The Bone Vault

by Linda Fairstein

  34

  Clem handed me the printouts of her latest e-mail responses. “On the Natural History side, nothing from Mamdouba. That doesn’t surprise me, though. Socarides is the guy in charge of African mammals. His is sort of intriguing.”

  It began with a courteous salutation and the appropriate expression of concern about Katrina’s death. Then he launched into a defensive description of the uses of arsenic in taxidermy, asking for Clem’s telephone number so he could learn as soon as possible what Katrina had said about her health in the weeks before she died.

  “The others are from the Met staff. Bellinger and Friedrichs. I’d expect to hear from them. She worked so closely with Hiram, and I think she trusted him. And Anna-well, it would be strange if she didn’t express her condolences. Nothing out of the ordinary. If I’d ever thought I’d have so many dinner invitations, though, I would have been back for a visit long before this. You’ve got everyone vying for my companionship.”

  “Keep tapping away at the keyboard, if you don’t mind. Answer them all, okay? When you get some conversation going, why don’t you mention that Katrina talked to you about the bones she was looking for. See if that gooses anybody.”

  I was on the phone with one of the guys in the Special Victims Unit when Mike reappeared in my doorway. “It’s only a little bit past noon and I got my first collar. Piece of cake.”

  “A homicide I don’t know about?”

  “Nope. Part of your fan club.” He made a ratcheting noise with the teeth of his handcuffs as he closed them and lifted the back flap of his blazer to loop them into the waist of his pants. “Your favorite stalker.”

  “Shirley Denzig? Picketing with the S and M group?”

  “Yeah. Joe Roman and the guys from the squad came by to let you know they got a call she was downstairs, so I went along in case they needed me to ID her.”

  “But how did she know about the demonstration? Why’d she come?”

  “The all-news radio station was running it. Courthouse brouhaha. Sex crimes prosecutor steps in shit at the DA’s office. She couldn’t wait to get here and add to your aggravation. They’re fingerprinting upstairs as we speak. Grand larceny, three counts, from the cases at the Waldorf. Aggravated harassment for the calls to you. Oh, and we tossed in criminal possession of a weapon, third degree, for the loaded gun she’s got in her backpack.”

  CPW third degree was probably the charge that would bring Denzig the most jail time.

  “That should make you feel better. Remind me to tell you about last night,” I said.

  “You’re joking, aren’t you? Something happened after we split?”

  “Save it for the right moment, okay?” I nodded in Clem’s direction. No need to spook a witness with reminders of how crazily some of our defendants behave, how loosely tethered they are to reality.

  I felt an enormous surge of relief at the news of Denzig’s apprehension.

  “You need to sign a corroborating affidavit for the complaint.”

  “A pleasure, Detective. Which of my esteemed colleagues is catching today?”

  Mike lowered his voice. “McKinney’s giving it to Ellen Gunsher.”

  “Not a prayer,” I practically shouted the words at Mike, coming out from behind my desk to pass him to get to McKinney’s office down at the end of the hallway.

  He grabbed my elbow as I tried to brush by. “The gun. That’s what she’s supposed to handle. That’s what her unit does. Let it go, Coop.”

  I pulled away and kept walking. “I’m not letting that case be assigned to a lawyer who’s too cowardly to set foot in a courtroom, just because she’s in bed with McKinney. What for? So she can plead it out to some cheap charge when I’m not looking?”

  “He in?” I asked McKinney’s secretary. The door to his office was closed.

  “Can’t be disturbed. There’s a meeting-”

  I knocked and turned the handle. “Hate to interrupt when you’ve got so much on your plate.” McKinney was stretched out on the worn leather sofa on the far side of his office, his shoes off and tucked beneath the small conference table in the middle of the room. Gunsher was standing by the hot plate under the window, brewing two cups of tea.

  “Shirley Denzig. That’s already been assigned. Sorry, there’s been a phone dump and-”

  “Yeah, Alex, but now there’s a gun,” he said, sitting upright and fishing for his loafers with his toes. “Who was working on it?”

  “I made sure not to know. Chinese wall and all that. I’m just a witness. Sarah assigned someone to it ages ago.”

  “Well, Ellen can take it over and-”

  “That’s not happening, Pat. Someone with trial experience who can deal with three traveling salesmen who aren’t going to want to come to town to testify-”

  We kept cutting each other off, and Ellen took in the back-and- forth action like she was watching a Ping-Pong match.

  “It’d be ugly, Pat, if you have to be a witness at the trial.” He looked puzzled. “I understand you’re the one who leaked the story about Grooten’s body being found in Port Newark the night Mike and I were out there. The thing you tried to blame on Jake, remember? I’ll bet when I check about who called the media in today for this little feeding frenzy about the S and M lunatic, some kindly source who owes me will tell me that there’s no one in the universe who wanted to give my antagonists an airing more than you.”

  “Don’t walk out of here until I’m finished, Alex. I’m not done.”

  “Sorry, Ellen. We don’t need the gun traced. We already know she stole it from her father’s garage. Hate to waste your time on something so trivial.” I let the door swing shut behind me.

  Back at my office, I reached over Laura and used her phone to dial Sarah’s extension and let her know that Shirley Denzig had been arrested. “I don’t care who you choose. Assign it to anyone who can pick a jury and lay a proper foundation to introduce a gun into evidence. Mike and I are going back up to Natural History this afternoon.”

  Mike was standing over Clem’s shoulder, reading her mail. “Now we’ve got Erik Poste checking in. Very sorry about Katrina. Afraid he won’t be in town this weekend when Clem gets here but he’d like to give her a call. Gives his number at the Met. Says he won’t be there this afternoon ‘cause he’s going somewhere with Gaylord.”

  “Speaking of Gaylord-”

  “Yeah, I got him. He’ll be at Natural History all afternoon. We can talk to him there.”

  “What do we do with Clem?”

  “Well, we sure don’t want to out her at the museum. We want her on-line, don’t we?”

  “And secure, too. I got it.” I called Ryan Blackmer’s office to see whether Harry Hinton was assigned to testify today to the grand jury on the pedophile sting arrest he had made on Monday afternoon. He was, and Ryan expected him to be the first presentation at 2P.M. Hinton would be available after that.

  “We’re going to leave you here in Coop’s office with another detective while we go to the museum to do some more interviews and snoop around. Harry’s a genius on the Internet. If something comes up that’s important, he’ll reach out to us. He’ll take you back to the hotel any time you’re ready to go. And we’ll get together with you this evening to see where we all stand.”

  I ordered in sandwiches to feed Clem and kept her company until two-thirty when Harry Hinton appeared in my office, following his brief grand jury appearance.

  I made the introductions and told Harry what we were trying to accomplish.

  “Here’s one more from Eve Drexler,” Clem said as I was signing the subpoenas on Laura’s desk. “I told her I heard she had been in London, at a meeting with Thibodaux and Bellinger at the British Museum. I said that someone from New York had recognized her, but when I tried to find them, to inquire about Katrina, I saw that it was Katrina herself who had been signed in at the meeting.”

  “Good thinking. What’d she say?”

  “She’s asking me not to mention it to the police until I
meet with her first.”

  “That means Thibodaux hasn’t had a chance to tell her yet that we know about it.”

  “She blames it on Bellinger.”

  “So did her boss, yesterday when we confronted him with it.”

  “You want to do this in real time?” Harry Hinton asked. “I can make this livelier for you.”

  “How?”

  “CITU, over at headquarters.” The Computer Intelligence and Technology Unit was just a few blocks away at One Police Plaza. “They’ve got a new piece of equipment. Cost ‘em sixty thousand dollars.”

  Mike was impressed. The department rarely spent that kind of money on anything.

  “It works like a wiretap on a telephone. It can intercept on-line communications while they’re in progress. This broad’s writing to Clem. We can tap in and see who she goes on-line with next, if she’s talking about your case. Maybe she forwards the info she’s getting to someone, maybe she passes on what she knows. Maybe she knows stuff you two don’t.”

  “You’ve used this before?”

  “My boss is the one who applied for the money to buy the equipment. We can download the actual kiddie porn while it’s being transmitted, even if it’s encrypted.”

  “You’ve been holding out on me. What do you need to get started?”

  “Court order.”

  The ability to find out what each of these witnesses was saying to the others, if they were communicating on-line, was a brilliant idea I had not thought possible.

  “Keep an eye on Clem. Get Ryan up here and beg him to do the order for me. I can talk him through the facts he needs from my cell phone while we’re driving uptown.”

  My hearty band of sadomacho fanatics must have wearied or made their point and disbanded after McKinney shifted them around to the rear of the courthouse and they’d had their fifteen minutes of fame on the midday news shows. We were able to get out the main door without incident. I left my car in Chinatown and rode up the West Side Highway with Mike, talking on the cell phone to Ryan and giving him what I hoped would be probable cause to get the interception going by this evening. There was at least the fact that one of the e-mail correspondents, who happened also to be a Met employee, had been using the dead girl’s identification a month after her disappearance. I also told him the name of the young lawyer who might be able to expedite the request, since I had not yet been able to apply for the search warrants I had wanted without knowing the specific target sites at the museums.

  Then I called Mamdouba to tell him we were going to meet with Timothy Gaylord, who was over from the Met, working on the joint exhibition in the museum basement. We wanted to come up to see Mamdouba when we were done.

  “I’m afraid you’ve taken up all the time we have for this business, Miss Cooper. It’s been very disruptive here, to the staff. Perhaps we can arrange that future meetings will be held in your offices?”

  We had known this stonewalling would come at some point, but had not predicted the timing. “Certainly. But Mr. Gaylord is expecting us, and I believe Detective Wallace is already there.” It was past the three o’clock hour that we had set earlier in the day.

  Mike had stopped at the light at the bottom of the exit ramp. “Scare the shit out of him, blondie. Keep your toe in his door. Give him something to worry about.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and mouthed the three letters to Mike. He agreed.

  “It’s critical we see you today, just for a few minutes. It’s about the DNA results on Katrina Grooten’s clothing.”

  I imagined that great big unctuous smile of Mamdouba’s wiping itself right off his face.

  “But, Miss Cooper, I thought you assured us that Katrina wasn’t sexually assaulted by her killer? You’re confusing-”

  “That’s why we need to see you. We know that you have a DNA profile for every employee at the museum. We’re going to need access to those-”

  “Not before I have an explanation.” His voice was sharp and angry now.

  “Of course you will, as soon as we’re done with Mr. Gaylord.” I disconnected the phone before he could ask any more questions.

  I dialed the medical examiner’s office and hung on until Dr. Kestenbaum could pick up the call. “Got a minute to help me? I’m digging myself into a hole here with our witnesses. If I told you I had already-made genetic fingerprints of several of our suspects, and could probably get swabs from the rest of them, would it do you any good, given that there’s no blood or seminal fluid?”

  “I can let you know in a week,” he said, ever cautious and professional.

  “I’m about five minutes away from getting the investigative door slammed in my face. Why next week? What’s that going to do for you?”

  “I presented the case at our weekly meeting on Friday. The chief had a good idea. Whoever killed your victim had to do some heavy lifting. Getting the body from wherever death occurred to the place where he-or she-wrapped her in the old linen cloths. Then removed the lid of the limestone box, or at least had to slide it open and back into place.”

  “Help us, doc. What’s your point?” We had parked on Columbus Avenue.

  “Amylase. Possibly on the deceased’s clothing. Or the linen. Maybe even on the exterior of the sarcophagus.”

  “Remind me. Amylase?”

  “It’s an enzyme found in body fluids. Saliva, tears-”

  “We’re not gaining any ground with this crew if I suggest the killer cried at the crime scene or kissed her good-bye.” My impatience was palpable.

  “And sweat,” Kestenbaum said, finishing his sentence. “The person who did these things is very likely to have perspired, and we might well have a fair amount of DNA if his sweaty hands were on the clothing or coffin.”

  “You’ll know-?”

  “It’s a very sophisticated test that we aren’t equipped to do here. We’re outsourcing the evidence to a private lab in Maryland.”

  “Best-case scenario?”

  “We might be able to tell you who lifted Grooten’s body into the box and closed the lid on her.”

  35

  We entered the museum on West Seventy-seventh Street, heading directly for the basement offices of the joint bestiary exhibition. I called Laura as we walked, and she patched me through to Clem.

  “All quiet.”

  “Give this one a try. Not a group mailing, but just to a few of them. The ones who’ve been answering personally. Tell them that the police want a sample of your DNA. Say that you’ve been told there was evidence that was found with Katrina’s body, okay?”

  “Was there really-?”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, Clem, but I can’t answer your questions now. I can only ask for your help.”

  We sent her back to work and continued on our way. Security buzzed the group at work belowground, and minutes later, Zimm appeared to lead us downstairs. Mercer had arrived about a quarter of an hour earlier. The three of us left the graduate student in his office and made our way down the dark hallway to the conference room in which the Met curators were working. Erik Poste and Hiram Bellinger rose to greet us and Gaylord finished a telephone conversation before extending a hand.

  “What’s this about DNA?” he asked. “You’ve got no business-”

  “Put the brakes on, pal,” Mike said, motioning with his hand, suggesting that the three men resume their seats at the table. “Who was that you were talking to? Mamdouba?”

  “No, that was Eve Drexler, actually. Something about taking evidence from us like we were suspects in this case.”

  The old axiom had proved itself once again, only now the technology had changed. Telegraph, telephone, tell a woman. Clem had spread the word about DNA to Eve, and she had alerted her team between the time we got out of the car and down the stairs.

  “Just a precaution, Mr. Gaylord. You see, every curator and worker at Natural History has to give a DNA sample.”

  “That’s understandable, Detective. They’re working with animal specimens, doing genetic analysis an
d tracking evolutionary patterns. They can’t take the chance of confusing their own DNA with some relic or biological sample.” He had declined Mike’s suggestion to be seated and was pacing at the head of the table. “We work with art and ancient decorative objects,” he said, incorporating Poste and Bellinger in his response. “If you’re implying that I-I-we, had anything at all to do-”

  Erik Poste tried to present a calmer face on behalf of the Metropolitan curators. “You make this sound like a game. Why don’t you tell us what you know, Mr. Chapman? If there was some legitimate purpose to this scientific exercise, I think we’d find a way to work with you.”

  “Hey, I look like a man with time on his hands to play games? I got a girl who specializes in funeral exhibits and becomes one. I got an airborne man who goes off a flying buttress without wings or a safety net. I got a Scythian arm that fell into a jaguar den-you wanna talk exercise or you think maybe we got a job to do?”

  “When we say we’re interested in DNA evidence, gentlemen, we’re not limited to blood and semen. Detective Wallace made an arrest last month in which the defendant was identified from saliva he left on the rim of a beer bottle at the crime scene,” I told them.

  “And I popped a guy in a homicide because we got his skin cells on the doorknob of the victim’s bedroom.”

  “Skin cells?”

  “Yeah, they slough off, just when we’re holding on to something with ordinary contact. Windowsills, steering wheel of a car, the lid of a sarcophagus.”

  Maybe it was just the close atmosphere in the windowless cubicle, but the three men seemed to be squirming.

  “It’s painless, boys,” Mike said. “I’ll stop by the Met tomorrow with my Q-tips and plastic vials, and it will be over in a flash. Meanwhile, Mr. Gaylord, can we take you down the hall to ask you a few more questions?”

  Gaylord sucked on the stem of his pipe as he followed me around to Zimm’s office. There was no tobacco in its bowl, so I assumed this was a habit of his.

  “D’you mind if we displace you for a bit?”