Joseph Teller - The Tenth Case

"So what's a manatee?" Samara asked. They were sitting on the rug in front of the fire, eating pizza. Collec tively, they were down to an ankle bracelet.

"A manatee's a sea cow. And trust me, you wouldn't want me looking like one."

"I do trust you," she said. "And I'm sorry I didn't trust you enough to tell you about that other stabbing business, and about being Samantha Musgrove. I guess I thought that as long as I didn't tell anyone, it would be like the whole thing was just one long bad dream that had never really happened."

"Whatever made you pick Samara? I mean, Moss I can understand. Short and sweet, easy to remember. But Samara? "

"Do you know what a samara is?"

"No," he confessed.

It was her turn to teach. "A samara is the seedpod that grows on a maple tree. It has a pair of tiny little wings attached to it. When it leaves the tree, the wings catch the wind, and it flies far, far away, so it can begin a new life all on its own."

"Nice," said Jaywalker. "And you were only fourteen when you realized that was you?"

"I was a very old fourteen."

"So you were. Samara," he said, just to hear the sound of it. "Pretty name, Samara Moss."

"The Moss part was because I was hoping for a soft landing. It beat Musgrove, anyway."

Jaywalker nodded solemnly, or about as solemnly as a naked man eating pizza can nod. He couldn't be sure, but it felt like his headache was already beginning to melt away. Maybe it was a good idea to remember to eat some thing every day, he decided.

"Funny," said Samara, "in all these years, this is only the second time I've told anyone about it."

"About what?"

"The Samantha Musgrove stuff."

"I'm very honored," said Jaywalker, wiping a string of cheese off his chin with the back of his hand. "When was the first?"

"Eight years ago. Back when I believed in true love, sharing your innermost secrets, and all that till-death-do us-part crap."

Jaywalker had just taken another bite, and when his lower jaw dropped, so did a mouthful of pizza, not some thing to be advised when one happens to be both sitting and naked. The thing was, his ears had heard the words Samara had just said, but his brain was still struggling to make sense of them. "You told-"

She nodded.

"— Barry?"

"We were getting married," Samara said with an ex planatory shrug. "I thought I loved him. I figured he had a right to know."

"You told him about the whole thing?"

Another nod.

"The rape, the stabbing, even that your name had once been-"

"All of it."

"— Samantha Musgrove?"

"Yes."

"Musgrove, Musgrove," Jaywalker repeated. "Where have I heard that name before?"

"At the trial. It was my name, back in Indiana. That's what we've been talking about this whole time."

"I know, I know. But where else?"

"The Seconal," said Samara. "Remember the name of the doctor who prescribed it? The doctor who turned out not to exist? Samuel Musgrove. It's how as soon as I found the Seconal, I knew right away it had to be part of the frame-up. Only I couldn't tell you, not without going into the whole past-"

"Whoa."

"Whoa, what?"

"Who else besides Barry knew about the name Musgrove?"

She seemed to think for a minute, before saying, "No body."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure. Until Friday, when you told me Mr. Burke had found out about it, Barry was the only person I ever told."

Jaywalker jumped up and immediately began pacing the room, totally oblivious to his nakedness. The headache was back with a vengeance, pounding between his eyes and at his temples. Samara was staring at him as though he and his mind had suddenly parted company. But when she opened her mouth to say something, he held up a hand and shushed her.

Barry had known about the earlier stabbing, and about the name Samantha Musgrove. No one else had. Could Barry have ordered the Seconal, using the name Samuel Musgrove, to make it look as though Samara had done it? And if Barry had kept aspirin or ibuprofen at Samara's town house, as she said he had, that meant he'd spent time there. If he'd wanted to, he could have brought the Seconal there on one of his visits. He could have taken one of her knives, too.

"Tell me," Jaywalker said. "Did Barry have a key to this place?"

"He did once. So I guess so. Why?"

"What time is it?"

Samara got up, disappeared into another room and called out, "Two-fifteen."

"A phone," said Jaywalker. "I need a phone."

When she returned, she was wearing a robe. Apparently she preferred to have something on if he was going to flip out and she was going to have to take him to an emergency room. But she did have a cordless phone in one hand.

Jaywalker grabbed it and punched in a number. Funny, the old ones he could always remember. It was short-term memory he had a problem with, frequently forgetting his own number. Then again, he didn't call himself all that often.

"Unlisted subscriber information," a woman said.

"This is Detective Anthony Bonfiglio," said Jaywalker, "Twenty-first Squad Homicide, shield two-two-oh-five. I need an unlisted number for a Thomas Francis Burke. Stat."

He motioned Samara to bring him something to write with. She found a pen and a sheet of paper.

"I'm showing one Thomas F. Burke," said the woman, "five unlisted Thomas Burkes without middle names or initials, and three T. Burkes."

"I'll take them all."

She read him the listings. "I'll need a written confirma tion by seventeen hundred today," she told him. She gave him a fax number.

"You got it," said Jaywalker, not bothering to write down the number.

He spoke briefly with two Tom Burkes and three name less women, none of whom seemed too thrilled to have been woken at, as one of them so artfully put it, "three fucking o'clock in the fucking morning." But on the sixth try, he heard a familiar, if sleepy, voice.

"Tom, wake up, it's Jaywalker."

"Jesus. What time is it?"

"I don't know," Jaywalker lied. "A little after midnight."

"How did you get my number?"

"Ve haff our vays."

"What do you want?" Burke asked.

"I need you to get up and get dressed."

"Are you nuts?"

"Probably," Jaywalker conceded. "But I think I've just about got this case figured out."

"As I understand it," said Burke, "so does the jury."

"The jury doesn't have a clue. And neither have you or I, all this time. But when you meet me, I'm going to explain it to you."

"I'm sure you are," said Burke. "In court, at nine-thirty."

"Tom?"

There was silence on the other end, and for a moment Jay walker was afraid he'd blown it. Then he heard a "What?" that sounded somewhere between exasperated and resigned.

"Tom, you know I'd never fuck with you, right?"

"What time is it really?"

"Two-thirty, quarter of three. Something like that."

"You who'd never fuck with me."

"I need you to trust me on this, Tom. I need you to meet me at Barry's building as soon as you can. And, Tom?"

"Yes?"

"Bring your shield."

"My shield?"

"You know," said Jaywalker, "that phony tin the old man gives you guys, in case you get stopped for speeding or hitting on a hooker."

Burke showed up wearing a leather bomber jacket, jeans and a Yankee cap. But at least he was dry. Jaywalker had been forced to retrieve his soaking clothes from the pile he and Samara had created earlier in the evening. His coat had been so wet, however, that she had forced him to put on one of Barry's, even though the sleeves came to just below Jaywalker's elbows and the shoulders were so narrow that they threatened to cut off his blood supply. The guy must've been an absolute shrimp, he decided.

Burke wasn't alone. He'd managed to track down De tective Bonfiglio and bring him along, perhaps as a body guard, perhaps as a witness to Jaywalker's need for civil commitment.