The 6:20 Man

Chapter 47

After meeting with Campbell, Devine rode the train to Westchester and took a cab to the abortion clinic. There were protestors out front with graphic pictures on posterboards. They were marching and chanting.

One man confronted Devine and wanted to know if he was the father of a baby being butchered inside the “chamber of horrors,” as he termed it.

“No,” said Devine as he hurried past the man and rang the bell on the front door of the clinic. It was barred and armored and had a surveillance camera mounted in the corner.

A voice coming over a callbox said, “Yes?”

“Travis Devine. I phoned earlier. I spoke with a Dr. Tillis?”

“ID?”

He held up his driver’s license.

“Just a moment.”

He waited, glancing back at the protestors, who had to keep their distance per the law.

He heard the door buzz, and he pulled it open and shut it firmly behind him.

There was an armed guard in the small foyer, who looked at Devine suspiciously as he told him to walk through a magnetometer, then wanded and patted him down.

A woman in her forties in hospital scrubs met him in the foyer a few moments after that.

“This way,” she said.

He was deposited in a tiny, drab room, where he supposed women came to consult about having an abortion. Devine knew that this particular subject would be one in which no general consensus would ever be reached. But he could imagine people sitting here and making perhaps the most momentous and gut-wrenching decision of their lives.

A woman in her fifties walked in. She was in a dark blue dress with a long white lab coat over it; she had let her hair go gray and it hung limply to her shoulders. She had rimless glasses on a chain around her neck. Her eyes were blue and alert, and her manner efficient and professional. She introduced herself as Dr. Cynthia Tillis.

“The police have already been by, as I told you over the phone, Mr. Devine. I conveyed to them what I was legally allowed to tell and nothing more. I believe they will come back with a subpoena to compel more information and I will have to deal with that then.”

“I understand.”

“But I can’t really tell you anything. The police at least are trying to find out who killed Sara. I only agreed to see you because the fact of Sara’s abortion has now come out in the press, and you said you were a friend of hers.”

“How did she come to this clinic?”

“Sara said she had been referred by someone; she didn’t give a name. We went through everything, and the decision was made on the best way to move forward.”

“And she never mentioned who the father might be?”

“Even if she did, I could not provide that information.”

“Is that what you told the police?”

“Please, Mr. Devine.”

“Okay, did she say why she was having an abortion?”

“I can’t divulge that either.”

He looked at some pictures on the wall with accompanying medical terms. “Can you tell me how it was done?”

She began carefully, “I can generally tell you our range of procedures. Up to eleven weeks is deemed the embryonic period. Up to that point the abortion can be done by what is called medication abortion.”

“A pill, you mean?”

“Yes. And in that event, there may be a follow-up appointment within one to two weeks to ensure the pregnancy is terminated and the patient is well. If the woman’s last menstrual cycle was more than eleven weeks ago, an in-clinic abortion may be required. That would have to be performed here.”

“I was told she was only eight weeks along, so Sara could have just done it with a pill?”

“She could have,” said Tillis vaguely. “About forty percent of clinic-managed pregnancy terminations are done that way.”

Devine thought quickly and something occurred to him. “Do you know who her ob-gyn was?”

“I’m afraid that—”

“Look, I know that HIPAA doesn’t allow you to tell me anything about her personal medical history, but I’m just asking for the name of her doctor. I don’t think there’s any law that says you can’t tell me that.”

“And what will you do with that information? Go and talk to the person?”

“Probably, and they won’t tell me anything they’re not legally supposed to. I just wanted to know about, well, her pregnancy. Why she ended it. Her ob-gyn might know.”

“I take it you knew her well?”

“We worked together. We were friends, as I told you on the phone. I’m very sorry she’s gone.”

“I can understand that.” Tillis tapped her fingernails on the desk and then looked at something on her phone for a few moments. “The name Sara provided was a Dr. John Wyman.” She gave him the man’s contact information.

“Thank you very much. Was Sara alone when she came here?”

“I won’t get into that. But if the person is undergoing a medical procedure they need someone to be with them. With medication abortion, they normally don’t. It can be done at home, and often is.”

“It must have been a very hard decision for her.”

“For every patient I see it is, and Sara was no exception.”

“Her parents are in from New Zealand. Have you talked to them?”

“No, I’ve had no contact from them. Why do you ask?”

“Sara’s mother was the one who told me about your clinic. That’s how I knew to contact you.”

“She must have gotten that from someone else, the police perhaps.”

“That’s right, she did mention that.”

“Do the police have any leads as to who killed Sara?”

“Not that they’re sharing with me.”

She looked at him closely. “I don’t necessarily expect you to answer this, but were you the father?”

“No, I wasn’t. But I guess I could have been, if things had turned out differently.”

Tillis did not seem to know how to take this. To Devine she seemed a bit alarmed, and he suddenly wondered if he had really stepped in it again. She might call the police the second after he left.

“I didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was killed,” he said. “Nobody did, apparently.”

“She wouldn’t have been visibly showing at that stage. Many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at that point.”

“She was very nice. A good person. When everyone at the firm found out what had happened, we were all rocked. It just didn’t seem possible.”

“I can see that. Do you have any idea who could have done it?”

“No. But I hope to find out.”

She looked alarmed again. “I think that is better left to the police.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you? Only it might be more complicated than that.”