Blameless

by B. A. Shapiro

  Despite the suspicion about her, which Diana felt like a binding cocoon, friends and colleagues called to congratulate her, and Ticknor asked her to complete the semester. Her sister-in-law Martha actually apologized for worrying about Paul instead of Diana, and her mother was exuberant, claiming to have never doubted for a moment that Diana would be cleared. On Sunday afternoon, when she stopped for gas, the attendant told her he had known all along that it wasn’t her fault. Although Craig didn’t get his Central Artery project back, his colleagues restored him to full-member status in their water-cooler conversations. And he began singing in the shower again.

  Diana nodded and smiled and graciously accepted everyone’s good wishes, as well as Ticknor’s offer. But despite what looked from the outside to be a change in fortune, Diana was wary of too much celebration. For until she knew she wasn’t a murder suspect, it all meant nothing.

  The police came first thing Monday morning, when she fortunately had no patients scheduled. And when the bell rang, Diana knew from the insistent pressure who would be waiting on the other side of the door. Her feet were heavy on the stairs.

  Two unsmiling men dressed in street clothes stood on the stoop. They flashed their badges simultaneously, almost as if they had been choreographed, and asked to come in. She ushered them up to the great room, offered them coffee and went down to the kitchen to call Valerie.

  Although Valerie didn’t do criminal work, she had promised Diana that she would sit with her through this first interview to determine if a criminal lawyer was necessary. Valerie said she would be there within the hour. “Don’t say a word,” she directed Diana. “Not a single word.” Diana was stunned by Valerie’s final instruction: “If they want to take you down to the station, call me back and I’ll meet you there.”

  After canceling her ten and eleven o’clock patients, Diana dragged herself back upstairs, straining to appear as normal and calm as she could, trying to assure herself that there was little chance they would arrest her. “My lawyer says she can’t be here for at least an hour. Would you prefer to wait, or to come back later?”

  They preferred to wait, and Diana spent what turned into an extremely uncomfortable hour and a half, repeating that she did not want to say anything without her attorney present. Neither man ever smiled, or registered any emotion whatsoever, as they patiently asked question after unanswered question. Although this was clearly getting them nowhere, neither appeared the least bit perturbed.

  When Valerie finally arrived, the police obtained little more information than they had gleaned from Diana’s nonanswers. “My client often works alone,” Valerie said in response to their request for verification of Diana’s whereabouts on the afternoon of the murder. “It’s the nature of her profession,” she added, her voice haughty and more than a little condescending. “She often sets her machine to screen her calls so that she can pursue her scientific investigations without interruption.” Valerie smiled and looked over at Diana for confirmation.

  Diana nodded, unable to speak. She was sure Valerie was going to anger the detectives with her arrogance, and that the two men would soon jump up, snap handcuffs on her wrists, and drag her off to jail.

  But they did no such thing. Instead they wrote down everything Valerie said. Finally, once again in unison, they flipped their notebooks shut and stood up. One even smiled as he told Diana to call and leave a number where she could be reached if she was going to be away from home for more than a day.

  “Nothing,” Valerie said as she flew out the door, already late for her next meeting. “Jack-shit,” she called over her shoulder cheerfully. “They’ve got jack-shit.” She promised to phone Diana later in the afternoon.

  Diana spent the remainder of the morning trying to work on her research project, but ended up spending most of her time pacing through the house. Murder. She was a suspect in a murder investigation. She could really be arrested. She could go to prison. For life. It was small consolation that Massachusetts had no death penalty.

  She had been to prison once, during a field trip for a criminology course she had taken in graduate school. A “correctional facility,” they had called it. But no matter what name they used, it was still a prison: a haphazard arrangement of concrete and cinderblock buildings completely encircled by a double row of tall barricades topped by spiral loops of barbed wire. Lookout towers stood like castle turrets at the four corners. A large German shepherd had come up and nuzzled her hand while they were waiting for the group to assemble. As she bent to pet the animal, its trainer told her the dog had once ripped a man’s leg to the bone.

  But the inside of the prison was the worst. Claustrophobic, windowless cells originally planned for one inmate were crammed with two or three, sometimes four, cots. The mattresses were thin and worn and a single toilet stood along the back wall of each cell—most often, the toilet had no seat. Two stories of cells lined a large open “rec room” where a few picnic tables and pieces of broken exercise equipment sat amid a wide expanse of green linoleum. It smelled of Lysol.

  From the one-way window of the guardpost high above the rec room, they had watched the prisoners loitering around the tables in their ill-fitting uniforms. Their shirts and pants were of a coarse, scratchy-looking fabric dyed white, gray, orange, or red. “Middlesex Correctional Facility” was stenciled in large black letters on their backs. The sheriff giving the tour explained that the brighter the color, the more serious the crime. “Murderers and rapists wear red.”

  When the horn blew its wrenching minor-chord blast, all the inmates slowly rose from their places at the tables, or on the floor, or leaning against the walls, and trudged to their cells. The horn blew again, and the cell doors all clanged shut.

  Diana shook her head and forced herself to sit down at her desk. She opened the thick stack of computer printouts that had been gathering dust while she concentrated on her case for Valerie, hoping to lose herself in the statistics she had run before James had died. But the numbers all swam before her eyes, and her brain refused to function. Murder. Suspect. Prison.

  Forcing herself to concentrate on the data, Diana flipped quickly through the pages. Then she slowed down to scrutinize the individual numbers, caught by the results despite her concerns. It really was unbelievable how well her theory was holding. At least half of the ANOVAs were statistically significant and her discriminant function model was looking very promising; three variables were well over 1.0 and significantly contributed to the amount of change in lambda.

  Her data was clearly contradicting the traditional wisdom, established by Adrian Arnold, that borderline personality disorders were caused by a disturbed early maternal relationship. Diana tapped the printouts with her pencil. None of her maternal variables were showing any statistical significance at all. It was amazing how powerfully linked childhood trauma was to a person’s chances of developing a borderline disorder. Regardless of age, sex, or race. And the more chronic and horrific the traumas, the stronger the relationship. That sure explained Sandy. James too. Murder. Suspect. Prison. She pushed herself up from the chair and resumed her pacing.

  When her borderline group arrived for their weekly session, Diana put aside her statistics, happy for the distraction. But she soon found that neither Sandy’s loneliness, nor Terri’s inability to get herself to ride the subway, nor Bruce’s nightmare of being lost in a hospital with no exit doors, could keep her from her own worries. Murder. Suspect. Prison. She forced herself to focus on Sandy’s face, to look Bruce directly in the eye, to listen to Terri with her entire body. But the concentration just wasn’t there.

  Finally the hour was over and they left. Soon after, Valerie called. She told Diana that her partner Mitch Calahane, the criminal lawyer to whom she wanted to refer Diana, had gotten the “courthouse gab” on the Hutchins case. “They have even less than I thought,” she said. “Less than jack-shit. Three suspects—but nothing on any of you.”

  “So why did the police act like they knew I was guilty?”

/>   “Because it’s their job to make people nervous,” Valerie said. “But what’s really interesting here is that it seems your old nemesis—and co-suspect—Jill Hutchins is saving your skin.”

  “Jill is saving my skin?”

  “Well, not on purpose,” Valerie said. “And she’s saving her own as well as that other guy’s—but, either way, it seems that she destroyed all the evidence. And without evidence, it’s just about impossible for the prosecution to sustain its burden in a criminal suit—where burden of proof already favors the defendant.”

  Valerie went on to tell Diana that after the funeral, Jill had had James’s body cremated and scattered his ashes off the coast of Provincetown. Jill also sold the shotgun—now the murder weapon—and had the apartment thoroughly cleaned. Then she subleased it to a couple of college students, omitting the grisly details of what had happened to its last occupant.

  Valerie explained that at the time of the murder, no hair, no fibers, no blood or fingerprints had been collected. No witnesses had been questioned or crime lab photos taken. Although technically every death was supposed to be considered a homicide—and every crime scene treated as such—Jill’s positive identification of the body, combined with James’s history of suicide attempts, had been more than enough for an overworked police force to step out of the case. “And now the trail’s stone cold,” Valerie chortled. “Or, more accurately, there’s no trail at all.”

  Diana exhaled the breath she wasn’t aware she had been holding. “So I’m in the clear?”

  “Well,” Valerie said slowly. “Circumstantial cases have been built and successfully prosecuted with less physical evidence, and I would recommend retaining Mitch. But if pushed, I’d have to say that you’re in pretty good shape.”

  “So why do I need a criminal lawyer?” Diana demanded.

  “It’s always best to be prepared,” Valerie said in a very lawyerlike manner.

  But when Diana heard Calahane’s retainer for a homicide case was fifty thousand dollars, she shook her head. “It’s impossible,” she said. “Out of the question.”

  Valerie hesitated. “It’s not really a good idea to go into this alone. And Mitch is worth every penny—he’s the best.”

  “Why can’t I just keep paying you at your hourly rate?”

  “This isn’t my area,” Valerie protested. “I know very little about criminal law. The only reason I’m even doing this is because I’m working on your suit against the Inquirer. I’m out of my league here. You’d be doing yourself a grave disservice—”

  “But you think I could get away without him for now?” Diana interrupted. “Given all this lack of physical evidence business?”

  “I suppose so—although, as your lawyer, I would be remiss in advising it.”

  “Well, there’s really no choice here,” Diana said with more confidence than she felt. “Let’s leave things the way they are and see how they play themselves out.”

  18

  DIANA REACHED UNDER HER DESK AND RIPPED THE socks from her feet. Then she unfastened another button on her blouse. Although Indian summer was not an uncommon phenomenon in Boston, it usually hit in late October—often the day after Diana had dragged her shorts and bathing suits to the basement. It didn’t usually waft through the week before Thanksgiving. And it was never this warm. Diana lifted the window, and balmy air flowed into the office. This was nuts even for New England. It had to be seventy degrees.

  She had just returned from school, having taught her first class since her reinstatement. The class had gone fine, although no one showed up for her office hours. Leaving the department a bit early, she had come home and run some data through her computer in an attempt to make up for the time she had lost on her research project.

  Anxious to see the results, Diana read each chart, her head twisted sideways, as the paper chugged out of the printer. Amazing, she thought as she burst the pages. These numbers were even stronger than the earlier ones had been. The new cases she had just added to her database increased the support for her theory beyond her wildest expectations.

  She dropped into the chair. According to the data in front of her, borderline personality disorders did not arise from disturbed mothering before age two, as Adrian Arnold and company maintained. Her research showed that a major traumatic event—usually abuse, often sexual, and involving a trusted family member—at a much later age was correlated with borderline symptomology. The data also indicated that the condition itself was much more similar to posttraumatic stress disorder than to the other severe personality disorders.

  Her heart racing, Diana tapped her pen on the printouts. This was major league stuff. She checked through the numbers one more time and smiled. Her methodology was tight, her sample size more than adequate, and the numbers were indeed very strong. There was more than enough here for publication. She would try Abnormal Psychology first. Wouldn’t Adrian just die?

  She looked back down at her data. This wasn’t just about getting published in a prestigious journal or besting Adrian Arnold—although she had to admit it was about those things too. The real importance of these data was their implication for treatment. For, as long as borderline personality disorders were seen as being caused by ambivalent mothers or some kind of interference in the infant-mother bonding process, then those suffering from them were, for all intents and purposes, incurable. On the other hand, if it was a variation of posttraumatic stress, then many types of therapy, including short-term behavioral techniques—could effect a cure.

  Diana once again saw James’s lifeless body on the stretcher in his living room. She heard the policeman’s words: His head’s pretty much gone. If only she had been smarter. Better. If only she could have held on to him, and to herself, just a little bit longer. She could taste the metallic tang of her failure. And of her guilt.

  She remembered the afternoon she had discovered her briefcase missing from her office. “I don’t know who might have taken it,” she had told James over the phone. “I just wanted to let you know it was missing—and that if it happened to show up anytime soon, no questions would be asked.” One hour later James had knocked on the door and handed her the briefcase, furious with her for thinking him capable of such deception and thievery. He was so confused, so conflicted: One part of him tried to do the right thing, while the other part of him just couldn’t pull it off.

  “No,” she said out loud as she pushed away the images and breathed in the preposterous, but delicious, spring-scented air. It was over. No purpose could be served by obsessing. Nothing could be changed. Think of the data, she directed herself. Think of the weather. They were harbingers of her new fate, omens that all of this awfulness was really behind her.

  Still, it was difficult for her to dispel James’s ghost. He wouldn’t go away as easily, or as quickly, as she would have liked. But finally her optimism won, and Diana started to allow herself to think that the worst just might be behind her. That she really might be free of James Hutchins at last.

  The phone rang at her elbow and, in a response reflecting her new state of mind, Diana picked up the receiver without screening the call through her answering machine.

  “Just wanted to fill you in on the libel suit,” Valerie’s voice boomed through the receiver. “This could be lucrative as hell. I’ve done a little research and there’s no doubt: We’ve got a clear case of invasion of privacy, defamation of character, and libel. We might even go for libel directly causing others to slander, although that one’s a long shot.” Valerie paused. “But with or without the slander, I’d go for a million. Maybe one and a half.”

  “One and a half million dollars?” Diana was incredulous.

  “The Inquirer’s got the money. And you deserve compensation. You went through severe emotional trauma. And incontestable damage was done to your professional reputation and earning power.”

  “One and a half million dollars?” Diana asked again, simultaneously exhilarated and disgusted by the greed and vindictiveness that jolted
through her.

  “Gotcha!”

  Diana didn’t say anything as visions of a new car—maybe even two—a security system, and a college education for the baby flew across her mind. Not to mention a tasteful office in the Prudential Tower with “Frey and Associates” on a brass nameplate next to the door.

  “It’s a strong case,” Valerie was saying. “But I’ve got to be honest with you: It could be years before any award is made—and what we ask for may not be what we get. The thing you’ve got to remember is that it’s not the actual dollar amount that’s important—it’s getting the Inquirer that counts.”

  Diana shook her head, wondering how a lawyer could possibly make that statement with a straight face. She also wondered if they would really “get” anybody. Would their efforts—and her public humiliation—produce retaliation against any of the people who were actually responsible for her trauma? the Inquirer would most likely just shrug it off, chalking the whole thing up to the cost of doing business, letting their insurance company write out a fat check. “What do you think would be the actual amount?” she finally asked.

  “Impossible to say.”

  “Half?” Diana pressed.