Operation Wormwood

  “I will not,” Luke replied.

  “He does have those rugged movie-star looks,” the nurse behind the counter joined in.

  “Is that how he gets into ICU all the time? Because you all think he is a hot cop?” Luke asked.

  “Why, yes! We don’t let the ugly cops in at all.”

  Agatha picked up the patient’s file and went to the room to meet with Sgt. Myra. At the same time, the two doors to the ICU flung open, and two attendants quickly pushed a gurney through with a woman lying on it.

  “Your new patient is here,” the gurney operator said. “Which room is she going in?”

  “This one over here,” said a nurse. She hurried from behind the counter and pointed to an empty room next to the archbishop’s. The attendants followed, and Luke could hear them in the room transferring the new patient to the hospital bed that awaited her. Luke took the file from one of the attendants and started to read through it.

  Sixty-one-year-old female, school principal, lived in coastal Labrador for thirty-five years, recently retired, started having severe nosebleeds about a year ago. Luke read through all the same symptoms that the other patients had shown.

  Nick Myra and Agatha exited the other patient’s room, smiling at each other. “Luke,” Myra asked with a grin, “do you have time to chat now?”

  “I did until this new patient came in.” Gillespie pointed at the room. “This one doesn’t fit your profile. The new patient is female.”

  “Why? Do you think women can’t be pedophiles?” Myra was surprised.

  “I suppose. I’ve never thought about it, really. Either way, I must go take her vitals. Give me an hour, and I will meet you in the cafeteria for a coffee. By the way, why were you in the psychiatrist’s room?”

  “He was coherent this morning, and I had some questions to ask him.” Sgt. Myra put the black notebook he was carrying in the inside pocket of his blazer. “He was actually quite forthcoming today.”

  “He asked to put his lawyer on the visitors list,” Agatha informed them both.

  “That’s his choice. Now I must go see my new patient and prove your theory wrong.” Gillespie picked up the file and went to see his new patient.

  She was groggy but awake. Luke thought she looked like a typical schoolmarm. Her grey hair was tightly pulled back in a bun on the top of her head, and the crease was neatly combed down the middle. A small, pink, childlike bow pinned the bun to her head. Even a night in the emerg hadn’t caused a hair to go astray. She wore tiny circular glasses with gold rims, and her scrawny, birdlike hands had the blanket pulled up to her chin. Her chart said she was five foot six and 130 pounds. Gillespie decided she looked more like a nun than Sister Pius. There was no next of kin noted on her chart.

  “How are you feeling, Mrs. Power?” Dr. Gillespie asked.

  “Oh, I’m all right, Doctor,” she said, giving him a coy look. “I have an awful nosebleed and a lot of pain sometimes.”

  “I know, and I am trying to get to the bottom of that for you. Can I ask you a few questions before I order some tests to see what’s going on?”

  She nodded yes, and Gillespie opened her file again. “It says here you’re a retired school principal. Where did you teach?”

  “I taught up through coastal Labrador for thirty-five years.” She pointed a bony finger toward the ceiling. “All Aboriginal communities. Hard children they were to teach, too. You know what they’re like.” The new patient pursed her lips and shook her head, like she was disgusted with something. She put one hand over the other and cracked her knuckles, making a godawful sound.

  Gillespie was taken aback by her racist undertones. He had seen stories in the media about children in Labrador’s indigenous communities who sniffed gas and had to be removed from their homes and school, but he had also worked with a native doctor when he was an intern who turned out to be one of the best mentors he’d ever had.

  “Is it all right if I listen to your chest?” Gillespie took the stethoscope that hung around his neck and put it in his ears. Mrs. Power let go of one corner of the blanket, and he tugged it out of her other hand, then pulled the coverlet down to her chest. She was still wearing a hospital gown, and she had it tied tightly in the back. “I am going to have to untie the gown to examine you.”

  She turned her head to the left and rolled onto her side. Gillespie could tell she was terribly uncomfortable with this. He untied the string at the neck and slid the stethoscope down to her chest. Her breathing was laboured but clear. There was no sign of fluid on her lungs. He moved the stethoscope and she jumped a little, like she had been startled. Gillespie decided this must be the closest she had ever been to a man.

  “Your chest sounds fine right now, Mrs. Power. Can you tell me how long you’ve had those dark spots on your back and chest?”

  “Ms. Power,” she corrected him. “I have never been married. Those spots showed up about a year ago. I believe they are age spots, but they are awful big for age spots, don’t you think? I also have diarrhea almost every day. I have lost so much weight over the past year.”

  “Okay, I will let the nurses know, and they will take care of you, Ms. Power.” Gillespie was careful to use Ms. instead of Mrs. “I will check the spots for you. You don’t have any next of kin noted on your chart. Can you give me the name of someone I can put there in case of emergency?”

  “No. I don’t have any family.” She leered at him. “I was married to my job. Devoted to the children I taught.”

  “Yes, of course, but is there a friend, a neighbour, maybe an old student, anyone we can call to let them know you’re in hospital?”

  “No. I kept to myself, really. I live alone. I like it that way. I don’t want anyone in my business. I am tired now. Go away.” She pulled the blankets back up to her chin, then closed her eyes.

  Who’s taking care of your fifty cats? Dr. Gillespie wanted to ask, but he bit his tongue. He walked out of her room and headed toward the cafeteria to meet up with Sgt. Myra.

  13

  Dr. Luke Gillespie bought an extra-large coffee and looked around the cafeteria for Nick Myra. He spotted him at a corner table talking to Agatha, and even from that distance he could tell the sergeant was flirting with his nurse.

  “Excuse me. Am I interrupting anything?” Luke asked as he sat at the table.

  Agatha began to blush, and Luke realized that she really was quite caught up with this police officer. “So, are you making daily trips to my ICU to take statements, or are you just looking for an excuse to see my favourite nurse?”

  “I cannot confirm or deny your suspicions at this point in my investigation, Dr. Gillespie,” Nick answered in an official tone. “Now tell me about your newest pedophile.”

  “Not this time,” Luke answered. “She’s a retired school principal who spent her entire career teaching in coastal Labrador. Never married and has no family. She is an old spinster and can probably eat the pillars out of the church.”

  “You’re still convinced that she’s not a pedophile because she’s female, aren’t you? What do you think the number one profession of a pedophile is?”

  “I don’t know . . . priest?”

  “No. School principal. Teacher is second. Priest is actually not on the list,” Myra informed both Luke and Agatha. “Children who are abused are almost always abused by their caregivers, meaning their own parents, step-parents, relatives, babysitters, even camp counsellors. Priests don’t have access to children anymore. They don’t teach in public schools like they used to, and there are not as many altar boys or choirboys at church.”

  Luke and Agatha were shocked by the information, but neither one had children, so they’d never thought about it before.

  “As a matter of fact,” Nick continued, “out of all my files that I’ve investigated over the past five years, not one victim mentioned a priest,
until last year, when the archbishop’s name came up and victims started to come forward.”

  “I would never have thought of a teacher as a child molester,” Agatha said. “I loved all my teachers. I guess you tend to trust a female more than a male around kids.”

  “Most times child abusers are teachers, a neighbour, a friend of a parent, or someone a parent has been dating. I have four cases where the children were molested by a handyman a parent had hired to do repairs around the house, and it wasn’t the same handyman, either. I’m talking four different cases. Each time the guy took just a little too long to finish the job. Gained the trust of the parent. Befriended the child and took note of what park they went to, where they hung out, and then conveniently ran into them. You’d be surprised at how quickly parents will trust strangers even though they tell their kids never to do it.”

  “I would never suspect a handyman or a good friend of mine.” Agatha was shocked by her own lack of knowledge on the subject.

  “Children are more likely to be molested at home or school than church. Nine out of ten times the child and parent know the molester well. What always kills me is every time I take a statement, the parent will say, ‘I had a funny feeling something was wrong, but I didn’t want to insult my friend, neighbour, brother, etc.’ They would rather put their head in the sand and pretend everything is okay.”

  “My God, you learn something new every day, don’t you?” Agatha felt a chill run down her spine.

  “I still don’t think my new patient meets the profile of a pedophile.” Luke just couldn’t picture this little old lady abusing kids.

  “Okay,” Nick stated. “She lived alone all her life in isolated communities. Rather than cling to family or friends to maintain contact with the outside world, she isolated herself. As a principal, she would have had unlimited access to kids and would have been the only authoritative voice over them. It would always be her word over theirs. Now does she fit the profile?” Sgt. Myra could see Luke was thinking about it. “If she were a man, you would agree with me, but because she is a little old lady, you can’t get your head around it!”

  Luke’s pager went off and startled all three of them. He hurried for the nearest phone and had a quick conversation before rushing back to the table.

  “The archbishop is crashing! We need to go to ICU.”

  Luke and Agatha bolted for the nearest elevator. When they arrived, Father Horan was standing outside the archbishop’s room with his hands over his mouth and tears streaming down his face. Sister Pius was standing next to him, looking intently through the viewing window. Jermaine Cousin was standing farther down from them, watching, and doing a poor job of pretending to be there on other business.

  Nurses were busy hooking up monitors and other equipment to the archbishop’s frail body. He was awake and coughing, gasping for air. Blood trickled from his nose and mouth. Every few minutes he would cry out in pain.

  “He is hooked up to a morphine drip,” the lead nurse informed Dr. Gillespie. “Will I increase it?”

  “Yes, give him more and see if we can get the pain under control, then the blood may stop,” he ordered.

  Archbishop Keating abruptly sat up in bed and let out a terrifying shriek as the pain hit him again. Blood began to gush from his nose. He choked as every breath he took through his mouth was full of his own blood. The morphine wasn’t helping and seemed to make the pain worse. He gave another loud, piercing cry like a man who was being brutally tortured.

  Sister Pius ran into the room. “For God’s sake, make it stop!” She stood shaking with fear.

  Gillespie never saw her coming until she was standing next to him. “We’re doing everything we can,” he shouted back.

  Sister Pius grabbed Luke by the arm. “There’s nothing you can do.” She looked him in the eyes “He has to stop this himself!” She grabbed the archbishop by the arm and shook him. “Confess! Ask for forgiveness. Free your victims. For God’s sake, free your own soul. You’re going to Hell!” She was shaking with anger as she locked eyes with the archbishop.

  “Bring Charles in,” the archbishop said weakly to Sister Pius. Archbishop Patrick Keating looked frightened for the first time since Gillespie had met him. Sister Pius turned and gestured for Father Charles Horan to come into the room. He walked slowly to his archbishop’s side.

  A tear rolled down the archbishop’s cheek when Father Horan looked at him. “I am sorry, Charles. I am sorry for what I did to you.”

  Father Horan began to weep uncontrollably. His whole body shook with each heavy sob. He couldn’t speak.

  “I don’t know how it happened. I couldn’t control myself. I have ruined so many lives.” The archbishop looked his victim in the eye. “Will you please forgive me, Charles?”

  “Yes, Father,” Horan sobbed. “I forgive you.”

  Luke, Agatha, and the other nurses stood around the bed in shocked silence. No one had noticed that Sister Pius had left the room until she came back with Jermaine Cousin by the hand.

  “You need to ask forgiveness from all your victims,” she said sharply as she pushed a shaking Jermaine Cousin toward the bed.

  Archbishop Keating looked at Sister Pius with pure hate in his eyes. “What, did you go looking for them?” he spat at her.

  “There’s so many, they are not hard to find,” she snapped.

  Jermaine Cousin didn’t cry. He stood firm at the side of the bed. He had dreamed about this moment for most of his life. He could feel the spirit of his brother standing next to him. Protecting him. He waited for the archbishop to ask him the question.

  The archbishop looked away from Sister Pius and changed his facial expression from one of defiance to one of a sweet old man on his deathbed. He gently looked at Jermaine and in a sickly sweet voice asked, “Will you forgive me?”

  “Who am I?” Jermaine asked.

  “I am old. My memory fails me at times,” the archbishop said, vaguely recognizing something in the X-ray technician’s eyes.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “I can’t think of your name right now. Refresh my memory for me, son?”

  “My God, you have molested so many boys you can’t even remember who they are!” Cousin felt a sour gall rise in his throat.

  “I know you, and I see your saucy brother standing next to you, too,” Archbishop Keating said, pointing a bloodstained finger at Jermaine. “He was nothing but trouble. He asked for what he got. I am the true victim here!”

  “You are a victim of your own ego!” Sister Pius grabbed the archbishop by the hospital dressing gown. “Release these boys, you rotten bastard. Give them peace!” Dr. Gillespie grabbed her from behind and pulled her off the archbishop.

  A wave of pain like no other came over the archbishop, and his whole body curved at a horrible angle. His eyeballs bulged from their sockets, and from his nose came a gout of blood so thick that the nurses were sure his whole body had to be empty by now. As he fell back in the bed, he finally realized he knew what had to be done. He looked directly into Jermaine’s eyes and in a sincere voice asked, “Please forgive me. I am sorry for what I did to you and your brother. I beg you for forgiveness.”

  Jermaine walked to the side of the bed and stood next to Father Horan. He glared at the old archbishop and said, “No. Go to Hell!” Then he spat in the old man’s face and turned and walked out of the room. There was a collective gasp of astonishment in the room.

  The archbishop reached up to wipe the spittle off his face. “Charles, help me. Get a tissue,” he ordered his assistant.

  “No. No. I won’t help you. This is not remorse. This is you trying to get out of pain. You lied to me!” Horan shouted. “You lied to me my whole life! You ruined my life. You saddled me with your crimes and sin.” He moved back from the bed. “I don’t forgive you. I will never forget what you did to me an
d all the others. I will never forgive you!”

  For the first time in Father Charles Horan’s life, he made a decision on his own. He turned and walked out of the room. Sister Pius ran behind him. Another wave of pain came over the archbishop, and as he sat up to brace for it, he collapsed back on the bed. He drew a deep, laboured breath, filled with his own blood, that caught in his throat. It would be his final breath.

  The machine signalled a flat line, and Dr. Gillespie called the time of death.

  As Luke walked out of the hospital room, Agatha pulled the blanket up over the archbishop’s face. Looking at him one last time, she saw that his face had frozen in pain and he looked every bit like Lucifer himself. She threw the blanket over his head and ran out of the room.

  Sgt. Myra was standing outside the ICU with Father Horan and Jermaine Cousin. They couldn’t help but notice the look on her face. “He’s dead?” asked Sgt. Myra.

  “Yes.” Agatha was trembling. “His face will haunt me till the day I die. You should have seen it. I’ve seen lots of people die, and they always look peaceful, like they’re sleeping. Not him. His face was pure evil.”

  “Well, most people go to Heaven. This is the first time you’ve seen someone go straight to Hell,” Sister Pius enlightened them.

  Charles and Jermaine stood in silence, both unsure what to do next. Nick Myra stood in front of the two men.

  “You’re free now. You’re free to live your lives and put this behind you. You were both victims. Neither of you asked for this monster to come into your lives. He preyed on the helpless. He sought you out. This is not your fault.”

  Neither could utter a word of reply. Father Charles Horan reached out his hand and shook Sgt. Myra’s. He faked a smile as he choked back tears, then walked toward the elevator. Myra wondered if he would stay in the priesthood.

  Jermaine Cousin also shook his hand. “Thank you,” was all he could say. As he walked away, Myra could swear he felt the presence of another person walking with him.