SERENA AND I HAD DEVELOPED a nighttime routine. At the end of the day, we’d lie together on our new couch, watching Homeland on Netflix. Serena tells me it’s good. The comfort of her body, after an active day, always put me to sleep in minutes. When the show was over, she’d wake me and we’d go to bed. I’d wake when she had a bad dream, gently calm her and then give her a few minutes to compose herself before we snuggled. After her anxiety dissipated, we moved to positions of slight contact, and both fall back to sleep. Over the last month, her bad dreams had become fewer, so we’re both sleeping longer. I’ve concluded that you can’t make anybody love you exactly how you want to be loved, and it’s probably for the best. Serena’s love for me is beyond what I could have imagined, or created, and I accept it with gracious humility.
I was back at work for the BCA. Maurice still didn’t like that I was so close to everything that happened with Mandy, but accepted that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was just happy to be back.
Tony met me at the BCA office in St. Paul to discuss Al Bren-nan’s prosecution.
Al was pursuing a not guilty by reason of insanity plea. Apparently, his attorney had found a psychologist who supported this. I never liked this plea. It should be guilty by reason of insanity. If a person was murdered, they were no less dead because the killer was mentally ill. The truth was, people who took the insanity plea generally served more time in a locked facility than people who went the prison route. Still, I wanted to see this case called as it was. Al wasn’t insane. He was vile.
Tony paced back and forth, grumbling, “It pisses me off to see psychologists sell out to defense attorneys. Where are their ethics?” He tossed Al’s psychological assessment on the desk in front of me. “This guy claims Al’s a schizophrenic who has command hallucinations that tell him to harm others. Al Brennan is no more schizophrenic than you or me.” Tony sarcastically added, “You, anyway. It’s all bullshit. Now we need to find a therapist who can see through this crap.”
“I know someone who can. Dr. Nicole Lenz.”
Tony stopped pacing to ask, “How do you know her?”
“She worked with my brother. Dr. Lenz is a psychologist who was able to identify the exact areas of concern for Victor. Not only was she able to see the issue clearly, she was able to explain it to our family in a manner everyone understood. It’ll take someone who can identify a schizophrenic in exact terms to call someone out who’s malingering.”
Tony pondered this. “It’s damn hard to get a psychologist to say someone’s faking it. Making that assertion is just setting yourself up for a lawsuit.”
“I’ll call her.” Fortunately for us, juries were skeptical. If one psychologist out of six said a defendant was faking it, that was usually enough to sway a jury. People liked to see consequences for violent crimes.
TONY AND I SAT in an observation room behind mirrored glass at the Morrison County jail, watching Dr. Nicole Lenz conduct her second interview with Al Brennan. Dr. Lenz told us she couldn’t give us any hint of her opinion until both interviews were completed. Al and Dr. Lenz were seated across from each other in an interview room with gray cement walls. The psychologist was a thin, fair-skinned woman in her late forties, with light freckles and shoulder-length brunette hair streaked with silver. She sat back in a plastic chair with her legs crossed, looking perfectly at ease. Sitting next to her, Al looked troll-like in his jail orange and his unsightly hair.
Dr. Lenz presented as paradoxical, appearing physically relaxed, while intensely scrutinizing Al’s behaviors. She asked, “Have the visions persisted?”
Al carefully thought out his answer and then replied with a simple, “Yes.”
“What is your emotional reaction to the hallucinations?”
“Scared. It makes me question my sanity, you know.”
I turned to Tony. “He’s faking well. Most people who fake it make the mistake of over-attempting to act crazy. He’s acknowledging an emotional reaction to his hallucinations, which is typical for someone who’s psychotic.”
My comments bothered Tony. He countered, “How is it that you know so much about the insanity plea?”
“I volunteered for a lot of tasks at the BCA before I was promoted,” I said. “One was to help prepare one of the investigators for a case where they felt a perpetrator was malingering. Plus, I also have an insane person in my family.”
Tony chuckled. “That just makes you like everyone else.”
On the other side of the mirrored glass, Al nervously sputtered, “Last time you said that schizophrenics typically hear more than one voice. I didn’t want to admit this, but I do, too. Sometimes it’s my dad. Sometimes it’s scary political figures like Idi Amin.”
Tony spat in annoyance, “Man, is that a line of crap! Do you think Al knew who Idi Amin was before he went to jail and found old magazines and books to read through?”
I put a hand up and whispered, “I think that was a point for us. She’s setting him up.”
Dr. Lenz asked, “Are the voices constant, or are there situations that make them worse?”
Al swallowed hard. “The voices are constant.”
“Is there anything you can do that helps you cope with them?”
Al thought long and hard on this question. The tension was palpable. I could sense the wheels spinning in his head. If he answered that he could cope with them, this might suggest that he should have coped with them, instead of attempting to kill Brittany. Al finally said, “There’s nothing that helps.”
Dr. Lenz got up and glanced back at her empty chair as she spoke to Al. “You said the voices are constant. I want you to speak directly to them.”
Looking slightly uncertain, Al stood up and yelled at the empty chair, “Leave me alone! I’m not hurting anyone anymore!” He looked back at Dr. Lenz for approval.
For the first time, Dr. Lenz exhibited the glimpse of a smile. She told him, “I don’t have any other questions,” and dismissed him.
DR. LENZ JOINED US in the observation room a few minutes later bearing a smile of satisfaction. “Well, do you want to know what I think?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
She stood over us like an elementary teacher. “He’s malingering. Let’s see how good you guys are. How do I know he’s malingering?”
I suggested, “The visual hallucinations. Schizophrenics primarily have auditory hallucinations.”
She nodded. “That’s good, but keep going.”
Tony joined in. “His confronting the voice in the chair. I don’t know a lot about malingering, but I do know that real crazy people hear the voices in their heads. They wouldn’t approach a chair to talk to their voices.”
Dr. Lenz smiled with approval. “Very good. I particularly liked the way he followed my suggestion. The first time I met with him he heard one voice. After I suggested that an insane person might hear more than one voice, he made sure to have another voice this time.”
I added, “He claimed the voices are constant. Schizophrenics typically have voices that come and go.”
“Also good,” she said. “Further, he doesn’t have a strategy for dealing with them. Someone who actually hears voices has a strategy. For people with schizophrenia, the voices are always worse in some situations.” She turned to me. “When are the voices worse for your brother?”
“When the radio’s on or when he’s in any building with an intercom system. It seems to trigger them.”
She smiled. “People who truly experience mental illness know this. He also reported two kinds of psychoses which typically don’t co-occur, command hallucinations and visual hallucinations. Plus, he has no prior history of mental illness. As with most malingerers, he isn’t faking the most common characteristic of schizophrenia: a flat affect. When people fake, they focus on what they should do, rather than recognizing the lack of emotionality and avolition of schizophrenics. However, the coup de gras is the crime itself. An insane person would attempt to kill someone for an illogical reason, but then stay at the scene. To an insane person, the murder was justified. There would be no reason to run. A sane person cleans up the scene and takes elaborate steps to avoid being caught, because he knows the consequences. He had a sane motive. Alban attempted to kill his daughter to cover up his crimes.”
Tony smiled. “We look forward to your report.”
Alban Brennan’s effort at an insanity plea had just been destroyed.