can play the game well.”

  It was eldest daughter Trella Evelyn’s turn to raise a hand. She was wearing the newest female liberation attire, a black gabardine suit, with a crimson tie hanging down belligerently between the breasts, and no preposterous bustle or python girdle to impede the free movement of a woman with a purpose. “I believe Ah Toy has a brilliant idea, even though she has not voiced it. Mother, you have always remarked that ideas are there for anybody to seize, but it is the enlightened person who steals these ideas and puts them into motion.”

  “Please, Trella dear. Get to the point,” Clara said.

  “We should form a citizens’ committee to investigate the goings-on at Stockton,” Trella said, rising slowly to her feet, as her voice gained volume and confidence. “Mrs. Hopkins and her friends certainly have the wealth and political influence to coordinate such a bi-partisan effort. We should keep it away from our suffrage connections, lest the men see through us to our ultimate goal.”

  Clara wanted to give her daughter a bit more rope so she could hang herself properly and lady-like. “And what, pray tell, is our ultimate goal?”

  “Why, to arrest every member of that corrupt male system in California that makes us the laughingstock of the nation. More Californians are being committed to mental hospitals than in any other state of the union. People are committed for being drunk in public, having hysterical menstrual cramps, and being insane for not speaking English.” Trella’s neck was red with emotion.

  Clara was waiting for her daughter’s voice to register near the soprano pitch sung in a Wagnerian opera. There it was. “All right. That’s enough! I appreciate your fervent devotion to justice, Trella, and the idea is good, but the elaboration is not. For us to initiate such a committee, we will need an extremely decorous and judicial approach. Uncontrolled emotions, as you should all be aware, are the Achille’s heel of our movement. Many other women are against the female right to vote because women are important to the home fires. Without a woman’s intelligent touch, so goes the logic, a home can quickly degenerate into chaos and fear.”

  Samuel watched his mother gather steam. He had witnessed this often. The unfathomable power of eloquent argument.

  “Don’t look at me that way, Ah Toy. You know as well as I that without your sexual allure, you would have never made it out of Chinatown alive. Therefore, we shall form a very prudent, sober, and un-biased committee to investigate Stockton State Insane Asylum. We shall base our inquiry on very specific allegations, and our members will represent a cross-section of the community—both male and female—and our purpose will be to protect the best interests of all California taxpayers and citizens.”

  Captain Lees stood up. “You need a member of the legal establishment to sit on this committee. I know a retired judge who would agree to such an appointment.”

  Clara turned toward him. “Yes, and father can give us an esteemed reverend from the Christian community. Do we have anybody from academia and labor?”

  “I have a professor at Berkeley who can serve. He teaches History and is well respected by his fellow researchers.” Trella Evelyn was in college, and Samuel expected she would recommend that professor. She also thought he was dreamy and handsome.

  Ah Toy raised her hand and waited until Clara nodded at her. “Chinatown is constantly working to gain advantage in our competitive economy. I believe it would be proper to include a labor official of Chinese descent on our committee. I know of one such respected official, and she is willing, I am certain.”

  “Thank you, Ah Toy. We now have a framework for our new investigative committee. Obviously, we will need to interview these new appointees, and each of you who spoke will coordinate together to schedule our interview. Be reminded. We are not out to save the world. As of this moment, our task is to prove a little girl has been murdered. Whatever crimes may branch outward from this central search are not of our immediate concern. With God’s help, we have members in our international movement who will step in when needed to bridge the gaps.”

  Samuel knew they would end the meeting with applause. As he joined in, he thought about Adeline. Would she become more motivated by the pull of academic research so that she soon forgot about him? He really had no immediate plans. He still gambled in Chinatown, somewhat successfully. His mother’s practice and “The Law” were on his distant horizon perhaps.

  Samuel also thought about his sister, Bertha May. He knew that part of Bertha’s motivation was to prove she was equal to he and Trella. He and Trella knew the real danger Bertha was in, and the excitement of her adventure exceeded the risk by microcosmic proportions.

  He, along with their entire investigative team, knew they would now proceed carefully. The motivation to serve the common good was to always be at the forefront of any investigation they pursued. There was something about that last statement that always made Samuel’s chest swell with pride.

  ***

  The Cotton Mansion, Six Nob Hill, San Francisco, California, April 23, 1887.

  Clara was in relatively good spirits when she walked through the garden leading up to the Cotton home, five doors down from Mary Hopkins’ mansion. She had given direct instructions to her team about how they would collect information in the coming days. Of course, her daughter Bertha was in danger, but unless the murderer were inside the asylum, the risk could be kept to a minimum. Clara believed, of course, in the higher good. Humans needed something to look forward to as well as something to appreciate immediately. Without hope, humanity was doomed.

  A tall butler took her shawl and parasol, and Clara adjusted her auburn hair and straightened her new teal hat. The silk teal dress and moderate bustle served as assisting decorations in this important tête-à-tête. The most important task to Clara was how to decorate the questions she was about to ask this special person. She knew just how important it was to have an audience with Mrs. Elizabeth Packard, a woman who, in the 1860s, had been committed to an insane asylum for three years. Like Clara, she was a single mother with six children. Mrs. Packard won her case against the patriarchal authorities, and she turned to the law, in order to enact changes to reform state policies on housing and caring for its mentally ill population. Clara was meeting a woman who had established a national association of experts to address the changes needed at mental asylums in all the states.

  As she followed the maid through the mansion, Clara noted how her senses were being distracted away from the usual garish antique furnishings, pungent exotic incense, and even the artwork collections. When one lived inside the beast of capitalism, the opulence quickly became commonplace, especially if one was engaged in legal conundrums that had to do with civil rights for women, the lesser races, foreign cultures, and other lower classes.

  Winona Cotton was, of course, still wearing mourning black for her daughter, Winnifred, whose death was the proximate cause of this arranged meeting between Clara and Mrs. Packard. Her eyes were bright, and her hands were warm as she grasped Clara’s. “Come. Let me introduce you to her right away. My friends and I, quite naturally, will be leaving the room the moment you give the word. I must tell you. She does have one affectation at age seventy-one. She won’t use a hearing apparatus, so she will often not hear you well. You must speak louder than you would normally speak for her to hear you.”

  Clara nodded and followed her hostess into the study off to the side of the main dining room. Ever the good detective, Clara was making mental notes about the identities of the persons she knew who were inside that study. There was only one personage she did not recognize, a slender man with fashionable mutton-chop sideburns warming his cheeks and framing his blue-eyed gaze. The others were Charles Cotton, Winona’s husband, and Clara’s close attorney friend, Laura de Force Gordon. Clara assumed Laura was there representing the Cotton family, as she had also represented them during the formal in
quest into the cause of Winnifred’s death. Laura had been of great assistance in Clara’s second case, last year, helping to capture the spiritualist who was responsible for women killing their husbands.

  Then, there was the woman Clara really wanted to meet. Mrs. Elizabeth Ware Packard wore a plain, rural dress of dark blue with a white lace apron tied around her middle. The plaid shawl encircled her rather wide shoulders, and the cameo brooch under the white blouse at her neck complemented her calm and inquisitive gray eyes. Her wispy white hair was loose and about her shoulders, and there was something about the way Mrs. Packard leaned forward as Clara approached, and smiled beneath her white bonnet, which caused Clara to say the following to the older woman in a loud voice.

  “I trust you are not wearing a corset, Mrs. Packard, lest your father and ex-husband commit you again for purposely cutting off the proper flow of blood to your weak, female brain.” Clara took the woman’s spotted hands into her own and peered deeply into her intelligent eyes. She at once saw the elder’s eyes light up with good humor as she squinted, smiled, and nodded at Clara.

  “Ah, Mrs. Foltz. At last, someone who understands the role that simply being of a different sex can mean to one’s ability to work and to even breathe comfortably. I keep telling my so-called followers that they need only begin a revolt in the bedroom to get things changed the way they should be. That would most certainly include our women who do their wifely duties in the bordello. Certainly, you’ll agree, Aristophanes was onto something when he wrote Lysistrata. Women of today simply do not have the gumption to follow the Greek women’s plan through. If the corset were on the men’s bodies, these gallivanting troubadours of ours would become celibate monks. Just to win a drunken wager at a tavern house, they thought they could escape this mighty garment-python’s grip. It is we women who need to gird our loins and, if you’ll pardon the expression, herd our collective and closed loins, to put a stop to male sexist behaviors.”