Lee sat on the hard bench in the back of the courtroom, watching the trial in progress. He had been wandering around downtown, and when he found himself standing on the steps of the criminal court building, he decided to go inside. It was Friday afternoon, and he felt at loose ends, with the weekend looming ahead. Lately he wasn't dealing well with long stretches of unstructured time. He found courtrooms to be comforting places-they reminded him that sometimes criminals really were brought to trial and convicted.
The judge looked down on the proceedings with a weary expression. He had a long, jowly face topped by a brace of bushy black eyebrows so thick that it appeared a pair of caterpillars had attached themselves to his forehead.
This particular trial was a murder case, and the defendant-the victim's husband-sat flanked by his attorneys. He sat quietly, hands folded in his lap, a slight, balding, unremarkable-looking man. Lee knew that a defendant's behavior in court had little bearing on guilt or innocence. The most vicious killers could be brilliant actors once the public eye was on them.
The prosecutor, a slim, dapper Asian man with slicked-down thinning hair, stood and buttoned his jacket.
"We call Dr. Katherine Azarian to the stand, Your Honor."
The judge nodded and pulled at his extravagant right eyebrow.
A small, compact woman rose from the gallery and walked to the witness box. Something about the quiet, contained way she moved caught Lee's eye. She was dressed in a dark green business suit with a fitted jacket, nothing flashy-but on her somehow it looked glamorous. Her hair was dark and wavy, cut close to her head, emphasizing the curve of her cheekbones and firm, pointed chin.
"…the truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" The bailiff, a fat, red-faced man, finished his recitation in a monotone.
"I do," Dr. Azarian replied in a clear, firm voice, removing her hand from the Bible held by the bailiff and turning toward the witness box. Lee watched as she sat, her eyes on the prosecutor, waiting for his first question. Her manner was self-assured and yet entirely lacking in arrogance. He found it hard not to look at her.
The prosecutor approached her, smiling. "Would you please state your profession, Dr. Azarian?"
"I'm a forensic anthropologist." A tiny dimple danced on the end of her chin when she spoke.
"And what exactly does a forensic anthropologist do?
"I aid in the identification of victims' bodies and the causes of death through examination of their skeletons."
"So you're a bone specialist?"
"Yes."
The prosecutor plucked a photograph from the exhibit table and held it aloft.
"Exhibit A, Your Honor. If I may, I'd like to show it to the witness and then to the jury."
The judge nodded, his eyes heavy under the weight of his prodigious eyebrows. The prosecutor presented the photo to Dr. Azarian.
"Do you recognize this?"
"Yes. It's a photograph of the victim's skull."
The prosecutor passed the photo on to the jurors, whose reactions were varied. Some stared at it with fascination, others with detachment, and a few were visibly upset by it. The prosecutor retrieved the photo from the jury foreman and turned to his witness.
"Did you also have an opportunity to study the skull itself?"
"I did."
"And what conclusion did you reach as to cause of death?"
"Blunt force trauma to the head."
"And could the damage you observed have been caused by a fall?"
"No. The wounds are inconsistent with a fall. For one thing, they occur on both sides of the skull. For another, the shape and size of the indentations indicate the victim was struck by a heavy object-most probably a horseshoe."
"Like this one?"
There was a murmur from the courtroom as the prosecutor lifted a large horseshoe from the exhibit table.
"Yes. The curve of the indentations in the skull, as well as the peculiar mark made by the knob here"-she pointed to the raised edge at the crest of the U-shaped curve-"are unique."
"You might even say unmistakable?"
"Yes."
"Objection!" The defense counsel yelped, leaping to his feet. "Leading the witness!"
"Very well, Mr. Passiano-your objection is sustained," the judge replied, but his voice implied what everyone in the courtroom knew: the damage had been done. Kathy Azarian was not just a good witness, she was the prosecution's star witness, and Lee knew that anyone putting money on the defendant now was making a fool's bet. He smiled to himself and slipped out the back door of the courtroom.
When he reached the corridor, his cell phone rang. He found a quiet corner by the restrooms before answering it. He hated talking on his phone in public, and thought people who did were "coarse," as his mother would say.
"Campbell here."
"Lee?" It was Chuck Morton, and he sounded nervous.
"Yes. Chuck? What's happened?"
"Now, Lee, don't get excited, please-"
"What? What is it?"
"Now, don't call your mother until we know more-"
"It's about Laura, isn't it? What's happened?" Lee heard his own voice rising in pitch and volume, and felt himself starting to hyperventilate.
"Lee, please calm down. It may be nothing at all."
Spots danced in front of his eyes. He forced himself to take a deep breath before he spoke again. "What have you found?"
"A couple of kids came across some bones in Inwood Park."
Inwood Park was an unlikely place for a body drop, especially if Laura was abducted near her apartment in Greenwich Village, he thought.
"What makes you think it's her?"
"The medical examiner's office thinks it may be about the right age and, uh, gender, but we-uh, they-want to do a reverse DNA analysis."
Lee forced himself to breathe again, doing his best to sound professional.
"No clothing or other identifying-"
Chuck interrupted him. "No, nothing. But if we can get DNA samples from you and your mother-"
"Yeah, I know how it works. I'll be right there."
"Wait-I'm not in my office. I'm at the ME's office."
"Okay. Be right there."
He turned off his phone and shoved it into his pocket, but his hand was trembling and sweaty, and the phone slid from his hand, clattering to the floor. It skidded across the smooth tiled floor and came to rest at the feet of Dr. Katherine Azarian.
"You dropped your phone," she said, picking it up.
"Uh, thanks," Lee mumbled, taking it from her.
"No problem," she said, and continued on toward the ladies' room. She carried a cream-colored lamb's wool overcoat in one hand and a leather briefcase in the other.
"Uh-wait!" he cried.
"Excuse me?" She turned back to face him, her expression wary.
"Please-please just wait a second. I'm with the NYPD-" Lee fumbled for his ID, trying desperately to keep her from leaving.
"I knew that," she said. "You don't have to show me your ID." She smiled, revealing teeth that were unreasonably white. They gleamed like polished porcelain, and Lee found himself staring at them, unable to look away.
"How did you-"
"Oh, please," she said. "I've been around them long enough to be able to spot one at a hundred paces."
"Oh, okay," Lee said. "I just saw you testify in court, and-"
"Oh? Are you on that case?"
"No, no. I just had some time to kill-but that's not important. I want to ask you something." In this light, her eyes were the color of roasted almonds, and rimmed with thick, dark lashes. "Would you-would you possibly be willing to help identify a body?"
She cocked her head to one side and shifted her backpack to the other shoulder. "Well, that's what I do. Do you mean right now?"
"Are you finished testifying?"
"Yes."
"Then right now-unless you have other plans."
She laughed. "They can wait. You seem very anxious to have your answer. Where is this body?"
"At the medical examiner's office."
"Okay-I have some time to kill, too, actually," she said, putting on her coat and gloves. Her hands were small and fine, delicate as the hands of a child, with perfectly manicured pink fingernails. He couldn't imagine those hands in a laboratory, handling the gruesome remains of murder victims. "When did this body turn up?" she said, buttoning her coat.
"I just found out about it."
"One of your cases?"
"Sort of. It-it may be my sister."
She stopped midway through putting on her second glove. "Oh my God. What happened to her?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out. She disappeared five years ago."
"I'm so sorry to hear it. I hope I can be of some help."
"Thanks."
"Okay, let's go," she said.
"What about-?" Lee said, glancing toward the bathroom.
"It can wait."
As they left the courtroom a brisk wind was blowing from the west, and Lee pulled his coat tighter around his neck. He looked at Katherine Azarian, who had flung a hand skyward in hopes of snagging one of the yellow cabs barreling up Center Street. Even flagging a cab, she looked confident, authoritative.
She glanced at her watch. "This is a lousy time to try for a cab. I think we should take the bus. It's not far."
"Okay."
"There's a stop for the M15 right around the corner at Chatham Square."
He followed her, bent forward against the wind, past the Tombs, with their stark vertical stone walls, the long grim columns rising like the Death Star from the streets below. They hurried past the statue of Lin Zexu, the Fujian hero who defied the British, standing tall on his pedestal in the center of the square. He looked cold, draped in his gray granite robes, gazing northeast toward the rising sun, his stone face shielded by a broad-brimmed hat. Across from the statue stood the Republic National Bank, with its flashy red-tipped pagoda, marking the entrance to the heart of Chinatown. Another time, he might have thought it charming, but right now, to Lee, the color red only evoked one thing: blood.