A Fatal Debt (21 page)

The only other people in the room were a court reporter and Baer, who sat cozily with each other in another box; he shuffled through his papers and she stroked the keys of her transcription machine. The twenty-three members of the jury were sitting on two raked rows of chairs as if we were in an experimental Off-Broadway theater.

Joe had briefed me one last time on how it worked—urging me not to talk too much, just to answer questions briefly—and was cooling his heels in the hallway. As Pagonis had said, he wasn’t allowed in the room. There was no judge to interrupt Baer, who’d walked us up to the jury room at his usual stately pace, and Joe’s plea for me to halt proceedings and come out to consult him if I was worried felt like a poor substitute.

When I’d called Joe to tell him about Pagonis delivering the subpoena, he’d sounded gloomily unsurprised, like a man who wasn’t disappointed by events because he always expected the worst. “I didn’t want to worry you, but I thought he might do this. We should talk,” he’d said.

The next day at his office, he’d told me how it worked. Mostly, grand juries were impaneled to arraign and indict suspects. They heard ADAs present preliminary evidence and rubber-stamped indictments.
The hard work of proving that the suspect had committed the crime came later, in a full trial. But the grand jury could also investigate a case if the ADA had an unwilling witness he wanted to put under oath. That was what Baer had done to me—unless I took the Fifth Amendment, I had to testify.

“You first treated Mr. Shapiro in the psychiatric emergency room at Episcopal, is that correct?” Baer said.

Joe had told me to look at the jury and to try to be sympathetic, but when I glanced up, I wasn’t encouraged. The foreman who had put me under oath, a chunky man with a gold chain and a chin bulging beneath a trimmed beard, was staring at me as if I were a defendant rather than a witness.

“Mr. Shapiro was brought to the hospital by his wife. I assessed him there and advised him to admit himself voluntarily, which he did.”

“On what grounds?”

“I believed he was a danger to self—that he was at risk of suicide. He had a number of symptoms of depression. He’d lost his job and his wife was concerned about his mental state.”

“Did he tell you he might kill himself?”

“He didn’t say that directly.”

“Why did you believe it, then?”

“His wife had found him earlier that day at their house in East Hampton with a gun on his desk. She’d been worried.”

Mention of the gun brought the jury to life. A woman in the front row who had been glancing around as if not fully engaged sat up in her seat, and a man at the back gave a silent exclamation, his mouth shaped in an “O.” I tried to maintain a blank, neutral expression, as if I were an expert witness, but my heart thudded as I waited for Baer’s next question. If he asked me more about the gun, I’d have to say that Nora had brought it into the ER and I’d let her leave with it. There were too many witnesses to lie.

“So you knew he was dangerous?” Baer said, an edge in his voice.

It was his toughest question so far, but it wasn’t what I had feared, and I relaxed a little. Joe had anticipated that question, and so far, we
were within our prepared testimony. We had practiced in a long rectangular room at his office with blinds covering the windows to block out the sunshine. I’d sat at one end of a mahogany table and Joe had walked up and down, lobbing questions at me. He’d filmed my responses and afterward we’d watched my performance on a screen that covered an entire wall at the head of the table, observing each hesitation and note of anxiety. It was reverse therapy—an exercise in hiding my feelings.

“I was concerned that Mr. Shapiro might be a danger to himself. I never believed he was a danger to anyone else.”

“Your diagnosis was wrong, then?”

I started to feel the absence of a judge in the room.
Surely he would object to this kind of questioning?
I thought. It wasn’t just the foreman who seemed to regard me as the defendant. Taking my eyes off the jury, I looked across at Baer and the court reporter, who had her head bowed over the machine. He gazed back at me mildly but imperturbably, as if I’d brought this on myself by being uncooperative.

“Mr. Shapiro hasn’t faced trial, so I can’t say,” I said.

Strictly speaking, I was pushing the truth since Harry had admitted killing Greene to me, but I was legally correct, as Baer conceded with a tight smile and a skeptical glance to the jury.

“He stayed in the hospital two days and then you discharged him, I believe. You let him out, just like that. The man you’d been so worried about only two days before, a man who had been found with a gun?”

“He’d admitted himself voluntarily and he expressed the wish to leave on Monday. We’d started treatment and I didn’t think there was cause to convert him to involuntary status.”

Baer’s eyes glinted. “So Mr. Shapiro became your private patient. Until he was arrested one week later for killing Mr. Greene, that is. That must have felt good. He was a rich and powerful banker, Episcopal’s biggest donor. Quite a catch.”

I felt things slipping out of my control. Baer was right—that was
exactly the thought that had gone through my mind. Wanting to acquire a rich patient wasn’t such a crime; that was why Jim had relocated to Park Avenue, for God’s sake. But Greene’s death had changed everything, transformed human ambition into medical misconduct. I hesitated, wondering whether I should insist on a pause in the hearing and go out to the hallway to get Joe’s advice, but it felt as if it would be an open indication of guilt.

“I—I wanted to ensure that Mr. Shapiro was cared for properly,” I stammered. “Just as I’d have done for any patient.”

“How do you normally treat patients?”

“I don’t understand.”

“They come to your office, don’t they? But Mr. Shapiro didn’t do that. You went to his house in East Hampton. And you got special treatment in return. You’d helped him out, so he flew you to London in his private jet, didn’t he?”

One juror gasped when he said it, and another one scribbled a note on paper. My mind went blank and I struggled to find a way to explain why I’d taken that Gulfstream flight.
I had to protect Harry. He should have been in hospital. I’d been told I had to discharge him. I’m not to blame
. After a few interminable seconds, I refocused, with everyone in the room staring at me, and forced out a reply.

“My father had taken ill and I had to visit him. Mrs. Shapiro offered the flight so I could see her husband promptly. I thought it would be wise.”

“You’re saying Mr. Shapiro wasn’t stable? You’d discharged him but you were still worried about him?”

“I just wanted to be sure.”

The half truth I’d just told about Harry’s discharge made me sound guilty of terrible misconduct—guilty alone.
That’s it
, I thought as Baer paused so that the jury could absorb my testimony.
Whatever Duncan does, my career is finished
.

“You did everything Shapiro wanted because he’d bought you off. He had you on a string, didn’t he?”

“It wasn’t like that,” I muttered, unable to look at him. My face
was flushed and two middle-aged women on the jury were gazing at me sympathetically, as if it were a one-sided boxing match that should be halted.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Baer said, sensing the mood and bringing his questioning adeptly to an end.

I found Joe outside, sitting on a low bench by one window, doing correspondence on a BlackBerry. “Go okay?” he said brightly.

I couldn’t bear to tell him what had gone on—my head was still reeling. We walked to Baer’s office, where my tormentor had invited us for a post-hearing discussion. He had taken off his jacket and loosened a couple of buttons on his waistcoat by the time we got there and looked satisfied.

“I hope you didn’t think I was too hard on you, Doctor. Just wanted to get some of the facts established,” he said, shaking Joe’s hand.

I saw Joe wince as he realized something nasty had occurred out of his sight. “What’s next?” he asked Baer, moving to the critical point.

“We’ll see. We can keep Dr. Cowper’s grand jury testimony under seal for now, not hand it to the defense immediately. I don’t want to cause him any trouble that I don’t need to. But you and I should talk about how he might help us, whether he’ll cooperate now. Shall we take a stroll?”

Sitting in Joe’s car, I saw him and Baer through the windshield a hundred yards away, their shapes outlined against the gray prison walls. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I got a sense of it from watching Baer’s gestures and Joe’s solemn, accommodating nods as they walked side by side.

They looked like what they were—two professionals who had abandoned the job’s public showmanship and were striking a deal. I was still shaken from the trauma of giving evidence and I wanted to escape from that place, with all its nasty associations, as fast as I could, but Joe had asked me to wait. I thought of Harry playing cards
or lifting weights in the jail that loomed above their heads. They talked for twenty minutes and then I saw them shaking hands. Baer headed toward the DA’s offices and Joe turned back to me. He kept his head down as he walked, looking grim and pensive. As he approached the car, he looked up and smiled, but it required an effort.

“So?” I said as he climbed in beside me.

“Let’s get a coffee,” he said, starting the car.

There was a McDonald’s on the traffic circle near the jail, its giant yellow “M” stuck on a pole above the chaletlike shack, and Joe turned into the parking lot without preamble. Whatever he had to say, he wasn’t going to soften it by taking me somewhere fancier. We lined up for two bland, frothy approximations of cappuccino and took them to an empty booth, where Joe stirred the contents of his foam cup vigorously, as if he might find flavor in its depths. I imagined the inmates watching this place from across the highway, longing for Big Macs.

When Joe spoke, he was more solemn than I’d seen him before. His encounter with Baer had squashed his usual good cheer.

“I’m sorry about what happened in there,” he said. “It sounded like it wasn’t any fun. That guy’s pretty tough. I’m glad I don’t spend too much time out here. New York City’s a playground compared with Suffolk County.”

“It felt like that on the witness stand,” I said

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t like the sound of the Gulfstream when your dad told me about it. It doesn’t appeal to a jury, although you were doing your best to help the guy. The thing that worries me is that Baer knows a lot of stuff we don’t want him to know. It sounds like he has more up his sleeve, too. Someone’s been talking to that detective of his. Usually, I’d suspect the defense, but that doesn’t make sense. They don’t want it to look like Shapiro planned to kill Greene.”

Joe stirred his cup a couple more times—he had not yet placed it to his lips—and looked at me closely.

“Who do you think talked?”

“I don’t know.”

He didn’t say anything but kept gazing at me as he finally took a
sip from the cup. He didn’t bother to hide his disbelief. Beneath that southern charm, that sunny chatter, I knew then, was a lawyer who was used to spotting lies and whose patience with my half truths had run out.

“I’ll tell you something that Roger said when he first asked me about you,” he said. “He said: ‘My son’s a very bright young man, but he keeps secrets. You never know exactly what he’s thinking. Maybe that’s why he’s good at his job.’ I’ve got to say, Ben, I think he knows you pretty well. There’s stuff you haven’t told all the way through this affair. It was okay until now. I guessed you had your reasons. But maybe you don’t know how serious it’s becoming.”

“I do know. I found out in there,” I said, avoiding his main accusation.

“So I’ll ask again. Who do you think it was?”

I looked out of the window. In the distance, I saw the jail and the woods that petered out a few miles south into flats and dunes. The Long Island settlers hadn’t been able to cultivate the salty land by the sea and had sold their prime real estate to anyone who would take it. I thought of Anna abandoning me on my last visit, striding off along this beach. I’d done everything she had asked of me, and I couldn’t keep faith with her anymore. The gash on my forehead was nearly healed, colors fading like old stains, and I touched it as I spoke.

“This,” I said. “I wasn’t mugged. Someone followed me in the park and attacked me. He ransacked my apartment, too.”

“Go on,” Joe said quietly.

“I’d been out that evening with a woman. She’s called Anna Amundsen. I met her …” I paused for a few seconds before carrying on. It felt even worse to say it aloud. “When I saw Shapiro in East Hampton. She’s his housekeeper.”

“Shit,” Joe said. He looked struck dumb, as if he’d expected me to confess to some minor misdemeanor but had uncovered a felony.

“She knows who attacked me, I think. She knows a lot about the Shapiros. I asked her—I saw her two weeks ago—but she wouldn’t say.”

“Shit,” Joe repeated blankly.

He didn’t look angry, more horrified at the expanse of legal liability that had opened before him. I struggled to force out the last part of my confession, feeling even worse than I had in front of the jury.

“Anna’s … well, I was attracted to her. It was kind of a date. I shouldn’t have done it, I know. It was stupid of me, you don’t have to tell me that. She told me something about Mr. Shapiro, but I promised to keep it secret.”

“This date,” he said warily. “How far did things get?”

“Nothing. Well, she kissed me once. Briefly.”

“Okay, I don’t need all the details. Could be worse, I suppose. What was it that your pretty friend told you?”

I sighed and tried to look as apologetic as I could. Bad as I felt, I somehow felt worse for Joe that he had been landed with me. Those nights out with my father in Las Vegas had cost him dearly.

“I’m afraid I can’t say because it’s covered by doctor-patient privilege. It’s not Anna and it’s not Harry. I know that he’s waived privilege,” I said hurriedly. “It’s another one of my patients.”

Joe closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands. He remained in that posture for a full minute while I waited sheepishly. Then something happened that surprised me—his shoulders started shaking and I saw that he was laughing.