Dying for Compassion (The Lady Doc Murders Book 2)

by Dr. Barbara Golder

  When he returned, Monsignor Jamais handed Father Matt his overcoat, gloves, and black scarf. In the light of the ceiling fixture, his face was shadowed and fragile. He was thinner than he appeared on the sidewalk, having shed a jacket and sweater, as well as the coat. Matt struggled to balance them. He’s an old man! Father Matt realized with a shock, then did the math and mentally shrugged his shoulder. In his early seventies, he supposed. Not that old these days, though he supposed the crabbed life of a seminary professor beset with students he didn’t like and a steady diet of disappointment might make a man look older than his years. Even the blond hair he remembered was gone and had turned white in the thin fringe that remained.

  “This will do nicely. Thank you, Matthew. You are very kind. I think I’ll go to bed now. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Monsignor.” Father Matt eased the door closed behind him and headed for his overstuffed chair and his pipe. He needed to think a bit. The voice was familiar to him, and the figure, accounting for age, except…

  Except the arrogant little man who had once drilled canon law into Father Matt’s thick and sometimes unwilling head was now diminished and afraid. His words had been as confident as ever, but under the lights, the pale blue eyes were wide and confused, and that face, ever confident and demanding, seemed uncertain and timid. Well, thought Father Matt, as he drew on his pipe, I suppose a call to Bishop Herlihy is in order in the morning.

  Matt finished the pipe and laid it in the stand before he searched out an afghan from the hall closet. He debated which was more comfortable, the couch or the chair. He sat down in the chair and stretched out his frame, long legs crossed, and settled himself into the soft curve of its side. It had been quite a day. Disruptions usually came in threes and fives. Josie, Eoin, Jamais, what next? He shuddered to think. How long it will take him to figure out that there’s only one bedroom? he wondered before he drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  January 10

  I slept in after the evening’s festivities and awoke with a headache. Pilar fed me in cautious silence, pressed a travel mug of coffee into my hand, and shoved me out the door. I suspected she had no desire to deal with me just yet. I walked the few blocks to the Center but hesitated before I pushed open the big, glass door. True to his word, Quick had duct-taped the broken window, but it was going to be several days before the special order glass would be here to repair it even with a rush on the order. Until then, it would be an unpleasant and unavoidable reminder that I was, once again, a woman bereft of male companionship. I had grown fond of Eoin and missed him already, even though I was furious at his deceit.

  The office held no appeal this particular morning, but it was familiar and was the only place I had to go. Work has always been my best narcotic.

  I stepped in to ask our new receptionist what was on tap. Tim pulled up the computer log and perused it for a long minute before he answered, a note of uncertainty in his voice. “Not too much, I think. No, wait, there’s one body here, and it says ‘sign out.’ But there are three or four other names…I’m not clear...”

  I moved behind the desk and nudged him out of the way. Aside from the fact that I can’t make my glasses work while I’m looking at the computer from a distance and while standing, I despise it when people read over my shoulder. I will not do it to anyone else.

  Tim stood aside as I sat down, aware of my idiosyncrasy. “You’re right. This one body is in house, and it looks like a natural death. Dr. Jackson will take a look later this morning if she hasn’t already. Two of the other names are reports in from the field. Look here.” I indicated the final column in the spreadsheet. Tim leaned in between me and the screen to see what I was talking about. His position gave me a perfect view of the large, hollow plug in his left earlobe. It was so large that I could see part of the computer screen through it. One of these days the plastic surgeons were going to be making a mint fixing deformed earlobes. That and revising tattoos. Tim had one of those, too. I could see it crawling up his smooth, brown neck: a green and yellow snake, mouth open, red-forked tongue flicking out as if to catch the bottom of the earlobe that was now artificially close.

  “Got it. Sorry, Dr. Wallace. I’m not sure why that gives me so much trouble.”

  Could it be because you are recovering from a brain injury, thanks to riding your Harley without a helmet? I thought. Tim was the latest in a series of receptionists for the Center. The back office staff has been stable since day one, but we seem to go through receptionists with some regularity. When I lost the last one, Father Matt convinced me to hire Tim. He isn’t the quickest at picking up the job, but he is pleasant and he works on powder days. The accident ended his skiing, as well as much hope of gainful employment. We could manage. He needed a job, and I need someone reliable. Match made in heaven.

  “You’ll get the hang of it.” I leaned forward again. The last name on the list caught my attention: a child. Deaths of children unsettle me, and here was a second one in two days. This one was from the Medical Center, as well. Skye Gleason, two years old. From the Medical Center, just like Josie. I abandoned my plans to take the day off and decided to head upstairs. As I straightened, I clapped Tim on the shoulder. “That last name, Tim? There’s another body on the way. Let me know when it gets here. And ask Lucy to give you another lesson.”

  He was already writing himself a note. The trash basket would be filled with the tiny, crumpled pieces of paper by the end of the day. Tim lived and died by his notes, another side effect of the accident. “Sure thing.”

  I would have preferred a “yes, ma’am,” but I’ve learned to take what I can get here in the casual mountain west. “Thanks, Tim. Take care.”

  He grinned. I saw him touch the mic of his headset as he relayed my request to Lucy.

  I am a creature of habit. The first order of the day is to go over the cases waiting for me, the second is to review the reports from the previous day. In the past, that meant proofing my own work. These days, it meant keeping a weather eye on Sadie Jackson. My conversation with her yesterday surfaced in my mind, pushing out all thoughts of Skye Gleason. I flipped through the stack of papers, looking for toxicology. Nothing. I frowned and picked up the phone.

  Quick answered on the first ring. “Yes, Boss?”

  “Morning, Jaz. How’s things?” Quick preferred being addressed by his nickname. I don’t think I ever heard anyone actually call him Jasper, least of all, me.

  “Busy. You got a case down here this morning. Little kid. Just got here. His sister is in the hospital sick, too, and they don’t think she’ll make it. Sounds like a poisoning.”

  No need to pull up that file after all. Quick would have all the details when I got downstairs. Of all the cases I had to do, children bother me the most. So out of the expected way of things. “I’ll be there in a bit.” I paused a moment for decorum. “Tell me, did Sadie ever get blood and urine on that woman who was found dead the other day? Elsie Teague, I think.” One of the side effects of having another medical examiner handling cases is that I was starting to lose track of names. I disliked that.

  “I think so. Let me check.” I heard the receiver hit the desk and bided my time, seeing in my mind’s eye Quick rustling through the rack of tubes in the refrigerator. It wasn’t long before he returned.

  “Sure did.”

  “Send it for a screen, please,” I requested. Another talk with Sadie. ‘Get samples’ meant run samples in my lab, especially when corners had already been cut.

  “Slow down, Boss. She did. Well, she sent it for a basic screen. It came back negative except for nicotine. Don’t you have the report?”

  I leafed through the stack again and was about to vent when I noticed a sheet face down on the floor. I picked it up. Sure enough, Elsie Teague. A whopping level of the major metabolite of nicotine, but all things considered, not too high for a heavy smoker.

  “Sorry. It slipped out of the folder. I’ve got it. I’ll be down in a few.” Tox report or no, somet
hing still bothered me. John used to call it my mesenteric baroreceptors, which was his overly arcane term for gut feelings. I shook it off and waded through the remaining reports, initialing each one as I went, before I headed down to the morgue.

  Quick already had things laid out for me. As I dressed out, I called over to him, “What’s the history?” Time to get to work.

  ***

  Father Matt was awakened far too soon by a crash from the kitchen. He forced his sleep-clogged eyes open and tried to unfold himself from the embrace of the chair. He caught his pant leg on a protruding nail, heard the fabric rip, and felt a trickle of blood down his left leg.

  “Matthew!” came an accusatory voice from the kitchen. “Where do you keep your tea?”

  “I don’t have any. Don’t drink the stuff!” Matt Gregory shouted back and peered at his watch. Half past six on his supposed day off, his only day to sleep in. “I thought you were sleeping until nine,” he added.

  Monsignor Jamais was chirpy, which Father Matt found even more irritating. “Matthew, dear boy. It’s almost nine. Your housekeeper being in absentia, I thought I’d make tea. You should look for someone more reliable, Matthew. This really is unacceptable.” He rooted around a bit more in the cabinet. Then he added, “Where did you say the tea is?”

  Father Matt stepped around a broken mug in the middle of the kitchen floor, the source of the crash. “I didn’t. I don’t have any.” Almost nine? In what world? he thought, feeling the irritation rise. The cut on his leg was beginning to hurt.

  He must have said it aloud, because Monsignor Jamais pulled out the gold pocket watch Father Matt remembered well. The monsignor would stand at the podium waiting for the precise hour for class to begin. When the hands of his watch reached the hour, he would snap it closed with great ceremony and walk to the classroom door to close and lock it. More than once, Matt, perpetually late, was treated to the door slammed in his face. Monsignor Jamais brooked no tardiness.

  Father Matt looked at the watch. Past eight-thirty, creeping toward nine. Eastern time. He forgot to reset his watch.

  “You really should have bought some tea when you knew I was coming, Matthew.”

  “I didn’t know!” Father Matt exploded. He moved toward the coffeepot and felt a sharp pain in the sole of his foot. Great. Now he was bleeding there, too. He bent to pull a sliver of the cup out of his foot. Monsignor Jamais was oblivious.

  “Of course not; who would have known the plane would be late? No matter, we’ll get some today. I suppose I can make do with coffee. Do you have cream? I like mine light.”

  “Get out of my kitchen!” Father Matt’s voice was nearly a shout again. Then, feeling a bit guilty, he added as nicely as he could, “Please.” He ushered the priest out of the narrow galley and sat him down at the tiny dining table. “Just stay put,” he warned as he walked on tiptoes to the bathroom to wipe the blood off his foot and leg. He only had one bandage; this he applied to his leg. The bleeding from his foot had almost stopped. He recovered slippers from his room, tucked some toilet paper in the bottom of the one — the better to absorb any residual blood — and set about cleaning up the broken mug.

  All the while, Monsignor Jamais kept up a running chatter. Father Matt ignored the commentary on the monsignor’s flight, the dreadful service at the Denver Airport, the food at Pan Quotidian, and assorted seminary gossip as he started the coffee and put in some bread to toast. He laid a few slices of cold meat and cheese on a plate, quartered an orange and halved a banana, and put them alongside. He put the plate in front of Monsignor Jamais, buttered the toast, opened a jar of raspberry jam, and poured two cups of coffee. One light.

  “Thank you, Matthew. A light breakfast is always good, but really, you are too kind to your help. Your housekeeper should be here to cook for you.”

  “I don’t have a housekeeper. A maid comes once a week, but I don’t have a housekeeper. I can cook for myself,” Father Matt growled, as he reached for the remaining slice of ham and a piece of Gouda. Monsignor had already helped himself to most of the food.

  At least he is enjoying it, Matt thought, as he spread thick, red jam on his toast. Suddenly, Monsignor went pale and dropped his knife, swallowing quickly before he spoke.

  “Matthew! I completely forgot. What time is Mass? I hope we haven’t broken the fast,” he said. “Matthew? When is Mass?” Monsignor Jamais repeated.

  “Not until noon, Monsignor. You have plenty of time. It’s not even seven yet. You forgot to set your watch for Mountain Time.”

  The words went unacknowledged, even though the little man looked at his watch. “I still must hurry. I like to keep three hours, you know. Far more meaningful than the sixty minutes the bishops ask these days.” He took the last slice of cheddar and then asked, “Perhaps a bit more ham?”

  Leave it to you to be more Catholic than the Pope, thought Matt. Perhaps he hadn’t heard him. Monsignor Jamais always had selective hearing, far more in love with his own words than anyone else’s. Father Matt waited until he was hidden by the refrigerator door to roll his eyes and whisper a sincere imprecation under his breath. When he returned to the table with more meat and cheese — this time on two plates — he found Monsignor Jamais looking at his watch again.

  “Nearly nine. When is Mass, Matthew? I must be sure not to break the fast.”

  Father Matt put the plate down with a jolt. What was going on? He looked at the watch on his own wrist. Nearly nine, indeed, back in Connecticut. Was it too early to put a call into the bishop?

  ***

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I am that he is with you.” Bishop Herlihy’s voice sounded just like he looked, round and outgoing. “He left without telling anyone where he was going. We knew his mind was slipping, but I had no idea it was this bad.”

  “It seems to come and go,” Father Matt said. “At least, so far it has with me. Do you have any idea how he found me or why he got it into his mind that I offered him a place to live?”

  “Actually, I do. He doesn’t have much family but he does — did — have a nephew, Matthew, just like you. He was killed in a car accident a month or so ago. Anyway, just before his death, his nephew came to see me to talk about having the monsignor come to live with him or at least in a facility near him. I suspect he confused you with his nephew and decided to take you up on his kind offer. From what I can see from a picture I found on the internet, you favor the other Matthew, though I doubt he was as tall as you are.”

  Father Matt wondered what picture the bishop had unearthed, but it confirmed his reputation as a shrewd, competent prelate on top of his diocese. “But how did he find me? Telluride is off the beaten path.”

  “You’ve seen his moments of lucidity. He’s as sharp then as he ever was. He kept track of all his students, you know.”

  Probably to curry favor in case any of them rose to a bishopric or got a job in Rome, he thought to himself. “No, I didn’t,” was all he said.

  The bishop chuckled. “It was a point of great pride to him, and he’d boast of it often. A big book, a page for each of them — of you. Several hundred by now. What diocese they serve, what parish. He spent hours updating it every June. We actually used it to supplement our own data base. Finding you was no problem. You were never really out of his sight.”

  “That’s not a comforting thought,” Father Matt replied.

  “I understand. He’s my man, Father Gregory. I’ll send someone out to fetch him if you can keep him for a few more days. There is an excellent Alzheimer’s facility not far from the chancery.”

  The bishop’s words conjured up images of the nursing homes he had made calls in. Even in the best of them, patients could languish for lack of sufficient attention. In the worst, they were abused.

  “Is that really necessary yet, Excellency? He doesn’t seem that bad.”

  “Probably not, but we need to place him somewhere he can be cared for and where he will be safe. It is difficult to make changes with…people when they start to
lose their memories. It’s best to settle them in one place and let them live out their lives there, somewhere they know and are accustomed to. In due course.”

  “If you do that, he’ll be dead in six months.” Father Matt was astounded at himself, but he kept talking. “He needs people around him, people he knows, people who care about him. He needs his books and conversation. He needs other priests along. He won’t have that there.”

  The bishop’s voice turned cold. “It’s the best I can do. He has no family willing to take him. You cannot fail to appreciate that, on his best day, he is difficult. And he cannot stay in the old rectory. The other priests cannot take it. It isn’t fair to them. Tell me, Father,” he said with a deliberate and vaguely threatening emphasis on the word, “what would you have me do?”

  “Leave him with me. At least for now. Think of it as an extended vacation. Let me at least try to make it work.”

  “Why in the world would you want to do that? What makes you think you are qualified? I am responsible for his care.”

  Why, indeed? This was his chance to get rid of his querulous and demanding guest. Instead, Father Matt heard himself say, “You had him living in a rectory. He’ll be in one here, too. It’s a small town. He can’t get too lost, and even if he does wander off, someone will bring him back home. Besides, he came here of his own free will. Can you really make him leave?” Not wanting to end on a challenge, he added hastily, “Besides, I have plenty of help, and it won’t cost you anything.” That last was a bit of a presumption, but one easily remedied. There was help to be had for the asking, and Jane would supply the cash-money.

  There was a long silence as the bishop considered his options. “All right,” he finally said. “You can give it a try. God bless you, Father. Good luck. Call me if you need me.”

  Dear God, what have I gotten myself into? He’d better give Jane a call. Now that he was the proud possessor of a slightly demented, former professor with a penchant for documentation and a taste for the finer things in life, she would know what to do. She always did.