Operation Wormwood

  * * * * *

  Luke was incredibly angry when he returned to emerg. He walked into Duffy’s hospital room and stood by his bed for a long time. No nurses were around. Duffy was sleeping. His breath was laboured. He sounded like he was drowning. The only other sounds came from the hospital machinery. Luke imagined himself taking the pillow off the bed and putting it over Duffy’s face, pressing hard. He wouldn’t make any sound, and Luke would walk out of the room and go for a coffee. By the time he got back, Duffy would have been found dead by a nurse. Luke would pretend to try and revive him, then call the time of death. It seemed so easy. Then he remembered the oath he took the day he graduated from medical school: Doctor, do no harm.

  He jumped like a scared cat when Nurse Catania walked up behind him and said, “How are you doing?”

  Agatha began to laugh when she realized she had scared the doctor. “My God. You’re some jumpy!” she laughed.

  “You’re not supposed to sneak up on people like that.” He was shaking, not because Agatha scared him, but because his own thoughts scared him more.

  She was still laughing when she asked, “So, is he another diddler?”

  “Diddler?” Gillespie asked.

  “Yes. Diddler. That’s what we used to call pedophiles back in the day.”

  Luke looked toward the bed. “We don’t know for sure if any of these patients are involved with that.”

  “Luke, there’s something to this. This is not a coincidence. There’s something going on here.” She spooked herself with her own words.

  “I think it’s time I started calling around to other hospitals. Someone may be doing something to diddlers.” He sighed.

  “Could there be a disease that kills people who touch kids?” She was thinking out loud. “Remember when AIDS first came out in the 1980s?”

  “This is nothing like AIDS,” Gillespie reminded her.

  “I know, but when AIDS first hit the news, everybody thought it came from men having sex with monkeys in Africa. Then the Catholics jumped on board and said it was God’s way of punishing homosexual men. There are still people who believe that today.” Agatha was on a roll now.

  “Not from having sex with monkeys,” Gillespie stated. “From eating tainted monkey meat. There was so much misinformation about this disease in the beginning, I can’t believe people believed that crap.”

  “We know that now, but that’s not what the rumours were back in the age of disco dancing and leg warmers,” Agatha said. “We didn’t have Google.

  “I was in high school when people started talking about AIDS,” Agatha went on. “If a person said they had AIDS, the rest of the community wanted to put them on an isolated island away from everyone. Sure, Mom warned me not to drink out of water fountains at school. We had this one guy in our class who was obviously gay—we called them ‘mama’s boys’ back then. No one would even hold his hand after the AIDS epidemic hit. Everyone was too afraid they would catch it by touching a gay person.”

  Luke remembered those days, too. It was a hateful time, and not one he would ever want to live through again. Suddenly, the heart monitor began to beep a warning that their patient was in trouble.

  The room filled with health care professionals hooking up equipment to Mr. Duffy’s body. Dr. Gillespie forgot his earlier thoughts of smothering this man and began do what came naturally to him: saving a life. He worked on him until Mr. Duffy came to. He was still groggy and incoherent. Then, suddenly, Mr. Duffy was howling so loudly they could hear him in the waiting room. Convulsions of pain shot through his body until his eyeballs bulged from their sockets. The nurses couldn’t keep the heart monitor clasps attached to their pads because blood was gushing down from his nose so fast it was covering his chest and making it slippery. He drew deep breaths, and with each gulp of air he began to drown in his own blood and then throw it back up again. His body finally reached its exhaustion point and went limp in the bed. His heart stopped, and he couldn’t be resuscitated. It happened so fast the health care team stood around with bewildered looks on their faces.

  After fifteen minutes of feverishly working on him, they gave up. Gillespie called the time of death. Mr. Duffy’s body lay limp on the hospital bed, his face distorted like a gargoyle from the pain.

  Luke went back out to the waiting room, where Jack was sitting down watching TV.

  “Jack?” Luke called out to him, then gestured toward the front door. Jack followed him outside the hospital to the smoking area.

  “He’s dead,” Luke told him.

  “Dead? Really?” Jack was filled with disbelief. Could the monster in his room really be dead?

  “Has he been in hospital before with these symptoms?” Luke asked.

  “No. Mom said he wouldn’t leave the house when he was like that. She called an ambulance today because she couldn’t take it anymore.” Jack lit a cigarette. He felt a strange calm come over him. “Luke, you said he was the third one like this. Can you tell me who the others are?” He was curious now.

  “I’m not supposed to give out that information about patients, but now I have to start linking these cases together. You don’t happen to know Archbishop Patrick Keating, do you?”

  Jack’s face went white. “That bastard!” he exclaimed. “That’s another one. He used to come to our house all the time.”

  “Really? I don’t remember you being overly religious.”

  “Nothing religious about him!” Jack spat out. “He used to come over with his boy.”

  “His boy?” Luke was getting that sick feeling in his stomach again.

  “His name was Charlie Horan. He was an orphan. Keating used to take him out of the orphanage all the time. People thought he treated him like a son.”

  Charlie Horan, Luke thought to himself. Father Charles Horan, the archbishop’s assistant. “Did he treat him like a son?” Luke knew the answer before he asked the question.

  “Like a whipping boy, more likely.” The veins in Jack’s neck were bulging, and his cheeks began to turn red as the anger swept through him. “He was doing the same thing to Charlie that Duffy was doing to me.”

  “How do you know for sure?” Luke asked.

  “Because they would take us on camping trips to a cabin in the woods, and they would take turns with us.” Jack hung his head.

  “No one was suspicious?” Luke couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “More like no one cared,” Jack told him. “Keating had a good supply of orphans whenever he wanted them, but Charlie was his favourite.” Jack lit another cigarette off the flame from the first. “No short supply of perverts, either.”

  “What?” Luke was in shock. A tremble ran through his limbs.

  “Duffy, Keating, other priests, teachers, even the doctor who used to check us over at the cabin could pick his favourite boy. All respected men. Some even married. They all came to the cabin.” Jack looked exhausted.

  “I am so sorry, Jack.” Luke shook his head in disbelief.

  “Did he suffer, Luke?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean, did he really suffer? I always dreamed of that bastard dying a hard death.”

  “Yes, he suffered,” Luke answered back.

  “How do you know for sure, Luke?” Jack looked like a little boy asking if the monster under his bed had really been slain.

  “Because I didn’t order any morphine for him, Jack. I wanted him to feel your pain.” Luke turned and walked back into the hospital.

  Jack smiled, watching his friend go through the door. He would go to his mother’s house now for the first time without feeling sick or scared. He imagined her wrapping her arms around him when he told her they were both free. Maybe she would ask him to live with her, and tomorrow she would make him Rice Krispies cookies again.

  * * * * *

 
The next morning, Luke sat down with his morning coffee and paper. There it was on the front page: Hall of Fame Businessman Dies Unexpectedly. Under Duffy’s smiling picture, the article listed his many achievements in business. Leaving to mourn his wife of many years, Mary. They had no children.

  Luke felt the rage rise to his cheeks when he read the last line of the story. “Mr. Duffy, a devout Catholic, left his entire estate to the Church.”

  Jack and his mother were back where they started. With nothing but each other.

  5

  Father Charles Horan sat in the private family room outside the ICU where Archbishop Keating rested. Dr. Gillespie stood in the hallway watching him through the viewing window. He took a deep breath and exhaled it with a heavy sigh. Horan had asked to meet with him. Gillespie dreaded it after what Jack told him.

  Horan looked more like a nervous son waiting to hear about his beloved father than an assistant to the archbishop. He was wearing jeans, a white shirt, and boat shoes. He looked much younger than the first time he saw him. The priest was sitting on the couch, bent over with his forearms resting on the inside of his thighs. His gaze was on the floor. He sat erect when Dr. Gillespie walked into the room and sat across from him.

  “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I know you’re busy.” Horan spoke with sincerity, and it showed in his face.

  “I realize you’re frustrated,” Gillespie began. “So am I. You want to know what’s going on with Archbishop Keating, but I don’t know. I’ve run every test I can. Everything is inconclusive.”

  “I’ve heard you have other cases like the archbishop’s?” Horan inquired.

  “Yes. We have three cases,” Gillespie informed him.

  “I’ve heard one died?” Horan’s voice shook when he asked this question.

  “Yes,” Gillespie answered. Without thinking, he asked, “Did you know John Duffy?”

  Horan’s eyes widened with shock. “He was a parishioner in our church and a friend of the archbishop,” he stammered.

  The priest sank back in his chair. Luke studied his body language, noting that he looked more like a twelve-year-old boy than a man. Duffy’s name caused this man a lot of pain.

  “I guess you’ll be meeting with Mr. Duffy’s family, then? I heard you were friends with his son,” Gillespie inquired.

  He was surprised at Horan’s quick response. “No. I don’t know them,” he lied, then paused. “I knew his stepson years ago, but I haven’t seen him in years. He is a lot of trouble. He didn’t like me.” Horan realized he had said too much. Archbishop Keating would be angry with him for talking. He suddenly bolted straight up in his chair. His eyes were locked on the open door of the waiting room. A look of fear came over his face.

  “Hello, Charles.”

  Gillespie looked over his shoulder to see Sgt. Nicholas Myra. He was an imposing-looking man. He was older than Luke, probably mid- to late fifties. The sergeant was tall. Luke had originally thought he was around six feet, but he was easily six foot four, very fit, and well-dressed in a sharp suit and tie with polished shoes. He obviously took a lot of pride in his appearance, but the years of police work showed around his eyes.

  Father Horan sank back in his seat and folded his arms. He looked at the floor without answering.

  “Sgt. Myra, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?” Gillespie was not happy with Myra’s surprise visits.

  “Well, I heard one of my clients died last night, but I still have two more in your ICU. Thought I would drop by to see if they are ready to talk to me.”

  “Not today,” Gillespie informed him. “They are both sedated.” Gillespie was startled to hear that John Duffy was one of Myra’s “clients.”

  “Maybe Charles would like to talk to me.” Myra was intimidating Father Horan, and Gillespie knew it.

  Horan looked at the police officer with the spite of a boy. “No,” was all he said. Myra locked eyes with Horan, like he knew a secret that Charles desperately wanted him to keep.

  Myra and Dr. Gillespie left the room and found a private office not far away.

  Gillespie felt like Myra was reading his mind when he asked, “Don’t you find it funny that all three of your patients have the same symptoms and are under investigation for crimes against children?”

  “Why is that?” Gillespie needed something to tie these cases together.

  “What do you think?” Myra asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I am asking you,” the doctor responded with a snarky tone.

  “What have you heard? Any rumours yet?” Myra wanted to find out what the doctor knew before he gave him any information.

  “Heard? I haven’t heard anything.” Luke’s life consisted of working or running. He didn’t pay attention to rumours. “Why? What are the rumours?”

  Myra decided to throw it out there to see what Gillespie’s reaction would be. “There’s a rumour that only pedophiles get this disease.”

  “That’s crazy!” Gillespie laughed. “Who would believe that?”

  Myra shrugged his big shoulders. “I’m just telling you what I heard. I never said I believed it.”

  “How come Father Horan doesn’t have any symptoms, or is he my next patient?”

  “I don’t think so. Charles is a victim. And it doesn’t seem like he has followed in the archbishop’s footsteps. Keating took him out of the Christian Brothers’ orphanage and raised him. I did a little digging, and it looks like Charles’s mother adopted him when he was born, but she died when he was twelve. She was a single mother with no family. That’s how Keating kept him without anyone asking questions. No one looked for him.”

  “That’s so incredibly sad.” The whole conversation was depressing to Gillespie.

  “I wish I could get Charles to talk,” said Myra. “He is the smoking gun I need to bring the archbishop and others like him down, but he won’t give it up.”

  “Why not?”

  “He has been with the archbishop since he was about twelve. Maybe it’s loyalty. Family. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s love. Or the only definition of love he knows.” Myra put his hands in the pockets of his neatly creased dress pants. “I don’t understand it, myself.”

  “I know a victim of John Duffy. I know his stepson, Jack. I wanted to ask him if he had any symptoms, but I couldn’t,” Gillespie confessed.

  “He doesn’t,” Sgt. Myra responded. “I’ve been busting Jack since he was a teenager. He was a lost kid, and he is a victim. He didn’t continue the abuse. Jack was an unlikely criminal.”

  “How so?” Luke was still heartbroken over Jack.

  “He just didn’t have the heart of a criminal. He wasn’t mean. He was acting out. I always thought he committed crimes so his mother would come bail him out. It seemed to be the only way he could spend time with her.” Myra thought for a second, then added, “People think criminals come from the poor part of town. They think people who live in big houses raise law-abiding kids. In my experience, those are the worst kids. They are the most neglected and act out for attention. The poorer kids are too busy working minimum-wage jobs to act out. Too many people measure their success by the size of their house and the price of their sports cars. People should measure their success by how their kids turn out.”

  “Interesting theory.” Despite himself, Gillespie was beginning to like Sgt. Myra. He recognized that this cop had a lot of experience dealing with the underbelly of society.

  “Every time I bring an out-of-control teen home to his house, it only takes thirty seconds with his parent before I say to myself, ‘Oh, that’s where he gets it from.’”

  “So, are you saying you believe this disease only affects child molesters?” Gillespie blurted out. “It’s not possible.”

  “I am saying that’s the rumour.” Myra was challenging him now. “These are not t
he only three cases of this, you know.”

  “What?” Gillespie was stunned.

  “I attended two suicides in the past three months. Both were registered sex offenders. Both had the heavy nosebleeds, according to their families. There are others, too. You just don’t know about them.”

  Luke was curious. “What do you mean by others? Where?”

  “Whatever this disease is, it has been going around for about a year or more. This is a tight-knit group. They have been sharing their symptoms with each other, trying to find out what is going on as securely as they share their child pornography. They won’t go for medical help because they are scared. They think that only the molesters get it, not the victims.” Myra was obviously well versed in this world.

  “Sgt. Myra, I can’t believe what you’re telling me.” Gillespie was numb. What have we stumbled on? he wondered.

  “Call me Nick. I got a feeling we’re going to be good friends. We need to talk.”

  “Can you do it now?” Gillespie asked.

  “I need to get my files, but I can meet you back here in a few hours, and I’ll brief you on some of my reports. I suggest you get on the phone to your medical colleagues and start asking other hospitals and doctors if they have patients with these symptoms.”

  “I guess it’s about time to start doing that now. When you come back, page me and I’ll drop whatever I’m doing to meet you.” Gillespie had a heavy heart. “What have we stumbled on?” he asked, this time aloud.

  “Pandora’s box, I think,” answered Nick.

  * * * * *

  Luke felt like he had told the hospital administrator that the world was flat. Her eyes were wide, her mouth hung open, and she stood still, like she was frozen. He understood her reaction.

  “I understand that you are shocked, but I think we have to act on this, and quickly,” he warned her.

  Mrs. Furey had been with the hospital for thirty years. She couldn’t believe what Luke was saying.

  “So,” she reiterated, “you’re saying you think you’ve uncovered a new disease, and we have had three cases in the past week. Two still in our ICU, and one dead?”