A Death in Wichita Read Online Free PDF

way?
    Of all the people in Scott’s family, Lindsey had the strongest bond with his father, so she contacted him. John had observed his son drifting away from his responsibilities as a husband and a father, while drifting toward fringe politics and religion. What he needed was a wake-up call, so John suggested that Lindsey toss Scott out of the house, let him think about his behavior and appreciate what he had at home. That would turn him around. She took the advice.
    Living on his own, Scott hooked up with an older woman in Independence, Missouri, just outside of Kansas City, who only furthered his view about taxes. Through her and other contacts, he began meeting people in other protest movements that were critical of the U.S. government.
    One day he came back home to Lindsey with a girlfriend who was as erratic and politically extreme as he was. To Lindsey’s chagrin, the two of them began kissing and fondling each other in front of her and her son. Scott showed Nicholas, age five, images of aborted fetuses, the evils of abortion now one of his strongest-held views.
    Lindsey watched in horror—before hustling them out of the house.
    “You just can’t do this to a five-year-old,” she says. “Scott and I had so many arguments at that time about abortion and other adult topics that you don’t bring up with a child.”
    Her choices were painful. She could keep trying to help her husband, but he’d shown no desire to help himself. If she filed for a divorce, the couple would likely end up with joint custody of Nicholas. Since meeting the girlfriend, Lindsey knew she couldn’t allow her son to be alone with his father, not to mention the extremists he had begun associating with. If Nicholas left the house with his father for a joint custody visit, he might not come back, she worried, or he could be harmed. She’d never forgotten the day her husband had fallen asleep on the sofa, with their young child headed out the front door into traffic. What if the couple ran off to another state and took Nick with them? Lindsey had already taught her son a secret password so that if somebody came to pick him up at school or a friend’s house and didn’t know that word, Nick must refuse to get into the car.
    After weighing her options, Lindsey asked her husband to return home; she recommitted herself to repairing the marriage for the sake of their son. Scott agreed, and he was soon back on the couch watching anti-government videos, imploring her to “get educated” and stop being so ignorant. In high school, he’d used recreational drugs for escape. Now religion and politics helped him cope.
    He wasn’t the only one having trouble adjusting to a changing America.

III
    In the mid-1980s, Dr. Tiller hit bottom. As a churchgoing registered Republican who belonged to the oldest country club in Wichita, he wasn’t raised to be a political activist. He was a man who liked corny jokes, mystery novels, floppy hats, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, James Bond, ice cream, and rooting for his beloved Jayhawks up in Lawrence. He loved swimming and playing with his four children. His decision to perform abortions wasn’t an ideological one, but it put him at odds with certain members of his community and with elements of his faith (although a significant majority of Americans, and of Kansans, about 75 percent, supported a woman’s right to choose).
    The problem wasn’t that he was doing something illegal; between 1973 and 1992, Kansas placed no restrictions on abortions or when they could be done. The problem was how deeply abortion disturbed some of his fellow citizens. The first church Tiller and his family attended in Wichita asked him to leave because of the feelings his presence had stirred within the congregation, so they’d moved on to Reformation Lutheran Church on the well-heeled northeast side of town.
    Tiller attempted to fit in to Wichita. He served as staff president at Wesley Medical Center (the two other major local