Reliquary

= 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 shit-rain 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.”

“Yes, sir!” said Waxie, straightening up.

As he listened, something inside D’Agosta crumpled and died. A walking disaster like Waxie was exactly what he didn’t need. Now instead of more manpower, he’d have to nursemaid Waxie through every step. He’d better put him on some peripheral assignment, where he couldn’t screw up. But that led to a whole new chain-of-command problem: putting a precinct captain on a case being run by a lieutenant in the Homicide Division. Just how the hell was that going to fall out?

“D’Agosta!” the Chief snapped.

D’Agosta looked up. “What?”

“I asked you a question. What’s going on at the Museum?”

“They’ve completed tests on the Wisher corpse and have released it to the family,” D’Agosta replied.

“And the other skeleton?”

“They’re still trying to identify it.”

“What about the teeth marks?”

“There seems to be some disagreement about their origin.”

Horlocker shook his head. “Jesus, D’Agosta. I thought you said those people knew what they were doing. Don’t make me sorry I took your advice and moved those corpses out of the Morgue.”

“We’ve got the Chief ME and some top Museum staff working on it. I know these people personally, and there aren’t any better—”

Horlocker sighed loudly and waved his hand. “I don’t care about their pedigrees. I want results. Now that you’ve got Waxie on the case, things should move faster. I want something by the end of the day tomorrow. Got that, D’Agosta?”

D’Agosta nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The Chief waved his hand. “Then get to it, you two.”