Sisters on the Case

For the Common Good by Patricia Sprinkle

I first met Dr. Randall McQuirter in 1965 over a kosher TV dinner.

Fresh out of college, I had been hired by a private Miami hospital to welcome patients and handle complaints and requests. My boss was Angie Winters, and in those days before Medicare, when some patients stayed in hospitals for months, Angie and I were the lubricant that flowed in graceful measure between them and any irritants that might mar their visit.

Angie was a platinum blonde seven inches taller, fifteen years older, and a hundred times more glamorous than I. She had selected the navy uniforms and three-inch heels we wore, and my first day at work, she called her own hairdresser. ‘‘I’m sending you a college student. Send me back a woman.’’ When I returned, I almost didn’t recognize my reflection in the plate glass doors.

Angie gave me an approving nod and sent me to the administrator, who fixed me with a steel gray gaze. ‘‘The motto of this institution is ‘For the common good.’ What is best for our patients is best for all of us. Therefore, the only question you ever need ask a patient is, ‘How may I serve you?’ Do you understand?’’

Angie worked eight to five. She comforted grieving families, helped choose nursing homes, and handled our Miami Beach celebrities. I worked from eleven until whenever, greeting new patients and visiting each one every second day to see if they needed any special attention. In my first week I fetched a mink jacket and false teeth from a beach hotel after an emergency admission, wrote a letter to children in New Jersey (tactfully revising ‘‘What the hell’s so important they can’t come see their dying mother?’’), and one evening solved the problem of an elderly man who hadn’t eaten for two days. He swore he had no appetite, but when I saw the Jewish Floridian on his bedside table and asked, ‘‘Did you know we offer kosher meals?’’ he clutched my hand so hard he nearly took off a finger.

‘‘You got kosher? Bring me some of everything. I’m famished!’’

I went down to the kitchen, asked the night staff to heat a kosher TV dinner, and offered to carry it to him myself. I was halfway to the elevator when a man strolled toward me. He had the dark eyes and hair of a Mediterranean movie star and the god-walk that proclaimed him a doctor.

‘‘Why, hello!’’ He stepped deftly into my path. ‘‘We haven’t met but I’d sure like to.’’

Next thing I knew I was backed up against the wall with nothing but a kosher dinner between me and…

I’ll never know. I heard my name and Angie-who should have gone home hours before-came swinging down the hall. ‘‘I wondered where you’d gotten to. Hello, Doctor. I need Celia up on three.’’ She put an arm around me and walked me toward the elevator. When the door slid shut, she murmured, ‘‘That was Randall McQuirter, head of our ob-gyn department. Don’t ever cross him. He’s got a real temper. But don’t get stuck alone with the man, either.’’ She spoke so casually, she could have been offering a remedy for freckles.

‘‘I can take care of myself.’’ I resented her treating me like a kid sister. The doctor was closer to her age than mine. I wondered if she wanted him for herself.

Several weeks later I arrived early one morning and dashed into the tiny coffee shop off the lobby for a breakfast milkshake. Angie was having coffee with Dr. Magda Gerstein, our resident psychiatrist. Next to Angie, Dr. Gerstein looked like a toad-plump and plain, her dark hair streaked with gray, her face sallow and scarred. Her only attractive feature was a pair of intelligent dark eyes that terrified me. I kept wondering what neuroses those eyes found as they probed my soul.

When Angie saw me, she called, ‘‘Full moon last night, so emergency was crazy. Five came in after a brawl in a Coconut Grove bar. I’ve been running my legs off this morning. Rosa, are you guys still stitching up the Grove crew?’’

Coconut Grove bars were the hangouts of Beautiful People, so Angie, of course, would handle those patients.

Rosa Marquez, our head surgical nurse, collapsed into a chair at their table, still wearing green scrubs. A cloud of dark hair fell to her shoulders as she pulled off her surgical cap. ‘‘We just rebuilt the jawbone of a young man who is lucky to be alive. Café con leche,’’ she called to the waitress approaching the table. ‘‘I can’t stay but a minute, but I have to have a breather.’’

Not sure of my welcome in such august company, I headed to a stool at the counter. ‘‘¡Buenos días!’’ I greeted Carlos, who was wiping up a coffee spill.

The first Cuban immigrants were reaching Miami in those days, all claiming to have been wealthy professionals, executives, and the cream of Havana society. Some actually were.

According to Angie, who loved to pass on informationabout our co-workers, Carlos used to own one of the finest restaurants in Havana; Luis-the meds nurse up on five-had been Cuba’s premier cardiologist; and Rosa came from one of Havana’s richest families but had run away at eighteen to join Castro’s army. After Rosa got raped by her commanding officer, so Angie claimed, she gave up the revolution and came to join her family in Miami.

I was learning to take Angie’s stories with a tablespoon of salt. No way plain little Dr. Gerstein had been the plaything of German SS officers in a Jewish concentration camp, and when I asked our administrator about serving on Jack Kennedy’s boat during World War II, he laughed. ‘‘Who told you that? I get seasick looking at a boat and got turned down by the army because of flat feet.’’

‘‘But Angie said-’’

His face softened into an indulgent smile. ‘‘Oh, Angie. She’s smart like a fox, but like a child in some ways. She loves drama and wants everybody-herself included-to be larger than life. Ignore her stories and learn from her heart. Angie’s got a gigantic heart.’’

I didn’t need my friends larger than life. It was enough for me that Carlos made the best milkshake in Miami.

He also had taken it on himself to teach me Spanish so I could welcome our Hispanic patients. So far he had taught me six sentences I could rattle off with the staccato accents and speed of a native Cuban: ‘‘Good day. I am the hospital hostess. Welcome to the hospital. Do you need anything special?’’ If the patient responded with anything except ‘‘No,’’ I fell back on the other two: ‘‘One moment. I am going to call an interpreter.’’

‘‘Quiero un bestido de chocolate,’’ I said carefully.

‘‘I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,’’ Angie called.

‘‘A little,’’ I boasted.

Carlos laughed. The two women working with him tittered. Rosa’s dimples flashed as she hid a smile behind her cup.

‘‘What? What did I say wrong?’’

He gave me the severe look of a parent to a child. ‘‘You just ordered a chocolate dress. Dress is’’-he wrote vestido on a paper napkin and, being Cuban, read it-‘‘bestido. Milkshake is’’-he wrote and said- ‘‘batido.’’ He made me order correctly before he fixed the milkshake.

Dr. McQuirter came to the counter and stood near me. ‘‘Hello, Celia.’’ His voice was like melted chocolate, and he looked so good my knees wobbled. No wonder new mothers swooned over him. In the past month three infant boys had gone home with the name Randall. I did a quick calculation and decided our age difference wasn’t too great.

‘‘Bring your chocolate dress over here and join us.’’ Angie’s invitation was more of a command.

When I obeyed, Dr. McQuirter ambled along beside me and pulled up a chair between me and Rosa. Angie frowned.

Two minutes later the overhead pager came to life. ‘‘Miss Winters, emergency room. Dr. Gerstein, emergency room. Stat.’’

Dr. Gerstein muttered an oath in German. Angie pushed back her chair. ‘‘What now?’’

Carver, the head orderly, hurried in and approached our table. ‘‘Emergency’s got one of those fellows back there, nearly tearing the place apart.’’

‘‘Oh, lordy.’’ Angie looked at the rest of us. ‘‘You’d better come, too, Celia. We might need you.’’

The emergency room was off-limits in my job description, I wasn’t on duty yet, and I still had half a milkshake left. We both knew she was simply hauling me away from Dr. McQuirter. I opened my mouth to protest, but Angie grabbed my elbow and dragged me with her.

Rosa called to Dr. Gerstein, ‘‘See you tonight.’’

Dr. Gerstein might be short and squat, but she moved fast. She was already out the door. Soon Angie and Carver were right behind her with me bringing up a reluctant rear.

‘‘Magda and Rosa work at the Overtown free clinic two evenings a week,’’ Angie explained to Carver as we hurried down the hall. ‘‘Poor folks, battered wives, prostitutes-’’

Dr. Gerstein interrupted impatiently. ‘‘You are sure, Carver, it is one of them?’’

‘‘Yes, ma’am. He was left in the emergency room sometime during the night, wearing sweats. As crazy as things were, nobody noticed when he came in. After the place calmed down, they saw him sleeping in the corner, but presumed he was a relative of one of the patients, so they let him sleep. He woke up a little while ago and started yelling that he had been-’’ He looked over his shoulder at me and stopped talking.

‘‘Fixed?’’ I asked bluntly. Angie gave me a chiding look. ‘‘I am an adult,’’ I reminded her. ‘‘I read newspapers and watch the eleven o’clock news.’’

Dr. Gerstein, still in the lead, continued quizzing Carver. ‘‘Both testicles were removed and he does not remember a thing from the time he entered a bar until he woke up here?’’

‘‘Doesn’t remember a thing,’’ Carver agreed. ‘‘Just like the others.’’

I put on speed and came abreast of Angie. ‘‘How many is that?’’

‘‘Three in three weeks. The other two were left at Jackson. I guess it was our turn. Poor guys.’’

We turned the corner by our equal-opportunity chapel, which had icons for the religions of all our patients. I caught the eye of my favorite-a Madonna with dark hair, dimples, and kind plaster eyes-and murmured, ‘‘God knows the first one deserved it.’’

‘‘How do you know?’’ Angie’s eyes flashed I share all my gossip with you.

I wished I could take back my words. Still, fair is fair. ‘‘His girlfriend-or one of them-had a baby here a few weeks ago. Dr. McQuirter delivered it for free.’’ I paused to let that virtue sink in, but the look in Angie’s eye pushed me on. ‘‘I recognized the man’s name, Anthony Miguel Williams, because he named the poor baby Zhivago Miguel and wanted Williams on the birth certificate, even though he refused to marry the baby’s mama. She cried about that the whole time she was here. You remember,’’ I called up to Dr. Gerstein. ‘‘I paged you because she was threatening to kill herself.’’

Dr. Gerstein wasn’t listening. She was heading to emergency like a horse to a barn. Angie claimed the psychiatrist had an internal magnet for people in trouble.

‘‘A guy refusing to marry somebody is no reason to do what they did,’’ Carver argued.

‘‘He’d already had three other babies by different mamas. He bragged about that. Said Zhivago was the second son he’s had this year, but the other baby was born at Jackson and his mama had to get her prenatal care at a clinic, because Anthony hadn’t met Dr. McQuirter yet.’’

‘‘Not a nice person.’’ Carver finally accepted my assessment.

We stepped through the swinging doors into chaos. Somebody had ripped magazines and flung them on the floor, overturned the newspaper box, and broken the glass front of the candy machine. The telephone from the desk decorated a silk ficus in one corner. Housekeeping staff were putting the room to rights while patients and their families huddled on the far side with frightened eyes. From one examining room came curses and shouts. ‘‘… lawyer… police!’’

Dr. Gerstein trotted in that direction. Angie gave me a wave of dismissal. ‘‘There’s nothing you can do here. Go on upstairs and start your rounds.’’

I backed up and stepped on Carver. His eyes were fixed on the examining room curtain while he pressed one hand below his belt. ‘‘Who’d do such a thing to such a nice man?’’

‘‘You know him?’’ I asked.

‘‘Not personally, but I heard it was Lyle Bradford.’’

Lyle Bradford was a big man in town. Important architect. Sat on the Orange Bowl committee. Gave money every year so Jackson Hospital could have Santa Claus for sick kids. He was even a personal friend of the governor.

‘‘Not like that second guy who got taken to Jackson,’’ Carver added in a voice rough with feeling. ‘‘Him, now-’’ He turned and headed out. ‘‘He’s the one who really got what he deserved.’’

I caught up and trotted beside him toward the lobby. ‘‘You knew him?’’

‘‘No, but he was part of a gang that raped a girl in my daughter’s high school. The other guys were nineteen and they went to jail, but because he was seventeen, he only did a few months at juvey. My daughter and her friends were terrified when he got out. They claim he’s been messing with girls all his life and threatening to hurt their brothers and sisters if they told. Well, he ain’t gonna be messing with any more little girls.’’ Carver spoke with a quiet satisfaction that made me uneasy.

‘‘I’ll catch the elevator here and go on up to my office. See you later.’’ I stepped in and pushed the button.

My usual routine was to pick up our department’s peach index cards on new patients and head out to welcome them. Instead I picked up the phone and called a former high school classmate who worked in the admissions office at Jackson. ‘‘We have one of those castrated men here,’’ I reported. ‘‘I heard it was Lyle Bradford, but I don’t know for sure.’’

From her squeal, I deduced I’d given her a top banana for their staff gossip tree. She owed me. ‘‘What do you know about the men who turned up at your place?’’

She snickered. ‘‘They are singing soprano.’’

‘‘Seriously. I’ve read what the papers said-that they went into a bar and didn’t remember anything after that-but is that all you know?’’

‘‘Well’’-her voice dropped a register-‘‘I had to take admissions information from the first one, and he said he remembered talking in the bar with a woman who looked like the Virgin Mary, but he couldn’t remember which bar. He wondered if she’d put something in his drink.’’

‘‘Sounds more like Bloody Mary. How did he get to your emergency room? Nobody saw anyone bring him?’’

‘‘No, he was left in a wheelchair outside. One of the ambulances found him sitting there at three a.m. in a johnny gown with a blanket tucked around his legs. It was a pretty night, so at first they thought he was a patient who had gone outside for a smoke or something and fallen asleep. They mentioned him to a nurse and she wheeled him back in, figuring she’d return him to his room. Then she discovered he didn’t have an ID bracelet. About that time he woke up and started yelling. That’s when they realized he’d had what we were instructed the next morning to call ’unauthorized surgery.’ ’’

‘‘Who was his doctor?’’

‘‘He didn’t have one. Said he’d never been sick. The residents checked him out and said the surgery looked like a professional job, so they let him recuperate a few days and sent him home. Don’t tell anybody I told you this, okay? He’s threatening to sue us, so we aren’t supposed to talk about it.’’

‘‘Of course not.’’

We both knew there is no place more gossipy than a hospital except a police station.

‘‘How did the second one get in? Looks like you’d have been watching the doors pretty carefully after that.’’

‘‘We were. The police got a call that he was down in Biscayne Park. They found him sitting on a park bench dressed in loose sweats and carrying on so loud, they thought he was drunk at first. He didn’t remember anything, either, except sitting at a bar talking to a woman he claimed was ‘a gorgeous blonde with legs up to her throat.’ ’’

‘‘Not my image of the Virgin Mary.’’

‘‘Mine, either. He at least could remember the name of the bar, but they were real busy that night after a baseball game and didn’t remember him. How did yours get in?’’

‘‘Full moon night.’’ I didn’t have to say more. Anybody who works in a hospital knows a full moon brings babies, death, and all sorts of craziness. ‘‘He was found sleeping in a corner of the emergency room.’’

‘‘It gives me the creeps. I’ve never been so glad to be a woman.’’

‘‘Me, neither. See you later.’’

I hung up and checked my watch. I’d give Lyle Bradford a couple of hours to get up to his room; then no matter what Angie said (she was bound to tell me, ‘‘I’ll take care of this one,’’ since he was, in a sense, a celebrity), I’d go welcome him. I was dying to hear his story.

The NO VISITORS sign didn’t deter me. I was hospital administration.

Mr. Bradford lay on his back watching a soap opera. He glowered as I came in. ‘‘Who the hell are you?’’

‘‘A patient counselor. I came to see if you have everything you need.’’

His glower deepened.

‘‘I mean, is there something I can get you?’’

He started up in anger, then sank back with a groan. ‘‘Yeah, there’s a couple of things you could get me if you have a spare pair. Look, I’m not a freak show, okay? I’ve already had another one of you in here.’’

‘‘That would be my boss. I didn’t know she had visited you, so I came to say if there is anything we can do to make your stay easier, just ask. Our job is to welcome patients and handle requests or complaints.’’

His language blistered my ears and singed my back hair. Cleaned up considerably, what he said was, ‘‘I got a complaint, all right. Some pirate tied me up and took my crown jewels.’’ He fingered a scrap of peach index card and squinted at something scrawled on it. ‘‘You ever hear of a guy named Randall McQuirter?’’

‘‘Sure. He’s one of our ob-gyns.’’

He laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. ‘‘You’re kidding. He’s a women’s doc?’’

‘‘Yessir.’’

What was the matter with my tongue? Angie was always telling me that middle-aged men don’t like young women calling them sir.

Lyle Bradford didn’t seem to notice. He gave that rude laugh again. ‘‘Well, from what somebody told me, that’s not all he is. If you see the bastard, tell him I want to see him pronto. Okay?’’

‘‘He’ll be here tonight making evening rounds. If I see him-’’

‘‘You find him, you hear me?’’ He punctuated every word with a pointing forefinger.

‘‘I’ll tell him.’’ I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I had a patient’s orders to seek out Dr. McQuirter after Angie had left for the day.

She went at five. ‘‘I am beat. Don’t bother visiting Mr. Bradford. I’ll take care of him.’’

‘‘I won’t,’’ I assured her.

At five thirty I started lurking in the lobby. Dr. McQuirter strolled in at six and paused in the doorway to cast a quick, worried look around. He actually took a step backward as I approached to announce, ‘‘I have a message for you.’’

He grinned down at me. ‘‘As a pickup line, I’d rather hear ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been waiting all afternoon.’ ’’

‘‘I have,’’ I admitted, trying to keep my balance under that deep black gaze. ‘‘Lyle Bradford wants to see you. He’s in room 508.’’

‘‘I don’t know Lyle Bradford.’’ He started for the elevator.

I followed. ‘‘He came in today. I think he’s on the Orange Bowl committee.’’

He shook his head. ‘‘Still doesn’t ring a bell.’’

‘‘He specifically asked to see you. Maybe he has free tickets for you or something.’’

Dr. McQuirter put his right hand in his pocket. ‘‘He asked for me by name? I’ll check with him after I’ve seen my patients. Want to meet me on five in an hour and have coffee when I’m done with him?’’

‘‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Angie,’’ I said softly as I headed on my rounds.

As soon as I stepped off the fifth-floor elevator an hour later, I heard shouting. Two orderlies were sprinting down the hall. Luis, the meds nurse (who might or might not have once been Havana’s premier cardiologist), dashed out of the nurses’ station and headed the same way. Running in heels, I made a late fourth.

We all could hear the shouted threats. ‘‘You did this to me! I’m gonna sue you for millions! Your pretty ladies will have to work night and-’’

As I reached the door of Lyle Bradford’s room, Dr. McQuirter pulled a gun out of his pocket and killed the man before he finished the sentence.

By the time of Dr. McQuirter’s trial, I had accrued some vacation days. I sat in the packed courtroom with other hospital personnel who didn’t have to testify, grateful that Luis had pushed me toward the elevator immediately after the shooting. ‘‘You were never here. Stay out of this.’’

He and the two orderlies testified that Mr. Bradford had accused Dr. McQuirter of castrating him and had then threatened the doctor. The defense attorney went after the word ‘‘threatened,’’ trying to plant the notion of self-defense. Luis refused to play. ‘‘Mr. Bradford was standing by his bed wearing only a hospital gown. Where could he hide a weapon? He was too sore to even wear boxers.’’

Every man in the courtroom squirmed.

The prosecutor put a police detective on the witness stand to testify they were seeking connections between Dr. McQuirter and the other two unsolved castration cases. The defense attorney managed to get that testimony ruled inadmissible-arguing successfully that McQuirter wasn’t being tried for castrating Mr. Bradford, just for killing him.

On the second day, the defense started its arguments and Dr. McQuirter himself took the stand. The jury seemed unimpressed by his explanation for why he was carrying a gun on rounds that evening-‘‘I’d gotten an anonymous threat that afternoon’’-and unconvinced by his reason for checking on Bradford, who had no need of an ob-gyn and was three floors above Dr. McQuirter’s other patients: ‘‘I got a message he wanted to see me.’’

I caught my breath. Would I have to testify after all? Heaven knew what Angie would do to me if she learned I’d been in Bradford’s room.

Nobody called me. Instead, Angie was called to the stand. She testified that Dr. Randall McQuirter was an excellent doctor, highly respected and loved by all his patients and the hospital staff. She gave him a dazzling smile as she stepped down. After that, physicians, nurses, ward clerks, and even Carver spoke about what a wonderful doctor Dr. McQuirter was and how he must have been seriously provoked to do what he had done.

As we left for the day, I saw Angie in the parking lot. ‘‘You sure laid it on thick in there.’’

She shrugged. ‘‘Why not? He is a good doctor, but that’s not going to keep him out of jail.’’

A good doctor? I drove home thinking about Lyle Bradford’s last words. As soon as I got in, I called another high school friend who had become an investigative reporter with the Miami Herald. She had established amazing contacts throughout Miami’s seamier element and was so tenacious about research that her nickname was Bulldog.

‘‘There’s something odd about the McQuirter case,’’ I told her.

‘‘The Teflon doc? You’re telling me. You think he castrated Bradford and those other guys?’’

‘‘I have no idea, but he didn’t shoot Bradford for saying that. He fired after Bradford starting making threats.’’

‘‘What were his exact words?’’

She, like me, had taken senior English from a tyrant who made us memorize reams of poetry and famous speeches. We had gotten real good at verbatim repetition.

‘‘First he said, ‘You did this to me!’ Then he said, ‘I’m gonna sue you for millions! Your pretty ladies will have to work night and-’ That’s when McQuirter shot him.’’

From the silence on the other end, I knew she was writing it all down on a yellow pad. ‘‘Interesting. I’ll get back to you.’’

She didn’t get back to me, but she must have worked all night getting in touch with some of her contacts, because the next morning in court the prosecutor got permission to introduce important new evidence. The courtroom was electrified when two women testified that for several years, Dr. McQuirter had augmented his income by controlling a number of prostitutes, most of whom had come to him as adolescent patients or young nurses. The two testified that the doctor had seduced the girls-themselves included-and impregnated them, then aborted their babies (which was illegal in those days) and told them that working for him was the only way to repay their medical bills. They also testified that Lyle Bradford had been a regular patron with an increasingly nasty temper. He had broken one woman’s nose and several had needed medical attention. They had all complained to Dr. McQuirter about him.

The prosecutor insisted that their testimony plus the fact that Dr. McQuirter had carried a loaded gun to Bradford’s room pointed to premeditated murder. The jury agreed. They brought in a verdict of murder one and sent the doctor away for life.

Men in Miami slept easier.

Bulldog wrote a series of interviews with prostitutes. Randall McQuirter’s women spoke bitterly about his treatment of them, but other prostitutes praised his methods of dealing with violent customers. Violence against prostitutes dropped. Bulldog won a Pulitzer. The Miami paper still occasionally refers to the local ob-gyn who avenged prostitutes by castrating violent johns. Another Miami moment.

But some Miami moments, like some of Angie’s stories, are fabrications.

The morning after Dr. McQuirter went to prison, I arrived early at the hospital and headed to the coffee shop for one of Carlos’s batidos. Angie, Dr. Gerstein, and Rosa were having coffee at the back corner table. Before they saw me, I saw Angie pour something from a silver pocket flask into each of their cups. They raised them in a toast. ‘‘For the common good.’’

As I approached the table I saw them as a stranger might: a tall blond woman with legs going almost up to her neck. A nurse who worked after hours at a free clinic and who had a cloud of dark hair and a dimple in her chin, exactly like our chapel Madonna. And a psychiatrist with a face scarred like a pirate’s. As Dr. Gerstein lifted her drink, her sleeve slid toward her elbow. That was the first time I’d seen the row of numbers tattooed on her arm.