Two Graves p-12

by Douglas Preston

  He was also a bit of a show-off. He came bounding up to the podium with a remote in hand; the lights dimmed.

  “Hello, everyone,” Warsaw began. “Welcome to the perp show gag reel.”

  That got a laugh.

  “The Marlborough Grand has the latest in digital security, and we got beautiful, and I mean beautiful, footage. We got the perp from the front, back, side, above, below—HD all the way. Here are the highlights, edited down to, ah, five minutes. Your folders have a selection of still shots taken from the footage, which is as we speak being shared with various other luxury hotels and—very soon—with the Times, Post, and Daily News.”

  The movie began, and it was just as good as Warsaw promised. The excerpts showed the perp—his left ear bandaged—in the lobby; on the elevator; walking down the hall; walking up the hall; pushing into the victim’s room. And then it showed excerpts of the man leaving more or less the same way, unhurried, unruffled, unconcerned.

  D’Agosta had seen the excerpts before, but they chilled him all over again. Most killers, he knew, could be divided into two broad groups, disorganized and organized. But this man was so cool, so methodical, that he almost deserved a category of his own. And once again D’Agosta felt deeply bothered by this. It just didn’t fit. Didn’t fit at all.

  The clip ended, there was a smattering of applause. To D’Agosta’s mild annoyance, Warsaw hammed a bow and left.

  D’Agosta returned to the podium. It was now two thirty. So far, everything had gone like clockwork. His stomach rumbled again—it was starting to feel like he’d swallowed a bottle of hydrochloric acid. He had saved the very last bit, the earlobe, for himself. Squad commander’s prerogative.

  “We don’t have DNA yet on the extra body part recovered from the crime scene—the earlobe,” he began. “But we do have some prelims. It belongs to a male. The condition of the skin indicates an age under fifty—that’s as close as we can get. It’s almost certain that the presence of the earlobe was not a result of a struggle at the crime scene. Rather, it seems to have been carried to the crime scene and deliberately placed there. It also appears the earlobe was removed from its ear some hours prior to the time of the homicide—and it was removed not postmortem, but from a body still alive—no surprise, since as you can see from the video the perp is most definitely alive and kicking.

  “We know what the perp looks like, and soon all of New York City will know. He’s striking, with his ginger hair, expensive suit, good looks, and Olympic-athlete physique. We got prints, hair, clothing fibers, and soon we’ll have his DNA. We’ve ID’d the Charvet tie, and we’re close to IDing his suit and shoes. Looks like we’re one step away from nailing the guy.”

  D’Agosta paused, made a decision to say it.

  “So—what’s wrong with this picture?”

  It was a rhetorical question and nobody raised their hand.

  “Is the guy really this stupid?”

  He let the question hang for a long moment before continuing. “Look at the guy in the video. Can he really be the complete and total idiot he seems? I mean, there are simple steps he could have taken to disguise or alter his appearance, to evade the cameras at least in part. He didn’t have to stand stock-still in the middle of the lobby for five minutes while the entire staff noticed him and the cameras shot B-roll from four angles. He’s not a guy trying to blend in. We got psych working on it, figuring out what makes the guy tick, what motivates him, what the message on the body means, what the earlobe left at the scene means. Maybe he’s crazy and wants to be caught. But it strikes me the guy seems to know what he’s doing. And there’s no way he’s stupid. So let’s not assume this case is anywhere near being in the bag, despite all we’ve got.”

  A silence. There was another thing bothering D’Agosta, but he chose not to mention it, because it might sound a little strange, and anyway he didn’t know quite how to articulate it. It had to do with the timing of the attack. The camera caught it all. The guy was strolling down the hall, and—just as he was about to pass the door of the victim’s room—she opened it to get the paper. The timing had been perfect.

  … Coincidence?

  6

  KYOKO ISHIMURA WALKED SLOWLY DOWN THE HALLWAY, whisking the polished wooden floor ahead of her with a traditional hemp broom. The hall was spotlessly clean already but Miss Ishimura, out of long practice, swept it anyway, day in, day out. The apartment—three apartments, actually, which had been combined into one by the owner—was shrouded in a close, listening silence. The traffic noise from West Seventy-Second Street barely penetrated the thick stone walls here, five stories above the street.

  Returning the broom to the nearby maid’s closet, she took a felt cloth, walked a few steps farther down the hallway, and passed into a small room with Tabriz and Isfahan carpets on the floor and an antique coffered ceiling above. The room was full of beautifully bound illuminated manuscripts and incunabula, stored within cases of mahogany and leaded glass. Miss Ishimura polished first the cases, then the glass, and then, with a separate special cloth, the volumes themselves, carefully passing it over the ribbed spines, the head caps, the gilded top edges. The books, too, were already clean, but she dusted each one nevertheless. It was not simply from mere force of habit: when Miss Ishimura was anxious about something, she found solace in the act of cleaning.

  Ever since her employer had returned home four days ago, without warning, he had been acting strangely. He was already a strange man, but this new behavior was exceedingly disturbing to her. He spent his days in the sprawling apartment, clothed in silk pajamas and one of his English silk dressing gowns, never speaking, staring for hours at the marble waterfall in the public room, or sitting in his Zen garden for the better part of a day, in an apparent stupor, unmoving. He had stopped reading newspapers, stopped answering the telephone, and ceased communicating in any way, even with her.

  And he ate nothing—nothing. She had tried to tempt him with his favorite dishes—mozuku, shiokara—but everything went untouched. More disturbingly, he had begun taking pills. She had surreptitiously noted the names on the bottles—Dilaudid and Levo-Dromoran—looked them up on the Internet and was horrified to find they were powerful narcotics, which he showed every evidence of abusing in larger and larger quantities.

  At first, it had seemed to her that he was wrapped in a deep, almost unimaginable sorrow. But as the days passed, he seemed to physically collapse as well, his skin turning gray, his cheeks slack, his eyes dark and hollow. As he sank increasingly into silence and apathy, she felt that, rather than sorrow, there was no feeling left in him at all. It was as if some terrible experience had burned all emotion from him, hollowed him out, leaving him a dry, ashen husk.

  A small blue LED began to flash beside the door. For Miss Ishimura, who was deaf and mute, this was the signal that the phone was ringing. She walked over to a corner table where a telephone sat and examined the caller ID. It was Lieutenant D’Agosta, the policeman. Calling again.

  She stared at the ringing phone for perhaps five seconds. Then—on impulse—she picked it up, despite express orders to the contrary. She placed the receiver in one of the TTY machines she used and typed a message: You wait, please. I will call him.

  She exited the room, then passed down the long hallway, turned when it doglegged, continued down a second hallway, then stopped and rapped quietly on a shoji—a rice-paper partition serving as a door—pulling it back after a moment and stepping inside.

  The room beyond contained a large Japanese ofuro bathtub built of blond hinoki wood. Agent Pendergast reclined within the tub, only his head and narrow shoulders rising above the steaming, high-walled surface. Bottles of pills and French mineral water were arrayed in lines, like sentinels, behind him. Naked, his appearance shocked her even more: his face dreadfully gaunt, and his pale eyes dark, almost bruised. A copy of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets sat on the wide tub edge beside a heavy, gleaming straight razor. She had noticed him absently stropping the razor, sometimes for ho
urs, in the bath, until its edge sparkled wickedly. The bathwater was tinged the palest rose—the bandage on his leg injury must be leaking again. He had done nothing about it, despite her urgent entreaties.

  She handed him a note: Lieutenant D’Agosta.

  Pendergast merely looked at her.

  She held out the phone and mouthed a word. “Dozo.”

  Still he said nothing.

  “Dozo,” she mouthed again, with emphasis.

  At last, he told her to engage the speakerphone in the wall. She did so, then stepped back deferentially. She could not hear, but she could read lips with complete perfection. And she had no intention of leaving.

  “Hello?” came the voice, tinny and thin through the speakerphone. “Hello? Pendergast?”

  “Vincent,” Pendergast replied, his voice low.

  “Pendergast. My God, where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for days!”

  Pendergast said nothing, merely reclining farther into the bath.

  “What’s happened? Where’s Helen?”

  “They killed Helen,” Pendergast replied in a flat, expressionless, terrible voice.

  “What? What do you mean? When?”

  “In Mexico. I buried her. In the desert.”

  There was an audible gasp, then a brief silence, before D’Agosta spoke again. “Oh, Jesus. Jesus. Who killed her?”

  “The Nazis. A shot to the heart. Point-blank range.”

  “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry, so sorry. Did you… get them?”

  “One got away.”

  “All right. We’re going to get the bastard. Bring him to justice—”

  “Why?”

  “Why? What do you mean, why?”

  Agent Pendergast raised his eyes to Miss Ishimura, and with a small twirl of his right index finger indicated that she should hang up the phone. The housekeeper—who had been intently watching his lips during the brief exchange—came forward after a short hesitation, pressed the OFF button, stepped backward across the slate floor of the bath, and then very quietly shut the shoji, leaving Pendergast once again alone.

  Now she knew what the problem was. But it did not help her at all. Not at all.

  7

  BALANCING THE SMALL METAL SERVING TRAY OF DRINKS in one hand, Vincent D’Agosta opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the apartment’s microscopic balcony. There was just enough room for two chairs and a table. One of the chairs was occupied by Captain Laura Hayward. One lovely leg was crossed over the other, and she was perusing the pathology report D’Agosta had brought home with him. Traffic noise drifted up from First Avenue, and, though still very warm considering it was the last day of November, there was a pronounced bite to the air: this was probably the last time they’d share the balcony until spring.

  He set the tray of drinks down on the table and Hayward glanced up from the grisly photographs, apparently undisturbed. “Mmm, those look good. What are they?”

  D’Agosta handed one of the glasses to her. “Try it and see.”

  Hayward took a sip, frowned, then took a second, smaller sip. “Vinnie, what is this?”

  “An Italian spritz,” he said as he sat down. “Ice, Prosecco, dash of club soda, Aperol. Garnished with a slice of some blood oranges I picked up from Greenwich Produce in Grand Central on the way home.”

  She took another sip, then set the glass down. “Um.” She hesitated. “I wish I could say that I liked it.”

  “You don’t?”

  “It tastes like bitter almonds.” She laughed. “I feel like Socrates here. Sorry. You went to a lot of trouble.” She took his hand, gave it a squeeze.

  “This is a popular drink.”

  She picked up the glass again and held it out at arm’s length, examining the gauzy orange liquid. “It reminds me of Campari. You know it?”

  “You kidding? My parents drank it back in the day, when they lived in Queens and were hoping to pass for Manhattan.”

  “Thanks anyway, Vinnie my love, but I’ll take the usual, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.” He took a sip of his own glass, decided he’d take his usual, as well. Stepping through the open door and heading into the kitchen, he put the glasses in the sink and got two more drinks: for himself, a frosty Michelob; for her, a glass of the flinty but inexpensive Pouilly-Fumé they always kept in the fridge. Carrying them back out to the balcony, he sat down again.

  For several minutes, they remained in silence, taking in the heartbeat of New York City, quietly savoring each other’s company. D’Agosta shot a covert glance at Hayward. For the past ten days or so, he’d been planning this evening down to the minutest detail: the meal, the dessert, the drinks—and the question. Now that he was healthy, now that his job was on track and his divorce just an unpleasant memory, he was finally ready to ask Laura to marry him. And he was fairly confident she’d say yes.

  But then things had sort of come undone. This bizarre murder, which was guaranteed to suck up all his time. And especially the freakish news about Pendergast.

  He’d gone ahead with the dinner. But now was not the time for the proposal.

  Hayward glanced again at the report, flipped through the pages. “How did the big meeting go this afternoon?”

  “Good. Singleton seemed to like it.”

  “Are the DNA results back yet?”

  “No. That’s the slowest goddamn lab in town.”

  “Interesting how the killer made no attempt to disguise himself or to avoid the security cameras. It’s almost like he’s daring you to find him, isn’t it?”

  D’Agosta took a sip of his beer.

  Hayward peered at him. “What is it, Vinnie?”

  D’Agosta sighed. “It’s Pendergast. I finally reached him this afternoon on the phone. He told me his wife was dead.”

  Laura put down her drink and looked at him in shock. “Dead? How?”

  “The people who kidnapped her. They shot her in Mexico—apparently to distract Pendergast, to allow themselves to get away.”

  “Oh, my God…” Laura sighed, shook her head.

  “It’s just a horrible tragedy. And I’d never heard him like that before. He sounded like—” D’Agosta paused. “I don’t know. Like he didn’t care. Like he was dead. And then he hung up on me.”

  Hayward nodded sympathetically.

  “I’m worried about his state of mind. I mean, to lose her like that…” He took a deep breath, looked down at his beer. “I’m bracing myself for a reaction.”

  “What kind of reaction?”

  “I don’t know. If the past is any guide, maybe an explosion of violence. The guy’s so unpredictable. Anything could happen. I feel like I’m witnessing a slow-motion train wreck.”

  “Maybe you should do something.”

  “He made it obvious he doesn’t want any sympathy, any help. And you know what? For once, I’m going to honor his wishes and not interfere.”

  He lapsed into silence.

  For a moment, Hayward did not answer. Then she cleared her throat. “Vinnie, the man’s hurting. I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but maybe this is the one time you should interfere.”

  He glanced up at her.

  “Here’s how I see it. Pendergast has never failed before. Not like this. I mean, he was so completely, utterly intent on discovering the truth about what really happened to his wife. It was a quest that almost got you killed. It almost got me gang-raped. And then, when he started to believe she was still alive after all…” Hayward paused for a moment. “Here’s the thing: deep down, I don’t think he ever believed he would fail. You know Pendergast, you know how he works. This is the thing he wanted more than anything, more than any of those cases of his—and now it’s finished. Done. He’s failed. I can hardly imagine what he’s feeling.” She paused. “You say he’s going to erupt into violence. But if that’s the case, why isn’t he out there, on fire to catch her killers? Why isn’t he breaking down our door, enlisting your aid?”

  D’Agosta shook his head.
“Good questions.”

  “I think he’s in total despair,” said Hayward. “I’m sure of it.”

  They settled into silence. D’Agosta sipped his beer moodily.

  Finally, Hayward stirred again. “Vinnie, I’m saying this against my better judgment. But what Pendergast might need to draw him out of this is a really good case. And you know what? There’s one right in front of us.” She tapped the pathology report.

  D’Agosta sighed. “I appreciate what you’re saying. I really do. But this time… I’m not going there. It’s just not my place, butting in.” And he glanced over the table at her, smiled a little wistfully, then let his gaze settle on the façades across First Avenue, burnished pink and gold by the setting sun.

  8

  ALBAN LORIMER WAS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED BY THE lobby of the Vanderbilt Hotel. It was quite different from the Marlborough: a smaller, quieter, more intimate space. A huge urn of fresh flowers dominated the hushed confines of the lobby, which was arranged more like an elegant living room. There were plush carpets, deep comfortable sofas and chairs arranged around ebony tables topped with glass. The walls were of dark oak paneling and the fixtures of handblown glass, Victorian perhaps.

  He took a seat at a small table in the lobby. A waiter came by and asked him if he would care for tea. Alban thought a moment, looked over the evening tea menu, and said yes, he would very much care for a pot of tea, preferably an Assam or some such mild blend, prepared English-style in the pot, with whole milk and sugar. He was very particular with his order and made sure the waiter paid attention to it, and to him, while he gave it.

  The waiter went off while Alban made himself comfortable, absorbing the feel of the place. The first thing that struck him was that the clientele here seemed different. Whereas the Marlborough Grand had been just that—grand—this hotel felt more like a quiet, upper-class club of wealth and privilege, catering to locals and their guests.