Mortal Remains Page 14

  The light changed, and he started across, huddled in his raincoat as wind and drizzle gusted up Thirty-third from the East River.

  The cement-and-glass structure where he’d been forged into a doctor loomed over him, its upper stories lost in fog. For an instant it reclaimed the hold it used to exert on his nerve, jacking up his heartbeat and giving the acid in his stomach a stir before it just as quickly became simply another hospital, no different from the hundreds he’d visited in various official capacities throughout his long career.

  Still, when the sliding doors opened to receive him, and hospital smells assaulted his nose, he felt caught in the crosscurrents of then and now.

  Security was as meticulous as in his own St. Paul’s, the officers checking photo ID, scanning him down for metal, even having him remove his shoes. “No stinky feet,” he murmured, smiling to himself and missing Janet after his night alone in the hotel.

  His grin must have made him look suspicious because a frowning guard gave him another extra thorough once-over with his wand before sending him through. But they did have his visitor’s badge waiting. Mark had obviously been on the job as far as greasing the administrative wheels.

  He set out for medical records, pushing through the rush of white-coated students, interns, and residents, all scurrying after the flapping white coats of their appointed staff person and engaged in the constant banter of questions and answers that had been the method of choice for teaching medicine since the days of Socrates.

  “What’s the differential of a solitary swollen red joint?” demanded an elegant gray-haired woman leading her pack into the outpatient’s department.

  “Traumatic, inflammatory, septic,” a blond young man with the shortest clinical jacket in the group snapped back at her.

  “Very good. Now what’s the most likely diagnosis in the inflammatory category?”

  “Which joint?” demanded a woman with red hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  The staff woman’s eyes arched in a show of approval. “Good question. The case we’re about to see involves a knee.”

  “Gout,” the redhead said without hesitation.

  The group disappeared through a swinging door.

  Earl passed a treatment room off ER where another youthful trainee, this one masked and gloved, frowned mightily as he wielded a suture and hemostat over a child’s lacerated cheek. Pulling the knotted thread tight, he reached for scissors on a sterile tray, fumbled them, and they fell to the floor. Glancing around, he quickly retrieved them and brought them back into his sterile field.

  It’s not my turf, Earl tried to tell himself, then thought, What the bloody hell! “Excuse me,” he said, sticking his head in the door before contaminated steel touched flesh. “Get a new set and change your gloves!”

  The young man went crimson behind the white mask, even his ears turning scarlet. “Yes, sir!” he said.

  Earl watched him comply, then added, “You pull that again in this lifetime, I’ll personally bounce you from the program.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned back into the corridor, but not so quickly that he missed the who-was-that-mean-ass frown appear on the would-be doctor’s brow.

  Memory led him the rest of the way through the labyrinth of elevators, stairwells, and hallways to the lower levels where, in the bottom layer, like a sediment of secrets, a low-ceilinged subbasement the size of a city block held a half century’s worth of clinical files.

  “A tomb,” Kelly had once called it, striking a dramatic pose, “where the fates of a million souls are stored.”

  The place gave him the creeps. There had been perks, however, to their working down here on chart audits, usually at night and often alone. Earl smiled, recalling how they had sometimes put the maze created by rows and rows of shelves loaded with charts to good use, quietly engaging in a few secrets of their own.

  A plump, gray-haired receptionist greeted him at the front desk. “Ah yes, Dr. Garnet, Dr. Roper had us prepare what you have clearance to review.” Bifocals dangled from around her neck on a gold chain and a pin depicting Snoopy holding a paw to his mouth, the bubble caption reading SHHH!, decorated her collar. “Here is the woman’s chart; it’s still active. As you’ll see, she’s had a ton of visits over the years, and is now a patient in our geriatric wing. Been here three months. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to talk with her. She had another stroke thirteen days ago.”

  “A stroke?”

  “Bessie McDonald’s her name. Tragically she’s in a coma. We got permission from her family for you to look at her charts, provided you promise to inform them what it’s all about, especially if you find anything. I’ve attached her son’s phone number to the front cover. He lives in California.”

  A coma. Terrific! “Certainly I’ll notify them-”

  “When I called, both he and his wife were overcome with curiosity about why you’d be interested in her case.”

  “Well, thank you for your trouble-”

  “Oh, no trouble at all. When our CEO tells me to do what I can in helping out a coroner, I don’t spare any effort.” She popped her glasses onto the tip of her nose, looked at him over the top of the frames, and gave him a knowing wink. “Especially when it has to do with a twenty-seven-year-old murder case.”

  Jesus, so much for keeping his purpose here confidential. “Look, I don’t know who you heard that from-”

  “Oh, come now, Dr. Garnet, I can put two and two together. Dr. Roper’s the coroner investigating Kelly McShane’s death, and the attending physician for the specific admission you wanted to check was Dr. Chaz Braden. What else could it be about, though I can’t imagine what the link might be…” She trailed off, clearly hoping he’d fill her in on the details.

  “You don’t tell that to anyone else, understand?” Earl said instead, astounded someone so chatty could be chief guardian in an area bound by law to be a hub of confidentiality.

  Her eyes opened wide with astonishment. “That’s the last thing you need to worry about.” She spoke with the you-can-trust-me sincerity of someone who actually believed her own lies. “Now as for the deceased man, his chart is in the microfilm library. It’s at the far end of the main hall-”

  “I know. I did my training here and can find it okay.”

  She grinned at him. “Of course. But you don’t remember me, do you?” She held out her hand. “Lena Downie. I was a clerk back then. Now I run the joint.” She gestured behind her where the administrative offices were. One of the doors had her name on it “You were one of the bright lights around here. And you’ve done well. I’ve read in the papers about your exploits.”

  Earl felt his cheeks grow warm as he took her plump fingers in his palm and gently gave them a shake. “Thank you. But I’m sorry I don’t recall-”

  “Don’t think anything of it. I was a skinny young woman back then. I’m a grandma now. So what’s the connection between these cases and Kelly’s murder?”

  “Dr. Roper asked me to help out on a matter, and I’m not at liberty to discuss it.” Polite words, but his tone said, “None of your business!”

  “I remember Dr. Roper, too,” she said, her armor not even dented by his reproach, “though he was here much more recently. A fine young physician. I also met his father once. He was a real gentleman as well.”

  “Really,” Earl said, wondering what it would take to shut her up. He picked up the chart, all four volumes of it, each three inches thick – War and Peace looked slim by comparison – and carried them to a nearby desk.

  “Yes. It was around the time you were a student here. I remember because I’d only been on the job a few months and got in trouble because I gave him a couple of charts to look at. He’d showed me his identification, and I thought it sufficient, his being a doctor and a coroner, without realizing he wasn’t on staff here. I nearly got fired over it. He was super though. Took all the blame – said that he hadn’t thought to go through channels and should have known better. Saved my skin, I tell you.”

  Ear
l came to a standstill. “You remember what year that was?”

  “Of course. Summer of nineteen seventy-four, when I first started. That was also the time when Kelly Braden disappeared. Was Dr. Roper Senior investigating that case, too?”

  “Too?”

  “Boy, that was some story back then, with all the speculation going on about what had happened to her, pointing fingers at Dr. Chaz Braden. I began to think this hospital was like Peyton Place. Wouldn’t have worked anywhere else. So come on, tell me. What have these two charts to do with Kelly?”

  God, there was no stopping her. He figured any chance of keeping a low profile among anyone else within earshot had just died as well. But there might be an upside to this woman’s appetite for other people’s business. “You’ve got quite a memory, Lena.”

  “People think working in records must be the dullest thing. Hey!” She gestured to the rest of the building stacked above them and leaned toward him. “Everything of importance that happens in this Casablanca comes through my domain.” She’d finally lowered her voice.

  He took a look around. As far as he could see they were alone. At least he’d caught a break in that regard. But the stacks ran deep, and any number of people could be back in there. “I bet you don’t miss much either,” he whispered, still not willing to risk being overheard and hoping she’d take the cue.

  She gave him a wink. “You got that right.” She’d dropped to a register suitable for a conspiracy.

  “Maybe you could help me.”

  She grinned. “Maybe.”

  “I know it was a lot of years ago, but do you remember when exactly Dr. Roper’s father came here looking for the charts he was after that summer?”

  Her smile lit up the entire basement. Obviously she enjoyed the intrigue. “How could I forget when it almost cost me my job? Toward the end of August, about two weeks after Kelly disappeared.” A look of astonishment swept over her face. “My gosh, had he discovered something?”

  Earl ignored the question. “Any way you could find out what charts you gave him?”

  Her expression faded, and she sadly shook her head. “Sorry. I never really looked at them.”

  That would have been a bit of a long shot, he admitted. Nevertheless, the rest of story intrigued him.

  He began to repeat his insistence that she not mention what they’d talked about to anyone when she squinted into the air as if trying to make out something not readily visible. “Wait a minute,” she said. “I do recall an interesting detail about those files. Never would never have remembered it if you hadn’t got me thinking. He asked for the charts the same way young Dr. Roper did this morning. Didn’t have the names, only the numbers. And something else similar. I remember having to fish one of them out of the DECEASED section back then, exactly like now.” She tapped her temple and gave him a knowing wink. “One alive. One already dead. Makes you wonder if I haven’t just given you those same two files, doesn’t it?”

  He found a table off in a corner, opened the first volume, and began to read. The jumble of pipes running overhead groaned and clanked, exactly the way they had a quarter century ago, and the air ducts filled his ears with a rushing noise, making them seem plugged with water. He shivered, feeling as cut off and claustrophobic as when he’d been a student.

  A particularly forlorn moan raced through the plumbing and traveled the length of the room.

  Like an angry spirit, Earl thought.

  That same day, 3:50 P.M.

  Twenty Miles North of

  Hampton Junction

  “A woman having to give up her baby, now that’s a misery of the worst kind,” Nell said, grimacing as if she’d just tasted something sour. The lines ringing her face deepened into a map of disgust. “All those girls up there, shamed into hiding, simply because they fell in love with the wrong man at the wrong time.”

  “Did you know anybody who worked there?” Mark asked.

  “Nobody who’s still alive. The heyday of the place was in the fifties, before the pill. You’d be surprised at the number of women who had to find so-called homes like that, or worse, deal with some butcher in a back room with a pair of knitting needles. Thank God the kids in the sixties freed sex from the prudes.”

  He knew from experience that to get anything from Nell, he had to first let her ramble about whatever was on her mind – her way of downloading mentally to make room for whatever he had on his mind. As she talked, he idly gazed around the interior of her living room. The log walls were aged a deep brown, but she’d kept them polished to a rich luster with wood oils. Small windows, a necessity to keep out the cold in the era before thermal glass, prevented what little afternoon light remained from making its way inside. Yet the place wasn’t gloomy. A fire in the stone hearth at their feet provided its own special illumination, and oil lamps – tall, elegant, and bright enough to read by – filled the house with a golden glow. Not that the cabin didn’t have electricity. Her son put in recessed lighting along with baseboard heaters decades ago, yet she favored the softness of flame.

  To his left a partially drawn curtain hung over the entrance to an adjacent room, where a brass bed covered with a handmade quilt – any antique dealer would kill for it – filled most of the space. Photos of her children and grandchildren adorned the walls. She’d positioned them so they kept watch on her while she slept. Off to one side a small extension housed a modest bathroom with an old-fashioned steel tub.

  At his right a doorway opened into an equally tiny kitchen dominated by a magnificent woodstove. On it she’d prepared meals for her two children during the years she raised them alone, her husband having been killed in the Battle of the Bulge during the final months of World War II. Even now she preferred its steady heat for baking to the gas range that her daughter had had installed so she needn’t haul wood anymore.

  That someone so old should live in such isolation appalled a lot of people in town, including the county social worker. Yet her son and daughter, each living on an opposite corner of the country, never pressured Nell to put herself in a home, and Mark supported the decision. He also certified her fit to drive the Subaru station wagon parked outside, provided she passed a road test in Saratoga each year. Geriatric wards, he thought. However much they dressed them up with balloons, sing-alongs, and bingo, they were death row, and definitely not for her. One day somebody would find her lying where she fell, and he’d make a final house call. Better that than sentencing her to die a day at time. It was the kind of judgment call that kept physicians second-guessing themselves, and every snowstorm he worried about her falling or lying helpless somewhere, unable to use the panic button she wore around her neck.

  “… back then, if you loved the wrong man at the wrong time, you were treated worse than a murderer.” She ended with a cackle that might have split stone.

  “When I phoned to invite myself for a chat today, Nell, you said you could tell me secrets about that home for unwed mothers.”

  “Supposing I did. Maybe I just said that to lure you here because I like your visits. Have some more tea.” Before he could decline, she’d refilled his cup to the brim with tea she’d made from leaves, not a bag. “And a scone,” she added, waving a platter of them fresh out of the oven under his nose. “Remember what I said about being good in the kitchen?”

  He grinned, and took one. “Umm… that’s scrumptious.” He was swallowing as he spoke. “You must have been something in the bedroom, Nell,” he added, figuring he could indulge her raunchy sense of humor for once.

  She smiled, and for a second there flashed as youthful a sparkle as he’d ever seen in her eyes. “My husband and I were very much in love, Mark,” she said in all earnestness. “Like your mom and dad. They had that special thing, too.” She sat erect, proud, like a queen on a throne, secure where she’d reigned supreme as a mother and wife.

  Any doubts Mark had about letting her stay here until the end of her days vanished in that instant, at least until the next big snowstorm.

 
An easy silence fell between them. He took it as permission to get on with his questions. “So tell me, Nell, did you ever hear anybody who worked in the home hint at shady stuff going on?”

  “You mean illegal? No, not that I can think of.”

  “Then what secrets did you mean?”

  “The local love nests, who did it with whom, and which ones ended up with a love child. But I’m not telling you any names. Oh, I know some of the other dried-up old biddies around town might like talking about that stuff, having nothing better to do for sex. Not me. There’s no pleasure to be had in raking over that kind of heartache.”

  “You knew local women who had babies there?”

  She paused before answering. “I knew of a few.”

  “Did you ever talk to any of them about it? How they were treated? What it was like?”

  She grimaced. “Yeah, I talked to one. Talked to her a lot. She… she was a friend of mine.”

  “And what did your friend say?”

  “What do you think she said? It broke her heart. She felt sad and cried all the time. Was miserable.”

  “Can you tell me any specifics? What she told you they put her through?”

  Nell fixed her gaze on the fire and took a sip of tea.

  Mark had learned long ago that unlike most small-town gossips who gave as good as they got when it came to passing on juicy tidbits, she preferred to hoard her information and force others to coax it out of her, thereby increasing the value of her revelations. But the look of distaste on her face told him her reluctance to talk now was sincere. For a moment he feared she might not tell him anything at all. “Look, I don’t need to know her name. Just what she said about how the place operated.”

  Nell hadn’t appeared to hear him. Just when he’d resigned himself to not learning anything helpful, she said, “The worst moment was when they whipped the baby away without letting her see it. She didn’t even know if it was a boy or girl.”

  Mark said nothing, hoping she’d continue.

  “Afterward she spent most of her time in her room. They gave a woman a couple of weeks to recuperate back then. She could have gone outside to walk, but could hear the babies crying through the open windows in the nursery. They kept them on a separate floor, away from the mothers, of course, but they didn’t ship them off to the orphanage or hand them over to adoptive parents right away. ‘To let them stabilize,’ one of the nurses told her when she asked why. Knowing she might be listening to her own child proved too much. The crying noises began to sound like screams. Even in her own room the sound came through, but there she could at least bury her head in a pillow to keep from hearing it…”