Michael Baden

by Skeleton Justice

  Jake gulped from his glass of ice water and waited. Manny was usually very analytical, yet totally open to every possibility, able to see connections a more cautious mind would overlook. That passion, that lightning response, had attracted him in the first place. But sometimes her sudden reversals, the wild leaps in her thought process, left his relentlessly logical mind floundering.

  “A forties horror movie with Bela Lugosi,” she explained. “Used to watch the reruns with my father when I was growing up.”

  Signs of a misspent youth, he thought, but he didn’t say it aloud, or else the spike of her heel would be in his calf, rather than massaging it.

  “The movie’s villain was a beloved town doctor who killed to seek revenge for wrongs he perceived had been committed against him.”

  “You have something against doctors?”

  “I’m a lawyer, remember. A mixed marriage between the two professions would never work. Like the Hatfields and McCoys.”

  “Or Romeo and Juliet.”

  “They committed suicide. I rest my case.”

  Jake shuffled his papers to bring Manny back to the here and now.

  “Blood is what the guy is after, so somehow these people must be linked by their blood,” she said. “Do they share a common disease?”

  “None of them is HIV-positive. Two are diabetic. One must be an alcoholic—terrible liver function.” Jake rattled off the facts, tapping the pertinent data with the tip of his pencil. “But those are the results of running standard blood work. We can’t test for every obscure disease in the book—it would take forever. We have to have some idea of what to look for, then run the test to prove or disprove the theory. Otherwise, you’re searching for a needle in a haystack.”

  “So they could all be linked by having some rare disease, but you just don’t know which one?”

  “Possible, but unlikely. The police CSI team interviewed them all. No one has any unusual symptoms or medical history.”

  “What about the DNA profile?”

  “The results have come back on only the first three. We’re still waiting on the two latest. But these people are not related. And no genetic anomalies.”

  Manny chewed a zucchini flower and thought for a long moment before speaking. “Do you know how much blood he draws?”

  “It’s impossible to know the precise amount, but the victims were all checked out after the attacks and they had normal blood volume, so he’s probably taking a vial at most.”

  “All right.” Manny gestured with a forkful of draped arugula. “My knowledge of bizarre satanic rituals is admittedly small, but it seems to me if he were taking the blood for some kinky reason, he’d want more of it, yes?”

  “I agree,” Jake said. “I think he’s doing what we’re doing—testing it.”

  “Himself, or sending it to a lab?”

  “Certain basic tests he could do himself with the right materials, or he could send the blood out to a lab. There are hundreds on the East Coast alone. We’d never be able to check them all.”

  “But not for DNA testing,” Manny prompted. “You can’t do that on your kitchen table. And because of the backlog, it usually takes months to get DNA results back. Believe me, my innocent clients know how behind those labs are.”

  “Those are the labs accredited to do forensic DNA testing. There are private labs, too, like the ones you see ads for on the subway—places that do paternity testing for civil cases.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been underground in New York City since the St. James class trip to the Museum of Natural History.”

  Jake let her comment pass. Every once in a while, Manny’s Jersey girl bridge and tunnel gene reared its head. He preferred not to dwell on the fact that when she had been puzzling over Dick and Jane in her green plaid Catholic school uniform, he had been a senior at City College. He waggled his pen at her. “But why go to all the trouble of collecting blood if all you want is a DNA match? He could get that much more easily by collecting a few hairs or picking up a cigarette butt from his targets. What he’s looking for has to be something you can find only in blood.”

  “So tell Pasquarelli to start subpoenaing every blood lab in the metro area till he finds the one that worked on these samples.”

  Jake massaged his temples at the thought of the massive paperwork this would entail. “Pasquarelli’s already thought of that. He was hoping I could come up with something a little less labor-intensive. But I guess the Vampire will stay on the front page of the papers for another week. The mayor won’t be happy.”

  “Pasquarelli may be in luck there,” Manny replied. “I was listening to the evening news while I was getting dressed tonight. The Vampire’s been pushed aside by the Preppy Terrorists.”

  “And who, pray tell, are the Preppy Terrorists?” Jake dug into his steak, trying to ignore the sensation of Manny’s gaze boring into him. It was like eating while Mycroft watched every bite travel from plate to mouth. “Did you want to try some of this?”

  “Certainly not! This hand-rolled fettucine is just delicious.” Manny slowly sucked a strand between her lips to prove her point, then continued. “The Preppy Terrorists are a couple of kids from the Monet Academy who got it in their heads that it would be a fun science experiment to put a small incendiary device under a U.S. mailbox in Hoboken.”

  “That’s pushing the Vampire off the front page? We used to put firecrackers in old man Isbrantsen’s mailbox whenever he’d confiscate our kickball.”

  “Was a federal judge ever strolling by when you did it? Because that’s what happened in Hoboken. Judge Patrick Brueninger took a piece of twisted metal in the throat.”

  “Brueninger. That name sounds familiar. Wait—wasn’t he the federal judge who presided over the Iqbar case?”

  “You got it.”

  Jake drained the last of his Chianti. “These kids tried to take him down? Why?”

  “Too soon to know,” Manny said. “There are certainly quite a few Muslims who don’t think the mullah got a fair trial. They swear that Iqbar really was just running a nice friendly mosque in Jersey City.”

  Jake snorted. “Right. Not laundering millions to finance the Taliban in Afghanistan. But these prep school boys aren’t Muslims, right? Why would they want to off the judge?”

  “Exactly—no motive whatsoever. My guess is it’s just a prank gone terribly wrong. But with 9/11 and anthrax and the shoe bomber, the FBI’s talking about prosecuting these kids to the fullest extent of the law, just to prove that they don’t go after only dark-haired guys in turbans. These kids are toast. They’re going to be—”

  Manny was interrupted by a tinny rendition of the opening strains of George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” emanating from somewhere under the table. She dived down, resurfaced with her Fendi bag from the designer’s newest collection, and answered her cell phone before George could utter another note of his trademark tune.

  Sorry, she mouthed silently at Jake. “Hi, Kenneth,” she trilled into the phone. “What’s up?”

  Jake’s eyebrows lowered. He still was a tad suspect of Manny’s paralegal assistant, Kenneth, a former client whose knowledge of the law stemmed from the two times he’d been arrested. Kenneth consulted with Manny at least twenty times a day on items ranging from the latest gossip on the Web page of the New York Social Diary to the advantages of arguing stare decisis in a brief submitted to the federal second circuit court of appeals.

  “Of course you were right to call. This is very important. Hang on just a minute.” Manny rose from her chair and moved to the edge of the canopy, out of earshot. Jake stabbed at his peas.

  In less than ten minutes, Manny returned to the table, but Jake kept his eyes focused on his plate.

  “Guess why Kenneth was calling?”

  “Special three-hour sale at Saks.”

  “Very funny. Actually, it was a sale at T.J. Maxx. I can restrain myself sometimes.”

  “Manny, I know your relationship is diff—well, special, that
he honors you as his savior and you view him as your Eliza Doolittle, but. …”

  “But what? He’s a talented kid who was born poor. Just because he’s a diva doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate honest, hard work.”

  Manny had been assigned by the local court to represent Kenneth Medianos Boyd pro bono on charges of conspiracy to destroy evidence—drugs—by flushing it away. Then there was the time when he was nabbed for a wardrobe malfunction during the annual Greenwich Village Halloween parade. His alter ego, formerly a waitress and now the chanteuse Princess Calypso, lost some strategically placed plumage taken from turkeys dispatched the Thanksgiving before.

  Manny immediately appreciated Kenneth’s worth: a keenly dramatic fashion sense coupled with a paralegal certification obtained while behind bars before his drag reincarnation. Kenneth adored Manny because she treated him as a person with skill and brains. They cemented the bond while shopping at the TSE cashmere outlet; she offered him a job as her legal assistant.

  “I know, I know, and he watches out for your backside. But does he have to call you so many times a day? What’s the point of having an assistant if he’s always ringing you? Kind of defeats the purpose of easing your workload.”

  “You’re just jealous of the other men in my life.” She glanced down at Mycroft to hide both her annoyance and her smile.

  “‘Men’? Last week, Kenneth wore heat-sensitive nail polish when he delivered those documents to my home. Started talking to me with pink nails, which became royal blue by the time he handed me the manila envelope. And let’s not forget he was in a full-length evening dress.”

  “He’s just a girl making an honest living as a chanteuse in downtown clubs, when he’s not running my law office, writing my motions, collecting my bills, and keeping my clients happy on the phone so I can go off gallivanting to help with your cases.”

  Manny paused for breath, then continued. “Kenneth was calling because the mother of one of the Preppy Terrorists just phoned to say she wants to retain me as his defense attorney.”

  “I thought you said those kids were toast? Why would you want the case?”

  “First, these kids are being railroaded to make them examples so that the government can say ‘Look what we’re doing to protect you from terrorism.’”

  “Railroaded!” Jake pointed his fork at her. “You can’t say that. All you know about this case is what you heard on the news. And we both know how inaccurate that is.”

  Manny pushed the accusatory fork away. “I know from experience how prosecutors work. Besides, this case is huge. When I show the government this kid is not guilty, I’ll have more credibility in the future on other cases.”

  “Manny, so far you’ve dealt mainly with civil rights cases and nonviolent offenders,” Jake said. “Are you prepared to tangle with terrorists and the federal government? This case is awfully risky.”

  “I’m prepared for anything. Gotta run. Sorry.” Manny pushed away from the table, sloshing water out of the glasses on the table.

  She paused to deliver a parting jab. “What about when you nearly got blown up trying to find Pete Harrigan’s killer? It’s okay for you to take risks but not me. Showing your age, aren’t you?”

  Jake winced. All he wanted was to shield her from harm. He struggled to keep the protective edge out of his voice. “Just be careful.”

  His calm words were like a gust of wind on a brush fire. Manny pivoted. “Don’t talk to me like you’re my keeper, Jake. We don’t have any commitments to each other, remember? I’ll call you tomorrow after I meet with the client.” She was halfway across the street with Mycroft in tow before Jake could flag down the waiter for the check.

  Tossing some crumpled twenties on the table, Jake set off in pursuit. With her cascade of red hair and electric pink sweater, Manny was as easy to track as a microburst. What he would do when he caught up with her, Jake wasn’t sure. Vulcan mind meld maybe.

  That might be the only way to make her see how irrational she was being. It was one thing to be a champion of the oppressed, quite another to be a sucker for some crackpot sob story. And how would she handle all the work this case would entail? The big-time criminal lawyers had a whole team to back them up; Manny had a drag queen paralegal.

  Jake felt a sensation over his heart not caused by Manny’s behavior. His cell phone vibrated. The display indicated it was his office. What timing.

  “Rosen,” snapped Pederson. “Get over to Fourteen West Fifty-third. Looks like the Vampire has struck again. And this time, he’s left you a body.”

  Jake began working the moment his cab pulled up to the curb. As deputy chief medical examiner, his duties were coldly delineated by the chief medical examiner: Confirm the identity of the victim, what happened, where it happened, when it happened, and how it happened.

  But he saw the scope of his work as larger than that. To him, every victim told a far more complex story than the blood spatter surrounding the body or the fibers and hairs clinging to it. The why and whodunit were often intricately woven into the historical fabric of the victim’s life. Life merged with death.

  Amanda Hogaarth’s story began here on the spotless sidewalk outside the very expensive building where she had lived. Jake noted the shaken expression of the doorman who admitted him, and the rigid bearing of the concierge standing behind his desk. Somehow, these two had let a killer into what was supposed to be an enclave of safety.

  Jake glanced around the marble-floored lobby with its plush but impersonal furnishings. Co-op, condo, or high-end rental? Co-ops, even large ones like this building, tended to be clubbier. The neighbors knew one another, at least in passing, from all the endless wrangling of the board of directors. In a condo or rental, Amanda Hogaarth would more likely have lived in anonymity.

  Jake took the elevator of this pre-World War I relic to the thirteenth floor, where the door slid open on a maelstrom of activity. The police were conducting a door-to-door inquiry, interviewing the immediate neighbors. The crime scene techs had arrived with all their equipment. As he walked toward the open door of 13C, repeated flashes of light told him the police photographer was at work.

  Jake met Detective Pasquarelli in the hall. “Can I look around the apartment?”

  The detective nodded. “Give it another few minutes and the techs will be done.”

  Jake glanced at the front door. “Any sign of forced entry?”

  “No. He pushed his way in, or she let him in. The doorman claims he didn’t send anyone up to her apartment, so our guy must’ve gotten in the building by requesting someone else, or he came in through the service entrance. Luckily, this place is guarded like Fort Knox. There are security cameras trained on all doors, and in the elevators. We’ll need a few hours tomorrow to review the tapes.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Pasquarelli grinned. “Don’t count on it, Doc. I never do.”

  “Who found her?” Jake asked.

  “Maintenance man came up here just before five p.m. Last call of the day. Bet he wishes he’d knocked off early.” Pasquarelli tugged on his already-crooked tie. “Apparently, Ms. Hogaarth called yesterday to say her air-conditioning unit was making a rattling noise. Since it wasn’t an emergency, the guy didn’t make it up here till today. Opened the door with a passkey when she didn’t answer. Called nine-one-one at four-forty-eight p.m.”

  Jake glanced at his watch: 9:35 p.m. “What took you so long to call me?”

  “The responding officers thought it was a natural death,” Pasquarelli explained. “The tour doc from the ME’s office came. He’s the one who noticed the needle mark in her arm, and a few other suspicious things. Said if this was related to the Vampire, we’d better bring you in.”

  Jake’s expression flickered between a smile and a scowl. His subordinates knew how interested he was in the Vampire case; he was surprised Pederson had been willing to let him have it after that display of authority in his office yesterday.

  Stepping past Pasquarelli direct
ly into the living room of the apartment, Jake recognized it instantly—the faint but distinctive smell of ether. That’s why he never followed OSHA guidelines by wearing a face mask—the possibility of missing such transient evidence was too great. And once overlooked, it was gone forever. Now he could be certain he was dealing with the Vampire.

  Ms. Hogaarth appeared to have preserved her dignity, dying a tidy death in what had been a very tidy home. Jake glanced around. The overwhelming impression was beigeness. Off-white walls, thick cream carpeting, matching light tan sofa and love seat. The only contrast came from mournful streaks of black fingerprint powder as the crime scene investigators went about their work, which destroyed the cleanliness Ms. Hogaarth had obviously held dear.

  The body was stretched out on the middle of the living room floor. Jake nodded at his colleague from the office, Todd Galvin, who jumped from a crouch beside the body and rushed over to him.

  Only two years out of his pathology residency, Todd was the youngest member of the ME’s staff, and eager to show what he had learned. “I found a needle mark,” he began, gesturing Jake toward the body. But Jake turned away.

  “Remember what I’ve been teaching you, Todd. Let’s look through the crime scene first to see what that tells us about the victim, before we get distracted by her body. She’s not going anywhere.”

  Jake headed straight for the bathroom. The medicine cabinet revealed the usual lineup of over-the-counter remedies, but just one prescription: Lasix for high blood pressure. Other than that, Ms. Hogaarth had been quite healthy. He opened a drawer and found a shabby stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff. “Interesting—maybe she had been a nurse and used her old gear to monitor her own blood pressure.”

  Todd nodded. “Possibly. A layman would be more likely to use one of those new blood pressure monitoring kits they sell at the drugstore.”

  The young man peeped behind the shower curtain. “Sure is clean in here. This lady wouldn’t have liked to see my bathroom.”

  They moved on to the bedroom, a room of almost monastic simplicity. Jake looked at the tautly drawn bedspread and lifted up the bottom. Just as he suspected—hospital corners on the sheets. In the closet, the shoes stood in military rows; the clothes all were hanging in the same direction. Nightstand: lamp, clock, one issue of Reader’s Digest. Dresser: comb, brush, lavender talcum powder. Bedspread, curtains, carpet—all beige. Jake made a 360-degree rotation—not a single photograph, picture, or knick-knack. “What kind of woman makes it into her sixth decade of life without acquiring a single tchotchke, a photo of grandchildren, nieces, or old friends?”