names are nurses. Try them, please." Katherine Connally. Deceased 3-6-54.
Alice Bonelli. Deceased 3-6-54.
Janet Drummond. Deceased 3-6-54.
The student sat back; he was not a fool. "Seems there was a real epidemic back then, wasn't there? March was a rough month, and the twenty-sixth was a baad day for three little girls in white." "Any cause of deathT' "Nothin' listed. Which only means they didn't die on the premises." "But all three on the same day? It's...
"I dig," said the young man. "Crazy." He held up his hand. "Hey, there's an old cat who's been here for about six thousand years. He runs the supply room on the first floor. He might remember something; let me get him on the horn." The black wheeled his chair around and reached for a telephone on the counter. "Get on line two," he said to Bray, pointing to another phone on a nearby table.
"Furst floor supply," said the voice in a loud Irish brogue.
"Hey, Methusala, this is Amos-as in Amos and Andy." "You're a nutty boy-yo, you are." "Hey, Jimmy, I got this honkey friend on the horn here. He's looking for information that goes back to when you were the terror of the angels' dorm.
As a matter of fact, it concerns three of them. Jimmy, you recall a time in the middle fifties when three nurses all died on the same day?" "T'ree.Oh, indeed I do. 'Twas a terrible thing. Little Katie Connally was one of 'em." "What happened?" asked Bray.
"They drowned, sir. All three of the girls drowned. They was in a boat and the damn thing pitched over, throwin' lern into a bad sea." "In a boat? In March?" "One of those crazy things, sir. You know bow rich kids prowl around the nurses' dormitories. They figure the girls see naked bodies all the time, so maybe they wouldn't mind lookin' at theirs. Well, one night these punk-swells were throwin' a party at this fancy yacht club and asked the girls up. There was drinkin' and all kinds of nonsense, and some jackass got the bright idea to take out a boat. Damn fool thing, of course. As you say, it was in March." "It happened at nightT' "Yes, indeed, sir. The bodies didn't wash up for a week, I believe." "Was anyone else killed?" "Of course not. It's never that way, is it? I mean, rich kids are always such good swimro.ers, aren't they now?" "Where did it happen?" asked Scofield. "Can you remember?" "Sure, I can, sir. It was up the coast. Marblehead." Bray closed his eyes. "Thank you," he said quietly, replacing the phone.
"Thanks, Methusala." The student hung up, his eyes on Scofield. "You got trouble, don't you?" "I got trouble," agreed Bray, walking back to the keyboard. "I've also got ten more names. Two doctors and eight nurses. Can you run them through for me just as fast as you can?" Of the eight nurses, half were still alive. One had moved to San Francisco--address unknown; another lived with a daughter in Dallas, and the remaining two were in the St. Agnes Retirement Home in Worcester. One of the doctors was still alive. The skin-graft specialist had died eighteen months ago at the age of seventy-three. The first surgeon of record, Dr.
Nathaniel Crawford, had retired and was living in Quincy.
"May I use your phone?" asked Scofield. "I'll pay whatever charges there are." "Last time I looked, none of these horns was in my name. Be my guest." Bray had written down the number on the screen; he went to the telephone and dialed.
"Crawford here." The voice from Quincy was brusque but not discourteous.
"My name is Scofield, sir. We've never met and I'm not a physician, but I'm very interested in a case you were involved with a number of years ago at Massachusetts General. I'd like to discuss it briefly with you, if you wouldn't mind." "Who was the patient? I had a few thousand." "Senator Joshua Appleton, sir." There was a slight pause on the line; when Crawford spoke, his brusque voice took on an added tone of weariness. "Those godamned incidents have a way of following a man to his grave, don't they? Well, I haven't practiced for over two years now, so whatever you say or I say, it won't make any godamned difference.... Let's say I made a mistake." "Mistake?" "I didn't make many, I was head of surgery for damn near twelve years. My summary's in the Appleton medical file; the only reasonable