Waving my hand in the air, I turned away, cutting her off before she could finish. “No more questions of this witness, your honor.”
I had shown anger and contempt; Loescher made a show of boredom and indifference. She got to her feet, managing to make even that seem an effort, then shook her head and sighed. Facing the witness with an apologetic smile, she asked two or three questions designed to underscore the fact that the widow of Judge Jeffries had no knowledge about either the defendant or the murder of Quincy Griswald. Then, when she was finished, she looked at me with a puzzled expression and shook her head again, as if she was trying to understand what in the world I thought I was doing wasting the jury’s time like this. Smiling smugly to herself, she sat down.
There were only two witnesses left to call, unless I decided finally to call the defendant himself. One of them was waiting in the hall; the other one was supposedly on his way to the courthouse. I wondered if Elliott Winston would ever actually arrive.
“The defense calls Dr. Melvin Friedman,” I announced before the wife of Calvin Jeffries had reached the door at the back of the courtroom. If the name of her former husband’s doctor meant anything to her, she did not show it. With her head held high she opened the door and let herself out, as certain as she had ever been that every eye was still on her.
With an armload of file folders, Dr. Friedman, a nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth, pushed through the gate in the railing at the front of the courtroom. In doubt what to do with the documents he carried, he looked up at the judge. Bingham smiled, nodded to his clerk, waited until she had relieved Friedman of his burden, and smiled again.
“Dr. Friedman,” I asked, “you’re here under subpoena, correct?”
He tugged on the lapel of his lightweight tan sports jacket, then straightened his slacks. “Yes, that’s correct,” he said, pulling his shirt cuff.
“You were also served with a subpoena duces tecum, requiring that you produce certain documents in court today. Do you have those documents with you?”
“Yes. The clerk has them,” he replied, pulling on the other cuff.
“There is a patient at the state hospital by the name of Chester MacArthur?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have his file with you?”
“That was one of the ones I was told to bring.”
The clerk, at my instruction, handed him the file.
“Chester MacArthur was a high school history teacher who thought he was a soldier in Vietnam, and he murdered a man-
an insurance salesman, I believe-who was walking to his car in a parking structure because MacArthur thought he was Vietcong.
Am I right, Dr. Friedman?”
Clutching the file on his lap, Friedman agreed.
“He hid in the garage, waiting, and then slashed his throat with a knife, didn’t he?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Leaning against the front edge of the table, I pointed toward the file he was holding. “Can you tell us if during his incarcera-tion in the state hospital Chester MacArthur has ever been let out?”
He did not need to check; he had already done it-checked and no doubt double-checked-after I obtained a court order compelling him to show me what was in MacArthur’s file.
“During a period of eight months he participated in a standard community release program. This is part of a supervised effort to help patients make the transition back into society,” he explained to the jury.
“How often was he let out under this program?”
“Patients are let out three days every other week at the beginning, gradually increasing to a week at a time, sometimes longer, depending on how well they adjust to life outside.”
“MacArthur is no longer in that program, is he?”
“No. He found it too difficult. He didn’t think he was ready yet.”
I told Dr. Friedman the date on which Quincy Griswald had been killed. “Chester MacArthur was out then, wasn’t he?”
Opening the file, Friedman fumbled through the pages. “Yes, he was.” He held his finger on the page as he looked up. “He was out for two weeks that time.”
“It was the last time, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right, it was, but-”
“This release program: Isn’t that the same program Jacob Whittaker was on?” Friedman seemed to hesitate. “You were asked to bring that file as well. If you need to consult it, I’ll have the clerk give it to you.”
“No, that’s right,” he said, nodding abruptly. “It was the same program.”
“Only Jacob Whittaker didn’t come back, did he? He murdered Calvin Jeffries and then killed himself, didn’t he?”
Pressing his lips together, Friedman looked down at his hands.
“I’m afraid so.” His head bounced up. “But there’s no reason to think that Chester MacArthur did the same thing.”
“They were both in the forensic ward of the state hospital, weren’t they? And both of them had killed before, hadn’t they?”
Before he could respond, I added, “And both of them were there with Elliott Winston, weren’t they?”
“We have hundreds of patients in the forensic ward, many of them in that transition program we were just discussing.”
“What is Chester MacArthur’s middle name, Dr. Friedman?”
“William.”
“Does anyone ever call him Billy?”
It seemed to surprise him that I knew. “Yes. It’s the name he prefers. He doesn’t like the name Chester. He thinks it’s too formal. His father insisted on always calling him that. He associates it with authority.”
“Elliott Winston calls him Chester, doesn’t he?”
Friedman shrugged. “You may be right. I really don’t know.”
“You don’t know? I see. Well, tell us this: How long does someone have to be a patient at the state hospital before they become eligible for this release program we were talking about?”
He wanted to make it sound as safe as he could. “Quite a long time. A patient would have to be very near the end of the time for which he had been committed, and even then only if he was not considered a danger to others. Unfortunately,” he added, deciding to bring it up before I did, “in the case of Jacob Whittaker a mistake was made. When you’re dealing with the human mind you’re dealing with something that is always going to be something of a mystery.”
Pushing away from the table, I closed the distance between us until I was just a step away. “But it’s not such a mystery that you don’t routinely decide which people are sane and which are not, is it?”
“I meant the individual case, trying to decide precisely what is wrong with someone who isn’t sane, and what can be done to help them.”
“Elliott Winston: What is precisely wrong with him?”
Knitting his brow, Friedman slowly nodded. “Paranoid schizophrenia.”
“Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure of that?” I asked, staring hard at him. “Whatever may or may not be wrong with Elliott Winston, Dr. Friedman, he’s different from the other patients at the state hospital, isn’t he?”
“In what way?”
“More intelligent.”
“He’s quite intelligent, that’s true,” he answered cautiously.
“Quite intelligent? This isn’t a staff meeting, Dr. Friedman.
This isn’t some academic seminar on abnormal psychology. This is a court of law, and you’re under oath. Elliott Winston is more intelligent than any patient you have, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is.”
“And he’s the most interesting case you have, isn’t he?”
“Well, I don’t know if I can… But, yes, he’s an extremely interesting case.”
“Within that group-that collection of mentally disturbed people-some of them would no doubt be particularly susceptible to suggestion, wouldn’t they? Made to believe that certain things were true, even though they weren’t; made to believe it the same way we believe in certain things, the things we’re willing to die for?”