'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.'
'No, you won't. I know you, Jake. I know your code. It isn't written anywhere except all over your face. You're one of the last decent men. You're a guy who looks for broken wings to mend.'
'Yeah, I'm an overgrown Boy Scout.'
'You won't admit it. You've created this image of the indifferent, detached loner, but I know you better than you do.'
I forced the same hollow laugh. 'You're a great ca-noemaker, Charlie, but a lousy judge of character.'
'All right. We're not here to protect Melanie Corrigan or anybody else, just to learn the truth. Will you help?'
Fat raindrops splattered the windshield, prelude to a downpour. Granny slowed, then hit the brakes hard, and the old Cadillac's bald tires slid to a stop in front of Roger's house. 'Tell me what to do,' I said with resignation.
'Be tough with him,' Charlie ordered. 'He's cracking. The murder of Sergio was an irrational, bizarre act. He's crying out, perhaps over guilt, shame, who knows? He wants to be caught. But his first reaction will be denial. He trusts and respects you. You're the one who has to do it.'
The house was one of those modern jobs, six concrete cubes at odd angles, a wall of glass bricks shielding an interior courtyard and a roof full of skylights. I rang the doorbell and waited. Three-thirty a.m. In Miami an unexpected visitor late at night is an excuse to set loose the guard dogs or open up with automatic weapons.
It took a while, then the intercom crackled with a sleepy, cranky, 'Yeah?'
'Roger, it's Jake. Sorry to wake you. But there's news. Socolow won't refile. It's over.'
Silence. Then, 'Great. Call me in the morning.'
'Can't. There's more. Got to see you.'
'Minute,' he said.
It was more like five. A hot, dank night. In the yard a row of crimson tobacco jasmine flooded us with a steamy perfume, even as the rain splashed under the portico.
Finally Roger eyeballed me through the peephole. I ducked to one side. I didn't have to move fast. By the time he turned the locks, slid the bolts, unhooked the chains, and punched the code into the digital alarm, I could have been appointed to the bench. Roger Salisbury opened the heavy beamed door to find a visitor sitting in a wicker chair on his front stoop, her head slumped to a shoulder, eyeless face melting under the ghoulish glow of the yellow bug light. Overhead, lightning crackled.
I heard Roger gag, a choking sound. I watched him slump to the Mexican tile floor of his foyer. My own stomach tossed as he clutched his throat, gagged again, and vomited. He stayed there awhile, emptying himself while the three of us stepped around him and into the house. Sylvia Corrigan stayed put.
'Why do this to me, Jake?' he whimpered, getting to his feet. Charlie steered him to a rust-colored leather sofa. Granny found a kitchen towel and helped clean his face. He sat there in a black silk bathrobe, bare feet on the floor, looking at me with vacant eyes. That bland, handsome face was gray now. 'Jake, you're my lawyer and my friend. Why?'
'I'm resigning from both positions.'
'Jake…'
'Why did you kill Sylvia Corrigan?'
His head shrunk back into his shoulders. 'Why would I kill her?'
'Easy. Because Melanie asked you to. She very nearly told me you did it. When I asked her why anyone would steal Sylvia Corrigan's body, she said to ask you. It didn't make sense then, but it does now.'
He cackled. Half a laugh, half a cry, a barely human sound. 'I'm not a killer. You said so yourself in the malpractice trial. God you were good. I'm a healer. I took an oath. To give no deadly drug, to do no harm.'
'You violated the oath, Roger. You gave it up. For flesh. You killed Sylvia and Philip and Sergio.'
'I didn't kill Philip,' he said softly.
Where I come from, that's an admission. Two out of three. I remembered what he said the other night on my porch. / didn't kill Philip. He's the one person I could never kill.
He started rocking back and forth, his head between his knees, his forearms resting on his knees. When he looked up, his eyes darted back and forth and his mouth hung slack. He cocked his head to one side and looked at me or through me, his mind somewhere on the far side of Betel-geuse. The look chilled the room. It could have frightened Sylvia Corrigan.
Then his eyes cleared. A calm voice, the old Roger Salisbury, 'Jake, you remember what you said to me that first day in your office?'
I remembered fine but I didn't feel like reminiscing. 'Probably that I was a lousy linebacker.'
'No, that you kept looking for the good guys and couldn't find them. I admired you, wanted you to like me, to be my friend. I wanted to be one of the good guys.'
He said it with sadness, finality. Knowing it was over.
'I didn't kill Philip,' he repeated. 'You can't believe that pig Sergio.' Then he slipped into his best Cuban
