“Have you talked to his doctor? Durkin was at death’s door when he was brought in. A hundred and two fever, gangrene throughout his foot and ankle. Shit, he was hobbling around on that broken ankle for four weeks, pulling out weeds because he thought if he didn’t the world was going to come to an end. He was absolutely delusional, with no idea even which way was up.”
“All that may be true, but juries hate the temporary insanity defense. All my years as a prosecutor, I never once saw a jury buy it.”
“Forget temporary, my client’s insane. It scared the hell out of me just sitting with him. And that was with him chained up!”
“He’s as crazy as a loon,” McGrale agreed. He stopped to take his drink from the waitress and offer her a smile. After she walked away, he studied his drink for a moment before sipping it and looking back at Goldman. “There’s a big difference, though, between insane and criminally insane. No, Goldman, your client knew what he was doing. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there were charges filed against him earlier this summer for cutting off his son’s thumb. I talked to Jill Bracken already about it. He did that solely as a ploy to convince that town of his that those weeds were monsters. Same reason he killed Sheriff Wolcott.”
“And that’s not insane?” Goldman asked.
“Not criminally insane, no.”
The waitress came back with Goldman’s food and ale and placed it in front of him. His grin was halfhearted at best as he picked up the burger and took a bite.
“I thought your office was floating the theory that my client blamed the sequence of events leading to his younger son’s death on Sheriff Wolcott. That the murder was done for revenge,” Goldman concluded decisively.
“A little bit of both,” McGrale admitted.
Goldman considered this as he took another halfhearted bite of his food. “Mr. Durkin really does believe that monsters grow in Lorne Field,” he said. “And not just him either. That town has been paying his family for over three hundred years to weed that field.”
McGrale rolled the last sip of scotch around his mouth the way a wine connoisseur might do with a fine burgundy before swallowing it. “I heard something about that. Doesn’t surprise me. They always seemed a bit inbred over there. But again, there’s a big difference between insanity and criminal insanity. It all comes down to whether your client understood his actions, and he clearly did. As insane as his motives might’ve been, he fully understood his acts.”
Goldman put his burger down so he could dip an onion ring in some ketchup. “Mr. McGrale,” he asked. “What exactly do you want?”
McGrale held up a finger to the waitress to signal for another scotch before turning back to Goldman. “I have a family that’s grieving right now,” he said. “They want to bury their loved one, but they can’t because there’s no body. If your client discloses where he hid the rest of Sheriff Wolcott, I can offer man-two, with a minimum of ten years.”
“Quite a deal,” Goldman said.
“Given what he did, I’d say so.”
Goldman’s lopsided grin showed again. He took a long drink of his ale and laughed sourly to himself. “I’ll talk to him, but I don’t think he’s going to take it. I don’t think he’s going to let me plead insanity either. I think he’s going to force me to argue that there are monsters growing in Lorne Field.”
“There are ways around that. Have him declared incompetent.”
“I could try to do that, but what if he’s right?” Goldman said, his grin fading. “According to the forensics report there was no blood found on the machete.”
“So?”
“Why cut off Sheriff Wolcott’s foot and leave it in the woods, but wipe the machete clean? And even if he wiped it clean, there still should’ve been traces of blood found.”
“Not necessarily,” McGale countered. “There are chemicals you can use to remove blood traces.”
“And how exactly would my client get his hands on those, living out there in the middle of that field? And what bothers me even more is the report that the foot was sliced and not hacked off. My client was deathly ill, his weight had dropped from one hundred and seventy pounds to one hundred and thirty in about a month, and yet he was able to cut off that foot with a single blow from the machete?”
“Ah, Goldman, you’re making this so damn complicated. The insane can show amazing strength sometimes.” McGrale held up a finger for emphasis. “But let me repeat, insane, not criminally insane.”
Goldman let out a sigh. “I’ll talk to my client tomorrow. If I have to get the ball started on competency hearings, I’ll do it.”
“That’s fine, Goldman. Remember, though, I’m going to need the location of the body before I can agree to any deal.”
Goldman shook his head and laughed softly to himself. “You realize how nuts this is? To go to court to prove my client is mentally incompetent, but still not criminally insane?”
The waitress brought McGrale another scotch. He smiled sadly at it, knowing he had reached his limit. “If our office’s psychiatrist considers him criminally insane, I won’t fight a lifetime confinement to one of our fine mental institutions.”
Goldman finished his dinner, but stopped himself at three ales. He knew there were a number of police officers unhappy with him taking this case-as if he had any choice -who would be looking for a chance to pull him over for a DUI charge. After leaving McGrale, he sat in his car trying to make up his mind about something, then finally took out his cell phone and called his mother.
“Have we had first frost yet?” Goldman asked.
His mother sighed heavily. “I had just gotten into bed,” she complained. “You’re calling me at ten o’clock at night to ask me that?”
“Mom, please.”
“Well, if you had your own garden you’d already know the answer.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Yes, I know, you’re too busy as a hotshot lawyer to bother with a simple activity like gardening.”
Hotshot lawyer. He wanted to laugh. Public defender was nearer the bottom rung of the ladder, although this case could get his name in the paper. If it went to trial.
“Mom, please, can you just answer the question?”
“The answer is no. There hasn’t been a frost yet. But I’ll call you when we have one.”
“Thanks.”
After hanging up, he headed home. Before he had driven more than a few blocks, he turned his car around.
Goldman had left his car and was standing on the edge of Lorne Field. He had to admit that it was eerie standing out there under the full moon. The place had a desolate feel to it. No animal sounds, no birds or insects, nothing. That part of what Durkin had told him was true. But he also found himself disappointed that there was nothing growing there. The field was completely empty. Wolcott’s burnt-out jeep had been removed and there was nothing there but ashes from the fire. It made sense that there wouldn’t be any weeds growing there now, but it didn’t stop his disappointment. Goldman walked out into the field and could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He hurried back to his car, his heart racing with irrational fear. He could only imagine what spending four weeks alone out here could do to a man’s sanity, especially if you were already unhinged enough to believe that the weeds growing up where you slept were blood-thirsty monsters.
Chapter 13
The following morning Jack Durkin’s lawyer nudged him awake from a morphine-induced sleep to tell him about the deal being offered. Durkin refused. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t accept it,” he said irritably. “There ain’t no body. The Aukowies saw to that.”
His lawyer hunched over and stared at his hands. “Well, I guess that answers that,” he said. “Anyway, the state’s psychiatrist is going to be evaluating you-”