“We haven’t much time,” his mother said. “Don’t make me go through this when you already know the answer.”
“Mom, I swear I don’t even know the question.”
“You’re in denial, Scottie.”
“Of what?”
“Let’s say that Mrs. Macklin was supposed to be traveling that fateful evening. But a marine layer rolled in and the Lear couldn’t get out of the municipal airport.”
“Okay, she’s fogged in.”
His mother laughed, the sound of church bells pealing. “Oh my, yes. Was she ever fogged in. Anyway, she comes home and finds her husband in bed with a young woman. The woman was astride the miscreant in what I believe they call the ‘cowgirl’ position, and sure as shooting, her whoops and hollers would have been appropriate for a rodeo.”
Scott heard the door to the anteroom open. “Honey,” Kristin called out, “I’ll be there in a sec, after I get some Cokes from the fridge.”
“Take your time.” He turned to his mother. “Your story doesn’t make sense. If Mrs. Macklin catches her husband in flagrante delicto, no way she’s going to sit down and have a drink with him.”
“She doesn’t.”
“So what’s with his fingerprints on the glass?”
“I assume she put Seconal in her whiskey, downed it, then dropped the glass. Her husband simply picked up the glass, perhaps to sniff it, or maybe he’s a neat freak.”
They could hear Kristin in the next room, the sound of ice cubes rattling out of a tray.
“You’re saying she committed suicide,” Scott said.
“Tried to. OD’ed into a semiconscious state.”
“So what’s she doing in the car with her husband?”
“What’s down Santa Ynez Road? Three miles past the site of the accident.”
He considered the question. “The Cottage Hospital.”
“Exactly. If I were defending the case, I’d say Dr. Macklin felt enormous guilt over causing his wife’s suicide attempt. He picked her up, carried her to his car, her blouse catching on that damn thorny bush. He’s driving to the hospital at seventy miles an hour when he loses control around a curve and plunges into the canal.”
“So why didn’t he pull her out of the water?”
“Because he only had time to rescue one person, and no matter how heavy his guilt, he was in love with someone else. Stated another way, his wife was second on his triage list.”
“Wrong. There was no one else in the car.”
“You mean there was no one else there when the paramedics arrived. Dr. Macklin didn’t call nine-one-one until his paramour—a lovely term, is it not? —left the scene. There’s your seventeen minutes.”
“So who’d he rescue? Who’s this paramour?”
“How about a woman who hit her cheekbone on the dashboard when the car went into the water?”
He shook his head and his shoulders sagged. Of course, he knew. He just couldn’t accept it. Not that or the knowledge of his own cowardice. He’d never challenged Kristin, and he’d never confronted his own unethical conduct. He wanted to punish Dr. Macklin. Not for homicide, because Macklin wasn’t a killer. No, he wanted to punish Macklin for cuckolding him.
“So what do I do now?” he said.
“Scott, who are you talking to?” With a dancer’s graceful gait, Kristin waltzed into the conference room in black yoga pants and a fluorescent orange sleeveless sports top. She carried a tray of food and drinks.
“Tell me!” he yelled.
“Tell you what?” Kristin asked. “What are you upset about?”
“Mom, what do I do?”
“Oh Christ.” Kristin dropped the tray on the table, spilling a soda. “Not this again.”
“Mom!”
He could still see Gayle Gardner Macklin, but her image was fading.
“Mom, don’t leave me. Please!”
Trembling, Kristin said, “Scott, you know your mother drowned in that car.”
“No! She’s here now.”
“Honey, you spoke at her funeral and bawled your eyes out.”
Scott propped one hand on the conference table and struggled to his feet. He brushed past his wife without even seeing her.
“The judge should never have allowed you to handle the case,” Kristin said. “I knew something weird would happen.”
His legs felt rubbery as he staggered out, leaving behind his trial bag, the pleadings, the exhibits. His wife.
“Scott, where are you going?”
She dropped into a chair, sniffed the air. “Did you start smoking again?”
No answer. He was gone.
Kristin examined a coffee cup on the table. Inside, a half-smoked cigarette. She picked it up, the tip still glowing.
French. Just like her bitch mother-in-law used to smoke. A shudder went through her and she crushed the cigarette into the bottom of the cup. From the doorway, she heard a melodious voice.
“Kristin, dear. You look just darling in your workout gear.”
She spun around in her chair.
Omigod.
“Last time we met, you were au naturel and grunting like a sow in heat.”
Kristin steadied herself against the fear. Her words came in forced breaths. “What have you become? What do you want?”
“At long last, I am my true self. And all I want is justice.”
Paralyzed, Kristin watched as Scott, wearing a woman’s gray wig, his cheeks rouged and lips glossed, raised a handgun and pointed it at her chest.
QUALITY OF MERCY
BY LEIGH LUNDIN
Thank you, Your Honor. Yes, the prosecution is ready with an opening statement.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, good morning. We are here today to discuss, literally, a case of life and death: whether any individual has the right to take another’s life. My job is to present the state’s evidence, the state’s view of this crime. Your job, based upon the evidence, is to render a decision about this crime, about this sad and unfortunate death.
Today, ladies and gentlemen, we come to this courtroom to try a defendant, to discuss and deliberate upon a death for which the accused freely admits responsibility.
My esteemed colleague at the adjoining table will tell you about extenuating circumstances, about euthanasia, about the right to die. Indeed, my opponent can rattle on for hours about it.
The state’s position is: What about the right to life? If a society condones murder—and don’t mistake that, with all its window dressing, this was murder—what kind of society would we live in?
Most of you, I’m sure, would rather be somewhere else. I certainly did not ask for this case. I didn’t want it; no one wanted it. I even like the defendant. I feel for the defendant. You may well like the defendant, too.
I won’t demonize the accused, I won’t tell you the crime was diabolical, but—let us be clear—a homicide was committed, the law broken, a life taken, and we, my friends, live in a society of laws. As such, it is incumbent upon us to take note of the societal picture at large.
A crime of murder took place, and there is never, ever an excuse for taking the life of another.
That means, ladies and gentlemen, your only choice will be to render a verdict of… guilty.
____
HIS CERTAINTY SOLIDIFIED the day she forgot the children’s names. It was strange, because she’d always accused him of being absentminded. Before, they’d always laughed self-consciously, but for a while now, she’d been forgetting little things. This time, forgetfulness seemed more than absentmindedness.
He convinced himself the first episode wasn’t so bad, but less than two weeks later, he found her speaking to her mother, as if her mother were actually standing there, as if his wife were once again a little girl. It was startling; she was eighty-three, and her mother had been dead for twenty years. When, finally, his wife had come around, he comforted her and they’d cried together.
He felt frightened. For days, he debated whether to say anything more ab
out it. Could he even be certain of connecting? But how could he not talk this out with her? After fifty years, sharing every thought had become an ingrained habit.
In the end, as with so many things, she was the one who brought the matter up.
“I’m changing, love. I’m afraid I’m slipping. In fact, I’m… afraid.”
He sat silently, listening, as he had done so often. She was the one who could articulate, the one who could express thoughts he could never put into words.
“My forgetfulness, the mistakes… the other day I brushed my teeth with that dandruff shampoo out of the tube. And last month I burned myself. Sometimes I feel I’m losing my mind, that I’m disintegrating.”
He smiled grimly at that, remembering once years ago when he’d blindly shampooed not Head & Shoulders but toothpaste into his scalp. Of course, he’d been thinking out a research problem, and everyone had smiled indulgently at yet another anecdote proving him the proverbial absentminded professor. They’d joked about it, said no one would be able to tell when he became senile. But this couldn’t happen with her. “Come here,” he whispered to her.
She was only seven or eight inches away, but she melded against him, crushing her silver hair against his cheek. The fresh scent of her, which he knew so well, filled his nostrils, and he felt the warm trickle of her tears upon his neck.
He had loved her for so long. It was more than fifty years since he had been the self-absorbed rake, the boy who couldn’t keep it in his pants. Stern fathers locked up their daughters and hid away their wives, while mothers whispered about him, one or two with a burning gleam in the eye.
Then, he’d met her. Today, six decades later, he found it hard to remember a time without her smile, without her voice, without her cheek against his.
“I’m so scared,” she wept, softly sobbing. “I don’t want to lose what we have.”
“We won’t, we can’t; we worked too hard to find it. We learned it, we earned it, remember? Besides, don’t we have what those young TV psychologists call ‘co-dependence’? Think of all the psychiatry we would have to endure to unlearn all this.”
She nodded. Poor spoiled little rich girl and spoiled little poor boy; she’d learned about loving from him and he’d learned about living from her. They continued learning, every minute, every hour, every day.
He said, “It’s only temporary, just a phase—like adolescence or menopause.”
“No. No, we both know better. It has a name—only… only I forget what it is.”
Glancing at her, he found her smiling. Her humor was one of her attractions.
“I seem to recall that our worst fear was we might be reduced to wearing Depends someday,” he said.
“I’ll be happy to trade.” She nuzzled his neck; let her hand slip down his lanky frame.
He relaxed a little. Thank God she was again her old self. She wasn’t impaired, mentally or otherwise, not really.
“Without Viagra, ‘depend’ is about all that happens these days. But I appreciate the thought.”
She straightened. “Darling, let’s see a doctor, a gerontologist. Let’s hear what he has to say. This week, okay?”
____
“SUNDOWNING, IT’S CALLED,” said the geriatrician, speaking as if she wasn’t there. “Her experience of agitation late in the day is not uncommon. Keep her quiet during the day, reduce the stress at night. Sundowning may come from fatigue, or it may be related to shadows; we’re not exactly sure. See that she naps in the afternoon. Cover the mirrors so she won’t see a face she doesn’t recognize.”
“But my wife’s prognosis?”
“Late in the early stages,” said the doctor, making the onset sound like an oxymoron. “I’m terribly sorry, but you have to face the facts: from now on, I’m afraid you’ll continue to observe further deterioration. I recommend you start looking for a good resident care program. I’ll provide you with a list of suitable facilities. You’ll want to start on this right away.”
He wanted no such thing. Their greatest fear was separation, of being alone as the darkness descended.
____
“LET’S TAKE A trip,” she said brightly. “New Hampshire, Vermont, and see the changing leaves. Let’s see America, cruise across the Midwest perhaps, maybe Indiana, Iowa. It’s autumn and the autumn of our lives; let’s enjoy it.”
And so from Maine they swept across New England into Pennsylvania, where for the second time she wandered off during the middle of the night. He sat terrified, staring at her picture on television, waiting for news. Any news.
Thank God, the police found her, wandering and confused, without a clue as to where she was. Unfamiliar, yet facelessly identical as fast-food restaurants and malls, motels confused her. With reluctance and tears, they turned homeward.
____
IN HER OWN house, she seemed to do better. She was almost her old—or rather younger—self, he thought. As before, she cooked a little, listened to music, and dressed herself for church. One month passed, then two. Other than a minor episode instigated by the replacement of the old stained coffeemaker with a new model, she talked and acted as if her brain had mended.
He began to feel hopeful.
Then, one day, he noticed her favorite magazine opened to an article. About euthanasia. In the Netherlands. There, apparently, putting one’s life in the hands of others was an acceptable practice. Even if—even if your relatives might be in a bit of a hurry to, well, to polish you off.
That same evening, the news broadcast a segment on Jack Kevorkian and his Alzheimer’s patients.
He changed channels.
“Wait,” she said. “Go back. No, not that channel. Not that one either. Oh no, it’s over.”
After breakfast he locked the house and strolled down to the library. He didn’t understand why everyone seemed to think computers were too much for the elderly to handle. The Internet was a hell of a lot easier than using microfilm machines.
Before looking it up, he’d been under the impression Dr. Kevorkian’s victims were terminal cancer patients. He was wrong. Dr. K’s early subjects had been fearful of Alzheimer’s. A number of articles suggested Kevorkian had been, to put it generously, precipitous.
He sat back and considered the gray irony, the bitter Catch-22 of old age: anybody frightened by the appalling effects of senility had too much mental clarity to be considered a candidate for euthanasia. On the other hand, if the afflicted were past understanding their own Alzheimer’s symptoms, they didn’t have the mental capacity to make sensible decisions and therefore weren’t ethically rational enough to give their consent.
He signed off the computer and pondered the should and should not, the right and wrong of it all.
____
“DARLING, I WANT you to do one little thing for me.”
“Now, now, my dear, I don’t know if I’m up to it.” He winked a mock leer her way.
“If anyone could, you would, but that isn’t what I meant.”
“No, I suppose not. What do you want me to do for you?”
She hesitated. “If I worsen… I mean worsen a lot… I don’t want you to let me go on like this. And I don’t want you to agonize about it.”
Tears stung his eyes.
“Poor dear,” she said, “you’re agonizing now, but listen, I have no one but you, no one else to rely upon. Always, I was afraid of losing you, that you’d go first, that I’d have to live out the rest of my life alone with only memories to comfort me. But this—no memories at all?”
He couldn’t speak from the acrid torsion of his throat.
She dipped her fingers in the pooled tears from his eyes and drew them to her lips. “Don’t cry, love. I know what I’m doing.”
“None of us knows. Not you, not me.”
“I know I don’t want to succumb to Alzheimer’s. We’ve read so much about it. Remember that Florida case? We watched those TV movies about it.”
He knew she couldn’t feel as controlled about it as she made it sound.
“Poor baby, I know,” she continued. “What will you do without me? But think, love. What will you do with me if I’m incapacitated?”
He pushed the thought away. “But you’re not, and you won’t be. For better or worse…”
“This is decidedly worse, for we’re talking about a cruel disease. We’re talking about dignity. About quality. About life.”
“False dignity! And what kind of quality?” He was angry. “It’s you that made our marriage what it is. You kept us solvent following the Depression. Your letters kept me going during the war. You prayed for our sons in Vietnam and our grandchildren in Iraq. You worked so hard and had faith in me when I started the business. Do you think I could give up on you, even if I’d never loved you? I couldn’t bear to let you stay in a nursing home.”
“I’m not talking about a nursing home. I think you know that.”
That was when he truly understood what she was getting at. He said, “How could you expect that of me? Me? I won’t even kill a spider, and you ask me to destroy what I love most? Discard you like laundry?”
“No, my dear, not destroy it, save it. Other cultures have remarkable concepts about choosing when and where to end one’s own life. I’m not so sure those ideas have any place for the young, but they have meaning for the old.”
“I won’t. This is madness. I can’t.”
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “This is what I want you to do. I bought a little bottle. It’s in the cupboard, next to the aspirin. When I can no longer… function… function normally… I want you to get the bottle out. You don’t even have to give it to me. Just set it out, here on the bedstand. When I’m lucid, I’ll know.”
He shook, and cried, and argued, and in the end, she held him, petting him, cradling him as she’d done so often. By the time they’d exhausted themselves, if not the subject, he hadn’t agreed, but he hadn’t flatly refused.
____
SHE SEEMED RELIEVED, and for a while she was much, much better. It was he who suffered, feeling a dark gray mass hovering over them. Her clasping him close, her snuggling, her gentle teasing only temporarily dispelled the clouds.
Throwing the bottle away, or filling it with vitamins or perhaps sugar pills, crossed his mind. But she wasn’t anyone’s fool, not even now. She would know. Dejected, he sensed discarding the vial would only hurt her.
Mystery Writers of America Presents the Prosecution Rests Page 21
