Skeleton Justice

by Michael Baden

  Jake worked his way toward her from the other end of the book room, but he wasn’t moving anywhere near as fast. When Manny paused and looked up, she saw Jake with a slender red book in his hands. “Asking you to search a used-book sale is like asking Emeril to search a farmers’ market. Stop reading!”

  “I can’t help it—‘The Cask of Amontillado’ and ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ in a special illustrated edition. Look at the detail in this picture of the dungeon; it’s like the artist was inside Poe’s head.”

  “The cookbook, Jake. Look for the cookbook.”

  Jake tucked the Poe volume under his arm with the Principles of Modern Microbiology and resumed the search.

  “You’re buying those?” Manny asked.

  “Yes. I thought you’d be pleased. You’re always suggesting we go shopping together.”

  “For clothes, Jake. To replace the pants and shirts you bought during the Reagan administration.”

  “I tell you what: Once we find the cookbook, you can pick me out a new sports coat.”

  Manny brightened. Banishing the peat moss-colored tweed sack with the baggy elbows that passed for Jake’s formal attire was her heart’s desire. “Really? Barneys is not that far from here. We could choose something in half an hour flat.”

  “I’ll give you ten minutes. Better find something here on that rack near the front door. There’s a nice lime green one that caught my eye when we came in.”

  “Great motivation,” Manny grumbled. “Seriously, what are we going to do if we find the cookbook and it really is Argentinean?”

  “Then we start contacting victims,” Jake said. “I want to start with Annabelle Fiore. You remember I visited her in the hospital after she was attacked.”

  “She was the opera singer who the Vampire used too much ether on, right?”

  “Yes.” Jake kept his head down and searched in earnest as he spoke. “At the time, I assumed it was unintentional—after all, it’s hard to deliver an accurate dose of anesthesia on a rag. But in retrospect, Fiore may have been the first escalation. Before her, the victims weren’t harmed. After her, Hogaarth and Fortes were murdered.”

  “You may be—ah!”

  Jake’s head snapped up. “What?”

  Manny held a thick blue book aloft. “This is it! Recetas Favoritas.” Manny stood motionless with the heavy volume in her hands. She had started to feel like she was on a quest for a legendary object, and now she felt too stunned at holding the Holy Grail to open it.

  Jake crossed to her side and took the book from her, turning quickly to the title page. He read aloud, “‘Publicado en 1967. Buenos Aires, Republica Argentina.’”

  Jake studied his brother, trying to interpret the expression on his face. All their lives, he’d been able to tell when Sam had good news to share. He hoped to detect that gleam in Sam’s eye now.

  Finding the cookbook had convinced Jake that he was on the right path with the Argentine connection, but Vito Pasquarelli had been unimpressed. “Hogaarth liked Argentine food—so what? My wife’s got The Great Wall Cookbook, but she doesn’t know anyone in China.”

  Now Jake desperately needed his brother to have turned up something useful in his research on the attendees at Nixon’s speech. Maybe then Pasquarelli would take his theory seriously. Without Vito’s support, it would be hard to reinterview all the Vampire’s early victims, looking for an Argentine connection. But hoping didn’t make it so. His brother appeared disappointingly straight-faced.

  “There’s good news and there’s bad news,” Sam began. “The good news is, it was surprisingly easy to track down most of the people on this list with a simple Internet search. They’re all fairly prominent in their respective fields, so they leave a public record that’s easy to follow.”

  “So what’s the bad news?” Manny asked. “You think that because these people are solid professionals, one of them can’t possibly be our Vampire?”

  “Not necessarily. I’ll present the evidence; you be the judge.” Sam picked up the list of attendees. Jake could see that each name on the list had a color-coded check mark.

  “Three people have died since they attended Nixon’s lecture. Of natural causes,” he said, heading off Jake’s question. “Thirty-four are journalists, most of them foreign correspondents posted overseas. Only one lives in the metro New York area—Phillip Reiser.”

  “That name sounds familiar,” Jake said.

  “Assistant managing editor of the New York Times,” Manny said. “I’ve met him a few times. Very smart, very charming, insanely busy. I’m willing to concede he’s not the Vampire.”

  “Next come the academics,” Sam continued. “Sixty-two college professors, none of whom works at a school in the New York area.”

  “But professors are always going on sabbatical,” Manny said. “Any of those people might have taken off a semester and come to New York to carry out these attacks.”

  “Gold star to Ms. Manfreda,” Sam said. “It turns out three of them are on sabbatical right now. One’s in Thailand, one’s at Berkeley, and one is right here at Columbia. Wilford Munley. He’s a sociologist, not an historian.”

  “Sociologists sometimes do laboratory experiments,” Jake interjected. “He might have experience working with lab animals.”

  “I thought of that. When I spoke to him on the phone, he sounded so cagey and evasive that I headed up to campus to check him out.”

  “And …” Jake leaned forward in excitement.

  “Paralyzed. Uses a motorized chair.”

  “He could have an able-bodied collaborator,” Jake said.

  Manny brushed him off. “So that leaves the ones who work for the government. If you ask me, they’re the most likely suspects anyway.”

  Sam smiled. “Yes, Manny, I know you’d find that convenient, but I checked out these remaining twenty-one names, and I don’t think any of them could be our man … or woman. First, they all live and work in D.C.”

  “Two hours by Metroliner—it can take that long to commute to Jersey some days.”

  “Train travel isn’t as anonymous as it used to be. The Metro-liner requires a reservation, and none of these people shows up as a regular passenger around the dates of the attacks.”

  “You can drive the distance in four hours,” Manny insisted.

  “Yes, but some of the attacks occurred during the workday, and Fortes was tortured over a period of days. None of the remaining people on the list was away from his or her office on all of the days in question. So, unless there’s a conspiracy among the attendees at Nixon’s speech, I don’t think your killer is anyone on this list.”

  Jake jumped up and paced around the room. “And yet the mug had to have come from that conference. No other fingerprints were on it. Almost certainly, someone picked it up and preserved it as a souvenir.”

  “eBay.”

  Jake and Sam turned to Manny. “Huh?” they said simultaneously.

  “eBay is the single best place to buy and sell collectibles.” Manny turned to Jake. “You’ve seen my collection of porcelain shoes. I used to have to dig through flea markets and garage sales looking for that stuff. Now I do all my collecting online.”

  “Have I entered into some sort of parallel universe?” Jake asked. “I thought we were talking about the Vampire and Nixon’s coffee mug, not your latest shopping addiction.”

  “One and the same.” Manny dragged Jake’s laptop across the table and started typing. “Let’s just do a little search. Presidential collectibles. You see—that brings it right up.”

  Sam looked over her shoulder. “Herbert Hoover campaign buttons, Eisenhower cuff links. Three hundred and ninety-five dollars for a blanket from Air Force One? You gotta be kidding me.”

  “The bidding has just started on that one; it’ll go much higher.” Manny continued to scroll through the pages. “Most of this is souvenir stuff given away by candidates or the White House. What we’re looking for is stuff owned by the presidents. Ah, see—here’s one. Gerald Ford�
��s nine iron.”

  “Only three hundred dollars,” Jake said. “I bet his ski poles would be more valuable than his golf clubs.”

  “I don’t get it,” Sam said. “This could be anyone’s golf club. How can you know it’s Ford’s?”

  “Provenance?” Manny clicked a few more keys. “See, the dealer selling it says ‘Documentation authenticates the ownership.’ That means he has some letter or photo that proves it belonged to President Ford. And you see, this dealer receives the highest ranking by eBay shoppers. That indicates he’s legit.”

  “So you think whoever saved the coffee mug at the lecture might have sold it on eBay to the killer,” Jake said.

  “Now you’re catching on.”

  “It makes sense, but I don’t see how it gets us any closer to finding the Vampire. Anyone can sell on eBay, and anyone can buy. If you register to bid under a false name and pay your bill, no one would be wiser.”

  Manny’s fingers continued to fly across the keyboard. “True. You can certainly make it psuedo-anonymous. But what if you saw no reason to cover your tracks?” She stopped typing and leaned back. “When I wanted to sell some of my porcelain shoes, I didn’t set up my own eBay account to do it. I contacted one of the dealers that I’d bought from and consigned them for sale through him. He got a cut of the sale price, but it was less hassle for me; plus, I got a better price because he was a reputable eBay dealer. So it’s quite possible that whoever originally owned Nixon’s mug sold it through a dealer that sells on eBay. Let’s contact the most highly ranked dealers in presidential collectibles, describe the mug, and see if any of them handled the transaction.”

  Jake shrugged. “Seems like a stretch. But give it a shot.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve gotta run. I have an appointment with Annabelle Fiore.”

  Jake sat on Annabelle Fiore’s sofa and stared at the great singer’s chest. Her mighty bosom rose from her pale green sweater like twin volcanic peaks emerging from the Pacific. What man, even a cultured, politically correct, genuinely feminist man, could keep his eyes focused exclusively above Annabelle’s neck? Jake was no saint. He couldn’t help the thought that popped into his head: Wow, would I love to do an autopsy of those lungs!

  Not that he wished the opera star dead—far from it. She must have been pushing fifty, but she had a lot of good performances left in her. He admitted he’d love to discover some scientific explanation for the fact that opera singers all had huge mammary glands. There was no anatomical reason for it, Jake was sure. A singer needed exceptional lung capacity, certainly, but what resided inside the chest cavity should have no correlation to what rested on top of it. Annabelle’s mammary glands definitely were well developed. But what did her bronchi look like? That’s what Jake really wanted to set his eyes on. But today he had a different agenda.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Ms. Fiore,” Jake said. “I know you must be very busy.”

  Annabelle threw her hands up. “No, no! The pleasure is all mine! I am so grateful you are working hard to capture this terrible man. I tell you, I haven’t slept a wink since the attack.” She shook her head forlornly. “The stress, it is taking a toll on my voice.”

  Jake murmured sympathetically. In truth, Annabelle had looked well rested, the picture of health, when she’d opened the door to him. Now, however, she slumped back in her seat and let her eyelids droop to half-mast. Jake was glad he had come. Annabelle had offered to answer his questions on the phone, but he’d been eager to assess her physical response to everything he asked. Annabelle was an actress, but he could see she was also the kind of woman who wore every emotion on her sleeve. If she was frightened, or unnerved, or evasive because of his questions, he would know it instantly by watching her face and gestures.

  “Ms. Fiore—”

  “Annabelle, please.”

  “Annabelle. Let’s go over again the night of the attack.” Jake leaned forward in the overstuffed peacock blue chair. She had already told Vito Pasquarelli when he’d spoken to her in the hospital that she could not recall her attacker’s face. But sometimes memory revives after the initial shock passes. “When you opened the door, what was your initial impression of the person standing there?”

  “You see, I didn’t even look through the peephole because I was expecting my friends. I just threw open the door.” She flung her arm out to the side, narrowly missing a delicate lamp on the end table. “And in a split second, this maniac was in my home.”

  “There was one person at the door, not two,” Jake confirmed.

  “Yes. Now that you mention it, I remember a moment when I thought, Well, David must still be parking the car.”

  Jake’s eyebrows arched. “You thought David was parking the car and the person on your doorstep was his wife? A woman?”

  Annabelle propped her chin in her hand. “I’m not sure that it was a woman. I just remember being aware that the person standing there was too small to be David. He’s a big fellow, six three, two hundred and fifty pounds.

  “I have this thought only like that”—Annabelle snapped her fingers—“before the person is putting a rag over my face and I am dizzy and falling down.” She shuddered as she relived the moment, then fell silent.

  Jake waited.

  Annabelle looked up and wagged her finger. “I remember seeing the needle before I passed out. Yes, I remember thinking, This must be that Vampire they talk about in the newspaper. And I said to myself, Why me, dear God, why me?”

  “That’s just it, Annabelle,” Jake said. “I want to determine why you were targeted.”

  Her strong, dark brows drew down. “But surely it was random, no? I thought the newspapers have said there is no connection between the people he attacked. Certainly I don’t know any of the others.”

  “No, I don’t think you all know one another. But I do think there’s a connection.” Jake watched Annabelle closely. “Tell me: Have you ever visited Argentina?”

  She blinked three times, quickly. “I have performed there, yes. Teatro Colón, the opera house in Buenos Aires, is quite fine.”

  “And do you know anyone there? Have friends who are Argentine?”

  Annabelle cleared her throat. “Uh, friends, no. No friends there.”

  Jake studied her. He could tell she was uncomfortable. Maybe not lying, but holding something back. “Did you meet anyone … memorable … during your visit there?”

  Annabelle tossed her hair away from her face. “There was—Oh, really, I don’t see how this could be relevant. What’s the significance of Argentina, anyway?”

  “Three pieces of evidence in this case are linked to Argentina. I’m looking for more.”

  Annabelle’s eyes widened. She turned away from Jake as she spoke. “This is a little embarrassing. I’m sure it’s not important, but just in case. …”

  “I’d appreciate your candor, Annabelle. I won’t share the information publicly if I can avoid it.”

  Annabelle took a deep breath. “A few years ago, I found myself in a bit of a jam financially. When I was performing in Argentina, a man approached me and said his boss, General Rafael Cintron, would pay me ten thousand U.S. dollars to sing at his birthday party. Now, this is something I would never do! I am a star! I don’t sing for my supper. So I say no, and he raises the price to fifteen thousand dollars.” Annabelle threw her hands up in the air. “I would never do such a thing in Europe, or here in New York, but an Italian diva performing arias for a private party in Argentina … well, it’s generally off the paparazzi radar. No one outside of native Argentineans pay much attention to me there. I figure no one will find out. And I really needed the money.”

  “So you sang. What happened?”

  Annabelle grimaced. “Horrible, boorish evening! The general, he sits there with a big grin on his face, like I am stripping, not singing ‘Un Bel Di.’ And the others at the party”—she mimicked talking with her hands—“yak, yak, yak, the whole time I’m singing. Disgraceful!”

  Jake made an effort to lo
ok suitably appalled. “Thank you for telling me this, Annabelle. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Really? Surely this general is not the Vampire? He was old and fat.”

  “No, he’s not the Vampire. I think Cintron may be someone the Vampire despises even more than you do.”

  “How did it go?” Manny eyed Kenneth, who was balancing his own eye-popping sequined and velveteen man bag on his left arm against Mycroft’s initialed white Goyard carrier on his right.

  “Great! That new vet is adorable. What gorgeous brown eyes.”

  “You’re looking for the scientific type now?”

  “Just thought I might ask him to the club to hear me—Kenneth Medianos Boyd—performing as Princess K. Calypso.”

  “Forget it. He’s married.”

  Kenneth adjusted his pose, put his hands on his hips, and gave his hips a wiggle. “Like that matters? Think Jim McGreevey and Rock Hudson.” Kenneth’s eyebrows were knowingly raised. “I even heard a delicious rumor the other day that Cary Grant was bi.”

  Manny declined to make eye contact, for fear of setting Kenneth off on one of his favorite discourses—that every man on the planet was in the closet, just waiting for the right guy to open his door. “I’m not going there with you. How is Mycroft? Is his wound healed?”

  “Oh, yeah—he’s fine. Aren’t you, punkin?” Kenneth bent over and released Mycroft from his carrier. The little dog bounded across the office and leaped into Manny’s lap. “The doctor seemed disappointed that you didn’t bring him to his appointment. I told you, the wife’s irrelevant.”

  “He must think I’m a terrible mother.” Manny stroked Mycroft’s curly head and scratched behind his ears. “I totally forgot the first appointment, and I would’ve missed this one, too, if I hadn’t been able to send you.” Manny looked at the pile of file folders on her desk. “I’m just swamped. I can’t leave my desk until I finish answering these three hundred burdensome interrogatories that asshole law firm sent over on the Greenfield case. Just like a large law firm. They get paid thousands of dollars by the letter. Try to bury justice in paperwork.”