Two Graves

Pendergast heard the soft click of the safety on the Les Baer being thumbed back. He immediately turned around and began to speak in a clear, loud tone:

Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?

The father it is, with his infant so dear…

At the end of the second stanza, he quickly turned and sca

Alban was gone. The Les Baer lay in the weeds a few yards away.

Three hours later, Pendergast finally gave up searching.

38

DAMN IT TO HELL,” LIEUTENANT VINCENT D’AGOSTA muttered as he stood in the hallway of the Murray Hill Hotel. Even in the corridor he could hear the shouts and electronic blarings of the press down on the street, along with a chorus of sirens, cars honking, and miscellaneous New York City noise. Hours had passed since the killing, but the media only got thicker. Traffic on Park Avenue was gridlocked from the hotel all the way to the MetLife Building, no doubt the rubbernecking effect at work. The hotel throbbed with the thwap thwap of helicopters above, their spotlights sweeping the building. And Pendergast had disappeared.

What was it about New Yorkers and crime? They loved it, they ate it up. The News and the Post had been ru

Brilliant white light poured out into the hall from Room 516, and D’Agosta could see the occasional shadows of the figures still working in there. Gibbs was inside as well. It was complete bullshit that the man had been given access during the evidence-gathering phase—top brass were supposed to be kept out. But this time he’d insisted on going in, despite D’Agosta’s demurral. Christ, he himself, the squad commander, hadn’t been in there since the initial discovery.

“Hey, what’s with the fucking Coke?” he bellowed at a latents specialist passing down the hall. “You know there’s no eating or drinking at the scene!”

The man, immediately cowed, ducked his head in abject submission, turned, and hustled away down the hall, carrying the frosty can, not daring to sip from it.

D’Agosta could see some of the other detectives hovering around the corridor exchanging glances. All right, so he was pissed and showing it. He didn’t give a shit. The whole thing with Pendergast had freaked him out, the way he’d disappeared like that. Just vanished. Along with the perp. And this crazy theory about it being his son… and yet, he’d called it right on the button: date, time, and place.

D’Agosta had been on a lot of strange trips with Pendergast, but this was the strangest of all. He was well and truly shaken up. On top of that, his not-so-old chest wound was giving him a hard time. He felt in his pocket for some Advil, popped a few more.

“Hey, who gave you permission to waltz in here like you owned the place?” he shouted at a white-coated forensic specialist just ducking in under the crime-scene tape. “Log in, for shit’s sake!”

“Yes, Lieutenant, but you see I did log in. I was just visiting the men’s room—”

His attempted smile was cut off by D’Agosta’s shout. “Log in again!”

“Yes, sir.”

D’Agosta turned back and abruptly saw Pendergast. The man’s gaunt figure had materialized at the far end of the hall. As he approached, walking swiftly, D’Agosta’s gut tightened with apprehension. He had to talk to him, find out more about this bizarre business of the alleged son.

He was shocked by the look on Pendergast’s face: it fairly blazed with hard, dazzling intensity. He looked almost mad. And yet the eyes were absolutely clear.

“Where’d you go?” D’Agosta asked.

“I chased the killer to the river. He escaped at the piers.”

“You… chased him?”

“He had just left the room when I arrived, by the fire escape. There was no time. I engaged in pursuit.”

“And you’re sure he’s… your son?”

Pendergast stared at him. “As I said earlier, that information remains strictly between us.”

D’Agosta swallowed. The intensity of Pendergast’s stare u

The look on Pendergast’s face became distinctly unfriendly. “Vincent, I am the only person who can catch this killer. Nobody else can. In fact, their attempts would only make things worse. Therefore, we must keep the information to ourselves. At least for now. Do you understand?”

D’Agosta couldn’t bring himself to answer. He did understand. But withholding information—especially the possible identity of the killer? You couldn’t do that. Then again, it seemed a completely crazy idea that the killer was Pendergast’s son—that he even had a son. The man was cracking up. Maybe they should withhold it.

He had no idea what to do.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Agent Pendergast.” And here came Gibbs, striding out of the hotel room. He approached, hand extended, the phoniest of smiles on his face. Pendergast took the hand.

“You look like you’ve been in a rumble,” said Gibbs with a chuckle, looking over Pendergast’s muddied suit.

“Indeed.”

“I’m curious,” said Gibbs, “how you and the lieutenant managed to get to the crime scene just, what, minutes after the perp arrived? The lieutenant said it was your idea, something about a number sequence?”

“Fibonacci,” Pendergast said.

Gibbs frowned. “Fibonacci? Who’s Fibonacci?”

“Leonardo Fibonacci,” said Pendergast, “a medieval mathematician. Italian, naturally.”

“Italian. Right.”

“I examined the numerical evidence of the killings and discovered that the addresses of the hotels follow a pattern: Five East Forty-Fifth Street, Eight West Fiftieth Street, Thirteen Central Park West. Five, eight, thirteen. That is part of the Fibonacci sequence, each number being the sum of the previous two. The next term in the sequence would be twenty-one. I discovered there was only one Manhattan hotel at a twenty-one address—the Murray Hill, at Twenty-One Park Avenue.”

Gibbs listened, head bowed, arms crossed, still frowning.

“The times of the killings follow a simpler sequence, alternating between seven thirty in the morning and nine in the evening. It’s a sign of arrogance, like showing his face to the security cameras—as if we’re so beneath contempt, he doesn’t even have to try to hide his work.”

When Pendergast fell silent, Gibbs rolled his eyes. “I can’t argue about the times of death. But all that about the Fib… the Fib… that’s got to be one of the most far-fetched ideas I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, well,” said D’Agosta, “it seems to have worked.”

Gibbs took out his notebook. “So, Agent Pendergast, when you got here, what happened? The lieutenant tells me you just disappeared.”

“As I was telling Lieutenant D’Agosta, I went directly to the room, found the bathroom window open. The perpetrator was descending the fire escape. I gave chase and pursued him to the river, where I lost him in the area of the old piers.”

Gibbs took a few notes. “Get a good look at him?”

“No better than the security cameras.”

“You can’t tell me anything else?”

“I’m afraid not. Except that he’s a fast ru

D’Agosta could hardly believe it: Pendergast really was withholding evidence. It was one thing to talk about doing it; quite another to actively do it. Not only that, but Pendergast was doing so in an investigation D’Agosta himself was in charge of. He was finding it increasingly difficult not to take Pendergast’s flippant attitude toward the rule of law personally.

Gibbs slapped his notebook shut. “Interesting that he chose a dump like this. It shows his M.O. is evolving. That’s a common trait of this type of serial killer. He first kills in environments where he feels safe, then branches out, gets more daring. Pushes the envelope.”