Deathbed

by William Kienzle

  What’s more, Whitaker was not trying to seriously harm anyone. Thus Haroldson would be able to oversee Whitaker’s foredoomed endeavors and amend them. All the while, by the principle of the indirect voluntary, Haroldson would be guilty of no sin. At least as far as his own conscience was concerned.

  After a while, the revelation went on, it got to be a sort of contest for Haroldson. Surmising what Whitaker’s next ploy would be. Remaining undetected while following him. Trying to figure out what Whitaker was attempting to do when he did it. And finally, correcting Whitaker’s pitiful blunders.

  Haroldson chronicled the alteration of Millie Power’s chart and how he removed the sticker that denoted her allergy to penicillin. A sticker that Whitaker unaccountably did not remove. Haroldson surmised that Whitaker’s plans included blowing the whistle before the patient lapsed into a terminal condition. If, typically, Whitaker had fumbled that too, he, Haroldson, would have seen to it.

  And it would have worked had not the priest accidentally come upon the scene.

  Finally, the statement told of the episode in the OR. His disgust at Whitaker’s feeble attempt to cause a breakdown in OR procedure. Of course it was a good idea; any hospital would be in the news should its OR shut down. But nitrous oxide tanks! The man was a functional idiot.

  So, with the sabotaged nitrogen tank Haroldson at last had his media event. An event which Whitaker managed to move from the front page to the comic page. And, as the affair, along with the alleged perpetrator, became a farce, Haroldson’s last hope evaporated.

  I cannot express how deep was my depression, how complete my sense of frustration. I had banked everything on being able to manipulate Whitaker to achieve my goal. When that failed, I failed.

  That is why, in a moment of utter despondency, I poisoned the medication. I knew that Eileen would need it in the earliest stages of her convalescence. If I could not effect her removal from my beloved hospital, I wanted her dead.

  It did not take me long to repent my completely un-Christian action. Just long enough for you to come upon the poisoned expectorant and consume it. When I returned to Eileen’s office and found you dead, I knew all was ended. Unwittingly, I have taken an innocent life. And for that I must pay. It is God’s law and I accept it.

  I pray only that God will grant me time for penance, penitence and repentance so that in time I may become worthy to join you, with all the angels and saints in Paradise.

  Koznicki finished reading. The statement was more a letter to the deceased Sister Rosamunda than a confession. But it was sufficient for his purposes. He had Haroldson sign the document.

  Momentarily, Koznicki wondered whether an attorney might use this statement to begin building a defense of insanity. It was no more than a passing thought. Guilt was the decision of the courts. Koznicki had his perpetrator. As far as he was concerned, the case was closed.

  But there were other concerns that needed resolution before all the loose ends were tied.

  14

  Joe Cox touched his champagne glass against the one Pat Lennon held. They made a pleasant, bell-like sound.

  “To the victor . . .” Cox did not bother completing the quotation.

  “It was hardly a battle.” Lennon sipped her champagne.

  “I suppose that’s true. Once you got into it, the battle was over.” Cox closed one eye and squinted at the champagne. There are those who may be able to tell something of the quality of champagne by the coloration. Cox was not among them. Not unlike duffers who line up a putt the way they see the pros do it on TV. Except that the amateurs have no idea of what they are doing.

  Lennon smiled. As she consulted the menu, her smile faded. “Joe, did you get a load of these prices?”

  “Impressive, aren’t they? But it’s not as bad as it looks; don’t forget we’ll get a great rate of exchange.”

  They were dining in Canada at the Windsor Hilton, almost directly across the Detroit River from the Renaissance Center and downtown Detroit. Among Detroit’s distinctions, it is the only major U.S. city from which one travels south to Canada. And many, many Detroiters do.

  Windsor, easily accessible by tunnel or bridge, is a pleasant place to visit. Depending on monetary fluctuations, Canada can prove to be a country in which one can exchange U.S. currency advantageously. And, especially in a place such as the Windsor Hilton, Detroiters like to contemplate their own skyline with such highlights as Tiger Stadium, Cobo Hall, Ford Auditorium, and the monster complex of the Ren Cen that blots out much more that might have been viewed.

  “Did you notice,” Lennon observed, “that one side of the menu is in French and the other in English?”

  “Yeah. I caught onto the English just before I almost asked you for a running translation.”

  Returning the compliment, Lennon raised her glass to Cox. “And here’s to you, Joe, and the remarkable restraint you showed when the ‘Nitrogen Bomb’ story broke.”

  Cox grew serious. “I gotta admit that was a tough decision. Whitaker opened Pandora’s box when he started spouting off about Catholic morality and the ordinary magisterium and the rest of that gobbledygook. If anybody besides Pfeiffer had written that original story, the lid probably would have come off right there. But one thing you gotta say for Whitaker and Pfeiffer: They deserve each other.”

  “Still, you knew what Whitaker was trying to say. You knew about St. Vincent’s clinic, the birth control, the ligations.”

  “Yeah, I knew. But the only way I knew—what the story really was—was from you. If you hadn’t told me what you found out, I’d never have been able to make head-or-tails out of what Pfeiffer wrote.”

  “Still, Joe, it was remarkable restraint.”

  “Well, I don’t want to muddle up what we’ve got. It’s our agreement. I’m not gonna bust that up. Besides, the story did break once Haroldson tried to stiff Eileen and got Rosamunda instead.”

  Lennon shook her head in sympathy. “Poor Haroldson. Poor Rosamunda.”

  “I guess. But Haroldson opened up the gates for you. It’s funny, how in this competition between the Freep and the News that, especially with local stories, one of the papers will get an edge and the other one just can never catch up. It certainly happened with St. Vincent’s. Once it broke, no one could catch you.”

  “Pound for pound, Joe, you did a great job, as usual. But you’re right: It was my story . . . only because I was on the damn thing before it got to be a story. I was doing, in effect, a self-assigned puffpiece on St. Vincent’s. So I had the background on all the principals before they became principals. I guess it just went from a backgrounder in the magazine to a who’s who on page one.”

  “Virtue is its own reward,” Cox said. “You had the story while you were doing your initial research and you gave it up out of principle. It would have been a first-class rotten break for someone to take it from you.”

  “Maybe. But if somebody else had got it . . . well, that’s life.”

  The waitress took their orders. After which they silently sipped more champagne.

  Pat contemplated the massive concrete and steel of Detroit. “You know, Joe, we’re lucky.”

  “Ummm.”

  “I mean, our jobs . . . our lifestyle . . . us.”

  “Hey, is this a preamble to another try at getting me to go to church?”

  Pat snorted. “If you ever darkened a church door, they’d have to reconsecrate the place.”

  Cox covered Pat’s hand with his. “You’re right; we are lucky.” He lifted his glass and squinted at Lennon through the remaining champagne. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

  * * *

  “How’s it going, Sister?” Dr. Fred Scott asked.

  “Oh, I’m a little wobbly. But not bad for an old lady.”

  Under her modified veil, Sister Eileen wore a wig while her own hair was growing back. The thought had occurred to her that in the not-so-distant good old days she wouldn’t have had to worry about her hair. The traditional habit would have covere
d everything.

  “You sure you should be up and about?” Scott sat opposite the nun in her office. He had just taken her blood pressure, which was a little high, but understandably so.

  “Not much help for it, Fred. So much going on since John . . . well . . .”

  “Yeah, everything did pretty much hit the fan. How’d your meeting with the bishop today go?”

  Eileen glanced sharply at him. “You knew about that!”

  Scott shrugged. “Small hospital.”

  “Hmmm. Depends on whose side you’re on. As far as my side goes, not well.”

  “How bad?”

  Eileen winced. It was difficult to tell whether it was from the occasional pain she still felt or the memory of her episcopal visit.

  Scott leaned forward. “You all right?”

  “Yes . . . yes. I’m okay. It still hurts once in a while, but not as often. I guess the thought of this afternoon doesn’t help.”

  “You see Cardinal Boyle.”

  “No. That was last week when we went over my options.”

  “Oh?”

  “Even in this ‘small hospital’ you didn’t hear about that?

  “Well, it was one of those things that had to happen after all this publicity. I can’t really blame His Eminence. I have a hunch he was aware of what we were doing here about family planning and the like. But he was able to pretend he didn’t know, until just about everybody in the country found out. The poor man! He couldn’t really approve of what we were doing—even though he could understand why we were doing it. But in the glare of all that publicity neither he nor I could dodge the issue.”

  “Which was?”

  “That we were going to have to make some kind of public response. All I could tell him was that I was, in conscience, unable to change the philosophy and interpretation of theology under which we operate. He said he’d take my answer under advisement. And that culminated with my meeting today with Auxiliary Bishop Ratigan. I met with him and our Mother General, Sister Qaire Cécile.”

  “And?”

  “Bishop Ratigan was nice enough. But he had a job to do. He explained that if this had happened a few years ago, Cardinal Boyle would have resorted to his former custom of appointing a ‘blue-ribbon committee’ to study the matter. And they would have studied it until hell froze over or until the media forgot about it. Whichever happened first.

  “But now . . . with the climate in Rome . . . well, there was no getting around it. We had to face up to conforming to the Church’s magisterium. I was to enforce the letter of the law or I had to step down. I told him that left me no alternative.”

  “Sister?”

  “The next part has got to be just between you and me, even though this is a ‘small hospital.’” She forced a smile. “St. Vincent’s is going to close.”

  “No!”

  “I’m afraid so. Sister Qaire Cécile said the Board had anticipated this sort of dilemma and had voted that, with my departure, St. Vincent’s would be closed. The only reason they’ve been sustaining it, in the face of serious financial loss, was because I insisted I could make it work.

  “But even to keep the poor old place alive, I can’t compromise my principles. St. Vincent’s conforming to the letter of Church teaching would have no meaning here in any case. So John Haroldson got at least part of what he wanted. I will be gone. But so will St. Vincent’s . . . and at what cost!”

  There followed several moments of silence. Scott reflected that the closing, as shocking as it was, also solved Dr. Lee Kim’s problem. Under the circumstances, Kim would have no problem transferring to another hospital. And wherever he went, it would be a step or more upward.

  “And how about you, Sister? What will you do?”

  “Oh, Sisters don’t join the unemployment line. Not even old ladies like me. I talked to Sister Qaire Cécile about it. Well, we’ve talked before about what might come after St. Vincent’s—if that ever happened.

  “I’m going to be in charge of a new health-care program for our senior Sisters. Right now, there’s little rhyme or reason to the various scattered houses that care for our elderly and ill. The program needs to be pulled together and coordinated. Without lots of young Sisters out in the field to bring in money, we’re financially pinched as never before. It’s a good program and I’m eager to get into it. It’s . . . it’s the program Sister Rosamunda would have been a part of. But . . .

  “Poor Sister Rosamunda.” Eileen shook her head sadly. “A classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She went to the pharmacy to get a supply of Terpin Hydrate . . . the poor dear probably couldn’t sleep a wink . . . all that pressure. She didn’t know I had ordered all the locks changed just so she wouldn’t be able to lean on that crutch anymore.

  “And when she couldn’t get the pharmacist to give her the new key—again at my order—she knew where she could find a bottle. Everyone who knew me well was aware that I needed it for this postnasal-drip problem. If she hadn’t taken the poisoned bottle, I might have. Or John might have retrieved it. Poor Sister: in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “Well, God writes straight with crooked lines. I guess it was time for me to move on.”

  “And St. Vincent’s?”

  “Yes, I suppose. Even time for St. Vincent’s to . . .” There was a catch in Eileen’s voice. “. . . to close its doors for good.”

  “One thing, Sister.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t ever play poker.”

  * * *

  “I can’t say this hasn’t been fun, big fella. But don’t you think we ought to get outta bed?”

  “Why?” George Snell was deeply depressed.

  “Why?” Helen Brown echoed. “Because call lights will be going on and the nurse is gonna wonder why she’s runnin’ her ass off when there’s an aide someplace on the floor.”

  “That’s just it,” Snell observed, “you ain’t exactly been ‘on the floor’ for quite a spell now. You been off the floor, as it were.”

  “I know, big fella, and that’s why I gotta get back on duty. All somebody’s gotta do is look in this room and our collective ass’ll be in a sling.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “What difference! The difference between gettin’ a paycheck and standin’ in line waitin’ for charity. If it trickles down this far.”

  “It don’t make much difference. This place is gonna close down anyhow.”

  “This hospital?”

  “What else?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Small place. Rumors travel fast.”

  “Rumor! That’s all it is.”

  “No. It’s gonna close.”

  “Is that what’s gettin’ you down? Just ’cause this place closes don’t mean there won’t be any more jobs anywhere.”

  “Yeah? Like where?”

  “Like lots of places. You keep forgettin’: You’re a hero!”

  “That’s right, ain’t it?”

  Happily for George Snell, he had not been compelled to testify in the case of Bruce Whitaker. So the knowledge that his “heroics” were no more than a series of accidents did not go beyond the police and Father Koesler.

  “But wait a minute!” Snell sat upright. “You know I ain’t no hero. You were with me both times I was suppose to’ve saved somebody. You know! ”

  “Yeah, I know, big fella. But I ain’t likely to tell. Far as I can see, if this place closes, we’ll just move along. They always need aides—that’s me. And they always need heroes—that’s you. By and large, we oughta be able to spend a good part of our lives in the sack.”

  “Worse luck for you.” Snell lay back in the narrow bed. Instinctively, he wrapped one long arm around Helen Brown, absently caressing her bottom.

  “What do you mean, worse luck for me? You’re a lot of fun, big fella. Oh, yes, a lot of fun. You have given me some of the very best lays I have ever had in my whole life. And that includes tonight. And this is
an unsolicited testimonial.”

  “Yeah.” Snell grinned, then quickly grew serious. “But there’s more. At least there should be.”

  “More! You’re kidd—oh, yeah, that’s right. Both times you became a ‘hero’ you were about to do something ‘more.’ But you never got around to it. Now what in hell you could do more beats me.”

  “Well, it looks like you’re gonna have to take it on faith. But there was somethin’ more. It was one of a kind. And now,” he choked back what sounded like a sob, “it’s gone. Gone. Gone.”

  “When did it leave? Oh, what the hell we talkin’ about, anyway?”

  “It left after I saw somethin’ on TV I’ll never forget the rest of my life. And we’re talkin’ about a . . . oh . . . somethin’ like a maneuver.”

  “That maneuver again! Look, man, I still don’t know exactly what you’re talkin’ about. But I know you certainly know how to satisfy a person. I truly don’t think I could stand any more from you than what you already done. Besides, big fella, two can play at that.” Helen Brown shifted so that she was roughly one-quarter of the way on top of Snell.

  “What? What you gettin’at?”

  “Just this, big fella, You’re not the only one who’s got some fancy maneuvers.”

  “Wait a minute!” Helen Brown was doing things that made George Snell grin broadly. “Wait a minute! I’m kind of tired.”

  “That’s okay, big fella. You know what the helpful cow said to the tired farmer.”

  “No! Hoo! Ha!”

  “She said, ‘You just hang on; I’ll jump up and down.’”

  “Oh, God!” Snell shouted in spite of the danger. “To hell with the Snell Maneuver!”

  * * *

  “How does it feel to be home?” Inspector Koznicki sipped his Frangelico, the after-dinner liqueur supplied from the extremely limited stores of St. Anselm’s rectory.