MD05 - The Confession

by Sheldon Siegel

I sigh. It isn’t uncommon for victims of sexual abuse to avoid using their names in court documents, but I obviously need to know more than that. “What’s her real name?”

  “That’s confidential.”

  I give him a look. He knows that I can get it from the cops or from the prosecutors or even from the media, all of whom know her true identity. They can get into trouble only if they make the information available to the public. He takes a deep breath and says, “Her real name is Kelly O’Shea.”

  A nice Irish Catholic girl. I ask him why she was reluctant to testify.

  “Because she made the whole thing up. Do you know what she does for a living?”

  “The papers said she’s a waitress.”

  “Technically, that’s true, but there’s more to it than that.”

  “What does she really do?”

  “She’s a lap dancer at a girlie theater. And a hooker.”

  Chapter 17

  “It Was a Wrongful Act”

  “The concept of abstinence is a fundamental principle that is deeply rooted in our theology. There are no exceptions.”

  — Father Ramon Aguirre. San Francisco Chronicle.

  Ah. Maybe not such a nice Irish Catholic girl. “And the allegations?”

  “They’re claiming he was providing counseling to her and used his position and influence to procure sexual favors.”

  “Is it true?”

  Shanahan taps his Montblanc pen on his desk and says, “Of course not. The DA agreed to give her immunity if she fingered her pimp and Father O’Connell. The criminal charges against the pimp were pleaded out and Father O’Connell’s case was dropped after he died.”

  Leaving only the civil case against the archdiocese.

  “Things got more complicated a few weeks ago,” he says. “The police caught Ms. Doe soliciting in the Tenderloin. Her immunity agreement didn’t cover the new charge and the episode wouldn’t have enhanced her credibility in court. Ms. Concepcion was about to start jury selection in a high-profile case in which her star witness was a prostitute. Quite honestly, we were very confident we would prevail.”

  There’s that phrase again. “Then why did you offer to settle?”

  “Pure economics. Protracted litigation is prohibitively expensive.”

  The fact that the archdiocese would have been dragged through the mud never entered his mind. I ask him if he still intends to pursue a settlement.

  “We are re-evaluating our position.”

  “Was Mr. Hanson keeping Ms. Concepcion under surveillance on the night she died?”

  “Yes.”

  Bingo. “Did he happen to see anyone other than Father Aguirre enter her apartment?”

  “No.”

  Dammit. “Was someone watching Ms. Doe, too?”

  “Yes.” He tells me that Doe lives in a residential hotel in the Tenderloin and assures me that she was nowhere near Concepcion’s apartment on the night she died.

  “Is she going to testify?” I ask.

  “The case against Father O’Connell will collapse if she doesn’t.”

  And the archdiocese will be off the hook. I ask him why she isn’t in jail on the solicitation charge.

  “Ms. Concepcion posted bail for her.”

  She certainly was a full-service lawyer–especially if she didn’t have a lot of money. “Where did she get the funds?”

  “She had sources in the neighborhood.” He places his bone china coffee cup in its saucer to signify that our conversation is coming to an end.

  I lean forward and tell him that I’d like to meet Dennis Peterson.

  “He isn’t available, Michael.”

  Don’t knock yourself out trying to help. “Perhaps we can set up a time to get together tomorrow.”

  He stands and says, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  # # #

  Ramon’s hands are clasped on the table in front of him at eight-thirty on Wednesday night, and his eyes are locked onto mine. “What are you asking?” he says.

  We’re sitting in his makeshift room at Church headquarters that looks as if it was furnished by “Rectories R Us.” There is a single bed, a small desk, a three-drawer dresser and a lamp. A cross hangs on the back of the door. It’s been an eventful twenty-four hours since he heard my confession. We have a lot of territory to cover and I wanted to have this discussion outside the presence of Quinn, Shanahan and most importantly, the archbishop.

  “I need you to tell me the precise nature of your relationship with Ms. Concepcion.”

  “I was her priest,” he says.

  “What else?”

  “We were friends.”

  “Close friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on, Ramon.”

  There is exasperation in his tone when he says, “Just because you’re a priest doesn’t mean you can’t have social friendships with your female parishioners.”

  “I was never the priest for one of my old girlfriends.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It has come to our attention that you and Ms. Concepcion dated for a period of time.”

  “We went out for six months and we broke up twenty years ago. She went to law school and I went to the seminary.”

  “How would you describe your relationship?”

  He doesn’t try to spin it. “Boyfriend-girlfriend.”

  “So you were romantically involved?”

  “Yes.”

  “How involved?”

  “Are you asking me if I slept with her?”

  I nod.

  “The answer is yes.”

  Dammit.

  “It was a wrongful act,” he says. “I went to church and confessed.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Confessing?”

  “Sex.”

  “It was nice, but it isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.”

  He’s never done it with Rosie. “I need to know if there was anything in your relationship that may leap out and bite us.”

  “Except for the sex, nothing.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Are you asking me if I still had feelings for her?”

  “Yes.”

  He takes a deep breath and says, “I loved her as dearly as one can love a friend and I worried about her constantly, but I had no romantic feelings for her.”

  “Have you been romantically involved with anybody since you’ve been a priest?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Good enough. “You told me she was unhappy because Lopez had dumped her.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Tony heard it the other way around.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Maybe none, but if we’re going to argue it was a suicide, it would help if he dumped her. In my vast experience, the dumpee is frequently in worse shape than the dumper.”

  “Thanks for your insight, Dr. Phil, but she told me that he broke up with her. If you don’t want to take my word for it, you can ask Eduardo.”

  We will. “How well do you know him?”

  “Pretty well. He’s a big benefactor of St. Peter’s.”

  “Did he have a habit of cheating on his wife?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Is there reason to suspect he may have been involved in Maria’s murder?”

  “Get real, Mike.”

  “Work with me, Ramon.”

  His tone drips with sarcasm when he says, “While you’re at it, you shouldn’t rule out his wife. She was angry at him, too.”

  St. Peter’s should be renamed St. Peyton Place. “Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”

  “Because neither of them is capable of murder and I was still operating under the misguided assumption that I was supposed to keep my parishioners’ secrets confidential.”

  “From now on,” I say, “you need to tell me everything.”

  “Even if it involves something told to me in confidence?”

  “It beats spen
ding the rest of your life in jail.”

  He responds with a stern scowl. We spend the next hour going through his visit with Concepcion again in painstaking detail. Thankfully, his story doesn’t change. I try to sound casual when I ask him, “Did you use the bathroom while you were there?”

  “Yes.” He acknowledges that they may have found his prints on the toilet seat and the sink. “I had a headache and I took some aspirin from her medicine chest.”

  That accounts for most–but not all–of the fingerprints. Now comes a big one. “They found your prints on the handles to the bathtub faucet,” I say.

  He makes a face. “We got into an argument before I left. She didn’t like it when I told her I thought it was time for her to move on with her life. Her trial was about to start and I suggested that she take a bath to relax. I even started the water for her. That’s all.”

  I breathe a little easier. It isn’t an air-tight alibi, but it’s a plausible explanation–I can work with it. I ask if she called anyone called her while he was there.

  “No.”

  “Did anyone call her?”

  He frowns. “Yes. Her ex-husband called her around nine-fifteen and they talked for a couple of minutes. She got very upset.” He shakes his head. “She ended the conversation by telling him to go to hell.”

  Chapter 18

  “What’s the Worst-Case Scenario?”

  “Criminal defense work is like putting together a puzzle. You study each piece of evidence and try to find ways to cast doubt on the prosecution’s case. If you overlook something important, your client is in serious trouble.”

  — Rosita Fernandez. Boalt Hall Monthly.

  I give my daughter a parental nod and ask, “Is your homework done?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  I’m reminded that bedtime schedules frequently take a back seat to more pressing business as Grace’s smile lights up her grandmother’s living room at ten o’clock on Wednesday night. Rosie’s parents bought the post-earthquake era bungalow in the shadows of St. Peter’s almost fifty years ago for fifteen grand. Though it needs a fresh coat of paint and new appliances, it would fetch close to a half a million bucks if Rosie’s mom ever chose to sell it. There isn’t a chance that she will.

  Sylvia Fernandez’s tidy living room looks much the same as it did when I first met Rosie, and the oatmeal-colored sofa and teak end tables have a comfortable familiarity. The faded black-and-white wedding photos of Rosie’s parents still adorn the mantle, and framed graduation portraits of Rosie and her siblings hang above the fireplace. The only significant addition in the last decade are the photos of Sylvia’s grandchildren.

  Grace’s inflection is a dead-on imitation of her mother’s when she says, “I saw you on the news tonight.”

  “How did I look?”

  “Same as always.”

  Thanks. Her answers have gotten shorter as she’s gotten older. She’s also developed a fairly advanced sense of irony for a twelve year-old.

  Her tone takes on a serious cast. “You said Father Aguirre was innocent.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Is he?”

  “Of course.”

  “That isn’t what they’re saying on TV.”

  “They’re wrong.”

  No reaction. “I was reading about the case on the Chronicle’s website,” she says. We keep a pretty tight lid on her instant messaging contacts and we draw the line at porn sites and chat rooms, but the speed of the technology is outpacing our ability to police it. “They found Father Aguirre’s fingerprints in Maria Concepcion’s bathroom.”

  “It’s true,” I tell her.

  “Does that mean he’s guilty?”

  Nice try, Sherlock. “It means he went to the bathroom.” And it may be time to revisit our Internet access policy.

  She won’t give up easily. “What was he doing in her apartment that night?”

  “Visiting.”

  “That’s all?”

  It’s like arguing with Rosie. “That’s all.”

  “How much will you give me if I crack the case?”

  Everybody’s on the make. “Twenty bucks,” I say, “but only if you prove he’s innocent.”

  “What if I show that he’s guilty?”

  “I’ll give you fifty bucks to keep your mouth shut.”

  She responds with an all-knowing smile.

  My ex-mother-in-law walks in a moment later with Tommy on her shoulder. She and Rosie have matching features and identical constitutions. Sylvia was born seventy-five years ago in a village near Monterrey, Mexico, and moved to San Francisco when she was in her teens. A highly-intelligent soul with little formal education and an uncompromisingly level head, she assumed the role of family matriarch after her husband died shortly after Rosie and I met. She remains a pillar of strength for her children and we couldn’t practice law without her.

  She pats Tommy on the back and whispers, “He just fell asleep.” She brushes the hair out of her grandson’s eyes and says, “Maybe he’ll make it through the night.”

  “Hope springs eternal.”

  She turns to Grace and says, “Get your things ready, sweetie. Mommy is going to drive us back to your house in a few minutes.”

  “Do I have time to do a couple more computer searches?”

  “Five minutes, honey.”

  I hope she isn’t instant messaging any of the boys at school.

  Sylvia rocks Tommy and lowers her voice in a manner that suggests she doesn’t want him to hear her. “Father Aguirre isn’t a murderer,” she says. She’s from a generation where it was considered taboo to refer to a priest by his first name.

  “Let’s hope the police agree with you.”

  Tommy stretches and Sylvia kisses him lightly on the forehead. “I’ll get him ready to go,” she says to me.

  “Thanks, Sylvia.” She’s about to go back to her room when I ask, “How well do you know Maria’s mother?”

  Her shrug causes Tommy’s eyes to open wide. “Pretty well.”

  “Well enough to ask her if she’ll talk to us?”

  “Her daughter just died, Michael.”

  “And her priest has been accused of her murder.”

  “I’ll call her in the morning.”

  I walk into the tiny kitchen where Rosie is studying copies of the police reports. She has an uncanny ability to concentrate on legal issues when Grace and Tommy are nearby. Her tone is deathly serious when she says, “I think I saw the Impala sitting on the corner by our office earlier this evening. I called the cops, but it disappeared before they got there.”

  Hell. “Did you get a license number?”

  “There was no plate.” She says she filed a report with the police, who searched the immediate vicinity and told her to keep her eyes open. She’s pleased when I tell her that Pete is going to have somebody watch my backside.

  I point to the stack of papers on the table and say, “Anything new?”

  “Not much,” she reports. She glances around to make sure that Grace is out of the room before she hands me the gruesome crime scene photos.

  I study the pictures for a moment and notice that Concepcion’s face is covered with white cream. “What’s that stuff?” I ask.

  “It’s a moisturizer called Essential Elements. They found it all over her body.”

  This is odd. “Including her hands?”

  “Yes. For our purposes, the best-case scenario is that she decided to make herself comfortable before she committed suicide. The fact that they found her fingerprints on an empty plastic container that was sitting on the ledge of the tub would seem to support that conclusion.”

  So far, so good. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”

  “Ramon spread the skin cream on her body to cover the injuries she sustained when he knocked her unconscious and to make the fake suicide look more convincing.”

  “Is there anything that suggests he was so meticulous?”

  “They found his fingerprints on the empty bottle,
too.”