There are only two acceptable answers to this question: “No” and “I decline to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.” But my father says, “On very rare occasions, I have.”
This unexpected gift stuns Shad speechless for a moment. “What occasions would those be?”
Dad takes his time with this, and he addresses the jury, not Shad, when he speaks. “When the line between agony and consciousness disappeared. When pain and terror could no longer be controlled. That doesn’t often happen, but when it does . . . it’s an awful thing to witness. I have hastened the death of a few patients in those dire circumstances, usually only by a few hours. A day or two, at most.”
“Are you aware that is a crime, Doctor?”
Dad returns Shad’s indignant glare with a physician’s disdain for mincing lawyers. “What do you think, Counselor?”
“Your Honor?” Shad prompts.
“Answer the question, Doctor.”
“Yes, I know that’s against the law.”
I cringe at my father’s words, but after four days of trial, his frank answers are like cold, refreshing water thrown in the faces of the jury. It’s plain to everyone that Dad could easily have denied assisting patients to die, just as he could have denied having adrenaline with him on the night Viola died. He is making statements against his own interest, and this ultimately bolsters his claim that he’s telling the truth regardless of the risk to himself. And that, of course, is the behavior of only two kinds of people: the insane and the innocent.
“But despite having euthanized patients before,” Shad presses, “you did not attempt to euthanize Mrs. Turner on the night in question?”
“That’s correct. I pushed the needle through her vein to be sure I did not inject a lethal dose. My goal was simply to buy time, for myself and for Viola.”
It’s all about that Dumpster tape, I think. Shad is waiting for that recording to appear like God from a machine, literally, to do his work for him.
Shad pauses, head cocked and eyes on my father, as he decides which interrogatory path to take next. He might be a surgeon choosing a scalpel. As he stands there, all eyes upon him, my phone vibrates in my pocket. As covertly as possible I take it out and read the text, which is from John Kaiser.
Classified Tech Division of the Crime Lab reports they are unable to restore tape S-16 to usable form. Particles too scrambled for any coherent reconstruction. I’m about to give Johnson the news.
The sensation of watching John Kaiser walk up to the assistant DA seated behind Shad’s table, and then that ADA walk to his boss and whisper in his ear, is one of the more delicious experiences I’ve had in a long time. Shad’s mouth goes slack, then he whips his head to the side in search of Kaiser, who is kneeling by the prosecution table. Leaving his assistant, Shad hurries to his table and engages Kaiser in a frenzied exchange of whispers.
“Mr. Johnson?” asks the judge. “Would you share with us what is going on? Are we about to see another tape?”
“I’m not sure, Your Honor. There’s some confusion about that. Would the court grant me sixty seconds to verify something with the FBI by telephone?”
“Is Agent Kaiser unable to give you the information you need?”
Shad grimaces, his eyes burning. “The State requests sixty seconds, Your Honor.”
Joe Elder sighs with resentment. “If you must.”
While everyone in the courtroom stares, Shad texts someone, then makes a call. A moment later, he’s speaking in angry whispers once more. His voice is punctuated by brief silences, but his volume increases after each one. With five seconds remaining of his allotted minute, he hangs up and stands to face the judge.
“Mr. Johnson?”
“Your Honor, the FBI reports that the crime lab will be unable to restore the tape found in the St. Catherine’s Hospital Dumpster. The magnetic information was too scrambled to repair.”
Judge Elder listens with interest, then purses his lips in thought. “Would more time increase the odds of a successful outcome?”
Shad looks like a schoolboy about to either break into tears or punch somebody in the mouth. “I’m told it would not, Judge. That information is gone. The magnets in that MRI machine basically obliterated it.”
I shift my focus to my father, who once again is wearing a mask of sober reflection. But in his posture I sense a change that I can only describe as relaxation. He appears not to have changed position, but I’ve known him so long that I see things in him others can’t. Thirty seconds ago, there was a profound tension in him, an electric current holding his muscles rigid, his face immobile. He was like a gambler with all his holdings sitting on the table, waiting for the turn of a single card. Now he looks like that gambler after the card turned his way.
My God, I think, watching Shad try to adapt to this new reality. Shad was the gambler on the other side of that bet, and he must feel he has lost everything. He stands there with every eye upon him, making a silent inventory of his remaining assets. I can’t see that he has many.
“Mr. Johnson, please proceed,” says Judge Elder.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Shad said the words, but it takes him a few seconds to get his feet moving. Once he does, he walks to within about eight feet of the witness box and addresses my father again.
“Dr. Cage, what’s the purpose of the adrenaline you carry in your black bag?”
“I carry a one ten-thousandth dilution, for IV administration, and also a one one-thousandth dilution for intramuscular injection. Adrenaline has many uses in emergencies. Treating anaphylactic shock, for example. Allergies to things like bee stings or peanut oil. And of course, treating cardiac emergencies. I’ve always kept an ampoule of adrenaline nearby because of my own cardiovascular disease. Sort of my own personal crash cart. A lot of older doctors do that.”
“And did you have adrenaline with you on the night Viola Turner died?”
“I did. As Melba Price testified was likely, I believe.”
“Did you inject that adrenaline into Viola Turner on the night she died?”
“I did not.”