For I Have Sinned

by Kristen Houghton

  While most of the clippings and copies from books are dated no later than fifty years ago, there are some going back to the fourteen hundreds. I see copies of historical documentation of atrocities committed with the official approval of the Church. One of these was the authorization of procuring young boys for the castrati choir. There are explicit legal testimonies from some of the castrati detailing the sexual abuse they endured at the hands of the priests all during their boyhood.

  I find handwritten papers, obviously copied from old files and books, on what happened to Dutch boys in the 1950’s who were abused by diocesan priests.

  “Dutch boys who accused priests of sexual abuse, including sodomy, were surgically castrated to rid them of, (what the Church declared was), their homosexuality, but also as a means of punishing those who dared accused clergy of this abuse”, wrote one Dutch investigative journalist named Joep Dohmen. He discovered that the castrations were done by Catholic doctors recruited by the Roman Catholic Church while the young boys were students or altar boys living on church grounds. Performed in psychiatric wards, without any type of anesthesia, the surgical castrations were authorized by the Church hierarchy, official seal and all.

  Will gives a low whistle and mutters “Christ.” Myrtle closes her eyes and shakes her head.

  We read about one of the victims, a young man named Henrik Heithuis, who was castrated at the age of twenty in 1956 after accusing several clergymen of years of rape, which began when he was ten years old.

  After the castration, Heithuis spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital A psychiatrist who examined him stated officially that, “This man has been totally maimed; physically, emotionally, and mentally.”

  There is a clipping about Church authorized payouts to sexually abusive priests after they left their dioceses and of these pedophiles being provided with room and board courtesy of the Church. I find a newspaper copy of a letter written by SNAP to a Catholic archdiocese asking, “In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?”

  There are hand-drawn pictures of the hideous yellow-eyed hyena and the innocent animal victims. The pictures have the same themes that were found in Joshua’s backpack

  And there’s something else; something that explains the sadness in Joshua’s eyes in those pictures at the McElroy house. Written in a boyish hand is a detailed account of Joshua’s sexual abuse at the hands of a parish priest. A journal of papers, folded and tied together with string, begins with the account of his first abuse at the age of nine to his rape at the age of ten and continuing until a few months before Joshua McElroy went missing. The priest called the rapes penance for the boy’s sins. Joshua had decided he had only one desperate course to take .I have to run away because no matter how much pain it causes my family, no matter how I hurt Marie, I have to do this to survive. They are all so unaware of what has been happening. I can never tell them just as I can’t let him ever, EVER, hurt me again. He has destroyed my spirit. And Joey, the one everyone called a sweet kid, a good boy; Joey is now dead.”

  Who is Joey? Was he abused also and did it cause him to take his life?

  There’s a bottle of Kentucky bourbon in my desk drawer. A client had given it to me as a present after I had helped her discover that her husband, who had filed for divorce, had a girlfriend and a significant amount of money hidden away in a Cayman Island account.

  I pour two stiff drinks into plastic cups for Will and for me. Even Myrtle takes a shot but adds water to it.

  Now I know why Joshua drew predators and innocent victims and why he had a fascination with reading about people who were able to escape their captors. There’s a possibility that he may have run away with that boy named Joey. I ask Will to do a check on missing children named Joey from that area. He keys the specifics into his phone and sends it to The Center for Missing Children and local authorities.

  “My God, Cate. We’re looking at details of a crime that was ongoing for over seven years. You need to find out if that priest he mentioned is still around. This is convictable evidence here. You might want to take it to our sex crimes unit to see what they have to say.” Will pours himself another drink and hands me the bottle to do the same.

  “I will do that, but first I have to decide how to tell Marie or even if I should tell her anything until I can locate this priest. I’m assuming he’s from St. Matthew’s.”

  “Yeah, you’d better do that first. Once sex crimes get hold of it, it’s out of your hands. They won’t want a private investigator involved in what they’re doing.”

  Myrtle is sitting there looking out of the window. It’s well past the time she usually leaves and she’s already called Harry to say that she’d be late. Without taking her eyes away from where she is looking she says, “Do you think that Marie had any idea of what was happening to her brother?”

  I look at Will and he shakes his head.

  “No, Myrtle," I say firmly, “Even if she suspected that something wasn’t quite right, I truly believe she didn’t know what was going on. Most family members and close friends never know or even suspect what’s happening. And we have to remember that Marie’s family was very deep into their religion. You have to see the house, religious objects and pictures are everywhere. It would be hard for Joshua to tell them what was happening and just as hard for them to believe it. Even though they loved him, they would find it incomprehensible that it was happening. Plus, he was led to believe that this was his penance for whatever sins the priest told him he had committed.

  “You know, Melissa said to me a few days ago, that religion is a subtle form of brainwashing. Subtle because it begins in childhood when you’re so young and your mind is malleable. Subtle or not, it’s still brainwashing and the effects of it are powerful.”

  “Give me the child until the age of seven and I will show you the man,” quotes Will. “That’s attributed to Ignatius Loyola, a man who had a strict military background until he decided to form the Jesuit order. The members of the order are also known as God’s Marines and that alone says a great deal. Get a child in his formative years, tell him what he should believe, and he will grow to manhood believing all you have told him is true. Goes for girls too.” I nod in agreement.

  “And because of the brainwashing the child never tells anyone about the sexual abuse. He or she feels ashamed, almost as if they were to blame. Look at the recent comment made by a priest-psychiatrist who counsels pedophile priests! He said that youngsters were often to blame when priests sexually abused them because the child was the seducer.” I stand and stretch.

  “A vulnerable kid can be led by the abuser to believe that bullshit. Brainwashed to believe the victim is the bad one.”

  “Maybe all religions are brainwashing,” says Myrtle who goes to her synagogue only on high holy days. “I don't feel especially brainwashed, but then I'm pragmatic.”

  “What about you Will? Do you feel brainwashed?”

  “No, but then Francesca had no problem changing religions when she was dissatisfied with the one in which she was raised. That led me to believe that no religion is infallible. You?”

  “Me? I didn’t grow up in a particularly religious family. My parents were loving and kind but I was exposed to different beliefs and ideas. I know as much about Buddhism as I do Christianity. I’m more spiritual than religious. Add to that that I have a hard time with those who I think abuse authority.”

  We grow silent then and just sit and sip our bourbon. I know alcohol is supposed to blur your senses but sometimes I think it clears them. So much about Joshua and his disappearance made sense now. Even the utter neatness of his room. Now I no longer thought that Marie had put it in perfect order after her brother went missing. It was more than likely left like that by Joshua. Sexually abused children need to be in control of the simple things in their lives and having everything in its place is a symptom of being able to c
ontrol their environment.

  I am going to wait a few days to tell Marie what I found. She needs to be prepared first. She has called my cell phone and the office leaving messages on both for me to call her back. I will, but not yet. There’s more to this story than just Joshua running away. I just have to find out what it is and that will take a few days.

  With bourbon glasses in hand, the three of us go back to the papers to see if there is a clue that may have been missed. Myrtle makes copies of everything in the box, Will and I read through the articles and Joshua’s notes. It’s going to be a long night.

  _________

  “I remember the first time you served Mass as my altar boy. Do you remember that?”

  “I remember everything, Father.”

  Chapter19

  We didn’t leave my office until almost midnight. Even Myrtle stayed and, instead of having her wake up Harry to come pick her up Will drove her home. I waved to them as they drove away. Long day for all of us but at least I had found out why Joshua went missing. Now I had to decide how to use the information to find him alive – or not.

  I am sitting in my car with my eyes closed for just a second when I feel someone try the driver side door handle. A mugger, a rapist is my first thought. I react by opening the door quickly and slamming it into a man who is trying to get into my car. He wobbles backwards, yells “No!” and falls unsteadily forward into me as I quickly get out of the car. His weight knocks into me hard. He tries to punch my face but I duck sideways. There’s a heavy smell of cheap wine on his breath when he is up against my body. Balling my fists, I clock him with a right to his face follow up by two kicks to his body and another punch to his jaw. He goes down in a crash next to the open door of my car. I give him a solid kick in the ribs and then place my foot on his throat.

  “Stop it! Don’t hurt me anymore, stop it. He said you wouldn’t hurt me. I was supposed to talk to you! Get the hell away from me!”

  With my foot still firmly planted on his throat, I reach back into the open car and grab my gun off the seat. “Who are you?” I shout, pointing it at him. “Sit up and let me see who you are.”

  He keeps his hands over his face and scrunches into a fetal position. He is sobbing and saying, “No, no more, please don’t hurt me.”

  I keep the gun on him but lower my voice. “I won’t hurt you. I just want to know who you are and why you’re trying to get into my car.”

  After a few minutes he tries to sit up but stays hunched in a protective position, shoulders down and arms folded over his chest. He looks up at me through a mess of dirty hair half covering his face. “Are you gonna shoot me, lady?”

  I have to determine if he has a knife or a gun on him. “Show me your hands.”

  He unfolds his arms and shows me that his hands are empty.

  “Stand up. Tell me who you are.”

  He has difficulty standing but finally gets up crying and wiping his nose on his sleeve. There isn’t enough light to determine his age but, from his clothes and the body odor coming from him, he appears to be an inhabitant of the streets. There is a dark puddle forming by his feet and I see that he has wet himself. I lower the gun.

  “I’m not going to shoot you. Just tell me who you are, okay?”

  “I’m Bo’s friend.”

  ****

  Bo’s friend; no name, no anything, just Bo’s friend. Bo the homeless man to whom I give money every week, the man I bought lunch for recently, the Bo who told me he had a friend who didn’t like priests.

  I put my gun away; I don’t want to scare him. It’s bad enough that I see a swelling under his eye and on his chin when I look closer at him. Maybe I should take him to an emergency room. Probably not though, if he’s like Bo, he shies away from doctors and hospitals, afraid that they’ll make him go to a shelter or psych ward. Most street people hate shelters.

  “Let’s go sit over there on the curb, Bo’s friend," I say quietly. “Do your ribs hurt?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your side, this side. Does it hurt?” I touch him gently and he winces. Shit. I probably broke a rib or two. He needs to be checked by a doctor. “I’m going to call a friend of mine to check you out,” I say pulling out my cell phone to call Giles.

  “I’m not goin’ to no hospital.” Even through his alcoholic haze, he looks scared. I lay a hand gently on his shoulder and say, “Don’t be afraid, he’ll come here to you. He’s a good guy.”

  Within twenty minutes of my call a sleepy Giles pulls up next to my car. He has a bag with him which is not technically a doctor’s bag but has the necessary medical supplies needed for emergencies. I introduce him to the man I kick-boxed into submission.

  “Hi Giles; thanks for coming. This is Bo’s friend. I think his ribs might be broken.”

  Giles lifts an eyebrow but says nothing except hello to my victim. “My name is Giles and I’m going to make sure you're alright. Can you walk?”

  When my victim nods yes, Giles suggests to me that we all go into my office for privacy. Bo’s friend is hesitant about going into my building but Giles convinces him that it’s better to be examined inside my office since the police might show at any time. Nice lie well told. Bo’s friend understands that. Besides hospitals, he probably avoids police too.

  It’s interesting to note that in the thirty minutes or so since the incident occurred, there has been no sign of a squad car or an ambulance. Nobody on the block has called the police or EMTs which speaks volumes about the inhabitants of the area. People see things but no one wants to get involved.

  Upstairs in my office, Giles checks out Bo’s friend and asks me, “Your handiwork?”

  I shrug my shoulders and nod yes. “I thought I was being attacked.”

  “Pity the guy who attacks you.”

  It turns out that one of his ribs is more than likely cracked, but not broken. Giles can’t be one hundred percent sure unless an X-ray is taken. But since Bo’s friend won’t allow us to take him to a hospital he has to go on feel and experience. He tapes it up and tells my victim he’ll check in on him tomorrow late afternoon. Then he cleans the wounds on his face, gives him some common over-the-counter meds for inflammation and pain, and tells him to sleep flat on his back. He makes Bo’s friend lie down on my couch.

  “Do you have a place to sleep?” he asks.

  “I sleep at Bo’s place.”

  Giles looks at me to confirm that Bo indeed has a place but I shake my head. I really don’t know.

  “Where is that?”

  Bo’s friend looks at me defiantly for a minute then back to Giles. “The warehouse, down the block. He has a room down the stairs in the back. Bo’s got a warm place. He’s lucky.”

  “Keep sitting there and just rest for a few minutes.”

  He does as he’s told. I sit next to him. “Why were you trying to get into my car?”

  He looks at me as if I should know why.

  “Bo told me to talk to you. He said you’d buy me pizza if I talked to you.”

  “Talk to me about what?” I tiredly wonder if Bo tells all his friends on the street that I’ll buy pizza for them if they only come and say hi.

  “Nothing. I forget but he said you would buy me pizza if I talked to you. He said it’s important for me to talk to you.”

  “Are you hungry?” I ask. He nods. “I don’t have pizza but I do have doughnuts from this morning. Let me get them for you.”

  I get the leftover box of pastries brought in by Myrtle earlier today. There are four big gooey ones left. With that open box and a bottle of water, I walk back to Bo’s friend and set it all on a cart that has nothing on it but computer paper.

  He devours two before he even opens the bottle of water. Then looking at Giles he says,

  “I like doughnuts. They fill me up.”

  “Come back tomorrow afternoon after five-thirty and I’ll have pizza,” I say encouragingly.

  “That's a promise, she will,” Giles tells him. “Finish up and we’ll walk you down the
block.” To me he says, “Let's get him over to where your friend Bo has his place and then we can leave. It’s going for one-thirty and I can see that you’re beat.”

  He checks my right hand, which swelled significantly from its collision with the jawbone of Bo's friend. “Ice it when you get home and take some aspirin.”

  We let our guest devour the last two doughnuts and the water. I give him two more bottles of water to take back for him and Bo and we all troop downstairs to the street.

  “Remember to come back tomorrow around five-thirty. I’ll have pizza for you. You can bring Bo too.” I smile winningly but Bo’s friend isn’t about to become friendly with the woman who cracked his ribs and gave him a swollen jaw. Giles repeats what I said and tells him that he has to check his ribs tomorrow.

  “It’s really important that I check you. If you’re injured too badly someone might have to call an ambulance. I know that you don’t want that. It’s better to come here.”

  He shakes his head yes to Giles and then looks at me.

  “Can we go out for pizza? Like you did with Bo?”

  “Only if Dr. Barrett says that your ribs are alright.” I play my card like a pro. With a promise of going out for pizza I can make sure that he’ll show up to let Giles examine him.

  “Can I tell Bo we’re going for pizza?”

  “Yes, absolutely. Tell him we’re going out for pizza and whatever else you want,” I say expansively. I feel horrible for having done what I did to him even though I thought he was a mugger or worse.

  Giles and I walk Bo’s Friend down the block to the old warehouse where he disappears into a dark stairway. On the walk back to where I always park I fill Giles in on what I found out about Joshua and his abuse. Giles stops in the middle of the sidewalk, lets out a low whistle, and puts his arm around me. He doesn’t say a word just holds me for a few minutes.

  Back at my car I thank Giles again and he pulls me close for a hug. “Go home, get some sleep. I’ll be here tomorrow around six.” He sniffs the bourbon on my breath. “You okay to drive?”