The 5th Horseman (5 page)

MAUREEN FELT HER ANGER rising exponentially as she told Amanda’s story. Although Maureen had never met Amanda Clemmons, the young mother was as real to Maureen as an honest-to-God friend, and since she worked so hard, she didn’t have that many friends.

Maureen felt that way about every one of her deceased clients, about every one of the victims, she reminded herself. She knew their backgrounds and their families, the names of children and spouses.

And she knew precisely how they had died at Municipal Hospital.

She handed the picture of Amanda Clemmons to her assistant, turned back to the jury, seeing in their eyes that she had their interest. They couldn’t wait for her to go on.

“The afternoon Amanda Clemmons broke her leg,” Maureen said, “she was taken to Municipal’s emergency room, where the bone was X-rayed and set. This was a simple procedure. Then she was moved to another room, where she was to spend the night.

“Sometime after midnight and before the sun came up, Amanda was given a deadly dose of Cytoxan, a chemotherapy drug, instead of Vicodin, a painkiller that would have given her a good night’s sleep.

“That terrible night, Amanda died an excruciating and senseless death, ladies and gentlemen, and we have to ask why this happened. Why this woman’s life was ripped away from her long before her time.

“Over the course of this trial, I’ll tell you about Amanda and about the nineteen other people who died from similar drug-related, lethal disasters. But I’ll tell you why they died right now.

“It was because of San Francisco Municipal’s rampant, irrefutable greed.

“People died because again and again Municipal Hospital put cost efficiency above patient care.

“I’m going to tell you a lot of things about Municipal that you’ll wish you didn’t know,” O’Mara said, sweeping the jury box with her eyes.

“You’ll learn that procedures have repeatedly been violated, and poorly trained people have been hired on the cheap and made to work mind-numbing hours. All in the interest of protecting the bottom line, all in the interest of keeping profits among the highest of all San Francisco’s hospitals.

“And I can assure you the twenty deceased patients I represent are just the beginning of this horrible scandal—”

Kramer leaped to his feet.

“Argumentative, Your Honor! I’ve been patient, but Counsel’s remarks are inflammatory and actually slanderous—”

“Sustained. Don’t test me, Counselor,” said Judge Bevins to Maureen O’Mara. He shook his head. “Next time you cross the line, I’m slapping you with a fine. It will get much more serious after that.”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” O’Mara said. “I’ll be more careful.”

But Maureen was delighted. She’d said what she needed to, and Kramer wouldn’t be able to unring that bell. Surely the jury got the message.

Municipal Hospital is a dangerous place, obscenely dangerous.

“I’m here for my clients,” O’Mara said, standing rock-still in front of the jury box, hands clasped together in front of her, “the deceased and their families; all were victims of malpractice as a result of Municipal Hospital’s greed and negligence.” Then Maureen O’Mara turned to face the courtroom. “Please,” she said, “please raise your hand if you have lost someone at Municipal Hospital.”

Dozens of hands went up around the courtroom. Others in the courtroom gasped.

“We need your help to make sure that these deadly so-called accidents never happen again.”

AS ORDER WAS RESTORED by Judge Bevins, Yuki slowly dragged her eyes away from Maureen O’Mara. She looked across the aisle to Dr. Garza’s face. She was hoping to see anger, rage that his hospital had been falsely accused. But she couldn’t find it. Rather, something like a smirk played over Garza’s lips, and his entire expression was as cold as a winter landscape.

Fear constricted Yuki’s chest, and for a long moment she couldn’t move.

She’d made a horrible mistake!

Please, don’t let it be too late.

Yuki stood up from her seat, pushed open the swinging courtroom door, and turned on her cell phone as soon as her feet hit the hallway. She pressed the phone’s small keys, connecting her to the hospital’s recorded telephonic menu.

She listened to the options, her anxiety rising as she stabbed at the number keys.

Was Keiko in room 421 or 431? She couldn’t remember! She was blanking on the room number.

Yuki pressed the zero key, and a watery rendition of “The Girl from Ipanema” plinked in her ear as she waited for a live operator.

She had to speak with her mom.

She had to hear Keiko’s voice right now.

“Let me speak with Keiko Castellano,” she said to the operator finally. “She’s a patient. Please ring her room. It’s 421 or 431.”

The ringing tone stopped abruptly as Keiko answered, her cheery voice crackling over the wireless transmission.

Yuki clapped her hand over one ear, pressed her cell phone to the other. The corridor was filling now as the court recessed. Yuki and Keiko continued to talk, to argue, actually. Then the two of them made up, as they always did.

“I’m doing fine, Yuki. Don’t worry so much all the time,” Keiko finally said.

“Okay, Mommy, okay. I’ll call you later.”

As she pressed End, she heard someone calling out her name.

Yuki looked around until she saw Cindy’s excited face, the crowd parting as her reporter friend elbowed her way through.

“Yuki,” Cindy said breathlessly. “Were you in there? Did you hear O’Mara’s opening? What’s your professional opinion?”

“Well,” Yuki told her, blood still pounding in her ears, “lawyers like to say that you win or lose your case in your opening statement.”

“Hang on,” Cindy said, scribbling in her notebook. “That’s pretty good. The first line in my story. Go on . . .”

“Maureen O’Mara’s opening was killer, actually,” Yuki said. “She dropped a bomb on the hospital, and the jury isn’t going to forget it. Uh-uh. Neither will I.

“Municipal hires cheap labor, and patients die because of it. They’re sloppy. They give out the wrong meds. Christ. O’Mara freaked me so far out, I called my mother and told her I wanted to move her to Saint Francis.”

“Are you doing that?”

“I tried, but she shot me down! Got really pissed at me,” Yuki said incredulously. “‘Yuki-eh. You want to give me hot-attack? I like it here. I like my doctor. I like my room. Bring me my hot rollers. And pink nightgown with dragon.’”

Yuki laughed and shook her head. “I swear to God, she acts like she’s at a spa. I wanted to say, ‘Ma, should I bring your tanning bed? Your cocoa butter?’ You know, I didn’t want to terrify her just because Maureen O’Mara’s opening statement rocked. Jeez, when all those people raised their hands, I got a chill up my spine.”

“What if you went over there and checked her out of the hospital no matter what she wants?” Cindy asked.

“Sure, I thought about that, but what if I did that and I really did give her a ‘hot-attack’?”

Cindy nodded her understanding. “When are they discharging her?”

“Thursday morning, according to Dr. Pierce. After her MRI. ‘Dr. Pierce good doctor. Dr. Pierce honest man!’”

“Dr. Pierce, your future husband,” Cindy cracked.

“That’s the one.”

“You feel okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll go see my mom later. Keep her company for a while.”

“So can you hang out here for the rest of the day?”

“I should get back to the office,” Yuki said, her resolve fading even as she spoke. “But hell, I want to hear Larry Kramer’s opening. How could I miss it?”

“Sit next to me,” Cindy said.

CINDY WATCHED WITH FASCINATION as Larry Kramer unfolded his gray-suited six-foot-four breadth and length and took the center of the floor. His thick brown hair was combed back, accenting a jutting jawline and giving him the look of a sailor setting his face into the wind.

A man in perpetual forward motion, thought Cindy.

Kramer greeted the court, then turned an affable smile on the jury and thanked them for serving on this case.

“Ms. O’Mara is right about one thing,” he said, putting his large hands on the jury-box railing. “She’s damned right this case is about greed. It’s about the greed of her clients.

“I won’t deny that it’s tragic that through no fault of their own, people have died,” Kramer went on. “But their families have come before this court with one thing in mind. They want to score big. They want to recoup from the deaths of their loved ones. They’re here for the money.”

Kramer leaned into the jury box and looked into the faces of the jury members.

“To most people that might sound cynical or vengeful or mercenary. But it’s not entirely the fault of the litigants.”

Kramer pushed off from the railing and moved out into the center of the room, seeming to be lost in his own thoughts before turning to face the jury again.

“I understand grief. My father and my son both died in a hospital. My baby boy died only three days after he was born. He was a gift, a blessing that was ripped away from my wife and me. My father was my best friend, my mentor, captain of my cheering section. I miss them both every day.”

Kramer’s scowl softened, and he began to pace slowly, hypnotically, in front of the jury box.

“I’m fairly sure every one of you has suffered the loss of a loved one, and you know it’s perfectly natural to want to blame someone,” Kramer said.

“You suffer, you get mad, and, eventually, you turn anger into good by remembering the good times you shared with this person.

“You make peace with the fact that love doesn’t conquer all, or that life can be unfair, or that God works in mysterious ways. And somehow you move on. You move on.

“You want to know why the plaintiffs aren’t doing that?” Kramer asked. He put his hands back on the railing, giving the jury the full force of his attention.

“Because my opponent has led them down a path that is unworthy of them. Because of a law firm called Friedman, Bannion and O’Mara. Because of this woman, Maureen O’Mara.” He pointed his finger directly at his opponent. “Because of her, these unfortunate people have come to see their personal tragedies as a financial opportunity. You’ve all heard the movie line — ‘show me the money.’ That’s what this travesty of justice is really about. That’s why those people raised their hands.”

CINDY ACTUALLY CLAPPED HER HAND over her mouth, stunned at Kramer’s searing personal attack on O’Mara and her firm. Damn — and this was just the trial’s first day.

O’Mara shot up from her seat.

“Objection,” O’Mara snapped. “Your Honor, Counsel’s statement is inflammatory and prejudicial and personally insulting. I move that it be stricken from the record.”

“Sustained. Ms. Campbell,” the judge said to the court reporter, “please strike Mr. Kramer’s last remark. Mr. Kramer, what’s good for the goose . . .”

“Your Honor?”

“Tone down the rhetoric and proceed, Mr. Kramer. You could be fined, or worse.”

Kramer nodded — “Yes, Your Honor” — and turned back to the jury with a strained smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen, during this trial you will hear abundant proof that San Francisco Municipal is a highly respected and responsible institution,” Kramer continued. “That it has above-industry-standard pharmaceutical safeguards and protocols, and that it follows them rigorously.

“That doesn’t mean that the hospital is perfect. Human beings sometimes commit human error. But mistakes are one thing. Malpractice is something else entirely.”

Kramer paused to let his words sink in and used the long moment to look each juror in the eye again. He was talking to them, one at a time, making this personal.

“I’m afraid that this is going to be an emotional trial because people have died. But the judge will tell you that you can’t let the plaintiffs’ attorney obscure the facts by playing on your emotions.

“Weigh the facts as presented — that’s the job you’ve accepted and it’s your charge. The facts, ladies and gentlemen. The facts will convince you that my client is not negligent, and that my client performs an incredibly valuable service for our city of San Francisco.”

Cindy’s mind leaped ahead as Kramer thanked the jury and took his seat.

She saw the front-page headline in her mind — SAN FRANCISCO MUNICIPAL SUED FOR MALPRACTICE, the block of twenty victims’ photos and the rest of her story carried over to page three.

This trial was the stuff of books and movies.

Twenty people had died.

And whether or not the hospital was guilty, the evidence would shock people.

They would take it personally. And patients who were admitted to Municipal would be scared for their lives.

Hell, she was scared just listening at this trial.

IT WAS MIDMORNING, four long days since we’d found Caddy Girl dead in the Opera Plaza Garage. I’d just come back from a meeting with Chief Tracchio, who told me that he was rotating some staff, moving some of my people out of Homicide to plug openings in other departments. Tracchio wasn’t asking for my input, just informing me.

I hung my jacket behind the door, still seeing the chief in my mind, ticking off the reasons on his chubby fingers — Budget cuts. Too much overtime. Gotta backfill here and there. It’s just temporary, Boxer.

It was infuriating, crippling, bureaucratic bs.