Nick of Time (A Bug Man Novel)

by Tim Downs

“Am I?”

  “You’re the only one who can answer that question. But I’ll give you my opinion: Alena’s one of the strangest women I’ve ever met—and believe me, that’s really saying something. But she’s strange like you, and that’s the thing that really matters.

  She’s good for you, Nick. You need her—or maybe a frontal lobotomy.”

  “What if she is a frontal lobotomy?”

  “Come again?”

  “Have you ever watched praying mantises mate?”

  “We don’t get those channels,” Donovan said.

  “It’s fascinating to watch. When they’ve finished mating, the female twists around and bites off the male’s head—it provides a little extra protein snack for the female to help ensure the survival of her offspring.”

  “So?”

  “What if marriage is like that? Maybe for the female it’s just a snack, but for the male it’s the last supper.”

  “Nick, take a Valium—you’re starting to freak out.”

  “I sat with Alena for almost an hour this morning. I stayed so long that now I might be late for Vidocq. We kept going round and round about the same thing—why I had to leave right now. She said it made her nervous, and I kept trying to reassure her . . . But you know what I thought when I left? I thought, Why did I waste so much time with Alena? Is that what I’m doing, Donovan? If she’s never going to think like me, am I just wasting my time?”

  “Are you planning on calling me every time you have a question about women? Because if you are, I want to get paid.”

  “You’re my best man, Donovan—isn’t this part of your duties?”

  “No, it isn’t. ‘Best man’ just means I’m supposed to prop you up in church if your legs start to give out, and I have to come up with some lame toast at the reception. Oh—and I also throw your bachelor party.”

  Nick groaned. “Do I have to come to that?”

  “You’re the only bachelor I still know.”

  “Is this going to be one of those humiliating, primitive male-bonding rituals?”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Look, I need to get back to work—but I want to ask you something, and I really want you to think about this.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why are you going to Philadelphia?”

  “I told you. I have a Vidocq meeting—”

  “You’re not listening, Nick. The woman you say you love is back in Virginia, and the event that will change your life forever is taking place in just a few days . . . So why are you going to Philadelphia?”

  Nick paused. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you need to figure it out—because Alena wants to know too.”

  4

  PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

  As the elevator doors slid closed, Nick took one last look at the imposing rotunda of the Public Ledger Building: the gleaming marble walls, the barrel-vaulted ceiling inlaid with gold, and the statue of Benjamin Franklin floating like a demigod against a panorama of dramatic clouds . . .

  Welcome to Philadelphia, he thought.

  Nick loved the old building, once home to the most popular newspaper in all of Philadelphia. He loved the entire surrounding area of Society Hill and the Center City District. This was old Philadelphia, and the place was just dripping with history. Right across the street was Congress Hall, where George Washington was inaugurated and the Bill of Rights had been ratified; Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell were just a stone’s throw away. The whole place just felt important, and Nick liked to think that what he was here to do was important too, because Nick was here to help set a man free—or to send him to prison for the rest of his life.

  Nick punched the button for the twelfth floor twice more, as if the elevator were some senile octogenarian that needed to be reminded what it had just been told to do. But he knew that nothing would speed the trip along; the aging elevator would slowly and stubbornly groan its way to the top, just as it had done since it was first installed back in 1921.

  For almost two decades now the members of the Vidocq Society had gathered on the last Tuesday of every month in the stately Downtown Club on the top floor of the Public Ledger Building in the heart of historic Philadelphia. The society had been founded by three men: an ex-FBI agent who once worked an area of Boston known as the Combat Zone; a forensic sculptor who specialized in reconstructing the faces of murder victims from only their skulls; and a criminal psychologist who had profiled some of the most infamous murderers in history.

  They were Nick’s kind of people—so when he had been extended an invitation to join the society several years ago, he jumped at the opportunity.

  In just twenty years the society had expanded to more than a hundred members from almost twenty states and eleven other countries. Each member was required to be an expert in some field of forensic science, and current members represented subdisciplines as varied as forensic hypnosis, arson investigation, and ritual murder. But despite their varying specialties, their purpose in meeting was the same: to assemble a dream team of working and retired forensic specialists who would help solve murders no one else had been able to figure out.

  For a case to be considered by Vidocq, it had to meet four strict qualifications: It had to be an unsolved case at least two years old to ensure that local authorities had made every effort to solve the case themselves; it had to be formally presented to the society by the appropriate law enforcement agency; the victim could not have been involved in any criminal activity; and the crime in question must always be murder. Vidocq made it very clear that they were not interested in solving cases involving robberies and insurance fraud; their membership included some of the finest forensic minds in the world, and they had decided long ago that their club would concern itself strictly with murder.

  Murder and lunch, that is. “Cuisine and Crime-Solving”— that was how their meetings had always been billed. Each meeting began with a very nice luncheon in one of the club’s private dining rooms—a Caesar salad, perhaps, followed by chicken scaloppine and lemon meringue pie for dessert. Nick felt his stomach beginning to growl . . . Vidocq members were all forensic professionals, and they had long ago ceased to be repulsed by the graphic details of their profession.

  Nick loved these meetings, though his busy schedule hadn’t allowed him to attend one in months. When he was with Vidocq he was among respected colleagues and he was doing what he did best—and for Nick, life didn’t get any better than that. If he had had any lingering doubts about attending this meeting, any second thoughts about leaving Alena so close to their wedding day, those thoughts were gone now.

  He knew that some of his colleagues back at NC State would have been amazed to hear that Nick enjoyed attending a meeting of any kind, because Nick wasn’t exactly known as a “people person,” to put it mildly—but that wasn’t completely true. Nick had never liked the human species as a whole, but there were a few specific members of the species he respected and admired and even looked forward to seeing—and forensic botanist Pete Boudreau was at the top of that very short list.

  The elevator door finally creaked open to reveal an elegant lobby area. In the center of the room was a marble scallop-edged table bearing an enormous floral arrangement of pink and white silk camellias. Fifty or sixty Vidocq members mingled about the area, awaiting the signal to move into the dining room for lunch. It was about average attendance for a Vidocq meeting, and Nick immediately began to search the room for his old friend—but before he could find him another familiar face appeared.

  “Nick,” she called out as she approached. “Is it true? Please, tell me it is—tell me miracles really can happen.”

  Kegan Alexander was a forensic anthropologist and professor of physical anthropology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She was a small woman, with the lean build of a marathoner or cyclist—and in fact she was both. Her straight brown hair was cut off even shorter than usual, an indication that she w
as probably training for an upcoming event. Somehow she always managed to keep her short hair tucked back behind her ears, which made her ears appear a little larger than they really were and made her slender neck stand out like a porcelain pedestal. Nick had worked with Kegan several times in the past and he respected her; she brought a marathoner’s endurance and discipline to her work, which was why Nick had nominated her for membership in Vidocq—a gesture that had further cemented their friendship.

  Nick greeted her with a roll of his eyes. “Okay, go ahead.”

  “Go ahead and what?”

  “Laugh, cry, projectile-vomit—I get all kinds of reactions when people hear I’m getting married.”

  “Well, here’s my reaction,” she said, stretching up on her tiptoes and kissing him on the cheek.

  “You’re too late,” he said. “I’m already taken.”

  “Congratulations, Nick—I couldn’t be happier for you.”

  “Then you don’t believe it’s all just a hoax? Or some kind of perverse crime against nature?”

  “Does she?”

  “She bought a dress.”

  “Then I say go for it. When’s the big day?”

  “Saturday.”

  Kegan blinked. “This Saturday?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then what in the world are you doing here?”

  Nick frowned. “That’s what she asked me.”

  “She did? Oh, Nick—that’s bad.”

  “There was nothing for me to do there—all the arrangements were already taken care of. What was I supposed to do, just sit around and hold her hand?”

  “Nick, this is marriage we’re talking about. There’s a lot of hand-holding involved—more if you’re lucky.”

  “Never mind,” he said. “My mother already had this talk with me.”

  Kegan’s expression suddenly changed. “Hey, wait a minute—how come I didn’t get a wedding invitation?”

  Nick shrugged. “Because I didn’t think of you.”

  “Well, thanks a lot. How’s that supposed to make me feel?”

  “Uninvited?”

  “Nick.”

  “Would you really have come? Be honest.”

  “Are you kidding? To see the Bug Man marry the Dog Woman? I love the circus.”

  “See, that’s just the kind of attitude that kept you off the guest list.”

  “I want you to know my feelings are hurt,” she said with a pout. “I may never forgive you.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel more included, you can still send a gift.” Nick glanced around the room, then leaned closer to Kegan and whispered, “Does anybody else know?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Want me to make an announcement?”

  “Not unless you want to be our next murder victim.”

  Just then a deep voice rose from the center of the crowded room—it was Bill Fleisher, one of the founding members and the society’s commissioner, the man responsible for conducting the monthly meetings. “May I have everyone’s attention, please? As you all know, it’s our custom here at Vidocq to enjoy lunch before the presentation of cases. But we’re doing things a little differently today; I’m afraid we have a case to solve before we can have our lunch. Nick Polchak, where are you? Would you step forward, please?”

  Nick groaned as every head in the room turned to look at him. He glared at Kegan: “Liar.”

  “Should have invited me,” she said.

  The group slowly parted, opening a pathway to the center of the room. There, on the floor, was the outline of a human body marked off in masking tape. Taped in letters below the outline were the words Nick Polchak, Bachelor.

  Fleisher motioned Nick forward. “Dr. Polchak, we seem to have a bit of a mystery here, and I understand you possess information that might help the rest of us solve the case. Is there anything you’d like to say to your fellow members?”

  “Yes,” Nick said. “I’m hungry—let’s eat.”

  “Nick’s getting married!” Kegan shouted.

  The group erupted in laughter and applause, patting Nick on the back and congratulating him as they all moved into the dining room; soon Nick and Kegan were the only ones left in the lobby.

  “Well, that was humiliating,” Nick said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Nick and Kegan stepped to the dining room doorway and looked over the group as they took their seats around a halfdozen circular tables draped in white. “Have you seen Pete?” Nick asked.

  “Pete Boudreau? I haven’t seen him today.”

  “That’s odd. Pete would never miss one of these meetings— he practically lives for these things.”

  “Maybe he’s sick.”

  “If he was, he would have called me. He wrote and invited me to meet him here today. He said there’s a case he’s been consulting on—something he needs my help with. Any idea what he’s been working on lately?”

  “Not me—I’ve missed the last few meetings myself. Have you tried his phone?”

  “Several times. No luck.”

  Nick and Kegan found open seats at a back table and the luncheon ensued. The menu was Mediterranean today, a Greek-style penne with fresh tomatoes—at least, that’s what Kegan told him. To Nick it was just food, and his favorite kind of food—the kind he didn’t have to prepare himself.

  “Anybody seen Pete Boudreau today?” he kept asking around the table during breaks in the conversation. But no one had seen him, and no one wanted to talk about Pete Boudreau—they just wanted to rib Nick about his upcoming wedding. Everyone had a joke or a remark or some spurious piece of advice about the wedding ceremony or the challenges of adjusting to married life—or even his wedding night. And the more they talked, the more irritated Nick became. When he was at Vidocq he was a professional among colleagues, but they were treating him like some kind of . . . person. He didn’t understand; he was exactly the same person he had been at the last meeting—Dr. Nick Polchak, forensic entomologist, member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Entomology—but somehow his upcoming change in marital status had overshadowed all that. It made him feel naked and exposed; it made him feel disrespected and demeaned.

  It made him feel like getting out of there—but he wasn’t sure where he would go.

  After lunch, as the waitresses served coffee, the first of the presenters stepped up to the podium—a homicide detective from some little town outside San Antonio. The Vidocq members had heard more than three hundred cases since the society’s inception, and on average they now considered two new cases per month. The lights dimmed and the homicide detective began his PowerPoint presentation: crime scene photos of a woman’s body sprawled awkwardly at the foot of a bed; a close-up of the face with that familiar vacant stare; more close-ups of the hands and entry wounds and blood spatter on the floor and the foot of the bed; and there was a wooden ruler in each photo to provide scale and perspective.

  In half an hour the detective concluded his presentation and the floor was opened to questions and comments. That was the time when each Vidocq member began to contribute from his area of specialization, asking questions and challenging ungrounded assumptions and offering suggestions for possible new avenues of investigation. That was the part of the meeting Nick loved, when his mind took on a razor edge as he searched with his colleagues for missing connections and overlooked details . . . but today he was having trouble concentrating.

  Nick wasn’t the only one who loved these meetings; Pete Boudreau practically lived for them. When Pete made the decision to retire from teaching at Penn State, Nick thought it was a mistake; when Pete and Lila moved back to Philadelphia to set up shop as a private forensic consultant, Nick knew it wouldn’t work—there was barely enough work out there for a forensic entomologist, and forensic botany was an even more obscure trade. And when Pete lost Lila to ovarian cancer six years ago—well, he lost just about everything he had left. A brilliant palynologist, a true forensic pion
eer, with nothing to do and no one in need of his services . . . Vidocq was all Pete had left. Pete lived for these monthly Vidocq meetings, a place where someone actually had need of his knowledge and experience. He spent countless hours between meetings consulting with presenters, offering his services free of charge whenever he was asked. Vidocq was where Pete belonged; Vidocq was where Pete came alive—and Pete had specifically asked Nick to meet him here today.

  So where was Pete Boudreau?

  When the presentations concluded, the meeting broke up; some members left while some remained behind to offer their business cards or further suggestions to the presenters.

  Kegan turned to Nick. “Where to now?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nick said. “I was supposed to meet Pete and catch up, so . . . I’m not sure.”

  “Well, good luck with the wedding,” Kegan said. “Let me know what it’s like to be married.”

  Nick turned and looked at her. “You’re not married?”

  “Nick—after all the times we’ve worked together, you don’t even know if I’m married?”

  “I never asked.”

  “All those late hours working together, all those weekends— you think I would have put in that much time if I was married?”

  “I would have.”

  “That’s what you say now,” she said.

  Nick didn’t like the sound of that. He cocked his head to one side and studied her for a moment. “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “How come you’re not married?”

  “Nick—what kind of a question is that?”

  “I just mean—you know—you’re such an attractive woman and all.”

  “Nice save,” she said drily. “I don’t know . . . I guess it depends on who you ask. My dad says it’s because I’m too intimidating . . . He says not a lot of men can handle a woman with a PhD. My mom thinks it’s because I’m too much of a tomboy, or maybe it’s the job—you know, the bones and all. Me, I think it’s because I’m running all the time—usually in the wrong direction.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Sort of like you’re doing right now—if you know what I mean.”