The Long Fall

by Daniel Quentin Steele

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember a Bayani Amicay, by any chance?”

  Amparo remembered. He looked like he was about to have a heart attack himself.

  “I ... I…”

  “Wasn’t he a patient of yours, Dr.? You had been a practicing physician for nearly eight years when he became a patient. And he also had similar heart problems. And, oddly enough, didn’t a similar confusion about medications cost his life?”

  “That was during a period when there was political unrest, a typhoon off the coast, and the hospital where he was being treated was tremendously overcrowded. There was a great deal of confusion.”

  “But you signed off on the medication, didn’t you, Doctor? You, a professional with eight or more years of medical training and eight years of practice, and you still made basically almost the same mistake that Mrs. Johansen did. Were you prosecuted for murder?”

  “No.”

  “Did you lose your license?”

  “No.”

  “What happened?”

  “There....was an out of court settlement. The family agreed to it.”

  “So you basically paid off the family and walked away without a scratch.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way...”

  “I would, Dr. You, more than anyone sitting in this courtroom should be aware of how fragile Mr. Carroll’s health was, and how easy it would be to make a fatal mistake. And yet you were willing to sit in judgment of an elderly woman, a non-professional, and leave the jury with the implication that there was something suspicious about the mistake she made. Would you care to reconsider your remarks?”

  Lew just stared at him until he finally raised his eyes to look at him. Amparo wouldn’t look at me.

  “Yes. Mr. Carroll was in precarious health and it is quite possible that a lay person would make a mistake without intending to. Sometimes, we doctors tend to forget that—lay people aren’t doctors or nurses.”

  “No further questions.”

  Lew gave me a little look that spoke volumes and swaggered back to his table. Alright, he didn’t really swagger. That’s just the impression I got. But, he was going to find out that the old gunslinger wasn’t going to go quietly.

  “Re-direct, your honor.”

  Lew was expecting, obviously, to have taken the wind out of my sails. Let’s see how he liked a gut punch directed at him.

  “Dr. Amparo, Mr. Walters brought up the situation involving a patient of yours that died as a result of a mistake in medication. You admitted to that mistake. Was that mistake your fault, not a nurse or subordinate.”

  “No, sir. It was my fault. I made the mistake.”

  “Alright, that’s honest of you. You mentioned there was political unrest, there was a storm and overcrowding. And you indicated that those were factors in your mistake. Could you please give the jury a little more detail. What was the political unrest?”

  He looked down at his hands. After three minutes and the judge growing increasingly restless, I walked over to the witness stand. I looked over at Pizarro and said, “Your honor, I need to have my witness testify about an extremely sensitive and difficult time in his life. Could I have a little latitude in my questioning?’

  He just nodded.

  I leaned over to Amparo and said softly, but clearly enough that the jury could hear me, “I know what happened, Dr. Amparo. Would it help if I gave the details and you simply confirm them?”

  I looked at Lew and he was tempted to make an objection, but there are times when you sense things and I knew he was smart enough not to step in a minefield and become the bad guy.

  “At the time, Dr. Amparo, more than 15 years ago, there was political dissension in the Philippine province you and your wife and son lived in, wasn’t there? And a major storm had hit the Philippines the previous day. Entire villages had washed away, bodies were still being recovered and the hospital you were working in was so crowded almost every square inch was occupied by cots or people lying on the floors. Isn’t that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had gone in the previous day. You had worked 36 hours without rest, hadn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And two hours before you made the mistake with Mr. Amicay, you had received a radio message on shortwave from the Philippine Security Forces, didn’t you?”

  He just nodded his head and sobbed.

  “And didn’t they tell you that a unit of rebels had ambushed a car your wife and son were driving in on their way home from providing relief aid in a neighboring village. And the security forces told you the rebels had raped and shot your wife in the head. And cut your son’s head off and place it on a stake near your abandoned car. Didn’t they?”

  He didn’t move.

  “They did this because in addition to your being a physician, you were an elected office holder in the province in which you and your family lived, didn’t they? They were sending a message to all government office holders in your province.”

  He remained silent and motionless, head down.

  “And when you learned this, Dr. Amparo, did you break down? Go into a room and block out the world? Did you find a bottle and get drunk? Or medicate yourself with the narcotics you had easy access to? It would have been so easy. Your entire world had died that afternoon.”

  The silence stretched until it seemed like the world had frozen in place. I couldn’t even tell that the jurors were breathing. I looked over at Pizarro and even he looked stunned.

  Finally Amparo raised his head. His face was wet with tears.

  “No. No. I did my job. There were people in there dying, people I could save. I couldn’t abandon them. I simply....put my feelings away someplace where they wouldn’t hurt. I could grieve later.”

  I looked up and at Lew and there were no words, but I didn’t need any to deliver my message: “Alright hotshot, now that I’ve cut you off at the knees, let’s see how you bounce back.”

  I turned my attention back to Amparo.

  “Doctor, there was obviously a legitimate reason for you to have difficulty concentrating. To your knowledge, on the day Mrs. Carroll gave her husband the wrong medication, had anybody murdered any member of her family? Did she have the responsibility of saving the lives of hundreds of strangers? Was she under any kind of stress similar to what you endured?”

  I glanced back at Lew, just daring him to open his mouth and make any kind of objection.

  Amparo just shook his head.

  “No further questions, your honor.”

  Pizarro looked over at Lew, and I could swear I saw sympathy in the old judge’s eyes.

  “Any further questions of this witness, Mr. Walters?”

  He just stood at his desk, looked down at Judy Johansen and then at Amparo. I don’t normally read minds, but I could read his. There was no way in hell he was going to touch Amparo’s testimony now. All he’d do was make the jurors believe he was an unfeeling monster. Checkmate.

  “No, your honor.”

  We went through more cops and ambulance people and others we needed to get on the record, but Lew was going on instinct. I had stunned him, but I knew he’d be back. When we got to the noon hour, Pizarro said, “I think this is a good stopping point. Let’s meet back here at 1:30. Is that okay with you gentlemen?”

  I nodded and looked at Lew. He did also. Then everybody was leaving. Judy J was out on bond and a grown son was here so she went out with him to lunch. When there were only a few people left, Lew came over to me.

  “You sure you didn’t make a deal with the devil, Bill? Are you really the Angel of Death? How the hell did you do that?”

  “Is that you, Lew. You know you shot my eyes out with your blazing guns and I’m helpless here.”

  He reached out to tap the side of my face and said, “You won’t let me live down my big mouth, will you? Why’d you let me step into that shit? You could have brought out all that info and hurt Granny J without making me look like a damned moron.”

&nbs
p; “But it was so much fun making you look like a damned moron.”

  He rubbed his chin.

  “Alright I deserved that. Remind me not to tug on the Tiger’s Tail in the future. But you know when all’s said and done, I’m going to win. You just don’t have enough to convict her. They’re not going to send a grandmother to the death chamber, not in this state, not with ammunition you’ve got.”

  I stood up and couldn’t conceal a small smile.

  “We’ll just have to see now, won’t we young Luke. Anyway, you want to buy me lunch somewhere. Feed me and I might take it easy on you during the trial.”

  He grinned.

  “You know, I ought to try to get you and Debbie back together again. You weren’t near this mean when you were visiting her vagina on a regular basis.”

  I know I clouded up and he tapped me on the side of the face, a little harder this time.

  “Come on, man. You’re divorced. She’s out of your life. You got to be able to take a little shit about her someday. I’m your friend. Probably the best one you got. If I can’t razz you about her, you’re going to be the walking wounded for the rest of your life. Just get over it, and her, okay?”

  Monday, August 22, 2005 -- 10 A.M.

  Even though she was new on the job, she had heard enough from the staff she had interviewed when she was coming onto the job that she knew most of the attorneys and staff who didn’t have to be working were going to be down in Judge Pizarro’s chambers for the showdown between Bill Maitland and Lew Walters.

  “You want to go down with me,” the cute Irish public defender Patrick Leary asked her, sticking his head in her office door. “If you have any game questions, I can do a play by play of the trial.”

  “You guys will go down there just to watch a murder trial? When it’s what you do most of the time anyway?”

  He grinned and her stomach would have flip flopped in a pleasant way except that bile rose in her throat and she had to turn her head away from him for a moment. She had already planned to make an appointment with her physician. Ever since the weekend she had been getting nauseous and had even thrown up several times.

  The first thing she’d done was buy a pregnancy test and try it out. No way in hell could she be pregnant because she’d been on the pill for years. But...the test had given her blessedly welcome news. Still, the recurrent nausea wouldn’t go away. She’d bought Tums and several over the counter stomach medicines.

  She hadn’t been nauseous like this in years, and that was when she was pregnant. But she wasn’t pregnant. So what the hell could it be?

  She pulled her attention back to Leary. She was aware of his reputation among the ladies and she’d felt the pull of his bad boy personality, but he seemed like a decent guy. And she did want to see Bill in his element, as well as watching Lew do his thing.

  It was funny, but she realized she hadn’t seen Bill lawyering in years, since before he had joined the State Attorney’s Office. She’d gotten his views of his job in nighttime conversations, and she had gotten the idea of how the people in his world viewed him. But she had never seen it for herself.

  Now that they were finally split, just two people who used to live together, she was curious to see him as something other than her husband. She wanted to see him the way others did.

  “It’s like watching the NFL finals or the Sweet 16. The Killer Granny trial has gotten people around the country interested. And we have a chance to see Lew Walters, AKA the Shark in action going up against the Angel of Death. They ought to sell tickets to this thing.”

  It was hard for her to imagine people selling tickets to watch Bill in any kind of action. But she realized it was obvious he had had a life she had never really seen.

  She rode the elevator down to the courtroom with Leary and they sat on the left side of the public seating section. It was four rows deep and most seats on both sides were occupied.

  There were secretaries and attorneys from the State Attorney’s Office and Public Defender, as well as a large contingent of local, state and even national media. The “Killer Granny” story had already made the national television newsmagazines.

  Two guys had apparently been saving a spot for them and got up and left as she and Leary sat down.

  Leary whispered to her, “This is just the preliminaries. It’s like the opening of a boxing match. They’re just feeling each other out. But something will break.”

  As they watched and listened to the two attorneys, Debbie remembered her meeting with Lew. He was still damned hot. Tall and slender and he moved with fluid grace. She watched the women in the spectator section, secretaries, lawyers and some just public types as they watched him. Mona had no idea how much competition she’d have if Lew was even willing to look at other women.

  She remembered the way she’d offered herself up to him. Would she have gone through with it if he had taken what she’d offered. She would never know, but looking back she was glad she hadn’t had to find out. At the time she had been pissed at Bill and taking his friend had seemed like a good idea.

  But if he had stuck his dick in her mouth, it would have opened up a literal can of worms. How would she have handled two men when she had a hell of a time dealing with Doug. And, looking at the two men occupying the attention of the entire courtroom, she felt a sudden stab of guilt.

  She had destroyed Bill’s pride and his manhood. She knew that. Even if she had made up her mind to leave him, she wished she could have done it another way. Having a woman walk out on you couldn’t be good for a man’s ego. She had to try to put herself into a man’s mind, because she had never been dumped by any man. But taking Doug’s side in her anger at the UNF event, having sex with him in Bill’s bed, that had to destroy Bill’s confidence.

  And Bill didn’t have any friends, not any real friends. Apparently a lot of people respected him, but he wasn’t the type to go out drinking and he’d never gone out to a bar with the guys or to sports events. Because he was either working or home watching television with his wife and kids.

  It was strange, she thought, that she could recognize that now, when she couldn’t before. Bill had spent too much time at work, but any free time he’d ever had he’d spent with her or the kids. Maybe he had been dull as hell, but he had always come home.

  His only friend, she realized, was Lew Walters. Lew was the only one he had ever gone out drinking with. Lew was the only guy he’d ever gone to a Jaguars game with. And if she had taken Lew away from him....She felt nauseous again, but this time it felt like heartburn as well.

  “How in the hell could I have lived with myself if I had taken the last thing he really had, his only good friend?”

  She focused in on her ex. He was dressed in black, slimmed down, head shining under the lights. He moved lightly on his feet. Maybe that was the boxing she’d heard about. She looked around the spectator section and saw that as many of the women were following him with their eyes as were watching Lew.

  She shook her head. It reminded her of the night she had seen him at the gym for the first time in his newer, hotter look. This was the first time she had seen him working in his element. She realized now that the parties she had gone to, the social events, were a different world. He had never been a social animal, a party guy, and so she had seen him ill at ease and out of his element. She wished for a moment she had seen him like this.

  She watched the cross examination of Dr. Amparo by Lew and winced in sympathy for Bill. She wasn’t a lawyer, but she could understand the impact of his destruction of the Filipino physician. Even if he had bruised her, she recognized just how dangerous Lew was in the courtroom.

  Minutes later when Bill completely flipped the situation, Leary smiled and had to stifle laughter.

  “Is that as bad for Lew as I think it is?” Debbie asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Leary said. “The old man—Bill—sucked him in. He had to have known that Lew was going to go after Amparo and would find that mistake that killed the guy in the Philippines
. But Lew got lazy. He didn’t dig any deeper. If he had, he would have brought out the circumstances and minimized it so the jury wasn’t so damned sorry for Amparo.”

  “Now,” Leary said, “They’re thinking that Granny really didn’t have much of an excuse to accidentally poison her husband, and they sure as hell don’t like Lew. It’s a bank shot. Bill sunk two balls that time. That was classic.”

  “And Lew just walked into that?”

  Leary grinned back at her.

  “Walters always thinks he’s the smartest guy in any group of three people. He is smart, and he’s good which is why he’s risen so far so fast. And he’s a complete mercenary and opportunist. He’d defend anybody or take any case if the money is right. But...that’s his Achilles heel. If you think you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re wide open for somebody that’s smarter or working harder than you are.”

  She looked at the two men as they skirmished through the rest of the morning. She was as guilty as a lot of other people, she thought. She had looked at the tall, confident, good looking Lew Walters and just automatically assumed he’d have Bill’s number. Bill who was shorter, average looking, shouldn’t have been in the game.

  The same way he shouldn’t have laid out Doug at the UNF awards ceremony.

  As she was walking toward the elevators, three women were walking ahead of her and Leary.

  “mmmmmm....sister.....that Lew Walters could call me any night....it’s a damned shame they say he’s married and he doesn’t mess around...”

  “...he’s hot alright....but Maitland....he is so damned cold....”

  “I know. You know they used to call him the Iceman, back when he was married....”

  “....stupid bitch...they say she threw him over for a kid...one that doesn’t make half what Maitland did...”

  “yeah, he makes good money, he runs that office, and..shit, did you see him when he was doing that re-direct....he’s so cold he’s scary.....”

  “...but scary good.....what do you; think he’d be like if you managed to defrost him....”

  “...I think he’d be a freak...tie you down and....”