Two Graves

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “What is what?”

“Your name, of course!”

“Oh. Sorry. It’s… Feldman. John Feldman.”

“And your profession?”

“I’m a doctor.”

At this, she stopped to look back at him. “Can you furnish references?”

“Yes, I suppose so. If it’s necessary.”

“There are formalities that must be seen to, young man. After all, this isn’t just any gatehouse. It was designed by Stanford White.”

“Stanford White?”

“The only gatehouse he ever designed.” Her look turned suspicious again. “That was in the advertisement. Didn’t you read it?”

“Ah, yes,” Felder said quickly. “Slipped my mind. Sorry.”

“Hmpf,” the woman said, as if such a fact should be seared into one’s memory. She continued wading through the dead grass and weeds.

As they rounded the rear edge of the mansion, the gatehouse came into view. It was of the same dark stone as the main building, guarding an entrance—and driveway—that apparently no longer existed. Its windows were cracked and hazy with grime, and several had been boarded up. The two-story structure did have graceful lines, Felder noted, but they were overcome by shabbiness and decay.

The old woman led the way to the building’s only entrance—a door, held shut with a padlock. Interminable fishing in her purse produced a key, which she fitted to the lock. Then she pushed the door open and waved at the interior with a flourish.

“Look at that!” she said proudly.

Felder peered inside. Thick motes of dust hung in the air, almost choking the sunlight struggling through the windows. He could make out dim shapes, but nothing else.

The old woman—apparently irritated that he hadn’t dissolved into rapture—stepped inside and flicked on a light switch. “Come in, come in!” she said crossly.

Felder stepped inside. Behind them, the manservant stopped just within the doorway—he barely fit—and stood there, arms crossed over his barrel chest, blocking the exit.

A single bare bulb struggled to life high overhead. Felder heard the skittering of mice, disturbed by their entrance. He looked around. Heavy cobwebs hung from the rafters, and a riot of discarded jetsam from a long-gone era—perambulators, steamer trunks, a dressmaker’s ma

“Stanford White,” the woman repeated proudly. “You’ll never see another like it.”

“Very nice,” Felder murmured.

She swept a hand around. “Oh, it naturally needs the touch of a duster here and there, nothing that can’t be done of an afternoon. Five thousand a month.”

“Five thousand,” Felder repeated.

“Furnished, and cheap enough at the price, I should say! The furnishings are not to be moved about, however. Utilities aren’t included, of course. You’ll have to pay for coal for the furnace. But the building’s built so well you probably won’t even be needing heat.”

“Mmmm,” said Felder. It couldn’t be much above freezing.

“Bedroom and bath are upstairs, kitchen is in the next room. Would you like to see them?”

“No, I think not. Thanks anyway.”

The woman looked around with no small amount of pride, blind to the dust and grime and mold. “I’m very particular about who I allow on the premises. I won’t tolerate any licentious behavior or guests of the opposite sex. This is an historic structure, and of course I have a family name to protect—I’m sure you understand.”

Felder nodded absently.

“But you seem a nice enough young man. Perhaps—we shall have to see—you can take tea with me, certain afternoons, in the front parlor.”

The front parlor. Felder recalled what the woman at the Southport Museum had said: A delegation from Harvard came down. Offered a tidy sum. She wouldn’t even let them in the front door.

He realized Miss Wintour was looking at him with an expectant frown. “Well? I’m not out here for my health, you know. Five thousand a month, plus utilities.”

Incredibly, as if somebody else were speaking the words, Felder heard himself answer. “I’ll take it.”

22

D’AGOSTA HAD SEEN A LOT OF REALLY SICK SHIT IN HIS life—he’d never forget those two dismembered corpses up in Waldo Falls, Maine—but this took the cake. This was the goriest scene yet in a string of exceptionally gruesome murders. The young woman’s body had been stripped and splayed out on its back, dismembered limbs forming something like the face of a human clock, a corona of blood spread out like a sunburst beneath it all, various organs arrayed around the edges like a goddamn still life. Then there was the little toe—the extra little toe—that had been lovingly placed on the victim’s forehead.

All this was capped by the message finger-painted onto her torso—TAG, YOU’RE IT!

The M.E., forensic units, crime-scene units, latents, and the photographer had all done their work, collected their evidence, and gone. That had taken hours. Now it was his turn—his and Gibbs. D’Agosta had to admit, Gibbs had been pretty good about the wait. He hadn’t flashed his shield and elbowed his way in, the way other feds of his experience had done. Over the years, the homicide division had tried to lay down guidelines about the brass intruding into crime scenes, interrupting the work of the specialists, and D’Agosta took those rules very seriously. He didn’t know how many times he’d seen a crime scene messed up by some honcho wanting a photo shoot, or showing his political friends around, or just pulling rank for the sake of it.

The room was hot from the bright lights and there was a bad smell in the air, the stench of blood, fecal matter, and death. D’Agosta took a turn around the corpse, his eye roving over every little detail, burning it into his memory, deconstructing and reconstructing the scene while keeping it free flowing. It was another meticulous killing, pla

Indeed, as D’Agosta took it all in, he had a sense of déjà vu; there was something about this crime scene that reminded him of something else, and as he rolled that thought around in his mind he realized what it was. It had the look and feel of a museum diorama—everything highly crafted and set in its place, designed to create an impression, an illusion, a visual impact.

But of what? And why?

He glanced over at Gibbs, who was crouching on his heels, examining the writing on the torso. The arrayed lights cast his multiple shadows across the crime scene. “This time,” he said, “the perp used a glove.”

D’Agosta nodded. An interesting observation. His opinion of Gibbs went up another notch.

He was frankly more than a little dubious that Pendergast’s brother was behind this. He saw no co

Pendergast had refused to tell him why he believed the killer was his brother. All in all, D’Agosta felt this strange idea of Pendergast’s was a product of his deep depression over his wife’s murder, combined with an overdose of drugs. In retrospect, he was sorry he had tried to bring Pendergast into the case—and he felt damned relieved the special agent had not shown up at this crime scene.