Right To Die - Jeremiah Healy Read online

  Andrus came forward in her chair. "That's the perversity of it all, John. I helped a man I loved move through the pain and hopelessness of incurable illness to the peace that follows. Everyone who tried to do the right thing in that direction was vilified by the system, but in the end nothing changed in the society."

  "How did the son feel about all this?"

  "Ramon? He seemed pretty indifferent. Almost glad that it was over. Enrique's will split the estate between us. I got the house. on the ocean in Spain — in Candas, near Gijon — though I just rent it out. Ramon was interested more in the movable assets."

  "Movable?"

  "Yes. He decided to settle in the States, even shortened his name to just Ray Cuervo."

  "Where does he live?"

  "I believe somewhere on the north shore. I haven't seen him in years, but . . . Marblehead, perhaps." Andrus altered her expression. "Why do you ask?"

  "I might want to talk with him."

  "I can't believe Ramon could be involved in this."

  "How about Manolo?"

  "Manolo doesn't know anything. I've questioned him extensively. Over the years he's become good enough in recognizing English for us to communicate with him on simple things."

  "I meant, could Manolo be involved in this?"

  "Manolo?" A laugh. "Manolo is like the sun and the moon, John. He was devoted to Enrique, never left his side."

  "Manolo watched you inject your husband'?"

  "Watched me with the needle, yes. Not with the bottle."

  "Manolo ever figure out that you killed your husband?"

  "John, Manolo is loyal, in the medieval sense of the word. I'm sure that at some point Enrique signed to him that he was always to serve me. After Enrique died, I packed to come back to the States. So did Manolo. In his mind there was no question that where I went, he went. A simple man, but not stupid. For example, if you talk to him, you have to say the words out loud, not just mouth them. Otherwise, Manolo can tell from the way your throat looks that you're not really speaking, and he's hurt."

  "How did you ever get him into the country'?"

  "I was able to work things out with immigration before the dam broke in Spain. Manolo has stayed on with me ever since. I even got him a driver's license, but please don't ask how. He has no place else to go and nothing else to do."

  "How does your present husband feel about that?"

  "Tuck?" Andrus seemed amused and affected a southern accent. "Tucker Hebert rolls with the punches, John." Resuming her voice, she said, "Nothing bothers him, which is a refreshing attitude to share once in a while. Tuck gets along fine with Manolo. Besides, Manolo was already a part of my household when Tuck met me."

  "At a tennis tournament?"

  "At . . . ? Oh, no. Well, yes. I guess so. It was at Longwood Cricket Club, where they hold the pro championships out in Brookline? But he wasn't playing actively anymore."

  "How does Tucker feel about your position on the right to die?"

  Andrus tented her fingers, rested her chin lightly on the fingertips and rocked her head back and forth. "lf you'll be working for me, you can ask him."

  "You realize that I can't both bodyguard and investigate at the same time."

  "Manolo's presence is all the 'bodyguarding' I can tolerate, John. Understand this, please. I didn't like the idea of Inés and Alec going to the police precisely because of my position on the right to die. It cannot look as though I can be bullied by crank notes into playing turtle. I will not dilute one aspect of my approach to the cause, including tonight's debate."

  "Debate?"

  "At the Boston Public Library. Three of us extremists will go hand to hand in front of a slavering crowd."

  "I'd like to see it."

  "Fine." She softened a little. "Because of what happened to me with Enrique's death, I will not be stopped until what should happen morally is what can happen legally. However, I think that having you investigate is not inconsistent with that goal. I believe we understand each other, even if we don't agree."

  "As long as you understand that if I do my job right, the sender of these notes is going to realize you've hired me to go after him."

  "That's fine. Let him think about being the target for a while. And, if you catch him, so much the better."

  "I'll want a retainer of twelve hundred against four hundred a day fee, plus expenses."

  "Only three days worth up front? You think you're that good?"

  "No, but I think you're that rich you're good for it."

  "Inés has the checkbook."

  "I'd also like to see some of your other hate mail."

  "Inés keeps an alphabetized file. Steel yourself."

  As I opened the door back into the anteroom, Manolo was already on his feet, but this time facing a man about five feet ten in a three-piece suit with lapels an inch out of fashion. Fortyish, he had brown hair with a very narrow widow's peak and a brown mustache, both hair and sideburns a little too long.

  The man held a fat manila folder near Inés Roja's nose as he dripped sarcasm. "With all the world's problems preying on her mind, no doubt Professor Andrus merely forgot that she's a member of the Long-Range Planning Committee."

  "As I said, sir, I left a message for you that the professor could not attend the meeting because of an emergency."

  The man acknowledged me with a scowl. "A pressing issue no doubt. 'Should we pull the plug on Grandmama now or wait till after she's stood treat for lunch?' "

  Roja said, "I will ask the professor to call you as soon as possible."

  "Yes, yes, you do that, Inés. I'll no doubt be in the dean's office, discussing nonteaching faculty responsibilities and how to assure them."

  He turned and walked away, his toes splayed outward like a duck's.

  Manolo sat down.

  Roja turned to me and said, "I am sorry."

  "Who was that?"

  "Professor Walter Strock."

  "He usually come on that way?"

  "He and the professor do not get along well." More seriously, Roja said, "Is there anything I can do?"

  "Write me a check for twelve hundred dollars so I can start looking into the notes."

  Her eyes lit up. "I will do it."

  "I'd also like to see the other hate mail the professor's gotten. You have a file?"

  Roja nodded and moved to a tall metal cabinet. Taking a key from the pocket of her suit jacket, she unlocked the top before sliding out a drawer. "All these, alphabetic by the name of the person or organization writing. Except the last folder, for the unsigned ones."

  I whistled through my bottom teeth. "You have a box I could carry those in?"

  "I can get a carton from the Xerox room."

  "One other thing. This debate tonight?"

  "You will attend?"

  "What time is it?"

  "Eight o'clock. At the Rabb Lecture Hall of the Boston Public Library."

  Time for dinner first with Nancy. "I can make it."

  "Good. Alec will be there too." She smiled and blushed. "I am really glad now that we asked you to help."

  "Don't be too sure, Inés. Your boss seems to put her faith in the law."

  "I would rather put my faith in people, John. Meaning no disrespect to the professor?

  As Roja said it, I realized that I couldn't seem to call Andrus by her first name either.

  =6=

  "YES, WELL, NINA, I'M SURE YOU UNDERSTAND.”

  "No, Professor Strock, frankly I don't."

  I had told Inés Roja I'd be back for the files. Searching for Walter Strock, I'd found him outside his office, confronted by a pudgy, determined woman with a lumpy knapsack on her back.

  "Nina, there were many students interested in being my research assistant, and well, there was only one slot open."

  "But you announced in class that you'd be weighing our exam grades heavily, and I got the highest grade on the final."

  "I certainly did weigh that factor, Nina, but I weighed others as well." He gave her a
funeral director's smile. "I'm sorry."

  "Yeah. Right. Thanks."

  Nina seemed disgusted as she stomped by me, the knapsack bonking the top of her rump.

  Strock was entering his office when I said, "Professor?"

  He turned. "Yes?"

  "I wonder if I could have a word with you?"

  "I'm rather busy. Do I know you?"

  "It's about Professor Andrus."

  ' "Ah, yes. The man she favored over her institutional obligations."

  "That's part of what I'd like to talk with you about."

  Strock looked me up and down,. tugging on an earlobe. "For that, I always have time. Come in, come in."

  His office stood in marked contrast to Andrus's bombsite. A polished wooden desk was the centerpiece of the room, several folders and books on it but not a paper out of place. One wall was covered by plaques and framed documents, a couch like the people eater in my landlord's condo nestling underneath them. The other walls sported lowboy oak filing cabinets, Currier and Ives hunting prints, and bookshelves. On the shelves stood trophies for riflery and a statue of Star Wars' C3PO holding a sign saying MAY DIVORCE BE WITH YOU. Two captain's chairs emblazoned with the school's logo were arranged in front of the desk. I took one of them as Strock sank into a judge's large swivel chair, swaying arrogantly.

  "And you are?"

  "John Cuddy, Professor." I nodded back toward the door. "I sure hope I'm not catching you at a bad time?"

  "Bad . . . ? Ah, Nina. No, no, just one of many disappointments she will suffer. In a mediocre career stretching long and lonely in front of her."

  A sweetheart, old Walter. "Professor, let me get right to it. My lawyer is thinking of involving Professor Andrus on this case I have, and . . ." I did my best to wring my hands. "We1l, I have to keep this confidential."

  "As you wish, but . . ."

  "I wonder, I couldn't help but overhear you with the professor's secretary — "

  "Ah, the lovely Inés. Pity she's a bit frigid. A Marielito, something to do with an incident on the boat coming over from Castroland. Tried to help her talk it out once upon a time, but she just won't open up."

  I swallowed hard. "I've always believed, you want to know about a person, first talk to somebody who doesn't like them."

  "Then you've come to the right place regarding Dame Andrus, sir." Tilting his chair back, Strock entreated the gods. "But where to begin, where to begin?"

  "I thought you said something about her missing committee assignments?"

  "The tip of the iceberg. Maisy fancies herself a latter-day Joan of Arc, you see. Believes that a faculty appointment here is merely the springboard for her cause, her great crusade."

  "Which is?"

  "To turn the sick of this planet into creatures with no more rights than an incontinent household pet."

  "The right to die, you mean?"

  "No, but that's how she'd phrase it for you."

  "Aren't there 'living wills' or something now?"

  "Yes, yes. The Supreme Court in the Cruzan case validated the concept. About forty states have statutes on that, allowing hospitals to withhold or withdraw heroic measures, even food and water. Our own compassionate Commonwealth has no such statute yet, but it doesn't matter much."

  "Why not?"

  "Because Massachusetts has a lot of case law on termination of treatment, and even in the living-will states, only ten percent of the citizens ever reach the stage of executing one."

  "Sounds like you've made quite a study of it yourself."

  Strock preened the hair at his temples. "Only to make the point, Mr .... ah, sorry?"

  "Cuddy."

  "Cuddy, yes, Cuddy. You see, Maisy doesn't teach here to improve the hearts and minds of our students. She doesn't give the proverbial rat's ass about whether they're minimally competent to pass the bar examination and actually enter practice. No, our Maisy cares only about her crusade."

  "Then why does she bother to teach at all?"

  "Not for the money, I assure you. Maisy's in fine shape that way."

  Strock pitched forward in his chair. "Do you know how she came to have that money?"

  I short-circuited a little. "My lawyer said her husband died and left it to her."

  Strock laughed meanly. "Ah, very good. I'd have been proud to teach your lawyer, sir. He makes accurate statements without telling the truth. A valued skill in an advocate. Her husband died, all right, but she gave him about ten cc's of propulsion along the way."

  "She killed him?"

  "The word I've heard her use is 'help.' She helped him find the peace that comes with sleep a tad sooner than his system otherwise dictated. Understand now. We're not talking about pulling the plug on a machine that's maintaining some veggie. We're talking murder."

  "Like that Michigan doctor and the 'suicide machine'?"

  "Not exactly. The doctor merely designed a machine for that unfortunate Alzheimer's patient to use. Aiding and abetting a suicide, so to speak. Maisy went way beyond that. She gave her husband a fatal dose, and still gets to inherit from him. Outrageous, no?

  "Yes. And that's not the half of it. There was some incredible scandal in Spain — that's where all this happened. Some prosecutor got bribed, poor bastard blew his head off, I think. But Maisy enjoys the dead don's money, and thanks to our revered dean, she gets to teach the courses she wants at the times she wants to, curriculum and schedule and the rest of us be damned."

  "Why is that?"

  "Not for the reason you'd think. No, our Maisy is oh-so-happily married to some tennis has — been she wouldn't think of spreading them for anything so crass as professional advancement. You see, the dean is sitting in his chair around the corner because she turned it down."

  "Professor Andrus was offered the deanship?"

  "And she said, 'Oh, no thanks, I have all these other, more important irons in the fire. I couldn't possibly take on the mundane task of guiding the institution that nurtured me.' My God, can you imagine the regents offering her the job of administering this law school? I mean, forget that Maisy snuffed her own husband, the woman can't even keep up with her committee work!"

  "What do the students think of her?"

  " 'The Cunt That Belches Fire'?"

  I thought about the notes.

  Strock continued without prompting. "They love her. There is no justice, is there? Of course, Maisy teaches nonsense subjects like Law and Society or Sociology of Law. All of the touchy-feely stuff is really just a cover for indoctrinating the poor munchkins. The woman treats them like shit, then gives everybody A's and B's, so they figure they learned something. All they ever learn is how to be thankful for being manipulated into agreeing with her theories."

  I'd about had my fill of Professor Strock. "Well, thanks for all your help."

  He made a dismissive gesture. "Far be it from me to discourage you from retaining Maisy, even indirectly, but you're aware, are you not, that she is leaving us for a while?"

  "Leaving?"

  "Yes. A visitorship for the coming quarter. Spared of the cruelest months of the winter by venturing to San Diego with Bjorn."

  "Bjorn?"

  "Or whatever the tennis bum's name is. I've never actually met him, but I hope he bleeds her dry. That would be poetic justice, at least."

  I stood up. "Thanks again."

  Strock made no effort to rise. "Pleasure."

  As I reached the door, he said, "Oh, Mr. Cuddy?"

  "Yes?"

  "One more thing. Maisy is participating in a debate tonight."

  "She mentioned it."

  "You really ought to go. Get a sense of how she comes across in a public forum."

  "Will you be there, Professor'?"

  Strock smiled like a man serving his kids roast rabbit for Easter dinner. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

  =7=

  AFTER LEAV1NG WALTER STROCK, I PICKED UP MY BOX OF FILES from Inés Roja. By the time I got outside the school building, I realized the load was going to be
too heavy to carry under one arm and too awkward to ferry in front of me under two. Since there were no cabs, it seemed to make more sense to find a place for lunch. Across the street and down from the school was Bandy's, a burger-and-beer dugout owned by another Vietnam vet in my student days.

  Sometimes nostalgia is a bad emotion to indulge.

  The interior was still dark and just a little dank. The floor was still tacky from spilled beer, the vinyl in the booths still taped at the seats. But instead of the Stones or the Doors, the speakers blared Grace Jones doing a bad Katharine Hepburn imitation as she recited rather than sang some lyric about walking in the rain. The barkeep had a purple Mohawk and more pieces of metal piercing his ears and nose than a shrapnel victim.

  The only obvious holdover from the original Bandy was a television monitor above the bar, showing a video of a Celtics-Lakers game. Bird holding the ball on his hip, glaring at an official. Kareem. with shaved head and goggles, a praying mantis seeking just one more grasshopper before calling it a night. The screen jumped to a clip of the Lakers slaughtering some team you never saw play from a city that made you think of rodeos, not hoops.

  I'd already lost my appetite when the Mohawk said, "Help you?"

  I started to say no, then recognized one of the facial scars the artifacts couldn't quite hide. "Bandy?"

  "Yeah. I know you?"

  Maybe not from this incarnation. "John Cuddy. I went to Mass Bay a long time ago."

  "Cuddy? Cuddy, sure, sure." He stuck out a hand. "Southie by way of Saigon, right?"

  I rested the carton on the bar, and we shook. "Good memory."

  "Wish I could say the same about business."

  I tried to look encouraging as I surveyed the room, seeing only the backs of three other customers, one a woman, scattered over twenty stools. "Lunchtime's bound to be slow."

  "Tell me about it. Gave the cook a week off because it just wasn't worth it, with Mass Bay out of regular session." He flung a hand at the nearest stereo speaker. "This punk shit's the only thing brings them in."

  "I listen to their songs, but I just can't hear the music "

  "Aw, some of it ain't so bad. There's U2, Talking Heads, Fine Young Cannibals. They got something to say."