12

My father’s lawyer friend kept his office in Rockefeller Center, high above the honking taxis and lost tourists of midtown. A swaying elevator carried me with a whoosh forty-five floors above the gloomy lobby to the light-filled world aloft. I sat in the reception area for a couple of minutes, then heard footsteps and a shout of greeting. A man emerged quickly around a corner and, as I rose, grabbed me in a hug and slapped my back, although we had never met and he was six inches shorter than me.

“Ben, it’s great to meet you,” he cried. “I’m Joe Solomon. You’re the spitting image of your dad. A privilege to meet you. He’s always talked a lot about you. He’s proud of you, you know. Let’s see what I can do for you.”

Up to the neck, he was neatly groomed in a suit and silk tie, but his hair spilled out in gray curls and his blue eyes bulged from a round, ruddy face, suggesting that the clothes were only just holding him in. His accent sounded southern. I’d never heard of him before now. My father had called him a friend, but I didn’t know if that was really true or if it was just his term for someone who might be useful. Yet I still found my father’s reported words touching. I’d never heard them from the man himself.

We walked to Joe’s office, which was on a corner with a view looking south toward the harbor. Whatever he did for a living, it was treating him well. He leaned back in a chair and put his feet on his desk, one leg crossed over the other.

“How much did your father tell you about me?” he asked.

“Just that you were a friend and he trusted you.”

He beamed. “Well, that’s awful kind of him. He’s a gentleman, your dad. We met at a legal conference in Las Vegas a few years back. It was pretty dry stuff during the day, but we had some fun at night, I’ll tell you.”

I smiled politely. That could mean anything in Las Vegas, and I didn’t know Joe well enough to guess-and perhaps not my father, either. I was relieved to be there and by the thought of having someone to protect me, but I was unsure of how much to tell him. I’d been to see my patient in Riverhead, as I was duty-bound to do, and I’d talked to Harry’s wife. Neither of those had been improper. But I’d also done something he’d probably warn me against if he knew. I’d called Anna, responding to her silent invitation by the door of the apartment. Discussing the case with someone who might be a witness and was close to my former patient wasn’t by the legal or medical book, but I’d been unable to restrain myself. I wanted to know more about Harry. Truth be told, I also craved her presence.

“It’s kind of you to see me, Mr. Solomon.”

“Hell, forget it. Never mind helping out Roger’s son, I’d work pro bono to get on the Shapiro case. Well, on insurance, anyway. It works out much the same. Let me tell you about me. I’m kind of an unusual animal. This firm mostly does civil work, corporate and tax and things like that. Lots of money in it, but no fun. Then they have me. When any of our clients gets imaginative, I do criminal defense. I’m like those guys who advertise on the subways, except a bit more upscale.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said, and he giggled and slapped the desk beside his legs as if he and I were already pals.

“It’s quite a story, isn’t it?” he said, looking serious for the first time. “We’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other. Roger told me about what happened. Sounds to me like you’ve got caught up in something serious, but I know it wasn’t your fault. You were doing your best to treat this guy, weren’t you?”

“I was,” I said. He’d put it better than I’d managed myself. It was comforting to have a professional on my side.

“Roger said you got ambushed by the Suffolk County cops. Next time it happens, tell them you need your lawyer present and nothing else. It’s no surprise they’ve got a ninety-seven percent conviction rate. A lot of people confess to all kinds of things in that place before they get to call a lawyer. And you know what? They don’t use any tapes. They write out the confessions and get the poor guys to sign. They don’t stand a chance.”

I thought of the neat confession Pagonis had showed me outside the Riverhead jail, with its reference to me discharging Harry. It hadn’t looked like his handwriting.

“I didn’t tell them anything,” I said.

“Good, that’s always best. So I’ve talked to the DA’s office, who were as helpful as usual-in other words not at all-and to Henry Barber, who’s his attorney. He’s an old friend and he dropped me a couple of hints. I reckon they’ll admit to the killing and plead extreme emotional disturbance. Are you familiar with that?”

“I’ve heard of it.” We were taught mental health law in residency, although I’d just started going out with Rebecca and I wasn’t concentrating very hard. “Maybe you could explain it again.”

“It’s like a weaker version of the insanity defense,” Joe said. “If he was mad, say hallucinating or schizophrenic, he’d be locked up in a state psychiatric hospital instead of a jail. The defendant doesn’t have to be crazy for emotional disturbance. It’s being overcome in the moment and not knowing what you’re doing. Like a man who comes home and finds his wife in bed with another guy and kills him. I’d go for that in their shoes, given that he’s confessed.”

“How does that help?”

“Knocks murder two down to manslaughter if a jury goes for it. I don’t imagine the DA would accept a plea. Shapiro could get ten years instead of life, less maybe. Juries don’t like it. It suggests the defendant wasn’t responsible, and he’s not a sympathetic guy, but it could work. The best thing for them is the discharge from Episcopal. They can say the guy was unstable, was on drugs. He’d been admitted to the hospital to protect him from himself. That’s good for them.”

“Right,” I said grimly.

“So that’s the criminal case, then after that there’ll be a civil suit. Greene’s family can sue the hospital and you for wrongful death. They’ll wait until Shapiro’s been convicted so the cops dig up all the evidence first. They’ll say you were responsible for discharging him negligently. There’s a doctor-patient relationship and harm’s been done, so they just have to show a breach of duty of care and a causal link to the killing. The good news is that it’ll take a long time, so who knows what’s going to happen? The suit could get settled out of court. Insurers are risk-averse. They don’t like to fight.”

I felt pummeled by bad news. I’d expected to be told something like this, but hearing him set it out so matter-of-factly, as if there were very little I could do to change my fate, was shocking. Joe had saved the worst until last, though.

“Finally, there’s professional misconduct,” he said. “Mrs. Greene could complain to the Office of Professional Medical Conduct in New York State that you were negligent, and try to get your license taken away. I don’t think that’ll happen, Ben,” he added, seeing me frown worriedly. “You’re young and perhaps you might have made a small mistake. With the hospital on your side, you’ll survive.”

“I have a question,” I said. “What difference does it make that Episcopal’s president told me I should release Mr. Shapiro?”

I had the small satisfaction of knocking Joe off his guard with that. He removed his feet from where they had been resting on his desk during his peroration and sat upright in his chair.

“Did he?” he said.

“She. Yes, she did. He wanted to be discharged and she emphasized that the Shapiros were big donors to the hospital. She said to use my judgment, but to make sure that I made the right decision.”

“Make sure you made the right decision,” he repeated skeptically, and I realized how hollow it sounded out of context.

“She said ‘but,’ ” I said, feeling stupid. “ ‘But make the right decision.’ It was clear what she meant. She’d called me to her office to make sure I obeyed.”