Michael Baden

by Skeleton Justice

  More was at stake here than just being embarrassed. If Señora Sandoval suspected she and Jake were scam artists, she’d call the police. And when she found out who they were, the shit would really hit the fan. The vision of a disciplinary hearing before the Bar Association appeared in startling detail in her mind’s eye. Then she saw herself in prison garb. Even though they’d discontinued the old black and white horizontal stripes—a nightmare for the hips—the new neon orange jumpsuits just wouldn’t accessorize with her Chanel.

  There were no workable defensive positions open to her. Her only option was a bold offense.

  Manny flattened herself against the wall next to the bedroom door and waited.

  The seconds crawled by. She heard voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Maybe Paco wasn’t going to come into the room after all. Maybe Jake had found some way to keep him out there. Maybe she was squandering the few seconds she had to get out of the room unseen. What to do? Her heart felt huge in her chest, hammering against her ribs, pressing the air out of her lungs.

  Indecision was intolerable to her. Manny decided she would open the door a crack and see what was happening out there. Anything was better than just standing here waiting.

  Manny stepped forward and faced the door. Tentatively, she reached out and touched the knob.

  A floorboard creaked on the other side of the wall. Instantly, she pressed herself against the wall beside the door again.

  The door opened.

  Paco stood two steps in front of Manny, oblivious to her presence. She estimated that he was only three inches taller than she, and very lean. Still, a young athletic man would be stronger than a female lawyer who visited the gym half as often as she intended to. All she had in her favor was the element of surprise. Hesitate, and all would be lost.

  Paco closed the door behind him. Manny sprang.

  She jumped right on his back and wrapped her legs around his hips, like a kid playing piggyback. Placing one hand tightly over his mouth, she steadied herself with the other across his chest. He staggered slightly under her weight but kept his balance. “Don’t say a word,” Manny whispered into his ear. “I read the document you wrote about Travis. I want to know where he is. When I let you go, you’re not going to scream. If you do, I’ll show the letter to your mother. Understand?”

  Paco nodded.

  “All right. I’m going to get off you. Don’t say a word until you’ve turned on some music. Go.” She slipped off his back.

  Paco headed toward the music system on his bookshelf, glancing over his shoulder as if trying to keep an eye on the unpredictable three-headed alien threatening to abduct him.

  “I’m Travis Heaton’s defense attorney,” Manny said, once the music was playing. “I want to know why you’ve been refusing to cooperate with me. Who planted that bomb? Where is Travis now?” There was so much to find out and so little time.

  Manny saw the expression on Paco’s face change from fearful to merely cautious. “It’s too complicated to explain it all right now. Let’s make a plan to meet somewhere else.”

  “Yeah, right. You talk here or I’ll show your mother the document.”

  Even though she didn’t understand everything the document said, Manny could tell she possessed a powerful weapon. She watched as Paco weighed his risks, his eyes darting back and forth.

  “No!” His fingers, slender but strong, pressed into her forearm. “Travis is at an apartment in Brooklyn. Three twenty-nine Rosamond Street, 4E. He called me from there yesterday, but he couldn’t talk.”

  “What—” But Manny was interrupted by a high-pitched voice nearby.

  “Ms. Medford? Are you ill? Do you need help?”

  Manny pushed Paco toward the door. “Get your mother back in the living room. Tell her you ran into me in the hall and sent me to the kitchen for a drink. I’ll follow you out there in a few seconds.”

  The rain had stopped. Jake loped down First Avenue, trying to put as much Manhattan real estate between himself and the Sandovals’ apartment building as possible.

  As he walked, he delivered a diatribe. “Totally irresponsible … reckless and immature … only concerned with what’s important to you …”

  From where she trotted four steps behind him, Manny could hear only parts of the harangue, but she caught the drift. She didn’t attempt to defend herself. Jake was right: She had put him at terrible professional risk. She should have thought of the long-term consequences had they been caught. But the bottom line was, they had pulled it off. So why all the outrage? She hated when he pulled this indignant father crap. “Slow down,” she gasped. “You’re more of a workout than spinning class.”

  “Take your time. No need to keep up with me. I’ve served my purpose, so let me go.”

  Oh, now we’ve switched to used and abused boy toy. “Why are you so touchy? Everything worked out brilliantly. I have this document, which is going to help me figure out what’s happening here, and I found out where Travis is. And”—Manny reached into her pocket and pulled out a small yellow rectangle—“we even got a check for five thousand dollars.”

  “What the hell are you going to do with that?”

  “I’m going to send it to Home Again. When I tell them what a great fund-raiser you are, I bet they’ll put you on their board.”

  Not even a glimmer of a smile. Geez, he really was pissed. Manny tried again.

  “Jake, look! Souvlaki King.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him to a halt. “Let’s stop and eat. I’m starving.”

  “Eat! How can you even think about food at a time like this? I’ve got so much adrenaline pumping through my body, I won’t be able to eat or sleep until next Tuesday.”

  “I have a parasitic infestation, remember? It must be a tapeworm.”

  Jake stared at her for a long moment. Then his upper lip twitched. Soon, his shoulders were shaking. By the time they stumbled into Souvlaki King, they were both laughing so hard, all they could do was point to the gyro special and collapse in the red vinyl booth.

  “You have tzatziki sauce on your chin.” Jake smiled at Manny and indicated the location on his own face.

  She grinned and wiped her mouth with a handful of the Greek diner’s flimsy napkins. Jake never stopped marveling at how totally unflappable Manny was. If he had told his ex-wife, Marianna, that, she would have leaped up from the table in a huff and spent twenty minutes in the ladies’ room repairing the damage. Not that Marianna would ever have agreed to eat at Souvlaki King. But if she had found herself in such a place, she would never have ordered the gyro special. His ex-wife did not eat messy food—no ribs, no lobster in the shell, no corn on the cob, ever. No wonder his work had repulsed her.

  Manny leaned back in the booth. “Wow, that hit the spot. Just what I needed before a long drive to Brooklyn.”

  Jake’s benevolent mood dissolved. “Brooklyn? We can’t go out there right now. I have to get back to the office.”

  “What’s this ‘we,’ Kemo Sabe? I don’t recall asking you to go.”

  Jake glared at her. “You can’t go out to some strange apartment in Brooklyn alone. There’s no telling what you’ll find there, or whom Travis is with.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Manny stood and straightened the demure skirt she’d chosen for her animal activist charade. “Look how I’m dressed—drab as a dormouse. No one will take the slightest interest in me.”

  Jake slid out of the booth to block her exit, causing the worried waiter to rush over with the check. “Manny, please. This is needlessly risky. Just wait until five-thirty and we’ll go out there together.”

  Manny dodged around him. “I don’t need a chaperone. Every minute that Travis is away from his apartment, he digs himself deeper in the hole with the feds. I’ve got to talk to him and figure out what’s going on, then bring him back on my terms, not the government’s.”

  “Don’t be reckless!” Jake grabbed her shoulder, but she pulled away and strode down the center aisle of the diner. Jake followed.
Groundhog Day—shades of Il Postino.

  “You pay! You pay bill now!” the waiter shouted.

  “Give the man his money, Jake,” Manny instructed as she reached the door of the restaurant.

  “At least call Sam to go with you,” Jake shouted after her as he fumbled with his wallet.

  “Okay, sure. Bye—thanks for lunch!”

  And she was gone.

  Jake stood at the cash register and watched her red hair disappear into the crowd. He knew damn well she wouldn’t call Sam. Should he follow her to Brooklyn? By the time she got her car and drove through midday traffic, he could make it out to Rosamond Street on the subway. He thought of the pile of work on his desk, the hours this morning that he’d been missing in action. Pederson was probably already foaming at the mouth.

  Well, screw Pederson. He wasn’t going to let Manny get killed just to avoid a confrontation with his boss. Now, what was the address and apartment number Paco had given her? Jake closed his eyes and tried to relax his mind so it would come to him.

  “Hey.” The waiter poked him. “Here’s your change. Whaddaya, some kinda horse? You sleep standing up?”

  Jake scowled. No one could accuse this guy of groveling for tips. If the address had been about to come to him, it was lost now. He suspected Rosamond Street was one of those short blocks in Carroll Gardens, but he’d have to check a map to be sure. He figured maybe he should just hang out on the street and wait for Manny’s high-profile black convertible to arrive.

  Damn it—he didn’t need this aggravation. Manny was a complication in his life, a complication that took him away from concentrating 100 percent on his work.

  His cell phone rang. The knot of tension within him unwound. He assumed it must be Manny, telling him she’d changed her mind and that she’d wait until five-thirty and go to Brooklyn with him.

  “Hello.”

  “Rosen, get over to 233 1/2 West 164th Street.” Pederson’s snarl came through the airwaves. “There’s another body waiting for you. Your Vampire has struck again.”

  Jake stepped out onto the sidewalk, looking in the direction Manny had charged off. Then he turned and walked the other way. Whatever awaited Manny on Rosamond Street, she’d have to face it alone.

  • • •

  Jake arrived on an upper Harlem street packed with police vehicles to find a gray-faced Pasquarelli pacing outside the door to a boarded-up storefront church. TABERNACLE OF LIVING PRAISE was painted on the filthy window, just barely visible behind a rusty metal grate permanently fused in the closed position. The gentrification that had swept through the brownstone blocks of central Harlem hadn’t reached this grim little enclave of tenements, liquor stores, and check-cashing shops. The neighbors sat on their front stoops and leaned out their windows, watching the unfolding drama with about as much interest as they would give to a repeat of Beverly Hills, 90210.

  “I’ll take you to the body,” Pasquarelli told Jake. “I got a feeling I know what you’re going to say. I’m hoping to hell I’m wrong.”

  Jake followed him into a dim hallway. A large rat sat on the stairs leading to the second floor, utterly unperturbed by all the commotion, attentive to the prospect of food that this incursion of humans might bring. As the men passed, the rat emitted a noise that sounded for all the world like a sarcastic snicker.

  Pasquarelli flinched. “Fuckin’ rats—the place is crawling with them. They say for every one you see, there’re three more hiding.” Jake, whose nose was as sensitive to anything involving death as a bloodhound’s was to the living, didn’t have to be told that. He could smell their presence—their droppings, their dander, their decomposing bodies—all around him. The scent of rodents was mixed with something much worse: human excrement, human decay, human fear.

  The hall led straight from front to back, passing two rooms. The front main room was filled with a clutter of old chairs and a small lectern, illuminated slightly by the dusty sunlight that penetrated the window and grate. Although a few crime-scene techs worked that space, the real beehive of activity was in the small, windowless rear room.

  The building’s power had been shut off long ago, and an orange electrical cable snaked out to a police generator on the street. Brilliant work lights showed up every detail of the room in harsh relief.

  A man’s naked body was spread-eagled on a wide, old wooden door that had been set up across two sturdy sawhorses, apparently lifted from a construction site. The man had been tightly secured to the door with rope tied to large metal rings screwed directly into the wood. Each hand and foot was tied to a ring, and the rope crossed his torso in two places, tied with no slack on both sides.

  Jake turned to Pasquarelli. “What makes you think this is the work of the Vampire? All the other victims were attacked in their homes.”

  The detective pointed.

  Inside the crook of the victim’s left arm was a Band-Aid with a cotton ball beneath it, the kind of remedy a nurse applies after drawing blood. Printed neatly in black ink on the Band-Aid were the words Look here. Jake did as directed and saw the single puncture mark of a blood draw.

  A man’s tasteful plaid suit was draped neatly on a hanger; a shirt and underwear were folded on a chair, with a pair of vintage Weejun penny loafers lined up underneath. The victim’s clothes—this was no homeless derelict. Still, Jake was not entirely convinced.

  “Could be a copycat.”

  Pasquarelli gestured uncomfortably toward the midsection of the body. “You’re the expert, Doc, but aren’t those burn marks like on Ms. Hogaarth? And that detail wasn’t released to the public.”

  Jake pulled out his magnifying glass. “Can’t be positive until the autopsy, but I think you’re right. You’ve ID’d him?” he asked Pasquarelli.

  “He’s a Dr. Raymond Fortes. Works for a small pharmaceutical firm. They reported him missing on Wednesday.”

  Jake shook his head. “He’s been here quite a bit longer than that.” He began to examine the body and spoke aloud as he worked. “Numerous small flesh wounds and bruises. The bruises have various coloration—these yellowish ones are older, the purplish ones are more recent. Rat bites—inflicted over a period of days.”

  “What’s that muddy-looking brown stuff in his chest hair and on his leg there?” Pasquarelli asked.

  Jake touched it and raised his gloved hand to his nose. Just as he suspected. “Peanut butter.”

  “Wha—” Understanding crept into Pasquarelli’s mournful brown eyes. “Ah, Jesus. They spread peanut butter on him to attract the rats.”

  “Have you contacted the next of kin?” Jake asked. “This won’t be an easy thing to tell them.”

  “The vic was a widower, not many friends. When he didn’t show at the office on Monday, they didn’t think much of it. Sometimes he worked from home and didn’t like to be disturbed. Guess Dr. Fortes wasn’t their most popular employee. But by Wednesday, they started calling him, and when they couldn’t turn him up, they filed a missing person report.”

  “And the police tracked him to here?”

  “Hell no. A middle-aged man with no family to make a fuss goes missing, we don’t bother much. We checked to see if he was at the morgue. A couple uniforms went over to his apartment. No signs of trouble there, so they figured he decided to walk out on his life in New York. Happens all the time.”

  “So who found him?”

  “City rodent-control officer. People from the building next door been complaining that the rats are invading them from over here. Baby got bit, so the rat guy comes over here to see about spreading the poison and sealing up the holes.” Pasquarelli shoved his fists into the already-misshapen pockets of his brown sports coat. “He’s got a truly sucky job, and today it got even worse.”

  Jake nodded as he continued to study the body. In places, the loss of flesh was quite extensive. Some of the older wounds were inflamed and covered in pus. Pasquarelli grew restless at Jake’s silent examination. “How long ago did he die?” the detective asked.


  “I’d say his heart stopped about two days ago. But he started the process of dying many days before that.”

  “What finally killed him?”

  “I can’t tell until I open him up. Probably a combination of things—shock, dehydration, blood loss, infection. He wasn’t a young man—probably in his early sixties.”

  “Days of suffering,” Pasquarelli said. “How could one human being do that to another? I’ve seen homicide, suicide, fratricide, patricide, and every other kind of cide, but I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s starting to feel like this Vampire really is some supernaturally evil creature.”

  Jake shook his head. “Don’t let your imagination run away with you, Vito. When we catch this guy, he’ll be as average as you or me. Not an obvious monster, but a person with a regular life, like the Nazi death camp guards or the soldiers at Abu Ghraib.”

  Pasquarelli was not persuaded. “But those guys justified what they did by saying they were just following orders in a time of war. That’s not what’s happening here.”

  “Maybe he’s fighting his own private war, Vito. Our job is to figure out what it is.”

  Trapped.

  Manny took a deep breath to steady her pounding heart. For at least the tenth time since she’d gotten into this mess, she looked for a way out.

  Hopeless. A Moishe the Bagel Man truck in front of her, black livery cab beside her, overbearing SUV right on her tail. And beneath her, the waters of New York Harbor. She hated to admit that Jake had been right, but the subway to Rosamond Street would’ve been much faster. Bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge at midday should not have come as a surprise.

  Still, driving her Porsche hadn’t been a totally stupid idea. Once she found Travis, she wanted the option of getting him out of that apartment fast. Standing on the subway platform waiting for the B train didn’t really fit her plan for a quick escape.

  Manny squirmed in the driver’s seat without taking her feet off the clutch or the brake pedals. What awaited her on Rosamond Street? Would Travis be alone in the apartment? Would he listen to reason, come with her willingly? What would she do if he refused, or if whoever lived in the apartment refused for him? The possibilities for trouble seemed a lot more numerous stuck here in traffic than they had in the diner with Jake.