Dialogues

by Stephen J. Spignesi

  “Annie! Wake up for Mommy! Please wake up!” Sarah was now screaming into Annie’s tiny face.

  The rain began to slap harder against the windows and the side of the house.

  Sarah stood desperately clutching her precious baby girl as the tears slid uncontrollably down her face. Her heart pounded in her chest and she was gripped with a terror she had never before felt in her life.

  And it was at that precise moment, just when Sarah believed that she would be utterly and irrevocably crushed under the weight of this newborn, unimaginable grief, it was then that darling little Annie Bananny opened her eyes and smiled sweetly up at the impossibly wide and newly luminous eyes of her mother.

  34

  Tory Troy

  Defense Attorney Carolyn Payne

  “I read your novella.”

  “You too?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that Dr. Bexley took a pile of my stuff from my old writing teacher, and he insisted on talking about some of them. Which one did you read?”

  “The Baby’s Room.”

  “Oh, yeah. The SIDS story.”

  “What can you tell me about your intentions for this story?”

  “My intentions?”

  “Yes. What were you trying to say when you wrote the story?”

  “‘Trying to say?’ Guess I didn’t pull it off, eh?”

  “No, I’m sorry. You did. I have my ideas about the story, but I’d like to hear you tell me about it.”

  “Well, I guess it’s about the sheer terror that love can trigger.”

  “Terror?”

  “Sure. The mother in the story loves her daughter so much that she lives a full-blown, fully realized nightmare in the millisecond it takes to blink an eye. I think only love might be capable of such cataclysmic power.”

  “They say imminent death does the same thing. Makes people experience an enormous influx of memories in a heartbeat.”

  “The ‘life passing before your eyes’ thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe. But that’s the person’s entire life. In my story, love spurs Sarah to experience a specific incident … a possibility. It’s not her whole life, it’s just how she and her life would change if Annie had died.”

  “I see. Do you think that’s really possible?”

  “Hell, yeah. I’ve never experienced it myself, but I know people who have been through it. People I trust. One guy I know told me he relived his entire life in the two minutes that he was underwater and drowning when he was fourteen years old.”

  “Where do you think these experiences come from?”

  “Utica.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry. It’s a joke.”

  “Oh. One thing people have never said about me is that I have a quick sense of humor.”

  “No. Don’t feel that way. It was disrespectful of me to make a joke about a serious question. It’s just that ‘Utica’ came immediately to mind because I once read somewhere that that’s what Stephen King used to say when they asked him where he got his ideas.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, come on, Carolyn, I’m sure you’ve got a great sense of humor. Watch. You know what the difference is between a pregnant woman and a lightbulb?”

  “No. What’s the difference?”

  “You can unscrew a lightbulb.”

  “Tory!”

  “Please. Spare me the feigned shock. I see you trying not to laugh. Don’t worry about it. I will not think anything less of your professionalism. Honest. You know what’s funny, though? Steve Martin used that joke in the movie My Blue Heaven to prove to Joan Cusack that she didn’t have a sense of humor and, unlike yourself, she did not try to stifle her laughter. She—well, her character—really couldn’t find the humor in the joke. Which kind of made it funnier. Although you’re much funnier than her.”

  “Thanks. I’m almost flattered. Let’s move on, shall we? We are only a few days away from the start of your trial.”

  “I know.”

  “Am I correct in assuming that our plea will not be changed before the trial begins?”

  “I don’t know, Carolyn.”

  “You’re not still thinking about pleading guilty, are you?”

  “I might be.”

  “Tory, you need to dig in and look at your situation objectively. At least with an insanity plea, there’s a chance at life.”

  “If I plead guilty, who sentences me?”

  “The judge. In some states, capital punishment sentencing powers have been taken away from judges. Not here, though. Judge Becker will be the one who decides your fate.”

  “Do you think he’d give me the death penalty?”

  “That’s a good question. I really don’t know.”

  “Come on, Carolyn. Give me your best guess.”

  “Well, from what I know of Judge Becker, he would not want to sentence you to death, but he would feel compelled to do so. If you plead guilty, the full weight of your crimes comes to bear. Where we are now is in this weird gray area of jurisprudence. Everyone knows you did it, but it has not been conclusively established that you are legally liable for your crimes. If you plead guilty, any question of sanity or insanity at the time of the crimes goes out the window. You are admitting you did it, and you are agreeing to accept the penalties that will be doled out to you. That’s death or prison. No chance at institutionalization. Plus there’s no chance for an appeal either, although there will be a mandatory State Supreme Court review of the case—which will allow the ruling to stand, I’m sure.”

  “Do you think he’d give me the death penalty?”

  “Well …”

  “Carolyn, answer me. Do you think he’d give me the death penalty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lethal injection, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “When do I have to let you know?”

  “As soon as possible. Judges do not like going through the time and expense of beginning a trial if the case is going to be resolved with a plea.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  “Tory, I would advise against changing your plea to guilty. You will do what you will do, but factor in my opinion as you make your final decision, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Ciao.”

  35

  Tory Troy

  Psychiatric Nurse Chiarra Ziegler

  “Here’s your Ambien, Tory.”

  “I really don’t need a sleeping pill anymore, Chiarra.”

  “I know you don’t. But your orders haven’t been changed, so it’s my job to give it to you and to watch you take it. You or your lawyer should talk to one of the staff docs and have them cancel the Ambien if you really don’t need it.”

  “Do you think they would?”

  “They might. But if there is anything these guys want the patients here to do, it’s sleep. So don’t count on it.”

  “Thanks. I won’t.”

  “Tory, can I ask you a question?”

  “As a nurse or as a friend?”

  “Friend.”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “What happened?”

  “You mean with the six?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know what happened, Chiarra.”

  “No, I mean what happened with you that you would do such a thing?”

  “You know what’s an even more difficult job than animal euthanasia technician?”

  “What?”

  “Animal euthanasia technician.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The same job—but at a veterinary hospital.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there, they have to euthanize people’s pets. And a lot of the time, the owners want to be in the room.”

  “In the gas chamber?”

  “Vets mostly use lethal injection. They only do one animal at a time.”

  “Oh. That must be horr
ible—standing there and watching the poor thing die.”

  “I know a couple of E.T.s who work at animal hospitals. I have literally been in tears from some of the stories they’ve told me. Kids hugging their dog … old ladies with tears rolling down their cheeks as the cat who has been their only companion for fifteen years is ‘put to sleep’ … goddamned euphemisms.”

  “That’s so sad. I don’t think I could do it. In fact, I don’t even think I could do what you do.”

  “Someone has to.”

  “So … what happened … you know, with you.”

  “I’m not really sure, Chiarra. I try to understand, but … I think my cat had something to do with it.”

  “Your cat?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you really want to hear this?”

  “Yes. I do. I am now officially on my break, so we have twenty minutes. If the story is longer than that, I’ll have to hear it in installments.”

  “No, it won’t take longer than that. There’s really not that much to tell.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “When I was a kid … like early teens … after my father left … I had a cat named Gandalf.”

  “From The Lord of the Rings.”

  “I actually got it from The Hobbit.”

  “Okay.”

  “Gandy was a great cat. He and I were together constantly. I remember he used to know when I wasn’t feeling well. Like, if I had a headache, he would jump up onto the bed or the arm of my chair and lick my forehead. Gandalf was always healthy. All his life.”

  “He licked your forehead?”

  “Yeah. Can you believe that? And he would walk over to his dish if I even thought about feeding him.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “One day he threw up. Cats are always throwing up, so I didn’t think anything of it. But then he threw up again, and it was bright yellow. Like the yolk of an egg.”

  “I’ve had cats, Tory. I know what that means.”

  “Yup. Kidney problems. That’s one of the first signs. So I brought him to the vet, and the blood work showed that his kidneys were on their way out.”

  “How awful.”

  “The vet told me that I needed to bring him into the office twice a week for intramuscular infusion of fluids. That would take some of the pressure off his failing kidneys and buy him some time. After a few weeks of that, he taught me how to do it myself, and I gave Gandy the fluids at home.”

  “You had the IV bag and the syringes at home?”

  “Yeah. Once a day I infused him. I would lay him down on a towel and inject him in his side. He would stay quiet the whole time. I think he was really nauseous during his last couple of weeks.”

  “Was he eating?”

  “No. When he was first diagnosed I gave him baby food. Then I switched to a protein gel in a tube. I would place a glob of it on his tongue and he would instinctively swallow it. He didn’t want it, though.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “The vet always used to tell me that I would know when it was time. One day, Gandalf had to stop and lie down halfway across the room to his litter box. He was so weak and nauseous, he couldn’t even walk the entire way without resting. Then when he did manage to make it to the box, he could only step into it before he started peeing with his butt hanging over the edge. He peed all over the carpet because he didn’t even have the strength to take another couple of steps into the litter.”

  “That is so sad.”

  “That was the day I knew. That was when I knew that I was prolonging his suffering by letting him go on the way he was. He was terminally ill, and near death, and I was keeping him alive because I didn’t want to let go.”

  “I’m gonna cry.”

  “Well, I did cry. I picked him up one last time, and held him in my arms, and I could smell the ammonia on his breath because his kidneys couldn’t process the toxins out of his bloodstream anymore.”

  “The poor thing.”

  “He was all skin and bones. I put him on a blanket and called the vet. I told him I had to bring him in that day and that all I wanted to do was give the carrier to someone in the office and leave. I couldn’t bear to see him taken out of the carrier in the waiting room, and I did not want to be with him when they euthanized him. I still feel guilty about that. He said he’d take care of it, and that was that. I cried all the way home from the vet’s.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “And that’s why. Or at least I think that’s why. I don’t really know, Chiarra.”

  “For someone who was so upset about having to put down a pet, you picked a pretty strange career choice, don’t you think? I mean … animal euthanasia technician—the whole job is killing animals.”

  “I know.”

  “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. I got hired by Jake—and to give him his due, he did explain the job—and the next thing I knew I was going to school for my E.T. certificate.”

  “Why didn’t you say no when he asked you to take the course?”

  “I don’t really know. I think I was probably caught up in the notion that E.T.s help to mercifully end the lives of animals that would die anyway—but they’d die in a much uglier way. And I still believe that.”

  “I have to ask. How did you manage to get through all those Fridays?”

  “Oh, I don’t know … maybe the same way the guards—the decent ones—herding the Jews into the ovens at Auschwitz managed to get through all their Fridays. You go numb. Except that every day was Friday in the concentration camps.”

  “Jesus, Tory, that’s depressing.”

  “Yeah, I know. By the way, how long can you hang out?”

  “Well, I finished my med rounds—your Ambien was my last stop—so I’ve got a few minutes. If you don’t mind, that is.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re my only friend in this place.”

  “So tell me. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

  “Oh, I don’t know … Do you have any thoughts on the foreign trade deficit? Tom and Nicole? The best sushi bars in town?”

  “Ha-ha, very funny. Come on, Tory. Seriously. Is there anything on your mind?”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what’s been going through my mind lately, Chiarra. I haven’t even told this to Carolyn. Or my mother. Especially my mother.”

  “What is it?”

  “I feel lost. Just utterly lost. I don’t understand anything anymore.… Actually, it’s more like I can’t understand anything anymore. I try to see myself through someone … anyone else’s eyes—Bexley’s, my mom’s, you—and I can’t recognize the person I see.”

  “I’m sorry, Tory … I’m not following you.”

  “I know. I’m not making any sense. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, honey. Try to relax. Want me to turn on the TV?”

  “No. I’ll read a little. That usually helps.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll be back a little later.”

  “All right. Later.”

  36

  Court Transcript:

  Tory Troy

  Defense Counsel Carolyn Payne

  District Attorney Brawley Loren

  Judge Gerard Becker

  Court Personnel

  The Visitor’s Gallery

  The Jury

  “Mr. Loren? Opening statement?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Brawley Loren, and I am the Connecticut District Attorney prosecuting this case. I represent the interests of the state in the matter of State of Connecticut v. Victoria Abigail Troy. I’ll keep this short and to the point. The facts of this case are plain. One Friday afternoon, the defendant, Victoria Troy, snuck up behind each of her six animal-shelter coworkers and injected them in the back of their necks with a powerful drug that completely paralyzed their bodies, including their lungs, yet allowed them to maintain cons
ciousness. The drug she used was pancuronium bromide—a drug the defendant once sold to hospitals when she worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative. What happens when someone is injected with pancuronium bromide is that the victim begins to immediately suffocate, while retaining complete awareness of what is happening to him or her. Six times she stabbed with her syringe. Six times she watched her victim crumple to the floor. And after all six of her coworkers were incapacitated, their lungs unable to move, she then dragged each of them into the animal-shelter gas chamber—the euthanasia chamber—and turned on the gas. Just for good measure, I suppose. She must have wanted to make sure they’d all definitely die. The evidence against the defendant is overwhelming. Her fingerprints are on the syringes. A coworker saw her standing at the open door of the chamber, staring down at the bodies. And she has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. So there is no question that she committed six felony murders. The only question is, will you accept the excuse that she was insane at the time of the murders and incapable of knowing that what she was doing was wrong? That’s the only question you each have to answer before you vote guilty or not guilty. I, for one, already know the answer to that question. I trust in your good judgment and wisdom to arrive at the same conclusion as have I. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Loren. Ms. Payne?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Your Honor. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Defense Counsel Carolyn Payne, and I represent Tory Troy. My grandfather once told me something that has always stayed with me. You can tell a great deal about a society, about a culture, by two things: how they treat their elderly, and how they treat their animals. Now, you might think that we treat animals pretty well in America. After all, every major grocery store has an entire aisle devoted to pet food. Pet owners can buy health insurance for their puppy, and some families visit the vet’s more than their own doctors. Their people doctors. But there is a dark side to the animal situation in America. And that dark side is the plight of the unwanted. Stray animals that wander our streets, many of which end up at understaffed, underfunded public animal shelters where they are kept caged for a time—usually a very brief time—and then euthanized. Put to sleep. Put down. Killed. We have trained people for that terrible job. They’re called animal euthanasia technicians. Tory Troy is an animal euthanasia technician. Her job was to eliminate animals that no one wanted, that no one was willing to take care of, that no one cared about. Except Tory. Tory cared about the animals that were brought to the Waterbridge Animal Shelter. She cared about them deeply. But she did her job. Why? Because she knew that the alternative for these animals that no one wanted was even more horrible than being put to death: starvation, abandonment, sickness … and worse. She did her job. And she prevented a great deal of suffering. But one day, she couldn’t take it anymore, and she snapped. The overwhelming horror of her job consumed her and destroyed her ability to think rationally, logically, compassionately—and she lashed out. Was Tory Troy sane at the time she committed six murders? How could she have been? How could this sensitive, smart, compassionate woman have been in full possession of her faculties when she did what she did? We believe that, after hearing the facts of this case, including Tory’s story told by Tory herself—especially the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father when she was a child—you will conclude that the only fair and honest verdict you can render is not guilty by reason of insanity. Thank you.”