The Resurrectionist: A Novel Part 16

"Seems like the wrong time of year to head up there."

Mary shrugs. "Said he's had enough of Carolina for a while."

Jacob can think of nothing to say. As if to break the uneasy silence, Mary bends down to the floorboard, picks up his portfolio, and fusses with the loose flap of manila envelope that pokes forth from its leather.

"Going to lose something important riding around with this loose," she says. And sure enough, now that she has lifted them off the floor, the pages flutter and snap in the wind. She gathers them together and opens the clasp on the manila envelope to put them inside. She is stuffing the stack into the envelope when she pauses.

"Who this?"

He sees that she has pulled the copy of Nemo Johnston's portrait from among the other papers.

"That's the guy who ruined my week."

"What he do to you?"

For an instant he thinks of telling her everything, of filling in the gaps of whatever story Big Junior must have already told her. He looks down again at the man's face in the photocopy. Beneath the almost fierce expression there is a sadness to the eyes, if you look closely enough. "He left a mess behind him," he says finally. "I got stuck cleaning it up."

Mary nods, makes a sound of agreement. "Well. Ain't that a switch," she says. "White man cleaning up after a black man."

"I guess it is," Jacob says as he pulls the car to the curb in front of Mary's house. She sets the portfolio on the dashboard with Nemo Johnston's face sticking out of the top of it, his distant eyes staring up at the twilight sky. Mary is opening the door when Jacob puts his hand on her arm.

"Mary," he says, "that's the guy who put all the bones in the school cellar. The ones Big Junior saw." He pauses, wis.h.i.+ng her eyes would meet his. "Tell me something: why would he do that to his own people?"

Her chestnut eyes fix on his for a moment, then she turns back to the door. She has one foot planted on the asphalt when she looks over her shoulder at him. "What makes you think he had a choice?"

The car door shuts heavily behind her and he hears her feet padding across the asphalt. His eyes are still riveted to Nemo Johnston's when he hears her screen porch door swat shut. Slowly he reaches out for the portfolio to tuck the black face out of view. He is stuffing it into the envelope when another photocopy in the packet catches his eye. He pulls it out, glancing at its familiar arrangement of five vertical figures arrayed around the horizontal cadaver.

But Nemo Johnston is not present in this photograph, and as Jacob narrows his eyes he can see that the men have posed not on the ground floor of Johnston Hall but in the bas.e.m.e.nt. In a corner of the frame he can just make out one of the grilled cas.e.m.e.nts of the cellar.

He flips through the papers behind it, shaking his head as he thinks of Janice Tanaka and her obsessive yearning to know the complete record, how lonely it must be for her to h.o.a.rd this much information to herself. What it must have taken for her to share this knowledge with him.

He looks at the faces in each photograph. Some of them could almost pa.s.s for the nineteenth century, with their heavy sideburns, until the hand-lettered dates at the bottom of each shot proceed to the eighties, when the faces are shaved clean, the hairstyles short. And though every photograph includes a haggard cadaver and some emblem of the skull and crossbones, Jacob sees in most of the shots the familiar faces of the recent past. He recognizes John Beauregard in the 1971 portrait; in 1979, a young Austin Malloy mugs for the camera.

And indeed, it seems to Jacob that there is no small measure of bureaucratic courage in Janice's decision to slip these extra pages in among the ones he requested. For in every shot from the early seventies to the last portrait, in 1980, Jim McMichaels stands at the center of the frame, twenty pounds lighter and with a full head of hair, smiling like a prince.

With a leaden feeling in his gut, Jacob tucks the pages back into the envelope, lingering for a moment over the earliest shot with McMichaels in it, when the dean was Jacob's age. He can see that McMichaels's eyes back then were just as bright and crafty as they are today.

He sets the portfolio on the pa.s.senger seat and eases the BMW forward down Hardin Street, thinking of Nemo Johnston and Jim McMichaels nestled side by side in the tan envelope. He wonders what sort of commerce the two might have had if their centuries had overlapped, wonders what his role in it might have been.

He pauses at the yield sign where Hardin feeds into Huger Street, waiting for a gap in the oncoming traffic. He sees that there is a new iron marker at the entrance to Rosedale, the kind set out by the historical society: hand-painted and august, a small mound of fresh clay clinging to its base. He would like to get out of the car and read its thumbnail history, but the shadows are deepening to dark, and this is not the kind of neighborhood where a white man taking a stroll feels most at ease.

BACK HOME, AFTER he has showered and put on his tuxedo, Jacob takes a beer out of the refrigerator and sits down at the kitchen bar with all of the archives materials spread out in front of him. He arranges the Skull and Crossbones photos chronologically and places them in a stack, then begins to sort through his copies of Nemo Johnston's record. He is checking the sequence of the ledger sheets when he sees that in March of 1866, the heading for Nemo Johnston is scratched out, the column below it empty for the rest of the year. He looks at the next two years and finds no record of Johnston at all.

He flips back to 1866 and stares hard at the page, trying to make some sense of the numbers there, all the columns. Johnston was free by then to quit, certainly. But why put his name at the top of the page for March if there was to be nothing below it? Doubtful that a freed slave would give two weeks' notice, but there is nothing entered beneath the name, not even a partial payment for the month. No record of dismissal. He looks again at the scratched-out heading of the column. Is he imagining things, or is the spidery script of the rest of the ledger a little less reserved here, the crosshatched lines covering Johnston's name almost scratched into the paper?

He takes another sip of his beer. A drop of perspiration falls from the bottle and he wipes at the spot with his finger.

And then, like a gift, the numbers suddenly cohere and he can make sense of the ledger's account. Janice must be right about administrators; he seems to have gotten lazy in his reading. The content of the columns is reversed-so neatly, in fact, that he chides himself for not having seen it immediately. The month that Nemo Johnston disappeared from the expenditures column, the liquid a.s.sets column went blank. Too neat for coincidence.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," he whispers. "You cleaned them out."

UNDER THE BRIGHT lights out front of the Dean's Mansion the cars are arriving in droves, their tires crunching on the pea gravel as they inch forward for the undergraduate valets to swap places with their drivers and move them to the makes.h.i.+ft parking lot on the huge lawn behind the estate. Jacob imagines the line is backed up halfway down the long drive, despite the hustling of the young valets. He watches them, sweating now in their Bermuda shorts and golf s.h.i.+rts bearing the university's seal, as they take each car away. This motley procession: the opulence of the big Lincolns and Lexuses favored by administrators and specialists is set off by the j.a.panese economy cars of the medical students, many of them with out-of-state plates and sporting global-consciousness b.u.mper stickers. Free Tibet, one of them says. Jacob admires the sentiment but cannot help thinking that the youthful idealism will soon be fading fast.

Finally he sees Kaye's black sedan a half-dozen s.p.a.ces back in the line. "The law is a jealous mistress," she had reminded him when she called a half hour earlier from the courthouse, and he had told her that he understood, straining to hear her with the cell phone pressed close to his ear in the roaring ballroom of the mansion. He had asked the black man tending bar to pour him a double scotch and then taken it outside to drink while he waited. Now he grins as her car moves up the line; he can see, in the soft glow of her visor's light, that she is putting on mascara.

He comes down the steps to greet her as the black car pulls up in front of the great house. She climbs out and says something to the young man who holds the door for her. Both of them smile.

Late or not, she looks as if she has spent the entire afternoon getting ready. Her dark hair is full and neat and her eyes are bright over the diamond pendant and black c.o.c.ktail dress and stockings she wears. He cannot help admiring her legs as she comes around the back of the car; they are as lithe and long as a runner's legs, but shapely in a way that stirs something deep inside him.

"Stop staring," she says as she reaches up to kiss him.

"Can't help it," he says as he breathes in the wonderful smell of her. "If you looked like this in court, I bet the judge just handed you the case."

She takes his arm as they walk up the stairs and into the anteroom of the big house. The voices inside are nearly deafening with cheer, echoing off the parquet floors and the tall ceilings. Immediately Kaye begins nodding to faces she recognizes across the room as they make their way to the bar, easing through tuxedo-clad doctors and women bedecked with flas.h.i.+ng jewelry. She lifts a hand to wave to a couple standing at the foot of the sweeping staircase.

"Look, the Breemans are here. Remember to congratulate them on the new baby."

"A boy, right?"

"A girl," Kaye says, rolling her eyes. "Regan."

"How could they name a kid Regan? Haven't they seen The Exorcist? It's like asking for trouble."

Kaye looks at him strangely.

"If they haven't seen it, they will. And then one night she'll have a bad dream and wake them up crying for a gla.s.s of water. They won't want to go."

"Jesus, Jacob. You're so weird."

He shrugs as they move up in the bar line. "I never liked Breeman anyway. You know what he calls guys like me? Fleas."

"Internists are a dime a dozen, they say," Kaye says, smiling.

"Yeah? So why don't you have a dozen?"

She laughs, so he does too, simply glad to be in her presence as they step up to the bar and he orders two scotches.

"Double again, sir?" the bartender asks.

"Why not?"

He ignores Kaye's stern look as he hands her a gla.s.s. She seems ready to say something when they hear the voice of Jim McMichaels booming out Jacob's name. Jacob looks around until he sees Jim and Bitsy standing at the back of the room, in front of the French doors that line the entire wall giving on to the brick patio beyond it. McMichaels is waving them over with one arm; the other is wrapped around the waist of Bitsy's ivory dress, which drapes down to the floor.

The dean's smile seems to fade slightly as they draw near, but Bitsy beams at Kaye and reaches to hug her as soon as she is within her reach. She plants a delicate kiss on Kaye's cheek and holds out a hand to Jacob.

"Isn't it lovely?" she asks breathlessly. "This is my favorite function of the year, every year."

"It's very nice," Jacob says, and smiles. He is having trouble meeting Jim's eyes. Behind the dean and his wife he can see a jazz trio set up on the patio, and he can just hear the music filtering in through the gla.s.s. The trumpet player blats out a raucous melody as the men behind him bend to their instruments and shake their heads in time with the music.

"Just for a minute, dear," the dean is saying quietly when Jacob turns back to the others. Bitsy looks at her husband disapprovingly for a moment before her face breaks into an exasperated smile.

"Always business with you two," she says. She takes hold of Kaye's arm. "Kaye, have you heard these boys out back? Jim says they're the best jazz band in the Midlands." Kaye smiles helplessly at Jacob as Bitsy turns her toward the patio.

"I'll have him back to you in two shakes, Kaye," McMichaels says as he puts a hand on Jacob's back and guides him toward the study. Jacob watches the women go with a sinking feeling.

It takes the dean nearly five minutes to work their way through the crowd. He is greeted by a dozen well-wishers along the way, and though he pauses to speak with all of them, Jacob can sense that he is trying to hurry each conversation. When they are nearly to the study door, Jacob sees Austin Malloy mark their progress and slip into the room just ahead of them.

Jim shuts the door behind them and the party noise is instantly muted to a low murmur. Jacob stands for a moment just inside the threshold, looking around the room at the faces of the men arrayed there as Jim steps away from him. Malloy has taken the chair nearest the fireplace, with Parker Hauser to his left, sitting forward with his arms on his knees. The others he knows less well, but he recognizes the chair of obstetrics, Howard Roth, standing at the little bar with Bill Mitch.e.l.l and Jackson Turner, the CEO of Memorial Hospital. Their conversation stops abruptly when they see Jacob.

Sitting alone on the couch, her face impa.s.sive, is Kirstin Reithoffer. For a long moment she studies the manicured nails of her left hand as though they hold a great mystery, then she looks up at Jacob with her steel-blue eyes.

"It's been a h.e.l.l of a week, Jake," Jim says. He is behind his desk now, standing with his arms crossed over his chest. "A h.e.l.l of a week."

"Is that what we're here to talk about?" Jacob asks. His voice sounds weak in his own ears. He swallows hard, trying to compose himself. "Because the week's over, Jim. It's history."

McMichaels nods, pensive. "We thought it was."

"This Greer had some of his people on the school grounds this afternoon," Malloy says. "It looks like this march of his could come off after all."

"And he left a message with Elizabeth, Jake. Seems he tried to get you first, but," McMichaels says as he levels his eyes on Jacob, "you were out. He claims to have a copy of his medical record. An internal file. Says you gave it to him."

"Jim, Jesus."

"If it were just his word against yours, Jake, there wouldn't be much to it. But you see, if he has the file, it raises some major confidentiality issues, the kind that can affect licensing."

"My license."

"And the school's," Turner says.

"We're into a new phase of containment now," McMichaels says. "No one here doubts your loyalty to the school, Jake, not a one of us. But there have been some lapses in judgment. We know you've been under a great strain, but there is a history to consider."

Hauser rattles the ice in his gla.s.s. "We think you're back on the meds," he says.

McMichaels looks at Hauser angrily, then turns to Jacob. "I object to Doctor Hauser's lack of diplomacy, Jake, but I can't fault his a.s.sessment. You don't seem well. All the signs are there. We're left with very little choice of how to proceed."

"Kirstin," Jacob says. "Please tell them that's not the case."

Reithoffer looks up at him coolly. "I smelled alcohol on your breath at the staff meeting Wednesday. That was ten-thirty a.m., Jacob. And all week you have displayed the symptoms of a relapse. Fatigue, irritability, disorientation. We have this information from several sources."

"Jesus Christ, Jim," Jacob says. "Tell them what's been going on."

Jacob can feel rage kindling in his chest, but McMichaels only shakes his head sadly.

"What about my urine samples? What kind of information do they give you, Kirstin?"

Reithoffer's eyes never waver, do not even blink. "The last specimen tested positive for Xanax," she says.

Jacob can feel his eyes smarting with tears, so he nods his head, hoping this will help him keep his features composed. Why not, he thinks-why shouldn't the specimen test positive? If Jim can get his hands on a file like Greer's, what's so complicated about switching a urine sample, or making a certain notation in the right file? As he raises his head and looks from Reithoffer to the dean, he feels the panic of a few minutes ago ebbing into something like grief.

"I've noticed the symptoms for years," Hauser says loudly. "I suspect you were using the stuff back when we were interns."

"Go f.u.c.k yourself, Hauser. You know that's a lie."

"Meyer Siegel kept you under his wing for too long. He babied you. I wouldn't be surprised if he was covering for you back then."

Jacob takes a step forward. He wants to put his hands on Hauser. "Leave Meyer out of this. He was better than the lot of you."

Hauser takes a sip from his drink. "So go back home and screw his daughter."

Before the others can move between them, Jacob has crossed the distance to where Hauser sits and slapped a hand across his cheek so hard he can hear the teeth clacking together. Hauser is beginning to rise when Jacob hits him again, backhanded this time, and sees the blood start to flow from his burst lip.

Then the others are moving, Mitch.e.l.l and Turner pinning Hauser in the chair, Reithoffer standing in front of Jacob with her hands out, pressed against Jacob's chest. "Enough!" McMichaels is shouting over the voices of the men.

Jacob looks Reithoffer in the eyes before he speaks. "Don't touch me, Kirstin. You're getting me dirty."

Reithoffer backs away, and Jacob can see that Hauser is blotting a white handkerchief against his mouth. "I rest my case," he says. His left cheek is blazing with the imprint of Jacob's hand.

"Enough," McMichaels says again.

"That's right, Jim. Enough of the bulls.h.i.+t. I've had all I can take. Let's forget the intervention charade and call this what it is." The others look at him mutely as he walks to the door and rests his hand on the k.n.o.b. "I can't believe this is all the members.h.i.+p you guys could scare up. Seems like you're short of a quorum." He nods toward Reithoffer. "Even if you have gone coed."

"Jacob," McMichaels says sadly. "Please, no more scenes. You're better than this." He nods to Reithoffer. "Let's get it done."

Reithoffer clasps her hands behind her as Jacob has seen her do so many times before, in clinic and at the lecture podium, and speaks.

"In view of your recent record, I cannot recommend that you be cleared by the Physicians' Task Force. We have scheduled admittance for you tomorrow morning, eight o'clock, at Midlands Rehabilitation Center. The standard twenty-eight-day program. But you must voluntarily agree to the treatment. We require a letter from you requesting a medical leave of absence, stating your recent difficulties specifically-the symptoms, the levels of medication you have been abusing."

"Tomorrow?"

Malloy clears his throat and speaks. "Tomorrow morning. If Greer does show, there'll be n.o.body there to meet him. School locked down. We'll let this little bit of hysteria flare up, then we'll wait it out."

"Because I'll be away."

Malloy nods.

"And if Greer doesn't let it die?"

Malloy seems unable to meet Jacob's eyes. "If it comes to it, we'll give him to understand that a member of our faculty, ah, misrepresented the extent of the medical waste to the black community. We'll mention substance abuse if we have to. Either way the bas.e.m.e.nt will get taken care of. Bowman's lining up a new crew for Monday."

"And when the month is up?" Jacob asks, his mouth dry.

McMichaels will not look at him directly. "When you finish your treatment we'll rea.s.sess the situation."

"We can't afford any more mistakes," Turner says. "There are accreditation issues, licensure risks. Another relapse would bring a lot of others down with you."

Jacob nods bitterly. "No guarantees, then."

But Turner does not respond. In the heavy silence Jacob looks at each of them in turn, thinking of their t.i.tles, their positions, their security. He would like to speak, but his throat has tightened again and his eyes are burning.