Jonathan Kellerman - Breakdown

Enid DePauw had killed Zina Rutherford thirty years ago without J. Yarmuth Loach’s prior knowledge, telling Loach, then an employee of her husband, that her half sister had trespassed her property in a state of mania and attempted to attack her. Believing the assertion of self-defense, Loach had buried the body at the rear of Enid’s property.

Moftizadeh paused. “An error in judgment, not a real crime.”

Milo and Nguyen remained stony. Moftizadeh resumed the narrative.

Flash forward. Enid, long accustomed to relying on Loach, now her estate attorney, had phoned him in a panic, reporting that Zina’s daughter, “shockingly” mentally ill in a way that “eerily” evoked her mother, had trespassed in a “bizarrely, brazenly, and unprovokedly similar” manner and attempted to attack her without provocation. Loach had no trouble believing the assertions of mental illness because he recalled Zelda living with Enid and Averell as a child, the couple “doing its best to adequately and wisely parent” but giving up because “the child displayed rabidly unpredictable behavior — tantrums, bursts of anger, and disruptive defiance.”

Zelda’s death, Enid insisted, had been natural — a seizure, heart attack, or stroke, right in front of her. Probably as a result of “manically induced arousal.”

This time, Loach had advised a different approach: Instead of hiding the body, he suggested Enid phone in the episode as a stranger home invasion. Imagine his shock when mere days later, Enid called yet again, explaining that she’d been examining a gun she kept for personal protection and had “accidentally and fatally” shot her housekeeper.

Making matters worse, the housekeeper’s friend, another “Hispanic housecleaner,” had been visiting at the time and, in an “unwisely carried-out panic move,” Enid had shot her, too.

Milo said, “A single bullet in the back of each head is panic, let alone accidental?”

Moftizadeh was unfazed by the question. “My client only knows what he was told.”

“He saw the wounds?”

“He saw two bodies, the shock was overwhelming. I’d like to continue, John.”

Ignoring Milo, trying to put a wedge between cop and D.A., Nguyen got it and said, “Any questions Lieutenant Sturgis asks are important to me. And the two he just asked should be important to you, Fahriz.” He sniffed the air. “No riding stables around here, why am I picking up horseshit?”

“John.”

Nguyen said, “Anything else, Milo?”

“Nope, I’m ready for more entertainment.”

“Hmm,” said Moftizadeh. “Where was I...?”

He told the rest of the story. Yet again, Enid had turned to her trusted advisor and said advisor had made another “hastily concocted grievous error in judgment” burying “those women.” A mistake for which he realized he now needed to be held accountable.

Moftizadeh put down the paper.

Milo and Nguyen studied Loach. Loach studied nicks and stains on the tabletop.

“Gentlemen,” said Moftizadeh. “Do we have an understanding?”

Nguyen said, “You’re serious.”

“I couldn’t be more serious about my faith in the truthfulness of Mr. Loach’s accounts of his motives and actions. Particularly in view of the fact that the Chase woman died of natural—”

“She was poisoned, Fahriz.”

“You know that to be—”

“Without a doubt, Fahriz.”

“Well... I don’t see how that’s relevant—”

Nguyen took the typed statement, folded and placed it in a jacket pocket, and got up. “You brought us down here for this? Let’s go, Lieutenant.”

Milo stood. Moftizadeh said, “Whoa whoa whoa. Please allow me to explicate further, John.”

“If anyone explains, your client does.”

Moftizadeh said, “I am, essentially, my client. We’re trying to work with you. If that’s your additional evidence, an alleged poisoning that my client cannot have been expected to recognize as such, I have to say I’ve heard more compelling. Overconfidence can lead one astray, John.”

The criticism Cohen had heard leveled against him.

Nguyen patted his pocket. “If you’re confident about this load of crap, you’re in big trouble.”

Moftizadeh’s face hardened. “Over the phone I told you we’ve recontextualized. Are you willing to listen or not?”

“If Mr. Loach has found his voice. I need to hear it from him.”

“I don’t see why that’s — all right, I’ll be flexible, John. And I’ll trust you to reciprocate at arraignment.”

Nguyen remained on his feet.

Moftizadeh nodded at Loach.

Loach said, “I was a fool. Believing her. She uses me, always has. Given the issue, obviously she was at fault—”

“What issue is that?” said Nguyen.

“The... the chemical agent.”

“Let’s just call it poison,” said Nguyen. “Colchicine. You’ve heard of it, right?”

“I’m not a horticulturist,” said Loach. “Be that as it may, I realize in retrospect that the other two were deliberate.”

“The other two what?” said Milo.

“The domestics.”

“They have names,” said Nguyen. “Alicia Santos, Imelda Soriano.”

“I never knew their names,” said Loach. “The disturbed woman I never saw. It’s a terrible thing. That Enid did. When she told me, my heart sank.”

He ran hands along his temple. “She must be a radically different person from the one I thought I knew. So disillusioning. At my age, to be such a gullible fool.”

Moftizadeh patted his hand again. “We’ll get through this.” To Nguyen: “My client is prepared to testify fully against Mrs. DePauw in return for consideration—”

“Not with that story,” said Nguyen.

“It’s the story he was told, John. It formed his opinion set. Does it lose credibility when one steps back contextually? Of course. But we’re talking a senior citizen. Things slow down. It takes a while to put things into place.”

That sounded like the seeds of a diminished capacity defense. No doubt there’d be a selection of experts willing to certify Loach was suffering from dementia.

Moftizadeh leaned forward. “Besides, the very ludicrousness of Mrs. DePauw’s story can play to both our benefits.”

“We’re on the same team now?”

“Aren’t we, John? You want to punish a calculatedly, egregiously cruel murderess — if there was ever a case for special circumstances it’s her. So does Mr. Loach. He’s shattered by the deception she put him through and wants to make things right.”

“He’s a victim.”

“Isn’t he, John? Which isn’t to say he’s not culpable. Or rueful.”

“Rueful,” said Nguyen. “Even by his account Imelda Soriano was cold-blooded murder. He put her in a shallow grave and hightailed it to Rome for a vacation.”

“Not a vacation,” said Loach. “We needed to decompress.”

“We,” said Milo.

Moftizadeh said, “There were two of them traveling. A collective pronoun is in order.”

Nguyen said, “How lawyerly, Fahriz. When are you running for Congress?”

Loach said, “What I meant was, I needed to keep an eye on her.” Quick glance at his lawyer. “It’s confusing, I’ve been feeling more and more confused... the memory.”

Nguyen said, “We’ve got an EEG coming, Fahriz? Don’t bother answering, I couldn’t care less. You can dim cap to your heart’s content. We’re talking three murders, you think a jury’s going to view your client as kindly Uncle Joe? At the absolute minimum, we’re talking accessory after and I’m not convinced of even that. In fact, nothing I’ve heard changes my mind about Murder One.”

Loach lowered his face.

Moftizadeh said, “I understand where you’re coming from, John, but I sincerely believe that would be a misstep on your part. You know what happens with a pair of defendants — particularly defendants able to arouse sympathy. She’ll blame him, we’ll blame her, the jury will grow confused and you’ll experience dilution of verdict across the board. If there was a poisoning, she did it. She pulled that trigger. Twice. Are you really willing to see her skate on manslaughter in order to crucify my client?”