Right to Die

John beard and mustache were a shade darker, clipped so perfectly that trimming might be a daily exercise. Bacall wore a light gray suit with doublepleated pants. His shirt was a long-point requiring a collar stay. The paisley tie was woven in a pattern that catalogs caption “ancient madder.” Bacall sat in one client’s chair, or friend of client’s chair, and crossed his right leg over the left.
    Inés Roja (“I am the secretary of Professor Andrus”) wore very little makeup and needed less. Early twenties and perhaps five two in sensible shoes, she had lustrous black hair wound into a bun, high cheekbones, and irises that were almost black. Wearing a simple blue suit with schoolgirl blouse, Roja held a burgundy briefcase on her lap and crossed her ankles as she sat in my other client’s chair. Or secretary of client’s chair.
    Bacall said, “Perhaps it would be easier if you were to tell us what Tommy has already told you. So that we won’t bore you with details you already know.”
    “Tommy wants me to keep this as lawyerly as possible, Mr. Bacall—”
    “Alec, John.”
    “Alec, so maybe it would be safer for you to tell me what you think the situation is.”
    Bacall used his left index finger to touch both lips, then said, “I’ll try. Then you can ask anything you want. Inés, please feel free to jump in anytime.”
    Bacall looked at the woman only as he spoke her name, coming back to me with the rest of the sentence. I got the impression Roja didn’t feel all that free to jump in.
    “Maisy Andrus is a full professor of law, meaning with tenure, at the Law School of Massachusetts Bay. She’s been a controversial figure in legal education for some time, but I’m not versed enough in legal theory to give you all the ins and outs of why. Her stand on the right to die is what draws most of the fire. She’s put her money where her mouth is, so to speak.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Well, Maisy was never a poor worrian, but after graduating from law school she made some shrewd investments with family money, and her writing and lectures have pulled in a good deal more. She also was involved in, well, the incident in Spain .”
    “Somebody in her family, right?”
    “Her husband. Or former husband, more precisely. A Spanish doctor named Enrique Cuervo Duran. A virtual Dr. Schweitzer in his own country, but suffering horribly toward the end from a stroke. He was considerably older than Maisy.”
    “You ever meet him?”
    “No. Oh, no, I’ve known Maisy for only... what, eight years now? The tragedy with Dr. Duran was all in the seventies, just after the generalissimo died.”
    “Who?”
    “Franco.”
    The little I knew about Franco I’d learned from Saturday Night Live. “I remember reading an article that claimed Professor Andrus helped—sorry, do you use the word ‘euthanasia’?”
    “Actually, ‘help’ is just fine, John. It’s both descriptive and down-to-earth. Maisy used humane means at hand to help the doctor end his agony. An injection.”
    I was thinking, “Easy to say,” when Roja did jump in. “Perhaps, Alec, if we could show Mr. Cuddy the letters, he would see the problem we are bringing to him.”
    She spoke precisely, a Hispanic accent beneath New York-accented English.
    Bacall sat back. “Good idea.”
    Roja unzipped the briefcase and fished out a couple of sheets. “These are Xerox copies of the three letters.”
    I reached across the desk as she passed them to me. Calling them letters was being generous. In scissored syntax, with words of varying size and background, all were pretty similar.
    The first read, “ONLY GOD NOT YOU CU-NT,” the “CU” in the last word from a different source than the “NT.”
    The second read, “THEY DIE YOU DIE BIT-CH,” with different sources for the last word again.
    The third read, “YOUR TIME COMES SOON SLUT,” the letters in the final word all from the same source.
    “Any physical contact by the sender?”
    They said no together.
    “How about the telephone?”
    Bacall said, “Not connected to these.”
    I laid the copies of the letters on the desk as though I were dealing solitaire. “Which arrived first?”
    Roja said, “Like this,” pointing to each in the order I’d read them.
    “How did they arrive?”
    She said, “The first two by mail to the professor’s office at the law school.”
    “And the third?”
    Bacall said, “By hand. In her mailbox.”
    “Mailbox? Like a faculty mailbox?”
    “No,