Murder Suicide (10 page)

Dr. Snow was seen in my office on Ellison 7 at the Massachusetts General Hospital for all testing.  He is a tall, attractive man who was affable throughout our meetings.  His flow of thought was normal and he showed a marked absence of anxiety (See below).  He was curious about the rationale for each of the tests being administered, but not intrusive.  He did show a tendency to question whether his evaluator was skilled in psychological assessment, including asking my educational history and number of years of experience.  That said, he was compliant and forthcoming in every regard.

RESULTS OF TESTING:

Results of Dr. Snow’s WAIS-III intelligence testing reveals an extremely bright and intellectual man.  Verbal and nonverbal reasoning is in the extremely gifted range, with an IQ score well into the range of genius, at 165.

The WAIS also disclosed an ability to think in both a data-oriented way, as well as in a more abstract way.  His technical know-how, in other words, does not limit his creativity.  This duality is highly unusual and no doubt explains Dr. Snow mastering a complex scientific discipline and then being able to apply that discipline in new and ‘inventive’ ways.

Results of projective and objective personality testing (including the MMPI), however, did reveal certain limitations.  He displays a marked tendency toward self-criticism and criticism of others.  He dwells far more on his own deficits than his strengths and is similarly focused on the failings of others.  He defines many of the characters in stories presented to him as ‘flawed’ or ‘not worthwhile.’  People are held to ideal, rather than realistic, standards of conduct.  Intelligence is lauded, but only when it reflects genius.  Any lower level of intelligence is denigrated.  Ideals of physical beauty are prized.  Physical shortcomings are exaggerated.

These themes continued to be evidenced on the Rorschach.  Dr. Snow saw many of the cards as representing ‘chaos’ or ‘a storm,’ indicating his lack of comfort with the symmetrical, but randomly generated patterns.  On one of the most colorful cards, he commented, “Maybe a garden.  Not well-conceived.  A hodgepodge.  One thing bleeding into another.”

Interestingly, disorder did not cause Dr. Snow to experience anxiety, but rather a heightened level of activation closer to irritability.  He likened the emotion to that he experiences while inventing.  He stated that thinking up the right answer to a problem requires rejecting the wrong ones, including those that are strictly correct, but mediocre solutions.  These imperfect ideas, he said “do make me angry, angry enough to kill them off — especially when they’re mine.”  It is a feeling he enjoys and which he links quite directly with the onset of his creative genius.

This emphasis on the need for perfection and order can lead Dr. Snow to ruminative, self-absorbed thinking.  People are expected to “make everything they can of themselves” and to keep their emotions from ruling their intellect.  When they do not, they are seen as ‘weak’ or ‘damaged,’ particularly if their behavior causes him additional stress.

Dr. Snow’s Thematic Apperception Test stories bear this out.  For example, he generated the following narrative in response to a picture of a young child pondering a violin:

He’s thinking about Mendelssohn, what he did with a violin, and wondering if he could make music like that.  There’s always hope.  Maybe he’s gifted.  And there’s no way to find out other than to play.  But it takes a lot of courage.  I mean, who really wants to find out you fit in with the high school band?

When I challenged Dr. Snow on this type of elitist thinking, he justified his feelings as reflecting that of society as a whole, “even if no one cares to admit it.”  In his words:

Why don’t they broadcast pickup games of basketball at the local park?  Because nobody cares.  They’re irrelevant.  All that really matters is the NBA, and then only the world champions, and then only the superstar at the center of that team.  That’s what every pickup game and high school game and college game across America is feeding.  All that energy gets sucked to the very top, like a root system, so that we can witness a three-point shot in the last two seconds of the final game on CBS and stand on our feet, which is a way of worshiping — worshiping greatness, which is just a reflection of God.

Dr. Snow views his own work in precisely the same way.  He shuns group process, is his own harshest critic, and judges his performance against the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Bill Gates.

SUMMARY

In conclusion, it could certainly be said that a different man might tolerate Dr. Snow’s epilepsy and reject the risks of surgery which he accepts.  He has always considered his seizures “a profound weakness,” going so far as to label them ‘grotesque.’  But this harsh vision of his pathology does not rise to the level of a delusion and should not impact his ability to consent to a procedure designed to remedy it.

Dr. Snow’s intellect, memory and concentration are intact.  There is no clear evidence suggesting a thought disorder or psychotic condition.  I consider him competent.

Should Dr. Snow be denied his surgery by the Ethics Committee, I would be concerned how his mental status might be impacted.  There is some chance he could come to reject the notion of living out his days with his disorder.

More than ever, Clevenger had trouble believing Snow would end up alone in an alleyway the morning of his surgery, having lost courage.  Neither Urkevic nor Sklar had detected any depression, or history of it, that could explain him becoming suicidal.  He wasn’t an anxious man.  He had a positive, perhaps even grandiose self-image, and his anger was directed at his imperfections, many of which he was about to rid himself of.  He was not only killing off the parts of his brain responsible for his seizures, but the parts of his memory responsible for much of his suffering, the parts that tied him to flawed relationships.  He had to feel euphoric.

The phone rang.  He picked up.  "Clevenger."

"How you doing?" Mike Coady asked.

Clevenger heard something genuine in Coady’s tone.  "Hanging in there," he said.

"Good.  That’s good."  He paused.  "I’m down here at the Medical Examiner’s office with Jeremiah Wolfe.  He’s into the autopsy on Grace Baxter."

"And?"

"She had food in her stomach.  She ate within an hour of her death."

Which didn’t exactly square with a suicidal panic.  But it didn’t absolutely rule it out, either.  He wondered why Coady was really calling.  "So she decided to have a last meal," he said.  "So what?"

"I’m sure that happens."

"Without a doubt."

"But it’s strange, all the same."

He wasn’t sure where Coady was headed, or why he wouldn’t go straight there.  "Okay, it’s strange."

"So Jeremiah took a very close look at her stomach contents.  He came up with a pill fragment, matched it up with one of those photos in the doctor’s reference book."

"The Physician’s Desk Reference," Clevenger said.

"Turns out this pill fragment he found looks like a match with a vitamin pill — something called Materna."

Clevenger’s heart sank.  "That’s a prenatal vitamin," he said softly.

Coady didn’t answer right away.  "The ultrasound shows she’s, uh...  She was about three months.  Maybe a little more."

"Three months," Clevenger repeated.

"So, I don’t know, maybe there’s something to what you were saying.  I’m not psychiatrist, but I don’t see a woman taking one of those vitamins before she kills herself.  And I can’t quote the stats, but I wouldn’t think pregnant women kill themselves all that often, to begin with."

"No.  No, they don’t."

"Because they’ve got the birth to look forward to and all that.  Right?  There’s another life to think about."

Clevenger thought he heard Coady’s voice break toward the end of that sentence.  He wanted to give him the chance to say what he was feeling.  "I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this work," he said.

Coady didn’t take him up on the invitation.  "There is the suicide note, though."

"I’d like a copy of that."

"I’ll get it to you."  He cleared his throat.  "I have no hard evidence implicating George Reese in his wife’s death," he said.  "And I still think that’s a huge stretch to figure him for a double homicide in a twelve-hour period.  It would be an incredibly foolish plan, and he’s no fool.  I still see Snow alone in that alleyway."

Clevenger didn’t want to argue the point.  "George Reese isn’t the only one who might have been enraged over the affair," he said.  "I haven’t interviewed anyone in Snow’s family yet."

"When will that happen?"

"I’d like it to happen tomorrow."

"I’ll set it up.  I can bring Reese in for questioning anytime.  But the more we know about his wife’s relationship with John Snow from other sources, the better."

"Sounds like we’re on the same page," Clevenger said.

Coady didn’t grab that olive branch, either.  "One other thing," he said.  "Reese made a threat after you left."

"What kind of threat?"

"He said you should be on your way to the morgue, not his wife."

"Thanks for letting me know."

"I can offer police protection based on that," Coady said.  "He’s a man with resources."

"Thanks, but no," Clevenger said.

"I didn’t think you’d take me up on it."  His voice trailed off.  "Three, three-and-a-half months, you can’t save a child, right?  Even four."

Clevenger closed his eyes.  He realized Coady was worried whether he should have done anything to save Grace’s baby.  It was an irrational thought — he hadn’t even known she was pregnant at the time — but the irrational thoughts were the ones with the power to burn holes in your gut.  "No," Clevenger said.  "The child couldn’t have survived."  He knew Coady would need something even more definitive than that for when the doubt came back in the night — maybe not that night, maybe in six weeks, or six years.  "No chance," he said.  "Zero."

"’Course not," Coady said, recovering.  He cleared his throat.  "Talk to you tomorrow."

Chapter 8

January 13, 2004

Clevenger got a call just after 7:00
A.M.
from Mike Coady telling him he was cleared to meet with the Snow family at their home on Brattle Street, in Cambridge, at 10:00
A.M.
   Before starting over, he stopped at police headquarters and picked up the envelope Coady had left for him.  Inside was a copy of Snow’s journal, along with five floppy discs of the files found on Snow’s laptop.

He got to Harvard Square at 9:35 and parked on Massachusetts Avenue, half a mile from the Snow’s house.  He opened the envelope, took out the hundred or so sheets of paper.

The first thing that struck him was the heading on the first page:  Renaissance, French for rebirth.  The second was Snow’s handwriting:  The printed characters were so small they were barely legible.  There had to be a thousand words to a page.  Some were circled, some boxed, some underlined.  Sentences blew past the margin, climbed to the top of the page, flipped upside-down and streaked across the top, continuing down the other side, as though Snow’s thoughts met no resistance.

Clevenger fanned the pages, saw the text interrupted in places by schematic drawings and mathematical calculations.

Then Clevenger noticed something else:  There were no mistakes — not a single word crossed out or written over.  Each and every tiny letter was perfectly inked.  Amidst what looked like chaos there was absolute order, like a puzzle of a hundred-thousand pieces fitting together to from a perfect maze.

He started reading, sometimes turning the page sideways or upside-down to follow the text.

RENAISSANCE

We exist inside our bodies, but separate from them.

By law, a person of sound mind is allowed to let his body die, to refuse medical care that would sustain it, in accordance with his or her religious beliefs.  Because that person’s religion asserts that
the survival of the soul is paramount
.

We exist inside our bodies, but separate from them.

A fetus lives inside a woman.  But by the law of the land, that woman can
decide
to remove that part of her biology as
inconsistent with her life story
.

One step further.  What if the spirit residing inside the body of a man or a woman wishes to be rid of
the particular biology binding him to all relationships from the past
?  For biology and nothing more does so, nests of neurons in the cingulated gyrus, temporal lobe and hippocampus.  What if the memories encoded there are no longer consistent with his sense of self?  What if he knows this spiritually with the same fervor that a woman can know
she is not compatible
with the life stirring inside her womb?