Prophet (69 page)

“Yeah, what’ll you have?” asked the bartender.

Devin, dressed in his blue-collar worker disguise and wearing the same dark glasses, asked in a low voice, “Have you seen Willy around?”

The bartender immediately eyed Devin suspiciously. “Who’s asking?”

“A friend.”

The bartender only sneered at Devin, drying some shot glasses with a white towel. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced, mister.”

Devin was past being cool or professional. “Hey, cut the crap, will you? I’ve got to talk to him!”

“He’s gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

The bartender shrugged. “Like I said, buddy, we haven’t been introduced, and I value Willy’s patronage, you follow?”

“But . . . but what about . . .” Devin lowered his voice. “. . . what about Ted Canan? I heard he was in a jam.”

Now the bartender’s eyes filled with malice. “You know what? You ask too many questions.”

Devin tried to grab him. “Now listen, you—” But the bartender backed away, and at the same moment four big, able-bodied friends of the establishment turned to give Devin their full, icy attention, burly arms ready.

Devin backed off. “Hey . . . I don’t want any trouble—”

“Then get outa here!” said the bartender.

Martin Devin, chief of staff and special assistant to the governor, got out of there like a dog shooed out of the house.

VIDEO: JOHN BARRETT
and Ali Downs in a quick-cutting montage of different shots, a video scrapbook. Both of them looking out over the city as the sun sparkles on the skyscrapers; John interviewing a fire captain as firefighters douse a burning warehouse in the background; Ali showing a class of first graders some flash cards about AIDS; John and Ali working together on a newscast script, laughing at a joke, talking to a camera.

Audio: A low, mellow voice borrowed from a wine commercial
that uses only periods, no commas: “For the third year in a row NewsSix is number one. NewsSix. Ali Downs. John Barrett. Your premier news gathering team. Again.”

“Nice ad,” said John.

“They’re all nice,” said Carl. Then he laughed. “If all those people out there only knew!”

They were in John’s apartment, the television playing while John tinkered with a Beta cassette deck an engineer had let him borrow from the station.

John knew Carl was teasing him and joined the game as he prepared the equipment. “Hey, come on, I’ve been coming across pretty good on the tube, you have to admit. I don’t even wiggle my thumbs anymore, did you notice?”

“Oh, I’ve noticed, Dad, I really have. It’s made a world of difference!”

“Well, there you go.” John’s eyes twinkled as he measured a quarter inch between his thumb and forefinger. “Now I’m that far from perfect!”

Carl laughed, lounging on the couch. “Aw, get outa town!”

“No, just ask my public out there!”

“Well, sure, they get to watch you, but I have to have you for my old man.” He held up his root beer in a toast. “
Vive la différence
!”

John shook his head. “Well, we press on toward the mark. We press on.”

“So press the Play button. Let’s roll this thing!”

“Right on.”

Blip.
John hit the Play button, and the cassette from Midwestern University began to roll. Tom Carey, a reporter for a Midwest station and a longtime associate of John’s, had sent it Federal Express, and it had arrived on John’s desk that afternoon. John didn’t open the package at the station, but hid it in his briefcase, did the Five O’clock, did the Seven O’clock, and then got safely home first.

Shannon DuPliese appeared on the screen in a typical talking-head interview format, looking off-camera, a bit of halogen lighting on her face, a small, black, clip-on microphone attached to her blouse.

“Okay,” came Tom Carey’s voice off-camera, “this is the interview with Shannon DuPliese, 2:41
P.M.,
October 9, 1991. This is for you,
John, old buddy.”

Shannon looked at the camera and smiled good-naturedly, though she seemed nervous.

Then Tom had another thought. “Oh, and John . . .” He stuck his head between Shannon and the camera, and though his face was a little blurred, his big glasses and wild head of black hair were unmistakable. “Hi, it’s me. Listen, we can do this both ways if you want. Shannon says she’d just as soon have her face shown, she’s got nothing to hide, but we’ll go back and do some key sound bites with her in silhouette in case you decide to go that way.” He vanished from the screen with a Muppet-like jerk and began the interview.

“So, Shannon,” came his voice, “why don’t you start by telling us who you are?”

She looked off-camera at Tom and introduced herself. “My name is Shannon DuPliese, I’m nineteen, and right now I’m going to Midwestern University . . .”

Wow
, thought John,
this is gonna be heavy. The real scoop, straight from the person who was there. What a story—if it ever becomes one.

The phone rang. “Oh-oh,” John said, hitting the Pause button. “Come on, Leslie, don’t tell me you couldn’t get together with the Brewers . . .”

John strode over to the kitchen counter and grabbed the phone. “John Barrett.”

“John, this is Charley Manning.”

Well! Charley Manning, John’s friend with close ties to the governor’s office!

“Hey, Charley, what do you know?”

“John, I’ve come up with a pretty good hunch. See what you think of it. Right before the governor’s campaign started, he had two special assistants. Martin Devin was one, and the other one was an older guy named Ed Lake. Lake was there first and served as chief of staff during the governor’s first term until Devin came on the scene as special assistant and the chain of command got muddled. After that, those two men couldn’t agree on who was special assistant and who was chief of staff, and what those titles meant anyway, and then this Devin character started muscling his way directly to the governor instead of going through Lake. Some of the governor’s staff told me they had a real feud
going for a while.

“Well anyway, things finally came to a head, and Lake was forced out. And check this timing—he left the job the Monday after the governor’s kickoff rally.”

John immediately saw the connection. “Monday after the rally . . . That’s when Dad got that tape.”

“From what some of the staffers told me, Lake and Devin were always trying power plays on each other. It sounds to me like Lake gave the tape to your dad just to knife Martin Devin.”

“So where’s Lake now?”

“Gone. He’s left town—to begin his retirement, I understand. He might be with a sister in Alaska or at a winter home he owns in Florida, either one. Or he could be somewhere else we don’t know about.”

“Thanks, Charley.”

“Well, it isn’t much, I know.”

“It’ll help. We’ll follow it up.”

CHAPTER 29

VIDEO: A BLACK-AND-WHITE
still from an old TV show showing a handsome doctor and a mischievous, ponytailed nurse.

Voice over the picture: “I’m not a doctor, but I’ve played one on TV . . .” Video: The black-and-white TV still lap dissolves to another still, this one showing an older doctor surrounded by bright-eyed, somewhat ragged children.

Voice over the picture: “. . . and the role of Dr. Harrigan in the classic film
Angels in White
was one of my most memorable.”

Cut to the present, color video, as Theodore Packard, silver-haired, distinguished actor of stage and screen, dressed in a smartly tailored suit, replaces a thick book on one of many full bookshelves that cover the whole wall behind him. He looks with eyes of wisdom at the camera.

“Having identified as an actor with the high drama of medicine, I am daily reminded that . . .” As he speaks, he crosses to his desk and sits on the corner of it. Behind him a microscope can be seen on a table, and on another wall full-color anatomy charts. “. . . not too many years ago, women, free citizens of this country, were still forced by society’s bonds and ignorance to resort to unspeakable, desperate measures in attempting to undo a crisis, unwanted pregnancy.” He turns his head to one side just as another camera picks him up looking straight into the lens, a closer shot.

“Now, thanks to visionaries like Governor Hiram Slater, those days
are finally coming to a permanent end, and I’m happy to relate that your governor is still at work to ensure that all abortions in this state will be not only legal but available and, most of all, safe. Hiram Slater cares about women. He will fight for them and for their privacy . . .” His voice takes on an especially gentle, compassionate tone. “. . . and has done so, even to the point of personal sacrifice.” He rises from the desk and walks toward a third camera, his marvelous study full of books spread out behind him. “I hope you’ll share Hiram Slater’s dream and place your vote where your heart is this November.”

Fade to a heavenly, ethereal, slow-motion shot of a young mother dressed in flowing white, lifting a tiny pink baby and cuddling it close. A soft, soothing female voice: “That we may choose if . . . and when . . . without fear.”

Freeze frame. Lacy, gentle script appears over the mother and child: “Hiram Slater cares about women.”

Small title across bottom of screen: “Paid for by the Committee to Reelect Governor Slater, Wilma Benthoff, Chairperson.”

WEDNESDAY MORNING, 10 O’CLOCK,
Bayview Memorial Hospital. Dr. Harlan Matthews, pathologist, expected to hear the knock on his open office door. Looking up, he saw his visitors from yesterday. The detective was holding a folded sheet of paper.

“Good morning, Doctor,” said Henderson. “I brought you something.”

Matthews rose from his desk, received the sheet of paper from Henderson’s hand, and took the time to read it thoroughly.

He laughed. “A search warrant! Ah, that’s even better!”

Then he closed his office door, but not before John dragged a large carrying case in from the hall.

Matthews looked at Henderson, who shrugged and replied, “Hey, I owe him a lot. We’ve got a buddy system going here.”

Matthews placed the search warrant reverently upon his desk and answered, “Let’s have a little meeting first. Have a seat, gentlemen.”

Dr. Matthews already had two chairs ready and waiting for them. They sat, and then Matthews took his place behind his desk, slid open the center drawer, and immediately produced two manila folders. One
he kept for himself, the other he handed to Henderson.

“To encapsulate the findings of the report . . . give you the bottom line, in other words . . .” He watched as they opened their folder and perused their copy. “. . . the patient died from hypovolemic shock, which is a severe drop in the volume of blood to the vital organs—the brain, kidneys, liver, even the heart itself—resulting in death. The hypovolemic shock was due to exsanguination, severe loss of blood, which was due to . . .” Matthews flipped through his copy of the report. “Here it is, written out briefly, the bottom of the last page, just that one paragraph, you see there?”

They found it.

“Of course, I’m sure you realize that the death certificate said nothing about this, but found the third cause to be hypoprothrombinemia, due to an accidental overdose of warfarin.”

“That’s the story we all got,” said John.

“Well, here are my findings. ‘Obstetrical hemorrhage,’ bleeding due to retained products of conception and endometrial lacerations. In other words, whoever did the abortion was in a big hurry, didn’t finish the job, and botched it besides.”

Matthews set down his copy and leaned back in his chair, ready to explain a little. “When a normal birth occurs, or even an induced abortion done properly, the uterus naturally clamps down and stops its own bleeding. But in this patient’s case, most of the placenta was left inside, and the wall of the uterus was lacerated, and that natural stoppage didn’t happen. The patient bled out in a matter of hours.”

Henderson muttered a low curse, staring at the report.

John wondered, “But . . . surely someone at the abortion clinic would have noticed the bleeding.”

Matthews was unhappy about this whole case, that was obvious. “
Should
have noticed the bleeding but didn’t. There’s always bleeding after an abortion. That’s normal. What someone didn’t see or didn’t report or didn’t think to do anything about was heavy, continuous bleeding. And I can imagine it not being seen, given the sinking standards of this business. You have to realize, abortion clinics aren’t like your typical family practice. They’re under tremendous pressure from two sources: money and fear.