Max didn’t have an opportunity to talk to John before the trial started Tuesday morning. She was riveted, however, by Dillon Kincaid’s testimony. While Monday had been an exercise in boredom, today was the reverse. She watched the jury as well—they, too, listened closely.
After the prosecutors established Dillon’s credentials, they asked him a series of questions related to the psychology of the killer. Since they’d already established the crime scene, the method, and the window of time that Blair Caldwell could have killed her son—which matched with the window the coroner also established—they focused on the mind-set of the killer.
“Considering your experience, do you have a profile of Peter Caldwell’s killer?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I submit exhibit Thirty-four B, Your Honor,” the prosecution said.
“With no objections, Dr. Kincaid’s profile will be included in the record.”
“Will you please summarize your findings?”
“The key fact that stood out to me is that Peter was not sexually assaulted in any way. This stands out because overwhelmingly, close to ninety percent of homicide victims under the age of fourteen are sexually assaulted or killed in a failed sexual attack. Right there that tells me that this crime was not sexually motivated. Another key fact is that over ninety percent of homicide victims under the age of fourteen are killed by someone they know—a friend of the family or a relative.
“There is one primary fact related to Peter’s death that tells me his killer is female. Peter was drugged with a benzodiazepine that, in the dose he was given, would have made him lethargic to the point of unconsciousness. Poison or drugs are a female weapon—when used as a murder weapon, virtually all these killers are women.”
“Dr. Kincaid,” the DA said, “have you reviewed the psychiatric evaluation of Mrs. Caldwell?”
“I have. As well as the recordings of her interviews with police.”
“Objection,” the defense said. “The psychiatric evaluation of Mrs. Caldwell did not indicate that she was capable of murder.”
The judge said, “Counselor, you may use your cross-examination to discuss the report already submitted into evidence. Overruled.”
“Dr. Kincaid, what was your conclusion based on your readings and viewings?”
“The original psychiatric evaluation was conducted several weeks after the murder and in my opinion should have less weight placed on it than the interviews conducted by first the police and then by the detective at the station, shortly after Peter’s death. The reason is that time slants bias. Meaning, a person’s recollection of events differ and they have a different emotional response over time. However, several things stood out during the initial interview. May I use the projector?”
The prosecution inserted a disk into the DVD player after submitting it officially into evidence. Evidently, Dillon had already spliced the recording to highlight the points he wanted to make.
“I’m going to show you three segments that tell me that Blair Caldwell lied to police.”
“Objection,” the defense said. “Dr. Kincaid is a psychiatrist, not a psychic.”
Laughter in the courtroom, but Max noted that only one of the jurors cracked a smile.
“Overruled,” the judge said.
“Go on, Dr. Kincaid,” the DA said.
Dillon played a short segment on the projector. In it, Blair was sitting in the interview room in Scottsdale with two detectives, one female and one male. She also had her lawyer with her.
The detectives asked Blair about the night her son was killed and specifically who she spoke to at specific times. Blair was clearly annoyed by the questions and almost flip in her responses.
Dr. Kincaid didn’t make a comment, but started a second segment. The detectives asked Blair about the home security system and whether they habitually had it on when someone was home. Again, her responses were filled with annoyance, as if the police were idiots to even be asking the questions. Yet, she answered them.
“Objection,” the defense said after the second brief clip. “Relevance. The transcript of Mrs. Caldwell’s interviews with police have already been entered into the record.”
The prosecutor said, “Your Honor, the point we’re trying to make will be clear momentarily.”
“Make sure it is,” the judge said. “Objection overruled. Dr. Kincaid, please get to your point.
“Yes, your Honor. One more clip.” He nodded to the prosecutor who began the tape again.
The last clip was the most damning.
On it, Blair was poised and almost regal. She was also belligerent with law enforcement and clearly looked down at them in how she spoke.
“Mrs. Caldwell, there’s a block of time you cannot account for. You can see why we’re suspicious. Tell us where you were and we’re done.”
“I cannot believe you’ve had me here for over an hour because you couldn’t find anyone who saw me for a few minutes at a party.”
Her attorney said, “Mrs. Caldwell has answered all your questions to the best of her ability. If you’re not going to charge her, you need to let her go.”
“We have a witness who says she saw you on the porch of the clubhouse at twelve thirty-five the night of the party. The witness said she told you that your husband had been looking for you and you said you were getting fresh air. Yet a group of businessmen were smoking cigars on the porch from approximately twelve ten until twelve thirty and none of them saw you.”
“I know who you’re talking about. Misty Vale. I was getting fresh air, and it wasn’t at twelve thirty-five—it was earlier. The businessmen weren’t on the porch, they were off to the side, on the patio.”
“Yes, they were, up until twelve ten when they moved to the porch.”
“And that’s when I spoke to Misty. I don’t keep a schedule of every person I speak to for two minutes at a function like this.”
“We were able to verify the witness’s timeline based on other witness statements that put her in the ladies’ lounge prior to twelve thirty-five.”
“We’re going to quibble over a few minutes? This is ridiculous!”
Blair was getting agitated on the recording, but she was also growing agitated in the defendant’s chair. It was clear that she felt she was being ridiculed or attacked.
“Charles,” Blair said on the disk, “I want to leave. Now.”
“Detective,” the attorney said, “do you have any physical evidence tying my client to her son’s murder?”
“We’re still in the middle of our investigation.”
“Then we will be leaving until such time as you have any evidence—because it sounds to me like you’re fishing.”
“You’re free to leave, but be available for more questions, Mrs. Caldwell.”
She rolled her eyes. “Really. More asinine questions.”
The lawyer put his hand on Blair’s arm. “Blair, we should go.”
The detectives rose, gathered their files, and stepped out.
The recording continued to play.
“Where’s John?” Blair asked.
“He’s in the waiting room.”
“Why aren’t they asking him these questions? Why me?”
“They did interview him.”
“This is the most—”
John entered the room. He looked a mess—there was no better description. His clothing was rumpled, his shirt stained—perhaps coffee—and he had dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in a week. “The detectives said you can go. Blair—”
In less than a blink of an eye, Blair started crying. She threw her arms around John and sobbed. “Oh, God, John, it was awful! Why are they doing this to me? Why aren’t they looking for the real killer? Why ask me all these awful questions?”
John patted her on the back. “It’s okay, Blair. It’ll be okay. I’ll take you home.”
The clip ended.
Max stared at John. The shock on his face was clear—seeing Blair in action with the detectives and then with him.
Max already suspected what Blair’s defense would be—she was an attorney, she was used to rigid questions—but it was also clear that she was manipulating her husband.
At least to Max it was clear. Was it clear to the jury?
Dillon said, “What you witnessed here is classic sociopathic and narcissistic behavior. First, the indignation of being detained and questioned—she’s above it. Everyone else’s recollections are wrong, not hers, and if she’s wrong it’s because they’re nitpicking her. Second, the complete reversal of emotions when her husband walks into the room. Her body language and tone immediately changed.”
“What could be her motive for killing her son?” the DA asked.
“I can’t speak to motive without personally evaluating Mrs. Caldwell—”
“Objection,” the defense said. “Mrs. Caldwell is innocent until proven guilty.”
“Sustained. Jury will disregard. Please rephrase the question or move along.”
The DA said, “Dr. Kincaid, considering that Peter Caldwell was not sexually assaulted, what motive could there be for his death?”
Dillon paused long enough that the judge asked him if he understood the question.
“Yes, Your Honor, I understand. The answer is both simple and complex. What we need to remember is more what didn’t happen. He wasn’t sexually assaulted. It wasn’t a crime of anger—such as an abused child who is beaten to death, or someone in a violent rage. He wasn’t brutalized in any way. It wasn’t spontaneous. In fact, his murder was almost serene. He was drugged to the point of losing consciousness. He was suffocated and didn’t struggle, telling us that he never regained consciousness. Whoever killed him didn’t want him to suffer, but also clearly didn’t want him to live. Why? I can only speculate.”
“Yet you’re an expert witness,” the DA said. “You can speculate.”
“Based on the original psych evaluation of Mrs. Caldwell and her interviews with police, not once did she ask any specific questions about her son’s murder. She showed no emotional connection to her son. In her outburst to her husband, she specifically said, ‘Why are they doing this to me? Why ask me all these awful questions?’ While on the one hand it’s absolutely normal for a parent to be frustrated with law enforcement for not being out looking for their child’s killer, not once did she ask the police why they weren’t doing more to find the real killer, as she said to her husband. She reserved those statements solely for her husband.
“Narcissists want to be the focus of everyone in their lives. They need the attention. Peter Caldwell was, by all accounts, a loved and exceptional child. He was a good student. He and his father shared a love of baseball. His father doted on him. Took him on field trips. Volunteered in the school. Spent time with him. One thing stood out in the original psych evaluation. When Dr. Opner asked about time spent with her son, Mrs. Caldwell responded…” Dillon looked down at his notes. “This is on page seventeen of the evaluation, Your Honor. ‘We do everything with Peter. Our lives revolve around him. In fact, John brought him on our anniversary vacation to Cabo last year.’ She said John brought. Not they brought. I suspect this was a sore point with her, and one of the triggers in her plan to remove her son from the family unit.”
“Objection.”
“Sustained. The jury will disregard the last sentence and it will be stricken from the record.”
“Dr. Kincaid, do you think that Blair Caldwell was jealous of the attention her husband gave to her son?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Is this common in other cases you’ve consulted where a parent killed a child?”
“Objection!”
The DA said, “Your Honor, I’m simply asking Dr. Kincaid based on his extensive experience and already stipulated credentials to offer an expert opinion as to cases similar to this.”
“The question itself prejudices the jury.”
The judge said, “Jurors, the question presented to Dr. Kincaid reflects a generic observation regarding all suspects and victims within Dr. Kincaid’s scope of knowledge, not specifically the defendant. Proceed.”
“Dr. Kincaid?” the DA prompted.
“There is not one answer to that question,” Dillon said. “I would focus specifically on premeditated homicides. There are surprisingly few. Most parental-involved deaths involve neglect or gross abuse, and most of those involve very young children who are more fragile. In the cases where an older child—over the age of six—is killed, if the parent is not addicted to alcohol or drugs, which impairs their judgment or creates a violent home, or where there is no history of abuse, there are sometimes cases that are technically child abuse called Munchausen syndrome by proxy, where a parent or caregiver fabricates or creates symptoms in a child. In eighty-five percent of the cases, the mother is responsible for causing the illness, usually through poison.”
“Peter Caldwell didn’t die of a medical condition.”
“No, and Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a mental illness that is extremely rare. I don’t believe this is specifically what we’re dealing with here—I bring it up because of the reason behind the illness. It is solely for attention. Where some people will fabricate stories about grand adventures or accomplishments to the point that they will create false narratives that they believe—pathological liars—someone who suffers from Munchausen will create false illnesses in those in their care in order to gain attention. However, in this case Peter was extremely healthy. I’ve reviewed his medical records and he was rarely sick, statistically less than most children of his socioeconomic position. Yet I think the underlying cause—the need for attention—is the primary reason for his death. Secondarily, there is the complete disassociation of Mrs. Caldwell from her son.”
“What do you mean by disassociation?”
“In all of her interviews and in the psych eval, not once did Mrs. Caldwell express any emotions related to questioning about Peter and his death. She did not once refer to Peter as our son or my son. She never asked police during the three interviews she had before her arrest what happened to Peter. She never asked about the autopsy or what the police were doing in their investigation—the only person she appears to have shown any emotion toward was her husband. And even then, as the clip showed, she didn’t mention Peter by name or even by association as their son. The subject of the sentence was ‘they’ meaning the police.”
“No further questions, the state reserves the right to redirect.”
The judge allowed the defense to cross-examine.
“Dr. Kincaid, psychology is not a real science, is it?”
“It’s sometimes called a soft science, but it’s based on research and observation, like all sciences.”
“But human beings are complex. They don’t all react to the same situations in the same way.”
“Correct.”
“So Mrs. Caldwell’s seemingly cold or haughty interview with the police could be a defense mechanism because she felt attacked.”
“I do not think so.”
“But that’s just your opinion.”
“Correct, my opinion based on years of experience.”
“You showed eleven minutes of interviews out of more than three hours.”
“I viewed all recorded interviews and read every transcript.”
“So we’re relying on what is essentially your nonscientific opinion.”
“Objection,” the DA said. “Dr. Kincaid’s credentials have already been stipulated by the defense. I can read them for the record.”
“Withdrawn,” the defense said. “Dr. Kincaid, the original psych evaluation indicated that there were no clear signs that Blair Caldwell was capable of killing her son.”
“Let me read the conclusion.” Dillon flipped a few pages. “According to Dr. Opner, ‘After spending two hours with Mrs. Caldwell, I’ve determined that there are no clear signs as to her guilt or innocence. This observation is due in large part to the fact that four weeks has passed since Peter Caldwell’s murder and the stages of grief manifest in different ways. At this point, I would say that Mrs. Caldwell is in the denial stage. She is cool, refined, polite, but not willing or able to discuss her son’s murder.’”
The defense counsel said, “Because she was grieving.”
“She could have been. I wasn’t there during the evaluation.”
“No further questions.”
“Redirect?” the prosecutor said. He stood. “Dr. Kincaid, based on the evidence, would you concur with the lead detective who testified yesterday that Peter Caldwell’s murder was premeditated?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you believe it was premeditated?”
“For all the reasons Detective Jackson said, and one more: whoever killed Peter had to grind and dissolve the Valium that was used to incapacitate him. Based on the coroner’s report, the drugs were originally in pill form. They had to be crushed, dissolved in water, then administered to Peter. Nothing was found in the house with any residue. That means the killer brought the drug into the house already prepared to be used.”
“Would that mean that Mrs. Caldwell is not guilty? After all, she didn’t even have a prescription for Valium.”
That was good, Max thought—already working to destroy one of the key defense arguments.
“It doesn’t go to her guilt or innocence,” Dillon said. “It’s a fact. It means that every step of this murder was planned including preparing the drugs, how long it would take to get to the Caldwell house, take Peter to the sand pit, bury him, then disappear. It was planned carefully, down to the minute. The amount of drugs in his system was excessive. They would take approximately ten to fifteen minutes to affect an adult, shorter for a child. The drugs were administered in sweetened water. That still wouldn’t have masked the bitter taste, and suggests that the killer was someone Peter trusted. The babysitter testified that she heard Peter cough and use the bathroom. When she went to check on him, he was back in bed. I would postulate that he was already drugged at that time, and the killer was hiding in the adjoining bathroom. Such a theory fits the timeline established by the police and the medical examiner.” Dillon sipped water that was at the podium.
“So my question has been from the beginning, who has a motive? Who would go to such lengths to kill Peter Caldwell? Someone who simply didn’t want Peter to exist. The crime had no passion, no anger or rage or hesitation. It was cold, methodical, and carried out to the letter—as it was planned.”
* * *
Max couldn’t find John during the break. Her cameraman was following her because she had a scheduled two-minute clip to air live.
She was worried about John—his expression during Dillon Kincaid’s testimony had changed from stoic to disbelieving to pain-filled. She didn’t want him to do anything stupid. She wasn’t as worried about him killing Blair as she was about him hurting himself. Maybe that’s what Dillon had meant last night. She sent David a brief text message that she needed his help to track down John.
The docket after the lunch break was for a computer expert. Max knew the only reason to bring in a computer expert was to confirm what had originally been Lucy Kincaid’s theory that Blair Caldwell knew the details of Justin Stanton’s murder and copied them—all except for the stuffed animal because that wasn’t in the public reports.
“Max, we need to do this now. Ben is yelling at me.”
“Fine,” she said and looked around. She pointed to a corner of the second floor. “That should be sufficient.”
Once lighting and sound were established, and her cameraman set up the live feed with NET, Max began.
“We’re in the middle of the second day of the trial of Blair Caldwell, the corporate attorney accused of murdering her eight-year-old son last April. This morning’s testimony focused on Dr. Dillon Kincaid, a renowned criminal psychiatrist who was called by the prosecution as an expert witness. In the two hours, nine minutes of testimony, Dr. Kincaid provided the court with…”
She went through the key points of his testimony in a clear, concise and unemotional way—reporting the facts as he represented them without his extensive details. She had two minutes, not the two hours that Dillon Kincaid was ultimately on the stand.
Max wrapped up with: “Dr. Kincaid ended with a possible motive: whoever killed Peter Caldwell simply wanted Peter to no longer exist.” She paused for effect, then said, “For more about the trial, visit the NET Web site at the address on your screen and click on ‘Maxine Revere’ for all my articles, commentary, and nightly in-depth report about the day’s events. This is Maxine Revere for NET.”
She waited a moment until her cameraman told her she was off-air, then she continued her hunt for John.
Dillon was at the bottom of the courthouse stairs talking to the district attorney, Harrison Trotter. Max said, “Dillon, I can’t find John.”
Trotter said, “He was the first person out of court after the judge.”
“I’m worried,” Max said. “I watched him during your testimony and I saw the change in him.”
“I’m the last person he’ll want to see,” Dillon said.
“You can explain this to him.”
“He’s not going to be receptive. I gave him the most devastating news in his life—that the woman he loved and trusted killed his son. You need to find him.”
“He’s not happy with me, either.”
“But he knows and trusts you, Max. Why do you think he contacted you in the first place? Because he believed you would learn the truth. And you did. It just wasn’t the truth he wanted. Remember what you said last night—that deep down he suspected she was guilty. He wanted to be wrong, he convinced himself his doubts weren’t valid, but now he knows. We didn’t prove it, but we created the plausibility in court.” Dillon glanced at the DA. “I’m prepared to return to the stand to confirm what your computer expert learned.”
The DA was clearly uncomfortable with Max standing there. “Be in the courtroom after lunch. Excuse me.” He walked away.
“Find him,” Dillon said.
Max stepped outside. It was overcast and looked like it would be raining—and decidedly colder than even yesterday.
David called her. “I found him. Parking garage, second floor.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s just sitting in his car. I’ll keep an eye on him until you get here.”
It had started raining. She pulled her umbrella from her purse as the rain pounded. One minute, completely dry. The next minute, torrential downpour. Fortunately, she had on boots because she’d checked the weather report that morning. She walked half a block to the pedestrian entrance of the parking garage.
John drove a white Volvo. Practical, just like John. Max collapsed her umbrella and took the stairs to the second floor. She looked up and down each row. She found the Volvo at the row closest to the courthouse entrance. Of course there would have been an entrance leading directly to the courthouse—if she’d know that, she wouldn’t have even had to venture out into the rain.
David was standing next to the courthouse. He looked at her oddly as she approached. “I didn’t expect you to come from the street,” he said.
They both looked at John sitting behind the wheel. “I’ll take care of him.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“David—”
“Look, Max, I was in the courtroom. I saw his face. He owns two guns. I’m not leaving you with a grieving man who may or may not plan to kill himself—or plan to kill his bitch of a wife. Or his friend, the messenger with bad news. This is what you pay me for. Deal with it.”
She looked at him and smiled. “Thank you.”
He seemed surprised that she had acquiesced so easily. She left David by the courthouse doors and walked over to John’s Volvo. She opened the passenger door and sat in the leather seat, then closed the door behind her.
John barely glanced at her.
“I’ve been avoiding your calls because I knew. After I read that article on Saturday, I knew.”
He put his head on the steering wheel and cried. Max had never heard such a gut-wrenching sound come from a man, as if his pain and grief had found a voice. Max rarely cried, but she felt tears roll down her face.
She didn’t tell John everything was going to be okay. She put her hand on his back and sat there. She would stay with him as long as it took, because he shouldn’t be alone.