“I think he was. By Operation Alive.”
“He might have been simply a fanatic acting on his own. There are plenty of them these days. We tend to look for reason and conspiracy sometimes when they don’t exist. It’s not always a rational universe.”
“Hardly ever. Did McGregor find you?”
“No. Lucky me.”
He thought she was reaching for her computer, but instead she picked up the plastic water pitcher. She poured water with a few chunks of ice into the plastic cup that served as the pitcher’s lid, then leaned back into her pillow and sipped. When her thirst was assuaged, she held the cup in her lap with both hands and said, “Tell me about the outside world, Fred.”
He filled her in on his visits with Dr. Grimm’s widow and with Mildred Otten.
“There’s a lot of rage out there,” she said.
“There is around abortion clinics.”
“The paper said the police found blasting caps in Norton’s car, and traces of dynamite in his garage workshop. Not to mention several books on how to make bombs.”
“He’ll need a good lawyer,” Carver said,
“He’s got one. Name of Jefferson Brama. Burrow did a piece on him last year, when he was defending a pro-life demonstrator in a property damage case. He won, despite a ton of evidence against his client. He’s aggressive and smooth and a winner.”
“He’s also the attorney for Operation Alive,” Carver said, remembering reading about the Reverend Martin Freel referring media questions about the bombing to his attorney and naming Brama. “You’d think Operation Alive would be trying to distance itself from Norton,”
“Oh, no. He’s one of theirs. You know how those kinds of organizations play it. They goad their members into doing something drastic, then step back and deny culpability. But while they emphatically don’t condone what was done, they don’t actually condemn it. So they’re acting as if Norton is merely a sheep strayed from the flock, instead of a calculating killer on a mission. That’s how Operation Alive is playing it. Tongue clucking, but with a ‘well, that’s what you can expect when you murder babies’ tone.”
“How do you know all this?” Carver asked, glad to see her angry, taking an interest as a victim. Righteous rage was preferable to depression.
“I’ve been reading the papers, watching TV. That Reverend Freel is like all the rest of the smug bastards who’re causing the trouble, putting themselves above the law, frightening pregnant teenage girls and calling them murderers on the way into clinics.”
“And you think he’s behind the Women’s Light bombing? That he hired or instructed Norton?”
Her jaw set. “I think he motivated him. The Freels of this world, they yammer about saving lives, but they killed my-” She stopped talking suddenly and looked as if she might break into sobs.
“I know,” Carver said softly to her, thinking she was more delicate right now than she appeared. Balanced on a fine edge. “I know what you mean and I feel the same way.” He sat down on the bed and held her, waiting for her to cry, but she didn’t.
She sucked in a deep breath and lay back. He noticed that she cocked her head slightly to the right on the pillow so she could hear him better with her left ear. Her face was dark stone. “Keep me informed on what’s going on, Fred. When I get out of here, I want to help you pin this on whoever’s responsible.”
“Maybe Norton really did act on his own.”
“I don’t think so.”
Neither did Carver, but he didn’t say it. He angled his cane and stood up from the bed.
“Do you know a tall, broad-shouldered man with black horn-rimmed glasses and a blond crew cut?” Beth asked.
“No.”
“He was wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. I thought he might be police.”
“Maybe he was. Or FBI. Where’d you see him?”
“He stepped into the room earlier today, while a nurse was in here. Then he only smiled, nodded, and turned around and left. I thought he might be one of McGregor’s men, looking for you.”
“Could be he was. Or just some guy who wandered into the wrong room.”
“He was kind of creepy. That’s why I thought he might be connected to McGregor.”
“Logical,” Carver agreed. “Creepy how?”
“I’m not sure. I guess because he was so perfectly groomed and conservatively and neatly dressed that it almost had to be a front. He was like an automaton who’d been to Brooks Brothers.”
“Ask a nurse who he is,” Carver suggested.
“I did. The nurses don’t know him. And he was such a straight-arrow, all-American WASP, I’m sure they’d know who I was describing if he worked here at the hospital.”
“A visitor, then. Here to see one of the patients.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re worried about him.”
“Yes. I’m not sure why, but I am. He seemed surprised to find a nurse with me. Or more like disappointed. I got the feeling that he had the right room and he’d come in for a reason, then changed his mind.”
Carver didn’t see much basis for her fear, but he’d come to trust her instincts. “I’ll find McGregor,” he said, “and see if there can be some protection assigned here for you.”
“I don’t think there’s much chance of that,” Beth said.
Carver didn’t either, actually. “I can spend the night here.”
She shook her head and smiled, then winced at some sudden pain in her damaged body. “That’s not necessary, Fred. I’m probably just more suspicious than usual.”
“No one could blame you.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “You’re a woman who was blown up.”
“Fred, if you learn anything pertinent you think might upset me, I want you to tell me anyway. I need to know the truth about this.”
“So do I. That’s why I’ve been looking into it.”
“And you think it might be as simple as a deranged man planting a bomb all on his own during a pro-life demonstration?”
“Might be.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me, Fred?”
“Of course not.”
She grinned and glanced at her wristwatch propped on the table so she could see the dial. “You had supper yet?”
“Sure. Down in the cafeteria.”
11
Dusk had closed in while Carver was in the hospital. He walked across the lot to where the Olds was parked, all by itself now near the stone wall and the line of palm trees swaying in the breeze as if they were doing a lazy hula.
As he neared the car, he reached into his pocket for his car keys. The keys jingled softly as he pulled them out and reached for the door handle. The wind kicked up harder, making the hula more hectic, and rattled the palm fronds above his head.
“Fred Carver, isn’t it?”
A man’s voice, neutral.
Carver turned around expecting to see a tall, crew cut WASP wearing a business suit and dark-rimmed glasses. Instead he was looking at a dumpy little man wearing a rumpled gray suit with a tie that was too long for him and whose pointed end dangled almost at crotch level. If he wore glasses they were contacts. He had the kind of curly brown hair that would always look mussed, and for that matter a face whose features would always look mussed. He smiled, looking even more rumpled, but friendly. Everybody’s best friend who always dies in the movies so the audience hates the villain.
“I’m Special Agent Sam Wicker, FBI,” he said. He flashed ID that appeared genuine enough to Carver even in the dim light.
“You don’t look FBI,” Carver said.
“I know. People tell me that all the time. They expect a guy who looks and dresses like a Sears suit model with a law degree. Pretty often that’s what they get.”
Carver understood then that the man who’d looked in on Beth probably had been a federal agent.
Wicker had been standing near the stone wall. Now he shambled around the back of the car to stand near Carver. He was taller than he’d first appeared, maybe five feet ten. It occurred to Carver that Wicker dressed a lot like McGregor, only he was cleaner. The breeze blew again, cool and fresh, rattling the palm fronds harder. “It’s nice down here,” Wicker said. “I spend too much time up north.” He spoke as if he’d come to Florida for a vacation rather than a social hot button murder investigation.