The Society

CHAPTER 14

Nowhere to go. Nothing to do.

With the abruptness of a racing car hitting a wall, every aspect of time had changed for Will. Just six days ago, hours had passed like minutes. With surgical consults to visit, notes to dictate, patients to see, cases to do in the OR, exercise to squeeze in, and evenings and weekends with the kids to arrange for, to say nothing of the mundane aspects of running his life and continuing his work at the Open Hearth, he had wistfully prayed for just an extra couple of hours each day, just an extra day or two each month. Now, the days that had followed the unfathomable events at Fredrickston Hospital had seemed interminable.

It was ten in the morning when the phone rang for the first time that day. After waking at six, Will had scrambled a trio of eggs and served them to himself with a toasted bagel and some OJ. He had rinsed what few dishes there were, put them in the washer, and failed on his third attempt to get into a Michael Crichton novel, usually a sure thing for him. Finally, he had taken a tube of caulk to the bathroom off the kitchen to tack down a small block of tiles that had been loose for at least a year. It was a good bet that Michelangelo didn’t work more meticulously on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Nowhere to go. Nothing to do.

Over the past six days, caller ID and the bathroom window overlooking the parking lot and front stoop had become his staunchest allies. Initially, the reporters had been merciless in their attempts to get at him. Only in the past two days had their calls and visits begun to die away. Now, expecting yet another BLOCKED on the display, he checked the ID on the phone in the kitchen. AUGUST MICELLI, 617-483-5300. Will snatched up the receiver.

“This is Dr. Grant.”

“Dr. Grant, this is Gladys from Attorney Micelli’s office speaking. I know your appointment isn’t for three more weeks, and this is short notice, but we’ve had a cancellation for noon today, and Mr. Micelli thought you might want to come in.”

“I can be there,” Will said, hearing a small jet of enthusiasm in his voice for the first time since that moment in the OR.

“However,” the woman added, “he asked me to tell you not to get your hopes up and to remind you that he really just takes the cases of people suing doctors, not the doctors who are being sued.”

“I understand.”

“You know where the office is?”

“Park Street in Boston. Right down the street from the State House.”

“We’ll see you at noon.”

The recommendation to try August Micelli, MD, LLD, had come from Susan Hollister, who did not know the man well but did know that his intelligence was respected by physicians, even though the nature of his law practice was reviled. It was while Will was turning his practice over to her that Susan had suggested he might call the man, who was widely advertised as “the Law Doctor.” The patients Susan inherited from Will included Grace Peng Davis, on whom she had operated the following day, and several others whose surgery needed doing.

After being turned down for legal support by his malpractice carrier as expected, Will had tried two attorneys-one local and one in Boston. Emotionally and intellectually, he failed to connect with either, and the retainers and fees each demanded would have virtually broken him even before the game of saving his professional, personal, and financial lives began. Visions of running out of money and lawyer at the same time had sent him trudging back to the sanctuary of his condo. When he returned from the disappointing session with the second of the attorneys, there was a letter from a third firm waiting in his mailbox. However, rather than offering him representation at an exorbitant fee, this attorney was announcing that he and his firm had been retained by Kurt Goshtigian and his family to institute a malpractice claim against him. After two extra trips to the OR, it appeared that the man was going to make it, but his debility would be profound, if not permanent.

Will was dressing for the trip into Boston when the front doorbell sounded. He scurried over to the bathroom-window observation post. Beneath him, a husky black man in a business suit stood motionless by the front door. Not a reporter, Will guessed; the man was simply too well dressed. He discarded salesman as a possibility for the same reason and decided to open the window.

“Yes?” he called down.

The man squinted upward at him.

“Dr. Willard Grant?”

“Yes.”

“My name’s Sam Rogers. I’m an investigator with the Board of Registration in Medicine. May I come in for just a moment, please? I have a letter I need to hand-deliver to you.”

Will knew even before he opened the door what the official-looking envelope contained. Still, Rogers explained it to him.

“This is a summary suspension of your privilege to practice medicine in this state of Massachusetts. It has been issued because of the suspension recently ordered by Fredrickston Hospital. It is effective immediately and may be appealed through channels established by the board. Do you have any questions?”

Without bothering to read the letter, Will tossed it onto a pile of junk mail and unopened bills on the coffee table. Somewhere in the mound of mail was another letter-one he had read. It was from Tom Lemm, unofficially requesting that he remove himself from his very important and sensitive position with the Hippocrates Society until his pending matter with the hospital could be satisfactorily resolved.

“Are you here to investigate what was done to me?” Will asked Rogers.

“No, sir. I may well be investigating your case sometime in the future, but for the moment my assignment is to deliver this letter and explain its contents.”

“Thanks,” Will said with no emotion whatsoever. “As far as I’m concerned you’ve done your job and done it well.”

“In that case,” Rogers said, “if you wouldn’t mind signing off on that right here. .”

Will would have been the first to admit that he had never been on anyone’s best-drivers list. His reflexes were sharp, and that certainly helped, but even under the best of circumstances his thoughts were constantly wandering, as was, all too often, his car. Although he had never been involved in anything more destructive than a minor fender bender, he sometimes wondered if there were accidents he would never know about for which he had been responsible.

This morning, traffic was light, and the drive into Boston was less grueling and perilous than usual. Susan had told Will little of Augie Micelli except that he had once been on some sort of board or community-service organization with her and that he had been treated poorly by the Board of Registration in Medicine and the medical community. Micelli’s response to both had been to get a law degree and subsequent notoriety as the Law Doctor-highly promoted in the press and on billboards as the place to go for justice against physicians responsible for bad outcomes. It was Susan’s hope that the similarities in the ways Micelli and Will had been treated might lead him to agree to get involved in Will’s case. It was a long shot, but in this mounting gale, even the smallest landing field would be welcome.

As Will turned off the Mass Pike and headed into the Back Bay, he found himself thinking of Patty Moriarity. Since her visit to Wolf Hollow Drive, she had not been among the hordes who had tried to reach him by phone or through simply showing up on his doorstep. He assumed the wiretap on his phone was in place and still functioning, but he had no way of knowing if her position as an investigator on the case was surviving.

He gave passing thought to reaching out to her, but nothing she had said or done during her odd visit had encouraged such familiarity, and her abrupt departure had accomplished just the opposite. He expected to reconnect with her if he ever received another call from the murderer, but so far nothing. Maybe he simply wasn’t good enough for the serial killer anymore.

He left the Jeep in a lot off Tremont that was more expensive than some surgical procedures and walked along the Boston Common to Park. Although the street itself was elegant, the Law Doctor’s office was not. Located on the third-floor alley side of a four-story brownstone, it consisted of a small, eclectically furnished waiting room, off of which was an entrance from the dimly lit hallway and one other door, presumably to Micelli’s inner sanctum. The oriental carpet was threadbare in spots, and the two framed prints on the wall-a farm scene perhaps by one of the Dutch masters, and a courtroom depiction that might have been offered as a premium for subscribing to a law magazine-had little to do with each other. A bottle-blond woman in her late forties peered up from behind her granny glasses as he entered, and smiled kindly.

“Dr. Grant?” she asked in what he could immediately tell was a dense Boston accent.

“Yes.”

“I’m Gladys. Please fill out this registration form. Bring it in with you when you go. Mr. Micelli’s on the phone right now, but it shouldn’t be too long.”

“I’m in no hurry,” Will replied, in the understatement of the day.

The form, clearly meant for someone who was hoping to sue a doctor, contained only a few lines of demographic questions that Will could answer. He finished it in less than a minute and slipped it into his thin black leather briefcase, which contained copies of the lab reports from the hospital that Susan had obtained for him, as well as of the letters of suspension from Sid Silverman and the Chairman of the Board of Registration in Medicine. In addition, there was the letter from the multipartnered law firm in Worcester that told him he was being sued for malpractice. That letter included paragraphs taken directly from some law boilerplate, describing the legal basis for Kurt Goshtigian’s action against him.

Please consider this letter, together with the attached complaint, incorporated herein, to constitute a written demand for relief on behalf of your former patient Kurt S. Goshtigian. We intend to file a lawsuit following the expiration of fourteen (14) days from the mailing of this demand.

It is our contention that through your negligence and use of mind-altering drugs at the time of Mr. Goshtigian’s cancer surgery, you have caused infection, excess bleeding, extended operating-room time, substitution of principal surgeons, additional surgery, and additional medication. In addition, your negligence has caused unnecessary pain and suffering for Mr. Goshtigian and his family. Please provide your medical malpractice and personal-liability carriers with the enclosed documents and have their attorneys send us notice of representation. The amount of damages to be demanded will depend on Mr. Goshtigian’s survival from your malpractice and his condition at the time of discharge and subsequent to that time, but in no case will it be less than fifty (50) million dollars.

Fifteen minutes passed during which Gladys answered four calls, each, it seemed, from a potential new client. Just as Will was beginning to get restless, the door to Micelli’s office opened and a thick-waisted, broad-shouldered man emerged, who had probably been an athlete at one time, although clearly not anymore. He had dense gray-black hair and olive skin and was wearing a light-blue sport shirt open at the collar, with no jacket. He could have easily played one of Don Vito’s bodyguards in The Godfather, except for his eyes, which Will did not appreciate until the two of them had shaken hands and he had settled down on the hard-backed chair beside Micelli’s desk. They were very dark, with an intriguing forcefulness and intelligence. But in those first moments together, Will saw something else as well-the sadness and ennui of a man who didn’t care about much.

“Drink?” Micelli asked, heading over to a sideboard with three crystal decanters labeled SCOTCH, WHISKEY, and RUM, half a dozen glasses, and a brass ice bucket. “It’s past noon.”

“No thanks, Dr. Micelli.”

“For chrissakes, don’t call me that. Augie’ll do fine; Mr. Micelli if you have a need to be formal, but please, no ‘Doctor.’ ”

He splashed two fingers from the SCOTCH decanter into a Waterford tumbler, added an ice cube, and took a gulp before heading over to his chair. There was a law degree from Suffolk on the wall behind his desk alongside a medical degree from Harvard, but no other certifications or, for that matter, pictures of any kind. One wall was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf filled with carefully aligned sets of legal tomes that appeared as if they had never been read. The window to Will’s left looked out on the side of a building. The wall behind him included the door to the waiting room and a small fireplace, neatly painted, with three logs decoratively and probably permanently arranged. The Law Doctor. With all the advertising, Will had conjured up visions of a massive medico-legal mill with lawyers scurrying from exquisitely appointed offices into mahogany-paneled conference rooms and libraries.

“You look a little dismayed,” Micelli said. “Not what you had expected?”

“No. I. . I mean yes. I mean not exactly. All those ads. .”

“And worth every penny, too. Malpractice cases come in here by the barrel. Just listen to that phone ringing. Most of them are frivolous, ridiculous, or simply nasty and vindictive. But a certain percent of them have some merit, and once in a while the ol’ amputated-the-wrong-leg or plucked-out-the-wrong-kidney mother lode comes hobbling in. But you see, Dr. Grant, I don’t actually do the cases. In fact, I don’t do any cases at all, so I don’t need much help and I don’t need much space.” He drained what remained in his glass and immediately restocked it. “I bring the cases in, evaluate them from a medical standpoint, and either ship them off to one of the firms that can actually do something with them or send them on their way to pursue their complaint if they want, but not with me.”

“And you get a finder’s fee from the firms you refer to?”

“Sometimes a really big one, plus as many dinners at swanky restaurants as I care to accept. They all want to be my friend.”

“Isn’t that fee splitting?”

“By any definition of the term I would say so, yes.”

“And isn’t that illegal?”

“In medicine it’s illegal. You can’t refer a patient to a specialist and then get a kickback from that specialist. In law it’s considered good, sound business.”

Will sighed and stared out the window, as uncertain whether he wanted to continue this session as Micelli probably was. Finally, he shrugged and asked if the lawyer wanted to hear why he had come.

“You go ahead with your story if you want to,” Micelli replied, “but as Gladys told you, the only help I might be is to give you the names of some firms to call. Our motto here is if it takes work, we don’t want it.”

He managed a thin smile, but there was nothing cheerful in the way he said the words. Will may have been a surgeon, but he could recognize depression when he saw it, and probably alcoholism, too. Thank you, Susan Hollister.

“I think I’m going to go,” he said.

“Suit yourself.”

“You know, my partner Susan Hollister said you have had some trouble of your own.”

“Plenty of it.”

“And she said because of that you might have some sympathy with what’s happening to me.”

“I might. That doesn’t mean I can be of any help.”

“Well,” Will said, “exactly what is it that happened to you?”

Micelli eyed him for a moment, then drained his tumbler. It was as if the question was one nobody had ever asked.

“I killed my son,” he said simply.

Will stifled any knee-jerk response.

“Go on,” he said.

“You sure?”

Will nodded.

“Okay. Remember, you asked for it. I was an internist with all the right medical pedigrees, very full of myself,” Micelli said in a near monotone, virtually devoid of the emotion inherent in the terrible account. “My then wife and son and I were in Utah, set to go on a camping trip into some pretty remote country. Ryan had a little fever and a stuffy nose. His mother wanted to cancel the hike. I told her he was nine and she was being overprotective. I even checked him over so she would be reassured. A little red throat was all. So off we went.”

Will could see the shattering end of the story already and wanted to spare both of them any unnecessary anguish.

“Meningitis,” he said.

Impressed, Micelli nodded.

“Two days out with no radio. I raced back for help, but by the time the helicopter reached them, he was gone. Just like that.”

“I’m very sorry. That’s so sad.”

“So was what happened afterward. A few months later I went into what they called a paranoid depression. No history of prior mental illness. Scared the hell out of my wife, my neighbors, and a lot of people at my hospital. I was about the only one around who thought I was normal. Rather than get me help, or ask my wife to get me hospitalized, my hospital panicked and suspended me. After that I was hospitalized and properly diagnosed and treated. The paranoia and crazy behavior went away almost immediately and has stayed away. But by then the Board of Registration had suspended me, as well, until they could investigate why I had been kicked out of my hospital.”

Once again, Will could see what was coming, and again stepped into the account.

“Then,” he said, “because you had your license suspended, the managed-care companies dropped you from their provider panels.”

“Exactly. It was a cookie-cutter response by the board and by them, without so much as an investigation or a hearing. So even though the board eventually reinstated my license, most of the companies held to their decision. Once worth suspending, always worth suspending. There was no way I could practice-at least no way I could practice and get paid for it. Well, no matter now. I make ten times more doing this than I ever did being an internist-and work a fraction of the hours. Too bad, though, because I actually liked doing it, and I was pretty damn good at it, too.”

“I’ll bet you were, Augie,” Will said. “Listen, I’m sorry for all you’ve been through. I really am. But I hope you can take some pride in the way you’ve managed to deal with all that’s happened without going down for the count. I don’t think I could have handled something happening to one of my kids that bravely even if I didn’t believe I was responsible.”

Without a word, Micelli made his way to the sideboard and poured a third drink, this one more substantial than the other two.

“So,” he said, taking a gulp, then clumsily wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, “it’s your turn now. Assume I know everything about you that the newspapers and TV can tell me.”

Clearly, Augie Micelli was now under the influence, although not strikingly so. Will debated if there was any percentage in staying. Even if he decided to leave and renew his attempts to connect with a lawyer who fit his requirements of being talented, empathetic, and reasonably affordable, he knew that the trip into Boston had been worth it. Whether he and Augie ever saw each other again or not, he still owed Susan thanks. According to the story Augie had shared, the man was hardly as responsible for his son’s tragic death as he seemed to want to believe. Still, the boy was dead.

Will’s external world was crumbling, that was all too true, but Dan and Jess were healthy, wonderful kids. And even if he hit rock bottom and lost everything else, he would still be their father and they his children. Even if the only purchase he had on the sheer wall up from this nightmare was them, he would still have a firm hold from which he could start the climb. His heart ached for Augie and the terrible emptiness he had to deal with each day, but it no longer ached for himself.

“You know what,” he said finally, “if you know that much about me and my situation, then you really are already in a position to know whether or not you can be of any help to me.”

“I can tell you right now that I can’t. This just isn’t the sort of thing I do.”

“I can see that. Listen, here are copies of some letters I brought for you to review. I’ll leave them with you anyway, just in case you can think of someone who might want to work with me. One of the letters is from a law firm that is representing my former patient. Because of a clause in my group’s malpractice policy, I don’t have any coverage for what’s happened. Fortunately, even though they’ll get everything I have if I’m found at fault, it won’t be much. All the information you need to reach me is on that sheet I filled out.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be of any help to you,” Micelli said.

“I’m sorry about your son,” Will replied.

For twenty minutes after the door closed, Augie Micelli sat, staring unseeing out the window, feet on his desk, rising once only to replenish the scotch and ice in his glass. Losing Ryan would always be the worst thing that had ever happened to him-far beyond the subsequent financial losses and breakup of his marriage. But this was the first time he could remember speaking with anyone about the pain of losing his practice. Unlike what he was doing now, practicing medicine had never been about the money.

He opened his desk drawer and set a silver-framed photo from it on his desk-one of Ryan smiling down from the limb of a massive, ancient oak.

He drained his glass. Drinking like this had been really stupid. He had made a deal with himself not to do it around clients anymore, and now he had broken that agreement. He swallowed what remained in his glass.

What in the hell difference does it make? In fact, what difference does anything make? Guilty or not, Will Grant has gotten himself into this mess. He can damn well get himself out. If he needs to, he can just go to law school or become a grocer or do landscaping or. . or. .

Micelli stood suddenly and hurled his tumbler into the fireplace. The shattering glass had Gladys in his office in seconds.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, fine. Sorry about the glass. I’ll clean it up myself. Meanwhile, could you please get me Gil Murray in the Middlesex County DA’s office? Tell him it’s about the Will Grant case.”