Illegally Dead Read online

  Acknowledgements

  This story is a work of my imagination, though I've made every effort to present accurate, true-to-life details. Mistakes, if any, are mine.

  I want to thank my friends and family for their ongoing support and patience. Special thanks go to my husband, Steve, who not only read the manuscript but put up with me as well; to my son, Benjamin, who is forever encouraging my writing, to my late father, Cale Dickey, who supplied basic genetic material as well as structured advice; to my readers and critics, Innette, Dirk, Randy, and Jennifer; and to my Mystery Maven pals, Chris and Janice.

  Lastly, I appreciate the patience and efforts of Marilyn Henderson, the editor of Pendulum Press who put this book on her website shortly before she was forced to discontinue operations. I thank her as well for returning all rights to me and granting me permission to use all materials related to the book.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Illegally Dead

  By Gregg E. Brickman

  One

  The middle-aged man sitting in the last row of the crowded south Florida courtroom looked like any other businessman with an expensive suit and an eelskin briefcase. Though the room was cool, he wiped his brow with a white cotton handkerchief.

  The plaintiff's attorney removed a small bottle of 7 UP from his duffle bag and placed it before him on the mahogany table. If he won the case, he'd drink it. If not, he'd return it to the bag and leave the room. He could afford to be eccentric. He made millions defending the rights of the downtrodden.

  One by one, impassive jurors took their seats in the box to the right of the counsel tables, while the foreman of the jury stood at attention.

  The judge cleared his throat several times and reached for an empty water pitcher. "Mr. Valentine, if you please, may I have some of your soda?" Judge Kelsey eyed the 7 UP bottle. He was short and squat with a round head and tired, puffy eyes.

  "Yes, Your Honor." Valentine hefted himself out of his chair to comply.

  They went back a long way, and the judge knew it wasn't only 7 UP in the bottle.

  Judge Kelsey sipped the beverage, ran his tongue over his thick lips, and motioned to the clerk to retrieve the verdict and give it to him. Unsmiling, he glanced at the handwritten message, then handed it back to the clerk.

  "The defendant will please rise," said the bailiff.

  Judge Kelsey directed his attention toward the defense table.

  ***

  Chamberlain Thorne, a well-respected local physician, felt relaxed. His double-vested Armani suit showed his slim, athletic body to its advantage.

  Flanked by a panel of high-priced defense attorneys, he rose, setting his square jaw and fixing his clear blue eyes on the judge. Everyone else involved in the Jones case had settled with the plaintiff long ago. But Thorne believed in the system. He'd done his best for his patient, stood with him and the family through several months of painful illness. He had included the young wife in every important decision.

  "The clerk will read the verdict," Judge Kelsey nodded to the clerk.

  "The jury finds for the plaintiff."

  Valentine drained the bottle in big gulps. He embraced the young widow, grabbed his throat, and collapsed.

  With the exception of two spectators, everyone in the courtroom glued their eyes to the drama playing out in front of the bench. The well-dressed man smiled, picked up his briefcase, and slipped from the room. A young woman holding a spiral notebook watched the man go before turning back toward the front.

  Valentine lay sprawled across his chair, his heavy body motionless, his baldpate reflecting the harsh overhead lights. A distinctive fecal smell announced the victim's loss of control of bodily functions. Still, no one moved. Seconds passed. The courtroom remained hushed.

  Putting personal feelings aside, Thorne rushed to help the fallen counselor. Taking a deep breath, he slid his fingers into the groove between the man's trachea and neck muscle, searching for the carotid pulse. Nothing. "Someone call 9-1-1. You," he pointed to the bailiff, "get the AED."

  "I called 9-1-1," a female voice said.

  "Ray," he said, motioning to his partner who sat in the first row of the gallery behind the defense table, "give me a hand."

  "Why don't you leave well enough alone? Next, he'll be suing you for helping him. No one will expect you to help a man who ripped you off for two million." Raymond Prentice, a raw boned, heavy man with a square head and flat, red face, didn't move.

  "I can't do that." Thorne grabbed Valentine's shoulders. "Now, help me lower him to the floor."

  "Okay, partner, whatever you say. You'll live to regret this."

  The two doctors lowered the stricken man to the floor and assumed kneeling positions on either side. Spectators gathered around, some pulling close for a better view and others leaning back or turning their faces away.

  "I doubt I'll regret it." Thorne leaned close to Valentine and held his ear close to the man's airway. "Nothing."

  He removed a small plastic shield from his wallet and covered the lower half of the lawyer's face. Then Thorne tilted the man's head, covered Valentine's mouth with his own, and delivered two long, slow breaths. Pausing, he checked again for the carotid pulse. "No pulse." He nodded to his partner. "Give us room," he said, scanning the crowd closing in around them.

  As the onlookers stepped away, those in front pushing and shoving, the men fell into the familiar rhythm of CPR, the only assistance they could provide without equipment or drugs. Thorne gave mouth-to-mouth while Prentice provided chest compressions.

  "One, two, three, four, five," Prentice counted. Soon, the smell of his sweat mixed with the putrid smells surrounding Valentine.

  The Flamingo Road courthouse sat across the street from the police department and adjacent to the Sawgrass Fire/Rescue Station One. Consequently, the paramedics arrived within minutes with the necessary equipment and drugs. Thorne and Prentice stood aside, allowing the medics to relieve them.

  The medics worked with quiet efficiency. Soon Valentine had a breathing tube inserted through his mouth into his trachea. The paramedic at Valentine's head attached the tube to an inflatable rubber bag called an Ambu and proceeded to deliver several breaths. The crowd watched in hushed silence as Valentine's chest rose and fell. A second paramedic inserted an intravenous catheter into a vein on the back of Valentine's hand. CPR continued as the rescue worker injected drugs into the rubber stopper on the IV line.

  Valentine didn't respond as medics loaded him onto the gurney or as they whisked him from the crowded courtroom through a passageway created by the parting crowd.

  "Doc," the senior paramedic said, lifting his end of the stretcher into the ambulance, "want to ride along?"

  "No," Prentice cut in before Thorne answered. "Get Nick Messing at Sawgrass Medical Center on the line. He can handle it from here."

&nbs
p; "But . . . but . . ." Thorne interrupted.

  Prentice glared at Thorne. "Trust me, you can't win on this one. Let Messing deal with it."

  The two physicians stood under the courthouse canopy watching the ambulance pull away from the curb.

  Through the back window, Thorne saw the paramedics continuing the resuscitation. Given the excellent CPR delivered by Prentice and himself and the rapid response of the emergency team, the guy could survive. No problem.

  But it was a problem. Nicholas Messing, medical director of the Emergency Department at SMC, pronounced Valentine dead within the hour.

  ***

  "Nick," Anthony Conte, the Emergency Department nurse manager said, as he walked down the hall to the nurses' station, "interesting timing, wouldn't you say?" He'd finished the code on Valentine with Nick Messing and stayed in the room to be certain the staff made Warren Valentine's body presentable for the family. It was a sudden, unexpected death, and Tony, as he preferred to be called, instructed his staff to leave all tubes in place. Routinely, he would notify the medical examiner.

  Tony's wife had encouraged him to pursue a nursing career after he returned home from a six-year tour of duty as a Special Forces Medical Sergeant. Since he was comfortable with the unexpected, it wasn't long before he transferred to the Emergency Department where he put his battlefield experience and sometimes even his martial arts expertise to good use. Now, as department manager, he directed the nursing staff and other health care workers as they went about their duties.

  Nick looked up from the chart he was working on and slid his half glasses down onto the bridge of his nose. "I wouldn't normally say so, but there'll be a lot of happy people when the news gets around about this one." He tapped Valentine's chart with his index finger. "This guy sued at least eight men on this staff that I remember—big verdicts in each case. He's become rich off the blood of physicians." He sat on a tall stool next to the high counter and peered at Tony over the top of the dainty frames.

  "Have you had anything to do with him?" Tony retrieved a nearby stool and perched on it, one long leg extending to the floor in front of him. He smelled of antibacterial soap and body fluids. He'd scrubbed his hands twice after stripping off his vinyl gloves, but the odors from the patient lingered.

  "Yes, sure. Schmeck, Rivera's lawyer, is with Valentine's firm."

  "When's that case going to settle?"

  "It won't. Their demands are unreasonable. The plaintiff wants the maximum on the policies from both Prentice and me. Plus they want a couple of million from the hospital. The insurance companies are refusing to settle. They claim it's blackmail. We go to court next month."

  "It sounds like Rivera thinks his lottery number has come up."

  "It has, and I'm afraid I'm about to get sued again. The same firm nailed me with another notice of intent the day before yesterday."

  "Merda, for what?"

  "Remember last fall when the guy—ah, Milton Carlson was his name—came in with epigastric pain? We treated him, diagnosed a probable myocardial infarction, and sent him upstairs under the care of his attending physician. Carlson's wife was concerned at the time—nervous, very nervous. His MI was confirmed and treated. Then he died a few days later of a stomach bleed."

  "I remember the patient. Unfortunate circumstances, but what's the connection to you?"

  "It's fairly simple, really. There was a bad result, and someone has to be at fault. Schmeck, that's Valentine's partner, is suing everyone who touched the chart. We ruled out gastric involvement at the time, but the guy had a long history of ulcers. The stress of the hospitalization stirred things up in his gut. The situation got worse quickly. There was nothing the attending physician could do about it," Nick said.

  "Do you have anything to worry about?" Tony raised a questioning eyebrow.

  "Not in the long run. There will be a lot of aggravation in the process."

  "If I can help, let me know."

  "Thanks, I appreciate the support."

  "Back to Valentine." Tony reached for the chart. "Do you have an opinion about the cause of death?"

  "It looks cardiac. Maybe his wife can enlighten us about his history."

  "She's in the quiet room with a friend. I'll go with you and give her a hand after she hears the news."

  Nick glanced again at Tony before returning to the final entry on the chart. They had developed a good working relationship over the last couple of years. Tony was a superb clinician and a competent manager. And, he made sure the details were attended to.

  Tony checked to be sure the patient was presentable for the family, closed the curtain, and dimmed the lights in the treatment room. Nick would be along in a minute.

  Tony flicked a lock of straight black hair off his forehead, straightened his dark blue scrubs, then waited near the door of the room. He stood six-one and weighed one-seventy. Years of karate and weight training had shaped his muscled physique, and the thin cotton uniform concealed little, leaving little doubt about his physical prowess. "Abigail," he said to a passing nurse, "I'll be out in the quiet room with Messing. Keep things under control for a while."

  "Okay." She paused, leaning close. "Is this guy the lawyer for the Jones case, the one that's suing Chamberlain?"

  "Yes. Didn't he call you?"

  "Not unless there's a message for me at the desk. What happened?"

  Tony filled her in on what the paramedics had said about the episode in the courthouse, including Thorne's heroics.

  "That's my Chamberlain. Always doctoring, no matter what." Abigail Stern raised her chin and fixed her clear blue eyes on Tony's face, her pride in and love for Thorne evident in her gentle smile.

  "Abigail, do me a favor. Call Administration and tell Eva Grear that Warren Valentine, the big malpractice lawyer, expired. She'll want to make sure the Public Relations people know. They'll field the calls from the media. And, tell everyone to be sure to forward any calls to PR. The staff shouldn't answer any inquiries themselves. We'll need to protect the family's privacy."

  Tony followed Nick into the quiet room and waited as the aging physician delivered the bad news to the stoic wife. "Mrs. Valentine, did your husband have a history of heart disease?" Tony asked after Nick left.

  "Not him personally, but his family has a long history. Just last month his physician told him his cholesterol was three-fifty and put him on medication. He refused to follow his diet, and he refused to quit drinking," Irene Valentine said. The slim matron looked younger than her fifty years. She wore a striking multi-colored shell over black stretch slacks, modest diamond stud earrings, and a plain gold wedding band.

  "I'm told he had a bottle with him in court today."

  Mrs. Valentine dabbed at a single tear. "Well, Warren said the case was going well, and he was going to win. It was his habit to take something along to celebrate. But to tell you the truth, I didn't see him this morning." She blew her nose. "I'm not surprised he's dead. I told him he was killing himself. Working all those hours, drinking the way he did, and he was always in an argument with someone, usually the defendant's attorney. Sometimes the defendants called him themselves. Warren made them very angry."

  "What did he like to drink?" Tony asked, wanting to confirm the odor that assailed him during the resuscitation effort.

  "Amaretto mixed with 7 UP. It started in law school and continued through the years. He had a superstition, like some golfers have about certain shirts or hats. He believed it brought him luck. He said it sealed the victory."

  "What else can you tell me about his habits or his health?" Tony wanted to supply the medical examiner with as much information as possible. Since they hadn't obtained a medical history, there was scant information in the record.

  "The doctor told him he was a heart attack waiting to happen, but he hadn't had one. He didn't exercise much, just worked. And he refused to do anything to get down below two hundred and ten pounds. He refused to diet."

  Tony noted the name of the Valentines' family physician,
then left Mrs. Valentine in the quiet room with her friend. He found Nick in his office in the rear of the Emergency Department and filled him in on Valentine's Amaretto and 7 UP tradition. "Do you think Valentine chugged the booze and provoked a heart attack?"

  Nick pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose with one finger. "Could be. But it shouldn't all of a sudden kill him. From what his wife said, he's been doing the same thing for years."

  "Something doesn't smell right to me."

  "Oh no. Here we go again."

  "The only place I'm going is home. Jennifer called and said she felt ill. She'll need help with the kids." Tony saw Eva Grear, the nursing administrator, approaching through an access corridor from the main hospital.

  "Go ahead home," Eva said. Her dark, curly hair framed her face, touching the collar of her charcoal gray suit. "Your staff can handle the rest of the shift. PR has this event under control."

  "Thanks, Eva." Tony waved a hand at Nick and the few staff members in the area. "I'm out of here."

  Two

  Tony exited the hospital parking lot, swung into traffic, and accelerated to catch the light. As he turned off Sunrise Boulevard onto Yardley Way, he admired his neighborhood. Ten years earlier, an enterprising developer had nestled the Enclave, a small neighborhood of affordable homes, in amongst the fancier developments. A couple of years ago, he and Jennifer were lucky enough to find a four-bedroom house with the garage converted to a mother-in-law apartment. They grabbed the opportunity.

  Sawgrass, a bedroom community bordering the Everglades west of Ft. Lauderdale, had incorporated fifteen years ago and soon attracted upwardly mobile young families. The original residents became the backbone of the new community, which boasted a population of forty thousand within the city limits. Over time, the city drew its own cadre of professionals, developed a base of local businesses, and established necessary city services and county branch offices.

  "Hey, where's everybody?" he called, opening the front door to the two-story, white house.

  "I'm back here lying down."