By Reason of Insanity Page 7

  Besides, what did he know about raising teenage girls?

  Quinn glanced over at Sierra as they walked. He saw Annie's expressive eyes in her daughter, and a hint of Annie's beauty, camouflaged by the freckles and awkwardness of a teen. He also saw big crocodile tears forming in the eyes. His gallant little niece tried to fight them back.

  "Can you stick it out here until the retrial? Your mom gets to come and see you just about every night."

  "I'll try," Sierra said. "It wouldn't be so bad if the Schlesingers didn't try to act like they were my parents."

  "I'll talk to them," Quinn promised.

  They walked a few steps in silence. Sierra shuffled along with her head down, displaying the awkwardness of a middle school girl who had hit an early growth spurt. Quinn had seen Sierra with her friends, some of whom came up to the girl's chin. Quinn resisted the urge to tell her to straighten her shoulders and hold her head up.

  "What's happening at school?" he asked.

  Sierra shrugged. "Nothin'."

  "Your mom says your grades are dropping off."

  "I don't get math."

  "You need some help? Maybe we could get you some tutoring or something."

  "I already get tutoring." The statement, said matter-of-factly by Sierra, made Quinn realize how out of touch he was with his niece.

  They talked about some of the issues at school, and Quinn inquired gently about what other kids said about Annie's case. "Not much," Sierra responded. "They hope my mom wins next time. Except some of the boys. They call her psycho."

  "Boys can be jerks in seventh grade," Quinn said softly.

  "They call me Daddy Long Legs," Sierra replied. It was almost a whisper, and Quinn wasn't positive he heard it right.

  "Daddy Long Legs?"

  "Yeah. Mostly the boys, but some of the girls too."

  Quinn stopped walking and Sierra did the same. "Look at me for a second," he said. Sierra looked up, and Quinn saw too much sadness in her big round eyes. "Don't let those boys get to you. Women everywhere would kill to have your long legs. All the models have long legs, all the great actresses. You're a beautiful young woman, and in a few years, every one of those boys is going to be asking you out."

  Sierra made a face. "Those boys are lame."

  "You just keep a mental list of all their names," Quinn responded. "When you get to high school and they start asking you out, tell them to go find some girls with short, stubby legs."

  Sierra didn't smile, but Quinn thought he detected a little glint of pride in her eyes. He realized that he would probably make a lousy dad, teaching a thirteen-year-old girl about the fine art of revenge in order to build her self-esteem. Some men just weren't cut out to be fathers.

  There was another long silence as they headed back to the house. "Are we going to win next time?" Sierra eventually asked.

  "Oh yeah," Quinn assured her. "We are definitely going to win."

  "What happened last time?"

  "We just got a bad jury. That's all. It won't happen again."

  18

  The minutes ticked by for Catherine O'Rourke on day two of her involuntary confinement. How can someone ever serve a ten-year sentence? How does anybody do this for life?

  The blows to her dignity and sanity came from all directions. She had barely slept the previous night. Three times a deputy had come around and shone a flashlight in Cat's eyes as part of the shift counts. At 4:30 a.m., a deputy had come by to rouse the prisoners from sleep, and the screeching voice of another deputy came over the loudspeaker, barking out names and commands for the day. When Cat used the toilet, an inmate from the cell across the hall stood and watched.

  Cat shot her a disapproving look that only made the woman sneer. "You'd better get used to it, Barbie," the woman said.

  The nickname was a carryover from Cat's first day in the slammer. Most of the inmates were housed in two-story "pods"--groups of fourteen cells that opened into a common area containing bolted-down metal tables and benches as well as a wall-mounted television set. Prisoners like Cat, who were serving time in solitary, stayed in a separate wing composed of single cells on each side of the hall. A few other prisoners, however, occasionally passed through the hallway in front of Cat's cell. One of them, a woman with a buzz cut, had said, "Look, it's the brunette Barbie. Hey, Barbie, you're gonna be my baby doll." The inmates within earshot had laughed, and the name, like everything else in prison, had spread like wildfire.

  Cat felt the book she was reading slip from her hand and realized she had been dozing. For most of her second day, she had remained sprawled out on her cot, reading a James Patterson thriller, one of several books Marc Boland had provided. Now she closed the book and placed her head on the pillow, facing the wall. The inmates' shouts from the pods or other cells on her hall became a distant hum as Cat dozed in and out, completely exhausted. In a strange way, she was almost too tired to sleep, her body wired to run or fight or somehow survive this awful experience.

  That's when he entered her cell.

  She saw him reflected on the cinder block wall, which had turned into a mirror. She clutched the pillow tightly, keeping her eyes nearly closed, not daring to breathe. Maybe he would go away if he thought Catherine was sleeping.

  Catherine didn't recognize the man, though the sight of him paralyzed her with fear. He was tall, maybe six-two or six-three, and solidly built, as if he spent half his life in the gym. He wore baggy jeans and no shirt. An African-American man with close-cropped hair, a three-day stubble, a broad nose, and molten eyes. Tattoo ink covered the upper half of his body.

  He stood on the opposite side of the cell, leering at Catherine as she slept. She wanted to cry out but feared the deputies would be too slow to respond, too late to save her. Instead, she held her breath, deathly still, waiting for her visitor to make the first move.

  Instead of attacking, he turned toward a corner of the cell, as if he heard something. The leer disappeared, replaced by a look of sadness, and a single tear trickled from the man's left eye as he slowly faded from view.

  Now a woman stood in the corner of the cell. Behind her, a hooded figure in a white robe floated closer, quiet and serene until the woman started shaking spasmodically and then, with a violent rush, the hooded figure jabbed a needle into the woman's neck. Catherine gasped and turned on her cot as the woman slumped to the floor, the needle jutting from her neck.

  The hooded figure, face obscured, reached both hands up toward the window. Instantly a baby appeared in the outstretched hands, an African-American child with puffy cheeks and dark, curly locks of hair. The baby cooed and stretched and wiggled a little in the tender hands of the hooded one. The person drew the baby in and cuddled him, rocking the little boy back and forth for a few seconds. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the hooded figure bent down and extracted the needle from the woman's neck.

  "No!" Catherine yelled. She jumped toward the hooded figure but it was too late. With the speed of a striking cobra, the figure inserted the needle into the baby's arm. The child wiggled and the needle wedged out, spraying noxious chemicals all over the room.

  Catherine reached for the hooded figure but came up empty, the poison stinging her eyes. Frantically, she turned on the water from the sink and splashed it on her face. "Don't do this!" she shouted. "Stop!"

  The sound of her own voice echoed in the cell, startling her awake, as she stood in frozen horror, looking for the visitors who had just moments ago seemed so real. Her face was wet, the water in the rinse basin running. Her breath was short; her heart pummeled her chest.

  She turned off the water and sat down on the cot, shaking from the horror of what she had witnessed.

  "What's the matter, Barbie?" the inmate across the hall asked.

  A deputy came by to check out her cell. "What's with the shouting?"

  Shaken, Cat looked at the deputy, barely able to bring the woman into focus. "Just a nightmare," she said.

  "Happens a lot," said the dep
uty. She turned and walked away.

  And that's when Cat saw it--with her eyes wide open, in the broad daylight of her cell, unmistakable and as real as the cot Cat sat on.

  Handwriting on the wall. Bloodred.

  The offspring of evildoers

  will never be remembered.

  Prepare a place of slaughter for the sons

  because of the iniquities of their fathers.

  19

  Catherine wrestled all afternoon with the implications of her second vision in less than twenty-four hours. As a logical person, she realized that all the classic ingredients for nightmares had converged on her life at once.

  She assumed that the content for the dreams had been derived, at least in part, by the capital punishment debate between Quinn Newberg and Marc Boland at the law school. Quinn's graphic depictions of botched executions had played a prominent role in both dream sequences.

  On top of that, she had been reading an intense thriller when she fell asleep and had been an emotional wreck these last few days. Jail was a frightening place, and in her case, the fear was compounded by occasional whispers from her own conscience about possibly impeding the investigation into the Carver kidnappings. She had seen the pictures of those beautiful twin babies. Just thinking about the way they might have died made her sick to her stomach.

  Even apart from all these stimuli, Catherine was pretty sure she would have experienced nightmares just from being confined to this cell. While she didn't believe in ghosts and hauntings, she did acknowledge that some places tended to cause nightmares. Take the woods, for example. Camping out and listening to night creatures as she fell asleep was a guaranteed ticket to a dreamland horror show.

  One more reason to hate camping.

  But still, she had to face some hard truths about these visions. They were far more powerful than normal nightmares. The deal with the sink and splashing herself with water was bizarre. Frankly, she wondered if she might be losing it. And, if she was, who could blame her? Who wouldn't go a little psycho in here?

  The thing that puzzled her most was the biblical language she recognized in the handwriting on the wall. Perhaps this element came from the bizarre rantings of Harold Pryor. But she doubted it. Though she didn't recall exactly what the reverend had said the night of the debate, the words in the visions seemed somehow different. More disturbing. More sinister.

  She sensed that the words themselves might somehow be important, so she pulled out her journal to jot them down. The first vision, twenty-four hours ago--how had that gone exactly? She thought hard, closing her eyes so she could visualize the bloodred writing dripping toward the rinse basin. The sins of the fathers will be visited on the third and fourth generation. That was the gist of it, the best she could do for now.

  Today's words were still fresh. She jotted them in her journal also, confident that she had remembered them pretty much word for word.

  The offspring of evildoers will never be remembered. Prepare a place of slaughter for the sons because of the iniquities of their fathers.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, a deputy came to Catherine's cell and unlocked the door. "Don't forget your toothbrush, O'Rourke," she said. "You're going home."

  Just like that? The whole thing seemed rather anticlimactic, but Catherine wasn't complaining. She gathered her books, journal, toiletries, and pen. All of her possessions reduced to this. She took a last glance around the small cell--she sure wouldn't miss this place--and followed the guard to the processing desk. She endured one last pat down--as if she might be trying to smuggle something dangerous out of the jail--changed clothes, signed an inventory for her personal belongings, and felt a rush of gratitude when she saw Marc Boland waiting for her.

  She gave her attorney a spontaneous hug.

  "Chalk one up for the First Amendment," he said. He handed her a three-page document. "The clerk of the Virginia Supreme Court faxed this to my office about a half hour ago. I wanted to deliver it personally."

  "I am so glad I fired Jacobs and hired you," Catherine said, folding the order and placing it inside her journal. "How can I ever thank you?"

  Bo didn't try to mask his excitement as a big smile lit up his schoolboy face. "It's all part of Boland Legal Services. Slaying dragons, winning Supreme Court arguments, saving damsels in distress."

  "I think I'm going to get sick," said the desk clerk.

  "We were just leaving," Bo said.

  20

  Quinn took a cab to the front door of the Venetian. Oblivious to the hotel's opulence, he walked straight through the massive rotunda with its rich marble floor and white-pillared walkways and wound his way through the sprawling gaming area and its mile-long "Grand Canal," the casino's attempt to replicate Venice. The gaming tables and slot machines were just background noise. Quinn Newberg was on a mission.

  The Venetian had spared no expense in its featured poker room, draping it in rich leathers, dark-grained woods, velvet curtains, and tastefully displayed paintings from the Renaissance era. Quinn checked in at the desk and added his name to the list for the tables in the high-stakes area. He slipped the clerk two fifties and watched her make the appropriate adjustments so he could join his desired table. Thirty-five minutes later, a seat opened up, and Quinn took his place, two chairs away from a local card shark named Bobby Jackson.

  Jackson was forty-five but could generally talk his way into a senior citizen discount. He had thin gray hair, a face with the tanned texture of a well-worn baseball glove, and a close-cropped beard that sprouted half gray and half black. He pulled his rounded shoulders in tight, shielding his cards, as if the entire world might be part of a giant conspiracy designed to separate Bobby from his money.

  Quinn ordered a soda and settled in next to a brawny man with cowboy boots who had accumulated a sizable pile of chips. He had a thick Southern drawl, and the other players called him Tex.

  "Aren't you that boy I saw on TV defending his crazy sister after she knocked off her old man?" Tex asked loudly.

  "Oh my gosh!" said a brunette standing behind one of the other players. She frantically fished into her purse and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. "Would you mind signing this?"

  Feeling like an idiot, Quinn scribbled a signature across the top of the bill. He gave her a dismissive smile, but she had already pulled out a disposable camera. She handed it to the older gentleman sitting in front of her at the table. "Will you take our picture, honey?" she asked.

  Quinn stood next to the woman, and she placed her arm around Quinn's waist to pull him close. Her scowling husband or boyfriend or whatever he was counted to three and snapped a shot.

  "Thanks!" said the woman. "I knew I would meet somebody famous in Las Vegas!"

  "We gonna play cards or we gonna play Hollywood celebrity?" Tex drawled.

  "Sorry," Quinn muttered. He returned to his seat, and the dealer dealt a new hand. For nearly an hour, Quinn played the game methodically, trusting math rather than intuition or luck. He counted cards, studied the body language of opponents, and kept a mental list of hands worth betting on. Discipline and patience were the hallmarks of his success, along with a programmed set of bluffs that he would sometimes spend half an hour developing.

  His first big opportunity came at a few minutes after eleven, when Quinn's two hole cards were the ace of clubs and the four of diamonds. Quinn was sitting on the small blind, meaning he had already put five hundred in the pot before the cards were even dealt. Tex, on Quinn's immediate left, was sitting on the big blind, meaning he had anted up a thousand. During the first round of betting, everyone had folded except Tex, Bobby Jackson, and Quinn, who promptly anted up another five hundred so he could see the flop.

  The three cards in the flop were no help to Quinn--the ten and eight of clubs and the queen of hearts. He noticed that Tex had grown extraordinarily quiet as he stared at the three cards faceup in front of the dealer. He probably had two clubs in his hand and was hoping for a flush. Bobby Jackson stole a peek at
his two hole cards and blinked three quick times.

  Jackson nonchalantly pushed in a pile of chips so the pot grew to four thousand. The bid fell to Quinn, who stacked and restacked a few chips, letting them filter through his fingers as he stared at Tex.

  The big man sitting to his left couldn't resist a slight grin. "You Vegas boys sure do fold quickly," Tex said. "I thought this was the high-stakes table."

  Quinn shoved some chips to the middle. "I'll see your thousand," he said, then carefully counted out a neat new pile. "And raise it twelve."

  "Well, well," said Tex. He quickly counted his own stack of chips. "I'll see your twelve, and bump it up another twelve." He grinned broadly; the only thing missing was a cigar.

  "I'll call," Bobby said, pushing his own pile to the middle.

  Quinn quickly shoved an additional twelve into the pot, and the table grew quiet with tension. "I'll call as well."

  The dealer burned another card before she put the fourth card faceup on the table. The turn--the eight of spades--was another throwaway for Quinn's hand. But he could also see the disappointment register on Tex's beefy face, confirming Quinn's suspicion that the man was working on a flush and needed another club. Quinn bid the pot up another few thousand dollars. Both Tex and Bobby stayed in and the dealer burned another card then placed the fifth community card on the table.

  The river was the jack of clubs. Tex immediately went into a lone-star scowl, but he wasn't fooling Quinn. The man now had his flush. Meanwhile, Bobby Jackson's blinking had gone on overdrive--three quick blinks followed by two more. Quinn had nothing--a pair of eights from the community cards and the ace high he had in the hole. He couldn't possibly win--unless he could bluff the others into folding.