To speak for the dead

by Paul Levine

  Charlie Riggs trundled in twenty minutes later, apologizing for being late. Just came from his semiannual haircut and beard trim, a Miccosukee barber in the Everglades. You could hardly tell he used a sawtooth fishing knife, I told Charlie, and he thanked me. Then Charlie cleared his throat, stroked his newly pruned beard, and slid his warped glasses back up the bridge of his tiny nose. Which was a signal for me to start.

  "Roger, this is awkward for Charlie and me."

  Expressionless, Roger Salisbury looked at Charlie, then back at me, and I continued, "I have a confession to make-"

  Roger laughed. "That's what clients usually do to their lawyers, right?"

  "Right, but this case is different in a lot of ways. You know somebody broke into Philip Corrigan's crypt, stole the body?"

  "Saw the story in the paper. Pretty bizarre. Antidevelop-ment nuts in the Keys, maybe."

  Doc Riggs cleared his throat again. I swallowed and said, "A couple of nuts, all right. Charlie and I did it."

  He raised his eyebrows. "No. Why?"

  "Susan Corrigan wanted the body tested, Melanie Corrigan didn't. We chose sides. But I wanted to tell you before we deliver tissue samples to the lab. And I wanted to ask you, is there anything you want to tell us?"

  Roger shrugged. "What would I want to say?"

  If he was faking it, he must have taken some acting courses along with biology and chemistry. "Okay, Roger, here it is. Melanie told me you tried to get her to inject her husband with succinylcholine, and when she wouldn't do it, you did, murdered Corrigan in his hospital room."

  A cloud crossed his face. A look more of bewilderment than anger. "Do you believe her?"

  I paused long enough for Charlie Riggs to light his pipe. It took three matches. "No. I don't believe her. Since that day you brought the malpractice complaint to me, I've gotten to know you, and I don't believe you could kill."

  Roger Salisbury beamed. I continued, "But what's been gnawing at me is that nothing about Corrigan's death makes sense. You didn't cause the aneurysm and, apparently, the sclerosis didn't either. The hospital charts show no injections in the buttocks but Charlie found one. Then there's the succinylcholine…"

  Salisbury turned to Charlie Riggs. "Succinylcholine wouldn't be traceable, would it? Doesn't it break down into succinic acid and choline?"

  I studied Roger while Charlie tamped his pipe and answered. "Yes, but those substances are detectable in various tissues. If there's too great a quantity, a reasonable inference would be that succinylcholine was injected shortly prior to death."

  No reaction. Absolute calm. "You're the expert," Salisbury said in a neutral voice. "And if you want to test the tissues, I don't have a problem."

  I was feeling good about Roger Salisbury. Confident in his innocence. Then he said, "Melanie knows the truth, and if you really want to know, I mean if it matters to you, Jake, just get her to tell you."

  "And how do I do that?"

  "I could inject her with thiopental sodium."

  "Huh?"

  Charlie chimed in. "Sodium five-ethyl-five-one-methylbu-tyl-two-thiobarbiturate. More commonly known by its trade name, Pentothal."

  "Truth serum?" I asked, louder than necessary.

  "A misnomer," Charlie said, "but you get the idea. A central nervous system depressant. In the right quantities, it induces hypnosis and, yes, the patient will tell the truth about past events."

  "I could stick her, and we could snatch her," Roger said blithely, as if assault and abduction were standard topics of discussion. "Bring her someplace safe, and you could cross-examine her. You're so good at that, Jake. Then you'd learn the truth. I want you to believe me."

  I looked at Charlie Riggs. He looked at me. In ninety seconds, my client had gone from innocent physician to lunatic kidnapper.

  "Roger, I don't think we could do that," I said, gently.

  He shrugged and said okay, then offered to take me bonefishing in the Keys sometimes. I made a bad joke about an orthopod bonefishing, and he headed for Mercy Hospital to do a knee replacement.

  I put my feet up on my cluttered desk, and Charlie Riggs stoked his pipe. He didn't look at me, and I didn't look at him. I wanted him to say something, but he wouldn't. So I did. "Is it my imagination, or is my client sailing without a rudder?"

  Charlie stood up and walked to the window. He squinte(into the brightness and looked due east over the ocean to ward Bimini. "Fantasies. I think Roger Salisbury has diffi culty distinguishing fantasy from reality. He wanted Melanie for himself and might have wished Philip dead. Maybe tol‹ Melanie so. But judging from his reaction today, I would say he didn't kill Philip Corrigan. And he wants you to know that. He respects you, Jake. He wants you to like him-"

  "So we can be fishing buddies."

  "Something like that. So he fantasizes about injecting her with Pentothal."

  "All of which means he's a dreamer, not a killer."

  Charlie Riggs sent me a swirl of cherry-flavored smoke. "Unless the fantasies take over. Unless they become reality. Then, Deus misereatur, may God have mercy…"

  I read my mail, returned some calls, skipped a partners' meeting called to debate new artwork for the reception area-Andy Wyeth was a five-to-one favorite over Andy Warhol-and headed for The Miami Herald. Susan Corrigan was waiting for me on the bayfront walkway behind the building. She stood silently watching a barge unload'huge rolls of newsprint onto the dock. The drawbridge on the MacArthur Causeway was up, two hundred motorists waiting for one rich guy in a gussied up Hinckley to putt-putt underneath at three knots. A stiff, warm breeze from the east crackled an American flag flying above the walkway, and the Miami sun beat hard against the concrete.

  Susan wore her reporter's uniform, running shoes, faded jeans with a notepad sticking out the back pocket. Her glasses were propped on top of her short black hair. On the barge a forklift kept picking up the newsprint and rolling it down a ramp onto the dock.

  "They killed a lot of trees just so you could write about some overgrown boys in plastic hats and knickers chasing a funny-shaped ball."

  She jumped a half step. "Oh, you startled me. I was thinking."

  "And not about me."

  "About you a little," she said, honest to a fault. "More about Dad and everything that's happened. Have you heard from Charlie?"

  "Not yet. Expect something tomorrow."

  "What do we do then? I mean, if the report says the drug is in the brain and the liver."

  "I don't know. I'm taking this one step at a time. Today,

  Charlie and I told Roger that we had the body and were having it tested. He didn't seem to care. So far nothing makes sense."

  She thought about it a moment. "You could get in trouble for this, couldn't you?"

  "What, for trespassing, destruction of property, grave robbing, and turning in my own client? Nothing worse than disbarment plus a short stay at Avon Park as a first offender."

  "So why do it?"

  The Hinckley chugged by, a pot-bellied middle-aged guy and three smug teenagers waving at us. The drawbridge clanked into place, the groan of metal on metal as its fittings meshed. Finally I said, "I guess I'm still looking for the good guys."

  "Good guys?"

  "Something I told Roger Salisbury. That I keep looking for the good guys and never find them."

  She leaned close and kissed me on the lips. "Am I a good guy?"

  Funny, I'd been wondering the same thing myself. "I hope so, because I've joined your side, abandoned Roger. I've stopped caring about the rules of the game, just want to do what's right."

  "Sounds noble."

  "Stupid, maybe. Maybe I'm swayed by those deep, dark eyes and the way you snuggle under a quilt."

  She stiffened. "If you believe that, maybe you should quit the game altogether. Hit the showers."

  I didn't believe it. I smiled at her and she knew I didn't believe it. She had me pretty good, and she knew that, too.

  She popped me a playful punch in the shoulder. Her playful p
unch could leave a dent.

  "Take me home," she said. "Let's see how much room there is in my shower stall. Afterwards, I may even put on a skirt and let you buy me dinner."

  The Olds 442 found the Corrigan home just as before. Buttoned up tight. Dark and quiet. Either the rich don't make any noise or Melanie Corrigan was entertaining under the sheets. No motorcycle out front either, so little chance of running into Hercules.

  We walked around back to the cabana. Dark inside, but the front door was wide open, hanging loose on a hinge. There was the moment of disbelief, that if you blink once, the scene will change, but it didn't. I flicked on the lights. The place was torn up, and a pretty good job of it, drawers pulled out, books spilled onto the floor, clothing strewn about. Susan made a small noise, deep in her throat, then ran into the tiny bedroom and hauled a golf bag out of the closet. The clubs were scattered across the floor, a three-wood jammed angrily into a planter. She reached into the bag, fingers clawing at the leather, not finding what she wanted.

  "Damn, damn," she cried, tears forming. "It's gone. They've got it. They've got the evidence."

  I knew what was gone. A little leather bag with a vial of liquid and two hypodermics. I just didn't know who they were.

  16

  OH NO, SOCOLOW

  When you live outside the law, you forfeit certain privileges. Like calling the police when you need them. In these parts, drug dealers are frequently robbed. Sometimes by other drug dealers, sometimes by cops. It's a fact of life that dopers won't blow the whistle. Their cars get blown up, their houses riddled with automatic weapons, their drugs and cash stolen. They write off the losses as part of overhead.

  So here we were, a couple of upstanding, taxpaying citizens, a journalist and a lawyer, unable to call the cops. A smart cop would ask too many questions. You say this drug might have killed Philip Corrigan. Say, wasn't his body stolen over the weekend? A dumb cop wouldn't do us any good.

  We cleaned up the mess. Nothing else was missing. Even the X-rated tape was still on the shelf, tucked away in a stack of exercise videos and feature films.

  I tried to put two and two together. I kept getting Melanie Corrigan. The drug came from Melanie's bedroom, but Susan found it more than a year after Philip Corrigan died. Why keep a murder weapon around?

  To use it again.

  Maybe, I told myself. But Charlie Riggs says suc-cinylcholine will lose its potency unless it's kept cold. Maybe Melanie doesn't know that. Or maybe she doesn't care. Maybe Roger Salisbury had already used it to kill her husband.

  Roger a killer? No way. Not even concerned that we've got the body. A trifle weird, maybe. Walking a little close to the border of Fantasyland, as Charlie Riggs suggested. But not a killer.

  Okay, I try something else. When Melanie finally gets around to putting on some underwear, she notices the drug's gone. It must incriminate her, or she wouldn't care about it. She suspects Susan, her nemesis. She has to get back the evidence to get rid of it, so she has Sergio bust up the front door of the cabana to make it look like a two-bit B amp;E. Or what was it the Nixon White House called Watergate? A third-rate burglary.

  But what if I'm wrong about Roger? Maybe he and Melanie snuffed the old man. She keeps the drug as insurance against him fingering her. When it's gone, she tells him to get it back or they're both looking at a Murder One.

  I didn't buy it. Maybe there was no burglary. Maybe Susan Corrigan ruffled her own sheets, got rid of the drug for her own reasons. But looking at the tears in her eyes as she cradled the empty golf bag, that made no sense to me, none at all.

  I didn't want Susan staying in the little cabana, not with the door split open, so we headed to Coconut Grove and my coral rock fortress. I told her to wait outside under a jaca-randa tree. Then I opened the front door slowly, stepping into the stale air, seeing shapes in the darkness. Looking for a karate freak crouched behind the sofa, waiting for the hardwood floor to creak. But the shadows held only dust and the only sounds came from a dripping faucet.

  I turned on the lights and Susan stepped in boldly, and with a look of amusement, examined the spare furnishings. Her eyes sized up my little house like a broker on commission. She might wear sweats and sneakers, but underneath, she was still a rich girl who knew Chippendale from flea market.

  "What's a guy like you doing in a place like this?" she asked, a lilt to her voice.

  "What's a girl like you doing with a guy like me?"

  She just smiled and stripped off her jeans. The adrenaline rush had ebbed, but I had enough energy left to carry her up the narrow staircase.

  This time she let me take the lead, maybe content that she had already established her strength and independence. Once, she whispered, "Never stop," and at the end, she gave a yelp usually reserved for overtime victories in playoff games, and I let go with a little whoopee-ti-ti-yo myself. She fell asleep in my arms, her face innocent as a Norman Rockwell bride. But I was wide awake. I tucked her in and went downstairs to think.

  Sometimes the best tactic is to wade right into it, pour gasoline on the flames, and see what's left after the explosion. First though, I poured myself a Grolsch. Then I dialed Roger Salisbury's number. It was nearly midnight.

  "Jake, old boy, great to hear your voice. Just talking about you." Old boy. That was a new one, maybe into a polo-playing phase. Wonder if he'll be as chipper after I accuse him of icing Philip Corrigan. But I never got the chance. He said, "There's somebody here who'd like to say hello."

  There was a short pause, a woman's soft laugh, then a silken voice. "Jacob Lassiter, how nice of you to call. We're having some champagne and caviar and other edible things. You can join us if you like. Two's company, three's a party."

  Another laugh and Roger Salisbury was back on the line. "Jake, I'm so damn happy. Just like the old days. And I'll be forever grateful to you. You're a real friend."

  "Sure Roger. Sure."

  A little giggling, two sweethearts pressed up to the phone, ear to ear. Roger breathed a long whoosh into the phone and said, "Melanie, that can wait, whoa! Hey Jake, I got a hard-on that could plant the flag on I wo Jima."

  "Semper Fi," I said, thinking these two are made for each other. She accuses him of murder; he wants to stick her with a needle. One day, he's punching her out; next day, she's running it up his flagpole.

  I wished him well, hung up, and tried to sort it out. Now I believed more than ever in Roger's innocence.. If Roger was in it with Melanie Corrigan, he wouldn't let me know she was there. The two of them would go through the ruse of hating each other, particularly if they sensed an investigation would start up after the body disappeared. Unless it was a double twist, the old trick from "The Purloined Letter," making the fruit of the crime so obvious that it's hard to see. Too complicated. I rejoined Susan and fell asleep thinking about it, hearing a woman's laughter-mocking me-in my dreams.

  At mid-morning Susan and I drove back to her cabana to look around in the light of day. I heard a motor cranking up as we walked around the house, and we caught sight of a Boston Whaler Temptation, a twenty-two-foot outboard, pulling away from the dock. Handling the wheel was a chunk of muscle who looked familiar and stretched out on a cooler in front of the console was the bikini-clad body of Melanie Corrigan. The widow had covered a lot of territory in the last twenty-four hours.

  We ducked behind a poinciana tree and watched them slowly cross the lagoon into open water.

  "Gone fishin'," I said.

  "Doubt it," Susan said. "I don't think that woman's ever been on the Whaler. It's really a tender for the yacht. The man is Sergio Machado-Alvarez."

  "We've met. Where do you suppose they're going?"

  Susan shaded her eyes against the sun and shrugged. The Whaler headed into the bay between the channel markers, lazing at low speed. Still within sight, it dropped anchor.

  "Great. We may have enough time if they stay put," I said.

  The ancient Olds resisted, but I peeled rubber like a teenage punk and we slid around cu
rves on the winding road to the marina at Matheson Hammock barely two miles away. The dockmaster there was an old client, but not exactly blue chip.

  Bluegill Ovelman was shirtless and barefoot. He had a belly like a rain barrel and hands like grappling hooks. He was an old salt, an ex-commercial fisherman who earned his ex the third time he was arrested by the Marine Patrol. I kept him out of jail each time the patrol found a mess of undersize Florida lobsters in his cooler. The last time I persuaded the jury that Bluegill measured his catch in centimeters instead of inches, and being a mite poor at algebra, got confused on the conversion tables. Tired of using his drinking money to post bond, he retired and now tended rich men's yachts at the marina.

  "Ey Counselor!" Bluegill Ovelman grinned. His cheeks were redder than a broiled lobster, and the lines under his eyes could map the trails to the Jack Daniel's distillery. "Wanna take the little lady fishing?" He eyed Susan Corrigan, who gave him a smile that he wasn't likely to see on his best day.

  "I hate fishing and you know it," I lied. "I like my seafood caught, cleaned, and cooked by someone else."

  This was a necessary routine, a dance we'd done before. He called me a leather-shoed, high-rise, pickpocket shyster and I called him a no-count, whiskey-riddled, lobster-poaching bottom feeder. Then he gave me a hug and asked what I wanted. I wanted a boat and a sailboard and he gave me both, an old Chris Craft inboard he used as a tow boat and a banged-up Mistral windsurfing rig he tossed onto the deck. I borrowed an old pair of his swim trunks that had to be a size forty-four and kept hitching them up as we motored into the bay.

  "I wouldn't do any swimming today," Bluegill Ovelman shouted as I leaned on the throttle. "Water's full of men-of-war. Big ones, too. Enough poison for a week's room and board at Jackson Memorial."