The Bone Hunters (11 page)

19 May

New York/Presbyterian Hospital

East Sixty-eighth Street

New York City

Barnaby came awake in a private room inside the intensive-care unit. A computer monitor was hanging near the head of the bed and registering his vital signs. Lexy was sitting on a chair near the window looking down at her tablet. A blue-uniformed security guard stood in the open doorway.

“Are we under siege?” he growled.

“To the contrary,” she said. “I asked Ira Dusenberry to have someone assigned here to make sure you did not leave the hospital until you were medically cleared.”

“I can always count on you to do the right thing,” he said.

Lowering her voice, she said, “I have to meet Steve at Homeland Security. It sounds like something might have broken on what happened to that marine truck convoy.”

He shook his massive head in frustration.

“In the immortal words of Tony Curtis after nine months on the set of
Spartacus
with Stanley Kubrick,” he said, “who do I have to screw to get off this picture?”

Lexy laughed.

“Go ahead and laugh,” he said, watching the continual drip of sedative from a plastic IV bag into the vein of his
left arm. “These people are obviously incompetent. I'm perfectly fine. All their tests have confirmed it.”

“Dr. Nealon said you'll be cleared for release after they get back the final test results tomorrow,” she said as an orderly came in bearing a plastic food tray. She saw the plate contained what looked like oatmeal or pablum topped by three prunes.

“Just sit back and enjoy the cuisine,” she added, heading for the door. “You might want to guide them on the future menu.”

The epithet he unleashed caused her to stop and turn around.

“That is anatomically impossible,” she said.

Thirty minutes later she was at the Homeland Security Office Building on 125th Street. Macaulay was waiting for her in one of the small, secure communications rooms on the eleventh floor. The telephone call came in from Langley ten minutes later. Macaulay put Tommy on the speakerphone.

“I have something for you, dear boy,” he said. “It consists of two sheets of paper that June is sending to you now at the encrypted data address you gave her. The first page is a document dated December 9, 1941. It was typed by someone serving in the Fourth Marines Headquarters Company at Camp Holcomb shortly before the detachment surrendered to the Japanese. The document includes a brief account of the convoy mission from Peking by a corporal named Fabbricatore, who claimed to be the only survivor after they were ambushed by a Japanese patrol on the night of December eighth. He states that Captain Allen was killed in the firefight after sending one of the trucks on in an attempt to break out. He didn't
know what happened to the truck or to the two marines driving it. Aside from the typed account, there is a list of nine marines who were in the convoy aside from Fabbricatore, who died of his wounds. Seven are listed as killed in action. Two others, Sergeant James Donald Bradshaw, and Corporal Sean Patrick Morrissey, are listed as missing in action, presumed dead.”

“And the second document?” asked Lexy.

“That's where it gets very strange indeed,” said Tommy. “The second one is the summary of a hospital record for one Marine Corporal Sean Patrick Morrissey. It states that Morrissey was admitted to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Key West, Florida, on March 2, 1942, suffering from second-degree burns, head trauma, hypothermia, malnutrition, and a vertebral compression fracture, which I would translate as a broken back.”

“Wait,” said Lexy. “The first document says he was presumed dead. The second is his hospital record. How is that?”

“As I said, it's very strange.”

“What is the last thing in the hospital record?” asked Macaulay.

“It states that he was released as fit for active duty on October 12, 1942.”

“More than seven months later,” said Lexy.

“I have something else for you. June has found an obituary notice for a Sean Patrick Morrissey who died in 2011 in Detroit, Michigan. The birth date comports with that of our Morrissey, who had just turned eighteen years old at the time he was admitted to the hospital in Key West. According to the obituary notice, he left one family survivor, a younger brother named Daniel Morrissey,
described as retired from General Motors. According to June, it would appear he is still alive and living in Detroit. I'll send you his address with the other documents.”

“Thanks, Tommy,” said Macaulay. “We'll follow up from here.”

Lexy leaned toward the speakerphone. “Please consider it a top priority to locate any other information you can on Sean Morrissey.”

“Of course, dear girl,” said Tommy. “We wouldn't be deprived of the fun.”

“I'm heading for Detroit,” said Macaulay after briefly reviewing the documents and passing them to Lexy. “The brother is our only lead.”

“I'm going with you,” said Lexy.

“I thought you had to babysit the little prince.”

“Little Big Man is in stir until tomorrow morning at the earliest,” she said, grabbing her purse. “Call for our plane, General.”

•   •   •

The Detroit neighborhood they drove through was an industrial city nightmare, a seemingly endless succession of abandoned freight yards, boarded factories, and empty, burned-out storefronts. The few businesses still operating were liquor stores, pizza parlors, and Chinese restaurants.

After leaving the airport, they had exited the Jefferies Freeway, driving along Wyoming Street and turning onto Orangelawn. At one point, they passed a small group of homeless people who were clustered around a pup tent in one of the vacant lots. Lexy was gazing down at her smartphone.

“According to Neighborhood Watch, this is one of the
three most violent and dangerous neighborhoods in America,” she said.

“You can't call it a neighborhood anymore,” said Macaulay. “They should tear it down and start over.”

“Tell that to the people who live here.”

One of the side streets off Orangelawn led to the address they were looking for. The house stood intact among the abandoned homes along the street. The afternoon light was beginning to fade when Macaulay stopped behind one of the derelict cars and they got out. In the distance he could hear the whine of a truck's air brakes as its driver downshifted to exit the Jefferies Freeway.

There was an acrid stench in the air. One of the cars farther down the block was on fire. Macaulay saw children playing in a weed-strewn yard across the street from it. No one seemed to notice the flames.

The house of Daniel Morrissey was constructed of redbrick and was three stories high with a wide front porch and large bay windows facing the street. At one time, it had probably been quite impressive. Now its bay windows were sealed with plywood and painted dark green.

As they approached the porch, Macaulay saw that every ground-floor and basement window had been sealed with plywood as well. Looking up, he saw that the second – and third-floor windows were still intact and framed with white curtains.

The house next door to the Morrissey home was identical to it, but the place had been gutted by fire. Through the charred downstairs window frames, Macaulay could see piles of ceiling debris rising from the living room floor. A small sign had been planted in the front yard. It
read
FOR SALE
$2200.00
. Someone had crossed out the original number with a Magic Marker and written $500.00.

“Fort Apache,” said Macaulay as they climbed the steps to the porch.

Lexy saw that the front door had been reinforced with a big slab of two-inch-thick oak planking. There was no knob or handle on it. A tiny peephole was notched in the middle of the door at Lexy's eye level. From somewhere behind the door, she could hear the sound of laughter and applause from a television game show.

Macaulay knocked on the door. They waited. Thirty seconds went by. He knocked again more loudly. Lexy could no longer hear the television. Nothing stirred inside the house.

“Someone is in there,” said Lexy, “and probably thinks we're from the City Tax Department or bill collectors.”

“You definitely do not look like a bill collector,” he said, glancing up and seeing a small surveillance camera mounted on one of the porch roof rafters.

Facing up at it, he said, “Mr. Morrissey, my name is Steven Macaulay and we are here to ask you about your late brother, Sean. It's very important and it will only take a few minutes.”

Ten seconds later, he heard a dead bolt being unlocked followed immediately by a second one. The massive door swung slowly inward, revealing an unshaven old man in a wheelchair. He was wearing jeans and a raggedy Detroit Lions sweatshirt. Behind him stretched a long, dark hallway. Macaulay could see a broad staircase leading up to the second floor.

“Daniel Morrissey?” asked Lexy.

The old man nodded. Motioning them inside, he
rolled his chair away to allow them past. He rolled back and shut the door again, relocking the two heavy dead bolts before leading them down the hallway and into a brightly lit room.

It had once been an elegant front parlor with ten-foot ceilings, crown molding, and oak wainscoting covering the white plaster walls. With the windows now sealed both inside and out with green-painted plywood, it seemed more like a modern burial chamber.

The room was brightly lit with wall-mounted lighting fixtures. Two couches, several easy chairs, and a walnut coffee table were spread around the room. A massive old television stood on a walnut credenza along one wall. Macaulay wasn't sure what he had expected, but the room was clean and neat, everything in its place.

“Sit down,” said the old man, waving them toward the couch. “Sorry I can't offer you anything. I'm on short rations at the moment. Not used to having guests.”

The old man had been strong in his youth, decided Macaulay, glancing at the thickness of the wrists extending from the cuffs of the sweatshirt. The once-powerful slabs of his shoulder muscles had shrunk to sinew and bone. Weather wrinkles creased his face, which was pasty white aside from ancient scars on his neck and his large hands. The brown eyes were sharp with intelligence.

“I'll tell you why we're here,” said Lexy. “We're trying to find out any information we can on your brother's early service as a marine during the Second World War. We know that he was stationed in China at the beginning. Did he ever talk to you about it?”

“What do you know about my brother?” asked Daniel Morrissey.

“Very little,” she said, “just the fact that he was in China on December 8, 1941, and later was admitted to a military hospital in March 1942 after having incurred serious wounds or injuries. We know he was released to active duty that following October.”

“I'll be honest with you, ma'am,” said the old man. “We weren't close. When he came back from the war, he was a lot different than when he left. . . . He didn't want to work . . . didn't want to do anything. The only thing he did do was drink scotch whiskey. He was damn good at that. After a few months of it, my mother threw him out and he rode the rails out to the Northwest. We heard he went logging for a while and then he disappeared. He wasted his life.”

Morrissey cleared his phlegmy throat and spat with perfect precision into the Mason jar that was nestled between his legs.

“My mother died in 2001,” he went on. “Sean came back here around six years after that. He was a broken man, the worse for being an alcoholic. He was trying desperately to stay sober and to find work. My wife was dead from cancer by then. I took pity on him. We lived here together until he died in 2011. It was on the tenth anniversary of that Trade Center attack. He's buried next to our mother.”

“You're retired from General Motors?”

He nodded.

“Thirty-five years as a shop foreman on the assembly line with the pension to prove it,” he said with a taut grin. “At least until the Republicans take it away from us.”

“Did Sean ever talk to you about his experiences in the war?” asked Macaulay.

“You look ex-military,” said Morrissey, giving him a hard once-over. “Am I right?”

Macaulay nodded.

“Thought so,” he said. “I had a lot of veterans working for me at the plant in Pontiac. It's all gone now . . . the plant, my wife, my daughter down in Alabama, all the old neighbors . . . even the stores downtown where we used to shop.”

“Why didn't you leave too?” asked Lexy.

“Good question . . . pure orneriness maybe. That and Sean was failing. He wanted to ride it out here.”

“Can you tell us about his time in China?”

“He was in China and a lot of other places,” said Daniel Morrissey. “He enlisted when he was only sixteen . . . lied about his age like a lot of them that had problems at home. Our mother made bad choices in men. They all had one thing in common. They didn't like kids. I was fifteen when the war ended and I was big enough to run the last one off.”

He paused to clear his throat again and hock another wad of spit into the jar.

“At the beginning, he was in China like you said. He was in the hospital after that. Later on he fought at Iwo Jima and was badly wounded. They gave him the Silver Star. He got out when the war ended in 1945. His girl didn't wait for him. She had a husband and two kids by the time he got back.”

“We're only interested in what happened to him in China and how he ended up at the marine hospital in Key West three months later,” said Macaulay.

“I don't know anything about that,” said Morrissey. “He didn't talk about it, at least as I remember. I only
know what he said it was like at Iwo Jima. He never got over that one.”

“Is there anyone else we might contact who Sean might have confided more about China to, maybe a fellow marine veteran?” asked Lexy.