On her legal pad, the paralegal slipped David a note: “Where did you find this guy?”
David wrote back: “Impressive, huh? And his fee is only $75,000.”
“Paid by whom?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Evidently, the hot seat affected his diction, or perhaps Borzov did not wish to be understood. At any rate, he became increasingly more difficult to understand. Nadine kept her cool, so much so that David seriously doubted if she ever lost it. He was watching a master, and he was taking notes, not to help resuscitate his witness, but on effective cross-examination techniques.
The jurors could not have cared less. They were gone, checked out, already waiting for the next witness. Nadine sensed this and began culling her list of problem areas. At 11:00 a.m., Judge Seawright needed a potty break and called a twenty-minute recess. When the jury left the courtroom, Borzov approached David and asked, “How much longer?”
“I have no idea,” David replied. The doctor was sweating and breathing heavy; his armpits were wet. Too bad, David wanted to say. At least you’re getting paid.
During the recess, Nadine Karros and her team made the tactical decision to stay away from a replaying of Percy’s echocardiogram. With Borzov bloodied and on the ropes, the echo might allow him to regain some footing since he could once again lose the jury with medical jargon. After the recess, when Borzov slowly returned to the witness chair, she began chipping away at his education, with a heavy emphasis on the differences between med school here and med school in Russia. She went through a list of courses and lectures, standard here but unheard-of “over there.” She knew the answer to every question she asked, and Borzov, by now, knew this. He became increasingly more hesitant to give a response directly, knowing that any discrepancy, however slight, would be pounced upon, dissected, and slung back at him.
She hammered away at his training and managed to trip him a few times. By noon, the jurors, those still watching the mayhem, had the clear impression of a doctor they wouldn’t trust to prescribe lip balm.
Why had he never written any papers? He claimed there had been some in Russia but was forced to admit they had not been translated. Why had he never taught or joined a faculty? The classroom bored him, he tried to explain, though it was painful to imagine Borzov attempting to communicate with a group of students.
During lunch, David and his paralegal hustled out of the building and went to a deli around the corner. Helen was fascinated by the proceedings but still stunned by Dr. Borzov’s pathetic showing. “Just for the record,” she said over a spring salad, “if we ever reach the point of a divorce, I’m hiring Nadine.”
“Oh, really. Well, then, I’ll be forced to hire Wally Figg, if I can keep him sober.”
“You’re toast.”
“Forget the divorce, baby, you’re too cute and you have great potential as a courtroom paralegal.”
Helen grew serious and said, “Look, I realize you have a lot on your mind right now, but you must be thinking about the future. You can’t stay at Finley & Figg. What if Oscar can’t come back? What if Wally can’t kick the booze? And assuming they can, why would you want to stay there?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had much time to think about it.” He had shielded her from the twin nightmares of the Rule 11 sanctions and the potential malpractice cases, and he had decided not to tell her about the $200,000 line of credit he had guaranteed along with the two partners. Leaving the firm in the near future was not likely.
“Let’s talk about it later,” he said.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I think you can do so much better, that’s all.”
“Thank you, dear. What—you’re not impressed with my courtroom skills?”
“You’re brilliant, but I suspect one big trial might be enough for you.”
“By the way, Nadine Karros doesn’t do divorces.”
“Then that settles it. I guess I’ll just tough it out.”
At 1:30, Borzov tottered to the witness stand for the last time, and Nadine began her final assault. Since he was a cardiologist who didn’t treat patients, it was safe to assume he never treated Percy Klopeck. True, plus Mr. Klopeck had been dead a long time before Borzov was hired as an expert. But surely he had consulted the doctors who did treat him. No, Borzov admitted, he had not. Feigning disbelief, she began hammering away at this incredible oversight. His responses grew slower, his voice weaker, his Russian thicker, until finally, at 2:45, Borzov pulled a white handkerchief from a coat pocket and began waving it.
Such drama was not contemplated by the wise folks who wrote the rules of federal trial procedure, and David was uncertain about what he should do. He stood and said, “Your Honor, I think this witness has had enough.”
“Dr. Borzov, are you okay?” Judge Seawright asked. The answer was obvious.
The witness shook his head no.
“Nothing further, Your Honor,” Ms. Karros announced and left the podium, another impressive annihilation under her belt.
“Any redirect, Mr. Zinc?” the Judge asked.
The last thing David wanted to do was to try to revive a dead witness. “No sir,” he said quickly.
“Dr. Borzov, you’re excused.”
He staggered away with the aid of a bailiff, $75,000 richer but with another black mark on his résumé. Judge Seawright recessed court until 3:30.
Dr. Herbert Threadgill was a pharmacologist of dubious reputation. He, like Borzov, was spending the waning days of his career living the easy life, away from the rigors of real medicine, doing nothing but testifying for lawyers who needed his notoriously pliant opinions to fit their version of the facts. The paths of both professional testifiers crossed occasionally, and they knew each other well. Threadgill had been reluctant to sign on for the Klopeck case for three reasons: the facts were lousy; the case was weak; and he had no desire to face Nadine Karros in a courtroom. He had finally said yes for only one reason—$50,000 plus expenses, for only a few hours of work.
During the recess, he saw Dr. Borzov outside the courtroom and was appalled at his appearance. “Don’t do it,” Borzov said as he shuffled toward the elevators. Threadgill hurried to the men’s room, splashed some water in his face, and decided to flee. Screw the case. Screw the lawyers, they were not major players anyway. He had been paid in full, and if they threatened to sue, he might consider returning a portion of his fee, or not. He would be on an airplane in an hour. In three hours he would be having a drink with his wife on the patio. He wasn’t committing a crime. He was under no subpoena. If necessary, he would never return to Chicago.
At 4:00 p.m., David returned to the judge’s chambers and said, “Well, Judge, looks like we’ve lost another one. I can’t find Dr. Threadgill, and he won’t answer his phone.”
“When did you last speak to him?”
“During lunch. He was all set, or at least he said so.”
“Do you have another witness, one who is here and has not gotten lost?”
“Yes sir, my economist, Dr. Kanya Meade.”
“Then put her on, and we’ll see if the lost sheep somehow find their way home.”
Percy Klopeck worked for twenty-two years as a dispatcher for a freight company. It was a sedentary job, and Percy did nothing to break the monotony of sitting in a chair for eight straight hours. Non-union, he was earning $44,000 a year when he died and could have reasonably expected to work for seventeen more years.