Butch Karp: Bad Faith Part 4

8.

"HONEY?" DAVID ELLIS CALLED OUT AS HE ENTERED THE TINY apartment on West 88th Street. There was no answer, nor sound of any kind aside from street noise outside. The shades in the living room were drawn, the windows closed, adding to the gloom and stillness.

She's probably napping, he thought as he stood for a moment in the entranceway before closing the door behind him. Nonie, his wife, napped a lot and had ever since Micah died. And when she wasn't asleep, she walked around as if in a daze and spoke in a monotone devoid of any emotion. The only time her voice was animated at all was when she talked about the Reverend C. G. Westlund, or if David said something that irked her, particularly if it could be construed as critical of the reverend.

In fact, Westlund was the reason David had feigned an illness at his job as a computer programmer so that he could come home and talk to his wife about her obsession with the man and their trial, which would start with jury selection in two days. He would have waited to talk until that evening after work, but when he got home she would usually already be in bed, or would soon rush out of the apartment to attend a church meeting or some other business with Westlund and wouldn't come home until late, after he'd gone to bed. Awake, he'd listen to her slip quietly into the apartment and then would hear the door leading to their son's old room, where she slept, click shut.

It had been a long time since they'd slept in the same bed, a fact he'd even once brought up with Westlund after Micah's death, when he still thought of the reverend as a friend and spiritual guide. When he complained that his wife refused to have s.e.x with him, Westlund had counseled him to be patient. Women whose children "are taken into the arms of G.o.d" often lose their s.e.x drive as they grieve, the reverend advised. "Give her time," he said.

However, time had only seen his marriage go from bad to worse, and he now considered the reverend a big part of the problem. When he complained to Nonie that she should be turning to him, her husband, when she needed consoling, she bitterly retorted, "The reverend is the only person who understands me." She wouldn't come right out and say it, but she implied that Micah would not have died if David's faith had been stronger. And he knew where that was coming from.

More and more frequently she referred to Westlund by his first name, Charles, and his effect on her mood was increasingly evident. Alone in their marriage bed at night, David sometimes wondered if there was something more going on between his wife and Westlund than spiritual guidance. But his mind recoiled at the thought of such a betrayal.

He'd met Nonie at Tennessee Christian College when he was a senior computer science major and she was a junior studying early childhood development. She'd been the prettiest girl he'd ever met, with a nice smile and a laugh he could hear in his mind even when she was gone. He'd fallen in love, and to his surprise and delight, when he finally worked up the nerve to tell her after they'd been dating for four months, she confessed that she loved him, too.

They'd been married shortly after that and though they'd both been virgins, he believed that they enjoyed their s.e.x life. But not anymore, voices whispered to him from the dark corners of the master bedroom on sleepless nights. Perhaps she is enjoying it with someone else. He tried to shut the voices off, but they only grew louder each time she spoke Westlund's name with the tenderness she'd once used when saying his.

They'd met the Reverend C. G. Westlund shortly after Micah's first series of treatments for brain tumors had ended at the Elvis Presley Memorial Children's Hospital in their hometown of Memphis. The holy man's timing could not have been better.

Several months earlier, the Ellises' beautiful blond-haired, green-eyed, then-eight-year-old son had started complaining about headaches that as time pa.s.sed were often accompanied by nausea and vomiting. They'd taken him to a pediatrician, who diagnosed migraines and suggested bed rest "in a quiet dark room" whenever he felt a headache coming on. The diagnosis changed when Micah began to say that sometimes when his head hurt, he had a difficult time seeing.

They began to doubt the doctor when their formerly athletic little boy seemed to lose coordination in his muscles, stumbling for no apparent reason and regressing in some of his fine motor skills, such as writing. Then one night, standing with his parents in the kitchen of their small home in East Memphis, Micah grabbed his head as he cried out and then collapsed to the floor. His body went rigid, arching and racked by muscle spasms as though he was being electrocuted; his eyes bugged out from his head and froth appeared around his mouth as he made strange guttural sounds.

After an evening in the ER of Memphis General Hospital, Micah had been transferred to the state-of-the-art Elvis Presley Memorial Children's Hospital, where an MRI of his brain revealed a type of brain tumor the pediatric oncologist who spoke to them afterward called an astrocytoma. The doctor had gently explained that there were two types of astrocytomas: nonmalignant, noncancerous tumors, and malignant tumors, which were cancerous. Although both types could affect the brain's functions, such as coordination, the cancerous tumors would spread and eventually result in death. And Micah's were cancerous.

The doctor had explained the possible treatment options. The preferred method was to remove the tumors surgically, he said. However, due to the location of Micah's tumors, deep inside the cerebellum, and the way they had integrated with normal brain cells, he felt the surgery was too risky "except as a last resort." He believed that the best course of action was chemotherapy, in which Micah would be given drugs that specifically targeted fast-growing cells, such as cancer cells, and destroyed them. The drawback was that they could expect "significant" side effects because the drugs also attacked fast-growing "normal" cells such as hair, stomach, intestine, and blood cells. The results could include nausea, vomiting, hair loss, fatigue, anemia, and muscle/nerve pain, about which the doctor told them, "You as an adult would probably describe it as the absolute worst flu ever, so bad you might wish you were dead. And of course, it can be even worse for a frightened child."

And that wasn't all the bad news. The chemotherapy would be followed up with radiation treatment, "probably once a day, five days a week, for as long as seven weeks." Again, there were side effects, many of them the same as for the chemotherapy, as well as a potential for what the doctor euphemistically called an "intellectual decrease" and damage to Micah's pituitary gland, "which could affect his growth."

Worse, the doctor couldn't guarantee that one chemotherapy/radiation treatment would be enough. "Sometimes the first treatment doesn't quite get it done, or even the second. We have to go after this thing until it is completely gone, or it will just come back."

It all sounded so frightening, the proverbial "cure is worse than the disease" scenario. However, the doctor had cautioned them that without treatment, Micah would die ... and soon. "With treatment, we have an eighty percent survival rate of at least five years," the doctor noted, which didn't sound great, but it was better than death.

So they'd signed the consent forms to have Micah treated. As predicted, the chemotherapy drugs and first round of radiation made Micah's life, and theirs, a living h.e.l.l.

As they'd watched their boy suffer, the Ellises prayed, begging for mercy and compa.s.sion. Although their attendance at church had fallen off considerably since their college days at a Christian school, they were both people of faith. He'd been raised a Southern Baptist, and Nonie had been brought up in the Pentecostal church, which included faith healing-healing by prayer and "laying on of the hands"-among its main tenets. So when the tall, handsome preacher-back then he'd been called John LaFontaine-with the striking blue eyes; deep, smooth voice; and long brown hair showed up on their doorstep after a particularly rough day for Micah, she was already ready to believe.

"Good afternoon and G.o.d bless you, ma'am, sir," Westlund had said, smiling as he peered into their home through the screen door. "I am Doctor of Divinity John LaFontaine of the Holy Covenant Church of Jesus Christ Reformed and I am in your neighborhood today to bring you the Word of the Lord and healing for body, mind, and soul. How are you today, brother and sister?"

"Uh, fine, but we're not interested ...," David said, but before he could ask the man to leave, the preacher stepped up to the screen and sniffed. He made a face and stepped back as if he'd smelled something foul. "I am sorry to disturb you," he said, shaking his head sadly and looking at them with such empathy even David felt drawn to the man. "There is a terrible sickness in this house, and I am intruding." He paused and bowed his head, then spoke without looking up as he held out his hand toward the door. "A child is suffering ... an injury to his head ... no ... a disease ... a disease of Satan's design."

Suddenly he looked up, first at Nonie and then at David. "There may still be time," he said. "May I see the boy?"

Wondering how the man was so certain about his diagnosis and that their child was a boy, David hesitated. After a pause, he was about to ask him to leave when Nonie touched his arm. "Please, David, let him see Micah," she said. "What can it hurt?"

So in spite of his misgivings, David unlatched the screen door and invited the man into their home. Without another word, Westlund marched back to Micah's room, where their son lay on his bed, pale, thin, and exhausted. With his bald head and dark circles beneath his pain-filled eyes, he looked like a child on the verge of death. Clutching the bowl he used when nauseous, Micah stared up at the stranger with fear.

Nonie started to rea.s.sure her son. "It's okay, Micah, Mr.-"

"Doctor," the man said quickly, correcting her, which made Micah cry out unexpectedly.

"His recent experiences with doctors have not been good ones," David explained.

Westlund nodded and then turned to the boy with a smile. "It's okay, Micah, I don't think much of those doctors either. I am not here to hurt you. I am a doctor of the soul and my cures are painless. I bring you tidings of G.o.d's mercy and compa.s.sion."

Micah smiled slightly at the man's words and the sound of his voice. He visibly relaxed.

"Would you mind if I placed my hand on your head, son?" the preacher asked.

Micah nodded. "That would be okay."

Westlund leaned over and put one of his large hands on the top of their son's head and closed his eyes. Although they could not make out the words he began mumbling, he appeared to be praying. Then he shuddered and looked up at the Ellises' worried faces.

"Satan's cancer has taken root inside his head," he said.

"Yes, that's right," Nonie replied as if the preacher was viewing some sort of supernatural MRI to confirm the doctors' diagnosis.

Westlund nodded and closed his eyes again. Then he frowned. "You've been trying to heal the boy with poisons," he said in a slightly accusatory tone. He straightened up and removed his hand from Micah's head. "I'm sorry, but I can't help."

"Why? What's wrong?" they asked in unison.

Westlund started to speak but then bit his lip as he looked from Nonie to David to Nonie again. "I'm sorry, but you've placed your faith in the false miracles promised by purveyors of Western medicine," he said as though it pained him to have to say it. "Only G.o.d chooses who lives and who dies; these attempts to thwart His will are a direct affront to Him."

"But we believe in G.o.d," Nonie said. "We pray every day and every night for Him to help Micah."

Westlund looked down at Micah and shook his head. "The boy's spirit is strong but the faith in this house is weak. You cannot ask G.o.d to heal and then hedge your bets with medicines that are brewed through Satan, who ever seeks to place himself on a level with the G.o.d who created him and us."

The preacher c.o.c.ked his head to one side as if there was something he didn't understand about the Ellises. "I take it you do not regularly go to church?"

Nonie bit her lip. "We miss more often than we go," she said, glancing at David. "We've just been so busy with Micah and David's out of work-"

Westlund held up his hand. "I hear your words, but they are just excuses," he said. "You have time for hospitals and doctors, but you do not have a couple of hours to spend with G.o.d even once a week." He reached down and touched Micah gently on the head. "My heart breaks for this innocent child, but as I said, there is nothing I can do. You have chosen where to place your faith and now you must abide by that choice. I can only hope that G.o.d, in His infinite mercy and compa.s.sion, will forgive your transgressions, recognizing that you made them for all the right reasons and have been led astray by the false G.o.ds of medicine, and that G.o.d will help this innocent child."

"What should we have done then?" David said, suddenly angry that this stranger had entered his house, touched his son with the promise of healing, and then decided he couldn't help because their faith wasn't strong enough.

Westlund ignored the anger. "Prayed," he said. "Placed all of your faith in Almighty G.o.d, and prayed for the healing that can only come through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus Christ, who healed the sick and brought Lazarus back to life."

"Please, please help us," Nonie suddenly pleaded, grabbing the preacher's hand.

Westlund withdrew his hand from her grip. "There's nothing-" he said as he began to turn toward the door. Then he stopped and looked at David. "You're struggling with finances, brother," he said. "You say you've recently lost your job?"

It was true. "What about it?" David replied sullenly.

"There's no shame in being hit hard by a capricious world," Westlund said. He looked from the parents to their son and back to the parents. "Forgive me if I came off as criticizing you regarding your son. It's hard to have faith when it appears that the world, and G.o.d, has turned against you."

Westlund reached into his s.h.i.+rt pocket and pulled out a business card. "Give my a.s.sistant, Brother Frank Bernsen, a call," he said. "We are a small ministry, and not a wealthy one, but we do have an emergency fund to help good people such as yourselves."

"We'll be all right, but thank you," David replied, somewhat sheepishly after his angry reaction.

Westlund nodded. "I understand. You're a proud man and not one to take handouts. That's why this would be a loan, not a gift, though in accordance with the Bible's prohibition of usury, we can't accept interest. Take only what you need, and pay it back."

The preacher studied their faces and then smiled benevolently. "Look, we've just met, and in less than happy circ.u.mstances, so if it's too soon to extend the hand of friends.h.i.+p in Jesus' name, I understand. But do call if we can help."

David accepted the business card and held out his hand, which Westlund shook. "Thanks again," he said. "That is kind of you to offer and to have stopped by."

"Would you say a prayer tonight for Micah?" Nonie asked.

Westlund turned to David's wife and placed both of his hands on her shoulders. "I'll do better than that," he said. "I'll get down on my knees with you right here and now. It is never too late to place your faith in G.o.d as the true healer."

And so the Ellises found themselves kneeling next to their son's bed as Westlund placed a hand on Micah's head and gripped Nonie's with his other. "O Lord, our G.o.d, we come before Thy face, bowing before Thy majesty in recognition of our unworthiness and giving thanks for all Thy good gifts, which Thou dost again and again give us for body and soul ..."

"Nonie?" David called out again as he walked back to their son's former bedroom and opened the door. The room was dark but he could make out the familiar silhouettes of teddy bears and toy airplanes. But his wife wasn't in the bed. He wondered where she could be, if for no other reason than they needed to prepare themselves for the start of the trial.

The shock of Micah's death had been compounded a few weeks later when police detectives arrived at the apartment, informing them that they'd been indicted on the charge of reckless manslaughter and were under arrest. At the time, he'd been outraged. Wasn't it enough that his beloved son had died?

Westlund had, of course, been outspoken in their defense, and he'd soon been joined by an unlikely consortium of supporters, including Ivy academic lawyers who'd offered their services to fight what they said was an unconst.i.tutional attack on their religious beliefs. Indeed, they'd received letters of support, even money, from people all over the country, ranging from anti-government types to religious zealots.

However, as time pa.s.sed, David had started to wonder if the charge against him and his wife was perhaps legitimate. He'd never thought of himself as a bad father. He loved Micah with every ounce of his being. But the more he listened to Westlund and the others turn the case into a theoretical discussion, the more he began to question if he and Nonie were indeed guilty. But Nonie would hear none of it. She believed every word out of Westlund's mouth and bitterly denounced the New York District Attorney's Office as "a den of Satan wors.h.i.+ppers."

Already suspecting that she held him in part responsible for their son's death due to his lack of faith, he'd never told her that he was the one who called 911 when Micah lay dying. He'd gone out for a walk and found himself in a grocery store, where he purchased one of those cheap prepaid cell phones and called. But it had been too late.

He left the room and made his way back down the hallway to the kitchen, where he noticed a pile of open mail on the table. Or rather he noticed a single envelope that was separate from the others. It was from an insurance company and addressed to David and Nonie Ellis. "Important doc.u.ment enclosed" was stamped on the outside.

David frowned. He didn't remember doing any business with that particular insurance company. Probably an advertis.e.m.e.nt, he thought, but he still opened the envelope and pulled out the letter inside.

It was, after all, an important doc.u.ment. It explained that "pending the outcome of the legal actions" the Ellises were facing, the company was withholding the death benefits for Micah as a rider on a life insurance policy taken out in the name of his parents, David and Nonie Ellis, and a.s.signed to the Reverend C. G. Westlund.

A sob escaped David's mouth as he crumpled the letter in his hand and stormed out of the apartment.

9.

BRUCE KNIGHT SAT IN HIS ONE-MAN LAW OFFICE STARING AT the telephone, willing it to ring. The silence remained unbroken except for the creaking and knocking of the ancient radiator that had kicked on as evening fell on the city. Thank G.o.d it's March, he thought. At least the heating bill will be going down.

There weren't any sounds from the minuscule reception area outside of his office, either, not even a secretary typing at a keyboard or talking to friends about her boring job. He'd had to let his a.s.sistant go a month before due to the reason behind the silence-a dearth of paying clients. A young woman with short black hair, tattoos, and a nose ring, she still came in on Fridays to help him out with filing, declining his efforts to pay her, even with post-dated checks.

"You're a good man, Bruce Knight," she'd said the previous week when she left. "One of these days, you'll be back on your feet and can make it all up to me."

It's only Monday afternoon; things will pick up, he told himself for the hundredth time that month as he glanced over at the stack of envelopes perched precariously on the edge of his desk. Most of them remained unopened; he knew what they would be-demands for payments from collection agencies, threatening notes from his landlord regarding missing rent checks, utility bills several months in arrears. He just didn't need the aggravation, and it wasn't like he could do anything about it. So they sat unread and unanswered.

Knight combed his fingers through his prematurely thinning hair and thought ruefully back to the days when he'd been a young Turk fresh out of law school and already climbing his way up the ladder of one of New York's best boutique law firms. As with his current practice, he'd specialized in criminal law and fit right in with the firm's take-no-prisoners reputation. But unlike his current practice, his clients then had been wealthy men and women, mostly accused of white-collar crimes or those crimes of pa.s.sion the rich sometimes indulged in-s.e.xually a.s.saulting domestic servants, or shooting one's spouse and his mistress as they romped about on the Mulberry silk sheets.

By New York standards, the firm had been small, only seventy-five attorneys as opposed to a Wall StreetMadison Avenue white-shoe firm-which would have hundreds, along with satellite locations in Chicago, Los Angeles, London, and Paris-but charged gold-shoe prices. They often took clients referred by the white-shoe firms that either weren't as capable at fighting it out in the trenches with the New York District Attorney's Office or didn't want to scuff the polish on those shoes by getting involved in ugly cases.

With the aid of his clients' deep pockets for hiring "expert witnesses" who would say anything for a price, Knight's success rate had outshone that of even some of the firm's more experienced attorneys, earning him the notice of the partners. The more acquittals he won, or cases he got dropped, or cases he pled down to a slap on the wrist, the more important cases he was a.s.signed to and the higher his salary and bonuses climbed. With the sort of praise he was earning in firm meetings, he even dreamed of becoming the youngest partner in the firm's ninety-year history.

Unfortunately, he did not handle success well. He discovered a penchant for beautiful women, expensive cars, and forty-year-old Glenfiddich single-malt Scotch whiskey, which at $2,500 a bottle was one of the world's best and priciest. But even a great single-malt sometimes needed, at least in his mind, a snort or two (or three) of cocaine to balance the high.

He didn't worry about where all that might be leading; he was young and had the world by the b.a.l.l.s. However, those late nights, beautiful women, drugs, and Scotch started taking a toll. He found that it was getting increasingly tough to get up in the morning and into work without a couple more lines of c.o.ke to go with a pot of coffee. Before long, he was sneaking snorts at his desk and even in the men's stalls of courthouse restrooms during breaks.

When he was almost caught snorting a line off his office desk by one of the partners, he started to worry a little. But he reasoned that he was under a lot of stress and needed cocaine to handle it for the time being; he'd tone it all down after he made partner. At least that's what he told himself on mornings when no amount of eyedrops got the red out and blood appeared on the tissue when he blew his nose.

The pressure to perform just kept getting more intense, which meant more cocaine and more booze. Then he started making mistakes: arriving late for court and angering the judges; forgetting to file paperwork on time; rus.h.i.+ng in late to meetings-once missing a meeting entirely as he slept one of his binges off. He called in and said he had the flu, but it had not saved him from being told to report to the office of one of the senior partners when he arrived at work late, the next morning.

"What's going on with you?" the partner, a middle-aged Harvard grad with movie-star looks, asked bluntly after Knight sat down in the chair in front of the man's ma.s.sive desk.

"What do you mean?" he replied, feeling a wave of nausea rise in his throat that was partly from fear and partly from the excesses of the previous night.

"I think you know what I mean," the partner said sternly. "Bruce, when you started here, we all were impressed with your work as an attorney and with you as a person. You had a great chance of making partner at an early age-"

Knight did not like how the man was speaking in the past tense about his dream. Had a great chance.

"-but the quality of your work has fallen off considerably," the partner continued, "and to be honest, your reliability is in question, too. We take this very seriously; this firm has a ninety-year reputation for excellence. We are nothing without our clients, and if we fail them, they'll go elsewhere."

The partner leaned across the desk and locked eyes with Knight. "Do you have a drinking problem? Because if you do, we'll get you help."

Knight shook his head. "No ... some social drinking after work, but nothing outrageous," he said, having never wanted a drink more in his life than at that moment.

"What about drugs?"

"Drugs?"

"Yes, illicit drugs ... speed, pot, c.o.ke, heroin. Are you doing drugs?"

Again Knight denied the accusation. "No ... not since a little experimentation in college," he replied, hoping that the man didn't notice the sweat he could feel popping out on his forehead.

The partner remained quiet for a moment and then nodded. "Okay, I hope not. But whatever it is that has been affecting you and your work, it needs to stop now. I'm letting you know that you are officially on probation. We'll be watching to see how you respond to this little chat."

Knight left the office and almost collapsed in the hallway with fear. He vowed to quit the boozing. And no more c.o.ke. And he meant it. He wasn't a bad guy; he called his parents back home in Columbus, Ohio, every week, gave to charities and even the occasional b.u.m on the street. He'd just been enjoying life a little too much, and he could adjust ... tone it down.

When he got back to his office that day, he reached into his desk drawer and withdrew the small bindle of c.o.ke. He got up and went to the bathroom, intending to flush the drug down the toilet. But as he stood there looking at the snowy white powder, he decided that it would be a waste of money. He'd have one last blowout that weekend and be done with it. To celebrate his upcoming sobriety, he dipped a fingernail in the powder, brought it to his nose, and sniffed.

The only problem was that once it was gone that weekend, he wanted more. At first he resisted the drug's call. He even started working out at the firm's gym, ate healthy, and went to bed early-without the beautiful women. But then there was that night he went out with an old law school buddy and twin brunettes, each wearing the same low-cut dress. "His" twin kept telling him how turned on she got after snorting cocaine and, well ... the rest was history.

Knight tried to hide that "toning it down" wasn't working by spending a lot of time at the courthouse and the firm's law library. But he was sinking and he knew it. He considered going to the partners and accepting their offer of "help" with his addictions, but he also knew that would be the kiss of death for his dream of becoming a partner. They might pat him on the back and pay for rehab, even keep him on as one of the firm's low-level attorneys, but they would never trust an addict-even a recovering addict-with important cases or the firm's reputation again. So he just tried his best to hide his problem, knowing that sooner or later it would have to end.

It came sooner. After one particularly wild night, he slept through his alarm clock on the morning of an important pretrial hearing. There wasn't time to shower or shave, and he put on the first suit he found lying on the floor, albeit a Brooks Brothers. He arrived in the courtroom ten minutes late to find an irate judge and a panicked, angry client.