Skeleton Justice (15 page)

“Was the bag ever out of your sight yesterday?” Jake asked.

Manny paused to think. “It was beside me in the booth at the diner. I never set it down while I was in the apartment in Brooklyn. Then I talked to all those cops and lawyers and FBI agents.” Manny twirled her hair around her fingers. “I don’t think it was ever away from me, but there were times it was hooked on the back of my chair, or lying under the table. Someone could have slipped the letter out then.”

“But who?” Jake protested. “I thought you left the part about the letter out of the story you told the cops and the feds. No one but Paco knew you had it.”

Manny nodded slowly, trying to process the implications. “I intentionally kept the part about the letter to myself. I knew if I gave it up to them, I’d never find out what it said. I figured after I read it, I could always take it back to them if I thought it contained information I’d get in trouble for withholding. Say I forgot about it in all the excitement.”

She locked eyes with Jake. “So that means whoever stole it from my bag was tipped off by Paco.”

“That leaves out the authorities,” Jake said.

“Does it?”

Jake developed a sudden interest in loading the dishwasher, something he never saw the need for until every dish in the house was dirty. Manny knew he was using the time to form a calm response. Always the scientist, always in control of himself.

“Jake, think about it.” Manny stood up and started firing items back into her purse. “There’s something very fishy about the way Paco has drawn Travis into his circle. And the government’s hands-off attitude toward the Sandovals is stranger still. How do we know the Sandovals aren’t cooperating with the FBI in some sort of terrorism sting?”

Jake slowly closed the dishwasher. “What empirical evidence do you have?”

“I just told you.”

“You take two unexplained phenomena, put them together, and come up with a conspiracy. As a scientist, I look for the most likely explanation first. After that’s been eliminated—and only after it’s eliminated—I move on to consider the more remote possibilities. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, not zebras,” Manny said, finishing the old adage. “Your problem is, you automatically trust authority unless you see overwhelming evidence that the system isn’t working. I automatically question authority, unless the person wielding it has proven to me that he’s above reproach. And frankly, federal prosecutor Brian Lisnek, Ambassador Sandoval, and the merry crew of FBI agents questioning me last night have not cleared the bar.”

Sam had been watching the exchange like a fan with center court seats at the U.S. Open. Now he intervened before his brother could respond. “I don’t think Manny’s totally out in left field. But,
but
”—Sam held up his hand for silence as Jake opened his mouth to protest—“you can’t fault Jake’s methodology. Assume the most plausible explanation until it’s proven wrong.

“So, Manny,” Sam continued. “Let’s run through the possibilities of when the letter could have been lifted from your purse. Paco knew you’d head for Rosamond Street, but he couldn’t know who you’d encounter there. You’re sure you initiated the contact with the neighbor and the super?”

“Of course I’m sure. And I wasn’t close to anyone else that whole time … except—” She broke off, thinking about the way she had entered the apartment building.

“Except what?”

“When I got there, before I could ring the bell, a man came out of the building and held the door open for me. At the time, I thought he was just a friendly neighbor, but maybe he’d been waiting for me.”

“And you think he could’ve reached into your bag and taken the letter in the few seconds that you walked past him through the door?” Sam rose and refilled his coffee cup. “If they really wanted to get the letter back, it would be too risky to put all their hope on that brief encounter. Pickpocketing is most successful on a crowded elevator, a street corner, a subway—somewhere where the victim expects to be jostled, and the perp can disappear into a crowd.”

Manny appraised him suspiciously. “You seem to know quite a bit about the subject. If we searched your room, would we find a collection of wallets?”

“Nah.” Sam grinned. “I take the cash and ditch the leather. Seriously, though, can you think of a time during the day when you were surrounded by people?”

Manny chewed her lower lip, replaying every scene of the long action-packed day. “When I went to my parking garage to get my car, there were four or five people waiting for their cars to be driven down. There’s not much space, so we were crammed together.”

“That’s a more likely spot for the grab,” Sam said. “So, it may be that the person Paco tipped off is familiar enough with your routine to know where you garage your car.”

“And that you’d be driving it to Brooklyn,” Jake added, “not taking the subway.”

“You mean it’s someone I know?”

“Or someone who’s been keeping an eye on you for a while,” Jake said. “Which brings us back to the matter of how you got involved in this case in the first place.” He handed Manny the phone again. “You’ve warmed up on me. I think you’re ready to handle Maureen Heaton.”

Manny took a deep breath and dialed. As anticipated, the first five minutes of the call passed in a storm of Maureen’s panicky speculations. Eventually, Manny was able to bring the conversation around to the matter at hand. “Maureen, refresh my memory: Who was it who recommended that you hire me to represent Travis?”

“Her name is Tracy. I don’t know her last name. She’s a nurse at the Chelsea Extended Care Center. I was working private duty there the night I got the call that Travis had been arrested. I was in a panic. I needed to leave right away, but I couldn’t abandon my patient. Tracy was so understanding. She told me to leave, that it was slow that night and she could spend extra time with my patient.

“And then she showed me your card, said she’d call and have you get in touch with me in case Travis needed a lawyer. You helped her nephew … or was it her cousin? Anyway, you called while I was at the jail, and by then I really knew I needed you. And people say New Yorkers are cold, but you know, I’ve never found that to be true.”

Manny murmured a few more words of encouragement and extricated herself from the conversation.

As she dialed the Chelsea Extended Care Center, she relayed the details of her conversation to Jake and Sam.

“How can I know which of my clients has an aunt or a cousin who’s a nurse named Tracy?” Manny spent the next fifteen minutes speaking to the receptionist, the human resources manager, the nursing director, and anyone else she could get to answer the phone at the small private nursing home. Each conversation left her more frustrated than the last. Finally, she hung up. Sam and Jake watched her expectantly.

“There’s no one named Tracy who works at the Chelsea Extended Care Center.”

Leaving Manny to deal with her missing client and the puzzle of who had recommended her for the case, Jake retreated to the black cave that was his home office. He had resisted all Manny’s efforts to spruce the place up. Black leather chairs, framed antique prints, mahogany and glass display case—all her suggestions were met with a resounding no.

He liked the place just as it was. He didn’t need pleasant surroundings in order to concentrate, something that Manny just didn’t understand. All he craved was familiarity—the security of knowing that every tool, reference, and resource he might possibly need could be reached with one spin of his decrepit desk chair.

Seen through a visitor’s eyes, the office looked hopelessly chaotic. But Jake could plunge his hand into a tower of seemingly random papers and pull out just what he needed. To his way of thinking, filing cabinet equaled trash can.

Today, Jake sat amid an avalanche of information about the Vampire, making notes on a yellow pad in the appalling scrawl that no one but he could decipher. A short list of questions he wanted answered appeared on the page.

1. Coffee mug with Nixon’s fingerprints … owned by Amanda Hogaarth or left behind by killer? How acquired? Why?

2. Family Builders adoption agency—what is the connection to Hogaarth?

3. Hogaarth and Fortes—why tortured and killed? How are they different from earlier victims?

4. What is the significance of the
blood?

The intercom buzzed. “Ridley here to see you,” the department secretary announced.

“Send him in.”

Paul Ridley loped into the room, ducking his head to clear the nearly seven-foot-high door opening. Tall and thin didn’t begin to describe the leading crime-scene technician from the police department’s CSI team; Ridley looked like he’d been captured by a rogue computer animation program, stretched, and released back into society.

“Have a seat,” Jake said. “Just toss that stuff on the floor.”

Ridley telescoped his gaunt frame into a chair. “I’ve got some information on that coffee mug from Hogaarth’s apartment.”

Jake grinned. Maybe the first item on his list was about to be taken care of. “I know the FBI’s been agitating to get custody of that piece of evidence. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to discover much before you had to give it up.”

“Yeah, we might lose it by the end of the day, but I think I have what you want.” Ridley pulled a file folder from his briefcase and began talking from his notes. “Cup was cheap porcelain glazed black, with the initials
SCFR
printed in silver. Manufacturer’s mark on the bottom said ‘Cayo.’ We traced this to a distributor based in suburban Boston who buys mugs wholesale from a manufacturer in China, then imprints them here for customers who give them away as sales promotions.” He pointed at a blue mug on Jake’s desk crammed with pens printed with the name
LABTECH
in red. “Like that—you probably got it from the salesman who handles your lab equipment, right?”

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.”