Just because Uncle Jack was accused of murder, however, didn’t mean that he did it just because he was suffering from schizophrenia. Schizophrenics were generally no more violent than anybody else in society. I had always thought, and my therapists had confirmed this, that a mental disorder didn’t make you violent, per se. You had to also have violent genes to go along with your mental illness, or have some other factor in your makeup that would make you violent. Just having bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia didn’t necessarily make you a murderer.
I didn’t know. What I did know was that I was going to have to race down to the county jail and see him. I just knew that he was feeling lost and alone and abandoned. I couldn’t stand to think of somebody that I loved so much going through that.
I called Sophia. “Sophia,” I said, “can you come and watch the girls? I have to get to the county jail as soon as possible. I, uh, have a new client who needs to see me.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said.
“Mom,” Abby said, coming up to me. She was such a little empath. She could always tell what I was feeling and she usually had just the right things to say to comfort me. I didn’t know how she was so wise at the tender age of 12, but I was grateful that she was. “What’s wrong?”
I tousled her hair and grimaced. “Nothing, Buttercup. I know that it’s late.” I glanced at the clock, which read 9:30 PM. “But Sophia is going to come and watch the two of you. In the meantime, it’s time for bed for the both of you.”
Rina rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to go to bed. It’s Friday night, mom. All the other kids are staying up. Their parents let all my friends stay up past 11 on the weekends. I want to play some interactive video games with some of my friends on-line. Can I do that, please? Pretty please?”
I didn’t have time to negotiate or argue with her. “Okay,” I said, frantically looking for my car keys. “You can stay up until 11 playing games with your friends on-line. But no later than that.” I felt my head start to swim as I went from one room to the next, looking for my elusive car keys. “Where are those damned things?”
A knot in my stomach was forming and I felt sick. Absolutely sick. I hadn’t felt this sick since the days before Michael Reynolds’ trial. It was during those days before that trial that I constantly felt like throwing up. Making sure that Michael fried for the murder of Judge Sanders was the most important thing in the world to me. I couldn’t think of anything that was more important. Now that he was behind bars, where he would stay for the rest of his natural life, I was feeling slightly better about things.
Now this.
My mother called again. “Where are you, Harper? I’m down here at the jail, and they’re not letting me see him. They’ve told me that visiting hours are over. He needs to see you, Harper. He needs to see you now.”
I sighed. “Mom, you’ve always hated what I do. You’ve always nagged at me about representing criminals. Now do you see why everybody needs defending? Now do you understand?”
I could hear her crying hysterically on the phone. “Just get down here,” she said. “Get down here as soon as you can.”
I felt like I was being pulled in 20 different directions, none of them good. I had my mother crying hysterically, my girls looking at me like I had grown another head, my car keys were missing, and my beloved Uncle Jack was behind bars, waiting for his arraignment on a murder charge.
I closed my eyes, willing myself to concentrate. Just concentrate. Just think about something, focus on it, and let my brain calm itself. I stared at my umbrella stand, and then closed my eyes again. Focus. Focus. Focus.
I snapped my fingers and ran into my room, where I found my car keys sitting on my dresser. I kissed them and ran back downstairs. Sophia was waiting for me with a smile on her face.
“Thanks Sophia, you’re a doll,” I said. “You know the drill. Rina will be upstairs playing video games on-line with her friends. Abby will be in her room, reading a book, I think. Just make sure that it’s lights-out at 11. I’m really sorry for the late notice, but-“
Tears came to my eyes and I shook my head.
“What’s wrong, Harper?” Sophia asked me as she put her arm around my shoulders.
I shook my head some more as I thought about my Uncle Jack. He was three years younger than my mother, and he and Patrick were her only brothers. Since Patrick had moved to Florida, however, Jack was her only close relative. And my mom and Jack were very close. He was also very close with me. He used to take me camping in the Smoky Mountains and I would always get to go to the beach with him in South Carolina. My family never had a ton of money, and Uncle Jack was reasonably wealthy, so the only times that I got to go on vacation was when I went with him.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just need to see about a new case I picked up. I know that it’s kinda late on a Friday night, but I need to see my new client. Thanks again for coming on such short notice.”
She nodded her head, looking at me worriedly. “I’m always here when you need me,” she said. “You know I have no life.” She smiled.
I nodded back, unable to speak. I was afraid that if I opened up my mouth and said something that anything that came out would be an unintelligible mess. “Love you,” I said, taking my jacket and walking out the door.
To my dismay, I felt the rain pelting down on my shoulders the second I walked off of my covered porch. I immediately went back in and grabbed an umbrella and hurried to my driveway to get into my car.
As I drove along, the sounds of my windshield wipers gave me a certain degree of comfort. There was something about the steady rhythm of the wipers that calmed me considerably. Even though I was about to be in the middle of an absolute horror, I knew that, no matter what, if I kept my wits about me, I could help Uncle Jack beat this. I could. I knew that. I could feel it.
I had won impossible cases before. Not that Uncle Jack’s case was impossible, exactly, but, even if the facts were bad, I could find a way around it. I could. I had to. That was the only answer. I had to figure this out. No matter the facts, I had to figure it out.
I saw on my console that my brother Brad was calling. “Hey Brad,” I said, answering. “I’m on my way.”
“Good.”
“How’s mom?”
“How do you think?” He said. “She’s hysterical. She’s been crying since she found out about Uncle Jack being arrested. She found out that he had been arrested about a half hour ago when he called her from jail. I guess she was his one phone call.”
I groaned. “Why didn’t he call me first? Why call mom? I don’t get that. He should have called me from the station. If he confessed to something without getting counsel, then I’m going to have to kill him myself.” I shook my head. That was one thing that didn’t make sense. He knew I was an attorney. I should have been the first person he called.
“Preaching to the choir, sis,” Brad said. “That’s what I told mom. I asked her why Jack called her before he called you and she just said that she had no idea why.”
I gripped the wheel as I sped down Main Street towards Downtown. Friday night was a night for party-goers, especially in the Westport District of town, which was right on my way to the County Jail. I saw the girls walking along the sidewalk in their micro-mini skirts and I felt slightly jealous. There was a time, before my Freshman year rape, when I was as carefree as these girls. That all ended that night in the Sigma Chi fraternity house. I never got to really enjoy college because of that.
That was finally okay, though, because Michael Reynolds, my rapist, was finally where he belonged – behind bars. I had made sure that he was convicted for murdering a Federal Court judge, Judge Robert Sanders, and that was the most satisfying thing that I had ever done in my life. Seeing his face when that jury pronounced him guilty was my proudest moment. It was an even prouder moment than all the times I got a not guilty verdict for one of my clients, sad to say.
But I knew that if I could possibly get my Uncle Jack off of his murder
charge, then that moment would be my new proudest moment. Of that, there was no doubt.
“Whatever,” I said to Brad as I made my way downtown and saw the jail coming into view. “Listen, I gotta run. I see the jail, and I know that mom is there, sobbing hysterically, so I better get a move on getting in there. I’ll see you in a bit when I get to the jail, so we can talk about what’s going on. I need to get an assessment.”
“Talk later,” he said.
I stepped out of the car and put my umbrella up. The rain was now coming down harder than ever, each droplet seeming to land on me like an anvil. It was April, so I knew that this rain was going to be one of many. I felt the chill go along with it, so I wrapped my coat around me tighter.
I went into the jail where I saw my mother sitting there in the waiting area. She had a cup of coffee in her hand, and she looked anxious.
She came up to me and gave me a big hug. “Thank God you’re finally here,” she said.
I nodded. “Where’s dad?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t want to wake up him up,” she said softly.
I furrowed my brows, thinking that was odd. “Okay,” I said. “But don’t you think that he should be here?”
“He should be, but he’s not.”
That was weird, but I let it go. “Well, I better go up and see him,” I said. “Let me find out what bloc he’s in.”
At that, I went up to the dispatcher and asked her where Uncle Jack was. “I need to see Jack Calhoun,” I said to the lady, whose name was apparently Sheila.
She looked at her computer. “Bloc nine, pod three,” she said, giving me my pass.
“Thanks.”
I went over to mom, who was sobbing. I then saw Brad coming out to the waiting room with some more coffee, one of which he handed to our hysterical mother. “Thanks for coming,” he said.
“A great way to spend your Friday night, huh?” I asked him.
“Yeah. I got a sitter and everything for Haley, because it’s a date night for Cecile and me. Best laid plans, I guess.”
“As always.” I gave him a quick hug and then went to the metal door that would lead me to the blocs of cells, one of which held my Uncle Jack.
As I got on the elevator, my mind wandered to the camping trip we took when I was nine. This was way before he started showing signs of schizophrenia. He was diagnosed relatively late in life, at age 51. His wife Mary was killed in a car accident that year, and, about a year after she died, Jack started to hear voices. He stopped showering and started to get very depressed, which worried all of us. He was never institutionalized like my Uncle Patrick was for his bi-polar disorder, but he got bad for awhile. He was trying to manage his symptoms the best he could, but I knew that it was always a struggle.
My heart pounded as I got to Jack’s bloc and then went into the waiting area for the inmates. I went through the metal doors, first one, which opened with a giant clang, and then the next.
“Who are you here to see?” one of the guards asked from behind the glass window.
“Jack Calhoun,” I said.
The guard nodded. “He’ll be out in a few minutes,” she said. “You know the drill, of course. Just have a seat.”
“Thanks.”
I sighed and put my head on the metal table. Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. I knew that he was having a rough time lately. He was a partner in a large law firm, and he was fired and removed because he was causing problems there. At first, he showed the early signs of schizophrenia, but they were subtle. He would be extremely irritable and would shout and cuss out his secretary. He had never acted that way before. Everybody just assumed that it was all a part of the grieving process, but, in fact, it proved to be early signs of what was to come.
As I waited for him to come out, I read the statement of information that I picked up from my mother. Apparently Jack was arrested in a rectory. Father Kennedy, the pastor at a Catholic Church called Guardian Angels Parish in the Westport area, was the victim. When Officers Brown and Maddox arrived at the scene, acting on an anonymous tip that Father Kennedy might be in danger, they found my Uncle Jack laying on a couch in the living room, a bloody hunting knife in his hand. Father Kennedy was laying on the floor, having been stabbed in the heart. Uncle Jack was unconscious at the scene, but came to in the squad car on the way over to the station. He was disoriented in that squad car, but he didn’t tell the officers much.
And he didn’t confess. Thank God. That was one good thing. One less thing to overcome.
Nevertheless, the facts looked bad. I shook my head. Poor, poor Jack.
I looked up and saw him shuffling slowly out of the metal door that led to the pod. His wrists were shackled and he looked like an absolute mess. His grey hair, which was cut in a slightly hipsterish shaggy way, was going in every direction. He was always lean, but it looked as if he had lost about twenty pounds since the last time I saw him, which was just last Thanksgiving. His head was drooping, and, when I looked into his eyes, I saw that his expression looked almost blank.
That said, when he saw me, he lit up. “June bug,” he said softly. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course, Uncle Jack,” I said. “Of course, I came. I would come even if it was in the middle of the night.”
“I know you would. You always were my little June bug.”
I smiled. I loved that nickname, actually. He called me June bug because my birthday was June 20. “Tell me what happened.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what happened, actually. I don’t know.” He sighed. “I might have killed him. I just don’t know.”
Then he started to cry. “Oh, June bug,” he said. “I don’t really know what happened. I don’t know. All that I know was that I was in that rectory. The rectory. They found me in there, in the confession booth and I was passed out. And apparently, I had a knife in my hand. A knife, June bug. A bloody knife. I really didn’t know what happened. I didn’t even know how I got there. I don’t know, June bug. I don’t know. I don’t remember going into that rectory, and I woke up in the squad car on the way over to the police station, completely disoriented.”
I got out my legal pad. I was going to have to figure this out, without putting too much emotion into it. I couldn’t think of this as being my Uncle Jack. The man who took me camping and fishing and boating when I was growing up. He was just another client. He had to be.
He went on. “He was a priest. His name was Father Kennedy. He was a priest. He’s not now. He’s…dead now.” He hung his head. “Dead. And I guess I killed him.”
I stood up. “Uncle Jack, you’re going to have to be more clear than this. I know, I understand that you’ve had your issues with…illness…but I need to get some straight answers from you. I need to do that, Uncle Jack, if we’re going to be able to beat this.”
He shook his head, his grey hair hanging in his eyes. “Can we beat this? Do you think that we can?”
“Of course,” I said, although I stated those words much more confidently than how I really felt. “We can beat this. I can beat almost anything. I’ve taken some really difficult cases and I’ve managed to pull a rabbit out of a hat almost every time. I can do this here, too, Uncle Jack. I can. But you have to be straight with me.”
“I am being straight with you,” he said. “I’m telling you that I don’t remember even going to that rectory. I don’t remember it. All that I know was that I was there in that confessional, and then the police were there as well. They took me in and they booked me and I ended up here.” He looked at his hands, which were clasped in front of him. “I’m here, June bug.”
I decided to try a different tack. “Uncle Jack,” I said. “Let me ask you this. Do you have blackouts?”
“I do,” he said with a defeated sigh. “Ever since your Aunt Mary died, I’ve had blackouts. I haven’t told anybody about this, though. My family. Your mother. Patrick. I’ve told nobody about the blackouts.”
“Why haven’t you told anyone?”
“B
ecause. I mean, I’ve been hearing voices, so everybody in the family already thinks that I’m completely crazy. I didn’t want everybody to know that I was also blacking out. I didn’t want you guys to know. I’ve always been so together. I was a partner in one of the largest law firms in this city. I was making six figures a year. It’s been so embarrassing. So embarrassing to go from having the world at my feet to barely being able to function.”
“But you’ve been functioning fine lately,” I said. “Haven’t you?”
He shook his head. “No. I haven’t. Your mother has been wonderful. She’s been the one who always took me to the doctor and tried to make sure that I was taking my meds on time. I took my Stelazine just like the doctor ordered, but it didn’t make the voices go away. And that med made me feel dull. Apathetic. I didn’t have any kind of emotions, none at all, and that was…not living. That wasn’t a life. So I stopped taking that medicine, even though I told your mother that I continued on with it. I was hearing voices no matter what I did, so I figured that I might as well not take the drugs that were supposed to stop them. I’ve felt much better after stopping that drug.”
“But Uncle Jack, you seemed fine this Thanksgiving.”
He looked at me, his brows furrowed. “I’m sorry?”
“This past Thanksgiving. You came over, we played a lot of games, you were cracking jokes just like old times. You seemed like yourself.”
He nodded his head. “June bug, I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”
I tried to tamp down the impatience I was feeling right at that moment. I dealt with games from my clients all the time. I certainly didn’t want to have to deal with games from my own uncle. “Uncle Jack, I don’t know why you’re questioning me. You were with us on Thanksgiving. Last Thanksgiving. You were back to the man I’ve always known and loved. You were. You were great. And now you’re looking at me like I’ve magically grown another head, right in front of your eyes.”
Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3 Page 63