if she’d begun to dye it and then changed her mind.
Carver identified himself and showed her his license with its color photo that looked a little like him. She seemed satisfied, as if she didn’t distinguish between private and public cops, and stepped back and invited him in. He was careful not to step on her toes; she was wearing sandals made out of tire tread with rubber loops over the big toe of each foot. On several of her toes were the kind of flesh-colored, circular bandages used to treat corns.
The apartment was steaming hot. The furniture was cheap and stained, and there was a woven oval rug on the scarred hardwood floor. On gray walls that needed paint were hung various untrained religious prints that appeared to have been clipped from books and magazines. One print was of Prometheus chained to a mountain while his liver was being devoured by a vulture. Carver wondered if Mildred realized she was mixing Greek mythology with scripture. Maybe it didn’t matter. The theme seemed to be suffering. There was no sign of an air conditioner, and only one window was open—about two inches. There was no screen.
Mildred saw him looking at the window. “I don’t open it wider because of the gulls,” she explained in a firm, positive voice. “They’re the devil’s agents and they might fly in and pluck my eyes out if I allow it.” She glared at him. “It happened to a woman down in Boca Raton.”
“I think I read about that,” Carver said.
“Two summers ago, it was.”
“Yes.” Carver pulled out the letter she’d sent to Dr. Grimm. The paper was damp now, and some of the printing was blurred. “Did you mail this, Ms. Otten?”
She studied it. “Of course. Isn’t that my signature?”
“The letter’s a death threat,” Carver pointed out.
“The other police have talked to me already about that. Didn’t they tell you? I explained to them it wasn’t a death threat, it was a vision from the Lord. The sower hath reaped the whirlwind.”
“Dr. Grimm, you mean?”
“Of course. He took lives, and someone took his own. Wasn’t that just?”
“It depends on your point of view.”
“Just is just,” she said, shaking her head.
“Were you at the clinic the day it was bombed, Mildred? May I call you Mildred?”
“Yes and yes. I saw the wrath and lightning of the Lord loosed on the house of death.”
“Innocent people were killed,” Carver pointed out.
“Innocent people are killed there every day, day after day.”
“Again a matter of opinion, Mildred.” Carver was trying not to get angry, remembering Beth flying backward out of the clinic in a sunlit shower of glass fragments.
Mildred shook her head again, this time violently, as if flinging away his words before they might stick in her mind. “As you know not how the wind blows, nor how a babe within the womb grows.’”
“The Bible?”
“Ecclesiastes. We haven’t the wisdom to judge living tissue other than alive. It is the Lord’s work. That is plain in the Word.”
“I understand you’re a member of Operation Alive.”
“I am that, and proud of it. ‘Look at my agony; my maidens and my youth are in captivity.’”
It took Carver a few seconds to realize that she was quoting again.
“Ecclesiastes?”
“Lamentations,” she said. “ ‘He slaughters and kills the children, the delight of our eyes.’ That verse refers to Dr. Grimm and his kind. So I do what I can, Mr. Carver. I make picket signs, I stand before passersby whose eyes are blind and try to make them see. Ever since they released me from that place of doctors and sins, I’ve worked for the force of life and the reward of life everlasting.”
“What place was that?” Carver asked. But he knew.
Mildred suddenly appeared sly. She grinned like a mischievous schoolgirl. “Ask your friends among the Romans.”
“Romans?”
“The police. The ones who are crucifying Adam Norton.”
“Do you know Norton?”
“He is me and I am he.”
Carver
Carver identified himself and showed her his license with its color photo that looked a little like him. She seemed satisfied, as if she didn’t distinguish between private and public cops, and stepped back and invited him in. He was careful not to step on her toes; she was wearing sandals made out of tire tread with rubber loops over the big toe of each foot. On several of her toes were the kind of flesh-colored, circular bandages used to treat corns.
The apartment was steaming hot. The furniture was cheap and stained, and there was a woven oval rug on the scarred hardwood floor. On gray walls that needed paint were hung various untrained religious prints that appeared to have been clipped from books and magazines. One print was of Prometheus chained to a mountain while his liver was being devoured by a vulture. Carver wondered if Mildred realized she was mixing Greek mythology with scripture. Maybe it didn’t matter. The theme seemed to be suffering. There was no sign of an air conditioner, and only one window was open—about two inches. There was no screen.
Mildred saw him looking at the window. “I don’t open it wider because of the gulls,” she explained in a firm, positive voice. “They’re the devil’s agents and they might fly in and pluck my eyes out if I allow it.” She glared at him. “It happened to a woman down in Boca Raton.”
“I think I read about that,” Carver said.
“Two summers ago, it was.”
“Yes.” Carver pulled out the letter she’d sent to Dr. Grimm. The paper was damp now, and some of the printing was blurred. “Did you mail this, Ms. Otten?”
She studied it. “Of course. Isn’t that my signature?”
“The letter’s a death threat,” Carver pointed out.
“The other police have talked to me already about that. Didn’t they tell you? I explained to them it wasn’t a death threat, it was a vision from the Lord. The sower hath reaped the whirlwind.”
“Dr. Grimm, you mean?”
“Of course. He took lives, and someone took his own. Wasn’t that just?”
“It depends on your point of view.”
“Just is just,” she said, shaking her head.
“Were you at the clinic the day it was bombed, Mildred? May I call you Mildred?”
“Yes and yes. I saw the wrath and lightning of the Lord loosed on the house of death.”
“Innocent people were killed,” Carver pointed out.
“Innocent people are killed there every day, day after day.”
“Again a matter of opinion, Mildred.” Carver was trying not to get angry, remembering Beth flying backward out of the clinic in a sunlit shower of glass fragments.
Mildred shook her head again, this time violently, as if flinging away his words before they might stick in her mind. “As you know not how the wind blows, nor how a babe within the womb grows.’”
“The Bible?”
“Ecclesiastes. We haven’t the wisdom to judge living tissue other than alive. It is the Lord’s work. That is plain in the Word.”
“I understand you’re a member of Operation Alive.”
“I am that, and proud of it. ‘Look at my agony; my maidens and my youth are in captivity.’”
It took Carver a few seconds to realize that she was quoting again.
“Ecclesiastes?”
“Lamentations,” she said. “ ‘He slaughters and kills the children, the delight of our eyes.’ That verse refers to Dr. Grimm and his kind. So I do what I can, Mr. Carver. I make picket signs, I stand before passersby whose eyes are blind and try to make them see. Ever since they released me from that place of doctors and sins, I’ve worked for the force of life and the reward of life everlasting.”
“What place was that?” Carver asked. But he knew.
Mildred suddenly appeared sly. She grinned like a mischievous schoolgirl. “Ask your friends among the Romans.”
“Romans?”
“The police. The ones who are crucifying Adam Norton.”
“Do you know Norton?”
“He is me and I am he.”
Carver
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