Prodigal Son (35 page)

He led her through her entire health history, her accident, her marriage to Michael, and all the illnesses and ill effects she had suffered over the years, and the alleged reasons for them, as told to her by Michael. And then he asked about her steady health improvement since Michael had been in custody and she was no longer being poisoned. It was easy for anyone in the courthouse to see that she appeared to be in good health. Her direct testimony took three hours until lunchtime. They recessed then, and after lunch she went back on the stand for cross-examination. The judge reminded her that she was still under oath, and she said she understood.

“Did you have headaches after your accident and after you were in a coma for five months?” was the question the defense attorney opened with.

“Yes, I did,” she answered clearly. “For about a year.”

“Did you have psychiatric problems? Anxiety? Hallucinations? Insomnia?”

“I was anxious sometimes, and I had trouble sleeping.”

“Did you continue to suffer from those same complaints after you married Michael?”

“Sometimes.”

“How did you handle them?”

“He medicated me.”

“Did you ask him to?”

“Never. He insisted on it. He said it was good for me, and dangerous if I didn’t.” There was a ripple of people shifting in their seats in the courtroom.

“And did the medications he gave you help you?”

“They made me sleep, but they left me with hangovers and general weakness. They made me lethargic and dizzy.”

“Do you know what medications he gave you?”

“He wouldn’t tell me.”

“Why did you take them? You’re an intelligent woman. No one can ‘make you’ take medicine.”

“He said I had to. He got very upset if I didn’t. And he was my doctor and my husband. I didn’t want to make him angry at me.”

He switched tacks then. “Tell me about Peter McDowell. Did you sleep with him when you were fifteen?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I was a virgin, and I didn’t want to.”

“Were you a virgin when you slept with Michael? And please remember, Mrs. McDowell, you’re under oath.” His comment was meant to be insulting, but she didn’t bristle.

“Yes, I was a virgin until I married Michael.”

“That’s not what he says,” the defense attorney said smugly.

“Then he’s lying,” she said coolly.

“Did you have an affair with your brother-in-law when he came back to town last year?” He was clearly implying that this was a love triangle, and they had been trying to get rid of Michael so had framed him. The implication was clear.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I loved my husband. I was faithful to him.”

“Have you ever wanted to commit suicide?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Have you ever taken anything that could cause it?”

“Never. Michael gave me all my medications.”

“And you have no idea what they were?”

“That’s correct.”

“Did your husband take good care of you?”

“I thought so. Until I discovered that he was poisoning me.” There was a sharp intake of breath in the courtroom. She looked calm and strong and believable.

“Did you ask him about it afterward? Did you ask him to explain it to you?” The attorney looked smug again, until she answered.

“I tried to. I wrote him many letters while he was in jail, asking him to call me, or write to me, or let me come to see him.”

“And what did he say?”

“He never answered. Not a single one. From the day he was arrested, I never heard from him again, until the present. That was when I realized that he didn’t love me, and it was true that he was poisoning me. Until then, I didn’t believe what they were telling me and I thought it wasn’t true. He never wanted to see me or talk to me again.” Michael’s attorney glanced at him after she answered.
Michael was expressionless at the defense table. And it was obvious that the attorney had been surprised by her answer.

“Do you suffer now from any of the ailments that plagued you while you were married to Michael?” It was a long shot, but he risked it, and lost.

“None. They all disappeared within days, weeks, or months. I’m fine now. Except for the limp. He told me I had Parkinson’s too, and would die from it. I didn’t have it. It’s one of the side effects of the poison he was feeding me. It looked like Parkinson’s, but it wasn’t. He kept me drugged all the time. I was a zombie.”

“The witness is excused,” the defense attorney said, and sat down next to Michael. He had expected her to be a basket case, from what Michael had told him. He said she would collapse on the witness stand, but she had been strong, intelligent, and coherent. She had destroyed their case more than any other witness. The district attorney was practically dancing when she came off the stand. And as she walked by him, she couldn’t resist looking at Michael this time. She had to. Her eyes searched his face, and he looked right through her, as though he hadn’t seen her, and had never known her. She felt as though a gust of freezing air had hit her face, and then she walked past him. His eyes were the most terrifying she had ever seen. The mask was off. He was everything Peter had said and Bill had feared.

On the final day of testimony, his attorney put Michael on the stand. He looked gentle and pleasant as he took the oath and sat down. He had his doctor face on, the one that had won him the title of saint in three counties for twenty years.

His attorney walked him through many of the same questions, about his career, his training, the fact that he’d been an anesthesiologist in Boston, and gave it up to join his father in his practice. The
attorney asked about their marriage, Maggie’s accident before that, and her health subsequently. Maggie had stayed in the courtroom to hear him and was sitting between Bill and Peter. And then the attorney asked him about Maggie’s alleged affair with Peter.

“She had an affair with my brother when she was fifteen” was Michael’s answer to the question.

“How do you know that?”

“He told me. We laughed about it. She was the school slut in those days.” People in the courtroom looked uncomfortable as he said it, and Maggie felt sick. He was destroying her reputation for the hell of it, as a final act of vengeance, and for testifying against him.

“Did she have an affair with him again later, after you were married?”

“Yes, she did. I believe our first child was his.” He said it with a wounded look.

“Did she admit it to you?”

“No, she didn’t. And I didn’t really want to know.”

The district attorney stood up and objected then.

“Your honor, do we have to go through this again, about Mrs. McDowell’s dating history at fifteen?”

“It’s about the witness’s credibility, your honor,” the defense attorney insisted.

“Sustained,” the judge said, looking annoyed. “Move on, counselor. We’re dealing with more important matters here than who Mrs. McDowell slept with, or didn’t, at fifteen.”

He asked Michael about the medications he administered to her, and why he gave her tranquilizers and sleeping pills for many years.

“I had no choice. She suffered from severe psychiatric problems, even before I met her, and certainly after we were married. Much of
the time, she was too frightened to leave our room, or she became violent. I had to sedate her. I didn’t want to commit her to a psychiatric facility,” he said, looking mournful. Maggie was sitting rigid in her chair next to Peter, shaking with rage, and Peter gave her a calming look. He could only imagine what she was feeling. It was Michael’s last hurrah to hurt her, and he was having a field day with it. Maggie was afraid the jury would believe it.

“Did you ever put weed killer in your wife’s food, or anything else she ingested?”

“Of course not. I’m a doctor. I’m under an oath to do no harm,” he said, looking virtuous and benign.

“Did your wife ever contact you after you were arrested? Write to you? Ask you to see her?”

“Never. I tried to contact her several times, but she wouldn’t speak to me, or answer. I never received a single letter from her. I wanted to explain to her that it was all lies and I was being falsely accused, of all these charges.” He glanced innocently at the jury as he said it.

“Do you know why she wouldn’t speak to you?” his attorney asked him, as though he couldn’t imagine a single reason.

“She was already sleeping with my brother, and had been for some time.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“I was told by several people, even my own children. He lost all his money in the stock market crash, and I believe he came back to Ware to get hers. She’s been obsessed with him all her life, and he knows that. He was taking advantage of her, and I believe he convinced her and my son to frame me.”

“Do you have any proof of that, Mr. McDowell?”

“I don’t, but I know her. She’s a weak person, and very frightened,
with deep psychiatric problems. She’s easy prey for a man like my brother.”

“Was she easy prey for you?”

“She was never my prey. I loved her,” he said nobly.

After Michael’s testimony, the district attorney asked Michael several more questions, and destroyed the credibility of almost everything he had said. But Maggie felt like she’d been dragged by the hair naked all over the courtroom. The defense asked him several questions about the geriatric patients, and even his own parents. And then finally, the defense rested. And both the DA and Michael’s attorney made closing arguments. Both were eloquent and forceful. And after that the jury was instructed by the judge, and led out of the courtroom to begin their deliberations.

Michael was about to be returned into custody when he turned to where Maggie was sitting with their son and Peter.

“You were nothing!” he shouted at her. “You meant nothing to me! You never did! I felt sorry for you. You were pathetic,” he said venomously, and then the deputies almost dragged him from the courtroom. And before they could, he turned to Peter, his eyes blazing at him. “You, with your high and mighty Wall Street life, while I stayed in this backwater to take care of our parents. I had as much right to that life as you did. I wanted to get out of here too, and be someone, but I stuck around and took care of them. You didn’t!” he shouted at him. It had been all about jealousy and money and the life he’d wished he had. Maggie was shaking when Jack Nelson led her out of the courtroom, as the deputies dragged Michael away, still shouting at them. Jack took them back into their private room. Maggie looked like she was about to faint, as Peter stood near her.

“Listen to me,” Peter said firmly, holding her arm to get her attention.
“He’s a very sick man. He’s a murderer. What he says means nothing. He lies through his teeth.” She nodded then, and sat down in a chair, fighting back tears. She had wasted twenty-three years of her life with him, and he had nearly killed her. And he had just told her that he never loved her. It wasn’t even a crime of passion of some kind, it was cold-blooded attempted murder.

Jack Nelson left them alone after that, while the jury deliberated. The three of them were silent for a long time, and then Bill turned to Peter.

“Can I ask you something?” Peter could guess what it was.

“Sure,” Peter said quietly. Maggie had started to get back a little color in her face.

“Am I your son?” Bill looked from Peter to his mother for confirmation, and they both shook their heads.

“I’m sorry to say you’re not,” Peter said kindly. “I wish you were. I’d be proud to be your father, and I wouldn’t keep it a secret if I were.”

“Shit!” Bill said with feeling, and all three of them laughed. “That would be the only piece of good news in this whole thing.”

“Well, you can say you’re my son anytime you want. Speaking of which,” he turned to Maggie, “as often as we supposedly got laid, I’m damn sorry I missed it.” Maggie smiled and then finally laughed at that too.

“I loved being called the school slut,” she said miserably.

“You can’t listen to anything he says. He just wanted to hurt you,” Peter said, and she nodded, and slipped her hand into his. It was easy to figure out that Michael had not only lied to everyone else, he had lied to his attorney, who had believed him.

An hour later, the district attorney came back to their conference
room and told them that they might as well go home. The jury could be out for days and probably would be.

“We’ll call you at home when they come back in.”

Jack Nelson helped them out of the courthouse and past the reporters. He sent them home in a squad car again, as he had every day, and he patted Maggie’s shoulder as she got in. He felt sorry for everything that had happened to her. And just like everyone else, Michael had lied to him too, and he’d believed him.

Maggie lay on the couch when they got back to the house, and fell asleep a little while later, while Peter and Bill watched basketball on TV. Bill had called Lisa to check in, but as they had since the trial began, they spared her the ugly details. She didn’t need to know them. He was her father after all, and she had loved him. And she was only sixteen.

As Peter watched Maggie sleeping on the couch, he hoped the jury would return their verdict soon. This needed to end, for all their sakes. And as she slept, Bill and Peter exchanged a long tired look.

The jury took three days to deliberate, and went over all the toxicology reports carefully, looking at the charts and descriptions about various medications and poisons. Particularly the paraquat that had been used on Maggie, and the succinylcholine he had used on the geriatric patients. They reread some of the testimony, and they voted unanimously.

They called Maggie at her house, and Jack sent a car for them. They walked into the courtroom, and the jury filed in a few minutes later. Michael was at the defense table, and the judge asked the defendant to rise.

The foreman of the jury stood in the jury box, and the judge asked if they had reached a verdict. He said they had, and the judge asked him how they had found the defendant. The judge then read off each charge, and the foreman spoke in a strong, clear voice on behalf of his fellow jurors.