by Victor Koman
Johnson smiled. "Thank you, Mr. District Attorney."
"And you-" Frawley said. "You just watch your step. If I have to deal with you at all, just remember that we're both officers of the same damned court."
The young man tried to suppress a sardonic smile. "I'm fully aware of that, sir." He switched off the recorder, putting it and his notepad back in the briefcase.
Evelyn stood and turned to go.
"Oh, Dr. Fletcher," Frawley added. "Don't leave the county of Los Angeles without giving us a call, will you?"
"Of course I won't leave," she said. "I have patients to care for."
"You certainly do not!" Dr. Lawrence stared at her in shock. "Your privileges are suspended pending full BMQA review. And I'm going to find a way to sack you regardless of any outcome."
"That's absurd," she said. "Renata requires-"
"Newborn babies are not uncommon in medicine," he shot back. "I'm certain that we-"
"You're certain of nothing because you have no facts!" Her gaze smoldered for a moment. "I know you view the Hippo-cratic oath as a joke, considering how you have your doctors ignore the part about never conducting abortions-"
"I took the oath of Geneva," Lawrence said. "It had nothing about abor-"
"-but think of the publicity crisis you'd have if Renata died because I was barred from helping her," she continued with-out interruption. "Bad for funding."
"Why does it always come down to money and publicity with you?" he asked.
"Because that's what it comes down to with you."
"Until the outcome of the inquest," Johnson interjected, "showing cause for suspension under such circumstances would be diffic-"
"Shut up," Lawrence snapped.
"See you in court," Johnson said with a grin.
After a pause, Lawrence spoke in a quiet, steady tone. "All right. Dr. Fletcher, you may remain on staff under strict su-pervision and with the stipulation that you desist from any fur-ther medical experimentation. Agreed?"
Fletcher nodded eagerly. "I agree. As long as neither I nor Nurse Dyer are required to perform or assist in any abortions."
"Oh, you can rest assured on that point."
"Then," Johnson said, "in the interest of avoiding any unto-ward publicity until the grand jury convenes, how about show-ing us the back door?"
X
Valerie switched on the bedroom TV with the remote. The lunchtime news appeared with an image of anchorwoman Sally Lin, who spoke while a piece of artwork hovered over her left shoulder, depicting a fetus and the words Abortion Scandal? at an angle in red.
"-still unclear," the anchor said. "The doctor, Evelyn Fletcher, is head of the medical center's fertility program. She also apparently ran the center's family-planning clinic and performed abortions, thus giving her access to live fetuses. Hospital officials have no comment as yet, but sources reveal that the purportedly clandestine experiment came to light when the baby, delivered by alleged surrogate mother Karen Chandler of Torrance, fell ill and required blood from the al-leged real mother, Valerie Dalton of Palos Verdes Estates."
Valerie felt as if a charging bull had gored her. Her stomach tightened, her breath caught in her chest, her heart pounded as if she were being truncheoned every half second. The anchorwoman continued, unaware of the effect she was hav-ing on a member of her audience.
"There is no word on how many operations of this nature may allegedly have been performed, but we'll keep you in-formed on this bizarre story as it unfolds."
The scene switched to the other anchor, Jerry Thompson, a middle-aged man with grey at the temples. "Now you said `sur-rogate,' Sally, but this was actually a mother who wanted to have a child, correct?"
"That's right, Jerry. This seems to be different from surro-gate mothering in that the woman who wants to keep the child gives birth to it. I think the term they used was `recipient' mother. But in both cases the real mother gives up the child. The term we heard used was transoption, though our medical expert, Dr. Joseph Schulman, says he's never heard the word before."
Thompson gave Lin a concerned and probing look. "And no word as to why this recipient mother quietly went along with what she must have known was an illegal procedure?"
"No word yet. She presumably wanted a child in the worst way." Thompson nodded. "And that's how she seems to have got-ten it. Shocking story coming out of Harbor City. Something we'll follow up on tonight at six. Thanks, Sally." He turned to face the camera.
"And a shocking loss for the Raiders in Den-ver, as Mauricio Sanchez tells us when we return with sports after these-"
The phone rang. Valerie switched off the TV and picked up the cordless hand unit an instant before the answering ma-chine could intercept the call.
"Val!" Ron's voice was distant but alarmed. "Are you all right?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm calling from the car. I'm at PCH and Beryl. I'll be home soon. I heard your name on the radio. Is everything all right?"
"I'm okay. Just hurry home."
"Fifteen minutes," he said. "I'll cut it to ten."
"Drive safely. I don't-"
Someone pounded on their front door. She walked over to look out the beveled-glass rectangle set in the center.
A man with a microphone gestured at her. Another man hefted a video camera on his shoulder. Behind them, a van pulled to a stop, its tires screeching and thumping to a halt.
"Ms. Dalton, could you step out here to comment-"
"Oh, God, Ron. They're showing up here!"
"Don't let them in!" shouted the tinny voice. Somewhere in the static she heard the whine of the BMW's turbine. "I'm com-ing!"
She watched as more gangs of reporters, cameramen, and sound engineers trooped onto her front lawn. Curious neigh-bors gathered at the fringes. So much for Palos Verdes people not prying. Her stomach tightened and began to heave. She controlled the urge but ran to the bathroom anyway, slamming the door.
It was quiet in the bathroom. The knocking on the front door was almost imperceptible. She turned on the faucet in the sink to drown out the last of it. She sat, numbed, waiting for Ron to return. " Ron hit the left turn from Palos Verdes Drive to Via Zumaya at nearly full speed, ignoring the oncoming northbound cars a few yards ahead. He punched the BMW to full power across the two lanes of traffic and slammed onto Via Zumaya at fifty miles per hour. He took his foot off the gas and downshifted for the turn onto Via Carrillo.
And nearly collided with the knot of vehicles jamming the tree-lined street. Brakes squealed in protest, but the antilock system prevented a skid. Even so, he bumped into a station wagon bearing the call letters of the radio station to which he had been listening.
He didn't give a damn.
He slammed the door and ran to the cluster of a dozen and more Pecksniffs loitering on his doorstep.
"Move it!" he shouted in his deepest, most authoritarian courtroom bass. "Get your asses to the property line or be ar-rested for trespassing. Now!"
The reporters surrounded him, hollering their questions and shoving for position. Awash in a Sargasso of journalists, Czernek pushed toward the door while fumbling for his keys.
"I said no comment. When we're ready to talk, you'll know it. Get off the lawn and find some carrion to circle around."
He unlocked the door, entered, and slammed it forcefully shut. "Val!" He heard the water in the bathroom and ran toward it. "Honey!" he shouted. She sat on the small French seat in front of her vanity, gaz-ing in the mirror. He knelt down to wrap her in his powerful arms. His hand stroked her soft hair, his voice even softer.
"I'm here now, babe. Everything's all right. I know just what to do. Give me a couple of hours at the word processor. I have to get something stamped at court before it closes." He released her almost as quickly as he had embraced her. Seconds later, he sat in their office. Valerie heard the whine and chunk of the computer and knew that she would sit alone once more until he was finished. She gazed at her image in the vanity mirror. Her eyes, she noted, loo
ked older, wearier, less alive than they ever had before. In a robotic daze, she brushed at her hair only to see that the polish on her long nails had grown dull and chipped over the course of the day. She laid down the brush. To the sounds of running water and Ron's feverish typing, she sat staring at the woman in the look-ing glass. " Evelyn, alone, took a long, meditative lunch at CoCo's after the interrogation, mulling over the conversation she and Johnson had engaged in during the rush to her car.
"I saw you on TV," he said, riding down the service elevator with her. "I didn't know whether you already had an attorney, but I knew I had to give it a try. And I'd like to represent the Chandler's, too, if you and they won't see any conflict of inter-est there."
"Are you a specialist in reproductive law?" She was fighting for her professional life, she thought, and here was a kid offer-ing his services.
"I will be by the time we go to trial." The elevator doors parted. "There's really nothing to being a lawyer except the ability to apply clear logic to muddled legislation. Add a good head for research and rhetorical skills and you've got a win-ning lawyer."
"You need one more thing."
"What's that?" he asked.
"A jury willing to believe you."
She ate her meal slowly, spending more than two hours in the restaurant. She had managed to elude the reporters and she wanted her privacy to last. As daylight began to fade, she paid her tab and used the public phone to call the lab. After fielding questions from a concerned technologist and assur-ing him that she was fine, she heard the news that managed to lift her spirits.
Dalton's serologies were fine. And-crucially important-her HLA matched Renata's rare type on five points. That was close enough to make a marrow transplant possible. Relieved that at least one good thing had happened that day, she paid her tab and drove home.
She maneuvered the Saab into the alley behind her apart-ment, parked in the carport, and climbed out. A buzz in the twilight air, different from the usual noises of the neighbor-hood, alerted her to a crowd in the front of the building. Sus-pecting reporters, she looked this way and that. The back entrance was deserted. She headed for the door. A figure shifted in the shadows.
"Dr. Fletcher?"
The voice startled her. She gasped inadvertently, drawing her key ring to hold beside her as a ready weapon.
"Who are you?"
A man dressed in dark blue jeans and a navy turtleneck sweater stepped out of the darkness into the yellow light of the walkway. He handed her an envelope. "This is for you." She reflexively reached out for it with her free hand. The instant her fingers touched it, the bearded man released his hold.
"My name is Ron Czernek, attorney for the mother of the baby known as Renata Chandler. You have just been served on behalf of Valerie Dalton with a civil lawsuit demanding the return of Valerie Dalton's and my daughter, the payment of thirty million dollars in actual and punitive damages, and a permanent injunction against your practice of medicine in the state of California. Have a nice night." Evelyn stood in the pool of light staring wordlessly at Czernek. She felt like an old woman who had just been mugged. Her fingers shifted the smooth surface of the enve-lope around in her hand. He turned to leave.
"I only meant to save a child's life," she said.
Czernek whipped about to stare at the doctor with icy con-tempt. "And how many lives have you ruined doing so? Valerie's nearly mad with confusion and guilt. She went through the pain of an abortion and had finally learned to deal with it when she discovered that she had to undergo more pain to save the life she thought she'd ended. Why? Because a doctor's little experiment screwed up."
"That's not how it was at-"
"I don't care how it was." He pointed at the envelope. "This is how it is. We're taking our daughter back." He waited just long enough for a riposte from Fletcher, received none, and walked into the night. His feet crunched against the gravel and broken glass in the alleyway.
Evelyn unlocked the door to the stairwell and stepped in-side. In the harsh fluorescent light she leaned against the wall to examine the lawsuit.
It was all he had said, naming her, Mr. and Mrs. Chandler, and Bayside University Medical Center as co-defendants. She walked up the stairs feeling old, tired, and shaken. She had always known that her research would be viewed with hostil-ity by her peers. She knew enough history to realize that medi-cal innovations in any particular age were rarely accepted by the physicians then practicing. Usually the old generation of researchers had to die off, clinging intransigently to outmoded ideas and procedures, while a new generation accepted the new concepts as the norm. That's why it took a generation for practically any idea or invention to gain widespread approval. The thought gave her scant comfort. If how she felt after today's ordeal was any indication, she didn't think she could hold out that long. The first action she took upon entering her apartment was to throw the blue-backed insult on the coffee table. Locking and chaining the door, she lit up a Defiant and located her patient-address book. Finger stabbing like a dagger, she punched in Valerie's phone number.
The line was busy.
She hit the redial button. Busy.
Probably being interviewed by People magazine, she mused.
"
Karen Chandler sat in the ICU, weeping in David's arms. She had tried not to cry, but watching the blood transfusion a few hours ago had been the first blow. Renata hardly reacted as the nurse tried to pierce a slender vein with the tiniest of IV needles. The blood brought a pink glow to her skin, but it didn't seem to last.
Now Renata slept motionlessly inside the isolation cham-ber. Minuscule electrodes, stuck with gel and taped to her head and chest, delivered vital information to the machinery against the wall. Except for the electronic musings of the equipment and Karen's sobs, the room was quiet. The sound on the television set had been turned off, but David looked up to see a silent montage of the day's events: the line of demonstrators outside the hospital; the arrival of the DA; the hospital administrator fending off questions; Dr. Fletcher in handcuffs, walking tall through the clog of report-ers; her reaction as a clod of dirt hits her; an interview with the man Chandler knew had to be Renata's father.
Her real father.
And finally, the news anchor with an insert behind her that read "Transoption"-Surgical Kidnapping?
The accompany-ing artwork was that of a fetus surmounted by a gleaming scal-pel. He watched the image fade, to be replaced by an ad for dis-posable diapers. He looked away, buried his face in Karen's sweet-smelling hair, and tried to soothe her.
A man in dark blue jeans and a navy turtleneck sweater strode quietly down the hospital hallway toward the ICU.
"
The phone rang. Valerie, just finished talking with her mother in Colorado, picked up the handset.
"Hello?"
"Valerie, this is Dr. Fletcher."
She felt as if her hands had been plunged into ice water. "Y-yes?"
"I just ran into Ron."
"Dr. Fletcher," she said, her words running together in a breathless plea for understanding, "I didn't want it to come to this but everything seemed so terrible when I heard that my baby was alive and I'd have to give her a transplant and all. It was Ron's idea but we both want that baby to live and wouldn't it stand a better chance with me? I'm her real mother after all and it's not as if we can't provide for her even without that money that he asked for. You know I don't care about the money; I just want her to be all right."
"Valerie, I don't harbor any ill feelings. I only want to know that this suit won't interfere with our working relationship. With helping the baby get well."
"Oh, it won't, Dr. Fletcher, it won't." She sniffed back tears, wiped a tissue against her nose.
"You've got to realize that all this publicity is going to be tough on us. You've got to keep your spirits up and stay healthy for Renata's sake as well as yours."
"I will," Valerie said. "I will."
"Your HLA type is close enough to Renata's that we can do
a marrow transplant. Can I expect you to show up at ten tomor-row morning?"
"Yes. Ten A.M."
"All right, Valerie." Dr. Fletcher's tone softened. "Thank you."
"I want my baby to live," she said, choking back the urge to break into tears.
"We all do. Get some rest. Good night."
Valerie said, "Good night," and switched off the remote. She lay back on the bed and tried to think about how all this would affect her, her job, and Ron. She'd need more time off for the appointment tomorrow. And trials are usually held during day-time. She wondered if Ernie would understand. He always seemed very sympathetic to her problems.
Her mother had been so sweet, talking to her just a few min-utes before. She'd called from Colorado Springs to find out what was going on. She'd heard her daughter's name on CNN and called immediately. They talked for nearly an hour about it all, both crying, Valerie assuring her mother that there was no need for her to fly out-Ron was doing everything he could to take care of her. The phone rang, startling her back to the present time. She picked up the remote. "Hello?"
"Is this Valerie Dalton?" The man's voice sounded guarded.
"Yes. May I ask who's-"
"I'm a stringer with the National Midnight Star. I'd like to check a few facts about the changeling for our next issue. I think we can definitely swing a cover headline, though the royal triplets get priority for the pho-"
"What?" was all that she could muster. A sick tightness gripped her stomach.
"Hey, I'm sorry, but we've already got the color separations done on their photo. We'll do the best we can on interior lay-out, though. Now, let's start off with vital stats. What's the baby's birth weight and length?"
"I-I don't-"
"You're right, I can get that from the mother. Now, do you suspect that the doctor was in the service of the CIA, KGB, or extraterrestrial forces?"
Valerie stared at the phone in revulsion and switched it off. It promptly rang again. She let it. After four rings, the answer-ing machine took over.
