A Deadly Affection (11 page)

What came next was almost worse than my father's anger. He left the room for a moment and returned with a little green book, handing it to me with instructions to pay particular attention to pages 72 and beyond, before he beat a hasty retreat. Over the next several hours, I received my first formal instruction on the subject of the sexual function—or more accurately, of its abuse—from Professor F. C. Fowler, certified doctor of physiognomy and anthropology. I read the book in my armchair with the door closed, growing smaller and smaller by the page, returning repeatedly to the most damning parts in hopes of finding some absolving exception—but there was none.

I could still remember whole passages by heart: “Animal love, as opposed to platonic love, is the kind of love we see in brute beasts and in man often descends even lower than among the cattle. It is a blind, unreasoning impulse that urges its possessor to its gratification, regardless of the consequences.” When the sexual function was made an instrument of passion and pleasure, the professor warned, “the penalty is sure to follow in all its revolting forms”—including leprosy, weakened bones, depletion of the vital forces, and a marked tendency toward criminal behavior.

While I had been guilty largely of ignorance, the young male mind, it seemed, was riddled with lecherous thoughts and images. Right-minded young men resisted these thoughts, Dr. Fowler explained, by reading about noble folk, or praying, or joining crusades; only the most debased would ever act upon them. “A pure-minded man or boy,” he asserted, “would no more defile the woman or girl he loves than he would his mother. As her natural protector, he allows himself toward her only the purest, most chivalrous of feelings.”

I recalled then the sharp intake of Simon's breath when we kissed and the urgent pressure of his body against mine, and with sickening hindsight, I understood: if he had really loved me, he would not have debased me so. And he most certainly wouldn't have boasted about it to others in the crudest and most impersonal terms. It was just as my father had said. I was the master's daughter, the toy on the highest shelf, desirable precisely and only because I was unattainable. And I had let him kiss me, and press against me, and run his fingers over my breasts. It made me want to scrape myself with something sharp and inflexible.

I was sent off to Europe with my aunt Margaret on a three-month tour. The only way to ease my humiliation, I found, was to banish Simon from my mind and affections, and I did so with surgical precision. On the steamer to England, his hands grew hairy and grasping in my imagination, while his smile became a drooling leer. My interest in him, I came to see, had not stemmed from an understanding of his true character but was, in fact, a misdirected yearning for the “pure love” that Professor Fowler had so radiantly described. By the time we reached Liverpool, I was able to view what had happened as an unfortunate but educational experience, for which I need not hold myself too harshly to account.

There followed dozens of prearranged visits to acquaintances abroad, along with numerous receptions and dances where I saw how properly attentive a well-bred young man could be. By the time I sailed back past Lady Liberty into New York Harbor three months later, I could honestly say that Simon Shaw was no more than an unpleasant memory. When I discovered upon my return that his mother had left our employment for more gainful work elsewhere, taking Simon with her, my only feeling was one of relief.

Simon Shaw had no more power to affect me now than a fading old photograph—or so I had believed until today. And yet here I was, blushing in front of these strangers as Simon tried to prove once again, this time through his belittling, that he was as good as or better than I was. It was only the thought of what I had come for that held my temper in check. He was nothing to me, I reminded myself—but he could be critically important to Eliza. And so, when he asked why I cared about what happened to her, I answered simply, “I'm a doctor now. She's a patient of mine.”

“A doctor.” His eyebrow rose. “Your father must be proud.”

“Yes, I believe he is.”

He looked around the table. “What do you think, boys?”

“Wouldn't hurt to ask a few questions,” said one tentatively.

“Sure,” another said with a shrug. “What harm could it do?”

Simon looked back at me, pursing his lips. “Give me one hard fact,” he said, “that says she didn't kill him.”

“She isn't constitutionally capable of murder.”

“I said fact. That's your opinion.”

“It's my professional opinion. I'm a psychotherapist, and she's my patient.”

“It's still just an opinion. You'll have to do better than that.”

“There was someone else in the room with the doctor while Eliza was waiting to speak with him. She heard sounds of a struggle.”

“Did anyone else hear it?” he asked.

“Not that I know of, but isn't that what the detective ought to be investigating?”

He shrugged. “Not if it's obvious she's lying. What else have you got?”

I mentally rummaged through the jumble of information I'd accumulated over the past few hours but found I was longer on theory than on hard fact. “Her fingerprints aren't on the murder weapon,” I ventured.

“That doesn't mean anything. She was wearing gloves.”

“How do you know that?” I asked in surprise.

“It's in the police report.”

“But you'd already left the court when Officer Callahan testi—”

“It's my job to know what's going on in my district,” he said, cutting me off.

I wondered if he had recognized me in court after all, and made it his business to find out why I was there—not out of concern, but out of a festering malice…

“Is that all?” he asked impatiently. “Because if it is, it's not enough.”

“She has no one else to ask!” I cried. “You helped those other people. Why won't you help her?”

“I've got no interest in putting murderers back on the street.”

“But she isn't a murderer!”

“So you say.”

“And you don't believe me?”

The front legs of his chair struck the ground with a crack. “Let's just say that if I have to choose between believing you or Maloney, I'll take Maloney any day.”

I glared at him as the other men gazed down at the table or fidgeted with their mugs. It seemed there was no end to Simon's desire to publicly humiliate me. But at least this time, I didn't have to let him get away with it. He'd made it clear he wasn't going to help Eliza, and I had nothing else to lose.

“Well, it seems you can take the man out of the stable,” I said tartly, pulling up my gloves, “but you can't take the stable out of the man.” I strode to the door, turned, and looked back. “Detective Maloney's opinion is horseshit. No wonder you prefer it.” Standing as tall as my corset and hose supporters would allow, I stalked out of the room.

The ripple of laughter that followed me out provided cold comfort, unable to soften the fact that my only hope for help was gone. I left the saloon and started for home without bothering to button up my collar, glad of the wind's bite. I hated that Simon had so easily rekindled my old feelings of shame and humiliation. I hated that I had let him. Most of all, I hated that his refusal to help had left me feeling even more frightened and alone than before.

Perhaps I should just tell my father what had happened and pass my awful burden over to him. He had a wide circle of acquaintances; he might know someone who could help. But even the thought of telling him made me quake. I could predict his reaction with knee-knocking certainty: first, bewilderment as he confronted the unacceptable fact that I was involved with a suspected murderer, then shock as the truth bore through his reflexive denial, and finally, the cold, flat disappointment that would fill his eyes whenever he looked at me.

No, I couldn't tell him what I'd gotten myself mixed up in. At least, not until Eliza was proved innocent. But how was that going to happen if no one would take up her case? There seemed only one answer: I was going to have to prove her innocence myself.

I was an intelligent, capable person, I thought, kicking an empty beer bottle out of my path. There was no reason to feel so overwhelmed by the prospect. Hard evidence, that's what it boiled down to. All I had to do was find credible evidence that someone else had killed the doctor, and the police could take it from there. But where in the world should I begin?

Where the police generally began, I answered myself as I cut across Park Avenue. At the crime scene. Of course, Maloney and his men had already gone over it, but they'd only been looking for evidence to support their foregone conclusions. If I were to examine it with a fresh eye, I might find something they'd missed. I knew it was a long shot, but no other ideas were coming to mind. At the end of the next block, I stopped. To the right was home, to the left Dr. Hauptfuhrer's office. I stood for several moments by the lamppost, reviewing all the reasons I should not attempt an unauthorized entry into a crime scene. But I could see no other way.

And so, a few minutes later, I found myself walking along the north side of Eighty-Third Street with my hat angled low over my face, trying to look inconspicuous as I peered across the street at Dr. Hauptfuhrer's house. The first-floor window shades were fully drawn, making it impossible to see inside. There was a handwritten sign on the door that I couldn't read but that I presumed gave notice to patients that the doctor was no longer available.

I circled the block to gather my nerve and made a second pass along the building side of the street. I was betting that Miss Hauptfuhrer was somewhere up on the private floors, quite possibly sedated, and not wandering around the downstairs rooms. The laundress should have finished hours ago, if she'd come at all, while the furnace man wouldn't be back until late. That left only the maid to worry about.

According to my pendant watch, it was nearly five o'clock. By now, the maid should have finished lighting the lamps, drawing the shades, and building up the fires. Normally at this hour, she'd be in the basement kitchen, helping to prepare the family's dinner or setting the dining room table on the private floor. With the household routine in disarray, however, it was hard to predict where she might be.

My hastily composed plan was to sneak in through the servants' entrance in the basement and make my way upstairs from there. I took a quick glance around. Except for two elderly women walking ahead of me and a hot dog vendor pushing a cart down the far end of the street, the sidewalks were empty. It was now or never. Pulling up my skirt, I ducked down the areaway steps, turned the knob on the servants' entrance door, and eased silently inside.

I stood stock-still in the hallway, deafened by the sound of my own breathing, not quite believing I'd actually done it. I could still turn around, I told myself as a flurry of doubts assailed me. But I was rooted by a sense of inevitability—as when once having breached the golden perfection of Katie's crust as a child, I felt obliged to finish the whole pie. And so, straining to hear over the rattle of the steam pipes, I proceeded cautiously down the dim hallway.

As I had anticipated, the basement level mirrored the floor above, with a hallway along the right side giving access to rooms on the left. The first room was dark and presumably empty. But a spill of light and the sound of running water warned me that the kitchen beyond it was occupied. I crept up to the doorframe and peered around it. A young woman in black-and-white evening uniform was standing in front of the dumbwaiter with her back to me, placing a tea tray on the lift. Before she could turn, I hurried past on tiptoe and bolted up the staircase at the end of the hall.

The first-floor landing was almost directly across from the side door into the doctor's office. I felt a fresh stab of doubt as I eyed the rope that had been strung between two stanchions in front of the door, knowing I could be in a whole new world of trouble once I crossed it. But I hadn't come this far to turn back. Easing the door open, I ducked under the rope and entered the room.

It looked almost exactly as it had that morning, except that the doctor's body had been replaced by a chalk outline on the bloodied rug. I closed the door softly behind me and slowly surveyed the scene. Nothing helpful leaped out immediately. There was nothing obviously out of place: no torn button lying in plain sight on the floor or papers in disarray. The desk was bare except for a blotter, a pen, and the sword stand, and the shallow wastebasket appeared to be empty.

There was, however, that bloodied bottom file drawer, which had been left in the open position. As far as I knew, the police hadn't even bothered to check its contents, assuming that whatever the doctor had been filing when he was attacked had no bearing on the case. But if, as I suspected, the doctor had been looking for Eliza's “proof” and had been interrupted before he could retrieve it, whatever he'd been looking for would still be inside. And that could be of value to Eliza's defense down the road. If I could show that Hauptfuhrer had been about to give her what she'd come for, then even if her accusers found out about her baby, they couldn't convincingly argue that she'd killed him in a frustrated rage.

Dropping my book bag on the floor, I crossed to the open drawer and knelt before it. It was less than half full, divided into alphabetized sections labeled
V
through
Z
that appeared, upon a cursory search, to contain only current patient files. In the very back was a divider labeled
Miscellaneous
. I pulled this forward and discovered two handwritten pages behind it, each divided into three neat columns. The first column was a series of dates listed in chronological order. Next to each date, in the center column, was a pair of capital letters followed by either
g
or
b
.

I lifted the pages out to examine them more closely. Treatment notations had been scribbled under some of the entries. I recognized the remedies as those typically prescribed for newborns:
silver nitrate, 3x
for infantile conjunctivitis,
potassium bromide, 15 grn
for abdominal cramps,
nitro wrap
for jaundice. I sat back on my heels, staring down at the pages.
B
and
g
. Could the letters refer to
boy
and
girl
?

I looked up, hearing a tea kettle whistle in the distance. A moment later, the whistling subsided, followed by the banging of a dumbwaiter door. I concluded that the maid was sending the tea tray upstairs to Miss Hauptfuhrer, and returned my attention to the list. Halfway down the first page, I spotted the letters
E. B.
in the center column, followed by a
g
. Eliza's family name was Braun, I remembered. Might the letters be referring to Elizabeth Braun and her baby girl? The entry was dated January 8, 1887. I caught my breath, remembering that Eliza had told me her daughter's birthday was just two days away—on January 8. She'd also told me that she was fifteen when her baby was born. I did the math; in 1887, Eliza would have been about fifteen years old.

I eagerly scrutinized the third column. This contained yet more paired letters, or initials. Next to the
E. B.—g
entry, the doctor had inserted
L. F.
I could think of no obvious connection. Remembering that Dr. Hauptfuhrer had spoken of giving Eliza's baby a better home, however, I wondered if these letters might be the recipient's initials. If so, it would mean that Joy had not been placed with an orphan asylum, as I'd originally surmised, but directly with an adoptive parent.

What about the other entries on the list, then? Could each be the record of an illegitimate birth and adoption? I counted thirty-one entries in all, the last one made just a month earlier in December 1906. Thirty-one babies, born over a period of twenty-three years. Taken from their birth mothers, if my conjecture was correct, and given in secrecy to someone else. The transaction recorded in code and filed under
Miscellaneous
. The only conclusion I could draw was that the esteemed blood specialist Dr. Herman Hauptfuhrer had been providing some sort of illegal adoption service on the side.

I stared down at the list, my excitement building as I pulled the threads together. Eliza had mentioned that her mother met the doctor at the German Hospital, where he was a regular volunteer. I imagined the doctor would have encountered many indigent women in his work there, including the occasional unwed mother. Perhaps he had been asked to find a home for an illegitimate baby and had consented. Word might have spread, with one unofficial placement leading to the next. It could have happened almost by accident, with the doctor feeling justified in bending the law for what he considered a humanitarian purpose.

My mind reeled at the implications. If that was true, I had uncovered a whole new slew of potential murder suspects. Other young women like Eliza who'd never wanted to give up their babies in the first place—or mothers who'd changed their minds later and asked for their babies back, and had been told they couldn't have them. Indeed, any one of the women in the left-hand column could have attacked the doctor, either out of revenge or in a failed attempt to discover her child's whereabouts.

All that remained was to find the key that matched the initials to actual names. Returning to the drawer, I thumbed through the rest of the
Miscellaneous
material in hope of locating it. I found some old bills, a certificate of Union Club membership, and maps of London and St. Petersburg—but nothing that looked like a key. I couldn't imagine Hauptfuhrer leaving such vital information to memory. I glanced around the room. It could be anywhere: in one of the other file drawers, or his desk, or some other room entirely…

The groan of the front door opening interrupted my thoughts. Leaping up, I lunged two steps toward the partially open door that connected the office to the waiting room and hid behind it. I heard stomping feet in the vestibule, followed by the sound of men's voices. Putting my eye to the crack between the door hinges, I saw two uniformed policemen enter the waiting room and strip off their coats. My heart sank as they settled into chairs almost directly across from the connecting door. They pulled some hot dogs out of a mustard-stained bag and began to eat, muttering to each other between mouthfuls. They must have been left here to protect the crime scene, I realized, and gone out to fetch some supper from the corner vendor just as I was coming in downstairs.

I drew a silent breath and leaned back against the wall, trying to clear the fog of fear from my brain. The officers were mostly likely camped out for the night, so I couldn't just stay where I was and hope to wait them out. Besides, my book bag was sitting on the floor by the side door, easily visible if they chanced to look in on the crime scene. Every moment I waited was a moment I risked being discovered.

Which meant I was going to have to try to retrieve my bag and leave the same way I'd come in. But I couldn't just walk across the floor; they might see me through the connecting door. I glanced around the room, trying to gauge the officers' line of sight. The door itself, being only slightly more than halfway open, would afford me at least partial cover. If I hugged the walls and stayed low in the back, I might be able to stay out of view.

Heart pounding, I slid the doctor's list under my waistband and returned to the crack between the door hinges. The officers had finished their hot dogs and were preparing to smoke some cigars. One of the officers pulled a matchbox from his pocket, while the other officer leaned in for a light. I realized that this was my chance.

I sidled to the corner and waited for the strike of the match. The instant I heard it, I raced on tiptoe up the side of the room, thankful for the thick rug that swallowed the sound of my footfalls. I passed the potted palm and dropped to my knees, continuing on all fours behind the massive desk, which took up half the width of the room. There I stopped, waiting for whistles to blow and the sky to fall in. But it seemed I had not been detected.

As soon as the men had engaged in conversation, I pulled my skirts out from under my knees and crawled on past the end of the desk and around the wastebasket to the opposite wall. I couldn't see the officers from here, and presumed they couldn't see me. Rising on shaky legs, I silently lifted my bag and eased the side door open.

The hall outside was empty. I ducked under the rope and eased the door shut behind me. I had crossed to the service steps, and was beginning to think I would make a clean escape, when the maid started up the other end of the stairwell. I jerked back out of sight, but not before she had sensed my presence. “Who's there?” she cried.

Rational thought abandoned me as her shrill cry rang through the house. Clutching my bag to my chest, I turned and ran down the hall, my shoes clattering over bare floorboards. From the corner of my eye, I saw the policemen throw their cigars into the spittoon and push up from their chairs as I was passing the door to the waiting room. I reached the front door and yanked it open.