Death Qualified (38 page)

    "Afraid so. Since tomorrow's Friday, summations probably won't start until Monday, and then Lundgren will instruct the jury, and we wait it out."

    Mike looked startled.

    "I didn't realize that Nell wouldn't speak for herself," he said carefully.

    Frank grunted.

    "Let me tell you a story about when I was a kid," he said.

    "About eight. We had neighbors with two boys, one my age, and one about four. One Easter they got two little chicks, one dyed green, one blue. Fluffy little things, you know, barely big enough to walk alone.

    Well, that little one loved them to beat the band. He stroked them, and put them up to his cheek and kissed them, first one, then the other. Gentle, sweet, my God, he was unbelievable, considering his age. Just about four.

    And then, he had one in his hands and he began to squeeze, and he kept squeezing. His old man paddled him good, but his brother told me that the next day he got his hands on the other one." He lifted his coffee cup and finished drinking.

    For a few seconds Mike looked blank, as if he was waiting for the story to end; then he blinked in comprehension.

    "Oh," he said, very softly.

    Frank excused himself then, and when they were alone, Barbara said, "I'll be working on my summation over the next few days. I'd like to practice on you, if you wouldn't object. You and Dad."

    "I would be honored," he said seriously; then a big grin broke out on his face.

    "Am I allowed to make comments?"

    "That's the whole point," she said.

    "But if you use a certain tone of voice, or laugh, or point out too many inconsistencies, or do anything else I find offensive, then I get to hit you."

    He considered it.

    "I'll try to do it right."

    He was watching her again with that look of hesitant discovery that she had found so confusing. It still was.

    "This has been a very nice evening, Mike. Thanks. I was wound as tight as the springs could get. This has been good. Even if I don't quite understand how it happened," she added.

    "Well, that part's simple. Your old man said, hey, bud, she's a woman doing a job you find incomprehensible.

    And you're a man doing a job we both find incomprehensible.

    And the lights came on for me. It all became very simple."

    "You have a formula, an equation?"

    He shook his head.

    "Still working on it."

    "Let me know if you find it," she said.

    "Maybe it will be one even I can understand." Then her father returned, and they got up to start for home.

    TWENTY-FIVE

    the new attorney was Gregory Erlich, a very tall, very thin man of middle age, with tremendous energy and a booming voice. Ichabod Crane with a backbone, Barbara thought, studying him. A chair was brought forward for him and placed midway between the defense and prosecution tables. He smiled at everyone, and even his teeth looked too energetic; they were very large teeth.

    Barbara had the last question read by the clerk: "Dr.

    Brandywine, did you go to the bank with Lucas Kendricks on November 16, 1982, and stand by him while he closed his checking account?"

    Ruth Brandywine said in a thoughtful manner, "I went to the bank with Tom Mann on one of his lucid days. I have no way of knowing what the precise date was."

    "What did he do with the money he withdrew?"

    "I don't know."

    "Did he put it in his pocket?"

    "I said I don't know. I wasn't watching."

    "And then what did you do that day?"

    "I took him back to my house."

    "And resumed treatment?"

    "Yes."

    "He was calm, controlled, capable of conducting his own business at the bank?"

    "Under supervision only."

    "But you didn't feel the need to watch him closely. Dr.

    Brandywine, you said earlier that he was immobilized for many weeks, not capable until December. Which is right?"

    "He was incapable for most of the time, but he had lucid moments."

    "Did he have his checkbook with him that day?"

    "I don't know."

    "You can't just walk into a bank and say, "Give me my money," now, can you? Is that how they do it at Boulder Bank?" She let the sarcasm and disbelief come through with the words and turned her back on the witness chair.

    "I wasn't watching his minute-by-minute actions," Ruth Brandywine said coldly.

    "I was observing his general behavior.

    I don't know how he withdrew money if that is what he did."

    "How did you treat Lucas Kendricks?"

    "Objection," Tony called.

    "The witness has stated many times that she knew her patient by the name of Tom Mann."

    "Sustained," Judge Lundgren said.

    Barbara bowed her head slightly and rephrased the question.

    "Dr. Brandywine, how did you treat the young man you call Tom Mann?"

    "Your Honor," Gregory Erlich said, and he was on his feet and halfway to the witness chair before he finished the two words.

    "If I may...."

    Judge Lundgren drew in a breath and spoke to the clerk, who instructed the bailiff to take the jury to the deliberation room. The look he gave Barbara while this was happening was baleful, as if to say, now it starts. Then they all waited for Gregory Erlich and Ruth Brandywine to conclude their whispered conference.

    Erlich finally withdrew from her and approached the bench.

    "Your Honor, may I?" he asked, but he was already there.

    Judge Lundgren beckoned Tony and Barbara to come forward also.

    "Yes, Mr. Erlich? What is it?"

    "Your Honor, I have instructed my client that she cannot be forced to betray the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship with Tom Mann. She will have to refuse to answer any questions pertaining to any details of his medical treatments under her care. May I suggest that it will save much time if counsel simply abandons that line of questioning."

    "Your Honor," Barbara said swiftly in a furious voice, "the witness has already opened that door with her vivid descriptions of the patient, complete with diagnosis. I intend to prove that the treatment she administered was inappropriate for the condition she has described."

    "Give me a break," Tony muttered.

    "What difference does it make? All that's irrelevant, and you know it."

    Judge Lundgren held up his hand for silence, his thin, ascetic face very pale, his lips so tight they were pale.

    "You may not pursue that line of questions," he said to Barbara.

    "I rule that the doctor-patient relationship is to be respected in this court. Now, let's get on with it."

    "Dr. Brandywine, are you the author of this article?"

    Barbara held up a copy of a journal, opened to an article titled "New Approaches to Understanding Why They Believe."

    "Yes."

    "In the article you describe your methods for learning the most deeply held beliefs of adolescents. Is that right?"

    "The article can't be summed up like that--" "I quoted from the box caption accompanying the article," Barbara said.

    "Dr. Brandywine, did you hypnotize children and ask them questions concerning their beliefs?"

    Erlich was on his feet, moving like lightning to her side, and this time Barbara said in her sharpest tone, "It's published, it's public information, you gave a paper about it.

    Did your method involve hypnotizing children?"

    "Objection. This is irrelevant," Tony said.

    "Overruled," Judge Lundgren said tiredly and motioned to the bailiff.

    The jury was led out again; the conference was held in whispers; the jury returned, and finally after ten minutes Barbara got an answer.

    "Yes. That is standard procedure for that kind of inquiry."

    "Did you coauthor this article--" Again and again the play was enacted. She asked questions, the jury filed out, Erlich and Brandy wine conferred, then the jury filed back in, Erlich resumed his seat, and some of the times Brandywine answered the question asked.

    She had done a study with Herbert Margolis. They had used a hypnotized subject to investigate the ability of the human eye to compensate for incompletion of a computer image. The subject was identified only by initials: LK.

    "Who was the subject?"

    "I don't know."

    "Did you hypnotize him yourself?"

    "Yes."

    "Did you recognize him?"

    "I don't remember who it was."

    "My question was did you recognize him?"

    Deliberately Ruth Brandywine said, "I don't remember."

    She admitted to doing a paper with Walter Schumaker, again using a hypnotized subject, again identified only by the initials: LK.

    "Was it the same person?"

    "Probably, but I don't remember. That was a long time ago."

    Some of the jurors were starting to look grim and angry, Judge Lundgren looked no less grim and angry, and now his anger had begun to generalize and was no longer concentrated solely on Barbara. He was starting to regard Gregory Erlich with a frown as the lawyer hopped up and darted to his client again and again.

    "Tom Mann lived in student housing facilities, is that right?"

    "I believe he did."

    "Yes. And he had meal tickets that provided his meals.

    Altogether, the college brochure indicates that the room and board comes to five thousand eight hundred dollars a year. In your perpetuation of testimony you stated that he paid for his accommodations himself. I ask you now, who paid for Tom Mann's accommodations?"

    "I don't know," she said. The expression of her face never changed. Her voice became sharp now and again, and her gaze swept the courtroom now and again, but for what purpose was impossible to say; her facial muscles might have been carved from wood.

    "Bills are regularly sent for room and board," Barbara said, enunciating each word as if their problem was one of understanding language.

    "Where were his bills sent?"

    "All his bills were sent to my office," she said after a slight pause.

    "Did you pay those bills?"

    "No. Other arrangements were made."

    "Who paid his bills, Dr. Brandywine?"

    There was another conference, a lengthy one this time, and when Erlich sat down again, Ruth Brandywine looked cooler and more remote than ever.

    "Who paid his bills?" Barbara repeated after the jury was seated once more.

    "I sent all his bills to the office of Dr. Schumaker. Presumably his office paid them."

    "Is that Dr. Walter Schumaker, the same man who did the study with you, co authored the paper with you?"

    "Yes."

    "And used a hypnotized subject whose initials were

    LK?"

    "Yes," she snapped. "In your statement you said that Tom Mann got a job with the maintenance staff at the college. He was not listed on the payroll, no taxes were collected for him, no medical insurance issued. Who paid his salary, Dr. Brandywine?"

    "The psychology department paid him a stipend."

    "Oh? The department? Or your office?"

    "My office."

    "Your own discretionary funds?"

    " Yes. That happens."

    "How much did you pay him?"

    "I don't know. It was insignificant, money for his personal needs. All his major needs were taken care of."

    "Twenty dollars a week? Thirty?"

    "I said I don't know."

    "You treated him for a number of years, seven years in all. You must have learned something of his habits, his life-style. Did he read books?"

    "No."

    "Did he buy albums, listen to music?"

    "Not that I know."

    "Did he have any outside interests? Art, perhaps?

    Sports?"

    "Nothing like that. He watched television."

    "So this young man worked, ate his meals in the cafeteria, called at your office for treatment regularly, and that was the whole of his life. Is that what you are telling us?"

    "His life was better than it would have been in an institution, and that was the alternative."

    "You provided all that at your own expense? You paid him, in fact, to cut grass and weed the flower beds at the college. Why? What else was he doing for you?"

    "I was basing research on his mental condition," she said grimly.

    "Did your research require you to hypnotize him regularly?"

    Dr. Brandywine looked at Gregory Erlich, who obligingly stopped the questioning for another conference.

    Afterward, he again approached the bench. Tony and Barbara joined him.

    "Your Honor," Erlich said, "my client was doing very sensitive and proprietary research using the young man as her subject. The nature of her work requires complete confidentiality at all stages until she has concluded her research and published the results. We submit that further questions regarding it will be inappropriate and irrelevant to the case being heard in this court."

    "Your Honor," Barbara said in a low, intense voice, "if she was hypnotizing that young man, paying a minimal stipend, turning a brilliant young intellectual into a robotized manual laborer, that is not irrelevant to this trial."

    Almost before she had finished. Tony said, "I agree that there is much here that needs further investigation, but I also agree that what we are hearing today is irrelevant to the matter this court is considering."

    Judge Lundgren nodded slowly. He looked as if he wished they would all go away.

    "The witness will answer that one question," he said finally, and then said to Barbara, "But you may not pursue her research any further than that one question."

    "Yes, Your Honor," she said. She hoped that her triumph did not show, that no one guessed that she had had no intention of taking it beyond that one question.

    She waited at the defense table until order was restored again, and restated her question, "Dr. Brandy wine, did you hypnotize that man you called Tom Mann?"

    Ruth Brandywine looked at Erlich, who simply shrugged this time, and said, "I must refuse to answer that question."

    Judge Lundgren leaned forward to peer at her.

    "On what basis do you refuse to answer?"

    "On the grounds that it would violate the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship. He was my patient."

    Judge Lundgren glanced at Barbara, who raised both hands as if in defeat and said, "I withdraw the question, which has already been answered, however."

    "Objection!" Tony yelled.

    "Counsel is implying an answer that was not given. I move that counsel's remarks be stricken."

    Judge Lundgren agreed, and Barbara went to the defense table and picked up a paper.

    "Dr. Brandywine, can you identify this document?"

    It was a year-end report made out by the school infirmary of the supplies and drugs it had furnished to the psychology department in general, and Dr. Brandywine's office in particular. After Dr. Brandywine identified it, Barbara took it back and summarized one part of it. "Every month you received a month's supply of the drug glutechmiazone, billed to your office. Is that right?"

    Dr. Brandywine shrugged.

    "I don't have any records with me. I can't say if it's right."

    "I see. Presumably if it were not correct, you would have objected, and corrections would have been made.

    Isn't that so?"

    "Presumably."

    "What is the drug glutechmiazone?"

    "I believe it's a mild tranquilizer, something of that sort."

    "In your perpetuation of testimony you stated that you treated Tom Mann for a psychotic condition from the time he became your patient until he left. It appears from this summary that you ordered no anti-psychotic drugs, just glutechmiazone in five-hundred-milligram capsules regularly.

    Isn't it true that this drug is never used for a psychotic condition? Isn't it, in fact, a very powerful hypnotic drug? Isn't it true that it is never used in that large a dose except to achieve a hypnotic effect?"

    "Your Honor," Gregory Erlich said in his booming voice, "that's in the area of doctor-patient relationship."

    "I object," Barbara said icily.

    "Counsel is in the court to advise his client on her rights, not to advise the court." "The witness is not required to answer the question," Judge Lundgren said.

    "Dr. Brandywine, you ordered this drug regularly in this dose. Presumably you read the reference regarding it.

    Did you also read the manufacturer's information sheet concerning its usage?"

    "I don't remember. I am careful with medication. No doubt I did read it."

    "I quote: "Glutechmiazone in the range of three hundred milligrams to five hundred milligrams per day is a powerful hypnotic, and the patient must be monitored closely on a day-by-day basis to avoid loss of volition and self-determination."

    " She looked up from the sheet and said slowly, "It goes on to say that the effect is cumulative, and the drug remains in the system with diminishing' effectiveness for up to ten days after it is discontinued. Did you ponder the implications of that information sheet when you ordered and used that drug, no matter who it was used on?"

    "I am a medical doctor," Ruth Brandywine said stiffly.

    "I do not prescribe any drugs without careful consideration."

    Barbara nodded and walked back and forth a time or two. She came to pause at the defense table. Her voice did not rise, but it was sharp and clear and carried without effort now when she said, "Dr. Brandywine, I ask you, did you prescribe that drug for the young man you call Tom Mann? Was he not a psychological prisoner, rendered helpless by it, his will destroyed, reduced to manual labor, an obedient--" The uproar on her left drowned out the rest. Tony was on his feet shouting, and Gregory Erlich's loud voice shook the room. On the bench Judge Lundgren banged his gavel furiously.

    "Ms. Holloway," Judge Lundgren said in a loud voice that silenced both Tony and Erlich, "this court finds you in contempt for deliberately pursuing an area that has already been ruled improper. The last question will be stricken. Court is adjourned until two o'clock." A bright flush tinged his patrician face; even his eyes looked red.

    He threw down the gavel, which skittered on the bench before coming to rest, as he rose and walked very stiffly from the room.

    The moment he was out of range, the courtroom erupted into a cacophony of voices behind her. She did not yet turn, did not move at all. At her side, Nell reached out and put her hand on Barbara's arm.

    "Are you all right?"

    Barbara looked at her and nodded.

    "Fine. I'm fine. You go on and have lunch. I want to sit just a minute or two."

    Nell squeezed her arm lightly, then got up and left. Barbara waited until the noise level had faded to nearly normal before she stirred. Outside the courtroom, she stopped when she saw her father and Mike waiting for her. Not a replay of last night, she thought almost wildly, no polite and meaningless chit-chat, Mike's look of wonderment about who was under her skin.

    "You two, you go on," she said.

    "I have to walk a bit."

    Mike opened his mouth, but her father said, "Sounds okay to me. Be sure to get a bite before you come back."

    He winked at her; there was a glint in his eyes that could have been joy, or understanding, or even recognition and appreciation of her tuning. Another time it would have been enough to make "her go hug him, but not at the moment.

    "Come on, Mike," he went on genially, "tell you about the time I was hit with contempt five times in one case," He took Mike by the arm and steered him away.

    She walked the few blocks to the foot and bicycle path that followed the winding river. It flashed green and silver, twirled white water around submerged rocks, flowed as slick as glass, and erupted again into a frenzy. Bicycle riders sped by her, boys and girls, two women with white hair, a woman with a child in a carrier seat.. .. The traffic sounds were distant down here by the river, the city was distant, the courtroom most distant of all. The air was cold and wet, while overhead the fog hovered, ready to settle to earth again at a moment's notice. No wind blew.

    She stopped to watch a gray heron at the edge of the river, stilt-legged in the shallow water, one with the flowing water it became even more beautiful when it lofted itself into the air with the ungainly legs stretched out behind it, like a Japanese impressionistic heron, now one with the gray lowering sky that enclosed it rapidly. Leaning against a tree, she watched until the bird was lost to sight, and only then did she let herself voice the thought that had come over her: She wanted to destroy Ruth Brandywine, Walter Schumaker, and Herbert Margolis. She wanted them utterly destroyed. And she wanted to be the one to doit.

    The thought made her stomach feel weighted, made her throat constrict, made her hands ball up into fists. Ruth Brandywine was the Snow Queen, she thought, and experienced a surge of the terror the story had stirred in her as a child. A touch that chilled even unto death, a kiss that froze one's tears, froze one's heart.. .. Abruptly she turned to retrace her steps, find a place where she could get a cup of coffee, think about the afternoon. But the image of the young man they called Tom came to mind, frozen by the Snow Queen, kept in place for seven years, and even that was appropriate; seven years was the magic number from the Bible, from fairy tales. Lucas serving the Snow Queen for seven years, turned to ice by her touch, her look, her words. She remembered what Nell had said:

    On the ledge he had been happy, laughing and happy.

    Freed of the spell, happy, dead. She walked faster.

    "Dr. Brandywine, you stated that you were on your way to England when you were called about the theft of your battery and license plates, and you flew home. Who called you?"

    "The police."

    "According to the police report, you were already home when they were called about the theft. You flew out of Denver on an early flight Sunday, June fourth. Is that right?"

    "Yes."

    "You spent the day with friends in New York, waiting for an overnight flight to London, is that right?"

    "Yes. There was a call waiting for me at the airport, and that's when I learned that someone had broken into my garage."

    "Who called you in New York? It wasn't the police department; they had not yet been notified."

    "Objection," Tony snapped.

    "This is irrelevant."

    "Overruled," Judge Lundgren, said, just as snappish.

    "I believe it must have been a colleague, then. I had forgotten who it was."

    "Which colleague?"

    "Herbert Margolis called me, I think."

    "And told you your garage had been broken into?"

    "Yes."

    "How did he know that?"

    "I don't know."

    "Dr. Brandywine, do you recognize the name Florence Steinmen?"

    "I believe she works at the college."

    "She does, in the administration building. I have her certified statement, which I would like to read at this time."

    There were objections, but in the end Barbara read the statement. "

    "I work in reception. Someone is on duty every day, and I was on that Sunday. We had orders that if Tom Mann didn't show up for his medicine, we were to call Dr. Brandywine. But if she wasn't available, then we were supposed to call either Dr. Schumaker or Dr. Mar golis. Well, she was gone to England. We all knew that, and Dr. Schumaker was in Canada, I think, so that after noon when I realized that Tom hadn't come in I finally called Dr. Margolis. It was about four when I remembered to call him."

    " Barbara looked at Dr. Brandywine for a long time, then said, "So it wasn't about the garage, but about Tom Mann.

    He had not taken his medicine. He had escaped. Is that the message Dr. Margolis had for you?"

    "Objection," Tony said.

    "Counsel is making implications that are improper, as well as asking and answering her own questions."

    "Sustained," Judge Lundgren said.

    "On Monday, after you arrived home again, did you hire a private detective agency to find Tom Mann?"

    Gregory Erlich was already on his way to consult with his client. The jury was herded out, and Barbara sat down to wait. The conference lasted a long time.

    When Dr. Brandywine finally answered the question, she said carefully, "I did not hire a detective agency."

    "Do you know who did?" Barbara asked softly.

    "Yes. Dr. Schumaker hired them. He realized--" "You've answered the question," Barbara said sharply.

    "Was the agency hired to track down Tom Mann?"

    "To find my papers," Dr. Brandywine said.

    "Tom stole some very important papers, my research, his files."

    "And this concerned Dr. Walter Schumaker, a mathematician, to the extent that he hired an agency to find them for you? Why, Dr. Brandywine?"