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.”