The Doctor and Mr. Dylan (34 page)

“I had a gimmick no one else could match.”

“What was that?”

“You. Mom. September 9th. Our family is famous, or infamous. My essay was about what happened that day, the worst day of my life, and how it changed me. I wrote about the intense feelings I had, how I got through it, and how I’m a better man for it.”

My joy vanished. His Harvard acceptance letter was written in blood.

The corners of Johnny’s mouth turned up. “See? I’m just like you, Dad. First, the teenage pregnancy, and then the admission letter to Harvard.”

“Look at me. You don’t want to be me. Are you going to Harvard?”

“Hell, yes. I’m not you.”

“I’m proud of you.”

“Do you think Mom would finally be satisfied?”

“I’m sure she’s smiling up in heaven.”

Johnny closed his eyes for a long moment, and blinked back tears. When he opened them and said, “There’s one more thing, Dad. Something kind of weird. I got this bogus text message today, but it’s really for you.”

“Who’s it from?”

“I don’t know. It’s from some local number I’ve never heard of.”

“What does it say?”

“Let me read the thing, so I get it right.” He took out his phone and pulled up the text. “The message says, ‘Ask Nico where the cefazolin went.’”

“It says what?”

“‘Ask Nico where the cefazolin went.’ What’s cefazolin?”

“It’s a drug.”

“Does the message make any sense to you?”

“Not really. I’ll have to think about it.”

Johnny glanced at the clock on the wall, and he sighed. “I gotta run now, Dad. I’m glad I saw you, I guess.”

“I’m always glad to see you. Come visit as often as you can. Congratulations on Harvard. You’ve got what it takes, son.” I flattened both of my hands against the glass. Johnny matched them, his fingers mirror images of mine. He couldn’t conjure a smile. He folded the letter into his pocket.

Back in my cell, I flopped onto my cot and stared at the stained acoustic tiles of the ceiling. Echo crying in an ICU bed, the Harvard letter, Johnny’s fingers against the glass—each of these pictures spun through the Instagram of my mind. A year ago, I’d have given anything to see my son marching toward success beneath a Harvard Crimson banner. It’d been the Antone family quest, to move to Hibbing and beat out tens of thousands of faceless high school kids from around the U.S.

I tried to make sense of the mysterious text message.
Ask Nico where the cefazolin went.
I obsessed over every syllable of the curious sentence. In my mind I saw a small window off in the distance—a weathered pane of stained glass, cracked open no more than a millimeter. That crack… that seam… admitted a sliver of light into my darkness. What if there was a clue, buried somewhere in the hundreds of pages of Alexandra’s medical records? It was a long shot, but I had to pursue it. There was so little time.

I banged on the bars of my cell, and cried out, “Guard! Guard! I need to speak to my attorney.”

CHAPTER 27

IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS

I found my seat at the defense table on Monday morning. I’d envisioned the conclusion of this trial for months, and now that it was here, I was as panicky as a man blindfolded before a firing squad. I’d watched Ed Martinovich preen and pontificate without success in this courtroom for days. It seemed he was driving me headlong into the brick wall of a guilty verdict and life imprisonment. I’d go to jail, and Ed Martinovich would take a long vacation to Florida.

After Johnny’s visit I asked Martinovich to deliver the volumes of Alexandra’s medical records to me, and I stayed up all night rereading every page with new eyes. My salvation had to be somewhere in those pages. I met with Martinovich this morning, and together we scripted our agenda for the courtroom day.

Behind me, Bobby Dylan sat in the same seat he’d chosen for the last session. He appeared unruffled after his bitter meeting with me the day before. The skinny man was in rare couture this morning, decked out in a red flannel shirt and bib overalls. He wore a yellow farmer’s cap with the words
Mesabi Mining and Trucking Company
stenciled across the front in black script letters. As I watched, the bailiff approached Dylan and peeled the hat off the curly bush of his hair.

Johnny sat two rows behind me. He looked tense and pale. The sad saga of this awful North Country winter had ended his adolescence. Johnny made eye contact, and I was pleased to see him acknowledge me with a nod of his head.

Judge Satrum settled into his chair and the trial resumed. Martinovich stood and announced, “The defense calls Lena Johnson to the stand.” Lena worked her way down the aisle, her back erect and her posture perfect. She’d undergone a striking metamorphosis. Lena wore thick mascara, blue eye shadow, and ruby lipstick. An ellipse of cherry rouge freshened each cheekbone, and her swirling silver blond mane completed a garish visual that recalled Marilyn Monroe in her prime. She wore a form-fitting black dress, adorned with the golden scarf I brought her from California.

She seated herself, and stroked her temples with the forefinger of each hand. I watched her for a sign of affection, but Lena had no interest in me this morning.

“Mrs. Johnson,” Martinovich said. “We’ve already heard testimony that you and the defendant Dr. Antone were close friends. Can you tell us about your relationship with him?”

“We were dating,” she murmured in a hushed tone.

“Mrs. Johnson,” Judge Satrum said. “You will need to speak up so the jury and the court reporter can hear you. Do you understand?”

“I do, Your Honor.”

“You and the defendant Dr. Antone were lovers. Correct?” Martinovich said.

“Yes.”

“Did you know the deceased? Mrs. Alexandra Antone?”

“I met her once.”

“Can you tell us the details of that one meeting?”

“She came to my house the day before she died. My daughter was pregnant with her son’s child. Mrs. Antone wanted to talk about the pregnancy.”

“Was she excited about the pregnancy?”

“No. She tried to talk us into an abortion.”
“How did you feel about the abortion proposal?”

“I rejected it. She wasn’t happy, and she left.”

“Can you tell us where you were when you heard that Alexandra Antone was to have surgery?”

“I was at home. There was a call in the middle of the night.”

“A call?”

“She, Mrs. Antone that is, called Nico on his cell phone.”

“And where was Dr. Antone?”

“He was with me. Dr. Antone was at my house.”

“What time did she call?”

“It must have been 5 a.m.”

Martinovich paused for a long, long while, giving the jury ample time to ponder what the witness and defendant were doing together at her house at five in the morning. “And what happened at 5 a.m.?”

“Nico told her he wasn’t going to do the anesthesia for her. He told her that Bobby Dylan was on call. Then he hung up.”

“So Dr. Antone refused to anesthetize his wife. Is that what you heard?”

“Yes.”

“If you were planning to kill someone during their anesthetic, don’t you think you’d agree to do that anesthetic?”

“Objection,” Hamilton said. “Speculation.”

“Sustained,” the judge said. “The jury will disregard counsel’s last question.”

Martinovich continued. “What happened next?” he said.

“I got up for work,” Lena said. “I’m a nurse. My shift at Hibbing General started at 6 a.m.”

“And what did Dr. Antone do?”

“I don’t know. I think he went back to sleep.”

“So you went to work. Did you work in Alexandra Antone’s operating room that day?”

“No. I was assigned to be the float nurse that day.”

“And what does a float nurse do?”

“The float nurse helps out in all the operating rooms. We give breaks and assist other operating room nurses as needed. I worked most of the morning helping out in operating room #5, where Dr. Davidson was doing colonoscopies.”

“Your husband, Bobby Dylan, was the anesthetist scheduled to attend to Alexandra Antone. Did you witness him at Mrs. Antone’s bedside?”

“I did.”

“What time did you see him with Mrs. Antone?”

“Right after my shift began, at about 6:30.”

“Did you witness Bobby Dylan and Mrs. Antone talking to one another?”

“Yes.”

“What did you hear?”

“The conversation wasn’t friendly. Bobby woke her up to tell her about the anesthesia, and she got pretty agitated.”

“What was she agitated about?”

“I heard her say, ‘You’re not taking care of me in a million fucking years.’”

“She used those words?”

“She did.”

“Did you witness Bobby Dylan injecting anything into her IV?”

“No. I did not.”

“Can you describe the relationship between your husband, Bobby Dylan, and your boyfriend, Nico Antone?”

“Bobby hated Nico. From the moment he found out Nico and I were lovers, he was furious at Nico.”

“Was Bobby furious enough to inject insulin into Alexandra Antone’s IV bag? Furious enough to frame Nico Antone for murder?”

“Objection,” Hamilton said. “Calls for speculation.”

“Sustained,” Judge Satrum said. “Do not answer that question, Mrs. Johnson.”

“Was Bobby Dylan jealous of Dr. Antone?”

“Oh, yes. He was jealous because Nico was sleeping with me. He was also jealous because Nico was an anesthesia doctor, and Bobby was only a nurse anesthetist.”

“Was your husband… mentally unstable?”

“He was. He spent a year in a mental hospital after his tour of duty in Afghanistan. He tells people the diagnosis was Posttraumatic Stress Syndrome, but the truth is he had a nervous breakdown.”

“A nervous breakdown?”

“Yes. He was in a straitjacket for days at a time. He was belligerent and violent. The doctors wouldn’t let me visit him for the first month after he was hospitalized. Bobby improved after a lot of medication and five rounds of electroshock therapy, but he’s been damaged goods ever since. He always had an edge to him. He’s always been a bit crazy.”

“Were you afraid of your husband?”

“Yes. I couldn’t live with him anymore. He scared me.”

“Mrs. Johnson, let me change topics.” Martinovich peered over the top of his reading glasses, and looked straight at the witness. “Mrs. Johnson, please direct your attention to the video screen, where I’m projecting a page from Alexandra Antone’s medical record.” The screen lit up with a black-and-white magnified copy of a document from Alexandra’s chart. Martinovich said, “We’re looking at a page of the Physician’s Orders. Please direct your attention to order #14 in this list of orders written by the surgeon. Can you read Line #14 for us?”

“It says, ‘Administer Kefzol 1 gram IV.”

“What is Kefzol?”

“An antibiotic.”

“And what does IV mean?”

“Intravenously.”

“Who signed that order?”

“Dr. Perpich.”

“And can you read to us the time he signed that order?”

“It says, ‘0610’.”

“And whose initials are written adjacent to order #14?”

“The initials are L.J.”
“Are those your initials?”

“Yes.”

“And what is the time stamp written after your initials?”

“It says, ‘0620’.”

“Does that mean that you administered Kefzol to Alexandra Antone at 6:20 a.m. on the morning of her surgery?”

“Yes.”

“What does it say below your initials?”

“It says, ‘Done.’”

“Done. What does that mean?”

“It’s an indication that I gave the Kefzol, at 6:20 a.m.”

“Where was the patient, Alexandra Antone, at that time?”

“She was in the preoperative area. She hadn’t gone into the operating room yet.”

“So even though you did not work the appendectomy surgery in Operating Room #4, you did care for Alexandra Antone on the morning of her surgery?”

“Not really. I just administered the antibiotic.”

“And this was part of your assignment as the float nurse?”

“Yes.”

“But you were Alexandra Antone’s nurse, for this one medication. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“How did you give the Kefzol?”

“I injected the dose into her IV slowly over 5 minutes, as ordered.”

“Did you talk to Mrs. Antone at that time?”

“No. She was very sleepy. She’d received morphine in the Emergency Room.”

“Did you inject insulin into her intravenous bag instead of Kefzol?”

Lena jerked her head back and said, “No. I did not.” She looked over at me, and said, “This is ridiculous. What are you trying to do to me now, Nico?”