A Mother's Trial (20 page)

“Thanks for your help,” Ted said. “We’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone we’ve been to see you. This is all very preliminary and we aren’t accusing anyone. And considering the status of the Phillips family in the community, we would like to keep everything confidential.”

“I understand,” Hutchison said as he walked them to the front of the church.

“You know, that’s going to be the hardest thing at this point, keeping this thing confidential. I don’t want the press to know—it’ll blow everything sky-high. Who knows what Mrs. Phillips might do if she knew we were investigating her? If she’s unstable enough to poison two kids, she might harm the other two, or kill herself,” Ted said as they drove out to the Gaskin house.

“Yeah, and that poses another problem. You’re either going to have to get the parents’ permission to go for the medical records on the kids, or get a search warrant—”

“And if I get a search warrant I’ll have to return it to the clerk in ten days and there goes the confidentiality. It’ll be all over the building in ten minutes.”

“Isn’t the Civic Center where Mrs. Phillips works, too?”

“Yup. Someone’s bound to tell her. The press, too.”

“Right. You got yourself a problem there, Teddy. Maybe the DA’s office can think of something.”

“Well, if we can get the parents’ permission, we won’t have to return the warrant, and nothing gets filed. I think that’s the strategy we have to develop.”

“Yeah, it’s good—if they cooperate,” Walt said. Ted lit a cigarette and coughed into the gathering smoke filling the car.

“I’m getting some strong vibes on this Priscilla Phillips,” he said. “And none of them are good. I mean assuming the medical stuff holds up, and we’ve got something to go on with the first child’s death, it looks pretty bad for her.”

“Yeah, unless there’s some deranged nurse or doctor running around,” Walt said.

“In four different hospitals?”

“Right. Not too likely, is it?”

“Of course, it could be the father, or the two of them together.”

“Yeah. Maybe there was some insurance money in it for them—some kind of financial gain thing. You’ll have to look into that, Ted.”

“Uh-huh, I will. First I gotta get the medical aspect squared away.”

“You got your work cut out for you, kid.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ted said.

2

One week later, Priscilla wandered around their small bedroom restlessly, the sounds of Jason playing out in the yard a distant distraction. She could look out through the sliding glass door and see him playing back there on the swing set. The boys were grappling confusedly with Mindy’s absence. She had explained to both boys that someone had put something harmful in Mindy’s bottle at the hospital. Everyone was trying to make certain of Mindy’s safety while they figured out who might be trying to harm her, Priscilla said. But she was not sure that the boys had understood.

The appointment with Gary Ragghianti was scheduled for three-thirty. They had finally understood last Wednesday that they were going to need a lawyer. Mary Vetter and Mercedes Murphy of Catholic Social Service had been adamant.

“Priscilla, we don’t like to do this, but we have no choice,” Mary had said in her croaking, smoker’s voice. “The hospital has put security guards on Mindy, and as director I had to make a decision. We’re going to recommend that Mindy go to a foster home until this is straightened out. We know you didn’t have anything to do with it, but you’re familiar with this kind of case. We have to think of the safety of the child first. Now we have a lovely foster mother in mind—she’s very experienced and very loving—”

“Oh, no—” Priscilla said tearfully. “How can they believe this of us? We could have just given Mindy back if we didn’t want her! Why would we risk such a thing?”

“I know, Priscilla. The thing is, that crazy as it is, they’re pointing the finger right at you. And you’re going to need to consult a lawyer about how to get Mindy returned to you. We dislike having to take this position, but we are still Mindy’s legal guardians, and I suppose in a sense we are now adversaries in that we have Mindy and you want her back. Please understand that we want you to have her. But just at the moment our hands are tied. You do see what I’m trying to say?”

Priscilla nodded. “How often can we see her, Mary?”

They discussed that issue at length. Finally Mary and Mercedes agreed to a once-a-week meeting, every Friday at Mary’s office in San Francisco.

“I know it’s not very much, but we all hope it won’t be for long,” Mary said.

After Mary and Mercedes left, Priscilla and Steve discussed their options. They had no lawyers among their friends, but Steve knew of one attorney who had gotten a coworker off on some charge recently, even though Steve maintained the man had been guilty. It was a reference of sorts and Priscilla called Gary Ragghianti and made an appointment with him.

“We’ll get her back, Pris,” Steve said. “The whole damn world can’t be so screwed up they don’t see they’ve got nothing on you. Who the hell do they think they’re dealing with? They’ll realize soon enough they’re backing along the wrong spur. All they have to do is start really checking everything out—all the hospital records and everything. Then they’ll see.”

“It’s not that easy—don’t you see? Have you any idea how long Tia’s records are? You know every time they ran a blood test or gave her some medication, it was entered somewhere. It would take weeks to go through her records—and then they probably won’t understand what they’re looking at. That’s what I’m worried about. And I’m not even sure they’re tying Tia into this. I don’t even see how they can do that. Why haven’t they even talked to us?”

“It’ll be all right, Pris. We can handle it,” Steve said.

The next day, she made the suggestion to Steve about the hospital irrigation bottle. Priscilla had been using such a bottle to water Tia’s grave. She kept two of the liter bottles at home; both had originally contained sodium chloride, a solution that the hospital used for wound and burn irrigation. Priscilla had discovered other uses for the bottles as well; they worked effectively as containers for ice water on camping trips.

“Steve!” Priscilla had run to find him.

“What?”

“You know those irrigation bottles—the ones that have point nine-percent sodium chloride on them—that we use for camping?”

“Yeah?”

“Some of the nurses use exactly the same kind of bottle to mix the formula with on the ward—only it has distilled water instead of salt. What if by mistake the nurse picked up the wrong bottle!”

“My God, Pris! You could be right! Maybe that’s it! Just a simple mistake like that.”

“Why don’t you call the police and tell them?”

“I will. Maybe we can clear this whole thing up right now.”

“I wonder if Mindy’s formula was contaminated with sodium chloride, though. That’s the thing,” Priscilla said.

“That’s what they said, isn’t it?”

“No, they just said sodium. That’s not the same. I guess they can test to find out.”

Steve had telephoned Detective Lindquist, who had promised to send an officer to pick up the bottles for testing. Priscilla had not yet heard from the police. She wondered again why they had not been to see her; she felt she had a lot to tell them. Lindquist had dropped by one day when she was out to deliver some papers for them to sign to release their personnel files. Otherwise there had been no contact. The only thing Priscilla knew was that the police had obtained a search warrant for Tia’s and Mindy’s hospital records. That she had discovered by accident from Chuck Best, who was a superior court judge in Marin. Priscilla knew his wife from AAUW and it occurred to her that Chuck might be able to help so she had gone to see him.

“I know about it already, Priscilla,” Chuck had said. “It shows you how small Marin County really is. There was a detective here asking me to sign a warrant to obtain medical records from Kaiser. I told him that I knew you and couldn’t sign it—that he’d better get somebody else. I assume he did.”

“I don’t know. But I’m not functioning well. I can’t stand the separation from Mindy. That’s what I wanted to ask you about. Isn’t there some way to get her back?” She was crying.

“Yes. You should get a writ of habeas corpus demanding her return. You’ll have to hire a lawyer.”

“We’ve got an appointment to see one.”

“Good. Well, he’ll help you with it. You might think about taking a polygraph test, too. And if there’s anything else I can do, just let me know,” he said.

But for the rest of that week and the weekend, Priscilla did little but cry. She woke up every morning with a terrible stomachache. She walked around directionless or lay on the sofa, often falling asleep. But at night she was plagued with anxiety and could not sleep. Friday was the low point. Without warning, Kaiser released Mindy to Catholic Social Service. Priscilla could not remember that day without feeling sick, even long afterward. In her journal she wrote:

Another agonizing morning—finally did get up and went to work, as it was my duty morning. I don’t remember accomplishing anything at work. At noon called Mercedes... she said that Mindy was to leave hospital this afternoon.... Rushed home and packed clothes and toys for Mindy—very painful—and I wanted time to get things together carefully, to plan, etc. Had to cancel appt. with attorney.

Meeting in Dave Rogers’s office so painful—I hurt so much—fell apart. Was made clear that from this point forward case involved S.R. police department and Catholic Social Service.... I expressed my concerns about Mindy, tried to write down things about her, what she likes, what she can do, etc. Had time to talk at length to Mercedes afterward; she felt my grief. I told her felt worse than Tia’s death, which was final. Not knowing if we’ll have Mindy hurts. And the point was made that we could lose her solely on the basis of time—if the investigation proceeds slowly—I’ve never felt so sick, so scared, so heartbroken.

It was nearly noon as Priscilla began to remove her hair curlers and brushed out her hair. She planned to give Jason a quick lunch; he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be hungry. She hadn’t been eating herself, nor had Steve, who was smoking more and more, even though he knew how much she hated it. Every time he lit one, she seethed. Usually he went out to the garage. Communication between them was minimal. For once she didn’t feel like discussing anything. She thought that maybe after they saw the lawyer and could mobilize themselves—call the proper people, write letters, whatever it took—maybe then she could talk and work and get on with retrieving Mindy, and put their lives in place. She had recently told a few friends about her predicament; all had reacted with horror and offers of support. But it was the journal that strangely offered Priscilla the most comfort, as though the words took away the reality, consigning it to the pages of a notebook that could be closed, that could be put away.

When the phone rang suddenly, Priscilla felt nothing special, nothing to signal its significance. Later she wondered—and worried—how she might better have prepared herself for it had she known its importance. But at the time it was an unwanted distraction.

ii

She called out for Steve to answer the phone in the kitchen. After a second he yelled to her.

“It’s Detective Lindquist,” he said. “He wants to talk to you.”

Shakily Priscilla picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Phillips. Ted Lindquist. We haven’t met yet but I wanted to talk to you for just a couple of minutes if I could,” he said.

Priscilla couldn’t control a little nervous laugh. “I’d love to talk to you,” she said as Steve came in to listen.

“Okay. Great. One of the things I’m working on right now is tracing back step by step the formula that was found to be contaminated on the twenty-fifth, and I need to interview everybody and anybody about that. I have interviewed all the nurses and it’s come to my attention that you’ve been a very supportive and helpful person with the care of Mindy by helping with the feeding and spending a lot of time at the hospital, and I was wondering if you could recall how many times you’ve been involved either in mixing the formula yourself or seeing somebody else do it,” he said.

“Yeah.” She paused. “Um...”

“Can you think of that at all?”

“I can think a lot about it except for those very last couple of days and there’s a logical reason for that. Mindy was going downhill. There were all kinds of crazy things going on and I was under so much stress—I was kind of falling apart myself because of the fact that she was worse. I mean I had conversations with the doctor about that and everything. I can tell you exactly when I made it the last time and that was documented. And that is on—okay—wait a minute, let me get my calendar and then I can tell you.”

She put down the phone and reached for her calendar—opening it to the previous week.

“What’s he asking you—?” Steve began. She waved him quiet and picked up the phone again.

“Sometimes I helped the nurses with the formula if they were busy, doing it myself or putting out the ingredients,” she said into the phone. “It was not an off-limits area. Sunday, February nineteenth was the last time I made the formula by myself. On the twentieth Debby Roof phoned me and asked me how to mix the formula. Dr. Carte overheard that and he ordered that only nurses were to make the formula from then on.”

“Do you know what his reason was at that time?” asked Lindquist.

“No,” Priscilla answered. “He never talked to me about it. Making it had just been a totally innocent, carefree kind of thing. And incidentally the best day Mindy spent at the hospital was the day I made the formula. But after the order—I never made the formula after that,” she said.

“Maybe you can run me, then, from the twentieth through the twenty-fourth—what your involvement was with the formula.”

“Yes. On the twentieth I opened the can, and another time I helped a nurse assemble the ingredients. Trying to place exactly when that occurred is hard,” she said.

“Do you remember what days last week you stayed overnight at the hospital?”