A Deadly Affection (37 page)

“So she has seven years at best.”

“I truly am sorry. I wish I could give you better news.”

We stopped and faced each other.

“Shall I accompany you home?” the doctor asked.

“That's not necessary. My driver is already here.”

“I'll say good night, then.” He shook my hand. “I do hope you'll consider telling her as soon as possible. In almost every case, my patients have expressed relief at being told the true state of affairs. The distress caused by lack of information and the absence of support, it seems, is even worse than knowing the truth. I'll be in town through Sunday afternoon. If you want to contact me, you can reach me at the hotel.”

• • •

It was after nine by the time Maurice dropped me back at home. I went directly into the telephone closet and sat down. I stared at the handset, saying a silent prayer. Maloney was going to tell me that Hagan's prints matched those on the sword. They had to match, or Eliza would be in even worse trouble than before.

The operator connected me to the sergeant at the front desk, who asked me to hold while he put me through to the detective. I waited on pins and needles for his voice to come on the line.

“That you, Doc?” he said at last.

“Yes, Detective, it's me.”

“I was just about to call you. I've got the results.”

My tongue turned suddenly sluggish in my mouth. “Yes? And?”

“The prints don't match.”

No. It couldn't be. He must mean that the prints hadn't been clear enough to identify. “I suppose I might have smudged them with my handkerchief, when I picked them up—”

“Nah, you did good. We got a nice clean set. They just don't match any of the fingerprints on the sword.”

It had to have been Hagan; it all added up so perfectly. “There must be some mistake.”

“Well now, you see, that's the beauty of this thing. Every fingerprint is unique, so there's no such thing as mistakes.”

“The lab could have mishandled it somehow.”

“Proper procedures were followed, I assure you.”

I gripped the receiver cord, telling myself to breathe. “He must have been wearing gloves then,” I said, struggling to keep panic out of my voice. “Either that or Lucille hired someone else to do the job.”

I heard him sigh on the other end. “I'll say one thing for you, Doc. You don't give up.”

“None of the underlying facts have changed!” I practically shouted at him. “I still believe Lucille is responsible for both murders.”

“Then I respectfully suggest it's time you consider the possibility that you're wrong,” he drawled, echoing my words to him that morning. “By the way, Mrs. Miner's grand jury trial is on the calendar for next week. I'll be meeting with the DA on Monday and passing along what you told me. I wouldn't be surprised if he wants you to take the stand.”

“Against my own patient?” I protested in dismay.

“Against the woman who murdered two innocent people,” he shot back.

“Detective, please,” I said as my head begin to swim. “If you'll just look in the doctor's appointment book, you'll see that he met with Mrs. Fiske four days before he was murdered. All I'm asking is that you talk to her before she leaves—”

“Give it a rest, Doc.” The line went dead.

I slowly placed the receiver back on its hook. Tomorrow, Dr. Huntington would tell Maloney that Olivia had Huntington's chorea, and then Maloney would tell the DA, who would of course try to make the case at trial that Eliza had passed the illness to her daughter and must be suffering its effects herself. The DA would also be apprised of Eliza's history with Dr. Hauptfuhrer, thanks to my disclosures. Armed with this knowledge, he could argue that Eliza had nursed a grudge against the doctor and that this grudge, coupled with the underlying disease, had eventually erupted into the sort of emotional outburst that Huntington and others had described, resulting in Hauptfuhrer's demise. Dr. Huntington could testify until he was blue in the face that Eliza wasn't yet showing signs of the mental degeneration that preceded such outbursts; the possibility would linger in the jurors' minds. It would be the glue that held the evidence together, the putty that filled in all the holes.

I rubbed my face, trying to calm my spinning brain. The only way I could keep that from happening was to establish that Olivia had inherited the disease from her father. If I could do so before Lucille left for Colorado, I might still be able to persuade Maloney to stop her. He had accepted the possibility, however briefly, that Lucille was implicated in the murders. I had to do everything I could to keep that flame alive.

But I couldn't do it without Eliza's help. I glanced at the hall clock. There was no point calling her at home now, when her mother would be hovering in the background. Eliza would never talk to me about the baby or its father in Mrs. Braun's presence. I'd have to wait until the morning when Mrs. Braun was downstairs in the shop. If I could get Eliza to identify the father, I'd have until the afternoon to locate him, or someone who'd known him, and try to establish that he had Huntington's chorea. It was a daunting task, with as much likelihood of success, I feared, as paddling up the Niagara River with a teaspoon—but I could think of no other way to try to save Eliza.

I placed the call shortly after breakfast the following morning. I would have preferred to speak to Eliza in person about such a sensitive matter, but I couldn't afford to wait. The hall clock read a few minutes after eight. Assuming the Fiskes' private train car was attached to one of the two overnight westbound specials, it would be departing around midafternoon, which meant I had five or six hours at most to locate Olivia's father.

“Hello?” Eliza said on the other end of the line.

“Eliza, thank God; it's Dr. Summerford. I don't have much time, so I'm going to have to get straight to the point: I need you to tell me who Joy's father is. And where he might be living now, if you have any idea.”

There was such a long pause on the other end that for a moment I thought we'd been disconnected. “Joy doesn't have a father,” she said at last. “She only has me.”

I knew that I'd broached a delicate and emotionally complex subject, but there was no time now for tact. “I understand that he hasn't been a real father to her, but they are still biologically related, and that's all that matters right now. I have to find him, Eliza, or someone close to him who's likely to know the state of his health. The outcome of your trial could depend on it.”

“What does Joy have to do with my trial?” she asked in surprise.

I drew in my breath; there was so much she still didn't know. “Quite a lot, as it turns out.” If telling her the truth was the only way I could get her to reveal the father's name, then I couldn't put it off any longer. “Eliza, I've found your daughter.”

I told her the good news first: that Joy had been brought up in the lap of luxury and been well cared for over the past twenty years, enjoying every possible advantage. After giving her a few precious moments to savor this revelation, I went on to explain as gently as possible that her daughter wasn't well, that she was, in fact, suffering from the same ailment Dr. Huntington had been looking for in Eliza. “And that's why we have to find Joy's father,” I finished. “To prove that he's the one who passed it on to her. If we don't, a jury could assume she inherited the disease from you. And if they believe that, they can be persuaded that it caused you to kill the doctor.”

“She can't be sick,” she said. “She was a perfect little baby. Absolutely perfect!”

“I'm afraid she is, Eliza. Dr. Huntington himself confirmed it. Now, I hate to pressure you, but we're running out of time. You have to tell me who her father is. If not for your sake, then for Joy's. She's going to want answers, and we need to be able to give them to her.”

“But I told you, she has no father. Joy was a present to me from God.”

She'd said the same thing before, I remembered, on the first day I'd met her. This time, however, I had the disturbing sensation she meant it literally. “God doesn't make babies,” I said sharply. “Men do.”

“I thought you understood,” she said, her voice starting to break. “I thought that's why you were helping me find her.”

I was momentarily speechless. Was it possible that she was trying to protect him? It was the only rational explanation I could think of. “Eliza, your life is at stake,” I reminded her. “You owe this man nothing.”

“There is no man!” she cried. “Why won't you believe me?”

Absurd though it was, she sounded utterly convinced of what she was saying. I felt a sinking sensation in my gut. Was this delusional thinking I was hearing, manufactured by a disease-impaired mind? Could she be the disease carrier after all?

I tried to analyze the situation dispassionately. Her denial, though bizarre, was not accompanied by the paranoia or grandiosity that typically characterized chronic delusion. Nor did it seem to be part of a larger system of false ideas. Indeed, her stated belief that her baby had no father struck me as less a fabrication than a refusal to remember. I was reminded of something I'd read in Janet's
Symptoms of Hysteria
just a few days before while working on the professor's paper. Janet believed that in certain predisposed individuals, real memories, if they were painful enough, could be relegated to the subconscious and replaced by less painful, artificial ones. All people found comfort in telling themselves “fine stories,” according to Janet, but in these susceptible individuals, the stories gained the upper hand, becoming fixed illusions that completely replaced the more disturbing reality. The hysterical amnesia that resulted was not a product of a diseased or insane mind. It stemmed, rather, from the weak energy of the subject's personal identity, leaving the intelligence and moral faculties intact.

I knew that Eliza's illegitimate pregnancy had caused her extreme and prolonged psychic distress. Perhaps the combination of her humiliation and her mother's anger had prompted her to bury the initiating sexual event deeply in her unconscious, producing a hysterical amnesia. Considering the very limited and particular scope of her denial, this seemed a more reasonable explanation than dementia for what I'd just heard. Unfortunately, if this was the case and her unconscious mind was keeping the father's identity from her, I could scold and cajole all day without results. I glanced again at the clock. I'd envisioned many potential obstacles in the search for Olivia's father, but this had not been one of them. I had no backup plan. I was going to have to pry the information out of her some other way.

Hypnosis, I thought, was the logical solution. It had been used more successfully as a cure for hysterical symptoms than for any other purpose, except perhaps the relief of pain during surgery in the days before anesthetics. What's more, when it was undertaken by a skillful practitioner, it could yield results in a single session. With hypnosis, it might be possible not only to uncover the identity of Olivia's father, but to shed light into some of the other mysterious corners of Eliza's psyche, as well.

As I'd never had an opportunity to become proficient at inducing the trance state, however, I would need to enlist someone's help to go that route. Someone with ample experience in the technique, who lived here in the city, and whose discretion I could count on. Someone like…Professor Bogard. The idea broke over me like a bracing wave. There was no one I trusted more or who I believed was more up to the task. According to the professor's telegram, moreover, he had returned to the city the previous evening. With any luck, I would find him at home, and we could be at Eliza's within the hour.

“I'm sorry if I've upset you,” I said to Eliza. “I know this has all come as a terrible shock, and I don't mean to make it any harder. But I also know that you hope to be reunited with Joy one day, and that can't happen if they send you off to prison.” I felt cruel saying it, but I feared it was the only way I could gain her cooperation.

“I'm telling you the truth,” she said, sounding close to tears. “I don't know what else I can say.”

“You know, it's possible that you did have relations with a man but have locked it away in your memory. People do that sometimes; they forget things from their past to protect themselves from unpleasant feelings.”

“I don't see how I could have forgotten,” she sniffed.

“There's a way to find out for sure. We could try hypnosis.”

“You mean like at Coney Island,” she said doubtfully, “when they tell people to stand on a chair and bark like a dog?”

“Not like that at all. This would be a scientific undertaking. One of my professors at medical school, Dr. Rudolph Bogard, is a highly trained doctor and hypnotist, very well regarded in his field. I could ask him to assist us.”

She was silent for a long moment. “He wouldn't ask me to do anything silly?” she asked finally.

“Professor Bogard would never do anything to compromise the dignity of his subjects. He'll just put you into a very relaxing trance state and ask you questions about your past.”

“I don't know… I really don't see the point.”

“For Joy's sake,” I urged. “The worst that can happen is you'll have a pleasant rest and get to say ‘I told you so.'” I heard the soft, slow release of her breath.

“All right,” she said. “For Joy.”

• • •

I knocked loudly on the professor's front door. His elderly housekeeper opened it, carrying a broom in one hand and a worn slipper in the other. “Miss Summerford!” she exclaimed. “I didn't know the professor was expecting you.”

“He isn't, but something urgent has come up, and I need to speak to him right away. Could you tell him I'm here?”

“Why, I don't know if he's even up yet,” she said, sounding peeved. “The poor man didn't get in last night until after dinner.”

“I'm sorry to disturb him, but the matter really can't wait.”

Her lips pursed in disapproval, but she stepped aside to let me in and went muttering down the hall to fetch him.

Ten minutes later, the professor rounded the door into the parlor, buttoning up his waistcoat. I nearly swooned in relief at the sight of him.

“Good morning, Doctor!” he greeted me jovially. “You're out bright and early. I commend you on your dedication.” He bounced toward me on the balls of his feet, palm extended. “Let's have a look, then, shall we?”

I stared uncertainly at his hand. “Oh! You mean the paper,” I said as understanding dawned. “Yes, of course, but I have a rather pressing problem I need to discuss with you first.”

He frowned. “You finished it, I hope?”

“Yes, Professor, the paper is finished. The problem concerns a patient of mine, the one I told you about just before you left…”

“You brought it with you, then?” he interrupted.

“The paper?” I asked, struggling to keep the exasperation from my voice. “It's right here.” I yanked it partway out of my bag to show him.

“Ah, excellent,” he said, relaxing his brow. “I knew I could count on you.” Leaning toward me, he confided with a wink, “I just found out they've made mine the lead address at the conference.”

“That's wonderful, Professor, but if you don't mind, this really is quite urgent…”

The housekeeper bustled in, carrying a Wedgwood plate stacked with chocolate-covered pastries.

“Mrs. Whelan, I see you've been to Dean's!” cried the professor, rubbing his hands.

“I knew you'd be missing your profiteroles while you were away,” she simpered, lowering the plate onto a table between the parlor chairs. Casting me a reproachful look, she added, “If you can't get a decent night's rest, at least I can be sure you start off your day with a solid breakfast.”

“My dear Mrs. Whelan, whatever would I do without you?” said the professor, bending over the plate with relish.

I could have sworn the old woman blushed. “I'll bring the tea the minute it's ready,” she told him, scurrying out of the room as fast as her bowed old legs could carry her.

“You have to try one of these, Doctor,” the professor said, turning the plate to inspect each cream-filled pastry. “They bake them fresh, three times a day.”

“I've already eaten,” I replied, nearly choking now on my impatience.

“You don't know what you're missing.” He finally selected one and took a bite, sighing in contentment.

“About Mrs. Miner…” I began.

“Shall we make ourselves comfortable?” he asked, gesturing toward the parlor chairs. He settled himself into one, pastry in hand, while I dropped onto the seat across from him.

“Now then,” he said at last. “What is it you wanted to tell me?”

I didn't need any further prompting. In what I hoped was a coherent torrent, I filled him in on everything that had happened over the last two weeks. His expression gradually changed from polite interest, to concern, to outright alarm, his enjoyment of the profiterole seeming to decline in direct proportion to the length of my story.

“Good heavens,” he muttered when I was finished, lowering the unfinished pastry to his knee.

“I realize that as my supervisor you should have been advised of Eliza's arrest right away, but I didn't want to discuss it in front of Professor Mayhew.”

“Well now, I don't really think we can call me your supervisor,” he said quickly. “After all, we've barely discussed this patient's case until now.”

“I know, I'm sorry. I did want to tell you sooner, but you left the day after it happened. I've told you everything now, though. And there's still a chance we can turn things around.”

“We?” he repeated, eyebrows raised.

I leaned toward him. “I thought you could hypnotize her, so we can find out who Olivia's father is.”

“Oh dear,” he said, drawing back. “I'm not sure that's a good idea.”

“Why not? I know you could do it. Remember that boy in my class who was terrified of geese? You helped him recover a memory of being chased by one as a child and cured him of his fear.”

“I meant that I don't know if it would be wise for me to become involved. Not now, with the conference coming up.”

I frowned at him. “I don't understand. What difference does the conference make?”

“A man in my position is expected to adhere to a very high standard of conduct,” he answered stiffly. “It wouldn't do to be seen as aiding and abetting a murder suspect.”

I felt a chill run down my back, so real I almost turned to see if the front door had blown open. I couldn't believe he'd let fear of public opinion stand between us, not when I so clearly needed his help. “You mean, you don't want to damage your reputation,” I said slowly.

“You needn't take that tone with me, Doctor. I should think you'd be concerned about your own reputation. As a woman, people are expecting you to make mistakes. I can't imagine why you'd want to give them fuel for the fire.”

“You think I made a mistake with Eliza, is that what you're saying?” I asked, hearing the shrillness in my voice but unable to control it. “You believe that she's guilty and that I'm somehow responsible?”