Paul Levine - To speak for the dead

None of us said a word, not the three of us jammed into the cab up front, and certainly not the two reunited in a zippered bag in the back. The Corrigans probably hadn't been this close since their honeymoon.

I handled the driving. Susan sat next to me, the closest she'd been since I tackled her on the practice field. Charlie Riggs was slumped against the passenger door, snoring peacefully. Near Tavernier, Susan's head dropped onto my shoulder, and I put my arm around her. This time, she didn't give me the boot. I thought she was sleeping, but a moment later she whispered, "Thank you, Jake."

I looked down at her, not knowing where she was headed.

"I was wrong to be so petulant when we first met," she said. "I was hurting so much. Losing Mom, then Dad marrying that woman, and Dad dying that way…"

"I understand," I said, feeling her soften under my arm.

"You've taken a big risk. I know you want to learn the truth about what happened, but I know you did it for me, too. And every time you try to get through to me, I put you off. I won't do that anymore."

I started to say something, but she put a finger to my lips. So I kissed the finger, steered with my left hand and tried not to put the truck into the Atlantic on the east side of the road or the Gulf on the west. Then I felt her face against my neck, and she nuzzled me with her upturned nose, looped her right arm around my chest and gave me a good squeeze. A fine and dandy squeeze.

The sun was well up in the eastern sky by the time we pulled into the dusty road on the Gulf of Mexico side of Islamorada. The shutters were open in the small wooden house and the aroma of strong coffee and sizzling bacon greeted us. We parked in the sand under a jacaranda tree that had lost its flowers for the winter. A royal tern sat in the tree, staring at us from under its black and white cap.

"Look what the cat drug in," Granny Lassiter said from the front porch. "Jake, you look like the loser in a mud rasslin' match." Granny sat in a pine rocking chair drinking coffee from an oversized mug. She wore khaki pants and a colorful Mexican serape. A high-crowned sombrero rested on her upper back, the drawstring tied under her chin. Her features were still strong, high cheekbones and a pugnacious chin. The hair that had been jet black when I was a boy was streaked down the middle with a bright white stripe like the center line on the highway locals call Useless 1. Granny's buddies called her "Skunky," but only after downing a gooc portion of her home brew.

I introduced Doc Riggs to Granny. He bowed formally complimented her south-of-the-border outfit, and recounte(one of his visits to the pyramids of the Yucatan with graphic description of Mayan hieroglyphics and burial prac tices.

"It's a pleasure to have a man of learning and culture in my abode," she said, swiping at some loose strands of her hair. "Perhaps you could be a good influence on that wastre mouthpiece kin of mine."

"Granny, please," I pleaded.

She ignored me and turned her attention to Susan Corri gan, whose dark eyes were puffy from a sleepless night bu still fetching. "And you must be the gal Jacob's been telling me about. Uh-huh, I see why. You're a keeper."

"Granny!" I bellowed, warning her.

"Pay him no mind," she said. "Like most men, he don't know which end is up. After some breakfast, they'll do their work, and we'll drop a line in the Gulf and do some talking. Tell me, girl, you see anything in Jacob worth losing sleep over?"

"He's got potential," Susan allowed.

Granny laughed. "That boy's gonna grow old having potential."

I had heard enough. "Maybe we should get to work," I suggested.

"Sure 'nuff," Granny said. "The beer cellar's chilled 164 down all the way, just like you said. Plus I got this filled with ice."

She pointed at a fish box that came from her old Bertram. It could easily hold both bodies.

Charlie Riggs eyed the box. "Forty-seven degrees would be perfect. That's what we keep the coolers in the morgue. Too cold is no good. Can't let the tissues freeze." "So let's get started," I suggested again. "No hurry, Jake," Charlie Riggs said, beaming at Granny. "No hurry at all."

Granny straightened up the front porch, swiping leaves off the wicker chairs with a palm frond. Then she poured everyone coffee, starting with Charlie Riggs. "Say Doc, I recognized you right off from the TV. The case of the capsized dory. Off Saddlebunch Key. You haven't changed a bit." "Twenty years ago," Charlie said, shaking his head. "Tempus fugit," Granny said, and Charlie's eyes lit up as if he'd found a long lost friend.

We all sat on the porch and Granny made a fuss over Charlie, who sat there reminiscing with his feet propped on the fish box that now held the Corrigans. Told us about the man whose wife drowned when their dory overturned, striking her head. The water had been calm, and the husband was a strong swimmer.

"So why didn't he save her?" Susan asked, snatching the bait like a hungry grouper.

A sly smile and Charlie continued. "Maybe his lifeguard's carry was weighted down by the million-dollar double indemnity policy he just bought on the lady's life." Aha, we all said.

"He let her drown," Susan offered.

Charlie shook his head. "Worse than that."

"How'd you prove it?"

Another smile. "I put one of those department store mannequins in the dory facing front, just where the wife had been sitting. Sat in the back where the husband had been, stood up and smacked the mannequin with the oar. Left a mark the exact size and location of the bruise on top the dead wife's head."

The man got ninety-nine years, Charlie a TV interview.

Granny put her arm around Susan and steered her into the house. I hauled the body bag into the darkened room Granny called her beer cellar. The room was actually on the first floor, it being hard to dig a cellar when your house is built three feet above sea level. Inside were vats and bottles and the odds and ends used to make the home brew Granny gave away to neighboring fishermen. Two old air-conditioning units were turned on full blast and water dripped down the walls.

I suggested we cut first, eat breakfast later. I couldn't imagine doing the job on a full stomach. Charlie said he understood, then grabbed an old brown satchel from the cab of the truck. He unbuckled the worn leather straps and looked lovingly at half a dozen scalpels glinting in the light of the midday sun.

"The skin is macerated and there's mold on the face, but all things considered, not bad, not bad at all," Charlie Riggs said. He was washing off the body with a hose. The remains of Philip Corrigan were spread out on an old work table in Granny's beer cellar. "Before we do any cutting, let's examine the body."

He slipped on surgical gloves and started poking and pinching various parts of the corpse, squinting hard through his half-glasses. In formal tones he continued, "The subject is a well-developed white male, age indeterminate due to deterioration of the face. The head and neck appear to be symmetrical and exhibit no masses. The chest is symmetrical and the abdomen flat. The body is in an excellent state of preservation due to the embalming and a nearly dry tomb. There is evidence of two surgical procedures in close proximity to death, unhealed wounds from both back and abdominal surgery."

He went on that way for a while, as if the tape recorder with the microphone swinging from the ceiling was still there, as if he was still the medical examiner and as if homicide detectives still waited outside for his findings. A little sad, a man retired before his time, maybe a different kind of death.

Charlie brought a lamp closer to the body, illuminating a small area of skin at a time. "Now for a closer look." He started with the arms and worked down. I helped him flip the body onto its stomach. "Hullo! What's this, Jake? Right buttock, upper quadrant."