“Sherwyn never disclosed that he-”
“And the police were tunnel-visioned in their focus on Brown.”
“But how could that happen?” Perkins said, voice rising. “What are the chances that Sherwyn would be picked to do the competency evaluation?”
“Easy. There were only a handful of shrinks in the whole Bay Area who did them. It was a little cottage industry. Still is. For the defense one week, for the prosecution the next, whoever called first. Maybe Sherwyn saw Brown in the legal pipeline and elbowed someone else aside.”
Perkins’s eyes moved like searchlights shining on an internal battlefield, trying to pick out the enemy from among the shadows.
She finally looked at Donnally and asked, “You think Father Phil murdered Anna to keep her from going to the police?”
“He was the one facing living in prison as a child molester,” Donnally said. “And he was the last one we know for certain who was at Anna’s house, and her diary says that she warned him that he was deluding himself if he thought her investigation of him was over. He left, then probably snuck back in and killed her. And Sherwyn put himself in a position to keep the case from ever going to trial.”
Donnally didn’t say it, but finished the thought in his mind: That meant that Artie and Robert had been murdered in revenge for a crime they hadn’t committed and that Sherwyn had been protecting himself, not the former New Sky members who’d beaten them to death.
Perkins glanced at the banker’s box. “But I thought Sherwyn put Brown on lithium so he’d become competent. That’s what his lawyer sued to stop.”
“It was just the opposite. Sherwyn overdosed Brown on lithium. It made him physically sick and even more crazy.”
She exhaled, almost a whistle. “Why would he take a risk like that?”
“Maybe money. Who knows how many priests he was treating. A hundred and fifty dollars an hour, eight hours a day. Over a quarter of a million dollars a year. Maybe because Sherwyn’s first attempt at treating Father Phil had been a failure, and Melvin was the father’s second victim.”
“And if Brown went to trial, the defense might have figured out that the real killer was Father Phil-”
“And complete the circle back to Sherwyn. He’d be seen by the public as a failure and the church wouldn’t-couldn’t-hire him anymore.”
Donnally watched Perkins shake her head, as if clearing her lawyer’s mind.
“But all this assumes that Melvin, whoever he is, really was a victim of molestation,” she said. “And you’ve got no proof of that. It’s what we call in the netherworld of law a lack of foundation.”
“Maybe I should drop by Sherwyn’s office and ask him.”
“He’d just make that little rabbit face he does, then slam the door. You’d probably have better luck with Father Phil.”
D onnally’s cell phone rang as he was driving past the gold-domed San Francisco City Hall on his way back toward Janie’s.
“Got some bad news for you,” Perkins said. “Father Phil is permanently exercising his right to remain silent.”
“You mean-”
“Dead as a church doornail.”
“How’d you find out?”
“I went to law school with one of the plaintiff’s lawyers in the lawsuits against the San Francisco Diocese.”
“You mean they had a case against him?”
“Never got that far. They couldn’t turn up a victim.”
“Back up. You’ve got me confused.” Donnally pulled into a yellow zone in front of a bank. “Try it again.”
“My friend told me that a parishioner at St. Mark’s in Berkeley had some suspicions about Father Phil. Her name was Theresa Randon. She warned the monsignor, who sent Father Phil packing. She later became a member of Holy Names in San Francisco and was shocked to find him there. She complained a second time and was told that they’d discovered no evidence that he’d molested anyone.”
“But the church sent him for therapy with Sherwyn,” Donnally said, “so they must’ve had some proof.”
“The plaintiffs’ lawyers didn’t know about that until I told them just now.”
“They would’ve found that out from church records. The plaintiffs must have subpoenaed-”
Perkins cut him off with a bitter laugh.
“I guess you’ve forgotten what shredders are for. And no one owns more of them than the church and its lawyers.”
Chapter 44
F inding Theresa Randon wasn’t as easy as Donnally had hoped. Ninety-year-olds typically don’t have driver’s licenses. They don’t apply for credit. They stop doing any of those things that get their names into databases. She had almost disappeared into the vast emptiness of anonymity that Donnally himself sometimes craved.
Almost.
Donnally had learned from his grandmother that elderly church ladies tend to keep track of one another. They visit old folks’ homes. They keep lists of people to pray for when they’re ill. They bring meals to the homebound.
And they tend to be well organized.
T he eighty-year-old woman looked up at Donnally with a grin when he stopped her on the sidewalk at the bottom of Holy Names’ front steps. He had timed his visit for just before the start of a meeting of church volunteers. He described himself as a former Sunday school student of Theresa’s.
She withdrew a photocopy of a two-page spreadsheet from her purse, titled “Holy Names Visiting Schedule.”
“I don’t know how we used to keep track of all this without computers,” she said.
Donnally could see that about a dozen names, addresses, and telephone numbers were highlighted. He guessed that they were the woman’s own assignments.
She scanned the list, then pulled out her cell phone, punched in a number, and repeated Donnally’s story to the person at the other end of the call.
“Is Theresa back from the hospital?” she asked.
A frown came to her face, which soon transformed into a smile.
“Just a false alarm. That’s wonderful. Thanks, dear.”
She disconnected and turned the sheet toward Donnally and let him write down the address.
“I hope you won’t be disappointed, Mr. Donnally.” The frown returned. “Theresa is no longer Catholic.” She brightened. “But we still consider her one of the girls.”
“I t’s not nice to lie to old people,” Theresa Randon said to Donnally an hour later. She was still dressed in the pastel green sweat suit she’d worn to her Stretch and Tone class at the San Francisco Woods Retirement Center.
“I never taught Sunday school,” she said. “I was banned like a modern Socrates. They were afraid I’d corrupt the youth.”
“I didn’t think the lady would help me if I told her the truth.”
Theresa smiled. “You got that right, buster.”
Donnally looked around the atrium from where they sat at a small marble table next to the fountain. The running water muted the classical music filling the room.
“Nice place,” Donnally said.
“I bought Microsoft at five dollars a share.” She held up two fingers, close together. “Bill Gates and I are like this.”
“Not like you and Father Phil were.”
Theresa’s cheeks wobbled and her silver hair shook as her body shuddered. “Creepy. He was damn creepy.”
“But you never found any proof?”
“His being booted out of St. Mark’s in Berkeley and later from Holy Names over here was proof enough for me. He molested boys in every parish they tried to hide him in. What we never got was justice.”
“And that’s why you left the church?”
“I didn’t leave the church, it left me.”
She folded her arms on the table and inspected Donnally’s face.
“You haven’t exactly told me what you’re up to. How do I know you’re not part of a secret Vatican plot?” She glanced around and hunched her shoulders. “They have agents everywhere, you know.”
Donnally felt himself stiffen. Not another Berkeley lunatic like Trudy.
She straightened up and laughed. “Gotcha.”