Saving Max

by Antoinette van Heugten

  “Of course, Ms. Morrison,” she says. “You may step down from the stand and take your place in the courtroom.”

  Langley jumps up and escorts Marianne to the bar. She sits a few rows back and wipes her eyes.

  “Go on, Ms. Parkman,” says Hempstead tersely.

  Danielle nods at the bailiff, who goes to the other side of the courtroom and pulls down a white projector screen. On his way back, he turns off the lights. The darkness is almost palpable. The only real light emanates from the screen of Danielle’s laptop that Doaks has placed on top of the defense table. In Arizona, Danielle had used her digital camera to photograph various pages of Marianne’s diaries and then uploaded them to her computer. She now leans over the laptop and presses a button.

  A hush falls over the courtroom. The darkness lends a surreal aura to the words as they shimmer on the screen. The handwriting flows and moves with feminine curlicues and flowery exclamation points. It is a living thing unto itself.

  Dear Dr. Joyce,

  Maitland has been the defining experience of my life! Every day has been filled with twists and turns, just like improvisation on Broadway. Interfacing with this caliber of medical genius thrills me, although it’s no more than my due. There is only one small seed of disappointment. It is all coming to an end. It’s sad to be alone at the mountaintop. No one will ever realize how truly brilliant I am, because disclosure of that simple fact would ruin everything. Still, what’s important is that I’ve passed every test, bested them all. Just wait until I’ve executed my final plan. That will be my finest moment. Like eating that special chocolate from a Valentine box.

  It’s a shame about Jonas. I suppose it’s been selfish of me to keep him with me as long as I have. I made sure that Kevin, Ashley and Raymond left this world when they needed to, and now it’s clear to me that the Lord wants to bring Jonas home. To everything there is a season, you know. The exhilaration of proving to the doctors that Jonas is precisely what he appears to be—just as I have created him—has completed the cycle. I must now focus on the loving plan ahead.

  Since the good Lord put Max right in my path, it is clear to me that his ultimate purpose in life is to help me ease Jonas to the next world and stop his suffering forever. I’m sure Danielle will miss Max, but God will know that she has made the ultimate sacrifice. Besides, when a higher purpose is involved, life is invariably cruel. Look at Jesus. I often reflect on the fact that righteous deeds in this life are always rewarded in the next.

  Both Danielle and I will have a safe place in heaven.

  There is a collective gasp from the crowd. Max clutches Danielle’s hand. “It’s all right,” she whispers. She nods at the bailiff, who turns up the lights just enough so that the judge’s face is illuminated. It is as white as the projection screen. She looks at Danielle, who extracts another item from the box. In the dim light, a blue velvet case takes shape. Danielle walks to the bench and hands it to the judge. Hempstead opens it, blanches and closes her eyes. Danielle silently takes it from her and walks over to the prosecution table. What Langley sees makes his mouth go slack in one horrified movement.

  Hempstead’s voice trembles. “Ms. Parkman, please identify what you have just shown me.”

  “Your Honor, Lieutenant Barnes obtained a warrant to search Ms. Morrison’s hotel room early this morning. He discovered this diary, various ampoules and syringes—and this.” She borrows Doaks’s handkerchief and opens the velvet box. She holds the item on high. “This is my comb, Judge, which was found in Ms. Morrison’s closet, covered in Jonas’s dried blood and pieces of human tissue which preliminary testing has identified as belonging to the decedent.”

  The courtroom is hushed. Hempstead looks at Danielle, her face a mixture of horror, confusion and—yes—a brief glint of apology. “Have you ascertained how the comb came into Mrs. Morrison’s possession?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” she says. “After Mrs. Morrison was taken to the police station, Sergeant Barnes will testify that she was left for a short time in the drying room so that she could avoid the reporters swarming the station. It is then, he believes, that Mrs. Morrison took the comb.”

  The judge gives Danielle a confused look. “But why would she take the comb? It was the one piece of damning evidence against Max.”

  Danielle nods. “The diaries are clear that she kept trophies of all of her murders. She even kept the poison ampoules that she used on her other children. Marianne was obviously convinced that she would never be caught. She had outsmarted the best and the brightest.” Hempstead nods numbly, mute in shocked silence.

  Danielle steps forward. “This concludes the bill of exception on the part of the defense. We recall Marianne Morrison to the stand.”

  Doaks hits the switch, and the room is suddenly awash in light. Everyone, including the judge, takes a few moments to blink and adjust their eyes.

  “Marianne Morrison to the stand!” the bailiff cries.

  A murmur begins as a small wave in the courtroom and rises to a swell. The judge finds the gavel and her voice. “Order!” She bangs it again. “Order, I said!”

  “Ms. Marianne Morrison to the stand!” the bailiff cries again.

  A silence falls over the room.

  Marianne has vanished.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The courtroom is in pandemonium. The judge stands at her bench in earnest conversation with her bailiff. Langley sits in his chair in a state of shock.

  Danielle wastes no time. “Doaks!”

  “I’m on it. If she’s anywhere in this stinkin’ town, I’ll find her.” He dashes through the crowd and slips out of the side door. Danielle rushes over to Max, who crumples in her arms. “It’s almost over, sweetheart,” she whispers. “Be strong—just a little while longer.” She holds him for a long moment and then walks back to the judge’s bench.

  Hempstead bangs her gavel, and the room falls into an uneasy quiet. “Counsel? Approach.” When they reach the bench, she nods briskly at both lawyers. “Mr. Langley, where is the State’s chief witness?”

  Langley looks wildly around the room. “I don’t know, Judge. One minute she was here, and the next—well, she wasn’t.”

  “Don’t you think you better find her?” He stares at her. She holds up her hand. “Never mind. I’ve sent my bailiff out to look for her. You better hope she’s in the building, or the State is going to have even more to answer for.” She turns to Danielle. “I’m not terribly pleased with you, either, Ms. Parkman. Don’t you think it would have been more appropriate if you had made the State and the bench aware of this new evidence before making a spectacle in open court?”

  “I certainly tried, Your Honor,” says Danielle.

  “Never mind, never mind.” For the first time, she lets her emotions show. “Can either one of you explain what happened to this poor child?”

  “Judge, the defense has one more witness to call,” says Danielle. “I believe she will be able to answer all your questions.”

  The bailiff returns. “Can’t…find…her…Judge,” he gasps, his face red with exertion.

  “Try again,” she hisses. She turns to Danielle and raises her voice. “Ms. Parkman, do you have a witness you wish to call?”

  “The defense recalls Dr. Reyes-Moreno to the stand,” she says. “And Judge?”

  “Yes?”

  “May we request that Mr. Sevillas be permitted to rejoin the defense team?”

  Hempstead nods at the sheriff. “Retrieve Mr. Sevillas.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” Danielle waits nervously until Tony has taken his place at the defense table. Their eyes meet. Love is a blue jolt that crackles between them. Danielle forces herself to turn to the bench.

  In response to the bailiff’s cattle call, Dr. Reyes-Moreno walks up the aisle holding two cloth-covered diaries and an accordion file. The bailiff holds out the Bible to her. She takes the oath. Her mouth is set, eyes grim.

  Danielle paces in front of her. “Doctor, have you reviewed the documentation
we provided to you and the evidence obtained from Ms. Morrison’s hotel room?”

  “Most if it,” she says.

  “Enough to establish a diagnosis?”

  “I’m afraid so.” She shakes her head sadly. “Every piece fits perfectly—now that it is too late.”

  Danielle nods. “Please tell the court what the diagnosis of Jonas Morrison is—and has always been.”

  “Jonas Morrison suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy.”

  Hempstead leans toward the witness. “Doctor, isn’t this just a horrific case of child abuse? That’s what I see.”

  The doctor shakes her head. “Perhaps I should explain the difference between Munchausen and Munchausen syndrome by proxy.”

  “Of course.”

  “Women with Munchausen syndrome, which is now well-known, fabricate illnesses to get attention. One of the most startling cases involves a woman who had two hundred procedures performed in over eighty different hospitals by the time she was sixty. Her mental illness went undetected until her final hospitalization.”

  The judge’s face is white. “Go on.”

  Reyes-Moreno takes off her glasses. “Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a similar but separate disorder. Instead of the deception being perpetrated by the adult with respect to her own health, the deception relates to the child. The essential features involve pathological lying, peregrination—constant moving to avoid detection—and recurrent, feigned illnesses that are inflicted by the mother upon the child. It is rarely seen in a child past the age of four.”

  “Why is that?”

  Reyes-Moreno shakes her head. “Most children who are victims of MSBP are untrustworthy as they get older and communicate their pain—which is why most victims are infants or toddlers.”

  Danielle takes a deep breath. “Please continue.”

  “The mother usually has antisocial personality traits, accompanied by an odd lack of concern for the child—particularly with respect to painful surgical procedures she has elected for the child to undergo. She has extensive knowledge of the medical field and derives intense pleasure from manipulating the various physicians involved, as well as creating the ‘illnesses’ which bring her child to the attention of doctors and hospitals.”

  “Anything else about the mother?”

  “Yes,” she says. “As with Ms. Morrison, the mother is often intelligent and appears to be wonderfully devoted to the child—often too devoted.”

  “What physical symptoms are present with such children?”

  Reyes-Moreno shakes her head. “That’s the problem. The range of feigned illnesses covers the entire spectrum of the human body. Anything from respiratory, feeding and thriving difficulties to complex blood diseases or systemic infections can be induced. There are cases of mothers giving their children nitroglycerine over long periods of time; putting acid into their food; or cutting their children and bathing the wounds in toilet water. That is what makes it so very difficult for the treating physician. He sees a child in an emergency room with inexplicable symptoms, and he wants to fix him. If he can’t find anything wrong, the number of exploratory tests and surgeries are overwhelming.”

  Hempstead’s shoulders sag as Danielle walks toward the witness. “Why aren’t they caught more often?”

  The doctor fixes her with a weary look. “Who wants to believe that a mother could purposely sicken her child or even kill him?” She shakes her head. “As a society, we’ve had exposure to horrific incidences of child abuse. I believe what makes MSBP so incomprehensible is that the mother derives such intense pleasure from the attention she garners in harming or killing her children.”

  “Dr. Reyes-Moreno, have you discovered any link between Max Parkman’s violent behavior and the medication he took while at Maitland?”

  The doctor takes a deep breath. “Yes, I’m afraid I have.” She turns to the judge. “The hospital recently hired a Dr. Fastow, a psychopharmacologist who had, so everyone thought, impeccable credentials. My understanding is that the Maitland board screened him very carefully. The hospital in Vienna where he worked prior to coming to Maitland had no reservations about recommending him to us. In fact, they gave him the highest of praise.

  “He was to consult on our most difficult cases and to continue his research into various psychotropic medications, some of which were very exciting.” She shakes her head. “What we didn’t know, and what seems apparent now, is that Dr. Fastow—instead of running a formal clinical trial with the appropriate controls—was experimenting with a new drug protocol on some of our patients. As you know, he has disappeared. When Lieutenant Barnes showed us the toxicology report of a sample of Max Parkman’s blood, we were appalled to learn that the medications he gave both Max and Jonas had serious side effects.”

  Danielle feels her throat tighten. “And what were those?”

  Reyes-Moreno looks at her. “All of the patients on Dr. Fastow’s medication protocol exhibited significant spikes in bizarre and violent behavior during their assessments. Although some parents claimed that these behaviors were not present at the time of admission, the psychiatrists treating those patients—including me, I’m sorry to say—observed them firsthand and discounted such claims as denial.”

  Danielle sees the apology in her eyes. “And such behaviors were the basis for erroneous diagnoses of some of the patients, were they not?”

  The doctor clasps her hands. “Yes.”

  “Including Max Parkman?”

  “Yes.”

  Danielle nods, satisfied. A quick glance at Max reveals a look of overwhelming relief on his face. Tears brim and fall unashamedly down his cheeks. Danielle turns back to Reyes-Moreno. “Let’s get back to Ms. Morrison. What do the entries reveal about her intentions toward Jonas?”

  “She had deceived the entire Maitland staff, while basking in the attention and pity she craved. In her mind, there was nothing else to achieve—no accolade Jonas could still be instrumental in affording her.” She shakes her head. “She decided to get rid of him.”

  “And where did Max come in, Doctor?”

  “Oh,” she says simply. “He was the perfect foil. The diaries are clear that once she ascertained that Max exhibited violent behavior, her plan was to set him up for Jonas’s murder. We have no evidence that indicates that Ms. Morrison knew that Dr. Fastow’s medication had made Max violent. In that respect, she just got lucky.”

  Danielle turns to the defense table. The warmth and relief in Tony’s brown eyes say it all. She takes a deep breath and turns back to the witness. “Is that all?”

  Reyes-Moreno looks uncomfortable. “I’m afraid not. I have never heard of a case like this.”

  “In what way?”

  The doctor stares at her hands. “Jonas Morrison was not born autistic, retarded, obsessive-compulsive or self-inflictive. Autism is a spectrum disorder—a psychological and neurological disorder,” she says. “Ms. Morrison succeeded in actually creating a profound, tragic psychiatric illness in a normal child. It is clear that Jonas was trying in whatever way he could to break free from his mother and his life of pain.”

  “Why didn’t Marianne just poison or overdose Jonas instead of exposing herself to the risk of discovery?” asks the judge.

  Reyes-Moreno shakes her head. “One must understand the core nature of this disorder, Your Honor. Ms. Morrison craved the attention. Tell me, would you rather be the mother of a horribly disabled child who dies from an unintentional overdose—” she looks at the judge “—or the center of national attention from the press and a sympathetic world?”

  The judge bows her head. Not a word is heard anywhere in the courtroom. The bailiff trails in from the back of the courtroom. Hempstead looks up. “Bailiff, have you located Ms. Morrison?”

  “She’s gone, Your Honor. Disappeared into thin air.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The sun has set. The rectangular windows of the courtroom show the flicker of streetlights. Judge Hempstead has returned after a short break, leaving
reporters and observers milling about the courtroom, many on their cell phones sending in last-minute details of the hearing.

  “All rise!”

  All shuffle to their feet until the judge is seated. Her face shows the wear and tear of the day, but her voice is resolute. “Ms. Parkman?”

  Danielle stands, never letting go of Max’s hand. “Yes, Your Honor?”

  “I am advised by the police department and the sheriff that all current efforts to locate Ms. Morrison have been unsuccessful. Do you have anything else you wish to offer the Court at this time?”

  “In fact, I do, Judge.” She reaches into the file box and pulls out a videotape. “There is one more piece of evidence I would like to show the Court. It was found in Ms. Morrison’s room. I would be happy to put on Lieutenant Barnes to establish the chain of custody if you wish.”

  Hempstead waves a weary hand. “That won’t be necessary. I believe all of this evidence will be properly submitted to the judge who is assigned to the trial of Ms. Morrison—if she is ever found.”

  “May I proceed, Your Honor?”

  “Yes, please do.”

  Danielle whispers something to Max and then nods at Georgia, who takes him gently by the hand and leads him from the courtroom. Danielle signals to Doaks, who has returned with only the news that Marianne left everything in her hotel room and that law enforcement is scrambling to track her down. He pulls down the projection screen and dims the lights. She inserts the tape and turns to the judge. “I’m afraid this will tie up all unanswered questions, Your Honor. This video was found in Ms. Morrison’s closet and appears to have been taken from the Fountainview unit on the day Jonas died.” She presses the play button. There is a whirring noise and a blank screen. After a few moments, it begins.

  Marianne enters the room and drags a form out of view of the camera. It does not move. She closes the door, takes a rubber doorstop and wedges it tightly under the door. She slips on a pair of thin latex gloves and crouches down, only white nurse shoes visible under her dress. She inches her way to the bed.