The Cabinet of Curiosities p-3 Read online

  Nora spoke hotly. “But basic scientific research is the lifeblood of this Museum. Without science, all this is just empty show.”

  Brisbane rose from his chair, strolled around his desk, and stood before the glass case. He punched a keypad, inserted a key. “Have you ever seen the Tev Mirabi emerald?”

  “The what?”

  Brisbane opened the case and stretched a slender hand toward a cabochon emerald the size of a robin’s egg. He plucked it from its velvet cradle and held it up between thumb and forefinger. “The Tev Mirabi emerald. It’s flawless. As a gemologist by avocation, I can tell you that emeralds of this size are never flawless. Except this one.”

  He placed it before his eye, which popped into housefly-like magnification. He blinked once, then lowered the gem.

  “Take a look.”

  Nora again forced herself to swallow a rejoinder. She took the emerald.

  “Careful. You wouldn’t want to drop it. Emeralds are brittle.”

  Nora held it gingerly, turned it in her fingers.

  “Go ahead. The world looks different through an emerald.”

  She peered into its depths and saw a distorted world peering back, in which moved a bloated creature like a green jellyfish: Brisbane.

  “Very interesting. But Mr. Brisbane—”

  “Flawless.”

  “No doubt. But we were talking about something else.”

  “What do you think it’s worth? A million? Five? Ten? It’s unique. If we sold it, all our money worries would be over.” He chuckled, then placed it to his own eye again. The eye swiveled about behind the emerald, black, magnified, wet-looking. “But we can’t, of course.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t get your point.”

  Brisbane smiled thinly. “You and the rest of the scientific staff. You all forget one thing: it is about show. Take this emerald. Scientifically, there’s nothing in it that you couldn’t find in an emerald a hundredth its size. But people don’t want to see any old emerald: they want to see the biggest emerald. Show, Dr. Kelly, is the lifeblood of this Museum. How long do you think your precious scientific research would last if people stopped coming, stopped being interested, stopped giving money? You need collections: dazzling exhibitions, colossal meteorites, dinosaurs, planetariums, gold, dodo birds, and giant emeralds to keep people’s attention. Your work just doesn’t fall into that category.”

  “But my work is interesting.”

  Brisbane spread his hands. “My dear, everyone here thinks their research is the most interesting.”

  It was the “my dear” that did it. Nora rose from her chair, white-lipped with anger. “I shouldn’t have to sit here justifying my work to you. The Utah survey will establish exactly when the Aztec influence came into the Southwest and transformed Anasazi culture. It will tell us—”

  “If you were digging up dinosaurs, it would be different. That’s where the action is. And it happens that’s also where the money is. The fact is, Dr. Kelly, nobody seems terribly concerned with your little piles of potsherds except yourself.”

  “The fact is,” said Nora hotly, “that you’re a miscarried scientist yourself. You’re only playing at being a bureaucrat, and, frankly, you’re overdoing the role.”

  As soon as Nora spoke she realized she had said too much. Brisbane’s face seemed to freeze for a moment. Then he recovered, gave her a cool smile, and twitched his handkerchief out of his breast pocket. He began polishing the emerald, slowly and repetitively. Then he placed it back in the case, locked it, and then began polishing the case itself, first the top and then the sides, with deliberation. Finally he spoke.

  “Do not excite yourself. It hardens the arteries and is altogether bad for your health.”

  “I didn’t mean to say that, and I’m sorry, but I won’t stand for these cuts.”

  Brisbane spoke pleasantly. “I’ve said what I have to say. For those curators who are unable or unwilling to find the cuts, there’s no problem — I will be happy to find the cuts for them.” When he said this, he did not smile.

  Nora closed the door to the outer office and stood in the hallway, her mind in turmoil. She had sworn to herself not to leave without the extra money, and here she was, worse off than before she went in. Should she go to Collopy, the Museum’s director? But he was severe and unapproachable, and that would surely piss off Brisbane. She’d already shot her mouth off once. Going over Brisbane’s head might get her fired. And whatever else she did, she couldn’t lose this job. If that happened, she might as well find another line of work. Maybe she could find the money somewhere else, rustle up another grant somewhere. And there was another budget review in six months. One could always hope…

  Slowly, she descended the staircase to the fourth floor. In the corridor she paused, surprised to see the door to her office wide open. She looked inside. In the place she had been standing not fifteen minutes before, a very odd-looking man was now framed by the window, leafing through a monograph. He was wearing a dead black suit, severely cut, giving him a distinctly funereal air. His skin was very pale, whiter than she had ever seen on a living body. His blond hair, too, was almost white, and he turned the pages of the monograph with astonishingly long, slender, ivory fingers.

  “Excuse me, but what are you doing in my office?” Nora asked.

  “Interesting,” the man murmured, turning.

  “I’m sorry?”

  He held up a monograph, The Geochronology of Sandia Cave. “Odd that only whole Folsom points were found above the Sandia level. Highly suggestive, don’t you think?” He spoke with a soft, upper-class southern accent that flowed like honey.

  Nora felt her surprise turning to anger at this casual invasion of her office.

  He moved toward a bookcase, slid the monograph back into its place on the shelf, and began perusing the other volumes, his finger tapping the spines with small, precise movements. “Ah,” he said, slipping out another monograph. “I see the Monte Verde results have been challenged.”

  Nora stepped forward, jerked the monograph out of his hand, and shoved it back onto the shelf. “I’m busy at the moment. If you want an appointment, you can call. Please close the door on your way out.” She turned her back, waiting for him to leave. Ten percent. She shook her head in weary disbelief. How could she possibly manage it?

  But the man didn’t leave. Instead, she heard his mellifluous plantation voice again. “I’d just as soon speak now, if it’s all the same to you. Dr. Kelly, may I be so bold as to trouble you with a vexatious little problem?”

  She turned. He had extended his hand. Nestled within it was a small, brown skull.

  THREE

  NORA GLANCED FROM the skull back to the visitor ’s face. “Who are you?” Regarding him more carefully now, she noticed just how pale his blue eyes were, how fine his features. With his white skin and the classical planes of his face, he looked as if he’d been sculpted of marble.

  He made a decorous gesture somewhere between a nod and a bow. “Special Agent Pendergast, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  Nora’s heart sank. Was this more spillover from the trouble-plagued Utah expedition? Just what she needed. “Do you have a badge?” she asked wearily. “Some kind of ID?”

  The man smiled indulgently, and slipped a wallet out of his suit pocket, allowing it to fall open. Nora bent down to scrutinize the badge. It certainly looked real — and she had seen enough of them over the last eighteen months.

  “All right, all right, I believe you. Special Agent—” She hesitated. What the hell was his name? She glanced down but the shield was already on its way back into the folds of his suit.

  “Pendergast,” he finished for her. Then he added, almost as if he had read her thoughts: “This has nothing to do with what happened in Utah, by the way. This is an entirely different case.”

  She looked at him again. This dapper study in black and white hardly looked like the G-men she had met out west. He seemed unusual, even eccentric. There was something almost ap
pealing in the impassive face. Then she glanced back down at the skull. “I’m not a physical anthropologist,” she said quickly. “Bones aren’t my field.”

  Pendergast’s only reply was to offer her the skull.

  She reached for it, curious despite herself, turning it over carefully in her hands.

  “Surely the FBI has forensic experts to help them with this sort of thing?”

  The FBI agent merely smiled and walked to the door, closing and locking it. Gliding toward her desk, he plucked the phone from its cradle and laid it gently to one side. “May we speak undisturbed?”

  “Sure. Whatever.” Nora knew she must sound flustered, and was angry at herself for it. She had never met someone quite so self-assured.

  The man settled himself into a wooden chair opposite her desk, throwing one slender leg over the other. “Regardless of your discipline, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this skull.”

  She sighed. Should she be talking to this man? What would the Museum think? Surely they would be pleased that one of their own had been consulted by the FBI. Maybe this was just the kind of “publicity” Brisbane wanted.

  She examined the skull once again. “Well, to start with, I’d say this child had a pretty sad life.”

  Pendergast made a tent of his fingers, raising one eyebrow in mute query.

  “The lack of sutural closing indicates a young teenager. The second molar is only just erupted. That would put him or her at around thirteen, give or take a few years. I would guess female, by the gracile brow ridges. Very bad teeth, by the way, with no orthodontry. That suggests neglect, at least. And these two rings in the enamel indicate arrested growth, probably caused by two episodes of starvation or serious illness. The skull is clearly old, although the condition of the teeth suggests a historic, as opposed to prehistoric, dating. You wouldn’t see this kind of tooth decay in a prehistoric specimen, and anyway it looks Caucasoid, not Native American. I would say it’s at least seventy-five to a hundred years old. Of course, this is all speculation. Everything depends on where it was found, and under what conditions. A carbon-14 date might be worth considering.” At this unpleasant reminder of her recent meeting, she paused involuntarily.

  Pendergast waited. Nora had the distinct feeling that he expected more. Feeling her annoyance returning, she moved toward the window to examine the skull in the bright morning light. And then, as she stared, she felt a sudden sick feeling wash over her.

  “What is it?” Pendergast asked sharply, instantly aware of the change, his wiry frame rising from the chair with the intensity of a spring.

  “These faint scratches at the very base of the occipital bone…” She reached for the loup that always hung around her neck and fitted it to her eye. Turning the skull upside down, she examined it more closely.

  “Go on.”

  “They were made by a knife. It’s as if someone were removing tissue.”

  “What kind of tissue?”

  She felt a flood of relief as she realized what it was.

  “These are the kind of marks you would expect to see caused by a scalpel, during a postmortem. This child was autopsied. The marks were made while exposing the upper part of the spinal cord, or perhaps the medulla oblongata.”

  She placed the skull on the table. “But I’m an archaeologist, Mr. Pendergast. You’d do better to use the expertise of someone else. We have a physical anthropologist on staff, Dr. Weidenreich.”

  Pendergast picked the skull up, sealing it in a Ziploc bag. It disappeared into the folds of his suit without a trace, like a magician’s trick. “It is precisely your archaeological expertise I need. And now,” he continued briskly, replacing the telephone and unlocking the door in swift economical movements, “I need you to accompany me downtown.”

  “Downtown? You mean, like headquarters?”

  Pendergast shook his head.

  Nora hesitated. “I can’t just leave the Museum. I’ve got work to do.”

  “We won’t be long, Dr. Kelly. Time is of the essence.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  But he was already out of her office, striding on swift silent feet down the long corridor. She followed, unable to think of what else to do, as the agent led the tortuous back way down a series of staircases, through Birds of the World, Africa, and Pleistocene Mammals, arriving at last in the echoing Great Rotunda.

  “You know the Museum pretty well,” she said as she struggled to keep up.

  “Yes.”

  Then they were out the bronze doors and descending the vast sweep of marble stairs to Museum Drive. Agent Pendergast stopped at the base and turned in the bright fall light. His eyes were now white, with only a hint of color. As he moved, she suddenly had the impression of great physical power beneath the narrow suit. “Are you familiar with the New York Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act?” he asked.

  “Of course.” It was the law that stopped digging or construction in the city if anything of archaeological value was uncovered, until it could be excavated and documented.

  “A rather interesting site was uncovered in lower Manhattan. You’ll be the supervising archaeologist.”

  “Me? I don’t have the experience or authority—”

  “Fear not, Dr. Kelly. I’m afraid we’ll find your tenure all too brief.”

  She shook her head. “But why me?”

  “You’ve had some experience in this, ah, particular kind of site.”

  “And just what kind of site is that?”

  “A charnel.”

  She stared.

  “And now,” he said, gesturing toward a ’59 Silver Wraith idling at the curb, “we must be on our way. After you, please.”

  FOUR

  NORA STEPPED OUT of the Rolls-Royce, feeling uncomfortably conspicuous. Pendergast closed the door behind her, looking serenely indifferent to the incongruity of the elegant vehicle parked amid the dust and noise of a large construction site.

  They crossed the street, pausing at a high chain-link fence. Beyond, the rich afternoon light illuminated the skeletal foundations of a row of old buildings. Several large Dumpsters full of bricks lined the perimeter. Two police cars were parked along the curb and Nora could see uniformed cops standing before a hole in a brick retaining wall. Nearby stood a knot of businessmen in suits. The construction site was framed by forlorn tenements that winked back at them through empty windows.

  “The Moegen-Fairhaven Group are building a sixty-five-story residential tower on this site,” said Pendergast. “Yesterday, about four o’clock, they broke through that brick wall, there. A worker found the skull I showed you in a barrow inside. Along with many, many more bones.”

  Nora glanced in the indicated direction. “What was on the site before?”

  “A block of tenements built in the late 1890s. The tunnel, however, appears to predate them.”

  Nora could see that the excavator had exposed a clear profile. The old retaining wall lay beneath the nineteenth-century footings, and the hole near its base was clearly part of an earlier structure. Some ancient timbers, burned and rotten, had been piled to one side.

  As they walked along the fence, Pendergast leaned toward her. “I’m afraid our visit may be problematic, and we have very little time. The site has changed alarmingly in just the last few hours. Moegen-Fairhaven is one of the most energetic developers in the city. And they have a remarkable amount of, ah, pull. Notice there are no members of the press on hand? The police were called very quietly to the scene.” He steered her toward a chained gate in the fence, manned by a cop from whose belt dangled cuffs, radio, nightstick, gun, and ammunition. The combined weight of the accoutrements pulled the belt down, allowing a blue-shirted belly to hang comfortably out.

  Pendergast stopped at the gate.

  “Move on,” said the cop. “Nothing to see here, pal.”

  “On the contrary.” Pendergast smiled and displayed his identification. The cop leaned over, scowling. He looked back up into the agent’s face, then ba
ck down, several times.

  “FBI?” He hiked up his belt with a metallic jangle.

  “Those are the three letters, yes.” And Pendergast placed the wallet back in his suit.

  “And who’s your companion?”

  “An archaeologist. She’s been assigned to investigate the site.”

  “Archaeologist? Hold on.”

  The cop ambled across the lot, stopping at the knot of policemen. A few words were exchanged, then one of the cops broke away from the group. A brown-suited man followed at a trot. He was short and heavyset, and his pulpy neck bulged over a tight collar. He took steps that were too big for his stubby legs, giving his walk an exaggerated bounce.

  “What the hell’s this?” he panted as he approached the gate, turning to the newly arrived cop. “You didn’t say anything about the FBI.”

  Nora noticed that the new cop had gold captain’s bars on his shoulders. He had thinning hair, a sallow complexion, and narrow black eyes. He was almost as fat as the man in the brown suit.

  The captain looked at Pendergast. “May I see your identification?” His voice was small and tight and high.

  Pendergast once again removed his wallet. The captain took it, examined it, and handed it back through the gate.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Pendergast, the FBI has no jurisdiction here, particularly the New Orleans office. You know the procedure.”

  “Captain—?”

  “Custer.”

  “Captain Custer, I am here with Dr. Nora Kelly, of the New York Museum of Natural History, who has been placed in charge of the archaeological survey. Now, if you’ll let us in—”

  “This is a construction site,” broke in the brown-suited man. “We’re trying to build a building here, in case you hadn’t noticed. They’ve already got a man looking at the bones. Christ Almighty, we’re losing forty thousand dollars a day here, and now the FBI?”

  “And who might you be?” Pendergast asked the man, in a pleasant voice.

  His eyes flickered from side to side. “Ed Shenk.”

  “Ah, Mr. Shenk.” In Pendergast’s mouth, the name sounded like some kind of crude implement. “And your position with Moegen-Fairhaven?”