Reliquary (Pendergast, Book 2) (Relic) Read online

  D’Agosta stepped closer and peered in. Naked bedding lay askew, caked thickly with dried blood. Blood was also spattered about the walls, along with bits of something that D’Agosta didn’t want to think about. There was the ubiquitous packing crate, tipped over and partly crushed. The floor of the cubby was lined with newspapers. The stench was beyond description.

  “This guy,” Hayward whispered, “was also found without his head. They identified him from prints. Shasheen Walker, thirty-two years old. Rap sheet as long as your arm, a serious user.”

  At any other time, D’Agosta would have found it ludicrous to hear a police officer whispering. Now, he felt somehow glad. There was a long silence while D’Agosta played his own light around. “Did they find the head?” he asked at last.

  “Nope,” said Hayward.

  The foul little den showed zero signs of a police search. Thinking he’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, D’Agosta reached into the cubby, took hold of a corner of a filthy blanket, and jerked it back.

  Something brown tumbled out of the folds and rolled toward the nearest edge. What was left of its mouth was wide open in a frozen scream.

  “I guess they didn’t look too hard,” D’Agosta said. He heard a small moan escape from Waxie. “You okay, Jack?” he asked, glancing back.

  Waxie said nothing. His face looked like a pale moon, hovering in the noisome dark.

  D’Agosta turned his light back on the head. “We’re gonna have to get an SOC team down here for a full series.” He reached for his radio, then remembered it wouldn’t work.

  Hayward edged forward. “Lieutenant?”

  D’Agosta paused. “Yes?”

  “The moles left this place alone because someone died in it. They’re superstitious that way, some of them. But as soon as we leave, they’re going to clean this whole mess up, get rid of the head themselves, and you’ll never find it. More than anything else, they don’t want cops down here.”

  “How the hell will they know we were here?”

  “I keep telling you, Lieutenant, they’re around. Listening.” D’Agosta shone his light about. The corridor was silent and dead. “So what’s your point?”

  “If you want the head, you’re going to have to take it with you.”

  “Shit,” breathed D’Agosta. “Okay, Sergeant, we’ll have to improvise. Grab that towel over there.”

  Stepping in front of the motionless Waxie, Sergeant Hayward picked up a waterlogged towel and spread it on the damp concrete next to the head. Then, pulling the sleeve of her uniform over her hand, she nudged the head toward the towel with her wrist.

  D’Agosta watched with mixed disgust and admiration as Hayward gathered the ends of the towel into a ball. He blinked his eyes, trying to wipe away the smart of the foul reek. “Let’s go. Sergeant, you may do the honors.”

  “No problem.” Hayward lifted the towel, holding it away from her body.

  As D’Agosta stepped forward, shining his flashlight back down the corridor toward the staircase, there was a sudden whistling sound and a bottle came winging out of the dark, just missing Waxie’s head. It shattered loudly on the wall. Farther down the passageway, D’Agosta could hear a rustling noise.

  “Who’s there?” he yelled. “Halt! Police officers!”

  Another bottle came flying wildly out of the dark. D’Agosta realized, with a strange crawly feeling at the base of his spine, that he could feel, but not see, shapes moving toward them.

  “There’s only three of us, Lieutenant,” Hayward said, tension suddenly evident in her dusky voice. “May I suggest we get the hell out of here?”

  There was a raspy call from out of the dark, then a shout and the sound of running. He heard a neigh of terror at his shoulder and turned to see Waxie, still transfixed.

  “For Chrissakes, Captain, get hold of yourself!” D’Agosta shouted.

  Waxie began to whimper. From the other side, D’Agosta heard a hissing noise, and he turned to see Hayward’s petite figure standing tense and erect. Her slender hands were at her sides with the knuckles pointed in, the towel and its burden dangling from her fingers. She took another deep, hissing breath, as if in preparation. Then she looked around quickly and turned back toward the staircase, once again holding the head at arm’s length.

  “Jesus, don’t leave me!” Waxie howled.

  D’Agosta gave Waxie’s shoulder a vicious tug. With a low groan, Waxie began to move, first slowly and then faster, bursting past Hayward.

  “Move!” D’Agosta called, pushing Hayward ahead of him with one hand. He felt something whiz past his ear, and he stopped, turned, drew his gun, and fired toward the ceiling. In the muzzle flash he saw a dozen or more people coming up the dark tunnel, dividing, preparing to circle him; they ran low across the ground, moving with horrible speed through the darkness. He turned and fled for the stairway.

  One level up, on the far side of the hanging door, he stopped at last to listen, gulping air. Hayward waited beside him, gun in hand. There was no sound except the footsteps of Waxie, far ahead of them now, running down the rail siding toward the pool of light.

  After a moment, D’Agosta stepped back. “Sergeant, if you ever suggest backup in the future—or make any other suggestion, for that matter—remind me to pay attention to it.”

  Hayward holstered her gun. “I was afraid you’d wig out down there, like the Captain did,” she said. “But you did well for a virgin, sir.”

  D’Agosta looked at her, realizing this was the first time she had addressed him as a superior officer. He thought about asking just what the hell that weird breathing of hers had been about, but decided against it. “Still got it?” he said instead.

  Hayward raised the towel.

  “Then let’s get the hell out. We’ll see the rest of the sites some other time.”

  On the way to the surface, the image that kept returning to D’Agosta was not the circling mob, or the endless dank tunnel. It was the freshly soiled baby’s diaper.

  12

  Margo washed her hands in the deep metal sink of the Forensic Anthropology lab, then dried them on a coarse hospital cloth. She glanced over at the gurney on which the sheeted remains of Pamela Wisher lay. The samples and observations had all been taken, and the corpse would be released to the family later that morning. Across the room, Brambell and Frock were at work on the unidentified skeleton, bending over its grotesquely twisted hips and taking elaborate measurements.

  “If I may make an observation?” Dr. Brambell said, putting a vibrating Stryker saw to one side.

  “Be my guest,” Frock replied in his buttery rumble, waving a hand magnanimously.

  They detested each other.

  Margo slipped two latex gloves onto each hand, turning to hide a smile. It was probably the first time she’d seen Frock face a man with an intellect, or an ego, equal to his own. It was a miracle that any work had been accomplished. Yet over the past few days they had performed antibody testing, osteological analysis, tests for toxic residues and teratogens, as well as numerous other procedures. All that remained was the DNA sequencing and forensic analysis of the teeth marks. Yet the unknown corpse remained a riddle, refusing to yield up its secrets. Margo knew this only added to the highly charged atmosphere within the lab.

  “It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence,” Brambell was saying, his high Irish voice trembling with irritation, “that the puncture cannot have originated on the dorsal side. Otherwise, the transverse process would have been clipped.”

  “I fail to see what clipping has to do with anything,” muttered Frock.

  Margo tuned out the argument, most of which was uninteresting to her anyway. Her specialty was ethnopharmacology and genetics, not gross anatomy. She had other problems to solve.

  She leaned over the latest gel electrophoresis run on tissue from the unidentified corpse, feeling her trapezius muscles cry out in protest as she reached forward. Five sets of ten reps with the upright rows the night before, instead of her
normal three. She’d upped her workout routine dramatically over the last several days; she would have to be more careful not to overdo it.

  Ten minutes of close scrutiny confirmed her suspicions: the dark stripes of the various protein elements could tell her little beyond being common human muscle proteins. She straightened up with a sigh. Any more detailed genetic information would have to come from the much more sensitive DNA sequencing machine. Unfortunately, reliable results would not be available for several more days.

  As she placed the gel strips to one side, rubbing her shoulder thoughtfully, she noticed a manila envelope lying next to the SPARC-10 workstation. X rays, she thought. They must have arrived first thing this morning. Obviously, Brambell and Frock had been too busy arguing over the corpse to look at them. It was understandable: with a body that was almost completely skeletonized already, X rays weren’t likely to tell them very much.

  “Margo?” Frock called.

  She walked over to the examining table.

  “My dear,” Frock said, pushing his wheelchair away and gesturing toward the microscope, “please examine this groove running down the right femur.”

  The stereozoom was on lowest power, yet it was still like gazing into another world. The brown bone leaped into view, revealing the ridges and valleys of a miniature desert landscape.

  “What do you make of this?” he asked.

  It wasn’t the first time Margo had been called to give an opinion in a dispute, and she didn’t relish the role. “It looks like a natural fissure in the bone,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. “Part of the suite of bone spurs and ridges that seem to have affected the skeleton. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was caused by a tooth.”

  Frock settled back in his wheelchair, not quite able to mask a smile of triumph.

  Brambell blinked. “I’m sorry?” he asked in disbelief. “Dr. Green, I don’t mean to contradict you, but that’s a longitudinal tooth mark if ever I saw one.”

  “I don’t mean to contradict you, Dr. Brambell.” She switched the stereozoom to higher power, and the small fissure immediately turned into a vast canyon. “But I can see some natural pores along the inside, here.”

  Brambell bustled over and looked into the eyepieces, holding his old horn-rims to one side. He stared at the image for several moments, then stepped away much more slowly than he had approached.

  “Hmm,” he said, replacing his glasses. “It pains me to say it, Frock, but you may have a point.”

  “You mean Margo may have a point,” said Frock.

  “Yes, of course. Very good, Dr. Green.”

  Margo was spared a reply by the ringing of the lab phone. Frock wheeled over and answered it energetically. Margo watched him, realizing that this was the first time she had really stopped to look at her old adviser since D’Agosta’s call had brought them back together the week before. Though still portly, he seemed thinner than she remembered from their days together at the Museum. His wheelchair, too, was different: old and scuffed. She wondered, in sudden sympathy, if her mentor had fallen on hard times. Yet if so, it hadn’t seemed to affect him adversely. If anything, he looked more alert, more vigorous, than during his tenure as Anthropology Department chairman.

  Frock was listening, clearly upset about something. Margo’s gaze drifted away from him and up to the laboratory window and its gorgeous view of Central Park. The trees were rich with the dark green foliage of summer, and the reservoir shimmered in the brilliant light. To the south, several rowboats drifted lazily across the pond. She thought how infinitely preferable it would be in one of those boats—basking in the sun—instead of here in the Museum, pulling apart rotten bodies.

  “That was D’Agosta,” Frock said, hanging up with a sigh. “He says our friend here is going to have some company. Close the blinds, will you? Artificial light is preferable for microscope work.”

  “What do you mean, company?” Margo asked sharply.

  “That’s how he put it. Apparently, they discovered a badly decomposed head during a search of some railroad tunnels yesterday afternoon. They’re sending it over for analysis.”

  Dr. Brambell muttered something in fervent Gaelic.

  “Does the head belong …” Margo began, then nodded in the direction of the corpses.

  Frock shook his head, a somber expression on his face. “Apparently it’s unrelated.”

  Silence descended on the lab for a moment. Then, as if on cue, the two men slowly returned to the unidentified skeleton. Soon, murmurs of dissent began to rise once again. Margo sighed deeply and turned back toward the electrophoresis equipment. She had at least a morning’s worth of cataloging to get through.

  Her eye moved toward the X rays. They’d raised a fearful stink with the lab in order to get them that morning. Maybe she ought to take a quick look before starting the cataloging.

  She slid out the first series, clipping them to the viewer. Three shots of the unidentified skeleton’s upper torso. As she expected, they showed—much less clearly—what they had already observed from direct examination: a skeleton suffering bizarre bone deformities, with a grotesque thickening and ridging of almost every osteological process in the body.

  She pulled them down and slid the next series into the clips. Another set of three views, this time of the lumbar region.

  She saw it immediately: four small spots, crisp and white. Curious, she swiveled the magnifier over for a closer look. The four spots were sharp triangles, arranged in a precise square at the very bottom of the spine, completely enclosed in a fused mass of bony growth. They had to be metal, Margo knew: only metal would be that opaque to X rays.

  She straightened up. The two men were still bending over the cadaver, their mutterings floating toward her across the quiet room.

  “There’s something over here you should take a look at,” she said.

  Brambell reached the viewer first and peered closely. He stepped away, adjusted his horn-rims, and peered again.

  Frock rumbled over a moment later, curious, brushing against the Medical Examiner’s legs in his haste. “If you don’t mind,” he said, using the heavy wheelchair to crowd Brambell off to the side. He leaned forward, face inches from the viewer.

  The room fell silent except for the hiss of air from the duct above the gurney. For once, Margo thought, both Brambell and Frock were completely baffled.

  13

  It was the first time D’Agosta had been in the Chief’s office since Horlocker’s appointment, and he gazed around in disbelief. It looked to him like a suburban steakhouse trying to go upscale. The heavy fake-mahogany furniture, the low lighting, the thick drapes, the cheap Mediterranean-style ironwork fixtures with the ripply yellow glass. It was so perfect, it made him want to ask a waiter to bring him a Gibson.

  Chief Redmond Horlocker sat behind a vast desk absolutely bare of paper. In the nearest wing chair, Waxie had settled his bulk comfortably and was describing their movements of the previous day. He had just gotten to the point where the three of them had been set upon by a mob of enraged homeless, and he, Waxie, was holding them at bay so that D’Agosta and Hayward could escape. Horlocker listened, his face impassive.

  D’Agosta’s gaze fastened on Waxie, growing ever more animated as he talked. He considered speaking up himself, but long experience told him it wouldn’t make any difference. Waxie was a precinct captain; he didn’t get many chances to come down to One Police Plaza and impress the head honcho.

  Maybe the end result would be more manpower allocated to the case. Besides, a little voice in the back of D’Agosta’s head said this was going to be one of those cases where the shitrain would fall especially hard. Even though he was officially in charge, it didn’t hurt to let Waxie take some credit. The more visible you were at the beginning, the closer they mowed your ass at the end.

  Waxie finished his story, and there was a silence as Horlocker let a bit of gravitas build up in the room. Then he cleared his throat.

  “Your take, Lieutenant?” he asked
, turning to D’Agosta.

  D’Agosta straightened up. “Well, sir, it’s too early to tell whether there’s a connection or not. It bears looking into, though, and I could use some extra manpower to—”

  The antique phone jangled, and Horlocker picked up the receiver, listening for a moment. “It can wait,” he said curtly, then hung up and turned back to D’Agosta.

  “You a Post reader?” he asked.

  “Sometimes,” D’Agosta replied. He knew where this was leading.

  “And you know this Smithback who’s writing all the garbage?”

  “Yes, sir,” said D’Agosta.

  “He a friend of yours?”

  D’Agosta paused. “Not exactly, sir.”

  “Not exactly,” the Chief repeated. “In that book of his about the Museum Beast, Smithback made it seem like you two were bosom buddies. To hear him tell it, the pair of you single-handedly saved the world during that little problem at the Museum of Natural History.”

  D’Agosta kept quiet. The role he’d played in the disastrous opening-night party for the Superstition exhibition was ancient history. And nobody in the new administration wanted to give him any credit for it.

  “Well, your not-exactly pal Smithback is running us ragged, chasing down all the crank calls his reward offer has generated. That’s where your extra manpower has gone. You should know that better than anyone.” The Chief shifted irritably in his huge leather throne. “So you’re telling me that the homeless murders and the Wisher murder have the same MO.”

  D’Agosta nodded.

  “Okay. Now we don’t like homeless being murdered here in New York. It’s a problem. It doesn’t look good. But when we get socialites being murdered, then we got a real problem. You get my drift?”

  “Absolutely,” said Waxie.

  D’Agosta said nothing.

  “What I’m saying is, we’re concerned about the homeless murders, and we’re going to try to take care of it. But look, D’Agosta, we’ve got homeless dying every day. Between you and me, they’re a dime a dozen. We both know it. On the other hand, I got a whole city on my butt about this headless debutante. The mayor wants that case solved.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk, a magnanimous look settling across his features. “Look, I know you’re going to need more help on this. So I’m going to keep Captain Waxie here on the case. I’ve put someone else on the precinct desk to free him up.”