Death Penalty

by William J. Coughlin

  But I kept wondering if Sabin might have indeed met with his boss, and speculated on what they might have decided to do.

  My thoughts bounced back and forth between Doctor Death and my own possible fate.

  Finally I gave up. I started the engine and pushed a Jimmy Buffett tape into the slot. He sang a melancholy song about a man who wished he had been a pirate, a man who had no future and regretted that he had no meaningful past.

  I turned on the lights and started back the way I had come.

  The wistful song matched my mood exactly.

  Being a pirate would have been far easier than being what I was. At least that’s the way it seemed.

  Maybe because the parties were still in full swing, I was able to sneak back into my motel room without being discovered.

  I lay in the dark, listening to the mixture of sound: laughter, shouts, loud voices, singing, all blended into an alcoholic symphony. Several times people pounded on my door and called my name.

  It would have been easy enough to get up and join them. But doing that would spell the end of myself and my career. It was almost worth it, just to end the suspense.

  But I didn’t.

  I lay there. Listening. Thinking.

  The parties died out around two o’clock. Shortly thereafter I could hear the occupant in the next unit snoring, a big, loud alcoholic snore.

  It must have been the up and down cadence of his lilting nasal rhythm that did it. I drifted off as if I were listening to soft music.

  My little travel alarm woke me from a surprisingly deep sleep. If I had dreamt, I had no memory of it. For a moment I lay there, enjoying that wonderful lazy feeling you sometimes have in the morning, or at least you do until you remember what you have to do.

  Thursday. Today I would try to help Doctor Death escape the clutches of the law. Also, today, if my projections were correct, the law would finally get around to deciding which set of clutches would eventually grip me.

  The lazy feeling blew away like smoke. I got up, danced in and out of the fiery hot shower, shaved, and prepared myself for the day.

  They were waiting for me when I stepped out of the unit. They had been as quiet as hunters, but now with the game in sight they were shouting questions, thrusting microphones at me, and cameras were clicking away.

  I smiled, nodded, and pushed my way to my car without saying anything but good morning. They tried to block the car but dodged out of the way as I slowly backed out.

  Breakfast was out of the question. They would follow me like wolves after a stag, so I drove to the courthouse and encountered another group of media. It was a repeat performance except that the questions seemed sharper and more than a little insulting. O’Malley was with this pack, and his high-pitched voice dripped with venom as he accused me of everything but incest. I think he would have got around to that if I hadn’t finally found the sanctuary of the courthouse. A deputy sheriff allowed me in and kept my pursuers out.

  “The judge wants to see you, Mr. Sloan,” he said, taking up a position at the door like Horatio at the bridge.

  I went through the empty courtroom to the judge’s chambers. The door was open.

  “Hey, Charley! Come on in.” Rudy Hathaway sat behind his desk, his feet up and looking as relaxed as if he was about to play a round of golf.

  Eddie Rand sat on the judge’s leather couch. He was dressed in a well-cut suit, and his long hair had been carefully brushed back. He looked like a hippie about to apply for a job in a bank.

  “Have some coffee, Charley. And help yourself to the doughnuts. They’re courtesy of Cork Miller. He’s got a guy over there who’s the greatest baker this side of Paris.”

  I poured coffee into a Styrofoam cup and gratefully bit into a doughnut. The judge was right. It was delicious.

  I nodded my approval. “How come this guy works at the jail? He’s really good.”

  Hathaway’s rapid-fire cackle preceded his answer. “He doesn’t work there, he’s a resident. Every ninety days we let him out. He’s good for about a week, then he gets drunk and beats up on his old lady. I put him back in for another ninety days. Boy, I miss those pies and cakes when he’s free. But nothing’s perfect, right?”

  I helped myself to another doughnut.

  “Charley, I’m delighted to see you, but I won’t be sorry to see you go.” Hathaway grinned. “I’ve had news people up the ass. One camera crew even came out to my place last night. I ordered them off—it’s the folks’ old farm, I got it when they passed on—and they still wouldn’t go. Cork had to come out and run them off.”

  “A guy from Australia?”

  “Yeah. Little runt, but with a big mouth. The whole gang of them are a bunch of pests. It’s like having an invasion of locusts.”

  “They’ll come up again, for the trial,” Eddie Rand said, sounding as if he didn’t find them quite as annoying as the judge.

  “Oh, shit. Don’t remind me.” The judge looked at me. “Listen, Charley, are you going to play things straight today or am I going to have to sit on you?”

  “My reputation precedes me?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Rudy, you can relax. This is going to be straight down the line, no tricks, no circus.” I paused. “By the way, I expect to win.”

  Rand laughed. “Fat chance.”

  The judge frowned. “I thought you said no tricks. I’m not prejudging, but it sounds to me like they got your boy with the meat in his mouth, so to speak.”

  “Judge, I will be asking for no favors. Just a straight ruling on the law. A straight, fair decision is all I ask.”

  He cackled. “Shit, I haven’t rendered one of those for years. Well, let’s see what happens, shall we? You about ready, Charley?”

  I nodded.

  “How about you, Eddie? You got all your witnesses ready to go?”

  “They’re all waiting in my office.”

  Hathaway got up and slipped into his robe.

  He grinned at both of us in turn.

  “Showtime,” he said. “It’s showtime.”

  28

  The courtroom quickly filled to capacity. One television crew, a pool camera, was set up at the side of the room to film the proceeding. The spectator section consisted of a mix of newsmen and locals all jammed together, eagerly waiting for the curtain to rise.

  Judge Hathaway made a short statement about what was going to happen, with a warning that he expected the crowd to sit quietly and listen.

  And then it began.

  Eddie Rand called the deputy sheriff who had been first on the scene. He had interviewed Donna Cronin and had then arrested Dr. Miles Stewart.

  I stood up when Rand was finished and announced I had no questions of the witness.

  I heard an angry snort from my client, which wasn’t hard to do, since he was sitting directly behind me.

  The next witness was a state police detective who had come down on loan and was, in fact, the officer in charge of the case, if not officially.

  He was a smart young cop, and Rand led him through the steps of his investigation quickly but carefully. I knew what he would say, since Rand had let me read his report.

  This time I did have some questions.

  “You said Doctor Stewart was already packed and about to leave when he was arrested, is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was his luggage searched?”

  “The officers had reason to believe a murder had been committed. A legal search was done.”

  I didn’t quarrel with legality. I think that surprised him.

  “Did the officers find any medical supplies, drugs, syringes, that sort of thing?”

  “No.”

  “That’s all I have. Thank you.”

  Everybody looked surprised. The cop, Rand, the judge, and especially my client.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Stewart whispered as I sat down.

  I ignored him.

  Rand then called Mrs. Legrand and her grandda
ughter, who had been at the Cronin home. Mrs. Legrand had to be helped into the witness stand and Rand had to shout his questions. Basically, she knew nothing except that Stewart had been a guest. The granddaughter’s testimony was the same.

  Again, I passed on questioning them. Behind me, I could sense Stewart’s growing alarm.

  Next Rand called the private nurse who had been on duty. She testified that Dr. Stewart had told her to take a break, that he would watch over the patient while she had a cup of coffee. The patient had been unconscious but alive when she left, she said. When she was called back, Sean Cronin was dead.

  I asked her a few questions about the medicines given her patient but nothing more. As she quickly left the witness stand she looked grateful.

  We took a short break. Rand and I went into chambers and had some more coffee with the judge. More doughnuts, too. Rudy Hathaway looked like he was enjoying himself.

  “You off your feed today, Charley?” he asked.

  “Just saving myself for later.”

  His high laugh must have been heard out in the courtroom.

  “Well, I’m dying of curiosity. Let’s go back at it, shall we?”

  The crowd inside settled down quickly as Rand called Dr. Kim S. A. Kim to the stand. Doctor Kim testified that he had been treating Sean Cronin for practically everything that could go wrong with a person, from heart disease to kidney failure. He had seen Cronin the morning of the day he died. He said Cronin had been in bad shape but that he had seen him worse. He said that usually, on the request of the daughters, he saw Cronin once a day.

  Rand turned him over to me.

  “Doctor, did you expect Mr. Cronin to recover?”

  He shook his head. “No. I had prepared his daughters. Mr. Cronin was very old and he was very sick. Frankly, he continued to surprise me by clinging to life.”

  “Doctor, were you treating Mr. Cronin with the drug Lasix?”

  “Yes, among others. Lasix is standard when a kidney problem like Mr. Cronin’s exists. Lasix helps the body get rid of excess water.”

  “This drug was given by the private nurses attending Mr. Cronin, I presume?”

  “Yes. Under my directions.”

  “Did you direct that Mr. Cronin be given potassium chloride?”

  He hesitated. “Yes. That’s standard, in these conditions, to counter the effect of the Lasix. Lasix is a diuretic and in getting rid of fluid it tends to get rid of the potassium that the body requires in order to function.”

  “And the drug potassium chloride was there, in the house, for administration pursuant to your direction? Given, as a matter of fact, on a daily basis by the nurse. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Rand stood up for a moment, as if debating to continue questioning the doctor, then decided against it. “I have nothing further,” he said.

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Rudy smiled from the bench. I guessed from the familiar warmth he exhibited that Kim was his doctor, too. “You’re excused.”

  “I call Donna Cronin to the stand,” Rand then announced in a loud voice.

  She came forward as if going to her execution, her head down and her steps slow and uncertain. She took the witness chair and was sworn. Her answer to the oath given by the clerk was barely audible.

  She was like a creature who lived in darkness suddenly pulled from that protection and shoved out into bright sunlight. I felt sorry for her. Physically, she might look like a professional wrestler, but that had been nature’s nasty trick. Inside, judging from our first meeting, she was a shy girl, a sixty-year-old schoolgirl, afraid and without defenses.

  Eddie Rand had to ask her several times to keep her voice up. It was a squeaky chirp and trembled at the edge of tears. Rand asked her about her father’s last days and about his illness. Obviously, father had been the center of the Cronin universe. She told of his comas and periods of raving. A small tear trickled down slowly over her muscular cheek.

  Rand tiptoed around questions that might involve her sister, but he did ask why Dr. Stewart had been invited.

  Again, as she had in her home, she was careful to protect her sister, but she said a large amount of money had been paid to Dr. Stewart in the hope, as she put it, that her father’s suffering could be brought to an end. She didn’t expand on how that was to be accomplished, nor did Rand pursue it, except to ask her if it had been her idea. She said it hadn’t been, and he dropped it right there.

  Then her voice became a little stronger as she identified Miles Stewart and told of seeing him in her father’s sickroom, syringe in hand. She said she had run to fetch her sister, and when they returned, Dr. Stewart told them Sean Cronin was dead.

  “Do you believe that the defendant, Miles Stewart, killed your father?” Rand asked quickly.

  Rudy Hathaway looked at me, expecting the usual objection. Conjecture was for experts only.

  I merely shrugged and said nothing.

  “Yes, I do,” she said firmly.

  Rand walked back, letting the answer hang in the air for effect and then he turned to me. “You may take the witness.”

  I stood up but didn’t speak. She looked away. I could see her hands shaking in fright.

  The courtroom was deathly quiet, waiting for what they thought would be fireworks.

  I let them wait a minute and then I smiled at Donna Cronin. “No questions,” I said, and sat down.

  “What the fuck are you doing,” Stewart hissed in my ear, “selling me down the fucking river!”

  “Have faith,” I whispered. I turned to smile at him. His face was flaming red.

  “I call Doctor Clyde Anderson to the stand,” Rand announced.

  Clyde Anderson came forward—a tall, dignified man in his early sixties, looking more like a bank president than a pathologist. I had had him on a number of cases. He was an expert doctor and an expert witness, equally skillful in either role. I had studied his autopsy report until I felt I could recite it from memory.

  “What is your name, please?” Rand asked.

  “Clyde Anderson.”

  “And you are a physician licensed to practice medicine in the state of Michigan?”

  Before he could answer, I stood up. “Doctor Anderson is well known to me. I will stipulate to his qualifications.”

  Rand seemed surprised, but then quickly continued.

  “Did you perform an autopsy on the body of the late Sean Cronin?”

  “I did.”

  Anderson calmly told of how the body was identified to him and how he had done his grisly work at the fine facilities of Humanic General Hospital in Bay City.

  He went through the steps of weighing the organs, taking the blood and tissue samples, and then gave his opinion.

  Sean Cronin, he said, had died from a lethal injection of potassium chloride, a drug that had caused instant cardiac arrest, which was the ultimate cause of death.

  I stood up and glanced at my watch. “If the court please,” I said, “I anticipate my cross-examination will be lengthy. I notice that it’s close to lunchtime. I wonder if the court might consider taking the lunch break now?”

  Rudy Hathaway scowled, pretending annoyance. “Are you trying to run my courtroom, Mr. Sloan?”

  “I wouldn’t think of it, Your Honor.”

  “What about you, Rand? You got any more witnesses, or is this it?”

  “Subject to rebuttal, that’s it,” Rand answered.

  “Well, despite counsel’s rudeness”—he glared at me, but I knew he was acting—“we’ll break now for lunch. We’ll start again at one o’clock precisely.”

  He waited a beat. “I wish to see both counsel in my chambers,” he snapped.

  Rand and I followed him into chambers.

  Taking off his robe, he addressed us. “How about I have Cork send over some sandwiches? We can eat here. No point in going out, not with that army of reporters waiting. Okay with you, Charley?”

  “Sure.”

&
nbsp; “Mr. Prosecutor?”

  “Fine by me.”

  He got on the phone and told Cork to have his excellent chef prepare sandwiches, all kinds and plenty of them. Then he put on water for coffee.

  “What’cha got planned for the good doctor, Charley?” he asked as he spooned out the coffee grounds.

  “I think you had better wait for that, Judge.”

  His high cackle reverberated throughout the room. “Good stuff, Charley?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Hold on to your balls, Rand,” the judge said. “I think we may yet find out how Charley here comes by his awesome reputation.”

  The sandwiches were just as good as the doughnuts.

  And then it was time to start the examination again.

  I was ready.

  AT ONE O’CLOCK we trooped back out into the courtroom. It took a few minutes for everyone to settle down. Dr. Anderson once again took the witness stand.

  “Doctor, in your report I notice that the lab report shows that Sean Cronin’s potassium level was within normal range. Is that a misprint?”

  “No, it is not.”

  “Did you discover a toxic level of potassium by some other means?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Yet you say that he died of a lethal dose of potassium. I did hear that correctly, did I not?”

  He smiled. “You heard correctly, Mr. Sloan.”

  “Did you find, by physical examination, or lab reports concerning the tissues or blood, any substance in Mr. Sean Cronin that might be said to be at a toxic or deadly level?”

  “No.”

  “As part of your examination did you investigate what medications were being given to Mr. Cronin, prior to his death?”

  “I did.”

  “Was potassium chloride one of the prescribed medications?”

  “Yes. Dr. Kim testified to that earlier today. He said, quite correctly, that the drug is given to offset the effects of a diuretic.”

  “Would that be standard procedure for someone like Mr. Cronin?”

  “Yes, it would be. Given the condition of his kidneys and heart.”

  “How is that drug, potassium, given, Doctor?”

  “Potassium is produced naturally by the body. It’s necessary to life. It has a number of beneficial effects on the heart, kidneys, and other functioning organs of the body. When a sufficient amount is not produced naturally, when more is needed, it is prescribed. Too much is fatal.”