medical degree from Harvard, but no other certifications or, for that matter, pictures of any kind. One wall was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf filled with carefully aligned sets of legal tomes that appeared as if they had never been read. The window to Will’s left looked out on the side of a building. The wall behind him included the door to the waiting room and a small fireplace, neatly painted, with three logs decoratively and probably permanently arranged. The Law Doctor. With all the advertising, Will had conjured up visions of a massive medico-legal mill with lawyers scurrying from exquisitely appointed offices into mahogany-paneled conference rooms and libraries.
“You look a little dismayed,” Micelli said. “Not what you had expected?”
“No. I. . I mean yes. I mean not exactly. All those ads. .”
“And worth every penny, too. Malpractice cases come in here by the barrel. Just listen to that phone ringing. Most of them are frivolous, ridiculous, or simply nasty and vindictive. But a certain percent of them have some merit, and once in a while the ol’ amputated-the-wrong-leg or plucked-out-the-wrong-kidney mother lode comes hobbling in. But you see, Dr. Grant, I don’t actually do the cases. In fact, I don’t do any cases at all, so I don’t need much help and I don’t need much space.” He drained what remained in his glass and immediately restocked it. “I bring the cases in, evaluate them from a medical standpoint, and either ship them off to one of the firms that can actually do something with them or send them on their way to pursue their complaint if they want, but not with me.”
“And you get a finder’s fee from the firms you refer to?”
“Sometimes a really big one, plus as many dinners at swanky restaurants as I care to accept. They all want to be my friend.”
“Isn’t that fee splitting?”
“By any definition of the term I would say so, yes.”
“And isn’t that illegal?”
“In medicine it’s illegal. You can’t refer a patient to a specialist and then get a kickback from that specialist. In law it’s considered good, sound business.”
Will sighed and stared out the window, as uncertain whether he wanted to continue this session as Micelli probably was. Finally, he shrugged and asked if the lawyer wanted to hear why he had come.
“You go ahead with your story if you want to,” Micelli replied, “but as Gladys told you, the only help I might be is to give you the names of some firms to call. Our motto here is if it takes work, we don’t want it.”
He managed a thin smile, but there was nothing cheerful in the way he said the words. Will may have been a surgeon, but he could recognize depression when he saw it, and probably alcoholism, too.
“I think I’m going to go,” he said.
“Suit yourself.”
“You know, my partner Susan Hollister said you have had some trouble of your own.”
“Plenty of it.”
“And she said because of that you might have some sympathy with what’s happening to me.”
“I might. That doesn’t mean I can be of any help.”
“Well,” Will said, “exactly what is it that happened to you?”
Micelli eyed him for a moment, then drained his tumbler. It was as if the question was one nobody had ever asked.
“I killed my son,” he said simply.
Will stifled any knee-jerk response.
“Go on,” he said.
“You sure?”
Will nodded.
“Okay. Remember, you asked for it. I was an internist with all the right medical pedigrees, very full of myself,” Micelli said in a near monotone, virtually devoid of the emotion inherent in the terrible account. “My then wife and son and I were in Utah, set to go on a camping trip into some pretty remote country. Ryan had a little fever and a stuffy nose. His mother wanted to cancel the hike. I told her he was nine and she was being overprotective. I even checked him over so she would be reassured. A little red throat was all. So off we went.”
Will could see the shattering end of the story already and wanted to spare both of them any unnecessary anguish.
“Meningitis,” he said.
Impressed, Micelli nodded.
“Two days out with no radio. I raced back for help, but by the time the helicopter reached them, he was gone. Just like that.”
“I’m very sorry. That’s so sad.”
“So was what happened afterward. A few months later I went into what they called a paranoid depression. No history of prior mental illness. Scared the hell out of my wife, my neighbors, and a lot of people at my hospital. I was about the only one around who thought I was normal. Rather than get me help, or ask my wife to get me hospitalized, my hospital panicked and suspended me. After that I was hospitalized and properly diagnosed and treated. The paranoia and crazy behavior went away almost immediately and has stayed away. But by then the Board of Registration had suspended me, as well, until they could investigate why I had been kicked out of my hospital.”
Once again, Will could see what was coming, and again stepped into the account.
“Then,” he said, “because you had your license suspended, the managed-care companies dropped you from their provider panels.”
“Exactly. It was a cookie-cutter response by the board and by them, without so much as an investigation or a hearing. So even though the board eventually reinstated my license, most of the companies held to their decision. Once worth suspending, always worth suspending. There was no way I could practice-at least no way I could practice and get paid for it. Well, no matter now. I make ten times more doing this than I ever did being an internist-and work a fraction of the hours. Too bad, though, because I actually liked doing it, and I was pretty damn good at it, too.”
“I’ll bet you were, Augie,” Will said. “Listen, I’m sorry for all you’ve been through. I really am. But I hope you can take some pride in the way you’ve managed to deal with all that’s happened without going down for the count. I don’t think I could have handled something happening to one of my kids that bravely even if I
Without a word, Micelli made his way to the sideboard and poured a third drink, this one more substantial than the other two.
“So,” he said, taking a gulp, then clumsily wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, “it’s your turn now. Assume I know everything about you that the newspapers and TV can tell me.”
Clearly, Augie Micelli was now under the influence, although not strikingly so. Will debated if there was any percentage in staying. Even if he decided to leave and renew his attempts to connect with a lawyer who fit his requirements of being talented, empathetic, and reasonably affordable, he knew that the trip into Boston had been worth it. Whether he and Augie ever saw each other again or not, he still owed Susan thanks. According to the story Augie had shared, the man was hardly as responsible for his son’s tragic death as he seemed to want to believe. Still, the boy was dead.
Will’s external world was crumbling, that was all too true, but Dan and Jess were healthy, wonderful kids. And even if he hit rock bottom and lost everything else, he would still be their father and they his children. Even if the only purchase he had on the sheer wall up from this nightmare was them, he would still have a firm hold from which he could start the climb. His heart ached for Augie and the terrible emptiness he had to deal with each day, but it no longer ached for himself.
“You know what,” he said finally, “if you know that much about me and my situation, then you really are already in a position to know whether or not you can be of any help to me.”
“I can tell you right now that I can’t. This just isn’t the sort of thing I do.”
“I can see that. Listen, here are copies of some letters I brought for you to review. I’ll leave them with you anyway, just in case you can think of someone who might want to work with me. One of the letters is from a law firm that is representing my former patient. Because of a clause in my group’s malpractice policy, I don’t have any
