“It started out okay. He isn’t that hard to talk to, and he can be funny. And I was kinda pleased he asked me to go along with him. Well, we got this motel room, two double beds, TV, nothing special. I thought we might go to a nice restaurant but there weren’t any nice restaurants around. We found a family-owned place that was okay and then went back to the motel. There was really nothing else to do.
“Gunnison kept saying I should consider it a mini-vacation, but it was a mini-trip to hell,” Anderlee said coldly. “Then he said since we were on vacation, a drink or two was in order.
“I was almost fifteen. Yeah, I thought, I can handle a few drinks. He had this plastic shopping bag with two bottles of Jack Daniels and a six-pack of ginger ale. Then he sends me out to the ice machine while he gets the plastic glasses from the bathroom.”
“Another round?” the waitress asked, appearing from nowhere.
“Sure,” Paul said without looking at her. They waited while she left.
“So we sipped whiskey and ginger ale and watched a little television,” Mark continued. “Gunnison had a second drink and so did I. This one was stronger. But booze wasn’t the only thing in the shopping bag. He had a bottle of skin lotion in there too. He goes, ‘What’s really relaxing, Mark, is a massage. Have you ever had one? I’ll give you one and then you can give me one.’
“I’m getting a funny feeling now but I don’t say a damn word. It’s dark outside by this time, and Gunnison gets up and closes the drapes and puts the safety chain on the door.
“‘Let’s get undressed,’ he says, but then he says, ‘but it’s a good idea to wear jockstraps.’”
The waitress came with their beers. Anderlee waited until she left, neither Barrett nor Kline said a word.
“Gunnison produced two jockstraps from his suitcase. I’m not thinking so clear and my stomach was tightening up. But then I got undressed and there we were, wearing nothing but these jockstraps. He takes the bed spread down and the blanket and has me lie face down on the sheets. Neither one of us was saying anything. He put lotion on my back and shoulders and started rubbing. He rubbed my neck and arms and then moved down to my lower back. I’m starting to freak out. He put lotion on the back of my legs and massaged them down to my ankles… and then my butt.
The other two looked at each other, and then down at the table.
“‘Roll over,’ he told me, but I didn’t want to roll over. By this time I had a hard on. He rolled me over and I’m glad I have the jockstrap on but he could tell I’m excited. He massaged my chest and I’m lying there with my eyes closed. His hands moved down to my stomach and he’s breathing heavy now. He says something about giving a massage is hard work. My eyes were still closed but now his hands were just above the waist band of the supporter. Gunnison was no longer straddling me. He seemed to be kneeling at my side and leaning over me. Then he rubbed my stomach, but his left elbow is right on my prick. His hands stayed on my stomach but his elbow kept pressing down on me.” Mark paused. “And then I came.”
Kline and Barrett hadn’t moved. They lifted their eyes from the table, knowing they just had to look at Anderlee. They wanted to say how sorry they were. But they didn’t know how.
“Gunnison reached for the towel he’d placed on the bed and says he’s going to get the lotion off me. He wiped the lotion and mess I’d made without saying another word—like what he’s doing is the most natural thing in the world.”
What Anderlee didn’t tell his two friends was that he was so upset and confused he had almost cried.
“Okay, Mark,” he says to me, “it’s your turn to do me.”
“Gunnison went over to his bed, pulled the spread down and stretches out on his stomach. I said I wasn’t very good at it and was going to go to bed.
“Gunnison didn’t say anything at first. Then, like after a moment from hell, he said it was okay and he was a little tired too.
“He got up, took his jockstrap off and headed to the bathroom, making sure I saw his boner. He was in the shower a long time and I cleaned up a little and got into my T-shirt and shorts. I hadn’t brought any pajamas. My back was to the bathroom and I pretended I was sleeping when he came back in the room. He got in bed and turned out the light and said good night. That’s what I said too.
“‘Good night, Father.’ I should’ve said, ‘Hey, you forgot to say your night prayers.’ “
Kline and Barrett gurgled little nervous chuckles and sipped their beers wondering what the hell you say to a friend who has been messed with by a priest.
“I was sick and scared and felt like shit. I didn’t sleep at all that night. I don’t know what time it was but I heard him get up and go into the bathroom. I could hear him pissing. He turned the bathroom light out then came back and tried to get into my bed.
“I just said, ‘You’ve got the wrong bed, Father,’ but like I meant it, and he backed off. After that I was terrified he’d try to get into my bed again. That was the worst night of my life.”
Dan slowly shook his head. “The bastard,” he said.
Paul nodded agreement. The eyes of both men seemed to shrink and grow dark, their lips pressed so thin and inward they were invisible. They sat, frozen, for a while. Mark signaled the waitress for another round.
“Gunnison didn’t try anything the next night at the rectory. He stayed in the pastor’s bedroom and I had the guestroom, but we had to use the same bathroom. I found it hard to look at the guy. And listen to this. Before the Saturday evening Mass he asked me if I wanted to be one of the altar servers. I couldn’t believe it. I said no, I’d skip it that time, and next day we drove back without saying hardly anything. When we finally got back to Carroll, it was too late for supper and he asked me if I wanted to go out for pizza. I told him, no, I wasn’t hungry and grabbed my backpack and headed for my cabin. I was sick and tired and starving.”
“So what did he say when you left?” Dan asked.
“He said, ‘Hey, remember you owe me a back rub.’
“Then when I saw him Monday morning he acted like nothin’ had ever happened. I didn’t know what to think. Did he just give me a massage and I got so excited I came? I felt confused, I felt guilty… I felt like shit. So I pretended it didn’t happen and tried to act like everything was okay. After a while I didn’t think about it so much. But I had a secret and it wasn’t a good secret. I never thought of telling anyone—not even you guys.”
Outside the three men let the night air wash over them. Before moving to their cars, Paul asked, “Are you going to talk to Gunnison?”
Mark looked at each of his friends, and as he did his expression changed.
“Oh, yeah. I’m gonna to talk to Gunnison. You bet your ass I am. He lives in that stone house next to the Basilica. I’ve spent a few days watching the place. I know when he comes and goes. I’m going to pay the pervert a surprise visit and, believe me, I’m gonna do more than talk to him.”
Kline and Barrett exchanged an anxious glance.
“First I’m gonna get some money from him. Then I’m gonna make him shit in his pants. And then, when I’m ready, I’m gonna take him down.”
4
The Johns Hopkins University faculty convocation was as tedious and interminable as professor Ian Landers had anticipated. He had distracted himself from the ordeal by stealthily admiring a faculty member he hadn’t noticed before. She sat three rows ahead of him in the tiered auditorium, off to his right. He had spotted her before she had taken her seat. There were quite a few attractive women on the faculty, and some were clearly available, including a few with husbands. But this woman caught his attention as others hadn’t. While his line of sight was restricted to her left profile, it was enough to draw his glance again and again.
Landers had planned to skip the wine and hors d’oeuvres reception that followed the convocation, but changed his mind so he could meet her.
“Hello,” he said simply, approaching her with an outstretched hand, making the most of his British accent, “I
’m Ian…Ian Landers. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Her grip was firm and brief. “I’m Nora Martin. I’m in the psychology department, one of two new hires.”
“I’m in history, medieval history.”
They chatted for the next quarter hour while sipping white wine and nibbling at vegetable egg rolls. When Landers suggested meeting sometime for coffee, Martin didn’t hesitate.
“I’d like that.”
Over coffee four days later Ian said rather directly, “Tell me about yourself…no, let me guess. From your figure—I don’t mean to be too personal here—you’re an athlete.”
“I was an athlete,” Nora responded with a blush. “I went to Penn State on a track scholarship. The 400 meter. I try to keep in shape, but I won’t let anybody time me anymore.”
“And what drew you to psychology?”
“This might surprise you. It was spirituality. In fact, my major research interest is the nexus between psychology and spirituality. I’m coming to see that the healthiest people, from a psychology perspective, are people who are spiritually alive. Right now I’m trying to find the language to write about this without sounding overtly religious. I’m struggling for words that will capture what the mystics speak of as spiritual transcendence that will be acceptable, or at least make some sense, to my secular colleagues and students. Wish me luck!”
“I find that fascinating, Nora, really I do. Here’s why. I’m looking into ambition and power in the prelates of the medieval church. So many of these men were outwardly devout and pious, but spiritually, from the evidence I’ve uncovered, they appear frighteningly shallow. I find little evidence of any authentic spiritual experience. And, as I’m sure you know, most were very suspicious of the mystics of their time…and not a few were sexual libertines.”
Nora sipped her coffee, feeling torn between wanting to know more about Lander’s research and wanting to know more about the man across the table. Trying to sound light and playful she said, “Well, Ian. Your turn. Tell me about yourself.”
“All right,” Landers said with a shy smile that Nora took to mean he might go beyond the British penchant for privacy. “I was born in Leeds thirty-eight years ago. If you’ve ever been to Leeds you know it’s never confused with Oxford or Cambridge. It is…” he took a breath “…a bit dreary. When I was a teenager,” he hesitated, revealing some discomfort, “I discovered that my mother had miscarried twice. I’ve always regretted not having siblings. It was difficult for my parents and difficult for me. My father, Owen, a non-church-going Anglican, was a senior editor at the University of Leeds Press. He loved his job, and he certainly loved books.
“Our apartment was literally filled with books and, for some reason I don’t fully understand, I was drawn to the ones on medieval history. Instead of playing cricket, I spent a lot of time reading. I remember my father boasting, to my embarrassment I must add, that I was the only twelve-year-old in all of England who had read Bisticci’s Lives of Illustrious Men of the 15th Century or Burchard’s At the Court of the Borgia. I’m not sure my father knew how much my sexual education was furthered from reading about the Borgias.”
Nora tried to hide a smile. This Englishman, while a little on the formal side, was indeed interesting.
“My mother, Ella Crawford Landers, an American Catholic,” he continued, “was born and raised in Baltimore and met my father when she was a Foreign Service officer posted to England. She was far more socially visible than my father—she served on several of Leeds’ civic and artistic boards. And,” Ian said, almost in a whisper, “in spite of their differences in temperament, they never lost the romantic, even sexy edge to their relationship.” And with hint of a smile that drew Nora in, added, “It was very un-English of them, you know.”
Nora looked at her companion, “Hmm…a rather lonely childhood but a happy and stimulating home life.”
“Yes, yes it was.”
They held each other’s eyes for second or two before glancing down at their plates. Feeling the heat in his face, Ian continued.
“During the Cold War years mother was the Information Officer at the U.S. Consulate in Leeds. And while she certainly wasn’t anything close to a James Bond type, it was rumored that my mother was also CIA. This gave her a certain panache within her circle of friends.”
“Was she?”
“If she was, she really couldn’t talk about it, of course. But there were enough late-night, whispered conversations between my parents to lead me to believe the rumors to be true. When I brought the possibility up with my father, he just wouldn’t go there. He didn’t outright deny that my mother was CIA, but rather brushed it off as a ‘rather silly notion.’
“Not long after my father died, my mother moved back to the States. She has some distant cousins, but there’s really no family left. Just me and her best friend, Margaret Comiskey, a high school classmate. The two are like sisters. After their first year of college together, Margaret’s mother died, and she dropped out of college to take care of her father. She’s worked forever at the archdiocese as a secretary. Mother says she’s now the secretary to the chancellor. The two stayed in touch during the years Mother was across the sea, and now they’re only an hour’s drive apart. Margaret lives here in Baltimore, and my mother has a condominium in Silver Spring. Mother wanted to live near D.C. because she still has friends there from her Foreign Service days…but what she really did years ago is still a mystery to me.
“How about your family?” Ian asked, realizing that he had been monopolizing the conversation.
“Well,” Nora said, her voice softening, “Both of my parents are gone. They had a good marriage, too. I have three brothers—all older, all close. One of them is an auxiliary bishop here in Baltimore. I hope you can meet Bryn someday. He would love to hear about your work.”
“I’d like that,” Ian responded.
“How did you find growing up an only child?” Nora asked turning the conversation back to Ian. She was nowhere near ready to tell him the rest of her story, especially the years following Penn State.
“Well,” Ian said, “since my coffee’s cold and I need to get back to campus, let’s save that for another time, shall we?”
5
Archbishop Wilfred Gunnison reached to put his key into the lock of the front door to his sandstone house next to the Basilica of the Assumption.
“Open the damn door, Gunnison,” a firm voice from over his shoulder demanded. Gunnison felt the man’s weight against his back, pushing him flat against the door. The lock turned and he was shoved inside. The intruder closed and locked the door.
“Sit down, Wilfred,” the man said with a sneer. “My name, in case you can’t remember me, is Mark Anderlee.” He stood directly over the shaken old man. “When I was a kid at Camp Carroll, you messed with me. You sexually abused me, you sick old bastard. And I’m here to tell you you’re going to pay. You’re going to pay big time.”
Gunnison’s hands were shaking as he called the office of Monsignor Aidan Kempe, financial vicar and recently appointed chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
“Aidan, I need to see you now, right now! Something terrible has happened.” Gunnison’s voice was thin and jerky. “Oh, thank God…yes, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Putting the phone down, Gunnison carefully approached the window facing Cathedral Street. There was no sign of Anderlee. The retired archbishop was still shaking from the awful accusation made by the man he was sure he had never met. The man is mistaken. He has to be mistaken. Yet Gunnison knew he really wasn’t sure. It was so many years ago…
What he didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that this was just the beginning of Mark Anderlee’s strategy of revenge, a strategy planned with military precision.
Twenty minutes later, a cowering Wilfred Gunnison slumped into one of the four leather chairs in Monsignor Aidan Kempe’s office.
“Hold my calls, Margaret,” Kempe said crisply to his
secretary, and closed the big oak door to his office.
The former archbishop knew if anybody could save him, if anybody could make this go away, it was Aidan Kempe, the leader of a very private, in fact secret, band of priests who called themselves the Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple. Their mission, their sacred duty, was to work quietly behind the scenes in order to save the Catholic Church from its misguided leaders, leftist bishops, and lax priests who were dragging their beloved Roman Catholic Church into the bosom of Protestantism and worse—into the clutches of relativism, secularism, and the paganism of Western society.
The Baltimore Brotherhood consisted of six priests, including Kempe and Gunnison. As an archbishop, albeit retired, Gunnison far outranked Kempe, but he had long ago come to understand it best to concede the leadership of the Brotherhood to Kempe. Kempe’s Italian, far from fluent, was still better than his own, and Kempe had better Roman connections. Both Gunnison and Kempe took considerable, even illicit, delight in the Brotherhood’s power to influence the appointments of American bishops, a power Kempe cultivated through his network of like-minded American bishops.
Moreover, Gunnison understood that it was Kempe alone who enjoyed access to the Brotherhood’s supreme leader and protector, the mysterious Vatican bishop known to the Brotherhood only as Murex, or simply M. And it was Kempe who had sole control of the Brotherhood’s treasury, the purple purse. The bulk of the purse came from wealthy, mostly conservative Catholics in the Baltimore-Washington area Kempe shrewdly, patiently cultivated. In the minds of his benefactors, if you could claim Monsignor Aidan Kempe as a personal friend, you had arrived among the elite of Catholic society.
“A half hour ago,” Gunnison began, trying to steady his voice, “a man appeared at my door as I was coming back from breakfast and pushed his way in. He ordered me to sit down. He stood so close I could see the veins bulging in his neck.” He waved a shaking hand at his own throat. “He told me I had molested him when he was a teenager. I need some water,” Gunnison pleaded.
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