Michael Baden - Skeleton justice

"There's nothing else? You stuck to this story?"

Travis bristled. "It's not a story; it's the truth!" Then he glanced over his shoulder at the guard. "I thought they were going to let me go, until they opened my backpack and found the book."

"What book?"

"A book on Islam that I'm reading for my comparative religion class. That's when they really started coming down on me. How did I know how to build a bomb? Was this the first one I'd ever set off? They wouldn't let up. That's when they read me that Miranda thing, just like on TV That's when I knew I had to call my mom. Those cops think I'm some kind of terrorist, don't they?"

Manny didn't want to tell Travis what the newspapers were calling him. She honed in on something Travis had said earlier. This could be her salvation. "You said they searched your backpack. Did they do that without your consent?"

"No. They asked permission and I said okay. I figured they were looking for drugs and I knew I was clean. I forgot all about the book being in there."

Shit! So far the cops had done everything by the book. This case was looking worse and worse. But she plastered a smile on her face for her client's sake. "Okay, Travis. That's all for now. In a little while, I should have you out of here."

"You'll explain to them that this is all a mistake?"

"I'm afraid it's a little more complicated than that. But we'll try to get you out on bail." Manny watched Travis shuffle forlornly to the door. He turned once to look at her; then he was gone.

Maureen Heaton sat in the waiting room, her back pressed against the pea green plastic chair, her fingers picking at a frayed thread on her canvas purse. Manny greeted her, careful to banish all signs of worry from her face. "All right, ma'am, first things first. He was with a group of boys who may have done something. But he says he is innocent, and I believe him. Let's arrange to get Travis out of here. Then we'll work on our strategy for his defense."

Mrs. Heaton twisted her dulled wedding band on her right ring finger continuously, as if trying to conjure up some genie who would make this nightmare go away. "Defense! But he's innocent. It's obvious those other boys set the bomb."

"Yes, but the police don't have those other boys; they have Travis. And a suspect in custody is worth four on the streets. We may have to hire our own investigator to track them down."

"Investigator? I'm a widow; I work two jobs. Where do you think I'm going to get all this money?" Mrs. Heaton groped in her purse for a tissue. Manny could see billable hours evaporating before her eyes. She patted Mrs. Heaton on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I know someone with some time on his hands who may be able to help us." This was the perfect chore for Sam, Jake's perpetually unemployed brother.

Mrs. Heaton gazed at her with brown eyes full of pathetic hope and Manny could feel the burden of worry shift from the mother's shoulders to her own. She hoped she was strong enough to carry the load.

"We're opposing bail." Lisnek leaned back in his desk chair, straining the blue oxford cloth of his shirt over his belly. "We want him in custody until his trial."

Manny was thunderstruck. "The kid's never been in trouble before. He's from a hardworking family with limited financial resources. He poses no flight risk. Why would you oppose bail?"

"We suspect he's part of a larger conspiracy. We found this in his backpack." Lisnek held up a dog-eared paperback book-Understanding the Koran by Imam Abu Rezi.

"Required reading for the comparative religion class he's taking at Monet," Manny explained.

Lisnek shrugged. "Students have been known to be unduly influenced by their subject matter. The police just called with the results of their search of Travis's home. They found a whole shelf of books on Muslim theology, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, et cetera. I rather doubt that prep schools delve into the topic that deeply."

Manny jumped up. "That's absurd. Even in these crazy times, no judge in the District of New Jersey is going to deny bail based solely on the suspect's reading material." But even as she said those words aloud, she felt a worm of doubt wiggling within. Why would a Christian teenager possess so many books on Islam? Did Travis have some political agenda he wasn't revealing to her or to his mother?

"Don't jump to conclusions, Ms. Manfreda. I never said that's all we had. Mr. Heaton has been linked to the crime with a piece of solid forensic evidence. A bite mark in an apple."

"A bite mark in an apple proves my client is a terrorist? Was it a McIntosh or a Red Delicious? Am I missing something here?"

"We have an eyewitness, Mr. Park Sung Ho, counterman at the Happy Garden all-night market on Washington Street. Mr. Heaton and his friends went in and bought sodas and snacks. They gave Mr. Park a hard time, tossing money back and forth, trying to confuse him with the change. He watched them carefully as they left and saw Mr. Heaton take an apple from a display by the door. By the time Mr. Park got out from behind the counter to chase them, the boys were down at the corner by the mailbox. He saw the one with the apple take a bite out of it and toss it in the gutter. Then the kid crouched down, placed something under the mailbox, and they all ran. A few seconds later, the mailbox blew up."

Manny kept her face impassive, but inside she was seething. Travis had conveniently forgotten to mention this forbidden fruit. "And you recovered the apple."

"We did. And we intend to prove it has Mr. Heaton's bite mark in it."

Manny was puzzled. Why would they be focusing on the bite pattern? Anything that a person had bitten into would retain traces of his saliva, which could be tested for DNA. A DNA match was infallible, while the forensics of bite comparisons was wildly speculative. She began to feel a flicker of hope.

"You're testing the apple for my client's DNA, of course?"

Lisnek looked down at his scuffed penny loafers. "Uh… it's been sent out."

Manny detected something squirrelly in his response. They'd probably mishandled the evidence. She didn't let the smile she felt inside touch her lips. This chump had nothing, and he knew it.

Manny forced Lisnek to meet her gaze and held it for a long moment. Lisnek was the first to look away.

As she left the U.S. attorney's office, Manny turned to ask one more question. "So where is the other kid you brought in? Who's representing him?"

"Paco Sandoval has been released."

"Released? How come he gets out and my client's still here?"

"Because Paco Sandoval is the son of Enrique Sandoval, ambassador to the UN for Argentina. He has diplomatic immunity."

"Shall we begin?"

Jake Rosen; Todd Galvin; their diener, a Croatian emigre named Dragon; and Detective Pasquarelli stood around the autopsy table at 8:01 a.m. Before them lay the fully clothed body of Amanda Hogaarth.

Todd and Jake performed the first routine tasks: Using an alternate light source, they searched for traces of microscopic evidence on Amanda Hogaarth's clothing. Finding nothing, they photographed her in her clothing, front and back. Jake then carefully removed each of the garments and photographed them completely, even inside out.

Even without her tweed skirt and sensible undergarments, Ms. Hogaarth managed to project an air of quiet dignity. Jake was sure this woman would have been very surprised to know she had ended up here. The other seven autopsy tables held drunks and drug addicts and street punks. They had led hard, violent lives, so it was no surprise that they had met hard, violent ends. Amanda Hogaarth seemed to have led a blameless, soft, rather dull life. Yet she, too, had wound up under the probing tools of the medical examiner.

Then Jake stepped up to examine the victim's skin closely. Her body was covered with the fine wrinkles, freckles, and age spots that plagued the fair-skinned, but there were no wounds. On her left wrist, Jake noted four evenly spaced bruises. He pointed them out to Todd and Pasquarelli. "The attacker grabbed her here and held her arm steady while he drew the blood." Jake's gaze traveled up the woman's arm until he found the tiny hole left by the assailant's needle. He instructed Dragon to photograph both areas, then turned the victim's hands over and looked at the palms. On each palm were four half-moon impressions. Amanda Hogaarth had clenched her hands so tightly that her own fingernails had pierced her skin.