Three To Get Deadly (34 page)

If Charlie wanted to talk, I wanted to listen. I slipped on an old pair of gym shorts, running shoes, and a gray T-shirt, stepped into the humid night, and slid into the front passenger seat of Granny's mammoth 1969 Cadillac. Over the bay, lightning flashed and distant thunder followed, a thunderstorm brewing in the southeast, headed our way. Granny had the engine running and Charlie was already in the back. Before I had dented the velour upholstery, the smell rolled over me.

"Granny, you leave a mess of last week's grouper under the seat?"

She didn't even look at me, just jerked a thumb toward the backseat and flicked on the overhead light. My gaze followed the thumb and left me staring into the waxy,, dissolving face of the late Sylvia Corrigan.

"What the hell!"

"Relax, Jake," Charlie said. "Jane did us a great favor by bringing the body here tonight."

Everybody was doing me favors today. As for "Jane," the name still struck me funny, like calling Charlemagne, "Chuck."

"Weren't nothing," Granny said. "That old gal been taking up room in my cooler anyhow."

"What's going on?" I demanded.

"I found the boards Sergio had broken at Convention Hall," Charlie explained. "Easy enough. He did the noon demonstration. Slabs of pine were in the trash, stacked in nearly the same order that he broke them. I thought it quite natural to assume that the one with the cleanest break would have been the top board."

"Quite natural," I agreed.

Granny pulled onto Douglas Road, then turned right at Dixie Highway heading downtown. You expect traffic to be light after three A.M., but it never is. You wonder who these people are, looking for a party or heading for their night shifts.

"On close inspection I could see the top board had been coated with something. I took it to Dr. Kalian at the lab, and he confirmed my suspicions.
Clostridium botulinum
, and quite a liberal dose of it."

"The stuff that causes food poisoning," I said.

"The very stuff," Charlie said.

"What'd Sergio do, eat the boards for breakfast?"

"No, he just hit one with a hand that he had cut on the tile in the courtroom. Even without the cut, the abrasion from the board probably would be sufficient to allow the toxin to enter the blood. With the wound still healing and Sergio not wanting to show weakness by wearing a bandage—I asked around—it was an open invitation to the toxin."

"And you think Roger Stanton cooked this up?" I asked.

"Chemical companies sell the toxin to universities and laboratories for research. A doctor would have no trouble ordering some."

I shook my head. "I don't know, Charlie, a little smear on a board killing a guy."

"It's perhaps the most toxic substance we know. A thousand molecules of botulinum toxin can kill an ox. Do you know how small a molecule is?"

About the size of all the gray matter in my brain, I thought. I'm the guy who trusted Roger Stanton. But I wasn't ready to throw him over, not yet.

"Maybe Roger's got an explanation," I suggested, sounding hollow even to myself.

"That's what we'll find out," Charlie said.

We were at the intersection of Dixie and Miami Avenue. Granny swung the aircraft carrier across three westbound lanes of Dixie and we headed north on Miami, passing under the overpass to Key Biscayne. Roger lived halfway up a long block on the right, his house surrounded by finely aged royal poinciana trees.

"What's your friend in back have to do with it?"

Charlie sighed. "If I showed you her right buttock, upper quadrant, you'd know."

"An injection?"

"Twenty-gauge needle, I'd say."

"Wait a second, Charlie. Slow down. She died in the hospital. That could have been a routine sedative, a painkiller, anything."

"Could have been. We don't have the records."

"And you've done no test for succinylcholine or any other drugs?"

"Correct."

"So you have no proof?"

"Correct again, Counselor. Your cross-examination was always your strong point."

"With no evidence, where do you get off accusing Roger of killing Sylvia Corrigan?"

"Calm down, Jake. I'm not ready to accuse. But I've been at this a long time. I have a hunch, that's all."

"A hunch! Charlie. You're a scientist. I'm a lawyer. You deal with medical probabilities, I deal with evidence. And you have us hauling a corpse around on a hunch. I don't believe it."

When I don't get my prescribed six hours of shut-eye, I can be ornery, even to friends.

"What we believe and what is true," Charlie said, "are often quite different.
Deceptio visus
. It's probably healthy up to a point, to believe in your client's cause. Beyond that point, it will blind you."

I turned around to face him, and Sylvia Corrigan toppled forward, brushing my arm with a forehead the consistency of sponge cake left in the rain. The rotten fish smell washed over me. "What do you expect me to do?" I demanded. "Even if he confessed to me, I couldn't go to Socolow. The attorney-client privilege prevents that."

"It prevents your telling the authorities about past crimes, sure. But if you had probable cause to believe he's about to kill again, there is a different obligation."

"Who's left to kill?"

"The person who first made him a killer, of course."

A flash of lightning lit the sky and a thunderclap followed almost instantly, the storm closing in. I laughed but there was no pleasure behind it. "You think Roger will kill Melanie Corrigan. If you're right, why should I lift a finger to stop him? Maybe I'll help him."

"No, you won't. I know you, Jake. I know your code. It isn't written anywhere except all over your face. You're one of the last decent men. You're a guy who looks for broken wings to mend."

"Yeah, I'm an overgrown Boy Scout."

"You won't admit it. You've created this image of the indifferent, detached loner, but I know you better than you do."

I forced the same hollow laugh. "You're a great canoemaker, Charlie, but a lousy judge of character."

"All right. We're not here to protect Melanie Corrigan or anybody else, just to learn the truth. Will you help?"

Fat raindrops splattered the windshield, prelude to a downpour. Granny slowed, then hit the brakes hard, and the old Cadillac's bald tires slid to a stop in front of Roger's house. "Tell me what to do," I said with resignation.

"Be tough with him," Charlie ordered. "He's cracking. The murder of Sergio was an irrational, bizarre act. He's crying out, perhaps over guilt, shame, who knows? He wants to be caught. But his first reaction will be denial. He trusts and respects you. You're the one who has to do it."

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 Stanton 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.
I 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 Betelgeuse. The look chilled the room. It could have frightened Sylvia Corrigan.

Then his eyes cleared. A calm voice, the old Roger Stanton, "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."