Robert Walker - Shadows in the White City

Jane now rushed down the corridor, going for the stairwell and Christian-no doubt in his morgue below-when she heard the irritating voice of Dr. Caine McKinnette, whose reputation, so far as Jane believed, was unfounded. McKinnette represented the old guard who still believed in bleeding his patients, and still believed that all disease rested in the bloodstream. She heard McKinnette tell a nurse to call him when his patient died so that he could fill out the death certificate and in essence be done with the woman in the bed before him.

Unlike Christian Fenger, Dr. McKinnette did not know Jane; he only knew Dr. James Phineas Tewes, with whom McKinnette had shared ale and spoke on occasion. They had both been involved to some degree in saving Alastair Ransom’s life from a bullet wound. McKinnette seemed to have somehow weaseled his way into Cook County as something other than an anesthesiologist and pill pusher, so that he was now overseeing the last breath of a dying patient. How unfortunate for the patient, Jane thought.

Jane knew she should leave it alone and go on her way. After all, she had her hands full as it were. But on seeing McKinnette disappear down the hall, something made her turn and walk into the patient’s room. She entered quietly and nodded to the nurse, who hand-cranked the dying woman’s bed to flatten it. The nurse assumed Jane to be a relative, so she ducked out to give Jane a moment with her loved one. No words passed between them.

Jane immediately checked the woman’s medical chart, and she took a pulse at the throat. Yes, the patient was dying. But Jane felt a hand grasp hers as she took the pulse. The woman on the bed, a gray wire-haired lady with a face ashen as stone and etched with wrinkles named Eloise Howe, was desperate to communicate. Jane saw it in her weak eyes, and she felt it in Eloise’s weak but persistent grip.

The strength in her touch told Jane that while she was weak, Eloise wanted a fight; she was not ready to give up, and Jane believed with proper treatment, Eloise could be turned around.

Jane pulled forth one of Dr. Tewes’s cigars from her bag, lit it, and used it to burn off the leeches that Dr. McKinnette had placed on Eloise at incisions he had made in the woman. She began to administer other means to help the woman. She did so quietly and as nurses changed bed sheets and replaced water, she engaged them and found that the nurses disagreed in whispering voices with Dr. McKinnette and his care of this woman from the beginning. In fact, one went so far as to say that she felt the old doctor had caused more harm than good, saying that the woman had declined rapidly once he’d taken over her case.

“She was found on the street, passed out, brought in a week ago. She had fainted from lack of nourishment. Dr. McKinnette began treating her immediately as a dying cause.”

Two days later and Jane had still not gotten around to Bloody Mary, but as the woman was in the asylum ward, she was going nowhere, and Jane had come to believe she could save a life here at Cook County.

Still, the nurses, assumed Jane a family member or dear friend, and she did not dissuade the notion. Two days and no more response but rather a comatose state had come over the elderly patient.

McKinnette did not once check his own steps, even down to a look at his damnable leeches. He claimed that his patient’s mind was gone, that she was brain dead and would never recover herself again. He spoke of it as a matter of time, and he remarked that had he a race horse or a pet in the same condition, that he would put it out of its misery. It was an undisguised invitation to any nurse who wanted to do both patient and doctor a favor to “take action” on behalf of mercy.

Meanwhile, Dr. McKinnette was told that Jane had sat with the supposed brain dead, had talked nonstop to the patient, holding her hand. Jane’s instinct told her this woman was not ready to go, that she had unfinished business, and Jane always went with her first instinct. After much frustration even with Christian Fenger, who Jane had brought to Eloise to show him that she was not only out of coma, but lucid-talking and touching Jane-and that Eloise had started to open her eyes and was trying to focus on Jane when Dr. Fenger had entered in the room. Christian, who’d been monitoring the situation and who’d had a shouting match with McKinnette in his office over his arcane practices, his esoteric handwriting, and his ill-treatment of this patient, was amazed at what Jane had accomplished. After a lot of aggressive therapies and ideas, Jane had talked them into pulling McKinnette off the case and allowing Dr. Tewes to come in and work with Eloise, calling Tewes a homeopathic healer as well as a phrenologist and magnetic healer.

Jane as Tewes combated dangerous infection created by McKinnette’s sloppiness. Tewes was soon credited with what Jane had accomplished, getting Eloise’s breathing to slow with thirty-minute hourly suctioning. When Jane as Tewes left Eloise, the elderly woman insisted on a hug, and she squeezed her with some strength in her arms, and she could keep her eyes open for a long period, and her gag reflex was good, and she responded well to Tewes’s voice. She also exhibited a normal pain response. She wanted to know where that sweet woman-a nurse, she believed-had disappeared to. Dr. Fenger was amazed at the stark difference between McKinnette’s patient and Jane’s patient at this point. He walked with her outside and in the hallway, he shook her hand and praised her skills, drawing stares.

“So fire the quack and hire Dr. Jane Francis, then, Christian.”

“I am going to work on it.”

“And how long will that take?”

“There are bridges yet to build, but I am going to build them.”

They stood staring at one another, she in men’s clothing, he in his smeared white frock. Around them Cook County hospital was alive with activity.

“You saved that woman from a certain death.”

“I’ve seen this before-too often-but I had a feeling from the first touch between us that I could help Eloise far, far better than Caine McKinnette.”

“But how did you know you could bring the woman back?”

“Initially, I didn’t, but I knew that I wouldn’t turn over my dog to McKinnette and his leeches.” She thought a moment. “But honestly, I had hope and she knew that, and so together she and I guided Eloise back.”

“You should go home. Get some rest.”

“No…not just yet, Christian. I want to talk to that woman they call Bloody Mary who’s here in your asylum, but I want to do it as a woman, not as Tewes. Can I change in your office?”

“Jane, Bloody Mary is no longer here.”

“No longer here?”

“She was discharged.”

“I don’t understand. How?”

“She has been in before, Jane, and no one…no one here can deal with her.”

“Meaning?”

“She literally bites, kicks, and fistfights the staff and other patients. Furthermore, she refuses help and thinks we’re trying to poison her.”

“Isn’t that what an asylum is for? People with delusions?”

“There is no cure for her madness, and I refuse to operate on the insane. It’s against my principles.”

“Agreed. Enough experimental surgery on the insane.” She paced. “So you simply release a so-called lunatic and murder suspect to the streets?”

“She was not charged with any crime. Besides, according to her primary physician, she refused help, she attacked other inmates, and she made a habit of biting everyone.”

“Let me guess-McKinnette!”

“Yes, you have me there.”

“Damn, damn, damn, Christian, what hold does that man have on you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, hold. He works for the hospital.”

“Only so long as you suffer him! When is Cook County going to get it right?”