Two Graves (15 page)

“I’m not sure he is sloppy,” D’Agosta said. “Notice how different he looked in the security feeds this time.”

“And yet he left fingerprints behind. He doesn’t mind us knowing it was him, post facto. In fact, the body parts would seem to imply he
wanted
us to know.”

“What bothers me is the way he stopped the maid,” D’Agosta said. “In the interview, she insisted that he knew about the pillow and the room number that requested it. How could he know that?”

“He might have an inside contact,” Singleton said. “Someone working the front desk or the switchboard. These are all angles you’ll have to look into.”

D’Agosta nodded glumly. He really wished Pendergast were here. These were exactly the kind of questions he might be able to answer.

“Do you know what this suggests to me, Lieutenant?”

D’Agosta braced himself. Something was coming. “What, sir?”

“I never like having to say this. But right now, we’re out of our depth. We need to bring in the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit.”

D’Agosta was surprised. And then he wasn’t surprised. It was a logical step with a serial killer like this, who presented an extreme and perhaps unique pathology.

He found Singleton gazing at him earnestly, looking for agreement.
This was also new to D’Agosta. Since when did Singleton ask for his opinion?

“Chief,” he said, “I think that’s an excellent idea.”

Singleton seemed relieved. “You realize, of course, that the men and women aren’t going to like it. For one thing, there’s no element in these crimes requiring FBI involvement—no evidence of terrorism or interstate links. And you know how obnoxious the FBI can be—
will
be. But in all my career, I’ve never seen a killer quite like this. The BSU has access to databases and research far beyond what we’ve got. Still, it’s going to be tricky getting our people with the program.”

D’Agosta was well aware of how poorly the NYPD worked with the FBI. “I understand,” he said. “I’ll talk to the squad about it. As you know, I’ve worked with the FBI before. I don’t have any personal issues with them.”

Hearing this, Singleton’s eyes flashed. For a minute, D’Agosta feared he might bring up Pendergast. But no—Singleton was too tactful for that. Instead, he simply nodded.

“As chief, I’ll make the initial contact with Quantico and then pass things along to you. That’s the best way to proceed, especially with the FBI, who are sticklers about rank.”

D’Agosta nodded. Now he really wished Pendergast was here.

For a while, they watched in silence as the fiber guy moved slowly across the floor on his hands and knees, tweezers in one hand, going over square after square of the grid laid down with strings. What a job.

“I almost forgot,” Singleton said. “What were the results of the DNA test on the earlobe?”

“We still haven’t gotten them back.”

Singleton slowly turned toward D’Agosta. “It’s been sixty hours.”

D’Agosta felt the blood rushing to his face. Ever since the forensic DNA unit had been shifted out of the M.E.’s office and made into its own department—with Dr. Wayne Heffler as director—they had been impossible to deal with. A few years ago, he and Pendergast had had a run-in with Heffler. Ever since, D’Agosta suspected that Heffler
had made a point of holding up his lab results just long enough to piss off D’Agosta but not so long that he himself got into hot water.

“I’ll get on it,” said D’Agosta evenly. “I’ll get on it immediately.”

“I’d appreciate it,” said Singleton. “One of your responsibilities as squad commander is to kick ass. And in this case, you may have to, ah, put the toe of your boot right up inside, if you get my meaning.”

He gave D’Agosta a friendly pat on the back and turned to leave.

T
HE TAXICAB PULLED UP TO THE SEVENTY-SECOND STREET
entrance of the Dakota, stopping opposite the doorman’s pillbox. A uniformed man emerged and, with the gravitas of doormen the world over, approached the cab and opened the rear door.

A woman stepped out into the early-morning sunlight. She was tall and sleek and beautifully dressed. The white, broad-brimmed hat she wore set off her freckled face, deeply tanned despite the lateness of the season. She paid the driver, then turned toward the doorman.

“I’ll need to use your house phone, if you please,” she said in a brisk English accent.

“This way, ma’am.” And the doorman led her down a long, dark passage beneath a portcullis to a small room facing the building’s interior courtyard.

She picked up the phone, dialed an apartment number. The phone rang twenty times without answer. The doorman waited, eyeing her. “There’s no answer, miss.”

Viola eyed the doorman. This was someone who could not be pushed around. She offered a sweet smile. “As you know, the housekeeper is deaf. I’ll try again.”

A reluctant nod.

Another twenty rings.

“Miss, I think that’s enough. Allow me to take your name.”

She rang again. The doorman was now frowning, and she could see he was getting ready to reach over and press the
ENGAGED
button.

“Please, just a moment,” she said, with another brilliant smile.

Even as the doorman’s hand was reaching over to cut her off, the phone was finally answered.

“Hello?” she said quickly. The hand withdrew.

“May I know the reason for this damnable persistence?” came the monotonal, almost sepulchral voice.

“Aloysius?” the woman asked.

A silence.

“It’s me. Viola. Viola Maskelene.”

There was a long pause. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve come all the way from Rome to speak to you. It’s a matter of life and death.”

No response.

“Aloysius, I appeal to you on… on the strength of our past relationship. Please.”

A slow, quiet exhalation of breath. “I suppose you must come up, then.”

The elevator whispered open to a small landing, with maroon carpeting and walls of dark, polished wood. The single door opposite was standing open. Lady Maskelene walked through the doorway and then stopped, shocked. Pendergast was standing inside, wearing a silk dressing gown of muted paisley. His face was gaunt, his hair limp. Without bothering to shut the door, he turned away wordlessly and walked over to one of the room’s leather sofas. His movements, normally brisk and economical, were sluggish, as if he were moving underwater.

Lady Maskelene closed the door and followed him into the room, which was rose-colored with the sparse decoration of a few ancient, gnarled bonsai trees. Three of the walls held a scattering of impressionist paintings. The fourth was a sheet of water, falling over a slab of black marble. Pendergast took a seat on the sofa, and she sat down beside him.

“Aloysius,” she said, taking his hand in both of hers, “my heart breaks for you. What an awful, awful thing. I’m so terribly sorry.”

His eyes looked through her rather than at her.

“I can’t even begin to imagine how you must feel right now,” she said, pressing his hand. “But the one thing you mustn’t feel is guilt. You did everything you possibly could—I know you did. What happened was beyond your power to prevent.” She paused. “I wish there was something I could do to help you.”

Pendergast freed his hand from hers, closed his eyes, and tented his fingertips on his temples. He seemed to be making a huge effort to concentrate, to bring himself into the moment. Then he opened his eyes again and looked at her.

“You mentioned a life at stake. Whose?”

“Yours,” she replied.

This did not seem to register at first. After a moment or two, Pendergast said, “Ah.”

There was another silence. Then he spoke again. “Perhaps you’d care to explain the source of your information?”

“Laura Hayward contacted me. She told me what had happened, what was going on. I dropped everything and flew from Rome on the very next plane.”

She couldn’t stand the dull way he was looking at her—looking past her. This was so unlike the courtly, collected, nuanced Pendergast she had first met at her villa on Capraia—the man under whose spell she had fallen—that she could not bear it. A terrible anger rose in her heart at the people who had done this to him.

After a hesitation, she took him in her arms. He stiffened but did not protest.

“Oh, Aloysius,” she whispered. “Won’t you let me help?”

When he still did not respond, she said, “Listen to me. It’s fine to grieve. It’s
good
to grieve. But this—shutting yourself up here, refusing to speak to anyone, refusing to see anyone… it’s no way to handle this.” She held him tighter. “And you
must
deal with it—for Helen’s sake. For my sake. I know it will take time. That’s why I’m here. To help you through your grief. Together we can—”

“No,” Pendergast murmured.

Surprised, she waited.

“There will be no
handling
it,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Of course there will. I know it seems utterly hopeless right now. But given time, you’ll see that—”

He sighed with something like impatience, some of his self-possession returning. “I see that it is necessary to enlighten you. Will you come with me?”

She looked at him for a moment. She felt a flicker of hope, even relief. This was a flash of the old Pendergast, taking charge.

He rose from the sofa and led the way to an almost invisible door set into one of the rose walls. Opening it, he started down a long, dim hallway, stopping at last at a paneled door that was standing ajar. Pushing it wide, he stepped in.

Viola followed, glancing around curiously. She had been in Pendergast’s Dakota apartment before, of course, but never in this room. It was a revelation. The floor was covered in antique wood planking, very wide and beautifully varnished. The walls were clad in historic textured wallpaper of an exceedingly subtle design. The ceiling was painted as a blue trompe l’oeil sky in the style of Andrea Mantegna. There was a single display case, containing numerous strange things: a piece of lava, twisted and dark; an exotic lily of some kind, pressed within a sealed case of clear plastic; a stalactite, its end roughly broken off; what appeared to be a piece from a wheelchair; several mangled bullets; an antique case of surgical instruments; various other items. It was an eccentric and even bizarre collection, whose meaning was perhaps clear only to Pendergast himself.

This must be Pendergast’s private study.

But what most caught her eye was the Louis XV desk that occupied the middle of the room. It was made of rosewood, with gilt edging and fantastically complex inlays. Its surface was empty save for three items: a small glass medical container with a rubber top; a hypodermic syringe; and a silver dish that held a small white pyramid of some fine powdery substance.

Pendergast took a seat behind the desk. There was only one other chair in the room: an ornate fauteuil pushed up against the far wall. Viola placed it before the desk and sat down as well.

For a moment, they sat in silence. Then, with a wave of his hand, Pendergast indicated the items on the desk.

“What are those, Aloysius?” Viola asked, fear rising in her heart.

“Phenylcholine para-methylbenzene,” he said, pointing at the white powder. “First synthesized by my great-great-grandfather in 1868. One of the many odd potions he developed. After initial private, ah, trials, it remains to this day a family secret. It is said to confer upon the user a state of complete and utter euphoria, offering total negation of care and sorrow, along with, supposedly, a unique intellectual epiphany, for a period of twenty to thirty minutes—before inducing irreversibly fatal, and painful, renal failure. I have always been curious to experience its initial effects, yet until now never have—for self-evident reasons.”

Speaking about the objects on the desk seemed to rouse a degree of energy in Pendergast. His bruised-looking eyes shifted to the small medication bottle. “Hence, this.” He picked it up and showed it to her, the colorless liquid within shifting slightly. “A mixture of sodium thiopental and potassium chloride, among other compounds. It will induce unconsciousness, then stop the heart—well before the unpleasant side effects of the para-methylbenzene manifest themselves. While still providing enough time to give me a modicum of peace and, perhaps, even diversion before the end.”

Viola looked from Pendergast, to the objects on the desk, then back to Pendergast. As the implications of what he was saying became clear, a feeling of dread and horror swept over her.

“Aloysius, no,” she whispered. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am deadly serious.”

“But…” She fell silent as her throat closed up involuntarily.
This can’t be happening, it just can’t be happening
… “But this isn’t you. You have to fight this. You can’t take the… the coward’s way out. I won’t let you.”

At this, Pendergast put his hands on the desk, rose slowly to his feet. He walked to the door, held it open for her. After a certain hesitation she rose and followed him as he turned and walked back down the corridor, through the hidden doorway, and into the reception
room. It was as if she were in a bad dream: She wanted to stop him, she wanted to sweep those hateful things off the table and dash them to the ground. And yet she could not. So deep was her shock that she felt herself powerless to do anything.
It’s a matter of life and death
—her own words now returned, torturing her with their irony.