Cemetery Dance

When next he looked up, another two hours had passed. And this time it was Laura Hayward who was standing in the doorway. Seeing him, she came over quickly, kissed him lightly, took the chair beside him.

'You need to eat something,' she said. 'You can't just sit here forever.'

'Not hungry,' he replied.

She bent closer. 'Vinnie, I don't like seeing you like this. When Pendergast called me, told me you'd gone into the basement of the Ville, I…' She paused, took his hand. 'I suddenly realized I simply couldn't face losing you for good. Listen. You just can't keep blaming yourself.'

'I was too pissed off. If I'd kept my anger under control, he wouldn't have been shot. That's the truth and you know it.'

'No, I don't know it. Who knows what might have happened if things went a different way? It's the uncertainty of law enforcement — we all live with it. And anyway, you heard the doctors: the crisis has passed. Pendergast lost a lot of blood, but he's going to pull through.'

There was a faint movement from the bed. Both D'Agosta and Hayward looked over. Agent Pendergast was regarding them through half — closed eyes. He was paler than D'Agosta had ever seen him — as pale as death — and his limbs, always slender, had assumed an almost spectral gauntness.

The FBI agent simply looked back at them for a moment, the heavy — lidded silver eyes unblinking. For a dreadful moment, D'Agosta feared he was dead. But then Pendergast's lips moved. The two bent closer in order to hear.

'I'm glad to see you both looking well,' he said.

'You, too,' D'Agosta replied, trying to smile. 'How are you?'

'I've been lying here thinking a great deal, as well as enjoying your solicitude. What happened to your arm, Vincent?'

'Broken ulna. No big deal.'

Pendergast's eyes fluttered closed. After a moment, they opened once again.

'What was in it?' he asked.

'In what?' D'Agosta said.

'Esteban's safe.'

'An old will and a deed.'

'Ah,' Pendergast whispered. 'The last will and testament of Elijah Esteban?'

D'Agosta started. 'How'd you know?'

'I found Elijah Esteban's tomb in the basement of the Ville. It had been broken into just minutes earlier and looted — no doubt of that very will and deed. A property deed, I expect?'

'Right. To a twenty — acre farm,' said D'Agosta.

A slow nod. 'A farm that, I assume, is a farm no longer.'

'You got it. Now twenty acres of prime Manhattan real estate, stretching between Times Square and Madison Avenue, taking in much of the midforties. The will was written in such a way that Esteban would have had clear title as the only heir.'

'Naturally, he wouldn't have tried to actually take over the land. He would have used the document as the basis of an extremely lucrative lawsuit — ending in a multibillion — dollar settlement, I have no doubt. Worth killing for, Vincent?'

'Maybe for some people.'

Pendergast eased his arms above the covers, arranged them with minute care, his white fingers touching what D'Agosta noticed was unusually fine linen. No doubt Proctor was to thank for that. 'Where the Ville is now, there was an earlier religious community — of a very different kind,' he said. 'Wren told me its original founder became a gentleman farmer in southern Manhattan after the community failed. That farmer and Elijah Esteban must be one and the same. On his death, he was buried in the basement of the settlement he founded — along, it seems, with the fateful documents: the deed and will.'

'Makes sense,' said D'Agosta. 'So how did Alexander Esteban learn about it?'

'After he retired from Hollywood, it seems he acquired a passion for studying his family tree. He employed a researcher to paw through old records for him. It was the researcher who made the discovery — and who was murdered for his pains. His is the second, unidentified body in the tunnel, by the way.'

'We found it,' said Hayward.

'A very handy corpse, too. It was tossed off the bridge into the Harlem River and misidentified as Fearing by our very busy friend, Wayne Heffler, with the help of the so — called sister.'

'So Colin Fearing was alive,' said D'Agosta. 'When he killed Smithback, I mean.'

A nod. 'Remarkable what one can do with theatrical makeup. Esteban was a film director par excellence.'

'Perhaps we should let Agent Pendergast rest,' Hayward said.

Pendergast waved one hand feebly. 'Nonsense, Captain. Talking helps clear my mind.'

'I still don't get it,' said D'Agosta.

'Straightforward, once you've grasped the thread.' Pendergast closed his eyes, folded his pale hands on the coverlet. 'Esteban had learned of the existence, and location, of a document that would make him fabulously rich. Unfortunately, it was sealed in a tomb and locked in the basement of what was now the Ville des Zirondelles: a secretive cult deeply suspicious of outsiders. So secretive that only one hundred forty — four could ever be members; only when one died was a new one recruited. Impossible for Esteban to penetrate. So he tried to whip up public sentiment against the Ville, get the city to condemn the property, evict the squatters. That's why he joined Humans for Other Animals and enlisted Smithback to write stories about it for theTimes. '

'I'm seeing it now,' said D'Agosta. 'By itself that wasn't enough. So Esteban escalated — by murdering Smithback and pinning it on the Ville — and cooking up all that voodoo and zombii stuff.'

Pendergast gave the barest nod. 'He didn't get the Vodou quite right — for example, the tiny coffin in Fearing's empty crypt — which is why my friend Bertin was so stymied by it. A clue I regrettably missed. Ironic, since what the Ville practiced was not Vodou anyway, so much as their own strange and bizarre cult, transformed and twisted over decades of insularity.' He paused. 'He hired two accomplices. Colin Fearing — and Caitlyn Kidd.'

'Caitlyn Kidd?' D'Agosta repeated in disbelief. 'The reporter?'

'Correct. She was part of the plan. Esteban would have made a list of precise qualifications, then gone out to find the people who matched them exactly. I expect it happened something like this: Fearing was an out — of — work actor of disreputable background, badly in need of money. He lived in Smithback's building and was roughly his weight and height. A perfect choice for Esteban. Caitlyn Kidd was a rather unscrupulous reporter, eager to get ahead.' He glanced over at Hayward. 'You don't look surprised by this.'

Hayward hesitated just a moment before replying. 'I requested deep background checks on everyone involved with the case. Kidd's came back just a few hours ago. She's got a prison record — quite well hidden, it turns out — for fraud. She ran a confidence scam in which she extorted money from older men.'

D'Agosta looked at her in shock. Pendergast merely nodded. 'The criminal record is how Esteban found her, I imagine. In any case, he would pay her a great deal for her starring role. Esteban wrote a script for this little drama, in which Fearing faked his own death, using the researcher's corpse as a body. Caitlyn Kidd played the role of the sister who identified him, and the overly busy Dr. Heffler completed the picture. Once everybody thought Fearing was dead, Esteban simply heightened the illusion with makeup — he was a film producer, after all. And he had Fearing — playing himself, only now risen from the dead as a zombii — kill Smithback and attack Nora Kelly.'

D'Agosta shook his head ruefully. 'Seems almost obvious now that you point it out.'

'Recall how Fearing looked so deliberately into the security camera when he left Smithback's apartment building? How he made sure the neighbors got a good look at him? At the time it struck me as odd, but now it makes perfect sense. Having Fearing seen, and identified, was a critical element — perhapsthe critical element — of Esteban's plan.'

There was a longer silence. Pendergast at last opened his eyes. 'Then Esteban launched the next act in his screenplay. Caitlyn Kidd approached the grieving Nora, enlisting her into the effort to pin the murder on the Ville.