Beckie frowned, Craddock’s methodology was certainly different from McCardle’s ranting. Liz was right. Craddock was a real smoothie.
Craddock continued for half an hour, slowly focusing on the N.M.A. and its stand on the fetal monitor. “The Natural Midwives Association,” he concluded, “was founded out of a rejection of the requirements set forth in the legislation governing the licensing of midwives. That legislation requires all midwives to carry out their practice, and I quote now, ‘in a safe and conscientious manner, in accord with such standard practices as have been established by the medical conununity.’ The Natural Midwives Association was founded on a refusal to follow one such practice—accepted by the medical profession as necessary for the safety of mother and child—and its members made clear from the start that they would refuse to accept the policies of the medical profession as governing their actions. By this rejection they have forced upon us the responsibility of revoking their licenses.
“The licensing of medical personnel is a most serious obligation of the government. We will have done ourselves and our state a great disservice if we do not revoke the licenses of these women who not only refuse to perform their duties in the safe and conscientious manner required by law, but go even further and reject that very obligation.” He turned and looked directly at Beckie, neither anger nor bitterness in his expression or his voice. “I urge all members of this committee to vote for revocation.”
Scattered applause rose from the audience. Beckie looked around, curious to identify her opponents, but failed to recognize any. Strange, she thought, they look just like normal, reasonable people, and yet they obviously feel strongly about the issue, and are out to deprive me of my livelihood. It unnerved her.
“We’ve done it,” Liz whispered. “He said almost exactly what we predicted he would.” Liz and Beckie had met the night before with Senator Pat White, the only woman on the committee, and a strong supporter of the N.M.A. The meeting had been requested by White, who wanted help in planning her strategy against McCardle and Craddock. She asked the chair for the floor.
“I would like to thank Senator Craddock for the rational form of his position.” She turned and looked at McCardle. “Perhaps in such a framework we can discuss this issue with something of the propriety that I feel sure the citizens of this state expect of us.” McCardle returned her glare, but said nothing. White turned back to Craddock. “Senator, I agree with you that the issue here is whether or not the members of the Natural Midwives Association have met the conditions set forth in the legislation regarding their licensing. But I totally disagree with your conclusion that they have not met these requirements. In point of fact, I am certain that they have—and I quote the original legislation—that they have acted ‘in a safe and conscientious manner, in accord with such standard practices as have been established by the medical community.’ Our disagreement, it would seem, revolves around the interpretation of three key phrases in that sentence. They are the phrases ‘safe and conscientious,’ ‘standard practice,’ and ‘medical community.’ Senator, I think you will agree that the choice of the phrase ‘medical community’ instead of ‘A.M.A.’ was appropriate? The use of the word community implies that we are not talking about an organization of men with M.D.s, and especially not the ruling board of that organization. The ‘medical community’ includes doctors, nurses, midwives, nurse practitioners, paramedics—in short, all those people who are engaged in the maintenance of the health of the people of this state. Now, when we talk about the ‘standard practices’ established by this medical community, we are not talking about those established by the A.M.A., but those established by the entire medical community. Clearly no such standard practice has been established. The fact that the A.M.A., the California Midwives Association, and the Natural Midwives Association all endorsed policies on the use of the fetal monitor within the last three months, not to mention the fact that they do not agree on their position, indicates that no established medical standard exists on this issue.
“The decision to license midwives carries with it an implicit assumption that they are being granted a certain amount of independence to decide how their practice should be performed. The position of the N.M.A. on fetal monitors is a reasonable difference among medical personnel. Many M.D.s, in fact, also disapprove of its routine use.
“The actual issue before us is not the relatively small issue of the licensing of the N.M.A. members. No, the issue before us is whether the State of California is going to give to the executive committee of the A.M.A. the power to decide who can practice medicine in this state, and exactly how they are to practice it. Senator Craddock, I am especially surprised that you would be willing to take this terrible step toward the establishment of what could easily become a policy of encouraging medical witch-hunts engendered by the desires of some for dictatorial control over all medical practice.” She sat. Beckie didn’t have to look around to know who was applauding.
Suddenly McCardle was on his feet, shaking his fist at White, then turning and pointing at Beckie. “And you think it’s just fine,” he shouted at White, to let women like that—out on bail for killing her patients—practice medicine? You think that constitutes safe and conscientious behavior?” His face was red and he trembled with rage.
Quietly, White stared at McCardle. Then, in a loud, dear voice she replied, “The behavior of Ms. McPhee appears to be the subject of a court hearing, and I would feel it inappropriate to draw any conclusions of guilt before the final verdict is reached in that case. On the other hand. Senator, your totally unconscionable behavior is obvious to everyone present.”
* * *
Bill Krueger worked in his office late into the night, while Carol, half asleep, sat in the chair by his side. He was poring over the records of the Coven. Occasionally, be would ask a question and then note the answer in the margin of the appropriate page. They had been at it for over six hours without a break. Despite the hour, Krueger was wide awake. The data were incontrovertible. The material would have to have been faked from beginning to end to be wrong. And Maggie and her daughter couldn’t have done it. It would have taken a real pro. Which implied that the data were not false, which in turn meant that they really did have a cancer cure, in fact, a foolproof cancer cure.
But it only worked on women. His mind whirled with questions, experiments, clinical tests. He held in his hands the medical story of the century, the solution to a question that billions of dollars had failed to answer. It occurred to Krueger that there would be Nobel Prizes to spare coming out of this. He smiled at the thought. His mind was cutting a piece of the cake for himself.
Finally, he turned to Carol. “You know, you really don’t need me. I doubt that there’s a physician in the country who would try to stand in your way.”
“But what if they don’t believe it?”
“Is it true?”
“Of course it is.”
“These patients?” He pointed at the piles of file folders on his desk. “They’re real people? They can be found? They’d be willing to testify under oath about what happened to them?”
Carol nodded emphatically.
“Then they’ll have no choice but to believe you.”
“But what about Beckie and the rest? They can still be arrested and all, can’t they?”
Krueger shook his head. “There isn’t a jury in this country that would convict any of you if it was convinced that your cure worked.”
“And you think we could convince them?”
“I know you could.”
Carol hesitated a moment and then asked, “Would you be willing to testify?”
Krueger nodded slowly. “Give me a week. Let me get the feel of your data. I’ll also make up some of the potion, and, perhaps, start some separations, analyze it. Not because I think I might get somewhere in a week, or even a month, but so I can say that I’m in the process of doing it. I think that’d lend the treatment an air of respectability.” Carol looked away, apparently less
than totally satisfied with his answer. “What’s the matter?”
Carol frowned and looked back at him. “You all treat science like it was a religion, and unless the priests say a few holy words over something, it’s unacceptable. You asked my mom why we called it the Coven, remember? Well, it wasn’t a joke at all. Maybe it made Mom feel better to think of it that way, but that’s because she goes to your church of science. But the rest of us, we called it the Coven because it wasn’t men’s science that discovered this cure, it was women’s healing, and they’re as different as night and day!” Her voice rose almost to a shout as she finished talking, and then, embarrassed, she fell silent.
They sat quietly for over a minute, without looking at each other, before Krueger finally turned to face Carol.
“I don’t know that what you said has any meaning, but if it does, then science has lost its way, and you’ll have to show us the way back to truth.” Picking up another file, he began reading.
Chapter Forty-Three
BECKIE’S trial resumed on Monday. As his first witness, the District Attorney had called Joanne Oberdorf, the widow of the first man that Beckie had treated. He had died just ten days after the end of the treatments. Beckie was amazed at the change in the woman. The hope and tension that Beckie had seen in her every day of the treatment was gone. She seemed ten years older, resigned to a pointless life. At times she seemed almost reluctant to testify, but at others she clearly saw herself avenging her husband’s death.
The D.A. asked Mrs. Oberdorf to describe the daily treatment. Referring to Beckie, the woman explained, “She insisted that Peter be worked up almost to a frenzy of belief before she would give him the medicine. She insisted that it was necessary, even though it always left Peter exhausted so.”
“And did this ‘frenzied pitch’ seem to make any difference?”
The woman shrugged. “it just made him more tired.” She paused a moment, reflecting. “He did feel a little better, I think—it gave him a little hope that he hadn’t had before.”
“It wasn’t justified, that hope, was it?”
“Objection!” Linda Coles, Beckie’s defense lawyer, was on her feet. The judge nodded in agreement, and the D.A. changed his tack.
“What was the medicine like? Was it a clear, colorless liquid, or what? And how much did she give each day? A teaspoon?”
The woman grimaced. “Oh, it was a strange thing. It was cloudy, and brownish, and smelled rather unpleasantly spicy. Some days Peter had trouble drinking it all down. He said it tasted like onions and liver.”
“How much did he have to take?’ he asked again.
“A glass.”
“A whole glass? A big glass, a little glass?”
The woman seemed unsure. “I guess it was about a six-ounce glass, maybe a bit more. It was less than eight ounces.
The D.A. turned and looked first at Beckie and then at the jury. “So it was about six ounces a day of a cloudy, brownish, unpleasant-smelling brew, that tasted like onions and liver. Is that correct?”
The woman nodded.
“Yes or no?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “But if it could have helped—”
“Thank you, Mrs. Oberdorf,” the D.A. interrupted. “Thank you.”
* * *
Maggie and Carol read the reports in the evening paper. To everyone’s surprise, the prosecution had rested it, case after just one day of hearings. The prosecution had shown that Beckie administered medicine to the patient, that no doctor had been involved in the original interview, nor could any legitimate prescription be produced. The prosecution had dwelled on the fact that Beckie did not conduct a physical examination of the patient, nor had she asked to see the patient’s medical records. It had called the patient’s doctor, who testified that he did not expect the patient to die so quickly—although under cross-examination he had admitted that in such cases unexpected deaths were quite common. But the doctor had been adamant that no medical person would ever prescribe a medicine for a disease without a preliminary examination of the patient, noting that such careless practices recalled the days of charlatans and witch doctors.
The final witness had been a medical historian who reviewed the history of charlatans and witch doctors, who concluded that, though some might have believed in the efficacy of their treatments, none had made any significant contribution to medicine. Cross-examination of this final witness had been put off until Tuesday.
“We’ve got to tell them that Dr. Krueger will testify,” Carol said. “They should get to talk to him right away.”
Maggie agreed. “And they should have a copy of our records. I don’t know what Beckie’s planning to do about calling some of the successful patients as witnesses, but she should have the records in any case.” Maggie thought a moment. “Let’s have Bill Xerox the records, and then get them notarized or something. He could take them to Beckie’s lawyer, and explain what’s going on at our end.” She began to pace up and down the room. “I just wish we knew better what was going on with the treatment of the men. It would make such a big difference if it worked.” She stopped and turned to Carol. “Look, I’m going to walk down to the shopping center and call Bill at work, see if I can’t sort this all out. It’s silly for us to just talk about it, when we should be doing it.”
“Can I come, too?” Carol asked.
Maggie frowned. “No, let me do this alone. There’s no real reason to have two of us go.” Carol began to protest. “Carol, you can’t be in on everything!”
“Okay, Mom. But hurry back and tell me what happened?”
“Promise,” Maggie said.
* * *
She was back fifteen minutes later. “Everything’s set. Bill said he’d Xerox all the records over the next couple of days, He wants to do it himself because he’s afraid someone else might look at what it was and call the police. Anyhow, by the weekend he said he’d drive to San Francisco and talk with Beckie’s lawyer.”
“Did he say anything about his trying to find out what was in the potion?” Carol asked.
“He’s just today ordered all the ingredients. He says they should arrive by Wednesday, and then he can start looking into it. For the next couple of days, I guess we just sit and wait.”
Carol looked around the room where she had spent most of the last two and a half weeks. “Something big had better come up before too long.” she said.
Chapter Forty-Four
WEDNESDAY evening, Krueger called. “We’ve got a problem, Maggie. I was visited today by the police. They want to know what I plan to do with the frogs.”
“With the frogs?”
“Yeah. It was a plainclothes cop, and he seemed bored and apologetic, but explained that he had orders to follow up every order for a dozen or more live frogs in the Bay Area.”
“Did he say what for?”
“Not exactly, but I pumped him as much as seemed safe. He was irritated, and complained that he had had no idea how many scientists up and down the Bay used just dozens and dozens of frogs in their research. When I asked him why he was checking he said that they were just trying to trace some people who were using frogs in a criminal activity. Somehow the D.A.’s figured out that the Coven is using them in the potion.”
Maggie frowned. “I don’t know how.”
“Did any of the patients know what was in the potion?—Remember McCardle has obviously talked with the wives of those men whom you’ve treated and who’ve then died. If they knew . . .”
“No, Bill. None of the patients was to have any idea what was in the potion. That was specifically agreed to by all the apprentices before the tests were begun.” Maggie stopped to think. “Bill, I really can’t think of any—Oh shit! The pictures!” Maggie said. “In the papers, and on the TV, too. They had pictures of me all over the place. All that they’d need is for someone at a pet shop to remember me, and recognize the pictures.”
“Of course, Maggie! They could have put it together in an instant, and if they called the
police, then that would be the obvious way to trace Coven members.”
“Which means that they might be tracking down any Coven member who buys frogs!” Maggie added.
“You’re right. They could probably do a roundup of Coven members anytime they wanted.” He paused a second. “I guess the most important thing right now is for me to get up to San Francisco and talk with Beckie’s lawyer.”
Maggie agreed. “How soon do you think you could do it?”
He stopped to calculate. “I can get a key to do the Xeroxing after work tomorrow, and then go to San Francisco on Friday.” He looked at his calendar. “That’s the sixth. I don’t think there’s any reason to go up before the evening—they’ll all be in court anyhow, and I probably wouldn’t be able to get to see her lawyer before dinnertime. And it’d be a lot better for me if I didn’t have to cancel my Friday appointments, What about you, Maggie. Is there anything you could do on such short notice?”
The California Coven Project Page 25
