Race for the Dying Page 13

  “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 h
is 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?”

  “Of course, sir.” Haines left, and it took Thomas only moments to close the yawning incision with large, utilitarian sutures.

  “Guess he belongs to me now,” Winchell said philosophically as Alvi pulled the sheet up to cover the corpse. “Don’t think Charlie had relatives, so the county will take care of him. I’ll get Riggs and have him help me load.” He extended his hand, not appearing to mind the gore that covered Thomas’ own. “We’ll be seein’ each other,” he said. “When you have a minute or two, stop by my place. Got some interesting things to show you.”

  “I look forward to that,” Thomas said.

  “Miss Haines, always a pleasure.” Winchell nodded at her and shot a last glance at the corpse before he left, perhaps measuring and weighing.

  Alvi helped Thomas shed the apron. “Father’s rather proud of you for making the effort to come down, you know.”

  “And I can just stay here,” Thomas offered. He looked hard at Alvi. “I confess that I’m more than a bit puzzled, Alvi. This is the clinic, then? This single building?”

  “For the present it is,” she said, and offered no further explanation.

  “I see,” Thomas said, although he did not. “Surely somewhere in this building you have a room where I might lodge? Zachary stays here?”

  “He does, but on the third floor. As far as you’re concerned, that might as well be Chicago.” Alvi laughed. “Unless we hire two manservants to lug you up and down the stairs.”

  “I did five steps this morning,” Thomas said gamely. “Seven tomorrow, then eight…in no time at all, two flights.”

&nb
sp; She smiled affectionately at the young man. “We’ll see. Actually, Father had an idea for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  John Haines settled into the huge leather chair behind an equally impressive desk. Thomas wheeled across the room so his back was to the window and marveled at the impressive office—shelves heavy with the finest volumes, various surgical tools, some for show and some for use. A narrow door led to a lavatory.

  “So,” Haines said. He folded his hands in front of himself on the walnut desk. “Tell me about the boy. What did you discover?”

  “A single powerful thrust, sir. Directed ever so slightly upward, and from the victim’s left to right. A direct through-and-through laceration of the anterior wall of the left ventricle, and the tip of the blade passed through the chamber and lacerated the posterior ventricle wall.”

  “And death was sure, but far from instantaneous,” Haines mused. He rubbed his face and then let his head rest in his hand. “Fascinating how these things work sometimes. Did Eastman happen to know where the crime was committed?”

  “No, sir. All that is known is that young Grimes traveled some unknown distance to our front step, maybe without assistance. We can’t be sure of that.”

  “Remarkable.” Haines pushed away from the desk and leaned his head back against the chair. He closed his eyes. “But not altogether unusual, is it? As your studies in Philadelphia no doubt revealed, the heart is a more resilient organ than we once supposed. You attended Roberts’ lectures at university, did you not?”

  “John Roberts? Yes. I was most fortunate to know him well.”

  “I’ve read that he suggests that surgery on the heart may be possible, after all.”

  “I agree.” Thomas leaned forward eagerly, and the sudden motion drew him up abruptly. “That very thought occurred to me as I explored the wound, sir,” he continued. “The puncture of the heart was…” He stopped and smiled. “I was about to say ‘a trifle,’ but that’s not quite true. A serious wound because of the complications, but had I been able to instantly stitch it up to stop the bleeding, Charlie Grimes would be alive. I’m sure of it.”