Fever Dream (16 page)

“We have about a hundred birds from Audubon’s original collection,” she said, walking briskly down the central corridor. “Unfortunately,
Audubon was not much of a taxidermist. The specimens have been stabilized, of course. Here we are.”

They stopped before a large, gray metal cabinet that looked almost like a safe. Marchant spun the center dial and turned the
lever handle. With a sigh of air, the great door opened, revealing inner wooden cabinets with labels, stuck into brass label-holders,
screwed to every drawer. A stench of mothballs washed over D’Agosta. Grasping one drawer, Marchant drew it out to display
three rows of stuffed birds, yellowed tags around each claw, white cotton-wool poking out of their eyes.

“Those tags are Audubon’s originals,” said Marchant. “I’ll handle the birds myself—please don’t touch them without my permission.
Now!” She smiled. “Which ones would you like to see?”

D’Agosta consulted his notebook. He had copied down some bird names from a website that listed all of Audubon’s original specimens
and their locations. Now he trotted them out. “I’d like to start with the Louisiana Water Thrush.”

“Excellent!” The drawer slid in and another was pulled out. “Do you want to examine it on the table or in the drawer?”

“Drawer is fine.” D’Agosta pushed a loupe into his eye and studied the bird closely with many grunts and mutterings. It was
a ragged-looking thing, the feathers askew or missing, stuffing coming out. D’Agosta made what he hoped was a show of concentration,
pausing to jot unintelligible notes.

He straightened. “Thank you. The American Goldfinch is the next on my list.”

“Coming right up.”

He made another show of examining the bird, squinting at it through the loupe, taking notes, talking to himself.

“I hope you’re finding what you’re looking for,” said Marchant, with a leading tone in her voice.

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” This was already getting tiresome, and the smell of mothballs was making him sick.

“Now—” He pretended to consult his notebook. “—I’ll look at the Carolina Parrot.”

A sudden silence. D’Agosta was surprised to see Marchant’s face reddening slightly. “I’m sorry, we don’t have that specimen.”

He felt an additional wash of annoyance: they didn’t even have the specimen he’d come for. “But it’s in all the reference
books as being here,” he said, more crossly than he intended. “In fact, it says you have two of them.”

“We don’t have them anymore.”

“Where are they?” he said, with open exasperation.

There was a long silence. “I’m afraid they disappeared.”

“Disappeared? Lost?”

“No, not lost. Stolen. Many years ago, when I was just an assistant. All that remain are a few feathers.”

Suddenly D’Agosta was interested. His cop radar went off big-time. He knew, right away, that this wasn’t going to be a wild
goose chase after all. “Was there an investigation?”

“Yes, but it was perfunctory. It’s hard to get the police excited about two stolen birds, even if they are extinct.”

“Do you have a copy of the old report?”

“We keep very good files here.”

“I’d like to see it.”

He found the woman looking at him curiously. “Excuse me, Dr. D’Agosta—but why? The birds have been gone for more than a dozen
years.”

D’Agosta thought fast. This changed the game. He made a quick decision, dipped into his pocket, and brought out his shield.

“Oh, my.” She looked at him, her eyes widening. “You’re a policeman. Not an ornithologist.”

D’Agosta put it away. “That’s right, I’m a lieutenant detective with NYPD homicide. Now be a dear and go get that file.”

She nodded, hesitated. “What’s it about?”

D’Agosta looked at her and noted a thrill in her eyes, a certain suppressed excitement. “Murder, of course,” he said with
a smile.

She nodded again, rose. A few minutes later she returned with a slender manila folder. D’Agosta opened it to find the most
cursory of police reports, a single scribbled paragraph that told him nothing except that a routine check of the collection
revealed the birds were
missing. No sign of break-in, nothing else taken, no evidence collected at the scene, no fingerprints
dusted, and no suspects named. The only useful thing was the time frame of the crime: it had to have occurred between September
1 and October 1, as the collection was inventoried once a month.

“Do you have logs of all the researchers who used the collections?”

“Yes. But we always check the collection after they leave, to make sure they haven’t nicked something.”

“Then we can narrow down the time frame even further. Bring me the logs, please.”

“Right away.” The woman bustled off, the eager clomping of her shoes echoing in the attic space as she descended the stairs.

Within a few minutes she returned, carrying a large buckram volume that she dropped on a central table with a thump. Turning
the pages while D’Agosta watched, she finally arrived at the month in question. D’Agosta scanned the page. Three researchers
had used the collection that month, the last one on September 22. The name was written in a generous, looping hand:

Matilda V. Jones

18 Agassiz Drive

Cooperstown, NY 27490

A fake name and address if ever there was one
, thought D’Agosta.
Agassiz Drive my ass
. And New York State zip codes all began with a 1.

“Tell me,” he asked, “do the researchers have to show you some kind of institutional affiliation, ID, or anything?”

“No, we trust them. Perhaps we shouldn’t. But of course we supervise them closely. I just can’t imagine how a researcher would
manage to steal birds under our very noses!”

I can see a million ways
, thought D’Agosta, but he didn’t say anything out loud. The attic door was locked with an old-fashioned key, and the bird
cabinet itself was a cheap model, with noisy tumblers that an experienced safecracker could defeat. Although, he mused, even
that would hardly be necessary—he recalled seeing Marchant plucking a ring of keys off the wall of the reception hall as they
set off upstairs. The door to the plantation house was unlocked—he
had breezed right in. Anyone could wait until the curator
on duty left the front desk on a bathroom break, pluck the keys off the nail, and go straight to the birds. Even worse, he’d
been left alone with the unlocked bird cabinet himself when Marchant went to get the register.
If the birds had any value they’d all be gone by now
, he thought ruefully.

D’Agosta pointed to the name. “Did you meet this researcher?”

“As I said, I was just the assistant then. Mr. Hotchkiss was the curator, and he would have supervised the researcher.”

“Where’s he now?”

“He passed away a few years ago.”

D’Agosta turned his attention back to the page. If Matilda V. Jones was indeed the thief—and he was fairly sure she was—then
she was not a particularly sophisticated crook. Aside from the alias, the handwriting in her log entry did not have the appearance
of having been disguised. He guessed the actual theft had taken place on or around September 23, the day after she had been
shown the exact location of the birds by pretending to be a researcher. She probably stayed at a local inn for convenience.
That could be confirmed by checking a hotel register.

“When ornithologists come here for research, where do they usually stay?”

“We recommend the Houma House, over in St. Francisville. It’s the only decent place.”

D’Agosta nodded.

“Well?” said Marchant. “Any clues?”

“Can you photocopy that page for me?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, hefting and carting off the heavy volume, once again leaving D’Agosta alone. As soon as she was gone,
he flicked open his cell phone and dialed.

“Pendergast,” came the voice.

“Hello, it’s Vinnie. Quick one: you ever heard the name Matilda V. Jones?”

There was a sudden silence, and then Pendergast’s voice came back as chilly as an Arctic gust. “Where did you get that name,
Vincent?”

“Too complicated to explain now. You know it?”

“Yes. It was the name of my wife’s pet cat. A Russian Blue.”

D’Agosta felt a shock. “Your wife’s handwriting… was it large and loopy?”

“Yes. Now would you care to tell me what this is about?”

“Audubon’s two stuffed Carolina Parakeets stored up at Oakley? Except for a few feathers, they’re gone. And guess what: your
wife stole them.”

After a moment, a chillier response came: “I see.”

D’Agosta heard the clomp of feet on the attic stairs. “Gotta go.” He shut the cell phone just as Marchant rounded the corner
with the photocopies.

“Well, Lieutenant,” she said, laying them down. “Are you going to solve the crime for us?” She bestowed a vivid smile on him.
D’Agosta noticed she had taken the occasion to re-rouge and touch up her lipstick. This was probably a lot more exciting,
he thought, than back-to-back episodes of
Murder, She Wrote
.

D’Agosta shoved the papers in his briefcase and got up to leave. “No, I’m afraid the trail is too cold.
Way
too cold. But thanks for your help anyway.”

Penumbra Plantation

Y
OU’RE SURE OF THIS, VINCENT? ABSOLUTELY
sure?”

D’Agosta nodded. “I checked the local hotel, the Houma House. After examining the birds at Oakley Plantation—under the name
of her cat—your wife spent the night there. She used her real name this time: they probably required identification, especially
if she paid cash. No reason for her to spend a night unless she planned to return the next day, slip inside, and nab the birds.”
He passed a sheet of paper to Pendergast. “Here’s the register from Oakley Plantation.”

Pendergast examined it briefly. “That’s my wife’s handwriting.” He put it aside, his face like a mask. “And you’re sure of
the date of the theft?”

“September twenty-third, give or take a few days.”

“That puts it roughly six months after Helen and I were married.”

An awkward silence descended on the second-floor parlor. D’Agosta glanced away from Pendergast, looking uncomfortably around
at the zebra rug and the mounted heads, his eye finally coming to rest on the large wooden gun case with its display of powerful,
beautifully engraved rifles. He wondered which one had been Helen’s.

Maurice leaned into the parlor. “More tea, gentlemen?”

D’Agosta shook his head. He found Maurice disconcerting; the old servant hovered about like a mother.

“Thank you, Maurice, we’re fine for the moment,” said Pendergast.

“Very good, sir.”

“What have
you
come up with?” D’Agosta asked.

For a moment, Pendergast did not respond. Then, very slowly, he interlaced his fingers, placed his hands in his lap. “I visited
the Bayou Grand Hotel, formerly the site of the Meuse St. Claire sanatorium, where Audubon painted the Black Frame. My wife
had been there, asking about the painting. This was, perhaps, a few months after she first met me. Another man—an art collector
or dealer, apparently of dubious repute—had also made inquiries about the painting, a year or so before Helen.”

“So others were curious about the Black Frame.”

“Very curious, it would seem. I also managed to find a few odd papers of interest in the basement of the sanatorium. Discussing
the course of Audubon’s illness, his treatment, that sort of thing.” Pendergast reached for a leather portfolio, opened it,
and pulled out an ancient sheet of paper enclosed in plastic, stained and yellow, missing its lower half to rot. “Here’s a
report on Audubon written by Dr. Arne Torgensson, his attending physician at the sanatorium. I’ll read the relevant part.”

The patient is much improved, both in the strength of his limbs and in his mental state. He is now ambulatory and has been
amusing the other patients with stories of his adventures along the Frontier. Last week he sent out for paints, a stretcher
and canvas, and began painting. And what a painting it is! The vigor of the brush strokes, the unusual palette, is quite remarkable.
It depicts a most unusual…

Pendergast returned the sheet to the portfolio. “As you can see, the critical section is missing: a description of the painting.
No one knows the subject.”

D’Agosta took a sip of the tea, wishing it was a Bud. “Seems like a no-brainer to me. The painting was of the Carolina Parakeet.”

“Your reasoning, Vincent?”

“That’s why she stole the birds from Oakley Plantation. To trace—or, more likely,
identify
—the painting.”

“The logic is faulty. Why
steal
the birds? Simply observing a specimen would be sufficient.”

“Not if you’re in competition, it wouldn’t,” D’Agosta said. “Others wanted the painting, too. In a high-stakes game, any edge
you can give yourself—or deny others—you’re gonna grab. In fact, that just might point to who mur—” But here he stopped abruptly,
unwilling to voice this new speculation aloud.

Pendergast’s penetrating glance showed he had divined his meaning. “With this painting, we just might have something that
so far has escaped us.” And here his voice dropped to almost a whisper.
“Motive.”