“Meningitis,” he said.
Impressed, Micelli nodded.
“Two days out with no radio. I raced back for help, but by the time the helicopter reached them, he was gone. Just like that.”
“I’m very sorry. That’s so sad.”
“So was what happened afterward. A few months later I went into what they called a paranoid depression. No history of prior mental illness. Scared the hell out of my wife, my neighbors, and a lot of people at my hospital. I was about the only one around who thought I was normal. Rather than get me help, or ask my wife to get me hospitalized, my hospital panicked and suspended me. After that I was hospitalized and properly diagnosed and treated. The paranoia and crazy behavior went away almost immediately and has stayed away. But by then the Board of Registration had suspended me, as well, until they could investigate why I had been kicked out of my hospital.”
Once again, Will could see what was coming, and again stepped into the account.
“Then,” he said, “because you had your license suspended, the managed-care companies dropped you from their provider panels.”
“Exactly. It was a cookie-cutter response by the board and by them, without so much as an investigation or a hearing. So even though the board eventually reinstated my license, most of the companies held to their decision. Once worth suspending, always worth suspending. There was no way I could practice-at least no way I could practice and get paid for it. Well, no matter now. I make ten times more doing this than I ever did being an internist-and work a fraction of the hours. Too bad, though, because I actually liked doing it, and I was pretty damn good at it, too.”
“I’ll bet you were, Augie,” Will said. “Listen, I’m sorry for all you’ve been through. I really am. But I hope you can take some pride in the way you’ve managed to deal with all that’s happened without going down for the count. I don’t think I could have handled something happening to one of my kids that bravely even if I didn’t believe I was responsible.”
Without a word, Micelli made his way to the sideboard and poured a third drink, this one more substantial than the other two.
“So,” he said, taking a gulp, then clumsily wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, “it’s your turn now. Assume I know everything about you that the newspapers and TV can tell me.”
Clearly, Augie Micelli was now under the influence, although not strikingly so. Will debated if there was any percentage in staying. Even if he decided to leave and renew his attempts to connect with a lawyer who fit his requirements of being talented, empathetic, and reasonably affordable, he knew that the trip into Boston had been worth it. Whether he and Augie ever saw each other again or not, he still owed Susan thanks. According to the story Augie had shared, the man was hardly as responsible for his son’s tragic death as he seemed to want to believe. Still, the boy was dead.
Will’s external world was crumbling, that was all too true, but Dan and Jess were healthy, wonderful kids. And even if he hit rock bottom and lost everything else, he would still be their father and they his children. Even if the only purchase he had on the sheer wall up from this nightmare was them, he would still have a firm hold from which he could start the climb. His heart ached for Augie and the terrible emptiness he had to deal with each day, but it no longer ached for himself.
“You know what,” he said finally, “if you know that much about me and my situation, then you really are already in a position to know whether or not you can be of any help to me.”
“I can tell you right now that I can’t. This just isn’t the sort of thing I do.”
“I can see that. Listen, here are copies of some letters I brought for you to review. I’ll leave them with you anyway, just in case you can think of someone who might want to work with me. One of the letters is from a law firm that is representing my former patient. Because of a clause in my group’s malpractice policy, I don’t have any coverage for what’s happened. Fortunately, even though they’ll get everything I have if I’m found at fault, it won’t be much. All the information you need to reach me is on that sheet I filled out.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be of any help to you,” Micelli said.
“I’m sorry about your son,” Will replied.
For twenty minutes after the door closed, Augie Micelli sat, staring unseeing out the window, feet on his desk, rising once only to replenish the scotch and ice in his glass. Losing Ryan would always be the worst thing that had ever happened to him-far beyond the subsequent financial losses and breakup of his marriage. But this was the first time he could remember speaking with anyone about the pain of losing his practice. Unlike what he was doing now, practicing medicine had never been about the money.
He opened his desk drawer and set a silver-framed photo from it on his desk-one of Ryan smiling down from the limb of a massive, ancient oak.
He drained his glass. Drinking like this had been really stupid. He had made a deal with himself not to do it around clients anymore, and now he had broken that agreement. He swallowed what remained in his glass.
What in the hell difference does it make? In fact, what difference does anything make? Guilty or not, Will Grant has gotten himself into this mess. He can damn well get himself out. If he needs to, he can just go to law school or become a grocer or do landscaping or. . or. .
Micelli stood suddenly and hurled his tumbler into the fireplace. The shattering glass had Gladys in his office in seconds.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, fine. Sorry about the glass. I’ll clean it up myself. Meanwhile, could you please get me Gil Murray in the Middlesex County DA’s office? Tell him it’s about the Will Grant case.”
CHAPTER 15
“I miss you, Daddy.”
“I miss you, too, sport. We’ll see each other next week. Meanwhile, just keep oiling that new glove and then, with the ball in the pocket, tie it up like I showed you with one of those heavy rubber bands we bought.”
“O-okay.”
“Danny, it’s okay to cry if you want to, but please know that I’m all right and everything’s going to be fine. It’s just going to take a little time. The things that have been said and written about me aren’t true, and before long everyone will know that. Okay?”
“Okay. Sean’s mother won’t let him come over here to play anymore.”
“I’m so sorry. That must make you very sad.”
“Only a little. Sean’s a jerk most of the time, and he wasn’t my best friend anyway.”
“Just the same, it’s got to be hard for you.”
“We know you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“And that’s all that matters to me. Now, I’ll see you both next week, and before too long everything will be back to normal. Got that?”
“Got it.”
“You’re a brick.”
“You’re a wall.”
“You’re iron.”
“You’re steel.”
“Your. . nose is running.”
“Da-ad.”
Will said good-bye and set the receiver down slowly.
“You bastards,” he muttered, at once sickened and furious at the pain that the twins were experiencing. “You fucking bastards.”
Augie Micelli’s story had been a heavy dose of perspective for him, but the reality of his situation was still overwhelming and, it seemed at the moment, virtually hopeless. Whoever had set out to destroy him had done a masterful job. He was a rag doll, hung out to dry and swinging helplessly in the breeze. Even worse, aside from a few friends like Benois Beane, he was alone in the certainty of his innocence. There was no grass-roots crusade mounting, no letter-writing campaign, no pass-it-on e-mails. Even his partners and a number of his friends seemed to have stepped back and taken a wait-and-see position.
You can only do what you can do, he reminded himself for the thousandth time. You can only do what you can do.