“Special Agent Pendergast, Federal Bureau of Investigation, at your service, sir.” Pendergast gave a little bow. He reached into his suit and produced a manila file, which he laid on the desk and opened. Inside were photocopies of old letters on New York City letterhead.
“What’s this?” Wartek asked.
“The letters.” He turned to D’Agosta. “Vincent, please forgive my tardiness.”
“Letters?” Wartek asked, frowning.
“The letters in which the city objected to the Ville. Going back to 1864.”
“Where did you get these?”
“I have a researcher at the library. An excellent fellow, I recommend him highly.”
“So,” said D’Agosta. “There you have it. No right of possession or whatever the hell it was you said.”
The rash on Wartek’s neck deepened. “Lieutenant, we are not going to institute eviction proceedings against these people just because you or this FBI agent want us to. I suspect this crusade of yours might have something to do with certain religious practices you find objectionable. Well, there is a question of religious freedom here, as well.”
“Freedom of religion—to torture and kill animals… or worse?” D’Agosta said. “To clobber policemen in the performance of their duty? To disturb the peace and tranquility of the neighborhood?”
“There has to be due process.”
“Of course,” said Pendergast, interjecting smoothly. “Due process. That is where your office comes in—to institute the due process. And that is why we are here, to suggest that you do so with all dispatch.”
“This kind of decision takes long and careful study. It takes legal consultations, staff meetings, and documentary research. It can’t happen overnight.”
“If only we had the time, my dear Mr. Wartek! Popular opinion is moving against you even as we speak. Did you see the papers this morning?”
The rash had overspread most of Wartek’s face and he was beginning to sweat. He rose to his full five-foot-three-inch height. “As I said, we’ll study the issue,” he repeated, ushering them to the door.
On the way down in a crowded elevator full of somnolent gray suits, Pendergast turned to D’Agosta and said, “How lovely, my dear Vincent, to see New York City bureaucracy in vibrant, full-throated action!”
38
The waiting area at JFK’s Terminal 8 was at the bottom of a wide bank of escalators. Pendergast and D’Agosta stood along with a gaggle of portly men in black suits, holding up little signs with people’s names on them.
“Tell me again,” said D’Agosta. “Who is this guy? And what’s he doing here?”
“Monsieur Bertin. He was our tutor when we were youths.”
“We? You mean, you and…”
“Yes. My brother. Monsieur Bertin taught us zoology and natural history. I was rather taken with him—he was a charming and charismatic fellow. Unfortunately, he had to leave the family employ.”
“What happened?”
“The fire.”
“Fire? You mean, when your house burned down? Did he have something to do with it?”
There was a sudden, freezing silence from Pendergast.
“So this man’s expertise is… zoology? And you call him in on a murder case? Am I missing something here?”
“While Monsieur Bertin was hired to teach us natural history, he was also extremely knowledgeable about local lore and legend: Vôdou, Obeah, rootwork, and conjure.”
“So he branched out. And taught you more than how to dissect a frog.”
“I’d prefer not to dwell on the past. The fact is, Monsieur Bertin knows as much about the subject as anyone alive. That’s why I asked him to fly up from Louisiana.”
“You really think voodoo is involved?”
“You don’t?” Pendergast turned his silvery eyes on D’Agosta.
“I think some asshole is trying to make us think voodoo is involved.”
“Is there a difference? Ah. Here he is now.”
D’Agosta turned, then started despite himself. Approaching them was a tiny man in a swallowtail coat. His skin was almost as pale as Pendergast’s, and he wore a floppy, broad-brimmed white hat. What looked like a shrunken head dangled from a heavy gold chain around his neck. One hand gripped an ancient, travel-stained BOAC flight bag; the other was tapping a massive, fantastically carved cane before him. Cane didn’t do it justice, D’Agosta decided; walking stick was more like it. Cudgel was even better. He looked like some faith healer from a traveling medicine show, or one of the nutcases who wandered about JFK because it was warmer inside than out. In a place like New York City, where people had seen just about everything, this weirdo was getting a lot of stares. The man was trailed by a skycap burdened down with an alarming number of suitcases.
“Aloysius!” He came bustling over on bird-like legs and kissed Pendergast on both cheeks in the French style. “Quelle plaisir! You haven’t aged a day.”
He turned and stared at D’Agosta, looking him swiftly up and down with a fierce black eye. “Who is this man?”
“I’m Lieutenant D’Agosta.” He held out his hand, but it was ignored.
The man turned back to Pendergast. “A policeman?”
“I’m also a policeman, maître.” Pendergast almost seemed amused by the excitable little fellow.
“Pah!” The white hat flopped up and down with disdainful disapproval. A pack of cigarillos appeared in Bertin’s hand, and he shucked one out and fitted it into a mother-of-pearl cigarette holder.
“I’m sorry, maître, but there’s no smoking in here.”
“Barbarians.” Bertin put the thing in his mouth anyway, unlit. “Show me to the car.”
They went out to the curb, where Proctor was waiting. “What, a Rolls-Royce? How vulgar!”
While the skycap loaded the suitcases into the trunk, D’Agosta was dismayed to see Pendergast slip into the front seat, leaving him to share the back with Bertin. Once inside, the man immediately produced a gold lighter and set the cigarillo aflame.
“Excuse me—do you mind?” D’Agosta said.
The man turned his bright black eyes toward him. “I do mind.” He inhaled deeply, cracked the window with a look askance at D’Agosta, and exhaled a thin stream through pursed lips. He leaned forward. “Now, Aloysius, I’ve been mulling over the information you gave me. The photographs you sent of the charms found at the murder scene—they are mal, très mal! The doll of feathers and Spanish moss; the needles wrapped in black thread; the name inscribed on parchment; and that powder—saltpeter, I assume?”
“Correct.”
Bertin nodded. “There can be no question. A death conjure.”
“Death conjure?” D’Agosta said in disbelief.
“Also known as a ‘killing hurt,’” Bertin said in full-throated lecture-hall style. “That is flat-out hoodoo. That could have been dealt with more easily. But this—this revenant, this dead man walking. That is serious. That is Vôdou proper. Especially…” Here he dropped his voice. “… now that the victim has returned as well.” He looked at Pendergast. “He has a wife, you say?”
“Yes.”
“She is in serious danger.”
“I’ve put in a request for police protection,” D’Agosta said.
Bertin scoffed. “Pah!”
“I purchased her an enemy-be-gone charm,” said Pendergast.
“That may be of use against the first one, but he I am not so worried about. Such charms are useless against family or kin—including husbands.”
“I also prepared a charm bag and urged her to keep it in her pocket.”
Bertin’s expression brightened. “A mojo hand! Très bien. Tell me: what did it contain?”
“Protection oil, High John the Conqueror root, vervain, and wormwood.”
D’Agosta scarcely believed what he was hearing. He looked from Pendergast to Bertin and back again.
Bertin sat back. “This will continue unless we can find the conjure-doctor. Turn the trick.”
>
“We’re working on a search warrant for the Ville now. And we spoke to the city yesterday about possible eviction proceedings.”
Bertin muttered to himself, then issued another stream of smoke. D’Agosta had once enjoyed cigars, but they had been normal, man-size things. The Rolls was filling up with disgusting clove-scented smoke.
“I heard about this guy once,” said D’Agosta. “He used to smoke those skinny little sticks.”
Bertin looked at him sideways.
“Got cancer. Had to cut off his lips.”
“Who needs lips?” Bertin asked.
D’Agosta could feel the man’s beady eyes on his face. He opened his window, crossed his arms, and sat back, closing his eyes.
Just when he was about to drift off, his newly replaced cell phone went off. He glanced down, read the text message. “The search warrant finally came through for the Ville,” he told Pendergast.
“Excellent. How broad?”
“Pretty limited, actually. The public areas of the church itself, the altar and tabernacle—assuming there is one—but not the sacristy or the other non-public areas, or the outlying buildings.”
“Very well. It’s enough to get us in—and introduce us to the people there. Monsieur Bertin will accompany us.”
“And how are we going to justify that?”
“I have engaged him as a special consultant to the FBI on the case.”
“Yeah, right.” D’Agosta ran a hand through his thinning hair, sighed, and leaned back in the seat, closing his eyes again, hoping for a few minutes of nap. Unbelievable. Just frigging unbelievable.
39
Nora stared at the ceiling of her bedroom, her gaze traveling back and forth along a crack in the plaster. Back and forth, back and forth, her eye following its meanderings as one would follow river tributaries on a map. She remembered Bill volunteering to plaster and repaint that crack, saying it drove him crazy when he lay down and tried to nap during the day—which he often did, forced as he was to keep journalistic hours. She had said it was a waste, sinking money into a rental apartment, and he’d never mentioned it again.
Now it was driving her crazy. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
With a sharp effort she turned her head and stared out the open window beside her bed. Through the bars of the fire escape beyond she could see the apartment building across the alley, pigeons strutting along the wooden water tank atop its roof. Sounds of traffic—horns, the blat of a diesel, the grinding of gears—filtered up from the adjacent street. Her limbs felt heavy, her senses unreal. Unreal. Everything had become unreal. The last forty-four hours had been bizarre, obscene, unbearable. Bill’s body missing; Caitlyn dead, dead at the hands of… She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, forcing the thought away. She had given up trying to make sense of anything.
She focused on the alarm clock next to the bedside table. Its red LED glowed back at her: three pm. This was stupid, lying in bed in the middle of the day.
With a huge effort she sat up, her body feeling as dull and soft as lead. For a moment the room spun around, then stabilized a little. She plumped up her pillow and eased back against it, sighing as her gaze drifted unwillingly back to the crack in the ceiling.
There was a creak of metal outside the window. She glanced toward it, saw nothing but the bright light of an Indian summer afternoon.
Tomorrow was supposed to have been Bill’s funeral. Over the last several days she’d been doing her best to ready herself for the ordeal: it would be painful, but it would at least bring an end of sorts, maybe allow her to move on a little. But now even that bit of closure was denied her. How could there be a funeral with no body? She closed her eyes, groaned softly.
Another groan—low, guttural—echoed her own.
Her eyes flew open. A figure was crouching on the fire escape just outside her window—a grotesque figure, a monster: hair matted, pale skin crudely stitched up, its crabbed form covered by a bloody hospital gown sticky with bodily fluids and clotted blood. One bony hand gripped a truncheon.
The face was puffy and malformed, and covered with dried clots of blood—yet it was still recognizable. Nora felt her throat close with utter horror: the monster was her husband, Bill Smithback.
A strange sound filled the bedroom, a soft, high keening noise, and it took her a moment to realize it was coming from her own lips. She was filled with revulsion—and a sick longing. Bill—alive. Could it be? Could it possibly be him?
The figure slowly shifted position, moving forward on crouched hams.
White spots began to dance before her eyes and a sensation of heat bloomed throughout her body, as if she was about to faint, or her grip on sanity was loosening. He was gaunt, and his skin had a sickly pale cast—not unlike that of the thing that had chased her through the woods outside the Ville.
Was that Bill? Was it even possible?
The figure lurched forward again, still at a crouch, raised a hand, tapped one finger on the window. Tap, tap, tap.
It—he—Bill—stared at her through rheumy, bloodshot eyes. The sagging mouth opened wider, the tongue lolled. Vague, half-formed sounds emerged.
Is he trying to speak to me? Alive… is it possible?
Tap, tap, tap.
“Bill?” she croaked, her heart a jackhammer in her chest.
The crouching form jerked. The eyes opened wider, rolling before fixing on her once again.
“Can you talk to me?” she said.
Another sound, half moan, half whine. The claw-like hands flexed and unflexed; the desperate eyes locked on hers imploringly. She stared at him, utterly paralyzed. He was repulsive, feral, barely human. And yet, beneath the caking of blood and the matted hair, she recognized a puffy caricature of her husband’s features. This was the man whom she had loved like no other on earth, who had completed her. This was the man who, before her eyes, had killed Caitlyn Kidd.
“Speak to me. Please.”
Fresh sounds issued from the ruined mouth now, sounds of increased urgency. The crouching figure brought its hands together, lifted them toward her in a beseeching gesture. Despite everything, Nora felt her heart break with the piteous gesture, with the deep longing and sorrow that overwhelmed her.
“Oh, Bill,” she said, as for the first time since the attack she began to weep openly. “What have they done to you?”
The figure on the fire escape groaned. It sat for a moment, looking at her intently, motionless save for the spastic gestures that occasionally racked its frame. Then, very slowly, one of its claw-like hands reached out, grasping the lower edge of the window sash.
And then lifted it.
Nora watched, the sobs dying in her throat, as—slowly, slowly—the window inched up until it was half open. The figure bent low, easing itself beneath the frame. The hospital gown caught on a protruding nail and ripped with a sharp sound. Something about the unexpectedly sinuous movement reminded her of a wolverine sneaking into a rabbit’s den. The head and shoulders were inside now. The mouth yawned wider again, a thin rope of saliva swinging from the lower lip. A hand reached for her.
Instinctively—without conscious thought—Nora shrank away.
The extended arm paused. Smithback looked up at her from his position half in, half out of the window. Another whine emerged from the muddy mouth. He lifted his arm again, more forcefully this time.
At the gesture, a stench of the charnel house wafted toward Nora. Terror rose in her throat and she backed up on the bed, drawing her knees to her chin.
The red-rimmed eyes narrowed. The whine turned to a low growl. And suddenly, with a violent thrust, the figure forced itself through the half-open window and into the room. There was a splintering of wood, a crash of glass. Nora fell back with a cry, tangling herself in the bedsheets and falling to the floor. Quickly, she struggled out of the sheets and rose. Bill was there with her, in the room.
He gave a cry of rage, lurching toward her and swinging the truncheon.
“No!” she c
ried. “It’s me, Nora—!”
It was a clumsy move and she dodged it, backing up through the doorway into the living room. He followed, reeling forward and raising the truncheon again. Close up, his eyes were whitish, cloudy, their surface dry and wrinkled. His mouth opened wide again, the lips cracking, exhaling a dreadful reek that mingled with the sharp odor of formalin and methyl alcohol.
Nnnngghhhhhaaaah!
She kept backing up through the living room. He lurched toward her, one hand reaching out, fingers spastically jerking. Straining toward her, reaching, closer and closer.
She took another step backward, felt her shoulder blades touch the wall. It was as if the figure was threatening and pleading with her at the same time, the left hand reaching out to touch her as the right hand raised the truncheon to strike. He threw his head back, exposing a neck with huge raw cuts sewn up with twine, the skin gray and dead.
Nnnnggggghhhhhhaaaah!
“No,” she whispered. “No. Stay back.”
The hand reached out, trembling, touched her hair, caressed it. The smell of death enveloped her.
“No,” she croaked. “Please.”
The mouth opened wider, foul air streaming out.
“Get away!” she said with a rising shriek.
The twitching hand traced a dirty finger down her cheek to her lips, caressed them. She pressed her back against the wall.
Nnngah… Nnngah… Nnngah… The figure began to pant as the convulsive, twitching finger rubbed her lips. Then the finger tried to push inside her mouth.
She gagged, turning her head away. “No…”
A pounding came at the door—her screams must have brought someone.
“Nora!” came a muffled voice. “Hey, are you all right? Nora!”
As if in reaction, the upraised hand clutching the truncheon began to shake.
Nnngah! Nnngah! Nnngah! The panting turned into an urgent, lascivious grunting.
Nora was paralyzed, speechless with horror.
The right hand swept down in one spastic motion, the truncheon crashing onto her skull—and the world ended.
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