Skeleton Justice

by Michael Baden

  If he’d thought he and Boo could have their conversation in a civilized manner, Sam certainly would have pursued that route. But Boo had seen fit to bring the goon with him, and Sam could tell that rational discussion was out of the question in that quarter. So the only alternative was to neutralize the bodyguard and bring Boo into a position where he valued the opportunity to talk. It was doable—not easy, but doable.

  “Have a seat.” Sam gestured Boo toward the bar’s empty tables and chairs as if he owned the place. When he saw Boo start to lower himself, Sam turned toward the goon and, without a blink of warning, rammed his head directly into the big man’s soft gut. The bodyguard staggered, and Sam used that unbalanced moment to hook his foot around his opponent’s ankles. The huge kid crashed down so quickly, he had no chance to put out his hands to break his fall. He landed flat on his prominent nose, which cracked with an audible snap. A blossom of red unfurled—dripping from his white polo shirt onto the floor next to his shoulder.

  His bodyguard’s collapse had come so suddenly that Boo was just beginning to rise from his chair when Sam pivoted and upended the heavy table, pinning the young man momentarily. The goon still lay on the floor, stunned that the blood pooling around him was his own.

  “Broken nose makes a hell of a mess, doesn’t it?” Sam reached down and compressed the carotid arteries on both sides of the goon’s neck. Within eight seconds, he had passed out.

  Sam returned his attention to Boo, who was now standing, warily keeping the table between them. When Boo spoke, his voice emerged incongruously high-pitched for a man with a steroid-thickened eighteen-inch-round neck. “You killed him. Why did you have to kill him?”

  “Nah, that’s just the Mr. Spock trick from Star Trek. Except I do it correctly—both sides of the neck. I could have killed him, but I chose not to.” Sam straightened his shirt, which had come partially untucked in all the commotion. “Choice is a good thing, wouldn’t you agree, Boo?”

  Boo said nothing, his eyes darting from the main entrance to the kitchen door, neither of which promised any help or easy escape.

  “Now you have a choice,” Sam continued. “You can sit and have a little talk with me, or you can join your friend there.”

  Boo sat.

  “Good. Deanie said you were a smart guy, and I see she was right.” Sam remained standing and smiled down at his companion.

  “Who are you?” Boo asked.

  “Uh, uh, uh—I’m the one asking the questions here. Tell me about the other night at Club Epoch.”

  Boo’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a cop. Why don’t you just arrest me, then?”

  “You insult me, Boo.” Sam extended one long, skinny foot. “You ever see a cop in Bruno Magli loafers and a Hugo Boss blazer?”

  Boo, a brand-sensitive thug, looked even more puzzled and uneasy. “Why you wanna know about Club Epoch?”

  “Because a friend of mine is taking the fall for that bomb. I want to know who set him up.”

  “It wasn’t me. I swear to God I didn’t know what was going to go down. When that mailbox blew, I nearly shit myself.”

  “Boo, I’m losing respect for your intelligence. That’s not even close to being a convincing lie.”

  Boo sat forward in his chair. “No, man, seriously—I didn’t know about the bomb. All I was supposed to do was get this rich kid into Club E, buy him some drinks, then invite him to go to this after-hours club. We were on our way there when the whole mailbox thing went down.”

  “Boo, you’re forgetting one little detail. It was one of your friends who put the bomb under the box. A guy named Zeke, or Freak or something. Maybe you have a reason for wanting to get rid of a federal judge.”

  “No, Freak wasn’t one of our guys. He showed up at the club. Was hangin’ around, talkin’ to the boys. Knew a lot about music. When we all left, he came, too. I coulda run him off, but what did it matter? I was just supposed to take the kid to the after-hours place. If he wanted to come along, so what?”

  “Did you see him put the bomb under the mailbox?”

  Boo shook his head. “We were walking in a big group. I was in the lead with Paco. Suddenly, someone shouted ‘Run’ and everyone raced past us, so we started running, too. When the bomb blew, we were at the corner and we stopped to look back. Right away, the police showed up and started askin’ questions. That’s when I noticed Freak wasn’t with us anymore.”

  “Did you tell the cops about him?”

  Boo nodded. “They didn’t seem all that interested. They talked to the Korean guy in the market, came back and talked to us some more, then said we could go. That’s all I cared about. We split.”

  Sam studied Boo. A fine sheen of sweat clung to the punk’s forehead. Systematically, he cracked all the knuckles on one big paw, then went to work on the other hand. Sam had the sinking feeling that this yahoo was telling the truth. And that meant Manny’s case was even more complicated than they’d suspected. “So, who asked you to get Paco into the club?”

  Boo squirmed in his seat like a kid in the principal’s office. “See, that’s the part you’re going to have a hard time believing.”

  “Try me.”

  “I got this call and a guy with a funny accent offered me five hundred bucks to get Paco into the club, get him some drinks, and take him out after closing. He was actin’ all mysterious, said he’d leave the money in a paper bag at the playground.” Boo shook his head. “It was like he watched too many movies, yanno?

  “I thought someone was messin’ with me. I went to the playground expecting some kind of scam. But the bag was there with the money, just like he said. So I figured, what the hell. It’s no skin off my nose. We go to Club E all the time anyway.”

  “You didn’t ask who he was, why he contacted you for this job?”

  “He had my cell number. He had to have been referred by a friend.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “Some friend. Let’s see your cell phone. Is this guy’s number still in the calls received?”

  “I already tried that. After the bomb went off and the cops came, I was pissed. We talked our way outta there, but I coulda been in big trouble. So I called the number back to ask what the fuck was going on, and the phone just rang and rang. Finally, some guy who sounded like a drunk answered and said it was a pay phone at Penn Station. I heard a train announcement in the background, so I knew he was telling the truth.”

  “All right, give me your cell number. We may need to talk again.” Sam looked down at the congealing blood on the floor. “And I don’t think we’re going to be welcome here.”

  Boo rattled off a number and Sam stored it in his own phone, then pressed the call button just to make sure he hadn’t been given the number for the Monmouth Park Racetrack. A shriek that passed for music emanated from Boo’s pocket.

  “Answer that and save the number,” Sam directed. “Your mysterious friend calls again, let me know.”

  Manny raced from the parking lot toward federal court, feeling like she’d just been presented with a white-ribboned robin’s egg blue box from Tiffany’s. God bless Sam—he’d uncovered just the information she needed to clinch this bail hearing. And just in case, she had her usual small piece of red cloth pinned to the inside of her suit jacket to ward off the evil eye, just like her mother and her mother’s mother had taught her. Can never be too careful, after all. Manny was a third-generation Scorpio, her generational DNA included an allele for the belief in the super natural.

  “By the time I’m done with Brian Lisnek, that prosecutor is going to be so covered with egg, you could make an omelette out of him,” Manny crowed to Kenneth, who matched her stride for stride past the cement barriers protecting the massive new building across from the old post office.

  “The last omelette you made for me was dry and rubbery,” Kenneth complained. “Don’t get overconfident.”

  Manny waved his warning off with a laugh, realizing as she did that if Jake had said the same thing to her, she would’ve been highly insulted. B
ut Kenneth could get away with a lot of things that Jake wouldn’t dare try, including, but not limited to, singing “Over the Rainbow” or anything Cher while wearing a vintage Dior sheath.

  Jake had been impressed when she told him the judge had granted her the opportunity to examine the government’s so-called forensic expert as well as their eyewitness at the bail hearing. That was highly unusual, but the Preppy Terrorist case was generating so much publicity that the judge had reluctantly agreed.

  Now with the information Sam had provided and the research she had done on the shaky science of identifying bite marks through forensic odontology, Manny felt sure that she’d have Travis Heaton out on bail by the end of the day.

  Sailing through the security check without setting off any alarms, Manny entered Judge Freeman’s courtroom and took her place at the defense table. Lisnek was already at the prosecutor’s table with a whole phalanx of assistants. “How many federal prosecutors does it take to change a lightbulb?” she muttered to Kenneth.

  “You mean, to screw in a lightbulb. And the answer is none. Prosecutors only screw defendants.”

  Manny paused from unloading her briefcase. “Did you just make that up, or have you been reading joke e-mails when you’re supposed to be working?”

  “Keeping you amused is part of my job description, remember?”

  Manny grinned. It was true that with Kenneth by her side she felt much more relaxed than she would have if she were assisted by some navy blue pinstriped-clad minion with an Ivy League law degree. Today, Kenneth had dressed to match the dark green marble that heralded the floors and walls of the imposing house of justice. He wore a slightly used Oscar de la Renta suit he had purchased on eBay, and two-toned green-and-ivory shoes with matching green horned-rimmed glasses. She slid some files across the table to him. “Here. Organize this for me. I don’t want to be fumbling for notes when I have their so-called expert on the stand.”

  She sat down and watched Lisnek for a while. He was so busy conferring with his assistants, he didn’t even notice her. Her client was escorted in by a muscular federal marshal and seated next to her. He wore the clothes he had been arrested in—big baggy pants and a black cotton shirt. The bailiff entered the courtroom and Lisnek snapped to attention, finally glancing her way. She smiled sweetly. The assistant U.S. attorney looked away.

  “All rise,” the bailiff intoned.

  Showtime.

  Manny and Lisnek danced through the opening procedures like Fred and Ginger, so familiar with the steps that they didn’t even have to think about what they were doing. Then Lisnek rose to make his argument for why Travis should remain in jail without bail. “An act of terrorism against the federal government… possible coconspirators, so the accused must be kept in isolation … a matter of national security …” On and on he went.

  Manny could feel her adrenaline surge and her stomach churn. This is what being a trial lawyer was all about—face-to-face combat with the enemy. Honestly, how could Lisnek say all this with a straight face? The man was shameless in his pursuit of publicity. She’d defended clients against bogus, trumped-up charges before, but this case beat all.

  The judge was also tiring of Lisnek. With a slight elevation of the hand, he cut the prosecutor off in mid-speech. “Very eloquent, Mr. Lisnek, but this isn’t a dress rehearsal for the opening argument of the trial. I believe Ms. Manfreda has some issues with the quality of your supporting evidence, so let’s move directly to the expert testimony.”

  The witness, Dr. Eugene Olivo, forensic odontologist, was called and sworn in. In a jury trial, Manny would spend considerable time establishing the expert’s qualifications or lack thereof, because juries tended to believe every word coming from the mouth of anyone who called himself a doctor or scientist. Judge Freeman, thankfully, was not so gullible. He had been a federal judge for more than four decades, handling all the hard cases: Mafia killings, an Aryan gang prison trial, massive drug cartel trials. Freeman was now on senior status, a form of hardworking retirement that allowed him to pick and choose his cases. Not impressed with the pretentiousness of office or enamored with the trappings of power, he no longer wore a robe on the bench. But make no mistake: He was a highly respected jurist, one you weren’t late for unless you were dead, who mandated preparedness and honesty.

  “So in other words, Doctor,” the judge said, addressing the expert witness, “for the laypeople in the audience, what you are saying is that a forensic odontologist is a fancy word for … dentist?”

  “Well, it’s from the Greek, Your Honor.”

  “I see.” A cross between a snort and a chuckle emanated from the bench. “Do you get to charge the government more in Greek?”

  Touché. Old, retired, on senior status, Freeman took the words right out of her mouth.

  Satisfied that Judge Freeman was going to give her fair latitude in cross-examination, Manny sat back and let Lisnek walk the witness through his evidence. “The average set of permanent teeth in an adult numbers thirty-two, including the four wisdom teeth,” Olivo informed them.

  Yada yada yada. She forced herself to listen to every word and make careful notes, only daydreaming for a split second about the Carramia case, where she had cross-examined Jake. Jake had been a charismatic expert witness in a geeky, scientific kind of way. Almost sexy, talking about vomit and death. His brown hair, interspersed with gray strands, complemented his big frame and professorial tone. Olivo was no Jake. Thank God for that.

  “In short,” Olivo finally opined, “the gap between the upper right lateral incisor and the adjoining canine tooth, also called a cuspid, along with the snagglelike characteristics of that canine tooth, establishes within a reasonable degree of medical scientific certainty that the impression in the apple is consistent with the bite dentition of Travis Heaton.” He demonstrated his testimony with digital pictures of the subject apple.

  Olivo sat back in the witness chair and folded his hands over his paunch. Manny smiled. How nice to see a witness so confident and comfortable.

  She rose and walked toward the witness stand. Today’s hairstyle, red mane caught back in a tortoiseshell clip, left the strand of pearls at her neck and the simple pearl studs in her ears exposed. She looked younger than her nearly thirty years, and too demure to cause trouble for a respected scientist.

  Pompous old fart.

  “Good morning, Dr. Olivo.” She beamed at him. “Thank you for that fascinating information.”

  He nodded. “I’ve been at this a long time.” He left the “Not like you, girlie,” unsaid.

  “Tell me: Were you present at the crime scene after the explosion?”

  “No, of course not.” I’m too important for that, you stupid twit.

  Manny smiled. Maybe the government’s witness was so well rehearsed he would know the chain of custody of the oh-so-important piece of forensic evidence he wanted to use to damn her client to hell.

  “So, who collected the apple?” she continued. “Was it the FBI’s crime scene technicians?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps it was the CSI team from the Hoboken Police Department?”

  “No.”

  “Then it must have been a tristate terrorist response unit?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “So, who did pick up the apple, Dr. Olivo?”

  “Uhm, I believe it was a police detective who returned to the scene later to look for it.”

  “And what did he do with it? Did he put it in a brown paper bag so that moisture wouldn’t collect and bacteria wouldn’t grow on it?”

  Olivo shifted in his seat and straightened his triclub tie. “No, it was in a plastic Baggie when I got it.”

  “I see. Do you know what the temperature was on the night in question, Doctor?”

  “I don’t know the exact temperature,” he snapped.

  Manny walked back to the defense table and accepted a sheet of paper from Kenneth. “National Weather Service records show that at one a.m. on May seventeenth, the tempera
ture at the monitoring station in Hoboken, New Jersey, was seventy-five degrees. Pretty warm for May, huh?”

  “Yes.” Olivo stared straight ahead.

  “Did you examine the evidence that night, sir?”

  “No.”

  “When did you get the evidence?”

  “Let me look at my notes.” As the page flipped, the doctor grabbed for the small plastic cup of water nearby.

  Manny pretended not to notice how he gulped it down. She was making him squirm.

  “The day after the bombing. I received the specimen at my office in Manhattan at one-forty-three in the afternoon.”

  “The apple had been refrigerated during the period of time since its collection, had it, Doctor?” Manny asked.

  He hesitated.

  Come on, give it up, Mr Know-It-All expert witness. I already know the answer, or I wouldn’t have asked the question.

  “No.”

  Manny could tell he thought he knew where she was headed, but Lisnek looked impatient. She smiled at him in passing and returned to stand in front of the witness. “You know, Dr. Olivo, my Italian immigrant grandma grew up during the Depression and she hated to waste food. When I was a little girl, it would drive her crazy when I took a few bites out of an apple and then couldn’t finish it. You know what she’d do? She’d wrap it up in plastic and put it on the counter and try to get me to eat it the next day. I never would. You know why?”

  Lisnek jumped up. “Objection. We’ll be here all day if we have to listen to Ms. Manfreda’s reminiscences about her family heritage, Your Honor.”

  But Judge Freeman was grinning. “Tell us why you wouldn’t eat it, counselor.”

  “Because by the next day, a bitten apple wrapped in plastic in a warm kitchen was all brown and mushy. Decay had set in. Yes, decay had completely broken down the exposed surface of the apple.” Manny whipped around to take possession of something from Kenneth, keeping her back to everyone in the well of the courtroom. Murmurs began to rumble from the spectator pews. Manny turned to Olivo with the flare of a Miss Universe contestant whipping around a bathing-suit pareu on the turn toward the judges to show off her wares.