After parking hurriedly, Anna removed the shopping bag she’d loaded into the trunk last night. Although Consuelo didn’t ask what was in it, Anna knew she could guess what it contained.
Krueger’s office building had seen better days. After riding a rickety elevator to the sixth floor, they walked to a door that desperately needed a new coat of paint. On the translucent pane of glass forming its upper half were the words, “R. F. Krueger, Attorney at Law.” Since the last time Anna was here, a fellow fan of old movies had used a black marker to add “U.” before the lawyer’s name, and “reddy” after his middle initial.
The gum-popping nubile redhead at the secretary’s desk was new, too. Anna wondered what had happened to the bleached blonde. She noted that both the former secretary and her successor had several things in common. Both seemed likely to have had cosmetic surgery involving their pectoral regions. And both favored tight white blouses.
“He’s still with a client. Have a seat.” The secretary pointed at several dilapidated chairs.
The intercom on her desk snapped on. “Crystal, it’s three o’clock. Is anybody out there?”
“Yes.”
“Is one of them a tall woman, natural blonde, late thirties, pleasingly plump, wearing a tight white blouse?”
The secretary squinted at Anna. “Yeah, except it’s a loose pink one.”
The intercom clicked off. Immediately Anna heard shouting from the door behind the secretary. Then it flew open and a small elderly man with glasses askew catapulted out the door. He protested, “But we haven’t finished talking about my—”
“Sorry,” Krueger interrupted, his bulk blocking the entrance to his private office, preventing the man from reentering. “My secretary will give you another appointment for tomorrow.”
“But—”
“Tomorrow!” Krueger motioned Anna to enter, closed the door behind them, then settled down into a swivel chair behind his desk. “Some people,” he said. “Just because you take their money, they think they own you.”
Krueger’s office was filthy. Huge law books were scattered across the floor. His desk was littered with empty snack food bags and carry out containers.
The lawyer gestured at her shopping bag. “Buy anything for me?”
Anna placed the items in the bag on his desk. Krueger examined them carefully. She noticed his fingernails were disgustingly long and sharp.
“Did you call the cops?”
“No.”
Krueger shook his head. “Should have. Not that they’d have done anything with this stuff. But if they filed a report, I could use it as one more piece of evidence if somebody does catch her in the act.”
“Is there any way you can prevent her from doing anything like this again? Maybe a restraining order?”
Krueger shrugged. “Might be able to get one. Won’t do much good, though. There’s no law against giving anyone ‘gifts.’ ”
“But they’re a form of psychological attack!”
“True. And let’s face it. You-know-who is more qualified than anyone else to mess with Consuelo’s mind.” He paused. “Present company excepted, of course.
“But a judge probably won’t see it that way. If it was some innocent young thing being harassed by a drooling thug, getting a restraining order would be no problem. Trouble is, I doubt Consuelo would be the person the judge would sympathize with.”
“But that’s not fair! Now that she’s cured, Consuelo is innocent in the moral sense of the word!”
Krueger grunted. “Maybe. But in the eyes of the law, she’s still as guilty as sin.”
“Then the legal system needs to get rid of that Dark Ages mentality. This is the twenty-first century! All these people have labeled Consuelo as being ‘evil,’ and now they want to keep on punishing her instead of trying to help her! They treat her like she was some kind of monster, instead of a human being who was mentally ill and not fully responsible for her actions!”
The lawyer nodded vigorously. “You’re so right. How could anyone hate her or think she should be locked up? Everybody makes mistakes. If she says she’s sorry and promises never to kill any more people, we should let bygones be bygones.”
Anna struggled to control herself. The man’s sarcasm was so irritating! “Don’t misunderstand me. What Consuelo did was terrible and wrong. And I remember very well what she was like before the treatment. At that time, she needed to be in prison, so she couldn’t hurt anyone else, or herself. But that’s no longer necessary. She’s cured now, and to punish her for things she did when she was sick is cruel!”
Krueger put his feet on the desk. “Tell me, Doc. How do you know she’s cured? Maybe this sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice stuff is just an Oscar-winning act. How do you know she isn’t laughing inside, at how she’s fooled all you high-powered doctors and the parole board?”
Yes, how do you know?
“All of Consuelo’s post-treatment test results were perfectly normal. Not just the psychological profile tests either, but ones she couldn’t possibly fake. Like the microaveraged EEG, her 5-HIAA levels, the ultra-resolution PET scans—”
Krueger interrupted her. “Spare me the jargon. The bottom line is, until you docs come up with some way to read minds, the only way to judge if she’s really ‘cured,’ like you claim, is to see how she acts. And that’s still a lousy way to judge people. If you’re dealing with somebody who’s smart and sick enough, you can really get fooled.
“I remember one client in particular. Middle-aged, distinguished-looking. Great sense of humor. Pillar of the community. He had busloads of character witnesses at his trial. Not the kind of person who rapes teenage girls and tortures them to death. ‘A clear case of mistaken identity,’ I said. ‘DNA evidence isn’t infallible.’ The jury wasn’t gone long enough for me to go take a leak before they found him ‘not guilty.’ ”
His eyes seemed to sadden. “A month later, the cops caught him red-handed hacking up the body of his latest victim.”
Krueger’s usual cynical look returned. “When something like that happens, it’s time for Plan B. You try to show why your client isn’t fully responsible for what they did. What you doctors have done is hand defense lawyers the perfect excuse. ‘It’s not my client’s fault. He just has bad genes!’ ”
“But that’s not necessarily true! An individual’s personality and actions are influenced by their biological makeup. Rarely, with diseases like schizophrenia, or more subtle defects like the one Consuelo had, genetic influences are so strong they practically make a person act a certain way. But usually non-biological factors, such as what a person’s been taught is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ ‘right’ or wrong,’ are stronger.”
Krueger nodded. “The old question of ‘nature versus nurture.’ But don’t people also act the way they do simply because they want to? Because they decide to do something?”
“Well—of course. Within the biological limits Nature gave them, and what they’ve learned from interactions with their environment, especially other people, a ‘normal’ adult also makes conscious choices.”
“In other words, how people act is based partly on things they have little or no control over, like how their brains are ‘wired,’ or what they’re taught—and what they deliberately choose to do.”
Anna nodded. “Yes. But it may be very difficult to say how much each of those factors contributes to a particular individual’s actions.”
“That is a problem, isn’t it? Unfortunately, the legal system has to deal with it all the time. Prosecutors tend to argue a person should be held completely responsible for their actions, and downplay mitigating circumstances. They try to keep justice simple. ‘Just the facts, ma’am.’ ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ Black and white, with maybe a few shades of gray.” He waved his hand at the items on his desk. “Just like Consuelo’s gift-giving ‘nemesis’ seems to be doing.