The Enemy Within (41 page)

A sample from the interview of a little girl, identified only as J.O., by a pediatric nurse will serve to illustrate the typical sequence. The nurse produces an “anatomically correct” doll, and says: “Let's pretend this little girl doll is at Fells Acres, okay?” She poses a set of linked questions, ending with: “What would happen if someone touched her [the doll's] vagina? Would she be sad?” She then turns directly toward J.O. and asks whether anyone at the Day School has ever touched
her
vagina. Receiving no reply, she adopts a somewhat disapproving tone, and suggests that perhaps J.O. feels “too scared to talk.” Throughout this entire exchange (if it was an exchange), the little girl has not accused anyone of anything.

 
Malden is one of the oldest communities in Massachusetts. Originally part of Charlestown, the site of a very early witchcraft prosecution, it gained separate incorporation in 1649. Boston lay across the Mystic River to the south. There were hills and rocky outcroppings to the north. And in between lay fertile meadows and marshland. A visitor in the early 18th century described the town as “fruitful and well cultivated, being entirely cleared and enclosed with stone fences.”

From its traditional farm-based economy and orthodox Puritan tone, Malden gradually evolved toward the medium-size, diversified city it is today. Its now nearly 60,000 residents are predominantly, though not exclusively, white, including many of 19th- and 20th-century immigrant stock. Most would qualify as middle- or working-class; only a few are truly affluent. Its spatial configuration is a checkerboard of quite distinct neighborhoods; typically, these are organized around small squares or parks. The housing stock ranges from numerous multifamily dwellings (“triple-deckers”), to occasional clusters of fine old Victorian homes, to some newly constructed redevelopment units. There are many local businesses scattered about and several factories. In spite of its fundamentally urban character, Malden likes to claim a “small-town feel.”

It was amid this rather unremarkable environment that the Fells Acres Day School was founded (1964), when Violet Amirault—then a recently divorced mother of three, eager to escape welfare—decided to open a care center for local toddlers in the basement of her home. From there the school expanded and flourished impressively, moving in short order to its own space and acquiring a strongly positive reputation among hundreds of grateful families. Through almost two decades not a single serious complaint was brought against it.

As Violet's children grew to adulthood, the school itself became a family operation, with daughter Cheryl coming on as a teacher and Gerald serving as a kind of handyman-assistant. In due course, Gerald's wife, Patti, also joined in. By now Fells Acres was serving some 70 pupils, with a staff of around 10 and Violet acting as principal. When Cheryl married in 1983, the entire school was invited to the wedding, and the pews of the Immaculate Conception Church were packed with wide-eyed children eager to support a favorite teacher. The start of the “abuse” investigation was barely a year away.

 
Gerald's trial begins on April 29, 1986, in Middlesex County Court, with Judge Elizabeth Dolan presiding. From the outset there are some highly unusual arrangements. The Fells Acres children are seated, as a group, on small chairs down in front, with their parents just behind; this means the defendant is out of their line of sight. (One child will testify only by videotape; apparently he is too frightened to be there in person.) The judge removes her official robes, leaves the bench, and sits beside the children.