Michael Baden - Skeleton justice

Jake shook his head. "I'm not sure. But a possible link between Cintron and Nixon seems to lead in that direction. And then there's the instances of torture: Hogaarth, Fortes, and Deanie Slade. Torture was one of the hallmarks of the Dirty War. People who opposed the regime would suddenly disappear. Most were held in secret government prisons, tortured for information on their comrades, and then killed."

Manny rubbed her temples, leaving a small smear of tomato sauce. "You're making me more confused. We know Dr. Fortes was Argentinean; we suspect that Ms. Hogaarth was, too. Why were they tortured before their deaths-because they were once part of the military junta, or because they once opposed it?"

Gently, Jake wiped the tomato sauce off Manny's face. "Don't demand so many answers. We're just laying out the facts."

"Well, what do you make of this fact? Deanie Slade was tortured, and she's New Jersey through and through. No connection to Argentina there."

"It's another data point."

"This isn't an academic exercise, Jake!" Manny balled up the remains of her dinner and stalked across the room to throw it in the trash. "In all this calm analysis of data points, let's not lose sight of the fact that Travis Heaton is under the control of people who not only kill but torture. We need to find him, fast."

"Drama has its uses in the courtroom, Manny, but investigations succeed on the steady accumulation of evidence. The process can be maddeningly slow, but no one's invented an alternative."

Jake patted the chair beside him. "There's more data to be dug. Are you in, or out?"

Manny returned and dropped into the chair. "Of course I'm in. I'm sorry I snapped at you, but I'm just so damn worried about Travis. And it infuriates me that the Sandovals are allowed to hide behind diplomatic immunity. They must know what's going on here, but somehow it's against their personal best interest to cooperate with the investigation."

"Let's see if we can turn up any link between Ambassador San-doval and the Dirty War," Jake said, turning back to the computer. He could feel Manny's barely suppressed impatience as he typed. He wondered, not for the first time, how she'd ever managed to sit through Civil Procedure and Contracts in law school.

"Here's Sandoval's official UN biography. It doesn't mention that he ever served in the military. He's only fifty-one years old. He probably would have been in college and law school during the Dirty War years."

"So maybe he and his wife were part of the opposition," Manny suggested. "Wasn't it mostly young people-students-who were disappeared by the government?" She leaned forward, gesturing, as her mind raced ahead of her ability to form sentences. "Paco seemed frightened by the letter I found in his room. Maybe someone from his parents' past has come back to haunt them. Maybe they're manipulating Paco to get what they want." Manny flung her pen onto the desk. "Damn, I wish I still had that document!"

Jake said nothing, only pursed his lips and kept scrolling through information brought up by the search engine.

"I know what's going through your head." Manny knocked her knuckles against the wild tangle of Jake's hair. "You think I should focus on this research instead of obsessing about what's out of reach. But I tell you, if we could just find out what the Sandovals are hiding, we wouldn't need to be piecing together all these scraps of information."

Jake paused, his hands suspended above the keyboard. "This is the best way to find out, Manny. We're not breaking into their home again."

Manny shook her head slightly, as if she'd already considered this but rejected it. "No, no more clandestine operations now that our cover's been blown. But I feel that if I could just get Paco alone and talk to him, really talk to him, he'd tell me something valuable."

"Why should he?" Jake demanded. "If it would endanger his family?"

"Because now it has to be clear to Paco that he's put Travis in danger. Paco's not a bad kid-he must feel guilty about what he's done to his friend."

"What do you know about Paco's character? You've spent all of five minutes with the kid, and half of that time you were on his back, literally."

"You'd be surprised the insights gained by jumping on a person." Manny grinned, poised to pounce. "Want me to demonstrate?"

Jake squirmed in his seat. Why did working with Manny always give him this precarious feeling, like he was riding in a ski lift without the safety bar down?

It was only nine-fifteen-too early to succumb to temptation. Jake knew he could easily put in three or four more hours here, digging for clues, reviewing the case files to look for significant details. He met Manny's teasing glance cautiously. "Hold that thought," he said, and waited for a storm or a sulk.

But Manny merely laughed. "Don't worry-I won't forget." She pivoted and looked around the office. "Say, as much as I love bonding with you by sharing this computer, don't you think we'd get to our reward a little faster if we were to divide and conquer? Isn't there another computer here I can use so we can both look things up?"

"Sure. You can use Dave's." He pointed to a desk just outside his office door.

"All right. Yell if you find anything interesting. I'm going to dig up more information on this grandmother's organization that does the protests, Asociacion Civil Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo."

Regret mingled with relief as Jake watched her retreating figure. He could certainly focus better when he wasn't breathing in Manny's perfume or brushing against her soft skin. But he liked knowing she was nearby, close enough to shout out an idea or ask an opinion.

He turned back to his own work. Forsaking the computer for the time being, Jake again pulled out the case files on the Vampire's victims. He'd already gone over them countless times, but it wouldn't hurt to look at them once more, bearing in mind his new knowledge of General Cintron and the Dirty War.

He had already tried to recontact each of the first four victims-the ones before Annabelle Fiore, whose blood had been taken but who had not been injured-to ask about a connection to Argentina in their lives. Victim number four, Jorge Arguelles, a tourist from Chile, seemed to have the closest connection, but he had already returned home, and Jake had not yet been able to reach him to ask if he had recently visited neighboring Argentina or had friends there.

Jake had not had the time to visit each victim personally, as he had with Annabelle. In his telephone conversations with the first three victims, each one had claimed to have no connection to Argentina. Now he wished he had made the effort to interview them in person, so he could have observed their eyes and hands as they spoke, listened to their breathing and vocal pitch, tracking any signs of deception.

Jake reread his notes. Victim number one, Lucinda Bettis, stood out. The other victims had thoughtfully considered his question about Argentina but had ultimately claimed no connection. Mrs. Bettis had replied in the negative almost before the question about Argentina had left Jake's mouth. Then she had rushed to get off the phone, saying she needed to get back to her children. Given that the other victims he had reached had answered in the negative, her response hadn't raised a red flag at the time, but now Jake studied her file more closely.

Born in 1977, married, mother of two. She had been attacked in her Upper West Side apartment in the middle of the day while the kids were at nursery school. No sign of forced entry; she said she'd answered the knock at the door because she was expecting her neighbor, who had agreed to pick up a dozen eggs for her at the market.

Again, he compared her file with the others, searching for some significant detail, something that either set her apart from the others or joined them all together. It eluded him.