The Coffee Shoppe Killer

by Rod Kackley

  “Doctors, like myself, have known for years that our patients were hiding memories from themselves, but it was confirmed recently by a Northwestern University study,” she said.

  “Those memories are often hidden to protect you from emotional pain triggered by recalling the event. In a way that's good, because your mind is protecting you from yourself. But Northwestern found if the memories are locked up, bottled up in your psyche for too long; serious problems, psychological problems, can result.”

  Mary Eileen had slowly returned her gaze from the ceiling to Dr. French.

  “So, how do we do that? How do we release these memories?”

  A positive sign, Dr. French thought. Questions are always an indication that the patient might be willing to cooperate and assist in her recovery. Without that, all of Dr. French’s years of education and professional experience added up to nothing.

  “We have to return the brain to the same state of consciousness it was in when your brain created or encoded the memories.”

  Mary Eileen turned the palms of her hands up, lifted an eyebrow, tilted her head to the left briefly and said, “How?”

  “We could use drugs. There are two amino acids, glutamate, and GABA, that are the yin and yang of the brain. These acids direct our emotional tides. They control whether nerve cells are excited, calm, or inhibited,” Dr. French said. She was getting excited now, just as a used car salesman feels when he senses the customer is ready to press hard to sign three copies of a contract.

  “Gaboxadol is one drug that has worked. It stimulates the GABA receptors.”

  Mary Eileen’s eyes clouded a bit, and she tensed at the thought of losing control to drugs.

  “And, we know this, how?”

  “Experiments on mice have shown us...”

  Dr. French could almost hear Mary Eileen’s eyeballs rolling in her head. Mary Eileen leaned back in her chair, laughed, smiled and said, “You are kidding, I hope. Has it ever worked on people?”

  “But I dislike drugs. There is another option.”

  Why do I need this? Mary Eileen thought. This town loves me. Did you see all of those people out there? What jury in its right mind is going to send me to prison?

  It hadn’t occurred to her until her caravan — and Mary Eileen was thinking of it as ‘her caravan’ — but people loved her and loved her story. She could see herself talking to Oprah, Matt Lauer on the “Today” show and George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America.”

  Who needs his stuck-up bimbo, Dr. French? Mary Eileen was pushing herself up and out of the chair when her better judgment took over. If she left now, the two state police troopers guarding the door in the hallway would take her right back to jail. So, she stayed. Let Dr. French talk, Mary Eileen decided. It will just be another chapter in my book.

  Instead of leaving, Mary Eileen sat back down and tried to look like she was paying attention. But she was thinking about her book, TV interviews and selling the movie rights to her story. Good God, Mary Eileen thought. The best days are ahead of me. I just have to reinvent myself one more time.

  Thirty Five

  Mary Eileen Sullivan would be Michael Morris’ ticket to the big time. He envisioned appearing on CNN, MSNBC, maybe even ABC, CBS and NBC to discuss the case, his client, and how he saved her from a life behind bars. However, the report from Dr. French’s first session with Mary Eileen was pushing those dreams closer to the trash can.

  Morris punched his foot down on the accelerator of his new BMW Alpina B6 Gran Coupe to ease the pain. He was cruising US-131 north of St. Isidore, just driving. The four-lane freeway was a straight line all the way to Cadillac. Nothing to think about except how to win this case. There had to be a way.

  Michael Morris had started life in 1955 as the son of a teacher and a librarian. His mom had left the Detroit Public Library system when he was born. She would be a full-time mother. That’s what women did back in the day. His dad pulled the family out of the Motor City and moved to the suburbs. That’s what white families did back in the day. The Morris family wasn’t wealthy, but they didn’t miss any meals either. At the end of two decades, there was enough money left over to send Michael to college.

  However, that life wasn’t enough for Michael Morris. He realized he needed more when he met Sheila Watson as an undergrad at the University of Michigan. Morris grew up in Warren, a blue-collar suburb built by GM. Sheila was from Birmingham, Michigan, surrounded by the families that made GM.

  She was not only the spark that lit Morris’ sexual drive; Sheila Watson was the motivation for Morris to become rich enough to pay cash for his $122,000 BMW. But there was more. Her family laughed at Michael. Sheila dumped Michael. He vowed she’d be the last bitch to ever to that to him. And nobody would ever laugh again.

  Now, Morris had money. He was well-known. But Michael wanted more. He wanted to be powerful. Being an attorney was just a step in that direction.

  This Mary Eileen Sullivan case could get him there. But what looked like a slam dunk a month ago was now appearing to be a nightmare of career calamity.

  Just as Morris was coping with the reality that he might just be defending a mass murderer who knew what she was doing; his smartphone rang. It was his mysterious benefactor, the man who orchestrated an incredible social media campaign that included Facebook, Twitter, and Kickstarter. It was a campaign that raised more than three-quarters-of-a-million-dollars.

  When Morris saw the benefactor’s number come up on his iPhone screen, he nearly sent the call to voice mail.

  Against his better judgment, Morris answered the call.

  “Have you seen French’s report?”

  “Yes, of course, I have.”

  “Do we have any defense left?”

  Why did I answer this phone? Morris wondered. Suddenly I am on the losing end of a trial the country and maybe around the world, will be watching, and I am going to get creamed.

  “A verdict of not guilty because of insanity will be tough to win. But there is still hope.”

  “Hope? Are you kidding? This report shows Mary Eileen created some female superhero character for herself, but in actuality, she was pretty much a slut who had been flitting from man to man and may have killed others when she was disappointed.”

  “I can read,” Morris muttered.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Sorry, I did read that. But I think the superhero angle might be just what we need. She thought she was something of avenging angel, right?”

  “She has been searching for a man to replace her father who she believes was killed by a British commando unit fighting the IRA but was most probably murdered by her alcoholic mother,” said the voice on the phone.

  “Yes, and there is our hope, and no I am not kidding,” Morris said.

  “We can still win this case and keep Mary Eileen out of prison. But we are going to have to invest more money in the defense. I want to bring an expert criminologist in on the case. The person I am thinking of has a history of examining first-time offenders, people who might have committed crimes, but had no understanding of the consequences.”

  “More money? How much more?”

  Morris paused. He didn’t want to jump too fast. Being able to get another quarter-million-dollars would take lots of finesse.

  “We are looking at another three-hundred to maybe four-hundred-thousand dollars.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Oh but this money would be well spent...”

  “Just like the last $750,000 we raised and you spent?”

  “We can’t stop now,” Morris said. It was time to play his hole card. “If we surrender, Mary Eileen Sullivan is doomed.”

  No response came from the man who evidently cared more about Mary Eileen Sullivan than anything else in the world. He told Morris his only motivation was to spare a woman he considered innocent, but Morris had a feeling there was more to his story. Not that it mattered. All Morris wanted was a win. A victory would cement his position on the top shelf of
the nation’s attorneys. If he lost, no one would ever hear from him again.

  And, Morris was afraid that if he didn’t get out of the country fast, and to the little island chain where he had deposited about a quarter-million of the money raised for Ms. Sullivan’s defense, he would never get a second chance.

  “I know we are running low on money, but let’s make another push on Facebook, or maybe a new Kickstarter campaign.”

  “Not a chance of that, I’m afraid.”

  Morris was silent. He had to agree. Both of the men knew that America’s love for Mary Eileen Sullivan had faded. She was no longer the “Murder Babe” idolized by cable TV show hosts for the ratings she brought to their shows. No longer did every legal pundit in the U.S. point to her case as the work of misogynistic men.

  Her flame was flickering out as a wave of copycat killers; teenage girls who began killing their boyfriends, male school teachers and even their fathers, swept the nation. The simple act of murder wasn’t enough for some of these children. Several of the girls had persuaded their boyfriends to commit suicide.

  America’s cable TV shows were at once shocked and revolted. Mary Eileen was no longer a hero. Now she was a villain.

  “The best Kickstarter campaign in the world won’t raise the money we need,” the mysterious man on the phone told Morris.

  The ringtone from his second phone saved Morris from saying again it was time to fish or cut bait. It was Michael's secretary on Face Time. Morris punched up the call on his dashboard WiFi. Teri was the latest in a series of college undergrads who were lured to work for him at minimum wage with a promise of an excellent resume reference and free pot. The company car, a “previously owned” BMW that she was allowed to use didn't hurt either.

  His body temperature went from 98.6 to somewhere in the Arctic Circle range when Teri held up a manila envelope. On it was stamped the St. Isidore County Prosecutor’s seal.

  “Hang on a minute. Fry just sent me something,” Morris told the man on the first phone as he put his first smartphone on hold.

  “Open it,” he told Teri. “Let me see what’s inside.”

  After a couple of seconds of watching Teri wrestling to get the envelope open, Morris’ face turned the color of vanilla ice cream. He thanked Teri and went back to his first smartphone.

  “Fry’s motioning for a court-appointed psychiatrist to examine Mary Eileen,” Morris told his money man. “Now it’s all going to come out.”

  Thirty Six

  Patricia was in her element as she presented her case against Mary Eileen, who stoically listened to the testimony. The jury was hers. Spotting the flop sweat stains on Michael Morris’ stiff shirt collar was a bonus.

  Patricia could have been standing in a refrigerated box car as she adroitly wove a tale of a woman who was willing to kill until she got what she wanted; using the testimony of fifty witnesses and seven experts, the best of whom was the county psychiatrist, Dr. Hank Kastle.

  Patricia said Mary Eileen was a manipulative liar who was prepared to do anything to her advantage. In her opening statement, Patricia called her a “singularly cold-blooded and unscrupulous killer.”

  Patricia encouraged the jury to look beyond the composed, attractive woman seated at the defendant’s table, to see the evil in her heart.

  But here was the prosecution’s problem: evidence showed Mary Eileen was not on the same planet most people when it came to ethical decisions. Even though she was a defense witness, Dr. Julianne French admitted Mary Eileen was a “user of men” and a borderline nymphomaniac. However, Dr. French stressed it was those personality traits that made it difficult for Mary Eileen to keep more than a tenuous grip on reality.

  “She grew up believing that her father was murdered in Ireland by British soldiers because of his IRA connections. Her father was her hero. After his death, she began a search for a replacement,” Dr. French testified.

  “Replacement?” Morris asked.

  “Yes, absolutely,” Dr. French responded. “Mary Eileen Sullivan was like a princess who just wanted to be rescued by a man. Each of her affairs were a step in that quest. Each man she loved or thought she loved, for a time, offered a slice of her father’s personality. But she was never able to find one man as good as her father, until...”

  “Until?”

  Dr. French paused. She licked her lips and looked at the defendant's table.

  “Mary Eileen Sullivan is pregnant.”

  Judge Leopold and the jury snapped to attention. Patricia Fry could just imagine the people of the world, watching on CNN, the BBC, and just about every other cable channel on Earth leaning toward their television sets.

  “Who is the father? Do we know?” Morris asked.

  “Yes, I believe we do.”

  “Is Mary Eileen Sullivan accused of killing the father of her as-yet-unborn child?"

  “No,” answered Dr. French. “The father of her child is undoubtedly the only man who could come close to filling the emptiness left by her father’s death.”

  “Is the father of her child in this courtroom?”

  Dr. French paused and looked over the audience. Spectators and reporters jammed the courtroom. There was hardly enough air to breathe. And Dr. French's blockbuster revelation had just sucked what little oxygen there was to spare out of the room.

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Dr. French. “Mary Eileen Sullivan refused to tell me.”

  “Does she know?”

  “Yes, I believe she does.”

  “But no matter who the father may be,” Morris said as Patricia flinched. Here it comes, she thought; he’s pushing the sympathy button.

  “No matter who the father is,” Morris continued, “Mary Eileen Sullivan will have her baby in prison if convicted, and will never have a chance to raise the child as her own.”

  “Objection!” Patricia shouted. “That is not germane to this case. Whether or not the defendant is allowed to raise her child is irrelevant. The question at hand is whether she knowingly murdered two men and then callously disposed of their bodies.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Leopold said. “The jury and witness will disregard the last question from Mr. Morris.”

  Patricia may have won that point, but to take set and match, she was going to have to move the jury back to making a factually based decision rather than one based on emotion. She always knew that is what would make the difference between victory and defeat.

  “Mary Eileen Sullivan is a sympathetic person,” Patricia told her roommate Allyson more than once. “She’s attractive, intelligent, speaks several languages, and owned a business in town. There are not many people in St. Isidore who haven’t purchased a coffee and scone from her.”

  “Even if she’s a killer?” Allyson said.

  “Yeah,” Patricia said as she leaned back from the oak desk that had become the centerpiece of her home life with Allyson. “Even if she’s a killer.”

  “But why? Why would any jury decide to let her free?”

  “Because in their hearts, they want her to be innocent.”

  Patricia decided not to cross examine Dr. French. She didn’t want to get into a battle of words over whether repressed memories were valid. Dr. French was the expert. She had the diplomas, Patricia’s law degree, even though it came from the University of Michigan, would be no match. And just as Patricia realized the jury might want Mary Eileen Sullivan to be innocent; they also wanted to believe Dr. Julianne French.

  Patricia called Dr. Hank Kastle to the stand.

  Henry “Hank” Kastle was a first-generation American. His parents, who escaped from East Germany just as the Soviets were building the Berlin Wall, called him “Hank” rather than his given name. “It sounds so much more American,” his mother said to her fellow German immigrant neighbors.

  “Tell me, Dr. Kastle, we heard much about the alleged ‘repressed memories’ of Mary Eileen Sullivan. As a graduate of the Harvard Medical School, who has his doctorate in psychiatric medicine, what has your experienc
e been with ‘repressed memories?’” Patricia said after Hank had sworn to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

  Even though Dr. Kastle was only 5-foot, 8-inches tall and could not have weighed more than 150 pounds, he was a charismatic if not imposing figure in the witness stand. As he swung his gaze to the jury box, not one of the six men and six women were able to drop their eyes from his.

  Hank shifted his attention back to Patrica and said with a smile between his salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee, “There should be a label attached to any and all repressed memory cases; ‘Warning: The concept of repressed memory has not been validated with experimental research. Its use may be hazardous to accurate interpretation of clinical behavior.’”

  “Objection,” shouted Morris from the defendant’s table.

  “Overruled,” said Judge Leopold.

  Patricia returned Hank’s smile.

  “Dr. Kastle, you interviewed the defendant, Mary Eileen Sullivan, for more than thirty hours. Were you able to find any psychological problems associated with her childhood any evidence of repressed memories?”

  Hank leaned forward, put his elbows on the edge of the witness stand, formed a triangle with his fingers and looked at Mary Eileen. When he answered, Hank was speaking to her as much as he was addressing Patricia, Judge Leopold, and the jury.

  Hank said, “There is no question that Mary Eileen Sullivan, the defendant, does not see the world in the same way as you or me.”

  Morris was stunned, as was the jury and even Judge Leopold. The prosecution’s chief witness, the star that Patricia Fry had held close to her chest until today had agreed with the defense. Was Mary Eileen Sullivan not a rational person?

  It was only their fear they would miss something, even more, headline-worthy that kept the media from leaping out of their chairs and dashing out to use their phones in the hallway.

  Judge Leopold’s eyebrows nearly danced off her face until she noticed Patricia was still smiling.

  “Well, let me rephrase if I may,” Hank continued. “She sees the same information we see, but her mind processes it differently and comes to a different conclusion.”