The 7th Canon (16 page)

Donley pointed with the tip of his pen. “I couldn’t help but notice the tattoo.”

“I grew up on the streets,” Father Martin said, sounding defensive. “I ran with kids who grew up on the streets, and I got in trouble for it. I tried drugs and alcohol, lost more fights than I won, and lost my virginity when I was thirteen.”

“Thirteen? Wow.”

“Where I grew up, the only thing you had was how you carried yourself. I keep the tattoo and the earring to remind me of how far I’ve come. It gives me hope with my ministry.”

“I was just going to say I like it,” Donley offered. “I have a panther on my calf.”

Father Martin stopped pacing. “Sorry, I guess I can get a little sensitive about it. Why a panther?”

“High school mascot.”

“You were an athlete?”

“A football player. Why a hawk?”

“A nickname.” Father Martin turned his head so it was in profile and pointed to his nose, which looked to have been broken at least once.

Donley nodded. “So, how did you become a priest?”

“I wish I had a better answer to that question.”

“I don’t doubt you get it a lot.”

“All the time. It would certainly make for a better story if I could tell the kids that I had some epiphany, you know, like the gates of heaven opening and a large hand pointing a bent finger at me through the clouds.”

“If you did, I might be able to get you off on insanity.”

Father Martin smiled. “Growing up, the church was always a part of my life. In fact, I might not have become a priest if I hadn’t grown up where I did. My mother used to drag all of us there every Sunday. I complained to keep in good graces with my brothers, but for me, when I reached those steps and opened those big wooden doors, the whole world changed. I smelled the incense and saw the flickering light off the gold and silver, and I just felt at peace. I felt at home.”

When Father Martin stared at the floor, Donley knew the priest was wondering if he would ever feel that peace again. Father Martin lifted his gaze. “Is it true what the prosecutor said? Was Andrew tortured?”

“She was reading between the lines,” Donley said. “The autopsy report raises more questions than it answers in my mind. It would be pretty tough for St. Claire to conclude that a street prostitute was raped and tortured. I think she was playing to the press.”

“But there was some indication?” Father Martin persisted.

“There’s some indication, yes. Let’s talk about that night,” Donley said. “Start with the power outage. Was it the fuse?”

Father Martin shook his head. “I don’t know. I never got the chance to find out.”

Donley made a note to find out if there had been a power outage that night in the electrical grid on which the shelter was located.

“Any idea where the photographs came from?”

“All I’ve come up with is one of the boys could have brought them in when they checked in that night and stashed them in their locker.”

“And the letter opener?”

“Mine. How Andrew’s blood got on it, I don’t know.”

“When’s the last time you saw it?”

“Earlier that night. I used it to open bills.”

“So, it was on your desk.” Donley made a note to ask for the names of every boy who’d checked into the shelter. “OK, how does someone get a body—alive or dead—into the shelter without anyone noticing?”

“May I?” Father Martin held out his hands for Donley’s notepad and pen. He diagramed a crude layout of the shelter’s floor plan as he spoke.

“I’ve thought about this. From my desk, I can see anyone who comes up the stairs. Across the hall is the recreation room. In other words, nothing gets past me. I set it up for that reason.”

“Any other entrances?”

Father Martin nodded. “In the back of the recreation room, there’s a staircase that leads down to the furnace room. A door leads outside to a park, which is just a slab of asphalt surrounded by a chain-link fence. The homeless sleep there. The stairwell is not far from the street. I keep the door in the recreation room and the door to the park locked. Neither door has a handle on the outside, just a metal plate. You can’t get in unless someone opens that door for you from the inside.”

“Who knows that beside you?”

“A few of the boys who’ve stayed before; I’ve found the door propped open for friends to get in after curfew. I try to check it regularly, but . . . it should have been locked.”

Donley sat back, thinking. “It would be a hell of a gamble for someone carrying a body—dead or still alive—to take a chance the door might or might not be open.”

Father Martin nodded. “I agree.”

“So, someone had to have propped both doors open.”

“Andrew would have been my first choice, but of course, that makes no sense, unless maybe the killer double-crossed him.”

“You didn’t check the door that night?”

“No.”

“Anyone else ever check it for you?”

“Danny will on occasion.”

“Who’s Danny?”

“Danny Simeon. He helps out nights at the shelter.” Father Martin shook his head. “Danny wouldn’t do it, but he might have better insight into who could have.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He keeps a room in the back of a bar. It’s called the Grub Steak or Grub House, something like that. At least, that’s what it used to be called.”

“What about the other boys at the shelter that night? How would I find them?”

Father Martin shook his head. “I’m not sure you will. They disappear, and they don’t speak to anyone they don’t know or trust.”

Again, Donley understood. After so many years of waiting for someone to help him and his mother, he had eventually given up hope.

“Let me worry about that. How would I determine who was at the shelter that night?”

“I keep a log. It’s required by the state.”

“Where?”

“In the upper right-hand drawer of my desk. I keep the log inside my Bible.”

Donley stopped writing and looked up from the pad.

“The success of the shelter depends upon trust. Except for state funding, I keep the names in that book, and what each boy brings to the shelter, strictly confidential.”

Donley reviewed his notes. “I should be getting the police and witness statements this afternoon. The show I put on in court was pretty much from the hip. Right now their case is blood and fingerprints. They’ll use a lot of scientific data and statistics to impress the jury, but I can argue that away. The rest might not come into evidence because they didn’t have a warrant to search your office. There are ways around that, but we have a chance because you also used it as your personal residence. We’ll have to argue that whoever left the photographs also bloodied the letter opener, but without something more solid, we’ll look like we’re grasping at straws.” Donley put the cap back on his pen and stood. “This will get me started.” He picked up his briefcase and put on his jacket.

“Do you pray, Peter?”

Donley fixed his cuffs. “I’m afraid not too much, Father.”

“I believe that God is nearest in our darkest moments.”

Donley disagreed but wasn’t about to debate it. “I’ll have to take your word on that one.”

They shook hands. Then Donley walked to the metal door and knocked twice.

“Merry Christmas, Peter.”

The door opened. Donley had forgotten again. Christmas Eve. “Merry Christmas,” he said. He stepped into the hallway, and the heavy door swung shut behind him.

Chapter 12

Father Martin knelt at the side of the metal-frame bed attached to the wall, an empty dinner tray on the thin mattress. It was the first meal he’d eaten in more than forty-eight hours, but it still hadn’t been satisfying. The fried chicken and mashed potatoes had a chalky, high-carbohydrate taste. The green beans were overcooked. Still, he ate every bite.

Peter Donley had given him renewed hope.

He refocused his attention on his daily prayers, and he dedicated those prayers to Donley. He didn’t know what was in Donley’s past that had darkened his perception of the world, but he had worked long enough with troubled young men to recognize one. Donley had carefully crafted an appearance to hide whatever it was that had made him so guarded and jaded, but Father Martin knew that never lasted long. He suspected an alcoholic household and parental abuse, likely by Donley’s father.

As he prayed, Father Martin’s concentration wandered and he thought he detected the faint sound of Christmas music. He was uncertain whether he was actually hearing the music, or if his mind was filling in the notes he’d come to know so well. Either way, he deduced the song to be “The First Noel.”

The jail had extended visiting hours for family, and he had overheard one of the guards say there would be some semblance of a Christmas party, though not for Father Martin. He would not be let loose in the general population. On the ladder of crimes, pedophiles and child killers were at the bottom rung. The other inmates wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.

The sound of the lock on his cell door disengaging interrupted the music and refocused Father Martin’s attention. He looked up from the side of the bed as a deputy sheriff with a meaty face and thick, wedge-shaped mustache walked into his cell, holding the handcuffs and chains. He’d never seen the man before.

“Let’s go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“Blood work.”

“Tonight?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“It’s Christmas Eve.”

“No fooling. And I get off as soon as I deliver you. So let’s go.”

Father Martin stood and forced his stocking feet into the rubber slippers. He hesitated and picked up Peter Donley’s business card from the bed. “I’d like to call my lawyer,” he said.

“You can make that call after your blood work. Transporting you is the last thing I have to do tonight.”

Gil Ramsey was pleased, though not surprised, at the large turnout for his Christmas Eve party at his spacious home in Pacific Heights. Limousines and expensive automobiles pulled up the circular driveway to the valet, and men and women in expensive suits and dresses emerged beneath a temporary awning. Inside, a five-piece orchestra played in the foyer beneath a crystal chandelier, and the caterer’s staff walked through the crowd in white coats carrying silver trays with hors d’oeuvres and crystal flutes of chilled champagne and expensive wine.

The crowd, a who’s who of the state’s politicians, had been ensured by Augustus Ramsey and included a former US senator, a current US senator, a Congresswoman, a former White House chief of staff, an ambassador to France, a California Supreme Court justice, a Superior Court judge, a handful of actors and actresses who called the city home, and enough blue blood San Francisco families to make the New York Stock Exchange take notice.

Gil Ramsey greeted each guest beneath a large oil canvas—a portrait of his father painted when he served as governor. He took particular notice when Linda St. Claire walked in the front door in a white-silk gown with a plunging neckline, her arm entwined around the arm of a prominent San Francisco plaintiff’s lawyer. Ramsey would have liked more time to admire her figure, but this was not a social affair. Not for him. This was business. After greeting his guests, he flowed from one group to the next, holding conversations on a variety of subjects. Well versed and well read, Ramsey took pride in his ability to discuss the 49ers as readily as the Asian-tapestry exhibit currently on display at the de Young Museum. When prompted, he’d even discuss politics, though his standard line for the evening was, “No politics tonight. Eat, drink, and be merry.”

But, of course, the night was all about politics. With the upcoming election, Ramsey did not have time to eat, drink, and be merry. He barely had time to take a piss. While his father had not been able to parlay the governorship of one of the richest electoral-vote states in the union to the White House, Ronald Reagan had, and Augustus Ramsey believed the same fate could await his son. Neither was about to let Christmas get in the way of the first step toward that goal.

As Ramsey charmed the curator of the Asian Art Museum, a hand touched the back of his elbow. Without losing eye contact with his guest, Ramsey leaned back far enough for the assistant to whisper in his ear. Ramsey nodded once, giving no other outward indication that his attention had been diverted. Then, at an appropriate break in the conversation, he excused himself and glided past his guests, promising to return. The aide waited for him in the corner of the kitchen.

“Did he give you a name?” Ramsey asked, annoyed.

The young woman shook her head. “But he was very persistent. He’s in your study.”

“And he said this was about the campaign?”

She nodded.

Ramsey groaned. “Talk to the caterer. Tell them the punch is flat, and the caviar tastes like shit.”

He walked through the kitchen, which tonight served as the caterer’s battleground, and dodged trays on his way to his study at the back of the house. Stepping in, he smelled the aroma of one of his Cuban cigars. A trail of smoke wafted above the back of his green-leather chair, which faced away from him, toward the view out the French doors leading to the back deck.

“Can I help you?” Ramsey asked.

The chair swiveled.