Paging Doctor Baxter Huntley Conclusion
My name is Henry James. And I’m Sunny Alexander and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth Magazine.
Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Conclusion
Going over every bit of data we could find on Charlie, Baxter, and what happened that night, provided us a couple of nuggets and one huge bombshell.
One that exploded right in front of us.
“So whose signature was on the death certificates of the five kids?”
“Hang on James, give me a minute.”
“Losing your touch there Sunshine?”
“Really? You said that with your outside voice?”
“Just hurry up will you?”
“Shush, I’m pulling it up now. Oh my God Henry. It was Baxter’s. His signature was on all of them. As the on call surgeon that night it was his responsibility.”
“And that’s why he lost his license. In the public’s eye his actions may have seemed altruistic at first. Especially when you factor in he sacrificed his own two boys trying to save others. But I’m thinking a lot of people, including the parents of the other three kids, weren’t buying his ghoulish tactics one little bit.”
“That’s why he killed himself Henry. His wife was dead, his boys were dead and his career was over. What did he have to live for?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing. But there’s something bothering me about this whole thing.”
“What’s that?”
“If Charlie stood by and let Baxter take the fall, wouldn’t he want to make sure the journal was tucked away where nobody could find it? Especially if it had incriminating information in it?
“Maybe it got lost in the shuffle that night. Baxter said the operating wing is to be torn down. My guess is Charlie figures the journal will disappear for good this time.”
“That’s why we have to find that journal Sunny, and we have to find it now.”
After rummaging through the decommissioned operating room, now a storage facility, for two hours we still came up short.
We inspected every bed, every piece of furniture including yanking out drawers and inspecting the bottoms on the oft chance the journal had been hidden away.
Nothing.
Our hopes continued to nose dive as we took on a last cluster of beds blocking a locked door.
“You going to help or just stand there?”
“Henry, I think we’re looking at this the wrong way.”
“What, do I need to hold my tongue a certain way and stand on one foot?”
“James, you can be such a prick at times. You know that?”
“You ever tried to handle furniture with your arm in a cast?”
“Listen to me Henry. Shut the hell up and listen to me.”
“Fine. This better be good Alexander.”
“Okay, even with all the chaos going on that night I don’t think Macy would have tried to drain those kid’s blood in front of Baxter and everybody.”
“So, that meant he had to move them somewhere. Wouldn’t somebody have seen Charlie moving those kids?”
“Henry, think about what Baxter told us. They had children on gurneys all over the operating room. It was like a war zone. Macy needed a place quickly accessible to the operating room. All he had to do was wait until the nurses wheeled one patient out and started prepping for another child. No one was paying attention to Charlie and he knew it.”
We both stared at the padlock on the door.
“Miss Alexander, you wouldn’t by chance know how to pick a lock would you?”
Interesting thing when two writers work together. Both of them discover each has some amazing talents and writing just happens to be one of them.
The room turned out to be a changing room complete with three showers and a long row of personal lockers. A worn wooden bench stretched the length of the lockers.
“Okay look Henry. If Macy was bringing the kids in here and the journal slid off one of the gurneys it would have fallen to the floor. He would have seen it and picked it up.”
“But what if he didn’t see it when or if it fell off? Is it possible he could have kicked it with his feet? Maybe kicked it out of sight?”
We both stared at the row of lockers focusing on the shadows of the two inch space between the bottom of the lockers and the cement floor.
“Damn, a flashlight would be handy right now.”
“My dear, ask and it shall be delivered.”
A tiny, battery powered halogen bulb on a key ring may not provide enough light to stumble home after a night of hard drinking but we made it work for seeing beneath the lockers.
“Stop, go back.”
“Left or right?”
“Right.”
“Your other right Henry.”
“Alexander, you’re starting to piss me off.”
“I think I see it Henry.”
“Can you get to it?”
“I think so.”
“You want to tell me why you’re not?”
“I’m not putting my hand in there. There’s no telling what’s underneath these damned lockers. You reach in there and get it.”
“Okay, but If I get bit and die, I’m going to haunt your ass.”
“Just get the damned journal and let’s get out of here James.”
Laminated in gold leaf on the bottom right corner of the journal was the man’s name.
Charles Macy
Although both of us wanted to tear into it then we thought better of it, locked the door behind us and went back upstairs to our temporary home office.
As we poured over each page we finally found what we were looking for.
Scribbled in tight cursive was a list of letters, abbreviations and numbers.
CK
BT — O+
BPM— 50
L — 6
RH
BT — O+
BPM — 47
L — 4
DH
BT — O+
BPM — 40
L — 4
SL
BT — O+
BPM — 40
L — 4
CL
BT — O+
BPM — 60
L — 6
“Sunny, what were the names of the five kids? If I miss my guess DH, and RH are the Huntley twins.”
“Yeah, hang on. Okay. Samuel Langley, Robert and Donald Huntley, Cynthia Kincaid and Charlotte Lewis.”
“Damn. Come here and look at this. BT has to stand for blood type. That’s why there’s O positive beside each entry. What do you suppose BPM means?”
“Beats per minute. Like maybe a pulse rate?”
“Shit, that means they were all alive Sunny. Every fucking one them was alive.”
“Yeah, but not for long. See that L?”
“Yeah.”
“My guess is it stands for liters, the number of liters he drained out of their bodies before they died.”
“Where the hell is my phone?”
“Who are you calling at this hour Henry?”
“I’m calling the police, and you’re going to give Rick a call so he can back our play.”
“What the hell are you about to do Henry?”
“What we do best Miss Alexander. Tomorrow morning we’re going to give Charles Macy a little taste of the Dark Sides of the Truth.”
One of the best parts of our job is when the story, the real story, comes out. We found Charles Macy in the hospital cafeteria having breakfast and coffee with other hospital board members.
Charles jumped when Sunny slapped a copy of our story on the table in front of him.
“Excuse me ma’am, what the hell is this?”
“Read it Macy.”
We watched him sip his coffee as he began to read, then suddenly he spat in his cup, set it down and clutched the pages with both hands.
He was so focused on our article he didn’t see a pair of police officers walk up and stand in place behind us.
“This is insane. You can’t print this. I’ll sue the both of you for defamation of character. You can’t prove a word of this. I’ll bury you both so deep you’ll never see the light of day again.”
On cue, Sunny produced his journal and waved it in front of him.
“You just try that Mr. Macy. I’m sure our lawyers will be happy to use what you wrote in your journal. It’s all here. Everything they need to prove you killed five children.”
We stepped aside and the police moved up. One of them said, “Mr. Macy please stand up.”
As the officers cuffed and mirandized Charles Macy we left the cafeteria, then stopped at the admitting desk. Several seconds later we heard what we were waiting to hear.
“Paging Doctor Huntley, Doctor Baxter Huntley. Please meet your party at the admitting desk. Doctor Huntley please meet your party at the admitting desk.”
The next second, there he was, standing just inside the sliding glass door entrance. He was smiling at us. After giving us a nod he turned then propped his hand over his eyes as if shielding against a blinding light.
Then he drifted through the glass doorway and just, faded away.
We followed the good doctor outside and stood there for several minutes neither of us speaking, both of us knowing we would never forget this story.
While one was trying to save lives, the other made the decision to take them.
It seems as if Baxter Huntley and Charles Macy experienced different sides of the truth that night.
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