A guard escorted Arthur to the booth and waited outside the door. Arthur was not handcuffed or shackled. He wasn’t wearing the orange jumpsuit Karen expected but a loose, blue cotton, V-neck pullover top and drawstring pants that looked similar to the surgical scrubs at Shoreview. He also wore a brown leather holster with what looked like a large transistor radio in it.
“It’s a Holter monitor,” Arthur explained. He seemed severely embarrassed and his hands shook. “The doctors saw something they didn’t like on my EKG, so I’ve got to wear this silly thing twenty-four hours a day. It records my heart rhythm.” He shrugged and attempted a smile.
The Holter monitor meant the doctors were evaluating Arthur for a pacemaker. The physicians had apparently linked his fainting spell at Lorraine’s gravesite to an irregularity in his heartbeat, so Arthur could look forward to a gauntlet of medical trials to go along with his legal one. Never mind that almost anybody who lived through a month such as Arthur just had would probably show an arrhythmia or two on an electrocardiogram.
Matt Stoker went over criminal pretrial procedure again and asked Arthur some questions about accessing his financial assets if the judge allowed him to post bail. Their time was severely limited, and Karen kept reminding herself that she had no criminal defense experience and she should just pay attention and keep her mouth shut. But she was frustrated by Matt’s robotic progression through the procedural details, as if all three of them weren’t burning with curiosity about more ponderous issues. What did the police have on Arthur? How could he refute the charges? Who killed Lorraine? Karen was on the verge of blurting out what she knew would be an amateurish question—“Do you have any idea who might have done it?”— when Matt stood up.
“I’ll call and find out if they’ve scheduled your bail hearing yet. The guard took my cell phone on the way in, but I can use the phone at the intake desk. Karen, you discuss the Billick settlement with Arthur until I get back.”
As soon as the attorney was out the door, the emotional atmosphere in the glass booth seemed to change. Arthur put his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands.
“I can’t spend a night in this place, Karen. I can’t even stand the thought of it.”
Karen leaned forward and put her hand on Arthur’s shoulder. When her peripheral vision picked up that her comforting gesture was drawing looks from the holding cell coterie, she withdrew her hand. “The judge has to let you post bail, Arthur. You know the old cliché, ‘pillar of the community’? That’s you. And you’re not a flight risk.”
Arthur looked up and managed a weak smile. “No, I’ve got to stick around to turn in my Holter monitor tapes.”
“You’ll get through this, Arthur. If for no other reason, because Amy needs you to.”
Arthur paled at the mention of his daughter’s name. “Oh, God. If I’m stuck in here she’s all alone in that house. I’m scared out of my wits about what she’s up to.” He looked at Karen with bloodshot eyes. “She’s been suspended from school for doing drugs. When I went to pick her up, I saw some graffiti about her in the boys’ room implying that she’s promiscuous.”
“Don’t put any stock in boys’ room graffiti,” said Karen. “What sort of drugs?”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “Ecstasy.” He shook his head and grunted. “Sounds like something I could use myself right about now.”
Karen felt the time slipping away, and she had not carried out her assignment. “Matthew wants to try to settle the Billick sexual harassment claim. He recommends you and the hospital each put up $50,000. How do you feel about that?”
“Matthew is right. Get rid of the damn thing. If that story gets out now, it won’t matter that it’s a bogus claim. People will believe it and will be more likely to think I’m guilty of murder. Which, even though you haven’t asked, I’m not.”
Karen considered asking Arthur about the entry in the motel register that Jake had turned up, the one that suggested that Arthur and Shari had been together after the harassment claim had been made. It would be embarrassing to say the least, and Karen had no evidence yet that it was in fact Shari who had accompanied “Elihu Yale” to the Sleepy Time Motel. Arthur would probably just deny the whole thing as he had previously done, and he would henceforth be more guarded around her if he suspected she was spying on him. Her time with Arthur was limited, and she had completed her assignment on the Billick case by getting Arthur’s authorization to settle it.
Besides, her curiosity was far more urgent on another topic. She could resist no longer. “Do you have any idea who might have done it?”
Arthur looked off to the side. “None whatsoever. But from some remarks Detective Lopopolo made, I can tell the police had one other suspect.”
“Who?”
“Lopopolo told me the police got a report of screaming coming from my house a week before Lorraine broke her arm. Two female voices. The fisherman who called it in reported some pretty nasty remarks. He heard Lorraine call Amy’s mother a whore, and he heard Amy yell that she wished Lorraine was dead.”
“They know the voices were Lorraine and Amy?”
“Yeah. You told Lopopolo my wife and daughter were asleep when I got home.”
Karen’s face reddened, and she felt an ache in her stomach. She had thought she was being so careful when she talked to Lopopolo. If she had made the situation worse by anything she had said, she would never forgive herself. “People say things like that all the time when they’re angry. The police can’t make much out of it.”
“No, not by itself, but I think they narrowed their investigation down to me and Amy early on. We’re the ones who inherit, we’re the ones who would have had the burden of taking care of Lorraine, we both knew about her allergy. Who else could get her to take off her Medic Alert bracelet? Amy visited Lorraine about twelve hours before she got sick.”
“Tell me about the bracelet.”
“Lorraine and her trinkets. She had such restrained taste in everything else, but with jewelry, she was definitely in the ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’ school.” Arthur’s voice quavered. The recollection of one of Lorraine’s idiosyncrasies had apparently stirred him emotionally. He composed himself and continued. “Look at this wedding ring she got me.” Arthur held up his hand, but his ring finger was bare. He rubbed the empty finger. “Oh, yeah, they confiscated my ring at intake. Well, it’s a massive chunk of gold with diamonds. When we got Lorraine a Medic Alert bracelet, she had to have it custom-made. Solid platinum, with an artist-designed red caduceus. The snake’s head has a big marquise-cut ruby for its eye. Beautiful thing, actually, but a little spooky-looking.”
Karen saw Matt out in the hallway, chatting with a cop as if they were old friends. “Matt makes a point of getting on the good side of everyone in law enforcement,” said Karen. “No doubt he’s the same way at the courthouse. He’ll get you every possible break if the case goes to trial.”
“Yes, he’s good. But there’s something I need to tell you that you have to promise not to repeat to Matthew.”
Karen did not hesitate. “I promise.”
Arthur leaned forward, forearms on knees, eyes drooping but resolute. “This murder case will not go to trial. If I’m not cleared before my arraignment, I’m going to plead guilty to whatever offer the DA has on the table at the time.”
Karen was dumbfounded. “You can’t be serious. Arthur, you can survive a trial if you have to. Don’t give up without a fight.”
“If they don’t convict me, they go after Amy. Lopopolo made a point of letting me know that. This whole mess is my fault. I can’t take any chance of Amy being charged. Matthew thinks they only charged me first because Amy’s a minor.”
“Do you consider it a possibility that she’s guilty?”
“What do I know? I didn’t consider it a possibility that she was a druggie. Or the kind of girl who . . .” Arthur cut himself off.
“Give Matthew a chance to defend you. Make the state prove its case. Get Amy a good defen
se attorney, if it comes to that.”
“One of us has to go down,” said Arthur.
“What? Why?”
“We’re the only suspects.” Arthur raised his voice. “They’ve got to nail somebody. For God’s sake, Karen, the victim is Harold Fairfax’s daughter!”
Matt Stoker opened the door, signaling with raised eyebrows that he noticed the little room had suddenly gone silent. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything. Arthur, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Good news is, your bail hearing will be before Judge Huff. She’s a softy, and she’s never ruled against me. Bad news is, it’s scheduled for nine tomorrow morning.”
Arthur looked like he had just received a death sentence. The guard opened the door and announced, “Time’s up.” As Arthur was led out, he turned to Karen.
“If I’m here more than one night, please check on Amy for me.”
Karen felt the sudden weight of a responsibility she did not want. “Of course,” she said.
CHAPTER
19
Tuesday morning. A strange and unpleasant sensation settled on Karen as she sat in her office, which was no longer her office, at Shoreview Memorial. The cleared-out room resembled an abandoned apartment with its bare walls and empty shelves. Margaret had been reassigned; her secretarial station was vacant. It was not nostalgia Karen felt after only one day at her new job. It was more like the mortifying remorse one might feel having a cup of coffee with a former lover and realizing shortly into the proceedings that he would have been a vastly better catch than the jerk you dumped him for. She was preparing for her interview with Dr. Treacher when, according to the plan laid out the previous afternoon, Matt Stoker called from the courthouse.
“Great news,” he said. “Judge Huff went for the whole ‘roots in the community’ bit. It’s a homicide, so she had to make it look good, but half a million is pocket change for Winslow. I’ll have him out before noon.”
“Thank God. Another night in jail and Arthur’s heart would have fibrillated.”
“One fly in the ointment. An assistant state’s attorney attended the bail hearing. High-profile felony, I’m not surprised. But I don’t have the connections in Springfield I have at the DA’s office. If a state prosecutor takes over, we won’t get any breaks during plea-bargaining. That makes it almost certain the case will go to trial.” Was Karen mistaken, or did Matthew sound almost eager?
Karen wished she could tell Matt about Arthur’s decision to throw in the towel at the arraignment. Matt didn’t know it, but their task was far more daunting than creating reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors. They had only days to clear their client.
“I’m meeting with a doctor named Treacher here at the hospital this morning,” said Karen. She explained that Treacher was Lorraine Winslow’s physician and that he had a suspiciously high mortality rate. “Anne Delaney and I are trying to determine if Treacher fits the pattern of a serial killer doc. The Department of Health is warning hospitals to be on the lookout for these characters.”
“Good lead,” said Matt. “Push him hard.”
“Also, I may have a lead on who poisoned Lorraine.” She explained how the night nurse, Bonnie Bach, had gotten sick after sharing Lorraine’s Lady Coventry chocolate, and how Anne Delaney had traced the delivery to Mercury Messenger Service.
“My, my, you’re quite the sleuth. With you around, we won’t need to hire PIs. What else have you turned up?”
Karen described Jake’s visit to the Sleepy Time Motel and how he had determined that Arthur had checked in there twice, the second time the day before Lorraine died.
“Too bad we have to settle the Billick claim,” said Matthew. “I’d love to hit Wickwire right between the eyes with that little tidbit. But do we want to broadcast the fact that Arthur was in a motel room with a beautiful woman the day before his wife died? It’s a problem.”
JEFFREY TREACHER, M.D. made no attempt to hide his resentment at being pulled away from morning rounds to be questioned by the hospital attorney. Treacher was a collection of circular shapes: round face, round eyeglasses, bulbous nose and rotund waist. His eyes looked beady through the thick lenses of his tortoiseshell glasses, and the overhead fluorescent lights reflected off his scalp and shone through his thinning hair.
“How long is this going to take?” he asked. “I have to get back to patients.”
“Not long, doctor. About your patient Lorraine Winslow, were you aware of her drug allergy?”
“I wasn’t even in the hospital when that resident gave her the antibiotics.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Was I aware? I would’ve checked the chart. I have hundreds of patients, I can’t be expected to remember everything about every one of them.”
Defensive, churlish fellow, but that didn’t prove anything. Physicians who had patients die in the hospital were often defensive and churlish when questioned about it. “Do you have any idea how Mrs. Winslow might have contracted food poisoning?”
“Hell, no. Talk to the cafeteria.”
Karen hated to pull a carnival stunt, but time was short and she had not been able to think of anything better. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a small box of Lady Coventry chocolates that she had purchased that morning with $30 of her own money. “Care for a chocolate?”
Treacher looked startled but pleased. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. He scooped three pieces out of the box and popped two into his mouth. Apparently his heft was well earned. He chewed with obvious pleasure and no trace of shame, furtiveness or confusion.
Thirty bucks down the drain.
“Our risk manager, Anne Delaney, has been doing a chart review for the Section of Neurology,” said Karen.
“Why wasn’t I told about that?” His former affability gone, Treacher stood up and pushed back his chair.
“I’m telling you about it now. Were you aware that your mortality rate is five times the national average for neurologists?”
“If it is, that’s because I treat sicker patients than the average neurologist.”
Ho-hum. This was the explanation invariably offered by physicians with high mortality or complication rates. I take the hardest cases, so more of my patients die. My high mortality rate is a sign of courage, not incompetence.
“Why do you suppose you attract sicker patients, doctor?” Treacher had flopped back into his chair.
“Advertising.”
The answer took Karen completely by surprise. “What?”
“I use an advertising agency that buys the names and addresses of people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—Lou Gehrig’s disease—from clinics and ALS support groups. We do direct mailings announcing our free ALS seminar. At the seminar people can sign up for my innovative, multidisciplinary treatment protocol. We use Rilutek, of course, and Neurontin, but we also use a battery of alternative therapies. Therapeutic plasmapheresis, electrotherapy, high-dose antioxidants, L-car-nitine and L-glutamine. It’s an intensive regimen.” His tone was one of high medical pride.
This sort of cowboy medicine got under Karen’s skin. “Have you run this protocol through the hospital’s Institutional Review Board, our medical research committee, so you can do a valid double-blind study?”
“I don’t need to, it’s all outpatient.” Dr. Treacher waved his hand in dismissal. “I’m not interested in doing any double-blind studies. Anyway, that’s why I have a high mortality rate. A large percentage of my patients have ALS. Everyone with ALS dies within two to five years.”
The neurologist had just about exhausted Karen’s meager reserves of diplomacy. “Without valid studies, doctor, how can you be sure you’re not selling desperate people a lot of snake oil?”
Dr. Treacher sat upright, his eyes opened wide with indignation. “What I’m selling—offering—these desperate people, counselor, is hope.”
Karen thanked Dr. Treacher for his time. He grabbed two more Lady Coventry chocolates and left.
“HE’S A QU
ACK, Annie, but I doubt he’s a serial murderer.”
“Since you struck out with Treacher, I suppose you want to interview Clifford Gooch,” replied the risk manager.
Karen wanted to interview the threatening, schizophrenic child molester about as much as she wanted to date a member of the Taliban, but Gooch could not be ignored as a suspect. He hated the hospital, was in the psychiatric unit at the same time as Lorraine Winslow, knew a lot about hospital records and procedures and was criminally insane.
“Well, it’s too late,” said Anne before Karen could respond. “He flew the coop.”
“Gooch eloped?”
“Two days ago. We have a skeleton crew on Sundays, and a lot of visitors were in and out of the unit that day. He must have got hold of some civvies. As far as we can tell, he just walked out the door.”
“Unbelievable. That should never happen.” Karen, the cockeyed optimist.
“It happens here 4-7 times per year.”
Inwardly Karen was relieved she would not be meeting with Mr. Gooch. Dr. Treacher and Attorney Wickwire were enough creeps for one day.
“So what convinced you of Treacher’s relative innocence?” asked Anne.
“His mortality rate can be explained easily. He actively recruits patients with ALS. He may be wasting their time and money, but I doubt he’s wasting them. Why spend money on advertising and then kill your best customers?”
Anne said she could easily confirm whether Treacher’s patient mix explained his high death rate. The hospital had a number of statistical anomalies that had elusive but simple explanations. “For example,” she said, “the percentage of our orthopedic surgeries that are knee replacements is exceptionally high. Can you guess why?”
Karen thought for a moment. “Are a couple of our orthopods doing unnecessary replacements?”
“That was my first guess, too,” said Anne. “The deviation is so pronounced, it looks like the orthopedic surgeons must be scamming. So I did an investigation, and it turns out to be completely accounted for by the fact that there’s a lot of pig farming in Weyawega County.”
Lawyered to Death Page 16