He began with old business, and talked about organizing demonstrations in the following month against Northern Buchanan Health Services, whose family planning center, to hear Peter Hurst tell it, recommended abortion to nine out of ten pregnant women. The demonstrators had been instrumental, he claimed, in "saving eighteen babies" the previous month.
He went on to deride not only the counselors and the abortionists, but the women to whom "jobs are more important than human lives. They become accomplices to murder because having a baby would be 'inconvenient.' How can anyone be 'pro-choice' when the choice is whether or not to murder a child?" His voice dropped, and he nearly hissed his next words. "If these women think that God will not judge them when they come before His throne, if they refuse to learn that the children in their wombs are holy, then they'll learn when their lives on this earth are over."
A girl seated near the back waved her hand, and Peter pointed to her. "I'm in almost total agreement with everything you say, Peter," the girl said, "but what I have a little trouble with is the idea that it's the women who are totally at fault. I mean it takes two people to get a woman pregnant, right? So why should she bear the full...whatever of the guilt?"
Brunt, Olivia said to herself. The word is brunt.
"Of course the men are equally at fault," Peter answered smoothly. "At least for the pregnancy. But remember, it's not the man who bares himself to the abortionist's tools of murder..."
Olivia's mouth twisted with disgust, and her stomach churned with old guilt. She could tell him about those tools all right. She had done it, had an abortion ten years before.
But she wouldn't tell, because she had never told anyone, not even Skip. It was during the first year of their marriage. There had been a slip-up of some kind, she never knew what or why, but she had missed her period.
She didn't tell Skip, and secretly went to her doctor, whose test affirmed the fact that she was pregnant. She thought about having the baby, but decided that she wasn't ready. Her career with the department was just opening up, and she wanted that more than anything else. She hadn't even intended to get married this quickly, and here she was pregnant as well. No, there would be plenty of time for children when they wanted some. But not now. Not yet.
She and her doctor made all the arrangements, and Skip never knew a thing. She was afraid that if he did, he would try to talk her into having the child and living on his salary, and she was afraid she might agree because she loved him so much. But it wasn't a question of economics. It was a question of doing what she had wanted to with her life.
Afterwards she had felt guilty, as much for lying to Skip as for having an abortion. The procedure, from her point of view, had been simply clinical and efficient, not at all tawdry or horrifying. But after Skip was killed, the guilt left her almost totally. She would not have wanted to raise a child alone.
So her child, her baby, the fetus, she thought savagely, growing inside her had died. And she was free. Free not only from the chains of motherhood, but from that oh-so-Christian identification of woman as the weaker vessel, the one who takes the apple, the one who must be shunned during her time of uncleanness, the one who Saint Paul said must submit in all things.
She was, she thought, free of all that bullshit.
The Reverend Ronald Wilber was getting back up now, and Peter Hurst stepped back from the lectern to make room for him. "Thank you, Mister President," Wilber said in his voice of magnolias, corn syrup, and brimstone. "We have a special guest with us tonight, Mr. Norman Feathers, who is assistant district attorney for the city of Buchanan.
"As you all well know, Mr. Feathers is the man responsible for seeing to it that we are severely limited in our access to the expectant women seeking so-called help at the Northern Buchanan Health Clinic. We've asked him here tonight to present his point of view, and to ask him questions." He grinned jovially at Norm. "I won't pretend that we aren't going to pick your brain, Mr. DA, to try and find some ways around your rules." Then he looked back at the crowd. "Please welcome him."
Wilber led what turned out to be only a sparse smattering of applause, and sat down. Norm Feathers got to his feet and stood at the lectern. Olivia thought he looked a little pale, and she couldn't blame him.
His voice shook slightly as he spoke. He talked about every citizen's need to obey the law, the limitations that police departments had to work under, and law enforcement officials' necessary obedience to orders. "We're not here to change the law, or to justify it, but simply to enforce it," Norm said. "And it's up to the police department and the DA's office to see that all laws are obeyed, including those some people, or we ourselves, might find distasteful -- "
"And do you?" It was Peter Hurst who spoke.
Norm looked momentarily thrown. "Do I...what?"
"Do you personally find abortion...distasteful?"
"What I feel personally has nothing to do with my job." it was a good try, but they weren't buying it. Olivia could hear sneering laughs throughout the young audience.
Blood had been drawn, and soon all the knives were out. Norm was asked the predictable questions about whether or not he would have obeyed orders in Nazi Germany, if he would be willing to protect a place that killed newborn babies rather than the unborn, and what he thought about the scripture that said God formed man in his mother's womb.
"Look," Norm finally said, "what I think or believe doesn't matter. I have to enforce the law, and that law says that you may not block entranceways to any public health facility."
"So then," said the Reverend Wilber, rising magisterially and standing next to Norm, "what can we doooo about this obscenity in our community? A blasphemy that it appears the District Attorney intends to do nothing about?"
He can't do anything, you idiot, Olivia thought. She looked around the room and saw angry faces, narrowed eyes, bared teeth, heard words muttered that, even there, could not have been said out loud:
"...burn the place down..."
"...nothing but babykillers..."
"...pay for their crimes..."
"...shoot a few more, then they'd see..."
Before she knew she had done it, she had risen to her feet. She could feel her face flush red, but she had to talk. "Excuse me," she said. "Reverend Wilber, may I speak?"
He nodded at her, smiling unctuously. "And you are?"
"Olivia Feldman. I'm Chief of Homicide here in Buchanan, and I've come along with Mr. Feathers tonight." The buzz of talk quieted, and Olivia found herself growing angry at Wilber, at the audience, and at her own audacity to stick her finger in this hornets' nest. "What Mr. Feathers has said is true -- the law is the law. And while you're trying to persuade your elected officials to change that law, I would remind you that whatever is going on in that clinic is legal, and all the talk I hear about burning and shooting and -- "
"Excuse me...Officer, is it?" Wilber said.
"Lieutenant," she shot back.
"But just where, Lieutenant, have you heard all that?"
"Right here where I've been sitting. I've heard these young people around me, who just may not know any better, use those very words."
"Tempers can run high, Lieutenant, when perversion threatens your home."
"I've seen how high, Reverend." He looked at her quizzically, and she explained. "Often even murder can be triggered by a sense of holy justice."
"Are you referring to something specific?"
She should not have said it, but she was angry with a fury she had seldom felt before. "Several recent murders," she said, "appear to have been the result of..." She looked for the right term. "...moral outrage. That's all the more specific I can be." And it was too damn specific at that, she thought as she saw Norm Feathers's eyes widen in alarm.
"Well, I'm certainly not condoning murder," said Wilber. "But if evil is being done, it is any good Christian's duty to step in and try to stop it."
"Well, maybe that's not your business," said Olivia.
"If it is ungodly," said the pr
eacher, "then whose business do you think it is if not those who are godly?"
"How about giving God a shot at it," Olivia said, and sat down.
In the din of raised voices, she looked at Norm and saw that he was standing helplessly at the lectern, looking as though the team he had bet thousands on had just lost.
And then she looked at Peter Hurst.
His flesh seemed white, and as Ronald Wilber called for quiet, the boy looked at her with dark eyes like small coals on the snowy plain of his face. The longer she looked at him, fascinated, the more the coals seemed to glow, and the look of hate she saw there was in every way the equal of any murderer she had ever seen.
Chapter 30
Paul Blair sat in his seat facing front, while everyone else around him was looking back at Olivia Feldman and either talking out loud or muttering imprecations under their breaths. But Paul sat silently, his blood feeling as though it were congealing into ice.
Moral outrage, the woman had said, this police officer who looked like his wife, and for a moment the sense of fear vanished in the realization that it had been she who had come that night to tell him the news all those years before. She had looked like a younger version of Evey then, and now looked like she had at the time she was killed.
But his memories of his lost love faded as he thought about what knowledge this woman had shown, knowledge that could endanger him. How much did she really know, and had he left behind any evidence that could be traced to him? He burned with curiosity, but how could he find out?
At last the Reverend Wilber regained control of the Conservative Christian Youth Coalition, and the crowd became silent. "I am sure," he said, beaming maliciously on Olivia, "that no Christian would commit murder to express disapproval or to espouse a cause. We leave that to the abortionists." Then he turned the meeting over once more to Peter Hurst.
When the boy took the lectern again, he went to work with a vengeance, organizing students for a letter writing campaign to the local newspapers and the Buchanan Chamber of Commerce, and setting up a committee to schedule and organize picket lines. He also retargeted Northern Buchanan Health Services, consolidating the CCYC's efforts with those of the local chapter of Right To Life. The meeting ended with a prayer by Ron Wilber, asking hypocritically, Olivia thought, for the guidance and wisdom to show others the straight path in which to walk.
After the amens were said, and the after-meeting harangues broke the sanctimonious silence, Olivia walked boldly through the hostile crowd and joined Norm Feathers at the front of the room. Wilber perfunctorily thanked him, gave her a serpentine smile, and then, without saying another word, turned and walked away.
"Sorry," she said quietly to Norm.
"No problem," he said testily, his usual good humor lost. "The news'll just say tomorrow that the head of homicide has declared that the religious right is responsible for several recent murders here, that's all."
"The newspapers weren't here."
"Somebody'll leak it, probably the Reverend Viper." He pushed past her as though he couldn't wait to leave.
When she turned, she found herself looking into the face of the man she had noticed before, the one whose wife had died.
"I know you, I think," he said softly, almost shyly.
"Yes." She gave a small smile and nodded. "I recognized you too...I'm sorry."
Then he smiled. "It was a long time ago. But I didn't forget your face."
"Are you, uh, a member here?"
"Oh no," he laughed. "A little too old. I'm just a guest. They invite members from different churches to every meeting. This is the first I've ever been to. I'm Paul Blair. Blair's Men's Store in town?"
"Oh yes." She held out her hand and Paul Blair took it. "Olivia Feldman."
Since Norm had gone, they walked out to the parking lot together, not talking. Olivia looked around for Norm, but he was nowhere to be seen. "I think my ride left," she said.
"Oh, the, uh..."
"The ADA. I just came along for moral support. Or maybe immoral, to judge from the reaction. They're pretty outspoken in there."
"I guess they feel strongly about things. It's good to see young people with definite goals."
"They don't strike you as a little...extreme?"
She heard the smile in his voice. "Extreme? Demonstrations? Letter campaigns? Those are legal tactics."
"They remind me too much of the Hitler Youth." She looked around. "Is there a phone around here? I need a cab."
"I can drop you off somewhere," he offered, and she considered it for a moment, then decided it was safe enough, and told him where she lived. After all, she had her .32 in her purse.
He opened the car door for her, and she got in, thinking that she could have opened it herself, but charmed by his courtliness in spite of herself. She waited until he got in the car to continue the conversation. "No offense to your own beliefs, but I don't like it when I see people trying to dictate other people's lifestyles."
"Lifestyles." The way Blair said the word, it dripped sarcasm. "That's a word that permits almost anything."
"Like what?"
"Oh, abortion for one, homosexuality..." He started the car.
"You think there should be laws against homosexuality?"
Blair looked through the windshield and guided the car out of the lot, onto the road. "Would it do any good?"
"No, it wouldn't," she said flatly. "It would be like making it illegal to be black. Or white, for that matter. I wonder how Reverend Wilber would respond to that."
"He is a bit narrow minded, isn't he?"
"And passing it on to the younger generation, too." She wondered if she should go on, or if she had already said too much. "Do you know that boy? The president?"
"Peter Hurst?"
"Yes. He seems pretty...intense."
"He has good reason to be."
She didn't ask him what he meant. She thought he seemed to be the kind of man who would tell without asking. And, as she found out, she was right.
"He had a terrible experience as a child."
"Family abuse?"
"Oh no," he said. "The Hursts are good people. A stranger. But Peter's a good kid. Freshman at the Bible college, president of this group, good grades all through school. And he's never gotten into any trouble. He seems to have overcome it on his own."
They were on a hill above the city now, and she saw the driveway to her place up ahead. "There we are. Driveway on the left." He turned into the wooded drive, and drove back fifty yards until a large stone house became visible, with several windows alight. "Don't worry," she said. "These aren't your tax dollars at work. I've got the carriage house in the back."
She thanked him for bringing her home, he said she was welcome, and that was all there was to it. But as she watched his tail lights disappear in the trees, she wondered about Paul Blair. All the way home, he had seemed slightly on edge. Was it because she was a detective? Or was he still remembering that night years ago when she had delivered to him the news of his wife's death?
Another thing that she wondered about was his apparent pride in that boy, Peter Hurst. It was almost paternal.
Then she stopped, her key turned halfway in the door, and remembered.
Peter Hurst.
She had heard the boy's name once before, just once, when she had asked him in the police car on the way to the hospital. The words had been long in coming, but finally the little boy had forced them out. Peter Hurst. And she had given the name to the ER doctors at the hospital.
Peter Hurst, the long ago victim of long dead William Davonier, who had, despite Paul Blair's denials, turned the boy into a different kind of creature.
All she had to go on was instinct, but to set her mind at rest she thought she would quietly check Peter Hurst's whereabouts during one of the recent killings.
~ * ~
Paul Blair's mind was whirling. He had met her, spoken with her, even driven her home, and she suspected nothing. She had treated him just like she
would have treated anyone else, and he knew that he was free to go on, doing whatever he had to do.
Besides a sense of safety, he had been given something else tonight, the certainty that he had been doing right. Seeing Peter Hurst told him that. Had he not saved his life, that fine young man would not himself be serving God.
Paul liked what he had seen. Peter Hurst had been bold and unafraid in front of the large crowd. His pronouncements were swift and to the point. The boy was born to lead, and Paul thanked God that he had been able to save him from death years before.
Paul was, however, of two minds about the goals of the CCYC. Although he had told Olivia Feldman otherwise, he thought the group could have chosen more threatening targets. Abortion was an issue which he had never been able to resolve within himself. His emotions told him that any life was precious to God, but at the same time he could not condone making an adolescent child go through an incestuous pregnancy. And why should a rape victim be further victimized by being forced to carry a criminal's seed to term?
But then he thought of fetuses ripped from the womb, their own frail lives ended by violence, and once more he didn't know how to think, what to believe, who to support.
The story in the newspaper the next day finally made up his mind for him.
Chapter 31
The girl's name was Heather Heisey, and Paul Blair had no idea that she was serious with a boy, or that she had gotten pregnant, or that she had aborted her own fetus until he read about it in the Independent.
Being a minor, Heather's name did not appear in the article, so Paul did not learn until later that the victim of the botched abortion was Heather, whose baptism he had witnessed, his book told him, in November of 1996. According to the newspaper, an unidentified girl had been admitted to Buchanan General Hospital the night before with severe bleeding and injuries that had required an emergency hysterectomy. Since the girl's condition indicated that she had recently undergone an abortion, the injuries were blamed on that operation, of which the local medical facilities had no record.
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