Over the Edge

by Jonathan Kellerman

  'Doctor,' he said, barely looking at me. Then, inexplicably, he smiled, and I saw, in the humorless upturning of petulant lips, the resemblance to Jamey.

  'Mr. Cadmus.'

  'Sit down, Dwight,' said Souza, exerting pressure with his hand. 'Rest yourself.'

  Cadmus sank like a stone.

  Souza gestured to a chair. 'Make yourself comfortable, Doctor.'

  He seated himself behind the desk and rested his elbows on its tooled leather top.

  'First let me lay out the facts, Doctor. If I cover familiar ground, please bear with me. Yesterday, in the early hours of the morning, James escaped from his hospital room. Shortly after, he phoned you from a vacant conference room. Do you remember the time of the call?'

  'Around three-fifteen.'

  He nodded.

  'That jibes with the reports of the hospital staff. Unfortunately it doesn't help our case from a time frame perspective. In any event, subsequent efforts to locate him on the grounds were unsuccessful. A call was dispatched to Dwight in Mexico, and he and his family flew back up immediately. Upon landing, they contacted me. We held

  an emergency conference with Dr. Mainwaring, during which a list was compiled of any locations Jamey'd been known to frequent. Attempts were made to contact each by phone.'

  'What kinds of locations?'

  'Homes of acquaintances mostly.'

  'It was a short list,' said Cadmus in a near whisper. 'He hasn't liked people for a long time.'

  There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. The attorney glanced at Cadmus, who kept his gaze on his wing tips.

  'We've wrestled with the boy's emotional problems for a long time,' explained Souza. 'It's been a strain.'

  I nodded sympathetically.

  'One of the parties we tried to reach was an Ivar Digby Chancellor of Beverly Hills. Jamey had developed a -friendship with him, though to our knowledge it had ended some time ago.'

  'Damned deviate,' muttered Cadmus.

  Souza looked at him sharply and went on:

  'Despite the fact that the relationship had been put to rest, it seemed possible he'd return to Chancellor's house. However, no one answered there. None of the other calls was fruitful either. Finally we called in the police. They took our list and visited each address. Sometime later -around eight in the morning - the boy was located at the Chancellor residence.'

  Souza stopped and looked at the uncle, as if expecting another interruption. Cadmus kept quiet, seemingly oblivious of both of us.

  'The police walked into a bloody scene, Doctor. Chancellor was dead, strangled and stabbed repeatedly, as was a second party, a sixteen-year-old male prostitute known as Rusty Nails - given name, Richard Ford. According to the report, Chancellor's body had been trussed up, Ford's was prostrate, and Jamey was sitting cross-legged on the floor between the two corpses, clutching a long-bladed knife and a swatch of lavender silk. He seemed in a trance, muttering incoherently - something about bursting arteries and zombies - but went wild at the sight of the officers. It took several policemen to subdue him, and he was put in restraints before being taken away.'

  I remembered the boy's phone call, the terrible images.

  Souza kept reciting:

  'They booked him in the county jail, placed him in isolation, and phoned me. I set out immediately to do all the lawyerly things at my disposal in order to obstruct the investigation: filed a writ prohibiting interrogation because of mental incompetence, protested at the lack of adequate medical care at the jail, and demanded release on bail or immediate transfer to a psychiatric facility. The writ was complied with - a minor victory because he's too incoherent to be interrogated anyway. The medical care issue was handled by allowing Dr. Mainwaring to visit him and administer medication under supervision. In view of the boy's escape and the enormity of the charges, you can imagine how the bail transfer request was received. He remains at the jail, curled in his cell like a fetus, mute and unresponsive.'

  The attorney sat back in his chair, picked up a fountain pen, and suspended it between his index fingers. As promised, he'd laid out the facts with the precision of a draughtsman. The end result was the blueprint of a nightmare. I searched Dwight Cadmus's face for reaction, found only arctic immobility.

  Souza got up from behind the desk and straightened one of the cups in the tea set. Instead of returning to his chair, he stood with his back to the French doors, outlined squarely against the glass.

  'I've done some research into your background, Doctor. Your scholarly credentials are impeccable, you have a reputation for honesty, and you've had an impressive amount of courtroom experience as an expert witness -though I don't believe any of it was in a criminal trial.'

  'That's right,' I said. 'I testified at the Casa de los Ninos trials as a material witness. My expert testimony's been limited to child custody issues and personal injury cases.'

  'I see.' He thought for a moment. 'If it sounds as if I'm quizzing you, forgive me. How familiar are you with the notion of insanity?'

  'I know it's a legal concept, not a medical or psychological one.'

  'Exactly,' he said, obviously pleased. 'A defendant may be a stark, raving lunatic and still be judged legally sane. The essential question is the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. Diminished capacity dictates the absence of guilt. I want your help in constructing a dim cap defense for Jamey.'

  'I thought the legislature eliminated psychiatric testimony in dim cap cases.'

  He smiled tolerantly.

  'The Twinkie defense hubbub? Not at all. Psychiatrists and psychologists are no longer allowed to get up on the stand and draw conclusions about diminished capacity, but they're permitted to present clinical data from which those conclusions can be drawn. For the purpose of this case the distinction is insignificant.'

  'Despite that,' I said, 'I have lots of problems with the concept of diminished capacity.'

  'Really? What bothers you about it, Doctor?'

  'For one, it asks us to go beyond our training and pull off the impossible - crawling into someone's head and reconstructing the past. It's little more than officially sanctioned guesswork, and laymen are starting to see through it. On top of that, it lets too many bad guys off the hook.'

  Souza nodded, unperturbed.

  'That's all very fine, in theory. But tell me, when you spoke to Jamey on the phone, how did he sound?'

  'Agitated, confused, hallucinating.'

  'Psychotic?'

  'I can't diagnose from a phone call, but most probably.'

  'I appreciate your professional caution, but believe me, he's psychotic. Severe paranoid schizophrenia. He's been ill for quite some time. He hears voices, sees visions, is overtly delusional, and has been deteriorating steadily. Dr. Mainwaring hasn't been encouraging about the prognosis. The boy's out of control. Do you think it fair that he be

  called to answer for acts that are rooted in that kind of madness? That he be viewed as a bad guy? He needs care, not punishment. The insanity defense is his only hope.'

  'You're assuming, then, that he committed eight murders.'

  He pushed a wing chair opposite me and sat down, so close that our knees almost touched.

  'Doctor, I've managed to obtain an early look at everything the police have put down on paper. The time frame is incriminating, and the physical evidence is overwhelming. Following a violent escape from Canyon Oaks, he was found at the scene of the crime with the murder weapons in hand. His fingerprints were all over the Chancellor house. And there'll be more evidence to follow, I guarantee you. They won't slip up on this one. We won't be able to fight the facts. In order to keep him off Death Row, our strategy must be to show that his mental state had deteriorated to the point where free will was impossible.'

  I remained silent. Souza leaned close enough for me to smell his breath.

  'It won't be a fishing expedition, I assure you. There are robust medical and social histories, a verified pattern of prior deterioration. In addition, genetics are on our sid
e. His grandmother and his father - '

  Cadmus shot out of his chair.

  'Stay away from that angle, Horace! We'll be dragged through the muck enough without getting into that!'

  Souza straightened his thick legs, stood, and faced the younger man. His eyes glinted with anger, but he spoke softly.

  'Forget about privacy for the foreseeable future, Dwight. You're a public figure now.'

  'I don't see why - '

  Souza cut him off with the wave of a hand.

  'Go home and rest, son. You've been under tremendous strain.'

  Cadmus protested, but feebly.

  'I want to know what's going on. He's my - '

  'And you will. The doctor and I need to talk about technical matters. When we've reached a meeting of the minds, you'll be the first to know. Now, go and get some sleep. I'll have Tully drive you home.'

  End of discussion.

  The attorney went behind his desk and pushed a button. Moments later the chauffeur appeared. Souza gave the order, and Cadmus followed Antrim out the door.

  When we were alone, Souza shook his head pityingly. 'You should have known his father,' he said, 'a great, snorting bull of a man. Chewed up life and swallowed it whole.' He paused. 'Sometimes I wonder if blood isn't like wealth, growing progressively more dilute with each new generation.'

  He pressed another button and summoned a smart-looking young woman in a feminized version of a business suit.

  'Some tea, please, Veronica. Coffee for you, Doctor?'

  'Tea would be fine.'

  To the secretary:

  'A full pot, dear.'

  'Certainly, sir.' She removed the pitcher from the china tea set, handling it as if it were spun sugar, and walked out. Souza walked her departure before returning his attention to me.

  'As I was saying, there's no lack of data to back up a dim cap. I'm not asking you to go out on a limb.'

  'You've got Mainwaring,' I said. 'Why do you need me?"

  'I'll use Dr. Mainwaring's testimony if I have to, but there are problems with him as a witness.'

  'What kinds of problems?'

  He chose his words.

  'First and foremost, the boy escaped while under his care, which will leave him open to a good barbecuing by the prosecution.'

  He stood, hooked his fingers in his suspenders and began orating in a deep, theatrical voice:

  ' "Dr. Mainwaring, you've just stated that Mr. Cadmus is incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. If that's so,

  how in the world did you allow him to get loose? To run amuck and commit two ghastly murders?" Pause for dramatic emphasiz, during which I'll object vociferously but the damage will have been done. The jury will view him as lacking good judgment, and his testimony will work against us.'

  When I was sure the performance was over, I said:

  'You referred to 'problems', in the plural'. What else?'

  Souza smiled as if to say 'You caught me.'

  'Over the years Dr. Mainwaring has acquired a reputation as a defense psychiatrist, one who puts forth biological theories that excuse a multitude of sins. Those theories haven't always met with agreement by other experts or juries.'

  'In other words, he's a whore who's been on the losing side too many times.'

  'In other words.'

  'Why, then, was he the one treating Jamey?' The anger in my voice surprised both of us.

  'There's been no error committed, Doctor. He's very well regarded as a clinician. As a legal expert, however, he leaves much to be desired.'

  The secretary knocked and came in with the teapot. She poured two cups and brought them to us on a silver tray, poured cream for Souza, which I declined, and left.

  The attorney sipped. The delicate cup was a mismatch with his fleshy hand.

  'You, on the other hand, Dr. Delaware, would be an asset to our team.'

  'I'm flattered,' I said, 'but it doesn't make sense. I have no experience in criminal cases, I'm far from an expert on psychosis, and I told you how I feel about the insanity of defense.'

  Souza looked at me warily through swirls of steam.

  'I suppose,' he said, 'that candor is called for.'

  'Without it we have nothing further to talk about.'

  'All right. Candor it is. First, let me emphasize that when I talked about checking you out and learning your credentials were first-rate I was being truthful. I've found

  out quite a bit about you: You received your doctorate at twenty-four, wrote an important textbook at twenty-nine, could have been a full professor by thirty-four. You were at the peak of an outstanding career when you dropped out. You've been described to me repeatedly as brilliant but stubborn, often to the point of obsessiveness. The brilliance is important because it means you can quickly fill the gaps in your knowledge. The obsessiveness appeals to me, too, because it means that if I can get you over to my side, you'll be one hell of a gladiator. But in all truthfulness there's no shortage of psychiatric expertise at my disposal, and even if you join my team, I may call on others to augment your testimony.'

  He leaned forward.

  'There are, Dr. Delaware, factors other than your professional attributes that are relevant to my strategy. First of all, you treated Jamey years ago, before he became psychotic. I have no doubt that if I sit on my hands, the prosecution will try to get you on their team, to have you testify that the boy had his wits about him and was perfectly in control. They'll use your testimony to support their claim that his psychosis is a fabrication of recent vintage; the insanity defense, some kind of legal stunt. As you mentioned, the layman is suspicious of psychiatric testimony, so the burden of proof will be upon us. I'm going to have to show that the roots of madness were laid long ago. You can play a valuable role in that regard.

  'Second' - he smiled - 'you have ties to the police; you've consulted to them. You even have a personal relationship with one of the investigators on this case, Detective Sturgis. That will allow me to paint you as a law-and-order man, a hardhead who's unlikely to be fooled. If you feel capacity was diminished, it must be so.'

  He replaced his cup in its saucer.

  'Simply put, Dr. Delaware, I want to co-opt you.'

  'You're talking about pitting me against a friend. Why should I do it?'

  'Because you care about Jamey. You drove out at three-thirty in the morning in response to his plea for help.

  Skepticism notwithstanding, you know he's sick, not evil. And you couldn't live with yourself if he met his death and you hadn't done all you could to prevent it.'

  'Death? They haven't executed anyone in this state for a long time.'

  'Come now, Doctor. You don't really believe the boy would survive the penitentiary, do you? He's crazy. Suicidal. As I was saying before Dwight got all huffy, self-destruction runs in the family. Within weeks he'd find a way to open his veins or hang himself with a bed sheet. I'm plenty concerned right now about his confinement at the jail, but at least Mainwaring's providing one-on-one care. In San Quentin the only personal care he'd get would be a nightly anal battering.' He lowered his voice. 'He needs to be in a hospital. And I'm asking you to help me get him into one.'

  I took a moment to digest everything he'd said, then told him:

  'You've put me in a difficult position. I need to think about it.'

  'That's fine,' he answered quickly. 'I don't expect you to decide on the spot.'

  'If I agree to work with you, Mr. Souza, it will have to be on my terms. I have a strong aversion to doing things halfway. You're asking me to reconstruct Jamey's frame of mind. To do that, I'd need to reconstruct his life, to make sense out of the events leading up to his deterioration. I'm not yet convinced that's possible, but if it is, I'd need access to everyone - family members, Mainwaring, anyone I deem relevant - and all records.'

  'Every door will be open to you.'

  'There'll be times when my questions get intrusive. From what I just saw, Dwight Cadmus would have problems with that.'

  'Don't w
orry about Dwight. Just tell me what you want and when you want it, and I'll see to it that he cooperates.'

  'There's something else to consider,' I said. 'Even if I work with you, I won't promise the outcome. It's possible I'll investigate and feel capacity wasn't diminished.'