The Last Word

by Lee Goldberg

  One of the major turning points in public sentiment came with the Lacey McClure case. She was the movie star Tyrell successfully defended against charges that she murdered her husband and his starlet lover. Those charges were built, in large part, on evidence gathered by Dr. Mark Sloan.

  Tyrell put Mark, Steve, and Amanda on the stand and eviscerated them in front of millions of television viewers. And in doing so, he also castigated and embarrassed the LAPD, the district attorney’s office, and the entire criminal justice system. He managed to get the case thrown out at the preliminary hearing, only to have his victory snatched away when Mark tricked Lacey into admitting, on live television, that she’d murdered someone else.

  It shook the public’s faith in actors, in the courts, and in celebrity criminal attorneys. Tyrell’s caseload evaporated. He managed to get a gig for a few months as a commentator for Court TV during Lacey’s subsequent murder trial, but after that his practice, and his TV career, suffered enormously.

  Which was why he relished what he saw unfolding on the evening news that night on the sixty-five-inch flat-screen television in his office. Dr. Mark Sloan was getting his comeuppance.

  According to the news, two of Mark Sloan’s closest colleagues at Community General had been arrested by the FBI for intentionally infecting donor organs with West Nile virus, thereby causing five deaths and leaving three people in comas. It also sparked a frenzied nationwide recall of the skin, tissues, bones, and other body parts taken from two donors before they ended up in more people. The CDC, the NIH, and the FDA were coordinating that effort.

  But the scandal didn’t end there.

  The FBI also arrested Dr. Amanda Bentley, the adjunct county medical examiner, for running a massive organ-theft ring out of the hospital morgue with the help of two local mortuaries. More than a hundred bodies intended for burial or cremation may have been deboned and gutted, the valuable body parts sold with forged documentation on the black market.

  The Community General transplant program and the two local funeral homes were shut down. The FBI hinted that more arrests were in the offing.

  DA Neal Burnside immediately spun the scandal to his advantage, making a statement to the press on the steps outside of City Hall.

  “These horrifying crimes are a direct result of grossly irresponsible decisions by Chief Masters and his predecessors, giving unprecedented law enforcement authority to a civilian,” Burnside said. “The chief has allowed Dr. Mark Sloan, and the two doctors charged with multiple counts of murder today, to enjoy unsupervised and unrestricted access to LAPD resources. It was Chief Masters who, among others, succumbed to Dr. Sloan’s back-channel lobbying to have an adjunct county morgue set up in his hospital and run by his protégée, Dr. Amanda Bentley, who now stands accused of organ theft. It was Chief Masters’s negligence and Dr. Sloan’s hubris that created the lawless environment that made these tragic deaths and unspeakable desecrations possible.”

  Tyrell had leveled many of the same charges at Mark Sloan and the LAPD during the Lacey McClure case. Although Lacey turned out to be guilty, that didn’t change the fact that the LAPD’s relationship with Mark and his unrestricted access to the morgue were legally and ethically questionable.

  But somehow that all got forgotten in the media frenzy that followed Lacey’s second arrest for murder and the subsequent trial.

  What people remembered was that Lacey was guilty, that Tyrell was wrong, that the DA’s office bungled its case, and that Dr. Mark Sloan was right all along.

  For those reasons alone, it was nice to see Mark getting trashed.

  Even so, Tyrell had surprisingly mixed feelings after watching the newscast. For one thing, Tyrell intensely disliked Burnside and hated the idea that the DA had found a way to use the scandal to gain political points in his mayoral bid.

  The scandal also promised to be the biggest story of the year in Los Angeles and was certain to garner national, if not international, attention for weeks.

  The worst part was that the most Tyrell could hope to get out of it was a chance to give a sound bite to CNN about his experiences with Mark, Burnside, and Masters. If he was lucky, it would add up to thirty seconds on some late-night broadcast.

  All of this was on Arthur Tyrell’s mind when his secretary buzzed him on the speakerphone.

  She informed him that he had an unscheduled guest outside his door who insisted on being seen immediately.

  “Who is it?” Tyrell asked.

  “Dr. Mark Sloan,” she said. “He says you know him.”

  Arthur Tyrell smiled to himself, glanced up gratefully to the heavens, and said, “Send him right in.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The Commons in Calabasas was a shopping center designed to look like a village in France, except for the Ralph’s supermarket and Rolex clock tower.

  Tanis Archer sat at an outdoor table in the shadow of the clock tower, a set of iPod earphones plugged into the laptop open beside her. She was sipping a latte and eavesdropping on Tony Sisk, who was having dinner at an Italian restaurant fifty yards away, when Steve sat down across from her.

  “I never knew this corner of the Valley existed,” Tanis said. “I’m still not sure that it does. Look at these people, Steve. They all look as if they were manufactured at a mannequin factory.”

  It was true. The people were too attractive to be real. But Steve wasn’t in the mood for people-watching or idle chitchat.

  “Has Sisk said anything about Sweeney?” he asked.

  “Nothing besides having his junior lawyers file the necessary paperwork to keep the habeas corpus hearing on track for next week,” Tanis said. “Are you ready to relieve me from this arduous duty?”

  “We’re done,” Steve said.

  “We’re on assignment until the chief says we aren’t,” Tanis said.

  “Not anymore,” Steve said. “The Web site will tape every conversation whether we’re here to listen to it or not. We have other priorities now.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like getting Amanda, Jesse, and Susan out of jail,” Steve said. “And catching a serial killer who has murdered five people already.”

  Tanis yanked the earplugs out of her ears. “You sure know how to get a girl’s attention. Would it be asking too much for you to give me just a few more details?”

  Steve told her everything. As he was getting to the end of his story, Tanis started typing something on her laptop.

  “Am I boring you?” Steve asked.

  “They’ve got free WiFi here,” Tanis said.

  “If you’re checking your e-mail, I’m going to throw that laptop into the street.”

  “I’m logging on to the Anti-Terrorism Strike Force computer, tough guy. I’m going to get you the names of the funeral homes that were raided and find out everything there is to know about the people who own and operate them.”

  “You can do that?”

  “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  “Well,” Steve said, “yeah.”

  “One of the few perks of working in Anti-Terror is that, in the wake of 9/11, law enforcement agencies are supposed to be sharing intel. We do it mostly by sharing databases. It makes it easier to identify possible terrorist cells and for unscrupulous cops like me to snoop where I don’t belong.”

  “Can’t you get caught?”

  “Getting caught is inevitable,” Tanis said. “If that wasn’t true, we’d both be out of a job.”

  “We may be anyway,” Steve said.

  “Your doom and gloom are distracting me.” Tanis held out her empty cup to Steve without taking her eyes off her screen. “Get me a latte and a raspberry tart. This may take a while.”

  Tyrell listened to Mark’s story as if he were hearing it for the first time. It was different from what he’d learned from the newscast, and a bit more detailed. Tyrell made a few notes, but mostly he studied Mark, taking his measure.

  Did Mark Sloan meet the criteria for being a client of Arthur Tyrell’s?<
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  First and foremost, a client had to be well-known and well-off.

  Mark wasn’t a celebrity in the usual sense, but people certainly knew who he was. And if they didn’t before, they knew now. At this isolated moment in time, Mark Sloan was poised to be the most famous man in Los Angeles. It was a title he could easily hold, in the absence of another major scandal or a Tom Cruise movie, for weeks.

  As far as wealth, Tyrell assumed that Mark was a man of some means, though hardly at the same level as his previous clients. Could Mark Sloan afford him? Probably not. Ordinarily, that would be the end of any consideration for clienthood. But these weren’t ordinary times.

  “I’ve used my home and Steve’s restaurant as collateral to secure their bail,” Mark said, passing some papers to Tyrell from the bail bond company. “As long as the bail amount for Amanda, Jesse, and Susan combined doesn’t exceed three million dollars.”

  Tyrell set aside his legal pad and pen. “Why me, Dr. Sloan? After what I did to you, your son, and Dr. Bentley, I should be the last attorney you’d ever want to hire.”

  “It’s precisely because of what you did to us that I want you to represent them,” Mark said. “The case against Lacey McClure was as strong as any I’ve ever made. The preliminary hearing should have been a mere formality, the first step on her journey to prison. If she’d had any other defense attorney, it would have been. But you tore the case apart. You put me on trial instead and you won. I need that brilliance on my side this time.”

  “You’re just appealing to my ego because you can’t afford me,” Tyrell said.

  “Is it working?”

  Tyrell looked Mark in the eye. “You don’t like me, do you?”

  “Not much,” Mark said.

  “Just so we understand each other, I believe everything I said in court about your hubris,” Tyrell said. “It’s amazing to me that you’ve been able to get away with dabbling in homicide investigations for as long as you have, and set up that little crime lab for yourself at Community General, without anyone noticing how outrageous it is.”

  “This could be that moment,” Mark said.

  Tyrell smiled. “I can’t have you second-guessing me or my strategy. We do everything my way or I walk.”

  “Fair enough,” Mark said.

  “No one talks to the press but me. Too often my clients try to convince the public through the media that they are innocent. That’s not what the media are there for.”

  “What are they there for?”

  “To be used, Dr. Sloan. They are there to be manipulated as necessary to achieve whatever goals I may have at any given time,” Tyrell said. “Do I have your word that your friends will agree to my terms?”

  Mark nodded.

  “I’ll need a $150,000 retainer,” Tyrell said. “But with three clients and two complex cases, I will go through that pretty fast.”

  Mark took out his checkbook, made out the check, and handed it to the attorney. “You haven’t asked me if they’re guilty.”

  “I never will. It’s a meaningless question. My clients know if they are guilty or not,” Tyrell said. “All that matters to them and to me is that I win.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  At first Amanda was shocked when Arthur Tyrell walked into the interrogation room, introduced himself to Ort as her lawyer, and sent the FBI agent out of the room.

  Tyrell was the man who had eviscerated her on the witness stand, on live television, during Lacey McClure’s preliminary hearing. But then, remembering that, she was able to see the perverse logic behind Mark’s thinking in hiring the man.

  It didn’t stop her from hating Tyrell, though.

  “Are you sure you’ve got the right person?” she asked. “I’m not rich, famous, or guilty.”

  Tyrell took the seat that Ort had vacated. “On the contrary, Dr. Bentley. You have a sizable trust fund and, if the government is to be believed, millions in an offshore account. I should also inform you that in the short time you’ve been in custody you have become, if not a celebrity, certainly widely known and notorious. As far as guilty goes, who really cares?”

  Tyrell proceeded to lay out the ground rules that Mark had agreed to on her behalf, got her promise to follow them, and told her what he saw as the weaknesses in the government’s case.

  There was only one.

  “Reasonable doubt,” he said.

  “That’s it?”

  “The evidence against you appears to be voluminous, detailed, and convincing,” Tyrell said.

  “It’s all fake,” Amanda said. “The morticians are lying to save themselves, my signatures were forged, and money was transferred to an account I never opened.”

  “Then that is what I will make the jury believe,” Tyrell said. “Or at least accept as being possible.”

  She told him about Ort’s interrogation, and what she’d learned from it, and what she’d said. Tyrell made some notes and kept shaking his head disapprovingly as she spoke.

  “You shouldn’t have said anything,” Tyrell said. “You didn’t help yourself.”

  “I didn’t hurt myself either.”

  “Don’t say another word to anyone but me,” Tyrell said. “Remember, every word you say damages your case. The less they know, the better. From now on, I will do all the talking. Is that clear?”

  Amanda nodded. “I think I know why I was framed.”

  “You were a convenient scapegoat for their crimes,” Tyrell said.

  “That’s only part of it,” she said. “It’s much bigger than that.”

  Tyrell glanced at his watch and got up. “We’ll have plenty of time to discuss it all. But first, I’d like to get you, Dr. Travis, and his wife out of here, and I still have to meet with them. Your arraignment is at eight a.m. tomorrow.”

  “I’ll try to make it,” she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mark spent the night slogging through the Community General employee shift schedules covering the days when the West Nile virus patient and the two donors were being treated.

  There was nothing else for him to do. Steve was investigating the funeral homes that were supposedly conspiring with Amanda to sell body parts. Arthur Tyrell was busy advising his new clients and preparing to argue for their release on bail in front of the federal magistrate in the morning. That left Mark all by himself in the beach house, hunched over his laptop and tanked on coffee, toiling to find whoever had infected the organ donors with the virus.

  The name of the killer was on the screen in front of him—he knew that. He just didn’t know which name it was. But he would find out. Mark wouldn’t stop until the real killer was behind bars and Jesse and Susan were cleared.

  This could be that moment.

  His own words kept ringing in his ears as he worked, and he didn’t know why. Was it his fear of personal ruination bubbling to the surface? He couldn’t let Burnside’s speech get to him or allow his own selfish anxieties to distract him now. He needed to devote all his energy and attention to proving his friends innocent.

  They deserved nothing less than that.

  For years they had risked their careers and even their lives helping him solve homicides. They didn’t have to do it. Chasing murderers wasn’t part of their jobs, at least not until Amanda became a medical examiner, which she did at his friendly urging. Did she really want it? Or did she do it to please him?

  Amanda and Jesse assisted in his unofficial investigations out of loyalty and respect. Susan did it out of love and devotion to her husband. But he knew he could always depend on them to put his investigations before everything else in their lives.

  How often had he taken advantage of that? What had he ever done for them besides use them as his field investigators and players in his cons?

  Now he was going to pay them back for everything they had done for him. For once, he wouldn’t think about himself. He was going to be as devoted to them as they were to him. His own fate didn’t matter.

  This could be that moment.


  Okay, so what if it was? Even if he wasn’t doing anything to defend himself, it wasn’t as if helping his friends was an entirely selfless act. Their fate was his own. If they went down, he was sure to follow. So the harder he worked for them now, the more he did for himself.

  But that rationale didn’t silence the voice in his head.

  This could be that moment.

  Mark pressed on despite the nagging echo from his conversation with Tyrell. He would confront his fears or his guilt or whatever the hell was bothering him later. The phrase became the elevator music in his head as he worked.

  He printed out the work schedules and the lists of employees on them. He copied the information by hand to the three dry-erase boards, one for the initial virus patient and one for each organ donor, that he’d set up on easels in the living room.

  By dawn, out of all the names that intersected across the three boards, a dozen stood out to Mark as the likeliest suspects. It had more to do with gut instinct than tangible clues, but he was willing to take the gamble that he was right.

  The twelve people he selected were nurses, doctors, orderlies, and technicians who wouldn’t create any suspicion if they were seen at the bedsides of any of the three patients. But either by chance or by premeditation, there were some last-minute changes in their usual schedules that put them in the hospital when there was little likelihood that they would be seen with the three patients.

  Mark needed more information to narrow the field of suspects even further. He would check their personnel files to learn more about them and then talk with their supervisors to find out why their schedules had been rearranged.

  He was attempting to pull up the personnel files when he abruptly lost his connection. He tried to log back on, but when he typed his user name and password, he was sent to an error page that read:

  Access denied. Contact the system administrator for further information.