Orchids are the diamonds of cut flowers. So prized are they for their beauty, they are the most commonly used flowers for corsages, bouquets, and floral arrangements. The sweet smell of the aromatic orchid will last until the flower wilts. After two weeks, my orchids had lost most of their life.
I walked past the waiting room and took the mail to my office, where I sat in my chair and picked out a dozen handwritten letters, hoping to find one that would pick me up. Three were from patients praising my work and expressing sadness for the false accusations — all saying, in so many words, “We believe in you.”
I sorted out the bills. I knew from previous months that they would total over $30,000. Alicia had taken the money earmarked to cover these costs. There were no funds in any of my accounts, and I had no surviving credit card accounts as back up.
After tossing a dozen or so advertisements in the trash can, I turned to the mail I’d been saving for last: One envelope from Family Court and one from the North Carolina Board of Medicine. My heart sank as I read the first letter: an order forbidding me from seeing my children.
Gritting my teeth, I opened the second letter and began to read: “The North Carolina Board of Medicine has determined that your felony charges make you unfit to practice medicine in this state. You will cease and desist providing surgical and non-surgical care.”
Unable to read another word, I tore the letter into small pieces. Then I put my head on the desk and cried. I’d read about other people being depressed, but I’d never really felt depression, myself, before now. I’d always thought depression was something for mentally weak individuals, not people like me. I’d always been in charge of others and in control of my emotions. Depression became real to me during my stint in jail.
I missed, most of all, my kids. I really wanted to see them, but Alicia wouldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t even let me to talk to them on the phone. I was worried about the effect all this was having on them. Their mother seemed to believe the vicious lies about me, so my marriage was probably over. And there was a good chance I was going to a penitentiary for a crime I didn’t commit.
It became crystal clear to me that I had no future.
I walked to the hallway where Officer Wilson had been shot and looked at the bloodstains — now dried — that had dripped down the wall and then pooled on the carpet, after the bullet had ripped through the doomed man’s skull.
Oh, God, I’m going to be convicted, and I’m going to get the death penalty. I’m a dead man.
The loss of my children and the loss of my medical license gave me a real sense of futility. Bankruptcy was certain, and that was the least of my problems. I’d been charged with two murders and an attempted murder, and I had no defense. The prosecutor was asking for the death penalty, as the local newspaper had reported, and the crimes were so horrific that the jury would probably grant it. At least my death would be painless. Since the gas chamber was eliminated in North Carolina in 1998, the only available execution method was lethal injection.
I was very familiar with the procedure. I had advocated for it in 2001, and had even gone to legislative sessions in Raleigh, where I’d testified to lawmakers about how animals were humanely put to death whereas cruel and torturous methods were used on humans. It looked like I would become a benefactor of the legislation I had promoted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Transcript:
House Select Committee on Sentencing Guidelines
North Carolina State Senate
March, 2002
Dr. S. James:
“Ours is a merciful society, a society that values the rights of all our citizens, even the criminals who refuse to live by our moral values. In the worst of crimes, our state provides for the death penalty. But this capital punishment should not be a vengeful infliction of pain during execution.”
Sen. Hon. E.G. Higgins:
“Dr. James. We welcome your testimony. I have a comment I’d like to make, if I may. My daughter was brutally raped and tortured until she died. You want to put our hardest criminals to sleep, like a mother rocking her child at night.”
Dr. S. James:
“Uhm. No, Senator.”
Sen. Hon. E.G. Higgins:
“Are you volunteering to sing a lullaby as well?”
Dr. S. James:
“An early form of social justice was instituted by the French in 1792, the Guillotine. By this, the commoners were executed by the same instrument used on noblemen. This helped quiet a restless society. And we have a restless society today.”
Sen. Hon. T.W. Williams:
“Dr. James. You’re talking about… What did you say, ‘social justice,’ I believe? These criminals are dogs. They’re dogs! They should be stomped!”
CHAPTER THIRTY
I didn’t want to be “stomped.”
The same drugs the state of North Carolina now used to execute criminals were in my pharmaceutical cabinet. I could end it all now and save myself the anguish and humiliation of going through a trial and sitting on death row, waiting for the state’s executioner to kill me.
I walked swiftly to the OR, knocking over a chair and any equipment that blocked my path to the med cabinet. It was locked and I had no key. I pounded its door with my fist until I drew blood, then tore an arm board from the operating table and slammed it into the cabinet door. But the steel and tempered-glass was too strong and didn’t break.
Going to another cabinet, I raked surgical instruments and supplies to the floor, throwing aside delicate tools until I found a heavy, surgical mallet, and the osteotomes I used to fracture and move facial bones. With my skill and these instruments, I could create a facial structure that met my mandate for perfection. Now, I’d use them to ensure my own perfect death. I wedged the one-inch-wide osteotome in the door of the locked drug cabinet, made one sharp rap with the mallet, and the door flew open. I knocked bottles of pills and vials of liquid medications to the tile floor in my frenzied search for the right drugs: Sodium Pentothal for sleep and succinyl-choline for death.
My hands shook as I ripped open the packages and filled two syringes, one with Pentothal, the other with succinyl-choline. After placing the IV line, I inserted a Y-connector and secured the two syringes to it. I inserted the needle into a vein and withdrew the syringe’s plunger. I got a strong back-flow of blood
The needle was in a large, stable vein. There was no room for error. I had to inject the Pentothal as fast as I could and quickly shoot in the muscle-paralyzing succinyl-choline before the Pentothal induced sleep.
Then I would have a painless death.
My rambling mind thought of orchids. The Satyrium pumilum is called the “death flower.” It originated on the burial islands off Madagascar. Some Malagasy ethnic groups traditionally left their dead in designated areas to decompose in the open air, which aided in the evolutionary development of orchids with blooms that smell like decayed meat. These orchids attract pollinator flies and beetles that feed on the dead.
I needed to die. That was my only escape. I put the palm of my hand on the plunger of the Pentothal syringe, took a deep breath, and pushed it hard. The liquid coursed rapidly through my vein. My head whirled, and I fell to the floor.
Quickly, I shifted my hand to the syringe of succinyl-choline and pressed the plunger. Visual auras darted before me and I saw my parents, my children, and the faces of many patients. I felt myself floating and saw sparkling white trees swaying below me. As life ebbed from my body with each dying beat of my heart, I was engulfed in a bright white light filled with beautiful children, laughing and dancing, dressed in white. Suddenly, a white orchid appeared at my side. I took it in my hand and held it.