The Advocate's Devil (14 page)

“Is that what
he
wants, Counselor? Maybe I should appoint a guardian to act in
his
best interest, rather than in
your
best interest.”

“I
am
acting in his best interest, and any reasonable guardian would agree that his best interest is to stay alive, even if that
requires him to be crazy for a period of time.”

The prosecutor called the prison psychiatrist, Dr. John Blanchard, a dour man in his fifties who wore his gray hair in a 1950s-type
crew cut. Dr. Blanchard testified that Charles Odell had a full-blown psychotic episode after his final appeal had been denied,
that he did not comprehend what was happening to him, and that, in his professional opinion, Odell was then incompetent to
be executed under the relevant legal standards. The psychiatrist described the drug regime he had prescribed for Odell and
how it had restored his competency to be executed. Then he described what had happened to Odell since he’d stopped taking
the pills.

The judge asked, “In your professional opinion, is Mr. Odell competent to be executed today, as he sits here?”

“No. He has no understanding of the punishment he faces. He’s totally psychotic and suicidal. We have him on a twenty-four-hour
suicide watch.”

“One more question. In your professional opinion, would he be restored to competency if I ordered him to receive his medication
by force?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Abe then cross-examined Dr. Blanchard.

“Doctor, before you began to practice medicine, did you take the Hippocratic oath?”

“Yes.”

“Do you recall what its first principle is?”

“Yes.”

“Tell the court, please.”

“First, do no harm.”

“Do you abide by that oath?”

“I try to.”

“Were you aware when you prescribed the drugs that if they worked, Odell would be executed?”

“That he
might
be executed. You never know for sure in these cases.”

“But by prescribing the drugs, you were increasing Odell’s chances of being executed?”

“Yes, but—”

“Before we get to the ‘but,’ I want to be sure of the ‘yes.’ You
would
be increasing his chances of being executed.”

“Yes—but not his chances of actually dying,” the doctor added quickly.

“Why, Doctor, because in your view he was suicidal without the drugs?”

“Exactly.”

“Through your procedures, can you reduce that risk?”

“We can certainly try.”

“There’s nothing you can do to reduce the risk that Odell will be executed if he’s returned to competency, is there?”

“No, Counselor, that’s your job and the court’s. Not mine.”

“Is it your job to help the state execute Charles Odell?”

“No,” Dr. Blanchard said, his voice moving up in volume. “It’s my job to help restore him to competency.”

“You
know
that if you help restore him to competency, the state will try to execute him, right?”

“Right, but—”

“So
you
would be doing Odell harm by restoring him to competency, right?”

“No, wrong!” the doctor said emphatically, pointing a finger at Abe’s face. “I would be doing him
good
by eliminating his psychosis. The
state
would be executing him.”

“Not without your help, right?”

‘Right, but that’s not my responsibility. I don’t write the laws.”

“You just follow orders, right?” Abe asked contemptuously, not even waiting for an answer. The prosecutor’s expectant objection
was sustained, and the doctor left the witness stand seething with anger.

The judge was visibly frustrated. “Mr. Ringel, do you want your client to commit suicide or don’t you?”

Abe responded, “No, we don’t
want
him to commit suicide. But we also don’t want him to take the antisuicide medicine, because it’s really not
anti
-suicide medicine. It’s
pro
-execution medicine. If he takes it, he will die. What we want is for you to stop him from killing himself without making
him take the medicine.”

Now the judge was furious. “I know what you want. You want him to be
suicidal
, just not to actually
commit
suicide. You want him to remain incompetent but alive.”

“That’s right, Your Honor. That’s my job—to keep him alive.”

“That’s not my job,” the judge barked. “My job is to make sure that lawyers like you don’t play the system for a fool and
manipulate the law so as to make it look ridiculous. Does the state have any more witnesses?”

“Not at this time, Your Honor.”

“Call your first witness, Mr. Ringel,” said the judge. For some reason he reminded Abe at that moment of his Boston Latin
trigonometry teacher, who taught every equation by rote.

“The defense calls Dr. Ralph Hoxie.”

Dr. Ralph Hoxie was a small, somewhat effeminate man with a nervous twitch, but his face, covered with red hair and a red
beard, projected warmth and compassion. He looked as though he worked in a laboratory all day, which he did.

After Dr. Hoxie cataloged his very extensive professional background, Abe asked him to tell how the drugs prescribed by the
prison psychiatrist had worked. There followed a detailed two-hour account of the pharmacological operation of various antipsychotic
drugs and their side effects. Most of the spectators had left the courtroom as Dr. Hoxie’s testimony began to wind down. Courtroom
TV switched to a rape case in California.

The judge then asked the prosecutor how long it had been since Odell had last been given the drugs. “Since before your temporary
restraining order, Your Honor. I guess about four or five days.”

The judge asked the bailiff to bring Charlie to the bench. A predictable hush fell over the court as the bailiff complied.
Shackles dragging along the linoleum floor, the prisoner wavered back and forth before the bench. The judge addressed him:

“Mr. Odell, do you know who I am?”

Abe jumped up. “Your Honor, please address my client
only
through me. Mr. Odell pleads his Fifth Amendment privilege not to answer any questions.”

“Sit down, Mr. Ringel. I want to find out for myself whether Mr. Odell wants to continue taking his medicine.”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor. Mr. Odell cannot and will not answer any questions.”

The judge then turned to Dr. Hoxie, who had laid out several of the antipsychotic drugs on the desk in front of him as part
of his testimony.

“Dr. Hoxie, will you please hold up a Thorazine capsule so that Mr. Odell can see it?”

“Objection, objection!” Abe screamed. “This is absolutely improper.”

“Sit down and be quiet, Mr. Ringel. This is my courtroom, and I decide what’s proper. You have your objection and your appeal.
Now, Dr. Hoxie, hold up the capsule.”

Dr. Hoxie followed the judge’s order, nervously holding the large yellow pill in front of him between his thumb and forefinger.

“Now, Mr. Odell, you can have this pill if you want it,” the judge said slowly and loudly as he pointed to the capsule between
Dr. Hoxie’s fingers.

“Objection!” Abe shouted. Then, turning to Odell, he said, “Charlie, go back to your seat. Bailiff, take Mr. Odell back to
his seat.”

“Do no such thing, Mr. Bailiff. Keep Mr. Odell right here at the bench,” the judge ordered.

Charlie, who was standing about two feet from Dr. Hoxie, looked intently at the doctor. Then he looked at the pill in the
doctor’s outstretched hand. Then he looked at the judge. Then he looked back at the pill. Abe was seething. The courtroom
was absolutely silent except for quiet murmuring among the camera crew, who were urging Court TV to switch back to this proceeding.

Suddenly Charlie Odell thrust his entire body—shackles and all—at the terrified Dr. Hoxie, biting the doctor’s hand as he
tried to grasp the pill between his lips.

Pandemonium broke out in the courtroom. The bailiff tried to separate Charlie from Dr. Hoxie. Abe jumped up to try to stop
Charlie from swallowing the pill. The pill fell on the floor, and Abe grabbed it.

The judge said, “Mr. Ringel, give that pill to your client. He obviously wants it.”

“I will not,” Abe said defiantly. “My client is incompetent. He can’t decide whether he wants to take the pills.” With that
Abe threw the pill on the floor and stamped on it, crushing it into powder.

“I hereby order the prison authorities to require Mr. Odell to take his medicine,” the judge bellowed, banging his gavel.
“My ruling is that taking his medicine is in Mr. Odell’s best interest and that he wants to take the pill. You probably won’t
even have to use force,” the judge said, turning to the prison psychiatrist. “If you do, you’re authorized to use reasonable
force.”

“I hereby request that Your Honor’s order be stayed for twenty-four hours so as to allow me to appeal.”

“No more game playing, Mr. Ringel. Mr. Odell begins taking his pills right now. Court is adjourned. Remove the prisoner. Have
a nice day.”

“A nice day!” Abe repeated cynically as he left the courtroom, thinking of the Texas case in which a judge had signed a condemned
man’s execution warrant with a signature that included a happy face. Over the din of yapping reporters and gawkers he could
hear only one sound—the clanking of Charlie’s shackles as the bailiff led an innocent man back to his private hell and closer
to his appointment with the executioner.

Abe left Judge Cox’s courtroom feeling miserable. The Odell hearing had been a disaster. Odell’s only hope was to appeal Judge
Cox’s order. Judge Cox’s behavior might well offend the appellate judges, Abe hoped.

While in the judge’s courtroom, Abe hadn’t thought about the Campbell problem. When he got outside, his focus shifted back
to the basketball player; he took out his cellular phone and tried to reach Justin. The cells were all busy, so Abe had to
keep redialing.

The pattern in the screen saver danced before Justin’s eyes as he puzzled over the printout before him. His concentration
was shattered by the ringing telephone.

“Bad news,” Abe said, and filled Justin in on Charlie’s situation.

“You’ll get Cox reversed, Abe. The court of appeals will never tolerate Cox’s shenanigans. That was bullshit, offering a crazy
man his drugs.”

“I sure hope so.”

“Listen, Abe, back to Campbell for a minute. There’s something weird going on.”

“Something new?’

“Yeah. Remember that when we punched up the search for ‘false allegations,’ the Beters case didn’t come right after the Dowling
stuff?”

“Yeah, you couldn’t explain that.”

“Well, now I think I can. It turns out that all of the cases that now come between Dowling and Beters were inputted into the
database between February 20 and March 10. That means Campbell probably did the search sometime before February 20—not after
March 10, as he told us.”

“Justin, are you back on the timing thing? I thought you agreed that was a dead end.”

“It sure looked that way after you noticed the markings at the bottom, but now I’m not so sure. I still think that Joe may
have first met Jennifer sometime before the March 10 day he gave us.”

“Why would he lie about
that?
”

Abe waited for Justin’s answer in vain as the phone went dead. After a quick battery replacement, Justin was back on the phone.

“Yeah, anyway, Abe, I have no idea why Campbell would lie about anything—if he’s as innocent as you insist he is. What are
you going to do about this new information?”

“Nothing,” Abe shot back. “At least not yet. We don’t have enough to confront him. It’s all just suspicion so far. We need
more.”

“We’ve got plenty. This computer information—”

“I have to tell you, Justin,” Abe cut in, “I don’t have much faith in your little computer games. I admire your persistence
and creativity, but I have more faith in my human instincts than in your technology. I would need something a lot more convincing,
something conclusive, before I would be ready to believe Campbell’s guilty of lying to us—or of rape. I’ve got Rendi working
the human angle. Let’s see if she comes up with anything. Remember how weak Jennifer Dowling’s story is. We’ve got an innocent
client, and nothing you’ve come up with makes me think differently. Keep digging. It’s only a presumption.”

C
AMBRIDGE
—
F
RIDAY
, M
ARCH
31

It just didn’t feel right. The idea of investigating a client’s sexual habits without telling him made Rendi squirm. And when
Rendi squirmed, her whole body literally pulsated. She was the kind of woman who put her entire being into every gesture,
every emotion, every reaction. Justin had once described Rendi as “emotion in motion.”

Rendi was the most captivating women Abe knew—dark, wiry, quick moving, fast talking, and even faster thinking. Though they
had been intimate friends and associates for nearly a decade, there was still much about her that was shrouded in mystery.
She loved to say, “I came from everywhere and nowhere. I don’t know where I will be next month.” She had lived in Cambridge
longer than she’d ever lived in one place before. She loved to relate the joke about the Romanian Gypsy who told her friend
that she was moving to America. Her friend said, “But that’s so far,” to which the Gypsy responded, “From where?” Rendi was
a spiritual Gypsy, a nomad. She had no “where” from which to be far.

Abe hoped he would learn more about her in time, though she seemed to agonize over revealing anything personal about herself.
As a teenager she had been an actress, traveling with the road company of an international troupe that specialized in doing
Ibsen in several languages. Indeed, it was during that stint, which had lasted about two years, that she had been recruited
to do her first undercover job for the Mossad: nothing particularly dangerous; mostly taking pictures of specified locations
in Turkey, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, and once in Lebanon—before the current chaos. Twice she was caught and her film
confiscated, but she played the innocent tourist to perfection.