Polanski objected, of course. This entire charade was to prove Safin didn’t choose to murder his wife and didn’t think at any given moment taking her life was wrong or had any criminal intent.
My never-going-to-work-right-again hip screamed at me while I waited for the prosecutor to rephrase.
“You may answer, Doctor.” Judge DeLuca gave me my cue.
“Mr. Safin didn’t choose to stab his wife. In fact, when he grabbed the dinner knife from her hand and stabbed her with it, he wasn’t stabbing his wife at all.”
The prosecutor cocked a brow. “Then whom was he stabbing?”
“Stan.”
“Stan?”
“Due to Mr. Safin’s paranoia, he believed his wife was having an affair with a man named Stan. He also believed Stan was his wife’s accomplice in the poisoning attempt and he was lurking in the house that night. During his delusion, Mr. Safin, after he walked away from the dinner table, refusing to eat, he turned and saw Stan in the dining room, sitting in his wife’s chair, holding a knife. He believed Stan lunged at him, and so he fought, grabbed the knife and stabbed him in self-defense.”
“Are you telling me and the court that when Viktor Safin plunged a knife into his wife’s body twelve times, he thought she was a man called Stan?”
“And Stan was attacking him with the dinner knife he held in his hand, so Mr. Safin defended himself against the attack, yes.”
His head jerked back, arms wide in the air. “Wow. During the course of your treatment of Viktor Safin, has he revealed the last name of Stan or given you any proof that his wife was in fact having an affair?”
“No and no. In my opinion, and after talking to the wife myself during the course of my treatment, Stan doesn’t exist. Only in Safin’s head.”
“How convenient.”
“Objection!”
“Sustained. Careful, counselor.”
The prosecutor gave a short sigh. “Has Viktor Safin given you a physical description of Stan, Doctor?”
“He has.” After coaching him. This whole defense plan was premeditated. From the moment Safin entered my practice, describing his delusions, I knew he was planning something horrible. It’d been the case with all affiliatedpatientswho came to see me. Safin was Bratva and was no different. I wasn’t aware of his exact intentions at first, but it didn’t take a genius to know it was a future crime.
I’d pretended to treat him, given him medications—which I was certain he didn’t touch—and even provided counseling to his wife in couples’ therapy. But what he needed me for was filling the gaps and taking the stand. Despite the food poisoning and infidelity history in his wife’s family that could actually trigger the paranoid delusions I testified he had, Safin wasn’t mentally ill. He knew the difference between right and wrong, and when he stabbed his wife twelve times, he knew exactly what he was doing and whom he was killing.
The prosecutor’s lips pursed in obvious irritation. “Care to share, Doctor?”
“Mid-thirties. Over six feet. Blue eyes. Dark brown hair and beard.”
He stared at the defendant and then back at me. “You’re almost describing Viktor Safin himself.”
“The wife had argued the same when she tried to exonerate herself in our sessions, too, and when she urged her husband to stop fighting with Stan on multiple occasions both publicly and in their house. She mentioned she was severely embarrassed and humiliated by Safin’s episodes.” Which were staged to gather enough witnesses to prove the delusions. “But that was the description my patient gave me. Like I said, I don’t believe Stan exists in real life, and it’s not uncommon for paranoid patients to project an image of themselves in their delusions.”
“Do you think Stan could be a projection of Viktor Safin’s own infidelity?”
“Objection!”
The prosecutor referenced proven evidence of Safin’s affair so the judge allowed the question.
“It’s possible,” I said.
“Has Mrs. Safin revealed to you during your sessions that she was aware of her husband’s affair?”
“Yes.”
“How did she react?”
“She was devastated and angry. She said she was considering having a divorce.”
