37

I was escorted up the front sidewalk of Morehaven by the sheriff and another deputy. They walked me along the pavement to the four-story redbrick hospital that sported four tall pillars in the front, antebellum style. By the looks of its sagging porch and peeling paint, it could have been used back in the Civil War.

Before turning me over to the guys in white coats, Sheriff Haywood said with a shake of his head, “You understand this is out of my hands.”

I didn’t fully understand his comment at the time. But I didn’t forget it.

After admitting me, they shuttled me through the large dayroom, a sad place filled with milling and fidgeting souls, many of whom were talking to no one in particular. Finally I was placed in a locked room where my zip-tie cuffs were removed.

I was told that Dr. Alex Schlosser, a psychiatrist, would be interviewing me. I took some pleasure in that thought. My former criminal defense practice in New York had me in contact with a parade of some of the nation’s top mental health experts. Surely I could convince him of my mental stability and my orientation to reality. But it needed to be fast, so after my release I could speed back to Port Sulphur and explain to Deputy Ben St. Martin the story about the modern-day slave ship that would be cruising down the Mississippi River. What’s more, St. Martin would be the perfect guy. The river was his jurisdiction.

Minutes ticked by. Every hour of delay increased the chances that a manifest of human cargo locked in the hold of some ship and trafficked by some shadowy voodoo fraternity would slip past the Louisiana authorities and glide into the Gulf, bound for parts unknown.

When the door opened, the psychiatrist, a man about my age and dressed smartly in a suit and tie, entered with a clipboard in his hand. He was undoubtedly carrying the routine questionnaire, the psychiatric inventory. All the typical questions. Did I know what day it was? Did I know where I was? Did I know why I had been hospitalized? Followed by the clinical determination —privately, of course —whether I was oriented in terms of time and place. Was my manner appropriate to the setting? Any flights of fancy? Evidence of auditory or visual hallucinations?

I thought I was ready.

It started simply enough. Dr. Schlosser sat down across from me, crossed his legs, and took the time to straighten his pant leg before he began. I had guessed right. The standard psychiatric inventory questions. I answered each of them calmly. His face showed no emotion.

Then questions about my criminal defense practice in New York. And the decision of the legal ethics committee to revoke my law license.

“You were given a chance to save your license?”

“Yes.”

“You were only required to cooperate with psychiatric examination and treatment; is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“But you refused?”

“Correct.”

“Why was that?”

“I wasn’t suffering from a mental disease. I didn’t need treatment.”

“Oh?” he said calmly. “Explain that.”

“The problem was twofold: First, I believed in the existence of demons. More to the point, it was my considered judgment that a client of mine, someone charged with a very disturbing homicide, was occupied by demonic forces. Therefore, I didn’t believe I could effectively represent him, so I asked the judge to allow me to withdraw from the case.”

“And the second thing?”

“A former client of mine got my late wife hooked on cocaine, which ultimately led to her death. So when I ran into that same man in a courthouse elevator one day, I took the opportunity to punch him in the face and break his nose. To put it all into context, at that point in my life, things were going downhill.”

Dr. Schlosser seemed particularly interested in that last part, about my life unraveling.

“Do you see these demons —visually, I mean?”

“Occasionally.”

“What do they look like?”

“Very hard to describe to the uninitiated.”

“Uninitiated?”

“Spiritually, I mean. God gives his Spirit to those who put their trust in Christ. And spiritual abilities accompany that. This is orthodox theology, by the way. Followed by Christians for two thousand years. You can find it in the Bible. Anyhow, that’s the only way I can remotely explain my particular spiritual gifting.”

“Do you feel a calling to destroy —to kill —these demonic forces?”

“Not really. Just to stop them.”

“But if the only way to stop them is to kill them, would you?”

“I hesitate to answer hypothetical questions. I need more facts.”

“Do you believe God commands you to oppose demons?”

“Of course.”

“What if God commanded you to kill someone? Would you feel compelled?”

“Your question is posed in a vacuum, which makes it difficult to answer. All I can say is that God doesn’t contradict himself. He reveals himself in his Word, the Bible, which God orchestrated to record what he wanted to record. Historical events. Places. People. And yes, also miracles and theophanies . . . like those involving his Son, Jesus Christ.”

“I don’t believe you answered my question. . . .”

“Let me try it this way. The Bible lays out moral principles. And from those, I glean three situations where God might —I emphasize might —command a person to kill. First, in self-defense. Second, in good-faith defense of another. Third, in obedience to established government order in defense of itself. Which I guess goes to the issue of the theory of a just war. But that’s a whole other subject. Does that answer your question?”

“For a trial lawyer, you seem to be well-versed on subjects outside of the law. Why is that?”

“When I had my faith encounter with God and trusted that Jesus Christ was and is who he said he was and that he came as a suffering servant who was a sacrifice for all the rotten things I was guilty of, that sort of lit my mind on fire. Before that, my focus had been narrow. Basically three things. To hone my legal craft. To crush my opponents. And to make a lot of money. But after faith was born in me, it was different. I wanted to understand everything, because once you understand that God is, you suddenly know that everything has meaning. Absent that, everything is meaningless. I suppose you can try to invent your own meaning and value for things. But in the end, it doesn’t hold up.”

Dr. Schlosser had stopped writing in his notebook. He looked me in the eye and said, “And this is what you believe? God is everything? Without God, everything is nothing. Yes?”

Hadn’t I just said that? I wondered. I nodded.

Then he made his move. Pawn takes knight. “So you harbor a view of the world that necessarily requires the existence of demons and evil forces. God is good, and therefore everything else must be evil, and therefore you must fight such forces to the death. Wouldn’t you agree?”

At that moment I had the sense, coming over me like a neurological shiver, that there was something foreboding about this mild-mannered psychiatrist. Among the dozens of mental health professionals I’d encountered during my years as a trial lawyer, most of them were honest, dedicated professionals, and some of them even brilliant. But just then, at Morehaven, sitting in the room with Schlosser, I was convinced of one thing. This psychiatrist was being influenced by an outside force. And his dark influencer from the underworld had a temporary visa to menace us.