looked at me and made his face even uglier. He seemed to be all forehead and whiskers. 'I'll see you another time, cagado cabron asshole,' he said.
'How's Wednesday for lunch? Have your girl call my girl.'
This time the growl became a shriek. He bolted through the open doorway and bounded down the steps as fast as his chunky legs could move. 'Ushiro-keomi!' His yell nearly drowned out the sound of the electric-powered waterfall tumbling over the landscaping. Then, in the driveway, he spun sideways and put out the left headlight on my 442 with a back-thrust kick. Glass scattered on the cobblestones. What kind of a man hurts an innocent old car?
'Shuto!' He brought his hand down like a sword across the hood, the sickening sound of metal giving way, caving in. Next, I figured, he would bite the tires and give me four flats. Instead, he jumped on his motorcycle, a loud Kawasaki, did a wheelie, and screamed off into the night, shouting unheard insults over his shoulder.
I surveyed the damage to the 442, then sat down on the front steps.
'Do you want to come back in?' Melanie Corrigan said, with a promise as large as a king-size waterbed. But the moment had passed. My brains had taken over. I didn't want her tequila and orange juice and didn't want any part of her. She was too available, too free with herself, but too expensive for her men. Look at the price Philip Corrigan paid, and Roger Salisbury, tangled up with lust and maybe murder. And Sergio, the muscle-bound half-wit, martial arts fueled by jealousy.
I wanted to see Susan Corrigan, wanted to tell her about Melanie's charges against Roger. I wanted some help in figuring it all out. But first, I wanted to go home and pound out the vicious dent in my wounded chariot.
13
A great piece of luck, Charlie Riggs was saying. Philip Corrigan entombed in a crypt aboveground, an ornate mausoleum with the design of Palmland, his largest shopping center, molded into the concrete.
'A great piece of luck,' he said again, 'especially with Corrigan dead two years. In Florida the ground is so damp, the tissues break down fast. I hate to tell you what corpses look like when you dig them up, mold on the outside, parasites and larvae on the inside. Mausoleum tombs are so rare these days, so expensive. But I guess he could afford it.'
'Judging from his house, the tomb will have a wine cellar, an elevator, and a butler,' I said.
'Just so it's airtight, that's the ticket.'
Riggs was nearly smacking his lips at the prospect of popping the top on Philip Corrigan's last resting place. I had pulled the funeral bills from the case file. In a wrongful death case the estate recovers funeral expenses, and I remembered a fifty-thousand-dollar number. Sure enough, there it was, a bill from Eternal Memories Mortuary and Mausoleum. When the first Mrs. Corrigan had died, her husband bought the choicest acre plot and ordered a mausoleum built for two, and not the compact efficiency model either. The perfect touch from the loving husband, a promise that his bones would one day rest beside hers. Just not so soon, Philip Corrigan would have hoped.
Eighty-five thousand for construction and services related to Mrs. Corrigan. Another fifty grand two years later for finishing Philip Corrigan's crypt put the whole shebang into six figures for the condo-like mausoleum. According to the specifications on the bill, it had a sitting room with a concrete bench so mourners could be shielded from the midday sun, a main room with matching concrete crypts on raised platforms of coral rock, and a foyer with the inscription, 'Death Pays All Debts,' a fitting eulogy for a guy who leveraged construction loans into his fortune.
Charlie Riggs and I were in my Olds 442, which sported a new headlight and pounded-out hood, and responded with a happy roar coming east on Tamiami Trail. I had told Riggs about the conversation with Melanie Corrigan, leaving out the details of the slinky body and lingering kiss. Her allegations against Salisbury fascinated him.
'Fits a little too nicely,' he said, chewing on a cold pipe. His forehead was furrowed in thought, and the lights were on behind his straw-colored eyes.
'How's that?'
'First the daughter tells you the doctor used the drug to kill Corrigan. Then the widow tells you the doctor wanted her to do it with the drug. You don't even know if the liquid the daughter showed you is succinylcholine.'
'What are you saying?'
'That the two women could be framing the good doctor.'
'I can't buy it. Every crime needs a motive, as you constantly remind me. Melanie Corrigan might have one, just to get rid of Salisbury. He's a pest to her. But Susan Corrigan, what could she have against Salisbury?'
Riggs tried to light his pipe, no easy task with the top down and the 442 howling at seventy-five. 'Maybe nothing, except they needed a fall guy for the murder of Philip Corrigan.'
'What?' I nearly lost control, swerving to avoid a dead armadillo.
'How was the estate split?'
'Melanie got the house, the yacht, and thirty percent of the gross assets. Susan got the rest after estate taxes. Neither one's going hungry.'
'So they each had a motive, hypothetically at least, for wanting Philip Corrigan dead.'
'Hey Doc, we're talking about a girl and her father.'
'As Plautus said, lupus est homo homini. Man is a wolf to man. It applies to women, too. Inhumanity is often at its worst inside the family. Men beat their wives or commit incest. Wives kill their husbands, sometimes in the most bizarre manner. And daughters sometimes kill their fathers.'
'That's sick, Charlie.'
'So it is,' he said, giving up on the pipe and blinking into the wind.
We followed the stone path around the house and founc Susan Corrigan just getting out of the saltwater pool. She wore a dark blue, no-nonsense Lycra competition suit. It clung to every curve and crevice of her athletic body. She put on her tortoiseshell glasses, which immediately steamec up.
'Finished with two hundred yards of butterfly,' she said pufling a little. 'Gets the blood flowing.'
I introduced her to Charlie Riggs, and she gave him respectful hello and asked why the distinguished former cor oner would hang around with a second-string ex-jock turnec shyster. On the off chance that was a joke, I laughed like good sport. Then I handed her a towel, but she neglected to ask me to dry her back so I didn't. Plowing common ground I said I had read her game story from LA. The Dolphin receivers dropped everything but their paychecks Sunday.
'Eight dropped passes,' she said, 'two in the end zone they lose by three points. And the defense played great. Die you see Tyrone Washington? Four sacks.'
Charlie Riggs cleared his throat. Small talk was not his forte. 'Miss Corrigan, you know what we want to do.'
'Yes,' she said. 'Jake told me on the phone. Did you bring the papers?'
'I prepared an affidavit,' I said, 'but it's not going to be much good. I asked Melanie to sign it, too, to get permission from both of you, but she refused.'
Susan flung the towel onto the wet pool deck. Her eyes blazed. 'You did what! She killed Dad or at least helped Salisbury do it. Why would you ask her?'
'As the surviving wife and the personal representative of the estate, she technically has the right to say yes or no,' I said. 'And you might be wrong about her.' I recounted my meeting with the widow, again leaving out the snuggling stuff.
'So,' I said, 'both of you accuse Roger Salisbury of poisoning your father. But she won't give permission to exhume the body. Says to let it go, she doesn't want to be involved.'
'And don't you find that suspicious?' Susan asked as if I were a simpleton.
'Maybe if she hadn't tipped me to Roger in the first place, it would be suspicious. But now, I don't know.'
