Lightning fc-10

by John Lutz

  “He reminds me of the preacher man who seduced and abandoned my aunt,” Beth said.

  “Is Operation Alive going to continue demonstrating and picketing outside abortion clinics?” the newsman asked Freel.

  “Certainly. We’ll go wherever the butchers are and make sure they are aware of their sins. And that the way to their salvation and our sick and festering society’s is for them to stop killing our unborn children.”

  “Are you afraid of more violence, sir?”

  “Yes, I am. If you’re trying to get me to denounce violence, I’m doing so now. I don’t want violence. Operation Alive doesn’t want violence. We abhor violence both inside and outside abortion mills.”

  Freel’s image faded from the screen, as did the newsman’s. But the newsman instantly reappeared, standing in front of a low stone wall with a view of palm trees and the ocean beyond it. A split second in time but miles in distance away from the Clear Connection in landlocked Orlando. Technology making the world smaller but more deceptive. No wonder people like Freel could seize and mold confused minds and emotions.

  “We attempted to interview Dr. Louis Benedict,” the newsman said. “Dr. Benedict is the other physician who performed abortions at the Women’s Light Clinic. But he refused to be interviewed, for obvious reasons of safety. However, he did tell us he’s continuing to perform abortions and that he’s received numerous death threats since the Women’s Light bombing. Back to you, Julie.”

  Julie, the newscaster Carver didn’t recognize, was on screen again seated at the CNN anchor desk. “Thanks, Earl,” she said. “When we come back, we’ll show you how a squirrel can delay a major-league ball game for almost an hour while players and unhappy fans-”

  Beth used the remote to switch off the set. “Hypocritical bastard.”

  “Reverend Freel or Julie?” Carver asked.

  “Why are you playing it so light and loose, Fred? Are you getting afraid of what’s happening and where it might lead?”

  “That’s close,” Carver said. He couldn’t hide from her even in the farthest corners of his mind.

  She came over and kissed his bald pate. “You’re no hypocrite, anyway. Want some lunch?”

  “Had some.”

  “I’m going to eat a sandwich, then drive in to the hospital to keep my appointment. Want to come along?”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  She smiled and opened the refrigerator. “Okay, but that will be the end of it.”

  “It?”

  “You treating me like a delicate invalid.”

  He knew she was anything but delicate. Actually, he’d already decided to go with her to the hospital because Dr. Benedict was probably there, and he wanted to talk to him about the threats the doctor had continued to receive. But he didn’t tell Beth that. He let her think his motive for accompanying her was solely concern for her condition.

  Hypocritical of him, maybe, but probably somewhere in the Old Testament he was covered, at least in the Reverend Martin Freel’s interpretation.

  27

  Dr. Galt wasn’t immediately available but had left instructions for Beth. Carver went with her to the hospital’s third floor, followed a nurse’s directions, and they were met by a ponytailed male intern wearing a medical-emblem earring, whose name tag read HALEY, outside an unmarked door. Haley asked Carver if he wanted to have a seat in a small waiting area off the hall, but Carver opted to be in the room with Beth.

  He watched while carefully, deftly, Haley removed the stitches from Beth’s healing cuts. While the stitches were plucked from the cut on the right side of her neck, her expression remained stony.

  Haley had to smile. “I know I’m good at my work, Miss Jackson, but you seem impervious to pain.”

  “Nobody’s that,” Beth said as he dabbed antiseptic on her face.

  “We need to examine your right hip,” Haley said, glancing at Carver, who was familiar with Beth’s right hip and saw no reason to take the hint and leave.

  There was a knock on the door and it opened slightly. Dr. Galt stuck his head in, smiled, then opened the door all the way. “How we doing, Beth?”

  “Fine.” She nodded as if in affirmation of what she’d just heard herself say. “Doing fine.”

  “Let’s take a look at you,” he said, and came all the way into the room. Dr. Galt glanced meaningfully at Carver. “Mind waiting outside?”

  Carver couldn’t remember being so disinvited. He moved around Dr. Galt and out into the hall, closing the door.

  Leaning with his back against the opposite wall, he watched the cross-traffic at the end of the hall: a stern, bustling nurse rolling a gurney; a shuffling woman in a white robe; a man with a dark beard being pushed in his wheelchair by an attendant, an IV tube coiling down to his arm from a packet hung on a metal rod that jutted from the chair like a thick, inflexible antenna; Wicker pushing Delores Bravo in a wheelchair.

  Huh?

  Carver clutched his cane and made his way down to the end of the hall as fast as he could, but Wicker and Bravo were already almost out of sight. He thought about calling to them; he wouldn’t have minded talking to Wicker. There was no mistaking the way Wicker was leaning forward and seeming to whisper in Bravo’s ear as he pushed, a stupid grin on his face even from this distance.

  Well, why not? Love could strike unexpectedly anywhere and smite the most unlikely people.

  Moving slower, a little winded, Carver returned to where he’d been standing outside the door of the room where Dr. Galt was in talking with Beth. He took up position against the wall again, glancing down the hall to see if maybe Wicker and Bravo would pass going the opposite direction. But they didn’t. A man in a robe, using an aluminum walker, went by. Then a shapely, long-legged blond nurse with a clipboard under her arm strode past at about sixty miles an hour.

  Five minutes passed before Dr. Galt emerged from the room. Carver noticed that the doctor needed a haircut; the long strands of hair combed across the top of his head curved upward on the side of his head opposite their roots. He moved down the hall a few yards, motioning for Carver, to follow, so they wouldn’t be heard inside the room.

  “How is she really doing on a day-by-day basis at home?” Dr. Galt asked.

  “I think she’s okay,” Carver said. “She’s tough.”

  “Physically, you mean?”

  “Yes. And mentally.”

  “I’ll vouch for the physical part. She’s a fast healer. The bruising is beginning to disappear on her right side, and her superficial cuts are all closed and knitted perfectly. Does she talk about the baby she lost?”

  We lost, Carver thought. “Sometimes. Not as often as she did just after the bombing. Beth isn’t the type to talk things out of her system.” Neither am I.

  “She still thinks about it a lot,” Dr. Galt said. “Believe me. She doesn’t like to show pain or weakness. If she were a man we’d call it machismo.”

  “It comes from survival,” Carver said, “whatever your sex.”

  “Be gentle with her when discussing the subject of the baby.”

  “I have been. Always will be.”

  Dr. Galt studied him. “How are you coping with the loss of the child?”

  Well, well, the father had been remembered. As Dr. Galt rose in his estimation, Carver thought about the question. “I don’t talk about it as much as just after the bombing.”

  “If you need counseling,” Dr. Galt said, “either of you, it’s available here at the hospital.”

  “We’re both survivors.”

  Dr. Galt gave a hopeless little chuckle, but if he was amused, it didn’t show on his face. “You don’t have to hurt as much as possible in order to survive.”

  “Sometimes you have to develop contempt for the pain.”

  Dr. Galt glanced down at Carver’s cane and bad leg. “Possibly. I suppose contempt can be a curative. But it might leave long-lasting and undesirable aftereffects. Watch Beth, and don’t try to dissuade her if she wants to come back here for h
elp. In fact, encourage her.”

  “I promise to do that,” Carver said.

  “So did she,” Dr. Galt said, “when I asked her not to dissuade you from coming here.” He nodded, smiling at Carver, and started down the hall.

  “Do you know if Dr. Benedict is in the hospital this afternoon?” Carver asked, stopping Dr. Galt after three steps.

  The doctor turned around and shrugged. “I don’t know any Dr. Benedict.”

  “He’s from Women’s Light Clinic. He switched his practice here temporarily after the bombing.”

  Dr. Galt shook his head. “Sorry, can’t help you. I’ve never seen Dr. Benedict, don’t know what he looks like.” He smiled again at Carver and continued his walk down the long corridor. From behind he looked small and tired.

  Carver watched him until he reached the intersecting hall and turned right, in the direction taken by the long-legged blond nurse. He remembered what McGregor had said about doctors and nurses and was briefly ashamed. McGregor could make a kindergarten birthday party seem a riot of sin. That was simply the way he thought. The man’s moral compass had no needle.

  “Dr. Galt leave?”

  Beth was beside him. She looked fine except for the small bandage on the right side of her neck.

  “He had other patients waiting,” Carver said. “Was it decided that you’re healing okay?”

  “Sure. I’m in better condition than before I was blown up. Might do it to myself from time to time. Want to grab an early supper downstairs in the cafeteria?”

  “While we’re here, I’d like to talk with Dr. Benedict.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she said. “It’s too early for supper anyway.”

  He couldn’t think of a reason to refuse her.

  Seldom could.

  This time Dr. Benedict was easy enough to find. Carver and Beth wound up in the cafeteria anyway, after a nurse on two had informed them that Dr. Benedict was there relaxing between appointments.

  Carver saw him immediately, sitting alone in a booth on the far wall. A paper plate and white plastic fork or spoon were before him on the table, and Dr. Benedict was staring into his foam cup of coffee. Carver and Beth got cups of self-service coffee, paid for them, and carried them over to Benedict’s booth.

  As they approached, he noticed them and managed a tight, determined smile. He was obviously not glad to see them. Carver formally introduced Beth to the doctor.

  “Mind if we join you?” Beth asked.

  “As if you were coming apart,” Carver said in the face of the doctor’s relentless, humorless smile. “Sorry. It’s an old Groucho Marx joke, though I’m sure I don’t have it exactly right.”

  Dr. Benedict’s smile stayed glued to his face. He was a gamer. Carver and Beth slid into the booth to sit opposite him. Carver saw that the plate in front of Benedict contained crumbs from a piece of pie. The white implement was a plastic fork. “Is the pie any good here?” he asked.

  “Better than the coffee,” Benedict said. “What brings you two here?”

  “I had the stitches removed from where they plucked broken glass out of me,” Beth said.

  An expression of compassion passed over Benedict’s face. “Good. From what I heard, you had a close call. If you’d gone into the clinic a few seconds sooner, you might have been killed.”

  “How is the nurse who was injured in the clinic?”

  “Delores? I saw her this morning. She’ll be sent home soon. She lost her right foot, you know.”

  “I thought I saw Sam Wicker with her a little while ago, pushing her along in a wheelchair.”

  “Wicker? Ah, the FBI guy. Yes, they seem to be spending more time together than is officially necessary. That kind of thing is good for Delores. It’ll give her some hope. What happened to her, just doing her job and then suddenly …” He looked into his coffee cup again and shook his head. “Those bastards! How can they possibly think they’re doing God’s work?”

  “Martin Freel would explain it to you,” Carver said.

  “I’ve seen him on television, heard him denounce violence. While all the time he’s inciting his misguided flock to terrorize innocent women and menace physicians acting within the law.”

  “I understand you’ve received more threats,” Carver said.

  Benedict didn’t look up. Something fascinating about that coffee. “Yes. Death threats. They’re coming with increasing frequency. Crudely printed notes the police can’t trace. Phone calls in the middle of the night. I try to answer them, but sometimes my wife picks up. She’s brave, but she’s scared,”

  “Why don’t you get an unlisted number?” Beth asked.

  “It doesn’t do any good. Of course I’ve had it changed three times. You must not realize the deviousness and evil of the people doing this sort of thing to doctors who perform abortions.”

  “Do you have any idea who’s making the threats?”

  Benedict looked at him unbelievingly. “You must be joking again. It’s Martin Freel and his Operation Alive fanatics. Don’t tell me you believe his public statements about abhorring violence? He’s stepped up his attack on me so the police will think the bomber’s still out there. Some of the notes actually claimed whoever wrote them planted the bomb at Women’s Light. That’s the whole idea behind the continuing threats-to make Norton look innocent by giving the impression that the real bomber’s still at large.”

  “Are the threats getting to you?” Beth asked.

  “I won’t pretend they don’t have some effect. But I’m not going to be frightened away from my work.” He finally looked up from his cup and his gaze traveled back and forth between them. “I believe in what I’m doing just as strongly as the people trying to stop me believe in what they’re doing. A physician who performs abortions has to feel that way. There aren’t that many of us left. If we’re all scared out of business, women will have to return to back-alley butchers, knitting needles, and wire hangers.”

  “Maybe the French abortion pill will solve the problem,” Beth said, “make abortion a private matter known only by the woman and her doctor.”

  “Well, God speed the pill!” Dr. Benedict said,

  Carver wondered if he really meant it. The expression on his face when he’d pledged to continue his good fight was similar to the one Carver had seen on Freel’s face in Orlando. Sometimes the struggle could take on more importance than the cause.

  Carver knew. He’d been called obsessive often enough to wonder from time to time if it might be true.

  That night in the cottage, he and Beth made love for the first time since the explosion. He was as gentle as possible, and so was she. Which was unlike her. He remembered her once losing herself so in her passion that she’d lashed out with a long leg and knocked over a motel lamp, not realizing it until later.

  Now she lay beside him on her back, her right leg slung over his left. They were both nude and on top of the sheets. Carver felt the breeze pushing through the open window play coolly over his perspiring body.

  “The room smells like sex and the sea,” Beth said. “I like that.”

  He smiled.

  She unhooked her leg, then sat up and swiveled to a sitting position on the mattress. “Thirsty, Fred?”

  “Some.”

  She stood up and walked across the sleeping area, switching on the TV near the foot of the bed as she passed it. He raised his head so he could watch the elegant magic of her walk. She moved like a flame in the flickering light from the TV screen.

  He heard her cluttering around in the kitchen, and a few minutes later she returned carrying a can of Budweiser.

  “Here,” she said, handing him the can. “I’m finished with it.” She settled back down on the bed beside him, then reached for the remote and turned up the TV’s volume. Carver could no longer hear the whisper of the surf from down on the beach. He took a long sip of cold beer and rested the icy can on his bare chest, peering over it at the TV screen.

  Beth ran through the channels until she came to
the local news. An anchorman named Bart something, flawlessly coiffed and tailored but ruggedly handsome enough to be in a Land’s End catalog, was finishing sentences for a blond anchorwoman named Christine seated beside him. Carver liked Christine. She seemed to be playing the news anchor game with barely disguised disdain. She might even be a journalist.

  Bart and Christine said that a four-year-old boy had drowned in a swimming pool in East Del Moray. Carver knew the address, a wealthy area not far from the beach. There was a shot of an expensive home and an interview with a distraught neighbor. The newsman holding the microphone saw the dead boy’s mother near the gate to the house’s driveway and immediately cornered her, expressing sorrow and asking if she knew how the boy had drowned. The mother couldn’t unlock the gate and get inside fast enough. She melted down and began to sob. The camera zoomed in close so as not to miss a falling tear.

  “Vampires,” Beth said.

  “You’re a member of the fourth estate yourself,” Carver reminded her.

  “Not like that.”

  The image of the grieving mother faded and gave way to a tape of fire trucks and other emergency vehicles parked around a small burning building.

  “On Vernon Road, just outside Del Moray,” Bart and Christine said, “a bomb exploded earlier this evening at Coast Medical Services, a women’s health facility that performs abortions. Reports are that the bomb went off in a storage building behind the actual clinic, which sustained only minor damage. Thankfully, no one was injured and the fire is now under control. Police won’t speculate on whether this bombing is connected to the Women’s Light Clinic bombing a week ago here in Del Moray.”

  Staring at the TV screen, Carver knew that anyone nearby would have been killed or injured when the bomb exploded. He hoped the firefighters wouldn’t run across a charred body in the debris.