Carved in Bone

state moves to pull Dr. Hamilton’s medical license, I hope you’ll testify as candidly in Nashville as you did here.”
    I nodded. “I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.”
    “Thanks,” he said. “He needs to be put out to pasture. If this case helps bring that to pass, I guess it’s worth the humiliation.” I was glad to hear him looking ahead. “Thanks for what you did, Bill. I didn’t enjoy it, but I do appreciate it.”
    DeVriess leaned in. “Hey, how about sharing the love? I’m the one that cried foul.”
    “Go to hell, Burt,” said Roper. “Bill, I look forward to working with you again. With you. Okay?”
    “Okay,” I smiled. “See you.” He nodded and started down the marble hallway. “Oh, and Bob?” He looked back. “Thanks for what you said about Kathleen the other day. It’s been rough, and I’m not good at talking about it, but it helps to hear from folks who care.” He smiled and walked away.
    “Bastard,” muttered DeVriess. “Dr. Brockton, I’ve got somebody who really wants to meet you.” I had a class to teach, I protested, but he persisted. “This’ll just take a second, and I think you’ll be glad.” I relented, and he led me away from the judge’s chambers office and into a part of the court building where I’d never been before. A uniformed guard buzzed us through a security door; DeVriess opened a door marked “Dock” and led me into a bare white room. A scrawny man in faded jeans and a white shirt rose from a plastic chair. “Eddie, I want you to meet Dr. Brockton. Doctor, this is Eddie Meacham, the man whose name you just cleared. The man who just got his life back.”
    Meacham stared as if I were some alien species, then flung himself at me and wrapped me in a bony hug. I patted him on the back a few times, then extricated myself so I could breathe again. Meacham made several attempts to speak. Finally he whispered, “Thank you. Thank you.” That was all he managed to get out. But it was enough. I nodded, moved myself, and backed out of the room.
    DeVriess had been right—I was glad. Glad I’d met his client; glad I’d taken the case—taken the bait that Grease, pervert-protecting bastard that he was, had lobbed my way that day over lunch. Miranda was right: “Strange bedfellows indeed,” I murmured as I pushed open the courthouse door and stepped into the early October sunshine.

CHAPTER 32
    I WAS STILL BASKING IN the glow of the sunshine and Meacham’s gratitude when a man fell in beside me on the sidewalk. “Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” he hissed. I stopped in midstride and turned toward him, and found myself facing Dr. Garland Hamilton. “Think you’re hot shit, don’t you?”
    “Hello, Garland,” I said to the medical examiner whose credibility I had just destroyed. “I’m sorry this played out the way it did. It wasn’t personal, you know.”
    “Wasn’t personal? Wasn’t personal? You sanctimonious son of a bitch. It’s sure as hell personal to me . Try losing your career and your reputation, and then tell me it’s not personal.” He jabbed a finger into my chest to punctuate his words. “You have destroyed me. And I take that very, very personally.”
    I took hold of his finger; he yanked it away in fury. I wanted to punch him, but I knew that absolutely no good and probably lots of trouble would come of it—lurid headlines and a huge lawsuit. “Look, Garland, you botched the exam, not me. If I hadn’t pointed it out, somebody else would have.”
    “Bullshit,” he said. “You and Jess Carter put your heads together and came up with a perfect scheme to get me out of the way. Ironic, isn’t it—turns out I’m the one who really got stabbed in the back in this case.” I just shook my head; there was no point trying to argue with him. “Jess has wanted to take over the forensic center here ever since she got divorced,” he continued. “Did she screw you, Bill? Is that how she got you to help her screw me over?”
    “Not true, Garland. Dr. Carter and I have never had anything but a professional relationship.”
    “Dr. Carter and I,” he mocked. “You make me sick.”
    “Frankly, Garland, I don’t give a damn,” I said. “There’s nothing between Jess and me, never has been, never will be. She’s happily lesbian, in case you didn’t know.”
    He snorted. “Yeah, right. Tell that to the guy I saw her wrapped around in the bar of the Hilton last week in Chattanooga.”
    I tried not to be