Charcot's Genius

by M. C. Soutter

  “So it’s just a rumor?”

  Gooding shrugged. “You could call it that. You’re not going to find it in any psychiatry textbooks, if that’s what you mean. I don’t even think it shows up on the internet.”

  “Then why would Carlisle be wasting his time – ?”

  “Because the Genius Postulate was always intriguing to anyone who heard about it. And it never really went away. It turned into a sort of urban legend for neurologists. Every once in a while, someone would claim they had discovered a method for showing that the Postulate was true, but no one ever came forward with any solid experimental data.”

  Watts raised his eyebrows. “You think Carlisle discovered a way?”

  “I know he did. The device was still there when I found his body, along with his notes.” He looked pointedly at Watts. “All of his notes.”

  “So you took them,” Watts said, understanding. “And then you didn’t tell anyone about what you had found. You were probably hoping – ”

  Gooding nodded. “That I could tackle the Genius Postulate on my own, yes. I’d have to wait for the dust to settle on Carlisle’s murder, of course. A few years, at least. Enough time to make it plausible that I had come up with the solution independently.”

  “But that plan is out the window now,” Watts said “I know you didn’t come up with the solution.”

  “Really?” There was a spark in Gooding’s eyes. “You know I didn’t kill him, and that’s all that matters. What’s the point of letting this cat out of the bag? I’ll solve the Postulate, and you can have ten percent of the profits when my invention goes public.”

  Watts didn’t even consider it. “You can forget that idea,” he said. “You’re still a suspect as far as I’m concerned.”

  They were almost at the medical center, and Gooding quickened his pace again. He grinned at Watts. “Please. You’re just trying to negotiate. Besides, I can prove I’m not a suspect. Carlisle’s notes had more than just the technical data for his machine – he also kept records of his most recent experiments.”

  “So what?”

  “So – ”

  Gooding suddenly darted to the side, grabbing Watts’ arm as he did. There was a police guard stationed outside the entrance to the medical center, but Gooding had spotted him before they got too close. He ushered Watts around to the side of the building.

  “So those records make it clear,” Gooding whispered, producing a key from his pocket. He unlocked the side door and led Watts into the semi-dark hallway.

  “Make what clear?” Watts hissed. “Where are we?”

  “East wing. Near the holding rooms for violent patients.”

  “But why would we – ?”

  “Quiet. We’re on our way to the lab where Carlisle did his experiments.” In the low light of the hallway, Gooding’s features were difficult to make out. Watts thought he saw something strange in his expression. It might have been anticipation. “There’s something I want you to see,” Gooding said quietly.

  8

  Garrett’s second episode was shorter than the first. When he awoke, the first thing he saw was Lea Redford’s face hovering above him. There was concern in her eyes. Then he saw her expression turn to relief.

  It’s Garrett, she thought. It’s really him this time.

  She helped him sit up, and she was immediately rewarded by a warm gush of fluid on her arm. Garrett was vomiting.

  “Sorry,” he said weakly. Then, as an afterthought: “Wow this hurts.”

  “Garrett?”

  “Jesus, Melissa, not so loud, okay?”

  Much softer: “How do you feel?”

  “Is that a joke? Like my head got stuck in a wood-shredder. What am I doing on the ground?”

  Melissa glanced at Lea, who read her friend’s confused expression in an instant.

  Lea shrugged. I don’t know what happened. But he’s back now.

  “You had a seizure or something,” Melissa whispered.

  “You mean I dozed off?”

  “No. You were – ”

  Garrett made another effort at getting to his feet. He had more success this time, though it looked as if the process caused him a lot of discomfort.

  “You were definitely not dozing,” Melissa finished. “We need a doctor.”

  Garrett frowned. “No way. We should get back in there and take another crack at Gooding.”

  “Garrett, look at us. Look at this group.” Melissa nodded at Jason and Lea. “I can’t stand up on my own anymore, and these two are fading fast. Jason is blind and deaf, and Lea doesn’t know how to talk. And you…” She stopped and shook her head. “Well, we all need medical attention. Carlisle’s mad-house antenna will have to wait.”

  “No doctors,” Garrett said, sounding defensive. “What I need is a triple-strength dose of Excedrin, a plate of eggs and bacon, and a ten-minute session with that antenna strapped to the back of my head.”

  Melissa looked purposefully at Lea, who understood immediately.

  Lea walked over to Jason, who was still waiting patiently for someone to guide him to their next destination. He was completely helpless.

  “Hey,” Jason said happily, as Lea took his hand. She led him over to Melissa, who used the former hockey player’s body like a ladder, hoisting herself up off the ground. The three of them stood there, facing Garrett. Jason’s sightless eyes looked off into the distance. “Did we find it?” he asked hopefully. “Are we going somewhere?”

  “We’re going to the medical center to get some help,” Melissa said. She looked at Garrett tenderly, almost begging him with her eyes. “Please come with us.”

  Garrett glanced behind him at Silman Hall, as if wondering whether he could make a run at Gooding’s office on his own. Then he shrugged. “Fine,” he said dejectedly. “I’ll tag along.”

  The four of them set out towards Hitchcock, with Garrett shuffling and dragging his feet like an unhappy fifth grader forced to leave a carnival. “Not my fault you’re all falling apart,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  9

  “This is the lab,” Gooding said, still in a whisper.

  Watts scanned the room doubtfully. He couldn’t see anything that looked like scientific equipment. There were four chairs in the middle of the room and a series of cabinets along the wall, but nothing more. “Not much to it,” he said.

  “Look again.” Gooding pointed to the thick, double-looped canvas restraints. “Do those chairs look like they were made to hold anyone willingly?”

  Watts rolled his eyes. “It’s a mental ward. Those restraints don’t necessarily mean – ”

  Gooding wasn’t listening. He walked quickly to one of the cabinets on the wall, opened the door, and pulled out a small, gleaming object. It’s size and shape reminded Watts of an old television antenna.

  “This is what I wanted to show you.” Gooding opened another cabinet and retrieved a stack of papers. “And these.”

  Watts stared at him in disbelief. “You…?” He pointed at the unlocked cabinet. “You hid the stuff in there?”

  Gooding shrugged. “Most of the staff have access to the room, but none of them would have recognized this for what it is. They’d probably try to get free HBO with it.” He motioned for Watts to follow him. “There’s more to see in his office.”

  “Isn’t it blocked off?”

  “From the outside, yes. But I have a key to this door, and that cop’s a good fifty yards away from the front entrance. He won’t notice anything if we keep our voices down.”

  “But what if we – ”

  “Stop stalling. You want to know what happened, right?”

  Watts nodded. He followed Gooding into the office.

  This was the wrong decision.

  10

  It was dark outside when the big Cadillac finally pulled into Hanover. Martin slowed the car to a town-safe speed of twenty-five miles per hour, but he didn’t seem to be looking for landmarks or street signs. He drove like a man who knew th
at fate would guide him. His face was like stone.

  Kline thought he heard him say something. “Did you – ”

  “Fucking mistake,” Martin whispered, still looking straight out the front windshield. “A mistake to be corrected.”

  Kline pretended not to hear. He had his own agenda to worry about. “The medical center is coming up on our right,” he said. “You can drop me off anywhere here.”

  “It’s easy to correct,” Martin whispered. “I can start over. Like before.”

  As the Cadillac pulled to a stop beside Hitchcock Medical Center, Kline reached behind him to retrieve the backpack. The Hilti nailer was still safely inside, and it reassured him to feel its heft through the bag. He would probably need it at least once more.

  Next to him, Martin was still whispering.

  “I’ll correct her.”

  Kline wondered if the man even realized he was speaking out loud.

  11

  Inside Carlisle’s darkened office, Gooding pointed to a crack in the doorframe. Then at a dent in the metal table. “See these?” he whispered. “Professor Carlisle wasn’t just murdered.”

  He paused and looked grimly at Watts.

  “The man was abused. Beaten like a dog. Pummeled.”

  Watts examined the places Gooding had indicated. He didn’t have much experience in reading this type of evidence – he was only a security guard, after all, and he could barely see in here without any lights turned on – but Gooding’s explanation sounded reasonable. The broken spot in the door frame, and the dent in the desk… they looked as though they only could have been caused by extreme physical violence.

  “Whoever came in here that night,” Gooding went on, “was furious with Carlisle. And psychopathic. The killer didn’t care about keeping quiet, or covering his tracks. And he wasn’t here to get his hands on Carlisle’s research.”

  “You took care of that,” said Watts quickly.

  Gooding didn’t respond. He held up the pile of notes he had taken from the cabinet. “If you read these – and I have, carefully – you’ll see that there is only one person who could be angry enough, sick enough – ”

  There was a swift, whickering noise from somewhere behind the security guard. Something was being swung quickly through the almost-dark.

  Something heavy.

  The last thing Officer Watts experienced in this life was a feeling of intense, overwhelming pressure at the back of his skull. The bones there tried gamely to distribute the impact around and away from his brain, but they were unsuccessful. Jeff Gooding heard a cracking sound that made him think of a hard-boiled egg being dropped onto a cement sidewalk, and then he saw the security guard go down hard. Watts’ knees seemed to turn to rubber, and he fell forward like a felled oak. He did not put his hands out to break his fall, and his face smacked into the office floor with resolute finality.

  Behind him, holding the broken wooden leg of a table from the asylum common room, stood the little man with the pointy nose. The one Lea Redford had thought looked so angry during Professor Carlisle’s tour of the neurological ward. Had she been there, Lea might have said that Mr. Pointy now looked even angrier than when they had last met.

  “Shit,” said Gooding, backing up quickly.

  “No, I think I’ll make you into paste,” said the little man. He eyed the device Gooding was holding, and he shook his head. “You people,” he said, sounding disgusted. “Isn’t it enough that I’m already crazy? You have to come and try to fuck me up a little more?”

  “I didn’t invent it,” Gooding said lamely. His heel struck the wall behind him, and he found that he couldn’t back up any farther.

  “I didn’t invent blunt force trauma,” said the pointy-nosed man. He grinned and stepped forward with his homemade club. “But it turns out I’m good at it just the same.”

  He moved in with the table leg.

  12

  The Hanover beat cop who had been assigned to monitor the Carlisle murder scene that night was feeling drowsy, so it took him a moment to understand the sounds he was hearing behind him. At first he thought a tree branch had snapped and fallen to the ground. There was a muffled cracking noise, and then a thud as something heavy came down to earth. He even felt a brief, delayed tremor pass through his feet from the impact.

  Heavy branch, the cop’s mind whispered to him.

  But then he heard shouting. And just after that, pleading.

  By the time he had woken up enough to realize that these sounds were coming not simply from behind him, but from inside the very room he had been instructed to guard, the pleading had been joined by other noises.

  Cracking, crunching noises.

  Though out of shape and still feeling drowsy, Officer Green ran toward those sounds as fast as he could.

  He would not be nearly fast enough.

  The little man with the pointy nose needed less than thirty seconds to turn Jeff Gooding’s head into an almost unrecognizable mass of blood and broken bones. When he was through, he sacrificed a single moment to stare down at the teacher. One of Gooding’s eyes was still partially free of blood, and that one eye stared up at the pointy-nosed man with sightless intensity.

  “See how that feels,” the little man said, and smiled. He didn’t sound angry anymore.

  Tucking the broken table leg under one arm, he turned and jogged back the way he had come: through the door to Carlisle’s office, through the access door to that hateful, sanitized treatment room, and finally down the long hall to the ward’s common area. There he found several orderlies bent over a large, heavy game table. The table had been flipped over on its back, and one of its legs had been removed. Broken off, in fact. The orderlies were peering at the damaged piece of furniture with puzzled looks on their faces.

  “It’s right here,” the little man announced happily. He held up the table leg, its edges now caked with blood and hair and skull fragments.

  The orderlies turned. They hesitated at first, because none of them had ever seen this particular patient – this extremely dangerous patient – out of his room before. To a man, each assumed his eyes were playing tricks. Something with the overhead lighting. That patient would never be walking around on his own. But then a big, panting Hanover policeman came bursting into the room through another door, and the silence was punctured.

  “Two bodies in the office,” the cop gasped. This simple declarative fragment was all Officer Green could manage with the breath left in his lungs, but he used his remaining energy to gesture emphatically at the pointy-nosed man, who was now holding up the bloody table leg like some grisly Statue-of-Liberty prop.

  Me, the little man’s dancing eyes seemed to say. That panting idiot is trying to tell you that it was me.

  The orderlies broke out of their frozen state. They lunged for the patient. The little man dropped his table leg and darted for the nearest hallway. He moved with surprising speed, and he avoided them easily.

  The light this way was not as good. He probably realized that no exits could be found in the direction he was running, but he didn’t seem to care. The point wasn’t to escape, apparently, but to keep this little field trip going for as long as possible. As he ran, a little smile crept across his face. He looked like someone who was having the time of his life.

  Together

  1

  From Getting to Know Patient Nathan:

  The police reports from the day of Nathan’s death are incomplete. Or at least, that’s how they seem to me. It’s as if entire sections have been deleted, leaving only those events that an average reader would expect.

  Leaving only what is plausible.

  I have often wondered if these deletions were due to politics within the Hanover Police Department. Was pressure applied by the college? Or did the police themselves, fearing sanctions over a particularly bloody chapter in their town’s history, initiate the changes on their own?

  I am being too cynical, you will say. It may have been something as simple as a misundersta
nding. Or disbelief. After all, even I had difficulty adjusting to Nathan when I first encountered him. And I have been trained to deal with mentally disturbed patients.

  In any case, we still have the newspaper articles from that day. These provide a more telling – if slightly exaggerated – account of the doctor’s last hours. For anyone who is so inclined, it is possible to piece together an accurate chronology by combining and comparing the stories from different papers. This does take some time; many of the reported facts seem to be contradictory.

  Personally, I didn’t mind. I had the time. And the curiosity. One thing all the papers seemed to agree on is that Nathan arrived in Hanover that day with a traveling companion. Further, this man was apparently quite dangerous in his own right. I have heard it said that this man came to Dartmouth with the intention of killing his own daughter.

  I cannot imagine what kind of monster would try to do such a thing.

  Beyond the information provided in the newspaper reports, I find myself speculating. What if Nathan had been picked up by some other driver? Someone who was calm, and stable? It seems reasonable to assume that he might have survived, had this been the case. Couldn’t we have helped him, then? Surely there was more that we could have done. More I could have done.