Michael Crichton - A Case of Need

“Peter, of course. He’s the only one with any sense in the family.”

“What about Karen’s abortions?”

“Abortions?”

“Come on, Fritz.”

He went to a closet and found a sports coat, pulled it on, and tugged at the lapels. “People never understand,” he said. “There is a cycle here, a pattern which is as easily recognizable, as familiar, as an MI. [49] Myocardial infarction, a heart attack. You learn the pattern, the symptoms, the trouble. You see it acted out before you again and again. A rebellious child chooses the weak point of its parent—with unfailing, uncanny accuracy—and proceeds to exploit it. But then when punishment comes, it must be in terms of the same weak point. It must all fit together: if someone asks you a question in French, you must answer in French.”

“I don’t understand.”

“For a girl like Karen, punishment was important. She wanted to be punished, but her punishment, like her rebellion, had to be sexual in nature. She wanted to suffer the pain of childbirth, so she could compensate for breaking with her family, her society, her morality.… Dylan put it beautifully; I have the poem here somewhere.” He began rummaging through a bookshelf.

“It’s all right,” I said.

“No, no, a lovely quotation. You’d enjoy it.” He searched for a few more moments, then straightened. “Can’t find it. Well, never mind. The point is that she needed suffering, but never experienced it. That was why she kept getting pregnant.”

“You talk like a psychiatrist.”

“We all do, these days.”

“How many times did she get pregnant?”

“Twice, that I know of. But that is just what I hear from my other patients. A great many women felt threatened by Karen. She impinged upon their system of values, their framework of right and wrong. She challenged them, she implied that they were old and sexless and timid and foolish. A middle-aged woman can’t stand such a challenge; it is terrifying. She must respond, must react, must form an opinion which vindicates herself—and therefore condemns Karen.”

“So you heard a lot of gossip.”

“I heard a lot of fear.”

He smoked his cigar. The room was filled with sunlight and blue smoke. He sat on the bed and began pulling on his shoes.

“Frankly,” he said, “after a while I began to resent Karen myself. She went overboard, she did too much, she went too far.”

“Perhaps she couldn’t help it.”

“Perhaps,” Fritz said, “she needed a good spanking.”

“Is that a professional opinion?”

He smiled. “That is just my human irritation showing through. If I could count the number of women who have run out and had affairs—disastrous affairs—just because of Karen….”

“I don’t care about the women,” I said, “I care about Karen.”

“She’s dead now,” Fritz said.

“That pleases you?”

“Don’t be silly. Why do you say that?”

“Fritz…”

“Just a question.”

“Fritz,” I said, “how many abortions did Karen have before last weekend?”

“Two.”

“One last summer,” I said, “in June. And one before that?”

“Yes.”

“And who aborted her?”

“I haven’t the slightest,” he said, puffing on his cigar.

“It was somebody good,” I said, “because Bubbles said that Karen was only gone for an afternoon. It must have been very skillful and nontraumatic.”

“Very likely. She was a rich girl, after all.”

I looked at him, sitting there on the bed, tying his shoes and smoking the cigar. Somehow, I was convinced he knew.

“Fritz, was it Peter Randall?”

Fritz grunted. “If you know, why ask?”

“I need confirmation.”

“You need a strong noose around your neck, if you ask me. But yes: it was Peter.”

“Did J. D. know?”

“Heaven help us! Never!”

“Did Mrs. Randall know?”

“Hmmm. There I am not certain. It is possible but somehow I doubt it.”

“Did J. D. know that Peter did abortions?”

“Yes. Everyone knows that Peter does abortions. He is the abortionist, believe me.”

“But J.D. never knew Karen had been aborted.”

“That’s correct.”

“What’s the connection between Mrs. Randall and Art Lee?”

“You are very acute today,” Fritz said.

I waited for an answer. Fritz puffed twice on his cigar, producing a dramatic cloud around his face, and looked away from me.

“Oh,” I said. “When?”

“Last year. Around Christmas, if I recall.”

“J. D. never knew?”

“If you will remember,” Fritz said, “J. D. spent the months of November and December in India last year working for the State Department. Some kind of goodwill tour, or public health thing.”

“Then who was the father?”

“Well, there is some speculation about that. But nobody knows for sure—perhaps not even Mrs. Randall.”

Once again, I had the feeling that he was lying.

“Come on, Fritz. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Dear boy, you are immensely clever.” He stood, walked to the mirror, and straightened his jacket. He ran his hands over his shirt. It was something you always noticed about Fritz: he was continually touching his body, as if to assure himself that he had not disappeared.

“I have often thought,” Fritz said, “that the present Mrs. Randall might as well have been Karen’s mother, since they are both such bitches in heat.”

I lit a cigarette. “Why did J. D. marry her?”

Fritz gave a helpless shrug and fluffed a handkerchief in his pocket. He tugged his shirt cuffs down his jacket sleeves. “God only knows. There was great talk at the time. She comes from a good family, you know—a Rhode Island family—but they sent her to a Swiss school. Those Swiss schools will destroy a girl. In any event, she was a poor choice for a man in his sixties, and a busy surgeon. She grew rapidly bored sitting around her cavernous home. The Swiss schools teach you to be bored in any case.”

He buttoned his jacket and turned away from the mirror, with a final glance over his shoulder at himself. “So,” he said, “she amused herself.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“More than a year.”

“Did she arrange Karen’s abortion?”

“I doubt it. One can’t be sure, but I doubt it. More likely it would be Signe.”

“Signe?”

“Yes. J. D.‘s mistress.”

I took a deep breath and wondered if Fritz was kidding me. I decided he wasn’t.

“J. D. had a mistress?”

“Oh, yes. A Finnish girl. She worked in the cardiology lab of the Mem. Quite a stunner, I’m told.”

“You never met her?”

“Alas.”

“Then how do you know?”

He smiled enigmatically.

“Karen liked this Signe?”

“Yes. They were good friends. Rather close in ages, actually.”

I ignored the implications in that.

“You see,” Fritz continued, “Karen was very close to her mother, the first Mrs. Randall. She died two years ago of cancer—rectum, I think—and it was a great blow for Karen. She never liked her father much, but had always confided in her mother. The loss of a confidante at the age of sixteen was a great blow to her. Much of her subsequent…activity can be attributed to bad advice.”

“From Signe?”

“No. Signe was quite a proper girl, from what I’m told.”

“I don’t get it.”

“One of the reasons Karen disliked her father was that she knew about his propensities. You see, he has always had women friends. Young ones. The first was Mrs. Jewett, and then there was—”

“Never mind,” I said. I had already gotten the picture. “He cheated on his first wife, too?”