These Honored Dead

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  “You’re thinking like a philosopher, Speed,” said Lincoln. “I don’t have that luxury as an advocate.”

  “I am not thinking like a philosopher,” I said as another jolt of anger raced through me. “I’m thinking like someone who lost a woman I cared for deeply.”

  “Of course you are,” said Lincoln more quietly.

  One of the two candles in the center of Lincoln’s worktable had burned down to a stub. Lincoln wetted his thumb and forefinger and put it out. Immediately, the room was cast into shadow.

  “It seems to me the most important point,” said Martha, “is the law recognizes this as a valid defense. You’re saying you can get the doctor acquitted with this argument.”

  “It’s a fool’s errand,” I said. “The man’s a liar—and a murderer. He deserves to hang.”

  “Let’s let the jury decide the question, Speed,” Lincoln replied. “That’s their charge after all. Though I admit this defense reminds me of a story Logan told the other day, about when he commenced his law practice in Springfield. This is years ago, when he was but an eager young lad. Logan came upon an elderly gentleman in town and he said, by way of introduction, ‘I’m from Kentucky, and a lawyer. What’s my prospect here?’

  “And the gentleman took one look at Logan and gave a discouraging shake of his head. ‘Damn slim for that combination,’ he said. ‘Damn slim.’”

  “Course, today, Logan’s the leading lawyer in town,” I said.

  Lincoln nodded.

  CHAPTER 35

  Lincoln stood tall and announced, “Your Honor, for my first witness, I call Dr. Allan Patterson.”

  As the courtroom gallery, if possible even more crowded than yesterday, clamored excitedly, Patterson arose from his seat at the counsel table and walked slowly to the witness chair. The doctor looked as if he had taken a little extra time on his appearance this morning. His thinning hair was combed back neatly, and his elaborate moustache was waxed into place. Even his surgical coat seemed less soiled than usual, although several dark splotches remained.

  The judge looked over at Prickett to see if he planned to object. The law disfavored a defendant testifying on his own behalf. But Prickett, smiling a self-contained smile, remained mute. He’s confident he can ruin him on cross examination, I thought.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” Lincoln said.

  “Morning,” Patterson managed in reply as his voice cracked. He damn well should be nervous, I thought, with what he’s about to try to pull off.

  “Tell the jury about yourself.”

  “I was born in ninety-seven on a farm near the settlement of Cincinnati, then in the Northwest Territory, now part of the state of Ohio. After grammar school, I showed an aptitude for medicine, and so I did an extended preceptorship with our neighbor, who happened to be the village doctor. That went well, so I enrolled in the Medical Department of Transylvania University, in Lexington, Kentucky. It was a brand-new medical faculty at the time, very interested in modern, innovative methods.” He looked up at Lincoln.

  “Go on,” Lincoln prompted.

  “After I’d completed the course of instruction at Transylvania, I heard about a shortage of qualified doctors in this state,” Patterson continued, looking directly at the jury, who were listening with interest. The doctor’s voice was strong now and his tone confident. He was regaining, sentence by sentence, the imperious bearing he carried before his arrest.

  “So I moved from Lexington to Illinois, first to Albion, along the Wabash River, and then to Decatur. I ministered to the people of Decatur for nearly a decade. That’s where I met my beloved wife,” he added. For the first time in his testimony, the doctor looked directly at Jane, sitting near me in the gallery, and the two of them locked eyes for a moment.

  “After my wife passed on,” Patterson continued, “I decided to move to Springfield to continue my practice. And I’ve been serving the people of this community ever since.”

  “Have you done your best, at all times, to care for the people of this community faithfully and honestly?” Lincoln asked.

  “I have.”

  “Have you ever intentionally harmed any of your patients?”

  “Of course not. The human vessel’s a mysterious thing, Mr. Lincoln. We can’t always be sure how the body will react to a particular trauma or to a specific treatment. The best I can do as a modern medical man is to apply my learning and my skill to the cases I’m presented.”

  “You mentioned before the notion of ‘modern’ medical practices,” Lincoln said. “What do you mean?”

  “Too many of my brethren are stuck in the medieval epoch of medicine,” Patterson replied confidently. “Knowledge of the medical arts has grown dramatically in the past few decades. New surgeries and treatments have been devised. But too few medical men are willing to acknowledge these improvements or to make use of them in treating their patients.”

  “Such as what?” said Lincoln.

  “Let me give an example one of the gentlemen of the jury is very personally familiar with,” Patterson replied. He gestured toward juror Burton Judson, who gave a nod back.

  “Last April,” the doctor continued, “one of the sons of Judson over there was thrown from his horse and landed headfirst on top of a stone wall in their fields. When I reached him, the boy was insensible. His skull was swelling quite severely. The injury would have produced death within the hour had I not acted. In the event, I used my trephine to evacuate a hole half an inch in diameter in the skull in order to achieve an immediate reduction of the pressure.

  “Most medical men would have stopped there, I daresay. But I knew, from my study of the lectures of great medical men such as Sir Astley Paston Cooper, President of the Royal College of Surgeons and the personal surgeon to the King, that it was also crucial to take a large quantity of blood, so as to reduce the ability of the brain to swell again. So I opened the boy’s arm and took ten ounces, twice, over a one-hour period and took another eight ounces in the evening. My treatments produced a very favorable outcome. The boy regained consciousness, and he was able to converse with Judson, and with Mrs. Judson too. They were able to say a few words of love to each other.”

  Patterson looked over at Judson again. “Regrettably, even modern medicine has its limits,” the doctor continued. “The boy passed the following day. But his parents will always have the memory of that final conversation, I’m happy to say.”

  As I studied Judson’s face, I wasn’t confident he would have described Patterson’s treatment of his son in such favorable terms. Lincoln must have feared the same because he interposed, rather hastily, “Let me ask about some more of your modern methods, Dr. Patterson, though perhaps it’s best if you leave out the jury and their families from the cases you discuss.”

  Patterson proceeded to expound at great length on other modern treatments he had brought to the people of Springfield, including the application of blisters to the neck, sinapsims to the feet, calomel purges to open the bowels, a compound of lemonade and mercury to promote regularity, and antimonials to induce perspiration. Indeed, the discussion went on so long that Judge Thomas, chewing on his cigar with increasing agitation, was forced to call the morning recess. When, upon resumption of the proceedings, Lincoln continued the same line of questioning, the judge cleared his throat and looked at Prickett.

  The prosecutor rose quickly from his seat and said, “I object, Your Honor. This testimony has got nothing to do with the three persons Dr. Patterson killed—is alleged to have killed.”

  “Yes, I think the objection is well taken,” Judge Thomas said at once. “Move along, Mr. Lincoln.”

  “With respect, Your Honor,” Lincoln said evenly, “we listened to Dr. Warren expound at length the other day. Seems to be a hazard of the profession.” A few members of the jury laughed. “Moreover, this testimony by Dr. Patterson is very directly relevant to his defense, as you’ll see shortly.”

  Judge Thomas waved his cigar irritably. “Move along quickly,” he said.
“I want to finish this case before I expire—or before another one of Dr. Patterson’s patients does.” The gallery laughed loudly, and Lincoln gave the judge an unhappy look before turning back to his witness.

  “Now, Dr. Patterson,” Lincoln said, “were you familiar with the three unfortunate victims in this case?”

  “I was honored with the opportunity to treat all three of them as my patients.”

  “And during the course of your treatment, did you come to perceive a characteristic, a condition, shared by each of them?”

  Patterson smoothed the ends of his moustache before responding. “They had each suffered terrible losses in their lifetime. The siblings, Lilly and Jesse, were orphans. They’d lost their parents, one after the other. And of course, the Widow Harriman lost her husband several years back. Each of the three of them bore a physical scar of their loss. Not one visible on the outside, of course, but a very real one, inside their bodies somewhere. I could tell from my examinations it affected them profoundly.”

  I watched Patterson with disgust. It was obvious he was fabricating the entire tale. It was true, of course, each of the victims had suffered losses, but it had hardly had the impact he claimed. I felt certain the Widow Harriman, for one, had come to view her husband’s untimely demise as a liberation of sorts.

  “In your experience, is there an established treatment for this condition?” Lincoln asked.

  “There’s not,” said Patterson. “I’m convinced, from my study of these three persons, as well as others I’ve treated over time, that the depression of spirits, so to speak, is a very real phenomenon. But most of my brother physicians would deny its very existence. Certainly there’s no agreed-upon cure for the symptoms.”

  “Now, the treatment of, to use your term, the ‘depression of spirits’—is this a question to which you’ve devoted professional efforts, Doctor?” asked Lincoln. The jury and the gallery were listening with great interest. Prickett looked on with a suspicious glare. It appeared no one realized where the examination was heading.

  “It’s one to which I’ve given a great deal of study,” Patterson said. “It has seemed to me there must be a way, a modern method, to effect a cure of the disease such that these persons can live a normal life free from the cares of their past.”

  “What methods of cure have you considered?” asked Lincoln.

  “On many occasions, scientific knowledge advances experimentally,” Patterson said. “By trial and error, one might say. For example, before we doctors came to realize bleeding patients in distress would often provide a complete cure for their symptoms, we tried many other methods, some less successful, some outright dangerous to the patients, as it turned out. But until some medical man tried it somewhere, it was impossible to know what might happen.”

  “And for the specific condition we’ve been discussing, depression of spirits, what treatments have you considered?”

  “There are several. One is bleeding, of course, which produces wondrous results in so many areas. I’ve considered whether a special type of bloodletting, one that would produce a swift, dramatic drop in the pressure of the patient’s blood, might be sufficient to occasion a reversal of the inner equilibrium. In turn, such a reversal might produce an immediate cure of the condition under discussion.”

  “Any others?” asked Lincoln amidst a few murmurs from the audience.

  “The disease, the scar, appears to reside somewhere in the head. So I’ve wondered whether a sharp knock on the head might kill the disease in a single blow. And, of course, every living thing needs air to survive. So perhaps depriving the disease of air would kill it off.” Patterson paused, then added, “Of course, as with any new treatment there are risks, grave risks, it would not produce the desired effect. Indeed, the treatment might make the patient worse.”

  The murmurings were louder and angrier now, as more and more of those present realized the defense Lincoln was laying. Several jurors, including Judson, were increasingly red-faced with anger. Judge Thomas sucked on his cigar with urgency. It was all I could do to keep from vaulting the railing and attacking Patterson with my bare hands.

  “Now, you said you’ve been studying this issue,” said Lincoln, who was determinedly ignoring the audience’s reaction. “Have you done any more than merely study it?”

  “I didn’t think so,” Patterson replied. He took a deep breath and expelled it loudly. “Until these past two days. As I’ve listened to the testimony here in court, I realized I must have done more than study it, although even now I have no memory of . . . of having done more.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Lincoln over the buzzing crowd.

  “The ways in which the victims died . . . tragically, each mimics one of the methods of treatment for depression of spirits I’ve considered. The knife to Lilly Walker’s throat—a sudden loss of blood pressure designed to reverse the inner equilibrium. The paving stone blow to young Jesse’s head—an attempt to knock the life out of the disease. And, of course, hands around the Widow Harriman’s neck . . . a loss of air . . .” Patterson choked on his words and buried his head in his hands.

  The gallery was roiling now. There were angry calls from every corner of the courtroom. Major Richmond, his bulbous nose shining bright red, was on his feet two rows behind me, shouting over and over again, “Murderer! Murderer!”

  Judge Thomas pounded his gavel and glared out at the gallery. “I’m going to have the sheriff arrest anyone who cannot hold their tongue,” he thundered. “Mr. Prickett warned all of you at the outset these proceedings would be graphic. I’ll not have my trial interrupted further. If there’s another outburst, I will clear everyone but the jury from the courtroom.” Silence prevailed.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Lincoln said. “What are you telling us, Doctor?”

  Apparently genuine tears glistened in the doctor’s eyes. “I realized yesterday, while sitting in court, I must have in fact tried out my proposed treatments. Unconsciously. In a fit of madness of some sort. And done so three times. With horrific, disastrous results, obviously. I’ve taken three innocent lives.” Again the doctor’s voice cracked and he dropped his head into his hands.

  “And you have no memory of these actions you now realize you’ve undertaken?”

  “None. I swear it, Mr. Lincoln.”

  “Are you telling the gentlemen of the jury you’re mad?”

  Patterson took a deep breath and smoothed his moustache. “Doctors are famously poor at diagnosing themselves, Mr. Lincoln,” he said, “so I am not sure I can testify to that. However, in these circumstances, I feel I have an obligation to disclose I’ve been afflicted, since my youth, with the vile though too-common disease known as gonorrhea.”

  There was a quick outburst from the gallery, which was immediately hushed by other audience members mindful of the judge’s threat of expulsion. Patterson looked around the courtroom, his face wincing with discomfort, before continuing.

  “Of course it embarrasses me greatly to have to admit this to the gentlemen of the jury, and as a consequence of this trial to the rest of the populace too. But it is well known, I fear, that men suffering from gonorrhea or other of the so-called venereal diseases can sometimes lose their minds and can do so in a creeping, progressive fashion.

  “You ask, Mr. Lincoln, if I am mad. I am not fully so, I think it is clear. But am I slowly becoming mad some of the time, episodically, in fits? Before yesterday, I would have denied such, and done so vociferously. But after my realization of yesterday, I fear it may be so.”

  Patterson bowed his head and rested it in both hands. The courtroom was so silent I could hear the breathing of Martha and Jane near me, in rhythm with the pounding of my own heart. I studied the gentlemen of the jury but could not read their tense faces.

  Lincoln looked as if he had additional questions, but he seemed to gauge the somber mood of the jury and the rest of the courtroom. Without another word, he took his seat at counsel table. Patterson remained in the witness chair, h
is head still clutched penitently in his hands.

  CHAPTER 36

  As soon as Judge Thomas called for the luncheon recess, he turned to Sheriff Hutchason, standing at his usual post to the side of the defense table, and said, “Remember what we discussed, Humble.”

  “But, Your Honor—” began Hutchason.

  “Yes?” The judge, already halfway to his chambers, glared at the sheriff.

  “Never you mind,” said the sheriff. “It will be done.”

  It transpired that Judge Thomas had ordered the sheriff to remand Patterson to the jail cell during the luncheon recess for his own safety. The sheriff took Patterson firmly by the arm—the lawman towering over the doctor—and escorted him through the crowd. Lincoln walked with his client; Jane Patterson rose to follow closely behind.

  “Let’s go with them,” said Martha. “I want to look in on how Molly’s progressing.”

  “Very well,” I said. “It’s no wonder the sheriff wasn’t keen on this idea. He’s inviting the whole trial, or half of it at least, into his wife’s birthing tent.”

  We made an odd little procession as we walked out of the courtroom and through the throng spilling onto the town green. No one in the crowd met Patterson’s gaze as he marched along, eyes forward. When we reached Hutchason’s backyard, the sheriff opened the jail cell door, led Patterson in, and carefully locked it behind him. Jane immediately thrust her arms through the bars to give her father an awkward embrace.

  As they talked, Hutchason said, “Why don’t the rest of you come inside. I asked Molly to lay out lunch, just in case the judge ordered us here.”

  “You didn’t!” said Martha.

  “Yes, I did,” said the sheriff with genuine puzzlement. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Martha gave an incoherent shout, threw up her hands, and hurried inside the house through the back door. The sheriff beckoned to Lincoln and me to follow at a more measured pace.