Silent Justice (43 page)

“I have seen the cancers develop in hundreds of laboratory rats—”

“But what about people, Doctor? We’re interested in people.”

“Don’t be absurd. I can’t experiment on people.”

“Oh, well, that’s convenient, isn’t it? The truth is, you have no proof that these chemicals have any adverse effects on people.”

“I have scientific evidence—”

“Proof, Doctor. We want proof.”

Rimland was becoming so agitated he almost rose out of his chair. “Tainted water clearly caused a higher incidence of disease in laboratory animals. Obviously—”

“If it’s so obvious, sir, why does Dr. Daimler disagree with you? Or, for that matter, the rest of the medical community?”

That stung. “I don’t believe Dr. Daimler agrees or disagrees. He thinks we need to do more testing—and I agree. His criticism is that he believes I published too soon.”

“And why did you do that?” Another knowing glance at the jury. “Maybe to help raise funds for your ‘organization’?”

“I did it because I thought it might help people. There’s no reason for children to go on dying because of tainted water.”

“So you rushed to get your name into print.”

“If I were a parent of a child with leukemia, I’d want to know everything there was to know, as soon as I could know it!”

“Even if you can’t prove your outlandish accusations?”

“Common sense tells me—”

“We don’t want common sense, sir. We want proof. Concrete legal proof. And you don’t have any.”

“Don’t have any proof! I’ve been studying this for almost a decade! You’ve seen my results! It’s clear—”

“The problem with your results, Doctor, is that they have nothing to do with this case.”

“What?”

“We’re not here to talk about some poor unfortunates in New Jersey, and we certainly don’t care about lab rats. We care about the eleven children in Blackwood who died. And you don’t know anything about them, do you?”

“I think I do. I—”

“You weren’t their doctor.”

“No, of course not, but—”

“Did you ever meet any of them?”

“No, but—”

“Did you examine their bodies?”

“You know that would be impossible.”

“Did you test the water in Blackwood?”

“No, it—”

“Then how can you possibly sit there and try to tell the jury what caused these deaths? You don’t know what killed those poor children. You’re just guessing! Speculating! Saying what you’ve been paid to say!”

“Your honor,” Ben said, “I object!”

Perry shrugged. “The man has been paid. He’s admitted that.”

“But this goes beyond—”

Perry cut him off. “Unless you have an objection, counsel, pipe down.”

“Look,” Rimland said, “this is science, not a traffic accident. Science moves forward by small steps—”

“You’re making excuses, Doctor,” Colby said.

“I’m not. I’m trying to explain. What you’re asking is absurd.”

“Asking for proof is absurd?”

“This isn’t a game we’re playing!” His face flushed. “You’re asking all these questions to obfuscate the truth, not to elicit it. We’re talking about something that kills children!”

Colby made a show of not being impressed. “When the witness has no proof, he resorts to dramatics.”

“If you want to get right down to it, no study has
ever proven
that smoking causes lung cancer. But everyone in this courtroom knows perfectly well that it does. By the same token, I can’t work backward and prove with absolute certainty what caused a specific incidence of childhood leukemia. But when the water is tainted with chemicals, and you know those chemicals cause cancer, common sense tells you—”

“Your honor,” Colby said, cutting him off, “the witness is not being responsive.”

“Answer the question,” Judge Perry growled.

“And I move that the witness’s rant be stricken.”

“So stricken.”

“No!” Ben jumped to his feet. “Your honor! He
was
answering the question. You can’t tell the jury to ignore the most important—”

“I’ve ruled, counsel. Sit down.” Perry’s face was lined with anger. “Don’t you ever tell me what I may or may not do in my courtroom. And be grateful I don’t strike everything this witness has said. I find his testimony speculative and unconvincing in the extreme.”

Ben almost exploded. What was the judge doing? He was practically ordering the jury to ignore Rimland. That was grossly improper—and devastating.

Colby held up his hands. “I’m finished, your honor.”

“Good. The witness may step down.”

Ben bounced back to his feet. “Your honor, I have some redirect—”

“Forget it. I’ve had enough of this … ‘expert.’“

“I’ll be brief, your honor, but—”

“This witness has wasted too much of our time already, counsel. I’m going to very seriously reconsider Mr. Colby’s
Daubert
motion tonight, because I do not think you have met the standards that this case requires. So don’t push your luck.” He grabbed the papers on his desk, scooped them up, and walked briskly toward his chambers door. “This court is in recess. Everybody go home!”

J
ONES AND LOVING WERE
waiting at the office door when the trial party, Ben, Christina, and Professor Matthews, returned.

“Well?” Jones asked anxiously. “How did the medical experts do? How is the trial going?”

Ben didn’t answer. Matthews tried to fill the gap. “Like any trial,” he said professorially, “it has its ups and downs. It’s not nearly over yet.”

Jones’s eyes crinkled. “What does that mean?”

Ben slammed his briefcase down on a desk. “It means we’re getting our butts served to us on a platter.”

“Now, Ben,” Matthews said, “it isn’t that bad.”

“We’re getting whipped. And you know it.”

“What about the medical experts?” Jones asked. “How did they do?”

“They sucked gas.” Ben threw himself down in the nearest chair. “It was embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing? We paid fifty thousand dollars for embarrassing?”

“It wasn’t their fault. Colby ripped them apart. There was nothing they could do. He was ready for everything. He undermined their testimony, made them look like snake-oil salesmen.”

“I don’t know,” Christina said. “I think some of the jurors liked Dr. Rimland. And believed him.”

“It won’t be enough,” Ben moaned. “Not against Colby.”

Christina gave Ben a sharp look but said nothing.

Jones decided to change the subject. “What took you so long to get back? I thought the courthouse closed over an hour ago.”

“We stopped at the hospital,” Ben explained. “Wanted to check on Mrs. Marmelstein.”

Jones declined to ask the obvious follow-up question. This new subject seemed to depress Ben even more than the first.

“Loving?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, Skipper?”

“How goes the search? For Paulie.”

Loving was visibly less comfortable. “I’ve made some progress. I’ve confirmed that there is such a person, and he is her son. He was born in New York State, which made the search all the harder. He should be about fifty-two now.”

“But have you found him?”

“No. I’m still lookin’, though. Takes a while to comb records in every state, even with Jones helpin" on the computer. "Specially when you don’t have a social security number. Still, it can’t take more than a month or—”

“I don’t think we have a month,” Ben said somberly. “I’m not sure we have two weeks. According to the doctors, she could go …” His voice trailed off. He never managed to complete the sentence, not that it was necessary.

“Can I bring up one more incredibly depressing subject?” Jones said. “We’re broke.”

“We’ve been broke for months. Since we started this case.”

“Which I told you not to take. But of course, I’m not the type to say I told you so.” Jones sniffed. “But we’re more than just broke now. We’re deep in debt, hocked to the hilt, they’re-coming-to-take-us-away broke.”

“They’ve got my car,” Ben said. “What else can they take?”

“Well, all this mediocre office furniture, for starters. And then the equipment. And then the office itself. And how are we going to continue this endless trial without an office?”

“The bank won’t do that. They have a stake in this trial, too.”

“Don’t be so sure. The Brain’s taking some major criticism for giving us that last loan, which you squandered on today’s suck-o witness. I’ll think he’d do just about anything right now to collect some of the debt.”

“There must be something else we can do. Some option …”

“Then you tell me what it is.” Jones dropped a tall stack of credit cards on his desk. “These are all maxed out to the hilt, and I can promise you no one’s going to give us another one. I’ve been transferring funds between accounts and kiting checks like some kind of mob money launderer.”

“Take the money in petty cash and—”

“There is no petty cash, Ben. There hasn’t been for weeks.” Jones folded his arms angrily. “Hell, we don’t even have money in the coffee kitty. We can’t even afford lunch!”

“I’ll make our lunches,” Christina chimed in. “I’ll fix sandwiches and bring them with me in the morning.”

“Still—”

“And we can all pitch in on the coffee.”

“Says you,” Jones sniffed. “I haven’t had a paycheck for a month.”

“None of us have, Jones. But we have to stick together.”

“The supplies company has cut us off. That means no legal pads. No typing paper. No toner cartridges.”

“We’ll have to make do. Eliminate everything that’s unnecessary. Cancel all the newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Stop paying the membership dues. Turn off the heat—”

“I did all that long ago.”

Christina jumped back in. “Maybe if we made some kind of appeal to the press—”

“Who are you kidding? The press lost interest in this case weeks ago. They were hot for a day or so, when it was fresh and new. But they soon moved on to other, more important subjects. Like the mayor’s sex life.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Christina insisted. “Something we haven’t thought of.”

“There isn’t.” Jones was resolute. “This is serious. We can’t continue like this.”

“We have no choice. We can’t abandon everything in the middle of the trial.”

“We can’t go on when we can’t pay the bills! Maybe if we accept Colby’s settlement offer—”

“That was an insult!” Christina said. “Peanuts!”

“We need peanuts!” Jones insisted. “We need something!”

“Would you two please stop it!” Ben’s voice boomed out of nowhere, startling them. “I’ve had as much of this crap as I can take!” His jaw clenched, he marched off. He made a beeline for his private office, then closed the door behind him.

All four of the others watched as he disappeared from sight.

“Does this mean there’s no team meeting tonight?” Professor Matthews asked.

Ben was sitting at his desk, not looking at the outline in front of him, when Christina floated into his office.

“Did you knock?” Ben asked. “Because I didn’t hear a knock.”

“No, I didn’t knock. Because you’re so busy feeling sorry for yourself you’d probably have told me to go away.”

“Now listen—”

“No, you listen, buster, and listen up good. I know we’re deep in a major-league mess. But that’s no excuse for shouting at everyone and holing up in your office when we should be preparing.”

“What is there to prepare? We played our best card. And we lost.”

“Our best card, for your information, will be when we put our clients, the bereaved parents, on the stand. In case you’ve forgotten, that starts tomorrow. You have to be ready for it.”

“I’m ready. Not that it will matter.”

Christina leaned into his face. “What’s wrong with you? This isn’t the Ben Kincaid I know.”

“Christina, I’m not in the mood for this—”

“As if I give a damn. Look, I know this trial has been long and hard. I know we’re in an uphill struggle. But you can’t give up. You’ve got to keep trying.”

“I have been trying. I’ve been doing everything I can.”

“Have you?” She continued glaring at him. “Look, I wasn’t going to bring this up now, but since you broached the subject—” She pushed him back by the shoulders. “What the hell was wrong with you in the courtroom today?”

“Nothing was wrong with me.”

“Nothing personal, Ben—but you sucked.”

Ben drew his head back. “Excuse me?”

“Sorry, pal. I call "em like I see "em. Colby was using you for a doormat.”

Ben averted his eyes. “Colby is a very experienced litigator.”

“So what? I’ve seen you go toe-to-toe with the best, and you’ve always held your own. But for some reason—in this case—it’s like …” She thought for a moment. “It’s like you’ve been walking on eggshells from the get-go. Even at the very start, you were playing it cool, trying to hold down the emotion.”

“I’m just trying to be smart. Not do anything improper. There’s a lot at stake here.”

Christina’s head began to nod. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s because there’s so much at stake. I should’ve seen it before. Eleven sets of parents who’ve lost their children. And they come to you. I should’ve known that would knock your heart for a loop.”

“Christina, it isn’t—”

“You’re afraid of letting them down, aren’t you? That’s what’s going on here.”

“This isn’t just … another lawsuit.”

“No, it isn’t. So you’re trying to play it safe. Not do anything stupid. Nothing that might embarrass them, or dishonor their cause. But the ironic thing is, by playing it safe, staying low-key—you’re giving Colby the opening he needs to stomp all over you.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.”

“Am I? Colby was making objections right and left, delivering little speeches to the jury. Why weren’t you protesting?”

“He has the judge in his back pocket.”

“And what about that speech Judge Perry made at the end of the day, discrediting your witness? That was grossly prejudicial. Why didn’t you move for a mistrial?”

“He would’ve denied it.”

“Of course he would’ve denied it. But at least you would’ve registered your displeasure. Might’ve made him think twice about doing it again.”

“Or it might’ve made him toss me out of the courtroom on my butt. And then where would the plaintiffs be? Don’t you see? I can’t take the risk.”