Three To Get Deadly

by Lee Goldberg

  "Rodolfo Milan," the judge called out. A pot-bellied man in a stained guayabera dragged himself out of the jury box. A public defender whispered in his ear. In a singsong voice, the judge began his mournful chant, "You're charged with aggravated assault, grand theft, breaking and entering, possession of a weapon in the commission of a felony. Rodolfo Milan, how do you plead?"

  The defendant looked for his public defender, who now was huddled with a young woman prosecutor in a black miniskirt and fishnet stockings.

  "Have I got a plea for you?" She winked at the defense lawyer.

  It went on like this for a while, arraignments and some guilty pleas, a few cases nolle prossed because the state had misplaced files or lost evidence or forgotten to subpoena witnesses or violated the speedy trial rule. With all the traps, with the rules of criminal procedure a minefield for the prosecution, it's a miracle anybody ever gets convicted. Except when they really want you. When they pay attention to you, throw their resources into it, when an Abe Socolow gets a burr under his saddle, makes it personal, then it's different. Then it's all turned around.

  The judge kept calling cases, and every few minutes, corrections officers brought a new load of defendants from the holding cell to the jury box. Still no Roger Stanton.

  "Ivory Holloman," the judge sang out. "You're charged with grand theft auto …"

  Marvin Pollack, a skinny sixty-year-old defense lawyer with a matted toupee, pushed a young black man in a muscle shirt up against one wall of the courtroom. "Ivory, you got the money?" Pollack asked, patting the man's back pocket and not finding a wallet.

  "Tomorrow, Mister Po-lock," Ivory Holloman said, terror in his eyes. If he wanted to, Ivory could pick up Marvin Pollack and use him for a walking stick. Ivory didn't want to. He wanted Marvin Pollack to keep him out of jail.

  "Let's see what you got there," Pollack said, jamming his hand inside the man's tight jeans, fishing out some wrinkled currency. "Shit! A fin, nine singles, and a Lotto ticket." Pollack smoothed the bills, pocketed them, straightened his tie, and prepared to negotiate a fourteen-dollar plea.

  "Lazaro Arango, first degree arson …"

  Abe Socolow strutted into the courtroom followed by his entourage. A couple of detectives from Metro, a young woman assistant state attorney, the medical examiner, a paralegal, and two clerks from the prosecutor's office. The state can always outnumber you. The detectives flanked Melanie Corrigan, who looked a trifle uneasy, but in a virgin-white cotton dress, her arrival still cut the decibel level in half as she walked to the first row of the gallery.

  Socolow stood motionless and surveyed the courtroom as if counting the heifers on his ranch and coming up one short. Finally he spotted me and nodded formally. His assistant stood a half step behind. She was a good choice for the trial, a fragile blonde, small and pale with translucent skin. Give her a good squeeze and you'd leave bruises, but just what Abe Socolow needed. Sometimes, he comes on too strong. A little righteous indignation is okay for a prosecutor up to the point the jury senses he's mean-spirited and unfair. Then, for reasons psychologists can explain, jurors begin to feel sympathy for the defendant, no matter how heinous the charge. Abe sometimes treads dangerously close to the mark, his motor cranking at the red line.

  A moment later, the guards led Stanton through the holding cell door. His eyes desperately sought me, and I moved next to him.

  "We have a couple minutes," I said. "Now, no matter what Melanie or any other witness says, you're not going to testify. This is our chance to find out what they've got, not reveal our case."

  Judge Crane saw Socolow in the rear of the courtroom and pulled the freshly minted file of State v. Stanton off the floor. He would call us out of turn, a courtesy to the chief of major crimes, not to me. Still, Socolow had kept his promise. An immediate bond hearing, and he hadn't called the papers or TV stations. Most prosecutors would salivate over the prospect of seeing their faces in the first block of the six o'clock news. Not Honest Abe. He didn't care about publicity, and instead of sucking up to the reporters the way most prosecutors did, he avoided them. We had a one-day reprieve on publicity.

  "Roger Stanton, murder in the first degree, defendant's motion to set bond," Judge Crane called out. He seemed a little more animated. Murder One beats the dickens out of auto theft for the adrenaline rush. "Is the defendant present and represented by counsel?"

  I stepped forward, nodded, and said, "Jacob Lassiter for the defense. Let the record reflect that Dr. Stanton is present in the courtroom, just as he will be at every hearing and the trial if reasonable bond is granted and he is released pending trial."

  "Hold on Mr. Lassiter," the judge said, "let's get the introductions done before you start arguing. Say, haven't seen you around here lately. Getting bored with the bankers and big shots downtown?"

  The players in the criminal justice system always give it to you when you've been manipulating money instead of lives.

  "I wouldn't be here at all if the state had indicted the guilty party, instead of a respected physician, a lifelong resident of this county, and a man with no prior criminal record." Might as well score a few points before the other side gets the ball.

  "Still relentless," Judge Crane muttered, shaking his head. "Perhaps the state should announce its appearance before you make your closing argument."

  Socolow strode to the podium, his angular body splitting the mass of young lawyers like a sword. Some color had crept into his sallow cheeks. He stood there silently a moment, his hawkish face a mask. "Abraham D. Socolow for the people of the state of Florida," he announced. He bowed to the judge and continued, "Also for the state, Jennifer Logan." He nodded toward the small blonde who was invisible next to Melanie Corrigan.

  I took a good look at the widow. Not as confident as in the civil trial. A different society over here. Less civilized. Maybe once she would have fit in with the grifters, hard guys, and con men. But maybe the comforts of Gables Estates had taken the edge off, dulled the street smarts that served her so well until now. And maybe, too, she was just smart enough to know it.

  The judge began the preliminaries. "Mr. Lassiter. This is a capital case. You know, of course, the burden you face in securing bond pending trial."

  "I know, Your Honor. However, by examining the state's main witness, we intend to show that the proof is not great, and the presumption of guilt is not evident. I believe we will meet the standards of Arthur v. State. This is a case in which the state's entire case, including the evidence on which a search warrant was based, depends on the credibility of one witness. We are prepared to demonstrate the total lack of credibility of that witness."

  I was prepared for no such thing. I was ready to wing it, to go with the flow, to get her to admit the old affair with Roger and ask if she didn't want him out of her life now, and didn't this seem like a swell way to do it. Time to go fishing. You never know what you'll catch until you drop a line into the water.

  Again I looked at Melanie Corrigan. Edgy, tension showing around the mouth. Good. Finally getting to her. Socolow looked at her, too. Then he whispered something to Jennifer Logan, who shook her head, no, thin blonde strands swaying. Socolow turned to the judge. "Your Honor. Of course we vigorously disagree with the representations made by Mr. Lassiter concerning the state's case and its chief witness. However, we agree that this defendant is not likely to flee. We will stipulate to reasonable bond, perhaps two hundred fifty thousand dollars."

  Just like that. Throwing in the towel.

  Of course he had good reason. He hadn't had time to adequately prepare his witnesses, and his instincts told him that Melanie Corrigan wasn't ready. While Abe Socolow might take some perverse pleasure in keeping Roger Stanton in jail for a few months prior to trial, he wouldn't risk blowing the case by having his star witness crack at a bond hearing. We took the offer, Roger putting up his pension funds as collateral for the bond.

  So we left the Justice Building together. Just like the old days during the civil trial, Roger Sta
nton telling me what a great lawyer I am. Then he asked what my strategy would be during the trial.

  I didn't know.

  Who are our witnesses?

  I didn't know that.

  He gave me a funny look. I told him not to worry. The state had to show us its evidence and its witness list. And the state's case was circumstantial. Nobody saw Roger Stanton inject the drug into Philip Corrigan. And nobody except Melanie Corrigan could place the black valise in Roger's possession. I liked that—Melanie's testimony against Roger's—one-on-one. I just wondered how Abe Socolow planned to change the odds.

  19

  THE NURSE

  Like fine wine, a criminal prosecution needs to age. First, a flurry of activity during the fermentation of the case, hearings, depositions, and an exchange of papers. Then, a quiet time, waiting for a trial date, files stored away in darkened cabinets, a time for brooding, waking at dawn with brilliant strategies, tossing them on the scrap heap of half-baked ideas by midday.

  Judge Crane had set the trial for June, the beginning of Miami's unremitting summer. Those who can afford it are already getting away, escaping the blazing sun, ferocious humidity, and afternoon gully washers. By June the winds have shifted to the southeast—a wet, warm breath from the Caribbean—a time when each day begins with the same notion: no relief for six months. The calendar still says Spring, but in the tropics, it is not a time of renewal. It is the season of decay, streets steaming in afternoon storms that soak but do not cool, businessmen ducking from refrigerated cars to refrigerated offices while the poor, like desert dwellers, seek shade during the day, then roam free after dark, a time of short tempers and midnight shootings. And it would be our time of trial.

  Six weeks after the indictment, we knew the state's case inside out. Abe Socolow detailed it for us in a bill of particulars, a witness list, and a carton of physical evidence. We knew who would testify and what they would say. No more trial by surprise, no last minute witnesses popping from the gallery.

  We knew there was no wiretap evidence, no statements made by Stanton to be used against him, and that the confidential informant, one Melanie Corrigan, would be the star witness. We learned the test results from the Medical Examiner's Office: evidence of succinic acid and choline in Corrigan's liver and brain, but strangely, none around the needle tracks in the buttocks. I would talk to Charlie Riggs about that.

  On a warm, overcast day in April, I deposed Melanie Corrigan in Abe Socolow's office, staring hard at her when she took the oath. She stared right back and promised to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Once upon a time, she held a rich man's hand and promised to love and to cherish, to honor and obey.

  Today she had no surprises. After her marriage, Roger Stanton kept pursuing her. Yes, she had dated him years ago, but that was ancient history, she was just a kid. No, she was not having an affair with him. Kept spurning his advances. He said he loved her, that Philip didn't appreciate her, didn't spend enough time with her. Roger showed her a little black valise with hypodermics and a glass vial, clear liquid inside, like a miniature vodka bottle they give you on a plane.

  He told her to get rid of Philip by injecting him with the drug. She was shocked, then laughed it off, thinking it was all talk. Roger always talked crazy. But when Philip died after surgery, she suspected Roger. She wanted proof. She thought something would come out in the civil trial, but nothing did.

  So after the verdict, when Roger invited her over to his place, she went, and while he was fixing drinks, she looked through a desk in the study. Voila, the black valise and two hypodermics. Nearby in a small refrigerator was the vial, this time with some of the fluid missing. She slipped everything into her purse and the next day called the State Attorney's Office. At about the same time, Dr. MacKenzie tipped Socolow to the brain and liver samples that came from Charlie Riggs. When both the tissue samples and the liquid tested positive for succinylcholine, the grand jury indicted Roger Stanton for Murder One.

  She told her story well. Socolow had several weeks to prepare her for deposition after almost botching it at the bond hearing. I couldn't shake her. She denied that the valise was ever in her possession, denied planting the drug at Roger's house. Nothing there for us, but at least we knew the state's case and knew we could not win unless we discredited Melanie Corrigan.

  What about the valise and the drug, I had asked Roger. I wanted him to tell me that he had never seen the succinylcholine, that Melanie must have come up with it and then stolen his valise to frame him. If we could trace the drug to her, bull's-eye!

  "It didn't happen that way," he said.

  "No?"

  "I borrowed the sucks—that's what we call it—from an anesthesiologist. Had an old Lab retriever, must have been close to twenty, comatose, but still breathing. Put him to sleep by paralyzing his lungs with the sucks. Kept the bottle in a refrigerator. Don't remember what happened to it."

  "The valise?"

  He shrugged. "Noticed it missing shortly after Philip died. Didn't think anything of it."

  I checked it out. The anesthesiologist confirmed the story, the pet burial place, too. An unexpected bonus, it all happened two years before Corrigan died. Ladies and gentlemen, you don't get your murder weapon and wait two years to do the job.

  * * *

  One name on the state's witness list meant nothing to us. Rebecca Ingram, R.N., Mercy Hospital. I took her deposition with Abe Socolow sitting grimly at her side. Nurse Ingram was in her thirties, no makeup, close-cropped dishwater brown hair. Next to her name on the witness list was the innocuous description: Responded to decedent's cardiac monitor alarm.

  "Did you see Dr. Stanton the night of Mr. Corrigan's death?" I asked.

  "Yes. I saw him leaving Room five-twelve, Mr. Corrigan's room, hurrying down the hall."

  Okay, the state can place Roger in the hospital that night. No problem. Seeing patients, stopped in to check on Corrigan after surgery.

  "And what time did this occur?"

  She did not hesitate. "Ten o'clock. Almost exactly. I remember because I was checking Mr. Corrigan every half hour on the half hour."

  Still no harm done. The aneurysm occurred at eleven fifteen.

  "Is that all?" That's not much of a question, sort of asking the witness what the heck you're doing on the state's witness list.

  "He was carrying a little leather valise. Black. With three gold initials on it, about yea-big." She held her hands about one foot apart, and I felt a knife, the same size, lodge in my gut. Nurse Rebecca Ingram shrugged and smiled a tiny, innocent smile. "That's all," she said.

  Oh. That's all. I asked Socolow if he would be kind enough to find Exhibit C in his cardboard box.

  "Similar to this valise?" I asked the nurse. "Well, it looks like it. Yes. Either that one or one just like it."

  I put my hand over the gold lettering. "What initials were on the valise you saw?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know."

  "And of course you couldn't see what was in the valise, correct?"

  "No. I mean yes. I mean, correct, I couldn't see what was in there." Questions phrased in the negative always confuse.

  "Did you ask Dr. Stanton what was in the valise?"

  "No. I said nothing to him, and as far as I know, he didn't even see me."

  "And in your experience, is it unusual for a doctor to carry such a valise?"

  "Oh no. Many physicians carry small instruments in them or keep their patient notes there."

  "Was there anything unusual about seeing Dr. Stanton on the floor in the evening?"

  "No. He frequently checks on patients after surgery."

  "So in summary, you saw Dr. Stanton on his regular nighttime rounds more than an hour before Philip Corrigan suffered an aneurysm from unknown causes, and the doctor was carrying a rather ordinary valise that may or may not be the one I am holding, and you don't know what, if anything, was in it?"

  "Yes, yes, that's right," she said, clearly relieved not to
have buried the doctor any deeper.

  I paused a moment and tried to get smarter in a hurry. At trial you worry about asking one question too many; in discovery, one too few. I couldn't seem to pump any extra voltage into my brain. Abe Socolow cracked the knuckles of his bony hands and said, "Any more questions, Counselor?"

  We were sitting in his tiny office in the Justice Building, files and cardboard boxes everywhere, a flood of paper, the daily bread of lawyers. The three of us plus a court reporter taking everything down on her silent machine. Socolow seemed a little too anxious to end this one. I pretended to study the chart of his convicted and condemned killers. Buying time, I stood up and walked to the small window that overlooked the trestles of the nearby expressway. I looked for a signpost on the foggy road that runs through my mind.

  "One more question," I said.

  Abe Socolow sighed and shook his head in disgust. That trick might work with kids just out of law school. Pretending exasperation: Why the fuck you wasting everybody's time here?

  I smiled at Nurse Rebecca Ingram, who sat quietly with her hands primly folded in her lap. "Did you see anybody else on the floor that night prior to eleven-fifteen?"

  "Yes, as I told Mr. Socolow, sometime between ten-thirty and eleven, I can't remember exactly when, I was at the station by the elevators, and Mrs. Corrigan came up with a gentleman."

  "Oh," I breathed, trying to keep still, inviting her to continue.

  "Well, they must have come up the fire stairs because I didn't see them get off the elevator. But I looked down the hall and there they were."

  "Did you speak to them?"

  "Yes, I told Mrs. Corrigan they really shouldn't be up there then, but she said they'd just be a minute. Then they went into Mr. Corrigan's room."

  "Alone, the two of them?"

  "Yes, I returned to my station."