An Accidental Life (53 page)

Rebecca sucked in a deep breath and nodded. “Let’s go. We’ll leave word at the desk downstairs. They can call Shauna or someone, and she’ll make sure Peter gets word when this is over.”

“Shauna can call your doctor, too.”

Despite the pain, Rebecca smiled. “Good idea.”

From the bench, Judge Morrow asked the last and final question: “Did the Defendant cover Infant Chasson’s face, and withhold medical attention with the intent to kill the infant, or to inflict great bodily harm?”

With Molly’s help, Rebecca made it through the exit door without Peter noticing.

Judge Morrow stopped, pulled a Kleenex from a box on his desk, and wiped his brow. He looked to his law clerk. The clerk rose, left the room and immediately returned with a glass of water. The judge took a swallow of the water and set the glass down on the desk beside him.

The room was silent as Morrow picked up the page again. “First, we have concluded that Infant Chasson was a human being, a person, under the law, with a right to life. Second, this court has held that Infant Chasson’s death was due to the Defendant’s action in covering the infant’s face with a towel, and his refusal, or failure, to render medical assistance when the infant’s life was in imminent danger and he was struggling to breathe, to live.

“And now . . .” Peter watched as Judge Morrow took a deep breath. They’d reached the most difficult part of the court’s decision, he knew. “And now we must determine whether the Defendant’s action or inaction resulting in the infant’s death occurred with an intent to kill or to cause bodily harm. Specific intent, under Louisiana law, is a state of mind, and as such need not be proven as a fact, but may be inferred from the circumstances and the actions of the accused.

“The Defendant claims that he could not have harbored an intent to kill Infant Chasson because he had no reason to anticipate the live birth of the victim. He claims to have been taken by surprise by the live birth. Further, Defendant claims that he had no reason to believe that medical assistance would keep the infant alive. In that regard, again, Defendant claims that Abigail Gordy’s survival was an extremely rare event.

“Finally, the Defendant claims that he was distracted at the time that Nurse Sonsten asked permission to clear the infant’s passages and call for help, and the subsequent manner in which he wrapped the infant in the towel. His claim is that he was distracted not only by the medical needs of his patient, but also by the noise and confusion in the room caused by . . . as defense states in their brief . . . Miss Chasson’s hysterical behavior. For all these reasons, Defendant argues that it is unreasonable to believe that his actions in withholding medical assistance to the infant exhibit an intent to kill.

“But this court finds the Defendant’s claim of distraction to be an insufficient reason for refusing to allow his nurse to clear the infant’s air passages and call an ambulance. If the Defendant was initially distracted by the confusion in the room, he was certainly alerted to the needs of the infant by Nurse Sonsten’s questions, her request to suction, her request to call an ambulance. And it was after Nurse Sonsten’s questions alerting him that the infant was still alive that he took Infant Chasson back from her and wrapped the towel around his head, covering his face.

“As to the defense argument that the Defendant was taken by surprise by this live birth, I find that to be contradicted by testimony at trial that live birth, however occasional, is a known risk in a late-term induction procedure as testified to by Dr. Mortimer Stern, and conceded by defense witness, Dr. George Barnett. In addition, the testimony of Nurse Hamilton and Mr. Kenneth Gordy established beyond reasonable doubt that the Defendant had previous experience with a similar situation while practicing at New Hope Hospital in Chicago.

“The evidence presented at trial establishes that when the Defendant refused to provide or allow medical assistance to Infant Chasson, and then covered Infant Chasson’s face as he wrapped him in the blanket, and further ordered Nurse Sonsten to take him out of the room, to the utility room, those actions were taken with deliberate and specific regard to that particular living human being. If he’d had any doubt as to whether the infant was alive, Nurse Sonsten had advised him otherwise. And in fact, Nurse Alice Hamilton testified that the Defendant had used almost the same words to her with regard to Abigail Gordy in another live birth three years earlier.”

Morrow looked up, frowning. “As stated before, the Defendant’s order to Nurse Sonsten could only lead to one result. Death. Infant Chasson was a human being with a right to life. The Defendant stripped that from him.”

Judge Morrow peered out over the courtroom. “It is a basic precept in law that we are all responsible for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of our actions.” Not a sound invaded the courtroom. “Therefore, this court finds that the evidence in this case establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the actions, and inaction of the Defendant, Charles Frank Vicari, directly, wrongfully, and intentionally deprived Infant Chasson of his life.”

He looked down at Charles Vicari. “The Defendant will rise.”

Turning his head toward the defense table, Peter saw Charles Vicari still sitting, seeming to sway toward Vince McConnell. Beside him Vince reached out and caught him, bracing a hand under his client’s arm. The bailiff standing beside the jury box gave Vicari an anxious look and took a step forward. McConnell pulled his client to a standing position, and then stood beside him. With a dazed look, Vicari stared straight ahead.

Judge Calvin Morrow looked at them both. He read the charges. Then he said, “In light of the testimony and evidence presented to this court, it is the judgment of this court that the Defendant, Charles Frank Vicari, is guilty of the crime charged of second degree murder of the Infant hasson under Louisiana Revised Statute 14:30.1 of the Criminal Code of the State of Louisiana.” He paused and motioned toward two uniformed sheriffs now standing at the door beside the jury box, where the bailiff had just been.

“The Defendant will now be remanded into the custody of this court. Sentencing will occur on Tuesday of next week, on December 21.”

Morrow’s words seemed to hang in the air as the gavel banged one final time, the words lingering for minutes . . . hours . . . days . . . until the sheriffs began moving toward Vicari. The dark-haired woman who’d sat behind him reached in vain across the railing.

And then Peter heard the bailiff’s call: “All rise . . .” and he swung back toward the bench just in time to catch a glimpse of Calvin Morrow’s ravaged face as he rose and turned away.

Peter turned, searching for Rebecca. Mac reached across the rail and slapped his shoulder. But as he peered through the crowd behind him, looking for Rebecca, he realized she wasn’t there. And neither was Molly.

The baby was coming! But these thoughts were quickly submerged as he turned, pushing through the gate. Even as he moved through the crowd, even with the lifting hope that this verdict would draw attention to other accidental lives needing protection in the future, even with all of that—deep inside he felt no celebration. Too many had suffered too much, for that.

And now, all he could think of was Rebecca—already at the hospital with Molly and the doctor, he hoped.

63

Alice sat in the waiting room
of Baptist Hospital. She’d asked Dr. Matlock if she could assist with the delivery, and he’d said fine. So, she still wore her uniform and the white cap and her comfortable shoes. In the room with her were some of Rebecca’s friends, Amalise and Jude and their son Luke. And there was Molly who’d driven Rebecca to the hospital from the courthouse.

Detective McAndrews, Mac, was there too. And Mac had given Alice the verdict. It had taken time for the news to really sink in after all those years of living with the memories of that night. And now, a verdict.

She closed her eyes and thanked God, at last free of the great weight. The feeling lifted her. She rose, put on her hat, slipped on her gloves, and feeling as though she were walking one inch above the floor in the waiting room, she said her goodbyes and left humming . . .
Things are never bad as they seem, just believe in God.

She walked down to Napoleon Avenue where she could catch a bus to St. Charles. The bus rolled up and she got on, dreaming. She paid her coin and took her seat, looking straight ahead through the front windows of the bus. Rebecca had once mentioned the beauty of the harvest moon rising between the Faraglioni—two mystical rocks sculpted through time and wind and waves just off the coast of the island of Capri.

She would do it, she decided. She would start in Europe—she’d see Paris and London of course, and Geneva, Vienna, and Rome. And maybe one day even Bangkok, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo.

Why not? She smiled. What was she waiting for?

In the room, alone at last with Daisy, bundled in a soft blanket and cradled in her arms, with Peter sitting on the bed close beside her, Rebecca nudged her lips against her baby’s silken forehead. Peter pressed against her, silently watching his daughter sleep.

Unable to express her feelings in this moment, all she could do was hold the baby close and look from one to the other, from Peter to baby and back again. She’d never known such love.

I have called you by name, you are mine.

The words flowed unbidden into her mind, and she knew them now. When she’d first fallen in love with the baby, back then, months ago, those words had come from nowhere. But she’d looked them up, finally found them one day in Amalise’s Bible. And she’d finally understood. She’d found them in the book of Isaiah. In this moment, she and baby and Peter were encased in those very words, encased in a circle of love greater than the three of them by far, eternal love of a kind that she could never have imagined before.

Peter was silent, stroking his daughter’s tiny head, her back.

She would be baptized with her daughter, she decided.

Then lifting her lips from the top of baby’s head, she looked at Peter and he looked back at her. “I have a name,” she said in a tentative voice.

His hand flattened, covering their daughter’s back. “Let’s hear it. I’m hoping it’s not Daisy.”

She smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with Daisy. But, I’d like to call our girl, Elise.”

He gave her a long look. And then he reached up, slipping his hand behind her neck and brought her close. After a soft, sweet kiss, he pulled back and said,

“Elise it is. How about Elise Rebecca Jacobs.”

Epilogue

(A little lagniappe)

Alice sat at a small wicker
table outside a bar on the piazza, fanning herself with the loose, wide-brimmed straw hat that had replaced her small black veiled one somewhere along the way about five months ago. Perspiration gleamed on her rosy cheeks; she was flushed from the long trek down from Villa Jovis. She was slightly browner from the sun now, too. And she wore lipstick, a bright coral color that made her skin glow. Her hair was a bit longer, still brown with pepper and salt, and right now wispy curls from the humidity framed her face. On the long walk up to the ancient ruins she’d picked a bright yellow flower from a bush and stuck it in her hair just above her ear.

The ancient ruins of Villa Jovis fascinated Alice. The island of Capri fascinated her, the history, the fragrances, the sound of the sea, the waves crashing against the cliffs. The water here was as clear and beautiful as Rebecca Jacobs had said. She’d walked up to the ruins around four o’clock this afternoon, after the day-trippers were gone and you could wander alone through the secretive stone passages of the palace, and up and down the stairs, all through the cool, hulking rooms, imagining things as they were two thousand years ago when the Emperor Tiberius’s palace was new.

It was a forty-five-minute climb up those steep rocky steps, but she’d been drawn back to the ruins every day. Sometimes, on the way up she would stop and rest on a bench she’d found at the edge of a cliff, looking out over the sea. There, she’d let the wind blow through her hair, breathing the cool fresh air.