Plea of Insanity (18 page)

34

Somewhere in the distance – somewhere in this cold, putrid, green maze that he was trapped in – he heard the gritty click of the guard’s heels start up again. Slow and easy, they made their way down empty, fluorescent-lit cement hallways, silencing all in their path.
Click, click, click.
Coming this way. Coming
his
way, he knew.

He cocked his head and listened intently until his brain began to hurt. There were two sets of footsteps now, walking almost –
almost –
in sync. The heavy click, click, clicking slowed to a shuffle, and then stopped. An electric jolt of adrenaline seized his chest and froze his body. Somewhere along the parade route, the heels must have paused to observe one of the crazed zoo animals they’d caged.

Although he couldn’t see them, he could definitely picture his captors, peering through thick iron bars into squalid cells that were always brightly lit – 24/7 – shaking their clumsy utility belts for attention. With mace cans at the ready, and black steel asps dangling from their sides like menacing third arms, their suspicious eyes searched for a reason to call in an extraction team. Sadists, every one of them. He could hear their radios, chirping and squawking, blurting out strange codes. If they found something, he knew the screaming would begin, but he never knew why, and he didn’t want to know.

In the thick fog that swirled inside his head, it took minutes – maybe hours for all he knew – for the footsteps to make their rounds. For him, time had no reality anymore: no significance, no consequence, no definition. And that frightened him, perhaps most of all, as he sat on the cold cement floor waiting for them to come for him. He closed his eyes and drifted off.

The drugs they fed him were drowning him alive, making his head feel as if it were trapped in the spin of a crushing wave. Lucidity would be there one moment, and then suddenly a wave would buckle him at the knees and drag him under into the murky blackness. Just above the surface, and a fingertip out of reach, was the world he’d slipped away from. He could see the watery shadows, the blurred faces. He could hear the distorted, muffled drone of their conversations as he tumbled over himself, but he couldn’t reach them. He was forced to watch in horror as life went on as though he’d never even gone under, as though he were not being pulled further and further out to sea. The screams of despair only sounded in his own head.

He opened his eyes and realized with a frightening start that the
click click clicking
had gotten much closer. He felt the panic grab at his throat.
Where were they now?

The man in the cage next door began to scream. The blood-curdling shrieks ripped at the inside of his brain like a sharp bread knife. It was impossible to think, hear, feel, breathe, in here.

The footsteps slowed to a shuffle and then stopped. The keys jingle-jangled, the radio squawked. He felt eyes crawl over his person, and he heard the muffled, heavy breathing of those who watched him.

‘This him?’ asked a voice filled with disgust.

‘Yep. Yo, Marquette, get up. Let’s go, Doc. Time to go again. Pisses me off,’ he said to the other guard. ‘We just got him ready for court this morning, and now they want him out again.’

‘Where the fuck’s his clothes?’

‘Suicide watch,’ said the one jingling his keys. ‘No nooses on this floor. I guess you never worked on nine before.’

‘How’s he supposed to make a noose out of a jumpsuit? Where’s he gonna hang himself from anyway?’

‘You wouldn’t believe what they do on this floor. Crazy fucks. I saw one guy stuff his own shit in his mouth once, then choke to death on it. That’s why they’re up here, man. That’s why he don’t have no clothes. We’re saving him from himself. From choking on his panties,’ he laughed.

Jingle coughed up a wad of phlegm and spit it on the floor in the cell. It landed next to his foot, oozing slowly toward him, white and frothy. He watched it out of the corner of his eye, as it melted and spread. He felt the anger rise up in him, like the crushing wall of a tidal wave. When it touched his toe, he
wanted
to stand up and scream. He
wanted
to take Jingle’s fat neck in his hand and put his nose into his own spittle – like a dog – and rub it around until it finally broke off.

But he didn’t.

‘Me?’ Jingle continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. ‘I say let him fucking kill himself. Guy offed his whole family, including a little freakin’ baby. Save the taxpayers’ money for once – let him do it himself. But I ain’t in charge, man.’

‘Thank God for that,’ said the other guard with a short laugh. ‘Well he ain’t coming downstairs like that. Is he violent? Do we need additional restraints?’

‘Ain’t given no one trouble. Yet. He don’t say nothing. He don’t do nothing. He just sits there like that. You can fart in his face and he don’t fucking move,’ Jingle chuckled. ‘Freak.’

‘Well, let’s get him dressed,’ the other guard said with a sigh, and looked at his watch. ‘He’s got company, and I’m betting that his lawyers don’t want to see him like this neither.’

35

‘I have to warn you,’ Mel said, as he signed the log and waited for the CO to give him back his ID. ‘This is a jail, not a hospital, Alain. As you can tell from this morning in court, David’s in a fragile state. It’s been difficult communicating with him.’

‘Why is he still in here, Mr Levenson?’ Alain Marquette demanded, a frustrated, angry frown on his face. ‘That is my question. Why is he still in here?’

‘They will not bring him to visiting hours, Mr Levenson,’ said Nina Marquette softly, running her hand gently over the lapel of her husband’s jacket as she tried to soothe him. ‘This upsets us, not being able to see our son when we should be permitted to see him. Weeks he has been here and we have not been able to even speak with David. I don’t think that is right.’ She turned to her husband, and said in a quieter tone,
‘Alain, I’homme essaie de nous faire plaisir. Nous devons être patients ou alors nous ne reverrons jamais David. Les tribunaux américains rendent les choses très difficiles.
’

No one offered to translate.

David Marquette’s mother nervously clenched and unclenched the tissue that she held in her small palm. The reception area of the Dade County Jail was filled with all sorts of sordid, dirty-looking people, and she wished she hadn’t worn her good jewelry. Every eye was fixed on her, probably wondering what she was here for, how much money she had in her purse to bond someone out. She ran a finger over her nose, aware that it was still bandaged and bruised where she’d broken it weeks before. Perhaps they thought her a crime victim.

Thick bulletproof glass separated the waiting area from the cluster of green-uniformed correction officers on the other side. A bold-faced sign above the glass warned that all weapons would be confiscated, all violators arrested and prosecuted. Circled pictures of guns, knives and bombs with black lines drawn through them illustrated what a weapon was for those who could not read. Although the jail was also filled with correction officers, she felt no safer. They watched her, too. She remembered what her father had warned her once:
Never stare down an animal, Nina. They will get angry and bite
. So she looked down at the dirty floor and at the tips of her designer boots, focusing on the wet spots the rain had made on the suede accents.

‘It’s up to the discretion of Corrections to allow an inmate visitors,’ Mel continued patiently. ‘David hasn’t been allowed. That’s a problem, but one, unfortunately, that I have no control over. I’ve been able to get in to see him when I need to, and that’s what matters.’

Mel Levenson had been in and around the criminal justice system for close to three decades now, and there was no doubt that, in Miami, he was the best at what he did. Mel could afford to be selective with his clients because his clients could afford to be selective. But privilege, he’d found, came with its own set of problems – most clients had no experience with the criminal justice system, which virtually guaranteed Mel some shocked and outraged relatives to deal with at the end of the day. Outraged at a system that strip-searched Uncle Joey after he was arrested for securities fraud.
What did they think would be up his ass? Stock certificates? He’s not a
real
criminal
. Outraged to find out that horrible jail conditions and toothless cellmates named Bubba really did exist. The system that had been falling a part in front of them on the front page of the paper their entire lives suddenly had to be fixed yesterday. Over the years, Mel had learned to listen to the rantings, but never to feed them – after all, it was the relatives who usually footed his bill. But today was a little different. Given what his client was charged with, it was difficult to feign outrage because the man couldn’t get a bond or visit with Mom and Pop on a Sunday afternoon.

Just as the silence began to feel a little heavy, the steel outer door buzzed open. Mel quickly ushered the Marquettes out of the reception area, past the plastic booth of COs and through a set of metal detectors. Painted arrows on cinderblock walls directed them down a series of hallways to yet another solid steel door. Mel waved his ID badge at the camera above the door and it, too, buzzed open. They walked down another green hall in silence. In front of a third door, with a small square-foot wire-mesh window, stood a bored-looking CO. He ate a yawn, mumbled a few words into his shoulder pack, then nodded at Mel.

‘Are we ready?’ Mel asked him.

‘He’s in now,’ the guard said, unlocking the door with a key. ‘The buzzer is on the wall under the table. Call if you have a problem. We opened the mikes so you don’t have to wait for him to hit the button to hear him if he wants to talk.’

The room was small, maybe 8 × 10, divided in half lengthwise by a metal table and a clear inch-thick plexiglas partition. The walls were the same color as the rest of the jail – a pasty mint green. The floor was cement gray. Long fluorescent tube lights were caged to the ceiling.

Behind the plexiglas, in a metal chair that was chained to the floor, sat Dr David Marquette, his scraggly, overgrown face pale against the bright red of his jumpsuit. Behind him was another solid steel door, which he must have been brought through. As he had at his arraignment, he stared out at nothing.

Alain walked up to the table, palms open against the plexiglas, but his son did not flinch. ‘David? David?’ He suddenly slapped the partition hard with both hands.

‘It’s only been a few days on the meds, Alain. The agitation is gone, which is good, but the negative symptoms—’ Mel stopped himself. ‘Lawther is the jail doctor. He says it could be weeks before the medication sets in. Before we know what is the drugs or what is—’

‘What are they giving him?’

‘Thorazine. A thousand milligrams.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘They are still diagnosing him, Alain. Remember, this is a jail, not a private hospital.’

‘Thorazine?’ Alain angrily hit the glass once more. ‘No wonder he’s like this! They’re killing him! They’re making him nothing but a zombie!’

‘Thorazine? Is that different than what Darrell—’ Nina cautiously began to ask.

‘Yes, Nina! Yes, it’s different!’ shouted Alain bitterly, cutting her off. He knew what she was going to say before she said it.

Nina bit her lip and turned away from her husband, looking down at her lap, the tears silently falling once again. She dabbed a crumpled tissue at her eyes, trying to remain as dignified as she could in this awful place. ‘I cannot do this, Alain. Don’t askme. Not again,’ she whispered. ‘There is only so much one person can take.’

He watched them all watching him, studying him. He felt his eyes roll in his head. Roll, roll, roll around the room as the wave smashed him from behind and washed over him once again. Their voices became muffled and thick, as if they were all underwater with him.

‘Enough,’ Alain said finally, throwing his hand up. ‘This place is horrible. It’s barbaric. We need to get him out of here!’

‘It’s not that easy, Alain,’ said Mel, shaking his head. ‘He’s charged with four counts of murder. This is very serious.’

‘Yes, that I know. That man, Mr Bellido, wants to kill my son.’ He blinked back tears as he stared at the vacant figure behind the partition. ‘Look at him,’ he whispered softly. Alain leaned across the table and, with his hands on the glass once again, suddenly shouted. ‘David? Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know where you are? Do you know why you’re here?’

There was no response.

‘We’re going to get you out of here. We will.’

‘Don’t promise him that, Alain,’ Mel replied quietly, reaching over to touch the senior Marquette’s arm. ‘We’ve got to be realistic. This is Florida, not France, and there is no bond in Florida for murder. We have a long road ahead of us.’

Alain abruptly pushed back from the table and stood. ‘Then shorten it. This is no place for him,’ he said. ‘Make it happen, Mr Levenson. Find a way –
any
way – but make it happen. That’s my son in there. I’m paying you enough. Make them all understand.’

Although seated just a few short feet away, his mother had yet to actually look at him. Now, as his father screamed at the man they called his attorney, she finally managed to pull her stare from her lap. On her black, tailored skirt was a pile of twisted and shredded white tissue pieces. She still clutched a few ragged strips in her fist, dabbing them gingerly at red-rimmed eyes. He could see now that her always-elegant face was swollen and disfigured from crying. Even through all the make-up, greenish-yellow bruises shaded the delicate bags under her eyes.

Everything about his mother was always so refined, so picture-perfect – even now, she made the bandage that was strapped across the bridge of her nose look like a fashion statement. Not a hair out of place, not a drop of mascara running with all the tears. But beneath the cultured, polished, expensive exterior, he knew that she was squirming inside – worrying about all the vile germs she might be touching or inhaling in this very room, just by sitting here with the son she could not bear to even look at. Maybe it was the curiosity, maybe the guilt – maybe it was because to
not
look would be too obvious to his father and his lawyer, but she finally did, her deep-blue, always-questioning eyes falling on him. She squinted just a little, her head tilted slightly to the left, watching him as a tourist at the zoo might study the monkeys. He felt those eyes silently roll over his person like a lint brush, picking up all in their path, missing nothing. Finally, they found his own and stayed there for a long moment, locked in his vacant stare.

‘Let’s go, Alain. Please, let’s go,’ she pleaded, rising from her seat, her face bleach white. The tissue shreds fluttered to the floor. She turned and walked back to the door where she’d come in, her arms wrapped around her self, as if she was incredibly cold.

‘Nina,’ Alain began.

‘Now. I don’t feel well, Alain.’

A few minutes passed before the guard came and let the three of them out of the room, but his mother never turned around again. It was clear to him that she could no longer bear to look at this man who was her son.

Or at what he had become.