“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.
15
Beth was sitting up in bed with a green hospital tray across her lap. On the tray were rust-colored Jell-O, brown bread, and a substance resembling beef stew. The pungent scent of the stew chased away the usual medicinal scent in the room. There was also a small container of frozen yogurt on the tray, alongside a glass of ice water. Cooking for the sick was an art no one seemed to have mastered.
“Where’s Officer Lapella?” Carver asked as he entered the room.
She fixed him with a stare that made him think she was indeed improving. “I told her to go eat lunch in the cafeteria. I appreciate her company, but I don’t want the woman living with me.”
“She can’t guard you from the cafeteria.”
“Can’t do me much good if she’s starved to death, either. Besides, I can take care of myself for half an hour, don’t you think?”
“No.” He’d spoken more sharply than he’d intended.
“Ease up, Fred.” She studied him. “Has something happened?”
He told her about his conversation with Dr. Benedict and Leona and about the biblical message waiting for him on his office answering machine.
“Revelation,” she said, and forked some beef stew into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed. “And I think the first part, about the sword, was from Matthew.”
Carver was astounded. “How can you know this?”
She took a sip of water and placed the glass back on the tray. “I grew up on the Bible. Had an aunt who’d been married to a preacher man. She could almost recite the entire book of Esther. That’s the one where Queen Vashti gets replaced for refusing to obey the king, who then takes up with the more beautiful Esther. Preacher man left my aunt for a younger woman, and she never forgot.”
“The point is,” Carver said, “this is a threat directed toward you.
She paused with another bite of stew halfway to her mouth. “You saying I’m the Jezebel in the phone message, Fred?”
“Er, yeah. I mean, it isn’t me saying it, it’s the caller. And my guess is he’s the straight-arrow overgrown WASP who walked into your room and then left when he saw a nurse was with you. Who knows what he might have done if that nurse hadn’t been here?”
“Jezebel, huh.” She seemed less angry now, maybe even oddly flattered.
“We’re living in sin in the eyes of this nut case, and he probably thinks you were entering Women’s Light to have an abortion or to make arrangements for one-another sin. In fact, it’s the sin du jour. Then of course there’s the fact that I’m white and you’re black. That causes problems among some of the folks who perceive only one path to heaven.”
She grinned at him. “Never thought of myself as so bad. Hmmm, Jezebel.”
“What it all means,” Carver said, “is that for whatever reason, the oversized, overdressed WASP is out to make you pay what he calls the wages of sin.”
“That’s death, Fred, ‘The wages of sin is death.’ That’s Romans.” She didn’t seem so amused now.
Carver felt as if he should be struck dead himself. “I’m sorry . . . I forgot that. I got carried away. I’m not a Bible scholar.”
“You really think that big creep is out to do something to me?”
“Haven’t you suspected he was going to try something?”
“Yes, but only suspected.”
“I don’t know it for sure,” Carver said, “but if he is, I think his object is to place you in danger in order to keep me from investigating the Women’s Light bombing. It only makes sense that way.”
“A certain kind of sense,” she admitted. Fear moved in her dark eyes and she looked away quickly, aware that he’d noticed it.
He didn’t like to see her frightened, even a little bit. But at least she wasn’t brooding about the baby if she was afraid, on her guard.
“Lapella can’t stay with me every minute,” she said.
“When she’s not here, I’ll stay.”
“Not a chance, Fred. Have you considered that might be exactly what the caller wants? You stuck in a hospital room reading old magazines instead of out doing what you set out to do?”
It was possible. He didn’t answer.
“I think I should go home,” she said.
He shook his head. “You need to be in here. There’s no way you could have recovered yet from what happened. Have you forgotten you were hurt in an explosion?”
“Hardly. What you need to remember is I survived. Now I want to be back in the outside world. I want to know what’s going on, and to be a part of it.”
“I come here,” Carver said, not liking at all where the conversation was going. “I tell you what’s going on, just as I promised. You’re a part of everything I do, every minute of every day.”