My Very Best Friend (36 page)

Is this a joke that I am not in on? We’re not seriously thinking of selling marijuana for the fund-raiser.

We can’t. We’ll be arrested. We’ll be fined, have to go to court, maybe jail. Intent to distribute, possession, that sort of thing. No one is going to do well here in jail, especially Lorna. Everyone will hate her. (When you sign this note, do not send it to Lorna.)

No to pot. I’ll lose my job, and I like using surgical tools on people’s bodies, cutting them open, taking things out, trying not to get sprayed with blood. The human body is an endless thrill for me.

And for heaven’s sake, Gitanjali is dating Chief Constable Ben Harris. She can’t grow pot.

Perhaps we can sell our husbands? You know, like they do in the movies? Put your husband up in a kilt on stage and see if someone will buy him. No peeking up the kilt unless you buy him.

Kenna

Ladys,

Marijuana is herb. I read on it. Now I know this. I growing herbs. I be part of marijuana grow. I put in soups.

With peace and love,

Gitanjali

Ladies,

Perhaps we should sell poppies instead. Pretty, and not illegal unless one makes them into opiates. This is a complicated process and we might have to work with frightening killers, so I would vote no on manufacturing and distribution and yes on selling the poppies as is.

Charlotte

I truly had no idea what to sell for a fund-raiser. This isn’t my field.

13

ST. AMBROSE DAILY NEWS

FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY
OF MISSING PRIEST
Part Three

By Carston Chit,
Reporter

The disappearance of Father Angus Cruickshank from St. Cecilia’s Catholic School for Girls more than fifteen years ago, on Wednesday, May 14, 1975, has always been a mystery.

The murder theories continue to abound.

When I first started researching this topic I asked myself, “Who would want to murder Father Cruickshank?”

The question later became, “Who wouldn’t?”

Yes, there were many people who might have taken aim.

Who, you ask?

And why?

Ah, that.

First you need to know of Father Cruickshank’s upbringing.

Angus Cruickshank had a difficult childhood. He was born in County Cork, Ireland, to a single mother who had a series of boyfriends.

In fact, it was rumored that his mother was a prostitute, at least some of the time. There was no known father, and no other siblings, though Cruickshank repeatedly mentioned visiting a brother when he periodically left St. Cecilia’s for vacations.

Cruickshank was tall, and hardy, which came in handy when he had to defend himself. By the time he was twelve, he had been arrested for stabbing one of his mother’s “friends.”

When he was thirteen he was arrested for beating another one of his mother’s “friends” until the man was a bloody pulp.

In talking to a number of people in County Cork, who knew him as a boy, the responses all seemed to follow the same theme.

A local grocer, Boyd McDonagh, who employed Angus, said he was a “hard worker, but his head turned round at the girls, and the girls did not return the lad’s affection. It infuriated him, damn popped him, that it did.”

A teacher, Caileen O’Coughlin, remembers him as a boy with a temper. “He had a quick switch, my Lord he did. He could be polite as could be, don’t you know it, then he would fly into a rage. That’s why he was expelled.”

Darker stories persist. Two women spoke to me about their experience with Father Cruickshank.

They told the same story. When Father Cruickshank was no more than eighteen, he cornered all of them and molested them.

One woman, who wanted only her first name, Keela, used, for fear of Father Cruickshank locating her again, said, “I still have me nightmares. I was thirteen, my wee back against a brick wall and he shoved himself inside of me, then put his hand around me neck and squeezed and said if I told, he would kill me and me brother. You see? How I’m sweating now? I am still afraid of him.”

Another woman, Riona, who also refused to allow her last name in print, said that Father Cruickshank used to wait until school got out, then he would chase her to her home. Once he pulled her into an alley, another time to a park. “When my father found out, he beat the living tar out of Angus. He didn’t bother me after that. He went after my poor friend, Gwen. Gwen killed herself about three years after that, poor thing. I still feel it was my fault.”

There are unconfirmed rumors that he strangled two women, both still unaccounted for and both of whom had rejected his advances. At some point, Father Timothy Borho, of County Cork, took the young Cruickshank under his wing.

Cruickshank was distraught at his mother’s death, of pneumonia, according to her sisters. He was twenty-two. He then entered the priesthood at the encouragement of Father Borho.

“He never should have become a priest,” Riona said. “Obviously the Vatican didn’t do its job.”

There are other reasons to believe that the Vatican did not do their job.

We’ll cover that in Part Four.

After I read the article, I picked up Bridget’s letters again.

September sometime in 1973

Dear Charlotte,

Six months.

That’s how long they kept me in the crazy insane asylum for crazy people. I was not crazy going in, but I think I am crazy now. I cry all the time and I can’t think and all these pills they make me take. Pills and pills. Screaming fighting throwing punching wall people.

My parents came to get me.

I ignored them even though they both looked old and tired and pale. We left and I did not speak to them. They made me come home and I am not even Bridget anymore.

My father said to me, “I hope you can live a more Godly, virtuous life now, Bridget. I’ve been praying for you and when we’re home we will pray together until you understand what redemption means. You will be at home with us as we cannot trust you to keep your skirt down around boys. You will do penance and spend your time in prayer, reading the Bible to purify your soul and mind. Your virginity is gone, you will be worthless goods to most men, but we’ll hope one day a man can look past this mockery of our faith and our church.”

My mother said, “I love you.”

I didn’t answer them. If my mom loved me she wouldn’t have taken away my baby my baby my baby and sent me to the crazy insane crazy asylum. I turned around and screamed. My father hit me in the face and told me to shut up or he would take me right back into the crazy asylum crazy insane.

When we got home, I went straight to my room. All that money that my mother’s parents gave me for my birthday? I took it. I left that night when they were asleep.

I will miss Toran. I love him. I called him before I left. He didn’t know what had happened. He was at university, and in the summer my parents said I was still with the nuns learning how to be a nun. He knew they were lying to him. He said what happened what happened where are you. I couldn’t tell him, though. I’m dirty. Slut. Bad. No baby.

I hate my parents. They took my baby my baby my baby. They locked me in an insane asylum crazy because a priest said I was crazy. I will never see them again. They will never be able to do that to me again.

I want my daughter. I will go to Our Lady of Peace, A Home for Unwed Mothers first and ask who has her and go and get her back. I did not say they could take her. Never. My baby is my baby.

Love,

Bridget

Still in September in 1973. A bad time.

Dear Charlotte,

I took a bus to Our Lady of Peace but the nuns said they didn’t know who took my daughter. I told them give me the papers give me the papers give me the papers and they said that Father Cruickshank had taken some of the paperwork. I cried and cried and they held me and said, “Poor dear, poor dear.”

I went to St. Cecilia’s to see Father Cruickshank and make him tell me. Sister Margaret asked me if Father Cruickshank had raped me and was he the father of the baby, and I said yes. She hugged me and said she was sorry sorry sorry. She said she was trying to get him punished, that there were other girls, that she was trying to get the police involved, but the police were not cooperating and neither was the Vatican.

She said he had been in Belfast before his placement at St. Cecilia’s, and she had called a nun up there, a friend, and they had had problems with him, too, at another girls school. He had been in Limerick before that. Problems there, too. The nuns in both places had reported him to the church, but nothing was done. Nothing was done. Nothing.

I asked her where my daughter went and she said she didn’t know. She said that a lot of their own paperwork was missing. She thinks that Father Cruickshank burned it. He was not there when I was there. He was visiting his brother.

Sister Margaret said that my parents called and asked if I was there and another nun, not Sister Margaret, said yes, and my father was coming. Sister Margaret gave me some money and she drove me to the bus stop to get away. She said, “I’m so sorry, Bridget. I’m sorry. God bless you, child.”

I am leaving. I hate my father. I hate my mother. I hate Father Cruickshank. My parents would never believe me if I said Father Cruickshank did it. Pound. Rip. Blood.

No one will. Then he would kill Toran.

My father thinks I’m a whore. He said that, “whore.”

Gone. I am gone.

I saw Father Cruickshank’s silver cat. I hope it still bites him.

Love,

Bridget

November 20 or 24, 1973

Dear Charlotte,

I am in Edinburgh. There are babies in strollers with blue eyes and they could be my baby. I cry all the time. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t have anywhere to sleep, and I have no money for food. I know I look homeless but that is because I am.

I saw a man who was fat like my father and I hated him. He walked by me when I was leaning against a wall and then he walked back and said are you okay and I said I am and he said you don’t look okay and he went away and came back with pasta and I ate it and I said he reminded me of my father who took the baby from me and he said he was sorry and I said it’s okay and I ate the pasta.

I don’t think he’s a good man but he said I could stay at his place and I don’t have a job so I said yes.

Love,

Bridget

January, 1974, don’t know the day or date

Dear Charlotte,

Bad things happened with the man who gave me pasta.

Bridget

March, don’t know the date, 1974

Dear Charlotte,

I am in Athens and Greece is pretty but it is old and old old old I tried to call Toran but I do not have money so I called collect and he sent a plane ticket but I forgot when and when I went to the airport it was gone I could be at the wrong airport but the right airport would be by your house on the island.

And I do not like needles but I like them too because they take away the pain baby do you know where my baby is I do not she is gone. Pain. When I get home I put these letters in the brown box so you’ll know what happened.

Love

Bridget

December 1974

Dear Charlotte,

I saw Pherson. Toran found me in London in the hospital and brought me to his apartment at the university.

I still love Pherson.