Mercy Read online

  "Mr. MacPhee," the psychiatrist said, "what brings you to me?"

  Graham swallowed. "I need you to determine if Jamie knew the nature and the quality of the act he committed. Basically, if he understood the consequences of smothering his wife, if he knew it was wrong, that sort of thing."

  "I don't know if I can fit my evaluation into your legal standards."

  Graham felt his face burning a dull red. He had no doubt that if he'd breezed in here and said he was changing the plea, Harrison Harding would have done cartwheels to get his name connected with the case. "You thought I was coming to ask you advice about a euthanasia defense."

  The doctor nodded, then sighed. "Let me tell you about myself," he said. "My wife and three-year-old daughter were shot by a sniper who went berserk at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Chicago. My daughter died immediately; my wife lasted on life support for over three years, fed through a nose tube and wearing a diaper, shrinking away until she was so unrecognizable I could not be entirely sure she was the same person. Out of this came my need to be able to control death."

  Graham sat forward, transfixed. "You didn't kill her."

  "That doesn't mean I didn't want to. Or that I don't think other people should have that right."

  Graham picked a Rice Chex out of the mix on the table and ran his finger around its rough edges. "Then you should have quite a lot to discuss with Jamie."

  For a long moment, neither man said anything. Finally the psychiatrist stood up and walked to the window. "I can't promise you anything, and I can't make judgments without having seen Mr. MacDonald," he said. "On the other hand, there are things you might consider. Impulsive behavior in Jamie's past, for instance. Is he the kind of man who packs up a suitcase and flies standby to Fiji for the hell of it? Or would he buy his tickets six months in advance for the price break? And there's also the psychiatric concept of regression, which suggests that under a period of extreme pressure the mind would revert to the state of a child."

  Graham dug his notebook out of his jacket pocket and began to write down these terms. "There's a theory that suggests Jamie's personality may have been so fragile he would mentally bind himself to someone else," Harding said. "It's called a fusion fantasy. He was actually, in his mind, feeling the same pain that was affecting his wife. By killing her to end her suffering, he was ending his own suffering as well."

  "That's probably right on the head," Graham said, "but I don't think it will hold up in court."

  The doctor turned around, lost in thought. "In extreme cases, undue stress can lead to a psychotic episode. Think of the Vietnam vets who came back with PTSD--post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of them relive battles regularly. There have been a few instances of murder, when afflicted patients killed someone close by who, in their minds at the time, was VC."

  Graham's eyebrows raised. "Will you see Jamie?"

  Harding nodded. "I assumed you'd brought him for more than company on a long drive." He crossed to the door and opened it, gesturing to Jamie, who leaped to his feet like a puppy too long confined. "Mr. MacDonald," Harding said, shaking his hand. "I've been following your case."

  Jamie glanced from Graham to Harding and back to Graham again. He sat down and belligerently crossed his arms over his chest. "I suppose you're going to want me to lie down and talk about my mother."

  "No," Harding replied. He sat on the corner of his desk and reached for a small tape recorder, which he held out to Jamie for inspection. "You don't mind?" He pushed the record button, and let the dead air fill the room. Then he looked at Jamie. "I'm going to ask you some questions, yes," he said. "But first I'd like to tell you about my wife."

  Cam was flipping through the past repair receipts of the Wheelock police cruisers when his mother walked into the station. He had not seen her since that unfortunate intrusion a week before, and he knew she had spoken to Allie since and had kept her silence. Allie had told him a few nights before that Ellen had called to say she wouldn't be able to make it to Christmas dinner; an old friend from a Vermont commune had invited her for a country celebration. "I can't say I'm not disappointed," Allie had said, "but how can we possibly compete with horse-drawn sleighs and a seance?"

  Ellen stood in the doorway of his office, carrying two festively wrapped gifts. "Merry Christmas," she said, her mouth turned down at the corners.

  "Merry Christmas," he murmured, keeping his eyes glued to his desk. He cleared his throat and stood up, jamming his hands into his pockets. "I heard you're going away for Christmas."

  She nodded. "To the Peace of Living Community. A woman I met in a Shiatsu class a year ago set it up on her eighty-acre farm when her husband passed away." She dumped the gifts onto the desk unceremoniously. "I invited myself. I couldn't possibly look Allie in the eye," she said. "God only knows how you do it day after day."

  Cam forced himself to look directly at her. "I'm going to tell her. I am. But I'm not giving Mia up, either."

  "And has anyone told Mia how foolish it is to run away with a man who's run away from somebody else?" She shook her head. "History repeats."

  Ellen straightened her spine and touched the two gifts sitting on Cam's desk. "The skinny one is yours," she said. "I think you should open it while I'm here."

  Cam slowly ripped the jolly green paper and the circus of ribbons that garnished its top. Inside was a handmade broom with a woven thatch of straw on one end and a carved face at the top of its sassafras wood handle. "A broom?" he said.

  Ellen touched the leather thong that had been punched through its neck as a loop. "You're supposed to give a broom to a new couple for luck," she said. "Well, that's fitting, because even if I wish it wasn't happening quite this way, I still want you to be happy, Cam." She pointed to the face, the tiny image of a wizened, grizzled old man. "That's a tree spirit. It guides your spiritual cleansing."

  She laid a hand on her son's arm. "If God had wanted us to act on instinct, we wouldn't have the power of reason." She drew him down and took him into an embrace, so that Cam could smell the familiar curl of peppermint drops and Fantastik and Chanel No. 5 that had laced through his childhood. He gave in to the urge to sink against his mother. "Promise me," Ellen said, "that this time you'll think twice."

  Mia opened the gift box to find a wool scarf bright with the Carrymuir MacDonald tartan. "Thanks," she said, looping it around her wrist. She glanced at Allie and smiled, thinking, What is this supposed to mean? Does she know?

  "I didn't get you anything," Mia said. "I'm sorry." Allie grinned. "I certainly wasn't expecting anything. If it makes you feel better, consider this a Christmas bonus for taking over while I was helping out with Jamie's defense. I would have had to close the shop, otherwise."

  Mia laughed nervously. It was the day after Christmas, a slow day they would use to reorganize the stock and tidy up the shop, which had been strewn with velvet ribbon and overturned boxes of votives in the mad rush to do over sixty holiday arrangements.

  She had not seen Cam on Christmas Day. Only briefly, on Christmas Eve, when he'd come to pick up Allie. They were supposed to be celebrating tonight. She did not know what excuse he was planning to use. Allie began to move around the shop, picking up spools of

  French-wired ribbon and a few floating disks of Oasis that had managed to get overlooked by a broom. She was wearing an obviously new Christmas outfit--pale pink pants and an oversized sweater in shades of gray and white and pink. Her hands kept coming up to her ears, fiddling with a pair of twinkling sapphires. She glanced up at Mia. "Aren't they beautiful?" she said, clearly not expecting an answer. "Cam got them for me."

  "Very pretty." Mia tried to keep her voice steady. "What did you get him?"

  "Oh, things." Allie reached for a broom and leaned her elbow on the handle. "Some casual shirts, a portable CD player, a guitar."

  Mia glanced up. "A guitar? Does he play?"

  Allie smiled. "Not yet. I got him lessons, too. I always wanted a guy who would sing love songs to me."

  Mia walked