An Open Heart (36 page)

“It’s the morgue!” someone shouted at Jace. “Help us, Daktari!”

They followed, weaving between the onlookers who were either silent with mouths agape or loudly pacing about with arms flailing toward the sky, begging God for rain.

The fire rose through the roof of the small structure, the flames dancing into the night. A man in a security uniform sprayed water from a garden hose—David versus a fiery Goliath. The American trio joined a line passing plastic buckets of water forward.

Gabby struggled to pass a bucket forward without spilling the contents. “What’s that smell?” she asked.

Burning flesh.
Jace recognized it from his use of the cautery unit in the operating rooms. “Gabby,” he said.

She looked up, her mouth twisted as if she tasted something sour.

He shook his head to communicate the message.
Don’t ask.

They worked on, muscles aching, as shouts for water and speed rose above the prayers for rain. Heat and smoke drove the workers back. Sweat and determination drove them forward.

At the edge of a parking lot, a woman moved from coffin to coffin, clutching at her neck and crying out above the crowd.

In the end, all that stood were the stone walls. The roof and everything inside had been destroyed. For another hour, water doused the smoldering wood. Jace joined an elderly man, the white-haired mortuary attendant, as he picked through the remains. His eyes met Jace’s. “It was my fault,” he said slowly. “The refrigerator keeps me cold, so I came out to stand next to the barrel where I keep a small charcoal fire.”

Jace nodded. He’d often passed the mortuary at night and smelled the kerosene used to keep the fire burning. The barrel was old, rusted, and smoldering against the stone wall.

Mthanga continued,“The barrel tipped when I added charcoal.”

Jace walked toward the doorway, now a blackened hole. “Did you get all the bodies out?”

The old attendant sighed. “Only two remained. The flames were too strong for me.”

Two hospital workers fought to keep the crowd back, shouting loudly in Kikuyu. The woman who had been checking the coffins was now the point of the spear, anxious family members pushing forward to see.

Jace asked the morgue attendant, “Do you know who they were?”

Joel Mthanga nodded and wiped at a blackened streak running across his forehead. “They were yours, Daktari.”

“Mine?”

“Your patients. Michael Kagai and the young boy.”

“Boniface?”

“Yes.”

A knot tightened in Jace’s upper abdomen. The boy who sold mangos for his mother at the hospital gate, the boy who’d fallen from a tree and died from a splenic injury when no blood was available. “Why were these bodies still here?” He looked at the crowd.
The crying woman. Boniface’s mother.

“The families leave them until they are able to clear the hospital charges.”

Jace was incredulous. “But the boy … his bill had been paid.” He knew this for a fact. He’d paid it himself, paying homage on an altar of guilt.

“Yes, but the family had no money for a funeral. They left the body here while they worked on raising money.”

Jace looked away, unable to meet the gaze of the crowd.

But soon, they swarmed in around them, ignoring the few security guards imploring restraint. Men kicked away the smoldering wood and soon, the gruesome remains were exposed, two unfeeling black skulls, bone bearing teeth draped with burned flesh now barely able to cover the skeletal support.

Jace watched the morgue attendant, a grandfather who’d aged a decade in an hour. He stood stoop-shouldered and defeated with a penance of ash on his forehead, and began to weep. The attendant touched the shoulder of the sobbing woman and spoke in hushed Kikuyu before she wailed in fresh pain.

The grief over losing her young son was renewed as she stumbled forward to glimpse the charred remains. Her agony was loud, acute, and each cry was a stake pounded into Jace’s chest. She turned from the blackened body in front of her, reaching out to Jace. “Daktari! Daktari!” She lurched forward, swinging her fist at his chest.

He reacted, lifting his hands in front of his face, warding off the blows of the heartbroken mother.

Two other women in orange and purple sweaters came alongside the crying woman, pulling her back from Jace, yelling in their tribal tongue.

Jace lowered his hands.
I deserve this,
he thought. He stood exposed in front of her. For a moment, beneath a waning moon, with the acrid smell still hanging thick around them, he thought her fury had quieted.

But then, the woman broke free from the women restraining her and with a cry, carried her fist through a high arc ending in Jace’s teeth. He stumbled back, tripping, landing in the warm ash next to the charred remains. He stood and faced the woman. She clutched her arms across her chest, a futile attempt to protect her broken heart. The women at her side coaxed her into their arms, and soon, the trio moved away, their cries mingling and soon lost in the noise of the crowd.

“Jace! Here!” It was Evan Martin.

Jace looked toward the voice and retreated to the edge of the parking lot into the company of his friends. His eyes met Gabby’s. “I can’t watch,” he whispered. He spat and wiped his chin. Blood.

“What’s going on, Jace? Another coincidence?” Her eyes bored into his, asking,
Why your patients? Is this another message? A warning?

Jace brushed back tears. “I don’t know.”

“We need to leave this place,” she said.

“One more,” Jace responded. “Please.”

Gabby began walking away. Her posture was set as she struggled forward against an unseen wind.

“Gabby,” he called after her.

She turned. “One more, Jace. For the sake of our Somali patient. Then I’m gone.”

Jace nodded, though he knew she did not see. Gabby was already moving across the parking lot, weaving her way through a sea of dark faces.

From the crowd, a large man emerged. Chaplain Otieno passed Jace without speaking, pausing only briefly to place his large hand on Jace’s shoulder before moving on in the direction of a Kikuyu mother’s painful cry.

Jace nodded at Evan Martin. “See you in the morning,” he mumbled. He turned up the rocky path toward his house, feeling like Jonah in the hold of the ship about to capsize.
It’s my fault. I’m the one they should throw into the sea. I’m the one who has brought terror to this town.

Because I killed my sister.

He walked alone, away from the cacophony of African tongues that wagged in excitement over the fire.

Tomorrow, he promised himself, he would operate again, hoping to make up for the misery that seemed to follow him.

Is it possible to atone for all that I’ve done?

39

Alone in his house, Jace Rawlings missed his wife. They’d been separated for more than six weeks. Over that time, anger had given way to sorrow, and sorrow to remorse. He didn’t blame Heather for their problems. In fact, in light of his current difficulties, he felt that he was getting just what he deserved.

He thought about Anita, how he’d been swept up in the emotional tangles of desire. She’d
wanted
him. It was fresh. New. Fun to be wanted in a way that Heather seemed to have lost.

He thought back to the night he first felt he’d crossed a previously impenetrable barrier. The governor had suffered a postoperative pneumonia, then a deep venous clot led to a pulmonary embolus and need for another period of time on the ventilator. The governor had survived, and after his discharge, Jace had adopted the practice of slipping by the governor’s mansion at least once a week to check on his patient.

It was on one of those late-night visits that Anita took his arm and led him toward the door, thanking him as they walked. She turned toward him, and in a gesture that seemed accidental, her breast brushed across his arm.

Accidental or not, Jace was aware of every firing nerve ending. He gently pushed back, allowing the touch to linger a moment longer. An accident. Nothing more.

“Stay for a drink
.
”

He was helpless. “Of course.”

She selected a white zinfandel for herself, allowing Jace to select his own poison. He lifted an expensive scotch. She poured three fingers’ worth into a glass and added ice.

They sat in leather chairs set at ninety degrees that allowed their knees to bump. Another accident of course. She slipped off a pair of red heels and crossed her legs, brushing his thigh in the process.

He cleared his throat.

She smiled. “I’m sick of the media,” she said. “Sometimes I just want to escape the circus.” She paused. “How about you? Do you enjoy the attention?”

“No.” He sipped his drink, already feeling his anxiety slipping away.

“Do you want children, Jace?”

Her use of his first name had become a practice whenever they spoke alone.

“I always thought so. My wife … we’ve struggled a bit in that area.”

“Stuart always wanted children, but his sperm counts are low.”

Jace shifted in his chair. This felt like too much information.

“Finally, last spring, I got pregnant, but I lost the baby after three months. Stuart was devastated. I’m not sure if he told you.”

Jace shook his head. It hadn’t come up. And evidently, if the media had heard, they’d exercised a rare bit of courtesy in not reporting it.

“Now I’m afraid that Stuart isn’t up to the task.” She paused again, making eye contact until Jace looked down, feigning interest in his drink. “Jace,” she said, leaning forward.

Jace diverted his eyes from her cleavage.

“When do you think it will be safe for us to try again?” She smiled. “I don’t want to hurt him.”

Jace tried to swallow. “The governor is a strong man. He’ll be back in the saddle soon enough.” He blushed, immediately regretting his choice of words.

Anita giggled. “I certainly hope so,” she said.

He sipped his drink and protested lightly as she poured a bit more.

She talked of her modeling career, of the endless stressful hours of a life in New York City before being rescued by Stuart Franks. She told of her desire to be a background compliment to Stuart, but knew the media couldn’t resist her charm.

“How do you deal with the pressure?” he asked.

“I drink,” she gushed. “Seriously? I exercise. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to stay in this kind of shape.” She straightened her posture and placed her hands against her petite waistline.

“Something I need to do more of myself.” He took a deep breath. He should leave. “I’ve got surgeries in the morning.”

“You should leave through the service entrance.”

He stood and set his glass on the table.

She walked him to the door, glancing behind to see that they were alone. She turned, allowing her chest to contact his.

“Good night, Anita.” He opened the door, greeted by Richmond air, damp from spring rain.

As he walked to the car, he wiped his mouth, still smelling her perfume.

He didn’t notice a car following him until he’d traveled three blocks. Then, at a red light, a BMW with tinted windows moved within inches of his back bumper. The driver seemed to want Jace to know he or she was there, following him away from the governor’s mansion.

Down Broad Street toward the interstate, the car kept itself pasted to his bumper.

Jace looked around, wishing for police. Nothing. He took a quick left and accelerated, then suddenly braked and made a U-turn at the next red light.

The car followed.

Jace lifted his cell phone to his ear. As he did so, the car dropped back.

A coincidence?

Had someone followed him from the governor’s mansion?

Jace made two more detours before getting onto the interstate. The other car faded.

He checked his watch. It was past time to be home.

John Okombo loved his job, relishing the attention, the power, and the beautiful people who orbited around politicians. What he didn’t like was the critical attention that Luo politicians suffered under a Kikuyu president. Today was an example of the kind of attention the MP didn’t like: an interview with the president’s anticorruption czar. He tried to smile, but was sure his perspiration was giving him away.

Across the table, Mr. Kithingi sat smugly shuffling papers, reading snippets to Minister Okombo and questioning the large man in front of him. “I think it would be helpful if you didn’t speak to the media about Anthony Kimathi.”

Okombo folded his arms. “I think we can all agree that Kenya is a better place without him.”

Kithingi was a short man, clean cut and wearing a blue business suit. He raised his eyebrows at the suggestion. “Perhaps. Will you go on record to explain just how your vehicle ended up at a police check where apparently an ambush was to take place on the American doctor?”

“I’ve already done so. I know nothing other than the fact that my driver was bringing the Americans to dine at my house. The police stop, as far as I know, was a random event.”

“I’ve spoken to the heart surgeons at Nairobi Hospital and at Aga Khan. They have contributed heavily to your party, have they not? Perhaps you were trying to keep them happy by having the American surgeon taken out of the way?”