Massey saw his chance. He contacted neighborhood leaders and offered his services as a “lay missionary,” organizer, and civil engineer. The reaction was lukewarm. Massey showed up at a sparse demonstration and took the podium. Spotting a television camera, he played to it with a practiced facility that landed him on the Six O’clock News. The mostly Hispanic protesters at first distrusted this Anglo who had inexplicably taken up their cause, but after Massey created flyers in Spanish and organized a successful postering drive through the local Catholic schools, he gained considerable credibility. The drive gave way to a much bigger rally.
He distributed press kits ordered from Kinko’s with his own money. The rally led to a door-to-door fund raiser that financed a one-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinner to which Massey invited politicians in need of the ethnic vote. The politicians pushed for the eighty-year-old church to be granted historic landmark status, a move that would buy time for restoration. When this succeeded, Massey was given full control of the project. He established the St. Cecilia Restoration Fund, and through a series of rallies and appeals to Catholic institutions and lobbying of mob-owned construction companies that were under investigation, the church was rebuilt.
It was a victory that earned him an audience with the Archbishop of New York. Once again, Massey had the admiration he yearned for. So when the young man was told he had a vocation, he was receptive. The thought grew in strength, getting a purchase on his ego, and eventually his will. He enrolled in seminary studies on a trial basis. If nothing else, he could complete his degree and walk away from the priesthood with certainty. The Church had need for men of keen intellect and action, Evan Massey was told.
In the heat of the moment, he enrolled in the St. Bartholomew Seminary in Brooklyn. He completed his studies, all the time maintaining a visible presence in the community. Soon afterwards, he took his vows as a Claretion priest.
Father Massey immediately distinguished himself as a sharp speech writer and fund raiser. At twenty-seven, he established First Step, a place where the homeless could get a bath, haircut and fresh set of clothes, and be pointed in the direction of a job. First Step had only moderate success, and moderation was never his objective. Massey reasoned that the less-than-spectacular results were due to the fact that most of the homeless did not want to be helped. He resolved to focus his efforts almost exclusively on children and young teens that were more receptive to change.
Transcendence House was established on the principle of tough love. Those who resisted change were culled, leaving only those who were truly committed to self-improvement.
This approach led to media-worthy results: former drug addicts and prostitutes scoring 1420 on the SAT’s; a fresh-faced sixteen-year-old making forty dollars an hour writing databases for Fortune-500 companies where nine months earlier, he had attempted suicide. A junkie graduates the program and goes on to become a U.S. Marine, returning to give testimony in dress uniform. These stories put Massey back where he needed to be―at the center of attention. He was able to raise enough money to buy forty state-of-the-art computers for the center and invited whiz kids from Stuyvesant High School and the Bronx High School of Science to volunteer their time instructing their less fortunate peers.
He held a weekly forum online to discuss issues affecting youth. Transcendence House sweatshirts and T-shirts, as well as other Catholic supplies, were sold throughout the country, generating still more income for the organization.
Massey himself spent hours every week combing the Internet for anything of value to his organization. Along the way, he stumbled upon electronic bulletin board services.
He began downloading X-rated pictures catering to every sexual preference. Sado-masochism, interracial, teen sex. There was one BBS that promised anything―absolutely anything―but one of the conditions was that members had to contribute pictures of similar caliber. There were several levels of security on the BBS, depending on what sort of photos a member contributed.
Massey couldn’t enter the Romper Room Corner without a good submission of his own. He remembered the pictures he had taken in India, images he had not looked at in years.
When he took them out of the box in his closet, he was amazed at the number of photos he had taken. They were in the hundreds. At least three dozen girls under thirteen years of age. These images resurrected all that was good and bad about Krupal. He weighed the photos against the good he had done, the lives saved. In a few days, the scales had settled.
His own submissions got him access to the child porn area. Soon, he lived only for this.
Now the feelings he had so long suppressed about his kids were given full reign again. Massey started to flirt with the young girls who came in off the streets.
The first had been a fifteen-year-old from Alabama. It was hardly her first time, but she was young and he was a priest, so it was a conquest for both of them. Soon she was back on the streets, and he moved on to the next girl.
The thrill he got out of these liaisons was indescribable. In his public life, Massey was the paragon of integrity. Plaudits were heaped on him from both the Church and the public, and his successes kept him from confessing his sins. The sex was drawing him in deeper by the day. Bondage, S&M, humiliation… small, writhing limbs beneath his body were the thoughts he went to sleep with and woke up to.
It made him reckless. He had brought Gabriella to the yearly retreat. They went off into the woods together and, inevitably, made love. The sound of a snapping twig had made him look up and he saw Olivia, not a hundred feet away, watching them.
want to congratulate you on behalf of the President and myself on the passage of Dina’s Law,” said the First Lady. “It’s a significant step forward and will raise awareness of the plight of abandoned children.”
“Thank you, Ma’am. That means a great deal to me, and I’m sure the kids at Transcendence House will be heartened to know that you’re in their corner,” responded Father Massey, untangling the telephone cord.
“As you probably know, the President is creating a special office that will handle the problem of homeless and abandoned children,” continued the First Lady. “This has been a personal crusade of mine for fifteen years. We’ve finally been able to get the funding for it―not enough to run it the way we want, but as we get results, I feel the funding will increase. Even the political opposition finds it difficult to disagree with this cause. We need someone with extensive experience in this area whose views are in line with the Administration’s. I’d like to invite you to come to Washington next Tuesday.”
“I’m at your command.”
Massey’s lunch with the First Lady went superbly. He was offered, and accepted, the position of Director of the Office of Abandoned Children, the brain-child of the First Lady. He wore the suit for that one.
He had been the perfect candidate for the job: experience in the field of runaway children and an impeccable background. This last qualification was a must as so many of the Administration’s appointees had lately fallen at the hands of the scandal-mongers. But Father Evan Massey was a Roman Catholic priest with vision. That’s how he’d been described in the Washington Post the day before accepting the job.
This would be the radical change he needed in his life. Here, there was power, money, position. Finally, he had come to a place that was big enough for his talents. He envisioned the founding of dozens of centers like Transcendence House all over the country. On this pulpit, he could raise millions.
Of course, he would no longer be able to personally administrate Transcendence House; this task would fall to a priest of his choosing. All this would be hammered out when he returned to New York.
Massey spent the rest of the afternoon looking at townhouses in Georgetown. The rents were nearly Tribeca-league, but this was a lot more to his liking than Manhattan. Here, there was power.
“Step this way, Mr. Massey,” said Miriam Bannister, the real estate broker from Henley Group, a prestigious firm that handled the housing needs of
secretaries of state and diplomats in the D.C. area. The First Lady herself had recommended her.
“We have here a lovely high-floor five-room with English country house ambiance in a top pre-war building. Exceptional views from a beautifully proportioned living room, refinished hardwood floors, and twelve-foot ceilings. Through here we have a sunny oak-paneled library that looks south. You strike me as the kind of person who has a lot of books―am I right?”
“I’d make good use of that.”
“I thought so. Again, high ceilings in the dining room with plenty of windows. A wood burning fireplace in the master bedroom and a walk-in closet. Truly one of a kind.”
His new job came with a small paycheck―ninety thousand a year. The job did, however, provide an expense account and a credit card, which was as good as cash. This would enable him to accept the job, and it looked great from the ethics standpoint. The monthly rent for this apartment―$3,200―was within his budget if he included his $1,800 monthly stipend from the Diocese.
“My needs are simple. I’ll take it,” he said.
He picked up the afternoon paper on the way to his hotel. After a quick shower, he decided to order room service instead of stepping out again to a restaurant. He finished off the lamb’s rump and half a bottle of Arrowood Reserve cabernet, then settled down with the paper.
The second story on the front page made him freeze.
The body of a sixteen-year-old girl had been found in the Bronx. She had been brutally murdered.
he search for Kirsten Schrodinger ended last night when the body of the sixteen-year-old was found brutally mutilated and dismembered. Police stated that judging from the partially healed wounds, the girl had been tortured over a period of days, if not weeks, before being killed…
… Inside sources have confirmed that an eye-witness saw a man carrying a large duffel bag entering an abandoned tenement the night before the victim’s body was discovered there.
Massey dropped the paper into the waste-paper basket, then called the office of New York Representative Richard Smythe to cancel their appointment tomorrow. He threw everything into his garment bag, then got online and tried finding a shuttle to New York in the next couple of hours. Everything was booked. Amtrak then. The five-sixteen would get him into New York by ten-thirty.
While on the train, he cancelled all his meetings and interviews for the next two days. He read every article he could find online on the Schrodinger murder. The police had substantial leads. The Post called it the most brutal murder in recent memory. Pathologists had discovered layers of torture that the victim had endured, just as geologists can read the traumas of the earth in a core sample.
She had been electrocuted as evidenced by the charring at the top of her head and her left foot. The head had caught fire, and the eyeballs had been pushed out, not gouged out. The contractions of the body had been so great that ribs and fingers had broken. She had been violated with a large object such as a baseball bat. This was accompanied by severe beating resulting in the broken radius of her arm, broken hip, ribs and jaw. A number of her teeth had been pulled out.
The article said the FBI had been called in. He stared out the window for twenty minutes. Substantial leads.
He went to the restroom to wash his face and nearly gasped when he saw his reflection. His abundant black hair was wet with perspiration. His eyes looked as if he’d spent the night drinking. He looked like so many bums he’d seen as he walked every day to Transcendence House from the subway station. Massey toweled off and threw his hair back with his hands.
Back in his seat, he googled, How to erase your hard drive.
When he arrived at Transcendence House, he had thirty-six messages. Before he could take off his jacket, the phone rang again.
“Joe Sadlis―Daily News.”
“Ah, yes. I suppose I have time now,” said Massey, collecting himself.
“Kirsten Schrodinger was found dead today. Do you know if she knew Olivia Wallen, who disappeared last week? I understand Olivia volunteered at Transcendence House.”
“I’m not aware of any relationship. Kirsten Schrodinger wasn’t a guest at Transcendence House, as far as I know.”
“As one of the last people to see Olivia Wallen before she disappeared, could you shed some light on her relationship with the kids she worked with, her co-workers, and yourself?”
He had couched that question well and Massey had to handle this guy carefully. The wrong response and he’d print “Despite repeated questioning, Father Massey was unforthcoming.”
“As far as I could tell, Olivia had a fine working relationship with her co-workers, and some of the kids had real affection for her. She was a very lovable person. Everyone will tell you that. As for myself, I don’t get too close with anyone here, and that’s the greatest irony. You just can’t function well when you lose your objectivity. My responsibilities are primarily management of our organization, and I don’t have the luxury of being able to interact very much with either the kids or the counselors. She had been volunteering here for almost a year, which is an unusually long time. Most kids come here for a summer and that’s enough. Not to be cynical about anyone’s motives, but that’s all you need to put something on your resume. Olivia was different. She had a genuine vocation for this kind of work. Our prayers go out to the family.”
“Rumors have been surfacing from multiple sources that she was a call girl. How do you respond to that?”
“I don’t, and I hope her parents don’t hear this. Please have the decency and professionalism not to print anything, but established facts. I’m afraid I’m out of time. Thank you for calling and good night.”
After Massey shredded several dozen documents, he removed the digital camcorder from behind the bookshelf and, with a few strokes, deleted its contents. He overwrote the camcorder’s hard drive by placing it on his desk and filming the blank wall of his office.
What else? he thought. He deleted the call log on his cell phone. He went through his emails for anything remotely suspicious. More deletes. Of course, all that could be retrieved by the authorities, but it was a start. There was nothing else in the office that needed to be addressed.
In his house in Bensonhurst, Massey went through every drawer and nook. He found a pair of panties and a condom wrapper. Kirsten Schrodinger had been up here only once, but long hairs have a way of turning up at the wrong moment. He gathered up all his linen and towels and packed them in garbage bags. These went to the curb. He’d need to get new ones right away. The guitar got wiped down, along with everything with a handle on it.
The priest backed up his laptop to the external hard drive. His collection of child pornography had always been his solace, the images that had obsessed him for years, the pictures so beautiful that he could not imagine living without them. He had to see them one last time.
They were boys and girls between eight and thirteen, arching their backs for him, and they never grew old. Like the figures on Keats’ urn, they were forever young. They were the first thing he thought of in the morning and the last thing before he closed his eyes at night. They were the most valuable thing he owned, and even he knew there was something wrong with that. And now that he had visited them, he closed the images one by one and was again alone.
Massey now held in his hand the drive which contained all his sensitive files. He knew from all the computer whizzes that taught at Transcendence House that when you delete a file, you are really just deleting a reference to it from a table of contents on the disk. The data is still there and easily recoverable by authorities. One way to permanently delete the data was to overwrite the hard drive using privacy software. He downloaded Window Washer. After highlighting all his porn directories, his finger pressed DELETE, and the children vanished.
lexander Hamilton stood magnificent, but unknowing that he would soon cross the Hudson to his death. Rachel walked past the statue and into the Columbia bookstore where she purchased the rest of the books she’d need for Lit-Hu
m: Julius Caesar, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plato, Vergil, Augustine. On the newsstand there was one more reading assignment. Kirsten Schrodinger had been found dead.
“I just heard about the Schrodinger girl,” said Rachel on her cell phone. “You know what I’m going to ask.”
“There’s no evidence they’re related, Rachel. At least for now,” replied Detective McKenna.
“Did you find out anything about the video?”
“That was just a fragment of a video. It doesn’t have the usual disclaimer and records information that all adult videos are required to have at the beginning. So it’s going to be hard to locate the source. Still trying.”
Rachel had to sit on the steps on hearing this. “So none of the people in the video could be identified? I had high hopes for that.”
“So far, no. Sorry you and your family had to read about the Schrodinger murder at a time like this. Don’t torture yourself thinking about that. How are your folks holding up?”
“Not well. The worst part is just sitting around waiting for news. Isn’t there facial recognition software that you can use to identify the people in the video?”
“Only if they’re in a database to start with. Look, Rachel, like I told you last night, just stay in close touch with your parents and give them support. I saw all the posters you and your neighbors put up. That helps. We’re getting leads, but nothing’s panned out yet.”
“Besides putting up posters, is there anything else I can do?”
“You’re doing just fine. I understand you’re in school. That’s good. You need to keep going and not let this take you over.”
The Schwarzschild Radius Page 5
