Beyond Suspicion

2

•

Jack Swyteck was in Courtroom 9 of the Miami-Dade courthouse, having a ball. With a decade of experience in criminal courts, both as a prosecutor and a criminal defense lawyer, he didn’t take many civil cases. But this one was different. It was a slam-bang winner, the judge had been spitting venom at opposing counsel the entire trial, and Jack’s client was an old flame who’d once ripped his heart right out of his chest and stomped that sucker flat.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

“All rise!”

The lunch break was over, and the lawyers and litigants rose as Judge Antonio Garcia approached the bench. The judge glanced their way, as if he couldn’t help gathering an eyeful of Jack’s client. No surprise there. Jessie Merrill wasn’t stunningly beautiful, but she was damn close. She carried herself with a confidence that bespoke intelligence, tempered by intermittent moments of apparent vulnerability that made her simply irresistible to the knuckle-dragging, testosterone-toting half of the population. Judge Garcia was as susceptible as the next guy. Beneath that flowing black robe was, after all, a mere mortal-a man. That aside, Jessie truly was a victim in this case, and it was impossible not to feel sorry for her.

“Good afternoon,” said the judge.

“Good afternoon,” the lawyers replied, though the judge’s nose was buried in paperwork. Rather than immediately call in the jury, it was Judge Garcia’s custom to mount the bench and then take a few minutes to read his mail or finish the crossword puzzle-his way of announcing to all who entered his courtroom that he alone had that rare and special power to silence attorneys and make them sit and wait. Judicial power plays of all sorts seemed to be on the rise in Miami courtrooms, ever since hometown hero Marilyn Milian gave up her day job to star on The People’s Court. Not every south Florida judge wanted to trace her steps to television stardom, but at least one wannabe in criminal court could no longer mete out sentences to convicted murderers without adding, “You are the weakest link, good-bye.”

Jack glanced to his left and noticed his client’s hand shaking. It stopped the moment she’d caught him looking. Typical Jessie, never wanting anyone to know she was nervous.

“We’re almost home,” Jack whispered.

She gave him a tight smile.

Before this case, it had been a good six years since Jack had seen her. Five months after dumping him, Jessie had called for lunch with the hope of giving it another try. By then Jack was well on his way toward falling hopelessly in love with Cindy Paige, now Mrs. Jack Swyteck, something he never called her unless he wanted to be introduced at their next cocktail party as Mr. Cindy Paige. Cindy was more beautiful today than she was then, and Jack had to admit the same was true of Jessie. That, of course, was no reason to take her case. But he decided it wasn’t a reason to turn it down, either. This had nothing to do with the fact that her long, auburn hair had once splayed across both their pillows. She’d come to him as an old friend in a genuine crisis. Even six months later, her words still echoed in the back of his mind.

•

“The doctor told me I have two years to live. Three, tops.”

Jack’s mouth fell open, but words came slowly. “Damn, Jessie. I’m so sorry.”

She seemed on the verge of tears. He scrambled to find her a tissue. She dug one of her own from her purse. “It’s so hard for me to talk about this.”

“I understand.”

“I was so damn unprepared for that kind of news.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“I take care of myself. I always have.”

“It shows.” It wasn’t intended as a come-on, just a statement of fact that underscored what a waste this was.

“My first thought was, you’re crazy, doc. This can’t be.”

“Of course.”

“I mean, I’ve never faced anything that I couldn’t beat. Then suddenly I’m in the office of some doctor who’s basically telling me, that’s it, game over. No one bothered to tell me the game had even started.”

He could hear the anger in her voice. “I’d be mad, too.”

“I was furious. And scared. Especially when he told me what I had.”

Jack didn’t ask. He figured she’d tell him if she wanted him to know.

“He said I had ALS-amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.”

“I’m not familiar with that one.”

“You probably know it as Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

“Oh.” It was a more ominous-sounding “oh” than intended. She immediately picked up on it.

“So, you know what a horrible illness it is.”

“Just from what I heard happened to Lou Gehrig.”

“Imagine how it feels to hear that it’s going to happen to you. Your mind stays healthy, but your nervous system slowly dies, causing you to lose control of your own body. Eventually you can’t swallow anymore, your throat muscles fail, and you either suffocate or choke to death on your own tongue.”

She was looking straight at him, but he was the one to blink.

“It’s always fatal,” she added. “Usually in two to five years.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. The silence was getting uncomfortable. “I don’t know how I can help, but if there’s anything I can do, just name it.”

“There is.”

“Please, don’t be afraid to ask.”

“I’m being sued.”

“For what?”

“A million and a half dollars.”

He did a double take. “That’s a lot of money.”

“It’s all the money I have in the world.”

“Funny. There was a time when you and I would have thought that was all the money in the world.”

Her smile was more sad than wistful. “Things change.”

“They sure do.”

A silence fell between them, a moment to reminisce.

“Anyway, here’s my problem. My legal problem. I tried to be responsible about my illness. The first thing I did was get my finances in order. Treatment’s expensive, and I wanted to do something extravagant for myself in the time I had left. Maybe a trip to Europe, whatever. I didn’t have a lot of money, but I did have a three-million-dollar life insurance policy.”

“Why so much?”

“When the stock market tanked a couple years ago, a financial planner talked me into believing that whole-life insurance was a good retirement vehicle. Maybe it would have been worth something by the time I reached sixty-five. But at my age, the cash surrender value is practically zilch. Obviously, the death benefit wouldn’t kick in until I was dead, which wouldn’t do me any good. I wanted a pot of money while I was alive and well enough to enjoy myself.”

Jack nodded, seeing where this was headed. “You did a viatical settlement?”

“You’ve heard of them?”

“I had a friend with AIDS who did one before he died.”

“That’s how they got popular, back in the eighties. But the concept works with any terminal disease.”

“Is it a done deal?”

“Yes. It sounded like a win-win situation. I sell my three-million-dollar policy to a group of investors for a million and a half dollars. I get a big check right now, when I can use it. They get the three-million-dollar death benefit when I die. They’d basically double their money in two or three years.”

“It’s a little ghoulish, but I can see the good in it.”

“Absolutely. Everybody was satisfied.” The sorrow seemed to drain from her expression as she looked at him and said, “Until my symptoms started to disappear.”

“Disappear?”

“Yeah. I started getting better.”

“But there’s no cure for ALS.”

“The doctor ran more tests.”

Jack saw a glimmer in her eye. His heart beat faster. “And?”

“They finally figured out I had lead poisoning. It can mimic the symptoms of ALS, but it wasn’t nearly enough to kill me.”

“You don’t have Lou Gehrig’s disease?”

“No.”

“You’re not going to die?”

“I’m completely recovered.”

A sense of joy washed over him, though he did feel a little manipulated. “Thank God. But why didn’t you tell me from the get-go?”

She smiled wryly, then turned serious. “I thought you should know how I felt, even if it was just for a few minutes. This sense of being on the fast track to such an awful death.”

“It worked.”

“Good. Because I have quite a battle on my hands, legally speaking.”

“You want to sue the quack who got the diagnosis wrong?”

“Like I said, at the moment, I’m the one being sued over this.”

“The viatical investors?”

“You got it. They thought they were coming into three million in at most three years. Turns out they may have to wait another forty or fifty years for their investment to ‘mature,’ so to speak. They want their million and a half bucks back.”

“Them’s the breaks.”

She smiled. “So you’ll take the case?”

“You bet I will.”

The crack of the gavel stirred Jack from his thoughts. The jury had returned. Judge Garcia had finished perusing his mail, the sports section, or whatever else had caught his attention. Court was back in session.

“Mr. Swyteck, any questions for Dr. Herna?”

Jack glanced toward the witness stand. Dr. Herna was the physician who’d reviewed Jessie’s medical history on behalf of the viatical investors and essentially confirmed the misdiagnosis, giving them the green light to invest. He and the investors’ lawyer had spent the entire morning trying to convince the jury that, because Jessie didn’t actually have ALS, the viatical settlement should be invalidated on the basis of a “mutual mistake.” It was Jack’s job to prove it was their mistake, nothing mutual about it, too bad, so sad.

Jack could hardly wait.

“Yes, Your Honor,” he said as he approached the witness with a thin, confident smile. “I promise, this won’t take long.”