Chapter Fourteen
Ruthie's admission that she and Peter Petrovsky might have conceived a child threw the Camden parsonage into disarray. Actually, the family read right through it; they realized she really had been pregnant. Technically, Annie's ultimatum from a few months before didn't apply in this case since, as Ruthie indicated, she miscarried rather than had an abortion. Nevertheless, supper was an extremely quiet affair that night. Food was passed around by hand signals, and the only mention of family was that Mary and Deena were now into month four of their pregnancies and doing quite nicely and that Sarah and Matt were considering whether now would be a good time to start their family.
Eric and Annie felt more disapproval for their youngest daughter having had sex with Peter at all than ever before. However they decided against grounding her, as getting the scare of her life was punishment enough. For what it was worth, she and Peter might resume their intimacy at any time in the near future no matter what anyone said - even though they said three months and that was into late February, more than a month way.
Ruthie in fact had decided she couldn't wait any longer. She and Peter belonged together, and the few times they had been one human being convinced her they were meant to be united forever. Peter also concluded that their relationship had to resume no matter what anyone said about it. When he told his mother Paris that he and Ruthie were going to start having sex again, she simply warned her son to be more careful the next time, for his girlfriend might wind up carrying a child to term if they weren't.
Lucy, meanwhile, was in the office over at the church while Kevin was looking after Jennifer and Charles. The entire week had been trying for the entire family. First, she had to publicly admit that she wasn't Daddy's little girl and hadn't been in ages. Second, Ruthie's indiscretions had also come out despite Lucy's attempts to keep it all under wraps. It was her turn once more to lead the Sunday service. This was one sermon that was gong to be very difficult to write - even more so than the one she had written about coping with abuse by parents or authority figures.
She decided to cancel the Sunday school classes for that week. She recognized her sermon was going to tread on very sensitive ground, but it was impossible to hide children from the very real issues she wanted to talk about.
She had just gone through her sixth draft and discarded it. She began her seventh on her father's laptop when there was a knock at the door. It was Lou, the church treasurer.
"Hi Lou," said Lucy quietly. "Come on in."
"Good evening, Lucy," said Lou. "Rough day?"
"Please don't ask." Lucy knew the deacons had been in an emergency session all day. She suspected that both she and Ruthie had been the topic of discussion. "Let me guess. You're firing me."
"No."
"You've dis-fellowshiped Ruthie."
"No, we haven't," said Lou. "Eric and Annie have welcomed unwed mothers into their home and our church for years. It'd be high handed of us had we taken the opposite tack against your own sister - even though she did miscarry, or it looks like she did."
"Well, what about me?" asked Lucy in exasperation. "You know what I did. It's not exactly the kind of thing a Christian would do now, is it?"
"You actually think there are a lot of single women in our congregation who don't do that?" Lou laughed. "Come on, Lucy, you were only fourteen or fifteen at the time. You thought you had privacy, and you didn't. Don't worry about it. The board's meeting had nothing to do with that. It was time for your annual performance review."
Lucy had totally forgotten about that. She looked at Lou nervously as she rubbed her tummy - the unborn baby was kicking like crazy again.
"And?" she asked.
"Well, your probation runs another six months, but you've proven yourself worthy as a minister. We've decided to take you off the probationary period," replied Lou, "and make you a permanent Associate Minister, along with a 25% pay raise, effective immediately. Future increases, like your father and Chandler, will be tied to inflation and performance."
Lucy grinned. The increase brought her stipend to about $25,000 per year. Along with her husband's pay as a police officer, they now had plenty to pay the rent on the garage apartment, handle their immediate expenses, and still have a little more extra for their children's scholarship funds which they had wanted to start right when the twins were born but couldn't as they were pinching every penny.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Lucy breathlessly got up from her chair and gave Lou a big hug. "I really, really appreciate the vote of confidence! I know I've brought in some changes the last little while that threw a lot of people off, and I was worried that it might've been too much."
"Nonsense," said Lou, getting ready to leave. "You're doing as much as any of us could ask of you and more. You are your father's daughter, and the conscience of Chandler. All three of you are the reason why we exist as a congregation. Keep up the good work. Oh, do you know the sermon topic for Sunday? We have to run off the bulletins tonight."
"Make it 'TBA' - to be announced," replied Lucy. "I want to talk about what's been going on this past week, but I don't want to jeopardize Henderson's right to a fair trial either - as much scum that he is."
"You'll think of something," replied Lou. "Good night, Reverend Kinkirk."
"Good night, Lou."
Lucy sat back down in her chair, and finally started typing the draft she had wanted to write all along.
On Sunday morning, the church was jammed beyond capacity as many eager people waited to hear what Lucy had to say. After leading everyone in the Lord's Prayer, Lucy looked around nervously. Finally, she spoke.
"Brothers and sisters in Christ, I want to begin by expressing my gratitude in the vote of confidence the deacons of this church have given me; as well as that of my parents and especially my siblings. As I'm sure all of you know by now, it's been more difficult for Ruthie than it has been for me. She appreciates, however, the support you've given her, too. She asked me to tell you that she and Mr. Petrovsky apologize to any and all of you who may have been offended by their actions in the past few months.
"They request that their privacy continue to be respected. However, they both want to lead by example from now on, at least in the public sense. Now that I am permanently employed full-time by this church and not just on probationary contract, it has become impossible for me to continue my volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity. However, Ruthie and Peter will be picking up my shifts, and I thank them for that."
There was sustained applause. Ruthie turned from her place, and shook Peter's hand.
"Of course," Lucy continued as the applause diminished, "they know that doesn't excuse themselves for their actions. I also know that, no matter what I say about it, I can't take back what I did nearly ten years ago. But many of our kids are doing those things today and much worse, and maybe we need to understand why.
"As I mentioned a few months back, I get worried at times about the world our kids live in. I'm a mother of twins and am three months away from a third, as you all know. Mary and Simon will each become parents sometime in late May or early June. Some have criticized me for being both a parent and a minister saying that I can't serve both God and man. I counter by saying I can't serve God without serving my fellow humans first, and especially my own children and siblings.
"A few years back, I'm sure you remember, the janitor over at Simon's school was nearly fired because he claimed to be talking directly to God. Now, I don't know if he was or if he wasn't. However, as Simon told me, Dad pointed out to the school board that no one questioned HIS sanity or the rest of us Camdens whenever we claimed to talk to God because our family was in His service, but that He was in the service of people.
"In the service of God, however, even the most devout among us can become the most fallible. That would explain Mary's trashing the school gym; or Simon having an affair with an ex-hooker; or Mom and Dad both being tempted to have affairs a few years back. It also explains why Ruthie and Peter did what they did, and why I did what I did. We're all only human, and as humans we're fallible to any of a number of failings.
"As Ruthie reminded me some time ago, before this whole story broke open, just because we're PK's doesn't give us wisdom, fortitude, right judgment, patience and self-restraint, among other virtues. Only the Holy Spirit can give us those gifts, and it is up to us alone to decide how we use those gifts, or not at all."
Lucy paused, and thought about all her classmates who had been taken advantage of by Frank and all the others. She knew that there were some who would never trust anyone ever again. At least she and Ruthie and most of their colleagues had someone to turn to, even if belatedly. Others had no one to turn to at all. In disgust, she tore up the remainder of her prepared text and addressed the congregation off the cuff.
"Here's the problem, as I see it. Our grandparents are the Greatest Generation. They were brought up to trust everything that was told to them. When Hitler came along, he was seen as a real enemy because he was; and that was before the full extent of the 'Final Solution' was known. So they fought, both men and women, so that we here in America, and throughout the democratic West generally, could be free from tyranny; although we were also hypocrites because we had internment camps of our own, for the Japanese.
"A few years later, during the Cold Scare, Joe McCarthy gets the idea that it's okay to question people's patriotism just because they read the 'Communist Manifesto' or 'Mein Kampf' in passing or out of curiosity, or they attended a radical meeting or whatever. These included the same people who had fought and were willing to lay down their lives for freedom of expression just a few years before.
"Eventually, that got shot down. President Eisenhower, however, refused to disassociate himself from the rogue elements in the ruling party that tried to get away with it. Partly why Hollywood is so overwhelmingly Democratic - I don't know. He also refused to enforce the Supreme Court's decisions on desegregation for three whole years. Well, the people got insulted and when they finally got the chance to vote - the General had to retire because of the two-term limit - they went to the other party. Our parents, the children of the Greatest Generation, then got dragged into a war in Indochina for no apparent reason. Well, so did my grandfather, the Colonel, who can claim that he fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam - as did a lot of veterans called back into service.
"Well, anyway, they all distrusted the very elements their parents were told to trust. Remember the saying, 'Don't trust anyone over 30?' And then came along the realization we had been lied to all along, thanks to the Pentagon Papers. And a year after Danny Ellsberg leaked those documents came Watergate. Any semblance of trust we had for government, and the media, was gone forever.
"Well, the Baby Boom eventually settled down, they turned 30 themselves and started having us - Generations X and Y. Having never trusted their parents, they decided they couldn't trust their kids either. So there was no line of communication. And truth be told, although I was lucky enough to have parents I could talk to about most things, I still couldn't really talk to them about everything. Neither could my siblings.
"So kids today turn to drugs, or sex, even more so than our parents did. Even we Camdens weren't totally exempt, as you all know - Mary did experiment with pot, and Simon and Ruthie each found outlets in sex. And the rest of us have all gotten in some kind of trouble at one time or another. Maybe it's because we thought we knew better, or something. But there's one thing we all know, each of us faltered at a time when we just couldn't talk to our parents for some reason, just as you couldn't talk to your parents when you were our age or younger.
"So parents, please, talk to your kids before it's too late. I don't mean smothering them because that'll make things even worse. I mean have open and frank discussions with them. Don't be quick to say you'll disown them for something or other, because you did those same things as a kid or were at least tempted to. Listen to what they have to say. You may agree to disagree, but at least that's a start.
"Kids, if anyone tries to take advantage of you the way my friends and Ruthie and I were, don't wait. If you even suspect something is wrong with one of your friends along these lines, call them on it. If it's someone at school or at work, tell your parents. If it's your parents, tell someone at school or at work that you trust. I am absolutely convinced that a great number of divorces happen in this country because of a lack of communication, and that resulted because either the husband or wife or both didn't learn how to communicate - not just talk - as a child. The same with pedophiles - they were abused and didn't get treatment when the help could have saved them from destroying others' lives.
"I'm not saying we should blindly trust authority again like our grandparents did. Authority lost our trust ages ago, in my case maybe from the time I was born. What I am saying is we need to build that trust up again at the local scale, starting in our communities and in our homes. Maybe then we won't be so vulnerable, as I was a decade ago."
"Thank you. Let us rise and sing Hymn 138, 'He Who Would Valiant Be.'"
The service ended about forty-five minutes later, but Lucy stayed on for an hour more as nearly everyone shook her hands and wanted to talk to her. At the end of the line were Frank Henderson's younger sisters, Bernadette Carlton and Piper Anderson. They were the same ones who had walked out on Lucy a few months before with their families. This time however, it looked like they wanted to confront the minister directly. Kevin walked up to his wife, knife stick ready just in case.
"No, officer, that's okay," said Bernadette. "We don't want to hurt Rev. Kinkirk. We have to talk to her. It's about Frank - and us."
Kevin shrugged. "Just know that Lucy carries pepper spray on her at all times," he warned. "After what happened to Rev. Camden here, she's not taking any chances."
"We won't hurt her, we swear," said Piper. "This is important."
"Um, Mom, could you take Charles and Jennifer home in the van along with Sam and David?" asked Lucy. "This might take a while."
"Sure, babe," said Annie. She kissed her daughter. "Kevin, I'm out of extra car seats. Could you take Sam and David home in your car?"
"No problem, Annie," replied Kevin. "I'll fish out the boosters from the trunk."
As the alternate arrangements were handled, Lucy led the way into the ministers' office, and invited Henderson's sisters to sit down.
"Can I get you some coffee?" offered Lucy. "I've got a whole variety of one-shots here. Any flavor, I have it."
"I'll have a Swiss Mocha, double single, please," requested Piper.
"Decaffeinated, black for me," said Bernadette.
A minute later, the cups had been brewed. Lucy served the cups, opened up a can of club soda for herself from the mini-fridge, and sat down behind the desk.
"How can I help you ladies?" she asked.
"Rev. Kinkirk, we really need your help," replied Piper. "You'll remember a few months back when we walked out on you. We're sorry we did that, but we didn't think it was appropriate for little kids, including our own, to be hearing what you had to say. In retrospect, we should have stayed. This whole thing with Frank should have been dealt with a long time ago, before he even had a chance to prey on any children."
"What do you mean?" asked Lucy.
"We - my sister and I - well, we never really got to know our father," said Bernadette. "He died in a car accident a few months after I was born. Frank was ten at the time, Piper was only three. He loved him so much and he was inconsolable when he heard he died. A couple of years later, Mom found an absolutely charming guy and fell for him. We started calling him 'Daddy' after a few months, and even Frank befriended him. Well, this guy and Mom got married. Then life became hell."
"How did that happen?"
"Our stepfather started beating up Mom fairly regularly," said Piper. "She kept excusing herself saying she 'fell down,' but we knew better. But this was at a time when women weren't encouraged to report spousal assaults, in fact the concept didn't even exist. It was presumed that a woman irrevocably consented to sex or any other kind of touching when she married a man."
"I thank God we repealed those laws eventually," said Lucy angrily. "It's a shame a lot of guys still think their wife is their property. Sometimes I'd just like to walk up to each and every one of them and strangle them - but I'm not like that. But please, go on. What was your stepfather's name, by the way?"
"It doesn't matter," replied Piper. "As far as we're concerned, he lost his right to exist after he attacked our mother the first time. But we thought it would settle down. Of course, it only got worse."
"Well, one day, it must have gotten to be too much for Frank," said Bernadette. "He stood up to our stepfather and told him if he didn't stop, he'd kill him. Our stepfather grabbed a knife and lunged at Frank. Our brother ducked, tripped him, and before the man could catch his second wind, Frank grabbed a crowbar that he had lifted from the jalopy and bludgeoned him to death. We're now convinced Frank had planned it for months to make it look like an accident. The police bought his story, ruled he acted in self-defense, and let him go. As it turned out, the man had taken out a substantial insurance policy a few months before, and Mom and the three of us wound up with a million bucks, split four ways."
"What does that have to do with the current litigation?" wondered Lucy.
"We're getting to that," said Piper. "Well, Frank was now the man of the house, at the age of fourteen. He figured that if he could get away with murder, he could do anything. So one night about a year later, while Mom was waiting tables and my sister and I were playing board games after homework, Frank asked if we wanted to play what he called 'extreme doctor.'"
"Uh-oh," said Lucy.
"Yeah," said Bernadette. "Ten minutes after we had stripped, he forced his way on us, first into me, then into my sister. Then he made me have sex with my sister and within a few more minutes it became a threesome. Remember at the time, he was fifteen. I was only five and Piper was eight. This happened, I don't know how many times but it was quite often. It stopped suddenly when he turned eighteen and went to university across the country, but he read the Riot Act to us and told us never to tell Mom, or else. At least he didn't do permanent damage to our insides- we'll give him that."
"Now you can understand why my kids, and Bernie's, get upset when we tell them they can't see Uncle Frank, and that he can't come to our place," said Piper. "His kids and ours get along just fine, but we've only allowed Sharon into our places because of how Frank ruined our lives. But now that she tried to buy off Ruthie's friend, that relationship is over too."
"I'm just glad you finally found it in yourselves to trust other people again," said Lucy. "At least you have families and you know enough to tell your kids not to take advantage of other people or each other like that - or to be taken advantage of; just what I was talking about today."
"My point exactly," said Bernadette. "Well, Mom died five months ago, as you know."
"Yeah, Ruthie mentioned that," said Lucy, biting her lips. "I'm sorry."
"Well, my sister and I were named co-executrixes of the estate," continued Bernadette. "We reviewed the will, and found that we got the lion's share of my mother's share of our stepfather's inheritance which she had invested after he died. It was well over a million bucks each, plus trust funds for each of our children and Frank's when they turn eighteen - about a hundred thousand per. Frank's daughter, as you know, is twenty-one so she cashed in already. Frank was left with just one dollar. We couldn't understand why, until this past Friday morning. We finished cleaning out the house and were about to leave when Piper got the idea to check the closets and attic one last time. As we were climbing the stairs to the attic, we noticed one step kept creaking in a funny way. We checked and found the step was hollow. I got this penknife and pried it open. And there it was."
"What?" Lucy was intrigued.
"We found a key to a safe deposit box that we never heard of before, and instructions on where to find it," said Piper. "We drove down to the bank, identified ourselves and got access to the box. Inside were several old videotapes in Beta format. Along with it was a note from Mom, saying she had accidentally discovered the tapes while cleaning out Frank's bedroom after he had gotten married and was so disgusted that she disowned her son. She instructed us that if we ever found the tapes, to turn them into the cops when and only when, she had passed on. Since Beta is nowadays only used by the TV newsgathering business, we trekked down to the local station and they played the tapes."
"He made dirty tapes of the three of you?" Lucy was horrified.
"Yeah," said Piper. "Our first time; a few after that interspersed over three years; and the last session before he left for college. He also videotaped the murder of our step-father. Can you see what our problem is?"
"What problem? There's no statute of limitations on incest or on murder." said Lucy. "He could get twenty years for each of you. Definitely he could get life without parole for your stepfather." The local district attorney stopped seeking death penalty convictions a year or so before, after a couple of evidence reviews revealed police ineptitude in several non-death penalty cases. Detective Michaels had fired the rogue cops on the spot. The DA, however, decided the risk was too high to pursue the supreme punishment anymore - and the largely liberal electorate in the county agreed with him, reelecting him by a slim margin.
"Not exactly," said Bernadette. "We only found out about these tapes two days ago. We went to the cops months ago about my sister and me, but they told us without corroborating evidence there was nothing they could do. That's why charges relating to a number of other kids were dropped as well, no smoking gun. The state wrapped up its case on Friday. How are we going to make sure that our brother gets what he deserves?"
Lucy got up, and pulled out two books. One was the DSM-IV-TR, the other the California Code of Criminal Procedure. She quickly reviewed the definitions of "sexual addiction" and "pedophilia" and discovered that, notwithstanding the official diagnoses, Henderson was neither - he was a psychopath. She then took a look at the criminal procedure book, and got an idea.
"Have you been called as witnesses for the defense?" Lucy finally asked.
"Yes, as character witnesses," said Piper. "But the judge ruled in pre- trial motions that we could only testify to his non-sexual character, period. What he did to us was irrelevant."
"Hear me out," said Lucy. "When you each take the stand, give hostile answers and get classified as a hostile witness. On cross-examination, the State can enter the evidence. It'll be 'similar fact testimony' that the judge can't ignore."
"But if the evidence is entered now," said Bernadette, "doesn't that preclude it being used in another state trial?"
"It might," admitted Lucy. "But you can charge your brother under federal law. Say that he violated your civil rights. At the very least, this is criminal sexual harassment. At worst, it's abuse of authority. In your stepfather's case, the videotape will speak volumes. He'll get 10 years concurrently at the most, but at least you'll give him a federal rap sheet as well as a state one. Tell you what, let me call my friend Roxanne Richardson - she's Kevin's beat partner and Dr. Hampton's girlfriend. You can go downtown and give a statement today if you want."
"We appreciate that," said Piper, as Lucy made the call.
"Oh, one last thing," said Lucy, "when I talk to Frank's daughter and son, they denied their father did anything to them. Were they lying to me?"
"Yes," said Bernadette and Piper together. The older sister pulled out two more tapes, saying one showed the father sodomizing his daughter at fourteen, while the other showed the siblings having sex with each other - the latter having been taken when the daughter was seventeen-and-a-half and the son only six.
Lucy remembered Frank's daughter saying that she had gotten pregnant at sixteen but had had an abortion, having been raped but was so humiliated by the whole thing that she didn't press charges, only filing a report that a rape had been committed against her. Now the minister knew why - the woman had been too ashamed to point the finger at her own father. Maybe seeing her own aunts' courage in facing up to their brother finally persuaded her and her brother to do the same against their father, Lucy figured.
That night, the town was again in an uproar. Henderson's sisters' allegations, and that of his children, made the news and had turned the case against him into a cause for outright derision by the public. A mob gathered around the local jail, determined to storm it and lynch Frank Henderson, but they were repressed by a well-equipped SWAT team, led by Roxie, who dispersed the crowd with at least a dozen cans of tear gas. The jail was overflowing that night with at least a hundred would-be vigilantes; who were eventually all ticketed $400 each for breach of the peace and released on recognizance.
Meanwhile, the school board had an emergency meeting that evening. Henderson had tested their patience for far too long. He was dismissed effective the date of his suspension and ordered to pay back nearly $30,000 in salary and benefits. His pension benefits were also forfeited.
The next day when the trial resumed, Janice suggested a change in venue to finish the trial. She hated the defendant even more now; but still believed he needed a fair trial and thought the judge could better adjudicate the case far away from the rabble. The judge agreed and found an available courtroom in San Francisco, ordering the case adjourned for a week while travel arrangements could be finalized.
Later that night, Ruthie trekked over to Peter's house. After Paris said goodbye to them before taking a late evening flight to Vancouver for a business meeting, the two teenagers locked the door behind them. Ruthie and Peter looked at each other, started kissing passionately, and headed for the shower one floor up, running up the staircase hand-in-hand two steps at a time.
Ruthie's admission that she and Peter Petrovsky might have conceived a child threw the Camden parsonage into disarray. Actually, the family read right through it; they realized she really had been pregnant. Technically, Annie's ultimatum from a few months before didn't apply in this case since, as Ruthie indicated, she miscarried rather than had an abortion. Nevertheless, supper was an extremely quiet affair that night. Food was passed around by hand signals, and the only mention of family was that Mary and Deena were now into month four of their pregnancies and doing quite nicely and that Sarah and Matt were considering whether now would be a good time to start their family.
Eric and Annie felt more disapproval for their youngest daughter having had sex with Peter at all than ever before. However they decided against grounding her, as getting the scare of her life was punishment enough. For what it was worth, she and Peter might resume their intimacy at any time in the near future no matter what anyone said - even though they said three months and that was into late February, more than a month way.
Ruthie in fact had decided she couldn't wait any longer. She and Peter belonged together, and the few times they had been one human being convinced her they were meant to be united forever. Peter also concluded that their relationship had to resume no matter what anyone said about it. When he told his mother Paris that he and Ruthie were going to start having sex again, she simply warned her son to be more careful the next time, for his girlfriend might wind up carrying a child to term if they weren't.
Lucy, meanwhile, was in the office over at the church while Kevin was looking after Jennifer and Charles. The entire week had been trying for the entire family. First, she had to publicly admit that she wasn't Daddy's little girl and hadn't been in ages. Second, Ruthie's indiscretions had also come out despite Lucy's attempts to keep it all under wraps. It was her turn once more to lead the Sunday service. This was one sermon that was gong to be very difficult to write - even more so than the one she had written about coping with abuse by parents or authority figures.
She decided to cancel the Sunday school classes for that week. She recognized her sermon was going to tread on very sensitive ground, but it was impossible to hide children from the very real issues she wanted to talk about.
She had just gone through her sixth draft and discarded it. She began her seventh on her father's laptop when there was a knock at the door. It was Lou, the church treasurer.
"Hi Lou," said Lucy quietly. "Come on in."
"Good evening, Lucy," said Lou. "Rough day?"
"Please don't ask." Lucy knew the deacons had been in an emergency session all day. She suspected that both she and Ruthie had been the topic of discussion. "Let me guess. You're firing me."
"No."
"You've dis-fellowshiped Ruthie."
"No, we haven't," said Lou. "Eric and Annie have welcomed unwed mothers into their home and our church for years. It'd be high handed of us had we taken the opposite tack against your own sister - even though she did miscarry, or it looks like she did."
"Well, what about me?" asked Lucy in exasperation. "You know what I did. It's not exactly the kind of thing a Christian would do now, is it?"
"You actually think there are a lot of single women in our congregation who don't do that?" Lou laughed. "Come on, Lucy, you were only fourteen or fifteen at the time. You thought you had privacy, and you didn't. Don't worry about it. The board's meeting had nothing to do with that. It was time for your annual performance review."
Lucy had totally forgotten about that. She looked at Lou nervously as she rubbed her tummy - the unborn baby was kicking like crazy again.
"And?" she asked.
"Well, your probation runs another six months, but you've proven yourself worthy as a minister. We've decided to take you off the probationary period," replied Lou, "and make you a permanent Associate Minister, along with a 25% pay raise, effective immediately. Future increases, like your father and Chandler, will be tied to inflation and performance."
Lucy grinned. The increase brought her stipend to about $25,000 per year. Along with her husband's pay as a police officer, they now had plenty to pay the rent on the garage apartment, handle their immediate expenses, and still have a little more extra for their children's scholarship funds which they had wanted to start right when the twins were born but couldn't as they were pinching every penny.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Lucy breathlessly got up from her chair and gave Lou a big hug. "I really, really appreciate the vote of confidence! I know I've brought in some changes the last little while that threw a lot of people off, and I was worried that it might've been too much."
"Nonsense," said Lou, getting ready to leave. "You're doing as much as any of us could ask of you and more. You are your father's daughter, and the conscience of Chandler. All three of you are the reason why we exist as a congregation. Keep up the good work. Oh, do you know the sermon topic for Sunday? We have to run off the bulletins tonight."
"Make it 'TBA' - to be announced," replied Lucy. "I want to talk about what's been going on this past week, but I don't want to jeopardize Henderson's right to a fair trial either - as much scum that he is."
"You'll think of something," replied Lou. "Good night, Reverend Kinkirk."
"Good night, Lou."
Lucy sat back down in her chair, and finally started typing the draft she had wanted to write all along.
On Sunday morning, the church was jammed beyond capacity as many eager people waited to hear what Lucy had to say. After leading everyone in the Lord's Prayer, Lucy looked around nervously. Finally, she spoke.
"Brothers and sisters in Christ, I want to begin by expressing my gratitude in the vote of confidence the deacons of this church have given me; as well as that of my parents and especially my siblings. As I'm sure all of you know by now, it's been more difficult for Ruthie than it has been for me. She appreciates, however, the support you've given her, too. She asked me to tell you that she and Mr. Petrovsky apologize to any and all of you who may have been offended by their actions in the past few months.
"They request that their privacy continue to be respected. However, they both want to lead by example from now on, at least in the public sense. Now that I am permanently employed full-time by this church and not just on probationary contract, it has become impossible for me to continue my volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity. However, Ruthie and Peter will be picking up my shifts, and I thank them for that."
There was sustained applause. Ruthie turned from her place, and shook Peter's hand.
"Of course," Lucy continued as the applause diminished, "they know that doesn't excuse themselves for their actions. I also know that, no matter what I say about it, I can't take back what I did nearly ten years ago. But many of our kids are doing those things today and much worse, and maybe we need to understand why.
"As I mentioned a few months back, I get worried at times about the world our kids live in. I'm a mother of twins and am three months away from a third, as you all know. Mary and Simon will each become parents sometime in late May or early June. Some have criticized me for being both a parent and a minister saying that I can't serve both God and man. I counter by saying I can't serve God without serving my fellow humans first, and especially my own children and siblings.
"A few years back, I'm sure you remember, the janitor over at Simon's school was nearly fired because he claimed to be talking directly to God. Now, I don't know if he was or if he wasn't. However, as Simon told me, Dad pointed out to the school board that no one questioned HIS sanity or the rest of us Camdens whenever we claimed to talk to God because our family was in His service, but that He was in the service of people.
"In the service of God, however, even the most devout among us can become the most fallible. That would explain Mary's trashing the school gym; or Simon having an affair with an ex-hooker; or Mom and Dad both being tempted to have affairs a few years back. It also explains why Ruthie and Peter did what they did, and why I did what I did. We're all only human, and as humans we're fallible to any of a number of failings.
"As Ruthie reminded me some time ago, before this whole story broke open, just because we're PK's doesn't give us wisdom, fortitude, right judgment, patience and self-restraint, among other virtues. Only the Holy Spirit can give us those gifts, and it is up to us alone to decide how we use those gifts, or not at all."
Lucy paused, and thought about all her classmates who had been taken advantage of by Frank and all the others. She knew that there were some who would never trust anyone ever again. At least she and Ruthie and most of their colleagues had someone to turn to, even if belatedly. Others had no one to turn to at all. In disgust, she tore up the remainder of her prepared text and addressed the congregation off the cuff.
"Here's the problem, as I see it. Our grandparents are the Greatest Generation. They were brought up to trust everything that was told to them. When Hitler came along, he was seen as a real enemy because he was; and that was before the full extent of the 'Final Solution' was known. So they fought, both men and women, so that we here in America, and throughout the democratic West generally, could be free from tyranny; although we were also hypocrites because we had internment camps of our own, for the Japanese.
"A few years later, during the Cold Scare, Joe McCarthy gets the idea that it's okay to question people's patriotism just because they read the 'Communist Manifesto' or 'Mein Kampf' in passing or out of curiosity, or they attended a radical meeting or whatever. These included the same people who had fought and were willing to lay down their lives for freedom of expression just a few years before.
"Eventually, that got shot down. President Eisenhower, however, refused to disassociate himself from the rogue elements in the ruling party that tried to get away with it. Partly why Hollywood is so overwhelmingly Democratic - I don't know. He also refused to enforce the Supreme Court's decisions on desegregation for three whole years. Well, the people got insulted and when they finally got the chance to vote - the General had to retire because of the two-term limit - they went to the other party. Our parents, the children of the Greatest Generation, then got dragged into a war in Indochina for no apparent reason. Well, so did my grandfather, the Colonel, who can claim that he fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam - as did a lot of veterans called back into service.
"Well, anyway, they all distrusted the very elements their parents were told to trust. Remember the saying, 'Don't trust anyone over 30?' And then came along the realization we had been lied to all along, thanks to the Pentagon Papers. And a year after Danny Ellsberg leaked those documents came Watergate. Any semblance of trust we had for government, and the media, was gone forever.
"Well, the Baby Boom eventually settled down, they turned 30 themselves and started having us - Generations X and Y. Having never trusted their parents, they decided they couldn't trust their kids either. So there was no line of communication. And truth be told, although I was lucky enough to have parents I could talk to about most things, I still couldn't really talk to them about everything. Neither could my siblings.
"So kids today turn to drugs, or sex, even more so than our parents did. Even we Camdens weren't totally exempt, as you all know - Mary did experiment with pot, and Simon and Ruthie each found outlets in sex. And the rest of us have all gotten in some kind of trouble at one time or another. Maybe it's because we thought we knew better, or something. But there's one thing we all know, each of us faltered at a time when we just couldn't talk to our parents for some reason, just as you couldn't talk to your parents when you were our age or younger.
"So parents, please, talk to your kids before it's too late. I don't mean smothering them because that'll make things even worse. I mean have open and frank discussions with them. Don't be quick to say you'll disown them for something or other, because you did those same things as a kid or were at least tempted to. Listen to what they have to say. You may agree to disagree, but at least that's a start.
"Kids, if anyone tries to take advantage of you the way my friends and Ruthie and I were, don't wait. If you even suspect something is wrong with one of your friends along these lines, call them on it. If it's someone at school or at work, tell your parents. If it's your parents, tell someone at school or at work that you trust. I am absolutely convinced that a great number of divorces happen in this country because of a lack of communication, and that resulted because either the husband or wife or both didn't learn how to communicate - not just talk - as a child. The same with pedophiles - they were abused and didn't get treatment when the help could have saved them from destroying others' lives.
"I'm not saying we should blindly trust authority again like our grandparents did. Authority lost our trust ages ago, in my case maybe from the time I was born. What I am saying is we need to build that trust up again at the local scale, starting in our communities and in our homes. Maybe then we won't be so vulnerable, as I was a decade ago."
"Thank you. Let us rise and sing Hymn 138, 'He Who Would Valiant Be.'"
The service ended about forty-five minutes later, but Lucy stayed on for an hour more as nearly everyone shook her hands and wanted to talk to her. At the end of the line were Frank Henderson's younger sisters, Bernadette Carlton and Piper Anderson. They were the same ones who had walked out on Lucy a few months before with their families. This time however, it looked like they wanted to confront the minister directly. Kevin walked up to his wife, knife stick ready just in case.
"No, officer, that's okay," said Bernadette. "We don't want to hurt Rev. Kinkirk. We have to talk to her. It's about Frank - and us."
Kevin shrugged. "Just know that Lucy carries pepper spray on her at all times," he warned. "After what happened to Rev. Camden here, she's not taking any chances."
"We won't hurt her, we swear," said Piper. "This is important."
"Um, Mom, could you take Charles and Jennifer home in the van along with Sam and David?" asked Lucy. "This might take a while."
"Sure, babe," said Annie. She kissed her daughter. "Kevin, I'm out of extra car seats. Could you take Sam and David home in your car?"
"No problem, Annie," replied Kevin. "I'll fish out the boosters from the trunk."
As the alternate arrangements were handled, Lucy led the way into the ministers' office, and invited Henderson's sisters to sit down.
"Can I get you some coffee?" offered Lucy. "I've got a whole variety of one-shots here. Any flavor, I have it."
"I'll have a Swiss Mocha, double single, please," requested Piper.
"Decaffeinated, black for me," said Bernadette.
A minute later, the cups had been brewed. Lucy served the cups, opened up a can of club soda for herself from the mini-fridge, and sat down behind the desk.
"How can I help you ladies?" she asked.
"Rev. Kinkirk, we really need your help," replied Piper. "You'll remember a few months back when we walked out on you. We're sorry we did that, but we didn't think it was appropriate for little kids, including our own, to be hearing what you had to say. In retrospect, we should have stayed. This whole thing with Frank should have been dealt with a long time ago, before he even had a chance to prey on any children."
"What do you mean?" asked Lucy.
"We - my sister and I - well, we never really got to know our father," said Bernadette. "He died in a car accident a few months after I was born. Frank was ten at the time, Piper was only three. He loved him so much and he was inconsolable when he heard he died. A couple of years later, Mom found an absolutely charming guy and fell for him. We started calling him 'Daddy' after a few months, and even Frank befriended him. Well, this guy and Mom got married. Then life became hell."
"How did that happen?"
"Our stepfather started beating up Mom fairly regularly," said Piper. "She kept excusing herself saying she 'fell down,' but we knew better. But this was at a time when women weren't encouraged to report spousal assaults, in fact the concept didn't even exist. It was presumed that a woman irrevocably consented to sex or any other kind of touching when she married a man."
"I thank God we repealed those laws eventually," said Lucy angrily. "It's a shame a lot of guys still think their wife is their property. Sometimes I'd just like to walk up to each and every one of them and strangle them - but I'm not like that. But please, go on. What was your stepfather's name, by the way?"
"It doesn't matter," replied Piper. "As far as we're concerned, he lost his right to exist after he attacked our mother the first time. But we thought it would settle down. Of course, it only got worse."
"Well, one day, it must have gotten to be too much for Frank," said Bernadette. "He stood up to our stepfather and told him if he didn't stop, he'd kill him. Our stepfather grabbed a knife and lunged at Frank. Our brother ducked, tripped him, and before the man could catch his second wind, Frank grabbed a crowbar that he had lifted from the jalopy and bludgeoned him to death. We're now convinced Frank had planned it for months to make it look like an accident. The police bought his story, ruled he acted in self-defense, and let him go. As it turned out, the man had taken out a substantial insurance policy a few months before, and Mom and the three of us wound up with a million bucks, split four ways."
"What does that have to do with the current litigation?" wondered Lucy.
"We're getting to that," said Piper. "Well, Frank was now the man of the house, at the age of fourteen. He figured that if he could get away with murder, he could do anything. So one night about a year later, while Mom was waiting tables and my sister and I were playing board games after homework, Frank asked if we wanted to play what he called 'extreme doctor.'"
"Uh-oh," said Lucy.
"Yeah," said Bernadette. "Ten minutes after we had stripped, he forced his way on us, first into me, then into my sister. Then he made me have sex with my sister and within a few more minutes it became a threesome. Remember at the time, he was fifteen. I was only five and Piper was eight. This happened, I don't know how many times but it was quite often. It stopped suddenly when he turned eighteen and went to university across the country, but he read the Riot Act to us and told us never to tell Mom, or else. At least he didn't do permanent damage to our insides- we'll give him that."
"Now you can understand why my kids, and Bernie's, get upset when we tell them they can't see Uncle Frank, and that he can't come to our place," said Piper. "His kids and ours get along just fine, but we've only allowed Sharon into our places because of how Frank ruined our lives. But now that she tried to buy off Ruthie's friend, that relationship is over too."
"I'm just glad you finally found it in yourselves to trust other people again," said Lucy. "At least you have families and you know enough to tell your kids not to take advantage of other people or each other like that - or to be taken advantage of; just what I was talking about today."
"My point exactly," said Bernadette. "Well, Mom died five months ago, as you know."
"Yeah, Ruthie mentioned that," said Lucy, biting her lips. "I'm sorry."
"Well, my sister and I were named co-executrixes of the estate," continued Bernadette. "We reviewed the will, and found that we got the lion's share of my mother's share of our stepfather's inheritance which she had invested after he died. It was well over a million bucks each, plus trust funds for each of our children and Frank's when they turn eighteen - about a hundred thousand per. Frank's daughter, as you know, is twenty-one so she cashed in already. Frank was left with just one dollar. We couldn't understand why, until this past Friday morning. We finished cleaning out the house and were about to leave when Piper got the idea to check the closets and attic one last time. As we were climbing the stairs to the attic, we noticed one step kept creaking in a funny way. We checked and found the step was hollow. I got this penknife and pried it open. And there it was."
"What?" Lucy was intrigued.
"We found a key to a safe deposit box that we never heard of before, and instructions on where to find it," said Piper. "We drove down to the bank, identified ourselves and got access to the box. Inside were several old videotapes in Beta format. Along with it was a note from Mom, saying she had accidentally discovered the tapes while cleaning out Frank's bedroom after he had gotten married and was so disgusted that she disowned her son. She instructed us that if we ever found the tapes, to turn them into the cops when and only when, she had passed on. Since Beta is nowadays only used by the TV newsgathering business, we trekked down to the local station and they played the tapes."
"He made dirty tapes of the three of you?" Lucy was horrified.
"Yeah," said Piper. "Our first time; a few after that interspersed over three years; and the last session before he left for college. He also videotaped the murder of our step-father. Can you see what our problem is?"
"What problem? There's no statute of limitations on incest or on murder." said Lucy. "He could get twenty years for each of you. Definitely he could get life without parole for your stepfather." The local district attorney stopped seeking death penalty convictions a year or so before, after a couple of evidence reviews revealed police ineptitude in several non-death penalty cases. Detective Michaels had fired the rogue cops on the spot. The DA, however, decided the risk was too high to pursue the supreme punishment anymore - and the largely liberal electorate in the county agreed with him, reelecting him by a slim margin.
"Not exactly," said Bernadette. "We only found out about these tapes two days ago. We went to the cops months ago about my sister and me, but they told us without corroborating evidence there was nothing they could do. That's why charges relating to a number of other kids were dropped as well, no smoking gun. The state wrapped up its case on Friday. How are we going to make sure that our brother gets what he deserves?"
Lucy got up, and pulled out two books. One was the DSM-IV-TR, the other the California Code of Criminal Procedure. She quickly reviewed the definitions of "sexual addiction" and "pedophilia" and discovered that, notwithstanding the official diagnoses, Henderson was neither - he was a psychopath. She then took a look at the criminal procedure book, and got an idea.
"Have you been called as witnesses for the defense?" Lucy finally asked.
"Yes, as character witnesses," said Piper. "But the judge ruled in pre- trial motions that we could only testify to his non-sexual character, period. What he did to us was irrelevant."
"Hear me out," said Lucy. "When you each take the stand, give hostile answers and get classified as a hostile witness. On cross-examination, the State can enter the evidence. It'll be 'similar fact testimony' that the judge can't ignore."
"But if the evidence is entered now," said Bernadette, "doesn't that preclude it being used in another state trial?"
"It might," admitted Lucy. "But you can charge your brother under federal law. Say that he violated your civil rights. At the very least, this is criminal sexual harassment. At worst, it's abuse of authority. In your stepfather's case, the videotape will speak volumes. He'll get 10 years concurrently at the most, but at least you'll give him a federal rap sheet as well as a state one. Tell you what, let me call my friend Roxanne Richardson - she's Kevin's beat partner and Dr. Hampton's girlfriend. You can go downtown and give a statement today if you want."
"We appreciate that," said Piper, as Lucy made the call.
"Oh, one last thing," said Lucy, "when I talk to Frank's daughter and son, they denied their father did anything to them. Were they lying to me?"
"Yes," said Bernadette and Piper together. The older sister pulled out two more tapes, saying one showed the father sodomizing his daughter at fourteen, while the other showed the siblings having sex with each other - the latter having been taken when the daughter was seventeen-and-a-half and the son only six.
Lucy remembered Frank's daughter saying that she had gotten pregnant at sixteen but had had an abortion, having been raped but was so humiliated by the whole thing that she didn't press charges, only filing a report that a rape had been committed against her. Now the minister knew why - the woman had been too ashamed to point the finger at her own father. Maybe seeing her own aunts' courage in facing up to their brother finally persuaded her and her brother to do the same against their father, Lucy figured.
That night, the town was again in an uproar. Henderson's sisters' allegations, and that of his children, made the news and had turned the case against him into a cause for outright derision by the public. A mob gathered around the local jail, determined to storm it and lynch Frank Henderson, but they were repressed by a well-equipped SWAT team, led by Roxie, who dispersed the crowd with at least a dozen cans of tear gas. The jail was overflowing that night with at least a hundred would-be vigilantes; who were eventually all ticketed $400 each for breach of the peace and released on recognizance.
Meanwhile, the school board had an emergency meeting that evening. Henderson had tested their patience for far too long. He was dismissed effective the date of his suspension and ordered to pay back nearly $30,000 in salary and benefits. His pension benefits were also forfeited.
The next day when the trial resumed, Janice suggested a change in venue to finish the trial. She hated the defendant even more now; but still believed he needed a fair trial and thought the judge could better adjudicate the case far away from the rabble. The judge agreed and found an available courtroom in San Francisco, ordering the case adjourned for a week while travel arrangements could be finalized.
Later that night, Ruthie trekked over to Peter's house. After Paris said goodbye to them before taking a late evening flight to Vancouver for a business meeting, the two teenagers locked the door behind them. Ruthie and Peter looked at each other, started kissing passionately, and headed for the shower one floor up, running up the staircase hand-in-hand two steps at a time.