A Very Paranormal Holiday

by J. T. Bock

  “A vacation in the previous year?”

  Judge Nelson stirred, but didn’t say anything. Willard kept silent; Nelson had a reputation for disliking repeated objections on one topic.

  “I don’t recall,” I said eventually.

  “Dr. Lloyd, can you recall taking a vacation ever? Any time in your life? Any special moment you can recall from a vacation?”

  “No.”

  A couple of people on the jury frowned. Even the judge looked at me suspiciously.

  I was running out of time.

  “Tell me, Dr. Lloyd, can you recall anything of any significance from, say, two years ago?”

  I could hear the stir in the court.

  “That depends on what you would categorize as significant,” I said.

  “In fact, you have no memory of your life prior to winter last year, just before you did the assessment on my client?”

  Here goes nothing.

  “My memory of individual events before last winter is impaired.”

  I was sounding like a machine. Willard showed how worried he was; he permitted himself a quick look back at the court for any sign of Scott. The jury started shuffling in their seats. I was losing them.

  Schaeffer smoothed his hand across his jacket, a mannerism he had that showed he was excited. I could see him thinking that it was going to be even easier than he’d thought. That he was about to get the payoff for all his patient work earlier today. “Would it be fair to say that you have severe memory problems?”

  “No.” I couldn’t keep this up much longer.

  Where are you, Scott?

  Schaeffer hadn’t expected me to deny it, and his exasperation showed. “Dr. Lloyd, you’ve just admitted you have no memories from more than a year ago. If that isn’t the definition of a memory problem, I don’t know what is. You do know where you live now, don’t you?”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained. Kindly refrain from such personal comments, Mr. Schaeffer.” The judge turned to me. She’d been looking kindly at me all afternoon, but now I risked making all her weeks in court on this case a waste of time. No wonder her eyes had taken on a bleakness.

  Still, she wasn’t going to let Schaeffer berate me. “Please ignore the tone and clarify your answer regarding memory problems.”

  “I have a memory problem,” I said. “Even possibly, a severe memory problem. However, it does not affect my capabilities in relation to this case in any way.”

  “Dr. Friegmann has said that memory problems might affect your entire personality, so why not your competencies?” He held up his hands before Willard or the judge went for him on that line, and decided it was time to go for the jugular. “If we could see Exhibit 32, on the screen please.”

  That was the security camera footage of my first meeting with Zedous. There was no audio. It was a simple bleak room; two chairs and a table, with Zedous on one side and me on the other.

  Schaeffer let it run for about ten seconds.

  “Dr. Lloyd, can you please describe what’s on that table?”

  “There’s nothing on the table.”

  “No notebook?”

  “No notebook.”

  “Dr. Friegmann was quite clear that he kept notes for his assessment. Unlike Dr. Lloyd, he isn’t suffering from any memory losses, yet he believes that any worthwhile assessment is too complex to rely on memory alone.” Schaeffer stood in front of the jury and paused, probably meeting the eyes of those he thought were least in favor of his arguments.

  Then he turned back to me. “Dr. Lloyd, you’ve claimed, under oath, that your assessment was based on contemporaneous notes. Yet you took no notes in the interviews. The notes in evidence must therefore have been created later, based on your ‘memory’ of the conversation. Or was your memory of the entire assessment another ‘problem’?”

  The door opened quietly and Scott slipped in with the three things I needed: a smile, a book and my laptop.

  “My assessment was based on contemporaneous notes taken at the interview,” I said.

  The renewed confidence in my voice made Schaeffer stumble. “But there were no recording devices in the room,” he said.

  I turned to the judge. “Your honor, if I could be allowed to demonstrate?”

  “Objection!” Schaeffer’s knee jerk response to my yanking control away from him was predictable.

  “The defense has made a serious allegation,” I said. “I have to demonstrate to answer.”

  “Proceed, Dr. Lloyd.” Judge Nelson was definitely frowning at me now. I had one chance. I prayed it was all I would need.

  Willard brought my laptop and connected the chorded keypad which had been in my hand the whole time I’d been on the stand. From the laptop, he connected to the projector. The screen blinked and cleared to show a document; a transcription of my testimony.

  There was silence in the court, exactly as there should have been.

  The judge continued frowning, glancing at the court stenographer who looked blankly back.

  She cleared her throat. “These notes on the screen, could you tell me how they got there?”

  Her question appeared as she spoke it.

  I raised my left hand, holding my keypad. Without speaking, I typed the answer.

  “I am transcribing as we talk. This is the method I use to take all my notes, as Dr. Langley could testify if she were to return to the stand.”

  The court buzzed. Zedous pulled at Schaeffer and started urgently whispering in his ear.

  Too late. This is my show now.

  “This is the method you used to transcribe your interviews specifically with Mr. Zedous?”

  The judge appeared to be reliving her days as an attorney. Willard hid a smile behind his hand.

  “It is.”

  “I see. Does the transcription comprise the entirety of your notes?”

  “No. After the interview, within a day, I add a commentary and analysis. The three in total comprise my contemporaneous notes on this case. That’s the accepted definition of contemporaneous. Also, since the defense has called into question my short term memory capabilities, I should like to demonstrate that those are not part of my memory problem.”

  “Objection,” Schaeffer was back on his feet.

  “Overruled,” Nelson said.

  I launched into it. “The inference made from Dr. Kriegmann’s assertions is that the delay between the interview and the completion of the notes allows for errors caused by my memory condition to manifest. That’s based on a misunderstanding of memory issues, and specifically my memory issues. It is also based on a misapplication by the defense of the text that Dr. Kriegmann is using as the theoretical basis of his arguments.”

  “Objection.” Schaeffer was on his feet again. “The witness has no declared expertise in memory and no knowledge of the text that Dr. Kriegmann is basing his testimony on.”

  “On the contrary, memory is a significant element of the complete psychological whole, and while I admit I haven’t discussed this with Dr. Kriegmann, I have read his latest book. If that doesn’t provide the theoretical basis for his views, I’m sure I’d like to know why.”

  Judge Nelson sat back in her chair. I got the distinct impression she’d started to enjoy this. “Proceed, Dr. Lloyd.”

  At my sign, Willard held up the book that Scott had brought in. It was Friegmann’s latest.

  “I read this book about three months ago with considerable interest, given its applicability to my own memory condition,” I said. “I haven’t looked at it since. I learned only this morning that Dr. Friegmann was appearing in this court. I’ve been in the courtroom all day and I could not possibly have prepared anything.”

  I looked across at the jury, who’d all become much more interested.

  “I would like to refer to the book’s chapter on episodic memory loss, and the possibility that trauma can suppress memory selectively. Friegmann’s opinion is that it is entirely possible for what he refers to as a vertical strata of memo
ry, such as personal events, to be completely suppressed, while allowing long-term memory, procedural memory such as learned behaviors, qualifications and so forth to be unaffected. Short-term memory can similarly be unaffected. I am now typing the words he uses to express these ideas, as I recall them.”

  Willard had the book open at the right place. He walked over and handed it to the judge.

  When she finished comparing the texts, she allowed the book to go to the jury. A couple of them raised their eyebrows at my memory demonstration. Some of them nodded.

  I wouldn’t have gotten it word for word, and Friegmann’s text was rich in jargon, but I knew what I’d recalled would be a fairly accurate copy of the book.

  Zedous and Schaeffer were having an animated whispering match.

  I gave them my most brilliant fake smile and leaned back.

  I’d lost my job and opened myself up for legal cases of malpractice, but in my position, I didn’t care.

  Willard also nodded at me in appreciation.

  We weren’t there yet. The jury still had to make a decision based on the arguments and their consciences, but I’d done my part and more. It wasn’t going to be my fault if it failed.

  They took a disturbingly short time to deliberate and we were back in the courtroom at 4pm.

  The little mouse that the jury had chosen as their foreman stood up.

  Some of her graying hair had escaped its clips and hung down, framing her face. She was trembling. Her eyes darted from judge to court official and back again. They say the jury will look at the prosecutor or the defense; that you can read their verdict from their eyes. She wasn’t looking at either. She seemed terrified by the whole thing.

  The relief of closure for me changed to the sour taste of defeat.

  We’d been clever, and we’d won the legal arguments. We hadn’t reduced the threat of the man himself.

  How could we expect the jury to stand up to him?

  I couldn’t condemn her. It was easier for me. I had nothing more to lose. This woman probably had a family; dependents that Zedous could threaten.

  Willard faced forward, not looking at anyone. His face could have been a wooden mask.

  “Have you reached a verdict?” the judge asked.

  “We have.” I could barely hear her voice.

  Scott’s hand enveloped mine again, pressing it gently.

  “On the charge of murder in the first degree, how do you find?”

  “Guilty,” the little mouse said. The word crashed through the courtroom like an echo of the gates in the Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility slamming shut.

  “And on the charge…”

  Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

  Every gate slammed shut behind him and buried him deeper and deeper into a system that he would never, ever get out of.

  Scott handed me one of his beautiful silk handkerchiefs.

  Chapter 10

  “How did you talk me into this?” I asked.

  “My innate charm not being up to the job, I relied on Willard’s appeal. We have to celebrate somewhere, Manda, for goodness sake.”

  I laughed.

  Scott and I were at a party, of all things. Not just any party: a celebration of lawyers, though maybe the group name should be a confusion of lawyers. Regardless, the result of the trial that day had detonated through the legal community.

  Willard had played the media like a violin.

  …a reaffirmation of the very foundation of our legal system. The system of this complexity that embodies the checks and balances which our consciences dictate will always be open to abuse by the unscrupulous. Today’s judgment upholds our faith that these are risks that we must take and their benefits outweigh their potential disadvantages…

  It would be providing sound bites for a week.

  And so we were here, out in the most expensive end of the community on the Lake Shore Road in snowy Grosse Pointe, with what looked like every partner in every legal firm in East Michigan, all of them getting well into the Christmas season spirit.

  Willard was the star, and I was happy for him. Scott and I drifted pleasantly in his wake, shaking hands and passing a few words and early season’s greetings with a river of faces. I was a temporary star, though few realized how temporary.

  “Congratulations.” The voice from behind me was the one I least wanted to hear, other than Zedous himself, maybe.

  I gritted my teeth and turned to face Schaeffer.

  “Commiserations,” replied Scott, his face studiously blank.

  Schaeffer shrugged. “If you meet with triumph and disaster, you must treat those two impostors just the same,” he misquoted from Kipling.

  “If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,” Scott smoothly continued.

  Schaeffer laughed. “Touché. It’s been a day for high-sounding lines. Those bold statements Willard Morton gave the press will run for a day or two. The judgment is certainly today’s news, but hold your commiserations; by the new year, it’ll be gone. My client will appeal, of course.”

  “Don’t you—”

  Schaeffer raised his hand. “Zedous may well be everything they say he is. I don’t feel sufficiently divine to pass judgment on him. I argue his case and the system comes up with a result. If we’d had the trial in Indiana, Zedous might be on death row. Somewhere else, who knows, he might be a free man tonight. So what’s justice? Something that varies by zip code?” He picked up a glass of champagne from a passing tray and took a long swallow. “I just present the case.”

  I’d had enough. I started to move away.

  Scott tried one last comment. “You’ll take his money, but do you really think he has any chance at all?” he said.

  “He has an excellent chance. Witnesses may grow weary, for instance. Or even wary.” Schaeffer smiled at his own cleverness. “And the defense strategy that was blocked today will be open. Your testimony on the stand was very well presented, Dr. Lloyd. I’m sorry to hear you won’t be with us next time. Without you to defend it, I’m confident the questions we started to raise about your…history will erode your assessment to nothing.”

  Scott went pale with anger, and shifted as if he were about to move toward Schaeffer.

  “Scott,” I said, and put a warning hand on his arm.

  We walked away to the sound of Schaeffer’s laughter behind us.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, when the general noise of the party had drowned it out. “I didn’t for a moment think he’d be invited.”

  “It’s not your fault, and the appeal would happen whether we knew about it or not.” I sighed. “That Kipling poem goes on: watch the things you gave your life to, broken.”

  “Yes, but that verse ends with building those broken things back up.”

  “Not an option, in my case.” I suddenly felt tired and ill again. I’d spent all the buzz the court case had given me. My motor was running down. What was the line from that movie?

  Time to die.

  “Let’s leave,” he said, sensitive to my mood, though not quite to the level of bleakness.

  I shrugged, not objecting when he guided me to the cloakroom. What was the point?

  He wound the scarf around my neck and helped me into my coat. I’d certainly need it out there. But when I reached for my walking stick, he took my hand and trapped it under his arm.

  “Please, lean on me for a while,” he said.

  With my cane in his free hand, we left the warmth of the house to emerge into the biting cold.

  Instead of walking down to the car, he pointed to the paved path that followed the walls of the house. It had been shoveled and gravel spread over it, but it was already starting to disappear under the new snow. The wind had shifted to the north while we’d been inside, and now there was death in its kiss. The wind chill factor must have taken the temperature to twenty below or more.

  “A walk in the garden? On a night like tonight? Hardly going to calm me down, Scott.”
<
br />   “No, but it might stoke you up.” A brief smile passed across his face. “Angry is alive. Angry has a purpose and it makes plans.”

  “I can’t walk through this. I might fall.” I hated how fragile that made me sound, but it was the truth. And plans? What use would plans be?

  “It’s snow, not ice. It’s soft. I believe many people rely on that when they strap themselves to a couple of pieces of wood and throw themselves down mountains.”

  “They don’t use wood anymore,” I said snidely, but I let him pull me along. A smile threatened. How could he lift my mood like that? So what if I broke a leg? I was going to die soon anyway. There was no way I could outlast even the briefest of appeal processes. The mainspring of my existence was gone.

  Or was that only one of them?

  Would I have regrets to keep me company for my last few days or weeks?

  Snow squeaked and gravel crunched beneath out feet.

  “I thought you were going to punch him,” I said.

  “I have to admit, I was tempted, but he’s only a distraction.”

  “Hardly. He’s as good as admitted he knows Zedous is evil, and he’ll still be able to get him out. That’s not a distraction.”

  “Schaeffer thinks he can get him out. He may be wrong.”

  “He’s not. If I’m not there to defend myself, they’ll discredit me and the psychiatric testimony will have to be resubmitted. What do you want to bet that Frances will give him exactly what he wants?”

  “I hope she does,” Scott said. “Willard would skewer her on the witness stand.”

  “Maybe.” He had a point there. “Where are we going, exactly?”

  “There,” he said, pointing into the night with my cane. “If memory serves me, there’s a summerhouse, beside the old apple tree.”

  “An apple tree?” I snorted. “Then I suppose there has to be a serpent somewhere around as well?”

  There was a summerhouse all right, and a bare apple tree, though no serpent in his right mind was outside in this weather. The building loomed out of the darkness—a strongly built wooden pavilion, with an unlocked door that opened to his touch.

  His hand pressed gently on my back before I could protest, and the door closed quietly behind me.