Michael Crichton - A Case of Need

“Are you sure she was pregnant?”

“No,” he said. “And you know why I had my doubts. That vision business. One wonders about primary pituitary dysfunction. I wanted to do tests, but Karen refused. She was only interested in an abortion, and when I wouldn’t give it to her, she became angry.”

“So you sent her to Dr. Lee.”

“Yes,” he said.

“And he did it?”

Peter shook his head. “Art is far too clever for that. He would have insisted on tests. Besides, she was four months’ pregnant, or so she claimed. So he wouldn’t have done it.”

“And you didn’t, either,” I said.

“No. Do you believe that?”

“I’d like to.”

“But you aren’t fully convinced?”

I shrugged. “You burned your car. It had blood in it.”

“Yes,” he said. “Karen’s blood.”

“How did it happen?”

“I lent Karen my car for the weekend. I did not know at the time that she planned an abortion.”

“You mean she drove your car to the abortion, had it, and drove it back to her home, bleeding? Then she switched to the yellow Porsche?”

“Not exactly,” Peter said. “But you can get a better explanation from someone else.” He called, “Darling. Come on out.”

He smiled at me. “Meet my alibi.”

Mrs. Randall came into the room, looking taut and hard and sexy. She sat in a chair next to Peter.

“You see,” Peter said, “what a bind I am in.”

I said, “Sunday night?”

“I am afraid so.”

“That’s embarrassing,” I said, “but also convenient.”

“In a sense,” Randall said. He patted her hand and lifted himself heavily out of the chair. “I don’t call it either embarrassing or convenient.”

“You were with her all night Sunday?”

He poured himself another Scotch. “Yes.”

“Doing what?”

“Doing,” Peter said, “what I would rather not explain under oath.”

“With your brother’s wife?” I said.

He winked at Mrs. Randall. “Are you my brother’s wife?”

“I’ve heard a rumor,” she said, “but I don’t believe it.”

“You see, I’m letting you into some quite private family affairs,” Peter said.

“They are family affairs, if nothing else.”

“You’re indignant?”

“No,” I said. “Fascinated.”

“Joshua,” Peter said, “is a fool. You know that, of course. So does Wilson. That is why he could be so confident. But unfortunately, Joshua married Evelyn.”

“Unfortunately,” Evelyn said.

“Now we are in a bind,” Peter said. “She cannot divorce my brother to marry me. That would be impossible. So we are resigned to our life as it is.”

“Difficult, I imagine.”

“Not really,” Peter said, sitting down again with a fresh drink. “Joshua is very dedicated. He often works long into the night. And Evelyn has many clubs and civic functions to attend.”

“He’ll find out sooner or later.”

“He already knows,” Peter said.

I must have reacted, because he said quickly, “Not consciously, of course. J. D. knows nothing consciously. But in the back of his mind, he realizes that he has a young wife whom he neglects and who is finding…satisfaction elsewhere.”

I turned to Mrs. Randall, “Would you swear Peter was with you Sunday night?”

“If I had to,” she said.

“Wilson will make you. He wants a trial.”

“I know,” she said.

“Why did you accuse Art Lee?”

She turned away from me and glanced at Peter.

Peter said, “She was trying to protect me.”

“Art was the only other abortionist she knew?”

“Yes,” Evelyn said.

“He aborted you?”

“Yes. Last December.”

“Was it a good abortion?”

She shifted in the chair. “It worked, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I mean,” I said. “Do you know Art wouldn’t implicate you?”

She hesitated, then said, “I was confused. I was frightened. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You were screwing Art.”

“Yes,” she said, “that was how it turned out.”

“Well,” I said, “you can clear him now.”

“How?”

“Drop the charges.”

Peter said, “It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“You saw for yourself last night, J. D. is fixed on the battle, once the lines are drawn. He has a surgeon’s view of right and wrong. He sees only black and white, day and night. No gray. No twilight.”

“No cuckolds.”

Peter laughed. “He may be a lot like you.”

Evelyn got up and said, “Lunch will be ready in five minutes. Will you have another drink?”

“Yes,” I said, looking at Peter, “I’d better.”

When Evelyn had gone, Peter said, “You see me as a cruel and heartless beast. Actually I’m not. There has been a long chain of errors here, a long list of mistakes. I would like to see it cleaned up—”

“With no harm done.”

“More or less. Unfortunately my brother is no help. Once his wife accused Dr. Lee, he took it as gospel truth. He pounced upon it as truth the way a man grasps a life preserver. He will never relent.”

“Go on,” I said.

“But the central fact remains. I insist—and you can believe it or not—that I did not do the abortion. You are equally certain that Dr. Lee did not do it. Who is left?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Can you find out?”

“You’re asking me to help you?”

“Yes,” he said.

OVER LUNCH, I said to Evelyn, “What did Karen really say to you in the car?”

“She said, ‘That bastard.’ Over and over again. Nothing else.”

“She never explained?”

“No.”

“Did you have any idea who she meant?”

“No,” Evelyn said, “I didn’t.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“Yes,” she said. “She talked about the needle. Something about how she didn’t want the needle, didn’t want it in her, didn’t want it around her. The needle.”

“Was it a drug?”

“I couldn’t tell,” Evelyn said.

“What did you think at the time?”

“I didn’t think anything,” Evelyn said. “I was driving her to the hospital and she was dying right before my eyes. I was worried that Peter might have done it, even though I didn’t think he had. I was worried that Joshua would find out. I was worried about a lot of things.”

“But not her?”

“Yes,” she said, “her, too.”

THE MEAL WAS GOOD. Toward the end, staring at the two of them, I found myself wishing I had not come and did not know about them. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to think about it.

Afterward, I had coffee with Peter. From the kitchen I heard the sounds of Evelyn washing dishes. It was hard to imagine her washing dishes, but she acted differently around Peter; it was almost possible to like her.

“I suppose,” Peter said, “that it was unfair to ask you here today.”

“It was,” I said.

He sighed and straightened his tie down his massive belly. “I’ve never been in this kind of situation before.”

“How’s that?”

“Caught,” he said.

I thought to myself that he had done it to himself, going in with both eyes wide open. I tried to resent him for that but could not quite manage it.

“The terrible thing,” he said, “is to think back and wonder what you’d do differently. I keep doing that. And I never find the point I’m looking for, that one crucial point in time where I made the wrong turn in the maze. Getting involved with Ev, I suppose. But I’d do that again. Getting involved with Karen. But I’d do that again, too. Each individual thing was all right. It was the combination….”