Blood Money (39 page)

“Maybe the doctor will get a good night’s sleep tonight. I sure need one,” Nick said.

“Yes, I’m sure he will.”

“Well, gentlemen, we’ll adjourn to the courtroom to formally put motions on the record.” Primavera rose slowly from his worn leather chair, pushing his horn rims back up the bridge of his nose.

“Your Honor, I’d like a minute with my client,” Asher said, sweeping up his briefcase and making a dash for the door before
anyone had a change of heart. This didn’t happen too often and he wasn’t taking any chances.

“Mr. Asher,” Primavera called out, “make it short.”

“Yes, I will, Your Honor.”

Nick followed him out the door. “Asher,” he called out.

The natty, pinstriped defense attorney pivoted around on the ball of one foot. “Yes?”

“What do I tell
my
client?” Nick asked sarcastically.

“The truth. She doesn’t have a case.”

Freezing rain pelted the dirty windows and ran down in rivulets until it hit the pavement four stories below on the sidewalk of Penn Square, where city officials’ cars were parked helter-skelter in the paths of the pedestrians. This was one of the privileges of City Council members, judges, and other elite bureaucrats. They got free parking and never a ticket, no matter where they parked or for how long. And some never bothered with the inconvenience of renewing a driver’s license. A select few never had one.

John Asher paced back and forth in the grimy City Hall anteroom, four stories up, trying to explain—for the tenth time—the legal maneuver called a motion for a non-suit, which would get his client out of the courtroom scot-free and back into the real world, where he wouldn’t have to pay a dime to the Rileys. Neither would Asher’s real client, the medical malpractice carrier, except of course to cover his substantial fee for defending a case that had become a no-brainer—a gift from God.

He almost had a heart attack when Victor Manin said
no
. Asher checked his watch. The judge would not be patient much longer. “Why, Victor? Why won’t you agree to my making this motion to end this trial and your agony and mine? Have you completely gone ‘round the bend?”

Manin sat, stonily staring ahead. He had never expected this turn of events where he would win by default, by a legal maneuver instead of a verdict. “I suppose you would think I have. And in fact, I may have. But you attorneys don’t care how you
win
as long as you win. Well, I care. You knew I always cared from the start. I don’t want to escape on a technicality.
I
want to win—” his voice rose to a shout, totally atypical of him—”to
really
win based on the belief of those twelve people sitting in that box.” He pointed to the door that led into the courtroom. His hand shook as he held it out.
“I want
them
to
find
me innocent. I want
them
to vindicate me. Only
they
can restore my life—not a legal maneuver cooked up between two lawyers.” Manin stood up. “Let’s go back in there. Do your job. OK? Make them find me innocent. That’s what you’re being paid for, isn’t it?”

“You’re a greater fool than I thought, Doctor Manin,” Asher said, straightening his tie.

“Why am I a fool? It’s a sure-fire winner, isn’t it?” Manin grinned weakly for the first time in two years. He wasn’t even sure he could do it. His facial muscles were so unused to the expression.

“Nothing is sure-fire with a jury,” Asher said coldly. “You’re always playing Russian roulette with the folks in the box. Can’t you see that? Don’t you understand? You
can
lose.”

“I’ll take that chance.” Manin rose slowly from the chipped brown chair and followed as Asher led the way into the courtroom.

Theresa Riley stared at Nick shaking her head in utter disbelief. “You mean you’re going to let him go? The man responsible for my husband’s death?”

Nick threw up his hands. “Mrs. Riley, for the umpteenth time— there is no case against Doctor Manin. Your husband was murdered, not malpracticed on. And
I’m
not letting him go, the judge out there—” Nick pointed to the adjoining room where Primavera was busily reviewing the ruling he would make on Asher’s motion for a non-suit. “—he’s going to let him go. I’m just warning you ahead so you won’t—” Nick paused. He wanted to say “freak out,” but he restrained himself. “So you’ll be prepared.”

“Prepared? Listen, you bastard!” she yelled. Nick was taken aback by the one hundred and eighty degree turn in her demeanor, from the sweet little Irish widow to a snarling harpy. “My husband’s dead and somebody’s gonna pay,” she growled. “That doctor in there was in charge of my husband’s life and he left him to die. He left him in the hands of a murderer to die—while he went to get ready for a party.” Her face had reddened to the color of a cooked beet, and the veins bulged in her sagging neck.

“But he didn’t know…”

“But he was in charge,” she hissed as spittle spewed from her mouth. “If he’d stayed with my husband awhile like he did with the others, Sean would be alive today—and I wouldn’t be alone…” She broke down into sobs.

Nick dropped his hands to his sides, reached out, and took her trembling body in his arms. It was no use trying to reason with her. He was of little comfort, he knew, but he tried. “Come on, Mrs. Riley. We’ll do the best we can. I won’t let you down. Let’s go into the courtroom and see what the judge does.”

“You won’t let him throw the case out, will you?” she sniffed, wiping her eyes with the ever-present tissue, so damp from tears that it had little or no absorbency left.

“Look, I can’t make the judge do anything or prevent him from doing anything. I’ll just do my best—OK?”

“Promise?” she croaked, cocking her head like an entreating child. Another one hundred eighty degree turn.

Although Nick tried to maintain his objectivity, she had gotten to him. He couldn’t help it. Her helplessness reminded him of his own mother, even if it was calculating manipulation.

“Promise.” he took her bony hand and led her toward the door.

“You’re a good boy,” she smiled as she shuffled along. “I know you’ll help me. I prayed to the Blessed Mother last night, and she never lets me down. So you won’t either. No, you won’t, Mr. Ceratto.” She smiled as she patted his hand.

“All rise,” the court crier’s voice boomed across the almost empty courtroom. The attorneys quickly rose to their feet, followed by their reluctant clients. Grace Monahan stood behind Nick.

Primavera glided in and stepped deftly onto the bench. “Be seated.” He cleared his throat and looked down at his papers. “Mr. Asher, I believe you have a motion…?”

“Your Honor, my client wishes the trial to proceed to verdict. He doesn’t want me to make any motions at this time.”

Primavera’s mouth fell open. “He doesn’t what?”

Asher shrugged his shoulders, turning his hands palm up. “He doesn’t want me to make any motions, Your Honor. He wishes to proceed to verdict.”

The judge shook his head like someone reacting to a stiff slap in the face. “Very well. That’s his privilege,” he said reluctantly. He paused, looking skeptically at the doctor through his thick, round glasses, hoping somehow that he could convey to Manin the stupidity of his decision. But even more so, the utter waste of the court’s time. But there was no reaction from the defense table.

“Very well, bring in the jury. Mr. Ceratto, call your next witness.”

For a moment Nick thought he was dreaming, that he was living his worst nightmare. He willed himself awake, but the nightmare wouldn’t go away. He stood, dumbfounded, as the jury filed into their respective seats. The curly blond juror smiled at him as she smoothed her skirt and wriggled into her chair, then quickly checked her manicure.

Mr. Ceratto.” Judge Primavera’s voice entered the nightmare. “Do you wish to recall Ms. Price?”

Nick, still reeling from the curve ball he’d been thrown, stood mute.

“Mr. Ceratto…”

The judge’s voice again reminded him that this wasn’t a dream. This was a living nightmare. There would be no motion to end it. And neither the judge nor could do anything about it. And both Dr. Victor Manin and Theresa Riley would have their way. The trial would go on.

“Yes—ah, no. I mean no, Your Honor.” He heard his own voice as if it were coming from someone else. “No, I’m finished with Ms. Price.”

“Well then, call your next witness.” Primavera, although sympathetic, still had a trial to conduct.
Let’s see what you can do, Ceratto,
the judge thought
. Let’s see how you handle this. Let’s see if you learned anything from Joe Maglio. Joe would be smooth as silk. He’d glide right into his next witness as if things were as normal as could be.

Nick took a breath and turned back to counsel table, smoothing back his hair, a nervous habit he had never been able to break.
Fuck,
he thought.
Why is this idiot doing this to himself— and to me?
His voice rang clear and confidant, despite his churning stomach. “I call Mrs. Sean Riley, Your Honor.” He walked slowly up to his client, gently took her by the hand, and led her carefully to the witness stand. She slowly sat. She cleared her throat and touched the gold cross that hung from her neck. She smiled painfully at Nick, her eyes watery but penetrating. He had no choice now. She was on the stand. The judge had said go, and he had a case to try—like it or not. Manin had forced the issue, had put him in this position. His conscience was clear.
Fuck him
, he thought. He picked up the yellow pad, which had no notations on it. He would use it as a prop. He knew he didn’t need any preparation for
this
direct examination. She would do a fine job on her own. Just wind her up and let her go.

“Mrs. Riley, tell us about your husband, Captain Riley. Tell us what kind of a husband, what kind of a father he was.”

Mrs. Riley took a deep breath and let go. Her husband had been an angel, a good saintly man, a great father and friend to anyone who needed him.

One hour later there wasn’t a dry eye among the jurors. Even Hodge had trouble staying cool. He lowered his head and shifted his eyes so as not to make contact with the pitiful soul on the stand. He didn’t like cops nor did he place any trust in them, but he knew there were exceptions, and it sounded as if Sean Riley had been one of the exceptions.

Nick had no other witnesses. And the defense was just as brief. Asher put Dr. Manin back on; the doctor testified as expected—that his credentials were impeccable, that he did everything right, and that this was a case of homicide, not medical malpractice. The defense expert, Dr. Leon Schaffer of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, chief of vascular surgery, and a full professor at Penn Medical School, basically said ditto—and charged Asher’s client, Pro-Med Insurance, eight grand for testifying live for forty minutes.

Closing arguments were just as brief. It was no surprise that Asher continually referred to the plaintiff’s witnesses’ damaging testimony. His closing basically consisted of reiterating Donna Price’s version of the facts—actually the only existing account of what happened to Sean Riley after surgery. There was nothing on record to contradict her, no testimony to the contrary; therefore the man was murdered. He had to be, and Asher went on to speculate that the murderer had been present in this very courtroom and then had mysteriously disappeared. Hadn’t Marina Doletov been instructed to stay close by, to stay in the building by the Judge? Certainly. Where was she if she had nothing to hide? Asher went on to remind the jurors that they should not let their sympathies rule their reason. That Mrs. Riley’s testimony was extremely moving, but it was not evidence of Dr. Manin’s guilt. That Nick Ceratto had in fact proven the defendant’s case. Asher then turned to Nick and said, “Thank you.” He did all but shake Nick’s hand before he took his seat at counsel table.

Nick rose and strode to the jury box and turned quickly back to his opponent, pointing at him. “Don’t be so quick to thank me, Mr. Asher. This jury hasn’t made their decision yet. Please don’t insult them. Or me.”

The jury was attentive, but Nick couldn’t read anything from them—except from Alonzo Hodge, whose arms were folded loosely across his chest. He stared at Nick as if to say,
Whacha gonna do now, man?

Joe Maglio’s words echoed in Nick’s head:
Don’t try to blow smoke up the jury’s ass.
But this time he had no choice. He focused on Alonzo Hodge.

“Remember, folks, when we began this trial—the day I made my opening statement? I promised you that I would level with you. That I would respect you and your intelligence. No lies, no smoke screens, no theatrics—and in return you promised to keep an open mind. Not to jump to conclusions. Not to see everything as black or white, but to recognize the shades of gray that are in every case,
in life as a matter of fact? Truth, and respect for each other—that was the deal—remember?”

The jurors were quick to nod their assent. How could they not? But Hodge grimaced as if to say,
Come on man, get on with it. This ain’t no kindergarten. We know our job. Now fucking do yours
.
So I can get outta here
.

“I brought Donna Price to this courtroom, all the way from California, so you could hear the truth—the real story about what happened to Captain Sean Riley. And she told you. And I had to tell my client that she had no case—based on Ms. Price’s testimony there was no medical malpractice. And Mrs. Riley”—Nick turned and pointed to Theresa Riley—”was very upset with me. As a matter of fact, she yelled at me and called me a few names I can’t repeat here.”