LOST TO THE WORLD

by Libby Sternberg

  She looked at the ring and thought of taking it off. But Helen and Mutti would notice if she didn’t wear it to work the next day.

  Damn it.

  She blinked and looked again at the ring. She’d break with Will. She didn’t need an argument to do that. She just needed courage.

  She didn’t want to enter a marriage knowing it would end in divorce. That was a humiliation as well as a sin against the church. Why, even Dr. Jansen had hidden his divorce from everyone. No one had known he had a wife. Irene Brodie, her name was. Julia wondered what she was like, what kind of woman would have married cranky Dr. Jansen.

  Brodie. The name was so familiar….

  A faint memory teased her thoughts. She grabbed her cane and walked to the hallway, calling down to her family.

  “I’m going to make a phone call,” she said, heading for her mother’s room where she sat on the edge of the bed, reaching for the telephone directory her parents kept on a shelf below the phone. She quickly found what she was looking for and dialed, cheered by the sound of her former boss’s voice when he himself answered after only three rings.

  The conversation with Dr. MacIntyre was friendly and melancholy. Here was yet another example of something Julia had failed to adequately appreciate until it was gone. Dr. MacIntyre had been a good boss, his only quirk his unwillingness to confront her directly when he was displeased.

  They made pleasant small talk about the labs, and he asked about a memorial for “Mike.” She broke the news to him that Dr. Lowenstein was really a Richard Hill. The name had no significance to him, and he was quite taken aback by the knowledge that a colleague would have lied to his fellow doctors like that.

  “There’s another name I wanted to ask you about,” she said. “Irene Brodie. I remember you telling me something about polio research that a Dr. Brodie was involved in….”

  The name “Irene Brodie” didn’t mean anything at all to him, but as soon as he started talking about the Dr. Brodie he knew of and the vaccine trials of 1935, the story came back to her.

  Her dark mood lightened. This was important. This would move the case forward. She would call Detective Reilly in the morning.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  HE WAS LATE FOR WORK. Really late. He and Brigitta had had an argument over Danny’s “Show and Tell” at kindergarten.

  Danny had gotten into his head that he’d take in his old “blankie.” Only problem was that his “blankie” had been a square of cotton bed jacket that had belonged to Mary. Sean was surprised the boy had chosen it. Surprised and knifed to the core. He’d had to spend a good twenty minutes trying to persuade Danny to take something else, eventually getting the boy to settle on a felt cowboy hat Sean’d bought for him at Gwynn Oak amusement park the previous summer.

  But it hadn’t been the talk with Danny that had thrown his schedule off kilter. No, the culprit had been the argument with Brigitta preceding his talk with Danny.

  Sean had picked Brigitta up, and the kids had still been in their pajamas. She’d commented on that, said something like it wasn’t “good for them to be in their nightclothes riding around town.” He’d offered an apology, then thought better of it. The weather was mild today, and the pajamas were just as warm as the light cotton shirts and pants they’d don at home. Brigitta had then remarked that she’d been cleaning out some things the day before and had thrown away a few items that were too “full of holes to mend.”

  That had set him on edge but he’d said nothing. It had only been when Danny insisted on the blankie for Show and Tell that the truth had come out. Brigitta had found the garment fragment stashed in a corner of the boy’s dresser drawer and into the trash it had gone.

  “I didn’t know what it was!” she’d protested when Danny had started crying. “I wasn’t sure if…if it was something inappropriate.”

  “Jesus Christ, Brigitta, do you think you could have asked me? We better find it.”

  “I put it in the trash, Sean. It’s going to be all dirty and greasy now.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You can wash it.”

  “I can wash it?”

  “All right. I can. Just find it, will you?” Sean had marched off to the boys’ bedroom to look for another item for Show and Tell, eventually coming upon the hat which Robby had said made Danny look like a “real cowboy.” That had been the selling point.

  Brigitta hadn’t found the “blankie,” but that was because she’d hardly looked. Sean had come upon her staring in the trash bin out back but not moving an item to see where it might have gone. He’d poked around until he found it, mussing up his just-laundered shirt. When he’d gone to change, Brigitta had muttered, “I guess I’ll wash that one, too.”

  This isn’t working.

  Over and over that had gone through his mind on the way to the stationhouse. He had to do something about it. He had to stop putting it off.

  Now he sat at his desk, staring at the note O’Brien had left on it. “See me at ten.” That meant O’Brien had noticed he was late.

  Great—one more worry.

  Brigitta Lorenzo might be a good woman, a kind woman, a sexy-as-hell woman. But she wasn’t the woman for him and the boys. His natural optimism plus his desperation had led him to use her in a way that normally would have sent him to the confessional. Now that the sex was out of the picture, it was clearer than ever that he had to break it off with her.

  He picked up the phone and asked the operator to ring through to his church’s convent. A woman answered. No, she wasn’t a nun, just the housekeeper who came by in the morning. Yes, she could take a message. He carefully spelled his name and gave his office number and told her what he needed—a recommendation or two for a babysitter for his boys.

  “I’m sure they’ll know of someone, Mr. Reilly,” the woman said. “I know of a Mrs. Creed myself….”

  He took down the number, feeling like it was God himself telling him to move on with it and get a real sitter. As soon as he hung up the phone, it rang. He expected it to be Sal, reporting in before his search begin in earnest, so Sean answered the phone with a jaunty accent to confuse his partner.

  “Oh…I must have the wrong number….”

  Julia.

  “No, uh, it’s me, Sean. Is your boss back?” He already pushed back his chair, ready to leave.

  “No. But I have some information….I thought might be useful.”

  ***

  He didn’t need to go in to talk to her. He could have stayed at his desk and taken it all down. But he craved movement, anything that kept him from stewing about Brigitta and his kids.

  They sat in the cafeteria which he’d suggested so Linda wouldn’t overhear. She started off by telling him that Susan’s husband had called in sick for her, saying she might be out for a while. He nodded but didn’t reveal what he knew about that part of the case.

  “Dr. Jansen had been married, to an Irene Brodie,” she said, telling him what he already knew.

  “Yes.”

  “The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. But last night…” She waved her left hand in the air in a nervous gesture.

  He noticed the ring. Her face reddened and her mouth dropped open. She didn’t speak. But why should she? They were nothing to each other.

  Still, something deep inside caved in. Just a little. Just a little tumbling of grief that, left unchecked, could lead to an avalanche. Well, ain’t that a surprise, Sean. You were hoping….

  He was still staring at it. He forced his gaze away.

  She must have just gotten engaged. He hadn’t seen the ring yesterday. It had happened last night. Even she, a cripple, had found somebody. Maybe he would, too, someday….

  “When I worked for Dr. MacIntyre,” she continued, “he used to tell me things about polio research, about its history, what the doctors were trying to do, what they knew and didn’t know. I remembered Dr. Mac mentioning a Dr. Brodie.”

  Sean straightened and leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. Did she just
remember this or had she saved it, throwing out these clues like breadcrumbs down a path. Would this get someone else in trouble—someone she resented?

  “The vaccine trials that are about to begin weren’t the first attempts to make a polio vaccine. There have been others. In fact, years ago, there was a disastrous trial. I might have mentioned it to you. It was in 1935….

  “The main doctors involved—Brodie and Kolmer—were reviled by their colleagues at a Public Health Association Meeting. They were practically accused of murder in speeches at the meeting. Dr. Kolmer said at the meeting he wished the floor would swallow him up. Dr. Brodie—well, he died very young….”

  “Since Jansen was married to a Brodie, would it ruin his career if anyone knew?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not something he’d be bragging about. You see, the trials were horrible. Children were infected by the vaccines. Some died. But it got worse. Some came down with other terrible infections because the vaccine was mixed with monkey tissue. This caused abscesses in some children, whole body infections in others, awful allergies….”

  Sean’s lip curled up in disgust.

  “Here’s the sad part about Brodie—he wasn’t responsible for the worst of it, Dr. Mac said. His experiments were more sloppy than harmful. He became something of a scapegoat, though, because of his involvement. Dr. MacIntyre said the man was never the same again, a promising career wiped out. No one wanted to work with him.”

  Sean thought for a moment. “What about Dr. Hill? Dr. MacIntyre know of him?”

  “No. He was quite taken aback by his deception.”

  “What if Hill were involved with those earlier trials? Would doctors have worked with him?”

  “Dr. Hill wasn’t involved in polio research,” Julia reminded him.

  No, he wasn’t. Not at Hopkins anyway.

  He stared at her as she sipped her coffee. She seemed happy. Was that because she was engaged, or because she was helping him? Or…did she revel in getting other people into trouble, crippling their lives in some way?

  It doesn’t matter, he reminded himself. She’d provided valuable information. She didn’t need to be a saint for it to be worthwhile.

  ***

  Brigitta rubbed her temples and put her feet up on the small ottoman in front of the chair. If she had a cool cloth…

  “Danny, darling, could you go in the bathroom and wet a washcloth for me?”

  The boy looked up from his blocks, scattered on the living room floor, and silently nodded.

  “And push those blocks back on the rug, will you, honey?” She’d nearly twisted her ankle on one walking into the kitchen earlier. She wished they’d keep their toys in their room and leave the living room clean and tidy. Sean had explained to her that he allowed them to play wherever they liked and he didn’t mind straightening up if need be. But she would straighten up before he came home, so that the house was as spotless as a church.

  While Danny dragged himself off to the bathroom, she looked over at Robby. He was making choo-choo noises while running a metal train across the hooked rug. She worried it would snag and tear the carpet and wondered whether she should restrict him to only playing with the metal trains and cars outside on the sidewalk. Not a fight she wanted to deal with right now. Her head ached too much, and her stomach was beginning to feel uncomfortably cramped.

  Danny returned, a dripping wet washcloth in his hand. When he handed it to her, it left big splotches on her pale blue trousers.

  “This is awfully wet, sweetie,” she said with as much cheer as she could muster. “Could you wring it out some?” But he had gone back to his blocks. And she wasn’t sure he understood what “wringing it out” meant anyway.

  She stood but her head didn’t follow. The room spun and she sat back down. Dammit. She was sick. Probably picked up that nasty flu the boys had just gotten over.

  This wasn’t working, she thought miserably, sliding back into the chair and letting the cloth drip over her blouse as she placed it on her forehead.

  She liked Sean well enough. She still thought she could even learn to love him. But she didn’t like…this.

  She didn’t like being a mother. She wasn’t even convinced that would change with her own children. She hated the forced idleness, the sitting around just watching, trying to schedule the day so that she had something to do—ironing or dusting or even reading—in their presence just to keep an eye on them. She didn’t like listening to them talk—she wasn’t interested in their stories. She had nothing in common with the other kindergarten mothers with whom she waited outside the school. She especially disliked the lack of order, the fact that she couldn’t count on things staying clean or in place or even quiet for when Sean returned from work.

  In a sad way, she felt she was betraying her Ernie with these thoughts. If Ernie had lived, she would have been a mother and housewife…and discovering what she was learning now, that it didn’t suit her. Her life with Ernie would have changed from passionate idyll to…this. These thoughts…they were akin to abandoning him, and they shook her deeply.

  Maybe, she sighed, Sean could afford to send the boys to boarding school if she worked, too. She knew some of the lawyers had done that with their children. She now saw the wisdom of it. And then, she didn’t need to have children of her own. Sean might not even want them. The two boys were a handful.

  What was the matter with her? She was contemplating marriage with a man she hardly knew, a man who’d gone from hot passion to cool kisses on the cheek in a few days’ time. And she wasn’t even sure she liked his children. All because she’d made a stupid mistake on her job. She had to shake out of these blues. They were clouding her judgment.

  “Ow! Stop it, Wobbie!” Danny smacked his brother on the arm.

  “I didn’t do nothin.’ Get your stupid blocks out of the way!”

  She watched them fight but said nothing to stop them. She was too tired. She closed her eyes and tried to block everything out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  HE HURRIED TO GRAB HIS PHONE, pleased to hear his partner’s chipper voice. After filling him in on the Brodie info, Sean eased into his chair. Poor Sal must have been bushed, traveling all night and then getting right to work in the morning.

  “What you find out?”

  “Everything and then some.”

  “Spill it, partner.”

  “Well, after talking to every goofball Hill in and around Cresskill, New York this a.m., I finally hit on something.”

  “A family member?”

  “Nope. Just dumb luck. I got a Rebecca Hill. She’s not related to our dead doc but she knew of the family, remembered hearing something about them years ago. A pharmacy shop owner. His store burned down.”

  “When?”

  “She didn’t remember—sounded like she had trouble remembering a lot of things. But I figured – ”

  “—the local firemen should know.”

  “Which is why I checked with them. A shop belonging to Gustav Hill burned down in 1936 or ’37. Pretty sad.”

  “Where was our Hill?”

  “At NYU apparently. They were proud as the dickens of him, according to some old codger with the fire department. And he was a good son, says this fellow. Sent his parents money regular. Visited every chance he could.”

  “So he was a good guy.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  Sean scratched his head. “He had something in his past worth blackmail money, something he was tryin’ to hide.”

  A fellow detective walked by, placing a note on his desk: Brigitta called. Call back.

  Sean mentally cursed. “Anybody else in the family?”

  “The fireman says there was a brother. Didn’t know what happened to him.”

  “But you found out?” Sean drummed his fingers, studying the note to call Brigitta.

  “The fireman put me in touch with some old biddy named Abendschoen. Means ‘beautiful evening’ in Deutch. And the reason
I know that, pal, is because she was some German version of that gal in Homeland who’d known our vic as Mike Lowe.”

  Despite his impatience, Sean chuckled. “You charm them, Sal.”

  “Yeah, well, I spent nearly an hour with her and would have spent more if her nurse didn’t tell her she had to go to the doc or something. I think I’m gonna marry that nurse.”

  “You’re still not telling me what you got.”

  “The fireman was a little off, but not by much. Richard Hill was the apple of his parents’ eye. That’s true. They scrimped and sent him to medical school and then he got work as a researcher for some Rockefeller Institute, real big, real honor and all that. They had a newspaper story about it in their store window and everything, apparently.”

  “The store that burned?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. But turns out the parents weren’t killed in it. Just wiped out.”

  “So good son helps them out?”

  “Yeah. Even buys them a shiny new car. Only problem is, they were in an accident….” Sean could hear Sal flipping through notes. “Killed both of them.”

  “Geez. Bad luck.”

  “This guy was a magnet for it. Little while later, younger brother comes to New York to visit his successful doctor brother and…gets hit by a bus and is paralyzed. Was in and out of hospitals until about ’48. Then he died. Rumor is he drank himself to the grave.”

  Sean thought for a minute, his fingers grabbing the note to call home.

  “The old lady—she know anything else about the family’s relatives in the old country?”

  “I think she would have told me the history of the Holy Roman Empire if I’d’ve sat there long enough. Yeah, she knew the Hill family’s story. During the war, a bunch of them got shot as traitors.”

  “They were Jewish?”

  “No. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Sal cursed. “That was the worst of it. She gave me an earful about how awful things were in Germany before the war and how nobody here really understood what was going on. She made it sound like it was our fault they all let Hitler take over.”