A Good Mother
Page 17
“Let’s start with Sergeant Hollis’s arrival at the hospital. What happened there?”
“First he was intubated, meaning that Dr. Chowdury, the emergency room physician, inserted a breathing tube into his throat to assist with respiration.”
“What did Dr. Chowdury do next?”
“Perhaps I should begin by describing the medical problem that presented itself?”
Shauna nods encouragingly, and Bridges turns to the jury. “Sergeant Hollis had a condition called cardiac tamponade. A sharp object had penetrated his heart, causing bleeding into the protective sac that encases it.”
“That sounds extremely serious.”
“It is life-threatening.” Bridges, who has turned to look at Shauna, goes back to addressing the jury. “The buildup of blood in the sac prevents the heart from functioning. Dr. Chowdury attempted to draw out the blood with a needle.”
“Was that successful?”
“No. The blood had clotted.”
Shauna clicks to an image of the bloodied heart, glistening on a stainless steel tray. At Shauna’s instruction, Dr. Bridges uses an electrical pointer to indicate the torn lining and clots of blood. The courtroom is utterly silent except for one of Travis’s sisters, who is sobbing audibly.
“What did Dr. Chowdury do next?”
“She paged a trauma surgeon to perform a thoracotomy to open the chest and relieve the pressure around the heart.”
Another picture appears on the screens, of a medieval-looking device clamped on a bloodied organ. “Dr. Bridges, can you tell the jury what we are looking at?”
Or not looking at, Will thinks. Several of the jurors have averted their eyes.
“A Finochietto retractor. It was placed around the heart as part of the thoracotomy procedure.”
Shauna wrinkles her brow. “A what?”
“A steel crank. Dr. Chowdury used it to spread Sergeant Hollis’s ribs apart in order to search for the source of bleeding and make it stop.”
“Was that successful?”
“No. The wound was mortal.”
Shauna gives a crisp nod. “You had occasion to examine the wound as part of your autopsy. What did you find?” She clicks back to the picture of the torn and excavated heart. It isn’t any better on the second viewing, and Will feels his empty stomach lurch. He looks over at Luz, who is crying, but silently, tears streaming down her face, a bubble of snot visible in her left nostril. He cuts his eyes to Abby, who starts, then reaches for a tissue from the box on the table and passes it to her.
“The wound was caused by a sharp object, which I later determined to be a steak knife. The hemorrhagic track—that is, the pathway of the knife—extends through the subcutaneous tissue and muscle through the anterior fourth rib, severing it.”
“How much force does it take to drive a steak knife through a rib?”
“A significant amount.” Another click and a new image, this time of a snapped white bone. “As you can see here,” Dr. Bridges says, and indicates with his pointer, “the break is angled, not straight, which indicated that there was some type of twisting or turning of the blade.”
“Did the knife stop there?”
“No, as I said, it went through the pericardial sac into the heart—” Dr. Bridges pauses. “If we could go back to the last slide so I could explain—”
“Certainly.”
Will thinks he would rather be punched in the face than have to look at the gruesome image again—at precisely what it is that Luz has done—but looking away is not an option. Abby is staring stoically, her lips pressed together in a thin line. “The knife penetrated the right ventricle of the heart,” Dr. Bridges says, indicating with the electronic pointer, “which is one of the major blood pumping chambers of the heart.”
“How exactly did Sergeant Hollis die?”
“As I said, the medical term is cardiac tamponade. The stab wound created massive bleeding. The bleeding compressed his heart and prevented it from beating. At that point, his lungs filled with fluid and his brain swelled until he could no longer breathe.”
Shauna clicks to the next slide, which shows two figures drawn three-dimensionally: a tall male and a much smaller female, both with their arms at their sides. The female is holding a knife in one hand.
“What was the trajectory of the wound?”
Dr. Bridges uses the pointer to demonstrate, the red line moving across the man’s chest area as he speaks. “Front to back, left to right, downward and twisting.”
“Downward and twisting,” Shauna repeats. “Meaning that, in your medical opinion, the knife was used in an overhand motion?”
“Correct.”
Shauna clicks on a few buttons and the woman raises her arm over her head, bringing the knife down in an arc-like motion like she is spearing a fish. The man staggers back, then collapses. Shauna replays the image again, this time in slow motion as she intones for the record what the jury is watching.
“Is this animation an accurate depiction of how you believe the wound was inflicted?”
“It is.”
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Ellet?”
Will stands, buttons his suit coat. His hands are shaking: dosed with a double espresso, he feels jittery and febrile. He nods at Abby, who is now tapping away furiously on her laptop. They have their own slideshow.
Another organ appears on the screen, also in a stainless steel dish. A football-shaped hunk, it is a muddy purple, the surface dotted with yellowy, gelatinous blobs. It looks like a side of beef gone bad.
“Dr. Bridges,” Will says, “what are we looking at?”
“The liver of the deceased.”
“Is that a normal-looking liver?”
“Objection.”
Dars’s eyes are fixed on the image. “Overruled.”
“No.”
“What about it isn’t normal?”
Dr. Bridges picks up the electronic pointer and circles the blobs. “These fatty deposits.”
Will takes a quick look at the jurors; he’s got their attention, too. “How old was the deceased?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Measurements?”
“Six feet four inches, 260 pounds.”
“What was his blood alcohol content?”
A slight hesitation, then, “Point two six.”
“We are talking here about an extreme level of intoxication, are we not?”
“Yes.”
“A level that most people never reach, even at their drunkest?”
Dr. Bridges stares back unblinkingly through his rimless glasses, face impassive. “Yes.”
Will looks at the jurors. Most of them are still staring at Travis’s liver. Before he can help himself, he says, “It’s not a pretty picture, is it?”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.” Dars gives Will a hard stare.
Will looks back at Bridges. “How many shots of hard liquor would Sergeant Hollis have had to consume and in what approximate period of time to achieve a .26 blood alcohol level?”
“Objection, calls for speculation.”
“Dr. Bridges is an expert. Under the federal rules of evidence, I’m entitled—”
“There is no need to school me on the federal rules of evidence, Mr. Ellet,” Dars says nastily. “The objection is overruled.”
“How much hard liquor, Dr. Bridges, to get to .26?”
“I would say fifteen, sixteen shots over a period of several hours.”
The stay-at-home moms are wide-eyed, as is the computer programmer. Even the retired nurse—who has probably seen it all—looks disapproving. “Can you explain, please, how the body processes alcohol?”
“Through the liver. The liver breaks down the alcohol into acid aldehyde, then acetic acid, which is then rem
oved from the body.”
“Is processing alcohol the only function of the liver?”
“No. The liver is also responsible for processing the food ingested by the body. That is—should be—the primary job of the liver.”
“Should be?” Will raises his eyebrows, looks over at the jurors. “Why wouldn’t it always be?”
“With individuals who drink chronically and excessively, fibrosis and scarring can develop within the liver. This scarring leads to decreased blood flow through the liver and a reduced capacity to perform its necessary functions. These fatty deposits on the liver’s surface—” Dr. Bridges highlights them again with his pointer “—are a marker of decreased liver function.”
Will nods. “So, when a normal person stops drinking, the liver will remove the fatty deposits and metabolize them. But with someone who drinks an extreme amount over a long period of time, the liver’s whole job becomes metabolizing the alcohol and it does not perform its essential functions properly. Do I have that right?”
Dr. Bridges shrugs slightly. “More or less.”
“Having reviewed Sergeant Hollis’s entire medical file, as you previously testified, you are aware that he was referred to the ADAPT clinic in May of 2004, following his return from a yearlong deployment in Iraq?”
“Yes.”
“What is ADAPT?”
“Alcohol Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment. It’s an on-site clinic that provides treatment for active service members who may be suffering from alcohol or substance abuse problems.”
“How long did Sergeant Hollis receive treatment at ADAPT in 2004?”
“For six weeks.”
“Was that Sergeant Hollis’s only contact with ADAPT?”
“No. He was referred there a second time, in August of 2005, following an altercation with another service member.”
“Where did that altercation occur?”
“In a bar.”
“Is it fair to say that Sergeant Hollis was an alcoholic and that the army’s attempts to treat his alcoholism failed?”
“Objection.”
“Overruled.”
Dr. Bridges tightens his mouth. “No, it is not fair to say. In fact, it would be irresponsible to say given that I was not Sergeant Hollis’s treating physician. I never evaluated him or met him while he was alive.”
Will cuts his gaze to Abby, who zooms in on the chunk of rotting meat they have left on the screen, the yellow bubbles of fat like open pustules. “For a young male, at the age of twenty-three, otherwise in good health, is it normal to see a liver with this degree of damage?”
“No.”
“In fact, it is highly abnormal, isn’t it?”
Dr. Bridges looks briefly at the photograph, then away. “Yes.”
“What behaviors might we expect to see a person with a blood alcohol content of .26 exhibit?”
“It depends on the individual. Some people have a higher tolerance than others. I really couldn’t say, specifically.”
“Generally, then. Might we expect someone at that level of intoxication to have difficulty controlling his emotions?”
“Possibly, yes.”
“To become violent?”
Dr. Bridges isn’t going to go quietly. “It depends, counselor. Some individuals become sleepy. Others have trouble walking, experience slurred speech and slower reflexes.”
“And some individuals become quite violent, don’t they, and at the same time they have a reduced ability to control their violent impulses? They say and do things they would not say or do if they were sober or even somewhat less drunk?”
“Some do, yes. Others become withdrawn.”
Will nods. Time to move on. “You testified about the trajectory of the wound, specifically your belief that the knife was used in an overhand motion?”
“Yes.”
Will nods at Abby, who pulls up a new slide. Two images appear, similar to those shown on Shauna’s slide, but in different postures. The male figure is crouched down like a baseball catcher, the woman, still standing, is now the taller of the two.
“Your theory, Dr. Bridges,” Will says, “was premised on the assumption that both parties—that is, Sergeant Hollis and his wife, Luz Rivera Hollis, were both upright?”
“Yes.”
“But if we assume a different hypothetical in which Sergeant Hollis was crouched down, his right hand curled into a fist as he gets ready to deliver a punch—” a few quick clicks from Abby and the man’s fingers curl into a fist beside his ear then thrust outward toward the woman “—the positioning of the bodies is such that even an underhand quick jabbing motion by my client—” more clicks and the woman’s knife hand shoots out, underhanded from her side “—could cause the wound trajectory that you described?”
Dr. Bridges presses his lips together primly. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”
“There is one living witness to what happened, Dr. Bridges, and it isn’t you,” Will says testily. He needs to slow down, take the edge off. He walks toward the jury box, hands clasped behind his back. “Sir, I am not asking you what you think. I am asking you what is possible.” He turns and nods at Abby, who replays the animation. “Is this possible, yes or no?”
“Yes.”
Will inclines his head, eyes on the jurors. “You testified earlier that my client would have had to use some degree of force to drive the knife through Sergeant Hollis’s skin, muscle, rib, and finally his heart?”
“A great deal of force.”
“But any amount of force used by my client would be greater if it was met by an equal or greater amount of force coming from the opposite direction. For example, a train traveling at the speed of, say, fifty miles an hour, will do twice as much damage if it crashes into a train that is traveling fifty miles an hour toward it, as it would if it crashed into a train that is stationary?”
“That’s true as far as it goes, but—”
Will holds up his hand, smiles politely. “Allow me to finish, Doctor. So if we assume that Sergeant Hollis was crouched down and moving forward, moving into the knife as it was pointed at him, part of the force necessary to drive the knife deeply into his body would have been generated by Sergeant Hollis himself, isn’t that right?”
“I don’t agree with your assumption—”
“I am not asking whether or not you agree with my assumption.” Will can feel his irritation edging back in; he shouldn’t have had all that caffeine. He looks at Luz. She has stopped crying and is looking steadily back at him, the smallest hint of a smile on her lips.
Desire and relief move through Will simultaneously as he takes a step back toward the lectern and fixes the jury with his thousand-watt smile before turning it on the doctor. “I am asking whether you agree with the laws of physics, namely, that two people moving toward each other in a direct collision will generate more force than one body moving toward another body that is not moving at all.”
“Yes, the amount of force would be greater.”
“And it would be generated by two bodies, not one?”
“That is correct.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
Walking back to counsel table, Will makes eye contact with Abby and she nods approvingly. He’s done what needed to be done. Now the jury has another story to consider. In this story, it’s Travis, not Luz, who is the monster.
2006
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
7:30 a.m.
Willowick, Ohio
From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com
To: travman@hotmail.com
Hey T, ur a daddy! he’s almost 9 lbs, gonna be a big man like his daddy. i named him Chance, middle name is Robert, after your dad.
i can’t wait for us three to be a family.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
1:37 p.m.
Ra
mstein Air Base
Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany
From: travman@hotmail.com
To: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com
can’t wait to see the lil man! but could be awhile. i put in for Xmas leave and was denied. send me some pix.
whose name is on the birth certificate?
T
Thursday, July 20, 2006
6:32 p.m.
Willowick, Ohio
From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com
To: travman@hotmail.com
who’s do you think??? who’s been there 4 me this whole time? not you.
Its time to tell the truth, that you love me, that you are Chance’s daddy, and that we are a family. i am ok with u paying her child support but she needs to go the fuck back to mexico or wherever she’s from and get help from her own family.
2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
1:30 p.m.
United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Shauna’s next witness is another doctor, Lenore Spellman, who is there to tell the jury about her physical examination of Luz at the army base medical clinic. It’s a short and extremely unhelpful story: Dr. Spellman found no wounds, bumps, bruises, or abrasions on any part of Luz’s body. No physical injuries to suggest that she had been attacked or hurt while trying to defend herself. No physical injuries of any kind.
Asking questions on cross will make a bad situation worse and Abby declines when Dars asks her.
He turns back to Shauna. “Call your next witness.”
“The government requests a sidebar, Your Honor.”
Dars beckons the lawyers to approach and steps off the bench. They form their usual circle around the court reporter, her hands ever-poised to tap-tap-tap on the stenographer’s machine. Dars crosses his black-robed arms over his puffed-out chest.
“Well, Ms. Gooden?”
“Your Honor, this morning’s testimony went more rapidly than we had anticipated. Our next witness, Michael Ravel, was on call for 1:30 p.m., immediately following the lunch break.”