The Haunted

Eighteen

Oscar Cortinez wanted to sue the school district.

He was a longtime history teacher at the high school, and his contract had not been renewed for the coming school year. The district claimed it was for purely financial reasons—across-the-board budget cuts had been made throughout the district—but Oscar contended that it was the fact that he’d taught “the truth” about local history that had cost him his job. He’d gotten in hot water before for teaching off-curriculum material, but had successfully defended himself by pointing out that he had covered the required subject in the required way and had simply taught his students additional facts that inconveniently conflicted with the conventional narrative. The principal at his school had not liked that, and neither had the suits at the district office, and he and his union rep had had several more meetings with various administrators over the past few years.

He needed more than a union rep this time, though, and that was why he’d enlisted Claire.

It was easily the biggest and best case she’d had since leaving Los Angeles, and Claire was grateful that it had fallen into her lap at this time. Ever since the party, she’d been completely obsessed with monitoring everything that happened in or around their house. Every. Single. Thing. Scrutinizing the children for any unusual behavior, jumping at every stray noise, mentally cataloging the slightest shifts in the shafts of sunlight that streamed through their windows. Julian said she needed to back off and calm down or she’d go crazy, and she agreed, so it was good to have something else to focus her attention on, good to be able to direct more of her attention toward work.

Besides, if this case had a big payday—not an unreasonable expectation—they might be able to get out of the house and find someplace else to live.

The thought fueled her.

They met in her office for a consultation that lasted most of the day. Oscar explained that he believed he had been singled out and let go solely because of the subject matter he taught, a blatant infringement on his academic freedom. He’d been a model instructor until he started teaching an enhanced version of the standard syllabus, but after that he had become a pariah in the district, although his work had been recognized and rewarded by interested outside parties. He had documentation to back this up: a series of e-mails and memos covering the controversy, a stack of glowing evaluations from a period of fifteen straight years that suddenly grew harsh and critical when the current principal came on board four years ago, commendations from various teaching organizations and historical societies. His complaints seemed legitimate, and when he pointed out that no other history teachers in the district had been let go and that two of them had less seniority than he did, she told him that she thought he had a case.

Over the next two days she did some research, and the news when she saw him again wasn’t encouraging. “They might have a case,” she admitted. “They’re claiming that test scores in your classes have been falling consistently for the past three years, and that in this era of accountability, they could not justify protecting your position at the expense of instructors whose students have been performing better on the tests.”

He snorted. “Tests? What tests? That standardized pap the politicians foisted on us? My tests are twice as hard and three times as comprehensive as those generic multiple- guessers we’re supposed to teach to.” He leaned forward. “For over ten years now, America’s been scapegoating teachers: ‘We’re falling behind the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans because there are too many bad teachers, and we can’t get rid of them because they have tenure. Oh, and they’re bankrupting the country because they have good pensions.’ Well, the teachers in China, Japan and Korea have tenure and good pensions! Has that caused their educational systems to fail? No. Because their societies value education! They treat their teachers with respect. How do you expect American students to treat us with respect when their parents don’t, when the politicians don’t, when the media doesn’t, when all they hear is how bad our country’s teachers are? You know what? The Asian kids in my class do just as well on those standardized tests as the ones actually in Asia! You know why? Because their parents make them study and do their homework. If every parent did that, maybe we wouldn’t be falling so far behind!”

“We’re getting a little offtrack here,” Claire said gently.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m a good teacher. I always have been. And the reason I was let go is not the test scores of my students. That’s just cover; that’s just the excuse they’re giving. The reason is, I teach real history. Yes, I teach the requirements. But I go deeper. And these days, if you deviate at all from the party line, you’re penalized for it. Initiative used to be rewarded; now it’s not only discouraged, it’s punished.”

“But the test scores of your students have fallen since you began teaching this ‘real’ history. I have them here in front of me.”

“Sure,” he admitted. “You know why? Because I went from teaching honors history to regular history.” He leaned forward again. “You know how politicians always talk about the importance of merit pay and rewarding ‘good’ teachers? Well, the ‘good’ teachers are the ones whose students do well on the standardized tests. And here’s the dirty little secret: teachers who teach the smart kids have students who do better on those tests than those who teach the low learners. I was one of those ‘good’ teachers. Now I’m not. Because the principal assigned me a different class. Not because my teaching skills suddenly deserted me. And not because I’ve expanded the class curriculum to include information outside the scope of the textbook.”

Claire nodded. “Okay.”

“So we’ll sue?”

“I think you have a legitimate grievance, and it’s quite possible we can get your job back. But this is by no means a slam dunk. Judges and juries, if it gets to that point, are notoriously unreliable. It’s not like you see on TV. There’s a chance the court could rule against you. Then you’d not only be out of a job, but you’d be out quite a bit of money.”

“But you think I have a shot?”

“I think you have a shot.”

“Let’s do it.”

She nodded. “All right. We’ll go after them. As long as you know the risks.”

He smiled. “What’s life without a little risk?”

Claire stood, and they shook on it. She hadn’t had much time to delve into the substance of the teacher’s lessons—she’d been focused more on the legalities of his case—but she knew from their discussions and from her brief perusal of his classroom notes that the “real” history Oscar Cortinez taught involved ethnic slaughter and very bad deeds by some very famous men. She wasn’t aware of any of this. When she’d gone to school here in the mid- 1980s, it was a much cheerier version of the town’s history they were spoon-fed. Which meant that she was going to have to do a lot of reading up in order to familiarize herself with the issues that she planned to argue were the heart of this case.

She walked Oscar to the door and said good-bye, promising to call him as soon as she put together a rough draft of their complaint. Standing in the doorway, she saw Pam wave to her from across the street. Claire purposely looked away, walking back to her desk. One of these days, she was probably going to have to speak to Pam again, maybe even talk about what happened, but that day was not today.

She sat down, attempted to concentrate on the work before her, but the sight of Pam had brought back to her everything that had happened at the housewarming party, and she was overcome with a heavy feeling of dread. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t, and finally she broke down and called home in order to reassure herself that Julian and the kids were all right and everything was fine.

After dinner that night, Claire got on her laptop. She fully intended to access some of the historical sites to which Oscar Cortinez had given her the addresses, but once her browser opened, she decided instead to look up information about their house. Julian had already attempted to research the previous owners, and while he had not been able to locate or contact any of them, he had managed to find several articles and a police report about the man who had died in their basement. There were no pictures of the man—though there was little doubt that he was the figure they had seen shuffling down the hallway and into the living room—but the background information on him was pretty complete: Jim Swanson, age fifty-six, unemployed pipe fitter, Jardine native, divorced, ex-wife living