Chapter 21

She sank into her desk chair, picking up the paper cup to sip from the coffee he'd gotten her.

"Good morning," Bobby said. "I already sent in a request for records from CPS. They promised to get back with me by lunchtime." Alex nodded at him as she listened. "I also got the skinny on the Vanderhovens. Lucretia and Gray Vanderhoven. New money, he married into the family."

Alex took another drink of coffee.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Fine." She said, feeling a little anger over their parting the night before.

"Okay, I'm sorry, all right?" He scratched his head and leaned far forward, clasping his hands together on his desk. "Eames, I can't be…sometimes I have to think things through on my own."

"You've thought them through?" she asked, and he shrugged. "So you can tell me now?"

Bobby looked around the squad room. "No, not now. But soon, okay? Just don't… hold a grudge about it, okay?"

"A grudge? Why would I hold a grudge about anything?"

Bobby bit his lip. "You're right. I'm sorry. Again." He leaned back stretched his back muscles, and then dropped forward again, clasping his hands together. "Look, let's start over. Okay?" He arranged the papers on his desk. "Good morning. I'm sorry about last night."

She shook her head and chuckled quietly. "You suck, do you know that?"

Bobby grinned and nodded.

"Let's go meet the Vanderhovens." Alex stood and gave him a look as she grabbed her purse and her coffee.

"Is he dead, is that why you're here?" Lucretia asked.

"Why do you… assume that?" Bobby asked quietly.

"I don't assume anything. Then what has he done? Are there others? Is he one of those… you know… he signed an armored prenup with no objections."

"When did he leave?" Eames asked.

"Thursday night."

"Why don't you… tell us about that evening," Bobby gestured with his hand, which was almost hidden by the coat draped over his arm.

"I was to be honored at a major charity event. We had a little Mr. and Mrs. about a stupid phone call from the alarm company. Nothing." She paused and drew in a breath. "It's so tawdry. I came home, the place was torn up and he was gone."

"How did you meet him?" Bobby was starting to bounce as he put the pieces together in his mind. Their perp was certainly a con-man, and they were getting much closer.

"I have a house in Montauk. He called about renting it."

"Did he?"

"He didn't need to. Uh, we met, he was charming." She took in a another long breath. "We're both Princeton, had things in common."

"Princeton," Eames repeated. She nodded at Vanderhoven, to encourage her to keep talking.

"The night he left he was annoyed at me for signing him up for a reunion."

"Maybe he didn't really go to Princeton," Bobby suggested.

"Oh, he must have. He knew all the right names. He even knew the Occidental Club secret recipe for boneless shad."

Nothing ever surprised Bobby in this business, but of all the things he'd ever heard, that sounded ridiculous. He kept his poker face on, but he lowered his head and stared at her as if to say, Really? You can tell someone went to Princeton based on a secret fish recipe?

Alex saved him. "You say he tore the place up. Did he take anything of value?"

"No. He didn't find what he was looking for." She turned and opened a drawer in the bureau beside the wall. "This." She brought out a framed family crest. "I was having it framed as a surprise present for him. It seemed to be the only thing he really valued."

Bobby looked at the crest, then at Vanderhoven, then back at the crest again. "Ex Noblis Prussia," he read. "Do you know what it says?"

"I don't know Latin," she admitted, "but Gray said it was a family crest. He didn't want to brag about it."

Goren nodded at her. "It documents descent from East Prussian royalty," he explained.

"I wouldn't know," she said. "I don't even know who I married."

"Lukie Vanderhoven married a phony pedigree, he failed to get at her money." Ross stood over Goren and Eames' desks, catching himself up on their case. "They both came up empty handed."

Bobby glanced over at Alex. "I don't think it was the money that Gray was after," Bobby told his Captain.

"Lukie bragged that he signed an ironclad prenup," Alex added, giving Bobby a supportive look as she spoke.

"Call me a skeptic. No way he married for love. Fifth Avenue apartment, full social calendar, that's money."

"Yeah, but it's also a lifestyle that matches a vision," Bobby interjected, "that he has of himself."

"He left jewelry, expensive art, but he tore Lukie's place apart looking for the certification of his family crest."

"So this guy's what? Some kind of penniless aristocrat?" Ross shrugged and stared at his detectives.

"Well, this title that he's claiming," Bobby explained, "uh… the Count of Haugwitz? It existed in East Prussia. But his mother is Amish, so this noble heritage… it's delusional."

"And then there's Princeton," Alex added. "He claims he went there, and as far as we know, he only targets Princeton grads. Lukie swears he went there. He even knew a secret recipe from the Occidental Club."

Ross raised his head in recognition. "Occidental Club is very prestigious, limited to select membership."

The detectives listened to what Ross had to say.

"Maybe you should get down there, see what you can find out."

"It's always been rowdy, but I thought when the courts forced the club to let women in it would calm things down. But just the opposite." The manager of the Occidental Club, Cal Howard, walked them through the dining area as his employees hurried to clean up the latest mess.

"We're wondering if you remember this man," Alex said, holding out a photograph of Gray Vanderhoven.

"Oh, Burress," he said. He quickly put his glasses on to get a better look at the picture. "Yeah, Tommy Burress." Alex looked back at Bobby, who was standing across the room, near the windows. "He was real sharp. Always wore a tie, even when he was washing dishes." He laughed.

Alex took the photo back. "Uh, the students pay what, ten grand to eat here? And they still have to wash their own plates?" She asked.

"Oh, Tommy wasn't a member," Cal said. "He worked here."

"But he was a scholarship student, right?" Goren asked.

"He wanted people to think that, and he was smart. "He would bide his time while some smartass bragged how he had just aced the philosophy exam, and Tommy would quote that guy Nietzsche in German."

"But he was lying," said Alex.

"Well, hey, sounded good." Cal was smiling at the memories. "Called himself an auto… tridact."

"Autodidact, self-educated," Goren corrected.

"Yeah, that was him. Yeah, he sat in on some classes, but he never registered."

"How long was he here?" Bobby walked over to examine some plaques on the wall while Alex spoke.

"Couple years. Then one day he just stopped showing up."

"Thanks for your help," she said.

"Sure," said Cal.

Eames walked over to Bobby, who threw his chin in the direction of the plaques on the wall. "There's a plaque here for five students that died in a climbing accident."

Goren read the names on the plaque. "Jeff Walters, George Gifford, Tyler Chisolm, Richard Phelps, Gray Vanderhoven."

They headed to the administration building and were sent to speak with a secretary. They asked their question and waited a few minutes while she pulled the files.

"Yes. Gray Vanderhoven was a student here until his death in 1983."

"And Tommy Burress, anything?" Eames asked.

The secretary put her glasses on and looked down at the paperwork on her desk. "Princeton hires at-risk teens as part of our community outreach. He was an employee here."

"Referred by Children's Protective Services?" Eames asked.

"Well, according to this, he showed real promise and was encouraged to get a GED. But there were problems."

"Behavioral problems?" Bobby asked.

"He threatened a Russian history professor who questioned some claim of his royal lineage."

Goren looked over at his partner, who nodded with a frown. On the way out to the car, his phone rang.

"Goren," he said. "Okay, thanks. No, we can come to you. Sure." He hung up and looked down at Eames. "We can go meet the social worker who managed both boys' cases at CPS."

"Yeah, I remember them. The Burress boys."

"That's a long time ago, you've got a good memory," Goren noted.

"One of my first cases. Those you never forget. Yeah, Tom was the older one. And Anthony." She stopped walking and paused in thought. "So sweet, so sad. He bounced from one foster home to another. What they put him through is the real crime."

"The foster families?" Alex asked.

"The cops. Making him testify against his brother."

"Testify?" Goren asked.

"Apparently Anthony saw Tommy kill their mom."

Eames swallowed hard. Again, she thought about their victim, and what a crappy life he had. They thanked her for her time and headed back toward the building.

"I'll try and track down as many foster parents as I can," Bobby told her.

"I'll pull the records from the trial," Eames said. Goren gave her a nod, and she left him at the CPS headquarters.

They were kind enough to give him a vacant room to work in. Goren was holed up for three hours at a scratched wooden table, surrounded by no less than 17 file folders on the Burress boys. The stack on his right contained the information about Anthony, and the ones on the left about Tommy. One by one, he called the former foster parents, and made notes about the two boys.

"Uh-huh," he was saying as he scratched notes in his ledger. "And he said she burned him with the steam iron? Did he say anything about why?" He listened carefully, and wrote three words: You're not clean.

"And she told him she was… purifying him somehow?" Bobby frowned and ran his hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and listened.

"He kept asking about his brother Tommy. The courts decided the boys shouldn't be together. They didn't want Tommy to hurt Anthony because he'd testified against him. He cried about it a lot. He told me Tommy took care of him. He put butter on that burn on his arm."

"And can you think of anything else Anthony used to say or do? It doesn't matter if it seemed important or not."

"The first night he was here, he filled the bathtub with water and told me he had my bath ready. It seemed kind of sweet, you know? But kinda weird at the same time. He offered to get the tub ready a lot. I asked the social worker if she knew why he was doing that, and she said his mother had died in the bathtub, and maybe he was just trying to work it all out or something."

Eames read the transcripts from the court case, but when she tried to get hold of the interrogation videos, she hit a brick wall. As usual, the people in evidence couldn't find anything. She checked the time on her watch and rubbed her eyes. It was getting late.

Alex called Bobby, who answered right away. "How are things going?"

"Fine," he said, and she could hear the tension in his voice.

"You found something?"

"A lot. I, uh… I have to process it, you know. I'll fill you in tomorrow."

"Well, I'm done over here, too. Evidence can't find the interrogation tapes. I told them to get their asses in gear or to expect a call from the Chief of D's in the morning."

"Wow, you've got some pull," Goren teased.

"Yeah, well, what they don't know won't hurt them, right?" She paused, imagining his smile. "You okay, Bobby?"

He had a smile until he heard her question. His face grew somber. "Yeah. I'm okay. I'll see you in the morning, Alex."

"Good night, Bobby."

A/N If you haven't seen the episode in a while, you might wanna go back and watch. I find Goren's reaction to that line about the boneless shad hysterical. :)