Occasionally I’d hit people returning kickoffs if they came my way. Sometimes filled in when games were already won or lost and I’d smack fullbacks who trudged up the middle. Mostly I polished the pine, which is actually aluminum and can freeze your butt in places like South Bend and Ann Arbor in November. Gave me time to philosophize about cheerleaders’ thighs.”
“You look like you stay in shape.”
“Used to windsurf a lot. Now I just hit the heavy bag a couple times a week and never miss a Wednesday night poker game.”
“I can beat almost any man at almost any sport,” she said. She didn’t sound boastful. If you kin do it, it ain’t braggin’.
“We should play ball sometime,’’ I suggested.
She showed me the first hint of a smile. Her face didn’t break. “Are you being a smartass now?” she asked, almost pleasantly.
“No. I just want to talk to you.”
“I’ll talk if you can beat me in a race.”
“What?”
“The goal line,” she said, pointing across the empty practice field. “Let’s see who can score.”
Only the punter was still on the field. He took his two-step approach and kicked the ball with a solid thwack. The same motion, time after time, a machine following the path designed for it on the drawing board. Like a surgeon clearing out the disc, the same motion, time after time. But the punter had shanked one off the side of his foot, and even Roger Salisbury could have booted one. There I go again, mind slipping out of gear.
“Yes or no?” she demanded. “I’ve got to interview Shula, and that’s no day at the beach the way the Bills dropped buffalo shit all over them last Sunday.”
“Okay,” I said, taking off my Scotch brogue wing tips. “I suppose you want a head start.” She laughed a wily laugh.
The sun was just dropping over the Everglades to the west and a pink glow spread across the sky, casting Susan Corrigan into soft focus. I stretched my hamstrings and concocted a plan. I’d run stride for stride with her without breathing hard, maybe make a crack or two, then shoot by her, and run backwards the last ten yards. I’d let her jump into my arms at the goal line if she were so inclined. Then, I’d be a gracious winner and take her out for some fresh pompano and a good white wine.
She dropped into sprinter’s stance, shouted “Go,” and flew across the field. I bolted after her, my tie flapping over my shoulder like a pennant at the big game. She was five yards ahead after the first two seconds. Her stride was effortless, her movements smooth. My eyes fixed on her firm, round bottom, now rolling rhythmically with each stride. Halfway there I was still in second place, the greyhound chasing the mechanical rabbit. So I picked it up, still three yards back with only thirty to go. So much for the plan. Chasing pride now. Longer strides, lifting the knees too high, some wasted motion, but letting the energy of each step power the next one. Two steps behind and she shot a quick glance over her shoulder. A mistake, but only ten yards to go, no way to catch her, so I lunged, grabbing at her waist, hand slipping down over a hip, tumbling her into the grass with me rolling on top and her glasses, notepad, and pen whirling this way and that.
We ended up near the goal line, her on the bottom looking up, moist warm breath tickling my nose. A lot of my body was touching a lot of her body, and she wasn’t complaining.
“First and goal from the one,” I whispered.
I looked straight into her eyes from a distance any quarterback could sneak. Was it my imagination or was the glacial ice melting? I was ready for her to get all dewy and there would be some serious sighing going on. But I had come up a yard short. She flipped me off her like a professional wrestler who doesn’t want to be pinned, one of her knees slamming into my groin as she bounced up. She stood there squinting in the dusk, looking for her glasses while I sucked in some oxygen.
“You really don’t know, do you?” she said, standing over me.
“Not only that, but I don’t know what I don’t know.” My voice was pinched.
“Then listen, because you’re only going to hear it once. Your client isn’t guilty of medical malpractice.”
“He’s not?”
“No. He’s guilty of murder. He killed my father. He planned it along with that slut who ought to get an Academy Award from what I saw in court today. I can’t prove it, but I know it’s true.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Believe it. Your client’s a murderer. He should be fried or whatever they do these days. So pardon me if I don’t get all choked up over his career problems or insurance rates. He was planking the slut-something that doesn’t exactly put him in an exclusive club-and they planned it together. The malpractice suit is just a cover.”
“I still don’t get it.” I was starting to feel like a sap, something Susan Corrigan seemed to know the moment she met me.
“The lawsuit makes it look like the doctor and the widow are enemies. That’s their cover. And the way I figure it, Lassiter, you’re supposed to lose. Or at least it doesn’t matter. If you lose, the insurance company will pay her, and she’ll probably split the money with him. Or maybe he gets it all. She’ll get more than she needs from the estate. And if she wins more than his insurance coverage, he doesn’t have to worry because she won’t try to collect.”
I sat there with a look as intelligent as a vacant lot. “Murder and insurance fraud. You have no proof of that. And I just can’t believe it.”
“I can see that, now,” she said. “You’re not a bad guy, Lassiter. You’re just not fast enough to be a linebacker, and you don’t know shit from second base.”
5
Charlie Riggs took the stand with a smile on his face and a plastic model of the spine in his back pocket. I felt better just looking at him. Bushy gray moustache and beard, a brown tweedy jacket more at home in Ivy League libraries than art deco Miami, twinkling eyes full of experience. A trustworthy man. Like having Walter Cronkite on my side.
He’d testified hundreds of times for the state and was comfortable on the witness stand. He crossed his legs, revealing drooping socks and pale calves. He breathed on his eyeglasses and wiped them on his tie. He slipped the glasses onto his small nose that was almost buried by his beard. Then Charlie Riggs nodded. He was ready.
“Please state your name and profession for the jury,” I instructed him.
“Charles W. Riggs, M.D., pathologist by training, medical examiner of Dade County for twenty-eight years, now happily retired.”
“Tell us, Dr. Riggs, what are the duties of a medical examiner.”
“Objection!” Dan Cefalo was on his feet. “Dr. Riggs is retired. He is incompetent to testify as to the current medical examiner’s duties.”
In the realm of petty objections, that one ranked pretty high, but it was the first one of the day, and you could flip a coin on it.
“Sustained,” Judge Leonard said, unfolding the sports section, looking for the racetrack charts.
I had another idea. “Let’s start this way, Dr. Riggs. What is a medical examiner?”
“Well, in merry old England, they were called coroners. You can trace coroners back to at least the year 1194. They were part of the justice system, part judge, part tax collector. The coroner was the custos placitorum coronae, the guardian of the pleas of the Crown. If a man was convicted of a crime, the coroner saw to it that his goods were forfeited to the Crown.”
Cefalo looked bored, the judge was not listening as usual, but the jurors seemed fascinated by the bearded old doctor. It works that way. What’s mundane to lawyers and judges enchants jurors.
“Later the coroner’s duties included determining the cause of death with the help of an inquest. The sheriff would empanel a jury, much as you have here.” He smiled toward the jury box, and in unison, six faces smiled back.
