Prophet (35 page)

Deanne’s face sank as she began to lose hope.

“Wait a minute,” said Leslie. “What about the pathologist who performed the autopsy? We’d like to speak with him.”

Rose shook her head. “He’s legally barred from saying anything.”

Leslie lost no momentum. “His name is Denning. We’d like to speak to him please.”

Rose sighed. “You’re not going to like this either—he’s not here anymore.”

“Then can you tell us where he went? We’d like to contact him.”

“Well, all we have is his office number here at the hospital, but like I said, he doesn’t work here anymore.”

“What . . .” asked Deanne, “did they fire him?”

Rose was getting impatient. “I don’t know, Mrs. Brewer!”

“What about a home phone number?” asked Leslie.

Rose smiled apologetically. “I’m sure we wouldn’t have it, and even if we did, I couldn’t give it out.”

Deanne waxed sarcastic. “Woooooo, you have been a world of help today, sugar!”

Leslie checked her watch. She had to go. “Come on, Deanne, let’s get out of here.”

Deanne was not ready to leave. “But I . . . there has to be something we can do.”

“Yeah, there is. We’re going to get a lawyer.” Leslie glared not so
much at Rose as at the bureaucracy she represented. “We’ll just have to take the gloves off.”

CHAPTER 15

TUESDAY MORNING, JOHN
met Max and Deanne Brewer at the law offices of Hart, McLoughlin, Peters, and Sanborn, attorneys-at-law, located in a remodeled, turn-of-the-century mansion of brick, rough beams, and stucco.

“We’re here to see Aaron Hart,” John told the receptionist.

“And then I’m outa here,” Max muttered, his eyes exploring the deep carpets, ornate woodwork, heavy oak doors, and fancy fixtures. “How much this gonna cost?”

“We can’t afford an attorney,” Deanne said flatly. She was having second thoughts as well.

John urged, “Well, just talk to him first and see what he says.”

A young man with thinning, neatly parted red hair and a dark blue suit walked briskly into the room and extended his hand toward John. “Hey, John!”

John shook hands with him. “How you doin’, Aaron?”

Deanne tried not to gawk at Aaron Hart. Max gawked and didn’t care who knew it. Who was this wimpy white kid, and what was he doing in a place like this? He was so short his tie hung below his belt.

John turned to Max and Deanne and introduced the attorney. “Max and Deanne Brewer, I’d like you to meet Aaron Hart. He’s a good attorney, and he’s pushed some important papers for me on more than one occasion.”

The wimpy white kid extended his hand. “Hi—glad to meet you.”

Deanne rose and shook his hand, feeling timid despite herself. Max stood boldly and towered over the attorney, giving him a firm handshake and staring him down a bit.

“Why don’t we step into my office?”

“You’re a lawyer?” Max asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“How much you gonna charge us?” Max demanded.

Aaron didn’t mind answering. “That depends on what I do. Why don’t we talk first—that won’t cost you anything—and then we’ll know what I can do and whether you want me to do it. Fair enough?”

Max stole a glance at John, whose face and little shrug answered, Fair enough—sure, what the heck.

“Okay.”

John said, “Okay, I’ve done my part.” He touched Max’s shoulder. “Hear him out. He’ll deal squarely with you.”

Max nodded.

“Keep in touch.” And with that, John made his exit.

“Right this way,” said Aaron Hart.

Max and Deanne followed him down the wainscoted hallway to a bedroom-become-office where he offered them two comfortable chairs in front of his desk.

“Can I get you anything?”

They decided on coffee. Aaron called someone named Linda on his intercom and made the request.

Then he relaxed in his chair, picked up an NFL paperweight to play with, and said gently, “John told me about your daughter. I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you,” Deanne answered. Max just nodded.

“John’s told me a little bit about your case. Why don’t you tell me what happened and how I can help.”

It took time to establish trust, to find the words, to feel right about this appointment, but as Max and Deanne got into their story and Aaron Hart showed a genuine interest and concern, the images, feelings, and frustrations they’d experienced since May 24th gave them plenty to talk about until they were almost crowding each other to share everything replaying in their minds. With tears of sorrow and sometimes a raised voice of anger, they worked through it until finally
arriving at the bottom line, the reason for this meeting: their daughter was wrongfully dead. What could they do?

Sometime during their story, Linda had brought the coffee. Now Aaron moved his cup aside and began to scribble on a legal pad, thinking a little out loud, a little on paper. “Hm. So . . . the first thing you want to do is make sure Annie died due to negligence on the part of the Women’s Medical Center, and in order to do that you need to find a legal way to get Annie’s records from the clinic.”

Max and Deanne exchanged a consulting look, and then Max answered, “Yeah, that’s one thing,” and Deanne added, “I just want to stop that clinic so they don’t hurt somebody else.”

“Mm-hm.” Aaron stopped scribbling and thought for a moment. “Well, initially you have two courses of action. The first is to file a lawsuit against the clinic, but . . .” He smiled whimsically. “Kind of a Catch-22 in that. You can’t sue the clinic unless you have a case against them, and you can’t build a case against them unless you have Annie’s medical records to prove she got her abortion there, and you can’t get those records without filing a lawsuit so you can subpoena the medical records as part of the discovery, which you can’t do unless you have a case, which you don’t have without the medical records . . .” With a waving of his hand he concluded, “Let’s forget that idea.”

He leaned forward and wiggled his pen in his hand as he spoke. “There’s a simpler way to do it which would not involve a lawsuit, and that’s only because—and please pardon me for saying this—it’s only because Annie is now dead. If she were still alive, then her abortion would have been a fundamental right, and any records or chart the clinic might have on her would be protected and confidential, even from her parents. Only Annie herself could request them. But now, since she’s dead, you can take steps to stand in her place legally and request her medical records.”

Aaron got lively and animated, as if telling a story, talking with his hands. “Now, anytime somebody dies they usually leave something behind, something they owned. That’s called their estate. If you own a big house and three cars and you have a couple million in the bank, that’s your estate—that’s what’s left when you die. If you own the clothes on your back, one ballpoint pen, and two nickels, that’s your estate. So Annie had an estate too, and that’s what we’ll be working with.”

Max and Deanne did a quick mental inventory.

“She didn’t own much,” Deanne said.

Aaron only smiled, undaunted. “Well, that’s what I’m getting to. She did own one thing that’s important to us now, and that’s a claim for damages she may have suffered at the Women’s Medical Center. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Here’s what we can do: we can file a probate of your daughter’s estate. Now probate is the process of transferring assets that your daughter owned at her death, which is no big deal since she was a minor, your daughter, and didn’t own much anyway, but it would still provide a legal way for you to get those records. You could have yourself appointed as the personal representative of Annie’s estate, meaning you’d be standing in her place to . . . we call it ‘marshaling’ . . . it would be your duty to marshal the assets of the estate, which means to figure out what the deceased person owned, what monies, property, and claims she owned or had a right to at the instant of her death.

“And it’s the claims part of Annie’s estate we’re going after here. One of her assets left behind for you to marshal is a potential claim for damages from the doctor, the nurse, the abortion clinic, whoever’s responsible, and you, as the personal representative of your daughter’s estate, would not only have a right but a duty to determine whether or not Annie had a valid claim. Are you with me so far?”

“I’d be standing in for my dead daughter,” Max said.

“Right.”

“And that means her right to an abortion and privacy, that’d be
mine.
Those records would be mine.”

“Once you’re appointed as personal representative of her estate, yes. You’ve received enough information to cause you to believe that she has a claim against the clinic as an asset, and in order to marshal that asset, you’d have to have those records, and the clinic would have to produce them.”

Max liked the sound of this. “Gotcha.”

“How do we do that?” Deanne asked, a glint of hope in her eyes.

Aaron went back to his legal pad and started a list. “Okay, first thing would be to get one of you appointed as the personal representative of the estate. We could get those papers prepared and then have you in to sign them and then file them with the court to get you appointed.

“In the meantime we would draft a letter for you to sign, a Request for Medical Records. The letter would state . . .” Aaron scribbled it down as he said it. “. . . that Annie was in the medical clinic for medical treatment . . . that you’ve been appointed as the personal representative of her estate . . . and . . . in order to settle her estate, you need to obtain her medical records. We would enclose a check for, say, twenty-five dollars, to cover copying costs. So you would send them the letter, and . . . well, usually a clerk in a hospital or clinic handles that routinely and releases the records, but I’m not sure how routine such a request would be for an abortion clinic.” Aaron hesitated just a little, then mused, “With a little luck, the clinic’s records custodian would just fill the request and none of the clinic’s bigwigs would ever see it. But if things don’t go our way the people in charge are going to know about it real quick and then you’ll have to deal with them.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” said Max. “I ain’t mailin’ them nothin’. I’m takin’ that letter in there and puttin’ it right in their face.”

“Well . . . these things are routinely handled through the mail, but . . . I can understand your going there personally. I don’t recommend it, but . . . sure, I understand.”

But Deanne had a problem with that. “Babe, you can’t go in there.”

Max deflated with a recollection and cursed. “Excuse me. I’ve given that clinic trouble, Mr. Hart. The judge said he would jail me if I didn’t stay away from there. I can’t go.”

“How about Deanne?” Aaron asked. “Is she under any judge’s order?”

Max laughed at that. “No . . . no way, she’s too good a woman for that.” He grabbed her hand when he said it.

“So we could make Deanne the personal representative. Is that all right with both of you?”

“So
she
takes the letter and puts it right in their face?” asked Max.

“Well . . . I imagine she would be courteous about it, but . . . yes, she could go.”

Max and Deanne consulted each other with their eyes, and it was all right.

“Good enough. Now, Linda’s our paralegal, so if you decide you want to go with this, she’ll prepare the documents in the next day or so to get you appointed, and then she’ll call you. You’ll have to sign
several papers to have you appointed by the court as the personal representative of your daughter’s estate. Now while all that’s going on, I’ll prepare a letter for you to sign, a Request for Medical Records. Once your appointment goes through and the letter’s drafted and signed, you’ll be all set to go to the clinic and get the records.

“Now, do you think that’s enough?” Max and Deanne started thinking about it, and Aaron further clarified, “If there’s anything I’ve left out, or anything you need to have explained, or any other action you want to take . . .”

Deanne asked, “What if they really did kill Annie? I mean, what if we can prove it? How can we stop them?”

“How can we
get
’em?” asked Max.

Aaron scribbled some more. “We have another lawyer in our office, Bill McLoughlin, and all Bill does is personal injury claims such as this one. Tell you what—let’s get those records first, and then, having proof from which to build a case, I’d like to turn this claim over to Bill for further action. For now I’ll run this by him and see if he thinks of anything else we could be doing at this time to get those records.”

Max held up his hand to call a halt. “Well, this all sounds fine, but . . . we gotta talk money here.”

Aaron smiled. “Yes, there is that final detail. Well, we’re willing at this point to proceed on this as a contingent fee case. That means that our fee is based on a percentage of the recovery. No recovery, no fee. Our usual percentage is thirty-three and a third percent. You’ll have to pay for our out-of-pocket expenses, but we can defer those in most cases until the case is over. Once our investigation is complete and we see what’s there, we’ll sit down with you and map out the case. Or, if there isn’t enough, we’ll advise you not to proceed. If you’re willing to go ahead on this basis, I’ll have Linda prepare an agreement along those lines.”

Max and Deanne exchanged another consulting look, and then Max answered, “Let’s do it.”