Flesh and bones

33

Granny was grilling shrimp on the barbecue in my backyard. Fat and juicy, marinated in beer. The shrimp, not my granny, though she was half pickled in her home brew.

Granny was still embarked on a plot to fatten up Chrissy. In the kitchen, duck-and-sausage gumbo was simmering on the stove next to a pot of black bean soup with bell peppers and bacon. Bowls of rice and chopped onions warmed in the oven.

"That girl's gotten skinnier," Granny had whispered to me as she carried the victuals into the house. "I gave her a hug and her hipbones jabbed me like bamboo sticks. It's no wonder she's always fainting, the way she eats."

Granny was right. Charlie Riggs had told me that Chrissy was borderline hypoglycemic and should be eating several times a day, and not just a little tofu. At the moment, Chrissy was curled up on the sofa, purring in her sleep. I checked on her, gently stroked a strand of blond hair from her eyes, and walked to the kitchen where Charlie was making cocktail sauce for the shrimp. I opened a Grolsch, and Charlie hummed show tunes while mixing Worcestershire with vinegar.

In the Florida room, Kip was watching… And Justice for All on cable. Defense lawyer Al Pacino, half crazed by a legal system run amok, was prancing in front of the jury box while his client, John Forsythe, a judge charged with rape, watched in astonishment. "The prosecution is not going to get this man," Pacino sang out, "because I'm going to get him. My client, the Honorable Henry T. Fleming, should go right to fucking jail! The son of a bitch is guilty!"

I've had clients like that. Most, in fact. But I never gave the speech. And now I had a client I would have done anything to help.

"I did the homework you requested," Charlie said. "Nothing new in the autopsy report, and there won't be if I read it another ten times. I did find something, though. The morgue has started saving ocular fluids from cadavers' eyes. Just freezing them for possible testing later. I've got Harry Bernhardt's."

"And?"

"Toxicology tests are negative. I'll get the electrolyte readings first thing in the morning. Plus, I've got a cardiologist, Dr. Eric Prystowsky, taking a fresh look at the EKG. He's the best rhythm-disturbance man in the country, and if there's something funky there…"

Did Charlie really say "funky"?

"Good work," I told him. "I had Cindy check the business directory. There are three possibilities, so we subpoenaed them all."

Charlie wiped his hands on an apron I could swear came from the morgue, but maybe the stains were catsup and molasses. "Were my eyes deceiving me," he asked, "or was that Larry Schein in the front row of the gallery today?"

"That was him. Socolow and I stipulated to waive the witness exclusion rule. It makes sense if I'm going to ask Schein about Chrissy's in-court hypnosis."

"I caught sight of him after your client dropped the bombshell. He turned a grayish yellow, kind of like a beached amberjack."

I took a pull on the beer. "I saw. Complete and utter shock. He didn't know his old buddy Guy was the rapist, I'm sure of it."

"And you're surprised?"

"I was at first. I'd always put Guy and Schein on the same team, but I was only partially right. Guy wanted his pop's money and couldn't care less about Chrissy. Look what he did to her as a kid. He knows Schein hates his old man, blames him for Emily's death. So he tells Schein he's always suspected Dad abused Chrissy. It would explain a lot, and it would make it easier for Schein to take part in something he never would have done otherwise."

"Program Christina to commit murder."

"Exactly. Schein implanted false memories all right, but he thought they were true."

"How does it affect your closing argument?" Charlie asked.

I gave him a preview. "When we began this trial, each of you raised your hand and swore 'a true verdict render,' " I chanted in my speechifying voice. "Now you must be true to your oath. Chrissy Bernhardt is charged with killing her father with premeditation. In just a few moments, Judge Stanger will instruct you that premeditation means 'killing after consciously deciding to do so.' But Chrissy didn't decide to kill Harry Bernhardt. Lawrence Schein did. She tried to kill a man who didn't exist, a man with the head of a goat and cloven hooves, a man-beast invented by Lawrence Schein, a devil of his imagination, a man he hated, a man he consciously decided to kill."

Charlie nodded his approval. "Let's take inventory," he said while spooning minced onions into a mixture that now included chili sauce, hot peppers, plus a secret ingredient I hoped didn't come from the building with walk-in coolers on Bob Hope Road. "You proved your client really is a victim, first of her brother, then her psychiatrist. That'll win sympathy from the jury, but where are you legally?"

"Simple. The evidence is that that Chrissy was defrauded into forming an intent to kill her father. She killed someone who didn't exist."

"Sounds like manslaughter to me," Charlie said.

I drained the Grolsch and looked in the fridge for one of its brothers. "Socolow thinks so, too. On my way out of the courtroom, he offered me a plea. Eight years. Says he'll go below double digits 'cause we're such old friends."

"Which means she'd be out in six years and a few months with gain time," Charlie said, dipping a finger into his cocktail sauce, then tasting it. "Mmmm. So much better than tired old catsup and horseradish."

"I turned it down."

Charlie raised his bushy eyebrows.

"I can win, Charlie. I can win this case."

"Manslaughter's a win. You said it yourself. She killed a man. Regardless whether she was tricked into believing he had raped her, she killed him. The jury will have to find her guilty of something, and manslaughter's a lot better than first- or second-degree murder."

"They like her, Charlie. I can feel it. You're getting too hung up on the law, on technicalities. They're looking for a reason to acquit. I can feel their emotion."

"Theirs," Charlie asked, "or yours?"

This time, Dr. Lawrence Schein was ready. Pale, baggy-eyed, and haggard, but ready. He had brought a lawyer, who sat in the first row of the gallery. I liked that. This isn't Los Angeles, where everybody from Rosa Lopez to Kato Kaelin (whose English isn't as good as Rosa's) brings a lawyer, an agent, and a publicist to court. Jurors, blessed with common sense, distrust anyone who needs a mouthpiece. I planned to hang a neon sign on the lawyer at the first opportunity.

Schein took long pauses, weighing each question before answering, his eyes flicking to Jonas Blackwell, an aging medical malpractice defense lawyer who knew his way around a courtroom.

"You understand that my client has repudiated your conclusion that she was sexually abused by her father?" I asked.

"It was not my conclusion, it was hers," Schein said smugly.

"Under drug-induced hypnosis?"

"If you want to call it that."

"And suggestive questioning by you, Doctor?"

"I wouldn't characterize it that way. But I will concede this. Recovered-memory therapy is as much an art as a science. I quite correctly diagnosed your client as having been raped as a child."

"Unfortunately, you nailed the wrong perpetrator."

"Had I been right, we'd likely be here to discuss the murder of Guy Bernhardt," Schein fired back.

Ouch. A finely scripted answer, the handiwork of Jonas Blackwell, I was sure. I could have objected and moved to strike the nonresponsive answer, but that would have simply underlined it. Instead, I plowed ahead.

"Prior to yesterday's testimony, did you have any idea that Guy Bernhardt was the person guilty of raping Chrissy?"

"No, of course not."

"You find it hard to believe, even now, that your friend Guy is a rapist, don't you?"

"I believe the testimony is credible, but yes, it comes as a complete shock."

"Whereas you had no trouble believing that Harry Bernhardt, a man you hated, was guilty?"

"I thought he was guilty. Apparently I was wrong."

"When Chrissy was in your care, did Guy Bernhardt ever tell you he suspected his father of abusing Chrissy?"

He hesitated. "No."

Of course not. He'd already testified he hadn't discussed the therapy with Guy. He couldn't contradict that lie by telling the truth now.

"Who's that you're looking at?" I said, my voice just a notch below a holler.

"What?" Startled now.

"There, in the front row, the man in the suit taking notes." I pointed toward Jonas Blackwell as if he were a purse snatcher.

"That's my lawyer," he said softly.

"A law-yer!" Making it sound like a loathsome disease. "If you've sworn to tell the truth, why do you need a lawyer?"

"Objection, argumentative," Socolow said.

"Sustained," the judge said. "Mr. Lassiter, you know better than that." He turned toward the jury. "A witness is entitled to have a lawyer present in court, and you are not to infer anything regarding the witness's credibility from the fact that he does have a lawyer."

No problem. I'd already made my point.

"At any rate, Doctor, you now acknowledge that Chrissy Bernhardt was not raped by her father?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"But last June, you believed he was the worst kind of criminal, a man who would rape his own child."

"Yes, I believed that."

"Just as you believed he was responsible for the death of his wife, Emily, the woman you loved?"

Schein blinked. "Yes, he destroyed her life. Your client would agree with that."

"So as you drove to the hospital on June sixteenth, you were convinced that Harry Bernhardt deserved to die?"

"Objection, irrelevant," Socolow said. "The doctor's not on trial."

Not yet.

"I'll tie it up, Your Honor," I responded.

"Then I'll overrule for now."

"I'm not God," Schein said. "I don't determine who should live and who should die."

"Let's back up a bit, Doctor. At eleven-oh-five P.M. on June sixteenth, you left the Hotel Astor, rushing to get to the hospital, correct?"

"Yes, I believe I testified to that."

"And you arrived at the ICU at eleven-forty P.M., where you encountered Nurse Gettis?"

"That sounds about right."

"You drove up Alton Road to get to the hospital?"

"Yes."

"And it took thirty-five minutes to get there?"

"It was a Friday night. Traffic was heavy."

"If I told you a test drive we've done the last four Friday nights, never exceeding the speed limit, averaged twelve minutes, what would you say?"

He didn't say anything and neither did I. If I really had time to do test drives, all my exhibits would probably be in color-coded binders, too.

"Where did you stop on your way to the hospital, Dr. Schein?"

"Nowhere!" The answer was too quick and too loud. It surprised even me, but I was beginning to discover that the doctor was a bad liar. Most basically honest people are.

"I'm going to ask you again, Doctor, and if you want to consult with your lawyer before answering, I have no objection."

In other words, if you're going to lie, at least do it right.

"I don't need to consult anyone," he said, eyes flashing toward Jonas Blackwell, seeking support.

At the prosecution table, Abe Socolow watched intently. He loved to win, but deep down, he was a lot like me. He loved the truth even more.

Chrissy sat at the defense table, dressed in a short mint-green jacket with silver buttons over a matching A-line dress, her hands folded together in front of her. She chewed at her lower lip. Scared, confused, trusting me with her life. She didn't know where I was going. I hadn't told her. Early this morning, she had asked what I was doing as Cindy and I pored over a stack of prescription forms just delivered to my house from three pharmacies. Playing lawyer, I had told her. Now Cindy sat in the row of straight-backed chairs between the defense table and the bar separating the lions from the Christians. Her fingernails were painted black and embedded with silver stars like the nighttime sky. Toenails, too, judging from the planetarium view of a big toe sticking out of a straw sandal.

Thanks to Cindy, I had the ammunition, and it was time to start throwing hand grenades.

"Dr. Schein, isn't it true that you stopped at the Beach Mart Pharmacy on the way to the hospital?"

His mouth was locked tight, and the muscles of his jaws were doing isometrics. This time he didn't look at his lawyer. He looked directly at me.

Wondering.

How much did I know?

"I don't recall that." Hedging his bets.

"The pharmacy's located on Arthur Godfrey Road. It's open twenty-four hours. Does that refresh your recollection?"

"Not really."

Cindy had cased the place, and now I wanted to make it sound like my second home. "Just a little hole-in-the wall. Sunglasses up front, Russell Stover candies on a rack by the register, and a pharmacist behind bulletproof glass in back."

It wasn't a question, so he didn't answer. He was waiting, and I wanted him to wait some more. To sweat, to worry. How much does the shyster know? I know it all, Schein, and I can prove most of it.

I continued, "There's a pass-through counter in the glass wall that they hand the prescriptions through. On the inside of the counter sits a time stamp, so every time a prescription is filled, they stamp it, isn't that right?"

"I don't know." His neck was blotched with red, and I'd bet his heart was racing. Hook him up to an EKG and the stylus would draw the Himalayas.

I made a big production of going back to the defense table, opening files, looking for something, seeming to have lost it. I felt his eyes on my back. Let him sweat some more. "Ah, here it is, Doctor. Perhaps this will refresh your memory."

Sometimes I bluff, and sometimes I really hold the aces. "Your Honor, may I approach the witness?"

The judge waved me forward. On the way, I dropped a copy on Socolow's table, then handed the little rectangular form to Schein. He grabbed for it. "Can you identify that?" I asked.

He nodded.

"You'll have to answer audibly."

"It appears to be a prescription form from the Beach Mart Pharmacy."

"And that's your signature, isn't it?"

He studied it, as if trying to decipher the Axis war code. No answer. Wondering if he could deny it. Hoping for a miracle that would keep the sky from falling.

"Perhaps you remember the pharmacist as well as he remembers you," I prompted. Bluffing now. The pharmacist was on vacation in Barbados, not in the corridor waiting to testify. I hadn't been able to reach him.

"That's my signature," he said at last.

"KC1," I said. "What's that?"

"Potassium chloride." His voice was a whisper.

"What's it used for?"

"Many things. Making fertilizer, for one."

"You weren't doing some gardening that night, were you. Doctor?"

"It's a harmless substance," he blurted out. "Potassium and chloride. Both are found naturally in the body."

"Really? Then I suppose if someone was injected with potassium chloride, it wouldn't show up in a toxicology test?"

"I don't know anything about that."

"What's potassium chloride used for, Doctor, besides making fertilizer?"

"It's used in heart surgery."

"And what does it do?"

His eyes darted to Jonas Blackwell and back to me again. "I'm not an expert. I mean, I'm not a surgeon."

"Oh, don't be so modest. The drug is injected into the heart to stop it during open-heart surgery, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure."

"You weren't performing open-heart surgery that night, were you?"

"No, of course not."

"But you wrote a prescription for one hundred milliliters of potassium chloride, which you picked up at eleven-twenty-seven P.M. on your way to the hospital, didn't you?"

He didn't answer.

"Doctor?"

"Yes."

"Thank you," I said. I returned to the defense table and let him hold on to the prescription slip. He looked like he wanted to swallow it. "Dr. Schein, do you remember, the other day, I asked if you blamed Harry for Emily Bernhardt's death?"

"I remember."

"And do you recall your answer?"

"Not verbatim."

"Well, it struck me as a little odd, so let's just take a look at it." The jurors leaned forward in their seats. I had them. I had Schein. I had the whole damn world just where I wanted it. Cindy handed me the daily transcript, provided efficiently by the stenographer for a sum equal to the gross national product of a small Caribbean nation.

"I asked you this question: 'So you blamed Harry for Emily Bernhardt's death?' And you answered, 'Yes. Not with a gun or a needle, but by stripping her of her dignity, keeping her prisoner in the home,' et cetera, et cetera. Now, what did that mean, 'Not with a gun or a needle'?"

"It's just an expression. It means, not with a weapon."

"Then wouldn't the expression be 'a gun or a knife'? Where does a needle fit into this?"

"Knife, needle… They sound alike."

"But you were thinking of a needle. So it made me wonder, Doctor, what would Freud say? Why were you thinking of a needle? What memories were lurking in your subconscious?"

"I have no idea."

"Going back to the night of June sixteenth at the Beach Mart Pharmacy, you also purchased a fifteen-gauge hypodermic needle, didn't you? If you like, I'll show you the store's cash register receipt."

A vein in his shaved scalp seemed to throb, but it could have been my imagination. He stretched his neck out of his shirt collar, then answered. "Yes, I sometimes inject tranquilizers into patients, and of course sodium amytal during hypnosis, as you know. I was out of syringes, so I…"

He drifted off.

"On the way to see Harry Bernhardt, who had just been shot and operated on, who was in the ICU, you stopped off to do some shopping-is that your testimony, Doctor?"

"Well, yes."

"Now you don't inject potassium chloride into any of your patients, do you, Doctor?"

"Of course not."

"What would happen if you were to inject potassium chloride into someone not undergoing surgery, someone not on a heart pump?"

"It would short-circuit the electrical activity of the heart."

"There'd be a rhythm disturbance, wouldn't there. Doctor?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"And the heart would go into ventricular fibrillation, then stop, indicating to all the world that the person died of cardiac arrest?"

"I didn't do that!"

"I didn't say you had."

"I've seen the autopsy report," Schein said, though no question was pending. Good. Let him run his mouth. "There's no indication of anything like that."

"No, there aren't even any unexplained puncture marks on the body, are there?"

"That's right."

"But if the potassium chloride had been injected directly into Harry Bernhardt's IV tube, it wouldn't leave any unexplained marks on the body, would it?"

"I suppose not."

"Is that how you did it, Dr. Schein? Did you pop a dose of KC1 right into the IV?"

"What are you saying! No!"

"Doctor, when the man you hated…"

Motive.

"… was lying flat on his back, semiconscious and sedated.. "

Opportunity.

"… you took that fifteen-gauge hypodermic needle and injected his IV tube with a massive dose of potassium chloride, didn't you?"

Means.

"No!" He looked toward the judge for help but didn't get any.

"When the potassium chloride hit his arm, he started thrashing. Even coming out of the anesthesia, he could feel the sting of the KC1, couldn't he?"

"No! I don't know."

"Doctor, if I told you that the ocular fluids removed from Harry Bernhardt's eyes showed elevated levels of potassium, would that surprise you?"

"Not at all," he said, licking a bead of perspiration from his upper lip and calming down. He relished the question, had a ready answer. "Potassium levels increase after death. It's not an indication of hyperkalemia."

"To what level would they increase?"

"I don't know exactly, but they could easily double or more, say from five milliequivalents per liter to ten or fifteen."

"So if the test showed two hundred milliequivalents per liter, what would that suggest, Doctor?"

Good old Charlie Riggs.

"I'm not sure. But you can't prove…"

He let it hang there.

"And if a cardiologist with special expertise in heart rhythm disturbance comes into this courtroom after examining the EKG of Harry Bernhardt and identifies a widened QRS duration and subsequent ventricular fibrillation, indicating probable potassium poisoning, what then, Doctor? What do you say then?"

The swinging gate in the bar squeaked open, and Jonas Blackwell rushed through. "Your Honor, I request a brief recess."

"Denied!" the judge shouted. "And sit down."

The lawyer stopped in his tracks, looked around, and took a chair next to Cindy. Judge Stanger turned toward the witness. "Dr. Schein, there's a question pending. If you wish, the stenographer can read it back."

"I've made a ter…" Schein mumbled, his voice trailing off.

"What's that, Doctor?" the judge asked.

"I've made a terrible mistake," he said, his voice barely audible. "I believed Guy. I never would have done it had I known. I swear.. "

Jonas Blackwell was on his feet. "Your Honor, my client invokes his Fifth Amendment rights. I request that the questioning be terminated."

"I said, sit down!" the judge thundered. He leaned close to the witness stand. "Doctor, your counsel suggests that you rely on your right against self-incrimination. Do you wish-"

"No!" Schein waved off the judge with a stiff gesture that reminded me of Richard Nixon on the day he quit. "Harry Bernhardt was an evil man. Maybe he didn't abuse Christina, but what he did to Emily was a crime. He knew we were in love. He could have let her go, but he was so cruel, so inhumane. And Emily was so beautiful and frail. She lost the will to live. It's Harry's fault she died, not mine."

That puzzled me. "No one said it was your fault."

"He killed her," Schein said, "maybe not with a gun or a needle."

There it was again. What was he saying? We weren't here to talk about Emily. Or were we?

"How did Emily die?" I asked.

Socolow stood up, seemed to think about objecting, and sat down again.

"I begged her to leave him." Not exactly responsive, but why not let him ramble? "I told her how I'd take care of her, protect her, but she couldn't do it. She wasn't strong enough. He snuffed the life out of her. She begged me to do it…"

Lawrence Schein stared into space. Abe Socolow and I exchanged looks. He shrugged his shoulders, telling me it was my ball, run with it. At the defense table, Chrissy's eyes were filled with tears.

"Do what?" I asked.

"End it. We made a pact. I'd poison her while she was sedated. Then I'd kill myself."

Omigod.

A rumble of astonished voices swept through the courtroom.

Judge Stanger lifted his gavel, but never brought it down. Miraculously, the noise stopped, no one wanting to miss a word.

"With potassium chloride," I said, all the gaps filling in. "The needle. You injected Emily Bernhardt, but then you chickened out. You killed her but not yourself. You're a killer and a coward."

His head bobbed up and down. "At her first spasm, I knew what I did was wrong. All these years, and I still see her pain, even with the sedatives. I've carried it with me all this time. That's why I had to do something."

"Why?"

It's a question you're never supposed to ask on cross, but this time I knew the answer.

"Because I'd killed the wrong Bernhardt. I'd carried the guilt and shame for so long, it had nearly driven me insane. I had to kill Harry Bernhardt. I had to heal myself. It was my therapy."