Motion to Suppress (36 page)

"Okay. You can answer the question, Doctor."

"I’m sorry, I don’t remember it," Greenspan said.

"What is countertransference, Doctor? Not transference. Tell us about countertransference."

"Right. Countertransference has to do with our previous, ah, discussion. About unanalyzed therapists."

"Go on."

"Well, the idea is that the therapist may have some psychological needs or problems that obtrude into the therapeutic relationship...."

"For example, the therapist falls in love with his patient?"

"Objection!" Hallowell roared.

"Did you have sexual intercourse with Mrs. Patterson while she was under hypnosis?"

"What?" Greenspan cried. "Never!" He had unfurled his long arms and spread his hands, like a bat.

"How dare you!" came a female voice from the audience.

"Your Honor, I must protest!" Riesner said. "She’s doing exactly what you—"

"Just a couple more questions, Your Honor," Nina said. Milne gave her his careful regard, clearly unsettled. She challenged him with her eyes.

"Proceed," Milne said. "All objections are overruled."

"You did take advantage of her sexually while she was your patient, did you not?"

"No!" Greenspan had sat down again, but his hands squeezed the railing.

Nina said directly to the jury, "Suppose I told you I have here the results of a DNA test comparing samples of hair taken from Dr. Greenspan’s lab coat by me personally with the DNA of the unborn child Mrs. Patterson is carrying...." She turned back to the witness. "Congratulations. You’re going to be a father."

Michelle Patterson stood up. For a moment they all paid respectful silence to her swaying, ghostly figure, all in white. She started to open her mouth, then covered it in a familiar gesture. She moved her hands into a praying position, pressing them hard against her lips. Paul put an arm around her and pulled her to her seat.

"I demand the Court put a stop to this!" Riesner shouted, but nobody was listening. Hallowell stared at the physician, his eyes blank as a video screen without power. They all watched Dr. Greenspan’s face crumple and his body shrink in his suit.

A wail came from somewhere in the audience, starting small and swelling until everyone in the courtroom was looking at Ericka Greenspan.

Face haggard, she had risen, her hands clenched around her knitting bag.

Milne said, not unkindly, "Now, ma’am. Court’s in session. Please take your seat."

The words had no effect. "Frederick, look at me."

The only person in the courtroom not already looking heard her. His wire-rimmed glasses glinted as he turned his long torso slowly toward his wife.

"I would have been a better doctor than you," she said. "I covered for you so many years. It was my life too. Our good reputation. Our good name. We helped people together. I was so proud."

No response.

"Then the dead man came to me. He wasn’t dead then, though, was he?" A sound like a small laugh escaped. "A man like that, pretty as his wife. Oh, he was nasty. He hinted about things. I didn’t believe him at first. He told me to watch out for you and her. He said, ’You don’t put Misty on a couch and just talk to her.’ How could I believe him? You and that cheap tart? But the things he said stayed in my mind, driving me crazy. I started having these terrible doubts. About us. About what I gave up so that you could be an important man. The world’s better off without people like him. He was a malignancy."

"You, Ericka?" Greenspan whispered.

Milne opened his mouth, closed it. The bailiff waited alertly for instructions. In the silent courtroom, nobody breathed. The lights glared down on Ericka Greenspan’s straight back and superbly cut suit. People in the seats beside her stared up at her.

"You always did underestimate me," she said. "I listened at your door the day the lawyer came. I learned the girl was going to go to a psychiatrist in San Francisco to be hypnotized, and I told the police. That lady lawyer told you, when you were talking to her. Didn’t you stop to think that she might destroy us? At the very least, she was bound to dream up some malpractice. Never thought of that, did you? You’re actually a very stupid man, Frederick."

"Ericka, don’t say any more," Greenspan said in a low voice.

"Right, don’t talk," Riesner echoed, edging away from the witness box toward the wall.

Ericka Greenspan stood there, swaying, her chest heaving, working herself up to some fresh disclosure. Her presence now, at first a minor disruption in the long proceedings, had continued far too long without containment. The witnesses to the trial’s disintegration looked to Milne for leadership. But he was sitting there, a fascinated expression on his face.

"I drove them off the road, and I tried to get into the girl’s room while she was dead drunk. To smother her. Just taking care of you, darling." Her mouth was a snarl now. "You make a mess; I clean up, just like always. But now—"

"Ericka, please stop!" Greenspan cried. He looked ready to leap over the witness stand.

"I hate you! And her! And that lawyer! All of you make a joke of my whole life!" Her head bobbed, and her mouth kept moving jerkily, as though she was going to retch.

Milne found his voice. "Bailiff, take that woman into custody!" he ordered.

Before the bailiff had even begun to move, Ericka Greenspan pulled a heavy gun from her knitting bag. She aimed at Greenspan, holding it in both hands, her face wild and determined.

The people in front of her began to scream and scramble for the exits.

"You make..."

Blam!

"... me sick!"

Blam!

The blasts slammed Greenspan back into the witness chair, echoing off the wooden benches. The bailiff had pulled his revolver, but in the confusion of screams and bodies rushing to get out, he couldn’t stop her.

Nina, amazed and unbelieving, watched as Mrs. Greenspan, seeming to have all the time in the world, turned and pointed the gun at Michelle. Unable to move fast, fingers spread over her belly, her eyes wide with terror, Michelle cowered in her seat for what seemed like minutes before Paul hurled his big body against her, pushing her below the counsel table. The gun moved uncertainly like a black snake until Nina was watching blackness inside the barrel. Then its tongue licked toward her brightly.

A cannonball thudded into her chest, knocking her flat against the witness box. She went deaf from the roaring in her ears, and she couldn’t raise her hands or breathe or feel a thing. Most of her had fled deep inside at the awful shock, but her eyes stayed open wide, dispassionately witnessing the shiny black gun. It had searched out Paul and Michelle tangled on the floor. Nina waited for the next lick of fire.

When it finally came, the boom came from a different direction as Deputy Kimura shot Ericka Greenspan in the chest. Blood blossomed in a grisly bouquet over her elegant suit. She emitted a grunt of surprise and fell backward over the bench, hard, the gun firing again and again and again.

32

LIGHTS. VOICES. SHE had heard those voices before. She opened her eyes.

"Easy there," Matt said. He stroked her forehead. Andrea stood beside him, her somber face glinting with tears.

She was on a gurney, in a hospital corridor, eyes momentarily blinded by the snowstorm of light surrounding her. Closing her eyes, she disappeared into a disorienting half-dream where pain hid and emerged.

She floated on the drugs, listening detachedly to her own voice moan. At some point Matt shouted. As the gurney jolted forward, she caved in to the pain in her chest and prayed for a quick death.

A Bonanza rerun. The theme song was playing, so Hoss and Adam and the other cowboys must be riding their Tahoe ranch, tall in the saddle. Adam would be looking around, holding the reins firmly, steely-eyed and twinkly at the same time. He had a dimple and she had such a crush on him. What a shame when Hoss died. Everybody loved him. The TV watchers were sad for such a long time.

The TV hung from the ceiling in the corner of her hospital room. Hoss was dead, but Nina discovered herself to be alive, though the drugs and TV had pushed her into a 1972 flashback. Her mother might come in at any moment and catch her curled up on a monumental bad trip.

Hoss met some mean shooters on the way to Virginia City. But Nina was comforted, knowing he would escape due to the perfect and just rules of television land. There were gunshots, but she wasn’t afraid. Buddhist monks could only yearn for such a transcendent state of acceptance. She would have to tell the holy men. Bonanza was the short cut. Eyes closed and ears listening, medicated into the metaconscious, she achieved egolessness and merged with the TV program.

Days went by, and the medicine took her from daffy to dazed. Memories surfaced gently and faded away. She thought a lot about her mother, and cried now and then. Paul came to see her and hold her hand. Bobby came every day, pressing his sweet cheek against hers, careful not to disturb the IV drip. Other faces came too ... her dad. Was that Jack? Slowly, reluctantly, she woke up again.

"What day is it?" she asked the nurse.

"Tuesday. A good day," the nurse said. She was writing something on a chart. "You’re looking chipper." She had short, frizzy red hair and thick, curly eyelashes, freckled hands, and a tattoo of pink-and-blue flowers peeking out from the neck of her sedate white uniform.

"My chest hurts," Nina said.

"It should. You were shot in the lung. Broke a couple of ribs. Came out your back. You’re going to hurt for a while, but you’re going to be fine."

"Really?"

"I swear," the nurse said, holding her hand to her heart. "Couple battle scars to tell your grandchildren about. Now eat your breakfast." She pressed a button and the top of the bed creaked upward. Nina drank some orange juice and ate some toast, getting used to the tight wrapping around the upper part of her body. She breathed shallowly, blunting the cudgel of pain that pounded at each ebb and flow.

Andrea brought Bobby over after school. He had made her a cartoon in his computer lab at school, showing a funny bunny with a balloon that said, I LOVE YOU, MOM. She held him close, kissing the top of his head until he begged her to stop.

"I have a question for you, kiddo," she said. "One I’ve been dying to ask."

He laughed nervously. "Is this about Troy’s skateboard? Because I already explained to Uncle Matt—"

"Don’t worry," she said, taking a pencil from her bedside. "It’s this darn puzzle." She drew nine dots in three rows. "Four connecting lines, right?"

Bobby took the pencil from her, drew a triangle with a line through the middle, and showed it to his mother. "It’s kind of a trick, see? You have to be willing to go outside the dots to make it work. I thought it’d be easy for you."

He hustled down to the lobby to buy himself a treat, while she threw her hands up in a despairing gesture. "I like to think I’m a creative person," she said to Andrea.

"But you are, Nina. Really, everyone’s just flabbergasted at what you pulled off in that courtroom."

"Flabbergasted must be an understatement." She punched her pillow weakly and lay back.

Andrea stood by the bed, trim in her neat jeans. "We’re glad it’s over. You want to know what’s happened, don’t you? Curiosity is a good sign. It means you’re better. They say they’re going to let you out of here in a few days, but you’ll have to take it easy for at least six weeks after that. Your chaise will be waiting."

"It punctured my lung," Nina said. "Andrea, she almost killed me."

"I know, sweetie. But she missed the aorta by a centimeter. A little less air won’t hurt your law practice. One centimeter." She frowned. "Don’t cut it so close next time."

"What happened to the trial?"

"I don’t know where to start, except to tell you how happy we are you made it."

"Mrs. Greenspan shot her husband," Nina said.

"She killed him. He died on the witness stand. Then she shot you. Then the bailiff shot her. She didn’t make it."

"Michelle?"

"The judge declared a mistrial. I understand the DA isn’t going to refile charges against Michelle. No jury is going to convict her now. Talk about reasonable doubt. The consensus seems to be that Mrs. Greenspan went to the house that night, saw the fight, and killed Anthony after Michelle was out of commission, hoping Michelle would be blamed."

Nina was quiet.

"Well, aren’t you glad?"

"Did she say anything after she shot me?" Nina said.

"Not a word."

Nina sighed, resting her hand on her bandaged chest. "I wish she had confessed to killing Anthony."

"Oh, come on, Nina. What’s your problem? She came close enough. She said Anthony came to her with his suspicions. She said she protected her husband. She said she tried to kill you and Michelle. She told Collier Hallowell about the San Francisco session."

"Yes, she confessed to plenty, but not that."

"You are the most obdurate, the most exasperating, the most long-eared mule who ever dug her heels in and wouldn’t go," Andrea said. "Let’s talk about something else."

"How’s Michelle?"

"Back in Fresno. She starts Lamaze classes next week with Steve Rossmoor as her partner. Isn’t that a kick?"

"He’ll want to marry her. Don’t think she’s ready, do you?"

"She’s been calling every day. She’s found a woman therapist. Her parents had a rough week. They came through the bad time. You know, I think they were half dead before. Hiding Stokes’s death took so much energy. I think their lives will be better now. The baby’s coming soon, so they’ll be busy. Nobody talks much about Greenspan being the father. I wonder what Michelle will tell her child about the father."

"The baby will inherit Greenspan’s estate," Nina said. "They had no children."

"Ohmigod. Only a lawyer could think about something like that."

"I’ll never forget Greenspan’s expression when I told him about the baby. He had Michelle’s medical chart. He knew she was on the Pill. He didn’t know she’d missed a few that month."

"That disgusting pervert, giving good therapists a bad name," Andrea said firmly. "They were both twisted." She turned her wedding ring around on her finger for emphasis. "After what he did to Michelle ..."

"I’ll call her tomorrow," Nina said. She wanted to say to her, thank you for your faith. Michelle had been the only one to trust Nina unflaggingly, and she had had the most to lose. And Michelle would say, thank you for believing in me. Nina had been the only one.

They were so different, but shared so much, bad and good. Now Michelle, too, had a child to tell some difficult truths to. What about my father, Mom? Nina was waiting for Bobby to ask that question. Maybe Michelle would do better. Did these events drop rotten burdens through the generations, fruits of poisonous trees? They would talk about it.

"Jack came up to see you, but you were out of it," Andrea went on. "He brought the divorce decree. You’re single again."

"Ouch," Nina said. She had jerked involuntarily.

"He cried right here in this chair, if that’s any consolation to you. Here, let me fix your pillow. Other news: You’re famous, at least for a few miles around. Sandy is collecting the appointment requests. According to the Mirror, you rode in here on a big white horse and ran the bad guys out of town. Saved an innocent girl when no one else believed in her.... You’ll be embarrassed when you read the articles. They even reported the shootings on CNN. Matt saved the tape."

"Me? What’d I do? I muddled around, making mistakes, until I got shot."

Andrea grinned. "You never learned how to pat yourself on the back, did you? I’m going to have to do it for you." She leaned close to Nina’s pillow and patted her softly on the shoulder. "Congratulations, Nina. We’re all proud of you."

But when she had gone, leaving behind a novel about sleazy lawyers involved in big-firm chicanery, Nina lay there, troubled. The Greenspans were dead. She could never ask Ericka Greenspan exactly how Anthony Patterson died. Okay, she had found him wounded, lying on the couch. Okay, she was strong, she had seen the keys on the kitchen counter and hauled him to the boat. Somehow, she had swum back.

But why go to all that trouble? Why not just hit Anthony again, and leave Michelle to face a murder charge?

She shook her head and reached out painfully for the cards stacked on the nightstand. Judge Milne had sent her a Hall-mark get-well card. She last remembered him scurrying off to his chambers like a panicky weasel to its burrow. She would never be afraid of him again.

Collier’s card played "You Only Live Twice" in tinkly computer music when she opened it. Inside was a folded copy of the mistrial order. "Congratulations, Counselor!" the card said.

Smiling a little, she looked around. Silver Mylar balloons from Paul flew above a champagne bottle with a note that made her laugh and blush at the same time. Flowers from Michelle, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts from Nina’s father in Monterey, a soft wool blanket covered with bird designs from Sandy. A scribble from Bruno: "Classic countertransference. An intriguing footnote to Freud. I’ll send you my first draft."

She found the Judgment of Final Dissolution of Marriage at the bottom of the card pile. The effective date was the same day she had been shot. Ultraprofessional Ms. Cherry had written a cover letter regarding the details.

Clipped to the top of that letter was a note from Jack saying he knew she’d be out there again soon, persevering until even the impossible gave way, and wishing her luck. She stared at the note a long time, till the nurse came in with a cupful of pills that erased all her pain.

On October 13, the morning before she left the hospital, Nina’s doctor came in to give her discharge instructions. To him she was nothing but a right lung. Take this and this and this, he said in the excessively cheerful bedside manner affected by the medical profession, and come into the office in a couple of days.

A couple of days. Those were Michelle’s words, the first time she came into the office. Anthony Patterson, too, had seen his doctor a few days before his death.

Nina dialed the phone.

"Sandy, it’s me."

"Well, I’ll be."

Hearing that familiar flat voice on the phone actually choked Nina up. "How’s it going? Are you hanging in there?"

"It’s a barrel of laughs," Sandy said. "I’ll come see you tomorrow with a U-Haul full of new files. You are still going home tomorrow?"

"I’ll be there. See you after lunch."

"With pen in hand."

"Listen, Sandy. I have a chore for you. Could you find out the name of Anthony Patterson’s regular doc? It must be somewhere in the case files. Right away."

"That’s what you pay me for," Sandy said. She called back ten minutes later with the name, and Nina thanked her. "Sure," she said. "By the way, there’s a powwow at the Washoe Center all this week."

"And?"

"I took down those awful gray photographs. Got tired of staring at ’em all day long. Those things took all the life and color and drained it right out of the landscape. What we need’s a couple of bright Washoe wall hangings in here."

"You took down my Ansel Adams prints?"

"You’re gonna love it," said Sandy.