Into the Suffering City

by Bill LeFurgy

  On her fourth birthday, her father gave her Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. He read it to her and Grace many times while they snuggled close. Sarah began to read other books on her own, and by the time she was seven, she had devoured dozens, including Black Beauty, On the Origin of Species, and The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

  Sarah forced her attention back to the present and found herself calmer. A small knot of pain remained behind the center of her forehead—lingering tension no doubt arising from Jack Harden’s statement that her work would not reveal the truth about Lizzie Sullivan’s murder. It was true that the Pinkerton Agency’s role in the case did not center on justice. Still, she would finish her report tonight and press it upon the superintendent. Helping their client surely was his paramount interest.

  She needed more evidence for the report, compelling facts that would force people to understand how Lizzie really died. The best way to get those facts was to examine the dead girl’s body as soon as possible—right now, in fact.

  Sarah glanced back down at her books and pulled out In Memory of Mary Putnam Jacobi. It was the slimmest volume in the row, with a marvelous ribbed cloth binding. She had intended to buy another copy for the morgue clerk’s daughter. Gently stroking the book’s cover, she decided giving it up was worth the loss.

  The two-story red brick morgue perched at the very edge of the harbor, as if to keep the dead as far away from the living as possible. Near the side loading dock, a man struggled to drag an oblong form wrapped in dirty canvas from the morgue’s dead wagon. Two men, dressed in white, watched idly from the dock. A steam-powered saw obliterated every other sound as it screeched somewhere in the vast commercial lumberyard that surrounded the place. Sarah stood outside the front door, gathering her courage.

  Saying anything untrue was nearly impossible for her. But, through experience, she had learned that people often preferred to skirt or obscure the truth. If someone appeared worn and tired, you were supposed to say “You are looking well.” If someone asked how you were doing, you were supposed to say “Fine, thank you,” even if you felt horrible. If she absolutely had to lie or overlook some rules to examine Lizzie’s body, so be it.

  The morgue reception area was a stark, unwelcoming space that smelled of mildew with a hint of acrid cleaning solution. Yellow paint peeled from the dirty walls. A single electric light in a chipped green metal reflector dangled from the ceiling next to a curled strip of adhesive flypaper dotted with small bodies.

  The clerk Sarah had met earlier in the day sat behind a large desk piled high with papers and boxes of equipment. A calendar advertising “Stafford’s Rib Cutters, Skull Chisels, and Bone Saws: We Open Up a Whole New World for You” hung behind him.

  “I am interrupting your lunch.”

  “It’s no problem at all, Dr. Kennecott.” The clerk stood and came around to the front of the desk. “How can I help you?”

  “I have brought you the book we discussed this morning. For your daughter. It has some of the most positive words ever written about a woman physician. I want to give it to her—to encourage her studies.”

  His eyes bulged at the proffered volume. “I-I-I don’t know what to say.” His Adam’s apple did its vigorous dance again.

  “You could say ‘I will give it to her.’” The clerk dropped his gaze to the floor and attempted to speak, but the only sound he made was a string of puffs. “Sir,” she asked, “are you feeling well?”

  He shifted his weight from side to side. “I-I-I am ashamed to have offended you with my impolite response, Doctor.”

  “Do not concern yourself.” She took a step toward him. “I require no expression of gratitude. All I want is you to take the book from my hand.”

  The clerk took the book as if it were a rare volume. “Thank you so much, Doctor. It is so very, very kind of you. My daughter will read it with interest.”

  “Yes. That is what books are for.” She stepped closer. “I wish to take another look at the body we examined this morning. I need some additional information for my report.”

  “That’s a bit unusual, Doctor.” The clerk was now bent backward over his desk, with Sarah about a foot away from him. “The coroner usually decides who can view the bodies.”

  Sarah tilted her head forward to stare at a dark blue stain on the right lapel of the man’s dingy white lab coat while trying to think of what to say. She needed to construct a lie to the effect that the coroner had given her his permission, but forming the words was a mighty struggle.

  "I-I suppose just this once will be fine,” said the clerk with a jittery laugh. “I’ll get the porters to retrieve the body from the icebox.” He slipped quickly out of the room, leaving the book on his desk. Sarah took off her gloves and lovingly stroked the book’s cover. She felt tightness in her throat and pushed away the rising grief. This was a worthy sacrifice. The clerk returned with two big men. “We’ll lay the body out while you get ready, Doctor.”

  After hanging her hat and getting into a gown and apron, she went back into the body chamber. Lizzie Sullivan was again stretched out on the table. Sarah lifted the right hand and peered closely to see strands of dark fibers clotted with blood under the nails. She used fine tweezers to remove the material. “Do you have a small paper sack?”

  The clerk cleared his throat nervously. “I’m not sure y-y-you should take anything, Doctor. It’s against the rules.”

  “The coroner is finished with his examination. And the body will be washed soon for burial. Think of me cleaning her fingernails for that purpose.” Stars and shimmers floated through her vision. Sarah willed her legs firm to counter a profound urge to start rocking.

  Muttering to himself, the clerk found a paper bag and gave it to her. She placed the fibers from under the nails into the sack. Looking at the girl’s face, Sarah again noticed that the upper lip appeared unusual.

  She pried open the mouth, revealing decayed teeth and irritated gums. Peeling back the upper lip revealed a narrow strip of what looked like wadded paper molded around the upper gum line. Some gentle tweezing was enough to lift the slightly damp paper away, revealing badly recessed gum tissue—the mottled roots of the front teeth peeped between bits of swollen, inflamed flesh. Lizzie Sullivan was not a practitioner of good oral hygiene. The bit of paper joined the clotted fibers in the bag.

  Sarah looked again at the cut on the girl’s forehead. It appeared to have come from a straight-edged object. She glanced at the floor where the clipboard had fallen earlier—it was still there, lying in a puddle of ice melt. She picked up the clipboard and glanced at the dripping-wet contents.

  The photographic prints were badly curled but still clear and sharp. The photo of the girl splayed on the bed showed no sign of anything that could have caused the head trauma.

  Sarah grabbed a scalpel and quickly cut away the flesh around the bruise on the corpse’s upper right forehead. Next, she used a drill and bone-cutting forceps to cut a two-inch-square in the girl’s skull. This was not the typical procedure, but there was no time to saw open the skull to do a proper examination of the brain. Most of her anxiety fell away as she focused on using the instruments.

  “Wait! You can’t do that!” The clerk rushed to her side and raised his arms up and down frantically. Sarah ignored him and lifted the cut piece of bone to reveal a large mass of clotted blood under the first layer of tissue beneath the skull. It had the appearance of an acute subdural hematoma—the blow to the head had caused internal bleeding, which in turn placed great pressure on the brain. That, more than likely, was what had killed Lizzie Sullivan.

  “I am finished.” She replaced the piece of cut bone and stepped away from the table.

  “I’ll say you are. I’m reporting this right now.” The clerk rushed off, white coat flying behind him. Sarah put the bag with the newsprint and fingernail scrapings in her purse, then glanced at the police photographs. She stuffed them into her purse as well, then hurried to wash her hands and get out of the g
own and apron.

  As she walked through the reception area, she heard the clerk shouting into the telephone about how some crazy woman had hacked open a skull. Sarah was offended—she did not like her technique referred to so crudely.

  She walked quickly to the President Street station, hailed a cab, and set off to Johns Hopkins Hospital. The evidence presented a clear picture, but it was good practice to seek another opinion.

  “Good day, Dr. Kennecott.”

  Sarah froze on the sidewalk outside the Pathological Building on the grounds of Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was in a rush to consult with someone other than the professor of psychiatry who stood smiling before her on the building’s steps. He was a muscular man with a neatly trimmed Vandyke beard, Homburg hat, red necktie, and dove-gray suit jacket. “Dr. Norbert Macdonald, I do not have time to converse.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Aye, we’ll talk this afternoon.” He spoke with a thick Scottish burr.

  “I must cancel our appointment. Something urgent has arisen.”

  “That is disappointing.”

  “Excuse me.”

  Macdonald clicked his heels and stepped aside, still smiling. “Remember that I hope to cure your mental issues and to write a case study.”

  Sarah wordlessly walked past him up the stairs and into the building, knowing she had violated a social rule by abruptly abandoning the doctor. That was unfortunate because she did not object to his company.

  Recently returned from work with world-renowned figures in psychology, he had been hired to head a new psychiatric hospital the university was building. Macdonald had advance word about Sarah and invited her to meet soon after settling into his temporary office in the Pathological Building two weeks ago. She willingly accepted his invitation, drawn by the man’s fluent German.

  During their meeting, Macdonald produced photographs of individual faces and asked her to identify the emotion each person displayed. It had been a difficult, painful task. She always had trouble looking at faces—eyes, in particular—as they broadcast overwhelming emotional signals. She could only bear to examine each photograph for a few seconds.

  She was not surprised to hear that nearly all her guesses at the emotional state shown in each photograph were wrong. She was, however, nettled when Macdonald described her in passing as cold and unfeeling. The opposite was true. Sarah felt joy, anger, fear, and more with great intensity. But she had concluded that, in addition to having difficulty identifying the emotions of others, she had at least as much trouble communicating her own.

  Macdonald had offered to provide psychoanalysis to help improve what he called her “psychopathic emotional disorder.” The doctor recounted his own success with analysis and explained that he kept a detailed journal about his thoughts and actions to help him dig into his subconscious. He also wanted to explore Sarah’s personality as the basis for a published case study. She wanted nothing to do with what he proposed, but had agreed to meet with him again as a courtesy.

  Hurrying down the hallway, she rounded a corner, and nearly collided with the man she had come to see.

  “Sarah, hello.”

  “Greetings to you as well, Dr. Frederick Anson.” Her pathology mentor was short and bald but for a three-inch tuft of hair rising from the top of his head. His thick spectacles greatly magnified his eyes. The man was also extremely fond of brightly colored clothing. Some unkind students called him “the horned chameleon,” although she failed to grasp why.

  “I hear you are . . . consulting with the Pinkerton Agency,” he said.

  Sarah was mildly infatuated with the man. Not a romantic desire—it was more a longing to ease her isolation. More than once she’d wondered if she could tolerate having his arms around her like her father had done, but had never considered testing the idea. “Yes, that is correct. I wish to confer about a recent murder and discuss my reasoning as to the cause of death.”

  He pulled a watch from his scarlet waistcoat with a bandaged left hand. “I can give you a few minutes.”

  Sarah quickly explained how she came to make two trips to the morgue and gave a rapid overview of what she had observed. Anson removed his glasses and wiped them on his shirtfront.

  “What is the dead girl’s name?” He squinted at her.

  Sarah hastily skated her gaze across Anson’s unfocused eyes, curious that he would ask such a question. “Her name is Lizzie Sullivan.”

  Anson put his glasses back on. “When do you estimate the time of death?”

  “I had hoped to consult with you about that. Based on my observations, I estimate that she died late last night or early this morning. But I believe she received the fatal head injury many hours prior, given that the tissues had time to bruise and begin to heal.”

  “Do the police have a suspect?”

  “Doctor, given your limited time, I wish to discuss the condition of the body rather than review the broader facts of the case.”

  He looked at her closely. “Was there a fracture of the victim’s skull?”

  “No. The modest appearance of the cut and the lack of a fracture drew attention away from the head injury during the initial autopsy. I learned more during my return to the morgue.”

  “Going back without authorization to examine the body was wrong. You could face serious consequences.” Anson spoke softly, but it was unlike him to show such deference to bureaucratic rules.

  “Truth is what matters, not protocol,” she said.

  “I say this as your friend, Sarah. You absolutely must—must—learn to obey the men in charge. If the coroner has ruled the gunshot wound as the cause of death, then you have to accept his opinion. I’m sorry to speak to you this way . . . .” He rubbed his hands together before holding them out limply, palms up.

  She stared at his hands silently for some moments before reaching into her purse. “The head trauma has the appearance of a subdural hematoma. Enough blood accumulated over a period of time to cause fatal pressure on the brain. The source of the injury is unknown. There is also the question of where and when both the trauma and the gunshot took place. I have pictures of the crime scene. Tell me what you see.”

  He took the pictures and held them inches from his eyes. “I see the room is a mess, as if it had been torn apart during a search. The head injury looks minor.”

  “The body is in a naturally supine pose on the bed—it is as if she were sleeping just before death,” said Sarah. “Or engaging in sexual intercourse.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “There were feathers embedded in the gunshot wound. That is consistent with a close-range shot through the pillow, which presumably was used to muffle the sound. It appears she was shot while laying as pictured.”

  “So, the gunshot did kill her.”

  Sarah stamped her foot hard enough for the sound to echo off the paneled wall and make Anson jump. “I have already told you about the lack of bleeding from the gunshot wound—she was dead before the shot.” She began rocking vigorously, her long skirts swishing. “Hours or days can pass before a hematoma may cause enough bleeding in the brain to cause death. In this case, I witnessed relatively fresh clotting over the brain consistent with the injury occurring approximately forty-eight hours prior to death. A more precise calculation would be possible with a full inspection of the brain.”

  He handed back the pictures and peered at her with his hugely magnified eyes. “Leave this alone, Sarah, or you will get yourself into big trouble. Again.”

  “I am conducting this work on behalf of a Pinkerton client. I will document everything in my report, which I am eager to have turned over to the proper authorities.”

  Anson clasped his hands and blinked slowly. “I know that once you take the bit in your teeth, there is no stopping you.”

  “I do not understand that statement.”

  “I mean that when you decide to take something on you refuse to let it go until the matter is resolved.”

  “Yes, that is my nature. May I have use of laboratory space over
the next several days?”

  He hesitated. “Maybe.” He glanced at his watch. “I must go. Meet me in the main hospital administrative office tomorrow morning at ten a.m. so that I can let you know for sure.”

  “I shall meet you at that precise hour.” She turned on her heel and quickly walked away.

  Sarah knew she would be yelled at for returning to the morgue. The superintendent would fuss and refuse to listen to any explanation. He probably would rant again about how impossible she was and order her to attend to the filing backlog.

  Once, when he’d been especially angry, he declared that she never would have been hired if not for the fine reputation of her late father. Sarah knew the real reason the agency had hired her was her close friendship with Margaret Bonifant.

  Riding up the Continental Building elevator, she was confident that, however much her boss scolded her, the new evidence about Lizzie Sullivan’s death would prevail over everything else. Once he calmed down and listened to what she had to say, the superintendent would know she had done the right thing. The details she uncovered would help Horace Shaw, their client who had promised a bonus. Most importantly, the police would have crucial evidence for their investigation.

  All the typing and chattering stopped as soon as she stepped into the office. Sarah normally did not pay attention to her colleagues, yet it was evident that everyone was staring at her. She remembered the stain on her skirt. Once she had gone most of the day with a big rip down the side of her jacket that she would never have noticed if a coworker had not pointed it out.

  “Sarah,” said the superintendent from his doorway, “come into my office. Right away.”

  She walked inside, and he closed the door with a bang. Sitting in front of her—and making no effort to rise—was a hatchet-faced man of about fifty, with long side-whiskers and small, dark eyes. The shoulders of his black frock coat were dusted with dandruff, and his shirt collar was starched but well worn.