Page 30 of The Session

“Devon and I take after-shift calls all the time. We were told we could do that until we returned back to the service,” Mark protested.

“Do you have that in writing?” Thorpe asked.

“It’s just what we do,” Mark replied, looking to Byron. “I’ve done that with you on calls.”

“Whether that’s accurate or not, the point is there’s no official policy for it, and it’s actually considered against company policy. That’s why I need you to make it clear to them that you took the call out of altruism, not on behalf of the company.”

Mark looked at Thorpe, then at his stepfather, who seemed extremely uncomfortable. He understood now that the moment the shift ended, the company really had stopped paying for insurance. Devon had joked about it, but no one had told Mark this officially. He’d been kept out of the entire sale of the company, which he knew very little about. What he did understand were the potential legal damages involved. If someone wanted to blame Mark or the ambulance service for anything—even the gunman who got shot—they wouldn’t have trouble finding a lawyer willing to take the case. Regardless of the merits, it could be prohibitively expensive, which was why ambulance services carried insurance.

Mark knew he was being hung out to dry, but he also knew that even if he’d understood the legal implications, he probably would have taken the call anyway, given that he was the only ambulance anywhere near there.

“I get it. I’ll make sure they understand what happened,” Mark said.

“You’ll tell them that you knew the insurance coverage had ended and that it was against policy?” Thorpe asked.

Mark felt a flash of anger. Thorpe was asking him not only to take the fall but to make statements he didn’t believe were true.

That turned out to be outside even Byron’s comfort zone. “I’m not asking you to say anything that isn’t true, son.”

“Neither am I,” said Thorpe. “Let me make that clear. I just want you to understand what’s at stake. Your family could lose everything over something like this. You—you don’t have any assets. You’ve got a great reputation, but they’re probably not going to go after you,” Thorpe said. “That’s the truth of it.”

“Probably,” Mark agreed. “I’ll make it clear I acted on my own. Okay?”

He had no idea how he was going to afford an attorney. He was sure that, down the line, Byron would probably do his best to make things right. But in the meantime, things were likely to get complicated. And expensive.

“We’re going to go talk to some people with the city and see what we can do,” said Thorpe. “We might be able to clear this up right away. I’ll text you the name of an attorney—somebody you can use.”

The two men left and walked back out the emergency room’s sliding glass doors. That’s when Mark realized that telling Holly they’d all meet up in the cafeteria had been nothing more than a pretext to corner him alone.

Departures

Mark decided not to use the attorney Thorpe had recommended. Instead, Vera Needleman came through a recommendation from one of Holly’s friends. She was in her early thirties and worked at a small law firm with a good track record of civil litigation.

Her office was in the firm’s back corner and had a view of the parking lot. Mark suspected that if he were a wealthy client, he would be speaking with somebody more senior and looking at trees instead of an attendant sweeping cigarette butts into a trash collector.

“I’ve got good news, and we’ll just call it ‘not good yet’ news,” Needleman said. “The good news is the DA’s office is not going to pursue any kind of obstruction charge against you. I knew that was a long shot, but we just wanted to make sure that was off the table, because it would certainly complicate things when it comes to any kind of lawsuit. The so-so news is the police department is sticking to their story that they had the situation in hand until you showed up. I’ve tried to subpoena their body cams, but so far they’re withholding because of pending criminal cases. And since they haven’t charged you, they’re able to withhold that from me for now.”

“I really didn’t think they were going to charge me. So how is this good news?” Mark asked.

“Don’t be so sure,” Needleman said. “There are a couple of idiots in the DA’s office, and anything is possible. The reason that it’s good news is that if we get the body-cam footage, I have a feeling you’re going to look better than they’re making it out to be because they’re going to look pretty bad. As far as I understand it, the only one with any sense was Officer Bettencourt, and hopefully I’ll be able to get her to make a statement to that effect. But they’ve got her pretty locked down with both the city attorney and the police union. Maybe she’ll at least express some gratitude.”

“And the lawsuit situation?” Mark asked.

“I’ve had inquiries from the bystander’s law firm about your assets. I’ve politely told them to go pound sand. I know that Thorpe has had his hands full explaining that they’re not liable. Although unlikely, we can’t rule out the chance that one of the other police officers might try to sue them and realize that’s going to be complicated and then try to go after you. The frustrating part is because the police have seized all the footage, they’ve controlled the narrative, and as you know, you’re still the fall guy in this situation. Neither of the assailants have filed a lawsuit yet. That may happen, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

The last two weeks had been frustrating for Mark. The police department had done the best they could to spin a terrible situation into something they could blame on everything except their own response. The exchange of gunfire had begun before Mark arrived, and it was hard to understand how his being there made the situation worse, but everyone had their own story.

Holly had tried to put on a good face, but her parents read the news and came to their own conclusions, despite her trying to explain what actually happened. They were fashionably liberal people who would proudly talk about defunding the police on one hand and then be the first ones to call 911 if they saw somebody in their neighborhood who didn’t fit the right profile.

The wounded gunman had managed to lawyer up with a telegenic defense attorney who was spinning a story that this was a profiling traffic stop that had gone wrong, the police were the aggressors in the situation, and the actions of his client and his accomplice were purely in self-defense. Despite this, the police were still withholding body-cam footage and security video from the media, so the public was left to imagine what had happened.

“What about my paramedic certification?” Mark asked.

Since Thorpe had made it clear that Mark had acted without authorization from the ambulance service, he also had to take the step to notify the state board, and Mark’s certification was suspended, which meant that he couldn’t get any work as a paramedic, assuming that anyone would’ve hired him.

Byron felt terrible about this but was able to get Mark a job as an orderly at an assisted living facility for low-income residents. Cleaning up bedpans and changing the sheets of infirm patients wasn’t exactly the work Mark had hoped to be doing at this point in his life, but he’d accepted it.

“It’ll take a little work to get that reinstated. Are you okay for now?” Needleman asked.