Linda Fairstein - The Bone Vault

“Where’s Mike?” I asked, after greeting Laura and coming back into my office.

“Two guys from the DA’s squad came by looking for you. Told him something urgent was up and he flew out of here with them.”

It was unlike him to leave without an explanation, but I assumed I would get one soon.

Clem handed me the printouts of her latest e-mail responses. “On the Natural History side, nothing from Mamdouba. That doesn’t surprise me, though. Socarides is the guy in charge of African mammals. His is sort of intriguing.”

It began with a courteous salutation and the appropriate expression of concern about Katrina’s death. Then he launched into a defensive description of the uses of arsenic in taxidermy, asking for Clem’s telephone number so he could learn as soon as possible what Katrina had said about her health in the weeks before she died.

“The others are from the Met staff. Bellinger and Friedrichs. I’d expect to hear from them. She worked so closely with Hiram, and I think she trusted him. And Anna-well, it would be strange if she didn’t express her condolences. Nothing out of the ordinary. If I’d ever thought I’d have so many dinner invitations, though, I would have been back for a visit long before this. You’ve got everyone vying for my companionship.”

“Keep tapping away at the keyboard, if you don’t mind. Answer them all, okay? When you get some conversation going, why don’t you mention that Katrina talked to you about the bones she was looking for. See if that gooses anybody.”

I was on the phone with one of the guys in the Special Victims Unit when Mike reappeared in my doorway. “It’s only a little bit past noon and I got my first collar. Piece of cake.”

“A homicide I don’t know about?”

“Nope. Part of your fan club.” He made a ratcheting noise with the teeth of his handcuffs as he closed them and lifted the back flap of his blazer to loop them into the waist of his pants. “Your favorite stalker.”

“Shirley Denzig? Picketing with the S and M group?”

“Yeah. Joe Roman and the guys from the squad came by to let you know they got a call she was downstairs, so I went along in case they needed me to ID her.”

“But how did she know about the demonstration? Why’d she come?”

“The all-news radio station was running it. Courthouse brouhaha. Sex crimes prosecutor steps in shit at the DA’s office. She couldn’t wait to get here and add to your aggravation. They’re fingerprinting upstairs as we speak. Grand larceny, three counts, from the cases at the Waldorf. Aggravated harassment for the calls to you. Oh, and we tossed in criminal possession of a weapon, third degree, for the loaded gun she’s got in her backpack.”

CPW third degree was probably the charge that would bring Denzig the most jail time.

“That should make you feel better. Remind me to tell you about last night,” I said.

“You’re joking, aren’t you? Something happened after we split?”

“Save it for the right moment, okay?” I nodded in Clem’s direction. No need to spook a witness with reminders of how crazily some of our defendants behave, how loosely tethered they are to reality.

I felt an enormous surge of relief at the news of Denzig’s apprehension.

“You need to sign a corroborating affidavit for the complaint.”

“A pleasure, Detective. Which of my esteemed colleagues is catching today?”

Mike lowered his voice. “McKinney’s giving it to Ellen Gunsher.”

“Not a prayer,” I practically shouted the words at Mike, coming out from behind my desk to pass him to get to McKinney’s office down at the end of the hallway.

He grabbed my elbow as I tried to brush by. “The gun. That’s what she’s supposed to handle. That’s what her unit does. Let it go, Coop.”

I pulled away and kept walking. “I’m not letting that case be assigned to a lawyer who’s too cowardly to set foot in a courtroom, just because she’s in bed with McKinney. What for? So she can plead it out to some cheap charge when I’m not looking?”

“He in?” I asked McKinney’s secretary. The door to his office was closed.

“Can’t be disturbed. There’s a meeting-”

I knocked and turned the handle. “Hate to interrupt when you’ve got so much on your plate.” McKinney was stretched out on the worn leather sofa on the far side of his office, his shoes off and tucked beneath the small conference table in the middle of the room. Gunsher was standing by the hot plate under the window, brewing two cups of tea.

“Shirley Denzig. That’s already been assigned. Sorry, there’s been a phone dump and-”

“Yeah, Alex, but now there’s a gun,” he said, sitting upright and fishing for his loafers with his toes. “Who was working on it?”

“I made sure not to know. Chinese wall and all that. I’m just a witness. Sarah assigned someone to it ages ago.”

“Well, Ellen can take it over and-”

“That’s not happening, Pat. Someone with trial experience who can deal with three traveling salesmen who aren’t going to want to come to town to testify-”

We kept cutting each other off, and Ellen took in the back-and- forth action like she was watching a Ping-Pong match.

“It’d be ugly, Pat, if you have to be a witness at the trial.” He looked puzzled. “I understand you’re the one who leaked the story about Grooten’s body being found in Port Newark the night Mike and I were out there. The thing you tried to blame on Jake, remember? I’ll bet when I check about who called the media in today for this little feeding frenzy about the S and M lunatic, some kindly source who owes me will tell me that there’s no one in the universe who wanted to give my antagonists an airing more than you.”

“Don’t walk out of here until I’m finished, Alex. I’m not done.”

“Sorry, Ellen. We don’t need the gun traced. We already know she stole it from her father’s garage. Hate to waste your time on something so trivial.” I let the door swing shut behind me.

Back at my office, I reached over Laura and used her phone to dial Sarah’s extension and let her know that Shirley Denzig had been arrested. “I don’t care who you choose. Assign it to anyone who can pick a jury and lay a proper foundation to introduce a gun into evidence. Mike and I are going back up to Natural History this afternoon.”

Mike was standing over Clem’s shoulder, reading her mail. “Now we’ve got Erik Poste checking in. Very sorry about Katrina. Afraid he won’t be in town this weekend when Clem gets here but he’d like to give her a call. Gives his number at the Met. Says he won’t be there this afternoon ‘cause he’s going somewhere with Gaylord.”

“Speaking of Gaylord-”

“Yeah, I got him. He’ll be at Natural History all afternoon. We can talk to him there.”

“What do we do with Clem?”

“Well, we sure don’t want to out her at the museum. We want her on-line, don’t we?”

“And secure, too. I got it.” I called Ryan Blackmer’s office to see whether Harry Hinton was assigned to testify today to the grand jury on the pedophile sting arrest he had made on Monday afternoon. He was, and Ryan expected him to be the first presentation at 2P.M. Hinton would be available after that.

“We’re going to leave you here in Coop’s office with another detective while we go to the museum to do some more interviews and snoop around. Harry’s a genius on the Internet. If something comes up that’s important, he’ll reach out to us. He’ll take you back to the hotel any time you’re ready to go. And we’ll get together with you this evening to see where we all stand.”

I ordered in sandwiches to feed Clem and kept her company until two-thirty when Harry Hinton appeared in my office, following his brief grand jury appearance.