Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (13 page)

I left my hand there. It was poking my side and sliding in and out of my hand. Very slowly I lifted my hand, watching everything I was doing, and underneath my hand was his penis. He didn't care if I saw it.

He continued to push two more times on my stomach, then walked very cautiously back to his sink. I'm sure I went into shock. I couldn't believe it. It was true and I was back in there for more. What was I thinking of?

At this point I should have up and left. I don't know what happened to my senses. I just laid there. It was unreal.

He turned around and asked me to stand up with the paper sheet held in front of me. I did so. He then said he would see what was wrong with my hips. He asked me to squat with my legs together. I did and as I did I could feel his clothes up against me as he squatted with me. Now right arm touching left shoulder and squat. Legs together, legs apart. Then left arm up over to right shoulder. Squat; legs together, legs apart. And then, the killer. "Minda, do you think it would be easier if I went in from behind?"

"No, Dr. Story, I think you have gotten in as far as you are going to get." How stupid of me. I can't believe what an idiot I was. I should have said something—done something. How could I let this happen?

He left and I got dressed. When I was getting dressed, I took the paper sheet and wiped so much crap from between my legs it wasn't funny. I looked at it, felt it, let some dry on my fingers. It looked just like, felt just like and dried just like male discharge that I'd wipe from myself after having intercourse with my husband.

The letter fell from Scott's hands. He shut his eyes so tightly that squiggly lines formed on his face. "Did you lead him on, Minda?" he asked. "Is this something you brought on yourself? Why didn't you—"

"Oh, Scott, how can you ask?"

"—come to me first? Why would Dr. Story do a thing like that in his own office?"

He couldn't seem to picture the gymnastics on the automatic table. Minda had to remind herself that her husband was a Lovell Mormon; he'd never discussed sex with anyone. He had no idea what pelvic exams were or why they were necessary. He seemed hurt that Minda hadn't let him in on the information years ago.

No explanation satisfied him. "How could he do this without you knowing?" he asked more than once.

It seemed to her that he was being plumb obstinate. Maybe it was because Story had delivered him and he'd never been to another doctor. Or maybe it was because he'd helped his father build the Story clinic and felt loyal. It was Scott who'd lovingly crafted the artistic wooden placard and burnt in the words "Lovell Medical Clinic." The senior BrinkerhofFs, Dorothy and Gerald, still owned 40 percent of the building. The family had a big interest in John Story.

Scott drove off to work in a squeal of rubber and didn't speak when he returned.

Meg phoned to remind her that they had to see the stake president to "make things right." He'd approved their Temple Recommends, and moral matters concerning those who'd been through the temple had to be resolved at the highest local level, not by the ward bishop alone. Minda was sure that the brethren would take steps to protect their women; the church had majesty and power behind it, and members in high places. Dr. Story was just a sick little weirdo.

She counted back and realized that he'd probably been violating her for six or seven years. She told herself, I let him get away with it for so long that he probably thought I don't mind! Maybe that's why he turned so bold.
Minda, do you think it would be better if I went in from behind?
What would the stake president think about that?

President John Abraham, spiritual leader of two thousand Mormons in the Lovell stake, was a middle-aged farmer who lived in an old ranch house near Byron, twenty miles west of Lovell. As a child, he'd been so close to her mother that Arden still thought of him as kin. Whatever he'll do, Minda said to herself as she stepped into the cavernous, empty church, it'll be in our interests.

At first, the old friend of the family seemed sympathetic as he sat with fingertips touching in his church office, but as soon as she mentioned Dr. Story, she noticed a change. The stake president was a nice man, a pleasant man, not at all stern or schoolteacher-ish, but his face showed disbelief. "Dr. Story violated you?" he asked.
"Dr. Story?"

"Yes."

After she'd finished with the details, he asked, "Why didn't you jump up and leave?"

She tried to explain. He let her finish, then said, "Look, there are certain questions I have to ask you, because I have to find out where you stand in the church. Did you have an affair with Dr. Story?"

"No."

"Did you ever meet him outside his office—"

"No!"

"—for a drink or something?"

"Absolutely not. I'm sorry you asked me that. He was my family doctor since I was a baby."

"It's not you," the stake president said apologetically. "I have to ask these questions. I
have
to. You could lose your membership over this."

"I understand," Minda said. She thought, I've come to my church for comfort and reassurance, and my own stake president makes me feel like Jezebel. She started to cry.

He asked, "Has anything like this happened to you before?"

She gave him a brief rundown about Bob Asay, and he looked shocked. "That happened before I was stake president," he said, almost as though he were apologizing. "This is the first I've ever heard."

Everyone in town knew that Uncle Bob was going to be married in the temple, which meant that the ward bishop and President Abraham must have signed his Recommend. Asay also had influence in Salt Lake City; a relative sat in the inner councils of the church. Minda wondered if any action would be taken against him this time. She certainly didn't want to run into Bob Asay in the Celestial Kingdom. One McArthur or another had brought the matter to the church's attention at least three times now, but Asay was still a Saint in good standing.

The stake president acted as though he'd heard enough history. "Let's get back to Dr. Story," he challenged her. "What in the world made you think he wasn't using an instrument to dilate you?"

"I saw—"

"But you said you couldn't see past the sheet."

Tears choked her voice as she realized she wasn't reaching him. He asked her how high the table was, and how far her buttocks had pooched out. She stood alongside his table and held her hand about three feet off the floor. "It was about this high, and his coat fell in front so I could only see one end of his penis, and—"

The president's face was a mask. She had the feeling she could have drawn him pictures, could have climbed up on the table and performed a demonstration, and he still wouldn't have believed.

"My wife goes to Story," he mumbled. He talked about his wife for a few minutes. She'd had ten children, but it sounded as though she'd had very few pelvic examinations.

Minda tried to bring him back to the subject. "What do I do next?" she asked.

He paused. "Drop it," he ordered. "Don't ever go back to him."

"What about the other sisters? Isn't the church gonna protect them?"

"We can't take a stand against Dr. Story. It would cause too many problems. There's no proof. It's your word against his. This isn't a religious matter anyway."

Minda thought, Of course there's no proof! How could we prove it unless we brought a camera to the danged examining room? "But he did it to Meg!" she said. "And the bishop said he's been hearing these stories for five years."

"Well I haven't."

She asked if she should go to the police or the state medical society, or maybe get a lawyer and sue. "Drop it, Minda," he repeated. "You're just asking for trouble."

MINDA BRINKERHOFF

After forty-five minutes, he warned her that she could be excommunicated if she returned to the clinic on the hill. Then he smiled and said, "I'm glad you came in and straightened things out."

She thought, Straightened
what
out? I wish I'd stayed home. She left sobbing.

Her silent Scott was no comfort. When she reached out for him in bed, he pulled away. She knew what he was thinking:
Why should I touch her now that Story's touched her?
She was hurt, but she understood. Scott was hurt, too. She wished she knew how to regain his trust.

11

ARDEN McARTHUR

Arden couldn't shake off feelings of guilt and shame. Talking about it later, she was harder on herself than anyone. "Instantaneously, after all those years," she said, "I knew that Minda was telling me the truth. But I wasn't composed enough to know what to do. I was ignorant."

She moped around her house, provided no comfort to her daughters or her husband, made no decisions or plans. Remorse disabled her brain. She prayed that she would wake up and find that Dr. Story was still her friend and her daughters were still bound for the Celestial Kingdom, pure and undefiled in their flowing white robes.

A few times she almost talked herself into believing her own fantasy, but too many images flooded back—the girls coming home upset, the complaints by others, the persistent rumors, the way Story's exams took so long and hurt so much more than other doctors'. As president of her ward's Relief Society, Arden wore the mantle of truth, like a bishop. She was dumbfounded that Minda had gone in with a throat problem and ended up in the stirrups.

An unsettling thought began to flicker across her mind like a ghost image on TV. Had Story abused her, too, in between the talks about God and the sugary compliments? She thought,
Did he do it to me all those times I was off in space?
At the very least, he'd set her up, won himself a prominent LDS supporter who ran around town like a danged fool telling everyone what a good man he was while he was raping the danged fool's own children.

She felt like a coconspirator. She tried to imagine who else might know the truth. Maybe Diana Harrison, his receptionist. There'd been a phone call from Diana minutes after Minda had left for home, still half hysterical. "We've got laundry up here," Diana had said.

Arden had gone dead on the line. "Ard," Diana had asked in her sweet voice, "are you still there? You
will
pick up the laundry, won't you?"

Arden had choked back tears. "Yes," she'd said. "First thing tomorrow morning."

Diana looked concerned. "There's something wrong," she told Arden as she handed over the bag of soiled sheets and smocks. "What is it?"

Arden began to cry.

"Tell me!" Diana insisted. She was a petite, pretty woman, mother of a child whom Story had treated from birth for a serious urethral blockage. The two Mormon sisters often sewed together, and they'd been working on a junior prom dress, a darling little thing made out of gunnysack fabric that cost twenty-five cents a yard, for the McArthurs' youngest daughter, Mia. Diana was now in her late twenties; she'd been Story's receptionist off and on since high school. "There's something wrong," Diana repeated. "I could tell it on the phone yesterday. Is it about—Doctor?"

Arden nodded.

Diana took her by the shoulders, squared her around, and said, "I have a right to know! I work for him.
I have a right to know!"

Arden couldn't bring herself to respond. It was just dawning on her that she could have shut Story down twelve years ago, when she'd refused to listen to Dottie Parry, or three and a half years ago, when Minda had voiced her first complaint. Neither of her
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daughters would have been violated if it hadn't been for her own mulishness.

Diana said, "It has to do with Minda, doesn't it? I thought there was something wrong when she left yesterday. She was white as a sheet."

Arden shouldered the laundry bag. The receptionist was still chattering as she left, something about other complaints against "Doctor." She couldn't bear to listen.

Sometimes Arden didn't get around to the laundry for two or three days, but she did up this load right away and headed back to the clinic. She'd expected to see Diana again and brought along Mia's proin dress. Instead, Marilyn Story answered the back door.

Arden tried to act nonchalant. Weren't wives always the last to know? She showed Marilyn the dress and asked what she thought of it. The two friends chatted until the door of Examining room No. 2 opened and Dr. Story strolled out with a woman. Both their faces were flushed. His smock rustled as he brushed past without even saying hello. "Where've you been?" he asked his wife in a compressed voice. "What've you been doing?"

Marilyn looked shocked and said, "Why, I've been standing here visiting with my laundry woman." Arden was baffled. The three of them had been close for years; when had she become "the laundry-woman"?
The day he attacked Minda?

He issued some orders and spun away, still avoiding her eyes. Arden thought, Well, if I had any doubts, they're gone now. Usually he falls all over me. What could this coldness be but a blunt admission of guilt?

When she got home, Dean was sitting in the living room, breathing hard. Since hearing about Story and the girls, he'd gone downhill. His life was bound up in his nine children. Some of the townspeople thought he was uppity because he didn't bother to make friends, but every friend he wanted lived in his own house.