A Life on Trial: The Case of Robert Frisbee
“This is as good as it gets, the real goods from an ultimate insider.”
– Jack Batten, Books in Canada
Needles
“Deverell has a narrative style so lean that scenes and characters seem to explode on the page. He makes the evil of his plot breathtaking and his surprises like shattering glass.”
– Philadelphia Bulletin
High Crimes
“Deverell’s lean mean style gives off sparks. A thriller of the first rank.”
– Publishers Weekly
Mecca
“Here is another world-class thriller, fresh, bright and topical.”
– Globe and Mail
The Dance of Shiva
“The most gripping courtroom drama since Anatomy of a Murder.”
– Globe and Mail
Platinum Blues
“A fast, credible and very funny novel.”
– The Sunday Times, London UK
Mindfield
“Deverell has a fine eye for evil, and a remarkable sense of place.”
– Globe and Mail
Kill All the Lawyers
“An indiscreet and entertaining mystery that will add to the author’s reputation as one of Canada’s finest mystery writers”
– The Gazette
Street Legal: The Betrayal
“Deverell injects more electricity into his novels than anyone currently writing in Canada – perhaps anywhere … The dialogue crackles, the characters live and breathe, and the pacing positively propels.”
– London Free Press
Trial of Passion
“A ripsnortingly good thriller.”
– Regina Leader-Post
Slander
“Slander is simply excellent: a story that just yanks you along.”
– Globe and Mail
BOOKS BY WILLIAM DEVERELL
FICTION
Needles
High Crimes
Mecca
The Dance of Shiva
Platinum Blues
Mindfield
Kill All the Lawyers
Street Legal: The Betrayal
Trial of Passion
Slander
The Laughing Falcon
Mind Games
NON-FICTION
A Life on Trial (previously published as Fatal Cruise)
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Copyright
To the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
CHAPTER ONE
Dr. Allison Epstein
Psychiatrist
Clinical Notes
Date of Interview: Monday, July 21, 2003.
Subject: Timothy Jason Dare. Age 35; date of birth June 7,
1968; height 6’1”; weight 171 lb.
The patient is physically healthy, athletic in fact – he arrived on a bicycle and climbed five flights of stairs. He presented as rumpled in appearance but reasonably clean-shaven; unruly auburn hair falling below his shoulders; straight, attenuated nose; penetrating, deep-set green eyes, and a generally gaunt and haggard expression.
At the beginning he was pleasant, even engaging, though somewhat combative.1 But as the session progressed he grew increasingly anxious, reciting several troubling stressors, the combined impact of which led him to my door. Later, I observed that occasionally instead of responding to a question, he wandered off into a world of his own.
Central to the patient’s emotional deterioration is the recent failure of a relationship with Sally Pascoe, 34, a visual artist. The patient grew up with her in the same Vancouver neighbourhood, and they’ve lived together for the last twelve years. Other major stressors include “stalking” by an alleged psychopathic murderer and “getting kicked in the scrotum” by the professional association of which we are both members, the psychiatric division of the College of Physicians.
He is clearly suffering a stress disorder. This condition has been exacerbated by the sporadic occurrence of claustrophobic dread, an episode of which I witnessed as I accompanied him to the elevator. He hesitated there, then took the stairs.
Selections from the transcript follow, with my notations.
I’m told you’re a good old-fashioned Freudian.
Does that seem démodé, Dr. Dare? I try to use an array of tools.
He did some spectacular work with wealthy Viennese women suffering hysterical – or perhaps I should use the current newspeak, histrionic personality disorders, but … Never mind. Evelyn Mendel says you have an exceptional talent. McGill?
Yes, I just left a practice in Montreal.
What brought you to Vancouver?
My husband was offered a position.
You don’t wear a ring.
That’s right.
You kept your name?
So did he. Richard Spencer.
Assertive, independent, yet prepared to accommodate the aspirations of her goal-oriented partner.
I was warned about this.
Yes, that’s fairly put, I suppose … what do you prefer … Timothy? Tim?
What do you prefer?
Whatever you’re comfortable with.
How about you? Allison? Allie?
I’m Allis to my friends. Which is what I hope we’ll be after we stop sparring like newly met children in a schoolyard.
He took that the right way – he is capable of laughter.
I’m Tim to my friends. You’ll like Vancouver when it stops raining. Do you have kids?
I’m afraid not.
You’re working at it.
Very quick to pick up nuances. His reputation in that regard was well demonstrated here.
What does he do? Your husband.
Richard is a partner in a media consulting firm, Spencer, Lang, and Associates. They do some polling, public relations. But let me ask – why me? I know Dr. Mendel gave you my name, but what kind of therapist were you looking for?
She said you did dreams. Mine are trying to tell me something. She also said you were smart and attractive.
Attractive?
I’m just repeating. Does that make me sexist?
Probably.
He laughed once more, genuinely. In his favour he doesn’t seem one to put on a false face.
I’ve been in the business only four years …
That’s good. Fresh approach. I’ve been seeking someone who doesn’t know me. Someone new in town. Not set in her ways.
Or maybe someone who doesn’t feel offended by your published critiques of what you call the psychiatry industry?
That was unprofessional of me, but I had allowed him to get under my skin.
I’m impressed – you’ve done some homework. You a strong feminist?
Tim, might I be allowed to ask some of the questions? We only have an hour today …
I was just wondering about your Freudianness. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support the industry that specializes in debunking him, he remains the master, but those Viennese women were victims of an age when gender oppression was the norm. He failed to factor that in … Sorry, I
suppose I’m procrastinating.
His cross-examination of me, and his brief rambles, seemed an indicator not merely of discomfort but of a slightly manic state. He finally took to the couch, though I continued to sense resistance as he kept his arms folded.
I’ve always thought this configuration too distancing. I prefer to see my patients. You read as much by watching as listening, even if it’s only the play of silence on a face. I grant that your methodology is more orthodox – the mere presence of the therapist distracts the patient from the free flow of imagery.
You through?
Sorry.
After he finally allowed me to take some of his history, another tussle followed when I attempted to explore the nature of his current concerns.
Jesus, this is hard. Okay, crisis number one: my partner for life – or so I assumed – broke up with me ten days ago. I’m having a hell of a problem coping.
What’s number two?
A psychopathic killer is stalking me.
Uh … Well, that’s a big item.
Yeah, and another secretary quit on me, and my office is chaos, and I’ve been threatened with being purged from the medical ranks. But the biggest item is getting kicked out of Sally’s life like a bad habit.
Okay, sure, but … sometimes dramatic but less relevant material clogs the circuits. I’d like to assess the seriousness of this stalking threat.
I sense incredulity.
Not at all. Tell me about it.
Okay, well, this goes back to the murder of Dr. Barbara Loews Wiseman. You remember that, six years ago? Maybe you were still at McGill.
Yes, but … Remind me.
Okay, Barbara was a brilliant therapist, a friend, more than that, a spiritual guide during my internship. Feminist, lesbian. She specialized in anger management. Robert Grundison II, a kid who’s hog rich, stabbed her to death because he decided she was Satan incarnate.
I remember the news stories … He was hallucinating.
So he claimed, so did the army of shrinks who testified – I was the main witness against him, the only expert witness who disbelieved him. And of course the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity. Sent off to a mental hospital to rehabilitate! Can you imagine? Sick, evil …
Slow and easy.
Ah, Allis, what a piece of work you have before you. As you led me from your consulting room to confront the dreaded elevator, I saw you woefully shake your head. How, you were wondering, can you expect to repair this tattered psyche in the weekly hour allotted to me?
I’m sorry that we ran out of time today, your patient having wasted much of it with his fiddling and farting. I should have known better than to try to grasp the reins of therapy. I felt you were less interested in an everyday bargain-basement marriage breakdown than by the grim portents of murder, and I needed desperately to talk about Sally, my grief, my suppressed anger, I wanted pity and solace.
This evening, even as my mind replays today’s awkward session, do you sit with Richard at the dinner table, entertaining him with my persecutory delusions? “He claims someone wants to kill him?” “Yes, dear, and I can understand why.”
When you asked me to take the lead, to waltz you down the byways of memory, I was briefly lost. Where to begin? Was I to pick up the thread a year ago, when disintegration began? A decade ago, when there were youth and hope? A lifetime ago, before the patterning of childhood warped the bell curve of normality into the shape of a burned-out light bulb? How to begin my unburdening, how to describe the clutter of neurotransmitters and synapses, hormones and hemostats, that comprise Timothy Jason Dare?
Sorry I emoted so much. I’ve cooled off. A couple of beers, some soothing jazz … (Picture this skinny geek in his under-shorts aboard his old sailboat tooting mournfully on a clarinet. Dispossessed of home, that’s where I live now, my classic wooden cutter, the Altered Ego.)
Anyway, having botched today’s first session, let me whip my thoughts into line, reassemble them in more coherent fashion, to prepare for our next session. (By the way, Friday afternoons are fine, I’m rarely in court then, and I’ll be able to use weekends to recover from whatever catharses come my way.)
To put my fears in perspective and to set the stage for what follows, let’s go back six years ago to a scene so graphic that my mother, if she cared to lift it for one of her books, might be forced to tone it down. (We haven’t got around to Victoria Dare, who, having published a horror novel, has been sued for libel by an overly sensitive small-town politician who saw himself portrayed as the killer. The trial is only a couple of weeks away. An added stressor.)
We are in Dr. Barbara Loews Wiseman’s consulting room. She is staring at a raised dagger, desperately pleading, trying to persuade Bob Grundison that God has not ordered him to kill her, that she isn’t Satan in the guise of a psychiatrist. Imagine the dagger descending, thrusting …
The image is fixed? Now let’s fast-forward to a couple of weeks ago – this was just before Sally cut me adrift – to a hearing to determine whether this killer might be released by Order-in-Council onto the already treacherous streets of Vancouver.
The inquiry was at the provincial mental hospital, Riverview. Usually I enjoy my trips there, my ambles about the grounds with patients. But this promised to be a strenuous day of listening to the Grundison family’s hired psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers: I was on a panel struck by the provincial cabinet – they were tossing us the buck; if Grundison were to celebrate his freedom with a psychotic rampage, they would blame the experts.
I arrived slightly frazzled from the long traffic-jammed taxi ride to Riverview, and before we convened I apologized to all – though I was only fifteen minutes late. The panel consisted of me, Dr. Irwin Connelly, and Dr. Harriet Loussier, the hospital’s chief psychologist. A pair of lawyers for the Grundison family was present, along with several medical experts (one of them my nemesis, Dr. Herman Schulter) and a clutch of supporters and relatives there to bear witness to their love of Bob Grundison. He’d been excused from the room – we wanted to speak frankly about him.
Also present were his parents. Robert Grundison Sr. is a staunch pillar of capitalism, owns several tall buildings, shopping centres, a hockey team. But he’s highly regarded: a philanthropist who gives handsomely to Christian charities. His confident body language, even as he sat, expressed power and control. In contrast, his pink-complexioned wife, Thelma, exuded an odd serenity – though with the glassy-eyed aspect of a lush. Sitting next to them was the Honourable Ephriam Wright, an Alberta cabinet minister and evangelical pastor with the unusual reputation, given those careers, of brightness.
The day dragged on. The experts (three of whom, including Schulter, had testified at his trial) concurred: as an adolescent, Grundison had suffered occasional delusions (talking to God, chiefly, though the evidence was vague and came mainly from members of his church), then was revisited by his disease six years ago, when he was twenty-one. Now, Grundison was not only stabilized but cured.
Much was made by Herman Schulter (the clubby, deferential chair of my discipline committee – would he yank my practising certificate if I denied freedom to a killer?) of Grundison having resolved “aggressive behaviour patterns” by channelling his energy into sports. Grundy, as he’s often called, had formed a couple of leagues while at Riverview, basketball and softball. Schulter’s view was that this showed enterprise, leadership.
I listened to such confident prognoses with growing discomfort. I was on this panel because I had a history with Grundison. Six years ago, new in practice, puffed with arrogance (behold the youngest winner of the B.F. Skinner Prize at Stanford), I was the only witness the Crown could find who dared to claim Grundy was faking schizophrenia.
Grundison was arrested several minutes after leaving Barbara Wiseman’s office, wandering around Broadway and Cambie, ostensibly in a daze. Schulter, who was rushed to the cells to interview him, testified that his affect was flat and shallow, a vacant stare, face muscles flaccid
, eyes lifeless, toneless, his memory train not intact.
I interviewed Grundy at length, gave him tests. Not psychotic but psychopathic, I concluded, a cold-hearted killer.
So now I was in a conundrum. I’ve never believed (nor, I suspect, did Barbara Loews Wiseman) that Bob Grundison was delusional, but the rest of the world seemed to believe that – who was some long-haired, wild-eyed forensic psychiatrist to disagree? And how could I argue he was insane now, and required continued treatment? However psychopathic, he was mentally competent by the definition of the law. He cannot be tried again for murder, yet he’s a murderer.
Ephriam Williams stirred the room to wakefulness with a fervent speech in praise of the killer: athlete, Boy Scout, never in trouble, gosh darn it, he’d known the lad since he was old enough to throw a snowball. A stirring, rodomontade sermon, urging us, as doctors of the mind, to believe in the healing powers of our own great science, to pronounce this fine young man fit to return to the bosom of his loving parents, of whom young Bob was the only issue.
As he was reminding us of Jesus’ mandate to forgive, I remarked to myself that the late Dr. Wiseman didn’t seem to be represented here, or much remembered. She’d only seen Bob four times before dying at his hand.
Though her file on Grundy indicated she’d made little progress in bringing him to terms with a seething, barely suppressed anger, one of her entries has always intrigued me: I see no sign of a breakthrough. I sense a terror lurking within him, but its source and character are not clear.
Over lunch, Connelly, Loussier, and I engaged in heated debate. The conversation went like this, give or take a phrase:
I said, “We have to find some way to keep this misfit inside.”
“But he’s not psychotic, Tim,” Connelly said. “That’s a dilemma for you, isn’t it? You never thought he was legally insane in the first place.”
“It’s a different kind of insanity – moral insanity.”
“There’s no question that he has a severe antisocial personality disorder.” This was Dr. Loussier. In her sixties, a formal woman, and wise, she’s been chief psychologist here for five of Grundison’s six years.
“Statistically, there have to be seventy thousand APDs walking the streets of Vancouver.” Irwin is in love with his statistics. He is a kindly old fellow, mentored me through some difficult times. “They’ve set up a massive system of home support. He’ll be watched at all times. What can happen if we let him go?”
Mind Games Page 1