Until Judgment Day (6 page)

“
I
T'S MY FAULT.”
Mary Shotwell lay on a sofa with a folded damp washcloth on her forehead, but sat up when Granz and Mackay entered the gym office. Her eyes were red and puffy, but she wasn't crying.

“What's your fault?” Granz asked.

“Reverend Benedetti's death. I think I killed him.”

Mackay slid a chair close to the sofa. “Mrs. Shotwell, I'm District Attorney Kathryn Mackay, and this is Sheriff David Granz.”

“I know who you both are, I read the newspapers.”

“Before you say anything more, I need to advise you of your constitutional right to an attorney, and to have the attorney present with you while you answer questions.”

“Why would I need an attorney?”

“You were about to confess that you shot Reverend Benedetti.”

“I didn't shoot him.”

“I'm confused.” Mackay glanced at Granz, who turned his palms up. “What did you mean when you said you killed him?”

“I think the murderer called, and I told him where to find the Reverend.”

Granz took a chair beside Mackay. “Please explain.”

“Reverend Benedetti liked to play basketball while he prepared his sermons. This afternoon, he didn't want to be disturbed for any reason because he wanted tonight's Midnight Mass sermon to be perfect. But then the man called—I considered it urgent enough to disregard the Reverend's directions.”

“Tell us about it.”

“The caller said his university was in a hurry to grant Tim Bethay academic and athletic scholarships before he left for Afghanistan.”

“Didn't you think that was unusual?”

“Not at all. Tim's being recruited by UCLA, Duke, Kansas, and several others to play basketball. They sometimes call at odd times.”

“When did you get this call?”

“About five o'clock.”

“Did the caller give you his name?”

“No, and I neglected to ask, but I gave him directions to the gym. I killed the Reverend as surely as if I'd shot him myself.” Her lips trembled but she stopped herself. “I guess it hasn't sunk in yet that he's dead—I haven't cried.”

“We'll understand if you need to cry, Mrs. Shotwell,” Mackay assured her. “It's all right.”

“No, it isn't. The Reverend continually advised me to be strong. Ten years ago, when my husband died, I realized how valuable that advice was. I need to be strong now, too.”

“You're okay to answer a few more questions?”

“Yes, he would expect me to help.”

“Thank you. Why did you come to the gym?”

“Once he gets the gist of his sermon in mind, he dictates it to me, and I type it up for him.” She looked at her feet. “We're pretty old-fashioned.”

“I still use shorthand I learned in high school,” Mackay told her. “My secretary takes dictation, too.”

“Anyway,” Shotwell continued, “when the Reverend didn't return to the office by eight-thirty, I became irritated with him, and drove over so I could scold him and get the sermon typed.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “That's when I found his body.”

“How long have you worked for Reverend Benedetti?” Granz asked.

“More than twenty years. The Reverend hired me as his secretary right after he was transferred here. We've been together since.”

“Do you know of anyone who might want to hurt him, anyone who was angry with him?”

“Reverend Benedetti was the finest man I ever knew. Everyone loved him—especially his boys.”

“His boys?” Granz asked.

“In addition to being the high school principal, he coached boys' basketball and wrestling. He called all his athletes ‘his boys.' It was a rare month that one of his players from years past didn't stop by to say thanks.”

“You said the Reverend was transferred to Holy Cross. Do you recall from where?”

“Goodness no, it's been so long. Southern California, I believe. Is it important?”

“Probably not,” Granz assured her. “If it turns out to be, we'll check Diocese personnel records.”

Granz contemplated his next question. “The sooner we can eliminate dead ends, the faster we'll catch the Reverend's murderer. Where were you between five o'clock this afternoon and now?”

“I'm a suspect?”

“Everyone's a suspect until they're eliminated,” Mackay told her. “Of course, you don't have to answer the question if you don't want to.”

“I was working at the parish office, putting together travel documents, itineraries, and attending to everything else for their trip to Afghanistan.”

“Can anyone verify that?”

“I was alone all day. Staff get Christmas Eve off to be with their families.”

“I see,” Granz said. “Will you submit to a GSR test?”

“A what?”

“A gunshot residue test to establish that you haven't fired a gun recently.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No, and it only takes a few minutes.”

“I don't see why you suspect me, but I'll take the test.” She sniffed, as if clearing mucus from her nostrils would get rid of the indignity as well, then absently tugged at the tops of her support hose. “Is there anything else?”

“Just a couple more questions,” Granz told her. “When you came into the gym, which door did you use?”

“The side door by the parking lot, as always. The Reverend and my cars are still in the parking lot.”

“Yes, ma'am, we parked by them. Was the door locked when you arrived?”

“Absolutely; the Reverend invariably locked the doors when he was here alone.”

“How did you get in?”

“I have a key.”

“May I borrow it, please?”

“Mister Miller took it.”

“What else does that key fit?”

“Nothing, just the side door. It was the Reverend's private entrance.”

“How many other people have keys to that door?”

“Just the Reverend and me.”

“How about the other doors?”

“Lots of people have keys.”

“Do his players have keys?”

“No. Reverend Benedetti had tremendous patience with his boys, but he wasn't a saint. Sometimes he wanted to escape—teenagers can be very demanding.”

Granz stood, and Mackay did likewise.

“Thank you very much,” Granz said. “If you'll wait here for a few minutes, I'll ask Lieutenant Miller to administer the GSR test, then you may go home.”

“Thank you.”

Mackay stopped at the door. “I'm very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Shotwell.”

“It's all our losses, Ms. Mackay.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

They found Miller inspecting the side door to the gym.

“Did you determine how the shooter got in?” Granz asked.

“Damn strange.” Miller scratched his scalp. “No forced entry. Every door and window was locked, including this one, where Benedetti and Shotwell apparently came in.”

He pointed to the floor. “There're some dried footprints that lead from this door to the bleachers, up and down the bleacher seats, around the body, then return. I'd say the shooter came and went through this door.”

“The prints good enough to ID?”

“Yamamoto says ‘no' but he's a fuckin' pessimist. Thinks the 49ers won the Super Bowl five times outta sheer luck and ain't ever gonna win it again. Never heard such bullshit.”

“Jazzbo—”

“Yamamoto photographed the prints anyway. Maybe we'll get lucky.”

Granz thought for a moment. “Tell Yamamoto to remove the lock in the side door, send it to DOJ. If the perp picked it, the tumblers'll show microscopic tool marks, no matter how good he is. Either the shooter was an accomplished B-and-E man or had a key, and Shotwell says she and Benedetti had the only keys.”

“Will do, boss. Anything else?”

“Nada.”

“Why don't you and Kate go home. I'll wrap it up here and buzz you if anything turns up.”

As they walked toward the door, Mackay asked, “What made you think the door lock might have been picked?”

“Just a hunch.”

T
HURSDAY
, D
ECEMBER
26, 8:40
A.M.
S
HERIFF'S
C
ONFERENCE
R
OOM

T
UCKED IN A THIRD-FLOOR CORNER
of the ugly five-story concrete County Government Center, the Sheriff's conference room overlooked San Lorenzo Park, now submerged under a month's worth of stagnant rain water.

“Good morning, Sheriff.”

Granz scowled. “Inspector.”

“The District Attorney will be up shortly.”

“That's good of her.”

DA Inspector Donna Escalante took a chair facing a beat-up blackboard on which strategy had been plotted for longer than she'd been a cop.

In her midthirties, Escalante's conservative pleated trousers, button-front shirt, and double-breasted jacket couldn't hide her taut athletic figure. Except for a little lipstick she wore no makeup. Short, jet-black hair accentuated chiseled Mayan features, and she moved with a lithe, aloof, exotic feline grace that compelled second looks from men and women alike.

Miller opened the door, checked out the room, aimed a forefinger at his boss, thumbed a make-believe hammer, blew the imaginary powder smoke off his fingertip, and dropped into a chair beside Escalante. “Merry Christmas, Chiquita.”

“Hola.” Her stoic expression didn't change. “Christmas was yesterday.”

“No shit? You mean we spent all day watchin' an autopsy and gettin' shuck-n-jived by uncooperative Mackerel Snappers—and missed ol' Saint Nick?”

“Please don't use derogatory terms like
Mackerel Snappers,
” Escalante reprimanded Miller. “We're ‘Catholics,' and we're no longer required to eat fish on Fridays.”

“Sorry.”

“And there's no need to swear.”

“Sorry again.” Really sincere this time.

She couldn't suppress a small smile. “Apology accepted, Lieutenant.”

Miller was the only person with whom anyone had ever seen her make jokes.

Granz checked his watch. “Inspector Escalante, do you have any idea how long before—”

Nelson and Mackay rushed in, followed by DA Chief Inspector James Fields.

Fields combed his thinning hair over his bald spot, disguised his teenage-acne skin pits with makeup, and tucked his suit coat's right sleeve into the empty space where his hand had been until a courtroom bomb blew it off a few years earlier. Shunning disability retirement, he'd converted to left-handed, then picked up where he left off as if nothing happened. Mackay's first official act as DA was to promote him to Chief.

“When I called everyone last night, I said the briefing would start at eight-fifteen,” Granz said.

Nelson passed each person a manila folder. “My fault we're late. I wrapped up Benedetti's autopsy protocol this morning, and stopped by the DA's office.”

“The District Attorney hears it first, and the Sheriff second?”

“Didn't know my autopsy protocols were top secret until you saw them. I walked up from the second floor with Kate and Jim. They asked about it, and I told them.”

“Well, maybe you could fill the rest of us in.”

Nelson shot Granz a quizzical look. “Yesterday's autopsy confirmed Benedetti died from a bullet that penetrated the brain's frontal lobe, transited the parietal, and exited the occipital.”

Nelson pulled an eight-by-ten color photograph from his folder and motioned for the others to do the same. “It was the second shot fired. See the hemorrhaging at the point of entry?”

Escalante leaned forward in her beat-up, chromed-plastic chair and studied the picture. “Yes. How does that mean it was the fatal shot?”

“The heart stops pumping at death and blood pressure falls to zero. Benedetti was alive when the perp fired the head shot, or there'd've been no bleeding. The hip shot shattered the pelvis and femur, severed the femoral artery, and caused massive blood loss that in itself would've been fatal except—”

“The killer shot him again,” Fields finished.

“That's right—stood over the top of Benedetti and shot him at close range.”

He pulled out a closeup of the priest's forehead, taken before the skull was removed, on which he'd circled numerous black dots near the entry wound.

“Fired from a distance of three feet or less, a gun expels gunpowder and other residue with enough force to tattoo the victim's skin—the closer it's fired, the more stippling and tighter the pattern. Beyond about three feet, there's no tattooing.”

“Every rookie cops knows that,” Granz told him.

Nelson ignored the jab and pointed with the tip of a roller-ball pen. “This spread tells us the gun was fired from two to three feet—the stippling pattern I'd expect if a six-footer held a Colt Python at arm's length and stood over his victim, who was lying on the floor.”

“Did you examine the slug in the floor under Benedetti's head?” Fields asked.

“Yep.” Nelson's medical knowledge was equaled only by his firearms and ballistics expertise. “And the one I recovered from the pelvis. Yamamoto removed the slug in the floor along with a square of wood about eighteen-by-eighteen inches, and—”

Miller whistled softly. “The Diocese is gonna be pissed when they find out how much it costs to repair that bird's-eye maple.”

“Knock off the wisecracks.” Granz glared at his Lieutenant. “Go on, Doc.”

Miller glanced at Escalante. The slightest of shrugs lifted her shoulders.

“Looks like the same gun fired both bullets,” Nelson continued. “Land and groove spacing and right hand rifling twist are consistent with a Colt. The Python recovered at the scene was probably the murder weapon. Let's hope we get lucky when DOJ test-fires it and runs the serial number.”

“This guy's too smart to leave a calling card,” Granz commented. “The Colt's a dead end.”

“What about the test for gunshot residue on Mary Shotwell's hands?” Mackay asked.

Miller turned serious. “Needed to nail her or eliminate her as a suspect ASAP, so to be sure it wasn't fu—botched, I swabbed her for two samples—one for atomic absorption and one for scanning electron microscope. I hand-carried them to DOJ for analysis. Negative for GSR. With both AA and SEM negative, it's conclusive that Shotwell didn't shoot Benedetti.”

“No surprise,” Granz said. “We figured that much at the scene.”

“I don't believe in coincidences,” Mackay said. “Benedetti's murder's got to be related to Thompson's.”

Granz wasn't sure he agreed. “Maybe and maybe not. But if they are, and if we're going to find out what they had in common that's worth getting whacked out over, we've got to dig deep into their backgrounds, see what surfaces.”

Granz turned to Miller. “You and Escalante talked to church reps yesterday—what'd you learn?”

“Zilch. We got stonewalled. Nobody knew anything, kept referring us to someone else—a big circle jerk.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“At Sacred Heart Parish, a guy named Ronald Leahy.” Miller glanced at Escalante. “What's his title?”

“Pastoral Associate,” Escalante answered, “and I agree he's following orders to keep his mouth shut. We asked to see Thompson's personnel file, but Leahy said it had been transferred to the Diocese in Monterey.”

“That's what Shotwell told me about Benedetti's when I called her,” Miller added.

“So Escalante and I drove to Monterey to see Monsignor Donald Winfield, the Vicar General.”

“The what?” Fields wasn't Catholic.

“A Vicar's a mouthpiece for a Bishop—in this case, Bishop Jeffrey Davidson, who didn't make a personal appearance, and according to Winfield, doesn't know anything either. Winfield's also Diocese Operations and Personnel Director.”

“Then he's got Thompson and Benedetti's personnel folders.”

“That's what we figured.” Escalante's face showed a rare emotion—frustration. “But he wouldn't confirm or deny that their files were transferred to Diocese headquarters or, for that matter, that they even have personnel records.”

“Of course they have records.” Granz sighed. “Did Winfield say anything at all?”

“Yes, he said if police want personnel files, we've gotta get 'em through legal channels.”

“That's what he said?”

Miller pulled an unfiltered Camel out of his pack, started to light up, glanced around and thought better of it. “Can't smoke anyplace anymore. It's un-American.”

He dropped the cigarette on the table. “Escalante sugarcoated it. Winfield said if cops want to see their records, they have to get a court order, and they better be ready for a, quote, ‘hell of a legal battle.'”

“Great.” Granz ran his fingers through his hair.

“It gets worse. Winfield says we can't contact any Diocese employee without clearing it through the Bishop first.”

Mackay frowned. “They can't tell us who we can and can't talk to.”

“No, but they can make it as difficult as possible if they want to,” Miller told her.

“Did you ask whether or not the Diocese has received complaints of sexual misconduct against their priests?”

“Yeah, we did. Winfield said the Diocese handed over a dozen cases involving allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests to the Monterey County DA. I checked with Monterey—they're looking into cases from nineteen fifty-three through ninety-four but haven't filed any charges yet.”

“What about our county?” Mackay asked.

“According to Winfield, there've been no reportable cases in Santa Rita.”

“Did you remind him of the four civil lawsuits filed against the Diocese in the past twenty years, alleging sexual misconduct on the part of priests at three of our local parishes?”

“Damn straight.”

“And?”

“He said they involved consensual sex with adults and the cases were settled—there was nothing to report to authorities. He says they've cleaned house.”

“You think he was being truthful?” Mackay asked.

Miller glanced at Escalante, who answered, “It's impossible to say for sure, but he emphatically denied that any priest now serving in the Monterey Diocese is a pedophile. My gut instinct says he was telling the truth.”

“Let's hope so,” Mackay said. “On the other hand, let's not overlook the possibility they're misleading us. When there's a cover-up, it usually comes from the highest level.”

“That's true,” Miller continued, “and it looks like word got to Monterey that we wanted to talk to them before Escalante and I did. Winfield gave me this.” Miller handed Mackay a sheet of paper. “Legal Department letterhead.”

“Gerald Scalisi, of Counsel,” Mackay read aloud.

Nelson arched his eyebrows. “In-house legal staff?”

“Why not?” Mackay turned toward Nelson. “The Diocese oversees four counties, fifty parishes, an eight-digit annual budget, and half-a-million Catholics. The church is no different from any other big business that has to deal with complex finances, contracts, litigation, employee relations, you name it.”

“What now?” Fields asked.

Mackay looked at Miller, then at Escalante. “Would it do any good if the Sheriff or I contacted Winfield or Bishop Davidson personally?”

Escalante shook her head.

“Not a chance.” Miller eyed the Camel. “They've already circled the wagons.”

Mackay thought for a moment, then told Escalante, “Prepare a subpoena duces tecum for the records, and a subpoena compelling appearance before the Grand Jury.”

“Will do. Who do I subpoena to appear?”

“I'm not sure yet.”

“Jesus, Kate!” Granz slapped his palms on the table. “If we don't get those records before they're destroyed, we're screwed. How are we going to get someone in front of the Grand Jury if you don't tell her who to serve?”

Mackay gave her husband a stern look. “I'll let her know after one o'clock. She can serve the subpoenas this afternoon.”

“That could be too late.”

“I'll convene an emergency session of the Grand Jury for first thing tomorrow morning.”