by Mandy Miller
ESH’s lobby, a cavernous yet seemingly claustrophobic space, is decorated in shades of brown and beige. Walls. Furniture. Floor. All the color of shit.
I flash my Florida Bar card to a big-haired receptionist, a ringer for Amy Winehouse.
“Attorney Grace Locke here to see my client, Zoe Slim.”
Amy hunts and pecks on the keyboard.
“Ms. Locke, are you sure about your client’s name?”
“Yes ma’am. Last name Slim. Like skinny,” I say, trying not to sound snarky.
The beehive hairdo shifts forty-five degrees to the left, which makes it look like it’s about to pull Amy’s head off its stalk, hunting and pecking some more.
“Slim? Here she is. Zoya Zoe Slim, a.k.a. Zoe Slim. On the Dolphin Unit. Please take a seat, someone will be right with you.”
Zoya? Zoe has three names? Like Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wayne Gacy. Zoya Zoe Slim. Criminals are always referred to using their first, middle, and last names on police reports, but it makes them all sound like serial killers or presidential assassins.
In lieu of sitting, I browse the patients’ artwork on the walls. Some pieces resemble kindergartners’ finger paintings gone wonky, others are complex and beautiful, like a delicate line drawing of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. Most depict pain, like the black and red watercolor of a spider clawing at a decapitated head.
A voice from behind jolts me out of my disturbing, yet somehow soothing, reverie. “Ms. Locke.”
I turn and find myself face to face with a forty-something man in a blue blazer and gray pants.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” Dr. Michaels says, a wide smile revealing teeth like Chiclets, chalky white blocks his mouth seems too small to contain. “Nice to see you again. But on the same side this time.”
We shake, his grip sure, like one who would never doubt his own opinion, even if compelling evidence to the contrary were served up on a silver platter. Money and power can do that to a person.
“Dr. Michaels, thanks for coming on such short notice,” I say, although I’m under no illusion he’s doing me any great favor. Beyond being a fan of exorbitant fees, he’s an unadulterated media hog. That Zoe’s case is high profile would have been incentive enough for him to clear all manner of common car thieves and drug dealers from his schedule.
“My pleasure. I understand there was quite a scene in Twietmeyer’s courtroom.”
“Yes, indeed, but I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, Doctor, you were retained on a confidential basis.”
“Understood. I shall submit my written report to you and only to you.”
“And, by the way, Dr. Slim sent over copies of Zoe’s records. I believe you have them too?”
“I received them this morning.”
“Have you seen Zoe?”
“Yes, I have.”
“And your conclusions?”
He takes a quick look around. “Let’s step outside,” he says, which we do, beyond the reach of a surveillance camera mounted above the entrance.
“I’m not sure if this will be good or bad news for you, but your client is not incompetent. She is indeed competent,” he says, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.
I find myself nodding. The bar for competence is low—basically all a defendant has to be able to do is find her butt with both hands to go to trial—and Zoe, while a little whack-a-do, seems to me to be on the ball enough to face a jury.
“But you knew that already. Am I correct?”
“I suspected as much.” I feign a concerned frown. “But I am ethically obligated to be certain, which is why you’re here.”
“And?”
“Excuse me?”
He peers down his nose at me. “And you’re buying time to keep your client out of jail.”
“Doctor, it seems as if you are a mind reader,” I say in my best Southern belle drawl.
“I’ve been doing this for a while, Ms. Locke,” he says, smirking. “Yet, I do feel for Ms. Slim. A place like this may not be not five star, it’s better than the county lockup for an individual who is not without her, let’s just call them, challenges.”
“Agreed. She’s so fragile one minute, so volatile the next.”
He gives me a big wink. “Yes, even when she is not being encouraged to be so.”
“Exactly how bad off is she?”
“I suggest you review the records with great care. There’s plenty in there to work with. Your client may be competent, but she is a profoundly disturbed young lady. And if bipolar disorder with psychotic features and an anxiety disorder is bad, then she’s bad. But that can be good too, if you know what I mean, Counselor?”
“Your diagnosis is the same as Dr. Kesey’s, the attending at Lauderdale West?”
“And also Zoe’s regular psychiatrist’s.”
“She’s got a regular psychiatrist?”
“Thank goodness. Numerous incidents of self-harm and striking out at others, add to that an early diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, not a good omen for the development of the criminal personality. And then there’s the fact she’s adopted, all of which doesn’t bode well for Ms. Slim.”
As he drones on, I turn the litany of horribles over and over in my mind, trying to reframe them into some sort of mental state defense for the child of Manny’s lover.
“You knew that, Ms. Locke, didn’t you?”
I ignore the jab.
“Doctor, did you discuss her suicide attempt?”
“I did, and she insists she didn’t take an overdose of Xanax as the medics reported. She did admit to taking Xanax that evening, but only the prescribed amount. But you know how that goes,” he says, looking at me as if I’m an example of what happens when Xanax becomes like candy. Or maybe it’s my paranoia talking.
“When I followed up, she became hysterical. I’d advise you to stay off that topic for now since you’ll require her cooperation in preparing her defense.”
“I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that if it were to become public that Zoe tried to kill herself, it would greatly impact her ability to get a fair trial.”
He gapes at me. “Do I look like I was born yesterday? That goes without saying. You can count on my discretion. And, Ms. Locke, I’m available to discuss this further, but right now I have to get going to another appointment. I’ll have my written report to you within a couple of days. And, please, as I said, do take a careful look at the records. They are self-explanatory, even for a layperson like yourself, and enlightening, if not a little frightening. Don’t hesitate to call if you have any questions.”
If I had a dollar for every shrink I’ve seen since Iraq, I’d be living the high life on a tropical island with an umbrella drink, the nightmares and heart palpitations behind me.
And if I were a lay person, I wouldn’t be out here in the swamp trying to find a way to turn Zoe’s mental illness into a positive.
***
An orderly shepherds me across a courtyard ringed with several empty benches, over a shuffleboard court, and through a byzantine web of corridors and locked doors, selecting a different key for each one from the dozens on a life-preserver-sized metal ring on his belt.
I point at his ID badge. Etienne Dumas.
“Where are you from, Etienne?” I ask, employing my best French accent. My father insisted I take four years of high school French because it’s the “language of diplomacy.” Or maybe it was when he was young, because the only benefit I’ve ever reaped from the forced march through verb conjugations and Molière was knowing what wine to order and what the lyrics “Voulez-vous couchez avec moi, ce soir,” meant when my mother sang along as if she were ordering a pot of Earl Grey tea.
“Here,” Etienne says, in a tone which implies, “Where the hell do you think I’m from?”
“Okay, then.”
He hangs his head. “I’m sorry. Haiti, originally,” he says, perhaps embarrassed due to the misconception some in South Florida have about Haiti
ans being a lower class of immigrants. Haitians get sent back if they’re caught washing upon shore. Cubans set a foot on dry land and they’re in.
“I’m called Eddy now.” He fingers the ID, rubbing at his name, as if trying to blot out his past. Likely one where crossing shark-infested waters in a rickety raft seemed preferable to hunger and persecution.
Eddy delivers me to the nurse’s station on the Dolphin Unit.
“I’m here to see Ms. Slim,” I tell the duty nurse, omitting Zoe’s first name to avoid any further confusion.
I turn to thank Eddy, but all that’s left of him is a door sucking shut to hermetically seal me in to the locked psych unit, a sound with which I am not unacquainted.
The nurse catches me looking over her shoulder through a window into a tiny white cave where a man in tightie-whities is twirling like a dervish, hitting the deck only to rise up and twirl some more. She whisks me off to a meeting room clearly designed in the prison version of Bauhaus, with the added design feature that the rectangular table and four chairs are bolted to the floor.
Zoe, dressed in green scrubs, is seated in the chair nearest the door, her body listing to one side.
“Ms. Zoe, your lawyer is here.”
Zoe doesn’t bat as much as one eyelid.
“I can take it from here.” I slide onto a chair next to her.
The nurse points at a red HELP button on the wall. “Press, if there’s any trouble.”
I dip my head to see Zoe’s face beneath a tangle of hair. “How’re you doing?”
She flips her hair back to reveal a purple egg-shaped bump protruding from the middle of her forehead like a third eye.
“Jesus, how’d you get that?”
A shrug. “Just happened.”
“You okay? Did you have someone look at that?”
I make a move to take a closer look, but she waves me off.
I make a note to tell the nurse my confidence in the medical care shaky in this place where a bump on the head is not a priority.
“Look, this is only temporary,” I say, but the words ring hollow, the bars on the window a reminder of the opposite—the real possibility she might never be free again.
Reading my mind, she says, “Until I go to prison,” words slurred, eyelids droopy like baggy pantyhose, clearly she is doped to the gills.
During the tour, I asked what kind of therapies were available. The administrator replied, “Drug therapy is our go-to therapy,” and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together to indicate other options were too expensive. Whatever therapy Zoe’s getting, it’s robbing her of any last vestige of energy to help herself, the urge to fight like she did in front of Twietmeyer, without which our defense will fail, regardless of any smoke and mirrors I can conjure up.
“Like I told you at the jail, I watch the news,” she says in the flat tone of one for whom all hope is gone. “Everyone thinks I did it.” She looks down at her hands, fanned out like palm fronds, nails bitten down to the quick. “But what do you think?”
I sit back. “What matters is what the State can prove, and that’s what I came to talk about, but I do also want to listen to whatever else you have to say. I’m sorry I didn’t do that in the jail.”
Her eyes brighten enough for me to see they’re flecked with gold. “Thank you, Ms. Locke.”
“It’s Grace, remember? Would it be okay if I asked you some questions, first?”
She crosses her legs, knobby knees protruding out over the chair. “Shoot,” she says, an unfortunate choice of words, but one which makes us both smile, albeit nervously.
“You said before you weren’t there. What did you mean?”
The standard teenage eye roll. “You won’t believe me.”
“Give me a chance, okay?”
“Fine,” she says, with a tired sigh. “I couldn’t have killed Mr. Sinclair because I wasn’t there.”
“Where were you if you weren’t at school?”
Her brows draw together. “That’s not what I mean. I was at school, but I got there late. I slept through my alarm and got there just in time for first period English, so I missed my regular appointment with Mr. Sinclair.”
“Did you call to tell him you couldn’t make it?” I say, hoping against hope there might actually be some useful phone records.
She bows her head. “I was going to go by later and apologize. Maybe if I hadn’t…” she pauses for a deep breath. “Maybe if I hadn’t missed my appointment, he’d still be alive. Maybe if I’d been there, maybe whoever killed Mr. Sinclair would have, I don’t know, just gone away.”
“In my experience, Zoe, killers who mean to kill someone don’t give up that easily.”
“Yeah, or maybe whoever it was would have killed me too.” Her shoulders sag. “But maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad.”
My heart sinks. “Don’t say that. You’re a smart, beautiful young woman with parents who love you,” I say, although I’m unsure of the parent part.
“You’re only being nice because my parents are paying you,” she says, swiping at an errant tear.
Her cynicism shocks me. But, then again, Russian orphans ordered up like pizza don’t exactly have the luxury of believing there’s such a thing as something for nothing.
“I can understand why you might think that. But no matter who pays me, it’s my job to make sure you get the best defense possible.”
She tilts her head to one side as if I’ve asked her to solve a complex math problem. “You’re saying you’re one hundred percent in my corner?” After a second or two, she lets a full smile bloom and raises a clenched fist, knuckles forward, for a fist bump.
“It’s settled then. All for one and one for all,” I say, surprised to find myself knocking my knuckles against hers, surprised her mood shifted so fast.
“Three Musketeers, right? I love that movie.”
I reel back. “Really?”
“I know it’s a book too, silly!” she says, as an ungodly ruckus erupts out on the unit.
“What the heck is that?”
“I’ve been here a couple of weeks now and, I’m not kidding, every afternoon the same two nut jobs get into a screaming match because one wants to watch Jerry Springer and the other Judge Judy.”
“Hilarious. But maybe we shouldn’t call them nut jobs?” I say, trying to keep the tone light.
Her quick smile is replaced by an even quicker grimace. “It gets a little scary sometimes.”
“I can imagine.” I hold her gaze. Is she testing me, to make me believe we’re a team? Or worse, maybe just plain crazy, her mood shifting like the wind? “Okay, so you say you weren’t there, and—”
She slams her fist on the table. “I wasn’t! I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”
I press on. Backing down in fear will rob me of credibility and will do her no good either, a cowed defense lawyer being about as useful as tits on a bull. “That’s not what I meant. I was just repeating what you said. But let’s move on from there, why don’t we? We need to talk about your father’s gun, the one the cops found in your locker with your fingerprints on it.”
I brace myself for her reaction, but, to my surprise, no sooner are the words out of my mouth than the emotional floodgates open. “That’s not possible. I didn’t kill Mr. Sinclair, and I would never bring a gun to school. St Paul’s has metal detectors. And I would never…He helped me…He was the only one—”
I pat her arm. “Hey, slow down there, kiddo. We’ve got all the time you need.”
Her chest’s heaving as if she’s run the hundred-yard dash.
“First, did you know your father had a gun?”
“Yes,” she says, gulping in air.
“Had you ever seen his gun?”
“Yes.”
“When did you see his gun?”
“A few times.”
“A few times, like when? How many times?”
“I don’t remember. Not exactly.”
“Try. This is important.”
&nb
sp; “There was a break-in at our house a few months back. After that, Dad said our security system wasn’t enough anymore.”
“And he bought a gun.”
“For protection.”
“What did they take?
She raises her eyebrows. “They?”
“The burglars, what did they take from your house?”
“I’m not sure. Some of Mom’s jewelry, maybe. Not that she’d miss it. She’s got so much.”
Her gaze drifts out the window to a column of patients in mismatched clothes shuffling past the window.
“Did they ever find who did it?”
Her head jerks back. “What?”
“Find who broke in?”
“No, they didn’t,” she says, her tone becoming more firm with each answer. “Another reason Dad wanted more protection.”
“What kind of gun did he get?”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “Glock 19. Two of them.”
“Two? Why two?”
“He wanted both of us, Mom and me, to learn how to use them since we’re home alone a lot.”
“Did you see the guns?”
“Of course.”
“Handle them?”
“Sure.”
“Both?”
“Yes.”
“Dad took me out to the gun range at Markham Park to learn how to shoot.”
“Your dad’s familiar with guns I take it, since he was giving you lessons?”
“God, no. He needed lessons, too. Some off-duty cop came with us to make sure we were doing it right.”
“From the Fort Lauderdale Police Department?
“No idea. He wasn’t wearing a uniform.”
“Do you remember the cop’s name?” I ask, confident there are few cops working for FLPD or the Sheriff’s Department I haven’t heard of, or that haven’t heard of me.
“No.”
‘What did he look like?”
“I can’t remember exactly. Tall, maybe. Not too old, but not young.”
“So, you did shoot the gun? One of the two your dad bought?”
“Yeah.”