snookered a young public defender in a pretrial deposition in a homicide case.
'And what was the cause of death?' the PD had asked.
'Acute lead poisoning,' Doc Riggs said with a straight face.
The young lawyer could barely contain his joy. 'Really?'
'Yes, indeed. Of course it was caused by two. 38 slugs in the heart from your client's gun.'
I forgave him later.
Charlie bit into the scone and decorated his beard with a glob of the cream. Then he looked around the room, furrowed his bushy eyebrows, and said, 'If I'm not mistaken, Mrs. Maxson, that sofa is Early Hepplewhite.'
'Quite right,' she said, smiling. 'About 1765, best we can tell.'
'And those too,' Charlie said, gesturing toward gilt-wood armchairs, 'perhaps a bit later.'
Mrs. Maxson nodded. 'We've established them at 1790.'
This went on for a while. The cabinets on either side of the fireplace dated from 1795, the mahogany table with satinwood inlay about 1775, and the pianoforte-just like Beethoven's-was made in 1798 by Rolfe of Cheapside. I decided neither to comment on Rolfe's marketing strategy nor to bang out my risque rendition of 'Louie, Louie.'
'Would you care for a brandy snap?' Mrs. Maxson asked me.
I scooped up a confection of ginger and whipping cream and washed it down with-who knows? — some Indian, Russian, or Chinese tea.
'Pamela tells me you're a barrister,' Mrs. Maxson said.
I nodded, tipping my cup.
'I've always adored the law,' she said. 'When Pamela was at Cheltenham Ladies' College, I so hoped she would pursue that noble profession.'
My smile was sincere. Where I come from, lawyers are called shysters, mouthpieces, or ambulance chasers.
'Mother never approved of my life, nor I of hers,' Pam said tartly.
'Pamela!' Mrs. Maxson's smile dropped at the edges, giving her an odd, frozen look.
'Mother can scarcely say 'psychiatry' without breaking out in hives.'
'It's not psychiatry I object to,' Mrs. Maxson protested. 'But in your practice, the people… '
Pamela shrugged.
'When I think back,' her mother said a bit gloomily. 'Mr. Maxson had just passed on, and Pamela was quite distraught, naturally. Then those poor girls were killed, right here in the Cotswolds, and Pamela was at such an impressionable age. Perhaps that explains how she chose such a…gruesome profession.'
'When I was studying psycholinguistics at Cambridge, Mother practically disowned me.'
'Kidnappers! Her specialty was kidnappers.'
'Ransom notes contain marvelous clues,' Pam said. 'I developed a computer program that analyzed every word of the note. The computer then compared how the words in the note are used compared to the same words in ordinary speech. Properly done, this yields signature words that reveal the kidnappers background.'
Mrs. Maxson shook her head. 'I thought it was just a phase, that when she decided on medicine, it would be for a traditional career. Pediatrics perhaps. But she was a house woman, what you call, what is it, Pamela…?'
'An intern.'
'Yes, at St. Thomas Hospital in London. Do you know it, Dr. Riggs?'
'I believe Florence Nightingale worked there.'
'Yes.' Mrs. Maxson nodded. 'Then to Maudsley Hospital for psychiatry and Broadmoor for the criminally insane. One place worse than the next. Dealing with policemen and the deranged. Oh my, don't get me started. Perhaps if I'd raised her differently…'
'I don't think she turned out half bad,' I said, in a semi-chivalrous way.
'Well, Mr. Lassiter, I ask you, should a young lady like this be spending her time in those horrible prisons?'
' Hospitals, Mother!'
'Hospitals, with cages over the windows and those awful squeaky floors…'
'Linoleum,' Pam said. 'Mum hates linoleum.'
'Working the worst imaginable hours, how can a young woman even find a suitable husband? I mean when a man comes home from the office, he wants a good roast beef, not a repulsive story, isn't that right, Mr. Lassiter?'
'Actually, I'm cutting back on red meat.'
'If a woman has no time to form relationships with men-'
'But then,' Pam interrupted, 'you've made up for both of us, haven't you, Mother?'
I heard the tinkle of china in Mrs. Maxson's hands. The afternoon sun slanted through the heavy windows, but the room had turned frosty. So this is what the English do at their genteel teas. Haul out the dirty linen.
Mrs. Maxson straightened in her chair. Her face betrayed nothing, the perfect example of the stiff upper lip. 'Pamela, no argie-bargie, not today.'
'As you wish, Mother.'
Mrs. Maxson managed a formal smile that reminded me of Nancy Reagan. 'I won't say another word about it, but I'll never understand why a proper lady would want to soil her hands with that sort of work. Don't you agree, Mr. Lassiter?'
'Well…I don't know,' I sputtered. 'Pam's work is very important. The day may come when she can re-create the personality, the emotional and mental makeup, the domestic situation, even the appearance of the psychopath.'
Pam gently placed her cup in its saucer on the side table. 'How unexpectedly gallant. Rising to my defense when all this time you scoffed at my work.'
'Not so,' I protested. 'I always respected it, even if I didn't understand it.'
'Rapists!' Mrs. Maxson exclaimed, ignoring our byplay. 'My daughter spent a year interviewing rapists in their cells. Can you imagine?'
'I categorized them by their behavior,' Pam explained impassively. 'The angry, the socially inept, the sadomasochistic.'
'Sadists. So very sick,' Mrs. Maxson chided.
'All of us have the capacity to inflict pain,' Pam said quietly.
'Closet sadists?' I asked.
'We are all born psychopaths, born without repressions,' she said. 'Society teaches us the restraints of proper behavior and helps us develop a conscience.'
I allowed Mrs. Maxson to pour me another cup of tea. 'Some learn and some don't,' I said.
Pam said sternly, 'And if the restraints come off, if society encourages antisocial behavior, we are only too willing to comply.'
Charlie Riggs sliced himself a piece of fig loaf and said, 'The Nazis are proof enough of that, burghers manning the ovens.'
'And on a lesser scale,' Pam said, 'the average man will inflict pain when it is acceptable to do so. In a college study thirty years ago, students were encouraged to give ever-increasing electric shocks to volunteers.'
Charlie nodded. 'The Milgram study.'
The shocks were bogus,' Pam continued, 'but the students didn't know that, and they were only too happy to comply, even as the voltage increased and the volunteers writhed in apparent pain.'
' Homo homini lupus ' Charlie said sadly. ''Man is a fox to man.''
We thought about that a moment, the shadows lengthening outside the gold-curtained windows. The mood of the afternoon tea had turned melancholy.
'Well, I don't know how we got off on that ghastly subject,' Mrs. Maxson said after a moment. 'Perverts and monsters. How I resent all of them, including their psychiatrists, for blaming women for their evil. With the Yorkshire Ripper, they blamed his wife. With the Hungerford killer, his mother. Your profession, Pamela, is so… so…'
'Misogynistic,' Charlie offered.
