The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [8]
After all was in order and the carpenter had been returned to the ice chest, the Professor moved to the next subject that Charlie had marked for him. This was the male Negro.
Following the same procedure, it soon became apparent from an extensively cirrhotic liver that the man had died of alcohol poisoning. The case was undistinguished except the Professor declared that the condition of the left lung was extraordinary. “I have never seen an organ so infiltrated with bloody serum.” The fluid had a uniform purplish red, viscous appearance. The Professor was at a loss to account for it, except to hypothesize that the subject, under the influence of drink, had gone to sleep coiled on his left side so that, while he was senseless, his gradually weakened heart propelled feeble charges into the pulmonary artery. By hypostasis, an increasing volume had reached the left lung until a state of extreme congestive edema was produced.
For our third specimen, the Professor chose the elderly woman with stomach cancer. Her case was equally unremarkable and, when we had finished with her, it was only two o’clock. “Well,” said the Professor eagerly, “it looks as if we’ll have time for another.”
As the rest of the group returned the dead woman to the ice, I remained in the dissecting room to wipe down the table more thoroughly. When I got to the mortuary door, the Professor was standing at the chest that held the girl found dead on the streets of unknown causes.
“A bit of a mystery here, eh?” he said, and swung open the lid.
Only because I was standing away did I notice Turk’s reaction. For an instant, his body stiffened and his gaze froze on the cadaver. I stepped in hastily to see what had caused his reaction, and got a brief glimpse of a young, light-haired woman of perhaps twenty years of age. Although she had been dead for some days, she looked nothing like the street urchins we generally encountered. She had a beautiful figure and what seemed to have been clear, unblemished skin, marred only with distinct bruising to the upper left arm and milder trauma at the lower abdomen. As I leaned forward for a closer look, the Professor slammed the lid shut. The crack of metal on metal reverberated through the room.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said quickly. He took a deep breath and then smiled stiffly. “We’ve been at this for quite some time. No need to overdo, eh?”
Turk had recovered his equilibrium, but remained staring, his brow furrowed, at the closed cover of the chest.
CHAPTER 2
WE RETURNED TO THE DISSECTING room to clean up and put things in order for Charlie. When we were about to leave, we waited for the Professor to lead us back across to University Hospital. Instead he said somewhat brusquely, “I wish to remain here for a bit and check some notes. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Thank you for your participation.”
I lingered briefly, wondering if the Professor would wish to talk with me privately, as he often did. But he had busied himself poring through an old journal, so I made for the door.
Turk was waiting for me outside, hands in his pockets, his weight on his left leg, the very picture of ease. “Well, Carroll,” he said, smiling affably to reveal a set of uneven teeth, “it seems that we’re all free for the evening.”
“Your wish granted,” I replied. “Now you can go to the theater.”
“What about you?” he asked. “You’re not going to spend the night prowling the wards, are you?”
“I haven’t decided,” I told him, although that was probably my intention. There was always something more to do and, in truth, I lacked an alternative.
“Well, then, why don’t you join me?”
“At the theater?” I wondered briefly at the coincidental timing of Turk’s intriguing reaction to the young girl in the mortuary and his unexpected cordiality, but could not see how the two could be related. Perhaps it was simply that my overtures had borne fruit after all.
“Absolutely. I’ll call for you at seven-thirty.”
As Turk