Paul Levine - Riptide

“What… what… are you telling us you’re doing this for practically nothing?”

“To a fly-fisherman, an Orvis rod is hardly that.”

Hopkins’s laugh was an annoying snort. “Dr. Riggs, really now, do you expect us to believe that you’re studying medical records, reviewing the written authorities, testifying at deposition today and then at trial, and all for a fishing pole?”

Why not just walk onto 1-95 in front of a semi, Lassiter thought.

“Homo doctus in se semper divitias habet,” Charlie Riggs said, and the court reporter grimaced.

Hopkins swallowed. “Huh?”

“A learned man always has wealth within himself.”

Another minute of paper shuffling, then Hopkins shot the French cuffs on his left sleeve, ostentatiously letting his eighteen-carat watchband catch the glow from the recessed lighting, and said, “Inasmuch as we still have another deposition to take, I have nothing further at this time, subject to the right to recall Dr. Riggs prior to trial.”

Charlie Riggs bounded out of the conference room on short bowed legs, and Sergeant Ferguson moved into the hot seat.

Lassiter scooped up his scorecard and followed Riggs into the corridor. Once out of earshot of the conference room, he said, “I wish you were on our side of the table, Charlie.”

“You’re too late and you’re on the wrong side, Jake. DES, for God’s sake, one of the chemical catastrophes of the century. How can you even defend the manufacturer?”

“It’s my job,” Lassiter said, wearily.

“Some job.”

“Funny, that’s what Cindy said the other day.”

Riggs grumbled his disapproval. “It isn’t you, Jake. Your heart’s not in it. A man has to find himself. Now, take me. What if I’d have gone into a private pathology practice, just looking at damn slides all day. Probably would’ve made more money than poking around in stiffs all these years, but would I have had the satisfaction, would I have nailed the woman who laced her husband’s meat pie with paraquat? Or the sulfuric acid murderer? Nothing left but the teeth, but that was enough for a corpus delicti. Or the insulin overdose in the hospital with no injection puncture on the body?”

“I remember,” Lassiter said. “You were the only one who thought to look at the intravenous tube.”

“Hard to miss under the microscope, a hole made by a syringe. Then I checked the spinal fluid. Sugar count way too low. The attending nurse had a locker stashed full of insulin and a psychiatric history as long as your arm.”

Jake Lassiter smiled. “You’re the best canoe maker… sorry, coroner, this town has ever had. No one can speak for the dead like you.”

Doc Riggs gave Lassiter an affectionate shoulder squeeze.

“I remember when you saved my ass in Dr. Salisbury’s murder trial,” Lassiter continued, “figuring out what ruptured Philip Corrigan’s aorta.”

“Kind of you to mention it.”

“My adrenaline was pumping then, Charlie. Just like the old days in the PD’s office.”

Charlie Riggs took the cold pipe from his mouth and jabbed it toward Lassiter’s chest. “You were alive then. Bring it back, Jake, that same fervor. Even when we were on opposite sides, I always respected you. You defended vigorously, hell, you were tough, but you never manufactured evidence or suborned perjury. You were also a great cross-examiner.”

“A left-handed compliment, Charlie. Telling me my life’s not worth a hot damn anymore.”

“Someday you’ll thank me for helping you out. Defending DES cases, for crying out loud! What’s next, representing asbestos manufacturers?”

Charlie Riggs tamped some fresh tobacco into his pipe and struggled to light it. “I’m sorry to be so tough on you, Jake. It’s only because we’re friends. Now, better get back in there. That little prick — doctus cum libro, nothing but book learning — is liable to say anything.”

That was it, Lassiter thought. Winston Prick Hopkins.

When Lassiter eased back into the Brazilian leather chair, he found Winston Hopkins trying to chisel away at the widower’s damage claim.

“Prior to her death, weren’t you and your wife contemplating divorce?” Hopkins asked in the smart-ass tone young lawyers mistake for toughness.

The sergeant’s eyes shot to his own lawyer, then to Hopkins. “No, of course not. We have a baby.”

“But you sought marriage counseling?”

“We sought counseling from our minister after Gladys became ill.”

“For marital problems.”

“No. She was depressed. We needed to — “

“To discuss a divorce.”

The sergeant’s closely shaved cheeks flushed just below his ears, and the muscles of his jaws tensed. “Hell no!”

Stuart Zeman, wide awake now, slapped the table and leaned toward the court reporter, who was bent over her silent machine. “Objection. I think we’ve heard just about enough on that subject, Mr. Hopkins. Please move on.”

“Well, Mr. Zeman, your client here claims a ton of money for mental anguish at his wife’s death, and if I can demonstrate that this marriage was washed up, that’s a relevant line of inquiry…”

Lassiter figured he should tell the jerk there’s a difference between being aggressive and being an asshole, but he didn’t have time. The sergeant had a lot of quick for a big man. He flew across the conference table and grabbed the Ivy Leaguer by his noodle neck. There was that moment of disbelief when everything stops dead, Lassiter watching Hopkins’s eyes bulge, the sergeant’s hands — powerful, working-guy hands — squeezing, then the moment when Lassiter could have stepped in but didn’t, silently hoping the sergeant would extract Hopkins’s Adam’s apple with his bare hands. Then, and it all took no more than five seconds, Lassiter moved, coming up behind them. They were wedged into a corner of the room, Hopkins bent backward, his buttocks hanging over a rubber plant, his head being smacked repeatedly — thwack, thwack — against the herringbone fabric of the deposition room wall.

Lassiter put one hand on the sergeant’s meaty shoulder and squeezed hard, just to let him know he was there. “Okay, fun’s over. Let’s everyone sit down.”

The sergeant let go with his right hand, and Hopkins toppled into the rubber plant, a gurgling sound stuck in his throat. Lassiter relaxed and never saw it coming, a lightning Yoko Hijiate, the sergeant’s elbow smashing into his ribs from a foot away. The pain shot through Lassiter’s chest, and he gasped.

The sergeant turned to face Lassiter head-on. “You peckerhead lawyers, with all your fancy words and fancy cars and fancy watches…”

Lassiter was holding his side, sucking in shallow breaths. “Sergeant, I drive a twenty-six-year-old convertible with leaky canvas, my vocabulary is limited, and my watch is forty bucks, though it’s good to a depth of a hundred feet. I’m just an ex-second-string linebacker trying to do my best in an imperfect world.”

The sergeant laughed, but there was no pleasure behind it. “Linebackers! Standing up straight, roaming around like they was posing for the cheerleaders. Not like in the pits. Real men gouging, cursing, eating bucketfuls of mud, ending up with your face in some nose guard’s crotch.”

“Given a choice,” Lassiter said, “I’ll take the cheerleaders.”

The sergeant growled and dropped into a three-point stance, his thick right hand sinking into the plush, burgundy carpet. “Strong side tackle. Blew out a knee my second year at Clemson. Coulda been All-ACC. Maybe it’s time for a comeback. C’mon. Let’s go.”

“Nah, I always hated practice.”

“C’mon. You know the one-on-one, nutcracker drill.”

“Sure, but it’s done with a ballcarrier behind the offensive lineman. The linebacker plays off the block and makes the tackle.”