Final Mercy Read online

  FINAL MERCY

  by

  FRANK J. EDWARDS

  Second Edition

  Published 2013 by Pascal Editions

  www.pascaleditions.com

  Prologue - Death by Water

  I Morning In The ED

  II An Old Friend Returns

  III Opportunity Beckons

  IV Mustering The Troops

  V Throwing Down The Glove

  VI Back Stage

  VII Travelers Meet

  VIII A Team Sport

  IX Lonely At The Bottom

  X New Girl In Town

  XI Poker Face

  XII Behind The Veil

  XIII He's Ain’t Heavy

  XIV Inside Job

  XV Letter From The Postman

  XVI The Good News First

  XVII Things Awry

  XVIII Deja Vu

  XIX Plans And Whispers

  XX On The Table

  XXI The Last To Know

  XXII Figurines

  XXIII A Picture Comes To Light

  XXIV Unintended Consequences

  XXV In For A Penny

  XXVI Cobwebs

  XXVII Tea And Cadavers

  XXVIII At First Blush

  XXIX Awakenings

  XXX Night Mission

  XXXI Second Thoughts

  XXXII Missed Connections

  XXXIII Inklings

  XXXIV Intimidation for Dummies

  XXXV Please Pick Up

  XXXVI Cold feet

  XXXVII Twisted

  XXXVIII Swab And Stick

  XXXIX Suite X

  XL Footprints In Blood

  XLI Frigid Skin

  XLII Straight Shooter

  Epilogue – Water Of Life

  Prologue

  Death By Water

  Saturday, mid-July

  The dean of the New Canterbury Medical Center stood at the helm of his 20 foot boat and steered toward a distant wall of cliffs on the western shore of Lake Stanwick. It was a beautiful summer morning, blue-green water sparkling under a cloudless sky. The only other objects on the water were a few low-slung bass boats anchored near a reed bed and a single sailboat motionless in the middle, its sail hanging slack.

  Bare-chested and hair tousled by the wind, Robert McCarthy took a deep breath of lake air and felt content and excited. At the age of forty-seven, thanks to racquetball and jogging three times a week, he was in excellent shape. His wife Ann, wearing a very becoming bikini, reclined in the seat next to him, her head back and her eyes closed, long blond hair streaming back in the warm breeze. On the rear seat, their thirteen-year-old son, already nearly six foot tall, was checking over his water skis and towrope. On the floorboards lay McCarthy’s scuba gear—a yellow tank, mask, regulator, flippers and a weight belt.

  McCarthy had fallen in love with underwater cave diving during college and over the years had visited many of the best spelunking spots in the world. And, though cave-diving hadn’t been the deciding factor in taking his new post as the dean at New Canterbury two months ago, the fact that Lake Stanwick had caves and lay only ten miles west of town certainly didn’t hurt.

  Among those bodies of water known as the Finger Lakes of western New York, Stanwick was the deepest, smallest and most remote, lying hours by car from the major population centers of Elmira, Buffalo, Syracuse, and Binghamton. From the air it resembled a slightly bent pinky finger running fifteen miles from north to south and half a mile across at the waist. Before the bulldozing effects of the last ice age, it had been a river valley, and it was still bordered east and west by hills that varied from gentle slopes to gorge-like cliffs. For a spelunker, the pertinent fact was that Stanwick’s pre-glacial streambed had been riddled with seventy million-year-old limestone caverns. Those caverns were now submerged and still mostly unexplored. There was a good chance he could put New Canterbury on the map of international spelunking.

  Today would be his first foray under the surface here – the first Saturday he’d taken off since starting the job in May. In a short while he would be underwater, a tank on his back, unreachable, untouchable, reminded that the world could get along without him.

  He drew parallel to the cliff and cut the engine. The depth finder recorded 95 feet. McCarthy checked his watch. His diving companion for the morning was a man named Fred Hinkle who owned the dive shop and marina at the southern end of the lake, whom he’d never dived with before, but who’d come highly recommended by one of his faculty members, Dr. Bryson Witner.

  “Are we early?” asked Ann, rubbing suntan lotion on her arms and chest. “Would you do my back?” she added handing him the brown plastic bottle.

  “With pleasure,” said McCarthy, kissing the top of her head. “We’re a little early, but my impression is that Mr. Hinkle has a laid back attitude toward time.”

  “I wish you were diving with your brother,” she said. “That would make me feel much more comfortable about this whole thing. How well do you know this guy Hinkle?”

  McCarthy poured a line of oil across his wife’s shoulders. In truth, he didn’t know him much at all. The man had been referred to him by one of the faculty members, Dr. Bryson Witner, who lived on the lake. Their acquaintance consisted of a few phone calls and a brief meeting last week. Hinkle was definitely a little rough around the edges, but the man’s diving knowledge was beyond question. One has to take advantage of the local resources. “This water is Hinkle’s back yard,” he said. “And he was a Navy SEAL.”

  She leaned her head back and smiled, an invitation to kiss. As his lips touched hers he heard the distant sound of a boat motor. On the horizon to the south he could now see a new speck. “This is probably him.”

  “I know you’ll have fun,” she said. “Just be careful.”

  “I wish it were you coming with me,” he said.

  “Please,” she said. “I have enough nightmares just thinking about you wriggling around in a hole under the water.”

  Ben came up next to them. “When can I go with you, Dad?”

  “Fourteen-years-old minimum,” said his mother. “Don’t waste your time asking again.”

  “But it can’t be any more dangerous than water skiing,” Ben responded, winking at his father.

  “I can see you when you’re water skiing,” she said. “Forget it.”

  The speck had turned into a dilapidated looking cabin cruiser, heading directly for them. McCarthy went to the front deck of the boat and waved. The cruiser was approaching at full speed. It didn’t veer away and stop until the last minute. The engine died and Hinkle stepped out from behind the wheel wearing a black wet suit, a yellow diving light strapped to his wrist.

  McCarthy’s boat rocked sharply and McCarthy reached for the window frame to steady himself. “Looks like a great morning!” he yelled over.

  “Yep,” said Hinkle, pulling a diving hood down over his face. “You ready?”

  “I’d like you to meet my wife and my son.”

  Hinkle glanced in their direction. “Hello.”

  “Hello, Mr. Hinkle,” said Ann.

  Hinkle began lifting on his tanks.

  “So what’s the plan?” said McCarthy.

  Hinkle pointed toward the cliffs and swung his arms in a big arc. “Like I told you before, there’s maybe half a dozen possible entrances down there. We’ll see what we can find.”

  A few minutes later the diving buoy was in position and Hinkle already in the water, waiting. McCarthy pulled his mask down and fell backwards off the gunnel. He slipped the mouthpiece between his teeth and knifed into the world below, immediately passing though a thermocline where the water temperature dropped about fifteen degrees. The water was crystal clear, faintly green tinged.

  Hinkle was hovering about ten feet below the
surface, his fins moving lazily back and forth. They exchanged a thumbs up and continued down and toward the near-vertical rock face. Drawing close, McCarthy played the beam of his wrist lamp over the layers of rock. He saw sudden movement. A huge pike or muskellunge glided from below an outcropping and darted with amazing speed toward the middle of the lake.

  At seventy-five feet, Hinkle turned back and motioned for McCarthy to follow him. A few minutes later, McCarthy saw it—a large dark area, triangular in shape with a boulder near the base. Hinkle pointed and nodded, making the okay with his thumb and forefinger then pointing at McCarthy and sweeping his finger toward the entrance, nodding yes.

  In a moment McCarthy was upon it. What had looked triangular from above was more like a narrow crevasse. It might only be large fissure in the cliff. He directed his light inside and his heart pounded quicker. If only a fissure—it was a deep one. As he studied it, three smallmouth bass swam out, obviously not intimidated by his presence. McCarthy could have reached out and touched them.

  Turning to Hinkle, he gave a thumbs up and nodded, then began easing into the opening, barely a foot of space on either side of his shoulders. But as he swam further, it widened considerably then began angling upwards and to the left. He aimed his light and did not see the reflection of a rear wall. The beam kept going. This looked promising. It was wide enough now to turn around. He continued, ascending slowly. The passageway leveled off and now had a floor that was sandy and level. He looked back from whence he’d come and saw a haze of sediment kicked up by the action of his fins.

  Twenty feet further in the floor dropped away and the roof rose and Bob McCarthy found himself hovering in a small cavern, maybe fifty feet high and twice as long across, and on the ceiling there were stalactites—proof positive this had once been a limestone cavern. He directed the light around and saw on the opposite wall another passageway.

  But this was enough for now. His heart throbbing with pleasure and excitement, McCarthy turned and glided down the initial passage. He would bring Fred Hinkle for a quick look, then it would be time to surface again.

  One of the pleasures of cave diving was the wonderful movement from inside the earth back out into the open water and light. He could see now the dim vertical swath of light at the cave’s entrance but as he neared it something strange met his eyes and a feeling of puzzlement came to him. Drawing close to the entrance, he played the light and saw what looked like four metal poles set across the opening—one vertical, the other three more or less horizontal. He could not see Hinkle. This made no sense.

  His puzzlement turned to frank alarm as he inspected them. They were jacks, similar to those used to prop up beams in basements, about four six inches thick, with threaded sections at each end. They had been placed just inside the entrance and wedged so firmly that with all his strength he could not budge them.

  Fighting against a surge of panic, he tried unscrewing one, but the threads would not turn. He braced his legs against the inner walls and pushed. But it was fruitless. Removing his tank, he tried squeezing though but the openings were too small by half.

  He kept trying, however, resting and pushing until his shoulders ached and blood seeped from a tear in his glove and bubbles no longer escaped his regulator.

  I

  Morning In The ED

  Jack Forester eased his tall frame into a chair at the nurse’s station. For the first time all night, there were no new charts in the rack marked “patients to be seen.” Yawning, he closed his eyes and let his mind drift.

  For several days, a vivid image had visited him at odd moments, a depressing mental vision he suspected had something to do with being single and lacking much of a social life. It was of a small island with gray waves washing on the beach. The beach was narrow and littered with driftwood and seaweed. Dead jellyfish rolled at the surf line while tattered brown palm fronds clicked in a constant breeze. There were no hills or mountains, no cottages or hotels, not even a shack in the distance. It was just a tiny place crumbling back into the sea, and he was walking alone on the sand.

  When he opened his eyes, the disembodied head of an old woman hovered directly in front of him. She had oxygen tubing in her nostrils and was smiling at him.

  He rose to his feet. Mrs. Jones, the woman he’d just admitted with pneumonia, sat in a wheelchair on the other side of the counter.

  “Sorry to bother you, doctor,” she said.

  Pushing the wheelchair was a slender man with Rasta braids named Jimmy, dressed in the white scrubs of an orderly.

  “Sorry, Doc,” he said. “She go upstairs now and want to say goodbye.”

  “I wanted to thank you again, Dr. Forester. It was so busy when the ambulance brought me in, but you were so kind and patient with me.”

  Jack stepped around the counter and took her hand.

  “Kind of you to say,” he said. “We were happy to help you out.”

  “I hope things stay quiet now. Looks like you could use some rest.”

  Jimmy began pushing the wheelchair away.

  “I tell you a secret, Mrs. Jones,” he said. “Never say quiet in dis place.”

  “Why?”

  Their voices receded down the corridor.

  “It bring bad t’ings. We get busy.”

  “Then what should I say—break a leg?”

  A door at the back of the ED hissed open, and they were gone. Except for the murmur of two nurses at the far end of the charting station, it was finally quiet. Jack uncapped his pen and looked without enthusiasm at the sprawl of papers in front of him.

  One of the nurses came up and handed him a cup of black coffee.

  “Bad doctor,” she mock-scolded. “Look at all those unfinished charts.”

  “The flotsam and jetsam of a busy night,” he replied, sipping the coffee. “Thanks, Darcy. Must admit I’d like this job more if I didn’t have to write down every bloody thing I see, hear, smell, touch, think and suspect just to keep the lawyers happy.”

  “You’re not supposed to complain. You’re the director.”

  “Then I’d better finish up,” he said. “It’s almost six. Only an hour to go.”

  They heard it at the same moment—a faint, high-pitched beeping. Darcy groaned. It was an ambulance backing up to the bay.

  * * *

  Since becoming an emergency physician, Jack Forester had seen people impaled by many things—knives, shards of glass, a fork, even a number-two pencil once—but never anything to match this. In the trauma suite, two medics lifted the new patient onto the gurney. Snowflakes melted on their blue jackets.

  “Sorry to barge in without calling, Dr. Forester,” one said breathlessly over his shoulder. “Our radio’s down.”

  Jack didn’t respond. He approached the patient, a man in his early twenties with what looked like a short arrow protruding from his right temple. It was brown and fletched with three yellow vanes. Yet his eyes were wide open. They followed Jack as he approached.

  “Self-inflicted with a crossbow, doc,” said the medic. “He was awake and oriented times three when we got to the house. His vitals are all normal. Having some relationship problems. We didn’t see any seizures or nothing like that, and he’s moving all extremities okay.”

  “I see. Thanks, Vince.” Leaning over the bed, Jack said, “Good morning. What's your name?”

  “Fuck-up,” was the slurred reply rising from patient’s mouth on a cloud of garlic-tinged alcohol.

  “What’s your real name?” Jack insisted, recoiling slightly.

  “I fucked up again. That’s all I can do.”

  “His name is Jason Peters,” supplied the medic.

  “This was really dumb,” Peters continued. “I should have gotten a fucking gun.”

  “No, you shouldn't have,” Jack said. “Listen, I have to look you over now. Are you in pain?”

  Peters shook his head. It caused the crossbow bolt to tap the side rail, and he winced.

  “Hold still.”

  Jack gently tes
ted the shaft. It felt as solid as Excalibur in the stone.

  Returning to the charting station, he ordered an x-ray and stat-paged the neurosurgery resident. A moment later, the phone rang.

  “This one will pique your interest,” he said, and went on to describe the situation.

  “Jesus, you haven’t tried to take it out, have you?” The resident's voice was pitched high with excitement.

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. I put my foot upside his head and tried to yank on it, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t do something that dumb, Dr. Forester, but half the people who work for you down there make serious fuck-ups every day.”

  Jack felt his face burning, and he clenched his jaws. The young man on the other end of the line might not have finished his training yet, but he’d mastered the art of disrespecting emergency physicians. Valid or not, his comment was uncalled-for.

  Taking a deep breath, he managed to keep voice measured and calm.

  “Listen, do you want to come down and take care of this patient, or would you rather discuss hospital politics you know nothing about?”

  “That ED is a joke, and everybody knows it. What’s hospital politics have to do with it?”

  “It’s called putting up roadblocks to our ability to recruit good people, Dr. Schwartz, and it’s beside the point at this moment. Now, I’m sorry if you’ve had a bad night. I’d also be sorry to wake up your chairman to talk about your attitude.”

  * * *

  When Jack got back to the trauma suite, an attractive young woman with smudged mascara was holding Jason Peters' hand and shaking her head.

  “I’m sorry, Jason, but that just looks so weird,” he heard her say as he paused in the doorway.

  Darcy came up next to him and whispered, “This is one stupid Cupid. And that was good how you handled that resident. You should have bitten the bastard’s head off.”

  Three-quarters of an hour later, as Jack was writing furiously, a portly man wearing a white lab coat and blue scrubs came up to him, his graying hair wet and slicked onto his scalp.