The 7th Canon

by Robert Dugoni

  Donley hurried up the steps of the Hall of Justice, a concrete monolith as long as a city block and as gray as the sky, with small cubed windows and absolutely no architecturally redeeming qualities. The building housed the offices of the San Francisco Chief of Police, the Homicide Division, the District Attorney’s Office, the County Medical Examiner, and the criminal courts.

  According to the article in the Chronicle Donley had read on the cab ride from the office, Father Thomas Martin had opened a shelter for teenage prostitutes and runaways who sold themselves in an area of the Tenderloin referred to as The Polk Gulch. Police had not released details of Father Martin’s arrest, but the reporter cited anonymous sources and reported that the body of a young, white male had been found in a bloodied manger at the shelter.

  Donley had shuddered at the image that description conjured, and thinking about it made him shiver again as he entered the building. Just get the five w’s. Get in and get out, he told himself.

  Ruth-Bell instructed Donley to ride the elevator to the sixth floor and cross a catwalk connecting the Hall of Justice to the county jail. She explained that once jailed, a suspect never left the building prior to being arraigned and making bail. Father Martin wouldn’t be given that option. No judge in San Francisco who wanted to be reelected would grant bail to someone suspected of the brutal slaying of a youth.

  After finding the right department and identifying himself, Donley followed a beefy sheriff’s deputy, everything coordinated so no two doors remained open at the same time. A sterile corridor led to an interior catwalk above an open pavilion. Below, men walked about freely in bright-orange jumpsuits, the noise echoing up at Donley like engines humming inside a metal drum. With it came an odor that reminded him of the smell he’d once endured wedged up against a homeless man on a crammed Muni bus.

  As they approached the end of the hall, another deputy stood from a plastic chair and peered inside a narrow, wire-mesh window, then scribbled a note on a log posted to the door.

  “What’s that for?” Donley asked.

  “Suicide watch,” the deputy said. “Your boy is out of it; hasn’t said a word since he was brought in.”

  The officer put a hand on the doorknob and signaled a guard in the tower to disengage the lock. The deputy who’d escorted Donley said, “I need to go through your briefcase.”

  Donley handed over his briefcase. His mouth had become dry, and he felt nauseated and light-headed, likely from too much coffee on an empty stomach. The officer removed all of his pens, except one.

  “Make sure you come out with it,” he said, without the need to elaborate.

  The door lock buzzed. The deputy pulled it open and slid the blue plastic chair into the room. Donley stepped in but abruptly stopped. The man sitting with his feet folded beneath him on a thin mattress of a metal-framed bed didn’t look like any priest he’d ever seen. He looked like a comic-book villain. He had his head tilted back against the cinder-block wall, eyes closed, and he’d lowered the orange, jail-issued coveralls to his waist, revealing a white tank top. A fresh cast on his left arm extended to his elbow, stopping inches below the tattoo of a bird of prey.

  Donley looked back to the door, thinking this had been some sort of mistake, but he did not see the deputies through the glass. He slid the chair across the floor, hoping the noise would get a response, but the priest’s eyes remained closed. Donley didn’t know if the man was sleeping, sedated, deliberately ignoring him, or preparing to jump off the bed and rip his throat out.

  “Father Martin?”

  Donley heard the hush of the ventilation system circulating air through a ceiling grate, though the air in the room felt stifling. He wiped trickles of sweat from his temples. “Father Martin, can you hear me?”

  Father Martin opened his eyes, two black pools of ink, but it was brief. He closed them again.

  A tiny movement caught Donley’s attention. Father Martin had pressed the index finger of his right hand to his thumb. After several moments, the thumb moved to the ring finger. Donley reconsidered the priest’s face and noticed his lips moving, ever so slightly. Had Donley not seen his mother’s lips do the same thing for so many years, he might not have recognized the act. The priest was praying the rosary, keeping track of the prayers on his fingers: one Our Father, ten Hail Mary’s, one Glory Be. Five decades.

  Donley knew each prayer by heart. His mother had recited those prayers every night, her voice drifting down the hall to his room as a faint whisper.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . .”

  A chill ran down his spine. He hadn’t thought of that in years.

  He shook the recollection. “Father Martin, I’m Peter Donley.” His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere outside his body.

  The priest moved his thumb to the next finger.

  The car engine sputtered and died at the curb. Donley, still a child, heard it and slid quickly from the mattress and scurried beneath his bed. His mother’s voice grew louder, the rhythm of her prayers intensifying.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace . . .”

  Donley tried again to shake the recollection. “Father Martin, I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “The Lord is with thee . . .”

  The front door to the house opened and slammed shut.

  A bad night.

  Just get the five w’s. “Father Martin?”

  “Blessed art thou among women . . .”

  His father’s heavy work boots thundered up the stairs. Donley slid to the farthest corner, pressing his palms tight against his ears.

  “And blessed is the fruit of thy womb . . .”

  The first hit sounded like a sharp snap, the crack of a whip.

  His mother cried out in pain, pleading.

  Sweat trickled down Donley’s face. The scar on his cheek, the one the plastic surgeons had turned into a thin white line, burned numb. His chest heaved, but it brought no air. He couldn’t catch his breath. Couldn’t breathe. The walls began to close in. The floor tilted and turned.

  Panic attack.

  Donley stood, toppling the plastic chair.

  The priest’s eyes opened—dark, inhuman.

  Donley moved unsteadily to the door, pounding on the glass. When the door didn’t immediately open, he felt his face flush and his legs weaken. About to knock again, Donley pulled back his hand when the guard appeared and motioned to the tower. Donley heard the lock disengage. The door swung open. He stepped past the guard into the hall, sucking in air, ripping loose the knot of his tie, and undoing the button of his collar.

  The deputy looked confused. “You done already?”

  “Yeah,” Donley managed to say, still struggling to catch his breath.

  The deputy stepped into the room and retrieved the chair. Exiting, he said, “Creeps me out, too.”

  Donley took back the contents of his briefcase. About to leave, he glanced at the narrow, wire-mesh window.

  The priest had shut his eyes.

  Chapter 6

  Lieutenant Aileen O’Malley massaged her eyelids, careful not to dislodge her contact lenses. At 10:00 a.m., the damn things already burned, and the pounding in her temples maintained a steady beat that two Tylenol hadn’t come close to silencing.

  Gil Ramsey, San Francisco’s district attorney, stood with his back to her, staring out the glass wall into the homicide room, where detectives sat at cluttered desks. In the middle of the room, someone had set the traffic-signal light to red, but O’Malley knew that was wishful thinking. There would be no stopping this day. O’Malley had been going since getting the call at four thirty in the morning.

  Linda St. Claire, Ramsey’s chief prosecutor, sat across O’Malley’s desk, her bare legs crossed, foot tapping. John Begley stood in the corner, trying to avoid the wandering leaves of a philodendron plant.

  “Without a search warrant?” St. Claire shook her head. “I say we let the p
riest go and try Connor.”

  O’Malley buried her chin in her hand. On first blush, she and St. Claire had much in common. Both had succeeded in traditionally male-dominated professions by being smart and resolute. Tall, both of them kept in good physical condition. But the similarities ended there. O’Malley exercised because her job required she be in shape, her figure an athletic cut with swimmer’s shoulders and narrow hips. Growing up, she’d been the girl next door the boys wanted to play with. St. Claire worked out to further her significant social life, her curves defined under the tutelage of a personal trainer and augmented by a plastic surgeon. Growing up, she’d been the girl next door every boy wanted.

  “There’s no sense trying to make it better than it is,” St. Claire said. “Connor screwed up. How did he find out about the kid at the shelter? Anything we can use?”

  O’Malley shook her head. “Anonymous caller. Connor and John were on standby. Connor was in the office when the call came in.”

  Ramsey turned from the window, impeccably dressed in a navy-blue suit, white shirt, and silver tie that matched the color of the salt in his salt-and-pepper hair. He directed his attention to Begley. “What did the caller say?”

  “‘There’s a dead body at the shelter,’” Begley said.

  “Anything else?”

  Begley shook his head. “You can hear background noise, cars on the street, people talking. It was a pay phone.”

  St. Claire spoke to Ramsey. “What evidence we’ll be able to get in will depend a lot on Connor’s state of mind.”

  “Then pack your bags,” Begley said. “’Cause we’re going down if that’s the case.”

  St. Claire continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “We need to know whether, when Connor got to the building, he thought there could be more than one body, or if he had probable cause to believe there was something or someone in the locked office.”

  Begley shook his head. “Not likely.”

  St. Claire persisted. “There has to be something to justify his knocking down a locked door.”

  Ramsey jingled the change in his pockets, a habit. “The crime scene was the recreation room. It’s a stretch to extend that to a locked office across a hall. John’s right. It’s a building, not a home, but let’s have someone do some research and see if there is some precedent when the building is for a single purpose, like a boys’ club . . . something like that. It could be a stretch, though, since the priest keeps a room in the office, and the boys sleep there.”

  “He lives there?” St. Claire asked.

  “He has a bed and a sink in a closet at the back of his office.” Ramsey sat in the chair next to St. Claire, crossed his Ferragamo loafers, and pressed his fingertips together, creating a pyramid beneath his chin. “I had a tour.”

  Ramsey would not be district attorney long. Every significant poll predicted he would be California’s next attorney general. His father, Augustus, had taken the same career path to become a two-term governor, an office from which he had launched an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

  Ramsey said what everyone in the room had been thinking. “We all know this is a political hornet’s nest. A lot of people in city hall supported Father Martin and his project, including me. If we mishandle this, there will be enough mud to cover us all.”

  “What about the letter opener? Where did Connor find it?” St. Claire asked.

  “Also in the office,” Begley said.

  “Also a problem,” Ramsey said. “How bad are the photographs?”

  “Bad,” St. Claire said. “Hard core, prepubescent. Enough to shock any juror.”

  The softness of St. Claire’s blonde hair and blue eyes belied her reputation and her résumé. Her ten capital-murder convictions numbered more than any other prosecutor in the state and had earned her a nickname she publicly rebuffed, but which many of her colleagues believed she privately relished: “St. Claire, the Chair.” This was the type of high-profile, winnable case Ramsey seemed to always assign her, which had led to other, less-flattering nicknames from her colleagues, names like “Cherry Picker” and “Glory Hound.” It had also raised suspicions about the nature of their relationship.

  “How old is the victim?” Ramsey asked.

  “Undetermined,” O’Malley said. “Sixteen, according to his juvenile records.”

  “Any theories on a possible motive?”

  Begley shook his head. “Father Martin has no history of violence or sexual misconduct.”

  “He has a juvenile record in New York,” St. Claire said.

  That got everyone’s attention, which O’Malley suspected had been St. Claire’s intent. Out-of-state records had to come from the FBI through the National Crime Information Center. Getting them was difficult, getting them so quickly, usually impossible.

  “I made a call to a law-school friend this morning,” she said coyly. “Father Martin was arrested for vandalism and malicious mischief. He stole a car when he was thirteen and did some time in a juvenile facility.”

  Ramsey dismissed it. “I could have saved you the call. He offered that information when he was stumping for his shelter. He made it a positive, said it helped him to relate to the boys—kids with problems, without role models; kids in need of a break.”

  “Maybe not so positive,” St. Claire said.

  “The point is, he isn’t hiding it.” Ramsey stood and stretched his back, then resumed jiggling the change in his pockets.

  O’Malley turned to Begley. “What do we know about the victim?”

  Begley pulled out a notebook. “Andrew Bennet. Goes by the nickname ‘Alphabet.’ Multiple arrests for prostitution, lewd behavior, drugs, possession with intent to distribute, a couple of B and E’s. He’s a regular in the Gulch.”

  “Not a choirboy,” Ramsey said.

  “Far from it,” Begley agreed.

  “We need to get back inside the building, find something that gets us closer to a motive. You froze it?” Ramsey asked.

  “I had no choice after Connor went Rambo.”

  “Does the priest have a lawyer?” Ramsey asked.

  Begley shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Has he asked for one?”

  “No, but I don’t think we can question him again without the defense making a stink later.”

  “I’m more curious whether the archdiocese will get involved,” Ramsey said.

  St. Claire shook her head. “Not if they’re smart, they won’t. Isn’t this the reason why it did not affiliate itself with the shelter in the first place?”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Ramsey said. “The archbishop’s a stubborn SOB when he wants to be.”

  St. Claire stood and poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the edge of O’Malley’s desk. “Who’s handling the arraignment?”

  “Trimble,” Ramsey said, referring to Judge Milt Trimble.

  St. Claire stopped in mid-pour. “Maximum Milt?”

  “With the consolidation of the municipal and superior courts, he’s on the rotation,” Ramsey said, though O’Malley detected a tone to Ramsey’s voice she inferred meant he had something to do with the assignment. Ramsey changed gears. “I want to move quickly. My phone’s ringing off the hook. Be prepared to go day after tomorrow.”

  “Christmas Eve?” St. Claire asked.

  “The courts are open a half day,” he said. His tone again suggested he’d played a part in expediting the matter.

  St. Claire set down the pitcher. “Maximum Milt on Christmas Eve—he should be in a good mood.”

  Ramsey looked to O’Malley. “We’ll need to be prepared to meet a Riverside standard,” he said, referencing the US Supreme Court case requiring a prompt judicial hearing to determine whether sufficient evidence existed to establish probable cause to hold a defendant arrested without a warrant.

  “You’ll have my statement this afternoon,” Begley said.

  “What about a statement from Connor?” St. Claire asked.

  O’Malley s
hook her head. “I put him on the beach. Hopefully, he stays there. John can handle the specifics.” She stood, eager to end the meeting so she could deal with a dozen other matters, finish her Christmas shopping, and try to find at least a spark of holiday spirit. “Anything else?”

  “That should do it,” Ramsey said. “Except for determining who’ll be representing Father Martin.”

  Ruth-Bell was not at her desk, and Donley was glad he wouldn’t have to answer her questions about what he’d learned from the priest, which was jack. Too early for lunch; she was likely in the bathroom down the hall. Donley went into his office and shut the door. He removed his tie and jacket and draped them over a chair, trying to make sense of what had just happened. His legs and arms felt weak, like he was coming down with the flu. He had the onset of a headache and felt like he’d just woken from a deep sleep.

  It had been years since he’d suffered a panic attack, and even longer since he’d had an attack brought on by the memory of his father. Donley opened his desk drawer, shook free two aspirin, and downed them with water. Past experience had taught him the best thing to do to get past the attack was to keep busy, occupy his mind, bury the memories under an avalanche of legalese and critical thinking. It had worked before. It had worked for years.

  He made a to-do list of things to accomplish before the Christmas holiday and began checking them off as he went, pouring through one file after the next, making phone calls, dictating letters. An hour passed. He heard the telephone on Ruth-Bell’s desk ring in the reception area. Simultaneously, the red light on his desk phone console lit up, indicating an outside caller. When Ruth-Bell failed to answer on the third ring, Donley answered the phone himself.

  “Law Offices of Lou Giantelli.” No one spoke. “Hello?”

  “Peter.”

  He hardly recognized the voice.