Fenger had seen the guru of phrenology several times before breaking down and detailing the depth and longevity of his search for this personal Holy Grail, and the salvation of a tortured soul he showed to no one.
As she watched his deft hands now from the gallery, she wondered what kind of surgery he’d seen during the Civil War as a field surgeon. He’d never spoken of it, not to her or her father. He’d come for dinner in those days, the only time she’d ever seen him relaxed, smiling, laughing. Most of the CITY FOR RANSOM
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time, he complained of a morgue sorely lacking in rudimen-tary supplies and elementary equipment—from microscopes and alcohol to specimen jars and burners. He was ever searching for benefactors to improve the circumstances for all medicine in Chicago, and today there was seldom a medical professional who’d not learned from this man who read and spoke some twelve languages so that he could keep abreast of all medical breakthroughs the world over.
The autopsy and teaching session came to an abrupt end.
Fenger, exhausted but daring not show it, looked his age when he turned to find Dr. Tewes watching over his shoulder from the gallery.
Their eyes met. If silence could kill, she thought. God . . .
how he hates what I’ve done. His initial fear had been that someone might discover he’d come to a phrenologist for help, but he’d left Tewes’s apothecary and consulting room with a great more dread than when he’d entered, having divulged all to Tewes in a flood of confession sorely needed, a confession he could not make to his priest.
She knew how easily he could strangle her to death, he was that angry and filled with venom for Tewes. At the same time that Tewes had made this proud man a victim, Jane’s heart bled for Christian.
“Dr. Tewes . . .” Fenger found his voice. “My office, please.”
All of their dealings behind closed doors.
Others no doubt wondered what a man of Fenger’s caliber had to do with the likes of a Dr. Tewes.
She followed him down an institutional gray corridor to his office.
Alone with Tewes, fresh from the Purvis autopsy, Dr. Christian Fenger liberally washed his hands even though he’d been wearing rubber gloves during the autopsy. He splashed about at the sink in his office, taking his time, in no hurry to 108
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learn what Tewes wanted next. He toweled off and tossed the towel over his left shoulder, went to his desk and yanked a drawer open.
For a moment, she feared he’d pull out a pistol and shoot her. Instead, Fenger pulled out a large bottle of whiskey and two glasses. She couldn’t blame him, as Tewes held sway over him even here in his own office; a continuing threat, seated vulturelike, wanting more of him. He must think the demands on him would never end.
“Will you join me in a drink, a toast to a successful difficult autopsy that told us nothing we didn’t already know?”
She took the drink proffered only because Tewes would.
She must constantly do what Tewes would not hesitate doing, such as blackmailing the most respected medical man in Chicago.
“I am only here to thank you, Dr. Fenger.”
“Indeed, and why thank me?”
“As a result of your gaining me entry to the crime scene, I was able to meet my . . . my objectives.”
“I am supposed to be comforted that you met your goals then, Dr. Tewes?”
“If there’d been any other way, I can assure you—”
“Assure me? Assure me, you? The rest of my life you can say that word, and I would not be assured, sir. You are the worst sort of vermin crawling about this anthill we call a city.”
“But you love Chicago and always have.”
“What would you know of love?”
“Perhaps more than you realize.”
They stared across at one another. “Did you face someone’s rope once, Tewes, the way you protect that neck of yours? Where was it they wanted to hang you?”
She reached instinctively to the ascot worn to hide her lack of a protruding Adam’s apple. She played the hand he dealt.
“Let’s just say that in Europe, the locals can get nasty.”
“Trust me, Chicagoans can get nasty, even those in high places.”
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“Shall I take that as a threat, sir?”
“Take it any way you wish.” He downed a second whiskey.
“Aside from your womanizing, you’ve taken to drink, yet you continue to practice as a surgeon, Dr. Fenger. If I had any morals, I should report you to the American Medical Association and let the authorities deal with your—” “Just what in flaming Gomorrah’d you come here for, Tewes?”
“Your findings, of course, on the boy from the train station.”
“You miserable . . .” he muttered then checked himself. “So, it’s a private report you’re wanting?” His grip on the whiskey glass threatened to shatter it. “You have my early report.”
“I need to know one way or another all you can tell me about the killing. I’m doing my part in . . . in creating a kind of explanation as to the killer’s motive and method and . . .
and what this might say about him—for Chief Kohler, to help in apprehending this madman before he should kill again. It’s that simple.”
Fenger looked stunned at this. “Really . . . a kind of sizing up of the killer. It hadn’t occurred to me.”
“I believe if we could understand the makeup . . . that is the mental makeup of this madman . . . perhaps through the very clues he’s left us . . . then perhaps we might know better where to find him or how to lay a kind of pigeon—” “—trap for him, indeed. Tewes, have you sufficient knowledge of human nature and the homo sapien’s mind to . . . to begin to affect such . . . such magic?”
“I welcome your help, Dr. Fenger, sir.”
“And this has been your goal . . . all along?”
“It has been, yes, as the boy . . . sadly . . . has had some history with my daughter, you see, being in university together—he studying architecture and she, ahhh . . .” Jane hesitated a moment.
“And she is studying?”
“Medicine.”
“Really? Doing her work at NU . . .”
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“Same as young Purvis in there,” she eluded to the morgue. “Enrolled at Northwestern.”
“Ahhh, yes . . . fine school, but she’ll face harassment at the hands of backward, stupid instructors and ignorant fellow students who’ve difficulty with the notion of women practicing medicine. I . . . I once thought that way myself until . . . well, that’s a long story.” She swallowed hard. “Then you will consult with me on this matter of creating a kind of mental map of the killer?”
“If you can do this, and if it proves a useful investigatory tool, Dr. Tewes, you’ll’ve made medical news, a new use for neuropsychiatry—forensic in nature. The idea of it . . .
intriguing.”
“It is an idea born, sir, of many years of observing human nature . . . the mind.”
“Then all of this phrenological business, what you advertise? All for show?”
“Not entirely, sir. Magnetic healing has its place alongside other methods of relaxing and helping the patient.”
“The medical community here has you down as a cold and calculating, money-grubbing fraud, Tewes. Nothing I can add to that will condemn you further.”
“I guess I’ve honed my reputation well.”
“Part of your cover to get the ailing and sick and malaise ridden into your clinic.”