Deadline (22 page)

“Yeah, I plan to.”

Jake jotted down some more notes, then headed out to the hallway. Mary Ann walked him out the door.

“Listen, Jake. I feel bad about how…uncooperative I may have seemed at first. I feel like I owe you one. How about I take you to dinner tomorrow night?”

Jake was taken off guard. “You don’t owe me anything. I mean …”

“No, listen, it’s a good excuse anyway. I’ve…well, I’ve thought before I’d enjoy getting to know you better. An office is such a stuffy place. I thought maybe we could have some fun together. How about tomorrow night?” Her bright warm smile took on new dimensions.

“Well, I’d be a fool to turn down that invitation. I’m working late at the
Trib
tomorrow afternoon. Probably can’t leave till after 6:30.”

“Perfect. I’ll meet you at 7:00 downtown, say at Anthony’s, on Fifth Street?”

“Uh, sure, Anthony’s at 7:00.”

Jake felt intoxicated by the combination of Mary Ann’s perfume, her smile, and her graceful fingers with their crimson nails, now making themselves at home on his right shoulder.

“Great. I’ll look forward to it, Jake. See you then.”

Mary Ann waved coyly and returned to her desk. Jake watched her admiringly, then turned and walked toward the patient advocate office with a noticeably lighter step.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
After getting Little Finn off to school at 8:15, Sue Keels sat down in her bright warm kitchen, savoring her morning coffee and solitude. Sometimes Finney wouldn’t leave for work till 9:00, and they’d enjoy those forty-five minutes together. The hardest times were waking up and reaching over to a husband who wasn’t there, and preparing for a 6:00 dinner knowing Finney wasn’t going to barge in the front door at 5:45 and meet her in the kitchen for a hug and kiss.

Jake had called last night and said he’d be there at 9:00. He sounded tense. It hadn’t been easy for Sue—not at all—but she felt she had the resources to deal with her loss. She was afraid Jake didn’t.

Sue opened up the
Tribune
, skimmed over the lead stories, and went to the forum section. There was Jake’s column right on the front page, upper left. She read it faithfully, sometimes agreeing, often disagreeing. She glanced at Jake’s sketched profile and smiled, noting the picture gave no hint of his graying sideburns and slightly receding hairline.

“We’ve got to update that sketch, Jake,” she said aloud, eagerly digging into his column, titled, “Our Schools: Our Future.”

According to Barbara Betcher, head of Oregon’s chapter of the National Education Association, our public schools face a funding crisis. She says a great deal of blame for children’s problems has been laid at the feet of public schools when parental neglect and child abuse have risen dramatically.

“The stability of the children’s home environment affects their academic performance,” Betcher says. “Given our limited funding, I think we’re doing a remarkable job in the classroom.”

I got a very different picture from Carl Mahoney, head of Citizens Advocating Responsible Education (CARE), a right-wing group with a long history of battling public schools. Mahoney’s reaction to raising teacher’s salaries or any other increases in school funding? “It’s like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.”

According to Mr. Mahoney, “Public education is inferior to private education.” He claims “many school programs are harmful and destructive,” citing declining test scores as proof. When I asked him about public schools that would close down if school vouchers became a reality, he said, “We’d all be better off if they
were
closed.” As for the poor and minorities who would be hurt most by vouchers, Mr. Mahoney simply says “they wouldn’t.”

Carl Mahoney is bothered that “morality,” by which he means his particular brand of morality, isn’t the central focus in schools. He opposes birth control and abortion, and thinks schools shouldn’t discuss such issues. Mr. Mahoney says “It’s my tax money that goes to the public schools, so I have a right to control how it’s spent.”

Ms. Betcher says we should be proud our state test scores are better than the national average. She points out the deck is stacked toward higher test scores in private schools because they don’t accept poor and minorities.

“Public schools accept everyone. Naturally, underprivileged children pull down test score averages, but every child deserves an education.”

I agree with Mr. Mahoney that public schools have to set their sights high. I agree with Ms. Betcher that we must not discriminate by leaving out poor and minorities because they cannot afford our schools. That’s the whole reason for tax-funded public schools in the first place, to assure an education for all children regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or economic status.

Some may be surprised to know that though Mr. Mahoney lives just down the street from Evergreen School, he sends his children to a private fundamentalist school. That is his prerogative. But doesn’t it raise some questions about his right to control the curriculum of schools he has chosen to give up on? If I handed in my resignation to the
Tribune
this week, accusing it of mismanagement, then came back in six months to tell the editors how to run this newspaper, should I be surprised if I wasn’t given much credibility?

You and I pay taxes too, and Mr. Mahoney’s taxes are a very small part of the total. But they aren’t “his” taxes anyway. They are his debt to society. None of us has any more right to demand our schools do something our way than he has to tell the Highway Administration what roads to build and how they must build them. While private schools have the luxury of fostering whatever narrow set of beliefs they prefer, public schools don’t. Funding our schools is basic to fostering the sense of healthy diversity and pluralistic thinking essential to the future of this country.

Mahoney advocates abstinence indoctrination, with its implicit conformity to fundamentalist Christian beliefs. No doubt he’d like to see creation taught instead of evolution. Again, it’s his right to send his children to a private religious school. But it’s not his right to try to turn our public schools, which his children don’t even attend, into the mirror image of a fundamentalist school. The rest of us have rights too. That’s what this country is about.

Do I want to spend more money on taxes? No. Do I support our schools? Yes. These may seem like conflicting priorities, but the choice is clear. Children are the future of our country. So instead of abandoning our schools and casting stones at those trying to help them, how about we try something else, something harder but a great deal more productive? How about we choose to invest in our schools, reminding ourselves that an investment in our children is always the best investment in our future.

Sue put down the paper and sighed, “Oh, Jake.” She shook her head slowly, both hands wrapped around her coffee cup, absorbing its warmth.

At 9:05 the door bell rang. Smiling, Sue opened the door to a typically rumpled Jake, with a brown v-neck sweater and casual maroon shirt underneath. Sue always had to fight the instinct to straighten his collars or volunteer to iron his shirts. After the two eyed each other a moment, she threw her arms around him and gave him a bear hug.

“Wow.” Jake responded. “What will the neighbors think?”

“That some strange man is visiting me. And they’ll be right,” Sue laughed. “Come in, Jake. Sit down.”

Sue pointed toward the living room, which looked exactly as it had twelve days earlier. Jake walked in, eerily looking around the room as if he expected some bats to suddenly dive bomb him. He avoided the couch where he’d last sat with his friends, choosing the rocking chair over by the coffee table. As he sat down his eyes dropped to the shiny but pockmarked hardwood surface.

“I put the quarter in my jewelry box,” Sue volunteered. “For some reason I felt like hanging on to it.”

“Yeah. I guess I almost expected it to be just sitting there on its side. Crazy thing, wasn’t it?”

Sue nodded. “How’s it been for you, Jake?”

“Listen, Sue. I’m sorry I haven’t been over, and I haven’t called you since the funeral. I…”

“I know, Jake. Don’t even think about it. I am going to miss Sunday afternoons though.”

“Yeah. Well, at least there’s going to be a lot less clean up.” Jake was instantly sorry he’d said it.

“I already miss cleaning up after you guys.” Sue choked on her emotions, then tried to harness them with a smile. “I hope you can still come over once in a while, Jake. I’m no substitute for Finney or Doc, but I’d be glad to make popcorn, pass you a beer, and show you how little I know about football.”

Jake smiled weakly.

“The kids miss you too. Little Finn’s always talking about you.”

“Yeah, I was thinking maybe I could take him to a ballgame or something.”

“That’d be great. It would mean a lot to him. Me too.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll check my schedule and give him a call.”

Jake cleared his throat even though he didn’t need to.

“Listen, Sue, I’ve got to talk to you about something. It’s a little strange—no, it’s
really
strange—and I don’t know any good way to get into it, so let me just tell you what happened.”

Jake recounted the story of the yellow three-by-five card, his meetings with Ollie and the trip to the wrecking yard. Sue leaned forward, hanging on every word.

“The bottom line is, somebody was trying to kill Doc.” Jake decided not to bring up the possibility they were trying to get him or Finney. She didn’t need that.

Sue sat there, still from the shoulders up, rubbing her hands together as if they were frostbitten. “Just when you think life’s getting as crazy as it can, it gets crazier.”

Sue got up and went to the window. Jake couldn’t see her face but knew she was crying. After several minutes of awkward silence, he started back in.

“Ollie wants me to come up with suspects. I mean, there’s no one obvious, so I’m supposed to come up with anybody who had a conflict with Doc, an ax to grind. I’ve met with Mary Ann, you know, Doc’s secretary? I got a few ideas from her. And I’ve got a few of my own.”

“Who?”

Jake resisted an instinct to hold back, giving Sue the full list, “scorned women” and “betrayed husbands” and all. Jake could tell from Sue’s expression she was aware of Doc’s indiscretions. He wondered if it was sinking in that one of Doc’s affairs might be the reason her own husband died. When it did, she’d have to be bitter. No, angry. Looking at Sue, he could imagine anger, but not bitterness.

“Jake, I’m glad you told me all this, scary as it is. What can I do to help?”

“Well, I have to ask you something. It’s a little delicate, but…”

“You want me to go undercover as a prostitute to flush out the murderer?”

Jake laughed. “Well, not quite
that
delicate.”

“Good.”

“Ollie said I should check on anything, no matter how improbable. You know how Doc used to perform abortions? And he was on the committee that got the abortion pill and the fetal tissue research grant over at the hospital. And, this is confidential, but it appears he might have done some late-term abortions even recently.”

Sue closed her eyes and sighed. The latter was obviously news to her.

“So I thought maybe one of the anti-abortion people might have…might have gone after Doc.”

Sue looked at Jake in disbelief. “You’re suggesting a prolifer murdered Doc and Finney?”

“No, not really, but Ollie wants every possibility.”

Sue looked hurt. Her body language said she was holding her reaction in check. “So what are you asking me, Jake?”

“Well, I guess for some possible names.”

“Is this like when actors were asked to turn over names of people in Hollywood that might be communists?”

“Sue, come on, I just—”

“You just want the names of people who object to children being killed because anybody who’d defend a vulnerable child is likely to be a murderer, is that it? Will the names be taken before a Senate committee, or were you just going to print them in your column and let other people harass them? Is this going to be the latest
Tribune
lynching of the politically incorrect?”

Sue’s eyes blazed, and Jake tried to figure out where he’d gone wrong.

“It’s not like that at all, Sue. It’s just that Doc got some pretty hateful letters. I’ve gotten a few myself. I know how you feel about this thing, and we’ve got some honest differences, okay? I’m not saying anybody you know did this, but
some
body did it. I’m just trying to find some possibilities, no matter how remote. But I can see this is too much for you.” Jake started to get up. “I’ll just—”

“Sit down, Jake.” Sue felt awful and looked it.

“Yes’m.” Jake reversed himself and fell back into the rocking chair.

“Jake, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. My emotions are on my shirt sleeves. I blew it. Please forgive me.”

“Look, Sue, you don’t have to apologize.”

“Yes, I do, Jake. Let me try to explain. I guess I get a little defensive about this stereotype that people like me are hateful. I know you didn’t say that, but I’m used to having that laid on me. You probably didn’t know that for the last six months or so I’ve been going down to the Lovepeace clinic once a week to counsel women as they go in. I’m just there to help, but people are always giving me obscene gestures. And
I’ve
been at Lifeline to protest RU-486. I never saw Doc there, to be honest I hoped I never would. I always went an hour after he went to work so I wouldn’t have to face off with him. I’ve gotten to know these…‘protesters.’ The idea that one of them could possibly do such a thing is…. To be honest, it really offends me.”

“Sue, I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t, Jake. You’re my friend. And you were always such a special friend to Finney.”

Tears streamed down Sue’s cheeks now, overcoming every effort to hold them back. Jake wished for a moment he was more like Finney, that he could reach out and touch and comfort her. But he couldn’t. The trip across the living room was too long, comforting too foreign.

Sue grabbed the Kleenex beside the table lamp. “I’ve been buying this stuff in bulk,” she laughed. “I keep it nearby in case something reminds me of Finney. Problem is, pretty much everything does.

“I’m okay now, Jake. Of course I’ll help you. I don’t know everybody in the different prolife groups, but I’ve got friends who do. If there’s somebody vengeful or weird or something, somebody that could have done this, maybe they’d know. I’d be glad to introduce you to them, and you can ask them yourself.”

“That’s not necessary, Sue. I thought if you just happened to know a name or two…”

“What’s wrong? Afraid to meet some Bible-banging fundamentalist bigots?” Sue grinned, good-naturedly baiting him.

“No, not afraid. Just not sure how helpful it would be.”

“I think you’d be surprised at how down to earth and honest these people are. As long as we assure them nothing they say will get printed in the
Tribune
, most of them would love to meet you and help any way they could. It wouldn’t go in the newspaper, would it?”