Beyond Suspicion, page 3
“Jack, there’s something I want to tell you.”
The conversation seemed to be drifting beyond the attorney-client relationship, and he didn’t want to go there. He was her lawyer, nothing more, never mind the past. “Before you say anything, there’s something I should tell you.”
“Really?”
He sat on the step beside her. “I noticed that Dr. Marsh was back in the courtroom today. He’s obviously concerned.”
His abrupt return to law-talk seemed to confuse her. “Concerned about me, you mean?”
“I’d say his exact concern is whether you plan to sue him. We haven’t talked much about this, but you probably do have a case against him.”
“Sue him? For what?”
“Malpractice, of course. He eventually got your diagnosis right, but he should have targeted lead poisoning as the cause of your neurological problems much earlier than he did. Especially after you told him about the renovations to your condo. The dust that comes with sanding off old, lead-based paint in houses built before 1978 is a pretty common source of lead poisoning.”
“But he’s the top expert in Miami.”
“He’s still capable of making mistakes. He is human, after all.”
She looked off to the middle distance. “That’s the perfect word for him. He was so human. He took such special care of me.”
“How do you mean?”
“Some doctors are ice-cold, no bedside manner at all. Dr. Marsh was very sympathetic, very compassionate. It’s not that common for someone under the age of forty to get ALS, and he took a genuine interest in me.”
“In what way?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” she said, giving him a playful kick in the shin.
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“I’ll give you a perfect example. One of the most important tests I had was the EMG. That’s the one where they hook you up to the electrodes to see if there’s any nerve damage.”
“I know. I saw the report.”
“Yeah, but all you saw was the report. The actual test can be pretty scary, especially when you’re worried that you might have something as awful as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Most neurologists have a technician do the test. But Dr. Marsh knew how freaked out I was about this. I didn’t want some technician to conduct the test, and then I’d have to wait another week for the doctor to interpret the results, and then wait another two weeks for a follow-up appointment where the results would finally be explained to me. So he ran the test himself, immediately. There aren’t a lot of doctors who would do that for their patients in this world of mismanaged care.”
“You’re right about that.”
“I could give you a dozen other examples. He’s a great doctor and a real gentleman. I don’t need to sue Dr. Marsh. A million and a half dollars is plenty for me.”
Jack couldn’t disagree. It was one more pleasant reminder that she was no longer the self-centered twentysomething-year-old of another decade. And neither was he.
“You’re making the right decision.”
“I’ve made a few good ones in my lifetime,” she said, her smile fading. “And a few bad ones, too.”
He was at a loss for the right response, preferred to let it go. But she followed up. “Have you ever wondered what would have happened if we hadn’t broken up?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
“Why not? Isn’t that just a teensy-weensy part of the reason you took my case?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Stop calling me a liar.”
“Stop lying.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Just answer one question for me. I want you to be completely honest. And if you are, I’ll totally drop this, okay?”
“All right. One.”
“Six months we’ve been working this case together. Are you surprised nothing happened between us?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“That’s two questions.”
“Why do you think nothing happened?”
“Because I’m married.”
She flashed a thin smile, nodding knowingly. “Interesting answer.”
“What’s so interesting about it? That’s the answer.”
“Yes, but you could have said something a little different, like ‘Because I love my wife.’ Instead, you said, ‘Because I’m married.’”
“It comes down to the same thing.”
“No. One comes from the heart. The other is just a matter of playing by the rules.”
Jack didn’t answer. Jessie had always been a smart girl, but that was perhaps the most perceptive thing he’d ever heard her say.
The digital pager vibrated on his belt. He checked it eagerly, then looked at Jessie and said, “Jury’s back.”
She didn’t move, still waiting for him to say something. Jack just gathered himself up and said, “Can’t keep the judge waiting.”
Without another word, she rose and followed him up the courthouse steps.
5
•
In minutes they were back in Courtroom 9, and Jack could feel the butterflies swirling in his belly. This wasn’t the most complicated case he’d ever handled, but he wanted to win it for Jessie. It had nothing to do with the fact that his client was a woman who’d once rejected him and that this was his chance to prove what a great lawyer he was. Jessie deserved to win. Period. It was that simple.
Right. Is anything ever that simple?
Jack and his client stood impassively at their place behind the mahogany table for the defense. Plaintiff’s counsel stood alone on the other side of the courtroom, at the table closest to the jury box. His client, a corporation, hadn’t bothered to send a representative for the rendering of the verdict. Perhaps they’d expected the worst, a prospect that seemed to have stimulated some public interest. A reporter from the local paper was seated in the front row, and behind her in the public gallery were other folks Jack didn’t recognize. One face, however, was entirely familiar: Joseph Marsh, Jessie’s neurologist, was standing in the rear of the courtroom.
A paddle fan wobbled directly over Jack’s head as the decision makers returned to the jury box in single file. Each of them looked straight ahead, sharing not a glance with either the plaintiff or the defendant. Professional jury consultants could have argued for days as to the significance of their body language-whether it was good or bad if they made eye contact with the plaintiff, the defendant, the lawyers, the judge, or no one at all. To Jack, it was all pop psychology, unreliable even when the foreman winked at your client and mouthed the words, “It’s in the bag, baby.”
“Has the jury reached a verdict?” asked the judge.
“We have, Your Honor,” announced the forewoman. The all-important slip of paper went from the jury box to the bailiff and finally to the judge. He inspected it for less than a second, showing no reaction. “Please announce the verdict.”
Jack felt his client’s long fingernails digging into his bicep.
“In the case of Viatical Solutions Incorporated versus Jessie Merrill, we the jury find in favor of the defendant.”
Jack suddenly found himself locked in what felt like a full body embrace, his client trembling in his arms. Had he not been there to hold her, she would have fallen to the floor. A tear trickled down her cheek as she looked him in the eye and whispered, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He released her, but she held him a moment longer-a little too long and too publicly, perhaps, to suit a married man. Then again, plenty of overjoyed clients had hugged him in the past, even big burly men who were homophobic to the core. Like them, Jessie had simply gotten carried away with the moment.
I think.
“Your Honor, we have a motion.” The lawyer for Viatical Solutions, Inc. was standing at the podium. He seemed on the verge of an explosion, which was understandable. One and a half million dollars had just slipped through his fingers. Six months earlier he’d written an arrogant letter to Jessie telling her that her viatical settlement wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Now Jessie was cool, and he was the fool.
God, I love winning.
“What’s your motion?” the judge asked.
“We ask that the court enter judgment for the plaintiff notwithstanding the verdict. The evidence does not support-”
“Save it,” said the judge.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” With that, Judge Garcia unleashed a veritable tongue-lashing. From the first day of trial he’d seemed taken with Jessie, and this final harangue only confirmed that Jack should have tried the case to the judge alone and never even asked for a jury. At least a half-dozen times in the span of two minutes he derided the suit against Jessie as “frivolous and mean-spirited.” He not only denied the plaintiff’s post-trial motion, but he so completely clobbered them that Jack was beginning to wish he’d invited Cindy downtown to watch.
On second thought, it was just as well that she’d missed that big hug Jessie had given him in her excitement over the verdict.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your service. We are adjourned.” With a bang of the judge’s gavel, it was all over.
Jessie was a millionaire.
“Time to celebrate,” she said.
“You go right ahead. You’ve earned it.”
“You’re coming too, buster. Drinks are on me.”
He checked his watch. “All right. It’s early for me, but maybe a beer.”
“One beer? Wimp.”
“Lush.”
“Lawyer.”
“Now you’re hitting way below the belt.”
They shared a smile, then headed for the exit. The courtroom had already cleared, but a small crowd was gathering at the elevator. Most had emerged from another courtroom, but Jack recognized a few spectators from Jessie’s trial. Among them was Dr. Marsh.
The elevator doors opened, and Jack said, “Let’s wait for the next one.”
“There’s room,” said Jessie.
A dozen people packed into the crowded car. In all the jostling for position, a janitor and his bucket came between Jack and Jessie. The doors closed and, as if it were an immutable precept of universal elevator etiquette, all conversation ceased. The lighted numbers overhead marked their silent descent. The doors opened two floors down. Three passengers got off, four more got in. Jack kept his eyes forward but noticed that, in the shuffle, Dr. Marsh had wended his way from the back of the car to a spot directly beside Jessie.
The elevator stopped again. Another exchange of passengers, two exiting, two more getting on. Jack kept his place in front near the control panel. As the doors closed, Jessie moved all the way to the far corner. Dr. Marsh managed to find an opening right beside her.
Is he pursuing her?
It was too crowded for Jack to turn his body around completely, but he could see Jessie and her former physician in the convex mirror in the opposite corner of the elevator. Discreetly, he kept an eye on both of them. Marsh had blown the diagnosis of ALS, but he was a smart guy. Surely he’d anticipated that Jessie would speak to her lawyer about suing him for malpractice. If it was his intention to corner Jessie in the elevator and breathe a few threatening words into her ear, Jack would be all over him.
No more stops. The elevator was on the express route to the lobby. Jack glanced at the lighted numbers above the door, then back at the mirror. His heart nearly stopped; he couldn’t believe his eyes. It had lasted only a split second, but what he’d seen was unmistakable. Obviously, Jessie and the doctor hadn’t noticed the mirror, hadn’t realized that Jack was watching them even though they were standing behind him.
They’d locked fingers, as if holding hands, then released.
For one chilling moment, Jack couldn’t breathe.
The elevator doors opened. Jack held the door open button to allow the others to exit. Dr. Marsh passed without a word, without so much as looking at Jack. Jessie emerged last. Jack took her by the arm and pulled her into an alcove near the bank of pay telephones.
“What the hell did you just do in there?”
She shook free of his grip. “Nothing.”
“I was watching in the mirror. I saw you and Marsh hold hands.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Apparently. Crazy to have trusted you.”
She shook her head, scoffing. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that, Swyteck? That’s what I couldn’t stand when we were dating, you and your stupid jealousy.”
“This has nothing to do with jealousy. You just held hands with the doctor who supposedly started this whole problem by misdiagnosing you with ALS. You owe me a damn good explanation, lady.”
“We don’t owe you anything.”
It struck him cold, the way she’d said “we.” Jack was suddenly thinking of their conversation on the courthouse steps just minutes earlier, where Jessie had heaped such praise on the kind and considerate doctor. “Now I see why Dr. Marsh performed the diagnostic tests himself. It had nothing to do with his compassion. You never had any symptoms of ALS. You never even had lead poisoning. The tests were fakes, weren’t they?”
She just glared and said, “It’s like I told you: We don’t owe you anything.”
“What do you expect me to do? Ignore what I just saw?”
“Yes. If you’re smart.”
“Is that some kind of threat?”
“Do yourself a favor, okay? Forget you ever knew me. Move on with your life.”
Those were the exact words she’d used to dump him some seven years earlier.
She started away, then stopped, as if unable to resist one more shot at him. “I feel sorry for you, Swyteck. I feel sorry for anyone who goes through life just playing by the rules.”
As she turned and disappeared into the crowded lobby, Jack felt a gaping pit in the bottom of his stomach. Ten years a trial lawyer. He’d represented thieves, swindlers, even cold-blooded murderers. He’d never claimed to be the world’s smartest man, but never before had he even come close to letting this happen. The realization was sickening.
He’d just been scammed.
6
•
Sparky’s Tavern was having a two-for-one special. The chalkboard behind the bar said well drinks only, which in most joints simply meant the liquor wasn’t a premium brand, but at Sparky’s it meant liquor so rank that the bartender could only look at you and say, “WELL, what the hell did you expect?”
Jack ordered a beer.
Sparky’s was on U.S. 1 south of Homestead, one of the last watering holes before a landscape that still bore the scars of a direct hit from Hurricane Andrew in 1992 gave way to the splendor of the Florida Keys. It was a converted old gas station with floors so stained from tipped drinks that not even the Environmental Protection Agency could have determined if more flammable liquids had spilled before or after the conversion. The grease-pit was gone but the garage doors were still in place. There was a long wooden bar, a TV permanently tuned to ESPN, and a never-ending stack of quarters on the pool table. Beer was served in cans, and the empties were crushed in true Sparky’s style at the old tire vise that still sat on the workbench. It was the kind of dive that Jack would have visited if it were in his own neighborhood, but he made the forty-minute trip for one reason only: the bartender was Theo Knight.
“’Nother one, Jacko?”
“Nah, I’m fine.”
“How do you expect me to run this joint into the ground if you only let me give away one stinking beer?” He cleared away the empty and set up another cold one. “Cheers.”
As half-owner of the bar, Theo didn’t give away drinks to many customers, but Jack was a special case. Jack was his buddy. Jack had once been his lawyer. It was Jack who’d kept him alive on death row.
Jack’s first job out of law school had been a four-year stint with the Freedom Institute, a ragtag group of lawyers who worked only capital cases. It was an exercise in defending the guilty, with one exception: Theo Knight. Not that Theo was a saint. He’d done his share of car thefts, credit card scams, small-time stuff. Early one morning he walked into a little all-night convenience store to find no one tending the cash register. On a dare from a buddy, he helped himself. It turned out that the missing nineteen-year-old clerk had been stabbed and beaten, stuffed in the walk-in freezer, and left to bleed to death. Theo was convicted purely on circumstantial evidence. For four years Jack filed petitions for stays of execution each time the governor-Jack’s own father-signed a death warrant. At times the fight seemed futile, but it ended up keeping Theo alive long enough for DNA tests to come into vogue. Science finally eliminated Theo as the possible murderer.
Theo thought of Jack as the guy who’d saved his life. Jack thought of Theo as the one thing he’d done right in his four years of defending the guilty at the Freedom Institute. It made for an interesting friendship. Best of all, Theo had kept his nose clean since his release from prison, but he could still think like a criminal. He had the kind of insights and street smarts that every good defense lawyer could use. It was exactly the point of view Jack needed to figure out what had gone wrong with Jessie Merrill.
“What are you laughing at?” said Jack.
Theo was a large man, six-foot-five and two-hundred-fifty pounds, and he had a hearty laugh to match. He’d listened without interruption as Jack laid out the whole story, but he couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Let me ask you one question.”
“What?”
“Was it the big tits or amazing thighs?”
“Come on, I’m married.”
“Just what I thought. Both.” He laughed even harder.
“Okay. Pile it on. This is what I get for feeling sorry for an ex-girlfriend.”
“No, dude. Abuse is what you get for sitting too far away for me to slap you upside the head. Then again, maybe you ain’t sitting so far…” He reached across the bar and took a swing, but Jack ducked. Theo caught only air and laughed again, which drew a smile from Jack.
