Blue Labyrinth

37

One of the duty cops stuck his head into D’Agosta’s office. “Loo? You’ve got a call waiting. Somebody named Spandau.”

“Can you take a message? I’m in the middle of something here.”

“He says it’s important.”

D’Agosta looked over at Sergeant Slade, sitting in his visitor’s chair. He was, if anything, grateful for the interruption. Slade, Angler’s errand boy, had stopped in at Angler’s request to “liaise” on their two cases, the Museum murder and the dead body on Pendergast’s doorstep. Just how much Angler knew about what the two cases had in common, D’Agosta wasn’t sure… the man was playing his cards close. And so was Slade. But they wanted copies of all the case files — everything — and they wanted them now. D’Agosta didn’t like Slade… and it wasn’t just the disgusting licorice toffee he was so fond of. For some reason, he reminded D’Agosta of the toady of a schoolboy who, if he saw you doing something wrong, would tell the teacher as a way of currying favor. But D’Agosta also knew Slade to be clever and resourceful, which only made it worse.

D’Agosta held the phone up. “Sorry. I’d better take this. Might be a while. I’ll check in with you later.”

Slade glanced at him, at the duty cop, and stood up. “Sure.” He left the office, trailing an aroma of licorice behind him.

D’Agosta watched him walk away and lifted the phone to his ear. “What’s going on? Has our boy recovered his marbles?”

“Not exactly,” came Spandau’s matter-of-fact tone down the line.

“What is it, then?”

“He’s dead.”

“Dead? How? I mean, the guy looked sick, but not that sick.”

“One of the guards found him in his cell, not half an hour ago. Suicide.”

Suicide. This case was a ball-buster. “Jesus, I can’t believe this.” Frustration put an edge to his voice that he didn’t intend. “Didn’t you have a suicide watch on him?”

“Of course. The full works: padded cell, leather restraints, fifteen-minute rotations. Just after the last check, he struggled out of the restraints — broke a collarbone in the process — bit off the big toe of his left foot, and then… choked on it.”

For a moment, D’Agosta was shocked into silence.

“I tried calling Agent Pendergast,” Spandau went on. “When I couldn’t reach him, I called you.”

It was true: Pendergast had vanished into thin air again. It was infuriating — but D’Agosta wasn’t going to think about that now. “Okay. Did he ever get lucid?”

“Just the opposite. After you left, what little lucidity he had vanished. He kept raving, saying the same things over and over.”

“What things?”

“You heard some of it. He kept mentioning a smell — rotting flowers. He stopped sleeping, was making a racket day and night. He’d been complaining about pain, too; not a localized pain, but something that seemed to affect his whole body. After you left, it grew worse. The prison doctor did some tests, administered meds, but nothing seemed to help. They couldn’t diagnose it. In the last twenty-four hours, he really started to go downhill. Nonstop raving, moaning, crying. I was making arrangements to have him transferred to the facility hospital when word of his death reached me.”

D’Agosta fetched a deep breath; let out a long, slow sigh.

“The autopsy is scheduled for later today. I’ll send you the report when I get it. Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”

“If I think of something, I’ll let you know.” And as an afterthought: “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t have better news for you.” And the line went dead with a click.

D’Agosta leaned back in his chair. As he did so, his eyes moved slowly — unwillingly — to the stack of files that covered his desk, all of which had to be copied for Slade.

Great. Just frigging great.