Chapter 2

When Jarrod went into Dr. Merar's office, there was no one else in the waiting area. The man himself came out of the treatment room but stopped dead when he saw Jarrod.

"You probably know why I'm here," Jarrod said.

Dr. Merar said, "I can make a good guess. You're representing Mrs. Cain."

"Yes," Jarrod said, "but not getting much to go on. She isn't saying anything other than what she said at the scene, that she shot him, and your report doesn't say anything other than he died from a gunshot wound to the head."

"She hasn't released me to talk about her or her husband," Dr. Merar said.

"I understand that. I know all about confidentiality, but I have to get around it somehow or Mrs. Cain will go to the gallows, and I don't think that's justice in this case," Jarrod said. "What can you tell me about the Cains that won't violate your oath?"

Dr. Merar shook his head. "Not a lot."

"Had you been seeing either one of them about an illness?"

"I can't tell you that."

"If I ask around enough and you have been going to their home, someone will have seen you and will tell me."

Dr. Merar shook his head. "You'll just have to ask around if you think it's appropriate."

Jarrod was getting exasperated. The doctor knew something that would help, and it was clear he didn't like keeping confidences in this case, but he was still doing it. "Can you at least tell me something that's not confidential – like where they came from before they got here?"

"I don't know. They wouldn't say," Dr. Merar said.

"Do they have relatives anywhere? Anyone they asked you to contact?"

Dr. Merar shook his head again. "No. They didn't say."

"How about what they did for a living, either one of them? They seemed to have at least some money but didn't have jobs here."

Dr. Merar said, "Jarrod – I don't know much about them at all. I don't know where they came from. To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure their name was Cain."

Jarrod perked up. "You think they lied about that?"

"No, I'm not saying I think they lied about it," Dr. Merar said. "It's just that they were very secretive about their past."

"Like they didn't want you to find out anything," Jarrod said. "But by the way you've been talking, I suspect I'm going to find out you were seeing him or her for something when I find that person who's seen you go in and out of their place."

"I can't comment, Jarrod," Dr. Merar said.

Jarrod sat there and thought for a moment. There had to be a way around this. "I'm gonna have to try for a court order."

"I'll obey it if you get it," Dr. Merar said.

Jarrod was still thinking but was running out of thoughts. He leveled his most sincere courtroom gaze at the doctor. "Doctor, isn't there something in your oath that says you can give away confidential information if the patient's life is at stake?"

"Not if the patient won't allow it," Dr. Merar said. "People can make their own choices, Jarrod. Neither you nor I can deny them that right."

"Even if it ends up the patient is killing herself?"

Dr. Merar hesitated, but then he said, "Even if the patient knows it will mean their death."

There was something in what he said that struck Jarrod as odd. He thought the words over in his mind. Even if the patient knows it will mean their death.

Dr. Merar didn't say her death. He said their death. Plural. His and hers. Linda Cain and Adam Cain. If they knew their deaths were coming.

"Doctor," Jarrod said, "do you think Adam Cain killed himself?"

"I have no evidence of that," Dr. Merar said, "and Mrs. Cain said she killed him."

"Could she be lying?"

"Why would she?"

"To spare him and his memory?" Jarrod asked. "So people wouldn't suspect he had killed himself?"

Dr. Merar just blinked, shook his head, and did not look back at Jarrod. "Jarrod, I can't say one way or the other what either Mr. Cain or Mrs. Cain would do or did. I just don't know. She's confessed."

"She also pled not guilty," Jarrod said.

"Didn't you tell her to?"

"I wasn't her lawyer when she was arraigned. I was out of town and just got back – " Jarrod paused, and thought.

Why did she plead not guilty? How did she know to plead not guilty even though she had confessed? That was a legal song and dance – a defendant should plead not guilty no matter what and make the state prove their case. Was there another lawyer who had been in the case and given her advice?

"Thank you, Doctor," Jarrod said, still thinking, and got up and left.

Dr. Merar would have thought his sudden departure in a fog of thought was unusual, but it wasn't for Jarrod Barkley when he was working. When he had a train of thought that was leaving the station.

Dr. Merar sighed. Maybe Jarrod would work this out himself, but he didn't think he had violated his duty of keeping things confidential. He did wonder something, then thought about it harder, and only a couple minutes after Jarrod left, Dr. Merar left , heading straight to the jail to see Linda Cain.

XXXXXX

Jarrod went to the sheriff's office as soon as he left Dr. Merar. He had a certain thought that had drilled itself into his mind and he was holding tight to it. Sheriff Madden was there and without even saying hello, Jarrod said, "Did another lawyer see Mrs. Cain before I did?"

"She represented herself at arraignment," the sheriff said. "She refused a lawyer and she's pretty much refused you."

"She hasn't fired me," Jarrod said, still thinking. "She knows I'm still technically her lawyer, and she knew to plead not guilty even though she's confessed."

"What are you getting at?"

"That maybe Adam Cain was a lawyer," Jarrod said. "That maybe he advised her before he died and his killing was something the two of them planned together."

"Why? A man who wants to kill himself doesn't get his wife to do it for him, or plan for her to take the blame if he does it himself. That doesn't make any sense."

"Nothing here makes any sense," Jarrod said, "except that Mrs. Cain seems to know what to do to get the blame off her husband but still get some kind of defense. May I see her again, Fred?"

Sheriff Madden shrugged. "You can try."

The sheriff took the cell keys down, unlocked the cell block door and then led Jarrod into the cells. Linda Cain was on her feet now, looking out the window at the world. But she looked just as stern when she turned and saw Jarrod.

"Thanks, Fred," Jarrod said when the sheriff let him into her cell. The sheriff went out and closed the cell block door, leaving Jarrod and Linda alone. Jarrod looked at Linda Cain and suddenly thought he knew something other than what he had been thinking. He decided to say it straight out, in the way he thought would shake her the most. "You're a lawyer, aren't you, Mrs. Cain?"