Act of Deceit

Chapter 43

“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.”

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.”