“Possible? Possible that he has a key to my family’s house? You had damn well not be spreading that story around town.” His anger made the receiver vibrate.
“Darraugh-take it easy. The kid told me he had a key.”
“She’s wrong. She’s lying for whatever reason teenagers lie.” His voice retreated from fury to mere wintriness.
“I see.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, wishing I did see. “I tried to talk to Mr. Bayard, but was soundly rebuffed. Do you know why?”
“Not for any nefarious reason. He’s in poor health; Renee protects him with her usual energy. Send in your bill for the hours you’ve put in on my mother’s complaint. I hope you will remember as you look for this dead man’s murderer that I’ve paid your bills for many years now. I expect you to keep that in mind if you feel your inquiries must take you out to New Solway for any reason. You should realize you could fall into quicksand faster than anyone could get to you to pull you out.”
He hung up before I could say anything. I had known Darraugh Graham for fifteen years, but I had never heard him threaten me before.
CHAPTER 14
Many people saw Olin Taverner as your husband’s greatest enemy, Renee. Can you explain to us why Calvin Bayard continued to see Olin Taverner socially?” Dennis Logan cocked his head at Renee Bayard with an intense sincerity that made her withdraw deeper into her studio chair.
Lotty and I were sitting with Max Loewenthal, watching the interview in the back room where Lotty keeps her television. Max, who’s known Lotty practically her whole life, is the executive director of Beth Israel, where Lotty has her surgical privileges. The two have been lovers for many years, but since last fall they’ve become much closer. In a way, I resented not having Lotty to myself as much as I used to, but I like and respect Max.
Over roast chicken and a bottle from Max’s impressive cellar-which I was still too congested to appreciate-we talked idly about a number of things, including Max’s perennial struggle to find a way to bring more paying patients into the hospital. One of his board members had suggested getting designer hospital gowns for affluent patients.
“Great idea,” I applauded. “How can we really tell we’ve got a two-tier health care system if we don’t have outfits that demonstrate it? Armani in a soft gold silk for the privately insured, gray overwashed nylon for the wretched poor.”
Max laughed, but Lotty wasn’t willing to joke about the matter. She uses
her substantial surgical fees to fund a number of health programs for the un-or underinsured, but she’s acutely aware of how small a drop that is in the health care bucket.
I changed the subject hastily, describing my encounters with young Catherine Bayard. Lotty and Max had immigrated to America from Britain in the late fifties. By the time they’d arrived here, the HUAC hearings had pretty well died down, so she and Max didn’t know the names or histories of the key players, but they were interested enough to follow me to the television after dinner. We turned on the nine o’clock news on Channel 13.
To my surprise, the show started not with Olin Taverner’s death, but with the parents’ meeting at Vina Fields that Catherine had mentioned. I wouldn’t have thought that was newsworthy, but I guess angry rich people shouting at each other makes good theater.
The segment opened with Beth Blacksin standing in front of Vina Fields. “This discreet stone facade hides the entrance to a Chicago power institution. It’s here that Grahams, Bayards, Felittis and other Chicagoans whose names spell clout send their children. It’s a mile from the Cabrim Green housing projects, but a light-year from the turmoil of an inner-city school. No gangs, no guns here. But lately this calm building has itself been caught up in turmoil over whether they’ve been harboring not street gangs, but an international terrorist. Parents and administrators have been anguishing over whether student records, including what books students check out of the library, should be open to law enforcement agencies. At the center of this upheaval is an Egyptian dishwasher, Benjamin Sadawi, who disappeared three weeks ago.”
The station showed a photo of the youth in the white shirt and tie Mr. Contreras and I had seen last night. “The Justice Department claims he fled to his terrorist cell’s hideout. They want to examine all school records to see if these might shed some light on his disappearance. The First Freedoms Forum is trying to intervene to keep the justice Department out of school files. We spoke to lawyer Judith Ohana before the meeting. Judith, what’s at stake here?”
A tall, slim woman took the mike with practiced ease. “This is basically a witch-hunt, Beth. If one of the children from this school was in Cairo, and the army came in to confiscate books and papers and computers because of a rumor about a missing dishwasher, everyone in America would
be outraged. That’s what’s happening here: a few parents are fanning the flames of mob hysteria. Do they really want their children’s private thoughts to be the bedtime reading of FBI or INS agents?”
Beth then took us inside the school so we could watch the parents discuss what they wanted school administrators to do. People were screaming at each other with the hearty venom of a hockey game. An angry man came to the center mike to say his daughter was a student at Vina Fields. “My child’s safety is paramount. I won’t have the school sheltering terrorists because of some First Amendment gobbledygook that puts my child’s life at risk.”
Other parents jumped into the fray, then Renee Bayard came to the mike. She was still wearing the red dress, which stood out vividly against the gray suits and ties around her.
“We all want our children to be safe in school, at home, on the streets, in the air. When our children are at risk, we don’t care about law, or justice, or abstractions, we only care about their safety. I’m the same way. And that’s why I don’t want police agents meddling in my granddaughter’s school records. I don’t want some private opinion my daughter put in an essay scrutinized by the FBI to see whether she’s a security risk. Adolescents think in extremes. It’s their nature. If they have to second-guess everything they write or read, then pretty soon we’ll have a country of robots. We won’t have the freethinking, creative young people who have the zest for experiment, even for risk, that makes American business lead the world.”
The camera cut away during another angry salvo from the man who objected to First Amendment gobbledygook. “That was Renee Bayard, CEO of Bayard Publishing,” Beth said. “Her husband Calvin, a leading First Amendment advocate, fought memorable battles with Chicago lawyer Olin Taverner, who died today at ninety-one. Stay with us after the news for Chicago Talks, when we’ll be discussing Olin Taverner’s life and career. Renee Bayard will describe her husband’s clashes with Taverner in the House of Representatives. For now, I’m Beth Blacksin, live at Vina Fields Academy on Chicago’s Gold Coast.”
A battery of commercials came on; Lotty muted the sound. “Could the FBI really have put that kid in custody without telling his mother or anyone at the school?” Max was troubled.
I grimaced. “Morrell just did a story for Margent about a Pakistani
immigrant who vanished from his Uptown apartment last October. His family searched frantically for him, but it was only after the guy died out in Coo’ hs prison that the Feds told his sons they’d been holding the father for eleven weeks. I did the local legwork for Morrell on that-it seems a neighbor had reported seeing a suspicious-looking van pull up on September 15 with a large box: turned out to be a new toilet, but by then the FBI had moved on, and INS didn’t think that bit of information was relevant.”