Linda Fairstein - The Bone Vault

“What’s her ‘scrip?”

I tried to be patient as I told them what Clem looked like, so they could send out a radio broadcast to the other officers arriving at the museum, as well as to those patrolling the neighborhood.

“Name?”

I spelled it for him while the driver took notes.

“Odd one.”

“Inuit.”

“What?”

“Eskimo.”

“APB the North Pole, Al.” The sergeant laughed, as concerned about the situation as Mamdouba had been at first.

Mike and a young cop came back into the room. “You want to get reamed at Compstat next month, Paddy? Stand here making stupid friggin‘ jokes while you’re about to notch up one more murder count in your precinct. Get me every man available in Manhattan North.”

“Now you’re joking. It’s just a museum.”

“You ever been up on five, Coop? Or beyond it, to the attic?”

I shook my head in the negative as Mike went on. “We’re gonna tear it apart upstairs. You won’t believe what it looks like. You could rent out rooms to a dozen people and no one would know they’re living up there. Or dead. There’s a zillion cubbyholes and lockers and cases. Where’s Mercer? Anyone with Mercer? Call him, Coop.”

I dialed his phone from Mamdouba’s desk and was sent into his voice mail. He must have reached the basement already, where his cell phone wouldn’t work. I tried Zimm’s extension and got no answer.

“Do you know who else is working in the basement?” I asked Mamdouba.

“Several of the team were here until an hour ago. Gaylord, Poste, Bellinger, Friedrichs. They were all up here. But it’s late, they may be gone. Zimm, I told him not to leave until he heard from me, in case I needed any last-minute errands completed tonight.”

Mike was giving orders to NYPD cops, who were arriving in pairs every five minutes or so, and to the bewildered security guards. “You see anything alive and moving under this roof, corral him or her and bring ‘em…”

He looked at me, not knowing what to say.

“IMAX theater. Off the main lobby.”

“Paddy.” He turned his attention to the sergeant. “Interns, grad students, science dorks, janitors. Nobody leaves. What did they see, what did they hear? Bones. I want anyone who knows where the bones are.”

Mamdouba muttered softly, “They are everywhere, Mr. Chapman. Upstairs and down.”

The sergeant had a police walkie-talkie and was communicating with his men on the street. “Somebody at every entrance, every doorway. Dumpsters in the courtyard, check ‘em. Flood the place with whoever shows up.”

“Can you turn off that damn system already?” Mike was on the phone with headquarters again. The internal alarms had been clanging for twenty minutes. If there was anyone who had not realized there was an emergency, he had already met the taxidermists.

Mercer was practically panting when he came back into the office. “Door from the staircase doesn’t open on three. On two is an office like this one. Lock must be a hundred years old. Shouldered into it and it gave way. Dusty, empty, nothing in the closets except bottles full of lizards. First floor’s a bookshop. Took it all the way down to the basement.”

“Where the exhibition offices are? See any of the-”

“No, you heard Clem. Can’t get there from here. It’s spookier than shit.”

“Herps.” Mamdouba again.

“What?”

“Snakes. Herpetology. They’re all dead, Mr. Wallace.”

“You still do not want to be in there. Tank after tank-pythons, constrictors, anacondas-all in some kind of alcohol solution.”

“You see anyone?”

“Nope. This one’s a labyrinth of storerooms and closets. Racks of metal shelves on wheels with specimens. I left the cop who followed on that side. Call him some backup, will you? Still as a tomb. He’s checking out every inch of it.”

“Did you get over to-?”

“The exhibition area? Yeah. Had to climb back up to the lobby and over to where we’ve been in before. Got the kid to go-”

“Zimm?”

“Yeah. Told him what happened and sent him-”

“How’d he react to the news about Clem?”

“Seemed appropriately freaked out. I have him doing a sweep to see who’s still here, round them up. I’ll go back to meet him and let him take us through every back alley he knows down there. Sarge, I need guys to open every door.”

“Did Zimm say he knew Clem would be here tonight?”

“Mike, I didn’t stop to do an interview. I’m trying to find her alive, okay?”

“Anyone else there?”

“That sour broad. Anna Friedrichs. She’s dragging up here after me, taking her sweet time.” Mike handed Mercer the basement floor plans that Clem had helped him to decipher. “Take this with you when you go back down. Sarge, your walkie-talkies. Give ‘em up.”

Mamdouba, who had been speaking on the phone, now turned to us. “Mr. Socarides is still in his office. Mammals. He’ll go with you to the fifth floor, Mr. Chapman. He’s responsible for-well, for many of the bones.”

“Humans?”

“Animals. But he knows the storage area.”

I thumbed through the pages detailing collections and donations.

“Can he help with these names?”

“Certainly.”

“We’ll bring this list with us, then.”

“You’re not coming, kid. Go with Mercer. Help him.”

“Stay put, Alex.”

Mercer didn’t want me in his way either. I wasn’t exactly a goodluck charm.

Each of them took a few of the men and women in blue and set out on their paths to the nether reaches of the gigantic museum. Twenty-three buildings. Seven hundred and twenty-three rooms. We didn’t need a precinct to search it, we needed an army.

Now the noise was coming from the street outside. I walked to the window and looked down at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and West Seventy-seventh Street. Dozens of RMP’s were blocking the intersection, and several big trucks of the Emergency Services Unit were positioned beneath the old granite facade. Sirens wailed the arrival of more and more officers, and flashing red bubbles atop black unmarked cars signaled the presence of detectives and police brass.

Anna Friedrichs looked terrified when she entered the room. “Is Clem all right? Have you found her?”

I told her how Clem had disappeared. “Did you read her e-mails today? Did you know she was coming to New York?”

“By the end of the day we all knew she was coming to town to talk with the police. But later in the week, I thought. It was Zimm who just told me she hinted about coming tonight.”

“He told you that? When?”

“Now. Just now. She trusted him, I guess. Said she’d look to see if his light was on when she got to the museum. He took that to mean at night. Tonight.”

“Get him up here.” I flapped my hand in Mamdouba’s direction. “If you can’t reach him by phone, send two of your men to bring him up here immediately. D’you know who else he told?” I asked, turning back to Friedrichs.

“He’s so upset with himself it’s hard to be sure. He knows he told Erik Poste and Hiram Bellinger. He’s not sure who else was around.”

I handed her the list of collections and donor names. “How familiar are you with this museum-I mean, the physical layout?”

“I, uh-I only know about some of the companion works to mine.”

As curator of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in the Met, she covered the most primitive societies, the ones to which Clem had introduced Katrina. “Human bones, skeletons, things like that. Can you show us where they’re kept?”

She looked at Mamdouba for help. “Upstairs? Have you seen the closets on five?”

“Sarge, give me two men. I want to go up the main staircase and catch up with Chapman. Would you keep looking, Ms. Friedrichs? Any names, anything you see on those lists that might connect us to something-a particular storeroom, a special place, a priceless exhibit-that someone didn’t want Katrina Grooten to find. As soon as Socarides gets here-”