Michael Baden - Remains Silent

“He- he works for you?”

“Yes. He’s a doctor. His name’s Dr. Walter Winnick- Winnick’s the name of his adoptive parents. Pete recommended him to me, and I took him on. He’s loyal and hard-working. Invaluable.”

She bit her lip so hard it turned white, but she met his eyes. “I’d love to meet him. Maybe after the Monmouth case is closed, and after the elections.”

“That would be fine. You intend to run for governor?”

“I don’t know. The feelers are out. It’s a question of fundraising.”

“Good luck, Elizabeth. I mean that sincerely.”

“Thanks. Is that all you have to tell me?”

“For the moment. Whatever else can wait.”

She stood. “Then-”

The door behind them opened. Elizabeth wheeled, her face red with fury. “Not now!” she shouted.

Too late. Jake had turned also. Daniel Markis was at the door, and Jake got a good look at him. His face was unblemished, his stance upright. He was dressed in slacks and a sports shirt. Can hardly walk? I’ve never seen a man beat it so fast in all my life. Markis isn’t bedridden, but he may be deaf; Elizabeth had to shout. He faced her. She cowered. All right. Gloves off. He grabbed her arm.

“Let go!” she screamed. “What are you doing?”

“Making you listen. When you see your half brother, Elizabeth, don’t be too upset. He has a clubfoot, you see. When you give a pregnant woman mescaline, deformities to the fetus are inevitable. Pete didn’t tell you the whole truth. She wasn’t a nurse, she was a patient. And she didn’t die of pneumonia. She died of mescaline poisoning. And your father was involved with the program that administered it.”

She screamed again, the sound reverberating through the room. He heard a car door open and close, the sound of tires on gravel. If you set off a claymore mine from behind, the unidirectional balls don’t hit you but the blast’ll damage the auditory nerve. That’s what happened to Markis! He raced past Elizabeth, pushed aside the butler who appeared in the doorway, and dashed to his car. Markis was that “woman.” Elizabeth must have known. My God.

He called Manny’s office from the car.

“Ms. Manfreda’s office.”

Shit. Kenneth. “Where’s Manny?”

“She came back from court early and left half an hour ago. Went to do some shopping- she says her clothes are rags- and then she was going to meet you, as requested, at the morgue. Another romantic rendezvous among the corpses, I gathered. She was so excited about her afternoon- she could make the trunk shows at Bergdorf’s- she left her cell phone on her desk.”

“Me? What are you talking about?”

“She said someone from your office called and told her to meet you at Bellevue, in the morgue, later this afternoon. Said you’d found something and wanted to show it to her there.”

Jake felt cold fear settle in the pit of his stomach.

A MAN IN A hospital coat came up to her in the Bellevue lobby, wearing a Secret Service-type transmitter in his ear. “Ms. Manfreda?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Lawrence Travis. Dr. Rosen asked me to escort you to the morgue. He’s in an urgent meeting he couldn’t avoid, but he’ll meet you as soon as he’s finished.”

He’s probably with Pederson, deciding his fate. “I can find the morgue easily enough. No need to come with me.”

“It’s no trouble. It’s the old morgue, a creepy place. I promise you’ll be grateful for the company.”

She smiled. “Thank you. That’s very nice of you.”

They took the elevator to the basement, where he led her down a cheerless, brightly lit corridor until they came to a door. She shivered. “It’s cold down here.”

“It’ll be warmer inside,” Travis said. He opened the door. Manny saw a wall of numbered silver metal boxes, four boxes high and about fifteen rows wide.

A gurney holding a corpse stood in front of them.

“This is where we keep the bodies until the funeral director picks them up or they go to potter’s field,” Travis explained as they entered. “We refrigerate the bodies that have to remain here for a while. They’re on trays in the drawers at the back. One body per tray, about half of them in use at any one time, unless there’s been a disaster and the corpses pile up.”

He’s enjoying himself. Creepy is right.

“All unidentified and unclaimed bodies in Manhattan end up here before going to Hart Island for burial. Can’t recognize most of them- they’re too decayed. Many are old people who’ve outlived their friends and relatives. The police have a Missing Persons Bureau office in the back there, next to the old autopsy room. It’s hardly ever manned, though.”

“The old autopsy room? Is that where Dr. Rosen wants to meet me?” He didn’t answer her. She asked again.

“I guess so. He just told me the old morgue.”

“Since there’s an old one, there must be a new one. Why wouldn’t he meet me there?”

Travis shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him. This used to be the ME morgue, but now they’re across the street in their own building, where Dr. Rosen works.”

Suspicion leeched into her brain. “Have you been working for Dr. Rosen a long time?”

“No, ma’am. Three-four weeks is all. I heard him give a lecture on blood splatter and decided he was the person I wanted to be transferred to.”

Manny’s ears tingled. “A lecture on what?”

“Blood splatter.”

Blood splatter. Jake’s laughed a dozen times at laymen who make that mistake: “Splatter is a sound, not the description of blood evidence. Spatter is the word for evidence.“ This man’s never been to Jake’s lecture. This man’s not with the ME’s office. She turned to face him, fear whipping at her like a cold wind. She looked intently at his feet. Through his paper booties she could see lizard boots. It’s the same person who attacked me outside my office! “I warned you, Ms. Manfreda, not to continue your investigation.”

She had felt his breath before- at Turner. “Who are you?” she whispered.

“Daniel Markis.” His voice was unnaturally loud.

“Elizabeth’s husband!” Manny understood. Jake had told her Markis was in Elizabeth’s thrall, so much in her shadow he was practically invisible. She must have sent him to Turner; he was the “cleaning lady” outside her office. “Jake says you’re a high school football coach.”

“What?”

She raised her voice. “A high school coach.”

He grinned. “Among other things. Mostly, I work for my wife.”

A knife glinted in his hand. She recognized it with a spasm of terror. “I spared you on Elizabeth’s orders,” he said. “We had to kill Pete- he knew-but she thought you and Jake should live. Just so long as you dropped the investigation. A sentimental mistake. A mistake we aren’t prepared to make twice,” he hissed, stepping toward her.

“Help!” Her shout echoed off the trays. “Help!” Jake, Rose, Kenneth, Mycroft- their faces were vivid in her brain, and Manny was empowered by their love.

She screamed and slammed the gurney into him, and he fell to the ground backward, momentarily dazed.

“You little bitch!” he howled, as he struggled to stand up.

She ducked behind the first row of metal boxes, stumbling on her high heels. She took off her shoes, barely registering that they were the same ones she had worn to the Carramia trial, and held them as she edged toward the body refrigeration unit. She grabbed the handle of one of the boxes, opened it, climbed onto the tray, then pulled it closed from the inside. A corpse stared at her through decomposing eyes, and she dug her fingernails into her palms to keep from screaming.

She could hear Markis approach. “Where are you, bitch?”