Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (14 page)

He bemoaned the potential scandal, the notoriety. In both looks and attitudes, he favored his mother, Zilla Harris McArthur, whose patrician face seemed copied from a carved cameo brooch. Dean's mother was of the opinion that a person's name should be in the newspapers three times: at birth, marriage and death. Old-time Mormons avoided public strife or confrontation. Dean had torn up accounts receivable rather than make a fuss about nonpayment.

When Arden described the latest incident at the clinic, he said, "Ard, you want to remember, if we do anything about this, we're gonna lose our business." He was talking about the dry cleaners and Kids Are Special. The farm was already lost, and the two downtown businesses were their only source of income.

"Well, Dean," she said, "I'm just plumb stupid, and I'm gonna do something about it."

She wished that the bishop and the stake president were more encouraging. They kept repeating that John Story wasn't LDS and therefore their hands were tied. She thought, I've always had the false idea that if something goes wrong in my life, I can go to the high priests and they'll help make it right. She thought back on the time she and Dean had reported Bob Asay to the bishop. Come to think of it, nothing had been done about that, either.

More than ever, she realized that her spiritual life was strictly between her and Father in Heaven. The elders listened to problems but solved nothing. From here on in, she would deal with the Lord one on one. She was glad that it didn't take Him long to make contact.

A seventy-year-old member of the church phoned and asked for the president of the Relief Society. She told a loose-jointed, pathetic tale about Dr. Story's abuse years before.

A few hours later, another sister called to say that she'd gone to the police seventeen years back, after Story raped her daughter, and they'd refused to touch the case.

The next day, there was a similar call, and then a fourth. Not for an instant did Arden entertain the possibility that the women were merely reacting to Lovell's traditional jungle-drum gossip. "The Lord put me in charge of the Relief Society for a reason," she explained to her daughters. "I have a hard time running my own life, let alone an organization of a hundred and fifty women. You tell
me
why I got those calls!" It could only be the hand of the Lord.

There were also several calls from the clinic. Diana Harrison would say that Doctor wanted to meet with her, and Arden would reply, "No, Diana. Not just yet."

She sought divine assistance with prayer and fasting. She'd always been able to see the bright side; if the family had a Pollyanna, she wasn't ashamed to be it. But the hopelessness of the situation was wearing her down. She looked tired, defeated. Another woman stared back at her from the mirror. Her finely articulated features were the kind that could turn craggy in old age; she hoped John Story hadn't hurried the process.

She took Minda aside and confessed, "I never told you before, but your dad was molested as a child. And I was, too. So we wanted more than anything else to protect you children. And now —" She couldn't finish.

Before Arden and Dean turned in that night, he comforted her with a priesthood blessing. "Listen, Ard," he said gently, "we'll handle this. You can't let it consume you."

It was obsessing her poor daughters, too. Meg and Minda were spending most of their time fasting, praying, singing hymns, looking for signs. Minda was the first to observe that Dr. Story might be crying out for help. "That's why he was so open about what he did," she theorized at a family breakfast one morning. She wondered aloud why she hadn't complained on the examining table— "I'm usually so mouthy."

"I don't know," Arden replied. "But down the road, Father in Heaven will give us the answer."

Meg had studied psychology in college. "Minda's onto something," she said. "He needs help and he knows it. But he can't come right out and ask."

"He has to repent first," Arden said. "There's no repentance without confession. Christ was crucified so we could all repent, but first you have to recognize what you did wrong."

Arden knew about repentance; she'd been repenting her own existence ever since she'd learned what Story was doing to her daughters. For the first time in her life, she sought help from a counselor. He told her she had to take the transgressor to court.

ARDEN McARTHUR

"But we don't want to ruin him," she said. "We just want him to stop what he's doing."

"You've got to go all the way," the adviser told her. "You can handle the problem spiritually, but unless you handle it legally you'll never be able to live with it."

Arden phoned the North Big Horn Hospital and asked the name of a medical organization that would consider a complaint against a doctor. Story was well connected at the hospital—the administrator, Joe Brown, was active in the Lovell Bible Church, and so were some of the other functionaries—and she wasn't surprised when no one was willing to help. She tried two local doctors and got the same runaround. She called telephone information in the state capital of Cheyenne and found out about the Wyoming Medical Society.

When she gave the address to Meg and Minda, her adventurous middle child said, "Mom, I've got a better idea. Why don't I go back for another pelvic, and when he rubs that big ugly thing against my hand, I'll grab it and scream and drag him into the hall."

Arden forced a smile. "Hunh-uh," she said, "But it might've been better if you'd done that before."

12

MINDA BRINKERHOFF

Minda wrote a dozen different drafts to the Medical Society before settling on a short note saying that Dr. John Story had been the family doctor for twenty-four years and had been "dialating" her with his penis for the last seven.

When she mailed the letter, she thought, Nothing'll come of this. But she received a reply from the executive director saying that he'd referred her letter to the society's Committee on Professional Conduct. He thanked her "for giving the Wyoming Medical Society this opportunity to investigate ..."

She thought, At last.

Then she received another letter and found that the medical society had kicked the case to the Wyoming Board of Medical Examiners, a public agency. She was advised to contact the executive director, Dr. Lawrence Cohen, in Cheyenne.

On June 17, 1983, two months after the last ordeal in Story's office, she wrote, "... I have doctored with him since I can remember. He has delivered four children of mine, and I trusted and believed in him. I trusted my life to him—and he has violated my body."

She told Cohen about the numerous "dialations," and how Story kept instructing her to come back so he could "get in all the way." She told about seeing and touching his penis in her last examination—"it was hell—I am still living with it—hoping to cope soon."

She thought about what her mother had told her and wrote that Story had been abusing women for at least twelve years; "I hate to see all the women that he has violated during his practice." She said she felt like an idiot and wondered how she could be so stupid —"I feel like I could crumble."

Dr. Cohen put her on the defensive. "Do you know what you're doing?" he asked her on the phone. "Do you understand that this could ruin this man's life?"

He dragged her through the pelvic exams in detail. Was she sure about this, certain about that? How did she know it was a penis? Couldn't it have been an instrument? In the end, he announced that her word wouldn't be enough to support a Medical Board investigation. Five witnesses were needed, and their evidence would have to be solid, not a hodgepodge of intuitions and guesswork.

For the first time, Minda saw what was coming—not the ruination of Dr. Story but the ruination of his victims. She visualized herself in the witness box, being asked about penises and vaginas and other personal stuff and how he'd made her scoot down so her bottom hung over the edge of the table, and all the while reporters would be taking notes and TV cameramen shooting away. Every sordid detail of her life would be recounted in the Lovell
Chronicle
—the ugliness with Bob Asay, her high-school pregnancy, the hurry-up wedding, the "court of love."
Everything.
She thought, It'll kill my dad. It'll wreck our lives, all of us—Mom, Meg and Danny, Scott, Scott's mom and dad. They'll say, It's those danged McArthurs again. . . .

She couldn't sleep.

13

ARDEN McARTHUR

On a hushed Friday morning a few weeks later, Arden was in Idaho Falls, helping a group of young people perform ordinances for the dead. Temple excursions were planned a year ahead, and to her great joy, Dean had felt well enough to make the long drive and was serving as a recorder. There were hundreds of details to jot down. He'd always been good at keeping track.

It was
5:30 a
.m
. and the chapel was silent when she stepped inside. As she meditated, she felt moved, raised, prompted, lifted— she was never sure later how to describe the strange feeling. She rushed over to a matron and asked directions to the prayer roll for the sick and afflicted.

As fast as she could scribble, she found herself writing the names of Dr. Story and his family, Meg, Minda, Scott, everyone involved. Certainly they all came under the heading of "afflicted." The morning prayer was scheduled for
7:30,
two hours later. Then she resumed her duties for the dead.

When she returned to Lovell, Diana Harrison called. "Listen, Ard," her Mormon sister said, "Doctor's got to talk to you."

"I don't know what to say to him." "Well, he's about to drive me crazy, making all these phone calls for him."

"What can I do? It's out of my hands."

An hour later, Dr. Story phoned. "Arden, we've got to talk."

"Yes," she said. "We do."

They met the next morning at 9:30 in the doctors' lounge at the hospital. When she first walked through the emergency room entrance and saw the familiar wispy figure standing alone, she had an irrational urge to hug him and say, Why, Dr. Story?
Why?
Some part of her still saw him as a pathetic figure, crying for help. And her daughters, when they weren't overwhelmed with anger and hurt, seemed to feel the same.

Later, she recounted the conversation:

"Arden," he began, "I'm beside myself. I'm appalled."

"You're
appalled," she said. "I can't believe that all this has happened."

"Who started these rumors? Dr. Welch's office?" Dr. Welch was Story's main competitor. He was staunchly LDS.

"No," she said, looking straight into his brown eyes. "It had nothing to do with Dr. Welch. It came from me. You violated my daughters. Why did you do it?"

He gave a meandering denial: he was a good Christian, a family man, a leader in the community. He loved the McArthurs, every one of them. His life was dedicated to medicine and he would never violate the Hippocratic Oath. How could she even entertain such dreadful ideas?

Arden said, "When Minda told me it happened three and a half years ago, I said the same things. 'No, he wouldn't do that to our family. He carries us in high esteem.' But then when she came back and told me the second time, and then Meg told me it happened to her, I said, 'I have to believe it. I don't have any choice.' "

In a calm voice, he asked, "Do you realize what I'm being accused of?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's satanic."

She didn't disagree. Both their churches perceived the devil as real—Satan is "the author of all sin," said the book of Helaman.

"And behold, he doth carry on his works of darkness and secret murder. . . ."

Arden said, "It's not only satanic. It's criminal."

"But it didn't happen," he insisted. "I didn't do it."

He looked steadily at the floor. He reminded her of a naughty boy in the principal's office. She said, "When word first got out, I had four women call me and tell me that it also happened to them. So you see, it
happened."

He sat back in his soft chair and cupped his chin in his hand. "All weekend long," he said, "I've been trying to figure out who would hate me so bad that they'd want to do this to me. And I made a big long list."

Arden was surprised. "I can't imagine you've got an enemy in the world."

He gave her a sardonic snicker and said, "I've got a list like you wouldn't believe." He paused, as though recollecting. "Alma Kent. Do you know her?"

Arden nodded.

"Twenty-four years ago," he said, "I had to kick her out of my office." He gave the impression that she'd made sexual overtures.

Arden thought, I'm glad Minda didn't make a scene. So this is how he handles the problem! Throws the victim out and pretends it was
her
fault? Why, Alma Kent is so straitlaced she puts the prophet to shame!

They parried for another hour. "Well, Arden," he said, smiling at her, "how're we gonna stop this talk?"

She wasn't out for blood. "The only thing the girls are asking is that you have a nurse in that room with you at all times."

He seemed surprised. "You mean that's all they're asking?"

"Uh-huh."