Dante's Dilemma (7 page)

Michelle giggled, and we made it to the closet without mishap. While I was disentangling from my backpack and overcoat, I tried to engage her in small talk. “Have you worked here long?”

“Since September. I only passed the bar this past summer.”

“Like it?”

“I guess.”

“That doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement.”

She gave the audible equivalent of a shrug. “It's hard to find work as a new lawyer these days. I couldn't get a job with one of the big firms, so I'm here. I guess I should count myself lucky to be earning a paycheck.”

“The experience can't be that bad. From what I understand, associates at big firms aren't exactly trying many cases.”

“It isn't that. I know I'm learning a lot, but some of the supervisors here . . .” She stopped herself, as if she'd just spoken out of school. “I really shouldn't be talking about it.”

I was curious to know more but decided against putting her on the spot. We resumed our walking routine while I continued to ply her with polite questions. Michelle was from a small town in Indiana, and proud of her Hoosier upbringing. She'd attended Ball State and John Marshall Law School, and recently married her high-school sweetheart, who was getting his business degree at Kellogg. She wasn't sure about raising a family in Chicago, and hoped to return to her home state someday. By the time we'd traveled a series of hallways crowded with filing cabinets, she'd grown perceptibly more relaxed.

“We're here,” she announced as we stopped before a threshold. “I mean, at the conference room where you'll be meeting with the boss. We're still early, so I can show you the lay of the land before the others arrive.”

Some five minutes later, I was seated comfortably at a seat near the door with my Bluetooth keyboard and phone in front of me and my cane stored unobtrusively on the floor when a bustle outside the door suggested Linda O'Malley had arrived. I rose as she swept through the entrance with what sounded like an army of lieutenants.

I'd never been in the presence of a politician before, but it was like being swept up in a tsunami.

“Doctor Angelotti! So glad you could make it!” O'Malley said, taking my outstretched hand between her two plump ones and shaking it forcefully, like she was hanging wash out to dry. “Thank you for coming. I hope it wasn't an inconvenience so early in the day. Can you believe this awful weather? I hope you took a cab. Just give Michelle the receipt and we'll cover the tab. Michelle, make sure you submit a requisition form for his travel expenses. We can't have the good doctor freezing his patootie off while he's laboring on our behalf. I'm Linda O'Malley, by the way.”

“So I surmised from the available evidence.”

She laughed, a sound like a bellows heaving, and released my hand. “I'm going to like this guy,” she said to the others now filling the seats around the table. “Somebody get me a Coke Zero. And see if there are any of those sweet rolls left. Oops, I forgot. Make it decaf tea, no sugar, and carrots or some other healthy shit. Doctor's orders,” she said in an aside to me. “If he had his way, I'd be eating like a hamster. Don't be shy. Sit down, sit down.”

I did as I was told while she settled in laboriously at the head of the table, a few feet to my left.

“Don't mind my language. It's been a long morning and the diet's already making me crazy. I should have gotten a lap-band like Chris Christie while I still could. But what can you do? You look like a healthy specimen. What's your secret?”

“We can probably agree it wasn't carrots.”

“Hah! That's a good one. They told me you had a sense of humor. I like that in an expert, shows he doesn't take himself too seriously. Juries don't like being lectured to by someone in love with their résumé. Yours is very impressive, by the way. But I'm forgetting my manners. You'll want to meet everyone.”

She went around the table, introducing half a dozen assistants whose names I couldn't possibly keep straight or jot down quickly enough with my keyboard. It didn't matter, because O'Malley continued to do all the talking.

“You must have a lot of questions for us,” she said immediately after. Her tone had changed from the jollity of moments ago, and was now all business.

“A place to start is what I'm supposed to testify about.”

“Post-traumatic stress disorder. The defense claims Lazarus was suffering from Battered Woman Syndrome when she murdered her spouse. I understood from Doctor Stephens—a shame about the hit-and-run, by the way—that the syndrome isn't considered valid by your ilk.”

She was right. Despite its considerable traction in the media, Battered Woman Syndrome, or BWS, was considered scientifically suspect by most reputable practitioners. First proposed in the 1970s, its signs and symptoms were based on the observations of a single clinician, Dr. Lenore Walker, and it had never been shown to meet the rigorous criteria for a recognized psychiatric disorder. Worse, because it relied primarily on the self-report of an obviously interested party, BWS was all too easy to fake.

“That's true,” I said. “There's no professional consensus on a BWS diagnosis or even any empirical evidence that the syndrome actually exists. That's not to say battered women can't be traumatized—and sometimes severely so—just that there are better ways of looking at the problem. PTSD is one of them, along with other, more generalized anxiety disorders.”

“And you're an expert on the subject?”

“I did a year-long fellowship on PTSD after my residency, and I've since treated a lot of veterans suffering from combat stress. It's maybe twenty percent of my clinical practice at the moment.”

“Good. Practical experience is good. Current practical experience is even better.”

“OK. But perhaps you could explain to this layman how PTSD—or BWS as the defense claims—would excuse Lazarus's actions. I know the theory's often raised as a defense to criminal charges, but on what legal basis?”

O'Malley appeared to think before replying. “It quickly gets complicated, but the short answer is that PTSD is relevant to two defense theories. One, that Lazarus acted in self-defense because she reasonably believed killing her husband was necessary to prevent imminent harm to herself or someone else. Two, that she acted with diminished capacity.”

“An insanity defense?”

“Yes. It's a stretch, unless you tell us that her condition rendered her incapable of appreciating the criminality of her conduct. The first theory is more plausible, if the defense can get past the imminence standard. Lazarus wasn't living with her husband at the time, so what made her believe she was in danger when she went to his home to kill him? That's not your issue—it's up to the jury to decide what Lazarus subjectively believed—but the defense will try to push you in the direction of saying fear of imminent death would be a natural consequence of her illness. You'll have your work cut out for you on cross-examination. Lazarus's lead lawyer is a sharp little cookie—an alum of this office, as a matter of fact—and she'll have you swearing on a stack of Bibles that Lazarus is innocent if you're not careful.”

I was so caught up in thinking about the intellectual challenges of the case that I failed to register the subtle shift in her presentation—from studied neutrality to prosecutorial one-sidedness—or even to ask the name of the defense lawyer in question.

“Will I have access to Ms. Lazarus?” I asked.

“As much as her lawyers will allow.”

“And to all of the material Dr. Stephens collected?” If Brad Stephens had done his homework, a virtual certainty in my book, he would also have sought corroborating evidence from numerous sources in addition to Lazarus—her family, colleagues, and friends, along with police reports and other pertinent data—before forming an opinion. I'd never be able to replicate all his spadework in time, so I'd have to rely heavily on the fruits of his investigation.

“Michelle here was assisting him. She'll make sure all of the case files are sent to you.”

“And his final report?”

“It's here, still in an unopened envelope.” O'Malley pushed it across the table to me.

“And as of today you really don't know how he came out?” I asked, taking up the envelope and running my fingers over it. The flap was sealed tight with several layers of plastic tape.

O'Malley said, “One thing you'll learn about me, Doctor, is that I don't pull any punches. I've said it publicly and I'll say it again: I view my job as seeking justice, not getting convictions. Yes, I'd like to know where this prosecution is headed, but we'll wait to hear from you. Obviously, only after you've had a chance to review everything and are comfortable offering your own opinion. In the meantime, I've instructed everyone concerned to give you all the information you need.”

It was hard not to be affected by her apparent sincerity. “I'll do my best to get up to speed quickly. How do we stay in touch, you and I?”

Just then, I heard the door to the room open and someone slip in.

“That's another reason I asked you to come here today,” O'Malley said. “I'm afraid it won't be me. The newspapers haven't gotten ahold of it yet, but it seems I'm five months pregnant after years of failed attempts. My doctor is worried about gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, so he's ordered me off my feet for the next several months. It couldn't come at a worse time, but you can imagine the political heat I'd be taking if I ignored his advice and miscarried. Not to mention the fact that my husband and I would really like to have this baby. Instead, you'll be working with one of my most trusted deputies. If I'm not mistaken, you two already know each other.”

The anonymous newcomer had come up to stand behind my chair.

I swiveled in my seat and tilted my head up quizzically.

“Hello,
Dottore
,” Tony Di Marco said. “
Come stai?
”

SEVEN

Assistant State's Attorney Tony Di Marco fell into the rapidly expanding class of people I had never laid eyes on, though Hallie had given me a snapshot during our first case. Back then, she'd called him a “charming pirate.” Later, when she wanted to tease me, she said that except for the coloring—Di Marco's hair and eyes were as black as an oil spill—we could be cousins. I hoped the similarities ended there. If I respected Di Marco at all, it was only because he was good at what he did and never pretended to be anything but a rank opportunist. Defense lawyers hated him, and not just because he won over juries like most people win over their mothers. Though no one had ever been able to prove it, Di Marco was said to be as good at making exculpatory evidence “disappear” as Harry Houdini.

After O'Malley and her other lieutenants departed, I was left alone in the conference room with Di Marco and Michelle Rogers, who I now understood would be the only two assistants trying the case. I was only mildly surprised. If I knew Di Marco, his main objective would be grabbing as many headlines for himself as he could.

“Pretty lean staffing,” I observed. “Are you sure your ego can handle it?”

Di Marco answered in his usual insolent drawl. “I could do it without any help if I had to. With the confession and everything else we have on Lazarus, trial shouldn't last more than a week. But my last three panels have been eighty percent women, so I need Michelle here to show our sympathy for the ladies.”

I was sure Michelle appreciated being treated like a token.

“Unless they happen to be ladies who strike back at their abusers,” I said.

Michelle, still sitting beside me, suppressed a snicker.

Di Marco laughed. “Don't tell me you're on Lazarus's side.”

“It seems pretty clear she was a victim too.”

“Don't believe everything you hear in the media. I've been all over her medical records. Lazarus went to the emergency room once the entire time she and Westlake were married, and then only for a broken wrist she said she got from falling down the basement stairs.”

“What about the bruises and black eyes I read about in the papers?”

“Without doctor visits or pictures, it's just somebody's say-so. And the only ones saying are Lazarus's friends, who'd like nothing better than to get her off.”

“The 911 calls?”

“We only found two records, both more than ten years old. Lazarus refused to swear out a complaint when the cops talked to her. Said she was sorry she had bothered them.”

“That's not inconsistent with domestic abuse. Women in that position are often afraid of taking their husbands to court.”

Di Marco shrugged this off. “That's what all you bleeding hearts say. We're not talking about some low-class broad living in a shack. Lazarus was an educated woman with money in the bank. She could have left him anytime. And let's not forget about what she did to him. As far as I'm concerned, it's a shame the death penalty no longer exists in this state.”

“So you think she's making the abuse part up?”

“That's what you're supposed to find out, isn't it? I'm just saying it's mighty suspicious that she didn't breathe a word about it until her defense lawyers came up with the idea.”

“During her confession you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe she didn't understand her rights. Or was talked into it.” I was referring to the first time Di Marco and I had squared off, in a case where the police had coaxed a murder confession out of a developmentally disabled teenager. With the right kind of psychological pressure, practically anyone could be coerced into admitting what the authorities wanted them to.

“I knew you would bring that up,” Di Marco said. “But this confession won't give you any qualms. The Chicago PD played it totally by the book. They didn't use any strong-arm tactics because they didn't have to. Lazarus started spilling her guts practically the minute they sat her down in the interview room. If anything, she was anxious to get it off her chest. It's all there on the videotape, which you're welcome to listen to if my word isn't good enough for you. I guarantee the only questions you'll hear are ‘What happened next?' and ‘Please go on, ma'am.'”