Rose Connors - Temporary Sanity

“I did.” The doctor looks puzzled, then relieved. He doesn’t know why the battle ended, but he’s glad it did.

“When did you examine him, sir?”

“On four separate occasions.” The doctor opens his chart on the ledge of the witness box and pulls a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket. He settles them on the edge of his nose and looks down to read. “September tenth, sixteenth, and twenty-fourth of this year, for about two hours each time. Again on October eighth, a little longer that day.”

“More than eight hours of clinical evaluation?”

“That’s right.” The doctor leans back in the chair, glasses once again in his hands.

“And did you reach a conclusion, Doctor, about Mr. Hammond’s mental state on the morning of June twenty-first, the morning of the shooting?”

Dr. Simmons is a seasoned witness. He knows the drill. Answer only the question asked.

“I did.”

“Can you state that conclusion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty?”

“I can.”

Harry pauses and turns, beaming at Beatrice. “Judge Nolan is awfully eager for you to share your opinion with us.”

Dr. Simmons looks up at the judge, unsure. She glares back at him, arms still folded across her chest, hands still tucked in her sleeves. After a moment, the doctor gives up on her and turns back to the jurors. They assess him critically.

It’s plain to everyone in the room that Beatrice doesn’t like this doctor and, for the jurors, that makes him suspect. Beatrice is, after all, the judge. The robe imparts a great deal of authority, commands a great deal of respect. No matter who’s wearing it.

“As I said, Mr. Hammond suffered a psychotic episode that morning. It was a limited episode in that he lost contact with a fragment of reality-and had a jumbled perspective on other fragments-but he didn’t lose everything. He was still functioning.”

“Which fragment did he lose?”

“His son’s death. Mr. Hammond’s mind rejected it outright.”

“Denial?”

Dr. Simmons shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t that. Denial is a normal reaction to death-particularly a death so unexpected. What Mr. Hammond experienced that morning was an actual break from reality. In his world-in his mental universe, if you will-the boy’s death hadn’t happened. It wasn’t a fact he rejected; it was a fact that didn’t exist in the first place.”

“And which fragments were jumbled?”

“The events of the prior forty hours. With the exception of his son’s death, every event was clear in Mr. Hammond’s mind when he stood beside the airport hangar that morning. But the timeline was mixed up; the occurrences were out of order.”

“For example?”

“The most obvious example was also the most significant: his son’s abduction. Mr. Hammond knew Billy had been grabbed by a dangerous man. He knew his boy’s life was in jeopardy. But he had no handle on how long the boy had been gone.”

“And he didn’t know his son was dead?”

“No.” Dr. Simmons turns from Harry to the panel and takes a deep breath. “When Mr. Hammond raised his rifle that morning, he believed he was fighting for his son’s life.” The doctor shakes his head. “It’s hard to understand. I know that.” He gestures toward the defense table, as if the best evidence of what he’s telling them is seated here. The jurors’ eyes follow, settle on Buck.

He’s sitting upright, dry-eyed, staring straight ahead. He looks like a man whose mental universe is nowhere near this courtroom.

Harry paces in front of the witness box, one fist against his mouth, the other in his pants pocket. I recognize the expression on his face and it worries me. If I’m reading him correctly, he’s about to buy a one-way ticket to lockup. And I don’t want to have to finish this trial alone.

He stops pacing and his face registers a decision. He hasn’t looked in my direction. This isn’t good.

“Doctor, you say Mr. Hammond knew the man who abducted his son was dangerous. Can you be more specific?”

Beatrice is unaware of what’s coming. She wasn’t the judge when we tried to get it in the first time. At the moment, even Stanley seems not to realize.

Dr. Simmons looks surprised. He wasn’t in the courtroom when Judge Long excluded the evidence. He assumed the jury already knew. “The police told him,” he says.

Stanley rouses, but not fast enough.

“They told him they’d traced the van’s license plate to a Hector Monteros. They told him Monteros was a violent sex offender.”

Stanley erupts. “Objection, Your Honor! Objection!”

The doctor keeps talking. “On the mandatory registry. A repeat pedophile.”

“Your Honor! Objection!” Stanley stamps both feet repeatedly on the worn carpeting of the courtroom floor. A bona fide temper tantrum.

Everyone else in the room is quiet. The jurors appear frozen, their eyes locked on the witness box.

Beatrice pounds her gavel. Its thuds and Stanley’s sputtering are the only sounds in the room. Stanley is ballistic. His blue forehead vein is pounding. He’s shrieking at Beatrice, his voice an octave higher than usual. But Beatrice isn’t listening. She’s on her feet now, pointing her gavel at Harry.

“Mr. Madigan, your examination of this witness is over. One more word and I’ll hold you in contempt. You can spend Christmas behind bars as far as I’m concerned. And if I were you, sir, I wouldn’t make plans for New Year’s Eve.”

The judge turns her icy stare-and her gavel-on Dr. Simmons. “The county can provide accommodations for you as well, Doctor, if need be.”

The doctor’s eyes grow wide. He’s speechless for a moment, then recovers. “Me? What did I do?”

This is a first. Beatrice sends Harry to the pokey with a great deal of ease, but as far as I know she’s never threatened to throw his witness in with him. I’m surprised she’d allow him the company.

The jurors still haven’t moved, but their eyes have. A few stare at Judge Nolan. Most focus on Buck. He’s motionless.

Harry finally looks at me-that look that always takes my breath away-as he takes his seat. He’s satisfied, happy even. He’ll gladly serve whatever time Beatrice metes out, holidays or not. I can take it from here.

If it’s true that cats have nine lives, they’ve got nothing on Harry Madigan.

Beatrice Nolan excused the jury for a twenty-minute recess. She summoned additional court officers to her crowded courtroom, bringing the total to four. She told the court reporter we were to stay on the record. In short, she set the stage for her well-rehearsed one-woman show. She was about to throw Harry in jail. Again.

Harry had a different idea.

He told old Beatrice we’d take an interlocutory appeal. Kevin Kydd would be in front of the appellate panel within the hour, he said. Harry conceded that the Court of Appeals doesn’t often allow interlocutory challenges-issues appealed in the midst of trial, before the final verdict is in. But it might just be interested in this one.

Harry stood in front of the bench and held up both hands to count out the number of times Beatrice has locked him up. He ran out of fingers. Without a trace of unpleasantness in his voice, Harry told Beatrice that the appellate court might wonder why a member of the bar-a member in good standing, no less-has been jailed so many times by the same judge. We’d like to be heard on that issue, he said.

Harry actually smiled at her then. Beatrice didn’t smile back.

And it’s not just the repeated lockups we’d ask the higher court to consider, Harry told her. We’d seek a review of the ruling on its merits. This was the defense psychiatrist, after all. It was his job to determine what facts Buck knew-and what facts he didn’t know-when he pulled the trigger. The doctor would have been guilty of malpractice had he not factored in Buck’s knowledge of Monteros’s history.