Prophet (49 page)

The name jumped out at them from a filled-in blank near the top of a State Death Certificate: Hillary Nicole Slater.

“The governor’s daughter,” said John. “His oldest.” He found the date of death. “April 19th, 1991. Yeah, that’s her, no question.”

“I didn’t know the governor’s daughter died.”

“It was a big news story. She died from taking some mislabeled medicine . . .” John scanned down to the cause of death. “ ‘Hypovolemic shock . . . ’”

“What’s that?”

“Uh . . . I’m not sure. But . . . let’s see, that was due to ‘exsanguination.’ She bled to death. And that was due to . . . Hang on . . .”

Carl saw the long word and couldn’t pronounce it either. John gave it a try. “ ‘Hypo . . . pro . . . throm . . . binemia.’ Hypoprothrombinemia.”

Carl was waiting for an explanation.

“Um . . . as I understand it, she took some pills by mistake . . . they were mislabeled or something . . .” John scanned further down the page. “Sure. ‘Accidental overdose of warfarin.’ That’s a blood thinner. The governor was having trouble with blood clots in his leg . . . Remember Nixon having blood clots?” John considered his son’s age. “Oh, well, I don’t suppose you do. Anyway, the word was that Hillary thought she was taking medication for menstrual cramps, but took the governor’s blood thinning medication instead, and suffered a fatal hemorrhage. Yeah, we covered the death, the funeral, and we did some consumer spin-off stories on drug labeling and safe medicine cabinets at home, that sort of thing. It was a real hot topic for a week or so.”

Carl scanned the materials. “Grandpa had everything he could collect on Annie Brewer. Some of the autopsy report . . .”

“Yeah, and what’s this? Hey, Annie Brewer’s death certificate.”

“All right. Yeah, look here. It’s just like the Brewers told us: ‘Primary cause of death: septic shock, due to . . . septicemia, due to . . . toxic shock syndrome.”

John brought another page alongside. “But here’s the handcopied excerpt from the autopsy report. Let’s see . . . Yeah, right here: ‘The most attractive hypothesis that would explain the mechanism of death in this case would be that initially this person had an abortion complicated by staphylococcal infection resulting in peritonitis and septicemia leading to septic shock and inadequate oxygenation of the vital organs, leading to death.’”

“Well . . . it wasn’t toxic shock syndrome anyway,” Carl said sarcastically.

“Yeah, there’s a direct contradiction. But look at this—another copy of Hillary Slater’s death certificate.” John looked at the receipt paper-clipped to the certificate’s upper-right corner. “Eleven bucks, paid by check to the Bureau of Vital Statistics, May 2nd, 1991. So Dad went down to the Public Safety Building and got a copy.”

“Why’d he buy two?”

John shook his head. “I don’t think he did. The first one we looked at is different. It’s newer . . . printed at a different time, different paper stock. And the receipt’s for eleven bucks. That would be the price for
one.”

Carl was getting the picture. “Two girls, two death certificates . . . Annie’s death certificate is definitely phony . . .”

John picked up the thought. “And it could be Dad thought Hillary Slater’s was phony too. That seems to be the direction he’s heading.”

“Man, let’s hear that tape.”

“I’m with you.” John took the cassette over to the cassette player, dropped it in, and paused just long enough to look at Carl before he hit the Play button.

A period of silence seemed to go on forever. John and Carl were both leaning on the workbench, their weight on their elbows, their heads near the speakers.

A sudden sound cut in, a male voice on the telephone: “District Twelve Fire Emergency.”

A female voice. Young, frantic. “Hello, my girlfriend’s in trouble—she’s bleeding and it won’t stop!”

“Your location please?”

“Um . . . it’s in the governor’s house. You need the address?”

“Yes, please.”

“Um . . . 1527 Roanoke West.”

“And what is the phone number you’re calling from?”

“Um . . . it’s . . . I can’t—”

“Is the number written on the telephone you’re using?”

“Oh. 555-9875.”

“And your name?”

“I’m . . . my name . . . it’s . . . uh . . . Hillary Slater.”

“Is the patient conscious?”

“She’s . . . I can’t see her from here.”

“Is she breathing normally?”

“She’s gasping real hard.”

“You say she’s gasping?”

“Yeah, like she can’t breathe.”

“Is she choking?”

“No, she’s . . . she’s breathing real hard.”

“And did you say she’s bleeding?”

“Yes, and it won’t stop!”

“Where is the blood coming from?”

The girl said something unintelligible.

“Where is the blood coming from? Where is the wound?”

“She had an abortion.”

“Has she soaked more than two pads in the last hour?”

“She’s . . . we’ve run out. We’ve used . . . about seven.”

“Okay, stay on the line. I’ll send help.”

A clunking sound. A receiver set down.

The dispatcher’s voice: “Hello? Are you with me?” No response. “Are you there? Hello?” Tones. One high, one low, two more in between.

Dispatcher’s voice: “District Twelve, Rescue 231, Medic 231, vaginal bleed, the governor’s residence, 1527 Roanoke West.” Then, back on the phone: “Hello? Are you there?” No reply.

Dispatcher on radio: “Rescue 231, Medic 231, be advised, unknown age female experiencing breathing difficulty, unknown if conscious at this time, possible induced abortion. I have an open line into the residence at this time.”

A radio voice with a siren in the background: “Medic 231, we copy.”

Long pause. Some radio chatter.

And then, background sounds. A woman screaming frantically, hurried footsteps.

Then the clunking sound of the receiver being picked up again.

The dispatcher’s voice: “Hello? Are you there?”

A man’s voice, desperate, urgent: “Who is this? I need the phone—”

“Sir, this is District Twelve Fire Emergency. We have dispatched Medic One and an aid unit to the governor’s residence. Who are you, sir?”

“I’m Governor Slater! It’s my daughter!”

“Is she conscious, sir?”

“No, no, I don’t believe so.”

“Is she breathing normally?”

The governor called off the phone, “Is she breathing? Ashley! Is she breathing?” A woman screamed something in the background. The governor came back on the phone. “She’s breathing, but we don’t think she’s conscious.”

“Does it sound like she’s breathing normally?”

“No . . . No, she’s gasping . . . It’s very labored breathing.”

“Would you like to do CPR? I can help you.”

“Yes! I just need to—”

The woman shouted something. There were thumping sounds, doors opening, footsteps, voices.

“Oh, they’re here! Thank God!”

“The aid crew is there, sir?”

“Yes!”

“Very good, sir, they’ll take it from here, all right?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good-bye.”

Click.

The tape went silent.

John had to sit down and sank right to the floor. “O Lord . . . O Lord God . . . O Jesus . . .” he prayed, his eyes shut, his voice trembling.

Carl hit the Rewind button. He had to hear it again. They listened to it three more times, straining to hear every word, to know it thoroughly. Then they went back to the papers Dad had gathered and hidden . . . for John.

“Yeah,” said John, his hands shaking, his throat tight, “look at this letter here. Dad told me he’d written to Governor Slater, though he never did get a direct answer.”

The photocopied letter read:

“Hm. Yeah, that’s Dad all right,” John said. “I can see why he got on the governor’s nerves.” He noted the date at the top of the letter. “May 6, 1991. That was before Annie died.” He looked at Carl and saw the same incredulous expression that had to be on his own face. “He knew, Carl. He knew. Can you imagine . . . When Max Brewer met him in front of the Women’s Medical Center and told him about Annie, Dad already knew about Hillary Slater. So what he feared, the . . . the ‘great danger’ he talked about in this letter . . . really happened. Another girl died, just like Hillary.”

And then a thought, a fact, a bit of knowledge, hit John as clearly as if he’d always known it. “Carl, I’ll bet they both died in the same clinic. Dad knew that all along.” Another thought hit him. “And . . . I think God told me too, just the other day . . . All of a sudden I knew Annie wasn’t the only one. But that’s what Dad was hoping to prove.”

“And somebody killed him.”

“And somebody killed him.”

Now both of them sat down, John on a stool, Carl on the floor. This sort of thing you didn’t just learn and then go on to the next thing. They had to think it through and process it, and before that they had to believe it.

John reached over to the workbench and leafed through some more of the papers. “Yeah, look here: ‘Glen Murphy . . . Al Connors, paramedic,’ and here are the phone numbers. Dad may have contacted the paramedic who was on that Hillary Slater case. Here’s Max and Deanne Brewer’s number, and . . . good grief, here’s Dr. Mark Denning’s address and phone number. Wonder if Dad ever got through to him?”

“Well, Leslie has anyway.”

“And you can be sure we’ll talk to the others.” John set the papers back on the workbench. “We’ve got to think, Carl. We’ve got to brainstorm this thing. What do we know? Where’s all this going?”

Carl started with the easiest conclusion. “Hillary Slater died from a botched abortion . . . and it sounds like it was really botched.”

“And covered up—the whole warfarin overdose story released to the media, including NewsSix—and now it looks like even the death certificate was falsified. We’ll have to check into who filled it out. Something went a little strange at that point.”

“So how did Grandpa find out? When did he find out?”

“Maybe the Lord told him, I don’t know. But he got the death certificate on May 2nd, which is about two weeks after Hillary died—so he was checking it out, we know that. Then, only four days later, he wrote to the governor about it. From what he told me, he never got through, as if that’s any surprise.”

Then John shook his head. “Hm . . . no wonder he was at the governor’s rally saying all those things. He was going to get the governor’s attention one way or another.” John smiled slightly at a recollection. “He’d been following the governor for quite a while, from May through September, just trying to get the governor’s attention. I think he really started getting under Slater’s skin.”

“He got somebody’s attention—whoever gave him that tape.”

“The visitor . . .” John mused. “It was the same day I went to have lunch with Dad. Jimmie and Chuck say a man came to see him around
10 o’clock. He didn’t stay long, so it doesn’t sound like he did much business. I think he was there just to drop off the tape . . . and probably that other copy of Hillary Slater’s death certificate.” John nodded as the pieces came together. “Sure . . . when I got there Dad had Chuck Keitzman’s Walkman on his desk, and he’d been crying, and he said he’d learned something he really wanted to share with me but couldn’t because . . .”

Carl filled in, “Because you weren’t on good terms with the Truth yet.”

Good old Carl, as blunt as ever. But John saw no sense in objecting. “Yeah . . . yeah, that’s right. But now at least I’m trying.”

Carl accommodated that. “Okay. But I’ve got a question—Why Grandpa?”

John could only entertain theories. “It could be that after Dad was at the rally . . . you know, he got himself on television that night . . . somebody must have thought this was a perfect enemy of the governor to leak the tape to.”

“Do you suppose the leaker knew Grandpa’s son was a TV news anchor?”

John’s face said,
Good thought.
“That could be. But that tape . . . The way I understand it, you don’t just drive down to your local fire station and pick up a copy. Those tapes are privileged, they’re confidential.”

Carl was intrigued. “Oh . . . so now we’re talking about an insider.”