by Pearl Solas
This helped build rapport, and Father Frank fed those first fragile sparks with dry tinder: body language that showed he was intently listening; space for thoughtful silences; questions that got to the nub of his patients’ anxiety, fear, and shame; and advice that helped his clients understand the freedom in expressing vulnerability. He helped them feel less alone by relating their experiences to the universality of human existence, and he left them with a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel.
Father Frank’s clients made sure Tavis knew that those intake sessions never solved any deeply rooted problems, but they established trust and motivation for the hard work to come. Many of them reported that, after those first sessions, they had their first night of deep, uninterrupted sleep in a long time. Father Frank’s own restless nights following intakes were usually filled with concern for the suffering souls that were now his responsibility.
* * *
A man less humble than Father Frank could have allowed his clients’ devotion to ripen into a cult of personality. To provide balance to his investigation, Tavis spent a great deal of time searching online reviews for former patients with less favorable opinions of Father Frank. He couldn’t find any, which made him suspicious.
Armed with his research, Tavis approached his first interview with Father Frank warily—ready to resist the charm of the smoothie who had developed such a fan club. His precautions didn’t do much good—Tavis couldn’t help but like the unassuming, somewhat awkward man, who radiated compassion free of judgements.
When he learned about Jeremy’s accusation, Father Frank again bucked the norm by seeming less defensive than puzzled. He confirmed that he had given the boy a ride home when the boy’s mother had been unable to pick him up from the food pantry. His denied the claims of contact quietly but firmly. After appearing to play back his interaction with the young man on an internal projector, considering whether anything in the interaction could have motivated the allegations, Father Frank said, “I only touched him once, accidentally, when I reached to adjust the heating vents on the dash. He reached up at the same time to change the radio station. It had been on NPR and he said he wanted to listen to music. Our hands bumped and the touch lasted less than a second.”
Rather than calling Jeremy a liar, Father Frank seemed bewildered and, surprisingly, he said he had admired what he had seen of the boy’s character. Against his own best interest, Father Frank said Jeremy had seemed responsible and trustworthy. Frank appeared to be working at a tough puzzle he wanted to solve in order to satisfy his own curiosity, rather than because the allegation threatened his vocation and the course of the rest of his life.
Frank mused, “He has a good heart. That was obvious even if just because, unlike most young people we see at the food pantry, he volunteered to serve instead of being ordered to by a court. He took the work seriously. He treated our guests with dignity, and he looked for additional ways to help without damaging our guests’ pride. He seemed to understand how ashamed people can feel when they admit that they need help.”
Father Frank exhaled forcefully and looked directly at Tavis. “So what now?”
“Well, I continue my investigation, including following up with Jeremy. When I’m finished, I’ll report to Bishop Cólima. If my investigation corroborates any of Jeremy’s claims, I’ll recommend referral to the police, and then it will be out of our hands in terms of any criminal charges. It’s up to Bishop Cólima what happens between you and the Church.”
Father Frank inclined his head slightly to indicate his understanding. “How often do you turn the investigations over to law enforcement?”
Tavis kept his gaze firm as he answered. “In the two years I’ve been doing this for the Church . . . in every case. It doesn’t take much evidence to move things along to the next level.”
Frank nodded his understanding. Tavis asked a few more questions, and then he left.
Chapter Twelve
Tavis took some time after interviewing Father Frank to pore over his notes and analyze what he had learned. He consciously tried not to make value or credibility judgments during the interview process, but afterward he allowed himself to test what he really thought about the interview subjects and whether their responses were believable and consistent. Then Tavis decided which subjects would need follow-up interviews, and he planned out the specific questions that would fill in gaps or expose inconsistency.
The case of Jeremy and Father Frank was unusual, and Tavis really had to work to separate his role from the admiration he had begun to feel, strangely, for both Jeremy and Father Frank. Pretending he didn’t have those feelings made him less effective, so he acknowledged them and then put them in a box. Tavis had admired other accused priests before discovering unquestionable proof of their vile cruelty.
The Church had a knack for churning out clergy whose flawless public piety masked festering private lives. Like Father Frank, many of the guilty priests once had a following of those whose lives had been changed for the better by the priests’ good works. Like all men, accused priests are complex creatures whose worst traits and deeds only tell part of their stories. The nature of child sexual abuse makes most people’s skin crawl. That’s why it naturally becomes what defines the people, mostly men, who are accused of the crime. Anything else they may be, no matter how good or helpful, is swallowed up in the label of “pedophile.”
While the most important victims of the abuse crisis were the children, the damage didn’t stop there. If they accepted his guilt, a disgraced priest’s one-time admirers struggled with their confusion, with the sense that they were not the judges of character they had believed themselves to be—that their ability to sense danger and corruption had been flawed. They struggled with how to view the sacraments that had been administered by the fallen clergyman, and with whether to continue following any meaningful spiritual guidance the priest had provided. Other times, no amount of evidence could convince a priest’s faithful followers that there was really a fire causing even the thickest, blackest cloud of choking smoke. These congregants simply could not square that the capacity for good and holy works existed within the same person who would sexually abuse a child. They had seen the good and holy with their own eyes, but they had not personally witnessed the abuse—and for them it was as easy as that. When the faithful defended guilty clergy, victims were further alienated from a community that could and should have offered comfort and compassion.
Bishop Cólima’s directives were clear, and very little corroborating evidence justified a referral to law enforcement. It was enough that Father Frank confirmed that he had been alone with Jeremy in the car. It wasn’t Tavis’s job to judge credibility. His task was to gather any available relevant facts and pass the case along. Even so, to finish gathering available relevant facts, Tavis needed another meeting with Jeremy.
Tavis had suspicions about Dolores’s influence over Jeremy’s accusations because of the identical language the two had used. Tavis would have liked to conduct his follow-up interview with the boy without his mother present, but that was both against protocol and unwise, and anything Tavis learned would be tainted by the stain of potential coercion. So Tavis decided to visit the home without notice, which should reduce the possibility of Dolores coaching Jeremy. Tavis considered questions that would require Jeremy to give answers outside of anything his mother might have made him rehearse.
* * *
Because of the possibility that Tavis could be called upon to investigate any priest in the diocese—even, theoretically, Bishop Cólima himself—he couldn’t turn to any of the priests in the diocese for spiritual advice or confession. Instead, about once a month Tavis made an hour-long drive to visit Father Stephen, a cloistered monk in a Trappist community outside of the diocesan hierarchy. The visits doubled as therapy. Father Stephen listened patiently while Tavis, without sharing identifying information, described the toll of the work; the gradual decline of his faith in the institution he had loved his whole life and
that, despite all he knew, he continued to love; and his increasing difficulty trusting anyone wearing a clerical collar. Tavis struggled with this last bit, both because he knew the dangers of painting with a broad brush, and because his continued ability to do his job well depended on avoiding bias and on approaching each investigation with fresh objectivity.
Father Stephen was a helpful and sympathetic ear. He commiserated with Tavis’s sympathy for the vulnerable children and adults who had suffered at the hands of trusted priests, and he expressed his own disappointment in the way Church leadership had compounded the injury. He exposed his own disappointment, shared by many of his clerical brothers, that his life of devoted service to God and to the Body of Christ had been reduced to a vocation viewed with suspicion and derision.
Tavis’s visits to Father Stephen refreshed and renewed him because, after listening to and validating Tavis’s despair, Father Stephen drew from a deep well of hope within himself. As Father Stephen prayed with Tavis, he thanked God for Tavis’s unique skills and temperament, and for the vast majority of priests who continued to serve God faithfully in the face of broad suspicion and in accordance with their calling. Most importantly, Father Stephen’s voice hummed with sincerity as he thanked God for his ability to use all things, even the suffering of the current crisis, for his good purposes. He asked God to fortify Tavis for his work, and to encourage Tavis with the awareness that his efforts accomplished God’s purposes. Monthly meetings with Father Stephen were not a panacea, but they were the most effective method of refueling Tavis’s depleted reserves of hope and purpose.
Tavis drove home after one visit as he neared the end of his investigation of the allegations against Father Frank. He thought about what he had to do before finishing his report for Bishop Cólima. He had come to believe that this was one of the super rare cases in which the allegations were completely fabricated. There were none of the hallmarks or patterns that had become familiar when a young person’s claims were substantiated.
Even though it would mean a good man’s name had been dragged through the mud, Tavis’s mood was lighter than usual at the end of an investigation. Given the choice between potentially injured parties where child sexual abuse was alleged, Tavis would take a self-interested parent coaching a child to tell lies every time. Better that than a trusted adult in a position of influence using and damaging a child’s innocence.
* * *
As Tavis put the finishing touches on his interview strategy in the home office that evening, Gisela came in with two cups of hot tea and a plate of warm cookies. She set one cup in front of Tavis and then curled herself into one of the two comfortable armchairs in the room’s reading nook.
“What a day!” Gisela sighed. “How was yours?”
“Weird.”
In another marriage, such a non-response might have been interpreted as contempt or a rebuff to her overture of connection. Gisela knew, though, that Tavis drew clear lines around conversations that potentially touched on the details of his work. Gisela respected the boundary, never asking questions that would force him to choose between their deep intimacy and his professional ethics. As usual, she deftly maneuvered the conversation into waters that would not require a guarded response.
“Ceely told me today que tenemos un,” Gisela hunched her shoulders and threw up her hands to make air quotes, “‘bourgeois lifestyle,’ and, basically, world hunger, water insecurity, and poverty are our fault. I told her she can do her part by giving up her phone, her computer, driving the car, and the allowance she uses to buy herself clothes and lattes. She didn’t seem to think that would make much of a dent.”
Tavis chuckled and shook his head as he and his best friend basked in the shared glow of exasperation and admiration for their fierce girl’s immature idealism. Neither doubted that their daughter Cecilia would improve many lives as she became more practical about how she channeled her innate compassion for the world’s underdogs.
Tavis closed his laptop, collected his tea, and eased into the chair next to Gisela. “She’s a pain in the ass, but she’s a good girl. I’m still terrified all the time, though, Sela. I’ve seen too many good girls and boys try the things kids are supposed to try, but it turns into more than an experiment and they get stuck. A lot of times they get stuck because they’re looking for an escape from thinking about how someone they trusted, someone older, hurt them in a way they didn’t understand. What if someone hurt our Ceely? Most of these parents have no idea how to help their kids. How could we survive that kind of hurt to our girl? How would we be able to keep from driving ourselves crazy obsessing over what we could have done? To protect her, we almost have to think like one of these sickos. Who can live that way?”
Tavis closed his eyes, removed his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose in what Gisela recognized as a signal that he had retightened the release valve for externalizing his anxiety, and the struggle to make sense of his work would rage on internally.
Gisela resumed her steps in their long marital dance, in which she alternatively gave him permission to rest and lay down his work, and then fortified his courage to continue the good fight. She closed the space between them and wordlessly took one of his large, cool hands in her small, warm ones, and brought it to her lips. As she lowered his hand back to his lap, she began stroking his forearm with the sweeping feather-light touches of her finger pads that never failed to soothe him.
Tavis’s unanswerable questions continued to spool. “Does knowing the truth and punishing the ones who put their hands on kids do anything to change the problem in the Church? Or is it just something we’re doing for now—while there’s so much attention and so much anger—and then when people get tired of hearing about it, will the Church just go back to its old ways? Will it know more about how to keep things secret to protect its good name? The Church has learned how much this black eye has hurt its reputation, and its collection plate, so what will it do in the future to avoid getting popped?”
Gisela’s many talents did not include soothsaying, so she remained silent while his despairing questions hung in the air between them. She continued stroking his arm with feather-light brushes and, eventually, in spite of his uncertainties, Tavis felt himself sinking into the comforting warmth and strength she radiated. When, eventually, his eyelids began to droop, Gisela gently guided him to his feet and led him to their bedroom.
Chapter Thirteen
Dolores Ray’s lovely mouth formed an “O” of surprise when she opened the door to Tavis’s sharp rap. Clearly, she hadn’t expected to see the Church’s investigator on her front step.
Tavis smiled and “assumed the sale” by moving toward the open door as if Dolores had already invited him inside. As expected, ingrained manners and muscle memory moved Dolores’s body to the side even as her face expressed surprise.
“Well, Mr. Pereira, I wasn’t expecting to see you until next week,” she said with her slight drawl in what always seemed to be a put-on style of speaking, as if she had practiced the breathy southern belle routine to near perfection. Her slightly higher-than-normal tone was her voice’s only hint that the unexpected visit had unsettled her.
“Yes. Sorry for dropping by without calling, Ms. Ray. I had a few follow-up questions, and I saw Jeremy get home as I parked, so I figured this might be a good time to talk.”
“Oh, I wish we could, but Jeremy and I have to leave—I was just waiting for him to get home.” Like all the best liars, Dolores offered few details.
“It’ll just take a few minutes, I promise. Then you both can be on your way.”
“Well,” Dolores consulted her trendy wristwatch, “all right. If you promise it’ll be quick. I’ll get Jeremy.”
Dolores soon returned with Jeremy, who gave Tavis a friendly nod as he eased onto the spot at the other end of the couch on which Tavis sat.
“Thanks for talking with me, Jeremy. I know you have somewhere to be, so this won’t take long.”
Jeremy shot a brief glance
at his mother, then assumed a polite and receptive expression as he looked at Tavis.
“I’m trying to wrap up my report for the Bishop, and to tie up a few loose ends, so I was hoping we could go through what happened one more time. We didn’t record your statement before, and it really helps to have a recording when we make a referral to the police.” Tavis took his phone out of his pocket, showed Jeremy the voice recording app, and set it on the coffee table between them. “I know it’s painful to go through it again, but hopefully recording our discussion will make it so that you don’t have to tell your story as many times to the police. Is that all right?”
Jeremy nodded gamely. “Where would you like me to start?”
“How about when Father Frank offered you a ride home?”
“Okay.” Jeremy tilted his chin and looked up at the ceiling. After a few seconds, he began speaking quickly, without pauses or hesitation. “I was waiting outside for Mom while Father Frank closed up the food pantry. As he was locking up, I was moving around a lot to try to stay warm. He saw me looking at my phone, and he asked me if I had a way to get home. I told him my mom was supposed to pick me up but I couldn’t get ahold of her. He asked where I lived, and when I told him he said it was on his way home and asked if I wanted a ride. We got into his old pickup, and we had to let it warm up for a few minutes because it was so cold outside. Boring people were talking on the radio, so I asked if I could find some music. I reached up to move the knob, but he was still moving the heating vents, and our hands bumped. He acted weird about it.