Paul Levine - To speak for the dead

"He went fast," the doctor said with a shrug. "Ambulance brought him in, eyes bulging, stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea, stiff joints, then paralysis. We tried to stabilize him. Barely got the IV in. Bang! Liver and kidneys fail, goes into respiratory arrest."

"Classic indicia of food poisoning," Charlie said dispassionately. "We used to see two or three deaths a year, green beans at church picnics. Botulism."

The two doctors kept talking, ignoring us. There wasn't much two lawyers could add anyway.

"That's what we thought," the doctor said. "But we checked it out. Last two meals were banquet style for the karate convention. Three hundred people, no one else even burped."

Charlie scratched his beard. The young doctor did the same. I didn't have a beard, so I ran a hand through my shaggy hair. Socolow didn't have much hair, so he lit a cigarette, then ground it into the tile after a nurse wagged a finger at him.

"Have you checked the body for punctures, fresh injections?" Charlie asked.

"Sure did, after Mr. Socolow told us his suspicions. Noth-ing.

Charlie Riggs turned to Abe Socolow. They had worked together in the past, shared a mutual respect, even if Charlie thought Abe was a little sharp around the edges. "What was he doing just before he was stricken?"

"Best we can figure," Socolow said, "he just finished chopping up a stack of boards with his bare hands." Socolow looked at me. "Except nobody slugged him afterwards."

"I see," Charlie said. He was the only one who did. "I think I'll take a drive to Convention Hall."

I was sleeping in my own bed with two pillows for company when four headlights glared malevolently through my front windows, and two horns blared. I rolled over and looked at the clock. The green digital numbers flashed from 2:57 to 2:58 as my feet hit the floor. Downstairs, a flashing of high beams. Maybe the cops picking me up. Maybe I really did go over the wall.

I wrapped a towel around my waist and opened the front door. Granny Lassiter and Charlie Riggs.

"Sorry to disturb you, Jake," Charlie said, sounding not a bit sorry.

"Let me guess," I said groggily, "you want my permission to marry this woman. Forget it. Elope if you like."

"I'm game," Granny said. "Only fellow my age I know still got lead in his pencil."

"C'mon Jake," Charlie commanded, his face serious, no twinkle in his eye. "Let's take a ride and talk."

If Charlie wanted to talk, I wanted to listen. I slipped on an old pair of gym shorts, running shoes, and a gray T-shirt, stepped into the humid night, and slid into the front passenger seat of Granny's mammoth 1969 Cadillac. Over the bay, lightning flashed and distant thunder followed, a thunderstorm brewing in the southeast, headed our way. Granny had the engine running and Charlie was already in the back. Before I had dented the velour upholstery, the smell rolled over me.

"Granny, you leave a mess of last week's grouper under the seat?"

She didn't even look at me, just jerked a thumb toward the backseat and flicked on the overhead light. My gaze followed the thumb and left me staring into the waxy, dissolving face of the late Sylvia Corrigan.

"What the hell!"

"Relax, Jake," Charlie said. "Jane did us a great favor by bringing the body here tonight."

Everybody was doing me favors today. As for "Jane," the name still struck me funny, like calling Charlemagne, "Chuck."

"Weren't nothing," Granny said. "That old gal been taking up room in my cooler anyhow."

"What's going on?" I demanded.

"I found the boards Sergio had broken at Convention 345

Hall," Charlie explained. "Easy enough. He did the noon demonstration. Slabs of pine were in the trash, stacked in nearly the same order that he broke them. I thought it quite natural to assume that the one with the cleanest break would have been the top board."

"Quite natural," I agreed.

Granny pulled onto Douglas Road, then turned right at Dixie Highway heading downtown. You expect traffic to be light after three a.m., but it never is. You wonder who these people are, looking for a party or heading for their night shifts.

"On close inspection I could see the top board had been coated with something. I took it to Dr. Kalian at the lab, and he confirmed my suspicions. Clostridium botulinum, and quite a liberal dose of it."

"The stuff that causes food poisoning," I said.

"The very stuff," Charlie said.

"What'd Sergio do, eat the boards for breakfast?"

"No, he just hit one with a hand that he had cut on the tile in the courtroom. Even without the cut, the abrasion from the board probably would be sufficient to allow the toxin to enter the blood. With the wound still healing and Sergio not wanting to show weakness by wearing a bandage -I asked around-it was an open invitation to the toxin."

"And you think Roger Salisbury cooked this up?" I asked.

"Chemical companies sell the toxin to universities and laboratories for research. A doctor would have no trouble ordering some."

I shook my head. "I don't know, Charlie, a little smear on a board killing a guy."

"It's perhaps the most toxic substance we know. A thousand molecules of botulinum toxin can kill an ox. Do you know how small a molecule is?"

About the size of all the gray matter in my brain, I thought. I'm the guy who trusted Roger Salisbury. But I wasn't ready to throw him over, not yet.

"Maybe Roger's got an explanation," I suggested, sounding hollow even to myself.

"That's what we'll find out," Charlie said.

We were at the intersection of Dixie and Miami Avenue. Granny swung the aircraft carrier across three westbound lanes of Dixie and we headed north on Miami, passing under the overpass to Key Biscayne. Roger lived halfway up a long block on the right, his house surrounded by finely aged royal poinciana trees.

"What's your friend in back have to do with it?"

Charlie sighed. "If I showed you her right buttock, upper quadrant, you'd know."

"An injection?"

"Twenty-gauge needle, I'd say."

"Wait a second, Charlie. Slow down. She died in the hospital. That could have been a routine sedative, a painkiller, anything."

"Could have been. We don't have the records."

"And you've done no test for succinylcholine or any other drugs?"

"Correct."

"So you have no proof?"

"Correct again, Counselor. Your cross-examination was always your strong point."

"With no evidence, where do you get off accusing Roger of killing Sylvia Corrigan?"

"Calm down, Jake. I'm not ready to accuse. But I've been at this a long time. I have a hunch, that's all."

"A hunch! Charlie. You're a scientist. I'm a lawyer. You deal with medical probabilities, I deal with evidence. And you have us hauling a corpse around on a hunch. I don't believe it."

When I don't get my prescribed six hours of shut-eye, I can be ornery, even to friends.

"What we believe and what is true," Charlie said, "are often quite different. Deceptio visus. It's probably healthy up to a point, to believe in your client's cause. Beyond that point, it will blind you."

I turned around to face him, and Sylvia Corrigan toppled forward, brushing my arm with a forehead the consistency of sponge cake left in the rain. The rotten fish smell washed over me. "What do you expect me to do?" I demanded. "Even if he confessed to me, I couldn't go to Socolow. The attorney-client privilege prevents that."

"It prevents your telling the authorities about past crimes, sure. But if you had probable cause to believe he's about to kill again, there is a different obligation."

"Who's left to kill?"

"The person who first made him a killer, of course."

A flash of lightning lit the sky and a thunderclap followed almost instantly, the storm closing in. I laughed but there was no pleasure behind it. "You think Roger will kill Melanie Corrigan. If you're right, why should I lift a finger to stop him? Maybe I'll help him."