Michael Baden - Skeleton justice

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."

"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?"