To speak for the dead

25

Three a.m. and wide awake. Mind buzzing, a dozen different departments tying up the lines, busy signals all round. Up front some brain cells readying for trial, still rehearsing, doing what ought to be done. Some neurons in the back running through it all, the experiences of a lifetime, roads not taken, and for now and forever, mourning the loss of Susan. Shrouding it all, a poisonous gray mist choking me with rage. Hot to inflict pain. The pain of a thousand sea creatures a thousandfold.

It was stifling in my little coral rock house in Coconut Grove. The ceiling fans were on but I was soaked. Sitting in the living room on an old sofa of Haitian cotton, more brown than its original off-white, watching rivulets of sweat track down my chest and into the top of my Jockeys. Three Grolschs didn't cool me off.

I pushed the videotape into the VCR. Same interior shots of the Cory. Same striptease by Melanie Corrigan, same ass-rolling act in Roger Salisbury's face. A cut, then Roger playing doctor, listening to Melanie's lungs. When she turns over, he slowly taps her ass with his thumb. Laughter all around. Then Sergio joins the party, and finally, the trick shot with Philip Corrigan shooting the scene in the overhead mirror.

Nothing there I hadn't seen before. If there was something Melanie didn't want me to see, she had little to worry about. I'd seen it all and couldn't put a handle on it. I watched it again. Nothing changed. I put my feet up on the sofa and slept for an hour. Maybe two. Then I showered, and headed to the Justice Building. Putting everything else aside, concentrating on the mission, saving a man from the electric chair.

"What I say this morning is not evidence," Abe Socolow was saying as if it were indeed evidence of momentous weight. "It is a road map, a guide as to where the evidence will go."

He was wearing a black suit. All black. No chalk stripes, no patterns. You don't see many black suits these days. Or all black ties. A white shirt. And of course, shiny black shoes. With his beakish look and sunken cheeks, Abe Socolow could have been a small-town undertaker. Or an executioner.

I wore light brown. I almost never wear it, kind of blends me into the woodwork, sandy hair and sandy suit against oak paneling. Trial lawyers always used to wear dark blues and grays, power colors. Afraid brown made them look like salesmen. Then psychologists told us we were salesmen, and brown is friendly. Ronald Reagan wore it when greeting heads of state-big cordial brown plaid or checks. For this trial, friendly brown it would be. Jake Lassiter, the jurors' pal.

Hangman or not, Abe Socolow began his opening statement in restrained and understated tones, slowly building the tempo. First he matter-of-factly described the testimony to come. He turned it up a notch when he talked about the relationship between Melanie and Roger. With motive crucial to his case, he needed the jury to believe that Roger was obsessed with Melanie and would do anything to have her.

"You will hear Mrs. Corrigan describe her long-ago relationship with the defendant," Abe Socolow said. "Yes, they had a physical relationship when she was barely out of her teens, and he already a practicing physician." Socolow shook his head knowingly. How loathsome this defendant must be. Cradle robber.

Several jurors leaned forward. Eating it up. Socolow continued, "The alfair ended, and as frequently happens, their paths crossed again. The defendant tried to talk Mrs. Corrigan into leaving her husband, tried to rekindle the flame that still burned within him, but not her. She would have none of it. But his obsession, his lust, his depravity, overcame his reason…"

Judge Crane looked toward me expectantly. I could object here but I didn't. Socolow was arguing his case, not presenting a sterile preview of the expected evidence. The judge shrugged. If I wanted to behave like a potted plant, no problem for the court. But I had a reason. If the judge let me get the tape into evidence, Socolow had just dug himself into a hole.

She would have none of it?

Depravity?

It takes two. Or three in Melanie Corrigan's case. I would use Socolow's own words against him in closing argument.

"First, he worked his way into Mrs. Corrigan's confidence," Socolow continued. "As occurs in marriages, the Corrigans had problems. We all do. Mr. Corrigan was often away on business. She was lonely. She confided in the defendant, sought his guidance as a professional and a friend, not knowing the evil within him."

A bit melodramatic for my tastes. But no one was dozing. I could hear the gentle whir of the television camera placed at an angle behind the bar. The still camera from the newspaper clicked incessantly, despite the muffler designed to quiet it. The newsboys were scratching their notepads, soaking up the sexy stuff.

"And what did the defendant do? Suggest to Philip Corrigan that he spend more time with his wife? No! Recommend counseling? No! This defendant, who pretended to be a family friend, who pretended to mend and to cure, this Great Pretender, whispered to Melanie Corrigan time and again that she should kill her husband. Murder him!"

He let it hang there, knowing the silence burned his words into them. No one even coughed. It was as if jurors, spectators, and clerks all held their breaths, afraid to exhale.

"Murder him," Socolow repeated, softer this time. Juror number three, a middle-aged secretary, gasped. If Socolow had paused two more beats, she might have suffocated.

"He showed her how to do it. With a dangerous drug. An anesthetic that paralyzes the muscles and leads to a horrible, painful death as the lungs stop working. Naturally, she was shocked. So shocked that she couldn't believe he was serious. When he finally dropped the subject, she thought it was just a sick joke, a game. But then her husband died after routine surgery performed by this defendant."

For the first time, Socolow acknowledged Roger Salisbury's presence, pointing at him. The jurors' eyes followed Socolow's bony finger.

"Died after routine back surgery," Socolow said again, drawing the jurors into a cadence of repeated phrases. "Mrs. Corrigan was grief stricken. And suspicious. She sued the defendant for malpractice. The civil jury did not have the facts you will have, and he was exonerated. Still, she persisted. The defendant made advances toward her. She pretended to be interested, went to his home, and discovered the drug and the implements, the hypodermics, which you will see in evidence. You will hear testimony that a puncture on Mr. Corrigan's buttocks matches perfectly the twenty-gauge hypodermic found in the defendant's possession. You will hear evidence that this defendant surreptitiously entered Philip Corrigan's hospital room barely an hour before he died. You will hear from expert witnesses that tissue samples from Mr. Corrigan's brain and liver contain concentrations of the drug's components…"

It was a fine performance. Except for reading the indictment, Abe Socolow never mentioned Roger Salisbury by name, never called him doctor. The state's trick is to dehumanize. My job is to breathe life into the man who sits next to me, an innocent caught in a web of incompetence and deceit.

When Abe sat down, I walked to a comfortable spot six feet in front of the jury box. I put on a friendly smile and told them about the state's burden of proof, the burden to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Dr. Roger Salisbury intentionally killed Philip Corrigan. I mentioned Charles W. Riggs, M.D., and two jurors nodded, recognizing the name. How he would testify that Philip Corrigan died of natural causes. And I characterized the entire state's case as circumstantial evidence, spitting out the words as if describing a particularly odious disease.

I talked about Roger Salisbury, the doctor, the man. I talked about the long years of education and training, of good service to the community. Told them they'd hear character witnesses say they could believe Roger Salisbury under oath. Other doctors, community leaders. I promised they'd hear from Dr. Salisbury himself.

"You will hear a different story than Mr. Socolow tells," I said. "Not of a man spurned by a beautiful young woman. But of an ambitious, restless woman bored with her husband, a woman seeking excitement elsewhere. A woman who stood to inherit a fortune if her husband died, but would receive nothing if they divorced. You will see Mr. Corrigan's will and his antenuptial contract with this woman."

The reporters kept scribbling; the jurors kept listening. But that was about as far as I could go to toss another suspect at them. Until the judge ruled on the videotape, I was hamstrung. Still, I could put Melanie Corrigan's integrity at issue.

"You heard Mr. Socolow describe his case. He spent most of his time talking about the testimony of Melanie Corrigan. Why? She is the state's case. It is your job to evaluate the credibility of the state's witnesses. If you don't believe Melanie Corrigan, the state's case crumbles."

"Objection! Argumentative." Socolow stood and leaned forward toward the bench, his lean frame a javelin stuck in the ground.

Judge Crane paused and tapped a pencil against his forehead. In heavily publicized trials, he relied on signals from the press gallery to determine objections. Helen Buchman, a veteran Herald reporter, was the dean of the courthouse crew. But she kept a poker face this time, and the judge fended for himself. "You had considerable latitude in your opening, Mr. Socolow. Denied."

Socolow pouted and sat down. Emboldened by the ruling, I decided to finish with a flourish. "Yes, Mr. Socolow told you all about Melanie Corrigan and what she will say. But what evidence doesn't he have. Eyewitnesses to this alleged crime? None. Fingerprints? None. Confession? None. Just one woman's story and a prosecutor's case built on supposition, conjecture, fantasy, and whim…"

"Your Honor!" Socolow was halfway across the courtroom.

"Is that an objection?" Judge Crane asked.

"Yes. Improper opening."

"Granted. The jury will disregard the last statement of the defense. Mr. Lassiter, you are familiar, are you not, with the bounds of opening-"

A shout from the gallery interrupted the judge. Then a banging door. Then a woman's voice, loud: "Your grimy hands off me! I ain't walking through no gamma rays. You wanna strip-search me, fuzznuts, see if you're man enough. I'm with Jacob Lassiter."

Judge Crane banged his gavel and said, "Mr. Lassiter, is that lady associated with your office?"

The bailiff had her by the arm. I approached the bench. "That's no lady," I whispered to the judge. "That's my granny."

The judge looked skeptical. "Madam, are you related to Mr. Lassiter?"

"Is a frog's ass waterproof?" Granny replied, loud enough to call the hogs home.

The judge called a five-minute recess. They always last twenty. Granny Lassiter shook loose from the bailiff and smoothed her ruffled feathers. She wore a yellow print sundress, deck shoes, and a heavy Navy peacoat, a gift from a grateful sailor who once tended Harry Truman's place in Key West.

"I brought you a thermos of hot conch chowder," she told me. "Know how damned cold they keep these government buildings and don't want you getting the grippe. Hope I didn't interrupt anything important."

"Your timing was impeccable," I said. "The judge was chastising me. Why the big fuss?"

Granny balled a fist at the bailiff. "They wanted me to walk through some damn machine, see if I was carrying hand grenades. Told 'em to shove off. Might affect my unborn children, deplete the ozone layer, and curdle your chowder. You still like a dash of sherry in it?"

I allowed as how I did.

She pulled out a flask and shook in three drops that 298 wouldn't wet the whistle of a priest receiving communion. Then she tipped the flask to her lips, drained it, glared at Roger Salisbury, and asked, "You kill that rich son-of-a-bitch who built condos in estuaries?" "No, ma'am," Roger Salisbury said. "Why not?" she demanded. "No balls?"