Lassiter 07 - Flesh and Bones by Levine, Paul (best fiction books to read TXT) 📗

"Shoot," Guy said. Then he laughed. "No pun intended."

I sat there a moment, trying to keep from looking startled. A trial lawyer never wants to appear surprised, in or out of court. The man's father had been shot dead two weeks ago, and he was making a little joke. Okay, we all react to loss differently, but it just struck me as a discordant note.

Turning to the doctor, I said, "The tape recorder you use on your office sessions, does it take batteries?"

"Well, it can. But I use the jack to a wall outlet, or else I'd be changing batteries twice a week."

"Uh-huh. There seemed to be a gap on the tape of the hypnotic regression session when Chrissy remembered the abuse."

"A gap?" Sounding innocent enough. "I could have run out of tape and inserted a new one."

"No. The tape was about two thirds of the way through. You had just asked Chrissy about her father, and the tape went dead. Then it picked up again, but of course I can't tell how long it was off."

The doctor shrugged. "Sometimes my secretary buzzes me if there's an emergency call I have to take, and I'll hit the Stop button. Or maybe I had to sign for a package. Who knows?"

Not me, that's for sure. I hadn't heard a secretary buzzing or a UPS driver toting packages into the room. All I'd heard was the click, and next thing I knew, Chrissy was recovering lost memories.

"Then on the last tape, June fourteenth, she was going to tell you something, some decision she made, but you turned off the recorder."

"No. I wouldn't do that. Did you look at my office notes of the session?"

"Yeah. They just say Chrissy's agitated and anxious. She's to continue medication and see you on the seventeenth."

"But on the night of the sixteenth . . ." he said, and he didn't have to finish.

"Do you have any idea how long Chrissy was in your office on June fourteenth?"

"Not offhand."

"But your appointment book would tell us."

"Yes. I mean, it could. But if there wasn't an appointment right after hers, it might appear she was there longer than she was."

"Uh-huh. How long was she usually there?"

"It varied. The hypnosis sessions could last two or three hours, some even longer."

"Three hours," I repeated.

The team's orthopedic surgeon hadn't taken that long rebuilding my knee. Five days a week. Chrissy wasn't a patient; she was a career.

"Hey, Jake, what's the big deal?" Guy Bernhardt broke in. "If it took an hour or a year, Chrissy came up with it. I didn't want to accept it, but Larry says that Sis is telling the truth, so I have to live with the knowledge that my old man was a miserable letch, and you can make hay with it in court."

"Yeah, maybe. Let me ask you something, Guy. In court the other day, you mentioned an insanity plea. But our defense is lack of intent due to posttraumatic stress disorder, and that's not insanity."

We passed over another road and into a stand of tropical fruit trees. Surinam cherry, carambola, and banana. The air was sweet with ripening fruit.

"I was just giving you another option," Guy Bernhardt said. "Larry and I talked about insanity as another way to go."

Great, the inmates were running the asylum. And trying to send my client there.

"Thanks for the help," I said evenly.

"According to Larry, you weren't jumping for joy over the defense he handed you."

He handed me? Funny, that was the same term Schein had used the other day. These guys did talk a lot. Now what were they handing me? Manure for the mangoes?

The doctor cleared his throat. "We're not trying to interfere. You're the lawyer. We're just members of your team."

"You're the captain," Guy Bernhardt said.

They seemed so sincere. Why couldn't I just take what they were offering? Why did my Dream Team have nightmare written all over it?

"You don't do much forensic work, do you, Doctor?" I asked.

"No. I have a private practice, and thankfully, my patients don't often end up in court. A divorce once in a while, but nothing like this."

"Then let me clue you in, so you can give me informed advice, teammate to teammate. I filed a written not-guilty plea yesterday. If we're going to rely on insanity, I have two weeks to notify the state. Then the judge will appoint three psychiatrists to examine Chrissy. I have no control over who the judge picks or what they'll say at trial. So even if you're willing to venture an opinion that Chrissy was insane at the time of the shooting— which I've yet to hear you say—you might be outvoted three to one."

"Oh, we wouldn't want that, would we?" Schein asked rhetorically.

"Hell, no," Guy said. "Don't let any other shrinks go poking around."

Why not? I wondered. What might they find?

"I won't, at least not any the state can call to testify," I said. "I was thinking about hiring my own, though, as backup."

"Is that necessary?" Schein said. "I mean, I'm the treating physician. I don't know what anyone could add who's just coming in cold."

Objectivity, I thought.

"You may be right," I said. "If it ain't broke, why fix it?"

We were almost back to the house, having made a circle of the tree farm and listened to Guy's soliloquy on the Senegal date palm, thatch palm, queen palm, fishtail palm, and sago palm. While his father had loved the trees, Guy's favorites were the tropical fruits, which he claimed had medicinal properties. The Haitians use the Surinam cherry to soothe a sore throat, he told me. The papaya, or fruta bomba, is a digestive aid, and the Jamaicans squeeze the tamarind to cure stomachaches. Guy Bernhardt had a real pharmacy growing out here.

The Jeeps were digging ruts in a dirt perimeter road on the mango fields when a radio on the dashboard crackled with static followed by some rapid-fire Spanish that I didn't catch.

"Go!" Guy shouted to the