James Patterson: 10th Anniversary

Needles went into IVs. Paddles were applied to Antin’s exposed heart, and then, once again, Candace Martin massaged the heart with her hands, begging her friend to stay with her. Demanding it.

After it was clear, even to me, that the patient wasn’t coming back, a nurse pulled Candace away, and a doctor pronounced the time of the patient’s death.

Candace ripped off her mask and made a rapid and direct line for the door. The video cameras blinked off.

I heard my name, turned toward the exit, and saw the security director beckoning to Conklin and me.

Security said, “Can I see that warrant again, please?”

Conklin took it out of his inside jacket pocket. The security chief read it and said, “Dr. Martin is in the locker room. Please follow me.”

We found Candace Martin still in her bloody scrubs, sitting on a bench, staring at a wall of lockers. I asked her to stand up, and she looked at me as though she didn’t recognize me. Conklin showed her the warrant and told her we were taking her into custody for the murder of her husband.

All the fight seemed to have gone out of her.

YUKI AND I sat across a small metal table from Candace Martin and Phil Hoffman. Hoffman looked as he always did: contained, dressed for a press conference at a moment’s notice. Candace Martin looked like she’d been dragged by her hair through hell.

I was angry, feeling the calm before an emotional storm, pissed off at myself for the first time since Hoffman buffaloed me into getting involved in this case. But I’d done it, believed Candace Martin’s lies, and if I didn’t want to be patrolling the Mission in a squad car for the next year, I had to make this mess turn out right.

Yuki said, “Dr. Martin, it’s over. We’ve spoken with Caitlin’s shrink. She has recanted her testimony. She said she didn’t kill her father. She said that her father forced himself on her, yes. But she said you did the shooting.

“The People are ready to proceed with your trial, or you can tell us what really happened.”

Hoffman said, “I need to consult with my client. And she needs a little time to get her wits together. She’s suffering a grave personal loss.”

I was almost lit up with fury, the fighting-mad kind that you can control but just don’t want to. I said, “Phil, you have lied to me, your client has lied to me, and she tried to get us to look at an innocent person for murder.

“Ask me how much I care about her personal loss. Not. At. All. This woman killed her husband. She’s cooked, and this is her only chance to make a deal.”

Candace was shaking her head, her face contorted in pain. “You don’t understand.”

I was unmoved.

Yuki said, “Phil. The judge gave us sixty days to determine whether or not the People wish to try your client. This is day fifty-seven. On Monday, we either tell Judge LaVan that the defendant pleads guilty or we go back to trial.

“The children will not be in court, but Caitlin’s shrink will be standing by, and if you so much as hint that Caitlin killed her father, Dr. Rosenblatt will play the tape of Caitlin’s recantation for the jury.

“So, Dr. Martin,” Yuki said, “it’s us or the jury. Take your pick. Honestly, I think your odds are better with us.”

“Candace,” Hoffman said, “it’s your decision.”

“I’m tired, Phil,” she said. And then she was sobbing.

Phil nodded and handed her a tissue.

Candace dabbed at her eyes, blew her nose, and said, “Phil, I’m sorry I lied to you. I did it to protect my children. They don’t have anyone but me.”

“Let’s hear it,” Yuki said.

CANDACE MARTIN SAID, “You want me to say I shot Dennis? I did . After years of torture, that bastard finally pushed me over the edge.”

“What edge is that?” I asked her.

The doctor’s eyes were flaming red. Her fingers shook and her voice wavered. The composed surgeon I’d met in this room back in October had been swapped out for a woman who still looked like her but was emotionally broken and ready to tell the truth.

“On the night in question, I was in my home office,” she said. “Ellen had left for the evening and a little while later, I heard a muffled shout. It could only be Caitlin. I got up from my desk and ran down the hallway in time to see Dennis coming out of her bedroom.

“He didn’t look right,” Candace said. “He jumped when he noticed me. Then he screamed at me, ‘Don’t sneak up on me like that.’”

“I didn’t even have a chance to answer before Caitlin ran out of her bedroom and into my arms. She was naked. She was flushed and crying and the insides of her thighs were wet . She cried, ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,’ the most savagely sad cries I’ve ever heard.

“She’d been raped,” Candace said, her face radiating horror. “My husband had done this to my little girl.”

Neither Yuki nor I moved or said a word, and then Candace continued.

“I held her and told her that I loved her and always would. I told her to shower and get dressed, that I’d be right back. And then I ran back down the hallway to the bedroom I shared with Dennis — and he was there, stuffing cash into his wallet, and he said, ‘Don’t believe what she tells you. Caitlin lies.’

“Dennis picked up his car keys and left the bedroom,” Candace said. “He had cheated on me for years, but whenever I tried to leave him, he said he would take the children and prove that I was an unfit mother. I knew that he would try. Even though he was never home, even though he was a horrible parent. I knew he would find a way to take them, just to make sure I didn’t get them.

“He must not have heard me come home that evening. He was raping her while I was actually in the house . How could he have done that?

“I hated myself for missing the signs. But I hated Dennis more. I couldn’t let him get away with what he’d done. I ran back to my office and grabbed my gun.”

Candace’s voice ran out and she just sat there, hands propping up her head, staring hard at the table, silent.

Phil went to the door of the interview room and opened it. I heard him ask someone to bring water.

As we waited, I went back over the pictures Candace had painted in my mind. I could see everything as if I’d been there myself and witnessed the horror.

It all rang true, but I still had questions.

PHIL BROUGHT BOTTLES of water into the room and set them down on the table. Candace’s hand shook violently as she drank down half of one of the bottles. After that, she told Phil that she was all right and wanted to go on. She continued her story of betrayal in the first degree.

“Dennis was heading toward the front door and I was right behind him, screaming at him to stop, calling him names, but he just lowered his head and kept going.

“I had no plan to kill him. You have to believe that. I only wanted to stop him. All I could think about was that he had raped my child, his own daughter. And I didn’t want him to ever do it again.”

“What happened next, Candace?” I asked.

Candace had fallen down a tunnel of memory. I repeated my question and she returned to her story.

“I was charging after Dennis, but as I passed Caitlin’s room, she ran out to me and grabbed me by the waist again.

“I comforted her, but Dennis kept taunting me. He turned to me in the foyer and said that Caitlin was lying, that her hysteria was make-believe. I knew what he’d done. I knew full well what he had done to my little girl.

“He saw the gun in my hand, and I remembered that I was holding it. I said, ‘Stay where you are. I’m calling the police.’