We will have the time later if she is willing to help me.
We talk about past attempts to help Pam, and I am not surprised to hear bitterness in her voice as she speaks about the psychologists over the years who refused to try shock.
As she speaks, her face becomes hard, and I think I see for the first time the facet of her personality that has allowed her to take over a small real estate operation (I had never heard of River Country Realty until two years ago) and turn it into a major force in the central Arkansas area.
“The first time I heard of shock I thought I was being teased. This little Dr. Oliphant he left the state a year before you came, Andy,” Olivia says, “had the nerve to say that shock was her only hope but only a sadist would use it. He was so smug, so morally superior-1 wanted to kill him.
Every time I brought it up he would get this expression on his face that said I was depraved for even thinking of it. I think he wanted to try it, but he didn’t have the guts.” This last sentence is spit from her mouth, her face twisting in anger. Theoreticians do not rank high on this woman’s list.
Whatever I have to do to persuade her to testify, I won’t moralize.
Andy’s head, I notice, turning quickly to observe him, dips in apparent agreement.
“What about the other psychologists?”
I ask both of them.
“If it works, surely somebody in the state was using it.”
In a gesture of impatience, Olivia pushes her hair back from her long, tanned face.
“Though I kept hearing rumors about the use of shock in the past. Dr. Oliphant wouldn’t admit to knowing anybody who had tried it who was still in the state. You know you can’t make doctors talk when they don’t want to-they hide behind confidentiality whenever it’s convenient.”
I look at Andy and see that his wide taupe lips are tightly compressed. He must be having the same thought that flits through my mind. Notwithstanding the quality of her life, Olivia’s daughter would be alive today if he hadn’t had so much courage. Granted the other professionals may have been timid, but not without reason. After all, Pam died. I need to understand the circumstances better, but I’d be a monster to make Olivia sit through a story that already must give her nightmares. I ask her a few more questions and learn that it was she who had suggested to Andy that he try shock.
I also learn to my dismay that he had never even been present when that form of behavior therapy had been used before. It will lend credence to the charge of recklessness that the prosecutor has to prove. Yet, as I listen to this woman, I am beginning to understand why he gave in to her. Olivia, whose intensity has grown with each moment, is both persuasive and vulnerable. As she talks about the agony Pam experienced, it is easy to believe that there was no other alternative to shock, which, she understood and Andy confirms, is painful, yet safe, if used correctly. As I glance back and forth between them, what disturbs me is my growing sense that my client, though armed with the best of intentions, may have been professionally unqualified to use shock as a technique to modify Pam’s behavior. How could he have refused to have educated himself as much as possible? Perhaps he did, I think, realizing I know literally nothing about it.
I will want to talk to Olivia before the probable cause hearing, but away from Andy. Though it seems unlikely, the gratitude she feels now may turn soft before Monday, as she begins to get some pressure to turn on him. It would be difficult if not impossible for her to tell him while he is sitting across from her that she thinks he should have refused to help her. It may not be so hard to back away from him once she is placed under oath and the prosecutor is giving her a perfect way to escape guilt-blame the doctor, Mrs. Le Master: he is supposed to be detached, cool, the professional. She seems to have more integrity than that, but I will be the first to admit that a woman has fooled me badly before in one of these situations. Besides, from an ethical standpoint, perhaps Andy did fatally forfeit his judgment. After all, he is presumably trained, educated, and licensed to exercise appropriate professional discretion, and now a child is dead. A criminal, though? Surely not.
Leaving Andy alone in me conference room, I walk Olivia down the hall and to the elevators and tell her I would like to call her soon. Her eyes slightly red now from crying, she assures me she will help in any way I suggest.
“He tried,” she says defiantly, “when no one else would. All these so-called advocates act as if children like Pam can be helped without aversive measures. Well, goddamn it, why didn’t they do it?”
I push the elevator button for her. I have no answer. I have no quarrel with her anger, but I want it to work for Chapman.
If I handle it correctly, the jury may understand that the real defendant isn’t on trial. I decide to provoke her with the truth, or at least part of it.
“I don’t know about the advocates,” I say as she steps into an empty elevator, “but the doctors and psychologists are scared to death of malpractice.”
A hard glint comes into her gray eyes and she stares at me, holding the door for one final comment.
“All I know is these other so-called professionals weren’t willing to try any thing that might work,” she says. “He could have turned his back on me, and he didn’t, and I ‘m not going to forget that.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I say, as the door begins to slide shut.
“I’ll be calling you in the next day or so.” I walk back to the conference room, realizing Olivia has a determined side to her that she doesn’t bother to conceal. But why should she? What else does she have to lose? Besides, she is in a business that is at least as well known for its hard times as for its good tunes. One thing is certain: if she turns on Andy, he is dead meat. Olivia Le Master, I’ve decided, can be a ball buster. I just hope she doesn’t decide to go after my client’s.
6
With Olivia’s departure, Andy and I adjourn for a couple of minutes to allow me to go take a leak and find us both some coffee. At the front desk Julia has a smirk on her face that says my own IQ is so low it may not be testable as she reminds me that there is free coffee in the break room, which is only one door down from the conference room. She is dressed (except for a denim skirt) in what I’d call a Hell’s Angels biker outfit, complete with jackboots, and snarls through her peephole of a mouth, “Reminds me when I was a kid of my dog nearly starving one time. Blitz, our boxer, he whined at the front door for a solid day when all he had to do was walk around to the side and go through the garage.”
I study her face, wondering where a bullet would cause the most pain before it killed her. I do not want to mar her precious childhood memory, but I mutter, “That’s really fascinating.” Applying mauve nail polish to the bitten-off stubs on her right hand, Julia stops and smiles sweetly.
“It helps me sometimes when I can find something to identify with.”
Thank you, Julia.
“That must be difficult,” I say with an equal amount of venom and head back toward the break room. Before eastern Europe totally embraces capitalism, maybe it’s proponents should come take a look at Julia. What have I done to make this woman hate me? I don’t usually have this effect on people. I wonder what a cattle prod would do to her.
Armed with two steaming paper cups of coffee, I find Andy waiting for me in the conference room with his own coffee. I shut the door in case Julia has gotten up to roam the halls.
“Olivia may be the difference between you and a guilty verdict,” I say, hoping my comment will get back to her. “Would you have tried shock if it had been another parent?”
I ask, hoping he will answer honestly. I am not ready to ask if there is a sexual relationship between them, but if he wants to volunteer, that will be fine with me.