The Cabinet of Curiosities

ONE

BILL SMITHBACK HAD managed, with a little name-dropping here and a little intimidation there, to get the best seat in the house. “The house” was the press room of One Police Plaza, a cavernous space painted the institutional color known universally as Vomit Green. It was now filled to overflowing with scurrying television news crews and frantic journalists. Smithback loved the electric atmosphere of a big press conference, called hastily after some dreadful event, packed with city officials and police brass laboring under the misapprehension that they could spin the unruly fourth estate of New York.

He remained in his seat, calm, legs folded, tape recorder loaded, and shotgun mike poised, while pandemonium raged around him. To his professional nose, it smelled different today. There was an undertone of fear. More than fear, actually: closer to ill-suppressed hysteria. He’d seen it as he’d ridden the subway downtown that morning, walked the streets around City Hall. These three copycat killings, one on top of another, were just too strange. People were talking of nothing else. The whole city was on the verge of panic.

Off to one side he caught sight of Bryce Harriman, expostulating with a policeman who refused to let him move closer to the front. All that fine vocational training at Columbia journalism school, wasted on the New York Post. He should have taken a nice quiet professorship at his old alma mater, teaching callow youth how to write a flawless inverted pyramid. True, the bastard had scooped him on the second murder, on the copycat angle, but surely that was just luck. Wasn’t it?

There was a stir in the crowd. The wing doors of the press room belched out a group of blue suits, followed by the mayor of New York City, Edward Montefiori. The man was tall and solid, very much aware that all eyes were upon him. He paused, nodding to acquaintances here and there, his face reflecting the gravity of the moment. The New York City mayoral race was in full swing, being conducted as usual at the level of two-year-olds. It was imperative that he catch this killer, bring the copycat murders to an end; the last thing the mayor wanted was to give his rival yet more fodder for his nasty television advertisements, which had been decrying the city’s recent upsurge in crime.

More people were coming onto the stage. The mayor’s spokesperson, Mary Hill, a tall, extremely poised African-American woman; the fat police captain Sherwood Custer, in whose precinct this whole mess had started; the police commissioner, Rocker — a tall, weary-looking man — and, finally, Dr. Frederick Collopy, director of the Museum, followed by Roger Brisbane. Smithback felt a surge of anger when he saw Brisbane, looking urbane in a neatly tailored gray suit. Brisbane was the one who had screwed up everything between him and Nora. Even after Nora’s horrible discovery of Puck’s murdered corpse, after being chased and nearly caught herself by the Surgeon, she had refused to see him, to let him comfort her. It was almost as if she blamed him for what happened to Puck and Pendergast.

The noise level in the room was becoming deafening. The mayor mounted the podium and raised his hand. At the gesture, the room quickly fell silent.

The mayor read from a prepared statement, his Brooklyn accent filling the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press,” he began. “From time to time our great city, because of its size and diversity, has been stalked by serial killers. Thankfully, it has been many years since the last such plague. Now, however, it appears we are faced with a new serial killer, a true psychopath. Three people have been murdered in the space of a week, and in a particularly violent way. While the city is now enjoying the lowest murder rate of any major metropolitan area in the country — thanks to our vigorous enforcement efforts and zero tolerance for lawbreaking — this is clearly three murders too many. I called this press conference to share with the public the strong and effective steps we are taking to find this killer, and to answer as best we can questions you might have about this case and its somewhat sensational aspects. As you know, openness has always been a top priority of my administration. I therefore have brought with me Karl Rocker, the police commissioner; Sherwood Custer, precinct captain; Director Frederick Collopy and Vice President Roger Brisbane of the New York Museum of Natural History, where the latest homicide was discovered. My spokesperson, Mary Hill, will field the questions. But first, I will ask Commissioner Rocker to give you a briefing on the case.”

He stepped back and Rocker took the microphone.

“Thank you, Mr. Mayor.” His low, intelligent voice, dry as parchment, filled the room. “Last Thursday, the body of a young woman, Doreen Hollander, was discovered in Central Park. She had been murdered, and a peculiar kind of dissection or surgical operation performed on her lower back. While the official autopsy was in progress and the results were being evaluated, a second killing took place. Another young woman, Mandy Eklund, was found in Tompkins Square Park. Forensic analysis indicated that her manner of death, and the violence done to her person, matched the killing of Doreen Hollander. And yesterday, the body of a fifty-four-year-old man, Reinhart Puck, was discovered in the Archives of the New York Museum. He was the Museum’s head archivist. The body showed mutilations identical to Ms. Eklund’s and Ms. Hollander’s.”

There was a flurry of raised hands, shouts, gestures. The commissioner quelled them by holding up both hands. “As you know, a letter was discovered in these same Archives, referring to a nineteenth-century serial killer. This letter described similar mutilations, conducted as a scientific experiment by a doctor named Leng, in lower Manhattan, one hundred and twenty years ago. The remains of thirty-six individuals were discovered at a building site on Catherine Street, presumably the spot where Dr. Leng did his depraved work.”

There was another flurry of shouts.

Now, the mayor broke in again. “An article about the letter appeared in last week’s New York Times. It described, in detail, the kind of mutilations Leng had performed on his victims more than a century ago, as well as the reason why he had carried them out.”

The mayor’s eyes roved the crowd and paused momentarily on Smithback. The journalist felt a shiver of pride at the implied recognition. His article.

“That article appears to have had an unfortunate effect: it appears to have stimulated a copycat killer. A modern psychopath.”

What was this? Smithback’s smugness vanished before a quickly rising sense of outrage.

“I am told by police psychiatrists this killer believes, in some twisted way, that by killing these people he will accomplish what Leng tried to accomplish a century ago — that is, extend his life span. The, er, sensationalistic approach of the Times article we believe inflamed the killer and stimulated him to act.”

This was outrageous. The mayor was blaming him.

Smithback looked around and saw that many eyes in the room were on him. He stifled his first impulse to stand up and protest. He had been doing his job as a reporter. It was just a story. How dare the mayor make him the scapegoat?

“I am not blaming anyone in particular,” Montefiori droned on, “but I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the press, to please show restraint in your coverage. We already have three brutal killings on our hands. We are determined not to allow any more. All leads are being followed up vigorously. Let us not inflame the situation further. Thank you.”

Mary Hill stepped forward to take questions. There was a roar, an instant outcry, as everyone stood up, gesturing madly. Smithback remained seated, flushing deeply. He felt violated. He tried to collect his thoughts, but his shock and outrage made him unable to think.

Mary Hill was taking the first question.

“You said the murderer performed an operation on his victims,” somebody asked. “Can you elaborate?”

“Basically, the lower portion of the spinal cord had been removed in all three victims,” the commissioner himself answered.

“It’s being said that the latest operation was actually performed in the Museum,” shouted another reporter. “Is that so?”

“It is true that a large pool of blood was discovered in the Archives, not far from the victim. It appears the blood was, in fact, from the victim, but more forensic tests are underway. Whether the, er, operation was actually performed there must await further lab work.”

“I understand that the FBI have been on the scene,” a young woman shouted. “Could you tell us the nature of their involvement?”

“That is not entirely correct,” Rocker answered. “An FBI agent has taken an unofficial interest in the nineteenth-century serial killings. But he has no connection to this case.”

“Is it true that the third body was impaled on the horns of a dinosaur?”

The commissioner winced slightly. “Yes, the body was found affixed to a triceratops skull. Clearly, we are dealing with a seriously deranged individual.”

“About the mutilation of the bodies. Is it true that only a surgeon could have done it?”

“It is one lead we are following up.”

“I just want to clarify one point,” another reporter said. “Are you saying that the Smithback piece in the Times caused these murders?”

Smithback turned. It was Bryce Harriman, the shit.

Commissioner Rocker frowned. “What Mayor Montefiori said was—”

Once again, the mayor intervened. “I was merely calling for restraint. To be sure, we wish that article had never appeared. Three people might be alive today. And the methods the reporter used to acquire his information bear some ethical scrutiny, to my mind. But no, I’ve not said the article caused the killings.”

Another reporter: “Isn’t it a bit of a diversion, Your Honor, to blame a reporter who was only doing his job?”

Smithback craned his neck. Who said that? He was going to buy that man a drink.

“That is not what I said. I merely said—”

“But you clearly implied that the article triggered the killings.”

He was going to buy that man drinks and dinner. As Smithback looked around, he could see many of the returning glances were sympathetic. The mayor, in attacking him, had indirectly attacked the entire press corps. Harriman had shot himself in the foot by bringing up the subject. He felt emboldened: now they would have to call on him. They would have to.

“May I have the next question, please?” Mary Hill asked.

“Do you have any suspects?”

“We’ve been given a very clear description of the suspect’s attire,” Commissioner Rocker said. “A tall slender Caucasian male, between six foot and six foot two, wearing an old-fashioned black coat and a derby hat, was seen in the Archives around the time Mr. Puck’s body was found. A similarly dressed man, with a rolled umbrella or cane, was also seen in the vicinity of the second crime scene. I’m not at liberty to give any details beyond that.”

Smithback stood up, waved. Mary Hill ignored him.

“Ms. Perez of New York magazine. Your question, please.”

“I have a question for Dr. Collopy of the Museum. Sir, do you think the killer known as the Surgeon is a Museum employee? Given that the most recent victim seems to have been killed and dissected in the Museum, I mean.”

Collopy cleared his throat and stepped forward. “I believe the police are looking into that,” he said in a well-modulated voice. “It seems highly unlikely. All our employees now go through criminal background checks, are psychologically profiled, and are thoroughly drug-tested. And it hasn’t been proven that the killing actually took place in the Museum, I might add.”

There was another roar as Hill looked for more questions. Smithback shouted and waved his hands along with the rest. Christ, they weren’t really going to ignore him?

“Mr. Diller of Newsday, your question please.”

She was avoiding him, the witch.

“I’d like to address my question to the mayor. Mr. Mayor, how is it that the site on Catherine Street was ‘inadvertently’ destroyed? Wasn’t this a site of major historical importance?”

The mayor stepped forward. “No. It was not of historical significance—”

“No historical significance? The largest serial killing in the nation’s history?”

“Mr. Diller, this press conference is about the present-day homicides. Please, let’s not conflate the two. We had no legal reason to stop construction of a hundred-million-dollar building. The bones and effects were photographed, studied by the medical examiner, and removed for further analysis. Nothing more could be done.”

“Is it perhaps because Moegen-Fairhaven is a major donor to your campaign—”

“Next question,” rapped out Hill.

Smithback stood up and shouted, “Mr. Mayor, since aspersions have been cast—”

“Ms. Epstein of WNBC,” cried Mary Hill, her powerful voice drowning him out. A slender newswoman stood up, holding a mike, a camera turned on her.

“Excuse ME!” Smithback quickly took advantage of the temporary lull. “Ms. Epstein, since I have been personally attacked, may I respond?”

The famous anchorwoman didn’t pause for a second. “Of course,” she said graciously, and turned to her cameraman to make sure he got it on tape.

“I’d like to address my question to Mr. Brisbane,” Smithback continued, not pausing for a second. “Mr. Brisbane, why has the letter that started all this been put off limits, along with all the items from the Shottum collection? The Museum isn’t trying to hide something, is it?”

Brisbane rose with an easy smile. “Not at all. Those materials have merely been temporarily removed for conservation. It’s standard Museum procedure. In any case, the letter has already inflamed one copycat murderer into action — to release it now would be irresponsible. The materials are still available to qualified researchers.”

“Is it not true that you tried to prevent employees from working on the case?”

“Not at all. We’ve cooperated all along. The record speaks for itself.”

Shit. Smithback thought fast. “Mr. Brisbane—”

“Mr. Smithback, care to give someone else a turn?” Mary Hill’s voice once again sliced through the air.

“No!” Smithback cried, to scattered laughter. “Mr. Brisbane, isn’t it true that Moegen-Fairhaven, which gave the Museum two million dollars last year — not to mention the fact that Fairhaven himself sits on your board — has put pressure on the Museum to stop this investigation?”

Brisbane colored and Smithback knew his question had hit home. “That is an irresponsible allegation. As I said, we’ve cooperated all along—”

“So you deny threatening your employee, Dr. Nora Kelly, forbidding her to work on the case? Keep in mind, Mr. Brisbane, that we have yet to hear from Nora Kelly herself. The one who found the third victim’s body, I might add — and who was chased by the Surgeon and almost killed in turn.”

The clear implication was that Nora Kelly might have something to say that would not agree with Brisbane’s account. Brisbane’s face darkened as he realized he’d been backed into a corner. “I will not answer these hectoring questions.” Beside him, Collopy looked grim.

Smithback felt a swell of triumph.

“Mister Smithback,” said Mary Hill acidly, “are you quite done monopolizing this press conference? Clearly the nineteenth-century homicides have nothing to do with the current serial killings, except as inspiration.”

“And how do you know that?” Smithback cried out, his triumph now secure.

The mayor now turned to him. “Are you suggesting, sir,” he said facetiously, “that Dr. Leng is still alive and continuing his business?”

There was a solid round of laughter in the hall.

“Not at all—”

“Then I suggest you sit down, my friend.”

Smithback sat down, amid more laughter, his feelings of triumph squashed. He had scored a hit, but they knew how to hit back.

As the questions droned on, it slowly dawned on him just what he had done, dragging Nora’s name into the press conference. It didn’t take him nearly as long to figure out how she would feel about it.

TWO

DOYERS STREET WAS a short, narrow doglet of a lane at the southeastern edge of Chinatown. A cluster of tea shops and grocery stores stood at the far end, festooned with bright neon signs in Chinese. Dark clouds scudded across the sky, whipping scraps of paper and leaves off the sidewalk. There was a distant roll of thunder. A storm was coming.

O’Shaughnessy paused at the entrance of the deserted lane, and Nora stopped beside him. She shivered, with both fear and cold. She could see him peering up and down the sidewalk, eyes alert for any sign of danger, any possibility that they had been followed.

“Number ninety-nine is in the middle of the block,” he said in a low voice. “That brownstone, there.”

Nora followed the indicated direction with her eyes. It was a narrow building like all the others: a three-story structure of dirty green brick.

“Sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” O’Shaughnessy asked.

Nora swallowed. “I think it’d be better if you stayed here and watched the street.”

O’Shaughnessy nodded, then slipped into the shadow of a doorway.

Taking a deep breath, Nora started forward. The sealed envelope containing Pendergast’s banknotes felt like a lead weight within her purse. She shivered again, glancing up and down the dark street, fighting her feeling of agitation.

The attack on her, and Puck’s brutal murder, had changed everything. It had proven these were no mere psychotic copycat killings. It had been carefully planned. The murderer had access to the Museum’s private spaces. He had used Puck’s old Royal typewriter to type that note, luring her to the Archives. He had pursued her with terrifying coolness. She’d felt the man’s presence, mere inches away from her, there in the Archives. She’d even felt the sting of his scalpel. This was no lunatic: this was someone who knew exactly what he was doing, and why. Whatever the connection between the old killings and the new, this had to be stopped. If there was anything—anything—she could do to get the killer, she was willing to do it.

There were answers beneath the floor of Number 99 Doyers Street. She was going to find those answers.

Her mind returned to the terrifying chase, in particular to the flash of the Surgeon’s scalpel as it flicked toward her, faster than a striking snake. It was an image that she found herself unable to shake. Then the endless police questioning; and afterward her trip to Pendergast’s bedside, to tell him she had changed her mind about Doyers Street. Pendergast had been alarmed to hear of the attack, reluctant at first, but Nora refused to be swayed. With or without him, she was going down to Doyers. Ultimately, Pendergast had relented: on the condition that Nora keep O’Shaughnessy by her side at all times. And he had arranged for her to receive the fat packet of cash.

She mounted the steps to the front door, steeling herself for the task at hand. She noticed that the apartment names beside the buzzers were written in Chinese. She pressed the buzzer for Apartment 1.

A voice rasped out in Chinese.

“I’m the one interested in renting the basement apartment,” she called out.

The lock snapped free with a buzz, she pushed on the door, and found herself in a hallway lit by fluorescent lights. A narrow staircase ascended to her right. At the end of the hallway she could hear a door being endlessly unbolted. It opened at last and a stooped, depressed-looking man appeared, in shirtsleeves and baggy slacks, peering down the hall at her.

Nora walked up. “Mr. Ling Lee?”

He nodded and held the door open for her. Beyond was a living room with a green sofa, a Formica table, several easy chairs, and an elaborate red-and gold-carved bas-relief on the wall, showing a pagoda and trees. A chandelier, grossly oversized for the space, dominated the room. The wallpaper was lilac, the rug red and black.

“Sit down,” the man said. His voice was faint, tired.

She sat down, sinking alarmingly into the sofa.

“How you hear about this apartment?” Lee asked. Nora could see from his expression he was not pleased to see her.

Nora launched into her story. “A lady who works in the Citibank down the block from here told me about it.”

“What lady?” Lee asked, more sharply. In Chinatown, Pendergast had explained, most landlords preferred to rent to their own.

“I don’t know her name. My uncle told me to talk to her, said that she knew where to find an apartment in this area. She told me to call you.”

“Your uncle?”

“Yes. Uncle Huang. He’s with the DHCR.”

This bit of information was greeted with a dismayed silence. Pendergast figured that having a Chinese relative would make it easier for her to get the apartment. That he worked for the Department of Housing and Community Renewal — the city division that enforced the rent laws — made it all the better.

“Your name?”

“Betsy Winchell.”

Nora noticed a large, dark presence move from the kitchen into the doorway of the living room. It was apparently Lee’s wife, arms folded, three times his size, looking very stern.

“Over the phone, you said the apartment was available. I’m prepared to take it right away. Please show it to me.”

Lee rose from the table and glanced at his wife. Her arms tightened.

“Follow me,” he said.

They went back into the hall, out the front door, and down the steps. Nora glanced around quickly, but O’Shaughnessy was nowhere to be seen. Lee removed a key, opened the basement apartment door, and snapped on the lights. She followed him in. He closed the door and made a show of relocking no fewer than four locks.

It was a dismal apartment, long and dark. The only window was a small, barred square beside the front door. The walls were of painted brick, once white but now gray, and the floor was covered with old brick pavers, cracked and chipped. Nora looked at them with professional interest. They were laid but not cemented. What was beneath? Dirt? Sand? Concrete? The floor looked just uneven and damp enough to have been laid on dirt.

“Kitchen and bedroom in back,” said Lee, not bothering to point.

Nora walked to the rear of the apartment. Here was a cramped kitchen, leading into two dark bedrooms and a bath. There were no closets. A window in the rear wall, below grade, allowed feeble brown light from an air shaft to enter between thick steel bars.

Nora emerged. Lee was examining the lock on the front door. “Have to fix lock,” he said in a portentous tone. “Many robber try to get in.”

“You have a lot of break-ins?”

Lee nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yes. Many robber. Very dangerous.”

“Really?”

“Many robber. Many mugger.” He shook his head sadly.

“The apartment looks safe, at least.” Nora listened. The ceiling seemed fairly soundproof — at least, she could hear nothing from above.

“Neighborhood not safe for girl. Every day, murder, mugging, robber. Rape.”

Nora knew that, despite its shabby appearance, Chinatown was one of the safest neighborhoods in the city. “I’m not worried,” she said.

“Many rule for apartment,” said Lee, trying another tack.

“Is that right?”

“No music. No noise. No man at night.” Lee seemed to be searching his mind for other strictures a young woman would find objectionable. “No smoke. No drink. Keep clean every day.”

Nora listened, nodding her agreement. “Good. That sounds perfect. I like a neat, quiet place. And I have no boyfriend.” With a renewed flash of anger she thought of Smithback and how he had dragged her into this mess by publishing that article. To a certain extent Smithback had been responsible for these copycat killings. Just yesterday, he’d had the nerve to bring up her name at the mayor’s news conference, for the whole city to hear. She felt certain that, after what happened in the Archives, her long-term prospects at the Museum were even more questionable than before.

“Utility not include.”

“Of course.”

“No air-condition.”

Nora nodded.

Lee seemed at a loss, then his face brightened with a fresh idea. “After suicide, no allow gun in apartment.”

“Suicide?”

“Young woman hang herself. Same age as you.”

“A hanging? I thought you mentioned a gun.”

The man looked confused for a moment. Then his face brightened again. “She hang, but it no work. Then shoot herself.”

“I see. She favored the comprehensive approach.”

“Like you, she no have boyfriend. Very sad.”

“How terrible.”

“It happen right in there,” said Lee, pointing into the kitchen. “Not find body for three day. Bad smell.” He rolled his eyes and added, in a dramatic undertone: “Many worm.”

“How dreadful,” Nora said. Then she smiled. “But the apartment is just perfect. I’ll take it.”

Lee’s look of depression deepened, but he said nothing.

She followed him back up to his apartment. Nora sat back down at the sofa, uninvited. The wife was still there, a formidable presence in the kitchen doorway. Her face was screwed into an expression of suspicion and displeasure. Her crossed arms looked like balsa-colored hams.

The man sat down unhappily.

“So,” said Nora, “let’s get this over with. I want to rent the apartment. I need it immediately. Today. Right now.”

“Have to check reference,” Lee replied feebly.

“There’s no time and I’m prepared to pay cash. I need the apartment tonight, or I won’t have a place to sleep.” As she spoke, she removed Pendergast’s envelope. She reached in and took out a brick of hundred-dollar bills.

The appearance of the money brought a loud expostulation from the wife. Lee did not respond. His eyes were on the cash.

“I have here first month’s rent, last month’s rent, and a month’s deposit.” Nora thumped the roll on the tabletop. “Six thousand six hundred dollars. Cash. Bring out the lease.”

The apartment was dismal and the rent bordered on outrageous, which was probably why it wasn’t gone already. She hoped that hard cash was something Lee could not afford to ignore.

There was another sharp comment from the wife. Lee ignored her. He went into the back, and returned a few minutes later, laying two leases in front of her. They were in Chinese. There was a silence.

“Need reference,” said the wife stolidly, switching to English for Nora’s benefit. “Need credit check.”

Nora ignored her. “Where do I sign?”

“There,” the man pointed.

Nora signed Betsy Winchell with a flourish on both leases, and then handwrote on each lease a crude receipt: $6,600 received by Mr. Ling Lee. “My Uncle Huang will translate it for me. I hope for your sake there’s nothing illegal in it. Now you sign. Initial the receipt.”

There was a sharp noise from the wife.

Lee signed his name in Chinese; emboldened, it seemed, by the opposition of his wife.

“Now give me the keys and we’re done.”

“Have to make copy of keys.”

“You give me those keys. It’s my apartment now. I’ll make the copies for you at my own expense. I need to start moving in right away.”

Lee reluctantly handed her the keys. Nora took them, folded one of the leases into her pocket, and stood up. “Thank you very much,” she said cheerfully, holding out her hand.

Lee shook it limply. As the door closed, Nora heard another sharp irruption of displeasure from the wife. This one sounded as if it might go on for a long time.

THREE

NORA IMMEDIATELY RETURNED to the apartment below. O’Shaugnessy appeared by her side as she unlocked the door. Together, they slipped into the living room, and Nora secured the door with deadbolts and chains. Then she moved to the barred window. Two nails stuck out from either side of the lintel, on which someone had once hung a makeshift curtain. She removed her coat and hung it across the nails, blocking the view from outside.

“Cozy place,” O’Shaughnessy said, sniffing. “Smells like a crime scene.”

Nora didn’t answer. She was staring at the floor, already working out the dig in her mind.

While O’Shaughnessy cased the apartment, Nora made a circuit of the living room, examining the floor, gridding it off, plotting her lines of attack. Then she knelt and, taking a penknife from her pocket — a knife her brother, Skip, had given her for her sixteenth birthday and which she never traveled without — eased it between the edges of two bricks. Slowly, deliberately, she cut her way through the crust of grime and old floor wax. She rocked the knife back and forth between the bricks, gently loosening the stonework. Then, bit by bit, she began to work the closest brick from its socket. In a moment it was free. She pulled it out.

Earth. The damp smell rose toward her nostrils. She poked her finger into it: cool, moist, a little slimy. She probed with the penknife, found it compact but yielding, with little gravel or rocks. Perfect.

She straightened up, looked around. O’Shaughnessy was standing behind her, looking down curiously.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Checking the subflooring.”

“And?”

“It’s old fill, not cement.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s outstanding.”

“If you say so.”

She tapped the brick back into place, then stood. She checked her watch. Three o’clock, Friday afternoon. The Museum would close in two hours.

She turned to O’Shaughnessy. “Look, Patrick, I need you to get up to my office at the Museum, plunder my field locker for some tools and equipment I’ll need.”

O’Shaughnessy shook his head. “Nothing doing. Pendergast said I was to stay with you.”

“I remember. But I’m here now, safe. There must be five locks on that door, I won’t be going anywhere. I’ll be a lot safer here than walking the streets. Besides, the killer knows where I work. Would you rather I went uptown and you waited here?”

“Why go anywhere? What’s the hurry? Can’t we wait until Pendergast is out of the hospital?”

She stared at him. “The clock’s ticking, Patrick. There’s a killer out there.”

O’Shaughnessy looked at her. Hesitated.

“We can’t afford to just sit around. I hope you’re not going to give me a hard time. I need those tools, and I need them now.”

Still, hesitation.

Nora felt her anger rise. “Just do it. Okay?”

O’Shaughnessy sighed. “Double-lock the door behind me, and don’t open it for anybody. Not the landlord, not the fire department, not Santa Claus. Only me. Promise?”

Nora nodded. “I promise.”

“Good, I’ll be back ASAP.”

She drew up a quick list of items, gave O’Shaughnessy directions, and locked the door carefully behind him, shutting out the sound of the growing storm. Slowly, she stepped away from the door, her eyes swiveling around the room, coming to rest at last on the brickwork beneath her feet. One hundred years before, Leng, for all his genius, could not have anticipated the reach of modern archaeology. She would excavate this site with the greatest care, sifting through his old laboratory layer by layer, bringing all her skills to bear in order to capture even the smallest piece of evidence. And there would be evidence, she knew that. There was no such thing as a barren archaeological site. People — wherever they went, whatever they did — always left a record.

Taking out her penknife, she knelt and, once again, began easing the blade between the old bricks. There was a sudden peal of thunder, louder than any that had come before; she paused, heart beating wildly with terror. She forced her feelings back under control, shaking her head ruefully. No killer was going to stop her from finding out what was beneath this floor. She wondered briefly what Brisbane would say to this work. The hell with him, she thought.

She turned the penknife over in her hands, closed it with a sigh. All her professional life, she had unearthed and catalogued human bones without emotion — with no connection to the ancient skeletons beyond a shared humanity. But Mary Greene had proven utterly different. There, outside the girl’s house, Pendergast had thrown Mary Greene’s short life and awful death into sharp relief. For the first time, Nora realized she had excavated, handled, the bones of someone that she could understand, grieve for. More and more, Pendergast’s tale of Mary Greene was sinking in, despite her attempts to keep a professional distance. And now, she had almost become another Mary Greene.

That made it personal. Very personal.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the rattle of wind at the door, and another, fainter, rumble of thunder. Nora rose to her knees, opened the penknife again, and began scraping vigorously at the brickwork beneath her feet. It was going to be a long night.

FOUR

THE WIND SHOOK the barred door, and occasional flickers of lightning and grumblings of thunder penetrated the room. Now that O’Shaughnessy had returned, the two worked together, the policeman moving the dirt, Nora focusing on uncovering the details. They labored by the light of a single yellow bulb. The room smelled strongly of decaying earth. The air was close, humid, and stifling.

She had opened a four-square-meter dig in the living room floor. It had been carefully gridded off, and she had stepped down the excavation, each meter grid to a different level, allowing her to climb in and out of the deepening hole. The floor bricks were neatly piled against the far wall. The door leading to the kitchen was open, and through it a large pile of brown dirt was visible, piled in the center of the room atop a sheet of heavy plastic. Beside it was a smaller sheet of plastic, containing bagged items recovered from the digsite.

At last Nora paused, putting her trowel aside to take stock. She removed her safety helmet, drew the back of her hand across her brow, replaced the helmet on her head. It was well past midnight, and she felt exhausted. The excavation at its deepest point had gone down more than four feet below grade: a lot of work. It was difficult, also, to work this rapidly while maintaining a professional excavation.

She turned to O’Shaughnessy. “Take five. I’d like to examine this soil profile.”

“About time.” He straightened up, resting on his shovel. His brow was streaming with sweat.

Nora shone her flashlight along the carefully exposed wall of dirt, reading it as one might read a book. Occasionally she would shave off a little with a trowel to get a clearer view.

There was a layer of clean fill on the top going down six inches — laid, no doubt, as a base for the more recent brick floor. Below was about three feet of coarser fill, laced with bits of post-1910 crockery and china. But she could see nothing from Leng’s laboratory — at least, nothing obvious. Still, she had flagged and bagged everything, by the book.

Beneath the coarse fell, they had struck a layer containing bits of trash, rotting weeds, pieces of mold-blown bottles, soup bones, and the skeleton of a dog: ground debris from the days when the site had been a vacant lot. Under that was a layer of bricks.

O’Shaughnessy stretched, rubbed his back. “Why do we have to dig so far down?”

“In most old cities, the ground level rises at a fixed rate over time: in New York it’s about three quarters of a meter every hundred years.” She pointed toward the bottom of the hole. “Back then, that was ground level.”

“So these old bricks below are the original basement flooring?”

“I think so. The floor of the laboratory.” Leng’s laboratory.

And yet it had yielded few clues. There was a remarkable lack of debris, as if the floor had been swept clean. She had found some broken glassware wedged into the cracks of the brick; an old fire grate with some coal; a button; a rotten trolley ticket, a few other odds and ends. It seemed that Leng had wanted to leave nothing behind.

Outside, a fresh flash of lightning penetrated the coat Nora had hung over the window. A second later, thunder rumbled. The single bulb flickered, browned, then brightened once again.

She continued staring thoughtfully at the floor. At last, she spoke. “First, we need to widen the excavation. And then, I think we’ll have to go deeper.”

“Deeper?” said O’Shaughnessy, a note of incredulity in his voice.

Nora nodded. “Leng left nothing on the floor. But that doesn’t mean he left nothing beneath it.”

There was a short, chilly silence.

Outside, Doyers Street lay prostrate under a heavy rain. Water ran down the gutters and disappeared into the storm drains, carrying with it trash, dog turds, drowned rats, rotting vegetables, the guts of fish from the market down the street. The occasional flash of lightning illuminated the darkened facades, shooting darts of light into the curling fogs that licked and eddied about the pavement.

A stooped figure in a derby hat, almost obscured beneath a black umbrella, made its way down the narrow street. The figure moved slowly, painfully, leaning on a cane as it approached. It paused, ever so briefly, before Number 99 Doyers Street; then it drifted on into the miasma of fog, a shadow merging with shadows until one could hardly say that it had been there at all.

FIVE

CUSTER LEANED BACK in his oversized Mediterranean office chair with a sigh. It was a quarter to twelve on Saturday morning, and by rights he should have been out with the bowling club, drinking beer with his buddies. He was a precinct commander, for chrissakes, not a homicide detective. Why did they want him in on a frigging Saturday? Goddamn pointless public relations bullshit. He’d done nothing but sit on his ass all morning, listening to the asbestos rattle in the heating ducts. A waste of a perfectly good weekend.

At least Pendergast was out of action for the time being. But what, exactly, had he been up to? When he’d asked O’Shaughnessy about it, the man was damned evasive. You’d think a cop with a record like his would do himself a favor, learn what to kiss and when. Well, Custer had had enough. Come Monday, he was going to tighten the leash on that puppy, but good.

The buzzer on his desk rang, and Custer poked at it angrily. “What the hell is it now? I was not to be disturbed.”

“Commissioner Rocker is on line one, Captain,” came Noyes’s voice, carefully neutral.

Omigod holy shit sonofabitch, thought Custer. His shaking hand hovered over the blinking light on his telephone. What the hell did the commissioner want with him? Hadn’t he done everything they’d asked him to do, the mayor, the chief, everybody? Whatever it was, it wasn’t his fault…

A fat, trembling finger depressed the button.

“Custer?” The commissioner’s desiccated voice filled his ear.

“What is it, sir?” Custer squeaked, making a belated effort to lower the pitch of his voice.

“Your man. O’Shaughnessy.”

“Yes sir? What about O’Shaughnessy?”

“I’m a little curious here. Why, exactly, did he request a copy of the forensic report from the ME’s office on the remains found down on Catherine Street? Did you authorize this?” The voice was slow, weary.

What the hell was O’Shaughnessy up to? Custer’s mind raced. He could tell the truth, say that O’Shaughnessy must have been disobeying his orders. But that would make him look like a fool, a man who couldn’t control his own. On the other hand, he could lie.

He chose the latter, more habitual course.

“Commissioner?” he managed to bring his voice down to a relatively masculine pitch. “I authorized it. You see, we didn’t have a copy down here for our files. It’s just a formality, you know, dotting every t and crossing every i. We do things by the book, sir.”

There was a silence. “Custer, since you are so nimble with aphorisms, you surely know the expression ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought the mayor made it clear we were going to let that particular sleeping dog lie.” Rocker didn’t sound like he had the greatest faith in the mayor’s judgment.

“Yes, sir.”

“O’Shaughnessy isn’t freelancing, is he, Custer? He’s not, by any chance, helping that FBI agent while he’s laid up — is he?”

“He’s a solid officer, loyal and obedient. I asked him to get the report.”

“In that case, I’m surprised at you, Custer. Surely you know that once the report is down at the precinct, every cop there will have access to it. Which is one step from laying it on the doorstep of the New York Times.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t think of that.”

“I want that report—every copy of that report — sent back up to me. Personally. By courier. You understand? No copy is to remain at precinct.”

“Yes, sir.” Christ, how was he going to do that? He would have to get it from O’Shaughnessy, the son of a bitch.

“I get the funny feeling, Custer, that you don’t quite appreciate the full situation here. This Catherine Street business has nothing to do with any criminal investigation. It is a historical matter. That forensic report belongs to Moegen-Fairhaven. It’s private property. They paid for it and the remains were found on their land. Those remains have been given a respectful but anonymous burial in a private cemetery, with the appropriate religious ceremonies, all arranged by Moegen-Fairhaven. The matter is closed. Follow me so far?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, Moegen-Fairhaven is a good friend of the mayor — as the mayor has taken pains to point out to me — and Mr. Fairhaven himself is working very hard to see that he is re-elected. But if this situation gets any more botched up, Fairhaven might not be so enthusiastic in his support. He might decide to sit this one out. He might even decide to throw his weight behind the other fellow who’s running.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good. Now we’ve got a psychopath out there, this so-called Surgeon, carving people up. If you’d focus your talents on that, Custer, I’d appreciate it. Good day.”

There was a click as the line went abruptly dead.

Custer sat up in his chair, gripping the phone, his porcine frame trembling. He swallowed, brought his shaking voice under control, and pressed the buzzer on his desk. “Get O’Shaughnessy on the line. Try whatever you need, radio, emergency frequency, cell, home number, whatever.”

“He’s off duty, Captain,” Noyes said.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what he is. Get him.”

“Yes, sir.” And the speaker crackled back into silence.

SIX

NORA TOOK HER trowel, knelt, and began prying up one of the old bricks that made up the ancient floor. It was rotten and waterlogged, and it crumbled under the trowel. She quickly plucked out the pieces, then began prying up its neighbors, one after the other. O’Shaughnessy stood above her, watching. They had worked through the night, and past noon of the following day, widening the excavation to eight square meters. She felt weary beyond description. But this was still one task she wanted to do herself.

Once he’d gotten wind of their progress, Pendergast had forced himself out of his hospital bed — despite the fearful protests of the doctors and nurses — and made the journey down to Doyers Street himself. Now he lay near the digsite on an orthopedic mattress, newly delivered from Duxiana. He remained there, arms across his chest, eyes closed, moving infrequently. With his black suit and pallid face, he looked alarmingly like a corpse. At Pendergast’s request Proctor, his chauffeur, had delivered a variety of items from the Dakota apartment: a small table, a Tiffany lamp, and an array of medicines, unguents, and French chocolates, along with a stack of obscure books and maps.

The soil beneath the floor of Leng’s old laboratory was waterlogged and foul-smelling. Nora cleared a one-meter square of the floor bricks, then began digging a diagonal test trench with her trowel. Anything under the floor would not be deep. There wasn’t much farther to go. She was almost in the water table.

She struck something. A deft bit of brushwork revealed a rusted, rotten nineteenth-century umbrella, only its whalebone skeleton intact. She carefully cleared around it, photographed it in situ, then removed it and laid its rotting pieces on a sheet of acid-free specimen paper.

“You’ve found something?” Pendergast asked, eyes still closed. A long white hand removed a chocolate from a box and placed it in his mouth.

“The remains of an umbrella.” She worked more quickly. The dirt was looser, muddier.

Fourteen inches down, in the left-hand corner of the grid, her trowel struck heavily against something. She began clearing away the sodden dirt around it. Then her brush hand jerked aside reflexively. It was a circlet of hair about a smooth dome of brown bone.

A distant rumble of thunder pierced the silence. The storm was still upon them.

She heard a faint intake of breath from O’Shaughnessy.

“Yes?” Pendergast’s voice came instantly.

“We’ve got a skull here.”

“Keep digging, if you please.” Pendergast didn’t sound surprised.

Working carefully with the brush, heart pounding uncomfortably in her chest, Nora cleared away more dirt. The frontal bone came slowly into view, then two eye sockets, slimy, sticky matter still clinging inside. A foul smell rose and she gagged involuntarily. This was no clean Anasazi skeleton that had been buried a thousand years in dry sand.

Plucking her T-shirt up over her nose and mouth, she continued. A bit of nasal bone became exposed, the opening cradling a twisted piece of cartilage. Then, as the maxilla was exposed, came a flash of metal.

“Please describe.” Again Pendergast’s weak voice broke the silence of the room.

“Give me another minute.”

Nora brushed, working down the craniofacial bones. When the face was exposed, she sat back on her heels.

“All right. We have a skull of an older adult male, with some hair and soft matter remaining, probably due to the anaerobic environment of the site. Just below the maxilla there are two silver teeth, partly fallen from the upper jaw, attached to some old bridgework. Below that, just inside the jaws, I see a pair of gold spectacles, one lens of which has black opaque glass.”

“Ah. You have found Tinbury McFadden.” There was a pause and Pendergast added, “We must keep going. Still to be found are James Henry Perceval and Dumont Burleigh, members of the Lyceum and colleagues of our Dr. Leng. Two people unlucky enough to have also received J. C. Shottum’s confidences. The little circle is complete.”

“That reminds me,” Nora said. “I remembered something, while I was digging last night. The first time I asked Puck to show me the Shottum material, he said in passing that Shottum was quite popular these days. I didn’t pay much attention to it then. But after what happened, I began to wonder who had—” She stopped.

“Who had made that particular journey ahead of us,” Pendergast finished the thought for her.

Suddenly there was the rattle of the doorknob.

All eyes turned.

The knob rattled, turned, turned again.

There was a series of concussive raps on the door, which reverberated through the small apartment. A pause followed; then a second volley of frantic pounding.

O’Shaughnessy looked up, hand dropping to his automatic. “Who’s that?”

A shrill female voice sounded outside the door. “What go on here? What that smell? What you do in there? Open up!”

“It’s Mrs. Lee,” Nora said as she rose to her feet. “The landlady.”

Pendergast lay still. His pale cat’s eyes flitted open for a moment, then closed again. He looked as if he was settling in for a nap.

“Open up! What go on in there?”

Nora climbed out of the trench, moved to the door. “What’s the problem?” she said, keeping her voice steady. O’Shaughnessy joined her.

“Problem with smell! Open up!”

“There’s no smell in here,” said Nora. “It must be coming from somewhere else.”

“It come from here, up through floor! I smell all night, it much worse now when I come out of apartment. Open up!”

“I’m just cooking, that’s all. I’ve been taking a cooking class, but I guess I’m not very good yet, and—”

“That no cooking smell! Smell like shit! This nice apartment building! I call police!” Another furious volley of pounding.

Nora looked at Pendergast, who lay still, wraith-like, eyes closed. She turned to O’Shaughnessy.

“She wants the police,” he said with a shrug.

“But you’re not in uniform.”

“I’ve got my shield.”

“What are you going to say?”

The pounding continued.

“The truth, of course.” O’Shaughnessy slid toward the door, undid the locks, and let the door fall open.

The squat, heavyset landlady stood in the door. Her eyes darted past O’Shaughnessy, saw the gigantic hole in the living room floor, the piles of dirt and bricks beyond, the exposed upper half of a skeleton. A look of profound horror blossomed across her face.

O’Shaughnessy opened his wallet to display his shield, but the woman seemed not to notice. She was transfixed by the hole in the floor, the skeleton grinning up at her from the bottom.

“Mrs. — Lee, was it? I’m Sergeant O’Shaughessy of the New York Police Department.”

Still the lady stared, slack-jawed.

“There’s been a murder in this apartment,” O’Shaughnessy said matter-of-factly. “The body was buried under the floor. We’re investigating. I know it’s a shock. I’m sorry, Mrs. Lee.”

Finally, the woman seemed to take notice of him. She turned slowly, looking first at his face, then at his badge, then at his gun. “Wha—?”

“A murder, Mrs. Lee. In your apartment.”

She looked back at the huge hole. Within it, the skeleton lay peacefully, wrapped in its mantle of earth. Above, in the bed, Pendergast lay still, arms crossed over his chest, in a similar attitude of repose.

“Now, Mrs. Lee, I’m going to ask you to go back quietly to your apartment. Tell no one about this. Call no one. Lock and bolt your door. Do not let anyone in unless they show you one of these.” O’Shaughnessy shoved the badge closer to her face.

“Do you understand, Mrs. Lee?”

She nodded dumbly, eyes wide.

“Now go on upstairs. We need twenty-four hours of absolute quiet. Then of course there will be a large group of police arriving. Medical examiners, forensic experts — it will be a mess. Then you can talk. But for now—” He lifted a finger to his lips and pantomimed an exaggerated shhhhhh.

Mrs. Lee turned and shuffled up the stairs. Her movements were slow, like a sleepwalker’s. Nora heard the upstairs door open, then close. And then all was quiet once again.

In the silence, Pendergast opened one eye. It swiveled around to O’Shaughnessy, then to Nora.

“Well done, you two,” he said in a weak voice. And the faintest of smiles played about his lips.

SEVEN

AS THE SQUAD CAR carrying Captain Sherwood Custer turned the corner onto Doyers Street, the captain stared through the windshield, tensing at the noisy group of reporters. It was a smallish group, but he could see they were the worst of the lot.

Noyes angled the car into the curb and Custer opened his door, heaving his frame out onto the street. As he approached the brownstone, the reporters began calling to him. And there was the worst of all, that man — Smithbutt, or whatever — arguing with the uniformed officer standing on the front steps. “It isn’t fair!” he was crying in an outraged tone, oversized cowlick jiggling atop his head. “You let him in, so you’ve got to let me in!”

The officer ignored this, stepping aside to let Custer pass the yellow crime scene tape.

“Captain Custer!” the reporter cried, turning to him: “Commissioner Rocker has refused to speak with the press. Will you comment on the case, please?”

Custer did not respond. The commissioner, he thought. The commissioner himself was here. He was going to be chewed out but good. Let this particular sleeping dog lie, the man had said. Custer had not only wakened the dog, but it had bitten him in the ass. Thanks to O’Shaughnessy.

They signed him in at the door and Custer stepped through, Noyes following at his heels. They made their way quickly down to the basement apartment. Outside, the reporter could still be heard, voice raised in protest.

The first thing Custer noticed when he stepped into the apartment was a big hole, lots of dirt. There were the usual photographers, lights, forensics, an ME, the SOC people. And there was the commissioner.

The commissioner glanced up and spotted him. A spasm of displeasure went across his face. “Custer!” he called, nodding him over.

“Yes, sir.” Custer swallowed, gritted his teeth. This was it.

“Congratulations.”

Custer froze. Rocker’s sarcasm was a bad sign. And right in front of everybody, too.

He stiffened. “I’m sorry, sir, this was completely unauthorized from beginning to end, and I’m personally going to—”

He felt the commissioner’s arm snake around his shoulder, pull him closer. Custer could smell stale coffee on his breath. “Custer?”

“Yes sir?”

“Please, just listen,” the commissioner muttered. “Don’t speak. I’m not here to attend to excuses. I’m here to put you in charge of this investigation.”

This was a really bad sign. He’d been victimized by the commissioner’s sarcasm before, but not like this. Never like this.

Custer blinked. “I’m truly sorry, sir—”

“You’re not listening to me, Captain.” Arm still around his shoulder, the commissioner steered Custer away from the press of officials, back into the rear of the narrow apartment. “I understand your man O’Shaughnessy had something to do with uncovering this site.”

“Yes, and I am going to severely reprimand—”

“Captain, will you let me finish?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The mayor has called me twice this morning. He’s delighted.”

“Delighted?” Custer wasn’t sure if this was more sarcasm, or something even worse.

“Delighted. The more attention that gets deflected from the new copycat murders, the happier he is. New murders are very bad for approval ratings. Thanks to this discovery, you’re the cop of the hour. For the mayor, at least.”

Silence. It was clear to Custer that Rocker didn’t fully share the mayor’s good opinion.

“So are we crystal-clear, Captain? This is now officially your case.”

“What case?” Custer was momentarily confused. Were they opening an official investigation into these old killings, too?

“The Surgeon case.” Rocker waved his hand dismissively at the huge hole with their skeletons. “This is nothing. This is archaeology. This is not a case.”

“Right. Thank you, sir,” Custer said.

“Don’t thank me. Thank the mayor. It was his, ah, suggestion that you handle it.”

Rocker let his arm slip from Custer’s shoulder. Then he stood back and looked at the captain: a long, appraising glance. “Feel you can do this, Captain?”

Custer nodded. The numbness was beginning to fade.

“The first order of business is damage control. These old murders will give you a day, maybe two, before the public’s attention returns to the Surgeon. The mayor may like seeing these old murders getting the attention, but frankly I don’t. It’ll give the copycat killer ideas, egg him on.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I brought in Bryce Harriman. You know him?”

“No.”

“He’s the one who first put a finger on the copycat angle. We need to keep him where we can see him. We’ll give him an exclusive, but we’ll control the information he gets. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. He’s a nice sort, eager to please. He’s waiting out front. Remember to keep the conversation on the old bones and on this site. Not on the Surgeon or the new killings. The public may be confounding the two, but we’re sure as hell not.”

Custer turned back toward the living room. But Rocker put out a hand to stop him.

“And, Captain? Once you’re done with Harriman, I’d suggest you get to work on this new case of yours. Get right to work. Catch that killer. You don’t want another, fresher stiff turning up on your watch — do you? Like I said, you’ve got a little breathing space here. Make use of it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rocker continued to peer at him from beneath lowered brows. Then he grunted, nodded, and gestured Custer on ahead of him.

The living room was, if possible, even more crowded than it had been moments before. At the commissioner’s signal, a tall, slender man stepped out of the shadows: horn-rimmed glasses, slicked-back hair, tweed jacket, blue oxford shirt, tasseled loafers.

“Mr. Harriman?” Rocker said. “This is Captain Custer.”

Harriman gave Custer’s hand a manly shake. “Nice to meet you in person, sir.”

Custer returned the handshake. Despite his instinctive distrust of the press, he found himself approving of the man’s deferential attitude. Sir. When was the last time a reporter had called him sir?

The commissioner glanced gravely from one man to the other. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Captain? I have to get back to One Police Plaza.”

Custer nodded. “Of course, sir.”

He watched the man’s broad back as it disappeared through the door.

Noyes was suddenly there, in front of Custer, hand extended. “Allow me to be the first to congratulate you, sir.”

Custer shook the limp hand. Then he turned back to Harriman, who was smiling beneath the horn-rims, impeccably knotted repp tie snugged against a buttoned-down collar. A dweeb, without doubt. But a very useful dweeb. It occurred to Custer that giving Harriman an exclusive would take that other pesky reporter — the one whose voice was still clamoring out in the street — down a few notches. Slow him down, get him off their asses for a while. It was bracing how quickly he was adjusting to his new responsibility.

“Captain Custer?” the man said, notebook poised.

“Yeah?”

“May I ask you a few questions?”

Custer gestured magnanimously. “Shoot.”

EIGHT

O’SHAUGHNESSY STEPPED INTO the captain’s outer office, automatically looking around for Noyes. He had a pretty good idea why Custer wanted to see him. He wondered if the subject of the prostitute’s two hundred bucks would come up, as it sometimes did when he got a little too independent for some ass-kisser’s taste. Normally he wouldn’t care; he’d had years to practice letting it all roll off his back. Ironic, he thought, that the shit was about to come down now — now, just when he’d gotten on an investigation he found himself caring about.

Noyes came around the corner, chewing gum, his arms full of papers, his perpetually wet lower lip hanging loose from a row of brown teeth. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.” He dropped the pile on his desk, took his sweet time sitting down, then leaned toward a speaker.

“He’s here,” he called into it.

O’Shaughnessy sat down, watching Noyes. The man always chewed that nasty, old-fashioned, violet-scented gum favored by dowagers and alcoholics. The outer office reeked of it.

Ten minutes later the captain appeared in the door, hiking up his pants and tucking in his shirt. He jerked his chin at O’Shaughnessy to indicate he was ready for him.

O’Shaughnessy followed him back into the office. The captain sank heavily into his chair. He rolled his eyes toward O’Shaughnessy with a stare that was meant to be tough but only looked baleful.

“Jesus Christ, O’Shaughnessy.” He wagged his head from side to side, jowls flapping like a beagle. “Jesus H. Christ.”

There was a silence.

“Gimme the report.”

O’Shaughnessy took a long breath. “No.”

“Whaddya mean, no?”

“I don’t have it anymore. I gave it to Special Agent Pendergast.”

The captain stared at O’Shaughnessy for at least a minute. “You gave it to that prick?”

“Yes, sir.”

“May I ask why?”

O’Shaughnessy did not answer immediately. Fact was, he didn’t want to get put off this case. He liked working with Pendergast. He liked it a lot. For the first time in years, he found himself lying awake at night, thinking about the case, trying to fit the pieces together, dreaming up new lines of investigation. Still, he wasn’t going to kiss ass. Let the showdown come.

“He requested it. For his investigation. You asked me to assist him, and that’s what I did.”

The jowls began to quiver. “O’Shaughnessy, I thought I made it clear that you were to seem to be helpful, not to be helpful.”

O’Shaughnessy tried to look puzzled. “I don’t think I quite understand you, sir.”

The captain rose from his chair with a roar. “You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

O’Shaughnessy stood his ground, feigning surprise now as well as puzzlement. “No, sir, I don’t.”

The jowls began to shake with rage. “O’Shaughnessy, you impudent little—” Custer broke off, swallowed, tried to get himself under control. Sweat had broken out above his thick, rubbery upper lip. He took a deep breath. “I’m putting you down for administrative leave.”

God damn it. “On what grounds?”

“Don’t give me that. You know why. Disobeying my direct orders, freelancing for that FBI agent, undermining the department — not to mention getting involved in that excavation down on Doyers Street.”

O’Shaughnessy knew well that the discovery had been a boon to Custer. It had temporarily taken the heat off the mayor, and the mayor had thanked Custer by putting him in charge of the investigation.

“I followed procedure, sir, in my liaison work with Special Agent Pendergast.”

“The hell you did. You’ve kept me in the dark every step of the way, despite these endless goddamn reports you keep filing which you know damn well I don’t have time to read. You went way around me to get that report. Christ, O’Shaughnessy, I’ve given you every opportunity here, and all you do is piss on me.”

“I’ll file a grievance with the union, sir. And I’d like to state for the record that, as a Catholic, I am deeply offended by your profanity involving the name of Our Savior.”

There was an astonished silence, and O’Shaughnessy saw that Custer was about to lose it completely. The captain spluttered, swallowed, clenched and unclenched his fists.

“As for the police union,” said Custer, in a strained, high voice, “bring ’em on. As for the other, don’t think you can out-Jesus me, you sanctimonious prick. I’m a churchgoing man myself. Now lay your shield and piece down here”—he thumped his desk—“and get your Irish ass out. Go home and boil some potatoes and cabbage. You’re on administrative leave pending the result of an Internal Affairs investigation. Another Internal Affairs investigation, I might add. And at the union hearing, I’m going to ask for your dismissal from the force. With your record, that won’t be too hard to justify.”

O’Shaughnessy knew this wasn’t an empty threat. He removed his gun and badge and dropped them one at a time on the table.

“Is that all, sir?” he asked, as coolly as possible.

With satisfaction, he saw Custer’s face blacken with rage yet again. “Is that all? Isn’t that enough? You better start pulling your résumé together, O’Shaughnessy. I know a McDonald’s up in the South Bronx that needs a rent-a-cop for the graveyard shift.”

As O’Shaughnessy left, he noticed that Noyes’s eyes — brimming with wet sycophantic satisfaction — followed him out the door.

He paused on the steps of the station house, momentarily blinded by the sunlight. He thought of the many times he’d trudged up and down these stairs, on yet another aimless patrol or pointless piece of bureaucratic busywork. It seemed a little odd that — despite his carefully groomed attitude of nonchalance — he felt more than a twinge of regret. Pendergast and the case would have to make do without him. Then he sighed, shrugged, and descended the steps. His career was over, and that was that.

To his surprise, a familiar car — a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith — was idling silently at the curb. The door was opened by the invisible figure in the rear. O’Shaughnessy approached, leaned his head inside.

“I’ve been put on administrative leave,” he said to the occupant of the rear seat.

Pendergast, leaning back against the leather, nodded. “Over the report?”

“Yup. And that mistake I made five years ago didn’t help any.”

“How unfortunate. I apologize for my role in your misfortune. But get in, if you please. We don’t have much time.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“I did. You’re working for me now.”

O’Shaughnessy paused.

“It’s all arranged. The paperwork is going through as we speak. From time to time, I have need of, ah, consulting specialists.” Pendergast patted a sheaf of papers lying on the seat beside him. “It’s all spelled out in here. You can sign them in the car. We’ll stop by the FBI office downtown and get you a photo ID. It’s not a shield, unfortunately, but it should serve almost as well.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Pendergast, but you should know, they’re opening an—”

“I know all about it. Get in, please.”

O’Shaughnessy climbed in and closed the door behind him, feeling slightly dazed.

Pendergast gestured toward the papers. “Read them, you won’t find any nasty surprises. Fifty dollars an hour, guaranteed minimum thirty hours a week, benefits, and the rest.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Pendergast gazed at him mildly. “Because I’ve seen you rise to the challenge. I need a man with the courage of his convictions. I’ve seen how you work. You know the streets, you can talk to the people in a way I can’t. You’re one of them. I’m not. Besides, I can’t push this case alone. I need someone who knows his way around the byzantine workings of the NYPD. And you have a certain compassion. Remember, I saw that tape. I’m going to need compassion.”

O’Shaughnessy reached for the papers, still dazed. Then he stopped.

“On one condition,” he said. “You know a lot more about this than you’ve let on. And I don’t like working in the dark.”

Pendergast nodded. “You’re quite right. It’s time we had a talk. And once we’ve processed your papers, that’s the next order of business. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.” And O’Shaughnessy took the papers, scanned them quickly.

Pendergast turned to the driver. “Federal Plaza, please, Proctor. And quickly.”

NINE

NORA PAUSED BEFORE the deep archway, carved of sand-colored stone streaked with gray. Although it had been recently cleaned, the massive Gothic entrance looked old and forbidding. It reminded Nora of Traitor’s Gate at the Tower of London. She half expected to see the iron teeth of a portcullis winking from the ceiling, defenestrating knights peering out of arrow slits above, cauldrons of boiling pitch at the ready.

At the base of an adjoining wall, before a low iron railing, Nora could see the remains of half-burnt candles, flower petals, and old pictures in broken frames. It looked almost like a shrine. And then she realized this arch must be the doorway in which John Lennon was shot, and these trinkets the remains of offerings still left by the faithful. And Pendergast himself had been stabbed nearby, not halfway down the block. She glanced upward. The Dakota rose above her, its Gothic facade overhung with gables and stone decorations. Dark clouds scudded above the grim, shadow-haunted towers. What a place to live, she thought. She looked carefully around, studying the landscape with a caution that had become habitual since the chase in the Archives. But there was no obvious sign of danger. She moved toward the building.

Beside the archway, a doorman stood in a large sentry box of bronze and glass, staring implacably out at Seventy-second Street, silent and erect as a Buckingham Palace guard. He seemed oblivious of her presence. But when she stepped beneath the archway, he was before her in a flash, pleasant but unsmiling.

“May I help you?” he asked.

“I have an appointment to see Mr. Pendergast.”

“Your name?”

“Nora Kelly.”

The guard nodded, as if expecting her. “Southwest lobby,” he said, stepping aside and pointing the way. As Nora walked through the tunnel toward the building’s interior courtyard, she saw the guard return to his sentry box and pick up a telephone.

The elevator smelled of old leather and polished wood. It rose several floors, came to an unhurried stop. Then the doors slid open to reveal an entryway, a single oak door at its far end, standing open. Within the doorway stood Agent Pendergast, his slender figure haloed in the subdued light.

“So glad you could come, Dr. Kelly,” he said in his mellifluous voice, stepping aside to usher her in. His words were, as always, exceedingly gracious, but there was something tired, almost grim, in his tone. Still recovering, Nora thought. He looked thin, almost cadaverous, and his face was even whiter than usual, if such a thing were possible.

Nora stepped forward into a high-ceilinged, windowless room. She looked around curiously. Three of the walls were painted a dusky rose, framed above and below by black molding. The fourth was made up entirely of black marble, over which a continuous sheet of water ran from ceiling to floor. At the base, where the water gurgled quietly into a pool, a cluster of lotus blossoms floated. The room was filled with the soft, pleasant sound of water and the faint perfume of flowers. Two tables of dark lacquer stood nearby. One held a mossy tray in which grew a setting of bonsai trees — dwarf maples, by the look of them. On the other, inside an acrylic display cube, the skull of a cat was displayed on a spider mount. Coming closer, Nora realized that the skull was, in fact, carved from a single piece of Chinese jade. It was a work of remarkable, consummate artistry, the stone so thin it was diaphanous against the black cloth of the base.

Sitting nearby on one of several small leather sofas was Sergeant O’Shaughnessy, in mufti. He was crossing and uncrossing his legs and looking uncomfortable.

Pendergast closed the door and glided toward Nora, hands behind his back.

“May I get you anything? Mineral water? Lillet? Sherry?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

“Then if you will excuse me for a moment.” And Pendergast disappeared through a doorway that had been set, almost invisibly, into one of the rose-colored walls.

“Nice place,” she said to O’Shaughnessy.

“You don’t know the half of it. Where’d he get all the dough?”

“Bill Smi — That is, a former acquaintance of mine said he’d heard it was old family money. Pharmaceuticals, something like that.”

“Mmm.”

They lapsed into silence, listening to the whispering of the water. Within a few minutes, the door opened again and Pendergast’s head reappeared.

“If the two of you would be so kind as to come with me?” he asked.

They followed him through the door and down a long, dim hallway. Most of the doors they passed were closed, but Nora caught glimpses of a library — full of leather- and buckram-bound volumes and what looked like a rosewood harpsichord — and a narrow room whose walls were covered with oil paintings, four or five high, in heavy gilt frames. Another, windowless, room had rice paper walls and tatami mats covering its floor. It was spare, almost stark, and — like the rest of the rooms — very dimly lit. Then Pendergast ushered them into a vast, high-ceilinged chamber of dark, exquisitely wrought mahogany. An ornate marble fireplace dominated the far end. Three large windows looked out over Central Park. To the right, a detailed map of nineteenth-century Manhattan covered an entire wall. A large table sat in the room’s center. Upon it, several objects resting atop a plastic sheet: two dozen fragments of broken glass pieces, a lump of coal, a rotten umbrella, and a punched tram car ticket.

There was no place to sit. Nora stood back from the table while Pendergast circled it several times in silence, staring intently, like a shark circling its prey. Then he paused, glancing first at her, then at O’Shaughnessy. There was an intensity, even an obsession, in his eyes that she found disturbing.

Pendergast turned to the large map, hands behind his back once again. For a moment, he simply stared at it. Then he began to speak, softly, almost to himself.

“We know where Dr. Leng did his work. But now we are confronted with an even more difficult question. Where did he live? Where did the good doctor hide himself on this teeming island?

“Thanks to Dr. Kelly, we now have some clues to narrow our search. The tram ticket you unearthed was punched for the West Side Elevated Tramway. So it’s safe to assume Dr. Leng was a West Sider.” He turned to the map, and, using a red marker, drew a line down Fifth Avenue, dividing Manhattan into two longitudinal segments.

“Coal carries a unique chemical signature of impurities, depending on where it is mined. This coal came from a long-defunct mine near Haddonfield, New Jersey. There was only one distributor for this coal in Manhattan, Clark & Sons. They had a delivery territory that extended from 110th Street to 139th Street.”

Pendergast drew two parallel lines across Manhattan, one at 110th Street and one at 139th Street.

“Now we have the umbrella. The umbrella is made of silk. Silk is a fiber that is smooth to the touch, but under a microscope shows a rough, almost toothy texture. When it rains, the silk traps particles — in particular, pollen. Microscopic examination of the umbrella showed it to be heavily impregnated with pollen from a weed named Trismegistus gonfalonii, commonly known as marsh dropseed. It used to grow in bogs all over Manhattan, but by 1900 its range had been restricted to the marshy areas along the banks of the Hudson River.”

He drew a red line down Broadway, then pointed to the small square it bordered. “Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that our Dr. Leng lived west of this line, no more than one block from the Hudson.”

He capped the marker, then glanced back at Nora and O’Shaughnessy. “Any comments so far?”

“Yes,” said Nora. “You said Clark & Sons delivered coal to this area uptown. But why was this coal found downtown in his laboratory?”

“Leng ran his laboratory in secret. He couldn’t have coal delivered there. So he would have brought small amounts of coal down from his house.”

“I see.”

Pendergast continued to scrutinize her. “Anything else?”

The room was silent.

“Then we can assume our Dr. Leng lived on Riverside Drive between 110th Street and 139th Street, or on one of the side streets between Broadway and Riverside Drive. That is where we must concentrate our search.”

“You’re still talking hundreds, maybe thousands, of apartment buildings,” said O’Shaughnessy.

“Thirteen hundred and five, to be exact. Which brings me to the glassware.”

Pendergast silently took another turn around the table, then reached out and picked up a fragment of glass with a pair of rubber-tipped tweezers, holding it into the light.

“I analyzed the residue on this glass. It had been carefully washed, but with modern methods one can detect substances down to parts per trillion. There was a very curious mix of chemicals on this glassware. I found similar chemicals on the glass bits I recovered from the floor of the charnel. Quite a frightening mixture, when you begin to break it down. And there was one rare organic chemical, 1,2 alumino phosphocyanate, the ingredients for which could only be purchased in five chemists’ shops in Manhattan at the time, between 1890 and 1918, when Leng appears to have used his downtown laboratory. Sergeant O’Shaughnessy was most helpful in tracking down their locations.”

He made five dots on the map with his marker.

“Let us first assume Dr. Leng purchased his chemicals at the most convenient place. As you can see, there is no shop near his lab downtown, so let us postulate he purchased his chemicals near his house uptown. We can thus eliminate these two East Side shops. That leaves three on the West Side. But this one is too far downtown, so we can eliminate it as well.” He made crosses through three of the five dots. “That leaves these two others. The question is, which one?”

Once again, his question was greeted by silence. Pendergast laid down the piece of glass and circled the table yet again, then stopped in front of the map. “He shopped at neither one.”

He paused. “Because 1,2 alumino phosphocyanate is a dangerous poison. A person buying it might attract attention. So let us assume, instead, that he shopped at the chemist farthest from his haunts: his house, the Museum, the downtown lab. A place where he would not be recognized. Clearly, that has to be this one, here, on East Twelfth Street. New Amsterdam Chemists.” He drew a line around the dot. “This is where Leng shopped for his chemicals.”

Pendergast spun around, pacing back and forth before the map. “In a stroke of good fortune, it turns out New Amsterdam Chemists is still in business. There may be records, even be some residual memory.” He turned to O’Shaughnessy. “I will ask you to investigate. Visit the establishment, and check their old records. Then search for old people who grew up in the neighborhood, if necessary. Treat it as you would a police investigation.”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a brief silence. Then Pendergast spoke again.

“I’m convinced Dr. Leng didn’t live on any of the side streets between Broadway and Riverside Drive. He lived on Riverside Drive itself. That would narrow things down from over a thousand buildings to less than a hundred.”

O’Shaughnessy stared at him. “How do you know Leng lived on the Drive?”

“The grand houses were all along Riverside Drive. You can still see them, mostly broken up into tiny apartments or abandoned now, but they’re still there — some of them, anyway. Do you really think Leng would have lived on a side street, in middle-class housing? This man had a great deal of money. I’ve been thinking about it for some time. He wouldn’t want a place that could be walled in by future construction. He’d want light, a healthy flow of fresh air, and a pleasant view of the river. A view that could never be obstructed. I know he would.”

“But how do you know?” O’Shaughnessy asked.

Suddenly, Nora understood. “Because he expected to be there for a very, very long time.”

There was a long silence in the cool, spacious room. A slow, and very uncharacteristic, smile gathered on Pendergast’s face. “Bravo,” he said.

He went to the map, and drew a red line down Riverside Drive, from 139th Street to 110th. “Here is where we must look for Dr. Leng.”

There was an abrupt, uncomfortable silence.

“You mean, Dr. Leng’s house,” said O’Shaughnessy.

“No,” said Pendergast, speaking very deliberately. “I mean Dr. Leng.”