It's Nothing Personal (32 page)

“Wow,” said Jenna, shaking her head.
 
“It’s so much to comprehend.
 
Listening to their side, all I can
picture is the jurors taking out the guilty stamp and branding me on the
forehead.
 
Then I listen to our side
and think, how could we lose?”

Jim replied honestly, “If you see it that
way, then you are very perceptive.
 
The trial will be a series of tit for tats.
 
It will ultimately boil down to who the
jurors find most believable, who they like the best, how they perceive you, and
how they perceive Michelle Hollings.
 
Unfortunately, it is these intangibles, rather than the facts, which
most often determines who wins and who loses.
 
That being said, I think we have a very
credible list of expert witnesses, and we feel very positive about this case.”

“So,” asked Jenna, “what exactly is our
strategy?”

He looked directly at her, his hands clasped
behind his head.
 
“We attack.”

Jim’s face grew more animated and
energized.
 
The twinkle in his eyes
told Jenna that this was the part of his job he relished.
 
Jenna glanced at Nancy, whose enthusiasm
mirrored that of her colleague’s.
 

Even though Jim’s expression was filled with
excitement, his words were menacing, “Jenna, this is the point where we go for
the jugular.”

To Jenna, nothing sounded more enticing.

Jim smirked, “We start by suggesting that there
is a distinct possibility that it wasn’t even your syringe of Fentanyl that
served as the source of Michelle Hollings’ infection.”

Tilting her head in Jim’s direction, Jenna
asked, “I know you alluded to that with respect to Dr. Meyer’s testimony, but
what exactly do you mean?”

“Hillary Martin testified that she stole Fentanyl
syringes, filled the used ones with saline, and replaced the stolen syringes
with contaminated syringes.
 
In the
entirety of her testimony, Martin
never
singled out any particular anesthesiologist.
 
Never once did Hillary Martin come out
and say, ‘I stole from so and so.’
 
This got us to thinking.
 
What if Martin never touched your syringes?
 
What if the contamination came from
saline?”

Nancy could not contain herself.
 
“It’s more than just an outlandish
excuse, Jenna.
 
This is a
plausible
explanation for Ms. Hollings’
infection.
 
It is completely
possible that it had nothing to do with you or your drugs.
 
We were thinking about it.
 
Where would Martin have had the easiest
access to saline?”

Jenna challenged herself to think like
Hillary Martin as she contemplated Nancy’s question.
 
“Well, there are vials of saline in the
anesthesia cart, but that would mean Martin would have to spend that much more
time snooping around where she did not belong.
 
From her perspective, that probably was
not the best source.
 
There are one
liter and half-liter bags of saline everywhere, but they are prepackaged in a
protective wrapper.
 
It wouldn’t be
very practical to steal a liter bag, draw up five milliliters of saline, and
then throw the whole bag away without being caught.”

Her attorneys patiently waited for Jenna to
come to the realization they had already reached.
 

Jenna considered other sources of
saline.
 
All of a sudden, it hit
her.
 
Without warning, Jenna leapt
from her chair, snapped her fingers, and pointed at her lawyers.

“The back table!
 
There’s always a bowl of saline on the
back table with all the sterile surgical equipment.
 
If I were Hillary Martin, that’s where
I’d refill.
 
It’s just sitting
there, ready to be used.
 
It would be
the quickest and easiest way to refill a syringe without being caught.
 
If that were the case, the saline on the
back table would become contaminated.
 
That saline is used to irrigate open wounds and comes in direct contact
with a patient’s blood.”

Jenna sat back down, pondering this
explanation.
 
Doubt soon
overshadowed her initial elation.
 
“The problem is, how would we ever prove that?”

Nancy answered, “The beauty is, we don’t
have to.
 
The only person in the
world who knows what Hillary Martin really did is Hillary Martin.
 
Look at her credibility.
 
She’s a drug addict, a convicted felon,
a proven liar, and a thief.
 
No
lawyer in their right mind, not even Allison Anders, would ever call her to the
stand as part of their defense.
 
There’s no way Hillary Martin will be present at trial to contradict our
theory.
 
Anything that Hillary
Martin has ever said up to this point is suspect, at best.
 
All we have to do is show this
explanation is possible.”

“I like it,” said Jenna, sneering.
 
“If the jury becomes uncertain as to
whether or not my syringes were ever diverted, a huge part of Anders’
ammunition against me disappears.
 
Then we have our anesthesia experts come in and testify that, even if
Martin did steal my drugs, I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“Exactly,” said Jim proudly.
 
“It’s a million little holes that will
make their case disintegrate in the end.”

“What about St. Augustine?” Jenna asked,
concerned.
 
“You said Mr. Rhodes
would testify that their hiring practices were inadequate, at best.
 
Exactly how far are we going to go with
attacking the hospital?”
 

The prospect of revealing St. Augustine’s
mistakes made Jenna’s stomach burn.
 
She was certain there would be damaging repercussions for her
career.
 
On the other hand, Jenna
acknowledged that they had to do everything they could to win this case.

Although Jim correctly suspected Jenna did
not feel an overwhelming sense of loyalty to the hospital, he realized that
confronting St. Augustine would be difficult for her.

Choosing his words carefully, Jim said,
“There is no doubt that St. Augustine failed to follow adequate screening
procedures when they hired Hillary Martin.
 
I would venture to say that McDonalds does a more thorough background
check on its potential employees than St. Augustine conducted for Hillary
Martin.
 
And there’s a big
difference between flipping burgers and being granted access to an operating
room.”

Jim stalled for a moment, struggling to read
Jenna’s emotions.
 
A strong strike
on the hospital was critical to their defense.
 
It was imperative to convince Jenna of
the same.

“Jenna,” he argued, “if St. Augustine had
done the proper background check and had asked the right questions, Hillary
Martin would never have been hired.
 
If that were the case, Martin would never have had the opportunity to
infect patients.
 
In essence, St.
Augustine placed you in a position to be victimized by a criminal.
 
St. Augustine put you
here
.
 
Don’t forget the patients who may have
been infected by Hillary Martin’s drug buddies.
 
St. Augustine is actively trying to
cover up their existence and deny them care.
 
The folks at St. Augustine aren’t the
good guys.”

Since the beginning, Jenna had grown
increasingly hostile toward the hospital administration.
 
St. Augustine had made an epic hiring
mistake.
 
To Jenna, it was apparent
that the administration was willing to do whatever was required to make this
mess go away.
 
Jenna considered
Jim’s words, and she understood that he was right.
 
St. Augustine had started the cycle that
was threatening to ruin Jenna’s life.
 
If the situation were reversed and St. Augustine’s existence depended on
exposing Jenna’s flaws, the hospital would heartlessly and swiftly annihilate
her.
 
In the interest of
self-preservation, she had no choice but do to the same.

Jenna shivered as she said, “Even though I
know you’re right, I’m scared to death to go up against them.
 
St. Augustine wants this to all go away,
and we’ll be flaunting their mistakes and culpability for all to see.
 
What do you think they’ll do to me?”

Nancy spoke up, “Legally, the hospital can’t
do anything.
 
If St. Augustine
revoked your privileges, they’d have to do the same for every other anesthesiologist
affected by this ordeal, and that’s unlikely.”

“I’m sure they could make life difficult for
me,” Jenna said, hanging her head.

“They would proceed very carefully before
they did anything like that.
 
The
last thing they want is more bad press, and mistreating a doctor because her
case went to court would bring plenty of undesired attention.
 
That being said, you have to be prepared
for the worst and willing to accept that possibility before we move forward.”

Jenna rubbed her eyes, contemplating the
consequences.
 
She raised her head
and brazenly concluded, “We have no choice but to go after St. Augustine.
 
I’ll deal with the fallout if and when
it happens.”

CHAPTER 45

Jenna felt like a gambler sitting at the
blackjack table, having lost everything but her last twenty dollars.
 
Taking a big breath, she decided to bet
her remaining chips and play to the bitter end.
 
There were so many other players who had
precious little to lose and so much to win.
 
Worse, these players were intimately
familiar with the rules of the game.
 
They knew how to read the cards, stack the odds in their favor, and game
the system.
 
Jenna, on the other
hand, was competing for the very first time, and the stakes could not be
higher.
 
In the end, it remained to
be seen who would fold.
 
The
plaintiff’s expert witnesses?
 
Michelle Hollings?
 
Allison
Anders?
 
Or would it be Jenna?

Thoughts of Michelle Hollings filled Jenna’s
consciousness.
 
If part of their
defense relied upon attacking St. Augustine, destroying Michelle Hollings
seemed like the next logical step.

Looking at her lawyers, Jenna asked, “What
about Hollings?”

Nancy reached for her laptop, clicked on the
mouse pad, turned her computer around, and pushed it across the table toward
Jenna.
 
Jenna positioned the screen
in front of her and gasped as she found herself looking at Michelle Hollings’
Facebook page.
 
She was dumbstruck
as she scrolled through the pictures.

Michelle Hollings was beautiful, seductive,
and sexy.
 
One picture captured
Michelle Hollings on a tropical beach lying in the sand, wearing a skimpy
bikini that barely covered her enormous breasts.
 
Her brown skin shimmered in the sun, as
she held a Dos Equis up to the camera.
 
In another picture, Michelle posed in cutoff shorts and a push-up bra on
the hood of her shiny, red convertible.

Jenna’s eyes were blazing.
 
“So
this
is the face of chronic fatigue, PTSD, anxiety, and panic attacks?
 
We can show this to the jury, right?”

Somberly, Jim explained, “We can, and we
will.
 
The tricky part is that you
never know what jurors find offensive and what they don’t.
 
We have to be very careful how we go
about it.”

Incredulously, Jenna asked, “So, we downplay
this?”

“Not at all.
 
We fully intend to introduce it, but
very cautiously.
 
We can’t hold up a
picture of Michelle Hollings with a beer in her hand and tell the jury she’s a
bad person.
 
Instead, we ask
Hollings if she has any activities she enjoys.
 
Regardless of her answer, we introduce
the photo and gently point out to the jury that Michelle Hollings seems pretty
happy drinking on the beach.

“We ask Hollings if there’s any other way
she could have contracted hepatitis C.
 
If she denies any such possibility exists, and she probably will, we
pull out the photos showing her body piercings.

“We’ll get these images into play, but we
will do it in a way that keeps us from looking as though we are attacking the
victim.
 
We don’t want to turn the
jury against us.
 
It’s a tenuous exercise,
but trust us, it’s one we are very good at.”

Jenna grew cold with anger.
 
“Just promise me that you will work this
stuff in.
 
If they get to trash me
for days on end, we should at least get revenge whenever we can.”

Jim’s eyes bore into Jenna’s.
 
“I give you my word.”

Nancy reached back for her computer.
 
“Just so you know, all of these photos
are new, since Hollings’ settlement with St. Augustine.
 
Frankly, the girl is an idiot for
posting them.
 
I’m shocked that Anders
hasn’t caught wind of this and forced her to pull them off the Internet.
 
The oversight is too bad for Anders, but
lucky for us.
 
You might also want
to know that we are setting up surveillance on Ms. Hollings.”