The Second Trial (3 page)

“It's not as unusual as you might think. The public often thinks of batterers as being from low-income families. They believe the batterers were themselves the victims of childhood abuse or neglect. The public also tends to think abusers have serious mental health problems – they are psychopaths, alcoholics, drug abusers, or career criminals. But this isn't always so.

“Violence also happens in what we might call privileged households. These people have higher than average incomes, both partners are usually well educated, and both partners seem confident, socially at ease, and happy. We call this type of bully an upscale domestic abuser.”

“How does an upscale abuser behave?”

“Well he – and it is almost always a man – he dominates his victim by criticizing her – sometimes publicly, but always strongly or even viciously. He also makes decisions – even important ones – without her input. He controls her access to money, and he keeps her from contacting her support group, her friends and family. He wants
control
, and that means cutting her off.”

Danny's mind went back to spring break in Grade 3. Dad had promised to drive the family to Drumheller to see the Tyrrell Dinosaur Museum. “Catherine,” Paul directed, “you get our bags packed and we'll leave in the morning.”

Sleep had eluded Danny. He pulled out his favorite dinosaur books –
Giant Dinosaurs, The Complete T-Rex, Time Flies, A Pebble
in my Pocket
– and surrounded himself in bed. He flipped through every picture. He wanted to sneak downstairs and telephone Grandpa. Grandpa was a retired geology teacher, and Danny was used to spending a lot of summer days with him. He wanted to ask where to find fossils, but knew his dad wouldn't approve of the phone call. They didn't talk to Grandma and Grandpa much anymore.

The day had dawned clear and cold: a perfect end-of-winter day. They spent Monday exploring the museum and the treasures of the gift shop. Danny fingered bits of fossilized dinosaur bones, a balsa wood T-Rex skeleton, and a spider trapped in amber. They stayed in a hotel with an indoor pool. Mom watched from a deck chair as Danny and Jennifer splashed as much as they could get away with. Dad stayed in the room and watched the hockey game on TV. On Tuesday, they drove to Dinosaur Provincial Park where they hiked along the clay trail to the fossil beds. Although the sign said it was illegal to take fossils from the park, Danny picked one up and slipped it into his pocket.

“Put that back, Danny,” Mom ordered sharply.

“Let him keep it, for God's sake, Catherine. Don't be such a stickler.”

Danny had grinned at his dad. He kept his hand in his jacket pocket, twirling the long, smoothly-ridged cylinder of cool rock around and around in his fingers.

The prosecutor continued. “Does this type of bully follow a pattern?”

“Absolutely. A pattern of escalating violence. Mr. McMillan's first conviction was ten years ago. He struck his wife in the face, twice – with a closed fist. He gave her a black eye and badly bruised her face.”

Danny looked at his mother. She stared straight ahead, her face rigid and emotionless.
Ten years ago.
He'd been just three years old, and his sister Jen hadn't been born yet. He remembered nothing. But he saw that his mother remembered; the knuckles of her interlaced fingers were white.

“Then the next assault – at least the next assault he was
convicted
for – was only four years later, and it was violent. He flung her into a coffee table, broke her wrist, split open her palm, and pulled out her hair by its roots. And he kept threatening her with more.” He shifted in his seat. “For the bully, it's a bit like an escalator ride. Once you get on that bottom step, there's nowhere to go but up.”

Escalator. Mom's escalator accident.
Danny had been happy and excited about starting school that year. Every day, Mom took Jennifer and him to Annie's day care a block from his elementary school. Annie's sons, Tom and Julian, were his best buddies. Tom was in Grade 2 with Danny, but Julian was in Grade 4, so this year the three boys were old enough to walk to school on their own. Jen was just three and stayed with Annie for days of toddler games and naps.

After school, Annie usually let them play in the yard, but one November day they stayed a long time before Annie called them in. Even though the boys usually played in the family room, Annie sat Danny in a living room chair. Jennifer lay on the carpet, Barbies and Barbie clothes strewn about her like autumn leaves. Annie explained that Mom had had an accident. She'd been on the escalator in the mall. Someone had bumped into her, or she'd lost her balance, or something. Annie wasn't sure which, but Mom had tumbled down. She'd broken her wrist and cut her palm on the metal stairs while trying to stop her fall. Some of her hair had gotten caught in the side of the escalator and had been torn from her scalp. But Annie assured them their mom would be okay. She said once Dad had fetched Mom from the hospital he'd come to get them. In the meantime, Annie would take all of them to a Chinese restaurant for supper.

It was almost bedtime before the doorbell rang. But it wasn't Dad who came to pick them up, it was Mom. Her arm hung in a sling. Her jacket sleeve only partly covered the plaster cast on her right wrist. She curled her fingers against the thick white gauze taped across her palm. She was wearing a navy silk scarf, her favorite, the one patterned with golden sunflowers, knotted under her chin.

“Where's Paul?” Annie asked sharply.

In a rush of words, Mom explained there had been a last-minute crisis at work and Dad had had to leave the hospital and go directly to the airport. He'd be gone for the next few days.

“What kind of a crisis could be that important?” Annie challenged. “Why can't he take care of you? Who's going to take care of you?”

Catherine had cut off Annie's questions and told her not to worry. She said she'd be home from work for a while anyway, because she couldn't type, so she'd get Danny to school herself. She had hustled the kids into the car and told them their dad was sorry he'd missed saying good-bye, but he'd be sure to bring them each something nice when he got home in a couple of days.

“Danny, help your sister into her car seat,” she said. “And then buckle yourself in.” Catherine started the one-handed drive home.

“Mom, what about your seatbelt?” he had asked.

“I'll be fine.”

And now Danny knew she hadn't been fine at all.

“Dr. Hamilton, what can you tell us about a bully's ability to change his behavior – to get off that escalator?”

The psychiatrist stroked his chin. “Well, generally, once a bully, always a bully, because he lacks the desire to change. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If he's done it before, he'll do it again.”

“Doctor, given this pattern, what do you predict about Mr. McMillan's behavior?”

The psychiatrist ticked off his conclusions on his fingers. “Mr. McMillan has an established pattern of violence. The violence always occurs, shall we say, behind closed doors, in an intimate relationship, and out of sight in the family home, where it's likely to be repeated. He's an upscale domestic abuser, a bully. He was, is, and likely will continue to be an abuser. He is a dangerous man. When someone acts violently, that event establishes the
minimum
violence he is capable of. He will most certainly re-offend with increasing violence. There is no limit.”

“So, this is a high-risk relationship?”

“Yes.”

“And what category are we in?”

The psychiatrist looked at the prisoner. “We're in the category of homicide prevention.”

Chapter 4

Monday

The defense lawyer rose to cross-examine the psychiatrist. “Dr. Hamilton, isn't it true that Mr. McMillan apologized to his wife?”

“Yes. In fact, he has quite often shown remorse.”

Danny nodded to himself. His dad
had
been sorry, he'd seen it himself. Mom wore that sunflower scarf for a few days, but a few weeks later, before Dad got home, she'd had her shoulder-length hair cut short. She combed it over the bald spot. Even though Danny now knew his father had been in jail, not on a business trip, he remembered him returning with a triumphant smile and gifts for everyone. It wasn't even Christmas yet, but he'd brought a stuffed mountain gorilla with arms long enough to reach around Jen, a hockey jersey for Danny, and long-stemmed red roses for Mom. He stroked Mom's short hair – “I didn't know you'd cut it,” he murmured – and Mom wore her scarf again for the next few days. Because of her wrist, she wasn't back at work.

“I'll take two weeks off,” Dad had said, riffling his hands through Danny's hair, “so the family can all be together again. I promise you a Christmas you'll never forget.” They'd see the latest Christmas movies, drive through Candy Cane Lane, and go to the mall so Danny and Jen could sit on Santa's knee and ask for all the toys they wanted. They'd drink mugs of steaming hot chocolate piled with clouds of whipped cream. Dad promised tobogganing, skating, and building snowmen in the park, but when the time came he didn't explain why he thought it was too cold for Jen and Mom, but not too cold for Danny and him. Of course, Mom wouldn't be getting her cast off for another couple of weeks, so she couldn't come anyway. In the end it was mostly just Dad and Danny. That was the year Dad started teaching him how to play hockey, and it was great.

But best of all was the Christmas present he found in a cardboard box under the tree on Christmas morning – a border collie puppy, glossy black and shiny white and wildly playful. He couldn't keep his hands off the dog and let Jen rip open the presents containing the dog's bed, plastic dishes, a leather collar and retractable leash, mouse-shaped squeak toys, a rawhide bone, puppy treats, and an orange Frisbee.

Split logs burned in the corner fireplace, and the aroma of roasting turkey was thick enough to taste. Danny chatted endlessly about what to name the dog. By the time Dad helped Mom lift the turkey out of the oven, Danny had decided on Buddy. Later, when Mom insisted, he pulled himself away from the puppy long enough to sit at the table. Danny and Jennifer bolted down their food while Buddy whined for attention from his cardboard box.

It had been a perfect Christmas.

The defense lawyer flipped through the psychiatrist's report. “You've said the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior?”

“That's true.”

“But people
can
change their behaviors, can't they?”

“We'd better hope so, or we'll all be in trouble.”

“Yes, no doubt. But, given that Mr. McMillan is not a psychopath, an alcoholic, or a drug abuser, doesn't it stand to reason that he
can
change? That he is teachable?”

“Well now, that's not so clear. We do know that the anger management training and marriage counseling he took after the first conviction weren't successful.”

“Did you offer him any therapy?”

“No, that's not my job. My job is to assess people, not to treat them.”

“So he hasn't been offered therapy to control his emotions?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“He hasn't been offered therapy to teach him to have compassion for his wife?”

“That's correct.”

“He hasn't been offered therapy to help him control his anger or change his pattern of behavior?”

“Well, he's already had one anger management course, and it failed to change anything. Sometimes offering offenders more courses just makes them better at taking courses.”

“Now, would it be fair to say there are
strong
patterns of behavior and
weak
patterns of behavior?”

“Well, yes, the more incidents there are, the more obvious the pattern is.”

“So, in this case, those would be the two convictions in 1992 and 1996?”

“Yes, certainly those, but also all of the other times his wife told me about when I interviewed her.”

“How strong is Mr. McMillan's pattern?”

“I would say it is a strong pattern.”

“But in coming to that conclusion – that there's a strong pattern of behavior – do you rely on all of the…let's say,
other
instances Mrs. McMillan says happened but were never tried or proven in a court of law?”

“Yes.”

“And, Dr. Hamilton,
hypothetically
speaking now, if you ignored everything Mrs. McMillan says except for the three
proven
assaults – would you still say Mr. McMillan's actions establish a pattern of behavior?”

“Yes, I would.”

“But wouldn't you agree with me the pattern of behavior is
much, much
weaker than if you include all the other alleged assaults?”

The witness paused. “Yes, I'd have to agree with that. But it's still a pattern of behavior.”

The lawyer shifted forward and read from a paper. “Mr. McMillan told you he owns a successful commercial insurance agency? He makes a good living and provides all the comforts that make life pleasant?”

“Financially, the family had a good standard of living, yes.”

“Every summer, he took them camping and fishing? They've been to Disneyland and Hawaii?”

“Yes.”

“Do you agree he offered his children lots of activities and filled their lives with opportunities? That he always did his best for his children?”

“On the surface, yes.”

“And Mr. McMillan is under a restraining order – he's not allowed any contact with his wife or his children for the indefinite future?”

“Yes.”

“And the hidden gun? The gun with the tag? It was removed the day after the December assault? He's not allowed to have a gun anymore?”

“Yes.”

“And they're getting a divorce?”

“Yes.”

“And when you interviewed him, he said he loved his wife? And he was very sorry for what he did?”