“Certainly not. I have no need for a brain specialist.” She turned briefly to her husband, but Anschutz had again become expressionless.
Noah repeated Jacobi’s hypothesis that Mildred Anschutz had dosed her son with Heroin and then, when the terrible, unbearable result became manifest, repressed the memory of the act. He stressed the amazing results Freud had obtained. Noted that, despite the skepticism with which such a seemingly outrageous theory would be received, Freud was destined to become one of the great medical scientists of the age. He concluded by saying, to Pug as much as to his wife, that she would in no way be responsible if such was the case. The responsibility would lie completely with the doctor who had prescribed the medicine.
As he spoke, Noah scrutinized her carefully, convinced that if the Austrian were correct, some spark of recognition would be detected. But Mildred Anschutz sat tight-lipped, her hands folded in her lap for the entire rendition.
When he was done, she stared at him for some moments. “Young man,” she said finally, “are you completely an idiot? That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. I can assure you I have never been less than in full control of my faculties.” She stood up, pulled to her full height. For the first time since the night of Willard’s death, she appeared the matriarch. “You will leave my house this instant. You will never return, no matter what the circumstances.” She pointed toward the door. “I thought you merely an incompetent doctor. But now I realize, in addition, you are an unfathomably stupid man.”
When Noah didn’t get up instantly, she looked down at her husband. “Pug, throw this fool out.” But Anschutz didn’t move, except to look up at his wife with contempt.
THIRTY-SIX
DAY 8. WEDNESDAY, 9/27—3:30 P.M.
Arnold Frias had offices on Fulton Street, an elegant suite of rooms with a separate entrance on the first floor of a newly built office building. A brass plaque on the door identified the occupant. As a condition of his lease, Frias had obtained an agreement with the building’s owners to allow him to park his automobile in front of his door.
The offices themselves were as opulent as the International Benz outside. The waiting-room furniture was leather and plush, the wallpaper silk, and the desk at which the receptionist sat mahogany. The receptionist herself did little to diminish the image. She was twenty, dark-haired, prim, and lovely, dressed in a ten-dollar frock.
The waiting room had not an empty seat. Most of the roughly dozen patients were women, all well dressed, ranging in age from early twenties to over sixty. Three were accompanied by children. Two men, elderly, one holding a gold-headed cane, filled out the roster.
Noah told the receptionist his name, and that he was a physician who had come on a matter of great urgency. She looked him up and down, began to open her mouth to question, then excused herself and ducked into the inner office. Her hips swiveled as she walked, enough to hint but not enough to be suggestive. Noah wondered if she was Frias’s lover. The receptionist returned a few moments later.
“Dr. Frias will see you.” She was cool, professional, and curt.
Frias’s private office was at the rear, as elegant as the waiting room. Frias stood at the side of his desk as Noah walked in, large and imposing. The fingertips of his right hand rested on the desktop, forming a small tent. He could not have appeared more affable.
“Come in, Whitestone. I was expecting you. Mildred telephoned and said you might be by. You shaved off your beard, I see. You look younger.” He observed Noah’s garb. “Interesting get-up. Practicing for poverty?”
“You may be the one needing the practice, doctor. I expect you to lose fifty thousand dollars.”
“You mean my investment in the Bayer Company? Hardly. I’ll make millions.”
“Not after I publish my findings.”
Frias heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Whitestone, you are truly a fool. Not only will your . . . ‘findings,’ as you put them . . . have no effect on my net worth, you will have been the agent that ensured the success of the venture.”
“I hardly think so. When Heroin is exposed for the poison it is . . . poison you prescribed to a child . . . it is difficult to imagine how your seamy enterprise will succeed.”
“On the contrary. It is difficult to imagine it failing. The range of applications for the drug is immense. Even greater than for Aspirin. Heroin, as I’m sure you know, is a drug whose safety and efficacy is supported by the scrupulous research of one of the foremost chemists in Europe. He presented a paper to an august body of scientists that was received with acclaim.”
“The acclaim will evaporate when documentation is produced that children were sickened or killed by the drug.”
“What documentation? You have no proof at all. Not a single case where Heroin can be shown to have produced deleterious effects. I thought that had been made clear to you by TR.” Frias let the pronouncement settle. “I also have friends in the governor’s office, you see.”
“But you know the drug is harmful. Have you no scruples at all?”
“Any difficulties that might have been encountered are strictly a matter of dosing.”
“So you used poor children as subjects of an experiment.”
“Someone has to be. Oh, Whitestone, can you not be just a bit less callow? Every new drug needs human testing. Or would you prefer medicine to freeze in place where we are now?”
“I’m not certain helping the advance of medicine will be a comfort to the Anschutz family.”
“I will tell you again, Whitestone, although you seem to have incurable problems with comprehension . . . I prescribed Heroin for Willard for three days a full two weeks before he died. There was not a single tablet in Mildred’s possession when the course had been completed. I visited Willard the day after the prescription lapsed and noticed a mild set of symptoms the details of which I’m certain you can guess. Still, the boy seemed to have no lasting effects. As I said, a dosing problem. I have not prescribed Heroin since and will not until the dosing problems are solved. If the report you intend to publish can explain how a mild, acetylized morphiate can lie dormant in a child’s system for two weeks, then suddenly be aroused to cause symptoms, I’m certain you’ll be immortalized in the annals of medicine. Far more likely, as you have hypothesized, was that Willard was given morphiates subsequent to those I prescribed. And the only other morphiate I am aware of Willard ingesting was the dose of laudanum you administered.”
“He did not die from the laudanum.”
“You need to believe that, I know. It runs in your family.”
“What does that mean?”
Frias drew himself up. He loomed over Noah, nostrils flared, his face suddenly gone crimson. “You are so sanctimonious. So facilely quick to accuse. The evil Frias. Uncaring. Avaricious. Sacrificing his patients’ lives and well-being on the altar of profit. Not like the Whitestones, father and son. They work for higher motives. They would never sully themselves. Frias would poison children for a few pieces of silver, but the Whitestones would never accept money to administer an untested drug to unwitting innocents. Not them.
“Well, doctor, would it surprise you to know that your father is guilty of the very crime of which you accuse me? Of course, he did not kill a patient. He killed five. Ten years ago. For two thousand dollars. Four hundred dollars per death. Then after it was done, he tried to avoid responsibility. Place it on me. We have not spoken since.”
“You’re a liar.”
“No. I’m not. And what’s more, you know I’m not. I can see it in your face. How do you think he paid for that building he lives in?” Frias thrust an index finger forward, a weapon to shoot Noah’s illusions dead. “With the money he received from the Schweinert Company. To test a new analgesic. Are you interested in the details, or would you prefer ignorance to truth?”
Frias took Noah’s silence as assent and plowed ahead. He made no effort to hide his satisfaction, sounding as if he were recounting the tale of saving a patient.
“Schw
einert was another dye maker. Bayer’s competitor. I needn’t tell you that, for reasons no chemist has been able to divine, products used in the dying process often have pharmaceutical properties. Schweinert was experimenting with salicylic acid. The gastrointestinal consequences were well-known, of course, but Schweinert’s chemists thought buffering the substance with glycerin would ameliorate the impact. And, of course, glycerin made the medicine more palatable to ingest.
“They applied for a patent under the name Glycosal. They had tested the substance on animals but had either ignored the results or misread them. Schweinert’s managers were terrified that a competitor would market glycerin-buffered salicylic acid before they could get Glycosal to market. So, instead of conducting human testing in Germany, they decided to introduce the drug immediately in the United States.
“You can guess the rest. Your father and I were two of the physicians they chose to purvey the drug. Schweinert’s representatives misrepresented the test results. Your father and I were friends at the time. We had been ever since he cared for one of my patients when we were young.”
“Viola Mangino.”
Frias nodded in surprise. “He told you? Yes. It was my first forceps delivery, and I botched it. I mean my first ever. Medical schools are different today. When your father and I attended, there was no practical work at all. Neither of us ever delivered an infant until after we had obtained our medical degrees.” Frias sighed. “Horrible. What a tragedy.
“In any event, the tests for Glycosal were disastrous from the first. I stopped using the drug almost immediately, but your father persisted. Such a stubborn man. Five of his patients died. Internal bleeding mostly.
“Your father could not or would not believe that his patients died from complications from a drug he administered. Died in agonizing pain. First he insisted that some other medication was to blame. Then that I was to blame. For talking him into participating in the test. Eventually, he had no choice but to believe the truth . . . as will you.” Frias put his hand to his belly, two small, caressing pats. “And of course he kept the money.”
Frias removed his watch and checked the time. The instrument was gold. Swiss. Eighty dollars at the minimum. He absentmindedly rolled the stem between his thumb and index finger. He raised his eyes to Noah.
“Now you will leave. We shall not speak again. You best spend some time considering what you will do once your medical license is revoked. If you are not in the penitentiary. Then, of course, there is Colonel Anschutz. Once I inform him of our chat, he will be even less well disposed toward you than he is now. On the whole, Whitestone, I would say that your position has become totally untenable. It is simply a matter of what calamity befalls you first. You might consider moving far away from here and very quickly. A shame, considering you were about to marry into a good family.
“I also wish you to remember how much you’ve helped me. When your wild accusations are discredited, my reputation will be more spotless than ever, and Bayer’s introduction of the drug should encounter no difficulties whatever.” Frias rolled the stem of his watch once more. “Now get out.”
There was a knock on the door. The receptionist stuck her head in. “Mrs. Anschutz would like to speak to you again.”
Frias indicated to the young woman that he would take the call. “On second thought, Whitestone, wait a moment. Mildred likely wants to find out the results of our interview. I will be happy to tell her that you are ruined.” Frias lifted the earpiece off his telephone, his other hand resting comfortably on his watch chain. After a moment, his hand slid off and hung limply at his side. He said, “I’ll be right there.” Then he replaced the receiver and mumbled, half to Noah, half to himself. “Pug Anschutz is dead.”
“The fever . . .”
“No, Whitestone. As always, your diagnosis is incorrect. The colonel didn’t die of fever. He died of a gunshot wound. A single bullet in the heart.”
“A bullet . . . Who . . . ?”
“Aldridge, his son.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
DAY 8. WEDNESDAY, 9/27—4:30 P.M.
Not two minutes after Noah had walked through the door, Mrs. Jensen related the story.
“Just after you left, there was a terrible row. Annie O’Rourke told me Colonel Anschutz seemed to have lost his mind, raving and waving his arms about. He had taken it into his head that somehow Mrs. Anschutz had given those pills to Willard after all. Something about pretending not to remember. He was yelling something about ‘fraud’ . . .”
“Freud.”
“What? In any event, Annie had never seen him like that, and she was terrified of him before. Molly Fitzsimmons, the maid, was so frightened that she ran from the house. The colonel accused Mrs. Anschutz of conspiring against him with Dr. Frias. He insisted that Dr. Frias had issued a second prescription and his wife was feeding morphia to his son, and then that she and the doctor had gotten together in a pact to keep the truth from him. Then he began to mutter that killing two doctors was not a great deal more difficult than killing one. Mrs. Anschutz cowered in the corner, denying everything, but that seemed only to enrage the colonel further. When the children came to the doorway, the girls were in tears, but Colonel Anschutz screamed for them to get out. Aldridge refused. He rushed to his mother’s aid. Brave boy. Colonel Anschutz whirled about and struck him. One backhand blow. Aldridge fairly flew across the room.
“Annie said then Colonel Anschutz approached his poor wife. She hadn’t budged from the corner of the room. He put his face right up to hers and screamed. ‘Tell me the truth, you fool!’ He grabbed her by the front of her dress. ‘You murdered your own son. Admit it!’ Mrs. Anschutz was too terrified to speak. She whimpered and shook her head. She began to sink to her knees. The colonel screamed louder. ‘Talk, I say!’ Annie said it was almost as if he thought he was back in the Philippines. He raised his arm to strike her, but before he could deliver the blow, Aldridge called to him from the doorway. He had left and returned with his father’s revolver. ‘Make one move, father, and I will shoot you down,’ he told the colonel. Annie said the boy was remarkably calm. Colonel Anschutz began to advance on the boy. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he said. ‘You don’t have the fortitude.’ Aldridge did not say another word. He simply pulled the trigger. His father fell dead to the floor, shot through the heart.”
“My God,” Noah whispered.
“Then Mrs. Anschutz called her uncle instead of the police. Mayor Wurster handled everything. Just a little while ago, a detective showed up to take Aldridge’s statement.” Mrs. Jensen lowered her voice to a whisper. “Annie overheard him say that he left his coach two streets away so no one would know. Two other detectives snuck the body out in a plain carriage.”
“That poor family. I wonder what will happen to poor Aldridge now.”
Mrs. Jensen looked surprised. “Nothing, doctor. He has already been cleared. The police have called it self-defense.”
“That’s impossible. Colonel Anschutz may have been a soldier, but he was still unarmed.”
“When Mrs. Anschutz finally told her uncle what the man she married was really like, Mayor Wurster was aghast and furious at being taken in. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ he said. He told the police detective what to report. I’m not certain anyone outside the family will ever know Aldridge was even involved.”
Mrs. Jensen had seemed to overlook that, between Annie O’Rourke and herself, the story was already spreading faster than the Chicago Fire. “And Annie heard all this?”
Mrs. Jensen appeared more surprised still. “Of course. Annie hears everything.”
“As do you, Mrs. Jensen?”
The housekeeper instantly turned full red. “No, doctor. Never. I can assure you—”
Despite himself, Noah smiled. “That’s all right, Mrs. Jensen. You are one of my most valued friends.”
“Oh, doctor . . .” She quickly recovered, then placed a beefy hand on his forearm. “I forgot the most important news of all. Mayor Wurster’s main goal i
s to protect Aldridge, so in order to ensure that tongues don’t begin to wag,” Mrs. Jensen uttered the phrase without irony, “he’s decided to drop any proceedings against you. He told his niece, ‘Mildred, we must lay to rest Willard’s death along with your husband.’ Isn’t that wonderful news?”
“Under the circumstances, I can hardly celebrate.”
“Of course, doctor . . . I know that . . . I didn’t mean . . . but I can’t help but be pleased that you’ve been exonerated.”
“I haven’t been exonerated. They’re burying the affair. It’s hardly the same thing.”
“But, doctor, you’re innocent. What does it matter?”
Innocent? Was he? Perhaps he was the one who repressed a painful memory.
“And it means you can go back to your practice. Work again with your father.”
“Yes. My father.” Noah turned and headed for his bedroom. “I’m going to get some rest now, Mrs. Jensen. I won’t be needing you anymore today.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
DAY 9. THURSDAY, 9/28—10 A.M.
She’d been knocking on the door all morning, first every half hour, then every twenty minutes, then every ten. But the door to Noah’s bedroom remained locked. At first, he told Mrs. Jensen to go away; eventually he refused to respond. This time, however, she yelled through the door, “Miss De Kuyper is here. She said she’s not leaving until you come out.” Then Maribeth’s voice came through the oak. “You will stop being ridiculous. Open this door, Noah Whitestone. I intend to camp out if I have to.”
She would, too. “Please, Maribeth, just leave me be. I need some time to myself.”
“That’s the last thing you need.”
It was a test of wills Noah would ultimately lose. And in truth, he wanted to be with her, wanted to desperately. He put Isobel’s picture back in the top drawer of his bureau, then turned the key and swung the door open.
Maribeth waited across the threshold in a pale-blue dress and white hat. Her eyes seemed to radiate in the morning light. Behind her and to the side, Mrs. Jensen stood like a penitent, hands clasped in front of her, eyes cast plaintively.
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