by Mark M Bello
“Why?” Mr. O’Connell protested. “Things seem perfectly fine here.”
“And won’t that stretch you a bit thin?” Mrs. MacLean added.
Micah rubbed his chin. “We’re just being safe. I’ll make a few calls, see what I can put together.” He motioned to the guard, who joined Micah in the second room. Two guards in the adjoining room were also watching television, but not the same kind. They watched the lobby, seventh-floor, and eighth-floor video from the equipment they set up upon arrival.
“All quiet so far?” Micah inquired.
One of the men nodded. They’d booked a room on the seventh-floor and paid the clerk at the front desk to tell anybody who came looking for them that they’d booked that room. A costly maneuver on Love’s part, but he was hoping it would pay off in the long term.
Love started scrolling through his phone for the number for another hotel when someone entered the lobby. Everybody in the room perked up. Three men went to the front desk, walking with precision and intent most weary travelers lacked when they entered a hotel. These men had no luggage, another red flag for Love. A few seconds later, three more men entered. Love couldn’t hear what they asked the clerk, but his nervous glance into the security camera told Love everything he needed to know. The church wasn’t about to let things go any further. Micah jumped to his feet in a second, barking out orders.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Kenny Tracey was a good baseball player. He played on his school team and was also involved in a weekly, hotly contested neighborhood-versus-neighborhood pickup game. Two boys, one from each neighborhood, were responsible for calling all the boys in their respective neighborhoods until each side had at least ten ballplayers. Ironically, the game was played every Saturday on Lakes’ baseball field.
Jake frequently tagged along, as an extra player, although he wasn’t a good ballplayer. On the Saturday before the trial, Kenny received the usual,“Wanna play today?” phone call. He asked Jake if he wanted to play, and Jake shouted an emphatic “Yes!” Kenny was less enthusiastic about the game. He was nervous about the trial but decided to play for Jake and the other guys in his neighborhood. Kenny Tracey was the ultimate team player.
As they walked to the park, Jake looked up at Kenny.
“Kenny?”
“Yeah, Jake?” His thoughts were elsewhere.
“Something wrong?”
“No, squirt. Just thinkin’.”
“About what?”
“The trial. I guess I’m a little nervous. You?”
“Yeah, I guess. But this is important to Mom, and Zack seems like a good guy. Right? But what if they want us to talk about the things Gerry did to us . . . you know . . . the sex stuff? I don’t want to talk about stuff like that in front of all those people. I know I’m supposed to be brave, but . . . I’m scared, Kenny.”
Kenny relaxed and played big brother. “Me too, squirt. But it’s kind of too late to back out now, don’t you think? Besides, I don’t want to let Mom down. A bad guy like this gets away with shit, and he’ll do the same thing to some other kid. How bad can it be to talk about it? We got over talking about it to Doc Rothenberg, right?”
“You and Mom will be there the whole time, right?” Jake shuddered.
“Yeah, squirt, the whole time. Hey, come on. Let’s not think about it.” He changed the subject. “So, if there aren’t enough players today, what position do you want to play?”
“I stink. You know that,” Jake admitted, hanging his head. “I’ll play wherever they put me.”
“You don’t stink, bro. These guys are older than you. You’ll be better than these bums, one of these days, when you get older,” Kenny cheered.
They arrived at the baseball field. There were barely enough players, so Jake got to play the whole game in right field. He got a hit and made a good running catch. He also let a ball go right through his legs for an inside-the-park home run—they didn’t count errors—but that was baseball.
Kenny had three hits, played flawless shortstop, and hit a game-winning, walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth. Jake was the first to greet Kenny as his brother crossed home plate. The whole team celebrated the sudden victory. This was the happiest the two boys had been since the camping trip. Best of all, not a single kid brought up the looming trial or anything about the case. Jake and Kenny walked home together, broad smiles on their faces, recounting game highlights. The trial was the furthest thing from their minds.
Chapter Forty-Nine
“Gone? What do you mean ‘gone’? Where the hell did they go, Micah?” Zack was frantic. He’d just fallen asleep on perhaps the best night of his legal career when sleep was interrupted by a phone call. The Berea families were gone. The case, most likely, was gone with them. “Kidnapped?”
“It sure looks that way,” Micah dreaded.
“What are the chances they escaped?”
“No clue. There were at least six men, probably more outside. Escape is possible, I guess, but doubtful. We’ve got some footage from the security cameras, but it doesn’t show us what happened to the families,” Micah conceded.
“Text it to me,” Zack demanded. Two minutes later, his phone buzzed.
Zack studied video footage from a few hours ago. The screen split into three images—the lobby, the seventh-floor hallway, and the eighth-floor hallway. Micah had viewed it already, but for Zack, the whole thing was torture. Six armed men entered the lobby. In the eighth-floor video, two of the security men rushed into the hallway. Love and another man were left to guard the families.
The six assailants went up the stairs and were lost for a bit—Micah fast-forwarded the video. Four more men emerged from the seventh-floor decoy room. The elevator door opened, and a man got out, distracting the four guards. At the same time, six men burst out of the stairwell and stunned two of the guards with some kind of dart gun. The other two guards struggled with the seven men for a while but were completely outnumbered and outmaneuvered.
The assailants opened the room and found it empty. Immediately they split into three groups and headed for the stairs.
On eight, Micah led the families to the back stairway. They passed from view, and Micah turned off the tape.
“What happened next?” Zack demanded.
“We went out the back way and were ambushed by more of these guys. I took them down, but by the time I finished the last guy off, the families were nowhere to be seen. I don’t know if they escaped or got kidnapped,” Micah cringed
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! I’ve got the biggest trial of my life in a week, and my star witnesses are gone? Shit! Shit, shit, shit! What am I going to tell Jenny?”
“It’s all my fault,” Micah conceded. “I’ll tell her.”
“No, no, I’ll tell her, and, Micah, what more could you have done? You’ve been amazing, man. I’m sorry I got so pissed off.”
“You have a right to be pissed off, Zack. I blew it. I wish I knew how, though. I was so careful. I did everything right. God damn it! I promised those people! I looked them in the eyes and guaranteed their safety.”
“Let’s think this through,” Zack paused. “If they’ve got them, they’ll kill them or make them disappear. If they don’t have them, maybe John or Pat will contact us before trial.”
“No, they won’t,” Micah argued. “Why should they? I guaranteed their safety, and I fucked it all up. Why should they trust me? No, Zack, presume they aren’t coming.”
“Damn! We were so close. I could taste it!” Zack scoffed. “So, either way, they’re gone. That leaves me with the guilty plea, Phillip Jack, Rothenberg, the Tracey family, the Farmington cops, Costigan, Glimesh, and Foley. I’ll have to subpoena Foley. I can force him to admit to knowledge and the priors. I’ve got Bartholomew’s deposition. He took the Fifth for almost every question, but it will piss off any jury. Jurors will assume his guilt.”
“I thought that was a lock. I thought you were looking for priors to nail the church,”
Micah presumed.
“You thought right, but first, I still have to prove the charged offenses occurred,” Zack explained. “Gerry pleaded guilty to Fourth Degree ‘touching’ only. It’s still possible, if I get a large verdict against Bartholomew, the church might negotiate and pay the verdict for public relations reasons.”
“That’s true, Zack, but damn, those families! I guaranteed their safety. If anything happened to them . . .”
“And the impact of their testimony in front of a jury would have been unbelievable,” Zack ruminated. “Micah, you’re a private dick, right?”
“Right?”
“You find missing people, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Find them, dammit!”
“Way ahead of you on that score. My guys are turning the area upside down as we speak. If the families are still around town, we’ll find them. We did it once—we can do it again.” He tried to convince himself, as well as Zack Blake.
“That’s what I want to hear! Go do your fucking job! Seriously, Micah, if you’re doing everything you can possibly do to find them, what more can I ask? Keep me posted.”
“I will, Zack. I won’t sleep until I find them,” Micah promised.
“I know you’ll do your best.”
Zack hung up the phone. What a colossal blunder! Micah had done a great job on this case. He found the priors, the investigating cop, the plea agreement, and the families, only to lose them.
Can I win the case without them? He doubted it. Oh, he’d win all right. He’d get a large verdict against the priest—a penniless scumbag cloaked with a vow of poverty. The church’s contribution would be nothing compared to the size of the verdict. It might be a nice payday. He’d do the best he could with what he had and let the chips fall where they may. He still had a good case. The jury would hate Bartholomew. Perhaps they’d punish the church for the sin of employing him. The families might still show up. Did he have enough evidence to convince a jury the church knew of Bartholomew’s propensities and covered it up? Jack could convince them of that, couldn’t he? Maybe. His whole case was now reduced to a big maybe.
Chapter Fifty
Zachary Blake spent the rest of the week in his office, researching the law and preparing his trial brief. He constructed proposed jury instructions and voir dire (questions asked of proposed jurors to determine whether they were suitable to serve on the jury). He went over proposed testimony with the Tracey family and Dr. Rothenberg. The boys still found it difficult to talk about their ordeal, but Rothenberg had done a marvelous job. In sample video testimony, the boys were articulate, direct, and sympathetic. Jennifer was compelling, describing shock and pain upon discovering the repulsive betrayal of faith and the severe emotional and physical harm done to her children.
Rothenberg was strong and professional. He was, with Zack’s expert testimonial coaching support, able to describe the family’s trauma understandably and humanly, without resorting to complicated medical terminology. Zack gave each of them copies of their depositions and instructed them to review the transcript so their testimony would be consistent with the depos.
Zack spent hours on the phone with Walsh, faxing proposed jury instructions, back and forth, in an effort to focus the areas of disagreement. The trial judge would appreciate the effort but would expect no less. The more trial lawyers agreed upon, the easier the judge’s job. Zack did not want to try his case before a pissed-off judge.
Trial would begin the following day. Zack and Jennifer had just finished eating takeout dinner. He was working on a most crucial phase of the trial, his opening statement. Zack believed trials could be won and lost on opening remarks. Jennifer was scrolling through her phone.
Zack had difficulty with the opening. An opening statement is a promise of proof. The attorney informs the jury what the evidence will show. Make promises during the opening; keep those promises during the trial. He wanted to be able to prove everything he promised.
He could prove Bartholomew molested the boys and sought to cover up his acts. He could prove Bartholomew molested other children and covered up those acts as well. He could prove the abuse had a devastating and traumatic impact on the boys’ lives and the life of their mother.
Zack could not directly prove, however, the church’s knowledge of the predator priest’s vile propensities prior to the boys’ molestation. He had evidence to suggest knowledge and cover-up, but no smoking gun. The church would argue Bartholomew duped them, the same way he duped victims’ families. Officials would claim as soon as Bartholomew’s behavior was brought to their attention, they suspended him and offered treatment to his victims, performed brilliantly by the church’s own doctor, Dr. Rothenberg.
It was a compelling argument. After all, who’d care to believe the church would sanction and cover up such abhorrent behavior? What direct proof did Zachary have to support his contentions? If he couldn’t prove them, should he offer to do so in his opening? Hence, his dilemma, but what real choice did Zach have? He had to provide proof of the church’s direct involvement. There would be no chance of a verdict against the church unless he made the offer of proof and figured out a way to prove it.
Concern about substance morphed into concern about style. Blake bought a full-length mirror and attached it to the back of his office door. He hadn’t tried a jury case in years, and even when he was trying them successfully, he was never the great orator. The only way to overcome that problem was to rehearse, so he stood in front of the mirror, notes in his hand, uncomfortable with how he looked in his own eyes.
“This is the first of two opportunities I will have to address you directly, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. Is it too obvious a way to open? Don’t the jurors already know that? “This presentation is called the opening statement.”
He saw Jennifer in the reflection. She’d stopped looking at her phone and was watching him. Their eyes met, and then she looked away, seeking something else to occupy herself. She settled on the remnants of dinner.
“It’s my opportunity as the plaintiff’s lawyer to tell you what I intend to prove,” Zack continued. No, he thought, that’s using opportunity too much. “Its purpose is for the lawyers to tell you what they intend to prove.” That’s better. “This is very important because the second—”
Jennifer dropped a paper cup, and ice spilled across the floor. “Sorry,” she apologized.
Zack, distracted, tried not to break stride. “The second time I address you will be when we’re all done here.” No, that’s not right. Sounds too casual . . . “will be at the end of the trial. That address is called the closing argument.”
The ruckus of ice being dumped into the bathroom sink interrupted him a second time. “Sorry again,” Jennifer squeaked, embarrassed, returning to the room. She crumpled up papers and bags from the table.
“At that time, I will summarize the evidence submitted in proof of the case. Why is this important? Because, and listen—”
He glanced at Jennifer, standing behind him, looking at him in the mirror. “Can I get by you for a second. I need to take out the trash.”
It took every ounce of patience Zack could muster not to toss his notes into the air in frustration. “Listen,” he sighed, trying not to sound as annoyed as he felt, “maybe you should head home for the night. I’m going to be at this for a while, and I need some quiet time.”
“Oh . . .” she sputtered. “Oh . . . okay. I get it. I’ll drop this by the dumpster on my way out.”
She backtracked, gathered her purse and coat, and gave Zack a peck on the cheek. “Sounds good so far,” she encouraged. “I’m sure you’re going to do great.”
After Jennifer left, Zack worked his way back into the proper frame of mind. When trying a case to a jury, He preferred to stand at a podium, pages of notes on its surface, politely shifting his gaze back and forth from the jury to his notes. Zack has no idea what Walsh’s style was, but he wanted desperately to speak from the heart to this jury, in this trial. He spent h
ours fine-tuning the statement, pacing the room, talking to his invisible jury, critiquing his own performance. He was dissatisfied, but worse, he couldn’t complete his masterpiece unless he could prove the church’s involvement. As he was completing a final draft, the telephone rang. Blake picked up the receiver.
“Zachary Blake.”
“Mr. Blake?”
“Who’s this?” Blake queried, suspicious.
“A friend,” a voice whispered, male, young perhaps, late twenties, early thirties.
“What can I do for you, friend?”
“More a matter of what I can do for you, Mr. Blake.” The stranger offered an olive branch.
“Okay. What can you do for me?” Blake was cautiously intrigued.
“Within the church hierarchy, there’s an organization known as ‘the Coalition.’ It operates in secret and handles matters that may embarrass the church. Its primary function is to prevent scandal so the church may continue to work to better society.”
“Go on,” Blake encouraged.
“Over the past several years, a disturbing trend began to surface among the clergy. We discovered an alarming number of priests worldwide had been sexually abusing young male parishioners. While the number is relatively small, the trend is disturbing. The ratio for our clergy is higher than that of abusers to normal men in other occupations.”
“Gerry Bartholomew is one of those priests,” Blake concluded.
“I’m afraid he is. His tendencies were known as far back as the seminary. He received extensive treatment and our psychiatrists pronounced him fit for parish placement.”
“Incredible,” Blake exclaimed. “According to my research for this case, pedophilia is a treatable, but incurable condition. The worst place for a pedophile is a church.”
“Probably true, Mr. Blake, but with a frightening shortage of priests and a forgiving platform, our natural tendency is to forgive, attempt treatment, and permit these men to resume their calling. Psychiatrists assured us, with treatment, these men learn to control their urges. We determined it was the human thing to do.”
