Chase, the Bad Baby: A Legal and Medical Thriller (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 4)

by John Ellsworth

  “Let’s think about this. Did you ever talk to Nurse Andrea?”

  “I did,” he said. “When I was first reviewing the doctored notes. I wanted to know about the real notes. So I tracked her down.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Ramstein Air Base, Germany. She works out of the hospital there.”

  “I wonder how Thaddeus would like to know that?”

  “Want me to tell him?”

  “Give me a day. Let me think it through.”

  “I won’t wait until it’s too late.”

  “I won’t either. Trust me, Manny.”

  “You know I do.”

  “Gotta get back. It’s been fun.”

  “Later.”

  48

  At 4:35 p.m. on the second day of trial, the judge recessed for the day with the last witness called and cross-examined. Immediately Sandy, Morgana, and A.W. met in the court conference room. A.W. loosened his tie and Sandy pulled up a window and sat on the sill and lit up. He blew cigarette smoke out the window.

  “That’s healthy,” said Morgana.

  “I’m hooked. Dying for a weed,” said Sandy.

  Morgana shook her head. “Well, I’m not staying unless you put it out right now. Secondhand smoke is all I need.”

  Sandy doused the cigarette in his coffee. “Your wish, oh smart one.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ve got to meet the missus,” said A.W. as he checked his watched. “Let’s wrap up.”

  “So how’d we do,” Morgana asked, though she already knew the answer.

  Sandy smiled his best smile. “Well, on behalf of Hudd Family Healthcare let me just say that went exceedingly well.”

  A.W. agreed. “Yes, Morgana, excellent cross of Mrs. Staples.”

  Morgana tossed her head and scowled. “Gentlemen, this baby is catastrophically injured. Sometimes I think about him and it brings tears to my eyes. I know that if I feel that way and I’m adverse to him, then the jury is going to be crying its eyes out and award him a bundle if this thing goes south. I am going to counsel you that I believe it’s time we seriously consider settlement. Run ten mil by Thaddeus and see if he bites.”

  Sandy shook his head. “I have seriously considered settlement and I’ve rejected the notion. We have the smoking gun in our nurses’ notes and the time differentials between Mrs. Staples and the nurses’ notes. No reason to settle, not that I can see.”

  She slowly shut her eyes and counted. Her face reddened. “But we all know those notes are fabricated. They’re a lie and a hoax. When are we going to get real about this baby’s severe injuries that our doctor caused?”

  Her senior partner disagreed. “That cross-examination was real. You just proved to the jury that you’re relying on the nurses’ notes too in order to trip up Mrs. Staples’ testimony.”

  She slammed a fist into the table. “What the hell! Is anyone hearing a single damn word I’m saying? There is a real baby somewhere out there with real, catastrophic injuries that our client caused. Hudd Family Healthcare owes him. I recommend an offer of ten million dollars.”

  Sandy laughed. “Hudd owes him nothing. It’s up to his lawyer to prove we owe him something. So far his lawyer has fallen far short of proving us negligent.”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Sandy. His lawyer hasn’t had the benefit of seeing the real records in this case. If he did we would be dead in the water. You’d have hundred-dollar bills shooting out of your ass like lightning.”

  “There’s an image,” said A.W. “Nice.”

  Sandy wouldn’t budge. He said to Morgana, “You’ve done your job well, you’ve protected the truth.”

  “I’ve lied.”

  “You’ve acted as a lawyer.”

  “That’s what I just said. We’re miserably pathetic.”

  “Just close your eyes and plow ahead. You’ll be richly rewarded for your work here.”

  A.W. added, “It’s a war, Morgana, and you’re the—”

  “—I know, I’m the warrior. You sucks just don’t get it, do you. I’ve got to pee.”

  49

  Thaddeus was playing a video for the jury. It depicted a day in the life of Chase Staples, from the moment he awoke until midnight when he would finally drift off to sleep for fifteen minutes or so, but never more than a half hour at one time. The video showed the baby in various degrees of distress and upset, of crying fits, seizures, and general chaos. Chase’s life was disturbing and deeply moved the jury and the trial participants, including Morgana. When the lights went back on in the courtroom there were no dry eyes. Even the judge was dabbing his eyes with a tissue. The ordinarily unflappable bailiff turned away, hiding his red eyes and he refused to turn back around for several minutes. Then he was staring at his desktop. The court reporter had swiveled in her chair to view the video and she now turned back around and retrieved a handkerchief from her purse. She noisily blew her nose and dabbed her eyes. Several jury members passed along a box of tissues and all of them were grim-faced, unsmiling, and very restrained.

  Thaddeus nodded to himself. The video had had the desired effect. If you couldn’t overwhelm the twelve jurors with the facts, then hit them with emotion. Which was exactly what the video had done.

  He had sent Latoya and John out of the courtroom while the video played as there was no reason for them to again review the tragedy that was their son. Chase was with his grandmother, besides, so it gave the couple an abnormally long time together in the witness room outside the courtroom where they could talk and even, at one point, agree to lay down the gloves and quit fighting between themselves, if for no reason other than the children.

  But Thaddeus was perplexed and struggling. The video was as good as his case was going to get. Without some way of attacking the nurses’ notes he could invent no other plan of attack.

  “That nailed their ass,” whispered Christine when the lights went up. “Well done, Thad.”

  He whispered back at her. “Yes, but we’re out of bullets. I got nothing else.”

  “How about we put a blanket on the floor in front of the jury and have Latoya feed him, change his diaper, try to show him love, and just let them see how hard it is from her standpoint. We haven’t shown her side of it, yet.”

  “Excellent idea. We’ll recess for the day and have her bring Chase in first thing in the morning. Then we’ll recall Latoya to the witness stand. Find her and tell her to bring a blanket and Chase in the morning. Have them bring Grandma, too, for quality control.”

  “To manage the baby.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Done.”

  Christine left the courtroom in search of mother and father.

  They recessed for the day and Morgana gave A.W. a lift back to the law firm. They swung into Morgana’s parking place. She shut off the engine.

  A.W. spoke first. “Don’t let that Day in the Life crap run away with your feelings.”

  She shrugged. “Naw, you know I’m tougher than that.”

  “I know you are.”

  “I’m going to go upstairs and work on a motion to dismiss to present to the judge in the morning. We’ll ask the court to dismiss the case after the plaintiff rests.”

  “They have no case. You’ve eaten them alive.”

  “I have, haven’t I?”

  “Sandy is ecstatic. He told me he was ordering the champagne tonight for the victory celebration that’s coming down the road. What will this be for you, thirty-one straight?”

  “Thirty-one straight. A record most lawyers would die for.”

  “You’ve earned it.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  She kept it as light and noncommittal as possible, she was sure. No promises to the old man, no arguments about settlement. Just appear to be going along with the scam.

  Appearances were acceptable.

  If he only knew.

  50

  Morgana stayed late and prepared her motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s case. This was a standard motion, ca
lled for in all medical malpractice cases, that asked the judge to dismiss the case at the close of the plaintiffs’ evidence on the basis that all the evidence admitted so far, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, wouldn’t sustain a finding of negligence against the defendants. In short, the motion said, as Morgana put it when she taught trial tactics to bar association groups, “You just hit me with your best shot and you still lose.” Once the motion was drafted, she emailed it to Manny for his review. She was still paying him, under the table, of course, and he was giving her feedback on trial strategy and pleadings, as the trial hurried along. Morgana received his reply twenty minutes later. One word: “Cool.” Now she could file it; he had found nothing objectionable. She had to smile at the thought: nothing objectionable except the entire fraudulent defense. They had cheated their way all the way through the plaintiffs’ case with the phony records, which led to the phony cross-examinations of Chase’s witnesses, which led to phony arguments to the judge, which led to that night’s phony motion to dismiss.

  It was all a sham.

  She shivered; she was in it up to her neck.

  She could and probably would go to prison for what she had done. She refused to kid herself about that. Manny was determined to spill the beans to Thaddeus and his clients. Knowing Manny, he would do just that, even if it cost her law license and her freedom. He was just that committed to doing the right thing. Too bad, she thought, she wasn’t likewise so steady in the boat. I’m a lightweight, she thought, as she clicked “FILE” on the court’s computer screen. The web page confirmed that she had filed her motion and automatically distributed a copy to Thaddeus. I’m a lightweight and I hate myself very much.

  With an exhausted sigh she pushed away from her desk and headed down to the parking garage.

  Out on Armory Street she made a right and went down to Middleton Street, which she followed north. Just as she turned north, her cell phone chimed. Dr. Rabinowitz. Her heart sank.

  “It isn’t good,” he immediately said to her. “The tests are back and the cancer has metastasized. You have a tumor on your pancreas. Inoperable, we fear. But the tumor committee is meeting tomorrow to officially confirm all this. In the meantime, hope and pray that they recommend a heroic measures treatment of some sort.”

  She was so frightened she feared she would drive up onto the sidewalk. “Heroic measures?” she whispered into the phone. “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, where a case is hopeless an untested, unapproved treatment modality is tried. Maybe a new drug, maybe a surgical technique, maybe a kind of radiation we haven’t used. That kind of thing.”

  She found herself saying, “I wouldn’t be interested in that. I want to leave a pretty corpse, not something hacked up.”

  Dead silence at the other end. Then, “Very well, Morgana. We’ll talk again tomorrow. And—I’m so sorry, but I wanted to call you myself.”

  She was shaking from head to toe. It was death sentence. Now all she needed to do was tell the judge about that deceit she had been embroiled in and—and there would be a second death sentence, this time to her career. She took a deep breath. At least she didn’t have to worry about prison or doing any time. She wouldn’t live that long. She would be dead and a memory before they could prosecute her and put her away. Of course they could and would arrest her, if it all came out. And she would spend her final weeks or months away from Caroline. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Not now.

  She took her foot off the gas and almost coasted to a stop. Tears flooded her eyes. She steered with her knees and tore a handkerchief out of her purse. Tears flowed and she sobbed as she steered the car through a wet haze.

  She waved a tailgater around and he gave her a dirty look, as in, “How the hell could anyone drive in the fast lane at the speed limit?”

  She shot him a nice smile and spread her hands. It was just where I’m at, she thought. Just where I’m at tonight. Suddenly there was no hurry, no hurry about anything. All tasks seemed irrelevant. The trial seemed irrelevant, the trial court record was laughable—none of it could turn her head from that moment on. There were no deeds to do, no promises to keep.

  She switched on Sirius. Dizzy Gillespie lit up the interior of the car with his horn. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

  It was time to help that little brain-injured boy. Tears again came to her eyes, but this time they weren’t her tears, they all belonged to him.

  Chase Staples, she thought, I’m coming for you now.

  51

  From her home office, Morgana phoned Manny.

  He answered on the second ring, “Hey, dude, what’s the haps?”

  She cut right to it. No explanations. “I need the web address.”

  “The cloud?”

  “The cloud. And I need the password.”

  “OK, I’m emailing you a link right now. Tell me when you get it.”

  “Got it. Are the original nurses’ notes still there?”

  “Just like I told you in the bathroom.”

  “Thanks for not following my orders to destroy them.”

  “I knew you’d want them sooner or later.”

  “Thanks again. I’ll write you from prison.”

  “I’ll come see you. You’ll be out in twenty-four months. Just like Martha Stewart.”

  “Now that’s damn reassuring. Now about your testimony, I think I’ve got that dialed in.”

  They continue speaking only minutes longer, then said their good-byes.

  Morgana called Thaddeus.

  “Thad, Morgana. Can you access your office email from home?”

  “I can. Why?”

  “Because you’re about to win this case. I want you to read some nurses’ notes you’ve never seen before.”

  “I’ll look for the email. Morgana, you’re doing the right thing—”

  “—yeah, yeah. Screw you, Thaddeus.”

  “Okay, my friend.”

  Morgana hung up and prepared an email to thaddeus@babylaw.com. She inserted the web address and the password. Next she typed the body of the email to Thaddeus: “Thaddeus, there’s no way to say how sorry I am. The best I can do at this time is see to it that Chase gets the care and comfort Hudd Family owes him. Andrea Mounce, Chase’s delivery room nurse, is on active duty overseas. You need her testimony with the records I’m sending you. Tomorrow I will join you in a request to the court for a full day continuance of the trial in order for her to attend. Call me after you’ve seen the records. Morgana.”

  She waited ninety minutes before the phone rang.

  “Thaddeus. Jesus, Morgana, what slimy bunch you work for.”

  “Don’t forget to include me in that bunch. I’m one of them too.”

  “We need Andrea’s testimony. Any luck locating her?”

  “Ramstein Air Base, Germany. You still got that jet?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re ready to bring her back to the States?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let me make some calls.”

  52

  Another trip to the oncologist and a wordless drive home.

  There were no words, yet.

  The news wasn’t good. The cancer had become systemic. Scans and tests had revealed that Morgana had developed cancer of the pancreas—a death sentence in all but a minority of cases.

  Cancer doctor Rabinowitz was blunt. “There’s very little I have to offer to you by way of treatment,” he told Morgana and Caroline. “Your cancer is extremely aggressive.”

  Morgana wiped tears from her eyes. She was no longer in great fear; growing to live with cancer had taught her there was no longer any degree of certainty in her life. Her life expectancy was now limited, Dr. Rabinowitz explained.

  “How much time does she have?” Caroline asked. They were sitting together in the doctor’s office, not an exam room. In a way the office meeting place was a statement: no need for exam rooms, there’s nothing further medicine can do for you. No need for exams.


  He shook his head. “Life expectancy is really hard to judge in these cases.”

  “But we need a number,” Morgana said. “We have things to attend to.”

  “Ninety days, give or take.”

  “Ninety.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “How bad will it be?”

  “We can offer palliative care. We can all but keep you free of pain.”

  “At the end.”

  “Yes, at the end,” he said.

  The women saw how passive the doctor had become. When Morgana had been in treatment mode he was always animated and spoke aggressively about steps they would take. Now he was letting them know through his slow-moving body language and suppressed speech that the time for medical action had passed. They had moved on. This was new territory to the women, old to him.

  They drove home in silence. Morgana insisted on getting behind the wheel. “I need to feel normal, like driving is something I’ll be doing for the next sixty years.”

  At home they made coffee and took a seat at the kitchen table. In their condo the kitchen was open to the family room, which itself was brightened by clerestory windows that were admitting high noon sunshine. It was a cheery setting, though no one felt cheerful. Not then.

  “I don’t want to hurt,” Morgana said. “I’m a sissy when it comes to pain.”

  “We won’t let you hurt. He already said so.”

  “And I don’t want to drag it out. No life-extending measures. No heroic measures.”

  “All right. I disagree, but you’re the patient.”

  “You would be selfish.”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “But I’m the patient.”

  “I know. Your wishes count, not mine. I’m just the girlfriend.”

  Morgana violently shook her head. “You’re my spouse.”

  “Not legally.”

  “True, so let’s fix that?”