The Inner Circle

by Brad Meltzer

  Dowson picked it up, flipped over the top page. Extensive lacerations… deep knife wounds… Looked like the girl had been stabbed repeatedly in the lower back. Or worse. As usual, it was hard to make out from the police report what had actually taken place, from a medical standpoint. There had been no investigating ME. It had been given a low priority. This Doreen Hollander didn’t count for much, it seemed.

  Dowson returned the clipboard. “Sue, help me turn her over.”

  They turned the body, exposing the back. The nurse gasped and stepped away.

  Dowson stared in surprise. “Looks like she died on the operating table, in the middle of an operation to remove a spinal tumor.” Had they screwed up again downstairs? Just last week—twice—they had sent him the wrong paperwork with the wrong corpse. But immediately Dowson realized this was no hospital stiff. Not with dirt and leaves sticking to the raw wound that covered the entire lower back and sacrum area.

  This was weird. Seriously weird.

  He peered closer and began describing the wound for the benefit of the camera, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice.

  “Superficially, this does not resemble the random knife slashing, stabbing, or cutting described in the report. It has the appearance of—of a dissection. The incision—if it is one—begins about ten inches below the scapula and seven inches above the belt line. It appears as if the entire cauda equina has been dissected out, starting at L1 and terminating at the sacrum.”

  At this, the FBI agent looked at him abruptly.

  “The dissection includes the filum terminale.” Dowson bent closer. “Nurse, sponge along here.”

  The nurse removed some of the debris around the wound. The room had fallen silent except for the whirr of the camera, and there was a clattering sound as twigs and leaves slid into the table’s drainage channel.

  “The spinal cord—more precisely, the cauda equina—is missing. It has been removed. The dissection extends peripherally to the neuroforamen and out to the transverse processes. Nurse, irrigate L1 to L5.”

  The nurse quickly irrigated the requested area.

  “The, er, dissection has stripped off the skin, the subcutaneous tissue, and paraspinous musculature. It appears as if a self-retaining retractor was used. I can see the marks of it here, and here, and here.” He carefully indicated the areas for the benefit of the video.

  “The spinous processes and laminae have been removed, along with the ligamentum flavum. The dura is still present. There is a longitudinal incision in the dura from L1 to the sacrum, allowing full removal of the cord. It has the appearance of a… of a very professional incision. Nurse, the stereozoom.”

  The nurse rolled over a large microscope. Quickly, Dowson inspected the spinous processes. “It looks as if a rongeur has been used to remove the processes and laminae from the dura.”

  He straightened up, running a gowned arm across his forehead. This was not a standard dissection one would do in medical school. It was more like the kind of thing neurosurgeons practiced in advanced neuroanatomy classes. Then he remembered the FBI agent, Pendergast. He glanced at him, to see how he was taking it. He had seen a lot of shocked people at autopsies, but nothing like this: the man looked, not shocked exactly, so much as grim Death himself.

  The man spoke. “Doctor, may I interrupt with a few questions?”

  Dowson nodded.

  “Was this dissection the cause of death?”

  This was a new thought to Dowson. He shuddered. “If the subject were alive when this was done, yes, it would have caused death.”

  “At what point?”

  “As soon as the incision was made in the dura, the cerebrospinal fluid would have drained. That alone would have been enough to cause death.” He examined the wound again. It looked as if the operation had caused a great deal of bleeding from the epidural veins, and some of them had retracted—an indication of live trauma. Yet the dissector had not worked around the veins, as a surgeon on a live patient would have done, but had cut right through them. The operation, while done with great skill, had also apparently been done with haste. “A large number of veins have been cut, and only the largest—whose bleeding would have interfered with the work—have been ligated. The subject might have bled to death before the opening of the dura, depending on how fast the, er, person worked.”

  “But was the subject alive when the operation began?”

  “It seems she was.” Dowson swallowed weakly. “However, it seems no effort was made to keep the subject alive while the, ah, dissection was progressing.”

  “I would suggest some blood and tissue work to see if the subject had been tranquilized.”

  The doctor nodded. “It’s standard.”

  “In your opinion, Doctor, how professional was this dissection?”

  Dowson did not answer. He was trying to order his thoughts. This had the potential of being big and unpleasant. For the time being, no doubt they’d try to keep a low profile on this, try to fly it as long as possible beneath the radar of the New York press. But it would come out—it always did—and then there would be a lot of people second-guessing his actions. He’d better slow down, take it one step at a time. This was not the run-of-the-mill murder the police report indicated. Thank God he hadn’t actually begun the autopsy. He had the FBI agent to thank for that.

  He turned to the nurse. “Get Jones up here with the large-format camera and the camera for the stereozoom. And I want a second ME to assist. Who’s on call?”

  “Dr. Lofton.”

  “I need him within the half-hour. I also want to consult with our neurosurgeon, Dr. Feldman. Get him up here as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  He turned to Pendergast. “I’m not sure I can let you stay without some kind of official sanction.”

  To his surprise, the man seemed to accept this. “I understand, Doctor. I believe this autopsy is in good hands. I, personally, have seen enough.”

  So have I, thought Dowson. He now felt sure that a surgeon had done this. The thought made him feel sick.

  O’Shaughnessy stood in the lounge. He debated whether to buy a cup of coffee from a vending machine, then decided against it. He felt distinctly embarrassed. Here he was, supposed to be a tough, sardonic New York City cop, and he’d wimped out. All but tossed his cookies right there on the examining room floor. The sight of that poor chubby naked girl on the table, blue and dirty, her young face all puffed up, eyes open, leaves and sticks in her hair… he shuddered afresh at the image.

  He also felt a burning anger for the person who had done it. He wasn’t a homicide cop, had never wanted to be one, even in the early days. He hated the sight of blood. But his own sister-in-law lived in Oklahoma. About this girl’s age, too. Now, he felt he could stand whatever it took to catch that killer.

  Pendergast glided through the stainless steel doors like a wraith. He barely glanced at O’Shaughnessy. The sergeant fell into step behind him, and they left the building and climbed into the waiting car in silence.

  Something had definitely put Pendergast into a black mood. The guy was moody, but this was the darkest he had ever seen him. O’Shaughnessy still had no idea why Pendergast was suddenly so interested in this new murder, interrupting his work on the nineteenth-century killings. But somehow, this didn’t seem to be the time to ask.

  “We will drop the sergeant off at the precinct house,” said Pendergast to his chauffeur. “And then you may take me home.”

  Pendergast settled back in the leather seat. O’Shaughnessy looked over at him.

  “What happened?” he managed to ask. “What did you see?”

  Pendergast looked out his window. “Evil.” And he spoke no more.

  THREE

  WILLIAM SMITHBACK JR., IN HIS BEST SUIT (THE ARMANI, recently dry-cleaned), crispest white shirt, and most business-like tie, stood on the corner of Avenue of the Americas and Fifty-fifth Street. His eyes strayed upward along the vast glass-and-chrome monolith that was the Moegen-Fairh
aven Building, rippling blue-green in the sunlight like some vast slab of water. Somewhere in that hundred-million-dollar pile was his prey.

  He felt pretty sure he could talk his way into seeing Fairhaven. He was good at that kind of thing. This assignment was a lot more promising than that tourist murder in the Ramble his editor had wanted him to cover today. He conjured up the grizzled face of his editor, red eyes bug-big behind thick glasses, smoke-cured finger pointing, telling him that this dead lady from Oklahoma was going to be big. Big? Tourists were getting smoked all the time in New York City. It was too bad, but there it was. Homicide reporting was hackwork. He had a hunch about Fairhaven, the Museum, and these old killings Pendergast was so interested in. He always trusted his hunches. His editor wouldn’t be disappointed. He was going to cast his fly onto the water, and by God Fairhaven might just bite.

  Taking one more deep breath, he crossed the street—giving the finger to a cabbie that shot past inches away, horn blaring—and approached the granite and titanium entry. Another vast acreage of granite greeted him upon entering the interior. There was a large desk, manned by half a dozen security officers, and several banks of elevators beyond.

  Smithback strode resolutely toward the security desk. He leaned on it aggressively.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Fairhaven.”

  The closest guard was shuffling through a computer printout. “Name?” he asked, not bothering to look up.

  “William Smithback Jr., of the New York Times.”

  “Moment,” mumbled the guard, picking up a telephone. He dialed, then handed it to Smithback. A crisp voice sounded. “May I help you?”

  “This is William Smithback Jr. of the New York Times. I’m here to see Mr. Fairhaven.”

  It was Saturday, but Smithback was gambling he’d be in his office. Guys like Fairhaven never took Saturdays off. And on Saturdays, they were usually less fortified with secretaries and guards.

  “Do you have an appointment?” the female voice asked, reaching down to him from fifty stories.

  “No. I’m the reporter doing the story on Enoch Leng and the bodies found at his jobsite on Catherine Street and I need to speak with him immediately. It’s urgent.”

  “You need to call for an appointment.” It was an utterly neutral voice.

  “Good. Consider this the call. I’d like to make an appointment for”—Smithback checked his watch—“ten o’clock.”

  “Mr. Fairhaven is presently engaged,” the voice instantly responded.

  Smithback took a deep breath. So he was in. Time to press the attack. There were probably ten layers of secretaries beyond the one on the phone, but he’d gotten through that many before. “Look, if Mr. Fairhaven is too busy to talk to me, I’ll just have to report in the article I’m writing for the Monday edition that he refused to comment.”

  “He is presently engaged,” the robotic voice repeated.

  “No comment. That’ll do wonders for his public image. And come Monday, Mr. Fairhaven will be wanting to know who in his office turned away the reporter. Get my drift?”

  There was a long silence. Smithback drew in some more air. This was often a long process. “You know when you’re reading an article in the paper, and it’s about some sleazy guy, and the guy says I have no comment? How does that make you feel about the guy? Especially a real estate developer. No comment. I could do a lot with no comment.”

  There was more silence. Smithback wondered if she had hung up. But no, there was a sound on a line. It was a chuckle.

  “That’s good,” said a low, pleasant, masculine voice. “I like that. Nicely done.”

  “Who’s this?” Smithback demanded.

  “Just some sleazy real estate developer.”

  “Who?” Smithback was not going to stand being made fun of by some lackey.

  “Anthony Fairhaven.”

  “Oh.” Smithback was momentarily struck speechless. He recovered quickly. “Mr. Fairhaven, is it true that—”

  “Why don’t you come on up, so we can talk face-to-face, like grown-up people? Forty-ninth floor.”

  “What?” Smithback was still surprised at the rapidity of his success.

  “I said, come up. I was wondering when you’d call, being the ambitious, careerist reporter that you so evidently are.”

  Fairhaven’s office was not quite what Smithback had envisioned. True, there were several layers of secretaries and assistants guarding the sanctum sanctorum. But when he finally gained Fairhaven’s office, it wasn’t the vast screw-you space of chrome-gold-ebony-old-master-paintings-African-primitives he’d expected. It was rather simple and small. True, there was art on the walls, but it consisted of some understated Thomas Hart Benton lithographs of yeoman farmers. Beside these was a glassed panel—locked and clearly alarmed—containing a variety of handguns, mounted on a black velvet backdrop. The sole desk was small and made of birch. There were a couple of easy chairs and a worn Persian rug on the floor. One wall was covered with bookshelves, filled with books that had clearly been read instead of purchased by the yard as furniture. Except for the gun case, it looked more like a professor’s office than that of a real estate magnate. And yet, unlike any professor’s office Smithback had ever been in, the space was meticulously clean. Every surface sparkled with an unblemished shine. Even the books appeared to have been polished. There was a faint smell of cleaning agents, a little chemical but not unpleasant.

  “Please sit down,” said Fairhaven, sweeping a hand toward the easy chairs. “Would you care for anything? Coffee? Water? Soda? Whisky?” He grinned.

  “Nothing, thanks,” said Smithback as he took a seat. He felt the familiar shudder of expectation that came before an intense interview. Fairhaven was clearly savvy, but he was rich and pampered; he no doubt lacked street-smarts. Smithback had interviewed—and skewered—dozens like him. It wouldn’t even be a contest.

  Fairhaven opened a refrigerator and took out a small bottle of mineral water. He poured himself a glass and then sat, not at his desk, but in an easy chair opposite Smithback. He crossed his legs, smiled. The bottle of water sparkled in the sunlight that slanted through the windows. Smithback glanced past him. The view, at least, was killer.

  He turned his attention back to the man. Black wavy hair, strong brow, athletic frame, easy movements, sardonic look in the eye. Could be thirty, thirty-five. He jotted a few impressions.

  “So,” Fairhaven said with a small, self-deprecating smile, “the sleazy real estate developer is ready to take your questions.”

  “May I record this?”

  “I would expect no less.”

  Smithback slipped a recorder out of his pocket. Of course he seemed charming. People like him were experts at charm and manipulation. But he’d never allow himself to be spun. All he had to do was remember who he was dealing with: a heartless, money-grubbing businessman who would sell his own mother for the back rent alone.

  “Why did you destroy the site on Catherine Street?” he asked.

  Fairhaven bowed his head slightly. “The project was behind schedule. We were fast-tracking the excavation. It would’ve cost me forty thousand dollars a day. I’m not in the archaeology business.”

  “Some archaeologists say you destroyed one of the most important sites to be discovered in Manhattan in a quarter-century.”

  Fairhaven cocked his head. “Really? Which archaeologists?”

  “The Society for American Archaeology, for example.”

  A cynical smile broke out on Fairhaven’s face. “Ah. I see. Well of course they’d be against it. If they had their way, no one in America would turn over a spadeful of soil without an archaeologist standing by with screen, trowel, and toothbrush.”

  “Getting back to the site—”

  “Mr. Smithback, what I did was perfectly legal. When we discovered those remains, I personally stopped all work. I personally examined the site. We called in forensic experts, who photographed everything. We removed the remains with great care, had them examined, and then
properly buried, all at my own expense. We did not restart work until we had direct authorization from the mayor. What more would you have me do?”

  Smithback felt a small twinge. This was not proceeding quite as expected. He was letting Fairhaven control the agenda; that was the problem.

  “You say you had the remains buried. Why? Was there anything perhaps you were trying to hide?”

  At this Fairhaven actually laughed, leaning back in his chair, exposing beautiful teeth. “You make it sound suspicious. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’m a man with some small religious values. These poor people were killed in a hideous way. I wanted to give them a decent burial with an ecumenical service, quiet and dignified, free of the whole media circus. That’s what I did—buried them together with their little effects in a real cemetery. I didn’t want their bones ending up in a museum drawer. So I purchased a beautiful tract in the Gates of Heaven Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. I’m sure the cemetery director would be happy to show you the plot. The remains were my responsibility and, frankly, I had to do something with them. The city certainly didn’t want them.”

  “Right, right,” said Smithback, thinking. It would make a nice sidebar, this quiet burial under the leafy elms. But then he frowned. Christ, was he getting spun here?

  Time for a new tack. “According to the records, you’re a major donor to the mayor’s re-election campaign. You get in a pinch at your construction site and he bails you out. Coincidence?”

  Fairhaven leaned back in the chair. “Drop the wide-eyed, babe-in-the-woods look. You know perfectly well how things work in this town. When I give money to the mayor’s campaign, I am exercising my constitutional rights. I don’t expect any special treatment, and I don’t ask for it.”

  “But if you get it, so much the better.”

  Fairhaven smiled broadly, cynically, but said nothing. Smithback felt another twinge of concern. This guy was being very careful about what he actually said. Trouble was, you couldn’t record a cynical grin.

  He stood and walked with what he hoped looked like casual confidence toward the paintings, hands behind his back, studying them, trying to frame a new strategy. Then he moved to the gun case. Inside, polished weapons gleamed. “Interesting choice of office decor,” he said, gesturing at the case.