The Bone Vault: A Novel by Linda Fairstein

Author:Linda Fairstein [Fairstein, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, General, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths
ISBN: 0743436679
Google: dQ4Bn8aAjTIC
Amazon: B000FBJGHC
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2003-01-20T16:00:00+00:00

“The jumper? The happily married maintenance worker with three kids, who the museum wants me to believe threw himself to his death ‘cause the water wasn’t quite as tepid as it should have been? Or that he suddenly developed a brain disorder that made him keel over and drop off the roof, only now his brain wentsplat all over the cement so we’ll never know quite what the disorder was? Yeah, I’m at the Met, why?”

“They’re reporting it as an accident, so I just wasn’t sure you’d have any reason to know.”

“I had just sliced into a sixteen-ounce New York strip with garlic mashed potatoes when the shit hit the fan. The Hells Angels and the Pagans were having a motorcycle prom at Roseland, which was interrupted by gunfire and resulted in one heavenly Angel making an early visit to Saint Peter. Then some yupster in Yorkville got pissed at his live-in for doing belly shots with another guy at their local watering hole, so he clubbed her over the head with a ten-pound weight from her Richard Simmons workout program when she came through the door, which only goes to prove my point that exercise can be a very dangerous thing. And then this.”

“Someone from the museum call you about Bermudez?”

“You’ve used up your quota of stupid questions for the day. Of course not. I’m sitting in the emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital, waiting to talk to the distraught lover of the girl who died from the fractured skull he gave her when another bus pulls in with Bermudez. DOA.”

“The ambulance didn’t get him to the hospital till the middle of the night?”

“He was missing all afternoon, so they were scouring the museum for him. Mostly the basement, where he usually works. Finally, after dark—about nine o’clock—they’re back out on the roof when a guard has the good sense to shine his light over the edge, into the courtyard down below. Gets to this spot. Poor Bermudez had those orange neon strips on the trim of his work boots. The guy lit up like a pair of fireflies, only one leg was practically planted in the Chinese collection while the other one was in Egypt.”

“Any police involvement?”

“Yeah, it was Emergency Services that had to get into the tight space and pick up the pieces. It was their bus that brought him to the hospital, which is the only reason I had a clue something deadly had happened at the museum. Then your girlfriend showed up.”

“Who might that be?”

“Eve Drexler.”

“Of course. She’d be taking Thibodaux’s calls while he’s away.”

“Yeah, still in Washington. Eve came over to do damage control with Bermudez’s family, and with the media.”

“So what other kind of maintenance work did he do at the Met?”

“Jack-of-all-trades, like most of the guys in that department. And yes, if you’re curious about whether he moves pieces that are being shipped in and out of the museum, he certainly helps. I’m on the job, blondie. I told Eve we want all his employment records for the last year.

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