From a Dark Place

By Lee Beck

The killings began in May when the body of a young teacher was discovered in the bedroom of her historic Society Hill home of Philadelphia. The second victim was found seven days later. The number of victims grew incrementally during the uncomfortably wet and humid Spring and Summer. Each of the victims surgically mutilated by a madman possessing the skills of a surgeon.

In a city renowned for its medical institutions and thousands of medically-trained professionals, one among them was a killer. For Captain Leo Gromski, of the Special Homicide Unit the pursuit of a phantom leads to the most shocking revelation a persistent investigator could conceptualize.

The identity of the killer leads Gromski down the path to the Roach Motel of conspiracies: its tentacles stretching from Philadelphias City Hall to the United States State Department.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467871570

Lee Beck

Baltimore native, Lee Back is a former pediatric psychologist specializing in the care and treatment of chronically and terminally ill children and their families. This work is the second in a series, a third is currently being written. He and his wife Mary, a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, reside in a Philadelphia suburb.

Book preview

PHILADELPHIA: FRIDAY:

DECEMBER 21, 1956

Damn the cold. Penn’s Holy Experiment suffered the punishment of a tireless ice storm that descended over the city wielding a forty-ounce Louisville slugger driving blasts of shivering cold through the narrow alleys and crisscross streets. Layers of rime sheathed strings of telephone wires and power lines that collapsed under the weight of laminated Canadian patina. Power outages were common throughout the city. Cautious pedestrians concentrating on each precarious step navigated across ice encrusted sidewalks, the sound of crunching rebelling beneath each tenuous footfall. Stir in the pungent odor of chimney smoke fusing with the stench of soppy decaying autumnal leaves and exposure to the elements felt utterly undignified.

Opaque windows encrusted with sheets of North Country freeze stared out at the pedestrian traffic like blind eyes. Bundled up in layers of their winter best, heavy woolen dresses, mothers escorted their children off to school. White and blue collar types, their pant legs and overcoats flapping in the wind plodded stooped-shouldered like a school of humpback whales laboring against the teeth-chattering elements and impassable sidewalks. Even the usual malefactors went crawling back into their holes to keep warm, much to the delight of the city’s men in blue. It’s no wonder that during the coldest months that the city’s crime statistics appreciatively declined. Even rats needed to keep warm once in a while.

Shivering with misery, the entire region polished with ice looked unearthly. Looking southeast along Pine Street, searching through the barren trees, the neighborhood looked like a little kingdom all to itself. Standing tall in the middle of historic Society Hill is St. Gabriel’s Church of the Guardian Angel and its adjoining parochial school spirited by kindergarteners and grades one through six. The church dominated the tree-lined neighborhood like a monolithic giant with its gleaming spire looming like a sacred beacon over the redbrick homes and ancient streets.

The two-story house of worship had been gracefully designed with marble quoins and tall, round-arched windows dwarfed by the stately spire that reached high above the great trees anchored within the spacious and well-manicured churchyard. Ancient tombstones rose from the ground on the westside, entombed by the high brick walls and black, serpentine wrought iron fencing.

The grand Palladian cathedral was designed and constructed before the American Revolution by men steadfast in their passive allegiance to the Catholic Church. Their history forged by noble ideals. It was the essence of faith that they were committed to the profound belief in papal infallibility, and a reverential respect for the virgin mother. No man or woman ascended its boundaries without His limitless love in their hearts. They turned their hearts and minds over to the ethos that they expected would hold the family together. Many had hoped that the Church would help to resolve the predictament of moral law, and the mysteries of faith. Some never found their way, and some never wrote their own script. Still they entered seeking the relevance and the promise of His love.

The pride of these colonial catholics would emerge through the centuries with the landmark construction of St. Gabriel’s Catholic School.Generations passed beneath the school’s entryway fortified by faith - determined that they would leave the defeats and few achievements behind them, worshipping the starry heavens and ceremoniously surviving with hope and courage.

Out of the school and onto the icy sidewalks, groups of bundled up children huddled in their winter-wear moved briskly in all directions. The neatly proportioned main entrance of St. Gabriel’s school faced south along Lombard Street, and many children could be seen walking southeasterly to the corner of Lombard and 3rd Street. Three fourth grade boys, their coats fluttering against the wind, hesitated at the corner of Lombard and 4th Street and waited impatiently for the crossing guard to escort them safely to the opposite corner, their red-cheeked faces full of smiles and teeth. Simultaneously, a larger group of boys and girls headed south along the length of 3rd their voices raucously exuberant, the air resounding with the sound of laughter.

And still, a contingent of older children could be seen walking northward, their audible footfalls parallel to the church bordering the heavy ice-laden gate to the corner of Pine and 3rd Streets. When they safely crossed the intersection, the group walking syncopatedly turned north into St. Gabriel’s Lane.

The attractively developed tree-lined path provided a shortcut to neighboring homes along Delancey Street, with access to a secluded picturesque courtyard. A favorite after-school sanctum, the enchanting dominion seemed to beckon the children on that wintry afternoon. Perhaps, had they not been in a great hurry to rush home, and had the weather been less dismal, they might have acquiesced in a cacophony of healthy timbre.But no one hesitated. One after another, heads bent against the unyielding gale circling like wagons, fighting the biting gusts, they cautiously watched each footfall along the icy sidewalk, beyond the shrubs and leafless trees and benches until they disappeared from view.

A solitary figure stood silently, in the elegantly arched window of the church that looked out over the brick-walled grounds and the adjoining St. Gabriel’s Catholic School. The man’s broad image framed within the bodywork of the window by a heavy brocaded curtain and a timeworn frayed black out shade that remained retracted from the topmost juncture of the casement. The shade represented one of numerous contingencies instituted by the federal government during the Second World War. While the country had been spared the horror and frightening prospect of aerial warfare, the ideological differences that fostered the cold war between the free world and communist nations, necessitated that the shades remained in place in the event that hostilities escalated. It had come to this, as if the shades could repulse streaking atomic projectiles.

Sadly, the somber mourning-like shroud stirred his indignation. Among other things, it became a constant reminder of man’s inhumanity and stupidity, as children throughout the United States periodically rehearsed for air-raid attacks with their bowed heads almost touching their bent knees beneath school desks or crouched parallel to hallway lockers. It was like kissing one’s ass goodbye.

For one malingering second he glanced at the black shade and he could not help but ponder a most troubling question that pulled at his insides. Wasn’t it all an exercise in futility? After all, had a ballistic missile impacted in proximity to any populated area, most of the people would cease to exist. And God forbid that a missile would strike in proximity to the school, the building and everyone inside would be instantaneously vaporized. So much for contingencies! A few chilling thoughts about collapsing brick, mortar, and shards of wood instantly disintegrating sent a cold chill up his spine.

But the man’s thoughts were not focused on life’s termination. There was no coloring the fact that he felt consumed by his solemn promise to help resurrect one life. That morning he had finalized his plans and he felt a stir within his gut, a paradoxical feeling of hope and hope deferred – a sense of unreality. For all about him children were leading their normal existences, unaware that there were some among them who did not know what normalcy meant or what the sense of family could truly be.

In his mind, that fact had cancelled his personal history and the life he had grown to love. These were the thoughts that pounded at his intellect as the final vestiges of mournful daylight faded in the western sky. They tore at his emotions, unmercifully toyed with his perseverance and forced him to retreat and advance in a matter of hours. Indecisiveness led to a great deal of tension, and he could not help but wonder if it all would lead to his undoing. Earlier in the day he felt assured that he would table his proposal, but when the clock struck the noon hour he had reversed himself and elected to proceed with his plans.

As if God weeped for him, a sudden angry gust rattled the venerable sash while fragments of debris crashed against the ancient panes. His brilliant eyes, red-rimmed from the incertitude squinted reflexively in response to the sudden disturbance and he drew back like a rebuked child.

While he floundered, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of one of the older girls, a sixth grader, he remembered. Smiling and waving in his direction, he managed a smile and returned the gesture, and watched as she crossed the street and disappeared beyond the buildings. As if he had been magically transported, his mind moved away from the moment and further away from the city that had become his adopted home.

His thoughts settled on his past and his family beyond the central Pennsylvania summits and a humble farm situated forty-five miles to the northeast of Pittsburgh. Forever ingrained in his memory he could see the weather-beaten buildings, the debilitated chicken coop that habitually needed to be repaired from winter to spring, and the big red barn with the faded tobacco logo painted across the heavy weather worn metal roof.

He saw it all with the crystal clarity that came with age and wisdom, and he watched himself as a boy of eight. It was never to be forgotten for it was early spring and a heavy haze fell over the valley as he fed the chickens before racing off to school. He saw himself carefully placing each egg in an aging woven basket. Watching each measured step he carefully transported the eggs across the yard, up the steps to the back door and into the kitchen. He placed the basket gently upon the kitchen table for his grandmother, and his expression brightened when she clutched him tightly against her ample bosom.

Gently, she patted his cheek and escorted him to the bathroom door, encouraging him to wash his face and and hands and particularly behind his ears, then called to him a few moments later announcing that his breakfast was ready. He hurried, the palm of his hands slightly damp, and he mischievously wiped them against his neatly pressed trousers, a gesture that had not escaped the watchful eyes of his beloved nonna. She half-heartedly scolded and reminded him that towels were made for drying the hands, not the trousers. He laughed as the words spilled over the thick-tongued accent of her native Italy. Parma, the northern Emilia-Romagna commune he remembered. He never tired of the melodious intonation that flowed from her lips and the way she spoke to him. Her tone rarely sounded serious or stern and even when she expressed her disapproval over a boyish indiscretion, the matter was quickly forgotten. And despite the hard life and meager income, he never went a day without three solid meals in his stomach, clean pressed clothing on his back, and hugs and kisses to send him on his way.

Leaning against the window frame he could see himself at play with his boyhood friends. In his memory he watched as they raced across barren fields in winter; watched again as he saw himself swinging a discarded broomstick at a tennis ball and hitting the high hard one deep into a protected glade; a home run.

Out of the past he glanced down at the palm of his left hand, a scarred reminder of a skittering fall across a jagged gravel-pitted country lane. Although it had required stitching, it was not nearly as painful in his recollection as the horribly skinned knees. As if a switch had been thrown, his mind possessed that uncanny ability to replay the moment when the excruciating pain resulting from the stripped to the bone rack met his synpase. Fragments of miniscule pieces of gravel remained embedded beneath the skin enveloping his kneecaps. And on particularly humid days they relentlessly ached, preventing him from enjoying a ball game with the parish children.

And then his mind raced back to summer, envisioning the cool running stream that snaked through his grandparent’s property: nothing more than a narrow sweep of unusually sweet water flowing to the southwest through the rural countryside, eventually emptying into the Allegheny River near Sharpsburg. He could almost taste its sweetness at the back of his throat and feel its cold dripping off of his lips and down his chin.

In his mind’s eye he saw himself seated beside his grandfather on the steep bank above the stream, their fishing lines dangling in the water, never fretting over lost opportunities or barren hooks and quiet lines. Their lives were about stealing a few precious moments together.

He vividly remembered the day, nearly his seventh birthday when he tripped and stumbled, head over heel into the drenching pool. He panicked, but his grandfather quickly scooped him up in his massive arms and cradled him against his chest. He fought back the anxiety and the tears that he felt would have embarrassed him with all the inner strength he could muster. He looked furtively at his grandfather, believing that he would think of him as a bit of a baby. Still trembling with embarrassment and fear, he misjudged his grandfather’s reaction.

There would be another day and a moment when he could not fight the tears that would spill out of his eyes and roll down his face. His grandfather looked at him with concern and comforted him again, encouraging him to release the inner pain. He assured him that a man needed to learn to express himself and let his emotions flow from his heart. He would learn that crying was healthy and the words pealed in his brain, remembering his grandfather stating with a toothy grin; It’ll oil da eyeballs. There would never be another time when he felt ashamed or embarrassed and he gave all the credit to the man and woman who raised him.There had been no mixed messages, no gender brainwashing, and no hurry to grow up and become a man. If the truth had been unmasked, his grandparent’s may have silently wished that he could have remained the lovely boy he had grown to be. He prayed too, that they would live forever.

Somewhere in his compartmentalized brain he remembered that a character in the 1951 film of Dicken’s, A Christmas Carol had declared that: time and tide waits for no man. The painfully momentous day would come when the family had to reconcile its first separation. It came all too soon for the DiMara’s when eighteen year old Charles would head off to college with the blessings and love of the two most important people in his life and the encouragement and assurance of his parish priest. The fact that there had not been a pocket full of crisp dollar bills to see him through his first semester at St. Josephs University made little difference. A scholarship awaited him to the southeast in Philadelphia. His goals were simple, study hard and make his grandparent’s proud. While their hearts naturally overflowed with pride – they felt the ache of his absence.

He prized their love, gratefully acknowledging their charity and guidance as well as their patient understanding. He found it easy to summon in his mind’s eye the deep, weather worn lines ingrained in their gentle expressions. His fingers moved unconsciously against his palms as if he could feel the leathery texture of their skin, raised from years toiling and laboring in the hard western Pennsylvania earth.

He recognized with acute clarity that if not for their presence in his life his future would have turned out differently. He continually affirmed to God that the sum of these passages were the impetus for his even temperament and empathetic personality, and he knew how important thoughts of them meant in his life and how much he missed them.

His eyes squinted in reminiscence, the visions seemed like hallowed photographs in a long-sighted dream and his grandparent’s images were in each of them, vivacious and cheerfully picturesque on the wings of angels.They had been the link that God had forged between himself and the only family he would ever know. He could not count on his memory or imagination to bring back the earliest images of his mother, for it seemed like a lifetime had passed since his grandmother had described her to him. But he had never forgotten the mental photograph she painted for him, and how she had continually assured him that his face was the mirror image of her gentle expression. She gave him life while she sacrificed her own.

There was no secret to his past. There were no feelings of bitterness or raging resentment or any remnants of shame when he first learned of being a fatherless child. Those feelings had been shattered and buried in his youth. He shared his life with two unique people who had bathed him in love. They taught him about God’s love and his tender mercy, they encouraged him to open his heart to all people and to be warm and enthusiastically affectionate. They taught him about courage and that God would want him, as he does all who love him, to chase his dreams with a tenacious spirit and to never feel inferior to anyone, no matter how powerful or how rich. For all that he had become, he was grateful to God and he rejoiced in their memories.

A shadow of his grandparent’s memories moved across his consciousness as his lips murmured a silent prayer in their names. A sense of their passing, a grievous recognition of feeling aloneness and loneliness infiltrated his being for an instant -an infinitesimal moment when he could see himself standing on a rural hillside. The sky washed with the yellow-white glare of a distant star. He saw himself crying and mouthing his farewells to the dearest people in his life. And while he walked away from their graves, the countryside falling away beneath him, the warm summer breeze fanned the scent of sweet corn and budding alfalfa across the open fields. And he wept like he never wept before in his life.

Those thoughts brought him back: saved him from himself. The minimal afternoon light faded while he lost all sense of time, and in the muted silence there was nothing but the snarling hiss and crackle roaring through the steam-heated pipes, and an occasional creak from an aging chair. He peered over his right shoulder, his eyes coming to rest on the solitary figure seated in front of his desk.

The silhouette projected on a background of lusterless light was that of a large framed man dressed in an often-worn black suit and clerical collar, and size twelve black oxfords that were in dire need of a thorough polishing. The younger man could not help but wonder if he would discover holes in the soles of the older man’s shoes; then he smiled.

Bishop Francis Badoglio, a robust a man was built like a sturdy oak, broad shouldered and broad beamed and large-boned. And yet, blessed with a remarkable sense of humor he would often declare with a wide grin and a flash of wit; I’m a whale of a man with an ever widening fuselage. And no one bothered to mention to him that one had little to do with the other.

Father Charles DiMara watched as the older cleric continued to peruse the lengthy document, his nervous energy depicted in the constant rubbing of the thumb and forefinger of the left hand. He inspected the finely textured, translucent face with admiration. The bishop, a product of the West Philadelphia streets, had a nose that protruded from his round face, the nose that had been broken several times in his youth as an enterprising amateur boxer. His flexible snout appeared to spread all over his face in varying directions like a road map to nowhere. Father DiMara could not help himself and smiled when he recalled how it seemed to vibrate when the bishop gave it a good blow and a wipe.

The fifty-eight year old bishop’s once dark and curly hair had turned a curious shade of gray. And on the bishop’s most recent trip to the barbershop, he requested that the man give him a buzz cut. Just to save him the trouble of pampering throughout the day. Why bother primping all the time, it’s not like I’m getting married anytime soon? he said chuckling, then ran his catcher’s mitt sized hand over his bristling pate.

But the bishop’s most striking feature was his large, expressive, lynx-like eyes that peered out beneath heavy, bushy-gray eyebrows that affected a favorable, almost prepossessing impression. And while he read, those sagacious eyes fixated upon the neatly typed pages, a not-so surprising expression of surprise and dismay reflected through the lenses of his spectacles.

Turning his eyes once again, Father DiMara moved away from the window, pausing for a moment to listen to the howling wind that rattled the windows and shattered weakened tree limbs. The cold and ice that he believed would surely pour over the city in the next few hours would reach out from the northwest suburbs of Lancaster, Chester and Montgomery Counties and would soon reach the city limits. He was grateful that the inevitable storm had not arrived earlier in the day or during dismissal.

He inherited the rich dark tones of his Italian ancestry and coupled with his love for the outdoors, the first signs of aging could be detected by the deepening furrows that formed around the corners of his eyes. His straight, sandy-colored hair, which was beginning to thin, affirmed the Swiss influence that flowed through his veins. His grandparents told him that this distinguishing trait had been inherited from a father he never knew and never fretted about. Those wounds were buried in the farm fields of Western Pennsylvania years before.

He parted his hair to the left, but soft stray wisps usually strayed, tickling the lashes above his eyes. A few of his closest friends had openly speculated that he parted his hair to the left as a symbol of his liberal thinking. He laughed, but wondered about the symbolism.

But even in the dim light his most striking facial feature that best defined his thoughtfulness and kind heart anchored in his gray-blue eyes that looked out over the world like crystals.

Silence fell on that dreary Friday afternoon, the bishop summoned to provide whatever counsel he could provide concerning a sensitive matter that Father DiMara had kept to himself for several days. But he arrived with an open mind and heart, and Father DiMara would never ask more of him.

My God, the bishop uttered mournfully, reading the sensitive material that read like a bad B’ movie that only demented Hollywood screenwriters and filmmakers could create. It was a complex account concerning an extremely disturbed adolescent male whose inborn character was shaped by circumstance and poisoned ancestry.

Watching the bishop purse and pull at his lower lip as the sordid story passed before his eyes, Father DiMara understood the disillusionment reflected in his mentor’s eyes. He witnessed the anguish that had been ushered in with the death of the father prior to the boy’s sixth birthday. Although the man possessed a strong mechanical aptitude, he managed to escape life’s curves and fastballs soaking his brain in alcohol, which hardly shocked his family when his inebriation led to a compulsive tract record of absenteeism from multiple places of employment. It didn’t require a university diploma to predict that each opportunity ended with a curt dismissal.

Flushed with anger, he faulted the world for his problems, forgiving no one, perpetually complaining about strict bosses, cold and drafty apartments, and unfair working conditions. In the wake of his chronic displeasure and seized by an inherent restlessness, he fitfully drifted, looking for an excuse to pack his bags and the family’s meager belongings in search of a better existence to some unknown destination. I’ll know it when I get there, he chronically carped. And by the time his son had celebrated his fifth birthday, the family had moved eight times, covering three northeastern and one southern state.

The final migration would bring the family to Philadelphia where the man found employment in the Naval ShipYard. A tragic accident would take his life six months later when a construction crane toppled over, crushing him beneath its ominous weight. A meager accidental death benefit sustained the family for a short time, but the boy’s mother would be forced to seek employment in order to make ends meet.

The insular family, consisting of the mother and son and the paternal grandmother were faced with limited choices. Familiarity arose out of strangeness, the options limited and impossible to ignore. Dread hovering like a tainted hallo forced them to remain in Philadelphia. Accepting what is, the boy’s mother accepted a part-time position as a seamstress in a small dress shop, but her wages were meager, hardly enough to sustain the family. These were difficult times for the family still reeling from isolation and loneliness. In spite of her husband’s alcoholism and the demons he tried to chase from his mind, no conduit existed to meet their aspirations.

It appeared that a pox had descended upon the family. A lonely widow, the mother turned to carousing with the next available companion willing to pay for services rendered. The child’s grandmother, a frail sickly woman was incapable of standing up to her daughter in-law, but she did all that she could to protect her grandson. That had become her function, to mother and care for him, to bring God into his heart. But the basis for such virtues turned him against her. He shunned the idea of love, embracing the defect of intense hatred for everybody and everything. Wandering through the dark city streets he nurtured madness while looking for trouble. Stealing what he could, he nurtured his delusions, shoving the lurching, stumbling drunks into alleyways, feeling nothing but contempt as he kicked them into oblivion. He reached out to another level of reality, a feverish restless reality where the rules were simple. Hurt and abuse until wounds opened, blood streamed, and bones and spirits were broken.

Sinking like a rock, the boy’s mother poured her list of grievances into the comforting depths of a cheap pint in various dark and seedy bars. Coming back to consciousness with the sun streaming through her bedroom window she drifted between frustration and the impulse to engage in the implausible.

A serious vocation proved out of the question. Add a tincture of tediousness, and minimally stimulating work inspired the woman to accept a full-time position as a barmaid in a local establishment. While the pay remained meager, the drinks were free, and the occasional tip made up the difference along with a back-in-the-alley quickie during breaks. Three or five bucks added up.

It proved hard to blame the boy for feeling abandoned by his mother’s frequent absences. Anger fueled his hatred while he roamed the narrow alleys lamenting his fate until his jumbled thoughts became the object of his scorn, and nothing that had happened made sense any longer. The consequences of this newfound freedom fed his need to escape, sometimes well past midnight. He didn’t care about school: didn’t care about his old lady or anybody else for that matter.

The grandmother, whose health steadily deteriorated, anguished over her inability to care for her grandson. Chasing his demons it became a recurring episode that a member of Philadelphia’s finest would escort him back to their flat. The severe reprimands that a boy his age had no business out on the streets at such ungodly hours failed to reach the foggy brain of an inebriated woman.

The evil influences of late night adventures were not the only issues contributing to the onset of the child’s escalating behavioral problems. And when the bishop believed the revolting business had already come to a head, his mind had been forced to grapple with the hideous next notation. Lord, forgive him, he murmured, continuing to read. The words fell off the page, and he was half certain that the words were orchestrated by something disembodied.

Could it possibly feel more nauseating that a sickly infant diagnosed with an imperfection defined as congenital monorchidism; an anomaly characterized by a single testis, evolved into an irrational preoccupation that plagued his mother.

His mother followed the medical trail from one physician to another looking for a magical cure for the perceived deformity. In spite of reassurances that he would lead a healthy life, her obsessive preoccupation festered like a gangrenous wound. More than one physician had noted that the child’s anomaly was sickeningly manifest by external stimulation of his scrotum during physical examinations. When questioned about her behavior, the mother offered no excuses, insisting instead that therapeutic stimulation would eventually result in the miraculous appearance of the testis. My son will be made whole.

She departed each visitation feeling more frustrated, brooding and swilling cheap booz as a cure-all. Cursed with abject loneliness, she brought her son to her bed. In quest of comfort, any comfort, she had reached the bottomless pit, subjecting her son to the ultimate incestuous degradation.

His world conventionally viewed in shades of black and white, he could not, would not face the implications of this horrific alliance. Looking into her heavy-lidded eyes above him, forcing his tongue against hers, hips grinding against his own, he wanted to vomit. Then he wanted to kill her.

The older cleric knew he would suffer deeply having read about a nine-year old the police had detained on multiple occasions. Each time the boy would be released to the custody of his mother with stern warnings and threats of possible placement in a youth facility. The first incident involved truancy and vandalism and the second, a more heinous act, involved cruelty to animals and arson. Two years later a Family Court judge recommended that the boy be institutionalized and evaluated after numerous acts involving additional acts of arson, cruelty to animals, and several incidents when he had bullied and brutalized several neighborhood girls on their way home from school.

This first of two subsequent evaluations indicated that the boy had logical ideas of reference and performed at a superior level on intelligence tests. But the evaluation noted that the boy manifested violent tendencies and a marked deficiency in judgement.The submissions to the court recommended that the boy should be involved in highly supervised and structured activity at home and at school. The final recommendation stressed that mother and child should seek psychological help.Whatever happened between that psychiatric assessment to the court and social services is anyobody’s guess. A referral to the city’s social service agency seemingly disappeared, at least from a squinty-eyed distance. Not one provision had been initiated or implemented regarding any of the recommendations.

The bishop heard his breath catch, his thoughts filling up with the absurd. During the first of two hospitalizations, the boy’s grandmother succumbed to congestive heart failure. While the medical staff anticipated that her death might trigger a violent reaction, the boy pondered the significance while sitting stoically without voicing or displaying any measure of distress. When pressed, he appeared genuinely unmoved by this grievous event. When asked how he felt about his grandmother’s death, he responded defiantly; So what, whattya want me to do about. She’s dead - aint she? Good riddance to her, she was as useless as my old man.

With a myriad of questions and thoughts racing through his mind, he brought his reluctant eyes back to the pages, his fingers nervously flicking at the corners. And yet, the sequence of words that followed would trouble him for the remainder of his life. They were a review of the events that unfolded following a second hospital admission, a result of continued attacks perpetrated against females and numerous acts of animal cruelty. The reports and evaluationss included summaries from the hospital staff and several agencies, including the Philadelphia Police Department and social services as well as the Medical Examiner’s Office.

The dreadful language affected the bishop. A rough picture was painted about the boy’s subsequent discharge from the hospital. He supposed the authors fashioned the phrases to hold his mind in check.The key grating against the lock of his mind converged with the boy’s discovery that his mother had been arrested for prostitution, stretched his imagination to its limits. He held his breath while the words formed into a casket to trap the hallucination, while his face grew somber.

He caught his breath sharply while he read about a succession of sexual partners. She no longer asked her son to share her bed, their bed. The boy’s agitation festered. When his mother returned home in the early morning hours, stumbling drunk and in the company of another strange man, he watched as they fumbled and groped their way into her bedroom. With the bedroom door ajar, he quietly pushed it open and stood in the doorway, watching while she performed every degenerate act imaginable with this poor excuse for a human being. And when the man had had his fill, he put a few crumpled dollars on her dresser and hurriedly exited.

It remained a mystery how the events unfolded on that final day of the mother’s life, except that the landlord found her submerged in the bathtub. Sometime after eight that morning the boy had exited the apartment with schoolbooks in hand. Descending the staircase to the first floor he nearly ran into the landlord standing in the hallway. Walking backwards he sarcastically saluted, offered an obscene gesture and left the building without saying a word.

Shortly after the boy’s departure, the landlord’s wife discovered water seeping through the ceiling of their apartment. With his wife yelling at him to do something about the problem, he climbed the stairs to the second floor and began knocking on the apartment door. He waited several seconds, anticipating that the woman would respond, but his efforts were met with a hush beyond the locked door. He debated with himself for several moments, trying to decide whether it would be proper for him to enter the apartment. After all, he knew about the parade of men coming and going in the night. He wondered if one of those brutes was with her now, and what would happen to him if he dared to enter unannounced.

While he stood in his tracks, still debating a course of action, his wife, the ever present and irritatingly arrabbiato Teresa suddenly appeared at the bottom of the stairs and began yelling at him to do something. "Apri la porta, stupida!" she shouted

He tried to reason with her about his concern that the woman might be indisposed or with another of those despicable men, and then he crossed himself and murmured something unintelligible in Italian. But Teresa just shook her finger at him and stormed up the stairs and grabbed the master key out of his hand and unlocked the door. She pushed the door open with two fingers and instructed him to lead the way. He looked away and sucked his lower lip before he said something he would soon regret. He gave the living room the once over, glanced into the kitchenette before heading down the hallway to the bathroom door. He looked behind at the woman he married. The grande la bocca was snooping around the living room as if she would find the key to the universe.

Teresa had moved into the kitchen and knowing that she would not hear his words, Aldo Francione muttered stupida under his breath. It was plainly obvious that the water seeping through the ceiling of his bathroom had to be emanating from the one directly above.

He stood by the closed door and called out her name. Silence. Unsure of a proper course of action, he called out loudly and wrapped loudly upon the door. Nothing! Finally, summoning his courage he turned the tarnished and paint spattered doorknob and pushed open the door. His mouth would not say what his eyes took in.

The first image to attack his senses was the drip, drip of the faucet while water spilled over the sides of the bathtub. The second was the image of her naked lifeless body half submerged beneath the surface. When the spasm of fear allowed his mouth to function, he cried out and vomited.When the first officer arrived on the scene he secured the apartment, summoned back up and detectives. The landlord and his irritable, and irritating wife, would relive the story several times during the morning and early afternoon and the police had no reason to doubt their accounts.

Philadelphia detectives escorted the boy from school: questioning him for several hours. Even the public defender failed to open the floodgates. The boy arrogantly informed him to shut his yack. The detectives knew that the woman had been dead for several hours, and they knew what time he had been seen leaving the building. They were aware of all of this, believing with all certainty that he did so knowing that his mother had died. They just could not prove what transpired.

Having succumbed to an overwhelming feeling of emotional vertigo, the older cleric felt as if his mind had entered death row. He felt the conflict brewing in his head, the jumbled morass that confused and challenged his intellect while questions and horrors fired through his brain like a jolt of electricity. He sat grim-faced, struggling with the possibility that the boy had committed murder. What rulers of darkness had infiltrated his soul? What sin had he committed to anger God? He tried to analyze the situation with calm logic, but there was nothing logical about the boy’s life. Frustrated and disbelieving, he moved his eyes through the final passages, skimming over some of the psychiatric jargon until he came to the diagnosis and final recommendations.

The first comment jumped off the page and caused his stomach to churn. The neatly typed words spoke about a deliberate capacity to contrive and implement hideously cruel acts against humans and animals. On one clear, sunny afternoon retreat to the hospital courtyard, the boy innocently picked up a twisted twig about on quarter inch in diameter and idly played with it for several minutes. The distracted psychiatric nursing assistant assigned to supervise the outing gave little thought to the benign activity and turned his head for just a few minutes. When he looked back again the boy was holding a mutilated starling on the end of the twig. Before he could intervene, the man heard the boy exclaim without any emotion. Now – I’m even.

Disgustedly, the bishop closed the file and leaned back in his chair and for a few moments he sat quietly, liquid eyes fixed on the portrait of the Holy Father, Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII hoping that he would absorb some papal wisdom. He prayed in silence, a soul-searching plea for unfathomable wisdom and forgiveness, forgiveness for the thoughts he had contemplated, and forgiveness for the boy and all of his sinful derangement. He worried that he would be incapable of offering words of encouragement, and he struggled with a feeling of impotence and an irresponsible desire to leave the decision making to his colleague. But he acknowledged, that would be the route of a coward and he had never shirked his responsibility, nor had he ever acted so selfishly. Then again – he had never been confronted with a set of circumstances so complex and repulsively bewildering.

He sat pensively for several moments - a sense of deliberateness grew within him while he digested all that he had read. Finally, he looked into the lustrous and intelligent eyes of his friend and when he spoke his voice reflected his deep concern and skepticism: the sound of whispering emotion emanating from a man pondering many arduous decisions. It is a frightening tale that you’ve asked me to read, Charles, he said, nervously adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses.

Father DiMara leaned forward and placed his smoldering pipe in the ashtray. He thoughtfully measured his mentor’s face, his eyes squinted with sober-minded concern, and it appeared as if a parade of emotions were battling for superior position within his brain. And when he responded, he made his case, speaking logically in general terms about the report and the recommendation that the boy be placed in the care of people who were capable of providing a structured atmosphere of activity and discipline. He voiced his concerns about the options of placement in a foster home or an orphanage, a reference to the recommendation by the social service agency. He reasoned that there wasn’t a foster family in the city and probably the country prepared to cope with the psychological and social problems that this child had exhibited during his relatively short lifetime. And he asserted that placement in an orphanage was beyond ridiculous and it was tantamount to handing the boy a stick of dynamite. I believe we should intervene and try to provide a more realistic response to all of the recommendations, he delivered evenly.

Now, the bishop gazed at his friend’s judicious expression, finally comprehending what the meeting was all about, but he would allow his friend to lay out his plan in his own way, but not before he imparted his apprehensions. Charles, I understand and sympathize with your desire to help, but what realistic alternative would satisfy everyone and ensure the boy’s transformation? If that is the purpose of this discussion, he said deliberately.

Father DiMara suppressed a knowing smile, he knew that the bishop read him like a book, but he was willing to play out his hand like the proverbial cardsharp. I propose that the diocese permit me to bring the boy to the rectory to live. We - and I mean Father’s Wallis and Farrell will supervise his daily activities and of course we would provide a parochial education. What better environment and discipline for a boy with such a hideous personal history?

Bishop Badoglio crossed his arms and leaned back against his chair. Charles, while I agree in principle regarding the merits of your plan, I feel compelled to question your judgement, and, quite obviously, I am wondering what responsibility the diocese has concerning this matter?

"The boy’s grandmother had been a member of the congregation at St. Gabriel’s, although failing health prevented her from attending services on a regular basis, naturally I extended my parish visitations. She often spoke about the unholy relationship between mother and son, but both were conveniently absent during my visits. In fact, I never met either one during the time of her life.

His words were spoken with great care and deliberateness. Regarding the question of responsibility, I see no satisfactory alternative that is realistic. Nothing appears to address the best interest of the boy. He hesitated - then asked. We have been friends for many years, Francis, and I hope you will forgive me for asking this question, but I feel the need to do so, he said solemnly. Would it matter to you if this boy was not a Catholic but a Jew or a Presbyterian or an alien for that matter?

The bishop did not answer immediately. He gnawed his lower lip in silent contemplation and discomfort for a moment. Touche! You’ve made your point, but you know that I would not care if the boy’s skin had been tinted purple and his eyes strangely yellow. My concern and interest is academic in nature and I merely wish to understand your involvement, nothing more, he responded sounding rueful.

The bishop scratched the back of his head and squinted. Tell me, Charles, what happened after the grandmother died?

I received a call from the Director of Nursing at Saint Agnes. She informed me that the grandmother had succumbed to heart failure. She told me that among her belongings she discovered a letter addressed to me, including specific instructions concerning her funeral. I assumed the responsibility of liaison with the funeral home and I performed the Mass of Christian Burial, which was not attended by the daughter in-law, and of course the boy could not possibly be permitted to attend.

From what I have just read I have my doubts that the boy would have wanted to attend her funeral if given the opportunity, he said, his eyes watching Father DiMara. The boy does not seem capable of emotion… save for his uncontrollable rage. I suspect he cared very little about his grandmother… or anyone else.

Francis, he began, I’ve looked at this child’s life from every conceivable angle and one fact stands out above all others. When you look at the total picture it is obvious that many people outside of the family have failed him. Several physicians failed to make the appropriate referrals given the bizarre relationship between mother and son. Social services failed to respond to the after care recommendations that had been prescribed by the psychiatrists and psychologist at the hospital. And despite written assurances to the court from the social worker that everything possible was being done for this family, nothing had ever been implemented. The woman lied in her summaries, she lied to the court… she lied, he scowled. Sadly, and in spite of my formal complaint to the agency, the woman was never reprimanded but transferred to a different district where she will, no doubt, shirk her responsibilities at someone else’s expense.

The bishop listened attentively. He straightened up, gnawed his lower lip for a moment. He understood that Father DiMara’s assessment was correct, and he thought soberly about the boy’s history, his violence and the obvious absence of respect for life.When he spoke his voice was surprisingly calm.

What about the risks? You’ve read the report…the doctors seem to agree that he is violent and cruel. How in the world would you address such impulsively repulsive behaviors?

Obviously, the biggest risk falls on our… my shoulders and my failure to provide the kind of healthy environment that the boy needs most. Of course an argument might be made that every child needs both a mother and a father, but I suggest that the constant supervision that three males can provide would offer him the best hope. And let’s not forget he has a history of violence directed toward the opposite sex. And that does not include the horrible possibility that he has committed murder. The Family Court Judge has decreed, that the boy will meet regularly with a psychiatrist, and… he added pauing for a second, the boy is currently receiving daily medication since the onset of this most recent institutionalization.

How long will he be sedated? the bishop asked benignly.

Father DiMara’s expression softened momentarily. Pardon me, Francis, I did not wish to leave you with the impression that the boy had been sedated, but he is receiving a dosage of some kind of medication that will hopefully control his destructive urges, he said reassuringly.

The bishop nodded his understanding. Is the medication helping?

Having spoken with the psychiatrist earlier today, he told me that it is far too early to tell if this particular medication will be beneficial over the long-term. He did say that there have been some subtle improvements in his behavior, but he cautioned that he might have to remain on medication for quite some time, possibly the remainder of his life. But nothing is definitive because these drugs – forgive me, I’ve completely forgotten the terminology, pyscho something or other he said with a wave of his hand, regardless, each case is different and it is difficult to say how effective any medication may be and what contraindications may occur. Dosages and various kinds of medications may have to be adjusted or changed.

Looking at his watch, Badoglio said plainly. Charles, the hour is growing late and we should settle this matter before I leave. I shall need time to consult with the Archbishop.

Father DiMara glanced at his wristwatch. Drawing closer he thought about the impalpable arguments staring back at him. Francis, there is no other dramatic alternative on the horizon.

Bishop Badoglio unwound his limbs and rose from the chair and stretched. When would the boy arrive? he said looking at him inquiringly.

Father DiMara straightened his shoulders. There was no sense of victory, no evidence of self-vindication, just a quiet, determined facial expression. If I can get through to his psychiatrist in the next few minutes, I can pick him up on Monday morning.

In the crackling and hissing warmth, Father DiMara twisted once again in his chair. Beyond the door he heard Mrs. Donnelly’s voice while she talked with the church secretary. He managed to lose track of the precious moments ticking by. He had not contemplated for a second that it was nearly the time when she would go off to the rectory to make preparations for the evening meal. That meant that it was nearly five o’clock. He hadn’t much time.

Then he would be here during the Christmas vacation.

That is my intention.

It would give the boy and the three shepherds the opportunity to settle in, get to know one another during the Christmas break, he said, repeating his words in a failed attempt to conceal his amusement.

As a matter of fact I was thinking the same thing.

Great minds think alike.

Yes – I believe I’ve heard that somewhere.

I imagine that you and your co-conspirators have worked out a plan to occupy his days, he said in the form of a statement.

Yes. We believe we have.

The bishop smiled and nodded appreciatively and turned and walked toward the window. The devil was reigning over the heavens and the sky was turning dark as the deepest abyss. He stood leaning against the window frame as his colleague had ninety-odd minutes ago. He stared out on the barren landscape as the first flakes of snow drifted lazily from the sky. When he arrived earlier in the afternoon he believed it would be raining ice once again. He had felt it in his large-boned frame.

He took a deep breath of relief and turned to face his colleague. Charles, you have my blessing and my support. Make your telephone call. And may God be merciful.

CHAPTER 1

PHILADELPHIA: MAY 9, 1998

Cheryl Kelly squinted as she steered the silver blue unmarked sedan cautiously around an illegally parked van belching bluish gray fumes out of a dangling rusted tail pipe at the entrance to the old Bell Telephone Company building at 9th and Race Streets. She considered alerting dispatch to the obstruction. At any other hour she wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but her emotions were anchored to another region of her mind. She opted to ignore the nuisance, leaving the matter for the traffic units.

Within seconds the distressingly loud clamor of sirens reverberated between buildings to offset the melancholy character of the moment. The radio squawk alerted all units regarding a jack-knifed tractortrailer along the eastbound lanes of the Schuylkill Expressway approaching Vine Street. So what else is knew? She thought. Route 676 had become infamous as the Surekill, the scenic roadway connecting the suburbs and Main Line communities to Center City. Motor vehicle accidents along the twisting length of the Surekill were inevitable as frying beach sand in mid-July.

The woman and her companion silently ignored the protesting wails, the cacophonous blast of air horns, and the drone of the radio. Weaving around the noxious encumbrance, she unconsciously held her breath, and reached out to turn the volume down.

Just past five o’clock in the afternoon the sidewalks were congested with tourists and a smattering of harried employees rushing off to bus stops, subway entrances and parking garages. Out of the corner of her eye, and one block ahead she caught sight of an attractively coiffed woman rushing toward the corner, overburdened by swollen shopping bags. Futility thumbing its nose at the woman, she attempted to flag a passing taxicab. Lots of luck lady. Wrong place: wrong time! Her eyes were diverted to an attractive Asian couple steering a stroller westward along Race. She found herself smiling at the pleasant photograph the young family created in her mind. She witnessed it all in fractions of seconds, her eyes and mind working in harmony.

It had been a day when the sky was born a robin’s egg blue, the air warm and comfortable, but a dull southeastern squall originating in the Gulf of Mexico supplanted the sweet, scintillating northwest breeze, bathing the city in damp, sticky air. The sun had left the city looking bleak and threatening.

Rolling her shoulders, grappling with the nusisance clamminess rippling down her back drawing through her lightweight blouse, feeling heavy and thick against her skin. Soft auburn hair matted against her beaded brow felt pasted against the nape of her neck. She could not wait to get home and wash the goo from her hair and stand beneath the soft spray of a cool shower.

Heavy lidded eyes glanced up into the eastern sky as she slowed to make the right turn at 8th Street. She could see the bulbous clouds moving toward Franklin Square from the east, streaked dark gray and full of moisture. She wondered if it had started raining across the river in South Jersey. She could have cared less, but spring had been unusually wet following a dry, drought-ridden winter that provided little snow or rain. She had grown weary of the much-needed precipitation and the inconvenience of frequent treks to the dry cleaner, not to mention the additional expense of removing the city’s filth from her hair, body and panty hose. A pair of ruined pumps had been tossed inside the large dumpster in the rear of her apartment building. No way, the city would be compensating her for the loss. This, for all intent and purposes had fast become the spring of her discontent.

Opening her eyes that morning, a wedge of sunlight greeted her. The light and the warmth gave no hint of the approaching whipping winds or ponderous thunderclouds on the horizon. Sneering, the heavy goo-laden air threatened to sap one’s breath, clogged nasal passages and infected sinus cavities. Got an allergy, acute sinusitis, Philadelphia is the place to suffer the indignity of exaggerated pathology.

Tightening her jaw, she flipped her sunglasses on the seat between her and her Captain. A quick movement forced her to brake sharply to allow an elderly, hunched-backed woman to safely cross the street in spite of the fact that the woman had illegally crossed against the traffic. Her eyes focused on the lumbering form, swollen legs splayed, one arm waving to maintain balance, struggling to control the collapsible grocery cart, its rusted metal basket wobbling over worn hard rubber wheels rotating off center. When the woman had safely navigated her way to the opposite side, she made the turn and swung the sedan into the familiar parking lot on the eastside of the street, nosed it into the parking space and switched off the ignition.

Staring back at them stood an amalgam of masonry that is notably described as the Roundhouse. The oddity that is the Philadelphia Police Department Administration Building occupied the block between 7th and 8th Streets, an architectural enigma that is reminisecent of a curcurvaceous figure eight swimming pool. The stylized masonry building is bordered along 8th by a sculpted concrete wall reminiscent of a series of stone trays linked together like a great barrier. The only thing lacking is a moat and drawbridge.

The woman glanced into the rear view mirror and watched while a group of uniformed officers passed behind the car, talking and laughing, their voices fading off in the distance. She glanced at the man seated beside her, her eyebrows raised, an indication that it was time. He nodded, opened the car door and exited, retrieving two briefcases from the back seat and nudged the door closed with his knee. When he met her at the rear of the vehicle he handed her the cordovan briefcase.

Marching toward the building, the man’s thoughts moved away from the moment. His mind traced back to the early hours of the day, when the early morning rays of the sun rose in the eastern sky. He pictured himself, a solitary figure bent over a mountain of reports and notes, silently challenging, and verbally questioning under his breath. It had not occurred to him during those sober moments that the case most urgent in his mind and testing his emotional resolve and patience would soon unravel. He knew they were close, but chasing down a suspect often tugs at the mind and won’t let go. And this case was a personal hurt.

He arrived at the Roundhouse shortly before six o’clock that Saturday morning, hardly a banker’s weekend, but his emerald green eyes were staring at the ceiling at four o’clock. The night hours dragged slowly, darkness had given way to early morning and his tossing and turning proved a futile exercise. His wife Millie had stirred when he moved about their bedroom and softly cooed when he leaned over to kiss her cheek. She knew he had suffered through a restless night and she didn’t bother to ask any questions, she understood about the emotional blows ailing him. A long suffering night and nothing she or anybody else could do or say would ease his questioning mind.

Grabbing his powder blue seersucker robe from the clothes tree, slipping his feet into a pair of leather flip-flops, he padded softly from the bedroom, closing the door gently behind him. He went downstairs, grabbed his keys from the pewter dish on the hall table and unlocked the double locks affixed to the massive mahogany front door. His restless night mercifully over, he looked out over the neighborhood alive with chirping birds and frantic fluffy-tailed squirrels digging for nuts and seeds on green-carpeted lawns. He plodded along the dogwood and magnolia-shaded driveway: his hands entrenched in the pockets. Thoughts crowded his restless mind with troubling images that had kept him awake during the the night. He needn’t be reminded at that ungodly hour of the morning, didn’t want his brain to think any more, but the shadows were moored to his spirit like a grapnel to the ocean floor.

Walking down the gentle incline to the spot where the driveway meets the pavement, he shivered in the chill of the morning air, rubbed his hands together, and picked up the morning paper, released the plastic bag, and scanned the front page of the Inquirer. Nothing earth shaking to rattle one’s bones, except for the usual local and national blind prejudicial politics.

Looking at the partisan landscape, particularly the institutional quarrels and systemic process of abuses, he held to the belief that political service should be voluntary. No perks, no salary, no benefits. One six-year term, and buona fortuna! Then watch the rats scurry! Force them back to the ranks of hundreds of lawyers, advertising their services 24-7. Call…if you’ve been in accident, tripped and stumbled across your neighbor’s uneven sidewalk, suffered at the hands of an incompetent practitioner.

Time and experience had morphed him into a cynic, believing half the things politicians proclaimed as fact were gross exaggerations and the other half were blatant lies.

Lingering a moment he shook his head. In his gut, the slings and arrows of his discontent were aimed at the politicians. Necessary evils serving their own agenda, an exclusive society that worships power and money in the name of representing the public interest, burdening their constituents born of personal appetite for prestige. Their status allows them to feel superior, makes them blind to reality and disinterested in programs and projects that are relevant.