To speak for the dead

27

I told Roger not to start celebrating but he was slapping me on the back. Brilliant again.

"You destroyed MacKenzie." He was jubilant.

"Maybe," I told him. "But they still have time to test someone who dies during surgery and Charlie Riggs doesn't know what it'll show. Nobody seems to know."

"Still," Roger insisted, "we won the day."

"Sure," I said, "but tomorrow is Melanie Corrigan. And the jury will convict if they believe her, acquit if they don't. Expert witnesses are just icing on the cake."

That was hard for his scientific mind to accept. "Then the trial is just showmanship," he complained, "if whoever has the best looking, most likable witness wins."

"It sometimes works like that," I said. "My job is to get the jury to dislike her or Sergio or both."

"How do you do that?"

I winked at him. Like it was a great secret. Which it was. Especially from me.

I slept well. I had prepared. I lowered my pace a bit. Tried to forget just who she was and what she had done to Susan. My first responsibility was to Roger Salisbury. Time for the rest later.

She still turned heads walking into a courtroom. Unlike the civil trial, she could not sit at counsel table. The witness rule was in effect. No witnesses present except when testifying. So the jurors hadn't seen Melanie Corrigan yet. It made her appearance more dramatic. She didn't let them down. Poised, confident, a beautiful walk to the witness stand.

Still in his black suit, the Grim Reaper asked when she first met Roger Salisbury.

She was well prepared. "I was just a kid, really. I looked up to him. He was a doctor, and I was training to be a professional dancer. We became involved. He pursued me. He was, in a way, obsessed with me. He wanted to possess me, and I gave in to him."

Then she blushed. Really blushed. It came out well, set off nicely by a navy blue, dress-for-success skirt-suit. She had the whole shtick, white silk blouse and frilly bow, hair tied back in a pony tail. Little Bo-peep. Where was the slinky temptress of the videotape? I shouldn't have been surprised. Usually, it's the defendants who do the changeovers. Street hoods shave their beards, shower, and cover their tattoos with discount store suits. A crack dealer shows up for trial looking like an investment banker. And here was Melanie Corrigan, ex-stripper, semi-pro hooker, up from the streets, blushing on cue, Abe Socolow leading off Day Two with his strength.

He took her through it all, just as he had promised in opening statement. Roger Salisbury chased her long after the relationship was over, showed her the drug, wanted her to kill her husband. She thought he was joking or half crazy, would never do it. Then Philip died, darling Philip. The beginning of a tear, tastefully done. No gushers that would interrupt the timing of the questions. After the malpractice trial, Roger asked her over, and she found the drug and the black valise in his house.

It took less time than I had anticipated. Socolow got her up there, fulfilled his prophecy, then sat down. I stood up. And the worst thing that could happen to my cross-examina-tion happened.

Nothing.

It was uneventful.

Flat, dull.

I had worked so hard to stay in control, to bury the hatred inside of me that I buried everything else. No spark, no inspiration, no edge. Flabby questions, brief denials, no follow-up.

"Were you intimate with Roger Salisbury after your marriage?"

"No, of course not."

I had no way of disproving it. The tape was shot before the marriage, and Judge Crane wouldn't let it into evidence anyway. Roger would contradict her statement, of course, but there is something unchivalrous about that. The jury will not like him.

"Were you intimate with your employee, a Mr. Sergio Machado-Alvarez?"

"Objection," Socolow yelled out. "Irrelevant."

The judge's eyes darted across the gallery. Helen Buch-man had gone to the restroom. He took a stab at it. "Granted. Same ruling as on Mr. Socolow's motion in limine. Mr. Lassiter, I remind you that Mrs. Corrigan is not on trial."

"Thank you, Your Honor," I said, to confuse the jury. "Mrs. Corrigan, the black valise you testified about, was it ever in your possession?"

"No."

Again, nothing to disprove her. If Susan were alive, she could ID the valise in Melanie's underwear drawer. Destroy her testimony. I needed Susan for this and a thousand other reasons. I blinked and saw her face, nuzzling me on the way to Granny's house. I blinked again, and she was facedown in the pool. I was reeling, losing control.

"What do you know about the break-in at Susan Corrigan's cabana?"

An inane question. A preordained answer. Floundering.

"Nothing. Poor thing, to die so young."

I choked on my own incompetence, unable to muster anger or rage. I caught sight of Roger at the defense table. Catatonic. He knew I was blowing it. I improvised.

"You thought Dr. Salisbury cold-bloodedly murdered your husband and yet you went to his house after the civil trial?"

"Yes."

"You weren't afraid of him?"

"No, but… maybe I should have been."

I am not a mind reader. I have trouble enough understanding what people mean when they speak their thoughts. If I had known where she was going, I would have shut up. Instead I chomped at the bait.

"And why should you have been?"

An open-ended why on cross, invitation to disaster.

"He attacked me earlier at my home. He struck me right here because I would not… I refused to make love with him."

She was pointing to a spot below her left eye. Two female jurors looked upset. The cad. Killing a guy may be okay. But hitting a woman?

I was quiet so she kept going. "I'm sure you remember, Mr. Lassiter. You were kind enough to come over when I called you. After Philip's death, I had no one to turn to. I thanked you then, and I thank you now."

Ouch. So gracious. So ladylike. Socolow beamed. Palpable pleasure. Roger moaned. It was true, of course. Like so many big lies, this one was constructed of little truths. Roger had hit her. I had come over to keep him out of trouble. She had thanked me with a slippery tongue and a promise of more. Now she was making fun of me. Humbling men was sport to her. I decided to shut up before the quicksand rose above my neck. She glided out of the courtroom, elegant in her grief.

There was no time to regroup.

"The state calls Dr. Charles W. Riggs," Abe Socolow proclaimed.

The bailiff opened the door to the corridor, and Charlie 315 bounded into the courtroom with rapid, short steps. His beard was still bushy, and his glasses still askew on his tiny nose. The bowl of a pipe jutted from the pocket of the old gray suitcoat he still kept for court appearances. He didn't need to be shown the way to the witness stand. He raised his right hand and promised to tell the truth even before the clerk asked him. He smiled at the jury and waited.

I figured Charlie wouldn't give Socolow any problems. All the state needed was chain of custody, a formality having nothing to do with Roger's guilt or innocence. Abe Socolow approached the witness stand warily. He was politic enough to skip the night in the cemetery. Just asked if Charlie had made dissections of Philip Corrigan's liver, brain, and buttock material and passed them on to the Medical Examiner's Office.

Charlie gave him the right answers and was ready to step down. Something passed behind Socolow's dark eyes. I saw the shadow of his thought. When the defense stepped to the plate, Socolow knew, Charlie would testify that Corrigan died of natural causes. Socolow wanted an extra turn at bat.

"Dr. Riggs, not to steal your thunder, but you're prepared to testify for the defense that Philip Corrigan died of a spontaneous aortic aneurysm, isn't that right?"

"Correct."

Socolow had Riggs tell the jury what that meant and Charlie took him through it, an encore of his testimony in the malpractice trial. Great. I didn't know where Socolow was headed, but if he wanted to hear my best testimony twice, fine. "Lots of things can cause an aneurysm, correct?"

"Sure. Hypertension, arteriosclerosis, syphilis, trauma."

"Trauma. How about a huge injection of succinylcholine, not the steady drip of an IV tube as in surgery. Wouldn't that cause trauma to the heart, the kind of trauma that could cause an aneurysm?"

So that's where he was going. Worried about my cross of MacKenzie, trying to tie the injection to the aneurysm. Give the guy a boost of the drug, it blows out an artery. A long shot.

"You'd have to ask a cardiologist," Riggs said. "But I had a different kind of trauma in mind." He smiled at Socolow, a witness at ease with himself and his surroundings. He had testified for the state hundreds of times. If Socolow wanted to debate medicine, Charlie Riggs was happy to oblige.

"Right. You previously testified that a driver can suffer an aortic aneurysm if he hits the steering wheel following a crash, isn't that right?"

Abe had done his homework, had read the transcript of the malpractice trial.

"Yes. I've seen several of those."

"In such an accident, there's quite a shock to the system, isn't there?"

"Surely," Charlie Riggs agreed.

"And can you say conclusively that the aneurysm is caused by the impact of the steering wheel or could it be the shock to the system, to the heart?"

He was winging it now, trying to find a parallel between an injection of succinylcholine and an auto accident. It wasn't going anywhere. Not helping or hurting his case. Just one of those tangents lawyers sometimes take.

Charlie Riggs wouldn't bite. He shook his head, and several jurors did likewise. "My impression has been that it's the trauma, the impact that causes the blowout of the aorta.

It takes a serious blow, but a steering wheel, or a very well-thrown punch by a trained boxer could do it."

"Even a punch," Socolow repeated, apparently happy that so many things could cause an aneurysm.

"A punch, a kick, even a karate chop."

Socolow went on, detailing every cause of aneurysm known to man, monkeys, and little white rats. But my mind stayed right there.

A punch, a kick, even a karate chop.

I hadn't thought of it before. But I did now. Nurse Rebecca Ingram said Roger left the room at ten o'clock. Sometime between ten-thirty and eleven, Melanie Corrigan waltzed in with the little hunk of martial arts skills.

A karate chop.

I didn't know whether to risk it now or wait until I had Charlie on my part of the case.

Your witness, Abe Socolow said.

I plunged ahead. "Dr. Riggs, are you telling the jury that one karate punch to the abdomen could puncture the aorta?"

Charlie Riggs looked toward the jury and stroked his beard. Say yes, I prayed. Say yes, you hairy wizard.

"Yes. The concept is ikken hissatsu, to kill with one blow. Some of it is exaggerated to the point of myth, but it does happen. Martial arts assassins are quite capable of it. The essence of karate is kime, an explosive attack using maximum power over a short distance. Of course, it would be difficult to rupture the aorta of a well-trained athlete with strong abdominal muscles, particularly if he expected the blow."

I let out a breath, awed at the range of Charlie's knowl-318 edge. Time to set the scene. "After a laminectomy, how would a patient be lying in bed?"

"After back surgery, you put a patient on his back. The pressure helps prevent further bleeding."

"With stomach exposed?"

"Yes."

"Muscles relaxed."

"Quite. The patient would be sedated."

"And, assuming a man in his fifties not in the best of physical condition was lying on his back, sedated, stomach muscles slack, could a karate expert rupture his aorta with one blow?"

Socolow leapt up. "Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence, irrelevant, beyond scope of direct, beyond witness's expertise."

"Anything else?" the judge asked.

Socolow shook his head. Already he had protested too much.

"Denied," the judge said.

"Yes. A well-placed blow, a shuto uchi, the sword hand-strike, could burst the pipe, the aorta, that is. Perhaps even the stoshi hiji-ate, the downward elbow strike."

Charlie demonstrated the movement of each blow, smiling shyly toward the jury box. "I learned a little of this on Okinawa after the war," he added.

Oh bless you, Charlie Riggs, master of a thousand subjects, encyclopedia of the esoteric, bestower of life on the condemned.

"Nothing further," I said, easing into my heavy wooden chair as if it were a throne.