What We Find (Sullivan's Crossing, #1)(61)

“Besides experience and sound medical judgment? The ABCs—open airway, breathing, circulatory function, conscious. My patient was unconscious and he had a blown pupil, classic epidural hematoma—bleeding between the skull and brain. We had to drill holes in the skull immediately to get pressure off the brain. Another patient we pronounced; his heart was still beating but there was gray matter all over the gurney. We put him on life support for possible organ donation. The patient we sent for a CT was crying, bleeding, conscious, coherent.” She stopped talking and looked away. “He had a fatal hemorrhage before we could get him to the OR.”

“If he’d gotten to the operating room first, would he have lived?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? I can’t control everything that happens during surgery. Sometimes we get a brain bleed, a reaction to anesthesia, any number of things can go wrong. It’s always a risk. Always.”

“So a stroke was the cause of death?”

“The cause of death was five teenagers in a car traveling at a high rate of speed, lubricated by alcohol, hitting a guardrail and then a semi,” she said, almost defensively. She took a breath. “Yes. Stroke. With circumstances.”

“At least you got one to surgery.”

She sighed. “We lost him, too. He was the more critical. He was touch and go. Three teenage boys died that night. Two more were critical. It was devastating.”

“Aw, baby,” he said.

“You know, I don’t mind that they think I made the wrong call. I don’t mind that they’re angry and hate me. I don’t even mind if they sue me. But what I do mind is they think I don’t care. How could you do this job if you didn’t care? Sometimes I care so much it almost brings me to my knees. For the toughest of us there’s still an emotional cost.”

“I understand. As a defense attorney, I’ve faced people that think I want crime to pay or that it’s my intention to get bad people off. Neither being true.”

“I can imagine, though it’s unjust of them to judge you for your clients. But you must admit, with the unsavory element seeking your support, it’s at least understandable. You represent criminals. I save lives! I do everything humanly possible to save lives. That they’re not all savable isn’t my fault.”

Cal smiled patiently. “I don’t represent criminals. I represent individuals charged with crimes. Whether guilty or innocent is not up to me but decided by a judge and jury. The element I represent is the accused. The element I represent is you.”





Rather than love, than money, than fame,

give me truth.





—Henry David Thoreau





Chapter 12



Cal listened while Maggie explained, this wasn’t the first time she’d been sued. She’d been sued before and even though she’d never lost a suit, never even gone to trial, once the insurance carrier settled, that alone had caused her malpractice insurance rates to skyrocket. There were endless, time-consuming interviews and depositions before a judge just threw out the lawsuit. Even with a lawyer provided by the insurance carrier, on the advice of Walter, Maggie hired her own counsel and the hours invested cost her money, cost the hospital money. The absence of a surgeon was expensive.

This was her third suit in four years and while anyone can sue anyone for anything, it was still more than the average neurosurgeon faced in such a short period of time. The first went nowhere. The second settled early, in the pretrial motions because the plaintiffs took the first offer from the insurance company. This one had legs. Because so many of her colleagues would be deposed or subpoenaed, they were cool toward her. Maybe angry, maybe frightened, maybe just sick of the inconvenience. All of it left her in a toxic work environment.

She was weary, discouraged, lonely and broke.

Maggie had shifted positions so she was leaning up against Cal and they floated aimlessly, talking.

“And yet, I feel robbed,” she said. “I love what I do and I don’t feel I can do it. Every day it’s swimming against the current.”

“You might feel a lot better about that once you’re through this lawsuit.”

“I feel so guilty, walking away like I did. I meant to take a couple of weeks off, then I had Sully on my mind and it stretched out. I don’t mean to paint myself as some kind of savior, but what if people died because I couldn’t step up? After all the years and all the educational funds, I should be more committed, but I ran out of gas.”

“It’s okay to get tired, Maggie. Life’s too short to live with unnecessary pain and frustration. I ran away, too.”

“I plan to testify, to defend myself,” she said.

“If I were your lawyer I would strongly advise against it.”

“Why? I’d tell the absolute truth! I have nothing to hide.”

“The plaintiff’s attorney will hand you your ass. In trial, we never ask a question we don’t know the answer to and we never make a statement that can be convoluted into an exaggeration or change the direction of the case. If I were suing you and you told your side of things, I’d draw attention to your many lawsuits—”

“Not that many! And they were frivolous! Even though the insurance company settled one I never admitted to any guilt! No guilt was ever proven.”