Recessional: A Novel (64 page)

Silence fell, and then young Umlauf asked quietly: “Would you look the other way if Mother and I took matters into our own hands?”

Andy did not reply, for he recognized this as a lure to trap him into defending euthanasia, a step he could not take as a medical man who had taken an oath to defend life at all stages and at all costs. But as the Umlaufs watched him fixedly he gradually saw quite clearly and unequivocally the path that as a human being he must take. Looking straight into the eyes of first the mother and then the son he gritted his teeth, said nothing and, turning his head sharply, looked out the window. They understood this, rightly, to mean that they had his tacit support, that he would indeed look the other way. As Andy watched the resolute pair leave his office, he wished them well.

At a quarter to two that night, Gretchen Umlauf, in a flowing white gown lent her by a friend at the Palms, was led by her son along a route arranged by the same friend. Easing her quietly into the corridor, Victor watched his mother make her way silently to Room 312, her mother-in-law’s prison. Protected from view and in the dim blue light used to illuminate hospital rooms with an almost mystical glow, Gretchen kissed the comatose old woman, then quickly removed one after another of the life-support systems. Finally, with a mighty pull, she ripped out all the electrical attachments so they could not be quickly reinstalled. With alarms sounding throughout the Health
building. Gretchen quietly edged her way back to where her son waited. They had broken the law, but Berta Umlauf, who had unsuccessfully battled the medical profession, the legal eagles, Hasslebrook’s movement and the entire state of Florida, finally won the right to die with dignity.

Dr. Zorn and Betsy wanted to hold their wedding at the Palms, for this was where their love had been discovered and had matured, but Oliver Cawthorn was adamant that it be celebrated in Chattanooga, the town in which the Cawthorns had been leading citizens since the foundation of the place in 1835. The family, a sprawling one with many aunts, had feared that Betsy, after her accident, might never marry, so when she found a young doctor, and a rather handsome one, it was doubly pleased. All the Cawthorns clamorously supported Oliver’s desire to have his daughter married in one of the old Chattanooga churches.

So Betsy surrendered, and Zorn, though he preferred to have the celebration at the Palms, complied with Father Cawthorn’s request. But when Cawthorn also nominated the clergyman who would perform the marriage service, a well-known Baptist minister named Cawthorn, he ran into a wall. Betsy said: “I want to be married by the minister who gave me real spiritual assistance during my recuperation. So don’t argue, Father, I insist.”

He withdrew the nomination of his distant cousin Cawthorn, telling his relatives: “I got my way on the church, let her have her way on the minister,” but when those in the community learned that the minister Betsy preferred was a woman, Reverend Helen Quade, many exploded. The Southern churches had not been willing to welcome women in the clergy—“What on earth do you call them? Clergy women? That’s pretty repulsive”—and to have one, a stranger to boot, officiating at a prominent society wedding was deplorable.

Betsy was as strong-willed as anyone in her family, but before forcing the issue she had to be sure that Reverend Quade was willing to participate in what might become a ticklish or even unpleasant family dispute. So she went to Mrs. Quade and asked: “Would you be willing to go to Chattanooga to officiate at our wedding?”

“I’d be honored. I’m so happy for you and Andy.”

“Even if it might mean some protest from the conservative wing—against a woman priest?”

Helen contemplated this: “Of course I’m aware that some of the local clergymen might protest, an outsider and a woman taking over what I suspect will be a society wedding. But I’m a battle-scarred veteran in such affairs and never loath to do what ought to be done.” She smiled in memory of former skirmishes, then said firmly: “You and Andy are certainly my dear friends. Sure, I’ll go and see this wonderful courtship finished in style,” and she accepted their offer to pay her transportation and housing during the five days of festivities: “No minister gets paid excessively, and female ones do not even reach midpoint in the scale, restricted though it is. Thank you.” Andy explained that there would, of course, be the customary minister’s fee, and she replied: “Naturally.”

Betsy, determined to solidify her decision to invite Reverend Quade, asked the society columinst from a Chattanooga newspaper to fly down at Betsy’s expense to meet Reverend Quade and to write an account of the latter’s distinguished career. The reporter quickly recognized Helen Quade as an outstanding woman and was not afraid to say so in the article she sent back to her paper. At Betsy’s insistence, it contained six photographs of Reverend Quade in exotic lands and receiving medals from various governments, including the United States. “In bringing Helen Quade to Chattanooga,” the reporter summarized, “Oliver Cawthorn is conferring honor on our city.”

With that settled, strong-minded Betsy pursued her second major desire, to have Nora Varney as a member of their wedding party. Zorn approved so enthusiastically that he wanted to be allowed to do the formal inviting, and Betsy, aware of how important this superior black nurse had been to Andy’s success at the Palms, consented, but she too wanted to be present when the invitation was given.

The meeting took place in the director’s office with just the three principals present, and Andy launched right into the subject: “Nora, as you know, I wanted the wedding to be held here, among our friends. But it made sense for Betsy’s father to insist that it be held in Chattanooga, where Betsy grew up and where the Cawthorns, hundreds of them, have always lived. So it’ll be there, and we’d be happy if you’d fly up with us as Betsy’s matron of honor.”

Nora, who may have anticipated such an invitation, had her answer ready: “No, I love you both and wish you everlasting happiness, but I can’t go with you this time.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s not a day goes by that my AIDS cases don’t need me. I fled Jaqmeel’s deathbed, but I’m not about to let anyone else I know die alone. But bring me a piece of the wedding cake.”

Betsy had more luck with another invitation of great importance to her. When she told Bedford Yancey she wanted him at her wedding, he cried: “I was coming whether you invited me or not. I’d have stood outside and cheered when you walked past.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course you’ll be inside, a guest of honor.”

“So now when I see you walking past, as I predicted you would, I’m goin’ to give a real Georgia yell: ‘She’s done it!’ ”

“No, Yancey. You were free to bully me about when I needed it. But my depression’s gone, and you keep your big mouth shut. Just throw me a kiss,” and she kissed him.

The wedding was far more emotional than Dr. Zorn had expected. The local media, understandably, had given much play to the romantic aspects of the love affair: “The local girl, a fine athlete, almost cut down in her prime” and “The Good Samaritan in the snow” and other details concerning the couple. The constant round of photographic sessions and rehearsals with Betsy’s friends who were to be in the wedding party and the showers given by women related to the Cawthorns took up much of the couple’s time. One afternoon, when they had a rare few hours free, they decided together to make an important visit.

They rented a car and drove west out of Chattanooga to the spot on Route 41 where the fateful New Year’s Day pileup had occurred. They explored where they had both been that day, zeroing in on the specific sites where Andy had careened into the ditch and on the spot above it where the crash into Betsy’s car had occurred.

It was awesome to see the scene where they had met, and in a sense to relive the harrowing moments when the dead were hauled away by bloodied workmen, the helicopters hovering like vultures. They could almost hear the sirens wailing. In the sunlight at this dreadful spot they embraced and sealed more securely than ever their mutual devotion as Betsy whispered in his ear: “Here I died and here I was reborn.”

When Clarence Hasslebrook, the fanatical officer of Life Is Sacred, learned that his cause célèbre, the old woman whose story had been in all the newspapers and on the television screens, had managed to
die despite his efforts, he was certain that the infamous Umlauf clan had been responsible. He told the papers it was murder, pure and simple, but he was unable to point to the one who had committed it. As it happened, he was thrown off the scent because two separate patients in Extended Care swore that they saw an angel in flowing white garb fly into Room 312, make a considerable noise there and fly out again, going right through the far wall, where clearly there was no door or window. Had the two old people been able to communicate with each other to connive on such a yarn? No, from widely separated beds, each had seen the angel. They agreed in their description. And they were equally certain that the angel had flown right through the wall.

The Umlaufs, in a final gesture of defiance, made arrangements to take their mother back to the family plot in Michigan for burial. Out of respect for the memory of Noel’s father, Ludwig, and his grandmother Ingrid, who had worried so much about what the people back in Marquette might think, they assured all the neighbors that Berta had died in an expensive suite in a fine hospital. What the neighbors thought that cold December day of the burial was that Berta’s children had given her a very fine funeral.

Hasslebrook did not take his defeat easily. Determined to have revenge, but no longer able to intimidate the Umlaufs, he directed his anger toward the Palms, and in particular toward Dr. Zorn, whom he suspected of having aided the Umlaufs. He would take care of that charlatan.

He started by visiting a man who he knew despised Zorn, Dr. Velenius, the dentist in the suburb north of Tampa, and there Dr. Velenius gave him a mix of fact and suspicion, all of it damning to the director of the Palms: “We know he interfered in my relationship with a patient. Stuck his nose in where he wasn’t wanted or needed. I’m convinced that in certain AIDS cases he’s practicing medicine in Florida without having been licensed in this state.”

“We better lay off that one,” Hasslebrook said. “Wouldn’t sound good, hammering a doctor because he helped with AIDS patients.”

“You’re right. But I’m certain that Zorn has willfully broken the law by tempting otherwise legitimate dental technicians into mending plates at half cost for residents of the Palms.”

“Keep watching the scoundrel. They didn’t run him out of Chicago for nothing.”

In his passionate desire to discredit Zorn, Hasslebrook enlisted
the Illinois members of Life Is Sacred to track down the specific charges for which Zorn had been disqualified by the Illinois medical association. When they reported that Zorn had never been thrown out of the ranks and was still qualified to practice if he could pay the soaring insurance premiums required in obstetrics, Hasslebrook asked his Chicago associates to zero in on just what Zorn had done wrong in the two lawsuits he had lost. By intensive interrogation of five people, the four parents who had brought accusations and the skilled attorney who had assembled the evidence and tried the cases, they accumulated a chain of such serious charges that it was a wonder to them that Zorn had not been jailed.

But the really damaging evidence, the incriminating material that made Hasslebrook almost salivate, was unearthed when he drove to a mean section of Tampa, where on the second floor of a wretched rooming house he interviewed the two photographers his organization had hired to make a photographic record of the various flophouses, improvised hospital arrangements and semirespectable hospices in which doomed men with AIDS were being treated during the last stages of their affliction. To Hasslebrook’s delight these tireless spies, the tall thin man and the short dumpy woman, had accomplished even more than they had promised. “We’ve caught these fine shots of Dr. Zorn,” the man said as his wife arranged the stills on a greasy table. “These show him entering and leaving places in which men died mysteriously.”

“Who’s the big black woman with him?”

“Nora Varney, his nurse at the Palms. She’s obviously partners with him in whatever illegal things he’s doing.”

“What’s this group of shots, individual men not in very good focus?”

“They’re the cream of the crop,” the woman said. “Positively prove that criminal activity has been going on.”

The man took over: “These are the men the newspapers talk about. The agents of death. Locals like the guy in Michigan. This one—and I wish it were in better focus—is famous. The police really tried to track him down. This shot shows him at his best, in a black cloak, but he’s not Hispanic. Borsalino hat, but he’s not Italian either.”

“Who is he? What is he? How does he affect our case against Zorn?”

“He’s the man we can prove comes in near the end to help the
AIDS men commit suicide. Totally illegal, cops everywhere want him.”

“Could we possibly get in touch with him?”

“Seems to have left the area. Or is working in a new costume. Not much chance.”

“But we can relate him to Zorn?”

“Absolutely. This shot and this one definitely tie him and Zorn to the hospice run by the Angelottis on the day the big basketball player killed himself.”

“Would you be willing to testify to what you’ve been telling me?”

“We would. We feel sure Dr. Zorn has been mixed up in some filthy business, him and the black woman. Look, we have shots of him just recently going into one of the worst places. Men die in this one all the time. We have shots of bodies being taken out.”

When Hasslebrook had his data assembled—the innuendos, the unattributed accusations, the ugly stories out of Chicago and, above all, the photographs that would look so damning in the press and on television (and all of this collected and organized while he was living under Dr. Zorn’s care, as it were, at the Palms)—he placed a telephone call to John Taggart. When the Chicago financier came on the line Hasslebrook immediately launched his offensive: “Am I speaking to the John Taggart who operates the chain of retirement homes?…I believe you are the owners—your organization, that is—of the fine installation in Tampa known as the Palms?…Well, Mr. Taggart, you don’t know me but I’m an officer of the national movement Life Is Sacred—”

“I do indeed know you. I followed your accomplishments out west. Your picture’s been on the tube here in Chicago. An amazing story. You and the white angel. What can I do for you?”

“It would be greatly to your advantage, Mr. Taggart, if you flew down here, let’s say tomorrow, and talked with me. I think it might protect your considerable investment in nursing homes.”

“Are you inviting me or ordering me?”

“You judge.”

“And we never call them nursing homes.”

“I do. Yours are just more expensive. Can I expect you—tomorrow?”

“I’ll fly down and be at the Palms at ten o’clock.”

“You can call me when you arrive. The switchboard will have my number. I’m staying at the Palms, you know.”

“Yes, so I’ve been informed.
Hasta la vista
, Brother Hasslebrook.”

When Hasslebrook hung up he was not entirely at ease. Taggart’s farewell seemed quite flippant, as if Taggart was more than prepared to face any threat of blackmail or other intrusion into his lucrative business. So be it, Hasslebrook said to himself. With that file over there. I’m more than ready for you, John Taggart.

Next morning Taggart rose at six. He grabbed a handful of dry granola, hurried to the commercial airport where his corporate jet waited, flew to Tampa International and was sitting in Dr. Zorn’s office at nine, asking in a friendly manner: “Andy, what in hell happened down here?” Zorn said briefly: “A wonderful woman eighty-one years old wanted us to execute her living will, which was defective. This man Hasslebrook, an officer of Life Is Sacred, decided to make a national case out of it. Clever rascal, knows how to use the court system and he tried to persuade a local judge to issue an order making him the legal protector of the old lady, which would have meant that the family would lose all control of their mother’s care. The woman died before the court issued a decision.”

“What was this about a floating white angel?”

“No one knows, but two different patients in Extended Care saw her clearly and watched as she flew right through a solid wall. They were on different parts of the floor, and so there could have been no collusion.”

“What’s this fellow up to, demanding that I fly down and talk with him today?”

“He’s taken a violent dislike to me, has been snooping around, collecting rumors, I suppose.”

“Your skirts clean?”

“I think so.”

“What’s this about the old woman being in a straitjacket, as the daughter-in-law charged in that big press conference? Surely that never happened?”

“I’m afraid it did.”

“Andy! In one of our establishments? Oh, what a terrible mistake!”

“An overzealous nurse.”

“I hope you fired her.”

“Hasslebrook wouldn’t allow it. Threatened an even bigger scandal if I took any action against the nurse.”

“Is she still with us?”

“Yes.”

“What’s she doing now, cat-o’-nine-tails if you spill your gruel?”

“Hasslebrook is one very tough customer. A true believer with all that zeal behind him.”

At ten the local agent of Life Is Sacred entered the office, introduced himself to Taggart and said bluntly: “This is private between the two of us,” and Taggart responded: “Dr. Zorn is my resident director. He and I are a partnership.”

“Then you’ve flown down here on a useless mission. I’m leaving.” He started for the door, whereupon Taggart had to say: “Andy, you’d better leave us alone,” and the doctor had to leave his own office.

When he was gone, Hasslebrook became conciliatory, almost as if he were a prudent counselor striving to assist a friend: “I think you and I have a problem with your Dr. Zorn.”

“How could that be? What’s he done to give you trouble?”

“It’s your problem, principally. You and your eighty-seven nursing homes. They could be in real jeopardy—if you allow Dr. Zorn to remain on your payroll.”

“Are you advising me to get rid of him? After he’s done such wonders here? Turned the place around?”

“It would certainly be to your advantage to get a bad apple out of your basket.”

“That’s a rather sweeping condemnation, delivered with no proof.”

“Proof is what I invited you down to see,” and Hasslebrook opened his bag and began spreading the photographs in neat groups: “I want you to study these with me, and see the kind of man you’ve sent to Florida,” and he moved from pile to pile, spreading each batch before Taggart as he spoke: “Here you see your doctor meddling in one of the worst AIDS refuges in Tampa, a real sink. And you’ll notice he’s taking his big nurse with him. What’s he doing? Helping the men commit suicide.”

“How can you accuse him of that?”

“Because that’s what happens there. Because that’s why he goes there. And even if he doesn’t actually assist in their suicides, he’s certainly practicing medicine without being licensed to do so in Florida. But these next photos nail down his complicity. This strange-looking fellow, a modern Zorro, is the famous Angel of Death you’ve read about, known for helping AIDS patients commit suicide, or doing it for them, we believe. Here he goes into a refuge, Zorn coming along
later. Here he is leaving the same house, Zorn exiting later. And the big nurse is waiting in the car.”

On and on went his analysis of the photographs his two spies had taken: “The shots of the Angel of Death aren’t so clear because he came and went in a hurry, and if he saw us he turned his face away. But it’s him on his evil business.”

By the end of his lecture, which included a rehash of the suspicions raised by Dr. Velenius and the informants in Chicago, Hasslebrook had painted a devastating portrait of a medical doctor run amok, ignoring the laws of the state and threatening the reputation of not only the Palms but all eighty-six of the other Taggart centers.

“Why haven’t you brought a court action?”

“Because that Zorn’s a wily one. He covers his tracks, but the boom is about to be lowered, Mr. Taggart. I’m thinking of going public with my charges against your man. With the full force of my organization, we can gain national publicity. I’m thinking of using events here at the Palms in which he broke every rule in the book—”

John Taggart, veteran of a score of lawsuits about zoning restrictions, spoliation of natural sites and details of construction contracts, had learned that whenever a man of shady character used the phrase “I’m thinking of,” what he was thinking of was blackmail in one sophisticated, almost legal form or another. Taggart’s problem was to ascertain how much the blackmail would cost.

When Hasslebrook saw his target pausing to reflect, he guessed correctly that the Chicagoan was trying to estimate how much he and the Life Is Sacred gang could hurt him, and on that delicate point Hasslebrook was more than prepared: “What I shall do unless corrective steps are taken is launch a campaign here in the Tampa area—and I have access to all the media, they know me—in which I will lay out the misbehavior of your people in what you call Extended Care, but which everyone else knows to be a hospice, and I shall describe it as Murder Mansion.” He stopped, seemed to roll the words around in his mouth as if savoring the dire implications. “Murder Mansion. A name like that might stick, and if applied to your entire chain it might do considerable damage, especially in areas where religion is taken more seriously than in the playgrounds of southern Florida.”

It was an ingenious threat and not an idle one, for such a phrase, once applied to an entity of any kind, could have harsh negative repercussions and, in the case of a health-care facility, they could be devastating. Taggart had to weigh with extreme care the degree to
which Hasslebrook’s threat was enforceable, and the premier fact was that the man’s parent organization had a most compelling name, Life Is Sacred. No one challenged lightly an organization like that, backed as it would be by a thousand churches. Had the outfit carried an accurate name like Snoops of the World or The Gang That Tells You How to Live, they could be rebutted, but it was never fruitful to tackle the God Squad. They could enlist too much ardent support. So it was obligatory that Taggart not enrage this man or in any way underestimate him.