Blue Labyrinth

Which was why he’d decided to interview the man himself, in — he glanced at his watch — precisely one minute.

And precisely one minute later, the agent was ushered into his office. The man who did the ushering was Sergeant Loomis Slade, Angler’s aide-de-camp, personal assistant, and frequent sounding board. Angler took in the salient details of his visitor with a practiced glance: tall, lean, blond-white hair, pale-blue eyes. A black suit and a dark tie of severe pattern completed the ascetic picture. This was anything but your typical FBI agent. Then again, given his residences — an apartment in the Dakota, a veritable mansion on Riverside Drive where the body had been dumped — Angler decided he shouldn’t be surprised. He offered the agent a chair, then sat back down behind his desk. Sergeant Slade sat in a far corner, behind Pendergast.

“Agent Pendergast,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

The man in the black suit inclined his head.

“First of all, let me offer my condolences on your loss.”

The man did not reply. He did not look bereaved, exactly. In fact, he betrayed no expression at all. His face was a closed book.

Angler’s office was not like that of most lieutenants in the NYPD. Certainly, it had its share of case files and stacks of reports. But the walls displayed, instead of commendations and photo ops with brass, a dozen framed antique maps. Angler was an avid cartographic collector. Normally, visitors to the office were immediately drawn to the page from LeClerc’s French Atlas of 1631, or Plate 58 from Ogilby’s Brita

“I’d like to follow up on your initial statement, if you don’t mind. And I ought to say up front that I will have to ask some awkward and uncomfortable questions. I apologize in advance. Given your own law enforcement experience, I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“Naturally,” the agent replied in a mellifluous southern accent, but with something hard behind it, metallic.

“There are several aspects to this crime that, frankly, I find baffling. According to your statement, and that of your—” a glance at the report on his desk—“your ward, Ms. Greene, at approximately twenty minutes past nine last evening, there was a knock on the front door of your residence. When Ms. Greene answered it, she found your son, his body bound with thick ropes, on your doorstep. You ascertained he was dead and chased a black Town Car south on Riverside Drive while calling nine-one-one. Correct?”

Agent Pendergast nodded.

“What gave you the impression — initially, at least — that the murderer was in that car?”

“It was the only vehicle in motion at the time. There were no pedestrians in sight.”

“It didn’t occur to you that the perpetrator could have been hiding somewhere on your grounds and made good his escape by some other route?”

“The vehicle ran several lights, drove over a sidewalk and through a flower bed, entered the parkway on an exit ramp, and made an illegal U-turn. In other words, it gave a rather convincing impression of trying to elude pursuit.”

The dry, faintly ironic delivery of this statement irritated Angler.

Pendergast went on. “May I ask why the police helicopter was so dilatory?”

Angler was further a

“Not good enough.”

Seeking to regain control of the interview, Angler said, rather more sharply than he intended: “Getting back to the crime itself. Despite a careful canvassing of the vicinity, my detective squad has turned up no witnesses beyond those on the West Side Highway who saw the Town Car itself. There were no signs of violence, no drugs or alcohol in your son’s system; he died of a broken neck perhaps five hours before you found him — at least, that’s the preliminary assessment, pending the autopsy. According to Ms. Greene’s statement, it took her about fifteen seconds to answer the summons. So we have a murderer — or murderers — who takes your son’s life, binds him up — not necessarily in that order — props him against your front door while in a state of rigor mortis; rings your doorbell; gets back into the Town Car; and manages to get several blocks before you yourself could effect pursuit. How did he, or they, move so quickly?”

“The crime was flawlessly pla

“Well, perhaps, but could it also be that you were in shock — perfectly understandable, given the circumstances — and that you reacted less quickly than indicated in your statement?”

“No.”

Angler considered this terse answer. He glanced at Sergeant Slade — as usual, silent as a Buddha — and then back again at Pendergast. “Then we have the, ah, dramatic nature of the crime itself. Bound with ropes, planted at your front door — it displays certain hallmarks of a gangland-style killing. Which brings me to my main line of questioning, and again, excuse me if some of these are intrusive or offensive. Was your son involved in any mob activity?”

Agent Pendergast returned Angler’s gaze with that same featureless, unreadable expression. “I have no idea what my son was involved in. As I indicated in my statement, my son and I were estranged.”

Angler turned a page of the report. “The CSU, and my own detective squad, went over the crime scene with great care. The scene was remarkable for its lack of obvious evidence. There were no latents, either full or partial, save those of your son. No hair or fiber, again save that of your son. His clothes were brand new — and of the most common make — and on top of that, his deceased body had been carefully washed and dressed. We retrieved no bullet casings from the highway, as the shots must have been fired from within the vehicle. In short, the perps were familiar with crime scene investigation techniques and were exceptionally careful not to leave evidence. They knew exactly what they were doing. I’m curious, Agent Pendergast — speaking from a professional capacity, how would you account for such a thing?”

“Again, I would merely repeat that this was a meticulously pla

“The leaving of the body at your doorstep suggests the perpetrators were sending you a message. Any idea what that message might be?”

“I am unable to speculate.”

Unable to speculate. Angler looked at Agent Pendergast more searchingly. He’d interviewed plenty of parents who had been devastated by the loss of a child. It wasn’t uncommon for the sufferers to be numb, in shock. Their answers to his questions were often halting, disorganized, incomplete. But Pendergast wasn’t like that at all. He appeared to be in complete possession of his faculties. It was as if he did not want to cooperate, or had no interest in doing so.

“Let’s talk about the, ah, mystery of your son,” Angler said. “The only evidence he is, in fact, your son is your statement to that effect. He is in none of the law enforcement databases we’ve checked: not CODIS, not IAFIS, not NCIC. He has no record of birth, no driver’s license, no Social Security number, no passport, no educational record, and no entry visa into this country. There was nothing in his pockets. Pending the DNA check against our database, from all we’ve learned it appears your son, essentially, never existed. In your statement, you said he was born in Brazil and was not a U.S. citizen. But he’s not a Brazilian citizen, either, and that country has no record of him. The town you indicate he grew up in doesn’t seem to exist, at least officially. There’s no evidence of his exit from Brazil or entry into this country. How do you explain all this?”

Agent Pendergast slowly crossed one leg over the other. “I can’t. Again, as I mentioned in my statement, I only became aware of my son’s existence — or the fact that I had a son — some eighteen months ago.”