By Reason of Insanity

by Randy Singer

  Quinn obviously believed that Catherine had killed two men and kidnapped three babies. Bluntly put, he thought Catherine was certifiably crazy. How could he have feelings for her at the same time?

  But there was no denying what had happened after court on Wednesday. Sure, Quinn had been comforting a troubled client. But there was more. Catherine had felt the electricity when they touched. She would never forget the way he brushed the hair behind her ear and grazed his fingers along her cheeks. Looking through the slot of the metal door, she had seen something special in Quinn's eyes, a look of pain because he couldn't hold her. Had she just been imagining that? Was this another way her mind was playing games on her, distorting reality by making her believe Quinn was a handsome prince here to deliver Cat from this nightmare, only to be disappointed when he moved on to another client at the conclusion of the case?

  "No further questions," Quinn said, staring at the beleaguered witness for a moment before taking a seat. Gates did a quick redirect as the entire courtroom seemed to breathe a little easier, relaxing from the tension that Quinn had summoned for his cross-examination.

  "It's nearly 4:00," said a weary Judge Rosencrance when Gates finished. "This may be a good time to adjourn for the weekend."

  But Gates apparently did not want to leave the jurors with the words of Chow's cross-examination ringing in their ears. "The commonwealth has one more witness we would like to present today, if possible. Her direct examination won't take more than ten minutes."

  Rosencrance sighed and turned to the defense lawyers. Quinn stood. "Your Honor, we'd like to let the jurors get a jump on the Friday afternoon traffic. And we wouldn't mind one ourselves."

  The jurors, Catherine noted, looked grateful.

  But Gates wasn't through. "As long as Mr. Newberg doesn't drag out this cross-examination, we can do both--hear the witness and get a jump on traffic."

  "Okay," said Rosencrance, though her tone said she didn't like it, "call your next witness."

  "The commonwealth calls Tasha Moorehouse."

  Catherine couldn't believe it. She turned to the door that led to the holding cell. The deputy disappeared through the door and a few seconds later came back, trailed by Tasha. She took the stand, dressed in a nice pair of slacks and a blouse, her face stern and unyielding. She didn't even look in Cat's direction.

  Why was Gates calling Tasha to the stand?

  Maybe he just wanted her to provide corroborating testimony about Cat's fight with Holly or the day Cat went crazy when Kenny Towns appeared on television. Cat quickly scrolled through her memory of the thousands of conversations she'd had with Tasha, the way she had confided in her cellmate.

  Cat couldn't recall a single incriminating statement. And even if she could, she couldn't imagine Tasha turning on her. They were both members of the Widows. Tasha had been on Cat's side since day one.

  But Cat's stomach was in utter turmoil.

  Why won't she look at me?

  87

  Quinn had been trying cases long enough to know that jailhouse snitches came with the territory. He sensed Catherine's discomfort at her former cellmate's betrayal, but there was nothing Quinn could do about that except dismantle this woman on the stand.

  Gates took the witness quickly through some background questions, and Tasha responded with a surly I-don't-want-to-be-here attitude.

  "Did the defendant ever make a statement to you about this alternate persona that she claims was responsible for the killing of Paul Donaldson?"

  "Yes."

  "What did she say?"

  "Lots of things."

  Gates took a step closer to the witness. "Did she ever discuss the specifics of whether she should fake such a personality in order to help her case?"

  "Are you kidding me?" Cat whispered. "I never talked about that."

  "Yes," said Tasha.

  "Tell us about it."

  "We was talking about Barbie's shrink--Barbie was what we called the defendant--and she had that shrink named Mancini, or some Italian name like that. So Barbie says to me, 'Do you think it would help if Mancini actually meets the Avenger of Blood?' And I'm like, 'Meets her how?' Barbie gets all secretive and stuff, lookin' around to make sure nobody's listening. Then she whispers to me, 'You know, what if I turn into the Avenger while this shrink's counseling me and I get all wild-eyed.' Something like that."

  Cat leaned close to Quinn. "She lying; I swear it. I never said anything like that."

  Quinn nodded, trying to focus on the testimony.

  "What did you tell the defendant?" Gates asked.

  Tasha shrugged. "I told her not to try and fake it. Lyin' gets complicated, and people know how to trip you up."

  Quinn frowned and turned toward Catherine, in part to get his client to look away from the jury so they wouldn't see the shock registering on her face. "What do you know about her?" Quinn whispered. "What's she serving time for?"

  "I don't know much," Catherine said, clearly flustered. "She's awaiting trial on some type of firearms charge--being a 'straw purchaser,' I think she said. It's like her third offense."

  "To your knowledge," Gates said, "did the defendant manufacture any dangerous weapons while in jail?"

  "She sure did."

  "Tell us about it."

  "She showed me how to make it," Cat whispered furiously to Quinn. "It was her idea."

  "She filed her toothbrush down to a shank. Said she was saving it for just the right occasion. Kept it hid inside her mattress."

  "Did you tell the prison guards about it after your cellmate was placed in solitary confinement?" Gates asked.

  "Yeah."

  Gates moved dramatically back to his counsel table and retrieved a toothbrush in a plastic evidence bag. The handle of the toothbrush had been filed to a sharp point. He showed it to Quinn, who shrugged it off.

  Gates had Tasha identify the weapon and introduced it as an exhibit.

  "No objection," said Quinn.

  Gates consulted his notes. "Let me direct your attention to an incident that occurred on Monday, June 16, in the pod that you shared with Ms. O'Rourke and a number of other prisoners. Did anything unusual occur on that day?"

  "Is that the day that dude Kenny was on the tube?" Tasha asked.

  Quinn stood to object, but Gates was faster. "I can't give you information, Ms. Moorehouse. Why don't you just tell us what happened on the day that you and the defendant saw Mr. Towns on television?"

  "Well, this man that Barbie says raped her in college comes on TV and gets all indignant and stuff. 'The sex was consensual. Ask any of my frat brothers.' You know, like that. Well, this dude is hot, and so all the inmates start giving Barbie a hard time--they're gettin' in her face, making all these suggestive motions and stuff, and Barbie just basically freaks."

  "What do you mean by that--'just basically freaks'?"

  "She gets all red in the face and starts cursing and yelling, her eyes bugging out like she wants to kill someone--"

  "Objection!" shouted Marc Boland.

  Gates turned. "Which one of you guys is going to be examining her? You can't both make objections."

  "I'm sustaining the objection," said Rosencrance. "Ms. Moorehouse, just stick to the facts. Don't characterize things.

  "And, Mr. Boland, I suggest you and Mr. Newberg decide which one of you will be examining this witness. This isn't a tag-team match."

  "I've got her," Quinn whispered to Marc.

  "You sure?"

  "I want her."

  Gates kept plowing forward. "Just tell us what happened, Ms. Moorehouse."

  "So then Barbie starts attacking everybody. She grabs trays of food and throws them at the TV. She goes ballistic on the trustee who has the remote. I mean, she just freaked."

  "What did you do?"

  "I tried to stop her. I didn't want her to get busted on somethin' this stupid. So I'm sayin', 'That guy on TV is a jerk, don't sweat it,' and Barbie just snapped."

  Tasha paused, and Quinn sensed the punc
h line coming.

  "So I jumped in front of her and tried holding her back, just to keep her from getting into more trouble."

  "What did the defendant do?"

  "She's like tryin' to fight through me to get at the trustee, screaming, 'Let me go,' and 'Stay out of this' and stuff? like that. After I calmed her down and she stopped strugglin', she just looks at me. She's still hacked but she's not, like, wild-eyed or anything anymore. And she just says to me, all calm-like, 'I should have done Towns first.'"

  Moorehouse paused, her statement sucking the air out of the courtroom. Quinn heard a gasp from Cat's mother and sister, seated behind him.

  "She's lying," Cat whispered to Quinn, her voice choked with desperation.

  Quinn put a calming hand on Cat's knee. "I'll handle it."

  "You're sure that's what she said?" Gates asked. "That she should have done Towns first."

  "God's truth," Tasha responded. "Every word."

  "And what did you understand that to mean?"

  "That she wished she had capped this dude Towns first, as opposed to all these other guys."

  "Did she appear normal at the time?"

  "Objection!" This time it was Quinn.

  "Sustained."

  "Describe her demeanor when she made the statement."

  "She was real calm," said Tasha. "I was like, 'Whoa, girl, you are cold.'"

  88

  "You've got a knack for picking friends," Quinn whispered to Catherine before he stood to examine Tasha. "Do you know if she took the stand in her last trial?"

  Cat furrowed her brow. "I don't know, but I bet she did. She's pretty arrogant."

  "Mr. Newberg?" prompted Judge Rosencrance.

  Quinn grabbed a thick legal brief from the table, then stood and buttoned his suit coat, taking his time. He walked closer to the witness box than normal.

  "Did you discuss your testimony with Mr. Gates before taking the stand?"

  Tasha looked wary, even hostile. "I told him what I was going to say. That's all."

  "Did he show you this document?" Quinn asked, waving it around a little with his left hand.

  "No. I don't even know what that is."

  "The prosecutor's handbook," Quinn said, "where it says, on page 53, 'If your expert witness falls apart on the stand, you can always fall back on a jailhouse snitch.'"

  Tasha looked confused.

  "Objection!" shouted Gates, his face growing red. "That's ridiculous."

  Rosencrance looked like she might be trying to suppress a smirk. "It's cute; I'll give you that much," she said to Quinn. "But this is a murder trial, and we don't do cute in my courtroom during murder trials. This is a warning, Mr. Newberg. Next time it will cost you."

  "Yes, Your Honor."

  Rosencrance turned to the jury. "Please ignore that last comment by Mr. Newberg. It was just grandstanding, not evidence."

  "Let's talk about your record," Quinn said. He placed the legal brief back on his counsel table. "How many felony convictions do you have, and what are they for?"

  "Two," said Tasha. "One for possession and one for being an accomplice."

  "An accomplice to what?"

  "Armed robbery," Tasha said grudgingly, shooting daggers at Quinn with her eyes.

  "Given the fact that you're in the city jail, I presume you're facing trial for another offense?"

  Quinn waited for an objection--convictions were normally fair game but not accusations on crimes that hadn't yet gone to trial. When no objection came, it told Quinn what he wanted to know.

  "Yes," Tasha answered. "Violation of state firearms laws."

  "That's a serious offense," Quinn said. "Did the prosecutors promise you any kind of deal in exchange for your testimony in this case?"

  "They said they might consider a deal."

  "Might consider a deal. What kind of deal?"

  "Maybe plead to makin' a false statement to a law-enforcement officer."

  Quinn smiled. "What a deal! How could you say no to that? That sounds like it's only a misdemeanor. Am I right?"

  "Yes."

  "So, instead of facing your third felony and a long jail sentence under Virginia's three-strikes-and-you're-out law, you're looking at a simple misdemeanor?"

  "Yeah."

  "Maybe you could have asked Mr. Gates to throw in a small car."

  "Objection." This time Gates didn't even raise his voice, as if Quinn wasn't worthy of getting a rise out of him.

  "Mr. Newberg . . ."

  "Sorry, Judge. I keep forgetting I'm not in Las Vegas anymore." Quinn smiled, but Rosencrance did not.

  "Proceed," she said.

  "As I understand your testimony, you told my client not to pretend to be the Avenger during a session with Dr. Mancini because lying gets complicated and she might get caught."

  "Exactly."

  "Is that based on your own experience with fabricating testimony?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "This last conviction of yours--the accomplice thing?--am I correct that you took the stand in your own defense?"

  "Yeah, that's right."

  "And a jury of your peers decided not to believe you, right?"

  Tasha shrugged. "They got it wrong."

  "But you're hoping that maybe this jury will believe you. Maybe this will be your lucky day."

  "Objection. Argumentative."

  "Sustained."

  Quinn headed back to his counsel table and stopped. I don't know what possesses me to do this, he thought.

  "When you get out of jail, Ms. Moorehouse, do you have any plans to visit Las Vegas?"

  Tasha furrowed her brow. "No."

  "Too bad. Guys like me love to see tourists like you walk into our poker rooms--always sure that this is going to be their lucky day."

  "Objection!" Gates shouted.

  This time, there was no smirk hiding under Rosencrance's glare. "Dismiss the jury!" she ordered.

  After a tongue-lashing, she levied a two-thousand-dollar fine against Quinn for grandstanding. She instructed Marc Boland to keep his out-of-state co-counsel under control. She told Quinn he was in danger of having his pro hac status removed, making him ineligible to continue on this trial.

  Quinn acted contrite, apologizing for pushing it too far. He said all the right things in all the right places, but a single thought kept floating through his head.

  It was worth every penny.

  89

  One thing about solitary confinement--it gave a person time to think. And to read. On Friday night, her third consecutive night in solitary, Cat did a lot of both.

  She might have been the only one, but she still believed in her own innocence. Most of the time. Not just innocence by reason of insanity, a game that lawyers played, but total and complete exoneration. She wasn't the Avenger of Blood. She hadn't killed Paul Donaldson. And she certainly hadn't killed those babies. Why wouldn't anyone believe her?

  Cat was convinced that her visions were the key to solving this case. A few weeks ago, when she had embraced this conclusion, she'd decided to explore every possible explanation for the visions. If she knew what caused them, maybe she could figure out why she stopped having them. And, more importantly, the identity of the real killer.

  She'd read the biblical book of Daniel at least three times. In Cat's visions, there was handwriting on the wall. Belshazzar, king of Babylon, had seen handwriting on the wall. Daniel had interpreted what that handwriting meant. All throughout the book of Daniel, kings had dreams or visions, and Daniel interpreted them. All the dreams and visions were messages from God. His finger literally wrote the words on the wall.

  Dr. Mancini had seemed to embrace this spiritual explanation, at least in the early days before she had proffered her report about Cat's insanity. "God communicates through His written Word," she had told Cat. "And He showed us what love was like when He sent His Son to live among us. But occasionally, He also communicates through dreams and visions. Treat it as a gift, Catherine. Embrace t
hese visions as God working through you."

  But Cat was sitting in prison as a result of the visions. They certainly didn't feel like a gift.

  She explored other explanations as well, scientific theories, but few of these seemed very plausible. Cat had read two books about science and the paranormal cover to cover. One book, Spook, dealt with scientific explanations of various aspects of the afterlife. It was, according to the author, "spirituality treated like crop science." The other book, Ghost Hunters, was about William James and a group of scientists called the Society for Physical Research, detailing their search for scientific proof of life after death.

  Cat thought the scientists were every bit as confused as she was. They did, however, provide a few theories that made Cat think. Some members of the Society for Physical Research believed that telepathy could be viewed as a unique way that certain gifted humans communicated. Perhaps, in addition to the audible waves generated by voice patterns, humans also communicated through invisible and inaudible waves much like electromagnetic waves. Maybe some humans, like Catherine, were exceptionally tuned in to such waves, more so than the normal person.

  This could mean that Cat's visions were the result of receiving information subliminally from another person who knew about these crimes. The most likely suspect was her confidential source, Jamarcus Webb. Maybe she had received subliminal information from Jamarcus and stored it away until it came out during the visions. Such an explanation would also account for why Cat hadn't received any more visions recently, since she had stopped meeting with Jamarcus.

  Other scientists believed that dying persons sometimes gave off strong invisible signals--they called them "crisis apparitions"--which explained why many times people reported having an uneasy feeling at the precise moment of a relative's death, even if the dying relative lived quite a distance away. But Cat wasn't related to any of these folks. And her first two visions had occurred well after the actual kidnappings.

  There was a final explanation, one so troubling that Cat rejected it out of hand. Demonic forces were sometimes responsible for dreams and visions, especially if someone had dabbled in the occult. Surely this couldn't be the case in Cat's life. She wasn't exactly a nun, but she hadn't been flirting with the dark side either. Not even in her childhood could she remember being part of a seance or even having her palm read by an amusement park gypsy.