“But cases like that don’t really pose much of a problem for society. Few of these babies are born, and they die on their own very quickly if you just leave them alone, though it probably would be a kindness to end the parent’s misery, if not the child’s. The greater problem is the drain on scarce and precious medical resources that babies born with other defects — ones that aren’t fatal — pose to society. Or those people who are old and tired and whose life is a burden and who can contribute nothing to society. You see, medical care isn’t an endless right. We can’t compromise the care of the vast number of relatively healthy people by squandering resources on a small number of people whose lives will be miserable, whose care is expensive, and whose humanity is doubtful. With a medical care system that would try to resuscitate a telephone pole if doctors got paid for trying, providing compassionate end-of-life care and counseling people that they can take charge of — plan and control — their own deaths is one of the great remaining social missions of our day.”
Father Matt straightened himself in sheer astonishment at what he heard, forgetting his proximity to the heater, knocking his head and singeing a few hairs in the process. The pain and the smell brought him to an abrupt halt, but before Jacob Baladin had a chance to respond, I heard an oddly familiar voice break in.
Rubbing his head, Father Matt whispered to me, “That’s Monsignor Jamais! What is he doing here?” I saw a rotund little man emerge from the crowd to stand very nearly toe to toe with Baladin. The little man looked rather like Hollywood’s version of a mobster in his long, black overcoat, black scarf and fedora, even a red flower in his lapel, if Hollywood mobsters stood only a bit over five-and-a-half feet tall.
“Who?”
“An old professor from seminary. He showed up on my doorstep unannounced and…well, he’s staying with me now. For a while.” He paused, then whispered again, “Where’d that rose come from? There were no flowers in the rectory. At least, not when I left.”
I raised an eyebrow. The rectory was small, and I had trouble imagining Father Matt sharing it. I was pondering that when the diminutive professor got my attention again.
“Really, Dr. Baladin, if you wish to produce a sound argument, it’s best to begin from sound principles. Aside from the breathtaking ignorance of even the most basic forms of moral philosophy and no knowledge whatsoever of theology, you make the assumption that medical care is scarce and thereby must be expensive and rationed according to merit rather than need. Your premise needs examination, dear sir, in a country that spends as much on sodas and useless vitamins and supplements every year as it does on cancer care. Not to mention movies, cable television, and pornography. Health care is expensive, because we have made it so. We can remake it so it is not.”
He paused for a breath. Father Matt leaned over with a grin. “That’s his full professorial mode in action. Hear that supercilious tone of voice and see those eyebrows arched behind those glasses? There’ll be no stopping him now.” Father Matt was clearly enjoying the spectacle. I wasn’t so sure I was.
Baladin squared up and opened his mouth, but he delayed too long. Jamais’ resumption of his thought caused Baladin to shut his mouth and listen. I thought professors only had that effect on people within their sway and under their thumbs. This little man was impressive. Apparently his skill was greater than that. Ordinary mortals seemed to be susceptible, too.
I was impressed, too, at the cogency of his thought. As if in confirmation, Father Matt leaned over to whisper a running commentary. He was clearly enjoying this. “God bless him, moral theology is his bread and meat, and rhetoric the sauce he dressed them with. Monsignor might not remember what he had for breakfast, but he can still slice an opponent to ribbons. Watch.”
I did, and Father Matt was right.
“As for your assessment of what is human, it is so woefully lacking in substance as to be not worth responding to. But I will pose you the question: how can that child be anything but human?” Jamais paused, providing the opening the gray-haired man wanted. Part of me wanted to warn him that this was not a good time to take Monsignor’s rhetorical bait; the rest of me wanted to watch. The rest of me won.
“It cannot be human, because it does not do what humans do: think, relate, experience. Anything,” Baladin emphasized the second syllable, “that cannot do those things cannot be human.” A small wave of approval rippled through the crowd.
“Really, Doctor, you do yourself an injustice if that is the best argument you can muster. I can think now; tomorrow I may not be able to. Does that make me less than human? Can it change me from something I was into some other kind of creature entirely? Nonsense. A tree cannot become not a tree, and an oak always looks like an acorn at the beginning. Whatever we are we have always been and will always be; we can be nothing else. And that child you describe — the one without a brain — I believe the proper term is anencephalic — he may not think and experience as you and I do, but that is of no consequence. We are more than the sum of our thoughts, Descartes notwithstanding.”
Monsignor paused for a moment, looking lost in thought for just an instant. I felt, rather than saw, the fear in him as his hold of the thought he must have wanted slipped for an instant, and then the relief when he grasped it firmly again and went on, no one the wiser. “I should think the resolution to the question of what is human is rather easy to resolve. If anything,” Jamais, too, emphasized the second syllable, “comes forth from human sex, it is human, whether or not you are intelligent enough to recognize that fact. And if human, then a person.” He spoke the word particularly clearly and with great relish. “That person deserves our care and respect until his last natural breath. He certainly does not need us to dispatch his soul into the next life on our whim because he is inconvenient to us.” Monsignor Jamais took off his glasses and rubbed them against his jacket in a gesture even I recognized as closing the argument.
The crowd erupted then, conversations going back and forth among the attendees who were now hotly debating this or the other point made in that brief verbal jousting match. Several young women, clad in bright, puffy, down jackets, were engaging Baladin; their attention made him turn away from Monsignor Jamais, though he cast one last, poisonous look in his direction before nodding forcefully in the direction of the door.
A burly man made his way toward Monsignor Jamais with a determined look in his eyes. Jamais was sparring with a thin, young man sporting a neatly trimmed black goatee. From the looks of it, Jamais was getting the better of him, too. The man’s gestures broadened, and his voice rose with each sentence. Father Matt saw it, too, and grinned in spite of himself.
“’Lower the volume, polish the argument,’ that’s what Monsignor always taught,” he said to me. “This is quite a display of lucidity in a man who only yesterday couldn’t remember that he’d had breakfast, let alone what he ate.”
“And if looks do not deceive, he is having a roaring good time at it, too,” I observed.
“I suppose it’s because this is in his very bones,” Father Matt said. “It’s like the old immigrant who loses his command of his second language, but never his native tongue. Arguing — that’s Monsignor’s first language.”
The big man, clearly a bouncer of sorts, took Jamais by the elbow. “Come on, old man. You’ve worn out your welcome here. This is a private party.” His words boomed.
Matt started to surge forward to protect him but paused when he saw Jamais shake off the hand and wave it away almost airily. “This is no such thing, young man; it’s an open house advertised to the public, though I do admit I am not particularly welcome here. No need to stay.” He started through the crowd, which parted for him out of relief, respect, or both. As he passed a waiter, he grabbed a glass of champagne.
“Come along, Matthew,” he said as he pressed past us. “These people weary me. So incredibly dull and shallow, and besides, I am rather hungry. After all, I haven’t eaten at all today. Really, Matthew, I know that you are young enough to manag
e on one meal a day, but those of us of more mature years need to eat regularly. Please do try to do better.” At this, he snagged a pig-in-a-blanket from another waiter and stuffed it in his mouth. He paused, saw me, and gulped. “And who is this?”
“A friend. Jane Wallace. Doctor Wallace. Actually doctor and lawyer Jane Wallace.” Matt knew how much I disliked titles outside the office. I suspected he was using them to gain some cachet with Monsignor Jamais.
“Delighted to meet you, Doctor Wallace.”
I extended a hand, which he bent over rather than shook. “It is my pleasure, Monsignor.”
Father Matt sighed and cast an exasperated look in my direction. “Let’s go for some dinner,” he said. “There’s nothing at the house. How about Mexican? Join us, Jane?”
“I really can’t,” I said, a statement which earned me a poisonous look from Father Matt. I’d hear about my treason later.
I watched them disappear and followed behind. I had found out all that I needed to know. And I remembered where I had seen Baladin before. In the plaza at Mountain Village when Sadie and I went to lunch.
***
Hearing no disapproval of his suggestion, probably because the monsignor had grabbed another hors d’oeuvre and his mouth was full, Father Matt shepherded Monsignor Jamais out of the house and down the street to Tres Amigos and settled him into a booth. They ordered food and beer and staved off hunger with chips and salsa until it arrived. Father Matt never ceased to be astonished at how much Monsignor could eat.
The server, a pert, dark-haired girl, was particularly attentive. “You remind me of my grandfather,” she said to the monsignor, and she doted on him through the meal, even bringing him a plate of churros with chocolate sauce on the house. It was nearly eight when they finished and headed back to the church.
“Let me lock up downstairs, Monsignor. You go on up to the apartment; I’ll be there in a minute.” Matt was glad that he’d put lights on timers months ago. He hated to come home to a dark apartment. For Monsignor, still unfamiliar with the apartment, it would have been dangerous.
Father Matt entered the church by the back entrance, walking down the hall past the offices and coming in by the altar. He always left dim lights on; the church had a tendency to be dark even in daylight, and he liked to leave it open in the early hours of evening, though few people stopped in to pray.
He paused to genuflect before the tabernacle and to let his eyes adjust to the dimness, and to examine his conscience and offer a prayer or two for the day. He made the Sign of the Cross, genuflected again, and started toward the main door. A movement in the shadows by the door made him stop in his tracks. A woman was by the votive rack, lighting a candle. He debated saying something and decided against it, slipping aside and sitting quietly in a pew in to watch. Luckily, it wasn’t one of the creaky ones.
She made the Sign of the Cross and stood motionless for a moment. Then she blessed herself again, stuffed a bill into the offering slot, and opened the door to leave.
In the light of the streetlamp, Father Matt saw her face. What is Fiona doing here so late at night?
He waited until she left. There was one candle left unlit in the votive rack. He lit it and prayed as he always did, for the intentions of those who had prayed there during the day. He mentioned Fiona by name.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
January 12
I smiled at the pristine, unbroken doors that now greeted me as I walked into the Center. Eoin had left for Ireland, and the doors had been replaced on the same day. I wondered whether that was an omen portending a clear path for me ahead. I sure hoped so. My heart ached a bit knowing that Eoin was gone, but in a strange way it was also lighter. I was so weary of crises in my life. Having some of them fly out of the country was a relief, whether I wanted it or not.
Tim greeted me with his usual smile and handed me a sheaf of papers, including a clipping from the local news. The funeral of the two children was featured, photos of the mourners included. It reminded me I had made no progress at all in figuring out how they died. I shook my head. “So sad.”
Tim agreed. “Worse because grandma died the day before. That family has a lot to bear.”
Some sixth sense made me ask about Granny. A cluster of two deaths was pretty bad; a cluster of three in one family within a few days pretty much unthinkable. Either these folks had the luck of Job, or there was something going on.
“Yeah,” Tim said. “She was that old woman they found dead at home. Elva…Ellery…” He struggled with the name.
“Elsie. Elsie Teague.” Sadie’s sign-out case. I skimmed the article, but there was no mention of Elsie. “How do you know that?”
“I went to the funeral.”
I hoped my face didn’t reveal my shock, but either it or my stunned silence prompted Tim to elaborate. “Two little kids. I’d want people there if my kids died. Just to show they were sorry, too. The dad talked about it in his…” he searched for the word.
“Eulogy,” I supplied.
“Eulogy. Anyway, he said that the grandmother died a day or two before and now this. He was pretty torn up. It was his mother.”
“I’m sure he was. I would be.” I considered this information for a moment, thanked Tim, and headed up to Lucy Cho’s office. Then I thought the better of it and went the other way to Sadie’s office digs.
I knocked on the doorframe to signal my presence. Sadie turned around, and I negotiated my way into the office past the same pile of papers, not noticeably more orderly than before except for the fact that the envelope from Proserpine wasn’t on top anymore. I made a mental note to follow up on that before the end of the day. “Sadie, I just got some very interesting news. You remember that woman you signed out, Elsie Teague?”
“The F.D…the one they found at home? Tox negative?”
“That one. Turns out she was related to those two kids.” I waited to see if Sadie would make the connection.
Like a shot. “Oh, man! I wonder if she died of the same thing.”
“Give the lady a cigar,” I said. “You only ran a drugs-of-abuse screen, right?” That particular screen was narrow and specific and would not have picked up that poison.
“Right. I thought that would be enough,” she added a bit defensively.
“It was a good choice at the time, but not now. More information. How about seeing whether there’s a little coniine mixed in there?”
“On it!” Sadie turned back to her computer to sign out, and I threaded my way back out of the room, heading for my office.
My desk held my own version of Sadie’s pile. On the top of it was a tattered, gray file with one of Tim’s stickies on the front. John Potter was up for parole again. I’d deal with that later.
My fingers threaded through the pile until I found the green folder — green was this year’s color — that held the information on Skye and Summer Gleason and called down to Tim to bring me the file on Elsie Teague. I glanced at the contents, ran my hand over my face in frustration, and went for a cup of coffee. The pot was empty, so I used the few minutes it took to brew a new one to look out the big glass windows at the slopes beyond. I envied the skiers who were coming down Telluride Trail. Ski lessons really ought to be on my list of things to do, but who has time?
Thirty minutes and two cups of caffeine later, I had a list of things I knew, one of which was that Elsie Teague had died of coniine poisoning, too. Lucy was quick, and this time she knew exactly what to test for.
Apart from that, the list was pretty short. The investigative reports were complete but brief. The children had been healthy apart from a bad head cold over the past few days. Mom and Dad left them with a sitter and went to a movie. The sitter did not have much to add. She fed them, put them to bed, and didn’t think much about it until they both started vomiting and wouldn’t stop. Then the younger one started having seizures, and she called 911. The medical records were unrevealing, apart from Lucy’s tox. We’d gotten the clothes they had been wearing, and the vo
mitus contained coniine, no surprise. The police report indicated they had eaten canned beef stew for dinner. Nothing to go on.
Coniine poisoning really ought not be that hard to pin down. Some folks took hemlock intentionally to commit suicide; not the case here. Most other cases, my review of the literature had confirmed, were accidental cases: foragers who failed to note the difference between poison hemlock and its harmless and less colorful cousin, wild carrot. I might have had a source if the stew had been homemade, prepared by a forager who wasn’t capable of spotting the telltale purple on the stems of hemlock, or even if this were the middle of summer instead of the dead of winter. But it was winter, and as far as I knew, Dinty Moore hadn’t recalled any stew because of hemlock contamination, and besides, who knew whether Grandma had eaten any? I was stymied.
Somehow I needed to find a source for the coniine. There had to be one, and it almost certainly had to be an accident. It was time to visit the parents. I figured it was a teachable moment for Sadie and buzzed her office to invite her along.
The Gleasons lived in one of the new Victorian-style houses that stood cheek by jowl at the end of town. The front yard was miniscule. An abstract metal sculpture poked through the snow. The porch still held a molded, plastic toy car, faded from the summer sun, and a deflated soccer ball. A pair of tiny ice skates hung on a nail jutting from the porch rail. I glanced at Sadie to see her reaction. She was looking across the street at Town Park. Sadie might’ve been great in the morgue, but it seemed her ability to learn about a case from its surroundings was limited.
A thin woman with straight blond hair answered the door. She wore jeans and a designer sweater but no makeup. Good thing, because her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. “Sally Gleason?” I asked, recalling the name from the file.
She nodded.
“I’m Dr. Wallace. The medical examiner. I am so sorry about Skye and Summer. I wish I could help, and perhaps I might be able to. But I have a few questions first. May I come in?”
Dying for Compassion (The Lady Doc Murders Book 2) Page 10
