Free Gideon - 02 - Probable Cause by Grif Stockley Page B

if she is willing to help me.
    We talk about past attempts to help Pam, and I am not surprised to hear bitterness in her voice as she speaks about the psychologists over the years who refused to try shock.
    As she speaks, her face becomes hard, and I think I see for the first time the facet of her personality that has allowed her to take over a small real estate operation (I had never heard of River Country Realty until two years ago) and turn it into a major force in the central Arkansas area.
    “The first time I heard of shock I thought I was being teased. This little Dr. Oliphant he left the state a year before you came, Andy,” Olivia says, “had the nerve to say that shock was her only hope but only a sadist would use it. He was so smug, so morally superior—1 wanted to kill him.
    Every time I brought it up he would get this expression on his face that said I was depraved for even thinking of it. I think he wanted to try it, but he didn’t have the guts.” This last sentence is spit from her mouth, her face twisting in anger. Theoreticians do not rank high on this woman’s list.
    Whatever I have to do to persuade her to testify, I won’t moralize.
    Andy’s head, I notice, turning quickly to observe him, dips in apparent agreement.
    “What about the other psychologists?”
    I ask both of them.
    “If it works, surely somebody in the state was using it.”
    In a gesture of impatience, Olivia pushes her hair back from her long, tanned face.
    “Though I kept hearing rumors about the use of shock in the past. Dr. Oliphant wouldn’t admit to knowing anybody who had tried it who was still in the state. You know you can’t make doctors talk when they don’t want to—they hide behind confidentiality whenever it’s convenient.”
    I look at Andy and see that his wide taupe lips are tightly compressed. He must be having the same thought that flits through my mind. Notwithstanding the quality of her life, Olivia’s daughter would be alive today if he hadn’t had so much courage. Granted the other professionals may have been timid, but not without reason. After all, Pam died. I need to understand the circumstances better, but I’d be a monster to make Olivia sit through a story that already must give her nightmares. I ask her a few more questions and learn that it was she who had suggested to Andy that he try shock.
    I also learn to my dismay that he had never even been present when that form of behavior therapy had been used before. It will lend credence to the charge of recklessness that the prosecutor has to prove. Yet, as I listen to this woman, I am beginning to understand why he gave in to her. Olivia, whose intensity has grown with each moment, is both persuasive and vulnerable. As she talks about the agony Pam experienced, it is easy to believe that there was no other alternative to shock, which, she understood and Andy confirms, is painful, yet safe, if used correctly. As I glance back and forth between them, what disturbs me is my growing sense that my client, though armed with the best of intentions, may have been professionally unqualified to use shock as a technique to modify Pam’s behavior. How could he have refused to have educated himself as much as possible? Perhaps he did, I think, realizing I know literally nothing about it.
    I will want to talk to Olivia before the probable cause hearing, but away from Andy. Though it seems unlikely, the gratitude she feels now may turn soft before Monday, as she begins to get some pressure to turn on him. It would be difficult if not impossible for her to tell him while he is sitting across from her that she thinks he should have refused to help her. It may not be so hard to back away from him once she is placed under oath and the prosecutor is giving her a perfect way to escape guilt—blame the doctor, Mrs. Le Master: he is supposed to be detached, cool, the professional. She seems to have more integrity than that, but I will be the first to admit that a