Antoinette van Heugten

by Saving Max (v5) (epub)

  He frowns. “Price? I wasn’t contacted by anyone named Price.”

  She slips the thick, embossed card from its envelope and takes in the square, black print and the familiar scrawl of the Mont Blanc signature.

  Don’t prove me wrong.

  E.B.M.

  “E. Bartlett?” That he should be the one to have intervened on her behalf is almost as incomprehensible as his ability to ramrod the partnership into standing behind her bond.

  “Bartlett—that’s who I talked to,” he says. “Sharp guy.”

  Danielle gives him a wry look as she puts the card in her purse. “That he is.”

  “He also said that you are honest to a fault.”

  She stares him down. “I am.”

  “Of course you are…Lauren.” His eyes are weary, as if he wishes she weren’t like every defendant who reflexively proclaims innocence. His voice is all business. “Before we get into the facts, I want to take a moment to review the situation.”

  Danielle nods, stricken by his change of tone. The brown eyes now look cold, professional. He puts on a pair of glasses and riffles through the papers on his desk. “Let’s go over the terms of your bond. Maitland’s temporary injunction prohibits you from going anywhere near Maitland or your son. In ten days, their lawyers will move to make it stick, at least until the trial is over.”

  She starts to speak, but he raises his hand again. “I know,” he says. “You want to see your son—Sam, right?”

  Crimson heat suffuses her face. “Max.”

  “Max?” His eyes regard her coldly. “Unfortunately, your violation of the order on the very day of its issuance and your status as the mother of the prime suspect in the murder of a psychiatric patient hardly leaves me with a compelling argument that you should be allowed access. Given that you were caught attempting to flee the scene with your son, I have no argument that you do not present a flight risk.”

  “I don’t care what they do to me, but you have to find a way for me to see Max.” Her voice cracks. “He must be terrified. He woke up with blood all over him; was arrested for murder; thrown in jail; arraigned; and then sent back to Maitland—all without knowing where I was or if I had abandoned him.”

  He shakes his head. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Tony, I’m begging you.” Tears burn her raw eyes as panic laces her words. “Max has been very…ill. What if this pushes him over the edge? I’ll never forgive myself.” Her face crumples into her hands. When she is finally able to stop sobbing and look up, Tony’s eyes soften for a moment.

  “You’re just going to have to wait,” he says quietly. “I’ll see him today and let you know how he is. After that, I’ll try to push for daily telephone calls. Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Oh, Tony, thank you.”

  He glances at the pleadings on his desk. “I think we better focus on Max’s murder charge.”

  Danielle feels her face burn. It is one thing to read the charges in the distancing language of the law and quite another to hear someone mention “Max” and “murder” in the same sentence. Her heart lurches as she realizes that though she’s out, he isn’t free—and unless she does something fast, he may never be. She can’t even run to her boy and make sure he’s all right or even talk to him about what happened on that horrible afternoon. By letting her out on bond, all they’ve done is given her a larger cage. She takes a deep breath. “Agreed.”

  “Before we address the murder charge, I want to be clear about the restrictions of your bond.” Danielle does not remind him that she is a lawyer. Right now she’s just a defendant, like her son. “We’ll find you an apartment away from Maitland to avoid the press, but you’re not to go farther afield than the fifty-mile radius stipulated in the court’s order,” he says. “Frankly, I was amazed you made bond at all given the nature of the crime and the fact that you were found at the scene attempting to flee with the murder suspect in your arms.”

  Danielle feels his eyes upon her. She glances down at her ankle and the carbon-fiber band that encloses it. The blue LED flashes ominously. The court-appointed lawyer offered up the device to the judge as an alternative when it became clear that he was on the verge of denying her bail. An experimental innovation, the bracelet comes with a computerized panel that the Plano sheriff will install in her new apartment. If she ventures beyond the fifty-mile limit, or tries to relocate the panel, the police station and the court will be simultaneously alerted. She is only in Des Moines because she is permitted to visit her attorney. The appointments must be phoned in by Tony in advance.

  The order is clear. It’s a one-time deal: if she violates it, she’ll be thrown back in jail and her $500,000 bond, for which her firm is on the hook, will be revoked. She crosses her good ankle over the imprisoned one and tries to match his business like tone. He is her lawyer now, not her lover. “Can we talk about their case against Max? I’m eager to hear your strategy, and I have a few thoughts of my own.”

  Sevillas raises an eyebrow.

  “Don’t worry,” she says quickly. “I know I’m ignorant about criminal law, but I’m a quick study and a good lawyer. Maybe you could think of me as a second chair.”

  He frowns. “I’m sorry, Danielle, but that’s not how I work. I think you’d feel the same way if I were your client and tried to tell you how to run a civil case. It just isn’t in Max’s—or your—best interest. Besides, if I’m also going to represent you—and I haven’t decided if you need separate counsel—it is critical that you not appear to be involved in his legal representation.”

  Danielle leans forward. “Tony, I’m asking you to make an exception. I promise to respect your role as chief strategist and our advocate in court. But it’s Max’s life we’re talking about here, and I have to be involved.”

  His dark eyes are stone. “Look, I’ve been practicing a long time and, frankly, lawyers are my worst clients. They know it all, or worse, they know just enough to be dangerous.” He shakes his head. “I have to call the shots or it’s no deal.”

  “All right,” she says quietly.

  “Let’s get to the facts, shall we?” He flips open a leather binder and draws a line down the middle of a page. He puts Max’s name on the left side of the paper. She works the same way. One side for what the client says; one side for what the truth probably is.

  “The D.A. has been only too happy to give me his version of what happened,” he says. “The police report backs him up, as do the statements of various Maitland staff. He’s sending over the black box tomorrow.”

  She gives him a quizzical look.

  “That’s their box of goodies. A list of the physical evidence, statements—everything they’re required by law to disclose to the defense.”

  She nods.

  “I’ll summarize the State’s case against both of you.” Sevillas looks at a typewritten sheet and runs his finger down to a particular paragraph. “First, you and Max go to Maitland for a psychiatric assessment and you befriend the decedent and his mother. You repeatedly refuse to go back to New York while Maitland conducts its assessment and, on numerous occasions, interfere with the doctors and staff. These events are documented and reflect what Maitland et al term your increasingly ‘erratic, labile and unbalanced’ behavior.”

  He leans back in his chair and continues in a laconic voice. “They prohibit you from seeing your son more than once a day until the assessment is concluded. You still refuse to leave and spend your days hovering in the waiting room outside your son’s unit. Much of this time is spent alone with the decedent and his mother.”

  He takes a breath and turns a page. “Now Max. When he arrives at Maitland, he is clearly suicidal; clinically depressed; and unresponsive to traditional psychiatric treatment. Thereafter, his mental state rapidly and profoundly deteriorates. He becomes increasingly psychotic; has auditory and visual hallucinations that the decedent wants to kill him; and is physically violent. Max’s attacks upon the decedent escalate to the point that the boy requires
significant medical attention on two separate occasions. Max’s detachment from reality is so severe that the staff has no choice but to restrain him, particularly at night.”

  “Tony, let me explain—”

  Sevillas holds up his stop-sign hand. “You are then given your son’s diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder—which you summarily dismiss—and then reject Maitland’s strong recommendation that Max remain there so he may receive the intensive psychiatric treatment required to prevent him from committing suicide or assaulting third parties, particularly the decedent. The following day, you demand a meeting with the doctors on Max’s team and, according to those at the meeting, you go berserk, complete with bizarre accusations and violent threats to one of the most well-respected adolescent psychiatrists in the nation, perhaps the world.”

  “That’s not how it happened!”

  Tony ignores her and continues, his voice completely devoid of emotion. “You march to the Fountainview unit in a rage, where you find the Morrison boy dead in his room. Your unconscious son is in the room, covered with the decedent’s blood. A persuasive case is made that Max killed the boy by brutally stabbing him with a five-prong, eight-inch metal comb. In all, the coroner tallied three hundred and ten puncture wounds. Given the grouping of the wounds, this reflects sixty-two separate acts of stabbing. Of particular note is the wound to the boy’s femoral artery, which is all but ripped open. When the head nurse arrives, she finds you dragging your bloodied son to the door, trying to escape with him, and all of the relevant physical evidence—the murder instrument and Max’s bloody clothes—stuffed in your purse.”

  Sevillas closes the leather binder and raises his eyes. A world-weary look is in them. “I have to tell you that the facts are as bad as they come.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “The murder weapon found in the room unquestionably caused the injuries and death of the decedent. Max’s history of increasing violence with Jonas and his hallucinations that the boy was trying to kill him provide motive. There is no evidence of another suspect nor, in my opinion, is there likely to be. It is also unlikely that an Iowan jury will find an assertive New York female lawyer who has tried to flee with her son and the murder weapon sympathetic, let alone a young man who may have viciously murdered a patient of Maitland, the employer of over three hundred of the good citizens of Plano.” He glances at her. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you need to know that we’ll be swimming against the riptide from day one.”

  Danielle grips the arms of the chair so tightly that her knuckles blanch. She fights a rolling wave of nausea. It’s all wrong, so horribly wrong. How does she begin to explain Max, much less herself? It is critical that she divorce herself from fear and approach this like a lawyer. And she must somehow convince Tony that Max did not kill Jonas so that he presents a defense so compelling that no jury will convict him. She can’t begin to think about the charges against her. Nothing matters but Max. But why should Tony believe her? All she has done from the moment they met is lie to him. And now she is going to lie again. She must use all of her powers of persuasion—all of her training—to convince Tony that someone else killed that boy.

  And that the killer is not, in fact, her own son.

  “Well?” Tony’s gaze is direct.

  Danielle leans forward, her voice eager. “Look, Tony, I can counter every allegation. But understand this: Max did not kill that boy. I know it looks awful, but I can explain what happened. Yes, I was angry when I left the meeting with Reyes-Moreno and went to Fountainview to see Max, but he wasn’t in his room. I thought he was in the cafeteria with the other patients. As I was leaving, I noticed that Jonas’s door was open, and I looked in on him.” She looks up. “His mother and I are good friends. Did anyone tell you that?”

  Tony shrugs. “Go on.”

  Danielle’s voice trembles. “I can’t even describe the horror of that room; all the blood; the hideous sight of poor Jonas.” She struggles a moment, then goes on. “I grabbed him to see if he was still alive, but it was too late. I was just about to scream for help when I realized that Max was on the floor, covered in blood. I thought he was dead. I…dropped to the floor and checked his pulse. He was unconscious, but alive.”

  “Where was the comb?”

  Danielle takes a deep breath. She has no choice. “It was across the room in a pool of blood.”

  Tony frowns. “What did you do then?”

  “When I couldn’t rouse Max, and none of the staff heard me scream, I tried to drag him out of the room to find help. With all that blood, I couldn’t tell if Max had been stabbed, too.”

  “How did the comb wind up in your purse?”

  Danielle is prepared for this. “I was convinced that the murderer had planned to kill Max as well, but I interrupted him. I grabbed the comb and shoved it into in my purse because I was afraid he’d come back and kill us both.”

  “What about Max’s T-shirt?”

  She looks at him earnestly. “I tore it off of him when I was trying to see if he had been stabbed. I don’t remember putting it into my purse, but I guess I did. I was completely out of my mind.”

  He makes a few notes and then stops to look at her. “By the way, do you have any idea how your comb wound up in the Morrison boy’s room?”

  “I have no idea,” she says. “It was always in my purse. Someone must have taken it, or I dropped it somewhere.”

  Sevillas’s cross-examination is staccato, his gaze unwavering. “Did you leave your purse lying around?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember lending it to anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember the last time you used it?”

  “No.”

  “Could you have dropped it in the boy’s room at some earlier time?”

  “I could have,” she says. “I was in and out of his room almost every day, visiting Marianne.”

  “But you don’t recall losing it.”

  “No.”

  “Did Max regain consciousness from the time you found him until the nurse entered the room?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see anyone else on the unit coming or going?”

  She shakes her head. “It was lunchtime. The staff was usually in the cafeteria with the patients, as I said. As far as I know, only Max and Jonas were left behind. There could have been others—staff or patients. That’s definitely something we need to investigate.”

  “Hmm,” he says. “Why did they leave your son and the other boy behind?”

  Danielle shrugs. “Max was undergoing an extensive medication change. He usually slept through lunch.”

  “And the decedent?”

  “You’d have to ask the staff.”

  “Who won’t talk to us until formal discovery starts. The D.A. will see to that. And certainly not in time for the hearing,” he replies. “Did they leave these boys unattended? That seems irresponsible.”

  “There may have been a nurse somewhere on the floor. I don’t know.” She is careful to keep her next words measured and even. “But they made sure they couldn’t move around. They kept Max in restraints and there was a security camera inside his room. Someone disabled the camera, unfastened the restraints and dragged Max into Jonas’s room.”

  Sevillas gives her a skeptical look. “Or the duty nurse forgot to put Max in restraints and he finagled the direction of the security camera, filched the comb from your purse, and stabbed Jonas to death.” Danielle starts to speak, but Sevillas interrupts her. “And don’t tell me he couldn’t have disabled that camera. That’s exactly what happened in Jonas’s room.”

  She glares at him. “That is not what happened.”

  He leans slowly back in his chair. “I don’t think you can make that statement given the fact that Max was repeatedly violent with Jonas and had vivid hallucinations that Jonas wanted to kill him. It seems much more plausible that Max acted out his psychotic hallucinations and killed Jonas before Jonas could kill him.”

  Her jaw tightens. “And he
did this while unconscious?”

  Tony shrugs. “We don’t know when Max became unconscious. It could easily have happened after he killed Jonas.”

  She doesn’t blink. “Or after the murderer dragged his un conscious body into Jonas’s room, intending to kill Jonas and frame Max for the murder.”

  “We won’t really know what happened until we have a chance to speak to Max,” he says. “Although Maitland has documented that historically he is completely unaware, after the fact, of his actions during these psychotic fugues.”

  Danielle shakes her head. “I don’t believe Maitland’s entries.”

  “And why is that?”

  She catches herself. This is no time to admit that she broke into Maitland’s computer system and read legally privileged information from Max’s file. “It’s just a feeling I have.”

  He gives her a sharp glance. “Feelings aren’t evidence.” Danielle’s cheeks flame. Tony crosses his arms and studies her carefully. “So, do you have any idea who might have done this? You’ve had some time to think about it.”

  Danielle feels her stomach constrict. She has thought of little else since that unspeakable moment when she found Max bloody and curled up on the floor—clutching the comb. All she could think of was that Max was alive, safe. And that is all she is thinking of now.

  And it is possible that there is a viable suspect other than Max. She didn’t spin this concept from whole cloth. In jail, as she replayed the hideous scene for the hundredth time, she suddenly recalled a form flitting by Jonas’s window—just after she saw Max on the floor. Immediately after the turmoil and horror of finding Jonas dead and Max bloody and unconscious, only celluloid clips of those ghastly moments ran through her mind. It was not until later, after the arrest and jail, that she had sat quietly in her cell, closed her eyes and actually focused on the image. It swam into her mind’s eye, an ephemeral eidolon that shimmered through blurred glass and then glistered away.