We? There was no one else on the street—no cars, no pedestrians—which was absolutely normal for Maple Street at nine a.m.
I said, “Are you threatening me?” And when he didn’t answer, I dug into my enormous handbag, filled with baby things, and searched for my phone.
I felt ridiculous, but I said, “I’m calling for help.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Do it. Go ahead.”
Then he stepped on the gas, and his car shot down the street like a missile. I memorized his license plate, and once I’d settled Gilly into her office crib, I called the sheriff.
“A lot of people are mad at you JMJ’ers, Dr. F.,” said Sheriff Munroe. “Just avoid this guy. He’s just shooting off his mouth.”
My next call was to my attorney, Kyle Richardson. I told him that I’d been threatened by someone who had acted truly crazy. “I have his plate number.”
Kyle made calls, and by the end of the day, I knew the name of the man who’d said I was working for the devil, and that he meant to stop me.
His name was Lawrence House, and he was a former town councilman, now divorced, but, according to police reports, he didn’t consider the divorce to be valid.
Kyle told me, “His ex-wife has complained about him, but she didn’t make it official. The cops went to her place a few times, walked him out, and warned him not to bother her or the children, and he backed off. He doesn’t have a record.”
That Sunday, JMJ was packed again. The young people in Millbrook weren’t discouraged by the press gaggle lining the street. In fact, many of them waved at the cameras and even spoke with reporters before going inside.
James was giving his homily when a man stood up several rows back from where I was sitting with Gilly and shouted, “None of you are Catholics! You will be damned to hell. Especially you, James Aubrey. Especially you, Brigid Fitzgerald.”
It was Lawrence House.
As ushers tried to escort House out of the church, he got away from them and pulled a gun. I saw the flash of metal in his hand. Adrenaline shot my heart into overdrive.
I yelled, “Everyone get down!”
The family in the pew in front of me dove for the floor. Pews tipped, making shocking cracks against the floorboards, and people screamed. I hid behind the pew and covered Gilly’s body, but in my mind, I saw that lunatic level his gun at James.
James said calmly, “Guns don’t belong in the house of God.”
“I have a carry license!” House shouted. “I can bring it anywhere.”
Pandemonium erupted as some people tried to hide and others broke for the doors. Everything happened so fast that when I looked up, I was surprised to see that James and several of the young men in the congregation had tackled House and were holding him down.
I scooped up the gun from where it had fallen as if I were fielding a bunt, and then I called the police.
This time, they came.
Chapter 96
THEY MET over drinks in the archbishop’s office at the end of the day.
Cardinal Cooney was cheerful. The men assembled around the fine cherrywood conference table in the plain, white room were the best lawyers in the city and probably the state.
Cooney knew all four of them personally and well: Harrington, Leibowitz, Flanagan, and Salerno. He played golf with them and belonged to the same political party, banked in the same banks. There were two other people at the table, his right-hand man, Father Peter Sebastian, who was Harvard Law, and Fiona Horsfall, a public-relations heavyweight.
They had worked together and had contained most of the garbage that had come out about the Boston Archdiocese after James Aubrey had been exonerated. After Aubrey got off scot-free from the charges against him, Horsfall had fashioned a campaign to make both him and the Church look as good as possible.
That wouldn’t be their goal today.
Cooney made sure everyone was comfortable, then said, “It starts with Aubrey. He’s the match to the gasoline. Breakaway churches are bad enough, but a runaway trend is intolerable.
“Peter. You went to the wedding. Tell us about it.”
Father Sebastian clasped his hands together in front of him on the table and talked about Jesus Mary Joseph Catholic Church.
“It’s about three thousand square feet and almost primitive. I sat through the Mass, and Aubrey is charismatic in the modern sense of the word. He could have done well in politics. He’s freewheeling. He does a credible job, but he makes off-handed comments. He answers questions during the service. He reads messages about headlights being left on in the parking lot.
“What he lacks in gravitas, he makes up in sociability. I think he can move people. Well, that’s self-evident.”
Cooney said, “Thank you, Peter. I guess Jesus had some of these traits, which is why I boil Aubrey’s influence down to one word. ‘Dangerous.’
“Right now, we have the upper hand,” Cooney said to the group. “What’s our best move? Can we sue him for abuse of the word ‘Catholic’ when he defies the legitimate doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church?”