Blue Labyrinth

“Ah.” Pendergast rose again and began to make his way toward the door. Halfway across the room, he stopped.

“Ms. Green,” he said, turning to Margo. “What we’ve discussed here is of the most sensitive nature. I hope you won’t think it amiss if I ask you to promise not to divulge it to anyone else.”

“As I said, you can rely on me. You already asked us to practically swear an oath of secrecy tonight.”

Pendergast nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course.” And with a brief look at each of the three still arrayed around the table, he followed Mrs. Trask out of the room and shut the door behind him.

31

As they approached the town of Indio from Interstate 10 East, D’Agosta looked curiously out of the window of the State Department of Corrections vehicle. He’d been to California only once before, as a kid of nine, when his parents had taken him to visit Disneyland. He remembered only fleeting images of palm trees, sculptured pools, clean wide boulevards adorned with flower-filled planters, the Matterhorn, and Mickey Mouse. But this, the backside of the state, was a revelation. It was all brown and desiccated, hot as hell, with weird bushes, stunted cactus-like trees, and barren hills. How anyone could live in such a godforsaken desert was beyond him.

Beside him in the rear of the car, Pendergast shifted.

“You’ve already tried to get the guy to talk once — got any fresh ideas?” D’Agosta asked.

“I learned something, ah, “fresh” in the telephone call I received last night. It was from the senior corrections officer at the Indio jail. It seems our friend in custody has begun to talk.”

“No kidding.” D’Agosta looked back out the window. Typical of Pendergast to withhold this particular nugget of information until the last minute. Or was it? On the red-eye flight out he had seemed silent and irritable, which D’Agosta had assumed was due to lack of sleep.

The California State Holding Facility at Indio was a long, low, drab-looking affair that — had it not been for the guard towers and the three rings of walls topped with razor wire — would have looked like a series of Costcos strung together. A few sad clumps of palm trees stood outside the wire, limp in the relentless sun. They entered the main gate, were buzzed through a series of security checkpoints, and finally arrived at the official entrance. There they got out of the car. D’Agosta blinked in the sunlight. He had been up for seven hours already, and the fact that it was only nine AM California time was more than a little disorienting.

A narrowly built, dark-haired man was waiting for them just inside. As Pendergast approached, the man extended his hand. “Agent Pendergast. Nice to see you again.”

“Mr. Spandau. Thank you for contacting me so promptly.” Pendergast turned to make the introductions. “John Spandau, senior corrections officer. This is Detective Lieutenant D’Agosta of the NYPD.”

“Lieutenant.” Spandau shook D’Agosta’s hand in turn and they started down the corridor.

“As I mentioned on the phone last night,” Pendergast told Spandau, “the prisoner is also the suspect in a recent murder in New York that the lieutenant is investigating.” They paused to pass through another security checkpoint. “The lieutenant would like to question him first.”

“Very well. I told you he was talking, but he isn’t making much sense,” said Spandau.

“Anything else of note?”

“He’s gotten restless. Pacing his cell all night. Not eating.”

D’Agosta was ushered into a typical interrogation room. Pendergast and Spandau left to take up positions in an adjoining space that overlooked the room through one-way glass.

D’Agosta waited, standing. A few minutes later, the security bolt was drawn back and the door opened. Two security guards entered, a man in a prison jumpsuit between them. He had a cast on one wrist. D’Agosta waited as the guards sat him down in the lone chair on the table’s far side, then took up positions beside the door.

He turned his attention to the man across the table. He was well built, and of course the face was familiar. This man did not look particularly like a criminal, but that didn’t surprise D’Agosta: the man had had the stones to pose as a scientist, and had done so convincingly enough to fool Marsala. That took both intelligence and self-confidence. But the look was oddly offset by the man’s facial expression. The charismatic features so recognizable from Bonomo’s reconstruction seemed to be compromised by some kind of mysterious i

“I’m Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta, NYPD homicide,” D’Agosta began, pulling out his notebook and placing it before him. The man had already been Mirandized, so he didn’t need to go through all that. “This interview is being recorded. Would you mind stating your name, for the record?”

The man said nothing, merely rocking subtly back and forth. His eyes were looking around with more purpose now, the brows furrowed, as if searching for something forgotten — or, perhaps, lost.

“Excuse me, hello?” D’Agosta tried to get his attention.

The man’s eyes finally settled on him.

“I’d like to ask you some questions about a homicide that took place two weeks ago in the New York Museum of Natural History.”

The man looked at him placidly, then his eyes drifted away.

“When were you last in New York?”

“The lilies,” the man replied. His voice was surprisingly high and musical for such a large man.

“What lilies?”

“The lilies,” the man said in a tone of wistfulness combined with pained reverie.

“What about the lilies?”

“The lilies,” the man said, his eyes snapping back to D’Agosta, startling him.

This was nuts. “Does the name Jonathan Waldron ring a bell?”

“The smell,” the man said, the wistful tone in his voice increasing. “That lovely smell, the scent of lilies. It’s gone. Now… it smells terrible. Awful.”

D’Agosta stared at the man. Was he faking? “We know you stole the identity of Professor Jonathan Waldron to gain access to a skeleton in the Museum of Natural History. You worked with a technician in the Osteology Department of the Museum by the name of Victor Marsala.”

The man went abruptly silent.

D’Agosta leaned forward, clasped his hands together. “I’m going to get to the point. I think you killed Victor Marsala.”

The rocking stopped. The man’s eyes drifted away from D’Agosta.

“In fact, I know you killed him. And now that we’ve got your DNA, we’re going to look for a match with DNA from the crime scene. And we’re going to find it.”

Silence.

“What’d you do with the leg bone you stole?”

Silence.

“You know what I think? I think you’d better get yourself an attorney, pronto.”

The man had gone still as a statue. D’Agosta took a deep breath.

“Listen,” he said, increasing the menacing tone. “You’re being held here because you assaulted a federal officer. That’s bad enough. But I’m here because the NYPD are going to extradite you to the fine Empire State for murder one. We’ve got eyewitnesses. We’ve got you on video. If you don’t start cooperating, you’re going to be so far up shit creek that not even Lewis and Clark could paddle you back. Last chance.”

The man was now looking around the room as if he’d forgotten D’Agosta was even there.

A great weariness settled over D’Agosta. He hated interrogations like this, with the repeated questions and mulish suspects — and this guy seemed loony, to boot. He was sure they had their man — they were just going to have to build the case without a confession.