Prodigal Son (34 page)

The DA explained that he also had several expert witnesses, mostly about poisons and medications. He expected the actual trial to last for about two weeks. He estimated two days to select the jury. And there was no predicting how long it would take for the jury to reach a verdict. He just hoped it wouldn’t be a hung jury. And he was anxious to do all he could to avoid a mistrial so they wouldn’t have to do it all over again. Maggie trembled at the thought.

They all went to bed after he left. Maggie lay awake in bed for hours, thinking about the things the DA had said. They would be sequestered in a private room at the courthouse during the proceedings, away from prying eyes and the press, but readily available when they were needed. It was going to be a long week or two while they waited to testify.

The three of them shuffled around the kitchen the next morning, scrounging up breakfast from a few things they’d bought the night before, and Vi had given them a bag of cinnamon rolls, but none of them were hungry.

They left for the courthouse at eight-thirty, in a squad car Jack Nelson had sent for them, and they drove to Northampton and walked into the courthouse through a back door. A horde of reporters had anticipated that, and were lying in wait for Maggie. Peter and two policemen hustled her into the building quickly, and she looked frightened and pale as they got into the room that had been set aside for them and locked the door.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked her tersely, and she nodded and sat down, but he could see that she was shaking. She had her hands folded tightly in her lap. She wasn’t looking forward to reliving her entire marriage to Michael, on the witness stand.

It took two days to select the jury, as the DA had predicted. There were eight men and four women, and two additional women as alternates. The DA had expected Michael’s attorney to ask for a change of venue, but he didn’t. In fact, he had advised it, but Michael had insisted that he was comfortable being judged by twelve of his peers in his own hometown. He was expecting his reputation as a saint to serve him well. It was a little late for that.

On the third day, the trial began. The judge addressed the jurors,
explained what the case was about and told them what their duties were. He spoke loudly and clearly and sounded stern. Maggie could hear him from their little room off the courtroom. And then the two attorneys made their opening statements to the jury. The district attorney described Michael’s heinous crimes, not only murdering eleven people, including his own parents, and manipulating all of them out of their money, but poisoning his wife and trying to kill her, controlling her and convincing her of her ill health for twenty-three years.

Michael was being charged with eleven counts of first-degree murder with deliberately premeditated malice aforethought, and one count of premeditated attempted murder. The prison sentence for first-degree murder was life imprisonment without parole, since the death sentence had been declared unconstitutional in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and he was facing twenty years for attempting to murder Maggie.

Michael’s attorney walked slowly down the courtroom, strolling back and forth past the jury box, looking each juror in the eye. He said that he understood how serious the charges were, and so did the defendant, and he said that they could only convict beyond a reasonable doubt. He said that expert witnesses would explain to them later that the substance Michael was accused of using to murder eleven elderly, very sick people could have been used merely to relax them in their final hours. All of them had been dying, and no one could say that he had murdered them. He had made the last moments of dying people easier. Michael McDowell had
not
killed them, he assured the jury. The district attorney might try to convince them it was murder, but clearly it was
not
. The anesthetic in question had been found in his medical supplies at the office, but as a general practitioner, it was
entirely reasonable that he might have this medication among his supplies. In fact, his attorney stressed to the jury, Michael McDowell had not killed anyone. He was a revered, much respected, dedicated doctor who did everything in his power to keep his geriatric patients alive. And if they chose to leave him money in gratitude, in their last wills and testaments, that was an entirely respectable circumstance. It is not a crime, the attorney pointed out, to be named in someone’s will, and Michael did not extort or manipulate anyone to get that money. These were the grateful gifts of adoring patients. He pointed out that Michael was regarded as a saint in the community, and saints do not kill their patients.

And in the case of Michael’s wife, he went on, she was a mentally and physically impaired woman who had been an invalid for all of her adult life, and here again, Michael had kept her alive, despite overwhelming odds. And the toxic substance found in her bloodstream eight months earlier was most commonly used for suicides, and he intended to prove to the jury that Mrs. McDowell had in fact tried to end her own life while Michael fought to save it. Of course, Michael McDowell’s fingerprints were on the bottles of weed killer, since he tended to the garden. And what if she had handled the same bottle to poison herself while wearing gloves? All Michael’s attorney needed was reasonable doubt. He had just raised it. At no time, he assured the jury, did Michael McDowell poison his wife or try to kill her. And he assured the jurors that by the end of the trial, they would acquit his client for being the innocent man that he was. And with that, he thanked them and sat down. It was a lot of high drama, and smooth courtroom style, to try and explain away some very ugly facts. All the evidence was against Michael. And all the defense attorney
had to do was try to cloud the issues enough to create a “reasonable doubt” in the jurors’ minds. It was Michael’s only hope.

Jack Nelson was glad that Maggie wasn’t in the courtroom to hear what had been said about her. It was the usual performance of a well-trained defense attorney, but it still made Jack feel sick to hear it, so he was relieved that Maggie hadn’t.

And with that, the proceedings began. It was the commonwealth’s responsibility to present their case first. And the defense attorney’s to defend his client afterward.

The commonwealth’s first witness was an expert from a toxicology lab in Boston, testifying on medications normally used in anesthesiology, succinylcholine being one of them, which he believed could have been administered in the geriatric deaths. And with training as an anesthesiologist, Michael would know how to dose it and use it. When dosed to excess, it was an extremely lethal substance. The expert droned on for two hours, explaining various medications and their effects and chemical makeup in minute detail. But essentially, he agreed with the coroner’s presumed cause of death of the victims, that they had received lethal doses of succinylcholine, the same substance found in Michael’s medicine closet in his office, so he had easy access to it. And after the expert’s testimony, they recessed for lunch.

The afternoon was taken up by another expert witness from the poison control center in Boston, to explain the properties of the weed killer paraquat to the jury. They were told this was the substance Michael had used to try and kill his wife, since she had a nearly lethal dose of it in her system, and showed signs of prolonged exposure to it.

Both experts were cross-examined by Michael’s attorney, and he
asked the man from the poison control center if paraquat was used most frequently in suicides. The expert agreed that was sometimes the case, but usually only in underdeveloped countries because of the low cost. Michael’s attorney sat down after that question. Everyone in the courtroom was ready to fall asleep after the expert testimony, and the judge adjourned for the day, after admonishing the jurors not to discuss the case with anyone, or he would sequester them for the remainder of the trial. They all nodded agreement and left the courtroom like sheep. And then the district attorney explained to Maggie, Peter, and Bill what had gone on that day. It sounded tedious to them, but nonetheless important, in order to establish Michael’s guilt, since he had access to both substances, and his fingerprints had been all over the bottles of the poison used on Maggie. From what the DA described, it was going to be a long trial.

The rest of the week was taken up by the emotional testimony of the relatives of the nine geriatric patients who had allegedly been murdered. And in his testimony, Peter would have to talk about what he had read in his mother’s journals, where she mentioned that Michael had euthanized his father, which he had denied when Peter asked him about it. But now Peter had no doubt that he had, and when his parents had been exhumed, the test results had proved it.

There were tears and accusations from the relatives of the elderly people, and Michael sat expressionless throughout. He was led out of the courtroom at the end of the day, in handcuffs and leg irons, after the jury left so they wouldn’t see it. And he was wearing a suit, a white shirt, and a tie. He looked impeccable and totally calm. He was the image of an innocent man—or one without a conscience.

By the end of the week, Maggie looked exhausted and so did Peter.
Bill had kept distracted by texting people on his cell phone, and had given them several messages from Lisa, who he said was doing fine. He had also brought some of the reading for his homework with him. And his mother and uncle seemed considerably more on edge than he did as the days dragged by.

They spent every day sitting and waiting, and there was nothing else they could do. And on the weekend, Maggie and Peter decided to drive up to the lake and take a walk there. They both smiled when they saw the raft, but he didn’t kiss her. This wasn’t the time or place for them to think about romance. They sat side by side, in silence, looking out at the lake and thinking about the trial.

They checked on Peter’s house and found everything in order, and then they went back to Maggie’s house, and tried to pass the time. It was difficult to go outside, because there were frequently reporters waiting, and television camera crews, hoping to catch a glimpse of them. It was easier to stay inside, with the shades drawn, until they left for court again on Monday morning. Vi brought them food from the diner and refused to let them pay. They filed quietly past the reporters then on Monday morning and made no comment.

There was more expert testimony that day. And finally, on the seventh day of the trial, they called Bill to the stand. The district attorney led him through his Internet search for a poison that matched his mother’s symptoms, and his desperate call to Peter, which led to the first toxicology report. They had him identify it in court.

“And why did you think your father was poisoning your mother?” the DA asked him, blocking his view of his father as he stood there, so that Bill wouldn’t be intimidated by him.

“Because I think he’s a pathological liar, a sociopath, and a very
dangerous person,” Bill said, visibly shaking. On cross-examination, Michael’s attorney asked him if he was a psychiatrist, or had psychiatric credentials, and Bill said he didn’t.

“Then on what basis do you make that diagnosis of your father? With what credentials, sir?” he asked Bill contemptuously with a smug smile.

“Because I grew up with him and I saw what he did to my mother,” Bill said in a choked voice, as everyone in the courtroom sat riveted. And Peter watched him from the back of the courtroom with tears in his eyes. They excused Bill from the witness stand after that.

Peter was the next witness. He described the call from Bill, getting the three hairs from Maggie’s head, and the trip to the toxicology lab in Boston, and the condition he saw Maggie in at the hospital. It was emotional for him too, but he got through it. And then the attorney for the defense took him by surprise.

“Did you date Margaret McDowell when you were growing up? I believe her maiden name was Higgins.”

“Yes, I did,” Peter answered easily.

“How old was she at the time?”

“Fifteen.”

“And you were?”

“Seventeen.”

“Did you have intercourse with her?”

“No, I did not,” Peter answered calmly.

“Did you have an affair with her later on, when she was married to the defendant?”

“No, I didn’t.” Peter remained undisturbed throughout.

“Is William McDowell your illegitimate son?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“Have you noticed that he looks just like you?”

“If that’s the case, it’s unfortunate for him,” Peter said, as a ripple of laughter swept through the courtroom, which broke the tension for a minute.

“Were you jealous of your brother?”

“Sometimes,” Peter answered honestly.

“Do you hate him?”

“I did at one time.” Honest again.

“Enough to try to send him to prison, so you could start a life with Mrs. McDowell?”

“Of course not.” Peter frowned.

“Did you have an affair with his wife when you came back to Ware last year?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“If you could have gotten your brother out of the way, would you have made advances to his wife?”

“I never thought about it. She was his wife. And I believed they loved each other.”

“What changed your mind about that? Did she say something to you about being unhappy with your brother?”

“Never. I realized he didn’t love her when he tried to kill her, and I realized he had been trying to do so for some time.” Peter’s eyes were like ice as he looked at the attorney.

“The witness is excused,” the defense attorney said just as coldly. “You may leave the stand.” His attempt to rattle Peter hadn’t worked. It had backfired on him. Peter and the district attorney were pleased.

Maggie had to wait until the next day to testify, and she lay awake all night. She hated the bed she slept in, in that house. It reminded
her of all the years she’d been so sick and thought she was dying, when that room was her entire world. Now, she felt claustrophobic in it.

They put her on the stand first thing in the morning. Peter was in the courtroom, as was Bill. And she walked to the stand with a modest limp. She sat down and was sworn in. She had walked past the defense table without looking at Michael, but she could see his form in her peripheral vision, and she could feel his eyes on her when she took the stand. She kept her gaze averted so she didn’t have to see his face. She kept her eyes on the district attorney who stood in front of her.