The Inquisitor Read Online Free PDF

pacemaker wire, but the monitor showed no change, and the pattern remained ragged as a saw's edge.
    He nodded to J.S., and she resumed pumping.
    A familiar icy tightness gripped Earl in the pit of his stomach as the sense they weren't going to make it crept through him.
    But Artie's eyes remained open. Imploring. Beseeching.
    Stewart laid down the wire, glanced over to Earl, and silently shook his head.
    J.S. continued to pump, her expression questioning him whether to stop for good.
    Artie began to blink wildly again.
    He knows he's going to die, Earl thought. Time to sedate him. Otherwise the instant they called off CPR, he'd suffocate, awake and aware. It would be like strangling the man.
    "Get me ten milligrams of IV midazolam," he told Susanne.
    Her eyes widened, but she went to the medication bin and proceeded to draw up the syringe.
    "For the record," he said quietly, scanning the aghast eyes of those watching him,
    "I'm going to make him comfortable, then withhold any further treatment, including CPR, on the grounds it's futile." Without saying it outright, he'd declared they were not about to commit active euthanasia. To the lay person it might sound like word games, but because he was invoking a physician's right not to inflict useless interventions on a patient, Artie's resulting death would be considered natural under the scrutiny of law.
    The frowns on everyone told him they felt otherwise. "Anybody have a better idea?" he asked.
    Michael, Stewart, and Thomas grimly shook their heads.
    Susanne, J.S., and the respiratory technician did the same.
    "Mr. Baxter objects," Jimmy said.
    Earl bristled. "For the love of God, Jimmy, you know the rules as well as anyone."
    "At least have the decency to look at the man while you decide his fate."
    Nobody else said a word.
    Earl forced himself to meet that dark, fluttering stare.
    Artie repeatedly blinked his eyes in couplets. No! No! No! they screamed, brimming with agony.
    Earl's heart gave a wrench. "But we can't help him," he whispered to Jimmy. "At least I can make sure he doesn't surfer."
    "Tell your patient, Earl."
    Artie stopped blinking and glared at him.
    Oh, God, thought Earl. "Mr. Baxter, you know we tried everything?"
    He blinked yes.
    "I'll make you comfortable-"
    Two quick blinks cut him off.
    "But-"
    "I think he wants something," Jimmy said.
    A single blink. Yes.
    "You want what?" Earl asked. He couldn't think of anything else to say.
    Artie responded with a scowl of disgust.
    "Something medical?"
    No.
    "What then?"
    The desperation in Artie's stare grew.
    Then Earl knew.
    "Your wife?"
    Tears welled out of Artie's eyes. Yes, he blinked. Yes! Yes! Yes!
    "Is she here?" Earl asked.
    "In the waiting room," Susanne replied. Her voice sounded as if her windpipe had tightened to the size of a straw.
    "You want to see her, Artie?"
    The hideously slack face of the dying man had already acquired the consistency of cold mud. Yet it shifted ever so slightly, and Earl swore he glimpsed relief in those amorphous features. Yes! he blinked.
    "Then we'll get her for you," Earl said.
    Susanne hurriedly retrieved a chair from the corridor and placed it by the stretcher in case Artie's wife couldn't stand.
    The other physicians quickly wiped the blood from IV sites and covered the needles sticking out of him with plasters, much the way they would clean up a body before letting the family view it.
    Artie's eyes strained to follow the preparations, then stared at the ceiling with a spine-chilling calm.
    Earl tried not to imagine his state of mind. "Your arms must be getting tired," he said to J.S., whose forehead glistened with sweat. He found the heat of the extra wear suffocating at the best of times. It would be near unbearable with the sustained physical effort she'd been making.
    "I'm fine."
    He believed her. She'd kept the rhythm of her chest compressions rock steady the whole time.
    When they had everything set, he went to meet Mrs. Baxter. A few of Susanne's nurses had