The gravel crunched behind us as James arrived, carrying a heavy red cooler. He was thirty-seven, his dark hair cropped short, his shoulders tense beneath a grey athletic shirt. He set the cooler down with a wet thud and did not look at me.
“The ice was five dollars a bag at the store,” James said, checking his gold watch. “They are gouging the tourists.”
“It is a remote location, James,” Thomas said, trying to find a neutral architectural point of agreement. “The supply lines are extended.”
“It is simple opportunism,” James replied, his voice flat and legalistic.
I watched him carefully. The last time I had seen James was in a deposition room in Portland, where my testimony regarding a misdiagnosed pediatric meningitis case had ended his firm’s largest malpractice defense. He had lost his partnership three weeks later.
“How is the practice, James?” I asked, keeping my voice level.
James turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowing as he finally made eye contact.
“We are adapting,” James said. “Though it is difficult to build a defense when medical experts find it necessary to offer opinions outside their scope of clinical certainty.”
