By Reason of Insanity

by Rachel Sinclair

  "So I take it that you were not approving of what he was doing?"

  "No, of course I wasn't. His company is trying to clone somebody just because they can. No other reason. But if they can do it, watch out. We’ll have rich guys all over the world creating a clone just so they can have somebody to take over their money when they die, and maybe give them a body part or two along the way. And I read up on the process, with animals. There's always a genetic problem with the second animal, the cloned one. It’s always sick. It always dies young. I think the sickest thing in the world."

  “You do know that, even though your husband’s dead, the cloning project is going to go on,” I asked her. I was starting to suspect that maybe she killed him to stop the cloning project.

  “Of course I know that. They got this weird scientist over there heading it up. Dr. Redmond.” She shook her head. "You're just trying to nail me on this, anyway you can. You’re thinking that I’m going to confess to killing him to stop him from cloning. I'm telling you I didn't do it. Or at least, I don't think I did it."

  “About that,” I said, “you say that you don’t think that you did it. But you told the cops that you have no memories from the night he died. So how do you know if you did it or not?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I don’t remember that day. I don’t remember several days before that day.”

  “So, you really don’t know if you killed him or not, right?” I asked her.

  ”I guess I don't." Then she smiled at me. "I guess I don't."

  I sighed. "Listen, I'm going to have to have you evaluated by a psychiatrist. I think we're going to have to think about trying for an insanity defense."

  "You won't do that. I won’t let you do it. I'm not insane,” she said.

  "Yes, I understand that you think that,” I said to her. “However, if in fact you killed him, and you were not aware of what you were doing, which was entirely possible because you don't know what happened that night, an insanity defense would be the way to go. Listen, people kill people all the time and not remember what they did afterwards. If you had no idea that you were murdering your husband, or if you didn’t know at that time that killing was wrong, we can get you off with an insanity defense. An insanity defense is one hell of a lot better than trying to convince the jury that you didn't do it, when you don't know yourself if you did or not.”

  She studied me for several minutes, not saying a word. She put one delicate hand up to her cheek, and just looked at Regina and me. "No,” she finally said. Then she looked away from both of us.

  "No, what?”

  “No, I'm not going to go along with that. I was not crazy that night, I just…"

  "You just, what?"

  "I just have times of my life when I don't remember what happened. That doesn't make me crazy. And I know, I’ve been in and out of mental institutions for most of my life. But I was never crazy. I've always known what I was doing when I was doing it.“

  I rolled my eyes. "Listen, if you have times in your life when you don't remember what you did, then, I hate to say it, but during those periods of time, you definitely weren’t sane. Call them psychotic fugues, call them dissociative episodes, whatever you will, but you cannot say that your brain is rational during these periods of time. You quite possibly could have killed a man while you were in this dissociative state, so, as I said, I want to plead you not guilty by reason of insanity. You'll be evaluated by a doctor and –"

  At that, she stood up. She came after me, her eyes filled with unbridled rage. Even though I am 6’2”, and she was only 5’6” and extremely small, the rage made her stronger than 10 people. She got body blows on me before I even knew what was happening, and she kicked me. She jabbed her finger in my eye, and pain shot through my skull when she did that. She screamed so loud that it sounded otherworldly. It wasn't quite the sound of a wounded animal - it was more high-pitched than that, and more desperate.

  I couldn't react, because the rage came on so suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. "I said that I'm not going to go along with it, and I'm not going to go along with it!" she screamed at me.

  A guard came out, and put the tase on her immediately. At first, it seemed that she wasn't even affected by the the Taser. As small as she was, the first tase didn’t faze her. She just kept hitting and kicking me.

  The guard tased her two more times, and she finally crumpled on the ground.

  "I'm sorry about that, counselor," the burly guard said to me. "She's been doing that a lot."

  When I got my thoughts together, I realized that I had seen a side of her that was just a little bit spooky to me. The woman obviously had a lot of rage. She attacked a lot of people, both in the mental institutions, and, according to the guard, she apparently was attacking people here in jail.

  She was definitely capable of violence. Did she kill her husband? Perhaps there was a clue in the way that she described her relationship with Lawrence. She said that they basically they didn’t have a real marriage and that she was essentially being paid to be his wife.

  Plus, I knew something about her background, about her stay at the orphanage when she was a little girl. I knew that her mental illness came from very deep roots. She didn’t know what had happened that night - an insanity plea would be the best thing for her. She would be evaluated by a psychiatrist, and if she ever recovered, she would be out.

  I just didn’t think that we could win without an insanity plead. Even though Marina didn't really know if she killed her husband or not, the court was going to have to trust me when I would tell them that she didn’t.

  To win this case, assuming that I wouldn’t be able to go with an insanity plea, I would have to find another person who might have really done it. This wouldn’t be the easiest thing to do.

  The guard took Marina away, and I looked at Regina, who was shaking her head and laughing. "Man, that chick’s got some issues. To say the very least. You okay?"

  "Yeah, she sucker punched me. I wasn't ready for her to turn into a wild Banshee. I guess I probably should have been, considering this is what she does. Listen, I don't know how much investigation you're going to have to do in this case. I think it's just a matter of me having her evaluated by a shrink who can testify that she wasn’t sane at the time of the murder. I don't know if classic investigation is going to be warranted here. In other words, I don't know if you necessarily have to be looking for another culprit. I'm pretty sure that she's the one who did this."

  Regina looked annoyed, like her time was being wasted. Which it was. “Suit yourself. But, if you ask me, there are places that you can really look to see who else might have had it in for this guy. I mean, think about what he does. He's the CEO of the company that's experimenting with human cloning. That's something that pisses a lot of people off."

  I wanted to tell Regina the truth - I wasn’t relishing trying this case. I wanted it to go away, and the best way that I could imagine it going away would be if I could have my client declared insane. Preferably not fit to stand trial. But, even if she was declared fit to stand trial, pleading her not guilty by reason of insanity would be the easiest way to win the case. I really didn’t want to go the entire route of putting on witness after witness, trying to break them down and admit that they had a motive to kill Lawrence, so that the jury could be believe a SODDI defense - some other dude did it.

  I wanted to take the easy way out, in other words.

  Yet, I didn't want Regina to see me as somebody who would back down from a challenge. "I still think I'm going to have her evaluated for insanity.”

  “Dude, she told you that she doesn’t know what happened that night. You owe it to her to try to do at least some investigation to see who might've killed him. What happens if you try to go for an insanity defense, and the jury doesn't buy it? They might not. And then what? You’ll be standing there with your dick in your hand. Not to mention a malpractice suit."

  I opened my mouth, and closed it. "Listen, you heard her.
You heard what she was saying. She was one who said that she didn't care if she lived or died. Maybe that's right. Maybe that's the reason why she wanted to hire me in the first place. If she really wanted to win this case, she would hire somebody who's, you know, competent."

  Regina shook her head. "I can't believe I’m hearing this. Your Avery's brother. Avery would never allow a client to push her around like that. Come on man, grow a pair. You’re getting paid good money for this case, or your firm is. Do some investigation."

  “Here's the thing. If I try to go with a SODDI defense, some other dude did it, I don’t think that I can also try to plead in the alternative that she was crazy and did it herself. So I have to go with one or the other. Personally, I think that the insanity defense is probably the more likely scenario. It’s more likely to win.”

  “We don't have to commit to an insanity defense yet, right? She hasn’t even been arraigned yet. When do you have to put in that plea?”

  I was embarrassed that I didn't know the answer to that question. I was going to have to do research on that, as I would on everything else in this case. I realized that I was in over my head, but, at the same time, I was going to have to do what I could to give this woman a good defense. "I don't know the answer to that question. I'm going to have to look it up."

  "We'll figure it out. In the meantime, you have to figure out when you need to make that insanity plea, and, before that time comes, you can get some investigation done. I agree that you probably can't argue in the alternative, at least to the jury. That doesn’t make any damn sense. So you’re going to have to go with one or the other, either SODDI or insanity. You know what direction I’m leaning, so I won’t say anymore.“

  We got up from the table, and walked out to my car. “Okay. It's a beautiful afternoon. And I don't know about you, but I’m really anxious to get some surfing done. Would you like to come along?" I felt a little bit shy asking her, like I was asking her on a date or something. And, truth be told, that was exactly what I was going to try to do. I knew that she surfed. She was pretty good at it. My plan was to get her out in the ocean with me, and then maybe little bit later, we would go to a bar, and grab a drink or three. A couple of margaritas, chips and salsa, a good Baja burrito, and, with any luck, we’d have a repeat performance from the previous night.

  Of course, she shot me down. "Sorry, Aidan. I got things to do. But, you’re going to have to think about this case. Give it some real thought. Find out who she knows, talk to some of the other patients at her hospital. Talk to some of her therapists, some of the coworkers of her husband, that sort of thing. I'll do any kind investigation you want me to, of course. Just let me know."

  We drove along in silence after that. I was feeling a bit rejected. I didn't know what she was up to that day, but whatever it was, I knew it was not to be with me. And that kind of stung.

  I got back to my condo, and Regina headed over to her own car, which was parked on the street next to the condo. The weather was warming up, and there were already a lot of people heading down to the beach. I was going to be one of those people, in just a matter of hours. Regina, however, was not going to be. This pissed me off more than anything.

  "Well, dude, later,” she said. “You got my number, call me when you want to have some investigation done on this chick. Because I know that if you don't do it, you're going to regret it. Don't take the easy way out."

  I walked away from her, and said nothing. I was steaming, truth be told. And I didn't want her to know that.

  Chapter 3

  As soon as I got into the condo, I got into my wetsuit. I grabbed my surfboard, which was out on the balcony, and headed out the door.

  The sand was hot underneath my feet, and I could see that there were probably 20 surfers in the area where I was going to be. Some of my best bros were out there, paddling and waiting for a good wave.

  Coronado was not always the best place to surf. In the San Diego area, Ocean Beach probably took that honor, since Ocean Beach typically had the biggest waves, as well as the most violent undertow. Coronado was relatively shallow, which meant that the waves were not as big. But I didn't want to bother with putting my surfboard on the roof of my car, and driving out to Ocean Beach, which was about 20 minutes away without traffic. So I decided just to go ahead and take whatever waves I could get.

  The wind was blowing just enough that the waves were halfway decent. I said hello to some of my buddies, and they waved at me. One of the guys who was out here was George Cooper, who was also an associate at the firm, although he had been around our firm a lot longer than me. I made a mental note to pick his brain about the Marina situation, after we got done with our surfing.

  I was out there for three hours, paddling, and then catching a wave, and riding several all the way in. I was one of the better surfers out there, because I had been doing it for so long. Unlike Avery, I had grown up around a beach all my life. Our dad split from our mom when I was only two years old, and we ended up living in San Ysidro, a border town about a half hour away from our condo.

  So, a coastal town was the only thing I'd ever known. I’d been surfing since the age of four. I was one of those little kids on the beach, with a blue and yellow wetsuit, listening intently to an instructor telling us how to paddle our tiny surfboards, and how to stand up on them, and how to ride them in. Surfing lessons was one of the few things my dad could afford. He never worked that much, pretty much going from one odd job to another.

  After our surfing was over, George and I headed over to a seafood restaurant that looked out onto the water. We sat outside and drank margaritas, and I was wishing that he was Regina. But he wasn't. He was somebody whose brain I could pick, however.

  "So, I guess you’re in a dilemma, aren't you?” George asked. “Listen, I know that it’s probably tempting to take the easy way out, and say that the woman killed her husband in a psychotic fugue, or a dissociative state. But I think that your assistant, I mean your investigator, probably has a point. You don’t know that she did it and neither does she. How does that even work?"

  "I guess you make a point. If we're going to try to convince the jury that she's not guilty by reason of insanity, then she's going have to stand up and say that she did it. Or we're going to have to ascertain that she did it.”

  “Right,” George said. “And you can’t do that, can you? So, what you’re going to be doing is going to a jury and basically say that you don’t know if she did it or not, but if she did, she wasn’t sane when she did. I don’t think that’s all that persuasive.”

  I nodded my head and took a sip of my margarita. My California burrito, which is basically a regular burrito with french fries inside, arrived, and I bit into it. The cheese oozed out and I grabbed one of the fries and popped it into my mouth. It was the kind of greasy comfort food that made me halfway forget my dilemma at the moment.

  “I guess you're right,” I said. “Listen, I need to talk to James. Stu says that he's the one who wants me on this case. I’m going to ask him if he wants to give me a second chair on this. Do you think that you would be available for that?"

  "I guess so. I mean, like you, I don't really have much experience with murder trials, but I can try to muddle along. I know that doesn't give you much confidence, but what does this woman expect? Did she explain to you why it was that she wanted you to be her attorney? She obviously could afford somebody who's, well, not a bad trial attorney. You don't know what you're doing. I know your sister knows what she's doing, but she's not the one trying this case.”

  "Yeah, she just said that she didn't care if she lived or died. And she wanted me to be her attorney. Also, she said that all attorneys are the same. One as good as another.”

  George nodded his head. "I think you better be careful with this one. You say she's been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder? It's entirely possible that she's created some kind of a fantasy relationship with you in her head. That's just the kind of thing that would happen between a woma
n who is borderline and a guy like you, who defended her and got her out of the mental institution before. You were her savior at that time. Her knight in shining armor. If you ask me, that's probably the main reason why she decided that she wanted you on her case."

  I knew he was right, and I didn't know what to do about it. "Maybe I should talk to James about the possibility of not being on this case. I mean, if she’s imagining me to be her lover, her boyfriend, or whatever, that's not good. To say the very least.”

  “Well, it probably would not hurt to bring it up with him. You gotta figure out, because it doesn’t make any damn sense that she would have you on this case.”

  At that, I made another mental note to myself - I was going to have to talk to James. Hopefully he would realize the folly of keeping me on this case. And he would probably have to break it to her that she was not going to be able to have me as an attorney.

  Because, quite frankly, I didn't think I would do a good job.

  Chapter 4

  Marina

  Marina was taken back to her cell after she saw her lawyer and his investigator. She was happy that she was able to pull it off. Aidan was unaware as to the reason why she wanted him on her case, and what role he played in her life. And, she thought, it was probably how things had to be. She would never tell him the real reason why it was that she wanted him as her attorney.

  She felt a little bit sad that he was a dupe, a pawn in her scheme. He was an innocent guy, a boy really. He had no idea what he was getting into, and that was the way she wanted it to be.

  Let him believe that the reason why she wanted him to be on her case was because she had some kind of an emotional attachment to him. Let him believe that, as his male ego was going to lead him to believe, he was just That Good. Hell, let him even believe that she wanted him on the case because she wanted to lose. She didn't want to lose. She hated to lose anything.