Blind Justice

by James Scott Bell

  Next to me, Dr. Hendrick Brown suppressed a laugh. The jailer barked, “Go to the first conference room.”

  As we made our way toward the door, Brown whispered, “That man needs my help. He’s suppressing a lot of anger.”

  “He’s got your card,” I said. “Maybe he’ll give you a ring.”

  We entered the small conference room, which consisted of four blank walls, a barred and screened window, and a metal table with two chairs. A few minutes later, a deputy sheriff opened the door and led Howie in. After waiting until Howie was seated, the deputy left, closed the door, and locked it from the outside.

  Howie did not look well. He seemed tired but also something worse than tired. Defeated? I wondered for a moment if he should be put on suicide watch. I’d keep that in mind.

  “Howie, this is Dr. Brown,” I said. Howie looked at him with ambivalence.

  “How are you, Howie?” Brown extended his hand. Howie didn’t take it, nor did he move.

  “Dr. Brown is here to examine you, Howie.”

  “Why?”

  “To help us figure out what happened that night.”

  “You already know what happened,” Howie said, his head slumping slightly.

  “This will just help make things a little clearer,” I explained. “For me.”

  Shrugging his shoulders, Howie said nothing.

  “Shall we begin?” Dr. Brown asked.

  Howie shrugged again. Brown nodded at me, which meant he was ready. I took out a handheld tape recorder from my briefcase and set it down on the table. Howie looked at it suspiciously. “What’s that for?” he said.

  “I’m going to record our session, Howie. It’s just for me.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  And if he didn’t like that, he was really going to hate the next part. I put on my soft voice. “Howie, listen. Dr. Brown knows what he’s doing. He needs to give you a little injection first.”

  Suspicion glimmered in Howie’s eyes. “Injection? You mean like a shot?”

  “Yes, Howie. It won’t take a second.”

  Shaking his head, Howie said, “I don’t want a shot. I don’t like shots.”

  “I won’t hurt you,” Brown said. “I promise. If I do, you can slap me. Is that fair?”

  This wasn’t typical bedside manner, but it had an effect. Howie actually smiled. It was startling, but Brown had somehow found the right thing to say and the way to say it. No wonder juries ate him up.

  “Will it help?” Howie asked me.

  I nodded.

  “Okay.” Howie sat back as Brown prepared the syringe. I kept glancing nervously toward the door, afraid that several armed guards would burst in at any moment and arrest the lot of us.

  Brown injected Howie’s left arm with sodium pentathol. It’s a fast-acting barbiturate that puts the subject into deep relaxation. It was first used as anesthesia for surgeons and dentists, but they found along the way that it had a way of bringing up suppressed memories, which is why it is sometimes called “truth serum.”

  It took only a few minutes for Howie to go into what looked like a trance. His lids closed heavily over his eyes, and I had to sit near his side to keep him from falling over.

  Finally, Brown said he was ready to begin questioning Howie. I turned on the tape recorder.

  “Howie?” Brown said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Can you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re relaxed now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Where are you sleeping?”

  “Chair.”

  “Are you comfortable?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I want you to listen very carefully to me. Are you -listening?”

  “Yes.”

  Brown leaned a little closer to Howie and spoke softly. “I want you to remember the day you flew down from Alaska. It’s March 25, and you’re getting on a plane. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes,” Howie said. I watched for any change in his passive expression. There was none.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “With Rae.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Happy.”

  “Why are you happy?”

  “Going to see Rae.” Howie smiled. It was the same goofy grin he’d always had. At that moment he looked about ten years old.

  Taking his time, Brown led Howie step-by-step through the events of the twenty-fifth. Later he told me this was essential to the examination. Reliving as much sensory detail as possible would make the crucial sequence come alive with greater clarity.

  And that’s what it seemed Howie was doing—reliving the events in a dreamlike fashion.

  As the recollection unfolded, Howie grew more voluble, even animated. He sat up a little, and though he had his eyes closed, his face played out the emotions in a hypnotic masque.

  “The air is cool,” Howie said with a smile, recalling stepping off the bus onto the main street of Hinton. “I like the cool air. It reminds me.”

  “Reminds you of what?” Brown asked.

  “Rae. She’s warm. She will keep me warm. I like the cool air because I know Rae will keep me warm.”

  Howie was almost laughing now, and for a moment I considered calling the whole thing off. I knew what was coming, and I knew Howie’s insides would be ripped out once more. But Brown had prepared me for this. He said Howie would not recall the trauma once the examination was finished and the effects of the drug wore off. He’d be very tired and would probably feel some physical discomfort, but he wouldn’t know that he had virtually experienced again the worst moment of his life.

  “I like my street,” Howie said as he recalled walking toward the house. “It’s quiet and peaceful. Rae is going to be surprised. She might get a little mad, but then she’ll be glad to see me. She’ll know how much she missed me.”

  It hit me then why Howie would have been lost in delusion when he finally did get to Rae. The poor guy had constructed a fantasy for himself. He actually thought Rae, who was by all accounts an abuser of persons and interested in no one’s welfare but her own, would be glad to see him. He’d gone away. Now he was coming back, and everything would be all right. They’d live happily ever after. It was Howie’s last hope for happiness in this world, at least in his own deceived mind.

  Howie recalled reaching the house and how excited he was. His face was lit up like a kid at Christmas. “I try to open the door, but it’s locked. I don’t have a key with me. I knock. No answer. I knock again and I call out, ‘Rae!’ No answer.”

  That’s when his face started to change, reflecting his sense at the time that something was not right. Howie narrated how he went around the side, scaled the wall, found the sliding door in the back locked, and broke it open. The house was still. No one seemed to be home.

  But someone was. In the bedroom he found Rae. She sat up in bed. She wasn’t happy to see him. And then she said she was in love with somebody else.

  Howie paused. Brown didn’t ask another question. He seemed to be waiting for something. I looked at Howie’s face and saw a tear squirming down his cheek.

  After a short pause, Dr. Brown asked, “What do you say to her?”

  Howie gave his next responses in dialogue form, alternating between his voice and a slightly higher voice with a hard edge, which was obviously Rae’s.

  Who is it?

  I can’t tell you that.

  Why?

  That’s just the way life is.

  Please, Rae, don’t do this to me.

  I’m not doing anything to anybody.

  I’m a better person. I can get a good job in Alaska. You’ll see.

  That’s enough, Howie. It’s over. It’s been over for a long time.

  Please, Rae! Oh, please, please!

  The tears were now flowing freel
y down Howie’s face. He raised his hand in front of himself and moved it in the air slowly, rhythmically. In the “Rae voice,” he said, “There, there. Don’t cry.” I realized he was reenacting what Rae had both said and done. She had suddenly become loving and understanding. She had allowed Howie to rest his head on her shoulder while she stroked his hair.

  Howie had released a volley of words then, which he now repeated to Dr. Brown and me. “You’ll see, Rae. You’ll see. You’ll see how great it is up there. Really, you’ll see. It’s like a whole new land, Rae, and we can start all over. We can have a piece of land someday up there, a real good one. Brian can grow up there, and it will make him strong. You’ll see.”

  Then, Howie’s voice changed instantly. He sat up straight and stiff. In my mind’s eye I could almost see Rae shoving him away, becoming surly again, playing him the way a cat toys with a half-dead mouse.

  They exchange more words, Howie doing everything he can to get her to change her mind. She softens again for awhile, then goes back to cruel anger.

  Watching Howie go through this was like watching someone with multiple personalities changing this way and that like a psychometric kaleidoscope.

  Then it turned ugly.

  Howie played both parts again, giving Rae voice to say, “What makes you so proud?”

  Proud?

  Yeah, proud.

  Proud of what?

  Brian.

  What are you talking about, Rae?

  I’m talking about Brian, Howie.

  What about him?

  What makes you think he’s yours?

  Howie’s expression became a horrific grimace. From deep within him came a guttural moan like the sound of a rusty door creaking open. Then it flew up into his mouth and turned into a wail of agony. Howie’s head began rocking back and forth, his eyes still closed.

  Brown jumped in quickly. “What do you see, Howie?”

  “Rae!”

  “What is Rae doing?”

  “Laughing.” Howie’s voice was tight, strained, and tortured.

  “Why is she laughing?”

  “At me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She’s pointing.”

  “Is she pointing at you?”

  “Yes!”

  Then Howie became perfectly still, every muscle in his body seeming to tense.

  “What do you see, Howie?”

  No answer.

  But now Howie’s eyes opened. They were wide eyes, eyes with fear in them, eyes beholding something terrible.

  “Howie, what do you see?”

  “A knife.”

  “Where is the knife, Howie?”

  “In front of me.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Grab.”

  “You grab for the knife?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happens?”

  “I miss.”

  “What do you do?”

  Howie’s face contorted into another variation on a dread theme. “It hurts!”

  “What hurts?”

  “The knife!”

  “Where does it hurt?”

  “In me!” Howie put his hands on the right side of his stomach.

  “You stab yourself?” Dr. Brown asks.

  Howie shook his head.

  “Who stabbed you, Howie?”

  Eyes widening again, Howie says, “He!”

  “Who is he?”

  “The devil!”

  “What does the devil look like?”

  “Black.”

  “Black? Black skin?”

  “Dressed in black.”

  “What color is his skin?”

  “Dark.”

  “Can you see his face?”

  “His eyes.”

  “You can see his eyes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you see their color?”

  “Hate.”

  “What color?”

  “Hate!”

  I noticed that Dr. Hendrick Brown was starting to sweat. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “What is he doing?”

  “Rae!”

  “What is the devil doing?”

  “Killing Rae!”

  “Is he stabbing her?”

  “Yes!”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m getting up.”

  “Can you get up?”

  “Rae! Rae!”

  “What is happening?”

  “She’s screaming! I can’t get up! Rae!”

  Howie raised his left arm in the air and reached out toward the image he was seeing in his mind. He sucked in a labored breath and held it. Then suddenly his eyes closed, and his head fell on his chest. For a moment I thought he’d died of a heart attack. I reached for him, but Dr. Brown put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me back, shaking his head slowly at me.

  “Howie,” Brown said, “it’s over. You’re back in the conference room with me and Jake. Remember?”

  Howie’s head didn’t move at first, then it lifted slowly. It reminded me of some movie where a corpse rises from the grave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “. . . AND HOWIE HAS transferred the guilt onto himself,” Hendrick Brown finished explaining as we drove back to my office. “He has convinced himself that he was responsible for Rae’s death because at that moment he wanted her dead. And there appeared at the right time an angel of death. Only this was no angel.”

  “So why didn’t he kill Howie too?” I asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about that. And I’m thinking it’s more transference.”

  “How so?”

  “The killer transferred the killing to Howie, right? Howie’s the one who got arrested, Howie’s the one with the motive, and Howie’s the one with the knife in his hand.”

  “What about that? How did that happen?”

  “You remember at the end when Howie looked like he passed out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He did. On that night he blacked out from his wound, from the trauma. He fainted. I figure the killer put the knife near Howie’s hand. The whole scene was made to order.”

  It made sense in an Alfred Hitchcock sort of way. But this wasn’t a movie, and I wasn’t a director who could change the script to come up with new evidence.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “What don’t you know?”

  “I don’t know how I’m going to get you up on the stand and get the judge to allow you to share your theory with the jury.”

  “Well, son, that’s your department. I just do the figuring. I don’t do the lawyering.”

  But I do. And it is a defense lawyer’s job to sow reasonable doubt in the collective mind of the jury. That’s the system. And the system in California dictates that reasonable doubt is not “mere possible doubt,” but where, after consideration by the members of the jury, the evidence leaves in their minds less than an “abiding conviction” in the truth of the charge.

  I played these words over and over in my head as I sat in my office, the sun setting on another day outside my window.

  Did I really have anything other than “mere possible doubt”? Would the jury, after comparing all the evidence, really have enough to say that they didn’t feel an “abiding conviction” of the truth of the charge?

  Not likely. Without some corroborating evidence, Brown’s theory was as fragile as my legal future.

  I scoured my mind for possibilities. Daphne Barth was not going to be any help, and the one guy who could have given us a link was dead.

  Nothing else.

  I poured myself a drink from the bottle I kept in my drawer, took off my shoes, and put my feet up on my desk. I placed my handheld tape recorder on the desk and replayed Howie’s examination.

  I just sipped and listened, hoping something would jump out, some clue or suggestion that would give me some direction to turn.

  And then it happened.

  It was near the end, just before Howie went into the blackout. Howie�
�s voice, playing two parts, came through again:

  Proud?

  Yeah, proud.

  Proud of what?

  Brian.

  What are you talking about, Rae?

  I’m talking about Brian, Howie.

  What about him?

  What makes you think he’s yours?

  When I heard that last comment in the interview room, I had assumed it was something Rae said just to make Howie go nuts.

  But what if it was true? What if little Brian Patino was not Howie’s son?

  Then somebody else was the father. And could that person be the killer?

  My phone rang. It was Lindsay Patino.

  “Did you see Howie today?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the latest?”

  “I’d rather not go into this by phone,” I said.

  “Can I come to your office? I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  I checked my watch, which seemed absurd as soon as I did it. I had no plans, no appointments, nothing to get to. “That’s fine,” I said.

  It took me ten minutes to clean up the office a little bit, take another drink, and hide the bottle. And it was almost fifteen minutes to the second when Lindsay walked through my door and sat down.

  She looked more beautiful than ever, which only made me angry.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” she said. “I’m here for Mom and Dad. It’s so hard on them. And they have Brian too.”

  I said, “I had Howie examined by a doctor, someone I’ve worked with before. He’s good, very good. He put Howie under medication to help him remember what happened.”

  “What kind of medication?”

  “Sodium pentathol.”

  She looked surprised. “Does that work?”

  “I think we got somewhere.”

  “What happened?”

  “The doc walked Howie through the night of the killing.”

  “And?”

  “He saw someone. He says it’s the devil. It may be more mundane than that. It may be the real killer.”

  Lindsay thought a moment and nodded. “Howie may have sensed something, the presence of evil.”

  “Or he may have dreamed it up in his own mind.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Because if he did, we may have a mental defense.”

  Shaking her head, Lindsay said, “That’s lame.”

  “What is?”

  “Just the fact that if Howie did sense demonic influence, it would be viewed as a type of insanity.”