I’m definitely panicked now. My heart is headed into tachycardia, and it’s all I can do to keep Annie from realizing how upset I am.
11:10 a.m. More hearsay now. Judge unfazed. Shad says his office contacted by Lincoln Turner and told about suicide pact. He called the mayor and asked him to speak to his father about what happened.
It’s improper for the DA himself to read something like this into the record, but Judge Elder seems to be proceeding on the premise that Quentin’s failure to object waives Dad’s right to keep it from the jury.
11:14 a.m. Later same morning, Henry Sexton informed DA that a camera he left in decedent’s room had a hard drive on it. They checked said drive and found the tape you watched, showing the death of VT 5:38 a.m. Monday, December 12th. Dr Cage refused to answer questions on any of those events.
11:18 a.m. Judge mentions lunch, but Shad calls one more witness. Leo Watts, asks to treat him as hostile. Elder grants.
Leo Watts is a local pharmacist and longtime friend of my father’s. By asking to treat Leo as a hostile witness, Shad will be allowed to ask him leading questions on the stand. Furthermore, the jury will know that they are hearing testimony from someone predisposed to view my father in a favorable light.
11:23 a.m. Leo says your dad prescribed morphine for V ever since she got back. Lethal amounts. Big whoop. Most terminal cancer patients have that. Q must bring this out on cross! Shad asking about adrenaline. Leo admits your dad has written adrenaline scrips for himself. Not in long time though. Says many docs with heart disease keep adrenaline vials around house, in car, but Shad cuts him off.
11:34 a.m. Leo reluctantly admits Tom prescribed potentially lethal amnts drugs to people w endstage cancer, AIDS, etc. if patient were to take overdose. Says not uncommon, but Shad cuts him off again. Pray Shad doesn’t have disgruntled patient family ready to testify to asst suicide in past. Tho I guess would b better than murder 1.
I type: If he doesn’t, it’s not for lack of looking.
11:37 a.m. Shad just let Leo go. Quentin HAS to cross here, let Leo say what he wants, undo damage.
11:39 a.m. No questions from Q! I’m in shock. Lawyers in crowd freaking out. This is an emergency.
11:44 a.m. Recessing for lunch. On my way 2 your house. We gotta stop this circus!
“Daddy?” Annie asks, and her voice startles me so badly that I shove the kitchen table forward with a screech.
“I’m sorry,” she says from just inside the kitchen door. “I just wanted to let you know I’m okay. For real.”
Mia stands in the hall behind her, looking far from certain of that.
I reach out and pull Annie to me for a hug. “I’m glad, Boo.” I glance up at Mia over her shoulder. “How’s Dolores doing?”
“Serenity’s still in her bedroom with her.”
After a few seconds, Annie pulls back and looks into my eyes. “Daddy, you look almost like you did when you heard Caitlin’s phone message at the church.”
Can I tell my eleven-year-old daughter the truth? That I feel as though my father is dying of some terrible disease, and I’ve turned him over to a renowned surgeon who seems to have forgotten basic anatomy and whatever surgical technique he ever possessed.
“It’s just the trial, Annie. From what Rusty tells me, Mr. Quentin’s not doing what he should be doing in the courtroom. He’s not doing what I would do, anyway.”
Annie sticks out her lower lip. “I told you in the beginning you should be defending Papa.”
“I’m afraid that’s not really an option. But Mr. Rusty’s on his way here. He and I are going to talk about what to do. I may need to go down to my study with him for a while.”
She nods quickly. “It’s okay.”
“And John Kaiser’s going to be coming over as well. To try to help Mrs. Dolores.”
“Good. I’m really okay, Dad. You do what you have to do.”
Chapter 25
Taking advantage of Annie’s temporary calm, I climb the stairs to meet Serenity outside Dolores’s guest room. I wait for half a minute, and then Serenity slips through the door and leaves it cracked enough so that she can monitor her charge. Through the opening I see a woman lying on her side beneath white bedclothes, her arms clenched around a pillow. Even from this distance I get the sense that she is twitching and jerking in her drug-induced sleep.
“How is she?” I ask.
Tee just looks back at me with sadness and anger in her eyes.
“Has she been conscious at all since we talked?”
“Twice. I mentioned the FBI to her. I didn’t want to, but we obviously need some help. Somebody tried to kill that old woman, Penn. All I can see when I’m sitting in there is that shack full of cats waiting for a woman that’ll never come home.”
“I know.”
“That’s on us, Penn.”
“I know it is.” After a few moments of silence, I say, “What do I tell Kaiser when he gets here?”
Serenity bites her lip. “Send him up and tell him to knock very softly. I’ll handle it from there.”
“Okay.”
I hear a rustle from the bedroom.
“Later,” Tee says, and the door shuts in my face.
Back in the kitchen, I speed-dial Quentin’s cell phone, but it kicks me straight to voice mail. He’s probably piloting his wheelchair through a gauntlet of cameras waiting outside the courthouse, with Doris walking point for him. I know better than to worry that he’ll reveal his strategy to reporters, but since he’s doing almost nothing in the courtroom, maybe he plans to try the case in the media?
Our house phone rings, startling me. The caller ID shows my mother’s cell phone.
“Mom?” I answer.
“No, it’s Rusty! We’re stuck in traffic near the courthouse. It’s insane. I’ve got everybody in my Town Car. Tim’s guys are behind us in the Yukon. We won’t have much time when we get there, so I’m going to play you what I recorded of the pathologist’s testimony over your mother’s phone. Then you’ll be on the same page with us.”
“Okay, go.”
“It’s on my little Sony microcassette. Forgive the crap sound.”
After a high-pitched howl of feedback, two voices begin speaking through a digital hiss. One belongs to Shad Johnson, leading the witness so egregiously that I can’t believe Quentin is not objecting; the other to a Dr. Adam Phillips, the state medical examiner.
“Could an elderly physician with severely restricted hand mobility make such a mistake with a simple injection, Dr. Phillips?”
“Of course. Even young physicians with healthy hands miss veins, or punch through them. Especially veins that have been worn out by toxic chemotherapy agents.”
“Do physicians under great stress tend to make more mistakes than those who are not?”
“The statistics support that. But physicians are trained to operate under stressful conditions. That’s the nature of the job.”
“What if the stress were psychological and deeply personal? Unrelated to the job?”
“Severe stress of that type would increase the odds of making a mistake for any physician, as it would for any professional attempting to do his job.”