by Barbara Ebel
“What is this judge’s name?” Rachel asked.
“Patton.” Phil leaned closer. “We’re lucky to have gotten this far. I didn’t think Kirk Thompson was even amenable to discuss some kind of compromise. He loves winning trials. However, I think he was just given another high-profile case, so he may be wanting to clear his plate of the small stuff.”
A spark shone in Rachel’s eyes as she hoped Thompson’s greediness for notoriety would make her case seem less important to him. Even do-gooders have ulterior motives, she thought. Yes, she sensed victory down the road; all of a sudden she could feel it.
“There’s probably nothing more we need to discuss about this then before going into the courtroom,” she said.
“Except that you better be amenable to their suggestions for your punishment.”
“Punishment? If you don’t wheedle it down to as little as possible, then I will.”
“Whatever you say. It’s your head on the block.”
“Yes, and you get paid regardless.” She took a sip and looked sharply at him. “Now, we have a few moments to talk about something else – my daughter’s present custody situation with Danny Tilson.”
“What’s on your mind? Your daughter’s father has been quite cooperative with you and you’re seeing her without those visitation restrictions that were in place.”
“Please. Don’t make out like he’s some hero. We have two steps to take. First, we are going to litigate for me to primarily have Julia full time with the small visitation to Tilson … the way it was initially when I had her as an infant in Knoxville.”
“At the moment,” Phil said, “I don’t see that happening. But, if it does somehow swing your way, I don’t want to hear later that she gets abused by one of your boyfriends.”
She swiped her hand in the air. “I can’t believe you’re pretending to care. But, no, that won’t happen again. It obviously caused a repercussion of events and not just for her. I’ll shoot any guy square between the eyes who tries to do that to her again.”
“And I take it, you’ll want a child support change?”
“Obviously. And a lot more than that.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll see.”
-----
In the courtroom, Rachel and Phil waited for the judge to enter. She glanced towards the table to the right. She had met the prosecuting attorney before when he had questioned her as a witness in Leo’s manslaughter case and, in one way, she had respect for him because he had brought her old boyfriend down.
Knowing that Kirk’s legal focus was now on her, she smiled across the aisle and leaned to the side. “Mr. Thompson, everyone is so grateful that justice was done after the mayor’s daughter died so tragically and unnecessarily. Thank you so much for putting Leo Ramsey in jail where he belongs.”
As Rachel’s comments took Kirk by surprise, he considered his response as the judge walked across the front of the room and was announced.
Now she focused on the judge. Bingo, she thought, liking his gender and age range; better than she had hoped for. Due to the circumstances of her case, she felt a male judge would be to her advantage and, if he was around middle-aged or slightly younger, he’d have fresh experience with small children. He may be in the throes of juggling a young family himself whereas an older judge would be forgetful of the daily difficulties of having that task.
Silence swept the courtroom while the judge took thirty seconds to review the paperwork before him. Then he looked over the frames of his glasses. “Mr. Beckett, it appears your client is trying to dodge a trial that Mr. Thompson now has the tools to make happen.”
“I believe we can come to an arrangement and spare this court’s time.”
Thompson heard a sniffling and peered to his left. A tear welled up in Rachel’s eye and started rolling down her cheek.
The judge glanced and pointed towards Kirk. “Mr. Thompson, is the State willing to accept some modification of these possible sentences that you have outlined?”
“I believe so, Your Honor.”
“Hmm.” He focused on Rachel while swiping the black wave of hair bridging his forehead. “Miss Hendersen?” he snapped.
Rachel stood with grace and walked slowly from behind the table to the aisle. “Yes, Judge Patton, Your Honor, sir.” Her voice was butter-soft as she dabbed her eye with a tissue.
“What would you like to tell this court? There are two serious allegations here,” he said, his tone mellowing a tad as he neared the end.
Rachel dropped one arm to her side and kept the one with the tissue poised over her heart. “I totally regret having had my daughter anywhere near the abusive man I was dating. I need to have better judgment in men, Your Honor. I was sucked in with his lies and deception and my daughter’s safety was put at risk. As I believe in a supreme being, I hope he helps me to never fall for men like that again. I am so sorry. I love my daughter more than anything and I’ll stand in the way of any man that ever appears to want to harm her again.”
Rachel sobbed and swiped the tissue across her cheek.
Judge Patton cleared his throat. The tone in his voice softened yet again. “But, Ms. Hendersen, you took a great deal of money from him in the end as well, a payoff for your silence.”
“Judge Patton, the abuse had already occurred. I am a single mom struggling to raise my daughter all by myself. I had to then get far away from Leo Ramsey and the money helped me get free of him. Otherwise, Julia and I would have ended up in some state center for abused women and children, leeching off of the taxpayer’s dollar.”
Patton’s eyes softened. Phil Beckett didn’t want to add a thing so kept quiet. Thompson rolled his eyes.
“Ms. Hendersen,” the judge said, “in all sincerity, you could have been the woman who Leo Ramsey fed lethal doses of drugs to. Please be more careful in the future. Men are not always who they seem to be.”
“Yes, Your Honor. Thank you, Judge Patton.” She sidestepped to the left and lowered herself back into the stiff chair.
“This is what we are going to do,” he said, looking at each attorney in turn. “Hendersen will give back the ten-thousand dollars she pocketed from Mr. Ramsey. It will go to The Center for Abused Children here in Knoxville.”
Although Rachel’s pulse quickened as she became irritated, she realized he did not tack on an additional monetary penalty. She could live with this so far.
“And what to do about your failure to acknowledge the abuse your daughter suffered? To not take her out of harm’s way, report it, or get medical treatment?” He gave her a soulful stare.
“Your Honor,” Thompson said, “we put some possibilities before the court.”
“Yes, I see,” he said, reading over the list. “These may be a little harsh and we don’t want Ms. Hendersen not being gainfully employed and able to take care of her daughter appropriately. Eight hours of community service per week for three months should be sufficient. She can volunteer at a children’s hospital. You two can see to the details.”
The two attorneys glanced over at each other and nodded.
“Miss Hendersen,” the judge said after clearing his throat. “Again, watch yourself. You’re too pretty to be mixed up with bad men.”
“Yes, thank you, Your Honor … thank you so much.”
Kirk Thompson stepped forward first as Phil picked up his briefcase and nudged Rachel to leave.
“Glad to wrap it up,” Kirk said quickly in his northeast accent.
With a quick gesture, Rachel pocketed the tissue she’d been using and stood before Kirk in the aisle. “Now that I will be sure to follow the judge’s advice, I hope we meet again under less stressful conditions, Mr. Thompson. Perhaps a situation that’s more social,” she purred.
Kirk wasn’t one to skip a beat but he paused to consider what she’d said.
“Ms. Hendersen, consider me unavailable to do ‘social.’ If you are something between an angel and a witch, I think you lean towards the latter.”
Before Rachel had time to respond, he exited the courtroom while Phil prodded her again to leave. When they entered the outside hallway, Phil said, “That was quite a performance in there.”
“Had I been devoid of that skill,” she said, “I would have taken acting lessons before coming here today.”
Chapter 6
At the basketball court, Annabel gasped as she watched David get hit in the head by a player’s knee. She rose from the bench and clasped her hands in front of her face. David scrambled, assumed an upright posture, and didn’t fall any further. As she sighed a breath of relief, one teammate held the ball and another patted her boyfriend, checking to see if he was okay. The shortest one of them glanced at his watch and then all of them exchanged words. It appeared they decided to quit playing and get back to afternoon classes as they began walking off the court.
After Annabel stepped over the front row bench onto the gym floor, she waved while approaching them. She focused on David who was between his buddies in body but not in mind. Walking along, he seemed dazed and looked past Annabel like she wasn’t even there.
When she was within five feet of him, a dread gripped her as she held back speaking to him as she was afraid he wouldn’t answer her back.
Annabel’s suspicions proved her correct and, in a few seconds, David abruptly fell to the ground, his tall frame hitting the wood floor with a thud. Like a gathering of giraffes, the long arms of the other players swooped down all around him and Annabel wiggled between them.
“David!” she exclaimed. She hovered over his face; his eyes didn’t move and yet his pupils were getting bigger and bigger.
“Oh my God,” she said as she crouched down. “Somebody, call 911. Right now.”
-----
Danny was closing a lumbar laminectomy case with an assistant and small talk filled the OR. For the second time in a minute, Danny’s iPhone wiggled on the table; it was set on the vibrator mode, adjacent to his pager.
“Dr. Tilson,” the circulator said, “somebody’s persistent in trying to get you. Do you want me to check the number or answer your phone?”
“What number is showing up?”
She rattled off what she saw.
“That’s my daughter,” Danny said. “She occasionally texts me or rings the office. It’s rare for her to call my cell phone during the day. Please, answer it.”
Danny glanced over, pausing a suture needle above the patient’s back.
The nurse grew concerned as she listened to the voicemail which had already been left and then stared at Danny. “Your daughter said something happened to David. He’s in an ambulance on the way to the hospital right now and she’s in her car headed this way, too. She said you must see him.”
The surgical assistant nodded at Danny. “I’m good here. Go ahead.”
Danny looked at the anesthesiologist. “Patient’s fine. Don’t see any problem waking him up and getting him extubated.”
After backing away from the table, Danny stripped off his gloves and picked up his tech gadgets. “Thanks, everyone,” he said.
“Hope everything is okay,” the anesthesiologist said as Danny went through the door.
Danny practically ran through the ER as the unit secretary looked up. “I was just calling you,” she said.
“Don’t have to,” he replied. “I already see the back door opening and the ambulance outside.”
Within minutes, the ER doctor and Danny both followed the two paramedics and stretcher into the trauma room. David was unconscious on the stretcher as the doctors wondered what had happened; no one said a word as they attached new monitors. The respiratory therapist arrived and began squeezing the Ambu bag a medic had passed to her.
“We intubated him at the scene,” the medic said, looking at Danny. “Your daughter had already started giving him mouth-to-mouth respiration as he wasn’t breathing.”
Startled by that news, Danny raised his hand over his eyes but then went to work by pure instinct. David’s pupils were dilated and he had no eye movement. As he continued the physical exam and then gave orders for him to go to the CT scanner, he realized Annabel had come through the ER back door and the staff were trying to restrain her from coming into the room.
Through the commotion, Danny and Annabel’s eyes met. How was he going to tell her that David was in a coma?
-----
After wrapping his arm around his daughter’s shoulder, Danny walked her to an empty room designated for family conferences. Annabel had lost her rosy complexion and her facial muscles were taut. She held back tears as they sat on the couch but he nevertheless handed her a tissue from a nearby box.
“Tell me.,” Danny said. “What happened?”
“I went to meet him for lunch but he wasn’t there. He had already left with some friends who were going to shoot some basketball,” she sputtered. “I mean, didn’t you tell him? He wasn’t even supposed to practice? Right?”
Danny clenched his jaw. “He wasn’t supposed to have any mental strain or physical activity until I was to see him in three more days.”
“He didn’t feel too bad. He must have caved into peer pressure, Dad. It sounded like the guys egged him on.”
“Did he fall and hit his head?”
“Not really. He got hit in the head with a knee first. He was dazed but otherwise fine. Then he suddenly went down.”
Danny nodded with understanding as a knock came on the door. He opened the door a few inches. “Dr. Tilson, David’s parents are here,” an ER employee said. “Do you want to talk to them?”
“Send them in. Thanks.”
“I can leave in a minute,” Annabel said.
When David’s parents came in, Annabel was still clutching her knees with her hands. “I’ll leave so you can all talk,” she said.
“If it’s okay with your father, we don’t mind if you stay,” Mrs. Floyd said. “Do you know what happened?”
After Danny and Mr. Bell positioned themselves on two chairs, letting the women sit on the sofa, Annabel told them what had occurred. After she finished, Tara closed her eyes for a prolonged pause.
“Dr. Tilson,” she said, “the ER doctor explained some things to us but wanted us to talk to you. Please tell us what’s happened to our son. First of all, I can’t believe he’s in a coma if all he did was get smacked by a knee. This can’t be right.”
“I don’t understand any of it,” Floyd chimed in. “Is there some kind of precedence in what’s happened?”
Another knock came at the door and Danny stepped out.
“Dr. Tilson, CT results are back on David Bell,” the X-ray technician said.
Danny poked his head back in. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. “This is the most comfortable place to wait.”
-----
It took more time than a few minutes but Danny caught up with David’s condition and called the OR for them to hold up his next case for the time being. In the interim, he’d grabbed a cup of coffee. He needed the hot caffeine to give him a boost on this terrible morning.
He walked slowly back to the small room. When he stepped in, Tara, Floyd and Annabel looked at him with anticipation, as if they’d held their breath since he had left. At least it appeared that Annabel had stopped crying.
“Your son is the same,” Danny said, unbuttoning his lab coat. “He’s being transferred to the ICU. You’ll be able to see him there later. In the meantime, I can tell you my theory, my diagnosis, of what’s happened. After our previous discussion about concussions, I think you’ll be able to follow what I’m saying.”
“Please … do,” Tara stuttered.
“If this were nineteen-eighty, I would not be able to give you such clear information. After that, we gained insight into David’s type of condition. It began with the death of two football players who received seemingly minor blows to the head after they both received previous first blows. And now our specialty has reported around two dozen cases like those – mostly male adolescents or young adu
lts – who were involved with boxing, football and ice hockey accidents.”
“But basketball?” Floyd questioned, shrugging his shoulders more than usual.
“The pathophysiology is the same,” Danny said. “Just like with a concussion. What happened was that David had a blow to the head before recovery from a previous blow to the head. The athlete’s second blow can be minor but it can jerk his or her head and indirectly impart accelerative forces to the brain.”
“This second-impact syndrome is an uncontrollable increase in intracranial pressure due to diffuse brain swelling,” Danny sadly added.
Tara’s eyes looked blank as the Bell’s couldn’t ignore Danny’s dire words.
“The physiology of intracranial pressure is simple, Mrs. Bell,” Danny continued. “Think of the skull as a closed space containing three things: brain tissue, blood in blood vessels, and cerebrospinal fluid. Since it is a closed space, if one component increases too much, it puts pressure on the other components. If the tissues swell, it will compromise the blood flow coming to the brain which in turn can’t give the brain enough oxygen. All three components need to exist with a healthy balance.”
“It’s making more sense,” Tara said.
“And in more difficult terms, there is something called autoregulation of the brain’s blood supply. In this secondary impact scenario, it is lost, causing vascular engorgement in the cranium. The increased intracranial pressure is difficult, if not impossible, to control.”
Danny scanned each of their faces. “This potential condition should be a main concern for coaches and doctors who must make return-to-play decisions in players after a head injury. It’s why I was going to see David this week for re-evaluation.”
“Dad, what did you call it again?”
“A secondary impact,” Danny said.
“You can’t operate?” Annabel asked.
“No, I would do that if it were something like the hematomas we discussed a few days ago. Surgical evacuation in those scenarios would relieve the pressure and be therapeutic.”