“Sit down!” Calvin boomed from the back of the room.
Jack sat in one of the chairs in front of Bingham’s desk. He didn’t look back. As he expected and feared, Calvin was not taken in by his tactics the way Bingham was.
Calvin’s imposing bulk appeared out of the corner of Jack’s line of vision. Slowly Jack raised his eyes to look at him. Calvin had his hands on his hips, his face drawn, his eyes blazing. He towered over Jack. “Cut the bullshit, Stapleton!” he thundered. “You know damn well you’re not supposed to be out there running around the city, flashing your badge around like a renegade TV cop.”
“Looking back, I realize I didn’t handle it well,” Jack admitted.
“Was this some kind of personal vendetta against chiropractic?” Bingham demanded.
“Yes, it was personal.”
“Do you care to explain?” Bingham demanded.
“You mean other than chiropractic has no business treating illnesses that have nothing to do with the spine? Or that chiropractic bases its rationale for such treatment on an idiotic outdated mystical concept of innate intelligence that has never been found or measured or explained? Or that such treatment often involves cervical manipulations that can cause death, like in my twenty-seven-year-old patient?”
Bingham and Washington exchanged a dismayed glance at Jack’s emotional outburst.
“That all may or may not be true,” Bingham said, “but what makes it personal?”
“I’d rather not get into that,” Jack said, forcing himself to calm down. He knew he was letting his emotions get the better of him, just as he had at the chiropractor’s office. “It’s a long story and the association is what you would call rather indirect.”
“You’d rather not get into that,” Bingham repeated scornfully, “but we might feel it is necessary, and that if you don’t do it, it might be at your peril. Since you might not have been served with a subpoena yet, it’s my unpleasant responsibility to inform you that you and the OCME are being sued by a Dr. Ronald Newhouse...”
“He’s not a doctor, for chrissake,” Jack blurted. “He’s a goddamn chiropractor.”
Bingham and Washington exchanged another quick glance. Bingham was clearly frustrated, like a parent with a recalcitrant teenager. Calvin was less generous. He was just plain furious and finding it difficult to hold his tongue.
“For the moment, your opinion of chiropractic doesn’t matter,” Bingham said. “It was your actions that are in question here, and the gentleman in question is most likely a doctor of chiropractic. You and the OCME are being sued for slander, defamation of character, assault—”
“I never touched the guy,” Jack interrupted. He was finding it difficult to follow his own advice in regard to his emotions.
“You do not have to touch someone to be sued for assault. The plaintiff only has to believe you are about to injure him in some way. Were you in his office yelling at him?”
“I suppose,” Jack admitted.
“Did you threaten to have him arrested for killing his patient?”
“I suppose,” Jack said sheepishly.
“You suppose!” Bingham echoed with heightened scorn, momentarily throwing up his arms toward the ceiling in exasperation. Then, raising his voice, he yelled, “I’ll tell you what I think it is: It’s an egregious misuse of official authority. I have the mind to kick your ass outta here and put you on unpaid administrative leave until this mess is sorted out.”
A chill went down Jack’s spine. If he was put on leave, his lifeline to emotional sanity would be cut. He’d have to stay home, and Laurie would have to come to work instead. He’d have to assume responsibility for taking care of JJ. Oh my God! Jack voiced inwardly. He suddenly felt desperate, even more than he’d been feeling up until then. The last time he’d been in a similar circumstance facing Bingham’s wrath, he didn’t care about himself. But now he couldn’t afford to be self-destructive. His family needed him. He couldn’t get depressed. Bingham was right; it was a mess.
Bingham noisily took in a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. He looked up at Calvin, who still glared down at Jack. “What do you think, Calvin?” Bingham asked. His voice had calmed to near normal.
“What do I think about what?” Calvin demanded. “Whether we put this asshole on administrative leave or beat him to a bloody pulp?”
“You met with the general counsel, not I,” Bingham said. “What was her opinion about the indemnity issue? Is she confident our insurance will cover this episode whether the suit settles or goes to trial?”
“She thought it should. After all, it’s not a criminal suit.”
“What about the possibility of Stapleton’s actions being considered purposefully malicious?”
“She was less sure about that possibility.”
Jack looked from Bingham to Calvin and back. For the moment they were ignoring him, as if he wasn’t even there. After several more exchanges between the two men, Bingham switched his attention to Jack. “What we’re talking about here is whether you’re going to be covered by insurance. According to your contract, the OCME indemnifies you for malpractice, except if the malpractice involves criminality or is considered malicious, meaning you were doing it on purpose instead of by accident.”
“I didn’t go to the chiropractor’s office to injure anybody, if that’s what you mean,” Jack said contritely. He had the sense that the situation was spiraling out of control.
“That’s reassuring,” Bingham said. “We have to decide if we are going to defend you or not. Of course, it has some bearing whether or not our insurance will cover a judgment against you. If it won’t, then you’ll probably have to defend yourself, which could be expensive, I’m afraid.”
“My motives were definitely not malicious,” Jack said, as his heart skipped a beat at the prospect of having to defend himself. With Laurie on leave and the extra expenses of JJ’s illness, he didn’t have money for a lawyer. “I didn’t go to the chiropractor’s office with any other intent except to find out if he had seen my patient professionally, and whether or not he had manipulated her cervical spine.”
“What was the cause of death again?” Bingham asked.
“Bilateral vertebral artery dissection,” Jack said.
“Really!” Bingham commented, as if he’d heard it for the first time. Immediately, his eyes glazed over. It was a physiological reflex for him whenever his brain sifted through the thousands of forensic cases in which he’d been involved over his extensive career.
Although Bingham could struggle at times with remembering recent events, like the cause of death of Keara Abelard, which Jack had mentioned only moments earlier, his distant recall was encyclopedic. A moment later he blinked and roused himself, as if waking from a trance. “I’ve had three cases of VAC,” he reported.
“Were they caused by chiropractic manipulation?” Jack asked hopefully. Still, it was becoming clear to him that he wasn’t going to be able to keep his private life separate from his professional life if he wanted to avoid being put on administrative leave or worse. He was going to have to admit to JJ’s illness and his difficulty dealing with it. Only then might Bingham and Calvin excuse his unthinking behavior the day before.
“Two of them were associated with chiropractic care,” Bingham said. “The other was idiopathic, meaning we never did find out. Now, let me tell you...” For the next few minutes, Jack and Calvin had to listen to Bingham retell the stories of his three VAD cases. Although it was always impressive to hear the level of detail Bingham could remember, at the moment Jack found it tedious at best, yet common sense told him not to interrupt. Having decided to reveal John Junior’s cancer, he was eager to do it and get it over with.