I had stopped listening. I felt as though a giant fist had appeared out of nowhere to slam me in the face. Just when I’d thought we were free of this damned disease, it had ricocheted back to deliver a knock-out punch. “Are you absolutely certain?” I asked when he paused for breath.
“Well, of course, I’d like to perform the usual test battery for further confirmation. But I’m fairly confident of the outcome.”
I shook my head in disbelief. I’d only revealed my hand to Maloney because I was certain that Eliza’s mental status was no longer in question. “You said Eliza didn’t have it,” I repeated in a daze. “You said you were sure.”
He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Well, there is still a chance that she’s not affected. What do you know about the girl’s father?”
“Her father?” I blinked at him. “Why, nothing much; he was just some boy Eliza had a brief encounter with when she was fifteen.”
“You might try to find out more about him. As I said, in cases of early onset, the father is very often the transmitter.”
Of course! I thought, grasping at the possibility; I’d been so busy looking for signs of transmission on Eliza’s side that I hadn’t thought twice about Olivia’s father, the itinerant young man who’d so blithely impregnated Eliza before going on his merry way. My relief was followed almost immediately, however, by the realization that paternal transmission would be very difficult to prove. I doubted Eliza had stayed in touch with the man, or even knew where he was. “Are you going to tell Detective Maloney about Olivia?” I asked the doctor.
He eyed me soberly. “I don’t see that I have a choice, do you?”
“But you are still willing to testify that Eliza isn’t affected? You did say before that you were certain.”
“I said I was as certain as it was possible to be, if you remember. And yes, I do still believe she’s asymptomatic. But it’s easier to be certain of what does exist than what doesn’t—and Miss Fiske is definitely showing symptoms. Which means that unless and until her father is found to be the transmitter, there is a chance that Mrs. Miner could be affected and will begin to manifest at an unusually late age.”
I walked numbly beside him as he started back up the path, my head reeling from his news.
“I’m sorry,” he said, glancing over at me. “I know you have a personal interest in this case. I wish it had turned out differently.”
The finality of his words was terrifying. Poor Olivia; I could hardly bear to think of the horrors that awaited her. I had developed a deep sympathy for the girl, knowing what I did of her past, watching her cope with the pressures of living in her gilded cage. It grieved me to think of the ugly way her fairy-tale life was going to end.
“You ought to tell her,” the doctor said as if reading my mind. “She should come see me as soon as possible so that we can determine the extent of the disease’s progression and begin a therapy program.”
“She doesn’t even know that she’s adopted! How could I possibly explain it?”
“She knows that something’s wrong, I can assure you of that.”
I imagined Olivia in a drafty castle, far from family and friends, fighting increasing panic as her symptoms not only failed to subside, but gradually worsened over time. For all I knew, the Earl’s doctors wouldn’t even be familiar with Huntington’s chorea. I kicked the snow on the walkway.
“I know,” he said quietly. “It isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t! No one should have to face this ghastly disease.”
He glanced at me. “We are only the messengers, Doctor. We don’t cause these illnesses to occur. If we’re lucky, we can do something to help. That’s all we can ask of ourselves.”
“And in this case? What can we do to help Olivia?”
“We can ensure that she receives proper exercise and nutrition,” he said firmly, “so that she can continue to function as long and as well as possible. We can teach her family members not to blame her when she behaves badly, and how to feed her when swallowing becomes difficult, and how to keep her from hurting herself. And when the time comes, we can help place her in a suitable asylum where she’ll be treated humanely until the end.”
“That’s all?”
“There is no cure to date, as you are doubtless aware. Quinine has been found to allay mild choreic movements, but only temporarily, and it’s unclear if it would help with this variant. Nor has there been much long-term success with hyoscyamine, despite the initial reports, or with bromides of potassium or arsenic.”
We had emerged onto the sidewalk along Central Park West. A long line of vehicles was waiting along the curb, my own motorcar among them. “How long does she have?” I asked.
“In cases of early onset, death typically comes within ten years. Based on Miss Fiske’s current condition, I would guess she first became symptomatic three or four years ago.”
“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.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
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 undertake
n 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.”
A Deadly Affection Page 39