An Accidental Life (47 page)

Peter turned his eyes back to Judge Morrow, still conferring with his clerk. Across the aisle, he could hear Vicari arguing in a low tone with his lawyer. Michelene was preparing her machine for transcription, and the bailiff wandered back to his post at the door behind the jury box and clasped his hands behind his back. Peter studied Calvin Morrow. His eyes had met Peter’s the instant he’d walked through that door.

Judge Morrow finally straightened, turned toward the prosecution and defense and the gallery, and clasped his hands before him. His expression was cold as he looked at Peter. “We’re not going to waste any more time today, Mr. Jacobs, are we? Are your witnesses present and accounted for?”

Peter stood. “Yes, they’re here, Your Honor.”

Morrow flipped his hand. His tone was piqued. “Call your first witness for rebuttal.”

Peter turned. “The State calls Fred McAndrews.”

The bailiff opened the door to the hallway and called out, “Lieutenant? We’re ready.”

Judge Morrow reminded Mac that he was still under oath. Mac said he understood and took the stand. Under questioning, Mac described his recent hurried trip to Chicago to obtain various records from New Hope Hospital.

Peter handed Mac the duty roster, showing that Alice had worked with Charles Vicari in operating room number three at New Hope Hospital on the night of December 3, 1979. Mac identified the record. Peter handed Mac the medical chart with the name of Vicari’s patient when Alice was on duty redacted, her blood type, the time of the procedure, and a few sketchy details. The medical records of the abortion procedure, an induction, further recorded that gestation was twenty-three weeks. No birth or death was recorded.

“What’s this got to do with anything? This is a travesty!” The shouting startled Peter and he turned to see the defendant rising even as his lawyer shot up, standing over him, hissing in undertone as he pressed his hands on Charles Vicari’s shoulders, pushing him back down.

Morrow’s gavel pounded once, twice—loud cracking sounds that reverberated through the room even as a hum rose in the galley. The judge half rose as he motioned toward the bailiff standing near the jury box calling, “Bailiff! Order, order in the court.”

The bailiff called out into the hallway. Two sheriff’s officers appeared, hurrying down the aisle one behind the other. By the time they’d reached Vicari, Vince had him back down in the chair, his hand firmly clamped upon his client’s arm. As the officers reached for Vicari, Morrow called out and stopped them. They halted, handcuffs dangling midair.

Half-standing, Judge Morrow glared down at Vince McConnell: “Counsel, be warned! You’ll have one more chance, given the situation. But one more outburst and the Defendant will be handcuffed, shackled, and gagged.” He glared at Vicari as he lowered back into his chair. “We will tape his mouth if that’s the only way to keep it shut. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Peter glanced over his shoulder at Suzanne Gordy. As the sheriffs moved to the wall nearest the defendant, hands braced behind them, eyes forward, Peter saw her eyes brimming with tears, and her hands gripping the ends of the armrests as she stared at Charles Vicari.

Seconds passed and no one moved. Then, “Proceed,” Morrow said.

As Mac and Peter continued, going through the records from New Hope, Mac described the contents of each one for the court. When they came to medical records of the baby in NICU, Peter handed the first one to Mac and Mac identified the date and time of the first entry, and identified it as belonging to Baby Doe. Alice Braxton’s signature was on the page, along with the signature of another nurse, the nurse on duty that night, Nan Allen.

“We’re wasting time on irrelevant matters, Your Honor. The defense objects to this delay.” Vince flung his hand toward Peter.

“This won’t take long,” Peter said. “Bear with me, Judge. Just a few more minutes.”

Morrow pursed his lips and studied Peter. Peter held his breath.

The judge made up his mind and nodded. “Objection overruled, for now,” he said. “But get on with it, Mr. Jacobs. And I’d better start understanding the connection to this case very soon.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Mac and Peter sped through the remaining records. The infant’s medical records recording her struggles under intensive care were introduced and entered as evidence. The last date recorded in NICU was April 15, 1979, four months after admission.

Peter avoided mention of the adoption at this time. He would save that for Kenneth Gordy’s testimony, he’d decided.

At the end of Mac’s testimony, Vince McConnell registered his standing objection to the new witnesses, arguing that he saw no connection between the testimony that he’d just heard and the present case.

Without a break, Morrow instructed Peter to call his next witness to the stand. There’d be no more time wasted in his courtroom, he announced.

Alice had been on the stand for an hour. She’d told her story, beginning with how she’d been conscripted to work with Charles Vicari that night at New Hope Hospital, and ending with her decision to bring Abby to the NICU, and how she and Nan had worked to keep the child, Baby Doe, alive on those first few nights. As he stood beside Alice, Peter could almost feel Charles Vicari’s hatred for the nurse.

Vince had objected immediately to Alice’s entire testimony.

“It goes to intent, Your Honor,” Peter had said. “Miss Hamilton’s testimony is offered to prove that the defense could not have been taken by surprise by a live birth, since he’d experienced this before.”

After several minutes of back and forth, with fierce arguments from Vince, Calvin Morrow had allowed the State to move forward.

Peter showed Alice the medical records for induction abortion performed by Charles Vicari that night; the certified records that Mac had obtained from New Hope Hospital. She identified the records. He pointed out the lack of any notation of a live birth.

“That is Dr. Vicari’s handwriting,” she said in a cool tone. “He recorded the procedure as he saw it.”

“And this signature at the bottom of the page?”

“That is Dr. Vicari’s signature.”

Vince didn’t interrupt with an objection. He couldn’t, really. The defendant would not testify under oath. From the legal perspective, his plea of not guilty said it all.

But the remainder of Alice’s testimony was interrupted continually by Vince McConnell’s objections. And occasionally Vicari would break out with an exclamation,
soto voce,
but loud enough to make himself heard in the well of the courtroom. Each time that happened, Morrow’s head would whip around and then Vince would get his client to calm down again. Peter was surprised at the judge’s restraint. Maybe Morrow, at last, was allowing himself to dip beneath the surface of the law, into an unfamiliar realm of compassion and emotion. Just for a short time.

Through it all, Alice maintained her composure. She wore the same little black hat she’d worn to the hotel that morning, white gloves that reached just above her wrists. She wore a dark blue jacket and skirt that brought out the unusual cobalt color of her eyes. She was an excellent witness, Peter thought as they moved though the time line of that night in New Hope, linking the baby in NICU brought in by Alice, with the infant born alive and delivered by Charles Vicari. Through it all, Alice sat with her back straight, hands folded in her lap, answering each of Peter’s questions in a clear, confident tone without once looking toward the defendant.

“To your knowledge was Baby Doe the only live birth infant delivered by the Defendant while you were at New Hope?”

“No.”

“Were you present on those other occasions?”

“It happened many times on my shift, but I was not working with those doctors. There were several.”

“Objection.” Vince rose. “Hearsay.”

Peter turned to Morrow. “Give me a minute, Your Honor.”

Morrow nodded. “Overruled.”

“If you weren’t present at the live births, Miss Hamilton, how did you know that they’d occurred?”

Peter saw that Alice’s eyes were fixed on someone behind him as she began to answer. Suzanne, he realized. “I’d been at New Hope for years before I became aware that this was happening. That was several years before I left. Around 1975, ’76. But once I knew, well, like some of the other nurses on the floor, I would hold an infant . . . until it died.”

“How many times did that happen?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, sir. I didn’t count.”

“Every night?”

“Oh no. Once in a while. If the mother didn’t want it, or didn’t realize, then sometimes the infant would be put in a warming pan, and then I’d pick it up. Sometimes the nurse on duty would know to find me or one of the other nurses that did this, and then we’d hold it.” Her voice dropped. “Occasionally, this happened, but it wasn’t considered unusual and it wasn’t hidden.”

He’d thought long and hard about going further, about asking whether some of the infants she’d held over the years had been delivered by Charles Vicari. But there lay dragons: because, if so, he’d never been charged. In the end, he’d decided to end things here, rather than to risk a mistrial.

But now, cross-examination loomed.

“Thank you, Miss Hamilton,” Peter said at the end. “The defense lawyer, Mr. McConnell, will ask you some questions now,” he said to her. She nodded. He turned to the judge. “Tender the witness, Your Honor.”

He’d prepared Alice for this over the weekend—knowing that Vince, good lawyer that he was, would channel his defendant’s disdain and rage toward Alice. But she was a woman of grace, a woman telling the truth.

McConnell struck right away. Halting ten feet from the witness stand, he posed, arms crossed as he stood silently observing Alice. Peter, sitting at the table now watched the standoff as Alice peered back at him, unblinking.

Resting his elbow on his forearm, Vince pressed his knuckles against his chin, his finger bracketing the corner of his mouth and said, “If you are so opposed to abortion, Miss Hamilton, why didn’t you merely leave New Hope Hospital and find other employment? Why did you allow yourself to stay in that department, on that floor, with full knowledge of what you are now telling this court was going on?”

It was a good question. Peter already knew the answer.

“I’m a nurse. I love my work. There were other doctors in pediatrics that I liked working with.”

“So you just looked the other way?”

Peter flinched, but he’d expected that. And Alice had lived with those memories long enough to have absorbed the pain, deep down inside, where she kept it private. “I wanted to do what I could. I would hold those infants when they lived, when I was there.”

“But nurses are in demand everywhere. You could have gotten another job in another hospital, couldn’t you?”

She gazed at him for a moment. “This happens in other hospitals, too. There’s no way to know when you’re looking for a job. No one talks about failed abortions out loud. And, I’d been at New Hope for years, long before Dr. Vicari arrived.”

Good answer.
Peter put his elbows on the table, clasped his hands, and rested his chin on his knuckles.
Keep going, Alice.

Vince stuck his hands in his pockets and let a beat go by. “How old was the fetus that you took from the room that evening, Miss Hamilton?”

Alice drew back. “She was twenty-three weeks gestation.”

“How did you know that at the time? You didn’t work with the Defendant on a regular basis. And by your testimony, you hadn’t time to look at the records.”

“As a pediatric nurse I had a good idea of the infant’s age. But, of course, I couldn’t be exact. I just knew she ought to have a chance to try to survive, at least.”

“Without giving any consideration to the mother’s wishes, you took the infant down to NICU. Did that make you feel heroic, Miss Hamilton?”

“I wasn’t thinking that way, Mr. McConnell. I was merely trying to save that baby’s life.”

“You ignored the physician’s judgment.”

“Yes.”

“And upon what expertise did you base that decision?”

Alice frowned. “I’d worked with micro preemies for years in NICU.”

“But,” Vince leaned forward, raising his voice, jutting his finger toward Alice. “Did it ever, even once cross your mind that by substituting your judgment for the physician’s, you had also stolen from the patient that night her peace of mind, not to mention her constitutional right to choose not to have that child?”