by the theatric quality of the justice system. But this was no TV daytime drama. Jeffrey's career-his whole life-was on the line.
Jeffrey closed his eyes and leaned forward at the defendant's table, cradling * his head in his hands. With his elbows splayed on the table, he roughly rubbed his eyes. The tension was about to drive him crazy.
Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes, half hoping the scene before him would have magically disappeared and he would wake up from the worst nightmare of his life. But of course it wasn't a bad dream he was suffering. Jeffrey was involved in his second trial for Patty Owen's untimely death eight months previously. Just then he was sitting in a courtroom in the center of Boston, waiting to hear the jury deliver his fate on criminal charges.
Jeffrey glanced over his lawyer's head to scan the crowd. There was an excited, low-pitched babble of voices, a murmur of expectancy. Jeffrey averted his gaze, knowing that all the talk centered on him. He wished he could hide. He felt utterly humiliated by the public spectacle so rapidly unfolding. His entire life had unraveled and disintegrated. His career was going down the drain. He felt overwhelmed, yet oddly numb.
Jeffrey sighed. Randolph Bingham, his lawyer, had urged him to appear calm and controlled. Easier said than done, especially now. After all the heartache, anxiety, and sleepless nights, it was
now down to the wire. The jury had reached its decision. The verdict was on its way.
Jeffrey studied Randolph's aristocratic profile. The man had become a father to him through these last eight harrowing months, even though he was only five years Jeffrey's senior. Sometimes Jeffrey had felt almost love for the man, other times something more akin to rage and hatred. But he'd always had confidence in his lawyer's skills, at least until this point.
Glancing at the prosecuting team, Jeffrey studied the district attorney. He had particular antipathy for this man, who seemed to have seized on the case as a vehicle for advancing his political career. Jeffrey could appreciate the man's native intelligence though he'd grown to despise him during the course of the fourday trial. But now, watching as the D.A. conversed animatedly with an assistant, Jeffrey realized he felt oddly devoid of emotion toward the man. For him, the whole business had been a job, no more, no less.
Jeffrey's eyes strayed beyond the district attorney toward the emptyjury box. During the trial the realization that these twelve strangers held his fate in their hands had paralyzed Jeffrey. Never before had he experienced such vulnerability. Up until this episode, Jeffrey had been living under the delusion that his fate was largely in his own hands. This trial showed him just how mistaken he was.
The jury had been deliberating for two anxious days and-for Jeffrey-two sleepless nights. Now they were waiting for the jury to return to the courtroom. Jeffrey again wondered if two days of deliberation was a good sip or a bad. Randolph, in his irritatingly conservative manner, would not speculate. Jeffrey felt the man could have lied just to give him a few hours of relative peace.
Despite his good intentions to refrain from fidgeting, Jeffrey began to stroke his mustache. When he realized what he was doing, he folded his hands and set them on the table in front of him.
He glanced over his left shoulder and caught sight of Carol, his soon io be ex-wife. Her head was down. She was reading. Jeffrey turned his gaze back to the judge's empty bench. He could have been irritated that she was relaxed enough to be able to read at this moment, but he wasn't. Instead,
Jeffrey felt thankful that she was there and that she'd shown as much support as she had. After all, even before this legal nightmare had
started, the two of them had come to the mutual conclusion that they had grown apart.
When they had first married eight years ago, it hadn't seemed important that Carol was extremely social and outgoing while he tended toward the opposite. It also hadn't bothered Jeffrey that Carol wanted to put off having a family while she advanced her career in banking, at least until
Jeffrey found out that her idea of postponement meant never. And now she wanted to head west, to Los Angeles. Jeffrey could have lived with the idea of moving to California, but he had trouble with the family issue. Over the years he'd come to want a child more and more. To see Carol's hopes and aspirations move in an entirely different direction saddened him, but he found he didn't hold it 4ainst her. Jeffrey had fought the idea of divorce at first, but had finally given in. Somehow, they just weren't meant to be.
But then, when Jeffrey's legal problems materialized, Carol had graciously offered to hold off on the domestic issue until Jeffrey's legal diffi- culties were resolved.
Jeffrey sighed again, more loudly than before. Randolph shot him a disapproving glare, but Jeffrey couldn't see that appearances mattered at this point. Whenever Jeffrey thought about the sequence of events, it had a dizzying effect on him. It had all happened so quickly. After the disastrous death of Patty Owen, the malpractice summons had arrived in short order. Under the current litigious climate, Jeffrey had not been sur- prised by the lawsuit, except perhaps by the speed.
From the start, Randolph had warned Jeffrey that it would be a tough case.
Jeffrey had had no idea how tough. That was right before Boston Memorial suspended him. At the time, such a move had seemed capricious and unreasonably vicious. It certainly wasn't the kind of support or vote of confidence Jeffrey had hoped for. Neither Jeffrey nor Randolph had had any inkling of the rationale for the suspension. Jeffrey had wanted to take action against Boston Memorial for this unwarranted act, but Randolph had advised him to sit tight. He thought that issue would be better resolved after the conclusion of the malpractice litigation.
But the suspension was only the harbinger of worse trouble to come. The malpractice plaintiff attorney was a young, aggressive fellow named Matthew
Davidson from a firm in St. Louis specializing in malpractice litigation.
He was also associated with a small general law firm in Massachusetts. He'd filed suit against Jeffrey, Simarian, Overstreet, the hospital, and even
Ar-
olen Pharmaceuticals, who'd manufactured the Marcaine. Jeffrey had never been the subject of a malpractice action before. Randolph had to explain that this was the 'shotgun' approach. Litigators; sued everybody with 'deep pockets' whether or not there was any evidence of direct involvement in the alleged incident of malpractice.
Being one among many had initially provided some solace to Jeffrey, but not for long. It quickly became clear that Jeffrey would stand alone. lie could remember the turning point as if it were yesterday. It had happened through the course of his own testimony in the early stages of the initial civil malpractice trial. He had been the first defendant to take the stand.
Davidson had been asking cursory background questions, when he suddenly became harder hitting.
'Doctor,' Davidson said, turning his thin, handsome face toward Jeffrey and putting a pejorative cast to the title. He walked directly to the witness stand and placed his face within inches of Jeffrey's. He was dressed in an impeccably tailored, dark pinstriped suit with a light lavender shirt and a dark purple paisley tie. He smelled of expensive cologne. 'Have you ever been addicted to any drug?'
'Objection!' Randolph called out, rising to his feet.
Jeffrey had felt as if he were watching a scene in some drama, not a chapter in his life. Randolph elaborated on his objection: 'This question is immaterial to the issues at hand. The plaintiff attorney is trying to impugn my client.'
'Not so,' Davidson countered. 'This issue is extremely germane to the current circumstances as will be brought out with the testimony of subsequent witnesses.'
For a few moments silence reigned in the crowded courtroom. Publicity had brought notoriety to the case. People were standing along the back wall.
The judge was a heavyset black man named Wilson. He pushed his thick black-rimmed glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. Finally he cleared his throat. 'If you're fooling with me, Mr. Davidson, there's going to be hell to pay.'
'I certainly wouldn't choose to fool with you, Your Honor.'
'Objection overruled,' Judge Wilson said. He nodded toward Davidson. 'You may proceed, Counselor.'
'Thank you,' Davidson said as he turned his attention back to Jeffrey.
'Would you like me to repeat the question, Doctor?' he asked.
'No,' Jeffrey said. He remembered the question well enough.
He glanced at Randolph, but Randolph was busy writing on a yellow legal tablet. Jeffrey returned Davidson's steady glare. He had a premonition that trouble was ahead. 'Yes, I had a mild drug problem once,' he said in a
