Prophet

by Frank Peretti

  “So . . . you did get another job okay?” Leslie asked.

  “At a Catholic hospital. I won’t say it’s heaven on earth, but at least abortion isn’t an issue we have to grapple with.”

  Leslie had a thought and muttered to herself, “Catholic. A Catholic school . . .”

  “Hm?”

  Deanne took a notepad from her handbag. “Could I have that doctor’s name again?”

  Denning spelled it out for her. “H-u-r-o-n-a-c. Michael. It’s none of my business, but might you be considering some litigation?”

  “We really don’t know yet.”

  “Well . . . I might be able to help you out if it ever comes to that.”

  That really got Deanne’s attention, and Leslie’s.

  “Really?”

  “Did you happen to bring a legal request of some kind?”

  Deanne hurriedly dug through her handbag and produced an envelope from Hart, McLoughlin, Peters, and Sanborn. “Here . . . I’m the personal representative of my daughter’s estate, and as such I have legal power to request her medical records . . .”

  Denning rose from the couch and took it from her. He opened the envelope, scanned the letter inside, and said, “Great. This protects my rear. I didn’t leak it to you, you asked for it legally. I’ll be right back.”

  He left the room for a short moment while Barbara, Leslie, and Deanne refilled their coffee cups. When he returned, he held out a thick, white envelope.

  Deanne stood and reached out to receive it. Leslie stood too. Such a moment you could not take casually. This was a treasure, the end of a quest.

  As Deanne opened the envelope to look at the contents, Denning briefly explained, “It’s all there—all the findings. I can explain any of it that you don’t understand, but the bottom line you already know. The abortion was hurried and sloppy, there were parts of the fetus and placenta still left inside and festering, the uterus was perforated, and the infection had spread generally throughout Annie’s system. So the primary cause of death was generalized septicemia, which is bacterial infection of the bloodstream, and the secondary cause was septic abortion, something for which the abortionist is responsible, in my opinion.”

  Deanne asked, “And . . . are you saying you’d be willing to testify to this in court?”

  Denning did not answer lightly. “Yes, I would. My employment situation is not quite as shaky now, but even if it was . . . it felt so good to be honest that one time that I’m ready to try it again.”

  Deanne wanted to hug him, but restrained herself. “That . . . that would just be so wonderful!”

  “But do you have any way to prove which clinic is responsible? I’m willing to bet it was the Women’s Medical Center and Dr. Huronac, but I have no way of knowing that for sure.”

  “We’ll work on it,” said Leslie.

  “And . . . I suppose you’d like something on-camera?”

  Leslie was surprised, not really expecting the offer. “Well, like I said, that’s secondary to just getting the truth for the Brewers.”

  Denning just gave a what-the-heck shrug. “If you can use it . . . sometime, who knows when, fine. But we’ll have to do it soon. Barbara and I will be moving.”

  “Well, let’s set a time then.”

  “Good enough.”

  Deanne just kept gazing at that autopsy report, in their hands at long last, the first solid evidence to prove what happened to Annie Delores Brewer.

  MAX BREWER, a scowl on his face, his wife, Deanne, by his side, received the thick white envelope from John Barrett, his son Carl, and Leslie Albright as they all stood in the Brewers’ living room. It was like a little ceremony, the presentation of a peace offering. Hopefully it would result in John and Leslie being able to stick around for a while instead of being thrown out.

  Max opened the envelope, pulled out the autopsy report, and took the time to flip through every page, the scowl never leaving his face until . . . as he looked upon the last two pages, realizing it was all there, and reading once again what it contained, the scowl melted into tears and he started sniffing, holding Deanne close.

  John had said it before, but now, seeing Max soften so, he tried saying it again. “Max, we never intended for the story to get twisted around like it did. We’re on your side, and we sincerely apologize for the grief we may have caused you.” Max said nothing, but their eyes were on each other, and Max was listening. “This whole thing has been a moral struggle for me, and I know I’m still not finished, but for whatever it’s worth, it was no fun having to anchor that story the way it came out. I hope I never find myself in that kind of predicament again. I’m sorry, Max.”

  Max looked at Deanne and then at the autopsy report and then muttered, “Aw, I guess there ain’t that much harm been done.” Then he glared at John with that look John had come to recognize—eyes of fire, heart of gold. “We’ll see. You mess with me again, I might get mad. But we’ll see.”

  John smiled and offered his hand. Max took it, and they were friends again.

  “There’s more,” said John as Carl set up a cassette player on the dining room table.

  MIDWESTERN UNIVERSITY. Ted Canan stood on the steps overlooking the Quad Plaza at the center of the campus and took it all in. Yeah, Willy said it would be a big place, and he was right. Lots of fancy redbrick buildings, close-mowed lawns, brick sidewalks, ivy, shade trees, noontime carillon bells, sweet-looking chicks swivel-hipping their way across campus. Mmmmmm-hm!

  I should have gone to college, he thought to himself. Think of how things would have turned out. I could’ve been a rocket scientist or something. Oh well. How many of these kids have control like me? I got control. I call the shots. I make the moves I want to make. And I get paid to do it!

  He looked himself over, wondering if he would blend in very well. Not really. He was big, which was fine, but he was a little older than all these spring chickens, and the tattoos on his arms made him look more like a street thug than a rocket-scientist-to-be. What about the black, greasy hair? Well, he was seeing all kinds of hair walk by, so that was no problem. But he’d get some better duds right away, something clean and maybe natural-looking. He didn’t want anyone to think he’d hurt them.

  He pulled out a map of the campus Willy had gotten from some big wheel in the state government and checked again for the location of Clark Hall, one of the girls’ dorms. Yeah, there it was. He’d go check it out. He was hoping there’d be some trees around that place somewhere, some dark areas, some bushes or something. That would make his job easier.

  “AND DID YOU say she’s bleeding?”

  “Yes, and it won’t stop!”

  “Where is the blood coming from?”

  Max and Deanne sat at their dining room table, listening intently to the brief tape recording John, Carl, and Leslie had become thoroughly familiar with.

  “Where is the blood coming from?” asked the dispatcher. “Where is the wound?”

  “She had an abortion,” came the voice of Shannon DuPliese.

  Max mouthed a cussword, not out of anger, but out of horror, resting on his elbow, his head only inches from the cassette player’s speaker.

  “District Twelve, Rescue 231, Medic 231, vaginal bleed, the governor’s residence, 1527 Roanoke . . .”

  John, Carl, and Leslie sat with the Brewers at the table, not saying a word, just letting the tape speak for itself.

  The dispatcher’s voice: “Hello? Are you there?”

  A man’s voice, desperate, urgent: “Who is this? I need the phone—”

  “Sir, this is District Twelve Fire Emergency. We have dispatched Medic One and an aid unit to the governor’s residence. Who are you, sir?”

  “I’m Governor Slater! It’s my daughter!”

  “Is she conscious, sir?”

  “No, no, I don’t believe so.”

  “Is she breathing normally?”

  The governor called off the phone, “Is she breathing? Ashley! Is she breathing?” A woman screamed somethin
g in the background. The governor came back on the phone. “She’s breathing, but we don’t think she’s conscious.”

  “Does it sound like she’s breathing normally?”

  “No. No, she’s gasping . . . it’s very labored breathing.”

  “Would you like to do CPR? I can help you.”

  “Yes! I just need to—”

  The woman shouted something. There were thumping sounds, doors opening, footsteps, voices.

  “Oh, they’re here! Thank God!”

  The tape ran a few more seconds as the aid crew arrived and then went silent. John hit the Stop button.

  Max remained frozen by the speaker for a moment, as if hypnotized by what he’d heard. Deanne had grabbed his hand at some point during the tape, and now her hand was locked there. It took both of them several seconds to relax, to turn from stone to flesh again and ease back from the speakers. Max even took some extra breaths to make up for those he’d lost during the playing of the tape.

  “O God Almighty!” said Max.

  “O Jesus,” Deanne prayed, “what’s become of us?”

  Max asked Leslie, “What was it Denning said? That there were others besides Annie?”

  Leslie nodded. “I guess Hillary Slater would fall into that category.”

  John added, “And I think Dad knew that both deaths occurred in the same clinic, the Women’s Medical Center. That’s what he was setting out to prove.”

  “Well, he even knew about Hillary Slater’s death before he got this tape,” said Carl. “He went down and bought a copy of her death certificate just a few days after she died, and he wrote to the governor about it too, right about that same time. He was onto something, and the governor knew it.”

  “And now he’s dead,” said Max. “Is that what I told you? Huh?”

  “Well, there’s still a lot we just plain don’t know,” said John. “We have hunches, sure, but we don’t have any solid connection between Dad, the tape, and whoever killed him.”

  “We’ll find ’em . . . or they’ll find us, either way.” Max’s words had a sobering effect on them all.

  Leslie offered, “Well, we may be in the dark about what happened to Dad Barrett, but as far as what happened to Annie and to Hillary Slater, I think we’re close. It all hinges on two key witnesses who can link the two girls’ deaths at the same clinic. One is that girl who calls herself ‘Mary,’ the one we talked to at the Human Life Services Center, and the other . . .” She gestured toward the cassette player. “. . . is Shannon DuPliese. And, Deanne, you’re the one who will have to talk to them. You’ve been through it. You can relate to these girls.”

  “And you’re not the press,” said John. “You’re a mother, just a plain and simple, totally real person with a real concern.”

  “Well . . .” Deanne felt complimented but didn’t know what to say.

  John explained, “We’ve got to handle this thing on a real level—person-to-person and not person-to-media machine. If a news story comes of it later, fine, but . . . I’ve lost my father, and you’ve lost your daughter, and maybe a lot of other folks have lost someone because of . . . whatever this is . . . and I’d just as soon approach it on that level alone.”

  Carl spoke up. “Dad, would it be accurate to say we’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do?”

  John smiled at his son. “Yeah, and that should be reason enough. Whether this ever gets two minutes on the 5 o’clock news is secondary and maybe doesn’t even matter. It’s still something we have to do.”

  Max nodded. “Yeah, I do feel better about that.”

  Deanne asked, “So what should I do?”

  Leslie answered, “Call Shannon DuPliese. It’s too late now, she’s two hours later than we are here, but maybe tomorrow night . . .”

  “But what do I say to her?”

  “Just tell her the Truth,” said John, “and then ask her if she’ll be truthful with you.”

  CHAPTER 26

  AS THE PUBLIC WATCHED:

  Video: The majestic mountains and tall timber. A bald eagle soars above the peaks. Some elk graze lazily in a green meadow among colorful wildflowers as a breeze rustles the grass. A whale breaks the surface of the sea, spouting and slapping his tail on the surface with a violent, white-watered splash.

  Voice over drum and flute music: “The Native Americans say the Earth is our Mother. Perhaps they are right. As human creatures, we share the Earth with all of nature, from the trees to the birds, from herds of deer to schools of spouting whales. For all of us, the Earth is home.” On a high mountain ridge, walking along a trail with jagged, snowcapped peaks in the background, a durable, handsome young man approaches the camera, walking stick in his hand, coat over his shoulder. At the bottom of the screen appear the words, “Eddie Kingland, star of the TV show Love Thy Neighbor.” Eddie looks sincerely into the camera and continues, the mountain breeze making his hair wave and play about his backlit head. “I’ve devoted much of my time to the protection of our precious natural resources because, as we should realize, we and the Earth will all live, or all die, together, and our children’s fate, their world, is in our hands to form now. That’s why I’m happy to give my support to the man who has served your state—and the Earth—with care, respect, and vision. Hiram Slater loves the Earth he came from and knows how much he owes her. If you love the Earth, you owe Hiram Slater your vote.”

  Cut to an eagle flying against a burning, sunset sky. As it floats on the wind, the words appear below it: “Hiram Slater: the New Dawn Lives On.

  “Paid for by the Committee to Reelect Governor Slater, Wilma Benthoff, Chairperson.”

  THE NEWSSIX LOGO appears on the screen, along with the words in gentle, flowing script, “A Window on Life,” as a piano plays softly, soothingly.

  John Barrett appears in a living room setting, dressed casually, sitting in a comfortable chair, his weight forward, talking to someone off-camera. “I often feel a special closeness to the people we report on because when a story breaks real people are involved, and when our cameras enter their world it’s like opening a window through which we can share their experience—their joy or pain or hope . . . well, just anything and everything that makes us human. No other medium can bring us that close.” He reflects a moment, then smiles at a moving thought. “You know, I see life through the eyes of new people every evening, and . . . it sure can expand your way of looking at things.”

  The screen goes to soft white as the words appear in gentle, flowing script—“NewsSix. We’ll Be There.”

  The little portable television in Dad’s shop sat cold, silent, and dead, its eye blank and staring into the room with nothing to say, no message to bring, and no one watching.

  But the room was filled with warmth and joy anyway as John and Carl began to cover the little rowboat’s ribbing with marine plywood. They talked as they worked, sometimes on big issues, sometimes on the foolish things, often laughing, sometimes even arguing, but they talked and worked together the whole morning.

  LATER THAT EVENING John sat at his computer in the bustling NewsSix newsroom, trying to get the script ready for the Seven O’clock. Even though some of the stories seemed wordy and too long, he decided they would just have to do—he couldn’t concentrate enough to bother with them any longer. He was thinking about the Brewers and wondering how things were going.

  Carl was working on the rowboat at the time, and as long as he had to line up the seams and seal them just so, his mind was on that task. But as soon as the plywood was in place and he’d set the bar clamp to hold it, his mind went to the Brewers. Come on, Deanne, make us all proud of you!

  IT WAS JUST after dinnertime at the Brewers’. Deanne and the kids had all hustled to get the dinner dishes washed and put away, and now the house was settling down to a relative quiet. Deanne took her place in Max’s easy chair, the telephone on the stand right beside her. Leslie had already given Deanne the phone number, along with Leslie’s calling card number for charging the call, and Deann
e had them scribbled at the top of a sheet of notes she’d made.

  “Still don’t know what I’m going to say,” she said with a bewildered shake of her head.

  “Don’t worry, babe,” said Max. “You’re Annie’s mom. You just remember that, and the words’ll come.”

  “I know John and Carl and Mrs. Barrett are all praying for you,” said Leslie. Then she added, “And so am I.”

  “O Jesus,” Deanne prayed, looking toward Heaven, “I’m praying too. Help me do it right.”

  She picked up the receiver and started dialing the number. “Now watch her not be there . . .” A recording asked her to enter the calling card number, and she did, consulting the number at the top of her notes.

  A short pause.

  “It’s ringing,” she reported.

  Click. “Hello?”

  Okay, Deanne told herself. It’s all yours now. “Hi, is this Shannon?”

  “No, this is her roommate Olivia.”

  “Oh, is Shannon there please?”

  “Just a minute.” Then away from the phone, “Shannon, it’s for you.”

  Deanne looked at Max and Leslie, and they just looked back at her, their faces full of support.

  “Hello?” came another voice.

  “Hello . . . Shannon?”

  “This is she.”

  “Shannon . . . my name is Deanne Brewer. I’m a mother, I’ve got four kids . . . Well, I had four kids, now it’s just three . . .” Deanne hesitated, much as a novice skydiver would do at the door of the airplane before jumping. “Shannon . . . I know you don’t know me, but . . .” There was nothing left to say but the Truth. Deanne looked toward Heaven even as she spoke the words. “Shannon, I used to have four kids, but my oldest, Annie, who was seventeen, died from an abortion she got at the Women’s Medical Center, that abortion place down on Kingsley Avenue. And I . . .” Deanne’s hands were shaking, and her voice was beginning to quiver. “Well, Annie died in May. May 24th. And I don’t mean to . . . Are you still there?”