Carrie Norton stared at the body on the autopsy table, scanning it with a practiced eye. This wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with human remains, but these were by far the best preserved. The body had been laid out under the bright lights of the Special Projects room at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner at NYU Medical Center.
The corpse was that of a man with definite African-American features, approximately five feet seven inches in height, wearing the remains of what appeared to be a Civil War–era naval uniform, complete with white duck pants stained to a shade of oversteeped tea, a waist-length “monkey jacket,” a shirt and even an old-fashioned flat-cap sailor’s hat. His feet were bare. The remains looked as though they’d been dropped into a vat of sheep dip and then left to cure. Horribly, the best comparison that jumped to Carrie’s mind was a piece of human-shaped beef jerky. As she’d already noticed, the man’s lips had been sewn together with what looked like heavy string or a leather thong.
“He looks black but he’s got red hair like an Irishman,” said Max Slattery, standing beside Carrie. “How’s that possible?” He looked across the table at Dr. Harold Potter, the assistant medical examiner, with the inevitable nickname of “Hogwarts.”
“Not my field,” said Potter, tactfully deferring to Carrie.
“It’s the acid content in the soil. Most bog bodies have red hair,” she explained.
“That was no bog,” said Slattery. “You said that was a basement you found him in.”
“The basement had an earth floor. There was no real foundation,” replied Carrie. “The whole area was bogland, almost a swamp. There used to be a creek that ran right through the middle of it named Minetta Brook, from the Dutch for ‘little stream’—Mintje Kill. It went through Washington Square Park, through the Minetta Street area, and exited in the Hudson. That’s why the land was so cheap.”
“Not these days,” snorted Slattery.
“Can we get on with it?” Potter asked a little testily. “Dr. Norton tells me we’re on quite a deadline. Our friend here’s been dead for a hundred and fifty years or so, but she’s in a hurry.”
“Because he’s drying out,” said Carrie. “Your examination is just a formality; we’ve still got CAT scans, PET scans and electron microscopy, not to mention simple X-rays. The longer he’s out of that acidic environment that kept him so well preserved, the more he’s going to deteriorate, even decompose. We’re going to have to freeze-dry him if we want to hang on to him.”
“So now he’s instant coffee?” Slattery said.
Carrie nodded. “Something like that. The Museum of Natural History is lending me their freeze-drying chamber if they can have a bit of tissue for their DNA database.”
“Instant coffee and chopping him up into little pieces. The Post is going to eat this up,” said Slattery.
“Try this,” said Potter, easing the bog man’s head to one side. “He was murdered at least twice, maybe three times.”
“I beg your pardon?” Carrie said. She leaned over the wizened, leathery object on the table. Hogwarts exposed the neck. It looked as though the man had virtually been beheaded.
Potter used his scalpel as a pointer. “There’s a definite ligature mark here. A wire. He was garroted. He also had a section of his throat literally torn out. And there’s a hole in the back of his head that looks like a bullet wound. Very large caliber, no exit wound. If I dug around I’d probably find it in there.”
“That’s consistent,” said Carrie thoughtfully. Slattery turned and stared at her. He still hadn’t made up his mind, but he was well on his way to disliking the woman.
“Consistent with what?”
“Most bog bodies found have been the victims of some kind of ritual sacrifice. Bludgeoned, hanged, throat slit, sometimes all three.” She pointed at the sewn lips. “The mouth is consistent too—it was done to keep the spirit from escaping.”
“Murdered.”
“Sacrificed,” said Carrie. “It’s not quite the same thing.”
“It is in New York,” he answered. He stared down at the body. “Why is this so familiar?” he muttered to himself.
They spent another twenty minutes with the John Doe from the Minetta Lane site but didn’t learn much more beyond the fact of the man’s general physical characteristics and the three potential causes of death. Potter promised to send the remains on to the museum when all the requisite tests had been completed, and Slattery and Carrie rode the elevator back up to the main-floor reception area together.
“So now what?” Slattery asked.
Carrie shrugged. “I go back to the dig; you go back to wherever you came from. Like I told Hogwarts, this isn’t a homicide; it’s a formality.”
“You don’t care that this guy was murdered?”
“Look, I’m an archaeologist, not a detective. Dead bodies are part of the deal. I’ll admit this one’s better preserved than most, but it has nothing to do with what I’m doing at the Minetta site. It’s a sidebar. Interesting, but not necessarily very important in the bigger scheme of things.”
“What scheme would that be?” Slattery asked as the elevator thumped to a stop.
“A big corporation wants to put up a big building and I have to ascertain if there’s any real historical reason why they shouldn’t bring in the pile drivers and start putting up steel.”
“It’s a crime scene!”
“Like Hogwarts said, a hundred-and-fifty-year-old crime scene. It’s a dead issue, so to speak.”
The elevator doors opened. Three people were waiting in the reception room. One of them was a man in a police uniform with more gold braid than Carrie had ever seen, the second was the slightly lumpy figure of David Maibaum, one of her two employers, and the third was a woman in a power suit carrying a notebook computer like a purse.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” said Slattery. He knew who the man in the gold braid was: Chief Richard “The Dick” McNichols, head of Community Affairs. The PR commander of the entire NYPD. If you needed something covered up, the Dick was your go-to guy.
“I don’t like the looks of this at all, at all,” Slattery repeated.
“Me neither,” said Carrie. David Maibaum had a disgustingly obsequious expression on his face, which probably meant the woman in the power suit was a client, in this case the Lincoln Corporation. The suit was black, the shoes were Dolce & Gabbana, and the hair was blond, pulled back so tightly it was stretching her perfect eyebrows back up her Botoxed forehead. She was forty going on thirty and her lips were puffy. Carrie hated her on sight.
“Chief,” said Slattery with a nod. The chief nodded back.
“Dr. Maibaum,” said Carrie.
“I’m Karen White from LinCorp,” said the woman in the black suit, holding out a manicured hand to either Slattery or Carrie Norton. Neither one shook it.
“You’ve been examining the artifact, presumably,” said Maibaum, addressing Carrie.
“It’s a body,” said Max Slattery. “Not an artifact.”
“In fact it’s the body of a black Civil War sailor who was murdered,” said Carrie. Maibaum winced at the words “black” and “murdered.” Slattery glanced appreciatively at Carrie with a new respect. He altered his opinion of her a notch or two. The resulting pregnant pause went into overtime.
“We have a situation I think everyone would like to see resolved,” said the woman from LinCorp, finally. Maibaum nodded. So did McNichols.
“Resolved how?” Carrie asked.
“No one wants to see the Avalon Project slowed down,” said Maibaum slowly. “We want to keep things on track here.” He glanced at Karen White.
“On the other hand,” put in the LinCorp flack, “we recognize the importance of the find at the site.”
“Crime scene,” put in Slattery.
Carrie spoke up. “I wouldn’t quite put it in the category of a ‘find’ either. Whoever it was, it was a human being.”
“No matter how we slice it,” said McNichols bluntly, “this is going to be big news. As big as the African Burial Ground.” The African Burial Ground had been an accidental discovery by construction workers in lower Manhattan who had unearthed a “Negro Burying Ground” at the corner of Duane and Elk streets. The building that was supposed to be put up had never been built. A few hundred million in construction had gone up in smoke. The city fathers put on a bold face, but no one was pleased.
“We are obviously in the midst of a very sensitive situation here,” murmured Karen White. “Especially considering the political overtones, which I am sure we are all aware of.”
No kidding, thought Carrie. Henry Todd Lincoln, the CEO of the Lincoln Corporation, and a direct descendant of President Abraham Lincoln, was in the middle of a mayoralty race with James Washington Stone, the charismatic black activist and filmmaker. Both men were playing the race card, with Lincoln advocating more cops, more rules, fewer foreigners and less welfare, as well as a “border guard” and identity cards to keep “undesirables” out of the city. Stone was responding by calling his opponent an economic racist and an isolationist bigot. In the final analysis Lincoln was the rich New Yorker’s choice and Stone was the poor man’s candidate.
“In light of that,” said Maibaum, “we have decided to take steps.”
“Really,” said Carrie.
“Really,” said Maibaum coldly.
“LinCorp is providing you with office and laboratory space at one of our buildings. A corporate loft on Lispenard Street, to be precise.”
Slattery smiled at that. He knew what a corporate loft was: a nice, discreet place to tear off a private piece of ass without Mrs. Corporate seeing it on Mr. Corporate’s MasterCard bill.
“Name what the two of you will need and it will be provided,” said McNichols.
“What ‘two of us’ are you talking about?” Slattery said.
“What he said,” said Carrie to Maibaum.
“Detective Slattery is being put on detached duty under my orders,” said McNichols. “It’s already been approved by One PP and the chief of department. This is a Special Task Force investigation.”
Slattery smirked. In the business it was known as a “stiffy”—an exercise in public relations to get the chief off the hook and sound as though something serious was being done, when you were really just spinning your wheels.
“And who else is on the task force?” the heavyset cop asked.
“She is,” said Maibaum, pointing his chins at Carrie. “She’ll provide you with any archaeological help you need and liaise with my office. I’ll liaise with Ms. White.”
“Whole lot of liaising going on,” murmured Slattery.
“Sounds like an R and B title,” muttered Carrie.
Within two minutes, cards and telephone numbers had been exchanged, promises made about being kept in the loop, a few direct orders given; then the suits vanished, leaving Carrie and Max alone in the reception room. A few seconds later a stone-faced man in his seventies was led into the reception area by a much younger man in a white jacket. Slattery watched the man as he was led through a set of swinging doors, then turned to Carrie.
“You get the feeling we’ve just been handled?”
“With bells on,” said Carrie. “I guess I’m a detective after all.”
“And I’m an archaeologist.”
“Trade you.”
“There’s an Italian place down the way,” said Slattery. “They do great paccheri in Sicilian eggplant sauce; you interested? We could make some kind of battle plan maybe. Figure out how to handle them back. I’ll get the food; you get the wine. A nice Barolo maybe. Put it on separate expense accounts.”
“You’re on,” said Carrie. “A good autopsy always makes me hungry.”