Michael Baden

by Skeleton Justice

  Jake observed her with mounting concern. The hours of interrogation she had been subjected to by the New York police, the federal prosecutor, and the FBI had taken a toll. Manny was teetering on the edge of total exhaustion.

  “You need to sleep. What can I get you to help you relax?”

  “How about a rag soaked in ether? That ought to do the trick.” Manny plopped back onto the sofa. “What the hell is going on here? How can it be that your case and my case are related? That completely shatters the limits of coincidence.”

  He nodded. He’d been agonizing over the same question ever since Manny had called him from the apartment in Brooklyn to report her discovery. The previous morning, they had been following two distinctly separate paths in pursuit of two very different criminals. Now they were apparently on the same road, searching for what? A killer and his accomplice? Or a killer and his victim? Because Jake didn’t believe for one moment that Travis was the Vampire. No eighteen-year-old, no matter how clever, could have masterminded these attacks.

  And what were his and Manny’s roles in this drama? It made sense that he, the most experienced member of the ME’s staff, would be working on the Vampire case. But what was the significance of that stupid argument with Pederson when he seemed to be warning Jake away? And why, of all the criminal lawyers in New York, was the woman he happened to be involved with chosen to represent Travis Heaton? No matter how insulted Manny might be to hear him say it, she wasn’t the obvious first choice to defend the Preppy Terrorist. So how had she gotten the job? Who had recommended her? They needed to get to the bottom of this connection.

  Jake walked over to Manny and pulled her gently to her feet. “For some reason that I can’t fathom, someone wants us both on this case. Now we’re going to start figuring out why.”

  Manny sat bleary-eyed at the kitchen table, trying to focus on the typewritten words swimming across the piece of paper Jake had set before her. “How can you be so perky at six in the morning? You didn’t get any more sleep than I did.”

  “I did my internship at Bellevue. Learning to function on three hours’ sleep was part of the training back then.” Jake placed a mug of coffee in her hands and let her take the first sip before he continued. “These are the questions we need answered by the end of the day. The first two items concern your matter.”

  The first half cup of scalding French roast was having its effect. Manny had acquired enough mental clarity to read aloud. “‘Who recommended Manny to represent Travis Heaton?’ You remember … you were there when Kenneth called me to tell me about the case.”

  “Yes, but who called Kenneth? Maureen Heaton herself?”

  Manny took another gulp of coffee. “No, some friend of hers. But I don’t know who. Kenneth was excited and I was excited. I don’t recall what he told me. He was supposed to type an intake sheet, but he’d just had his nails manicured and …”

  “Let’s call him now and disturb his beauty sleep,” Jake said.

  “Can’t. He’s gone away for a romantic getaway with a new friend. He told me he wouldn’t be answering his cell for a few days.”

  “I’m not walking him down the aisle.” Jake rolled his eyes. “Can you ask Mrs. Heaton directly?”

  “I will.” Manny let the paper slip from her fingers. Something floated on the edge of her memory, but she couldn’t quite pin it down.

  “What’s the matter?” Jake asked.

  “I’m trying to remember. … The day I won that bail hearing in court and got Travis out of jail, Maureen hugged me and said, ‘I’m so glad Tracy sent you to me.’ At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but I don’t know anyone named Tracy, man or woman.”

  “You know a million people.” Jake handed Manny the phone. Manny started to dial, then abruptly hung up. “No, I can’t. Maureen’s going to be ballistic with this new development. Since it’s only six a.m., I can’t talk to her yet. What’s second on the list?”

  She picked up the paper and read, “‘Follow-up with Jersey police contact re street name Freak.’ Oh, I already did that yesterday morning. I forgot to tell you about it in all the excitement. Apparently, Freak is a rather popular street name. There were three in the database. One was black, and we know our guy is Caucasian. One’s in prison upstate. And one recently completed a short jail term for promoting and participating in dog fights in Paterson.” Manny shuddered. “Slimeball. They should have locked him up and thrown away the key. He could possibly be our guy.”

  “You’re not prowling around the back alleys of Paterson looking for dog fights,” Jake warned. “We’ll let Sam handle it. And before he does that, he can translate that letter from Paco’s computer.”

  “Sam speaks Spanish?”

  “Fluently. Learned in the jungles of Guatemala.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  Jake shrugged. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

  For a split second, Manny fantasized that Sam was an undercover CIA mercenary. “Didn’t he spend the night here? I’ll go wake him up.”

  “No need, my dear woman.” Sam entered the kitchen, followed by Mycroft, whose leash was trailing behind him. “I dreamed I was being kissed awake by a striking redhead. Turned out it was no dream, just Mycroft having a bladder emergency.”

  “Thanks for walking him, Sam.” Manny squinted at him. “You just stayed in the neighborhood, right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Last time your brother took Mycroft for a walk, he used him as a pimp,” Manny told Jake. “Took him to Fifty-fourth in front of Manolo Blahnik to pick up well-heeled women. However, I have a way for him to make up for that little indiscretion.”

  Manny patted the chair beside her, inviting Sam to sit. “I have a translation job for you. Jake, hand me my purse, please.”

  Jake hoisted the large leather Fendi purse from the spot by the door where Manny had dropped it the night before. “Geez, what’s in here? A lead vest in case you encounter plutonium on your daily rounds?”

  “Just the bare essentials.” Manny unzipped the bag and began rooting around for the sheets of paper she had printed from Paco’s computer. The bag had multiple compartments, but she was sure she had quickly stuffed the letter in the main one on her way out of the Sandovals’ apartment. In the course of the day, it must have worked its way down to the bottom of the bag. Out from the leathery depths came her BlackBerry, wallet, keys, and checkbook. With the major obstacles cleared, she peered in. There was a glimmer of white! Manny pulled. A receipt for the Chrome Hearts sunglasses she had purchased two months ago.

  Jake eyed the total. “Surely the decimal point’s in the wrong place?”

  “I’m too law-abiding to buy cheap knockoffs.” Manny kept digging. “Oh hell—I never mailed Aunt Joan’s birthday card.”

  Jake shook his head as he poured his brother a cup of coffee. “You might want to scramble yourself some eggs. This could take a while.”

  “It must be in the side compartment,” Manny said. Out came her makeup bag, the latest Vogue, a bag of dried apricots, and a hairbrush the size of a Ping-Pong paddle.

  “Dried apricots?” Sam asked.

  “I’m trying to snack healthy. They’re loaded with antioxidants.”

  “They’re also unopened.”

  “Ah! Here it is.” Manny grinned with relief as she unfolded a bundle of white paper. Then the smile faded away as she read, “‘You are cordially invited to attend a trunk show for Barry Kieselstein-Cord at Bergdorf Goodman.’”

  “This is ridiculous. It has to be in here.” Manny undid every zipper and snap on the huge purse, turned it upside down, and shook. Sam snatched up his coffee cup to protect it from the cascade of flotsam and jetsam.

  When the dust had settled, the two men surveyed the kitchen table with the awe of archaeologists entering an unsealed tomb.

  “A socket wrench?”

  “A lacrosse ball?”

  “I had to tighten the bolt on Kenneth’s office chair. And that ball came this close to hitting
Mycroft—twice. I wouldn’t give it back to those girls in the park.”

  With every item in the purse spread out on the table, Manny searched systematically, her panic rising with each dry-cleaning receipt and Chinese take-out menu, none of these items proving to be the missing letter.

  Finally, she grabbed the kitchen trash can and swept a pile of junk into it. “The letter’s gone.” She whirled on Jake. “And I did not lose it. What goes in the bag stays in the bag. Until it is moved to another bag. Someone stole it.”

  “Was the bag ever out of your sight yesterday?” Jake asked.

  Manny paused to think. “It was beside me in the booth at the diner. I never set it down while I was in the apartment in Brooklyn. Then I talked to all those cops and lawyers and FBI agents.” Manny twirled her hair around her fingers. “I don’t think it was ever away from me, but there were times it was hooked on the back of my chair, or lying under the table. Someone could have slipped the letter out then.”

  “But who?” Jake protested. “I thought you left the part about the letter out of the story you told the cops and the feds. No one but Paco knew you had it.”

  Manny nodded slowly, trying to process the implications. “I intentionally kept the part about the letter to myself. I knew if I gave it up to them, I’d never find out what it said. I figured after I read it, I could always take it back to them if I thought it contained information I’d get in trouble for withholding. Say I forgot about it in all the excitement.”

  She locked eyes with Jake. “So that means whoever stole it from my bag was tipped off by Paco.”

  “That leaves out the authorities,” Jake said.

  “Does it?”

  Jake developed a sudden interest in loading the dishwasher, something he never saw the need for until every dish in the house was dirty. Manny knew he was using the time to form a calm response. Always the scientist, always in control of himself.

  “Jake, think about it.” Manny stood up and started firing items back into her purse. “There’s something very fishy about the way Paco has drawn Travis into his circle. And the government’s hands-off attitude toward the Sandovals is stranger still. How do we know the Sandovals aren’t cooperating with the FBI in some sort of terrorism sting?”

  Jake slowly closed the dishwasher. “What empirical evidence do you have?”

  “I just told you.”

  “You take two unexplained phenomena, put them together, and come up with a conspiracy. As a scientist, I look for the most likely explanation first. After that’s been eliminated—and only after it’s eliminated—I move on to consider the more remote possibilities. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, not zebras,” Manny said, finishing the old adage. “Your problem is, you automatically trust authority unless you see overwhelming evidence that the system isn’t working. I automatically question authority, unless the person wielding it has proven to me that he’s above reproach. And frankly, federal prosecutor Brian Lisnek, Ambassador Sandoval, and the merry crew of FBI agents questioning me last night have not cleared the bar.”

  Sam had been watching the exchange like a fan with center court seats at the U.S. Open. Now he intervened before his brother could respond. “I don’t think Manny’s totally out in left field. But, but”—Sam held up his hand for silence as Jake opened his mouth to protest—“you can’t fault Jake’s methodology. Assume the most plausible explanation until it’s proven wrong.

  “So, Manny,” Sam continued. “Let’s run through the possibilities of when the letter could have been lifted from your purse. Paco knew you’d head for Rosamond Street, but he couldn’t know who you’d encounter there. You’re sure you initiated the contact with the neighbor and the super?”

  “Of course I’m sure. And I wasn’t close to anyone else that whole time … except—” She broke off, thinking about the way she had entered the apartment building.

  “Except what?”

  “When I got there, before I could ring the bell, a man came out of the building and held the door open for me. At the time, I thought he was just a friendly neighbor, but maybe he’d been waiting for me.”

  “And you think he could’ve reached into your bag and taken the letter in the few seconds that you walked past him through the door?” Sam rose and refilled his coffee cup. “If they really wanted to get the letter back, it would be too risky to put all their hope on that brief encounter. Pickpocketing is most successful on a crowded elevator, a street corner, a subway—somewhere where the victim expects to be jostled, and the perp can disappear into a crowd.”

  Manny appraised him suspiciously. “You seem to know quite a bit about the subject. If we searched your room, would we find a collection of wallets?”

  “Nah.” Sam grinned. “I take the cash and ditch the leather. Seriously, though, can you think of a time during the day when you were surrounded by people?”

  Manny chewed her lower lip, replaying every scene of the long action-packed day. “When I went to my parking garage to get my car, there were four or five people waiting for their cars to be driven down. There’s not much space, so we were crammed together.”

  “That’s a more likely spot for the grab,” Sam said. “So, it may be that the person Paco tipped off is familiar enough with your routine to know where you garage your car.”

  “And that you’d be driving it to Brooklyn,” Jake added, “not taking the subway.”

  “You mean it’s someone I know?”

  “Or someone who’s been keeping an eye on you for a while,” Jake said. “Which brings us back to the matter of how you got involved in this case in the first place.” He handed Manny the phone again. “You’ve warmed up on me. I think you’re ready to handle Maureen Heaton.”

  Manny took a deep breath and dialed. As anticipated, the first five minutes of the call passed in a storm of Maureen’s panicky speculations. Eventually, Manny was able to bring the conversation around to the matter at hand. “Maureen, refresh my memory: Who was it who recommended that you hire me to represent Travis?”

  “Her name is Tracy. I don’t know her last name. She’s a nurse at the Chelsea Extended Care Center. I was working private duty there the night I got the call that Travis had been arrested. I was in a panic. I needed to leave right away, but I couldn’t abandon my patient. Tracy was so understanding. She told me to leave, that it was slow that night and she could spend extra time with my patient.

  “And then she showed me your card, said she’d call and have you get in touch with me in case Travis needed a lawyer. You helped her nephew … or was it her cousin? Anyway, you called while I was at the jail, and by then I really knew I needed you. And people say New Yorkers are cold, but you know, I’ve never found that to be true.”

  Manny murmured a few more words of encouragement and extricated herself from the conversation.

  As she dialed the Chelsea Extended Care Center, she relayed the details of her conversation to Jake and Sam.

  “How can I know which of my clients has an aunt or a cousin who’s a nurse named Tracy?” Manny spent the next fifteen minutes speaking to the receptionist, the human resources manager, the nursing director, and anyone else she could get to answer the phone at the small private nursing home. Each conversation left her more frustrated than the last. Finally, she hung up. Sam and Jake watched her expectantly.

  “There’s no one named Tracy who works at the Chelsea Extended Care Center.”

  Leaving Manny to deal with her missing client and the puzzle of who had recommended her for the case, Jake retreated to the black cave that was his home office. He had resisted all Manny’s efforts to spruce the place up. Black leather chairs, framed antique prints, mahogany and glass display case—all her suggestions were met with a resounding no.

  He liked the place just as it was. He didn’t need pleasant surroundings in order to concentrate, something that Manny just didn’t understand. All he craved was familiarity—the security of knowing that every tool, refe
rence, and resource he might possibly need could be reached with one spin of his decrepit desk chair.

  Seen through a visitor’s eyes, the office looked hopelessly chaotic. But Jake could plunge his hand into a tower of seemingly random papers and pull out just what he needed. To his way of thinking, filing cabinet equaled trash can.

  Today, Jake sat amid an avalanche of information about the Vampire, making notes on a yellow pad in the appalling scrawl that no one but he could decipher. A short list of questions he wanted answered appeared on the page.

  1. Coffee mug with Nixon’s fingerprints … owned by Amanda Hogaarth or left behind by killer? How acquired? Why?

  2. Family Builders adoption agency—what is the connection to Hogaarth?

  3. Hogaarth and Fortes—why tortured and killed? How are they different from earlier victims?

  4. What is the significance of the blood?

  The intercom buzzed. “Ridley here to see you,” the department secretary announced.

  “Send him in.”

  Paul Ridley loped into the room, ducking his head to clear the nearly seven-foot-high door opening. Tall and thin didn’t begin to describe the leading crime-scene technician from the police department’s CSI team; Ridley looked like he’d been captured by a rogue computer animation program, stretched, and released back into society.

  “Have a seat,” Jake said. “Just toss that stuff on the floor.”

  Ridley telescoped his gaunt frame into a chair. “I’ve got some information on that coffee mug from Hogaarth’s apartment.”

  Jake grinned. Maybe the first item on his list was about to be taken care of. “I know the FBI’s been agitating to get custody of that piece of evidence. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to discover much before you had to give it up.”

  “Yeah, we might lose it by the end of the day, but I think I have what you want.” Ridley pulled a file folder from his briefcase and began talking from his notes. “Cup was cheap porcelain glazed black, with the initials SCFR printed in silver. Manufacturer’s mark on the bottom said ‘Cayo.’ We traced this to a distributor based in suburban Boston who buys mugs wholesale from a manufacturer in China, then imprints them here for customers who give them away as sales promotions.” He pointed at a blue mug on Jake’s desk crammed with pens printed with the name LABTECH in red. “Like that—you probably got it from the salesman who handles your lab equipment, right?”