Cemetery Dance

The hideous figure appeared on top of a skeleton, rearing out of the rend in the plastic. It scuttled forward, leaping from one skeleton to the next, and Nora realized that despite its shambling movements it was more agile than she had realized. All she had accomplished by climbing atop the skeletons was to give it an advantage.

Slashing another hole in the plastic beneath her, she climbed back down, then dropped to the floor, crawling as fast as she could toward the rear of the vault. Behind, she could hear Fearing thrashing his way after her, the horrifying sucking sounds growing louder.

Suddenly she broke free of the mass of bones. There, no more than ten feet ahead of her, was the door: heavy and old — fashioned, without a security keypad. She ran for it, grasped the handle.

Locked.

With a sob of dismay she turned, setting her back against the door and clutching the sliver of glass, ready to make a last stand.

The skeletons swayed and creaked on their chains, the agitated curtains of plastic restlessly scraping the ground. She waited, preparing herself as best she could for the final struggle.

A minute went by, then another. Fearing did not appear. Gradually, the rustling and swaying of the skeletons settled down. Silence returned to the storage room.

She took one shuddering breath after another. Had he broken off the chase? Had he gone?

From the far side of the storage room, she heard the creak of a door, shuffling footsteps, and then silence.

No, no. He hadn't gone.

'Who's in here?' a voice rang out, quavering slightly with ill — suppressed anxiety. 'Show yourself!'

It was a night guard. Nora almost sobbed with relief. Fearing must have heard approaching footsteps and been frightened off. But she held her breath. She couldn't reveal herself now; not while her DNA analysis was in process.

'Anybody here?' the guard called out, clearly reluctant to advance into that forest of whale skeletons. The feeble beam of a light played about the dimly lit room.

'Last call, I'm locking the door.'

Nora didn't care. As a curator, she had the security code to the front door.

'All right, you asked for it.' A shuffling, the lights went out, and then the slamming of a door.

Slowly, Nora got her breathing under control. She dropped to her knees and peered forward in the dim light trickling in from the small window set into the door.

Was he, like her, still in the room? Was he waiting, ready to ambush? What did he want — to finish the job he'd failed to finish in the apartment?

Dropping to her hands and knees, she crawled under the now — still plastic, moving slowly, as quietly as possible, heading for the front door. Every few minutes, she stopped to peer around and listen. But there were no sounds, no shadows — just the great hanging whale bones in their shrouds.

As she reached the middle of the skeletons, she paused in her journey. She could see the faint glimmer of a scattering of broken glass. The rest of her makeshift weapon, broken to pieces. In the gloom, she made out a faint dark streak along the glistening edge of one large shard. So shehad struck Fearing with the glass — and cut him. That was blood…his blood.

She drew in a breath, then another, trying to think as clearly as possible. Then, with shaking fingers, she withdrew one of the spare reaction tubes she'd shoved into her pocket. Carefully breaking the sterile seal, she picked up the glass, dipped it into the liquid, and resealed the tube. Pendergast had already given her DNA samples from Fearing's mother, and mother — son mitochondrial DNA were always identical. Now she could test his DNA and compare it directly with the unknown DNA recovered from the crime scene.

She slipped the tube back in her pocket and made her way — quietly and carefully — to the door. It responded to the code and opened. She closed and locked it quickly behind her, then walked on shaky legs down the corridor and back to the PCR lab. There was no sign of Fearing. Entering the code into the keypad, she slipped into the lab, shut the door behind her, and turned off the overhead light. She'd finish her work by the glow of the instrumentation.

The thermal cycler was halfway done with its pass. Her heart still thumping, Nora racked the tube with her attacker's blood next to the others, ready for the next run.

By tomorrow night, she would know for sure whether or not it was really Fearing who had killed her husband — and tried to kill her twice.

Chapter 18

D'Agosta entered the waiting room for the morgue annex, careful to breathe through his mouth. Pendergast followed, taking in the room with a quick glance, then slipping cat — like into one of the ugly plastic chairs that lined the wall, flanking a table heaped with dog — eared magazines. The agent picked up the one with the lightest wear, flipped through the pages, then began to read.

D'Agosta made a circuit of the room, then another. The New York City morgue was a place full of horrible memories for him, and he knew he was about to undergo an experience that would lodge another in his head — perhaps the worst one of all. Pendergast's preternatural coolness irritated him. How could he remain so nonchalant? He glanced over and saw the agent was reading Mademoiselle with evident interest.

'What are you reading that for?' D'Agosta asked irritably.

'There is an instructive article on bad first dates. It reminds me of a case I once had: a particularly untoward first date that ended in murder — suicide.' Pendergast shook his head at the memory and continued reading.

D'Agosta hugged himself, then took yet another turn around the room.

'Vincent, do sit down. Use your time constructively.'

'I hate this place. I hate the smell of it. I hate the look of it.'

'I quite sympathize. The intimations of mortality here are — shall we say — hard to ignore? Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.'

The pages rustled as Pendergast read on. A few dreadful minutes passed before the door to the morgue finally opened. One of the pathologists, Beckstein, stood there.Thank God, thought D'Agosta: they had pulled Beckstein for the autopsy. He was one of the best and — surprise — an almost normal human being.

Beckstein peeled off his gloves and mask, dropped them in a bin. 'Lieutenant. Agent Pendergast.' He nodded his greetings, not offering his hand. Shaking hands just wasn't done in the morgue. 'I'm at your disposal.'

'Dr. Beckstein,' said D'Agosta, taking the lead, 'thanks for taking the time to see us.'

'My pleasure.'

'Give us a rundown, light on the jargon, please.'

'Certainly. Would you like to observe the cadaver? The prosector is still working on it. It sometimes helps to see—'

'No thank you,' said D'Agosta decisively.

He felt Pendergast's gaze on him.

Screw it, he thought determinedly.

'As you wish. The cadaver showed fourteen full or partial knife wounds, pre — mortem, some to the hands and arms, several in the lower back, and a final one, also with a posterior entry, that passed through the heart. I would be glad to provide you with a diagram—'

'Not necessary. Any postmortem wounds?'

'None. Death was almost immediate after the final, fatal blow to the heart. The knife entered horizontally, between the second and third posterior rib, at a downward angle of eighty degrees from the vertical, penetrating the left atrium, the pulmonary artery, and splitting the conus arteriosus at the top of the right ventricle, causing massive exsanguination.'

'I get the picture.'

'Right.' 'Would you say that the killer did what he had to do to kill the victim, and no more?'

'That statement is consistent with the facts, yes.'