Karl Schenk stood and made a little bow to the jurors. I kept my eye on the jury box.
“Mr. Burke,” Schenk began.
“Father Burke,” rejoined Brennan, as he straightened his suit jacket, and I knew then and there it was going sideways.
“Mr. Burke,” Schenk repeated, “how long have you been a priest of the Roman Catholic Church?”
“Twenty-four years.”
“And what vows did you take when you were ordained a priest?” The Crown was not wasting any time.
“Promises of obedience and chastity.”
“And poverty?”
“I’m not a member of a religious order, so no. But we are expected to live a life of, let’s say, ‘simplicity.’”
Schenk gave him a once-over. I got the impression he was about to say something, then changed direction. “Where have you served as a priest since your ordination?”
“New York, and here...”
“Anywhere else?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Southeast Asia.”
“And?”
“Sao Paulo, Brazil.”
“When was that?”
“In 1986.”
“What were you doing in Brazil?”
“Running a small parish, with an associated aid program. Shelter, food, clothing, education, and training.”
“Kind of a missionary position? Bringing the Word of God to the heathen?”
“The people were not heathens, Mr. Schenk. And we didn’t force religion on them. We had to turn people away from our programs because we could not meet the demand.”
“Did you know a woman called Eliana DeSouza?”
A hesitation. “Yes.”
What was this? I had never heard of the woman. Not for the first time, or the last, I wanted to throttle my client for leaving me out of the loop.
“And what did Eliana DeSouza do for you?”
“Do for me?” A trace of belligerence in Burke’s voice.
“What was her role there?”
“She was my assistant.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
I was on my feet. “My Lady, I see no relevance in this line of questioning. Whether my client was intimate with a woman at some point in his life —”
“As a priest,” Schenk interrupted.
“— has no relevance here.”
“My Lady,” Schenk argued, “the defence has put the accused’s character and credibility squarely in issue. The Crown has every right to examine him. Sex is not the point except as it relates to his character as a priest, his faithfulness to his vows, his honesty and credibility.”
The judge ruled in the Crown’s favour. Schenk then had the pleasure of repeating his question. “Did you sleep with Eliana DeSouza?”
Burke looked at Schenk with something close to hatred. I hoped the jury could not read it in his eyes. “Is everyone to be trashed in
this proceeding along with me?”
“Just answer the question, Mr. Burke. Did you sleep with Eliana DeSouza?”
Father Burke glanced at the judge, who was without expression. “Yes,” he said reluctantly. I didn’t want to be caught sneaking a look at the jury.
“Would you describe Ms. DeSouza as your mistress when you were in Sao Paulo?”
“No, I would not,” Burke snapped.
“Well, how long did your affair with her go on?”
“A few months. Or so.” I see.
Burke tried for an exculpatory explanation: “If you know anything about Latin America, then you’ll know that —”
“Just a yes or no answer to my questions, Mr. Burke.”
“If you don’t want
my
testimony, why don’t you just read your own into the record? After all, if I’m just to parrot the lines you have written out for me...”
The last thing any defence lawyer wants is an angry defendant on the stand. He’s likely to lose control and, of course, he makes it all too easy for the jury to picture him losing control with the victim. Keep it together, Brennan, I pleaded silently. This is only the beginning of a very long and damaging ordeal.
The judge leaned over and said: “Just answer the questions please, Father Burke.”
“Mr. Burke. You lived in Rome as a priest of the Catholic Church, correct?”
Silence. Then, warily: “Yes.”
“When in Rome —”
I was on my feet again. “Objection, My Lady. Irrelevant.”
“My Lady, I’ll move on,” Schenk graciously offered. And that’s when I knew I’d been had. Schenk may have known something about Burke in Rome or he may not have. It didn’t matter. Either way, he knew I’d pop up and object. All he needed to do was plant that “when in Rome” before the jury.
Susan leaned over and whispered: “He got a free one off us there.” I nodded. I would have to shape up.
“How would you explain the breaking of your vows, Mr. Burke? Or your ‘promises’ as you put it? Is it that you have a very strong need for sex? Would you say that about yourself?”
Burke leaned back in his seat and turned his face to the jury. “Hardly. Given my choice of profession.” The jurors and others in the courtroom laughed.
“Yet, every once in a while, you just decide the hell with your vows and reach out and pluck —” Oh, Christ “— some woman or other from your surroundings, and —”
It was my turn to be outraged. “My Lady! I really must object. To my learned friend’s tone, and to his question. There has been nothing established in the evidence to suggest that my client reaches out whenever he likes, and, well —”
“Mr. Schenk?” The judge raised an eyebrow, and he nodded in submission.
“All right. We’ll leave your sex life for the time being, Mr. Burke. I’m sure it will come up again. Now —”
“Objection, My Lady. My friend is showing deliberate disrespect for the witness.”
“Thank you, Mr. Collins. Mr. Schenk?”
“I apologize to the court. Now. Mr. Burke. You ran the music program at the St. Bernadette’s Choir School.” “I run it, yes.”
Schenk glanced at the jury as if to say: “I know you’ll have the good sense to see that he never runs it again.”
“You knew a little girl named Janeece Tuck, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know Janeece?”
“She was a member of the children’s choir.”
“You had a nickname for Janeece, did you not?”
“I did.”
“What was that nickname?”
“I called her Alvin.”
“And why was that?”
“There used to be these cartoon characters that my brothers and sisters liked, the Chipmunks. One of them, who was always into mischief and never where he was supposed to be, was Alvin.”
“That described Janeece, did it?”
Burke smiled. “Yes, it did.”
“Now you heard Janeece’s mother, Ms. Tuck, testify here in the courtroom earlier in the trial?”
“Yes.”
“She told us Janeece lived with her father and Ms. Cudmore, but spent some days with her mother, Ms. Tuck. And she told us about Janeece coming home from choir from time to time, and talking about you. ‘I was in trouble again today, Ma.’ Or: ‘Father Burke growled at me again today.’” This was raising the antennae of some of the jurors, but Burke was nodding. The Crown attorney continued: “‘Father Burke was talking to me in Latin today. I think he was cussin’ me out.’” There were chuckles throughout the courtroom at that. “Were you cussing her out?”
“Ah, no, I wasn’t.” Burke shook his head and I could see from the unguarded tenderness in his face that he was remembering whatever it was he had said to Alvin.
“Can you recall what you said?”
“I think I said:
Venisti hue ante tempus torquere nos?”
“And what does that mean, for those of us whose Latin is limited to
habeas corpus?”
“It means: Have you come here to torment us before our time?” Everyone, including the judge, broke up at that. But the moments of goodwill were fleeting.
“Would you say you had a special relationship with Janeece?”
Burke was on guard. “What exactly do you mean by a special relationship?”
“I can see why you would be concerned, Mr. Burke, but I just mean that perhaps this little girl stood out for you as a special member of the choir.”
“Ah, yes. I did have a soft spot in my heart for her.”
“And she knew that, do you think? Her mother’s evidence about your ‘growling at her’ was that the little girl was ‘more bragging than complaining, the attention, you know.’ So Janeece knew how you really felt about her?”
“I think she knew. I hope to God she did.”
“What was it you liked about Janeece?”
“She was a lively, funny, smart, outspoken, beautiful little girl. A
real character. And she was going to have a wonderfully rich contralto voice when she got older. Which she never had the chance to do.”
“You must have been upset when you heard about her sudden death.”
“Of course I was upset.” Heartscalded, I recalled Burke saying of himself after she died. “A nine-year-old girl with her whole life ahead of her, to die like that.”
“You are aware, then, of how Janeece died.”
“Yes,” Burke answered shortly.
“Janeece was taken from her bed by her stepmother, put in a car without a seatbelt, with a drunk driver, and taken along on an errand Ms. Cudmore wanted to run for her partner, the child’s father. The driver lost control and Janeece was thrown to her death. Is that your understanding of what happened?” Schenk was giving evidence, and repeating it at that, but an objection would just annoy the jury, so I stayed in my seat.
“That’s what I understood, yes.” Burke did not try to hide his dis
gust.
“This must have struck a chord with you, so to speak, Mr. Burke.” I could see my client tense in his seat, as if waiting for a blow, but I couldn’t prevent it. “A young person dying while those who were supposed to look after her were too preoccupied with themselves to bother?” Brennan was grey, and his hands gripped each other in his lap. “Would you agree with me?”
“Who wouldn’t agree it’s a terrible thing?”
“I’m interested only in you, Mr. Burke. You have my undivided attention. Did the manner of her death, through the thoughtless neglect of her caregivers, strike any kind of personal chord in you over and above the normal grief you would have felt?”
“You know it did,” my client whispered.
“And would that be because of a fire that took place in or around New York City in i960 when you were a young man?”
Burke licked his lips and nodded.
“The court reporter cannot pick up a nod, Mr. Burke. Please give an, um —” Schenk looked up at the accused “— an oral answer.”
Brennan looked at the wall and answered: “Yes.”
“Did you have a friend with you at that house in New York, a fellow
a few years younger than you, named Stanislaus Dombrowski?” “Yes.”
“How did you know Stanislaus?”
“I knew Stan through music. He was studying at Juilliard. A very gifted young lad. He started going around with me, and some people I knew.”
“The wrong people for Stan, as it turned out. Correct?”
Burke looked down at his hands. “Ah, yes.”
“I won’t get into all the sordid details of Stan’s short life or the drug habit he developed while hanging out with your crowd,” Schenk turned his glinting spectacles in the direction of the jury box “but I’ll move ahead to the fire. What started it?”
“Stan may have been trying to cook the, em, the smack. The heroin. I’m not sure.”
“Was young Stan on drugs that night?”
“Yes, I learned that he had shot up earlier and then —”
“You seem to know all the lingo, but then you would, wouldn’t you?”
I was up. “My Lady! I ask that that remark be struck from the record. I have been sitting here, making allowances for Mr. Schenk’s cross-examination, but this is going too far.”
“Thank you, Mr. Collins. The last remark will be struck and the jury will disregard it.”
The chances that the jury would disregard an implied connection between the accused and drugs were slim enough. But Father Burke chose that moment to give himself absolution and, in the process, kept the issue alive in the jurors’ minds. “God forgives all kinds of sins, Mr. Schenk.”
“God may render forgiveness but Caesar renders it not,” the government lawyer retorted. “We’re faced with earthly laws here, Mr. Burke. Your friend died in the fire, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Did Stan call for your help before he died?”
Burke lowered his eyes. “I believe he did. I didn’t hear him at first, over the music.”
“But you heard him later.”
“Not him, but someone else at the party called out that Stan was in trouble.”
“And where were you when all this was going on?”
Burke couldn’t stop himself from glancing at me. His eyes went nowhere near the jury box. “I was in one of the bedrooms.”
“With whom?”
“A girl.”
“A girl? Would you care to elaborate?” No response from Burke. “Let me help you. Was it more than one girl?” The jurors leaned forward as did the press, pens poised over notebooks. “Well, Mr. Burke? How many girls was it?”
“Three?” he answered with trepidation. Jesus Christ, he doesn’t know! I sat there remembering his terse refusal to discuss the incident. Two, Brennan, it was two, I berated him silently. Then, taking his cue from Schenk’s obvious surprise, Burke got it right: “Two.” I heard the sound of scribbling from the press gallery. Not a rustle from the jury box.
“A priest in bed with two girls —”
Burke exploded. “I wasn’t a priest then, for heaven’s sake! I was a kid.”
“Lucky kid. Did pretty well for yourself.”
I started to rise but Her Ladyship was already there. Once again, Karl Schenk made an insincere apology. And then: “I won’t take up the court’s time trying to elicit just what Mr. Burke and the two girls were doing, My Lady. We can all use our imaginations.” He turned to the accused. “So, the upshot is: you ignored the call for help because you were having a better time elsewhere, and your friend died at age eighteen in the basement of the house.”
Burke gave a slight nod and again Schenk jumped in. “As I explained, Mr. Burke, we need an —”
“Yes.” Burke cut him off quickly.
“Something else happened that night, didn’t it? Something happened to you in the fire.” “Yes.”
“What happened to you, what mark was left on you?”
Burke looked at the far wall. “The imprint of a cross here.” He pointed to the place above his heart where he had been branded by the crucifix.