Marcia Talley - This Enemy Town

“I’m fine, Paul, so to speak. Did you hear everything?”

“Yes, I did. And the answering machine did, too.”

With Admiral Hart shipped off to Norfolk, Virginia, where the Navy could keep a close eye on him, and Dorothy in police custody, I figured Kevin could use a friend. It had been three days since his mother’s arrest, and he was still at Bethesda, but we heard from Emma that he’d turned his room into a command post and was directing his mother’s defense from there.

“I’m glad Dorothy’s in a hospital,” I said as Paul eased his Volvo into the heavy stream of traffic moving counterclockwise around the Washington Beltway. “I couldn’t bear to think of her locked up in a cell.”

“Dorothy’s sick, Hannah. Cheevers won’t let her go to jail.”

Kevin’s father had recommended a lawyer for his wife, but Kevin turned him down flat. When Kevin asked for my advice, I’d sent him to Murray Simon. Nobody, after all, could be more familiar with the Goodall case than Murray. But citing conflict of interest, Murray handed Kevin off to James Cheevers, his colleague at Cheevers, Tanner and Greenberg, a firm that specialized in criminal law. We’d met Jim once, at Concert of Tastes, a fund-raiser for the Annapolis Symphony. Aside from a fetish for novelty ties-on symphony night he’d been wearing one decorated with cellos-Cheevers was the best, and Dorothy Hart, poor thing, was going to need him.

Paul took the Wisconsin Avenue exit and drove the short distance south to the National Naval Medical Center, the multistory hospital with the distinctive central tower, familiar to millions of television viewers as Bethesda, the hospital that had saved the lives of several U.S. presidents and a goodly number of congressmen, too. Paul flashed his Naval Academy faculty ID for the sentry, who waved us through into the parklike grounds.

Five minutes later we left our car on the second level of the parking garage and made our way across a footbridge into the hospital proper.

Paul took my hand and squeezed it three times. I-love-you.

“Me, too,” I said aloud. “And aren’t you glad you’re not married to a criminal?”

“You know what’s criminal?” he said, punching the Up button on the elevator.

“What?”

Paul stepped into the elevator and dragged me in after him. After the door slid shut, he pulled me into his arms. “What’s criminal,” he said before planting his lips firmly on mine, “is how gorgeous you look even with your arm in a sling.”

We found Kevin on 5C, in a sterile white-on-white room, sitting up in bed with an IV feeding into his arm. Emma was perched at the foot of the bed, while Jim Cheevers, wearing a wool scarf and a tweed overcoat, occupied the single chair in the room that was reserved for visitors. A Navy lieutenant dressed in khaki, her blond hair twisted into a braid and secured with a silver clip, bent over a computer terminal, typing away. I could tell from her collar device that she was a nurse.

“Hi, Kevin,” I said.

The lieutenant turned a dazzling smile on at her patient. “Midshipman Hart, this is your official notification that you are now exceeding the regulation visitor allotment by two individuals.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Aaronson,” Kevin replied with no hint of concern in his voice. “I’d like you to meet Professor and Mrs. Ives, from Annapolis.”

Lieutenant Aaronson grinned, shook our hands, and relented. “But since you’ve come all this way…”

Kevin winked at Emma. “See. She is putty in my hands.”

“Behave yourself, Kevin!” Emma slapped his leg where it rested underneath the blanket.

“Excellent advice, Midshipman,” Lieutenant Aaronson shot back over her shoulder as she busied herself again at the terminal.

Kevin’s face grew serious. He turned to Cheevers, who, we soon learned, had arrived only minutes before us. “What’s going to happen to my mother?”

Jim Cheevers unwound his scarf, shrugged out of his overcoat, then leaned forward, resting his forearms on the briefcase that lay across his knees. “She’s been arraigned, but the court has ordered a complete mental and physical evaluation. She’s up at the University of Maryland Medical Center right now.”

I nodded. “That’s good, Kevin. My mother was a patient there. They couldn’t have been more wonderful.”

“Have the doctors found anything yet?” Kevin asked.

Cheevers’s flyaway salt and pepper eyebrows hovered over his eyes, round and dark as chocolate drops. He nodded.

I was almost afraid to ask. “Is it the cancer?”

“No, something else entirely. Because of the migraines, the confusion, the problems she was having from time to time with her coordination, the doctors suspected that something was putting pressure on her brain.”

Kevin’s good eyebrow shot up. “A tumor?”

“Because of her medical history, they suspected a tumor, of course,” Cheevers said, “but the MRI showed no evidence of that. They did find something else, though. Your mother may be suffering from normal pressure hydrocephalus, which in spite of the name, isn’t normal at all. In layman’s terms, it’s an abnormal buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain. The fluid is often under pressure and can compress the brain, causing all kinds of difficulties.”

“Are you talking about water on the brain?” I wondered. “I thought that happened with babies.”

Jim Cheevers nodded. “Exactly. But the disease can occur in adults, too.”

Lieutenant Aaronson stepped away from the monitor. “Excuse me for interrupting, Mrs. Ives, but I think I can respond to that. We don’t know why, but this condition is becoming increasingly common with older adults. And if you’ll allow me to climb up on my soap box for a moment, it’s very often misdiagnosed as senile dementia or even Alzheimer’s disease because of the symptoms. We get it with the veterans all the time.”

“What kind of symptoms?” Paul wanted to know.

Lieutenant Aaronson ticked them off on her fingers. “Headaches, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, fatigue, irritability, incontinence, personality changes, and problems with coordination. In advanced stages, it can even cause paranoia.”

I couldn’t believe it. Dorothy Hart was a textbook case, a poster child for the disease. We’d mistaken her symptoms for the side effects of chemo. “Can it be treated?” I asked the nurse.

“It’s amazingly simple. Doctors install a shunt in the brain that lets the excess fluid drain away, thereby relieving the pressure.”

“So Mom will be cured? Once a shunt is installed she’ll be completely normal?”

Lieutenant Aaronson nodded. “More than likely, she’ll be completely normal.”

Normal. Everyone in the room kept silent while the significance of that word sank in. How could anything be normal when you were being accused of murder?

After Lieutenant Aaronson left the room, Cheevers got to his feet and approached Kevin’s bed. “She’ll plead not guilty by reason of insanity.”

Kevin nodded.

“We’ll waive a jury trial,” Cheevers continued. “We’ll let the judge decide, but, yes, I believe she’ll be acquitted.”

“Do you think Mom will have to spend any time in jail?”

“A hospital, maybe, but just until the court determines that she’s no longer a danger to herself or to society.”

Kevin relaxed against his pillow. “Good. That’s good.”

“Not so fast, young man.” Jim Cheevers raised a cautionary hand. “There’s still the matter of the attack on Hannah.”

I flashed back to the time I had spent in the jail cell, the hours that dragged on like eternity, and I didn’t wish it on anyone, especially someone who had been legally insane at the time. “I’m not going to press charges.”