In God's House (9 page)

He knew the New Orleans lawyers would be pleased that he had settled the cases under the four million they had authorized, and he knew the bishop would be pleased to know the Dubois situation was resolved. If he had been the kind of man who cared about accomplishment, he would have felt he had achieved something. He was not that kind of man. The soft splash of the fountain was all that broke the silence.

Returning to the office, Jean-Paul Moroux scooped up the files relating to the claims and carried them down the wooden staircase. His hands were full and he could not get to the light switch. From his office above a faint light fell into the dark chamber. Moroux knew the secret archives so well that he did not need more illumination. Taking a key from his pocket, he opened a cabinet drawer and put the material away. It was quieter here than at the fountain. The monsignor sat in a chair at a library table in the gloom, his head in his hands. He stayed in the dark a long time.

A setting sun was barely visible over tall sugar cane as a parade of masked dwarfs and costumed ghouls sauntered along the rusting iron fence marking the boundary of an ancient burial ground behind Our Lady of the Seas in Amalie. Villagers were cleaning the cemetery and setting flowers on the graves of their ancestors. The line of little trick-or-treaters marched along the old fence in a single file, adult chaperons guarding the perimeter on the highway side. Some of these little children, Dubois's victims, were nearly as dead inside as the corpses entombed inside the old fence.

Amalie had been named for the youngest daughter of one of the original settlers, a child who'd died of a fever shortly after arriving there in 1780. Her grave marker had been changed a number of times over the two hundred years since. These days it was a stone statue mounted on a marble base, a life-size sculpture of a little girl in repose, hands folded in prayer. The only other monument of note in Amalie was the tall smokestack at the abandoned sugar mill on the edge of town, now fitted with a windsock to guide crop-duster pilots. The stack had the word “Catherine” painted vertically on it, the name of the old mill.

Unbeknownst to all but six people in the parish of Amalie, that very morning a set of important legal documents had been signed. The papers were being filed under seal with the clerk of court in Bayou Saint John after business hours. The secret settlement of
these six cases would one day become infamous in legal circles as “the Halloween Settlement”.

The price of innocence lost had been set at six hundred thousand dollars per child. The Catholic families and their lawyers conspired with the Church to keep the matter secret. Amalie was not changed by the legal settlement for few knew anything about it.

Nothing much had changed in Amalie in over two hundred years. Nothing bad had ever happened there before. Even people who lived forty miles away in Thiberville had never heard of the hamlet. There was never much traffic on the two-lane blacktop that dead-ended in Amalie, except for a few pickup trucks and farm machinery.

As the children made their way on rounds of trick-or-treating, Monsignor Buddy Belair, vicar of finance for the Diocese of Thiberville, accompanied the Bayou Saint John clerk of court, Cyrus Langlanais, on an after-hours errand to lock up the sealed envelope containing the settlement documents in the courthouse vault. Afterwards the two of them dined on enchiladas at a small Mexican place nearby.

Monsignor Buddy Belair ceremoniously announced that Cyrus Langlanais had done a great service for his Church. He would be rewarded by having a seat on the altar for the Red Mass next fall, the special service for members of the legal profession celebrated at the cathedral after the ceremonial opening of court. Hearing this news, the clerk of court fixed on the idea of having his photograph taken with the bishop at the Red Mass, something he could use in future campaign material as the electorate there was wholly Catholic. Then he made a mental count of all the people he would invite to the Red Mass: his parents, siblings, his wife's family, his own children, key political supporters like the sheriff, and the girlfriend he kept in a small apartment in Spanish Town near the state capitol in Baton Rouge.

The Dubois episode was over. It had ended as quietly and secretly as it had begun.

Four months had elapsed since the Halloween Settlement. All was quiet in the diocese. The secret was holding. Soon after the lawsuits had been settled and sealed, the bishop celebrated a private Mass at a retreat house for the three families who were involved in the secret settlement. Only four adults appeared. Randy Falgout and his wife no longer considered themselves Catholics. At the end of the Mass, as Bishop Reynolds was leaving the altar, the father of one of the boys shouted, “Bishop, explain how you could send that man to Amalie.”

The bishop trembled and stated the obvious. “It was a mistake.”

The man shouted, “What happened to Father Dubois? Why didn’t anything happen to Father Dubois?”

The bishop had almost tripped as he scurried off the altar to the sacristy.

On the eve of Mardi Gras, an inebriated, tuxedoed Brent Thomas knocked on the door of Moroux’s residence. The monsignor opened the door himself.

“I’m supposed to be at the Thiberville Mardi Gras Ball. I left my wife there and…” Thomas paused and pulled at the bow tie that was choking him like a hangman’s noose.

Moroux motioned for Thomas to take a chair as he walked to the next room, returning with a lit cigarette.

“Monsignor, there are eleven more cases. Eleven more kids.”

Jean-Paul Moroux was thankful he had the cigarette to smoke, something to do with his mouth besides speaking. A long silence passed between them.

Moroux again motioned for Brent Thomas to stay put. He walked into the next room, swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of vodka, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and returned quickly to Thomas.

“Brent, did you know this back in October?”

Thomas nodded yes. “Yes. Yes, sir. Some of ’em. Not all of ’em.”

“We-ell… then you lied to me.”

“Yes. No. I could not violate the confidence of my clients. I couldn’t talk about these cases back then. I could not be honest with you then.”

Monsignor Moroux smoked his cigarette carefully. The only sound in the room was the two men’s breathing. Both were exhaling powerfully. The monsignor laid the burning cigarette in a tarnished brass ashtray and stood over Thomas, speaking softly.

“You and your friend, Mr. Ponce—”

Interrupting Moroux, Brent said, “No, Ricardo will not be involved in these cases.” Now that Brent knew how to prepare the appropriate legal petitions (by copying Ponce’s legal work from the last batch of cases), how to get the dossiers prepared by the treating psychologist, and how to assemble settlement brochures, he saw no reason to hand over half the fee, more than a million dollars, to Ponce. The last time Brent had seen Ricardo, his left cheek had been raw from a procedure designed to erase the scar, and he was growing hair transplants like rows of corn on his skull. Besides, Brent felt he could do better with Monsignor Moroux if Ricardo Ponce was out of the picture. He believed Monsignor Moroux really liked him because he was a devout Catholic.

“Yes, Brent. So you would be expecting… let’s see, about six million, six hundred thousand dollars for these eleven cases – six hundred for each child?”

Brent stammered and said weakly, “Yeah. Suppose so.”

“Thank you for coming to me. I will get back to you by the end of the week. We have Ash Wednesday in two days, and Lent beginning. Now you should get back to the ball.”

Thomas backed out of the door, tripped, lost his balance and almost fell into a hedge.

Moroux closed the door slowly. He turned every lock and fastened every bolt tight against the night. In his study, he filled a tall glass with vodka, and put a recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor on the stereo. Moroux did the math. Adding the cost of the Halloween Settlement of three million, six hundred thousand to the price of the new demand for six million, six hundred thousand made him feel tired. The monsignor downed his drink, refilled the glass and raised it as if in a toast to an absent friend.

Diocesan attorney Fredrick Fortier Madison reigned as King of Thiberville’s Mardi Gras celebration. Monsignor Moroux turned on his television in time to see King Freddy’s float stop at the reviewing stand, where the King toasted his mother, Adele – Bishop Reynolds’ bridge-playing, martini-drinking friend. Adele was wearing an old tiara atop a platinum hairpiece, the crown dating from the time she served as Queen following World War II, the wig dating from the early seventies when she got out of bed one morning and most of her dyed, dead hair stayed on the pillow.

Frederick Madison had not even been consulted when the first batch of cases settled. All the legal work was done by the archbishop’s lawyer, Thomas Quinlan, and insurance counsel Robert Blassingame. But Fredrick Madison was counsel of record for the Diocese of Thiberville. Moroux believed Freddy Madison was dumber than dirt and knew he was not competent enough to
handle the eleven new claims. He had to get Madison out of the way, but only the bishop could fire the King of Mardi Gras.

Monsignor Moroux knew that the insurance companies and their legal counsel were not going to simply hand over another six million, six hundred thousand dollars to settle the eleven new claims without battling the diocese, arguing that when they entered the first settlements in October they had been assured that there were no other claims of this kind.

The first set of claims had been handled by an old boy network in New Orleans. But Thomas Quinlan could only represent one defendant in the civil cases: his client, the archdiocese, so if there were to be battles with the insurance companies, the diocese would require its own legal counsel, a damned good lawyer. Freddy Madison was not a trial lawyer and in Moroux’s view he was an exceedingly dumb man who only held the position of Diocesan Attorney because his mother, Adele, played bridge and drank martinis with the bishop.

Moroux knew that somehow he was going to have to explain to the bishop that the fair-haired son of one of the bishop’s only friends, Adele, was not up to the task of tackling these eleven civil suits. He knew he had to confront the bishop in person.

The bishop’s small cottage on the northern edge of the Reynolds family compound was situated on a high bluff overlooking Mobile Bay, in Fairhope, Alabama. When Rome overlooked Bishop Reynolds for promotion to Archbishop of New Orleans – despite his family’s generosity to the Vatican – Reynolds lost all interest in his career. He removed himself from Thiberville, which he considered a backwater diocese, and spent almost all his time in his family’s luxurious compound. Here he played golf, fished, and whiled away the hours devising a refrigeration scheme to ensure
that his favorite drink of Scotch and water was constantly at the temperature of a cold mountain stream.

Bishop Reynolds was sporting ashes on his forehead when he greeted Moroux at the door. “Is everything all right, Paul?” Bishop Reynolds said. In all their years of working together, he never called Jean-Paul or anyone else by their given name, but he was usually consistent in using the wrong name he assigned them.

The bishop busied himself slicing lemon pound cake. At the table, Moroux told his bishop about his late-night visit from Brent Thomas. As Moroux talked, the bishop’s coarse, unkempt eyebrows danced above his rapidly blinking eyes. “Tell him no. Tell him we won’t pay any more. Never.” The bishop balled up a ham fist and plopped it on the table with a thud.

Moroux had never seen him so animated, but he had seen him this divorced from reality.

“We need our own legal counsel, a really good lawyer. We’re not going to just be up against plaintiff lawyers. I think in this round we may also find ourselves at odds with our own insurance companies, caught in a crossfire. Our insurance lawyers are not just going to keep writing millions in checks without looking for escape clauses in the contracts. They may prefer public trials for these new cases.”

“Didn’t it go well last time?”

“Right, in the last round, it was all insurance money.”

“Who handled this for us in the fall?”

“Tom Quinlan, the archbishop’s counsel did all the heavy lifting.”

“Good. There you are. He can handle this just as he did the last set of lawsuits.”

“I am anticipating that this will not be possible. You see, the archdiocese is a named defendant. This time if the insurers kick, Tom will have to represent only the Archdiocese of New Orleans.”

“What’s wrong? Doesn’t Freddy Madison return phone calls? I’m having dinner with his mother this week to plan the Bishop’s Ball. I can talk to her about her son.”

“Please trust me. The only problem with Freddy Madison is he’s not up to the task, period. We need a better lawyer.”

The bishop blew out a gust of breath. “I’m not responsible for this. And if I’m not responsible, then the diocese can’t be responsible. I am the diocese.” Bishop Reynolds went to the bar and poured a martini for himself, arching his cactus eyebrows to inquire whether Moroux wanted a drink. The monsignor shook his head.

“Bishop, what do you want me to do?”

Bishop Reynolds downed his drink in a gulp. He was guided in his ecclesiastical career by a personal policy of never making a decision that could be traced back to him. Knowing that the papal nuncio in the Vatican Embassy in Washington, DC had been monitoring this situation since before the secret settlements were paid, and knowing this new development would have to be reported to the nuncio, Bishop Reynolds momentarily considered making a decision. But immediately he thought better of it.

“Paul, you are the lawyer among us. You make the decision about what to do, who to hire. And write me a paper on your making that decision.”

“We need a lawyer. I don’t know where to look and I have little time. I need someone by tomorrow or the next day at the latest. The insurance contracts impose a duty upon us to notify the companies of all claims promptly. I can’t put this off. Where do we find a good lawyer?”

Bishop Reynolds was flustered. “You must know someone.”

“I don’t know a blessed soul,” Monsignor Moroux said. He thought that last statement was probably truer than it sounded.

The bishop almost stumbled over his golf putter as the words burst from him. “Call the Bastard.”

“The Bastard?”

“Yes, yes, Paul, my good friend – what’s his name? You know the guy. The money man. The Bastard.”

“Joe Rossi?”

“Exactly.”