by Robin Cook
“I guess that was before he sued you for malpractice.”
“Obviously. It was another reason I was so taken aback when I was served with the summons and the complaint. Why would the man invite me to the service and then sue me? Like everything else, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Did you go?”
“I did. I felt obligated. I mean, I was upset I’d not been able to resuscitate the woman.”
“Is it difficult doing an autopsy after being buried for almost a year?” Alexis asked. She’d come over and taken a seat on the couch. “It sounds so ghoulish.”
“You never know,” Jack said. “Two factors are the most important. First: how well the body was embalmed. Second: whether the grave stayed dry or if the seal on the casket remained intact. The reality is you never know until you open up the grave. But regardless of the situation, a lot of information can be gleaned.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Christina yelled from the table. The two other girls had disappeared upstairs.
“Nothing, sweetie,” Alexis said. “Run up and get your things. The school bus is going to be here any minute.”
“This could be my contribution to the case,” Jack said. “I could find out the procedure for exhumation here in Massachusetts and do an autopsy. Short of my providing mere moral support, it’s probably the only way I could offer to help in this affair. But it’s up to you guys. You tell me.”
Alexis looked at Craig. “What do you think?” she asked.
Craig shook his head. “To be honest, I don’t know what to think. I mean, if an autopsy were to prove she had some major congenital cardiovascular problem such that any delay getting her to a hospital had no significance, I’d be all for it. But what are the chances? I’d have to guess rather small. On the flip side, if an autopsy were to show her myocardial infarction was even more extensive than one might expect, maybe the autopsy would make things worse. It seems to me to be a wash.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Jack said. “I’ll look into it. I’ll find out all the details, and I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, both of you can give it some thought. What do you say?”
“I say it’s a plan,” Alexis responded. She looked at Craig.
“Why not?” Craig said with a shrug. “I’ve always said more information is better than less.”
8
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
9:28 a.m.
All rise!” the court officer called as Judge Marvin Davidson emerged from his chambers and mounted the stairs to the bench. The black robes shielded his feet, so he seemed to glide like an apparition. “Be seated,” the court officer called out after the judge had done so.
Jack looked behind himself so he could lower his posterior onto the seat without knocking over his Starbucks coffee. After the fact, he’d noted that no one else had brought any refreshments into the courtroom, so he’d guiltily stashed his coffee beside him on the bench.
He was sitting next to Alexis in the crowded spectators’ section. He’d asked her why there were so many observers, but she’d told him she had no idea whatsoever. Almost all the spectator seats were taken.
The morning at the Bowman residence had gone better than Jack had imagined. Although Craig had flip-flopped to a degree from being conversational to brooding, they’d at least had a mutually honest talk, and Jack felt infinitely better being a guest in their home. After the girls had left for school, there’d been more conversation, but then it was mostly between Alexis and Jack. Craig had reverted to his sullen, preoccupied state.
There’d been a long discussion about transportation to and from town, but ultimately Jack had firmly insisted he’d drive. He wanted to come to the courtroom to get a feel for the principals, particularly the lawyers, but then around midmorning, he wanted to drive to the Boston medical examiner’s office, where he’d start his investigation about Massachusetts’s rules regarding exhumation. After that, he didn’t know what he’d do. He’d told them he might come back to the courtroom, but if he didn’t, he’d meet them at the Newton house in the late afternoon.
As the court took its time getting ready to begin by handling the usual housekeeping motions, Jack studied the principal actors. The African-American judge looked like a former college football player gone to seed, yet the sense of authority he radiated through the confident deliberativeness with which he handled the paperwork on his desk and conversed sotto voce with his clerk gave Jack the reassuring feeling he knew what he was doing. The two lawyers were exactly as Alexis had described. Randolph Bingham was the picture of the elegant, polished, big-firm attorney in the way he dressed, moved, and spoke. In sharp contrast, Tony Fasano was the brazen, flashy young lawyer who flaunted his trendy clothes and clunky gold accessories. Yet the characteristic of Tony that Jack noticed right off and which Alexis had not mentioned was that Tony appeared to be enjoying himself. Although the bereaved plaintiff sat rigidly, Tony and his assistant were carrying on an animated conversation with smiles and suppressed laughter, which was a far cry from the defense table, which sat in either frozen propriety or defiant despair.
Jack’s eyes moved staccato down the line of jurors as they filed into the jury box. It was obviously a diverse group, which he thought appropriate. It struck him that if he ducked out of the court and strolled down the street, the first twelve people he’d confront would be an equivalent group.
While Jack was studying the jurors, Tony Fasano called the first witness of the day. It was Marlene Richardt, Craig’s matronly secretary-cum-receptionist, and she was duly sworn and seated in the witness box.
Jack turned his attention to the woman. To him, she looked like the strong-willed Frau that her German name suggested. She was of sizable proportions and built square, not too dissimilar from Tony. Her hair was up in a tight bun. Her mouth was set bulldog-style, and her eyes sparkled with defiance. It wasn’t hard to sense she was a reluctant witness, whom Tony had the judge declare a hostile witness.
From the podium, Tony started out slowly, trying to joke with the woman, but he was unsuccessful, at least that’s what Jack thought until he switched his attention to the jurors. In contrast to the witness, most of them smiled at Tony’s attempts at humor. All at once, Jack could see what Alexis had implied, namely that Tony Fasano had a flair for connecting with the jury.
Jack had read Marlene’s deposition, which had very little connection to the case, since the day of Patience Stanhope’s demise she’d not been in contact with the patient, because the patient had not come into the office. The two times Craig had seen the patient had been at her home. So Jack was surprised that Tony was taking as long as he was with Marlene, painstakingly charting her association with Craig and her own troubled personal life. Since she and Craig had worked together for fifteen years, there was a lot to talk about.
Tony maintained his humorous style. Marlene ignored it at first, but after about an hour of what was starting to smack of a filibuster on Tony’s part, she began to get angry, and as she did so she started to respond emotionally. It was at that point that Jack correctly sensed that the joky style was a deliberate ploy on Tony’s part. Tony wanted her off-balance and angry. As if sensing something unexpected was coming, Randolph tried to object that the testimony was endless and immaterial. The judge seemed to agree, but after a short sidebar conversation, which Jack could not hear, the questioning resumed and quickly hit pay dirt for the plaintiff’s cause.
“Your Honor, may I approach the witness?” Tony asked. He was holding a folder in the air.
“You may,” Judge Davidson said.
Tony stepped up to the witness box and handed the folder to Marlene. “Could you tell the jury what you are holding?”
“A patient file from the office.”
“And whose file is it?”
“Patience Stanhope.”
“Now there is a file number on the file.”
“Of course there’s a file number!” Marlene snapped. “How would w
e find it otherwise?”
“Could you read it aloud for the jury,” Tony said, ignoring Marlene’s mini-outburst.
“PP eight.”
“Thank you,” Tony said. He retrieved the file and returned to the podium.
Expectantly, several of the jurors leaned forward.
“Mrs. Richardt, would you explain to the jury what the initials PP stand for.”
Like a cornered cat, Marlene’s eyes darted around the room before settling for a moment on Craig.
“Mrs. Richardt,” Tony prodded. “Hello! Anybody home?”
“They are letters,” Marlene snapped.
“Well, thank you,” Tony said sarcastically. “I believe most of the jurors recognized them as letters. What I’m asking is what they stand for. And permit me to remind you that you are sworn, and giving false testimony is perjury, which carries a severe penalty.”
Marlene’s face, which had become progressively red during her testimony, got redder still. Even her cheeks swelled as if she were straining.
“If it will help you remember, later testimony will suggest that you and Dr. Craig Bowman came up with this filing designation, which is not typical in your office. In fact, I have two other patient file numbers from your office.” Tony held up the two additional folders. “The first one is Peter Sager’s, and the number is PS one twenty-one. We chose this particular file since the individual’s first initials are the same as the deceased, yet the letters on her file are PP, not PS.
“And my third file is Katherine Baxter, and this number is KB two thirty-three. There were others as well, and in each instance, the two first letters corresponded with the patient’s initials. Now, we are aware that there are a few other PPs, but very few. So I ask again. What does the PP stand for, since it is not the patient’s initials?”
“PP stands for ‘problem patient,’” Marlene snapped defiantly.
Tony’s face twisted into a wry smile for the jury’s benefit. “Problem patient!” he repeated slowly but loudly. “What in heaven’s name does that mean? Do they act up in the office?”
“Yes, they act up in the office,” Marlene spat. “They’re hypochondriacs. They have a bunch of stupid complaints that they make up and take the doctor’s time away from the people who are really sick.”
“And Dr. Bowman agreed with your giving the patients this designation.”
“Of course. He’s the one who told us which ones.”
“And just so there is no misunderstanding, Patience Stanhope’s file was a PP file, meaning she was a problem patient. Is that true?”
“Yes!”
“No further questions.”
Jack leaned over toward Alexis and whispered, “This is a public-relations nightmare. What was Craig thinking?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. But something like this is not helping. In fact, things are looking even bleaker.”
Jack nodded but didn’t say anything more. He couldn’t believe Craig could be so foolish. Every doctor had patients he or she labeled “problem patients,” but it was never indicated in the record. Every practice had patients that were hated or despised, and that the doctors would try to get rid of as patients but often couldn’t. Jack could remember in his own ophthalmology practice he’d had two or three who were so unpleasant that when he saw their names on the schedule, it would influence his mood for the whole day. He knew such a response was human nature, and being a doctor does not absolve the physician from such feelings. It was an issue that was swept under the rug during training, except in psychiatry.
Randolph smoothly tried on cross-examination to repair the damage as best he could, although it was clear the issue had blindsided him. With the ritualized process of discovery, such surprises were rare. Tony sported a smug smile.
“Labeling a patient as a ‘problem patient’ is not necessarily disparaging, is it, Mrs. Richardt?”
“I guess not.”
“In fact, the reason to flag such a patient is to plan on giving them more attention rather than less.”
“We did schedule them more time.”
“That’s exactly my point. Is it correct to say that as soon as you spotted PP, you scheduled the doctor to be with the patient longer?”
“Yes.”
“So it was for the patient’s benefit to have the PP designation.”
“Yes.”
“No more questions.”
Jack leaned over to Alexis again. “I’m going to head over to the medical examiner’s office. This has given me a bit more motivation.”
“Thank you,” Alexis whispered back.
Jack felt definite relief as he emerged from the courthouse. Being ensnared in the legal system had always been one of his phobias, and having it happen to his brother-in-law hit too close to home. The notion that justice would miraculously prevail was unreasonably idealistic, as Craig’s case was threatening to show. Jack didn’t trust the system, although he couldn’t think of a better one.
He retrieved his rented Hyundai from beneath the Boston Common. He’d parked it there that morning, having stumbled on the public garage after vainly looking for street parking in Boston’s Government Center district. He had no idea where Craig and Alexis had parked. The original idea had been for him to follow them into the city, but whenever he let so much as a car length develop between himself and the Bowmans’ Lexus, another car always immediately slid in. It was especially true once they got on the turnpike, and, not willing to be as aggressive at highway speeds as would have been necessary to stay directly behind Craig and Alexis, he lost them in the sea of commuters. From his perspective, Boston driving, which had been difficult the night before, was a hundred times more challenging in true rush-hour traffic.
Using the Hertz map, he’d been able to get into Boston proper easily enough. From the garage, it had been a relatively short and quite pleasant walk to the courthouse.
Once he was out of the dimly lit garage, Jack pulled to the side of the road and consulted the Hertz map. It took him a while to find Albany Street, but once he had, he was able to orient himself with the help of the Boston Common, which was to his right, and the Boston Public Garden, which was to his left. The garden was ablaze with late-spring flowers. Jack had forgotten what a charming, attractive city Boston was once you got into it.
While he drove, which took most of his concentration, he tried to think of any other way to help Craig’s cause. It seemed an ironic absurdity that Craig was going to be found liable for malpractice because he’d been gracious enough to make a house call.
Albany Street was relatively easy to find, as was the medical examiner’s office. Making it even easier was a multistory public parking facility immediately adjacent. Fifteen minutes later, Jack was talking through a protective glass screen to an attractive young female receptionist. In contrast to the outdated medical examiner’s facility in New York, the Boston headquarters was spanking new. Jack couldn’t help being both envious and impressed.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked cheerfully.
“I imagine you can,” Jack said. He went on to explain who he was and that he wanted to talk to one of the medical examiners. He said he wasn’t choosy, just whoever was available.
“I think they are all in the autopsy room, doctor,” the woman said. “But let me check.”
While the woman made several calls, Jack glanced around. It was a utilitarian décor with the characteristic odor of fresh paint. There was an office for the liaison with the police department, and through the open door Jack saw a uniformed officer. There were several other rooms, but Jack could only guess at their function.
“Dr. Latasha Wylie is available after all, and she’ll be right down,” the receptionist said. She had to practically yell for Jack to hear through the glass partition.
Jack thanked her and began to wonder exactly where the Park Meadow Cemetery was. If Craig and Alexis wanted him to do the autopsy, he was going to have to move very quickly, since they were already at day two of a predic
ted five-day trial. Actually doing the autopsy wouldn’t be the challenge. The challenge would be the bureaucratic red tape, and in a city as old as Boston, Massachusetts, Jack feared the red tape might be formidable.
“Dr. Stapleton?” a voice questioned.
Jack started. He’d been nosily and surreptitiously glancing into one of the other rooms off the lobby, trying to figure out its role. Guiltily, Jack turned to face a surprisingly youthful African-American woman with flowing, coal-black tresses and beauty-pageant good looks. Jack went from feeling guilty to being momentarily nonplussed. There had been too many times lately when he’d faced professional female medical colleagues who looked to him like college coeds. It made him feel ancient.
After introductions, which included Jack’s showing his ME badge just to emphasize that he wasn’t some deranged creep off the street, he gave a thumbnail sketch of what he wanted—namely, information about the exhumation procedure in Massachusetts. Latasha immediately invited Jack upstairs to her office, which made Jack even more envious when he compared it to his own. The room wasn’t huge or sumptuous, but it had both a desk and work area, so the inevitable paperwork and microscopic work could be kept separated, such that one didn’t have to be put away to switch to the other. It also had windows. It was only a view of the nearby parking garage, but it let in a significant amount of daylight, something he didn’t see in his office.
Once in the office, Jack gave a detailed account of Craig’s malpractice case. He stretched reality by saying Craig was one of the city’s premier internists even though he practiced in the suburbs, and by suggesting he was going to be found liable for the deceased’s death unless the deceased was exhumed and autopsied. His rationale for this embellishment was that he thought that if the Boston ME’s office was motivated enough, they could slice through any bureaucratic problems. In New York, that would have been the case. Unfortunately, Latasha disabused him of this idea immediately.
“We medical examiners in Massachusetts cannot get involved in ordering an exhumation unless it’s a criminal case,” she observed. “And even then, it has to go through the district attorney, who in turn has to go to a judge to get a court order.”