“I don’t care what you think. I need to see him.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
Jack Byrnes sat at his utilitarian ICU desk with Ahmad standing at attention. “Are you sure this is what you want, Ahmad?”
He shook his head slowly. “It’s not what I want. It’s what I need to do.”
“You realize that when you finish this program, you can write your own ticket just about anywhere in the country. Hospitals are screaming for physicians trained in intensive care.”
“I know, Jack, but what the country is not prepared for is to accept people who look like me or my family. I have a hard enough time dealing with the anti-Arab prejudice in this country. I can’t subject my wife and children to it.”
“What will you do?”
“You may find this difficult to believe, but I’ve accepted a position at Al-Maqased Hospital in Jerusalem.”
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“No, Jack, you’re wrong. At the professional level, at least, Israel may be the one place where an Arab like me can get a fair shake. I’ve talked with several friends who work at Al-Maqased. They need me and accept me even though I’m not a Muslim.”
“Life isn’t easy in Israel for Arabs, Jews, and I’m afraid, Christians too.”
Ahmad smiled. “If you really want to understand, put on a dark beard and a kuffiyeh then walk around even an enlightened community like Berkeley. It will be a revelation. You’ll love it when you get on an elevator at Brier Hospital and people either get off or move to one side to avoid getting close to you.”
Zoe’s trial was six weeks away.
Lola was between patients when the intercom sounded. “I have Dr. Martin Abrams on line two,” said the clinic’s receptionist.
“Hey, Lola, how are they hanging?” said Marty, laughing.
Lola smiled and gave it a beat. “Down to my waist when I’m standing and under my arm pits when I’m on my back. Still, is that any way to talk to your aging mentor?”
“I’m only doing what my elders taught. You’re relaxed, aren’t you?”
“Any more relaxed, I’d be in a coma. How’s it going behind enemy lines, Doctor?”
“You know me. I serve the truth, only the truth. In Zoe’s case, it’s an ugly one.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’d like you on a panel at the upcoming Northern California Psychotherapy meeting.”
“What’s the subject?”
“Teenage violence, Lola Right up your alley.”
“I’ll do it, if you send a limo. I’m not driving into the city again.”
“You got it.”
“Now, Marty, tell me why you called.”
“After our meeting today with Zoe, she asked to meet with Jacob.”
“Why?”
“You want to know what she said or what I think?”
“Just tell me what she said, Marty. I’ll provide my own interpretation.”
“Zoe said that she wanted to explain. That she and Jacob were close and he deserved an explanation.”
“I smell the malignancy of her narcissism. Do you believe her?”
“I don’t believe anything she says, Lola, and neither should you.”
“Thanks Marty. I’ll discuss it with Jacob.”
The next morning, Lola and Jacob drove to the office. She popped her umbrella against the rain and took his arm as they climbed the back steps.
Jacob’s office carried enough patients for two physicians, not one eighty-eight years old.
“You must get some help, Jacob.”
“Sure. Look what happened the last time.”
“I’m serious. Even the inimitable Jacob Weizman has his limits.”
“Margaret’s interviewing nurse practitioners. That should help until I find someone to replace Zoe. I have a group of internists and family practitioners to share my night call, so I’ll survive.”
“Talking about Zoe, I had a call yesterday from Marty Abrams.”
“Isn’t he the psychiatrist who works for Zoe’s defense? He’s not one of those anything-for-a-buck expert witnesses, is he?”
“No, Marty’s the real deal. I was his mentor for a while when he was in training. The interface between psychiatry and the law is a mess. Marty’s trying to interject the rationality of what we understand about mental health into the legal system, a ship straining against a tide of crime and overburdened with antiquated ideas, bias, the need for revenge, and opportunism of every sort.”
“You mean he’s a good guy?”
“Yes.”
“What does he want?”
“Zoe asked to see you.”
“Me? Why?”
“She wouldn’t say, Jacob. I assume it’s another of her manipulations.”
Jacob shook his head. “I’m not going.”
“It’s up to you.”
“You think I should go?”
“It’s up to you.”
“Give me a break, Lola. You’re the therapist. What do you think?”
“I know you’re not as tough as you pretend. I think you saw in Zoe the daughter that we never had, and the heir apparent for your medical practice. She hurt us enough. I don’t see any reason to give her another shot.”
“Don’t you want the answers to the big questions, what happened and why?”
“She may not know, although I’m sure she’ll come up with something creative and persuasive. I don’t want you to be disappointed again.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Jacob tossed in bed, unable to sleep. Then at two a.m., he drifted off.
The night light casts shadows against drawn curtains. I feel her presence behind and turn to see her beautiful face contorted in rage. Her blue eyes shine with an unearthly glow. She smiles as the syringe approaches my IV line. Why Zoe. Why?
Chapter Seventy-Three
The Toyota Landcruiser’s windshield wipers barely kept up with the downpour. The pounding on his roof ceased as Marty Abrams entered the underground parking lot in Emeryville. He left his hat and raincoat in the car and took the elevator to Alan Hayes’s office.
Alan sat behind his enormous desk. “How are your interviews going?”
“If jurors respond to Zoe the way we do, you have big problems.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you this: I’ve cared for or interviewed all types of psychiatric patients, criminals, and mass murderers. Often, while trying to understand them, I felt a degree of sympathy for the agony of their tortured souls. I feel none of that with Zoe. I always thought that it was the psychopath, devoid of empathy, that I feared the most, but a malignant narcissist like Zoe Spelling has made me reconsider. Like the psychopath, she feels nothing for her victims, but when you superimpose self-gratification, it reaches the obscene.”
“You don’t like her.”
Marty laughed. “I love a perceptive lawyer. Psychiatrists, especially forensic ones, do their jobs better when they remain objective, strictly professional. Zoe’s like the red, blue, and yellow leaves of the Bird-of-Paradise plant, beautiful, seductive, and deadly.”
“Give me something I can use...anything.”
“In reality, she’s not competent to stand trial, but you’ll never prove it to a judge.”
“Let me decide, Marty. Tell me why.”
“Her mental state makes it impossible for her to assist in her own defense. I know this requirement was designed to fit the overtly psychotic or the catatonic, but it’s just as true in her case.”
“Any suggestions?”
“We’re finishing up our evaluation, but I don’t think we’ll learn anything that we don’t already know. Maybe you can lay out the reality of the trial and its outcome so she’ll agree to a plea bargain. She responds well to authority figures, and while you have the credentials and experience that may make her listen, she believes that, as she has through her entire life, she’ll g
et away with it. We need something to shock her to the extent that she’ll cooperate as we try to mitigate her sentencing.”
“You haven’t mentioned my favorite phrase, diminished capacity.”
“I’ll lay it out for you. You tell me whether or not you can make it work.”
“Shoot.”
“Malignant narcissists have emotional defense mechanisms that work to keep them out of trouble as long as things are going well in their lives and they feel no stress. Under the pressure of circumstances, especially if their self-esteem is threatened, they can easily become humiliated. This can progress to rage and ultimately, in some patients, to psychosis. This gives you two shots: While psychotic she was unable to control her impulses, the irresistible impulse defense, or two, while psychotic she didn’t have the mens rea, the intent to commit the crime.”
“You really are a forensic psychiatrist. I might try to make one of these things work if Zoe had committed a single act, but multiple ones, selecting victims, choosing poisons, picking the appropriate times...it’ll never happen. I don’t think we can find a judge who will allow us to present such a defense under these circumstances.”
“Where does that leave us, Alan?”
“A deal. We need to make a deal. I’ll work from my end, you work from yours. Mine will be a hell of a lot easier, I think.”
Zoe beamed as the guard brought her into the interview room. She’d brushed her hair and wore just a trace of lipstick.
Marty smiled. “You look like you’re in good spirits today.”
“I do feel much better. Byron was in and we had a good talk. I think we can put our marriage back on track.”
“We’re just about through with our interviews. I’ve talked with Alan Hayes...”
“When can he get me out?”
Trudy Kornblum shook her head.
Zoe stared at Trudy. “I really can’t stand that woman. We get on so well, Marty. Does she have to stay?”
“Zoe, understand something. You’re not getting out. Not for a long time.”
“That’s what they say.”
“Who says?”
“The voices. They say, ‘you’re going down, Zoe. Going down big time.’”
Trudy shook her head again.
Zoe stood. “Stop her. Make her stop.”
“Alan and I agree, Zoe. You can never take the stand. The DA will crucify you. A Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity Defense won’t work, especially now, in California. It all boils down to one thing. You’ll have to accept a plea agreement.”
“Jail?”
“Probably jail, hopefully a short sentence, and then a mental institution.”
“If you think I’m going to accept that, you’re the crazy one. I know what I did was wrong. I’m responsible, but I couldn’t help myself...I couldn’t stop.”
Trudy rolled her eyes. “Oh, Please. You’re living in a dream world.”
“Get her out of here,” Zoe screamed. “Get her out!”
“Trudy’s not going anywhere.”
Zoe stood and looked around the room then walked to the window and back. “I’m not going to fry...who said that?”
“Who said what?” asked Marty.
Zoe stood again clenching her fists at her cheeks and again moving her eyes around the room. “The voices...it’s the voices.”
Marty reddened. “Would you just stop it!”
“Don’t talk to me that way...you have no right to talk to me that way, and don’t you dare use those tones.”
“Zoe, please.”
“Get out. I want you both out. You’re fired!”
“We don’t work for you, Zoe. We work for Alan Hayes.”
“Not for long, you won’t. I knew you two were too stupid to deal with me, and I was right.” She walked to the door, banged on it with her fist and shouted, “Guard...guard. Take me back to my cell.”
Outside, Marty and Trudy stood by their cars.
Marty turned to Trudy. “You’ve got to give her credit. She’s incredibly consistent.”
“She may think that she’s putting on an act, that she’s manipulating us, but she’s not. She’s delusional.”
“So, she’s finally conquered your skepticism, Trudy. She made you a believer. You think she’s delusional.”
“No, Marty,” she laughed, “Delusional is a metaphor. I simply meant that she’s made a serious mistake in judgment.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
Zoe Spelling plopped into the chair across from Alan Hayes, arms symbolically locked across her chest.
“Besides your psychopathology,” began Alan, “do you have a death wish too?”
Zoe’s soft blue eyes turned a shade darker. “I’ve had it with those jokers. They’re less than subtle in their probing of me, their willingness to judge me, and their overall stupidity. If you want to get into my head, you need someone a hell of a lot smarter.”
“For an intelligent woman, Zoe, you are particularly obtuse. We don’t need to get into your head. We know what’s inside and it doesn’t take the talents of a Marty Abrams to understand you. We read you like a book.”
“Maybe you should not be defending me...you spend all your time on attack.”
“Be my guest, Zoe. Just give me the word and I’m out of here. It will make my life much less complicated.”
Zoe smiled and reached across the table and placed her hand on his. “I’m just upset. This place drives me crazy, and those two, especially that Trudy Kornblum, get under my skin.”
“Just between you and me, Trudy is Marty’s secret weapon. She always elicits useful revelations, she’s perceptive as hell, and while you may from time to time fool someone like Marty, you’ll never get past Trudy.”
“Tell Marty I’m sorry.”
After Marty and Trudy met with Zoe for ten hours more, the pair met with Alan and his associates.
“We all agree, do we not, that Zoe’s only defense is a psychiatric one, namely Not Guilty by Reason of Mental Defect, specifically Diminished Capacity secondary to Malignant Narcissism.”
“How will you get the judge to accept that defense?” asked Marty.
“We may need a hearing on it, but if I’m persuasive enough, he’ll have to let us go with what is putatively our only defense.”
Lola helped Jacob with his jacket as he prepared to meet with Zoe. “Will you be okay?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I can’t help it. Excuse an old woman who worries about her aging mate.”
“It’s a conversation, Lola. I’m not parachuting behind enemy lines.”
“Why did you pick today to be particularly dense?” She paused. “You won’t forget what I said about dealing with Zoe.”
“No, I won’t forget.”
“Don’t raise your level of expectations. She’ll disappoint you.”
He hugged Lola and smiled. “Have I forgotten to tell you how much I love you?”
“I like to hear it, but I know it whether or not you say the words. I remember it like it was yesterday, the day we left Auschwitz. Your hand warmed me, warmed my soul...I still feel the heat to this day.”
“You’re getting sentimental in your old age.”
“And, you’re not?”
Jacob kissed her, then walked to the old Volvo. He drove into Oakland and parked near Jefferson Square and walked to the Alameda County Jail. He heard the roar of nearby freeways and smelled the acerbic fumes of passing traffic.
Jacob had a visceral reaction to the towering white building with barred windows. Physically far removed from the look of a concentration camp, it still evoked painful memories. Its labyrinthine corridors, steel doors, monitoring cameras and surly uniformed guards reinforced his uneasiness.
Jacob jumped when the door slammed behind him as he entered the attorney’s small meeting room. A steel table sat in the middle with one chair on each side. On the ceiling, he saw banks of cool fluorescent lights and registers emitting cold streams of air and carrying the distant murm
ur of men. The familiar murmur of caged men chilled him further.
Slamming doors echoed in the corridor as Zoe and her guard approached. The guard undid her shackles, placed her in the chair opposite Jacob and handcuffed her to the table. She straightened her orange coveralls that held the black stenciled letters, PRISONER, and half-smiled at Jacob.
“Thank you for coming.”
Jacob said nothing. He turned away.
“Please, Jacob,” she tried again, reddening.
“I’m here. What do you want?”
“How are you? Are your well? How’s Lola?”
“Oh, please, Zoe, you don’t give a damn about us...or anyone else.”
Zoe’s eyes filled. She reached into her coveralls for a tissue and blew her nose. “But I do, Jacob. This is difficult for me. Of all people, I thought you’d understand...maybe even forgive.”
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