Michael Crichton - A Case of Need

In his cynical way, he talked about the Death Threshold, as he called it. He defined the Death Threshold as the number of people who must die each year of needless, accidental causes before anyone gets excited about it. In numerical terms, the Death Threshold was set at about 30,000 a year— the number of Americans who died of automobile accidents.

“There they are,” Art said, “dying on the highways at the rate of about eighty a day. Everybody accepts it as a fact of life. So who’s going to care about the fourteen women who die every day of abortions?”

He argued that in order to force doctors and lawyers into action, the abortion death figures would have to approach 50,000 a year, and perhaps more.

At the current mortality rates, that meant ten million abortions a year.

“In a way, you see,” he said, “I’m doing a disservice to society. I haven’t lost anybody in abortion, so I’m keeping those death figures down. That’s good for my patients, of course, but bad for society as a whole. Society will only act out of fear and gross guilt. We are attuned to large figures; small statistics don’t impress us. Who’d give a damn if Hitler had only killed ten thousand Jews?”

He went on to argue that by doing safe abortions he was preserving the status quo, keeping the pressure off legislators to change the laws. And then he said something else.

“The trouble with this country,” he said, “is that the women have no guts. They’d rather slink off and have a dangerous, illegal operation performed than change the laws. The legislators are all men, and men don’t bear the babies; they can afford to be moralistic. So can the priests: if you had women priests, you’d see a hell of a quick change in religion. But politics and religion are dominated by the men, and the women are reluctant to push too hard. Which is bad, because abortion is their business—their infants, their bodies, their risk. If a million women a year wrote letters to their congressmen, you might see a little action. Probably not, but you might. Only the women won’t do it.”

I think that thought depressed him more than anything else. It came back to me as I drove to meet a woman who, from all reports, had plenty of guts: Mrs. Randall.

NORTH OF COHASSET, about half an hour from downtown Boston, is an exclusive residential community built along a stretch of rocky coast. It is rather reminiscent of Newport—old frame houses with elegant lawns, looking out at the sea.

The Randall house was enormous, a four-story Gothic white frame building with elaborate balconies and turrets. The lawn sloped down to the water; altogether there were probably five acres of land surrounding the house. I drove up the long gravel drive and parked in the turnabout next to two Porsches, one black, the other canary-yellow. Apparently the whole family drove Porsches. There was a garage tucked back to the left of the house with a gray Mercedes sedan. That was probably for the servants.

I got out and was wondering how I would ever get past the butler when a woman came out of the front door and walked down the steps. She was pulling on her gloves as she went, and seemed in a great hurry. She stopped when she saw me.

“Mrs. Randall?”

“Yes,” she said.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but certainly nothing like her. She was tall, and dressed in a beige Chanel suit. Her hair was jet black and glossy, her legs long, her eyes very large and dark. She couldn’t have been older than thirty. You could have cracked ice-cubes on her cheekbones, she was so hard.

I stared at her in dumb silence for several moments, feeling like a fool but unable to help myself. She frowned at me impatiently. “What do you want? I haven’t got all day.”

Her voice was husky and her lips were sensual. She had the proper accent, too: flattened inflection and the slightly British intonation.

“Come on, come on,” she said. “Speak up.”

“I’d like to talk to you,” I said, “about your daughter.”

“My stepdaughter,” she said quickly. She was sweeping past me, moving toward the black Porsche.

“Yes, your stepdaughter.”

“I’ve told everything to the police,” she said. “And I happen to be late for an appointment, so if you will excuse me…” She unlocked the door to her car and opened it.

I said, “My name is—”

“I know who you are,” she said. “Joshua was talking about you last night. He told me you might try to see me.”

“And?”

“And he told me, Dr. Berry, to suggest that you go to hell.”

She was doing her best to be angry, but I could see she was not. There was something else showing in her face, something that might have been curiosity or might have been fear. It struck me as odd.

She started the engine. “Good day, Doctor.”

I leaned over toward her. “Following your husband’s orders?”

“I usually do.”

“But not always,” I said.

She was about to put the car in gear, but she stopped, her hand resting on the shift. “I beg your pardon,” she said.

“What I mean is that your husband doesn’t quite understand everything,” I said.

“I think he does.”

“You know he doesn’t, Mrs. Randall.”

She turned off the engine and looked at me. “I’ll give you thirty seconds to get off this property,” she said, “before I call the police.” But her voice was trembling, and her face was pale.

“Call the police? I don’t think that’s wise.”

She was faltering; her self-confidence draining away from her.

“Why did you come here?”

“I want you to tell me about the night you took Karen to the hospital. Sunday night.”

“If you want to know about that night,” she said, “go look at the car.” She pointed to the yellow Porsche.

I went over and looked inside.

It was like a bad dream.

The upholstery had once been tan, but now it was red. Everything was red. The driver’s seat was red. The passenger seat was deep red. The dashboard knobs were red. The steering wheel was red in places. The floor carpet was crusty and red.

Quarts of blood had been lost in that car.

“Open the door,” Mrs. Randall said. “Feel the seat.”

I did. The seat was damp.

“Three days later,” she said. “It still hasn’t dried out. That’s how much blood Karen lost. That’s what he did to her.”

I shut the door. “Is this her car?”

“No. Karen didn’t have a car. Joshua wouldn’t let her have one until she was twenty-one.”

“Then whose car is it?”

“It’s mine,” Mrs. Randall said.

I nodded to the black car she was sitting in. “And this?”

“It’s new. We just bought it yesterday.”

“We?”

“I did. Joshua agreed.”

“And the yellow car?”

“We have been advised by the police to keep it, in case it is needed as evidence. But as soon as we can...”

I said, “What exactly happened Sunday night?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she said, tightening her lips.

“Of course not.” I smiled politely. I knew I had her; the fear was still in her eyes.

She looked away from me, staring straight forward through the glass of the windshield.

“I was alone in the house,” she said. “Joshua was at the hospital with an emergency. William was at medical school. It was about three-thirty at night and Karen was out on a date. I heard the horn blowing on the car. It kept blowing. I got out of bed and put on a bathrobe and went downstairs. My car was there, the motor running and the lights on. The horn was still blowing. I went outside…and saw her. She had fainted and fallen forward onto the horn button. There was blood everywhere.”

She took a deep breath and fumbled in her purse for cigarettes. She brought out a pack of French ones. I lit one for her.