By reason of insanity

77

Two months later-

Wednesday, August 20

The whole world hates the insanity plea.

Quinn was reminded of this basic truth as he pulled into the courthouse parking lot and prepared to face the protesters and media. Reverend Harold Pryor and his spiteful band of followers stood at their posts in front of the courthouse steps, carrying signs with a blowup of Catherine's face and a simple message: Baby Killer. Yesterday they had shouted in Quinn's face and pronounced damnation on him as he climbed the steps. Quinn had lost his cool and asked the reverend if he didn't have some abortion clinics he could go bomb. Today Quinn was determined to keep his mouth shut.

The lawyers had finished jury selection the prior afternoon, and Quinn would give the opening statement for the defense this morning. He didn't feel close to ready. In the last two months, Quinn's normally hectic pace had increased until life seemed a blur of frenzied activity, an adrenaline-laced roller coaster ride under the white-hot glare of media cameras. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a good night's sleep. He spent every minute preparing witnesses for two major trials, "commuting" from Las Vegas to Virginia Beach, visiting both Annie and Catherine in jail, and sneaking up to Washington, D.C., every few weeks to see Sierra.

He had spent an inordinate amount of time talking with Catherine. It was all a necessary part of trial preparation, he kept telling himself. Yet after hours of talking through the metal vents in the bulletproof glass of the attorney interview booths, Quinn still hadn't solved the mystery of Catherine O'Rourke and her multiple personalities, if indeed she had them.

Since the day of Catherine's outburst during Kenny Towns's television interview, she had been nothing but a class act, answering every one of Quinn's questions with quiet grace and seemingly endless patience. She had endured numerous sessions with Dr. Mancini and two separate sessions with the commonwealth's forensic psychiatrist, a precise Asian-American man named Dr. Edward Chow.

Quinn climbed out of his car and pulled his suit coat from a hanger in the back. He pulled it over his limp right arm first, struggling to slip into the jacket without lifting that arm up and away from his body, a movement that still sent stabbing pain through the unrepaired rotator cuff. After he wriggled into the suit coat, he grabbed his briefcase and headed across the black asphalt parking lot, the heat already radiating from the surface even though it was only 8:30 in the morning.

Quinn picked up the pace as the reverend and a few others jogged over to him and started walking beside him, shouting in his face as he approached the courthouse.

"Not today," Quinn grumbled.

"The blood of the kidnapped babies is on your hands!" shouted the reverend.

"Your client is a baby killer!" echoed a younger woman.

"Baby killer! Baby killer!" The protesters and cameramen formed a moving mob around Quinn as he reached the courthouse steps. Red camera lights blinked while shutters clicked and whirred. Quinn kept his gaze straight ahead, tuning out the protesters as he entered the doors of the courthouse.

The door closed, and the welcome sound of relative silence flooded the hallways. The protesters seemed very far away.

"Good morning, Mr. Newberg," said one of the guards at the metal detector.

"Good morning, Deputy Aaronson."

Quinn plunked his loose change and keys inside a small plastic container to pass through the screener. "Quiet day, huh?" Aaronson asked.

Quinn smiled. "If this is your idea of a quiet day, I'd hate to see a riot."

This brought a big grin from the deputy. "If you win this case, you might just get your chance."

Quinn walked into the courtroom, placed his briefcase at the defense counsel table, said a few words to Marc Boland, and slipped through a side door into a small, gray hallway with no outside windows. Just off the hallway were two even smaller rooms hidden behind heavy metal doors with a single narrow slit about a third of the way up. On a typical court day, male inmates would be herded into one room and females into the other. For the past three days, Catherine had been the only occupant of the female cell. Her friends and sister had brought her a fresh change of clothes each day, and the deputy allowed her to put them on before entering the courtroom.

"Good morning," Cat said after the door to the courtroom closed behind Quinn. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

Quinn stood outside the cell, leaning against the wall. He cherished these few moments before court even though he couldn't see his client's face.

"Sleep is overrated."

"I know what you mean," Cat said.

Today, even more so than the last few days, Quinn could sense the tension in Cat's voice. Today the trial began in earnest.

"Did your friends find some clothes that fit?" Quinn asked, trying to lighten the mood. On Monday, Cat had discovered how much weight she had lost during her months of confinement; her dress had practically swallowed her slender body.

She started to say something, but the words apparently caught in her throat. Whenever she spoke about things that really mattered to her, Cat's voice had a deeper tone and a softness that Quinn had grown to recognize, a softness that he intended to showcase for the jury when Cat took the stand. "My friends went out and bought me three new outfits," Cat said. "It made me cry."

"That's the good thing about murder trials," Quinn said dryly. "You find out who your true friends are."

"And who they aren't."

Quinn checked his watch. In a few minutes, the bailiff would call court into session. Quinn needed to take one last look at his notes.

"Things are going to get a little heated today. Boyd Gates is a first-class jerk, and there's no telling what he'll do to get a reaction from you. If you lose your cool even one time, the trial is over. Our whole case is premised on the theory that the Catherine O'Rourke on display in the courtroom did not and would not commit these crimes. A different personality altogether is responsible. Having that alter ego suddenly appear at trial would look staged and manipulative."

"I know that, Quinn," Cat said. "And I promise not to bull-charge the prosecutor or the judge."

"That would be nice."

"No promises on Jamarcus Webb, though."

"Maybe I can hold you back if you go after him."

"Maybe," said Cat. "But then again, you've never seen me mad."