“See Mary Sue and the baby, no doubt.” Wolfgang propped a pillow on Frederick’s bed and gently settled his head down on it. He leaned down and listened to Frederick’s breathing with his stethoscope. “He is getting stronger.”
Frederick’s eyes opened. He looked up at Wolfgang and Lincoln and then, on his own, turned away from them and faced the wall.
Wolfgang touched Frederick’s head with an open hand, silently blessing him. “Rest now, my friend. I’ll come back and play for you later.”
Frederick didn’t respond.
In the hallway, Lincoln said, “He looked sad.”
“He must have learned the news.”
“What news?”
“Mary Sue and the baby are being released,” said Wolfgang. “She’s due to Make the Walk in the next few days.”
***
Wolfgang and Lincoln ran into Nurse Cleary on the stairs leading to the rooftop.
“Dr. Pike,” she shouted. “Come quickly.”
“What is it now?”
“Susannah, she—”
Wolfgang didn’t even hear her finish. All he could think about was the scissors slicing Susannah’s throat or the sharp blades piercing her chest. His heart raced so quickly he feared it would jump from his rib cage. He sprinted to the stairwell and took the steps two and three at a time, ignoring the pain that shot down his right leg with every step, unable to block out the horrible visions that assaulted his mind. He could see her now, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, the scissors sticking from her slender neck. He hated himself for trusting her, for leaving her alone with Herman. He hit the rooftop with a wild burst of speed, lunging with his left foot while dragging his right. A pig snorted near the doorway to the nurses’ station. Wolfgang gave it only a second’s glance—why the hell was it up on the rooftop?—before he rushed inside.
“Susannah!”
“What is it, Wolf?” Susannah smiled at him. She stood with her arms folded, leaning against the desk. A man sat in the chair, young and handsome, with trimmed hair and neat beard; Wolfgang blinked. It took him a moment to realize…
“Doesn’t he look great?” she said.
Wolfgang nodded like an idiot. Herman’s face was long, his jaw sculpted, his cheekbones high beneath dark eyes. Wolfgang touched his own beard and wondered, given the choice and a razor, if Susannah would have shaved his as well? Herman looked at Wolfgang and grinned. In his right hand he tightly clutched a fork. Before him, resting on a small rounded table, was an entire chocolate cake Nurse Cleary must have retrieved from the kitchen. A good chunk of it had already been eaten. A tall glass of milk stood next to it. Herman took another bite of cake and washed it down with a loud gulp of milk.
Nurse Cleary stepped inside. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think you should have told me that everything was okay.”
“Relax,” said Susannah.
“You ran before I had the chance,” said Nurse Cleary.
Wolfgang stepped closer to Herman. “He looks like a new man.”
“No, about the surprise,” Nurse Cleary said.
Wolfgang looked at Susannah. “What surprise?”
Susannah laughed. “Herman. Show Dr. Pike what you’re better at than the others.”
Herman scooted his chair back from the table and stood, slowly, dramatically. It seemed to take forever for his long frame to unfold from the chair and straighten, but he faced Wolfgang with a military alertness.
Then he cleared his throat and began to sing.
Wolfgang’s knees buckled. Susannah hurried over to him. He couldn’t believe his ears. This giant lunatic sang an aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute with one of the strongest, deepest voices Wolfgang had ever heard, the sound resonating from the unseen cavern inside the man’s massive chest.
Wolfgang’s choir had been missing its bass for weeks.
Now God had sent him.
***
They wasted no time hurrying Herman down to the fourth floor, where McVain was in bed, eyes closed. Susannah skipped her way down the solarium, stopping at the piano with a playful hop. Herman waited patiently with a fork clutched in his right hand. Wolfgang struck one of the piano keys and McVain’s eyes snapped open. He sat up in bed, staring at Herman’s towering figure. McVain’s jaw dropped when Herman began an aria from Don Giovanni. He easily had the best voice of the entire chorus, barely hampered by the tuberculosis. McVain nearly broke into a grin.
Susannah rubbed her hands together joyfully. Herman stopped abruptly and stood as stiff as a board, staring over McVain’s piano toward the bed, fork in hand.
Wolfgang, too, looked to McVain for a verdict. They all did.
McVain craned his head for a better look. “What’s with the fork?”
***
Wolfgang walked Susannah home that night, wondering every step if she would veer off in the direction of his cottage and decide to sleep on his couch again. Or would she venture up to Dr. Barker’s residence after he dropped her off? They continued toward the nurses’ dormitory. As it should be, he thought, relieved and disappointed at the same time.
“I knew there was something hiding inside of him,” Susannah said.
“And the fork?” Wolfgang asked.
“Herman spent ten years singing opera in Italy.” Susannah was in a playful mood, stepping carefully over twigs that had fallen on the footpath, maneuvering in a way that reminded Wolfgang of how he used to avoid the cracks on the sidewalk on his way through Central Park as a kid. “After his girlfriend left him for a baker, he stabbed the baker with a fork, half a dozen times, claiming, get this”—she slapped Wolfgang on the shoulder—“claiming that he’d stolen his cake.”
Wolfgang raised his eyebrows. “So he is a little crazy.” Wolfgang pictured the fork in Herman’s tight grip, the same fork he’d taken with him back into Room 502. “Hopefully he doesn’t use it on Benson.”
“If he wanted to hurt Benson, he could have done it long ago,” she said.
Wolfgang watched her hop on one foot over a fallen tree branch, balance herself for a second, and then hop to the other foot. It was her childlike nature that he loved about her. “That was a beautiful thing you did tonight. For Herman.”
“It was long overdue,” she said.
Wolfgang reached down and gripped her right hand as they walked. She looked at him with surprise. Wolfgang averted his gaze and stared straight ahead, expecting her at any moment to move her hand away from his grip, but she didn’t. She even swung her arm slightly, which was enough of a reaction to give Wolfgang the confidence to not let go and run into the woods from embarrassment.
“This is long overdue as well,” he said.
Soon, as they approached Susannah’s dormitory, she removed her hand. She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek, pressing just above the hair over his beard.
Wolfgang ran his fingers over his chin. “I was wondering if I should shave my beard.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Well…I don’t know…”
“I happen to like your beard.” Susannah giggled. “Good night…Father.”
***
Wolfgang’s sleep was restless.
He heard the gravel beneath his feet before he saw it, and then the driveway opened up to him. And beyond the upward bend around the apple trees, their old home was visible. The anticipation of seeing her face forced him to move faster. The intoxication of the moment still held the same feeling of giddiness he’d had the first day he’d met her outside the steps of the Cathedral of the Assumption. Nearly four years of marriage had not dampened his love for her, but what quickened his pace up the driveway was something more akin to lust. He’d spent all day at the medical school, splitting time between the smells of the lab and the even worse smells of the dissecting room with Professor Philpot. His arrival at home was the m
oment that fueled him throughout the day.
He hoped the sound of their Model T pulling onto the gravel driveway didn’t alert her to his early arrival. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and she wasn’t expecting him until five. The professors had let all of the students out early. The toes of his right boot scraped narrow grooves in the rocks as he dragged it along. He wasn’t ashamed of it any longer. It was the deformity and the limp that had first drawn Rose’s attention years ago. With that limp she’d seen character, a story that needed to be told. He moved with a uniqueness to his hurried gait that Rose had come to call his gallop. So Wolfgang galloped along the driveway, creating tiny dust clouds in his wake. Pink buds had bloomed on the dogwood trees that lined the front of their brick Portland neighborhood house. The azaleas were in bloom, flowering in purple and red alongside the house near the shaded porch.
He hoped she didn’t suddenly open the door to find him. It made his day to surprise her. On the other side of the porch was a rose garden. Wolfgang squatted down and perused them all, rows of roses in various stages of growth. He spotted the perfect rose and plucked the stem low to the ground, snapping it carefully, avoiding the thorns. Today’s rose. Tomorrow he would choose another. He knew it was childish, but it was a ritual he did not want to get rid of. He snuck in the back door, quietly sliding inside the screen, and spotted her from the laundry room. Rose was in a chair in the kitchen with her back to him, reading. Wolfgang tiptoed across the linoleum floor, where sunlight abounded and purple flowers and green vines bordered yellow wallpaper. Rose’s hair had grown out since the first day they’d met. Now it was curly and pulled back in a ponytail that shielded most of her ivory neck. Her dark hair had a red bow in it. He felt sure she’d heard him coming, but her heart was too big to turn around and spoil it for him.
And then suddenly she closed the book and stood in her yellow summer dress that swayed around her knees. She turned toward him.
“A rose for a Rose,” said Wolfgang, as he had so many times before.
And she smiled as usual, but her eyes seemed tired. She smiled as if she were happy. So why was she crying?
***
Wolfgang awoke with a start and sat up in bed. She had seemed so real that the smell of her still lingered inside his cottage. Sleet pinged off his rooftop and tapped against his windows. He faced the right side of his bed. He pictured Rose beside him, the fingers of her hand spread out against the curve of her hip, looking into his eyes as she had on so many nights.
Then he imagined the touch of Susannah’s lips on his cheek.
His eyes caught a glimpse of the crucifix hanging on the wall. He turned away and forced his eyes closed.
All night he felt Him watching.
Chapter 26
Wolfgang squatted in the frosted grass behind his cottage, perusing the rose garden. The cold January air slid unabated into February, a month when temperatures were often sporadic throughout the Ohio Valley. Slivers of ice hung from the tree branches and glistened under the clear night sky. Sleet and snow turned the blades of grass to silvery daggers, except around the rose garden, where the precipitation had melted under Lincoln’s heat lamps.
Wolfgang thought of Herman as he searched for the perfect rose. At first, Herman’s addition to the choir had a negative effect on the other singers. The children knew him only as the crazy cake man from the rooftop, but it took them only one rehearsal to warm up to this new Herman, who smiled more, talked less, and combed his hair. The adults, on the other hand, were intimidated by him and didn’t sing as loud in his presence, as if they were afraid they’d be inferior. For three days, rehearsals dragged on with Herman the only one fully invested, standing a good ten feet away from the rest of the choir with the fork in his right hand. Wolfgang watched their eyes and how they’d watch Herman sing, wondering if the addition was actually hurting the choir. Herman had yet to utter a word to anyone except Susannah, and the concert was less than two weeks away.
Then, on day four, Herman surprised them all. In the middle of a Vivaldi piece, he held up his arms, waving, his fork nearly scraping the solarium’s ceiling. Wolfgang halted the choir and musicians. Herman faced them with a huge smile on his cleanly shaved face. “You can do this.” His eyes darted from person to person. “You can do this. I’m better than all of you, but you can do this. We can do this.” He ruffled Abel’s hair, which sparked nervous grins from the rest of the kids. He opened his arms to a young woman named Clarice in the second row. She looked ready to turn and run, but he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her slender figure, nearly squashing her with a bear hug. The children laughed.
“What shit is this?” McVain said under his breath from the piano. Josef lowered his violin and watched as Herman moved to the next lady. He hugged her as well. “You can do this,” he said with authority, clutching her by the shoulders.
Wolfgang, amused, but surprisingly not worried, watched Herman hug all thirty members of the choir. He reached two of the men near the end and took them both into his embrace. With each hug the choir’s uneasiness seemed to lessen. Their insecurity became less with every embrace. By the end, the children were laughing, Susannah along with them. Herman’s strange emergence into the group had galvanized them, and he returned to his spot, stood straight again, gripped the fork, and looked ready to sing.
Remembering this, Wolfgang laughed out loud as he clipped a rose. This one would be perfect.
Footsteps drew Wolfgang’s attention back to the cottage. “Who’s there?”
Lincoln stepped out of the shadows, breathing heavily, his cheeks red from running. “Wolf—”
“What is it?”
“McVain. He’s missing.”
***
Wolfgang, Big Fifteen, and Lincoln took flashlights down the body chute, and the deeper they penetrated the seemingly endless tunnel, the more claustrophobic Wolfgang became, to the point where, near the end of the chute, he was scaling the cold walls in fear of doubling over. He’d been inside the chute many times before, but never in a panic, unless he counted the near run-in with the policeman on horseback on the night they’d snuck the piano into the sanatorium. But that had been exhilarating in comparison.
McVain was not the only patient missing. Josef and Rufus were gone as well.
“McVain said nothing to you?” Wolfgang had asked Lincoln as they rushed from the rose garden up to the main building. “Anything that sounded suspicious?”
Lincoln thought for a second. “I ate lunch with McVain today out by the piano. He talked about the Seelbach Hotel. Said he used to play the piano there before he got sick.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“Also said he was there with Capone a few times.”
“But why go there now?”
“Maybe they wanted a night out on the town before—”
“Before what?”
“Before they die.”
These were not the first patients to escape Waverly Hills. It had happened before. Three years earlier, four old ladies had snuck out and walked down Dixie Highway to drink Cokes. They were kicked out upon their return, deemed healthy enough to leave if they were healthy enough to escape. Three of the ladies ended up coming back. The fourth one survived. But Wolfgang knew that none of the three men missing now were healthy enough to leave, especially McVain, who seemed to be growing weaker and thinner by the day.
When Wolfgang hit the fresh air at the bottom of the chute, he let out an enormous gush of breath, not realizing how long he’d been holding it in. His lungs ached. He felt as if he’d just had one of his nightmares.
Big Fifteen placed his hand on Wolfgang’s back. “You okay, Boss?”
“I’ll be fine.” Wolfgang stood straight in the grass, where train tracks crossed their path. Three distinct piles of clothes had been left at the chute’s entrance. Josef and McVain had tossed their attire in heaps while Rufus had folded his, neatly
placing them next to the beginning of the chute. Three sets of footprints marked the icy grass along the railroad tracks. “What are they wearing now, I wonder.”
Lincoln and Big Fifteen shrugged.
They weren’t supposed to be leaving the hillside, but if Dr. Barker found out that three of his highly infectious patients had escaped the grounds entirely, he’d have an aneurysm. He’d cancel the concert.
Wolfgang started up the slippery slope toward the tracks, and then Lincoln led the way as they jogged toward Dixie Highway. “My uncle’s house is only two blocks away. He’s the one I get the booze from. He’s got a brand-new Cadillac I’m sure he’ll let us borrow.”
To Wolfgang’s amazement, Lincoln’s uncle Frank—a short, stocky man in an expensive three-piece suit, fancy brown shoes, and with a head of dark hair slicked back with what appeared to be an entire can of grease—didn’t even hesitate when Lincoln asked to borrow the car.
“Be my guest.” He patted Lincoln on the shoulder. “Have yourself a ball. You and your buddies.” He suspiciously eyed Wolfgang’s cassock and instead took a step toward Big Fifteen and offered his hand. “You’re one big son of a bitch.”
Big Fifteen shook his hand. “Reckon I am.”
“I’m Frank.” He lit a cigar and looked Big Fifteen up and down. “I could probably use you sometime. Would you like that? Little extra dough for the pockets, hey? Perhaps some women.” He slipped a second cigar into Big Fifteen’s breast pocket and then turned quickly toward Lincoln. “Have the car back by morning. Got to drive to Cincinnati.” He winked. “Important meeting.”
***
Lincoln turned into a madman behind the wheel of his uncle’s expensive car, speeding in and out of traffic despite the snowy roads. Big Fifteen laughed in the backseat. Wolfgang’s beef-and-rice dinner was about to come back up and ruin Uncle Frank’s interior. Lincoln glanced over toward him. “You okay?”
“Maybe you should slow down a bit.” Wolfgang cracked the window about an inch, and the cool air made him feel better. “You know where you’re going?”
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