Bodily Harm: A Novel

by Dugoni, Robert

  Though upset, she took the news stoically and did not panic. She made Sloane promise to call the second he heard anything further. Hanging up, Sloane sat feeling more alone than he ever had.

  An hour passed before he heard the sound of dress shoes slapping the hospital linoleum. Tom Molia turned a corner and entered the waiting room. “Have you heard anything?”

  Sloane shook his head. “He’s in surgery.”

  Molia sat beside him and exhaled a long breath.

  “How’s Payne?” Sloane asked.

  Molia frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s going to take awhile. He’s pretty shook up, though I think maybe he’s seeing some light at the end of what has been a very dark tunnel.” He turned his head, looked at Sloane. “He said to say thank you.”

  “For what?”

  Molia shrugged.

  Sloane leaned his head back against the wall. “Maybe Stenopolis was right; maybe we do all have it in us.”

  “I don’t know about that, but he was right about one thing: higher authorities came to take possession of his body. I called both the Department of Justice and the FBI.”

  For a moment neither spoke, then Molia said, “I keep thinking of that Springsteen song. You know, the one about the dog being beat too much and spending its life covering up? Then there are others that just get tired of getting beat and one day just bite back. I think Payne just snapped when he heard Stenopolis say he was going to walk away, that it might never be over, that he might spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder and worrying about his wife and kids. He just wanted it to end.”

  “Where’d he get the gun?”

  “Jenkins. He knew Stenopolis would search him for a weapon when he got to the house, but he was hoping he wouldn’t consider Payne a threat.”

  “What about the media?” Sloane asked.

  “Given his skill and the extent to which Stenopolis went to remain anonymous, nobody will be releasing his name anytime soon. The Department of Justice and the FBI are on board, though they have a lot of questions for you.”

  Sloane figured as much, and had hoped that the relationships he had established with attorneys at the Justice Department, as well as with agents at the FBI during the Beverly Ford matter, would give him credibility with both agencies.

  “You know,” Molia said, “J. Rayburn Franklin isn’t going to be real happy with me. He’ll want to know what the hell I was doing so far out of my jurisdiction.”

  Sloane couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Molia running circles around his bespectacled, hyperactive boss. “I thought you said he was retiring?”

  “He was, until the stock market crashed and he lost most of his retirement. Just my luck.” They sat quietly for a while. Then Molia said, “Listen, I’m not going to sit here and presume to tell you that I have the slightest clue what you’re going through. I couldn’t imagine losing my Maggie, but I also know that if something were to happen to her because I was out there doing my job, God forbid, she wouldn’t want me to blame myself for what happened. I know that she loves me too much to think of me being in so much pain. I’m sure your wife would feel the same.”

  “The hardest part,” Sloane said, “was I couldn’t save her.”

  “No one could have, David.”

  “I should have rushed him. I should have gone for his gun.”

  “Maybe. But you didn’t. And you’ll never know what would have happened if you had. Hell, I never should have let him get my gun.”

  “This isn’t your fault.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault, that’s my point. We can speculate till the cows come home, but we’ll never really know. What I do know is I didn’t make a mistake. I did it by the book. I did my job the way I was trained, but something bad still happened because the guy was intent on something bad happening. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Jenkins had told Sloane much the same thing. He put his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, physically and emotionally drained.

  Molia stood. “Why don’t I get us some coffee?”

  “Tom.” Molia stopped, turned. “This is the second time you’ve saved my life.”

  “Maybe next time you visit you can just stop by and have dinner like a normal person.”

  Sloane smiled.

  “Do you like pot roast? Maggie makes a mean pot roast.”

  “I remember,” Sloane said.

  “Mr. Sloane?” The doctor from the operating room stood in the doorway.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  KING COUNTY COURTHOUSE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  At the hearing for a permanent injunction, Barclay Reid used much of the morning to introduce documents showing that the Metamorphis prototype passed inspection by the PSA. Sloane had refused to stipulate to their admissibility, forcing Reid to call a witness from the PSA to authenticate them. It gave Sloane the chance to cross-examine the woman and establish that the test by the PSA was extremely limited and performed in an outdated and understaffed lab.

  “In fact it’s just one man, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” An administrative type, conservative in appearance, the woman spoke in a monotone, without any inflection in her voice.

  “And the lab tests some fifteen-thousand products a year?”

  “Yes.”

  The stitches that had closed the cut over Sloane’s eye had been removed, the scar nearly invisible beneath his eyebrow. The swelling and bruises to his face had also faded, only noticeable upon close inspection. “You testified that you checked the agency’s records and did not find any complaints concerning Kendall or the toy Metamorphis, is that correct?”

  “Our records do not reflect any, correct.”

  “But the agency does not record every consumer complaint, does it?”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “In fact, isn’t it true that the new acting director ordered that records of complaints be disposed of?”

  “Yes, she did.” The woman seemed almost happy to answer.

  “So there could have been a complaint that was expunged.”

  Reid objected. “It calls for speculation.”

  “I’ll let her answer,” Judge Rudolph said. “I take it you’re not asking if there was such a record, only that such records did at one time exist?”

  “Exactly, Your Honor,” Sloane said.

  “It is possible,” the woman agreed.

  “And you testified that you are not aware of any reports by your agency on the dangerous propensities of magnets?”

  “I’m not, no.”

  “And you checked the agency’s database thoroughly to determine if there existed such a report?”

  “I did, and I did not find any.”

  “If there had been such a report, it would have been in the databases you searched.”

  “It would have been, yes.”

  These were small gains, but Sloane felt he needed every inch he could get.

  Following the testimony Rudolph recessed for a short break, and Sloane took the opportunity to step into the hall and call Alex.

  “How’s the patient?”

  Sloane had spent much of the prior week preparing for the hearing while helping Alex care for Jenkins at the Camano Island farm. When the surgeon appeared in the waiting room, it had been to tell Sloane that though they had removed the bullet, Jenkins had lost a lot of blood.

  “But he’ll be okay, right?” Sloane had asked.

  “He’s stable, but he’s not out of the woods. The next twenty-four hours will be critical. I’ll keep you posted.”

  After the doctor had departed, Sloane remained standing, staring out the door.

  Molia put a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll be okay. He’s like a buffalo. He’s too damn big to kill with one bullet.”

  The detective had been right: one bullet would not kill Jenkins, though it was several very long days before Jenkins’s vital signs stabilized and several more before the doctors would all
ow him to fly home. Sloane had hired a nurse and rented a private jet. Their roles reversed, he had never left Jenkins’s side until they reached Camano and Alex stepped in.

  Kannin stepped out from the courtroom to the hall. “Judge is back.”

  Sloane rejoined him at counsel table along with the McFarlands and the Gallegoses.

  Reid called a product expert to testify that the toy met or exceeded the Toy Manufacturer’s Association safety mandates, but on cross Sloane got the expert to admit that the TMA safety requirements were voluntary, that the TMA strongly opposed regulation of the toy industry by the government, and that it had no enforcement powers should a company choose not to abide by the voluntary regulations. Again it was a minimal gain, but it was the safest course of attack.

  The only surprise that morning was when Reid rested her case without calling Malcolm Fitzgerald. Sloane wasn’t sure whether she would put him on the stand, since all she really needed to do to get an injunction preventing Sloane from disclosing the design of Metamorphis was show that Kendall had designed the toy and kept that design confidential. It was Sloane’s burden to prove extraordinary circumstances existed to justify an order that the Metamorphis action figure be independently inspected. Reid was like a boxer ahead on points in the late rounds of a fight; she just needed to avoid being knocked out. A skilled lawyer, she had yet to make a mistake and apparently decided not to risk one with Fitzgerald.

  Sloane, however, wasted no time calling Fitzgerald as a hostile witness, though he realized that at this point there was little to be gained. Predictably, Fitzgerald denied knowing Kyle Horgan and testified that Metamorphis had been designed by the Kendall design team. Without Horgan, or his file, Sloane had nothing to rebut that testimony, or to show that Fitzgerald had knowledge of the dangerous propensities of magnets in general, or the toy in particular.

  Sloane decided not to call Albert Payne as a witness. Payne could not testify as to what Kendall knew or did not know, and while Anne LeRoy’s report discussed the dangerous propensities of magnets, the information in it did not directly relate to Metamorphis or Kendall. Reid would have rightly objected that it was irrelevant, and Sloane would do nothing except educate those involved in burying the report. The opportunity to disclose that report would be better served in a more public forum to be held that same week.

  Instead, Sloane called Dr. Leonard Desmond and waited at the lectern while the forensic pathologist settled into the witness chair, opened a file, and placed it on his lap while slipping on half-lens reading glasses. With bushy silver hair, eyebrows as thick as an untended lawn, and a beige suit, Desmond looked like a cross between Albert Einstein and Mark Twain.

  As Sloane adjusted the lectern to a spot where the linoleum floor had not been worn, Judge Rudolph directed his gaze over the top of his bifocals to Barclay Reid. “I think we can dispense with Dr. Desmond’s qualifications,” he said.

  Reid smartly agreed so as not to irritate Rudolph; Desmond had performed more than five hundred autopsies, including the only two that mattered that afternoon, the autopsies of Mateo Gallegos and Austin McFarland.

  “Dr. Desmond, let’s get right to it,” Sloane said. “You performed the autopsy on Mateo Gallegos as part of your duties as the Lewis County coroner, correct?”

  “I did. With the child under the age of five, an autopsy is mandatory.”

  “And you also performed the autopsy on Austin McFarland?”

  “At your request, yes.”

  “What is a forensic pathologist?”

  “Simply stated, a forensic pathologist determines the cause of death by examining the cadaver.”

  “Dr. Desmond, let’s start with the autopsy you performed on Austin McFarland.” Sloane took Desmond through the series of questions concluding with Desmond advising that he had located five magnets within the body cavity.

  “And are you able to opine, based upon the physical evidence, what impact those magnets had on Austin McFarland in particular?”

  “I’m afraid not. By the time the autopsy was performed, the intestines had deteriorated to the point that they offered no real independent source of information.”

  Eva McFarland moaned.

  “The best I can do is state that the child had five magnets in the area where his intestines would have been and provide an educated hypothesis based upon my findings with respect to Mateo Gallegos.”

  Reid stood to object but Sloane headed her off. “We’ll get there, doctor. Let’s go ahead and discuss your findings with respect to Mateo Gallegos.”

  Reid sat.

  After walking Desmond through the preliminary questions Sloane considered another multipage document. “Let me hand you what has previously been marked as Exhibit Twenty-seven and ask that you review it.”

  Desmond did as instructed, though there was little need, given that he had written the report. He flipped to the last page. “Yes, this is my report.”

  “You signed it?”

  “Yes, that’s my signature.”

  “Would you tell the court your findings?”

  “I found that the decedent had also ingested multiple magnets.”

  “Can you explain to the court how it would be physically possible for a child to swallow six magnets?”

  Desmond displayed the magnets inside of a jar, which Rudolph inspected. “The magnets are very small. A child would have no physical problem ingesting them.”

  “So you would not expect a child to display any signs of choking after swallowing one of these magnets?”

  “No, I would not. The size of the magnets makes it unlikely the child’s airway would be obstructed, so I would not expect that the child’s complexion or physical response would give a parent any reason to suspect the child had swallowed anything hazardous.”

  “So other than actually witnessing a child swallow the magnets, a parent would not have any immediate indication that their child had done so?”

  “Unless the child told them, no, they would not. The child would be able to breathe, talk, cry.”

  “What happens when these magnets remain in a child’s system?”

  Reid stood. “I’m going to object, Your Honor. Dr. Desmond is here to provide a report of his findings with respect to Mateo Gallegos. He has not been disclosed or introduced as an expert witness on the effect of magnets on the body in general.”

  “Sustained. Rephrase the question.”

  Sloane did.

  “In this case, because the child swallowed more than one magnet, the magnets attracted one another while inside the intestines.”

  “They just bunched together?”

  “No. Because they were likely swallowed at different times, they were in different areas of the intestine and attracted one another through the intestinal walls.”

  Sloane had the doctor use a diagram of the intestines to identify where he had located the magnets. Desmond then clenched his hands into fists and pressed the knuckles together. “The magnets are so powerful they attach through the intestine and strangle blood flow to the affected portion. Once the blood supply is cut off, the clock is ticking.”

  “What do you mean ‘the clock is ticking’?”

  “Without blood supply that particular area of the bowel begins to die. The magnets erode through the intestinal wall, or make the bowel more susceptible to perforating in general.”

  “What happens if the intestinal wall is perforated?”

  “If the intestinal wall is perforated, bacteria will spill into the abdominal cavity.”

  “Deadly bacteria?”

  “It can be. It’s essentially like a gunshot or stab wound in that it can result in septic poisoning of the child’s blood supply and carry that poison to other organs.”

  “And in this particular instance did you reach a specific conclusion about what occurred with respect to Mateo Gallegos?”

  “I concluded that the child died as a result of septic poisoning to his system caused by the factors I just described.”

 
“And did you find anything further to indicate that the ingestion of these magnets might not have been the cause of death in this instance?”

  “No, I’m quite certain they were the cause.”

  “Doctor, I noted in your report that you also indicate a puncture wound to the abdomen, is that right?”

  “Yes it is.”

  “And did you reach any conclusions as to what might have caused that wound?”

  “I concluded it was a nail. I’d estimate a sixteen-penny nail, though it isn’t really possible to say so with certainty.”

  “For the record, that’s the size of the nail?” Rudolph interjected.

  “It is,” Desmond said. “But again, I can’t be certain.”

  Sloane would have preferred not to bring up the subject, but he knew if he didn’t, Barclay Reid would. In legal parlance, Sloane was stealing the wind from Reid’s sail, bringing up an unfavorable piece of evidence and allowing his witness to explain it before she could make a bigger deal of it on cross-examination.

  “Is there any indication the nail was rusted?”

  “There is some indication in the subcutaneous tissue of an infection that could be consistent with the type of infection one might experience from a rusted nail, yes.”

  “And in your opinion, is it likely that this perforation could have caused the septic poisoning you believe led to Mateo Gallegos’s illness and ultimately his death?”

  “In my opinion it is not likely. Given the presence of the magnets, they represented a far more acute cause of the symptoms leading to death.”

  “Now, as a result of your findings with respect to Mateo Gallegos, Dr. Desmond, did you draw any conclusions with respect to your autopsy of Austin McFarland that you could not have previously drawn based on the available physical evidence?”

  “I did. Having reviewed the doctor’s notations in the medical file identifying the symptoms that the McFarland child suffered, and given their remarkable similarity to the symptoms that the Gallegos child presented, as well as, of course, the undeniable presence of the magnets within the McFarland child’s body, it is my educated opinion that the McFarland child died as a result of the ingestion of magnets that resulted in a similar septic reaction caused by perforations to his intestines.”