Blue Labyrinth

Constance’s gaze lingered on these last words for a long time. Then, thoughtfully, she turned over the page — and went quite still. There was a complex list of compounds, plants, extraction, and preparation steps, all under the label ET CONTRA ARCANUM:

The antidote formula.

Below the list was another handwritten message, but in another hand altogether and in much fresher ink — a beautiful, flowing script that Constance knew very well indeed.

My dearest Constance,

Knowing your i

Did you find that this journal made for rather disquieting reading? Of course you did. Imagine then, if you can, how much more painful I myself have found it — chronicling as it does my own father’s search to cure an affliction he himself bestowed upon my mother, Constance. (The fact that your name and hers are the same is not an accident, by the way.)

The greatest irony is that my father came so close to success. You see, according to my own analysis, his antidote should have worked. Except that he made a wee mistake. Do you suppose he was simply too blinded by grief and guilt to see his one small oversight? One grows curious.

Be careful.

I remain, Constance,

Your devoted, etc.

Dr. Enoch Leng

53

Vincent D’Agosta sat back in his chair and stared morosely at his computer screen. It was after six. He had canceled a date with Laura at the Korean place around the corner and he was determined not to let up until he’d done all he could. So he sat, staring mulishly at the screen as if trying to force it to yield up something useful.

He’d spent over an hour digging into NYPD files and elsewhere, looking for information on John Barbeaux and Red Mountain Industries, and had come up with precisely squat. NYPD had no files on the man. An online search yielded little more. After a brief but distinguished career in the Marine Corps, Barbeaux — who came from money — had founded Red Mountain as a military consulting company. The firm had grown into one of the country’s largest private security contracting organizations. Barbeaux had been born in Charleston; he was sixty-one years old and a widower; his only son had died of an unknown illness not two years before. Beyond that, D’Agosta had learned nothing. Red Mountain was notoriously secretive; its own website gave him little to go on. But secretiveness wasn’t a crime. There were also online rumors of the kind that swirled around many military contractors. A few lone voices, crying in the digital wilderness, linked the company to various South American and African coups, mercenary actions, and shadow military ops — but these were the same types of people who claimed Elvis was still alive and living on the International Space Station. With a sigh, D’Agosta reached out to turn off the screen.

Then he remembered something. About six months back, a program had been put in place — spearheaded by a police consultant, formerly of the NSA — to digitize all NYPD documents and run them through OCR software. The idea had been to ultimately cross-link every scrap of information in the department’s files, with the goal of looking for patterns that might help solve any number of “cold” cases. But, as with so many other initiatives, this one had gone off the rails. There were cost overruns, the consultant had been fired, and the project was limping along with no completion date in sight.

D’Agosta stared at the computer screen. The team was supposed to start with the newest documents logged into the system and then work backward chronologically through the older ones. But with the size of the team slashed, and the volume of new material that came in every day, the word was they were basically treading water. No one used the database — it was a mess.

Still, a search would take only a moment. Luckily, Barbeaux was not a common name.

He logged back into the departmental network, moused his way through a series of menus, and accessed the project’s home page. A spartan-looking screen appeared:

New York Police Department I.D.A.R.S.

Integrated Data Analysis and Retrieval System

** NOTE: Beta testing only **

Below was a text box. D’Agosta clicked on it to make it active, typed in “Barbeaux,” then clicked on the ENTER button beside it.

To his surprise, he got a hit:

Accession record 135823_R

Subject: Barbeaux, John

Format: JPG (lossy)

Metadata: available

“I’ll be damned,” he murmured.

There was an icon of a document next to the text. D’Agosta clicked on it, and the scan of an official document appeared on the screen. It was a memo from the Albany police, sent — as a departmental courtesy — to the NYPD about six months back. It described rumors, from “u

D’Agosta frowned. Why hadn’t he discovered this factoid through normal cha

He clicked on the screen and examined the attached metadata. It showed that the physical copy of the memo had been filed in the “Barbecci, Albert” folder of the NYPD’s archives. The record header showed that the person who had filed it had been Sergeant Loomis Slade.

With a few more mouse clicks, D’Agosta opened up the file on Albert Barbecci. Barbecci had been a small-time mobster who had died seven years ago.

Barbeaux. Barbecci. Misfiled. Sloppy work. D’Agosta shook his head. That sort of sloppiness didn’t seem like Slade. Then he picked up his phone, consulted a directory, dialed a number.

“Slade,” came the atonal voice on the other end of the line.

“Sergeant? This is Vincent D’Agosta.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

“I’ve just come across a document on a man named Barbeaux. Heard of him?”

“No.”

“You should have. You filed the document yourself — in the wrong folder. Put it under Barbecci.”

A pause. “Oh. That. Albany, right? Stupid of me — sorry.”

“I was wondering how you happened to be in possession of that memo.”

“Angler gave it to me to file. As I recall, it was Albany’s case, not ours, and it didn’t check out.”

“Any idea why it was sent to Angler in the first place? Did he request it?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. I’ve got no idea.”

“It’s all right, I’ll ask him myself. Is he around?”

“No. He took a few days off to visit some relatives upstate.”

“All right, I’ll check in with him later.”

“Take care, Lieutenant.” There was a click as Slade hung up.

54

Read down the list of ingredients,” Margo said to Constance. “We’ll take them one by one.”

“Aqua vitae,” Constance said. She was seated in the library of the Riverside Drive mansion, the old journal in her lap. It was just past eleven in the morning — at Constance’s urgent summons, Margo had ducked out of work as quickly as possible. Constance’s graceful hands were trembling slightly with agitation, her face flushed. But her expression was under rigid control.

Margo nodded. “That’s an old-fashioned name for an aqueous solution of ethanol. Vodka will suffice.” She jotted a notation in a small notebook.

Constance turned back to the journal. “Next is laudanum.”

“Tincture of opium. Still available by prescription in the United States.” Margo made another notation, squinting as she did so — although it was still morning, the library windows were shuttered, and the light was dim. “We’ll get Dr. Stone to write us out a prescription.”