Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (37 page)

She would never forget his conciliatory smile. It said, Okay,
okay,
don't be annoyed. You can't blame me for trying, can you? She'd admired him all the more after that.

Her first word of his trouble had come on a wintry day in 1983 when her old friend, McKay "Muck" Welling, the best blade operator in the whole Big Horn Basin, had suggested that she stop going to the clinic up on the hill. "He's going to lose his license," Muck said. "Some women are talking about improprieties in his office."

Jan was shocked. "What?" she said.

"Oh, yes," Muck said. "It's a fact."

"No it isn't! And if you repeat it, then you're no better than those gossipy women."

"Would you believe it if I told you Arden McArthur said it?" Muck was LDS. Evidently he believed that women like Arden McArthur were reliable.

"Now I
definitely
won't believe it," Jan said.

"Would you believe it if I said Caroline Shotwell?"

"Nope. She's another one. How'd you find out?"

"Arden came to my wife for more dirt."

Jan blew up. "You're just adding fuel to the fire! If we're gonna be friends, Muck, you'd better stop spreading this gossip. That's a horrible thing to be saying about Dr. Story."

A few months later she'd run into Diana Harrison in the IGA market. "What in heaven's name's going on with Dr. Story?" she asked.

"Oh, Jan, you would
not
believe what they're trying to do to him. It's the McArthurs, and you know
them."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"You can write letters to the Medical Board about what a great doctor he is."

Jan's mother had been even more upset than Jan when she heard about the charges. La Vera Hillman was from Morton, Mississippi, and after thirty-six years in Lovell she still said "Y'all." She was a Baptist who'd converted to Lutheranism for her husband, a farm implement dealer who later sold guns and fishing tackle, but she also enjoyed Reverend Ken Buttermore's colorful sermons up at the Lovell Bible Church. In 1982 her husband had died of cancer under Dr. Story's care; La Vera herself suffered from emphysema, bronchitis and asthma and twice had been operated on by the family doctor. Sometimes he gave her cortisone so she could breathe. La Vera was dependent on the family doctor and praised his name.

One night just before the Medical Board hearing, Jan had called Dr. Story on impulse and asked what she could do to help. He advised her to pass on anything she heard about him. After the license revocation, she went to his office and renewed her pledge of support.

She'd learned about causes from her father. After a 1952 automobile accident had put him in a wheelchair for life, he became cantankerous about everything from local politics to veterans' rights. Jan remembered his fight for ramps at the courthouse, for special parking places in Billings, for recognition of the needs of the disabled.

Father and daughter proved to be a matched pair. At Augustana College and the University of Wyoming, Jan took double majors in sociology and psychology, protested Vietnam, and wore an MIA bracelet. She spoke out for racial equality, the ERA and the women's movement, and against capital punishment. In 1968 she wore a black armband to the Wyoming-BYU football game because the Mormon university wouldn't allow blacks on its team. "Mormons," she told her Laramie friends, "are the worst racists and sexists." She wrote letters of protest and signed petitions. Like her father, she felt unfulfilled without a cause.

When her mother mentioned the Lovell P.D.'s new investigation, Jan asked her to take notes on the cops' activities. As a clerk in the Town Hall, La Vera handled travel vouchers and phone slips.

"Oh, I couldn't do that," her mother said.

"You don't have to
do
anything, Mother," Jan explained, a little impatiently. "Just get me the information. I'll do the rest."

LaVera had to admit that the cause was just.

Jan had worked as a skip tracer in a collection agency and knew the techniques. As fast as her mother brought in the police department's phone slips, Jan dialed the numbers. In a brisk voice, she pretended to be selling siding, or announced in an upbeat manner that the party was a finalist in a contest, or said disconsolately that she was searching for a missing relative. It wasn't hard to convert raw phone numbers into basic information.

She hand-delivered her findings to Dr. Story, and together they discovered ominous patterns. The Lovell police were contacting ex-residents, mostly women, in places as far removed as Maine and California. The names meant nothing to Jan but seemed significant

JAN HILLMAN

to the doctor. One number turned out to be the bank in Salt Lake City where the accuser Jean Anderson Howe worked as a vault teller. Another was listed to a nursing home managed by Tom West, an early administrator of the Lovell hospital. When one call was traced to "Dean Price" in Salt Lake City, Marilyn Story explained that only Diana Harrison knew about their tax-sheltered account with the Price firm. Another call was traced to the U.S. Passport Agency in Seattle; apparently the gumshoes were worried that Dr. Story might be planning to skip.

The inside information seemed pretty much of a mishmash to Jan, but Dr. Story acted grateful and told her to thank her mother. La Vera was pleased.

57

MARILYN STORY

. . . The astonishing power that nearly all psychopaths and part-psychopaths have to bind forever the devotion of women.

—Hervey Cleckley, M.D.,
The Mask of Sanity

In mid-October, Marilyn wrote in her journal: "We are hearing rumors this week about our enemies pressing criminal charges. Investigators are in town—one a young woman. . . . May we get our armor on and STAND!"

And what a relief it was to stand shoulder to shoulder with Christians! Every edition of the
Chronicle
filled with ads wishing John well. He'd taken the pulpit at the Lovell Bible Church and explained the whole mess—the vulnerability of doctors, the unreliability of his accusers, the pervasiveness of Satan, the trials to which God subjects his followers. If there'd been any doubts about his innocence, they were dispelled by his talk. Prayer vigils were scheduled, and the energetic Reverend Buttermore drummed up support at every service.

Marilyn was glad to see that John's legions of admirers only grew. One by one, Lovell women showed their faith by making appointments for Pap smears and pelvics. John fitted them all in. He figured later that he did more pelvics in the three months after his license revocation than in any three months before.

So many Lovellites offered their help that it was almost embarrassing. Bob Negro, the owner of the Big Horn IGA market, contributed food. One night eighteen or twenty supporters formed up on the front lawn, singing "We Shall Overcome" and waving banners saying
we're behind you
100% and
don't give up, dr. story
! Marilyn was thrilled to see Mormons among them. The gifts filled the big living room: frozen chops and steaks, glazed hams, pungent casseroles, pies bursting with fruit, gallons of milk and ice cream. Marilyn was afraid she'd have to borrow more space in Iva Lee Meeker's freezer. Her fcyes filled. How could she waver when others stood so strong?

The new lawyer, Wayne Aarestad, didn't seem quite as optimistic about the outcome as the Keplers had been, but he was bursting with ideas and energy. He wasn't quite forty; he practiced in Fargo, N.D.; he was a member of the Christian Legal Society, and his fee for handling the appeal would be $50,000—if they managed to talk him into taking the case. "I don't want a Wyoming lawyer," John had explained. "I want somebody who isn't tied into the local politics. And, most of all, I want a Christian."

Aarestad's first requirement was that John pass a lie detector test, which was quickly done. Then he was ordered to submit to extensive testing by Denver psychologist James R. Dolby, author of many professional papers including "I Too Am Man: A Psychologist's Reflections on Christian Experience," and "Jesus—As Seen by a 20th Century Follower."

Marilyn enjoyed the trip to Colorado. At last they were doing something in their own behalf, not waiting around for another Judas to appear. The trip gave her a chance to see her folks. Marilyn loved to talk Bible with her father. Except for John, no one knew the good book better.

On the long drive back to Lovell, John said he felt good about the tests. "Dolby and I talk the same language," he told her. She knew what that meant; the two men of science had spent half their time talking religion.

While awaiting the results, they made friends with the new lawyer. Wayne was a bulky six footer whose suits always looked a size too small. He had alert blue eyes, flaring nostrils, and sandy hair that drifted in wisps over his face. He spoke in the accents of the

"DOC"

northern border: "accoracy," "North Dakawta," "mawst" for "most." His ancestry was half Norwegian and half Swedish. He'd been a hippie and a Peace Corpsman before taking off on his own and winding up in Katmandu.

Marilyn admired his refreshing, uplifting spirituality. Some Christians stressed the negative—believers would suffer, be cast out, set upon, even killed. Aarestad's approach was more like a happy evangelist's: God will provide, God performs miracles, God wants you healthy and wealthy. If you will love God and honor his teachings, He'll do the rest. . . .

Marilyn realized that both points of view could be substantiated by the Scriptures—it was all a matter of emphasis—but at the moment the concept of a benevolent God was welcome. Not that John needed reassurance. He was his same confident self, secure in his twin strengths of faith and innocence.

She couldn't bear to tell him that although she shared the passion of his beliefs, there were nights when she worried more hours than she slept.

58

DAVID WILCOCK

In the beginning the chief had entertained a flicker of doubt about Casper Police Sgt. Judi Cashel, mostly along the lines that no one who looked so comfortable in a red Fiero could possibly be a complete cop, but he'd learned to recognize male chauvinism even in himself and withheld judgment. A good thing, too, he soon realized. He could hardly keep up with the woman. Together they began a blitz of sixteen-hour days and seven-day weeks. They knew they could be shut down any minute, if not by the mayor, then by the mayor's nephew, who was the councilman in charge of the P.D., or by several other power figures.

Both investigators smelled a leak early but couldn't pin it down. Judi began working out of her motel room to avoid a telephone tap. Wilcock used pay phones whenever possible. The leaks seemed to diminish.

Soon he began hearing gossip that a sexy little carrot-top was running hookers out of her room at the Super 8. The madam's full figure, it was said, had already earned her the nickname "Boom Boom" among the hot-eyed young men from the mineral plants and the sugar factory. One night she'd been seen in the Medicine

Wheel Bar on Main Street. Now was this a whorehouse madam or what?

Wilcock told Cashel, and the two cops enjoyed a rare laugh.

Another investigator limped onstage, a young half-Indian from California named Dan Flores. He explained that he'd damaged his leg in a car crash while working a free-lance case for the Wyoming public defender's office out of Cheyenne. As Wilcock listened deadpan, Flores claimed that he'd been hired by a lawyer who was developing information on behalf of Minda Brinkerhoff and Meg Anderson. The sisters were planning a civil suit against Dr. Story. Flores said that Minda had contacted "60 Minutes" in New York and expected a crew to arrive any day.

Wilcock thought, Why the hell didn't Minda and Meg tell me? "Look, Dan," he said, "you couldn't've picked a worse time. Work someplace else or you'll screw things up. I hear there's some victims over in Powell."

Flores agreed to cooperate. Soon afterward, Wilcock heard that he'd started hanging around the Lamplighter Inn in Powell. He didn't seem to be opening his mouth, except for drinks.

While Judi Cashel beat the bushes for victims, Wilcock searched out others who might be helpful. From former mayor Jim Wagner he learned about Dixie King Marchant, a divorcee who'd suffered serious brain damage in an auto accident. Wagner said the epileptic woman had come to him in 1976 with a complaint that Dr. Story tried to take liberties with her, but Police Chief LaMar Averett had refused to listen.

Averett's name came up again in a Cashel report on a gypsum worker named Nelson St. Thomas, who claimed that his wife An-nella had been abused by Story in 1972. Wilcock read:

Mr. St. Thomas spoke with LaMar Averett, Lovell chief of police (now retired). Mr. St. Thomas was told that it would be his word against Dr. Story's. Mr. St. Thomas was advised [by Averett] to forget this situation. . . .

Mrs. St. Thomas wrote a letter of complaint, which Mr. St. Thomas distinctly remembers was sent to the State Board of Medi
cal
Examiners in Cheyenne, WY. Mr. St. Thomas recalls receiving
a
reply from the Board of Medical Examiners stating that they would need more corroborative evidence before they could proceed.

At some time after this, Mr. St. Thomas received a letter from the office of Dr. J. H. Story and signed by Dr. Story. This letter was in reference to the St. Thomas family's outstanding bill to Dr. Story. Mr. St. Thomas recalls that the letter stated that if the bill was too high, he, Dr. Story, would adjust it down. Mr. St. Thomas was angered by the letter and he immediately destroyed it.