Deliver Us from Evil (33 page)

Two weeks later, JoAnn was back on the phone, reporting that the psychiatric drugs hadn't done a thing. That's when the real obstacle arose: It turned out that this man not only wasn't a Catholic, but he'd spent years in a religious movement, the Jehovah's Witnesses, that holds a very low opinion of my faith. While he'd left this group a long time ago, he still hung on to this prejudice.

At that point, I had to back off—if Frank refused to let a Catholic help him, then there was nothing more I could do. “You can't force someone to get an exorcism he doesn't want,” I told JoAnn. “It's like dealing with a drug problem: A person has to decide
he
wants to kick the habit and get into rehab. Your husband must seek an exorcism of his own free will or the ritual wouldn't work. In fact, it shouldn't even be attempted under these circumstances.”

The schoolteacher burst into tears, saying she didn't know where else to turn. I told her I'd run into this problem before, since demons can target anyone, regardless of his or her religion. That's why the bishop, though a staunch Catholic Traditionalist, is willing to perform exorcisms on non-Catholics, feeling that God's help should be given to anyone who sincerely asks for it. Since
Frank
wasn't willing, however, we couldn't proceed any further.

Not surprisingly, since the demonic will seize on anything to stop an exorcism from taking place, when I finally got to speak to Frank on the phone, he was extremely hostile. “I'm only talking to you because my wife wants me to,” he announced in a belligerent tone. “I'm not going crawling to any Catholic for help! It's a false religion and I don't want any part of it! Why do you people talk about a Holy Trinity when there's only one God? It's blasphemy!”

Although I was getting mad, I had to bite my tongue to keep from arguing with him, because I wanted to determine what I was dealing with. Was this just prejudice—or could this man be genuinely possessed?

I didn't want to make the same mistake I did in another recent case, that of a man named Pete who had a bizarre complaint: Every time he looked in a mirror, he saw the face of a boa constrictor where his head was supposed to be. After Joe and I did an extensive interview with this man and his father—who was extremely upset by his son's strange behavior—we concluded that Pete was possessed, possibly by a demon named Leviathan, which is said to be represented by a snake.

When we suggested an exorcism with Bishop McKenna, Pete, who was a Baptist, immediately asked us to arrange it for him. When I called the night before the ceremony to confirm, Pete's attitude had turned around completely. He'd developed qualms about getting help from Catholics and no longer wanted the ritual. Remembering how desperate he and his father were during the interview, I spent over an hour trying to change Pete's mind, as he made increasingly insulting remarks about my faith.

At one point during the conversation, the father picked up the phone and implored me to hold the ritual no matter what Pete said. “Please, don't listen to him, Ralph,” the older man said. “My son needs help, and you're his only hope. You have no idea how bad things are with him.”

Pete, however, was adamant. “No fucking way am I going to let any Catholic put holy water on me,” he insisted. “You people are the scourge of this earth!”

By now I was boiling mad. “That's it,” I said firmly. “I'm going to terminate this conversation right now. I'm not going to handcuff you and drag you to a Catholic church. If you decide you want God's help, let me know. If not, I have nothing more to say to you.”

I could hear his father still pleading with him as Pete slammed down the phone. Still angry and more than a little baffled by the man's abrupt refusal to get the help he so desperately needed, I called Joe and told him the whole story.

“Ralph, don't you realize you were talking to the demon?” my partner asked. Of course! How could I have been so blind? The demonic always have a list of bullshit reasons why an exorcism is a bad idea and cunningly exploit their victims' fears and biases. While they have no power over someone's free will, their attack is so strong and intricate that they know the best way to exert their sinister influence. The person may even know that what the demon urges is the wrong decision but feels powerless to resist. Until he or she realizes that the evil force is an alien, unwelcome presence—and consciously decides to reject it—the possession will progress deeper and deeper, as the demon's influence grows stronger and stronger. That's what happened to Pete, and it might be the problem with Frank as well.

Infuriating as Frank's anti-Catholic diatribe was, I listened to him ramble on about the supposed “errors” of my faith. “The cross is a false symbol,” he proclaimed in an extremely deep, rumbling baritone. “Jesus died on a pole or a stake. Have you not read in Deuteronomy 7:26 that ‘You shall not bring an abominable thing into your house, lest you be doomed with it; loathe and abhor it utterly as a thing that is doomed'? And what about I Corinthians 10:14: ‘I am telling you, whom I love, to shun the worship of idols'? Your cross is nothing but idolatry!”

While neither of these biblical passages actually refers to the cross at all, I said that I had no intention of debating theology. “We both worship the same God, Frank, but here's something you should think about: What kind of religion preaches hate? Like it or not, I'm a Catholic and I'm staying one. If you have a problem with that, then good-bye.”

I put the phone down but later called JoAnn to say that I couldn't take the case. She was beside herself and couldn't stop apologizing for the way her husband had spoken to me. “This isn't him,” she insisted. “He's not a bad person.”

“I can't be sure at this point whether the problem is hatred for Catholics or demonic possession,” I told her. “I've dealt with this stuff before, and if it is demonic possession, the attacks will step up now, because the evil spirit will be angry that Frank talked to me. Wait a few weeks and see what happens. Your husband knows where to get help if he wants it, so if he changes his mind, give me a call.”

Sobbing with frustration, she said she would. A month later she was back on the phone. “Frank wants your help now.”

Somewhat skeptically, I told her to put him on the phone. When he spoke, I was amazed by the transformation in both his voice and his attitude. I now had a very cooperative Frank on the line. Nor was I treated to any tirades about the evils of Catholicism or any biblical quotes on idolatry. I gathered from his remarks that he was being attacked more intensely than ever, just as I'd predicted. “It's gotten so bad that I can't take it anymore,” he admitted. “My wife says that if I don't get help, she's leaving.”

While that's not the reason for which I would have wanted him to seek help, it was a start and I was ready to proceed, now that Frank was. My next step was to set up an interview at the couple's Brooklyn apartment. Surprisingly, JoAnn was extremely resistant to this idea, saying their home was too “messy” for a meeting. “Couldn't we get together at a coffee shop or something?” she asked.

I said no. I need to interview people in their home, so I can gather impressions about their problem. Sometimes I've seen things in people's houses that have given me clues about the kind of demon I'm up against or what might have brought it to this particular location. I also want to get an idea of what the people's lifestyle is like, check for signs of occult activity, and observe their facial expressions as they describe the supernatural events that have taken place.

“Mess doesn't bother me,” I assured her. As a cop, I've been in homes—if you want to call them that—that are more disgusting than you could ever imagine. The other night I was called to a public housing project when officers responding to an unrelated 911 call were told that small children were alone in the apartment next door. Although it was 2:00
A.M.
when I got there and their home was in one of New York's most dangerous slums, the door was open. Inside, hundreds of cockroaches swarmed on every surface: on the filthy, broken furniture; on the piles of reeking garbage; and on the stained mattress where I found three little girls—twins age nine and a one-year-old baby—sleeping together. On the floor, right next to their bed, was an overflowing ashtray and a cigarette lighter.

Naturally, we followed procedure. We woke the girls up and immediately got them out of the apartment and to a hospital. Their health checked out okay, so we notified Children's Services so they could be placed in foster care. The so-called mother showed up at the Four-Six around 6:00
A.M.
screaming that she wanted her kids. We promptly arrested her for endangering the welfare of a minor, three counts.

And then there was the first DOA case I responded to as a rookie. Apparently this man didn't have a friend in the world, because he'd been dead in his apartment for a month by the time his neighbors got around to reporting a foul odor. Although the man was Caucasian, the body had turned black and was moving in an odd way. Nudging one of the other officers at the scene, I asked, “What's that?”

“Flies,” he said. After that, I must have looked pretty comical to the other cops, the way I started leaping around and frantically shooing away any fly that came near me, thinking it might have touched the dead man.

Far worse than the flies was the overpoweringly fetid stench. I didn't see how anyone could stand it for a second, but I'd been ordered to remain in the apartment until the medical examiner arrived, which turned out to be all day. To keep from vomiting, I'd get a deep breath of fresh air in the hallway, then run into the apartment and throw coffee grounds on the burner of the stove. This made the smell barely tolerable for a few minutes, then I'd burn some more coffee grounds. To this day, whenever I smell burnt coffee, I think of my first DOA. The worst part, however, was when the officers lifted the dead man into a body bag. The gases inside the corpse exploded, and the man actually split open.

If I could survive my first DOA, I was pretty sure I could handle whatever mess Frank and JoAnn were harboring in their home. I asked Keith, a cop I'd worked with briefly in East New York, to come along as backup, since Joe was taking a sabbatical from the Work. I could understand why: You can't go balls to the walls against the demonic year after year without taking an occasional break to recharge your spiritual batteries.

This was Keith's first investigation, and I could sense his excitement. A year earlier I'd run into him at Brooklyn Central Booking, when he was bringing in a female prisoner. I recognized him from PSA (Police Service Area) #2 and said hello. After securing the prisoner, he came over and said, “Don't think I'm crazy, but…” I figured he was going to tell me he had a ghost in his home, but I was wrong.

“I've been taking courses in parapsychology,” he continued. I couldn't help but wince, since I hate that word—and the supposedly “scientific” approach to the demonic. Keith seemed to recognize that he wasn't striking quite the right chord, because he quickly added. “What I'm really saying is, can
you
teach me about this stuff?”

I immediately tried to discourage him. “You have no idea of what you'd be getting into. Lots of people think the Work sounds exciting, but this isn't a scary movie, where it's fun to be afraid because it's all make-believe. This is reality—and anyone who tries it pays a spiritual price. I've known people who were so frightened on their first case that they were never quite the same again. That's what happened to one of my students a few years ago.”

Keith insisted that he was more than tough enough for the Work. He's Italian, in his late thirties, with dark hair and a powerful build. He's a very aggressive street cop, so I knew that he wasn't going to give up and go away just because I said the Work was scary. Hell, that probably heightened his interest, because this was a macho, action-oriented guy. But the factor that made me decide to take him on was his devout Catholic faith. I felt he might have the makings of a good investigator.

Once I accepted him as a student, I let him know exactly what I expected. “On this investigation, your job is to watch my back. If you have questions during the interview, go ahead and ask them. I'll do most of the talking, but feel free to jump in if something's not clear. However, if this man is possessed, and you assist with his exorcism, you're not to open your mouth and speak to him during the ritual—no matter what. And if things get rough, no slugging it out with the possessed! Just take him down if you have to, but no punches. Those are my rules—and if you break them, it's the last exorcism you'll ever be at!”

Keith promised to follow these rules, so we arranged to meet the couple at their Brooklyn condo the following Thursday. As I drove there, I thought about a conversation I'd had with my kids a few days earlier. Knowing that I had a new case and my wife had a new job, nine-year-old Christina announced that she had career plans too. “I want to help people—and punish demons, just like you, Daddy!”

Four-year-old Daniella was quick to agree. “Your work is scary, Daddy, but I want to do it when I grow up. I'm brave: I like to watch scary movies on TV, except when it's dark. I can do it, I know I can do it. You just have to be brave, right?”

As a father, it troubles me to hear my little girls say they'd like to grow up to be demonologists—and to think about how much they've already been frightened in their young lives. One night, while I was holding my class in the basement, Christina and Jen were folding laundry in the bedroom when they had a horrible fright. A dreadful black shape hovered over the end table by the bed, moved across the room, and then went right through the wall! One of my students happened to look out into the basement hallway directly below that wall—and guess what? She saw the same swirling shape my wife and daughter had seen! It was incredibly eerie.