Free Fiend by Harold Schechter

The Kohr boy was a known liar, they said. But if it would make Mrs. Curran feel better, Detective Adams himself would pay a visit to the Pomeroys’ shop.
    When Mary Curran returned to the station the following day, Adams assured her that he had made a thorough search of the premises and—as expected—turned up nothing. He had also interviewedRudolph Kohr and come away more convinced than ever that the boy was lying.
    *  *  *
    The disappearance of Katie Curran caused a considerable stir in South Boston. Over the next few weeks, the police continued to investigate every lead. Newspapers ran regular stories headlined “Where Is Katie Curran?” The mayor offered a reward of five hundred dollars for information about the missing child.
    Eventually, an ostensible witness came forward, who claimed that he had seen the weeping child being lured into a covered carriage on the morning of her disappearance. The police concluded that she had been kidnapped.
    Because Katie’s father was Catholic (a fact the newspapers never failed to point out), others chose to believe that he had abducted his own daughter and shipped her off to a convent—a rumor that struck a responsive chord in a Puritan city during an anti-Catholic age, when lurid tracts like Secrets of the Black Nunnery, Slaves of the Priestcraft, Confessions of a Nun, and America’s Menace, or the Politics of Popery were popular sellers.

13

A violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good.
—Proverbs 16:29
    I n the weeks immediately following the disappearance of Katie Curran, a number of children were accosted by an adolescent boy who tried to entice them away from their South Boston neighborhoods. Several of the young ones were tempted to accompany the stranger, who promised to treat them to the circus, take them to a parade, or give them small sums of money to help with an errand. In the end, however, nearly all the little boys resisted.
    One who didn’t was named Harry Field. During the first week of April, the five-year-old was standing at the gate of his parents’ house at No. 1027 Shawmut Avenue, when a big boy with a funny-looking eye approached, an old broom handle clutched in one hand. Harry assumed that he was on his way to play stickball.
    “Know where Vernon Street is?” asked the big boy.
    When Harry nodded, the stranger said, “I’ll give you five cents if you will take me there.”
    The little boy readily agreed and the two set off side by side. As soon as they reached their destination, Harry asked for his nickel—but instead of paying up, the stranger grabbed the younger boy by the collar, dragged him into a doorway, and threatened to beat him with the stick unless he obeyed.
    “What do you want?” whimpered Harry.
    “Come with me,” snarled the older boy. “And keep your flytrap shut.”
    Grabbing Harry by one hand, the big boy began to lead him rapidly through the streets, every step carrying the terrified child farther from his home.
    All at once, as they rounded the corner of Eustis Street, they passed another older boy, who recognized Harry’s captor and called out angrily to him. As the two adolescents stopped to exchange words, Harry yanked his hand free, spun on his heels, and fled. Halfway down the block, he paused to cast one quick look over his shoulder and saw the two adolescents engaged in a violent altercation. Harry didn’t slow down again until he burst through the front door of his house and threw himself into his mother’s arms. Through his sobs, he explained what had happened.
    Her son was so upset that Mrs. Field didn’t have the heart to scold him too harshly for going off with a stranger—something she had warned him against many times. Still, she could not entirely refrain from admonishing him.
    “Who knows what might have happened to you if that other lad hadn’t happened along,” she declared. “You were a very lucky boy.”
    It wasn’t until two weeks later—after the