Michael Baden - Remains Silent

He took a breath. “Then let’s go.” His voice was resolute.

“Fine.” So was hers.

“Before we leave,” he said, “I want to drop the Johnnie Walker bottle off for the sheriff. I could have left it at the scene, but I didn’t want to risk it.”

They started out the front. She had locked the car, yet the Porsche’s door was wide open. “Oh my God!” Manny said. “Mycroft!”

She raced to the car, her heels crunching on the broken glass from her car’s passenger window. Mycroft was missing. “Mycroft!” she shrieked into the darkness. “Where are you?” She turned to Jake, her eyes wide. “He’s gone. Mycroft!”

“Keep it down,” he urged. “They may still be around here.”

She glared at him. “My dog is missing,” she said sharply. “Some of us actually care about living things.”

Mycroft materialized from a neighbor’s yard and leaped into Manny’s arms. The sobs she had suppressed for hours exploded from her throat.

Carrying her beloved as she would a newborn, she got into the car and reached for the Prada tote with his treats. “Gone,” she breathed. She twisted to check the backseat. “Gone!” she screamed. “Jake!”

He was on his hands and knees, searching the ground. She rounded the car and stood over him. “Jake, my new Prada tote bag is gone!”

He looked at her, eyes blazing. “It’s only a thing- calm down.”

He’s cracked. He’s a monster. “Jake. Someone stole my bag. Don’t you understand? It had some of my confidential legal work in it.”

He rose slowly, using the door handle to help him to his feet. His pants were covered with dirt; his hair was filthy. Obviously, he had crawled under the car. Searching for what?

When he looked at her again, his expression had softened, and when he spoke it was with his habitual calm. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he said. “But they took something even more important. The poisoned bottle’s missing. It means whoever took it has been following us all evening and knows we know that Pete was murdered.” Worry creased his forehead and made lines at the sides of his eyes. “Jesus, Manny, I’m sorry I got you into this. But we’ve been sucked into the vortex and there’s little you or I can do about it now.”

They found the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office in a brick storefront just off Main Street. At 3:30 a.m. it was locked up tight, lights off. A sign on the door gave business hours as 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and a number to dial in case of emergency. Jake flipped open his cell phone. The signal was faint but there.

He got a dispatcher who reluctantly agreed to patch him through to Sheriff Fisk’s line. The sheriff was not pleased to hear from him.

“Rosen. I thought you were in New York. What’s so very important you have to wake me in the middle of the night?”

Jake told him about the results of his autopsy on Theresa Alessis, his suspicion that both she and Harrigan were poisoned, the condition of Pete’s cottage, the missing bottle. “It’s a double murder,” he finished. “I wanted to alert you as soon as possible.”

“I surely am grateful,” Fisk said, “but I gotta tell you: I never heard such a pile of horse manure in my life.”

“You mean you don’t believe me?”

“Rather than Harrigan’s doctor, who already signed the death certificate: Died of natural causes? Not a chance.”

He’s an enemy, Jake realized with surprise. Be careful.

“Besides,” Fisk went on, “you don’t have a motive or a suspect. Can you imagine the repercussions if I halt the mall project again because of some city doctor’s cockamamy theory? Maybe there was a bottle of scotch, maybe there wasn’t. Maybe Harrigan killed himself because he didn’t want to live through the pain of the cancer. Sickness can screw up your head. He probably never thought about the maid. Maybe you put poison in the bottle before you gave it to him- for certain you’d be my first suspect. And maybe we’ll say good night nice and polite, and you and your lady friend can get back to the city and not bother us again.” The receiver slammed down.

He was just as defensive about the bones, Jake thought. I wonder if he gets a kickback on the mall deal? He told Manny about his conversation as they got in the car. “He’s right about the hard evidence,” Jake said. “There’s no proof anybody was murdered.” He stretched. “You sure you’re okay to drive?”

“Unless you’ve learned to use a stick in the past eight hours, what choice do I have?” She started the car. She was so tired she envied his shabby loafers.

They drove in silence for a while. Jake dozed against the window, a contented Mycroft curled on his lap. His eyelids are twitching, she noticed. I’ll bet he saws people in half when he sleeps. She wanted to touch him, to ease his tension and her own. She wanted to feel the warmth of his hand on her face. She wanted to- “Manny!” He sat bolt upright.

“What’s the matter?”

“Fisk told both of us to get back to the city. But I never mentioned you. How the hell did he know you were with me?”

JAKE STOPPED at his apartment only long enough to shower and change clothes before heading to his office next to Bellevue Hospital, his mind not tired even if his body was. Was Fisk the man who had followed them, terrified Mycroft, and stolen the Johnnie Walker bottle? Did he know who the murderer was? Was he the murderer himself? A murder investigation would halt construction of the mall, even if the unidentified bones didn’t. Did Fisk have a financial interest in the mall? Did Mayor Stevenson? Was there a conspiracy with Reynolds Construction to bilk Baxter County and the State of New York out of millions?

These were the questions that obsessed him, and he found it difficult to concentrate on the paperwork that lay before him. How much time can I afford to give to the case when my duty is to this ME’s office? What responsibility do I have to solve it? Would I involve Manny again? If not, should I ask her to go out with me?

He shook his head to clear it-What in God’s name are you thinking about?- and decided his allegiance was to Pete Harrigan. Long as it takes. Don’t let his murderer go free.

A knock on the door brought his mind back to his office. “Come in, Wally.”

Dr. Walter Winnick always knocked, though Jake had told him a hundred times he didn’t have to; the office was as much his as Jake’s. The man was excessively shy, probably because of his clubfoot, but his education was superb- Harrigan, after all, had been his mentor at Columbia. Wally had taken Pete’s death hard, and he took over much of Jake’s paperwork uncomplainingly. The two often ate lunch together, usually at a cheap health-food restaurant close to the office that Wally liked more than Jake did. Their talk avoided the personal, though Jake knew that Wally had worked for years near Santa Fe, New Mexico, in a school for autistic and schizophrenic children: an ideal place, Jake thought, for a man uncomfortable in normal society. Still, Wally had matured enough to survive in the city, and Jake had been happy to hire him on Pete’s recommendation. When he once asked Wally if he could look at his foot in the hope of finding some treatment, Wally had bridled like a wild horse under a saddle. Actually, once a man reached Wally’s age- about forty, Jake guessed, though he seemed much younger- there was little one could do. Clubfoot is a congenital condition. The tendons in the foot and ankle are too short at birth to produce a normal foot, and the best time for surgery is when the patient is still an infant. Jake never learned why Wally’s parents had not opted for surgery, but then again, the sixties were another time. Jake never brought up the subject again.