“Sometime after midnight and before the sun came up, Amanda was given a deadly dose of Cytoxan, a chemotherapy drug, instead of Vicodin, a painkiller that would have given her a good night’s sleep.
“That terrible night, Amanda died an excruciating and senseless death, ladies and gentlemen, and we have to ask why this happened. Why this woman’s life was ripped away from her long before her time.
“Over the course of this trial, I’ll tell you about Amanda and about the nineteen other people who died from similar drug-related, lethal disasters. But I’ll tell you why they died right now.
“It was because of San Francisco Municipal’s rampant, irrefutable greed.
“People died because again and again Municipal Hospital put cost efficiency above patient care.
“I’m going to tell you a lot of things about Municipal that you’ll wish you didn’t know,” O’Mara said, sweeping the jury box with her eyes.
“You’ll learn that procedures have repeatedly been violated, and poorly trained people have been hired on the cheap and made to work mind-numbing hours. All in the interest of protecting the bottom line, all in the interest of keeping profits among the highest of all San Francisco’s hospitals.
“And I can assure you the twenty deceased patients I represent are just the beginning of this horrible scandal —”
Kramer leaped to his feet.
“Argumentative, Your Honor! I’ve been patient, but Counsel’s remarks are inflammatory and actually slanderous —”
“Sustained. Don’t test me, Counselor,” said Judge Bevins to Maureen O’Mara. He shook his head. “Next time you cross the line, I’m slapping you with a fine. It will get much more serious after that.”
“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” O’Mara said. “I’ll be more careful.”
But Maureen was delighted. She’d said what she needed to, and Kramer wouldn’t be able to unring that bell. Surely the jury got the message.
Municipal Hospital is a dangerous place, obscenely dangerous.
“I’m here for my clients,” O’Mara said, standing rock-still in front of the jury box, hands clasped together in front of her, “the deceased and their families; all were victims of malpractice as a result of Municipal Hospital’s greed and negligence.” Then Maureen O’Mara turned to face the courtroom. “Please,” she said, “please raise your hand if you have lost someone at Municipal Hospital.”
Dozens of hands went up around the courtroom. Others in the courtroom gasped.
“We need your help to make sure that these deadly so-called accidents never happen again.”
Chapter 20
AS ORDER WAS RESTORED by Judge Bevins, Yuki slowly dragged her eyes away from Maureen O’Mara. She looked across the aisle to Dr. Garza’s face. She was hoping to see anger, rage that his hospital had been falsely accused. But she couldn’t find it. Rather, something like a smirk played over Garza’s lips, and his entire expression was as cold as a winter landscape.
Fear constricted Yuki’s chest, and for a long moment she couldn’t move.
She’d made a horrible mistake!
Please, don’t let it be too late.
Yuki stood up from her seat, pushed open the swinging courtroom door, and turned on her cell phone as soon as her feet hit the hallway. She pressed the phone’s small keys, connecting her to the hospital’s recorded telephonic menu.
She listened to the options, her anxiety rising as she stabbed at the number keys.
Was Keiko in room 421 or 431? She couldn’t remember! She was blanking on the room number.
Yuki pressed the zero key, and a watery rendition of “The Girl from Ipanema” plinked in her ear as she waited for a live operator.
She had to speak with her mom.
She had to hear Keiko’s voice right now.
“Let me speak with Keiko Castellano,” she said to the operator finally. “She’s a patient. Please ring her room. It’s 421 or 431.”
The ringing tone stopped abruptly as Keiko answered, her cheery voice crackling over the wireless transmission.