The Cabinet of Curiosities

ONE

PEE-WEE BOXER SURVEYED the jobsite with disgust. The foreman was a scumbag. The crew were a bunch of losers. Worst of all, the guy handling the Cat didn’t know jack about hydraulic excavators. Maybe it was a union thing; maybe he was friends with somebody; either way, he was jerking the machine around like it was his first day at Queens Vo-Tech. Boxer stood there, beefy arms folded, watching as the big bucket bit into the brick rubble of the old tenement block. The bucket flexed, stopped suddenly with a squeal of hydraulics, then started again, swinging this way and that. Christ, where did they get these jokers?

He heard a crunch of footsteps behind him and turned to see the foreman approaching, face caked in dust and sweat. “Boxer! You buy tickets to this show, or what?”

Boxer flexed the muscles of his massive arms, pretending not to hear. He was the only one on the site who knew construction, and the crews resented him for it. Boxer didn’t care; he liked keeping to himself.

He heard the excavator rattle as it carved into the solid wall of old fill. The lower strata of older buildings lay open to the sun, exposed like a fresh wound: above, asphalt and cement; below, brick, rubble, then more brick. And below that, dirt. To sink the footings for the glass apartment tower well into bedrock, they had to go deep.

He glanced out beyond the worksite. Beyond, a row of Lower East Side brownstones stood starkly in the brilliant afternoon light. Some had just been renovated. The rest would soon follow. Gentrification.

“Yo! Boxer! You deaf?”

Boxer flexed again, fantasizing briefly about sinking his fist into the guy’s red face.

“Come on, get your ass in gear. This isn’t a peepshow.”

The foreman jerked his head toward Boxer’s work detail. Not coming any closer, though. So much the better for him. Boxer looked around for his shift crew. They were busy piling bricks into a Dumpster, no doubt for sale to some pioneering yuppie around the corner who liked crappy-looking old bricks at five dollars each. He began walking, just slowly enough to let the foreman know he wasn’t in any hurry.

There was a shout. The grinding of the excavator ceased suddenly. The Cat had bit into a brick foundation wall, exposing a dark, ragged hole behind it. The operator swung down from the idling rig. Frowning, the foreman walked over, and the two men started talking animatedly.

“Boxer!” came the foreman’s voice. “Since you ain’t doing squat, I got another job for you.”

Boxer altered his course subtly, as if that was the way he’d already been going, not looking up to acknowledge he had heard, letting his attitude convey the contempt he felt for the scrawny foreman. He stopped in front of the guy, staring at the man’s dusty little workboots. Small feet, small dick.

Slowly, he glanced up.

“Welcome to the world, Pee-Wee. Take a look at this.”

Boxer gave the hole the merest glance.

“Let’s see your light.”

Boxer slipped the ribbed yellow flashlight out of a loop in his pants and handed it to the foreman.

The foreman switched it on. “Hey, it works,” he said, shaking his head at the miracle. He leaned into the hole. The guy looked like an idiot, standing daintily on tiptoe atop a fallen pile of brick, his head and torso invisible within the ragged hole. He said something but it was too muffled to make out. He withdrew.

“Looks like a tunnel.” He wiped his face, smearing the dust into a long black line. “Whew, stinks in there.”

“See King Tut?” someone asked.

Everyone but Boxer laughed. Who the hell was King Tut?

“I sure as shit hope this isn’t some kind of archaeological deal.” He turned to Boxer. “Pee-Wee, you’re a big, strong fella. I want you to check it out.”

Boxer took the flashlight and, without a glance at the weenies around him, hoisted himself up the collapsed pile of bricks and into the hole the excavator had cut into the wall. He knelt atop the broken bricks, shining his light into the cavity. Below was a long, low tunnel. Cracks doglegged up through the walls and across the ceiling. It looked just about ready to collapse. He hesitated.

“You going in, or what?” came the voice of the foreman.

He heard another voice, a whiny imitation. “But it’s not in my union contract.” There were guffaws.

He went in.

Bricks had spilled down in a talus to the floor of the tunnel. Boxer half scrambled, half slid in, raising clouds of dust. He found his feet and stood up, shining the light ahead. It lanced through the dust, not getting far. From inside, the place seemed even darker. He waited for his eyes to adjust and the dust to settle. He heard conversation and laughter from above, but faintly, as if from a great distance.

He took a few steps forward, shining the beam back and forth. Threadlike stalactites hung from the ceiling, and a draft of foul-smelling air licked his face. Dead rats, probably.

The tunnel appeared to be empty, except for a few pieces of coal. Along both sides were a long series of arched niches, about three feet across and five high, each crudely bricked up. Water glistened on the walls, and he heard a chorus of faint dripping sounds. It seemed very quiet now, the tunnel blocking all noise from the outside world.

He took another step, angling the flashlight beam along the walls and ceiling. The network of cracks seemed to grow even more extensive, and pieces of stone jutted from the arched ceiling. Cautiously, he backed up, his eye straying once again to the bricked-up niches along both walls.

He approached the closest one. A brick had recently fallen out, and the others looked loose. He wondered what might be inside the niches. Another tunnel? Something deliberately hidden?

He shined the light into the brick-hole, but it could not penetrate the blackness beyond. He put his hand in, grasped the lower brick, and wiggled it. Just as he thought: it, too, was loose. He jerked it out with a shower of lime dust. Then he pulled out another, and another. The foul odor, much stronger now, drifted out to him.

He shined the light in again. Another brick wall, maybe three feet back. He angled the light toward the bottom of the arch, peering downward. There was something there, like a dish. Porcelain. He shuffled back a step, his eyes watering in the fetid air. Curiosity struggled with a vague sense of alarm. Something was definitely inside there. It might be old and valuable. Why else would it be bricked up like that?

He remembered a guy who once found a bag of silver dollars while demolishing a brownstone. Rare, worth a couple thousand. Bought himself a slick new Kubota riding mower. If it was valuable, screw them, he was going to pocket it.

He plucked at his collar buttons, pulled his T-shirt over his nose, reached into the hole with his flashlight arm, then resolutely ducked his head and shoulders in after it and got a good look.

For a moment he remained still, frozen in place. Then his head jerked back involuntarily, slamming against the upper course of bricks. He dropped the light into the hole and staggered away, scraping his forehead this time, lurching back into the dark, his feet backing into bricks. He fell to the floor with an involuntary cry.

For a moment, all was silent. The dust swirled upward, and far above there was a feeble glow of light from the outside world. The stench swept over him. With a gasp he staggered to his feet, heading for the light, scrambling up the slide of bricks, falling, his face in the dirt, then up again and scrabbling with both hands. Suddenly he was out in the clear light, tumbling headfirst down the other side of the brick pile, landing facedown with a stunning blow. He vaguely heard laughter, which ceased as soon as he rolled over. And then there was a rush to his side, hands picking him up, voices talking all at once.

“Jesus Christ, what happened to you?”

“He’s hurt,” came a voice. “He’s all bloody.”

“Step back,” said another.

Boxer tried to catch his breath, tried to control the hammering of his heart.

“Don’t move him. Call an ambulance.”

“Was it a cave-in?”

The yammering went on and on. He finally coughed and sat up, to a sudden hush.

“Bones,” he managed to say.

“Bones? Whaddya mean, bones?”

“He’s not making any sense.”

Boxer felt his head begin to clear. He looked around, feeling the hot blood running down his face. “Skulls, bones. Piled up. Dozens of them.”

Then he felt faint and lay down again, in the bright sunlight.

TWO

NORA KELLY LOOKED out from the window of her fourth-floor office over the copper rooftops of the New York Museum of Natural History, past the cupolas and minarets and gargoyle-haunted towers, across the leafy expanse of Central Park. Her eye came to rest at last on the distant buildings along Fifth Avenue: a single wall, unbroken and monolithic, like the bailey of some limitless castle, yellow in the autumn light. The beautiful vista gave her no pleasure.

Almost time for the meeting. She began to check a sudden swell of anger, then reconsidered. She would need that anger. For the last eighteen months, her scientific budget had been frozen. During that time, she had watched the number of museum vice presidents swell from three to twelve, each pulling down two hundred grand. She had watched the Public Relations Department turn from a sleepy little office of genial old ex-newspaper reporters to a suite of young, smartly dressed flacks who knew nothing about archaeology, or science. She had seen the upper echelons at the Museum, once populated by scientists and educators, taken over by lawyers and fund-raisers. Every ninety-degree angle in the Museum had been converted into the corner office of some functionary. All the money went to putting on big fund-raisers that raised more money for yet more fund-raisers, in an endless cycle of onanistic vigor.

And yet, she told herself, it was still the New YorkMuseum: the greatest natural history museum in the world. She was lucky to have this job. After the failure of her most recent efforts — the strange archaeological expedition she’d led to Utah, and the abrupt termination of the planned LloydMuseum — she needed this job to work out. This time, she told herself, she would play it cool, work within the system.

She turned away from the window and glanced around the office. System or no system, there was no way she could complete her research on the Anasazi-Aztec connection without more money. Most importantly, she needed a careful series of accelerator mass spectrometer C-14 dates on the sixty-six organics she had brought back from last summer’s survey of southern Utah. It would cost $18,000, but she had to have those damn dates if she was ever going to complete her work. She would ask for that money now, let the other stuff wait.

It was time. She rose and headed out the door, up a narrow staircase, and into the plush trappings of the Museum’s fifth floor. She paused outside the first vice president’s office to adjust her gray suit. That was what these people understood best: tailored clothing and a smart look. She arranged her face into a pleasantly neutral expression and poked her head in the door.

The secretary had gone out to lunch. Boldly, Nora walked through and paused at the door to the inner office, heart pounding. She had to get the money: there was no way she could leave this office without it. She steeled herself, smiled, and knocked. The trick was to be nice but firm.

“Come in,” said a brisk voice.

The corner office beyond was flooded with morning light. First Vice President Roger Brisbane III was sitting behind a gleaming Bauhaus desk. Nora had seen pictures of this space back when it belonged to the mysterious Dr. Frock. Then it had been a real curator’s office, dusty and messy, filled with fossils and books, old Victorian wing chairs, Masai spears, and a stuffed dugong. Now, the place looked like the waiting room of an oral surgeon. The only sign that it might be a museum office was a locked glass case sitting on Brisbane’s desk, inside of which reposed a number of spectacular gemstones — cut and uncut — winking and glimmering in little nests of velvet. Museum scuttlebutt held that Brisbane had intended to be a gemologist, but was forced into law school by a pragmatic father. Nora hoped it was true: at least then he might have some understanding of science.

She tried to make her smile as sincere as possible. Brisbane looked sleek and self-assured. His face was as cool, smooth, and pink as the inside of a conch — exquisitely shaved, patted, groomed, and eau-de-cologned. His wavy brown hair, thick and glossy with health, was worn slightly long.

“Dr. Kelly,” said Brisbane, exposing a rack of perfect orthodontry. “Make yourself at home.”

Nora dropped gingerly into a construction of chrome, leather, and wood that purported to be a chair. It was hideously uncomfortable and squeaked with every movement.

The young VP threw himself back in his chair with a rustle of worsted and put his hands behind his head. His shirtsleeves were rolled back in perfect creases, and the knot of his English silk tie formed an impeccably dimpled triangle. Was that, Nora thought, a bit of makeup on his face, under and around his eyes, hiding a few wrinkles? Good God, it was. She looked away, realizing she was staring too hard.

“How go things in the rag and bone shop?” Brisbane asked.

“Great. Fine. There’s just one small thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Good, good. I needed to talk to you, too.”

“Mr. Brisbane,” Nora began quickly, “I—”

But Brisbane stopped her with a raised hand. “Nora, I know why you’re here. You need money.”

“That’s right.”

Brisbane nodded, sympathetically. “You can’t complete your research with a frozen budget.”

“That’s right,” repeated Nora, surprised but wary. “It was a tremendous coup to get the Murchison Grant to do the Utah Anasazi survey, but there’s no way I can finish the work without a really good series of carbon-14 dates. Good dates are the foundation for everything else.” She tried to keep her voice pleasantly obedient, as if eager to play the ingenue.

Brisbane nodded again, his eyes half closed, swiveling slightly in his chair. Despite herself, Nora began to feel encouraged. She hadn’t expected as sympathetic a reaction. It seemed to be working.

“How much are we talking about?” Brisbane asked.

“With eighteen thousand dollars, I could get all sixty-six samples dated at the University of Michigan, which has the best mass spectrometer laboratory for carbon-14 dating in the world.”

“Eighteen thousand dollars. Sixty-six samples.”

“That’s right. I’m not asking for a permanent budget increase, just a one-time grant.”

“Eighteen thousand dollars,” Brisbane repeated slowly as if considering. “When you really think about it, Dr. Kelly, it doesn’t seem like much, does it?”

“No.”

“It’s very little money, actually.”

“Not compared to the scientific results it would bring.”

“Eighteen thousand. What a coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” Nora suddenly felt uneasy.

“It just happens to be exactly what you are going to need to cut out of your budget next year.”

“You’re cutting my budget?”

Brisbane nodded. “Ten percent cuts across the board. All scientific departments.”

Nora felt herself begin to tremble, and she gripped the chrome arms of the chair. She was about to say something, but, remembering her vow, turned it into a swallow.

“The cost of the new dinosaur halls turned out to be more than anticipated. That’s why I was glad to hear you say it wasn’t much money.”

Nora found her breath, modulated her voice. “Mr. Brisbane, I can’t complete the survey with a cut like that.”

“You’re going to have to. Scientific research is only a small part of the Museum, Dr. Kelly. We’ve an obligation to put on exhibitions, build new halls, and entertain the public.”

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 appealing 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 back 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?”

“Construction manager.”

Pendergast nodded. “Of course you are. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Shenk.” Immediately, he turned back to the captain, ignoring Shenk completely.

“Now, Captain Custer,” he continued in the same mild voice, “am I to understand that you will not open the gate and allow us to proceed with our work?”

“This is a very important project for the Moegen-Fairhaven Group, and for this community. Progress has been slower than it should be, and there’s concern at the very highest levels. Mr. Fairhaven visited the site himself yesterday evening. The last thing they want is more delays. I’ve had no word about FBI involvement, and I don’t know anything about any archaeological business—” He stopped. Pendergast had taken out his cell phone.

“Who’re you calling?” Custer demanded.

Pendergast said nothing, the smile still on his face. His fingers flew over the tiny buttons with amazing speed.

The captain’s eyes darted toward Shenk, then away again.

“Sally?” Pendergast spoke into the phone. “Agent Pendergast here. May I speak with Commissioner Rocker?”

“Now, look—” began the captain.

“Yes, please, Sally. You’re a treasure.”

“Perhaps we could discuss this inside.” There was a rattling of keys. Captain Custer began to unlock the gate.

“If you could kindly interrupt him for me, I’d be so grateful.”

“Mr. Pendergast, there’s no need for this,” said Custer. The gate swung open.

“Sally? I’ll call back,” said Pendergast, snapping the phone shut.

He stepped past the gate, Nora at his side. Without pausing or speaking, the FBI agent took off across the rubbled ground, trotting directly toward the hole in the brick wall. The others, taken by surprise, began to follow. “Mr. Pendergast, you have to understand—” the captain said as he struggled to keep up. Shenk followed angrily, like a bull. He stumbled, cursed, kept coming.

As they approached the hole, Nora could see a faint glow within, and a flash of light. A pause, another flash. Someone was taking pictures.

“Mr. Pendergast—” Captain Custer called.

But the lithe FBI agent was bounding up the pile of rubble. The others halted at the base, breathing heavily. Nora followed Pendergast, who had already vanished into the dark hole. She paused on the broken wall and peered down.

“Do come in,” said Pendergast, in his most inviting southern voice.

She scrambled down the fallen bricks, coming to a stop on the damp floor. There was another flash of light. A man in a white labcoat was bent over, examining something in a small arched niche. A photographer stood at another niche with a four-by-five camera, bracketed by two slave flash units.

The man in the white coat straightened up, peering at them through the dust. He had a thick shock of gray hair that, combined with his round black-framed glasses, made him look faintly like an old Bolshevik revolutionary.

“Who the devil are you, barging in like this?” he cried, his voice echoing down the barrow. “I was not to be disturbed!”

“FBI,” rapped out Pendergast. His voice was now totally different: sharp, stern, officious. With a snap of leather, he shoved his badge toward the man’s face.

“Oh,” the man said, faltering. “I see.”

Nora looked from one to the other, surprised at Pendergast’s apparent ability to read people instantly, then manipulate them accordingly.

“May I ask you to please vacate the site while my colleague, Dr. Kelly, and I make an examination?”

“Look here, I’m in the middle of my work.”

“Have you touched anything?” It came out as a threat.

“No… not really. Of course, I’ve handled some of the bones—”

“You handled some of the bones?”

“Consistent with my responsibility to determine cause of death—”

“You handled some of the bones?” Pendergast pulled a thin pad and a gold pen from his jacket pocket and made a note, shaking his head in disgust. “Your name, Doctor?”

“Van Bronck.”

“I’ll make a note of it for the hearing. And now, Dr. Van Bronck, if you’ll kindly let us proceed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pendergast watched as the ME and the photographer climbed laboriously out of the tunnel. Then he turned to Nora and spoke in a low, rapid voice. “It’s your site now. I’ve bought us an hour, maybe less, so make the best of it.”

“The best of what?” Nora asked in a panic. “Just what am I supposed to be doing? I’ve never—”

“You’re trained in ways that I’m not. Survey the site. I want to know what happened here. Help me understand it.”

“In an hour? I don’t have any tools, anything to store samples—”

“We’re almost too late as it is. Did you notice they had the precinct captain on the site? As I said, Moegen-Fairhaven pulls an enormous amount of weight. This will be our only chance. I need the maximum amount of information in the minimum amount of time. It’s extremely important.” He handed her the pen and pad, then withdrew two slender penlights from his coat and passed one to her.

Nora switched it on. For its size, the penlight was very powerful. She looked around, taking note of her surroundings for the first time. It was cool and silent. Motes drifted in the single banner of light streaming through the broken hole. The air smelled corrupt, a mixture of fungus, old meat, and mold. She breathed it in deeply nevertheless, trying to focus. Archaeology was a slow, methodical business. Here, faced with a ticking clock, she barely knew where to begin.

She hesitated another moment. Then she began to sketch the tunnel. It was about eighty feet long, ten feet high at the arch, bricked up at the ends. The ceiling was filmed with cracks. The dust covering the floor had been recently disturbed, more so than could be explained by the presence of a single medical examiner: Nora wondered how many construction workers and policemen had already wandered through here.

Half a dozen niches ran along both walls. She walked along the wet floor of the tunnel, sketching, trying to get an overall sense of the space. The niches, too, had once been bricked up, but now the bricks had been removed and were stacked beside each alcove. As she turned the flashlight into each niche, she saw essentially the same thing: a jumble of skulls and bones, shreds of clothing, bits of old flesh, gristle, and hair.

She glanced over her shoulder. At the far end, Pendergast was making his own examination, profile sharp in the shaft of light, quick eyes darting everywhere. Suddenly he knelt, peering intently not at the bones, but at the floor, plucking something out of the dust.

Completing her circuit, Nora turned to examine the first niche more closely. She knelt in front of the alcove and scanned it quickly, trying to make sense of the charnel heap, doing her best to ignore the smell.

There were three skulls in this niche. The skulls were not connected to the backbones — they had been decapitated — but the rib cages were complete, and the leg bones, some flexed, were also articulated. Several vertebrae seemed to have been damaged in an unusual way, cut open as if to expose the spinal cord. A snarled clump of hair lay nearby. Short. A boy’s. Clearly, the corpses had been cut into pieces and piled in the niche, which made sense, considering the dimensions of the alcove. It would have been inconvenient to fit a whole body in the cramped space, but one severed into parts…

Swallowing hard, she glanced at the clothing. It appeared to have been thrown in separately from the body parts. She reached out a hand, paused with an archaeologist’s habitual restraint, then remembered what Pendergast had said. Carefully, she began lifting out the clothing and bones, making a mental list as she did so. Three skulls, three pairs of shoes, three articulated rib cages, numerous vertebrae, and assorted small bones. Only one of the skulls showed marks similar to the skull Pendergast had originally shown her. But many of the vertebrae had been cut open in the same way, from the first lumbar vertebra all the way to the sacrum. She kept sorting. Three pairs of pants; buttons, a comb, bits of gristle and desiccated flesh; six sets of leg bones, feet out of their shoes. The shoes had been tossed in separately. If only I had sample bags, she thought. She pulled some hair out of a clump — part of the scalp still attached — and shoved it in her pocket. This was crazy: she hated working without proper equipment. All her professional instincts rebelled against such hasty, careless work.

She turned her attention to the clothing itself. It was poor and rough, and very dirty. It had rotted, but, like the bones, showed no signs of rodent gnawing. She felt for her loup, fitted it to her eye, and looked more closely at a piece of clothing. Lots of lice; dead, of course. There were holes that seemed to be the result of excessive wear, and the clothing was heavily patched. The shoes were battered, some with hobnails worn completely off. She felt in the pockets of one pair of pants: a comb, a piece of string. She went through another set of pockets: nothing. A third set yielded a coin. She pulled it out, the fabric crumbling as she did so. It was a U.S. large cent, dated 1877. She slipped everything hastily into her own pockets.

She moved to another alcove and again sorted and inventoried the remains as fast as she could. It was similar: three skulls and three dismembered bodies, along with three sets of clothing. She felt in the pockets of the pants: a bent pin and two more pennies, 1880 and 1872. Her eyes returned to the bones: once again, those strange marks on the vertebrae. She looked more closely. The lumbar vertebrae, always the lumbar, opened carefully — almost surgically — and pried apart. She slipped one of them into her pocket.

She went down the tunnel, examining each niche in turn, scribbling her observations in Pendergast’s notebook. Each niche held exactly three corpses. All had been dismembered in the same fashion, at the neck, shoulders, and hips. A few of the skulls had the same dissection marks she’d noticed on the specimen Pendergast first showed her. All of the skeletons displayed severe trauma to the lower spinal column. From her cursory examination of skull morphology, they seemed to fit within the same age bracket — thirteen to twenty or so — and were a mixture of male and female, with male predominating. She wondered what the forensic examiner had discovered. There would be time to find that out later.

Twelve niches, three bodies to a niche… All very neat, very precise. At the next to the last niche, she stopped. Then she stepped back into the middle of the tunnel, trying hard not to think about the implications of what she was seeing, keeping her mind strictly on the facts. At any archaeological site, it was important to take a moment to stand still, to be quiet, to quell the intellect and simply absorb the feel of the place. She gazed around, trying to forget about the ticking clock, to blot out her preconceptions. A basement tunnel, pre-1890, carefully walled-up niches, bodies and clothes of some thirty-six young men and women. What was it built for? She glanced over at Pendergast. He was still at the far end, examining the bricked-up wall, prying out a bit of mortar with a knife.

She returned to the alcove, carefully noting the position of each bone, each article of clothing. Two sets of britches, with nothing in the pockets. A dress: filthy, torn, pathetic. She looked at it more closely. A girl’s dress, small, slender. She picked up the brown skull nearby. A young female, a teenager, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. She felt a wave of horror: just underneath it was her mass of hair, long golden tresses, still tied in a pink lace ribbon. She examined the skull: same poor dental hygiene. Sixteen, and already her teeth were rotting. The ribbon was of silk and a much finer quality than the dress; it must have been her prized possession. This glimmering of humanity stopped her dead for a moment.

As she felt for a pocket, something crackled under her fingers. Paper. She fingered the dress, realizing that the piece of paper wasn’t in a pocket at all, but sewn into the lining. She began to pull it from the alcove.

“Anything of interest, Dr. Kelly?”

She started at the medical examiner’s voice. Van Bronck. His tone had changed: now he sounded arrogant. He stood over her.

She glanced around. In her absorption, she had not heard him return. Pendergast was by the entrance to the barrow, in urgent discussion with some uniformed figures peering down from above.

“If you call this sort of thing interesting,” she said.

“I know you’re not with the ME’s office, so that must make you an FBI forensics expert.”

Nora colored. “I’m not a medical doctor. I’m an archaeologist.”

Dr. Van Bronck’s eyebrows shot up and a sardonic smile spread over his face. He had a perfectly formed little mouth that looked as if it had been painted on by a Renaissance artist. It glistened as it articulated the precise words. “Ah. Not a medical doctor. I believe I misunderstood your colleague. Archaeology. How nice.”

She had not had an hour; she had not even had half an hour.

She slid the dress back into the alcove, shoving it into a dusty crevice in the back. “And have you found anything of interest, Doctor?” she asked as casually as she could.

“I’d send you my report,” he said. “But then, I could hardly expect you to understand it. All that professional jargon, you know.” He smiled, and now the smile did not look friendly at all.

“I’m not finished here,” she said. “When I am, I’d be glad to chat further.” She began to move toward the last alcove.

“You can continue your studies after I remove the human remains.”

“You’re not moving anything until I’ve had a chance to examine it.”

“Tell that to them.” He nodded over her shoulder. “I don’t know where you got the impression this was an archaeological site. Fortunately, that’s all been straightened out.”

Nora saw a group of policemen sliding into the barrow, heavy evidence lockers in their hands. The space was soon filled with a cacophony of curses, grunts, and loud voices. Pendergast was nowhere to be seen.

Last to enter were Ed Shenk and Captain Custer. Custer saw her and came forward, picking his way gingerly across the bricks, followed by a brace of lieutenants.

“Dr. Kelly, we’ve gotten orders from headquarters,” he said, his voice quick and high-pitched. “You can tell your boss he’s sadly confused. This is an unusual crime scene, but of no importance to present-day law enforcement, particularly the FBI. It’s over a hundred years old.”

And there’s a building that needs to be built, Nora thought, glancing at Shenk.

“I don’t know who hired you, but your assignment’s over. We’re taking the human remains down to the ME’s office. What little else is here will be bagged and tagged.”

The cops were dropping the evidence lockers onto the damp floor, and the chamber resounded with hollow thuds. The ME began removing bones from the alcoves with rubber-gloved hands and placing them into the lockers, tossing the clothing and other personal effects aside. Voices mingled with the rising dust. Flashlight beams stabbed through the murk. The site was being ruined before her eyes.

“Can my men escort you out, miss?” said Captain Custer, with exaggerated courtesy.

“I can find my own way,” Nora replied.

The sunlight temporarily blinded her. She coughed, breathed in the fresh air, and looked around. The Rolls was still parked at the street. And there was Pendergast, leaning against it, waiting.

She marched out the gate. His head was tilted away from the sun, his eyes half closed. In the bright afternoon light, his skin looked as pale and translucent as alabaster.

“That police captain was right, wasn’t he?” she said. “You’ve got no jurisdiction here.”

He slowly lowered his head, a troubled look on his face. She found her anger evaporating. He removed a silk handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his forehead. Almost as she watched, his face reassumed its habitual opaque expression, and he spoke. “Sometimes, there’s no time to go through proper channels. If we’d waited until tomorrow, the site would have been gone. You see how quickly Moegen-Fairhaven works. If this site were declared of archaeological value, it would shut them down for weeks. Which of course they could not allow to happen.”

“But it is of archaeological value!”

Pendergast nodded. “Of course it is. But the battle is already lost, Dr. Kelly. As I knew it would be.”

As if in response, a large yellow excavator fired up, its motor coughing and snarling. Construction workers began to appear, emerging from trailers and truck cabs. Already the blue lockers were coming out of the hole and being loaded into an ambulance. The excavator lurched and made a lumbering move toward the hole, its bucket rising, iron teeth dribbling dirt.

“What did you find?” Pendergast asked.

She paused. Should she tell him about the paper in the dress? It was probably nothing, and besides, it was gone.

She tore the hastily scribbled pages from the pad and returned it to him. “I’ll write up my general observations for you this evening,” she said. “The lumbar vertebrae of the victims seem to have been deliberately opened. I slipped one into my pocket.”

Pendergast nodded. “There were numerous shards of glass embedded in the dust. I took a few for analysis.”

“Other than the skeletons, there were some pennies in the alcoves, dated 1872, 1877, and 1880. A few articles in the pockets.”

“The tenements here were erected in 1897,” murmured Pendergast, almost to himself, his voice grave. “There’s our terminus ante quem. The murders took place before 1897 and were probably clustered around the dates of the coins — that is, the 1870s.”

A black stretch limousine slid up behind them, its tinted windows flaring in the sun. A tall man in an elegant charcoal suit got out, followed by several others. The man glanced around the site, his gaze quickly zeroing in on Pendergast. He had a long, narrow face, eyes spaced wide apart, black hair, and cheekbones so high and angular they could have been fashioned with a hatchet.

“And there’s Mr. Fairhaven himself, to ensure there are no more untoward delays,” Pendergast said. “I think this is our cue to leave.”

He opened the car door for her, then climbed in himself. “Thank you, Dr. Kelly,” he said, indicating to his driver to start the car. “Tomorrow we will meet again. In a more official capacity, I trust.”

As they eased out into the Lower East Side traffic, Nora looked at him. “How did you learn about this site, anyway? It was just uncovered yesterday.”

“I have contacts. Most helpful in my line of work.”

“I’ll bet. Well, speaking of contacts, why didn’t you just try your friend the police commissioner again? Surely he could have backed you up.”

The Rolls turned smoothly onto East River Drive, its powerful engine purring. “Commissioner?” Pendergast blinked over at her. “I don’t have the pleasure of his acquaintance.”

“Then who were you calling back there, then?”

“My apartment.” And he smiled ever so slightly.

FIVE

WILLIAM SMITHBACK JR. stood, quite self-consciously, in the doorway of Café des Artistes. His new suit of dark blue Italian silk rustled as he scanned the dimly lit room. He tried to keep his normal slouch in check, his back ramrod straight, his bearing dignified, aristocratic. The Armani suit had cost him a small fortune, but as he stood in the entryway he knew it had been worth every penny. He felt sophisticated, urbane, a bit like Tom Wolfe — though of course he didn’t dare try the full rig, white hat and all. The paisley silk handkerchief poking out of his pocket was a nice touch, though perhaps a bit flamboyant, but then again he was a famous writer — almost famous anyway, if only his last damn book had inched up two more slots it would have made the list — and he could get away with such touches. He turned with what he hoped was casual elegance and arched an eyebrow in the direction of the maître d’, who immediately strode over with a smile.

Smithback loved this restaurant more than any other in New York City. It was decidedly untrendy, old-fashioned, with superb food. You didn’t get the Bridge and Tunnel crowd in here like you did at Le Cirque 2000. And the Howard Chandler Christie mural added just the right touch of kitsch.

“Mr. Smithback, how nice to see you this evening. Your party just arrived.”

Smithback nodded gravely. Being recognized by the maître d’ of a first-class restaurant, although he would be loath to admit it, meant a great deal to him. It had taken several visits, several well-dropped twenties. What clinched it was the casual reference to his position at the New York Times.

Nora Kelly sat at a corner table, waiting for him. As usual, just seeing her sent a little electric current of pleasure through Smithback. Even though she’d been in New York well over a year, she still retained a fresh, out-of-place look that delighted him. And she never seemed to have lost her Santa Fe tan. Funny, how they’d met under the worst possible of circumstances: an archaeological expedition to Utah in which they’d both almost lost their lives. Back then, she’d made it clear she thought him arrogant and obnoxious. And here they were, two years later, about to move in together. And Smithback couldn’t imagine ever spending a day apart from her.

He slid into the banquette with a smile. She looked great, as always: her copper-colored hair spilling over her shoulders, deep green-brown eyes sparkling in the candlelight, the sprinkling of freckles on her nose adding a perfect touch of boyishness. Then his gaze dropped to her clothes. Now, those left something to be desired. God, she was actually dirty.

“You won’t believe the day I had,” she said.

“Hum.” Smithback adjusted his tie and turned ever so slightly, allowing the light to catch the elegantly cut shoulder of his suit.

“I swear, Bill, you aren’t going to believe it. But remember, this is off the record.”

Now Smithback felt slightly hurt. Not only had she failed to notice the suit, but this business about their conversation being off the record was unnecessary. “Nora, everything between us is off the record—”

She didn’t wait for him to finish. “First, that scumbag Brisbane cut my budget ten percent.”

Smithback made a sympathetic noise. The Museum was perpetually short of money.

“And then I found this really weird man in my office.”

Smithback made another noise, slyly moving his elbow into position beside his water glass. Surely she’d notice the dark silk against the white nap of the tablecloth.

“He was reading my books, acting like he owned the place. He looked just like an undertaker, dressed in a black suit, with really white skin. Not albino, just white.”

An uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu began to well up in Smithback’s mind. He dismissed it.

“He said he was from the FBI, and he dragged me downtown, to a building site where they’d uncovered—”

Abruptly, the feeling returned. “Did you say FBI?” No way. Not him. It couldn’t be.

“Yes, the FBI. Special Agent—”

“Pendergast,” Smithback finished for her.

Now it was Nora’s turn to look astonished. “You know him?”

“Know him? He was in my book on the Museum murders. That book of mine you said you read.”

“Oh yeah, right. Right.”

Smithback nodded, too preoccupied to be indignant. Pendergast was not back in Manhattan on a social visit. The man showed up only when there was trouble. Or maybe he just seemed to always bring trouble with him. Either way, Smithback hoped to God it wasn’t trouble like the last time.

The waiter appeared and took their orders. Smithback, who’d been anticipating a small dry sherry, ordered a martini instead. Pendergast. Oh, God. As much as he’d admired the man, he hadn’t been sorry to see him and his black suit heading back to New Orleans.

“So tell me about him,” Nora said, leaning back in her chair.

“He’s …” Smithback paused, feeling uncharacteristically at a loss for words. “He’s unorthodox. Charming, a southern aristocrat, lots of dough, old family money, pharmaceuticals or something. I really don’t know what his relationship is with the FBI. He seems to have free rein to poke into anything he likes. He works alone and he’s very, very good. He knows a lot of important people. As far as the man personally, I don’t know anything about him. He’s a cipher. You never know what he’s really thinking. Christ, I don’t even know his first name.”

“He can’t be that powerful. He got trumped today.”

Smithback arched his eyebrows. “What happened? What did he want?”

Nora told him about their hasty visit to the charnel pit at the construction site. She finished just as their morel and black truffle quenelles arrived.

“Moegen-Fairhaven,” said Smithback, digging a fork into the mousse, releasing a heavenly aroma of musk and the deep forest. “Weren’t those the guys that got in trouble for ripping down that SRO without a permit — when there were still people living there?”

“The single-room occupancy on East First? I think so.”

“Nasty bunch.”

“Fairhaven was arriving in a stretch limo just as we left.”

“Yeah. And in a Rolls, you said?” Smithback had to laugh. When he’d been investigating the Museum murders, Pendergast went around in a Buick. The conspicuousness of a Rolls had to mean something — everything Pendergast did served a purpose. “Well, you rode in style, anyway. But this really doesn’t sound like something Pendergast would be interested in.”

“Why not?”

“It’s an incredible site, but it is over a hundred years old. Why would the FBI, or any law enforcement agency, be interested in a crime scene that’s ancient history?”

“It isn’t an ordinary crime scene. Three dozen young people, murdered, dismembered, and walled up in a subterranean crawlspace. That’s one of the biggest serial killings in U.S. history.”

Their waiter returned, sliding a dish in front of Smithback: steak au poivre, cooked rare. “Nora, come on,” he said, lifting his knife eagerly. “The murderer is long dead. It’s a historical curiosity. It’ll make a great story in the paper — come to think of it — but I still can’t see why the FBI would take an interest.”

He felt Nora glowering at him. “Bill, this is off the record. Remember?”

“It’s almost prehistoric, Nora, and it would make a sensational story. How could it possibly hurt—?”

“Off the record.”

Smithback sighed. “Just give me first shot, Nora, when the time comes.”

Nora smirked. “You always get first shot, Bill. You know that.”

Smithback chuckled and sliced a tender corner off his steak. “So what did you find down there?”

“Not much. A bunch of stuff in the pockets — some old coins, a comb, pins, string, buttons. These people were poor. I took a vertebra, a hair sample, and …” She hesitated. “There was something else.”

“Out with it.”

“There was a piece of paper sewed into the lining of one girl’s dress. It felt like a letter. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Smithback leaned forward. “What’d it say?”

“I had to put the dress back before I could take a closer look.”

“You mean it’s still there?”

Nora nodded.

“What are they going to do with the stuff?”

“The ME took away the bones, but they said they were going to bag the rest. I got the sense they were eager to lose track of the stuff in some warehouse. The quicker they can get rid of it, the less chance it’ll be declared an archaeological site. I’ve seen developers tear up a site just to make sure that when the archaeologists arrive there’s nothing left to examine.”

“That’s illegal, isn’t it? Aren’t they supposed to stop if it’s important?”

“If the site’s gone, how can you prove it was important? Developers destroy dozens of archaeological sites in America in just this way, every single day.”

Smithback mumbled his righteous indignation as he made headway into the steak. He was famished. Nobody did steak like Café des Artistes. And the helpings were decent, man-sized, none of this nouvelle cuisine crap, the tippy little structure of food in the middle of a giant white plate splashed with Jackson Pollock — like dribbles of sauce …

“Why would the girl sew the letter into her dress?”

Smithback looked up, took a swig of red wine, another bite of steak. “Love letter, perhaps?”

“The more I think about it, the more I think it could be important. It would at least be a clue to who these people were. Otherwise, we may never find out, with their clothes gone and the tunnel destroyed.” She was looking at him earnestly, her entrée untouched. “Damn it, Bill, that was an archaeological site.”

“Probably torn up by now, like you said.”

“It was late in the day. I stowed the dress back in the alcove.”

“They probably removed it with the rest of the stuff, then.”

“I don’t think so. I stuffed it into a crevice in the rear of the alcove. They were rushing. They could easily have missed it.”

Smithback saw the gleam in Nora’s hazel eyes. He’d seen that look before.

“No way, Nora,” he said quickly. “They must have security at the site. It’s probably lit up brighter than a stage. Don’t even think about it.” Next thing, she would insist on his coming along.

“You’ve got to come with me. Tonight. I need that letter.”

“You don’t even know if it is a letter. It might be a laundry slip.”

“Bill, even a laundry slip would be an important clue.”

“We could be arrested.”

“No, you won’t.”

“What’s this you shit?”

“I’ll distract the guard while you go over the fence. You can make yourself inconspicuous.” As she spoke, Nora’s eyes grew brighter. “Yes. You can be dressed like a homeless bum, say, just poking through the garbage. If they catch you, the worst they’ll do is make you move on.”

Smithback was aghast. “Me? A bum? No way. You be the bum.”

“No, Bill, that won’t work. I have to be the hooker.”

The last forkful of steak froze halfway to Smithback’s mouth.

Nora smiled at him. Then she spoke. “You just spilled brandy sauce all down the front of your nice new Italian suit.”

SIX

NORA PEERED AROUND the corner of Henry Street, shivering slightly. It was a chilly night, and her scant black mini-dress and silver spandex top provided little warmth. Only the heavy makeup, she thought, added any R-factor to her person. In the distance, traffic droned through Chatham Square, and the vast black bulk of the Manhattan Bridge loomed ominously nearby. It was almost three o’clock in the morning, and the streets of the Lower East Side were deserted.

“What can you see?” Smithback asked from behind her.

“The site’s pretty well lit. I can only see one guard, though.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Sitting in a chair, smoking and reading a paperback.”

Smithback scowled. It had been depressingly easy to transform him to bumhood. His rangy frame was draped in a shiny black raincoat over a checked shirt, a dirty pair of jeans, and tattered Keds. There had been no shortage of cheesy old clothing in Smithback’s closet to choose from. A bit of charcoal on the face, olive oil rubbed into the hair, and a tote consisting of five nested plastic bags with unwashed clothes at the bottom completed the disguise.

“What’s he look like?” Smithback asked.

“Big and mean.”

“Cut it out.” Smithback was in no mood for humor. Dressed as they were, they had been unable to flag down a cab in the Upper West Side, and had been forced to take the subway. Nobody had actually propositioned her, but she had gotten plenty of stares, with follow-up glances at Smithback that clearly read, What’s a high-priced call girl doing with that bum? The long ride, with two transfers, had not improved Smithback’s mood.

“This plan of yours is pretty weak,” Smithback said. “Are you sure you can handle yourself?” He was a mask of irritation.

“We both have our cell phones. If anything happens, I’ll scream bloody murder and you call 911. But don’t worry — he’s not going to make trouble.”

“He’s going to be too busy looking at your tits,” said Smithback unhappily. “With that top, you might as well not be wearing anything.”

“Trust me, I can take care of myself. Remember, the dress is in the second to last niche on the right. Feel along the rear wall for the crevice. Once you’re safely out, call me. Now, here goes.”

She stepped out into the streetlight and began walking down the sidewalk toward the construction entrance, her pumps making a sharp clicking noise on the pavement, her breasts bouncing. As she got close, she stopped, fished in her little gold handbag, and made an exaggerated little moue. She could already feel the guard’s eyes on her. She dropped a lipstick, bent down to pick it up — making sure he got a good look up her dress in the process — and touched up her lips. Then she fished in the bag again, cursed, and looked around. She let her eyes fall on the guard. He was staring back, the book lying unheeded in his lap.

“Shit. Left my cigarettes back at the bar.” She flashed him a smile.

“Here,” he said, rising hastily. “Take one of mine.”

She sidled over and accepted the cigarette through the gap in the chain-link gate, positioning herself to ensure his back would be turned to the construction site. She hoped to God Smithback would work fast.

The guard withdrew a lighter, tried to stick it through the gate, failed. “Just a minute, let me unlock this.”

She waited, cigarette in hand.

The gate swung open and he flicked the lighter. She approached and bent over the flame, drawing the smoke in, hoping she wouldn’t cough. “Thanks.”

“Sure,” said the guard. He was young, sandy-haired, neither fat nor thin, a little dopey-looking, not terribly strong, clearly flustered by her presence. Good.

She stood there, taking another drag. “Nice night,” she said.

“You must be cold.”

“A little.”

“Here, take this.” With a gallant flourish he took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders.

“Thanks.” The guard looked as if he could hardly believe his good fortune. Nora knew she was attractive; knew that her body, with all her years spent backpacking in the remote desert, wasn’t too bad, either. The heavy makeup gave her a sense of security. Never in a million years would he later be able to identify the archaeologist from the New York Museum of Natural History. In an odd way the outfit made her feel sassy, bold, a little sexy.

She heard a distant rattle; Smithback must be climbing over the chain-link fence. “You work here every night?” she said hastily.

“Five nights a week,” the guard said, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Now that construction’s begun. You, er, live around here?”

She nodded vaguely toward the river. “And you?”

“Queens.”

“Married?”

She saw his left hand, where she had previously noted a wedding band, slide behind his gun holster. “Not me.”

She nodded, took another drag. It made her dizzy. How could people smoke these things? She wished Smithback would hurry up.

She smiled and dropped the butt, grinding it under her toe.

Instantly the pack was out. “Another?”

“No,” she said, “trying to cut back.”

She could see him eyeing her spandex top, trying to be subtle. “You work in a bar?” he asked, then colored. Awkward question. Nora heard another sound, a few falling bricks.

“Sort of,” she said, pulling the jacket tighter around her shoulders.

He nodded. He was looking a little bolder now. “I think you’re very attractive,” he said, hastily, blurting it out.

“Thanks,” she said. God, it was a thirty-second job. What was taking Smithback so long?

“Are you, ah, free later?”

Deliberately, she looked him up and down. “You want a date?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

There was another, louder sound: the rattling of a chain-link fence. Smithback climbing out? The guard turned toward it.

“What kind of date?” Nora asked.

He looked back at her, no longer trying to hide the roaming of his lascivious eyes. Nora felt naked beneath his gaze. There was another rattle. The guard turned again and this time saw Smithback. He was pretty hard to miss: clinging to the top of the fence, trying to unsnag his filthy raincoat.

“Hey!” the guard yelled.

“Forget him,” said Nora hastily. “He’s just some bum.”

Smithback struggled. Now he was trying to slip out of his raincoat, but had only succeeded in becoming more tangled.

“He’s not supposed to be in there!” the guard said.

This, unfortunately, was a guy who took his job seriously.

The man clapped his hand to his gun. “Hey you!” he yelled louder. “Hey!” He took a step toward the writer.

Smithback struggled frantically with the raincoat.

“Sometimes I do it for free,” Nora said.

The guard swiveled back to her, eyes wide, the bum on the fence instantly forgotten. “You do?”

“Sure. Why not? Cute guy like you…”

He grinned like an idiot. Now she noticed his ears stuck out. What a weenie, so eager to cheat on his wife. Cheap, too.

“Right now?” he asked.

“Too cold. Tomorrow.” She heard a ripping sound, a thud, a muffled curse.

“Tomorrow?” He looked devastated. “Why not now? At your place.”

She took off the coat and gave it back to him. “Never at my place.”

He took a step toward her. “There’s a hotel around the corner.” He reached over, trying to snake an arm around her waist.

She skipped back lightly with another smile as her cell phone rang. Flooded with relief, she flipped it open.

“Mission accomplished,” came Smithback’s voice. “You can get away from that creep.”

“Sure, Mr. McNally, I’d love to,” she said warmly. “That sounds nice. See you there.” She made a smacking kiss into the phone and snapped it shut.

She turned to the guard. “Sorry. Business.” She took another step back.

“Wait. Come on. You said—” There was a note of desperation in the guard’s voice.

She took a few more steps back and shut the chain-link gate in his face. “Tomorrow. I promise.”

“No, wait!”

She turned and began walking quickly down the sidewalk.

“Hey, come on! Wait! Lady, please!” His desperate pleas echoed among the tenements.

She ducked around the corner. Smithback was waiting, and he hugged her briefly. “Is that creep following?”

“Just keep going.”

They began running down the sidewalk, Nora wobbling on her high heels. They turned the far corner and crossed the street, then paused, panting and listening. The guard was not following.

“Christ,” said Smithback, sinking against a wall. “I think I broke my arm falling off that goddamn fence.” He held up his arm. His raincoat and shirt had been torn and his bleeding elbow stuck out of the hole.

Nora examined it. “You’re fine. Did you get the dress?”

Smithback patted his grimy bag.

“Great.”

Smithback looked around. “We’re never going to find a cab down here,” he said with a groan.

“A cab wouldn’t stop anyway. Remember? Give me your raincoat. I’m freezing.”

Smithback wrapped it around her. He paused, grinning. “You look kind of… sexy.”

“Stow it.” She began walking toward the subway.

Smithback skipped after her. At the entrance to the subway, he stopped. “How about a date, lady?” he leered. “Hey lady, please!” He imitated the guard’s last, despairing entreaties.

She looked at him. His hair was sticking out in all directions, his face had become even filthier, and he smelled of mold and dust. He couldn’t have looked more ridiculous.

She had to smile. “It’s going to cost you big-time. I’m high-class.”

He grinned. “Diamonds. Pearls. Greenbacks. Nights dancing in the desert under the coyote moon. Anything you want, baby.”

She took his hand. “Now, that’s my kind of john.”

SEVEN

NORA LOCKED THE door to her office, placed the packet on a chair, and cleared her desk of papers and tottering stacks of publications. It was just past eight in the morning, and the Museum seemed to be still asleep. Nevertheless, she glanced at the window set into her office door, and then — with a guilty impulse she did not quite understand — walked over to it and pulled down the blind. Then she carefully covered the desktop with white acid-free paper, taped it to the corners, laid another sheet on top, and placed a series of sample bags, stoppered test tubes, tweezers, and picks along one edge. Unlocking a drawer of her desk, she laid out the articles she had taken from the site: coins, comb, hair, string, vertebra. Lastly, she laid the dress atop the paper. She handled it gently, almost gingerly, as if to make up for the abuse it had endured over the last twenty-four hours.

Smithback had been beside himself with frustration the night before, when she had refused to slit open the dress immediately and see what, if anything, was written on the paper hidden inside. She could see him in her mind’s eye: still in his hobo outfit, drawn up to a height of indignation only a journalist with a need to know could feel. But she’d been unmoved. With the site destroyed, she was determined to squeeze every bit of information out of the dress that she could. And she was going to do it right.

She took a step back from the desk. In the bright light of the office, she could examine the dress in great detail. It was long, quite simple, made of coarse green wool. It looked nineteenth-century, with a high collaret-style neckline; a trim bodice, falling in long pleats. The bodice and pleats were lined with white cotton, now yellowed.

Nora slid her hand down the pleats and, right below the waistline, felt the crinkle of paper. Not yet, she told herself as she sat down at the desk. One step at a time.

The dress was heavily stained. It was impossible to tell, without a chemical analysis, what the stains were — some looked like blood and body fluids, while others could be grease, coal dust, perhaps wax. The hemline was rubbed and torn, and there were some tears in the fabric itself, the larger ones carefully sewn up. She examined the stains and tears with her loup. The repairs had been done with several colored threads, none green. A poor girl’s effort, using whatever was at hand.

There was no sign of insect or rodent damage; the dress had been securely walled up in its alcove. She switched lenses on the loup and looked more closely. She could see a significant amount of dirt, including black grains that looked like coal dust. She took a few of these and placed them in a small glassine envelope with the tweezers. She removed other particles of grit, dirt, hair, and threads, and placed them in additional bags. There were other specs, even smaller than the grit; she lugged over a portable stereozoom microscope, laid it on the table, and brought it into focus.

Immediately, dozens of lice leapt into view, dead and dry, clinging to the crudely woven fabric, intermingled with smaller mites and several giant fleas. She jerked her head back involuntarily. Then, smiling at herself, she took a closer, more studied look. The dress was a rich landscape of foreign biology, along with an array of substances that could occupy a forensic chemist for weeks. She wondered how useful such an analysis would be, considered the cost, and temporarily shelved the idea. She brought the forceps forward to take more samples.

Suddenly, the silence in her office seemed all too absolute; there was a crawling sensation at the base of her neck. She swiveled, gasped; Special Agent Pendergast was standing behind her, hands behind his back.

“Jesus!” she said, leaping out of the chair. “You scared the hell out of me!”

Pendergast bowed slightly. “My apologies.”

“I thought I locked that door.”

“You did.”

“Are you a magician, Agent Pendergast? Or did you simply pick my lock?”

“A little of both, perhaps. But these old Museum locks are so crude, one can hardly call it ‘picking.’ I am well known here, which requires me to be discreet.”

“Do you think you could call ahead next time?”

He turned to the dress. “You didn’t have this yesterday afternoon.”

“No. I didn’t.”

He nodded. “Very resourceful of you, Dr. Kelly.”

“I went back last night—”

“No details of any questionable activities, please. However, my congratulations.”

She could see he was pleased.

He held out his hand. “Proceed.”

Nora turned back to her work. After a while, Pendergast spoke. “There were many articles of clothing in the tunnel. Why this dress?”

Without a word, Nora carefully turned up the pleats of the dress, exposing a crudely sewn patch in the cotton lining. Immediately, Pendergast moved closer.

“There’s a piece of paper sewn inside,” she said. “I came upon it just before they shut down the site.”

“May I borrow your loup?”

Nora lifted it over her head and handed it to him. Bending over the dress, he examined it with a thorough professionalism that surprised and impressed Nora. At last he straightened up.

“Very hasty work,” he said. “You’ll note that all the other stitching and mending was done carefully, almost lovingly. This dress was some girl’s prize garment. But this one stitch was made with thread pulled from the dress itself, and the holes are ragged — I would guess they were made with a splinter of wood. This was done by someone with little time, and with no access to even a needle.”

Nora moved the microscope over the patch, using its camera to take a series of photographs at various magnifications. Then she fixed a macro lens and took another series. She worked efficiently, aware that Pendergast’s eyes were upon her.

She put the microscope aside and picked up the tweezers. “Let’s open it up.”

With great care, she teased the end of the thread out and began to undo the patch. A few minutes of painstaking work and it lay loose. She placed the thread in a sample tube and lifted the material.

Underneath was a piece of paper, torn from the page of a book. It had been folded twice.

Nora put the patch into yet another Ziploc bag. Then, using two pairs of rubber-tipped tweezers, she unfolded the paper. Inside was a message, scratched in crude brown letters. Parts of it were stained and faded, but it read unmistakably:

i a M MarY GreeNe, agt 19 years, No. 16 WaTTer sTreeT

Nora moved the paper to the stage of the stereozoom and looked at it under low power. After a moment she stepped back, and Pendergast eagerly took her place at the eyepieces. Minutes went by as he stared. Finally he stepped away.

“Written with the same splinter, perhaps,” he said.

Nora nodded. The letters had been formed with little scratches and scrapes.

“May I perform a test?” Pendergast asked.

“What kind?”

Pendergast slipped out a small stoppered test tube. “It will involve removing a tiny sample of the ink on this note with a solvent.”

“What is that stuff?”

“Antihuman rabbit serum.”

“Be my guest.” Strange that Pendergast carried forensic chemicals around in his pockets. What did the agent not have hidden inside that bottomless black suit of his?

Pendergast unstoppered the test tube, revealing a tiny swab. Using the stereozoom, he applied it to a corner of a letter, then placed it back in its tube. He gave it a little shake and held it to the window. After a moment, the liquid turned blue. He turned to face her.

“So?” she asked, but she had already read the results in his face.

“The note, Dr. Kelly, was written in human blood. No doubt the very blood of the young woman herself.”

EIGHT

SILENCE DESCENDED IN the Museum office. Nora found she had to sit down. For some time nothing was said; Nora could vaguely hear traffic sounds from below, the distant ringing of a phone, footsteps in the hall. The full dimension of the discovery began to sink in: the tunnel, the thirty-six dismembered bodies, the ghastly note from a century ago.

“What do you think it means?” she asked.

“There can be only one explanation. The girl must have known she would never leave that basement alive. She didn’t want to die an unknown. Hence she deliberately wrote down her name, age, and home address, and then concealed it. A self-chosen epitaph. The only one available to her.”

Nora shuddered. “How horrible.”

Pendergast moved slowly toward her bookshelf. She followed him with her eyes.

“What are we dealing with?” she asked. “A serial killer?”

Pendergast did not answer. The same troubled look that had come over him at the digsite had returned to his face. He continued to stand in front of the bookshelf.

“May I ask you a question?”

Pendergast nodded again.

“Why are you involved in this? Hundred-and-thirty-year-old serial killings are not exactly within the purview of the FBI.”

Pendergast plucked a small Anasazi bowl from the shelf and examined it. “Lovely Kayenta black-on-white.” He looked up. “How is your research on the Utah Anasazi survey going?”

“Not well. The Museum won’t give me money for the carbon-14 dates I need. What does that have to—”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Dr. Kelly, are you familiar with the term, ‘cabinet of curiosities’?”

Nora wondered at the man’s ability to pile on non sequiturs. “Wasn’t it a kind of natural history collection?”

“Precisely. It was the precursor to the natural history museum. Many educated gentlemen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries collected strange artifacts while roaming the globe — fossils, bones, shrunken heads, stuffed birds, that sort of thing. Originally, they simply displayed these artifacts in cabinets, for the amusement of their friends. Later — when it became clear people would pay money to visit them — some of these cabinets of curiosities grew into commercial enterprises. They still called them ‘cabinets of curiosities’ even though the collections filled many rooms.”

“What does this have to do with the murders?”

“In 1848, a wealthy young gentleman from New York, Alexander Marysas, went on a hunting and collecting expedition around the world, from the South Pacific to Tierra del Fuego. He died in Madagascar, but his collections — most extraordinary collections they were — came back in the hold of his ship. They were purchased by an entrepreneur, John Canaday Shottum, who opened J. C. Shottum’s Cabinet of Natural Productions and Curiosities in 1852.”

“So?”

“Shottum’s Cabinet was the building that once stood above the tunnel where the skeletons were found.”

“How did you find all this out?”

“Half an hour with a good friend of mine who works in the New York Public Library. The tunnel you explored was, in fact, the coal tunnel that serviced the building’s original boiler. It was a three-story brick building in the Gothic Revival style popular in the 1850s. The first floor held the cabinet and something called a ‘Cyclorama,’ the second floor was Shottum’s office, and the third floor was rented out. The cabinet seems to have been quite successful, though the Five Points neighborhood around it was at the time one of Manhattan’s worst slums. The building burned in 1881. Shottum died in the fire. The police report suspected arson, but no perpetrator was ever found. It remained a vacant lot until the row of tenements was built in 1897.”

“What was on the site before Shottum’s Cabinet?”

“A small hog farm.”

“So all those people must have been murdered while the building was Shottum’s Cabinet.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you think Shottum did it?”

“Impossible to know as of yet. Those glass fragments I found in the tunnel were mostly broken test tubes and distillation apparatus. On them, I found traces of a variety of chemicals that I have yet to analyze. We need to learn a great deal more about J. C. Shottum and his cabinet of curiosities. I wonder if you would be so kind as to accompany me?”

He obligingly opened the door to her office, and Nora automatically followed him into the hallway. He continued talking as they walked down the hall and took an elevator to the fifth floor. As the elevator doors hissed open, Nora suddenly came to her senses.

“Wait a minute. Where are we going? I’ve got work to do.”

“As I said, I need your help.”

Nora felt a short jolt of irritation: Pendergast spoke so confidently, as if he already owned her time. “I’m sorry, but I’m an archaeologist, not a detective.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is there a difference?”

“What makes you think I’d be interested?”

“You already are interested.”

Nora fumed at the man’s presumption, although what he said was perfectly true. “And just how will I explain this to the Museum?”

“That, Dr. Kelly, is the nature of our appointment.”

He pointed to a door at the end of the hall, with the name of the occupant in gold lettering on a wooden plaque.

“Oh, no,” groaned Nora. “No.”

They found Roger Brisbane ensconced in his Bauhaus chair, crisp Turnbull & Asser shirt rolled up at the cuffs, looking every inch the lawyer. His prized gems still nestled in their glass box, the only touch of warmth in the cold immaculate office. He nodded toward two chairs opposite his desk. It did not look like Brisbane was in a good mood.

“Special Agent Pendergast,” Brisbane said, glancing from his appointment book up to Pendergast without acknowledging Nora. “Now, why is that name familiar?”

“I’ve done work in the Museum before,” said Pendergast, in his creamiest drawl.

“Who did you work for?”

“You misapprehend. I said I did work in the Museum, not for it.”

Brisbane waved his hand. “Whatever. Mr. Pendergast, I enjoy my quiet mornings at home. I fail to see what the emergency was that required my presence in the office at such an hour.”

“Crime never sleeps, Mr. Brisbane.” Nora thought she detected a note of dry humor in Pendergast’s voice.

Brisbane’s eyes veered toward Nora, then away again. “Dr. Kelly’s responsibilities are here. I thought I made that clear on the telephone. Normally the Museum would be delighted to help the FBI, but I just don’t see how we can in this particular case.”

Instead of answering, Pendergast’s gaze lingered on the gems. “I didn’t know the famous Mogul Star Sapphire had been taken off public display. That is the Mogul Star, is it not?”

Brisbane shifted in his chair. “We periodically rotate the exhibits, to give visitors a chance to see things that are in storage.”

“And you keep the, ah, excess inventory here.”

“Mr. Pendergast, as I said, I fail to see how we can help you.”

“This was a unique crime. You have unique resources. I need to make use of those resources.”

“Did the crime you mention take place in the Museum?”

“No.”

“On Museum property?”

Pendergast shook his head.

“Then I’m afraid the answer is no.”

“Is that your final word on the subject?”

“Absolutely. We don’t want the Museum mixed up in any way with police work. Being involved in investigations, lawsuits, sordidness, is a sure way to draw the Museum into unwelcome controversy. As you well know, Mr. Pendergast.”

Pendergast removed a piece of paper from his vest pocket and laid it in front of Brisbane.

“What’s this?” Brisbane said, without looking at it.

“The Museum’s charter with the City of New York.”

“What relevance is that?”

“It states that one of the responsibilities of Museum employees is to perform pro bono public service to the City of New York.”

“We do that every day by running the Museum.”

“Ah, but that is precisely the problem. Up until fairly recently, the Museum’s Anthropology Department regularly assisted the police in forensic matters. It was part of their duties, as a matter of fact. You remember, of course, the infamous Ashcan Murder of November 7, 1939?”

“Pity, I must have missed that particular piece in the Times that day.”

“A curator here was instrumental in solving that case. He found the burned rim of an orbit in an ashcan, which he was able to identify as positively human—”

“Mr. Pendergast, I am not here for a history lesson.” Brisbane rose out of his chair and flicked on his jacket. “The answer is no. I have business to attend to. Dr. Kelly, please return to your office.”

“I am sorry to hear that. There will be adverse publicity, of course.”

At these two words, Brisbane paused, then a cold smile crept onto his face. “That sounded remarkably like a threat.”

Pendergast continued in his genial, southern fashion. “The truth is, the charter clearly calls for service to the City outside of regular curatorial duties. The Museum has not been keeping its contract with the City of New York now for close to a decade, despite the fact that it receives millions in tax dollars from the citizens of New York. Far from providing public service, you have now closed your library to all but Ph.D.’s; you have closed your collections to everyone except so-called accredited academics; and you charge fees for everything, all in the name of intellectual property rights. You have even begun suggesting an admission fee, despite the fact that this is clearly barred by your charter. It says right here: … for the Creation of a Museum of Natural History for the City of New York, to be Open and Free to all Members of the Public, without Restriction…”

“Let me see that.”

Brisbane read it, his smooth brow contracting into the faintest wrinkle.

“Old documents can be so inconvenient, don’t you think, Mr. Brisbane? Like the Constitution. Always there when you least want it.”

Brisbane let it drop to the desk, his face reddening for a moment before returning to its usual healthy pink. “I’ll have to take this up with the board.”

Pendergast smiled slightly. “An excellent start. I think perhaps the Museum can be left to work this little problem out on its own — what do you think, Mr. Brisbane? — provided I am given what little help I need from Dr. Kelly.”

There was a silence. Then Brisbane looked up, a new look in his eyes. “I see.”

“And I assure you I will not take up an undue amount of Dr. Kelly’s time.”

“Of course you won’t,” said Brisbane.

“Most of the work will be archival in nature. She’ll be on the premises and available, should you need her.”

Brisbane nodded.

“We will do all we can to avoid unpleasant publicity. Naturally, all this would be kept confidential.”

“Naturally. It is always best that way.”

“I just want to add that Dr. Kelly did not seek me out. I have imposed this duty on her. She has already informed me she would rather be working on her potsherds.”

“Of course.”

An opaque veil had dropped over Brisbane’s face. It was hard for Nora to tell what he was thinking. She wondered if this little hardball play of Pendergast’s was going to damage her prospects at the Museum. It probably would. She darted a reproachful glance toward Pendergast.

“Where did you say you were from?” Brisbane asked.

“I didn’t. New Orleans.”

Brisbane immediately pushed himself back in his chair, and with a smile said: “New Orleans. Of course. I should have known from the accent. You’re a rather long way from home, Mr. Pendergast.”

Pendergast bowed, holding the door open for Nora. She stepped through it, feeling shocked. Down the hall, she halted and spoke to Pendergast. “You totally blindsided me back there. I had no idea what you were up to until we were in Brisbane’s office. I don’t appreciate it.”

Pendergast turned his pale eyes on her. “My methods are unorthodox, but they have one advantage.”

“And what is that?”

“They work.”

“Yeah, but what about my career?”

Pendergast smiled. “May I offer a prediction?”

“For what it’s worth, why not?”

“When this is over, you will have been promoted.”

Nora snorted. “Right. After you blackmailed and humiliated my boss, he’s going to promote me.”

“I’m afraid I don’t suffer petty bureaucrats gladly. A very bad habit, but one I find hard to break. Nevertheless, you will find, Dr. Kelly, that humiliation and blackmail, when used judiciously, can be marvelously effective.”

At the stairwell, Nora paused once again.

“You never answered my question. Why is the FBI concerned with killings that are over a century old?”

“All in good time, Dr. Kelly. For now, let it suffice to say that, on a purely personal level, I find these killings rather — ah — interesting.”

Something in the way Pendergast said “interesting” sent the faintest of shudders through Nora.