Paul Levine - To speak for the dead

She led me into the foyer and closed the door. An electric bolt clicked into place like a bullet shoved into the chamber. The foyer had a marble floor and a cathedral ceiling. Not as big as Madison Square Garden, but you still could play basketball there. Full court. Between the foyer and the living room was a pond stocked with fat orange fish. A fountain poured water over an island where bronze flamingoes and alligators eyed each other between rocks and ferns. We walked past the pond and around a glass-enclosed elevator, crossing no more than two county lines. We tiptoed down three marble steps without disturbing an eight-foot Zulu warrior carved from teak, and we landed in an octagonal, sunken living room.

The living room was black and white, black furniture that looked plastic to me but must have cost a bundle when selected by a trendy designer, white tile that wouldn't stay clean a minute if I lived there, white walls covered with paintings of women's heads floating away from their bodies, an ebony grand piano that was probably for show. All in all, a starter home for the nouveau riche who want to make a personal statement: We have more money than we know what to do with.

Melanie Corrigan fit right in-she wore black. I knew it was silk, but I didn't know if it was a slip or a dress. I did know there was nothing between the silk and her satin skin. The silk thing was held up by two thin straps, was cut low at the breasts and high on the thighs and was sheer as a shadow. If it was a dress you wouldn't wear it to church. If it was a slip, where was her dress?

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Lassiter. May I call you Jake?"

"Of course, Melanie." I nodded in the direction of her decolletage. "Are you auditioning for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?"

It only took her a second. "Do you think I'd be a good Maggie?"

"From what I hear, you'd get an Oscar, a Tony, and a Super Bowl ring."

"Your client talks too much." She narrowed her eyes. "He also made the mistake of underestimating me."

"And I'll bet he wasn't the first."

She looked at me straight on, sizing me up. Then a little smile like we shared some secret. "Would you like a drink?" she asked.

I said yes but she didn't ask what I wanted. She slid behind a bar, and I took a seat on a Lucite barstool that would throw your back into spasms if you stayed for more than two drinks. The designer obviously had not been in many bars where men sit and talk and drink. Melanie Corrigan bent down to get a bottle and let me see the tops of very white, very firm breasts.

I would have liked a beer. She reached for tequila and orange juice and poured some of each in a glass you could have used to put out a three-alarm fire. She dropped in some ice cubes and shook a dash of bitters on top. I don't care for a drink that needs ice and fruit juice.

"Tijuana Sunrise," she said.

"Buenos cttas," I said.

She poured herself one, and we each took a sip. She didn't seem to be in a hurry. Her russet hair was tumbling free today, lightly brushing her shoulders where the tiny silk straps did their best to slide downhill.

"Roger is getting to be a problem," she said finally, touching her cheekbone where the bruise was already beginning to darken. She had long, graceful fingers, nails expensively done with lots of color. "He can't accept the fact that it's over."

She tugged at one of the slippery straps. I kept quiet.

"He apparently told you about us," she continued, fishing to find out what I knew.

"Every dirty little detail, the twosomes, the threesomes."

She didn't blink, just gave a little shrug that sent the strap slithering off one shoulder. The black silk fell open, exposing a cinnamon nipple that acted like it enjoyed being watched.

"He thinks he still owns me, thinks I'm still a kid. You've got to keep him away from me or he's going to get hurt."

"That sounds like a threat."

"I could say things that wouldn't be good for his health."

"Such as?"

She studied me a moment, deciding how much to say. "He wanted to kill Philip, wanted me to do it. That's all he talked about for months. I refused, of course."

"Of course," I said with just a dash of sarcasm like the bitters in the silly drink.

"Screw you, Lassiter," she said. What happened to Jake?

She gave me a look with a below-zero wind chill and said, "I might not have been the world's greatest wife by your standards, but I did a lot for Philip. Whatever he asked. We had an arrangement. He got what he wanted from me, and I got what I wanted from him."

"His bank accounts and stock portfolio."

She wouldn't let me rile her. "The freedom that came with those things. Philip didn't care if I saw other men, maybe even liked it. For me things were great. I didn't depend on men's handouts anymore. Why would I kill him? There was no reason to."

"So why did you keep your mouth shut when your darling husband planned to go under the knife of the doctor who wanted him dead?"

"I was scared to death when Philip went in the hospital, but I thought, with all the nurses and other doctors around, Roger just couldn't…"

She let it hang there.

"He didn't," I said. "The jury found that Roger wasn't even negligent, much less a killer. Your husband died of a spontaneous aneurysm."

"He was poisoned," she said without a trace of emotion. "In his hospital room."

I took a long hit on the drink to think that one over. This conversation sounded familiar.

She kept going. "Roger had this liquid in a bottle, an anesthetic. He wanted me to use it on Philip. Get him drunk or stoned, then inject him in the buttocks. Said it couldn't be traced."

"He gave you the bottle?"

"No. I wouldn't take it then. After Philip died, I was at Roger's house. I was still seeing him until I filed the lawsuit. I knew he kept the bottle in a small refrigerator, so I took it. I wanted to turn it over to the authorities."

"Did you?"

She looked away. "No. I know I should have, but then everything would have come out in the newspapers. I've worked hard to earn respectability, and it would all be gone."

"But you sued him for malpractice."

"I didn't want to. I didn't want the attention. But I was afraid if I didn't sue Roger, it would raise suspicions. Philip's daughter, that tomboy bitch, would have thought Roger and I killed him."

Lights were flashing like a pinball machine. Susan Corrigan may have been right about Roger Salisbury but wrong about Melanie Corrigan. Melanie had to be telling the truth,

I thought. She couldn't risk telling me about the drug if she had been in on it.

"What was Roger doing here today?"

"I never really told him it was over. I didn't want to hurt him. When I filed the suit, I told him we'd get back together after the trial. Today I told him to stay away and he freaked."

"Show me the drug," I said, already knowing the response.

She gave me a helpless look that I hadn't seen on her before. "I can't," she said. "It's gone, stolen."

I decided there was nothing to be gained in telling Melanie Corrigan that her beloved stepdaughter had been poking around in her underwear drawer. "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

She half smiled and half sighed. Her eyes seemed to widen, to change from business to bedroom, a neat trick. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun was setting, and inside, the room was bathed in pink. Melanie Corrigan's skin took on a soft glow, and it hadn't looked bad in the light. She glided around the bar to where I was planted on the hard-as-granite barstool. She pulled up the silky strap one more time and now her perky nipples poked at the flimsy fabric. Maybe they were standing at attention because of the cool evening air or maybe it had something to do with the full moon coming up over the bay. Or maybe it was the proximity of me. Or maybe, just maybe, I should have my head examined. Ready to drink that pretty poison, as big a fool as Roger Salisbury.