the tone of my voice. “Every diocese in this country has been rocked by these scandals. The settlement numbers are over four billion dollars now, and at least six dioceses have had to file for bankruptcy. They’re closing down churches and parochial schools all over the country. Parishioners in the poorest communities are suffering, and it’s primarily because of the failure of the Mother Church to confront this issue for more than fifty—
“That’s not my client’s fault.”
“I’m well aware of that, Sheila. But Deegan has been part of the problem. Philadelphia, Your Honor, and Boston, for example, are places typical for the kinds of reports that are involved. Their diocesan personnel files show that more than seven percent of the priests in their cities had been accused of abusing children in the last half century. At least seven percent. And you know what the numbers are in New York?”
Keets lowered his glasses and made notes as I talked. “Go on.”
“One point three percent. The lowest in all 195 dioceses in the country.”
“How fortunate for the children of New York,” Enright said with obvious sarcasm.
I couldn’t think of the legal term of art for the word “bullshit.” “That’s absurd and you know it. It’s totally artificial.”
“Ladies, ladies. Let’s not have a catfight,” Keets said. “What reason would you offer for that, Alexandra?”
“Two things, Your Honor. First is that our numbers are ridiculously low because we have the most restrictive statute of limitations of any state. There are many, many more reports, but they aren’t legally viable because the complaints came in too late.”
“You mean that in most jurisdictions, the reporting can be done for a period of time after the youths have attained majority?”
“Yes, sir. That’s so very logical. Most minors don’t have the knowledge or wherewithal to take on the church at such a young age. So the statutes have been extended. And secondly, we’re the only city in which prosecutors have been denied access to the chancery’s records.”
“There are no chancery records here,” Enright said. “Didn’t you listen to the bishop?”
“Isn’t it lucky that Deegan hasn’t been hit by a bus, Sheila? Or lost his head?” I said, thinking of the body I had seen just hours earlier. “Fifty years of unholy acts right out the window, ’cause the only place they were tracked in the entire archdiocese is in the bishop’s eighty-year-old cranium. That’s what the secret archives are about.”
Barry and I had piqued Lyle Keets’s interest. “Step back, ladies. I’ll let you run with this a bit, Alexandra.”
Enright was practically frothing at the mouth as she continued to object. “But — but Ms. Cooper is going way beyond—”
“I’ve heard enough, Ms. Enright,” Keets said, pointing a finger at her. “Will you resume your seat, Your Grace?”
I waited until the bishop arranged himself in the wooden chair and looked at me. “Would you explain to the court, sir, what the secret archives are?”
Deegan frowned and paused for an objection, but none followed.
“Am I correct that this diocese has such archives?”
“Yes, Ms. Cooper. It’s a canonical requirement that every diocese has them,” Deegan said, now turning his body toward the judge. “The ‘secretive’ designation really means only that certain documents are set aside, Your Honor. Historical papers, if you will, that relate to the founding of the diocese and such things. It’s not as mystical as it sounds.”
“If one of your colleagues were to receive a complaint about a priest’s misbehavior?…”
“What kind of misbehavior, madam?”
“Any kind. Liturgical or theological,” I said. “Even sexual. Anything deleterious to a priest’s reputation or career. Would that complaint be written up for the secret archives, in addition to being stored in your memory bank?”
Whatever these archives held, it was obvious that Deegan thought I was prying open Pandora’s box. He didn’t want to answer any questions.
“Sorry?” he said, leaning forward to better hear me, I thought.
But he was drawn to the opening of the courtroom door behind me, so I turned to look as well. A man entered alone, his dark hair slicked back, disappearing behind his long neck into the scarf he wore. It looked as though he had on a clerical collar beneath his winter coat. He was wearing sunglasses, which made it difficult to discern his features, but his skin was such a ghostly shade of white that it seemed he hadn’t been exposed to daylight in ages.
I repeated my question, shifting position so that I could follow the spectator’s movement. He seated himself in the next to the last row behind Denys Koslawski — the groom’s side of the aisle, as Mike liked to call it. It seemed as though Bishop Deegan nodded at him, almost imperceptibly.
“No, Ms. Cooper. Nothing like that exists in the secret archives of this diocese.” Each word was delivered with emphatic confidence.
“Would it be possible, sir, for me to examine those—”
“Objection, Your Honor. Did I say this was a fishing expedition, or what?”
“Sustained, Ms. Enright.”
What I couldn’t get one way I would try to do another. I would be permitted to continue my cross if the candor of the witness himself were at issue, as I believed it to be. “Are you aware, Bishop Deegan, of how many claims of sexual abuse in this diocese were settled out of court?”
“I’m afraid I cannot say.”
“Because that information is not ‘up here’?” I asked, mimicking his motion of tapping the side of his head.
He snapped back a reply. “Because there are things called confidentiality agreements in such lawsuits, Ms. Cooper.”
“Yes, of course, Bishop Deegan. So then you are aware of the claims?”
“Objection!”
“Sustained. Ms. Cooper,” Lyle Keets said, clearly growing annoyed with my line of questioning.
“For what reason, Bishop, did Denys Koslawski leave the diocese?”
His trembling hand reached for another sip of water. The lone spectator stood up and moved a few rows closer to the front of the room. The dark glasses hid his expression from me and blocked his features, but his skin seemed rough with angry red blisters on one cheek.
“Do you recall?”
The bishop’s voice was softer now. “It was a medical dismissal.”
“Medical?” I asked, trying not to show my surprise. I liked to prep my cases with a nod to the axiom that advised not asking a question to which one didn’t know the answer. I wasn’t expecting this one.
“Entirely that,” the bishop said, picking up his head with renewed satisfaction and smiling at Koslawski — or the man who had come in to observe.
“And what condition might that be?” I asked as the Mike Chapman voice that often played in my brain despite my best efforts to keep it at arm’s length was laughing and repeating the word “priapism”—the persistent, painful erection of the penis.
“Objection. Mr. Koslawski’s health condition is privileged.”
“Hardly, Judge. The bishop was not his physician.”
“I’ll allow it. Go ahead and answer, Your Grace.”
“Hepatitis. Denys suffered from hepatitis, which required a lengthy period of hospitalization and recovery.”
“And did you ever hear, Bishop Deegan, that Father Koslawski — before suffering this medical setback — had invited a teenage boy to his room in the rectory and engaged him in oral sex?”
“No, I certainly did not.”
“And would you agree with me, sir, that such conduct would not only be ‘improvident,’ to borrow a phrase from you, but that it would also be illegal?”
