The Obsidian Chamber

56

The entrance of the aptly named Gates of Heaven Cemetery in Lady Lake, central Florida, was chained and locked. Inside the small cemetery, a procession of cars was parked beside a single grave, around which yellow privacy screens had been erected.

Inside the enclosure were seven people: Special Agent Pendergast; Executive Associate Director Longstreet; a local public health official; a Lake County doctor named Barnes who had been court-appointed to supervise the exhumation; and two gravediggers, who were now hip-deep in an oblong hole of muddy earth. The seventh person — Lucius Garey — was for the time being belowground, somewhere under the feet of the diggers. He was anticipated to appear in the open air very shortly.

Pendergast and Longstreet stood aside from the rest, speaking in low tones.

“So let me get this straight,” Longstreet was saying. “Your great-grand-uncle, Enoch Leng, perfected an elixir that could extend a person’s life span by a prodigious degree.”

Pendergast nodded.

“And one ingredient he needed — at least, at first — was a freshly harvested cauda equina, the bundle of nerves at the base of a human being’s spinal column.”

“Correct.”

“He used this elixir on himself because he was working on a complex project that, he felt, would take more than a normal life span to complete. But before doing so, he tested it on his ward. Constance Greene.”

Pendergast nodded.

“What, exactly, was this complex project?”

“It’s not germane. Suffice it to say it ultimately was rendered unnecessary.”

Longstreet shrugged. “But later, in the 1940s, modern science had caught up sufficiently so that he was able to create his elixir from purely synthetic sources. He no longer needed to kill human beings to acquire their caudae equinae.”

“That’s correct.”

“And both he and Constance continued to take this new, synthetic version of the elixir until about five years ago, when the Riverside Drive mansion was broken into and Leng tortured and killed.”

“Yes. He refused to divulge the secret of his elixir.”

“What happened to the killer?” Longstreet asked.

“Again, not germane. He joined my ancestor, Dr. Leng, among the dead not long after committing the killing.”

“And Constance?”

“I found the only remaining copy of the formula and burned it. After Leng’s death, without the benefit of the elixir, Constance began to age normally.”

“So she really was born in the 1880s.”

“Yes.”

“And you burned the formula. My God, what a decision…” Longstreet threw a sidelong glance at Pendergast. “It is remarkable, Aloysius, how many things about yourself and your family you haven’t told me.”

“What would have been the point? And as you can imagine, many of them are painful or mortifying — or both.”

For a moment, the two fell silent, watching the gravediggers at work.

Longstreet shifted, spoke again. “I’m assuming you believe that it was Diogenes who killed those two people in the hospital. Killed them for their caudae equinae.”

“I believe it was Diogenes, yes. Although judging from the evidence, I would guess he planned to kill only the old woman. The doctor surprised him in the act; to escape detection, he killed the man and harvested his cauda equina as well, as a trophy of opportunity. And then he savagely slashed up the bodies in the hope of covering up his excisions.”

“But why? You said you destroyed the last copy of the formula for Leng’s elixir. Is he taking it himself? Or has Miss Greene decided she wants to remain young, after all?”

“I can’t say,” Pendergast murmured after a moment. “It is possible there was another copy of the formula, still in existence, that I did not know about. But recall: the formula Leng used for the last sixty-odd years of his life was artificial—it did not require using the cauda equina of a human being. Diogenes would appear to be using the original formula. Making his actions doubly confusing.”

“Do you think it was somebody else — that this was just a freak coincidence?”

Pendergast shook his head. “I don’t believe in coincidence.” Then he glanced at Longstreet. “And after what happened to us, underneath that bridge in Thailand, I thought you’d stopped believing, as well.”

Longstreet nodded slowly. “You’re right. I did.”

There was a hollow thud from the deepening hole, and a shout from one of the gravediggers. Pendergast and Longstreet came forward as the two men swept mud off the top of a flimsy coffin. Within minutes, ropes had been secured around the coffin and — with an effort — it was raised from its grave and deposited atop a plastic tarp on the nearby grass. The public health official stepped forward; examined a small plate screwed into the top of the coffin; examined the headstone; examined a piece of paper attached to a clipboard he held in one hand; then gave a nod. The gravediggers unsealed the coffin and placed the lid to one side.

Within lay the large form of Lucius Garey, wearing a dark suit and white shirt open at the collar. He had proven too large for the coffin, it seemed, and the mortician had bent his knees to one side in order to fit him in. His eyes were wide and staring, and in death the prison tattoos on his neck had turned a ghastly color.

The county-appointed doctor began pulling on gloves, but Pendergast beat him to it. Gloves already on his hands, he darted forward and — with a grunt of effort — flipped the body over indecorously within its coffin.

There was a chorus of protest. “Aloysius,” Longstreet said, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Instead of replying, Pendergast merely pointed.

As was the way with cheap, potter’s-grave-style burials, Lucius Garey’s “suit” did not extend over his whole body. Instead, it merely covered his torso and the tops of his legs, like a sheet. His naked backside was now exposed to the sky.

At the lower end of his spinal column, a small incision was visible.

“Doctor?” Pendergast asked, removing his own latex gloves and tossing them into the coffin. “Would you mind examining that incision?”

After glaring briefly at the FBI agent, the doctor knelt at the graveside and scrutinized the corpse.

When he said nothing, Pendergast went on. “Would you say that the cauda equina of the deceased appears to have been removed?”

The doctor’s only answer was a curt nod.

At this, Pendergast turned, ducked between the privacy curtains, and began walking briskly away from the grave site. Longstreet watched for a moment, then turned to the others. “Thank you,” he said. “We’re done here.”

Back in the car, driving slowly toward the front gate, Longstreet cleared his throat. “So Dr. Walter Leyland — Diogenes Pendergast, that is — performed the state-ordered execution of Lucius Garey. In his role as acting medical examiner, he also certified him dead. And in so doing, he was able to extract the man’s cauda equina without anybody being the wiser. Taken in a different sort of context, one might almost call the whole thing beautifully symmetrical.”

“One might,” said Pendergast.

They waited at the gate for the cemetery guard to unlock the chain and let them out.

“There’s one thing that’s obvious,” Longstreet said. “Diogenes did not want anyone to know he was harvesting the cauda equina. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have needed to go to such elaborate lengths as performing an execution.” He glanced over. “Is there any chance Diogenes knows you’re alive?”

Pendergast didn’t answer for a moment. “I don’t think so. I believe he’s been too busy with… other matters. On the other hand, in my haste to track him down, I haven’t made an effort to conceal my presence. That was an oversight on my part.” He stirred in the passenger seat. “One thing, though, is crystal clear.”

“What’s that?”

“Whether my brother knows I’m alive or not, he is a transcendentally careful individual. There’s only one reason I can think of why he’d go to such lengths to conceal his harvesting of these caudae equinae: the chance that I might still be alive. Because I’m the only person who would understand their real significance. And the only reason this would concern him would be if he was — and planned to remain — within a short distance.”

“You mean—?”

“Yes. Diogenes, and Constance, are here in Florida… somewhere close.”