The Good Father (25 page)

In five seconds he would be gone. Who knew when I would see him again. If he could be pushed to confess to a crime he didn’t commit, what else could he be pushed to do?

Or worse. What if he’d confessed because he truly was guilty?

I had to talk to him, had to know once and for all. What was the truth? How could I save my son if I didn’t know what I was saving him from? Half mad, I tried to push through the agent, to chase my son down. He grabbed me by the neck, his hand closing down like a vice. We wrestled.

“I know about the vets,” I yelled. “Danny! On the train. I know!”

And then the floor disappeared. I felt myself moving in space, revolving. The next thing I knew, I was lying on my face, my right arm jacked up behind me. There was a knee in my back, knocking the wind out of me.

“Stop fighting,” the agent told me. I tried to breathe, tried to call out.

“I’m going to get you out of this,” I said, or tried to say. It came out as half squeak, half grunt. I struggled to get to my knees, but Danny was already gone, washed away, lost to the river of history. And as the agent moved to put me in handcuffs I finally surrendered to him, the way the rabbit goes limp in the jaws of the wolf.

The moment where he finally accepts that death is inevitable.

Three

C
ARTER
A
LLEN
C
ASH

P
SYCHIATRIC
E
VALUATION OF
D
ANIEL
A
LLEN
Conducted by Dr. Arthur Fielding, MBBS, MD

Dated: October 11, 20__

This psychiatric evaluation was prepared for the U.S. District Court, Western Division, by Dr. Arthur Fielding. It draws information from two three-hour interviews with subject, and a review of 147 pages of subject Daniel Allen’s writings.

E
XECUTIVE
S
UMMARY

Subject is accused of murdering Senator Jay Seagram on June 16, 20__ in Los Angeles. The court has asked that subject be evaluated to determine if he is mentally capable at this time of entering a plea of guilty.

Though subject shows several signs of dissociation and has suffered at least one serious bout of clinical depression in the last twelve months, he does not, in this evaluator’s opinion, suffer from a mental illness, as defined by the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
. Therefore, it is the conclusion of this evaluator that Daniel Allen, sometimes known as “Carter Allen Cash,” is legally competent to enter a guilty plea in this matter.

It is also the conclusion of this evaluator that, at the time of the assassination, subject was able to distinguish fantasy from reality. Based on in-depth interviews and a review of subject’s own writings, it is clear
that he knew the difference between right and wrong, as defined by the M’Naghten Rule and the Durham Standard.

P
HYSICAL
D
ESCRIPTION

Subject is twenty years old. He is 5′ 10″, and weighs 150 pounds. At the time of his interview, he was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit. He was well groomed, and, though underweight, seemed healthy and alert. Subject appears to be a young man of above-average intelligence, who spoke articulately about many subjects, though he was reluctant to delve too deeply into matters of his own emotional state.

H
ISTORY

Subject Daniel Allen was born April 9, 19__ in Santa Monica, California, to Ellen Shapiro, mother, and Paul Allen, father. Subject reports his early life was basically happy, though he says his parents divorced when he was seven years old. His father, a doctor, moved to New York City that same year. The mother retained primary custody, and subject traveled to New York to visit his father for summers and holidays. When asked, subject reports that he was “fine” with this arrangement, though he says his mother was “a little scattered” and “used to cry all the time.” A review of subject’s school records shows he did well in primary and elementary school, displaying no signs of a PTSD adjustment disorder, such as bed-wetting or the development of a stutter or other speech impediment.

Subject reports one incident from this period that is worth further consideration. He states that in his eighth year, he was “almost killed in a plane crash.” The details are as follows: Subject had been in New York City visiting his father for Christmas. Subject was to fly alone back to Los Angeles, which, he says, was standard. While over the Midwest, his plane developed “an electrical problem” and fell into a steep dive. “Everybody thought they were going to die,” subject reported. The pilot subsequently fixed the malfunction and righted the plane.

When asked how he felt during the free fall, subject reported, “I felt … it’s hard to say. I was scared, but I didn’t think I was going to die.” When asked why, he said, “Just a feeling. It wasn’t my time.” When
asked how he believed the incident had affected him, subject stated, “It must have affected me, but … I’m not sure exactly how.” When asked whether the incident changed the way he felt about his parents, subject said, “Yes. It made them seem smaller.” When pressed to expand his answer, subject stated, “I didn’t feel like I had to listen to them anymore. Almost like they weren’t my parents anymore.” When asked why, subject stated, “Parents are supposed to protect you from things like that, aren’t they? Mine just didn’t seem that interested in me.”

H
IGH
S
CHOOL

When subject was fifteen he asked to live with his father. When asked why he said, “I just wanted a change. My mom was a little clingy, you know? She’d had a number of bad boyfriends and was sad a lot. I think she wanted me to fill that hole for her.” Subject stated that his father had remarried several years earlier and had two young sons. “They were like a real family,” subject told me, “and I guess I wanted to see what that was like.”

After the move, subject continued to do well academically. His teacher evaluations focused on his attentiveness and creativity, and stated he was most always prepared. But subject stated the change in custody did not bring the feelings he’d hoped it would. He told this evaluator that instead of feeling like he was part of his father’s new family, he felt outside of it. An intruder. When asked how this made him feel, subject stated, “It didn’t bother me too much. I wasn’t that surprised, actually. I mean, my dad never really felt like a huge part of my life. And now, I don’t know, I guess I felt like one of those exchange students, you know? When you go to France or something, and they put you with a French family. That’s how it felt.”

Subject applied to and was accepted by several colleges. He chose to attend Vassar in New York State, though he only stayed for one and a half semesters. He stated that he had a “hard time focusing” on his curriculum at college. “It just didn’t feel that important, you know?” he said. When asked if he had made friends, subject stated that he’d made a few, but “no one I felt really close to.” He stated that he “hadn’t had many friends in high school, either.” When asked why he thought that was, subject stated, “I don’t really like to talk about myself. I guess that’s a
big part of friendship, but I just don’t like telling people how I feel about something, or what I think. I think most of the time people say stuff just to hear themselves talk.” When asked if he felt his opinions were less valid than others, subject stated, “No. I just think you learn more by listening than you do by talking.”

Subject stated he left college because he felt he could learn more “out there, on the road. You know, where life really happens.”

T
HE
R
OAD

Subject spent the next fifteen months traveling. According to him, “I went all over—the Midwest, Texas, Portland.” Federal records show that in the aforementioned fifteen-month period, subject spent time in Chicago, Iowa City, Austin, Helena, Portland, San Francisco, and Sacramento, before driving to Los Angeles, where the incident occurred. Subject stated that he never stayed in one place longer than four months. When asked, he said this wasn’t a rule, but “I just felt antsy if I did.”

In the course of our interview, subject became increasingly uncomfortable as he discussed his time on the road. He said, “I don’t like talking about this stuff. I went where I went. I did what I did. Who cares why?” While he spoke with genuine enthusiasm about the time he spent in Iowa, working for Ted and Bonnie Kirkland, he refused to talk at all about the three months he spent in Montana during the winter of 20__.

When presented with pages from his own journal detailing his thoughts and feelings from his time on the road, subject stated he didn’t want to talk anymore. Our first interview ended on this note. It is worth noting that several dozen pages outlining his time in Montana have been torn from his journal.

In our second session, subject apologized for his “attitude” in our previous session. But, he stressed, “I don’t really want to talk about what I went through last year. It’s not relevant, you know? I mean, all you care about is why I did it, right? Why I shot the guy? And, you know, we can talk about that, I guess, but I just don’t see the point. All this why, why, why. My reasons are my own, you know? All that matters is that I did it, and I’m, you know, sorry about it.”

Subject’s own writings from his journal are more insightful into his mental state over the fifteen months between his decision to drop out of
college and the day he claims he shot Senator Seagram. A more in-depth analysis can be found in Addendum #1 to this report. But as the purpose of this examination is to determine subject’s capacity to enter a plea, not to conduct a full analysis of his overall mental state, the evaluator will move on to other matters.

C
ARTER
A
LLEN
C
ASH

One of the more interesting factors in this case was subject’s decision to “change his name” from Daniel Allen to Carter Allen Cash. Starting in September 20__, subject began to refer to himself as Carter Allen Cash in his own writings. We also know he began to introduce himself to others as Cash starting around the same time. This continued until the time of his arrest. The name itself does not appear to be symbolic of anything.

When asked about the name, subject stated that “It just felt right.” When asked about the origins of the name, subject said, “I’m not sure. I was at the library one day and I was just doodling, you know, just writing in my notebook, and I put those three words side by side. And when I looked at them, something clicked.”

Subject says he does not believe that the words themselves contain any deeper meaning. He stated, “It’s not something I was looking for, a new name. I feel like it just found me, and I accepted it.”

After careful evaluation, this expert does not believe that the person known as “Carter Allen Cash” is a distinct personality from the person known as “Daniel Allen.”
¹
There are no signs of the dissociative identity disorder, most commonly known as “multiple personality disorder.” Instead, the name change seems to relate to a desire by subject to disown his given name, to renounce the identity his parents gave him, in
exchange for an identity of his own choosing. When asked what qualities Carter Allen Cash personifies that are different than those of Daniel Allen, subject stated, “It’s hard to say. [long pause] It’s about choice. I didn’t choose to be this person,
Danny
. It’s a child’s name, kind of. The name you give a child. And I wasn’t a child anymore. But sometimes, I think, to be a grown-up you have to take control, you have to separate yourself from your past. To say, ‘I am not that person. I am a new person.’ So I guess that’s what the name was for me. A way of growing up.”

It is interesting to note that when the evaluator first introduced himself to subject, and asked how subject would like the evaluator to refer to him, subject said he would like to be called “Daniel.” When asked about this later, subject stated, “Well, it feels a little silly now, you know? I’ve had time to think about it, and I don’t really think we can change who we are. Not really. So, you know, I can call myself Carter or Maestro or, like, Sam, but it’s just a disguise, you know? Well, not a disguise, but an affectation. And I always used to hate that, people who were affected, like the girl in high school who started talking with this fake British accent. But, I don’t know, on the road, you know, it just felt right. To change my name. To think about myself differently.”