Jim Taylor sat shaking his head, not saying anything for a while. “She hates me,” he finally blurted. “My own daughter hates me. She tells me so all the time. And the way she looks at me! She glares, and she never smiles anymore. Most of the time she just sits in her room and cries. My wife and I are at our wits’ end.”
Agnes returned with a steaming ceramic mug and placed it on the desk where the man in the chair could reach it. Then she gave Maggie a nervous glance. “I’ll be by the phone.”
Maggie nodded but didn’t take her eyes from the man slumped in front of her. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”
When Jim Taylor looked up, there were tears in his eyes. “My daughter was the sole survivor of that abortion clinic massacre.”
Maggie’s heart jumped. “And you blame me?” she found herself saying.
“What? I…well…you and your kind, that’s what did it to my girl. That’s what tore the heart right out of her and made her hate me. She’s damaged. I don’t know if she’ll ever be the same. She went through a lot of trauma. All those dead bodies all over the place. You crazy lifers! What right do you have to go shooting up a place and killing everyone, just because you don’t agree with what they’re doing?”
“No right at all.”
“So why did you do it?”
“I didn’t.”
Jim Taylor eyed Maggie, then picked up his coffee. “Well…you know what I mean.”
“No, Mr. Taylor, I don’t know what you mean. There are eighty volunteers here at the Life Center and not one of them was at that clinic when your daughter was there. Neither inside nor out.”
“But your people picket that place all the time!”
“Some of the volunteers at the Center also sidewalk counsel outside Solutions from time to time. But I was told that not one of them was there that day.”
“Well…what about that madman? Canon Edwards?”
“He’s not, nor ever has been, part of this Life Center.”
“But they say you were friends. And you’re both lifers.”
“I suppose I’m as close to a friend as Canon has in this town. But that doesn’t mean I condone what he does or did. I’m truly sorry about what happened at Solutions. And I’m so very sad to hear about your daughter. I’ve been praying for her and—”
“How could you have known who she was? Her name was kept out of the papers. To protect her from that madman. How did you find out?” He began to rise out of the chair.
“Sit down, Mr. Taylor.” Maggie’s tone was soothing. “I didn’t know her name. God just placed her on my heart. By the way, what is her name?” Maggie watched the man’s face contort with pain. For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to answer.
“Becky. My little girl’s name is Becky. She’s seventeen and she’s the sweetest girl in the world. And so smart. She’s going to college. Been accepted into Georgetown. The first Taylor ever to go to college. At least I think she’s going. She says she’s not sure. Can you imagine that? She just doesn’t seem to want to do anything. This whole business ruined her. May have ruined her for life.”
Maggie sat for some time, saying nothing, just praying silently and staring at Jim Taylor. She watched him fumble his ceramic cup, then shuffle his feet back and forth beneath his chair, then finally drop his head against his chest. All the while she prayed. Finally, she took a deep breath.
“The shootings at Solutions were tragic, and have probably deeply injured Becky, but not nearly as deeply as the abortion itself.”
“Now listen here, you’re not going to give me some of your lifer double-talk, because I’m not going to listen.”
“How badly do you want to see Becky get well?”
Jim Taylor put his cup down, and Maggie thought he was going to get up and walk out. Instead, he leaned over the desk, his eyes glaring. “You people have to push and push and stir each other up until one of you gets so crazy he goes and kills a buildingful of people. Then you want to turn it around and blame it on someone else.”
“Will you just listen to what I have to say?”
“The blame should fall where it belongs.” Jim pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face. “That’s what I came here to tell you.”
“Every day in this country, forty to fifty women are either critically injured or killed by abortion and—”
“Maybe neither you nor your people went into that building and pulled that trigger, but you had a hand in it. You have to be held accountable.”
“Every day, 416 additional women are added to the list of those suffering from post abortion syndrome.”
Jim Taylor wiped his hands on his handkerchief.
“I’ll spare you more statistics, Mr. Taylor, but believe me, there are a lot of hurting, damaged women walking around, hurt and damaged by their abortions. The more pressured a girl is to have an abortion, the more severe her post abortion syndrome.”
“You’re saying this is all my fault!”
“When did you hear me say that?”
“You said if a girl is pressured. I just tried to help. I wanted to do what was best for Becky. I wanted to make sure that she had a future…college…she’s only seventeen.”
“So you’re saying you pressured her?”
Jim dropped his head into his hands. “You lifers are the ones who messed Becky up, shooting everything in sight. Not me. Why are you trying to turn this on me?”
“A girl who has been pressured will blame and even hate the ones who pressured her, be it boyfriend, husband, parents, friends.”
Jim looked up and stared into Maggie’s eyes. “She hates me. She tells me that all the time. She blames me. I thought it was because of all those killings…the trauma and all…”
“A woman who has had an abortion can feel confused, sad, guilty, betrayed, angry…ashamed. She can become depressed, even suicidal. She could develop nightmares, have flashbacks, develop eating disorders, abuse alcohol or drugs or both, act psychotically—”
“Stop! I don’t want to hear this!” Jim rose to his feet but seemed unable to move.
“Sometimes she’ll engage in self-degrading or self-punishing behavior. She may cry often and for no apparent reason. She may lose the ability to have close relationships with others, especially with a husband or boyfriend. Often a woman will go through a five- to ten-year period of denial, and even twenty years is not uncommon, during which time she’ll repress her feelings. But sometimes, like in Becky’s case, the abortion is so horrific to her that these things come upon her almost immediately. She seems.” Maggie watched as Jim Taylor sat back down in the chair and bent in half at the waist. His head hung between his knees.
“I was just trying to help her. She’s only seventeen.”
Maggie rose from her chair and went to him. “Why don’t you bring her to the Center? We see girls like Becky all the time. We have a program, Project Rachael, that has helped many women like your daughter.” Then Maggie put her hand on Jim’s shoulder. “But now, may I pray with you?”
Jim shrugged. “I don’t believe in that stuff. You pray if you want, but it’s not going to make any difference.”
“Mr. Taylor, prayer makes all the difference in the world.”
The man with the clipboard scribbled something on his paper, and Thor strained to see what it was. He was sure the insurance agent was going to try to minimize the damage, and Thor wasn’t going to stand for that. Ever since they had started their walk-through of the clinic, the agent had been noncommittal and visibly unimpressed by what Thor believed was extensive damage. It was bad enough the police had dragged their feet in declaring it no longer a crime scene and had only this morning removed their yellow plastic tape from around the front of the building. And getting competent people to fill all the empty staff positions was another problem. But now, to have this pipsqueak of a man try to cheat him by downgrading his insurance claim was just too much.
“Look, just look at that wall,” Thor said, stopping in th
e waiting room. His finger pointed out a series of bullet holes that had left little caves in the Sheetrock. “Spackle won’t do much there. That whole section will have to be pulled down and re-Sheetrocked. And paint. Everything will need to be painted. And we’ll need new wall-to-wall carpeting. Even if we could get the stains out, we’d never get rid of that stench.”
The insurance agent continued writing as Thor talked, but he said nothing. Finally, they stood outside Flo Gardner’s office. The desk was splintered in two places, and the wall behind the desk was pockmarked. The carpet around the desk squished beneath their feet.
“That maniac hit a pipe. Ripped it right in half. Flooded the bathroom on the other side of that wall and this room as well. I’m going to need new plumbing. And then there’s the matter of a new tile floor in the bathroom. The water lifted the tiles right off. You never get what you pay for. I spent good money on those tiles, told them to put them on a mud floor. But it’s obvious they didn’t use mud, just some sort of glue. And the water stains on the wall! Look at that wall! All the walls in the bathroom will have to come down. This one too. Once water gets into a wall like that it just disintegrates the Sheetrock.”
Thor guided the agent out of Flo’s office and down the hall, pointing to bloodstains and bullet holes as he went. Then he began inspecting the first of his three operating rooms. His voice went up several decibels. “Look! Just look at my suction machine! Look what that madman did to all my equipment.”
In each succeeding room it was the same. Except the last, where not only was the equipment blown apart, but also the windows and furniture.
“Just look at this. Just look at this mess! This is going to cost me a bundle.”
By this time the agent had stopped writing and just stood with his mouth open. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said with a tremor in his voice.
“It’s bad,” Thor said. “You agree it’s bad?”
“The worst I’ve seen in my twenty years in claims.”
“Then make sure that’s how your report reads. I’m not going to pay for all this. Not after paying those outrageous insurance premiums all these years. You got that?”
“Well…I only survey the damage. It’s not up to me to determine the actual reimbursement. That job belongs to—”
“You just make sure that everything you see is on there.” Thor stabbed the papers on the clipboard with his finger. “Everything. And we’re not leaving here until it is.”
Jim Taylor had not been gone five minutes when Agnes came bustling into Maggie’s office, her face tight.
“Someone here to see you. He won’t give his name either! Is there supposed to be a full moon tonight or something?”
“Another angry parent?”
“No, I don’t think so. But he won’t tell me anything. Insists on speaking only to you.”
Maggie sighed and closed her eyes. “Show him in.” I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. His grace is sufficient.
Within seconds a man with an inordinate amount of blond hair appeared. The hair was so dense and voluminous that it made him appear tall, though he was actually rather short.
Maggie rose from her chair and bent over the desk with her hand extended. The man hesitated, then gave it a limp shake.
“I’m Maggie Singer. How can I help you?”
The man sat down in the only chair by the desk. “My name is…my name…perhaps that can wait. I feel…I mean, I’d like to…to talk first.”
Maggie nodded and watched the stranger pick at his cuticles. “What would you like to talk about?”
The man’s thumbnails turned white as he folded his hands and pressed his thumbs together. “The Solutions massacre.”
Maggie watched the thumbs compress even tighter and worried that they, like a pencil under too much tension, would snap. She couldn’t see his face because he had dropped his head, and his thick blond hair had formed a curtain. Maggie could almost hear the seconds tick noisily away amid the silence. Finally his thumbs relaxed and he looked up.
“You must promise me that when you use the information I’m about to give you, you’ll not implicate me in any way.”
“That’s a difficult—”
“I’m afraid for my life. If they…if the people I work for knew I was talking to you…I have a family. I need to protect them and myself. You understand?”
Maggie sat very still and nodded. “I promise I’ll not implicate you without your permission.”
“They’re selling baby parts…all kinds of parts…all ages. I get POs every day for eyes, kidneys, livers, ears, bones, brains—everything, you name it. They use everything.”
“But that’s illegal.”
“Not if you know how to do it. There are ways around the law.”
Maggie stared in disbelief. “How?”
“It’s like a chain, a chain that on the surface appears very legal.” The man began picking his cuticles again. “First you have a buyer, a researcher from a government agency or a university or a pharmaceutical company. This buyer sends the wholesaler a list of wanted baby parts, then the wholesaler faxes the order to the provider or source, which is the abortion clinic. The wholesaler has installed its techs in the various abortion mills it uses as its providers, and the techs harvest the requested parts.”
Maggie shook her head. “I don’t care what name you put on it—wholesaler, provider, tech—selling aborted babies or their parts is illegal. How are they getting away with it?”
The man smiled wryly. “That’s just it, nobody sells the baby parts. They donate them. The abortion mill donates the parts to the wholesaler, and the wholesaler donates them to the researcher. Money changes hands only as a ‘fee for service.’ The wholesaler pays the abortion mill a site fee for using their premises and for access to the baby parts, and the researcher reimburses the wholesaler for costs incurred for the baby parts’ retrieval.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes. “Who are you? Is this some kind of perverted gag, because if it is I’m calling the police and—”
“No, don’t do that. Please.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “Just look at this and then tell me if I’m playing a sick joke or not.” He flipped the paper onto the desk.
Maggie picked it up and began reading. “Second Chance Foundation, Subsidiary of Total Health Corporation, Fee for Services Schedule. Eyes—eight weeks, (40 percent discount for single eye), $75; ears—eight weeks, $75; bone marrow—eight weeks, $350; spinal cord, $325…” Maggie dropped the paper on the desk. She felt sick to her stomach.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
“A tech for Second Chance Foundation. My name is Adam Bender.”
Maggie fingered the paper in front of her. “May I keep this?”
“Yes, and I can…I’d like to get you more information, purchase orders, invoices, the works. But it’ll take time.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I thought—once I really did believe—I was doing some good. Helping in my small way to maybe find a cure for a disease or something like that. You know what I mean?”
Maggie nodded.
“But now…after seeing how they operate…after seeing it for so long, I can’t anymore. They’re dangerous, these people. The money’s too big, and now you have huge legitimate corporations with their fingers in the pie and it’s…well…it’s become like a runaway train.”
“Forgive my saying this, but that answer sounds a bit too pat. For all I know you could be someone sent here to set me up, make me and the Life Center look foolish. This is pretty explosive stuff. Why should I believe you’re willing to risk your career and your life simply because, according to your own words, you’ve had some “change of heart”? I’m sorry, Mr. Bender, but I don’t buy it.”
Adam Bender began picking his cuticles then pressed his thumbs together. “Once, at the Brockston clinic, I saw Dr. Newly kill a baby. It was horrible. Have you ever heard the term ‘dreaded complication’?”
> Maggie nodded.
“Well, Dr. Newly had one…a dreaded complication. It was after that that I found out what a loose cannon he really was and that he was a real problem…a real problem for the clinic. All the staff said so, and he had at least one or two lawsuits pending against him and at least two pending against the clinic as a direct result of his unethical behavior. They say he actually carved his initials into the abdomen of a girl he did an abortion on. Can you believe that?”
“What does this have to do with—”
“Dr. Emerson was trying to get rid of him. He’d been trying for a while, but I think there was a problem because no matter how many times Dr. Emerson promised Flo—Florence Gardner, she was the office manager at the clinic—he never actually did it. Not until the massacre.”
“What does that have to do with Dr. Emerson?”
“Don’t you see? The massacre was the perfect solution to Dr. Emerson’s problem with Newly.”
“You can’t be suggesting that Dr. Emerson had anything to do with that?” Maggie stared at the anxious man. “You are suggesting it.”
Adam didn’t flinch. His eyelids didn’t even flutter. His blue eyes just stared sadly back at the woman across the desk.
“But why? Why would you think such a thing?”
“Because he worked it with my boss that I wouldn’t be at the clinic. He made sure I’d be somewhere else. After the ‘dreaded complication’ I was pretty upset, and I let my boss know it. I couldn’t, wouldn’t be party to that sort of thing. Dr. Emerson suggested that I work at one of his other clinics for a while, until he could take care of the situation. Well, he took care of it, all right.”
Maggie shook her head. “For that to be true, Dr. Emerson would’ve had to talk Canon Edwards into doing this for him, and I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because Canon would never do anything for Dr. Emerson. It was Emerson’s botched abortion that killed Canon’s wife.”
“I didn’t know that.” Adam shrugged. “It just seemed strange to me, that’s all—too much of a coincidence. Maybe I’m wrong. But…I don’t think so.”
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