“I can’t help it. This is what I do all day in school.”
“Well, you’re not in law school right now, I’m not one of your professors, and it’s almost midnight.” He pulled up the covers and let his head fall back onto the pillow. “We’ll talk about this in the morning. You need your rest.”
“Don’t just cut me off like that,” she said, turning the night table light back on. “This issue has nothing to do with being self-righteous, and it has nothing to do with being in law school. Besides, I’m already awake, Ryan. I want to finish this discussion.”
Chandler blew a long sigh through his lips. “Okay, fine. Try looking at it from a different perspective. Assume for a minute that the defense hasn’t thought of this lot number discrepancy. For all I know, they may have. But if they haven’t, by bringing it to their attention, I’d be helping Brittany Harding. A lot of the critical evidence against her could be brought into question. The saliva, lip prints, and DNA could be thrown out because the cans would naturally have her identifying marks all over them if someone took them from her recycling bin. At the very least, it could provide just enough reasonable doubt to get her off. If not in this trial, then on appeal. And regardless of what might come up at some later date, they’d never be able to try her again for that crime. Now why would I want to do that? Would justice really be served? Besides, I’d potentially be helping a murderer go free. That’s not me.”
“But it’s not about you. It’s about justice. It’s not your place to play judge and jury. Do you remember what you used to say? That our judicial system is the best in the world, but that it was full of loopholes?”
“It is. When a judge would let some asshole go free on a technicality, I’d head for the bathroom and puke.”
“You’d be tied up in knots for days. And I took the brunt of it.”
“What’s your point?”
“You had to find a way of dealing with it so it wouldn’t tear you apart. You accepted the fact that you had to take our system as it was, and work within its confines until new rules were made. You realized that taking the law into your own hands wouldn’t work. Otherwise, where would it leave us? Where would it leave society? If cops had the power to decide who’s guilty and who’s not on the spot and issue a sentence right there on the street, there’d be chaos. Until something or someone changes the system, the best way-the only way-is to turn over all the evidence and let the court do with it as it sees fit. As twelve impartial people see fit.”
“You sound like such a typical law student.”
“Actually, I was quoting you. In case you don’t remember, it’s because of those weaknesses in the system that you pushed me to go to law school.”
“I didn’t push you.”
“You said one way to change the system was for me to do it from the inside.”
Chandler sighed and rolled onto his opposite side, away from Denise.
“Turning your back on me isn’t the answer.” She sat up, leaned on her elbow, and peered over his shoulder. “You need to give them the information, Ryan.”
“A theory about beer can lot numbers isn’t evidence, Denise.”
“If you were a defense attorney, wouldn’t you try and introduce it as evidence? The judge would decide if it is or it isn’t. But if he lets it in, a jury just may listen. You said it yourself: it could be enough to create reasonable doubt.”
“Then let her attorney think of it. That’s his job: I’m not going to be the one to give Harding a get-out-of-jail-free card. Especially when she doesn’t deserve it.”
“But it shouldn’t be your decision. It can’t be your decision, or the system falls apart.”
He bit his lip and shook his head.
Denise awaited a response, but Chandler was quiet. Finally, she reached over and picked up the phone. “If you think these are just the ramblings of a green law school student, call Jeffrey Hellman and ask him what he thinks. Or call the DA who’s prosecuting the case against Harding and ask him.”
Chandler rolled out of bed and walked over to the window to draw the shade. The streetlights of the city lit up the avenue below with an orange luminescence, as if a setting sun were descending behind the tall buildings.
“Denise, the Madisons have two young children. Brittany Harding is a sick individual who’s done some horrid things. If she went free because of information I gave her attorney, the Madisons wouldn’t be safe. Their children wouldn’t be safe. If something happened to them, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” He turned to face her. “Think of Noah asleep in the other room. About our child growing inside you right now, as we speak. How would you feel if someone did something that endangered their lives? That’s what I’d be doing to Phil’s kids.”
“So you think the best thing to do is to just let it go. Forget about it, bury it. Be the judge and the jury, all by yourself?” She paused and waited for a response. Chandler was silent. “What this comes down to, Ryan, is would you be able to live with yourself if you don’t turn the information over?”
Chandler shrugged and stared out the window for along moment. “I don’t know, Denise. I just don’t know.”
Having just left the OR after nearly nine hours of surgery, Madison was exhausted. The case, which had been referred to him just prior to the revocation of his privileges, required a specific procedure that Madison had pioneered a couple of years ago in northern California. Despite their star surgeon’s uncertain status with the hospital, John Stevens and the rest of the board agreed that transporting the patient to San Francisco for the operation, or bringing in another surgeon for this one specialized procedure, could be more damaging than granting Madison temporary surgical status.
Stevens also pointed out that with his legal situation having significantly improved, this move was a potential precursor to reinstatement of full privileges.
Madison walked out into the waiting area, still in his surgical garb, and gave the patient’s family the good news: the operation went well. After asking a few questions, they thanked him and he trudged off down the hallway toward the lounge. Five chairs were haphazardly arranged around an oval table, with a mini refrigerator sitting atop a counter next to the sink. He entered the small room, grabbed a granola bar from the cabinet, and ripped it open. He realized that he was not only exhausted, he was famished as well.
A moment later, having finished the granola bar, he pulled himself out of the lounge and headed down the hallway toward the locker room to shower and change. Before he could undress, however, a message was handed to him by an orderly who made a quick exit.
Madison stared at the slip of paper: “The jury is returning with a verdict.” He felt his chest tightening, the air in the locker room suddenly becoming thin and stale. He snatched his cell phone from the locker and dialed Leeza. The machine snapped on. “It’s me, meet me at the courthouse if you get this,” he managed to blurt. He struggled for a deep breath, dialed her cell phone, and left a voicemail message there as well.
He began to perspire heavily, the weight on his chest squeezing tighter. He stumbled into the restroom five feet away, leaned over the sink and splashed his face with cold water.
The nausea began in waves, his knees feeling like wet noodles. He stumbled backward into a stall and fell onto the toilet.
“I want my life back!” he yelled into the dead air. But John Stevens’s voice was echoing in his head. “It’s not over…it’ll never be over.”
He grabbed his hair and pulled, hoping the pain would overshadow the heightening nausea. Suddenly, a spasm from deep in his neck clamped down on his throat, an uncontrollable urge rising up from his stomach. He whirled off the toilet and, crouching in front of it, heaved, then heaved again, until he filled the bowl with vomit and bile…the rough grains of granola scraping the lining of his esophagus as they surged upward through his throat.
He knelt over the toilet, the narrow stall a prison, the confining walls moving in on him. He clamped his eyes shut, brushed the hair back off his face, and tried to breathe deeply. But the pressure on his chest was too great. He stood up, grabbed the door to steady himself, and slipped, falling back onto the toilet.