In God's House (20 page)

When I got to Dubois’s cell, he was dressed in his new suit. He was sitting on the bunk. I took a seat next to him.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Somebody… a guard, I guess it had to be… somebody told the prisoners I was in here. They screamed at me from down the hall for a long time. Just after we got here. They talked about things they were going to do to me tonight.”

“Nothing will happen, Father. No one can get to you. They’re just hollering.”

“Everyone feels this way about me, don’t they?”

I was not going to lie. “There have been threats on my life. Some people saying they are going to kill me because they can’t get to you. So, yeah, I think there are people who would like to do you harm. They’re all in shock. They just learned about what happened in Amalie. It’s going to be my job to make them understand you are sick.”

“I don’t think it will matter.”

“Maybe not. All we can do is what we can do. The first thing I am going to do is to try to get you out of here and back up to the Stalder Institute so you can begin a real treatment regime. I think DA Robinette would like you out of here too and Judge Labat will do anything the DA tells him to do.”

A warden came to tell me I had a conference call in the office with Mr. Robinette and Judge Labat. The jail was just waking up
and as I made my way to the office it was hard to keep focused above the din of breakfast carts squeaking across the hall, utensils banging, and prisoners shouting incomprehensible slang. The jailer closed the office door so I could hear. The call was brief. Sean did almost all the talking. We wrote a script for Dubois’s arraignment.

“Ren, there are going to be more plainclothes cops in the courtroom than spectators,” Sean said.

“Okay. Call when it’s time for us to go down.”

The warden gave me a phone book and I found the number for Saint Joseph’s Elementary School. Kate had dropped Jake off at the front door of the school that morning, then parked and waited in the Principal’s office. She intended to wait through the morning recess to see how he fared in the playground, but that wasn’t necessary. When I got through to her on the phone, she said she was just about to dial my office and leave a message.

“Jake’s homeroom teacher came to the office after first hour to give me a report. She said the first thing they did today was current events, and Jake’s hand was waving in the air. When she called on him, Jake went up to the front of the room, faced the class and said, “That priest who molested those children in Amalie. My dad is his lawyer. The priest is really sick. There is something wrong with the priest that made him do these things. He has a right to have a lawyer because this is the United States. My dad is not going to quit being his lawyer. If it was not for guys like my dad, we would all be communists.”

“Well, it’s good that he’s okay, if a little confused.”

Kate laughed. “I feel better. You going to the office after court?”

“No. I want to see Jake’s football game this afternoon and Shelby’s tonight, so I’m coming home to nap first so I can stay awake for the games.”

“I’m coming to court,” she said.

“You never come to court.”

“I wanna… for the children, Ren. If something happens to you…”

“It’s gonna be all right, Kate. They have a lot of security. I’ll see you at home. Look, I better go. I’m on the jail phone.”

“Oh good. Right here at the end of everything, you got your one call from jail and you called me. I knew if I waited long enough…”

“That’s right. My one call from jail was to you. Don’t ever forget it.”

The air in the elevator was stale. It was warm, but my hands felt cold. Earlier Dubois had asked whether there was danger of a shooting in the courtroom. I told him there would be a lot of armed plain-clothed policemen and a fair number of uniformed deputies in the courtroom as a precaution. As the elevator began its descent, Father Dubois reached into his pocket and pulled out a rosary. “If anything happens in the courtroom, give this to my mother.”

I nodded and took the rosary.

We exited the lift into a small, closed-off room outside the courtrooms. “When we get into court,” Dubois said, “I want to stand between you and the audience, in case…”

I tried not to show my surprise, and ushered him in.

One of the doors opened and the deputies started moving Dubois and me briskly into Judge Labat’s court. I walked behind Dubois, scanning the crowd, curious to see if anyone from the diocese was attending the court proceeding. At first, I thought no one had come and then in the back row I saw Sister Julianne. She wore an expression of curiosity. When our eyes met, she smiled slightly.

Sean Robinette was on his feet when we walked in and before we were in our places he said, “Your Honor, in the matter of criminal docket numbers 4561 et seq.—”

Following the script, I cut Sean off and said, “The defendant waives a formal reading of the indictment and to all counts enters pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, requesting time within which to file motions.”

Judge Labat spoke last. “So ordered. Bail set at five hundred thousand dollars.”

I nodded to the bailiffs and we were behind the closed door and back in the elevator before anyone had time to realize what had happened or that the proceeding had ended. The arraignment was finished. The legal issues between the State of Louisiana and Father Francis Dominick Dubois were formally joined.

By pre-arrangement, the elevator went to the ground floor before taking Dubois to the jail on the top floor. I wanted to get away as quickly as I could, to beat the pack of journalists who I knew would be crowding onto the public elevators and running down the stairwell. But as I exited the elevator and hustled toward my car, I was body blocked.

Joe Rossi stood shoulder to shoulder with Jon Bendel. Rossi grabbed my shoulders to stop me in place. “You have any idea what you did up there? Goddammit! How many fucking times I told you – guilty, guilty, guilty. Plead the fucker guilty. Get this shit over with,” Rossi said.

Smoothly, Jon Bendel spoke in a lower, more modulated tone. “You and your client. Neither one of you amount to one single penny poker chip in this game. You’re going to change his plea. Do you hear me? Can you listen to reason?”

“Now!” Rossi screamed in a higher-pitched voice than I knew he had. “Now! Right fucking now! You go up to Sean’s office and do some papers and plead this fucking Dubroc—”

“Dubois,” I said. “His name is Dubois. Father Francis Dominick Dubois. Why can’t any of you remember his name?”

“Do you understand what you are doing?” Bendel asked.

“Things happen when people get in the way of this kind of power, son,” Rossi said. “I don’t want nothing to ever happen to you. You’re playing against real power. Fold your fucking hand, son,” Rossi said.

I looked at Bendel, then Rossi, addressing both of them. “Fuck you!”

I took Rossi’s hands off of me. I walked toward my car.

At noon, I lay under the covers in our bed, hoping for sleep so I could enjoy the boys’ football games that afternoon and evening. Kate walked into the room, sat on the bed, pushed my hair back and said, “I made a list last night and I’m going to get onto things Monday, to move you out of here soon. I will find a great place and make it really nice.”

“I know it will be nice, but I’ll be alone.”

“We have to talk about this, Ren.”

“God, I’m whipped, Kate.”

“I know this is not a good time to talk to you about this, but there’s never a good time with you.”

“But…”

“Look, Ren, I know you don’t have time to even change your shirt these days. I will find a nice place you can rent, furnish it well, and I’ll move your stuff there. You can do whatever legal papers you want. I trust you. And with the kids, I want no restrictions. I want you to be with them whenever your schedule allows time for them. You might actually see more of them under this arrangement.”

“Why, Kate?”

“Because… because I love you so. I don’t want that love to ever die. And it will die if I stay with you.”

“Maybe if I was not so tired, that would make sense.”

She started to speak again. I put my finger to her lips. “No more, Kate, no more.”

“What’s the word they say in Mexico that means forever?”

“
Siempre
.”

She kissed my forehead and said, “
Siempre
, Ren,
siempre
.”

Never once had I read a newspaper account or viewed a news broadcast about an event I was personally involved in that had been wholly accurate. I had little respect for journalism generally and had encountered some journalists who were plain dumb. This was not the case with Zeb Jackson, a well-educated, crusading writer who worked independently as a freelance investigative journalist in an era when there was a shrinking market for in-depth reporting. Dealing with a smart journalist is like dealing with the Devil. They always want everything from you and offer nothing in return.

Zeb Jackson was cooking breakfast for me in his second-story French Quarter apartment. As I looked down on Royal Street from the balcony, Zeb shouted from the kitchen, “I would have bought you breakfast at Brennan’s, Renon, but I’m waiting on checks. That’s what it will say on my tombstone – ‘Here lies Zeb Jackson, freelance journalist, who died waiting on a check’. It’s the life and death of a freelance writer. They have deadlines to file stories, but there’s never a deadline for issuing the check. Hell, this breakfast is probably better than Brennan’s anyway.”

Phone messages from journalists started piling up on Mo’s desk right after the first Dubois news story broke. Zeb called seven times in one day. I ignored other calls, and I wasn’t sure why I returned his message or agreed to meet with him. Zeb had dated my younger sister when they were both at Tulane University ten
years ago, and it had been that long since I had seen or heard from him. There was that, the fact that I knew him, and there was my belief that the media was very much a “monkey see, monkey do” operation. A strong, well-reasoned report on a major story would be parroted by others too lazy to do the hard work themselves. Thus I had an interest in confiding enough to one journalist off the record to influence his reporting in a way that favored my case. In a word, I wanted to use Zeb Jackson, to convince him of something I myself was not convinced of, that Francis Dubois was legally insane. At the same time, I doubted anyone had ever successfully used Zeb Jackson.

Below the balcony, street musicians were staking out prime spots, and jugglers and painted human mannequins were setting up shop. A fortune teller was arguing loudly with a policeman about a city ordinance that outlawed the crystal-ball crowd; in this bastion of voodoo, they had overrun the French Quarter like locusts. For a moment I thought about visiting Old Harry, my favorite fortune teller, in his alley shop. With Zeb, I decided that, in this opening gambit of what might be a long-running game, I’d play it like the painted mannequins in the street and say nothing.

We ate breakfast from a rickety table. As Zeb poured coffee, he said, “I only know what I read in the paper. That wasn’t much. What I want to know straight up, Renon, is this. Is there a story in this Father Dubois stuff?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think there’s a story. I think there’s a book. My sense is it’s going to be that big a story before it’s over.”

“You think it would be worth my going down to Thiberville for a few days?”

“You might want to move to Thiberville.”

“That big, eh?”

“Yeah, Zeb.”

“What can you tell me about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Hell, to get anyone to assign the article – and I have to get the
piece assigned in order to have expenses covered – I have to pitch the story. Tell an editor something.”

“Tell him what you know already from the press reports. If he or she is not a moron, they will know there’s gotta be fire when there’s this much smoke.”

Zeb stopped eating and poured more coffee. “Renon, from here, from what I read, it looks like there’s one really sick priest down there. That’s it. Case closed.”

“It looks that way to a lot of people. Maybe it’s supposed to look that way.”

“Will you help me?”

“No.”

“You won’t help me?”

“No. You can tell me things, ask me questions. I won’t volunteer anything, but I will confirm when your information is correct.”

After we finished eating, Zeb walked me down to the street, and thanked me for coming. I thanked him for breakfast and gave him my unlisted home phone number.

“I’ll see you in Thiberville,” Zeb said.

“And next time I will take you to Brennan’s and we’ll compare cuisine,” I said.

From Zeb’s bohemian quarters I moved to the elegant high floor of Tom Quinlan’s law offices. All of the principal players that had been present at the meeting at Saint John Major Seminary were assembled again in Quinlan’s conference room that morning – all except Archbishop Donnegan, Bishop Reynolds, Monsignor Moroux and Joe Rossi. Most of the New Orleans-based insurance lawyers had brought young associates with them. Quinlan introduced James Ryburn, an associate in his firm, who looked like he was too young to have finished high school.

This meeting of all legal counsel had been called by Robert Blassingame. The stated issues on the agenda were: what to do about the subpoena Kane Chaisson had issued for the priests’ personnel files, and what to do about the notices for depositions
that Chaisson had issued, notices to take the sworn testimony of Father Dubois, Monsignor Gaudet of Bayou Saint John, Monsignor Moroux, and Bishop Reynolds.

Blassingame opened. “The personnel files. Jon, you want to give us a status report?”

Jon Bendel drew a line across his legal pad. “Clean. Not a sentence of damaging material. All those files were sanitized, any damaging information destroyed.”

I saw Quinlan’s young associate, James Ryburn, actually gulp air and visibly flinch when he heard Bendel flatly admit material had been removed from the subpoenaed files and destroyed.

“The question,” Blassingame said, “the question is, even though the files are clean, do we want Chaisson to get a look at them – to have any kind of victory?”

His question was rhetorical, and he continued uninterrupted. “The files clearly have no relevance to the Rachou case. Maybe it is not a good idea to have plaintiff lawyers poking around in our secret archives. If we give in to Chaisson, we’d have to give the same stuff to Ponce and Thomas and any other lawyers who might file lawsuits. We should refuse to produce the files. Let the judge decide.”

“I do not see how our judge could let him have a look at those files,” Bendel said.

Blassingame pushed his reading glasses to his forehead. “I seem to recall that you were also sure your judge was not going to allow the last hearing to be in open court or allow the seal on the Rachou case to be broken. Are you as sure about this, Jon?”

Bendel bristled. Tom Quinlan, ever the gravelly voiced diplomat, verbally stepped in to separate Bendel and Blassingame, and suggested a compromise. “We could offer the court alternatives. File a motion to quash Chaisson’s subpoena for the files, and in the alternative suggest that only the judge review the files and determine whether they are relevant to the Rachou lawsuit.”

Looking directly at Blassingame, I said, “The solution to the files situation, to the entire Rachou case and the other cases that
Ponce and Thomas have, is all one and the same. Enter a stipulation of liability on behalf of the diocese. Admit the obvious – the diocese is legally and factually responsible for their negligent supervision of Father Dubois.”

Blassingame’s glasses fell from his forehead to his nose. “It’s not your place to plan legal strategy for our clients. It’s our money in play.”

“Christ,” I said. “If you stipulate the diocese is liable, which they obviously are, you stop all the depositions and other legal discovery in their tracks. No more subpoenas, no depositions of diocesan officials, no diocesan documents. Announce to the court and public that the diocese is doing the right thing morally and legally. Then the Rachou trial will not be about what the bishop did or didn’t do. It will simply be about what Dubois did, and involve the testimony of the psychologist who treated the child and an independent psychologist appointed by the court to examine the child. And all the jury will decide is the extent of the injuries and how much money the child gets. In that scenario, the bishop wears a white hat and rides a white horse, and the payout will not be inflated by the jury’s inflamed anger at the diocese. You guys with insurance on the line would probably make a huge saving.”

Blassingame pulled his glasses off and spun them across the table where they fell into James Ryburn’s lap. “None of this is any of your business, Renon. Your client does not have one penny at stake here. We stand to lose millions. I’ll be damned if I even understand what the hell you are doing in these meetings.”

I was seated closer to Blassingame than I had been at the meeting in the seminary and I was distracted just looking at him. His scalp was completely bald and his head had knots, lumps, and markings like liver spots. A cheap toupee would have been easier to look at than his skull. When he took his glasses off, his eyes seemed to lose all focus. He looked like a blind man. But there was something else that kept me staring at him. He had not only lost all the hair on his head. Blassingame had no eyebrows.

Recovering, I responded. “My client is a named defendant in all the lawsuits. We are all on the same side, want the same result.”

“I don’t think so. My client’s writing the checks. You are not in our area of mutual interest.”

“I tried to tell you last time we met that Father Dubois has agreed to identify all his victims and I feel that the diocese has a moral obligation to reach out to those victims, and—”

“Shut it down, Chattelrault,” Blassingame shouted.

“Look, Bobby.” At the very mention of someone calling him “Bobby”, Robert Blassingame turned purplish red. “I’m not one of your flunkies. You’re not going to talk to me this way.”

Blassingame seemed to be rising out of his chair. I was about to stand, hoping for a shot at him, when Tom Quinlan stepped in again to referee and send us back to our corners. “Okay, fellows. There is a lot at stake here. We all want the same result. Let’s move to the next item on the agenda. We have these notices of depositions set for next Thursday, the 27th, at Chaisson’s office. He wants to take the depositions, statements under oath, of Bishop Reynolds, Monsignor Moroux and Monsignor Gaudet, and, of course, Father Dubois.”

Blassingame said, “There’s nothing we can do but prepare our witnesses. You will do that, Jon, right? And Chattelrault, you will prepare this Dubois fellow, right? We will instruct our clients not to answer anything that does not deal with the Amalie situation directly.” Looking at me, Blassingame said, “And I don’t want Dubois to say a damned thing. Let him assert his Fifth Amendment constitutional right not to incriminate himself, assert his right on every question, answer not a single question after he gives his name.”

“We both know the law does not allow Dubois to assert his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself in a civil case,” I said.

“I do not want Dubois talking under oath or any other way.”

“One moment you say we have no common interest. The next moment you are trying to run my defense of Dubois. I’ll call the shots in my case.”

“I apologize,” Blassingame offered insincerely. “I want what is in Dubois’s best interest,” he lied.

A woman from Quinlan’s office produced a tray of coffees and a pitcher of water and glasses. Some of the attorneys helped themselves. Robert Blassingame and I never broke eye contact.

Tom Quinlan said, “There is a point here that may be of some controversy that Robert needs to talk about.”

Everyone turned to look in Blassingame’s direction. “I issued a notice this morning to take the depositions on the same day Chaisson wants to take the sworn testimony of the bishop and monsignors. My notice is to take the sworn testimony of Celeste Rachou, Tommy Wesley Rachou, and Donny Rachou. I will question each of them under oath.”

“What?” Bendel asked. Jon sounded smooth but I think he was as ruffled as I was by this news.

Blassingame folded his glasses and stuck them in his top pocket. “Chaisson made the kid’s case public. He wants the kid treated like any other litigant in Louisiana. Well, I am going to give the Rachou kid the same treatment any other litigant gets. The kid is gonna put up or shut up. And I don’t think a nine-
year-old
can step up, so then Chaisson is going to have to draw down. And we’ll settle Chaisson’s Rachou case, buy it just like we bought the first six, the same way we’re gonna buy the ten cases Ponce and Thomas have.”

Tom Quinlan’s associate, James Ryburn, swiveled in his chair and seemed about to bolt from the room. It was apparent to me that this young lawyer was upset.

“Let me make sure I understand,” I said. “You are going to cross-examine a nine-year-old boy who was sodomized by a Catholic priest since he was six?”

“And I’m going to cross-examine his parents, Celeste and Tommy Wesley Rachou. The negligence of the parents in this case is something the court is going to hear about. What kind of parent entrusts a child that young to spend nights at the home of a priest who is not a family member?”

“Devout Catholic parents,” I offered.

Blassingame threw his file into a briefcase and snapped it shut. “Some people may not have the stomach for this case,” he said pointedly, clearly meaning me. “This kid, this Donny Rachou, damned well knew what he was doing was wrong too. And he is going to give me that under cross-examination. The kid is not free from fault and neither are his parents. I’m going to prove that.”

“Prove that to who?” I asked. “Who in the hell will you ever convince? Dubois is a sick son-of-a-bitch, but there’s some sick sum-bitches in this room too,” I said.

Blassingame stood. “This meeting is over.”

Young James Ryburn was the first one out of the room, rushing. I lingered. As Blassingame was walking past me, he stopped. “You know, sometimes I really think we ought to lock you and Dubois out of our house.”

“Fine with me, Bobby. You want a war, you can have one.”

“You threatening me? The diocese that hired you? You threatening us?”