He ducked his head just the least bit, deferential but not really obsequious. His time was valuable. If she wasn’t going to help him out, he wanted to know as soon as possible, wind this up as charitably as he could, and get out. There was always other work to do. “We do not get to choose our clients, Countess. They choose us, because they are in distress and they need help. I don’t condone what he did in remarrying so soon after her death, but I understand the pain of a man watching his wife slowly die. Worse yet, see her all but dead and kept alive by a hospital afraid of a lawsuit and parents who were estranged until she was injured and then couldn’t let go of her out of guilt.”
No response. Baladin squirmed a bit. He soldiered on. “At any rate, it made me realize how often this happens. Most cases just don’t get noticed, and most people are bullied by a system that is weighted against the patient and in favor of the institution. We acknowledge that people should have control over their lives, that patients are at the center of it all and should have a say.” He paused, assessing Fiona’s reaction.
She shifted slightly and took another sip from her glass. “Tell me more.” Another sip, and her eyes lifted to engage his.
It was enough. Baladin continued. “It’s time to give people control over their deaths instead of paying homage to some archaic notion of the sanctity of life and the state’s interest in its citizens. That is why Proserpine was founded. You know the legend?”
“Of course.” Fiona’s look was pitying and she continued, “Proserpine was the daughter of Ceres. She was abducted by Pluto to the underworld. When Jupiter sent Mercury to bring her home, he found she had eaten pomegranate seeds. Anyone who eats the food of the dead must remain with the dead. Proserpine was permitted to come back to earth for only six months, because she had eaten six seeds.”
“Exactly. What most people don’t understand is that according to one version of the myth, she ate the seeds of her own free will. She chose the life and death she wanted. What could be more important? It is Proserpine’s mission to remove the barriers that the state and the churches have put in the way of people freely deciding how to live and how to die.” He paused.
“You don’t strike me as a man with particular interest in his fellow man,” Fiona said.
Baladin took an instant to size her up and then took a gamble. “For the most part, I am not. I do believe in what Proserpine does, whether or not I do it out of altruism. It has provided me interesting work and a comfortable living.”
Fiona looked at his well-cut clothes, the kind only custom tailoring produces. “So I see.”
Baladin was long past being shamed for what he did. He reiterated. “It is an interesting and comfortable living. I intend to see that Proserpine’s vision prevails. You see, when my time comes, I want to be in control, and I’ll do everything I can to see that that happens.” He was surprised at his own candor.
Fiona reached into her bag and took out a fountain pen and began to fill in a check with dramatic, purple stroke. “That is reassuring. I have always been willing to pay what it takes to keep those things that are precious to me. When the life I have is no longer precious to me, when it’s no longer worth living, I will want a kind friend to help me. Or if not a kind one, one self-serving enough to know when my interests and his intersect.”
She tore off the check and handed it to him. “Insurance,” she said.
Baladin blanched at the figure; it was twice what he had hoped and four times what he expected.
He folded it and slid it into his wallet. “I’ll see that a counselor calls tomorrow. It’s always best to plan ahead.” He lifted his glass. “To your very good health.”
Fiona returned the gesture. “Indeed.”
CHAPTER NINE
I was sitting at the one-off corner table at the Chop House again, this time with Father Matt, but waiting for Eoin Connor. Father Matt was chewing on a breadstick; I was nursing a cup of Earl Grey. It had taken all of Father Matt’s persuasive skills to get me here. As it was, I wasn’t sure why I had said yes, except to shut him up. My stomach lurched at the thought of seeing Eoin again, especially here. I grabbed a miniscule sweet roll from the breadbasket and dipped it in my tea.
Father Matt looked at his watch for the fifth time since we had been seated. “He said he’d be here.”
“If he said he would come, he will.” I returned to my tea and sticky bun, and we fell back into silence. Father Matt was on his third breadstick when he suddenly stood up.
“Eoin!” Father Matt’s voice was too loud and jovial. It made me suspicious, but Eoin was at the table before I had the chance to hiss a question at him.
Eoin said nothing as he pulled out the side chair and sat himself down, Father Matt to his right and I to his left. “Thank you, Jane, for meeting me.” His voice was serious. He waved the waiter over and ordered his customary glass of whiskey. Early in the day for that. It worried me a bit. I wasn’t exactly disappointed that he did not lean over to brush my cheek with a kiss, but I had to admit that I missed it.
We made small talk until the whiskey was delivered, along with a new pot of hot water for my tea and another basket of breads. As soon as the waiter was out of earshot, Eoin took a swig of the whiskey, placed his hands carefully on the smooth, white tablecloth, and announced, “I am heading to Ireland tomorrow. I’d like for you to come. It’s important to me that you do.”
Both men looked expectantly at me. When I refused to speak and instead reached for another sweet roll, Father Matt took up the cause with the obvious question. “Why?”
“I got a call from an old friend, Monsignor Ciaran Ryan — formerly of the Archdiocese of Armagh but currently in New York. It seems that not only did the Church never deny my petition for a decree of nullity, they never got it. I’m heading back to set that right. But I could use help. I’m not even sure who is still around after all these years, let alone who will talk to me. But I’m going to put this to rest, once and for all.” He pulled a folded paper out of the inside pocket of his brown corduroy jacket. “I’ve already made the reservations.”
“That was foolish,” I said. “What makes you think I would want to go?”
“Because you love me, and you want to clear this up as much as I do.”
“You are awfully sure of yourself.” My words were sharp.
“Irish trait.” So were his.
“Back the truck up a block or so,” Father Matt said, looking from Eoin to me and back. “What do you mean, the petition was never filed?”
“There is no record of it. I suspect the priest threw it away and lied to me. He was Fiona’s godfather,” he said, in a tone that implied that explained everything.
In a way, I supposed it did. I didn’t know much about Eoin’s wife — ex-wife? I wondered for a moment how I should think about her, and settled on Fiona out of simplicity and a desire to spare my poor mind any more contortions.
Ignoring Father Matt, Eoin took my hands in his, first the one closest to him and gesturing with a wave of his fingers until I offered the other. He looked at them and then at me, raising them slowly and kissing them the same way he had once before. It still took my breath away, but even as it did I recalled the bat and the door. Correction, doors. I tugged on my hands to free them. He let them go, but continued to look at me. “Will you come, Jane Wallace? If you won’t fight for me, will you help me fight for us?”
He didn’t give me time to answer, and I wasn’t entirely sure what the answer would be, anyway. This put everything in a new light. I let myself imagine for just an instant that Eoin might, after all, be free to marry me and just as quickly pushed the thought aside. I was not ready for another disappointment. Losing a man once was bad enough. I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk it a second time.
“This is ridiculous.” I found my voice. “Absurd. I can’t just go to Ireland at the drop of a hat. And you shouldn’t assume I can.”
“Why not? You hired Sadie to cover for you. So you could have more free time.”
“Not that it is any of your business, but yes, I did. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. With a grandchild on the way, I want more time to be able to travel.”
Father Matt gave an ungentlemanly snort, and I shot him a look that bought his silence. He ducked his head, suddenly interested in his napkin.
“Perfect. You can start with Ireland.” Eoin paused for a moment, worried. “You do have a passport, don’t you?” He hesitated for a fraction of a second too long.
There it was, my perfect excuse: deny I have a passport. Except, of course, that it would require a lie, and Father Matt wasn’t above calling me on it. “Of course.” I’d gotten it a few weeks before John was killed. His murder made the trip to Italy we had planned an impossibility. The pristine blue booklet had lain unused in my desk drawer ever since.
“Then it’s settled. You will come, Jane.” His words were confident, but there was pleading in them all the same.
I was silent for a long moment, weighing the situation. “No, Eoin, I can’t,” I finally answered. “This is something I can’t help you with.”
An equal silence on his side. “It isn’t? It’s not something I can ask the woman I love to help me with?”
How to explain? I desperately wanted Eoin to be free to marry, but I just as desperately wanted to avoid the pain of trying to work it out and being hurt again. Wounded solitude had been my retreat after John died, and it was familiar even if it wasn’t my preference anymore. Risking disappointment in the pursuit of happiness was just not something I was able to do. I was being a coward and I knew it.
“I’ll leave you to dinner,” I said as I stood up. “Safe journey, Eoin, and safe home again, here, to Telluride.” To me, I added in the silence of my heart. “I wish you the best of luck, really and truly I do. But I’m not coming along. I can’t. I just can’t.”
***
The concierge of the Malmaison in Belfast picked up his extension on the first ring. A familiar, imperious voice greeted him.
“Good morning, Charles. Can you have my usual suite available in two days? I am coming back to Belfast for a while.”
“Of course, Madam.”
“Excellent. I shall require some arrangements. Several important appointments that must be made.”
“Of course, Madam.” Charles Bowman picked up his pen, found a fresh pad of paper, and signaled his readiness to serve. “Yes, Madam?”
Ten minutes later, he had filled two pages. He sighed. The countess always tipped well, but she made him work for every penny. Might as well start on the list. He ran a manicured finger down the paper. The usual flowers, bell of Ireland and Calla lilies, red and dark purple, pricey but available; wine, Italian; Stilton cheese, prosciutto, biscotti fig jam and walnuts; and chocolate for the suite. The food was on hand, not a problem. The wine he could order, and it would be here in the morning.
Two prescriptions to be collected from the local Boots. He recognized the one name as that of a sleeping pill she customarily used, the other was unfamiliar. A fax was to follow with the necessary forms for filling a foreign prescription in the U.K. He’d drop them by later in the day and call to make sure they were both in before sending Paul around. Her usual order to feed her nicotine habit. The shop was just around the corner from Boots; Paul could pick up both packages on the same run.
Reservations at her two favorite restaurants — easy enough — dinner for two each time. Tickets to the new show at the Lyric — harder, but still possible. Her usual list of demands.
But the last few requests were strange. A car to take her to some godforsaken town to the north, one of those tourist places on the sea. An appointment with a specialist he did not recognize at the Independent Clinic of Belfast, a pricey place that catered to the rich and famous. She always stayed there as she recovered from her various nips and tucks. It was a bit soon after the last one, but it was his experience that the time between procedures got shorter and shorter as the patients got older. And an additional room on the countess’ tab. He’d never known her to foot the bill for anyone else’s room or even her own if she could get someone else to pay for it. She specified that it was to be the adjacent suite.
Must be an important visitor, he concluded.
CHAPTER TEN
After my abortive lunch and the little ambush Eoin and Father Matt engineered, I took the long way back to the Center, window-shopping along the way. In one of them, a shop that specialized in custom hats and boots, a poster with a pomegranate logo caught my eye. Proserpine was having an open house this very evening. I decided to take advantage of that to do a little reconnaissance. I walked the last few blocks to the Center with a lighter step and a clearer mind.
I made short work of the pile on my desk, dashed off a few letters to consultants in response to inquiries, and even made some headway on organizing my office. It was nearly sunset when I left, the alpenglow rosy on the peaks. Just a few minutes after the Proserpine open house was due to begin. I was still reeling from the recent referendum that legalized physician-assisted suicide in Colorado. That promised to make my life a whole lot harder. This was as good a time as any to beard the lion in his den, and besides, I had some concerns about my cases and my staff that Proserpine might just have a part in.
It wasn’t hard to find their office. It occupied the entire first and second floors of a three-story brick building around the corner from an eclectic store that offered everything from furniture to beading supplies. Even if I hadn’t known where the office was, the steady stream of people converging on a building that had once served as headquarters to some of the town’s lawyers, less than a block from the main street of town, covered by late afternoon shadows and nestled among drifted hedges, would have tipped me off. The building had been recently and expensively renovated. Its former mud-brown exterior was now pale and tasteful, the result of an army of workmen who cleaned the façade, one brick at a time, with plumber’s torches and scrapers. The windowsills and shutters were painted gold. The same gilt paint covered the pomegranate on the sign, the calligraphic P of the name tucked into the right edge of the fruit. The letters of the name were stark black.
How apt! Green to black, life to death. It amazes me how, with enough money, you can find someone to shill for anything. What kind of advertiser — marketing maven? — got his jollies and his bread and cheese from making killing look attractive to already sick, frightened, often lonely folks?
The day had turned warm for winter, almost forty degrees, and the air was still, which permitted the use of the small back porch to enlarge the area for guests. People milled about, drinks in their hands, chatting amiably, wait staff in heavy gold and maroon sweaters bearing the logo I had seen on the sign circulating among them with drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Paper lanterns decorated the porch and provided light, no doubt from LED bulbs rather than the traditional tea candles.
I scanned the crowd for familiar faces and found one right away. A man who towers over the great percentage of the human population can only go unremarked in a crowd for so long, shorter still when he arrives on the scene wearing a black cassock. I caught his eye just as the chatter went quiet. Most faces reflected only curiosity of one degree or another, but a few were hostile. Father Matt gave a polite “thank you” to the young man with a shaved head and tattooed neck as he accepted a champagne flute and made his way to me, his face as impassive as he could make it. The beard helped.
On the porch was a gray-haired man, movie-star-handsome, holding court. He looked familiar, but I could not quite place him. “Jacob Baladin,” Father Matt whispered to me when he arrived, seeing the furrow of my brow. He scanned the crowd. “Mara, his wife, is nowhere to be seen.”
We were on the other side from where the man stood, perhaps ten feet away. Jacob Baladin wore a maroon down jacket; on the narrow collar was a small, gold pin, the Proserpine pomegranate. A formerly obscure philosophy professor from a backwater college, he found a better and more lucrative market for his ideas when he turned the
m in the service of what he called “patient advocacy.” Judging by the cut of the coat and the fact that he could afford real estate in downtown Telluride, I judged he’d done rather well for himself. The third floor of the building was his private apartment. I strained a bit to listen over the hiss of the heater, by which Father Matt and I stood uncomfortably close.
“That’s a very interesting question, Yvette. Very astute.” Baladin’s voice carried over the crowd now that they were paying rapt attention to him. I noticed that a disproportionate percentage of the crowd was made up of young women, not a demographic I would ordinarily have associated with concern for the dying. Still, there were more than a few gray-heads in the crowd, too: women with hair chopped short or long and twisted into elegant braids or buns. But still, many more women than men were crowded onto the porch. That, at least, was familiar; when it came to affairs of the heart — and dying was certainly that — women were more passionate than men, and the women were far more likely to be interested.
“No, I don’t think that a baby born without a brain is human in any real sense of the word,” Baladin continued. “It’s our personhood that makes us human, the ability to act and interact and reason. Without that, you cannot be a human, really. And human care belongs properly only to humans. Humans only owe responsibility to other humans. When we lose those things that make us human, we have already died, even if our hearts keep beating.”
I saw Father Matt smile a wry smile at that one, and I followed suit. Baladin should learn his audience better. He was among folks who were inclined to feel that humans owed Mother Earth and dumb animals more in the way of relationship than they do each other. But he was selling his snake oil in a smooth, well-trained, salesman’s voice. I still couldn’t place where I had seen him, and it bothered me. Perhaps I just recognized him from his face, smiling out of those posters all over town.
Dying for Compassion (The Lady Doc Murders Book 2) Page 9
