Patterson, James: Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

I flagged down Loretta, ordered a pitcher of margaritas, turned off my cell phone, then said to Cindy, “You look like you’re hatching something.”

“You’re good. And you’re right,” she said with a grin. She licked salt off her upper lip and set down her glass.

“I’ve got a lead on a story that’s going to be a bombshell,” Cindy said. “And I think I’ve got it to myself — at least for a while.”

“Do tell,” said Claire. “You’ve got the talking stick, girlfriend.”

Cindy laughed and launched into her story.

“I overheard a couple of lawyers talking in an elevator. They arrr-oused my interest,” Cindy said with a funny, leonine growl, “and I followed up.”

“Don’t you just love blabbermouths?” I said, pouring margaritas for Claire and myself, then topping off Cindy’s glass.

“Some of my favorite people,” Cindy said, leaning in toward the center of the table.

“So here’s the prepublication scoop. There’s a malpractice suit starting against a huge hospital right here in Metropolis,” she told us. “Last couple of years, a number of patients who were admitted through the emergency room fully recovered. Then, a few days later, according to what I overheard between the lobby and the fourth floor of the Civic Center Courthouse, those patients died. Because they got the wrong medication.”

I eyed Cindy over the rim of my glass. A feeling was starting to grow in the center of my chest, a feeling I hoped would disappear as she continued her story.

“This hotshot lawyer named Maureen O’Mara is going after the hospital, representing a bunch of the patients’ families,” Cindy was saying.

“Which hospital?” I asked. “Can you tell me?”

“Well, sure, Linds. San Francisco Municipal.”

I heard Claire say, “Oh, no,” as the feeling in my gut mushroomed.

“I just spent the night at Municipal holding Yuki’s hand,” I said. “We brought her mom into the emergency room yesterday afternoon.”

“Let’s not go crazy, here,” Cindy said quietly. “It’s a humongous hospital. There’s one doctor in particular in the crosshairs, a guy named Garza. Apparently, most of the deceased in question were admitted on his watch.”

“Oh my God,” I said, my blood pressure spiking so I felt heat through the top of my head. “He’s the one. I met him. That’s the doctor who admitted Yuki’s mother!”

Just then, the air moved at the back of my neck, and silky hair brushed the side of my face as someone bent down to kiss my cheek.

“Did you just mention my name?” Yuki asked. She slipped into the empty seat beside Cindy. “What’d I miss?”

“Cindy is working on a story.”

“It’s something I think you should know,” said Claire.

Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

Chapter 15

YUKI’S EYES WERE BEAMING question marks, but suddenly Cindy seemed reluctant to talk.

“You can trust me,” Yuki said earnestly. “I understand what ‘off the record’ means.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Cindy said.

Loretta came by, greeted Yuki, and unloaded a tray of jerk chicken and spareribs dripping sauce. After a few halting starts and a few sips of her margarita, Cindy repeated to Yuki what she’d just told us about Maureen O’Mara’s pending case against Municipal Hospital.

“Actually, I know a lot about this,” Yuki said when Cindy was finished. “O’Mara’s been putting this case together for about a year.”

“Really? Come onnnn,” Cindy said. “How do you know?”

“I have a friend, an associate at Friedman, Bannion and O’Mara,” Yuki said. “She told me ’cause she’s thrown a ton of man-hours into this case. Tremendous amount of research involved. A lot of medical technicalities to plow through. It should be a hell of a trial,” Yuki continued. “O’Mara never loses. But this time, she’s shooting the moon.”

“Everyone loses sometimes,” Claire offered.

“I know, but Maureen O’Mara carefully picks cases she knows she can win,” Yuki said.

Maybe Yuki was missing the point, so I had to say it. “Yuki, doesn’t it worry you that your mom is at Municipal?”

“Nah. Just because Maureen O’Mara is taking on the case doesn’t mean the hospital is guilty. Lawyer’s credo: anyone can sue anyone for anything.

“Really, you guys,” Yuki said, her words going her usual rat-a-tat, sixty-five miles an hour. “I had my appendix taken out there a couple of years ago. Had an excellent doctor. And first-class care until I left the hospital.”

“So how is your mom?” Claire asked.

“She’s in fine form,” said Yuki. Then she laughed. “You know how I know? She tried to fix me up with her cardiologist. Bald guy in his forties with tiny hands and dog breath.”

We all laughed as Yuki’s animated reenactment lit up the table. She did her mom so well, I could see Keiko as if she were right there.

“I said, ‘Mom, he’s not for me.’ So she said, ‘Yuki-eh. Looks mean nothing. Dr. Pierce honest man. He good man. Looks for mag-azines.’ I said, ‘Mom, Daddy looked like Frank Sinatra. What are you talking about?’”

“So are you going out with him?” Cindy asked, sending us into new rounds of laughter.

Yuki shook her head. “You mean, if he asks me? You mean, if my mom grabs his cell phone and dials my number for him?”

We were having so much fun the band had to dial up the music a notch to be heard over our good time. Twenty minutes later, Yuki left the table before the coffee and chocolate mud pie, saying she wanted to see Keiko again before visiting hours were over.

Despite her rapid-fire talk, and our good-time chatter, there were worry lines between Yuki’s beautiful brown eyes when she told us all good night.

Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

Chapter 16

MAUREEN O’MARA FELT HER PULSE beating in her temples. Was that possible? Well, that’s how pumped she was. She pulled open one of the massive steel-and-glass doors to the Civic Center Courthouse and entered the cool gray interior.

Goddamn.

Today was the day. She owned this place.

She handed her briefcase to the security guard, who put it on the X-ray machine and checked it as she cleared the metal detectors. He nodded good morning and returned her seven-hundred-dollar “lucky” Louis Vuitton case with a smile.

“Best a’ luck today, Miss O’Mara.”

“Thanks, Kevin.”

O’Mara showed the guard her crossed fingers; then she cut through the milling crowd in the lobby and headed toward the elevator bank.

She was thinking as she walked — about how her stuffy, know-it-all partners had told her that she was insane to take on the huge, well-defended hospital, to try to weave twenty individual claims into one gigantic malpractice case.

But she couldn’t have turned it down. This one was too good.

The first patients had found her — then she’d seen the pattern. The momentum had built rapidly, then snowballed, and soon she’d become the go-to lawyer for patients with serious grievances against Municipal.

Putting this case together had been like corralling wild horses while standing on the seat of a motorbike and juggling bowling balls. But she’d done it.

Over the last fourteen months, she’d slogged through the discovery process, the endless depositions, lined up her seventy-six witnesses — medical experts, past and present employees of the hospital, and her clients, the families of the twenty deceased who were all finally in accord.

She had a personal reason for her total, unwavering commitment, but no one needed to know why this case was a labor of love.

She definitely felt her clients’ pain — that was reason enough.