Authors: William Lashner
It was a girl.
I hadn’t slept yet when I banged loudly on the great wooden door. It was light out but still early enough that a gentle tap or a warning phone call might have been polite. But having heard what I heard from Kylie that very night, I wasn’t in the mood just then to be polite. So I banged. Loudly. And I banged again.
It took longer than I would have thought for the door to be answered, and what I encountered was not what I expected. Yes, it was Whit, my old mentor Whitney Robinson III, on whose front door I had been banging, but he was not dressed in his usual fastidious style, no handkerchief in his jacket pocket, no jacket to be precise, nor even a shirt. It was T-shirt and pajama pants, bare feet, unshaven jaw, gray hair mussed tragically, eyes haunted, pale lips trembling at the sight of me.
The last bit of which I could understand, being as I represented, in a way, the ghost of Whit’s past.
“Not a good time, I’m afraid, my boy,” he said.
“It will have to do.”
“Ah, the determined young man out to get to the bottom of it once and for all. I didn’t think you had it in you, Victor, and I must say I’m disappointed. Self-righteousness might be a pleasant enough vice for its holder, but it can be so wearying for those on the other side of its wrath.”
“What did he give you, Whit? What did he do for you that impelled you to ignore Seamus Dent’s confession and ensure François’s conviction?”
“He played God.”
“That seems to be his thing.”
“What happened to your face?”
“The dental hygienist.”
Whit’s eyes widened. “Quite a woman, that Tilda. I suppose you’ll be coming in whether I invite you or not.”
“You suppose right.”
“Then all I can do is welcome you again to my humble home. Come inside, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
As I followed him into the large stone house, I noticed how stooped and thin he was, how much the years had pressed their weight upon him. Without his upper-crust uniform, he appeared more fragile than I had ever imagined, less the highly polished product of the top tier of the American caste system and more the doddering old man, clutching feebly to whatever straw he could grab hold of in this life. I had admired him for years, and then feared him in the latter part of this case, but now, unaccountably, I felt sorry for him.
He led me through the faded hallway and then to the right, through the dining room that, even with its great oaken table and heavy crystal chandelier, felt like it had been abandoned years before. Whatever joyous occasions had been celebrated in that room, whatever festive dinners had been thrown or gracious toasts offered, were well in the past. This room was now just a passageway that led to another room at its far end, a room that in its heartbreak had clearly become the center of the house.
Guarding the entrance was the white-faced nurse whom I had seen through the window my last visit. Tall and gaunt, like a withered stalk of corn, she stared with an admixture of fear and disgust, her thin mouth twitching at the sight of me.
“Leave us some time alone, will you, Miss MacDhubshith.”
“The poor girl, she needs her rest,” said the nurse in a strong burr.
“Of course she does,” said Whit. “Take your break. I’ll stay with her.”
The woman gave me a final glare before stalking off. Toward a telephone, I presumed, to squeal on the two of us to you-know-who. When she left, Whit passed through the doorway, and I followed.
I found myself in an old sitting room, wood-lined, with bookshelves and fine stained-glass windows. It was a room that should have held red leather chairs and calfskin-bound volumes of Dickens and Thackeray, Tocqueville and Maupassant. The fireplace should have been roaring, the port decanted, a game of whist going on in the corner. And at one point I’m sure all of that had happened here, but not now and not, I could tell, for years. Now it had been turned into a shrine for the living dead.
“This is my daughter, Annabelle,” said Whit, gesturing to the hospital bed set into the middle of the room and the woman who lay uneasily upon it. He sat down in the chair placed by the bed, leaned over to his daughter, gently laid the back of his hand on her cheek.
She was seemingly young and pretty, her hair cut short, her skin shiny, her hands waxy and smooth with long, tapered nails. Her pale blue eyes were open and darting about the room as if she were trying to take it all in, but it became clear, after only a moment, that she was taking in nothing. And her body shook and contracted in on itself to some strange, unnatural rhythm. The only things that kept her on the bed were straps binding her arms to the bed frame.
“My youngest child,” said Whit. He leaned forward and kissed her quivering forehead. “My little princess. It came out of nowhere. She was skiing, in Colorado. A heart attack and then a stroke that acted together to deprive her brain of oxygen for far too long. She was left in an appalling condition.”
“I’m so sorry, Whit. How long has she been like this?”
“Five years,” he said. “Five impossible years. At first she was in a minimally conscious state. She had some real awareness of what was going on, sometimes you could tell she was even trying to speak. It was heartbreaking. It looked as if she was inside this shell, trying to break out. But then, at least, there was still hope.”
“What kind of hope?”
“An experimental procedure that showed much promise, something called neural modulation. Electrodes are implanted deep into the brain, and then a battery is placed in the chest, much like a pacemaker for the heart. The deep-brain stimulation had been shown to have real effects in changing the very structure of the brain, in allowing the parts still healthy to take a more prominent role, so long as it was applied very quickly after the damaging event. If it worked, she’d be back, my daughter, my sweet, sweet little girl. Back to us. But there was a problem. The FDA had approved a very small case study, with very rigid parameters. The doctors said that Annabelle didn’t qualify. The precipitating event had happened too long ago.”
“Was there any way around the requirement?”
“None that I could see. I pushed every button I could, but to no avail. I was distraught. And then Seamus Dent showed up in my office. This was just before the trial. I knew he was a witness against François. I was shocked to see him. But he told me he had something to say.”
“What did he tell you, Whit?”
“A strange, fabulous tale of a dentist who had this wonderful ability to help people in need.”
“Pfeffer.”
“Yes. He told me how Dr. Pfeffer had worked on his teeth and in the process how he was recruited by this doctor to help in his causes. And one night Dr. Pfeffer had given him the mission to help Leesa Dubé. There was a key and a videotape. His job was to enter her apartment, leave the tape in the VCR, program it to start playing in the morning, and quietly leave. She was supposed to be dead asleep, it was supposed to be so easy. But the woman awoke and was so frightened at the intrusion that she came at him with a gun. And he reacted badly. There was a struggle, there was a shot, and the bullet went through her neck. He said it was a hurricane of blood. He ran away and called Dr. Pfeffer, who said he’d take care of it, and he did.”
“And when he told you this, Whit, what did you do?”
“I went to see the mysterious Dr. Pfeffer. I wanted to confront him, to learn the truth. But in the course of our conversation, the doctor mentioned that he knew of my daughter’s condition and that he could help. He said he had contacts, he said he had a way to get her in the study. He told me he would take care of it, and he did. She was the last patient admitted. Dr. Pfeffer gave her a chance at life.”
“And for that you ignored Seamus’s confession.”
“I did what I had to do. I convinced the boy his statement wouldn’t do any good, that no one would believe him. He would get in trouble, yes, but my client wouldn’t have been helped. The best thing, I told him, the only way to keep himself out of trouble, was to repeat in court what he had already told the police.”
“So you betrayed your client.”
“You have no children, Victor, so you might not understand the great fear that comes upon you at the moment of birth. There is the love, yes, such a sweet, thrilling emotion, but there is the fear, too. The fear that somehow you will fail them. It never leaves you, the awesome and terrifying responsibility you hold for their welfare. Would you have done anything differently if it had been your daughter lying there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who did she have but me? My whole life I had fought for my clients. This time I sided with my child.”
“And how did it turn out, Whit?”
“You can see for yourself. The procedure didn’t work. Her condition deteriorated, her muscles are in constant, irregular spasm. It is all I can do to care for her. It isn’t easy, it killed my wife, the strain, and it has drained me completely. But Dr. Pfeffer continues to help. He found me the nurse, he keeps the doctors on their toes, he convinced the insurance company to allow me to care for my princess in my home.”
“Maybe it would have been better if you had left it alone.”
“She deserved a chance.”
“So did the person whose admittance to the study your daughter edged out.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“He’s an amateur at it.”
“At what?”
“Playing God,” I said. “You’ll testify for François.”
“That’s out of the question.”
“I don’t think so.” I pulled out a small, minicassette recorder. “They make them so small now, quite ingenious.”
“What Seamus told me is hearsay. It is not admissible.”
“Seamus’s statement was against his penal interest.”
“You need circumstantial evidence of the statement’s trustworthiness.”
“I’ve got it.”
“Where?”
“From our dentist’s past.”
“I see you’ve done your homework. It’s almost a pity that he won’t let you present it all to the jury.”
“He’ll try to stop me.”
“And he’ll succeed. He’s very clever.”
“Not clever enough. And the proof is, sadly, right here in this room. Tell me, Whit: You gave up everything you worked for your entire life, every ounce of meaning in your career, for a chance that failed. Would you do it again?”
“Every day, forever and again.”
“Now who’s the hollow man?” I said. “I’ll see you in court.”
When I left the room, he was still leaning over the bed, brushing again his hand against his daughter’s cheek, oblivious to anything other than her trembling body, her lifeless, roaming eyes.
I made my way through the pale, sad dining room to the center hallway, where she was waiting for me. Of course she was. Nurse MacDhubshith, standing before the front door, her hands behind her back. Dr. Bob’s first line of defense.
“I’ll be having the tape recorder now, Mr. Carl,” she said.
“Didn’t your mother teach you it’s impolite to eavesdrop?”
“We built an intercom into the room so I can monitor her wherever I be. Sometimes there is much distress.”
“I’ll bet.”
“That tape, then.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“You didn’t believe we’d let you bring it all come crashing down, did you?”
“We all do what we must.”
“That we do,” she said as she took her right hand from behind her back. She was gripping the handle of an absurdly large cleaver.
“Tell me this, Nurse MacDhubshith. What did he do for you?”
“He fixed me overbite and saved me brother’s life.”
“And for that you’d hack me to death?”
“Don’t be daft. I’m not out to kill you, Mr. Carl. The knife is only to slice you a bit, maybe cut off an ear.” She smiled as she took her left hand from behind her back. “And this is to stop you from leaving with the tape.”
In her left hand was a syringe, an old Gothic appliance with round metal loops for her fingers and a long metal needle dripping with some vile fluid.
She took a step toward me, the needle outstretched.
I faked left, went right, pushed her aside as I tried to rush by her toward the door.
The cleaver swung through the air with a flash of light. I jumped back. The blade just missed my stomach, piercing my jacket before burying itself in the wood-paneled wall.
I fought to pull away, but my jacket was pinned to the wall. I tried to spin out of the jacket, but I failed.
Nurse MacDhubshith came at me with the syringe.
I lifted my leg and kicked her away, hard.
As she sprawled on the floor with a shriek and a groan, I grabbed the handle of the cleaver and levered it back and forth until it released from the wall and freed my jacket
I tossed the cleaver to the floor, lunged for the door, when something grabbed hold of me. I tried to shake her off, I tried to push her away, the nurse was so thin it should have been nothing to get her off my back. But it wasn’t nothing, and it wasn’t the nurse.
“Be a good boy now, bucko,” said Tilda’s heavy German accent, “and take your medicine,
ja
.”
Next thing I knew, there was a pinching in my neck and something cold slipped through my collarbone, racing down and across my chest, into my very heart.
I flailed out with my arm and caught Tilda with my elbow in the same spot I had slammed her before. The force of it freed me for a moment. I took a step toward the door, then a stagger. The room shifted on its axis. The floor slid noisily beneath my foot as I lost my balance. I looked down. My foot had slipped on a flat piece of metal. I bent over, grabbed the metal blade by the handle, tried to stand up straight. The room shifted again.
I reached for the doorknob and missed, smacking my head on the wood. I recovered, reached again, felt the cool brass in my overheated hand. I turned the knob, pulled the door toward me, staggered back.
“Hello, Victor,” said Dr. Bob, standing now in the entranceway. “So nice to see you again. Put that down. We have no need for violence.”
The cleaver fell from my hand and slammed point first into the wooden floor. I staggered back, lurched forward, fell to my knees.
“I’m so glad to be able to catch you,” said Dr. Bob, stepping forward and grabbing hold of my arm to keep me upright as my head lolled to the side. “What do you say to one more session in the chair, Victor, for old times’ sake?”