“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get this show on the road.” He turned to Linda. “You two can wait over there, on the benches. And I don’t want any more interruptions!”
“Fine,” Linda replied calmly. “We expect to have immediate access to them after you’re done booking them.”
“You can talk to them in their cell in half an hour!” He turned away from her, and picked up a sign from the desk. “Okay, you first,” he said to Maggie. “Put this around your neck, and stand up against that wall.” Maggie hung the number board around her neck and walked over to the wall. Turning around, she faced back into the room. A moment later a camera flashed. “Now a profile!” he ordered.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, they were together again, this time in a small holding cell, with steel benches welded to the walls on both sides of the room and a foul-smelling toilet standing uncovered at the rear. Light came from an unshielded bulb glaring in the hall outside the cell.
“Well,” Linda said, “let’s start by dealing with some specifics. First of all, a bail hearing has been set for three o’clock, and I think that we can probably get you released on personal recognizance since you did turn yourselves in. If not, I can’t imagine your bail being set any higher than Beckie’s, and that was five thousand.” Maggie blanched. “But you don’t have to put it all up,” Linda explained. “People have already offered to put up bail for any Coven members arrested. But, there’s a lot that Beckie and I don’t know, and that we need for the hearings.” She stopped a moment. “Is it all right if I just ask you a few questions?”
Maggie nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Mom,” Carol asked uncertainly, “shouldn’t we tell them about the women?”
“What women?” Beckie asked,
“In the gallery,” Carol explained. “Many of the women we’ve cured, and two of the men. We called them on Sunday and asked them to come for support. They’re all prepared to testify if you want them to. I guess there must be thirty of them, all together.”
“In the gallery?” Linda asked in amazement. Carol nodded. “Why, that’s amazing! Do you have a list of their names?”
“No,” Maggie answered. “We were afraid that if we got arrested they’d confiscate the list and use it against us.”
“Can you remember any of their names?” They could. Linda pulled a sheet of paper from her briefcase. “Well, start listing them!” Five minutes later they had eighteen names. “That’ll do just fine,” Linda said. “More than we can deal with today, actually, and we can get the rest of the names afterward.” She returned the sheet to her briefcase. “Now let’s get back to my questions.”
Linda looked at a list she had at the top of a pad of paper. “Tell us about the men,” she said. “All the details that you can, about what you, Carol, shouted down to us earlier. Why do you say it works?”
Maggie took a deep breath and then began. “Well, we were going stir-crazy where we were staying, and decided that there was no use in being in hiding unless we were going to carry on our work, and the only useful thing we felt that we could do was try to think about the question of why it didn’t work on men. So we tried to think up possible explanations of why it didn’t and then modifications of the procedure that would take care of those problems. Well, we came up with a potentially useful modification, and called some of the Coven people and had them try it. That’s how Sue got caught. She was testing the modification.”
“And the man she treated is better?” Beckie asked.
“Totally, I mean, as much as any are.” Maggie paused to decide just what to say. “Look, Sue treated two men with terminal cancer, chosen by the same criteria as the women we’ve treated, and another Coven member treated two more. When I talked to them on Saturday, all four patients had shown the same improvements we’ve seen in women. Until then, we’d never seen any improvement in the men we’ve treated. I can only assume that the procedure we developed really does the trick.”
“But what did you do?” Beckie asked. “What was it that we weren’t doing right?”
“Well, I’m not really sure exactly what the problem was. I mean it seems some biochemical difference makes the unmodified procedure work with women but not men. I don’t have any idea why the original method doesn’t work with men.” Maggie seemed hesitant to say more.
“But what’s the change?” Beckie demanded. “What’s the difference between how you treat the men and the women?”
“Well.” Maggie looked down toward her feet.
“We’re not telling!” Carol blurted out.
“What?!” Beckie shouted. “Maggie, what does she mean you’re not telling?”
“Look, Beckie. It was your idea that we should form cells, keep our results to ourselves, and not have everyone in the Coven know everything that’s going on.” She looked up at Beckie. “I think you were right. And until we get the legal proceedings sorted out, the fewer people who know any important information the better for us all. Carol and I have decided that we won’t tell other Coven members how to cure men until our trials are settled satisfactorily.”
“But me? You’re not even going to tell me?”
Maggie smiled just a bit. “I’m afraid not, Beckie, not even you.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
“THIS court is now in session!” The judge rapped with his gavel and all sat.
Linda approached the bench. “Your Honor, with the permission of the District Attorney, I would like the cross-examination of Dr. Krueger temporarily suspended so that we might receive testimony from Ms. Margaret Stone. As you know, it is the contention of the District Attorney that Ms. Stone is in fact the founder and head of the so-called California Coven, and, as such, is guilty of practicing medicine without a license, conspiracy to do so, and illegal flight; however we feel that testimony from her at this time would be of the utmost relevance to this trial.”
The judge turned to the DA. “Mr. Georges, are you in concurrence with this request?”
“I am, Your Honor.”
“Very well. Is Ms. Stone present in the court?”
“She’s in the witness room now, Your Honor,” Linda replied.
“Then call Margaret Stone to the stand.”
Maggie was escorted from the witness room by a policewoman. Since bond had not yet been set, she was still in custody. As she sat in the box she scanned the galley. Beckie turned, too, for the first time. She was surprised to find the faces of several women the had treated over the past two months. All eyes were on Maggie, however, and no one returned her smiles.
“Could you tell the court your name?” Linda had begun her questioning, and Beckie turned to listen.
“Margaret Stone.”
“Your occupation?”
“Midwife.”
“And your place of employment.”
“The Santa Cruz Birth Clinic.”
“Ms. Stone, do you currently work at the Clinic?”
“Well, no. I’m on a leave of absence.”
“How long have you been on leave?”
“About three months.”
“And what have you been doing during that time?”
Maggie took a deep breath. “I’ve been working for the California Coven.”
“Can you tell me what you did in that capacity?”
“Yes.” She paused, and then continued, “I coordinated and participated in the curing of cancer in terminally ill cancer patients.”
“So you and the other members of this organization administered cancer treatments to patients, is that correct?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Ms. Stone, were you in any way involved in the founding of this organization?”
“Yes. I guess you could say that I founded it.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’m the one who originally formulated the potion, the medication that cures the cancer, and I asked some other women to work with me in testing it. It’s from this group that the Coven was founded.”
“Could you tell
me how many women with cancer you personally have treated?”
“Fourteen.”
“And of these, how many are, to the best of your knowledge, cured now?”
“Thirteen.”
“And all thirteen had been terminally ill with cancer?”
“Yes, they were.”
“Can you tell me what ‘terminally ill’ means?”
“It means that the patient is going to die from the illness.”
“And yet these thirteen did not?”
“No. They were cured.”
“But how can this be if they were terminally ill?”
Maggie paused for a second, honestly confused. “Well, when you say that someone is terminally ill, that means that you expect them, based on all your previous experience, to die from the illness.”
“And who defined these women as terminally ill?”
“Their doctors.”
“Doctors? These were men and women with M.D. degrees?”
“Why, yes. Most of them with specialties in oncology— in cancer treatment.”
“And they expected these women to die?”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t that seem unreasonable, since you were able to cure them?”
“Well, no. The M.D.s didn’t know about my—our—cure. Before I discovered the treatment there was no cure for these people. They would all have died.”
“So, you would say that you saved their lives?”
“Yes, I would say that. I did.”
“I see.” Linda walked back to her bench and picked up a copy of that morning’s San Francisco Chronicle.
“The treatment which you used on these women, does it work on men?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Why not?”
Maggie paused. “I don’t know for certain, but I think it’s a result of a difference between the biochemistries of men and women. Just what difference, I don’t know.”
“I see.” Linda paused and looked at the paper. “Do you know Susan Tiemann?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Is she a member of the California Coven?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Ms. Stone, are you aware that Susan Tiemann was arrested yesterday on charges of treating a male cancer patient?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Didn’t she know that the medication which you had devised does not work on men?”
“But that’s not what she used. Sue used a modified potion, one that we hoped would work on men!”
“A modified potion?”
“Yes, it was, it was treated differently, in a way that we hoped would make it work for men.”
“So Ms. Tiemann was testing a newly formulated medication on this man?”
“Yes, she was”
“And how many men have been treated with this modified potion?”
“Four.”
“And do you know the results of these tests?”
“Yes, it works.”
“How do you know?”
“Because all four patients have shown marked improvement. The pain, which in some cases had continued without relief for as much as a year, has in all four eases disappeared completely, and done so exactly along the timetable that we have seen when we treat women.”
“Then you’re positive that it works on men also?”
Maggie hesitated. “Well, no, not positive. We haven’t tested it on enough men. Four cases is just not enough to be positive.”
“Well why haven’t you tested it on more men?”
“Because we keep getting arrested.” A spurt of laughter sounded from the gallery.
“Thank you, Ms. Stone.” Linda turned to the judge. “No more questions, Your Honor.” Turning to the D.A. she added, “Your witness.”
Georges approached the witness stand slowly, looking down at his pad of notes as he did so. “Mrs. Stone, where have you been for the last month?”
“In hiding,” Maggie replied.
“Where?”
“In Palo Alto.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t think they would look for me there.”
“No,” he said, “why were you in hiding?”
“Oh. To avoid arrest.”
“Arrest for what?”
“For curing people of cancer.” Maggie said defiantly. Another ripple of laughter rolled through the gallery.
“Were those the charges?” Georges asked sarcastically.
“No. The charges were ‘practicing medicine without a license.’”
“And were you practicing medicine without a license?”
“That seems to be a moot point, but I do not believe that I was doing anything wrong.”
“But you were treating cancer patients, critically ill people, giving them a medication, what you have referred to as a potion, which is not recognized by the medical establishment as having any medicinal value, and you were doing this while not having a degree as a medical doctor. It that correct?”
“Pretty much so.”
“Not totally so?” Georges pushed.
“No.”
“What part isn’t correct?”
“The medical establishment hasn’t taken a stand one way or another on the value of my potion, and the only individual with a medical doctors degree who has commented on the potion is Dr. Krueger, who has testified that it is a very valuable medicine indeed.”
“But it is not a generally recognized treatment, it has not been approved by the F.D.A. for general use, or even for testing, and there have been no scientific papers published on its efficacy—isn’t this all true?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Mrs. Stone, don’t you find it ironic that with the government spending billions of dollars on cancer research, with many of this nation’s finest scientists devoting their whole lives to finding a cure for cancer—don’t you find it at least ironic that you should discover a cure for cancer in your spare time at home?”
Maggie smiled for the first time since taking the stand. “Yes, Mr. Georges, I find it very ironic.”
Georges began to pace in front or the witness box. He was far from delighted with the way the questioning was going. Stopping again in front of the box, he asked, “How did you discover this cure, could you tell us that?”
“Well, yes.” Maggie sat up a bit straighter. It was the first question that Georges asked her that she had anticipated. “My mother, Ann Stone, has had cancer for several years, and more recently had begun to fail badly and was near death. Out of a sense of frustration at being unable to help her, I decided to explore the vast range of unorthodox cancer cures to decide if any showed evidence of being worthwhile. But I couldn’t find one that seemed to be anything more than a quack cure.” She paused. “You see, I don’t think that medical researchers have a corner on wisdom, and I don’t think that their approach to finding cures is the only one. I do believe that it is a good approach, and often an effective approach. But I felt that others could also be of use.”
“Nowadays we have a strong prejudice against folk remedies and old wives’ tales, but those treatments and theories were evolved in much the same way as modern scientists go about their work. The practitioners would find something that seemed to have an effect on an illness and then they would test it on large numbers of people. The disadvantage was their poor statistical methods—they didn’t use control groups and things like that. But their advantage was time. While researchers today try to test a new drug in just a few months or years, folk medicines were tested, sometimes, over many generations. That way, you see, they could make up for their bad statistical methods.
“But all the new, unorthodox treatments for cancer had the worst of both worlds, bad statistics and only a handful of cases, and personally, I didn’t believe half their data. In fact, I suspect that many of them were out-and-out frauds.”
Georges interrupted her. “But that doesn’t tell us how you came up with your cure, Mrs. Stone.”
“Well, I was just
getting to that,” Maggie replied indignantly. “What happened is, I said to myself, ‘Well, what about all those old folk remedies. Did they ever work or not?’ You see, I couldn’t imagine that all the medicines of the 1500s and 1600s were totally without effect, or they wouldn’t have survived So I researched old books, looking for approaches to diseases like cancer, and it was in a number of these that I stumbled across what was said to be a cure for cancer.” She stopped suddenly. “So that’s how I came up with it.”
Georges smiled and turned toward the jury. “So you found your cure for cancer in a two-hundred-year-old book?”
“I don’t remember when the book was written, but the original recipe—that’s what it was called—was much older than that, over three hundred years old.”
“So you found a three- or four-hundred-year-old cure for cancer.” He smiled again. “You thought it just might work?”
“Yes,” Maggie said, “I thought it just—” He had taken the words out of her mouth, but she finished them anyway. “That it just might work.”
“And this is the potion that you claimed just a minute ago cured thirteen terminally ill cancer patients?” He didn’t have to fake his incredulity this time. “You really thought that a four-hundred-year-old folk remedy could cure a disease that they didn’t even know existed back then?”
“But the book said it was for cancer!”
Georges turned to the jury, and then back to Maggie. “This is amazing, absolutely amazing!
“And your ‘preparation of the patient,’ working the patient into a frenzy before you give him, or her, the ‘potion’—this was described hundreds of years ago, also?”
Maggie hesitated before answering. “No.”
“No?” Georges asked. “This most amazing part of your procedure, this outrageous demand that the patient be near hysterical before you are willing to give him the medication, this part of the procedure is of your own design?”
“Yes,” Maggie answered slowly, “you see—”
“No, Mrs. Stone, I must admit I don’t see. I can see why faith healers, who wander from coast to coast taking the money of the poor, the credulous, the aged, and the infirm—I can see why they demand a highly emotional setting for their treatments. I understand how they use manufactured hysteria to cover up their own inabilities. But I can’t understand how you, a woman who claims to have had medical training, who claims she can cure cancer in thirteen out of fourteen cases, I don’t understand why you would need to do this.”
The California Coven Project Page 29