Mistress of Justice (17 page)

Reece, on the other hand, was calm as a priest though it was clear the man hadn’t had more than a few hours’ sleep. He’d been preparing virtually nonstop since Burdick and LaDue had briefed him last night around 9
P.M
.

“Who is this guy?” the CEO asked. “The witness?”

“That’s the problem. He was working at St. Agnes when they brought the plaintiff in. He didn’t treat the patient himself but he was in the room the whole time.”

“One of our own people? Testifying against us?” The CEO was dumbfounded.

“Apparently he was a visiting professor from UC San Diego.”

“Can’t we object?”

“I did,” LaDue said plaintively. “Judge overruled me. The best he did was give us a chance to depose the witness before he goes on.”

Reece said, “I’ll do that in a half hour. The guy goes on the stand at eleven.”

“How bad do you think his testimony’s going to be?” the administrator asked.

“From what the other side’s lawyer said,” Reece explained bluntly, “it could lose you the case.”

Burdick, who realized he had been squeezing his teeth together with fierce pressure, said, “Well, Mitchell, perhaps it isn’t as hopeless as you’re painting it.”

Reece shrugged. “I don’t think it’s hopeless. I never said it’s hopeless. But the plaintiff’s lawyers’ve upped their settlement offer to thirty million and they’re holding firm. That means that this witness is the smoking gun.”

LaDue sat and stewed. The doughy man was as pale as always though at this particular moment his waxen complexion was largely due to the fact that he’d done a very clumsy job at the trial so far.

Burdick played with a manicured thumbnail. He was furious that Clayton had probably spent thousands of dollars to track down this witness and had anonymously sent his name to the plaintiff’s attorney.

“What do you have in mind, Mitchell?” LaDue asked. “How’re you going to handle the cross?”

Reece looked up and started to answer but then Burdick’s secretary walked into the doorway. “Mr. Reece, your secretary said you’ve just got an important call. You can take it in the conference room there.”

“Thank you,” he said to her. Then glanced at his watch. “I’ll be busy for the rest of the morning, gentlemen. I’ll see you in court.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

If she hadn’t been initiated, Taylor Lockwood would never have known she was watching a trial.

She saw a bored judge rocking back in his chair, distracted lawyers. She saw clerks walking around casually, no one really concentrating on what was going on. She saw dazed jurors and few spectators—a half dozen or so, retirees, she guessed, like the unshaven men who take trains out to Belmont or Aqueduct racetracks in the morning, just for a place to spend their slow days.

She’d found Reece in the hall at the firm earlier and wanted to update him on what she’d learned—the fingerprints and the erased files. But he was jogging from the library to his office, two huge Redweld folders under his arms. He paused briefly to tell her that he’d been called in to handle an emergency cross-examination and that he could see her at the courthouse on Centre Street later, around noon.

Taylor had decided to sit in on this portion of the trial and catch him in the hall afterward. Maybe they could have lunch.

She now looked around the courtroom in which
Marlow v. St. Agnes Hospital and Health Care Center
was being tried and located the plaintiff. Mr. Marlow sat in a wheelchair, pale and unmoving. Unshaven, his hair disheveled. His wife was nearby, with her hand resting on his arm. Taylor’s father, a trial lawyer himself, had instilled enough cynicism in his daughter to make her believe that, while undoubtedly the man had suffered a serious injury, the wheelchair might just be a prop and there was no need for him to be looking as destroyed as he did here.

The door opened, and in walked a man she recognized from the firm. It took her a moment to place the name. Randy Simms—either the III or the IV. She recalled that he was a protégé of Wendall Clayton. He sat in the back row, by himself, putting away a cellular phone. He put his hands in his lap and sat perfectly still, perfectly upright.

She scanned the rest of the visitors and was surprised to find Donald Burdick himself in the gallery. He too glanced at Randy Simms, a faint frown on the old partner’s face.

Finally, papers were sorted out and the judge pulled off his glasses. In a gruff voice he told the plaintiff’s counsel that he could present his witness.

The lawyer rose and called to the stand a handsome, gray-haired man in his mid-fifties. He gazed pleasantly out at the jury. Under questioning from the plaintiff’s counsel, he began his testimony.

Taylor Lockwood worked primarily for corporate lawyers at Hubbard, White & Willis but she knew the basics of personal injury law. This man’s testimony was clearly devastating to St. Agnes.

Dr. William Morse’s credentials were impeccable and, unlike many expert witnesses, who testify based only on what they’ve read in reports long after the accident, he was actually present at the hospital when the alleged malpractice occurred. The jury members took in his comments and looked at each other with lifted eyebrows, obviously impressed with the man’s demeanor and by what he was saying.

“Let’s reiterate what happened here,” the plaintiff’s lawyer
said. “In March of last year a doctor at St. Agnes treated a patient—Mr. Marlow there in the wheelchair, the plaintiff in this case—who was suffering from arthritis and adrenal insufficiency with seventy milligrams of cortisone acetate in conjunction with one hundred milligrams of indomethacin.”

“That’s correct,” Morse said.

“Did you observe him do this?”

“I saw the injection and then looked at the chart afterward and told him immediately the mistake he’d make.”

“And why was that a mistake?”

“Mr. Marlow had a preexisting ulcerous condition. Everyone knows that such a patient should absolutely not be treated with the drugs he was administered.”

“I’d object, sir,” Reece said politely. “The witness can’t speak for, quote, everyone.”

Dr. Morse corrected, “The medical literature is quite clear that such a patient should not be treated with those particular drugs.”

The plaintiff’s lawyer continued, “What was this doctor’s reaction when you told him that?”

“He said that I was not on the staff, I was a visiting physician and, in effect, I should mind my own business.”

“Objection,” Reece called again. “Hearsay.”

The plaintiff’s lawyer said, “I’ll rephrase. Sir, after you called attention to what you perceived as a dangerous condition, did anyone take any steps to correct it?”

“No.”

“What happened then?”

“I told a nurse to monitor the patient carefully and that I thought he might have serious adverse reactions. Then I went to see the chief of staff.”

“That would be Harold Simpson?”

“Yessir.”

“And what was his reaction?”

“Dr. Simpson was not available. I was told he was playing golf.”

“Objection. Hearsay.”

“He was not available,” the witness corrected.

“What happened then?”

“I returned to Mr. Marlow’s ward to see how he was doing but he was unconscious, comatose. The nurse I’d left to monitor his condition was gone. We stabilized his condition. But he remained comatose.”

“Would it have been possible, when you called attention to the drugs that had been improperly prescribed, to administer an antidote—”

“Objection,” Reece called. “He’s suggesting that we poisoned the plaintiff.”

“You
did,”
Dr. Morse snapped.

“Your honor?” Reece asked.

“A more neutral term, counselor,” the judge said to the plaintiff’s lawyer.

“Yessir. Dr. Morse, would it have been possible to administer other drugs to counteract the damaging effects of the drugs that the St. Agnes staff doctor administered?”

“Absolutely. But it would have to be done immediately.”

“And what happened then?”

“That was my last day at the hospital. I returned to California the next day and as soon as I arrived I called the hospital to check on the status of the patient. I was told that he’d come out of the coma but had suffered irreparable brain damage. I left messages for the chief of staff, the head of the procedures committee and the head of the department of internal medicine. No one ever called me back.”

“No further questions.”

A murmur from the peanut gallery at the deadly testimony. Taylor concurred with the apparent reaction. She thought, Okay, we just lost the case.

The judge rocked back in his chair and said, “Mr. Reece, cross-examination?”

Mitchell Reece stood and—in smooth motions—buttoned his jacket, straightened his paisley tie.

“Thank you, your honor. First of all”—he turned to the jury—“I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Mitch Reece. I work for Hubbard, White & Willis, along with my friend and colleague, Fred LaDue, who I think you know. And he’s been
gracious enough to let me visit with you for a few hours today.” He smiled, creating a camaraderie with six men and women bored numb from days of medical testimony.

Hunkered down behind two octogenarian trial buffs, Taylor watched him pace back and forth slowly.

Reece said, “Now, sir, you know I’m getting paid for asking you questions.”

The witness blinked. “I—”

Reece laughed. “It’s not a question. I’m just telling you that I’m getting paid to be here, and I assume you’re getting paid to testify. But I don’t think it’s fair to ask you how much
you’re
getting, if I’m not prepared to tell you how much
I’m
getting. And I’m not. Lawyers’re overpaid anyway.” Laughter filled the room. “So we’ll just let it go at the fact that we’re both professionals. Are we all together on that?”

“Yessir.”

“Good.

The plaintiff’s lawyers grew wary at this. One of the first ways cross-examining lawyers attack experts is to make them sound like mercenaries.

“Now, Doctor,” Reece said, “let me ask you, how often do you testify at medical malpractice cases like this one?”

“Rarely.”

“How rare would that be?”

The witness lifted his hand. “I’ve probably testified three or four times in my life. Only when I feel a terrible injustice has been done and—”

Reece held up his hand and, still smiling, said, “Maybe if we could just stick to answering my questions, please.”

“The jury will disregard the witness’s last sentence,” the judge mumbled.

“So it’s safe to say that you spend most of your time
practicing
medicine. Not testifying against other doctors.”

“That’s right.”

“That’s so refreshing, Doctor. I mean that. It’s clear you care about your patients.”

“Helping patients is the most important thing in the world to me.”

“I applaud that, sir. And I welcome your appearance here—I mean that. Because these are very tricky technical matters that my friends on the jury and I have to wrestle with, and cooperative witnesses like you can make the issues clearer.”

The witness laughed. “I
have
had a bit of experience.”

“Let’s talk about that, sir. Now, you practice internal medicine, correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“You’re board-certified in internal medicine?”

“I am.”

“And you have occasion to administer various drugs?”

“Oh, yessir.”

“Would you say you have great experience administering them?”

“I would say so, sure.”

“Those ways of administering them would include sublingual—that’s under the tongue, right?”

“That’s right.”

Reece continued, “And rectally as well as administering injected medicines, like the sort that the plaintiff received.”

“That’s true.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m up to anything here, sir. You’ve testified that my client did something wrong in administering certain medicines and all I want to do is make it clear that your observations about what my client did are valid because of your expertise. We’re all together on that?”

“All together, yessir.”

“Good.”

Taylor could see that the jury had brightened up. Something was happening. Reece was being
nice
to the witness. Shouldn’t they be screaming at each other? The jury was confused and because of that they’d started paying attention.