Self-Defense

She smiled, as usual.

From her chair she had a fine view of the
ocean. This morning it was a wrinkled teal sheet gilded with sunrise. A
triangle of pelicans reconnoitered overhead. I doubted she’d notice any of it.

She moved around a bit, trying to get
comfortable.

“Good morning, Lucy.”

“Good morning, Dr. Delaware.”

Her purse was at her feet, a huge macramé
bag with leather straps. She had on a light blue cotton sweater and a pleated
pink skirt. Her hair was fawn-colored, sleek, shoulder length with feather
bangs. Her slender face was lightly freckled, with great cheekbones and fine
features ruled by huge brown eyes. She looked younger than twenty-five.

“So,” she said, shrugging and still smiling.

“So.”

The smile died. “Today I want to talk
about
him.”

“Okay.”

She covered her mouth, then removed her
fingers. “The things he did.”

I nodded.

“No,” she said. “I don’t mean what we’ve
already been over. I’m talking about things I haven’t told you.”

“The details.”

She squeezed her lips together. One hand
was in her lap, and her fingers began to drum. “You have no idea.”

“I read the trial transcript, Lucy.”

“All of it?”

“All the crime-scene details. Detective
Sturgis’s testimony.” Private testimony, too.

“Oh... then I guess you do know.” She
glanced at the ocean. “I thought I’d dealt with it, but all of a sudden I can’t
get it out of my head.”

“The dreams?”

“No, these are waking thoughts. Images
float into my head. When I’m at my desk, watching TV, whatever.”

“Images from the trial?”

“The worst things from the trial—those
photo blowups. Or I’ll flash on facial expressions. Carrie Fielding’s parents.
Anna Lopez’s husband.” Looking away.
“His
face. I feel like I’m going
through it all over again.”

“It hasn’t been that long, Lucy.”

“Two months isn’t long?”

“Not for what you went through.”

“I suppose,” she said. “The whole time I
sat there in that jury box, I felt as if I was living in a toxic waste dump.
The grosser the testimony got, the more he enjoyed it. His staring games—those
stupid satanic drawings on his hands. As if he was
daring
us to see how
bad he was. Daring us to punish him.”

She gave a sour smile. “We took the dare,
all right, didn’t we? I suppose it was an honor to put him away. So why don’t I
feel honored?”

“The end result may have been honorable,
but getting there—”

She shook her head, as if I’d missed the
point. “He
defecated
on them!
In
them! After he—the
holes
he made in them!” Tears filled her eyes.

“Why?” she said.

“I couldn’t even begin to explain someone
like him, Lucy.”

She was silent for a long time.
“Everything was a big
game
for him. In some ways he was just like an
overgrown kid, wasn’t he? Turning people into dolls so he could play with them....
Some kids play like that, don’t they?”

“Not normal kids.”

“Do you think he was abused the way he
claimed?”

“There’s no evidence he was.”

“Yes,” she said, “but still. How could
someone... could he really have been in some kind of altered state, a multiple
personality like that psychiatrist claimed?”

“There’s no evidence of that either,
Lucy.”

“I know, but what do you
think
?”

“My guess is that his crazy behavior at
the trial was faked for the insanity plea.”

“So you think he was totally rational?”

“I don’t know if rational’s the right
word, but he certainly wasn’t psychotic or the prisoner of uncontrollable
urges. He
chose
to do what he did. He
liked
hurting people.”

She touched a wet cheek. “You don’t think
he was sick.”

“Not in the sense of benefiting from a
pill or surgery or even psychotherapy.” I handed her a tissue.

“So death’s what’s called for.”

“What’s called for is keeping him away
from the rest of us.”

“Well, we did that, all right. The DA said
if anyone’s going to get gassed, it’s him.” She gave an angry laugh.

“Does that trouble you?” I said.

“No... maybe. I don’t know. I mean, if he
ever makes it to the gas chamber I’m not going to be standing around watching
him asphyxiate. He deserves it, but... I guess it’s the calculated aspect that
gets to me. Knowing that on such and such a day, at such and such a time... but
would I do anything different? What would be the alternative? Giving him a
chance of getting out and doing those things again?”

“Even correct choices can be agonizing.”

“Do you believe in the death penalty?”

I thought for a while, composing my
answer. Normally, I avoided injecting my opinions into therapy, but this time
evasion would be a mistake. “I’m where you are, Lucy. The idea of someone being
calculatedly put to death bothers me, and I’d have trouble pulling the switch.
But I can see cases where it might be the best choice.”

“So what does that make us, Dr. Delaware?
Hypocrites?”

“No,” I said. “It makes us human.”

“I didn’t jump at gassing him, you know. I
was the holdout. The others were really on me to finish up.”

“Was it rough for you?”

“No, they weren’t nasty or anything. Just
persistent. Repeating their reasons and staring at me, like I was a stupid kid
who’d eventually come around. So I guess I have to wonder if part of it was
good old peer pressure.”

“As you said, what would have been the
alternative?”

“Guess so.”

“You’re in conflict because you’re a moral
person,” I said. “Maybe that’s why the images have started returning.”

She looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe at this point in time you
need
to remember exactly what Shwandt did.”

“To convince myself what
I
did was
right?”

“Yes.”

That seemed to calm her, but she cried
some more. The tissue in her hand was wadded tight, and I handed her another
one.

“It all boiled down to sex, didn’t it?”
she said, with sudden anger. “He got off on other people’s pain. All that
defense testimony about uncontrollable impulses was bull— those poor, poor
women, what he made them—God, why am I starting my day
talking
about
this?”

She looked at her watch. “Better be
going.”

The clock on the mantel said fifteen
minutes to go.

“We’ve got time left.”

“I know, but would you mind if I left a
little early? Stuff’s been piling up; my desk is a—” She grimaced and looked
away.

“It’s what, Lucy?”

“I was going to say a bloody mess.”
Laughter. “The whole experience has warped me, Dr. Delaware.”

I reached over and touched her shoulder.
“Give it time.”

“I’m sure you’re right.... Time. I wish
there were
thirty-
four hours in the day.”

“Are you backlogged because of jury duty?”

“No, I cleared the backlog the first week.
But my workload seems heavier. They keep shoving stuff at me, as if they’re
punishing me.”

“Why would they be punishing you?”

“For taking three months off. The firm was
legally obligated to grant me leave, but they weren’t happy about it. When I
showed my boss the notice, he told me to get out of it. I didn’t. I thought it
was important. I didn’t know what trial I’d be assigned to.”

“Had you known, would you have tried to
get out of it?”

She thought. “I don’t know.... Anyway,
I’ve got eight new major corporate accounts to clear paper on. Used to be only
tax season was like this.”

She shrugged and stood. Behind her, the
pelicans began a dive in formation.

When we reached the door, she said, “Have
you seen Detective Sturgis lately?”

“I saw him a couple of days ago.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Fine.”

“What a nice guy. How does he deal with
this kind of stuff constantly?”

“Not every case is like Shwandt.”

“Thank God for that.” Her skirt was in
place but she tugged at it, smoothing the thin fabric over hard, narrow hips.

“Are you sure you want to leave early,
Lucy? We’ve gotten into some pretty disturbing stuff.”

“I know, but I’ll be fine. Talking about
it’s made me feel better.”

We left the house and walked across the
footbridge to the front gate. I turned the bolt and we stepped out to Pacific
Coast Highway. This far north of the Malibu Colony, coastal traffic was thin—a
few commuters from Ventura and produce trucks rattling down from Oxnard. But
the vehicles that did pass were speeding and deafening, and I could barely hear
her when she thanked me, again.

I watched her get into her little blue
Colt. The car fired up and she gave the wheel a quick turn, peeling out,
burning rubber.

I went back inside and charted the
session.

Fourth session. Once again, talking about
Shwandt’s crimes, the trial, the victims, but not the dreams that had brought
her to me in the first place.

I’d mentioned them the first time, but she
changed the subject abruptly and I backed off. So maybe the dreams had ceased
as she got some of the horror out of her system.

I started some coffee, went out to the
deck, and watched the pelicans while thinking about her sitting in the jury box
for three months.

Ninety days in a toxic dump. All because
she didn’t eat meat.

“
Pure
vegetarian,” Milo had told
me, over his glass of scotch.
“Save The Whales
sticker on her car,
donates to Greenpeace. Naturally the defense had the hots for her.”

“Compassion for all living things,” I
said.

He grunted. “Defense thought she’d be too
knee-jerk to send that piece of shit to the apple-green room.”

He gave an ugly laugh, drank his Chivas,
and ran his hand over his face as if washing without water. “Bad guess. Not
that he’s likely to eat cyanide soon, what with all the paper his lawyers are
churning out.”

He was pretty much drunk, but maintaining.
It was 1A.M. and we were in a half-empty cocktail lounge in a half-vacant
high-rise office building downtown, a few blocks from the Hall of Justice where
Jobe Rowland Shwandt had held court for one-quarter of a year, leering,
giggling, picking his nose, squeezing blackheads, rattling his chains.

The press turned every twitch into news
and Shwandt luxuriated in the attention, loving it almost as much as the pain
he’d caused. The trial was a rich dessert for him after a ten-month banquet of
blood.

The Bogeyman.

The more repulsive the testimony got, the
more he smirked. When the death penalty verdict was read, he yanked his crotch
and tried to expose himself to the victims’ families.

“No fish,” said Milo, putting his glass
down on the bar. “No eggs or dairy products either. Just fruits and vegetables.
What’s that called, a
vegan
?”

I nodded.

The bartender was Japanese, as were most
of the patrons. The bar food was soy-flavored trail mix, cucumber and rice
wrapped in seaweed, and tiny pinkish dried shrimp. Conversation was low and
polite, and even though Milo was talking softly, he sounded loud.

“Lots of do-gooders are full of shit, but
with her you get the feeling it’s real. Real soft-spoken, gentle voice; pretty
but she doesn’t make a thing out of it. I knew a girl like that in high school.
Became a nun.”