I TURNED ON THE APP on my phone. The camera alignment was just as I had tested. Perfect. I could touch whichever viewpoint I wanted, then zoom in close enough to see a single hair coming out of Stanton’s skin just above his lip. He was sleeping, his head down, chin just touching his chest. I pointed the camera at his hands. They were relaxed, but the wide red marks around his wrists were evidence that he had put up a mighty struggle before conceding. Even when the mind knew something was impossible, desperation would give false hope of possibility. The metal locks around his wrists were impossible to break or maneuver. They were the same type of restraints used in military holding cells for prisoners of war.
His pants had a large stain around the crotch where he had urinated on himself. It had mostly dried, but I could see the mark around the perimeter where the urine had stopped spreading. It had been three days. If he hadn’t released his bowels yet, it was likely he would do so in the next couple of days. I would wait for him to experience that indignity, still nothing compared to that suffered by his victims, who spoke about their embarrassment at being weak and trusting a man who made them feel helpless and worthless.
Victims of sexual abuse had such a difficult time, because in their minds, the abuser held all the cards. He was typically older and stronger and able to convince the abused that they would never be believed if they were to tell others what had happened. All the victims had said that Stanton told them that because he was a minister and a man of the cloth, God spoke directly to him; thus his orders were to be obeyed. So, they had kept their mouths shut and unknowingly put up walls between themselves and their families and friends. They felt different and scarred and guilty. Some of them felt worse, because during the abuse they derived sexual pleasure. They’d explained how this made them feel even guiltier. If this was such a bad act, then why were they enjoying the sexual feelings that they experienced?
All the stories were heartbreaking, but Calvin Henderson’s was the worst. He had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder as a young adult, which I had come to learn was common for victims of abuse, particularly abuse that was sexual in nature. They started with an initial splitting between the good me and the bad me. From this split, multiple personalities developed until they were completely out of control. Henderson was a tortured man for all his adult life, and those who loved him were also scorched by the fire of his abuse. The articles I had read said that most adult victims first went through a period where they mourned their loss of childhood. This then turned into a period of self-pity. The last stage revolved around getting past the guilt, which they could do by learning that they actually had control over the rest of their lives. Those who could get to this point went on to lead relatively normal lives, but not all victims made it through this last critical phase. Henderson never did.
I changed the cameras so I could get a frontal view of Stanton. He was starting to wake. I opened up another app on my phone and tapped it a couple of times. The images on the wall changed, and now a black-and-white photograph of Henderson’s lifeless body hanging from a steel shower curtain rod appeared. This was the first thing I wanted Stanton to see when his eyes opened.
31
IT TOOK ME THE better part of an hour sitting in my office with the lights out and a Luther Vandross classic politely interrupting the silence, but I finally worked out my strategy with Dr. Patel. She was a shrink, so I knew she would not be easy to reel in. I picked up the phone, connected my private line, and called the number Tinsley had given as an emergency contact at Calderone & Calderone. The first time I called there was no answer. I had meant to call again a couple of days ago, but with everything else going on, it had slipped my mind. The phone rang three times; then an automated voice repeated the phone number and sent me straight to voice mail. I didn’t leave a message. Instead, I picked up my cell phone and called Carolina.
“I was wondering when you’d call again,” she said. “Thought maybe you had gotten what you wanted and thrown me away.”
“What I really want I can’t say over the phone,” I replied. “Big Brother could be listening.”
“Promises, promises,” she said.
“Until that time, however, I could use a little help.” I gave her Tinsley’s emergency contact number and asked her to do a reverse lookup to find out who it belonged to. She told me she’d get back to me before the end of the day.
STANTON WAS AWAKE. He sat there staring at the photograph of Calvin Henderson. I pushed the camera focus into his face. I could see the salt lines where his tears had dried. I wanted to know what was going through his mind as he sat there and looked at the destruction he had engineered, the loss of a young man’s life, because his evil heart and twisted mind convinced him that it was all right to touch little boys.
I wanted his mind to hurt first, experience the psychological torture his victims had for so many years. Then I wanted his body to hurt so he could experience the physical torment they all claimed to have suffered. His arrogance was astounding. The church had bought his freedom and given him a way out, a chance to quietly disappear. But he defied it all, still wearing the collar and still ministering to the innocent and unsuspecting.
