“We need to give her finances some thought?” Ana was feeling uncomfortable. The first vulture had arrived and was sniffing around his sister even though she hadn’t gone anywhere. She wondered where he might be going with this. Then she found out.
“Hey, she can’t look out for herself right now. We’ve gotta do it for her. Maybe she needs a conservator. I’m willing to serve.”
“Oh, please, let’s find out what’s going on before we get into that kind of stuff.”
“I’m just saying….”
Her uncle’s comment came as no surprise. Nadia had been the successful sister, the one who was able to put money away. Uncle Roy, conversely, had always struggled with money. He had run several businesses into the ground and had lost a house to foreclosure, yet still fancied himself just short of a genius when it came to money and business. Anastasia sighed. She had hoped Nadia’s siblings wouldn’t find out their sister was comatose. It would only get worse as they came out of the woodwork, not better.
“Well, we’ll keep that theory in mind,” she told her uncle and returned to the suite.
7
Four months ago the disease had revealed itself externally. Katy’s face thinned out and her skin turned white—a far cry from the normally brown skin of her Indian heritage. Thaddeus watched these changes with alarm. Of course he wouldn’t ever mention any of it to Katy, so he kept it bottled up.
He drove her over to see her grandfather, Henry Landers. Henry was 104 years old and now lived in a reservation nursing home. Katy was paying for it; Henry was beloved by all of his children and grandchildren and any one of them would have done anything they could to help. But Katy was the one with the resources to keep Henry warm and well-fed in the nursing home.
They pulled into Kayenta (Tó Dínéeshzhee) south of Monument Valley, for Katy to see him one last time. The home was called Diné Rest, Diné meaning, loosely, “the people” in Navajo.
They found the old man in his room, at his desk, reviewing a map of the Four Corners area.
“I’m going to take a trip,” he said when Thaddeus and Katy came in.
“Where are you going, Grandfather?” asked Katy.
“I’m going to the Grand Canyon and I’m going down in to say hello to some of my Havasupai friends there.” The Havasupai was a tribe that made its home in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Katy had visited there before and vaguely knew of some connection between her grandfather and the elders of the tribe.
“And when will you be going?”
The old man straightened up. “Did you know they took away my truck? I’m no longer allowed to drive.”
“That’s all right, Grandfather. I’ll drive you there.”
“When can we go?”
“Soon.”
“No, I need a date.”
“How about next Friday? I can come for you Friday morning.”
“I’ll be waiting. How long will we stay?”
“We’ll stay overnight. I’ll make reservations at the Canyon.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“So, Grandfather, how are you getting along?”
“I miss my sheep. I miss my hogan. I miss my truck. Other than that, things are going beautifully.”
“Well, I’m sorry we had to move you here. But we were worried about you all alone in your Hogan.”
The old man smiled. “What, afraid I might die and you couldn’t be there to save me? How old do I have to get before people just let me dry up and blow away? I don’t want to be saved. I want to go home.”
Thaddeus spoke up. “You know, Katy, I think Henry’s right. I think he should get to live in his hogan if that’s what he really wants.”
“See?” Henry beamed. “Listen to your husband, Granddaughter.”
Katy moved across the room to the rocking chair. She sat down and began rocking forward and back. She considered Henry. She considered her own situation. She was doing exactly what she wanted in her last days; why shouldn’t he get to do the same?
“You know what, Grandfather? We’re going to take you back to your hogan.”
Thaddeus smiled. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Henry painfully arose from the table and limped to his granddaughter. He took her face in his rough hands and looked deep into her eyes. “I knew you had your mother in you. Do you know what? I even had a vision about you.”
Katy smiled. “Now I would love to hear about your vision. But first let’s get you out in our truck and on our way.”
“Where’s your truck, Henry?” Thaddeus asked.
“Gone. They sold it.”
“Never mind. We’ll stop in Flagstaff and buy you a new one. A man should have his truck,” Thaddeus said.
So they did. They stopped off in Flagstaff and bought Henry a new silver Chevrolet pickup and then headed west on I40. Thaddeus led the way; Henry and Katy brought up the rear, Katy driving the new truck, much to Henry’s chagrin. She argued with him and said the only way it was going to happen would be for her to drive him on the interstate highway. Henry resisted at first but then saw her mind was made up. He relented and agreed to her driving. When she and Thaddeus were again out of his life, he planned to immediately drive east to the Grand Canyon and visit his friends. Let her have her way, for now, he cautioned himself. Then you get your way.
“So what about this vision, Grandfather?” she asked as they rode along.
“I was at the Hopi snake dances in Prescott.”
“This was recent?”
“Maybe one year ago. I was in the grandstand watching the dance. Suddenly I had a vision of you, Katy, when you were a young girl. You were standing on a beach when the sun was coming up. You were maybe six or seven years old. Your husband, Thaddeus came to be by you. He was grown up, but you weren’t. You spent the day with him on that beach. Kite flying, making houses in the sand, collecting seashells. Then you went away.”
“Where did I go, Grandfather?”
“Into the water. You walked into the ocean.”
“So I—I died?”
“That part I don’t know. But I don’t think you died. I think you just went somewhere else. With your ancestors, maybe.”
“That’s beautiful, Grandfather. Thank you for telling me that.”
“It’s a good one, yes?”
“It is a good one.”
Henry patted the dashboard. “I love this truck already. I’ll make a stake bed for moving my sheep around.”
“You’re getting more sheep?”
“What good am I without my sheep to look after? I will drive up to Bud Yellowmexican’s ranch and buy more sheep.”
“Do you need money?”
“I have money. They made me sell my old sheep, remember?”
“How much do you have?”
“Not too much to get into trouble with women and liquor. But enough to buy my sheep back.”
“All right, Grandfather. As long as there’s enough but not too much.”
Henry looked out the passenger window.
“They lost my Stetson when they took me to the home.”
“We can get you a new Stetson.”
“I can go to Kingman for that.”
“All right, Grandfather. I’m sure you know best.”
“I’m sure I do.”
“Do you still have your driver’s license?”
“I hid that in my boot. Of course, I still have it. It’s good four more years. That should be enough.”
“In four years you’ll be a hundred and eight. You still plan to be driving?”
Henry patted the dashboard once again. “As long as this one’s still running, I’ll still be driving.”
“Fine. Look out, world.”
“Yes, look out.”
8
Uncle Roy hired the law firm of Wang, Harley, and Mitter, of Flagstaff. Milbanks Wang was the progenitor of the firm and had formed Uncle Roy’s corporation when the used furniture business got underway.
Wang was a fourth generation Amer
ican, who preferred Mexican food to Chinese. He owned a cattlespread by Williams, Arizona. He was raising a herd of whitefaces, one thousand strong. Wang preferred the wide open spaces of his ranch to the confines of a law office any day. But the law office supported the hobby ranch, so it was a necessity. Wang was five-ten, heavily muscled, and wore his hair in a flattop and his suits two sizes too large because, like his love for wide open spaces, he also needed suits that gave him plenty of room. Confinement of any kind was abhorrent. His key practice area was criminal law. But he also knew how to see the dollars in a situation so, when Uncle Roy appeared in his office with news about his unconscious—but wealthy—sister, Wang didn’t hesitate.
“You’re smart to come here,” Wang told Uncle Roy. “Your sister does need legal protection.”
“She needs a conservator?”
“Exactly. With that much money in the Bank of America in Phoenix she needs active conservation of the corpus.”
“Corpus?”
“The money.”
“So what do I need to sign?”
Wang held up a hand. “Not so fast. Tell me about the other members of the family. Any kids?”
“Two. A ne’er-do-well son and a daughter in medical school in Phoenix.”
“The son. Does he have business sense?”
Uncle Roy laughed. “Not in a thousand years! He’s already been through bankruptcy and he’s not even twenty-five years old yet.”
“That sounds hopeful. What about the daughter?”
“That might be a little stickier. She told me her old man’s a CPA. She said if anyone was going to manage her mother’s estate it should be her husband.”
“But her husband is not a blood relative. Arizona law would prefer a blood relative.”
“There’s some good news,” said Uncle Roy. “No, he’s a son-in-law, this one.”
“But the daughter? What about her taking it on?”
“She already told me no, she was too busy with her fourth year of med school. Evidently, she all but lives at the hospital. Besides, she’s down in Phoenix.”
Wang nodded slowly. “Any siblings besides you?”
“We have a brother Marshall and a sister Abigail. Marshall lives in Iowa and Abigail is somewhere on the East Coast. I don’t think anyone knows where. She married and moved away thirty years ago.”
“So what about Marshall?”
“He’s sixty. Had a stroke a couple of years back. Doubt that he’d have the wherewithal.”
“So I’m hearing either you or the daughter. Would that be about right?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. How long before you can have papers for me to sign?”
“We can have conservatorship papers by first thing tomorrow. Let me turn you over to my paralegal. She’ll get the particulars and get to cracking with the documents we’ll need. Now. Do you have twenty-five hundred dollars?”
“What for? I thought you would bill the estate?”
Wang smiled. “I certainly plan to do that. But for now, until we get you appointed, there’s no estate to bill. You’ll have to pay me to get this thing off the ground, Roy.”
“I’ll have to sell some furniture at cost. I can have it by tomorrow.”
“Fair enough. We’ll be ready at ten o’clock. Come by anytime after.”
They shook hands and agreed that ten o’clock would work just fine.
9
Along with the lawsuit against Dr. Sewell came the letter Nadia had written before she swallowed down the pain meds. Dr. Sewell, living in L.A., read it one night in his home. The next day he flew to Flagstaff and went to see the woman who was suing him.
As he drove up the hill on San Francisco Street, approaching hospital parking, he pulled the letter from his shirt pocket and scanned it again:
If you find this, I am probably dead. Please don’t be upset if I am because I was bored with living anyway. I was tired of life and until you live a life like mine you probably won’t understand.
Dr. Emerick Sewell has a book called The Doctor Is In…Heaven and I have taken pills to try to get to where he was when he had his journey into heaven. I’m following his medical advice on what happens. Did I get there? If you’re reading this, you’ll probably never know. But I will know.
This is my life and it’s a choice I have made. Am I selfish? Maybe, but I don’t care. My kids have their lives and they are happy. I’ve lost Henri and my life is no longer valuable to me anyway, so don’t mourn. Just let me go.
Nadia.
There it was in black and white: Just let me go. He pursed his lips and let out a low, soft whistle. He understood what she meant. Knew exactly what she meant. Just let me go.
He reached in the back seat, found his stethoscope, and draped it around his neck.
At the visitors’ desk just inside the front doors, he flashed his medical ID—from another state—and was immediately provided with the room number of Nadia Turkenov.
On the elevator ride upstairs he kept his eyes on the blinking floor numbers, avoiding eye contact with the two orderlies who were transporting an elderly woman on a cart. He looked at her out the side of his eye just for a flash and realized she was probably forty-eight hours from death. He was a neurosurgeon; he knew these things.
On Nadia’s floor, the doors whooshed open and out he stepped. He was wearing slacks, a yellow shirt, and a blue blazer. Around his neck, the physicians’ stethoscope opened all doors in any hospital in the world. He was always astonished at its power: no one asked for ID once they saw the stethoscope worn cavalierly around the neck. It was better ID than anyone could forge and much easier to obtain.
Down the hall he swaggered as if he were in charge, looking for her number.
He stopped just outside her door and listened, pretending to be speaking on his cell phone. Then he moved to the open door of her ICU suite. She was being attended to by a nurse so the doctor waited for his chance. Nadia’s chart could be seen hooked to the foot of her bed.
The nurse left the room, giving him a stiff smile as she circled around him and made her way back down the hallway.
He stepped inside and lifted the patient’s chart from its hook. It was a fairly thick chart—she had been hospitalized for two weeks now, and he quickly located and scanned over the parts he wanted: the test results.
Clearly, she was comatose and brain dead. It was only a matter of time until the attending physician talked to the family about withdrawing life support. Maybe that talk had already taken place.
He moved to her bedside and looked down.
So. Here lay the woman who was suing him. He studied her face, the high cheekbones, the firm neck, the graceful jawline and spotless hands resting along her sides. A ventilator was in place and breathing for her. He knew that turning it off would result in a fairly abrupt death. She wouldn’t breathe and she would be gone in five minutes.
He stole a look at the door and reached down and took Nadia’s hand in his own. He stroked the back of her hand with his fingers, all the while studying her face. He knew there would be no reaction to his touch and there was none. Her expression remained unchanged, her eyes didn’t flutter or appear to register any nuance beneath the eyelids, and the hand itself neither returned his caress nor shied away.
The woman was already dead, for all intents and purposes. It was only a matter of time.
Holding her hand, he stood upright and closed his eyes. He remained like this for several minutes.
Nurses passed by the room in the hallway, spotted the stethoscope around his neck, and assumed one of her treating physicians was making rounds.
Silently he stood and concentrated while at the same time quieting his own mind. If she wished to contact him by thought, he was ready. He turned off his mind and waited, receptive and open. Hoping against hope that her spirit would speak, he was not surprised when he heard nothing. You usually didn’t, especially where you’d never known the person and had a relationship while they were conscious. Which he, of cours
e, had not.
He opened his eyes and gently replaced her hand on the thin blanket over her.
Turning to the foot of her bed, he replaced her chart.
He faced her then and his hands opened and clenched as he looked helplessly at the woman in whose failed consciousness he’d played a part. The lawsuit was clear in that respect. She had watched him on TV; she had read his book. Based on his reassurances while he was selling books on his publisher’s book tour, he had represented spiritual matters in such a way that she’d decided to have a look at the other side for herself.
He felt it was his fault. His shoulders slumped. He grimaced and turned away, beaten down, and crossed to the door. As he exited her room, the same nurse returned.
“Good evening, Doctor,” she murmured in passing.
He only nodded and stood aside. He had seen what he had come to see. He checked his watch. His return flight would be made in time.
On the flight high above the California desert, the doctor peered out his window.
What would happen next was written in the stars already. As certain as the constellations, the universal consciousness had already welcomed Nadia Turkenov.
She was gone.
Now to tell the body.
10
Thaddeus Murfee was working out of his home office when the call came from the heavenly doctor’s agent.
“Mr. Murfee, this is Peterson Lambre in Hollywood, California.”
“Yes?”
“I’m the agent for a physician by the name of Emerick Sewell. You’ve heard of Dr. Sewell?”
“Can’t say as I have. What’s up?”
“We’ve received a letter from an attorney in Flagstaff. Milbanks X. Wang. Heard of him?”
“Sure, I know Mils. What’s up?”
“Evidently he is the attorney for a Mr. Royal Underwood. Who is the conservator for a woman named Nadia Turkenov? Any of these names mean anything to you?”
“Nope. Should they?”
“No, and that’s a good thing. They’re not and haven’t ever been your clients?”
The Near Death Experience (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 10) Page 4
