False accusations

CHAPTER 43

Maurice Mather was a relative newcomer to television news reporting, with only three years of on-the-job training to his credit. But eagerness was molded into his tanned face. And while serving as a copy editor, he had learned aggressiveness from his mentor. A good reporter does not always take “no” for an answer: he does what’s necessary to obtain the story he’s after.

A precondition for this interview with hospital administrator John Stevens, however, was that it would have to be held off-camera. While this obviously did not present a problem for a newspaper reporter, it strained the patience of their television counterparts, who relied on the visual aspect of their presentation as much as the verbal information they conveyed.

“This is Tom Ingle, a copy editor and trainee at the station,” Mather said, introducing his assistant, a curly-haired twenty-five-year-old. Ingle and Stevens nodded at each other.

“So what do you want to know?” Stevens asked.

“I want to know why Phil Madison was kicked out of your hospital.”

“Dr. Madison was not kicked out. His privileges were temporarily suspended.”

“Why?”

Stevens shifted in his seat. “It was an upper-level management decision.”

“Does it have anything to do with the rape charges against him?”

“Rape charges?” Stevens sat forward in his chair. “What are you talking about?”

“The rape charges,” Mather said again, as if repeating it would stimulate Stevens’s memory. “Say two or three months ago. The charges he tried to sweep under the rug by paying off the woman who brought the complaint.”

Stevens was silent for a moment, staring off at the wall behind the reporters.

“Dr. Stevens,” Mather said. “Does it or does it not have to do with those rape charges?”

He cleared his throat. “I have no comment, other than to say that this is an unrelated matter.”

“Then this is solely a means of distancing the hospital from a murderer, severing a relationship before it becomes more damaging than the association already is.”

Stevens crinkled his face and squirmed a bit. Ingle was scribbling notes on a pad. “Phillip Madison is not a murderer.”

“Assuming you’re correct, let me rephrase the question. The action the hospital board has taken is intended to distance the hospital from an accused murderer, severing a relationship before it becomes even more damaging than it’s already been. Isn’t that right, Dr. Stevens?”

Stevens’s head bobbed back and forth, left and right.

“Essentially.”

More scribbling. “Do you feel that Madison is capable of committing murder?”

“I can’t speak for the actions of another,” Stevens said cautiously, playing the role of administrator and bureaucrat. “But I can tell you that Dr. Madison is one of the finest human beings you’ll ever meet: I’ve never known him to hurt a fly. He’s also responsible for building this hospital into what it is-a valued teaching institution with state-of-the-art equipment and an expert staff of distinguished surgeons. He’s dedicated his life to saving people, not killing them.”

“Would you say that one’s actions in the past are an indication of what their actions will be in the future?” asked Ingle, the rookie, trying hard to contribute.

“As I said, no one can guarantee the actions of another. To do so would be like trying to predict the stock market. It’s just not possible to do with any degree of accuracy.”

“What about the hospital’s exposure on Madison’s arrest?”

“What about it? We had nothing to do with the murders.”

“Could it be said that the hours you force surgeons to work, the stress these doctors are under, results in a high degree of alcoholism, of driving while under the influence?”

“Do you really think I’m going to answer such an absurd allegation?”

“Statistics don’t lie, Dr. Stevens. The rate of alcoholism, and even drug abuse amongst surgeons, is quite high compared to the general-”

“If you’re going to persist in this line of questioning, Mr. Mather, then this interview is over.”

“Fine. I’ll move on.” He looked down at his pad.

“A question if I may, Maurice.” This from Ingle.

Mather waved him on.

“Dr. Stevens, you acted as if you didn’t know of the rape charges against Dr. Madison.”

“I have no comment on that.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“You can take it just as I answered the question.”

“Then you didn’t know of the payoff he made to the woman to keep her quiet.”

“I’ll have to answer that question the same way as I answered your last question.”

Ingle scribbled some notes.

“How long have you known Madison?” Mather asked.

“About thirteen years. We started out at the hospital together.”

“Would you consider him your friend?”

“Yes, I would.”

“And would you say that you would go out of your way to protect your friend?”

“Mr. Mather…yes, I would go out of my way to assist a friend in need. But that does not mean I’d go so far as to do anything that would impair my job as a hospital administrator, nor would I do anything that would jeopardize this hospital in any manner. Now, I believe this interview is over. Gentlemen,” he said, as he stood from behind his desk and walked over to the door.

After they exited his office, Mather began walking at a fast clip. “We’ll have Andy get some footage of the hospital interior, and a few seconds of Stevens’s door as we try to open it, and then have it close hard on the camera. It dramatizes the way we were shut out from filming the interview.”

“But he was pretty cooperative, he just didn’t want to go on-camera.”

“That,” Mather said with a grin that could sour milk, “will turn out to be a mistake.”

The mobile van sat parked in front of the hospital with its antenna telescoping into the sky fifteen feet. The camera was mounted on a tripod just to the left and in front of the hospital’s main entrance. A small television monitor sat below the tripod on the floor, as they set up for a live remote shot for the noon newscast. Ingle was helping Andy, the cameraman, set up the shot while Maurice Mather stood with his lapel microphone in place, his handwritten notes on a small pad in front of him.

“Minute thirty out,” Andy said as he pressed the headset radio against his ear. Mather looked into the camera and practiced a few lines from his pad. “How did ‘we sound?” he asked into the mike, listening through his earpiece to the director back at the station. “Testing, one-two-three,” he said.

“They’re not getting us,” Andy said. “Your mike’s dead.”

“Do we have another?”

“Checking.” Andy trotted over to the van and rummaged through a box of electronic equipment and jumbled wires.

“Thirty seconds out,” called Mather, trying not to show visible signs of sweat-perspiration did not look good on camera. Ingle was standing next to the tripod, perspiring profusely, watching as Andy rummaged through the box, counting out the remaining seconds.

“Got one, but it’s a handheld job,” Andy said as he fumbled to plug the microphone into his camera. He handed it to Mather and jumped back behind the tripod to check its position. “Counting,” Andy said, holding up five fingers. “Five-four-three-two-one.”

As Andy hit “two” in the count, a broad smile spread across Mather’s plastic face and he brought the mike up to his mouth. “Thanks, Patrick. We’re here at Sacramento General Hospital, the very hospital where Dr. Phillip Madison was on staff at the time of the grisly hit-and-run murders.

“The hospital administrator, Dr. John Stevens, refused to allow our cameras in, but he did permit us to interview him.” Mather watched the monitor as the tape that Andy had shot an hour earlier was rolling at the station, reviewing the prior events in the story, showing the hospital footage, and setting the stage for the remainder of Mather’s report. Mather squinted into the lens of the camera, adjusted his hair in the reflection, looked down at his pad to review his notes. Glanced at the monitor. Caught his cue.

“And Patrick, Dr. Stevens said that Madison’s privileges were suspended due to an upper-level management decision. A decision designed to protect the hospital from further embarrassment by disassociating itself from the accused murderer before the relationship created irreparable damage.” Mather glanced down at his pad.

“Dr. Stevens declined to go into details about the payoff that Madison made to a woman who accused him of rape a couple of months ago. But he did say that the hospital’s current decision to suspend his privileges was a separate issue from the rape. Now, when I asked Dr. Stevens, who’s a longtime personal friend of Madison, if he thought his star surgeon was capable of committing murder, his response was that no one can predict the actions of another. Not the strongest statement of support, Patrick,” Mather said with a slight smile. “In fact, he likened trying to predict Phillip Madison’s behavior to playing the stock market-apparently, he’s unpredictable and it’s impossible to know how he’d react in any given situation with any degree of accuracy.”

The monitor showed a split screen, with Mather on one side and news anchor Patrick Baud on the other.

“Maurice,” Patrick said, “it’s interesting that the hospital would not take any disciplinary action against Madison for suspicion of rape, but they did suspend him for suspicion of murder.”

Mather smiled; it was the exact question he had recommended that Baud ask him. “Yes, Patrick. It seems that the hospital does not consider rape a reason to discipline its doctors-but that’s a subject of an investigative report. Perhaps we should leave that story to Hard: Edition,” he said, giving a toothy smile for the camera. “This is Maurice Mather reporting for KMRA news.”

Mather kept smiling until Andy gave him the cue that they were off the air. As Andy began breaking down the equipment, Ingle walked over toward Mather.

“Well, there it is, Tom. Your first live remote. Interesting, huh?”

“Yeah,” was all Ingle could manage.

“Any questions?”

Ingle looked down at his shoes and hesitated. “Well, you kind of left out some important stuff.”

“How so?” Mather asked.

“Well,” he said, consulting his notes, “Stevens also said that Madison was one of the finest human being she’d known, and that he’d never even hurt a fly.”

Mather grinned and began to walk back toward the van. Another news truck pulled up in front; its telescoping antenna began to unwind like a giant corkscrew ascending toward the heavens.

Ingle followed at Mather’s heels. “Didn’t Stevens also say that he didn’t know about the rape, and that’s probably why no action was taken against Madison at the time? It had nothing to do with the hospital looking the other way, which is how you made it sound.”

Mather stopped walking and turned to face Ingle. “I believe he said ‘no comment’ when I asked him about the rape.”

“Maurice, he only said that after you pressed him on it. It seemed to me like he didn’t know what you were talking about. And if the hospital didn’t know about it, then what you said-”

“Tom, do you know for sure that the hospital didn’t know about it?”

“Well, I-”

“Do you really think that a doctor like Phillip Madison could be accused of rape, and the hospital wouldn’t be aware of it? Come off it, Tom.” Mather turned away and started back toward the van.

“I’m just saying that we don’t know whether they knew of it or not.”

“We sure as hell don’t know for sure that they didn’t know, do we?”

Ingle hesitated. “No…”

“That’s right, so we didn’t say anything that was factually wrong.”

“But isn’t omitting information just as much of a lie as giving false information?”

Mather turned hard and faced Ingle. “Tom, do you remember that ratings chart I showed you before we left the newsroom? KONE was beating the pants off us. We need to boost our ratings, or we stand to lose some big money. And if we continue to lose more money, then cuts are going to be made-especially with a new GM taking over next month. I don’t intend to lose my job or take a pay cut, do you?” He climbed into the van as Andy finished packing up the equipment. “News sells, Tom, if you know how to present it. We’re under pressure from cable, from blogs, even from comedy shows-people are getting their news from other places. I’m just trying to be more aggressive, that’s all,” Mather said, holding both his hands out in front of him, palms up.

Ingle climbed in, shut the door, and watched the competing news cameraman prepare to set up his live remote shot while the reporter entered the hospital. As he wondered what angle that reporter would choose to take, the KMRA van pulled away and headed back to the newsroom.