Stones Unturned (23 page)

"I believe you, Professor. I don't think you killed Doctor Graves. But I'm trying to find out who did."

Silence reigned in that impossibly surreal insane stretch of hallway. The elevator doors slid closed suddenly behind him. The ghost of Dr. Graves drifted over toward the orangutan and then started to investigate the rest of that corridor, obviously trying to figure out where Zarin was hiding.

"If you discover the identity of Graves's killer, you'll share the information with me?"

Clay nodded without hesitation. "Absolutely."

"Then come in. But know this. If you make any sudden moves, Solomon will pull the trigger. And if you manage to survive being shot a second time, know that he has the strength to tear your head from your shoulders."

"Nice to know," Clay replied.

"Solomon, bring him to me."

The orangutan hesitated, then swayed a moment, obviously disappointed that he had not been able to pull the trigger. He gestured with the gun for Clay to walk to the right, and they started off in that direction.

"Bizarre, isn't it?" the ghost of Dr. Graves said, falling into step beside him, the orangutan following, gun train at his back.

"Oh, yes," Clay said, voice low.

"He's a madman," Graves said, grim and serious. "The FBI have created this situation that makes him seem a buffoon to you. Don't allow yourself to forget for a moment that, no matter how insane he is, no matter how ridiculous they have made him, Professor Zarin murdered hundreds of people with his schemes. Once upon a time he was both cunning and vicious. Insane and vicious may be just as deadly a combination."

"I'll keep that in mind," Clay whispered.

The orangutan poked him in the back with the barrel of the machine gun. Though he knew the gun probably had only rubber bullets or blanks in it, still it was troubling, and annoying. Even real bullets would not kill Clay, but this animal had been badly used. He faulted both Zarin and the FBI. He did not want to have to kill Solomon.

"Turn left," Zarin's rasp came from the speaker box behind them.

Clay did as he was told. The ghost of Dr. Graves remained silent beside him, perhaps ruminating over the strange reunion that was about to take place.

"At the end of the corridor you will find a carved cherrywood door. When you reach it, knock."

With Solomon following behind them, Clay and Graves followed Zarin's instructions. The corridor was just as featureless and industrial as the rest of the professor's lair. The cherrywood door — intricately carved with scenes from Victorian times, men driving coaches drawn by many horses, a fox hunt, ladies in beautiful dresses strolling a promenade — was the first elegant thing they had encountered. It was one of the finest pieces Clay had ever seen.

He knocked.

Behind him, Solomon grunted eagerly, and Clay heard the orangutan shuffling from side to side.

With a click, the door swung open to reveal a beautifully appointed room hung with priceless European tapestries and lined with ornately carved bookshelves, upon which sat leather-bound volumes of great age. The high, vaulted ceiling had windows set into it so that there was a turret made almost exclusively of glass to let in the light of the day. Clay thought it ironic, here in Rochester, where the sky was so often gray, as it was today.

A light rain had begun to fall, and it trickled down the turret windows in weeping streaks.

On the far side of the room was a strange chamber, a kind of electronic womb only two-thirds complete. Computer screens showed readouts that would never have shown up on a modern computer. Monitors revealed images picked up from the cameras spread throughout the complex, both those that were real and those that were being fed by Munson and the rest of her team. Some of the screens showed what appeared to be other rooms in the building, laboratories and steam-driven steel construction. Clay was intrigued. If there'd been time, he would love to have known what sorts of things Zarin had designed for the government in the fifty years of his bizarre captivity.

But even a creature who had lived nearly forever did not always have the time he desired.

In the midst of that strange electronic cocoon stood a kind of metal crèche, and as they entered, rotors whirred and it began to turn in place. The machine reminded Clay of the iron lung of another era, or a strangely fashioned diving bell. It twisted in place, and he continued to cross the room with the ghost at his side and Solomon behind him.

Then he was face-to-face with Professor Erasmus Zarin.

"He lives," Graves said beside him.

Clay did not respond. He could not be sure what he now witnessed could truly be considered living. The only part of Zarin that remained visible was his head. His eyes were sunken, and his flesh pulled taut over his skull like some dried, leathery nut. When he spoke, he had few teeth, and those that did remain were yellowed and rutted.

"Professor Zarin," Clay said, nodding in greeting.

"Mister Clay. Whoever you are," Zarin said, and he grinned. It was among the most hideous sights Clay had ever witnessed. "I must say, now that I've got you here in person, you look somewhat familiar. Have we met?"

"Perhaps once, a long time ago," Clay replied, unsure if Kovalik and Zarin had ever encountered one another in person.

"Before you ask your questions, I have one of my own."

"Shoot."

The orangutan grunted something and shuffled around beside him, long arms raising and lowering the machine gun eagerly.

"No, Solomon. He did not mean that you should shoot," Zarin said patiently. "It's only an expression."

The ugly, orange-furred ape managed to look dejected and sighed.

"What's become of my operatives?" The question had an edge of expectation.

Clay was about to answer when Graves interrupted.

"Careful," the ghost said. "He'll have trained them well, or thinks he has. Don't say you used gas to incapacitate them or that you beat them all yourself. He's too proud to believe it. He's angry, but he's also curious."

Hesitating a moment, Clay looked at Graves. The ghost stood with his arms crossed, glaring at Zarin in a righteously heroic pose. Clay had never known Graves in life, but he had read of his exploits in the newspapers of the era. Even then, he had been impressed. The man had brought himself through sheer force of will to the pinnacle of humanity's ability, both physically and mentally. When he was just a wandering specter, brooding as he haunted Conan Doyle's house, it was easy to forget how significant Graves had been in life.

In that moment it seemed he had never died, only gone away for a while.

Clay had few choices. He could tell the truth, blowing the FBI's operation. He could claim to have shapeshifted into a mouse and snuck in, but that might also bring Agent Munson running.

"I've developed a process through which I can bend light around me, making me effectively invisible when I wish to be. They didn't see me until it was too late. Most are unconscious. Three of them are dead."

"Which explains why they did not come when you tripped the silent alarms," Zarin said. "Yes, there are many …" He had another fit of coughing. A bit of spittle ended up on his chin, but he could not wipe it away, so it remained there.

"There are many strange things about you," he went on. "More technological trickery. You'll have to tell me how you survived the machine guns at the door. The gas I can imagine, and the lasers — well, if you can bend light —"

"Exactly," Clay agreed.

He glanced nervously at the banks of monitors behind Zarin, then at the orangutan, and finally at Graves.

"What's that you keep looking at?" Zarin asked.

"The ghost of Doctor Graves."

Zarin blinked, brows knitting as he processed this response. Then he smiled and uttered a small laugh that became a barking cough. When he had caught his breath he nodded.

"All right. I can see you are impatient. I remind you that Solomon would love dearly to shoot you many times. Hopefully, our discussion remains amiable. It sounds as if we desire the same thing, after all."

"The man who killed Doctor Graves."

"Precisely," Zarin said. He glanced at the orangutan and with a whir of rotors the massive iron sarcophagus that contained his body twisted with him. "Solomon, behave. Do not shoot unless I give you the word. Do you understand?"

The orangutan grunted and sighed, taking a step back. But he kept the machine gun trained on Clay.

"Now, then, Mister Clay, as much as I would enjoy a longer discourse, I don't think this is going to take very long. You're going to ask a simple question or two, and I'm going to give you two regrettably simple answers. Did I have anything to do with the murder of Doctor Graves? As I said, the answer is, no. Do I know anything about his murder or who might have perpetrated it? Again, no. If I did know who killed him, I would have exterminated the usurper decades ago."

Zarin's withered head, thrust up from that iron contraption, smiled that hideous grin again.

"What else would you like to know?"

Clay ignored the question. The time had come to stop playacting for Agent Munson's sake. He glanced at the orangutan, then turned to the ghost of Doctor Graves. Sometimes his clothes appeared to be more modern, but not today. The phantom had crafted his ectoplasmic substance to look precisely the way he had at the height of his notoriety. He wore a long coat, a white shirt, open at the collar, and dark trousers, all tailor-made to accommodate his extraordinary physique. The coat hung open, and Clay could see Graves's phantom guns in their holsters under his arms.

"Do you believe him?" he asked.

Graves nodded. "Unfortunately, I do."

"Maybe you should take it from here, then," Clay said.

"What are you doing?" Zarin rasped, then coughed to clear his throat. "Who . . . who are you talking to?"

Clay smiled. "I told you. The ghost of Leonard Graves."

"Are you mocking me? You come into my house and you mock me?" Zarin demanded, his voice tightening.

"I wouldn't dream of it."
Even as he spoke, Clay noticed the specter resolving more fully. The ghost had a greater density when Graves manifested so that humans could see him. Haunting required focus. The strange misty ether that made up the substance of the ghost churned as he moved more fully out of the spirit realm and into the world of flesh and blood.

Zarin cried out in surprise and fear.

"Solomon! Kill them!"

Clay braced himself. The orangutan fired. The rubber bullets staggered him, but he managed to remain standing. They passed right through Graves and thunked harmlessly off the walls and tapestries. One of them struck the binding of a particularly old book, the force of the impact destroying it.

The orangutan screamed angrily, chattering, and began to stomp one foot in protest. He glanced at Clay and Graves, then at his master, and back again, waiting for a new order.

Body useless and withered and trapped in a metal box, Zarin could only stare at the ghost. His breathing was ragged and drawn out, and he shook his head in denial.

"Can it be?" he whispered.

"It is, Erasmus," Graves said. "It is."

"But, then . . . all I have done . . . all I have believed . . ." the paralyzed old madman said, turning to stare in horror at Clay. "There is an afterlife?"

"Ask the ghost."

Zarin flinched and started another fit of coughing. He stared at Graves and shook his head again. "The soul exists?"

"It does," Graves replied.

"And I . . . am damned?"

The ghost of Dr. Graves stared at his old nemesis, a lunatic anarchist who had poisoned entire communities, taken hundreds of lives, murdered the children of political figures for his own brand of terror and influence. He crossed his arms.

"Can you imagine any other result of your actions?"
Zarin seemed to muse on this a moment. Then he nodded, taking the news in stride. "There is no other way around it, then. I must find a way to live forever."

Clay stared at him. The man really was insane. All too familiar with Zarin, Graves was unphased.

"Erasmus," the ghost said, "what do you know about the murder of Roger Alton Bennett?"

Zarin glared at him with such venom that Clay was sure the man wished Graves alive again so that he could kill him.

"Two things, only. First, I know that I did not kill him. Second, that Mayor Bennett's murder was the perfect crime. The killer slipped past security, both at the Empire State Building and the mayor's personal bodyguards, without anyone the wiser. He left not a single clue, not a trace of his passing. And he lifted that enormously fat, slobbering fool off of his feet and hurled him bodily over the side of the observation platform.

"The only man I ever met with the cunning and the stealth and the strength to have committed that murder, sir, was Doctor Leonard Graves. But you, sir, were already dead by then."

Clay frowned. He'd made the connection as well when Kovalik talked about the fact that the only two crimes Zarin had denied committing were the murders of Graves and Mayor Bennett. But what was Graves getting at?

Solomon the orangutan brandished his gun but did not fire again. He danced from one foot to the other, chattering and growing more and more agitated. His eyes were full of confusion and anger.
"Wait a moment," the ghost said, moving forward, his long coat swaying as though moved by some unseen wind. "How did you discover those details of the case? I read all of the accounts of Bennett's murder, and —"

"The police were made to look like buffoons," Zarin said. "Do you honestly think such details would have been made public?" The withered head turned to look at Clay. "You won't forget your promise. If you find the killer, you'll return and tell me his name?"

Before Clay could respond, the room filled with a strange, eerie bit of orchestral music. It was a beautiful melody, a kind of lilting thing that might have been written for a wedding or a funeral.

"Clay," Graves whispered. "Do you . . . please tell me you hear that."

The music came from the speaker-box that hung around Solomon's neck. The orangutan stood completely still, no longer chattering or agitated. The confusion was gone from his eyes, replaced by a cold intelligence.