A Question of Mercy (30 page)

“All the way to the ocean?” Strickland, as well as Judge Horn, looked puzzled.

“Adam loved the ocean,” she said. “He drove us crazy talking about it.” Edward smiled slightly at that remark.

When Strickland went back to his seat, Jess could see that the man was still leaning easily on the back wall. Not until he removed his hat did she recognize him from the photo in Adam's room, and saw that this was Adam's father.

The prosecutor approached Jess. His body faced the judge but he looked directly at Jess.

“It was late April, but it was still cold, wasn't it?” The prosecutor paced in front of her. “Could Adam swim?”

“No,” Jess said. “He couldn't swim.”

“Why did he go in with all his clothes on?”

“He was afraid he might get cold.”

“Why didn't you call him to come back out? If he would have done what you said, why not call him to come back?”

“I did, but he had gone too far,” Jess said. The prosecutor stopped dramatically in front of Jess. “Did you help Adam Finney commit suicide?”

Jess lifted one hand to touch her face. “We had talked about death before, but I don't think Adam understood what suicide was.”

“Do you know if Adam preferred to drown rather than to live at Cadwell? Did he say that to you?”

“I don't know.” Tears fell down her face.

“So you allowed Adam to enter the water wearing his clothes because you decided this would be better. Do you have the right to that decision when his own mother, as well as your father and the doctors, believed differently? And, since you let him make that decision, he drowned. Weren't you in charge of Adam at that moment?”

Strickland stood. “Objection, your honor. The prosecution is badgering the witness.”

“I wanted him to be in charge of himself,” Jess said. “For once in his life.”

Strickland tried not to look disappointed at Jess's last statement, which sounded more like an admission of guilt. But since it was almost five o'clock, Judge Horn announced that the trial would resume again tomorrow morning at nine-thirty.

— 40 —

O
n the second day the prosecutor brought in two doctors from Cadwell, who testified to the positive and soporific effect of certain operations. But Strickland called to the stand Dr. Stanley Oberlin, who had worked for ten years at Cadwell, and had left there under the shadow of controversy.

As Strickland stood to call his witness, Jess turned around to see Calder Finney sitting in the back row. He didn't look at her. Maybe he was here to tell what he saw. Why wouldn't he look at her? She hadn't mentioned him to Strickland. She should have. Sam sat directly behind her and she could smell his cologne. The smell of him calmed her.

Dr. Oberlin took the stand. A small man, about five feet four, he had a neat beard and a long face. His lean fingers laced together in his lap.

“Are you familiar with the practices carried out at the Cadwell Institution?” Strickland asked.

“Yes, sir. I certainly am.”

“What's your connection to Cadwell?”

“I was a doctor there from 1940 to 1951. Two years ago I left and since that time I've been working to close the place down. Much of what's done there is illegal.”

“Yet when you were a doctor there you carried out the same procedures.”

“Yes. I did. I hold myself accountable for what I performed, and I want Cadwell to be accountable too. Those procedures—lobotomies, castrations, hysterectomies—these might be done in particular circumstances, when deemed needed, but most of what was performed at Cadwell was for convenience.”

“In what cases would such operations be deemed necessary?”

“For the criminally insane. That's when extreme measures might be taken.”

“And for Adam Finney?

“Adam Finney would not be considered criminally insane by any measure. He was merely a young man of limited intellectual abilities.” The doctor cleared his throat and wiped his brow with his hand. “But to remove him from a loving home to spend the rest of his life at Cadwell Institution … well …” Dr. Oberlin paused. He looked directly at Strickland. “There are things worse than death.”

The prosecutor objected. The judge sustained.

“Doctor, could Adam have known what he was doing when he decided to enter the river?”

“I don't know what Adam knew. I can't testify to that in any exact way, but I can tell you of another patient. In 1947 I knew a mentally deficient woman who had lived with her parents until she was twenty-eight. When both parents were killed in a car wreck, this young woman was sent to Cadwell. She didn't understand what had happened to her world. She was treated with electroshock and medication, but even with those treatments she was despairing. Within a few months she hung herself in her room. Another patient showed her how, though this young woman did not tie a proper noose. She took a long while to die. The rope finally broke her neck. The woman who instructed her did the same thing a few days later. I could give other examples over the years. That's why I'm here now. That's why I'm working to have these practices declared illegal.” He adjusted himself in the chair.

The prosecutor began his own questioning. “Dr. Oberlin, you have admitted to being one of the doctors who performed these so-called ‘extreme measures' on your patients. During your ten years at Cadwell, didn't you ever question those operations?”

“I did, many times, but I did not have the power to make a change.”

“Do you hold a grudge against the hospital for letting you go?”

“They did not let me go. I left.”

“Ah, well, the head administrator at Cadwell has a different story. He says that you botched an operation and they had to let you go.”

“They had to let me go because I was leaving anyway. The ‘botched' operation, as you call it, was one that I finally refused to perform. A fourteen-year-old boy was masturbating much of the day in his room, and also in the public rooms. It was his only source of pleasure. He had no planned activities that interested him. He made paper airplanes and necklaces with beads. I was told to castrate him and I refused.”

Clementine looked as if her insides were collapsed and empty. Her mouth was open and she was moving her head back and forth.

“You have said that you cannot testify to Adam's frame of mind, but you
have spent enough years with these patients to know them better than most? Is that correct?”

“I know how confused patients become upon entrance to Cadwell. I know they cry for months, some for years. They finally forget why they are crying, but they do not forget to cry.”

Jess heard a rustling in the rear of the room and turned to see Calder Finney walk to the front of the courtroom. He looked determined as he passed a note to an assistant sitting at the prosecutor's table. Jess saw the assistant open the note and turn, then whisper to Calder Finney, who did not return to his seat, but stayed close-by. Jess sighed, more loudly than she meant to, loud enough to make Strickland turn and look at her. Jess had the face of someone who had been slapped.

The prosecutor continued with his witness. “Dr. Oberlin, would you say that you are hated by the staff at Cadwell?”

“I can say that, sir. I am their enemy now.”

“You've lost their respect.”

“I very much doubt that. My work there was good, competent work, but wrongheaded. Mrs. Finney has protected her son from harm all of his life, I'm sure. And she believed she was saving him from a lifetime in jail.” He held his chin in his hand. “But I am fighting for a different way of life for people like Adam.”

Jess was taking short breaths. She looked at Sam who was leaning forward in his seat, his face concerned. He wanted to know what was wrong with Jess. She had turned pale and looked as though she might pass out. Calder Finney was waiting, she knew, to be called to the stand. She had everything to lose. The person she wished for right now, wished for the most, was Adam.

Once Jess had told Adam, “You are the real thing. You know that?”

“I am a real thing.”

“You are
the
real thing. Let me tell you what I mean. I mean that you don't ever pretend to be somebody else, and … ”

“I pretend to be a cowboy sometimes, and a Indian.”

“I mean that people are always wearing a mask of some kind, not being who they are, but you …”

“At Halloween I wear one.”

“Adam?”

“What?”

“If I never love anybody else, I love you. Do you know what that means? Love?”

“It means that the person wants you to be happy and they leave a muffin on the table in the morning.”

“Yes. That's right.”

“And I love my room in the house, and my radio, and Hap, and Buckhead. I love hearing people talk downstairs at night, so I know where they are, and I can sleep.”

The prosecutor, after returning to his table, asked permission to bring in a new witness, Calder Finney. “We have a witness who was at the river that day in April,” he said.

Strickland objected to the witness and looked questioningly at Jess. Strickland asked for a brief recess, and after talking to Jess told her that an eye-witness could change everything. After the recess both lawyers met in Judge Horn's chambers. When they came out again, Calder Finney was called to the stand.

Clementine looked happy. She believed that Calder had come to help her case, but when he got to the witness box, he did not look at her. After he was sworn in, he said that he was Adam's father and that he had come that day to Adam's home.

“The question we want you to answer, Mr. Finney, is about Jess Booker and Adam Finney on that last day they were together.” The prosecutor looked confident. “Did you see the two of them together on April 28th at the riverbank, just before Adam drowned?”

“Yes, I saw them together that day,” Calder said.

Clementine let out two short breaths.

“Can you tell us why you were there at the river that day?”

“I was going with them the next day to take Adam to Cadwell. I arrived in Goshen early, because I wanted to see him. I drove to Edward Booker's house, and that's when I saw Jess and Adam leave to go through the woods. I followed them to the river.”

“Jess with Adam? Could you could describe exactly what you saw?”

“I saw them talking. Beside the river. Couldn't hear anything, just saw them. Then Jess kissed Adam and waved goodbye.”

“She kissed him?”

“Nothing that seemed romantic. Just saying goodbye. She waved. Adam took off his coat and then he went into the water. I figured he was going to swim downriver, meet her there. Nothing seemed to be dangerous about what they were saying. I didn't suspect anything. That's for sure. I thought maybe they were planning some kind of escape together.” Calder's breath was heavy. He waited a long moment. He was looking now at Clementine. “I left
Adam when he was a little boy. I've always been ashamed of that. Clementine did everything for him, and I came back when he was ten. I hoped then that maybe I could stay, but I couldn't. And for all those years I hated myself. I loved Adam, you know? But felt so sad when I saw how hard he tried. I came back over the years, sometimes on his birthday. Once Adam came to spend a long weekend at my house, but he mostly wanted Clementine. She sent pictures, and, when I called him, he always wanted to talk to me. Broke my heart to see how he always forgave me.”

“What did you see on that day?” The prosecutor wanted to get back to the subject.

“Like I said, I thought she was going to meet him downriver and that they would run away. So I followed Jess, best I could. After a couple of weeks I saw her a few times on Highway 53, then again near Rome, Georgia. But kept losing her. Finally I went home, but after they found Adam's body I knew Jess had run away because she was afraid. After the funeral, I went to look for her again and saw her on State Road 20. That road took me to Lula, Alabama. That's where she was.”

The prosecutor interrupted. “Do you think she was responsible for Adam's drowning?”

Calder stopped, sinking into thought. “I don't think Jess would do anything to hurt Adam. Clementine told me what good friends they were. Not at first, but finally Jess became his main caretaker. Took him everywhere. He missed her when she went off to school.” Calder turned to the people sitting in the courtroom. “You people around here, you might not remember me, but you knew Jess. And you knew Adam.”

Clementine was rocking back and forth in her chair, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Adam loved everything,” Calder laughed, “like those damn hub-cabs all over Edward Booker's garage. You know what?” he said suddenly, “Maybe we try too hard to question the hell out of everything, to put life in a box and label it there. Yes, that's it.” Calder rose from his chair, standing now, confused. No one told him to sit back down. “I'm not saying this right.”

“What are you trying to say?” Judge Horn asked.

“I'm saying I can't blame Jess for anything. My God, Clementine.
I'm
the one to blame. Blame me. For everything!”

The prosecutor wanted someone to object to his own witness. Strickland had not objected to anything.

“Does anyone understand what I'm saying?” Calder asked again. Judge Horn looked around as though he expected someone to raise a hand.

“Clementine? What are you doing to Jess? Please!”

For a moment no one breathed, then Clementine stood slowly rising from her chair. As the prosecutor returned to the table he touched her arm, but could not stop her.

“I don't want this anymore,” she whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear. “This blaming. Adam can't be brought back. It's all over.”

Her lawyer conferred with her for a few minutes before he announced that the accusation made against Jess Booker would be withdrawn. “Clementine Finney wishes to drop the charges against Jess Booker,” he said.