Lassiter 07 - Flesh and Bones by Levine, Paul (ebook reader web .txt) 📕

"Sure."

"And what did you see?"

"Half a dozen old guys reading magazines."

"Exactly. A cardiology practice is not usually graced with the likes of Ms. Christina Bernhardt."

I was sitting in the office of Dr. Robert Rosen on Northeast 167th Street. He had a freestanding building within a quick jitney ride of the condo canyons of North Miami Beach. Median age of the neighborhood, somewhere between sixty-five and Riverside Chapel. The doctor had a Salvador Dali mustache and a bushy head of hair. He stared through wireless spectacles at Chrissy's file. On the wall behind his desk was an Impressionist painting of a woman in a garden.

"A lovely girl, Christina," he said, looking at an open folder containing medical records. "Referred to me by her GP for unexplained fainting spells. She admitted to occasional cocaine use, though not within the previous twelve months. We checked for inflammation of the heart, which proved negative. The fear, of course, is transient cardiac rhythm disturbance. That's what killed the young basketball player."

"Reggie Lewis," I said.

"That's him. Never should have played with his history of fainting. In his case, the heart went into ven fib; he lost consciousness instantly, like turning out the lights. No pulse, no blood pressure. Sometimes the heart goes back on track. Sometimes it doesn't, and the person dies."

"But that's not what Chrissy has."

"No. We did the tilt-table test. Raised her upright to eighty degrees. She passed out in . . ." He thumbed through the file. "Thirty-eight minutes. Classic neurocardiogenic syncope, not fatal. But you can get a pretty good bump on the head, depending where you fall."

"When she passes out, is it sudden, like with the rhythm disturbance?"

"No. It's more gradual, as the blood pressure and heart rate fall. She'd get woozy."

"And be semiconscious for several seconds?" I said. Leading my witness, or the guy who would soon be my witness.

"Yes, I suppose she would."

I thanked the doctor, who told me to forget his usual three-hundred-dollar consultation fee. I thanked him again, and he said to tell Christina it was just about time for a follow-up visit.

The second day of testimony started with the paramedic, a former Miami Beach lifeguard, who had transported Harry Bernhardt to the hospital. The subject—he used the police term—was bleeding from at least three gunshot wounds and rapidly going into shock. They took his blood pressure, ninety over sixty and falling; gave him an injection of ephedrine to stabilize him; put pressure bandages on the wounds; inserted an IV of Ringer's lactate, a salt solution; took an EKG, then transmitted the strip to the ER at Mount Sinai by portable fax; talked by radio to the trauma surgeon at the hospital; then administered oxygen. Yes, the subject was conscious.

"Did Mr. Bernhardt say anything?" I asked on cross. Which I wouldn't have done unless I knew the answer. Unlike the federal courts and many other states, Florida permits defendants to depose all prosecution witnesses before trial. So I knew the paramedic wouldn't blindside me: Yeah, the old guy said, "Christina, why did you do this? Why, after everything I've done for you?"

"He responded to my questions as to the location of his injuries and the medication he was taking," the paramedic said.

"Anything else?"

"He mumbled something."

"And what was that?" Sometimes prosecution witnesses take their instructions not to volunteer anything way too seriously.

" 'Emily.' He kept saying, 'Emily, I'm sorry.' Then I put the oxygen mask on him."

Yeah, I would have preferred him to say, Christina, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I raped you when you were a girl, and you have every right to shoot me, and if you hadn't done it, I would have done it myself. But you take what they give you. You plant little seeds, fertilize them if you can, and hope they grow.

"That's all he said?" I asked. " 'Emily'?"

"That's all I heard."

"And Emily was Mr. Bernhardt's late wife?"

"I wouldn't know that."

But now the jury would.

After the paramedic came Dr. Nubia Quintana, the surgeon who had debrided the wounds, inserted a tube through the chest wall to release blood and air from the chest cavity, stanched the internal bleeding, removed the two bullets that had not exited, and given Harry a good dose of antibiotics. She used fancy terms like "tension hemopneumothorax" but clearly gave the impression, which I liked, that the surgery had been no big deal.

"These bullets were twenty-two shorts, were they not?" I asked on cross-examination.

"I'd have to look at the police report," Dr. Quintana said. "They were small-caliber bullets, but whether they were twenty-twos or twenty-fives, I couldn't say." She had done her residency at Jackson Memorial, the public hospital, where the Saturday Night Gun and Knife Club produced significantly greater wounds on an hourly basis.

"And none of the wounds severed an artery?"

"No."

"Or caused extensive blood flow?"

"No."

"In fact, only the chest wound gave you any concern?"

The doctor smiled, a bit condescendingly. "I was concerned about all the wounds. The bullet that pierced the lung was the most serious."

"A bad choice of words on my part," I said humbly. Always admit your mistakes. The jury will like you for your semihonesty. "None of the wounds was life threatening, correct?"

"Not directly, not if treated correctly and promptly."

"Which was done here?"

"Yes."

"And after surgery, what was Mr. Bernhardt's condition?"

"Guarded condition."

"Life signs stable?"

"Yes."

"Heart rate and blood pressure normal?"

"Within normal ranges, yes."

"When Harry Bernhardt was wheeled out of surgery, you didn't expect him to die two hours later, did you?"

"Objection," Socolow called out. "The doctor's expectations are irrelevant."

"Not to me," I fired back. I was hoping the jury would disregard the judge's preliminary instruction and be pissed off at Abe for cutting off the flow of information.

"Overruled. Doctor, you may answer."

"No, I did not expect him to die."

"No further questions."

Abe Socolow popped back up. He knew where I was going. The element of causation. Doc Charlie Riggs never thought much of my argument, but you never know what will move a jury.

"Dr. Quintana," Abe began, "when you said that the wounds were not directly