Act of Deceit

Chapter 30

D onnally, Janie, and Brown sat the kitchen table, their breakfast plates before them.

“Did you want to take lithium after you were arrested?” Janie asked Brown.

“They said it would help, but it didn’t. It made me sick. They tied me to the bed, but it gave me diarrhea and they wouldn’t let me go to the toilet. And I kept throwing up, laying on my back. I was choking. I begged them to stop.”

Janie looked over at Donnally. “They gave him too much at the beginning. In those days, dosing amounts were still a mystery.”

“And you told your attorney?” Donnally asked him.

“The judge made them stop.” Brown stared down at his half-eaten scrambled eggs. “Anna told me Dr. Sherwyn was bad, but I thought he wanted to help me.”

Donnally glanced at Janie, his expression telling her that Brown was delusional, unable to recall the sequence of events that led him to meet Sherwyn only after Anna was dead.

“Are you sure it was Anna?” Janie asked.

Brown’s head jerked up and down with such force that his body shook.

“That was after they argued about Star Wars.”

Donnally slumped in his chair and exhaled.

“R2D2. They argued about R2D2 and RT. She said to Dr. Sherwyn, ‘I know who you are. A rabbit.’ She said he was a rabbit. And he called her Alice in Wonderland.”

Donnally looked into Brown’s eyes, now darting. Obviously hallucinating.

“Where were they talking?” Janie asked.

“In Anna’s living room.”

“Where were you?”

Brown looked around. “Here.”

“What do you mean, here?” Donnally asked.

“The kitchen. I mean her kitchen. I peeked around the door. He looked like a rabbit.”

Donnally smiled to himself. Despite his delusions, Brown had gotten that right. Even in his mid-sixties and probably thirty pounds heavier than back then, Dr. Sherwyn still had a pointy face and disproportionate ears.

Brown scrunched up his nose, exposing his upper teeth. “He did that when he was thinking.”

That was a tic that Donnally had noticed during Sherwyn’s testimony, but he thought it was just a defensive grimace prompted by Blaine’s attacks.

“Did anyone else hear the conversation?” Donnally asked, hoping that something in Brown’s story had a bit of truth, some kind of starting point from which his stream of consciousness flowed and toward which Donnally could work back.

“Anna’s mother, Trudy. Trudy was there.” Brown grinned. “She knows R2D2. She told me so.”