White Fire

Early on at John Jay, Corrie had discovered this archive. It was pure gold — once she’d made friends with the archivist and figured out her way around the disorganized drawers and heaping shelves of stuff. She had been to the Red Museum archives many times in search of topics for papers and projects, most recently in her hunt for a topic for her Rosewell thesis. She had spent a great deal of time in the old unsolved-case files — those cold cases so ancient that all involved (including the possible perps) had definitely and positively died.

Corrie Swanson found herself in a creaking elevator, descending into the basement, one day after the meeting with her advisor. She was on a desperate mission to find a new thesis topic before it became too late to complete the approval process. It was mid-November already, and she was hoping to spend the winter break researching and writing up the thesis. She was on a partial scholarship, but Agent Pendergast had been making up the difference in tuition, and she was absolutely determined not to take one pe

The elevator doors opened to a familiar smell: a mixture of dust and acidifying paper, underlain by an odor of rodent urine. She crossed the hall to a pair of dented metal doors, graced with a sign that said RED MUSEUM ARCHIVES, and pressed the bell. An unintelligible rasp came out of the antiquated speaker; she gave her name, and a buzzer sounded to let her in.

“Corrie Swanson? How good to see you again!” came the hoarse voice of the archivist, Willard Bloom, as he rose from a desk in a pool of light, guarding the recesses of the storage room stretching off into the blackness behind him. He presented a rather cadaverous figure, stick-thin, with longish gray hair, yet underneath was charming and grandfatherly. She didn’t mind the fact that his eyes often wandered over various parts of her anatomy when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.

Bloom came around with a veined hand extended, which she took. The hand was surprisingly hot, and it gave her a bit of a start.

“Come, sit down. Have some tea.”

Some chairs had been set around the front of his desk, with a coffee table and, to the side, a battered cabinet with a hot plate, kettle, and teapot, an informal seating area in the midst of dust and darkness. Corrie flopped into a chair, setting her briefcase down with a thump next to her. “Ugh,” she said.

Bloom raised his eyebrows in mute inquiry.

“It’s Carbone. Once again he rejected my thesis idea. Now I have to start all over again.”

“Carbone,” Bloom said in his high-pitched voice, “is a well-known ass.”

This piqued her interest. “You know him?”

“I know everyone who comes down here. Carbone! Always fussing about getting dust on his Ralph Lauren suits, wanting me to play step-n-fetchit. As a result, I can never find anything for him, poor man…You know the real reason he keeps rejecting your thesis ideas, right?”

“I figure it’s because I’m a junior.”

Bloom put a finger to his nose and gave her a knowing nod. “Exactly. And Carbone is old school, a stickler for protocol.”

Corrie had been afraid of this. The Rosewell Prize for the year’s outstanding thesis was hugely coveted at John Jay. Its wi

Bloom held up the pot with a yellow-toothed smile. “Tea?”

She looked at the revolting teapot, which did not appear to have been washed in a decade. “That’s a teapot? I thought it was a murder weapon. You know, loaded with arsenic and ready to go.”

“Always ready with a riposte. But surely you know most poisoners are women? If I were a murderer, I’d want to see my victim’s blood.” He poured out the tea. “So Carbone rejected your idea. Surprise, surprise. What’s plan B?”

“That was my plan B. I was hoping you might be able to give me some fresh ideas.”

Bloom sat back in his chair and sipped noisily from his cup. “Let’s see. As I recall, you’re majoring in forensic osteology, are you not? What, exactly, are you looking for?”

“I need to examine some human skeletons that show antemortem or perimortem damage. Got any case files that might point to something like that?”

“Hmm.” His battered face screwed up in concentration.

“The problem is, it’s hard to come by accessible human remains. Unless I go prehistoric. But that opens up a whole other can of worms with Native American sensitivities. And I want remains for which there are good written records. Historic remains.”

Bloom sucked down another goodly portion of tea, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Bones. Ante- or perimortem damage. Historic. Good records. Accessible.” He closed his eyes, the lids so dark and veiny they looked like he might have been punched. Corrie waited, listening to the ticking sounds in the archives, the faint sound of forced air, and a pattering noise she feared was probably rats.

The eyes sprang open again. “Just thought of something. Ever heard of the Baker Street Irregulars?”

“No.”

“It’s a very exclusive club of Sherlock Holmes devotees. They have a di

“And what did you find, exactly?”

“There was something in there about a man-eating bear.”

Corrie frowned. “A man-eating bear? I’m not sure—”

“Come with me.”

Bloom went to a bank of switches and struck them all with the flat of his palm, turning the archives into a flickering sea of fluorescent light. Corrie fancied she could hear the rats scurrying and squealing away as the tubes blinked on, one aisle after another.

She followed the archivist as he made his way down the long rows between dusty shelving and wooden cabinets with yellowed, handwritten labels, finally reaching an area in the back where library tables were piled with cardboard boxes. Three large boxes sat together, labeled BSI. Bloom went to one box, rummaged through it, hauled out an expandable folder, blew off the dust, and began sorting through the papers.

“Here we are.” He held up an old photocopy. “Doyle’s diary. Properly, of course, the man should be referred to as ‘Conan Doyle,’ but that’s such a mouthful, isn’t it?” In the dim light, he flipped through the pages, then began to read aloud:

…I was in London on literary business. Stoddart, the American, proved to be an excellent fellow, and had two others to di

He paused, his voice dying into a mumble as he passed over some material, then rising again as he reached a passage he deemed important.

…The highlight of the evening, if I may call it that, was Wilde’s account of his lecture tour in America. Hard to believe, perhaps, but the famed champion of aestheticism attracted huge interest in America, especially in the West, where in one place a group of uncouth miners gave him a standing ovation…

Corrie began to fidget. She had so little time to waste. She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes are quite what I’m looking for,” she said politely. But Bloom continued to read, holding up his finger for attention, his reedy voice riding over her objections.