A Mother's Trial (24 page)

It had been difficult for her at work in the last weeks, but she tried to concentrate when she was at Social Services. It helped to distract her from her other problems. When she arrived at her office on the top floor of the building, two floors above the courts and just a few doors down from the cafeteria, she found the phone clerk waiting for her.

“Shirley wants to see you, Priscilla,” she said. Priscilla left her briefcase at her desk and hurried to the office of the head of Social Services.

“Hi, Shirley. What’s up?”

“I don’t know. The director wants to see you in his office. Have you got any idea what’s going on?” She lowered her voice. “Is it about the investigation?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so.”

“I doubt it, too,” Shirley said.

Shirley walked Priscilla across the hall to the director’s office. He was standing at the door waiting for them.

“These gentlemen are here to see you,” he said, gesturing toward his Conference Room. Priscilla peered around the director and saw three men. She recognized only one: Ted Lindquist had been to her house to pick up some consent forms for Kaiser six weeks before. He turned to face her as she walked into the Conference Room.

“We’re here to arrest you for the murder of Tia Phillips and the attempted murder of Mindy Phillips,” Lindquist said.

Priscilla stood stock still, and then she threw her purse down on the conference table in disbelief.

“We want to make this difficult situation as easy as possible. If you can act like a lady, we’ll take you out of here without handcuffs,” Lindquist continued, staring right at her.

“If you consider me a lady, why arrest me here in front of everybody?” Priscilla retorted.

“I never said I consider you a lady.” He took her by the arm and walked her out, the two other detectives bunched beside her, past the secretary’s desk and by some coworkers who stood, shocked, while they stared at the strange procession. The whole world knew what was happening, even without handcuffs. Priscilla knew that absolutely.

As they waited for the elevator, Priscilla said quietly, “It’s really not your fault that you don’t know I’m innocent.”

“You’re not innocent, Priscilla, and that’s why I’m here,” Lindquist said, his blue eyes stony.

They took her down to the San Rafael Police Department and Ted Lindquist led Priscilla directly to his tiny office opposite the detectives’ room. He waved her to a chair.

“Would you like me to call Gary Ragghianti for you?” he asked. Priscilla nodded. Reaction was beginning, and the tears were welling in her eyes. Lindquist placed the call and held a brief conversation with Ragghianti’s secretary.

“He’s at the dentist. I’ve asked his office to try and get in touch with him. Shall I call your husband for you?”

“Yes,” she said, beginning to cry.

“Hello, Mr. Phillips? Ted Lindquist.” He was curt and to the point. “I’m sorry to have to tell you but we’ve arrested your wife. She wants to talk to you.” He handed the phone to Priscilla.

“Steve, they think I’ve... mur—killed... Tia.” She couldn’t get the word
murder
out; choked with tears she could barely talk.

“It’ll be okay, Pris.”

“I need you—”

“I’ll get there as soon as I can. Don’t say anything to them.”

“I know. I won’t.”

She hung up and sat mutely, watching Ted Lindquist search her purse. She looked down at his desk. There was a press release about her arrest on one corner; she tried to read it upside down. It gave a brief history of Tia’s illnesses and her hospitalizations at four different hospitals as well as some information on Mindy’s contaminated formula. Priscilla thought immediately that this emphasis on the four hospitals meant they were going to stress child abuse in the case. Her work on child abuse syndrome had taught her that it was typical of abusing parents to take their children to different hospitals as a means of escaping detection. But if that was their slant, how were they possibly going to support a murder charge? she wondered.

Priscilla also noticed a list Lindquist had prepared: In his careful, squared-off printing, he had noted the people he wished to inform at the time of her arrest. Annie Jameson’s name was on it, as were Mary Vetter’s and Dave Neukom’s—the Kaiser administrator. The preparations smacked of a setup, Priscilla thought, like a carefully thought-out game. She wondered if the arrest at work had all been part of the game, too. If they had just asked her to, she would have come down to the police department.

After a while another officer who introduced himself as Tony Hoke came in to escort her to another room in the department. On the way, they passed a beverage machine.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“Thank you. I’ll have a Pepsi.”

The officer inserted some coins and gave her the drink. It was an act of compassion she would never forget. Then he took her down the hall.

She was locked in a small room alone to await her lawyer. She could hear a little of what was going on, and once she heard someone mention “special circumstances.” The phrase chilled her. She knew enough about California law to realize that a murder charge in conjunction with special circumstances meant a non-bailable, death-penalty offense. She believed there were several circumstances that made a murder “special.” They included the murder of a police officer, murder by torture, murder for financial gain, and some others she couldn’t remember. She wondered how it could possibly be a special circumstances case, and if she would ever get out of jail. She sat and sipped at the Pepsi, her head down.

When Gary Ragghianti finally came in, he was cold with anger.

“They don’t even have a warrant,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means the DA wasn’t ready to file charges. This whole thing is highly unusual. However I’ve talked to the district attorney and he
is
going to proceed with this, Priscilla. I’m sorry—apparently Lindquist was afraid you might have a breakdown or something, so he went ahead without the warrant.”

“What about bail? I heard something about special circumstances—does that mean no bail?”

“Ordinarily, yes. Lindquist asked that no bail be set. But their not having a warrant works for you on this.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

“There’s no warrant on file and therefore the DA hasn’t declared he’s seeking the death penalty. He hasn’t declared anything. So bail will be set—but I’m sure it will be steep.”

“What happens now?”

“They’re going to transfer you to county jail—I’ll meet you out there. I’ll talk to Steve. I don’t think he should come out here at this point. But Priscilla, as I explained to you when you first came to me, I can’t handle this case now they’ve arrested you. I have a possible conflict because of my friendship with Lindquist, and in addition, I’m very overloaded with work and couldn’t give you the appropriate time. Now do you know another lawyer, or would you like me to recommend someone?”

Priscilla shook her head. “No, we don’t know anyone.”

“I have someone in mind—he’s very good. An ex-DA named Roger Garety. I’ll see if I can get him out to see you at the county jail.”

“All right. I just can’t understand why they arrested me at work, though. It’s really bothering me.”

“Without a warrant they couldn’t arrest you at home.”

“Then why not just ask me to come down here? I would have. There was no call to drag me out like that in front of everyone.” She was in tears again.

“I guess it would have been false pretenses. Cops are very careful because of the exclusionary rule.”

“But they could even have told me they were going to arrest me. I still would have come.”

Gary looked at her kindly. “But they couldn’t know that, Priscilla.”

“I know it has something to do with Mindy’s court date—that’s why they’re arresting me—they don’t want me to get Mindy back.”

Ragghianti shook his head. “I don’t know. But Lindquist sure led me down the garden path on this one. Look, Priscilla, they’re going to take you now—I’ll see you over at the county jail. It’ll be all right.”

She nodded. After a moment Tony Hoke and another officer came in.

“We’re supposed to cuff you, but I’m not going to do it until we get out of the garage at Civic Center,” Tony said gently.

“Thank you,” Priscilla said. The three of them walked out of the station and into the police car for the short drive back to Marin County Civic Center, which contained not only the courts and the Department of Social Services, but also the county jail.

Later she realized they treated her with kid gloves. The proper rituals were observed—she was photographed and fingerprinted, searched, given a shower, and issued prison denim jeans and a bright orange sweatshirt—but each step in the process was handled delicately. Everyone treated her with courtesy.

She was interviewed by a man from Community Health.

“I have been asked to see you because some fears have been expressed about your mental stability. They’re worried you may be suicidal,” he said, probing.

“You don’t have to worry,” she sobbed. “All I’m interested in is getting out and proving my innocence. I’m not going crazy or about to kill myself.”

After that interview she was placed in another room—it was a cell, Priscilla supposed, although there were no bars. She was left there alone.

“We’re keeping you apart because of the nature of the crimes you’re accused of. It’s for your own safety,” she was told.

It was freezing in the cell, and all she could find to put around her were some rough, scratchy wool blankets. The cell contained two metal bunk beds built into the wall, a table—also bolted to the wall—with stools on either side, a toilet, sink, and shower. A television hung at an angle in one corner. By jail standards, the cell was luxurious. Priscilla found out later it had once housed Angela Davis.

Priscilla looked over at the television, wondering if she could turn it on. She was afraid to do so without permission and there was no one to ask, so she left it dark. They had taken her watch and she could not see a clock from the window in her cell. She had nothing to do and desperately wanted paper and pencil to write down her thoughts, to occupy her mind; she had become dependent on her journal. She was terrified.

Gary Ragghianti came to see her; Jim Hutchison arrived, so did the new lawyer, Roger Garety. He was a man in his sixties with a reassuring voice and confident tone. She asked him about special circumstances.

“They’re saying Tia’s death amounted to death by torture,” he said.

“But that’s ridiculous! Even if I did it, you couldn’t say I tortured her! The only ones who tortured her were the doctors!” Priscilla was sobbing.

“Don’t worry—it’ll never hold up in court,” Garety soothed her.

“I want you to know I’m innocent, Mr. Garety,” Priscilla told him.

“All right. I’ll be visiting every day. You can tell me all about it,” he said. “Bail has been set at a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Oh, no!” Priscilla cried. “We’ll never raise that!”

“I’m pretty sure I can get it reduced. Meanwhile I’ll see you at the arraignment tomorrow,” Garety said.

More visitors arrived. A public defender called to see if she required his services. A private attorney, one of a famous legal family, asked if she needed an attorney; a friend of his who knew Priscilla had recommended that he drop by, he said. And Mary Kilgore managed to get in. Priscilla did not realize until afterward that extraordinary visiting privileges had been extended to allow her all these visitors. She still felt lonely, afraid, and terribly cold. That was what she later remembered most vividly about county jail: the cold.

6

On May second, Jim Hutchison made his seventh consecutive visit to Priscilla. The day she had been arrested he had managed only a brief stay with her. Priscilla had seemed dazed and confused and he had tried to reassure her. But he was having difficulties sorting out his own emotions. Bits and pieces of memories kept touching his consciousness and interfering with his attempts to support Priscilla. Over the following six days he remembered the long discussions she had held with him during Tia’s illness, and her apparent delight in the most exquisite detailing of the child’s symptoms and treatments.

There were other things about her behavior that had struck him at the time as strange. He recalled once watching Priscilla at the hospital as she fed Tia. She had crammed the food in roughly—over the baby’s wild protests—scraping the formula from around the tiny mouth and forcing it back in. She was always rough in her treatment of Tia—her pattings were almost staccato buffets, he remembered.

Then when Steve had called him with the news that someone was poisoning Mindy, everything began to fall into place for Jim. He had been so uncomfortable with Steve’s call that he had asked Marj Dunlavy, the parishioner with whom he felt most at ease, to accompany him to Kaiser and wait in the car while he saw Steve and Priscilla. He had asked for Marj’s confidence and then he had told her what he knew.

Marj had offered some insights of her own.

“Priscilla always seemed to get a charge out of telling all the graphic details of Tia’s treatment,” she said.

“Yes. And I had the feeling she was trying to upstage me with her medical knowledge. It was a way of making herself the center of attention. And you know, at times, in retrospect, it felt that although Priscilla was always crying and terribly upset about Tia and then Mindy, that she was not truly emotionally involved in their illnesses at all,” Jim said.

“What do you mean?”

“It was a strange thing, Marj, but it seemed to me that she was intellectualizing the illnesses and the horrible treatments rather than feeling how awful it must be for those poor babies. It was almost as though she was trying to shock me with the horribleness of their suffering—oh, it’s hard to explain. It just seemed inappropriate, somehow.”

“I know what you mean,” Marj said. “I’ve noticed other inappropriate behavior. Right after the memorial service for Tia, I had the feeling Priscilla was almost
excited.
And then when we got home, Bill and I talked about her strange reaction, how she went around with a little smile on her face. Bill told me she had come up to him after the service to thank him for getting up to talk about Tia. She was just sort of gaily chattering.”