“We’re not ready to give a definitive diagnosis yet,” said Dr. Treacher. “Because of the bump on her head and some of the physical findings, we did a CAT scan to rule out a subdural hematoma, which is like a bruise on the brain.”
“I know what a subdural hematoma is,” said Arthur. “She really didn’t hit her head that hard.”
“Yes, well, the scan was negative for hematoma. But the radiologist reported the scan did show a loss of the normally convex bulge of the caudate nucleus into the lateral ventricles.”
“What does that mean?”
“Are your wife’s parents still living, Mr. Winslow?”
“Only her father. I’m sure that’s in her records here.”
“Oh. Well, I haven’t reviewed all of her records. Do you know what her mother died from?”
“She died before I met Lorraine. My wife said her mother died in an automobile accident. What difference does it make? What has Lorraine got?” Arthur was perspiring so profusely he had to wipe his forehead with his shirtsleeve to prevent the sweat from running into his eyes.
“We can’t say for sure at this point. We’ve sent some blood to an outside lab for testing that will be conclusive. We should have the results in a couple of days. As CEO of the hospital, maybe you could get the board of directors to invest a little more in our lab here, so we could do DNA analysis on site.”
Arthur had had enough. “Dr. Treacher,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Cut the crap. For the love of God, please, just give me the diagnosis.”
Dr. Treacher squared his shoulders and adjusted his glasses on his nose. “Well, all right then. Have you ever heard of Huntington’s chorea?”
CHAPTER
3
Karen Hayes stood at the threshold of her office, her arms half folded, her index finger on her chin, surveying the task at hand. In the month since she had returned from maternity leave she had allowed her workspace to become cluttered. Worse than cluttered, she thought. Messy. Before the baby came, she always kept her office at Shoreview Memorial Hospital as neat as an operating room. Visitors remarked on it.
Since becoming a part-time lawyer and full-time mother, Karen had not kept up with the daily influx of paper that landed on her desk as relentlessly as ocean waves on a beach. As a result, her credenza and desk chair were now covered with haphazard piles of correspondence, phone messages and junk mail. The cleaning staff was not permitted to disturb documents, so the place had a good coating of dust, which gave the room a stale smell that irritated Karen’s sensitive nose. Motherhood had caused a shift in Karen’s priorities. Before, as neat as she kept her office, the house where she lived with her husband, Jake, was frequently in need of cleaning. Now the reverse was the case.
Karen was the “in-house” attorney at Shoreview Memorial, employed to work exclusively for the hospital. She had come to Shoreview Memorial almost fourteen years before, directly from law school, and had never seriously considered law firm practice. Sure, in-house lawyers generally made less money than their law firm counterparts, but Karen saw a lot of disadvantages to private law practice, such as the constant pressure to hustle clients and kiss the backsides of the senior partners. The worst part of law firm practice, as Karen saw it, was the tyranny of the billable hour. She considered the rigid practice of keeping track of one’s time all day, every day, in six-minute increments, to be incompatible with creativity and as dehumanizing as a time clock or a pay toilet. As an in-house attorney she could spend as much time on a project as it took to get it right. If a brilliant idea enabled her to get a day’s work done by noon, she could take the afternoon off and not have to work overtime the next day to satisfy some artificial billable-hour requirement.
There was a benefit to billing time by the hour, however, which in-house counsel like Karen did not enjoy. When people are paying for your time by the tenth of an hour, they usually try not to waste it. The managers and doctors at Shore-view Memorial considered Karen’s time to be prepaid, so she was deluged with demands for her services, some important, some trivial.
To handle the hospital’s insatiable demand for lawyering, Karen had developed a triage system. Urgent, critically important work occupied her precious desktop space. Matters that were important but not pressing, if they could not be passed off to outside counsel, accumulated on the credenza. The rest piled up on the chairs and, lately, the floor.
Karen ranked the task of straightening up her office somewhere between urgent and important. This morning she smiled with satisfaction at a sight that she had not seen in the entire month she had been back to work: the top of her desk. Instead of donning her usual navy blue or gray suit, she had come to work today in khakis and an old white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. Her straight black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her blue eyes set in a look of determination. Today she would get this office fit for human habitation. Open the window, get some fresh spring air in the place. Get some filing out of her secretary, Margaret, if she could be pulled away from her romance novel. Give me four hours without an emergency to handle, thought Karen, and I’ll have this dump looking like a hotel room postcard.
She noticed that the red light on her telephone console was blinking, as it often was when she arrived in the morning, indicating she had voice mail. Listening to her messages meant delaying her office mess onslaught, but she decided it wouldn’t hurt to at least find out how many messages she had waiting. She wouldn’t have to return them right away. She picked up the receiver and hit the message waiting button, hoping for a low number.
“You have one new message,” said a robotic female voice, giving Karen’s good mood a further lift. “Message one, from extension 412, received today at 5:15 A.M. To hear the message, press 2.”
Cripes, thought Karen, somebody called me at quarter past five in the morning, from an extension in Administration. What nut is at work leaving messages at that hour? She opened the center drawer on her desk and pulled out the hospital telephone directory. Extension 412 was assigned to the hospital’s CEO, Arthur Winslow.
A message from the CEO. At five in the morning. How could she let that sit while she cleaned her office? She couldn’t. Shouldn’t have checked the number of messages. Should’ve just let the damn light blink.
“To hear the message,” reiterated the robotic voice, “press 2.” Karen did so.
“Karen, it’s Arthur. I need your help right away with a couple of things.” His voice was not the smooth, confident baritone Karen expected. The boss sounded drained and tense. His voice had a raspy edge to it. “First, I need you to do up a durable power of attorney document immediately for my wife, Lorraine, with me as the agent. Lorraine is in the hospital now, and the doctors tell me she . . .” His voice quavered and he paused. He cleared his throat. “I’ll discuss it with you in person when you bring the draft to my office.”
Karen felt her buoyant mood deflating. It sounded like Arthur had a very sad situation on his hands. An immediate need for a DPOA for his wife, a woman Karen knew was in her fifties, could not be good. It could only be at best distressing and at worst tragic. From the way Arthur phrased his request, Karen concluded that Lorraine was quite sick, and that her mental capacity was teetering on the brink. Karen had heard the rumors that Winslow’s wife had been in and out of the psych unit a couple of times already.
“Second,” Arthur continued, “the police were in the hospital last night asking questions about Lorraine’s injuries. She broke her wrist and got a bump on her head last night. Point is, somebody told the police what her injuries were, and I’m pretty sure that’s a violation of hospital policy, not to mention the law.”
Arthur was right. The hospital and its doctors and nurses were prohibited by state statutes, hospital policy and medical ethics from disclosing such information without the patient’s consent.
“So try to find out where the leak is,” said Arthur, “and plug it if you can.”
Sure, thought Karen,
and while I’m at it I’ll get the doctors to stop insulting the nurses and then I’ll cure the common cold. When he’s been here a little longer, Arthur will realize that loose lips are as common in a hospital as tongue depressors.
“And one more thing,” said Arthur. “This police detective named Lopopolo wants me to come down to the station this afternoon and, uh, make a statement.” He forced a choked, nervous little laugh. “I was a corporate attorney for thirty years and never set foot in a police station. I don’t even know how worried I should be. The whole thing is ridiculous. I guess what I’m saying is—I think I need a lawyer! Call me as soon as you get in.”
Poor Arthur. To Karen it sounded like he should be plenty worried. He definitely needed a lawyer.
Karen wasn’t at all sure she could handle something like this. She had little experience dealing with law enforcement, and what contact she had with the Jefferson Police Department had not endeared her to them. As the hospital attorney, she was frequently in the position of denying the police access to something they wanted. When they wanted a nurse to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver who was resisting, Karen told the nurse to refuse unless the police had a court order, even when the police threatened to charge the nurse with obstruction. When the police wanted the hospital to report every time it treated a pregnant female under eighteen so they could charge the girl’s boyfriend with statutory rape, Karen blocked it, concerned that teenagers might stop seeking prenatal care. When the police wanted the medical records of a psychiatric patient who was suspected of a crime, to see whether the suspect had confessed to his therapist, Karen stood in the way. The police needed evidence but the hospital had to protect the confidentiality of patient records, making the hospital lawyer and the police department natural adversaries.
If Arthur was the target of a criminal investigation, Karen needed to refer him to a criminal defense attorney immediately. She quickly planned out the rest of her day. Call Arthur’s secretary, schedule a meeting for late morning. Contact the detective—what was his name? Lopopolo. Try to find out if Arthur was being targeted. Come up with the name of a good criminal lawyer.
Draft a durable power of attorney for Lorraine Winslow. Karen felt sad and apprehensive for Arthur, a man she liked and admired, but she could not help feeling a twinge of resentment also. Cleaning up her office, which she had looked forward to like a gambler anticipates a day at the track, would have to wait.
Damn.
ARTHUR WINSLOW WALKED the green line from his wife’s patient room in the new wing of the hospital to his office in the old building feeling as if he were wearing hundred-pound leg weights. The feeling was foreign to him. Other than presiding over the collapse of the law firm that bore his father’s name, Arthur had, until now, led what he considered to be a charmed life. The only son of the most prominent lawyer in Jefferson, Arthur grew up tall, fair-haired, good-looking and athletic. He was a starter on the Yale varsity football team and did well enough academically to get into the University of Chicago Law School, the best in Illinois. He had cruised through law school, secure in the knowledge that he had not only a spot but also a guaranteed bright future at Winslow & Shaughnessy, one of the oldest firms in the state. He had always enjoyed excellent health, and had no physical complaints other than a bum knee from a chop block that a Dartmouth linebacker had bestowed on him.
While at Chicago he met an undergraduate English major named Lorraine Fairfax, whose family owned 51 percent of a company that made 22 percent of all the bathroom fixtures used in American office buildings. Arthur and Lorraine were married two weeks after he graduated from law school, and Arthur found himself living in one of the most expensive houses in Jefferson before he made his first dollar practicing law. He had seemingly sacrificed nothing to marry wealth. In addition to being smart and attractive, Lorraine was pleasant, well-mannered and fun, and the two got along swimmingly until Lorraine was well into middle age, when she became inexplicably moody, irritable and depressive. Any anxiety or stress would make her argumentative and impulsive. Arthur did not know what to make of it, writing off the change in his wife to hormonal fluctuation way past the point when that could have been a possible explanation. He had tried to deal with Lorraine’s erratic behavior by cajoling and coddling, with no success. Psychiatric treatment, including two hospitalizations, had been equally ineffective.
Still, Arthur had denied having any great hardship to contend with until now. There would be additional testing, including DNA analysis, but the CAT scans and blood tests were fairly conclusive. Lorraine had Huntington’s disease, a progressive, devastating, neurological disorder with some hideous symptoms. No cure available, only symptomatic treatments of uncertain efficacy. Invariably terminal.
Was it his imagination, or had Dr. Treacher taken pleasure in delivering the grim prognosis? Perhaps the doctor’s thin smile was just his way of covering up feeling ill at ease delivering such bad news to the hospital CEO.
Arthur was self-examining enough to know he had never really been tested by life. Compared to this, the breakup of his law firm was just a bump in an otherwise smooth road, the rigors of the Ivy gridiron literally child’s play. Maybe he had not been so fortunate after all. If into each life some rain must fall, maybe he would have been better off with a few scattered showers, just to get used to them, before he had to face the deluge that now appeared inevitable.
The green line that led the way to Administration passed by the information desk at the hospital’s main entrance. The daytime receptionist, Shari Billick, was at the desk looking, it seemed to Arthur, even more stunning than usual. She had on a tight black leotard-type top with a scooped neckline. Her red hair was up, with just a few impetuous curls dangling down, grazing the fair skin on her long neck. The sight of her usually gave Arthur a lift on the way to his office, and in spite of everything, today was no exception. He stopped at the desk as he often did, said good morning and asked Shari how she was. Instead of the routine response, she gave him a pensive look, shrugged her shoulders and said, “I’m okay, I guess.”
“Something the matter?” said Arthur.
“Oh,” she said, “I just have a lot on my mind right now.”
Arthur was relieved to be able to pretend for just a moment that he did not have a lot on his mind, too.
“Is it anything I can help with?” he said.
She reached over to where his hand was resting on the desk and put her hand on his. “You’re sweet,” she said, smiling. “I’ll be all right. Maybe I just need someone to talk to about some things. Thanks for asking.”
She gave the back of his hand a little pat that felt soft on his hand, sweet behind his sternum and stimulating in his genitals. What a smile she had. It was so symmetrical it would have been scary if not for the dimples.
“Someone to talk to is no farther than my office, Shari,” he said. “My door is always open.”
Her smile intensified, her green eyes narrowing into two perfect inverted quarter moons. She shook her hair.
“I just might take you up on that, Arthur. I’m sorry, I mean Mr. Winslow,” she said, biting her lower lip.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “You can call me Arthur. Heck, you can call me Art.” He winked at her and walked away in the direction of his office.
Whatever mood elevation Arthur’s exchange with Shari Billick had given him was gone by the time he got to his office. Now, on top of everything else, he was confused and abashed by his own behavior. He never winked at anybody, and he hadn’t had anyone call him Art in twenty years.
Probably it was the stress and sleep deprivation making him act asinine.
SHARI PUNCHED THE button for an outside line and dialed her home number. Duane answered.
“I did what you said,” she told him.
“And what did he do?
“What you said.”
“It was pathetically easy, wasn’t it?”
Shari said nothing.
“Wait a couple of hours, then pay him
a visit,” said Duane.
“So soon?”
“Why wait? Call me this afternoon, tell me what night he makes the date for.”
CHAPTER
4
Unseasonably warm, humid air rushed in through the open window in Karen Hayes’s office, filling the room with the scent of flowering trees and filling Karen herself with a bittersweet longing. A summerlike day in May was a gift from the gods in the Midwest, but if she had to spend the day in an office it might as well be cold and gray. At least her office was in the old wing of the hospital, where the windows could be opened. In the new section everyone was sealed in like perishable leftovers. Karen always thought that whatever architect first came up with the idea of an office building with windows that didn’t open should be occupying a particularly toasty corner of hell.
She had an appointment to meet with Arthur Winslow at 11:00 A.M. Her secretary, Margaret, was typing the durable power of attorney Karen had dictated for Lorraine’s signature, which gave Arthur the authority to allow or refuse life-sustaining treatment for Lorraine if she became mentally incapacitated. Now Karen was on hold for Detective Lopopolo. She leaned back in her leather swivel chair, coiling a lock of her long, straight black hair around her index finger and trying to hold on to the elusive fragrance of Russian olive blossoms wafting through the open window.
“Lopopolo.”
“Detective, this is Karen Hayes from Shoreview Memorial Hospital calling.”
“G’morning, Attorney Hayes. You ever get back to Officer Sprague about those medical records we need to nail that pedophile you’re taking care of down there?”
“Yes, I did,” said Karen. “I told him we can’t release patient records without the consent of the patient unless he gets a court order.”
“He told me the D.A. got him a court order,” said the detective.
“He did, but it wasn’t valid, because in this case federal law requires notice and a hearing before the hospital can honor the court order,” said Karen.
Lawyered to Death Page 3