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Jason held up a finger. He turned a few pages and swept his hands out in front of him as if to say ask and you shall receive. “This is Doctor Emma Thornton. She started off as a midwife, but she soon became a licensed physician. She wasn’t the first woman to become a doctor in New Orleans, but she was the first at Tulane.”
Cassie leaned over the book. There was a crystal-clear, black-and-white photograph of the woman. She wore a black dress with a high collar. Her face fell in shadow, and she’d pinned her hair back into a high bun.
In other words, everything about her was wrong.
“This isn’t the Ghost Doctor.”
“I figured as much.” Jason hadn’t lost any of his enthusiasm. “She seemed a little too old. She received her license in 1876. So, I kept looking.” He flipped the page. “Dr. Dorothea Bridge. She was Thornton’s apprentice, eventually taking over her practice when Thornton retired.”
The woman kept the same style as her mentor, only her dress was the customary white. “That’s also not her.”
Jason held up another finger, dramatically waiting a few seconds too long before turning the page again. “Bridge took on her own apprentice. Dr. Shelley Marie Cohen. She was licensed in 1932 and practiced until her untimely death in 1947.”
Cassie sucked in a breath. She looked down at the page in front of her, and the Ghost Doctor stared back. She wore a gray dress with a jacket over the top. She’d pinned her dark hair back in curls. Even her hazel eyes were exactly as Cassie remembered them. And just as hypnotizing as in real life.
“That’s her.”
“Yeah?” Jason sat down next to Cassie. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.” She drew the book closer. “Does it say how she died?”
“She was administering to her patients when there was a gas leak. They couldn’t evacuate the hospital in time. She refused to leave until everyone was out. She and twelve of her patients died.”
“How?”
“They suffocated.” Jason’s voice was somber now. All the excitement from earlier was gone. “Painless, as far as deaths go, but no less terrifying.”
“And no less tragic.”
Jason seemed to sense Cassie needed a minute to absorb what he’d found. He left her to read through the woman’s biography on her own while he perused the other books.
Dr. Shelley Marie Cohen had been a remarkable woman. She was twenty-eight when she became a licensed practitioner. She had known Dr. Thornton, but had never worked underneath her. That responsibility had fallen to Dr. Bridge, who had treated Shelley Marie with a kind but firm hand. All three women knew their colleagues and the public would scrutinize them more than any of their male colleagues, so they worked twice as hard to prove themselves. Their track records were impeccable, and the community at large had come to respect them.
But that didn’t mean Dr. Cohen walked an easy path. She never had as many patients as her male colleagues, and she wasn’t allowed to work on the more interesting cases. She had a particular interest in the spread of viral infections, but she could never get close enough to study them on her own.
Her superior bedside manner meant she often had to break terrible news to patients and their family members. After a prominent New Orleanian socialite found herself on death’s door, she begged Dr. Cohen to help her. Within days, the woman recovered and returned to her life as though nothing had ever happened.
Historians now believe Dr. Cohen merely examined the woman and found something another doctor did not, but at the time, rumors spread like wildfire. Whispers told tales of how Dr. Cohen had made a deal with Death. If she looked upon you favorably, she would spare you. But if she sat by your bed, took your hand in her own, and leaned close, then you knew your time was up.
Though there was no proof, some historians believed someone had set the gas leak. If there had been an explosion, as the arsonist had intended, it would’ve destroyed the tools used to open the gas valve, thus destroying the evidence. As it was, no one was convicted of causing the gas leak or killing thirteen innocent people. That day, New Orleans lost a pillar of their community and a brilliant doctor.
Cassie brushed a tear from her cheek. Dr. Cohen had been an exceptional doctor, but in a time when science bordered on the mystical, they had heralded her as some sort of angel of death. It made sense if she continued that role after her death.
Jason sat down next to her. “Find anything?”
“I’m not sure.” Cassie stared at Dr. Cohen’s picture. “She was amazing at what she did. People back then didn’t understand that what she did was science, not magic. They thought she had superpowers, but she was just a normal person.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I’m confused.” Cassie looked up at him, not bothering to hide the tears. “I expected to find someone who had been cruel and inhumane. But she loved every single one of her patients.”
Jason pointed to the book. “His
tory doesn’t always tell us the whole truth. Sometimes we have to find that out on our own.”
“How?”
“Usually by talking to those that came before us.” He grimaced. “Though there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to find anyone who knew Dr. Cohen well enough to give us answers.”
