LOST TO THE WORLD

by Libby Sternberg

  You knew I’d see the letter from Dr. Jansen’s ex-wife. You must have seen it yourself when you went in his office. Why didn’t you just give it to me outright?

  “I—I don’t know,” she said, and he could hear the tears in her voice. “I—I sent the letter to Sue because I was afraid I’d forget it…I…”

  “Why were you so eager to let us know about Jansen—giving me his file and all? You’re not a detective, Julia. Did you think he did it?”

  “I…” Again, she stumbled. He was hitting a nerve. She must have been realizing how bad she looked, at best a mean-spirited tattler. “I wanted to help.”

  Just like Jansen had wanted to help, to do good.

  “All you did was get your friends in trouble. Why’d you want to do that? Were you trying to take the focus off yourself?” He swallowed hard, forcing himself to keep pressing.

  “No! Really, detective, I…I only wanted to be helpful.” She sniffled.

  “But you didn’t like your boss, did you? He was a hard man to work for, right?”

  “He’s dead!” she said, and her meaning was clear—she wouldn’t speak ill of the dead, even if Sean was right about him.

  “But that don’t make him likeable. C’mon, you know he was a tough one, a real dictator. And that attitude of his—how’d you put up with that? It must have made you real mad some times, didn’t it? Do you often get mad like that?”

  “Please, stop this. I didn’t do anything wrong. I told you the truth about things, that’s all. I didn’t…I didn’t do anything bad. I’m sad Dr. Jansen is dead. I’m…”

  “But you thought he did it, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” She blew her nose.

  “You thought he bashed in the good Doctor Lowenstein’s head, didn’t you? You’ve seen him mad. You know what he can do.”

  “No! I mean, yes! I’ve—I’d seen him angry. But he…he…why would he kill him like that?” She was weeping now.

  “You mean not stick a needle in him nice and neat? Well, when you’re mad, you don’t take time to do things neat.”

  “No! I mean…why didn’t he just shoot him! He had a gun!”

  He straightened. She’d known this?

  “Dr. Jansen had a gun….” And then she told him of how she’d startled him in his lab one day, and he’d pointed a gun at her.

  So it hadn’t just been a story Jansen had made up in the interrogation room. Julia had known about the gun and Jansen’s fears, too. Why hadn’t she given him that with all the other stuff, goddammit?

  He cursed under his breath. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, sniffling. “I thought it made him look…guilty.”

  “And you didn’t think he really was?”

  A long pause before she answered. “No.”

  “Where were you Friday night?” he asked her and heard her suck in her breath.

  “At home with my family.”

  “They can vouch for you?”

  “Yes! You can call them right now. Please, do!”

  “Anybody besides your family see you?”

  “Oh my god, you think I—I couldn’t even get to Dr. Jansen’s house Friday without help! I didn’t hurt him. I couldn’t have done it. I’m not strong enough. For God’s sake, I’m a cripple!” And then she hiccupped a huge sob, and Sean felt like a heel.

  He calmed her down and got off the phone. It was a relief to feel in his gut she wasn’t guilty, but he still believed the killer was out there. Jansen had known it. He’d gotten a gun to protect himself. He’d told Julia he was afraid.

  Heaving a sigh, Sean scooped up the papers Sal had brought in and left. He’d head to Jansen’s house and take one last look-see before calling it a day. If O’Brien missed him, too bad.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  THE BRIGHT COFFEE SHOP with its smell of onions, cigarettes and coffee, its uncomfortable booths with rubbery seats, its chrome-edged counter and cracked tile floor all combined to make Julia feel tawdry.

  It was a fitting place to end an engagement that had never glistened with joy, she thought as she slid awkwardly into a booth across from Will. Staring at her “betrothed” over a spaghetti-stained menu in this joint made her realize just how much she didn’t love him and never had.

  Will looked up at her and smiled, then noticed she had her ring hand in her lap, out of sight.

  “Now, Julia, are you embarrassed or something?” He laughed. “If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were ashamed of it.”

  Ashamed—that’s precisely how she’d felt whenever anyone saw it. And she felt even more down now, after the troubling conversation with Sean earlier.

  The waitress stood over them, pad and pencil in hand.

  “Did you see, Jules? Blue plate special is liver and onions.”

  Her stomach turned at the thought. “Just coffee,” she said, smiling at the waitress.

  Will made a show of frowning. “You have to put some meat on those bones, honey.” Turning to the waitress, he said, “Bring her a piece of cherry pie. And I’ll take the special.”

  “I’ve never liked liver,” Julia said after the waitress left. “My mother doesn’t like it either. She’ll fix it for my father and fix something else for us.”

  Will chuckled. “Well, there you go. You probably just picked up her dislike for it. Maybe you just need to try it again. I was reading an article about how eating liver is good for your blood. You need your strength, Julia. When you’re cooking for me, you’ll be making liver, so maybe you’ll develop an appetite for it.”

  He asked about her weekend, but it was just an excuse so he could talk about his own. While they waited for their food, Will excitedly describing the drive over the Conowingo Dam to Lancaster and the many farms he and his mother had passed along the way. She let him prattle as her thoughts wandered.

  They wandered to an image that brought a sour taste to her mouth—she at a stove, frilly apron around her waist, frying up Will’s dinner of liver and onions while she waited for him to return home. It was a nice home, the one-story rancher that she coveted, in a good neighborhood, and it was filled with furniture she liked and things she cherished, but she was sick to her stomach as she cooked because Will would be coming home soon….

  “I can’t do it.” She had both hands on the table and was nervously stroking the nail of her index finger.

  He looked perplexed at first and then blurted out his misunderstanding.

  “Oh, c’mon honey. My mom’ll show you how to fix it. Maybe your mother doesn’t cook it right—”

  “No, I mean I can’t get married.” She closed her eyes, opened them, looked up. She saw his face change from uncomprehending to angry. His mouth slackened, then set in a straight bitter line. She expected him to ask her why not, but he stared, unblinking, daring her to continue. She took a deep breath before going on.

  “I’ve thought about it, Will. I’m not ready to get married.” She was surprised at how forceful she sounded. It was easier once she’d started.

  “Not ready? Christ, Julia, you’re practically thirty!”

  “I’m only twenty-five.”

  “Most girls your age have been married and had two or more kids by now.” His voice rose. She saw a man in a booth up ahead glance at them.

  “My sister Helen’s not married.”

  “Your sister Helen is a freak.”

  She sat up as if slapped. It was one thing to insult her, but Helen…Helen was a sweet soul who wouldn’t hurt a fly. “Helen is as normal as you or I. She was engaged during the war. Lots of girls lost—”

  Their food arrived, forcing silence upon them while the waitress arranged the heavy porcelain plates. Julia wrapped her hands around the mug but pushed the pie to the side. She was surprised when Will picked up his knife and fork and began eating.

  “Your sister’s shut herself up like a nun.” He talked with his mouth full. Julia couldn’t stop her upper lip from curling up in disgust. Will
pointed his fork at her. “Is that what you want to be like?”

  “Let’s not talk about Helen,” she said, leaning into the table and speaking low, hoping he’d follow her example. “The fact is I’m just not ready to get married.” She twisted the ring off her finger with some effort. Now that they’d had it resized, it was too tight, and it took her several painful turns to get it over her knuckle.

  “Here,” she said, placing it on the table in front of his plate when he made no effort to take it. “I can’t keep it. Maybe you could get your money back.”

  He snorted and reached for his coffee, then scooped up the ring with his other hand and deposited it in his shirt pocket. When he sipped his coffee, he sloshed some liquid on his shirt.

  “You seeing someone else?” he asked through gritted teeth before picking up his fork again. He speared a piece of meat and jammed it in his mouth. “Is that what this is all about?”

  “No!” Looking at him now, she wondered why she’d even gone out with him, let alone agreed to marry him.

  He shook his head. “Course not. Who would you find? Christ, the fellas in the office—they couldn’t figure out what I saw in you. A one-legged gimp. How you gonna….”

  She couldn’t believe the stream of filth that poured from his mouth. She didn’t hear it. Once he’d said the word “gimp,” his voice receded to the background, and all she saw was his mouth, opening and closing, saying things, eating things, a disgusting dirty orifice that she once let kiss her on the lips. She thought she was going to gag.

  “I have to go.” She scooted to the edge of the booth, but it took her awhile because of her bad leg. “I’m sorry, Will.” She stood, leaned on her cane and buttoned her sweater.

  “Is it someone else?”

  “I told you. No.”

  “I mean a woman. Is that what it is? I’ve always wondered about that sister of yours, Helen. She introduce you to one of her friends?”

  She wanted to slap him. But she sucked in her breath, stared and said nothing. Then she left him, eating his precious liver and onions that she would never—thank god—have to fix for him.

  ***

  Sean sat in Jansen’s home at the dead man’s kitchen table, poring through papers. Jansen hadn’t done it. Sean was sure of it. The man had been afraid—justifiably so, it seemed. And just as Jansen had stopped feeling like the perpetrator to Sean, so, too, had Julia faded as a possibility. Holding back on the info about Jansen’s gun sealed it for Sean. She’d been quick to give over lots of lesser info that pointed to guilt. The man having a gun would have made him look as if he was on the verge of using it and had only resorted to a beating when opportunity had collided with motivation.

  No, if Julia herself had been guilty, she’d have rushed to hand over that little tidbit. She might be mixed up inside, but she wasn’t guilty of murder.

  When he’d arrived at the Jansen house, he’d spent a good half hour looking for that gun and not found it. This troubled him. If Jansen had been killed, and hadn’t died of an accidental fall, had his murderer taken the victim’s gun? Had Jansen tried to protect himself with it, only to have it knocked from his hands before being knocked out himself?

  Maybe the gun was at the lab?

  He’d check on that soon enough. Right now he wanted to finish looking through the papers he’d brought from the office, the ones Sal had scooped up before everything went bad.

  At first, as Sean flipped the pages, he’d been bewildered why the man would hang onto them. They were records of the 1935 experiment, the very event he’d wanted to distance himself from. But as Sean reviewed page after page of meticulous data, names and dates, outcomes and conclusions, he understood why. As damning as these might be for Jansen, the man hadn’t been able to bring himself to destroy them because they still represented science. Yes, a scientific error. But still…science. He couldn’t wipe out the results of the experiment, no matter how horrible it had been.

  Sean took a drag from a cigarette from a pack he’d picked up on the way over. He’d also picked up the police report on Jansen’s death. No evidence of alcohol. No evidence of foul play. “Suicide?” one cop had written in the margin. No, not a suicide. Throwing yourself down a flight of steps wasn’t a sure way to die. You could end up worse than dead—in a wheelchair the rest of your life. If he’d had a gun, he’d have taken the quickest, surest route with the pistol. But where was it? No record of it in the police report. Not stashed in a drawer or under a mattress. It had vanished.

  He stopped turning pages.

  A familiar name. Vaguely familiar. Something dancing around the edges of his mind. Something…someone he’d met.

  There. On the list. Children inoculated in ’35.

  Dagley, Earl. Followed by Dagley, Weston.

  Earl Dagley.

  Sean stuck his cigarette in his mouth and reached for the files on the case. Sal had interviewed someone, one of the Hopkins workers. A cleaning man? No, but on the same level. He found it. The chimp tender…

  His eyes widened, his blood pumped fast.

  Now in a rush to discover more, Sean shuffled through his other notes. What else had he missed?

  He found the letter from Ethan Pendleton to Dr. Lowenstein telling him the deal on the cabin had fallen through. Sean had never actually read that note. Now he ripped it from the envelope.

  “….Mr. Dagley has retracted his offer so the cabin is now available….He’s a polio victim and was asking quite a bit about you. I hope you don’t mind but I told him you were at Hopkins…”

  Dagley. Earl Dagly had been in Hill’s cabin. The cabin where Hill had burned some records. Not all of them. Dagley must have found the remnants. Enough to connect Hill to…

  Dammit. He should have read this when it came in. He should have…

  Sean stood, pushed his cigarette into a saucer, and reached for the phone, quickly calling Mrs. Creed to tell her he’d be late.

  ***

  She’d made no arrangement for a ride home. Her family assumed Will would bring her home, of course, because they didn’t know she was breaking the engagement. Only Helen knew and she was at the shop this evening.

  She made her way across Broadway back toward the hospital feeling pressed into the earth, ground down by both Sean earlier and now Will. What kind of person was she? Why had she debased herself by agreeing to marry a man like Will? Why had she taken pleasure in getting her coworkers into trouble?

  She couldn’t think it all out. Her mind was muddled. She’d talk about it with Helen. She’d call Helen and ask her to come fetch her and they’d talk about it on the way home.

  Her hand trembled as she leaned on her cane. She couldn’t stop thinking of the awful things Will had said to her. They made her stomach turn.

  Agreeing to marry a man like Will told her something about herself she didn’t want to face. Would she have settled for someone like him before the polio? God, no. This brought tears to her eyes. She’d ignored his obvious faults because she’d thought he was all she could get. She’d lied to herself, of course. Had told herself that the best men were gone in the war or promised to other girls. But that wasn’t the real reason. She’d been afraid a good man wouldn’t want her. He’d want someone whole.

  She stared at the steps to the grand lobby of Hopkins and decided she was too tired to tackle them. She headed for a side door instead, one for which she had the key because of her lameness—“the staircase has a banister there,” Mrs. Wilcox had said her first week on the job. In defiance, Julia had rarely used this entrance. Tonight she didn’t feel like a rebel.

  She let herself in. The hallways were brightly lit and quiet, the rooms along the hall dark. The only noise came from the monkey room where a light still shone. Earl was probably feeding the animals before going home for the night. She hurried past, not wanting to run into another living soul. As she rushed by the slightly opened door, she heard him talking to the chimps.

  “That’s it, girls. That’s the way. Now stop that fightin
g. Stop it right now, I tell you!” His voice was elevated, angry, as he tried to get the animals to quiet down and feed. There was something familiar about it….

  “Buck won’t hurt you now. Take it easy.”

  Despite herself, she gasped. Buck? Earl. Early Dagley.

  Sucking in her lips, she raced as quietly as she could past the closed door and up to her office. Once there, her hands shook as she reached for the phone, ready to dial her sister, the police.

  But before she’d even begun to call, a cane fell across her phone, knocking the receiver out of her hand. She jumped, almost falling.

  “I warned you, Julia. I told you to stay away from the case.”

  She looked up to see Earl Dagley pointing Dr. Jansen’s gun at her heart.

  ***

  He tried the lab first, and his hopes rose when he saw that the door to the monkey room was open and the light on. Dagley must still be around.

  Then he’d trudged upstairs and found another light on. Julia’s office, the one on her desk. But her phone was knocked off the hook, and, more ominously, her cane leaned against the chair.

  ***

  “What makes you think they’re any better than the Nazis? They experiment on children, for Christ’s sake! Helpless children. Children like my brother, in the Taconic School for the Feeble Minded. He didn’t have no say in what happened to him. None! And they injected him like he was a monkey! Hah! They treat the monkeys here better than they treated him. They didn’t care whether he got sick or died. They cared even less if he suffered. And he did suffer! We all did. Still do!”

  “They don’t do that sort of thing anymore….” She didn’t know where they were headed. She only knew it was awfully hard trying to walk without her cane. She had to balance by holding her hand out to the wall. If she moved too slowly, he jabbed the gun in her side.

  Earl knew hallways and passages in Hopkins that she’d never discovered. If she saw another soul, she’d cry out. But he was too adept at mapping the route, too good at avoiding contact. Her heart pounded out a thousand regrets. She wished she’d been happier with her life. She wished she’d appreciated what she had, even the use of one leg. She wished….