The Soloist by Mark Salzman

Author:Mark Salzman [Salzman, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-81425-8
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

19

The killer’s father appeared as the second witness for the defense. He had been sitting in the gallery since the beginning of the trial, but I hadn’t guessed that he was the father; I had thought he was a member of the press.

Mr. Weber told the court that he was the senior vice president of a multinational paper-goods company. From the moment he got on the stand you could see he was no stranger to confrontation. In spite of a considerable paunch, the loss of most of his hair and deep worry lines etched around his eyes, he looked like a powerful man, with his huge shoulders and barrel chest. He maintained a stern, controlled expression for almost the whole time he was on the stand. His son, I noticed, only glanced at him furtively. His beatific expression had vanished for the time being, and was replaced by something more like embarrassment.

Ms. Doppelt asked Mr. Weber to tell the court when his son’s troubles at home and in school had started. The big man, who was sweating profusely in the air-conditioned courtroom, dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief and began by describing his wife’s first hospitalization for mental illness.

“When Philip was three, Nancy started getting obsessive about cleaning the house. She’d always been a damn good housekeeper, but this was obviously not about having a clean house. She’d spend hours folding the clothes in a single drawer, over and over. Then one day I came home from work and found her in the bathroom, curled up in the bathtub and crying. Philip was in the bedroom—he hadn’t been fed all day, he was screaming. That’s when I had to call the doctor. They took her to the hospital, and she stayed there for twelve weeks.

“I had to get someone to take care of Philip. That’s the way it was until he left for college. Nancy was always in and out of hospitals. When she was home, she was pretty much helpless, so she wasn’t much of a mother. Because of my work, we moved around a lot, so we had to change nannies several times. I thought they were all adequate, but now … I don’t know …”

Mr. Weber testified that his son had always been moody, but seemed to be managing just fine until college, when he dropped out suddenly after only one semester.

“He came home—we were living in Sacramento at that time—and, oh, I don’t know, I think he said he wanted to write a novel, or screenplay, or something of that nature. I was skeptical. Some of his teachers said he was talented, but you don’t know how to interpret that. It sounded to me like he was just looking for a way to avoid having to work. I said he could live at home for six months and give it a try, but at the end of the six months he’d be on his own.”

Mr. Weber wasn’t at home for a lot of this period because his job took him back and forth to Europe frequently at the time.

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