Counterplay

they can’t hurt you, at least that’s what Dr. Craig says.”

“Who is Dr. Craig?”

“Dr. Craig is my psychologist. I was diagnosed as bipolar-some people call it manic-depressive-to the point where I was cutting myself with razor blades. Some people call that ‘self-mutilation,’ but really it’s more self- injury. It’s almost like releasing the steam from a pressure cooker. I had pretty low self-esteem, hated myself actually…I’d been told most of my life that my mother left me-”

“Yes, we’ll get to that in a moment,” Guma said. “Did your father suggest that you go to Dr. Craig?”

“Well, he tried sending me to a lot of different people. He didn’t want to deal with me. But I think a friend of his recommended that I go see Dr. Craig.

“Anyway, Dr. Craig suggested that he hypnotize me and see if there was anything in my past-repressed memories that might explain some of my psychological problems.”

“And that’s when you recalled this fight between your mother and father…him choking her?”

“Yes…and the pops and digging.” Zachary nodded.

“Do you have a recollection of when this fight occurred?”

“Well, I know that it was right before my mom-” suddenly in tears again, Zachary blurted out the rest of the sentence, “disappeared. My father told me she’d left us because she didn’t want to be a mother anymore.”

“Is that another repressed memory…what your father told you?”

Zachary shook his head. “No. I heard that until I stopped asking what happened to my mother.”

“After that night, did you ever hear from her again?”

Again, Zachary shook his head. “Not directly. I received some Christmas and birthday cards…but obviously, they weren’t real.”

“Objection. The witness is testifying in an area he has no expertise. It has not been established that the cards in question were falsified,” Anderson said.

“Sustained,” the judge said. “The jury will disregard the statement about whether the cards were real or not.”

“Did you ever see your mother again?” Guma asked. “Or hear her voice?”

Zachary bowed his head and sat quietly. It was soon obvious that he was weeping. He shook his head.

Kindly, Judge Lussman said, “Let the record indicate that the witness replied in the negative to the questions asked by the people.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Guma said taking his seat. “The people have no further questions.”

Bryce Anderson rose slowly from his chair as his finger traced across the notepad where he’d been writing during Zachary’s testimony. With his tailored suit, handmade ties, and two-hundred-dollar haircuts and hundred- dollar manicures, he almost looked airbrushed. His manner was deliberate, thoughtful as he approached the lectern. He hoped the blonde in the back, who’d finally agreed to dinner at the Tribeca Grill on Friday, was taking note.

For all of his flourishes, however, Anderson was no slacker as an attorney. He knew that he was going to have to tread lightly around Zachary. He was obviously a sympathetic figure on the witness stand.

In his opening, he’d portrayed Teresa and Emil Stavros as having once been very much in love-a love that had produced a fine young boy. However, trying to provide for them, Emil Stavros had worked long hours, and, perhaps, failed to provide the emotional support for his beautiful wife and much-adored son…. The marriage became strained…BOTH parties strayed from their vows of fidelity. Mr. Stavros met a young woman who replaced the love that Teresa was giving now to another man-a former convict who’d served time for manslaughter and been hired to attend the family rose garden but tended another man’s wife instead. A man named Jeff Kaplan.

Anderson had asked the jury to keep an open mind regarding the skeleton found in the Stavros backyard. Remember there is no proof that Emil Stavros killed or buried anyone. In fact, we will present a witness who will tell you that he knows who killed and buried Teresa Stavros-her lover, Jeff Kaplan. However, the prosecution will attempt to sway you with a pseudoscience…a quackery…called “repressed memory recovery,” using the Stavros’s son, a troubled young man if there ever was one, to “prove” the unprovable. But we will present expert witnesses who will tell you that it is far more likely to actually “plant” false memories than it is to recover real ones. It is not the young man’s fault; he lost his much-loved mother and, due to the cruel hoax perpetrated by Mr. Kaplan, who was anxious to loot Teresa’s bank accounts, he was unfortunately led to believe that she had abandoned him and his father.

Anderson smiled sympathetically at Zachary, allowing him time to pull himself together. When the young man looked up, the lawyer inquired, “Are you ready to continue, Zachary?”

“Yes,” the young man answered.

“Fine. I know this is tough, and I’m not here to try to make you suffer more than you already have,” Anderson said. “But a man’s life, your father’s life, is at stake here, so I must ask my questions.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Now, how do we know that what you’ve claimed is a ‘repressed memory’ fourteen years after the fact is the truth?” Anderson asked.

Zachary shrugged. “How do we know any memory is the truth? Two people remember the same thing two different ways even a day later.”

“Thank you for that,” Anderson said, “but that doesn’t really answer my question.”

Zachary sighed. “We don’t. All I can tell you is what I believe to be true.”

“Thank you,” the lawyer continued. “Now, when you ‘recalled’ this memory, were you aware that your mother had been having an affair with a man named Jeff Kaplan?”

“I don’t believe that is true,” Zachary said.

“That wasn’t my question,” Anderson said. “Were you aware she was having an affair?”

“No.”

“Do you remember Mr. Kaplan?”

“I was five years old when my mom disappeared.”

“I take that to mean, ‘no.’ ”

“Yes…no.”

“Thank you,” Anderson said. “Now, Mr. Stavros…Zachary…until you were ‘hypnotized’ by this Dr. Craig, had you ever told anyone about seeing your father choke your mother?”

“No.”

“Or about hearing ‘pops’ or the sound of digging in the backyard?”

“No.”

“Thank you.” Anderson turned, glanced briefly at the blond reporter, and said, “No further questions.”

On redirect, Guma asked Zachary if he’d ever been shown any reports regarding the remains found in the backyard of his father’s house.

“No. I asked, but you said it would have to wait until after the trial.”

“Yes, I did,” Guma said. “Now, is there anything else you remember from that night? For instance, what your mother was wearing?”

It sounded like a simple question, but it was one they’d discussed several times, including the offhand way it was asked.

“I remember that she was wearing a blue dress…or because it was night, I think it might have been a nightshirt. She wore it a lot.”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?”

“No, not really.”

“And you believe that the ‘repressed memories’ you’ve recalled are true?”

“Yes.”

Asked if he wanted to ask any questions for recross, Anderson looked bored and hardly rose out of his seat. “Just a couple, Your Honor,” he said. “Again, Zachary, there is no way of knowing if these ‘repressed memories’ really depict what happened on the night your mother disappeared?”

“I believe they’re real.”

“Or, even if they were real-that what you witnessed of your mother and father having a fight occurred on