Dying Wishes (15 page)

“Yes,
that’s right. Even though there was a gentleman of somewhat advanced years in
my own romantic history, and I absolutely adored him although he was as poor as
a church mouse, I may have been guilty of that sort of uncharitable
thinkin
’ myself once or twice. But if you could have seen
the way Tommy’s eyes filled up with tears when I mentioned Margaret Butler …”

“You
came right out and asked him about her?” I gasped.

She
looked puzzled. “I thought that was the whole point of this little exercise in
deception, to find out what Tommy knows about Margaret and Angela
Roncaro
, too, for that matter.”

It
was
Strutter’s
turn to look shocked. “You did not
mention Angela.”

I
closed my eyes. “Margo, what did Tommy say about Margaret and Angela?”

She
thought for a moment, her eyes glistening. “Not a whole lot, really, just that
it had been his privilege to know both ladies and he wished their spirits Godspeed.
He said that was the hardest thing about
workin
’ with
the folks at Vista View, getting to care about them and
knowin
’
they might be
movin
’ on soon. He seemed genuinely
broken up about Margaret, said she was a very special lady who reminded him of
his mother, who he misses very much.
 
His
mama,” she repeated with a wobbly grin. “Now there’s a woman who raised a
terrific son.”

We
sat quietly, digesting this unexpected information.

“Where
is this mother that he misses so much?” I wondered.

“In
an urn on her sister’s mantelpiece in Bogotá,” said Margo tartly. “She died a
few years ago, which is how Tommy wound up in the U.S.
washin
’
dishes at a retirement home to put himself through school. His father abandoned
them when Tommy was just a baby, so when his mama died and a cousin who had
emigrated to the U.S. offered to sponsor him, Tommy jumped at the chance to
come here.”

Strutter
sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Tough,”
I said.

“Very,”
Margo agreed, “but I know he’s going to be just fine.” She gave herself a
little shake and extracted a compact from her purse to inspect her makeup, a
sure sign of her return to normalcy. “Now what do the two of you have to
contribute?”

Strutter
looked at me, and I made an after-you gesture.

“Well,
I’ve tried everything I dare to get an appointment with Dr. Petersen, but I’m
not getting anywhere,” she reported. “The first time I called, I said I was new
to the area and needed a primary care physician, but the desk clerk just kept
trying to fob me off onto one of Petersen’s younger associates. Then I told her
that a friend of a friend who lived at Vista View had recommended Dr. Petersen
very highly, but that got me exactly nowhere.”

“What
about the
Henstock
connection? Did you mention
Ada
and
Lavinia
?” I asked.

“That
was my next move. I called again and was careful to speak to another one of the
clerks. I invoked the
Henstocks
’ name and pleaded to
get onto Dr. Petersen’s patient roster, but I was told in no uncertain terms
that the doctor was not accepting new patients.” She turned up her palms. “I
was going to try to fake an emergency, like palpitations or something, but I’m
sure I would have been directed to the nearest emergency room or 911. I’m out
of ideas. What’s the point of my trying to see Petersen anyway? It’s not as if
he’s going to say, ‘Oh, yes, Margaret Butler. She was addicted to painkillers,
and I kept her supplied,’ or something else equally preposterous.”

“True,”
I said. “I guess it’s pretty unrealistic to think we can get anything out of a
medical professional through direct questioning.”

“About
as silly as
expectin
’ an intelligent, industrious
young man to be
sellin
’ his body between shifts in
the Vista View kitchen,” Margo sniffed, clearly still annoyed.

My
head was swimming. Hearing these allegations spoken aloud did make our
suspicions seem far-fetched. How had I allowed Ginny, who obviously was under a
great deal of stress, to corrupt my common sense to this extent? Then I
remembered my computer research of the previous evening.

“You
may be right about the direct approach,” I agreed. “I didn’t get far with
Gerald
MacRae
either, except to find out that getting
out of this world in a way that isn’t totally reprehensible to you seems to
involve an awful lot of paperwork.”

“What
else would you expect to hear from a man who makes his living by drawing up
that paperwork?”
Strutter
pointed out.

“Normally,
I would agree with you, but not this time for a couple of reasons. First,
MacRae
doesn’t need the money. Not only do he and Janet own
that drop-dead gorgeous unit in the prettiest cul-de-sac at Vista View, they
own a historic residence diagonally across Broad Street from the
Henstocks
’ family homestead. They lived in it for years,
but now
MacRae
shares the space with a couple of
younger lawyers and their support staff. He works part-time only because he
likes to. Second, he pressed me pretty hard to explore several end-of-life
options before he even gets around to creating the legal documents. He gave me
a bunch of pamphlets and a list of websites to review before we meet again. I
got the distinct impression that protecting people this way is something he
decided to specialize in, sort of a calling.”

Margo
wrinkled her brow, then remembered the risk of permanent creases and smoothed
it out. “So what was all that transparent fact-finding about with his wife and
Bitsy Grant last Saturday?” she wanted to know.

“I’m
not sure how that fits into this yet,” I admitted, “but one thing is becoming
clearer. Whatever this is, they’re all in it together. Oh, and by the way,
they’re onto us.”

“What
does that mean?”
Strutter
demanded.

“You
know, aware that we’re looking into the circumstances surrounding Margaret’s
death. Margo and I thought so on Saturday, but now I’m positive of it. Our
interest—or at least mine, and yours by virtue of our partnership—
has
been duly noted. Bert Rosenthal said so point blank
yesterday, and
MacRae
did, too. It seems I have quite
the reputation around town as some sort of amateur sleuth because of our
previous inquiries.”

“You
mean the skeleton in the old
Henstock
house.”
Strutter
shuddered at the memory.

“And
Prudy
Crane’s murder at the diner,” Margo added.

“Don’t
forget Alain
Girouard
at the law firm. Not only does
Gerald
MacRae
live in Wethersfield, a small community
where everyone knows everything about each other, but he’s a lawyer. The drums
beat efficiently in our little town, but they are totally outclassed by the
legal grapevine. Discreet investigation is no longer an option. Our cover is
blown.
MacRae
had a complete dossier on me before I
even showed up yesterday.”

“Which
means that Janet and Bitsy did, too,” said
Strutter
.

“Tommy
Garcia might have been cautioned, as well. Just because he was a perfect
gentleman with Margo doesn’t mean he hasn’t heard the gossip about us, which
could have motivated his circumspect behavior.”

Margo
didn’t like it, but she made no demur. “Okay, so they’re aware we have
questions, and you came up empty just like we did, is that about it?”

“I
didn’t say that. As a matter of fact, I learned quite a bit yesterday evening,
but the information didn’t come from Gerald
MacRae
.”

“Where
did you get it, then?”
Strutter
asked eagerly.

“From the creators of many interesting websites on the
internet.
Did you know that just by Google-
ing
a person’s name, you can get a comprehensive listing of
every place that name appears on line? Then you can go from citation to
citation to see what he’s been up to for, oh, the last twenty years or so. You
know, where he went to school, if he’s ever published anything or given a speech,
been involved in a public protest, run for office, been convicted of a crime,
all sorts of things. I can tell you what
MacRae’s
golf handicap is, thanks to information thoughtfully posted on the
Mattabessett
Country Club’s website.”

“
Fascinatin
’, Sugar, but forgive me if I don’t quite see
where this is
goin
’.”

“Give
me a minute, will you? I spent more than four hours staring at the computer
screen last night, but it was worth it. Where was I? Oh, yes. In the case of a
name like Gerald
MacRae
, it’s more complicated.”

Strutter
looked a little lost. “You mean because he’s Irish?”

“Scottish, actually, but no, because it’s such a common
name.
I found several writers, an architect, two
politicians and several other lawyers, all named Gerald R.
MacRae
.
I thought having his middle initial and current address would narrow down the
search, but it didn’t help much, so I filtered the listings by adding other
things I knew about him. The first thing that occurred to me was his tennis
playing, so that’s where I started. He and Janet did very well in the community
doubles tournament last summer, by the way.”

Margo
didn’t even crack a smile, and
Strutter
pointedly
checked her watch.

“Then
I remembered the pamphlets and the list of organizations
MacRae
had given me, and I began accessing those websites to see if he cropped up on
any of them. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go past the C’s to get a hit.”

Strutter
chuckled. “Not too surprising, considering he lives in Connecticut, and the
names of about half the organizations in the world begin with C. So what was
it, the Connecticut Opera Society?
Citizens for a Cleaner
Community?”

“Much
more interesting,” I said coyly.

“
Captivatin
’ Counselors?
Cuddly Candidates?”
Margo suggested. “I believe Bitsy
told me he ran for state representative a while back.”

Well,
at least I had regained their attention. “Citizens for Compassionate
Decisions,” I announced with a flourish, but it didn’t elicit the desired
response from my partners, who looked blank.

“Okay,
I’ll bite, if it will move this along,”
Strutter
volunteered.
 
What’s a CCD?”

“The
CCD is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate terminally ill
people about end-of-life options if their suffering becomes unbearable or if
they don’t want it to
become
unbearable.”

“You
mean how to commit suicide with the sleeping pills and the plastic bag a la the
Hemlock Society?”
Strutter
wrinkled her nose.
“Suffocating doesn’t sound like my idea of a compassionate decision.”

“The
Hemlock Society was one of the first organizations to address those issues
realistically, but it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s morphed into a group with a broader-based
mission. There are also a bunch of newer, more enlightened organizations that
promote a variety of options, such as the voluntary refusal of food and fluid.
Turns out those Eskimos we were talking about the other day were ahead of their
time,” I told Margo, “except the truth is they only resorted to that when there
were famines, and there wasn’t enough food to go around. Anyway, the CCD also
lobbies legislators to enact laws similar to Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.”

“That’s
about legalized, physician-assisted suicide, right?” Margo asked.

“It
is,
which brings me to the point of this dissertation.
Did you know that organizations that solicit contributions and have a
tax-exempt status are required to file annual reports, which they often make
accessible as .
pdfs
on their websites?”

“I
did know that,” Margo said, “from my brief tenure as a political candidate. So
what did the CCD’s report have to say that’s got you all het up?”

“A
complete listing of officers and primary contributors that included Elizabeth
and Douglas Grant and,” I paused for effect, “Janet and Gerald R.
MacRae
.”

Twelve

When
I updated Ginny on Wednesday morning, I was careful to lay out our findings as
informative but inconclusive. It seems that the rumors about Tommy Garcia being
some sort of male escort are erroneous. It appears that Gerald
MacRae
is on the up-and-up. She might need to think about a
new on-call physician since Lars Petersen seems to be easing into retirement.
And judging from the checks the
MacRaes
and the
Grants have written to the Citizens for Compassionate Decisions, they seem to
have at least a philosophical interest in supporting legalized assisted suicide
for the terminally ill. Like that.