by John Lutz
“I’m sorry about Miss Jackson,” Benedict said. “How is she?”
Not “your wife.” The doctor was up on things.
Carver told him Beth was doing very well but was still depressed over the loss of their child.
“It will take time for her to assimilate that,” Benedict said in his soft, soothing voice. “If you help her, she’ll heal from the loss.” He smiled in a way that made Carver like him. “Perhaps someday there’ll be another pregnancy.”
“The last one wasn’t deliberate,” Carver said.
“I see. Most pregnancy’s aren’t, you know.” Again the smile. “That’s what keeps me in business.”
“I understand you and Dr. Grimm alternated days at the clinic.”
Benedict frowned at the mention of his dead partner’s name and nodded. “Yes, with only Sundays off. Of course, both of us were always on call.” He shrugged. “That’s the life of a doctor. Complications and special circumstances don’t follow the calendar.”
“So it’s possible that Dr. Grimm was the bomber’s target.”
“If either of us was,” Dr. Benedict said, “I suppose it was Harold. More likely it was a symbolic act and the bomber didn’t have a specific victim in mind.” He took a deep breath. There was a change of light in his eyes, and Carver was surprised to glimpse the depth of anger in this amiable-looking man. “The religious right hates us. The bombing was simply an act of hate and desperation.”
“Desperation?”
“Yes, because we’ve won the war and they don’t want to surrender. The law is on our side and will continue to be, and they can’t face that. They simply won’t accept or can’t grasp the fact that the courts and public opinion aren’t in line with their own extreme beliefs. There isn’t much left for them other than to wave signs and shout and throw bombs. You wouldn’t believe the things they put us—and the women who come to us—through. Often the women they scream at and frighten aren’t even coming to the clinic for an abortion. We do other medical procedures there. But that doesn’t matter to the maniacs in the street. They act out of ignorance.”
“You sound more angry than frightened.”
“Well, I suppose I am. I happen to believe in women’s reproductive rights as strongly as the shouters and haters believe in their own warped concept of religious responsibilities. Maybe even more strongly.”
“I was surprised,” Carver said, “that you had a listed phone number. You aren’t difficult to find, Doctor,”
“I don’t want to be. Once you give in to the kind of terrorism our opponents practice, you’ve lost. I receive threats regularly, as does my wife. We’re used to it. I’ll continue my work regardless of what the anti-choicers do, because my work is important—essential.”
“Does your wife feel the same way?”
Leona, who had returned to the room and was seated at the far end of the low white sofa, said simply, “Most days.”
It was obvious to Carver that the Reverend Martin Freel had run into an opponent whose zealotry might match his own. A great deal of animosity had to exist here. He wondered if it was possible that Benedict had been the target of the bombing.
“Was Dr. Grimm as . . . enthusiastic about his work as you are?” Carver asked.
“He was dedicated enough,” Benedict said. He paced a few steps this way and that, frowning. Then he stopped pacing and punched a fist into his palm. “Damn it! The clinic was doing good work, helping people. Then this madman’s act of violence. It’s a tragedy for so many people, Mr. Carver.”
“But it won’t stop us,” Leona Benedict said in a flat voice from the end of the sofa. She didn’t sound nearly as enthusiastic as her husband.
Carver turned toward her. “After what happened at the clinic, are you afraid?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted.
“This place isn’t as vulnerable as it appears,” Benedict said. “There’s an excellent alarm system, and the glass is double-thick and shatterproof.” He sounded more like a general, boasting about the strength of his position, than a doctor describing his suburban home.
“Bulletproof too?”
“No.”
“At night we draw the drapes,” Leona said.
“The danger’s lessened for the time being,” Benedict said. “The bomber’s in custody, and Operation Alive is under scrutiny and pulling in its horns, on the defensive for a change.”
“They wouldn’t appreciate you describing them with horns,” Leona said.
“Then you’re sure Norton’s guilty,” Carver said.
Dr. Benedict stared at him. “Of course he’s guilty. He was spurred on by that maniac Freel and his Operation Alive’s outright lies and statistical distortions. The anonymous threats have increased since the bombing, but right now I think that’s all they are—threats.”
“Then you assume the source of these threats is Operation Alive?”
“That’s where most of them come from, I’m sure. Of course there are plenty of stray extremists, but generally the ones who give us trouble are members of organizations.”
“I understand you’re keeping patients’ appointments and performing abortions at A. A. Aal Memorial.”
“Yes, though I don’t advertise it, for the hospital’s sake. I’m sure Operation Alive knows about it, though. I don’t care. In fact, I want them to know about it. I want them to know that no matter what they do, I’ll continue my work.”
A phone began to chirp well back in the bowels of the house. Leona stood up and excused herself, then hurried away to answer it. The chirping stopped.
She returned a minute later carrying a white cordless phone with a stubby flexible antenna.
Dr. Benedict knew it was for him. He shrugged and accepted the phone from her, then said hello into it and wandered off down the hall and out of earshot.
“Your husband’s a dedicated man,” Carver said to Leona.
“He’s an idealist,” she said. “He believes in what he’s doing, and so do I.”
“But you’re not an idealist, are you?”
“Not like my husband is. Few people are.”
“Martin Freel, maybe.”
“Martin Freel definitely,” she said. “In a way, Freel is very much the personification of what Louis hates: smug self-righteousness, intolerance, a willingness to sacrifice other people for your cause and personal aggrandizement.”
“Do you think Freel sacrificed Adam Norton for his cause?”
“Probably. My guess is that Operation Alive is behind the clinic bombing, but it will be almost impossible to prove. Norton will be tried and convicted unless that sleazeball lawyer Jefferson Brama can get him off on some sort of technicality. But I’m not sure it really matters in the long run. Some other certain and wrong true believer will make another bomb and set it off where it will kill someone. This thing seems never to end.”
“It will someday.”
“How?”
“A pill, maybe. A morning-after pill that makes whether a woman chooses abortion her personal and private decision.”
“The French RU-486 pill?”
“Or something like it.”
“God, how I look forward to that day!” Leona said. She glanced around as if to make sure Benedict wouldn’t overhear. “I do understand the other side’s point of view. I mean, how some people, because of honest religious convictions, can’t condone abortions. But that’s quite different from the kind of things Freel believes and says and does.”
Carver knew what she meant, even agreed with her, but he said, “How so?”
Her arched eyebrows rose higher and she looked particularly surprised that he would have to ask. “Why, taking a life is just that—taking a life. If you don’t believe in it, you don’t do it. Freel says he believes in love and tolerance and life, but he preaches the opposite and urges his followers to commit acts of violence that can result in people’s deaths.”
“Do you consider him a phony out for fame and fortune? A con man?”
“No. He’s a madman. And a dangerous one.”
Benedict had disappeared and might be involved in his phone conversation for quite a while, so Carver told her to thank the doctor for his time, then said good-bye and left.
Leona Benedict stood in the doorway with her arms hanging limply at her sides and watched him drive away.
Despite the fact that the low brick house was exposed on the wide lawn and had a great deal of glass area, it reminded Carver of a military bunker.
He stopped by his office to check his mail and phone messages. The mail contained no checks, and not much of interest except for an advertisement for a sport jacket with a dozen hidden pickpocket-proof pockets. Carver had once owned a jacket with a lot of hidden pockets, though not a dozen, and found it a damned inconvenience. He never could remember which one held whatever it was he needed. Still, he’d never fallen victim to a pickpocket.
He put the mail aside and pressed the play button on his answering machine to check the two messages that had been left for him.
Beep: “This is McGregor, fuckface, call me and report whatever it is you’ve been doing.”
Carver decided to ignore that one.
Beep: “ ‘Never imagine I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.’ ” A man’s voice, so it couldn’t have been Mildred Otten quoting scripture at him again. “You are tolerating that Jezebel of a woman,” the voice went on. “I have given her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual vice. ‘Lo, I will lay her on a sickbed and bring her paramours into sore distress if they do not repent of her practices.’ ”
Carver waited. Whoever had left the message didn’t hang up right away. He could hear deep, even breathing until the tape reached its limit and the machine clicked and rewound.
He erased the message, then sat back and thought about the last one. The Jezebel who lay on her sickbed would be Beth. He supposed that if Beth were a Jezebel—and he sometimes thought she was, and enjoyed it—then he, Carver, would qualify as her paramour. Was in fact glad to be her paramour. Though he didn’t like the prospect of “sore distress” for either of them.
He locked the office behind him, then limped out to the parking lot and lowered himself into the Olds. After propping his cane in its usual position against the front seat, he started the engine and drove toward A. A. Aal Memorial Hospital. Paramour or not, he’d had enough sore distress in his life.
And so had Jezebel.
15
BETH WAS SITTING UP in bed with a green hospital tray across her lap. On the tray were rust-colored Jell-O, brown bread, and a substance resembling beef stew. The pungent scent of the stew chased away the usual medicinal scent in the room. There was also a small container of frozen yogurt on the tray, alongside a glass of ice water. Cooking for the sick was an art no one seemed to have mastered.
“Where’s Officer Lapella?” Carver asked as he entered the room.
She fixed him with a stare that made him think she was indeed improving. “I told her to go eat lunch in the cafeteria. I appreciate her company, but I don’t want the woman living with me.”
“She can’t guard you from the cafeteria.”
“Can’t do me much good if she’s starved to death, either. Besides, I can take care of myself for half an hour, don’t you think?”
“No.” He’d spoken more sharply than he’d intended.
“Ease up, Fred.” She studied him. “Has something happened?”
He told her about his conversation with Dr. Benedict and Leona and about the biblical message waiting for him on his office answering machine.
“Revelation,” she said, and forked some beef stew into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed. “And I think the first part, about the sword, was from Matthew.”
Carver was astounded. “How can you know this?”
She took a sip of water and placed the glass back on the tray. “I grew up on the Bible. Had an aunt who’d been married to a preacher man. She could almost recite the entire book of Esther. That’s the one where Queen Vashti gets replaced for refusing to obey the king, who then takes up with the more beautiful Esther. Preacher man left my aunt for a younger woman, and she never forgot.”
“The point is,” Carver said, “this is a threat directed toward you.
She paused with another bite of stew halfway to her mouth. “You saying I’m the Jezebel in the phone message, Fred?”
“Er, yeah. I mean, it isn’t me saying it, it’s the caller. And my guess is he’s the straight-arrow overgrown WASP who walked into your room and then left when he saw a nurse was with you. Who knows what he might have done if that nurse hadn’t been here?”
“Jezebel, huh.” She seemed less angry now, maybe even oddly flattered.
“We’re living in sin in the eyes of this nut case, and he probably thinks you were entering Women’s Light to have an abortion or to make arrangements for one—another sin. In fact, it’s the sin du jour. Then of course there’s the fact that I’m white and you’re black. That causes problems among some of the folks who perceive only one path to heaven.”
She grinned at him. “Never thought of myself as so bad. Hmmm, Jezebel.”
“What it all means,” Carver said, “is that for whatever reason, the oversized, overdressed WASP is out to make you pay what he calls the wages of sin.”
“That’s death, Fred, ‘The wages of sin is death.’ That’s Romans.” She didn’t seem so amused now.
Carver felt as if he should be struck dead himself. “I’m sorry . . . I forgot that. I got carried away. I’m not a Bible scholar.”
“You really think that big creep is out to do something to me?”
“Haven’t you suspected he was going to try something?”
“Yes, but only suspected.”
“I don’t know it for sure,” Carver said, “but if he is, I think his object is to place you in danger in order to keep me from investigating the Women’s Light bombing. It only makes sense that way.”
“A certain kind of sense,” she admitted. Fear moved in her dark eyes and she looked away quickly, aware that he’d noticed it.
He didn’t like to see her frightened, even a little bit. But at least she wasn’t brooding about the baby if she was afraid, on her guard.
“Lapella can’t stay with me every minute,” she said.
“When she’s not here, I’ll stay.”
“Not a chance, Fred. Have you considered that might be exactly what the caller wants? You stuck in a hospital room reading old magazines instead of out doing what you set out to do?”
It was possible. He didn’t answer.
“I think I should go home,” she said.
He shook his head. “You need to be in here. There’s no way you could have recovered yet from what happened. Have you forgotten you were hurt in an explosion?”
“Hardly. What you need to remember is I survived. Now I want to be back in the outside world. I want to know what’s going on, and to be a part of it.”
“I come here,” Carver said, not liking at all where the conversation was going. “I tell you what’s going on, just as I promised. You’re a part of everything I do, every minute of every day.”
“Not the same thing, Fred,” she told him, unimpressed by his calculated romantic drivel.
She was determined. He was sorry to see it, but he was buoyed by the fact that her spirit had returned full force even if her body was still ailing.
“I’ll talk to Dr. Galt,” he said. “We’ll see what he thinks of the idea.”
She nodded. “Fair enough.” She pried the lid off the little paper container and began to eat yogurt with a white plastic spoon. “You want some of this stuff?” She motioned toward what was left on the tray: part of the ersatz stew, most of the rust-colored Jell-O, and the brown bread, which she hadn’t touched.
“I’ll get something in the cafeteria,” he said, “after I tell the nurses to watch for our WASP friend, then make sure Lapella is on her way back
up to your room.”
“She’s been here since seven-thirty this morning, Fred. She needs a break.”
“She’s getting paid to do a job,” Carver said, a little angry that Lapella, after all her big talk about being more effective and responsible than McGregor gave her credit for, was sitting down in the cafeteria while anyone could walk into Beth’s room.
“Go easy on her, Fred. She’s all right. Her only flaws are she needs to eat and sleep. I haven’t even noticed her leaving to go to the bathroom.”
“Two F’s and an A,” Carver said, irritated.
He could read the look in Beth’s eye. She saw how he was and had given up on trying to calm him. He was on his own and could live with the consequences. Sometimes she was too much like a mother to him.
Only sometimes.
He went to the bed and leaned over and kissed her lips, still cold from the last bite of frozen yogurt.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll make sure she comes back up to your room, though, so one of us is here. And I’ll try to find Dr. Galt and talk to him about you leaving. You might be safer back at the cottage anyway.”
“I can work there better, that’s for sure.”
“Don’t do anything without me,” he said, moving toward the door.
“Never, Xerxes.”
“Who’s that?”
“Damned fool that got rid of Queen Vashti, book of Esther.”
He nodded and left the room.
At the nurses’ station down the hall, he described the WASP to the head nurse and asked her to call security immediately if the man appeared on this floor. Then he walked toward the elevators at the other end of the hall.