The Insanity Plea (21 page)

Dr. Huerta took Wayne’s place on the
bed and gently removed the bandage, revealing a four inch incision. “No sign of
redness or infection. Whoever did this to you had a really sharp blade. Looks
like something I made with a scalpel.”

Wayne peered over the surgeon’s
shoulder. “Where are the stitches, Doc?”

 
“Invisible stitches. Well, not exactly. I used
a technique that plastic surgeons developed a few years back. The stitches are
in the layer under the skin and will dissolve in a few days. I glued her skin
together. As you can see, there won’t be much of a scar.”

“Wayne, hand me that make-up mirror. I
want to have a look.”

Rita took the mirror and studied her
neck. “That’s amazing, Doctor.”

“Give it a month or two and you may
want to have a plastic surgeon look at it.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Rita said. “I’m
pretty good with make-up and I doubt if a plastic surgeon could improve on your
handiwork. Now, important question. When can I get out of here?”

“That’s up to Dr. Alberson. Best
guess from me is tomorrow morning.”

When Dr. Huerta left, Wayne returned
to his seat on the bed and put his hand over Rita’s. “You feel like talking
about what happened?”

“First, I’m tired of this bed. Help
me over to that chair.”

Wayne pushed back the covers and
helped Rita out of bed. Her legs wobbled but she made it to the chair.

Wayne settled onto a footstool. “Now,
what do you remember?”

Rita searched her memory with a
furrowed brow and finally said, “I remember getting up that morning and running
through the fog on wet streets. I crossed the street into Hermann Park. That’s
it until yesterday when I woke up. Everything else is a blank.”

“Not a surprise. I’ve had too many
cases where something bad happened to an accident victim and they don’t
remember a thing. Still, I’ll call those two cops. You wouldn’t remember it,
but you managed to scratch your attacker. CSI took some samples of blood from
your fingernails. There was no match, but they probably want to talk to you
anyway.”

“And I want to talk to them, too. As
far as we know, I’m the lone survivor of this guy. I want to be an unofficial
member of the team. I can’t tell them much, but I probably know more about
computers than their whole department combined.”

It was the next afternoon when a
nurse wheeled Rita down the hospital hallway, leading an entourage of Wayne,
Duke, Claudia and Rita’s parents. Duke had slipped the parking valet a twenty
to leave his Navigator in a prime spot at the visitor’s entrance. When they
exited the hospital, the afternoon sun reflected from the pavement.

“Stop,” Rita said.

“Something wrong, ma’am?” the nurse
asked.

“Not at all. I just want to feel the
heat of the sun and look up into that blue sky and remember this day. Sometimes
it takes a tragedy to make you appreciate the little things. Okay, Mr. Chauffeur,”
she said to Duke, “take me home.”

“Yes ma’am, Miss Rita. I’m honored to
be driving you from this hospital.” Duke smiled.

After assisting Rita into the back
seat, the rest of the posse found places and, followed by Rita’s parents, they
made their way toward Midtown. Passing Hermann Park there was silence until
Rita said, “Last time I’ll ever go jogging in the dark again.”

The next day Wayne checked on Rita
and then headed to Galveston to bring his brother and mother up to speed. Wayne
parked in front of his mother’s house and was barely on the veranda before she
came out. “How’s she doing?”

“Fine, Mom. Little scar on her neck. Otherwise,
she’ll be as good as new in a few days. I’m going to visit with Dan. You want
to go along?”

Sarah nodded in agreement as she went
back into the house to fetch a straw hat, one that had often seen the inside of
the First Baptist Church. Sarah grasped Wayne’s arm at the elbow and led the
way down the stairs. After stopping briefly to pull an alien weed, they were on
their way.

The door to the small room opened and
the deputy let Dan in, pausing long enough to greet Sarah with a hug and Wayne
with a handshake.

Sarah gave her older son a long hug
and a kiss. “So, I hear you’re the new jailhouse lawyer,” Sarah said.

Dan shrugged his shoulders. “What can
I say? Someone let it slip that I was a lawyer. Now, I’m drafting writs. Actually
getting pretty good at criminal law. How’s Rita, Wayne?”

Wayne brought both of them current on
Rita’s condition until Dan interrupted.

“Look, Wayne, the state’s case, ours
too, for that matter, rests on expert testimony. I know Adashek will do fine. I’m
more than a little worried about Duke’s buddy. I’ve been researching Parke on
the internet in the jail library. Then one of the deputies let me use a video
player to watch the deposition you took. He’s powerful. Hardly ever gets
tripped up.”

Wayne nodded, not sure where all of
this was headed. Dan continued.

“I went to his website and studied
everything on it. Then I googled him. Even found copies of some of his
speeches.”

Wayne studied his brother while he
spoke. This is damn close to the Dan I knew as a kid. His gray hair is neat;
his beard is gone; his chest and shoulders have filled out. If only we can set
him free in this condition.

“Parke spoke at a forensic psychiatry
seminar in San Francisco two weeks ago. His topic was
How to Convince Anyone About Anything
. You think you can order the
seminar materials. I think that DVDs of the speakers are also available. Probably
worth the cost.”

“Consider it done.”

As they got up, Dan pulled Wayne
toward him and hugged him as hard as he could. “I appreciate all that you, Mom
and the posse are doing for me.”

Wayne returned his brother’s hug. “Speaking
of Parke, I’ve never watched his interview with you. It’s about time I did.”

The next evening, Wayne and Duke sat
down to watch Parke’s video interview. At the beginning Parke controlled the
process. Dan was coherent but subdued. Often he mumbled. After attempting to
convince Dan that he was sincere in his objectivity, Parke began to try to edge
Dan into admissions. The psychiatrist had Dan’s file and had watched the intake
video. He asked questions about times when Dan was probably sane, like when he
first became sick and spent time at the UTMB library. Then he would even get
Dan to agree that he certainly understood some aspects of right from wrong. For
example, he knew to wait for a traffic light to turn green before crossing the
street on the morning of the crime. He tried to get Dan to admit that he ran from
the police that morning because he knew he had done something bad. Dan rejected
that notion, saying he had no memory of the event.

Then the scene suddenly shifted. The
camera was directed at the ceiling and Dr. Parke could be heard apologizing for
failing to record part of the interview.

When the camera was once again
focused on Dan, twenty-eight minutes had elapsed.

Now Dan looked tired. His eyes
drooped. He even laid his head on his crossed arms on the table. He said that
he had had enough. Parke tried to prod a few more answers out of him and
finally gave up. The clock on the camera showed almost five and a half hours.

 
The next day, Grace appeared at Wayne’s door. “You’ve
got someone named Detective Jim Jefferies on line one. Says you’ll know what
it’s about.”

Wayne momentarily pondered the caller
and what the Galveston Police Department would want to talk to him about. And
why weren’t they going through Kate or Harry Klein? Well, thought Wayne, only
one way to find out. He picked up the phone.

“Afternoon, Detective. What can I do
for you?” Wayne’s voice was polite but cool. This was the man in charge of
sending his brother to death row.

“Wayne, we need to talk.”

“Fine with me. As I remember
protocol, it’s kinda unusual for the defense lawyer and the detective in charge
of a murder case to talk. Have you cleared this with Ms. Rasmussen?”

“I haven’t and I won’t,” Jefferies
replied.

Wayne suggested that he drive to
Galveston the next day and meet Jefferies at the police department. Jefferies
dismissed the idea.

“I don’t want to be seen with you in
Galveston. You know that sports bar on the Gulf Freeway, there in front of
Almeda Mall. Meet me at eight this evening.”

Wayne agreed and hung up the phone. Then
he called Rita and begged off of dinner, saying only that he had to meet a
potential witness in a case. Rita knew not to pry.

At seven-thirty, Wayne went down the
back stairs, through the garden and out the gate to the adjoining parking lot
and climbed into his truck. His thoughts focused on the meeting with the
detective.
 
What the hell could Jefferies
want? He was the best detective Galveston had. Murder cases were routinely
assigned to him. Once he put a case together and presented it to the D. A.,
most criminal lawyers knew it was time to forget a jury trial and plea bargain
. Well,
Wayne thought as he turned onto
the Gulf Freeway,
whatever it’s about
probably won’t hurt Dan’s case.
Then, another thought surfaced:
Maybe Jefferies wanted to tell him the case
was so damn strong he needed to make one more personal plea for life in prison.

The sports bar could have been
located in any city in America. The walls were lined with television monitors of
all sizes, capable of broadcasting every sporting event available. Most were
tuned to the Astros game.

Wayne was met by the sound of male
voices, cheering, booing and laughing at jokes. Wayne always thought it strange
that with more than fifty television monitors in these bars, all had their
sound muted. After his eyes became adjusted to the smoke filled room, he
spotted Jefferies in a distant corner of the bar, sitting alone and sipping a
beer. Wayne stopped at the bar to get his own Samuel Adams and joined the
detective.

Jefferies rose, his hand extended. “Thanks
for coming, Wayne.”

“Nice to see you, Jimmy Ray. Looks
like that wife of yours is feeding you well.”

Jefferies patted his stomach and nodded.
Wayne sat across from him.

They both watched the Astros game. Wayne
waited for Jefferies to direct the conversation. It took another beer and
another inning before he began.

“Look, Wayne, I’ve known your brother
since we were kids. I played football with him all the way through high school.
Hell, he threw the winning pass to me for the state championship.”

“I know, Jimmy Ray. I was there. No
one on the island will ever forget that pass. I still remember you breaking
that one tackle and diving for the end zone as time ran out.”

Jimmy Ray downed half of his fourth
beer before speaking again. “Then came the bad years for Dan. I saw him on the
streets.” Jimmy Ray sighed. “Even had to pick him up a few times. He didn’t
even know me anymore.”

This time it was Wayne who gulped his
beer and waited for Jimmy Ray to continue.

“Wayne, first you’ve got to know the
state has a damn strong case against Dan. The physical evidence is as good as
any I’ve ever put together. You and Duke are both good lawyers, but the deck’s
stacked against you. Hell, I even tried to talk Kate into a life sentence. She
refused to even consider it.”

“Believe me, Jimmy Ray, you’re not
telling me anything I don’t already know.”

Jimmy Ray set down his beer and
reached into his pocket, pulling out a plastic bag wrapped in a sheet of paper.
When he put it on the table, Wayne picked it up and unwrapped the paper. In the
bag was a key. Knowing not to take it out of the bag, he read the DNA report from
the crime lab describing the blood found on the key. He returned it to the
table and Jimmy Ray continued. “I’ve been a cop for near thirty years. I’m
tough as hell and never give an inch. Only I play by the rules. This may be
nothing, but it’s been eating at me and I can’t let it go.”

Jimmy Ray told Wayne where the rookie
found the key, that the DNA matched no one involved, but that he felt obligated
to include it in the case file. They didn’t bother to investigate where the key
came from since they caught Dan the next day. When he got to the part of the
story about Kate yelling at him to throw the key away, Wayne’s eyes grew, then
narrowed when he realized what Kate had done.

“Understand, Wayne, Kate may be
exactly right. At every crime scene there’s got to be a point where cops quit
picking up stuff and bagging it. The cop at this scene decided it might be
evidence. May be nothing, like Kate said. I thought long and hard about it. Even
had a few sleepless nights. Dan was my friend. Finally, I figured that you at
least have to know about it.”

Jimmy Ray finished his beer. “I
better get out of here before I’m pulled over for DWI on the way back to
Galveston.” Jimmy Ray started away from the table, then looked back. “Key’s
yours. Do whatever you think best. I’ll take the heat for turning it over to
you.”