Steven Gore - Act of Deceit

“Why would Anna want to ruin him?”

“Because of Melvin. He was Anna’s student. Melvin was unhappy with that man.” He pointed at the photograph. “That’s why Dr. Sherwyn came, because of him.”

“Was the father a patient of Dr. Sherwyn?”

“I thought so, but Anna didn’t say. She didn’t talk to me much.”

“When was the last time the father visited Anna?”

Brown shrugged. “I don’t remember. I get confused.”

Donnally heard the click of high heels pass behind him, then watched Brown’s eyes track the woman, left to right, below waist level, as if he could see her crotch through her skirt. Donnally now suspected that this was the real reason Brown played the role of Rover the Mascot. He could sit on the sidewalk and look up between the legs of women walking by. He wondered whether Anna’s endurance of this creature was a form of penitence, or maybe repentance in the old, biblical sense of returning to sorrow, returning to her own sexual abuse by her father.

“What about Artie and Robert?” Donnally asked.

“I don’t know,” Brown said, forcing himself to look back at Donnally. “Anna liked Artie, but didn’t trust Robert. I heard her tell Trudy that Artie felt guilty all the time and Robert used drugs. I didn’t understand what she meant. I thought it would be the other way around.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Maybe Janie can explain it to me.”

“Do you know Melvin’s last name?”

Brown shook his head. “He was just Melvin.”

A s Donnally walked through Janie’s living room toward her office to run Internet searches on McGrath and Pagaroli, it struck him that she hadn’t made much progress in packing. The bookshelves were still half full and her photographs remained propped at their oblique angles, half looking at one another, half looking out into the room. The resignation to which he’d become accustomed lifted for a moment, then he realized that her preemptive boxing of books was more symbolic than pragmatic, since it would take her a month or two to find another house to rent.

Maybe that was the problem all along, he said to himself as he sat down at her desk. Somehow we started communicating only through symbolism.

He paused and looked around at the walls and windows and doors, and it struck him that the house, which could’ve been a home in some people’s lives, had devolved into just a way station in which both of them had gotten stranded.

“I didn’t expect ever to see you again,” Margaret Perkins said to Donnally as she walked into the Schubert, Smith, and Barton conference room. Her pressed slacks and steaming Starbucks cup gave her a fresh Monday morning look. She held up the records release signed by Charles Brown that Donnally had faxed over the night before. “And I sure as hell wasn’t expecting this.”

Donnally smiled and extended his hand. She slipped by it and gave him a hug.

“And I wasn’t expecting that,” he said.

Donnally turned and pointed at the Golden Gate Bridge framed by the floor-to-ceiling window.

“Nice view.”

Perkins shrugged. “Just one of life’s illusions. Most of the world is composed of trampled dirt. Not so pretty.”

She then pointed at a chair and they sat down next to each other at the table.

“I somehow thought we were on the same side from the beginning,” she said. “I wanted to know the truth, too. The problem is that court is rarely a place to discover it.”

Donnally smiled. “Maybe something should be done about that.”

“It won’t happen in our lifetimes.”

Perkins looked toward the glass wall separating the conference room from the reception area where two suited men waited, hands gripping briefcases as if afraid they’d spring open and confess to some uncharged crime.

“We spend most of our time around here trying to keep the facts and the truth from getting into court.”

“I guess that’s because your clients are usually the ones with something to hide.”

Perkins nodded. “You got that right. Charles Brown may turn out to be our single exception this year.” She smiled. “Of course, we didn’t think so at the time.”

She took a sip of coffee and then set down her cup.

“I ruined a paralegal’s Sunday evening and had him do some research on Lou Pagaroli and his firm, starting with what you discovered on the Internet. The child molesting case you found wasn’t the only one he’s done. The church has become his cash cow over the last ten years.”

Donnally raised his eyebrows. He had also researched Schubert, Smith and Barton’s clients. SSB represented the Vatican in litigation in U.S. courts.

“Different church,” she said. “The work we do for the Vatican is entirely separate. Both from a financial and a legal perspective. You can’t get there from here. Trust me. Lots of plaintiff’s lawyers have tried. There simply is no Vatican-controlled entity in the United States.”

“What about the pope’s dominion over his flock?”

“That’s hearts and minds, not corporate structure.” She grinned. “That you’ll find in the Cayman Islands.”

“Which means?”

The playfulness disappeared from her face.

“I’ll do everything I can to help you nail that child-molesting priest.”

“Just because Pagaroli is involved-”

“Yes, it does. It means exactly that. You know that old hymn, ‘His eye is on the sparrow?’ Well, Pagaroli is the shotgun the church uses to blast it out of the sky. All Pagaroli has done for the last decade is represent California dioceses in their worst sexual abuse cases.”

“But I didn’t find any cases where Philip McGrath was named as a defendant.”

“That just means that no victims have come forward.”

“Why not? There’s a lot of money in it.”

“Most are too ashamed,” Perkins said. “Would you want to get up on the stand and get cross-examined about some priest sticking his-”

“Other people do it.”

“And it truly, truly amazes me.”

Perkins reached for the banker’s box containing Brown’s file and pulled it closer. “I’m not sure the police were even aware that Father Phil had ever been at Anna’s house. His name doesn’t come up at all.”

“What about guys named Artie and Robert?”

Perkins cast Donnally a puzzled look. “Who are they?”

Donnally shrugged. “It’s not important.”

“Important enough for you to mention.”

The question was hard to answer without raising other ones, so he asked, “You ever been to a crime scene?”

“Only the occasional corporate headquarters,” She smiled. “But I’m sure that’s not the kind you have in mind.”

“The idea is to search through and collect or record everything that might be relevant.”

“And Artie and Robert are in the ‘might be’ category.”

Donnally nodded.

“And should have been noted at the time if the detectives were doing their jobs properly?”

“Along with Father Phil and Sherwyn.”

Perkins’s eyes widened. “Sherwyn?”

“Sherwyn. Now that I know how Pagaroli fits in, my guess is that Father Phil molested Melvin, and the church sent Father Phil to Sherwyn for treatment instead of turning him in to the police. Sherwyn testified in Brown’s hearing that most of his practice was in the area of sexual abuse.”

“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.”