you have testified, what might have caused it to rupture?”
“We call it spontaneous aortic aneurysm. Of course, that’s the effect, not the cause. The causes are many. Various illnesses or severe trauma to the abdomen can cause the aorta to burst. Arteriosclerosis can weaken the aorta and make it susceptible to aneurysm. So can high blood pressure. It could be a breakdown that medicine simply can’t explain, as they said in the Middle Ages, ex visitatione divina.”
I smiled at Dr. Riggs. He smiled back at me. The jury smiled at both of us. One big happy family.
I was nearly through but had one more little surprise for Dan Cefalo. A nail in the coffin. I handed Riggs Plaintiff’s Exhibit Three, a composite of Philip Corrigan’s medical history. “Dr. Riggs, did Philip Corrigan have any prior medical abnormalities?”
Charlie Riggs scanned the document but already knew the answer from our preparation sessions. “Yes, he was previously diagnosed by a cardiologist as having some degree of arteriosclerosis.”
“And the effect of such a disease?”
“Weakening of the arteries, susceptibility to aneurysm. Men in their fifties or beyond commonly show signs of arterial disease. Blame the typical American diet of saturated fats, too much beef and butter. In that condition, Mr. Corrigan could have had an artery blow out at any time.”
“At any time,” I repeated, just in case they missed it.
“Yes, without a trauma, just watching TV, eating dinner, any time.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” I nodded toward the witness stand in deference to the wisdom that had filled the courtroom. Then I turned toward Dan Cefalo, and with the placid assurance of a man who has seen the future and owns a fine chunk of it, I gently advised him, “Your witness, Counselor.”
Cefalo stood up and his suitcoat fell open, revealing a dark stain of red ink under his shirt pocket, the trail of an uncapped marking pen. Or a self-inflicted wound.
His cross-examination fell flat. He scored a meaningless point getting Riggs to admit that he was not an orthopedic surgeon and had never performed a laminectomy. “But I’ve done thousands of autopsies, and that’s how you determine cause of death,” Riggs quickly added.
“You testified that trauma could cause the rupture, did you not?” Cefalo asked.
“Yes, I can’t tell you how many drivers I saw in the morgue in the days before seat belts. In a collision, the steering wheel can hit the chest and abdomen with such force as to rupture the aorta. That, of course, is trauma from the front.”
“But a misguided rongeur could produce the kind of trauma to rupture the aorta?”
Hit me again, Cefalo seemed to plead.
“It could, but not in the front of the blood vessel when the surgeon is coming in from the back,” Riggs said.
Cefalo wouldn’t call it quits. “The thoracic surgeon was working under conditions of extreme emergency trying to do the repair, was he not?”
“I assume so,” Riggs said.
“And in such conditions, he could have made a mistake as to the location of the rupture, could he not?”
Riggs smiled a gentle, fatherly smile. “Every piece of evidence ever adduced in a courtroom could be the product of a mistake. Your witnesses could all be wrong. Mr. Lassiter’s witnesses could all be wrong. But it’s all we’ve got, and there’s nothing to indicate the rupture was anywhere but where the chest buster-excuse me, the thoracic surgeon-said, the anterior of die aorta.”
Fine. Outstanding. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Cefalo sat down without laying a glove on him. It was after one o’clock and we had not yet recessed for lunch. Judge Leonard was fidgeting.
“Noting the lateness of the hour, perhaps this is an opportune time to adjourn for the day,” the judge said. Translation: There’s a stakes race at Hialeah and I’ve got a tip from a jockey who hasn’t paid alimony since his divorce fell into my division last year. “Hearing no objection, court stands adjourned until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.”
Roger Salisbury was beaming. He didn’t look like a man who wanted to lose. It had been a fine morning of lawyering, and I was feeling pretty full of myself. In the back of the courtroom I caught a glimpse of Susan Corrigan wearing a Super Bowl XVI nylon jacket over a T-shirt. She eyed me as if I’d just spit in church.
I told Roger Salisbury I’d treat him to stone crabs, home fries, and cold beer for lunch. Time for a mini- celebration, lime, too, for some questions I needed to ask.
6
We walked from the dim light and dank air of the old courtroom into the sunshine of December in Miami. A glorious day: Not even the buzzards endlessly circling the wedding cake tiers of the courthouse could darken my mood. Souls of lawyers doing penance, a Cuban spiritualist told me. The huge black birds were as much a part of wintertime Miami as sunburned tourists, drug deals, and crooked cops. The buzzards congregated around the courthouse and on the upper ledges of the Southeast Financial Center, where for fifty dollars a square foot, the lawyers, accountants, and bankers expected a better view than birdshit two feet deep. Building management installed sonar devices that supposedly made unfriendly bird sounds. Instead of being frightened, the buzzards were turned on; they tried mating with the sonar boxes.
The doctor gave me a second look when he got into my canary yellow Olds 442 convertible, vintage 1968. At home was my old Jeep, but it was rusted out from windsurfing gear, and my clients deserve the best. Having already passed through my respectable sedan phase when I temporarily decided to grow up, I had regressed to a simpler time of big engines and Beach Boys’ songs.
We drove to a seafood restaurant in a new shopping arcade that the developer spent a bundle making look like an Italian villa, circa the Renaissance. It’s full of boutiques instead of stores, places with two names that always start with Le, and women who’ll spend a fortune for clothes so they’ll look good shopping for more clothes. Notwithstanding the glitz of the surroundings, there’s a decent fish house tucked away in back.
“The tide turned today, didn’t it?” Salisbury asked.
“Right. We pulled even, which means we’re actually ahead. The plaintiff has the burden of proof. Riggs negated Watkins’s testimony about the rongeur. Back to square one. They’ll have to call Watkins again on rebuttal and attack Riggs. They’re stuck. They can’t bring in a new expert now. Our strategy is to lay low. We don’t want to get fancy, just hold our position.”
“What about my testimony?”
“You’ll do fine. What you say isn’t as important as how you look, how the jury perceives you. If you’re a nice guy and it’s a close battle of the experts, they’ll cut you a break. If you’re arrogant and a prick, they’ll cut off your nuts and hand them to the widow.”
He thought that over and I looked around for some service. We’d been there ten minutes before the waiter shuffled over to take our order. The kid needed a shave and was missing one earring, or is that the way they wear them?
“Whatcha want?” he asked, displaying the personality of a mollusk and half the energy. Service in restaurants now rivals that at gas stations for indifference and sloth.
I ordered for both of us. “Two portions of jumbo stoners, two Caesar salads, and two beers.” Best to keep it simple.
“Kinda beers?” the waiter said. I figured him for a speech communications major at the UM.
“Grolsch. Sixteen-ouncers if you have them.”
“Dunno. Got Bud, Miller, Coors Light, maybe.”
“Any beer’s okay with me,” Salisbury said. Not hard to please. A lot of doctors are that way. They get used to hospital cafeteria food and pretty soon everything tastes alike. Not me. I’ll start drinking American beer when it gets as good as its TV commercials.
The waiter shrugged and disappeared, probably to replenish his chemical stimulants. I was about to extol the glories of the Dutch brewmasters when Roger Salisbury asked, “Do you think I killed him, committed malpractice I
