Skeleton Justice

by Michael Baden

  Jake’s satisfied smile faded a bit. “There must be a hundred million promotional mugs distributed in this country every year. You’re not going to tell me you know how this one once got into the hands of President Nixon?”

  Ridley peered at Jake over wire glasses perched on his pointy nose. “Uhm … actually, yes.”

  Jake slapped his desk. “Ridley, don’t take this the wrong way. But I love you.”

  Ridley coughed. “Yes, er, as I was saying, we analyzed the chemical makeup of the glaze, which allowed us to date the mug to a ten-year period when Cayo, the manufacturer, was using this particular formulation. This time frame, 1975 to 1985, corresponds to a period after Nixon’s resignation but before his health began to fail, when he was actively accepting speaking engagements. We reviewed the distributor’s sales records for this period and found the customer who ordered these mugs: the Scanlon Center on Foreign Relations, a right-wing think tank on foreign affairs. We believe that Nixon delivered an address there in 1977.”

  “Amazing work, Ridley. So you’re saying Nixon drank from this mug during his speech more than thirty years ago, and the prints are still there?”

  “Oh yes, glazed porcelain is a perfect medium for accepting fingerprints. As long as the mug was never wiped clean or ex posed to moisture or extreme heat, the prints would last. Col lectors of presidential memorabilia usually handle this stuff more carefully than cops handle crucial evidence at a murder scene. Don’t touch it; keep the items in brown paper bags. Ya know, all the stuff we teach that’s generally ignored.”

  “Were there any other prints on the mug?” Jake asked.

  “None. I’d say that rules out the possibility that the former president was in the habit of saving giveaway mugs and taking them home to his wife to use at breakfast.”

  “So, we have to assume that someone who attended this speech wanted a souvenir. Got a thrill from possessing a mug that Richard Nixon had drunk from.” Jake pursed his lips. “Doesn’t appeal to me, but I guess it falls into the same category as keeping the sweat-soaked shirt that a rock star throws into the crowd.”

  Jake picked up a squishy rubber brain given to him by a salesman at the annual forensic science conference and started to squeeze it. “Amazing work, Ridley. You’ve tracked that mug to the one day in eighty-some years of the president’s life when it could have picked up those fingerprints. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to bring us any closer to figuring out how or why it got into Amanda Hogaarth’s apartment. Anyone in the lecture hall that day could have taken it.” He flung the brain back onto the desk, where it bounced over an autopsy report. “Do you know how many people attended his speech?”

  “Apparently, it was by invitation only. One hundred and twenty academics, journalists, and government policy wonks.” Ridley pulled two typed sheets from his folder and handed them to Jake. “The Scanlon Center very generously shared the attendee list with me. You gotta love interns.”

  “Excellent! You’ve shared this with Detective Pasquarelli?”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t seem quite as excited by it as you.”

  Jake gripped the papers. “I think it’s significant. Someone on this list may have killed Amanda Hogaarth.”

  Ridley unfolded himself from the chair. “I leave it to you and the detective to figure out who.” He raised his hand in a farewell salute. “Happy to be of service.”

  “Thanks, Ridley.” He watched as the criminalist looked for area on the cluttered floor to place his size-sixteen feet. “Say, one more thing. Do you know the topic of Nixon’s speech?”

  “Tactics to destabilize leftist opposition in Argentina.”

  “Hello?” Manny answered her phone as she pulled her Porsche Cabriolet into traffic, ready to drive downtown to her office.

  “Manny, it’s Sam. I just set up a meeting with Deanie Slade, the girl who connected me with Boo Hravek. She’s a regular at Club Epoch, where Paco and Travis partied before the bombing. She wants me to meet her there. I think you might want to hear what she has to say.”

  “When? Tonight?”

  “No, right now. I’m about to get on the PATH train to Hobo-ken. Meet me there.”

  Manny checked her watch. “Isn’t ten a.m. a little early for clubbing?”

  “She said the side door would be open. She must know the staff. It’s Franklin Street. I’ll see you there at eleven.”

  Deciding that the Lincoln Tunnel would be suicide at this time of day, Manny headed uptown, cruising across the GW Bridge to make her way south to Hoboken on the Jersey side of the Hudson.

  The sky was a rare blue, marred by neither clouds nor haze, and Manny took her eyes off the road ahead a few times to steal glimpses of the city skyline out the driver’s side window. Impossible to worry on a day like today!

  She had been too busy and preoccupied to check in with Sam on the Boo Hravek angle of the case, but clearly he’d been working on it. Maybe this was the missing piece that would make the other disjointed pieces of the puzzle form into a recognizable picture. Trust Sam to produce it.

  Manny stopped at a traffic light. She hadn’t driven south along the river from Fort Lee in a long time. Traffic was worse than she remembered. Luxury condominiums with river views were sprouting up everywhere, replacing the old warehouses and factories that used to jam the industrial waterfront. But a few old relics still remained, waiting for developers to pounce.

  Manny glanced at her watch. She thought she would have been in Hoboken by now, but she was still one town away, in West New York. Her view of the river appeared and disappeared as she wound through the town’s congested streets. West New York was what Hoboken had been twenty years ago—just on the cusp of trendy, still loaded with plenty of grit. A shadow fell over the car, cast by a large abandoned building with the ghostly letters FIREPROOF APPAREL still visible on the side. That would probably be the next factory to be converted into loft apartments. She could get a place five times the size of her Manhattan studio for the same price.

  Finally, Manny saw a WELCOME TO HOBOKEN sign. Club Epoch was located close by, on the northern edge of town, and Manny pulled into a parking spot just as the clock in her car hit 11:00. She got out and looked around for Sam. The street was deserted. She dialed Sam’s phone, which rolled immediately to voice mail.

  The only activity on the street centered on a minimart on the corner. Maybe someone in there had noticed Sam out on the sidewalk in front of the club. The smell of scorched coffee kept hot 24/7 clobbered Manny as soon as she entered. The bleached blonde behind the counter labored over the lottery ticket machine while two shabbily dressed men waited impatiently to lose their money. No use trying to get in the middle of that transaction even to ask a simple question. Manny occupied herself by reading the headlines of the newspapers arrayed in front of the counter. From the New York Times’s discreet POLICE

  PROBE LATEST TWIST IN VAMPIRE CASE to the New York Post’s VAMP

  TO PREP: COME INTO MY LAIR, all three New York papers and the Newark Star-Ledger featured the Vampire case on the front page.

  A large woman with a head full of braids grabbed the Post and struck up a conversation. “Uhm, uhm,” she said. “That’s one nasty dude. Goin’ round stickin’ needles in people.” She closed her eyes and shuddered.

  Manny nodded vaguely, preoccupied with getting the clerk’s attention so she could ask if she’d seen Sam strolling the area or entering the club.

  “Why can’t the cops catch him?” the lady continued. “All that DNA stuff they got nowadays still don’t do them no good. ’Member the Son of Sam? They caught that guy ’cause of a parking ticket. I bet this be the same.”

  Another man joined the line and the conversation, relieving Manny of the obligation to chat. “They better catch him soon, because this shit is freakin’ me out. Man, there’s nothing I hate worse than needles. Guns I can deal with, but not this.”

  Manny glanced up. The man who spoke had hands the size of grizzly paws and a sumo-wrestler-thick neck. Yet she co
uld see from the revulsion on his face that the Vampire really did scare him.

  “And what about the guy he killed with the rat bites,” the first woman reminded the man.

  “Ah, Jesus, don’t even go there! What they really oughta do to catch him is—”

  The two of them continued in a weird one-upmanship of fear and advice. Manny eavesdropped, amazed by their extensive knowledge of the case. She was sure if she asked either of them to name their congressman or to say what was going on between the Israelis and the Palestinians at the moment, they’d be flummoxed, but on the subject of the Vampire, they were experts. The total media saturation had produced millions of people who saw themselves as prospective victims, prospective detectives, or both.

  Finally, Manny reached the head of the line and plunked a pack of gum on the counter. “Have you seen a tall, thin man with a ponytail in the area around here in the past half hour? He may have been headed to Club Epoch,” she said to the clerk as she paid.

  The woman shook her head. “It’s been quiet all morning, till now.”

  Manny went back outside and looked across the street at the warehouse-shaped building painted black, with a large silver E on the door. That had to be it. She wrinkled her nose—not her idea of a hot nightspot. Was Deanie waiting all alone in there? Manny’s sunshine-induced optimism began to ebb away. Why had Deanie suddenly called Sam? She had to realize he was a suspect in Boo’s murder. Was this some kind of setup?

  She dialed Sam again, and again got voice mail. Then she dialed Jake. “I think Sam’s in some kind of trouble,” Manny said, not bothering with a greeting. “I’m not sure what to do.”

  Quickly, Manny explained the situation.

  “I’ll be right there,” Jake said. “Do not go into that place alone, understand me?”

  “I won’t. Not after yesterday. But, Jake, it’ll take you over an hour to get across town and over to Hoboken.”

  “You’re in luck. I’m not in my office. I got called to a suspicious death on Forty-fourth and Ninth. I just finished up, and there’s a department car here.”

  “Right around the corner from the Lincoln Tunnel. There is a God!”

  “How many laws did you break to get here so fast?” Manny asked as Jake pulled up twenty minutes later.

  “I had to pass on the right, but that was only because I got stuck behind some guy who kept stopping at yellow lights. Iowa plates. Guess he didn’t know that in a blue state, yellow means accelerate.”

  “The Turnpike Authority ought to post those rules.” Manny took Jake’s elbow and guided him to the right. “See that black warehouse? That’s Club E. Sam said Deanie called him this morning, sounding very nervous. Told him she had some information on what went down with Boo, but she didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.”

  “Any clue why she had a sudden change of heart?” Jake asked.

  Manny shook her head. “That’s what’s worrying me. What if it’s a trap?”

  “You stay here and I’ll go in and check it out,” Jake said.

  “No way!”

  “Manny, it’s safer that way. If I don’t come out, you can call the police.”

  “What if it’s the police who’ve set the trap? They’re looking for Boo’s killer. There could be incriminating evidence in there waiting for you. If the police happen to show up two minutes after you get in there, you’ll need a witness to corroborate your story.”

  Jake glared at her for a moment, then turned to cross the street. “Come on, Manny. Let’s get this over with.”

  Jake tugged on the unmarked black door on the side of the building. It opened, releasing a gust of cold, rancid air. The air-conditioning kept the temperature low, but it didn’t do much to eradicate the aftermath of Club E’s nightly hordes of sweating, drink-spilling, puking customers.

  Jake gestured Manny to the side and peered into the dimly lighted interior. A long hallway, illuminated only by the emergency exit sign, extended to the right. Looking straight ahead, he could see the cavernous dance floor and the outline of one of the three long bars. From his breast pocket Jake pulled a small, bright flashlight. Its beam extended only a few feet, but it was better than walking into the abyss.

  “Deanie! It’s Sam Rosen,” said Jake, lying.

  Jake and Manny stood on the threshold, listening.

  “I think I heard something,” Manny said. “A voice, but I couldn’t make out words.”

  Jake frowned. “Your hearing must be keener than mine. What direction?”

  “Down the hall, I think.”

  Just inside the door, Jake spotted a heavy stanchion, which he assumed the bouncers must use to prop this door open when the club got too crowded. He dragged it out to hold the door wide open, admitting as much of the day’s brilliant sunshine as possible.

  “You sure you don’t want to wait here?” Jake asked.

  “Hell no! I go where you go.” Manny followed Jake through the door and down the hall.

  “Deanie?” Jake shouted again.

  This time, they both heard it. A whimper or moan, unmistakably coming from one of the rooms off the hall.

  Jake quickened his pace.

  “Be careful,” Manny warned. “It could still be a trap. Don’t charge through any doors.”

  Jake stopped outside a door marked OFFICE. “Deanie? Are you in there?”

  The faint muffled sound came again. “I think it’s that door.” Manny pointed to the next door on the hallway.

  Jake tried the door, but the knob didn’t turn. Inside, the moans increased.

  “I don’t like this.” Manny reached inside her bag. “Let’s call the police.”

  Jake pulled the phone from her hand and dropped it back into the bag. “And how would we explain our presence here? We’d have to tell them about the connection to Sam. We either open this door ourselves and talk to Deanie or leave now and call for help anonymously.”

  Manny bit her lip. “That door looks pretty solid. The lock’s a Yale. Any bright ideas?”

  Jake looked around. A large fire extinguisher hung on the wall a few steps farther down the hall. “I could use that as a battering ram.” He went to unhook it.

  Manny followed, whispering, “But, Jake, what if she’s not alone in there? You’ll go sailing in, unprotected.”

  His eyes met hers. He was surprised, and touched, by the concern he saw there. Jake knew she was right, but he chose not to dwell on the risks. If his brother was in trouble, he was going in. Jake squeezed Manny’s hand. “You be my backup.”

  Then he turned, took three running steps, and crashed through the door.

  Jake moved so quickly, Manny didn’t have time to be terrified. The door splintering open made a tremendous noise, drowning out any other sound from within the room. Manny stepped up to the opening, clutching the frame with her trembling hand.

  Jake jumped up from the floor. Shadowy figures surrounded him. The windowless room seemed to extend endlessly. From the pitch-black interior, the moans had changed to high-pitched, muffled squeals. Manny searched by the door frame for a light switch.

  The room sprang to life—a storeroom stacked high with cases of paper towels, cleaning supplies, and glassware. Random paths led between the pillars, like a Halloween corn maze. Except at the center, there wasn’t a dummy emitting a sound track of scary sounds; there was a real person, terrified and in pain.

  Jake headed into the maze, pursuing the sound. Manny followed. They dodged left past a column of boxes, then circled around some stacked bar stools. The sound grew louder now, and shriller. The terror in it was so intense, it seemed inhuman. Manny flashed back on her eight-year-old self hearing the squeals of a baby rabbit being carried off by the neighborhood tomcat. She’d been powerless to help then, but she wasn’t now.

  “Deanie, it’s okay. We’re coming to help you,” she shouted. All thoughts of a trap had dissolved, replaced by determination to find a way through the room’s piles of junk and rescue this poor girl.

  Jake clipped
a pyramid of bathroom tissue with his shoulder, toppling it. Manny stared at the resulting roadblock. There was no going over it; she’d have to go around it. Up ahead, Jake was moving forward on the main path. Manny chose a tributary that she hoped would lead her back to him and squeezed through.

  A hand clapped down on her shoulder.

  Manny’s scream ricocheted through the building.

  “Calm down!”

  “Sam! Where did you come from?”

  “The PATH train stalled in the tunnel under the river. I’ve been stuck for over an hour. No cell service, so I couldn’t even call you. When I got here, I saw the outer door propped open and this one broken down. How did you get in?”

  “With me.” Jake’s voice floated over to them. “Now stop jabbering and come help me.”

  Sam and Manny heard the sound of something very heavy being dragged across the floor, then another high-pitched squeal. They scrambled toward it.

  “Oh my God.” Jake’s voice, always so calm and clinical, carried a real edge of distress.

  “Jake? Jake?” Manny flung aside a rolling coatrack. “What is it? Are you all right? Is Deanie okay?”

  Manny saw an old video game machine ahead. She realized this must be what Jake had pushed to make a small pass-through on the right. She wedged herself through the opening, with Sam right behind.

  Deanie Slade sat precariously planted on a bar stool that had been lashed to a post, her knees and ankles bent cruelly backward and tied behind her and to the bar stool in an excruciating contortion. Spiked glass shards from a broken beer bottle were inserted under the ropes. With her arms and legs immobilized, any movement to try to undo the restraints caused pain and created the risk of dangerous cuts. It took extraordinary strength and concentration for her to remain still. Even the floor surrounding the stool had been liberally sprinkled with sharp shards of broken glassware. Deanie’s eyes and mouth were bound shut with duct tape, but she seemed well aware of what lay beneath her. When Jake kicked some of the glass away so he could kneel beside her, she moaned and whimpered at the sound.