The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman And Matters Of Choice Part 122

In the staff room, Gwen Gabler was drinking coffee, uncharacteristically quiet.

"Something wrong?"

Gwen set down her cup and reached for her purse. The sheet of paper was folded twice. When R.J. opened it, she saw a wanted poster, the sort displayed in post offices. It bore Gwen's name, address, and photograph, her weekly schedule, the fact that she had left a lucrative ob-gyn practice in Framingham "to get rich performing abortions," and the crime for which she was wanted: murder of babies.

"It doesn't say dead or alive," Gwen said bitterly.

"Did they make up a poster of Les, too?" Leszek Ustinovich had practiced for twenty-six years as a gynecologist in Newton before joining the clinic. He and Gwen were the only full-time physicians at Family Planning.

"No, I'm the chosen goat here, apparently, although I understand Walter Hearst at the Deaconess Hospital has been similarly honored."

"What are you going to do about it?"

Gwen tore the poster in half, and then in half again, and dropped the pieces into the trash basket. Then she kissed her fingertips and gently slapped R.J.'s cheek. "They can't drive us away if we won't let them."

R.J. finished her coffee thoughtfully. She had been doing first-trimester abortions at the clinic for two years. She had had postresidency training in gynecology, and Les Ustinovich, a superb teacher with a lifetime of experience, had trained her in the first-trimester procedure. First-trimester procedures were absolutely safe when done carefully and correctly, and she was careful to be correct. Still, every Thursday morning she was as tense as though she had to spend the day doing brain surgery.

She sighed, threw her paper cup away, got up and went to work.

The next morning at the hospital Tessa gave her a very solemn stare along with her coffee and bagel. "It's getting down to the crunch. Serious stuff. The word we have is that Dr. Ringgold is discussing four names, and you're one of them."

R.J. swallowed a bite of bagel. "Who are the other three?" she said, unable to resist.

"Don't know yet. I heard only that every one is a heavy hitter." Tessa gave her a sidelong glance. "Do you know there has never been a woman in that position?"

R.J. smiled less than joyfully. Pressure was no more welcome because it came from her secretary. "That isn't a surprise, is it?"

"No, it isn't," Tessa said.

That afternoon R.J. was walking back from the PMS clinic when she met Sidney in front of the medical office building.

"Hiyuh," he said.

"Hi there to you."

"Have you decided anything concerning that request I made of you?"

She hesitated. The truth was, she had pushed it from her mind, not wanting to deal with it. But that was unfair to Sidney. "No, I haven't. But I will in a very short time."

He nodded. "You know what every teaching hospital in this city does? When they need somebody to fill a leaders.h.i.+p job, they look for a candidate who's already created interest in himself because he's a hotshot bench scientist. They want someone who's published a number of papers."

"Like the young Sidney Ringgold, with his papers on weight reduction and blood pressure and onset of disease."

"Yes, like that long-ago young hotshot Sidney Ringgold. Research is what got me this job," he agreed. "It's no more logical than the fact that search committees looking for a college president always choose someone who has been a distinguished teacher. But there you are.

"You, on the other hand. You've published a few papers, and you've created a couple of stirs, but you're a doctor, not a bench science investigator. Personally, I think this is a good moment in time to have a physician of people as the a.s.sistant chief of medicine, but I need to make an appointment that will win a consensus of approval from the hospital staff and the medical community. So if a nonresearch type is going to be appointed a.s.sociate chief of medicine, she has to have as much professional leaders.h.i.+p in her resume as is humanly possible."

She smiled at him, aware he was her friend. "I do understand, Sidney. And I'll get back to you very soon with my decision about chairing the publications committee."

"Thank you, Dr. Cole. Enjoy your weekend, R.J."

"You too, Dr. Ringgold."

A weirdly warm storm blew in from the sea, pelting Boston and Cambridge with heavy rains and defrosting the late winter's snow. Outside, all was puddles and dripping, and the gutters were awash.

She lay in bed Sat.u.r.day morning, listening to the downpour and thinking. She didn't like her mood; she was increasingly morose, and she knew that kind of thing could affect her decisions, if she allowed it.

She wasn't enthusiastic about being Max Roseman's successor. But she wasn't enthusiastic about her medical life as it existed at the moment, and she found herself responding to Sidney Ringgold's faith in her-and to the fact that again and again he had given her opportunities that other men would have denied her.

And she kept seeing the look on Tessa's face when she said that no woman had ever been a.s.sociate chief of medicine.

Mid-morning she got out of bed and put on her oldest sweat suit, a windbreaker, her most disreputable running shoes, and a Red Sox cap that she pulled down hard over her ears. Outside, her feet squished through the water, soaked before she was twenty yards from the house. Despite the thaw it was winter in Ma.s.sachusetts, and she was wet and s.h.i.+vering, but as she jogged her blood began to sing and she warmed quickly. She had intended to go only to Memorial Drive and back, but the running was too good to cut short and she loped alongside the frozen Charles River, watching the rain on the ice, until she began to tire. On the way back cars splashed her twice, but it hardly mattered; she was wet as a swimmer. She let herself into the house through the back door and left her drenched garments on the tile floor of the kitchen, wiping herself with a dish towel so she wouldn't drip on the rug on her way to the shower. She stayed under a very hot spray for a long time, until the mirror was so fogged she had no reflection when she got out and rubbed herself dry.

She had just begun to dress when she made up her mind to go for it, and to chair Sidney's committee. But not to replace anything in her schedule. Thursdays would stay Thursdays, Dr. Ringgold.

She had gotten only as far as underpants and a Tufts University sweats.h.i.+rt, but she picked up the portable phone and called his home number.

"It's R.J.," she said when he answered. "I didn't know if you guys would be home." The Ringgolds owned a beach house on Martha's Vineyard, and Gloria Ringgold insisted they spend as many weekends as possible on the island.

"Well, but the lousy weather," Dr. Ringgold said. "We're stuck here for the weekend. You'd have to be a complete idiot to go out on a day like this."

R.J. lowered the back of the seat and sat down on the toilet and laughed. "You're absolutely right, Sidney," she said.

5.

AN INVITATION TO THE BALL.

On Tuesday she taught an iatrogenic illnesses cla.s.s at the medical school, pleasing to her because it was fiercely debated for almost the entire two hours. A few students still came to medical training in the smug expectation that they would be taught to be G.o.ds of healing, educated into infallibility. They resented discussion of the fact that in the course of trying to cure, doctors sometimes cause their patients injury and harm. But most of the students were aware of their place in time and society, sensitive to the fact that an exploding technology hadn't obliterated the human ability to make mistakes. It was important for them to be acutely aware of situations that could cause harm or death to their patients and waste their hard-earned incomes on malpractice settlements.

A good cla.s.s. For the moment it made her more content with her lot as she made her way back to the hospital.

She had been in her office only a few minutes when Tessa told her Tom was on the line.

"R.J? Elizabeth went early this morning."

"Ah, Tom."

"Yes. Well, she hurts no more."

"I know. That's good, Tom."

But he still hurt, she realized, and she was surprised how profoundly she hurt for him. What she felt for him was no longer a blaze, but undeniably a live spark of emotion remained. Perhaps he needed company. "Listen. Do you want to meet me some place for dinner?" she said impulsively. "Maybe go to the North End?"

"Oh. No, I-" He sounded embarra.s.sed. "Actually, I have something I can't get out of this evening."

Comfort from somebody else, she thought wryly and not without regret. She thanked him for letting her know about Elizabeth and went right back to work.

Late that afternoon, she received a call from one of the women in his office. "Dr. Cole? This is Cindy Wolper. Dr. Kendricks asked me to tell you he won't be home at all tonight. He has to go on a consult, to Worcester."

"Thank you for calling," R.J. said.

But the following Sat.u.r.day morning Tom asked her to brunch in Harvard Square. It surprised her. His usual Sat.u.r.day routine was morning rounds at the Middles.e.x Memorial Hospital, where he was a visiting surgeon, and then tennis, with lunch afterward at the club.

He was b.u.t.tering pumpernickel very precisely when he told her. "An incident report has been filed against me at Middles.e.x."

"By whom?"

"A nurse who was on Betts's ward. Beverly Martin."

"Yes. I remember her. But, why on earth ...?"

"She reported that I administered an 'inappropriately large' injection of morphine to Elizabeth, causing her death."

"Oh, Tom."

He nodded.

"What will happen now?"

"The report will be considered at a meeting of the hospital's Medical Incidents Committee."

The waitress came by and Tom stopped her and asked her to bring more coffee.

"It's no big deal, I'm certain. But I wanted to tell you about it before you heard it from somebody else," he said.

On Monday, in accordance with the wishes she had expressed in her will, Elizabeth Sullivan was cremated. Tom, R.J., and Suzanna Lorentz went to the funeral home, where Suzanna, as the attorney handling the estate, was handed a square box made of gray cardboard, containing the ashes.

They went to lunch at the Ritz, and Suzanna read parts of Betts's will to them over salads. Betts had left what Suzanna described as "a considerable estate" to support and encourage the care of her aunt, Mrs. Sally Frances Bosshard, a patient at the Lutheran Home for the Aged and Infirm of Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

Following the death of Mrs. Bosshard, the remaining money, if any, would go to the American Cancer Society. To her beloved friend Dr. Thomas A. Kendricks, Elizabeth Sullivan had left what she hoped were good memories and an audiotape of Elizabeth Bosshard and Tom Kendricks singing "Strawberry Fields." To her new and valued friend Dr. Roberta J. Cole, Elizabeth Sullivan had left a six-piece silver coffee service of French design and eighteenth-century manufacture, silversmith unknown. The silver service and the tape ca.s.sette were in storage in Antwerp, along with other items, mostly furniture and artwork that would be sold, the proceeds to be added to the monies going to Sally Frances Bosshard.

Of Dr. Cole, Elizabeth Sullivan requested one last favor. She wished her ashes to be given to Dr. Cole for placement in the earth, "without ceremony or service, at a beautiful place of Dr. Cole's choosing."

R.J. was stunned, both by the bequest and by the unexpected responsibility. Tom's eyes glistened. He ordered a bottle of champagne, and they drank a toast to Betts.

In the parking lot, Suzanna took the small square cardboard box from her car and gave it to R.J. R.J. didn't know what to do with it. She put it on the pa.s.senger's side of the seat in the BMW and drove back to Lemuel Grace.

On the following Wednesday morning she was awakened at 5:20 A.M. by the loud and shockingly intrusive sound of bell chimes announcing that someone was at the front door.

She struggled out of bed and into her robe. Unable to locate her slippers, she padded into the cold hallway in her bare feet.

She went downstairs and peered through the gla.s.s at one side of the door. It was still dark outside, but she could make out two figures.

"What do you want?" she called, not about to open the door.

"State police."

When she turned on the light and looked out again, she saw it was so, and she unsnapped the lock, suddenly terribly afraid.

"Did something happen to my father?"

"Oh, no, ma'am. No, ma'am. We would just like a word with Dr. Kendricks." The speaker was a wiry female corporal, in uniform, alongside a beefy male in civilian clothes: black hat, black shoes, raincoat, gray slacks. They gave off an aura of unsmiling competence.

"What is it, R.J.?" Tom said. He stood at the top of the stairs wearing his blue suit trousers with the dusty rose pinstripe, in stocking feet and unders.h.i.+rt.

"Dr. Kendricks?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"I'm Corporal Flora McKinnon, sir," she said. "And this is Trooper Robert Travers. We're members of C-PAC, the Crime Prevention and Control Unit attached to the office of Edward W. Wilhoit, the District Attorney of Middles.e.x County. Mr. Wilhoit would like to have a few words with you, sir."

"When?"

"Well, now, sir. He'd like you to come down to his office with us."

"Jesus Christ, do you mean to tell me he's working at five-thirty in the morning?"

"Yessir," the woman said.

"Do you have a warrant for my arrest?"

"No, sir, we do not."

"Well, you tell Mr. Wilhoit that I refused his kind invitation. In one hour I'll be in the surgical theater at Middles.e.x Memorial, operating on someone's gallbladder, somebody who's depending on me. You tell Mr. Wilhoit I can come to his office at one-thirty. If that's all right, he can let my secretary know. If it's not all right, we can work out another time that is mutually satisfactory. Got that?"

"Yes, sir. We understand that," the red-haired corporal said, and they nodded and went out into the dark.

Tom stayed on the stairs. R.J. remained fixed in the bottom hallway, looking up, afraid for him. "G.o.d, Tom. What's going on?"

"Maybe you'd better go there with me, R.J."

"I was never that kind of lawyer. I'll come. But you'd better have somebody else come, too," she said.

She canceled her Wednesday cla.s.s and spent three hours on the telephone talking to lawyers, people she knew would respect her need for confidentiality and give honest advice. The same name kept being mentioned, Nat Rourke. He had been around a long time. He wasn't flashy, but he was very smart and highly respected. R.J. had never met him. He didn't take the call when she telephoned his office, but an hour later he called back.

He said almost nothing while she laid out the facts of the case.

"No, no, no," Rourke said gently. "You and your husband will not go to see Wilhoit at one-thirty. You will come to my office at one-thirty. I have to meet with somebody here, briefly, at three. We'll go to the D.A.'s office at four forty-five. My secretary will call Wilhoit with the new time."