Delusion

by G. H. Ephron

  I didn’t remember much about the trial, but I did remember the one thing that convinced the jury that Ely was not insane: the prosecutor’s argument that the crazy confusion of the crime scene was staged by a diabolical killer who knew exactly what he was doing and planned from the outset to plead NGI. State of mind is a critical factor in an insanity defense. Ely’s lawyers tried to argue that he couldn’t “form intent”—a fancy way of saying he wasn’t in the driver’s seat when he killed his wife. The jury didn’t buy it. Ely was doing life.

  I wondered, had Teitlebaum been a witness for the defense or the prosecution? Why hadn’t he mentioned that he’d done forensic work?

  I was about to ask Kwan how he’d found this out, when a shout came from down the hall. Then, “Stop her!” Followed by a man’s voice, “You can’t take that!”

  Gloria took off first. We hurried past the living area where a woman in a wheelchair sat watching TV, undisturbed by the commotion. On past several patient rooms. A hooded figure, cloaked in a bedsheet, ran into us. Close on its heels was one of our patients, Mrs. Brownmiller, in a flannel bathrobe.

  “Make her give it back,” Mrs. Brownmiller demanded. I was surprised. Mrs. Brownmiller was an extremely timid person who suffered bouts of depression associated with a head injury she’d received more than a decade ago. She held out a thin, trembling hand.

  Another patient joined us. “Those are mine,” Mr. Higgins said, indignant.

  From underneath the bedsheet, Mrs. Smetz looked out at us, her face flushed. “Oh, here you are again,” she said, eyes wide with delight. “See?” She held out what she was carrying in her arms. There were about a half dozen gladiolus stems, some carnations, a few handfuls of dry Spanish moss. There was most of an artificial rubber plant minus its pot, which I thought I’d last seen alongside the piano in the living area. Mrs. Smetz dropped some greenery.

  “Oh, dear. If it isn’t Audrey,” Gloria said. Gloria bent to pick up the three-foot length of philodendron that lay on the floor.

  Mrs. Smetz lay her hand gently on top of Gloria’s head and said, “God bless you, my child.” She took back the philodendron. “Won’t be long now.”

  We followed Mrs. Smetz back to her room. There, in the closet, she had already accumulated a pile of dead flowers, what looked like rotting salad greens, and more Spanish moss. To this she added the rest of what she’d collected.

  While Mrs. Smetz explained to me the fine points of constructing a manger, Gloria liberated the gladioli and carnations and went off, presumably to return them to their owners.

  Mr. Smetz snorted from behind a newspaper in the chair in the corner. He’d probably reached the end of his tether.

  Gloria returned. “This has been going on for a few days,” she said. “And she’s got a terrible rash. Wouldn’t surprise me if carting around all this vegetation is making it worse.” Gloria coaxed Mrs. Smetz out of her sheet. “See?” she said, extending one of Mrs. Smetz’s arms. There were the remains of a red scaly rash.

  “Looks like poison ivy,” Kwan said.

  “She got that a couple of weeks ago,” Mr. Smetz offered.

  “I was building the manger,” Mrs. Smetz said.

  “Was not. She was gardening and got into some poison ivy,” Mr. Smetz shot back, slapping his paper down on the bed. “Didn’t realize it at the time—it hadn’t even leafed out. Got really bad. Spread up to her armpits and to her legs too. Thought we had it under control—”

  Kwan pounced. “Has she been taking anything for it?”

  Mr. Smetz fished a small plastic container of tiny white pills from his pocket. “I been giving her these. Got it last time I got into poison ivy bad myself.”

  Kwan took it from him. Read the label. Then he held it up, triumphant. “Prednisone!”

  “Of course,” I said. I took the container. It was dated three years earlier, but it was obviously still potent.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about this when your wife was admitted?” Gloria asked, an accusatory edge to her voice.

  “I didn’t think … It didn’t seem …” Mr. Smetz stammered. “It’s just for poison ivy! Did I do something wrong?”

  “You should have told us,” Kwan said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Prednisone is a steroid. And of course, you’re right. It’s a standard treatment for severe poison ivy. Sixty milligrams is fine for your average patient. But metabolism changes as you get older. You never know what it will do to someone your wife’s age. When did she start taking this?”

  “Let’s see, beginning of the month.” That was two weeks earlier.

  “And she started talking about a manger a few days after that?” Kwan asked.

  Mr. Smetz nodded. “Weekend before last.”

  “Looks like Prednisone psychosis,” Kwan said. “The drugs are causing the delusion. Her labs, even a tox screen wouldn’t have picked it up. We’ll need to taper her off gradually. In the meanwhile, we’ll continue to treat her with Zyprexa. Give her something else for the itching. In all likelihood, your wife will be back to normal in a few weeks.”

  “You mean Elizabeth’s not crazy?” Mr. Smetz asked.

  “No. At least, I don’t think so,” Kwan said. “She’s having a drug reaction. Okay if I hang onto this?” Kwan held out the pill container and Mr. Smetz stared at it, shell-shocked.

  Prednisone tablets were no bigger than a freckle. I could see why Mr. Smetz hadn’t thought it was important to mention them.

  When I got up to my office, tucked into the eaves under the roof, I checked my messages.

  The first was a long, rambling message from a woman I didn’t know. Kelly something or another. I doodled on a pad as she talked. “I’m a writer for the Globe,” she said. “I’m putting together an article about obsessions, and the compulsive, repetitive behaviors people use to neutralize them.” From the way she used the words, I could tell she’d been prepped by at least one mental health professional. “I understand you run one of the units at the Pearce …”

  I stood and stared out the window as she finished her pitch, repeated her name, and recited her phone number. I get calls like this all the time, ever since I’d let the Globe do a feature article on me as a memory expert. At the time I’d been flattered. But since then, every time I’d let someone from the news media interview me, I’d been dismayed by the watered-down, garbled version that appeared in the paper. Plus, I’d had enough notoriety to last me a lifetime. I deleted the message.

  The next message was from Annie. There had been a development in the case and could I meet her later? That wasn’t going to be easy. I had bumper-to-bumper patients all day, a late afternoon committee meeting, and paperwork that I’d already put off for two weeks. I called back and left a message that I’d meet her at nine for a late dinner at the Stavros Diner.

  Four superstrength Advil downed with a large coffee barely made a dent in a headache that started late that afternoon, around the time the sky turned gray and the temperature dropped thirty degrees in an hour. When I finally finished up and got out to my car, the wind was tossing around tree branches, and I could hear distant thunder. By the time I got out onto the main road, it had started to rain. Hard. My old BMW’s wipers were having a hard time keeping up with wind-driven sheets of rain.

  What should have been a five-minute drive took thirty. At least there were parking spots on the street. I pulled into one and groped around on the floor of the backseat, hoping to come up with a forgotten umbrella. No such luck. I sat for a few minutes in the car. Maybe the rain would ease up and I could make a run for it. Instead, it started to come down harder.

  A flash of lightning lit up the windshield, followed seconds later by the crash of thunder that reverberated through the steering wheel.

  I was only a half block away. What the hell, I thought, as I got ready to open the door. The windshield lit up again. I waited for the thunder. I could barely hear a siren over the pelting rain. A dark sedan with a blue bubble flashing in the back window raced by, sending a
wave of water over my car. The sedan double-parked in front of the Stavros, and two men jumped out.

  I jerked open my car door and got out just in time to catch the wave from an SUV moving by me at top speed. I cursed and slammed the door shut, not bothering to lock it. I barely noticed the ankle-deep puddles I was galloping through.

  When I got into the Stavros, Jimmy wasn’t in his usual spot working the grill. No one was. I scanned the place for Annie. Though the restaurant was half full, no one was eating. They were all turned, like a pack of hunting dogs, noses pointing toward the door to the restrooms where a dozen or so patrons were bunched up.

  “Police,” the man in front of me bellowed as he and the other man pushed their way through the crowd and into the men’s room. I rode their wake.

  The voice belonged to Detective Sergeant MacRae. “Just stand up, nice and slow. Take it easy and you won’t get hurt,” he said, his hand poised over his gun.

  “You guys sure as hell took your good sweet time getting here.” It was Annie. She had her knee pinned to the back of a young man sprawled on the floor. He was wearing a yellow rain slicker, the kind of thing my mother insisted I wear to elementary school, much to my chagrin. Annie had his arm twisted behind his back. A green canvas book bag was on the floor, its contents strewn across the dirty tile.

  Annie stood.

  The man got to his feet, holding his hands up. “I tried to tell her. It’s a job,” he croaked, pushing long, stringy strands of dark hair out of his face. “My glasses,” he said and got on his hands and knees and groped about for them. A pair of dark-rimmed glasses were lying behind a white metal trash bin. I handed them to him.

  He put them on. He was just a kid, maybe eighteen, wearing jeans and an MIT T-shirt under the slicker. His sneakers had once been white, but now they were ratty looking and waterlogged. A sparse crop of hair was trying to grow on his face. “My Palm!” he bleated and stooped to pick up a handheld computer. He pressed a button, and after a moment, it beeped at him. “Thank God,” he said dramatically.

  He put the gadget reverently in his pocket and blinked at us, eyes enlarged through the thick glass. “Honest to God, I didn’t do anything,” he said and started to collect the papers that had spilled out of his bag. Photocopies on hot pink paper. Annie grabbed them from him and the top sheet tore. He looked at the half sheet he still had in his hand, the figure of a woman in a leather bomber’s jacket and jeans. “What is with you, anyway?” Then he looked at Annie, back at the paper, back at Annie. “Damn.”

  Annie returned his gaze. She seemed disappointed. She’d caught him, but now she looked as if she wanted to throw him back.

  MacRae took the kid by the arm. “Why don’t we go have a quiet talk about this so-called job of yours,” he said.

  MacRae’s partner took the canvas bag. Annie picked up her leather backpack, which had landed under the urinals.

  “Show’s over, folks,” MacRae said, as he led the way back into the restaurant.

  Jimmy came over to us, an apron tied around his middle. “Peter? What’s going on?”

  I’d been coming to the Stavros for moussaka and spinach pie ever since my days as an intern at the Pearce. I explained about the notices that were being posted in men’s rooms. Outraged, he fussed over Annie, who assured him that she was fine, just fine.

  MacRae started to lead the young man out. “Hang on,” Annie said. MacRae halted and gave her a questioning look. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

  “Take a booth,” Jimmy suggested. “Coffee’s on me.”

  The five of us traipsed over to a round table tucked into the corner of the diner. The kid stared at the table, unsure what to do. He was a concave person, his forehead protruding, knees bent, while the rest of him was scooped out, his chest caved in. My mother would have insisted on feeding him.

  “Slide in,” MacRae barked at the kid. “You in the middle.”

  “Name?” MacRae asked him, when we were all seated like it was Saturday morning family breakfast at the IHOP. Jimmy brought coffees all around.

  “Aaron Spatola.” He looked like he was hoping the red-plastic seat cushions would swallow him up.

  “Well, Mr. Spatola,” MacRae said, “you got any ID?”

  The kid fished a blue canvas wallet out of his back pocket, zipped open the Velcro, and handed over a card. I could see from across the table that it said MIT across the top. A student ID. It reminded me of the time I was doing about eighty through some remote part of Louisiana. I gave the officer who stopped me my Harvard ID along with my driver’s license, hoping it would make an impression. It impressed him, all right. So much so that he brought me into their local jail to show the other officers what he’d caught. Kept me overnight. MacRae didn’t seem overly impressed, either.

  “So, what were you doing in the men’s room?” MacRae asked.

  “Nothing,” Aaron said. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

  “I caught you, putting up those disgusting ads,” Annie said.

  “It’s a job.”

  “What do you mean it’s a job?” MacRae asked.

  “You know, like I get paid?”

  “Who pays you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I never even met the guy. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s a guy.” He looked around at blank faces. “I get jobs off the Web. You know, the In-ter-net?” He pronounced it real slowly. “Bosjobs dot com. They advertise odd jobs in the Boston area—like, suppose you want someone to wait on line for you for ’N Sync tickets?” He must have realized he had the wrong audience. “Or maybe a Celtics game? Anyway, this guy wants someone to put up ads for him. In men’s rooms. He’s got a list of places. Easy money.”

  “What guy?” Annie practically shouted.

  “Hell, I don’t know who he is. All I know is he’s got an E-mail address and he pays me through the Net. I been doing this for him for weeks.”

  “Weeks,” Annie moaned.

  “What places?” I asked.

  “It’s in the bag,” he said, nodding at MacRae’s partner. The officer pushed the canvas book bag over to Aaron. He rummaged around and came up with a piece of paper.

  Annie snatched it from him. “Oh, God,” she said and handed it to me. It was a list of just about every nightspot and bar in Cambridge, Brighton, Somerville, and Allston.

  “How’d you get the flyers?” MacRae asked.

  “He E-mailed me the file. I printed it.”

  “Can you prove—” MacRae began.

  “Sure,” Aaron said, brightening. “I got all his E-mails. I got the file he sent me.”

  MacRae gave Annie a perplexed look. “Want us to arrest him?”

  “Aw, hell,” she said. “Just get the E-mail and let him go. But if I catch you—”

  “Listen, lady, you don’t have to worry about that,” Aaron said. “Like, I don’t need money this bad, believe me.”

  As he was leaving, he added, “Problem is, if I don’t do it, he’ll just find someone else. The pay is real good.”

  After Aaron left with MacRae and his partner, Annie snorted. “Lady!” Then louder, “Lady?”

  “You’ll have to bring your Harley next time, show him the real you.”

  “It’s easy for you to make jokes about this,” she said. “He didn’t call you Mister.”

  “Lay-dee,” I whispered, taunting. “Oh, lay-dee.”

  Annie laughed. “Come on, this is serious. No one’s ever called me that. And did you see that list he had?” She put her head down on the table and groaned. “How the hell am I going to make this stop?”

  “Maybe they can track the E-mail.”

  “Right. And you believe in the tooth fairy too. All you need is a mail account on Hotmail or Yahoo, and no one can tell who you are.”

  “But he’s got to do a funds transfer to pay Aaron, doesn’t he?” I had no idea what I was talking about, but it sounded plausible.

  Annie picked up her head. “Good
thought.” Then she pointed her finger at me. “You’re late.”

  “Sorry, things ran over and it’s raining.” Just then, lightning lit up the windows. My wet socks were beginning to rub against my feet, and wet pants were starting to itch as they stuck to my legs. “A monsoon, actually. So what’s the news you were going to tell me?”

  Just then, Jimmy came over with a plate of his famous olives, a couple of beers, and a basket of warm pita. It was the best thing I’d seen all day. We ordered stuffed grape leaves and shish kebab. Then Annie pulled a folder out of her backpack.

  “They’ve analyzed all the prints and blood at the crime scene,” she said. “Blood all belongs to Lisa Babikian. Fingerprints are either hers, or Nick’s, or his mother’s. There’s not even a lot of background noise—you know, prints belonging to friends, the cleaning lady.” That didn’t surprise me. Someone as distrustful as Nick wouldn’t have lots of friends. He wouldn’t trust a cleaning person in his house when he wasn’t there.

  Annie went on, “It’s the bloody footprints that are interesting. We’ve got Nick’s shoes. His mother’s bedroom slippers. Lisa’s bare feet. And look at this.” She opened the file and showed me a Xerox copy of a photograph of a footprint. “Boley let me have this.”

  The wavery pattern of ripples looked familiar. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Rubber soles,” Annie said. “Probably duck boots.”

  “Duck boots?”

  “Not the outdoor type, are you? You know, like from L. L. Bean. They’re rubber, usually navy or green with brown leather, whitish rubber soles. High tops or low. They were originally made for hunting, slogging around in the swamp.”

  “Gardening?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact. And they found dirt mixed in with the blood. It’s not Weston dirt.”