“As I explained on the phone,” Jessie said, “we’d like to ask you some questions about a former patient here. Jack Ackerman.”
“We prefer to call them clients, as opposed to patients. And you need to understand, before we go any further, that the confidentiality of our records is taken very seriously here. In fact, our discretion is the reason many of our clients choose us over other facilities. To the extent I can answer your questions without impinging on Mr. Ackerman’s privacy, I intend to do so, but no more.”
“Wait a second.” Elliot leaned forward. “Mr. Ackerman didn’t call to give you his permission to cooperate with us?”
“He did call. However, I would prefer to protect the hospital’s interests as well as his. If I understand correctly, this matter involves the Frank Ramsey murder trial that received so much media coverage last year. My concern is that the court proceeding will draw a lot of publicity. If the hospital’s name appears in the news, other potential clients may be discouraged from trusting us.”
“That’s not our problem,” Elliot said. “You—”
Jessie shot him a glance that shut him up. She softened her voice. “Let me explain something to you, Dr. Brandywine. Ramsey is represented by Gil Goldhammer, one of the best defense attorneys in the country. Goldhammer’s argument is that Ramsey is entitled to a new trial because Jack Ackerman, his lawyer at his original trial, was nuts. Jack’s commitment here—whether or not it was voluntary—is evidence that supports his argument, so you can bet he’s going to bring it up as often as possible. In court. In interviews with the press. And I promise you, he’s not going to call your patients clients. It’s to his client’s benefit to describe Wooded Hill Hospital as a madhouse.”
Brandywine swallowed. “I see.”
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t help each other, Doctor. I need to prove that Jack was sane during Ramsey’s trial. You need an opportunity to set the record straight about Wooded Hill and its clientele.”
The psychiatrist sighed. “I suppose there would be little harm in discussing Mr. Ackerman’s stay here. What do you want to know?”
“Is it true that Jack suffered a nervous breakdown?”
“Well, ‘nervous breakdown’ is not a clinical term, by which I mean it has no psychiatric definition. The general public uses the term as a kind of shorthand to describe a variety of mental illnesses that generally involve some sort of emotional collapse. Clinical depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, all of these could fall under the umbrella. But simply using the term ‘nervous breakdown’—that’s very imprecise.”
“How would you describe Jack’s problem?” Jessie said.
“I believe Mr. Ackerman suffered from a condition known as brief reactive psychosis. It most commonly affects people between the ages of twenty and forty and can have a variety of causes. Chronic and unresolved grief, work stress, guilt, any major life change can trigger the condition. Mr. Ackerman’s case was fairly mild. Symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, impaired speech. Mr. Ackerman’s presented only disorganized behavior.”
She managed to maintain a neutral expression as the doctor lectured on. Psychosis? Maybe she would have been better off respecting the hospital’s confidentiality policy after all. She risked a glance at Elliot. He looked as stricken as she felt.
“What caused the ... behavior in Jack’s case?” Jessie said.
“In his case, I believe the condition was precipitated by work-related stress. Not uncommon in your field.”
Elliot turned to Jessie with a sardonic smile. “That’s comforting.”
She kept her focus on Brandywine. “How did you treat him?”
“Well, typically I would prescribe an antipsychotic medication for a client with his condition, but because Mr. Ackerman’s symptoms were mild I decided to try psychotherapy first. Mr. Ackerman responded well. As you know, he checked himself out of the hospital after six months of treatment.”
“So he was cured?” Elliot said, perking up.
Brandywine shifted in his chair. “The word is inappropriate in this context. I helped him to cope with the stress that initially triggered his condition.”
Jessie leaned forward. “In your opinion, was Jack suffering from the condition at the time of Frank Ramsey’s trial?”
“To answer that question I would have to interview Mr. Ackerman about the trial. Perhaps if I could examine the trial transcript, that might also help. But it will be difficult to form an opinion with any certainty. You’re talking about the past, about a time prior to my first meeting with him.” He looked at them apologetically.
Jessie nodded and thanked him for his time.
Outside, Jessie couldn’t help noticing Elliot’s stunned expression. He seemed to stagger back to the car. She laughed. “What’s your problem? I thought that went well, considering.”
He jolted out of his trance and snapped his gaze in her direction. “Considering? You warned me he might be recalcitrant. I wish you’d been right.”
She opened her car door. “Would you rather have heard Brandywine’s diagnosis for the first time in the courtroom, in front of the judge? Now we have foreknowledge. We can prepare. That’s invaluable.”
She slid behind the wheel. Elliot joined her, fumbling with a pair of sunglasses. She twisted her key and the engine roared. Once they were moving, he said, “We could lose this thing.”
The gates of Wooded Hill Hospital flashed past on either side of the car, and they left the place behind. “I’m glad to see you’re starting to see the stakes.”
8
After their meeting with Dr. Brandywine, Jessie and Elliot spent the next several days in deep preparation mode, poring over the trial transcript, reading media accounts of the trial, calling psychiatrists and psychologists, and rehearsing. When the hearing date arrived, and the elevator doors finally opened on the third floor of the Criminal Justice Center, Elliot looked surprised to find the corridor empty.
“Expecting the paparazzi?” Jessie said.
“I thought the hearing would draw some attention.”
His reaction did not surprise her. When a case consumed your life, it was easy to assume that the rest of the world—or, at least, Philadelphia—would care as much about it as you did. The truth was, that was rarely the case. “I’m sure there will be a few reporters in the courtroom.”
She stepped out of the elevator. He followed her. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Ramsey’s trial was big news.”
“Most reporters know this type of hearing is routine. It’ll be big news if we lose today.”
“What if we win?”
“Didn’t your uncle teach you anything? If there’s one thing Warren’s always been right about, it’s that the only news deemed worthy of publication is bad news.”
Their footsteps echoed as they followed the diamond-patterned floor. Empty benches extended from the walls on either side, bathed in harsh light from a window at the end of the hall. Jessie had seen countless witnesses and victims squirm on those stone benches, awaiting justice. Justice that—no matter how confident she might feel about a given case—she could never guarantee.
Justice was not guaranteed at today’s hearing, either. She knew that Jack had provided Ramsey with stellar legal counsel, and Ramsey knew it, too. But that wouldn’t stop Goldhammer from leveraging Jack’s breakdown to secure for Ramsey a retrial, one that would drain the court’s resources and expose Ramsey’s only living victim, Kristen Dillard, to another series of painful court appearances.
Not to mention the possibility that—given a second chance at hoodwinking a jury—Ramsey might well get away with murder this time.
Elliot would do all of the talking today, while she sat silently at his side, passing him the occasional note. She still believed that this approach was a mistake—this hearing was too critical to trust to a beginner—but it was Warren’s call. All she could do was help where she could, and hope for the best.
Columns flanked the dark wooden door of
Judge Spatt’s courtroom. Before she could open it, Elliot reached for her arm, stopping her.
Jessie looked at him. “Nervous?”
“Yeah.” He took a deep breath.
“Good. I am, too. The day you’re not is the day you lose.”
“Don’t worry. If nervousness is what you want, I’ve got it covered.” He laughed uneasily.
“You’re prepared, too. That’s what matters.” She opened the courtroom door. Elliot followed her inside.
A handful of seats in the gallery were occupied—not a packed house, by any means, but a bigger audience than your run of the mill hearing. The court crier and the judge’s staff moved about in their section of the room to the right of the vacant judge’s bench, rustling papers and preparing for the judge. They acknowledged Jessie with friendly nods.
“Do you know everyone?” Jessie whispered.
“I don’t know anyone.”
Jessie chewed her lip. He really was a rookie. “Come on.” She took his arm and guided him to the chubby, grandmotherly woman setting up a stenography machine. “This is Edna Lindauer, Judge Spatt’s court reporter. Edna, this is my associate, Elliot Williams.”
Before Edna could respond, the door opened and Gil Goldhammer swept into the courtroom surrounded by assistants and helpers. Even if Jessie hadn’t recognized his face from the numerous cable talk shows that offered him screen time, she would have identified him by his manner alone. Despite the fact that he wasn’t much to look at—short and stout, with a face as puffy as a marshmallow and almost as pale—he strutted to the defense table like a celebrity walking a red carpet. His entourage followed, claiming the first two rows of the gallery on his side of the aisle.
Jessie summoned a professional smile as she approached him. From the corner of her eye, she saw Elliot following her.
Goldhammer’s cologne, as musky and pungent as a sweaty horse, filled her mouth and nose the moment she stepped within a foot of him. As politely as she could, she coughed into her left hand. She extended her right hand in greeting. He shook it, then Elliot’s, with a dry grip.
“Gil Goldhammer.” He announced his own name in the clipped staccato of a TV homicide cop. In her years as a prosecutor, Jessie had met many real-life homicide cops, none of whom spoke that way.
“I’m Jessica Black. This is Elliot Williams.”
At least six inches shorter than her, Goldhammer had to look up to make eye contact. She was surprised they could even see each other through the cloud of his musk. “Beautiful courthouse,” he said.
“Is this your first visit to Philadelphia?” she said.
“It is. I’ve wanted to come here for a long time, but the opportunity hasn’t presented itself until now.”
Translation: The Philly mob families were loyal clients of their high-priced attorneys. Goldhammer, even with his nationwide reputation, had not been able to break in. Yet. “Rescuing Ramsey from death row might help you attract more Philly business.” She tried to keep the edge off her voice, didn’t quite succeed.
“There are certain people who might notice.”
“Is that how you’ve justified foregoing your usual fees, by writing this case off as an advertisement to the Philadelphia underworld?”
His marshmallow face wrinkled, folds in his skin almost swallowing his eyes. “I don’t ever forego my fees, Ms. Black. I’m ideologically opposed to pro bono.”
“You’re being paid? By whom?”
He chuckled. Jessie could not seem to summon a polite chuckle of her own. The veneer of their professional banter splintered. “I assume you’ve appeared before Judge Spatt before?” he said, changing the subject.
From another lawyer, this question might have signaled a nervous probe for information about the extent of her home court advantage. But Goldhammer wasn’t probing. He was taunting.
Usually, the same judge was assigned to a PCRA petition that oversaw the original trial. But in this case, Judge Alfred Kapron, the judge at Ramsey’s trial, had retired seven months ago, which was why they were in Judge Spatt’s courtroom instead.
And Judge Martin Spatt was the last person in Philadelphia she would have chosen for this hearing. On the surface, he was unremarkable—a black man in his sixties, slim, average height, with gray hair. Below the surface was another story entirely. A long time ago, he must have been a practicing lawyer himself, but apparently that was not a part of his life he recalled fondly. Now he hated lawyers, regarding them as vermin daily invading his otherwise pleasant courtroom. Jessie had seen him take both prosecutors and defense attorneys apart, piece by piece, savoring their dismemberment as if he could taste the blood.
Judge Kapron would have denied Ramsey’s petition after a token hearing. He had observed for himself Jack’s more-than-competent representation of Ramsey at trial. But Judge Spatt, with no evidence but the transcript and the testimony of witnesses, might easily decide that Jack was a nut-job and that a new trial was warranted. Hell, the idea of a mentally disturbed defense attorney would probably fill him with glee.
Goldhammer conveyed his full awareness of this situation in the twinkle of his eye.
“No, I haven’t appeared before Judge Spatt before,” Elliot said, even though Goldhammer’s question had been directed at her. “This will be my first time.”
Goldhammer’s gaze shifted to Elliot. The grin that slashed across his doughy face reminded Jessie of bullies she’d faced in elementary school. Mercifully, their conversation was interrupted when two sheriff’s deputies brought Frank Ramsey into the courtroom.
Handcuffed, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, Ramsey’s eyes scanned the room as if he were looking for someone. Jessie knew he had no family. The few friends he’d once had abandoned him as soon as they’d learned what a monster he was. When he didn’t find whatever person he was looking for, he turned his eyes to the defense table. Still standing in the aisle, Jessie blocked Ramsey’s route to his chair.
His eyes met hers.
He’d lost some weight in prison, but his muscular body—honed by twenty years of professional firefighting—remained imposing. The deputies handled him carefully, hands close to their holstered guns. They followed closely as he made his way toward her. She noticed his awkward shamble before she realized his ankles had been shackled in addition to his wrists.
He got close enough to breathe in her face before the deputies grabbed his arms and yanked him to a halt. Unlike his lawyer, Ramsey didn’t have to look up to make eye contact with her. In heels, she was about his height. His eyes bore into hers.
Elliot gulped, but Jessie wasn’t about to let this creep intimidate her. She met his stare.
She could see the muscles in his arms flexing under the coarse jumpsuit material, fury coming off of him in waves. She was sure there was nothing he wanted more than to make her his next victim, stab her with the sharpest knife he could get his hands on. As a prosecutor, she’d made few friends in the criminal ranks, but sexual predators like Ramsey—men whose hatred of women stemmed from fear and insecurity—hated her the most. The feeling was mutual.
Goldhammer nudged her out of his client’s way as politely as he could, then took Ramsey’s arm. “Why don’t you sit down, Frank, make yourself comfortable?”
Ramsey held her stare a moment longer, then broke it. Chains jingling, he took his seat at the defense table with as much grace as his hand and ankle cuffs allowed.
Jessie took her seat at the prosecution’s table. She settled into the familiar wooden chair, placed her briefcase on the table, opened it. She arranged her papers in front of her—a pile of tabbed cases, a highlighted copy of the trial transcript, witness notes. A clean legal pad and a pen.
Elliot joined her. He looked dazed as he unpacked the dog-eared, food-stained, ink-smeared contents of his own briefcase. This evidence of his days of preparation should have allowed her to relax. To breathe easy. Take a back seat, as Warren had instructed. But it didn’t.
The fact was, her blood was up. With Ramsey sitting m
ere feet away from her, there was no way she could relax. She wouldn’t be able to relax until she heard Judge Spatt tell the bastard that his petition was denied, until she watched Gil Goldhammer get back on his private jet and fly the hell out of her city. Even then, she wouldn’t completely drop her guard. Not until the needle slipped into Ramsey’s skin, the plunger pushing poison into his vein.
Morbid? Maybe. But after what he’d done to Kristen and all his other victims, it’s what he deserved.
The courtroom door opened behind her. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see Jack Ackerman slip inside. She noted his expensive suit and breathed a sigh of relief. As much as she hated to admit it, a part of her had feared he’d show up in a gorilla costume or a tutu, or not show up at all.
She nodded at him and he gave her a warm smile before taking a seat in the gallery. Whatever his feelings might be about Ramsey’s guilt or innocence, he’d apparently decided to put it behind him. Good.
“Jack’s here,” she whispered to Elliot.
He nodded, apparently too nervous to turn around.
A moment later, Judge Spatt strode into the courtroom and everyone jumped to their feet.
9
Not surprisingly, Goldhammer’s first witness was Dr. Joseph Brandywine. The psychiatrist looked significantly less at ease on the witness stand than he had in his comfortable office at Wooded Hill, especially when Goldhammer began to question him about every detail of his career, including his education, the various journals in which he’d published, the practices to which he’d belonged and every position he’d held.
The dents and pits in Judge Spatt’s craggy face seemed to deepen as he watched the celebrity lawyer. “Mr. Goldhammer, I don’t believe the Commonwealth disputes Dr. Brandywine’s expertise.” He turned his gaze to the prosecution’s table, waited a moment, then released a long, exasperated sigh. “Well?”
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