Dying Wishes (26 page)

“Margaret
meant it as a kindness, I’m sure,” I said gently.

“One
of her many,” he agreed and returned to the subject at hand. “So now that you
have seen the truth for yourself, can you assure Ginny Preston that nothing
illegal occurred?”

I
chose my words with care. “I can tell her that nothing illegal happened on
Vista View property that night with regard to Margaret’s death.”

He
looked at me closely. “But where did she get the
Seconal
,
right?”

“More precisely, from whom?
I know it wasn’t from Dr. Petersen, or at least that’s what Margaret said, and
she was pretty convincing.”

“No,
it wasn’t Petersen, may he be everlastingly damned.”

His
vehemence startled me. If anyone could understand the legalities confronting
the doctor, it was he. “I think the Dr. Petersen’s position may be softening
somewhat,” I told him, remembering what
Ada
had told
me about the prescriptions for her and
Lavinia
. In
combination, they would surely constitute a lethal dose, and the doctor would
be well aware of it.

“I
won’t even ask how you know that. At any rate, I don’t know how she got the
pills. They wouldn’t tell me that either. I’m just glad she was able to get
what she needed. I have my suspicions, of course.”

“As
do I,” I concurred.

“And
you need to know if you are correct.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I
do, but that doesn’t mean I’ll necessarily do anything with the information.”

“Ah,
yes, the old law
versus
justice
dilemma. It crops up more often than I would have believed possible forty years
ago when I was studying for the bar.”

“If
you had known it then, would you still have chosen to become a lawyer?”

“Probably
not,” he said shortly. I left it at that.

~

On
Friday morning I dropped my briefcase at the sales desk and went directly to
Ginny’s office. There were two conversations I needed to put behind me today,
and this was the first of them. I rapped lightly on the doorframe.

“Got
a few minutes for me?”

She
looked up from her computer screen, surprised to see me.
“Of
course, Kate.
Come in.”

I
pulled the door shut and took a seat. As usual these days, Ginny looked pale
and tense. I hoped what I had to tell her would finally change that. For the
next five minutes she leaned forward on her desk, shoulders hunched, hands
tightly clasped. Her eyes never left my face as I told her what I knew and how
I knew it, omitting all names except Margaret’s.

“Margaret
took her own life to escape an ugly, lingering death a few weeks or months down
the road. It was her choice, although an awful one to have to make. She wasn’t
coerced or unduly influenced in any way. Most importantly, she didn’t suffer
physically. I’m sure there was a lot of mental anguish involved in making the
decision, but once that was accomplished, she seemed to be at peace with it.”

Ginny’s
features smoothed out during my discourse, and she leaned back in her chair,
but her eyes were still troubled.

“Some
people would say that by having the means available to end her life, she was
influenced to do so far too hastily.”

“Some
would, I know, but that theory hasn’t been proven to be true statistically,” I
protested, drawing upon the information I had gleaned during my research. “In
fact, the greatest impact of the death with dignity laws may lie in the peace
of mind it gives to those who will never use it but know it is an available
option. Many more lethal prescriptions are requested under the laws than are
actually used. Just knowing they have the choice to end unbearable suffering,
if it comes to that, seems to free patients to choose to live as long as they
feel they have any quality of life. They become voluntary survivors, not
helpless sufferers.”

Ginny
nodded, but her eyes remained haunted.
 
“That’s the legal situation, but even unassisted suicide is not God’s
will,” she insisted. “Only He can decide when a human life should end.”

I
sighed but refused to be drawn into an argument with her that neither of us
would ever win. “We disagree on the moral aspects, Ginny. I believe an
individual has the right to end his or her suffering. Even believers in God
have to agree that He gave human beings free will, which admittedly hasn’t
worked out
all that
well.”

She
looked at me sharply but didn’t comment further. “What was Dr. Petersen’s
involvement in this? If he knowingly prescribed a lethal dose of barbiturates,
he technically assisted Margaret’s suicide, and that’s illegal. No matter what
his reasons for helping her might have been, I would have to report him. At the
very least, he could not be allowed to continue here.”

“He
didn’t give her the prescription, Ginny. I know that for a fact.”

She
opened her mouth to ask how I knew,
then
shut it
again.
“Any thoughts on Angela
Roncaro
?”

“Nothing
concrete, but if there were any similarities between her situation and
Margaret’s, I feel certain I would know it by now. It was only Margaret’s dying
so soon after Angela that made that connection in your mind.”

“Connection?
I’ve been
obsessed,” she snorted.

“In
that case I think obsession is contagious, because I caught it from you,” I
said in an attempt at levity, “but no, I’m convinced that Angela’s death was
exactly what it appeared to be, from natural causes. So can you put this behind
you now? Do you really want to leave your job here?”

She
got up from her chair and paced to the window, hugging herself as if for
warmth. “I do. I really believe it’s time for me to go. I’m tired, Kate,” she
said simply, and I knew that it was true. She made a sweeping gesture that seemed
to encompass all of Vista View along with its staff and residents. “I don’t
mean just this particular situation, although God knows that’s true enough. I’m
tired of leaking roofs and quarrels among the maids and power outages and late
deliveries. I’m sick of finicky spreadsheets and boring meetings and endless
reports to the directors.
Most of all, the feeling of always
being responsible for whatever goes on here has exhausted me.
Oh, I know
what you’re going to say.” She flashed a wry grin over her shoulder. “
Rog
has been telling me the same thing for years, that I
assume too much responsibility too much of the time. No one person is that
indispensable, he
says,
and he’s right.” She chuckled.
“Leave it to him to take me down a peg while seeming to sympathize with me.”

I
nodded in understanding.
“The backhanded compliment.
It’s something I get frequently from my loving husband. We want to be admired
for our efficiency and capability, but the truth is
,
they
mostly resent us for it, except when they need us to do something for them, of
course.”

This
time she laughed outright. “You’ve got it.” She returned to her chair and sat.
“I don’t want to be that person anymore,” she said flatly. “Let somebody else
be the efficient one. Even without this latest drama—and I do thank you most
sincerely for clearing it up for me—I was ready to let go of the reins. Poor
Margaret was just the straw that broke this camel’s back.”

She
looked through her office window into the lobby, where residents trickled by in
twos and threes on their way to the dining room for coffee and conversation or
perhaps a hand of cards.

“Vista
View was a very new concept when I was first
hired,
this type of full-service retirement community. It was exciting, engrossing, and
I felt like a real pioneer. The problems were just speed bumps then, but now …”
Her voice trailed off.

“It’s
getting old,” I suggested.

“Exactly.
It’s someone
else’s turn.”

“But moving to North Carolina, Ginny.
That seems so drastic. Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Not
at all,” she responded cheerfully, “which is why we’ve decided not to sell the
house, at least not yet. We’ll lease it while we spend some time down south
with Denny and his family. We’ll rent something close to them, but not too
close,” she joked, sounding more like her old self by the minute. “I don’t want
to alarm my daughter-in-law. And then we’ll see. Maybe we’ll love it, or maybe
we’ll find out that a little bit of this grandparent stuff goes a long way.”

“I
hear that,” I told her, reminded of my own impending change in status.

“The
point is
,
nothing will be irrevocable.”

I
smiled my approval. “It sounds like a plan to me.”

“You’ll
handle the leasing arrangements for us at this end?” She asked the question
tentatively, as if she wasn’t entirely certain I would want to help her.

“You
bet,” I assured her. “Just let me know when you’re ready to hammer out the
details.”

As
I had hoped, some of the tension had drained from Ginny’s face. I rose to go.
When I opened her office door, an apron-clad kitchen worker was preparing to
knock, a mutinous expression on his face. Behind me, Ginny’s phone started to
shrill. I waved a quick goodbye.

“Here’s
to retirement,” she said with a shrug. For the first time in a very long while,
she looked almost happy.

I
sighed and trudged toward the dining room. Ginny’s load might feel lighter now,
but the kitchen employee had reminded me I had one more difficult conversation
to get through before I could feel that I had truly done my duty.

~

Tommy
agreed to join me during his coffee break, and we strolled out to my car, out
of earshot of others, to drink the coffee he had thoughtfully brought with him.

“I
wasn’t sure how you take yours,” he said, producing a fistful of sweeteners and
creamers from his jacket pocket. I chose a
Splenda
and stirred it into my coffee slowly. I was uncertain how to proceed, but Tommy
took it upon himself to break the ice.

“There’s
something else you need to know about Margaret Butler, right?”

I
nodded. “There is, Tommy, but before I ask you about it, I want you to know
this is just between you and me. I need to know for
myself,
because that’s the way I am, not for Ginny Preston or the administrators of
Vista View or … anyone else.”

The
muscles in his jaw clenched, and I thought he might refuse to talk to me, but
he finally looked up. “So ask,” was all he said.

I
looked at him steadily. “There was a piece of paper Ginny found in Margaret’s
study while she was in there packing things up. It had a notation that wasn’t
in Margaret’s handwriting. It seemed to be a reminder about a meeting with
someone whose initials are T.G. on the Thursday night she died. Naturally, we
thought of you.”

“Naturally,”
he said sourly. He worked on his coffee for a few seconds, considering what to
say.

 
“I wasn’t there the night she died, so that
note must have referred to the previous week. I went there late on a Thursday
to give her a massage and …” he paused, and to my surprise, his voice caught
with emotion.

“And what, Tommy?
What else
were you there to do?”

He
composed himself with difficulty. “I delivered one hundred capsules of
Seconal
sodium I had purchased illegally for her at her
request.”

I
nodded sadly. Of all the people who were peripherally involved in this drama,
Tommy was the one with the most to lose. For one thing, he was the youngest.
For another, he had clearly committed a crime, and if he were convicted, he
would never become a licensed therapist in this or any other state.

“Who
did you get the pills from, Tommy?” I asked faintly.

He
lifted his chin and looked me in the eye. “Someone I knew I could trust to
supply pharmaceutical grade medication. I had to be certain about the quality.
I won’t tell you his name.”

“Then
at least tell me why. How could you risk your entire future like that for a woman
you barely knew?”

The
stubborn set of his jaw softened. “I knew her very well, better than most of my
other clients. A massage is a personal service, and I guess she felt she could
talk to me. I noticed the scars, of course, and I knew she’d been having a lot
of pain. She told me about her medical situation, what she had already been
through and the awful death she faced in the very near future. There wasn’t
enough time left to establish residence in the Northwest, so she asked Dr.
Petersen to help her.” He choked up again.

“But
he refused?” I prompted gently.

“He
wouldn’t do it,” Tommy spit out bitterly, “and he calls himself a physician.”
The anger on his face and in his words aged him by a decade, and my heart went
out to him. Growing up is difficult under the best of circumstances. Tommy had
experienced more than his share of hardship, but he had somehow retained his
compassion. He really was a special kid.