Lightning

14

Dr. Louis Benedict’s address belonged to a low, modern ranch house on Macon Avenue in what Carver thought of as an upper-middle-class neighborhood. The grassy area between curb and sidewalk was lined with palm trees, front yards were large, and the homes were set well back from the street and often secluded behind trees and shrubbery.

The Benedict house, however, was plainly visible at the end of its long, straight driveway. The carpet of lush green lawn sloping uphill toward it was unbroken except for a circular flower bed vivid with the bright colors of geraniums and yellow and red roses. The house itself was mostly brick, vast planes of tinted glass, and angled exposed beams. There was a two-car garage attached to it by what looked like a breezeway that had been converted to an additional room. Money here, Carver thought, but nothing grand.

He parked the Olds in the street so it wouldn’t drip oil on the pristine concrete driveway, then used a stepping-stone walk parallel to the driveway to go up to the long front porch. There was so little overhang on the roof that there was no shade on the porch, and the late morning sun bore down on Carver’s bald pate and the exposed back of his neck as he waited for an answer to his ring.

There was a faint sound behind the door, then it was opened by an attractive woman in her late thirties with tousled blond hair, a square jaw, and inquisitive blue eyes. She possessed an elegant figure beneath a loose-fitting blue dress and had on white toeless shoes with built-up heels. The arch of her eyebrows was accentuated by eyebrow pencil darker than her hair, making her appear mildly surprised.

Carver introduced himself and asked to see Dr. Benedict.

“I’m Leona Benedict, the doctor’s wife,” the woman said in a voice that sounded more Boston than Del Moray. “Could you tell me what this is about?”

“It’s about what happened at the clinic.”

She looked wary as well as surprised. “The bombing, you mean?”

“Yes. A woman who was injured in the explosion was carrying our child.”

A fleeting expression of pity crossed Leona Benedict’s handsome face. A doctor’s good wife, she wanted to deflect Carver so he wouldn’t disturb her husband’s time away from the operating room, but there was no denying that Carver had a claim on that time.

She smiled, not totally erasing the pity, and invited him inside.

He was in a cool living room that seemed dim after outside. The view through the wide window was of the vast stretch of lawn and the street, his rust-spotted Olds convertible squatting at the curb like a last weary warrior from Detroit in the land of BMWs, Lexuses, and Volvos. Leona Benedict left him alone and disappeared down a wide hall in search of her husband.

Carver turned his attention from outside to inside, appreciating the white leather sofa, soft beige carpeting and drapes, original oil paintings, and glass-shelved bookcases that contained an extensive collection of small pewter figurines. Expensive and tasteful. This was probably one of the better-furnished homes on Macon Avenue.

A medium-height, dark-complexioned man with a barrel chest and thinning black hair entered the room. He was wearing a gray-and-white striped short-sleeved shirt open at the collar and navy blue pleated pants. His feet were almost bare in skimpy leather sandals. He said he was Dr. Benedict as he shook Carver’s hand. His soft, commiserating tone suggested that his wife had already explained Carver’s connection with Beth. He had bushy black eyebrows above dark eyes whose pupils moved quickly and seemed to see a lot. He wasn’t a handsome man but there was a heartiness and energy about him that women might find attractive. The doctor appeared to be about ten years older than his wife. Carver wondered if the expensive furnishings were for Leona Benedict, who might well object to the long and unpredictable hours of her physician husband.

“I’m sorry about Miss Jackson,” Benedict said. “How is she?”

Not “your wife.” The doctor was up on things.

Carver told him Beth was doing very well but was still depressed over the loss of their child.

“It will take time for her to assimilate that,” Benedict said in his soft, soothing voice. “If you help her, she’ll heal from the loss.” He smiled in a way that made Carver like him. “Perhaps someday there’ll be another pregnancy.”

“The last one wasn’t deliberate,” Carver said.

“I see. Most pregnancy’s aren’t, you know.” Again the smile. “That’s what keeps me in business.”

“I understand you and Dr. Grimm alternated days at the clinic.”

Benedict frowned at the mention of his dead partner’s name and nodded. “Yes, with only Sundays off. Of course, both of us were always on call.” He shrugged. “That’s the life of a doctor. Complications and special circumstances don’t follow the calendar.”

“So it’s possible that Dr. Grimm was the bomber’s target.”

“If either of us was,” Dr. Benedict said, “I suppose it was Harold. More likely it was a symbolic act and the bomber didn’t have a specific victim in mind.” He took a deep breath. There was a change of light in his eyes, and Carver was surprised to glimpse the depth of anger in this amiable-looking man. “The religious right hates us. The bombing was simply an act of hate and desperation.”

“Desperation?”

“Yes, because we’ve won the war and they don’t want to surrender. The law is on our side and will continue to be, and they can’t face that. They simply won’t accept or can’t grasp the fact that the courts and public opinion aren’t in line with their own extreme beliefs. There isn’t much left for them other than to wave signs and shout and throw bombs. You wouldn’t believe the things they put us-and the women who come to us-through. Often the women they scream at and frighten aren’t even coming to the clinic for an abortion. We do other medical procedures there. But that doesn’t matter to the maniacs in the street. They act out of ignorance.”

“You sound more angry than frightened.”

“Well, I suppose I am. I happen to believe in women’s reproductive rights as strongly as the shouters and haters believe in their own warped concept of religious responsibilities. Maybe even more strongly.”

“I was surprised,” Carver said, “that you had a listed phone number. You aren’t difficult to find, Doctor,”

“I don’t want to be. Once you give in to the kind of terrorism our opponents practice, you’ve lost. I receive threats regularly, as does my wife. We’re used to it. I’ll continue my work regardless of what the anti-choicers do, because my work is important-essential.”

“Does your wife feel the same way?”

Leona, who had returned to the room and was seated at the far end of the low white sofa, said simply, “Most days.”

It was obvious to Carver that the Reverend Martin Freel had run into an opponent whose zealotry might match his own. A great deal of animosity had to exist here. He wondered if it was possible that Benedict had been the target of the bombing.

“Was Dr. Grimm as . . . enthusiastic about his work as you are?” Carver asked.

“He was dedicated enough,” Benedict said. He paced a few steps this way and that, frowning. Then he stopped pacing and punched a fist into his palm. “Damn it! The clinic was doing good work, helping people. Then this madman’s act of violence. It’s a tragedy for so many people, Mr. Carver.”

“But it won’t stop us,” Leona Benedict said in a flat voice from the end of the sofa. She didn’t sound nearly as enthusiastic as her husband.

Carver turned toward her. “After what happened at the clinic, are you afraid?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

“This place isn’t as vulnerable as it appears,” Benedict said. “There’s an excellent alarm system, and the glass is double-thick and shatterproof.” He sounded more like a general, boasting about the strength of his position, than a doctor describing his suburban home.

“Bulletproof too?”

“No.”

“At night we draw the drapes,” Leona said.

“The danger’s lessened for the time being,” Benedict said. “The bomber’s in custody, and Operation Alive is under scrutiny and pulling in its horns, on the defensive for a change.”

“They wouldn’t appreciate you describing them with horns,” Leona said.

“Then you’re sure Norton’s guilty,” Carver said.

Dr. Benedict stared at him. “Of course he’s guilty. He was spurred on by that maniac Freel and his Operation Alive’s outright lies and statistical distortions. The anonymous threats have increased since the bombing, but right now I think that’s all they are-threats.”

“Then you assume the source of these threats is Operation Alive?”

“That’s where most of them come from, I’m sure. Of course there are plenty of stray extremists, but generally the ones who give us trouble are members of organizations.”

“I understand you’re keeping patients’ appointments and performing abortions at A. A. Aal Memorial.”

“Yes, though I don’t advertise it, for the hospital’s sake. I’m sure Operation Alive knows about it, though. I don’t care. In fact, I want them to know about it. I want them to know that no matter what they do, I’ll continue my work.”

A phone began to chirp well back in the bowels of the house. Leona stood up and excused herself, then hurried away to answer it. The chirping stopped.

She returned a minute later carrying a white cordless phone with a stubby flexible antenna.

Dr. Benedict knew it was for him. He shrugged and accepted the phone from her, then said hello into it and wandered off down the hall and out of earshot.

“Your husband’s a dedicated man,” Carver said to Leona.

“He’s an idealist,” she said. “He believes in what he’s doing, and so do I.”

“But you’re not an idealist, are you?”

“Not like my husband is. Few people are.”

“Martin Freel, maybe.”

“Martin Freel definitely,” she said. “In a way, Freel is very much the personification of what Louis hates: smug self-righteousness, intolerance, a willingness to sacrifice other people for your cause and personal aggrandizement.”

“Do you think Freel sacrificed Adam Norton for his cause?”

“Probably. My guess is that Operation Alive is behind the clinic bombing, but it will be almost impossible to prove. Norton will be tried and convicted unless that sleazeball lawyer Jefferson Brama can get him off on some sort of technicality. But I’m not sure it really matters in the long run. Some other certain and wrong true believer will make another bomb and set it off where it will kill someone. This thing seems never to end.”

“It will someday.”

“How?”

“A pill, maybe. A morning-after pill that makes whether a woman chooses abortion her personal and private decision.”

“The French RU-486 pill?”

“Or something like it.”

“God, how I look forward to that day!” Leona said. She glanced around as if to make sure Benedict wouldn’t overhear. “I do understand the other side’s point of view. I mean, how some people, because of honest religious convictions, can’t condone abortions. But that’s quite different from the kind of things Freel believes and says and does.”

Carver knew what she meant, even agreed with her, but he said, “How so?”

Her arched eyebrows rose higher and she looked particularly surprised that he would have to ask. “Why, taking a life is just that-taking a life. If you don’t believe in it, you don’t do it. Freel says he believes in love and tolerance and life, but he preaches the opposite and urges his followers to commit acts of violence that can result in people’s deaths.”

“Do you consider him a phony out for fame and fortune? A con man?”

“No. He’s a madman. And a dangerous one.”

Benedict had disappeared and might be involved in his phone conversation for quite a while, so Carver told her to thank the doctor for his time, then said good-bye and left.

Leona Benedict stood in the doorway with her arms hanging limply at her sides and watched him drive away.

Despite the fact that the low brick house was exposed on the wide lawn and had a great deal of glass area, it reminded Carver of a military bunker.

He stopped by his office to check his mail and phone messages. The mail contained no checks, and not much of interest except for an advertisement for a sport jacket with a dozen hidden pickpocket-proof pockets. Carver had once owned a jacket with a lot of hidden pockets, though not a dozen, and found it a damned inconvenience. He never could remember which one held whatever it was he needed. Still, he’d never fallen victim to a pickpocket.

He put the mail aside and pressed the play button on his answering machine to check the two messages that had been left for him.

Beep: “This is McGregor, fuckface, call me and report whatever it is you’ve been doing.”

Carver decided to ignore that one.

Beep: “ ‘Never imagine I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.’ ” A man’s voice, so it couldn’t have been Mildred Otten quoting scripture at him again. “You are tolerating that Jezebel of a woman,” the voice went on. “I have given her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual vice. ‘Lo, I will lay her on a sickbed and bring her paramours into sore distress if they do not repent of her practices.’ ”

Carver waited. Whoever had left the message didn’t hang up right away. He could hear deep, even breathing until the tape reached its limit and the machine clicked and rewound.

He erased the message, then sat back and thought about the last one. The Jezebel who lay on her sickbed would be Beth. He supposed that if Beth were a Jezebel-and he sometimes thought she was, and enjoyed it-then he, Carver, would qualify as her paramour. Was in fact glad to be her paramour. Though he didn’t like the prospect of “sore distress” for either of them.

He locked the office behind him, then limped out to the parking lot and lowered himself into the Olds. After propping his cane in its usual position against the front seat, he started the engine and drove toward A. A. Aal Memorial Hospital. Paramour or not, he’d had enough sore distress in his life.

And so had Jezebel.