The Anatomy of Deception (19 page)

“And you feel toward Dr. Osler as you would feel toward a father?”

“Yes.”

“But what of your own father?”

My own father? My mouth opened to once more begin the well-practiced legend, but I did not. “My own father was a drunk and a wife-beater. He was shot for desertion during the war.”

Reverend Powers nodded without evidencing surprise. I might have just told him that the sun would rise the next morning.

I realized in that moment how desperately I wanted to tell him, to lance the abscess of my memory, and the entire squalid tale came flooding out. “My father enlisted soon after Fort Sumter. The farm was doing poorly … mostly because of his own laziness and penchant for drink … and he thought, as did most people in Marietta, that the war would be short, and so the army would be a good way to acquire some ready cash. Events played out quite differently, of course, and in February 1862, he found himself in Kentucky, at Fort Donelson with Colonel Grant.

“My father was part of a brigade ordered to mount a frontal charge at the rebel lines. Instead, he turned and ran, and was shot down by one of his own officers. The wound suppurated and it was determined that his arm had to be amputated. As a deserter, he did not rate the regimental surgeon. The assistant assigned the task completely botched the surgery. Afterward, my father lay in the field hospital, moaning, loathed, and ostracized. When it was deemed he could travel, he was thrown out of the army and sent home. It was only because the officers felt that the loss of the arm and the agony he was forced to endure from the butchery were punishment enough that he was not shot.

“When he returned, he told my mother and my brothers that he had lost his arm in a heroic action, in which he had charged an enemy position to save his comrades. He was lauded and we had more callers at the farm than my mother could remember. A collection was even taken up in the church. It was only when one of the neighbors from the same troop returned home two months later with the genuine version of events that my father’s deceit was revealed. From that point on, our family was reviled.

“My father descended even deeper into bitterness, drink, and abuse. My brothers became responsible for almost all the chores, and my mother’s main task seemed to be to try and deflect his rage. After he died in ’76, I found out that I was the product of a night of whiskey and violence, which ended with him forcing himself on my mother.”

There. It was out. I sat, waiting for the look of revulsion. Reverend Powers, however, seemed completely at ease. He merely took a sip of port, rolling the stem of his glass between his fingers. There was no sound in the room, except the muffled ticking of the clock.

“So you chose to become a physician yourself in retribution?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” I admitted. “Of everyone, my father held the most antipathy to the doctors who had treated his wound. ‘Robbers,’ he called them, as if it were they who were responsible for the loss of his limb, rather than his own cowardice.”

“But how could you make your ambition a reality with your family destitute?”

“I was always bookish. My mother decided that having a learner in the family was desirable, and sent scrawled notes to the schoolmaster, Reverend Audette, asking for help. He agreed to tutor me. I spent hour after hour in his study or on walks in the woods. He was the most educated man I’d ever met.

“After my father died, he encouraged me to join a
seminary, but once he realized that my calling was in science, offered to help find the right place to study. He said that the finest medical colleges were back East, but eastern schools were costly and attracted students who would look down on someone from an Ohio farm. A boy like me, from the West, he said, should look to the West. The country was opening up and every new town would need a doctor. He suggested Rush Medical College in Chicago and I agreed.

“There remained the question of cost, of course. One day, Reverend Audette asked me into his study and offered to endow my education. When I protested, he told me that I would be doing a service to him by accepting. He was childless and widowed and said that he had more money than he needed to last out his days. To aid me in pursuing such an honorable career would provide him with posterity.”

“You must have been very grateful,” said Reverend Powers.

“I have never ceased being grateful,” I replied.

“So it seems you have done
him
a great service as well, then, by justifying his trust. What has he had to say of your great achievements?”

“He died just before I left Chicago.”

“I’m sorry. And your mother and brothers … they must be extremely proud.”

“Yes … well … I send them money.”

“Ah.” Reverend Powers thought for a moment. “Which do you think is the greater need, then,” he asked, “to justify Reverend Audette’s trust or to wipe away the sins of your family?”

I was stunned by the question. “I’m not sure,” I replied. “Do you think of my family as sinful?”

“Do you?”

Did I? The immediate answer was yes, that I despised them all … my father for being a drunk and coward, my mother for allowing him to abuse her without protest, my brothers for
being uneducated louts, and all of them for wanting nothing from me but pieces of silver. But was it true? Or was I merely ashamed?

“No,” I said. “Not sinful.”

“Perhaps it is Dr. Osler then. Do you feel a need to justify his trust as well?”

“Of course. It is only natural.”

“Yes,” said Reverend Powers. “Only natural. But do you feel that he has an equal need to justify your trust in him?”

“Dr. Osler owes me nothing,” I said with finality.

“Of course.” Reverend Powers replaced his glass and rose from his chair. “I hope I was of help, Dr. Carroll,” he said, but with a note of distinct warmth.

“You gave me no answers,” I said.

“That is not my role, Dr. Carroll,” he replied. “I was hoping simply to allow you to see the questions.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “You must trust me when I tell you that you know all you need to know. The voice of Christ lives in all of us. Some simply listen better than others. You are one of those who listen quite carefully. I have no doubt that you will take the correct course.”

I was flattered at his words, but nonetheless departed feeling less than satisfied. I had arrived with questions and was evidently supposed to leave with more questions. Still, I had too much faith in Reverend Powers to simply dismiss his remarks. Perhaps I was asking the wrong questions. And if that was true, what should I be asking?

When I returned home, I discovered that the boy I had hired earlier in the day to retrieve Turk’s books had been efficient in the task, and two boxes awaited me in my rooms. One of the boxes contained the Greeks and the other the Bancrofts. They were, as I had instructed, packed carefully, and I found myself comforted as I removed one volume after another of Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides, and placed them in my own bookshelves. I decided to read one of them before bed, and chose a volume of the
Dialogues
. After all, Socrates
had imparted wisdom by means of the interrogative. Perhaps I might glean the Reverend’s meaning from the pages of Turk’s books.

I remained in my sitting room long into the night, the light from the gas lamp casting a warming glow, reading the wisdom of the ancients until at last I felt that I could rest.

I
AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING
surprisingly refreshed after so little sleep. Finally, I understood what Reverend Powers had meant, and I understood myself. I was not seeking truth because of Abigail Benedict, nor to protect my career, so inexorably tied to the Professor’s, nor to attain justice for Turk, nor even because my conscience told me that it was the moral and Christian thing to do. I was seeking truth so that I might at last live in peace.

My own father had been no father at all; Reverend Audette, for all his generosity, had underestimated my abilities and recommended me to second-tier medicine; Jorgie, while caring, was a fumbler. It was only in Dr. Osler that I had found a man in whom I could place my trust and affection.

But the glimmer of suspicion I now realized I had felt from the moment he had slammed closed the cover on the ice chest in the Dead House had ripened into full-fledged doubt. Pretending to deny doubt hadn’t made it disappear, but merely left it to fester like an untreated wound. Soon, I would leave Philadelphia for Baltimore to work with Dr. Osler in a manner more intimate than ever before. I surely did not want to lose another father, but nor did I relish the prospect that every time I looked at Dr. Osler I would wonder if I had once again been betrayed. I had no choice but to pursue this matter wherever it led.

That evening, I remained at the hospital until about seven, and then returned home for a light dinner. At half past
nine, I engaged a carriage and headed for The Fatted Calf. I did not know exactly what information I wished to elicit from the man Haggens, only that I wished to begin to fill in the picture, much, I expect, as Eakins would fill in detail on a canvas once he had settled on the basic sketch.

The hour was early for such an establishment, so, when I arrived, the giant outside the door was lolling about, without the guarded tension I had observed the previous week. He did not challenge me as I walked past him into the largely empty saloon. Few of the tables were occupied, and those by men with thick hands and dark expressions, sitting silently with their liquor.

I had not realized how vast an establishment it was. With the tables situated as close as they were, The Fatted Calf might easily accommodate two hundred revelers. Nor had I realized how downtrodden—everything in the room, from the floor to the walls to the tables to the glasses on the bar, appeared to be embossed with a layer of grime. If Turk actually had acquired a gastrointestinal ailment from drinking in this place, it would have been no surprise.

I strode across the room to the bar, my boot heels echoing softly on the pitted floorboards. A man behind the railing was polishing the glasses, using a dirty towel that left them looking no cleaner than when he had started. He ignored me until I asked for Mr. Haggens, at which point he looked up with a decidedly unfriendly expression. “What do you want with him?” Under the gruffness, however, he was a bit taken aback at my dress and demeanor, likely endeavoring to decide if I was someone to be feared or robbed.

“I have business with him. Please tell him that I was in last Thursday with George Turk.”

“Tell him yourself,” grunted the bartender, who directed me to a door at the far end of the room.

When I knocked, an indistinct voice responded from inside, so I opened the door and walked in. Haggens was seated at a dilapidated rolltop desk, piles of papers before him, with
a surprisingly elegant Waterman fountain pen held in his hand. I was reminded that The Fatted Calf was, after all, a business like any other, with records to keep and accounts to pay.

“I’m here about George Turk,” I said simply, assuming that Haggens was far too clever not to know Turk’s identity.

Haggens did not look up. “I know who you come about,” he said.

“I suppose you know that he is dead.” I was confident Sergeant Borst’s inquiries were now a matter of common knowledge in this part of town.

“I suppose I do,” Haggens replied. He pushed himself away from the desk and leaned back in his chair. “And I know who you are, too. You know, Doc—it is Doc, right?—this is a pretty dangerous place for a gent like you to be wandering around in. Why, there’s stabbings, and shootings, and all sorts of things that happen to those who come down here and don’t know what they’re doing.”

Although I had come prepared to be threatened, now that I was actually facing a threat, I realized that no amount of preparation was enough. An immense effort at self-control was going to be required if I was to come through this.

“Yes,” I replied, “I’m sure that’s true. Nonetheless, Mr. Haggens, I think it would be best for you if I retained my health. I believe we can be of help to one another.”

“Oh, yeah?” he replied, his eyebrows rising in mock surprise. “And please be so kind as to inform me how you can help me?”

“My inquiries are limited. Once I find what I’m looking for and relay my information to the appropriate authorities, it will end the matter. If, however, the police proceed on their own, their interest will assuredly be more open-ended. Sergeant Borst impressed me as a rather determined fellow.”

Haggens considered this. “Borst is that,” he conceded. He thought some more. “So you’re telling me, Doc, that if I tell you what you want to know, you’ll keep me out of it? You know
that if you cross me, I’ll kill you sure, even if I have to do it from the clink?”

“I have no reason to cross you,” I said. “This is an honest proposition.” “Honest” was an odd word to use with this fellow but it was, in fact, the case. “More than that,” I added, “I was hoping that you might be persuaded to look out for me a little.”

Haggens smiled, this time more genuinely. “Well, you’re sure a surprise, Doc.” He was the second person from the docks to tell me that. “Turk said you was a chump.”

Although the sentiment hardly came as a revelation, it stung all the same. “But Turk is dead and I am here.”

“True enough,” Haggens admitted. He pulled out one of the drawers of the desk and reached inside. For an instant of panic, I feared he would withdraw a weapon, but his hand emerged instead with a bottle of whiskey. “Drink?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” I replied. “The last time I drank here, I was much the worse for it.”

Haggens laughed. “Oh, yeah. You had the ‘champagne.’ This is the real stuff, though.”

“Thank you, no.”

Haggens shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, pouring one for himself. “Have a seat, then.” He gestured toward a wooden chair against the wall. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

“First of all,” I said, “do you have any idea who killed Turk or why?”

“Not a clue. Going to have to do better than that, Doc.”

“Who was the man last Thursday night that Turk argued with, then? What was the argument about?”