by Paul Levine
The house was one of those modern jobs, six concrete cubes at odd angles, a wall of glass bricks shielding an interior courtyard and a roof full of skylights. I rang the doorbell and waited. Three-thirty a.m. In Miami an unexpected visitor late at night is an excuse to set loose the guard dogs or open up with automatic weapons.
It took a while, then the intercom crackled with a sleepy, cranky, "Yeah?"
"Roger, it's Jake. Sorry to wake you. But there's news. Socolow won't refile. It's over."
Silence. Then, "Great. Call me in the morning."
"Can't. There's more. Got to see you."
"Minute," he said.
It was more like five. A hot, dank night. In the yard a row of crimson tobacco jasmine flooded us with a steamy perfume, even as the rain splashed under the portico.
Finally Roger eyeballed me through the peephole. I ducked to one side. I didn't have to move fast. By the time he turned the locks, slid the bolts, unhooked the chains, and punched the code into the digital alarm, I could have been appointed to the bench. Roger Salisbury opened the heavy beamed door to find a visitor sitting in a wicker chair on his front stoop, her head slumped to a shoulder, eyeless face melting under the ghoulish glow of the yellow bug light. Overhead, lightning crackled.
I heard Roger gag, a choking sound. I watched him slump to the Mexican tile floor of his foyer. My own stomach tossed as he clutched his throat, gagged again, and vomited. He stayed there awhile, emptying himself while the three of us stepped around him and into the house. Sylvia Corrigan stayed put.
"Why do this to me, Jake?" he whimpered, getting to his feet. Charlie steered him to a rust-colored leather sofa. Granny found a kitchen towel and helped clean his face. He sat there in a black silk bathrobe, bare feet on the floor, looking at me with vacant eyes. That bland, handsome face was gray now. "Jake, you're my lawyer and my friend. Why?"
"I'm resigning from both positions."
"Jake…"
"Why did you kill Sylvia Corrigan?"
His head shrunk back into his shoulders. "Why would I kill her?"
"Easy. Because Melanie asked you to. She very nearly told me you did it. When I asked her why anyone would steal Sylvia Corrigan's body, she said to ask you. It didn't make sense then, but it does now."
He cackled. Half a laugh, half a cry, a barely human sound. "I'm not a killer. You said so yourself in the malpractice trial. God you were good. I'm a healer. I took an oath. To give no deadly drug, to do no harm."
"You violated the oath, Roger. You gave it up. For flesh. You killed Sylvia and Philip and Sergio."
"I didn't kill Philip," he said softly.
Where I come from, that's an admission. Two out of three. I remembered what he said the other night on my porch. / didn't kill Philip. He's the one person I could never kill.
He started rocking back and forth, his head between his knees, his forearms resting on his knees. When he looked up, his eyes darted back and forth and his mouth hung slack. He cocked his head to one side and looked at me or through me, his mind somewhere on the far side of Betel-geuse. The look chilled the room. It could have frightened Sylvia Corrigan.
Then his eyes cleared. A calm voice, the old Roger Salisbury, "Jake, you remember what you said to me that first day in your office?"
I remembered fine but I didn't feel like reminiscing. "Probably that I was a lousy linebacker."
"No, that you kept looking for the good guys and couldn't find them. I admired you, wanted you to like me, to be my friend. I wanted to be one of the good guys."
He said it with sadness, finality. Knowing it was over.
"I didn't kill Philip," he repeated. "You can't believe that pig Sergio." Then he slipped into his best Cuban handyman accent: "E's the needle man." And he pushed his thumb against an imaginary plunger of an imaginary hypodermic just as Sergio had done on the witness stand, and there it was, the missing piece. Where it had been all along, on the videotape. That puncture in Sylvia Corrigan's backside could have been a routine injection in the hospital just before she died, but it wasn't.
Oh Susan Corrigan, you were right the first time. I am dumber than I look.
I put my hands on my knees and leaned over, my face close to Roger's. Our own little huddle. I wanted to look him in the eye. The sour smell of sweat mixed with vomit clung to him.
"Roger, I know it all now. You lied to me about when you met Philip Corrigan. You said it was after his wife had died. You were blocking it out, her death, staying a mile away from any talk about her. But you told me the truth about the succinylcholine. You did have it for two years before Philip died. And you did put an old dog to sleep with it. Plus an old lady you forgot to mention. You killed Sylvia Corrigan, and before the flowers wilted, the four of you were living it up on the Cory. You, Philip, Melanie, and the karate kid. A celebration cruise. Philip played cameraman. You played doctor with Melanie. After the examination, you gave her a little pat on the ass. That's what it looked like on the tape because you weren't holding anything. But what you were doing was giving her a pretend injection in the ass. She thought it was hysterical. Philip Corrigan laughed so hard he almost dropped the camera. You were showing off, letting them know how you killed her."
He stared off into space, his face devoid of emotion, without joy or pain. Charlie nodded, a signal I was playing the cards right. Granny had discovered a crystal decanter of port and a huge goblet. She drowned a look of sorrow with a healthy chug.
"One thing I can't figure," I continued, "is whether you and Melanie had it all planned. Kill Sylvia, Melanie marries Philip. After a decent interval, you snuff him, too."
"I would never kill Philip," he whispered. "Philip was my friend. I never had many friends. Philip taught me to share Melanie, something I never thought I could do. But she wanted him…"
"Dead," I helped out, as he drifted away again. "She wanted Philip dead. You were torn. The woman you never refused, the friend you longed for. She told you to kill him. You said you would. Just like before. But you didn't want to do it."
"I couldn't do it," he muttered, his voice thick, as if his tongue had swollen from thirst. "Philip shared his most prized possession with me. I watched him lying there in the hospital, my friend, knowing what that woman wanted me to do, but I couldn't…"
He floated off again, riding some inner current. I filled in the gaps. "So you duck out of the room carrying the valise. Nurse Ingram sees you. You run down the stairs to the lobby. Your pals Sergio and Melanie are waiting for the good news. But you don't have any. Melanie is furious. Sergio probably calls you a chicken-shit cobarde. He loves it- you're in pain-he can be the hero. You hand him the valise, and he tucks it into his bush jacket. Melanie goes with him, gives him a cover story for being there if he's seen. But he's nervous. This isn't like injecting himself with steroids. This is murder and there's a nurse right down the hall. So he hurries and doesn't get the hypodermic filled. Or he fills it and squirts it everywhere but inside Philip Corrigan. He makes a puncture, but it's a dry hole. Lucky for him and unlucky for Philip Corrigan, there's more than one way to kill a guy flat on his back. Ikken hissatsu. He kills him with one punch, probably the sword handstrike. Melanie keeps the valise with the drug and the hypodermics. You don't want to see it again, and you don't until she plants it in your house."
He was silent. What is it Charlie would say? Cum tacent clamant. Silence is an admission of guilt. Not in a courtroom, of course, but in human experience. A tremor went through Roger's body, and he wrapped his arms around himself and hugged as if to keep from splitting in two. His eyes kept clouding over, then clearing, slipping in and out of a haze like a foggy shoreline viewed from the sea.
"You knew Sergio did it," I said. "Why didn't you tell me?"
His lips moved but nothing came out. He tried again. "Because they threatened to tell Socolow about Sylvia. After the mistrial, they thought I must have told you about the karate punch. How else could you have figured it out?"
Charlie smiled, but only a
little.
"Why did you kill Sergio?" I asked.
"He kept threatening me. I'll tell the cops this, I'll tell them that, I'll bust your head."
He was sing-songing it, sounding like a child. Coming and going, different people now.
I grabbed him by both shoulders. "Who killed Susan?"
"Sergio. With a poison fish or something. Melanie had him do it. She told me, laughed about it."
He said it so matter-of-factly, one woman dead, another woman laughing. Watching Roger self-destruct, I had buried it, the burning rage. The how and the who. My vow to Susan. Sergio was already dead. Only Melanie's laugh to stifle now. Melanie Corrigan, the source of the evil. Three murders, two by Sergio with Melanie's encouragement. One by Roger, same provocateur.
I let Roger go and talked to Charlie. He would take Granny back to my place. I'd babysit, spend the night on Roger's sofa.
Roger turned to me, his eyes bottomless holes. "Will you help me, Jake? Like you did before. I'm always being falsely accused, you know."
I didn't know what to say. Charlie did. "We can get you help," he said. "A very good doctor I know. In the morning, I'll make the call."
Charlie and Granny left, hoisted Sylvia Corrigan into the trunk of the Cadillac, and drove off.
Roger looked at me. Barely comprehending. I told him I would put him to bed. He didn't agree or disagree, just stood when I helped him up and moved where I guided him. He looked shrunken. So feeble and spent. His bare feet shuffled across the tile. I sat in a chair at the foot of his bed and watched him until he fell asleep. I figured the poison was drained from him now. Just the shell of a man, without the will or the weapons. Able to do no harm.
30
GREAT HANDS
I awoke at five forty-five, same as always. Tired but alert. Aware of the strangeness of the room. There is a sixth sense that tells us something has changed. Someone has passed through our space, coming or going. Our sensors-keen as orbiting satellites-track the unseen movement.
I unfolded myself from the sofa and checked the master bedroom.
No Roger.
The sheets still warm. The rest of the house, empty. I checked the garage. No Porsche.
I called my house, woke Charlie, who must have been sharing the cubbyhole bedroom with Granny. Calmly, he said, "I'll drive to the Corrigan house. You stay put in case he comes back."
I didn't think he'd be coming back. Didn't picture him running to the 7-Eleven to buy juice and eggs. Charlie called in twenty minutes from a pay phone. Nobody at the Corrigan house.
I called a cab. In Miami that's like playing the lottery. Cab drivers hail from various Caribbean islands with one coast road and one mountain road. They can never find residential addresses. I called Roger's office and got the answering service. I didn't expect to hear back, and I was right. No cab, no phone call. After twenty-five minutes, I took off.
Jogging down Miami Avenue toward the causeway to Key Biscayne, then a right turn to pick up Coral Way, the pavement still slick from last night's rain. Roger's office was on Giralda in the Gables. Five miles tops. I needed the exercise but didn't know if I had the time.
I looked for friendly drivers. Most swerved to avoid me, one or two to hit me. No takers for a big lug with a grim look and a sweaty gray T-shirt. I should have slowed that last two hundred yards, but I tried to pick it up. Sprinting. Not much left in the legs, heart going wild. Too old to run gassers, coach's delight.
Roger's black Porsche Turbo gleamed in his reserved spot in back, Melanie Corrigan's green Jaguar in the next space. Good. Melanie must have come voluntarily, Roger calling her from the house. Running here, the mind pounding with each footfall, I had pictured her in the trunk of his car. But maybe Charlie Riggs was wrong. Maybe Roger had no intention of killing Melanie, maybe he just wanted to play some more doctor games. Except Charlie had been right about everything else.
I put my hands on my hips and bent over, sucking for oxygen. It was like breathing through a wet beach towel. One of those soggy Miami mornings without air, no wind from the ocean until the sun heats up the land.
The office was a tiny one-story stucco house with an orange, barrel-tile roof. From the thirties. A lot of doctors and lawyers have gone that route, getting out of the skyscrapers downtown, building equity and taking depreciation. No other cars in the eight-space lot. And there wouldn't be, no office hours Saturday.
The back door was locked. Front door, too. On the side of the house, a brown air conditioner poked out of a blackened window. House too old for central air. I tried yanking it through the window. No go. I gave it a shoulder, braced with legs made of spaghetti, and pushed it inside where it landed on a work table with a thud. I waited a moment. No other sounds. I crawled through. The X-ray room. Dark.
I opened the interior door into a corridor that led to the examination rooms. Then I padded around to the other side of the building past Roger's office, a file room, the bookkeeper's cubicle, and finally, the casting room, where a light shone under the door. I moved close, listening to my own breathing, still heavy. An air conditioner whirred from inside, muffling voices. A man and a woman. Normal tones, no screams, no threats.
I silently let myself in. Roger wore a green gown that was splattered white. His arms were bare and splotched with plaster. He kept dipping a roll of gauze into a bowl of water. Immediately the gauze became gooey, the water mixing with the impregnated plaster. Carefully he wrapped the soggy gauze around the cotton cast padding that circled Melanie Corrigan's left arm. He smoothed out the gauze with those strong, steady hands, tucking it into place, erasing any folds or creases. Then he dipped another piece of gauze into the water and kept building.
She lay spread-eagle on an examining table, both legs already casted from ankle to hip, the right arm a heavy circle of plaster from wrist to shoulder. She was naked except for a tiny white bikini bottom. Her breasts rose and fell with each breath.
"Hello Jake," Roger said, barely looking up. "I didn't want to wake you. Melanie looks lovely in white, don't you think?"
She smiled at me luridly. Her russet hair was loose and fell over the front of one shoulder. The hair hadn't been brushed, Roger probably waking her for the early morning visit. Tiny freckles dotted her chest. She wore no makeup and looked, I imagined, much as she did a decade earlier when Roger first met her in the jerk-off joint.
"Wanna party?" Melanie said. She ran her tongue over her upper lip. "I love a sweaty man."
"Isn't she something?" Roger asked, a tone of pride. "I used to be jealous, you know. But Philip changed that. He taught me. What she gives to someone else doesn't take away from me. That's what he said. He was a great man."
Melanie Corrigan laughed, her chest rising from the table but her arms and legs staying put, weighted down by the casts. "Rog is the sentimental type," she said, derisively.
Roger kept scooping and dipping and molding the plaster. Patting it dry.
"Look at these casts," he instructed. "Smooth, eh?"
"Good workmanship," I agreed.
"Great hands," Melanie said. "He wants you to say, 'Great hands.'
"
"You have great hands, Roger," I said.
"Thank you, Jake. You always had confidence in me. You knew I didn't let the rongeur slip. Not in a million years."
He leaned over a work table and picked up a small tool, stainless steel gleaming. The rongeur. He twirled it around in one hand, tossed it to the other, back and forth without looking. Great hands.
He replaced the rongeur in a tray with half a dozen others, all different sizes, from the tiny pituitary model to the bone rongeur that looked like a pair of household pliers. He patted the last of the plaster into place, pausing to wipe his hands.
"Hurry up," Melanie ordered. "Colder than a witch's tit here. Hey Lassiter, wanna go first?"
Roger dried his hands and said, "You can if you want, Jake." His eyes were focused on Mars.
"Rog, I swear I'm going to pee all over your table, you d
on't hurry up," Melanie said. "Are you hard or you need me to talk dirty? Bring that worm over here."
Roger untied her bikini bottom and folded it over a chair.
"That's better," she laughed. "Hurry the fuck up before my tits freeze solid. Hey Lassiter, that's a joke isn't it? Hurry the fuck up
…"
Roger looked at me. "Jake, you're my friend, just like Philip. You can have her if you want."
"Maybe another time, Roger."
"There won't be another time," he said flatly.
A chill went through me. Maybe it was the blast of the air conditioner on my overheated body. But maybe it was because I knew. My face must have shown it. Melanie smiled seductively. "Don't worry, Lassiter. He always talks like that. We haven't fucked once the last two years, he doesn't threaten to off me."
"Only this time, it's real," Roger said.
She laughed. I didn't.
Melanie leered at me. "What's the matter, Lassiter? You afraid he'll kill me? He only kills little old ladies."
"Who do you kill?" I asked her.
"No one, smart guy. I got men friends always wanting to please me, do me favors."
"You're wrong about Roger," I told her. She looked puzzled. He hadn't told her. No wonder she was so calm. Thinking he was the same old Roger, her favorite lapdog. "Roger kills more than old ladies, and he's pretty good at dreaming up ways to do it. Painful ways."
She still didn't get it.
"Where's your pal, Sergio?" I asked, wanting her to know, wanting her to taste fear.
"Miami Beach, busting up some boards," she said, doubt creeping into her voice.
"Wrong. Dead wrong. The morgue's on this side of the bay."
Her eyes darted to Roger, who worked silently with the plaster. She looked back at me, seeking help. I hadn't moved. I could stop him any time. I was bigger and stronger than Roger, and his mind was diced into an asteroid belt of colliding rocks. He turned his back to me, oblivious. One shot to the kidneys and it would be over.
I could, but why should I? You are wrong about me, dear old Charlie Riggs. I want her dead. Stop Roger?
