Cemetery Dance

Chapter 52

It was four o'clock in the morning when D'Agosta and Pendergast arrived at the waiting room of the morgue annex. Dr. Beckstein was already waiting for them, looking strangely chipper. Or maybe, D'Agosta thought, he was just used to hanging around a morgue in the dead of night. D'Agosta felt like hell; he wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl into bed.

And yet that was the very last thing he could do. Things were happening almost faster than he could process them. Of all the recent events, by far the worst — to him, anyway — was the kidnapping of Nora Kelly, not a clue to her whereabouts, the officer assigned to protect her drugged with spiked coffee and his body locked in Nora's bathroom. Once again, he'd failed her.

And now, this.

"Well, well, gentlemen," Beckstein said, snapping on a pair of gloves. "The mystery deepens. Please, help yourselves." And he nodded toward a nearby bin.

D'Agosta tied on scrubs, donned a mask and surgical cap, and slipped on a pair of gloves. The feeling of dread increased as he tried to ready himself for the fresh ordeal he was about to endure. He had a hard time viewing morgue stiffs under the best of circumstances. Something about the mix of dead cold flesh, the clinical lights, and the gleam of steel made his stomach churn. How was he going to handle this one — when descriptions of the man while still ambulatory were enough to bring up anyone's lunch? He glanced over at Pendergast, now swathed in green and white, looking more like a morgue customer than a visitor. He was right at home.

"Doctor, before we go in" — D'Agosta tried to keep his voice casual—"I have a few questions."

"Of course," said Beckstein, pausing.

"The body was found in Inwood Hill Park, right? Not far from the Ville?"

Beckstein nodded. "Two teenage boys made the discovery."

"And you're certain about the ID on the victim? That the corpse is Colin Fearing?"

"Reasonably certain. The doorman of Fearing's building gave us a positive identification, and I consider him a credible witness. Two tenants who knew Fearing well also identified the body. It displays the correct tattoo and birthmark. Just to be sure, we've ordered DNA tests, but I'd stake my career on this being Colin Fearing."

"So the first corpse — the suicide, the bridge jumper? The one Dr. Heffler identified as Fearing? How'd that happen?"

Beckstein cleared his throat. "It would seem Dr. Heffler made a mistake — an understandable mistake, under the circumstances," he added hastily. "I certainly would have accepted the identification of a sister as definitive."

"Intriguing," murmured Pendergast.

"What?" asked D'Agosta.

"It makes one wonder what body Dr. Heffler did, in fact, autopsy."

"Yeah."

"The misidentification," said Beckstein, "is not so uncommon. I've seen it several times. When you combine grief and shock of the loved ones with the inevitable changes that death brings to the body — especially immersion in water or decomposition in the hot sun…"

"Right, right," said D'Agosta hastily. "Except external evidence points to this being a deliberate fraud. And on top of that, Dr. Heffler was slovenly in establishing the sister's identity, too."

"Mistakes happen," said Beckstein lamely. "I have found that arrogance, of which Dr. Heffler suffers no paucity," intoned Pendergast, "is the fertilizing manure for the vineyard of error."

D'Agosta was still parsing this last sentence when Beckstein gestured for them to follow him into the autopsy room. Inside, the body of Fearing lay on a gurney under a harsh light, and D'Agosta was hugely relieved to find that a white plastic sheet covered it.

"I haven't started working on it yet," said Beckstein. "We're waiting for the arrival of a pathologist and diener. My apologies for the delay."

"Think nothing of it," said D'Agosta a little hastily. "We're grateful for the rush job. The body was only brought in around midnight, right?"

"That's correct. I've done the preliminaries and there are some — ah — curious things about the cadaver." Beckstein fingered the corner of the sheet. "May I?"

Curious.

D'Agosta could just imagine what those things might be. "Well—"

"Delighted!" said Pendergast.

D'Agosta steeled himself, breathing through his mouth and relaxing the focus of his eyes. This was going to be hideous: a blackened, puffy corpse, flesh separating from the bones, fat melting, fluids draining… God, how he hated corpses!

There was a brisk ripple of plastic as Beckstein flicked off the sheet. "There," he said.

D'Agosta forced himself to focus on the cadaver. And was amazed.

It was the body of a normal — looking person: neat, spotless, and so fresh it could have been asleep. The face was clean — shaven, the hair combed and gelled, the only evidence of death being a nasty bullet wound above the right ear and a few twigs and leaves stuck to the gel on the back of the head.

D'Agosta looked at Pendergast and saw that the FBI agent seemed as astonished as he was.

"Well!" said D'Agosta, awash with relief. "So much for your zombiis and walking dead, Pendergast. Like I've been saying all along, this whole thing's a hoax — concocted by the Ville. The guy was probably returning there from a night's fake zombifying and got capped by a mugger."

Pendergast said nothing, just observed the corpse with glittering, silvery eyes.

D'Agosta turned to Beckstein. "You got time of death?"

"An anal probe indicates he'd been dead about two and a half hours when he was found in Inwood Hill Park. That was at eleven, give or take, which would put the time of death around eight thirty."

"Cause of death?"

"Most likely the prominent gunshot wound over the right ear."

D'Agosta squinted. "No exit wound. Looks like a.22." "I believe that's right. Of course, we won't know for sure until we open him up. My preliminary examination indicates he was shot from behind, at point — blank range. No signs of a struggle or coercion, no evidence of bruising, scratching, or binding."

D'Agosta turned. "What do you make of that, Pendergast? No voodoo, no Obeah, just a piece — of — shit gunshot murder like half the others in this town. Dr. Beckstein, was he killed in situ or the body dumped?"

"I don't have any information on that, Lieutenant. The first responders rushed the body to the hospital. It was still warm, and they weren't making any assumptions."

"Right, of course. We'll have to check with the evidence — gathering teams when they're finished." D'Agosta just couldn't keep the note of triumph out of his voice. "It's pretty clear to me that we're dealing with a lot of mumbo — jumbo, rigged up by those sons of bitches in the Ville to scare people away."

"You mentioned some curious aspects?" Pendergast asked Beckstein.

"I did. The first one you might find familiar." Beckstein took a pair of tongue depressors from a jar, tore off the sterile coverings, and used them to open the corpse's mouth. There, pinned to the tongue, was a tiny bundle of feathers and hair. It matched, almost exactly, the one found in Bill Smithback's mouth.

D'Agosta peered at it, disbelieving.

"And then there was something else. I'm going to need a little help turning over the cadaver. Lieutenant?"

With huge reluctance, D'Agosta helped Beckstein roll the corpse over. Scrawled between the shoulder blades in thick Magic Marker was a complex, stylized design of two snakes surrounded by stars, X's and arrows, and coffin — like boxes. A weird, spidery drawing of a plant filled the small of the back.

D'Agosta swallowed. He recognized these drawings.

"Vévé," murmured Pendergast, "similar to what we saw on the wall of Smithback's apartment. Strange…" He paused.

"What?" D'Agosta asked instantly.

Instead of answering directly, Pendergast slowly shook his head. "I wish Monsieur Bertin could see this," he murmured. Then he straightened up. "My dear Vincent, I do not think this gentleman was 'capped by a mugger,' as you put it. This was a deliberate, execution — style killing, for a very specific purpose."

D'Agosta stared at him for a moment. Then he turned his gaze back to the body on the table.