Now he found himself on the floor where Ste. Anne’s one and only hospitalized parishioner should be. Carleson made his way toward the nurses’ station, hoping that Herbert Demers was no longer here. No longer, indeed, in this life.
Ann Bradley, R.N., looked up from the screen where she’d been searching for records. “Oh, hi, Father. Come to see Mr. Demers?”
It was no surprise that she recognized the priest. By this time, almost all the hospital employees knew him. He’d been there for, in the course of time, all shifts.
“He’s still here?”
Bradley nodded grimly. “That’s about the way we feel, father. Every time any of us comes on duty, there are a certain few patients we expect to find gone. Mr. Demers certainly is among that group. He doesn’t really cause us any trouble. But there’s so little we can do for him. Make sure the IV tubes are working. Turn him. Talk to him. Funny thing,” she said, thoughtfully, “every once in a while I get the feeling he’s trying to tell me something.” She shrugged. “Of course he isn’t. It’s something like a baby: We get the impression we’re communicating but, outside of maybe he feels our touch, nothing.”
“What if …” Carleson hesitated. “What if he did? What if he did communicate with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The last time I visited him-I know this isn’t going to make much sense-but I’d swear he formed words with his lips.”
“Really!” Bradley lost all interest in the computer screen. “What did he … uh, ‘say’?”
“He said … he said, ‘Help me die.’”
“He said that? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I really am positive. I’d just told him a story-a joke, actually-about a patient in one of those old- fashioned oxygen tents. Somebody was accidentally standing on the oxygen hose killing the patient.” He stopped, then shook his head. “I can’t tell you why in the world I was telling somebody as sick as Herbert Demers such a black joke. I guess I just felt I should say something. And I didn’t think Herbert would know what I was talking about anyway.
“But, after this joke about a visitor killing the patient, Herbert very slowly and very deliberately mouthed those words: ‘Help me die.’”
“Weird!”
“My thought exactly. But what would you do if you had that experience? What if Mr. Demers asked you to help him die? What would you do?”
“Well, I’d note it in the log, make sure the doctor knew about it.”
“That’s it?”
“It? Oh, you mean would I act on it? Well, no. Of course not. You must know, Father, there are lots of patients-terminals, people with a lot of pain-who want to die. But that’s completely out of bounds.” There was surprise, mingled with a touch of shock in her manner. As if the last thing she ever expected from a priest was the hint of approval for euthanasia.
“Yeah, sure, of course,” Carleson said. “Just wondered. I think I’ll go see Herbert now. See if he wants to mouth any more messages.”
Carleson’s offhand demeanor convinced Bradley that he hadn’t been seriously suggesting euthanasia. Just considering all possibilities.
Carleson entered the room. The second bed was vacant and tightly made up, awaiting the next patient.
Herbert Demers lay motionless in his bed, his skin almost as white as the sheet. The rise and fall of his chest was almost imperceptible. Carleson took the elderly man’s hand. He felt a pulse-barely.
After a lengthy period of sitting and stroking Demers’s hand, Carleson recalled the story he’d just heard in the Emergency Room. What the hell, he thought, it might just work. It certainly was worth a try.
Carleson slid his chair as close as possible to the bed. He squeezed Demers’s hand tightly. There was no answering pressure.
“Mr. Demers …” Carleson spoke loudly. Then, considering the old man was in a coma, the priest decided to throw caution to the winds and shout. “Mr. Demers … Herbert …” Carleson shouted, “it’s all over. Your family is all grown up. They love you, but they don’t need you anymore. You’ve had a good, long life. It’s over now. You can go to God. He’s waiting for you. All you have to do is let go. Let go, like you were going to sleep. Let go and go to God, Mr. Demers. Let go and go to God, Herbert.”
Carleson repeated the exhortation twice more, in more or less the same words. At the end, he was actually perspiring. He had poured so much of himself into willing Demers into eternity that he was nearly exhausted.
After he had been silent for several minutes, Ann Bradley entered the room. Evidently, she had been waiting in the corridor for Carleson to finish.
She stood next to the bed across from Carleson. She grasped Demers’s wrist and held it several seconds. She placed his arm gently on the bed. She placed her fingers on the patient’s neck, feeling for the carotid artery. She looked at Carleson and shook her head.
“He’s gone?” Carleson was willing at this point to believe in magic.
“No,” Bradley said. “Sorry. He’s still very much with us. But” — she smiled-” nice try.” She left the room.
Carleson remained seated, close to Demers. This doesn’t make much sense, he thought. There should be some provision for cases like this. Demers had concluded his life long ago. There was no doubt whatsoever in Carleson’s mind that Demers had communicated. He had pleaded for help in dying. So, this was no vegetable lying on this bed. There was a soul in prison, longing to be free.
With nothing much better coming to mind, Carleson decided to recite the rosary aloud. Maybe that familiar prayer would strike a chord in the old man’s memory.
Carleson took his beads, signed himself with the cross, and, fingering the crucifix, prayed aloud the Apostles’ Creed.
All the while, he thought of Demers’s request for help to die. It would be so easy. So easy.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The networks and national news media giveth. And the networks and national media taketh away. Bradley Kleimer was not-definitely not-disposed to bless either party.
In interviews with reporters from the
As was their practice, today’s media had already tried the case. Unlike most of their previous excursions into the predicted verdict, this time they had acquitted the accused.
Kleimer soon got the impression he would be persecuting-not to be confused with prosecuting-an amalgam of Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, and Jeanne d’Arc.
And the deeper the media dug, the worse it got.
In their probe of Carleson’s background they were not turning up the mud Kleimer was hoping Quirt was finding; instead, what was emerging was the portrait of a selfless, sacrificing, dedicated missionary, who served the poorest of the poor with quiet, unassuming distinction. Also emerging ever more markedly was the strong image of a bishop who was the antithesis of the talented missionary whom he had forced into a sort of involuntary servitude.
This, for Kleimer, was not a happy turn of events. He remained unshaken in his belief that Carleson had murdered Diego. But something had to happen. Something had to turn this media-triggered momentum around.
The phone rang. Kleimer had long since lost his eagerness to answer it. But it could scarcely get much worse. And one never knew.…
It was Quirt. This could go either way.
“Geez, Brad,” Quirt said with emphasis, “have you been listening to the radio or catching the TV news?”
