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(Tuesday, September 23, 2013)
Janet seemed composed if quiet at work, and the newsroom settled down. The routine stories of violence and stupidity—a high-speed chase resulting in two dead bystanders—kept Mac busy.
Mac did more checks but with too few leads to find anything out about the history of Janet’s father and her son. Frustrated, he started thinking about just driving out to this place—Jehovah’s Valley? —and taking a look around. He had the weekend off. Shorty might like to go along. He grinned at the thought of what his friend would say about wasting a weekend traipsing off to eastern Oregon. Maybe he’d just go himself.
“Mac, can I talk to you for a moment?” Steve Whitman said. Mac looked away from his computer, automatically saving and shutting the file. Whitman was in his late 40s, a short, stocky man with red-brown hair who headed up the special projects team. He’d been the editor on the abortion story.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“In my office?”
Surprised, Mac followed him back to his office.
“Close the door,” Steve said, not meeting his eyes.
Mac did so warily. Something was wrong. He prepared for battle. Steve sat down, gestured to a seat for Mac. Mac chose to lean against the door.
“Janet called you when she found the graffiti, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any reason she might have done it herself?”
“What?” Mac shook his head. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Steve handed him a letter. Mac sat down, looked at the signature. “It’s anonymous,” Mac observed. “We don’t usually pay any attention to anonymous letters.”
Steve sighed. “No, we don’t. That story we did was important. It will be nominated for a Pulitzer, maybe win it. That means something, you know? This letter calls into question the veracity of one of the writers. I have to check it out.”
“Steve, this is Janet you’re talking about,” Mac protested. “She has an impeccable reputation! She’s been with this damn paper for what? 15 years?”
“Read the letter.”
Mac started to protest more, then read the letter. It was carefully written, articulate. It called into question Janet’s fairness in reporting the story because of “her personal political agenda” and “her own life experiences.”
Mac looked up. “Shit, Steve, this basically means that only men can write about abortion?”
“Read the letter,” Steve Whitman said.
Mac went back to the letter and finished reading it quickly. It accused Janet of not only fabricating and skewing information in the story, but of creating her own vandalism to make the anti-abortion movement look bad, just as abortion clinics had firebombed themselves to gain sympathy.
“OK, I’ve finished it,” Mac said. “It’s a crock of shit. First of all, no abortion clinic has ever firebombed itself in spite of the anti-abortion claims to the contrary. That was in your story, the one you wrote personally, I believe.”
Steve laughed. “Yeah, but who knows what my private political agenda might be?”
Mac relaxed a bit. “Second, you edited Janet’s story. All those stories were double checked, and fact checked to hell and gone from what I hear. Do you really think she made stuff up?”
Steve shrugged. “Not really, but what about the vandalism issue? You were there—is it possible?”
Mac shook his head in disgust. “No, she didn’t do it to herself,” he said quietly. “She was in shock. Still is, if you look past that professional demeanor of hers. Hard to fake that.”
Mac paused, as some thought nagged at him. Finally, it hit him. “Anyway, how does the letter writer know about the vandalism? We didn’t cover it. No police report was filed. Janet hasn’t used it to ‘blacken the eye of the pro-life movement’ as the letter claims. She hasn’t done anything about it at all.”
Steve frowned, took the letter back, re-read it. He nodded thoughtfully. “Son of a bitch. Either the letter writer works here in the newsroom—which is unlikely—or someone expected her to raise a fuss and wrote the letter not realizing she hadn’t.”
“Exactly,” Mac said. “The only people who could think like that are the people who did the vandalism.”
Steve tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk. Then he nodded. “OK, that answers that.” He took the letter, shoved it into a desk drawer. “Are you looking into this for Janet?”
“What makes you say that?” Mac said, still wary.
“If Janet didn’t want the cops looking into it, I can’t believe she wouldn’t ask her favorite reporter to do some checking,” Steve said dryly. “That’d be you.”
Mac shrugged. “She asked me to look at a few things.”
Steve nodded. “Do they affect her story?”
Mac looked puzzled. “What’s the deal here? Why are you so afraid of her story? I don’t remember it being that remarkable. We all know abortion clinics and doctors live in fear of the pro-life movement. She just documented it. And a lot of the work was done by that other woman—what’s her name.”
“Becky Truman,” Steve said absently. He sighed. “Janet didn’t want to do the story. She only did it because the whole package was going to fall apart when Becky pulled out. It worried me at the time. Janet just doesn’t back away from a good story.”
“She wrote a good story,” Mac said.
“Yeah, she did. I got to wonder if there was some reason she didn’t give that meant she shouldn’t have done it.”
Mac shook his head. “Like what?”
Steve looked a bit embarrassed. “You know, maybe she’s had an abortion or something.”
“And that would disqualify her?”
“Well, it would indicate bias, wouldn’t it?”
“Does it indicate bias if she’s never had one?” Mac asked. “How come it’s only bias one way?”
Steve snorted. “Sometimes you younger reporters make me feel old,” he said. “Is that truly how you see it?”
Mac thought about it. “I can’t imagine a woman who hasn’t had some experience, some opinion about birth control, abortion, giving birth, whatever,” he said slowly. “Does that mean they can’t write about it? That’d be like saying I can’t write about the military because I’ve served in it. Or that you can’t write about it because you haven’t served. Unbiased shouldn’t mean ignorance.”
Steve grunted. “What does it mean to you?”
“You build your case, then you build the other side’s case, then you present all the sides to the public. Let them decide.” Mac shrugged. “You try to be an observer.”
Steve looked at him thoughtfully but didn’t say anything more.
“Something’s bugging you,” Mac said. “Some instinct.”
Steve looked away. “It’s that she seems so god damn vulnerable,” he said at last. “It scares the hell out of me. Is the package vulnerable? We don’t want to have to give the Pulitzer back.”
“Jimmy’s World,” Mac said, referring to the story the Washington Post had won a Pulitzer for and then found out that the sources were fabricated. Happened in the ’80s, but newspapers never forgot.
“Exactly.”
“She does seem vulnerable,” Mac said. “Fragile almost. But it’s her, not the story, that’s vulnerable.”
“You sure of that?”
Mac nodded. “I’m sure.”
“OK,” Steve said. “It’s just that...,” He trailed off. “You’ve seen the scars on her wrists.”
Mac nodded. “Old scars.”
“Yeah.” Steve Whitman sighed. “But once upon a time she wasn’t the Janet we know. Will you keep me posted on what you learn?”
“You’ll have to ask Janet for that,” he said. “It’s hers.” Mac stood up to go. “You should show Janet that letter,” he said. “Talk to her. She deserves support from you, not doubt. Back your reporter.”
Steve winced, but nodded. “I’ll talk to her.”
Mac returned to his desk and called the University of Washington.
The registrar confirmed that Timothy Brandt had attended the University of Washington last year. No, they could not release directory information; Timothy Brandt had requested a privacy block.
Mac sat back in his chair. Shit. He called Lindy at her office. She looked him up on the computer. “There is a privacy block,” she said, telling him what he already knew. “I can’t give you that.”
“I need to find this guy,” he said.
“If I were you, I’d go over to the Christian Life Center. Check in with Campus Crusade for Christ. He sounds like their type.”
Mac looked at the clock. It was noon. Just go up there. He’d been sitting at a desk long enough today anyway.
“Davis, line 2.”
He picked it up. It was Rodriguez.
“I’m feeding the vandalism into the anti-terrorism data base,” Rodriguez said without preamble. “Something about it bothers me.”
“Yeah?”
“The 'hills of Judah' is pretty specific.”
“You’ll let me know what you find out?”
Rodriguez grunted. “I’ll be lucky if the FBI lets me know what they find out. You going to tell Janet?”
Mac glanced over at his editor sitting tensely at her desk, staring at the computer. “Not unless you find out something. And feed in Jehovah’s Valley too, will you?”
“Anything new?”
“She thinks someone may be watching her,” he said softly.
“Do you think so?”
“Best guess? Yeah, something spooked her.”
Another grunt, Rodriguez hung up. Mac gathered his things, tidied the desk, and checked out. Janet didn’t look up.
The University of Washington campus was a combination of green grass, brick buildings, and oddball students. Tie-die no less. He couldn’t tell if the person wearing it was left over from the ’60s, or if the craze was back. Long-haired granolas, preppy frat boys, geeks with dark-rimmed glasses. A for-real pocket protector? He wasn't sure and didn't want to be caught staring at another man's chest. Not that someone was likely to take offense—not at the U—but he might make a pass. Yay, just what he needed.
The Christian Life Center was a large brick house near Fraternity Row. On the porch, a list of occupants included the Catholic Student Ministry, Young Life, and Campus Crusade. Mac pushed the door open and went in, standing uncertainly in the entryway.
The students in the large open room ran to pleasant clean-cut young men and women, with a few granolas sprinkled among them. Predominantly white, but not all of them: a group of Koreans were talking in the back; there were some Black students as well.
Mac spotted an office off to one side labeled Campus Crusade. Mac knocked at the open door; an older, bearded man looked up from the desk.
“Can I help you?”
Mac identified himself. “I’m trying to track down Timothy Brandt,” he said. “Someone thought you might be able to help me.”
“Tim? Haven’t seen him yet this fall. Have you tried where he lives? Naomi Fairchild’s boarding house, the lucky guy.”
“Where’s that?” Mac tried to adjust to a person who actually volunteered information
The man gave him directions. “You can’t miss it. And you might try the Emergency Pregnancy Care Center. He volunteers there.”
Mac thanked him and left quickly before the man could ask him any questions. So much for a privacy block, he thought.
Naomi Fairchild’s boarding house was a wooden Victorian just a five-minute walk from campus. Mac stood outside and stared in appreciation—can’t miss it indeed. The house had been painted in San Francisco Painted Lady fashion, a cream base coat and six different colors of trim: purple, blue, magenta, green, two shades of yellow. There were flowers—red geraniums? —in window boxes. He grinned. Couldn’t help grinning at that house.
He knocked on the door. A young woman in her mid-20s answered. Mac identified himself, asking for Tim Brandt.
“Tim moved out,” the woman said. Her hands were covered with flour, and she left a streak across her cheek when she tried to brush a strand of hair out of her face.
“Do you know where he went?”
“Why don’t you come in? I’ve got a cake in the oven, and if I stand out here, I’m likely to burn it.” She held the door open, standing aside to let him in. “I’m Kate Fairchild.”
“Not Naomi?” Mac said as he stepped inside.
“That’s my mom. Come on into the kitchen.”
Mac looked appreciatively at the brown braid that swung between her shoulder blades above a trim rear in jeans. He smiled at the flour handprints on those jeans. Whoever this woman was she was not a tidy cook.
“Do you always let strangers into your home like this?” he asked as he took a chair at the kitchen table. The kitchen was painted yellow with white trim. The appliances were old, the table and chairs were even older. But it was a warm inviting place especially with smells of chocolate cake.
Kate turned from the sink, dried her hands on a towel. “I recognize you from the story last winter,” she said. “You were on television several times.” Then she dimpled up. “And yes, I’ve a tendency to be impulsive with people.”
Mac smiled back. “This is a boarding house?” he said as he looked around.
Kate nodded, pulled up a chair at the table. “When Dad died, Mom used the insurance money and their savings to buy this place. She wanted me to grow up close to the university—she thinks education is important.”
“And Tim Brandt lived here?”
“Last year, then this summer for summer school. Then he moved out two weeks ago without any notice. Mom was pretty mad at him.”
“What’s he like?”
Kate hopped up, looked in the refrigerator. “You want some iced tea?” He nodded, and she pulled out the pitcher and poured two glasses. He sipped it, set it down.
“Tim?” he asked again.
Kate sighed. “What do you know about Tim, Mr. Davis?”
Mac grinned at the name. “Mac,” he said. “I know he grew up in a place called Jehovah’s Valley, and that he must be pretty bright to be here.”
“Jehovah’s Valley. That pretty much says it all.” Kate sighed again. “We take in boarders who come with referrals from their churches. Kids from small towns who are scared of the city, usually. Christians. Smart, or they wouldn’t be coming here. We don’t charge much, most of them don’t have much money. It’s Mom’s way of giving back to the Lord.”
“And you?”
“Me? I was 12 when Dad died—he was a missionary. Went back to Southeast Asia one time too many. Mom and I run this place.”
“Did you go to U-Dub?” he asked, calling the school by its usual abbreviation.
“Oh, yes, of course. Majored in biology, secondary ed. I teach at the Wallingford Christian School, high school science. Working on my master’s degree.”
“In education?”
“Biology.” Kate shrugged away the questions about herself, returned to the subject of Tim Brandt. “Tim was, is, a very conservative Christian. He had a harder time than most adjusting to Seattle and U-Dub.”
Mac watched her carefully. “Do you like him?”
She hesitated. “Not really. He’s... I know it’s because of how he was brought up, but he assumes women will wait on him and take care of him. He couldn’t believe that Mom and I weren’t going to do his laundry and clean his room. He didn’t ask, just assumed. He didn’t know how to do those things for himself.”
“Says something about Jehovah’s Valley.”
“My mom’s folks are Mennonites, old school traditionalists. But Mom and Dad decided that I’d be raised more liberally than that. Watching Tim made me grateful they did. Even my grandma isn’t as conservative as he is.”
Mac found himself more intrigued by the woman in front of him than the man he was trying to find. “Liberal in what ways?”
Kate jumped up again, checked the cake in the oven. “Hum? Oh, I’ve been allowed to wear pants,” she gestured to her jeans. “Make up and jewelry. I don’t much, but I could. I go to movies. We have television.”
“And your grandparents would disapprove?”
She pulled the cake out, set it on the counter. “My grandmother believes a woman should cover her hair, still,” she said, as if that explained everything.
Kate began mixing something, frosting perhaps, Mac guessed.
“And Tim was like that?”
“Tim was worse. He disapproved of me studying science, even being a teacher. He disapproves of just about everything.”
His disapproval didn’t seem to bother her, Mac noted. “And he said so?”
“Of course. As a Christian brother, he thought it was his duty to provide guidance for two women who were not under the shelter of a man’s guiding hand.”
Mac couldn’t tell if she was serious or pulling his leg. “People really think like that?” he asked at last.
Kate looked at him over her shoulder, dimples flashing again. “You aren’t active in an evangelical church, are you?”
Mac laughed. “No.”
“Well, like I said, to understand Tim, you have to understand Jehovah’s Valley. His father is the preacher there. Adopted father. Apparently, Tim was left on the proverbial church doorstep. Rev. Brandt took him in, raised him. But he’s old, really old.”
“Have you met him?” Mac sipped his iced tea.
“He brought Tim here, the first time, as a freshman. He looks like some old testament prophet.” She grinned at him again. Now there was fudge frosting on her cheek as well. “You know that movie, The Rock, with Sean Connery? When they bring him out of the jail cell? Well, that’s what Rev. Brandt looked like. Except older.”
“What about Mrs. Brandt?”
“She never came here. She was the schoolteacher in the Valley for a long time, I gathered. She died a few years back. Tim was still really broken up about it.”
“So, Jehovah’s Valley is like a commune?”
She giggled. “We call it a Christian community. Isolationists. There are lots of them. Small enclaves of Christians who have decided to live a certain way. Jehovah’s Valley is more isolationist than most.”
“I’m surprised they let Tim come here to school.”
She nodded. “I guess it’s rare. The few who go to school usually go to Northwest Nazarene in Idaho. But Tim is really smart, for all his ways, and he had a full scholarship here. He wants to be a doctor, and the Valley needs one. As a result, the community agreed to let him come here. Staying here helped.”
Mac looked around the kitchen. “How many people live here?”
“Mom and I and six boarders.” Kate sat down at the table again. “Have to let the cake cool before I frost it,” she explained. “We charge $300 a month for room and board.”
“Do you know where Tim went?”
Kate shook her head. “Mom is worried about him, I think. She mothers all the boarders. At Thanksgiving, a lot of them stay in the city. Sometimes we’ll have 20 people here. They’re like family.”
“Even Tim?”
She smiled. Mac liked the dimples. “Do you like everyone in your family, Mac?” she asked, not needing an answer.
He snorted. “He hasn’t called or anything?”
She shook her head. “You might want to check with the Emergency Pregnancy Care Center on 44th. He volunteers there.”
“What is that?” The guy at Campus Crusade had mentioned it, too.
“They provide free pregnancy tests and counseling for women.”
Mac sorted through the emotions in her voice. “You don’t approve of them? Do they do abortions or something?”
“Timothy Brandt volunteering at a clinic that did abortions? Surely you jest.” She didn’t meet his eyes, drawing circles on the table with her finger. “You’re right, I don’t approve of the center. They aren’t honest, up front. They give the impression that they will provide abortion counseling and referrals, but actually they don’t. They will do almost anything up to kidnapping to prevent a woman from making that choice.”
“And you don’t approve.”
She shook her head. “They ought to be honest about what they do. Up front.”
Mac nodded. He watched her with a half-smile until she looked up and met his eyes. She blushed. Looked away. Mac couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman blush.
“If I asked you out, would you go?” he asked impulsively.
“Out to what? I don’t know you well enough,” she said.
“And how would we get to know each other well enough?”
She smiled. “You could come to Sunday dinner.”
“I can’t this weekend, but I could the next,” Mac said seriously, not looking away. “Could I come by again and talk some more?”
She got up, went to the counter, patted her cake. Mac waited in silence while she put frosting on the cake. “I would like that,” she said at last. “Sunday dinner is at 2 p.m.”
“I’ll be here,” Mac promised. What was he doing, he wondered? But he liked this woman.
She glanced at him shyly and smiled. Then she held out the frosting bowl and spatula. “Want to clean out the bowl just like when you were a kid?”
Mac solemnly took the bowl and spatula. He didn’t bother to tell her that his mother had never made a cake in her life. He scooped some frosting from the side of the bowl, tasted it. It was good, rich with butter and chocolate. He grinned at her, held out the bowl. “Share?” he offered.
She laughed. “Sure.”
On the way home, Mac’s cell phone rang. “Yo.”
“Mac, it’s Janet.”
“What’s up?” he turned toward the Ballard bridge instead of going up Queen Anne to his home.
“The car is back. The one I saw? It went by the house tonight. Twice.” She forced a laugh. “Probably a neighbor who forgot something at the store.”
“I’m on my way,” Mac said. “Do you think you’re in danger?”
The nice thing about dealing with a first-class paranoid was that he believed her, Janet thought ruefully.
Janet hesitated. “No,” she said finally. “Just watched.”
“Okay. Then I’m going to make a stop on the way. I’ll probably drive past your place, check out the neighborhood a bit. You stay inside, lock the doors.”
“Maybe my imagination,” she offered.
“I doubt it.”
Janet checked the doors, made sure they were locked. She sat in the dark living room, Pulitzer at her feet. Waiting.
It was probably a half-hour later when Mac pulled into the driveway, tapped the horn twice. Janet looked out, let him in the back door. He was carrying a sack.
“I didn’t see anyone,” he said briefly.
“My imagination,” Janet said, trying to smile.
He shook his head. “Janet, you don’t have enough paranoia to imagine that kind of thing,” he said. “I’ve seen you. You walk the streets unafraid, oblivious. More courage than brains. If you reacted like this, my guess is your subconscious had been noticing something all day. It just took this long to get your attention.”
Janet laughed. “What’s all this?” she asked pointing to the stuff he was pulling from the Fred Meyer sack.
“Security.”
It took Mac an hour to put new, stronger deadbolts and chain locks on the doors. He fitted blocks in the windows to prevent someone from jimmying them up.
The patio doors made Mac scratch his head, but he put a pole in the slide of the door and attached an alarm. “The alarm isn’t connected to anything,” he warned. “No police or guards are going to show up. But the noise should scare off an intruder.”
Janet nodded.
“Got a flashlight?” he asked. “I’ve got padlocks for your gates out back and the garage.”
Janet fetched it from a bathroom drawer. “Do you think this is really necessary?” she asked.
Mac laughed. “This is minimal, Janet. Lindy and I have more security than this, and we haven’t been threatened. Not recently anyway.”
Janet shook her head. She watched from the patio as he padlocked gates and garage doors. When he came back in, he handed her a set of keys and waited until she put them on her key chain.
“Can you shoot?” he asked.
“A gun? Not since I was teenager.”
“Would you shoot?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “If someone was in my house? Maybe.”
Mac shook his head. “If you aren’t prepared to shoot and shoot to kill, a gun is dangerous. You’re just handing the intruder a weapon. Because you can be sure he’s prepared to shoot,” he lectured. “What about Mace? Could you use that without hesitating?”
Janet nodded. “Yeah, no problem there,” she said.
Mac pulled out two cans from his sack. “You carry one, the other sits on your bedside table.”
She took them, saw he was waiting and went to put one by her bed. The other she stuck in her purse, a big black leather bag that accommodated one more item easily enough. “Thanks, Mac,” she said gratefully.
“No problem.” He hesitated. “Call me for any reason, you hear? I don’t like the feel of this.” He looked around the living room. “If someone really wanted to get in, none of this would stop them,” he said slowly. “But it should scare away the impulsive.”
To Janet the place seemed like a fortress now. Or a jail. “Do you live like this? All the time?”
Mac smiled, thinking of his security measures that included guns stashed in handy places and good alarms. “Most people have this much security,” he said gently. “Actually, most have more. It’s a miracle you haven’t been robbed blind.”
Janet shook her head. “What would they steal? A 10-year-old television? A thousand paperbacks?”
Mac squeezed her shoulder. “Take care,” he said as he left.
From the couch in her living room, Janet watched him drive away. She sat in the darkened room, her thoughts bleak. Pulitzer whimpered softly and she stroked his head. “We’re going to be OK,” she told the dog. “Really we will.”