Michael Baden - Skeleton justice

"We want you, and your friend Dr. Rosen, to tell the world about the Desaparecidos," Elena said. "And we have taken measures to make sure the world is finally listening."

This was it. The endgame she and Jake had been predicting the previous night. Manny turned to face the other woman.

"You poisoned my dog to get me here? How?"

Elena laughed. "Mycroft is a creature of habit. He takes a walk in the park every day with his keeper from Little Paws. A woman walking six small dogs is used to getting a lot of attention. While Frederic fussed over the others yesterday, I slipped Mycroft a little treat."

"What did you give him?" Manny demanded. "You killed my dog!"

Dr. Costello looked offended. "Certainly not. It was just a little something to upset his digestion. He didn't get enough to cause serious damage."

"But where is he?" Manny asked again.

Dr. Costello and his wife exchanged a glance. "Don't worry about your dog," Elena said. "Suffice it to say that Mycroft has brought you here in a way that is virtually untraceable. No one knows where you are, Manny. If Jake Rosen wants to save your life, and the life of Travis Heaton, he will have to tell the world about the torture and death our parents suffered."

No longer cool and elegant, Elena paced around the room in rising hysteria, her skin flushed a muddy red beneath her tan. "Jake Rosen will tell the world how my husband and I and Esteban Sandoval and so many others were ripped from our mother's wombs and given away to be raised by the very people who had killed our parents. When Lucinda Bettis and the others see how all our parents were tortured, they will finally renounce this lying life they have lived for all these years."

She grabbed Manny by the shoulders. Her eyes were wild; her nostrils flared. "They don't believe what I have told them. It's only words to them, and pictures. They have to see it lived. They have to witness how our parents were tortured. Then they will understand. You and Jake Rosen will make them understand."

The first thing Jake noticed when he entered Manny's apartment was a strong, scorched scent of Hawaiian Peabody roast left over-long on the warming plate of the coffeemaker. He looked into the tiny kitchen area. "Pot's full-she left without drinking any," he said to Kenneth and Pasquarelli, who had come with him to search for signs of Manny's whereabouts.

Kenneth looked in the other direction. "And the Murphy bed is still down. Manny always makes the bed before she leaves. Says it tricks her into believing her bedroom and her living room aren't the same room."

"All right, so we know she slept here last night and we know she left in a hurry this morning," Pasquarelli said. "Why? Where'd she go? And how did the dog wind up alone at Little Paws?"

"She never would have left him outside alone," Kenneth said for about the fifteenth time. He chewed on a long pink fingernail as his eyes darted around the tiny apartment.

"I'll get started subpoenaing her phone records," Pasquarelli said. "Get a list of her incoming and outgoing calls this morning."

"That will take hours," Jake said. "There must be some evidence here that will give us a lead sooner."

"Her closet!" Kenneth shouted. "Let's see if we can figure out what she was wearing. Then we'll know where she intended to go."

Pasquarelli raised his eyebrows. "That's one approach."

Kenneth flung open the doors of the walk-in closet, revealing neatly hanging blouses, skirts, pants, and dresses, not to mention towers of shoe boxes spaced between a floor shoe rack.

"It's hopeless," Jake said. "How can you possibly tell what's missing from all that?"

But Kenneth was down on his knees. "Look at how most of the shoes on the shoe rack are thrown around. She was searching for something." His voice grew muffled as he crawled farther into the depths of the closet.

"Eeew!" Kenneth came scuttling out backward, holding his right hand out in front of him. "There's something wet and disgusting on the floor in there."

Jake grabbed Kenneth's wrist, stared at the greenish slime under the manicured nails, then lifted them to his nose to sniff. "Dog vomit," he pronounced. "Mycroft must have been sick in the night. Manny left in a rush to take him to the vet."

Kenneth's eyes lighted up, then immediately dimmed. "But she must never have gotten there. And neither did Mycroft."

"Let's call the vet." Jake snapped his fingers. "What's his name again?"

Kenneth returned from washing his hands. "I have the number here on my phone." He clicked a few buttons and started talking. Jake would have snatched the phone away from him, but Kenneth seemed to be asking all the right questions.

"The vet said she paged him at five-fifteen this morning to say that Mycroft was vomiting," Kenneth reported. "He said he told her it sounded like he'd eaten something toxic to dogs and that she should take him to the Animal Medical Center on Eighty-sixth Street and York. They have an animal poison-control center there that's open twenty-four/seven."

"You call the Animal Medical Center to check if she ever made it there," Jake told Kenneth. "Vito and I will go down and talk to the doorman."

At 10:00 a.m., the morning rush had ended and the doorman in Manny's lobby had settled into signing for deliveries and assisting a few elderly residents and stay-at-home moms.

"Who was on duty at five this morning?" Jake asked.

"I was." The doorman yawned. "We're all working overtime this week to cover for one guy's vacation. I've been here since midnight."

"Did you see Ms. Manfreda leave with her dog?"

"Manny? No, I haven't seen her all day."

Jake stepped closer to the doorman, a good-looking guy of about thirty. He seemed like a heads-up person, but he might have been busy or distracted when Manny passed by. "This is very important," Jake said. "She was probably in a hurry. Maybe you missed her."

The doorman shook his head insistently. "Miss Manny? No way. She always says hello, no matter how fast she's moving. Not like some others in this building."

Vito took over. "Look, we know she came home last night, and she's not in her apartment now, so she had to have gone out. We're trying to trace her steps."

"I didn't say she couldn't have gone out; I just said she didn't pass me. From five to six, no one left but Legere in 12B-he swims laps every morning before work." The doorman shook his head at this insanity. "But lots of people go out the west side service door in the morning. It puts them one block closer to the E train station."

Jake shook his head. "Manny never takes the subway. And she certainly wouldn't take a sick dog on the train. Besides, that subway doesn't take you anywhere close to Eighty-sixth and York. It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe she went out the back door to go to her garage," Vito suggested.

"Her garage is that way." The doorman pointed uptown, proving he knew Manny's routines. "And when she's taking a cab, she always lets me hail it." He dangled the silver whistle around his neck. "She can whistle pretty loud, but this is louder."

Jake looked down, concentrating. Manny was sometimes impulsive, but never irrational. There had to be a good reason why she'd exited through the rear door. What was it?

Kenneth emerged from an elevator and crossed over to them. "The Animal Medical Center has no record of Manny or Mycroft being there today. Something had to have happened to her on the way there."

Jake continued to stare at the tasteful pattern of the lobby carpet. "Illogical." He looked up at Kenneth. "Mycroft should be at Little Paws now?"

"Yes."

"Call them and find out how he's doing," Jake commanded.

Kenneth did not reach for his cell phone. Instead, he put his hands on his hips and glared at Jake. As devoted as he was to Mycroft, he was more devoted to Manny, and he clearly thought they should be focusing their efforts on the owner, not the pet.