Escape (57 page)

She tried to call out on her cell phone but got no reception.
Okay, Marlene, the smart thing to do is wait for building security. They had to have seen something, and hopefully, Eric remembers to tell them not to shoot the Italian dona bella who just wants to find her kids.
She looked around the corner again with the compact.
Still nobody in the hall. But forget the smart thing; there's a killer on the loose around your kids. Cavalry's just going to have to catch up.

Marlene slipped quietly down the hall in her bare feet until she stood outside the cafeteria, where she paused to listen. The room was silent except for the hum of the lights and vending machines patiently waiting for a customer.

Entering, she saw where the body from the hall had been laid for a minute and then dragged back toward the kitchen. She followed the trail, taking a stainless steel fork off of one of the tables.
Better than nothing, and if somebody's hurt one of my kids, this fork is going to be plenty.

Marlene's heart sank when she reached the table where the two cops had been sitting. She'd known the Italian one from her old neighborhood—a good guy with a wife and a flock of kids. She could tell by the amount of blood that his wife was now a widow. She gripped the fork harder, hoping there would be somebody to stick it into.

The farther she went toward the kitchen, the more evidence of a massacre appeared: the cops' last meal; a red pool near a mop and bucket. Then she saw the two women behind the counter. Apparently, the killer or killers had given up trying to remove all the victims. There was plenty of blood beneath the swinging doors leading into the kitchen.

Steeling herself, Marlene went in. Saying a silent Our Father, she quickly moved to where the police officers had been laid side by side. She cursed when she saw that their service weapons had been removed from their holsters, then knelt down and felt around the calf of her former neighbor.

"Thanks, Joe," she whispered when she found what she'd hoped to. Like most "old school" cops, he carried a second gun in an ankle holster that the killer had failed to notice. It was a little .380, a regrettably small-caliber gun without much knock-down power in a shootout, but it felt a lot better in her hand than a fork. A pat-down discovered the other officer's second piece, also a .380.

Marlene walked out of the kitchen and back across the cafeteria. Whoever perpetrated the massacre obviously didn't care who he shot, and she was sure he wouldn't hesitate to kill two thirteen-year-old boys, a twenty-two-year-old woman, or an old man.

As she approached the door leading out of the cafeteria, she stopped. She could see a shadow creeping toward the door and flattened herself against the wall with the gun up, ready to blow the asshole to kingdom come.

Eric Eliaso came within a finger spasm of dying at his cousin's hand. "Jesus Christ, Marlene!"

"God dammit, Eric, don't you know enough not to sneak up on people? Did you alert security?"

"Hell no. I got up there and could see down the hall and poor Angela lying on the floor with blood all around her. I ducked back just as one of those cops we passed on the stairwell shut the door. He had his gun out but he didn't see me."

Marlene grabbed the mop that was lying on the floor and used it to knock a surveillance camera off its perch. "I think we can assume that the bad guys know we're here now. Did you tell any cops on the way down?"

"No, I didn't know who to trust after what I saw. I ran down here as fast as I could to warn you."

Marlene punched in a speed-dial number on her cell phone. "How far up do you have to get before you get reception?"

"Top of the stairs."

"Okay ... take this and when you get there, hit this number. When the guy answers, tell him it's going down now at the stock exchange and the MetroTech. Tell him I'm down here and will try to stop it. He'll know what to do. Got it?"

"Yeah, stock exchange, MetroTech, Marlene's fighting the bad guys."

"Okay, get going," she said, then held out one of the guns. "You know how to use one of these?"

Eric looked insulted. "Hey, I grew up in Queens with the Gotti family. I knew how to use one of those before I knew how to ride a bike."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot you were never an altar boy at Our Lady of the Roses," Marlene smiled.

"Not after I got caught drinking the Communion wine," he replied with a grin. "Better go."

"Watch out for those fake cops."

"Yeah, and you watch out for ... whoever it is you have to watch out for."

Linda Lewis watched Charlie Campbell hurry out of the courtroom trailed by reporters and then turned to the judge. "Your Honor, the defense rests." Karp glanced at the clock. Almost 1:30. He wondered how Marlene and the twins were doing at the stock exchange.
Hope they're having fun.
Apparently nothing was happening with Jaxon either; he'd asked Fulton to monitor the situation, but so far there'd been no word. Of course, the prince wasn't expected at Grand Central until 3, so it could be another hour and a half before something happened, whatever it was.

And we should be out of here by then. In the meantime, I need to focus on this trial.
He wondered if that was the way of the future—where the potential for terrorism had to be factored into everyday life.
Like in Israel.

Judge Dermondy explained to the jurors that since the prosecution had no rebuttal case, the trial would now move to the closing summations. "Once again, these are the lawyers' arguments, and should not be considered as evidence. It is up to each and every one of you to decide the case based on what you heard from the witness stand and learned from the exhibits received in evidence."

Karp watched the faces of the jurors. They looked tense, and some even appeared about to cry. They weren't supposed to discuss the case, even among themselves, until the judge sent them to deliberate, and their emotions already appeared about ready to boil over. He supposed the deliberations would be heated.

At the defense table, Linda Lewis sat with her eyes closed like a fighter summoning the energy for one last round. Meanwhile, Jessica Campbell seemed to be making finishing touches on whatever she'd been drawing. As far as he knew, no one had seen what it was except for Lewis, to whom she gave the sketch pad at the end of each day's proceedings.

When he looked at Jessica, Karp didn't see an evil person. Not like he did with some of the killers he'd prosecuted, or the sociopaths he'd tangled with, like Andrew Kane. But he did see someone who'd given in to violent impulses when she knew better and needed to take responsibility for her actions. He'd seen her tears splashing onto her drawing and recognized that she probably felt remorse. But for what? Most pf the murderers he'd known were sorry they'd killed, even if it was only because it had gotten them into trouble. It didn't matter ... in murder there were no take-backs, no second chances, no restitution.

Karp's glance went back to the Guppersteins sitting behind their daughter. He locked eyes with Ben Gupperstein; there didn't seem to be any recrimination in the other man's gaze, just profound sadness. His wife, who'd returned to her seat for the defense case, sat next to him with her head lying on his chest as if listening to his heartbeat.

Charlie had not returned.
The press is probably still picking at his bones,
Karp thought, turning around in his seat to face the back when he heard the courtroom door open. He smiled when he saw his guest and rose to get Moishe Sobelman's attention, pointing to the seat that he'd reserved for him in the first row behind the prosecution table in the gallery.

Sobelman waved and hurried to the proffered seat. Other spectators craned to see the little man who was getting such special attention from the district attorney. Was it Karp's dad? Maybe a surprise witness for the prosecution who was going to jump up and solve everything like in a Perry Mason movie?

"Sorry I was late," whispered Sobelman. "I had something to drop off."

"Not a problem. Glad you could make it."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world.... Justice needs witnesses."

"We're just about to hear the defense closing arguments."

"Ahhh, she is going to tell us what she wants the jury to believe."

"Yes, and then I'm going to tell the jury what's right."

"Miss Lewis, are you prepared to give your summation?"

The attorney rose, straightened her suit coat, and then placed a hand on Jessica's shoulder. "I am, your honor."

"Then proceed."

Lewis walked out in front of the jury box. She looked up at the ceiling as if asking for divine inspiration and then back at the jurors.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is a case about what Jessica Campbell believed. Maybe not what was reality, or would make sense to you and me, but what made sense in her sick, delusional mind. Please remember that.

"On that fateful March morning, Jessica Campbell rose from her bed determined to complete an unpleasant task that she
believed
God had given her. She
believed
that by doing so, she would be saving their souls from Satan. So she cooked breakfast for her husband and sent him on his way so that Charlie Campbell would not stop her from accomplishing that mission. Not because she thought that what she was doing was wrong. How could it be wrong if God said it was right? But because she
believed
that Charlie, whom she
believed
to be an evil man, would try to stop her from accomplishing God's will.

"Then, when he was gone, she called the nanny and told her not to come to work. Again, not because she
believed
that what she was doing was wrong, but because she
believed
that the nanny wouldn't understand God's plan and also might try to stop her from saving her children."

Lewis spent about twenty minutes going over the testimony of Drs. Winkler and Nickles. "Remember, Dr. Winkler diagnosed her with severe postpartum depression, but four years later, Dr. Nickles believed that her mental illness had progressed—or regressed, perhaps we should say— probably exacerbated by the birth of Benjamin, until the diagnosis was now the much more serious postpartum psychosis, specifically schizophrenia. And that the symptoms which led her to this conclusion included psychotic manifestations, such as hearing voices, and delusions. These convinced her that her false personal beliefs—that God was talking to her and telling her to 'send her children' to Him to save their souls—were real. It's important to remember here what Dr. Nickles recited from the
DSM
handbook, that one of the hallmarks of schizophrenia is that it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to know what is real and what is not."

Lewis paused to look back at her client, who for the first time in the trial seemed to be paying attention. "We concede that Jessica Campbell ended the lives of her children. However, we contend that she didn't see it as such. No, in her psychotic, delusional state, she believed that she was freeing their souls from their physical bodies so that they could go to heaven." Karp stood up. "Excuse me, Your Honor. There's been no testimony that the defendant thought any such thing."

"It's argument, your honor," Lewis contended. "I am trying to explain how the defendant's mind perceived her actions."

"I'll allow it," Dermondy said. "You, of course, are free to contradict defense counsel's arguments in your summation, Mr. Karp, and the jury is reminded, once again, to decide the case solely on the evidence."

Karp was not surprised by the judge's ruling. But
it doesn't hurt to alert the jury to what Lewis is doing,
he thought.

"Thank you, Your Honor." Lewis shot Karp an icy glare before facing the jury again. "You've heard a lot made of the fact that Jessica went through some efforts to 'cover up' this tragic event—that she cleaned the bathroom until it was spotless and, of course, placed the children in the footlocker, put it in her car, and ran it all into the river. And that she then refused to say where she had left the children's bodies. The prosecution offers this as proof that she knew that what she had done was wrong and that she was trying to avoid punishment.

"But surely, if she was thinking rationally, she could have come up with a better story than 'God told me to kill the kids and hide them.' But not if you understand how she was looking at it in her delusional state of mind. And in that state of mind, she believed that if Charlie or anybody else discovered the bodies, then the deal was off—their souls would not be safe.

"I know, it all sounds ... well, crazy ... but that's the point. We don't have to believe that Jessica Campbell heard the real voice of God. What matters is that Jessica
believes
that she did. And is there a higher moral authority than God?"

Walking slowly past the jury box, looking each juror in the eye, Lewis said, "I need you to be very honest with yourselves when you leave here to deliberate. I need every one of you to ask yourself a question. What if you truly believed that God had asked you to do something horrible—even something as terrible as sacrificing your children—and you were convinced that ultimately it was for a good reason, such as to save their souls from eternal damnation? Be honest, if you believed that this was true, what would you do? Tell God, 'No, I won't do it'? Could you say you would deny God?"

Lewis paused to look back at Jessica, who heaved a sigh but did not look up. "Jessica Campbell was a true believer."

She approached the bench. "Your Honor, I have a small slide presentation I'd like to show the jury. These are paintings and photographs of historical relevance to mental illness."

The judge looked at Karp. "Any objection?"

"None."

As the lights in the courtroom dimmed, the first slide appeared on a screen that had dropped from the ceiling. It was a black-and-white drawing of a medieval scene in which a screaming woman was tied to a post around which men in armor were lighting fires.

"So what should be done with Jessica Campbell?" asked Lewis as she changed to the next slide, another black-and-white drawing, this time of a wild-eyed, unkempt man being chased from a town by villagers throwing rocks and brandishing pitchforks. "In ancient times, people with mental illnesses were thought to be possessed by demons, or consorting with witches. Society dealt with them by stoning them to death, or burning them at the stake. Sick, delusional people who didn't know what was real and what was not were tortured into making confessions that they were in league with the Devil, and then eviscerated in public spectacles."

The slide was replaced by a painting Karp recognized as
Courtyard with Lunatics
by Francisco de Goya. Surrounded by a dark enclosure of stone, various characters crawled or writhed on the ground or huddled in fear. The focus was on two naked men who were wrestling while a third, clothed in dark apparel, beat them with a whip.

"Even when we evolved beyond murdering the mentally ill for a condition they could not help, our answer became 'lock them up.' ... We continued to punish them for an illness we did not understand. They were housed in such deplorable conditions, beaten and abused—that in those days, prison might have been a better choice."

Lewis's last slide was a photograph taken at a modem facility that depicted happy people participating in what appeared to be a group therapy session in a clean, well-lit room. "Obviously, we've come a long way. Today, enlightened people recognize that mental defects are like any other illness. They're not the patient's fault and in most cases can be treated ... just like we treat someone with cancer, or a heart condition."

As the lights came back up, Lewis turned toward the prosecution table. "We all recognize when someone is so stark raving mad that they need hospitalization. But what about those people whose suffering isn't so 'out there' or tangible? Unfortunately, even today, there are people who look at mental illness as something a person could just get over 'if they really wanted to.' These people look upon the severely depressed as being self-indulgent; the paranoid are 'just being silly,' and someone with delusional beliefs could just 'snap out of it'... if they really wanted to. But it's not as easy as that, is it? And fortunately the law is more enlightened than those people are. The law recognizes that mental illness can render a person incapable of forming the intent to commit a crime. And that's why it's up to the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant understood the nature and consequences of her action and also knew it was wrong. I submit to you that in the case of Jessica Campbell, the state has done neither."

Lewis walked back behind Jessica Campbell. "The task you have ahead of you is a hard one. You will look at the photographs of those poor, dead little children, and you will think about their terrible last moments here on Earth, and you will want revenge on their killer. But how do you punish a mental illness? Because, make no mistake, that is who the killer is, not Jessica Campbell. This thing inside of her mind is responsible, not their loving mother."

Lewis stood for a moment with her head down, then patted Jessica's shoulders. "We're not asking that you allow her to go free and resume her teaching career. She is still a very ill woman who will need hospitalization for a long time, especially as she comes to terms with what she did. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you want retribution for those children, understand that Jessica Campbell is going to be punished for the rest of her life.

"We just ask you to remember that we're not in the Dark Ages anymore. We don't stone mentally ill people to death, we don't burn them at the stake ... and we don't send them to prison where they can't get any help and will only get worse. We send criminals to prison, but we send ill people to hospitals. And for that reason we ask that you find Jessica Campbell not guilty by reason of insanity."