“The twins were in the backseat.”
“The backseat of what?”
“The car. The Camaro.”
“What were they doing?”
“They looked asleep.”
“And your mother?”
“I don’t remember exactly.” Merell tugged on her bangs as if she could pull them down to cover her face.
“I think you do remember, Merell,” Jackson said.
“Objection, Your Honor, the witness has said she doesn’t remember.”
“Overruled.” The judge looked down at Merell. “Try to answer Mr. Jackson’s question, Merell. Do the best you can.”
“My mother was in the front seat and the twins were in the back.”
“Was your mother alone?”
“I said the twins were there.”
“In the front seat. Was she alone in the front seat?”
“She was holding my sister Olivia.”
“And Olivia is the baby?”
“Claire’s the baby now.”
“Your mother was holding the baby Olivia, who was how old at the time?”
“Eight or nine months?”
“What was your mother doing?”
“I thought they were asleep.”
“What did you do?”
Merell described how Roxanne had opened the garage door and together they had dragged Simone and the girls into the air outside.
“I called 911 and then I threw up.”
Someone in the gallery laughed.
Jackson said, “That was a good picture, Merell. Very clear.”
Merell smiled. Tears stung Roxanne’s eyes when she saw how needy she was, how at war her emotions were that she should at once hate this man and yet bloom in the light of his praise.
“Do you ever tell lies, Merell?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on now.” Jackson grinned at the jury. “Everyone lies once in a while, Merell. Do you mean to tell me—?”
“Objection, Your Honor. Is the prosecution trying to impeach its own witness?”
“Withdrawn.” Jackson’s look at the jury implied Cabot’s objection was frivolous. “Merell, let’s go back to something that happened back in July, the third week of July. That was the day you made a 911 call. Do you remember that?”
“I guess.”
“You, your mother and sisters were around the swimming pool in the afternoon. Your grandmother and the nanny were also there, am I correct?”
“We did that lots.”
“Of course. However, I am speaking of the day you made a call to the 911 operator. Do you remember that day in particular?”
“Yes.”
“Please tell the court exactly what happened on that day.”
Merell squared her shoulders. “I called 911 and said Olivia was drowning.”
Jackson said, “Your Honor, I submit into evidence the recording of Merell Duran’s call to the 911 operator.”
“Noted,” the judge said. “Go on. Play it.”
Into the silent courtroom came the voice of a terrified child crying, “My mother’s trying to drown my sister.”
The effect of the recorded message was damning and it spread through the courtroom like toxic fumes. Judge MacArthur rapped his gavel and called for quiet in the gallery.
Jackson asked, “Was that your voice on the recording, Merell?”
“Yes.”
“What happened after you made that phone call?”
“The police came.”
“And what did you tell them, Merell?”
“I said Mommy had Olivia in the pool and she squirmed and slipped out of Mommy’s arms. It was an accident.”
“What else did you tell the police?”
Merell fidgeted; even from where she sat, Roxanne saw the color rise in her cheeks. “I said I made up that Olivia was drowning because I wanted to see what would happen if I called like an emergency.”
“Let’s get this straight.” Jackson sounded perplexed. “You told two different stories, Merell. Which was the truth?”
“Objection, Your Honor. The prosecutor is cross-examining his own witness.”
MacArthur pushed his fingers up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Overruled, Mr. Cabot. I’m going to give Mr. Jackson some latitude with this reluctant youngster.”
“You told two stories. One of them was a lie. Am I right?”
Merell sat on her hands. “I guess.”
“Merell, did your mother try to drown Olivia?”
“No. I told you—”
“Why should the jury believe anything you say, Merell? Maybe you were lying to the police. Maybe you’re lying now.”
“Sometimes—” She didn’t finish her sentence.
“Sometimes what, Merell?”
She pulled her hands up and shoved them under her arms. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell the court what you were going to say.”
She didn’t speak.
The judge said, “Answer Mr. Jackson’s question, Merell. And remember you’ve taken an oath to be truthful.”
“Sometimes… there’s a good reason to lie.”
At the back of the gallery someone laughed softly.
“Would you lie to protect your mother, Merell?”
“Objection, the prosecution is asking this witness to—”
“Overruled.”
“Would you lie to protect your mother?”
“No. That would be perjury.” Merell sat up straighter and grabbed the arms of the witness chair. “Perjury is a crime, and you can go to jail.”
“Bearing that in mind”—Jackson waited a beat—“tell the jury now, did your mother try to drown Olivia?”
The courtroom was perfectly silent except for the sounds of wind and rain.
“No. I only called 911 to find out what would happen.”
Chapter 16
The next day David Cabot opened his defense.
Speaking to the jury, he said, “I chose to postpone my opening statement until now because I wanted you to have the opportunity to focus all your attention on what Mr. Jackson and his witnesses had to say. Mr. Jackson wants you to believe that Simone Duran is a cold-blooded murderer and planned to hurt her children.” He shook his head as if this idea was impossible to grasp. “When I rest the case for the defense in a few days, you will know how wrongheaded that notion is. You will know that Simone Duran is a loving mother who would never intentionally harm her children.”
He stood behind Simone and rested his hands on her shoulders.
“When it’s time for you to decide your verdict, you will know all about a condition called learned helplessness. More importantly, you’ll know about postpartum depression, a mental condition that afflicts millions of women around the world. And you’ll understand that postpartum psychosis takes a mother’s natural love for her children and turns it back on itself. It turns a loving mother into a loving killer.”
He let the jury ponder his words. A loving killer.
Tomorrow’s headline.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I think anyone, when they hear that a woman is accused of trying to hurt her children, will feel disgust. Revulsion. It’s a horrifying crime that Mrs. Duran has been accused of, the most unnatural crime there is….” Two or three jurors sat forward, waiting for him to complete his thought. “That’s why you have to be insane to do it.
“So far you’ve seen and heard the prosecutor’s image of Simone Duran. Now I’m asking you to clear any premature judgments you might have formed and start again with open minds. In the next couple of days you’re going to get to know the real Simone Duran. I’m going to call her to the stand and she’ll describe the incident in the garage in her own words. One of the things she’s going to tell you is that her baby, Olivia, was suffering from infantile acid reflux at the time.”
Cabot nodded to his associate at the defense table, who pushed the button of a small recording machine. All at once the courtroom filled with the sound of an i
nfant’s piercing cries.
Prosecutor Jackson leaped to his feet, and Judge MacArthur’s gavel slammed down; but Cabot went right on talking to the jury, stepping closer to the jury box and raising his voice to be heard over the recorded screams. “More than one witness will tell you that Simone Duran’s baby cried like this almost all the time, day and night.”
“Your Honor, this is a mockery! What’s he going to tell us? She tried to kill her children because the baby wouldn’t stop crying?”
Cabot’s associate shut off the recording.
Roxanne thought she could hear the judge grinding his teeth. He scowled at Cabot. “You get one chance in my courtroom. No more showboating, or you’ll regret it.”
Cabot dipped his head apologetically, but he didn’t seem overawed.
“With due respect, Your Honor, the jurors can’t understand my client’s frame of mind unless they hear what she heard every day for months and months. It’s the defense’s intention to repeat this recording at various times throughout the case.”
“Not without my permission you won’t! I’ll entertain a written motion, Counselor, supporting your use of a recording in this way. Have it on my desk by five this afternoon and not a minute later.”
Cabot’s associate gathered the recorder and her briefcase and hurried out of the courtroom. Roxanne knew that the motion was already written and ready to be delivered to the judge’s clerk.
MacArthur’s eyes disappeared beneath his lowered brows. “The defense is warned. I am not in a patient frame of mind.”
Cabot turned back to the jury. “I apologize for that, ladies and gentleman. That’s a terrible sound, I know, and I’m sorry it’s necessary for you to hear it. But it’s essential you understand that the screams of a baby in pain were a constant in Simone Duran’s life.”
Cabot paused to glance at a paper on his desk. Roxanne felt the jury’s curiosity quicken. Several shuffled in their chairs, rearranging themselves to listen more intently. An excited hum of anticipation spiked the crowd in the gallery. To some extent Jackson’s prosecution had been predictable in its scope, Merell being the only unexpected witness. Cabot’s defense promised not only surprises but drama and some fireworks.
“Now, it may surprise you to hear that I’m not going to contradict all the prosecution’s evidence. The defense doesn’t dispute that Simone Duran did something crazy.”
Jackson jumped to his feet again. “I object to the use of the word crazy, Your Honor.”
David sighed and dropped his shoulders, looking slightly abused.
“Stay in your seat, Mr. Jackson,” the judge said. “I don’t know how they do it up in San Jose, but down here lawyers don’t interrupt opening statements. Screaming babies are an exception, of course.” He looked like he was ready to step down from the bench and take on Jackson, hand to hand.
“But, Judge,” Jackson said, “the defense is mischaracterizing the prosecution’s case. No one ever mentioned the word crazy.”
Jackson was whining, and several of the jurors looked impatient. It was not yet noon but in the closed and stuffy room the day already seemed long, and they were obviously fed up with objections, legitimate or not.
“I know you’re tired of sitting in those chairs day after day and it’s got to be hard to concentrate on expert testimony sometimes. It can be pretty dry.” Cabot smiled like everyone’s best friend, and Roxanne noted that several on the jury smiled back at him. “Let me tell you a story.”
“This court does not look kindly upon fiction, Mr. Cabot. Make sure it’s relevant.”
“I will, Your Honor, if you’ll just allow me a little latitude here.”
“Proceed.”
“I was an undergraduate at a school in Ohio. Miami University. Named after the Native American tribe, not the city. I had to take a music appreciation course. It was what we called a ‘gut course’ and I think even my little daughter could pass it. But I was a football player, and football was all I really cared about in those days. To make matters worse, this class met at seven-thirty in the morning and when the prof played Beethoven and Haydn and all the rest of them, I couldn’t stay awake, much less distinguish one longhair from another. But I was lucky, I had a girlfriend who was much smarter than me.”
“Get on with it, Mr. Cabot.”
“Well, long story short, this girlfriend told me what to listen for, and after that, the music made sense to my ear. Knowing how to listen gave me focus so I wasn’t just hearing random notes, and thanks to her, I did okay in that class. Now, ladies and gentlemen, for the next couple of days I want you to focus your listening in the same way. The testimony you’re going to hear will make more sense to you if you listen for the answer to a question. This question is the key to this trial and your verdict. We know that Simone Duran tried to hurt her daughters. I’m not going to argue about that. But the important question is why. Why did Simone Duran try to hurt her daughters?”
He walked to the defense table, but he didn’t sit down. Standing behind Simone, enunciating carefully, he said, “Why did she do it?”
The following day the defense began calling to the stand the promised experts and authorities, including Dr. Omar, Olivia’s pediatrician, who testified to the unusual severity of the baby’s acid reflux and the fact that there was, essentially, nothing to do but hold her and walk her and love her until she outgrew the condition and stopped screaming. Under cross-examination the psychiatric experts never wavered from their conviction that Simone suffered from postpartum psychosis at the time of the attempted murders, and that it had rendered her totally unable to distinguish right from wrong.
The defense’s final expert was Dr. Barbara Balch, a dignified, large-boned woman with bright blue eyes and a neat cap of white hair. She assumed the witness stand with poised assurance, placed her handbag on the floor beside her chair, smoothed her skirt, and looked up, ready to begin. She told the jury that she had been an obstetrician initially but became a psychiatrist specializing in postpartum syndromes when she realized that, following the births of their eagerly anticipated infants, many of her patients who should have been happy instead fell into a deep despondency.
“I discovered, Mr. Cabot, that many, many women begin motherhood feeling as though they’ve been cheated. Pregnancy itself is an immense physical challenge, but there’s always the promise that at the end of nine months there’ll be a sweet, adorable baby who will make it all worthwhile. The truth that’s rarely spoken is that a newborn is generally neither sweet nor adorable except when sleeping, but then a newborn wakes up every two hours, hungry and yelling. Even an orderly household is turned upside down. And for what? A seven-pound tyrant who cries at all hours and keeps its parents from getting more than an hour or two of sleep at a time. And even in the most egalitarian home, it is the mother who bears the brunt of this tyranny. Hormonally, she’s still hooked to this baby. It cries and her hormones go into alarm mode.”
The woman who owned a copy shop seemed ruefully amused by Dr. Balch’s testimony. Roxanne remembered from voir dire that she had four children, now grown.
Dr. Balch said, “The recorded screams you played for the jury were what Simone heard every day and night starting almost as soon as the baby Olivia was brought home. And to make things more difficult she became pregnant again when Olivia was less than six months old. Much, much too soon.”
“Why did this make the situation more difficult?” Cabot asked.
“You and I hate the sound of a child in pain. It’s the normal reaction but it’s a mental and emotional reaction. For Simone it was also physical because she and baby Olivia were still chemically bound to each other.”
Cabot asked her to explain what she meant.
“A pregnant woman goes through system-wide hormonal changes, we’ve talked about that. What most people don’t realize or think about is that all the major organs—heart, kidney, liver, the whole internal life-support system—have to shift position in a woman’s body to make room for the growing f
etus. Pregnancy alters a woman’s body forever and in ways that can be extremely upsetting, and while it is entirely possible to conceive just a few months after giving birth, it’s not particularly healthy. In primitive societies where this is routine, women are either dead or physically aged by the time they’re forty.”
“So it was physical changes that caused the postpartum psychosis?”
“Not at first. At first she would have been merely depressed. And while PPD—postpartum depression—is so common that we might even think of it as normal, I would call Simone’s situation—physical and emotional—a kind of perfect storm. From the beginning of her first pregnancy she was headed for disaster.”
“And what do you mean by disaster, Dr. Balch?”
“Psychosis.”
Dr. Balch told the jury that because societies do not encourage a new mother to be honest about her negative feelings, PPP was almost always a hidden condition until a crisis occurred. “Despite what most people believe, PPP is actually fairly common. It has been estimated that one or two in every thousand cases of postpartum depression will develop into full-blown psychosis.”
“How many babies are born every year in this country, Dr. Balch?”
“Roughly four million.”
Cabot looked at the jury. “That’s a lot of thousands. And for every thousand, there will be one or two children with a psychotic mother?”
Jackson stood up. “Objection, Your Honor. These numbers are very general and Dr. Balch has offered no scientific support for them. Without substantiation—”
“Dr. Balch is an expert in this field. And her statistics represent real mothers and children. When you think of the number of babies born every year in this country alone—”
“We take your point, Mr. Cabot,” MacArthur said. “I’ll allow the testimony, but from now on, stay away from the math.”
“Doctor, considering all the mothers and babies in the world, why don’t we hear more about women killing their children?”
“My colleagues and I do hear. But these are deeply disturbing stories and most people would prefer not to know about them. Every day,” Dr. Balch said, “infants are born in back alleys and abandoned buildings to girls who have hidden their pregnancies from their families and friends. They leave their babies in Dumpsters or in the bus or outside a church and go back to school. Every day babies are smothered and tossed away. For every one we hear about in the news, there are hundreds that go unfound, unnoticed.”
The Good Sister Page 20
