Solomon & Lord Drop Anchor by Paul Levine Read Free Book Online Page B

dress.”
    Uh-huh is what I say when I don’t know
what to say. I would have liked Salisbury to fill me in here, but
he didn’t give me any help. After a moment I asked, “Since when are
you Mrs. Corrigan’s fashion consultant?”
    “Oh that. I probably never told you. When
Philip started seeing me for the back and leg pain, we became
friendly. I wasn’t dating anybody. They were just married. He
started asking me over to their house in Gables Estates. Cocktail
parties, dinners, sometimes just the three of us.”
    “So you know Mrs. Corrigan?”
    “Melanie. Sure.”
    “Melanie, is it?”
    He looked at me with a what’s-the-big-deal
look and I didn’t have an answer so I polished off the palomilla
and thought it over. No big deal. I just would have liked to have
known about it sometime before trial.
    In a moment our new friends cruised back,
eyes a thousand watts brighter, ready to roll. I mumbled my
apologies to Miss Earrings, who, with no apparent regret, shifted
her electrified look to the blandly handsome doctor. I left them
there, two women with a buzz on, and the man who had entrusted his
career to me, the man who hadn’t told me everything. What else, I
wondered, had he left out?
    I paused at the door to look back. The
restaurant was filled now.
    Some of the yuppies were crowding the bar,
making too much noise, pushing limes into their Mexican beer, a
trendy brand aged about as long as their attention spans. If you
have to put lime in your beer, you might as well drink
Kool-Aid.
    Back at the table, one woman sat on each side
of Roger Salisbury. They all laughed. I left the three of them
there, the mathematical possibilities of their union crowding
Melanie Corrigan’s testimony into a dusty recess of my mind.

3

THE WIDOW

    “Mrs. Corrigan, do you love your
husband?”
    “I do.” A pause, a catch in the throat, a
quiver, the beginning of a tear, then like a lake swollen by a
summer storm, an overflow cascading down sculpted cheekbones. “That
is, I did. I loved him very much.”
    Blessed timing. They don’t teach that in
finishing school. Dan Cefalo continued his questioning. “Do you
miss him?”
    Another leading question, but only a dunce
would incur the jury’s wrath by interrupting the soap opera with a
news bulletin.
    “Very much. Every day. We shared so much.
Sometimes, when a car pulls into the driveway, I forget, and I
think, well, maybe it’s Phil.”
    And maybe it’s the paperboy. God, could she
lay it on thick. She looked toward the jury and then away as if the
memory was too much to bear. A lace handkerchief appeared out of a
navy leather clutch and the big, brown, wet eyes were dabbed dry.
The pain radiated from her, but I was the one who was dying. Every
question launched an arrow, and every answer pierced my heart. The
widow was majestic, thick russet hair swept straight back to lay
bare those chiseled lines, to expose her suffering. All for the
glory of justice and a seven-figure award for mental anguish, loss
of society, comfort, and consortium.
    “Tell us about your husband, your late
husband, Mrs. Corrigan. And I know it’s a painful subject, so if
you need a recess to gather yourself, please just say so.” Cefalo
extended his arms toward the widow and bowed from the waist, as if
she were royalty. And she did look regal, white gloves setting off
a navy and white double-breasted cardigan that covered a matching
skirt. Maybe the gloves hid Racy Red nail polish, already slathered
on for a night of romping through Coconut Grove clubs. Maybe on
cross-examination I should order her to take off the gloves and
bare her claws. Sure, or maybe I should just grab a sword and
mutter a hara-kiri chant.
    “I don’t know where to begin, there’s so much
to say,” she said, obviously knowing exactly where she would begin.
I wanted her to say: He was boffing half the stewardesses in
town while his first wife lay dying; he made millions bribing
county commissioners to grant zoning variances;