Race for the Dying (11 page)

Voices outside announced visitors, and Haines grimaced with irritation. “I'm going back to bed,” he said.

Chapter Nineteen

Zachary Riggs looked like Butch Eastman's little brother. As burly as Riggs might have been, he appeared almost slight compared to the enormous constable. Eastman hadn't waited for an invitation. He rapped a knuckle on the door and then entered with both Riggs and Horace James on his heels.

He stopped just inside the room, hands on his hips, canvas coat splayed winglike. Thomas guessed the man weighed nearly three hundred pounds, standing well over six and a half feet tall. A tiny woolen pullover hat appeared ready to pop off the top of a round skull evenly cropped to resemble a ripe burdock.

“Well, now,” Eastman said, his voice a light tenor that would have been expected from a schoolboy. His large, expressive brown eyes drew attention away from a badly pockmarked face. “You're the new fellow,” he said. “I'm Edgar Eastman. Most folks call me Butch.” He didn't offer his hand.

“This is Dr. Thomas Parks,” Zachary Riggs said, stepping around the constable. “But what happened here? Horace told us that Charlie Grimes ran into a knife.” Riggs started to move forward toward the corpse, but Eastman reached out a hand and stopped him.

“One thing at a time,” he said mildly, but the command in his voice was certain. “Show me,” he added to Thomas.

Thomas wheeled his chair back and drew the blanket down to the victim's waist. “A single wound,” he said. “It appears to have been inflicted with a small knife. Perhaps a jackknife or some such. After the postmortem, I'll be able to tell you more.”

“Is that right?” Eastman mused, and Thomas couldn't tell if he was actually interested or not. “There are a good many knives in town.”

“I would imagine there are.” Thomas wondered if the death of this young man was going to be dismissed with that vague statistic.

Eastman looked down at the young doctor for a moment, his eyes inventorying the bandages, the chair, the awkward posture. “Where did you find him?”

“The boy was sitting on our front step,” Horace interjected, and Eastman turned slowly in place to regard the older man, his expression blandly skeptical.

“And you carried him inside?”

“Yes. Horace and Alvi did,” Thomas said.

Up to this point, Alvina Haines had said not a word, but stood in the entrance to the hallway, on the opposite side of the room from the divan. She had fetched a robe, and looked elegant, Thomas thought. Sadly elegant.

“Good evening, young lady,” Eastman said. He turned his inventory on her, taking a long moment. “And who brought the body to one-oh-one?”

“We don't know that,” Thomas said. “As Horace already explained, he found Charlie sitting on the porch step.”

“He cried out then?” Eastman's voice sank to little more than a whisper.

“No. Not that any of us heard.” Horace nodded in agreement.

“Now that's interesting, Doctor. Last I looked, it's well past midnight. If the boy didn't cry out, how did you discover his presence?”

“The dog, sir,” Thomas said. “Prince set to barking, and it didn't sound like he was about to stop until someone went out to see what the trouble was.”

“I done that,” Horace said. “Damn dog was just going on. Like to drive me crazy.”

“I see.” Eastman sidled close to the divan and bent down, peering at the wound. His brow furrowed with concentration. After a moment, he looked at Thomas without straightening up.

“So tell me what you think, Doctor.”

“What I think? Charlie was alive when I reached him. We were in the process of sterilizing some instruments when he died.”

“About the wound. That's what I mean.”

“He was stabbed once. I think it was a fairly small knife, most likely a folder. You can see the bruising around the wound caused by the handle.”

“Stabbed hard, then. Right hard on the hilt.”

“Yes.”

Eastman straightened up, his spine letting out a loud pop. He arched his back, then settled his shoulders. Turning, he surveyed the room. “So…none of you saw this?”

Heads shook, and Eastman's eyes rested on Horace James.

“You went out to see what was fussing the dog. You didn't see anyone running away?”

“No, I sure enough didn't.”

“No one was with Charlie at that time?”

“No, sir. There he set, back against the rail, head leaning back. I could see he was hurt.”

“And what did he say to you?”

“Not a word, Butch. Not a word.”

“No response at all? He didn't say who attacked him, or where the attack took place?”

“No, sir, not a word.”

Eastman turned to Lindeman, whose face was still pasty gray. “You didn't see anyone on the street, Lars?” Lindeman shook his head. “You were asleep? They say the dog was barking.”

“Oh, I hear him all the time, the damn mutt. I don't pay no attention.”

“You knew that Charlie was out somewhere, did you?”

“He's out all the time, Butch. You know that. He comes and goes as he pleases from that room I give him. I ain't his mama.”

“No, you aren't,” Eastman said gently. The constable turned back and regarded the corpse. “Doctor Parker—”

“Parks.”

“Parks,” Eastman repeated. “Parks, Parks.” He nodded. “You think he could have gone far with a wound like that?”

“There's no way to tell, Mr. Eastman. There have been cases of victims who suffered more devastating injuries than this who then walked a considerable distance afterward. There's no way to tell how far Charlie managed.”

“All right.” Eastman surveyed the room again and nodded at Alvi. “Your father's not home at the moment?”

“He's in bed,” Alvi said. “I don't think he needs to be bothered.”

“No, I guess he doesn't,” Eastman agreed. “Did you see any of this, young lady?”

“I heard Horace get up to tend to the dog,” Alvi said. “He came to fetch me when he saw what the trouble was.”

“And then you woke Dr…Parks.”

“I was already awake,” Thomas said quickly. “But yes. She came and fetched me.”

“Not much you could do in any case, it appears.”

“No. It turned out that there wasn't.”

Eastman heaved a vast sigh. “That's that, I guess. I'll have Winchell come and fetch the body.”

“Actually, I want to do a postmortem,” Thomas said.

Eastman raised an eyebrow. “You discuss that with Winchell. Then maybe I'll talk with you in a day or so.”

“Certainly.”

Eastman turned to Zachary Riggs. “You about ready?”

“I think I should tend to things here,” Riggs said quickly. “We need to move the…” He stopped, and Thomas found his lack of words surprising. “I need to see what Dr. Parks wants to do.”

“Well, then, I'll leave you to it.” Eastman nodded politely at each person in turn, and offered his hand to Thomas. “I heard about your misfortune,” he said. “You'll be up and around before long?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“You need anything now, I'm just down the street. Any of these folks can tell you.”

“Thank you.”

The room seemed empty when Eastman left, and for a moment, there was silence. Alvi approached the divan and once more pulled the blanket up, taking a moment to stroke a strand of blond hair away from Charlie Grimes' face.

“Well,” Zachary Riggs said. “This is a sorry state of affairs indeed. I really liked that boy.” He looked down at Thomas thoughtfully. “You're hurting. Pale as that sheet.”

“Just sore, Zachary. It's nothing. I want to know who did this.”

“Of course. That's only natural. We all do, I'm sure. Unfortunately, such things are commonplace around the camps.”

“I hadn't thought of one-oh-one as a camp,” Thomas replied. “Will Eastman do anything about this?”

“Ah, don't underestimate Edgar Eastman,” Riggs said. “He and I were just playing chess when Horace interrupted.” He smiled tightly. “And I hate to admit it, but Butch was winning. When he says that he's interested in your findings, he means every word.”

“Can I leave transfer of the body to you?”

“Of course,” Riggs said. “Winchell will have two men come around first thing in the morning.”

“I'd prefer now,” Thomas said, and Riggs looked at him with surprise.

“Now? You're not—”

“If someone would carry my chair down the front steps, I can ride along in the wagon. I can't sleep anyway, and I need to know.”

“Good heavens, man. Need to know what?” Riggs said.

“Just…I need to know whatever…there is to know,” Thomas finished lamely. “That's all. Nothing is served by waiting.”

Zachary Riggs thrust his hands in his pockets, frowning at the figure on the divan. For a long time he stood that way, musing, and Thomas wondered what the physician was considering.

“All right,” Riggs said finally. “I'll rouse Winchell and see to moving the body.” He turned his frown on Thomas. “But at least do us the favor of waiting for daylight before you attempt the trip to the clinic, Doctor.”

“I won't sleep anyway,” Thomas said. “I don't see—”

“No, you won't sleep,” Riggs said, and he smiled. “But others might. You'll need help with the postmortem anyway. So do us the courtesy.”

Thomas chaffed with impatience, but knew that Riggs was right. “That's going to have to do, then,” he said.

Chapter Twenty

The new boardwalk followed Gambel Street, and as it started to curve downhill, Alvi put both hands on Thomas' shoulders. “Let's give him a good shove and be done with it,” she said to Horace, and the handyman mumbled agreement.

A stone's throw beyond Lindeman's Mercantile, Gambel Street turned right, the grade becoming precipitous. Jake Tate's crew had installed a step every twenty or thirty feet so that the boardwalk descended in a series of semilevel decks. Each time they reached a step, Horace tipped the chair back and eased the wheels down the vertical drop to the next section of walkway. The torture was mild, and Thomas knew that Horace was right—this venture was easier, all things considered, than trying to bundle him into a wagon for the short drive.

As the street turned left again to parallel the hill, Thomas saw they were approaching half a dozen frame houses, and the boardwalk came to an abrupt end, marked by a pile of lumber and four sawhorses where the workers had stopped for the Sabbath. A hundred yards of rutted mud faced them before the intersection with Grant Street.

“Let me fetch Mr. Winchell,” Alvi said. “He's here already.” She set off quickly before Thomas had the chance to ask where “here” was, striding toward a three-story brick building across Grant in front of which a black hearse was drawn, the two matching black horses motionless at the rail. In a moment she reappeared with Zachary Riggs and another man, short and brawny, with a roll to his walk.

“Had to come see all this for myself,” the man said as he drew near. His laborer's garb surprised Thomas, who had a fixed notion of what an undertaker should look like. The man grinned, showing a set of astonishingly white teeth behind his full mustache. “I'm Ted Winchell,” he said, before anyone had the chance to introduce him. “The county says that I'm the coroner. You're Doc Parks, I assume.” His grip was fleshy and powerful, and as he shook hands, he tipped his head and surveyed the wheelchair—at a casual glance, it appeared stuck in the mud. “Hell of a way to start a Sunday, I must say.”

“Good morning, sir.” Thomas saw that wood shavings had embedded themselves in Winchell's flannel shirt and trousers. The coroner turned and surveyed the muck through which he'd just trekked. “Well, no easy way, is there. Zachary?” And he motioned toward the other side of Thomas' wheelchair. “Let's deliver the goods.” The two men lifted the chair as if its occupant were a child.

They crossed Grant Street, and the wheels touched down on a well-worn boardwalk in front of the building. Thomas looked up at the lintel over the front door, the marble carved in tombstone script: mckinney merchants' bank and trust. Below that, gold-leaf paint on the front door's glass pane announced dr. john l. haines. md., with 601 gambel street centered under his name.

Supposing this to be an auxiliary office of some sort, Thomas looked on down Gambel Street to catch his first sight of the massive clinic. He was taken by surprise as Alvi opened the door and the two men lifted his chair and hoisted him over the single step.

“Your offices are separate, then,” Thomas said, rolling forward a bit on the polished wood floors of 601 Gambel. The foyer included several benches and two heavily padded chairs, a single long table against one wall, and two massive bookcases loaded with impressive volumes. Near one of the leather chairs, a grandfather's clock marked the time. Four doors, one to his left and three ahead and to the right, were all open, but the morning light was so dim that Thomas couldn't see what lay beyond. Alvi shut the front door, closing out the rush of raw coastal air.

“Home away from home,” she said with a tight smile. She beckoned and he followed her through the door on the left, leading to a narrow hallway with windows facing Grant Street on one side and a stairway rising on the other.

“Ted, I'll speak with you later,” Riggs said. “I'll be interested to hear what you find out.” He nodded at Thomas. “I'll be upstairs should you need me.”

Thomas watched him disappear up the stairs, footfalls echoing. Nothing he saw fit the image he'd built in his mind of the Haines Clinic and Vital Research Center—and certainly nothing in this modest building resembled the engraving in the
Advisor
.

The hall turned the corner through a wide archway. “When this building was first constructed,” Alvi said, “it was to be a bank, but that didn't work out. Then the owners got caught up in a Seattle fire and went bankrupt.” She lowered her voice. “My father had wanted to move his practice out of our home for a long time. So.” She stopped in front of a door and tried the knob. “Let me go fetch the key,” she said, and disappeared the way they had come. Thomas pivoted the chair in place. He could see four more doorways leading from the hall, all unmarked.

“First visit to Port McKinney?” Winchell asked pleasantly as they waited. “I hear it was something of an ordeal for you.”

“Indeed,” Thomas replied, and laughed helplessly. “From the ship straight to the rocks to this marvelous chair.” He thumped the wicker arm.

“Eastman tells me that he doesn't know what happened to the boy,” Winchell said.

“None of us do. Except that he died before we could help him.”

“Sad thing. He never had a chance to say a thing, I'm told.”

“True.”

“What is it that you aim to find out with all this?” He stepped aside as Alvi reappeared, key ring in hand. The door yawned open, the room beyond pitch-dark. The motion of the door fanned the characteristic odor of the newly dead. The question, coming as it did from a coroner charged with performing autopsies in questionable cases, surprised the physician.

“I want to know everything there is to know,” Thomas replied. A match flashed, and Alvi lit four gas fixtures. Thomas stopped in the doorway. “Operating theater” were the two words that came to mind from Dr. Haines' monumental new book, and they didn't fit this room. A slightly tilted table of heavily varnished wood dominated, the legs at one end raised by wooden blocks. The sheeted corpse of Charlie Grimes appeared pathetically small.

Glass-doored cabinets lined one wall, and below the table, a series of buckets were lined up, ready and waiting. Over the table, a chandelier of six gas lamps hung, and Alvi had lowered them, lighting each in turn until the room fairly blazed. Thomas turned in place, surveying what apparently had once been a small conference room. “Ah,” he said, spying his black medical bag on one of the shelves. He wheeled over and looked inside. Everything was neatly arranged, the instruments dry and polished, each tiny bottle neatly stowed in its own boot.

“Everything should be in order,” Alvi said. “Bertha fussed over it for some time, Dr. Thomas.”

“I'm in her debt.”

“I still don't see how you're going to do this,” Alvi said. She touched the side of the table. “This is much too high for your chair.”

“I think I can stand,” Thomas said. “With the crutches, I mean. Did Zachary want to assist? He left before I had a chance to ask him.”

“He's working in his office upstairs, Dr. Thomas. Mr. Winchell and I will certainly be able to provide you with whatever you need.”

The closed atmosphere of the room pressed in. “There should be some kind of ventilation in this room,” Thomas commented, swiveling to survey the chamber again—the room was little more than that.

“Yes, there should,” Alvi said. “We don't use it often. Mr. Winchell takes care of things like this.”

“Ah, but don't hesitate on my account,” the undertaker said.

“Well, we'll make do.” Thomas backed his chair against the table, leaned his crutches on the edge and pushed himself upward, pulling at the same time. Balanced with his right hip against the table, he considered the crutches. “This is going to be very, very awkward,” he muttered. But standing beside an operating table, no matter how crude, with a patient before him, no matter how dead, quickened his pulse. For the first time since arriving in Port McKinney, he felt of some use. “Let's see how much information we can discover for Mr. Eastman.” He bent down as Alvi slipped the straps of a rubberized apron over his head.

“You just tell me what you want me to do,” Winchell offered. He watched Thomas thoughtfully. “Been here often?”

The young physician hesitated. “I just arrived last week.”

Winchell smiled with genuine warmth. “No. I meant knife in hand at the operating table.”

“No,” Thomas answered truthfully. It was hard to put Charlie Grimes in the same category as the medical school cadavers, over which Thomas had spent hundreds of hours. But other than the cadaver's mummylike weathering and the reek of embalming fluid, how much difference could there be? Thomas thought. Exploration of the human body, if it was not to be repaired and returned to service afterward, required few specialized tools, and it was only the very first incision through the cold, stiff, alabaster flesh that made Thomas pause. This was not Charlie Grimes anymore, after all, but simply an anatomical puzzle.

“No matter,” Winchell said cheerfully. “I can tell you what killed the boy.”

“Yes, but we want to know more than that,” Thomas replied.

“Don't know how much more there can be,” Winchell said. The body bore no bruises, no bashing or battering from a saloon or street brawl. Other than a smashed little toe that had started to repair itself, it appeared that Charlie Grimes had been in average health before his final misadventure.

The fatal blow had come as a single, hard thrust from the victim's left, as if his attacker had been right-handed, facing him.

As Thomas worked, he saw that the blade had been plunged straight in, angled toward the center of the thoracic cavity, and then yanked straight out. A movement in his peripheral vision drew his attention, and Thomas realized that Alvi was standing quietly at the head of the table, watching.

“You don't have to endure this, you know,” he said.

“I know,” she replied quietly.

“Do you suppose you could find me a notebook of some sort?”

“Of course.” She opened one of the cabinets and removed a slender bound volume, along with a pencil. “May I record for you?”

“Certainly.” Moments later, he had confirmed what the initial probe had indicated—a wound slightly more than ten centimeters deep. The blade had punctured the heart's left ventricle, passed through the chamber and nicked the back wall, burying itself halfway through the tough heart muscle.

“Such a simple cut,” he murmured.

“Killed him dead as dead, just the same,” Winchell observed.

Thomas straightened up a bit, feeling the deep ache in his own ribs as he leaned on the crutches. “A suture or two and this wound would have been closed,” he said. “Dr. Roberts lectured to us about this very thing. The heart has been successfully sutured in some of the lower animals. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn't know that,” Winchell replied soberly, and Thomas noted the twinkle of amusement.

“It has, indeed. Dr. Roberts said he would not hesitate with the human heart, should the circumstances dictate.” He frowned, turning the probe gently in the heart wound. Just a little slice, so easily sutured. Yet with every beat, a jet of blood flooded the pericardial sac, with some leaking through the pericardium itself into the thoracic cavity. Not a swift death, but a sure one.

“Don't know this Roberts fellow,” Winchell said. “He one of the profs at the university?”

“Yes.” With the heart itself laid open, Thomas explored the wound in the rear ventricle wall. The knife's blade had been sharpened to an acute angle, with the cut in the posterior heart wall no more than a half centimeter wide at entry, narrowing to a pinprick deep in the muscle.

“And there's an interesting conundrum.” Thomas motioned for Winchell to step closer. “Had the knife remained in place, the bleeding might well have been stanched somewhat. But with each contraction, the heart would cut itself against the blade in situ, creating more damage.”

He glanced first at Winchell and then Alvi. “The war taught us a great deal,” Thomas said, and he realized instantly that he had sounded as if he'd been there. “What I mean to say is that the writings about the war have made it abundantly clear that the more prompt the treatment, the better the odds are that the patient will survive.”

“That's not the case here,” Winchell said.

“No, I suppose not. But had Charlie been brought immediately to surgery, then perhaps…”

Measuring meticulously, he was able to render a fairly accurate depiction of the knife blade—he imagined a common, hefty pocket folder with a four-inch blade—and an anatomical drawing of the weapon in place in the wound. The bruise at entry indicated that the weapon probably featured a handle stout enough to house two blades.

Ted Winchell cocked his head and regarded the rendering. “Nine out of ten men who walk the streets or work the timber carry something like that,” he observed.

“I would think so,” Thomas replied. “Still, it's more than Constable Eastman had before.”

Heavy, methodical footsteps approached down the hallway, and Thomas glanced up to see John Haines appear in the doorway.

“Good morning all,” he said gravely. “Ted, how did you get yourself roped into this?” The question was asked in jest, and Winchell held up both hands in surrender.

“Learnin' more'n I need to know,” he said.

Haines cocked his head and looked at the drawing Thomas had just finished. “Remarkable,” he said, “and a goddamn shame. Poor Charlie Grimes.” He stood for a moment, hands thrust in his trousers, lower lip pouched out, regarding the corpse.

“I'm about to close,” Thomas said.

“All right,” Haines said. He reached out and squeezed Winchell's biceps. “Thanks, Teddy.” He winked at Alvi, and then hesitated. “When you're finished here, Thomas…may we speak?”