The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [53]
As accustomed as I was to dealing with the sick and the terminally ill, at the sight of Turk lying motionless on his bed, I recoiled. In four days, he had aged decades. His eyes were vacant; his skin hung on a shrunken body. His mouth drooped open, and he seemed insensible, with breathing extremely labored. His appearance, coupled with the overpowering odor of diarrhea, made diagnosis simple—here were the classic symptoms of cholera.
I spun on Mrs. Fasanti. “Why is this man not in a hospital?”
She shook her head quickly, looking terrified. “Do you think I wanted to keep him here … cleaning up and emptying chamber pots? He wouldn’t let me call no doctors. He told me they was gonna kill him.”
“Kill him? Who? The doctors? Whatever are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” she insisted. “But he wouldn’t let me call no doctor. He wouldn’t let me tell nobody.”
“But he paid you well,” I said harshly.
“Of course,” she answered. “Do you think I was gonna do this for free? I was scared of catching it myself, but he told me as long as I got rid of everything and kept my hands clean, that I’d be all right.”
“And you believed him?”
She stared at me hard. “Well, he is a doctor hisself, isn’t he?”
At that, I heard a sound and turned to the bed. Turk was calling, “Carroll,” but in a voice so soft and grating that I could hardly recognize my own name. I went to the bed and could see he was trying to speak, but his tongue was swollen and his lips cracked and peeling from advanced dehydration. Without warning, his arm flashed out and I felt a clawlike grip on my wrist. “Carroll,” he groaned once, but as he tried to form another word, he stiffened and then fell back to the pillow. I knew at once that he was dead.
CHAPTER 9
EVERY SUSPECTED CASE OF CHOLERA had to be reported, so after confirming the lack of pulse or breathing and covering poor Turk’s face, I had no choice but to inform the police.
Once a scourge that killed millions across the civilized world, cholera had largely been brought to heel by modern science. Although much of the public still blindly feared contagion, since Robert Koch identified the Vibrio cholerae bacillus in Egypt six years before, doctors had learned that the disease is transmitted only by consuming food or water contaminated with high concentrations of the bacteria. A high concentration is required since Vibrio cholerae is acid-sensitive and most of the organisms are destroyed in the stomach before reaching the intestines. Little are most people aware that they ingest small amounts of Vibrio cholerae almost every day. Transmission can be prevented through proper sanitation. Washing thoroughly with carbolic soap after handling contaminated material also eliminates any possibility of acquiring or transmitting the disease.
As such, I knew Mrs. Fasanti was no threat to others, so I instructed the woman to report Turk’s death to the nearest precinct house personally. With respect to Turk’s assertion to his landlady that someone had been out to do him in, I assured her that it was likely delirium brought on by his illness and, in any case, there was no reason to introduce the notion of foul play into the proceedings. She readily agreed, more than willing to keep the story as bald as possible.
Before I allowed Mrs. Fasanti to leave, however, I required some information. “How much did he pay you not to call the authorities?”
“I won’t give it back,” she sputtered indignantly. “Not with what I had to do these past three days.”
“If you do as I say,” I replied, “no one will ask for your money, and the police will leave you alone. Now, how much did he give you?”
Mrs. Fasanti looked to the floor. “Two hundred.”
“Two hundred dollars?” A fortune. Any lingering doubt that Turk was involved in illicit activity was dispelled. “Did he ever have visitors here? Anyone at all?”
“Almost never,” Mrs. Fasanti replied. “He didn’t want nobody to know where he lived. I’m surprised he told you.”
“‘Almost never’? Who came here?”
“There was an elderly gent who came once.”
“Elderly?” I asked.