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

"Well, it struck me as a little odd, so let's just take a look at it." The jurors leaned forward in their seats. I had them. I had Schein. I had the whole damn world just where I wanted it. Cindy handed me the daily transcript, provided efficiently by the stenographer for a sum equal to the gross national product of a small Caribbean nation.

"I asked you this question: 'So you blamed Harry for Emily Bernhardt's death?' And you answered, 'Yes. Not with a gun or a needle, but by stripping her of her dignity, keeping her prisoner in the home,' et cetera, et cetera. Now, what did that mean, 'Not with a gun or a needle'?"

"It's just an expression. It means, not with a weapon."

"Then wouldn't the expression be 'a gun or a knife'? Where does a needle fit into this?"

"Knife, needle . . . They sound alike."

"But you were thinking of a needle. So it made me wonder, Doctor, what would Freud say? Why were you thinking of a needle? What memories were lurking in your subconscious?"

"I have no idea."

"Going back to the night of June sixteenth at the Beach Mart Pharmacy, you also purchased a fifteen-gauge hypodermic needle, didn't you? If you like, I'll show you the store's cash register receipt."

A vein in his shaved scalp seemed to throb, but it could have been my imagination. He stretched his neck out of his shirt collar, then answered. "Yes, I sometimes inject tranquilizers into patients, and of course sodium amytal during hypnosis, as you know. I was out of syringes, so I . . ."

He drifted off.

"On the way to see Harry Bernhardt, who had just been shot and operated on, who was in the ICU, you stopped off to do some shopping—is that your testimony, Doctor?"

"Well, yes."

"Now you don't inject potassium chloride into any of your patients, do you, Doctor?"

"Of course not."

"What would happen if you were to inject potassium chloride into someone not undergoing surgery, someone not on a heart pump?"

"It would short-circuit the electrical activity of the heart."

"There'd be a rhythm disturbance, wouldn't there. Doctor?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"And the heart would go into ventricular fibrillation, then stop, indicating to all the world that the person died of cardiac arrest?"

"I didn't do that!"

"I didn't say you had."

"I've seen the autopsy report," Schein said, though no question was pending. Good. Let him run his mouth. "There's no indication of anything like that."

"No, there aren't even any unexplained puncture marks on the body, are there?"

"That's right."

"But if the potassium chloride had been injected directly into Harry Bernhardt's IV tube, it wouldn't leave any unexplained marks on the body, would it?"

"I suppose not."

"Is that how you did it, Dr. Schein? Did you pop a dose of KC1 right into the IV?"

"What are you saying! No!"

"Doctor, when the man you hated . . ."

Motive.

". . . was lying flat on his back, semiconscious and sedated . . ."

Opportunity.

". . . you took that fifteen-gauge hypodermic needle and injected his IV tube with a massive dose of potassium chloride, didn't you?"

Means.

"No!" He looked toward the judge for help but didn't get any.

"When the potassium chloride hit his arm, he started thrashing. Even coming out of the anesthesia, he could feel the sting of the KC1, couldn't he?"

"No! I don't know."

"Doctor, if I told you that the ocular fluids removed from Harry Bernhardt's eyes showed elevated levels of potassium, would that surprise you?"

"Not at all," he said, licking a bead of perspiration from his upper lip and calming down. He relished the question, had a ready answer. "Potassium levels increase after death. It's not an indication of hyperkalemia."

"To what level would they increase?"

"I don't know exactly, but they could easily double or more, say from five milliequivalents per liter to ten or fifteen."

"So if the test showed two hundred milliequivalents per liter, what would that suggest, Doctor?"

Good old Charlie Riggs.

"I'm not sure. But you can't prove . . ."

He let it hang there.

"And if a cardiologist with special expertise in heart rhythm disturbance comes into this courtroom after examining the EKG of Harry Bernhardt and identifies a widened QRS duration and subsequent ventricular fibrillation, indicating probable potassium poisoning, what then, Doctor? What do you say then?"

The swinging gate in the bar squeaked open, and Jonas Blackwell rushed through. "Your Honor, I request a brief recess."

"Denied!" the judge shouted. "And sit down."

The lawyer stopped in his tracks, looked around, and took a chair next to Cindy. Judge Stanger turned toward the witness. "Dr. Schein, there's a question pending. If you wish, the stenographer can read it back."

"I've made a ter . . ." Schein mumbled, his voice trailing off.

"What's that, Doctor?" the judge asked.

"I've made a terrible mistake," he said, his voice barely audible. "I believed Guy. I never would have done it had I known. I swear . . ."

Jonas Blackwell was on his feet. "Your Honor, my client invokes his Fifth Amendment rights. I request that the questioning be terminated."

"I said, sit down!" the judge thundered. He leaned close to the witness stand. "Doctor, your counsel suggests that you rely on your right against self-incrimination. Do you wish—"

"No!" Schein waved off the judge with a stiff gesture that reminded me of Richard Nixon on the day he quit. "Harry Bernhardt was an evil man. Maybe he didn't abuse Christina, but what he did to Emily was a crime. He knew we were in love. He could have let her go, but he was so cruel, so inhumane. And Emily was so beautiful and frail. She lost the will to live. It's Harry's fault she died, not mine."

That puzzled me. "No one said it was your fault."

"He killed her," Schein said, "maybe not with a gun or a needle."

There it was again. What was he saying? We weren't here to talk about Emily. Or were we?

"How did Emily die?" I asked.

Socolow stood up, seemed to think about objecting, and sat down again.

"I begged her to leave him." Not exactly responsive, but why