“Well, typically they came very suddenly. She’d be sitting in a high chair and then suddenly it would pour out of her diaper, through her rubber pants and her clothes, down the chair, and onto the floor in a puddle.”
“And how long would these bouts last?”
“The explosive part about an hour. It could go on for the rest of the day or even a week.”
“Were there any prior indications of when Sarah was about to have an attack of diarrhea?”
“No. And we tried to plot it out, link it to allergies and so forth.”
“Mrs. Wrigley, what did you do to deal with these bouts of explosive diarrhea?”
“Well, to control the convulsive motion of the bowels, we put her in warm water, and if that didn’t work, we gave her some Donnatal elixir, which calms the bowel,” she answered.
“And how much fluid would Sarah typically lose during one of these explosive bouts?”
“Typically one pint during each explosive incident,” Pat answered firmly. “She would lose maybe a quart an hour.” In his chair, Josh Thomas wrote himself a note. Then he looked over at Ted, who was shaking his head in sick disbelief. His case was unraveling before his eyes.
“Do you remember the dates of these explosive bouts, Mrs. Wrigley?” Ed went on.
“There was one right after Thanksgiving. I remember because I lost sick leave staying home with Sarah. Also on St. Patrick’s Day we had an incident, and one about the time of Joey’s birthday, which would be February twelfth.”
“Now, can you tell us a little about your experiences with Joey, Mrs. Wrigley?”
“Yes. Joey arrived from Vietnam at the age of six weeks, very sick. He was critically ill in three different hospitals. The longest hospitalization was at Mount Zion.”
“You learned about diarrhea because of Joey’s numerous bouts?”
“Yes. I always kept Pedialyte with me because Mount Zion told me to do so. We had one and a half years of severe diarrhea with Joseph.”
“Is that why you didn’t go to Dr. Eaton each time that Sarah had diarrhea?”
“Yes, definitely.”
“Does Sarah still have cyanosis—blue coloration—Mrs. Wrigley?”
“Yes. She had it yesterday. She also had severe seizures. Three days after we got her she had her first major seizure—a full convulsion—seven minutes long. We took her right to Dr. Eaton. Sarah has been a very sick child. Up till last month you would almost have to say she’d never had a well day. She is gradually getting better.”
“Now, tell me a little about your educational background, Mrs. Wrigley.”
“Certainly. I have a Master’s in the education of the physically handicapped and a teaching credential for teaching the physically handicapped and health-impaired. The children I teach are afflicted with such conditions as cerebral palsy, osteogenesis imperfecta, and severe asthma.”
“Would you be able to determine that Sarah has cerebral palsy?”
“Yes. Sarah has ataxic CP. It is characterized by imbalance, which is commonly called the drunken sailor’s gait. Sarah is ataxic and falls frequently. She wears a helmet to protect her from those falls.”
“Now, about those bouts of diarrhea that were not of the explosive type—that is, the other twenty-six times. What were their characteristics?”
“There was a sudden onset and no known cause. They might go on for several hours or even several days.”
“Has Sarah ever had this type of diarrhea while she’s having breakfast and still goes to school?” Ed asked. It was a question he was subsequently to regret.
“Yes. This is very typical. If she’s not dehydrated and is acting normal, we send her to school. My husband, Harry, is a custodian at the school Sarah attends and he can watch over her.”
“And you say that during Sarah’s explosive episodes, she can lose up to a quart an hour?” Ed repeated.
“Yes.”
“Now, you say that Sarah had an attack of cyanosis yesterday?”
“Yes. And yesterday evening she went into a severe otitis media problem—her teeth were chattering and she was running a fever of a hundred four degrees—so we took her to Dr. Eaton for penicillin. Through the night her temperature stayed down and this morning she was ready to go, fit as a fiddle, and we put her on the bus to go to school.”
“Going back to the severe attack around Thanksgiving, Mrs. Wrigley, can you describe that for us?”
“Yes. We had to put Sarah in the bathtub. She was losing about a pint at that time, and maybe in an hour altogether she lost a quart. She became very lethargic, wouldn’t even crawl. She started to become dehydrated and we called Dr. Eaton. Her skin was parched and dry but she was not feveral. She vomited a few times and we couldn’t get her to drink. Finally we got her to take some Coke.”
“Now, moving back in time a little, Mrs. Wrigley. What was Sarah’s condition when you first got her last July?”
“She was not walking; she was drooling some, unable to drink from a cup. She had a tremor on her left side and paresis—that’s a weakened muscle condition—on the left side of her face. She spoke about three words.”
“And she was how old?”
“Sarah was eighteen months old.”
“Do you have any photographs of Sarah when she was Mindy Phillips?”
“Yes—they’re in my briefcase.” She handed her case to Ed Caldwell, who struggled with it for a moment.
“I can’t open it.”
“It takes a Master’s degree,” Pat answered lightly. The audience laughed and even the judge smiled.
“How does Sarah relate to you as daughter to mother?”
“We have a very close relationship. She’s very affectionate to other women. She has had only two strange reactions: one to a woman at her school, and the other to medical personnel—she has an hysterical reaction to them.”
“Mrs. Wrigley, have you ever talked to Mrs. Phillips prior to recess in this courtroom?” Ed shifted emphasis.
“Never.”
“Now, has it been your practice to stay with your children when they’re hospitalized?”
“Yes. They’ve been hospitalized five times and I’ve moved in each time.”
“And do you keep detailed records of these hospitalizations?”
“Oh, yes. In their baby books, of course, and I have kept diaries of their hospitalizations day by day. These reflect in some cases the medical care or very often their emotional reactions.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wrigley.” Ed Caldwell was finished with direct.
In his chair, Josh Thomas collected the pages of notes he had made. This whole ruse involving Pat Wrigley—and Josh was convinced it had been a ruse—infuriated him. Both Dr. Eaton and Mary Vetter had insisted that the district attorney examine all of Dr. Eaton’s records prior to giving them to the defense and painstakingly delete each reference to Mindy Phillips’s new name. Josh was sure that that exercise had been a ploy to keep him away from the Wrigleys so that Caldwell could spring this witness on him. Because now it turned out that Ed Caldwell not only knew her name, but he was using Pat Wrigley as his star witness.
And what a damaging witness. The parallels between Pat Wrigley and Priscilla Phillips were astonishing. The defense could not have found a better witness had they invented her, Josh thought. Yet these very similarities that would work for Priscilla Phillips might be turned around to the detriment of Pat Wrigley, and Josh realized this almost immediately. If he could suggest this to the jury, and at the same time convince them that at the very least Pat Wrigley was not an impartial witness, he could undercut the effectiveness of her testimony. During recess he had noticed Pat throw her arms around Priscilla Phillips, hugging her like a long-lost sister. He wondered if some of the jurors had seen it, too. Just to be sure, Josh planned to point it out to them.
But he would begin by airing his suspicions about the fortuitous arrival of Pat Wrigley at the trial. Josh was not sure about who had contacted whom in this little scenario he believe
d the defense had worked out, and he wanted the jury to share his doubts.
“Mrs. Wrigley, you testified that you contacted Ed Caldwell on April fourth?” he began.
“Yes. After nine months of trying to keep Sarah in hiding, I thought it was time to bring the truth out into the open.”
“You’re certain you called Mr. Caldwell and not the other way around?”
“Definitely. I called Ed.”
“Ed—you mean Mr. Caldwell?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have any conversation with Dr. Eaton after she testified in this case?”
“I saw her last night. Sarah was sick,” Pat snapped.
“But you advised her, prior to her testifying, that you were going to be a witness, didn’t you?”
“I told her I had called Mr. Caldwell.”
“When your adopted son Joey was in Mount Zion, Mrs. Wrigley, what was the matter with him?”
“He had scabies, Salmonella, diarrhea, and malabsorption.”
“Did you move in with Joe at Mount Zion?”
“Not permanently. I spent every day with him.”
“At the time he left the hospital, was he well or still sick?”
“Still critically ill.”
“And you removed him from Mount Zion against the wishes of the doctor?”
“Yes.”
“How was he critically ill?” Josh had the witness on his line now, and very carefully he began to reel her in.
“He had severe diarrhea. He still had active Salmonella. At that point his prognosis was very poor.”
“How many doctors advised against taking Joey home?”
“Two.”
“And what was Joe’s condition after he came home?”
“He didn’t have a normal stool for a year and a half. He was on Cho-free, distilled water, MCT oil, and polycose. For one and a half years he didn’t have a bowel movement you could hold in your hand. Sometimes he had diarrhea ten times a day. He was a severely, critically ill child.”
“Was he ever hospitalized for diarrhea?”
“No.”
“Would you characterize his diarrhea as massive and voluminous?”
“Yes. He was on Cho-free until he was thirteen months old. At that point he was getting obese from the formula and it was obvious he no longer needed it. He was put on regular food even though he still had diarrhea.”
“So he was gaining weight?” Josh asked pointedly.
Pat was oblivious. “Oh, yes.”
“Have you had any experience in determining what are life threatening symptoms in a child the age of Sarah?”
“With Joseph, yes.”
“Have you had any formal training in that area?”
“Before they let us take Joseph home from Mount Zion, they went over and over again the signs I had to watch out for and how to measure the formula.”
“Did you ever mix his formula in the hospital?”
“I was never allowed to. If you overdose by one cc of polycose you can cause severe diarrhea.”
“Is that because polycose is a sugar-based compound?” Josh readied his gaff.
“Yes.”
Josh paused maliciously, then he jabbed at his catch. “Is that why you gave Sarah all those Cokes?”
The witness grimaced angrily. “I just gave her a small amount,” she answered.
“How much?”
“Probably about a quarter of a cup diluted with water.”
“And that was sufficient to overcome the extreme dehydration she was suffering from at that time?” His voice dripped sarcasm.
“It started her drinking again,” Pat protested.
“Now during that episode of severe diarrhea that you described, when she was in the high chair. What happened?”
“She was eating her dinner. There was a loud sound and it just started pouring out of her. We immediately took her out of the high chair and put her in a warm bath.”
“And did her diarrhea continue in the bath?”
“It’s sort of like labor. The convulsiveness comes in a big whoosh and then stops. You can feel her belly tighten and rise and then it pushes out.”
“And you kept putting her in and out of the bathtub when she had these explosive periods?”
“Yes.”
“And then at the end of the hour, you dispensed with the bathtub treatment?” The disdain in his voice almost choked him.
“Yes, she was coming out of it,” Pat answered resolutely.
“Did she appear to be in any pain?”
“No.”
“Even while she was going through these convulsions?”
“No. She was chatting away.”
“Ah.” Josh paused meaningfully. “And after this episode you indicated that you sent her to school the next morning?”
“Yes, I did. I would send her if she was having controllable diarrhea.”
“Did the school authorities ever complain because they were tired of changing her diapers?”
“No.”
“Did anybody ever make complaints of that type to Dr. Eaton?”
“I believe they may have.”
“Now you testified that Sarah had a feveral episode last night, with a hundred-four degree temperature, yet you sent her to school?”
“Yes. She had no temperature this morning. I called the school and talked to her teacher, told her how to get in touch with Dr. Eaton should anything occur.”
“We have reached the hour of our afternoon adjournment,” Judge Burke interrupted. “We will not be in session tomorrow. We will meet at the regular time Thursday.”
Josh and Ted Lindquist walked out together.
“Josh, we blew it. We should have followed up on Mindy’s new parents.” Ted was furious with himself.
“Yeah, I just about dropped dead when this Wrigley woman took the stand.”
“I’m damned if I don’t think there’s some kind of conspiracy going on. I’d almost believe Catholic Social Service and Priscilla Phillips were all involved somehow, that all these people knew each other. Maybe Priscilla and Wrigley even met at the Vietnamese babylift or something,” Ted said.
“Yeah. I’m going to call Vetter and Eaton tonight—”
“They’ll deny it—you watch.”
“Yeah. Look, Ted, we’ve got to get out to Vallejo tomorrow and talk to Mindy’s teachers, get her school records. If she was in school most of the time, how sick could she be? Oh, and another thing, we’d better talk to Mindy’s foster mother. You know, the woman who had her before the Wrigleys. Find out her name. Maybe she can help.”
“Okay, I’ll call Vetter.”
“She won’t want to tell you.”
Ted smiled grimly. “Don’t worry, Josh. I’ll get the name.”
iii
The next day Josh and Ted met and drove over to Vallejo to the Carol Loma Vista School for the orthopedically handicapped. Carol Loma Vista had ten students, including Sarah Wrigley, all of whom had some handicap that prevented their participation in a regular school.
Josh headed for the principal’s office to obtain Sarah’s attendance record while Ted went to interview Sarah’s teacher. There he met resistance: Kamala Schwartz refused to be interviewed until she had consulted a lawyer.
“Miss Schwartz, we are not investigating you,” Ted said after a few minutes of exasperating conversation. But she would not budge from her position.
Ted’s luck improved with Edith Horne, Sarah’s teacher’s aide, who agreed to be interviewed that evening. She told Ted that Sarah had suffered numerous episodes of diarrhea while at school, but she tended to minimize their seriousness. Sarah had never been sent home early due to diarrhea, Edith said. Their practice was merely to change Sarah’s clothes—she kept three changes at school because of the problem—and send her about her business. It was no big deal, just a nuisance.
“What about the attendance records?” Ted asked Josh when they met later.
“Take a look for yourself,” Josh answ
ered with a grin. He held out the records. “Sarah Wrigley hasn’t missed a day all year. Hardly a life-threatening sort of diarrhea!”
“Just what I was thinking. Oh, I got the name of Mindy’s foster mother out of Mary Vetter—had to threaten her with a charge of obstructing justice, though!”
Josh laughed grimly. “Well, at least you got through. She won’t even take my calls anymore! Who is it?”
“A Mrs. Portillo.”
“Where does she live?”
“San Francisco—the Mission district. I’ve got an appointment with her tomorrow. And I’ll follow up with this Miss Schwartz after she gets a chance to consult her lawyer.”
“Okay. Did you know Dan White’s trial began today in the city?”
“Yeah.”
“Blinder’s testifying in that one, too. They’re going for a diminished capacity and Blinder’s their star witness.” He paused and then shrugged. “C’mon, let’s go home.”
On Thursday morning, Pat Wrigley arrived early and waited on the witness stand for court to begin. But one of the jurors was absent and it took some time to track her down at home where she was in bed with symptoms of the flu. Judge Burke finally called off the day’s testimony, but not before Pat Wrigley had a chance to show her disdain for the district attorney by sticking her tongue out at him while his back was turned. She also passed the time by talking in sign language to her sister, who was attending the proceedings.
“Another nail in her coffin,” Josh remarked to Ted after he heard about Pat Wrigley’s various gestures. “She ought to be taking this trial a lot more seriously—someone’s life is at stake.”
“What have you got for Wrigley’s cross?”
“All the records she brought in her briefcase—I’ve had a chance to review them. Nowhere in the Mount Zion discharge summary does it say that she took her son out against medical advice, nor that he was critically ill.”
Ted nodded. “The lady likes to exaggerate.”
“Yup. Well, a lot depends on what this Mrs. Portillo has to say. What time’s your appointment?”
“Four. Stop worrying, Josh.”
But Josh frowned grimly. “Sure,” he said.
At four that afternoon, Ted walked up the steps of Mrs. Margie Portillo’s Park Street house and rang the bell. It took longer than usual for a response, and Ted immediately saw why. Mrs. Portillo, a middle-aged, dark-haired woman with thick glasses and a kind face, was on crutches.
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