Linda Fairstein - The Bone Vault

“See you in the morning.”

There was no place to leave the car on Central Park West. The great old museum, made up now of twenty-three interconnected buildings, was ringed by the buses that had come to pick up students at the end of the day. Mike turned onto Seventy-seventh Street and parked in front of the original building facade, throwing his parking permit in the windshield.

We were conscious that it was getting late in the day, and we walked briskly down the path and under the immense arch, below the chiseled granite markings:AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.

This was probably the first institution visited by every child who grew up within range of New York City. Indian artifacts, dioramas with mammals of all sorts, fossils, skeletons, bugs, mollusks, meteorites, minerals, gems, and now a hall of biodiversity. It was more fun than every other colossal collection of things, and any kid you talked to would be likely to name it as his or her favorite city destination.

As I brushed past the guard at the door, he put out an arm to try to slow me down. “We close at five forty-five, young lady. That gives you less than half an hour.”

Mike went up to the information desk and asked for the nearest coat-check facility.

“Are you a member?”

“I’m a cop.” He flashed his shield and the elderly volunteer blanched.

“Oh, well. It’s, um, just follow that blue arrow across the lobby.”

The spaces within the museum were vast. We zigzagged through the crowds of classes and Scout troops on field trips, making our way around the sixty-foot-long war canoe, peopled by half-naked natives from British Columbia who had been paddling against the same current since I’d first come here as a toddler.

The line was long as kids stood restlessly to retrieve backpacks and lunch boxes that had been checked on their arrival. Mike didn’t have the patience to wait. Again, he flashed his badge at the man who was returning their belongings.

“Let me see your claim checks, please?”

“I don’t understand.”

“The ticket stubs. I’d like to see them.”

The attendant offered up a giant roll of numbered claims in his left hand. “Like this?”

Mike reached for the end of the check that was dangling and ripped it off. He held it against the one Kestenbaum had found in Katrina’s pants pocket, which Mike had taken with us to voucher as evidence, and it matched exactly. “Where’s the lost and found?”

“Something you misplaced today, sir?”

“Nope. My girlfriend here is kind of absentminded. Left her snowshoes and gloves at the museum last year and wants to get them ready for the season.”

“You want to be going to security then. Follow the signs past the IMAX theater and around to the front of the building. It’s right before you get to the Hall of Planet Earth.”

Mike was practically trotting now, as I raced behind him. The Northwest Coast Indians hall seemed endless, with its displays of men in loincloths and women in animal skins cooking over open fires and curing meat on racks above their heads.

“You know what’s completely different from the Met in the way this place is laid out?”

“The light, for one thing.”

I had never realized how dark it was in these huge corridors. Once inside the exhibits, there was no natural light, and none of the openness of the art museum. The cases were backlit, but there was a cool darkness that enveloped the entire place.

I followed as Mike turned the corner and entered the enormous central gallery reserved for North American mammals. Again the darkness of the hall was striking, with dim, glass-fronted cabinets displaying the familiar great-antlered caribou and herds of bison in clusters.

Past the bank of elevators to another information desk, and this time the volunteer, closing up her papers for the evening, pointed at the door to the security office. Mike held it open for me. Like most institutions in the city, whether financial or philanthropic, the security forces were run by retired NYPD bosses. They frequently went off the job young and healthy enough to collect a full pension and start a new career with a good salary and benefits.

Mike identified himself to the square-badge sitting at his desk. “Who’s in charge here?”

“You’re looking at him.”

“On the job.” Once more, the blue and gold detective shield did its magic. “You got a lost and found here?”

“You’re looking at it.”

“This is a claim check for something left here months ago.”

“How many?”

“Maybe five, maybe six.”

“Five, I got it. Six makes it last year.”

Mike passed him the glassine envelope with the ticket stub in it. The guard studied it, then picked up the telephone and made a call to someone, telling whoever had answered to look for an item tagged under number 248 and left behind during the previous winter.

“They’ll let me know shortly if they can find it, Detective.”

“Can they also tell us the exact date the item was checked?”

The guard screwed up his face and thought for a few seconds. “Probably not. Not exactly, that is. Each cycle of tickets goes up to ten thousand, then starts again at one. They may be able to place it within a week or so.”

“Is there a separate checkroom for employees?”

“Of this museum? Yes.”

“How about if they work at another city museum, like the Met or the Cloisters?”

The guard looked Mike in the eye, trying to convince us of his effectiveness. “After September eleventh, nobody went through these doors without checking coats and packages right at the entrance. We were on high alert last fall and winter, like every other public institution that draws large crowds. Doesn’t matter where anybody worked or what kind of passes they had. It all got checked. Us private security guards were as busy as you guys.”

For the ten minutes during which we waited, Mike used the museum phone to call his office and tell the sergeant what we’d been up to before he went off duty for the evening, and I checked with Laura for all the day’s messages.

As I hung up the phone, a teenager with a museum-logo pin on her lapel came into the security office. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

She held up a faded blue pea jacket, army-navy-store issue, with a wool scarf draped around underneath the collar. It looked like a perfect fit for Katrina Grooten.

“What’s the extension for the office of the museum president?”

The guard tugged at the top drawer and shuffled the papers to find the directory. This was not a man who spent a lot of time dealing with the executive wing.

He handed the receiver to Mike, who dialed the number, then said, “I’d like to speak with”-he turned to the front page and looked at the list of names-“President Raspen?”

“Sorry to be holding you up,” I said to the guard, who kept looking at the time. He was ready to close up shop and go home.

“Oh, yeah? For how long?” Mike didn’t like the response he got.

“Well, who’s in charge? Can you put him on?” Another bad answer. “Eleven tomorrow morning? Fine, just tell him to expect me when he gets in. Michael Chapman, NYPD.” And hereally didn’t appreciate whatever was said next. “No, but if you mention the wordhomicide, he might find he has a spare moment or two to squeeze me in.”

He turned to me. “President Raspen’s off ogling turtles in the Galápagos. Gone for a week with a tribe of donors. Those poor critters will probably be hanging from a giant sky hook next to that friggin‘ fiberglass whale that’s been down the hall here since I first walked in the door.”

“Who’ll be hanging, the donors or the turtles?”