by Warren Adler
Yet someone, long gone, had pasted the nickname on his forehead and it had stuck. It had no relationship to logic, since he wasn't lumpish like the vegetable, although at least one variety matched his color. The connotation, of course, was not altogether flattering, although at rare times it carried with it an air of genuine affection.
They were sitting in his office. Against the grey backlight of the window behind him, his body was in silhouette, his face featureless. Rain pelted the dirty windowpane.
"Any media interest?" The eggplant sighed gloomily. An avid self-publicist, he normally might have liked the idea, except that the payoff and timing just wasn't there. It was, Fiona knew, tough as hell to solve a case that appeared this old, and they did not need another open case at this point in time.
"We'll see how it plays," the eggplant said.
She knew his shorthand. He meant that if the media paid little attention, they could shove it into the background and concentrate on the more contemporary cases.
"Might even be a natural," the eggplant said hopefully. It was clear that he wished that the skeleton had never been found.
"Known to happen," Fiona said, struggling for neutrality.
"Maybe they couldn't afford burial expenses," the eggplant muttered, chuckling.
"Not in that neighborhood," Cates said.
"Never know. Big front. No cash. We live in bullshit land," the eggplant countered.
His telephone rang and he picked it up, but not all the way. The huge index finger of the hand that held the telephone shot up.
"You keep me 'apprahzed,' hear," he said, scowling. It was his traditional cautionary warning. Nothing behind my back, nothing out of channels. Keep me "apprahzed." The word literally defined the eggplant's limits.
Then he moved the instrument to his face and turned his attention to its message, waving them out as he began to speak.
There was no point in mounting any argument. The forensics weren't in yet. She had called Amy, Dr. Benton's assistant, to put in her oar for priority treatment. Although she enjoyed a strong and respectful relationship with the Medical Examiner, she was sparing in her request for special favors.
They had also sent the ankle bracelet down to the lab to be cleaned off and checked out. The fact was that, despite the eggplant's indifference, she could not choke off her mind's search for theories. A body buried in the backyard of one of the fanciest neighborhoods in town, uncovered after years. A tantalizing mystery there. A human being, a wife or mistress, someone's mother or daughter or sister, buried like rancid waste. Attention must be paid. Her mind spun with possibilities.
She knew what was happening. Always when a case intrigued her beyond the routine, ideas and speculations began to grow in her imagination. She knew, too, that each new fact would create parameters, inhibit the growth of extraneous theories, narrow down the choices.
There was something else, too. Despite the scant details, she felt a growing sense of identification with the victim. A life cast away like a piece of garbage, a brain holding a dark secret in its memory, a secret that needed burying forever. Only nothing was forever. Nothing.
Monte Pappas called her in mid-afternoon.
"I'm completely, totally, irrevocably embarrassed," he began.
"They were pouring pretty heavy," she said. "Forget it. I was half in the bag myself."
"I'm still at your place. My head feels like a rock and I've shot the day. Whites, reds and scotch. For me it's a deadly combination."
Luckily for her, although she felt slightly fatigued, the mental deflection of the case had chased any lingering hangover.
"Never mind. All is forgiven. Help yourself to anything. My tent is yours."
"I really owe you one, Fi. I was awful."
"It's okay. Don't flagellate."
She waited through a long pause.
"Bet I talked too much," he said, as if he were testing the waters, waiting for her response.
"You did talk," she chuckled. "I won't deny that."
"Did I say ... I mean ... anything that could be, you know..."
"Used against you in a court of law?" she bantered. She knew, of course, what was troubling him. He had, indeed, talked more than was discreet about Senator Langford, but in that context, he had nothing to fear from her.
"You did give me a snootful about..." She smiled. "Senator Love."
"Oh Jesus."
"Just between us girls."
"That name. Gives me cold shivers. Blank it out, please. And not on the phone."
She wondered if he was joking.
"Are you really concerned about my discretion, Monte?" she asked, surprised by her own reaction. His paranoia carried the cutting edge of insult.
"Fi. Fi. I don't know what I'm saying. That's a double apology I owe. Please. I have a tendency to overreact on that subject, considering its importance to me."
"I'd say you are being a bit hysterical," she said. She might not be having a hangover but she felt more testy than usual.
"Dinner Friday, Fi. It's important to me. I ... I thought we were doing well together before this ... nonsense."
"We'll see," she said. The fact was that she did enjoy Monte Pappas' company, his know-it-all manner and cynicism and the pretense of toughness he had adopted. Getting people elected, she had learned from experience, required a kind of dispassionate ruthlessness. In this respect, she knew, he was not a natural. Poor Monte had visible soft round edges, which was why she liked being with him.
"You're not mad?" he coaxed.
"Mad-mad maybe. But not angry-mad, no."
Her other line lit up. She put him on hold.
"I've read your bones, Fiona," Dr. Benton said. "Come on over."
"Got to go now," she said, switching back to Monte. "We'll touch base later about Friday." It was Wednesday. She hung up.
DR. BENTON was waiting in his office, his fingers held together in his classic cathedral style, an indication that he was in deep contemplation. She loved to see him in that pose, his cobalt blue eyes intense in his dark face, the genetic result of two hundred years of intermingling Cajun blood.
He was a man of rare privacy and wisdom, and on more than one occasion he had helped her cope with her own demons. He had his as well, the bitter loneliness of life without his beloved Dorothy, whose memory was his shrine.
His relationship with Fiona was profound enough for Cates, despite their partnership, to absent himself when he correctly read her need to be alone with him. This was one of those occasions.
She stood in front of his desk, waiting for him to acknowledge her. Finally, he pushed himself out of his chair and looked out of the window into the gloom of the relentless rain. His body spoke for his fatigue. Lately, there had been an endless parade of bodies.
"No more than 20," he said, still not turning. "A woman, five foot three, perhaps 110 pounds. From the rupture of the cartilage in the neck area, I suspect that she was strangled." In his verbal explanations with police officers, he deliberately eschewed highly technical terms, although his written report always used impeccably precise anatomical nomenclature.
Finally he turned to face her. The grey light could not hide his weariness.
"I think it's the rain. It depresses me. I buried Dorothy in the rain."
She had suspected the real source of his sad mood. To counter it she offered him a broad smile. He had often told her that her smile was like a dose of sunshine. He shrugged, responded with his own half-smile then moved back to his chair and put his feet on the desk.
"How long ago?" Fiona asked.
"A dozen years at least. Late seventies. Probably 1977 or '78." He shook his head. "Within a year is the best you can do."
She had hoped that the woman might have died later. More than a decade was a long time. Harder to track.
"What about race?" Fiona asked. Considering the turf, it was a proper question, but it carried baggage and implications. The majority of the open cases were black. Most of the crime in fact had a bl
ack connection, not uncommon considering the demographics. In this case the relevance was also based on neighborhood. More precisely, on what is commonly referred to as "class."
"I can tell you this," Dr. Benton said, obviously aware of the implications. "The woman was buried naked. There is absolutely not a trace of clothing anywhere among the bones. The dental work also is not very extensive and could prove difficult for establishing the body's identity. Unless, of course, you have something reasonably definite and needed a confirmation. All in all, probably a healthy young lady. This will be a tough one, Fiona."
"Tougher than you think. The Captain is indifferent."
"Priorities, Fiona. There is a traffic jam in here." Again, he made a cathedral of his fingers.
She considered again the eggplant's earlier reaction. Further pursuit depended on piquing his interest. If the case was too esoteric, with little media coverage, that would be an impossible chore, especially in today's political climate.
"Too bad." She sighed. "I was beginning to identify."
"An occupational hazard to be avoided," Dr. Benton said.
"Like you do," she said.
"Do as I say, not as I do," Dr. Benton said. He also had his lapses of objectivity. She saw his mood changing to black again.
"With each new abomination, I grow more reverential toward human life. And more hateful toward the abominators who deprive others of the experience. It always hurts to see injustice rewarded, especially through default and disinterest."
"It's not over yet," Fiona said.
"Dear Fiona. Always to the highest mountain. The bones have testified. Slim pickings for a crusade."
"Not necessarily, Dr. Benton. Whoever did it forgot something," Fiona said. As always with Dr. Benton she saved the best for last.
"No one's perfect," he sighed.
She explained about the ankle bracelet. He turned away and contemplated his cathedral, raising his eyebrows finally in what she knew was a gesture of optimism.
"When it came from a boy they used to call it a slave bracelet. I got one once from a high school boyfriend." She chuckled at the sudden shard of memory.
Then she remembered that the one found on the skeleton had been engraved with the name of Mabel, which might have implied that it was bought by the woman herself, more of an ornament than a symbol.
To truly qualify for a slave bracelet it would have had to have the mark of the boy on it like the one she had once received from her high school sweetheart. "Forever, love Larry," had been engraved on the surface worn closer to the flesh. And you wore it because it said you belonged to him, a more passionate kind of symbolism than say merely being "pinned." She snickered at the concept, then realized that her reaction was not only politically contemporary, it embarrassed her present sense of self. How dare I let anyone ever own me, she thought militantly. It took a few moments for the anger to clear. It was, nevertheless, a strong clue for identification purposes.
"The computers should be able to narrow down a missing Mabel of that age and description for those years," Dr. Benton said hopefully. "It's quite possible that justice might be served after all."
"I'll transmit your rallying cry to the eggplant," Fiona said. "This day pure justice is not his highest priority."
By the time she got back to the squad room the sense of exciting expectation that had carried her through the day had begun to ebb. Her head throbbed and she felt her mood changing rapidly.
She met the eggplant coming out the door of his office. He looked at her briefly, nodded indifferently and moved toward the corridor. It was obvious that his level of engagement about the case was nil. Nor did she have the energy to attempt to put new life into it. She'd do her duty, the minimum.
Cates lifted his head from the files he was reading and watched her as she came forward to her desk.
"He ask about it?"
"About what?"
"The bones, for crying out loud." Her level of irritability was rising. Fatigue was taking its toll.
"Not a word," he said. It was obvious, too, that his mind was busy elsewhere.
"Just another murder waiting to be solved," she said with disgust. She looked at the files on Cates' desk. "We can barely keep up as it is."
She felt her energy flagging, but mustered just enough to tell him what Dr. Benton had discovered. He listened intently, then went back to reading the files on his desk. Suddenly he lifted his head.
"The lab came back on that bracelet," he said. He pulled it out of his desk drawer, still in a plastic container, but now sparkling like new.
"Oh," she said, only mildly curious.
"We had it wrong. Must have been the light."
"Had what wrong?"
He took it out of its bag and held it between thumb and forefinger, dangling it.
"It wasn't Mabel. It read My Bet."
She held out her hand and he dropped it into her palm. She took it, felt it. It was almost weightless and very thin. She read the engraved letters.
"My Bet," she said.
"Somebody's Bet," Cates said, nodding.
A new wave of disgust rolled over her. The symbolism gnawed at her, sparking anger. Had that meant that the woman had given herself away, sold her soul?
In her business the dead often had a message for the living. She wasn't quite sure what that was, but this she knew: This girl was screaming through the dust of more than a decade, demanding her attention.
4
BEFORE SHE went home that night, she and Cates went over possible name variations for a missing-person trace, Bette, Betty, Beth, Elisabeth, Mary Beth and any similar combinations. They asked for a computer sweep for the years 1977 and 1978 and left it at that.
The next day they worked on the contemporary open cases and put My Bet on the back burner. Nor did the eggplant have anything to say on the subject. The Washington Post gave it a paragraph in the back of the paper adjacent to the obits. The site of the discovery was described as a backyard in Northwest Washington. The story ended with the line that "the police were investigating." Such scanty details reinforced the notion that, barring anything of real import, the case was heading into limbo.
They spent the afternoon chasing down promising leads on an unsolved case in a drug-related stabbing, picked up a prime suspect in Northeast Washington and brought him downtown. The man, who was the manager of a fast-food franchise, had been interrogated before and had been released for lack of evidence.
But timing and pressure had a way of working their synergism. The man, who at the time of the murder had managed to conceal his drug habit had, in an effort to kick his habit, signed up at a methadone center. Then he had dropped out, which indicated that he was probably back on drugs.
If the eggplant hadn't been pressing on the open cases at just that point in time, the man would have gotten away scot-free. As it was, they were able to squeeze the man through deprivation, and his confession came in record time. It encouraged the eggplant to press them to do more on these old cases, and he held a meeting in the squad room offering rare compliments for Fiona and Cates for their efforts.
It seemed to put the cap on his interest in the case of the old bones, as she was referring to it in her mind. Nevertheless, it continued to nag at her, overriding all her efforts to put it in perspective.
The fact was that remains, whether buried or simply cast away in remote places, were invariably young women under 21, a prime target of opportunity. A high percentage of these were sexually molested. Many were naked or seminaked, obviously subjected before their deaths to the most unbearable and painful humiliations.
As a woman, Fiona had been especially appalled by these statistics. Also, she had never become completely inured to the horrible sight of these young female corpses, their features etched forever in the death mask of horror, their unseeing eyes offering compelling evidence of their violation. Just to see them in that state was all the motivation that Fiona ever needed to pursue their murderers with all the single-minded purpose
she could muster. Despite this obvious kinship, Fiona felt that a great effort of will was needed on her part to force her objectivity when confronted with such cases, mostly to show her male colleagues that the gender of sisterhood did not set off an emotional vulnerability that might diminish her in their eyes.
My Bet, although merely bones, triggered even more of this effect and required even more masking of emotion. Indeed, the features that her imagination concocted seemed more horrifying than those recorded when her eyes actually bore witness to a violated female corpse with all the flesh intact.
She had arranged to meet Monte Pappas at the Jockey Club and had dressed in the ladies room and returned to the squad room, where she found Cates on the phone. He flagged her attention and mimed "missing persons." She was already late, but she waited until Cates had completed the call.
"Like falling off the roof," Cates said. "Actually a half-dozen female Bet possibilities, but one that fills the bill head-on." He read from a pad. "Betty Taylor, age 20, white, five-four, 110 pounds, grey eyes, raven hair." He shook his head and looked up and said: "Coming alive. Like watching a developing Polaroid shot." He continued. "Call reporting her missing came in from her mother, an Emma Taylor in Fredericksburg. Virginia. No trace. Gone with the wind."
"Not the wind, Cates," she said shaking her head.
"I got the mother's name and address." He shrugged and smiled. "Sometimes it's easy."
"Not often enough," she said.
He looked at her and smiled. "Heavy date?"
"More ways than one," she said.
As she turned, the eggplant was coming out of his office.
"Lookin' good, FitzGerald." He winked. He was always in a better mood on Fridays. He had spread the word among the division that his weekends were sacrosanct. If he had to be summoned, one had to be prepared to face the consequences.
"Thanks, Chief."
With him, Fiona knew, a compliment was as scarce as a snowstorm in July. In fact, he rarely complimented anyone on their appearance, especially females. For some reason, she decided to take advantage of his upbeat mood.
