The 5th Horseman - James Patterson [47]
Across the top of the grid were the headings “patient name,” “patient’s physicians,” “date of death,” “cause of death.”
I skimmed the data, then flipped to the second page.
Leo Harris was last on the list, and just above his name—Keiko Castellano.
My heart lurched as I stared at the name of Yuki’s mom.
I saw her sweet face in my mind, then her eyes covered with those vile brass markers.
Blaring car horns brought me out of my trance.
“Okay, okay!” I shouted, putting the Explorer in gear. The car jumped forward as I stepped on the gas.
I was thinking ahead as well.
Whiteley had said he didn’t want details of the buttons to get out—but a sleazy cover-up wasn’t evidence of murder.
We already had stacks of bona fide homicides to solve and too few inspectors to handle them. I needed more than a handful of buttons and a list of names before I went to Tracchio or the DA.
If I wanted some answers, I’d have to work around the edges of the system.
And I’d have to ask a big favor of a friend.
Chapter 69
YUKI SETTLED INTO HER SEAT in the courtroom as the lunch recess ended. Larry Kramer had begun to mount his case in defense of his client, Municipal Hospital. And she’d watched Maureen O’Mara attack his witnesses on cross.
It had been a spirited dance and good theater for the media, but these had been emotionally draining, grueling days for Yuki.
She tried to read the jurors’ faces, and it seemed to her that they had been satisfied with Kramer’s string of witnesses, nodding their heads as each doctor, each clever executive explained away deaths that should never have happened.
Yuki opened her pad and looked over her notes on Carl Whiteley’s testimony that morning. The hospital CEO had been fluent, even funny, under Kramer’s softball questioning.
Then O’Mara had drilled the CEO, asking him what she had asked the others: “Isn’t it true that pharmaceutical-based fatalities have increased threefold since Municipal was privatized three years ago?”
Whiteley had agreed—but unlike Sonja Engstrom, he hadn’t flubbed his lines. He whitewashed the individual deaths and threw national statistics at O’Mara, enough data to numb the jurors’ minds.
“Redirect, Mr. Kramer?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Kramer stood, addressing his witness from the defense table. “Those statistics you quoted, Mr. Whiteley. Between fifty thousand and a hundred thousand patients die annually from medical errors in the United States. This is commonly accepted knowledge?”
“That’s right,” said Whiteley. “According to the ISMP, approximately seven thousand people die each year from medication errors alone.”
Yuki scribbled in her notebook, getting it all down. The facts were shocking, but she didn’t care about what Whiteley had to say. He was an apologist, a corporate suit, the warm-up act. She’d stolen a glance at the defense table during the last recess.
She’d seen the witness lineup.
For a week, she’d waited for the next witness to take the stand.
As soon as Kramer was done with Whiteley, he was going to call Dr. Dennis Garza.
Chapter 70
KRAMER SHUFFLED PAPERS as Dennis Garza was sworn in, thinking, You don’t always get the witnesses you want. You get the witnesses you get.
Kramer looked up to see the undeniably good-looking doctor straighten his Armani jacket as he took the witness seat. He shot the cuffs of his tailored shirt, crossed his legs, sat perfectly straight and completely at ease.
Garza looked more like a Hollywood actor than a guy who was up to his wrists in blood and guts sixty hours a week.
But even that wasn’t the problem.
What worried Kramer was that Garza was as volatile as he was cocky. He’d resisted being prepped, saying that after twenty-two years of medical practice, he was fully capable of answering the charges against the hospital.
Kramer hoped to hell he was right.
Garza’s testimony could tip the case. This was it. Kramer smiled tightly and greeted his witness.
“Dr. Garza, you’re aware of the plaintiffs