Act of Deceit

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.”

Donnally smiled. “Yes, you did.”

“Spill it.”

He nodded, then lied to another old person.

“I’m trying to help a lawyer prove that the diocese knew about the molestations by Father Phil and others, but I’ve dead-ended. The last lead I have is the first name of a kid that he may have molested. Melvin.”

“Melvin.” Theresa squinted up toward the chandeliers, then looked back at Donnally. “Did he have a nickname?”

“Not that I know of. Just Melvin.”

Theresa went back to her upward squint. “Melvin. Melvin. Melvin.” She slapped the tabletop, then fixed her eyes on Donnally. “I know who that is. Little Mel Watson. During high school he worked at The Sweet Tooth. Pale-faced, earnest little runt, but man did he know how to pile chocolate ice cream on a cone.”

She paused and her brows furrowed.

“You’re not going to believe it, but he became a goddamn priest.”

A s he walked to his car, Donnally repeated in his mind the thought that Theresa had left unspoken: Molested children sometimes become molesters themselves. And what better place for someone like Melvin Watson to disappear than back into the scene of an unprosecuted crime.