Over the Edge (31 page)

'So you have absolutely no idea of where your evaluation will lead you?'

'No, not really. The times I've seen him, he hasn't appeared competent, but his history is one of remission and relapse, so it's impossible to know what he'll be like tomorrow.'

'Tomorrow doesn't concern me. Would you sign your name today to a declaration stating that during the two occasions you attempted to interview him he wasn't competent?'

I thought about it.

'I suppose so, if the wording was sufficiently conservative.'

'You may word it yourself.'

'All right.'

'Good, that's taken care of.' He ate another candy. 'Now then, as far as diminished capacity, am I correct in assuming you're choosing to opt out?'

'I was planning to evaluate further - '

'Dr. Delaware' - he smiled - 'there's really no need for that anymore. If everything goes as planned - and given the outrageous negligence of the jail staff, I'm sure it will -it will be some time before he comes to trial. Though I know how ambivalent you are about the insanity defence -and wouldn't want to tax your conscience - you'll be welcome to participate in the defence at that time.'

I took a long swallow of beer.

'In other words,' I said, 'you've found other expert witnesses who don't share my ambivalence.'

He raised one eyebrow, licked a speck of sugar from his lip.

'Please don't be offended,' he said lubriciously. 'My obligation is to do whatever I can to help my client. When

we agreed to work together, I accepted your terms, but that didn't restrict me from talking to other doctors.'

'Who do you have?'

'Chapin from Harvard and Donnell from Stanford.'

'Have they examined Jamey?'

'Not yet. However, from my description of the case they feel confident a dim cap will be forthcoming.'

'Well, then, I guess they're your guys.'

'I do want to say that I - and the Cadmus family -appreciate all you've done, therapeutically as well as evaluatively. Heather told me that talking to you lifted her spirits, and that's no mean feat, seeing what she's been through.'

He called Rosa over, handed her a twenty and a ten, and told her to keep the change. She tittered gratefully and brushed his jacket with a whisk.

Back in the limousine, he reached over and patted my shoulder.

'I respect you as a man of principle, Doctor, and trust there's no ill will between us.'

'Not at all.' I remembered something Mal Worthy once said. 'You're a warrior, and you're doing your best to win the war.'

'Exactly. Thank you for seeing that.' He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a large chequebook.

' How much more do I owe you?'

'Nothing. In fact, I'll be returning the first five thousand.'

'Please don't do that. It will disrupt my firm's accounting schedule, but more important, it would rob our association of professionalism should it ever come under scrutiny; the court distrusts anything that's not paid for.'

'Sorry. I don't feel comfortable taking it.'

'Then donate it to your favourite charity.'

'I have a better idea. I'll send it to you, and you donate it to your favourite charity.'

'Very well,' he said, the broad features constricting with anger before settling back into forced serenity. - A petty victory, but it came at the right time.

Antrim drove back to the jail. The glass partition was

closed, and from the movement of his head I could tell he was listening to music. Souza saw me watching him and smiled.

'A free spirit. But the man's an excellent mechanic.'

'He must be to maintain this.'

'Oh, yes. This and much more.'

He got on the phone again, called the office, and jotted down his messages. None was sufficiently important to merit his attention, and he instructed the secretary to pass them on to Bradford Balch.

'One more thing,' he said, putting down the phone, 'and I mention it as a formality only. Now that you're no longer on the case, you realise that having served as my consultant, you're forbidden to discuss it with anyone.'

'I realise that,' I said coldly.

'Yes, I know you do,' he said, writing on a yellow pad. I made out my name amid the scrawl.

We reached the jail parking structure. The Rolls entered and cruised until coming to a stop next to my Seville.

'Well, Doctor, it's been a pleasure,' said Souza, gripping my hand and squeezing it.

I smiled noncommittally.

'There's one thing I'd like to ask you, Mr. Souza.'

'What's that?'

'Do you think Jamey killed all those people?'

He let go of my hand, leaned back into a sea of grey felt, and made a tent with his fingers.

'That's not a question I can answer, Dr. Delaware.'

'Why's that?'

'It's simply not relevant to my role as an advocate, and even to begin to think along those lines would hamper me in the execution of my duties.'

He flashed me another smile and turned away. The chauffeur came around and opened the door. I got out. Before I reached the door of my car, the limousine had vanished.

I put my attaché down and stretched. It was the first time in my life I'd ever been fired. Strangely enough, it felt damned good.

I DROVE out of the parking lot and reflected on my dismissal. Souza had fished me out of a sea of experts, using the twin lures of flattery and professional responsibility: I was vital to the case because of both my prior treatment of Jamey and my ostensible brilliance. Now, given the first opportunity, he'd thrown me back like some undersized hatchling, having filled his bucket with more substantive catch. I shouldn't have been surprised. We hadn't really got along; although we were outwardly cordial, there was an unmistakable tension between us. He was a man who thrived on manipulation, a sculptor of behaviour, and I'd proved less than pliable and thus expendable. After all, he had Chapin from Harvard, Donnell from Stanford - full professors both, well published and respected. No matter that they had no problems assuring an insanity defence before examining the patient. They were the kind of expert who thrived in Souza's system.

I didn't regret leaving his team, but I rued how little I'd learned about Jamey. The case had produced far more questions than answers. The only issue that had come close to generating a consensus was his psychosis. Everyone except Sonnenschein had agreed that he was crazy, and even the deputy had relaxed his cynicism after witnessing the damage the boy had done to himself. But the crimes of which he was accused weren't those of a psychotic, as a first-year graduate student had noticed. Souza's quick answer laid the blame - not without some justification - on a dead man. In fact, both his guardians and his peers had seen Ivar Digby Chancellor as a major influence in Jamey's life. The man had steered him from sonnets to securities, from cola to sprouts. But whether that influence had extended to serial homicide was far from clear.

Upon closer inspection, not even the diagnosis of schizophrenia was free from confusion: The disease had run an atypical course, and Jamey's response to medication had been inconsistent. In addition, he'd shown some, though admittedly minor, evidence of drug use. Sarita Flowers and Heather Cadmus were certain he'd never taken dope. But the Project 160 kids thought otherwise. As far as Mainwaring was concerned, it didn't matter, and the inconsistencies could be explained by subtle brain damage. Perhaps the psychiatrist was right, but he'd never carried out a comprehensive neurological workup. And his lack of interest in anything other than dosage levels as well as his slipshod charting weakened my confidence in his judgment.

Then there was the matter of the Cadmus family history - a lineage steeped in psychopathology. Were the similarities among the declines of Antoinette, Peter, and Jamey meaningful? Had the trussing of Chancellor been a primitive attempt at symbolic patricide? Dwight Cadmus certainly merited a second interview.

There were others I wanted to talk to as well. Gary Yamaguchi and the nurses - the gushing Ms. Surtees and the caustic Mrs. Vann. The contrast between the two women was yet another rub: The private-duty nurse had described Jamey more positively than had anyone else. Yet it was she he'd attacked the night he'd bolted. Andrea Vann had viewed him as dangerously disturbed, but that hadn't stopped her from leaving the C Ward nursing station unstaffed that night. And now she'd quit.

Too many questions, not enough answers. And a battered, mad young man destined to live out his days in a nightmare world.

Souza had cut me out before I'd had a chance to look into any of it.

As I ruminated, the Seville drifted toward the Union District, not far from the address Sarita had given me for Gary.

Souza had reminded me of my ethical obligations. I couldn't discuss my findings with anyone, but that didn't stop me from evaluating further - as a free agent.

The building sat in the middle of the block, embroidered at street level with a daisy chain of dozing winos. Bottles and cans and dogshit turned my progress down the sidewalk into a spastic ballet. The doors were rusted iron, warped and dented, and set into the crumbling brick facade of the former factory like a fistula. A band of concrete striped the brick. In it was carved PELTA THREAD COMPANY, 1923. The letters were pigeon-specked and cracked. To the right of the door were two buttons. Next to each button was a slot for an address sticker. The first was unfilled; the second framed a taped-over strip of paper that read R. Bogdan. I pushed both buttons but got no response, tried the door, and found it locked. After driving around through the alley, I saw a rear entry identical to the one in the front, but it, too, was bolted. I gave up and went home.

Jamey's Canyon Oaks chart had arrived. I locked it in my desk and retrieved Souza's cheque. I addressed and stamped an envelope, sealed the cheque inside, jogged down to the nearest mailbox, and dropped it through the slot. At three-thirty the service called to deliver a message from Robin: Billy Orleans had come into town early and would be at the studio until five. After he left, we could have dinner together. I changed into jeans and a turtleneck and drove to Venice.

Robin's place is an unmarked storefront on Pacific Avenue, not far enough from the Oakwood ghetto. The exterior is covered with gang graffiti, and the windows are whitewashed over. For years she lived upstairs, in a loft she had designed and built herself, and used the main floor as a workshop. A dangerous arrangement for anyone, let alone a single woman, but it had been an assertion of independence. Now the place was alarmed and she shared my bed and I slept a lot better for it.

Both parking spaces in back of the shop were taken up by a white stretch Lincoln limo with blackened windows, gangster whitewalls, and a TV antenna on the rear deck. Three hundred hard pounds of bodyguard leaned against the side of the car -fiftyish, a sunburned bull mastiff face, sandy-grey hair, and a white toothbrush moustache. He was dressed in white drawstring pants, sandals, and a sleeveless red singlet stretched just short of bursting. The arms folded across his chest were the colour and breadth of Virginia hams.

I coasted to a stop and looked for a place to leave the Seville. From inside the studio came deep, pulsating waves of sound.

'Hi, sir,' said the bodyguard cheerfully, 'you the shrink friend?'

'That's me.'

'I'm Jackie. They told me to be on the lookout for you. Just leave the car here with the keys in, and I'll watch it for you.'

I thanked him and entered the shop through the rear door. As always, the studio smelled of confifer resin and sawdust. But the rumble of power drills and saws had been replaced by another wall of noise: thunderous power chords and screaming treble riffs resonating from every beam and plank.

I walked to the rear, where the test amplifiers were kept and saw Robin, wearing a dusty apron over her work clothes and padded earphones half buried in her curls, watching a gaunt man assault a silver-glitter solid-body electric guitar shaped like a rocket ship. With each stroke of

the pick, the instrument lit up and sparkled, and when the man pressed a button near the bridge, a sound similar to that of a space module leaving the launching pad issued forth. The guitar was plugged into dual Mesa Boogie amps and cranked up to maximum volume. As the thin man ran his fingers up and down the fretboard, it screamed and bellowed. A smouldering cigarette was wedged between the strings just above the fretboard. The windows shuddered, and my ears felt as if they were about to bleed.

Robin saw me and waved. Unable to hear her, I read her lips and made out 'Hi, honey' as she came over to greet me. The gaunt man was lost in his music, eyes closed, and went on for a while before he noticed me. Then his right hand rested, and the studio turned funereal. Robin took off the ear pads. After unplugging the guitar, the man removed the cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, then placed the instrument tenderly in a clasp stand and grinned.

'Fabulous.'

He was about my age, hollow-cheeked, pale, and pinch-featured, with dyed black hair cut in a long shag. He wore a blue-green leather vest over a sunken, hairless chest and crimson parachute pants. A small rose tattoo blued one bony shoulder. His shoes were high-heeled and matched the pants. A pack of Camels extended halfway from one of the vest pockets. He removed the cigarette smouldering between his lips, put it out, pulled out the pack, extricated a fresh one, and lit up.

'Billy, this is Alex Delaware. Alex, Billy Orleans.'

The rocker extended a long, calloused hand and smiled. The nails of his right hand had been left long for finger picking. A diamond was inlaid into one of his upper incisors.

'Hello, Alex. Head doc, right? We could use you on the road, the band's precarious mental state being what it is.'

I smiled back. 'My specialty is kids.'

'Like I said, we could use you on the road, the band's blah-blah-blah.' Turning to Robin: 'It's fabulous, Mizz Wonderhands. Do some fooling with the lead pickup to get a bit more punch on the high registers, but apart from that,

perfect. When can you have it ready for takeoff?'