Plea of Insanity

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Epilogue

Author’s Epilogue and Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Follow Penguin

Prologue

Georgia Adams finished off the rest of the coffee in her oversized ‘Some Bunny Loves You’ mug, sat back in her chair at her desk and closed her eyes. At a quarter to five in the morning, even four cups of hot caffeine wasn’t keeping them open anymore, and she drifted into a crazy dream almost immediately, right there, at her desk. She’d been on midnights for almost a week now, but her body clock still hadn’t adjusted to owl’s hours. Georgia hated working nights, but because of the baby she had no choice. Roofs didn’t get tarred at night, so Randy had to workdays, they needed the money, and day care wasn’t – and would never be – an option for her. No matter how much her overachieving, workaholic mother-in-law insisted it should be.

The beep sounded suddenly and loudly in Georgia’s ear, startling her awake with a familiar rush of adrenaline. She sat up in the chair and reached for the button to open the line. ‘Police and fire,’ she said in the programmed, calm monotone that the department had taught her as she rubbed the dream out of her eyes. ‘What’s your emergency?’

‘This is the nine-one-one operator,’ Georgia repeated. ‘Is there an emergency?’

‘This is the nine-one-one operator. Do you have an emergency?’ Georgia asked once more. She was a bit irritated now. Maybe she shouldn’t have drifted off, but being woken up by either a drunk or a prankster was starting to tick her off.

Georgia rolled her chair closer to the three-screen console in front of her. ‘Okay, I can help you,’ she replied calmly. Her fingers hovered over the CAD keyboard, the Computer Assisted Dispatch system. When she typed in a particular signal number, the computer would automatically dispatch the right response, either fire rescue or police. She didn’t know what she had just yet, what button to push. What’s your name, hon? Can you speak up?’ she asked, adjusting the volume on her headset when there was no response. ‘’Cause I can barely hear you.’ Unfamiliar, prickly goose-bumps suddenly erupted across her body, raising the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. She’d been an emergency operator for a long time – too long, maybe – but the one thing she wasn’t usually was affected. She’d listened before while husbands beat their wives, road rage erupted into gunshots, and women had babies on their kitchen floors. But there was something in this voice. Something that was not right. Something that inexplicably affected her.

An address accompanied the telephone number that stared back at her from her Positron screen, the public-safety phone system that automatically tracked incoming calls on the emergency line. On the PowerMap monitor, a small, one-dimensional computer-generated house appeared on a map on a block lined with other computer-generated houses. She could see that the call was coming from a residence.

‘I’m going to help you, honey,’ Georgia replied calmly. ‘I need you to stay on the line and tell me exactly what’s happened.’

‘I think he’s coming back,’ said the whisper in between short, labored pants.

‘Who’s coming? Are you hurt? What’s your name?’ Identify with them, Georgia. Keep them on the line, whatever you do, girl. Get details, if possible.

‘I think he’s coming back,’ the voice repeated, breaking as it started to cry now.

‘Who’s that? Has someone been hurt? Do you need an ambulance?’ It was getting harder to maintain the monotone. Georgia looked at the computer-house, flashing helplessly at her on the screen. What the hell was happening in there?

And then, abruptly, the tears stopped with a sucked-in sniffle. ‘Uh-oh. No, no, no. Sshh, sshh, shhh …’ Silence filled the line once again.

Maybe this is just a prank, Georgia told herself. Maybe it’s just a kid messing around. She’d fielded dozens and dozens of pranks in her career – most of them being made at sleepovers with giggly adolescents whose parents never taught them that dialing 911 wasn’t some kind of a joke.

A soft thud sounded in the background. Georgia hesitated for just a moment and then started again. ‘Hello? Hello? Are you still there?’ She stood up in her seat to signal her supervisor so he could pickup the line and listen, but he was away from his cubicle, which was clear across the room. In fact, dozens of cubicles were empty on the floor. Oddly enough, the hours between 3 p.m. and midnight were the busiest for emergency dispatchers – rush-hour accidents, people getting home from work all stressed and taking it out on their family and friends. The graveyard shift was supposed to be the quiet one. ‘Hello? Is there someone on the line?’ Georgia demanded. ‘Is there anyone there? This is the emergency operator.’

‘No, no,’ said the broken whisper, starting to cry once more. ‘Oh, no, no, no, please …’

Georgia stared at the screen in front of her, her heart beating fast. The house continued to flash at her, glowing ghostly white in the dark seclusion of her cubby.

Epilogue

‘Excuse me?’ Tap, tap, tap. ‘Hello there? Is anybody home?’

Julia looked up from the stack of accordion files, notices, motions and A-forms she’d been trying to sort through on her overcrowded desk. She still wasn’t quite sure where everything was, or where it should go, and judging by the size of the mess in front of her, she was beginning to realize that might take weeks. What a homecoming. Now, standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, with one hand resting on an oversized hip, was her new secretary, and she didn’t look very happy. With her free hand, she impatiently tapped long red fingernails against the open door.

‘Hey,’ Julia answered back slowly, smiling. She thought her name was Linda or Lurinda. Maybe Lucinda. But there had been so many new faces to remember these past few days that she couldn’t be certain, and she was well past the point of being able to ask again. Judging from the recent exchange of pleasantries, she was guessing her new secretary might have no idea what her name was either. There was an awkward momentary pause.

‘There’s a lady here to see you,’ the Unknown Secretary finally said.

‘Is she my one o’clock?’

‘No. She’s set for a pre-file on Wednesday upstairs with Tessie Savastano.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Julia said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know Tessie. Who’s she?’ She felt embarrassed. Again. She’d been gone less than a year, but the players were all different now. Besides the usual lightning-quick ASA turnover rate, the new State Attorney, Steve Besson, had cleaned house. Even the support staff had changed places and faces. Funny how he’d managed to find the same personality quirks in the new ones, Julia thought.

‘Tessie’s the C in Spivac, which is Leonard Farley’s old division. The lady outside said you got her case, though.’

‘I was in Judge Farley’s division before I left the office. Can you tell her that I’m not in that division anymore and that Tessie Savas—’ she attempted, then cleared her throat, ‘tell her that another attorney will be handling her case?’

‘I did. I told her she had to see the attorney who’s doin’ her pre-file. She still wants to see you, though, and she don’t wanna leave.’ Lurinda or Lucinda rubbed her nose with one of her ultra-long nails and raised her eyes up to heaven. The zillion gold bracelets on her arm chimed. ‘She looks like one of our victims, anyway,’ she said, her lip curling in distaste.

Our victims. Welcome to the Domestic Crimes Unit. The only specialized unit at the State Attorney’s Office with readily identifiable victims. You couldn’t spot a robbery or fraud victim from a mile off, but an abused woman gave off more than a few signs.

Julia shrugged and nodded. ‘Okay, then. I guess you can bring her in. I’ll see if I can help her.’

The Unknown Secretary let out an exasperated sigh and walked off. ‘Whatever,’ she mumbled, flashing Julia the back of her hand. Julia wasn’t quite sure what she was mad about, but her attitude was strangely comforting. After all, she’d worried for weeks when she decided to come back that people might coddle her or treat her differently. That was the last thing she wanted. So rudeness and unprofessional indifference was somehow refreshing.

She sipped at her coffee and looked around at the bare industrial-gray walls of her new office, pockmarked and nicked with holes and scratches and screws left behind by its many previous occupants. It had probably been years since the walls had seen a new coat of paint. It would probably be a few more before they would again. Still stacked on the floor against the file cabinet were her framed law-school and undergraduate diplomas, her license to practice law from the Florida Supreme Court and her original Oath of Office from when she was first sworn in as an Assistant State Attorney in 2002 under Jerry Tigler. She had yet to frame the new one.

Next to her diplomas, in two cardboard boxes, was everything else she had once used to turn four walls and a desk into her own slice of home. Her coffee machine, pictures, knick-knacks, books, more pictures, a clock, her small TV and a radio. The boxes and diplomas had sat there going on a week now, and she wasn’t sure now if she’d ever actually hang them up. Only a couple of pictures had so far made it out of the box. One was of Andrew. The other was her and Lat at the entrance to Yellowstone National Park a couple of months back. That sat on top of her desk, in front of all the mess. It reminded her what she was lucky enough to go home to every night.

John hadn’t wanted her to go back. Ever. He’d made that clear from the second they’d gotten back to Miami, when his vacation time was finally up. He made that clear every hour or so when he called to see how she was doing. Even though Rick Bellido was long gone – along with Charley Rifkin and most of the rest of the office after the elections – Lat knew better than anyone that it definitely didn’t mean the stress was. The cases still were what they were. The defendants were still criminals. The system was still irretrievably broken. And while she’d responded very well to medication and was faithful, so far, in taking all of her pills everyday, she knew he was worried. Worried about a relapse. Worried she would stop being compliant for some reason and it would be even worse than before. Worried she would become a negative, hopeless statistic, and he wouldn’t be able to reach her next time. Worried, maybe, that their time together might be limited.

He’d begged her to reconsider, but she couldn’t stay home and collect disability, even if the law and the doctors said she could. She would always be running from her illness – always have to – hoping to be three steps ahead of it. Hoping to maybe outsmart it, if there was such a thing. She knew that to have come this far in recovery, she was already one of the lucky ones. If she gave in to the idea that she was sick – that she was broken or didn’t work right – she knew it would consume her. Totally consume her. And if she tried selling flowers on the side of the road or answering phones for a living just to live an okay, stress-free life, for her, that would also mean that it had won. It. Schizophrenia. Even another field of law was out of the question. She’d only ever wanted to be a prosecutor.

Lat had suggested, and she’d considered, another county, like Broward or Palm Beach, or maybe even the Keys, where she could be back in a criminal courtroom, but with a third of the caseload and no drama or office history to cart along as baggage, but she’d chosen to come back to Miami. When the new State Attorney – an ex-Miami-Dade cop-turned-lawyer-turned-prosecutor-turned-judge who was a personal friend of John’s – afforded her that opportunity, she took it. But now, with a pile of new cases in front of her, a new boss and a bunch of new judges to familiarize herself with, she suddenly wasn’t so sure about the decision she’d once been so sure about.

A few minutes later, there was another tap at the door. A young, slim black woman stood just outside in the hall, a baby balanced on her hip, and a whining toddler wrapped around her legs. Julia sucked in a breath, but hoped she didn’t actually make a sound.

Even from ten feet or so away, she could see the ugly white and pink lines that criss-crossed the woman’s face. Keloids had formed over the jagged scars, creating a grotesque network of white, raised lines that looked like termite mud tubes. It was impossible to say if she had once been a pretty woman. Julia noticed that one of her eyes was swollen shut as well.

‘Pamela,’ Julia said quietly, before the woman could say anything. ‘Pamela Johnson.’

‘You remember me?’ she asked.

Julia nodded, rising from her seat. ‘Come in, sit. Did Letray do that, too?’ she asked, motioning to the woman’s eye.

‘Yeah. He got mad again. He always gits mad. But this time was worse. He tried to kill me. Said I was too ugly to touch no mo’. Said he was gonna do the job right this time. He just lost his job again.’

Julia said nothing for a moment. ‘What was he charged with?’

‘Aggravated battery, I think. He hit me with my momma’s iron skillet.’

‘Is he in custody?’

‘Just made bond last night, I heard. I’m stayin’ at my sista’s house. Till he comes lookin’. She can’t keep me there if that happens, though.’

‘I think the case is upstairs with another prosecutor, Pamela. Her name is Tessie—’

Pamela shook her head. ‘I been thinking ’bout what you said last time. You know, the last time Letray went off.’ She paused. ‘You kept him in jail last time.’

There was no sense in sugar-coating the reason why. ‘But you didn’t help me. He got out, Pamela.’

‘I know, I know,’ Pamela finally said, shaking her head, and wiping tears from her good eye. ‘And, well, you’re the only one who made any sense, miss. I shoulda listened to ya. I got babies to take care of and the man’s gonna kill me. I know it. You were right. My momma says I ain’t got no one to complain to. Says I should have left him long ago. Says no one’s gonna want me now, anyways. That I might as well put up with Letray beatin’ on me, ’cause I ain’t gonna do no better.’ The toddler at her knee pulled on her skirt, trying to climb up on her lap. The baby pushed him away with a palm to the face. That started everyone crying.

‘Don’t believe that.’

‘Look at me,’ Pamela said quietly, putting the little one over her shoulder. She hushed the toddler with her free hand, rubbing his head.

There was a long silence.

‘I know you fought for me last time and, well, I want you to fight for me ’gain,’ Pamela said finally, wiping the tears defiantly from her face. ‘I don’t want to do this no mo’. I want him to pay.’

Julia looked hard at Pamela Johnson. At twenty-three she had two kids, no job, no future and a face full of ugly scars. She was being hunted by the devil disguised as a man and shunned not just by a cruel society who didn’t understand, but by her own family. It was hard to imagine life getting much worse than that. For Julia, it put her own daily challenges in perspective.

She looked at the smiling picture of Andrew on her desk, the one she had taken at Kirby one afternoon in the late-winter sun. Beside it was the picture he’d drawn of her. She’d looked at them every single day since he’d died – even in the hospital – and she vowed to never again forget. No matter how frightened she might be of the future.

She nodded at Pamela Johnson. ‘We’ll need to start with your statement,’ she said quietly, looking down at the blank notepad in front of her, blinking back tears herself. ‘And remember,’ she said, softly. ‘This isn’t going to be easy.’

Author’s Epilogue and Acknowledgements

She wondered if the voices did come for her, would she know they weren’t real? Would she know the difference between a DJ on the radio and a phantom?

In my second year of law school a good friend’s brother was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. ‘Mark’ was twenty-six when he started hearing voices in his head. Voices that whispered of violent mob conspiracies and warned of treachery and collusion everywhere, even among family and friends. Voices that never quieted, that got louder and more desperate once the sun went down. According to my girlfriend, there was no bizarre childhood to report, no telltale warning signs of mental illness that had always plagued her brother, made him a misfit or labeled him as odd. He was just an ordinary, affable guy trying to finish college, with a bright future, a girlfriend, and a baby on the way. For anyone who knew him, news of Mark’s illness was as shocking as a diagnosis of lung cancer in a young man his age.

Fortunately, Mark himself was able to recognize that something had gone terribly wrong inside his head and, with the help of his family, voluntarily checked himself into a psychiatric hospital. Although the onset of his psychotic symptoms was relatively quick, the initial long-term prognosis was good for him. Mark was discharged a couple of weeks later and sent home on antipsychotic medication.

Sadly, though, my friend’s story didn’t end there. In fact, for ‘Tina’, a real life nightmare was only just beginning. Like a scene from a twisted soap opera, as her brother lay medicated in a hospital psych ward, surrounded by psychiatrists and protected by padded walls, Tina was just outside the door being let in on a dark family secret: Mark wasn’t the only one in the family with schizophrenia.

The news was devastating. Throughout our last year of law school, Tina struggled to learn all she could about the debilitating mental disorder that had seemingly ravaged her family. A mental disorder that no one wants to talk about. That good families just like hers strive to keep hidden and out of sight, stashed away with the other skeletons and dirty linen in the proverbial family closet. And that was when Tina first discovered the terrifying facts about schizophrenia. There is no known cause. There is no clinical test, like an MRI or a CAT scan or a blood test, which can definitively diagnose the disease. There is no cure. But there was one consistent statistical anomaly that my friend just could not ignore.

Although doctors don’t know why, and scientists have not yet identified a ‘schizophrenia gene’, schizophrenia runs in families. And with each family member afflicted, the risk of another relative developing the disease rises dramatically. So at the age of twenty-four, with her whole life in front of her, my friend had to cope with the very real possibility that she, too, might one day develop schizophrenia. That she, too, might one day ‘go insane’. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. I couldn’t imagine anything more terrifying.

Except for a friend who’d struggled with anorexia in her teens, before Tina told me her family story I’d never known anyone with a serious mental illness – at least, no one who would admit it. And I’d definitely never known anyone who had schizophrenia – the Mother of All Bad Mental Illnesses. Russell Crowe hadn’t yet played the brilliant John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. And Geoffrey Rush hadn’t yet mastered Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto as Australian pianist David Helfgott in Shine. Unlike alcoholism or drug addiction – or even depression, as of late – schizophrenia is not, and will never be, a ‘vogue’ mental illness. No one talks about it. No one wants to talk about it. The social stigma associated with the disease is still far too heavy and damaging to careers and relationships. In fact, when Tina first told me about her brother, the only people who came to mind that I had heard of with schizophrenia were far more infamous and deadly than any gifted musician or mathematician catapulted to celebrity by brilliant screenwriters and talented actors. Like most people, I was ignorant of the facts.

I didn’t know schizophrenia affects one percent of the world’s population. I didn’t know 2.2 million Americans have the disease. I didn’t know that that’s more than those afflicted with AIDS, multiple sclerosis and ALS (motor neurone disease) combined. I didn’t know that schizophrenia is an organic brain disease. And, perhaps most important, I didn’t know that schizophrenics are not always psychotic and they’re not always aggressive or dangerous.

After graduation, I left New York to begin my career as a prosecutor with the State Attorney’s Office in Miami. Not less than five minutes after stepping through the courthouse doors, like it or not, my eyes were forced open to the very real, sad fact that mental illness – in varying degrees and with differing diagnoses – goes with the criminal justice system like pickle relish on a sub. It’s a condiment that’s not on every slice of bread, but it’s on a lot more sandwiches than you’d think. And I came to understand that for those who suffer from severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia and manic depression, and for their distraught families, that system can seem like a cruel revolving door, particularly for those whose illnesses cause them to resist help and refuse medication. Many self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. Many end up homeless.

As I hope I made clear in Plea of Insanity, not every violent crime is committed by someone who is mentally ill. And not every mentally ill person commits violent crimes. As a former prosecutor and police attorney, I can tell you that there are some unbelievably heinous or atrocious crimes that simply defy explanation, that leave victims and cops and relatives screaming for an answer to the question, ‘Why?’ So I must impress here that there’s a definite distinction from the thought disorders in a schizophrenic that may cause him or her to act violently, and the evil acts of a psychopath simply devoid of conscience. The latter is far more dangerous and unpredictable.

A little over a year after his initial hospitalization, as is typical for many schizophrenics, Mark stopped taking his meds and suffered a second psychotic break. While caught up in the terrifying web of the same bizarre delusion that had sent him to the hospital before, he slit his wrists and then drowned his baby in the bathtub. Mark lived, but his son did not. To understand the insidious disease that infected a young father’s mind and chewed away at his thinking till it was frayed like an electrical cord was to know that Mark never intended to murder his child. He was truly a sick man who was not responsible for his actions. And after lengthy discovery and consultation with the family, the State agreed as well. Mark was found not responsible and sent to a maximum-security forensic psychiatric hospital to get the help he needed.

My friend’s tragic story haunted me for years until I finally decided to write Plea of Insanity. I wanted to pen a courtroom novel that was psychologically thrilling, and yet, at the same time, sympathetic to those who suffer from this frightening disease and their families. I wanted to entertain, but I also wanted to educate, because that’s the real key to understanding and eradicating the ignorance that fuels the stigmas associated with mental illness. To accomplish that goal, I needed to make sure that the fictional tale I told was medically and legally accurate, which, of course, demanded tremendous amounts of research as well as the generous assistance of many people who donated their time, wisdom and insight to this project, and to all of whom I owe a great deal of thanks, especially, in no particular order, to Dr Jim Hicks, MD, Director of Psychiatric Services at Kirby Forensic Hospital, and the entire staff at Kirby, including former Chief of Safety and Security, James C. Gilbride, and Chief of Secure Hospital Therapy Assistants, Anthony E. Rouse; Dr Thomas Macaluso, MD, Medical Director of Psychiatric Services, Memorial Health System; Mr Dean Mynks, Director of Case Management, Henderson Mental Health Clinic; Dr Reinhard Motte, Assistant Medical Examiner, Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office; Kathleen Hoague, Chief Assistant, Felony Division, Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and Gail Levine, Senior Trial Attorney, Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, the SAO’s resident experts on insanity pleas; Janet Gleeson, Assistant District Attorney, Brooklyn County District Attorney’s Office, New York; Special Agents Eddie Royal, Larry Masterson and Chris Vastine with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who always answer the phone for me; Greg Cowsert, Esq., Regional Legal Advisor, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Tampa Regional Operations Center; Anita Gay, Assistant United States Attorney, Legal Advisor for the Professional Responsibility Advisory Office; Douglas Donoho, Esq., Professor of Law, Nova Southeastern School of Law; Esther Jacobo, Division Chief, Domestic Crimes Unit, Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office; Priscilla Stroze, Division Chief, Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office; Julie Hogan, Assistant State Attorney, Office of Statewide Prosecution; Marie Perikles, Esq., Office of the Inspector General; Mr Tyrone Dean and Mr Richard Gagnon for their precious insight; Marta Marquez, Police Complaint Officer, Miami-Dade Police Department for a great tour of the Communications Bureau; and, finally, of course, to my amazing friend Tina for having the strength to share her story. Extra special thanks go to great friends Marie Ryan, Esq., Assistant Commissioner, New York City Police Department, and Joanne Marchionne, MSW, who offered up their time, comments and encouragement without hesitation when I know they had a zillion other things to do, and for my unbelievably supportive husband, Rich, who not only read the same sentences phrased a dozen different ways, but always listened. Over and over and over again. Last, but not least, thanks go out to my mom, Thea Pellman – my human thesaurus and recollector of strange trivia and odd facts – and, of course, my dad, John Pellman, who’s always the very first to offer to read a work in progress and always says it’s perfect.

I hope you enjoyed the read and I hope you indeed found it thrilling. Although part of the storyline for Plea of Insanity was inspired by Tina and Mark, I am happy to say that the story is not Mark’s. Nor is it Tina’s. Released from a state psychiatric facility several years ago, Mark continues to take his medication and is fortunately doing quite well. He lives on his own, supports himself and has a job. He is not a violent man. Tina, who thankfully never developed schizophrenia herself, has had a successful career and is busy raising a family of her own. Brother and sister remain extremely close. They pray daily for a cure.

For more information on schizophrenia or other mental illnesses, please contact the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), Colonial Place Three, 2107 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300, Arlington, VA 22201 – 3042, or to find a local NAMI chapter, call 1-800-950-NAMI or visit their website at www.nami.org. Or contact NARSAD, the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders, at 60 Cutter Mill Road, Suite 404, Great Neck, New York 11021, (800) 829-8289 or visit their website at www.narsad.org. Other helpful websites that offer information about schizophrenia, including symptoms, treatment and support groups, include www.schizophrenia.com and www.support4hope.com and www.webMD.com.

1

The old Spanish house sat back away from the street, nestled behind lush tropical foliage and towering palms. Halloween decorations dotted a manicured front lawn, where a six-foot-tall, black-hooded Grim Reaper waited menacingly to scare trick-or-treaters from a flower bed filled with impatiens. Home-made ghosts with magic-markered black eyes dangled from the branches of an oak tree, twisting and turning in the gusty breeze that had come in overnight, courtesy of an early-season cold front. In the fast-fading moonlight they glowed an odd, bright white. Somewhere up the block a dog barked, as night yawned into morning.

The short whoop of a police siren broke the sleepy predawn quiet as it turned onto Sorolla Avenue from Granada. Coral Gables PO Pete Colonna ignored the long driveway and instead pulled the cruiser over at the curb. Stepping out of the car, he surveyed the house for a moment and then made his way up the winding brick walkway to the front door, past scattered sticks of sidewalk chalk and an abandoned tricycle. When he spotted the little bike with silver racing stripes he moved a little faster. He rang the bell and pounded on an impressive oak front door. He could hear the loud chimes inside, but no one answered.

‘8362, Gables,’ Pete said into his shoulder mike.

‘Go ahead, 8362.’

‘10-97 at nine-eight-five Sorolla. There’s no response.’

‘Stand by, 8362.’ After a moment the dispatcher with the Coral Gables PD came back on. ‘Bell South has checked the line. It’s open, but there’s no conversation. They’re not getting an answer.’

‘I don’t hear any ringing from inside.’

As Pete looked the front door up and down, the voice of his sergeant crackled to life on the radio pack. ‘8362, this is 998. Go to channel two.’ Channel two was the talk-around channel, where they could speak without going through dispatch.

Pete switched over. ‘Go ahead, Sarge.’

‘What have you got?’ asked his sergeant.

‘I’m checking the residence,’ Pete said as he moved about the front yard. ‘There’s no broken windows or evidence of a break-in that I can see, but …’ he hesitated.

‘Yeah?’

‘Something don’t feel right, Sarge.’

There was a pause. ‘Alright. Trust your gut. I’ll come now, then.’

‘I’m gonna take the door.’

‘The hell you are. Stand down. Wait for me,’ his sergeant said sternly.

Pete looked through shrubbery that hid a black iron fence and back gate. Forgotten toys drifted lazily across a still pool. ‘Kids live here,’ he said. Pete’s wife was pregnant. In just a few weeks he would have two little ones of his own.

‘Wait for me. Don’t go in there alone, Colonna. You may find a confused homeowner with a shotgun in his hand that didn’t hear the doorbell. 10-23 for back-up. I’m there in five.’

Pete clicked back over to dispatch. His sergeant’s voice radioed in. ‘998 is 10-51 to 8362’s location from the University of Miami. Five-minute ETA.’

Pete walked back around to the front of the house where he spotted the tricycle again. Mounted next to the front door he noticed a hand-carved ‘Welcome Home’ plaque. An uneasy, anxious feeling began to spread through his chest.

It seemed like a lifetime, and definitely more than five minutes, before he heard the squad car pull down the residential street and up to the curb. Sergeant Demos was a large man, and with just weeks to go before his retirement party, things moved at a considerably slower pace for him. It took more than a few moments for him to get out of the car and lumber up the walk.

‘Still nothing, Colonna?’ he asked.

‘Nah, Sarge. No sign of life.’

‘The hang-up was a kid, right? Could be a prank,’ Demos said, scratching at his lumpy, bald head. ‘Great. Everyone’s in bed except for junior. Kid’s sweating it out right now, watching us from behind Bugs Bunny curtains,’ he finished, looking up at the dark windows above.

Pete shook his head. ‘Line’s alive, but there’s no ringing. No one’s answering the door. I got a feeling.’

‘You and your feelings. I got a feeling you’re looking for some OT, what with all the reports you’ll be writing.’ The sergeant used his asp to bang on the door. ‘Police! Anybody home?’ After a moment, he looked at Pete again. ‘Any history on the house?’

‘Not that I know of. Dispatch didn’t say and I know I ain’t been here before,’ he said, looking around at the stately homes that lined the block. ‘Nice ’hood.’

‘Don’t let the address fool you, Junior. O.J. lived in Beverly Hills.’

‘Actually, I think it was Brentwood.’

‘Same damn difference. The point I was trying to make was domestics happen everywhere. You’d do good to remember that.’ Demos sighed. ‘A little kid? Alright. Minimal damage. Take the pane. The City’s paying for it, so don’t go nuts.’

Using his flashlight, Pete broke out one pane of the frosted, etched glass that framed the front door, reached in and unlocked the lock. The scream of an ear-piercing alarm sounded when the door opened.

‘Well, if everyone was sleeping, they ain’t no more,’ shouted his sergeant. ‘Give it a second.’ They stood together on the front stoop with the door wide open, but no one appeared.

Dispatch came back on the radio. ‘8362, 998. Be advised we have ADT on the line. We have an audible alarm at your location.’

‘10-4,’ said Demos, ‘998 and 8362 have made entry through the front door. Has the homeowner called in for nine-one-one response?’

‘Negative, 998. Still no answer on the line.’

The sergeant nodded at Pete. ‘Alright. Let’s go in.’

‘Coral Gables Police! Is everyone okay in here?’ Pete yelled into the dark house. He pulled his Glock and stepped inside, his sergeant breathing heavy behind him. Shards of glass from the windowpane crunched under his feet.

Twenty-foot ceilings loomed over a beautifully decorated formal living room. A staircase zigzagged up a sidewall and an ornate iron railing stretched across an overhead balcony. Past the balcony and down the upstairs hallway Pete could see a light was on. ‘Police!’ he yelled again, competing with the scream of the alarm.

They moved quickly through the first-floor rooms. Laundry sat piled on a washing machine and toys cluttered the family room. In the kitchen, cleaned baby bottles were lined up neatly next to the sink on paper towels.

The alarm suddenly stopped. Dispatch had probably told ADT that officers were at the location. Now the house seemed too large and too quiet. Pete thought of the baby bottles and a feeling of pure panic squeezed his chest.

‘Coral Gables Police!’ Demos yelled. Still nothing.

Pete ran for the stairs. Behind him he could hear the labored breathing of his sergeant as he tried to keep up – the jingle of the cumbersome equipment belt under the sarge’s well-endowed belly, the heavy clicking of his heels on the stone steps. Retirement probably seemed a lifetime away at that moment.

At the top landing, Pete’s feet touched padded carpet. Light spilled softly into the hallway from a backroom whose door was partly closed. It grew brighter and brighter as he made his way down the hall. Family pictures smiled at him from every angle. All the other hall doors were shut tight.

‘Anything?’ called Demos, still on the stairs.

Pete moved down the hall toward the open door. Like in a movie under the hand of an artful director, select pieces of the room slowly came into view. Colorful butterflies danced across a bright purple wall. A Hello Kitty mirror. A wall plaque that spelled out EMMA. The edge of a Disney Princess comforter. ‘Kid’s room,’ he called out.

‘What the fuck did you step in?’ Demos asked suddenly.

Pete looked down. Behind him in the faint light he saw the dark smear of footprints where he had just walked. Red drops spotted the pink carpet before him that led into what was obviously a little girl’s room.

‘Jesus Christ!’ the sergeant said, answering his own question.

Suddenly Pete wanted to stop. He didn’t want to see anymore. A sick, unfamiliar feeling churned his stomach and sweat dribbled off his forehead. For instinctively he knew that what he was about to witness was something he would probably spend the rest of his life trying to forget. He took a deep breath and pressed his head against the wall, his firearm out before him at the ready. His hands shook and he thought for a moment of his wife and the two perfect, innocent babies he had not yet met. From the sonogram he knew they were both girls. Madison and McKenzie were going to be their names. ‘Police!’ he shouted again, struggling to hide the slight tremble in his voice.

Then he entered the room and completely fell apart.

2

The scream of sirens exploded throughout the county, their deafening, high-pitched wails growing louder as they seemingly closed in from every direction on Sorolla. A blur of police cruisers, both marked and unmarked, raced down the sleepy street, until within minutes, the entire block was ablaze in blue and red flashing lights. Uniformed officers with the Coral Gables and Miami-Dade police departments crawled over the lawns and sidewalks, jabbering into their handhelds simultaneously, and the fading night air was electrified with the crackle of static and police jargon. Neighbors, most still dressed in their pajamas, began to slowly seep out of their homes and gather in small clumps on the sidewalk, staring from a comfortable distance at the exploding scene down the block. Clutching their robes in modesty and against a brisk wind, they chatted nervously among themselves, half-listening to each other as they craned their necks to watch the frenzied commotion unfold in front of the home of Dr David Marquette and his pretty wife, Jennifer. Some finally made their way down the block, where wooden police horses and yellow crime-scene tape held them back off the sidewalk. A Channel Ten news van pulled up across the street, followed by one from Channel Seven. And more police cars.

Sergeant Ralph Demos sat in the majestic living room on the floral-print couch, the stone staircase with its ornate railing looming high above him. He wiped his head with a paper towel, but the perspiration just would not stop. He wished at that moment that he hadn’t quit smoking ten years back. Or drinking. Cops, it seemed, were everywhere and still coming. Upstairs, half a dozen uniforms stood guard outside the bedroom doors while Crime Scene techs with Miami-Dade PD snapped their photos. Bright flashes of light exploded in the hallway above him.

‘Looks like they’re bringing the County in,’ said Carlos Sanchez, a road sergeant with Coral Gables, as he watched another crime-scene tech in a MDPD windbreaker walk past and head upstairs. ‘I saw Steve Brill head into the kitchen before. He’s with Persons,’ Sanchez said, looking past the hallway that led to the kitchen where detectives were now interviewing Pete Colonna. ‘But I bet Miami-Dade’s gonna send Homicide.’ The Persons Crime Squad was the Coral Gables detective unit that handled crimes against persons, like robbery or sexual assault. The Gables didn’t have a Homicide Squad. ‘I heard Brill can be a prick, but only if you’re sleeping with him,’ the sergeant said lightly.

‘Don’t know him,’ murmured Demos, unable to take his eyes off the stairs. Every time the flashbulb would flash, the camera would make a loud, high-pitched hum that softly faded off. Fingerprint techs had begun their handiwork in the front hall, and fine black soot covered everything. To Ralph Demos, the air tasted heavy and bitter on his tongue; a taste he feared might never go away. In the kitchen he could hear the detectives talking with Pete Colonna, who was still crying.

‘You okay there, Ralph?’ Sanchez asked with a frown. ‘You want me to get one of them EMTs down here to take a look at you?’

‘Poor kid,’ said Ralph, running a trembling hand over his sweaty head and looking back toward the kitchen. ‘He saw it first. I mean, I knew it was gonna be bad when I saw all that blood, but he’s only been on the force, what? A year?’

‘His wife’s due with their first,’ said Sanchez, shaking his head. ‘I think that’s why it hit him hard.’

‘Twins. I know. I just heard.’

‘Pete’ll be okay. Psych will take care of him if he needs it.’

‘He will. Christ, he will. He wanted to take the door when he first got on scene. I told him to stand down and wait. Maybe it would’ve made a difference …’ Demos’s voice tapered off and Sanchez said nothing.

Two men wearing blue windbreakers that read MIAMI-DADE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE in bright white letters walked through the front door. With a somber nod they headed backup the stairs. The ME himself was already on scene. Ralph watched them go up.

‘Who found the father?’ asked Sanchez, forcing his friend back to the living room.

‘Me,’ Ralph said softly. ‘Is he gonna make it?’

‘Don’t know. He looked pretty fucked up. They’re taking him to Ryder.’ Ryder Trauma Center was a part of the University of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital in downtown Miami.

‘Goddamn,’ Ralph mumbled and shook his head. ‘Anybody else?’

Sanchez said nothing again, just looked at the floor.

Ralph fought back the tears. ‘A whole family,’ he said. ‘What kind of animal would do this shit? What kind of world are we living in?’

Sanchez waited a moment, watching big Ralph Demos wipe buckets of sweat off his pale head. He looked like he was gonna drop. ‘You gonna be okay, Ralph?’

‘Me? I’m outta here in a few weeks. Hell, maybe now I’ll go tomorrow. But Colonna, see, he’s just started, Carlos. He’s got to deal with this shit for another twenty-four if he wants to go out on eighty percent.’ Ralph paused and wiped his head again. A white flash exploded from the hall upstairs and the familiar hum softly faded off. The shuffle of footsteps sounded again on the stone steps above him.

‘God, this job sucks,’ was all Carlos Sanchez could think of to say as big Ralph began to cry. Then he watched in silence as the two men in the ME windbreakers carried the first of the small blackbody bags downstairs and out the front door.

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat. ‘We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Jilliane Hoffman

PLEA OF INSANITY

Contents

PENGUIN BOOKS

Prologue

THE BEGINNING

Epilogue

Author’s Epilogue and Acknowledgements

Bibliography

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