Prophet

by Frank Peretti

  “So how’s Deanne Brewer taking all this?”

  Leslie breathed a deep sigh. “She’s holding up. It’s hard for her, hard for both of them, but they want to know.”

  “We’ll have to be sure we don’t let Max get too riled.”

  Carl asked, “But who are these doctors? We must be able to find that out.”

  “Sure, we can find out,” said Leslie. “But it’s interesting how Mary has no idea who they were. Those doctors go through the whole thing so fast the girls hardly even see their faces. There are no doctor/patient relationships, no introductions, nothing. And along those lines, the clinic tries to minimize the paper trail by paying the doctors in cash, no 1099s, no W-2s.

  “But if you’re looking for some way to link the clinic with Annie Brewer, I’ve thought of four things: Number One, every patient has a chart—a record of the procedure, what was done, what the results were, and so forth—and every chart has a little tear-off coupon at the bottom. After the doctor does the abortion, he signs the chart and the coupon, tears off that coupon, and puts it in his pocket. At the end of the day he then turns in a whole stack of coupons so he can get paid. Now that would be one way to tie a doctor to a patient.”

  “So if Annie’s chart still exists, that would be evidence,” John said, “if she used her real name.”

  “She didn’t,” said Leslie. “But Mary knew what her code name was: Judy Medford.”

  “Judy Medford,” John rehearsed as he wrote it down.

  “A lot of the girls use code names. The clinic doesn’t mind as long as the same name is always used by the same patient. Incidentally, Mary’s code name was Madonna.”

  “So there’s still hope,” said Carl.

  “Hm?” asked Leslie.

  John nodded. He and Carl had talked about this.

  Carl explained, “Well, think of it: Here comes Max Brewer into the clinic, asking if they did an abortion on his daughter Annie Brewer and making so much trouble they have to call the cops to get him out of there. If you were running that clinic and found out one of your patients died and her old man was after you, what would you do?”

  Mom had no trouble with the answer. “I’d get rid of all the records. I’d get rid of anything that had anything to do with Annie Brewer.”

  Leslie and John didn’t dive in to agree. Leslie countered, somewhat reservedly, “That would be . . . pretty dishonest.”

  But John just looked at her, prodding further thought with raised eyebrows.

  Leslie asked him, “Do you think they’d do that, John?”

  John pursed his lips, scanned the table for the answer, then replied, “If they thought they could get away with it.”

  Carl finished his point. “But if they didn’t know Annie Brewer’s phony name was phony . . .”

  “They wouldn’t know which records to purge,” said John. “So we may still have a chance here.”

  Leslie went back to her notes. “Okay then, here’s Number Two: Every woman, every girl, has to sign a consent form. Whether they understand it or not, whether the form really informs them of the dangers or not, they have to sign it to get an abortion. Number Three, the clinic probably has a daily schedule sheet for each day’s abortions. If they’ve kept that record, then Annie, alias Judy Medford, would be on it. Number Four, there might be a bookkeeping entry or a receipt for Annie’s $350. She did pay in cash, isn’t that right?”

  John nodded. “I called Max about that, and he said Annie’s savings account shows a $350 withdrawal the Thursday before the abortion.”

  “Okay . . . so there we have four possible documents that could establish Annie being at the clinic.”

  “Now if we could only get those records . . .”

  Leslie shook her head. “It’s going to take a lawyer, John.”

  John searched the card file in his head for a name. “I know a lawyer we can talk to: Aaron Hart. Maybe he can get us a subpoena or something.” Then he scanned his notes, saying to no one in particular, “But what do we have to show him? We’re sure now that Annie was at the Women’s Medical Center for an abortion on the 24th of May and that she died two days later, on the 26th . . .”

  “Depends on what you mean by ‘sure.’ Our witness Mary has vanished back into the woodwork.”

  “Hoo boy. We’ve got to hope we can draw her back out somehow. But besides Mary, we have handcopied excerpts from an autopsy report that suggests Annie died from a botched abortion. Dr. Meredith says we really need the original, along with the pathologist himself.”

  “And there’s Rachel Franklin, who can assert that she was given a phony pregnancy test result, as if that has anything to do with it.”

  Carl added, “And we’ve just heard about the $350 taken from Annie’s bank account.”

  “And we have the circumstantial stuff,” said Leslie. “The van running from the three schools, and Jefferson High being one of them.”

  “And the Friday factor, the . . . well, the coincidence of the day the school-referred abortions are performed and the day of Annie’s illness.”

  “Well,” said Leslie, “I know one thing I’m going to do, and that’s get together with Deanne and try once again to track down Denning, the hospital pathologist. If he’s still on the planet anywhere, we’ve got to find him and get him to attest to the fact that Annie died from a botched abortion. But by all means let’s get an appointment with that lawyer before the trail gets any colder.”

  “So . . .” John ventured, “you’re in?”

  “I have my views on all this,” said Leslie, “and I’m no witch-hunter. Choice is still choice, and privacy is still privacy. But an innocent girl is dead. I’ve seen and heard enough. I’m in.”

  JOHN TRUDGED UP the stairs to his apartment at about 8 that night, fumbled with the key in the lock, and finally got inside, where he flopped on the couch, his forearm over his eyes, tired, troubled, not wanting to move, wanting only to lie there and process, process, process. He had to get away from the emotion and the momentum of this thing before he got carried away. Regardless of what the others thought, felt, were doing, or were going to do, what was he going to do? Where did he stand on all this? He had to sort it out before going one step further.

  All right. First of all, was he convinced Annie Brewer had died at the hands of a sloppy abortionist? Yes, he was. But that wouldn’t mean much if he couldn’t prove it, and proving it would be troublesome and, if he wasn’t careful, hazardous. Here he’d be, the supposedly impartial, reliable newsman, caught in an activity that would brand him a pro-lifer or, worse yet, an anti-choicer. That might be bad for ratings, and Ben Oliver wouldn’t like that.

  But what about the wrongness of it? he wondered. Was what happened to Annie Brewer wrong? He thought so. Okay, how wrong? Certainly a skilled lawyer could demonstrate that the physician—indeed, the whole clinic—had acted within the law, according to their good faith judgment; and if so, the Brewers, and by association John Barrett and Company, would be left high and dry without a bona fide complaint.

  So okay, it might be legal, but did that make it right? Oh please, let’s not get into that, he thought. These days it was all too frequently demonstrated that the law could not settle that argument one way or the other.

  So why should he even bother himself with this? The answer came to his mind: Because what happened to Annie Brewer was evil, and evil prevails when good men do nothing.

  Okay, so what is Evil? He could be like Dad was—thump a Bible and say what’s right and what’s wrong—but how well would that fit in a society that looked to majority opinion, legislation, and court precedents for its rules—rules that were constantly changing? Just who had the final say? Maybe the whole notion of Evil was a catch-all created for anything the majority didn’t like.

  Well, if he couldn’t nail down what Evil was, why fight it? Whatever was evil today could be voted, legislated, or judged good tomorrow. Maybe if we just wait long enough, he thought, we’ll get comfortable with the way things are. May
be next year what happened to Annie Brewer won’t be such a bad thing, and we’ll be looking back, glad we didn’t bust our guts for nothing. Or our careers.

  What if they did pursue this? John tried to imagine the best thing that could happen.

  Perhaps the Brewers would receive some kind of compensation. But a jury would have to award it to them, and what wrongdoing could anyone prove in court with the laws the way they were?

  Well then, could this incident be used to stir up a public outcry for tougher laws regulating the abortion industry? Well, it would fuel the debate, of course, but did the debate really need more fuel? Right now it was roaring along just fine on the fuel it had.

  And what about Dad? John went limp as hope left him. As much as they knew about the Annie caper, nothing pointed in the tiniest way to Dad’s death.

  Such uncertainty! If only he could find just one little guarantee somewhere!

  So John turned to the worst thing that could happen. They wouldn’t find out anything, nobody would get caught or held accountable, and his name would become associated with unfounded pro-life vendettas, thus ruining his image as a—how did Ben Oliver put it?—a “sharp, in-control kind of guy . . . a man the public can trust to bring them the news with sobriety, integrity, and grit . . .”

  Well, one answer, one course of action, was becoming obvious. John, he mused, you’ve got to stay clear of this. No matter how it turns out, you cannot let yourself be associated with it. A news story is one thing—political meddling is another—and it isn’t a news story yet anyway, not without something more solid.

  So now he had decided. He’d made up his mind. No, he hadn’t. His heart was almost physically pounding with it: What happened to Annie Brewer was wrong.

  Yes, wrong. But what about . . . ? It was wrong. He knew it was wrong, felt it was wrong, would go to his grave convinced it was wrong.

  But the other factors kept plaguing him—his career, his image, the vagueness of the law, of society’s present moral code, the elusiveness of the whole concept of Evil.

  It was wrong, he said in his heart—undeniably, emphatically, unequivocally, categorically wrong.

  But what can anyone do about it? Why even try? He jumped up from the couch ready to do battle with his doubts, angry at the whole situation, at himself, at that cursed clinic, at the whole red-handed world. Hey, a man had to have some remnant of a conscience, for crying out loud!

  “It’s wrong!” he told himself, and then went on to tell the world, “No, sorry, your arguments don’t wash! I know wrong when I see it, I know when someone’s been taken advantage of, I know when someone’s made a tragic mistake and tried to get away with it, and it’s wrong, and you won’t take my conscience from me!”

  He looked out the glass balcony door toward the city, now aglow with its myriad of lights, glimmering, roaring, hurrying about its business, with things to do, deals to make, places to go, appointments to keep. For a moment he felt a strange sensation, a kinship in sin with all those people out there.

  “How’d we ever get ourselves into this mess anyway?” he asked.

  And then, as he stood there quietly before the city, the voices reached him once again. He could hear them clearly but not “audibly,” not seemingly with his ears as before. His heart heard them. His humanity heard them. Every fiber within him that could mourn—but also hope—heard them. And it was no big shock. He was not surprised or dismayed. He welcomed the knowledge, the awareness of their cries.

  Perhaps it was because to a certain degree he now understood what they were feeling. They were hurting, yes, and dying, pulled steadily downward by despair, but they were crying out because they knew they would be heard; they were reaching desperately for hope because they knew it was there. They knew. As much as they would argue against it and deny it in the light of day and in the clatter and diversion of their social circles, in their souls they still knew.

  And John knew. He’d always known. For years he hadn’t given it much attention, hardly any conscious thought, but he always knew hope was there, like a life preserver hanging on the wall that he passed every day but never used.

  And sometimes, just sometimes, he too had cried out just as these voices were doing, and only because he knew he would be heard.

  “You know,” he said to the city, “there really is an answer. I mean, here I am talking about Evil and right and wrong, and here we all are wailing about how tough life is and what a joke it is and how much it hurts, and you know what? If there weren’t anybody to hear us, we wouldn’t be whining like this. If . . . if I didn’t truly believe in some ultimate Good, I sure wouldn’t be having trouble with Evil. I wouldn’t try to fight it. No, I’d just let it go, I’d accept it. I wouldn’t be looking for answers because there wouldn’t be any.”

  He leaned against the wall and peered intently into the night scene below him. Could they hear him? No matter. “But listen to me . . . There is an ultimate Good. There’s a God, and He cares about us; He cares about all this mess we’re into. If you’re hurting, well, He’s hurting too, because He’s fed up with the evil, He’s fed up with the pain, and I think He wants to fix it, if we’re willing to let Him.”

  Behind him, so quietly he didn’t hear it, the door to the apartment opened. He was so troubled and distracted when he got home that he’d failed to latch or lock it.

  “God’s patient, sure, but He’s righteous too. He’s laid down the law, and He did it for our good, and what we need to do is quit playing games by our rules and get our acts together and do things His way again. It’s our fault we’re in this mess!”

  John felt he would weep over the city. He didn’t know where these thoughts and feelings were coming from, and he didn’t really care. He just had to express them. He had to spill his guts.

  “He’s . . . He’s God, you know? But listen, He’s compassionate, and He’s gracious, and He’s slow to anger and full of love and . . . and faithfulness too! He’ll stick by us. He loves us, and He’ll forgive us if we just turn to Him and trust Him. Sure, we’ve rebelled against Him, we’ve gone our own way, and we’ve . . . well, yeah, we’ve sinned. I’ll say it. We’ve sinned, and we’re all feeling it tonight, right? Well, let me tell you, God is holy, and He won’t leave the guilty unpunished. Just look at us! Our fathers got lazy about God, and now we’re away from God altogether, and our kids . . . they don’t know where they are! You don’t think we’re paying for our sin?”

  He was starting to weep. Though he’d been able to contain himself when he felt sorrow for Rachel the waitress, he felt no need to contain himself now.

  “Listen, we need to wise up, because God won’t help us if we’re going to keep pretending with Him, throwing His name around and acting like we’re praying, because He won’t take it. He’ll just hide His eyes from us, and we can pray all we want, but He won’t hear us because . . .” He could see it so clearly now. “Our hands are full of blood! Annie’s blood! Dad’s blood! How can we claim to be good when there’s blood on our hands? We need to do some real cleanup.”

  Someone came in and silently closed the door behind him.

  John didn’t notice. He had to get something off his chest. “In the Bible God says, ‘Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’ We’ve sinned against God, but His Son paid the penalty for us. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He can be our peace and our comfort, and He can wash us clean—”

  Then he noticed. He spun around expecting a demon. It was Carl, standing in the middle of the living room, frozen in place, looking like he’d just seen the burning bush.

  John just stood there himself, looking at his son’s awestruck expression and unable to come up with the first word of a coherent explanation.

  Carl spoke first, his voice quiet and quaking. “You . . . uh . . . forgot your coat. I was going over to . . . well anyway, I came by here and . . . here’s your coa
t . . .”

  Carl held it out to him. It was Dad’s old overcoat, the coat Dad gave to John the last time they were together.

  John reached out and took it, and then he held it with tears in his eyes, looking out at the city. Carl came and stood beside him, looking in the same direction, not saying a word.

  John knew he’d have to say it. He’d have to admit it. “I’m just like Dad,” he said.

  CHAPTER 14

  CARL KEPT LOOKING at his father, and though for an instant he thought he shouldn’t be staring, he rebuffed that notion with the weightier thought that he was entitled to all the staring he wanted. “What did you say?” John had had enough trouble saying it the first time. “I said . . . I said that . . .” John’s gaze dropped to the floor. He didn’t want to say it again. “I gotta sit down.”

  Carl moved toward the living room. John passed him and sank into the couch, still holding Dad’s old overcoat. Carl sat in a chair opposite him and tried to relax a bit. He was staring so much he had to be making his father nervous.

  “Carl,” John said in a near whisper, not looking at his son but at the coffee table, almost forcing the words out one at a time. “I . . . have heard voices . . . Lots of voices, all crying and wailing in pain and despair and pleading for help. I’ve heard them all over the city.” He paused just long enough to denote a new paragraph. Carl didn’t insert a comment or question. “I heard a gal at work screaming for help when she wasn’t really screaming for help. I saw . . . you were there for this one . . . I saw a question in the TV script that exposed something politically damaging to certain parties, but I asked it anyway, and it turned out that what I said was true. I knew . . .” He had to take a breath and calm himself. “I knew that Rachel Franklin, the waitress, was hurting and grieving over someone named Annie. I felt her pain, and it was all I could do to keep from crying right there in front of you. For some reason I was right about that too, and you know the rest of that story. I saw people, hundreds of them, being sucked down into a black pit at the mall. I already told you and Mom about that one. And tonight . . .” John had to think about how to express it. “Tonight . . . I didn’t hear the voices again, but I knew they were crying anyway, and I knew those voices belonged to real people out there in that city who are hurting and without hope, and somehow I just had to tell them there really is hope because there’s a God. God! Can you believe that? I haven’t been to church—of my own free choice anyway—since I was nineteen, and here I am, telling them about God, and . . . it was like every sermon I ever heard from my churchgoing days came back to me, because it all came rushing out as fast as I could think of it, sometimes faster, and I don’t know that I’ve ever carried on like that before.”