Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (15 page)

He seemed to think it over, then said softly, "Nobody's gonna tell me how to run my practice. I've taken a survey and found out that women don't want a third party in that room. It's embarrassing to them."

"It's embarrassing even
being
there," Arden put in. "Just having a pelvic's embarrassing."

He frowned and looked sharply at her. "What are you saying, Arden?"

"I'm saying that I have yet to ever go in for a pelvic and feel comfortable."

"Not even with me?"

"Absolutely not."

He seemed surprised. Arden thought, My lands, does he think his pelvics are fun and games? The poor man was definitely sick.

He repeated. "Well, what can I do?"

"I told you. Have a third party there."

"I can't do that. But I can cut my examination rooms down to one, and I'll quit examining women under fifty. And I'll have only one counseling room."

Arden thought, What silly ideas. "That won't work," she said.

"Why not?"

"Because four of your victims are over fifty."

He insisted it couldn't be true and she argued back. Then he said, "What about Marilyn?"

Arden thought, Yes, what about her? Your poor wife didn't abuse anybody. "That's one reason this has never been brought out in the open," she said, "because of my concern for Marilyn and the children."

"Just how far have you gone with it?"

She wondered if she should tell him, then realized that he would know soon enough through official channels. "Minda and Meg have written to the Medical Society," she said.

He acted relieved. "Oh, well," he said. "That's no problem. Somebody else made a complaint like that twelve years ago. I took care of it. I can handle that."

She wondered what he meant. For weeks she'd been feeling pangs of guilt about Dottie Parry, the woman who'd tried to complain to her about Story's pelvics years ago. Had Dottie taken her case to the Medical Society? She tried to pry the name out of him, but he refused to reveal it.

She looked at her watch. They'd been talking for two hours. He asked, "Do you think Minda and Meg will see me?"

"Minda maybe. Meg's crushed."

"This'll kill Marilyn," he mused.

Arden said, "You should've thought about that before you ever did it."

"What's gonna happen to her?" he asked in a woeful voice. "This is the end."

"If you won't have a nurse in the room, then something has to be done," she said. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

She asked when he'd found out what was going on. He said, "At a quarter to eight last Friday morning. The hospital administrator, Joe Brown, knocked on my door. It spoiled my weekend."

She told him she'd put his name on the prayer roll at Idaho Falls at 5:30 that same morning and the prayer had been at 7:30. She didn't tell him that she viewed the timing as another sign of divine intervention. As Marilyn had pointed out long ago, they didn't believe in the same God.

When she stood up to leave, he said in his Mr. Peepers voice, "Arden, if you ever need anybody to talk to, just call me. Any time of the day or night."

"Thanks," she said, and left.

It was still a few minutes before noon on a hot summer day. Lately the earth had seemed bursting with life, and on the way down the hill she spotted Dorothy Brinkerhoff, a short, well-nour-ished woman of fifty with a frizzy cap of brownish hair, weeding her garden. Arden pulled alongside and mentioned that she'd just talked to Dr. Story.

Scott's mother turned away. When she looked back, Arden saw the tears. It made her feel weepy herself. She thought, Well, we inlaws have had our troubles, but we're all together now.

When she got home, she told Minda, "Now we know why you didn't speak up when Dr. Story abused you. He would've kicked you out and then turned the whole thing against you. He did it before. The hand of the Lord shut your mouth."

She told her daughter that Story wanted to talk to her and Meg. Minda said, "I'll go if Scott'll go. But I'll never be alone with that man again."

14

MINDA BRINKERHOFF

She was sure Scott would say no, but he surprised her. He seemed to welcome a showdown. Her husband had lightened up in the two months since learning about the incidents, but he still gave the impression that he was offering her forgiveness instead of belief. "I need to see Story face to face," he said. "I have some questions." She thought, Gol, what if Story convinces him? What'll happen to our marriage? She had to take the chance.

She called Meg and reminded her that the doctor wanted to meet with her, too. Meg said, "I already feel scummy enough. I'm not going to give him any satisfaction, you know, to sit there and call me a liar. That man, he—he raped me! And he wants to keep on raping others."

"How do you know that?" Minda asked.

"Because he told Mom he wasn't gonna have anybody in the room." Meg advised her sister to take a tape recorder to the meeting. Minda wished she had one.

They waited in the hospital while Story finished with a patient. He led them to a back room, sat down, and began twisting in his chair. He wouldn't look at her. She thought, This is a first. He's nervous and showing it. He said, "There's some problems. We all know why we're here tonight."

Scott nodded.

"This is all rumors," Story said. "Rumors and stories."

Minda drew her strength from Scott and spoke right up. "I'm not a rumor. I am firsthand. I was in your office and I experienced this—and that is
not
a rumor."

Story looked at Scott. "I don't know where your wife dreamed this up," he said, "but I have definitely not violated her. You can't believe that." He interrupted himself with a dry laugh. "I don't know what she's talking about. I want you to know I've never done anything that would hurt your wife or family."

He went on for five or ten minutes in a whiny voice, frequently repeating himself, sometimes talking so weakly she had to lean forward to hear. He said something about having a nurse in the room from now on—apparently he'd softened on that point—and how he would have to "live with that for the rest of my life."

Minda spoke up. "Look what I have to live with for the rest of
my
life."

"I could limit my exams to women over sixty. Would that strike you as fair? I want to make things right with you kids."

Minda thought, You want to make
what
right? Are you admitting your guilt? But she kept quiet. Scott was looking impatient.

Story said, "If there's anything I can do to work this thing out, get ahold of me and let me know. Anything. You let me know what will make this thing better and calm this thing down, 'cause you know how rumors hurt people."

She hoped Scott recognized that they were being offered a bribe. "Uh, what thing are you talking about?" Scott asked in a voice as flat as the doctor's.

Story mumbled something about rumors and innuendos, then said, "I don't want to have to take legal action."

"Legal?" her husband said sharply. "You wanna go legal? I'll take it as far as you want."

"No, no," Story said apologetically. "I was thinking about your bill." They owed eighteen hundred dollars.

"Bill?" Scott said. Minda reached for his hand. It was squeezed into a tight fist. "As far as I'm concerned, we don't owe you a cent."

"Well, I've worked that out and you don't have to pay," Story said. "We'll go ahead and wipe that clean." He leaned forward. "You know, Scott," he said just above a whisper, "if I thought anybody did to my wife what you're saying I did to yours, I would feel the same way. So don't think I don't understand. But—I didn't do it." He sounded so misunderstood, so sincere. Minda figured he's played the same role before. "I wish you two would tell me what you expect me to do," Story went on. "What do you want?"

Scott said, "Give up your practice. Retire. Just walk away. Then nobody has to do anything or know anything."

"But . . . why?"

Scott stood up. He was a half foot taller than Story. "You know why," he said. "If I was in my right mind, I'd throw you against that wall."

Minda nudged her husband toward the door. "By the way, we've referred it to the Medical Society," she called over her shoulder.

She thought she heard Story say that he could handle that.

As they drove down the Nevada Avenue hill, Scott apologized for ever doubting her. "Her gave it away himself," he said excitedly. "What a little liar! That's what made me mad at the end, the way he could sit there ahd smile about it."

Minda dropped Scott at work and turned off Main Street toward the little bungalow where her husband had grown up. Now that she'd written to the Medical Society, there was a chance that the Brinkerhoff name would be made public. She wanted to bring her in-laws up to date so they wouldn't say, Look how Minda's dragging us through the mud again, and she didn't even give us any warning.

She was met at the door by Dorothy Lindsay Brinkerhoff. Minda had always suspected her mother-in-law of being the force behind the difficulties at the time of the teenage marriage. The two of them had made peace since then, but Minda still felt a trill of tension.

Dorothy beckoned her to a seat at the dining room table and Minda talked fast, as she always did when she was nervous. "I've written to the Medical Society about Dr. Story," she said. "I guess Scott's mentioned it?"

Dorothy bit her lower lip. "Don't worry," Minda said. "I'm okay."

Dorothy wiped away a tear. Criminy, Minda thought, she's sure emotional. "We're getting over it now, Dorothy," she said consolingly. "You don't have to cry."

The mother-in-law poked at her eyes with a table napkin. Minda thought, At least she's sympathetic. That's an improvement.

Dorothy said, "I'm crying for me, Minda. Dr. Story did it to me, too. I've never told a soul. Not even Gerald."

They talked for an hour. Scott's mother admitted that she'd always been backward about sex. "I didn't even know what my period was when it started. We didn't talk about those things. When I was fourteen, my girl friend asked me if I'd ministrated yet, and I said no. She said, 'You haven't had your monthlies?' I said, 'Oh, yeah, I do that.' "

She told Minda that Story had abused her five years before. He'd been dilating her with a large instrument and asking her to work her vaginal muscles. When he stroked her clitoris with his finger and asked if it felt good, she wrenched away. He stepped to the washbasin and announced that the exam was over.

Dorothy said she hadn't been afraid, because Story was a doctor and part-time preacher at his church. And it hadn't felt like rape because she'd known him for so long. She said it felt more like incest. But it had shattered her faith in doctors.

The two women agreed he had large equipment.

Minda swore Scott to secrecy and repeated his mother's story. She'd never seen him so angry. She thought, Who can blame him? Story's abused his wife, his mother, his sister-in-law, maybe even his mother-in-law (although Arden still refused to discuss that possibility).

They sat up late trying to imagine what smoldering animosities Story might be trying to settle with his penis, but nothing made sense. He was still partners with Scott's father in the medical build-

MINDA BRINKERHOFF

ing, and the two men were friendly. Nor had there been bad blood between the McArthurs and the Storys.

"Maybe it's not us," Minda suggested. "Maybe it's . . . everybody."

Scott said that Story's motivation really didn't matter; he was a rotten son of a bitch and had to be stopped, whatever the cost.

15

ARDEN McARTHUR

Arden discarded plan after plan. She quickly learned that the musty old Wyoming laws were skewed against medical-rape victims, and state officials were scared to take on doctors. She burned up the wires to the attorney general's office, cried and railed and cajoled and pleaded for justice. One public servant insisted that Meg and Minda take lie detector tests. "Not unless Story takes one," Arden replied. Then she realized that a medical man could probably beat any lie test ever devised. He would know exactly what drugs to take and find them in his sample drawer.

The bureaucrats kept her off balance with legalistic doubletalk. "Mrs. McArthur," one said at the end of a long phone conversation, "your problem is that you think Dr. Story's done something criminal. But under our statutes, he hasn't."

Arden knew better. She said, "Sexual abuse isn't criminal? Doctor rape isn't criminal?"

"Your daughters were in his office of their own free will. And the law says they can't testify for each other."

"Do you mean to tell me that if I invited a man into my home and he violated my family members, it wouldn't be criminal? And they couldn't witness for each other?"

"That's different," he said, "because he's in your home."

"But I invited him in!"

The stubborn lawyer said, "Mrs. McArthur, you're wasting your time and ours."

Tears of frustration filled her blue-green eyes. "And there's not one danged thing we can do?"