Sarah shook hands with the five MCB representatives and thanked each for his willingness to help in her defense. The meeting, which had gotten off to such a tense and confrontational beginning, had actually ended up accomplishing a good deal. All concurred that the key to a quick resolution of the Grayson suit lay in finding an identical case of DIC in an end-stage labor patient-whether at MCB or any other hospital-who had never had contact with Sarah.
At Matt Daniels's suggestion, Paris and Snyder agreed to contact their associates around the country, and Blankenship to institute an in-depth search of the medical literature. Arnold Hayden vowed to stay in close contact with Daniels, and Colin Smith gave assurances that any expenses incurred by Hayden or his staff would be covered by the hospital. Finally, the group pledged to present a unified front to Jeremy Mallon and the press. Unless and until she was proven responsible beyond reasonable doubt, Sarah Baldwin was innocent of any wrongdoing. Tomorrow morning, in a show of support, Eli Blankenship would accompany Sarah and Matt to the shop of her Chinese herbalist.
'Nice going tonight,' Sarah said as Matt retrieved his coat and umbrella. 'I think you handled a very difficult situation with a lot of restraint and class.'
'Nonsense. If you hadn't gone to bat for me, I would have been out of the game.'
'I'm not much of a baseball aficionado,' Sarah said, 'but isn't it true that if someone goes to bat for you, you are out of the game?'
Matt's grin was, for the first time, spontaneous and unstrained. And Sarah added it to the growing list of things she liked about the man.
'I still don't know why the claims adjuster at MMPO selected me for this case,' he said, 'but I'm glad he did. I'm not as slick as most of the attorneys I oppose, but I promise you, I'm a fighter and a survivor. I do my homework, and fortunately, I'm smarter than I look.'
'I'm not worried. Believe me I'm not. Besides, after tomorrow, I'm hoping we'll be able to go out and celebrate the end of your shortest case ever. Tell me, how did you ever manage to play baseball and get through law school?'
'Well,' Matt said, 'I was a relief pitcher. I always had good control, but I was never that flashy to watch. From about my second year in the majors on, the press began writing about how I didn't have good stuff-that's speed or movement on my pitches, and about how the Red Sox had no plans to keep me, and how I wouldn't last another year. Finally I had read enough of my own derogatory press clippings to decide that I ought to have something to fall back on. So I started law school in the off seasons. Eight off seasons later I was done. I had been with the Red Sox several times, as well as the Expos in the National League, and Pawtucket in the International League, and I still had a year of major league pitching left in me.'
'That's amazing.'
'Correction, that's two rabbits' feet, a two-thousand-year-old Egyptian amulet, and that infamous blue ribbon Dr. Blankenship talked about. Plus about a dozen other little rituals.'
'You really believe in that stuff?'
'To paraphrase something Mark Twain once said about God, I choose to believe in that stuff just in case there's something to it.'
'A superstitious attorney who quotes Mark Twain and pitched major league baseball,' Sarah said. 'You certainly can't be called middle of the road.'
'Neither can you,' Matt said. 'God, it's nearly eleven. I promised to have the sitter home by then.'
'Sitter?'
Although their relationship was strictly professional, and Sarah knew Matt was ethically bound to keep it that way, she found the news that he was married disappointing.
'I have a twelve-year-old son, Harry. He lives with his mother most of the year.'
'Oh, I see.'
'Well, then, shall we meet tomorrow morning at Mr. Kwong's?'
'If you think you can find it.'
'I've already driven past it. Like I said, I try to do my homework. I'm going over to Brookline. Do you need a ride?'
'Thanks, but I live in the North End, and I have my bike. Besides, the rain's stopped now, and riding just after a storm is something I really enjoy.'
Matt reached across to shake her hand. Their gazes met and, for the briefest moment, connected. But just as quickly, he looked away.
'Don't you worry,' he said. 'We're going to do fine.'
'I know. One last question, though. Before you arrived, that lawyer, Arnold Hayden, implied that most attorneys would have scheduled a preliminary meeting like this one in their office. Why didn't you?'
Matt slipped on his coat, took his briefcase in one hand and his umbrella in the other.
'Well, the truth is, I wanted to make a good impression-on Glenn Paris and his crew, but especially on you. And my current office is hardly the largest, most opulent in the city.'
'I see,' she said again.
'And to make matters even worse, that damn partner of mine, Mr. Goldstein, can't seem to keep the place neat. Next time maybe I'll chance letting you see it. Meanwhile, get some sleep. We have a big day ahead of us.'
Sarah watched Matt shamble down the hall to the elevator. What apprehension she had about the next morning's gathering at Kwong Tian-Wen's shop was more than offset by the notion that in just nine and a half hours, she would be seeing her lawyer again.
'Are you all done in there?'
The stoop-shouldered cleaning lady had been patiently vacuuming and dusting in the corridor for most of an hour, waiting for the Milsap Room to empty.
'Oh, yes, I'm sorry,' Sarah said.
'No problem, no problem. He's a fine-looking man, that one. A fine-looking man.' The old woman's eyes were sparkling.
'You know,' Sarah said, 'I was thinking the very same thing myself. But I have a feeling you could tell that.'
'Well, chile, I wasn't jes' watchin' him,' the woman chided. 'I was watchin' you.'
Savoring the sweet, scrubbed summer air, Sarah left the medical building on the campus side and crossed to where she had chained her bicycle. The campus was fairly well lighted and patrolled. And although there were, from time to time, reports of women being harassed at night, and in one case mugged, Sarah did not find the broad mall particularly menacing.
The groundskeepers periodically posted notices requesting that bicycles be left only in designated areas. But since those areas were outside the campus, house officers and nurses who planned to be at the hospital after dark continued to secure their bikes to the wrought-iron railings leading up to the entrances of many of the buildings.
Sarah had chained her Fuji to a low, steel-pipe railing by the side entrance of the surgical building. It was a convenient site, and one she had used frequently with no problem. Now, as she rounded the corner, she was struck by the darkness of the spot. The light over the entrance was out, although she could never remember its being so before. She peered through the gloom and took one tentative step forward… then another. The man was pressed tightly against the wall to her left.
Sensing a presence, Sarah froze. She squinted and blinked, but her vision had not yet adjusted enough to pierce the blackness. The night was soundless. She strained to hear breathing or movement of any kind. Someone was there… close. She shifted her weight to her right foot, preparing to push off and sprint away.
'I know you're there. What do you want?' she suddenly heard herself saying.
Five endless seconds passed… ten.
'P-p-please d-don't r-r-run,' the man said in a whispered stutter.
Sarah reflexively moved away from the voice even as she was turning toward it. The man, now a silhouette, stepped from the shielding darkness. He was not much taller than she, and very slightly built. Sarah could just make out the narrow contours of his face.
