Skeleton Justice (16 page)

“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 could 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.

“It’s all right, Deanie. I’m going to help you,” Jake said gently as he pulled a pocketknife from his jacket and prepared to free the girl. “I’m a doctor.”

Manny watched with surprise as the girl cringed away from Jake at this news. She wore nothing but a halter top and a very short skirt. The ropes and glass around her bare legs and arms had chafed her pale skin raw. She trembled convulsively, both from fear and cold.

Jake continued to speak to Deanie soothingly, telling her exactly what he was going to do. Manny saw him then as a medical doctor, trained to save lives. First, he cut her arms free, and Manny could tell that the pain of being released from this unnatural position was almost as great as the pain of maintaining it.

Jake held the rope with his fingertips and jerked his head in Manny’s direction. “Find some clean paper to put this on.”

Manny accepted the command. Jake the doctor had been replaced by Jake the forensic scientist, eager to preserve evidence. She ripped open a carton of paper towels and gingerly took the rope from Jake.

Next, Jake cut the girl’s legs free, carefully guiding each one to rest on the bottom rung of the stool to keep her bare feet away from the remaining glass. Then he turned his attention to the tape across her eyes and mouth.

“I have some hand lotion in my purse,” Manny offered. “You can use it to loosen the glue.”

Jake shook his head. “I’m afraid not. This tape may contain traces of the assailant’s DNA, fibers from his clothes. I can’t risk destroying that.” He slit the tape at her temples and removed it with one quick yank. Manny winced. Deanie made a gasping sound from beneath the tape on her mouth, but compared to her joint pain, the tape removal must have been a minor discomfort. She seemed more bothered by the effect of light on eyes that had been in darkness for a long time. Her eyes peeked open briefly before she scrunched them shut again. Jake repeated the process with the tape on her mouth, leaving two angry red weals across her face.

Deanie rubbed her face, then, shielding her eyes with her fingers, peeped at her rescuers. Recognizing Sam, she inhaled sharply, but she still did not speak.

“Do you see her shoes?” Jake asked. Manny and Sam looked, but the shoes were nowhere in sight.

“Well, let’s get you out of here,” Jake said. “I’ll carry you over the glass.” Putting his right hand under her arms and his left under her knees, he lifted her off the stool. As he did, a slip of paper fluttered to the floor. Manny stepped forward to retrieve it.

“Don’t touch it,” Jake commanded.

So she crouched over it and read aloud: “‘The innocent suffer when the guilty are allowed to go unpunished.’”

•   •   •

“What does that mean? Who are you? How did you know I was here?”

Big hair flattened, long acrylic nails snapped off, eye makeup washed away by a river of tears, Deanie was no longer the jaunty Jersey girl who had given up secrets to Sam in a drunken night of dancing at Club E.

“I got a call from your cell phone at nine-thirty this morning asking me to meet you here at eleven,” Sam said. They were all four sitting at the deserted bar, watching Deanie drink a big Diet Coke. “How long were you tied up back there?”

She clutched her glass as if it alone were keeping her from keeling over. “Since last night. I got grabbed coming home from work. Someone came up from behind me and put this bad-smelling cloth over my face. When I woke up, I was in that storeroom.”

Jake leaned toward her. “What can you tell us about your attacker?”

Deanie edged away, obviously disturbed by the urgency in his voice, and pressed her back against the bar. “Who
are
you people?” She glanced at Sam, then peered down into her drink, as if eye contact with him scared her. “You got me into this. You killed Boo, didn’t you?”

“I know it looks bad that Boo died a few days after talking to me,” Sam said, “but believe me, I didn’t kill him. We think …” he paused, silenced by his brother’s warning glance. “We think Boo was mixed up in something bigger than he realized.”

“Well, whatta they want with me? I don’t know nuthin about Boo’s business.” Deanie hugged herself and began to cry.

“Deanie, we don’t want you to get hurt again,” Jake said. “That’s why it’s important that you tell us everything you can remember about last night.”

Deanie wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box under the best of circumstances, and fear, exhaustion, and dehydration weren’t helping her reasoning abilities.

“I don’t know nuthin,” she repeated sullenly. “I didn’t see them. When I woke up, that tape was already over my eyes.” Compulsively, her right hand stroked her left arm.

“Them? There was more than one?” Jake’s eyes lighted up, but he was careful to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

“A man and a woman.”

Manny and Jake exchanged glances. They didn’t have to speak to know they were thinking the same thought: Maybe this was Tracy, the woman at the nursing home who had recommended Manny to Maureen Heaton.

“Why did they torture you like this, Deanie?” Manny asked. “What were they trying to get you to tell them?”

“They didn’t ask me nuthin.” Deanie slammed her glass on the bar. “They told me not to try to get away, that there was broken glass all around me. They tied my legs back like that, and when I started to cry, the woman said something. So I thought the guy was going to loosen the rope, but instead he made it tighter and then put the sharp glass underneath the ropes on my skin. They told me not to try to escape, said if I was still and silent, someone would come for me. That’s it.”

Deanie continued rubbing her hands up and down her bare arms, trying either to stay warm or to massage away the pain of her bondage. Suddenly, she stopped and looked down at the crook of her right arm. “What the fuck? I must have cut myself after all. I’m bleeding!”

Jake reached out for her arm and saw it: the tiny puncture of a blood draw, now oozing some fresh blood. He found a clean napkin and applied pressure. “They drew your blood. Were you aware of that?”

“Drew blood? Why?”

Jake and Manny exchanged a glance. Could Deanie be the only person in the entire metro area unaware of the work of the Vampire? If so, she’d be happier staying in that state of ignorance.

“What did they say to each other?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know. They spoke to each other in Spanish.”