The 7th Canon (30 page)

Devine’s chest sunk. He pinched his nostrils and cleared his throat.

Ross turned to Donley. “Allergies. I hate those. I hear stress can trigger them. You stressed, Jack?”

Devine removed an inhaler from his pants pocket and took a puff. Donley thought the man might have a heart attack right on the spot.

“We’re not with the press,” Ross said, “and we’re not the police. So pull your panties out of your ass, and don’t start hyperventilating on me.” Ross pointed a thumb at Donley. “He represents the priest. I know you know the story, so don’t bullshit us and say you don’t.”

“I can get you ten names that will all say I was here that night.” Devine sounded like a man trying to hold his breath while talking.

“You told the reporter fifty. You lost forty alibis already?” Ross said. “That’s not good.”

“I haven’t been back to San Francisco in over a year,” Devine rushed.

“You’re not missing much,” Ross said. “A lot of construction. And traffic is still the shits.”

“What is it you want?”

Donley said, “We want to know more about the victim, about what happened between the two of you.”

“Victim?” Devine scoffed and rubbed a hand over his head as if feeling for a stray hair. Finally, he said, “Why would you want to know anything about that?”

“Because I think it might help my client. Because I think somebody is trying to frame him for a crime he didn’t commit.”

Devine closed his eyes. “God help him if they are.”

“Why is that?” Donley asked.

Gravel crushed beneath shoes. The young woman who had been at the counter walked toward them. “Have a good night, Jack.” She forced an uncertain smile before getting into a blue Toyota.

Devine gave Ross and Donley a nod to follow him. They walked through the door at the back of the building and passed several stainless-steel vats with pipes extending in various directions. At the top of a metal staircase, they followed Devine into a spacious office. Large picture windows faced the vineyards, offering a view of a fading winter sun that left traces of red and purple along the horizon. At the bottom of the valley, surrounded by a plush green lawn and oak trees, was what Donley presumed to be Devine’s house and, next to it, a children’s playground, complete with slides, swings, and forts, all being doused in the arc of water from a sprinkler.

“Have a seat,” Devine said.

Ross and Donley sat in two of three chairs on the opposite side of an oak drafting table Devine used as a desk. His chair faced the windows. The wall behind him included framed awards for his winery and the wines it produced.

“What is it you want to know?” Devine did not hide his impatience.

Donley gathered his thoughts. The trick was to ask questions without sounding like it, and to take paths not expected. “We already have much of the police report,” he said to make Devine believe he couldn’t hide anything and shouldn’t try.

Devine’s cheeks flushed. “That file was supposed to be sealed.”

“It is,” Donley assured him, though he didn’t know. “But people aren’t as anal about those kinds of things after the person is dead. Given the nature of this crime, I argued it was relevant to my client’s defense. Your name was expunged from the record.”

“Then how did you find me?”

“I found the reporter who wrote the story,” Ross said. “Your name was not expunged from the newspapers.”

“Don’t remind me. It nearly ruined me. It nearly ruined my marriage. I was humiliated. We had to leave everything behind and start over.”

Devine was whining again, and Donley couldn’t muster sympathy for an acknowledged pedophile living the lifestyle of the rich and famous while his former victim lay on a slab in the morgue. But now was not the time to tell Jack Devine the newspaper was about to do a rerun.

“It must have been terrible for you and your family,” he said, the words leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. “I can only imagine there was a tremendous amount of pain for all of you.”

Devine nodded. “It was my kids I worried about. I have two boys.”

Donley pointed to a picture on the shelf behind Devine. “They look like you. How old are they?”

Devine retrieved the picture. “Kevin is nine. Mark is seven.”

“They’re good-looking boys.” Donley smiled.

Devine put the picture down. The red had faded from his cheeks. “Obviously, they know nothing about any of this. And I plan to keep it that way.”

“I understand,” Donley said. “No reason not to.”

Devine continued. “I’m in counseling now. It was mandatory at first, but I continue to attend on my own.” Donley nodded. Devine kept talking. “My wife’s family wanted her to divorce me, but we got through it.”

Which explained the winery, restaurant, and otherwise cushy lifestyle—his wife’s family might hate Jack Devine, but they loved their daughter and grandchildren, and were likely footing the bill to keep their daughter and grandchildren in the style to which they had become accustomed. Donley wondered how voluntary Devine’s attendance at the counseling sessions really was. He guessed Jack was kept on a short leash.

“I’m trying to rebuild my business . . . and my family,” Divine said, making the latter sound almost like an afterthought.

“That’s admirable of you,” Donley said.

Ross interrupted. “What can you tell us about Andrew Bennet?”

Devine made a face. “He was a despicable character. Don’t get me wrong—”

“Wouldn’t want to do that,” Ross mumbled.

“I’m not happy that he’s dead, but I’m not going to shed any tears, either. He ruined my life.”

I’m sure you didn’t do a lot for his life, either,
Donley thought but did not say. “How did you meet him?”

Devine stared at his desk. “I was partying a lot back then; it was part of the nightclub scene.” He reached into his pocket and took out a tube of ChapStick, applying it as he spoke. “When I was at the club, four or five people a night would buy me a vodka or want me to do a bump in the bathroom. My wife partied as much as I did, though her family doesn’t know that.” Divine looked out the window and rubbed a finger over his lips, spreading the lip balm. “It was a business, and I did what needed to be done to make the business succeed. The nightclub did well from the start because of me, but the restaurant took more time. You have to develop an identity and get some publicity. My wife’s family had some connections. Her father made a couple of telephone calls, and we were featured in the
Chronicle
. I used to keep the article framed on the wall in the restaurant.”

“How often did you see Bennet?” Donley asked.

“Who?”

“The victim.”

“Not often. He lied. He told me he was eighteen.”

“How did you find him when you wanted to see him?”

Devine shrugged. “I asked for Alphabet. That was the name I knew. I’d send my wife home and tell her I was going to close. There were places to go.”

“How did he blackmail you?” Ross asked, clearly wanting Devine to get on with it.

“How?”

“Yes, how? Did he send a letter, stop by the house—”

Devine closed his eyes and shook his head. “I wish. The little fucker had a video.”

Ross and Donley exchanged a glance.

“How did he get a video?” Donley asked.

Devine gave them a grim look. “I was so stupid,” he said. “At first, we stayed in my car. I stuck with him, you know, in case the police were doing an undercover thing.”

Donley wanted to vomit. Frank Ross looked like he’d bit into a lemon.

“One night he told me about a place he wanted to take me, a room below a video store on O’Farrell. A party room. I was pretty wasted and wasn’t thinking clearly. We went there, and he turned on this strobe light and loud music. I couldn’t see or hear anything.” Devine cleared his throat and looked out the window. “They filmed us.”

“They?” Donley asked.

“Well, I assume he had someone else filming. He had to, didn’t he? Anyway, he must have seen the article in the
Chronicle
about the restaurant with my picture and name because he showed up at work one night and had a waiter hand me a copy of the videotape. I met him in the alley in back. He asked for five hundred dollars.”

“And you paid it,” Ross said.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“But he didn’t go away,” Donley said.

“No,” Devine said. “He said he had copies. When I told him I wouldn’t pay any more, he threatened to mail the tape to my wife. He threatened to go to my boys’ school and put it in the VCR. I was up against the wall. The restaurant wasn’t doing well. Two of my chefs had quit. I couldn’t handle it anymore. So I went to the police. Then I had to tell my wife.”

Donley had no doubt that was the order of Devine’s confessions. “Did the investigation reveal the names of the other boys who did the filming?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m curious,” Ross asked. “How did you get the DA not to prosecute you, to let you go without even having to register as a sex offender?”

Divine shrugged. “I don’t know. I left that to my father-in-law and his lawyer. He knew the governor.”

“Augustus Ramsey?” Ross asked.

Devine nodded. “They knew each other through the Bohemian Club. They golfed together on Saturdays.”

“Outside you said, ‘God help him’ when I said I thought someone was trying to frame my client,” Donley said. “Why did you say that?”

Devine looked to the window before reengaging Donley. “Because of something he said to me once when I told him I wouldn’t pay.”

“Bennet?”

Divine nodded. “He said he had a lot of tapes of people like me. And he said he was going to make them all pay.”

“And you believe that to be true?” Donley asked.

Devine looked off again, like he was seeing all the way back to those years. “I called his bluff once and paid for it with my life,” he said. “I wasn’t about to call his bluff again.”

They drove along the same dirt path, away from the winery. With the sun having set, Ross turned on the Cadillac’s headlights. The beams cast two funnel cones on the road and shimmered in the brush and tree branches. In town, the remaining storefronts in Saint Helena had darkened, the old-fashioned street lamps lighting the streets. It wasn’t for half an hour, until they reached the freeway and started south, that Ross spoke, his voice subdued.

“I have to commend you. I wanted to reach across the desk and tear his face off. Tell me where in life it says that guys like Jack Devine
always
end up on their feet? Why is that?”

“It’s just the way it is,” Donley said. “You know that. We all know that. People say the justice system is color-blind, but it isn’t. It sees color, and it sees green. It will always see green. We like to think our courts are the great equalizer between the powerful and the powerless, but more times than not, money and power still prevail. To the Jack Devines of this world, Bennet wasn’t the victim because in Jack Devine’s way of thinking, everything was OK because he paid for it.”

“Bennet was just trying to survive,” Ross said. “He wouldn’t have been doing it if it wasn’t for the Jack Devines of the world.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Donley replied.

“He’s not even sorry. That’s what pisses me off most. I could tell watching him sitting there that the son of a bitch wasn’t even sorry for what he did.”

“I once heard a judge tell a defendant there was a difference between being sorry for his actions and being sorry he got caught,” Donley said. “I agree with you. Jack Devine is only sorry he got caught.”

“He’s not on the road to recovery; he’s on the road dictated to him by his wife and his father-in-law,” Ross said.

“You’re probably right.” Donley watched the yellow line at the side of the road blur past the window. “That’s why I kept thinking about his kids.”

Ross remained agitated. “Don’t worry about them. I’ll bet old Jack doesn’t spend much quality time alone with the boys.”

“They’re suffering just the same,” Donley said. “They’re growing up with a bad father, which is worse than growing up without a father. When I was a kid, all I wanted was for my father to leave.” He continued to focus on the hypnotic yellow line. “It wasn’t until Benny was born and I sat in that hospital room holding him and thinking of all the things we would do together, all the things I would teach him, that I realized the beatings weren’t the worst part about having a bad father. The worst part was all those things my father could have offered me and didn’t, all the things he could have been for me and wasn’t.”

Frank Ross adjusted in his seat. “I’m sorry.”

Donley didn’t respond.

“So, that’s the demon you’re trying to exorcise.”

Donley looked at him, half his face in the shadows. “You said you hated nights—that you couldn’t sleep because that was when you were alone with
your
demons? You couldn’t have hated nights more than I hated them. My demon was flesh and blood, and usually drunk.”

They sat somber, like two penitents. In the distance, one of the spires of the Golden Gate Bridge peaked over the ridge, red lights flashing a warning to planes. Beyond the spire, the lights from the San Francisco skyline were a soft glow in the darkening sky.