Doctors (92 page)

It was not merely the metallic sound of the small loudspeaker, it was the voice seeming to come from the bottom of a deep well.

“I trust my secretary has explained why I’m no longer with the Metropolitan Opera,” he joked, though forcing each word out with difficulty.

“Anyway, I won’t be doing much talking in court till I master this damn thing. But there are plenty of tough cookies in my office who can handle that job. I’m glad you’ve come to me. From everything I’ve read in the papers, certain special interest groups are anxious to turn your husband’s case into a show trial. And that puts him in a very dangerous position.”

Judy thought to herself,
He’s going to take the case.
So what if he can’t talk, the operation didn’t take away his brains. And she then realized she had not asked the second most important question.

“Mr. Sylbert, Seth earns a good living, but we’re not wealthy people.”

The lawyer cut her off with a wave of his hand, and then said in those harsh, grating tones, “Don’t worry about the fee, Mrs. Lazarus. This is one firm that cares about the law more than the honorarium. Besides, we have paying customers who subsidize our moral crusades. For example, we’ve just won a huge case against Eagle Pharmaceuticals because they failed to specify that taking Saranac for nausea during pregnancy could cause birth defects.”

“Yes, I read about that,” Judy remarked, “that was really a wonderful thing.”

“Matter of fact, I think the colleague who helped argue that case is the perfect one to handle yours. He’s brilliant. Got his law degree in two years. And he’s been an expert witness in
some important medical malpractice suits. Naturally, we’ll prepare the case together. But let me get him in here so you won’t have to tell the story twice.”

He pressed his intercom and said, “Will you ask the doctor to join us, please?”

Judy was confused. “Did you say ‘doctor’?”

Sylbert nodded. “Yes, he’s a doctor
and
a lawyer. I can’t tell you how superb he was when he cross-examined Eagle’s expert witnesses—he made them look like schoolboys who had just got their first chemistry set. In fact, right after he began to pulverize the opposition, Eagle threw up their hands and settled—
big.
”

At this point Bennett Landsmann entered.

“Hello,” he greeted Judy, and held out his hand. “I’m happy that you’ve come to us. Partly because I think the whole damn thing is just a political football, and partly because your husband was a Med School classmate.”

“You do realize, Ben,” Sylbert interposed jocularly, “that actually might be used against you.”

Bennett smiled reassuringly.

“Mark, whenever I put my black face in front of a jury I know there’s two and a half strikes against me. But I usually pull it out.”

Then, turning to Judy, he said, “Mrs. Lazarus, can you tell us the whole story from beginning to end?”

After only twenty minutes, Bennett was ablaze with indignation. Still he was able to reassure Judy that there were many precedents on record in which “mercy killers” were exonerated by the jury when they were made to understand the special circumstances—usually a unanimous plea from the family to end a patient’s suffering. Yet they still had to bear in mind that Walters was using this case as a springboard for himself, and it would be far from easy.

His first priority was getting Seth out of that cell and arguing for bail.

To both Lazaruses’ great relief, Bennett pleaded successfully. And Seth was liberated—for the moment—on a hundred thousand dollars’ bail, which Ben’s firm arranged.

He advised Seth and Judy that for their own safety and peace of mind they would be better off staying anonymously in an out-of-the-way hotel.

They readily agreed.

“And feed him up,” Bennett said to Judy, “it’s obvious that prison food didn’t agree with him.”

Though still a little shaky from the trauma of his incarceration, Seth went up, took Bennett’s arm, and said, “I’ll never forget this, Ben. I mean, we barely knew each other in school and yet you’re sticking your neck out for me.”

“No,” Bennett countered. “I’m doing this not just for you but for those patients you helped. God knows,
I
could reel off cases when surgeons I worked with found a really ugly cancer—in almost every organ of a patient’s body—and would tell the anesthesiologist to let the guy ‘sleep a little more deeply.’ And they never woke him up to ask his consent, either.”

“Would any of these guys testify?” Seth asked.

“No way,” said Bennett, “they’d be putting their own heads in the noose. They’re not
that
compassionate.”

In fact, that was the nub of the problem: trying to get a doctor—or, with luck, three or four—who would testify that what Seth did was not a violation of ethics, because it was the doctor’s primary task to keep his patient from suffering.

The trial was set for the first Monday in November. Bennett felt he would need all that time to scour the medical community for doctors brave enough to speak in Seth’s defense.

Yet by midsummer he had not found a single expert witness. The surgeons—his friends in Boston and New Haven—either denied to him they’d ever done what
he
had
seen
them do, or simply refused to testify because of the unwritten law that doctors should not criticize their peers’ behavior.

Hell, he thought with exasperation, I may actually have to take the stand myself.

With time running out, Mark Sylbert petitioned the court for a postponement.

Attorney General Walters also regarded the November date as inconvenient. For it meant the trial would come
after
elections and lack all the political momentum he was counting on. Thus he, in turn, had petitioned—for an
earlier
date.

This was, of course, outrageous and unjust. But Edmund Walters had not labored in the party wards for the last twenty years in vain. He had the right connections. He called in all his markers.

And the trial was advanced to the first week in
September.

Bennett exploded. Sylbert fulminated. They both objected. But to no avail. The trial was drawing near and though they had the ammunition, they were totally lacking guns.

He voiced his frustration to Barney on the phone one evening in mid-August. That night he was determined to stay at his desk telephoning till every single physician on the East
and
West coasts had left his office.

“It’s a goddamn disgrace,” Barney said angrily, “I can’t believe that so many doctors could be so self-serving when there’s a human being’s life at stake—especially one of their own.”

“Well, Barn,” said Bennett wearily, “if I could disclose to you the names of the distinguished healers in our nation who have refused to testify for us, your book would be a veritable Who’s Who in American medicine.”

“Has the other side got any heavy artillery?”

“Are you kidding?” Bennett exclaimed. “They’ve got a damn battalion champing at the bit to condemn euthanasia. Suddenly the medical profession has turned sanctimonious. And you’ll never guess who their most eminent expert witness is—I mean, this’ll freak you out—none other than Dean Courtney Holmes!”

“Holmes? You must be joking. Why would he go out of his way to testify against a former student?”

“Well, to his credit, I hear they had to subpoena him. There’s just a chance he’s not that keen to testify against Seth.”

“Is there any way I can help?” asked Barney.

Bennett thought a moment and then said, “Actually, you could do one thing, Barn. The deceased’s brother, Hector, has had some mental problems. Would you see him and go on record as to whether, in your expert opinion, he’s competent to testify?”

“Sure, Ben, sure. But why do you want to call an unstable person as a witness?”

“Listen, Barn,” his old friend said. “Aren’t you getting the picture? Nobody in his right mind would testify for this defense.”

“That isn’t funny, Landsmann.”

“I can assure you, Barney, I’m not laughing. How soon can you fly out?”

“Next weekend okay?”

“Fine. I’ll set up the interview and meet you at the airport. Bring Laura and we can have a mini-reunion. And hey, thanks for sticking your neck out.”

“No, Ben, Seth’s really the guy with his head on the block.”

He hung up and turned to Laura.

“Well, Castellano, how does a weekend in the Windy City sound to you?”

“Great. But I can’t go.”

“Hey, come on, kiddo. Don’t we have an exclusive contract with each other for the weekends?”

“I mean I can’t fly, Barn.”

“What is this—some new kind of phobia?”

“It’s new, but it’s not exactly a phobia. I’m pregnant.”

“H
ear ye, hear ye. The United States District Court for Northern Illinois is now in session. All rise for his Honor Justice Julius Novak.”

A craggy-faced Mount Rushmore in black robes marched to the podium, sat down, and without ceremony looked at the opposing lawyers.

“All right. We’re going to hear ‘United States versus Lazarus.’ Are counsel ready?”

The dense crowd, combined with the brutal Chicago heat pressing in from outside, had turned the courtroom—despite air-conditioning—into an oven.

Mark Sylbert rose with some difficulty and replied with a dignity that transcended the grating sound of his voice. “We are ready, Your Honor.”

Although legal protocol required that an assistant U.S. attorney be the official prosecutor in a Federal case, Ed Walters had deftly maneuvered himself into the starring role, leaving the scholarly government representative, young Rodney Brooke, with but a single line of walk-on dialogue:

“Yes, Your Honor.”

At which point Walters jumped to his feet, strode from behind his desk, and took center stage.

He turned toward the jury in a stance like that of an operatic tenor poised to overwhelm his audience with a magnificent aria.

“Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, our
evidence today will establish beyond any reasonable doubt that on March twelfth of this year, the accused, Dr. Seth Lazarus, M.D., did willfully, and with malice aforethought, murder U.S. Marine Captain Francisco Campos, a patient in the Lakeshore Veterans Administration Hospital.”

He then removed his glasses and let his gaze pan across the faces of the members of the jury.

“The case we are hearing today has significance far beyond the walls of this courtroom. It involves the most fundamental principles which make us a society of law.

“My colleagues for the defense, Messrs. Sylbert and Landsmann, may argue that what the defendant has done is a ‘mercy killing.’ But that is tantamount to a confession of guilt. For, with the obvious exceptions of self-defense or insanity, there is
no
code of law
anywhere
which sanctions any kind of killing—for malice
or
mercy.

“The prosecution is well aware that the accused has heretofore been regarded as a doctor of great wisdom and compassion. Nonetheless, with the help of various expert witnesses, we shall prove that he acted unlawfully in the murder of Captain Campos.”

Judge Novak then asked if the defendant’s attorneys had an opening statement.

Sylbert stood up and again in his rasping, metallic tones replied, “We have none, Your Honor. We are confident that the prosecution will not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.”

Again in the spotlight, Walters called Special Agent John Patrick Sullivan to the stand. The FBI man sat down comfortably in what was for him a familiar seat.

Walters began the catechism.

“Agent Sullivan, can you tell us how your Bureau became involved in this case?”

“Well, sir, under Section Eighteen of the United States Criminal Code, any unlawful act that is committed on federal property comes within our jurisdiction. Dr. Lazarus’s activities were brought to my attention through a nurse at the V.A. hospital who was suspicious about the sudden death of a patient—and worried that the perpetrator might strike again. Our Bureau therefore had the defendant followed day and night—and obtained a warrant to place a microphone by the decedent’s bed.”

“Why was that?” Walters asked.

“Because we had good reason to believe that Captain Campos would be his next victim.”

“What led you to believe this?”

“We knew the captain’s younger brother had tried to kill him last Christmas. The poor kid had an obsession with trying to find a way to end his brother’s suffering.” Sullivan quickly corrected himself. “Or at least what he assumed to be suffering.”

“And what did you learn from the tape?”

“We heard Dr. Lazarus tell Captain Campos that he was going to kill him.”

“How did Captain Campos react?”

“Obviously he was upset—but he was a complete cripple and had no way of communicating his fears to the other medical staff.”

Bennett interrupted angrily.

“Objection—that tape will prove conclusively that the captain, however mutilated, was still sound of mind and had sufficient powers of communication.”

Walters turned and addressed the defense lawyers directly.

“Are you willing to stipulate that tape into evidence as an authentic recording of what transpired?”

“Absolutely,” Bennett replied.

The court once again stirred. After a cassette player was produced, Walters announced like a master of ceremonies:

“Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will now hear a so-called conversation between Captain Campos and the defendant, Dr. Lazarus.”

With a flourish, the prosecutor pressed the “play” button.

The entire courtroom now heard Seth ask the wounded Marine if he could understand him, and the pitiful whimpers with which he was answered. Once again, when he asked the patient whether he was in pain, and wished to die, there was another series of groans. Finally they heard Seth say, “I’ll be back to see you very soon.”

Walters snapped off the machine and looked at the jury with undisguised satisfaction.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I leave it up to you to decide whether those tortured syllables, those meaningless and—dare I say, pathetic—animal sounds were consent—or expressions of a fear that he had no way of communicating to the outside world.”