The Deadhouse (28 page)

The second stop, just beyond the original Blackwell farmhouse, would
put me on Main Street. When I stepped down from the bus, I was struck
at once by the feeling that I was in a small town, millions of miles
from Manhattan. The streets were lined with cobblestones, and the
handful of new high -rise buildings stood alongside the redbrick facade
of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, constructed more than a century
earlier for island residents.

I walked north, following the winding street the equivalent of a
handful of city blocks, to the lighthouse at the island's tip, just
beyond the hospital. The sweeping view of Manhattan from that point was
the most spectacular panorama I had ever seen.

It was after nine o'clock when I presented my identification to the
security guard at the desk at Coler Hospital. He directed me to the
psychiatric ward on the second floor, where I was met by a slender
young woman in a white lab coat. "Miss Cooper? I'm Sandie Herron. I'm
the physician in charge of this wing of the hospital. We've got one of
the arts-and-crafts rooms cleared and set up for your hearing today."

"Fine. Would you have a private place for me to interview the
victim?"

"Yes. That's what I'm here to help you with." She asked me to follow
her down the hallway to her office. "You're going to need some help
with Tina. It's difficult to understand her unless you've worked with
her for a while."

"Will she talk with me?"

"You won't be able to get her to stop talking. Problem is that
because her mental disability is so severe, I don't think you'll be
able to understand her without help from me or one of my staff."

"What's her history?"

"Tina's thirty years old. She's spent most of her adult life here at
the hospital. She has some congenital brain damage, as well as being
bipolar. Her developmental level is about that of an eight-year-old's.
She has dramatic mood swings, from extreme emotional highs to very
profound depression. She's on a number of medications, including
Depakote and Neurontin."

I was trying to take down everything Herron was saying. "Don't
worry, I've had a copy of Tina's chart made for you. All of the meds
are listed in that. The problem . . . may I call you Alex? The problem
is that her speech and language are particularly immature. She's
incapable of normal verbal communication, and a lot of what she tries
to express is incomprehensible to an outsider's untrained ear."

"Have you ever testified at a preliminary hearing, Doctor?"

"About a patient's condition? A diagnosis or finding?"

"No. I think I'd like you to stay with me while I try to ask Tina to
tell me what happened. If she isn't able to make it clear to me, or to
the judge, I'd like you to act as an interpreter."

"That's fine. Why don't we bring her in and let you get started."
Herron called the nurses' station and asked one of the attendants to
bring Tina to her office. "One thing you need to understand, Alex, is
that Tina exhibits an unusual preoccupation with sex. She's what we
call on the ward a chronic public masturbator. We have a companion
assigned to be with her most of the day, so she doesn't interact
sexually with the other patients."

My luck to draw this complication at a preliminary hearing. The best
I could hope for would be to get a good judge who would appreciate the
issues here. My witness would be an unintelligible thirty-year-old,
with all the sexual interest and curiosity appropriate for a woman that
age, but with the mental capacity of a child. The law presumed that she
was incapable of consenting to whatever sexual act had occurred.

This must have been an "up" day for Tina, who did not yet have a
clue that she was about to appear in a court proceeding in front of a
judge, a defense attorney, and her assailant. She walked in holding the
hand of her attendant, neatly dressed in a clean white sweatshirt and
khaki slacks. She smiled at me when we were introduced, and said
something that sounded like "pleased to meet you."

For more than an hour, I struggled to get a narrative from the young
woman. Her companion sat by her side, stroking her arm gently when my
most basic questions seemed to confuse Tina. If I failed to understand
a response, Dr. Herron told me what the patient had said. Whenever I
mentioned Chester's name, Tina became visibly agitated.

Somehow, despite all the precautions that had been taken at the
hospital, a male patient named Jose had encountered Tina in the hallway
after breakfast one morning and had invited her into his room. She
liked Jose and accompanied him willingly. Dr. Herron interrupted softly
to mention that Jose was a paranoid schizophrenic, with some confusion
about his sexual orientation. Tina told us that Jose was always kind to
her, and she had sex with him because she thought she was screaming.
Her mouth widened and her tongue protruded as she tried to get it to
move around the word "screaming" a second time. "Screaming? Why were
you—?"

"No, no, Alex. Tina said she thought she was dreaming when she did
it." The patient smiled as Dr. Herron corrected me. "Tina's aware that
we don't approve of her . . . well—she usually tries to account for her
activity by saying she didn't think it was really happening. That she
just imagined it or dreamed about it, isn't that right, Tina?"

She nodded her head in agreement with Herron. It was obvious to me
that I would not be able to conduct the hearing unless the judge
allowed me to use the doctor as an interpreter. "What happened after
that?"

Tina explained that Jose left her to go to the bathroom. That's when
Chester came in and found her in the room. He asked if he could get
into bed and make love to her. She was scared because she knew that he
had a terrible temper, but she told him it was okay.

"Were you afraid of Chester?" No answer.

"Did he say anything to threaten you?" I was wondering if I could
raise the level of the felony crime, if Chester had used any force.

Tina answered clearly when she said, "No."

"Jose came back to the room, Alex. When he saw Chester in bed with
Tina, he went to get one of the nurses. That's the reason we know for
sure that intercourse occurred. The nurse actually witnessed it."

"Fine. I can spare Tina having to testify at the hearing if I can
use the nurse as a witness."

"I'm afraid she went back home to Montana for Christmas."

"What's Chester's ability to understand right from wrong?"

"He certainly knows the difference, and he knows that what he did
with Tina was wrong. His psychiatrist can give you all that. His
problem has to do with control of his temper and the explosive
outbursts from which he suffers. Chester's twenty years old. He's been
in and out of hospitals for most of his life, but was homeless at the
time of his last arrest."

"What was the charge?"

"He beat up an old man who tried to stop him from getting on a bus
without paying."

I continued to prepare Tina for the preliminary hearing, which had
to be held before the end of the week in order to keep Chester in on
bail. The hospital authorities wanted him removed from their facility,
while our purpose would be to have him hospitalized in a prison psych
ward during the pretrial period. I did not want to see him released, on
the street, with no home to go to and no one to supervise the taking of
his antipsychotic medication.

"Excuse me, Dr. Herron?" We all looked up as another nurse entered
the room. "There's a call from a judge's clerk who's downstairs. He
wants to know when this hearing is going to start."

It was after twelve. "I need another half hour, at least. Why don't
we say one o'clock?"

"That's good for me, too, Alex. Tell them where we're setting up,
and that we'll be ready at one. And let's be sure Tina has some lunch
before you get going. She really slows down with all those meds unless
she eats at regular intervals."

"There's a message for you, Ms. Cooper. Detective Chapman said he
can meet you after the hearing, unless you call to tell him otherwise."

An hour later, I entered the arts-and-crafts center of the psych
ward. Much like the walls of a kindergarten class, this room was lined
with pictures, crayoned and painted by the patients, all of whom were
adults. A makeshift judicial bench had been fashioned out of several of
the tables, and the stark black of the judge's robes was in sharp
contrast to the brightly colored, childlike illustrations that would be
our background for this sad proceeding.

"Ms. Cooper? I was expecting Assistant District Attorney Dashfer to
be here today."

"And I was expecting Judge Hayes, Your Honor." We each forced a
smile.

The judge was probably as crestfallen as I appeared to be. I had
mistakenly relied on the tentative schedule distributed earlier for the
week's arraignment part, not figuring on holiday substitutions. Instead
of Roger Hayes, one of the smartest and most sensitive jurists in our
jurisdiction, I had been saddled with Bentley Vexter. I knew this would
prove to be a more difficult experience for Tina, with a judge not long
on patience or understanding.

My adversary was a young lawyer from the Legal Aid Society. He had
met his client for the first time just minutes ago, when he arrived at
the hospital. They conferred briefly while we waited for Sandie Herron
to come to the room.

"Are the People ready to proceed?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Call your first witness." He held the criminal court complaint up
to his nose and lifted his glasses to examine the typed accusation.

"I would like to make an application to the court before I do that."

The judge put the glasses back in place and met my statement with a
frown. "We've wasted half a day out here while you got your witness
ready for this. What is it now?"

I launched into a description of Tina's condition, both physical and
mental, while she and Dr. Herron waited in the corridor. "The request
I'm making is that the court allow the victim's physician to appear
with her in the courtroom, to serve as a facilitator, should that
become necessary during the taking of testimony."

"I'm going to have to object to that, Your Honor."

"Hold it a minute, Mr. Shirker. What, this woman doesn't speak the
language? What kind of interpreter do you need? Nobody told my clerk
we—"

"Not a foreign language interpreter, sir." I repeated the nature of
Tina's difficulties and explained Dr. Herron's relationship with her.

"Objection."

"On what grounds, Counselor?" It was clear the judge had no idea
whether he should grant my somewhat unusual request, so he was hoping
the defense attorney would provide him with a legal basis to make
Tina's task more arduous.

Mr. Shirker had nothing more than a gut feeling and a knee-jerk
reaction. "Urn, uh—due process, Your Honor."

"He's right, Ms. Cooper. This is a very peculiar step you're asking
me to take."

"The fact that it is unconventional doesn't mean that it doesn't
have a valid purpose in a legal proceeding. Our courts are supposed to
be accessible to everyone. The fact that this witness has a severe
impairment should not deprive her of her day in—"

The judge held his arm straight out in front of him to stop me. Then
he lowered it, pointing his finger at the official stenographer. "We're
off-the-record here, understand?"

I stood up to object. Vexter was most pernicious when he could clean
up the official language of his hearings. His finger pointed back at
me, telling me not to dare to stop him. "Look, Alex. You got a retard
here who doesn't mind a roll in the hay. She hops into bed with Jose,
so who's to say Chester can't have a date, too?"

"I'd like all of this to be
on
the record, Judge. I'd
like the opportunity to respond to it." I wanted an official transcript
reflecting his ignorance in black-and-white print that an appellate
court and a judiciary committee could examine. Vexter's views were as
limited as his intelligence.

The stenographer's hands were poised over her machine. She was
waiting for the judge to give her the signal to resume working, while
glancing back at me with a shrug of her shoulders, knowing that she was
helpless to do as I asked. Vexter was in charge of the courtroom.

Vexter put his glasses on the tip of his nose and motioned to me and
my adversary with his forefinger. "Why don't you approach the bench?"

"No, thank you, sir. I want all of this on the record. My witness is
developmentally disabled, with severe mental and physical handicaps.
But she knows what happened to her and she is entitled to tell her
story in this forum."

Chester Rubiera was digging his fingers into the palm of his hand as
he watched the goings-on around him. I expected him to draw blood at
any moment.

"And I'm telling you that this whole thing is a waste of the court's
goddamn time."

"Is that what you and Mr. Shirker mean by due process, Your Honor?
Would you like me to talk about the law on this issue, or doesn't that
particularly interest you?" Vexter knew as much about rules of evidence
as I knew about NASA.

"You got cases on this?"

Catherine had sent the file on the matter to Jake's apartment. She
had researched the issue and I had read the opinions last night. I
nodded to the judge and started to cite opinions. "There's a Second
Department case,
In the Matter of Luz
P." I handed copies of
the decision to the court officer to give to the judge and my
adversary. "And the
People Against Dorothy Miller."
I
described the facts and holdings as the stenographer urged me to slow
down.

"Yeah, I knew that," Vexter said, tossing the pages aside without
reading them.

"The unaided testimony of this witness is likely to be meaningless
without our ability to have Dr. Herron interpret her responses. Counsel
is welcome to cross-examine and ask whatever appropriate questions he
chooses. As previous courts have ruled, this is simply a pragmatic
question, not a legal or scientific one."