measured cadences, resembled a lecture by a well-prepared professor to a class of nitwits. “Diethylstilbestrol is synthetic estrogen, commonly called DES. Thirty years ago, doctors prescribed the drug to pregnant women to prevent miscarriage. A generation later, the women’s daughters began dying from cancer. Instead of protecting the female offspring, technology was killing them. That’s what happened to Gladys Ferguson… the late Mrs. Gladys Ferguson.” Doc Riggs nodded across the conference table in the direction of Sergeant Claude Ferguson, USAF, the widower and father of a baby boy.
“But how can you be sure of that?” Winston Hopkins whined. The young lawyer had removed his suit coat to reveal paisley suspenders against his white-on-white custom-made shirt. The left cuff was emblazoned with a monogram in blue script “WPH.” Fighting the boredom, Lassiter scribbled imagined middle names across a legal pad. Percival… Pilkington… Plimpton. “Her cervical cancer could have been caused by a host of things, could it not?” Hopkins asked.
Dr. Riggs gave the young lawyer a kind, forgiving smile. “Given the history of Mrs. Ferguson’s mother using DES, given Mrs. Ferguson’s age and the fact that she acquired cervical cancer following childbirth, statistically there can be little doubt. I have concluded to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the DES was the causa causans, the initiating cause of the cancer. But for the DES, she would not have contracted cancer, and hence, she would not have died.”
The sergeant’s face was puffy. A single tear gathered, then rolled down a cheek. Seeming not to notice, Winston Hopkins stormed ahead. “But for the DES, Mrs. Ferguson might never have existed, correct?”
“How’s that?” Dr. Riggs asked.
“Her mother might have had a miscarriage without the drug.”
“No sir!” Riggs yanked the pipe from his mouth and gestured toward the young lawyer. “That’s the irony here, the damned tragic irony. DES never worked, never prevented miscarriage. If a woman was going to carry to full term, she’d do it with or without the drug. Gladys Ferguson would have been born, fine and dandy, hale and healthy, without that damned DES. As a drug, it was totally useless except to poison one’s female issue.”
Jake Lassiter looked up from his doodling. If they had been in a courtroom, the spectators would have oohed and aahed, the reporters would have scribbled notes, and Marvin the Maven would have smacked his gums. It was one of those moments when a witness drives a stake through the heart of your case. Give Doc Charlie Riggs a second chance, and he’ll give that stake another whack.
“One moment, please,” Hopkins said, pretending to review his notes while trying to regroup without peeing on his Italian kid leather loafers. If the kid took on Doc Riggs again, the savvy old coroner would probably spank him and send him to bed without his dinner.
A lifetime of experience on the witness stand, thirty-two years as medical examiner of Dade County, now retired and living in a fishing cabin on the edge of the Everglades, Doc Riggs was as sharp as ever. He had dueled with the city’s best criminal defense lawyers, savvy street fighters who could eviscerate a weak or confused witness. But they never got to Charlie Riggs. He had never botched an autopsy. Never lost a tissue sample, never failed to weigh, measure, or test the right organs, fluids, and gristle. A small man with dark, unkempt hair and a full beard, Charlie Riggs looked at the world through eyes that twinkled with a mixture of boyish delight and lethal wisdom.
Jake Lassiter wondered if Winston Hopkins was smart enough to shut up. Lassiter looked at the deposition scorecard, Form B83-184 in the firm’s parlance. The product of endless partners’ meetings, the scorecard had three categories: Preparation, Poise, and Thoroughness.
“PPT,” Managing Partner Marshall Tuttle formally announced at one law firm meeting, as if the term were inspired by genius. Lassiter figured preparation meant ripping off a checklist of questions from the computerized form files, poise required equal portions of arrogance and callousness, and thoroughness could be demonstrated by asking the same question three times or until the opposing lawyer began snoring, whichever came first. Lassiter cast the dissenting vote, saying his grading system would use Balls, Brains, and a touch of Humanity.
“How do you measure balls?” the managing partner had sniffed.
“If you gotta ask, you ain’t got ‘em,” Lassiter said, a remark he figured cost him ten grand in the pig pool, the year-end division of profits.
Winston P. Hopkins in plucked at his suspenders and flipped through his yellow pad. He had colorless eyes, a weak jaw, and hair that was thinning before its time. He shot a look at Lassiter, who gave him no signals, then back to Doc Riggs, who waited patiently. Across the table, Sergeant Ferguson stretched his thick neck and cracked his knuckles, one at a time, the sound of cartridges ejecting from a Beretta 9 mm.
“You’re being paid for this performance today, aren’t you, Dr. Riggs?” Hopkins asked, finally.
Stuart Zeman emerged from his postlunch nap, examined his diamond-encrusted Piaget, yawned, and swiveled toward the court reporter. “Objection to the form…”
“Ill rephrase the question,” Hopkins said, with just the hint of a sneer. “You’re being paid for your time, Doctor?”
“As you are,” Riggs said, pleasantly.
Lassiter hoped the twit would shut up soon. He knew Hopkins was a weasel but didn’t figure him stupid.
“And how much is the plaintiff paying for your testimony?”
“For my time, young man, Mr. Zeman offered to pay me two hundred fifty dollars an hour. Because of my feelings about DES and the gross irresponsibility of your client in marketing it, I agreed to accept only my expenses plus an Orvis graphite fly-casting rod.”
“What… what… are you telling us you’re doing this for practically nothing?”
“To a fly-fisherman, an Orvis rod is hardly that.”
Hopkins’s laugh was an annoying snort. “Dr. Riggs, really now, do you expect us to believe that you’re studying medical records, reviewing the written authorities, testifying at deposition today and then at trial, and all for a fishing pole?”
Why not just walk onto 1-95 in front of a semi, Lassiter thought.
“Homo doctus in se semper divitias habet,” Charlie Riggs said, and the court reporter grimaced.
Hopkins swallowed. “Huh?”
“A learned man always has wealth within himself.”
Another minute of paper shuffling, then Hopkins shot the French cuffs on his left sleeve, ostentatiously letting his eighteen-carat watchband catch the glow from the recessed lighting, and said, “Inasmuch as we still have another deposition to take, I have nothing further at this time, subject to the right to recall Dr. Riggs prior to trial.”
Charlie Riggs bounded out of the conference room on short bowed legs, and Sergeant Ferguson moved into the hot seat.
Lassiter scooped up his scorecard and followed Riggs into the corridor. Once out of earshot of the conference room, he said, “I wish you were on our side of the table, Charlie.”
“You’re too late and you’re on the wrong side, Jake. DES, for God’s sake, one of the chemical catastrophes of the century. How can you even defend the manufacturer?”
“It’s my job,” Lassiter said, wearily.
“Some job.”
“Funny, that’s what Cindy said the other day.”
Riggs grumbled his disapproval. “It isn’t you, Jake. Your heart’s not in it. A man has to find himself. Now, take me. What if I’d have gone into a private pathology practice, just looking at damn slides all day. Probably would’ve made more money than poking around in stiffs all these years, but would I have had the satisfaction, would I have nailed the woman who laced her husband’s meat pie with paraquat? Or the sulfuric acid murderer? Nothing left but the teeth, but that was enough for a corpus delicti. Or the insulin overdose in the hospital with no injection puncture on the body?”
“I remember,” Lassiter said. “You were the only one who thought to look at the intravenous tube.”
“Hard to miss under the microscope, a hole made by a syringe. Then I checked the spinal fluid. Sugar count way too low. The attending nurse had a locker stashed full of insulin and a psychiatric history as long as your arm.”
Jake Lassiter smiled. “You’re the best canoe maker… sorry, coroner, this town has ever had. No one can speak for the dead like you.”
Doc Riggs gave Lassiter an affectionate shoulder squeeze.
