By Reason of Insanity

by Randy Singer

  On Friday night, Cat fell asleep still reading her books. She awoke, as usual, at 4:30 a.m. to the annoying sound of a guard scraping a flashlight over the prison bars. It had been another dreamless night. Wherever this power was coming from--whether it was spiritual or telepathic or something else--it had apparently deserted Cat during her hour of greatest need. Frustrated, she picked up her books and started reading again. Maybe she was missing something.

  90

  On Saturday, Rosemarie Mancini and Sierra came into town, and Quinn spent most of the day with his niece. He could tell that Sierra's time with Rosemarie had done her a lot of good. She seemed more self-confident and relaxed, full of chatter about her new D.C. friends. She and Quinn spent the afternoon lying on the beach, though neither of them set foot in the water. They went shopping for Sierra's school clothes at the Lynnhaven Mall and ate dinner on the back deck of a fish house nestled along the Lynnhaven River. They talked a lot about Annie, Quinn virtually guaranteeing an acquittal for Sierra's mom the next time around.

  "I like D.C.," Sierra said. "And I like Rosemarie."

  The first time Quinn had heard his niece use Rosemarie Mancini's first name, he had winced. "She told me to call her that," Sierra had said. Now, it seemed natural, indicative of a growing level of friendship and trust between them. It was hard to believe that a few months ago this same young girl had been suicidal.

  On Sunday, Quinn and Rosemarie got down to work, slugging through her direct examination and practicing the questions Gates might bring up on cross. They still had a lot of ground to cover at 5 p.m. when Quinn received a phone call from Billy Long. "Can I call you back?" asked Quinn. "I'm meeting with Dr. Mancini."

  "No," said Billy. "This won't keep."

  Billy sounded serious enough that Quinn decided not to argue. "Okay, what's up?"

  "You need to be alone when you hear this," insisted Billy.

  "It's okay. I'm with Dr. Mancini."

  "That's not alone."

  Annoyed, Quinn asked Rosemarie if she could give him a minute. After she left the conference room, Quinn said, "This better be good. I trust Rosemarie with my life."

  "I found one of the Carver babies," Billy said.

  "What?"

  "I found one of the Carver twins. The little boy."

  "You found the body?"

  "I found the baby, Quinn. Alive. Healthy. Crying and crawling and pooping in his diaper."

  It took Quinn a second to catch his breath; he wanted to pump his fist in the air. Alive! But before he reacted, a crushing truth hit him. This would complicate things. It was great for the Carvers, but what about the case?

  "Where?" Quinn asked. Before Billy could answer, another thought: "How'd you find him when half the cops in Virginia are looking for him?"

  "He's in L.A.," said Billy. "Asian Central. I put the word out that I had a wealthy client who wanted to adopt a little boy without all the red tape. One thing led to another, and I stumbled across a few black-market baby operations. From there, you probably don't want to know, but let's just say I can squeeze folks in a way the cops can't."

  "How do you know for sure it's Chi Ying?"

  "I've seen him," Billy responded. "And everything fits. The timing, the age, and he looks just like the pictures. I even sent two digital photos via e-mail to a colleague of mine who does digital facial analysis. He says it's the same kid."

  Alarm bells went off for Quinn. "What did you tell this colleague?"

  "I'm not a complete idiot," Billy said. "I told him one was a picture of the kid while he was with the Carvers and the other, we think, is a picture of the kid when he was still in China. I told him we were trying to locate Chi's birth parents in China to ask them some questions, and we wanted to make sure we had the right kid."

  The cover story sounded like a stretch to Quinn, but he let it pass. "Did you track down how Chi got to this new family?"

  "I hit a lot of dead ends on that line. To be honest, I wasn't sure I wanted to know."

  "Why?"

  "Well . . ." Billy stretched out the word, apparently measuring his thoughts. "If Ms. O'Rourke's innocent, somebody's done a masterful job setting her up. If that's the case, I'm presuming they would have made it look like the money for those babies somehow went to Ms. O'Rourke. If she actually killed Donaldson and Archibald, it's even worse."

  Billy paused and coughed, then picked up on his line of thought. "One of the things that always made me think our client might actually be insane is the fact that somebody killed those babies. Frankly, I've never heard of a woman killing a little baby unless she was totally nuts. But now we know that somebody went to a lot of trouble to make sure at least one of those babies didn't die. It seems to me somebody just wanted people to think the babies were dead so everyone would assume that whoever did this was crazy. I was afraid that if I figured out who sold those babies to the black-market folks, we might not like the answers."

  Quinn reached the same conclusion even as Billy was talking. This would not be good for their case unless they could tie somebody else to the kidnappings. It would be quite a stretch to make a jury believe that the Avenger of Blood, Catherine's alternate personality, had kidnapped Chi only to sell him on the black market. Killing a baby would indicate insanity. But kidnapping a baby and selling him on the black market showed premeditation and deception over an extended length of time.

  "Whom have you talked to about this?" Quinn asked.

  "I work for you," Billy said. "Why would I talk to anybody else?"

  "Are you still in L.A.?"

  "Yeah."

  "I need you on the first flight back to Norfolk. We might want you to testify."

  91

  Quinn Newberg and Marc Boland had not requested to meet together with Cat since Quinn entered the case. But on Sunday night, the deputy escorting her to the attorney interview booth told her that her "lawyers" had requested a meeting.

  "Which one?" Cat asked.

  "Both."

  When she arrived, Bo was sitting in the chair on the other side of the bulletproof glass, and Quinn was standing behind him--two men squeezed into a booth designed for one.

  Cat sat down, nerves prickling the back of her neck. "What's going on?" she asked, trying to read their faces.

  "We've got some important news," Bo said.

  They both looked so serious that Cat felt her stomach drop. Have they discovered another body?

  "Billy Long thinks he has found Chi Ying, the Carvers' little boy, alive and well in Los Angeles."

  Cat gasped and put her hand over her mouth. She felt herself trembling, tears welling in her eyes. She tried to say something but couldn't speak.

  "Obviously, this is great news," Bo said, though his face indicated otherwise, "assuming we can verify it. Billy had an expert look at some digital photos to confirm the identity, but we don't have any fingerprints or DNA analysis yet."

  "I don't know what to say," Cat managed. A wave of gratitude flooded her, washing away emotions that had tormented her since her arrest. It took her a few seconds to regain her composure. She wiped at her eyes, then took a deep breath. "What about his sister?"

  "We don't know about her yet," Bo said. "Or about Rayshad Milburn. But we think there's a good chance they're alive too."

  Cat couldn't believe this. It was the break she had been hoping for, praying for.

  "The thing is," Bo continued, "we haven't been able to track down how the little Carver boy ended up out there. Billy tells us that Chi got placed through a black-market baby operation but that he ended up with a good family. We can't get a bead on who delivered him to the operation in the first place."

  The seriousness of Cat's attorneys took the edge off her euphoria. What did this mean for the case?

  Bo anticipated her question. "Quinn and I have been kicking this around for the past hour or so." Both lawyers stared intently at Cat as Bo talked, apparently searching for some type of reaction. "If this information gets out, it would dramatically impact o
ur case in two ways, both negative. First, it would demonstrate a level of planning and deceit that would make it much harder, maybe impossible, to prove insanity. And second, it would look like you had purposefully misled the investigators when you described your visions, since you described the babies being strapped into an electric chair. Boyd Gates will argue that you created this scenario of dead babies just to make a case for insanity if you got caught when you went after Towns."

  "But I didn't go after Towns," Cat protested. "And I didn't kidnap those babies. This is what I've been telling you."

  "We understand that," Quinn said, though his tone was unconvincing. "But it's our job to do what's best for you. If we try to change our plea now, the judge and jury will crucify us. We need to keep making our case for insanity but at the same time have Billy continue this investigation. If we can link somebody besides you to the kidnappings, we can change our plea when we have hard evidence. If not, we continue to push insanity. Even if we lose the case, we can always move to reopen based on the results of Billy's investigation."

  Cat's head swirled with confusion. Bury the fact that one of the twins is still alive? How can that be right? She realized, more from the looks on her lawyers' faces than from the words they were saying, that they didn't want to know who had sold the babies. They still believed she was guilty.

  "I'm not on trial for the kidnappings. Would we be able to reopen this murder case based on information relating to the Carver twins?"

  Both men hesitated, which told Cat everything. "It's not a certain thing," Bo said. "And it depends on the type of evidence. But we think it's likely."

  "What happens if this little boy disappears in the meantime? I mean, maybe his parents find out about our case and put two and two together. What then?"

  Bo leaned forward and lowered his voice. "This isn't without risk, Catherine. But we've got no legal obligation to reveal this information. Both Quinn and I believe it's not in your best interest to have it come out right now."

  Catherine looked from Marc Boland to Quinn Newberg and back to Marc.

  "You've got to trust us, Catherine," Marc said. "You're not objective in this. We are."

  She put her face in her hands and tried to think. Images of the babies in the electric chairs came rushing back to her, making her shudder. She felt pressure building inside her head, saw the walls of the small interview room start billowing.

  "What if I say no?" she asked.

  Quinn spoke, his expression showing the strain. "We'd ask the court for leave to withdraw," he said softly. "We're committed to the insanity defense, Catherine. I know it's hard for you to accept, but on these facts, it's the only thing that makes sense."

  She looked at Bo, who nodded his head.

  "Then I don't know why you came by," Cat said, the frustration overwhelming her. "Just do what you've got to do."

  She stared at them, her own lawyers, two men she admired and trusted--but even they couldn't accept the possibility that their client just might be innocent.

  "Are we done?" she asked.

  "We're done," Bo said softly.

  "Good." Cat rose from her seat and turned to the door, knocking loudly. She left with the deputy, not bothering to thank her lawyers or tell them good-bye.

  92

  Back in her cell, Catherine wrestled with her emotions. Concealing the information about Chi Ying just seemed so wrong. She wanted to call Quinn collect and talk with him alone, but she didn't have phone privileges in solitary confinement.

  She knew Quinn and Bo cared about her. But she also knew that in their minds she had killed two people and kidnapped three kids. Technically, they might consider her not guilty by reason of insanity. But on a deeper level, they believed she was guilty as sin.

  The incredible thing was that for a while she had even doubted herself. She still did, at times. But something about this newest piece of information seemed to shake her out of a fog. I didn't do that. The doubts weren't entirely gone, but they no longer dominated.

  Cat couldn't shake the image of little Chi Ying from her mind. Should he have to stay with a family that would buy a baby on the black market just because Cat's lawyers thought it was a good legal strategy? And then a thought hit her that chilled her to the bone. What if the real kidnapper, the real Avenger of Blood, realized that the baby had been discovered? Would he or she contact the people who ran the black-market agency? Would those people find a way to eliminate the evidence if they thought they might get caught? Would the Avenger do it first?

  Stirred to action, Cat pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. She had to do this. Maybe her lawyers would resign, maybe this would lead to a smoking gun against her, but how could she just sit back and do nothing?

  Jamarcus,

  I have protected your confidences on occasions too numerous to count. I have gone to jail for you rather than breach that confidence. You have trusted me and, despite some of the allegedly incriminating information that is coming out in this trial, you need to know that your trust was not misplaced.

  With this letter, I'm placing my trust in you. I'm begging you to look into a matter but not to talk to anyone else about it.

  It has come to my attention that my private investigator, a man named Billy Long, has located a baby in Los Angeles that he believes is Chi Ying. I do not know how Mr. Long located Chi. Perhaps you could privately question Mr. Long and find out the details. My concern is for the baby. If certain persons find out that Chi has been located, what would keep them from "eliminating" that problem?

  I am completely innocent of these crimes, and I am trusting you to handle this with discretion so it won't come back to haunt me.

  Yours,

  Catherine

  She read the letter twice, placed it in a sealed envelope, and addressed it to Jamarcus Webb. She would deliver it tomorrow morning in court.

  Assuming she didn't lose her nerve first.

  * * *

  The courtroom seemed larger, but the players were all the same. Judge Rosencrance scowling from the bench. Jamarcus Webb frowning in the front row. Just in front of him, at the counsel table, sat a sneering Boyd Gates, his bald pate reflecting the harsh courtroom lights. Cat's lawyers were there, of course, as was her family. In the back, standing against the wall, quoting Scripture and damning Cat to hell, was the Reverend Harold Pryor.

  "Do you have a verdict?" Rosencrance asked, raising her voice to be heard over the rantings of Pryor.

  A woman stood in the middle of the jury box. At first Cat didn't recognize her, but then it sunk in. The refined looks. The sorrow etched into the worried face. Marcia Carver! The jury foreperson was Marcia Carver!

  "We've reached a verdict," Marcia said.

  Pryor stopped talking, and the courtroom fell silent.

  "Will the accused please stand?" Rosencrance asked.

  Trembling and weak-kneed, Cat stood, Marc Boland on one side, Quinn on the other. An eternity of silence followed while all eyes turned toward Catherine as if the spectators expected a spontaneous confession. Catherine glanced toward Marcia but couldn't hold the woman's severe stare.

  "What is your verdict?" Rosencrance asked.

  "Guilty," Marcia Carver said, "of murder in the first degree."

  Shaking uncontrollably now, Cat nearly collapsed to the floor. How could this have happened?

  "So say you all?" Rosencrance asked.

  The other jurors nodded their heads. Cat tried to get her bearings.

  "I hereby find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree," Rosencrance pronounced, her words ripping at Cat's heart. "We will begin the sentencing phase tomorrow morning."

  "Amen," said the voice of Pryor.

  But Marcia Carver did not sit down. "Not the defendant," she said, her voice trembling as the other jurors nodded along. She extended a long, accusatory finger.

  "Him!"

  93

  Exhausted from a late night of trial prep with Rosemarie Mancini, Quinn arrived just a few minutes before
the start of court on Monday. He had not told Mancini about the discovery of the Carver baby. He and Marc Boland, as Catherine's attorneys, were protected from having to divulge such information, but an expert witness for the defense, subject to cross-examination on the witness stand, would have no such luxury.

  Most mornings, Quinn loved getting to the courthouse early enough to spend a few minutes with Catherine before court started. But after last night's disagreement, he sensed his time and energy might be better spent focusing on the testimony. Tonight he would spend hours in the small attorney-client interview booth with Catherine, preparing for her testimony tomorrow. Talking through some of these issues could wait until then.

  Still, he found himself craving his time with her and worrying incessantly about what last night's decision might have meant to their relationship. He had to remember that first and foremost she was a client--one facing death row. The decision by Quinn and Bo not to immediately reveal the whereabouts of the Carver baby had been made for Catherine's benefit. Quinn knew she couldn't understand that yet, and he hoped it didn't tear the fabric of their complex relationship beyond repair, but he had to look out for Catherine's legal interests first.

  Quinn mechanically unpacked his briefcase, glancing at the courtroom's side door leading to the holding cell where Cat waited. The truly crazy thing was that recently, Quinn would often catch himself thinking about a possible future with her. After a not-guilty verdict. After treatment by Mancini that successfully brought the Avenger character to the surface and helped Cat deal with the past. Quinn and Catherine, spending time together, giving in to the irresistible impulse to be with each other, exploring the undeniable chemistry that existed between them.