Woman of God Read online

  Chapter 73

  I MUST have hesitated at the entrance to the rectory.

  “It’s safe, Brigid,” he said, opening the door for me. “I’m a pedophile, remember?”

  He turned on the lights, scooped some magazines off the sofa, and put some food in a bowl for an orange tabby kitten he called Birdie.

  He excused himself, leaving me alone in his living quarters. I liked the look of his clutter. I checked out his bookshelves and found books on a wide range of subjects ranging from ancient history to modern poetry. I was studying a primitive painting of Jesus carrying a lamb over his shoulders when James returned to the living room with an armload of books.

  “Please have a seat,” he said.

  I sat down on the worn, blue sofa, and he sat next to me. He took a photo album off the top of the stack and put the rest of the books on the floor.

  The cover page inside the photo album was inscribed with the name Jennifer, and inside were photos of a very young woman in a hospital bed holding her baby, grinning her face off, her dark hair forming long, damp ringlets.

  She had just given birth.

  “This is my sister, Cassandra. And this,” he said, touching the picture of the baby, “this is Jenny. My niece and goddaughter.

  “The point is,” he said, “the worst thing about this phony scandal is that I don’t want Sandy and especially Jenny to think that I’m the kind of person who would rape, touch, or mess with anyone, boy, girl, or anyone.”

  He showed me more family pictures, and then he picked up a Mount St. Joseph yearbook. He held the book in his lap and flipped to the pages that were signed by students who had penned notes to him when he taught there.

  Dear Fr. Aubrey, I’m headed to Northwestern! Thanks for all your help. I’ll always be grateful.

  Yo, Father A. Thx for what I know about WWII and JC.

  James opened a yearbook from two years earlier and found a picture of a boy with brown hair and a crooked nose. He said to me, “This is Wallace Brent, my accuser and a pretty convincing liar.”

  The page was signed, Father Aubrey, Thanks for all your help. Anyway. Best of luck, Wally.

  James said, “Wally flunked out the next year.” He clapped the book shut and paused to catch his breath.

  “I did my best to help him, and now he’s determined to destroy my life.”

  Chapter 74

  I CALLED Karl’s attorney at midnight my time, and he called me back in the morning with good news. He had contacted Kyle Richardson, one of the top criminal-defense attorneys in Boston.

  Herr Schmidt said, “Brigid, he’s interested in James’s case. Are you quite sure you want to get involved? This type of case is media candy. The fallout could be messy.”

  I thanked Herr Schmidt for his help and concern. And I took his advice seriously. But I was having a gut instinct that I couldn’t explain. I had just met Father Aubrey, but I had faith in him. I found him truthful and authentic, and he needed a friend. In the strongest possible way, I felt that I was that friend.

  I called James.

  “I have a connection to Kyle Richardson,” I said. “He’s expecting your call.”

  “The Kyle Richardson? Brigid, I can’t afford that guy. His clients are all rich and famous.”

  “Don’t worry about his fees. Richardson wants to defend you. Let’s see if you like him.”

  The next day, James and I had a preliminary meeting at Richardson, Sykes and Briscoe’s skyscraper office on Park Plaza, near Boston Common. Fifteen minutes into it, Richardson leaned across the table toward James and said, “If you want me, I’m taking this case. I believe in you.”

  I was moved when Richardson showed that he too believed in James. It felt like the UN choppers coming in. Like might had joined right. As we drove back to St. Paul’s, James queried me about the bills from this expensive firm. He said that he didn’t want to have “obligations to unknown benefactors.”

  When he wouldn’t let it go, I said, “Can you just accept that God works in mysterious ways?”

  “Fine,” he said. “Who are you, Brigid? Who are you, really?”

  “You’re funny,” I said.

  We both laughed.

  And, finally, he dropped the subject.

  But we both knew that he needed first-class help to save his reputation. He was an honest man, a good priest, and he had to clear his name.

  Over the next three weeks, James met often with his lawyers, and then, as the date for the trial closed in, Cardinal Cooney of the Boston Archdiocese called Richardson, asking for a meeting with James at his lawyer’s office.

  James asked me to be there with him.

  The next day, six of us waited in Richardson’s conference room, wondering why Cardinal Cooney had called this meeting.

  James said, “I’m encouraged. I think he’s going to tell me that the Church is going to fight this charge all the way. That I’m not being left to deal with this angry lunatic alone.”

  A half hour later, Cardinal Cooney, accompanied by three attorneys from the Boston Archdiocese, were shown into the conference room and took seats opposite me, James, and Kyle Richardson’s team.

  I have to admit that I was awed.

  The cardinal was a strikingly good-looking man, silver haired, with refined features, and he simply radiated purity. He was well known in the very Catholic city of Boston for his active community outreach program on behalf of children molested by priests.

  The meeting began, and James told the cardinal and his lawyers about his entirely innocent history with the accuser, Wallace Brent, who was now twenty-five years old and a bank teller.

  The lead attorney for the archdiocese, Clay Hammond, spoke for his contingent.

  “Father Aubrey. Even if there is no truth to this charge, the right thing to do is to put the Church’s needs above yours. We’re asking you to settle this dispute out of court. We will work with your attorney in writing a binding agreement with the plaintiff, offering him a cash settlement in exchange for his recantation of the charge. He will guarantee that he will never discuss the settlement or the charges again. This scandal will be snuffed out, and you can get on with your life.”

  “I’ll be laicized,” James said. “Defrocked.”

  “That hasn’t been determined yet,” Cooney said to James.

  James said, “I never touched that boy. I’m not going to say that I did.”

  Cooney said, kindly, “James, I understand righteous indignation. And I understand honesty. But a sacrifice for the greater good is in order.”

  The cardinal went on to make an impressive speech about self-sacrifice, quoting Gandhi, St. Francis of Assisi, and John F. Kennedy. He closed by quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had written, Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.

  When the cardinal had finished speaking, James’s attorney said, “You realize, of course, if my client were to admit guilt, it would be an injustice and an indelible stain on this good man’s reputation. His accuser would not only profit; it would encourage him and others like him to bring false claims against the Church.”

  Cardinal Cooney said, “James, do you have any money?”

  “Very little.”

  The cardinal said, “If you let this go to court, we won’t back you. If you lose—and the odds are heavily against you—you will have to pay the damages, and if he comes after us, we will defend ourselves. You will lose your church and our friendship. We won’t say a word in your defense.”

  My mounting fury was firing me up. I really couldn’t listen quietly anymore.

  “Your Eminence, Father Aubrey is innocent,” I said. “God would want him to tell the truth.”

  The cardinal said to me, “Dr. Fitzgerald, what is your relationship with Father Aubrey, anyway? How do you know that he’s innocent? Explain that to me, can you?”

  I’d had enough.

  I said, “I can’t explain it, but I know it, and so do you, Your Eminence. In your zeal to defend the
archdiocese, you’ve betrayed the Church and your conscience.”

  The cardinal’s face went white. As if I had slapped him.

  When James and I were alone in the elevator, he said to me, “Good of you to stand up for me, Brigid. Thank you for doing this.”

  Chapter 75

  IT WAS the third day of Father James Aubrey’s trial for child sexual abuse. I’d been sitting in the front row of the packed gallery from the first moment of the trial and had been in constant agony over what James had had to endure.

  I had a clear view of the defense table, where James and his three attorneys scribbled notes. A few rows back from me, two of Cardinal Cooney’s legal henchmen watched the proceedings with apparent disdain.

  Up ahead, sitting at the bench between two flags, was Judge Charles Fiore. He was in his fifties, a Boston native, and a Catholic. So far, he had shown no emotion and had maintained order in his court.

  On day one, I had listened in openmouthed disbelief as Wallace Brent, a young man with a cherubic face and a crisp, gray suit, told his horrible lies. He testified that when he was a sophomore at Mount St. Joseph high school, Father Aubrey had taken him for long walks in the woods behind the school, where he had fondled and kissed him and told him that he loved him.

  He said, “Father Aubrey told me that he would deny it if I ever said anything to anyone. And now, that’s what he’s doing.”

  Brent concluded by saying, “I trusted Father Aubrey. I knew what he was doing to me was wrong, but I felt helpless to stop him. My grades crashed, and I flunked out of school. I can’t live with the shame of it anymore. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about what Father Aubrey did to me.”

  Brent swung his gaze to the defense table and leveled his charge at James. “Father Aubrey. You ruined me.”

  Murmurs swept the courtroom, interrupted by Judge Fiore asking Kyle Richardson if he wished to question the witness.

  Richardson stood, gave Brent a cutting stare, and then did his best to discredit him.

  Do you always tell the truth, Mr. Brent?

  Did Father Aubrey write any notes to you?

  Did anyone ever see the two of you together?

  Did you ever tell anyone about this alleged sexual attention, either at the time or later?

  No mention to a friend, a parent, another student, a nurse?

  Is there anyone at all who can verify your unsupported accusations against my client?

  Richardson was so good, most liars would have folded under his skillful cross. But there was only so much Richardson could do. It was James’s word against Brent’s. And Brent didn’t have to prove what happened. He just needed to convince the jury that he was telling the truth.

  If he did that, he stood to cash in, Father Aubrey be damned.

  The plaintiff’s attorney, Terry Marshall, was a woman in her thirties, trim, well dressed, with shoulder-length dark hair. She stepped smartly and pivoted like a circus pony as she questioned her next witness, Andrew Snelling, a former colleague of James’s who had worked at Mount St. Joseph at the time of the made-up-for-profit crime.

  Snelling was a beak-nosed priest of about forty who grinned inappropriately, his eyes darting around the courtroom as he told the court, “I always thought Aubrey was guilty of something.”

  He was going for a laugh, but he didn’t get it.

  Richardson jumped to his feet and snapped, “Objection, Your Honor. Speculative, irrelevant, and improper character evidence.”

  “Sustained,” said Judge Fiore. “Clerk, please strike the witness’s last remark. The jury will disregard. Father Snelling, facts only, please.”

  It was one small point for our side, the first of the day. Terry Marshall had no further questions for Snelling, and Kyle Richardson cross-examined him, asking, “Did you ever see James act in a sexual way toward Mr. Brent?”

  Snelling had to admit, “I never actually saw anything with my own eyes.” But the tone and the sordid implications remained like the odor of rotting garbage.

  “I have nothing further,” said Richardson, and with that, Marshall stood up and told the judge, “We rest our case.”

  When James turned to his attorney, I saw from his expression that all of the plaintiff’s blows had landed. I was worried for James and couldn’t do a damned thing to help him.

  That hurt.

  Chapter 76

  AT HALF past noon, court recessed for lunch.

  I went down to the street and saw just how crazy it had gotten outside Suffolk County Superior Court. A restless, chanting mob filled Pemberton Square, clearly enraged by what they had read in the media. James Aubrey, yet another priest, was accused of committing obscene acts with a child. And they just knew he was guilty.

  Signs with vile words and James’s face scrawled in black marker pen bobbed over the heads of the riotous crowd. TV news outlets interviewed the loudest, angriest protesters.

  I texted James: Courage. The truth will out.

  He didn’t reply.

  I leaned against the courthouse wall and surfed the news with my phone. The stats of priests found guilty of child abuse were all there on the front pages, including one that claimed that 98 percent of sexual-abuse allegations against Catholic priests were found to be true.

  The Boston Globe had scooped the original, shocking priest child-abuse scandal and had a proprietary interest in the subject.

  Today, the Globe had profiled the “victim,” Wallace Brent, peppering the piece with ugly quotes from Brent himself. It was disgusting, disgraceful, and the media found it irresistible.

  At 2:15, I was back inside courtroom 6F, where the trial began again, this time with Kyle Richardson presenting James’s case.

  First up was a grade-school registrar who testified that Wallace Brent had lied about his salary and address in order to get his kids into their private school.

  The next witness testified that Brent had lied about the extent of his injuries in a car accident, received a whopping settlement, and had later been photographed snowmobiling.

  A third witness, a bank VP, told the court that Brent had forged a college transcript and that he was stunned to learn that, in fact, Brent hadn’t gone to college at all.

  Brent was being revealed as not just a liar, but a hard-core, long-term fabricator. At least, that was how I saw it.

  Having taken a few shots at Brent’s character, Richardson called character witnesses to speak for James.

  Father Harry Stanton had been the dean of students at Mount St. Joseph ten years before. There was a respectful hush in the courtroom as the stately old gentleman took the stand.

  When he’d been sworn in and seated, Dean Stanton detailed James’s five years at the school, describing him as a highly regarded and inspirational history teacher. He was a good witness, but his testimony was dry, and the jurors looked bored.

  Three sterling members of the St. Paul’s congregation took the stand in succession to say that they would trust James with their money, their wives, their children, and their secrets.

  I grew increasingly hopeful that these testimonies were helping James, but the plaintiff’s attorney repeatedly responded, “No questions for the witness, Your Honor.”

  This dismissive rejoinder was meant to convey to the jurors that the testimonies of Richardson’s witnesses were meaningless, as none of these people could support James’s claim that he had never touched Wally Brent.

  As promised by Cardinal Cooney, no one from the archdiocese testified for James.

  The third day was coming to a close when James leaned toward his attorney and whispered to him from behind his hand. Whatever he was saying, Richardson wasn’t going for it.

  He shook his head and said, “No, I don’t agree.”

  The judge asked what was going on, and Richardson stood up and said, “My client would like to testify in his own defense.”

  Fiore asked James if he understood that he was not required to testify and that the jury was not permitted to make any inference or
draw any conclusion if he didn’t testify.

  James said, “I understand, Your Honor. I need to be heard.”

  “Well, Mr. Richardson,” said the judge, “call your client to the stand.”

  Chapter 77

  JAMES WORE a black suit with his priest’s collar and had brushed his sandy-blond hair back from his face. When he got to his feet, he flicked his gaze toward me, and I nodded my encouragement. I saw the new creases in his forehead and tightness around his eyes and mouth.

  He couldn’t hide what this trial was doing to him.

  He crossed the thirty-foot distance between the defense table and the witness box, placed his hand on the Bible, and, after being sworn in by the bailiff, took the stand.

  Kyle Richardson approached James and asked preliminary questions. Then he said, “Father Aubrey, is it okay for me to call you James?”

  “Of course.”

  “How do you know the plaintiff?”

  “He was a student of mine ten years ago.”

  “Have you spoken with him since that time?”

  “After I was notified that Wally was taking me to court, I called him and asked him why he was doing this.”

  “Did he answer you?”

  “He told me to speak with his lawyer.”

  “Okay, then, James. Ten years ago, when Mr. Brent was in your tenth-grade history class, did you have occasion to see him after class?”

  “I did.”

  “Could you describe the nature of these meetings?”

  “Sure. Wally was having trouble with reading comprehension. We went over the assignments, and I showed him how the text was organized, how each part had a beginning, a middle, and an end, how the parts related to the whole. But he couldn’t grasp it. He needed more than I could give him. I suggested he take a remedial reading course, but I don’t believe that he followed through.”

  “And did you have any social relationship with him?”

  “Absolutely not,” James said.

  “And his testimony that you had inappropriate physical contact with him about a dozen times during his sophomore year at Mount St. Joseph?”