The Doctor and Mr. Dylan (31 page)

“Yes.”

“How did you feel about that?”

Dylan cocked his head to the left, and donned a look of deep introspection. “I didn’t like the abortion talk. I’m morally opposed to killing babies. But I see where you’re going with this. Even if I didn’t like Alexandra Antone or her views on abortion, I’d never try to kill her.”

“You and Dr. Antone had similar jobs at the hospital, correct?”

Dylan scowled. “No, that’s incorrect. We had the same job.”

“But he’s a physician and you’re a nurse anesthetist.”

“So what? I could do everything he could.”

“People call him ‘Doctor.’ Does anyone call you ‘Doctor?’”

“No.”

“Were you jealous about Dr. Antone’s job superiority over you?”

“No. Like I said, I could do anything he could.”

“Dr. Antone gets paid a lot more than you do to do the same work. Is that true?”

“That’s true. It makes no sense to me, but it’s true.”

I listened, spellbound. Dylan was confirming a broad spectrum of negative emotions toward Alexandra and me—each emotion a potential motive for killing Alexandra and framing me. I looked at the jury, and they were more engaged than they’d been at any point in the trial. Two white-haired ladies in the front row were wide-eyed. A freckle-faced ginger in row two was stroking his chin. Their civic duty had turned into a legal thriller.

“The evidence and testimony to date indicates that someone injected insulin into Mrs. Antone,” Martinovich said. “Do you have insulin in your house, Mr. Dylan?”

“I do. My daughter takes insulin every day. She keeps it in the refrigerator.”

“Do you have access to that insulin?”

“Access?”

“It’s not locked up, is it?”

“No.”

“You could remove it from the refrigerator at any time, if you chose to. Correct?”

“Yes.”

Martinovich stepped over to our defense table, where he’d earlier hung an IV bag and intravenous tubing from a metal pole. “Your Honor, I’d like to ask permission to wheel this IV pole across the floor to where Mr. Dylan and the jury can inspect it at close range.”

“Proceed,” Satrum said.

Martinovich pushed the IV line on its pole toward the witness stand. “Mr. Dylan, is this IV
setup similar to the what you use in the operating rooms at Hibbing General?”

Dylan leaned forward and inspected the equipment. He rolled the intravenous line in his fingers, and said, “Yes. It looks like our equipment.”

“What about this rubber nipple at the bottom of the IV bag? What is this nipple used for?”

“We can use that nipple as an entry port to inject medications into the IV bag.”

“You just poke the needle through the nipple and inject the medication into the bag. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did you inject any medication into Mrs. Antone’s IV bag?”

“I already told you. No.”

“Did you inject anything into her IV line?”

“I already told you. No.” Dylan looked like he wanted to drive his fist through Martinovich’s eye socket. 

“Could you have injected insulin into the liter bag when no one was paying attention?”

“I did not inject anything into her or into her IV.”

Martinovich chewed on the inside of his cheek, and squinted at the witness. Then he went for the jugular. “Is it true that you spent one year in a South Carolina VA hospital inpatient psychiatric ward?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I had some issues after my tour of duty in Afghanistan. They called it Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. I just had a hard time coping with life stateside. I got treatment. I’m OK now.”

“You’re OK now. Mr. Dylan, what is your real name?”

As if a switch had flipped, Dylan turned from a determined adversary into a vibrating mass of tics once again. His eyebrows bounced. His tongue lashed across his upper lip. The fingers of his left hand fidgeted with his ear. At last he answered, “My name is Bobby Dylan.” His reply was bold and confident. There was no shortage of bravado.

“Were you born with that name?”

“No. I changed my name.”

“Why did you change your name?”

He picked at his nose. “Because I wanted to. People change their names every day.”

“Are you are the same Bob Dylan who recorded hundreds of songs and sold millions of albums?”

Dylan’s eyes narrowed. It was such a simple question—an obvious trap. There was no way this nurse anesthetist in a Northern Minnesota mining town was the world famous rock and roll legend. Every soul in the courtroom, every soul on Earth knew that. Yet Mr. Dylan sat silent, as if solving a mystery.

“I didn’t hear your answer, sir,” Martinovich said, looking toward the jury box, and seeking a bond with the jurors at this critical moment. He asked again, “Are you the Bob Dylan who recorded hundreds of songs and sold millions of albums?”

I watched with anxious anticipation. This was it. Mr. Dylan would hang himself here and now. Dylan would repeat what he’d claimed to me months earlier at the Zimmerman residence, when he’d asserted that he was indeed the famous Bob Dylan who’d toured the world. Declaring his fantasy under oath, the man would be exposed as a psychotic dreamer and a blatant perjurer. Dylan was crazy, a man capable of snuffing out Alexandra with an insulin overdose. Everyone would realize this as soon as Mr. Dylan answered the question.

Mr. Dylan opened his mouth and said, “No. I’m not the same Bob Dylan who recorded and sold millions of albums.”

The words fell as a roundhouse hook to my jaw. Mr. Dylan did not establish himself as insane. He’d somehow separated himself from his delusional world. His claim that he was the famous rock star was supposed to be the tipping point in this trial.

But Dylan had not acted psychotic.

“I have no further questions,” Martinovich mumbled, looking sallow and confused. He sat down next to me and wrote on the yellow pad, “That went well.”

“Went well?” I wrote. “He was supposed to come across as psychotic. That didn’t happen.”

Martinovich wrote, “Let’s talk after.”

Hamilton began his cross-examination. “Mr. Dylan, did we hear you testify that you never injected any medication into Alexandra Antone’s IV at any time?”

“Correct. I injected nothing.”

“Did you inject any insulin?”

“No. I did not.”

James Hamilton said, “Thank you, Mr. Dylan. I have no further questions.”

The brevity of the cross-examination shocked me, but it made sense. Hamilton didn’t want Bobby Dylan to appear guilty. Hamilton needed to make the jury forget Bobby Dylan, and the best way to do that was to get rid of him. Bobby Dylan shuffled his way from the witness box toward the gallery. He shook his head and grimaced as he walked past Martinovich and me.

Martinovich leaned into me and whispered, “We’re in good shape, Doctor. Dylan stunk up the courtroom. He reeked of guilt, and made the neon “Reasonable Doubt” sign flash on and off at a thousand candle watts. He owns a refrigerator full of insulin, and he’s a jealous cuckold who was alone with the deceased minutes before the surgery. Dylan’s our case. The jury can sense it. Now it’s your turn. I want the jury to see you as a loving husband and healing physician who wouldn’t step on an ant—a refreshing contrast to Mr. Dylan the mental patient.”

“But Dylan didn’t come across as a delusional mental patient.”

“Are you kidding? The man was a mess on the stand. Trust me, we’re in good shape. Now it’s your turn. Our fine jurors can’t wait to hear the sound of your voice.” Martinovich stood and said, “The defense calls Dr. Nico Antone to the stand.”

My fingers were icicles as I laid my hand on the Bible. I took a discerning look at the witness chair as I walked toward it. The seat was a collection of wooden slats assembled at 90-degree angles. The rose-colored seat cushion was faded and worn, polished by hundreds of men and women who’d sweated their way through their ordeal under oath. I’d waited months to tell my story. It was time to paint my version of the facts into a pastel landscape twelve jurors would find comfort in.

I folded my hands and awaited the first question. Martinovich promised he’d pitch nothing but lob balls across the middle of the plate so I could hit home run after home run. Our job was to convince the jury I was a model citizen and an intelligent, honest, and trustworthy physician.

Mr. Dylan sat in the last row of the gallery. Now that he’d finished testifying, he was no longer banned from the endgame of the trial. Dylan’s scowl was gone, and he had a bemused look on his face.

Martinovich commenced the interrogation. “Dr. Antone, can you tell the jury about your education and medical training?”

I faced the jury and made eye contact, as Martinovich had instructed me. He advised me to converse with them as if we were all sitting around the fire at a ski lodge—to imagine I was telling them an interesting story. I tried to follow his advice, but my body was rejecting the notion of the ski lodge. My body knew it was on the hot seat in a courtroom. With my hands folded in front of me, I could feel the pulsations of my radial artery at the wrist. My heart rate was nearing 180 beats per minute. My hands were tremulous, but I controlled my vocal cords and made a cogent reply. “I’m a local boy. I was born here in Hibbing. I graduated from Hibbing High School.”

“You were an excellent student. Is it true that you were accepted to Harvard for college?”

“That’s true.”

“But you didn’t enroll at Harvard, correct?”

“Correct. I got married to my first wife, Angel. As was described earlier in this courtroom, Angel became pregnant, and we decided to stay closer to home and get married.”

“Can you tell the jury about your education after you left Hibbing High?”

“Yes. I completed four years of college at the University of Minnesota at Duluth, four years of medical school, also at the University of Minnesota at Duluth, then a one year internship and four years of anesthesiology training at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.”

“That’s a great deal of education. Where did you work after you left the University of Minnesota?”

“I moved to California where I did subspecialty training in cardiovascular anesthesia at Stanford. I was on the Stanford anesthesia faculty for ten years before I moved back to Hibbing.”

Ed Martinovich beamed, proud to be talking to Hibbing High School’s most over-educated graduate. “I think the jury would agree with me that you are a highly trained, intelligent man, Dr. Antone. If you planned to overdose your patient Alexandra Antone with insulin, if you were to drive her blood sugar to near zero and thrust her into a fatal coma, would you expect such a misdeed to be discovered?”

“Of course. There would be no way to conceal that sort of crime. If I did this crime, if any anesthesiologist did this crime, he or she would be caught as soon as the blood test results were revealed. Only the stupidest doctor in the world would believe this was an effective way to murder someone.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I agree with you. Can you describe to us what happened prior to Alexandra’s surgery that day at Hibbing General Hospital?”

“Sure. It was a Saturday, and I was off duty. I was asleep when my wife called me on my cell phone and asked me to come to the hospital to give her anesthesia for her appendectomy.”

“Was it your plan to be her anesthesiologist that day?”

“No. It was her idea. Alexandra demanded that I take care of her. I was not on call, and I had no intention of giving anesthetics that day.”

“So you were not scheduled to attend to her?”

“I was not.”

“The day before, you had no knowledge that Alexandra was to have emergency surgery the following morning. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Is it even remotely possible that, prior to her phone call, you could have been planning to murder her that day?” Martinovich teased out the syllables to the word “remotely” over several seconds, emphasizing the absurdity of the notion of premeditated murder.

“No, it’s not possible I could have planned to murder her.”

“When the surgery was scheduled, the scheduled anesthetist was Bobby Dylan. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“And your wife told you on the phone that she wanted you to take care of her, instead of Mr. Dylan?”

“Correct.”

“Why did she want you to take care of her?”

“She had two reasons. Number one was because Dylan was not a doctor. He’s a nurse anesthetist. Alexandra did not trust him or his skills. The second issue was that our two families were in the midst of a major conflict. Our son Johnny had gotten Mr. Dylan’s daughter Echo pregnant. Alexandra was adamant about Echo getting an abortion, and Mr. Dylan was strongly anti-abortion.”

“Did you agree to do the anesthetic at that point?”

“No. I refused. I tried to arrange for another anesthetist, but there were no others in town. Then the surgeon, Dr. Perpich, talked to me on the phone and pleaded with me to do the case so he could take out the appendix before it ruptured.”