To speak for the dead

7

Waiting. Like making a movie or going to war, there is more waiting than working in a trial. First the judge hears motions starting at eight-thirty. Twenty different cases, forty lawyers, crowding chambers, spilling into the corridor, milling around like chickens waiting to be fed.

Waiting, an army of minutes slogging through the mud. The judge makes several phone calls from his chambers. His bookie, his mistress, his campaign contributors, who knows? Then a clerk is late bringing up the evidence, or a juror's child is sick, or an expert witness, usually a doctor, has an emergency.

That's how it was the morning Roger Salisbury was to testify. The seconds ticked off slowly, dulling my edge. I studied the filthy acoustical tile that covered the walls. At shoulder level, countless pencils and fingernails left signatures there. The heavy, straight-backed pews in the gallery tested the mettle and the cushioning of the spectators, a few vagrants lured by the air-conditioning. The courtroom ceiling was thirty feet high. Together with the dark pews and the raised bench, it gave the courtroom the air of a cathedral. But where was His Holiness?

Just then the gleaming head of Judge Leonard poked through the door behind the bench that led directly to his chambers. He scowled and ducked back in. I unpacked my briefcase and found a note signed by Cindy:

Sportswriting Lady Buzzing Like Bee Can't Get Number out of Me, Maybe Has Pollen for You to See.

Apparently Susan Corrigan had been calling, maybe wanted to tell me what a schmuck I am, just in case I forgot. A few more minutes passed, and finally all the courtroom players were there, the judge, the clerk, the jurors, the lawyers, and the witnesses, all ready at the same time. Sometimes at this point, the electricity goes off or there's a bomb threat, but today, we started working.

Roger Salisbury came off well, just as I thought he would. I had told him not to overdress, and he was just right in gray slacks, a blue sportcoat, and tie. I had him wear a beeper on his belt to remind the jury that here was a man who responded to emergencies, who could be called at any moment to mend the injured. His salt-and-pepper hair was neatly trimmed and his face reflected confidence without being cocky. He looked like a skilled, compassionate surgeon who took the greatest care when working inside a man's spine. He spoke quietly, evenly, with no trace of the condescension that marks so many doctors in court.

I took him through the story. Philip Corrigan's office visits, fixing the bad knee, then complaints of back and leg pain. Even hurt when he coughed. All the usual tests, ankle jerk, knee jerk, straight leg raising. Salisbury found sensory deficits, a myelogram confirmed it. Finally the diagnosis, acute herniated disc at the L3-L4 vertebrae.

"Was there anything unusual about the surgery?" I asked.

"No, it was routine," Salisbury said.

I liked that. Here's a man who cuts into living flesh, fixes the problems inside, then puts it all back together again. And it's routine. No wonder we're in awe of doctors.

"I cut from approximately LI to just above the sacrum," he said. "Nothing out of the ordinary. Down through subcutaneous tissue and adipose tissue. Bleeders were clamped and cauterized. I identified the L3-L4 interspace. I removed the ligamentum flavum and superior portion of L4 and inferior portion of L3 without incident."

I walked him through every step of it, sending the jurors messages that this doctor knew what he was doing. He was there, dammit. Dan Cefalo wasn't. Wallbanger Watkins wasn't. Now Salisbury was a teacher and the jurors, his students, listened to every word. Some might not have followed every move of the scalpel, but it didn't matter. Roger Salisbury knew his stuff, knew more than the jurors-a travel agent, two housewives, a student, two retired businessmen- ever would. The impression I wanted to create was simple: Who are we to judge this man?

"I removed the disc material, the nucleus pulposus." Roger Salisbury pointed to a chart we blew up to poster size. "In a herniated disc, it's like toothpaste that's been squeezed out of the tube. It's pushed out of the disc space and there's no putting it back."

Good imagery. It should have been. We practiced it for months.

"Then what did you do?" I asked.

"I removed the degenerative disc material with the rongeur."

"Was there anything unusual up to this point?"

"Nothing up to then or later," he said evenly. "The procedure was without incident."

"What were the patient's vital signs?"

"All normal. Blood pressure, pulse rate, breathing."

The anesthesiologist would confirm this when we read his deposition to the jury.

"You heard Dr. Watkins's testimony about the rongeur?" "I did."

"Did anything unusual happen with the rongeur?"

"No, it never went through the disc space, certainly not around to the front of the aorta. In all respects the patient tolerated the surgery normally."

"When was the last time you saw Philip Corrigan?"

"I checked him in the recovery room and once later in his private room."

"And his condition?"

"Normal. No evidence of a mass in his abdomen, normal 78 blood pressure, hemoglobin, and hematocrit. No sign of hemorrhage or aortic aneurysm."

I kept him up there a few minutes longer to say how surprised he was the next morning when he learned that Corrigan's aorta ruptured during the night. And, sounding sincere, he expressed regret at the death of his patient. I nodded gravely with my own look of sincerity, a look that took three years of law school, a dozen years of practice, and a couple Jimmy Stewart movies to perfect. Then I sat down, and Dan Cefalo stood up.

Cefalo was in a box. He had deposed everyone in the OR, and they all corroborated Salisbury's testimony concerning Corrigan's vital signs. The aneurysm had not happened simultaneously with the surgery. Cefalo needed to convince the jury that Salisbury nicked the front of the aorta, causing it to rupture ten hours later. No use asking Salisbury whether that happened. He'd get a big fat no. He needed Watkins back for rebuttal testimony. But that would come later. Now, the jurors watched Cefalo, waiting to see if he could counter-punch.

Cefalo looked even worse than usual today. All the courthouse regulars knew that his trial wardrobe was a hoax, the result of a case he tried upstate years ago. In the wilds of Okeechobee County he had worn a sharkskin suit when defending a man accused of stealing fruit from an orange grove, a felony akin to cattle rustling in the Old West. The prosecutor was a good old boy and in closing argument told the jury that they could listen to him or they could listen to that Mia-muh lawyer in the shiny suit. They listened to the good old boy.

Dan Cefalo learned his lesson. He stripped off the Rolex 79 and the pinky ring and left the silk ties at home. He wore a selection of suits that the Salvation Army couldn't give away. As he won bigger verdicts, his clothes became more decrepit.

Today, though, it wasn't the clothing. Cefalo was pale and nervous. He came to court with a jagged square of toilet paper sticking to his chin. A spot of blood shone through. Hands shaky this morning, my man? He kept huddling with a young lawyer and two paralegals from his office. I picked up only three words of their conversation. "He here yet?" Cefalo asked. The young lawyer shook his head.

Cefalo started his cross-examination by asking whether it might be possible to pierce the aorta and not be aware of it.

"Not likely," Salisbury replied. "You watch how far you insert the rongeur and when you meet resistance, you stop."

I sneaked a look at Melanie Corrigan, who sat with legs demurely crossed at the ankles. She wore a simple black linen dress, probably to signify her continuing grief. I wanted to see, close up, what kind of woman plots to kill her husband. An actress, I thought. A fooler of men ripe to be fooled.

I turned her down, Roger had assured me last night. Philip was my friend. I would never kill him.

Did she take no for an answer?

Roger shrugged. Said she knew some guys who'd kill Philip and never blink.

I'll bet she did. A woman can't tiptoe through the gutter and keep her feet clean. If she'd been grinding in one of those jerk-off joints, she'd have run into pimps, dopers, dirty cops, confidence men, porno kings, and the other flotsam of the city. Plus, more than a few triggermen. Roger Salisbury was in over his head with that crowd. Of course, Philip

Corrigan didn't die from a bullet or knife or garrote. He died from an aneurysm twelve hours after my client operated on him.

Dan Cefalo kept after Salisbury for another twenty minutes but couldn't shake him. Then, tripping on his untied shoelaces, Cefalo called it quits and dropped into his chair. We tidied up some of the trial's loose ends, reading depositions into the record, admitting certain medical reports into evidence. I had no other ammo so I announced that the defense rested. We renewed our motions for a directed verdict, and Judge Leonard denied them, saying we had issues for the jury. Actually what he said was, "You boys got yourself a real horse race here."

Dan Cefalo said he had one rebuttal witness, and the judge figured we could breeze through that after lunch and he'd still have time to make it to Hialeah. The Widener Cup was Saturday, and, like football fans who go to practice, he visited the stalls and watched the horses eat their oats and crap in the paddock.

Another down time, waiting for the judge after lunch recess. While Cefalo paced, I made notes for tomorrow's closing argument, Roger Salisbury flipped the pages of a medical journal, and my secretary Cindy waltzed into the courtroom as inconspicuous as a shark in the wading pool. She wore a white miniskirt, black fishnet stockings, leather earrings with chrome studs, all topped by a new hairdo that was spiked, punked, and Day-Glo pinked. Her hair shot in various directions like hundreds of porcupine quills. It looked like she stuck her finger in an electrical outlet.

''Que pasa, el jefe?"

"Do I know you?" I said.

"Not as well as some men I could name."

"Not enough time for that."

"You don't look so busy to me."

"We're waiting for the judge. At least I'm waiting for the judge. The grieving widow is waiting for Probate Court to release the estate funds. And Cefalo's waiting for Wallbanger Watkins, his rebuttal witness."

"He's got a long wait," Cindy said.

"Huh?" That's my probing question technique.

Cindy sat down and propped her feet on the counsel table. "Got a long wait for the good doctor," she said matter-of-factly.

"What do you know that I don't, but should?"

"So many things. But I'm willing to teach."

"Cindy, this is serious. We're in trial."

She frowned. "Lighten up. I just have a sneaking suspicion that Watkins is AWOL, and Dan Cefalo is so shit out of luck he oughta buy a new suit."

"You didn't kidnap him, did you?" With Cindy you never could tell. Once in a sex discrimination case, a department store executive denied that he ever hit on my client, his young female assistant. Said he'd never been unfaithful to his wife, never even made a pass at another woman. Cindy tracked the guy to his favorite watering hole, ran an inviting toe inside his pantleg, and took him home. Luis (Long Lens) Morales, a convicted counterfeiter and part-time divorce photographer, leapt from her closet in time to shoot some grainy black-and-whites of the executive slipping out of his boxers.

"Kidnap him?" she asked, feigning indignation and arching her eyebrows, striped brown and orange like a Bengal tiger. "Do you think that's the only way I could get a man to buy me a drink?"

"You bagged Watkins in some bar?"

"How crude," she protested. "Last night, by utter coincidence, me and Margarita-the girl, not the drink-cruise into the lounge at the Sonesta Beach. And who do we run into but this nice older man with white hair and a silly seersucker suit. He's drinking vodka gimlets but leaving out the lime juice and telling us what a great doctor he is, and Margarita says she's got this back problem, and he says, come up to the room and he'll do a quick exam, so off we go, and meanwhile Harv orders three bottles of Finlandia from room service."

"Harv?"

"That's what he asked us to call him."

"Not very professional," I said.

"Neither was his treatment of Margarita. Unless all ortho-pods do pelvic exams. Not that Margarita cared. I'm not saying she's dumb, but she thinks the Silicon Valley is the space between her tits."

I closed my eyes and massaged my forehead. "Cindy, I can't wait to get a summons from the Florida Bar. It's just like stashing a witness."

"What? To have a drink with a nice man?"

We were interrupted by the banging of the courtroom door. In lurched Dr. Harvey Watkins, collar turned up on a seersucker suitcoat that looked like it had just cleaned all the windshields in the Baja road race. His tie was at half mast, his shirt unbuttoned nearly to the waist. He leaned back against the door as if the courthouse were plowing through rough seas. His hair was plastered against his scalp.

Bluish veins popped through his pink skin. Dan Cefalo was a step behind, trying to steady his witness. Watkins angrily shook the hand off his elbow. As bad as the doctor looked, he was doing better than Cefalo, who had turned an unhealthy gray.

At that moment the bailiff burst through the rear door, shouting, "All rise! Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Dade County Florida is now in session!" Everyone in the courtroom obeyed, except Dr. Harvey Watkins, who sagged heavily into one of the church pews, his legs jammed at odd angles into the aisle, his ankles bare of socks.

"Bailiff, bring in the jury, and Mr. Cefalo, call your witness." Judge Leonard wasn't going to waste any time. He might miss someone brushing the mane of Creme Fraiche or taking Personal Flag's rectal temperature.

Cefalo was about to hyperventilate. "Your Honor, may we have one moment?"

"A moment! You've just had ninety minutes for lunch. Now, do you have rebuttal testimony or not? If not, we'll recess and you can both close in the morning."

In a trial you must make immediate decisions. Object or not, ask a question when you don't know the answer or not, move for mistrial or let it go. Dan Cefalo had to decide whether to put on Wallbanger Watkins without even a chance to shave the white stubble from his chin or determine if the good-and drunk-doctor remembered his name. If he didn't call him, Cefalo would close the book on the case without rebutting Charlie Riggs's testimony that Salisbury couldn't have nicked the front of the aorta. Either way, a roll of the dice.

Cefalo took a deep breath and said, "At this time, the plaintiff re-calls Dr. Harvey Watkins."

Watkins tugged his necktie toward his Adam's apple, jutted his patrician chin forward, and, with the excessive dignity that the intoxicated muster in time of great need, walked almost steadily to the witness stand. He would have made it, too, had he noticed the six-inch step. He toppled forward into the walnut railing, which bounced him sideways until he fell, facedown, into the lap of the court reporter, a young black woman who didn't know if she should record the event on her stenograph.

"Beggar pardon," Watkins mumbled, and Cefalo leapt forward to help him.

A moment later the doctor was safely seated, gripping the rail of the witness stand and staring blankly out to sea. His shirttail hung over his belt and his tie was askew. He made Dan Cefalo look like the cover of GQ.

"Dr. Watkins, you are still under oath," Cefalo began.

"Oath?" Watkins ran a tongue over dry lips. Finally a light came on. "Of course. Years ago, I took the hick-ocratic oath. That is, of course, the hick…"A case of the hiccups was now distracting him and the clerk brought a glass of water. Watkins nodded a formal thank you.

Cefalo plunged ahead. "Dr. Watkins, you testified that, based on the medical records in this case, you could determine to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Dr. Salisbury punctured the aorta with the rongeur, is that correct?"

"Objection! Leading and an inaccurate summary of the testimony." I didn't need to win that one, just to figure out what the next ruling would be.

"Overruled," Judge Leonard 9aid. He started packing, dropping a cap and sunglasses into a briefcase.

"Is that correct?" Cefalo repeated.

Watkins nodded. Either he was saying yes, or he was falling asleep.

"Doctor, you must speak audibly for the court reporter to record your answer."

Watkins again nodded silently.

Cefalo pushed forward. "Now, to speed this up, let me tell you that another witness has testified that the rupture in the aorta was on its anterior side, in the front, and that a surgeon entering from the back could not have made the rupture there."

"Zat so?" Watkins asked, eyebrows arched in surprise.

"My question, Doctor, is whether it is possible for a surgeon performing a laminectomy to perforate the front of the aorta?"

Watkins stared into space.

Sweat broke out on Cefalo's forehead. "You may remember our discussing this yesterday morning…"

I was on my feet. "Objection! Leading. Your Honor, really, there is certain latitude, but this is too much."

"Sustained. Move it along, Mr. Cefalo."

Cefalo tried again. "The fact that the perforation was in front. What, if anything, does that tell you?"

Watkins mumbled something, his eyes half closed. The jurors were shooting each other sideways glances. Get a load of this. Somewhere a trillion miles away, some intergalactic god of luck was shining on Roger Salisbury.

"Doctor?"

"Squooshy," Dr. Watkins said.

"Squooshy?" Cefalo asked, his eyes widening.

A momentary brightness came to Dr. Watkins's face. "It's all squooshy in there. You might think it's like all these pretty pictures in the books, the vascular system here, the muscles there, the bones over there. Hah! Phooey!" The phooey shot a wad of expectorant toward the court reporter.

"It's all squooshed up. And it moves. The son-of-a-bitch keeps breathing while you're cutting him up. It's all squooshing around and moving. Front, back, in between. Who the fuck can tell the difference?"

Even Judge Leonard heard that. He aimed a murderous look at Dan Cefalo, who hastily advised that Dr. Watkins was now my witness. I didn't want him. The judge banged his gavel louder than usual and crisply ordered us adjourned. Then he shot off the bench, his maroon robes flying behind him.

Roger Salisbury was pumping my hand as if we'd already won. I told him to wait until tomorrow. You can never tell with juries. He said he felt like celebrating, maybe carousing, how about our finding a couple chicas. I didn't ask if they were both for him, just declined, saying I had to gather my thoughts for tomorrow. Then I asked him a question.

"What about it? If you go in from the back, could you tear the aorta in front?"

He smiled. "Our witness said no."

"Right. And Watkins said everything's squooshy. What do you say?"

He smiled again. "I say they're both right. Riggs is right in what he does. When a body is dead, it's inert. If you did a laminectomy on a corpse, you probably couldn't hit the front of the aorta with the rongeur. But Watkins was right that with a living, breathing body, there's movement. It's a mess in there, things can happen. If you pushed the rongeur too far, it's possible that on the way back, it could nick the front of the aorta. It's possible." "But unlikely," I suggested.

"Unless you were trying," Roger Salisbury said.