“Do you? Tell me, Doctor, how many of your patients, in your whole career, have been paranoid psychotic murderers?”
The witness was startled by the question. His mouth opened but nothing came out.
“Counting them up, are you?” put in Karp.
“Your Honor, I protest this badgering,” cried Waley.
“Mr. Karp, have a care!” growled Judge Peoples.
Karp voiced an apology and waited.
Bannock cleared his throat. “Mr. Rohbling is the only one.”
“The only one!” exclaimed Karp in mock amazement. “Do you tell us, sir, that the defendant is the only patient you have ever had that was facing a charge of murder and might have a powerful reason to prevaricate as to his symptoms?”
“Yes, but that’s-”
“Then, isn’t it true,” said Karp, lowering the pitch and lifting the volume of his voice so as to sound as much like the Lord of Hosts as possible, “that your testimony as to the defendant’s so-called disease, and his ability or inability to comport his conduct to the requirements of the law, is worth nothing? Zero?”
“No, no, my experience can be generalized to … the present case and, of course, I’m familiar with the literature-”
“The literature, I see,” said Karp, his tone contemptuous. “I have no further questions for this witness.”
Naturally, Waley rose for redirect, to repair the damage Karp had done to his star. Once again the jury was treated to a look inside Jonathan Rohbling’s skull, courtesy of Dr. Bannock. The on-again, off-again nature of his disease was explained as entirely consistent with paranoid schizophrenia. Mr. Rohbling was not going to attack a member of the jury because he was taking antipsychotic drugs. When he was taking these drugs, he was free of the violent impulses that characterized his disease. The drugs were uncertain in their influence, were they not? Of course. They even affected the same people differently at different times. Therefore, it was perfectly consistent with science that Mr. Rohbling could be a good little boy on a Thursday and a monster on Friday and a good little boy the following Monday. Of course, and this was delivered with a dose of psycho-speak equivalent to six hundred milligrams of Thorazine; the jury was stunned, gaping, psyched.
Nevertheless, Karp came right back on re-cross. Doctor, you contend that the defendant was not under the influence of his medication when he committed the murder? He was not. But he was drugged at your appointment before and your appointment afterward? Probably. Then a colloquy on the pharmacology of Navane, or thiothixene, its effects, the absurdity of assuming that its effects could be turned on and off like a lightbulb over the course of a long weekend. Karp had done his homework, or Collins had. He waved research reports. He quoted. Then the finale: Doctor, do you know of a single other case, in the literature, where a paranoid schizophrenic committed a violent act attributable to his disease and then appeared normal to a psychiatrist three days before and two days after that act? Answer the question. The answer was no. Thus Karp ran out the clock, which was, at least in part, the point. The judge halted the proceedings at five-thirty, which meant that Karp could start with a fresh jury when he presented his rebuttal witness the following day.
Outside the courtroom, in the hallway, a roped corridor had been set up, leading from the door to the D.A.’s private wing of the building, an aisle now manned, at the D.A.’s express order, by four burly court officers and a group of gigantic cops from the Tacticals, beyond which seethed the yowling press corps, down which Karp strode like the Prince of Wales.
TWENTY
Marlene awakened to birdsong and the sweet voice of the cello. She lay in bed for a few minutes listening, cozy within the bedclothes (an actual featherbed, the first she had ever slept in) watching gray-blue light streak the patterned wallpaper. The room was of a comfortable smallness, as a bedroom should be, and full of old, slightly shabby, lovely things-real lace curtains, a wardrobe inlaid with flowers and cupids, the brass bedstead on which she lay. She mused, as often before, on the insoluble mystery of family life, on how this marvelous environment, so secure, so tasteful, could have produced an Edie and a Ginnie Wooten. The cello swelled to a peak, stopped in mid-phrase, and after a brief pause, began again from the beginning of the movement, the second of Schubert’s Rosamunde quartet.
With a sigh Marlene heaved out of bed, washed, dressed, armed herself, and went down to the kitchen, where Bridget Marney supplied her with egg, toast, excellent coffee, and conversation about geraniums and dogs. Ms. Wooten was not to be disturbed in the mornings: the iron law of Wooten Island, to which no conceivable danger might make an exception. Marlene fed Sweety his two pounds of kibble, walked him, and put him on guard. Mr. Marney, a male version of his wife (pleasant, sixties, weather-worn), arrived just as Marlene was finishing her second cup, and led her to the boathouse, in whose damp shade lay a half dozen craft: a couple of Boston Whalers with fifty-horse outboards, a slim wooden rowing boat, a dory with a center-mounted diesel, a racy wooden speedboat, and a forty-foot Chris-Craft in mahogany, circa 1925. They took the speedboat.
Twenty minutes later, Marlene was at the marina dock. She waited, smoked a cigarette, watched the faint breeze pimple the still water of Sag Harbor. A horn sounded. To Marlene’s surprise, it was not Harry come to pick her up but Wolfe.
“I’m surprised to see you,” she said as they drove off. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. Good,” he said in a tone that did not encourage exploration. He seemed to regret their brief intimacy in the hospital. Clearly, he was one of those men who wish not to think that they can ever be anything but big, strong, and ready for action. As they approached the tennis club, Wolfe said, “Harry wants me to go with the tour. The client-”
Marlene felt a quick stir of irritation, which she stifled. Edie hadn’t mentioned Wolfe, and despite what Marlene had told her husband, she felt herself entirely capable of guarding Wooten by herself. She grunted assent and got out of the car.
A dull day on the courts passed. There were no copycat attacks. In the tournament, Trude Speyr came in second to a Yugoslav woman who had not been threatened with mutilation and death, which Marlene thought not surprising. Harry was busy arranging the rest of the tour, which Wolfe would join as chief bodyguard-next stop, Short Hills, New Jersey. Marlene made herself at home in Mort Griffin’s office and got Sym on the phone to check messages and then spoke to Tranh, who seemed to be holding everything together rather better than Marlene herself did when she was there. After listening to his report, Marlene said, “Sounds great, Vinh, you’re a national treasure. Harry will be back late today to take over. Anything else?”
“No, I do not believe so. I was somewhat surprised to see that the machine gun was missing from its place. I had thought that you did not approve of such weapons.”
“I don’t. When did you notice it was missing?”
“These past few days. Since you left for the tennis match.”
“Shit! Dane probably swiped it back. I’ll talk to him.”
Marlene next called the garage, where a man told her that it was not merely the alternator that had gone but the coil and a considerable, but yet to be tallied, number of spark plug wires, and did she really want to put that kind of money into the car. She did.
Then she called her loft, where she spoke to Posie, who wrenched at her heart with blandly told tales of the twins’ narrow escapes from poisoning, scorching, sharp instruments, and other immolation, and held them each up to the phone so that they could whine, babble, and fret into the instrument, and scarify further their mother’s heart. Lucy was, in comparison, an oasis of good sense. She discounted heavily the tales of disaster, said everything was fine, that meals were regular, the loft was reasonably neat, don’t worry, and can I still come out to the island when you’re finished guarding?