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boys,” O’Mara said. “Simon Clemmons, her husband, the boys’ father, had been killed in an automobile accident only six months before.
    “Amanda wasn’t much of a ballplayer,” O’Mara continued, “but this young widow knew she had to be both a mother and a father to Adam, John, and Chris. And she was as up to the task as anyone could be.
    “Imagine this plucky woman if you can. Picture her in your mind,” Maureen said, calling up the scene.
    “She’s wearing white shorts and a blue-and-gold Warriors T-shirt, dribbling circles around her little kids in the driveway, getting ready to make a shot through the hoop hanging from the garage.
    “John Clemmons told me that his mom was laughing and ragging them, just before she snagged her shoe on a crack in the asphalt and went down.
    “Half an hour later, an ambulance came and took Amanda to the hospital, where she was X-rayed and diagnosed in emergency with a broken left leg.
    “That injury shouldn’t have been more than a temporary setback for Amanda Clemmons,” O’Mara continued. “She was young; she was strong and resilient. She was a real warrior, that woman. A homegrown American hero. But she had been admitted to San Francisco Municipal Hospital.
    “And that was the beginning of the end of her life. Please, take a good, long look at this picture of Amanda Clemmons. This is the one the family used at her funeral.”

    Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
     

     
    Chapter 19
    MAUREEN FELT HER ANGER rising exponentially as she told Amanda’s story. Although Maureen had never met Amanda Clemmons, the young mother was as real to Maureen as an honest-to-God friend, and since she worked so hard, she didn’t have that many friends.
    Maureen felt that way about every one of her deceased clients, about every one of the victims, she reminded herself. She knew their backgrounds and their families, the names of children and spouses.
    And she knew precisely how they had died at Municipal Hospital.
    She handed the picture of Amanda Clemmons to her assistant, turned back to the jury, seeing in their eyes that she had their interest. They couldn’t wait for her to go on.
    “The afternoon Amanda Clemmons broke her leg,” Maureen said, “she was taken to Municipal’s emergency room, where the bone was X-rayed and set. This was a simple procedure. Then she was moved to another room, where she was to spend the night.
    “Sometime after midnight and before the sun came up, Amanda was given a deadly dose of Cytoxan, a chemotherapy drug, instead of Vicodin, a painkiller that would have given her a good night’s sleep.
    “That terrible night, Amanda died an excruciating and senseless death, ladies and gentlemen, and we have to ask why this happened. Why this woman’s life was ripped away from her long before her time.
    “Over the course of this trial, I’ll tell you about Amanda and about the nineteen other people who died from similar drug-related, lethal disasters. But I’ll tell you why they died right now.
    “It was because of San Francisco Municipal’s rampant, irrefutable greed.
    “People died because again and again Municipal Hospital put cost efficiency above patient care.
    “I’m going to tell you a lot of things about Municipal that you’ll wish you didn’t know,” O’Mara said, sweeping the jury box with her eyes.
    “You’ll learn that procedures have repeatedly been violated, and poorly trained people have been hired on the cheap and made to work mind-numbing hours. All in the interest of protecting the bottom line, all in the interest of keeping profits among the highest of all San Francisco’s hospitals.
    “And I can assure you the twenty deceased patients I represent are just the beginning of this horrible scandal—”
    Kramer leaped to his feet.
    “Argumentative, Your Honor! I’ve been patient, but Counsel’s remarks are inflammatory and actually slanderous—”
    “Sustained. Don’t test me, Counselor,” said Judge Bevins to