Chapter 35: Special Circumstances

October 28, 1990, Chicago, Illinois

Early on Sunday afternoon the phone rang and I went from the sunroom to my study to answer it. It was Ted Farley calling. He said he had some information, so I asked him to hold while I called Katy into the room. I put the phone on speaker and told him to go ahead.

“The first thing I discovered, and it makes me very suspicious, is that she withdrew from all of her classes at UIC. Did either of you have any idea that she might do that?”

“No way!” Katy protested. “She’s a Senior and is going to graduate in June!”

“I had no idea,” I said.

“Now I didn’t get a look at the form myself, but I asked my contact there to compare the signature on the withdrawal forms with her registration. The signatures don’t seem to match, at least to an untrained eye. The withdrawal form was supposedly dropped off by someone claiming to be Lauren’s mother, but the descriptions don’t match.”

“What the hell?” I asked.

“That’s what led me to take the next step. This morning, I followed the Jacobs to church. At the church, I saw a flyer for a ministry to what they call ‘recovering homosexuals’. Unless I miss my guess, that’s what we’re dealing with here. The question is whether or not your friend is participating voluntarily.”

“I can’t believe that she is,” I said.

“No way!” Katy said vehemently.

“Then I’m going to call a friend of mine in the DuPage County Sheriff’s office. That’s where this church is. I’m also going to let the detectives from the CPD know that the withdrawal form might have been forged. That should light a fire under them.”

“Thanks, Ted. Is there anything else?”

“No. I talked to a good number of people in her address book and nobody has heard from her. They all agree that’s surprising. They also agree with your assessment that she wouldn’t voluntarily participate in counseling that tried to convince her not to be a lesbian.”

“So now what?” I asked.

“Wait for the CPD and DuPage Sheriff to do their thing. Now that they have some actual proof of possible foul play, they’ll be all over it. I’m going to continue watching the person listed on the flyer as the main counselor. He might well lead me right to where she is and then I can simply tell the police.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Keep us posted.”

We hung up and went to tell the others what had been said.

“This is nuts!” Jennifer said. “They basically kidnapped her!”

“You mean like you did with me?” Jessica said in a soft tone of voice.

“Uhm, well, yeah. But it’s different, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think the FBI would see it differently if I’d told them I didn’t want to go. And I might have if we’d been stopped along the way. That’s how bad a shape I was in.”

“Well, I claim special circumstances,” Jennifer said. “And the other girls agree with me, I’m sure. Besides, we weren’t trying to change who you were, just get you to come out of your funk. That’s a far different thing.”

“I’m not ungrateful at all,” Jessica said. “It was the right thing to do. I was just pointing out how the law would have seen it.”

“Her parents really arranged for her to be kidnapped?” Stephanie asked. “That’s just sick!”

“We don’t know who did it. For all we know it was someone at the church, but her parents don’t object.”

“I know it’s not likely,” Abbie said tentatively, “but what if she went voluntarily?”

“Then there isn’t much we can do,” I said. “I just can’t imagine that she did, knowing what I do about her.”

“It’s hard to break things off with your family,” Josie said.

“Not for me it wasn’t,” I said. “Well, except for with my dad and my sister.”

“And yet you’ve struggled with it,” Jennifer said. “Because of your dad.”

I nodded, “I suppose that’s true. But most of us are here because there are issues with our families. We stay away for a reason.”

“So what happens now?” Elyse asked.

“We wait for the police to handle it.”

The doorbell rang just then, and I stood up.

“That will be Claire,” I said. “We have a tutoring session today.”

I went to the front door and let Claire into the house. We went to my study and sat down.

“I’m stuck on this algorithm for finding the shortest path for the salesman.”

“This is a module on recursion?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s happening with your program?”

“It never finishes. I have to break out of it.”

“So what does that tell you?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Think it through,” I said. “Something is preventing it from finishing. What could that be?”

She shrugged so I asked her to step me through her logic, first without her program printout in front of us, then with it. It took about thirty minutes, but she finally realized what she had done wrong.

“This return statement is never executed! The condition is never met because of the way I initialize the variable in the function! So it will just keep going and going forever.”

“Well, until it runs out of memory, or if you’re on a time-sharing system until you use up all your CPU allotment.”

“Will you answer a question for me?” Claire asked.

“About the program?”

She laughed softly, “Yes! How long did it take you to find the error when you looked at the program?”

“That’s not a good question to ask,” I said. “I have at least fifteen additional years of experience!”

She laughed again, and her eyes twinkled, “So I hear. Seriously, though, will you answer?”

“About fifteen seconds because I knew what to look for and what the common mistakes are. I’ve made them all myself!”

“Wow! Fifteen seconds? That was fast!” she said, smirking.

My sister had warned me that Claire might flirt during our next tutoring session, and the warning seemed to be accurate. The question was, should I ignore it or play along. Neither option committed me to anything, and Claire was indeed cute as a button - not pretty, but cute. Because Jessica and Kara had been part of that same conversation, I saw no harm in playing along a bit.

“Words no guy wants to hear in certain contexts!” I chuckled.

“So how long does it usually take?” she asked with twinkle in her eye.

“That all depends on the combination of hardware, software, and firmware!” I said deadpan. “And the input-output rate.”

Claire laughed hard, “Good one!”

“Is that it for tutoring?” I asked.

“Yes. I need to get back to the computer lab to work on this so I can turn it in on Friday. Thanks a lot!”

She opened her purse and took out three fives and handed them to me, “For services rendered!” she said with a giggle.

“Call me if you need more help,” I said.

“I will! Count on it!”

I walked her to the front door and then went back to the sunroom with my family.

“What have you said to Claire, Squirt?” I asked my sister.

“Did she flirt with you?” she said, arching an eyebrow.

“Very, very lightly. Just a bit of silly innuendo. I responded in kind, and she let it drop at that point. What have you said to her?”

“Nothing like that, big brother! I promise. Just about your business and your family. She asked about your situation even before that Rap Session where Marie Annette brought it up, because it’s very obvious it’s not conventional!”

“Now THERE’S an understatement if I ever heard one!” Abbie laughed.

“I just explained the situation with your kids and your wives and Elyse. She asked some other questions, but I was careful about what I said. I promise!”

“I believe you,” I said gently. “I’m just surprised a bit.”

“Why? Because no college Freshman girl has ever flirted with a married professor? Ever?”

All the girls laughed.

“Are you going to kiss her, Dad?” Jesse asked with a laugh.

“That is none of your business, you little turkey!” I chuckled.

“Daddy likes kissing!” Birgit giggled.

“Yes he does!” Kara said. “Oh, yes he does!”

October 29, 1990, Chicago, Illinois

“Steve, Mr. Farley is on the line for you,” Keri announced over the intercom on Monday afternoon.

She put the call through.

“I heard back from my police contacts. Your friend is at a church retreat camp out near Woodstock on the Kishwaukee River. The camp doesn’t appear to have a phone number listed, so that might explain the lack of communication.”

“Do you know if she’s there voluntarily?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question with certainty. The McHenry County Sheriff is sending a deputy to find out. We should hear back no later than tomorrow morning.”

“Call my cellular phone, any time, day or night,” I said. “And thanks.”

We hung up and I dialed Katy’s number at work to tell her.

“I’m going to drive out there!” she said.

“Just wait, Katy,” I pleaded. “Let law enforcement handle it. It won’t be that much longer. You don’t want to get into any trouble.”

“There’s NO WAY that she’s there voluntarily!”

“All things being equal, I agree. But remember what happened with Jessica. Either way, we’ll know. And I’m sure you’ll be able to talk to her. Just wait a bit, please.”

“When will he call you back?”

“As soon as he hears from the McHenry County Sheriff. I asked him to call my cellular phone day or night, as soon as he hears anything. It’ll be OK, Katy. At least we know she’s safe!”

“Safe? That’s a laugh! She’s with a bunch of religious whack jobs who think being gay is a disease!”

“I hear you. Just finish out your work day and wait for Mr. Farley to call back.”

I hoped Katy listened to me, but I wasn’t sure that she was going to. After we hung up, I went to talk to Elyse, then tried to focus on coding for the last half-hour before I had to meet Jessica.

I was happy later that afternoon when Katy arrived home from work. That meant she hadn’t driven out to the camp. We had dinner and my wives and I went to karate. As we were walking home, I received a call from Ted Farley on my cellular phone.

“It’s complicated,” he said. “Do you know why she would want to talk to your wife?”

“My wife? Jessica?”

“Uh, no, the other one - Kara.”

“No idea. Is she staying there? Or is she coming home?”

“She’s not coming home tonight. After that, it’s unclear. She wanted Kara to come out and talk to her tomorrow. Is that possible?”

“Let me check,” I said.

I covered the mic and turned to Kara, “She wants you to drive out to Woodstock tomorrow and talk to her.”

“I could go after my morning lab. It’s too late to cancel or find a substitute.”

I relayed the information to Ted and he provided the details of where Lauren was, and said that there wouldn’t be any trouble for Kara to go there. I thanked him and hung up.

“Katy is going to lose it,” Jessica said. “She’s going to want to go along.”

“We have to convince her otherwise. Whatever the issue is, Lauren wants to talk to Kara.”

“Do you think she might have had a breakdown like I did?” Kara asked. “You know, when I broke off with you?”

“Have you talked to her about that?” I asked.

“Yes. We had a long talk about the Bible, God, sin, and church. She had her own struggles with her faith. She still believes, and I think, she has a huge internal contradiction going on.”

“You haven’t said anything about that,” Jessica observed.

“It was a private talk,” Kara said. “Much like her talks with Jennifer. She’s still confused, though there is no question she loves Katy deeply.”

“That’s not going to go over well with Katy,” I sighed.

“Let me talk to her,” Kara said.

When we arrived home we let Kara shower first so she could talk to Katy, then Jessica and I got in the shower together.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think Lauren made a mistake of coming out to her parents and moving in with Katy before she was sure of herself. I’m just afraid of how Katy is going to be badly hurt if things go south.”

“It sounds as if she went there voluntarily,” Jessica said.

“I agree. And that doesn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, if you know what I mean. Withdrawing from school seems like something extreme.”

“Could she be reinstated?”

“I have no idea. I suppose she could claim she didn’t do it, because according to Mr. Farley the signature didn’t appear to match hers properly. My only concern at the moment is for her mental and emotional health. School can wait. Even your Residency could wait for a year.”

“True.”

We got out of the shower, dried off, and dressed. When we went downstairs the door to the ‘Indian’ room was closed and I assumed that Kara was in there with Katy. Jessica and I went to the great room where Elyse and Abbie had the kids. I told Elyse what had happened and we sat down to watch CNN. It was nearly thirty minutes before Kara came to join us. Katy went straight up to her room.

“She’s very upset,” Kara said. “She insisted on going with me, and I’m not sure she’s convinced that it’s a bad idea to do that.”

“Should I go talk to her?” I asked.

“No. Just leave her alone for now, I think.”

“OK. Take one of the BMW’s tomorrow. Leave the minivan for Abbie.”

“Are either of you going anywhere tomorrow?” she asked.

“Not me,” I said. “I simply don’t have time to be out of the office!”

“And I’ll be in surgery all day,” Jessica added.

“My Prelude is here, too,” Elyse said. “You’re always welcome to use it if it is.”

“Thanks, but I’ll take Steve’s car. I don’t get to drive stick very often.”

October 30, 1990, Chicago, Illinois

Kara had enlisted Jennifer’s help, and managed to convince Katy to go to work, though it had been touch and go. I gave Kara my cellular phone so that she could call me or Katy or whomever she needed at any time. After breakfast, Elyse and I headed to the NIKA offices. I made sure to let Keri know I didn’t have my mobile phone, and then went to my office.

Mid-morning, Elyse brought me two hiring requests - one for Tim’s replacement, and one for an additional consultant. She also had a form from Cindi for hiring a Novell support tech, moving the hiring up from January.

“Specifically a Novell tech?” I asked. “Our biggest sites are going to Microsoft networks, at least for the database.”

“She’ll cross-train, but she needs someone who can hit the ground running with Novell.”

“For the consultants, is Charlie planning on entry-level?”

“For one of them. The other one she wants someone with at least three years of experience with Unix. She has more work from SPSS on their RS/6000’s than we can handle with the current team. It’s not quite full-time, but with the other RS/6000 work we have, she’ll keep them busy.”

“For the entry-level one, make sure she talks to IIT. Do you have the financial summary?”

She slid a paper in front of me that showed we’d still be in the black in terms of operational expenses even with hiring three people.

“This looks pretty good,” I said nodding. “This retention rate? How confident are you and Cindi about the maintenance numbers for next year?”

“It includes 90% of the revenue for customers that have renewed at least once, and 75% of the revenue from new customers.”

“And how does that compare with the historical numbers?”

Elyse smiled, “You know, every day you sound more and more like a CEO.”

“Fuck you, Elyse!” I chuckled.

“Here? Now? That might cause a commotion! I wasn’t giving you grief!”

“I took it as an insult!” I smirked. “So how do the numbers compare?”

“Our actual retention rate for support fees from existing customers is around 92% historically. For new customers, it runs around 90% as well, but it’s been highly variable over the past five years. Basically, the more small firms we sign up, the lower the percentage that sign up for maintenance. I agree with Cindi’s proposal to lower the cost of those contracts by about 10%. She thinks that will make a difference, and it won’t hurt our revenues much, and might actually increase them.”

I nodded, “I agree. I read all the proposals for pricing for next year. I was going to talk to you about that later today. Go ahead with the pricing schedule. You’ve kept it below the rate of inflation, which is good PR. I’m curious how you can do that?”

“Efficiency. We’ve increased the number of clients faster than we’ve needed to increase staff. We haven’t had to add an additional phone support person in some time, though that’s going to change soon enough.”