Any Bitter Thing (27 page)

Mrs. Ida Hanson, reporting party.
Shoes unlaced on sore feet, support hose rolled to the ankles.

Ms. Shelley Costigan, Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
Bloomy cheeks and a nunlike mouth, hair cut high across her brow. Her face came to me with unbidden clarity. Of course she was young and out of her depth, in a difficult job impossible to prepare for.

MS. COSTIGAN: To be absolutely clear, Mrs. Hanson. You witnessed Father Murphy engaging in improper sexual activity with the child?

MRS. HANSON: I just told you they were in his bed. It was April first, I remember, because we had a snow overnight and I said the snow must be an April Fool’s joke.

MS. COSTIGAN: Okay, so you’re saying that he was molesting her in his bed?

MRS. HANSON: You tell me.

FR. DEROCHER: What kind of an answer is that?

MSGR. FLANNAGAN: Let her talk, Jack.

FR. DEROCHER: These aren’t answers. You never stayed with them, Frank. The child adores him, it’s as plain as the nose on your face.

MS. COSTIGAN: May I?

FR. DEROCHER: If Father Murphy is going to be accused of something this foul, I for one think the accuser should be more specific.

MRS. HANSON: I’ve been a member of this parish for sixty years, Father Derocher. I was here when Father Devlin was a curate. Even if I wasn’t a Catholic, I think I know that a grown man isn’t supposed to share a bed with a nine-year-old girl. He keeps books in his dresser, about girls and their private parts.

MSGR. FLANNAGAN: This is informal, right?

MS. COSTIGAN: You’re the one recording, Monsignor.

MSGR. FLANNAGAN: I’m just confirming. For the record.

FR. DEROCHER: This goes nowhere, right? You’re calling this informal.

MS. COSTIGAN: Preliminary, Father. We’ll see what turns up.

FR. DEROCHER: Nothing is going to turn up.

MRS. HANSON: It’s always the ones you don’t suspect. There was that young day-care worker in Delaware, sweet as pie. Abusing babies with forks.

MSGR. FLANNAGAN: Mrs. Hanson, you were about to explain what you saw.

MRS. HANSON: My sister-in-law belongs to St. Bonaventure, and there’s all these stories about what’s going on up there and nobody’s doing one thing to stop it.

MSGR. FLANNAGAN: Whatever the troubles at St. Bonaventure, they have nothing to do with this interview, Mrs. Hanson.

MRS. HANSON: People talk, is all. And it’s not impossible for a priest to commit a mortal sin.

MS. COSTIGAN: Can we get back on track?

MRS. HANSON: The Church had no business putting a child in a situation like this in the first place. What would a priest know about raising a child? A girl especially. She wasn’t even toilet trained. They should have known full well the effect this would have on the parish.

MS. COSTIGAN: Can we please get back on track please?

MRS. HANSON: No limits, anything she wants. You would not believe what he allows that child to eat. I might as well have been invisible, nobody so much as gives me a how-do-you-do. And it wasn’t just this household affected, I can tell you, it was the whole parish. The child wants guitar music, presto, everybody has to suffer a hoedown before the Offertory without so much as a do-you-please to the parish council.

MS. COSTIGAN: You said you saw Father Murphy molesting her.

MRS. HANSON: Well, that first time I didn’t actually see it happening. This is April first I’m talking about. Father Murphy overslept. That was highly unusual all by itself, I can tell you. He’s always up early because he doesn’t like my coffee. He mixes eggshells in with the grounds, some notion of his from who knows where. They do things different where he comes from. Eggshells. I got there at six to start breakfast, as usual. The bedroom he uses is downstairs, just off the parlor. The door was wide open, and there they were. A nine-year-old girl and a thirty-eight-year-old man. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me. Guilty as sin, I can tell you that.

MS. COSTIGAN: Did Father Murphy say anything?

MRS. HANSON: Nothing. He got up, looked at the clock. Not one word of explanation. He might have said something about snow in April being unusual, I’m not sure. By the time I had breakfast ready they were both dressed, acting like everything was normal. Normal as pie.

MS. COSTIGAN: And the second occasion?

MRS. HANSON: A couple of months ago. First of September or thereabouts. It was right around when our neighbor’s husband ran off. The Blanchard children were moping around. Their mother was keeping to herself. It was a bad time as it was, so I decided to keep shut.

FR. DEROCHER: It’s my understanding that you in fact did not keep shut, Mrs. Hanson. In fact, it’s my understanding that the rumors in this parish have been flying around like a plague of locusts.

MRS. HANSON: I’m not the child molester here, Monsignor. He gives her liquor.

MRS. HANSON: Father Murphy cut my hours, like I said, around the time she turned four. He wanted to cook suppers himself, and that’s fine, he has every right. I cooked all the meals when Father Devlin was here. I was live-in, you know, before Father Murphy came as a curate. Father Devlin didn’t honestly need a curate. God rest his soul. He was a peach. And he knew the meaning of thank you. Believe you me.

MS. COSTIGAN: Can we?

MRS. HANSON: Oh. Well, you said every detail. All right. We’re talking about the second occasion now? Around the first of September? I worked until three that day, as usual, but after I got home I realized I’d left my glasses in the parlor. I had a letter from my daughter in Florida, which naturally I wanted to read, so after supper I went back for the glasses. I thought Father Murphy had gone up to Bangor like he said he was going to, to visit you, Father Derocher. After school Lizzy was to go straight to the Blanchards’. In my opinion, Monsignor, that’s where you should have placed her from the start-up, with somebody like Vivienne Blanchard. God knows the woman could have used the help.

MS. COSTIGAN: So you went back for your glasses.

MRS. HANSON: St. Bart’s isn’t but a mile from me, so I thought, why not, it’ll take a few minutes and then I’ll be able to read Rose’s letter. It wasn’t exactly dark, but you’d need a light on inside, so I figured no one was home since there were no lights on that I could see. I thought Father Murphy was still in Bangor. He parks in the carport next to the parish hall, so I never noticed the car. The house wasn’t locked, but I figured he forgot. He forgot things all the time, absent-minded, his mind everywhere else but where it belonged. So I let myself in, thinking I was alone. I wanted my glasses. That’s all I was doing.

MS. COSTIGAN: And you saw what?

MRS. HANSON: Heard, at first. Certain noises.

MS. COSTIGAN: What kind of noises?

MRS. HANSON: The driveway is a long one, you know. The only house within eyeshot is the Blanchards’, and even at that you’d have to really be looking. All those trees. And in fall everything gets kind of filled in, with the goldenrod and whatnot. It’s a handy little spot if you’re put in mind to do things you don’t want seen.

FR. DEROCHER: I’d like to know where this is going.

MRS. HANSON: Well, I found my glasses in the parlor, and like I said, his bedroom is right there, and I heard these—I heard noises. Of a certain type. It was, they were certain noises of a certain type of intimate nature. I was so shocked I dropped my pocketbook right there on the parlor floor.

MS. COSTIGAN: What happened then?

MRS. HANSON: Well, there was some noise behind the door. It was open just a little ways. I heard her voice—well, it was like a cry. But not sad crying. The other kind. This is embarrassing.

MS. COSTIGAN: You’re doing fine.

MRS. HANSON: I couldn’t make out any words, but she sounded ashamed, and who wouldn’t be? I went over to the door, I don’t know why, and then the door flies open and there he is.

MS. COSTIGAN: Did he say anything to you?

MRS. HANSON: He asked what on Earth I was doing in the house. All snappy, too, I might add. He’s in this bathrobe, which is on every which-way, and his hair, too, all sticking up, it was disgusting. I was disgusted right down to the last rattle of my bones.

MS. COSTIGAN: Then what?

MRS. HANSON: I caught her turning over in the bed, covering herself up, but I could see the shape of her there, and the tail of her nightgown plain as day, this white one she wore all the time with red dots on it. She was hiding. Protecting him. You should have seen his expression. He slammed the door in my face and I wanted to throw up.

FR. DEROCHER: He keeps cats. Could you have seen cats moving in the bed?

MRS. HANSON: I think I can tell the difference between one of those filthy cats and a girl in a nightgown.

MSGR. FLANNAGAN: You came back the next day?

MRS. HANSON: Same as usual. Six o’clock. He didn’t say a word about it.

MS. COSTIGAN: The first time was on the first of April, the second time in early September. We’re almost into December. Why come forward now?

FR. DEROCHER: That’s what I’d like to know.

MRS. HANSON: Her shirt, is what it was. One of those shirts, tanks I think they call them, hot pink, sparkles on the front, very suggestive. Just disgraceful. Like some kind of showgirl. I hadn’t seen the thing for a while, but there it was again. Like a streetwalker would wear. That was it, the last straw. I said to myself, that’s it, you can’t hold still another instant. My niece’s daughter works for the State. I called her that very afternoon. She’s the one who got everything rolling. Well, I suppose you know that.

FR. DEROCHER: You suspected that an innocent child was being abused on the premises since last April, and yet you stayed on as the housekeeper, going into that house every day.

MRS. HANSON: I needed the money, God help me. And besides, I just told you: She isn’t an innocent child.

TWENTY-ONE

Monsignor Frank Flannagan, co-chancellor, Diocese of Portland.

Father John Derocher, pastor, St. Peter’s, Bangor.

Ms. Shelley Costigan, Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

Elizabeth Finneran, age nine.

MSGR. FLANNAGAN: Just a couple of little questions, Lizzy.

ELIZABETH FINNERAN: Where is he?

FR. DEROCHER: He went down to Portland to visit Bishop Byrnes, remember? It turns out he’s going to spend the night. You can stay with Mrs. Blanchard for a couple of days.

MS. COSTIGAN: That’s not quite true, as I understand it, Father.

ELIZABETH FINNERAN: Did something happen?

FR. DEROCHER: Nothing happened. All you have to do is answer this nice lady’s questions, Lizzy. Nothing happened.

ELIZABETH FINNERAN: Then why did Father Mike go to Portland for overnight without telling me? Did I do something wrong?

MS. COSTIGAN: Of course not, sweetie. You did nothing wrong. You have to remember, no matter what, you did nothing wrong. Now. I want to tell you something. Lots of girls just like you, exactly your age, they’re afraid to tell if somebody did something wrong to them. They think maybe they’re the ones who did something wrong, or that if they tell on the person who did something wrong to them, everyone will be mad.