From Cradle to Grave (15 page)

‘It might be worthwhile. How would I reach him?’ she asked cautiously.

Fitz reached in his pocket for his phone, flipped it open, and scrolled down the names in his address book.

‘What are you doing?’ Morgan asked.

‘Calling him,’ said Fitz.

‘Now?’ Morgan asked.

Fitz frowned at her, holding the phone open in his hand. ‘This seems pretty urgent to me. Don’t you think?’

Morgan nodded.

‘I probably still have his number. I do.’ He punched a number on the phone and waited.

Morgan watched him, her eyes wide. He held her gaze as he spoke.

‘Professor Douglas?’ Fitz asked. ‘Yeah. This is Earl Fitzhugh. I’m sorry to bother you. I was in your class on interviewing techniques last year. Yeah. Graduate student. That’s right. Look, do you think, would you have a few minutes to talk about something really important? I need the uh . . . benefit of your expertise. Well, if you had time now . . . Yeah, the sooner the better. Where can we meet? OK, and I’m bringing someone else. Great. Thanks.’

Fitz flipped his phone shut and grinned at Morgan. ‘Finish that sandwich,’ he said. ‘We gotta go.’

NINETEEN

O
liver Douglas’s wife, a slim woman with a cap of short gray hair, greeted Fitz and Morgan at the door and directed them to a studio out behind the house. They picked their way carefully across the dark backyard, and knocked at the screen door on the small, brightly lit, peaked-roof building at the rear of the property.

‘Dr Douglas,’ Fitz called out.

The inner door to the studio opened, and a white-haired man in stained overalls and a flannel shirt peered at them over the top of his half-glasses. He pushed out the screen door. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said, stepping aside.

Fitz went in first. ‘Dr Douglas, thanks for seeing us.’

‘Happy to. How are you doing, Earl?’

‘Good. This is my friend, Morgan . . .’

‘Adair,’ said Morgan.

The old man wiped his hands on his overalls. ‘I’d shake your hand but I’m covered with glue,’ he said. He pointed to a beat-up sofa against the wall. ‘Have a seat.’

Fitz and Morgan sat down on the sofa. Morgan could feel the sofa springs through the well-worn cushions. She looked around the walls of the studio. They were covered with collages, odd and whimsical, fashioned from calendar pictures, leaves and pebbles, pipe cleaners and newspaper lettering. Somehow she had expected piles of books and a computer.

‘What do you think of my work?’ the old professor asked.

Morgan gazed at the collages. ‘They’re so . . . joyful.’

Professor Douglas looked around fondly at his bright, fantastical creations. ‘My field of expertise is rather grim. It deals with the dark side of the moon, if you will. People who spend their lives preying on the most vulnerable among us. Well, Earl knows. He’s involved in this same sort of thing. But one needs a break from it. This is how I get away from it all.’

Morgan studied his creations. ‘I see that.’

‘How’s your work at the high school going, Earl?’ Professor Douglas asked.

‘It’s tough, but I feel like I’m doing some good. I’m thinking about going back to get my PhD though, so I can open my own practice. Work with adolescents.’

Oliver Douglas, who was amassing an assortment of colorful photos into a file folder, nodded. ‘Wonderful idea. There’s a great need.’

‘That’s the truth,’ said Fitz.

‘So,’ said Douglas, picking glue off the tips of his fingers. ‘What was so important you had to see me tonight?’

Fitz looked at Morgan. ‘Well, I explained to Morgan that one of your books was about authorities getting people to confess to crimes they didn’t commit . . .’

‘Interrogation Techniques in False Confessions,’ said the professor, his avuncular manner disappearing as he recited his title.

‘Exactly,’ said Fitz. ‘Well, Morgan’s best friend from childhood is in jail. She confessed to killing her husband and her infant son.’

Professor Douglas turned one of the worktable stools to face the sofa, and sat down on it, folding his arms across his chest. ‘The Bolton woman?’

‘That’s right,’ said Fitz. ‘You know about it?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ve been reading about it. The woman with post-partum depression.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘What about her?’

For a moment Morgan felt tongue-tied, as if she had to make the most important presentation of her life, and she didn’t want to blow it. She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve known Claire Bolton since we were twelve,’ said Morgan, ‘and even though she told me herself that she did it, I couldn’t believe that she would be capable of such a crime . . .’

‘I’m sure that every prisoner in San Quentin has a friend who would say the same,’ said Professor Douglas calmly.

Morgan hesitated, feeling chided, and then continued. ‘When she first confessed, I believed her, even though it seemed impossible. But now, I have doubts.’

‘What’s changed?’

‘Well, for one thing, Claire is beginning to say that she can’t remember doing it.’

‘Did she confess to you in some detail?’ he asked.

‘Her description of the crime was . . . vague,’ said Morgan.

The professor’s expression was inscrutable.

‘And I now know for a fact,’ Morgan continued, ‘that the police lied to her.’

Professor Douglas leaned forward, his gaze intent on her face. ‘Really? Tell me about that.’

‘Well, the police told Claire that her husband, Guy, implicated her before he died. But that isn’t true. I talked to the EMTs who responded. Her husband was dead when they arrived on the scene.’

‘You did your research.’

Morgan blushed. ‘Force of habit.’

‘So they told her that her dying husband accused her. You’re certain of that.’

‘Positive. She said so.’

‘And is her confession on tape?’

‘Yes,’ said Morgan. ‘The lawyer saw it. But she said there’s no mention of Guy’s accusation on the tape.’

Professor Douglas frowned. ‘Well, the interrogation of a suspect begins on the scene, continues in the squad car and so on. Sometimes only a small part of an interrogation is actually on the tape. Tell me about the depression,’ he said. ‘How severe was it?’

Morgan shrugged. ‘Her attorney wants the shrink to say that it was post-partum psychosis, which is much more severe than . . .’

Professor Douglas was nodding in a way which indicated that he did not need an explanation. Morgan did not belabor the point.

‘One shrink has already said that she wasn’t psychotic. And I don’t think she was either. She never seemed out of touch with reality to me. Just . . . depressed.’

Professor Douglas frowned and looked away.

‘Does that sound like someone who would make a false confession?’ Fitz asked.

‘I can’t say that, based on what I’ve heard,’ said Professor Douglas.

Morgan’s heart sank.

‘Normally we associate false confessions with young people, or people of low intelligence who can be easily manipulated – in almost every case, male. I assume that would not describe your friend,’ Douglas said.

Morgan shook her head glumly. ‘Obviously not.’

Professor Douglas tapped his upper lip with his index finger. ‘Although it’s interesting,’ he said, peering out into the distance.

Fitz looked at Morgan, and then back at his former professor. ‘What?’

‘What was her home life like?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Well, they’d only been married a short time . . .’ Morgan began.

‘No, I mean childhood. Strong father?’

‘No father,’ said Morgan. ‘He left when she was tiny. She never knew him.’

The professor nodded, as if this is what he had expected to hear.

‘Well,’ said Fitz. ‘What do you think?’

‘Well, false confession is also associated with states of extreme stress. The idea of post-partum depression as extreme stress does fit a certain pattern. I mean, here we have a woman who already
feels
guilty because she is not the picture of happy motherhood, the way she is supposed to be, the way society expects her to be. And most people are not sympathetic to this kind of depression. It’s as if you were questioning your good luck in having a healthy child. So, your friend is exhausted, probably sleep-deprived, and wrestling with the fact that she is not responding as expected to this great blessing in her life.’ Douglas drifted off into another thought.

‘And?’ Morgan prompted him.

‘She’s a law-abiding person, correct? Never in trouble with the law.’

Morgan shook her head. ‘Never.’

‘And the police, whom she trusts, tell her that her own husband accused her before she died and she has no reason to doubt them. There she sits, tired, guilty, in despair.’ He paused to collect his thoughts. ‘Obedient to authority, still leaking milk from her lost baby. For the police she is simply the obvious suspect. They have her in custody and may just want to clean up the case quickly. So, they bend the truth to see if they break her.’

‘And she confesses,’ cried Fitz.

‘It’s a possibility,’ Professor Douglas cautioned.

Morgan knew that the professor’s assessment should be comforting. But her heart still felt like a stone. ‘I mean, OK, everything you say makes sense except for the part where she admits to killing these people if she didn’t. No matter how hard I try, I can’t understand that.’

Professor Douglas sighed. ‘Everyone thinks that they would never do that. Let me tell you something. You’d be surprised at what you might do under duress,’ he said. ‘Very often, we aren’t as brave or as honest or as strong as we’d like to imagine ourselves to be.’

Fitz nodded. ‘There could be another suspect. Guy’s teenage daughter.’

Professor Douglas shook his head. ‘The police aren’t going to be interested in other suspects. Unless her confession is discredited, your friend, Claire, hasn’t got much going for her. And a confession is one of the most difficult pieces of evidence there is to discredit. For exactly the reason you just stated, Morgan. Jurors say to themselves, I would never confess to a crime I didn’t commit. It’s against human nature.’

‘But it does happen,’ said Morgan.

‘In a perfect storm of circumstances, most certainly,’ said the professor.

Fitz leaned forward. ‘So, do you think that’s what happened in this case?’

The professor shrugged. ‘I couldn’t say.’

Morgan and Fitz exchanged a glance. ‘But I thought . . . you could help,’ Morgan said.

‘Well, I’ve tried to. Granted, that’s an abbreviated summary,’ said the professor.

Morgan stood up. ‘What about Claire?’ she asked.

‘What about her?’ asked the professor.

‘Well, if you think she’s innocent . . .’

‘I don’t know Claire. I was simply speculating,’ said the professor, ‘with the information you gave me.’

‘So this is just kind of like a parlor game for you?’ Morgan demanded.

‘It’s not his problem, Morgan,’ said Fitz under his breath.

‘It’s all right, Earl,’ said the professor.

‘Would you talk to her lawyer?’ Morgan asked.

‘If her lawyer wanted to talk to me, of course,’ he said equably. ‘But I don’t think she will. She dismissed your question about the taped confession, didn’t she? I’m acquainted with Noreen Quick. Ms Quick’s expertise is in family law. And she’s a crusader for women’s causes. She is not a criminal attorney. As I understand it from the newspapers, she wants to win on the PPD defense.’

‘But if Claire didn’t do it . . . If it’s not true . . .’ said Morgan.

‘That confession will still remain the chief piece of evidence against her,’ said Professor Douglas. ‘Believe me, all investigating ceases when a suspect confesses. It’s generally agreed that the police don’t need anything more.’

‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’ Morgan cried.

The professor scattered another folder of magazine clippings on to his worktable like an envelope of giant confetti. He was silent for a while, moving the colorful pieces around on the board in front of him.

‘Let’s go,’ said Fitz. ‘Thanks for your time, Professor.’

‘NO,’ said Morgan stubbornly. ‘There’s got to be something.’

Professor Douglas frowned at the design he was making. Finally, he spoke without looking up at them. ‘I could tell you more if I could see the confession,’ he said.