That morning, I was headed to Denis’s house to give him a ride to work—his FBI car was in the repair shop again. It was great to spend time with him, even if it meant inching through South Jersey traffic. Denis had recently been promoted to Washington to serve on the U.S. Attorney General’s protective detail and I would miss him when he left in January.
When I got to Denis’s house, he slipped into the front seat as the first chords of the song “Panama” by Van Halen began to jam on the radio, and he cranked it up. I recall this vividly, because it was the day that the United States invaded Panama. We both enjoyed the joke. I sang and drove. Denis played air guitar.
The corruption squad’s annual Christmas party was that afternoon at a bar in Pennsauken, New Jersey. We would drive into Philly, then after work head to the party. It would be a good day. At the office, we squeezed in a day’s worth of paperwork in time to make it to the party by 2 p.m. We met everyone at a place called The Pub, a sprawling South Jersey landmark at the foot of a triangle of busy highway ramps and arteries. A former speakeasy, The Pub had evolved into a large restaurant, an oversized Swiss chalet with medieval flair—swords and shields on the walls, burgundy carpet, simple brown wooden chairs and tables. The Pub’s size, location, and bland grub made it a perfect place for an office party. We spent two hours exchanging gifts and talking shop. There was typical ribbing, but this was the corruption squad, a buttoned-down crew, so they kept it light. When we finally paid the bill, most of us wandered over to the bar for a beer. Denis was up for more and he tried to move the party to a bar called Taylor’s for a drink or two. He was single and tried to hit free happy-hour buffets whenever he could. It was nearly 7 p.m. and I wanted to go home, but I figured this might be the last time I could hang out with Denis before he moved. I found a pay phone and let Donna know I would be late.
Taylor’s Bar and Grille isn’t much—a suburban sports bar in a strip mall near the edge of the abandoned Garden State Race Track. But it was packed. I forced my way to the bar, grabbed my second beer of the evening, and found a table. Denis and a fellow agent hit the buffet. Soon, Denis was talking up a cute woman named Pamela. I felt like a third wheel.
By 9:30 p.m., Denis was still dancing with Pamela and I was way overdue at home. I pulled Denis aside. “Buddy, I gotta get back. You ready to go?”
“Look, not yet,” he said. He pointed to Pamela with his eyes. “If that works out, I won’t need a ride. I need to find out, so I need you to stick around.”
We went back and forth like this for another hour. Denis was having fun, dancing, drinking shots of tequila with Pamela. He brought me another beer and shot me a grin. I gave him a look that said, “Let’s go.” Around 11 p.m., I’d had enough. I grabbed our coats, took Denis by the arm, led him off the dance floor to the car. He didn’t resist.
It was only one hundred yards from Taylor’s to Race Track Circle, but this was South Jersey, land of jug-handles, no left turns, and Jersey barriers, so you could only get there by going in the opposite direction and making a series of winding right turns. By the time we reached the circle, Denis was asleep. I slowed as I approached the circle, and as I did, a bright white light flashed in my rearview mirror. There was a two-inch-high concrete curb at the foot of the circle, channeling traffic to the right, but I was distracted by the light and didn’t see this curb. The car hit the curb at about thirty-five miles an hour, and the steering wheel vibrated violently, throwing my hands into the air. When I regained the wheel a second later and tried to turn into the circle, I got no response. We were airborne.
We landed just before the edge of the circle, hurtled into the oval interior, skidded sideways, and flipped, left wheels over right. When the car’s roof slammed down on my head, everything went black.
At Cooper University Hospital, Denis and I were rolled into the same trauma room and a surgeon drew blood from our shoulders. The doctor asked me if I had had anything to drink. It was important, she said, for me to tell the truth, because they were going to administer pain medication. I thought back to my first beer at The Pub early in the afternoon. “Probably four or five beers over eight hours.” She nodded.
I looked over at Denis. There was a little blood on his cheek, but he didn’t look too bad. Denis caught my eye. “Am I going to be OK?” he mumbled.
I really didn’t know. “It’s OK, buddy. You’re going to be fine, partner.”
They wheeled Denis away.
The nurse told me I had four broken ribs, a concussion, and a punctured lung. The doctors performed a thoracostomy, cracking open my chest and inserting a tube into my damaged lung, draining fluid from my chest. About an hour later, I found myself lying in a recovery room, a plastic tube in my left side, surrounded by nurses, a doctor, and my FBI supervisor. I asked about Denis and they said he was still in surgery.
“You guys are lucky,” the doctor said. “Your injuries aren’t life threatening.” He pointed to the bed next to mine. “Your friend will be back soon.”
Medicated, I drifted off.
Three hours later, I woke with the hard winter sun. I felt foggy, sore, confused. I reached up to my head and felt small pieces of windshield glass matted in my hair, a walnut-sized lump on the right side of my skull. I saw a nurse chatting with a female FBI agent and my wife by the door. Donna turned her bloodshot blue eyes to mine. She offered a nervous smile. The bed beside me was empty.
I winced as I spoke. “Where’s Denis?”
The ladies glanced at the floor.
“Where’s Denis?”
“He’s not here,” the nurse said.
“When is he coming up? He’s still in the OR?”
The nurse hesitated and the agent stepped forward. “Denis didn’t make it. He died.”
“What… what?…” My chest burned. My throat constricted. I coughed and the nurse stepped toward me. They’d told me he was going to make it! What was it the doctor had said? “The injuries are not life threatening.” Yes, those were his exact words. Not life threatening.
Donna crossed to my side. She held me and we cried.
“He had a ruptured aorta,” the nurse said, carefully. “He came back from surgery and then it ruptured around 4 a.m. We couldn’t stop the bleeding.” I sat mute for a few seconds and stared into her eyes. I think she felt compelled to fill the silence. “It’s common in this kind of accident,” the nurse said. I suppose she thought she was being helpful. I felt devastated.
I floated through eight days in the hospital, trying to lose the pain. Denis was buried while I was there. Fellow agents called with updates describing the funeral, but it was hard to focus. I thought about Denis’s family.
Before I left, a psychiatrist came to see me. I don’t remember the conversation, but years later I came across his handwritten notes: “Patient has feelings of guilt, anguish, chagrin, and humiliation. He feels solidly supported by wife, staff here, coworkers, and bosses…. Acute posttraumatic stress disorder… acute grief.”
A few days later, a reporter called me in my hospital room. She wanted to know if I had any comment on the investigation, or about the blood-alcohol results.
“What are you talking about?”
She told me the local county prosecutor was considering drunk-driving manslaughter charges against me. The prosecutor claimed that my blood alcohol level was .21, more than twice the legal limit. I told the reporter I had no comment. I hung up and tried to digest what she’d said. The blood test results sounded absurd. A beer every two hours over eight hours didn’t get you to .21. It probably didn’t even get you to .04. My mind raced for an explanation. Obviously, there was a mistake in the blood test. But where? And how? More important, could I prove it?