Michael Crichton - A Case of Need

I slipped it into my pocket. It wouldn’t do to have that one lying around.

I heard voices behind me.

“Well, well, well. Fancy that.”

I turned. It was Peterson.

“My wife called me.”

“Fancy that.” He looked around the room. With all the broken windows, it was getting chilly as night fell. “Quite a mess, isn’t it?”

“You might say so.”

“Yes, indeed.” He walked around the room. “Quite a mess.”

Watching him, I had a sudden horrifying vision of a uniformed man in heavy boots struggling among ruins. It was a generalized vision, nonspecific, attached to no particular time or place or era.

Another man pushed into the room. He wore a raincoat and had a pad in his hand.

“Who’re you?” Peterson said.

“Curtis. From the Globe, sir.”

“Now who called you, fella?”

Peterson looked around the room. His eyes rested on me.

“Not nice,” Peterson said. “Not nice at all.”

“It’s a reputable newspaper. This boy will report the facts accurately. You surely can’t object to that.”

“Listen,” Peterson said. “This is a city of two and a half million and the police department is understaffed. We can’t investigate every crackpot complaint and lunatic threat that comes along. We can’t do that if we want to do the regular things, like direct traffic.”

“Family of an accused,” I said. I was aware that the reporter was watching me closely. “Family of an accused receives threats by telephone and letter. Wife and young family. She’s afraid. You ignore her.”

“That’s not fair and you know it.”

“Then something big happens. They start to burn a cross and tear the place apart. The wife calls for help. It takes your boys fifteen minutes to get here. How far away is the nearest station?”

“That’s not the point.”

The reporter was writing.

“You’ll look bad,” I said. “Lots of citizens in this town are opposed to abortion, but still more are against the wanton, lawless destruction of private property by a band of young hoodlums—”

“They weren’t hoodlums.”

I turned to the reporter. “Captain Peterson expresses the opinion that the kids who burned the cross and broke every window in the house were not young hoodlums.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Peterson said quickly.

“It’s what he said,” I told the reporter. “Furthermore, you may be interested to know that two children were seriously lacerated by flying glass. Children ages three and five, seriously lacerated.”

“That’s not what I was told,” Peterson said. “The cuts were only—”

“I believe,” I said, “that I am the only doctor present at this time. Or did the police bring a doctor when they finally answered the call for help?”

He was silent.

“Did the police bring a doctor?” the reporter asked.

“No.”

“Did they summon a doctor?”

“No.”

The reporter wrote swiftly.

“I’ll get you, Berry,” Peterson said. “I’ll get you for this.”

“Careful. You’re in front of a reporter.”

His eyes shot daggers. He turned on his heel.

“By the way,” I said, “what steps will the police now take to prevent a recurrence?”

He stopped. “That hasn’t been decided yet.”

“Be sure,” I said, “to explain to this reporter how unfortunate it all is and how you’ll post a twenty-four-hour guard. Be sure to make that clear.”

He curled his lips, but I knew he would do it. That’s all I wanted—protection for Betty, and a little pressure on the police.

JUDITH TOOK THE KIDS HOME; I stayed with Betty and helped her board up the windows. It took nearly an hour, and with each one I did, I got angrier.

Betty’s kids were subdued, but would not go to sleep. They kept coming downstairs to complain that their cuts hurt or that they wanted a glass of water. Young Henry in particular complained about his foot, so I removed the bandage to be certain I had not missed any glass. I found a small sliver still lodged in the wound.

Sitting there, with his small foot in my hand, and Betty telling him not to cry as I cleaned the wound again, I suddenly felt tired. The house smelled of burning wood, from the cross. It was chilly and drafty from the broken windows. Everything was a shambles; it would take days to clean it up.

All so unnecessary.

When I finished with Henry’s foot, I went back to the letters Betty had received. Reading them made me feel more tired. I kept wondering how people could do it, what they must have been thinking. The obvious answer was that they were thinking nothing. They were simply reacting, as I had been reacting, as everyone had been reacting.

I suddenly wanted it finished. I wanted the letters to stop, the windows to be fixed, the wounds to heal, and life to return to normal. I wanted it very badly.

So I called George Wilson.

“I thought you might call,” Wilson said.

“How’d you like to take a trip?”

“Where?”

“J. D. Randall’s.”

“Why?”

“To call off the dogs,” I said.

“Meet me in twenty minutes,” he said and hung up.

AS WE DROVE TOWARD THE SOUTH SHORE and the Randall house, Wilson said, “What made you change your mind?”

“A lot of things.”

“The kids?”

“A lot of things,” I repeated.

We drove for a while in silence, then he said, “You know what this means, don’t you? It means we put the squeeze on Mrs. Randall and on Peter.”

“That’s all right,” I said.

“I thought he was your buddy.”

“I’m tired.”

“I thought doctors never got tired.”

“Lay off, will you?”

It was late, approaching nine. The sky was black.

“When we get to the house,” Wilson said, “I’ll do the talking, right?”

“O.K.,” I said.

“It’s no good if we both talk. It has to be just one.”

“You can have your moment,” I said.

He smiled. “You don’t like me much, do you?”

“No. Not much.”

“But you need me.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Just so we understand each other,” he said.

“Just so you do the job,” I said.

I did not remember exactly where the house was, so I slowed the car as I approached. Finally I found it and was about to turn into the drive when I stopped. Up ahead, in the gravel turnabout in front of the house, were two cars. One was J. D. Randall’s silver Porsche. The other was a gray Mercedes sedan.

“What’s the matter?”

I doused my lights and backed away.

“What’s going on?” Wilson said.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“Well are we going in, or not?”

“No,” I said. I backed across the road and parked on the opposite side, near the shrubs. I had a good view up the drive to the house and could see both cars clearly.

“Why not?”

“Because,” I said, “there’s a Mercedes parked there.”

“So?”

“Peter Randall owns a Mercedes.”

“All the better,” Wilson said. “We can confront them together.”

“No,” I said. “Because Peter Randall told me his car was stolen.”

“Oh?”

“That’s what he said.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

I thought back. Something was beginning to bother me, to pick at my mind. Then I remembered: the car I had seen in the Randall garage when I had visited Mrs. Randall.

I opened my door. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“I want to see that car,” I said.

We stepped out into the night, which was damp and unpleasant. Walking up the drive, I reached into my pocket and felt my little penlight. I always carried it; a throwback to my days as an intern. I was glad to have it now.