Lethal Remedies

by M. Louisa Locke

Richard Truscott practically preened himself under the attention, stroking his mustache and glancing quickly to see who in the restaurant might have noticed his presence. This fit the description of the man that Mr. Stein had given Annie—that he was an amiable young man who enjoyed fine dining, the theatre, and a spot of betting on the horses and who thought a good deal of himself. Mr. Stein, who was very proud of the business acumen of his own sons and sons-in-law, clearly didn’t think much of him. He was especially dismissive of a man who lived on his wife’s income. Nate felt much the same way, but he needed to appear sympathetic to Richard Truscott if he wanted to make any headway with him.

  Consequently, Nate kept the talk to pleasantries through the opening round of ordering and eating the first course. Truscott was about four years younger than he was, but he’d gone to Boy’s High, as Nate had, so they shared memories of certain teachers and discovered they had a few acquaintances in common.

  Once the main course arrived, Nate’s opening gambit was to remind Truscott that he was meeting with him because his wife, Annie, was the accountant the Pacific Dispensary had hired to audit their books. He added that she had mentioned her concern that there was an outstanding bill for the care of Truscott’s wife. He made it sound like she had turned to him for advice and he had volunteered to look into it, sure that there was some misunderstanding.

  Before Truscott could respond, Nate said, “Now, Richard, I know that sometimes we gentlemen get a bit ahead of ourselves in terms of keeping on top of paying our tailors or our wine bills, so there is nothing to be upset about. But I…”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Truscott burst out. “It’s not that I don’t have the funds to pay the bill. It’s that I won’t pay for bad work. What my old man always said was, ‘Pay top dollar and you’ll get top work, but let someone get away with shoddy work and you will be seen as a pigeon to pluck by every confidence man in town.’”

  Nate wondered if Truscott wasn’t protesting just a little too much about it not being a question of money. And he had a little trouble accepting the idea that this man was comparing the health of his wife to something like badly constructed furniture. But he decided to pretend he accepted the man at his word and switched quickly to focusing on the health of his wife.

  “So you feel that the dispensary didn’t provide good medical care for your wife? How is she doing?”

  “She’s quite ill. That’s how she is doing,” Truscott snapped, his voice rising.

  “Oh dear, so the operation wasn’t successful?” Nate said, pointedly keeping his voice quiet.

  Truscott took a deep breath while surreptitiously looking to see if his bad manners had been noticed. Then he said, “I’m sorry, but I’m that worried about my Phoebe. That female doctor, Brown, said they had solved the problem, although it took nearly a month for them to decide she was well enough to release her from their care. And I can tell you that care was expensive. I only agreed to have it done at the dispensary rather than at one of the larger hospitals because Dr. Granger assured me she would get more personal treatment in a smaller facility with professionally trained nurses. At the time, she did seem healthier than she had been in a long time.”

  “So you felt she got good care after the operation?”

  “Yes, yes. The nurses and that young doctor Blair were quite nice; I just don’t know that I couldn’t have gotten the same care for her at a much lower cost if I had brought her home and hired a nurse.”

  “And you are saying you saw an improvement in your wife’s health? I mean from before the operation?”

  “Yes, I did. Frankly, we were both delighted. She had been in such a bad way before the operation, any change was an improvement. She came home from the dispensary in time for Christmas, and she was her old self again. Maybe not as strong, but in good spirits. Phoebe’s smile can light up a room. She was really looking forward to the holidays. We took a carriage ride to see the store fronts, trimmed the tree, had a few select friends in for a dinner party. Everyone said how good she looked. We even went to a few New Year’s Day festivities. She didn’t feel up to hosting our own ‘at home,’ but she was already talking about next year and how she’d be completely recovered by then. But then…”

  “Then what?”

  “Then a week later, she had this spell…couldn’t keep any food down. That worried me. You see, before her operation, this was her pattern. Right after one of the procedures, they called them expressions or something, she always felt better. But sure enough, after a month or two, my wife would start to feel bad again. I thought we were going down the same path. Phoebe had me send for Dr. Granger right away, but the old fool didn’t even respond.”

  Nate thought this very odd. Surely Dr. Granger would have come or had someone like Dr. Brown check on Mrs. Phoebe? Annie would definitely want to look into this.

  What he said was, “This Dr. Granger, why did your wife want him, not one of the doctors from the Pacific Dispensary?”

  “Oh, Granger is part of the dispensary. Some sort of consulting doctor. A nice little racket they all have. Granger finds a patient like my wife and convinces her that the only way she can feel better is to go under the knife. Then he sends her to the dispensary. They charge an outrageous price, and he gets a kickback…excuse me…a fee…for standing around the operating room. Probably gets money simply for the referral. Dr. Skerry, the doctor we now use, explained it to me. Said this happens all the time and that the papers would be interested to learn that Pacific Dispensary was up to this sort of trick.”

  “Dr. Skerry?” Nate took a bite of his steak, thinking that this pretty much confirmed Annie’s concern that it was this Skerry who was poisoning the Truscotts against the dispensary.

  “Skerry’s my aunt’s doctor. Been with her for years. When Granger didn’t show, my aunt Ruby, who loves my Phoebe like she was her own daughter, called Skerry in. Within a day, the vomiting stopped, and Phoebe got a little better.”

  “Did this Dr. Skerry say what was wrong with your wife?”

  “Something about the operation weakening her digestive system and disordering her nerves. Said the whole operation was completely unnecessary, that she’d cured scores of women with the same sort of problem. With these different homeopathic medicines she’s prescribed. ”

  “So she’s not a regular doctor?”

  “No, that’s not true! Aunt Ruby assured me Dr. Skerry is certified by the state to practice medicine. She prescribes all sorts of drops, some in the morning and evening, some every two hours, a couple once a day. Can’t keep them all straight. Must be fifteen bottles on the chest of drawers. We get them from a pharmacy, specializes in that sort of thing. But my aunt’s been taking this stuff ever since I can remember, swears by it. Let me tell you, I must’ve swallowed a gallon of her special drops throughout my childhood, and I’m as healthy as a horse.”

  “Your aunt raised you?”

  “Yes, my mother died at my birth. Aunt Ruby moved in, raised me. Came with us when Father moved to California to make his fortune in the wheat trade. Part owner of the Rogers, Meyers, and Truscott company. Then when my father died, she kept house for me in Oakland so I could go to the university at Berkeley, as I always had wanted to do. That was before the Zeta Phis had their fraternity house and my place became the unofficial club house. I can tell you, my fraternity brothers just adored Aunt Ruby.”

  “And you say that this medicine helped your wife? But then why did you say she was still ill?” Nate asked.

  “Keeps having these spells. Aunt Ruby says that the damage they did to my Phoebe is going to take a lot of work to undo. I need to be patient. Hard to be patient when my wife is feeling so dispirited, and I feel helpless. You’ve got a wife. How’d you feel if you had to watch her struggle even to get out of bed? I think the worst of it was the fact that the damn doctors at the dispensary raised her hopes so.”

  Nate said, “I still don’t understand why you’re so sure that these spells are connected to her earlier problem or t
he operation itself?”

  “Because all I had to do was hint that I might be thinking about suing, and before you know it, that Dr. Granger finally came. Had the effrontery to say he wanted to see my Phoebe. Then that Dr. Blair shows up on Sunday. I can tell you, I put a stop to that. My wife is too tender-hearted for her own good.”

  Nate nodded in what he hoped looked like an understanding fashion. He said, “I can see you’re really upset. However, I’ve had a look at the document you and your wife signed that laid out the risks of the operation, and based on that document, you don’t have any legal standing to withhold payment. I would advise you to have a regular doctor, not a homeopath, someone who has no association with your family or the Pacific Dispensary, examine your wife. If they concluded that her current illness is the result of the surgery but wasn’t part of the regular risks detailed in that document, then you might be on stronger legal grounds.”

  Truscott frowned. “And why would you be giving me this advice? What’s in it for you or your wife? You did say she was working for the dispensary?”

  Nate was surprised it had taken the young man so long to question his motives. Stein was right; he didn’t seem to be all that clever. He was probably being duped by anyone who wanted to sell him a shiny new investment, but in this case, it very well could be his wife’s health that he would end up losing, not some money.

  Nate leaned forward and said with real sincerity, “Nothing in it for me, personally, beyond wanting to let my wife know if her audit needs to report that you have failed in your legal obligation to pay your bill. But I do want you to think about what that means. You may have every reason to be upset with the dispensary. I don’t have the medical expertise to make any judgement on that. Nevertheless, I do know that rumors that a man can’t pay his financial obligations can be difficult to refute. And honestly, given the document you signed, I doubt very much if you would win if you did take the issue to court. A failed court case could add substance to any rumors about your financial status. That’s why I thought you might want a second, unbiased opinion on what is causing your wife’s illness before you go down that road.”

  Truscott glowered and said, “Well, if someone’s reputation is the issue, Mr. Dawson, I think that the doctors associated with the Pacific Dispensary have a lot more reason to worry than I do.”

  Chapter 19

  Wednesday evening, March 1, 1882

  O’Farrell Street Boardinghouse

  * * *

  In the boardinghouse kitchen, Annie sat in the rocking chair with Abigail resting on her shoulder while her sister-in-law Laura ate her dinner. Weekdays, Laura went to the university at Berkeley during the mornings then took the train and ferry back over to San Francisco in the afternoons so she could put in four or five hours working for the Women’s Printing Cooperative as a typesetter. This meant that she seldom made it home to the boardinghouse in time for the regular meal, usually eating left-overs in the kitchen when she got home.

  Laura always said that Beatrice O’Rourke was such an excellent cook that even a warmed-over meal beat eating in a fancy Market Street restaurant.

  Today, between spoonfuls of split pea soup, she recounted what she had learned that afternoon from the copies of Dr. Skerry’s medical journal she’d discovered.

  “How did you find back copies so quickly?” Annie said.

  “My forewoman, Iris, found them for me. Turns out that one of her friends works for a small press that publishes the paper. So I stopped by before work to look at their back archive. Even got them to let me bring a stack of them home, as long as I promised to return them.”

  Kathleen, who was washing pots and pans, turned around and said, “This Dr. Skerry is also a publisher? Isn’t that odd?”

  Annie said, “That’s what I thought. But on Monday, when I told Dr. Blair that Mitchell had mentioned Skerry putting out a newspaper, she said this wasn’t all that unusual, although usually the papers—or they call them journals—are subsidized by institutions like the California Medical Society. Dr. Granger and his son are actually the editors of one of these journals. Ella Blair said these publications are the way for doctors to tell other doctors what they have discovered in their practice, a kind of continuing education.”

  Laura put down her spoon and said, “Well, as far as I could tell, Dr. Skerry isn’t editing other doctors’ work…she seems to have written all the articles herself.”

  “And you got some copies to look at?”

  “Yes, I did.” Laura pulled out a stack of slim volumes from the leather satchel that was at her feet. “I read through a couple of them on my tea break. Dr. Skerry is a woman who does not mince words and is very addicted to putting things in all caps with multiple exclamation points.”

  Annie itched to get her hands on the volumes, but she would have to wait until Abigail went to sleep so she could put her down in the nursery for the night. She said, “Did you see anything about Dr. Granger?”

  “Not yet. But do you remember how Nate said, when he got home from dinner with Mr. Truscott, that it sounded like it was Skerry who had convinced him that the Pacific Dispensary was somehow defrauding patients?”

  “Yes, I do. According to Nate, Truscott hinted that he might go to the papers with the story, which would be disastrous for the dispensary’s reputation.”

  “Well, this Dr. Imogene Skerry certainly has a thing for accusing charities of wrong-doing. In one article, she went on and one about the Methodist’s Chinese Domestic Mission. How they were just encouraging prostitution among the ‘dirty heathens.’ Isn’t that the refuge that comes to you for investment advice, the one you said was doing such good work?”

  “Oh my, what a despicable thing to write,” Annie said. This particular charity rescued young Chinese women, who were often no more than children and had been forced into indentured servitude and prostitution in order to survive. She was furious to think that Dr. Skerry would attack this mission, but it made it all the more probable that she was capable of urging Richard Truscott to do something that would damage the dispensary’s reputation.

  Laura continued, saying, “There was another charity that she mentioned, the Benevolent Association. Skerry referenced a series of articles in the Chronicle that accused a Dr. Allen of using his position heading up that charity to support a young woman as his mistress. In addition, at least according to Skerry, the Chronicle reported that when this young woman became pregnant, this Dr. Allen encouraged her to get an abortion.”

  Annie’s heart constricted, remembering the language Richard Truscott had used in his last letter, saying something about suing the doctors for malpractice. Maybe he really had meant to suggest that the dispensary helped women terminate their pregnancies.

  Oh, this Dr. Skerry was dangerous. And they needed to find out more about her if they were going to be able to counter her influence with the Truscotts. Annie hated to admit it, but Richard Truscott was probably correct. If his wife was indeed rich and he controlled her property, he could likely survive a loss in reputation, whereas the Pacific Dispensary could not.

  Chapter 20

  Wednesday evening, March 1, 1882

  Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children

  * * *

  It was dinner time, and Ella Blair was both famished and exhausted. Mrs. Jenkins had finally gone into labor last night around eleven, just as Ella had climbed into bed. Dr. Granger had wanted the woman at the dispensary for her labor because the baby had been presenting as a possible breech birth. Fortunately, Ella had been able to get the baby turned, and the rest of the birthing process went smoothly from that point on. The healthy baby boy arrived a little after seven this morning. However, this meant she’d lost a whole night’s sleep and barely had time to gobble down a piece of toast for breakfast before meeting her first dispensary patient. There hadn’t been a single minute all morning to even have a cup of tea.

  A couple of the dispensary cases had been quite complicated and would require follow-up. This, in turn,
made it imperative that she write up the case notes as quickly as possible so she didn’t lose any of the details. As a result, for lunch she had grabbed a couple of rolls and some hard cheese from the kitchen and went right up to her attic room to work, hoping to be uninterrupted. She hadn’t even been able to finish this task when the bell from the first floor rang and Mrs. McClellan met her as she came down from the attic to say that one of the young children had started to convulse. Ella had seen the boy this morning in the dispensary and had convinced the mother to let her admit him to the hospital because he had been feverish for days.

  Ella sped to the nursery, directing one of the nurses to soak a sheet with cool water and the other one to go to the medicine cabinet to get some extract of willow bark, which she administered in a very tiny dose in water. During the next few hours, they worked to bring the fever down while ensuring the child didn’t harm himself by keeping a soft piece of rubber handy to pop in his mouth if he had any more convulsions. His temperature was now down to 100.3, heading in the right direction, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet. His mother, who worked nights, wouldn’t be able to stay with him, so it was going to be an anxious time for the two night nurses, who would take turns sitting and holding him. Mrs. McClellan said that, in her experience, if the child survived past midnight without expiring, they might begin to breathe easier. That was if they could keep the fever down.

  Whatever would she do without Mrs. McClellan’s calming influence?

  There had been two deaths at the dispensary in the nine months that Ella had been the resident physician. She knew this was actually not a high mortality rate, given that they specialized in taking pregnant women who, for a variety of reasons, were facing difficult deliveries or children whose problems were serious enough that they couldn’t be taken care of by their families at home.