“What’s it mean?”
“C’mon boss. Get with it. Crazy old Charlie Riggs is set to testify at nine tomorrow morning. He’ll tell one and all what killed filthy rich Philip Corrigan.”
“Good, he’s our best witness.”
“I don’t know,” Cindy said, twirling a finger through a stiff curl. If a mosquito flew into her hair, it would be knocked cold. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this case. Your Dr. Salisbury has a weird look in his eye.”
“All men look at you that way, Cindy. Try wearing a bra.”
“I never thought you noticed.”
“Hard to miss when the air conditioning turns this place into a meat locker. Now c’mon Cindy, help me out. We have anything on Corrigan’s daughter by his first marriage?”
“Sure, a little.” Cindy was not as ditsy as she looked. She could turn heads with her hyped-up looks, bouncy walk, and easy smile, but underneath were brains and street smarts, an unusual combination.
“Susan Corrigan,” Cindy said, without consulting the file. “About thirty, undergrad work at UF, then a master’s in journalism at Northwestern. Sportswriter at the Herald.”
“You’re amazing,” I said, meaning it.
“In many splendored ways unbeknownst to you.”
I chose not to wade in those crowded waters.
“Wait a second,” I said. “Of course. Susan Corrigan. I know the by-line, the first woman inside the Dolphins’ locker room.” I picked up yesterday’s paper, which had been gathering dust in a wicker basket next to my desk. I found the story stripped across the top of the sports section under the headline, “Dolphin Hex? Injuries Vex Offensive Line.”
By Susan Corrigan
Herald Sports Writer
On a team where the quarterback is king, something wicked keeps happening to the palace guard.
And the palace tackles. And the palace center.
“ It’s scary the things that happened to our offensive line in the last three weeks,” Dolphin Coach Don Shula said yesterday.
“ When injuries hit us, they come in bunches.”
Sure, Susan Corrigan. Made a name for herself playing tennis against Martina, sprinting against Flo-Jo, then writing first-person pieces. I’d read her stuff. Tough and funny. Today I’d seen half of that.
“What’s she have to do with Salisbury’s case?” Cindy asked.
“Don’t know. But there’s more to the second Mrs. Corrigan than tears and white gloves, and Susan knows something.”
“What’s she look like, an Amazon warrior?”
“Hardly. Cute, not beautiful. Long legs, short dark hair like Dorothy Hamill, wears glasses, wholesome as the Great Outdoors. No hint of scandal.”
Cindy laughed. “Doesn’t sound like your type.”
“Did I mention foulmouthed?”
“We’re getting warmer.”
“Cindy, this is all business.”
“Isn’t it always?”
Practice was almost over and only a few players were still on the field. Natural grass warmed by the sun, a clean earthy smell in the late afternoon Florida air. It had been one of those days when it’s a crime to be shackled to an office or courtroom. Winter in the tropics. Clear sky, mid-seventies, a light breeze from the northeast. On the small college campus where the Dolphins practice, the clean air and open spaces were a world away from Miami’s guttersnipes and bottom feeders.
I spotted Susan Corrigan along the sideline. She wore gray cotton sweats and running shoes and seemed to be counting heads, seeing what linemen were still able to walk as they straggled back to the locker room. A reporter’s notepad was jammed into the back of her sweatpants and a ballpoint pen jutted like a torpedo out of her black hair. All business. On the field in front of her only the quarterbacks and wide receivers were still going through their paces, a few more passes before the sun set. On an adjacent practice field, a ballboy shagged kick after kick from a solitary punter.
“Susan,” I called from a few yards away.
She turned with an expectant smile. The sight of me washed it away. I asked if we could talk. She turned back to the field. I asked if she was waiting for somebody. She studied the yard markers. I asked who she liked in the AFC East. She didn’t give me any tips. I just stood there, looking at her profile. It wasn’t hard to take.
She turned toward me again, a studious yet annoyed look through thick glasses, as if an interesting insect had landed in her soup. “Why should I help you?”
“Because you’re not real interested in helping Melanie Corrigan. Because you know things about her that could help an innocent doctor save his career. Because you like the way I comb my hair.”
“You’re dumber than you look,” she hissed.
“Is there a compliment buried in that one?”
“You’re hopeless.”
I can take being put down. Judges do it all the time. So do important people like a maitre d’ in a Bal Harbour restaurant who insists that diners wear socks. But this was different. I looked at her, a fresh-faced young woman in cotton sweats that could not hide her athletic yet very womanly body. I gave her a hangdog look that sought mercy. She turned back to the field. Dan Marino was firing short outs to Mark Duper and Mark Clayton. Though each pass arrived with ferocious speed, there was no slap of leather onto skin at the receiving end.
“Soft hands,” Susan Corrigan said, mostly to herself.
“These guys are good but Paul Warfield will always be my favorite,” I said. “Had moves like Baryshnikov. Stopping him was like tackling the wind.”
“Sounds like you know more about football than about your own client.”
I gave her my blank look and she kept going. “You still don’t get it. You still don’t know the truth.”
“Get what? Look, I’m defending a man accused of professional malpractice. I don’t know what the truth is. I never know. I just take the facts-or as much of them as I can get from people biased on all sides-and throw them at the jurors. You never know what jurors hear or remember or care about. You never know why they rule the way they do. They can right terrible wrongs or do terrible wrongs. They can shatter lives and destroy careers, and that’s what I’m worried about with Roger Salisbury.”
“Bring out the violins.”
Suddenly a shout from behind us: “Heads up!” I looked up in time to see a brown blur dropping from the sky. Susan Corrigan’s hands shot out and she caught the ball with her fingertips. A cheer went up from the wide receivers, anonymous behind their face masks.
“Soft hands,” I said, “and a lot of quick.” I gave her my best smile. It had been good enough for several generations of University of Miami coeds, their brains fried from working on their tans. It had lowered the minimal resistance of stewardesses from half a dozen failing airlines. It did not dent the armor of Susan Corrigan.
“Sit on this,” she said, lateraling the ball toward my gut.
I felt like popping her one. Instead I took my frustrations out on the funny-shaped ball. Fingertips across the laces, I heaved a hard, tight spiral to the punter half the field away. He took it chest high and nodded with approval. The toss surprised even me.
Susan Corrigan whistled. “You’ve played some ball.”
Her tone had subtly changed. Good, maybe if I went a few rounds with Mike Tyson, she’d give me the time of day.
“A little,” I said. I decided not to tell her my right arm just lost all its feeling except for a prickly sensation where the wires had been frayed.
“Quarterback?”
“No, I decided early I’d rather be the hitter than the hittee. Linebacker with lousy lateral movement.
