Heart of a Killer

by David Rosenfelt

  “I’m sorry, Sheryl. I screwed up big time. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Tell me what happened,” she said. “Don’t leave out anything.”

  So I told her about calling the Corrections Department, pretending to be a reporter, and meeting with Constance Barkley. I also told her that I had threatened the matter would become public, which I believe provoked them to take the initiative. “It was stupid,” I said. “And I never thought about Karen. Not once.”

  “At the end of the day it’s not going to matter,” she said, once again demonstrating the gift of surprise.

  “What?”

  “We had to go to them eventually anyway, and at least you got heard by the person at the top. This way we didn’t waste time with the losers at the prison. And this was the type of thing that the media was going to grab on to whenever word got out.”

  “But we could have framed it with our point of view.” Weirdly, she didn’t seem angry, or even upset. To her it was another mountain to climb; I suspected she had climbed a few in her life.

  “We still can,” she said.

  “And Karen?”

  “I’m very unhappy about that, but she was going to find out anyway. I wanted to be the one to tell her, but my mother will handle it.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel better?” I asked.

  She gave me the eye contact thing again, in full force. “Harvard, believe me when I tell you this. I totally do not give a shit if you feel better.”

  “I believe you.”

  She nodded. “Good. Now let’s figure out what we’re going to do next.”

  “Before we do that, there’s something else we need to talk about,” I said.

  She seemed wary, as if another bomb was going to be dropped on her. “You raising your fee?”

  “Sheryl, remember the trouble you said you had getting a lawyer? When I suggested you could change lawyers you said you couldn’t go through that process again.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, at this point lawyers would be throwing themselves at you. This has a high media profile now; you just say the word and you could hold bar association meetings in here.”

  “Is that right?” she asked, as if she hadn’t thought of that before.

  “That’s absolutely right.”

  “Harvard lawyers?” she asked.

  “Hopefully not.”

  She thought for a while, more than a minute, apparently giving it serious consideration. Finally, “No. I’ll stick with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you feel guilty about what happened, and because you’re pissed off. You’re invested in this.”

  I was happy with her decision; no, more than happy. I felt vindicated, and maybe even energized. I’m not sure why I wanted to keep a hopeless case that wouldn’t earn me a dime, but I did.

  We talked for almost an hour, planning our strategy, such as it was. We came to the conclusion that our approach had to be two-pronged, both public relations and legal. It was not exactly inspired genius, since the PR battle had already begun, and I was a lawyer.

  “I’m going to file a lawsuit,” I said.

  “On what grounds?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’ll come up with something. We need to pressure them, come at them from all angles.”

  I doubt that Sheryl was reassured, but at least by now she trusted I would give it my full effort. What I hadn’t told her was that I was going to be adding a third prong. I didn’t know whether I could get anywhere with it yet, so I was waiting to broach the subject with her. But I made a mental note to call my uncle Reggie, to get that wheel in motion.

  As I was leaving, a guy dressed in a suit and tie, which meant he was neither a guard nor a prisoner, approached me. “Mr. Wagner, have you got a minute?”

  “For what?”

  “Warden Dolan would like to see you.”

  I let him lead me to the warden’s office, which was surprisingly spacious and well appointed, and seemed incongruous for the prison environment. Dolan was in her mid-forties, with looks that gave new meaning to the word “nondescript.” If I met with her ten times, I still wouldn’t recognize her on the street.

  “Mr. Wagner,” she said, dispensing with any pleasantries, “I have some information for you relating to your client.”

  “What might that be?”

  “She has been placed on suicide watch.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  “She is being removed from the general population, into a cell and area of the prison that is constantly monitored by cameras and guards. Anything that could be considered remotely dangerous will be taken from her.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “It’s quite common, really. We do it whenever we judge that an inmate might be a candidate for suicide. Today’s media reports clearly indicate that she is a textbook case. Not only does she intend to commit suicide; she wants the state to facilitate it.”

  “She would only do it under medical supervision,” I said.

  “Perhaps. But perhaps in her desperation when her plans are thwarted she would take her own life, hoping that the medical staff would arrange for the transplant.” She showed a small, smug smile. “That is no longer possible.”

  “So you are intent on keeping her alive, so that her daughter can die.”

  “Mr. Wagner, I would have preferred that you had followed the chain of command with your initial request.”

  “You mean I should have come to you?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Why would I want to start at the bottom?”

  I left, having taken a petulant shot at someone in a position to make my client’s life more difficult. It was not my finest moment, but it was unfortunately getting to be a typical one.

  I write great briefs; even the partners at the firm wouldn’t dispute that. They cut straight to the salient points, which judges like, and are concise, which judges like even more. It’s not a talent that gets you the big prize of partnership at a law firm; it’s sort of like winning Miss Congeniality. But in any event, I’m sort of known for it, even among my colleagues.

  So I set out to write a brief in support of the lawsuit I was filing on Sheryl’s behalf. It’s disheartening to write something like that, knowing down deep that if I were a judge I would rule against it myself. The law was simply not on our side.

  Which, of course, did not stop me from claiming that the law was exactly, precisely on our side. The specific law I relied on was Griswold vs. Connecticut, a landmark 1965 Supreme Court case. It invalidated a Connecticut law against the use of contraceptives, with seven justices taking the position that it violated the constitutional right to privacy, in this case the marital variety. This despite the fact that not even the like-minded seven justices could point to an actual mention of privacy in the Constitution. Instead they pointed to other areas of the document, especially the fourteenth amendment, as justification.

  The Griswold decision has had very far-ranging, significant implications beyond whether Connecticut men could use condoms. It has since been cited again and again by the court, most notably in Roe vs. Wade. In that decision, as well as numerous others, the court accepted a woman’s dominance over her own body, saying that all such decisions were private and between her and her doctor, without the government having any right to interfere.

  So I cited Griswold repeatedly throughout my brief. Our position was that Sheryl Harrison had total control of her own body, including ending its life in order to save that of her daughter. It was, essentially, a “private” matter, and none of the government’s business.

  I recognized that one of the counterarguments would be that once Sheryl was convicted and sent to prison, she gave up control of her body, so completely that the government had the right to imprison it. I thought that argument was easily refuted; for instance, surely her being an inmate didn’t give the authorities the right to experiment on her, or sterilize her. Her
essential bodily privacy was maintained, even in prison.

  My counter to the law against assisted suicide was considerably less effective. I argued that the intent in this case was not suicide; the intent was simply to save a life by providing a transplant. The fact that she would die in the process was a secondary effect; in fact, if an artificial heart could keep her alive after the operation, she would certainly consent to that.

  When I finished, I was struck with a realization that made me understand how far in over my head I was. I had never so much as argued a case in any court before, which in itself is not unusual for a person on my level within the firm. The senior partners handle the courtroom roles, and we associates provide them the backup they need, and demand.

  But now here I was filing suit in the New Jersey Supreme Court, asking that they hear this on an expedited basis because of the urgent time considerations. It was comparable to the clubhouse custodian at Yankee Stadium suddenly being called on to replace Derek Jeter at shortstop.

  I didn’t even have any idea how to do it, so I called my uncle Reggie, who walked me through the fairly easy mechanics. I would literally drive to the courthouse, walk in the front door, and hand it to the clerk.

  “But don’t go alone,” he said.

  “You want to go with me?”

  “What do I look like, a valet? Why the hell would I go with you?”

  “You just said I shouldn’t go alone,” I pointed out.

  “Right. You should go with every reporter and cameraman you can find. And bring the daughter; have her faint a couple of times on the courthouse steps.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “You don’t think that’s a little too subtle?”

  “Jamie, here’s your only shot. You’ve got to get every person in America on your side. They need to think that if their elected officials turn you down, they are murdering a teenage girl.”

  Reggie’s comment jarred me, but not for the reason he would have thought. It made me realize that this really was about that teenage girl, slowly dying, probably scared out of her mind. She and her mother were what I should be focusing on.

  Of course, I also knew that Reggie was right, and that it was in Karen’s best interest to have the media on her side. I didn’t know how one attracts “every reporter and cameraman,” so Reggie said he would take care of it with one phone call. “Just wait a half hour and head for the courthouse.”

  I hung up, and as soon as I did the phone rang. Assuming it was one of the media people, I picked it up, so that I could announce my intentions.

  “Jamie, this is Gerard Timmerman.”

  He didn’t need to mention that he was the Gerard Timmerman of the firm of Carlson, Miller, and Timmerman, the firm that gave me a paycheck twice a month. Everybody referred to him as Gerry, but apparently when talking to someone of my level, it was Gerard.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I see that this pro-bono assignment has taken a somewhat unexpected turn.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, for the second time, since the first time seemed to have gone fairly well.

  “Come in and let’s talk about it.”

  “Okay … will do. When?”

  “Let’s say in one hour,” he said.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. I’ll be at the courthouse in one hour. I can be there tomorrow morning … if that works for you.”

  He was quiet for a few minutes, probably deciding the words he was going to use to fire me. Then, “Nine-thirty.”

  I started to say that was fine, and that I’d see him at nine-thirty, when I realized he was no longer on the phone.

  By the time I drove to the courthouse, which was in Newark, you would think that the president of the United States or Lindsay Lohan was arriving. I had been so busy that I don’t think I fully understood the media firestorm Sheryl’s plight had created. Demonstrations were well under way on both sides of the issue, but I would say the definite tilt was toward our side.

  I worked my way through the crowd into the courthouse, where the security guards seemed to be waiting for me. They guided me to the clerk’s office, and the actual filing took just a few minutes.

  The case of Harrison vs. New Jersey Department of Corrections was a reality.

  That was the good news. The bad news was we had almost no chance of prevailing, and if we did, it almost definitely would not be quick enough. Which meant that we were going to have to be very aggressive on the public relations side of the equation.

  I had exactly as much experience dealing with the media as I had with the New Jersey Supreme Court, but I figured that was as good a time as any to learn on the job. I walked out of the court and stopped at the top of the steps, which seemed like a logical place to hold an impromptu news conference.

  The assembled reporters threw about five million questions at me, none of which I even tried to answer. Instead I just waited until the din quieted down a little, then raised my arms and said I wanted to make a statement.

  “About six weeks ago the president of the United States held a ceremony at the White House, at which he posthumously awarded Captain Timothy Myerson the highest honor he could bestow, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Captain Myerson had fallen on an unexploded munition, so that the seven other men in his command would not themselves be killed.”

  The reporters looked confused by what I was saying, as if they had wandered into the wrong movie and couldn’t find an usher.

  “Captain Myerson did exactly what Sheryl Harrison wants to do, to give up her own life to save another. But she is not honored at a White House ceremony; instead she is prevented from performing this act of heroism by bureaucrats in the New Jersey State government.

  “As a grateful American, I am thankful that heroes like Captain Myerson do not have to check with bureaucrats and politicians before they perform their acts of tremendous generosity and courage. With the lawsuit we are filing today, we will try to give Sheryl Harrison that same freedom.”

  With that I declined to take any questions, which didn’t deter them, and they continued to yell them out as I walked away. It took me a while to physically extricate myself from the media mob, but when I was finally and safely in my car, I could reflect on how well it had gone.

  Maybe I wasted my time in law school.

  About two years ago, Ryan Palmer got the scare of his life.

  The fifty-one-year-old periodontist had gone in for his yearly physical, and expected to receive the same clean bill of health he had gotten the last five years.

  Instead he got the “C” word.

  The good news, according to his doctor, was that it was thyroid cancer, detected early and very, very curable. The bad news, thought Ryan, was that when it comes to cancer there is no such thing as good news.

  Having thought that, it came as a relief to him that the oncologist that he saw told him he would not need chemotherapy. The thyroid would be removed surgically, and its loss of function would easily be compensated for by taking pills, which he could do for the rest of what should be a very long life.

  Starting three weeks after the surgery, Ryan would get three radiation treatments, spaced a week apart. He was lucky in that his local hospital had just gotten a state-of-the-art radiation machine. It was renowned for its ability to target massive dosages of radiation with incredible precision, eliminating the possibility of damage to any surrounding, totally healthy organs.

  Upon receiving the diagnosis, and prior to the surgery, Ryan did the responsible thing and got his affairs in order, as best he could. His wife, Alice, and twelve-year-old twins, Jeremy and Andrew, would be reasonably well taken care of. Ryan had invested well, and also had a $750,000 life insurance policy, with Alice as the beneficiary.

  But by the day of the surgery, no one was thinking negative thoughts, not even Ryan. And that optimism proved warranted, as he came through the procedure with flying colors. The surgeon expressed confidence that the entire malignancy was removed, and the biopsy tended to confirm that. The ra
diation would make extra sure.

  Ryan spent three days in the hospital, and was then released. He would rest up for the three weeks, have the radiation, and thus put all of it behind him. He lobbied the radiologist, Dr. Stephen Robbins, to start the treatments early, but Dr. Robbins refused. The original plan was the safest way to proceed.

  Alice took Ryan in for his first treatment, just as she had done for the surgery. Dr. Robbins explained that he would be put under a light general anesthesia, and the treatment itself would only take about twenty minutes. Once he awoke and was completely coherent, Alice could take him home.

  Because he was sleeping, Ryan didn’t get a chance to see the large piece of machinery that would dispense the radiation. It was just as well; it could be rather intimidating. And it would certainly have been hard to believe that even with the most advanced computers ever made controlling it, it could be so precise.

  Everything went as planned, and Ryan was home five hours after arriving at the hospital. Dr. Robbins had told him to expect to be tired for a couple of days, but Ryan didn’t feel that way at all. He wished that he could go back the next two days for treatments two and three, but he knew better than to waste his time trying to convince Dr. Robbins to speed up the schedule.

  One week later, Alice took Ryan to the hospital for the second treatment. This time, once he was taken back to the room to be prepped, she left to run some errands, planning to be back well before the time she was supposed to.

  Ryan was put under anesthesia, and brought into the radiology room. He was positioned under the machine, in the same manner as the first time. The technician directed the computers to correctly position it, and then monitored them as the radiation was delivered. Dr. Robbins, though he really had no role to play at this point, watched over the technician’s shoulder.

  The computer display indicated that the radiation was being effectively delivered to the target area, and it took almost four minutes for them to come to the horrific realization that it was not.