The Teratologist Read online

  Chapter Two

  The next morning, Follett walked along the beach. The sky was a crisp blue and the sun was strong, but the breeze coming in over the ocean kept the heat tolerable. He drank in the immaculate air, free of any coal smoke from city chimneys and fresh with the tang of salt. It was hard to believe that this was March. Back home in New York City in its horrible winter, ice still coated the sidewalks and cemented the horse dung to the streets, while here in Palm Beach bathers were frolicking in the surf. Still, Follett brooded as he strode toward the pier, arms clasped behind his back, staring at nothing but the soft sand.

  He kept thinking about last night. What sort of mania caused him to believe he heard his late wife’s voice coming from a limbless child? It was foolish, hysterical, ignorant—everything he had hoped he was not. What the hell was wrong with him?

  No, he realized, he had secretly hoped the rumors of the child’s ability were true, as irrational as that was, as much as he had been unwilling to admit it. And despite the joy of hearing Isabel’s voice, it left an ache of longing and grief in his gut. Her unhappiness made him feel worse than if he had never communicated with her at all.

  And the annoying, machine-like part of his brain he could never shut off asked: How is it possible for the little girl to speak for a dead soul? There had to be a scientific explanation, somehow.

  He passed a young woman sitting on the sand with two children of toddler age. She wore a long, gray woolen swimming skirt, a wide-brimmed hat and may have been pretty but the shade from her parasol kept her face in shadows. The two tots were digging holes in the sand with tiny wooden shovels, completely engrossed in their task. The winter sun cast a long shadow of him that crept across the family as he walked by.

  Shrieks of laughter came from the surf. Follett glanced up at the group of young ladies hanging onto one of the safety ropes that extended perpendicularly from the beach. They had their backs to the incoming waves and after each one crashed into them, the receding water made the skirts of their black swimming outfits cling to the stockings on their shapely legs. He caught the occasional glimpse of a bare ankle.

  He was supposed to be on holiday—he should be thinking of young bathing beauties and not mourning the departed. It had been four years since he lost poor Isabel and the child she bore. At age 36, with the first hints of gray in his brown hair, he knew he should find another woman before he evolved into one of those eccentric, lifelong bachelors whose company no one could take for long. But his heart was just a dried, empty husk and all the delights of Palm Beach couldn’t bring it back to life.

  “So you’ve finally come down here, have you? How many years have I begged you to?”

  He glanced up to see Dr. Harold Greer standing before him. He had been staring so intently at a clump of dried seaweed that he hadn’t the faintest clue Greer had approached.

  “You certainly deserve some rest after all you’ve been through,” Greer said. “But you’re here pursuing a new monster, I hear. A child, isn’t it?”

  Greer was wearing a bathing suit, which startled Follett further. Follett felt unnatural himself in his tight, woolen garment, but it was disconcerting to see a physician much older and much more distinguished than he in such casual attire. Also, Greer’s dark brown suit was in the new style becoming increasingly more common, one that lacked sleeves and simply looped over the shoulders, leaving one’s hairy armpits on full display. It didn’t flatter the man, with his tall, stooped frame and little potbelly. Bald and wearing a huge Old Testament beard, the pioneer in orthopedics should have remained fully dressed.

  “Please don’t refer to my patients as ‘monsters,’” Follett said. “It’s a benighted term.”

  “Frank, your specialty is teratology. The root of the word comes from the Greek for ‘monster.’ It’s quite a common term among the public for freaks.”

  “Yes, a public that ridicules them and gawks at them in dime museums. They are patients with deformities, due to congenital birth defects or other causes, not ‘freaks’ or ‘monsters.’”

  Greer chuckled. “That’s right, I forgot about your crusade to change the public’s mind. Well, there’s a patient you should meet who just might deserve the moniker. Remember that young man I told you about in New York, before your…ahem—remember, the grandson of Benjamin Stockhurst? He’s here in Palm Beach. His father has been bringing him here for the Season, regardless of the scandal it creates. I could arrange for you to examine him if you wish, though he’s an ill-tempered brute.”

  A woman screamed. A full-throated, ragged shriek that wouldn’t stop.

  It was the woman Follett had passed with the two children. She was crab-walking backwards over the sand on her hands and hindquarters, pointing to a hole the children had dug. The children stood staring at the hole, confused, until they broke out crying. The mother regained her senses and retrieved her brood, pulling them out of view of what had alarmed them.

  Follett ran toward the woman, along with a few other men. A crowd was gathering hesitantly at a cautious distance. Follett got there first and peered into the hole.

  The brown face of a dead man stared back at him.

  The man’s face was old and creased. He did not exhibit telltale signs of drowning, such as white froth around the lips or nostrils, but the sand could have wiped them away. At first Follett saw no evidence of violence to the body, until Greer and he uncovered the sand from the legs with a small shovel and a broom. One of the limbs had been severed at the upper thigh.

  “Trans-femoral amputation,” Greer said. “Looks surgical to me. Excellent work. Well-healed.”

  Indeed, the stump was quite uniform and smooth with little disfiguration. There were, however, various inch-long vertical scars circling the thigh at irregular intervals.

  “What do you make of these?” Follett asked.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  By this time, one of the hotel’s security officers had arrived. He wore plainclothes, but Follett recognized him with his enormous walrus mustache as the senior hotel detective. He muscled his way through the crowd of onlookers.

  “What have we got here?” he said, removing his bowler and wiping his sweaty forehead and the thin strands of combed-over black hair. His eyes widened when he saw the body. “Well I’ll be deuced. The bugger’s gonna be stinking even worse in this heat pretty soon.”

  “For certain,” said Greer. “I estimate the death was twelve to twenty-four hours ago, though the sand probably kept the body cool.”

  “Doctor Greer, good to see you,” the detective said. “Any sign that he was murdered?”

  “Not at present, Mr. Dowling. Do we have permission to turn the body over?”

  “You can spin him like a top if you want. I just need to get him off the property before too many guests become upset.”

  Lacking gloves, and wearing only their ridiculous bathing suits, they had to turn the small, thin body over awkwardly with the shovel and broom. At this point, a foul smell of gas escaping from the body assailed them. The crowd melted away.

  There were no signs of head trauma, but the man’s shirt was almost entirely burned away. The charred flesh below exhibited severe third-degree burns.

  “That could be the cause of death,” Follett said.

  “Especially if he went into shock,” added Greer.

  “What could be the cause of the burns? They’re confined to his back and lower buttocks, but not present below that.”

  “All we can do is speculate. For instance, he could have been on a boat on which a fire broke out and the boom, in flames, fell on his back.”

  “Plausible,” Follett said. “Mr. Dowling, have you received any reports of such a vessel?”

  “No, sir.” He removed his jacket, revealing a sweat-drenched vest and shirt. “You think he was washed ashore or was buried here?”

  “I’m only speculating,” Follett said, “but the body was covered by a very shallow layer of sand. There have been heavy winds and r
ough surf, so it’s plausible the body was buried by the tides.

  “I have to raise the question,” Follett continued, “whether this man was a victim of whoever has been abducting Negroes. The staff at the hotel have been talking about it.”

  “I don’t believe any bodies of the disappeared have ever been found,” Dowling said.

  “Perhaps now the predator has become sloppy.” Follett stepped away from the corpse, finished with his cursory examination. “Mr. Dowling, have you heard the theory that the abductions only occur during the Season because they have been committed by a tourist?”

  “Hogwash,” he said, spitting at the sand. “The coloreds kill each other all the time, year-round. They don’t need a Yankee to help ‘em do it. There’s never been a speck of evidence pointing to the guests at Mr. Flagler’s hotels and it’s insulting to their honor.”

  “I dare say I disagree,” Greer said. “I know someone who would be an ideal suspect. A young man with horrible deformities and a most violent disposition. He’s spending the Season down here in a rented cottage with his father, William Stockhurst. The son of Benjamin Stockhurst.”

  “I know the family,” Dowling said. “Richer than Mr. Flagler himself and probably any of the guests that come here, excepting the Morgans and Vanderbilts, of course.”

  “Birth defects do not make one a criminal,” Follett said.

  “‘Monster Boy’ they call him,” Dowling said. “He wears a hood to hide his face. But he’s a Stockhurst. I would never make unfounded accusations against such a respectable family. I can’t afford to lose my position here.”

  “I would suggest taking a long, careful look at this young man,” Greer said. “I do not accuse him of anything, but I hear that he requires guards to restrain him when he loses his temper. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has sadistic and even homicidal urges.”

  “You both are speaking from prejudice, not reason,” Follett said.

  Dowling cleared his throat and glanced nervously behind him. “Are you gentlemen done with your examining? I’ve got to get this carcass out of here.”

  Follett nodded. Dowling whistled, gesturing to two black men who were waiting in the shade at the edge of the beach with a wheelbarrow. As they approached he barked orders at them.

  “Now he can go back to the only thing he’s good at,” Greer said, “chasing bunko artists away from the hotel before they prey on us poor, defenseless rich people.”

  * * *

  There will be another killing soon.

  Samuel Clemens awoke and looked around the room in the gray early-morning light, but there was no one there. Livy slept beside him, her breathing slightly labored from her heart congestion. The voice must have been an auditory hallucination; he had merely dreamt the words but they sounded so real it was as if his ears had heard them.

  Yes, he must have drifted asleep and the words he dreamt had startled him awake. He had been thinking of the letter he had received from a young man claiming telepathic powers. The letter writer was a fan of Mark Twain, the nom de plume Clemens used, and he had singled out an essay entitled “Mental Telegraphy” that Clemens had written years ago dealing with the mind’s ability to communicate over great distances.

  Was that what the words he had heard were—someone talking to him from miles away? A place where a murderer was at work?

  Unable to go back to sleep, Clemens lit his first cigar of the day.

  Chapter Three

  “Now regarding the case of Darryl Stockhurst, his condition has deteriorated since I last examined him. His hypertrichosis is very severe,” Greer said, taking a deep sip of whiskey at the Royal Poinciana’s bar.

  Follett was only half-listening to him. He kept thinking about the other night. Was it simply some sort of mania that caused him to believe he heard his late wife’s voice coming from a limbless baby?

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes. His hypertrichosis.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “Even ‘Krao, Darwin’s Missing Link,’ whom I saw exhibited in England, wasn’t as hairy as this young man. Nor is P.T. Barnum’s ‘Jojo the Dog-faced Boy.’”

  “How severe?”

  “Dense hair covering every inch of his body. Except his palms and the soles of his feet. And when you add the fact that both his jaws are extended with simultaneous maxillary and mandibular prognathism, the poor lad is the spitting image of a werewolf.”

  “Please!”

  “I do not exaggerate. But it gets even more strange. You see, he also has cutaneous horns—”

  “Don’t be absurd!”

  “He does indeed. Growing right out of his head near his temples. Two of them, about two inches long, just like devil horns.”

  “Are you certain?” Follett said. “I’ve examined patients with each of these conditions, rare as they may be, but never a single patient who presented all of them at once.”

  “Frank, I didn’t see the boy displayed in a dime museum. I examined him myself. He’s not fit to appear in public. William Stockhurst was always extravagant, as does happen when you’re born into so much wealth. But the shock of having a child so monstrous—forgive me, deformed—seems to have pushed him over the brink. Bringing his son down here is inappropriate.”

  Follett looked at him with an arched eyebrow.

  “It’s simply not socially acceptable,” Greer continued. “The boy—at seventeen he’s a young man now, actually—should be in an institution or cared for at home, not carted around on the social circuit. I believe he’s dangerous. He’s bound to horrify any guest who sees him and they’re not spending great sums of money to come down here and be horrified.”

  “Perhaps it’s good for the boy to be exposed to new places, rather than locking him away in the attic in shame. I think it’s touching that Stockhurst can’t bear to be parted from his son.”

  “Actually, I suspect that Stockhurst is unable to leave the boy home with his wife.”

  “She didn’t come down here with him?” Follett asked.

  “Ever since she had the child she disappeared off the face of the earth. Naturally, there are rumors about her mental health.”

  “Well, I would like to examine the young man.”

  “Indeed you shall. As a quid pro quo, of course. I want you to take me to see this Angel Worm.”

  “Believe me, she isn’t a good prospect for prosthetics. There seems to be no vestige of limbs or joints at all.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that. I do love a challenge. And my life’s work is to make artificial limbs available and helpful to everyone—whether they lost limbs to amputation or through birth defects.”

  His eyes shone with conviction. As a surgeon in the Civil War, Greer had witnessed and performed countless amputations and was still haunted by them. Follett saw no sense in dimming his optimism, so he nodded and arranged for James to take them to the girl after lunch.

  * * *

  Follett, not considering Angelica a candidate for prosthetics, had assumed Greer’s examination of her would be brief. But Greer had brought along his valet, Sidney, to carry his camera case and medical bags and the visit turned into a big undertaking. Sidney even brought a crate that Greer stood upon beside the crib for a better photographic angle.

  Greer was fascinated by the child, though in the end he agreed with Follett’s assessment that she was not a suitable candidate. They spent the better part of an hour there, in stifling heat, Greer taking photos, measuring, weighing and observing every inch of the poor child. Follett held his breath in fear that he would have another hallucination. Thankfully, he did not.

  Yet he returned to the Norris house later that evening. He didn’t remember making the decision to come back—he just ended up there. It wasn’t late, but he was drunk, his evening wear was spattered with mud, and somehow he found himself on the porch, the wizened old man rocking in his chair as always and nodding his permission for Follett to enter.

  Trudy, Angelica’s sister,
greeted him.

  “Please, Trudy, I need to speak with my wife.”

  “Angelica don’t go away whenever you want her to. She do it when the spirits come to her.”

  He ignored her and pulled a chair up to the crib. He watched Angelica sleeping. Her head was turned to the side and she sucked a corner of the pillow instead of a thumb. She had a serious look on her face, almost a frown, as if her dreams weighed upon her soul.

  “Isabel,” he whispered. “Isabel, will you speak to me?”

  Angelica shifted slightly, swallowed, and continued in her sleep, breathing slowly and deeply.

  He rested his chin atop his hands on the crib rail and watched her as he imagined a parent would do. Trudy must have left the room for he heard nothing behind him. The entire house was silent except for the faint creaking of the old man’s rocking chair on the porch. His eyes began closing and he had to force them open. In the quietest voice he sang a song, “After the Ball,” that Isabel used to sing when she thought herself alone. He sang low and haltingly the ONE, two-three, ONE, two-three waltz rhythm as he pictured Isabel’s slender face and milk-white skin.

  After the ball is over,

  After the break of morn,

  After the dancers’ leaving,

  After the stars are gone;

  Many a heart is aching,

  If you could read them all;

  Many the hopes that have vanished

  After the ball.

  The child’s frown disappeared and her face relaxed, presumably due to his singing. It made him feel better about imposing on the family in such a rude manner.

  He must have fallen asleep, for he dreamed he was in their bedroom in New York, lying in bed with Isabel’s head nestled in the crook of his neck.

  “There is no rest here,” Isabel said. Her voice sounded strange.

  He snapped awake. Angelica was staring at him with piercing eyes. Her mouth opened. And from it came his dead wife’s voice:

  “I can’t find our baby, Frank. The poor dear—we hadn’t even named him yet when he died. And I don’t know where I am.”