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Inviolate

CHAPTER EIGHT

Just after one o’clock on Friday afternoon, two police officers went to the principal’s office at the high school and requested that Eugene Gillian be summoned from his class. They did not place him under arrest, but they told the principal that Gene needed to accompany them to the police station and answer some questions as a potential witness to a crime they were investigating.
An hour later, after the police called Gene’s mother at home, Tom and Lynn Gillian arrived at the police station. They were escorted to a small room and asked to take a seat at the table where their son was sitting. A few minutes later, a man wearing plain clothes and a police sergeant in uniform came into the room and introduced themselves as Detective Swenson and Sergeant Johnson. The officers stood across the table from where Gene sat next to his mother and Sergeant Johnson advised Gene’s parents that the police could only question their son in their presence, unless Tom or Lynn gave written permission otherwise, and she told them that Eugene was entitled to have an attorney present during questioning.
Tom asked the reason for the police wanting to question their son. The sergeant replied that two male perpetrators wearing Star Wars masks had abducted a thirteen-year-old girl from a residential street on Wednesday night somewhere between nine and nine-thirty. She had been pulled into their car and taken to another location in the city where she was sexually assaulted by one of the men.
Detective Swenson spoke then and told the Gillian couple that an informant had told the police that one of two men who had earlier been wearing Star Wars masks and stealing candy from kids who were trick-or-treating Halloween night might have been their son. He said the informant overheard the men speaking and was pretty certain he recognized Gene’s voice.
Lynn turned pale when the detective said that a girl had been raped. She quickly regained her composure and replied to the detective. “So just because this person might have sounded like Gene, you have arrested him? There are several teenage boys that I know of who have a voice somewhat similar to Gene’s; are you going to arrest them as well?”
“No one has been arrested yet,” Detective Swenson told her. “We asked your son to come with us to the station for questioning because the informant told us that he recognized the voice of a person wearing a Darth Vader mask as that of your son, and the assault victim was attacked by someone wearing a Darth Vader mask. We need to pursue the matter until we have a reason to be in doubt that your son is who we are looking for. Depending on what transpires today, your son could possibly be arrested, but right now we are just asking him some questions.”
Sergeant Johnson told Gene to keep his seat at the table and asked his parents to seat themselves in the two chairs against the wall to the right of their son. The officer sat down in the chair Tom had vacated and Detective Swenson took the other. He asked Gene where he had been Halloween night between eight and eleven p.m.
“He was at home playing pool with a friend in our basement,” Lynn answered for her son.
“Mrs. Gillian, we asked your son the question. Since he is a minor, we have to talk to him with you or your husband present, but we need you to allow him to answer the questions. You will have an opportunity to comment on anything you like when we finish.”
The detective stared at Lynn without blinking and she glared back at him and then looked at her husband. Tom looked at her with a calm expression and said that it would be better if she remained quiet for now. Gene then spoke and confirmed what his mother had just said.
“You did not leave the house at any time?” Swenson asked him.
Gene hesitated and resisted the urge to turn and look at his mother. He answered that he and his friend, Al Friesen, had gone out about seven o’clock and driven around town for awhile but they had returned to his parents home about a half hour later and stayed there the remainder of the evening until a little after ten when Al went home.
“Is Mr. Friesen also a high school student?”
“No, he graduated last May. He works for the railroad.”
“Were you in your car or Mr. Friesen’s when you were driving around?”
“We were in his.”
“What model and color is it”
“A nineteen-ninety black F-150 Ford pickup with a black cover over the bed.”
“Did you or Mr. Friesen wear Halloween masks while you were driving around?”
Gene looked perplexed. “No. I think we are a little too old to be wearing Halloween masks. I suppose your next question will be if we went trick-or-treating.”
“Did you?” the police sergeant asked.
“No, we did not.” Gene smirked at the officer and turned his head and looked at his mother for reassurance, but his father gave him a dark glare and he dropped the smirk and put a neutral expression on his face.
“Exactly what time did Mr. Friesen leave?” Sergeant Johnson asked.
“Like I said, it was around ten, but I don’t know the exact time. We had the TV on, although we were playing pool and not watching it, and the Denver news was on when he left.”
Tom stood and told the officers that he wished for any further questioning to be halted until he and his wife could arrange for an attorney to be present. Detective Swenson told him that Eugene would be taken to a holding cell and he would not be questioned any further by anyone until they returned with an attorney. Tom asked what would happen with his son if they were not able to retain someone that afternoon and Swenson told him that the police could hold Eugene in jail up to twenty-four hours for questioning before they had to formally charge him with a crime or release him, so they might want to get started finding an attorney right away.
After Tom and Lynn left, JJ Johnson went to her desk and called the Wojcik residence and alerted them that she might be calling back and requesting that Connie to come to the station and listen to some suspects in a lineup speak. JJ assured Mary that Connie would not have to deal with any of them face to face and she would do everything possible to make the experience as minimally traumatic for her as possible.

At five o’clock, Tom and Lynn returned to the police station accompanied by Harry Martin, a local attorney well known for defending people charged with drunk driving and men accused of physical abuse of their spouses or children. When they arrived, Detective Swenson showed them to a different conference room where he told the attorney the rudimentary details of the alleged crime, and then briefly reviewed the questions he and Sergeant Johnson had asked Eugene that afternoon. He then excused himself and said that he might be gone for a while, but they were free to go the station’s small lobby with coffee and vending machines, and asked them to let the officer at the front desk know if they were going to leave the building. He told the Gillians they would see their son shortly.

When Stan, Mary and Connie arrived at the station twenty minutes later, they were taken to a small room with a window hidden behind closed curtains and Stan noticed a circular speaker mounted on the wall to the right of the window with a pushbutton switch below it. Ten minutes after they entered the room, a youthful looking man wearing a gray suit entered the room with JJ Johnson. He introduced himself as Steven Blair, and said that he was the county attorney. He explained that felony cases were tried in county court and not prosecuted by the city attorney. Both Mary and Stan recognized him from his picture in the paper prior to the last election. They shook hands and Blair asked Mary and Connie if they wanted chairs to be brought in for them. After they both declined, he asked Connie to try to recall everything the men who had assaulted her said. He told her to try to remember word for word what her attacker said, including when he first stepped from the car and confronted her.
As Connie related what she could recall of what both men had said from the time she was accosted until they released her, Blair listened carefully to what she told him and then repeated her words back to her. When she told him she could not think of anything else, he nodded to Sergeant Johnson. JJ left the room and came back a few minutes later with Harry Martin. Martin was introduced to the Wojciks and then he stepped away and stood at the wall near the closed door.
Sergeant Johnson left the draperies closed and went to the speaker on the wall and pushed the white button, and then asked someone she addressed as ‘number one’ to repeat the words she told him.
“Please say in a deep voice, ‘Little girl, I am your father. Do you have any treats for me tonight?’
The voice over the speaker repeated the words.
“No, I want you to use a deep voice. I am sure that you have seen the Star Wars movies; I want you to speak like you are imitating Darth Vader.”
“Little girl, I am your father. Do you have any treats for me tonight?” the man replied in a baritone voice that sounded a great deal like Darth Vader.
Sergeant Johnson, Blair, Stan and Mary Wojcik, and Attorney Martin all looked at Connie, who did not change her expression.
“Number two; please repeat these words as if you are Darth Vader speaking.” Sergeant Johnson repeated the phrase again.
The second voice was not as good an imitation as number one’s was. Connie stared at the closed draperies with an neutral expression on her face and did not react at all.
When ‘number three’ spoke, Connie frowned but did not say anything. JJ Johnson then asked ‘number four’ to repeat the same words in a Darth Vader voice. As soon as he spoke, the expression of fear that passed over Connie’s face told JJ that ‘number four’ was the man who raped the young girl. It took Connie several moments to regain her composure.
JJ asked ‘number four’ to say in a normal speaking voice, “Close the door and let’s get out of here!”
Connie put her hands to the sides of her face and leaned forward to hear him clearly. When ‘number four ‘repeated the words, she turned to her mother and said, “That is him. That is who raped me.”
Harry Martin asked Sergeant Johnson, “Is she absolutely certain that is the voice she heard?”
JJ asked number four to repeat what he had just said. Connie listened and then nodded. She turned to Mary, put her face against the hollow between her mother’s neck and shoulder, and began crying. Mary put her arm around her and JJ looked at Steve Blair, who in turn looked at Harry Martin. Blair told the attorney that he would speak with him shortly and asked him to wait outside the door.
Martin took a breath and let it out quietly, then nodded at Blair and walked out of the room. The county attorney then told Stan and Mary that they could take Connie home and he would be in touch with them in the morning.

After the Wojciks left, Detective Swenson walked out of the adjacent room where the men in the line-up were and came over to where Blair, Martin, and JJ were standing in the hallway. Blair told Swenson to take Eugene to be processed for holding in the city jail, and then he and Harry Martin returned to the room where Gene’s parents were waiting. Blair told Tom and Lynn that Eugene was going to be held in custody overnight pending being charged with first-degree rape in the morning and he would likely spend the weekend in lockup at the county jail. He told them that an arraignment hearing would be held on Monday in county court. He said that if Eugene was indicted on Monday, the judge would determine whether he could be released on bond. If not, he would be returned to the county jail to await his trial. He requested that the Gillian couple come back to the police station the next morning at nine o’clock and he asked Martin to meet them there.

After they returned home, Lynn tried to call Al Friesen. There was no answer and at eight o’clock, she tried again. When Al answered, he was polite and friendly to her, and asked the reason for her call. Lynn related the day’s events beginning with the first call she had received from the police station.
“I told the police that you and Gene were in the basement on Halloween night playing pool. I know you boys went out for a while after you got here, but Gene told me when he went to bed at ten-thirty that both of you had returned to the house about seven-thirty and had been in the basement since. He told me you had just gone out the back door in the kitchen. Is that correct, Al?”
“Yes, Mrs. Gillian. That’s correct,” Al agreed.

At a few minutes before nine Saturday morning, Tom and Lynn Gillian came to the police station along with Harry Martin. They were shown to a different room than the evening before and asked to take seats at the far side of a conference table. At nine o’clock, the county attorney entered the room along with Gene and the detective and police sergeant who interrogated him the previous day. JJ thought to herself that Gene appeared to be more nervous than he had been Friday afternoon, when he had at times been cocky and had openly shown his contempt for the police in his response to some of their questions.
Detective Swenson went to a video camera mounted on a tripod and turned it on, then seated himself next to JJ. He looked at Blair and then at Gene and asked Gene to describe where he had been and what he had been doing on Halloween night. Gene continued to hold to his story that he had been at home all night except for a period beginning from seven p.m. when he and his friend, Al Friesen, had taken Al’s truck and driven up and down Main Street one time and then around the community college campus before returning to the Gillian home about thirty minutes later. Swenson asked if they had stopped and spoken with anyone and Gene replied no.
Swenson looked at Lynn Gillian and asked in a manner that suggested he could not remember exactly what Lynn had told them the day before, where she had been Wednesday night. Lynn answered that both she and her husband had been at home, along with their son. Swenson asked if her son had remained in the house the entire evening or if he had gone out at any time. Lynn repeated what she had said the day before, that Gene had been at home when his friend Al arrived around six forty-five. She said that the boys had left the house at seven p.m. and returned at seven-thirty, give or take five minutes. Sergeant Johnson pressed her if she knew for sure that Gene had not gone out again later and Lynn told her yes, she was sure. She said that she had heard the boys when they came in about seven-thirty and that she had heard them playing pool in the basement each time she had gone to the kitchen for a glass of water.
“Do you recall how many times you went to the kitchen?” Swenson asked.
“At least twice, perhaps three times,” Lynn answered.
“Mr. Gillian, where were you during the period we are asking about?” Swenson asked Tom.
“I was in my study reading. And I can neither affirm nor contradict what Lynn has told you. I keep the heat register in that room closed so that whatever noise Gene is making downstairs in the family room does not disturb me.”
Swenson then asked the Gillian family to make themselves comfortable in the room while he had statements transcribed from the recording machine that was on the table. He said it should not take more than half an hour for the statements to be ready for their signatures. He nodded at Gene’s parents and left the room. JJ followed him out and Steve Blair asked the Gillian’s to excuse him and then asked Harry Martin to come to another room with him for a few minutes. Inside the room adjacent to where the Gillians were, Blair closed the door and then he contested the veracity of Mrs. Gillian’s statement.
“That girl’s reaction when she heard your client’s voice last night left no doubt whatever in my mind that he is the one who raped her. You saw it yourself, Harry. What this guy’s mother is telling us is total bullshit and she is trying to protect her son from prosecution. She is leaving herself open for a charge of perjury if she stays with her story.”
“I heard what the girl said, but I find it hardly credible that someone who admits that she only heard a few short sentences from her attacker can distinctly recall his voice,” Martin answered.
The attorney continued arguing on behalf of his client, saying that Eugene’s voice had no unusual qualities or accent and many people could easily confuse it for someone else’s. He said there was a very wide margin of doubt about Gene’s guilt and reminded Blair that a wrongful conviction could destroy an innocent boy’s life. He told Blair that he was confident that no judge would approve Gene going to trial on what little evidence the police had.
Blair reminded him that the police were awaiting the laboratory report from Connie’s clothes and should have it soon..
On Saturday morning at eleven-thirty, Steve Blair called the Wojcik home and spoke with Stan and told him that the suspect who was in custody would be arraigned in county court on Monday. He asked Stan to come with Mary and their daughter to his office at ten o’clock Monday and told him that he had requested an arraignment hearing for Monday afternoon at the courthouse, but he wanted to go over Connie’s statement of everything that happened to her one more time before the hearing.

* * * *

When Al Friesen arrived for work in Fort Collins just before seven a.m. Monday morning, Detective Leonard Swenson was already there waiting for him. The detective had tried to locate Al on Saturday and again on Sunday, but apparently the Friesen family had gone out of town for the weekend. Swenson had checked into where Al worked and the type vehicle he drove and the license number. He stepped out of his car and walked up to Al just as he parked his black Ford pickup near the crew shack. He introduced himself and told Al that he needed to ask him a few questions about his whereabouts on the previous Wednesday night.
Al seemed to hesitate before telling him that on Halloween night he had been playing pool with his friend Gene Gillian at Gene’s home. He said that he arrived a little before seven p.m. and left around ten. When asked if he and Gene were in the Gillian home during the entire three-hour time period, Al again hesitated and then said that they left about seven for a half-hour or so to drive to the college campus to see if anyone they knew was driving around and might know about any parties going on that evening. His story agreed with what Gene Gillian had said on Saturday, yet Swenson detected that Al seemed angry about something.
“You look like you are a little pissed about something. Did you and Gene have any argument or anything Wednesday evening?”
“Yeah,” Al answered. “We were playing pool for two bucks a game and Gene was cheating. That is why I left early at ten o’clock. Gene is my friend, but when it comes to playing cards or pool, he cannot be trusted any further than you can throw a mule.”
As soon as the detective had walked up to his truck, Al knew he was a cop. He decided that for now he would stay with the story Mrs. Gillian had subtly coached him to say, but if it looked like the cops had evidence that would make him an accomplice to kidnapping and rape, he was going to ask for a deal with the prosecutor granting him immunity in exchange for his testimony against Gene.
When Swenson seemed satisfied with his answers and left, he breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully the police would not contact him again. Again, he vowed that he would never again have anything to do with Gene Gillian.

When Stan, Mary, and Connie arrived at the City Attorney’s office at ten, Sergeant Johnson was in Blair’s office with him. She stood and told Stan and Mary hello and then hugged Connie. Blair asked the Wojcik family to take a seat in the chairs that had been set in front of his desk.
JJ began. “There is a problem. The lab report is back and they found traces of Connie’s blood on the thigh area of her leggings and some at the crotch that apparently seeped through from her panties. There is no trace of semen on them.”
“What about in her panties?” Stan asked.
“That is where the problem lies. There is absolutely nothing on her panties.”
JJ looked at Mary. “I’m guessing that you took her panties from the clothes hamper. Apparently, you picked the wrong ones. I hope that you haven’t yet done laundry and washed the panties she wore on Halloween.”
“Oh, God. I washed clothes on Saturday. But I sorted Connie’s underwear and I didn’t see anything on any of her panties.”
Connie started crying. “It doesn’t matter, Mom.” She put her face in her hands.
“What do you mean, Connie?” JJ asked.
Connie wiped her eyes and looked at her mother. “When I came home and took my panties off, I saw what was in them and I flushed them down the toilet. I’m sorry.”
There was complete silence in the room for a minute, and then JJ said, “Well, that explains the lab report.”
She looked at Connie. “You were in shock, Connie. I might have done the same thing if it had been me.”
Connie appeared to be in a trance and did not reply. Blair asked the police sergeant to take her to the outer office and wait there with her. After the door closed, Blair told Mary and Stan what Gene’s mother had told the police and him. He said that the suspect’s mother had signed a statement claiming under oath that when the alleged rape of Connie had occurred on Halloween night, her son had been in the family’s basement playing pool and watching TV with a friend.
Mary and Stan turned to each other and grasped hands, then looked back at Steve. Mary stared at him with a confused expression on her face.
“You surely do not believe this?” Stan asked. “Connie recognized his voice. He raped our daughter.”
Blair looked at the couple with a grimace and shook his head slowly before replying. “I believe Connie recognized his voice, and so does Sergeant Johnson. The look on her face when he spoke convinced JJ and me that he is the person who assaulted her. Here is the problem for the police and myself. I requested an arraignment hearing for this afternoon at three o’clock. However, a statement by the suspect’s friend who was with him on Halloween agrees with the mother’s sworn statement that her son was at home during the time of Connie’s assault and Detective Swenson said that it sounded believable enough to probably convince a jury. Also, none of the suspect’s family’s cars are blue. His friend drives a black pickup truck and his friend’s father a blue truck and his mother a white sedan. Connie said her attackers were in a blue sedan. The police are trying to determine if the suspect has other friends who drive a blue sedan, but it appears at first effort that no one he runs around with does.”
He continued, “Other than Connie’s recognition of his voice, I have little to take to the judge. The boy has no juvenile record of criminal acts or misdemeanors, nor any history of trouble in school. It will be a very tough sell without any forensic evidence.
If I would be successful at the arraignment hearing, he is seventeen years old and he would be tried as a juvenile unless I could convince a judge otherwise. But no matter, since things likely would not go our way until the police can accumulate more evidence against him, I just cancelled the hearing and I have instructed the police to release the suspect. Hopefully, they will be arresting him again within a few days when they can find enough evidence to substantiate a charge of rape. In the meantime, I will remind you that a person is considered innocent until proven guilty.”
Neither Stan nor Mary responded and both stared at him.
Blair told them, “If he is the person who assaulted Connie, we are determined to prove it. But right now we do not have enough against him to convince the judge.”
“It may be hard to prove,” Stan answered. “When Detective Johnson had Dr. McGinnis meet Connie and my wife and I at the hospital Thursday morning and he examined Connie, he told me afterward that Connie’s hymen was not intact and there were significant small tears in her tissues that indicated both that sexual activity had occurred recently and that it was likely her first sexual experience. But he said that it was not enough to stand alone as evidence that she was raped. He warned me that if he had to testify in court, he would have to admit that Connie could have had sexual intercourse with anyone on Halloween night.
He looked at his wife and then back at Blair. “Since Dr. McGinnis did not find any trace of semen the next day, not only is it really bad that Connie bathed, but Mary and I really messed up when we did not call the police immediately. If she would have been examined that night, he might have found what the police need.”
“Yes, possibly so. And possibly the DNA would have matched that from other unsolved rape cases,” Blair replied.
Stan grimaced in frustration and looked down at the floor.
“Can we ask who the suspect is?” Mary asked.
“Yes, but since his name will be not be released to the public until he is indicted, please keep it confidential. His name is Eugene Gillian; he is a high school senior. ”
“I am sure that Connie does not know him and I have never heard of him-have you, Stan?”
Stan shook his head no and she continued. “Why would Connie have identified his voice in the lineup if she was not certain that it was him who assaulted her? I hate calling anyone a liar, but Mrs. Gillian is perjuring herself to protect her son.”
“Off the record, I agree with you. However, when we bring Eugene to trial, I doubt that she is going to perjure herself in court. If she is unsure whether her son was at home the entire night on Halloween, she is probably going to recant her statement and claim she does not clearly remember the exact times events took place during the evening. Please try not to let this upset either of you too much right now. Also, I would suggest that you do not tell Connie anything when you leave here. Her testimony is going to be extremely important and she should not be aware of anything that could possibly influence her to add to her story, or to say anything the judge would pick up on as her being in doubt.”
“So exactly what do we tell her?” Mary asked.
Blair did not answer her. After a minute of silence passed, Tom and Mary stood and left his office.

When the Gillian family returned home from the meeting with Steve Blair on Saturday morning, Tom told his wife he needed to go to the gas plant for a couple hours. After he turned onto Interstate 25, he stayed in the right lane with the cruise control set at sixty-five. His mind was far away and he constantly had to remind himself to pay attention to the traffic passing by him; Colorado drivers were no different from big city freeway drivers and many of them would pull into the right lane after passing without waiting to allow a safe distance from the car behind them.
His thoughts were on his son and his wife. He could never imagine Lynn deliberately lying about anything, especially something as serious as providing a false alibi for their son in an accusation of rape. Both he and Lynn had been stunned when they were told what the police were questioning Gene about, but if it was true that Gene had assaulted a young girl, there was no way either of them could ever excuse such a thing. They would pay an attorney whatever it cost to have a proper legal defense for him; but despite their heartbreak, they would expect their son to be held accountable.
Tom tried to tell himself that Gene could never do such a thing, but he was nagged by his awareness that their son had a mean streak that Lynn refused to acknowledge. He remembered the football game when Gene had ruthlessly tackled the boy in the end zone. It had sickened him and he had wanted to take Lynn’s arm and leave the stands, but he had remained in his seat and convinced himself that it was just the passion of competition and a high level of adrenaline that caused Gene to commit such a flagrant violation of fair play.
It was a week later when they were eating supper that he asked Gene if he was aware that the boy he had tackled would be unable to play football again due to a back injury. Gene had nonchalantly shrugged and said, “Yeah, that is a shame,” and then looked down at his plate, but Tom had seen the smirk on his face. He had been shocked and he had wondered when his son had become so callous.

Lynn stared up at the ceiling from where she was laying on her and Tom’s bed. When Donna and Bob Marsh put a ‘For Sale’ sign in yard the spring before last, a week later she had gone over to ask Donna where they were moving. Donna had been very abrupt and said that they were staying in town but they wanted to find a larger home. Donna had acted very strangely, and Lynn left still suspecting that she and Bob were having problems in their marriage. She thought about Donna not returning any of her phone calls after they had moved.
Why did Shannon stop coming over? she wondered.
After she pondered the question for a few minutes, she tried to recall minute by minute the events of Halloween night. She had been in the living room reading when Gene surprised her by walking in from the kitchen sometime around ten o’clock. He told her that he and Al had returned to the house a few hours earlier and they had been in the basement playing pool and watching TV. Lynn had raised her eyebrows when Gene said that; she had not heard the boys come in earlier and she had not heard Al leave a few minutes ago. She also felt sure that unless they had sneaked beer into the basement, Gene would have been upstairs getting Cokes from the refrigerator at least a couple times during the past three hours. She had tried to smell if there was beer on her son’s breath, but he was standing too far away. She had wondered why he might be fibbing to her, but she did not dwell on the question and returned to reading her book. Gene returned to the basement and she assumed he was going to bed.
On Friday afternoon when she and Tom were told that Gene was being questioned about a girl who had been raped on Halloween night, Lynn suddenly realized that she must have been mistaken when she doubted what Gene said. He had distracted her from her book. It was at that moment in the police station when she clearly remembered hearing the boys downstairs.
Now she thought to herself that if Gene had been fibbing about being home and he actually had sex with the girl that night, she had consented to it and she had not been raped. And even if he was guilty of getting a little rough with the girl, he had likely been under the influence of liquor. Whatever did happen was not something that justified him going to prison. She told herself that many other teenagers have committed serious crimes and gotten probation and later had the slate wiped clean, and her son should be entitled to the same break as them.

CHAPTER NINE

When Stan, Mary and Connie arrived home Monday morning after meeting with Steve Blair, Mary called Angela Russo and asked if it would be all right if she came over to the Russo home sometime that day before the children arrived home from school. Although Mary and Angela visited occasionally on the telephone and their families usually sat together at church dinners at Saint Ann’s, they did not often visit each other’s home; it was the bond between their daughters that was the main reason for their friendship. Mary considered Theresa to be like a daughter of her own and she knew that Angela felt the same way about Connie.
Mary arrived a little before three in the afternoon and told Angela what had happened to Connie on Halloween night. Angela began crying along with her and when Mary finished, the two mothers sat silently at the dining table, each absorbed in their own thoughts but sharing an agony over the physical pain and personal degradation that Connie had suffered. When Marcus and Theresa arrived home a half hour later, Angela told her son that she and Mary needed to visit with Theresa alone for a while and asked him not to disturb them. Theresa looked at her mother questioningly and they went to her room and Angela closed the door quietly.
“Theresa, we need to talk. Mary wants to tell you about something that happened to Connie after she left here to go home Halloween night,” Angela said.
Theresa had called the Wojcik home for Connie Thursday evening and when Mary told her that she was not feeling well, she asked if that was why Connie had missed school that day. Mary told her yes and that she was in bed with the flu. When Theresa called again on Saturday, she told her that Connie was still not feeling well and was sleeping, but she would give her a call as soon as she started feeling better. As soon as she heard her mother’s words, Theresa’s face turned pale and she began crying and looked away. Angela sat down on the bed while Mary remained where she was standing. Theresa finally looked at her mother and then at Mary.
“What happened to Connie? Has she been hurt? Is the reason that she hasn’t been in school because she is really sick with something?”
Mary told her what she had confided to Angela an hour earlier. Theresa put her hand to her mouth and screamed, “Oh, my God!” She knelt on the floor in front of Angela and put her head in her mother’s lap and began sobbing. Marcus knocked on the door and asked if everything was all right. Angela answered that it was, but that they needed to be alone. When Theresa stopped crying, her mother took her daughter’s head in her hands and raised her face to look at her.
“Theresa, has any boy ever done anything to you?”
She shook her head and said no, and then asked, “How could God let this happen to Connie? She would never allow someone to touch her in a sinful way.”
“That is a question I cannot answer, honey.”
Mary said to Theresa, “Connie is going to need all your prayers and support to get through this, but she is a strong girl, and over time she will be alright.”
Angela voiced her agreement with Mary’s assurance.
“We will all be here for Connie. This is too big a load for her to try to carry alone.”
She told Mary, “And we are here for you and Stan and Carl as well. You all have our love and prayers. Anytime any of you feel the need to talk with someone outside your family, please do not hesitate to come to us. This is going to hurt Tony deeply when I tell him. He and I both consider Connie to be like our own child.”
Mary grasped her hand and squeezed it and thanked her.

After Mary had gone, Angela told her daughter that she must keep what happened to Connie confidential.
“You must be sure that you and Connie avoid this boy, Gene Gillian. Mary said that he lives over on Lark Street a few blocks north of where we are-do not even walk past his house. You cannot tell your friends anything about Connie or about him, but if you ever hear any of them say anything that would lead you to think they might be associating with him, please come home and tell me. When he does go to trial, Gillian will be sent away to a reform school or possibly to prison, but until then, you need to be sure that neither Connie nor you are ever in danger from him. Or from any other boys who you do not know well.”
“Mom, they took Connie when she was two blocks from our house. Is there anywhere that we might not be in danger if we’re out walking at night?”
Angela took a breath and held it for several seconds, then shook her head as she exhaled.
“I don’t want you out walking at night unless Marcus is with you. If you are going to Connie’s house after dark, your father or I will take you.”
She started to open the bedroom door, and then turned back to Theresa.
“I will talk to Marcus and tell him what happened. He is very fond of Connie and it would be unfair to keep what has happened to her from him, but do not tell your brother about the Gillian boy. Marcus does not need to know anything about him.”
Theresa understood the reason why her mother was telling her that and she nodded her head but did not reply.

Connie returned to school on Tuesday morning. A few students asked her why she had been absent and she replied that she had been sick. Theresa was the only classmate who knew what had happened to her, and by the end of the day, she felt less worried about any word of it getting out. Still, it had been a very stressful day for her and she whispered a prayer of thanks when the buzzer sounded at three-thirty.

The next Saturday after lunch, Connie told her mother that she wanted to go to confession that afternoon. Mary drove her to Saint Ann’s Church at three o’clock and after she pulled into the parking lot, she told her daughter that she would wait for her in the car.
When Connie came out of the church twenty minutes later, her face was streaked with tears and Mary knew that she had told Father Kane about her attack. She was glad that Connie had told the priest; if Connie would agree, she planned to contact him and ask for an appointment for Connie and her to come see him at the rectory. She voiced her idea to Connie and asked if she had any objections. Connie did not answer for a moment, and then told her mother she would like that very much.
Monday morning after she took the girls to school, Mary called Saint Ann’s rectory and asked Father Kane if she could see him at the rectory that afternoon after three-thirty if it would be convenient for him. When she identified herself on the phone, the priest immediately suspected the reason for her call. Several times since Saturday afternoon’s Confessions, the priest had thought about the girl who told him she was raped on Halloween night. He had been fairly certain that it was Connie Wojcik-Connie frequently asked unusual questions in religion class and she was one of his favorite eighth grade students-but he had not said her name and let her know that he knew who she was. He frequently thought that Connie reminded him of a girl he once had a big crush on when he was her age, many years ago.

When he greeted Mary and Connie at the rectory door a few minutes before four that afternoon, he saw the look of agony in Mary’s eyes and was very glad that she had called him. He took Mary and Connie into the rectory’s small living room where he felt it might provide a more intimate and home-like atmosphere than did the more formal reception parlor and invited them to sit where they liked. He offered them a glass of water or cup of tea and both of them declined. When he looked at Connie, he forced himself to keep a calm smile on his face and tried not to let the pain he felt for her show.
He started speaking in a soft voice, offering his sympathy and reassuring her of God’s love for her.
“It is actually good that you did not resist the man,” he told her. “God expects us to do what we have to in order to avoid further harm to us. Self-preservation is an instinct that is not indicative of cowardice-actually, it shows bravery. You might say it is a subconscious way of planning to live to fight another day. Now your highest priority is to recover from the trauma you have suffered. People do that in different ways. Some people seclude themselves from others; they are similar to a wounded animal that seeks a place of shelter where it can feel safe. Other people open themselves up freely to the ones they love and they gain great benefits from doing so. You have a very loving family and I know they are going to provide strong support for you. You also need to be aware that it may take a long time to get over this. That is completely normal.”
Connie alternated looking at the priest and then at the floor while he was talking, but gave no indication of wanting to reply to anything he had said.
The priest continued. “You’ve been through a lot, Connie. What happened to you should never happen to anyone. Sometimes it is hard to understand why God allows people to harm other people, but we have to trust in His Holy Will and believe that what awaits us in heaven will make up for all of the pain we suffer while we are living as humans on this earth.”
He looked at Mary and then back to Connie. “You are a very brave girl. It took courage to tell your parents what happened to you, knowing that it would hurt them very much. It breaks a mother or father’s heart when someone hurts their child, and a parent would much prefer that it happened to them instead of their daughter or son.”
Both Connie and Mary kept their eyes lowered and did not look at the priest while he was speaking. When he stopped talking and there was silence for a while, Mary asked if there was somewhere she could speak with him for a few minutes in private. She smiled at Connie and took her hand and reassured her daughter that it was just something personal that she had been wanting to discuss with the priest and being at the rectory provided an opportunity that would keep her from needing to make a separate visit.
Father Kane told her they could go into the reception room and offered to turn the TV on for Connie. Just as he and Mary stood up, Nixon chose to make his appearance. He went right to Connie and rubbed his body against her leg, and then allowed her to pick him up and she put her face next to his body. Mary looked at her holding the gray tabby and the expression that appeared on her child’s face transformed her for a moment into the little girl she used to be. Father Kane saw the tears in Mary’s eyes and he quickly turned away.

After the priest closed the door to the reception parlor, he gestured for Mary to sit down and then took his own seat and looked at her with his eyebrows raised questioningly.
“Do you think that we should have a psychologist talk with Connie?” Mary asked. “Our family doctor, Doctor McGinnis, checked her at the hospital and he saw her again at his office last Tuesday and told us that she is recovering well from her shoulder injury, but what might be in her mind is of much more concern to him. However, he told me that he is not qualified to address those issues, and he suggested that I contact a psychologist to talk to Connie if she shows any signs of continuing emotional trauma. She seems to be adjusting all right, but I still feel worried about her.”
“I think it is critical for her to talk with a professional as soon as possible,” Father Kane replied. “I also feel that it is important that you select someone who will be a good fit for Connie. I know that Father Sidney had a high regard for Kathryn Burns, who is a family counselor at the Foot Hills Mental Health Center. Kathryn is not a Catholic, but Father Sidney told me that she and he worked together several times and he recommended that if I ever needed professional help from outside the clergy that I contact her. I would be happy to call her for you and set up a time for Connie to see her.”
Mary gave the priest permission to contact the psychologist and relate what had happened to Connie and he told her he would give her a call on Monday. She hesitated for a moment, and then gave vent to her anguish.
“We are pretty certain we know who attacked Connie. The police arrested him and Connie identified his voice from behind a closed curtain, but his mother swore under oath that her son was at home Halloween night.”
She shook her head slowly. “If you could have seen the expression on Connie’s face when she heard his voice at the police station, you would never for a moment doubt that she immediately recognized it. Stan and I did not know that when she came home Halloween night, she flushed her panties down the toilet. I will never forgive myself for not calling the police immediately; if I had, and Dr. McGinnis had examined her that night, he might have been able to collect evidence that would have convicted that monster.”
She reached for a tissue from a box on the end table by her chair and dabbed her eyes, then continued. “My husband and I have done everything we could to provide for our children’s needs and to raise them in a loving home. Both our son and Connie have brought us nothing but pride and they are both good people who are pure of heart. Now, some animal who decides that he can take whatever he wants, including a young girl’s virginity, attacks Connie when she is walking home from a Halloween party. Father, I will never forgive who did this to her, and even though he may never go to trial, I will always hope he spends eternity in hell. And you know what? I do not even care whether God forgives me for my hatred of him.”
The priest looked at her without replying. He thought to himself that God likely understood her feelings.

Thomas Francis Kane had completed his seminary education and taken the sacred vows to become a priest twenty years earlier at the age of twenty-five. Over the years since his ordination, there had been several times when he had learned about a priest accused of pedophilic assault. Each time within days of hearing a story about a priest’s deviant behavior, he found himself contemplating and questioning his own adaptation to celibacy. He had never felt any significant regrets for the vows he had taken nor had he been provoked with any thoughts of a deviant nature as a substitute for his deprivation of any sexual relationship. The infrequent times he had felt an inadvertent desire toward an attractive woman he encountered, he had unfailingly confronted temptation directly by reminding himself there were no physical restraints on him or any laws that said he could not choose to leave the priesthood for a different kind of life. Still, each time he heard about a priest who abused a child, there would soon come a night when he would lay awake for a while questioning whether it was possible that some latent perversion was hidden within his own psyche and might someday express itself. Fortunately for his mental stability, those fleeting moments of doubt, which had no basis in reality, always passed quickly and he would fall asleep feeling reassured about his own character.

* * * *

Kathryn Jameson grew up an only child and from the time she was in Kindergarten, she was exposed to her parent’s dinner conversations about her father’s business and both of her parent’s political and social concerns about America in the second half of the twentieth century. She was a thoughtful child and whenever her teacher in any grade called upon her to answer a question on a current events subject, she seemed to have an unusual grasp of the details.
She was a very diligent student who never received a grade under an A and she was always truthful and forthright with her parents with a single exception. It was not until their seventy-year-old neighbor passed away when Kathryn was a freshman in high school that she finally told her mother that the man had molested her when she was eight years old.

John Beale was puttering in his garage one afternoon when Kathryn rode her bike into his driveway and called through the open overhead door asking what he was doing. He invited her to come in and shortly after she did, he pulled the door down. Alone with her in the garage, he coaxed the child into taking her pants down and then fondled her. Kathryn had been afraid to scream for help or to resist him because she feared he might never allow her to leave the garage. When John tried to probe her vagina with his finger, Kathryn screamed in pain and John became alarmed that they would be overheard. He apologized for hurting her and allowed her to pull her panties and shorts back up. He promised her he would never do anything like that to her again, and after she promised not to tell her parents what he had done, he raised the garage door and allowed her to leave. As she promised, she did not tell anyone what John had done to her, but after that day she never again stepped beyond the edge of the sidewalk onto the Beale property and she never spoke to John if she passed by when he was in his front yard. The reason she kept what John did a secret from her parents was because she was sure that her father would kill him, and then he would be sent to prison and she and her mother would never see him again.

When John had a heart attack while working on his lawn mower inside his garage, Kathryn went to her mother the day after his funeral and told her what had happened six years earlier. Her mother thought to herself that there was a certain ironic justice in John Beale going to his death inside his garage, but she cautioned Kathryn not to tell her father what John had done. She told Kathryn that he had enough on his mind right now trying to resolve some problems that had arisen at his business, but Kathryn thought to herself that her mother preferred to be the one to deliver this awful news to her dad.
It was not until four years after Kathryn told her mother what John Beale had done to her that Carol Jameson finally told her husband about their neighbor. The day after Kathryn had taken most of her clothes from her bedroom closet and moved into a dormitory at the university, she waited until after they eaten dinner and then asked her husband to come sit in the living room with her and said that she needed to talk with him.
Rob Jameson listened to his wife without interrupting her and when she finished speaking, he made only one comment.
“It is a good thing John is dead,” he said quietly, and then stood up and went out to the backyard.

When Kathryn was in high school, she was on the staff of the high school newspaper where she assumed the role of editor in her junior year. Both of her parents expected that she would pursue a journalism major in college and they were surprised when she told them she wanted to seek a graduate degree in Clinical Psychology. After she received her doctorate degree, she turned down an offer to work at a mental health clinic in Denver and instead accepted a lower paying position with the county supported mental health clinic at the local medical center.
She chose to work at the facility not so that she could live near her home town, although that was a very big plus for both her and her parents. It was her goal to be directly involved in helping children who lived in dysfunctional family environments. She wanted to be able to ‘get her feet wet’ and observe firsthand what conditions at home influenced the development and welfare of her clients as well as be in a position to encourage full family participation at changing the way they lived. She declined an offered similar position in Denver where the protocol was for conventional meetings with patients in an aseptic office environment.

When the new priest at Saint Ann’s parish called her office and asked her what the chances were that she could provide counseling for a thirteen year old rape victim, Kathryn told him that she would need to review her schedule and would call him back within the hour.
Five minutes after Connie took a seat in her office, Kathryn was glad she had juggled her schedule to make room for her and had not pushed Connie onto another therapist with a less full workload. Old memories resurrected themselves in her mind and she vividly recalled the terror she had felt when she was in John Beale’s garage. She found her heart going out to the child in front of her who seemed more saddened by the loss of her virginity than traumatized by the terror she had faced. Kathryn made a mental note that Connie was going to be her top priority.
She looked at Connie and smiled sadly. “I lost my virginity when I was eight. A man fifty years older than I was molested me in his garage. He ruptured my hymen with his finger.”
Connie stared at her with tears forming in her eyes but did not reply, and Kathryn continued.
“No one can ever give you back what has been taken from you physically. But you will remain a virgin in your soul until the day that you decide to share your body with a man you love. What is important now is for you to accept that something very bad happened to a truly good girl. You can keep it from affecting whatever happiness you seek in life if that is what you want. I would like to help you do just that.”

Carl Wojcik took special care not to allow either Connie or his parents to become aware of how deeply the assault on his sister troubled him. When he arrived at school on the Tuesday after Halloween, he began watching for Gene Gillian in the hallways between classes. It was a week before Carl spotted him and he stared at the older student with feelings of anger and hatred that he had never felt before in his life. Gene did not notice Carl watching him that day, but the following week when the two were approaching each other on the second floor hallway Gene apparently felt Carl’s burning stare. He looked at Carl without any expression and stared back at him for a few moments before turning his attention back to the student beside him who was talking to him. Carl wondered if Gillian did not know who he was or if the guy was so sociopathic that seeing the brother of the girl he had raped less than two weeks earlier staring at him did not trouble him at all. He was unaware that Gene Gillian had no idea of the identity of his victim.

A week before Christmas, the schools dismissed classes until the first week of January. It had snowed all afternoon and after taking his backpack of schoolbooks to his room, Carl went outside to shovel the walks. He had just cleared the walk from the front porch to the sidewalk in front of their home when he glanced up at a passing car and recognized Gene Gillian driving it. He stared at Gillian but the older student did not look his way and notice him.
Carl had looked up Gillian’s address; he too lived on the west side of town, but several blocks from the Wojcik home, and Carl wondered if his passing by was coincidental or if he regularly drove past their home to see if Connie happened to be outside and he could observe her. Carl wondered if Gillian harbored any ideas of repeating what he had done to Connie and he felt both fear and a building rage. Both of his parents had repeatedly emphasized that neither Connie nor Carl could tell anyone about Connie’s rape or that Gene Gillian was the prime suspect, cautioning them that the police officers handling the case wanted Gillian to think he was no longer under suspicion and was home free. Carl thought it was somewhat unfair that Theresa and her parents knew everything; he knew that Connie and Theresa talked about it, which was no doubt a good thing for Connie, but he had to keep his inner torment to himself and not share his feelings with anyone outside the family.

That night he awakened when he heard Connie cry out in her sleep in her bedroom next to his. He listened to see if she cried out again and considered going to her room and kneeling by her bed to be there to comfort her if she awakened. When he looked at the clock and realized a half hour had passed and he was wide-awake and unlikely to get back to sleep, he got up from his bed and quietly got dressed. He opened the door to his room and started for the stairs and he heard Clover scratch at the door from inside his sister’s room. Clover had hearing that Carl thought was incredible and he stayed standing where he was for several minutes hoping that the dog would not awaken his sister. He went down the stairs slowly, and then took his coat from the closet and went through the kitchen and out the back door feeling like a burglar or an escapee from a jail. Outside, he walked to the front sidewalk and turned north.
When he got to Lark Street ten minutes later, he crossed to the opposite side where the addresses were odd numbered; Gene’s address was an even number. He walked two blocks to where he was directly across from the Gillian home. There was a large juniper shrub at the corner of the driveway and sidewalk in front of the home behind him and he went to it and squatted down and stared across the street. He did not see Gene’s white Taurus and wondered if it was in the garage or if Gillian was out running around.
He is probably out stalking some young girl or already has one in his car and is raping her, he thought to himself and hoped that if Gillian was doing that, a police patrol car would suddenly drive up alongside his car and catch him in the act.
After he had squatted for twenty minutes, he felt his thighs and calves aching and stood up. He sat down on the lawn, which was covered with snow six inches deep and continued watching to see if Gene would drive up. It occurred to him that he did not have any kind of plan in mind to do anything if he did and decided that he was acting stupidly.
What if Gillian did come home and saw him watching him from across the street. He was sure that Gillian would confront him and he knew that he had little chance of winning a fight with him-he was as tall as Gene, but probably weighed twenty pounds less than him; also Carl was not athletic and he had only been in one fight in his life and that was with a fellow cub scout when he was eight years old.
He thought about Marcus Russo who was on the high school wrestling team and was never bothered by any of the school bullies. They all knew that Marcus could handle himself against much bigger guys than he was; they only picked on the students they knew they could easily whip. He wished he was like Marcus and not a bookworm nerd that the bullies ignored due to the fact that he was someone who would not bring them any recognition other than contempt from other students if they picked on him. He stood up again and headed home, feeling cold and tired.

* * * *

In December 1990, infantry units of the U.S. Marine Corps deployed to Saudi Arabia and joined other Marine, Army, and Air Force units already there, and U.S. naval forces were positioned in the Persian Gulf in preparation for an assault on Iraq’s forces inside Kuwait. Operation Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991 and following an intensive air-strike campaign, ground assault operations began February 23rd and lasted for one hundred hours. On February 28th, President Bush went on TV and told the American people that Kuwait had been liberated.
When the Persian Gulf War started, Gene parked himself in front of the television from the time he arrived home from school until near midnight each day, staying updated on the pro