Confronting an unknown poison, David’s approach was shotgun: a fresh intravenous solution opened wide to dilute the toxin and support Christine’s blood pressure; an oral airway and several breaths from an Ambu bag to maintain ventilation; bicarbonate to counteract lactic acid buildup.
Christine’s color darkened even more. He risked a few seconds away from the breathing bag and lifted her eyelids. Her pupils were tiny black dots, nearly lost in the brown rings that constricted them—the pinpoint pupils of a narcotic overdose. God, let it be morphine, David thought. Let it be something reversible like morphine. He ordered naloxone, the highly effective antidote for all narcotic drugs. Within seconds the nurse had injected it.
A few more breaths and David stopped again. This time to recheck Christine’s carotid pulse. With a deep sinking sensation he realized there was none.
“Slip a board under her, please,” he said, lifting Christine’s shoulders free from the bed. “You’ll have to forget about the meds and just do closed chest compression until we get some more help. Christ, where is everyone?” His speech was rushed and anxious.
“One nurse went home sick.” The woman said the words in rhythm to the downward thrusts of her hands against Christine’s breastbone. “Two more are at lunch. They’ll be here.”
David continued the artificial breathing. “We need someone on the cart,” he muttered. “We need someone on the goddamn cart.” With the nurse unable to stop her cardiac massage, the trays of critical medications might as well have been on the moon.
An orderly Wandered in. David snapped at him to take a blood pressure. The man tried twice. “Nothing,” he said.
“Can you do CPR?” David asked, hoping he might free the nurse to return to the emergency cart. The man shook his head and backed away. “Shit!” David hissed.
He looked down at Christine. There were no more spontaneous respirations, no signs of life. Her body was covered with deep blue mottling. Unless he could get help very soon—one more pair of skilled hands—Christine would slip beyond resuscitation. For five seconds, ten, he stood motionless. The young nurse watched him, her eyes narrowed in mounting concern.
Suddenly a woman’s voice called out, “Whatever you need, Doctor, just order it.”
Margaret Armstrong stood poised by the emergency cart. Her left eye was swollen nearly shut by a huge bruise covering the side of her face. Blood trickled from one nostril. Still she held herself regally, unmindful of the stares from around the room.
David’s decisiveness, already dulled by Christine’s lack of response, became further blunted by fear and uncertainty. “You … you can take over the cardiac massage,” he said, wishing the woman were not standing so close to the medication cart. There were any number of drugs there that could serve as lethal weapons.
Armstrong shook her head. “No, no. You’re both stronger than I am. Besides, I’m a nurse, and a good one. I’ll handle meds. Now, dammit, let’s get on with it!”
David hesitated another moment, then shifted into high gear, calling out for antidotes to the substances Dalrymple would have been most likely to use. The crunching blow Armstrong had absorbed had no apparent effect on her reactions or efficiency. She was, as she had claimed, an incredibly good nurse. Adrenalin, concentrated glucose, more naloxone, calcium, more bicarbonate—she drew them up and administered them with speed and total economy of movement.
More help arrived. Another nurse offered to relieve Armstrong, but was directed to the blood pressure cuff.
“She’s still not breathing on her own,” David said. “I think we should intubate.”
Armstrong reached up and pressed her fingers against Christine’s groin, searching for a femoral artery pulse. She looked at David grimly and shook her head. “Nothing,” she said.
“All right. Give me a laryngoscope and seven-point-five tube.”
“Hold it!” Armstrong’s eyes began to smile. “Wait … wait … It’s here, Doctor,” she said. “It’s here.”
Seconds later, the nurse operating the blood pressure cuff sang out, “I’ve got one! I hear a pressure! Faint at sixty. No, wait, eighty. Getting louder! Getting louder!”
David rechecked Christine’s pupils. They were definitely wider. Another fifteen seconds and she began to breathe. The young nurse who had helped from the beginning gave David a thumbs-up sign and pumped her fists exultantly in the air.
The final concern in everyone’s mind disappeared when Christine moaned softly, rolled her head from side to side, then fluttered her eyes open. They fixed immediately on David.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi, yourself,” he answered.
Around the room people congratulated one another.
“I … I feel much better. My headache’s almost gone.” Her expression darkened. “David, Miss Dalrymple. I think she might be the one who …”
He silenced her with a finger against her lips. “I know, hon,” he said with soft reassurance. “I know everything.”
She strained to see inside his words, then calmed perceptibly. “I do feel better. Much better, David. Dr. Armstrong is a miracle worker.”
David glanced over at Armstrong. “Yeah,” he said stonily, “a miracle worker. ”
Margaret Armstrong met his gaze and, for a few moments, held it. Then, one at a time, she whispered a thank-you to those in the room and motioned each to leave.
The young nurse was the last to go. Armstrong walked her into the hall, then said, “You did wonderful work in there. I’m very proud of you.”
The nurse flushed. “You … you’ve been hurt. Can I get you anything?”
“I’ll be fine,” Armstrong said. “You go on along and get back to your patients.” Then she turned and reentered Room 412. She knew that at the moment she had stepped to the emergency cart and had drawn up the correct medication, she had sealed the fate of The Sisterhood.
Christine was asleep. Across the room, David had opened the drapes part way and was looking out at the hazy afternoon. His hands hung heavily by his sides, his stance reflecting none of the victory he had just won. Armstrong walked quietly to his side. He would not look at her. For a time the only sounds in the room were the gurgle of oxygen through the safety bottle and the steady sighs of Christine’s breathing.
“That’s a hell of a bruise you’ve got,” David said, his gaze still fixed on the city below. “I think you should have someone look at it.”
“I will,” she said. “Later.”
“That woman, that … that beast lying in your office—she was your creation. Your monster.”
“Perhaps. I suppose that in some ways she was. Does it matter that I still truly believe in the good of what The Sisterhood of Life has been doing? Does it matter that the struggle for dignity in human death is just?”
“Sure.” David snorted the word. “It matters. Like it matters to the fracture in Christine’s skull. Like it matters to the crap she faces when—if—she recovers. Like it matters to the fucking judge and the prosecutor and the newspapers who are going to try her for murdering Charlotte Thomas. Like it matters to my friends who are dead just because …” His frustration and fury choked off the words.
A silent minute passed before Armstrong said, “David, I know how you are feeling. I really do. I know my help with Christine and what I did to Dorothy can’t take away the pain you both have suffered. But I also know something else. Something that will do much to soothe your wounds.” She hesitated. “I know that Christine will never have to stand trial for murder.”
David whirled and stared at her. “What did you say?”
“Christine did not murder Charlotte Thomas.” Her eyes leveled at his, her gaze and expression deadly serious.
“How … how can you say that?”
“She didn’t,” Armstrong said flatly, “because I did. And I can prove it.”
CHAPTER XXIV
Armstrong closed the door to Room 412 as David first checked Christine’s blood pressure, then slowly raised the he
ad of her bed. He had listened to the woman’s story for only a minute or two before realizing the importance of having Christine hear it for herself.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he slipped a hand beneath her head. The room was dark, save for a spattering of pale sunlight through the partially closed drapes. David shook with excitement as he reached up and stroked her bruised, swollen face. “Chris, wake up, honey,” he said. “Wake up.”
Armstrong pulled a chair by the head of the bed.
Christine opened her eyes, smiled at David, then closed them again. “I’m awake,” she said weakly. “It just hurts less with my eyes shut. I’ll be okay, though. A few days and I’ll be okay.”
“You bet you will,” he said. “Chris, Dr. Armstrong is here. She has something to tell you. I … I thought you would want to hear.”
“Christine? Can you hear me? It’s Margaret Armstrong.” Christine turned toward the voice and again opened her eyes. For several seconds, the women looked at one another. Then Armstrong said softly, “Christine, I am Peg. Peggy Donner.”
Christine studied her through the dim light, then reached out and grasped her hand. “The Sisterhood … is it over?”
“Not yet, dear. But … but soon.”
David searched Christine’s face for anger, or even surprise, but neither was there. A bond was forming between the two women—a connection that was beyond his understanding. He watched in silent fascination, transfixed by the scene.
“Christine,” Armstrong said, forcing each word, “after I leave here, I am going to begin the dissolution of The Sisterhood. It will be done in such a way that none of the members will be hurt. That is, provided you and David can live with the secrets we share. Do you understand?”
Christine managed a nod. “I understand. But the reports—the tapes …?”
“They will all be destroyed. All, that is, except one. That one I shall send to you. It was made by me after I injected Charlotte with a fatal dose of potassium. Christine, the morphine you gave her was not enough. She was stronger, far stronger, than anyone suspected. Charlotte was my friend. She was … she was our sister. I had promised her a peaceful death. After you left her room, I went in to say good-bye. One last good-bye. She was breathing easily. I waited, but she only seemed to get stronger. Once she actually opened her eyes. I had promised her. I loved her as … I loved her as I did my mother. I …” Armstrong could go no further. For the first time in almost fifty years she wept.
Christine loosened her fingers and brushed them across the older woman’s tears. “I love you, Peggy,” she said haltingly. “For what you tried to do, I love you.”
A minute passed before Armstrong continued. “After I’ve done what is necessary for our Sisterhood, I’ll go to see Lieutenant Dockerty and take full responsibility for Charlotte’s death. Believe me, Christine, I was the one who did it.” She turned to David. “I shall also take responsibility for Dorothy and for the deaths of your friends. I think there would be fewer questions if there is no suggestion of more than one person involved in all this.”
David saw the concern in Christine’s face at the word friends. “I’ll explain later, Chris,” he said. “Dr. Armstrong, I do appreciate what you did during the resuscitation. For that, I promise that as long as you do what you’ve said, there will be no interference from me.”
“Thank you.” Armstrong studied the coldness in his eyes, then bent down and kissed Christine on the forehead. Moments later she was gone.
David knelt by the bed. The scant light in the room glinted off the moisture in Christine’s eyes. “When you get out of here,” he said, “we’re going to take a trip to some dusty little village in Mexico.”
“But we get to come back?” There was joy and sadness in her smile.
“We get to come back.”
She closed her eyes. For a moment, it seemed she had fallen back to sleep, but as he moved away she grasped his hand. “David, could you tell me one more thing now?” she asked.
“What’s that?”
“Do you have vanity plates on your car?”
John Dockerty gulped at what remained of the stale coffee in his mug and sank back in his chair. It had taken the entire night and most of the morning, but at last Marcus Quigg had broken and had given him the name. The triumph—if that is what it was—felt hollow. Images of the frightened, sick, little man would haunt him possibly forever.
That it was Margaret Armstrong who was responsible for the murders and the mistakes and the pathetic pharmacist only made things worse. She was someone he respected and, even more depressing, someone he had trusted.
“John Dockerty, master sleuth,” he said sardonically. “Danced around the barn by a lady who turns out to be another goddamn Ma Barker.” Well, at least he had gotten the pleasure of telling the captain—though not in so many words—what an ass the man had been to order the hasty arrest of David Shelton.
Dockerty checked his watch. It had been nearly an hour since the captain had promised to get a magistrate’s probable cause warrant for Armstrong’s arrest. He rubbed at the stubble on his face and was deciding whether to shave or not when the phone rang.
“Investigations. Dockerty,” he said. “… Yes, Captain … that’s fine, sir … I’ll be down to get it right away.… Yes, sir, I know he looked guilty as sin. If I were in your position, I would have made the same decision.… Thank you, I’ll be down in five minutes.… Turkey.” Dockerty delivered the last word to the dial tone. He combed his hair with his fingers and pushed himself out of his chair. At that moment, with a soft knock, Margaret Armstrong stepped into his office.
“Lieutenant Dockerty, I have some things to talk with you about,” she said.
“Yes,” he replied, settling on the edge of his desk, “you certainly do.”
Within thirty minutes, Dockerty had heard enough of Armstrong’s confession to call in a stenographer. As a final act of defiance, he rang the captain and asked him to witness the proceeding. The man, a silky half-politician, half-policeman with bottle-black hair, listened in dumbfounded silence as Armstrong calmly admitted responsibility for the murders of Charlotte Thomas and Dotty Dalrymple, as well as for hiring the killer of Ben Glass and Joseph Rosetti. It was a story she had rehearsed carefully before driving to Station 1—an explanation she hoped would leave Dockerty satisfied that she had acted totally on her own. It disgusted her to have to paint Dalrymple as a heroine who had died because she had stumbled onto the truth, but any hint of a conspiracy would have risked exposure of the movement. She knew what policemen like Dockerty could do. Besides, Margaret was sure that up until the end Dotty had been just as dedicated to The Sisterhood as she was. The woman was frightened of losing her position and her influence, that’s all.
Armstrong’s confession held together well enough, but there was a vagueness about the details that made Dockerty uncomfortable. He attempted to pin her down, but was silenced by the captain, who found his tongue in time to say, “Now, Lieutenant, I’m sure the doctor will fill in some of these details in good time. As you can see, she’s had a rather rough go of it.”
Armstrong thanked him, adding a look that clearly made Dockerty an outsider in the exchange between two people of stature.
Dockerty decided to push his luck. “Just one thing,” he ventured. “Exactly how did you go about hiring a killer like Leonard Vincent?”
“I shall cover that in a moment,” she said, giving him her most withering, patrician stare, “but first, if you would direct me to your ladies’ room?”
“If you’ll wait,” Dockerty said, “I’ll get a matron to go …”
“Nonsense,” the captain cut in. “Dr. Armstrong has been officially charged with nothing as yet. The … ah … ladies’ room is just down the hall to the right. You can’t miss it.”
Armstrong again favored the captain with a look and carefully adjusted her skirt before striding from the room.
The ladies’ room was a sty. The institutional mosaic floor was stained and crac
ked. What paper towels there were overflowed the metal wastebasket to one side of the sink. The air reeked of urine and disinfectant.
Margaret Donner Armstrong did not notice the filth. She scanned the room, then went directly to the toilet stall, hooked the plywood door shut, and sat down.
She felt pleased at the way she had manipulated Dockerty and the captain. If David and Christine were true to their word, The Sisterhood of Life would die with dignity. The irony in that realization brought her some solace.
After leaving the hospital, Armstrong had gone home and honored her promise. The tapes—all but one—she had incinerated, stopping now and again to listen to a particular report or to reflect on her friendship with a particular woman. Her dream—her ultimate dream—had nearly been fulfilled. If only Dorothy hadn’t come apart.
Barbara Littlejohn had agreed that it was no longer possible for the movement to continue. At times during their telephone conversation the woman had actually sounded relieved. Armstrong wondered if Barbara would have reacted the same way as Dalrymple had her own reputation and career been on the line. The painful fact was that she simply did not know for certain—about Barbara or any of them.
So it had been decided. Barbara would make the calls and write the letters, then do what she could to continue the Clinton Foundation projects. And as the receiver dropped to its cradle, Armstrong knew that, after forty years, it was over.
Now, she sat looking at the sordid messages and primitive drawings on the door in front of her, remembering back fifty years to the last time she had been in such a place. She had felt frightened then. Frightened and dirty. She had feared the detectives and the way they stared at her breasts. She had taken her mind to special hidden places to keep from telling them what they wanted her to say. Hour after hour she had resisted their control, at one point choosing to wet herself rather than ask to leave the room. And in the end she had won. And with her victory had come the chance to strike out on a holy mission—a journey she had come close—oh, so close—to completing.
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