Legally Dead

by Edna Buchanan

  Venturi picked Victoria up at the airport in the morning. Buoyant and happy to be home, she had lots of news. Sidney remained behind bars, her apartment was on the market, and two interested parties were preparing bids on the business.

  Elated about the new project under way, she, the client, and Venturi quickly settled down to business in the war room. Something new had been added. One wall was dominated by a handsome full-color world map framed in leather, with color-coded pins and flags to mark specific locations.

  Because Solange already spoke French, she considered both Geneva, Switzerland, and the Loire Valley in France’s wine country. She had abandoned her early studies as an art major to pursue the law and was also a wine aficionado.

  She soon focused on the French heartland with its sculpted flower gardens, scenic countryside, and le Clos Luce, the final home of Leonardo da Vinci, where many of his drawings and inventions remain on display, only an hour or so away from Paris by train.

  “This is no vacation,” Victoria warned. “It’s the rest of your life.”

  “And what better place to spend it?” Solange countered. “I’m sure I can acclimate, and find a future there.”

  Victoria pulled together crash courses in the region’s dialect and its vineyards, wines, local laws, history, politics, customs, and cuisine.

  Venturi and Danny arrived at the swank office of plastic surgeon Gordon Howard at the end of the business day.

  En route to perform surgeries in a remote village, his Doctors Without Borders helicopter lost power and crashed. The pilot and nurse were killed. Howard climbed from the wreckage with minor injuries but was quickly captured and roughed up at gunpoint by heavily armed rebels. A local warlord held him for ransom.

  Venturi and Danny, on recon in the area, heard of the doctor’s plight and, upon learning he was American, decided on their own to rescue him.

  Their nighttime raid deep into enemy territory escalated into a bullet-punctuated skirmish.

  When they kicked in the door wearing camouflage and dark face paint, the frightened captive didn’t know whose side they were on.

  “We’re Americans!” Danny said. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

  “How did you find me?” the astonished doctor asked.

  “We happened to be in the neighborhood,” Mike said. “Keep your head down and do what we tell you.”

  They exchanged gunfire with his captors, hurled hand grenades, and escaped into the night.

  Now, years later, they browsed the well-appointed outer office of Dr. Gordon Howard.

  “I’m sorry,” the receptionist said, her voice frosty. “The doctor is extremely busy and sees no one without an appointment. He’s about to leave for the day.”

  “Tell him that Danny and Mike, his friends from Somalia, are here,” Danny said.

  She did so reluctantly.

  Howard burst from his office. “I don’t believe it! It’s really you! How did you find me?”

  “We happened to be in the neighborhood,” Venturi said.

  The doctor hugged them both. “You don’t know how often I think of you guys. I didn’t know where you were, or if you were still alive.”

  He sent the receptionist home, locked the outer doors, and ushered them into his private office.

  The interior was even more opulent than his reception area.

  “Far cry from a tent with no running water,” Danny said, taking in the ambience.

  “The competition in Boca is huge,” Howard said, taking a seat behind his big desk. “Motorists can have botox injected at any traffic light. I’ve been lucky. Spent a couple years busting my butt, working long hours, and missing time with my family to build the practice. Then a mentor of mine gave me the best advice I ever got.

  “He was a retired plastic surgeon. He told me to double my rates for every procedure. I was shocked, said I’d lose half my patients. ‘That’s the idea,’ he said. ‘Half will stay and you’ll be working half as hard for the same money.’

  “He said certain people only trust the best, and to them that means the most expensive.

  “It was a big risk. But I took the chance, and he was right!” Howard beamed at them. “Can I buy you guys dinner? I’d love you to meet my family. My wife’s heard me talk about you hundreds of times.”

  “We’d like that, another time,” Venturi said. “But this is a work-related visit.”

  “At least let me buy you a drink. There’s a great little bar right around the corner.”

  “We’d love a drink,” Danny said. “But not in public. We’re under the radar.”

  “We need a favor,” Venturi said.

  “Anything.” The handsome, blue-eyed doctor unlocked a polished wooden cabinet and opened the door to a small, well-stocked bar.

  He poured them each a whiskey, then raised his own glass. “To the Marines, Semper Fi,” he said emotionally.

  “To Medecins sans Frontières,” Mike said.

  “Who’da thought back then that we’d wind up here and now?” Howard studied them curiously. “What are you doing these days? Still with the Marines?”

  “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” Danny said. “We just fight closer to home these days. That’s what we need to talk to you about.” His leather chair creaked as he leaned forward intently.

  “We have someone who needs to change her appearance.”

  “Hey, your wives or girlfriends need anything done, bring ’em in, no charge, professional courtesy. My pleasure,” the doctor said.

  “It’s no wife or girlfriend—it’s a woman whose life is at stake through no fault of her own. It’s top secret, strictly confidential. No medical records, no witnesses.”

  The doctor looked more serious.

  “We realize it’s a lot to ask,” Mike said. “If you say no, we understand. No hard feelings.”

  “You broke rules to save my life,” Howard said. “Whatever you need from me,” he gestured, palms up, “you’ve got it. No questions asked.”

  Mike described the patient as a woman in her late thirties, in good health. She needed a different look and a tattoo removed with as little scarring as possible.

  “How many colors in the tattoo?” Howard asked.

  Mike showed him a photo.

  “No problem.” The doctor was relieved to see that the anklet was finely etched and not a thick black band. Black, he said, is the most difficult color to remove. “Laser technique leaves the least scarring. There’s a different frequency for each color,” he explained, estimating that it would take three or four sessions.

  “I’d have to see her before making suggestions on changing her face.”

  Mike drove Solange to Boca Raton the following night.

  Alone in the office, the doctor took digital photos, full face and profile, and displayed them on a computer screen.

  “Excellent bone structure,” he said, “under a somewhat thin face. Chin and cheek implants would be best. You’d have no external scarring.”

  “How do you insert implants without incisions?” Solange asked.

  “Oh, there are incisions—inside your mouth. I’d insert cheek implants right above your eyeteeth. The sulcus is like a blind cul-de-sac. Soft tissue is dissected from the cheekbones, taking care not to damage the nerves. Silicone implants are cut to fit precisely into the pockets. The size of the pockets controls the implants and keeps them in place. The fit has to be perfect. We don’t want them moving around.”

  He tapped the computer keys, moved the cursor, and the face on the computer screen changed. Same eyes, same mouth. Different face.

  “This would be the result.”

  “That’s how I’d look?” Solange’s eyes widened as she studied the face.

  The doctor nodded.

  “I like those cheekbones. It’s like the Linda Evans look.” Pleased, she glanced at Venturi. “What do you think?”

  He agreed.

  “What about breast implants?” she asked.

  “There would be scarring an
d you might be left with a loss of sensitivity. If you want them, fine. But all you need for that change of appearance is Victoria’s Secret, or any lingerie department.” He glanced at Venturi.

  “Makes sense,” he said.

  “You’re right,” Solange said. “I’m comfortable with them now. The less surgery the better.”

  “Normally we insert facial implants under general anesthesia, but to reduce the number of people involved we can do it here in the office under a local anesthetic.

  “She could leave in four or five hours,” he told Venturi, “if you have a place for her to rest and recuperate.”

  “We do,” he said. “How much downtime?”

  “Four to six weeks, depending on bruising and swelling.”

  “That long?” Mike frowned.

  “That’s to reach her permanent, optimum look. She could probably travel in ten days or so. Even if she still has swelling, her appearance will be different.”

  “We need to wrap a few things up first,” Mike said.

  “Just give me twenty-four hours’ notice,” Howard said. He instructed Solange not to take aspirin or vitamin E prior to surgery, to minimize bruising, then asked, “Where’s Danny tonight?”

  He and Solange both looked at Venturi expectantly.

  “He’s tied up, working on other details, but sent his regards.”

  Keri stockpiled more blood. She and Victoria both mentioned to Venturi that Solange repeatedly asked to see Danny.

  She sailed every morning for two weeks, always renting the same boat, one she felt comfortable with.

  Danny called late one afternoon, his voice tight.

  “We have to do it tomorrow. It’s a must,” he told Venturi, “or we lose a huge advantage.”

  Solange balked. She was ready and eager, but refused to die without seeing Danny first.

  “I won’t go until I do,” she insisted.

  Venturi hoped a phone chat would suffice but it wasn’t enough for either of them.

  Face time was arranged for ten o’clock at Venturi’s.

  Solange was radiant at the news.

  Danny showed up early. “Where is she?”

  “In the war room.” Safer, Venturi felt, than a room with a bed.

  Danny closed the door behind him.

  Venturi and Victoria talked in the kitchen. “Should we have gone out to dinner to give them a little privacy?” she asked.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You’re right, sweetheart. I wasn’t thinking.”

  They heard nothing for a long time after Danny closed the door. Eventually they heard voices, murmurs at first, then quarreling, then Solange weeping. More silence, then murmurs. Then quiet again. That was the worrisome part.

  “My heart breaks for the woman,” Victoria said. “I’m truly sorry for all she’s suffered. You can’t blame her for her attitude. But between us, I’ll be glad when she’s gone.”

  “So will I,” Venturi said truthfully.

  “This is so complicated,” she said sadly. “I love Luz and their children.”

  “Ditto.”

  Venturi took Scout for a walk, came back, and checked his watch. They’d been alone for an hour and a half. They all had a big day ahead of them. He felt like the frustrated father of a lust-crazed teenager, worrying and watching the clock. He wished he could have flashed porch lights.

  Finally he knocked on the door to the war room.

  “Danny, it’s late. We have work to do tonight.”

  No response.

  He rapped louder. “Danny!”

  “Give us five minutes, bro.”

  “See you in five.” How had he let this happen?

  He knocked after ten minutes, then tried the door. Locked from the inside. Danny opened it after several moments, flushed and breathing hard.

  Solange was curled up in an oversized armchair near the conference table. She did not look at him.

  Both were disheveled but clothed.

  “Man,” Danny muttered under his breath. “Cut me a break. It’s the last time we’ll see each other.”

  “No. Are you crazy? You know what you’re risking?”

  They glared at each other, then Victoria interrupted. Ignoring the hot glances and supercharged atmosphere, she marched in cheerfully carrying a tray of sandwiches and coffee.

  Solange refused to meet their eyes, but she was clearheaded, detail oriented, and alert as they pored over charts, maps, and schedules again and again.

  Danny left after the briefing. He turned at the door. Their eyes locked. Solange sighed. She was ready to die.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The day Solange Dupree died was beautiful and breezy, a perfect day for sailing.

  Danny and Mike took to the water early, to take her off the sailboat.

  “Hello, beauty,” Danny greeted her. When he helped her into their boat they clung to each other longer than necessary.

  “Break it up, you two,” Mike said, glad this would all be over soon. “We have serious work to do.”

  They let the small sailboat dash against the rocks until it was badly damaged, then removed several pints of blood from the cooler on Danny’s boat.

  “Be careful now. Let’s focus,” Mike said. “It can’t look poured. Blood obeys the laws of physics. The first blow brings it to the surface. The second spatters it. Remember, these bloodstains will be studied, analyzed, and debated by the foremost experts in the field.”

  They set the crippled boat adrift with enough blood on deck to convince any pathologist that the person who lost it could not possibly have survived.

  “Hey, babe, I need your suit,” Danny said, as Mike took the helm.

  Her eyes on Danny, Solange began to slowly strip off her red swimsuit, right there on deck.

  “Get below!” Mike said, exasperated. “You can’t be seen! Look up, for God’s sake.”

  A small plane towing a banner had made a pass over the Miami Beach shoreline and was circling for another.

  Solange ducked below, then returned in white jeans and a T-shirt, her shiny black hair tucked up under a baseball cap. She tossed her red swimsuit to Danny, who caught it and crumpled it in his hand like a flower.

  Mike feared he was about to lift it to his nose, but Danny saw him watching and shoved it under his shirt instead.

  They docked near downtown and Mike drove Solange back to his place.

  Several hours later, he drove alone to the marina and took the boat out again, his destination an empty waterfront mansion on Miami Beach’s North Bay Road. Danny knew the developer who had it slated for demolition.

  Mike arrived first. Shortly after, Danny drove a van up the wide circular driveway that branched off to one side leading down to the boathouse and dock, where Mike waited.

  “We could have found another way,” he said doubtfully.

  Danny shot him a dark look. “You’re the one who said we needed a body, bro.” He opened the back of the van and pulled back a pale pink blanket.

  The dead girl had raven hair like Solange. She appeared to be in her late twenties, early thirties. Venturi’s heart skipped several beats when he saw the tattoo on her ankle.

  “Who the hell did you get to do that? And how?”

  “It’s not really a tattoo,” Danny admitted. “It’s permanent Magic Marker.”

  “Sure it’s waterproof?”

  “We’re about to find out.”

  The dead girl wore the red bathing suit Solange had worn to go sailing that morning. Solange had bought the distinctive suit with a daring cutout design at Macy’s in the Aventura Mall. She paid for it with her own credit card after trying on a dozen suits, all while chatting up and joking with several sales associates. They’d remember her well.

  Venturi stared at the dead girl.

  “How did you find somebody who fits her description so well? Danny, if I thought for a minute that you—”

  “Christ, what do you think I am? Grab her feet. Help me get her onto the boat.”
>
  “She’s so cold.”

  “I kept the temperature in the cooler as low as possible.”

  “Hold it. Is that a bullet hole in her stomach?”

  “It’s where the trocar, an embalming tool, was inserted. She’s been embalmed,” Danny said impatiently.

  “Where’d you get her?”

  Danny sighed. “Funeral homes take turns handling unclaimed, indigent corpses for the county. I’ve been stopping by the medical examiner’s office early every day to see who was up for grabs. When I saw her, I volunteered. Happened to be my turn anyway.”

  “How old is she? Who is she?” Venturi persisted.

  “Twenty-seven. A hooker who worked the Boulevard south of Seventy-ninth Street. She checked into a hot-sheet motel with an unidentified john last week. They were snorting some shit. Her name was on the Big Blackboard in the Sky. She OD’d and he took off and left her. Swell guy. Stole her purse, too. Guess he figured she didn’t need it anymore. She was a Jane Doe until they identified her fingerprints. Had a couple of arrests for DUI, soliciting, lewd and lascivious, and one for trespassing naked in the fountain outside the Justice Building. Had family in Ohio. They declined to claim her body.”

  “Geez,” Venturi said.

  “Don’t feel bad. Think of it as her last chance to do something noble for somebody else.”

  “What’s supposed to happen to her?”

  “Every ten days or so a work crew, prisoners from the County Jail, is sent to Potter’s Field with a backhoe. They dig a long trench, then stack the cheap wooden coffins in side by side. A sad and sorry way to go, bro. But that’s life. Like I said, she’s helping somebody who needs it.”

  They checked the time then headed out to sea, toward the Gulf Stream. What they watched for appeared promptly on the horizon. “There she is,” Danny said, watching through binoculars, “right on time.”

  The Lucky Star, a South Beach–based casino boat, offers five dinner cruises a week. The main course is blackjack and roulette. She was packed, as usual, with tourists and gamblers.

  Keeping their distance, Danny pulled on his scuba gear and maneuvered the underwater scooter over the side.