The California Coven Project

by Bob Stickgold

  She thought for a moment. “Get in touch with Amy, I guess, warn her about being tracked down by the police. At the same time I could find out whether she’s been able to do anything about the men.” Frowning, she added, “But it’s such a long shot. What a hell of a way to do research!”

  * * *

  Sue Tiemann drove through the heavy rain, the wipers fighting to keep the windshield clear enough to see through. It was a classic last attack of the rainy season that had a strength and fury that implied it knew of its imminent defeat by the warm, dry, spring months ahead. Between her anxiety over the results of their tests and the concentration needed to drive in the rain, Sue was worn out. Since last Sunday she and Amy had each been seeing four patients a day, two women and two men. That in itself was enough to be exhausting. Daily she visited her two women patients, treating them normally but also drawing 50 cc of blood from each. Then she would divide the 100 cc of blood between two cups of the potion, and let it sit for a couple of hours over lunch.

  Blood of a virgin. She remembered stories about witches’ brews that called for the blood of a virgin. More than anything else that had terrified her of witches. But now? Boiled frogs treated with the blood of true believers—that was the formula she was using to cure cancer. Why was it so repulsive even to think of? She laughed, remembering how one of her teachers had once described oxytocin, the pituitary hormone even now given occasionally to induce or intensify labor contractions as “squeezed from the brains of a thousand freshly slaughtered cows.” A bit jaundiced, but an accurate description.

  Driving on toward the first of her two male patients that afternoon, the two doses of potion rocked gently on the seat alongside her. Slowly, she relaxed. It was the fifth day of the treatment, and she had noted clear signs of progress in the two women she treated earlier that morning—the pain was diminished in one and almost nonexistent in the other. The wonder and delight of the cure had given way to routine by now, but the relief and thanks of the women still reached into the center of her being and shook her.

  The notoriety of Beckie’s trial had not scared off prospective patients. Just the opposite, in fact—recent patients seemed to have more faith in the cure, yet with talk of people’s dying from the treatment, they were clearly more nervous than earlier patients had been. As yet, no one in the press had noticed that the dead had all been men. Sue couldn’t help but feel that the public would believe the sort of sinister plot that McCardle was always muttering about if they became aware of that one correlation, and that could disrupt the cooperation that was so vital for the cure.

  As she turned onto the street where her first male patient lived her stomach knotted with tension. She realized that she thought of him as Male Patient # 1, not as Robert Maxwell. Was it fear of failure that led her to create this distance, this dehumanization of her male patients?

  Robert Maxwell was thirty-three and had already lost one lung to cancer. The disease had spread to other parts of his body, He had at most six months more to live—unless her potion was successful.

  As she walked up the drive, she prepared herself to exude confidence, for the reassuring role of conqueror of cancer. She had to maintain a credible appearance of confidence—not the obviously phony confidence of doctors and nurses in a terminal cancer ward who blithely told disbelieving patients they were sure to recover, but an earnest, believable confidence that would be duplicated in the patient. By now it was a professional role, and she prepared herself without a second thought.

  Robert’s wife answered the door. Sue noted the anxiety in her appearance instantly. Something had changed.

  Sue fought to maintain her normal attitude. “Hi, Marsha. How are you?”

  The woman was flustered by Sue’s normalcy “Fine,” she finally answered. “Come and see Bob.” She turned and hurried down the hall without waiting for a reply.

  Fighting her panic, Sue walked quietly down the hall, hesitating only briefly before the bedroom door.

  Across the room, the thin, frail body of Robert Maxwell lay propped up on pillows. When he saw her, a weak smile played across his face. His voice was almost a whisper as he said, “The pain’s gone.”

  That night Amy Belever joined Sue in an excited celebration. “Four men. Four for four?” Amy squealed. “It’s almost too much to believe!”

  “Now, Amy—I can’t swear about my second one.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Sue. ‘Slight improvement,’ ‘vast improvement’—I don’t care! This here is a celebration, not a scientific meeting. The blood activates the potion so that it can cure men. It works!”

  Sue gave her a hug, almost jumping with her excitement. “Oh, there’s no way that—”

  Their discussion was interrupted by the phone ringing. As Amy went to answer it, Sue called after her. “Don’t sit on the phone for an hour. We’ve got some serious celebrating to do!”

  Leaving Sue by the fireplace, Amy crossed into the kitchen and answered the phone.

  “Hi, is this Amy?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Amy, it’s Maggie. I want you . . .”

  “Maggie!” Amy shouted. She turned and called to Sue. “Maggie’s on the phone!” and then turning back to the phone, continued, “Maggie guess what . . .”

  “Wait!” Maggie interrupted. “Shut up a minute. I don’t trust your phone so I want you to go call from a pay phone.”

  “But Maggie,” Amy insisted.

  “No! Amy, I’m sure your phone is tapped. I want you to call me back. Will you do that—from a pay phone?”

  “Sure, it’s just that—”

  “Amy, please! Explain to me when you call back, can’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “Okay, great. Listen, go to a drugstore and get a roll of quarters. Then find the number of a pay phone that you can use, and come back home. I’ll call you at home in fifteen minutes. Got that?”

  “Okay, ’bye now. Talk to you in fifteen.” Maggie hung up.

  Amy explained the situation to Sue as they drove to the shopping center to get the change. “Why does she want us to get her the telephone-booth number if were going to call her?” Sue asked.

  Amy just shrugged. “At this point I’m just doing what she says to do. She sounded pretty upset.”

  The phone was ringing when they returned home, and Amy ran in to get it.”

  “All set?” Maggie asked.

  “I guess,” Amy answered.

  “You’ve got the change and the phone-booth number?”

  “Okay give me the number.” Amy read it to her.

  “Okay,” Maggie continued. “You hurry back there, and I’ll call you in three minutes.”

  They rushed back to the phone booth, and waited for the call. It came right on time. “Hi,” Maggie said. “Now I’ll give you the number to call me at. I didn’t want police listening to your phone to know where I was.” She read them her number. “Now drive across town and call me from another phone booth. Talk to you soon.”

  Finally they were connected again, and able to talk. “I’m sorry for all the mystery,” Maggie explained, “but the police have figured out that were using frogs. and they’re tracing all orders for live frogs. So if you’ve been making up potion, they know who you are.” Maggie paused for breath. “If they know you’re with the Coven and tap your phone, I didn’t want them to be able to trace down where I’m staying. Now, what’s new at your end?”

  “Oh, Maggie! It works, Maggie! Sue and I have been trying the potion, activating it the way you said, and we’ve each been treating two male patients, and today was the fifth day and three of them are a whole lot better. Even the fourth looks better, we’re just not positive about him. But it works, it really does!”

  Maggie was ecstatic. Finally she calmed down. “Listen, Amy. We shouldn’t stay on this phone like this. I tell you what. I’ll call you again on Sunday, say at five P.M., where you are now.” Amy read her the number. “Great By then you should have finished the treatment, and
we can figure out what to do next.” She paused a moment. “Christ, Amy, I’m so excited I’m running in six directions at the same time. Listen, you two take care of yourselves, and I’ll talk to you again Sunday, okay?”

  “Okay. And Maggie, you take care of yourself, too. ’Bye.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The Senate hearing room was full Friday morning as the hearings on the N.M.A. continued. As Beckie was tied up at her trial, Sue Tiemann represented the N.M.A. But Maggie’s revelations about the possibility of the D.A.’s having identified her as a Coven member had diminished whatever appeal the appearance would normally have had for her. Liz Jason was looking frazzled. “Everything rides on Beckie’s trial now, Sue. If she’s convicted, the N.M.A. will lose its accreditation. If she’s acquitted, we’re home free. Everyone here is just biding their time and hedging their bets.”

  Sue was scheduled to testify on behalf of the N.M.A. that morning, and she did so with a certain amount of trepidation, but following Liz’s advice avoided McCardle’s glare the entire time. She spoke of the hearings as a fight for the freedom to practice one’s profession without undue interference, she spoke of the A.M.A.’s control of the medical profession, of the economic gain that resulted from that power and control, and of the A.M.A.’s resorting to witch-hunts and hysteria to try to maintain its power over the medical profession. Finally, she spoke of women’s medicine.

  “I’m sure that to some of you the term ‘women’s medicine’ will be a new one, so let me explain what I mean by it. Throughout the history of this country two approaches and philosophies of medical practice have coevolved. As early as the 1600s this distinction existed, dividing medical practitioners into physicians, on the one hand, and midwives, lay healers, herbalists, and the like, on the other. The one was dominated by men, the other by women. Since men held the power in that era, both by law and by custom, their medicine became dominant, again by law and by custom. That form of medicine practiced by women became known, at best, as ‘old wives’ tales,’ and, at worst, as witchcraft. Now, more than three hundred and fifty years later, we are still fighting that battle, and the form of the fight remains the same. The descendants of the physicians, now canonized in medical schools and by the A.M.A., insist that they and they alone are capable of setting standards for the practice of medicine, while we, the descendants of the midwives, lay healers, and herbalists, merely ask to continue our practice.

  “But what is women’s medicine? It is a medical practice which preaches that the least is the best—that the purpose of a medical practitioner is to help the body heal itself and therefore the least interference with the normal activities of the body is preferable. This does not mean that we oppose appendectomies in severe cases of appendicitis or that we oppose Caesarian sections when the life of the mother or child is in danger. But it does mean that we consider these to be serious acts, not to be carried out frivolously. It means that we do not support the use of Caesarian delivery to get the doctor onto the golf course in time for eighteen holes before dinner. And these are not frivolous accusations. Before the reinstitution of midwifery and home deliveries, almost fifty percent of all children born in this country were delivered by Caesarian section, an outrageous figure in itself, a horrible increase over the already large figure of thirty percent that was reached in many hospitals by the late ’70s.

  “Women’s medicine says that physician and patient must work together, must work in harmony and trust, in their mutual fight against illness, as opposed to the all-too-prevalent attitude that the doctor cures the patient that the patient, as the embodiment of illness, is indeed the enemy of the doctor. We believe that women’s medicine is more appropriate, that the extent of medical, and especially surgical, intervention in what are basically simple and adequate processes, such as childbirth, is more harmful. But we are not asking this committee to make such a judgment. We are not asking this committee to give us the power to decide who can engage in medical practice or how they may practice medicine. We ask only that this committee acknowledge that—as in law and politics so also in medicine—people who are honorable and intelligent may disagree on what is best, but this disagreement is honest and should not be used as a lever to ban one group or another from practicing. That is all that we request. Thank you.” She sat down quickly to hide the shakiness she felt in her hands and legs, and waited for the questions.

  * * *

  Across town Beckie’s trial was also in progress. Linda Coles, her attorney, had just finished questioning her fourth witness of the morning. They had called, so far that day, two women who had been cured by Coven members, and both their doctors. The women related how they had been contacted by Beckie and treated. Their doctors confirmed that both had had terminal cancer with no reasonable expectancy of survival, yet both had undergone spontaneous remission after Beckie’s treatment.

  The D.A. spent more than an hour prodding at their stories, looking for a hole, but found nothing. The physicians agreed that they had no objective evidence that Beckie’s treatments had helped the patients, but both indicated that spontaneous remissions happened on their own at a rate of around one every few thousand patients. They also pointed out that it was very unlikely that Beckie would treat two patients who would undergo spontaneous remission within a week of treatment. Finally the D.A. finished his cross-examination, and the judge recessed the trial for lunch.

  Linda and Beckie walked to Linda’s office for lunch. “Are you ready to testify this afternoon, Beckie?” Linda asked around a mouthful of roast beef on rye.

  Beckie shrugged. “As ready as ever. It’s the same old problem, though, they’re going to ask me for data that Maggie has, and I’m just not going to have it.”

  “We’ve been over that, and you know what to say, right?”

  “Yep.”

  That afternoon, her testimony went as planned, with Linda asking questions and Beckie supplying well-rehearsed answers. When Linda was finished, the questioning was turned over to the D.A.

  “You are Rebecca McPhee?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are a member of a group which calls itself the California Coven?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you treat cancer patients, giving them an alleged medication which you claim will cure them of their cancer?”

  “Yes.”

  The DA. began to pace the front of the courtroom. “Now, this morning we heard testimony from two women who stated that they were treated by you, and that afterward their cancer disappeared. To the best of your knowledge, were the statements of these women accurate and truthful?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believe that this alleged medication which you gave them was the cause of the disappearance of their cancer?”

  “Yes.”

  He stopped and turned toward her. “How many cancer patients have you treated all together?”

  “Eight.” She answered without having to think.

  “And how many have you cured?”

  “Six.”

  “And the other two?”

  “One was Peter Oberdorf. His wife testified earlier in the trial, he died of cancer about two weeks after my treatment failed. The second person still has cancer, and I assume his prognosis is the same as it was before I began the treatments.”

  “So it doesn’t work on everyone, your cure?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know why that is?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe something different about the way you treat some of them?”

  “No, they’re all treated identically.”

  The D.A. began pacing again. “Miss McPhee, can you give any explanation for why your treatments work?”

  “No, but doctors didn’t—”

  “Thank you,” the D.A. interrupted, “but please just answer the questions? So you don’t know how it works, or why it works on some people and not on others. Tell me, why do you work the patients into a frenzy before—”

  “Objection!’
Linda was on her feet. The judge agreed. “Well, whatever you call it, this getting the patient excited beforehand, why do you do that?”

  Beckie hesitated. “Because it’s a necessary part of the cure.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because it doesn’t work without it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, we tested some women with the hype, that’s what we call it, and some without, and it only worked when we gave the hype.”

  The D.A. walked over and stared at her, a smile on his face. “Some ‘women,’ you said.”

  Beckie looked confused. “What?”

  “Could the stenographer read back her last statement?” the D.A. Asked.

  The stenographer reached over his notes and read, “Well, we tested some women with the hype, that’s what we call it, and some without—”

  “Thank you,” the D.A. said. “Were the tests done just on women?”

  Beckie looked uncomfortable. “I meant to say people, not women.”

  “Oh, I see. But were the tests done just on women? That’s a question.”

  “Well, now I’m not sure.”

  “Might it have been true?”

  “I guess,” Beckie began.

  “Because maybe there was a reason to test it just on women?”

  “Well . . .”

  The D.A.’s voice rose almost to a shout, “Because, perhaps, all the men you treated were killed by the treatment?”

  “Objection!” Linda shouted.

  “Excuse me.” The D.A.’s voice had returned to its normal, almost soothing, tone. “Let me ask the question more simply. Rebecca McPhee, how many of the men you and other members of the Coven have treated, how many of them have died since then?”

  “I’m not sure,” Beckie answered.

  “Well, Senator McCardle has reported four, and we had the wife of a fifth testify here, so at least five, you would say?”

  “Yes, I guess.”

  “And how many men have you cured?” The question was spoken almost in a whisper.