Blood Money (32 page)

“Breathe,” Rosa said, standing, signaling that it was time to leave. “I’ll give you an escort home.”

“No.” James put his hand out to shake Rosa’s. “You’ve convinced us. We’re going to check into a hotel.”

“Good.” Rosa took the outstretched hand. “We’ll call you on your cell when the coast is clear.”

“I hope you catch him soon,” Margaret whined. “I don’t want to live in a hotel.”

“Hotel’s better than a grave,” Rosa said, ushering the couple out the door. “Susan, get me Nick Ceratto,” he commanded his secretary. “I want to talk to him now—right now.”

“Mr. Rosa, do you want me to continue to try to reach Ms. Gates?” she asked, looking puzzled.

“Forget her. I want Ceratto now.”

Marina Doletov was dwarfed by the heavy mahogany witness stand, which made her look more diminutive than she actually was. Her shoulders barely showed over the top of the heavy wood surround. Her blond hair was tightly pulled back into a neat pony tail tied with a black velvet ribbon. At under five feet, she looked innocent and childlike as she testified—particularly so when her clear, baby-blue eyes brimmed with tears. Although her Russian accent was heavy, her English was good, as were her lies, when she testified about what she had seen when Sean Riley arrived at Metropolitan Mercy Hospital.

“Ms. Doletov, can you tell the jury what Doctor Manning was doing, if you know, when Officer Riley arrived in the ER?” Nick asked in the low, kindly voice, typical of attorneys when soliciting the information they want from their own witnesses.

“Yes.” She hesitated. Her mouth quivered slightly, as if she were afraid to say the words. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m nervous…I’m new to this country…the language. I was never in a court before.”

“Take your time, Ms. Doletov.” Nick stopped at the railing in front of the stand and looked her in the eye.
I’ll just bet you’ve never done this before. What an actress
, he thought.
What a con. What a bitch. What a cold, murdering bitch. Who would ever think that Alice-in-Wonderland here was a murderer
. “Here.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a white silk pocket handkerchief.

“No, no,” she said, smiling. “It’s OK.”

“Here,” he insisted. “Please, the jury understands.” He looked her squarely in the eye. “It’s OK.”

“Thank you, sir. Attorney…ah…?”

“Ceratto,” he smiled.

“Yes, Attorney Ceratto.” She dabbed her eyes and took a deep breath then looked at the jury, seemingly regaining her confidence. “Doctor Manin had just finished a previous surgery. It was repair of an abdominal aneurism, if I recall. He wanted to get out of the operating room as soon as possible. He said that he had to meet his wife for a big dinner, a charity dinner that she had organized.”

“How do you know this ?” Nick prodded.

“I had assisted him in the operation.” She dabbed her eyes again with the silk handkerchief.

“Go on, Ms. Doletov.” Nick leaned toward her, urging her on.

“…and he talked about the dinner and his wife and how he had to wear a tuxedo, and how he was always late for these affairs, and how she was always mad at him for that. This time, he said, he had to be on time because it was
her
dinner. We all left the OR. Doctor Manin went off to change; then he got paged. Then I saw him rushing past me in his shirt and tuxedo pants. Captain Riley was brought into the OR. I was called to assist with the surgery. When I arrived, Captain Riley was already prepped. We waited and then, shortly, Doctor Manin comes in, plops on his cap, and mutters to me, under his breath, that he had to do this operation, too. Nobody else was competent in the hospital. His wife was going to kill him—he…” She paused, struggling to finish, “He whispered, ‘Son of a bitch, I can’t ever get out of this place on time…’”

“Liar!” Manin yelled, pointing at her. “Lying bitch, you lying…”

John Asher put a hand firmly on Manin’s shoulder to restrain him.

Manin went limp, sagging against the back of his chair, aware of another fatal mistake.

“Calm down, Victor. What’s wrong with you?” Asher hissed into his client’s ear. “You’re making things worse.”

Judge Barnes smashed his gavel onto its block, twice. The cracking sound was earsplitting, causing every member of the jury to wince. Marina buried her face in the silk handkerchief and cried quietly, her shoulders shaking.

“If I hear any further remarks or outbursts from you, Doctor Manin, I’ll have you removed from my courtroom for the duration of this trial. You will respect this court and never do that again.” Barnes glared down at Doctor Manin and hunched himself, vulturelike over his mahogany desk. The heavy shoulder pleats of his black robe made him look twice as large as he was, and twice as ominous. He had learned early about the magic of the black robe. And when he put it on, he relished the transition from Jekyll to Hyde.

John Asher stood to make the appropriate excuses. “Your Honor, my client apologizes to you personally, and to this entire court, particularly to the jury.” He shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other in a supplicating, “aw shucks” mode. “Doctor Manin has been under an incredible amount of stress…”

“Very well.” The judge looked down, pretending to write on his empty yellow legal pad. Actually he was scribbling possible solutions to Sunday’s
New York Times
crossword puzzle, which he kept in his desk drawer until they were complete. When finished, he carefully put them in a file, by year, for reference. He could not rest until each week’s was filled in—in pen, and 100 percent correct. “Mr. Ceratto, you may continue with your witness.”

Marina Doletov was not in the mood. She put her hands over her face, shaking her head and sobbing. “I can’t…I can’t…hurt him anymore.”

Nick pretended to buy into her act. He offered her water, tissues, and then finally stepped away and walked toward the bench. “Your Honor, may we have a short recess?”
What a fucking actress
, he thought.
She deserves an Academy Award for this. Her cut must be big enough to retire on for life. She could probably buy the whole Ukraine and have enough left to buy a string of nail salons.
He looked quickly at the jury, checking their expressions, their body language. The vibes coming from them told him they were buying it, all of it. Except for Alonzo Hodge who wore the same skeptical smirk, sending the same silent message:
You’re all full of crap. Now get on with it, jerk-offs.

Asher jumped to his feet. “Your Honor, may we approach the bench?”

Barnes nodded in reluctant approval, wondering what these two manipulative bastards were going to try to put over on him. Whatever it was, he would resist it, he thought. Because it wouldn’t be good for him, for his trial schedule, for his Supreme Court bid. He sat back in his chair, causing the attorneys to strain their heads upwards. He liked that. He never bent down to listen to a lawyer. It was bad for his image.

“Your Honor,” John Asher went on in barely audible tones, “I’d like a recess to speak with my client. May we adjourn this trial until tomorrow morning? I want the time to go over the damaging evidence again with him. And now that he’s heard it with his own ears, and sees the problems he has, or we have—” correcting himself, looking at Ceratto in acknowledgment of the power of the plaintiff’s case—”he may be willing to settle this case. I’m asking you for time.” He put his hands together hoping to signal his desperation to the man in control—to no avail.

“If he hasn’t seen the light yet, Mr. Asher, I doubt that he ever will. Fifteen minutes for both of you and that’s it. I want to move this case along.”

Nick nodded. “Your Honor, I’d like to put my expert on now. In the interest of saving time and money. He’s costing me two grand an hour. Can I get him on and off? His testimony won’t take long. He’s here and ready. In the meantime Miss Doletov can take a short break. I’ll call her back right after the expert.”

Barnes liked economy, especially when it was of his time. He didn’t give a flying fart about Ceratto’s money. They were all whores: the attorneys, their clients, their expert witnesses. And they could all go to hell in a hand basket, he thought. Their only service was to keep him in his job, and pretty soon he wouldn’t have to listen to drivel anymore. Pretty soon he’d be at the top, making law instead of keeping bullies from tearing each other apart and taking over his courtroom.

Asher said, “I’m going to object, Your Honor. To put the plaintiff’s expert on out of sequence just bolsters the witness.
Ms. Doletov’s evidence just becomes more credible when she resumes. It will be devastating…”

“Too bad, John,” Barnes said, smiling and looking toward the back of the courtroom at Doctor Jacob Humphrey. Humphrey was from Johns Hopkins, a renowned vascular surgeon, professor, and researcher. He sat ready in his tweed jacket and brown tie-up shoes. With his lightly tousled hair and horn-rimmed glasses, he couldn’t have looked more the expert. “This may help you talk some sense into your client.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” Nick wanted to get Marina off the stand as soon as possible.

“Miss Doletov, you may step down briefly. You may leave the courtroom briefly. Please take the time to compose yourself, and Mr. Ceratto will call you back to the stand after the next witness.”

“Thank you,” she whispered as she stepped down from the witness stand and moved quietly past Silvio and Levin into the back of the shabby, inhospitable room. Only the sound of the squeaking door broke the silence as she disappeared from view.

Nick called Doctor Humphrey, and like a seasoned pro, the doctor recited his background and qualifications: member of the board of Johns Hopkins University, professor emeritus of Johns Hopkins medical school, and board certified in surgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery, and vascular surgery.

The jury sat with open mouths as the expert went on and on, detailing the many articles and texts he had written and the research projects and symposiums he had conducted—all except Alonzo Hodge. He could care less. He knew the game—pay ‘em enough and they’d say whatever the fuck you want.

Silvio and Levin sat back, nudging each other when a point was made. They marveled at the good job Ceratto was doing. Too bad the money would never be his. They were going to sue his ass for ripping the client from them. And sue the Rileys for going with Ceratto. That is, before they had him whacked and buried so far underground they wouldn’t find his remains for a thousand years.
They could taste the verdict and smell the money. This was going to be a big one.

Nick read all this. It was obvious. The more points he made, the more he twisted the knife into Manin, the happier they looked. What could he do? What the fuck could he do?

“The autopsy report showed that the closing of the wound was inadequate,” Doctor Humphrey droned on. “The suturing was far too close to the approximated edges of the severed artery. The quality of the suturing was poor, and as a result the artery opened from the effect of the pressure of the blood reentering the artery as soon as the forceps were removed on the proximal side of the wound. Further, the response time for the code was entirely too long, especially since the patient was bleeding and obviously in trouble. There should have been an immediate response by a qualified surgeon.”

“Doctor, how long did it take the defendant to respond?” Nick asked, holding the code sheet from the hospital records in his hand.

“It took twenty minutes.” Doctor Humphrey glanced down at his copy of the code sheet, shaking his head.

“How long should a response take in a case like this?”

The Joint Committee on Accreditation of Hospitals Standards calls for five minutes or less. The recovery room nurse—I believe that it was Nurse Doletov—called an immediate code for immediate assistance.”

“And how long did it take for Doctor Manin to arrive?”

“Twenty minutes…it was far too late at that point. The heart was pumping, but the blood was being pumped out of the body. The patient exsanguinated.”

Nick looked squarely at Doctor Manin. “Doctor Humphrey, in your professional opinion, was that a breach of the standard of care that should have been rendered to Sean Riley? In other words, did Doctor Manin fail to give Sean Riley the kind of care he deserved and available to him?”

“Yes, it was.” Doctor Humphrey paused. “An incredible breach of the standard of care.”

Nick walked toward Mrs. Riley, who was silently crying at counsel table. Her shoulders shook as Nick put his arm around her and gave her a tissue. Then he walked back to his witness. “Doctor Humphrey, is there any other way that this could have happened? Is there any other way that Sean Riley could have bled to death?”

Humphrey looked at Nick, his eyebrows raised in surprise at the question. He paused to think, cocking his head to the side. “I suppose so…”

“How?” Nick asked strongly, aware that he had just committed professional suicide.

“Well…the sutures would have to be purposely pulled…” He shook his head. “…and then the nurse or person in charge of the recovery unit would have had to purposely ignore the emergency. But I don’t see how…based on the chart…”

“Thank you, Doctor. That’s all.”