Historically, in blackwell County municipal judges have not attracted much attention. Traffic court, misdemeanors, civil claims under a certain dollar amount, felony probable cause hearings, plea and arraignment, and bond hearings do not generate a lot in the way of legal firepower, yet this court is the venue where much of the public receives its direct exposure to the legal system, and ideally, it calls for a certain degree of decorum and dignity. Unfortunately, in Blackwell County, since these positions don’t generate much excitement, some of the judges who have occupied these positions have had a way of manufacturing their own.
If you’re a practicing lawyer in Blackwell County, it is painful to think of Thomas Bruton as a judge. It profits the bar more to realize that Bruton is like a tinhorn dictator in a small republic whose territory blocks access by other countries to the sea. Yet, thanks to the media, he is adored. Reporters and their bosses love judges who stick it to lawyers;
instead of exposing his contempt for the law and those who serve it, the journalism community finds him colorful, if a bit eccentric. So what if he stops a trial to tell the visiting schoolchildren to his court a funny story about the stupidity of lawyers? Bruton is good press; the law itself is boring and complex. A good whiff of scandal, however, and the media would turn on him faster than pimples surface on a tenth-grader just before his first date. But Bruton, independently wealthy because of a father who was truly a fine lawyer, has no need to enrich himself financially. Like a snake too lazy and fat to venture far from beneath his rock, he is content to feed his ego with the occasional publicity that comes his way.
This morning, Bruton is plainly delighted with the attention the Chapman case is bringing him. There is no point in pretending he has a problem with setting a low bond for Andrew Chapman, but Bruton is treating my client as though he were a surly slave who would try to hook up with the Underground Railroad as soon as he was returned to the plantation. “In setting a bond, I am troubled by the fact your client doesn’t have any family in Blackwell County, Mr. Page,” Bruton drawls pretentiously, peering down from the bench over his trifocals. “He doesn’t have any real ties to the community here.”
Unlike the Blackwell County Courthouse, the inside of the building where the municipal courtrooms are housed is with out character. Functional, without ornamentation, it has the feel and look of a clean Trailways bus station. The furniture is sturdy and solid but nothing you’d want to put on a post card. Standing beside the buff-colored defense table that looks as if it had been put together in high school shop class, I fold my arms across my chest and hide my hands under my biceps to keep Bruton from seeing how tightly I have my fists clenched. If he can see he is getting to a lawyer, he will pour it on. I want to tell him that he wouldn’t be satisfied with Chapman’s community ties if he had just been elected president of the Pinetree Country Club. Since there are no blacks at Pinetree except kitchen help, waiters, and caddies, this isn’t likely.
“As the court is aware,” I say louder than I need to, “the defendant is employed by the state of Arkansas and works as a professional in this county. He lives here; the crime he is charged with makes him a threat to no one, and he would welcome a speedy disposition in this matter in order to protect his professional reputation.”
With a look on his face that is intended to convey slyness but merely makes him look silly, Bruton, who only minutes ago accepted Chapman’s not-guilty plea, asks, “Are you waiving a probable cause hearing then? If you are, we’ll have this case bound over to circuit court right now.”
I look down at Chapman, and then back at the judge. It is tempting to advise my client to commit suicide on the spot just to get out of Bruton’s court. Actually, Bruton would be disappointed if I did, since he would be out of the spotlight.
The reason to go through with the probable cause hearing is to get a look at Jill Marymount’s case in advance, even though the result of a probable cause hearing with Bruton presiding is foreordained. Jurisdiction, or the power of a particular court to hear a case, is a royal pain in the ass in Arkansas.
Last year, for example, when I defended the murderer of a state senator, the case was filed directly by the prosecuting attorney in circuit court. Jill Marymount could have chosen to do the same here but elected to have the case originally filed in municipal court though it will doubtless end up in circuit for the full trial.
“No, Your Honor,” I say, “Dr.
Chapman is not waiving a probable cause hearing.”
Bruton’s mouth, as discolored as an overripe persimmon, turns downward in a frown. “Your client’s not a doctor.”
I don’t believe this. I whisper to Chapman, “Don’t you have a Ph.D. in psychology?”
Andy nods.
“Prom Fayetteville.”
I look up and try to keep my voice even.
“Dr. Chapman received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Arkansas at Payetteville. Would the court like him to bring in his diploma?”
Looking over my head at his audience, swollen today by the media and a few curious lawyers, Bruton counters with his own sarcasm.
“Mr. Page, my degree from that same institution probably says that I am a doctor of jurisprudence, and presumably, you are, too. But we do not call ourselves ‘doctors,” now, do we? That would be putting on airs, wouldn’t it?”
The petty little bastard. I say slowly, as if to a child, “My understanding of the law, Your Honor, is that a person is entitled to call himself anything he likes so long as it’s not for an illegal purpose.”
“No, we don’t,” Bruton says, ignoring me and answering his own question.
“And the policy in this court is that only physicians and dentists may refer to themselves as doctors.”
I look down at Andy and then back at the judge.
“Would the court feel more comfortable if I address the defendant by his first name?”
It takes Bruton a few moments to catch on. He squints at me as if his patience has run out.
“What are you insinuating, Mr. Page?”
That you are a racist asshole tyrant.
“Nothing, Your Honor,” I say blandly, “I’m just trying to find out how the court wants me to address the defendant.” Baiting him is not a smart thing to do: judges can always get back at you if through no other way than by dumping on your client. Still, there is a fine line that I haven’t crossed. Like a student who knows how far he can push a teacher, I keep my tone of voice flat and my face solemn.
At this point Bruton would rather play to the crowd than take the trouble to figure out if he can get away with holding me in contempt. A triumphant sneer comes to the old man’s lips.
“I don’t care what you call him just as long as it’s not ‘doctor’!” he thunders, looking around to see the expression on the faces of his audience.
I follow his gaze. There are a few snotty grins, but mostly the faces in the courtroom are frozen into embarrassed half-smiles that tell me they find this colloquy something short of a brilliant legal debate. Still, Andy shouldn’t have to put up with such blatant racism.
“Your Honor, I move that this court recuse itself. By the court’s failure to permit the defendant to use the title of ‘doctor,” the court exhibits an appearance of racial bias.”
Chapman shoots me a look of total dismay. If Bruton disqualifies himself, he might have to spend another night in jail because of the delay. Pat chance. There is no conceivable possibility that Bruton will not hear this case. The last thing a bigot like Bruton will do is admit to prejudice. What I’m worried about is how high I’ve sent Chapman’s bond by raising this issue. If I were black, I’d have more credibility.
White lawyers often deal with this issue by trying to work around it-pretending racism no longer exists and then using valuable peremptory jury challenges to weed out suspect jurors.
By raising this issue, I have committed a major faux pas. Officially, we are all reconstructed. Privately, nothing could be further from the truth; but, in the South, cowardice is considered good manners. Under no circumstances will we insult each other’s so-called honor.
Color creeps up Bruton’s neck. I have pissed him royally.
He knows he is vulnerable. There are too many stories the media has suppressed in the past.
“That’s ridiculous-motion denied!” he spits.
I clear my throat, waiting for inspiration to strike, when I am saved by an unlikely source. Fingering red suspenders that make him look about eight years old instead of like a young sophisticated professional on the make, Bobba Stewart pipes up, “Judge, we don’t have any objection to a bond of say, five thousand dollars. We don’t think this defendant is a major threat to attempt to flee the court’s jurisdiction.”
I look gratefully at Bobba, who nervously adjusts his turquoise bow tie. If he had disclosed this when I first asked him this morning what he thought would be reasonable (I had suggested that Andy be released on his own recognizance), I wouldn’t have sweat pouring down my sides now;
but beggars can’t be choosers.
Bruton is on the spot. If the prosecutor isn’t worried, why should he be? It’s not as if Chapman has been charged with an intentional act or is likely to get drunk and run out and shock another child. Shaking his bald head in disbelief, Bruton folds quietly.
“If you’re willing to live with that recommendation, it’s fine with me. Let’s set this for a hearing so we can move on.”
I nod at Bobba, who is surely following direct orders from Jill Marymount. Is this a sop to the black community or what? I suppose this is Jill’s way of saying to blacks that this charge is nothing personal. Obviously, she hasn’t done her self any favors politically by charging a black male with a Ph.D. Blacks constitute about twenty percent of the population in Blackwell County, and it’s not as if there is an assembly line somewhere in Arkansas turning out minority doctoral candidates.
“Your Honor, “Bobba says, how about Monday morning?”
Bruton goes through the pretense of consulting his docket.
He can bump traffic cases any time. He looks at me but does not condescend to speak after our most recent exchange. He won’t permit me to believe, nor should I, that I have had anything to do with the outcome of this hearing. He has acquiesced in a low bond in spite of, not because of, my representation.
“What time?” I ask, more to force him to speak to me than needing to know the time. Bruton will make it the first order of business so Bobba can get back to misdemeanor court.
“Nine o’clock Monday. Court’s in recess for ten minutes,” he rasps indistinctly. We are like children who have to have the last word. He rises, and still without looking at me, departs for his chambers.
As soon as Bruton shuts the door behind him, Andy shakes his head at me and says quietly, “Gideon, don’t ever raise the issue of race again while you’re defending me.”
This instruction seems a little dramatic. I assume he is pissed because of my motion that Bruton recuse himself. I do not want to admit that it was done on the spur of the moment and out of spite. I sit down next to him so I can whisper.
“You have to keep a bastard like Bruton honest or he’ll run over you the entire time.”
Andy picks a piece of dirt from his jumpsuit. He is not fooled.
“We’ll talk about it later,” he says calmly.
“The prosecutor saved me some money.”
Instead of having to use a bail bondsman, my client saves himself five hundred dollars by putting up a cash bond. Where is he getting his money? If Bruton had jailed me for contempt, I’d be there until Labor Day; in contrast, Andy has forked over more money than I’ve made all summer. While we were waiting for his hearing to begin, he agreed to pay me a $5,000 retainer and $100 an hour. With any other client charged with causing someone’s death, I’d be suspicious as hell. The criminal defendants I’ve represented don’t seem the type to join the Christmas savings club at their place of employment. As I wait down in the jail for Andy to change, I wonder about his instructions not to raise the racial issue in his case. Where does this guy think he is? Throughout the proceeding, he sat as erect and proud as a king, even a bit detached from it all. Arrogance won’t do at all in front of a mostly white jury in this case. The girl was white. I don’t want him to beg for forgiveness; but he will have to warm up, or they won’t give a damn.
Andy’s clothes, now that he is out of his jumpsuit, should be badly wrinkled, but he manages to look as if he has stepped out of an ad for L. L. Bean, as fresh as a sprig of mint. He is wearing a tailored olive-green suit over a Hathaway canary-yellow shirt and a gold-and-green tie. As we walk upstairs from the jail, I notice for the first time an attractive white woman waiting for us by the door that leads back into the courtroom. I need no introduction. Olivia Le Master, as poised as a high-fashion model, looks just like her real estate ads. She is a tall, lithe woman with permed black hair that reaches the collar of a white blouse. A green peasant skirt comes to her ankles. On her feet arc a pair of white Birkenstocks. Though she is too flat-chested for my taste, I think I could make an exception.
Her gray eyes, framed by dark eyebrows, seem puzzled.
She asks Andy, “I missed it, didn’t I?”
His eyes are on the reporters who are waiting at the other end of the hall for him to come out the front door. I have already advised him to make no comment. He says softly, not looking at her, “Just barely. Why don’t we talk later?”
Following his gaze down the hall she nods and steps inside the courtroom before the media sees her. I find it extraordinary she is anywhere within ten miles of this courthouse.
The nightmare it must bring back to her! Yet why shouldn’t she be supportive? Andy was willing to try to help her child-perhaps the only professional willing to try something out of the ordinary. If I can persuade her to testify for him, she can be his ticket to an acquittal.
“That was the child’s mother,” Andy says coolly, adjusting his tie as we begin to walk toward the front door.
“I’ll introduce you later.”
Almost immediately, we are engulfed by the media. My favorite. Channel 11’s Kim Keogh, is here this morning. I have never seen her in person before, but she is even more gorgeous than on camera. All the other women reporters on television look as if they can barely hold up their heads because of all their makeup, but this woman looks as natural and friendly as a three-month-old cocker spaniel. Rainey, who watches the news more than I do, insists that Kim Keogh wears plenty of makeup but that it is so skillfully applied you can’t tell. I hope she is the last one to interview me. I’d like to get to know her. As I expected, I get questions about my motion that Judge Bruton disqualify himself; but I refuse to be baited into divulging anything that will get me into further trouble, saying only that it is the appearance of bias that I alleged. If I had any guts, I’d tell them that Judge Bruton has been swapping racist jokes back in his chambers for years.
Instead, I defuse the issue as best I can. With one client to my name, I don’t need to have the reputation among the judges that I’ve become a troublemaker, even though it is common knowledge in the bar that Bruton is an ignorant fool who has no business on the bench.
I get my wish. Kim Keogh is the last television reporter to approach and asks if she can have a brief interview with me. The others, women and men alike, have come on in their questions as though Sam Donaldson had just dropped by their studios for a pep talk, but Kim is almost laid back despite being dressed to the teeth. She is wearing a hunter-green suede jacket over a fall-length burgundy skirt. Her white blouse is one of those rayon jobs with the buttons at the back of the neck. Her dry-cleaning bill alone for this outfit probably cost more than my J. C. Penney suit. While her camera man is fiddling with her equipment, she asks me if I am the attorney who defended the man who shot Senator Anderson. Flattered beyond all reason to be remembered by her, I tell her that was my fifteen minutes of fame. Even her questions while the camera is on are more about me than the case, and I manage to get in that I have just gone into solo practice. I notice she is wearing no rings on the fingers that are holding the microphone in front of my face and wonder if I have the nerve to call her. It probably will depend on what she says about me.
After the interview, breathing her perfume (she smells faintly of magnolia blossoms), I ask, “How’d I do?”
She gives me a dazzling smile and says under her breath, “If this gets on the air and brings you any business, you ought to buy me lunch.”
I need no farther encouragement.
“It’s a deal,” I say, wondering if she has noticed my bald spot yet. If she was in the courtroom, she couldn’t miss it. The back of my head is beginning to look like a giant sand trap. She can’t be more than thirty, but maybe she likes the mature type. After Rosa died, I decided that I wouldn’t embarrass myself by asking out a woman more than a decade my junior. Like most of my good intentions, that didn’t last long.
As Andy and I watch her walk out the door with her cameraman he observes, “I wish all interviews were that friendly.”
Andy, I’ve noticed, doesn’t miss much. I force myself to look at him and pretend it was all business.
“You’re going to need all the friends like that we can get.”
He nods soberly.
“Would you like to go somewhere and talk to Olivia now? I know she wants to talk to you.”
“Sure,” I say, wishing I had known she was coming. If this case is going to be pre tried in the media by the prosecutor the mother of the victim, could, if she is willing, be of enormous help. Yet, it is difficult for me to grasp the possibility that she might be willing to get involved. After all, her child hasn’t been dead two weeks. But if she talks to the media about this case, I want to have an opportunity to tell her what I think she ought to say. Doubtless twelve jurors can be found who will swear under oath they haven’t heard of the case, but the presiding circuit-court judge will have an opinion, and my best hope in this case may be to keep the decision out of the hands of the jury. Unless I’m missing something, Jill Marymount will have expert witnesses falling all over each other to testify that shock shouldn’t be used on helpless, retarded children. The trial judge has control over which experts are qualified to testify and whether their testimony is relevant. Before the trial judge makes this decision, I want him or her to have read or heard the mother of the victim say that her child was in such pain she welcomed someone who was willing to try to help her. Is this unethical?
Surely no more so than Jill Marymount running around all over Blackwell County screaming about helpless children.
I decide to take Andy and Olivia Le Master to the conference room two doors down from my office in the Layman Building. It is an awkward walk for all of us. After I say I’m sorry about her child and she nods politely, my mind goes blank. I’m not ready to begin our interview in public, and yet small talk seems somehow out of place in the face of death. As we cross the street at the corner of Lewis and Russell, Olivia, whose stride matches my own, pauses for Andy, who has been lagging behind, to catch up with us.
“I need a shower,” he says somewhat sheepishly.
Olivia nods and says, her face full of sympathy, “It must have been horrible for you.”
He nods noncommittally, and I wonder about their relationship.
Could it be sexual? I try to read their expressions, but if there is a special chemistry between them, I can’t tell. Andy, who seems to have the grooming instincts of a cat, appears embarrassed, and Olivia, sensitive to his feelings, walks the rest of the way to the Layman Building alongside me. Yet, for all I understand at this point, they could easily be hiding their feelings. As we enter the elevator to take us to the sixteenth floor, I reflect upon the fact that sex is routinely my first explanation of human behavior. When Rainey is in her social-worker mode, she tells me that I constantly project my feelings onto everybody else.
At the receptionist’s desk I have, not surprisingly, no messages in my box. The temporary, whose name I have learned is Julia, eyes me suspiciously. Great, her expression says, the first clients you drag up here are an interracial couple. “Hold my calls,” I say to her as if I’m expecting to be deluged.
“Is the conference room available?”
She points sullenly to a key hanging on a hook on the gray metal message box.
“What does that key tell you?”
Do I remind this woman of her worst nightmare, or what?
I snatch the key from its hook, resisting the temptation to gouge her eyes out with it.
“Thanks,” I say, giving her a fake smile. If this is not her last day here, it will be mine. I find that I do not have the courage to ask if there is any coffee in the conference room.
We make a lonely-looking trio in the conference room, but it may be helpful in stimulating conversation if we don’t feel we are on top of each other. I sit at the head of the table facing the door. Andy and Olivia Le Master take chairs on opposite sides of the table. I realize I should have told Andy that I needed to visit with him alone that there will be plenty of time to talk to Olivia. Since she is already down here and seemingly willing to talk, I am afraid to pass up the opportunity, since she may be the key to saving his rear. Now that I have them seated, I would like to be able to watch both of their expressions simultaneously, but I can’t very well ask them to move together. I begin by telling Olivia that I have a daughter and can imagine how I would feel if I lost her.
“Every time she’s ten minutes late I start to worry about her,” I say tentatively, hoping I’m not being presumptuous.
I know firsthand how meaningless words of sympathy are from most people. The pain from the death of someone you love can hardly be imagined by someone else. In an effort to establish my sincerity, I add, “My wife died of cancer, so I Spock pretty easily.”
I have pushed the right button. Olivia’s small bust rises and falls as she sighs, “How old is your daughter?” “Seventeen,” I say and, unable to stop myself, add, ‘she’s at the Governor’s School at Hendrix College for the Gifted and Talented this summer.”
Her smile is genuine.
“You must be very proud.”
“I am,” I say and stop. How callous can I be? Her child was born without a normal brain, the first words out of my mouth are how superior my child is.
Olivia’s gray eyes are warm with concern as she empathizes.
“I understand how you feel about your daughter. Unless she was in restraints or heavily drugged, there were times I couldn’t stop worrying about Pam, and then it was a different kind of worry. When you have a child who injures herself, for months every time the phone rings after it happens you think they’re calling you to tell you something new and even more horrible than before.”
I have begun to nod, but I can’t really even imagine what she has gone through. Almost every day with Sarah has been ajoy; has this woman even had one happy day with her child?
How has she endured it? As grotesque as shock sounds, a radical form of treatment at some point may seem unavoidable.
However, probably only the parent of the child can say that convincingly. For the next forty minutes Olivia Le Master tells me a story that I will remember the rest of my life, for it is impossible for me not to think of Sarah while she recounts her child’s tortured existence. While I listen to the predictable anguish and guilt all parents must feel upon learning their child is retarded, I think of how much I take my daughter’s normality for granted. Would I have deserted Rosa (as Olivia Le Master’s husband did) if Sarah had turned out to be profoundly retarded? Surely not, I tell myself, but the truth is that I would have been sorely tempted. As she speaks, I can hear my mother saying an hour before the wedding: God knows, Gideon, you don’t know a thing about her background. She, of course, was not so obliquely referring to my own father’s mental illness. Knowing myself, I would have tried to find a way to blame Rosa had Sarah been screwed up. How does a young mother have the strength by herself to raise a child like that at home? Incredibly, Olivia Le Master tried, but she found it was impossible alone. She had to work to support herself, and child care is difficult enough in Arkansas under the best of circumstances. For her, but perhaps not for others, she concedes, it was too much.
Certain she was abandoning her daughter when she began to abuse herself, Olivia placed Pam in the Blackwell County Human Development Center when she was ten.
“You can’t imagine the relief I felt when she was accepted,” Olivia says, her eyes filling with tears.
“I felt I could breathe for the first time since my husband ran off.”
Men are truly jerks, I think. What makes us weaker than women? Is it simply that they are the ones to have children and thus come by a sense of responsibility more naturally?
As I listen to her account, I imagine I am hearing the story of every women who has turned her child over to the state.
If she missed a weekly visit, she felt enormous guilt. In a kind of feeble way I try to identify with her. There have been more nights than I care to remember when I have come home much later than I promised Sarah. The look on her face (anger and relief) has, from time to time, haunted my dreams.
Still, time brings a measure of acceptance of events that cannot be reversed. A healthy sense of fatalism, Olivia calls it during the interview, and though I don’t believe in fate, I can understand how she does. Before Pam was born, David Le Master started a real estate business, and it was his gift to his wife when he decided he didn’t want to be around anymore.
“David was good at starting things,” she says, a wintry smile overtaking her face whenever she mentions her husband.
“I’ll give him that.”
Most men are, I think, glancing sideways to catch my client’s expression. He is watching her face with such sympathy I feel a twinge of guilt.
Olivia relates her daughter’s tragedy without another reference to her ex-husband. In a straightforward manner she tells me what it was like when the self-injurious behavior began. With no warning whatsoever one day, Pam began beating her head with her fists at first and then later against walls, even against her bed. Not so hard that one blow would cause injury by itself but hard enough to bruise her. Left alone, she would hit herself over one hundred times in an hour. I turn to Andy and ask why a child would do this, but he says that there are only theories for this behavior, not explanations, the latest one being that self-injurious behavior is actually a form of communication. More traditionally, Andy says, slipping into jargon, it is thought to be behavior that is reinforced by attention or is an attempt to avoid a task or is even somehow intrinsically reinforcing.
“The fact is,” Andy says, looking at Olivia, though I’m sure they have discussed this topic many times, “no one knows for sure what prompts a child to hurt herself.”
Olivia has begun to cry. Of course there is no box of tis sues for my clients in the conference room, but Olivia yanks a wad from her purse and begins to talk even while she wipes her face.
“When she first started hitting herself, I was told it might stop, but with time, it only got worse. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t care whether a person says they believe in God or not you think you’re being punished for something you did. Who knows? Maybe all of us were being punished I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to you that in some ways Pam’s death has been a relief.”
This last sentence, understandable, and not totally unexpected, is still jarring to me. Without this last addendum about death being a release, Olivia’s impact on a judge and jury will be favorable. And yet, maybe it, too, will be understood. This is not some highly emotional and distraught parent who has been overly influenced by a psychologist who wanted to use her daughter as a guinea pig for his own research. Rather, Olivia, assuming her testimony holds up, will come across as a strong, caring mother, who loved her daughter enough to inflict pain on her if that was what it took to help her.
I glance back at my client and am not surprised to find that his eyes are moist. But I do not want Olivia to admit in the witness chair that even for a moment she thought about the surcease from pain her child’s death would bring. With the acknowledgment of this all-too-human motive, it might be tempting for the prosecutor to try to convince a jury that a sympathetic and frustrated psychologist deliberately went too far in trying to end her child’s suffering. Waiting for her to finish wiping her eyes, I wonder how I can say this with out coming across as hideously manipulative. Lawyers are directors as well as actors in a play. If we forget that for one instant, we’re no longer doing the job we’re hired to do.
Just tell the truth, we tell our witnesses. What we mean is, just tell the truth in a way the judge or jury will believe you. I’m all for the truth, but if nobody believes it, what has the system accomplished? The trouble with being a public defender was that the witnesses for the defense were not credible even when they were telling the truth. Give me a good actor who can make the truth convincing, and I’ve got a chance. I don’t have to tell Olivia what I need from her today.
We will have the time later if she is willing to help me.
We talk about past attempts to help Pam, and I am not surprised to hear bitterness in her voice as she speaks about the psychologists over the years who refused to try shock.
As she speaks, her face becomes hard, and I think I see for the first time the facet of her personality that has allowed her to take over a small real estate operation (I had never heard of River Country Realty until two years ago) and turn it into a major force in the central Arkansas area.
“The first time I heard of shock I thought I was being teased. This little Dr. Oliphant he left the state a year before you came, Andy,” Olivia says, “had the nerve to say that shock was her only hope but only a sadist would use it. He was so smug, so morally superior-1 wanted to kill him.
Every time I brought it up he would get this expression on his face that said I was depraved for even thinking of it. I think he wanted to try it, but he didn’t have the guts.” This last sentence is spit from her mouth, her face twisting in anger. Theoreticians do not rank high on this woman’s list.
Whatever I have to do to persuade her to testify, I won’t moralize.
Andy’s head, I notice, turning quickly to observe him, dips in apparent agreement.
“What about the other psychologists?”
I ask both of them.
“If it works, surely somebody in the state was using it.”
In a gesture of impatience, Olivia pushes her hair back from her long, tanned face.
“Though I kept hearing rumors about the use of shock in the past. Dr. Oliphant wouldn’t admit to knowing anybody who had tried it who was still in the state. You know you can’t make doctors talk when they don’t want to-they hide behind confidentiality whenever it’s convenient.”
I look at Andy and see that his wide taupe lips are tightly compressed. He must be having the same thought that flits through my mind. Notwithstanding the quality of her life, Olivia’s daughter would be alive today if he hadn’t had so much courage. Granted the other professionals may have been timid, but not without reason. After all, Pam died. I need to understand the circumstances better, but I’d be a monster to make Olivia sit through a story that already must give her nightmares. I ask her a few more questions and learn that it was she who had suggested to Andy that he try shock.
I also learn to my dismay that he had never even been present when that form of behavior therapy had been used before. It will lend credence to the charge of recklessness that the prosecutor has to prove. Yet, as I listen to this woman, I am beginning to understand why he gave in to her. Olivia, whose intensity has grown with each moment, is both persuasive and vulnerable. As she talks about the agony Pam experienced, it is easy to believe that there was no other alternative to shock, which, she understood and Andy confirms, is painful, yet safe, if used correctly. As I glance back and forth between them, what disturbs me is my growing sense that my client, though armed with the best of intentions, may have been professionally unqualified to use shock as a technique to modify Pam’s behavior. How could he have refused to have educated himself as much as possible? Perhaps he did, I think, realizing I know literally nothing about it.
I will want to talk to Olivia before the probable cause hearing, but away from Andy. Though it seems unlikely, the gratitude she feels now may turn soft before Monday, as she begins to get some pressure to turn on him. It would be difficult if not impossible for her to tell him while he is sitting across from her that she thinks he should have refused to help her. It may not be so hard to back away from him once she is placed under oath and the prosecutor is giving her a perfect way to escape guilt-blame the doctor, Mrs. Le Master: he is supposed to be detached, cool, the professional. She seems to have more integrity than that, but I will be the first to admit that a woman has fooled me badly before in one of these situations. Besides, from an ethical standpoint, perhaps Andy did fatally forfeit his judgment. After all, he is presumably trained, educated, and licensed to exercise appropriate professional discretion, and now a child is dead. A criminal, though? Surely not.
Leaving Andy alone in me conference room, I walk Olivia down the hall and to the elevators and tell her I would like to call her soon. Her eyes slightly red now from crying, she assures me she will help in any way I suggest.
“He tried,” she says defiantly, “when no one else would. All these so-called advocates act as if children like Pam can be helped without aversive measures. Well, goddamn it, why didn’t they do it?”
I push the elevator button for her. I have no answer. I have no quarrel with her anger, but I want it to work for Chapman.
If I handle it correctly, the jury may understand that the real defendant isn’t on trial. I decide to provoke her with the truth, or at least part of it.
“I don’t know about the advocates,” I say as she steps into an empty elevator, “but the doctors and psychologists are scared to death of malpractice.”
A hard glint comes into her gray eyes and she stares at me, holding the door for one final comment.
“All I know is these other so-called professionals weren’t willing to try any thing that might work,” she says. “He could have turned his back on me, and he didn’t, and I ‘m not going to forget that.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I say, as the door begins to slide shut.
“I’ll be calling you in the next day or so.” I walk back to the conference room, realizing Olivia has a determined side to her that she doesn’t bother to conceal. But why should she? What else does she have to lose? Besides, she is in a business that is at least as well known for its hard times as for its good tunes. One thing is certain: if she turns on Andy, he is dead meat. Olivia Le Master, I’ve decided, can be a ball buster. I just hope she doesn’t decide to go after my client’s.