The California Coven Project

by Bob Stickgold

  “Well, what did you tell him?”

  “Nothing, honest. I refused I said I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, that he should talk to you, or your grandmother. But Carol, he obviously knows all about it!”

  Carol looked at her watch. “Look, I gotta tell Mom. Cover for me in history if you can. I’ll be back as fast as can.” Without waiting for an answer she turned and ran from the washroom.

  * * *

  At home, she told Maggie everything she had leaned. It was too much even for Maggie. “Listen, you head back to school. I’ll pick you up in front at the end of the day. We might as well spend the weekend in Palo Alto. I think it’s getting right down there to the wire.”

  They were both startled by the door opening. “Beckie ran in. “Beckie! What are you doing here? I thought we’d agreed—”

  But Beckie was in a frenzy. “Shut up, and hurry. I was just driving down Water Street

  , and there’s a cop car sitting around the corner at the end of your block. So I drove around the block, and there’s one sitting at the other end, too. They’re watching the block with binoculars. You have to get out fast. Grab what you need, and hurry out to my car.”

  Maggie looked around frantically. “Carol, get the new records. Stick them in my attaché case. It’s on the floor next to my desk.” Carol ran off without a word. “Beckie—we won’t go with you. If they’re watching the block, they’ll see us getting in.”

  “But what’ll you do?”

  “We’ve got a contact and a way out, We’ll be okay.” Carol ran in with a briefcase.

  “I’ve got it all.” Her breath was ragged with fear.

  “Great. Beckie, stay here as long as you can. If they come to the door, try to stall them. All we need is five minutes, and we’ll be away.”

  She gave Beckie a quick hug. “Love you Beckie, hold on for us.” Grabbing Carol’s hand, she pulled her through the house and into the garage and through the door to the back yard. “Over the fence,” she ordered, pushing Carol in front of her. Carol grabbed a branch from the apple tree to help her over the palisade fence. At the top, Maggie passed her the briefcase, and Carol disappeared. Frantically, Maggie pulled and pushed her way up into the tree until she was high enough to reach over the fence. Irrelevantly, she prayed that neighbors weren’t watching her clumsy performance. Finally, she was perched on top of the fence.

  “Hurry up and jump down!” Carol whispered.

  “Get out of my way!” With a final commitment, she dropped to the ground. She grabbed Carol’s hand. No one at the Zamoks’ had noted their sudden appearance. “Now calm down, and try to look reasonable.” They circled the pseudoadobe ranch house and reached the sidewalk without comment or notice, then headed toward the address Sue had given her. As they walked along the sidewalk, Maggie repressed an urge to break and run. She kept her eyes straight ahead, expecting a squad car to cut off their path any second.

  After what seemed like an eternity, they reached 13169 Summer. Hurrying now, they turned up the drive and almost ran to the side door, pounding on it as soon as they arrived.

  A woman in her mid-thirties opened the door. She had short, blond hair which outlined a slightly heavy, round face. For a moment she seemed startled by their presence, but then said, “You’re Maggie?”

  Maggie nodded, breathless.

  The woman looked suspiciously at Carol.

  “My daughter, Carol,” Maggie stuttered. “Please, they’ve got our block cut off. Can you get us out of town?”

  The woman looked around herself, into the house.

  Maggie could hear a television blaring away in the other room, but saw no one else. Deciding, the woman turned back to Maggie. Lie down on the floor of the back seat in my car. I’ll get a blanket to throw over you.”

  She turned and hurried off into the house. Obediently, Maggie and Carol got into the car—a nearly extinct breed, a full-size American station wagon—and the two of them managed to crouch behind the front seat. A minute later, the woman re-emerged with a blanket. Carefully, she threw it over them, and Maggie could feel a few other things being tossed atop the blanket. “I’ll be back in a minute,” the woman whispered, and disappeared again. Carol groped in the dark until she found Maggie’s hand.

  They heard the house door close again, and footsteps returning to the car. The door on the right opened, and bey could hear the woman putting some large package on he front seat. She spent some time arranging it, then closed the door, and circled to the driver’s side. The motor started.

  They hadn’t gone a block before a loud scream broke the silence. Carol and Maggie huddled closer to the floor before realizing it was a baby’s scream, coming from the front seat. “Well, look who woke up!” The woman reached across to her child in the seat beside her, rocking the car seat gently. “I thought you might sleep for another hour.” In another minute they had gotten several blocks away. “Where are we heading?” the woman asked.

  “Palo Alto?” Maggie wasn’t sure how far the stranger was willing to go for them. “We have a place we can stay there. But if that’s too far—” She started to get up, out from under the blanket.

  “Stay down!” The woman reached out and pushed Maggie back. “I’ve passed two patrol cars already, and they’re all looking around. I’ll take you to Palo Alto. Just stay down. I have a suspicion I’m in trouble too if we get caught.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Beckie watched Maggie and Carol climb over the fence, then returned to the kitchen. Apprehensively, she filled the tea kettle and put it on the stove. She had no idea where Maggie was going, and now couldn’t make contact with her even if she needed to. A car drove slowly down the block, and the two men in it stared intently at the house. Beckie diligently scrubbed at a pot, watching the car from the corner of her eye. It stopped two doors down, and two gray-suited men got out. They walked to the rear of the car, and leaned against the trunk. Here it comes, Beckie thought. Just slow them down as much as you can. One of the men turned up the driveway of the house two down, and the other walked past Beckie without looking in, and then turned up the driveway of the next house. Thank God Maggie and Carol had already left. The back of the house was being watched now.

  Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Beckie jumped at the sound of a siren, and then realized it was the kettle. Slowly, reflexively, she began to make the tea. What was taking so long? She glanced at the clock. Only a few minutes since Maggie left. As she put the tea back on the shelf a squad car pulled up in front of the house and four men in uniform got out. At last! She went to the table and sat with her tea. She tried to drink, but her hand nearly emptied the cup in her lap. She put her hands in her lap, folded them together, tried to take a deep breath. There was a knock at the front door.

  As slowly as she could make her body move, she stood and walked to the door. Two uniformed policemen stood in the doorway. She could see the other two at the car. One held a walkie-talkie.

  “Margaret Stone?”

  “W-what do you want?”

  “That’s not her,” the second cop said. He flashed something on a clipboard to the first cop.

  “No, I’m not,” Beckie said carefully. “Can I help you?”

  “We’re looking for Margaret Stone.” He tried to push into the hall.

  Beckie braced herself in between the partially opened door and the wall of the foyer, blocking his way. “I haven’t said you can come in,” she said, pushing back. “You have to have a search warrant.”

  The one cop tried to shoulder his way past her. Smiling, he said, “Come on, miss, we’ve got the house surrounded, there’s no reason to try to drag it out. We’ve got warrants coming out our ears.” He flashed the clipboard at her. There was a picture of Maggie, and underneath it some legal-looking documents.

  Beckie shoved back. She was stronger than she looked, and he stumbled back a step.

  “Hang on, Bob,” the second one said. “They don’t want this one botched up on technicalities. Sh
ow the lady the warrant.”

  Frowning, the cop unclipped a sheet from the clipboard and handed it to Beckie. It was a warrant. “Okay?” he asked.

  Beckie stood her ground. “How should I know? You haven’t even given me a minute to read it.” She turned her attention to the document, watching out of the corner of her eye for any sudden lunges.

  But they waited patiently while she read through the first page. Finished, she turned over to the back side. “Aw, come on, lady, it’s a warrant already, okay?”

  “Doesn’t it have to be signed by a judge?” she asked innocently.

  He grabbed it out of her hands and pointed to the bottom. “Right there. Judge Franklin Pinter. That’s his real signature, I promise you?”

  Beckie took it back and looked at the signature. “I haven’t gotten down there yet.” She continued to read the back side.

  He threw up his hands in disgust. Turning to the street, he shouted, “She’s reading the warrant, word for word. You got the back covered?” The man on the street talked into his walkie-talkie, then listened to a reply. Then he shouted to the men at the door, and made a grabbing motion. Instantly one of the men grabbed Beckie and the other pushed past rushing into the house. The two on the street came running up the sidewalk.

  “Fred says they’ve got records in there that they might try to destroy. Get in there and see if Bob needs help.” Beckie was turned over to the second pair of cops as the first rushed in to join “Bob.” “And who might you be? the new cop asked her.”

  Beckie smiled sweetly, hoping that she wasn’t shaking visibly. “I want to talk to my lawyer,” she answered, and her voice cracked on “lawyer.”

  Instead, the cop grabbed her gently by the arm and pushed her into the house. “Let’s all sit down and talk.”

  She led him into the living room, and offered him a seat. Then she sat down on the couch. Just try to delay them, she thought She glanced at the clock. Nine minutes since Maggie and Carol disappeared over the fence.

  One of the cops started to strike up a friendly conversation. “You know, just because you happened to be visiting when they get arrested, that doesn’t have to say anything about you. Are you a neighbor of theirs?” Beckie started to reply when one of the other cops rushed into the living room. “I don’t think they’re here anymore!”

  “What?” He shouted the message into the walkie-talkie. “Have you checked closets and everything?”

  “Quickly, but I thought I’d better tell you before we started going over it again. And there’s a file cabinet in the study that’s open and empty, the terminal’s been wiped. Not a disk I can find.” Another squad car pulled up. This one had a spinning blue light. Four more men—three uniforms—ran in. Without a word they fanned out into the house.

  “Take her out to the car.” The suit-wearing newcomer was obviously in charge. That must be Fred, Beckie thought.

  “Fred!” she said aloud, staring at him.

  “What?” The one taking her out stopped.

  She nodded toward the detective. “I was just saying hello to Fred. Don’t you remember me?” She flashed a smile at him, then turned back to the other and said, “His memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  The detective stared at her hard, obviously confused by his lack of recognition. “Bob” ran back into the living non. “No one else in the house, unless they’ve got secret passages built into it. Not in the yard or the garage, either.”

  “That can’t be. They were both seen in the house just twenty minutes ago.”

  One of the uniforms pointed at Beckie. “She passed our stakeout ten minutes ago. She must have tipped them off. We were already at the end of the block in position. If they were expecting it—”

  The detective turned to Beckie, anger in his voice. “Okay. You’ve got exactly ten seconds to start talking or we’re arresting you as an accessory after the fact, and for blocking a police investigation. If you don’t start talking, it could cost you the next ten years of your life.”

  Beckie shrank back in fear. He looked like he might actually lash out at her physically. “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

  “Take her out to the car!” he bellowed. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and started shouting. “They’re not here. Issue an all-points.”

  Beckie found herself locked in the rear of a police car. A crowd was slowly building up on the sidewalk, curious to see what was happening. As the front door opened, she shouted at the top of her lungs, “Someone please call the Birth Center. The Santa Cruz Birth Center. Tell them what happened.”

  The lead cop whirled angrily. “One more word out of you and I’ll see that you get special attention when we get to the station!” But Beckie noticed someone in the crowd turn and run toward a neighboring house.

  Please, thought Beckie, let her be going to call the Center.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  IT seemed to Maggie and Carol that they had been lying on the floor of the car for hours. Maggie’s left leg had cramped, and pains shot up and down her back. “Where are we?” she shouted out finally. “I can’t take it down here much longer.”

  “We’ll be on the Bayshore Freeway in about two minutes. I think it’d be safe to get up then” They rode in silence for a few minutes. The baby had fallen back asleep, much to everyone’s relief. The car banked into a long curve, and then began to accelerate. “You can get up now.”

  Slowly they untangled themselves and sat on the back seat.

  “Boy, that sure was uncomfortable,” Carol muttered. She had taken it much better than Maggie.

  Maggie looked around to get her bearings. “You want to keep going north until you get to the Oregon Expressway. It’s either the first or second Palo Alto exit.”

  “I haven’t seen any police since we got out of Santa Cruz, but when we got on Highway 9 they were sitting on both sides of the road checking cars as they went by, I didn’t realize they were police until we passed them. If you’d been up then, I think they would have gotten us.”

  “We’ll get down again when you get off,” Carol suggested. Maggie moaned. “Come on, Mom, it’s better than going to jail.”

  Ten minutes later they were back under the blanket. Maggie called out directions as best she could without actually seeing where they were. One of her legs was totally numb and the other was tingling painfully when they finally pulled into the cul-de-sac where Judy Feldman lived. Maggie popped up to indicate the drive, and Carol appeared a moment later.

  “Let’s go on in, Mom.”

  “Wait a minute. My feet are asleep.” Maggie began to rub them impatiently.

  “I’ll go see if she’s home,” Carol suggested. Maggie started to object, but Carol was out of the car. She rang the front doorbell and waited nervously. Could the police have traced them here? Were they waiting for them? Judy opened the door and quickly let her in.

  “Where’s Maggie? Is everything all right?” She looked out at the carport, but couldn’t see the people in the car. “Who’s out there?”

  Exhausted, Carol dropped into a chair. “Mom and a friend who drove us over here. We had to run real quick; the cops were at our door. We just barely got out.”

  Judy came over to Carol, taking one last look out at the car. “Well, why are they just sitting out there?”

  Carol began to giggle uncontrollably. “Because her legs fell asleep.”

  Judy rushed out to the car. “Maggie, are you okay?”

  Maggie nodded, and opened the back door. “My legs were asleep, and I didn’t want your neighbors to see me get halfway to your door and then fall over. It would attract attention.” She reached for her attaché case and hobbled from the car. “But I’m all right now.” She turned around to the car again. “You know, Ellen, there’s no way I can thank you enough—”

  The woman smiled. “Maggie, you keep at your work, and I’ll consider us even.” She looked around, a bit apprehensively. “Is there anything more you want from me? Any messages to deliver, or anything?”

>   Maggie shook her head. “No, in fact, if anyone asks you—and I mean anyone—tell them we never connected, that if I got out of town, I did it without your help.” She backed away from the car. “Have a safe ride home.”

  The car backed slowly out of the carport, and stopped on the street. They exchanged one last wave, and the car pulled off.

  Judy put her arm around Maggie and turned her toward the house. “Lets get you in and out of sight. I don’t know it you’re going to make the news, but there’s no reason to let anyone see you if we can avoid it.”

  “I’ve put your suitcases in the back bedroom—it’s mostly a guest room now that Claire’s off to college. It’s just got a double bed in it, but we can get a cot from somewhere if you want.” She led them into the room.

  It was clearly a teenager’s room, and reminded Maggie of Carol’s. “Well, why don’t I give you some time to unpack and settle in. When you have, come on out, and I’ll make tea or coffee and we’ll talk.”

  * * *

  They turned on the TV at 6:30 to catch the news, and there was Beckie being led into the police station by two detectives. Her head was up, and she was smiling. A lightly accented male voice was intoning the voiceover. “The District Attorney’s office said that their investigation had focused on a Margaret Stone, who appeared to be the ringleader of the group. Detective Thomas Ardway stated that his information suggested that her request for a leave from her normal occupation as a midwife was granted by the Santa Cruz Midwives’ Collective on the understanding that she would be working full time on the alleged cancer cure. How many individuals are connected with the ring is unclear, although Ardway said it was a significant number, most, if not all, of whom were practicing midwives. Rebecca McPhee, the woman shown in our footage here, was arrested at the Stone woman’s home on charges of interfering with a police investigation, and as an accessory after the fact. Detective Ardway said that they had not yet decided whether charges of practicing medicine without a license or manslaughter would be pressed. These, presumably, were the charges prepared against the Stone woman, and the hesitancy of the District Attorney’s office to press identical charges against McPhee would suggest that their case against her is not nearly as clear.”