Fever Dream p-10

by Douglas Preston;Lincoln Child

  Pendergast's sorrowful look deepened. "As I said--a pity."

  Chausson put out a restraining hand. "Hold on. Just hold on." He took a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his brow. "There may be a few files left. Come with me." And, fetching a deep, shuddering breath, he led the way out of the office.

  Pendergast followed the little man through an elegant restaurant, past a food preparation area, and into an immense kitchen. The marble and gilt quickly gave way to white tile and rubberized floor mats. On the far side of the kitchen, Chausson opened a metal door. Old iron stairs led down into a chilly, damp, poorly lit basement corridor that seemed to tunnel forever into the Louisiana earth, its walls and ceiling of crumbling plaster, the floor of pitted brick.

  At last, Chausson stopped before a banded iron door. With a groan of iron he pushed it open and stepped into blackness, the humid air heavy with the smell of fungus and rot. He twisted an old-fashioned light switch clockwise, and a vast empty space came into view, punctuated by the scurry and squeak of retreating vermin. The floor was littered with old asbestos-clad piping and various bric-a-brac, furred with age, mounded over with mold. "This was the old boiler room," he said as he picked his way through the rat droppings and detritus.

  In the far corner sat several burst bundles of paper, damp, rodent-chewed, heavily foxed, and rotting with age. Rats had built a nest in one corner. "That's all that remains of the sanatorium paperwork," Chausson said, something of the old triumph creeping back into his voice. "I told you it was just scraps. Why it wasn't thrown out years ago, I have no idea--except that nobody ever comes in here anymore."

  Pendergast knelt before the papers and, very carefully, began to go through them, turning each one over and examining it. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Chausson looked at his watch several times, but Pendergast was completely insensible to the man's irritation. Finally, he rose, holding a thin sheath of papers. "May I borrow them?"

  "Take them. Take the lot."

  He slipped them into a manila envelope. "Earlier, you mentioned that others had expressed interest in Audubon and a certain painting."

  Chausson nodded.

  "Would that painting have been known as the Black Frame?"

  Chausson nodded again.

  "These others. Who were they and when did they come?"

  "The first one came, let's see, about fifteen years ago. Shortly after I became general manager. The other one came maybe a year afterward."

  "So I'm only the third to inquire," Pendergast said. "From your tone, I'd assumed there were more. Tell me about the first one."

  Chausson sighed again. "He was an art dealer. Quite unsavory. In my business, you learn how to read a person from his manner, the things he says. This man almost scared me." He paused. "He was interested in the painting Audubon allegedly did while he was here. Implied that he'd make it well worth my time. He grew very angry when I could tell him nothing."

  "Did he see the papers?" Pendergast asked.

  "No. I didn't know they existed at the time."

  "Do you remember his name?"

  "Yes. It was Blast. You don't forget a name like that."

  "I see. And the second person?"

  "It was a woman. Young, reddish-brown hair, thin. Very pretty. She was much more pleasant--and persuasive. Still, there wasn't much more I could tell her than I told Blast. She looked through the papers."

  "Did she take any?"

  "I wouldn't let her; I thought they might be valuable. But now, I just want to get rid of them."

  Pendergast nodded slowly. "This young woman--do you recall her name?"

  "No. It was funny--she never gave it. I remember thinking about that after she left."

  "Did she have an accent like mine?"

  "No. She had a Yankee accent. Like the Kennedys." The manager shuddered.

  "I see. Thank you for your time." Pendergast turned. "I'll see my own way out."

  "Oh, no," Chausson said quickly. "I'll escort you to your car. I insist."

  "Don't worry, Mr. Chausson. I won't say a word to your guests." And--with a small bow, and an even smaller, rather sad smile--Pendergast strode quickly to the long tunnel, toward the outside world.

  20

  St. Francisville, Louisiana

  D'AGOSTA PULLED UP IN FRONT OF THE WHITEWASHED mansion, rising in airy formality from dead flower beds and bare-branched trees. The winter sky spat rain, puddles collecting on the blacktop. He sat in the rental car for a moment, listening to the last lousy lines of "Just You and I" on the radio, trying to overcome his annoyance at having been sent on what was hardly more than an errand. What the hell did he know about dead birds?

  Finally, as the song faded away, he heaved himself from his seat, grabbed an umbrella, and stepped out of the car. He climbed the steps of Oakley Plantation House and entered the gallery: a porch with jalousie windows shut against the steady rain. Shoving his dripping umbrella into a stand, he shrugged off his raincoat, hung it on a rack, and entered the building.

  "You must be Dr. D'Agosta," said a bright, bird-like woman, rising from her desk and bustling toward him on stubby legs, sensible shoes rapping the boards. "We don't get many visitors this time of year. I'm Lola Marchant." She stuck out her hand.

  D'Agosta took the hand and was given a surprisingly vigorous shake. The woman was all rouge and powder and lipstick, and she had to be at least sixty, stout and vigorous.

  "Shame on you, bringing this bad weather!" She broke into a warbling laugh. "Even so, we always welcome Audubon researchers. Mostly we get tourists."

  D'Agosta followed her into a reception hall, done up in white-painted wood and massive beams. He began to regret the cover he had given her over the phone. So little did he know about Audubon or birds, he felt sure he'd be busted on even the most minimal exchange of information. Best thing to do was keep his mouth shut.

  "First things first!" Marchant went behind another desk and pushed an enormous logbook toward him. "Please sign your name and fill in the reason for your visit."

  D'Agosta wrote down his name and the supposed reason.

  "Thank you!" she said. "Now, let's get started. What, exactly, would you like to see?"

  D'Agosta cleared his throat. "I'm an ornithologist"--he got the word out perfectly--"and I'd like to see some of Audubon's specimens."

  "Wonderful! As you surely know, Audubon was only here for four months, working as a drawing master for Eliza Pirrie, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Pirrie, owners of the Oakley Plantation. After a tiff with Mrs. Pirrie he abruptly went back to New Orleans, taking with him all his specimens and drawings. But when we became a State Historic Site forty years ago, we were given a bequest of Audubon drawings, letters, and some of his actual bird specimens, which we've added to over the years--and now we have one of the finest Audubon collections in Louisiana!"

  She smiled brightly at this recital, her bosom heaving slightly from the effort.

  "Right," mumbled D'Agosta, removing a steno notebook from his brown suit coat, hoping it added verisimilitude.

  "This way, Dr. D'Agosta, please."

  Dr. D'Agosta. The lieutenant felt his apprehension increase.

  The woman pounded her way across the painted pine floors to a set of stairs. They ascended to the second floor and walked through a large series of spacious rooms, furnished in period furniture, finally arriving at a locked door, which--when opened--revealed a set of attic stairs, steep and narrow. D'Agosta followed Marchant to the top. It was an attic in name only, being spotlessly clean and well kept, smelling of fresh paint. Old oaken cabinets with rippled glass lined three of the walls, with more modern, closed cabinets at the far end. The light came from a series of dormers with frosted windows, which let in a cool white light.

  "We have about a hundred birds from Audubon's original collection," she said, walking briskly down the central corridor. "Unfortunately, Audubon was not much of a taxidermist. The specimens have been stabilized, of course. Here we are."

  They stopped be
fore a large, gray metal cabinet that looked almost like a safe. Marchant spun the center dial and turned the lever handle. With a sigh of air, the great door opened, revealing inner wooden cabinets with labels, stuck into brass label-holders, screwed to every drawer. A stench of mothballs washed over D'Agosta. Grasping one drawer, Marchant drew it out to display three rows of stuffed birds, yellowed tags around each claw, white cotton-wool poking out of their eyes.

  "Those tags are Audubon's originals," said Marchant. "I'll handle the birds myself--please don't touch them without my permission. Now!" She smiled. "Which ones would you like to see?"

  D'Agosta consulted his notebook. He had copied down some bird names from a website that listed all of Audubon's original specimens and their locations. Now he trotted them out. "I'd like to start with the Louisiana Water Thrush."

  "Excellent!" The drawer slid in and another was pulled out. "Do you want to examine it on the table or in the drawer?"

  "Drawer is fine." D'Agosta pushed a loupe into his eye and studied the bird closely with many grunts and mutterings. It was a ragged-looking thing, the feathers askew or missing, stuffing coming out. D'Agosta made what he hoped was a show of concentration, pausing to jot unintelligible notes.

  He straightened. "Thank you. The American Goldfinch is the next on my list."

  "Coming right up."

  He made another show of examining the bird, squinting at it through the loupe, taking notes, talking to himself.

  "I hope you're finding what you're looking for," said Marchant, with a leading tone in her voice.

  "Oh, yes. Thank you." This was already getting tiresome, and the smell of mothballs was making him sick.

  "Now--" He pretended to consult his notebook. "--I'll look at the Carolina Parrot."

  A sudden silence. D'Agosta was surprised to see Marchant's face reddening slightly. "I'm sorry, we don't have that specimen."

  He felt an additional wash of annoyance: they didn't even have the specimen he'd come for. "But it's in all the reference books as being here," he said, more crossly than he intended. "In fact, it says you have two of them."

  "We don't have them anymore."

  "Where are they?" he said, with open exasperation.

  There was a long silence. "I'm afraid they disappeared."

  "Disappeared? Lost?"

  "No, not lost. Stolen. Many years ago, when I was just an assistant. All that remain are a few feathers."

  Suddenly D'Agosta was interested. His cop radar went off big-time. He knew, right away, that this wasn't going to be a wild goose chase after all. "Was there an investigation?"

  "Yes, but it was perfunctory. It's hard to get the police excited about two stolen birds, even if they are extinct."

  "Do you have a copy of the old report?"

  "We keep very good files here."

  "I'd like to see it."

  He found the woman looking at him curiously. "Excuse me, Dr. D'Agosta--but why? The birds have been gone for more than a dozen years."

  D'Agosta thought fast. This changed the game. He made a quick decision, dipped into his pocket, and brought out his shield.

  "Oh, my." She looked at him, her eyes widening. "You're a policeman. Not an ornithologist."

  D'Agosta put it away. "That's right, I'm a lieutenant detective with NYPD homicide. Now be a dear and go get that file."

  She nodded, hesitated. "What's it about?"

  D'Agosta looked at her and noted a thrill in her eyes, a certain suppressed excitement. "Murder, of course," he said with a smile.

  She nodded again, rose. A few minutes later she returned with a slender manila folder. D'Agosta opened it to find the most cursory of police reports, a single scribbled paragraph that told him nothing except that a routine check of the collection revealed the birds were missing. No sign of break-in, nothing else taken, no evidence collected at the scene, no fingerprints dusted, and no suspects named. The only useful thing was the time frame of the crime: it had to have occurred between September 1 and October 1, as the collection was inventoried once a month.

  "Do you have logs of all the researchers who used the collections?"

  "Yes. But we always check the collection after they leave, to make sure they haven't nicked something."

  "Then we can narrow down the time frame even further. Bring me the logs, please."

  "Right away." The woman bustled off, the eager clomping of her shoes echoing in the attic space as she descended the stairs.

  Within a few minutes she returned, carrying a large buckram volume that she dropped on a central table with a thump. Turning the pages while D'Agosta watched, she finally arrived at the month in question. D'Agosta scanned the page. Three researchers had used the collection that month, the last one on September 22. The name was written in a generous, looping hand:

  Matilda V. Jones

  18 Agassiz Drive

  Cooperstown, NY 27490

  A fake name and address if ever there was one, thought D'Agosta. Agassiz Drive my ass. And New York State zip codes all began with a 1.

  "Tell me," he asked, "do the researchers have to show you some kind of institutional affiliation, ID, or anything?"

  "No, we trust them. Perhaps we shouldn't. But of course we supervise them closely. I just can't imagine how a researcher would manage to steal birds under our very noses!"

  I can see a million ways, thought D'Agosta, but he didn't say anything out loud. The attic door was locked with an old-fashioned key, and the bird cabinet itself was a cheap model, with noisy tumblers that an experienced safecracker could defeat. Although, he mused, even that would hardly be necessary--he recalled seeing Marchant plucking a ring of keys off the wall of the reception hall as they set off upstairs. The door to the plantation house was unlocked--he had breezed right in. Anyone could wait until the curator on duty left the front desk on a bathroom break, pluck the keys off the nail, and go straight to the birds. Even worse, he'd been left alone with the unlocked bird cabinet himself when Marchant went to get the register. If the birds had any value they'd all be gone by now, he thought ruefully.

  D'Agosta pointed to the name. "Did you meet this researcher?"

  "As I said, I was just the assistant then. Mr. Hotchkiss was the curator, and he would have supervised the researcher."

  "Where's he now?"

  "He passed away a few years ago."

  D'Agosta turned his attention back to the page. If Matilda V. Jones was indeed the thief--and he was fairly sure she was--then she was not a particularly sophisticated crook. Aside from the alias, the handwriting in her log entry did not have the appearance of having been disguised. He guessed the actual theft had taken place on or around September 23, the day after she had been shown the exact location of the birds by pretending to be a researcher. She probably stayed at a local inn for convenience. That could be confirmed by checking a hotel register.

  "When ornithologists come here for research, where do they usually stay?"

  "We recommend the Houma House, over in St. Francisville. It's the only decent place."

  D'Agosta nodded.

  "Well?" said Marchant. "Any clues?"

  "Can you photocopy that page for me?"

  "Oh, yes," she said, hefting and carting off the heavy volume, once again leaving D'Agosta alone. As soon as she was gone, he flicked open his cell phone and dialed.

  "Pendergast," came the voice.

  "Hello, it's Vinnie. Quick one: you ever heard the name Matilda V. Jones?"

  There was a sudden silence, and then Pendergast's voice came back as chilly as an Arctic gust. "Where did you get that name, Vincent?"

  "Too complicated to explain now. You know it?"

  "Yes. It was the name of my wife's pet cat. A Russian Blue."

  D'Agosta felt a shock. "Your wife's handwriting... was it large and loopy?"

  "Yes. Now would you care to tell me what this is about?"

  "Audubon's two stuffed Carolina Parakeets stored up at Oakley? Except for a few feathers, they're gone. And guess
what: your wife stole them."

  After a moment, a chillier response came: "I see."

  D'Agosta heard the clomp of feet on the attic stairs. "Gotta go." He shut the cell phone just as Marchant rounded the corner with the photocopies.

  "Well, Lieutenant," she said, laying them down. "Are you going to solve the crime for us?" She bestowed a vivid smile on him. D'Agosta noticed she had taken the occasion to re-rouge and touch up her lipstick. This was probably a lot more exciting, he thought, than back-to-back episodes of Murder, She Wrote.

  D'Agosta shoved the papers in his briefcase and got up to leave. "No, I'm afraid the trail is too cold. Way too cold. But thanks for your help anyway."

  21

  Penumbra Plantation

  YOU'RE SURE OF THIS, VINCENT? ABSOLUTELY sure?"

  D'Agosta nodded. "I checked the local hotel, the Houma House. After examining the birds at Oakley Plantation--under the name of her cat--your wife spent the night there. She used her real name this time: they probably required identification, especially if she paid cash. No reason for her to spend a night unless she planned to return the next day, slip inside, and nab the birds." He passed a sheet of paper to Pendergast. "Here's the register from Oakley Plantation."

  Pendergast examined it briefly. "That's my wife's handwriting." He put it aside, his face like a mask. "And you're sure of the date of the theft?"

  "September twenty-third, give or take a few days."

  "That puts it roughly six months after Helen and I were married."

  An awkward silence descended on the second-floor parlor. D'Agosta glanced away from Pendergast, looking uncomfortably around at the zebra rug and the mounted heads, his eye finally coming to rest on the large wooden gun case with its display of powerful, beautifully engraved rifles. He wondered which one had been Helen's.

  Maurice leaned into the parlor. "More tea, gentlemen?"

  D'Agosta shook his head. He found Maurice disconcerting; the old servant hovered about like a mother.