Thanks EdwardG for the pun, and Waswas for the direction. The character in question is \222, and it is now neutralized. As are a couple of others I didn't see which had also sneaked in uninvited. Thanks for your help.

Pax vobiscum,

NovMonk

Update: Here's my code that worked:

 
while (<FILE>){
               s/\222/'/g;
               s/\226/-/g;
               <do more stuff>;
                }
[download]

The character in question is an octal, which I found in an escaped character table once I used Waswas's idea to see what it really was. Thanks again everyone.