It occurred to me that Mr. Hatchford Michael Daily, when he became ill, didn’t have a caretaker: a close friend, his father, a neighbor, a sibling. The next neighbor. No one. Of course, his mother lived nearby, but Hatch told me, “She’s the worst nurse on the planet. The woman has no empathy for anyone, including her children.”
Unpredictably, I ended up at his Tudor: a small establishment with two bedrooms, barely a bathroom on the second floor, kitchen, living room area, and foyer. Hardly a house at all, but almost paid for according to the poisoned professor. As he rested between bouts of heavy vomiting, I invaded his space, traipsing from one room to the next, and learned unique things about the man:
He had a stack of story books in his bathroom, next to his toilet. Topics included se
