“My father descended even deeper into bitterness, drink, and abuse. My brothers became responsible for almost all the chores, and my mother’s main task seemed to be to try and deflect his rage. After he died in ’76, I found out that I was the product of a night of whiskey and violence, which ended with him forcing himself on my mother.”
There. It was out. I sat, waiting for the look of revulsion. Reverend Powers, however, seemed completely at ease. He merely took a sip of port, rolling the stem of his glass between his fingers. There was no sound in the room, except the muffled ticking of the clock.
“So you chose to become a physician yourself in retribution?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” I admitted. “Of everyone, my father held the most antipathy to the doctors who had treated his wound. ‘Robbers,’ he called them, as if it were they who were responsible for the loss of his limb, rather than his own cowardice.”
“But how could you make your ambition a reality with your family destitute?”
“I was always bookish. My mother decided that having a learner in the family was desirable, and sent scrawled notes to the schoolmaster, Reverend Audette, asking for help. He agreed to tutor me. I spent hour after hour in his study or on walks in the woods. He was the most educated man I’d ever met.
“After my father died, he encouraged me to join a seminary, but once he realized that my calling was in science, offered to help find the right place to study. He said that the finest medical colleges were back East, but eastern schools were costly and attracted students who would look down on someone from an Ohio farm. A boy like me, from the West, he said, should look to the West. The country was opening up and every new town would need a doctor. He suggested Rush Medical College in Chicago and I agreed.
“There remained the question of cost, of course. One day, Reverend Audette asked me into his study and offered to endow my education. When I protested, he told me that I would be doing a service to him by accepting. He was childless and widowed and said that he had more money than he needed to last out his days. To aid me in pursuing such an honorable career would provide him with posterity.”
“You must have been very grateful,” said Reverend Powers.
“I have never ceased being grateful,” I replied.
“So it seems you have done him a great service as well, then, by justifying his trust. What has he had to say of your great achievements?”
“He died just before I left Chicago.”
“I’m sorry. And your mother and brothers … they must be extremely proud.”
“Yes … well … I send them money.”
“Ah.” Reverend Powers thought for a moment. “Which do you think is the greater need, then,” he asked, “to justify Reverend Audette’s trust or to wipe away the sins of your family?”
I was stunned by the question. “I’m not sure,” I replied. “Do you think of my family as sinful?”
“Do you?”
Did I? The immediate answer was yes, that I despised them all … my father for being a drunk and coward, my mother for allowing him to abuse her without protest, my brothers for being uneducated louts, and all of them for wanting nothing from me but pieces of silver. But was it true? Or was I merely ashamed?
“No,” I said. “Not sinful.”
“Perhaps it is Dr. Osler then. Do you feel a need to justify his trust as well?”
“Of course. It is only natural.”
“Yes,” said Reverend Powers. “Only natural. But do you feel that he has an equal need to justify your trust in him?”
“Dr. Osler owes me nothing,” I said with finality.
“Of course.” Reverend Powers replaced his glass and rose from his chair. “I hope I was of help, Dr. Carroll,” he said, but with a note of distinct warmth.
“You gave me no answers,” I said.
“That is not my role, Dr. Carroll,” he replied. “I was hoping simply to allow you to see the questions.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “You must trust me when I tell you that you know all you need to know. The voice of Christ lives in all of us. Some simply listen better than others. You are one of those who listen quite carefully. I have no doubt that you will take the correct course.”
I was flattered at his words, but nonetheless departed feeling less than satisfied. I had arrived with questions and was evidently supposed to leave with more questions. Still, I had too much faith in Reverend Powers to simply dismiss his remarks. Perhaps I was asking the wrong questions. And if that was true, what should I be asking?
When I returned home, I discovered that the boy I had hired earlier in the day to retrieve Turk’s books had been efficient in the task, and two boxes awaited me in my rooms. One of the boxes contained the Greeks and the other the Bancrofts. They were, as I had instructed, packed carefully, and I found myself comforted as I removed one volume after another of Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides, and placed them in my own bookshelves. I decided to read one of them before bed, and chose a volume of the Dialogues. After all, Socrates had imparted wisdom by means of the interrogative. Perhaps I might glean the Reverend’s meaning from the pages of Turk’s books.
I remained in my sitting room long into the night, the light from the gas lamp casting a warming glow, reading the wisdom of the ancients until at last I felt that I could rest.
CHAPTER 13
I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING surprisingly refreshed after so little sleep. Finally, I understood what Reverend Powers had meant, and I understood myself. I was not seeking truth because of Abigail Benedict, nor to protect my career, so inexorably tied to the Professor’s, nor to attain justice for Turk, nor even because my conscience told me that it was the moral and Christian thing to do. I was seeking truth so that I might at last live in peace.
My own father had been no father at all; Reverend Audette, for all his generosity, had underestimated my abilities and recommended me to second-tier medicine; Jorgie, while caring, was a fumbler. It was only in Dr. Osler that I had found a man in whom I could place my trust and affection.
But the glimmer of suspicion I now realized I had felt from the moment he had slammed closed the cover on the ice chest in the Dead House had ripened into full-fledged doubt. Pretending to deny doubt hadn’t made it disappear, but merely left it to fester like an untreated wound. Soon, I would leave Philadelphia for Baltimore to work with Dr. Osler in a manner more intimate than ever before. I surely did not want to lose another father, but nor did I relish the prospect that every time I looked at Dr. Osler I would wonder if I had once again been betrayed. I had no choice but to pursue this matter wherever it led.
That evening, I remained at the hospital until about seven, and then returned home for a light dinner. At half past nine, I engaged a carriage and headed for The Fatted Calf. I did not know exactly what information I wished to elicit from the man Haggens, only that I wished to begin to fill in the picture, much, I expect, as Eakins would fill in detail on a canvas once he had settled on the basic sketch.
The hour was early for such an establishment, so, when I arrived, the giant outside the door was lolling about, without the guarded tension I had observed the previous week. He did not challenge me as I walked past him into the largely empty saloon. Few of the tables were occupied, and those by men with thick hands and dark expressions, sitting silently with their liquor.
I had not realized how vast an establishment it was. With the tables situated as close as they were, The Fatted Calf might easily accommodate two hundred revelers. Nor had I realized how downtrodden—everything in the room, from the floor to the walls to the tables to the glasses on the bar, appeared to be embossed with a layer of grime. If Turk actually had acquired a gastrointestinal ailment from drinking in this place, it would have been no surprise.
I strode across the room to the bar, my boot heels echoing softly on the pitted floorboards. A man behind the railing was polishing the glasses, using a dirty towel that left them looking no cleaner than when he had started. He ignored me until I asked for Mr.
Haggens, at which point he looked up with a decidedly unfriendly expression. “What do you want with him?” Under the gruffness, however, he was a bit taken aback at my dress and demeanor, likely endeavoring to decide if I was someone to be feared or robbed.
“I have business with him. Please tell him that I was in last Thursday with George Turk.”
“Tell him yourself,” grunted the bartender, who directed me to a door at the far end of the room.
When I knocked, an indistinct voice responded from inside, so I opened the door and walked in. Haggens was seated at a dilapidated rolltop desk, piles of papers before him, with a surprisingly elegant Waterman fountain pen held in his hand. I was reminded that The Fatted Calf was, after all, a business like any other, with records to keep and accounts to pay.
“I’m here about George Turk,” I said simply, assuming that Haggens was far too clever not to know Turk’s identity.
Haggens did not look up. “I know who you come about,” he said.
“I suppose you know that he is dead.” I was confident Sergeant Borst’s inquiries were now a matter of common knowledge in this part of town.
“I suppose I do,” Haggens replied. He pushed himself away from the desk and leaned back in his chair. “And I know who you are, too. You know, Doc—it is Doc, right?—this is a pretty dangerous place for a gent like you to be wandering around in. Why, there’s stabbings, and shootings, and all sorts of things that happen to those who come down here and don’t know what they’re doing.”
Although I had come prepared to be threatened, now that I was actually facing a threat, I realized that no amount of preparation was enough. An immense effort at self-control was going to be required if I was to come through this.
“Yes,” I replied, “I’m sure that’s true. Nonetheless, Mr. Haggens, I think it would be best for you if I retained my health. I believe we can be of help to one another.”
“Oh, yeah?” he replied, his eyebrows rising in mock surprise. “And please be so kind as to inform me how you can help me?”
“My inquiries are limited. Once I find what I’m looking for and relay my information to the appropriate authorities, it will end the matter. If, however, the police proceed on their own, their interest will assuredly be more open-ended. Sergeant Borst impressed me as a rather determined fellow.”
Haggens considered this. “Borst is that,” he conceded. He thought some more. “So you’re telling me, Doc, that if I tell you what you want to know, you’ll keep me out of it? You know that if you cross me, I’ll kill you sure, even if I have to do it from the clink?”
“I have no reason to cross you,” I said. “This is an honest proposition.” “Honest” was an odd word to use with this fellow but it was, in fact, the case. “More than that,” I added, “I was hoping that you might be persuaded to look out for me a little.”
Haggens smiled, this time more genuinely. “Well, you’re sure a surprise, Doc.” He was the second person from the docks to tell me that. “Turk said you was a chump.”
Although the sentiment hardly came as a revelation, it stung all the same. “But Turk is dead and I am here.”
“True enough,” Haggens admitted. He pulled out one of the drawers of the desk and reached inside. For an instant of panic, I feared he would withdraw a weapon, but his hand emerged instead with a bottle of whiskey. “Drink?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” I replied. “The last time I drank here, I was much the worse for it.”
Haggens laughed. “Oh, yeah. You had the ‘champagne.’ This is the real stuff, though.”
“Thank you, no.”
Haggens shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, pouring one for himself. “Have a seat, then.” He gestured toward a wooden chair against the wall. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
“First of all,” I said, “do you have any idea who killed Turk or why?”
“Not a clue. Going to have to do better than that, Doc.”
“Who was the man last Thursday night that Turk argued with, then? What was the argument about?”
Haggens rubbed his hand across his chin. Apparently, agreeing to speak with me about illicit activities was not the same as actually doing so. “All right,” he said finally, more to himself than me. “Don’t know the gent’s name. Been in here once or twice before. Always for Turk. Must have money though … good clothes … expensive. What they was fighting about? Well, Turk was no stranger to artificial stimulation, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean the man came here to ask Turk for drugs. What kind of drugs?”
“People down here don’t mix in each other’s business, Doc. Not good for the health. Turk was supposed to have something new … special. It ain’t from here. Comes in by boat, I think.” Haggens eyed me. “Understand, this is just guesswork. I don’t know none of this personally.”
“Of course,” I replied.
Haggens regarded me skeptically, then went on. “Anyways, this gent come in last Thursday all in a lather. Said I was to get Turk right away or there’d be bedlam. So I went and got him away from you and the ladies. As soon as Turk got there, this fella starts screaming at him, wanting to know what was the big idea about something or another.”
“The man wanted drugs?”
“Not sure. Looked more to me like a deal gone bad.” Haggens downed his whiskey and poured himself another. “I seen a lotta fellas in need, so to speak, but this gent didn’t have the right attitude for that. Talked more like an equal than a customer.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“Nothing all that clear. The gent told Turk that he’d better do right by him. Turk warned the gent to watch who he talked nasty to, especially down here, ’cause folks end up dead on the docks all the time. That seemed to take the old boy’s steam out.”
“There was someone else, wasn’t there? Someone who came for the other man.”
“Yeah. Popped in just for a minute. Stayed by the front door. Never saw him before or since. Little fella with a big mustache in a bowler.”
Since Haggens had proved so amenable to imparting information, I resolved to get all I could. “Turk had other businesses going, didn’t he? Something more in the ‘getting rid of description?”
Haggens eyed me. “You sure know a lot about a lot. He helped women who got themselves in trouble.”
“Helped?”
“Best help there is, Doc. Can make quite a bit of cash that way. Maybe you want to consider taking up where he left off?”
So it was true. Turk, you evil man, preying upon desperate women in crisis and amassing five thousand dollars doing it. You deserved to die. I felt for a moment that I would vomit. But I had learned enough of Haggens to maintain a composed demeanor at all cost.
“No, thank you,” I replied, as casually as I could. “Where did he do all of this? Not here?”
“Here?” Haggens looked genuinely aghast. “You looked like a pretty smart fella until that, Doc. Here?”
“Where, then? He must have had some base of operations for all this commerce.”
“He had a place, sure. Down on Wharf Lane somewhere, I think. Never knew exactly. Didn’t want to know.”
“I’ve never heard of Wharf Lane.”
“No reason you should have. Only one block long and not a block you’d ever wanna be on.”
“One last thing,” I said. I withdrew the picture from my coat and asked Haggens if he had ever seen the woman in the photograph before. Although there were still substantial gaps in the hypothesis, I was now convinced that I would eventually find a link between Turk and Rebecca Lachtmann. I could only hope that the link did not stretch to Dr. Osler. Haggens stared at the picture for an extremely long time.
“I’m not sure. Maybe. Got a name?”
I told him that I did not. Haggens’ brow furrowed as he continued to examine the photograph. “I’m really not sure. Could be though. She got a friend? Tall one with dark hair?”
“Possibly,” I said, feeling my skin prickle. �
��She might.”
“Maybe. One night. About a month ago. Two like that are unusual in here.”
“Were they alone?”
“Don’t remember no one with ‘em, but I figure there must have been. Two like that alone …”
“Were they with Turk? Or was Turk here that night?”
“Don’t remember. Truly.”
“All right, Haggens,” I said. “Thank you for your help.”
“Why, you’re very welcome.” I rose and turned for the door. “Oh, Doc,” Haggens said, “one more thing. Did you see Mike out front?”
I assured him I had.
“Looks like a pretty rough customer, huh?”
I agreed he did.
“Well,” said Haggens, “he don’t look half as mean as he is. Long as you keep to your deal, old Mike out there’ll help keep a watch on you whenever you’re down here. I get a whiff that you’re going back on it, Mike won’t be your friend no more. Get me?”
I got him. I was about to leave when one final thought occurred to me. “Tell me, Haggens, do you think Mike might remember either of the two women or the little fellow in the bowler?”
He snorted. “Mike don’t know what day it is. He ain’t out there for his memory.”
I spent the carriage ride home pondering whether, when Reverend Powers spoke of Christian conscience, he had allowed for running afoul of the police, investigating abortion and murder, and making bargains with thugs along the way.
When I arrived, Mrs. Mooney had already gone to bed, but I found a small envelope addressed to me on a table in the vestibule. When I opened it, inside was a note written on fine, cream-colored stationery. Dear Dr. Carroll, it read, I need to see you urgently about the matter we discussed. Please make arrangements to call on me tomorrow evening. It was signed, Affectionately, Abigail.
CHAPTER 14
THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN I arrived at the hospital, I learned that little Annie had died during the night.
Death tears at a doctor. Although each of us knows that a certain percentage of our patients will not survive, no physician ever becomes inured. Inevitably, there are some patients who take on an almost symbolic quality, who epitomize the struggle in which we continually engage against fate and inevitability. It is often, as was the case with Annie, those very patients whose survival is least likely who engender the most personal reaction.
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