Reliquary

Suddenly, D’Agosta stepped over and crushed the visitor’s slender, grubby hands in his. “Christ, Pendergast, it’s good to see you. I wondered what the hell had happened to your ski

“Since the Museum murders, as they’ve become known.” Pendergast nodded. “I see they are front-page news again.”

Sitting down again, D’Agosta scowled and nodded.

Pendergast glanced up at the map. “Quite a problem you have on your hands, Vincent. A string of vicious murders above and below ground, angst plaguing the city’s elite, and now rumors that Mbwun has returned.”

“Pendergast, you got no idea.”

“Pardon my contradicting you, but I have a very good idea. In fact, I came by to see if you would care for some assistance.”

D’Agosta’s face brightened, then grew guarded. “Officially?” he asked.

Pendergast smiled. “Semiofficial is the best I can do, I’m afraid. These days, I more or less choose my own TDYs. I’ve spent the past year working on technical projects we can go into some other time. And let’s just say I’ve received sanction to assist the NYPD on this case. Of course, I must maintain what we so delicately call ‘deniability.’ At this point, there is no evidence that a federal crime has been committed.” He waved his hand. “My problem, quite simply, is that I ca

D’Agosta looked at him curiously. “So why haven’t I seen you in almost two years? Seems like New York would offer lots of interesting cases.”

Pendergast inclined his head. “Not for me,” he replied.

D’Agosta turned toward Hayward. “This is the first good thing that’s happened to the case since day one,” he said.

Pendergast glanced from D’Agosta to Hayward and back again, his pale blue eyes in stark contrast to his dirty skin. “You flatter me, Vincent. But let’s get to work. Since my appearance seems to have convinced both of you, I’m hoping to test it out below ground as soon as possible. If you two will bring me up to date, that is.”

“So you agree that the Wisher murder and the homeless murders are co

“I agree completely, Sergeant—Hayward, was it?” Pendergast said. Then he straightened noticeably. “That wouldn’t be Laura Hayward, would it?”

“What of it?” Hayward said, suddenly guarded.

Pendergast relaxed in his chair again. “Excellent,” he said in a low voice. “Please let me congratulate you on your article in last month’s Journal of Abnormal Sociology. A most revealing look at the hierarchy among the underground homeless.”

For the first time since D’Agosta had met her, Hayward looked distinctly uncomfortable. Her face flushed, and she looked away, unused to the compliment.

“Sergeant?” he asked.

“I’m getting my master’s from NYU,” she said, still looking away. Then she turned back quickly, glaring at D’Agosta, as if challenging him to taunt her. “My thesis is on caste structure in underground society.”

“That’s great,” D’Agosta said, surprised at her defensiveness, but feeling a little defensive himself. How come she never told me? She think I’m stupid?

“But why publish in such an obscure journal?” Pendergast continued. “I’d have thought the Law Enforcement Bulletin would be the obvious choice.”

Hayward gave a low laugh, her poise fully recovered. “Are you kidding?” she said.

All at once D’Agosta understood. Hard enough to be a pint-sized, pretty female rouster in the TA division, which had more than its share of hulking thugs. But to be working on an advanced academic degree on the very people she had to roust… He shook his head, imagining the kind of relentless derision she would have been subjected to in the ranks.

“Ah yes, I see,” Pendergast said, nodding. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, in any case. But let’s get to business. I’ll need to see the analyses of the crime scenes. The more we can learn about the UnSub, the sooner we’ll find him. Or them. He’s not a rapist, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Perhaps he’s a fetishist. He—or they—certainly does seem to enjoy his souvenirs. We’ll have to check the files on any inactive serial killers or assassin-types. Also, I wonder if you could have Data Processing ran cross-correlations on the known data for all victims. You might want to run a second query for all the missing persons, too. We should check for any points of commonality, no matter how subtle.”

“I’ll get on it,” Hayward said.

“Excellent.” Pendergast stood and approached the desk. “Now, if I could just see the case files—”

“Please sit down,” D’Agosta said quickly, his nose wrinkling. “Your disguise is all too convincing, if you get my meaning.”

“Of course,” Pendergast said airily, sitting down again. “Convincing to a fault. Sergeant Hayward, if you’d be so kind as to pass those over?”

= 18 =

MARGO TOOK A seat in the vast Li

She gazed at the image of Man, dressed in frock coat, top hat, and walking stick. It was a marvelous monument to the early Darwinian view of evolution: the steady upward march from simple to complex, with Man the crowning glory. Margo knew that the modern view was very different. Evolution was proving to be a more random, haphazard affair, full of dead ends and bizarre twists. Dr. Frock—sitting in his wheelchair in the aisle next to her—had made major contributions to this understanding with his theory of fractal evolution. Now, evolutionary biologists no longer considered man the apotheosis of evolution, but merely the dead end of a minor side branch of a generalist, less-evolved subgroup of Mammalia. And, she thought with an inward smile, the word Man itself had gone out of favor—a definite improvement.

She craned her neck to look back toward the narrow projectionist’s booth high up in the rear wall. The grand old facade had become a very modern lecture hall, retrofitted with concealed mechanical blackboards, retractable movie screens, and the latest in computerized multimedia equipment.

For the hundredth time that day, she wondered who had leaked the story of the Museum’s involvement. Whoever it was, they obviously didn’t know everything—they hadn’t mentioned the grotesque deformities on the second skeleton—but they knew enough. Her relief at not having to intervene on Smithback’s behalf was tempered by what she now knew about the nature of the teeth marks on the corpses. She was dreading the arrival of the Bitterman corpse, almost afraid of what corroborative evidence it might hold.

A loud humming sound brought Margo’s eyes forward again. At the front of the hall, the proscenium and wings were retracting as a massive screen descended toward the floor.

There were exactly seven tense people in the two-thousand-seat hall.

Beside her, Frock was humming a tune from a Wagner opera, his thick fingers tapping on the battered arms of his wheelchair. His face was expressionless, but Margo knew that inside he was fuming. Protocol held that Brambell, as Chief Medical Examiner, should do the presentation, but Frock was obviously rankled by the arrangement. Several rows nearer the front, Margo could see Lieutenant D’Agosta, sitting with an overweight police captain in a rumpled uniform and two bored-looking Homicide detectives.

By now the main lights were fully dimmed, and Margo could see only Brambell’s long bony face and bald pate, illuminated from below by the light on the lectern. In one hand he clutched an odd-looking plastic rapier that acted as wireless slide controller and light pointer. He looked positively cadaverous, she thought; Boris Karloff in a lab coat.