The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [55]
The policemen wrapped Turk in a clean sheet that they procured from the landlady, avoiding all but minimal contact with the body. Then they hefted the bundle and carried it out the door. Given what I had heard from Monique, I felt a far deeper wrenching watching Turk’s corpse removed than I would have thought possible. I asked Mrs. Fasanti how she intended to dispose of his belongings. She reacted to the question with annoyance.
“I woulda sold them,” she maintained, “but who’s gonna want them now? I’ll just have to pack the lot and leave it for the junk man.”
“I would like the books,” I said.
“Sure,” she said, brightening. “I’ll let you have them all … for just … ten dollars.”
I glared at the repulsive woman. “I had a different price in mind.”
“Yeah?” Her eyes narrowed at the prospect of haggling. “How much?”
“Nothing,” I replied.
“Noth …”
“I think that my saving you the additional attention of the police ought to be payment enough. If you disagree, however—”
“Take them,” she snapped. “They ain’t worth nothing anyway.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure that’s true.” I told her, if the police approved, I would send a boy to fetch them. Then, still quite shaken but feeling that, in taking the books, I would salvage something of the memory of their owner, I sadly left for home.
CHAPTER 10
AS SOON AS I ARRIVED at the hospital the following morning, I sought out the Professor and told him what had transpired at Turk’s. As with the police, I related the events precisely as they had occurred, but omitted any mention of Turk’s possible activities as an abortionist or of Rebecca Lachtmann. The Professor, after all, had reacted strangely at the sight of the cadaver in the ice chest as well.
“Kill him? You said he thought someone was trying to kill him?” the Professor asked incredulously. “That’s why he didn’t seek help? What could possibly have made him think that? Must have been off his head. But anything’s possible, I suppose. Cholera is a bit out of the ordinary as well. Where would someone with Turk’s knowledge of the disease have contracted cholera?”
I noted Turk’s attraction to the underside of Philadelphia and his habit of frequenting establishments near the waterfront.
“That accounts for it, I’m sure,” the Professor replied. “Have we had any other cases?”
“The police said that this is the first in some weeks, but isolated outbreaks are common near the docks.”
“Hmm. Bad luck for Turk then, eh? Too bad. I’m going to miss him. He had a first-rate mind, Turk did, and I continued to hope that he would begin to apply himself more seriously. Frankly, Carroll, I was hoping that he would begin to emulate you.”
I knew that the Professor meant his remarks in a complimentary fashion, but I was not all that pleased in being described in effect as a humorless drudge.
“Well, no time to waste,” said the Professor, moving for the door. “Let’s hurry across to the Dead House and see what did poor Turk in, eh?” As Turk had died of a suspected communicable disease and without next of kin, no permission was required for an autopsy.
For those unacquainted with scientific inquiry, it might seem ghoulish to express anticipation at the prospect of cutting open one’s coworker, but for us dissection was as natural as conversation. The Professor had made it widely known that not only would he instruct that an autopsy be conducted on him after his death, but that he intended, as he was failing, to predict what the anatomist would find and expected the eventual results to be matched against his prognostication. If I had expired under circumstances of the least suspicion, it would be my absolute wish that the Professor perform a postmortem.
The Professor was so impatient to race across the grounds that I was