Eyes of a Child (55 page)

‘Is that what he was doing? Living on Teresa's salary?'

‘Of course.'

‘At the time you agreed to send him money for therapy, did he tell you that he had received ten thousand dollars from the
Inquisitor
for an article claiming that the defendant, Mr Paget, had stolen his wife?'

Sonia looked surprised, and then she gave Caroline a smile that was close to haughty. ‘It was an important human interest story, and Ricardo looked and sounded wonderful. Of course they wanted to write about him.'

‘Perhaps you didn't understand the question, Mrs Arias. Did Ricardo tell you that the
Inquisitor
paid him ten thousand dollars?'

The smile became a grimace of contempt. ‘I don't remember those kinds of details.'

‘Oh? Would you have paid for Ricardo's therapy if you knew he had ten thousand dollars? Or sent him the extra money he asked for, as you mentioned earlier?'

Sonia folded her arms. ‘Maybe I would have. I was Richie's mother, all right?
You
obviously don't know anything about what that's like.'

For a long time, Caroline simply stood and looked at her, feeling the jury watch. ‘No,' she said softly. ‘And I wouldn't wish your experience on anyone.'

The comment, quiet and ambiguous, hung there as Sonia stared from the witness box. ‘But you've reminded me to ask
you
something,' Caroline went on. ‘How well, I wonder, did you really know your son?'

Sonia raised her chin. ‘Very well, thank you.'

‘And yet you don't know if he stole from his employer, or cheated in high school, or was kicked out of his dorm for theft, or was fired by two law firms, or, for that matter, was flush with cash from the
Inquisitor
while you sent him money for counseling.'

Sonia looked past her now, at nothing. ‘I can't know things that aren't true, just because you say them to me.'

‘But what if they
are
true? Would you
still
say that you knew your son?'

‘I knew who he was at heart.'

Caroline shook her head. ‘In fact, isn't your testimony that Ricardo wouldn't kill himself based on your belief that the Ricardo you
saw
was the man he
was
?'

Sonia looked white and haggard; she clasped both shoulders as if holding herself together. ‘I
knew
my son.'

Caroline stood beside her now. ‘Isn't all you really knew about Ricardo Arias, from age eighteen to age thirty, whatever your son chose to tell you?'

All at once, Sonia Arias stood in the witness box. ‘Ricardo Arias had a passion for living,' she said in a shrill voice. ‘And I was there for him. This young man would never do a selfish thing like kill himself.'

Caroline watched the jury, looking at Sonia Arias with a kind of dread and pity. Marian Celler was pale; Luisa Marin's eyes had filled with tears.

‘No further questions,' Caroline said softly, and went back to her chair.

Approaching Sonia, Salinas seemed to walk with deliberate lightness, as if fearing to make noise. ‘Mrs Arias, do you remember when I showed you the handwritten note? An alleged suicide note, supposedly written by your son.'

Sonia seemed startled, as if interrupted from memory. ‘Yes. I remember.'

‘Do you also remember what you told me?'

‘That I couldn't recognize the handwriting.'

Salinas nodded. ‘And why was that?'

‘Because it had been so long since I'd seen it.' Suddenly Sonia smiled with a mother's fondness. ‘When Ricardo was seventeen, we saved to buy him a computer. We didn't have much money, but Richie made it all worthwhile. He was a wonder at it, and he loved typing so much that he even did shopping lists on the computer. Later, when he went away, every letter was typed – he was so good at graphics that he used it to make Christmas Cards. They were like art.' As if restored, Sonia faced the jury again. ‘Ricardo was a perfectionist. After that computer, he never handwrote anything. Like suicide, it was against his nature.'

Chapter
6

On the third morning of the trial, Victor Salinas called Richie's therapist as a prosecution witness.

Diana Gates was a composed brunette in her early forties, with short straight black hair and a pleasant snub-nosed face whose soft angles and wide-set brown eyes conveyed a certain professional reserve. But the jury could not know how hard Gates had fought against testifying.

From the outset, the therapist had refused to speak to either Monk or, once he discovered her existence, Johnny Moore. Her position was clear: under California law, conversations between therapist and patient are confidential. In Gates's mind, the privilege survived Richardo Arias. At eight o'clock this morning, urged by Salinas, Jared Lerner had ruled otherwise. No one knew what Gates would say.

What this told Christopher Paget was that Salinas was sufficiently confident Richardo Arias was not suicidal that he was willing to chance a terrible surprise: Salinas clearly intended to explore Richie's state of mind. For Paget, an endorsement of Richie's character by a professional, combined with a disparagement of Caroline's suicide theory, could be devastating.

Even the jury seemed to feel the tension. Most looked alert and a bit fidgety: notebook in hand, Joseph Duarte wrote something, scratched a line through it, and started over. Gates sat with her hands folded as Salinas established her advanced degrees and extensive experience in family therapy; she answered the questions and no more. Her expression never changed.

‘How long,' Salinas asked, ‘did you treat Ricardo Arias.'

‘Twice a week,' Gates answered, ‘for approximately four months. In other words, until his death.'

‘So you saw him how many times, roughly?'

‘Between thirty and forty sessions, an hour apiece.'

Sitting beside Paget, Caroline made a note of this. ‘When Mr Arias first came to you,' Salinas asked, ‘did he explain why he wanted therapy?'

Gates paused. ‘In general, Mr Arias's concerns related to his daughter, Elena. At first, he wondered if
I
might perform the family evaluation if it came to that. But I was able to persuade him that I might be more helpful in an individual capacity.'

There was something, Paget sensed, buried in the bland response. Salinas seemed to hear it as well: the prosecutor hesitated and then skipped to the heart of things. ‘In the course of seeing Mr Arias, Dr Gates, did you form an opinion as to whether he was prone to suicide?'

Caroline looked up from her notes. Although she could well have objected, she did not. The courtroom was completely still.

‘It wasn't my mission,' Gates responded, ‘to determine whether or not Mr Arias was suicidal. I made no effort to.'

A moment's frustration crossed Salinas's face. ‘But sometime in these thirty to forty hours, didn't you form an impression of Mr Arias's personality?'

‘An impression? Yes.' Gates lowered her eyelids in thought and then looked directly at Salinas. ‘I'd prefer to put it this way. Nothing I saw gave me reason to consider that Mr Arias might take his own life.'

Paget saw Joseph Duarte write the comment in his notebook and then appear to underline it. Salinas moved forward with new confidence. ‘Did you see any characteristics in Mr Arias which
contradict
the idea that he killed himself?'

Gates seemed to reflect. ‘The thrust of our conversations, Mr Salinas, was forward-looking. Mr Arias was determined to maintain custody of his daughter and brimming with ideas for doing that. And he wanted to know all about the evaluation process.' Gates paused abruptly and then finished, ‘The idea of suicide never crossed my mind.'

Caroline's face, Paget noticed, had the carefully schooled blankness of a lawyer whose client was taking a beating. ‘Did you have a sense,' Salinas was asking, ‘as to whether Mr Arias was depressed by the breakup of his marriage?'

Gates considered this. ‘“Depressed”' is not the word I'd use. He was deeply offended that Ms Peralta had chosen to leave him. He also expressed concern that his daughter had been molested.'

‘How did Richie react to this concern?'

Gates sat back. ‘By trying to educate himself. Mr Arias asked me detailed questions about the signs of possible molestation, how likely a child would be to verbalize her feelings, how this might be analyzed and treated. He also asked me to recommend reading on the subject and, when I did, read
everything
and discussed it with me at some length.'

‘I take it, then, that Mr Arias took the charges regarding Elena very seriously.'

Gates appeared to study Salinas. ‘Mr Arias seemed very much to want my help.'

‘Indeed,' Salinas pressed on, ‘Mr Arias seemed to take the
process
seriously, correct?'

Gates gave Salinas the same inscurtable look. ‘Mr Arias always scheduled in advance, was always on time, and was always focused the entire hour. I would say that Mr Arias was very engaged in what he was trying to accomplish.'

‘Again, Dr Gates, would you consider these behaviors consistent with suicide?'

‘I would not.'

Paget leaned toward Caroline. ‘She talks about Richie as if he were a specimen. Think it's just her?'

‘I don't know,' Caroline murmured. ‘But there's
something
going on here. Just what did they
do
for those thirty to forty hours?'

‘In your fifteen years of practice,' Salinas was asking, ‘have you treated people with suicidal tendencies?'

For the first time, Gates dropped her gaze. ‘Two people I saw,' she said quietly, ‘took their own lives. A teenage girl, and a wife and mother. Those were two of the hardest experiences of my life, to the extent that my feelings matter in such circumstances.' She looked up. ‘Beyond that, Mr Salinas, I've treated a number of people who I felt were potentially self-destructive. It's something I'm very aware of, all the more because I've lost patients.'

Salinas nodded his understanding. ‘And are there characteristics you associate with potential suicide?'

Gates seemed to exhale; the troubled look in her eyes seemed to humanize her. ‘There's no one-size-fits-all prescription. But in general, I associate a higher risk with such things as extreme depression, self-loathing, radical mood swings, perhaps some feeling that the world is beyond the person's control. . . .' She paused again. ‘Those factors were present, to a greater or lesser degree, in the two patients who took their lives.'

‘Did you observe any of those characteristics in Mr Arias?'

Gates shook her head. ‘None. In many ways, Mr Arias's self-esteem was extremely high – if anything, he seemed unusually resilient and resourceful.'

Salinas paused a moment, letting the jury absorb Gates's answer. ‘When did you last
see
Mr Arias?'

‘I believe it was on a Thursday, which I understand was one day before the last day
anyone
saw him. Our appointments were generally for Monday and Thursday, and before leaving he confirmed that he'd see me on Monday. So that I was quite surprised when he didn't show up.'

‘On that last Thursday, how did he seem?'

‘The same, really – Mr Arias's demeanor never changed much. He seemed generally upbeat, but very determined to maintain custody of Elena, and quite satisfied with his recent court filings, which were aimed at barring Elena from contact with Mr Paget or his son.' Gates leaned back. ‘He
did
seem quite angry with Ms. Peralta for sticking with her plans to go to Italy. He didn't feel she was reacting properly to the papers he had filed.'

‘Did he seem in a state of despair or depression?'

‘Not in my observation.'

Salinas turned to a brisk young woman who had joined him at the prosecution table. Within seconds, she and Judge Lerner's deputy had materialized an easel, on which she placed a photograph blowup of a handwritten note.
I am ending my life
, the note read,
because I have faced what I am
.

What I am is selfish and pathetic.

The handwriting itself, irregular and childlike, had a certain haunting quality. Staring at the note, Gates seemed for the first time to be deeply troubled.

‘As the defense has stipulated,' Salinas told her, ‘this is a note found near Mr Alias's body, next to a photograph of Elena. I take it that you don't recognize the handwriting?'

‘No, I've never seen Mr Arias's writing, except on checks. I never studied it.'

‘But do those words, Dr Gates, correspond with Mr Arias's self-imagine as you perceived it?'

Reading with her, the jury was two rows of attentive faces: Luisa Marin seemed to scan the note over and over. ‘I don't believe this is how he saw himself,' Gates answered quietly. ‘Or how he would wish others to see him.' There was something fearful in her eyes now, as if she had come face-to-face with the reality that her patient had been murdered. ‘I simply can't believe,' she said at last, ‘that the man I saw on Thursday would turn around and write this.'

As she slowly rose, Caroline felt tense. She had never before questioned a prosecution witness without studying his or her statement to the police, carefully designing her cross-examination. But this witness had no statement: Gates, a smart professional with no ax to grind, had just done Chris Paget grievous harm, and Caroline had no path to follow. She had only the sense, instinctive and half formed, that something lay beneath the surface of Gates's answers.

‘In meeting with Mr Arias,' Caroline began, ‘did you explore his family background?'