nature would be beyond their understanding.
Solberg’s old-fashioned moral anguish seemed excessive only by current,
decadent standards.
“Eric told me that, as a child, he was sexually molested by an uncle,”
Solberg said to the window glass. “Hampstead was the man’s name. The
abuse started when Eric was four and continued till he was nine. He was
terrified of this uncle but too ashamed to tell anyone what was
happening. Ashamed because his family was so religious. That’s
important, as you’ll see. The Leben family was devoutly, ardently
religious.
Nazarenes. Very strict. No music. No dancing. That cold, narrow
religion that makes life a bleakness. Of course, Eric felt like a
sinner because of what he’d done with his uncle, even though he was
forced into it, and he was afraid to tell his parents.” in an emotional
and irrational manner. For one thing, he felt that he somehow absorbed
the vital energies of youth from the girls he bedded.
Although he knew that notion was ridiculous, almost superstitious, he
was still compelled to pursue those girls. He was not really a child
molester in the classic sense, did not force himself on mere children.
He only went after those girls who were willing to cooperate, usually
teenage runaways reduced to prostitution.
“And sometimes,” Easton Solberg said with soft dismay, “he liked to…
slap them around. Not really beat them but rough them up. When he
explained it to me, I had the feeling that he was explaining it to
himself for the first time. These girls were so young that they were
full of the special arrogance of youth, that arrogance born of the
certainty they’d live forever, and Eric felt that, by hurting them, he
was knocking the arrogance out of them, teaching them the fear of death.
He was, as he put it, stealing their innocence, the energy of their
youthful innocence,’ and he felt that somehow this made him younler that
the stolen innocence and youth became his own.
“A psychic vampire,” Julio said uneasily.
“Yes!” Solberg said. “Exactly. A psychic vampire who could stay young
forever by draining away the youth of these girls. Yet at the same
time, he knew it was a fantasy, knew the girls could not keep him young,
but knowing and acknowledging it did nothing to loosen the grip of the
fantasy. And though he knew he was sickeven mocked himself, called
himself a degenerate-he couldn’t break free of his obsession.”
“What happened to the charge of statutory rape?” Reese asked. “I’m not
aware he was tried or convicted. He had no police record.”
“The girl was remanded to juvenile authorities,” Solberg said, “and put
in a minimum-security facility. She slipped away, skipped town. She’d
been carrying no identification, and the name she gave them proved
false, so they had no way of tracking her. Without the girl, they had
no case against Eric, and the charges were dropped.”
“It’s a common pattern,” Julio said, “even in families that aren’t
religious. The child blames himself for the adult’s Solberg said, “His
terror of Barry Hampstead-that was the first name, yes-grew greater
month by month, week by week. And finally, when Eric was nine, he
stabbed Hampstead to death.”
“Nine?” Reese said, appalled. “Good heavens.”
“Hampstead was asleep on the sofa,” Solberg continued, “and Eric killed
him with a butcher’s knife.”
Julio considered the effects of that trauma on a nineyear-old boy who
was already emotionally disturbed from the ordeal of long-term physical
abuse. In his mind’s eye, he saw the knife clutched in the child’s
small hand, rising and falling, blood flying off the shining blade, and
the boy’s eyes fixed in horror upon his grisly handiwork, repelled by
what he was doing, yet compelled to finish it.
Julio shivered.
“Though everyone then learned what had been going on, Solberg said,
“Eric’s parents somehow, in their twisted way, saw him as beth a
fornicator and a murderer, and they began a fevered and very
psychologically damaging campaign to save his soul from hell, praying
over him day and night, disciplining him, forcing him to read and reread
passages of the Bible aloud until his throat cracked and his voice faded
to a hoarse whisper.