Suzy's Case: A Novel (24 page)

“Maybe more,” she replies. “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice. You know I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t so important. This is the lawyer I told you about.”

Fred turns to me and extends his hand. “Pleased to meet you.” We enter, but Fred looks back before closing the door. He sees Trace leaning on the side of the Impala. “Hey, Trace! Please be good enough to tell the Fidge his computer data is now being backed up on three different continents, as we discussed.”

“On it!” Trace calls back.

Electrical equipment both vintage and state-of-the-art is strewn about all over the front of the shop. On the worktables are components disassembled into hundreds of pieces. There’s just about every type of electronics in some stage of repair except for a TV.

We walk down a narrow hall into another large work area in the back. I see Lucite boxes containing spaceship parts with handwritten labels, and there are photos of guys in uniforms with Fred front and center in each one. There’s also a signed picture of a familiar-looking guy in an astronaut’s suit. He has his helmet under one arm and the other around Fred. The inscription says,
WE COULDN’T HAVE TAKEN THAT WALK WITHOUT YOU
, and the signature reads:
NEIL ARMSTRONG
.

“Please sit down and make yourselves comfortable,” Fred says.

He leaves the room, and June turns to me. “He’ll tell us what happened to Suzy. Don’t worry.”

“I’m cool.”

Fred reappears holding a large sterling silver tray and sets it down on the table. He pours the tea, then reaches into the pocket of his robe and pulls out a sterling flask. “Try this,” he suggests. “I blended it myself.” He pours a shot of this secret elixir into our cups, then says to June, “Now, let me take a look at this wire and patch you spoke of. But please, don’t say a word to me about anything. Just hand it over. I don’t want my conclusions to be influenced.”

“You mean you don’t know anything about this wire and patch or why we’re here in the first place?” I can’t help asking him.

“Nothing other than that June has a wire attached to an electrode patch she wants me to look at. That’s it.”

“Don’t you want to be pointed in the right direction?”

“These items will point me in the right direction. Please, just sit quietly and let me do what needs to be done.”

“Will do,” I respond obediently. I start humming “bump, bump ban nump; bump, bump ban nump dump dump dom …,” my best rendition of the
Sanford and Son
theme. By the look on Fred’s face, he’s named that tune. “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. That tea went to my head. What’s in it?”

Fred smiles. “Ripple.” I’m not sure if he’s pulling my leg.

He holds the wire up for visual inspection. He twists his hand back and forth to catch the wire at different angles. “Um-hum,” is all he says. He rests it on the table, then reaches into his right-hand pocket. He takes out a genuine corncob pipe with a yellow plastic mouthpiece and a vintage World War II lighter. He flashes the pipe. “Anybody mind?” We both shake our heads no and he sparks it, leaving butane residue in the air. The chemical smell quickly dissipates and a sweet floral aroma fills the room as the smoke mushrooms toward the overhead light.

Fred picks up the wire and walks a few feet away to an antiquated piece of machinery nailed into the top surface of a long, thin sawhorse. Once city property, it’s light blue with white lettering that reads:
NYPD
. The left end of the device has a hand crank attached to a vertical metal cylinder about six inches high. The other end is some form of adjustable C-clamp attached at the bottom to a long track that runs the length of the sawhorse connecting both sides.

Fred plugs the wire’s long prong into a receptor welded to the top of the cylinder and locks it in place using a paper clip he takes from his robe pocket, one I suspect he also uses to clean his pipe. He takes the patch off the other end, pulls the wire taut, then slides the C-clamp out some three feet underneath to where the wire extends. He inserts
this end into an eyehole on the C-clamp and while holding it there, pulls open a makeshift drawer on the underside of the table and pushes things about until he finds what he’s looking for. He takes out a metal grasping instrument and locks it onto the metal aspect of the prong coming out of the eyehole. The lead wire being held in place looks like a tightrope between the two contact points. All we need now is a few trained pigeons.

Fred cranks the handle with one hand as he pulls his pipe out of his mouth with the other. Continuing to turn the handle in a clockwise direction, he blows a cloud of smoke into the air. Sparks are flying out of the aeration slits of the cylinder housing the motor as electrical crackling noises—very Frankenstein—fill the air with each turn of the crank. There’s a meter welded to the front of the cylinder, the only nod to modern technology.

Fred pushes a button and a little piece of paper spits halfway out from under the meter. He tears it off like a “now serving” numbered ticket from Zabar’s and places it facedown on the table without looking at it. He measures the length of the wire with an old-fashioned yardstick, then picks up the ticket for a look. He murmurs something, tossing the ticket just as one does after being handed lox and whitefish by the counterman.

Fred releases the wire tension, then takes it out of the device. He walks it and the patch over to a counter running underneath a glass-paneled cabinet housing liquid-filled glass beakers. Out of a drawer he takes a metal tool similar to the gauze clamp used by dentists. He scrapes some of the residue off the patch into a shallow dish.

He opens up one of the glass doors. “No … no … no … no … no,” he says aloud to himself as he scans the beakers. “Yes.” He reaches up and pulls out a small bottle that’s capped with a built-in dropper. Drawing in some clear solution, Fred squeezes it over the dish containing the particulate. The flecks of material turn a bright orange color. “Just as I thought,” he remarks with a nod.

Walking back over, he sits down across from us and takes a long draw from his pipe. “Done. I’m certain of my conclusions.” He looks thoughtfully at us.

The testing took less than three minutes. I’m both impressed and slightly confounded. “That’s it?” I ask.

“There’s nothing more to do. Yes, that’s it.”

June speaks the words I’m thinking. “Don’t keep us wondering, Fred. Tell us what you found.”

“The electrode patch,” Fred explains, “is a receiver that picks up the heart’s minute electrical impulses. It transfers them through the wire to a cardiac monitor that shows on a paper printout. This wire, along with this patch, is of great concern.” He pauses.

Wow, good use of the pause to create suspense.

June can’t outlast it. “Go on, Fred. Don’t keep us waiting.”

He continues. “The device over there, which I hooked the wire to, tested its integrity. I measured the wire’s length, considered its circumference, and applied an established formula to determine how quickly electricity should travel from one end of the lead to its other end. The printout, however, indicated that the electricity I generated traveled in twice the amount of time it should have, which can only mean the wire has had a structural breakdown. This compromise is evidenced where you see charring or black flecks within the plastic coating near the prong that’s received by a cable attached to the heart monitor. As a breakdown it’s significant and has affected the impedance or conductivity of the wire, evidencing that there was an electrical force upon it in excess of its design tolerance or capacity.”

June is spellbound by this narrative. “Go on. Don’t stop.”

“I scraped a foreign substance off the electrode patch, which you saw me deposit in the dish. I then put a few drops of a clear liquid protein on it known as CD Orange 45 to test its immunohistology. As you saw, the clear liquid turned the scrapings to an orange color. This confirmed my suspicions. The only thing CD Orange 45 can turn orange when applied to it is epithelial cells or human skin with fat lipids. This finding led to my conclusions.”

“What are your conclusions, Fred?” asks June. “In plain English, please.”

“Sure,” Fred states. “Someone was electrocuted with that patch and wire. Who was it?”

“Oh my God! Oh my God! My baby was electrocuted!” June screams, starting to cry hysterically.

“Take it easy, June,” I say. “Take a deep breath.” But as I expected, my effort at consolation has little effect. One of the things I know about myself is my inability to provide helpful consolation in times of need or distress. I get up and give June a hug, but it’s so fucking forced and unnatural I actually disgust myself. Here I am, at a time like this, thinking about one of my many shortcomings. Jesus. I can only hope June and Fred won’t notice.

Fred’s too smart, though, not to register my awkwardness. He comes and tactfully takes me off the hook. I move back and he sits down next to June. She immediately turns into him, resting her head on his chest. “Oh, my baby, my baby,” she sobs repeatedly.

“There, there now, June. You go ahead and cry this one out,” Fred reassures her every so often, his timing and sincerity both unimpeachable.

After ten long minutes of crying, June collects herself. “At least I know the truth now. I
knew
something happened in that room. I prayed it wasn’t something I did and I knew it wasn’t Suzy’s sickle cell. They electrocuted my baby.”

“I heard you had a daughter,” Fred tells her. “I’m very sorry about this tragedy and sorry I had to be the one to give you the bad news. Did she pass away as a result of this?”

“Part of her did, but most of her is still alive. Only, her brain is severely damaged.”

“I’m sorry, June. I feel deep sadness for you.”

“Thank you, Fred. But how could this have happened?”

“A wire like this is designed to handle low-voltage current, but a high-voltage charge ran through it. The most common source would be an electrical outlet, a common wall socket. Someone put that prong into an electrical power source while the patch was on your daughter’s chest.”

June and I look at each other. “Nurse Braithwait,” we say in unison.

Fred tilts his head in a questioning manner, then continues. “The shock stopped her heart. Most people don’t survive such an event.”

“June,” I say, “I’m sure Nurse Braithwait didn’t even know what she had done. She did it accidentally. Meaning, she probably intended to place the prong into the monitor’s cable but accidentally put it into some extension cord. It was complete and utter incompetence and she didn’t even realize it.”

June shakes her head. “My poor baby.”

“Tomorrow I’ll buzz my expert, Dr. Smith—or Dr. Laura, as she likes to call herself—and let her know about these new developments. In addition to the affidavit I’ll need from you, Fred, I’ll want an affidavit from her laying this whole thing out in order to defeat defendant’s motion to dismiss the case. More than that, June, we’ll need to make a cross-motion seeking the court’s permission to amend the claim to include an allegation of negligent nonlethal electrocution. This was no complication from sickle cell. Suzy was accidentally electrocuted by a caring but incompetent, unqualified nurse.”

“Yes,” June replies, “but she’s as sweet as a candy cane. I don’t want to get her in trouble.”

“She won’t get in trouble. It was an accident, but the hospital was negligent for employing a jerk chicken chef to perform the tasks required of a certified nurse practitioner that, if carried out improperly, could have disastrous results.”

We gather ourselves to leave. Fred walks us back through the long hall with his arm around June. When we reach the front door he turns to me. “Look, I’m not the lawyer, you are, but something like this should never have happened. Even more so, it should have been impossible for such an event to occur.”

“What are you saying here, Fred?”

“Machines with connecting wires that have inputs and receptor sites are generally designed in such a way that specifically prevents this kind of unintended occurrence.”

“How so?”

“For one, the inch-long male prong was definitely plugged into either a wall outlet, which is unlikely, because I don’t think anybody’s that stupid, or, as you said, into an open extension cord that was left plugged into a wall outlet by the monitor, which seems more probable.
Design standards and specifications usually account for foreseeable misapplications and prevent them from happening. I’m not all that familiar with this technology, but I’m telling you an event like this should never have happened. You may want to consider a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the heart monitor for a design defect. They’d never be able to put forth a reasonable defense because the fact that the event happened made it a foreseeable misuse, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Agreed. The manufacturer must always consider potential misuses that can cause harm before they put a product into the stream of commerce. I know what needs to be done in that regard. Thank you for all your time and help.”

“Don’t mention it. I’ve known June since she was born. I would do anything for her. I’ll be in South Carolina for a short time, but I’ll give you my contact information there so you can quickly arrange to get an affidavit to me for my signature. I can fly back on a moment’s notice if need be.” Fred gives June a hug and me a firm handshake.

As he closes the door, we see Trace leaning on the Impala. He looks at June. “Well?”

“Yeah.” June nods and cries at the same time. Trace walks over and gives her a heartfelt and sustaining embrace. Damn, why can’t I do that?

“Sorry, girl,” Trace whispers. “You knew someone did your baby bad.”

June looks at me. “Yeah, I knew, but my own lawyer over here didn’t.”

“June,” I reply, “I made you a promise to investigate this case in more depth despite what our own expert advised, didn’t I?”

“That’s what you promised.”

“Well, I’m in the process of keeping my promise.” I say this softly, appreciating the delicate situation at hand.

“Yes, but I’m merely pointing out it was through my efforts that we found out what happened to Suzy.”