There was damage to the outside of Jake’s house and its front windows. Jake’s city-owned car, the driver’s side now crumpled metal, was sitting directly in front of the house. “Let me through!” she shouted. A stretcher sat next to the ambulance. There was a body on it. A corpse? With a wail, she pushed under the police tape. A policeman grabbed her arm. “You can’t come in here, ma’am.”
“I have to!”
“It’s a crime scene. No one’s allowed in.”
“I’m his wife!”
She pulled free and made her way to the stretcher. The man on it was covered in blood. She leaned down. Is he breathing?
She shrieked and stepped back. Sam! The body was Sam! “He got it worse than I did,” a voice from the side of the stretcher said, “but the doctors say he’ll be all right.”
Jake’s voice, calm and resonant and comforting and dear. She gave a little cry and hugged him, squeezing so hard he grunted.
“Hey,” he said. “Careful.” But he hugged her just as hard.
May he never let go. May we stay like this forever. After a moment, though, she stepped back to look at him. His face was covered in soot, giving his eyes a charred, hollow, ghostlike appearance. They were directed again toward his brother; she could see worry in them. “Took some shrapnel in the head,” he said. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“You’re not hurt.” A command more than a question.
“Shaken up. Every bone’s gonna ache when the shock wears off.”
“What happened?”
“I was going to the front door to meet Sam when the bomb exploded. He was still outside. That’s why-” His voice broke, and he put a gentle hand on Sam’s forehead. “Just lucky. Both of us.”
The police commissioner, Lucas Melody, joined them, staring at Manny. “What’s she doing here? Who let her in?”
The policeman who had tried to stop her came over. “My fault, sir. She pushed past.”
“Actually, I’m to blame,” Jake said. “She was just following orders. I told her to get here no matter what.” He lowered his voice. “I was afraid my brother would need to make his last will and testament. She’s the family lawyer, and-”
“She’s his wife,” the patrolman said.
Jake looked at Manny, who shrugged. “Yes, my lawyer and my wife,” he confirmed.
“Congratulations.” Melody seemed dubious. “Talk about a shotgun wedding.” He took Jake’s arm. “I need to talk to you.”
They moved aside.
“A Mafia hit,” the commissioner said. “Bomb in the car, meant to go off when you started the motor. The person planting it must have seen your brother arriving and tried to rush the job. He tripped the mechanism; it detonated prematurely.”
He’s probably right about the bomb but wrong about the hitman, Jake thought. He had testified against mob figures several times before with no aftereffects. The current case wasn’t high-level, nor was his testimony vital enough to provoke such violence. But it wasn’t worth arguing with Melody, at least not yet. First he needed irrefutable proof that the bombing was connected to the Turner skeletons.
He walked back to his brother, Manny next to him. Sam’s eyes were open, and his blood-caked lips managed a smile. “I said I’d like a cocktail when I came, but this is ridiculous.”
“They’re going to take you to Lenox Hill Hospital,” Jake told him. “Probably overnight, just for observation. The commissioner’s asked me to answer some more questions. I’ll come right over as soon as he’s finished.”
“Are you crazy?” Sam struggled to raise his head. “Is there something wrong with you? You’ve got a beautiful woman clutching your arm. There’s no way you can sleep at home tonight, so you’ll have to go to her place. And you want to look after me?”
Jake took a long look. Color had come back to his brother’s cheeks, and his eyes were bright. “Sam,” he said, “you just might be right.”
***
“What are you holding?” Manny asked. “You’ve had it clutched in your hands ever since I found you.” They were sitting on the stoop, waiting for Melody to finish questioning two witnesses about the bombing.
“X-rays.” He held an envelope out to her. “I didn’t get a chance to study them all at Galt’s lab.”
She shied away. “The commissioner might be right. This could be a Mafia hit and not have anything to do with the bones at all.”
His fingers played around the edges of the envelope. “I don’t think so. The bomb in the car was one-directional, a claymore mine. Only the person standing behind the mine would be hurt, because it exploded in that one direction only.”
“So our attacker’s a soldier? This weapon is military ordnance.”
“Ex-soldier, probably. Which narrows our suspect list to three hundred fifty thousand.”
“Or one. Is Wally still in Turner?”
“On his way home. Why?”
“We could ask him to look up Sheriff Fisk’s record. See if he fought in Vietnam.”
“Probably we can find out from here,” Jake said. “If not, I’m sure Wally’d be glad to go back.”
Melody had only a few more questions, and Jake had nothing to add. The police, having secured the area, were leaving; only two patrolmen were standing guard. A third was assigned to drive Manny and Jake anywhere they wanted to go.
Jake stood. “I’d better see about a place to stay.”
“Are you crazy?” Manny asked. “You heard your brother. You’re coming home with me.”
IT WAS AFTER midnight when they were dropped off at Manny’s building. “Good evening, Christopher,” Manny chirped to the night doorman, as if she waltzed through the lobby every evening with a tall, sooty man in torn jeans and bloody shoes.
“Nice night, Ms. Manfreda,” Christopher said, unfazed.
Jake and Manny took the elevator up. “You live on the thirteenth floor?” he said. “Not superstitious?”
“Very. Almost didn’t live here because of it. Are you?”
“Actually, no. I’m a scientist.”
They stood in front of her door. Key in hand, she hesitated. Let him in and my life changes. Do I really want that? She inserted the key and pushed the door open.
He stood on the threshold, taking in the room. “Small.”
“Would you be more comfortable sleeping with Sam at the hospital?”
“I slept with him in the same one-bedroom apartment through medical school, and that’s enough. Besides, I’m cold and hungry.”
“The Four Seasons has good heating and room service.”
“No, thanks. I’m a man of simple tastes.”
She glared at him. “When will men ever learn that size doesn’t matter?”
“It’s just that you have a lot of things in here.” Jake eyed wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling shoe boxes. “Where do you sleep?”
“There.” She pointed to a beach-colored panel upon which hung an oil painting by a lawyer-turned-artist of a half-full milk glass. “It’s called Optimism.” A small white round table piled carefully with fashion magazines stood in front of it.
“You sleep on a painting?”
“It’s a Murphy bed, dummy. The panel pulls down. The painting’s fastened to the bottom of the bed, and the bed sits on the table- it’s known as design.” She pulled down the bed, revealing a queen-sized mattress covered with a silk comforter. “Mycroft usually takes up most of the space.”
“He sleeps with you?”
“Where else?”
“Some dogs sleep on the floor, in baskets.”
“Not Mycroft.”
“What’d you do with him?”
“My mother took him back to New Jersey. She doesn’t want me walking him yet.”
He had forgotten her injured leg. “Oh, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be standing. I should be fetching for you.”
“You’re not a dog. Can I offer you something? A shower? Food?”
“Shower, then food.” Then? “Do you actually have a kitchen here?�
��
“Of course, this is my home.” She pulled the screen aside to reveal a bar sink in a small counter, with a microwave above, a picnic-sized refrigerator below, and a toaster.
“This is your kitchen? You have only a microwave?”
“With a microwave you need skill. It’s a precision instrument. Ten seconds one way or another and splat- we duplicate your explosion. Happened to my spaghetti squash last week.”
He walked past her to look in her refrigerator; then, remembering her discussion of refrigerators and medicine chests at his brownstone, turned and said, “May I?”
“Sure, Mi casa es su casa.”
“Peanut butter and champagne. That’s all you have?”
“Not just any peanut butter. It’s Skippy smooth and rosй champagne. Everything I need for a balanced meal: fruit juice with bubbles- the bubbles are so important- and protein.”
“But as a meal?”
“Try it for dinner- or are you a chunky person? You might like it instead of some two-pound bloody steak, charred on the outside by temperatures that cremate rather than merely cook the cow.”
“Your place is nice. It feels… freeing.”
“Freeing?”
“There’s order and not a lot of baggage.”
“I take it that’s supposed to be a compliment.”
“It is. But personally I’d rather be surrounded with my things. Did I tell you that whoever dies with the most stuff wins?”
“Had to get back to dead people, didn’t you?”
“Maybe I better take a shower before my luck runs out.”
While he showered, Manny located a pair of sweatpants and a large white T-shirt, once Alex’s. When she heard the water stop running, she knocked.
“Yup?”
“I have some clothes. They might not fit great, but-”
Jake opened the door, a towel wrapped around his waist. Manny took in hair, abs, muscles. Nice. Don’t stare. She handed him the clothes and shut the door quickly.
“Whose were these?” asked Jake, coming out of the bathroom. The sweatpants stopped at mid-calf.
“Old boyfriend.”
“And I was keeping back information?”
“I would have told you.” She turned on the TV.
Jake settled into one of the chairs and watched New York 1 News while she took a shower. There were shots of his town house. Francesca’s lawyers were asking for a mistrial because the attack had stirred up sympathy for the state’s witness. Garbage.
Manny came out of the bathroom wearing silver satin pajamas. She had left the top buttons open, but when she caught Jake’s stare she closed them. “Hungry?”
“Yes, but first may I use your bathroom?”
“Sure, but didn’t you just-”
“Not for that. I think I can make the vanity into a view box.”
“You’re going to work?” What is he, a neuter? A castrato? Get a life, man- only not with me.
“I need to talk to you about something before we… eat.”
Something more important than sex? “If you promise we’ll… eat afterward.” She sat down facing him.
“Promise. There’s something troublesome about the Turner bones. Skeleton Two, the humerus- it’s radioactive.”
His seriousness shook her. Desire dissolved in fear. “What does it mean?”
“Something strange happened to that person before he died. It’s a finding we might see in the victims of Hiroshima or Chernobyl, if they lived long enough. Come, I’ll show you.”
They squeezed into the bathroom. Jake switched off the overhead light, using the vanity bulbs for illumination. He opened his envelope, put the film of the humerus on the vanity table, and explained how radiation from the bone had developed the image on the film without the use of the X-ray machine. “It means that something radioactive was incorporated in this bone, and this happened before he died.” He switched pictures. “And here’s the mandible from Skeleton Four. The dental work is bizarre, amateurish. And look”- another picture-“here’s the metal plate from Skeleton Three. Lyons. I thought the initials were A.V.E., but that’s why I couldn’t locate the neurosurgeon. The middle letter’s abraded. The real initials are A.W.E.- we’ll be able to find him now!”
“Pretty amazing,” Manny said, in a flat voice. She had long ago stopped looking at the pictures but was staring at him, and all his words about X-rays and radiation and bones were feeble missiles that failed to reach their target. Now, she knew, he had caught her stare and understood it.
She was remembering something that had happened the year before, after she had hired Jake to do the second autopsy in the Terrell case. The local doctor had picked up the postmortem X-ray of her client’s chest and had clipped it onto the light box. Just as the doctor’s left hand had left the X-ray, Jake, without a word, had tugged the film off the light box, turned it around, and put it back correctly in one swift motion, simple yet powerful.
There was something in Manny’s tone of voice that made Jake look up from the film he was holding. He looked into her eyes and in the next second leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. With precision and skill, he undid the buttons of her silver pajama top- the buttons Manny had so carefully buttoned up- and started to massage her breasts.
“Wait!” Manny said, coming up for air.
“What?”
“Not what. Wait.”
“Why? We’re both grown-ups.”
The sight of the blood in the Alessis autopsy flashed in her head. “Did you wash your hands?”
“Manny!”
“Okay.”
He kissed her again. She remembered him holding Mrs. Alessis’s heart, drew away, and licked his ear, hoping the pleasure would erase her memory. Then there was the sound of the buzz saw cutting through the skull and the clouds of bone dust around his hands and face.
The movement of her hands had gone from the rpm of a propeller to the speed of a failing engine. “Manny, what’s the matter?” asked Jake.
“I’m fine. Do you get yourself checked for diseases?”
He looked down at her. She’s serious. “Everyone I autopsy is tested for AIDS.”
“That’s comforting,” she chirped, trying to restart the moment. But there was that autopsy image again, in front of her, as if she were hallucinating. “Aren’t you a little old for me?”
“You won’t be able to keep up.”
I love a challenge. “Okay,” she whispered, but he didn’t hear her.
***
She was awakened by the ringing of his cell phone. Jake leaped out of bed and grabbed it.
“Hello?… Hans… Yes, I’m fine… Now?… Brooklyn?… Can’t you tell me on the phone?… Okay, okay, I understand. The diner near the lab… Give me an hour… Bye.”
He sat next to Manny and kissed her hair, grateful to her in ways he knew he could never express. “How would you like to go to Brooklyn for breakfast?”
HANS GALT was seated at a back booth in the diner, drumming his fingers impatiently on the tabletop. He was a tiny man with fierce eyes under steel-rimmed glasses, a face like a ferret, and graying black hair. He grunted a hello to Jake and glanced suspiciously at Manny, even when Jake said he could trust her with any secret. Before he spoke, he glanced around the room; it was deserted save for a waiter who took their orders for coffee.
He leaned toward them, a finger to his lips. “Experiments,” he said.
“What?” said Manny.
“The radioactivity,” Jake said, feeling a swell of anger. “Someone was using live people?”
Hans nodded. “It’s not just the radioactivity. There’s a lot more. But let’s start with the humerus.”
Jake looked at Manny, who was sitting with her mouth slightly open, breathing rapidly, entranced by this brilliant little man who had shared secrets with him on so many cases in the past. She’s beyond beautiful. “Okay, start there.”
“You know I worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The humerus contains a higher level
of radiation than anything I saw there: strontium ninety. By the nineteen fifties we knew it was one of the most deadly carcinogens on the planet. It still is. Even a minuscule amount can cause bone cancer, leukemia, and soft-tissue malignancies called sarcomas.”
He addressed this last to Manny, professor to student. “And the humerus?” she asked.
“Contains more than a minuscule amount. It has a half-life of twenty-nine years, but it can be active in the body for many decades.”
“Terrifying,” she said. “Where would it come from?”
“Terrorists,” Jake answered, “governments-”
“And scientists who make bombs,” Hans finished. “It’s in the fallout of exploded nuclear devices.”
Manny was mystified. “But they weren’t making nuclear devices at Turner. It’s a mental hospital.”
“They weren’t making them there,” Hans said, “but maybe they were testing their effects.”
“Human guinea pigs,” she breathed.
Hans seemed almost pleased. “It gets worse. We found other things in the samples. The hair of Skeletons Two and Three contained mescaline- again, high levels- and also lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD. And in the hair of Skeleton Four, the woman, there was no LSD but there was mescaline in an amount a hundred times greater than in the other two.”
Manny had some expertise. “I know mescaline occurs naturally in the peyote plant and can be synthetically made, and its mind-altering effects can be enhanced by the use of other chemicals. But why at Turner?”
“How do you know so much about drugs?” Jake asked.
“Represented a Native American in a freedom-of-religion case. Used drugs in their rituals.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He turned to Hans. “Did you do a segmental analysis?”
“What’s that?” asked Manny.
“Body hair is a storehouse for drugs,” Jake explained. “Head hair grows about half an inch a month, so we can determine not only if there are drugs or poison present but also when and how many times the substance was taken and in what quantities.” He picked off one of her long hairs from her sweat suit and held it to the light. “With this, I could find out every drug you’ve taken in the last two years.”
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