Remains Silent mm-1

by Michael Baden

  A knife glinted in his hand. She recognized it with a spasm of terror. “I spared you on Elizabeth’s orders,” he said. “We had to kill Pete- he knew-but she thought you and Jake should live. Just so long as you dropped the investigation. A sentimental mistake. A mistake we aren’t prepared to make twice,” he hissed, stepping toward her.

  “Help!” Her shout echoed off the trays. “Help!” Jake, Rose, Kenneth, Mycroft- their faces were vivid in her brain, and Manny was empowered by their love.

  She screamed and slammed the gurney into him, and he fell to the ground backward, momentarily dazed.

  “You little bitch!” he howled, as he struggled to stand up.

  She ducked behind the first row of metal boxes, stumbling on her high heels. She took off her shoes, barely registering that they were the same ones she had worn to the Carramia trial, and held them as she edged toward the body refrigeration unit. She grabbed the handle of one of the boxes, opened it, climbed onto the tray, then pulled it closed from the inside. A corpse stared at her through decomposing eyes, and she dug her fingernails into her palms to keep from screaming.

  She could hear Markis approach. “Where are you, bitch?”

  Inside it was one big cold storage refrigerator with no barriers. She could move between the many trays in the massive refrigeration unit, impeded only by dead bodies. Maybe Markis didn’t know this. She moved to another tray, its inhabitant covered by a sheet. Markis pulled out the drawer she had just left, then another and another. “You can’t hide for long,” he muttered. She felt the anger of his frustration.

  She crawled to another tray, one level up, the hum of the refrigerator unit masking the noise. Her clothes were wet with decomposition fluids from the bodies; the stench of decaying flesh was awful.

  She could hear Markis coming closer and darted to an empty drawer on the other side of the unit. She heard another drawer open and slam shut. She moved to another tray. As the drawer was opened she was unable to see him in the gloom.

  Then his hands were around her throat- ice-cold hands, a corpse’s hands- and he was choking her. “This way is better,” he whispered. “No knife wound, no marks. I’ll put you in a body bag and you’ll be no different from any of the other bodies. You’ll be buried in potter’s field with the rest of them.”

  Markis’s fingers tightened. Dizzy, unable to breathe, she let one of her shoes drop from her hand but gripped the other with desperate strength and slammed it into the top of his skull. Metal heel met bone. He groaned and she felt his hands relax; warm blood dropped from his head across her face. He stepped back into the light and slowly crumpled, her prized stiletto sticking out of the top of his head. She gulped air, gulped again, closed her eyes.

  A sound. A gust of warm air. His breath? No, air from the outside corridor. A doctor limped to her side, two Bellevue security guards in tow. “Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes wide with anxiety. “Dr. Rosen told me to follow you, but I went to the new morgue, not this one.” She managed a smile. Wally, she realized.

  Kenneth rushed in, mouthed the words “product placement,” then fainted dead away. Then, finally, Jake was at the door, his joy fresher than the air they breathed. He took a step toward her, arms outstretched. She fended him off with a mock glare.

  “I know you’d be late for your own funeral. But couldn’t you have tried to be on time for mine?”

  “SPINOSA HAD IT RIGHT: Ambition is a species of madness,” Jake said. “In Elizabeth’s case, the madness was extreme- it led to patricide.” Proud of his erudition, Jake glanced at Manny to see if she was impressed.

  “Didn’t he say the same thing about lust?” she asked, keeping her eyes steadfastly on the road.

  One-upped. “God knows my lust is madness.”

  She gave his knee a squeeze. “Mine seems to me perfectly sane.”

  They were driving to Turner once more, Manny at the wheel, Mycroft in Jake’s lap: “For a date with Sheriff Fisk,” he had announced when he’d asked her if she wanted to come along, “only he doesn’t know we’re coming.” She had wholeheartedly agreed.

  “It was more than just ambition,” Jake went on. “She’s about the coldest woman I’ve ever met, and my guess is it stemmed from her childhood. She probably got the mothering she needed, but not the fathering.”

  “That doesn’t jibe. He was compassionate, loving, a good husband to Dolores, a marvelous friend to you, and he never forgot he was Wally’s father.”

  Jake had spent the previous night thinking it through. “I think he poured all his love onto his son, even before he traced him to the Winnicks, as compensation for his shame. Another child, even of a different sex, was tough for him. He might have been afraid of loving her too much when she was little, afraid he’d lose her like he lost Isabella and Wally, so he kept distant and she turned against him. It made it easier for her to kill him. After all, he was dying anyway. She just hurried it along.”

  They had reached the outskirts of Turner. The autumn leaves still retained their color, but today she was too engrossed in his words to notice them. “You could be right; it makes psychological sense.”

  “There’s one thing more. Let’s assume Hans Galt is right and bacteriological experiments, at least, are still going on. Elizabeth spent much of her career at the Justice Department. She could have known about the experiments or covered them up by sitting on the evidence. Pete’s discovery of the radioactive bones- her father’s discovery- might have quickly led to her.”

  She shuddered. “It’s too horrible, but possible all the same. Dr. Ewing told me he was following government orders. Maybe she was, too. You know how I am about government conspiracies.”

  “Or maybe, Manny, it was only about family. Poor Wally. He’s taken a leave of absence after learning about all of this. Gone back to Santa Fe for a while.”

  She glanced at him. His expression was the same as it had been in the autopsy room with Mrs. Alessis’s body; now she realized he could dissect facts as well as flesh. Not a geeky scientist- a sexy scientist! “Why did she ask you to clean out Pete’s study? Anybody could have done it, and look what it led to.”

  Jake had asked himself the same question. “To deflect me. I was the only person who might not have bought the cancer story, so to her, asking my help was an indication of her innocence. Remember, she didn’t know Pete had the bones in his possession.” He smiled at her, noting how relaxed she was-amazing, after all she’s been through-and felt a warrior’s urge to keep her from further harm.

  “But she did know about the bones themselves,” Manny said.

  “Yes. Pete must have told her about them when she visited him just before he died. He was going to confess to me; surely he confessed to her, his child. It was a last-minute attempt to get close to her.”

  “So she poisoned him.”

  “She knew about the experiments, about Isabella, maybe even about Wally. If any part of the story got out about her own involvement, her cover-up, her political career was finished. She was afraid it would destroy her future.” He looked at Manny again. She was frowning, but her hair- black today- shone in the morning sunshine, and he thought she’d never been so beautiful. She’d told him she’d decided on black hair to go with her black Sevens jeans and cropped-leather Gaultier jacket over a black T-shirt.

  “We may never know if she put the poison in the scotch bottle or if Markis did,” he continued. “Both Markis and Elizabeth knew that the jaundice in Pete’s eyes from the cancer would conceal the jaundice created by the poison. My guess is she did it after Markis went home. She had a lot of experience learning the ‘how-to’ of murder because of her position as a prosecutor for so many years. For sure Markis was the ‘son’ who showed up at Shady Briar, and certainly she used Markis to scare you. Among other things, you didn’t know what he looked like and you might have recognized her face, however disguised, from television.”

  “I’ll see his face in my nightmares. And Ewing’s. The press is already clammering for a new, f
ull investigation. The fact that they’ve embraced the story may cause the Senate to open new hearings. That phone call he made to Elizabeth’s private line after I left his office may just damn him. They won’t rest until Ewing does a perp walk on murder charges. And if we find other bones…

  “And I’m positive I can persuade Patrice to reopen the Lyons case. There’s nobody to threaten her now, and she deserves every penny she can get.”

  A good brain in a great body, Jake thought. “As do you,” Jake said. “You’re in desperate need of new clothing.”

  She didn’t take the bait.

  “Mycroft’s discovery of that bone in my study really caused a hulabaloo, huh?”

  “Mycroft, Daddy’s complimenting you!”

  Daddy? I’m now the dog’s daddy, Jake thought.

  “What’ll happen to Markis when he gets unhandcuffed from that hospital bed- and to Elizabeth?”

  “You’re the lawyer; you tell me.”

  “With our testimony, Markis will be in the pen for the bombing and stabbing for years. Elizabeth is another story. It’ll be damn hard to prove she’s guilty of murder unless Markis dimes her out. So far, he’s not talking or can’t talk. Her political career’s finished, of course, but full justice- well, we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Don’t you want to go after her? After all, you’re well known in New Jersey now because of the Carramia case; any judge will be glad to hear you out again.”

  “I lost that case, you turncoat!”

  He grinned. “I know. But this time I’ll be your star witness.”

  ***

  Manny parked at the mall site. State troopers were combing through the area while several people, including Ms. Crespy, stood to the side, watching. “They’ll use ground-penetrating radar to find the other victims,” Jake said. “Needless to say, the mall’s been postponed indefinitely.” He helped Manny out of the car. “See that fat fellow with the badge and the steam coming out of his ears? That’s Sheriff Fisk. Payoff Fisk, I like to call him.” He waved. “Sheriff!”

  Fisk approached, a Rottweiler who’d gone without his breakfast. “Rosen,” he snarled. “You have some gall, being here.”

  “And this woman with equal gall is Ms. Manfreda, my trusty associate. She’s a trial attorney, so watch what you say. She gets real mean when provoked.”

  Manny studied the nails on her left hand. “Charmed.”

  “Ms. Manfreda and I are upset,” Jake said. “Last time we were in Turner, you were downright ungracious. Knew we were there before I called you- probably the night watchman saw us at the hospital and alerted you. You refused to see us or even listen to what I had to say. Demanded we get out of town. But we’re forgiving folk.” He marched to within a foot of Fisk and stared into his eyes. “You can stay in Turner; it’s welcome to you. And you won’t go to jail like you should. But you’ll resign as sheriff as of this instant, you’ll sever all ties with Reynolds Construction and contribute to Baxter Community Hospital whatever moneys you accrued during that relationship, and you’ll issue a public apology to the citizens you used to serve.” He took Manny’s arm. “Come, Ms. Manfreda. You’re averse to maggots, I know, and I don’t want you exposed any more than necessary.” He turned back to Fisk. “I have complete documentation on all your dealings with Reynolds. So not a peep out of you. We’re straight, right? We understand each other, don’t we, Fisk?”

  If Fisk were a balloon, all the air would go out of him. But he’s just as full of himself as ever. He staggered off, muttering, to join the others at the edge of the field.

  “You were magnificent,” Manny told Jake. “It was the neatest evisceration I’ve seen since we shared that autopsy room.”

  Marge Crespy, noticing them, blew them a kiss. A shout arose from the far side of the field, and a trooper ran toward them. “I found something!”

  Jake and Manny hurried over. It was a bone. “A tibia,” Jake breathed. “And this one’s from a different part of the field.” He gazed in wonder at the dirt-covered object in the trooper’s hand. “There are other bodies, Manny, and we’re going to find them. Every family has the right to know what happened to their loved one.”

  She remembered his enthusiasm the first time she saw him, jumping from the helicopter to look at Terrell’s body. The same intensity was in him now, electric and dynamic and- there was no other way to describe this dear cutter-up of corpses- full of life.

  “If by we you mean you, me, and Mycroft, you’re right,” she promised. “Even if it takes a lifetime.”

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