Three To Get Deadly (18 page)

I was on my back, my clothes on the floor when she slipped out of her things, her small breasts tracing circles on my chest. From nowhere she produced a condom, as indispensable as lipstick to the modern woman. She slipped it on me without either snapping it like a slingshot or gouging me with a fingernail. Then, strong legs astride me, she eased downward, taking me in, tightening onto me. She exhaled deep surging breaths, all the time raising and lowering herself like a lifter doing squats.

I was liking it, liking her. But all the time watching her, and not just the curve of the hips. Watching her face, thinking about her and Roger Stanton and Melanie Corrigan. And very rich, very dead Philip Corrigan. And who did what to whom.

Always thinking, damn it! Instead of just feeling. Thinking about the hacked up body a few feet away. Why not just enjoy the thrusting and the swampy heat rising from amidships? Damn it to hell, Lassiter.

* * *

I slept some more and when I awoke it was dark in the little house. Susan Corrigan purred next to me, stretched a leg until the calf muscle peaked, then curled up again. I thought about her. Smart and sassy. Part of the new breed. Toughing it out in a man's world. Elbowing past male reporters to get the best quotes in a locker room. Ignoring the wiseguys—
what happened to sportswriters who pissed standing up?
—dishing it out as well as taking it. This was the Susan Corrigan I knew. Which only made me realize I didn't know her very well at all.

I got up without disturbing her and poked around in the dark. No sign of Charlie or Granny. I found some smoked mackerel in the refrigerator and, still disoriented, tried to remember if this was dinner or a late snack. The house was quiet, the only sounds the palm fronds outside, slapping against each other in the breeze from the Gulf. I padded around to Granny's bedroom. The door was open a crack, a hurricane lamp burning by the night table. I should check on her. As she checked on me a thousand nights. She was there, under her own tufted quilt, sleeping peacefully, breathing steadily, her arms wrapped around the happy, slumbering hulk of Charles W. Riggs, M.D.

No cops waited to arrest me at my little house off Kumquat Avenue; no reporters paced in the waiting room of my office. For a while, I thought The Great Graveyard Robbery might have been a dream. I was sitting at my desk Monday morning, sipping black coffee, peaceful as a monk, when I found the story on page 7 of the Local section:

Wacky. So far off that, weirdly, it was not far wrong. The Conch Brigade consisted of vicious terrorist Granny Lassiter, part-time septic tank cleaner Virgil Thigpen, and two unemployed shrimpers who could be found fishing for snook in Hell's Bay when not in jail for public drunkenness.

The newspaper made no mention of the recent malpractice trial and said nothing about the security guard seeing anything suspicious. I figured the cops made no connection with Stanton, and the guard wasn't about to describe his close encounter with a moldy ghost. No suspects except a phantom group.

There wouldn't be much of an investigation. A penny-ante crime in Dade County, particularly on the weekend a DEA agent got hit in the head with two hundred pounds of twenty-dollar bills. Sent him to the hospital with a concussion and he couldn't even keep the money. It was evidence against a North Miami drug dealer named Guillermo Montalvo. When federal agents surrounded his house, Montalvo tossed the money—trussed up like a bale of hay—out a second story window. It glanced off the head of the agent, who wore a bulletproof vest but no hockey helmet. How much money is there in two hundred pounds of twenties? Exactly one million, eight hundred thousand, one hundred eighty dollars, according to the feds, who often weigh the take because counting it takes so much time.

The same day another federal agent got shot in the gun. Not the gut, the gun. After selling a kilo of cocaine in a sting operation, the agent drew his nine-millimeter SIG-Sauer semiautomatic handgun. The stingee, one Angel Morales, did the same thing. Morales shot his weapon first, and his bullet lodged in the agent's gun barrel. Morales had little time to enjoy his marksmanship. Four Hialeah cops who had been lurking in the bushes emptied twenty-two rounds into Morales, then kicked him in the groin for good measure.

So with everything going on, the police couldn't be expected to worry about a little old-fashioned grave robbing. I did wonder, though, if Roger had heard about it. And Melanie Corrigan. Surely the police would call her. Maybe we should put a tail on her, see if she and Roger have a tête-à-tête to talk it over. My musings were interrupted by Cindy, buzzing me.

"Some bimbo for you on two,
su majestad
."

"She have a name?"

"Sure, and a voice like melted butter."

"Please, Cindy, I'm not in the mood for Twenty Questions. Been a hard weekend and a crummy day."

"Mis-sus Philip Corrigan, and she asked for
Jacob
Lassiter."

Uh-oh.

I decided not to be expecting the call, but not to be surprised either.

"Jake," she said when I gave her a flat-toned hello, "I'm afraid there's been some trouble."

She waited a moment. I let her wait some more, then said, "I saw the story in the paper. What's going on?"

"I don't know but it's tearing me apart. You can't imagine the pain. I just keep thinking about him desecrating Philip's tomb, stealing the body, it's so terrible."

"Him?"

"Roger, of course. Who else would do it, unless that little bitch daughter was involved."

Whoops. A tiny shiver went through me, an icicle dripping down my back. Let's find out what she knows.

"Why would Susan be involved? Why Roger? Why anybody?"

"I don't know, maybe they killed him together. Now they're disposing of the evidence."

"What about Sylvia Corrigan, why her body?"

Silence. Then, "Why don't you ask the good doctor?"

So many questions, so few answers. "Why are you calling me?"

"I thought I could hire you, retain you, as my lawyer."

Suddenly I'm in demand. The doctor, the daughter, the widow. "I don't think so. I'm not sure you need a lawyer, and anyway, my representation of Roger Stanton disqualifies me."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said, sounding very sorry indeed. "We could have worked well together."

There was a hint there, an unmistakably seductive hint, the striking of a tiny spark that could be fanned into a flame with a few more whispers or the friction of that firm, sleek body against mine. It was her petition for rehearing. I decided to let the ruling stand.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Corrigan," I said, as proper as a councilman declining a bribe. "It just wouldn't work."

"Then I guess I'll just do what I have to without your advice or assistance."

I let it hang there and we said our good-byes. I gave my conscience a pat on the back, the vision of Melanie Corrigan's unsheathed body a shooting star across the black sky of my mind.

* * *

The appointment was for two o'clock but Roger Stanton was ten minutes early. Unusual for a doctor. He wore a coat and tie. Unusual, too. Physicians hereabouts usually sport the open-collar look—white smock or lab coat—and scruffy sneakers. Not Roger. Blue blazer, gray slacks, penny loafers. A frat man look. He gave Cindy a big hello, peeked out the window at one of the cruise ships chugging out Government Cut, then settled in a cushioned chair next to a thirsty rubber plant.

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 Stanton 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. Antidevelopment 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 Stanton 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 …"

Stanton 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," Stanton 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 Stanton. 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-methylbutyl-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 squinted into the brightness and looked due east over the ocean toward Bimini. "Fantasies. I think Roger Stanton has difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. He wanted Melanie for himself and might have wished Philip dead. Maybe told 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.