Looking for Jane (77)

The machine crackles with a sound like static, then Evelyn hears the officer’s soft voice mumble, “Testing. Testing. Testing.” She clears her throat. Some rustling, likely the microphone being adjusted on the inside of her blouse. A few minutes pass with no sound at all, then there’s the distant screech of the streetcar and quiet children’s laughter, barely audible. The waiting room.

Evelyn, Selena, Sergeant Moustache, and Officer Heinz all breathe quietly together, staring at the box. Four actors waiting for their cue to start the scripted argument at centre stage.

The click and creak of a door being opened.

“Patricia?” Nancy’s voice pops into being. A rustling of papers, and a long pause. A high-pitched screech fills the room, shrill and piercing.

“Jesus,” Sergeant Moustache mumbles. Evelyn’s ears are ringing from it.

“Feedback,” Heinz replies, shrugging.

“Shh.” Selena hushes them as the recording plays out. Evelyn tries not to smile at her lawyer. What a badass. Definitely a Jane.

Nancy’s voice comes through again. “Have you ever had this procedure?”

A small cough. “Um, no. No, I haven’t.”

They all lean forward as they listen in on the conversation. Evelyn holds her breath.

“… I’d like to hear it step-by-step. If that’s okay,” Officer Heinz says.

What a scam, Evelyn thinks. She can feel the heat starting to rise up her neck, but this time it’s rage, not fear.

Suddenly the sound begins to waver, a low hum blocking out most of the conversation. “… medic… stretch… into your… then…” The piercing screech causes all four of them to wince.

“What…?” Nancy’s voice on the tape is crackly but recognizable, confused.

“Shit…”

Click.

Evelyn looks up from the black box. Selena is grinning in the most accurate impression of the Cheshire Cat she’s ever seen.

“Well, then!” Selena says brightly, pushing her chair away from the table and standing up. “If that’s all you’ve got, Sergeant, my clients and I will be on our way.”

“What the fuck was that, Heinz?” the sergeant shouts at his officer.

“Barry, I don’t know, it happened in that room, there was so much feedback, I—”

“We can go, Evelyn,” Selena says under her breath, cocking her head toward the exit.

“Where do you think you’re going, Counsellor?”

Selena pulls her shoulders back and leans over the sergeant. He shrinks back an inch. “Are you quite serious? You have no evidence whatsoever to hold these women, place them under arrest, or charge them with anything. Have a nice night, Sergeant, Officer.”

She sweeps open the door for Evelyn, who wanders out in a daze, and Selena closes the door against the stunned faces of Evelyn’s interrogators.

“That’s it?”

“Just keep walking; waaaaaalk walk walk walk walk walk.” Selena presses her hand into Evelyn’s bad shoulder, moving her forward.

“Evelyn!” Alice and Nancy jump up from the chairs they’ve been slumped in across the hall from the interrogation room. They’ve been uncuffed. No doubt someone finally had the sense to acknowledge that they didn’t pose a threat.

“Come, come!” Selena calls to them, eyeing Alice in particular. “Quickly, now. Quickly quickly.”

They scurry along in her wake, trying to keep up with her long strides. Once out on the street, they all blink, their eyes watering in the bright summer sunlight.

“All right, then,” Selena says, ushering them down the busy sidewalk to nowhere in particular. “You understand you now have to abandon that location, correct?”

They all nod.

“All right. Now we need to think beyond today. Is there anything else anywhere? Any files? Patient records? Where do you keep those?”

“We don’t,” Evelyn says. “We only have one patient docket per day, just for that day’s use, then it gets shredded.”

“Where’s the one for today?”

There’s a single beat before Evelyn answers. “We ate it.”

Selena halts in her tracks, turns to face the other three women with her hand in the air like a stop sign. Both Nancy and Alice nearly plow into her. “Excuse me?”

“We ate it. In the van.”

“Ate the what?”

“The record.”

“The paper record?”

“Yes.”

Selena’s eyebrows pop up. “Huh. Well… it sounds like you could all use a cold beer to wash it down, then. My treat. Let’s go find a patio.”





CHAPTER 21 Nancy




EARLY FALL, 1985




Nancy is folded up in a comfortable armchair in the living room of one of the Janes, a thirty-something legal secretary named Wendy. She’s responsible for the administration of the network: locating new doctors who are willing to help, booking patients, and scheduling check-in meetings like this one.

Since the raid last summer, the Janes have had to be even more careful and creative with their meeting locations. Now, more than ever, they’re painfully aware of the razor’s edge on which the network exists. The anti-abortion factions have become more vocal, and the police have ramped up their efforts to locate the network. Paradoxically, “Jane” is better known than ever before, but they’re also more determined to keep themselves hidden. They’re so busy now, Nancy’s work with the Janes has taken up all the free time she’s able to squeeze in around her job, parents, Michael, and planning their upcoming wedding.