Looking for Jane (74)

“We have audio of this one”—the female officer gestures to Nancy—“explaining the whole procedure to me.”

Shit. The screech. We’ve been bugged.

“I never said anything about an abortion.” Nancy’s soft voice pipes up, her eyes still closed. The tears have stopped.

Silence in the room.

“Excuse me? Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.” Her eyes pop open and her posture straightens. “I asked you if you’d ever had this procedure before, and you said no. I never said anything about any abortion.”

Evelyn’s heart leaps and she feels a shiver of gratitude for her careful, quick-thinking volunteer.

The female officer’s face pales, but she regains her composure almost instantly, addressing her boss, the sergeant. “I’ve got a tape, Barry.”

He nods. “You’re all coming down to the station.”

Evelyn weighs their options and the possible outcomes. If Nancy is right, then the only evidence is the sheet in her waistband: the mention of pregnancy and the patients’ names. Their third patient hasn’t shown up yet. A painful stab of guilt pierces her heart at the thought of that woman not being able to get an abortion today. She’ll show up and, what? Find the place cordoned off with police tape, and be scared off of calling Jane again? Get no answer when she dials the buzzer number? There are another four women booked in for next week, and five the week after that. Hopefully the Janes can arrange for other doctors in their network to pick up the slack.

Evelyn turns her mind to the factors at hand, the ones she may still have some influence over. If the police could track down this morning’s patient, Kathleen, with her first name and date of birth, there’s a possibility she would confess and turn them in if the police offered her immunity from any charges. Evelyn knows it’s not the individual patients the authorities want, it’s the Janes and their ringleaders. The ones who provide options when no one else will. The women who dare to say yes.

“Come on,” the large sergeant says to Evelyn, beckoning her forward. She swallows hard and complies. She’s already cuffed; there’s no point railing against them. Not yet, anyway. For now, it’s best to just play along.

They make their way to the door, each of the Janes escorted by a police officer. Evelyn tries twice to make eye contact with the female officer, who is deliberately avoiding her gaze.

Good.

After a silent and painfully uncomfortable walk down to the main floor, the officers shove the Janes out the glass front doors of the apartment building and into the sweltering heat of the blinding afternoon sun. A paddy wagon is waiting for them at the curb, and the reality of their arrest hits Evelyn like a blow to the stomach. She glances left and right. A crowd has also formed, their heads pressed together, mouths moving excitedly. Evelyn wonders what they think has happened, why these three women are being escorted away in handcuffs.

A few paces from the back of the van, where another officer is now opening the doors, Evelyn catches a shock of orange out of the corner of her eye. Doris, her eyes wide underneath her mop of red curls. They lock eyes and Evelyn cocks her head back toward the building.

Clean up.

To her immense relief, Doris understands the gesture. She nods fervently, sinks back into the crowd, and disappears.

The doors to the back of the paddy wagon are open, like the mouth of a whale that’s about to swallow the Janes whole, its insides dark and metallic. A hand shoves Evelyn’s lower back.

“In.”

“Do you seriously think I don’t know that?” she says.

“Watch your mouth, sweetheart.”

“Watch your sexism, asshole.”

She pays for her attitude with a push to the back of the head this time, and falls into the van, smacking her knees on the metal floor and nearly breaking her front teeth as she pitches forward.

“Evelyn!” Alice cries, climbing into the van behind her.

“I’m fine. Just do what they say for now.”

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said so far,” the smart-mouthed sergeant tells her.

The last thing Evelyn sees is his smirking face as he slams the doors shut, and the lock slides home. Nancy is panting on the bench across from Evelyn. Alice is beside her, her face stricken. The engine rumbles to life and they each plant their feet as the vehicle lurches forward.

“I’m supposed to be getting married tomorrow!” Alice whimpers, appalled. “What do we do, Evelyn? What do we do?”

“We don’t panic, first of all,” Evelyn says. She tries to rally her team with the same forced bravado she’s been faking since Patricia brought Nancy into the room at gunpoint. She drops her voice, and Nancy and Alice lean in, their three heads close together. The prisoner transport section of the van is completely separate from the cab, but right now Evelyn doesn’t even trust the walls. “Nancy, you’re serious about not using the word ‘abortion’?”

“I’m positive,” Nancy whispers. “I’ve found a lot of girls don’t like to hear the word, so I stopped using it a while ago and just went with ‘procedure.’ I never said it, I’m sure of it.”

“That’s very, very good news.”

“What are they going to do to us, Evelyn?” Alice is always so calm, it hurls Evelyn’s own panic into overdrive to hear her second in command so unnerved.