In God's House (4 page)

I pulled the chord to open the hotel drapes and believed it was still night. Checking my watch and the alarm clock, I realized the sun should be in the sky. Thunder rumbled near, echoing off the tall buildings of Boston.

I had not slept all night. This would be the most difficult thing I’d tackled, professionally and personally. My hope was that I was not overestimating my ability as a lawyer and my resources as a human being. I felt far from home and as if I had been gone a long time. I ordered breakfast from room service, stared at the food, downed the coffee, and watched the stormy skies through the window of my hotel room.

The cab drive out to the Saint Martin Catholic Center, which was on a rural road south of Deerfield, New Hampshire, took over two hours. The turnpike was crowded with commuters and the taxi was buffeted by winds that rivaled hurricanes we had down in Thiberville near the Gulf of Mexico.

“Ain’t s’pose to be no nor’easter this time a year. Gonna blow hard all day and night,” the taxi man said.

I asked him to please arrange for a local cab to be waiting at the Saint Martin Center at two in the afternoon, telling him to have the taxi run the meter if he had to wait for me. I did not intend to be in the presence of Father Francis Dominick Dubois any longer than was absolutely necessary.

The director of the Saint Martin Catholic Center in Deerfield, Sister Mary Bryan, handed me Father Dubois’s file. The first document was titled “Final Release Plan: Fr. Francis D. Dubois”. Its two pages outlined that Father Francis Dubois was to be released from the treatment facility on the following Monday, in three days. He was to go to Fort Worth, Texas, where he would be employed at a restaurant owned by a man named Orell Lanier, who was described as a “benevolent Catholic businessman”.

I perused the entire file. I violently ripped out the release plan. Then I ripped more pages out of the folder, shredding them with my hands, dropping them in the wastepaper basket. My jaw was clenched in anger. Having decided on the long taxi drive that I would be composed this day, would conduct myself as a professional, my first sight of the country-club setting in which Father Dubois had been coddled, and the news that they planned to release him back into society, had set me off.

“Sister, there is nothing in this file about the behavior that brought Father Dubois here for treatment. In the notes I destroyed, Dubois appears like a guest in a resort rather than a patient in a treatment facility. The public would be outraged if they read that.”

“We’re here to concentrate on the spiritual, not what may concern lay persons.”

“Sister, listen to this on page 34: ‘Today Father seems tired and depressed, lonely. He needs to be cheered.’ Do you understand that no one back home cares how Father felt that day or any other day, that no one wants him to be cheered?” I tore that page from the file as well, crumpled it and let it drop to the floor.

“I think it is important that we are supportive of Father Francis and that he be allowed to begin his life over in Texas. The work of the Church is forgiveness and healing. The work of God is done and he’s been forgiven for whatever he has done, and it’s our judgment that our work here is finished.”

“Sister, no one should ever know that you were on the verge of releasing Father Dubois. No one can ever find out how he was coddled here. You can’t imagine how this would play with the
families of the child victims, the lawyers who are suing the diocese, the district attorney who will prosecute this priest, and the press.”

The nun’s eyes watered. I lowered my voice. “If what I think about Father Dubois is true, there will be lawyers and media people crawling all over this place one day. Maybe soon. For his sake, for your sake, for the sake of this center, and for the sake of the Church, it must not appear that he was babied here and that he was being returned to society without any medical treatment having been administered to him.”

She nodded.

“Has he been allowed to leave here in his car?”

“Not at night, Mr. Chattelrault. But during the day he is free to come and go as he pleases. The men and women we have here are treated as adults. This is not a place of incarceration. It’s a place of reflection.”

“Are any of the other residents here child sex abusers?”

“We don’t concentrate on what it was that brought them to us, but rather on healing them spiritually and returning them to their ministries and vocations. Our residents have had problems with alcohol, depression, burn-out, taking too many prescription drugs, things like that. A few, like Father Francis, acted inappropriately with children.”

“Does anyone on your staff even have any experience or expertise in treating men who have sexually abused children?”

“Not specifically, no. But as I said, the approach in the spiritual life is—”

“It doesn’t matter, Sister. Right now I want you to get on the phone and find a place that does have experience treating men like Francis Dubois. And it has to be a place where Father Dubois will be locked up. Not only must he be locked up and have his freedom completely curtailed, he must be locked away to protect him from reporters who are going to be looking for him soon. He has to be locked up for his own protection and to show that the Church has taken serious measures to protect children from him as well.”

“Locked up?”

“Locked up… by Monday. He has to be locked up by Monday. Trust me, Sister, if people get a picture of this beautiful place and see how he’s living today, how he’s free to come and go as he pleases during the day, his problems and the Church’s problems will be even larger than they already are. And, Sister – they’re people who want to kill him.”

Sister Mary Bryan stiffened. “I understand. But do you understand who you are going to meet? Look at this painting he did last week.”

She showed me a painting of a small child who seemed to be taking his first steps underneath a large tree, leaning on the tree with one hand. “Father Francis painted this. Look at the face of the child. It’s his face. That is how he sees himself – a helpless child, trying to stand on his own, dependent upon me and the staff, leaning on us.”

“Sister, I can’t be all that concerned about how he sees himself. What I care about right now is how victims, lawyers, prosecutors, press, parishioners and the general public will see him. His only possible defense will be an insanity defense and though I believe he must have been crazy to have done the things he did, everything contained in this file would work against him and against the interests of the Church.”

I started for the door.

“Mr. Chattelrault, you must remember… Please, always remember…”

I turned and faced the nun. “Yes?”

“You must remember, Father Francis is a very good person.”

It was raining hard when I entered the room where Father Dubois was waiting for me. Windows were ajar and rain was falling on the floor. He made no move to close the windows, but rather sat as still as a statue on an old plaid sofa, legs together, hands in his lap. He looked defenseless, harmless. If he was a grotesque monster, he had a good mask. Looking at him, no one would have
believed this priest had done the things listed in Doctor Kennison’s files.

“Father, my name is Renon Chattelrault,” I said as I latched the windows.

“Hello.” There was a long pause. “Jean-Paul… Monsignor Moroux… called last night and told me about you. Please call me Francis.”

We shook hands. I noticed how small and ordinary he was, unremarkable in every way, looking neither older nor younger than his forty-six years. He seemed soft except for his hands, which felt like bark off a young tree.

“You spoke to Monsignor Moroux last night?”

“He scared me. Told me I was going to be indicted for crimes.”

I opened my oversized briefcase, pulling out files and a portable tape recorder.

“Father, do you want to talk here?”

“Please call me Francis. Will this stuff Monsignor Moroux called me about… will this mess up my release?”

“Francis, you might well be in prison soon for the rest of your life. Yes, I believe this stuff will mess things up for you. You’re not going to Fort Worth to work in some restaurant. By Monday night you’ll be locked down in a treatment facility where you can be seriously treated and no media or anyone else can get to you.”

Dubois looked like he was about to smile when he heard my words. It was more a smirk than a smile. He seemed unfazed by my remark that he might spend the rest of his life in prison. His eerie expression unnerved me and I momentarily lost my concentration.

As I spread the photos of the eleven boys on the coffee table, Sister Mary Bryan entered the room. She put a tray of snacks and a pitcher of lemonade on the table, and sat next to Father Dubois. “Mr. Chattelrault, I think it’s best if I am with Father Francis while you question him. For support.”

“Sister, the law is that if a third person is present during the
communication between a lawyer and his client, then nothing said is protected by the lawyer–client privilege.”

“I am not going to subject him to a lawyer’s interrogation without anyone on his side.”

“I’m on his side, Sister. I may be the only one on his side soon.” I looked directly at Father Dubois. “Father, if she remains, I will have to leave. It is not in your best interest to waive the attorney–client privilege and I will not participate in anything not in your best interest.”

In the softest, meekest way, Dubois spoke. “I don’t want to make anyone mad at me.”

I got up and announced, “I’m going to leave the room, let you two talk. When I return… if you are still here, Sister, I’m leaving.”

“That will not be necessary.” She put a large, flat key on the coffee table. “Lock up when you are done and leave the key with the security guard. Francis, you can call me at home this evening if you want me to sit with you awhile.”

As the nun walked out, Dubois picked up the children’s pictures and slowly shuffled the photos, smiling serenely as he looked at the children he had sexually abused for years.

“Can I have these pictures?” Dubois asked.

I turned to the windows, looking at the storm rather than Father Dubois. His voice had risen an octave when he asked to keep the pictures. The anger I’d felt on the plane the night before resurfaced and I fought to suppress it, not wanting to give in to my personal feelings. I was a lawyer and I would act like a lawyer.

I ignored the question and set a recorder on the corner of the table.

“Let us go to the first file.”

“That would be Robby,” Dubois said as he glanced at the photograph in his hand.

I opened Doctor Kennison’s dossier on Robby and thumbed to the last page, the index of offenses. “Father, Robby has told Doctor Kennison that you performed anal sex on him approximately forty times. Is that correct?”

“Oh, no,” he said. He looked to the window. The rain had frozen to sleet and hailstones.

“That’s not true?”

“No. With Robby it could not have been more than maybe twenty-five or thirty times.”

“Father Dubois—”

“Please call me Francis.”

“Okay, Francis. Each act of sodomy with a child under the age of twelve carries a mandatory life sentence without parole. One time is all the evidence required to convict.”

Dubois sat before me like a stone, unmoved, without emotion, showing no reaction. He again gave me the tight smile I had seen earlier, a smirk.

We then began a laborious effort that lasted several hours as we went through each dossier. Hearing the priest recall these things made me feel sick to my stomach.

“Francis, listen carefully. I’ve got to ask you what may be the most important question I’ll ever ask you. I want you to think about the answer carefully.”

“Sure.” Dubois nonchalantly picked a grape from a bunch in a bowl and popped it in his mouth.

“When you were involved in these sexual acts with these children, or after these sex sessions ended, did you have a sense that what you were doing was wrong?”

Without hesitation, Dubois said, “It wasn’t wrong.”

“You mean you did not perceive it as being wrong?”

“No. I mean it wasn’t wrong.”

“You never believed that having anal intercourse”, I thumbed through Robby’s file, “with a child when he was seven, eight and nine years old, was wrong?”

“It wasn’t wrong.”

“If it wasn’t wrong, Father, what was it?”

“Natural.”

“Do you understand that the rest of the world will not see it that way?”

“I tried to keep it secret for that reason.”

“It doesn’t matter to you that the rest of the world thinks this behavior is wrong?”

“I’ve always been this way. This is how I am.” Turning flippant, he added, “Talk to God. He made you like you are and he made me like I am. Maybe God’s a joker.”

“If you have always been this way, is it true that you have had sexual relations with boys at every church parish where you were assigned?”

“When Monsignor Moroux called to tell me you were coming here, he said this was only about Our Lady of the Seas in Amalie and that is all I could talk about. I will only talk about Amalie. He told me not to answer any of your questions about anything in any other parishes where I was assigned.”

I stood and walked to the window. A large branch had cracked and was hanging loosely from a tall maple. Outdoor furniture was rolling end over end as the wind howled and lightning split the sky. The realization that the monsignor who had signed a contract with me the day before was actively obstructing the investigation I needed to make to formulate a defense of his priest astounded me. My perception that I was working for the diocese was wrong. The diocese was working against me.

I considered shutting the interview down, shutting the defense of Dubois down, flying home and resigning as Dubois’s legal counsel. Monsignor Jean-Paul Moroux was sabotaging my defense of Dubois, controlling my client. But if I left now, I knew I would wonder forever what information I could have gained.