Silent Justice (45 page)

Ben’s lips parted. Were his ears deceiving him? Had the judge actually scolded the great Charlton Colby?

Ben returned to the podium, doing all he could to suppress his smile. As always, Christina was right. He should’ve done this a long time ago.

And now that he’d gotten himself mad, he planned to stay that way.

After the big blowout at the bench, Colby’s objections became few and far between. What objections he did make had some basis in law, however tenuous. Ben could live with that. At least they weren’t so frequent that they prevented Cecily from telling her story.

Which she did. Better than Ben could’ve dreamed.

Cecily described the tragedy of her son’s death with calm and dignity. She focused her large doe eyes on the jury and never let them escape. Although she did not skimp on the horrific details, at the same time, she never gave the impression that she was exaggerating or melodramatizing.

She took the jury through every stage of Billy’s disease, from the initial diagnosis, through the painful bouts with chemotherapy, the invasive drugs, the hospital visits. She told them about his remissions, when everything seemed to be fine, only to have the disease reappear again, like some malevolent unconquerable specter. She told them of all the time devoted, all the money spent, all the immeasurable heartaches. She concluded by telling them how Billy, who had seemed reasonably healthy again, suddenly took ill and couldn’t breathe, how she had raced him to the hospital but never got there.

“You can’t imagine what it was like,” Cecily said, and for the first time, her voice betrayed the faintest hint of a tremor. “One day, your boy seems healthy, hardy, energetic. He likes to read books. He likes to play soccer and bowl. He’s popular. He’s beautiful in every way.” She paused, catching her breath. “He’s normal. In every possible way.” The light in her eyes seemed to fade. “And the next day, he’s dead.”

She paused, pressing her fingertips against the bridge of her nose. “I did everything I could. Everything I could think of, everything I could imagine. Anything to save my boy. But it wasn’t enough.” Tears began to flow from her eyes. “No matter what I tried. It wasn’t enough.”

Colby did not cross-examine.

After the third of the designated parents had finished testifying, Ben rested his case.

Fred the Feeb was trying to withdraw his pension.

He couldn’t believe it at first, even given the inevitability of it all. Fred the Feeb? True, Fred was the only remaining suspect—the only one he hadn’t killed yet. But Fred? The utterly incompetent, thoroughly geeklike Fred? He couldn’t steal rocks from a quarry, much less make off with the merchandise.
Could he?

And yet, there he was, big as life and twice as ugly. It had only been a coincidence that he’d managed to see it. This was simply a preliminary run, scoping out his quarry in preparation for the fun and games to come. And there Fred was, in Stacey’s office, trying to pry some money out of his pension fund.

He’d already heard about Fred’s new alarm system, of course, and the guard dog. That was understandable enough. Fred knew he was on the list, whether he really deserved to be or not. But trying to get his pension money now? There could only be one possible explanation.

He was planning to run. Run far away, where no one could ever find him, least of all his old buddy old chum with the bright green eyes.

Of course, that was what Tony had thought, too. He thought he would just disappear for a while, take up permanent residence in the fishing cabin. But the Blaylock goons had caught him.

Just as he would catch Fred, no matter where he went. But there was no denying that it would be easier to take care of business before Fred hightailed it. Which meant he would have to accelerate his plan.

He was a little worried about that goddamn unrelenting cop, Morelli. He’d been up at the plant almost every day, asking a whole new series of questions, acting like he was actually getting somewhere. He would’ve thought that after the shockeroo he’d given the fool he’d have backed off. If anything, though, it seemed to have made the man even more doggedly determined. He should’ve killed the chump while he had the chance, or fried his brains at the very least. This was his punishment, he supposed, for showing a bit of mercy. Although in truth, there was more to it than that. He’d had George to deal with, and it was always possible the cop had called for backup. He’d decided it was smartest to make tracks, to haul off George, finish the operation, and deliver him to his final destination.

So the cop had lived. For now, anyway. If he continued to get in his way … well, anything could happen. One good swipe with a ball-peen hammer could cure a multitude of problems.

For now, though, he had to concentrate on Fred. If Fred did have the merchandise, he wanted it now, before he left town, before he initiated a chase that could prolong this thing even more. It was time to bring this to an end.

Which meant bringing Fred the Feeb to an end. And maybe the cop, too.

J
UDGE PERRY DENIED COLBYS MOTION
for a Directed Verdict.

For Ben, this was equivalent to hearing that the stalker who’d been trailing him for months with a blood-soaked axe was finally laid to rest. For months now, he’d worried about the possibility of losing the case before the defense put on a single witness. Colby had been threatening from the get-go, and the judge had repeatedly expressed his concerns about the plaintiffs" causation problems. If Perry had granted the motion, all his time would have been wasted—worse, all that money would be gone, with no hope of recovering it.

But he didn’t. The judge denied the motion, although he expressed not a little regret as he did it. “Mind you,” Perry said, as the lawyers faced him in his private chambers, “I’m not happy about the approach Mr. Kincaid has taken to establish causation. I think your so-called scientist was little more than a hired gun. Professor Matthews tells me he passes the
Daubert
standard, so I have to accept that—but if he does, it’s just barely. Still, as a trial judge, it goes against the grain to take the case out of the hands of the jury. I hate to do that—and will only do that in the most extreme circumstances. No, I’m going to let this one go to the jury—and I’ll just hope they do the right thing.”

“Thank you, your honor,” Ben said. His fists were clenched so tightly his hands were white. He released them, at last, and felt a surge of relief sweeping through his entire body.

“I’m afraid this is likely to be an appeal issue for me,” Colby said. His tone was informative and matter-of-fact, not threatening. “Should I need one.”

Judge Perry nodded. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

As he began putting the defense case before the jury, Colby’s strategy seemed apparent. He wasn’t going to risk alienating the jury by attacking the plaintiff parents, denying their loss, or suggesting any fault on their part. He wasn’t going to deny that chemicals had been dumped behind the Blaylock plant, either. He probably could; Ben imagined he could have a parade of loyal employees take the stand and deny that any chemicals were ever dumped or stored in an improper fashion. But that would sound like exactly what it was—the defense being defensive.

Instead, Colby chose to focus on the weak link in Ben’s armor, the one essential aspect of the case he could most easily win—causation. He would deny that there was any proof that TCE or perc, even if they were present, caused the leukemia outbreak. That was all he had to do. Because the burden of proof was on the plaintiffs. If Colby demonstrated that they had not met that burden of proof, the jurors would be forced to find for the defendant, regardless of what they privately thought, where their sympathies lay, or what “common sense” told them.

The first witness Colby called was a medical researcher from Boston, Dr. Gene Crenshaw. Crenshaw was in effect Rimland’s opposite number; he was there to deny everything Rimland had advocated.

After Colby established the man’s typically exhaustive credentials, he led him to the heart of the controversy. “Doctor, you’ve heard Dr. Rimland’s testimony. Do you agree with his conclusions?”

Crenshaw was a short, moon-faced man with a bald head that he had a habit of scratching as he formulated an answer. “No, I do not.”

“And why not?”

“Because he has no proof. His conclusions are unsubstantiated.”

“So it’s possible that he’s right—he just hasn’t proven it.”

“No, I can’t agree with that. I think he has made fundamental methodological errors that have led him in the wrong direction altogether.”

“Please explain.”

That was Crenshaw’s cue to turn and face the jury. “Dr. Rimland’s work proceeds from an initial belief in the existence of cancer clusters—pockets of leukemia that could only arise from some experiential or environmental source. But clusters aren’t real. They’re a myth. Therefore, all conclusions drawn from a belief in them are flawed.”

Colby was playing the devil’s advocate, although just as a means of leading Crenshaw in his attack on Rimland. “But we’ve been told about areas where there have been unusually high numbers of these cases. Including in Blackwood.”

“But that’s entirely consistent with the random distribution of cases over a large population. You have to bear in mind—we have over four hundred million people in this country. Even with a disease as rare as leukemia, it’s inevitable that some cases are going to occur close to one another. That doesn’t mean there’s been some tremendous outbreak. It’s just inherent in the nature of random distribution.”

“It doesn’t prove that the disease has been caused by some external agent?”

“No. Far from it. Think about it—if leukemia really was caused by something like the air or the water, wouldn’t you see a lot more cases than we do? Particularly in the contaminated areas? We keep hearing about the eleven cases of leukemia in Blackwood—what about the literally hundreds and thousands of people who drank the same water but did not get leukemia?”

Colby nodded, obviously pleased. “Well, Doctor, if it isn’t the water—what does cause leukemia?”

“Nobody knows. That’s the truth of the matter. We just don’t know. But we know this—it existed a long time before TCE or perc did. We don’t know what brings it to the surface, any more than we understand what causes other cancers—although most researchers are looking at genetic causes, rather than environmental ones.”

“In other words—you’re just born with it?”

“Born with it, or born with a genetic predisposition to develop it, yes.”

“Whose position would you say has more support in the medical and scientific community—yours, or Dr. Rimland’s?”

“Objection,” Ben said. “The question calls for hearsay.”

“No,” Colby rejoined, “the question calls for an expert to give an expert opinion regarding the state of research in a field within his realm of expertise.”

Judge Perry made a shrugging gesture. “I’ll allow it.”

Colby restated his question.

“The consensus of current medical opinion is dramatically in support of the position I just espoused—that we don’t know what causes leukemia, but it’s probably genetic, rather than environmental. Dr. Rimland’s position is … well … on the fringe, to say the least.”

Colby wouldn’t let it go at that. “He’s considered to be a nut, basically. Right?”

“Objection!” Ben said.

Perry nodded. “I’ll have to sustain that one.”

“I’ll withdraw it,” Colby said. “But Dr. Crenshaw, Rimland’s position has not been generally accepted, has it?”

“No. It certainly has not. Mind you, we would jump at any real evidence regarding the causation of leukemia. If we could figure out what causes it, we might be able to develop a cure, even a vaccine. But these unsupported fringe theories don’t help. To the contrary, they hurt, because they distract public opinion from the serious work that might potentially lead to a solution.”

“Thank you,” Colby said. “No more questions.”

Ben raced up to the podium. Crenshaw had raked his expert over like wheat in a thresher. He had to try to rehabilitate Rimland’s reputation if he hoped to prevail on the causation issue.

Get mad, he reminded himself.
Get mad, and stay mad.

“Dr. Crenshaw, have you yourself performed any studies concerning the causes of leukemia?”

“No, I have not.”

“Dr. Rimland has. He’s been working on it for almost ten years.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“So he’s been working on it for a decade, and you haven’t worked on it at all. And yet, you want to tell this jury that you know more about it?”

“Sometimes it takes an outsider to reveal the flaws in scientific methodology. In this case, I think Dr. Rimland is much too close to his own work. He’s invested too much time in cancer clusters and chemical leukemogenesis to admit that his work is basically a flawed premise leading to a flawed and unsubstantiated conclusion.”

“Dr. Rimland’s studies conclusively link TCE and perc to leukemic growths.”

“In laboratory animals, even if you accept his methodology. Not humans.”

“Are you suggesting he should have injected humans with this toxic waste?”

Crenshaw looked at Ben dismissively. “Of course not. But you have to understand—animals are not like us. Not entirely, anyway. There is evidence that some cases of leukemia, or leukemic-emulating diseases, are transmitted virally. Lab rats have very different immune systems, different ways of processing disease. There is no parallel evidence with regard to humans.”

Was it Ben’s imagination, or had Crenshaw’s use of scientific jargon increased considerably now that he was being crossed? He was answering Ben’s questions—but in a way that would be virtually incomprehensible to much of the jury.

“Dr. Rimland is hardly the first medical researcher to use lab rats.”

“No.”

‘“Weren’t lab rats used extensively in tests of the new AIDS treatments?”

Crenshaw bowed his head slightly. “Yes, I believe that’s so.”

“And those treatments are now being used on humans, and have dramatically decreased the number of AIDS deaths.”

“That’s true. But the critical moment of discovery was when the treatments were used on humans. Until then, no one went around claiming they had solved the problem. And might I remind you—Dr. Rimland has not discovered a cure. All he has is a theory of causation—a theory he is entirely unable to prove with regard to
Homo sapiens.”