INVESTIGATING DOCTOR HAVERSHAM

Polk: The town of Nanson is small yet wracked by mystery and suspicion. In 1997, Third Eye Over Iowa reported three similar, but inexplicable deaths. In each case, the victim's internal organs had turned into a viscous, black substance that rapidly hardened into a chitinous-like, very brittle material. In addition, the hearts of the victims completely withered away. Nanson Coroner Bert Williams threw up his hands in defeat when after months of investigation, no plausible explanation could be found for the origin of these strange deaths.

     All the victims had one thing in common: Michael Alt, Arlene Connors and Philip Mills had consulted Dr. Danforth Haversham for cures to various ailments. The local newspaper has been pointing its finger at Haversham for months now (Nanson Calls for Legal Action Against Haversham, Nanson Courier, 6 March, 1998) prompting the town board in May to hire a private detective, Benton Ford, to investigate.

     Hailing from Marquette, Ford began his investigation with interviews of townsfolk. I, too, was interviewed, because I had been to see Dr. Haversham twice, interviewing the doctor for Third Eye. Our meeting took place at the Garden Cafe on High Street.

     Ford struck me immediately as a very diligent, forthright and perceptive man. Dressed in a neat grey suit and wearing thick, horn-rimmed glasses, his pale complexion spoke of years of research and book work. After I had told him everything I knew about Dr. Haversham, he told me what he had gathered. First, the ailments that Alt, Connors and Mills had gone to see Dr. Haversham for were all quite different. Fourteen-year-old Alt had seen him for a stigmatism which had plagued him since birth. Connors had gone in for an arthritis remedy, just as I had while doing my own research. Mills had been in for a routine physical examination, and diagnosed with low blood pressure.

     "So if they all had different ailments, then they also all received different medications, right?" I asked Ford.

     "Correct," Ford answered, deadpan. "As a matter of fact, his recipes for illnesses, though constructed from common herbs and other foodstuffs, were consistent from case to case. No one ever appears to have been given a different mixture for the same ailment. But," he paused to smile cryptically and take a sip of coffee, "there is more. Each of the deaths occurred exactly two days after the remedy was prescribed. That hardly seems coincidental. My impression is that either there was a toxic ingredient in each of the medications that has not been found yet, or that whatever Haversham did to them, if anything, he may have done in his office at the time of the examination."

     I admitted that this possibility had not occurred to me. But I wondered what other steps Ford had taken. It turned out to be quite a bit.

     Ford had delved deeply into Dr. Haversham's past, and the lack of information only weakened the case for the doctor's innocence. It seems no official medical organization recognized Dr. Haversham's existence as a legal practitioner. Further, Ford had sent samples of the strange medications to experts across the country, and not one medical specialist could identify any healing traditon which used such preparations. Ford even contacted the Iowa Chapter of the American Medical Association which will soon petition the State to halt the activities of a successful, but unlicensed physician.

     But where did he come from? During interviews with the doctor, he only refered vaguely to "the East," never anything specific. Ford's searches of computer databases and the internet yielded no information on Dr. Haversham's previous practices or education. In fact, no evidence of a previous residence or birth record could be found. It was as if the man had materialised out of thin air!

     I was flabbergasted. How much a charlatan was the doctor? To try to answer this question, Ford attempted to arrange an interview with Dr. Haversham late in May. The doctor unequivocally refused to grant an interview then or at any time in the future. This didn't surprise me much, as the last time I had tried to speak with the man, he grew livid and suspicious of my questions, and cut the interview short. I asked Ford what the next step was.

     "Haversham stopped business cold in the second week of May," Ford explained. "No matter. These deaths and all the rumours had cut his business almost down to nothing, anyway. The police are monitoring his office to make sure he doesn't have a chance to slip away as quickly as he came. There is only one more matter to be accomplished before filing formal charges. After all, the evidence I have now is purely circumstantial, and the matter of his guilt is based solely on conjecture." Ford smiled confidently, the most emotion I had seen him display during our meeting. "I am confident that medical experts at the University of Emmetsburg or elsewhere I had samples sent will reveal that something about the medicines he gave to the deceased is toxic. When that happens, we will see Haversham in court."

     I thanked Ford for his time, and promised to share with him any other information that I could gather. But there was one other matter that bothered me. In the latter part of April, horse farmer Felix Zigel discovered caves containing mysterious writings underneath his property (see: An Underground Civilization Discovered!, April, 1998, vol. 5, Issue #4). While the caves were being explored, and the writing was being sent off to be analysed, Zigel received a telephone call that he traced back to Dr. Haversham's office. The doctor had only uttered one phrase before hanging up: "Do not come below." How was Dr. Haversham tied to the Dubuque County Caverns?

     On May 30, risking the doctor's animosity, I gave him a call. To my amazement, he seemed rather cordial and polite.

     "Ms. MacDougal," he began, "at first I thought you were out to attack me because my medicine is different. But now I know you are just in the news. I have seen your magazine. You mean me no harm."

     "But others do," I noted. "A lot of people are blaming you for the weird deaths that have occurred over the past year."

     "But what am I to do? The police watch me and an-" he paused for a moment, "-an investigator has come. Ford. He wishes to do me ill."

     "It's not a personal vendetta," I explained. "He's just doing his job. Ford is doing what the town board wants him to. Besides, if you are truly innocent, no information that he comes up with will be able get you convicted. All the evidence so far is circumstantial. He has sent the medicines that you gave to the deceased off to labs for toxin analysis. If those come back negative...."

     There was a long, awkward pause on the other end of the line.

     "The laboratories will detect nothing," Dr. Haversham stated flatly.

     "I'm not going to ask you, doctor, where you came from. You should know that Ford cannot find records of you outside this town. No previous residences, no ties to any medical organization, nothing. You are quite the enigma."

     "Yes, I suspected this might happen at some point. I am not like other doctors, Ms. MacDougal. I need no official organisation to do what I do. I do medicine for people. I use medicine that works. I even helped you."

     "Yes, and I thank you, doctor. But you see why you are under suspicion."

     "I can. But Ford will not make the progress he hopes. He is merely a derro. I will remain a free man."

     "What?" I asked. "Derro? What's a derro?"

     Again a long pause at the other end of the line. Then Dr. Haversham's voice, slow and deliberate. "A derro is a colloquialism I picked up some time ago. It is negative, and stands for 'degenerate robot.' I am sorry. Such rude behaviour is not like me."

     I felt naturally uneasy with the doctor's answer, but I dropped the matter and instead asked about the phone call to Felix Zigel. I expected a harsh response, but Dr. Haversham stated simply that he has private matters to take up with Zigel.

     I expressed my desire to speak with him again as the situation in Nanson develops. He replied that while he could not guarantee me anything, he would call me at the Third Eye offices if and when he was ready to talk again.