Sugar and Spice

 

Chapter Twenty-nine

November 3 Bill Reardon’s Office

Cambridge, Massachusetts 

 

“IT’s GOOD TO see you.” Judge Julia Wright stretched out her hand to the man who had just entered Bill Reardon’s office. Julia was sitting behind Bill’s desk, but he’d loaned it to her for the meeting she was about to have.

A man in his late fifties entered the room. She stood to shake his hand across the wooden desktop and pointed to one of the two empty chairs on the other side of the desk. “When was it last time?”

“March, I testified in the O’Reilly case.”

“Ahhh, the doctor who thought it was okay to give wrong prescriptions. You diagnosed dementia.” Julia liked it when the expert witness was known to testify for both the defense and the prosecution, in different cases of course. An expert, who had opinions just for his fee, annoyed her. A jury might not know that the man’s expert opinion could be bought.

Julia and John Baines exchanged a bit of news on each of their lives. It wasn’t that they were friends, more respected members of the same profession who were dedicated to justice.

“So where are we?” she asked.

John Baines put his briefcase on his desk and pulled out his notebook. Before they could begin, Bill Reardon brought in two cups of coffee, put them on the desk and left saying, “I’ll let you two get on with it, and I definitely don’t know you’re here.”

Baines blew on his coffee. Then he opened his somewhat battered briefcase and pulled out papers and a notebook where his writing could be described as hen scratches. He flipped thought the pages. “First, I met with all four girls and their families. That took the better part of several days. I also went over to the school and met with the headmistress and their teachers.”

“And . . .”

“Your idea to reinstate the girls in school if I clear them as being safe will get HJPS board approval. Elise Hanson did a phone survey of the members. Clever woman. She thought a phone call would be more efficient than getting them all together in one room where they could jabber on forever.”

Julia sat forward in her chair. “Did she really say that?”

“More diplomatically. I’m so tired of being diplomatic with the powers that be. Aren’t you?”

Julia had thought the same thing more than once. Her years on the bench had worn her out. Playing politics had worn her out. She wanted to look at a rotten apple and not to have to call it an orange, or worse, a horse.

Julia wondered how she would pay him. Granted he was close to retirement, but taking advantage of a trusted professional just wasn’t on.

When she’d contacted him last week, she wondered what she would have to say to convince him. He was tired of playing golf on his non-working days and the weather was getting chilly. His wife was forever shooing him out the door, calling his interference in her well-established routine, having retired five years before, as Retired Husband Syndrome.

His response had been, “Semi-retired,” but hadn’t changed her mind. As much as she still loved him, he could be a nuisance under foot and she said as much.

“I’ve gotta admit that all those years of playing it straight made me want to wander a little off the beaten path, if it helped someone that would otherwise suffer.” He held up his hand, “Not too far, you understand.”

Oh, she did. Big time, as her teenage nephew would say.

“What did the meetings prove?”

“First, I want to say that Dr. Kelly’s reports and his observations, although brief, were accurate from what I saw. Seems like a good man.”

“He is. I diapered him in the old neighborhood. He hates to be reminded of that.”

“I don’t blame him. The Jackson, Beaudoin, and Masters girls could be returned to HJPS without a problem. They were more or less followers of the Lander girl. The three I just mentioned have the normal kid problems and family problems that any nine-year old girls would have even if their circumstances are a bit different.”

“How so?”

“Emma’s father didn’t bother to show up until we were almost done. I doubt he has much interest in his family at all. The mother is thinking of a divorce, but what she said was, “I’m not sure it would make that much difference if he were here or not. Emma was not in the room at the time of course.”

“Isn’t that under patient confidentiality?”

Bill Reardon popped his head in the doorway. “You should know Meridith Fangone is in the building and she might wonder what you two are doing all cozy like.”

Fangone, a crime reporter for The Boston Globe, was ruthless in how she went after a story. Julia had had several run ins with her over the years, but at the same time she respected the woman for her honesty. “Can you let me know when she leaves?”

Bill nodded and withdrew.

“And the Lander girl?”

John sighed. “I can’t make a final diagnosis, but something is not right. Her reactions are totally off the charts. Dr. Kelly picked up on it too. I thought maybe Dr. Kelly was overreacting until Bill turned over the girl’s hard drive and phone.”

Neither said anything for a full two minutes.

“What’s wrong?”

“I would need more time with her to fully report, but every instinct in my body says she’s a danger to others. I would recommend she not be allowed back in the school. She comes across as sweet but say something she doesn’t like and her body language becomes hostile and her tone changes. I watched her play her father, but her mother is no longer buying her act. Did you ever see the movie The Bad Seed? Before our time, it was from the fifties.”

“I took a film history class at BU, and that was one of the movies we watched.”

“Film history?”

“I wanted something more fun than the other stuff I was taking.”

Baines nodded. “It won’t go over with her father, but I would recommend a sanatorium. Possibly McLean Hospital. I talked with the director. He and I used to play squash together before we became too old to do all that running around. It was strictly hypothetical, I said, but we both knew I was talking about a real person. I didn’t give enough details for him to link it to the news about HJPS a couple of weeks ago, if he even knew about it.”

“Don’t forget the Lander family has political pull.”

“I’m not, but I thought if we met with the Landers, and you said it would save a trial.”

“Will the mother . . .?”

“I’m not sure, she seems under her husband’s thumb.”

“Let’s set up a meeting?”

As Baines stood to leave, he turned, “You’re acting way outside the boundaries, aren’t you?”

“I am. But I can’t see punishing all four girls and ruining their lives. I see the need to protect others from Amanda and for that matter protect her from herself.”