BOOK PREVIEW: MAUREEN FAULKNER'S OWN STORY
December 7, 2006
Michael Smerconish
Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of the murder of
Police Officer Danny Faulkner by Mumia Abu-Jamal. At long last, Faulkner's
widow, Maureen, is preparing to tell her story in print. Here for the first
time are the opening words of her forthcoming personal account, which I'm
writing. All the proceeds will go to a not-for-profit established in the
officer's name. Look for the book next year.
The Premonition
Maureen Faulkner was anxious for her mother, Annamae Foley,
to come for a visit.
In the little more than a year since Maureen's marriage, she
hadn't seen as much of Annamae as she would have liked. So, when her husband
made plans to take a weeklong hunting trip to Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains,
Maureen extended the invitation. She was thrilled when Annamae said she'd join
her for a Saturday overnighter.
Maureen looked forward to having her mother visit. It would
give them the chance to shop, to chat, and to provide her mother with a glimpse
of her happy home. Maureen was very much in love with her policeman husband and
fully appreciated the promising life they had began to build together. She
looked forward to starting their family.
Her mother was a consummate worrier and Maureen wanted
Annamae to know that she was getting along fine in the world. She'd get that
chance the first weekend in December of 1981.
Stamps were 20 cents. Luke had finally married Laura on
General Hospital. Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" was atop the
charts. Dan Fouts was throwing touchdowns in San Diego. President Reagan,
nearing the end of his first year in office, was enabling an expansion by the
CIA into domestic counter-intelligence. And, at 6236 Harley St. in
Philadelphia, 25-year-old Maureen Faulkner excitedly prepared to entertain her
mom.
Annamae adored her youngest child and only daughter - cute,
precocious Maureen - always a feisty companion to her busy mom. At first, she
had been wary of Maureen's choice of a spouse, sensing the potential impermanence
of his dangerous occupation, but she soon succumbed to the tall, personable,
earnest young fellow with the shy smile her daughter had fallen in love with.
Both parents loved Danny like another son.
That Saturday, Annamae eagerly made the 45-minute trip on
the Schuylkill Expressway from the home she shared with Maureen's father in
suburban Valley Forge to her daughter's rowhouse in Southwest Philadelphia.
There, she unpacked in one of the two small bedrooms on the second floor.
"Cozy" is how Maureen likes to recall that home. "There was
nothing extravagant about it, yet it was the kind of place where both families
and all our friends always felt welcome."
The weekend went according to plan. They went Christmas
shopping on Saturday and delighted in sewing curtains for the new house, and in
candid conversations about their many interests. Mother and daughter had always
gotten along well, and it was wonderful for both to enjoy once again the
kinship that mothers and daughters don't often get to indulge in once a new
husband and job enter the picture.
The chipper spirit of the weekend was soon transformed,
however, when Annamae woke up on Sunday morning. There was a marked change in
her demeanor that she was reluctant to talk about. Over coffee in the small
kitchen, Maureen sensed Annamae's preoccupation, but, despite her prodding, she
couldn't get her mother to share what was troubling her.
By midday, Annamae was ready to talk. Maureen recalls:
"She said she couldn't sleep last night. I asked her, 'What's the matter,
Mom?' Finally, she told me that she had had a nightmare that frightened her -
she saw one of the boys on the pavement, bleeding. 'One of my boys' is how she
put it, meaning one of my four brothers, Jim, Mike, Lawrence or Francis.
"It continued to bother her a lot, and she was visibly
uncomfortable all day. When a neighbor's dog started howling that afternoon,
she was frightened enough to say, 'Maureen, I don't like this feeling I'm
having - I'm sure something terrible is going to happen to one of the boys.'
"Before leaving, she called each of my brothers and
told them to be very careful because of what she had dreamt, that one of them
was lying on a sidewalk, bleeding."
Annamae's reading of her premonition was wrong. It wasn't
one of her own sons she saw. It was her son-in-law, Danny. One week after
Annamae's dream at Danny's home, he would die in the line of duty - his
lifeless young body seeping innocent blood onto a frozen Philadelphia street.
Michael Smerconish can be heard
weekdays 5:30-9 a.m. on the Big Talker, 1210/AM. Contact him via the Web at www.mastalk.com.