Dr. Woodbridge returned to the stand and continued listing his credentials. The jurors, who had come back from their coffee break fairly alert, now lapsed into a kind of stupor. They didn’t know what terms like “board accreditation” meant, and when it was explained, they didn’t much care and were inclined to side with Donnelly’s request for cutting out this kind of time wasting. Juror No. 3, the cement finisher Paloverde, accustomed to hard work in the open air, fell asleep in the close atmosphere of the courtroom and woke up only at the sound of a commotion in the hall. Even the heavy carved oak door, three inches thick, failed to smother the noise of a woman screaming.
“—where I was consultant to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sawtelle.”
“That’s in California?”
“Yes.”
“Please speak up, Dr. Woodbridge,” Owen said, but the judge interrupted.
“Hold everything, please.” He nodded to Di Santo, his bailiff, and Di Santo went out into the corridor. Three or four minutes later he returned, his face red and moist. Semicircles of sweat were staining the underarms of his shirt. He approached the bench, wiping his face with a handkerchief.
“There’s a deranged woman in the hall,” he told the judge in a whisper.
“Get rid of her.”
“She won’t go. She wants to come in here.”
“Why?”
“She claims someone here robbed her and she wants to make a citizen’s arrest.”
“Did you tell her there’s a trial going on?”
“That’s what I was trying to do when she... when she... when she—” He leaned closer to the bench. “She spit in my eye. I’ve never been spit in the eye before. It’s humiliating. How do you defend yourself against a thing like spit in the eye?”
“Go out there and get rid of her.”
The bailiff turned to obey, but before he was halfway to the door, a woman staggered into the courtroom. Two men, a deputy and a man in work clothes, had been attempting to restrain her by hanging on to her arms. But she slipped out of their grasp and left them holding an empty coat. She came screaming past the first row of spectators right into the well.
“There he is!” She shook her fist at the counsel’s table. “He robbed me. He took my pills. Arrest him! Arrest him!”
Donnelly didn’t move or even blink. He sat like a marble man while a bailiff and a deputy grabbed his wife from behind. She hadn’t stopped to dress, only to put on slippers and a coat over her pajamas. The coat lay on the floor near the doorway like the cast-off skin of a snake.
“I want him arrested. He’s trying to kill me. He took away the pills that are keeping me alive.”
“Have a deputy drive her home,” the judge said to Di Santo.
One of the spectators opened the door, and Zan was half dragged, half carried out into the hall. As the door closed, there was an eerie silence, as if she had fainted or been knocked unconscious.
For the first time since the trial began the jurors started to talk among themselves in court. The touch of madness seemed to have drawn them together in a closed circle like pioneers attacked by Indians.
The judge pounded his gavel for attention.
“We will have a ten-minute recess.” After the jurors and most of the spectators had filed out, he spoke quietly to Donnelly, “I’ll see you in chambers, Mr. Donnelly... Mr. Donnelly?”
“Yes,” Donnelly said. “I’ll be there.”
“You can use my door.”
“Thanks.”
The two men went out the door behind the bench, past the evidence room into the judge’s chambers. Donnelly crossed the floor carefully as if it had been mined.
“Your wife seems pretty upset,” the judge said.
“Yes.”
“I haven’t seen her for two or three years. Has she been ill?”
“Yes.”
“She looks as though she should be in a hospital.”
“Yes.”
“I gather you don’t want to discuss the situation... Well, I have to. An incident like this must not occur in my courtroom again.”
“I am not responsible for my wife’s actions.”
“If what she said is true, you’re responsible for this particular action, aren’t you?” When Donnelly didn’t reply, the judge added. “Did you confiscate her pills?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So she couldn’t get at them.”
“That sounds as if more than one kind of pill was involved. What’s she been taking?”
“Uppers in the morning, downers at night, sometimes both at the same time, anytime.”
“She ought to be getting help. Confiscating her pills won’t do it. You’d better call her doctor and have him go over and see her.”
“I did. He’s probably there now wondering where she is. Thanks, by the way, for having her driven home. I’ll pick up her car if I can find it.”
“What are you going to do about her condition?”
“Whatever is possible,” Donnelly said. “Which isn’t much. She doesn’t qualify for legal commitment. Putting her in a drug abuse prevention center requires her consent. So does entering her in a convalescent home. Are there any other options?”
“Give her back the pills and hire round-the-clock nurses to dole them out and keep an eye on her. I’m not speaking now as a judge but as a concerned observer.”
“Thank you.”
“About the only action I can take legally is declare a recess until this afternoon, giving you a chance to go home and straighten things out. It’s too early to go back into court. I said ten minutes, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“We have half of it left. Sit down.”
Donnelly sat in the chair on the other side of the judge’s desk. The judge was staring at him over the top of his spectacles.
“Tell me, Donnelly. Do you believe in genetic programming?”
“To some extent.”
“You know what? I’m beginning to go for it hook, line and sinker. I mean, I’m strongly tempted to believe that you and I were genetically programmed to be here together in this room at this minute discussing this subject. Does that strike you as crazy?”
“Debatable, certainly.”
“It has nothing to do with religion or anything like that, just genes, DNA, some mechanism we haven’t yet discovered and probably never will. There isn’t time.” He removed his spectacles and put them on the desk. “Do you suppose you and I were programmed to have a drink at this point?”
“I could suppose that, yes.”
“Well, I’m not one to fly in the face of fate or kismet or DNA.” The judge for the second time that morning brought out the bottle of scotch and two glasses. “I wonder if I’m programmed to become an alcoholic.”
“It seems unlikely at your age.”
“I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
Zan’s Jaguar was not in either of the parking lots across from the courthouse, so Donnelly began walking around the block. He found the car near the front entrance parked on a yellow curb. The doors were unlocked, the key was in the ignition and Zan’s purse lay on the front seat. The sight of the abandoned car affected him more than her appearance in court or even the scene with her the previous night. It was strangely symbolic. The key in the ignition seemed to be waiting for someone to take charge, and the purse on the seat an invitation to someone to assume ownership. Zan couldn’t take charge or own anything, not even herself. She had been exchanged for some plastic bottles and two dirty envelopes.
Without even touching the car he went back into the courthouse, called his office and told his receptionist to meet him at the front entrance immediately. Then he went outside again to wait.