Blood Test

I SAT in the courtroom and watched Richard Moody get
the bad news from the judge.

Moody’d come dressed for the occasion in a chocolate
polyester suit, canary yellow shirt, string tie, and lizard skin boots. He
grimaced and bit his lip and tried to lock eyes with the judge, but she out
stared him and he ended up looking at his hands. The bailiff at the rear of the
room held his gaze on Moody. As a result of my warning he’d been careful to
keep the Moodys apart all afternoon and had gone so far as to frisk Richard.

The judge was Diane Severe, girlish for fifty, with
ash blond hair and a strong, kind face; soft-spoken, and all business. I’d
never been in her court but knew her reputation. She’d been a social worker
before going to law school and after a decade in juvenile court and six years
on the family bench was one of the few judges who really understood children.

“Mr. Moody,” she said, “I want you to listen very
carefully to what I’m going to say.”

Moody started to assume an aggressive body posture,
hunching his shoulders and narrowing his eyes like a bar fighter, but his
attorney nudged him and he loosened up and forced a smile.

“I’ve heard testimony from Dr. Daschoff and Dr.
Delaware, both eminently qualified as experts in this court. I’ve spoken to your
children in my chambers. I’ve watched your behavior this afternoon and I’ve
heard your allegations against Mrs. Moody. I’ve learned of your instructions to
your children to run away from their mother so that you could rescue them.”

She paused and leaned forward.

“You’ve got serious emotional problems, sir.”

The smirk on Moody’s face vanished as quickly as it
appeared, but she caught it.

“I’m sorry you think this is funny, Mr. Moody, because
it’s tragic.”

“Your Honor,” Moody’s lawyer interjected.

She cut him off with the flick of a gold pen.

“Not now, Mr. Durkin. I’ve heard quite enough wordplay
today. This is the bottom line and I want your client to pay attention.”

Turning back to Moody:

“Your problems may be treatable. I sincerely hope they
are. There’s no doubt in my mind that psychotherapy is essential—a good deal of
it. Medication may be called for as well. For your sake and the sake of your
children I hope you get whatever treatment you need. My order is that you have
no further contact with your children until I see psychiatric evidence that you
are no longer a threat to yourself or to others—when the death threats and talk
of suicide cease, and you have accepted the reality of this divorce and are
able to support Mrs. Moody in the raising of the children.

“Should you get to that point—and your word won’t be
sufficient to convince me, Mr. Moody—the court will call upon Dr. Delaware to
set up a schedule of limited and monitored visitation.”

Moody took it in, then made a sudden move forward. The
bailiff was out of his chair and at his side in a flash. Moody saw him, gave a
sick grin, and let his body go slack. The tears flowed down his cheeks. Durkin
pulled out a handkerchief, gave it to him, and raised an objection concerning
the judge’s encroachment upon his client’s privacy.

“You’re free to appeal, Mr. Durkin,” she said evenly.

“Judge.”

It was Moody talking now, the bass voice dry and
strained.

“What is it, Mr. Moody?”

“You don’t unnerstand.” He wrung his hands. “Those
kids, they’re my life.”

For a moment I thought she was going to tongue-lash
him. Instead she regarded him with compassion.

“I do understand, sir. I understand that you love your
children. That your life is in shambles. But what
you
need to understand—
the whole point of the psychiatric testimony—is that children can’t be
responsible for anyone’s life. That’s too big a burden for any child to bear.
They can’t raise
you
, Mr. Moody. You need to be able to raise them. And
right now you can’t. You need help.”

Moody started to say something but choked it back. He
shook his head in defeat, gave the handkerchief back to Durkin, and tried to
salvage a few shards of dignity.

The next quarter hour was spent on property
settlement. I had no need to listen to the distribution of the meager estate of
Darlene and Richard Moody and would have left, but Mal Worthy had said he
wanted to talk to me afterward.

When the legal mumbling was over, Judge Severe took
off her glasses and ended the hearing. She looked my way and smiled.

“I’d like to see you in chambers for a moment if you’ve
got the time, Dr. Delaware.”

I smiled back and nodded. She swept out of the
courtroom.

Durkin ushered Moody out under the watchful eye of the
bailiff.

At the next table Mal was pep-talking Darlene, patting
her plump shoulder as he scooped up handfuls of documents and stashed them in
one of the two suitcases he’d brought. Mal was compulsive and while other
lawyers made do with an attaché case, he carted around boxes of documents on a
chromium luggage rack.

The former Mrs. Richard Moody looked up at him,
bewildered, cheeks feverishly rosy, bobbing her head in assent. She’d stuffed
her milkmaid’s body into a light blue summer dress as frothy as high tide. The
dress was ten years too young for her and I wondered if she’d confused
new-found freedom with innocence.

Mal was decked out in classic Beverly Hills attorney
mufti: Italian suit, silk shirt and tie, calfskin loafers with tassles. His
hair was styled fashionably long and curly, his beard cut close to the skin. He
had glossy nails and perfect teeth and a Malibu tan. When he saw me he winked
and waved and gave Darlene one last pat. Then he held her hand in both of his
and saw her to the door.

“Thanks for your help, Alex,” he said when he came
back. Piles of papers remained on the table and he busied himself with packing
them.

“It wasn’t fun,” I said.

“No. The ugly ones aren’t.” He meant it but there was
a lilt in his voice.

“But you won.”

He stopped shuffling papers for a moment. “Yeah. Well,
you know, that’s the business I’m in. Jousting.” He flipped his wrist and
looked at a wafer-thin disc of gold. “I won’t say it pains me to dispose of a
turkey like Mr. M.”

“You think he’ll take it? Just like that?”

He shrugged.

“Who knows? If he doesn’t we’ll just keep bringing in
the heavy artillery.”

At two hundred dollars an hour. He lashed the
suitcases to the rack.

“Hey listen, Alex, this wasn’t a stinker. For those I
don’t call you—I’ve got hired guns up the wazoo. This was righteous, no?”

“We were on the right side.”

“Precissimoso. And I thank you again. Regards to the
lady judge.”

“What do you think she wants?” I asked.

He grinned and slapped me on the back.

“Maybe she likes your style. Not a bad looking gal,
heh? She’s single, you know?”

“Spinster?”

“Hell, no. Divorced. I handled her case.”

Her chambers were done in mahogany and rose, and
permeated with the scent of flowers. She sat behind a glass-topped, carved wood
desk upon which stood a cut-crystal vase filled with stalks of gladiolus. On
the wall behind the desk were several photographs of two hulking blond teenage
boys—in football jerseys, wetsuits, and evening wear.

“My gruesome twosome,” she said, following my eyes. “One’s
at Stanford, the other’s selling firewood up at Arrowhead. No telling, eh,
Doctor?”

“No telling.”

“Please have a seat.” She motioned me to a velvet
sofa. When I’d settled she said, “Sorry if I was a little rough on you in
there.”

“No problem.”

“I wanted to know if the fact that Mr. Moody wears
women’s underwear was relevant to his mental status, and you refused to be
pinned down.”

“I didn’t think his choice of lingerie had much to do
with custody.”

She laughed. “I get two types of psych experts. The
puffed-up, self-proclaimed authorities, so taken with themselves they think
their opinions on any topic are sacrosanct, and the cautious ones, like you,
who won’t give an opinion unless it’s backed up by a double-blind, controlled
study.”

I shrugged. “At least you won’t get a Twinkie Defense
out of me.”

“Touché. How about some wine?” She unlatched the doors
of a credenza carved to match the desk and took out a bottle and two
long-stemmed glasses.

“My pleasure, Your Honor.”

“In here, Diane. Is it Alexander?”

“Alex is fine.”

She poured red wine into the glasses. “This is a very
fine cabernet that I save for the termination of particularly obnoxious cases.
Positive reinforcement, if you will.”

I took the glass she offered.

“To justice,” she said, and we sipped. It was good
wine and I told her so. It seemed to please her.

We drank in silence. She finished before I did and set
down her glass.

“I want to talk to you about the Moodys. They’re off
my docket but I can’t help thinking about the kids. I read your report and you
have good insights on the family.”

“It took a while but they opened up.”

“Alex, are those children going to be all right?”

“I’ve asked myself the same thing. I wish I could tell
you yes. It depends on whether or not the parents get their act together.”

She clicked her nails against the rim of the
wineglass.

“Do you think he’ll kill her?”

The question startled me.

“Don’t tell me it didn’t cross your mind—the warning
to the bailiff and all that.”

“That was meant to prevent an ugly scene,” I said, “but
yes, I do think he could do it. The man’s unstable and profoundly depressed.
When he gets low, he gets nasty and he’s never been lower than right now.”

“And he wears ladies’ panties.”

I laughed. “That too.”

“Refill?”

“Sure.”

She put the bottle aside and laced her fingers around
the stem of her wineglass, an angular, attractive older woman, not afraid to
let a few wrinkles show.

“A real loser, our Mr. Richard Moody. And maybe a
killer.”

“If he gets in a killing mood, she’d be the obvious
target. And the boyfriend—Conley.”

“Well,” she said, running the tip of her tongue over
her lips, “one must be philosophical about such things. If he kills her it’s
because she fucked the wrong guy. Just as long as he doesn’t kill someone
innocent, like you or me.”

It was hard to tell if she were serious or not.

“It’s something I think about,” she said, “some warped
loser coming back and taking out his troubles on me. The losers never want to
take responsibility for their crappy little lives. You ever worry about it?”

“Not really. When I was clinically active most of my
patients were nice kids from nice families—not much potential for mayhem there.
I’ve been pretty much retired for the last couple of years.”