The Plague Doctor (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

I was soaked. My hair was plastered to my face in little corkscrew auburn curls, and every time I tried to get up, my shoes slid wildly on the wet floor. I finally gave up and sat back against the wall with my legs straight out in front of me. After a second thought, I held my hands up.

As suddenly as the water came on, it went off. The silence was complete except for the drip of the water from the table, the chair, me, and Cassie.

Wallace's head and face were wet too. Water dripped off his chin as he leaned over and peered intently at us.

“What the hell!” he shouted. “You're…why, you are Anna Sterling's daughter! And that's your….! Please tell me what in the hell is going on here. You have about two seconds before I call the police.”

He pushed me hard on the shoulder with the barrel of the shotgun when I tried once more to get up. “No! Just sit right there. Don't move a muscle.”

Cassie was shivering next to me.

“Mom, I'm freezing!” she whispered.

My maternal instincts overcame the shock and fear of being so rudely discovered.

“Go ahead and shoot me if you must, but I'm getting up and so is my daughter. And you are going to find us some dry clothes. This air conditioning will give us both pneumonia, and I'll have to sue your sorry ass.”

“Just sit right there, lady! I hardly think you are in any position to be giving me orders.”

He flipped open his cellular phone and started to dial 911.

“Go right ahead. Chief Joiner will be very interested in that illegal stash of controlled substances you have hidden in the ceiling. As a matter of fact, you'll just be saving me some trouble.”

He slumped back against the doorway like someone had slugged him in the stomach. His face turned an unhealthy pasty white where the fake suntan makeup had washed off. I had finally succeeded in letting the hot air out of this pompous little ass. Somehow it didn't feel as good as I had imagined it would.

“Come, Cassandra, help me up. My shoes keep slipping.”

I struggled up, and with her strong-armed assistance, regained my footing. I looked down in horror at my beautiful linen suit. It was ruined! I had pared my wardrobe down to a few beloved and very basic essentials since I no longer had to dress like a fashion plate every day. This outfit had been a favorite. I could feel it shrinking as I breathed.

“Damn! Come on, Wallace. This is all you fault. Get me one of those silly little white coats you wear, or something—anything. Cassie needs one, too.”

I took the shotgun out of his slack hands and put it very carefully on the examining table.

“We won't be needing this.”

I pushed him out the door and down the hallway. He stopped at the entrance to the record room. There was another little alcove off to the side that I had not noticed before. He pointed to a closet and then sat heavily on a chair in the corner. Cassie opened the door and found several stacks of green scrub suits on the shelf. She grabbed the first one she saw and sprinted around the corner to change. I leaned back against a filing cabinet and waited until she was finished. She reappeared quickly, and in spite of the disaster our evening had turned into, I had to laugh aloud. The pants and sleeves were way too short for her long limbs. She looked like an adolescent jolly green giant after a growth spurt.

“Now it's your turn. Let's see how terrific you look in these things.”

She thrust another set of scrubs at me. I followed her lead and went around the corner to strip off my wet clothes. I hung my beautiful suit over the back of a plastic chair and straightened it out as best I could. Maybe Mother would be able to wear it. It would mostly likely shrink down to her size by the time it dried. I sighed deeply and slipped on the dry clothes. I had the scrub suit Cass needed. I had to roll up the long legs of the pants so I could walk without tripping. I slipped off my soggy shoes and went back to the closet to hunt for some socks. I could hear Cassie talking to Wallace around the corner. She was herding him into the break room demanding something hot to drink. I hurried to join them. I could use a cup of something hot, too.

Wallace was sitting in a chair staring at Cassie with red-rimmed eyes. She moved about the tiny kitchen humming as she prepared three cups of instant chicken noodle soup and brewed a pot of fresh coffee.

“Wow! This little fridge is loaded. Look, Mom, fresh homemade cinnamon buns. And no raisins! Hooray!”

My daughter, the burglar, made us a tasty little post-midnight snack which two out of three of us enjoyed immensely.

“I always say, there's nothing like a little breaking and entering to work up an appetite.”

Wallace looked at me in astonishment.

“You can laugh and make fun of this…this criminal activity? And dragging your own daughter along? What kind of people are you?”

“Well, for one thing, we're not drug addicts or alcoholics. And
we're
not committing insurance fraud. And for a fine old-fashioned third, neither are we guilty of unethical medical conduct, or malpractice, or the murder of little babies.”

“Murder!”

He stood up on shaky legs and pointed a long thin finger at me.

“How dare you accuse me of murder!”

His legs gave way and he fell back down in the chair, spilling the cup of soup down the front of his suit.

“Now see what you've done. Cassie, please hand me some paper towels. We'll have to sponge off this model citizen before we call the police and let them decide who's guilty and who's innocent.”

“No, please.”

Wallace held his head in his long bony hands. They were not the strong, capable hands of a natural born healer. I remembered his frustration and impatience with the injured farmer. What forces had been applied to this weak little man to make him become something he was obviously so unsuited to be?

“Maybe you can tell us why we shouldn't call the police,” I urged softly. “Let's start with the pharmacological piggy bank in your ceiling.”

For the next fifteen minutes we sat through Wallace's self-pitying, tearful performance entitled
An Attempt to Justify My Sins.
He blamed his parents, his teachers, his mistress, and God Almighty. The only person he left out was his wife. I found that curious.

“What about your wife, Agnes? Does she not understand you, either?”

He jumped up and pounded on the table.

“Leave her out of this! She had nothing to do with anything. Agnes is a saint, I tell you. I love her! She is the only thing in my life that's not dirty and perverted.” He slumped back down in the chair. “It's not her fault I married her for her money.”

He dropped his head in his hands and started crying. He looked like he would be occupied for a while.

Cassie pulled me out in the hallway and closed the door behind her.

“Oh, Mom. Isn't that sweet?” she whispered.

“Yeah, well…”

“It's so romantic.”

“Sorry, Cassie, but I see nothing
romantic
about a man so greedy that he marries for money.”

“No, not that part, the love part.”

“He certainly has an odd way of expressing his affection. Getting stoned on vodka and Percodan, and screwing a cheap blond. That's the kind of man I'd want coming home to me each night, yes sirree.”

“But, Mom, he does love her.”

“Ah, yes, love.”

I ran my fingers through the jungle of my hair. I was tired, and I knew I sounded cynical.

“Cassie, love is something you don't fool around with. You don't bestow it lightly, and when you accept it from someone else, you cherish it for the rest of your life. I'm not sure how much honest-to-goodness love an incomplete person like Wallace has to give, or how much he can really appreciate in return.”

Her beautiful young face shone with innocent disbelief. Cassie had already been indoctrinated by David O. Selznick, Andrew Lloyd Weber, and Jane Austen. She devoutly and naively believed that love conquers all. I was just a bitter old broad who was spittin' in the wind.

Chapter Twenty-two

I could have used another cup of coffee, but from the loud sobbing sounds coming from the break room I could tell that Wallace was not over his crying jag.

“You think we should go home?” asked my daughter.

“Hell, no! After all this trouble? I'm not leaving here without some answers.”

“What was the name of that girl Ethan's supposed to have raped?”

“What a clever child you are, Cassandra! Her name is Brittany Hayes. Let's see if she has ever been a patient of Dr. Strangelove.”

I sneaked a quick peek in the coffee room. Wallace was still holding his pity party. We had time to peruse his files.

We found the chart on the Hayes girl right away. It was fairly thick. She had been a patient of Wallace's since he had opened his practice six years ago. Her mother brought her in for painful menstrual cramps. At first the girl had refused to let him examine her but finally relented. Wallace stated very clearly in the chart that the girl was not a virgin. Furthermore, he suspected that she had been the victim of sexual abuse. Upon questioning, the mother broke down and admitted that she thought her husband was molesting the girl but was afraid to do anything about it. He wanted to go to the authorities, but she refused. He had to let them go home. Had to let the girl return to the den of the predator.

I was beginning to feel somewhat better about Winston Wallace. At least when he first started his practice he had some sense of right and wrong. I wondered what had happened to him in the meantime.

Brittany was a stranger to the office until one day three years later when she came in by herself with a deep laceration at the “vermilion border,” which I finally realized meant lip, and a severe contusion to the right cheek. She tearfully confessed to Wallace that her stepfather had been abusing her off and on since she was ten. Since her mother's death the year before, he had been after her almost continuously. She was fifteen years old, three months pregnant, and infected with gonorrhea.

“Oh my, God, Mom. How sad. The poor thing. I feel like such a heel. I've been hating her all this time for implicating Ethan, and she's a victim herself.”

“Don't get one thing confused with the other. There's no doubt that she's a victim of abuse, but Brittany's no longer a little girl, Cassie. She's a grown woman—just a year younger than you are. You'd think she'd know better.”

“You're not suggesting that Ethan really did murder her father?” croaked Cassie.

“Of course not! I'm saying that she is a young woman who has made some poor choices with her life. I'm not forgetting that she's had some very bad luck, but so have a lot of other people. That doesn't excuse her falsely accusing Ethan of rape and murder.”

“Mrs. DeLeon,” Winston Wallace protested from the open doorway, “what are you doing in my confidential files?”

Romeo had joined us. I straightened up too quickly and had to fight to overcome a wave of dizziness. I was getting really tired.

“Cassie, can you make us some fresh coffee? We need to have a little chat with Romeo, here.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Cassandra made the coffee extra strong. After a cup loaded with sugar and cream, I had a resurgence of energy.

“Dr. Wallace,” I began, “it's late, and I'm afraid good manners and tact are not my forte at the best of times, so I'll jump right in with both feet. I believe you are to blame for the rash of miscarriages occurring here in Rowan Springs in the last few weeks.”

I might as well have slapped him.

He whispered hoarsely, “It's not true. I may have done many things, but I have never hurt one of my patients.” He repeated emphatically, “Not ever!”

“How can you be so sure? You must have been drunk or stoned at least half of the time.”

“I admit my addiction has caused me to act somewhat indiscreetly, but I assure you I am not responsible for any loss of life.”

He looked like he was going to cry again.

“Can we act a little grown up here, or do I need to call Andy Joiner to mediate?”

“No, please, ask whatever you wish. I'll answer to the best of my knowledge.”

“How many of your patients have had unexplained miscarriages?”

He didn't hesitate at all.

“Three, and those were just in the last two weeks. I thought it strange myself. Under other circumstances, I would have welcomed the CDC's investigation. I would have worked with Dr. McHenry as an interested colleague. But you must understand, I couldn't place myself, or my practice, under scrutiny. I had just begun to realize how serious my, er, problem was.”

He looked even more sheepish.

“That's when I decided to end it all.”

“I was wondering what the shotgun was for,” said Cassie.

“Let's get back to the point.” I interrupted. “If you didn't do anything to cause these abortions - then, who did?”

“I tried to discuss the problem with Edgar Baxter. Dr. McHenry told me Edgar had canceled appointments with him. Well, he put me off as well.”

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“No, I'm not trying to put the blame on Baxter, but an overwhelming number of the young women were his patients. And my three had been his patients until he closed his practice. Two of those young women had even had amniocentesis procedures performed. The genetic tests on those babies were absolutely normal. You may not know it, Mrs. DeLeon, but the fetus is very well protected by the mother's body. There's little short of certain viruses or severe trauma that can harm a healthy fetus.”

“What viruses?”

Cassie had been listening quietly until now, but she had a big stake in this part of the conversation.

“Toxoplasmosis, brucellosis, and certain other viruses that cattle and some

domestic animals carry.”

“Ethan said that had been ruled out.”

Wallace looked surprised. “Really? Then I haven't a clue what's going on. My patients were healthy, normal young women. Not one had ever been really ill before. Their pregnancies were progressing nicely, and then suddenly two of them miscarried. The last one lost her baby three days ago.”

“You said, ‘really ill.' Did any of them have a minor problem that maybe you might have overlooked?”

Wallace didn't take offense at my question. His scientific mind had been addressed. He was just as curious as we were.

“Two of them had never been sick a day in their lives except for seasonal allergies. The other one had been thrown from a horse when she was fifteen. There was some question of a damaged pelvic ligament, but that would not have been a problem until much later, when she was in her sixth or seventh month. I'm just as puzzled as Dr. McHenry is, I assure you.”

“Speaking of Dr. McHenry, do you know why he might have gone out to the Hayes' farm?”

“Brittany Hayes was the young lady who was thrown by the horse.”

“Is that how she lost her first baby?”

“Really, I do protest you're going through my files. Those are confidential and private. You have no business…”

“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted. “Look, Wallace, a man's life and reputation is at stake. I'm sure that's something you can understand. If you don't, you'd better start thinking about it. Help us help him, and we'll help you.”

I was getting tired. That sounded stupid even to me.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“Brittany did lose her stepfather's baby when she fell from her horse,” he admitted. “I believed at the time, and still do, that she fell on purpose. She risked her life by taking matters into her own hands. I treated her sexually transmitted disease, but she refused to let me tell anyone about her pregnancy.”

“She was a minor! How could you keep silent? Isn't there some agency that helps children in trouble like that?”

Wallace shook his head sadly. “Unfortunately, we don't have any mechanism in place in Rowan Springs to handle problems like Brittany's. Her stepfather had sole custody of her. He probably would have sued me if I had suggested he was abusing his daughter. She was too afraid to confront him, and I'm ashamed to admit, so was I.”

Cassie had another pertinent question.

“Is Mr. Hayes the father of Brittany's baby—the one she is carrying now, I mean?”

“I have no idea. She has become a rather hardened young woman. She refused to tell me who the father was. I guess she knew she couldn't count on me. I'm afraid I've let down a lot more people than my wife.”

“I guess you were wrong, Mom. We're back at first base. After all this, we haven't found out anything to help clear Ethan.”

“I can tell you something.” Wallace braced his shoulders and attempted to simulate a stiff upper lip. “I cannot accept that Dr. McHenry murdered Hayes. I saw the man's body when they brought him into the emergency room. There is no doubt in my mind that Hayes fell on his own gun. His death was an accident.”