That the demands of his Sunday duties were inescapable was at first an irritatingly unwelcome distraction from the altered state of consciousness which had enveloped Miles on Friday night and Saturday. This he found so severe as to be almost cruel. That those same demands were also intimately familiar, deeply embedded into every layer of his sense of self, had an analgesic effect, and served to buffer his transition to a less over-heated state of mind, one in which he could contemplate this latest twist in his already complicated life with some measure of detachment. On those psychic northerly winds came the first seeds of contrition. They were yet to take root, germinate, and flower, but Miles could nonetheless feel them plant themselves in his conscience, and although he would have bid them lay dormant some good long while, he was not inclined to till the ground of his soul in the hope that they might be carried off by birds. Slowly, he resigned himself to the inevitability of repentance, and in due course would probably make an appointment with his confessor and be shriven of the guilt that still lay so sweetly in his heart’s memory. The first sign of this emerging trajectory was that he managed to resist the urge to pick up the phone and call Oksanna during the long hours of the afternoon and evening on Sunday. It helped that Brian was around—after a post-liturgical nap, they got themselves involved in a consuming game of chess, then went down to Louie’s for pizza and beer. On Monday morning, availing himself once again of the diocesan website, he finally called her. To his simultaneous relief and disappointment, Miles found that the trajectory of Oksanna’s musings were quite similar to his own. Their ambivalence was mutual at every level. They neither swore off the ardor that had swept them off their feet so unexpectedly, nor did they arrange another tryst. Their relationship was going to have to just hang in the ether for a time. How it would sort itself out, neither one could tell.
Fortunately for Miles, the inherent demands of his life did not afford him the luxury of fixating on what had transpired between him and Oksanna. On Wednesday morning, he got in his car and drove downtown to the diocesan office. It was his initial interview with the ad hoc sexual misconduct investigation team. The irony was not lost on him that, while he was manifestly innocent of the charges that the team was investigating, he was resoundingly guilty of behavior that was unquestionably sexual, and—at least by any traditional Christian moral standard—fell clearly under the rubric of misconduct. (Curiously, even if what had transpired between Miles and Oksanna were known to this day’s interrogators, it would have raised nary a legal or canonical eyebrow, since she was not directly in his pastoral charge, and the two of them would have been considered peers; hence, without a differential in power between them, neither could be said to have exploited the other. Any notion of sin was beside the point.)
The investigating team was headed by Leland Rowell, a retired Cook County prosecuting attorney, and a pillar of St Chrysostom’s, the historic token “low church” parish in a traditionally “high church” diocese. He was almost a caricature of himself, with his three-piece pinstripe suit, bow tie, crew cut, and rimless glasses. Rowell was joined by Ellen Nordquist, the relatively
newly ordained vicar of St Julian’s, a mission in the
The three interrogators were seated along one side of the long table in the conference room; Miles took the chair directly opposite them. Rowell immediately took command of the proceedings. “Father Coverdale, thank-you for coming in. I assume you know Father Fonseca and Reverend Nordquist.” His tone was not impolite, but it was brusque, and he did not think it essential to make eye contact with the one he was addressing, re-arranging the papers on the table in front of his as he spoke. (Miles bristled subliminally at Rowell’s use of the honorific adjective “Reverend” as a title and form of address; he had always been a stickler about the widespread but technically erroneous practice, which had been waning in Episcopalian parlance until the church began ordaining women in the 1970s. “Father” was obviously not appropriate, and “Mother” simply never caught on widely.) Rowell continued, “Now, I assume you realize that you’re entitled to be accompanied by counsel—not a lawyer, necessarily, but anyone you choose—and that the fact that you’re here by yourself means that you’re waiving that right.” It suddenly occurred to Miles that he had never even considered this possibility; he was relying on his certain knowledge of his own innocence to carry the day. Might that have been naïve? Should he have brought somebody with him? Yet, the thought of postponing these proceedings seemed singularly distasteful. He was eager to have it all behind him. “Yes, sir. I’m aware of that. I’m fine. For now, at least. I can change my mind at a later stage, right?”
“You certainly may, sir, you certainly may,” Rowell assured him, still not quite looking up completely. “Now, since everyone’s time is valuable”—only now, looking over the top of his glasses without appreciably raising his head, did he look directly at Miles—“I suggest we get right down to the allegations and see if we can find our way to the facts.” Once again, there was something about Rowell’s choice of words that did not sit well with Miles, but the irritation was below the threshold of conscious awareness. “As you know, we have already interviewed the alleged victim, Mrs. Lindholm.” Now that he mentioned it, Miles was not in any way surprised; only aware that—again, naively—he had not even considered the fact. “Mrs. Lindholm has stated that, in the context of a pastoral counseling session in your study at St Alban’s Church…” —there was no one keeping a record of this meeting, but Miles could not help notice the precision with which Leland Rowell went about his work, as if it were a formal legal deposition—“…that you made sexual advances toward her, that you coaxed her into a state of partial undress, and that you pinned her against the wall of your study by placing your hands on her breasts. I assume, Father, that you have a different version of the sequence of events on that occasion?”
Miles was momentarily flustered, but realized that he should not have been surprised by this account, even though he had not spent very much effort speculating about the shape
“Well, why don’t we begin with the big picture?” Rowell retorted crisply. “Is the victim—the alleged victim, Mrs Lindholm—is Mrs Lindholm telling the truth?”
Once again, Miles found himself annoyed by the question, but his annoyance was subliminal. Consciously, he was only aware of feeling unsure of his response, and then further annoyed by his own tentativeness. “Uh…somewhat. In other words, there are some elements of truth in what she says…”
This time Rowell was not simply crisp in his response; he interrupted. “Some elements of truth? Let’s look at some of those elements. Was Mrs Lindholm or was Mrs Lindholm not in a state of partial undress at any time during her meeting with you?”
“She was, yes,” Miles acknowledged. “Several buttons on her dress were undone, and the top part had fallen down around her waist. But…”
“So you stipulate the part of the allegation about her being undressed down to her undergarments.” Miles, of course, stipulated to no such thing, but before he could formulate a response, Rowell forged ahead. “And what about the part that you touched her breasts. At any time during your meeting with Mrs Lindholm, were your hands ever on her breasts?”
“Well, yes, they were, but…”
“Forgive me, Father Coverdale,” Rowell interrupted, “I’m going to give you a chance to explain things your way. Please trust me on that. But for the moment, we’re interested in simply defining the boundaries of the playing field, so to speak. We just want to get the raw facts out on the table.”
“I understand,” Miles replied meekly. His heart was sinking, though. This interview was going south in a hurry.
“Thank-you,” Rowell acknowledged. “So what’s emerging quite clearly is that Mrs Lindholm is being truthful when she alleges that you undressed her and touched her in a sexual manner.”
Miles exploded, “No sir! She is not at all truthful in that allegation.”
“Then something isn’t adding up. How else would you characterize her dress being down around her waist and your hands on her breasts pinning her against the wall of your study?”
Miles thought to himself, This guy is a real snake in the grass. The general reputation of lawyers as a class was apparently well deserved. Later, he would be grateful for the grace in that moment to transcend the reptilian reactivity by which he was powerfully tempted, and maintain a semblance of rational behavior. “Mr Rowell, I can certainly see how, with the information you have, since you were not in the room on that day, you might come to such a conclusion.”
“You have to admit—indeed, you’ve just admitted by your own words—that when one puts your testimony alongside that of Mrs Lindholm, a pretty clear picture develops.”
Again, Miles was quietly infuriated by this latest in a chain of half-baked inferences drawn by his interlocutor. He was suddenly aware that the interview was to this point a two-way conversation. Surely the other two members of the team could see the unfairness of the direction in which Rowell was leading the proceedings. He looked at Fonseca, who was stolid, and not willing to make eye contact. Then, as if on cue, Ellen Nordquist entered the conversation. “Leland, you’ve done a brilliant job showing us where the dots are. But I wonder whether there may be more than one way to connect them.” Miles became aware that he had been holding his breath, and now allowed himself to exhale. “Perhaps we ought to allow Father Coverdale the chance to just tell the story from his point of view.”
“Yes, Ellen, you’re quite right,” Rowell conceded. “Father Coverdale, you have the floor.”
“Thank-you.” Miles paused, collected his thoughts, then began his narrative. He gave the background of his pastoral relationship with Tracy Lindholm, including the topic of their conversation on the day of the incident, namely,
Miles paused at that point, and Leland Rowell pounced on the opening. “That may not be an implausible explanation, I suppose—not an implausible explanation as to how Mrs Lindholm reached a state of partial undress. We may want to dig around a little further to see whether you might have said something that she could have equally plausibly interpreted as a sexual advance. But in any case, it still sounds like it’s a situation you then took advantage of in an inappropriate way. The fact remains, your hands were on her nearly naked breasts, a fact, I might add, to which you have already stipulated.”
Once again, Miles felt his rage rising at this latest distortion of the truth. But before he could respond, Ellen Nordquist intervened with surprising sharpness. “Leland, I think you’ve made your point. I think we need to let Father Coverdale finish his story. Miles?”
Rowell turned toward his colleague and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Miles cleared his throat and continued. “Well, I didn’t really think in that moment so much as act. I had a half-naked woman in my study who was trying to seduce me…”
The previously silent Tomás Fonseca chose this moment to interject, “How?”
“Pardon me?” Miles queried.
“How did she try to seduce you?”
“I can’t remember her exact words. But she had just been telling me about her recent sexual hookups, how she picks up strange men in bars on a regular basis, and how nobody else was around—my secretary had left early because of a family emergency. She alluded to the office being closed and the front door being locked. It was pretty clear what she wanted.”
Rowell could not conceal his jaundiced view of Miles’ account. “According to Mrs Lindholm, it was also pretty clear what you wanted.”
Ellen Nordquist was quick to parry, “And we have heard
Miles seized the moment, before Rowell had a chance to say anything. “Like I said, it was pretty clear—abundantly clear, unmistakably clear—what
The clarity and finality of Miles’ assertion prompted Ellen to summarize, “So what you’re telling us, Miles, is that if there had been a hidden movie camera in your study that day, it might be possible to isolate a frame or two that would, in and of themselves, look pretty incriminating. But if we look at the whole movie, especially the parts on either side of the incriminating ones, a different picture comes into focus, a picture that substantiates your contention that it was Tracy who came on to you, and you did everything in your power to resist her advance.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you. In fact, I couldn’t have said it better myself. In retrospect, there’s only one thing I wish I had done differently. I wish I hadn’t tried to put her dress back on for her. I should have just immediately done a 180 and asked her to get dressed and leave the building.” Miles did not know what to make of the fact that it was Ellen Nordquist who was turning out to be his advocate in this meeting. He did not know her well, but she had a reputation as a rather doctrinaire feminist. Going into the interview, it was she about whom he had the most qualms as possibly being prejudiced in favor of his accuser. The straitlaced septuagenarian Leland Rowell was the one who figured to be most receptive to the “crazy woman” defense that Miles was proffering. His feelings were further complicated by his long-suppressed theological discomfort with the very idea of women being ordained as priests. His orientation toward the Catholic pole of the Anglican spectrum—formed subliminally in his upbringing in Wauwatosa, clarified during his college years at Wheaton, and solidified in seminary at Nashotah—predisposed him against any break with long Christian tradition, particularly a break instigated by a body, like the Episcopal Church in the U.S., which is itself miniscule in the larger scheme of things. Yet, in the spirit of “go along to get along,” he had long since made a decision to set aside his misgivings. He had friends on all sides of the issue, but chose not to engage it himself. Now, here he was, at truly a crisis moment in his life, and it was a woman priest who was the bearer of life and salvation on his behalf. The irony was not lost on him. His defender then took it upon herself to continue, “Of course, when we interviewed
Leland Rowell’s demeanor softened, almost imperceptibly. “Reverend Nordquist, I would certainly have to defer to your professional expertise on such questions. Nonetheless, I’m a lawyer, and I deal with facts and evidence. Father Coverdale, you had an undressed woman, a parishioner, in a locked building with no one else even remotely present. That is, prima facie, highly suspicious, wouldn’t you agree, sir?”
Miles suddenly knew himself to be considerably less afraid, so he had the gumption to answer, “I would have to agree with you, Mr Rowell. If I were sitting in your chair, I would probably be highly suspicious.” Rowell’s countenance even further, this time noticeably. “I only hope that my explanation of the events is also plausible, because I assure you, as the Triune God is my witness, it is the absolute truth.”
“Father, I would have to say, what you have told us may indeed not be an implausible accounting of what happened.” With such a faint and guarded reassurance from the leader of the team that would pass judgment on him, Miles would have to content himself. Sensing his need for something stronger, Ellen added, “We will, of course, do our best to wind this up quickly. We know your life is in many ways on hold while this thing hangs over you. I want to thank you for your patience with our thoroughness, and assure you that we are well aware of your desire to get back to the routine of your ministry.”
They all shook hands, and while there was no indication that the team was going to stay behind and begin its deliberations, Miles excused himself and left the room and the building as quickly as he could. Ellen was right—he was eager to have his life back, such a life as it was. There was plenty of complication to make it interesting without this annoyance. He still had unresolved grief issues, his daughter was still not speaking to him, his son still faced drug charges, and—what could he call her? “girlfriend” did not seem appropriate—Oksanna had lately opened up rooms within his soul that he had not known even existed. Yes, life was plenty interesting without this annoyance. He wanted it to go away.
