Blind Spot (42 page)

Kenneth unlocked the door and Suki went in alone. She walked over to her sleeping daughter and sat down beside her. She touched Alexa’s silky cheek. “Honey,” she whispered. “Wake up.”

Alexa groaned and rolled over. She opened her eyes and blinked up at her mother. “Huh? What?” she asked, her voice bleary with sleep.

“It’s over,” Suki said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Let’s go home.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

S
uki had never liked testifying at the Concord courthouse, officially known as the District Court of Central Middlesex County, although no one ever called it that. The low-slung building was modern enough and the clientele much less gritty than in many of the courts in which she worked, yet there was something in the hollow echo of the brick walls, in the sharp shadows cast by the halogen lights, in the cavernous spaces, that always made her wish she were somewhere else. But, at the moment, Suki was just glad she was in Concord for Lindsey’s trial rather than for Alexa’s arraignment. She was also glad to be here at all; she was almost half an hour late.

Everything had conspired against her this morning, and after the frenzy of the weekend, she had been a predictable loser in her battle with the clock. Kyle couldn’t find his biology notebook. Alexa had a case of nerves about going back to school. The spark plugs on her car got wet and she had to dry them, one by one, with the towel she kept in the carport for that purpose. And then there had been an accident on Route 2 that tied up traffic for miles. Suki slammed the Celica’s door and, without locking it, raced for the courthouse, the heels of her navy blue “testimony” shoes clacking against the concrete.

Mike had said to be there before nine, that she was his first witness of the day. It was almost nine-thirty, and Suki hadn’t thought about Lindsey Kern since she fed the last page of her evaluation into the fax machine on Saturday afternoon. Saturday afternoon. Two days ago. A lifetime ago.

As she raced across the courthouse anteroom, her echoing footsteps were a harsh admonition that despite all that had happened, all the good and all the bad, all the horror and all the relief, she still had work to do, a family to support. The New Zealand frontier patrol had been, as yet, unable to find Stan. Work, she reminded herself. Work. She tried to orient herself in Lindsey’s case, in the MRI and EEG and MMPI, in the history of mental instability, in Lindsey’s strange version of Richard Stoddard’s death. Suki squared her shoulders and raised her chin. Although it wasn’t ideal, she knew she could handle this without her usual compulsive pretestimony preparation. She was a pro.

Brick walls rose at least three stories to a brick ceiling over a brick floor. Mike had said the trial was in the small round courtroom, but Suki wasn’t familiar enough with the layout to know which door led to which room. She pulled open the first door she saw, but the room was large, square and empty. She went to the next and opened it. Mike was standing at the defense table and when he saw her, he turned to the judge. “Your Honor,” he said, “I call my first witness, Dr. Suzanne Jacobs.”

Suki walked swiftly, but calmly, past the almost empty gallery pews, through the swinging gate, and into the well of the courtroom. A lone reporter fiddled absently with his notepad, one lanky leg stretched along the pew to his left. Suki smiled at him, and then at Lindsey, who looked startlingly attractive—and startlingly normal—in street clothes. Mike led her past the jury to the witness stand, a waist-high wooden enclosure in which she was to literally stand. She nodded to the judge, an unusually young man she hadn’t met before. He couldn’t be more than forty.
HONORABLE MATTHEW F. JAFFEE
, read the engraved nameplate before him. She looked around her; the courtroom had no windows.

Mike took her coat and threw it over the railing behind Lindsey. “Where the hell have you been?” he muttered.

“Accident on Route Two,” she whispered as the bailiff came forward to swear her.

“Dr. Jacobs,” Mike began when the bailiff retreated, “are you a duly licensed psychologist of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?”

“I am.”

The ADA stood. His name was Juan Gomez, and Suki had worked with him at Roxbury Court. He was a smart man with a good heart, and Suki was sorry to see he had transferred out: they needed all the good hearts they could get down there. “We’ll stipulate the doctor’s qualifications, if Your Honor please.” Juan winked at Suki. She smiled in return, relaxing into the familiar game.

Judge Jaffee nodded. “Proceed.”

“Now, Doctor,” Mike said with all the deference to be expected of an attorney questioning his star witness, “did you have the occasion to examine Lindsey Kern, the defendant in this proceeding?”

“I did.”

“When and where did you examine her?”

“At MCI-Watkins.” Suki frowned as she tried to remember exactly how many times she had interviewed Lindsey. Damn. This was the kind of thing she always checked before testifying. “Five—no, six times over the past four weeks. Beginning on Thursday, April twentieth.” April twentieth. The day Kenneth had found Alexa wandering by the side of the road, convinced Jonah was dead.

“Since that time,” Mike said, “have you examined Ms. Kern’s medical and psychiatric records?”

“Yes.”

“Did you also review the police reports of the alleged incident and the trial transcripts from
Commonwealth v Kern
?”

“I did.”

“And did you interview Ms. Kern to solicit her account of the alleged offense?”

“Yes, I did,” Suki said.
Richard and I were standing on the top of the stairs … Isabel saw her opening and gave him a push.…
Suki could, once again, see the pain in Lindsey’s eyes. At the time, she had been so sure Lindsey was describing a delusion.

“Did you conduct a psychological assessment of Ms. Kern and petition for a battery of neurological tests to be performed?”

“Yes.” Suki thought of Lindsey’s inconclusive test scores, of the Tegretol that hadn’t worked, of how fuzzy the line between sanity and insanity really was.

“Now,
Dr
. Jacobs,” Mike paused for effect, “after studying the record, after interviewing Ms. Kern, after analyzing her test scores, did you form a conlusion based upon your own knowledge, training and years of experience in the field of forensic psychology? Have you formed an opinion as to Lindsey Kern’s mental condition at the time of the alleged offense?”

Suki looked at Lindsey, seated at the defense table in her dark blue suit. Lindsey smiled at Suki and mouthed the words, “I’m glad about Alexa.” She made a fist with her right hand and raised her thumb. Her left hand, attached to the right by a handcuff, flopped on the table.

Suki was wrenched by the sight of Lindsey in shackles. This was justice? She thought about PIN numbers and Finlay Thompson being found near water. She thought of fire and danger and the Hebrew letter aleph. She thought of Jonah and Charlie Gasperini.

Reality is at the edges of your awareness, you just need to let yourself turn sideways a bit to see it.

Based on Alexa’s precognitive prediction, Suki had concluded Warren had seen Jonah’s murder. And, although Warren still claimed he had nothing to do with the fire, he had confessed to making and selling methamphetamine, and admitted he had indeed witnessed the shooting. His sworn statement, affirming Alexa was driving and the gun was fired from the passenger seat, had led to Devin McKinna’s arrest and Alexa’s release. Apparently, after doing meth, Brendan had talked Devin into taking his father’s gun and using it to scare Jonah in retaliation for what Jonah had done to Alexa—and things had escalated from there. Just as Alexa had said: Warren Blanchard was a man to be feared. And just as Lindsey had predicted: the man who Alexa feared was the one who ultimately freed her.

There’s so much happening beyond your field of vision. So much you just don’t let yourself believe.…

“Dr. Jacobs?” Mike’s voice pulled Suki from her reverie. “Have you, or have you not, formed an opinion as to Ms. Kern’s mental condition?”

Suki opened her mouth, but couldn’t find her voice. How could she change her mind now? That was certain death for her career—and her family’s already precarious financial stability. A forensic psychologist who submitted a written evaluation with one opinion and testified to another, would be blackballed by every ADA and lawyer in the state. It was a small, closed community, and it was certain, if Suki did this, she would never be hired to perform a court evaluation again.

A knowing smile played around Lindsey’s mouth. “Go with your gut,” she mouthed to Suki. “Go with your gut.”

“
Do you think she’s crazy because she believes in the paranormal
?” Alexa had asked.

“
There are lots of people who believe in the paranormal. It alone doesn’t make a person crazy
,” Suki had replied.

“Dr. Jacobs?” Mike’s voice was rising in alarm. He put his hands on the railing and leaned toward her. “Suki,” he hissed. “What’s going on here? Are you all right?”

Suki couldn’t look at him. After all Mike had done, for both Alexa and for her, how could she let him down? She shifted her gaze over his shoulder, straight at Lindsey, who looked straight back, her wide gray eyes clear, full of compassion. Lindsey knew what she was going through.

Suki’s mind raced. If she changed her testimony, she could very well be consigning Lindsey to Watkins, to ten more years of shackles, of being beat up by thugs, of no hope. But was Bridgeriver State really a better alternative? Lindsey didn’t deserve either. She wasn’t guilty of anything except believing the unbelievable.

“Let me refresh your memory,
Dr
. Jacobs,” Mike said as he strode to the defense table and grabbed a file. “Did you, or did you not, write the following: ‘I, Suzanne Jacobs, conclude that, due to a substantial disorder of perception which grossly diminished her capability to recognize reality, Lindsey Kern was significantly impaired in her ability to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law at the time of the death of Richard Stoddard.’” He marched to the witness stand. “Did you, or did you not, state that Lindsey Kern was legally insane at the time Richard Stoddard was killed?”

“I did.” Suki kept her eyes on Lindsey, who smiled slightly and then nodded, as if giving Suki permission to go ahead. It was Lindsey sitting at the table across from her, but Suki also saw her mother and Alexa. And the Hebrew letter aleph.

Mike cleared his throat. “And did you not also write: ‘I shall so state, under oath, in the forthcoming trial of Lindsey Kern.’”

“I did.” Suki shifted her gaze to the jury, to the fifteen men and women who held Lindsey’s fate in their hands. She knew her testimony could keep Lindsey in prison, send her to a mental institution, or maybe even free her. She had the power to load the gun with the bullets of her choice. Yet, Suki also knew her testimony wasn’t about power, it was about truth and opening her mind to possibilities she had thought impossible. She hadn’t believed her mother and she hadn’t believed Alexa. It was time to believe.

Lindsey raised her elbows to the defense table and rested her chin on her manacled hands. She watched Suki intently, occasionally nodding her head, as if she were reading, and responding to Suki’s thoughts.

“And this is your opinion as a result of your forensic evaluation of the defendant, Lindsey Kern?” Mike pressed.

“
Just because we can’t explain it
,” Kenneth had once told Suki, “
doesn’t mean it didn’t happen
.”

Suki turned to the jury. “Reality is at the edges of your awareness,” she said in answer to Mike’s question. “You just need to let yourself turn sideways a bit to see it.”

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” Mike snapped.

“It means,” Suki grinned at Lindsey, who grinned in return, “that I’ve changed my mind.”

EPILOGUE

S
uki turned off the highway and drove up to Watkins. In the full spring sunlight, the metal fencing surrounding the prison didn’t look all that intimidating, nor the turrets particularly menacing. The German shepherds scampering on the grass to the side of the parking lot seemed more like playful puppies than guard dogs. Attitude sure did define the world. She shot a glance at Alexa, who was sitting beside her, staring at the barbed wire and the turrets and the dogs, a stunned expression on her face; as Suki had feared, Alexa’s trauma was not over—and might never be. “We can go home if you want,” she offered gently. “I don’t mind at all.”

“They would’ve sent me here, huh?”

Suki pulled into a parking spot and turned to Alexa. “Yes,” she said. “But no one’s sending you here now. You say the word and we’re gone.”

Alexa shook her head. “I want to see Lindsey.”

Suki nodded, although she wasn’t crazy about the idea. Even though the jury
had
found Lindsey not guilty. Even if the paranormal
was
possible. This was something Alexa needed to do, and Suki respected that. She climbed out of the car and Alexa followed, but slowly. Suki turned and put her arm around her daughter. “No one will ever make you come here,” she said. “It’s over.”

Alexa raised her eyes as the shadow of the boxy building fell over them. “It could’ve happened,” she said. “Look at Lindsey.”

Suki knew Alexa was right. In many ways, it had all been serendipity: Warren’s arrest, Alexa’s release, Lindsey’s freedom. Or had it been something more? Suki didn’t know, and probably never would, although she was now mindful enough to keep herself open to possibilities. She was also mindful that given a small change in an event here or an action there, Warren’s and Alexa’s and Lindsey’s lives would now be on completely different tracks. And this was especially true of Lindsey.

After Suki’s testimony, the courtroom had broken into pandemonium. Mike was enraged, the jury confused, Juan Gomez amused, and the bored reporter, who turned out to be from the
Boston Herald
, the city’s tabloid daily, suddenly became quite engaged. Juan declined to cross-examine, and as Suki stepped down from the stand, Lindsey flashed her another thumbs-up. But as Mike handed her her coat, he had hissed under his breath, “You better find yourself a new profession,
Dr
. Jacobs, because I’m going to make sure this is the last courtroom you ever testify in.”