Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN
The man and the beautiful woman with the unexpected scar on her cheek kept coming to see her. It must be every couple of days. Alexa wished she could talk to them and explain how much she wanted to die. They spoke in soft, concerned voices when they came, urging her not to give up hope, begging her to talk to them. But the words stayed in her head and refused to go into her mouth. Besides, if she spoke, she’d wake up in hell instead of drifting in the out-of-body world she had managed to retreat to.
Sometimes she could hear Meggie and Sam’s voices calling to her. “Mommy, Mommy. You said you’d come after us, Mommy.”
Was it real or a hallucination? Either way, her heart broke all over again every time she heard them. Did Coleman hit them? She couldn’t bear to think about it. Coleman had been responsible for turning Michael into the monster she’d married.
Mary Moreno had warned her. “I know the Reeds appear very normal and successful on the outside, Alexa. But something isn’t right there. Coleman has a temper, and I think Michael does, too. Watch Myrna when she’s around either of them. She’s afraid. You’re too bright and gifted to get involved with Coleman and Michael Reed. They’ll destroy you.”
Alexa pictured her final appeal as a large stack of documents in front of Justice Moreno. She’d look down at them and stamp “Denied” in enormous capital letters on the top. “Alexa Reed is a fool who deserves to die.”
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Wait, what was the next part? Alexa tried to remember how it felt to share the hymnal with Gramma Beth at church as they sang the hymns. Ah, there it was. That saved a wretch like me. Justice Moreno would say, a blind, foolish wretch who refused to be warned and who didn’t deserve to be saved.
But grace seemed to be coming to her aid. A tall, thin blonde woman with patient green eyes had started appearing with the man and the woman. She, too, begged Alexa to talk to her; and when she didn’t, the woman looked at the man and the woman with sad eyes who wanted to save her and said, “I think they might have to give her meds.” And the man and the woman always, said, “No! No!”
But Alexa knew the answer was yes, yes. But not for the reason the kind blonde woman thought.
* * *
On the last Thursday of August, Jim, Sarah, and Jordan met in the Sarah’s conference room to put the final touches on their preparation for the competency hearing on Tuesday. Sarah sat at the head of the table with Jordan on her left and Jim on her right. They had just come back from their last meeting with Alexa.
“Nothing changes,” Jordan began.
Jim liked her for being a straight shooter, even if she didn’t say the things he and Sarah wanted to hear. Sarah had been right: Jordan knew her stuff and had integrity in a world where many expert witnesses did not. She was tall and lean, in her mid-forties with blonde hair and green eyes that invited confidences. Her husband taught psychology at UCLA, and they had three teenage daughters.
“Agreed.” Sarah sighed. She had dark circles under her eyes, and she wasn’t eating. Jim wondered how many nights she’d spent with David Scott but knew he couldn’t ask.
“I think Alexa is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Jordan began. “When the mind encounters more than it can process, it shuts down.”
“I’m not sure I can use that,” Sarah said. “She kills two people and develops PTSD. Not much of an argument.”
“What if she didn’t kill anyone?” Jim said.
Sarah turned from Jordan to him. “And how am I going to argue that?” She tried not to think of Jim holding Alexa’s tiny, unresponsive hand on all those jail visits. Jealousy was a highly unprofessional emotion, and she didn’t intend to feel it.
“The police report. According to Officer Brent McColly, who was the first person to interview Alexa, she said that she received a phone call from Meggie at 11:15 on June 2. She said Meggie was upset because her father was arguing with a woman, and she could hear blows being struck. Alexa rushed over to Michael’s to find him dead and the children crying. She called 911, and told the dispatcher her children were there and upset, and she was taking them home to Pacific Beach. She gave the 911 operator her address where the police could contact her. She never mentioned Brigman or indicated she knew he was dead. And she made no attempt to leave town. She doesn’t sound very guilty to me.”
“What about the bullets from her Glock in Brigman and Michael?” Sarah frowned.
“That doesn’t prove she killed them. Remember she told the police the gun had been stolen a month before the murders. And according to the ballistics tests, two of the bullets in Brigman didn’t come from Alexa’s Glock.”
Sarah waved her hands impatiently. “You’re grasping at straws. The ballistics report said three bullets in Brigman matched Alexa’s gun. The other two were too deformed to make a judgment about.”
“Will all due respect boss, I have almost twenty years of firearms experience. And there are new reports that say traditional ballistics testing is unreliable.”
“I know all about that.” Sarah’s tone said don’t-tell-me-how-to-do-my-job. “That’s what cross-examination of the state’s expert is for.”
“I think you need to get a defense ballistics expert, too.” Jim realized he was challenging her judgment.
Sarah paused and took a deep breath. “We aren’t here to talk about trial strategy. We’re here to talk about the hearing on Tuesday. Are you willing to give an opinion, Jordan, that she should be committed to the state hospital for treatment until she regains her competency to stand trial?”
“I am,” Jordan said. “I know you said Percy Andrews will insist she can go to trial on psychotropic drugs; and honestly, she is so depressed, they might have to use those to even get her to speak to a psychiatrist. But I do think she needs counseling sessions, in fact, a lot of them, before she can stand trial. Drugging her is only putting a tiny band-aid on her condition.”
* * *
Jim drove Jordan to Solana Beach to meet her 5:10 train to Los Angeles. Sarah remained behind to work on her cross-examination of Percy Andrews.
As Jim swung his black Range Rover onto the I-5 North, Jordan asked, “Have you known Sarah long?”
“Only a month. We ran into each other in a bar in La Jolla one night, and she happened to be looking for an investigator.”
“Sarah never gets involved with anyone.”
Jim glanced quickly over at her and then put his eyes firmly back on the road. “Am I that obvious?”
“I don’t think you are to Sarah. I’ve known her a long time. She’s the most work-oriented person I know. But, yes, I can see you’ve got a thing for her.”
“Has she ever told you how she got that scar on her cheek?”
“Nope.”
“And you’ve always had the good manners not to ask, right?”
“In my profession, we wait to be told. If the client doesn’t want to talk, we wait for her to be ready.”
“Except Percy Andrews isn’t willing to wait for Alexa Reed.”
“Sarah says you know this town. Fair isn’t fair here.”
“True. But I can’t stop getting angry about it at times. And Alexa is so helpless!”
“She brings out your knight in shining armor complex,” Jordan smiled.
“Does she?”
“You were arguing pretty strenuously she’s not guilty.”
“I don’t think she is. Call it a hunch, if you like. But it doesn’t add up. Why call the cops and give them your address if you had just murdered two people?”
“She might be a narcissist and convinced she’s invincible.”
“Even Brigman, who did the psych evals for the custody litigation, didn’t say she was a narcissist. And honestly, I can’t see a narcissist resigning a job at Warrick, Thompson to be a stay-at-home mother of two kids under two.”
“I agree. As the mother of three.”
Jim pulled into the parking lot at the train station and got out to help Jordan with her brief case and overnight bag.
“What time are you arriving on Monday? I’ll meet your train.”
“I’m coming down Sunday night, arriving at eight. I’m paranoid about being late for the hearing on Monday morning.”
“I’ll be here to pick you up. I have a guest room. Want to use it? I make a better breakfast than a five-star hotel.”
“Sounds great.”