Michael Baden - Remains Silent

Jake pushed several days’ worth of The New York Times off a chair and collapsed into it.

“I tried the sauce,” Sam said. “It’s divine. First she sautйed fresh garlic, Italian parsley, sweet-cream butter, olive oil, and clam juice, and then she added the fresh Manila clams in their shells.”

Jake scowled at him. “I thought you were keeping kosher.”

Sam shrugged, ponytail wagging. “Times change.”

“Got to run now, Manny,” Kenneth said. He stepped in front of Jake to offer his hand. His nails, Jake noticed, were longer, redder, and better manicured than Manny’s. “It’s been heavenly. Soon again.”

“Charmed,” Jake mumbled, wanting to bite his tongue.

Kenneth let himself out. Manny served the linguine. They ate standing up. It was, Jake had to admit, fantastic. Mycroft seemed to agree, as he gobbled his own portion.

“What in the name of God is that animal wearing?” Jake asked. “It looks like he shops on Madison Avenue.”

Manny favored him with a look. “It’s called a sweater. It’s chilly. Doesn’t he look handsome? And unlike someone in this room, at least he doesn’t shop at a dumptique.”

“Mycroft’s named after Sherlock Holmes’s older brother,” Sam said, through a full mouth. “You remember, the fat, lazy, smarter one.”

Manny, who had gone to the kitchen to prepare dessert, stuck her head around the corner, outraged. “He’s not fat. He’s brilliant.”

“He was talking about the character, not your dog,” Jake said. “The character’s brilliant, too.”

“Well, Mycroft Manfreda is more brilliant.”

I’m not only competing with a dog- I’m competing with M amp;M’s, too! Jake thought.

After dinner, the mood changed. Sam went home. Mycroft disappeared upstairs to do some exploring on his own, and Jake and Manny, comfortable in overstuffed chairs in the living room, were both feeling the disappointment their earlier chatter had pushed back. Jake told her about the results of the exhumation, his last call to Elizabeth, his suspicions about Pederson, and Pederson’s mysterious remark about Pete.

“At least we got Judge Bradford to stop the mall,” Manny said. “And maybe we can still find some records at Turner Psychiatric.”

“If they did hold back some records, they’re not there anymore. The guy who breathed on you will have moved or destroyed them by now.”

“You’re right.”

“And if we can’t produce the bones, how long will the stay last?”

“A week?”

“If that.”

“Shit.”

They looked at each other silently, tongue-tied with longing.

Here’s her Prince Charming dog back again. Jake gave it a baleful look.

“Mycroft!” Manny was addressing Mycroft in a childlike, singsong voice normally used when talking to infants. “What have you got there? What has Manny’s little man got in his teeny-tiny mouth? Come on. Give it to Mommy.”

She held out her hand. Mycroft growled at her. “No,” she said. “We don’t make nasty noises at Mommy. Give it here.” She pulled the object from Mycroft’s mouth and handed it to Jake. “Did he get this out of the garbage?”

It was a curved piece of bone. He inspected it. “This bone’s human. A mandible.”

“Human? What kind of pervert leaves human bones in the garbage?”

“He didn’t get it from the garbage. It’s one of my teaching specimens.”

“Why do you leave it lying around?”

“I didn’t. They’re in storage.”

“What do you call that?” She pointed to a very large bone perched atop a filing cabinet in the corner.

“That’s a thighbone from an allosaurus. I got it at a dinosaur bone auction.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I thought it was cool. Looks like a human femur only much bigger. Not only do our bones look alike but more than ninety percent of our DNA is the same.”

“I rest my case.” She looked at the bone. “At least it’s not covered in dust. You must have the best housekeeper in Manhattan.”

“She’s not allowed to touch the specimens. They’re organized to my personal filing system, so I can find what I need when I need it. Everything has educational value. Take the mandible, for instance. I use it to show students how dental records can be used to identify human remains. This one’s female. You can tell because it’s smoother where the muscles attach to the sides. You can see right off she’s had some dental work. Cavities were filled in the first and second molars. And the-”

“What is it?” Manny asked.

He was staring at the bone, a wild light in his eyes. “God!” he cried. “God! You were right! The dog’s Mycroft and Sherlock rolled into one.”

Jake stood and raced up the stairs, Mycroft at his heels.

“Where are you going?” Manny called, following him.

“Fourth floor. Specimen room.”

They entered a room Manny suspected had once been a ladies’ boudoir. It still had hints of elegance: a marble fireplace, stained-glass panels atop the windows, floral-design moldings below the ceiling. But it was a man’s room now- a mad scientist’s room- filled with glass jars containing viscera, boxes of hair, a microscope, and what must have been a dozen cartons of bones, sealed and labeled.

Jake rushed to the box marked SKULLS. “Thank the Lord,” he breathed.

“That box is taped shut,” Manny said. “Mycroft couldn’t have gotten the bone from there.”

“Precisely, my dear Watson.”

He dashed out of the room and up the stairs to the attic. If the specimen room was organized clutter, here there was chaos. Boxes were strewn about the floor as though washed up after a shipwreck; lawn bags full of paper lined the walls; soil had been tracked across the floor.

“Mycroft, fetch!” Jake ordered.

The dog went unerringly to a brown paper bag on the floor and began to scrounge in it. It had been torn open on one side; Manny could see that it was filled with bones.

“Pete,” Jake said, grinning, “you brilliant old son of a bitch.”

“What’s in there?” Manny asked.

“This room contains all the stuff I took from Pete’s house. I haven’t even begun to go through it. And this”- he pointed to the garbage bag-“contains bones we found in the field behind Turner Psychiatric. The important ones, I suspect. Pete must have brought them to his house when he came back from the morgue on the Monday after I left him.”

Her eyes widened. “The Turner skeletons?”

He radiated excitement. “The Turner skeletons. What your adorable, mother-loving, brilliant dog brought us was the mandible from Skeleton Four. I guess the label fell off when Mycroft brought it to us.”

Jake’s joy was infectious, Manny thought, forgetting for a moment the seriousness of their endeavor. “Why would Harrigan take the bones?” she asked. “Isn’t it against procedure?”

“Absolutely. So there was a good reason for him to do it. He must have known the bones were evidence of something- though I’m not sure just what. Anyway, that’s why he was murdered. He knew what the bones were evidence of, and he might have revealed it.”

He picked up the bag, holding his hand over the tear. “Let’s go to my office. There’s an articulated skeleton there, and we can use it to compare the bones in the bag.” He chuckled. “In a former life, Sam used the house for… social engagements. One of his companions took it upon herself to slow-dance with the skeleton. So I decided it would be best if no one, including Sam, entered without my permission.”

I feel privileged, Manny thought, but why? She felt foolish.

Jake’s office was a large comfortable room on the second floor. The walls were covered with framed pictures and documents, clearly arranged with care: a warrant signed by President Abraham Lincoln to pardon a deserter if he took an oath of allegiance to the United States; four autographed pictures of Muhammad Ali, sequentially showing a disintegrating signature; an article by Jake on the neurological effects of punches on boxers’ brains. “I think boxing should be banned,” Jake said, seeing her interest. “Its whole purpose is to inflict ten seconds’ worth of brain damage to your opponent.”