The California Coven Project

by Bob Stickgold

  “Look, if you do what you think is best, you’ll be as close to the right solution as you need be. When things have calmed down, or when the link between us has been blown open in public, I’ll call you back. It won’t be all that long. Good-bye.”

  Maggie listened silently as first Beckie and then Carol hung up. As Maggie hung up her own phone, Carol rushed into the study, “Mom, we can do it. I know we can. Because, you do have a cure for cancer! In the end, we just can’t lose. We can’t!”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THE next day, the N.M.A. press release appeared. It cheered Maggie up some, but at the same time, seemed a last, surreptitious message of support from Beckie, so she felt the loss even more.

  She was confused by her emotions; surprised by the extent of her depression over losing access to her closest friend. But she didn’t have much time to think about it. She had called a meeting of the Coven for noon, and the members were, for the most part, either scared or confused, though one or two seemed excited by what lay ahead. It was going to be a hard meeting.

  Carol had spent most of the morning getting the records into shape. The master disk files, which she had transferred from the members’ handwritten records, had been stacked in piles on Maggie’s desk and on a table under the window, and Carol was organizing them and placing them in cardboard boxes. She had muttered something unintelligible when Maggie asked what she was doing. Finally, apparently finished, Carol had returned to her room.

  Maggie glanced at the clock on her wall. A quarter of twelve. She left her room, and walked to Carol’s, where she found her daughter sitting on a large, overflowing suitcase, struggling to close the catches. With a final bounce, she snapped the last one shut. Looking up, she saw Maggie and jumped. Oh, hi, Mom.”

  “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Just closing up this suitcase.”

  “I know that, but what’s in it?”

  She looked down at her feet. “Just some stuff. That’s all.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m packing a suitcase!” Carol shouted.

  “But why?”

  “So I can get out of here fast. And you should pack one, too. Why do you think I’ve been organizing our records for the last three hours?”

  “So we can take them, too?” Maggie asked incredulously.

  “No. So we can get them out of here today.” She still stared into Maggie’s eyes, but it was clearly an effort. “Otherwise, if they do bust us, the records get taken as evidence, and then we don’t have our data anymore—and that’s the only proof we have of what we’ve done. They always take everything as evidence. We’d probably never see the stuff again.”

  Maggie looked at the suitcase, then at Carol. Smiling, she shook her head. “All right,” she said. “After the meeting, We pack me a suitcase, and find us a place to stash it.”

  The meeting concluded by three, and Maggie was exhausted. Everyone agreed with Beckie’s suggestions: the six apprentices would train to prepare the potion; the pharmacists would be apprenticed; new apprentices would be sought. The only new suggestion concerned communicating with Carol and Maggie for data recording and collating. Ten women had started treatment just Monday, and more were to begin the following week. But for the future, it was agreed that each member was to find her own patients, and drastically reduce communications between Coven members.

  The members left on a cheerful note. Twenty-one successes had been logged, with possibly ten more in the works, and the midwives knew that they possessed a cure for cancer. As the meeting broke up, Amy quoted the witches of Macbeth, “When shall we three meet again?”

  Maggie sat on her bedroom floor, packing, while Carol watched from the bed. “There’s an unreal quality about this,” Maggie commented. “It’s like when I packed a suitcase for the hospital when you were born, having no idea when I’d use it. But at least then I was sure that I’d need it sooner or later.”

  “I felt like I was running away from home,” Carol said, “because I didn’t have any idea where I was planning to go or how long I was going to stay or anything like that. It’s scary and exciting at the same time.”

  Maggie stared at her suitcase. “I don’t even know what I’m packing for. A weekend? A month? A lifetime?” She knelt on the suitcase to force it shut. “I feel like I’m packing to emigrate to the Moon.”

  “Would they really lock us up in jail, Mom? I mean in those horrifying places that you read about all the time, where people keep dying because they won’t let them see a doctor, and stuff like that?”

  Maggie sat beside her. “Well, if they even arrest us, I suspect that we’d be out on bail the same day. I think it would be a celebrity arrest, with enough press coverage to prevent any serious problems. Like everywhere else, it’s mostly the poor and minorities who get the worst treatment in the prisons.” She reached an arm around Carol, and pulled her closer. “But that doesn’t mean that the prospect isn’t scary for me, too. They do have almost total power over you when you’re in jail, even if they don’t always exercise it, and it’s not something we would find easy to deal with.”

  Carol sat silently under Maggie’s protective arm. Then, after a minute, she sat up straight and said, “Well, we should decide where to move our suitcases and records to, just in case.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, Maggie withdrew her arm. Turning sideways, she asked, “Have any ideas?”

  “What about Amy?”

  “No good. They’d be too likely to be watching her by the time they get around to busting us. it needs to be someone not connected with the N.M.A.”

  “But who else can we trust, Mom? They’re the only ones who are one-hundred-percent trustworthy.”

  “But that’s exactly why we can’t use them, Carol—the police would know them, it has to be someone who isn’t so obvious. I know! Judy Feldman, in Palo Alto. We hardly ever see her anymore, but I trust her. And she’s moved since we were last there. So her neighbors won’t even know that she knows us. I bet she’d be willing to hide us for a while.” Maggie stood and walked into her study, returning a moment later with her phone book. “I’m sure I have her new number—yes, here it is.” She picked up bet phone and slipped in the card with Judy’s number on it.

  Suddenly, Carol grabbed the phone and pushed down the button, disconnecting the call. “Shouldn’t we use a pay phone?”

  Maggie frowned. “I don’t see why we’d have to worry about our phone.”

  “But everyone saw you at the hearings with Beckie. You even went out with her afterward. And maybe they traced her call even though it was from a pay phone.”

  With a sigh, Maggie gave in. “You win. Let’s get some change.”

  A half-hour later they were on the road to Palo Alto. Judy had agreed to stash their belongings and offered to discuss their staying at her house. So with their records and two suitcases, they drove aimlessly about Santa Cruz, then headed to Palo Alto.

  After some time, Carol asked, “Do you think someone might be following us?” She kept peering through the rear window.

  “I doubt it. I’ve been watching closely. I once read an FBI agent’s statement that a tail can be good or invisible, but not both. I don’t think anyone’s back there.”

  It was late when Maggie finally pulled in at the modest house Judy shared with her two daughters. Number 207 stood at the end of a cul-de-sac in a standard California subdivision. As the car rolled into Judy’s driveway, she came out to meet them. “Everything okay?” she asked, somewhat apprehensively. Maggie nodded affirmatively, and Judy relaxed visibly. She reached for one of the suitcases in the back seat. “Let me help you with these.”

  While Carol carried the second suitcase into the house, Maggie opened the trunk. It was filled with cartons of papers, all the reports and records of their cancer treatments. She began to ferry them in.

  It was evening before they reached home. Judy had enthusiastically offered them the use of her home if they had to hide, and promised to
relocate the files elsewhere, just in case they could be traced to Palo Alto. Maggie warned Judy of the dangers of harboring desperate fugitives, but she just laughed. “Listen, it’s a chance to visit with you—you’d be unable to leave because they’re looking for you, and I’d get to see you for more than our usual two-hour quiche.”

  The rest of the week was hard on Maggie and Carol. Nothing happened on Wednesday or Thursday. Friday, the hearings continued in San Francisco, but Maggie didn’t attend. Late Friday evening, Any Belever dropped by, with the treatment reports for Wednesday through Friday.

  “Looks real good, Maggie. I haven’t gone through the actual reports, but I talked to people as they brought them in, and it sounds like we’re making progress on all ten.”

  Maggie smiled. “Have you heard anything about the hearings in the City?”

  “Carla called the N.M.A. office late this afternoon. Nothing exciting had happened except for McCardle’s announcement that he had turned over his information to the Attorney General. He said he was confident that indictments would follow.”

  Maggie Stopped Smiling. “How Did She Feel About It? I Mean, How Do You Feel?”

  Amy laughed. “Really, you mean how should you feel about it. To be honest, everyone seems to be unsure of themselves. At the rate McCardle’s going, the entire question of N.M.A. licensing is going to be tied to this—as he put it—‘quack cure for cancer pushed by a bunch of power-hungry atavistic midwives.’ No one’s particularly happy about the prospect of spending time in jail, but no one thinks there’s a chance in a million of a conviction coming out of this. At the least, we can withhold the cure until all our members are out of jail—that was Sue Tiemann’s idea—and probably get a commutation of the sentence even after a conviction.”

  “Amy, that depends on how many cures we have before we all get arrested, and whether we’ve got enough to convince the public that the treatment works.”

  Carol, silent till then, suddenly interrupted. “Mom, look, we’ve got twenty-one already, and if only nine out of these ten work, we’ll have thirty. That’s thirty cancer patients that the medical profession had already given up on. Doesn’t that prove it?”

  Maggie turned to Carol. “In a rational, scientific debate, yes, that would probably prove it. But there’s no guarantee that’s what’s going to happen. For all I know, the prosecutor will find some grounds on which to make all our evidence inadmissible. He might argue that the mere admission that we treated these cancer patients amounts to a guilty plea, and that whether we cured them or not is irrelevant if the charge is practicing medicine without a license. If you remember the trial in the mid-’70s, when they tried to bust all the midwives for practicing without a license, there was no question of infant mortality or women dying or being injured during childbirth. The only charge was of doing something that was reserved for doctors. They can hit us with the same charge, and it’s a felony.

  Carol stomped her foot. “But it’s so dumb! I mean, they just can’t go and punish us because we found a cure for cancer!”

  “That’s the hope,” Amy said. “That’s the hope.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  By Monday morning Maggie and Carol agreed that the ten current patients were recovered. That gave them thirty-one cures, and, of course, the same seven failures, Despite McCardle’s statements and the publicity, the Coven had recruited a record fifteen patients and they would be started immediately. Unfortunately, Maggie didn’t know who was to treat them. She cursed the need for secrecy. She didn’t even know if her apprentices were training other women or not. She hoped the individual apprentices were recording data properly and noting who was treating whom.

  At noon, Sue Tiemann stopped by. “Good news and bad news. The bad news is that another of the men we treated has died. That makes three. I saw it in the obituaries, and take it as a bad sign that the family didn’t call and let us know.”

  “Did they know one of us directly?” Maggie asked apprehensively.

  “No, it was through an intermediary, and I think she’s solid. But if the family had notified her, she would have called us immediately.”

  Maggie frowned. “If word of another death reaches McCardle, he’s going to raise another stink.”

  “Well, the good news,” Sue said, “is that I have a good friend who lives a block behind you, on Summer Street. She’s trustworthy and is willing to give two unnamed people a ride out of town if they ever need it.” She handed Maggie a slip of paper. “Here’s her name, address, and phone number. You should probably memorize them and then burn the paper. Or eat it.” She giggled, then shrugged, looking a bit uncomfortable.

  Maggie smiled. “I appreciate the help—but I hope we’ll never have to use your friend.”

  Sue left after a strained lunch. Ann was visiting Maggie’s brother in Chicago, and would be gone for a couple of weeks, so Maggie was alone in the house. It had been a long time since the house had been empty. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, Maggie went into her study. She turned her chair around, so she could sit at the table under the window, rather than at her desk. Taking down reference books, she started planning further tests. But her nerves refused to calm, and every time a car or bike passed down the street she started, and then watched the vehicle pass out of sight.

  By two, she had begun to get the experiments organized. It felt rather silly. Her eyes left the sheet to follow a large dark blue Ford down the street. It slowed as it got closer. She could see the driver peering out at house numbers. Finally it pulled in front of her house and stopped!

  Maggie leaped from her chair. A plainclothes cop? She looked around frantically. She wasn’t at all ready. She had left the slip of paper with Sue’s friend’s name in the kitchen. Grabbing the protocols, she ran to the kitchen. Where was the paper? She spent precious seconds searching, before she found it by the sink. Memorizing the address, she shoved it into the disposal just as a knock came at the kitchen door. She froze.

  The knock came again, and reluctantly, she turned to the door. Bill Krueger waved a cheery hello from outside the glass door. Her knees almost buckled as she opened the door. She invited Bill in and sat with him at the table, unsure her legs would continue to hold her.

  Krueger looked at her somewhat nervously. “Are you okay, Maggie?”

  Maggie smiled. “I’m fine. What brings you down here, Bill?”

  He shrugged casually. “Oh, I was just visiting a friend in the area, and thought I’d stop by and see how Ann’s doing. I haven’t heard from either of you since her remission.”

  “Just taking a Monday afternoon off to go visit friends? Business must be slacking off.”

  Krueger looked nervous. “Well, actually, it was a patient I was seeing—one I don’t want to move unnecessarily.”

  Maggie smiled. “Good for you. It’s about time doctors got back to making house calls, although an hour’s commute each way is rather exceptional,” There was just the edge of sarcasm in her voice. “Well, I’m sure you’re in a hurry to get back, so I won’t just gab. Mom’s totally cured, as far as I can tell, but I’m not a doctor. She’s in Chicago visiting my brother, and isn’t due back for a couple of weeks. It’d probably be a good idea to run another scan on her when she gets back, so we can have some hard data on how she’s doing, but aside from that, patient seems recovered.” She smiled again, as if the conversation were at an end. She rose to her feet.

  Krueger smiled, but made no move to get up. “I’ve been following the N.M.A.’s credentials fight. I really think it’s disgusting the way this whole challenge has come up.”

  Maggie remained standing. “Well, write a letter to your representatives on Med Center stationery, and tell them that. We could use some help from M.D.s. We’re not getting much.”

  He looked interested. “I’ll do that. And maybe I can even get a petition up around the hospital. I think you have more support than you know about.” He paused a minute. “That McCardle is amazing, bringing in that slur about cancer patients.” He
looked up at Maggie, uncomfortable with the angle.

  She turned away, and crossed to the sink, and shoved her hand down the disposal. “You have to expect stuff like that.” She had one finger on the paper with the name and phone number, but couldn’t quite reach it. “But I’ve got a lot to do today.” There. She had it. Slowly she pulled it out. “If you arrange for a scan of Mom in about three weeks, maybe we could talk more then.” She turned back to Krueger, who was on his feet now.

  “Maggie, you win. I’m no good at playing games, and I apologize for even trying.”

  She had moved to the door. “Oh, that’s okay. I appreciate your stopping by. It’s just that I am loaded down with work today, and can’t talk.”

  “Maggie, please. I want to help. Honestly I do. I haven’t told anyone where I am this afternoon.”

  She opened the door. “Well, I appreciate it, Bill.” She smiled an honest smile and shrugged. “Problem is, there’s no way to know who’s honest and who isn’t. Thanks for coming by.”

  Krueger didn’t move. “Maggie, you can know who’s being honest by who has information and whom they give it to.”

  Maggie looked confused.

  “Oh hell, Maggie, I’m no fool. You and your mom think you cured her of cancer. McCardle claims that some midwives are claiming to have cured cancer. You are a midwife. . . .” He paused. “And I’ll be straight with you. I can track down every one of your patients if I want to. At the moment I have a list of eighteen women with terminal cancer who have had total spontaneous remissions in the last month or two. All of them since your mom got better. I’ve gone around very quietly. I don’t think anyone has an idea of what’s up. No one else has spotted the huge number of remissions lately, although they’re bound to before much longer. But I’ve seen the records of several of those remissions, and if there’s one consistent thread, it’s that none of the patients are as surprised as they should be. It’s as if they already knew that they were better.” Maggie didn’t respond. “Maggie, if I were trying to get you, I wouldn’t have to play this game. I could turn the names over to the D.A., and he’d have you in a minute. I don’t know if there’s fifty of you, or if you’re working alone. But I wouldn’t tell you I knew if I wanted to track others down.”