Blue (23 page)

“What a slimy thing to do, and it's so wrong!” she said, with a look of outrage in her eyes. “They should be crawling on their knees over what happened!”

“This is just posturing in the beginning. They can't just give in to us immediately—they have to play the game. But they will pay in the end. Sometimes a lot. They pay huge damages and settlements in these cases. It won't change what happened, but it could give Blue a better life than he might have otherwise, and some security for his future. That could be very important for him.” All Andrew could do now to help him was convince the church to pay a handsome settlement. And he wasn't going to rest until that was achieved.

“What was that meeting about? I thought we were going to have a serious conversation about what to do. All they wanted to do was terrorize us.” Ginny was angry, but Andrew knew the dance had only just begun.

“They don't scare me,” Andrew said calmly. “And I hope they don't scare you. They wanted to see if we'd dump the case before it goes to the grand jury and turns into a much bigger headache for them. Blue will be protected by anonymity because he's a minor. Now it's Father Teddy's turn to pay the price for his crimes. This was just a saber-rattling contest. After this, it will get serious, and they'll get tougher before they cave.”

“Do you think they will cave?” she asked, looking worried, and relieved they hadn't wanted to see Blue at the meeting. She wouldn't have brought him, even if they did. If Blue had been there, Cavaretti would have tried to pressure Blue and make him recant and confuse him about what had actually happened.

“They really have no choice here, if Blue sticks to his story.”

“It's not a story, it's the truth,” Ginny said hotly.

“That's why I'm here,” Andrew said quietly. “Try not to let them get to you this early. We have a long road ahead of us. Which reminds me—once you have guardianship, I want you to take him to the psychologist whose name I gave you. I want some kind of assessment of his mental state, and the extent of the psychological damage, in a doctor's opinion.” He had requested temporary guardianship for her, pending the hearing, and saw no reason why she wouldn't get it.

“Will she use hypnosis, or just talk to him?” Ginny asked, concerned.

“It depends on what she thinks. She might use hypnosis if she thinks he was sodomized and doesn't remember it, but testimony based on hypnosis can be sketchy and unreliable, and some judges won't accept it. I'd rather rely on her assessment, and what Blue says himself.”

Ginny nodded in agreement—she just wanted to warn Blue of what would happen when he saw the therapist. She had already told him he would probably have to see one for an evaluation, and he had no objection. He was like an open book.

“Well, try to do something more pleasant for the rest of the day,” Andrew suggested as he left her at the corner. Nothing that had happened in the meeting had surprised him, but Ginny was upset and shaken.

Andrew had a busy afternoon ahead of him. He was meeting a new client in a similar case, although in that case the boy had been sodomized and had shown signs of psychosis ever since, and had just been released from a psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide. He saw many worse cases than Blue's, but his was important as well, and Andrew took it very seriously, as he did all of them. There were fragile young lives at stake that would be impacted forever, in obvious and subtle ways. He wanted to achieve retribution for them by putting all the perpetrators in prison.

He smiled at Ginny, wishing he could make this easier for her and Blue.

“If you don't mind, sign a release for the therapist so I can discuss the case with her, and I'll be in touch. I'm waiting to hear from Jane Sanders about when this will go to the grand jury. From what she said yesterday, I think they're almost ready to submit it, and we'll be off and running after that,” Andrew said, and Ginny nodded. He was efficient and on top of all the details, as well as extremely competent at sparring with old priests. She had been very impressed by his performance in the meeting. He was the classic iron hand in the velvet glove, and much tougher than she'd thought. And somehow it helped that he had been a priest. He was like a secret agent who had defected from the other side, and he knew all the private ins and outs of the church. Andrew O'Connor was no slouch. She was intrigued, too, by the old monsignor being so convinced Andrew would go back, particularly since he knew him so well. “I'll call you,” he promised. “Say hi to Blue for me.” He waved and got into a cab, and she took the subway back uptown.

Blue asked about the meeting as soon as she walked into the apartment, but she didn't want to worry him.

“What did they say?” He looked concerned, and had been lying on the couch, watching TV. He was still pale after his surgery.

“Not much,” she said honestly. It had been basically bluster and veiled threats when you got right down to it, and a few elegant flourishes and jabs from Andrew's side. She liked his style. “Mostly, they wanted to know if we were serious about the case. Andrew said we are, in so many words. He threatened them a little, and then we left.” She had summarized it succinctly, without the twists and turns and blackmail of the monsignor's words. “Andrew knew the monsignor, which doesn't hurt. I think the archdiocese will get more serious after this. I think they were hoping we'd drop it before it goes to the grand jury, but we won't.” She changed into jeans, a T-shirt, and sandals then, and felt more relaxed, and then she called the therapist Andrew had referred her to. She made an appointment for the following week and told Blue about it.

Andrew called to check on Blue that night. Ginny thought he sounded tired, and he admitted he'd had a long day.

“How's the patient doing?” he asked in a friendly tone.

“Getting restless, I think. He wants to go to the beach tomorrow. I think we should wait a few days.”

“What if I bring dinner tomorrow night?” Andrew suggested, and Ginny was touched.

“He's desperate for a Big Mac,” she said, laughing.

“I think we can do better than that. My apartment is near Zabar's. I'll bring a picnic over tomorrow after work,” he offered generously. “And don't forget our Yankees game.” It was going to be on Blue's birthday. Ginny wondered if he was this attentive to all his clients. He seemed to have a soft spot for Blue. “See you tomorrow night,” Andrew said, after chatting with her for a few minutes, and she reported to Blue that Andrew was coming to dinner the following night.

“He likes you,” Blue said with a goofy grin.

“He likes
you,
” she corrected him, and the following night Andrew showed up at their apartment with flowers for her and a sumptuous meal. There were several kinds of pasta, roast chicken, salads, a number of good French cheeses, a bottle of excellent French wine for him and Ginny, and a mountain of desserts. The three of them spread it out on their dining table and shared a delicious meal. He and Blue talked baseball and music, and after Blue went to bed, he and Ginny talked about her travels, and he reminisced about how much he had loved Rome.

“It's the most romantic city in the world,” he said nostalgically, and it seemed like an odd comment from an ex-priest, and he grinned, aware of that himself. “I only figured that out after I left the church. I'd love to go back one day. It was very exciting being at the Vatican, although I worked fifteen hours a day. I used to go for long walks at night when I finished. It's an exquisite city. You should go there with Blue one day.” He treated her as a friend more than a woman, and it was nice being able to share her concerns about Blue with him, and her hopes.

“There are a lot of places I'd like to travel with him, although not the countries where I work. Maybe I can take some time off and go to Europe with him next year.”

“It sounds like you've earned it.”

“I was thinking about taking him away for a few days before he starts school.”

“You should go to Maine. I spent my summers there as a kid.” And then his face lit up as he thought of something. “Do you like to sail?”

“I haven't in years. I used to love it.”

“I keep a ridiculously small sailboat at Chelsea Piers. It's my pride and joy. I take it out on weekends, when I'm not buried in work. We should take Blue out on it some weekend.” Like Ginny, he wanted to introduce him to some of the joys in life, and it sounded like fun to her.

They chatted for a while, about his summers in Maine, and hers in California, while they finished the wine. It was a nice, relaxing, family-style evening, and she thanked him for the delicious meal. And before he left, he promised to call her about going out on his boat.

Ginny heard from Ellen Warberg at SOS/HR the next day, and she said they had an assignment in India that they were considering her for. It was at a shelter for young girls who had been used as sex slaves, and the human rights workers were rescuing or buying them back one by one. There were more than a hundred girls in the camp, and it sounded interesting to Ginny, but she had so much going on at home now.

“When do you need me to leave?” she asked, sounding worried.

“Our main worker who's running it now has to be back in the States on September tenth, so I think the latest we can send you is around September fifth, so she can brief you before she leaves. At least it's not a hardship post, and you won't get shot at for a change.”

But the date she had mentioned was the day Blue started school at LaGuardia Arts, and it was only three weeks away. She didn't want him staying at the shelter on his first day at such an exciting new school. She wanted to be there to support him, but didn't know if her superior at SOS would understand. Ellen had no kids and had never been married, and her concern for children was more political and on a much broader scale than one teenage boy on the first day of school. Ginny thought about it quickly before she spoke.

“I've never done this before, but I honestly can't get there on that date. I've got a lot going on here right now,” she said, thinking of the grand jury hearing, possibly Father Teddy's arraignment immediately afterward, Blue starting at a new school, and the ongoing investigation to unearth additional victims. She didn't see how she could be in India in early September, and not be around to support Blue with a new school and an impending criminal case.

“When do you think you could go?” Ellen asked her, sounding tense. She had to fill the post rapidly, but she was also well aware that Ginny had accepted every assignment, no matter how terrible, without complaint, for more than three years. She had a right to pass one up now.

“Ideally, I'd like to be here for the month of September, if you can work that out. I'll go anywhere you want as of October first or thereabouts.” It would give her a month and a half at home, which seemed like enough time to get everything off and running, and Blue settled in. Then she could leave in good conscience to do her work for them.

“I think that'll work. We'll send someone else to India, I have someone in mind. She's not as experienced as you are, but she's willing, and I think she'll do a good job. We'll send you somewhere else in October, Ginny. I can't promise where, and if you go out on October first, we'll bring you back around Christmas, or just after, which will give you three months in the field.” She was organizing it in her head and talking out loud, and Ginny's heart sank as she said it. She was going to be Blue's guardian now, and had a responsibility to him, and bringing her back “just after Christmas” was going to be a terrible blow to him. She didn't want to leave him to spend Christmas at an adolescent shelter, while she spent it in a refugee camp halfway around the world, not even able to communicate with him. Her life was getting more complicated by the day, especially with their case against the church about to heat up dramatically. “That'll work,” Ellen said again cheerfully. “Enjoy your time at home.” She imagined that Ginny was relaxing and going to movies and museums. She had no idea that she had taken a homeless teenage boy under her wing nearly eight months before.

Ginny was still thinking about it when Andrew called her and told her a date the next week had been chosen for the case to go to the grand jury, and that she might be called on to be interviewed by them. And another victim in Chicago had come forward, another altar boy. Andrew could just imagine Cavaretti's reaction to that. Things weren't going well for their side. And he noticed that Ginny sounded distracted—she had hardly reacted to the news that they had found another victim of Father Teddy's at St. Anne's. “Is something wrong?” he asked her, she usually sounded much more engaged when he gave her news of new developments in the case. Ginny seemed like she had a lot on her mind.

“I was just negotiating with my office. They wanted to send me to India in a couple of weeks, and it's a bad time to leave Blue, so they agreed to give me September at home, as long as I leave by the first of October. But I probably won't make it back for Christmas. It's a trade-off, but there's always a hitch in there somewhere.”

He didn't say it, but he didn't see how she was going to juggle a job like hers and Blue, especially if she was gone for months at a time, and away three-quarters of the year.

She was realizing that, too, and it put a lot of strain on her. The work she did was important to her, but so was Blue, and he needed her. “It all was pretty easy when I had no one in my life.”

“That's why I stay single,” he said, laughing, trying to ease the tension for her, “so I can leave for India or Afghanistan at the drop of a hat.” He had no idea how she managed what she did, and tolerated it for long periods of time, with or without Blue. It seemed admirable to the point of saintly to him, as well as foolhardy at times, but she didn't seem to mind the dangers or discomforts, at least until now.