No Cure for Murder (37 page)
Even with the too large orange jumpsuit, no makeup, and her hair a mess, Zoe looks great, Byron thought.
They picked up the phone handset in mirror-like synchrony.
“I wish you hadn’t come,” she rushed to say, staring behind him at the exit sign.
“How could I not come?”
Zoe’s face lighted up with a broad smile as she stood and placed her hand on the glass.
Byron placed his hand on his side opposite hers.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too.”
“Sit down...do not touch the glass,” came the voice over the loudspeaker.
“I can’t stand it in here, Byron. You must get me out.”
“I have a call into Alan Hayes. He’s the best criminal defense attorney in Northern California.”
“I’ve never heard of him. Are you sure he’s the best?”
“The guy hasn’t lost a case in ten years. Isn’t that good enough for you?”
Zoe paused and studied Byron. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
“What way?”
“You haven’t asked my why? Don’t you want to know?”
Byron turned away.
Zoe stared at him. “Byron?”
“You’ve formulated a rational explanation for serial killing. Justification for the murder of patients who placed their trust in you.”
“You’re upset. I know, but you must understand that I’m sick...there’s no other explanation.”
“Of course you’re sick, but so sick that you couldn’t stop...so sick that you were delusional...so sick that you didn’t know right from wrong?” He paused. “Trust me, Zoe, you don’t want me on the jury.”
“Then why are you here?”
“What you did makes me ill...maybe somehow I should have known and stopped you.”
Zoe laughed. “You? You’re pathetic.”
Byron reeled back from her vicious assault. “Was any of it real? What were we doing together all these years? What I’m doing now?”
“You’re doing what you’ve always done, protecting me.”
“No. No More. I’m done.”
Zoe placed her palm on the glass and Byron placed his opposite. He closed his eyes while her warmth flooded his body.
“Do you think I choose to be this way? Look what it’s gotten me. I’ve lost everything I love, you, my practice, my friends, and Jacob...Jacob more than anything, I’ve lost Jacob.”
Byron shook his head in disbelief. “Zoe, you tried to murder him.”
Zoe lowered her head and wept. Suddenly, she stopped crying, blotted her eyes with her sleeve then scanned the room. “Have Mr. Hayes get me out of here. I can’t stand one more night, Byron. They’re talking about me.”
“Who’s talking about you?”
“They are.”
“Who are they?”
“The voices.”
“You mean the other inmates.”
“I don’t know. I’m hearing them...the men. They want me. They’re threatening to hurt me. I’m frightened, Byron. Please you must help me.”
“I’ll do what I can, but with the charges against you, bail may be impossible.”
“Time,” said the loudspeaker.
The guard approached, stood Zoe and replaced her cuffs and chains. As he led her away, Zoe turned. Tears ran down her cheeks as she mouthed, “Please... please.”
Byron exited and turned to the guard at the door. “Is it possible to put my wife Zoe Spelling into a woman-only area of the jail?”
The guard stared at Byron.“Your wife’s in the woman’s section. Even the guards are women.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Carleton Dix’s car sat in his apartment’s driveway. He’d filled it with his personal possessions. Inside, he gathered his laptop computer, his leather attaché case, and his father’s King James Bible. His mind was a thousand miles away as he heard heavy feet echoing down the corridor.
Please, God, he thought, anyone but the police.
The footsteps stopped at his door. After ten seconds, he heard the sharp rap of something hard against his door. “Berkeley Police. Open up.”
Dix scanned his apartment looking for an escape route.
“Open up. This is the Berkeley Police. We have a warrant for your arrest. We know you’re in there. Open up now or we’ll break in.”
Dix moved in slow motion toward the door. He watched his hand reach slowly for the knob, heard the lock click, then stood back as the door swung open.
“I see you’re going somewhere, chaplain,” said the uniformed officer, his eyes moving around the room. “I’m officer Baños and this is my partner, officer Amelia Martin.”
“What’s this all about? I’m already late.”
Amelia pulled the handcuffs from her belt. “You’ll be later. We have a warrant for your arrest for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor...otherwise known as statutory rape.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Dix, stepping backward.
Baños moved his massive frame toward the chaplain. “Don’t make this more difficult for yourself, padre.”
Dix lowered his head, turned his back to the officer, and like an experienced felon, placed his hands behind his back for the handcuffs.
“I see you’re familiar with the procedure,” said Amelia. “Good. You have the right to remain silent...”
Bruce Bryant, Brier’s CEO, sat across the desk from Kevin Walters in his downtown office.
Bruce held up the Oakland Tribune’s front page. “We’re getting killed with negative publicity.”
“Did you expect that the media would ignore three arrests of Brier Hospital employees?”
“Zoe Spelling was a physician on staff, and Carleton Dix was an independent contractor, neither were hospital employees.”
“You think that distinction is going to make much of an impact on the front page or on television?”
“Where do you stand with these cases?”
“We’ve come to an agreement with Tommy Wells on the drug and narcotic charges. He’ll be going away for ten years. Your chaplain won’t take a chance with a jury, not with the testimony we have from Kelly Cowan and his previous history. Sooner or later, he’ll agree to a plea.”
“What about Zoe Spelling?”
“Dr. Spelling is a serial killer. We caught her in the act. Her only defense is a psychiatric one, which since the Dan White Case is unlikely to succeed in the State of California. She was smart enough to hire Alan Hayes. He’s good, but nobody’s good enough for this case. I’ll be meeting him in a day or so.”
“This is so unfair,” said Bruce. “These individuals have smeared the reputation of a great hospital. We live and die by our public image.”
“We can’t change the facts, sir. Maybe they’ll all plead out and you can get it off the front page. Otherwise, I’d prepare for another O.J. Simpson media fiasco.”
Chapter Sixty-Nine
“You’re out of your mind,” said Lola as Jacob dressed that morning to return to work. “It’s only been ten days.”
“The office is going crazy with no physician all this time. My friends have been great covering for me, but I can’t impose on them any more.”
“You can’t even sit for more than ten minutes.”
Jacob grabbed his coat and hat. “I’ll work standing. Feel free to come by and give us a hand, sweetie.”
“Remember the uniformed guards in the woman’s prison movies of the 50s,” said Lola, “that’s going to be me. Give me trouble, and it’s solitary.”
Jacob looked into the bright sunshine, brushed leaves off the windshield of his Volvo then sank with a smile into the driver’s seat. The joy of simple things, he thought. He pulled into his space at the office, struggled out of the car and grabbed his bamboo fishing pole cane, a gift from a patient, and climbed the four steps into his office.
When he entered the rear business office space, he saw the banner strung across the wall, declaring, Welcome Back Doctor W. The staff stood and applauded.
“I’ll kill you, Maggie,” said Jacob, reddening as one by one, they hugged him.
Margaret held him by the arm. “Let me help you, Doctor.”
Jacob pulled his arm away. “I have enough left, Maggie, to pull a trigger.”
He worked for two hours. The pain made it impossible for him to sit for more than a few minutes. He stood behind his desk as he talked with his patients, writing notes, orders, and prescriptions. He pushed the intercom. “Who’s next?”
“A break is next,” said Margaret. “Per the doctor’s orders.”
Damn that Lola.
He rested on the couch in the lounge and dozed off for fifteen minutes, awakening refreshed. Jacob worked until noon when Lola arrived with a box lunch. They sat with Margaret in the lounge, eating.
“We were so worried, Jacob,” said Margaret. “I know you hate sentimentality, but damn it, Old Man, we missed you.”
Jacob smiled. “The office was more than a work place for me. I loved coming here every day. You, especially Margaret, and the staff too always made me feel at home.”
Tears began to stream down Margaret’s cheeks.
Jacob grasped her hand. “We’re a great team...an aging one to be sure, but there’s life left in all of us.”
Margaret looked from Jacob to Lola. “Zoe’s arrest shocked us. We had misgivings about her, but nothing that even hinted at violence.”
Lola turned to Margaret. “In retrospect, Zoe had difficulties at work.”
“Look, we saw a whole variety of problems with Zoe’s behavior, lies, indifference to patients, and even her less than subtle comments against you, Jacob, but that’s a long way from serial killer.”
“She had everyone fooled, even the cynical psychotherapist in residence, although Lola was the first to put words to the thought.”
“Every time I think about it...Shannon Hogan, P.J., Joshua Friedman, Nathan Siegel... they were family to us. We knew them, cared for them, and loved them. I never thought I had the capacity to kill, but Zoe...She’s not going to get away with it, is she?”
“That depends on what you mean,” said Lola. “The best she can anticipate is a long-term psychiatric hospitalization, but the courts frown on mental health defenses. I think she’ll go to jail for a long time.”
“I feel responsible,” said Margaret.
“Join the club,” said Jacob. “It’s difficult to make the jump from a narcissistic personality, the world is crawling with them, including the staff at Brier, to a malignant narcissist capable of serial murder.”
Alan Hayes sat behind his enormous walnut desk. “It’s not going to be easy defending Dr. Spelling, Professor Harwood.”
“Please call me Byron.”
The attorney rose and walked toward the west-facing window of his 16th floor suite of offices in Emeryville. “Come, let’s sit by the window.
“You had no idea that your wife was capable of these things?”
“I’ve used the word in my mind a thousand times, but have never said it out loud. I’ve researched the subject and I understand it as well as a layman can...”
“I’m waiting.”
“Why do I suspect that you know what I’m going to say?”
Alan stared ahead in silence.
“Zoe’s a narcissist, but until her arrest, I never knew that she had progressed into malignant narcissism.”
“You’re right, Byron. If you said anything other than narcissist, sociopath or borderline personality disorder, it would have surprised me. Unfortunately, I’ve had the pleasure of defending all three.”
“We must do something.”
“I’ll have her examined by the best forensic psychiatrists I know.”
“They’d better be good. Zoe’s smart and manipulative.”
“If smart and manipulative works for us, so much the better.”
Byron rose and shook Alan’s hand. “By the way, Zoe may be having auditory hallucinations in jail.”
Alan smiled. “That’s convenient.”
Chapter Seventy
Alan Hayes arranged for a private room for his first meeting with Zoe. The guard removed the handcuffs from the waist chain and sat Zoe at the table across from her attorney.
Alan turned to the guard. “I want the cuffs and chains off.”
“They stay,” said the guard, sneering.
Alan reached for his yellow pad. “ Play it your way, Officer. What’s your name? Tell me the director’s extension, please.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said the guard removing the restraints.
“I’ll knock on the door when we’re through.”
Zoe smiled and extended her hand. “Thank you.”
Alan accepted the gift, noting the long graceful fingers and perfect red nails. The hand was warm as she squeezed his own in encouragement.
She’s incredibly beautiful, he thought. Will that help or hurt?
“You must get me out of here. This place is driving me crazy.”
“Not possible.”
“What do you mean, not possible?”