Skeleton Justice

by Michael Baden

  “And you never saw these guys before you met them at the club?”

  Travis shook his head.

  “What were their names?”

  Travis shrugged. “One was named Jack, and there was one they all called Boo. And Gordie and Zeke, or Deke or Freak or something. It was so loud in there, I couldn’t hear what they were saying.”

  “And they came down to the police station, too?”

  “Paco and I got into one police car.” Travis twisted the edge of his cuff as he spoke. “The other guys were standing out on the sidewalk, talking to the cops. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, except they kept shaking their heads. And finally they all showed the cops their driver’s licenses and the cops wrote stuff down, and then they let them go.”

  Manny rubbed her temples. Clearly, “Freak” and “Boo” knew a bit more about dealing with law enforcement than this little rabbit. The older guys had simply declined to make the trip to the station, and the cops, not having enough to arrest them, had let them go after checking their IDs. God only knew if the IDs were real.

  “And what about Paco?”

  “They put us in separate rooms when we got here, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  “How much did you tell the cops once you got here?”

  “Just what I told you. That Paco and I were supposed to be sleeping over at his house but came over to Hoboken to check out this club and met those guys. One of the guys dropped something by the mailbox; then we all ran. That’s it.”

  “Which guy dropped something?”

  “The guy whose name I didn’t catch. Zeke … whatever.”

  Travis sounded impatient. Manny guessed he was tired of telling his story. Well, too damn bad. He’d tell it until she understood every detail. No wonder the cops were holding on to him. This was the oldest cover-up in the book—a version of the old “The drugs aren’t mine; I was holding them for a friend” routine.

  “There’s nothing else? You stuck to this story?”

  Travis bristled. “It’s not a story; it’s the truth!” Then he glanced over his shoulder at the guard. “I thought they were going to let me go, until they opened my backpack and found the book.”

  “What book?”

  “A book on Islam that I’m reading for my comparative religion class. That’s when they really started coming down on me. How did I know how to build a bomb? Was this the first one I’d ever set off? They wouldn’t let up. That’s when they read me that Miranda thing, just like on TV That’s when I knew I had to call my mom. Those cops think I’m some kind of terrorist, don’t they?”

  Manny didn’t want to tell Travis what the newspapers were calling him. She honed in on something Travis had said earlier. This could be her salvation. “You said they searched your backpack. Did they do that without your consent?”

  “No. They asked permission and I said okay. I figured they were looking for drugs and I knew I was clean. I forgot all about the book being in there.”

  Shit! So far the cops had done everything by the book. This case was looking worse and worse. But she plastered a smile on her face for her client’s sake. “Okay, Travis. That’s all for now. In a little while, I should have you out of here.”

  “You’ll explain to them that this is all a mistake?”

  “I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that. But we’ll try to get you out on bail.” Manny watched Travis shuffle forlornly to the door. He turned once to look at her; then he was gone.

  Maureen Heaton sat in the waiting room, her back pressed against the pea green plastic chair, her fingers picking at a frayed thread on her canvas purse. Manny greeted her, careful to banish all signs of worry from her face. “All right, ma’am, first things first. He was with a group of boys who may have done something. But he says he is innocent, and I believe him. Let’s arrange to get Travis out of here. Then we’ll work on our strategy for his defense.”

  Mrs. Heaton twisted her dulled wedding band on her right ring finger continuously, as if trying to conjure up some genie who would make this nightmare go away. “Defense! But he’s innocent. It’s obvious those other boys set the bomb.”

  “Yes, but the police don’t have those other boys; they have Travis. And a suspect in custody is worth four on the streets. We may have to hire our own investigator to track them down.”

  “Investigator? I’m a widow; I work two jobs. Where do you think I’m going to get all this money?” Mrs. Heaton groped in her purse for a tissue. Manny could see billable hours evaporating before her eyes. She patted Mrs. Heaton on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I know someone with some time on his hands who may be able to help us.” This was the perfect chore for Sam, Jake’s perpetually unemployed brother.

  Mrs. Heaton gazed at her with brown eyes full of pathetic hope and Manny could feel the burden of worry shift from the mother’s shoulders to her own. She hoped she was strong enough to carry the load.

  “We’re opposing bail.” Lisnek leaned back in his desk chair, straining the blue oxford cloth of his shirt over his belly. “We want him in custody until his trial.”

  Manny was thunderstruck. “The kid’s never been in trouble before. He’s from a hardworking family with limited financial resources. He poses no flight risk. Why would you oppose bail?”

  “We suspect he’s part of a larger conspiracy. We found this in his backpack.” Lisnek held up a dog-eared paperback book—Understanding the Koran by Imam Abu Rezi.

  “Required reading for the comparative religion class he’s taking at Monet,” Manny explained.

  Lisnek shrugged. “Students have been known to be unduly influenced by their subject matter. The police just called with the results of their search of Travis’s home. They found a whole shelf of books on Muslim theology, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, et cetera. I rather doubt that prep schools delve into the topic that deeply.”

  Manny jumped up. “That’s absurd. Even in these crazy times, no judge in the District of New Jersey is going to deny bail based solely on the suspect’s reading material.” But even as she said those words aloud, she felt a worm of doubt wiggling within. Why would a Christian teenager possess so many books on Islam? Did Travis have some political agenda he wasn’t revealing to her or to his mother?

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Ms. Manfreda. I never said that’s all we had. Mr. Heaton has been linked to the crime with a piece of solid forensic evidence. A bite mark in an apple.”

  “A bite mark in an apple proves my client is a terrorist? Was it a McIntosh or a Red Delicious? Am I missing something here?”

  “We have an eyewitness, Mr. Park Sung Ho, counterman at the Happy Garden all-night market on Washington Street. Mr. Heaton and his friends went in and bought sodas and snacks. They gave Mr. Park a hard time, tossing money back and forth, trying to confuse him with the change. He watched them carefully as they left and saw Mr. Heaton take an apple from a display by the door. By the time Mr. Park got out from behind the counter to chase them, the boys were down at the corner by the mailbox. He saw the one with the apple take a bite out of it and toss it in the gutter. Then the kid crouched down, placed something under the mailbox, and they all ran. A few seconds later, the mailbox blew up.”

  Manny kept her face impassive, but inside she was seething. Travis had conveniently forgotten to mention this forbidden fruit. “And you recovered the apple.”

  “We did. And we intend to prove it has Mr. Heaton’s bite mark in it.”

  Manny was puzzled. Why would they be focusing on the bite pattern? Anything that a person had bitten into would retain traces of his saliva, which could be tested for DNA. A DNA match was infallible, while the forensics of bite comparisons was wildly speculative. She began to feel a flicker of hope.

  “You’re testing the apple for my client’s DNA, of course?”

  Lisnek looked down at his scuffed penny loafers. “Uh … it’s been sent out.”

  Manny detected something squirrelly in his response. They’d probably mishandled the
evidence. She didn’t let the smile she felt inside touch her lips. This chump had nothing, and he knew it.

  Manny forced Lisnek to meet her gaze and held it for a long moment. Lisnek was the first to look away.

  As she left the U.S. attorney’s office, Manny turned to ask one more question. “So where is the other kid you brought in? Who’s representing him?”

  “Paco Sandoval has been released.”

  “Released? How come he gets out and my client’s still here?”

  “Because Paco Sandoval is the son of Enrique Sandoval, ambassador to the UN for Argentina. He has diplomatic immunity.”

  “Shall we begin?”

  Jake Rosen; Todd Galvin; their diener, a Croatian émigré named Dragon; and Detective Pasquarelli stood around the autopsy table at 8:01 a.m. Before them lay the fully clothed body of Amanda Hogaarth.

  Todd and Jake performed the first routine tasks: Using an alternate light source, they searched for traces of microscopic evidence on Amanda Hogaarth’s clothing. Finding nothing, they photographed her in her clothing, front and back. Jake then carefully removed each of the garments and photographed them completely, even inside out.

  Even without her tweed skirt and sensible undergarments, Ms. Hogaarth managed to project an air of quiet dignity. Jake was sure this woman would have been very surprised to know she had ended up here. The other seven autopsy tables held drunks and drug addicts and street punks. They had led hard, violent lives, so it was no surprise that they had met hard, violent ends. Amanda Hogaarth seemed to have led a blameless, soft, rather dull life. Yet she, too, had wound up under the probing tools of the medical examiner.

  Then Jake stepped up to examine the victim’s skin closely. Her body was covered with the fine wrinkles, freckles, and age spots that plagued the fair-skinned, but there were no wounds. On her left wrist, Jake noted four evenly spaced bruises. He pointed them out to Todd and Pasquarelli. “The attacker grabbed her here and held her arm steady while he drew the blood.” Jake’s gaze traveled up the woman’s arm until he found the tiny hole left by the assailant’s needle. He instructed Dragon to photograph both areas, then turned the victim’s hands over and looked at the palms. On each palm were four half-moon impressions. Amanda Hogaarth had clenched her hands so tightly that her own fingernails had pierced her skin.

  Gently, Jake opened the victim’s mouth. Dragon photographed the abrasions he and Todd had noted the night before at the corners of her mouth. Using a magnifying glass, Jake searched for fibers there, but he found none, supporting his hypothesis that nylon stockings had been used for the gag. Sometimes, gagged victims choked on their own vomit, but that was not the cause of death here. Amanda Hogaarth’s throat and windpipe were clear.

  After removing her top denture, Jake looked at the fillings in her bottom teeth. “You don’t see that type of dental work here. I don’t think this work was done by an American dentist.”

  The neck and torso revealed nothing unusual, but the thighs, large, cushioned with a thick layer of adipose tissue, showed two distinct bruises above the knees. “Looks like he knelt on her to hold her down,” Todd commented.

  “Correct.” Jake directed a light to shine on Ms. Hogaarth’s vulva area. “Let’s look for signs of sexual attack.”

  “Why do that, Doc? She was dressed when the detective here found her.” Todd was quizzical.

  “Because many times crime scenes are staged. Plus, if you look at her panties under a light source, there appears to be a slight stain … maybe blood.”

  “As I thought, there are definite signs of violent penetration. Tears in the vagina but no semen present.”

  “He wore a condom?” Todd asked.

  “No, he didn’t rape her. She was violated by a hard object shoved into her vagina. Look at this.” Jake stepped aside so that Todd and the detective could get a closer look.

  The younger doctor’s brow furrowed. “What…”

  “See the labia? That tissue is burned. The margins of the burned area look like electrical burns. Do a frozen section,” Jake told Todd. “We’ll verify it under the microscope.”

  Pasquarelli recoiled. Dragon muttered something. It wasn’t necessary to speak Croatian to catch his meaning.

  “Would that be enough to kill her?” the detective asked. “Did she die of electrocution?”

  “No, if she’d been electrocuted, we’d see an exit burn somewhere else on her body. It’s time to look inside.” They worked with quiet efficiency, making a Y-shaped incision from each shoulder to the lower part of the breastbone, then down to the pubic bones. In one smooth movement that produced a faint zipping sound, Jake pulled the skin back from the rib cage, exposing the ribs and the abdominal organs.

  Pasquarelli winced and looked away.

  “Come on, Detective.” Jake elbowed the cop. “You must’ve seen that procedure scores of times.”

  “Seen it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. Some cops barf every time they have to do this. Me, I got a cast-iron stomach. What bothers me more than the blood and the smell are the sounds, especially when you guys fire up that saw.” The detective reached into his pocket and pulled out two tiny earplugs. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  Jake used the saw to cut through the ribs near the breastbone and removed the breastplate, exposing the heart and lungs. “The heart weighs five hundred and fifty grams, twice as big as it should be,” Jake commented as he worked. “There’s narrowing of the arteries, and an enlarged left ventricle, indicative of high blood pressure. Both lungs are filled with frothy fluid.”

  Jake straightened. “Cause of death: hypertensive and arteriosclerotic heart disease with congestive heart failure, along with a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, while being held down.”

  “English, please,” Pasquarelli requested.

  “Heart failure induced by torture.”

  Jake stepped through the door of his town house and slid on a pile of mail that had been shoved through the slot onto the parquet floor hours earlier. Scooping it up, he tossed it on a table so full of unopened bills and unanswered invitations that its fine Empire lines were utterly obscured.

  When he had bought this dilapidated brownstone in the mid-eighties, the bus ride from his office at Thirtieth Street to his home north of Ninety-sixth Street had been an exercise in urban survival. He had needed to stay constantly alert to sidestep roving packs of teenagers who hopped on the bus looking for pockets to pick, staggering panhandlers shaking their paper cups of change under the noses of riders, and assorted drunks and crazies. Reading, or even daydreaming, was done at your peril. These days, the ride on the clean air-conditioned bus was so uneventful, you could go into a Zen-induced trance and still emerge unscathed at your stop. And his neighborhood, once populated by dealers and pimps, had sprouted a Starbucks and a Gap—not necessarily improvements, in his view.

  All in all, coming home was less stressful but also less exciting than it used to be. And, since his divorce nearly two years ago, less organized. Still, the five-story house, packed with forensic specimens, haphazardly furnished, partially remodeled, was his personal sanctuary. The place where he could go to lick his wounds and gather strength for another round of battle. And today, after the disturbing evidence gathered at the Hogaarth autopsy, and the strain of explaining to Pederson why it still hadn’t brought them any closer to catching the Vampire, Jake deeply craved the restorative peace of his home.

  “Your girlfriend called me today.”

  The voice—deep, amused, irreverent—emerged from somewhere in the shadowy front parlor.

  “Why are you sitting there in the dark? And she’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Companion, lover, significant other—what’s the politically correct term you prefer?”

  What was Manny to him? At the moment, pain in the ass or thorn in the side seemed the most fitting description. Jake walked toward the sound of his brother Sam’s voice, only to crash into a randomly placed display case.

  “Ow! Would you turn on the damn lights!” />
  Sam reached out a long arm and flicked on a lamp, revealing himself, prematurely gray ponytail and all, sprawled on a wing chair and ottoman, and the astonishing clutter of Jake’s living room.

  “I find this room more habitable when it’s only illuminated by that neon sign across the street,” Sam said.

  “No one asked you to inhabit it.” Jake found his brother’s tendency of popping in unannounced for extended stays both infuriating and entertaining, especially since he had his own rent-stabilized apartment in Greenwich Village. Today, infuriating had the upper hand.

  “Come, come, big brother. No need to snap at me just because you’re in the doghouse with Manny.”

  Heading for the chair across from Sam, Jake moved a box of disarticulated bear bones that some less experienced ME had sent him, thinking they were human, and sat down. “She called you to complain about me?” He could feel his heart rate rising. How juvenile!

  “No, she called to offer me a job, and in the course of describing said job, she—quite inadvertently, I’m sure—revealed her frustration with you.”

  Jake looked at his younger brother’s teasing grin and felt the same overwhelming need to jump on top of him and twist his arm that he had felt when they were twelve and five, respectively. “A job? What kind of job—bag carrier for one of her shoe-shopping swings through Bloomies?”

  “You underestimate me, bro. I’m temporarily employed by her as a trial-prep resource—doing a little investigation work on a case. Tracking down four kids who were in the company of the Preppy Terrorists and who have since vanished.”

  “Last time I checked, you weren’t licensed for that.”

  Sam brushed off this concern as if it were one of the cobwebs hanging off the replica of the Maltese falcon in the corner. “Anyone can ask a few discreet questions. I’m just assisting Manny with her inquiries, so to speak.” Sam sat up straight, took his feet off the ottoman, and leaned forward to look his brother in the eye. “I hear you think she’s not up to handling this case.”