Cemetery Dance

'The weapon?'

'A blade ten inches long, two inches in width, very stiff, probably a high — quality kitchen knife or a scuba knife.'

D'Agosta nodded. 'Anything else?'

'Blood toxicology showed a blood alcohol level within legal limits. No drugs or other foreign substances. The contents of the stomach—'

'I don't need to know that.'

Beckstein hesitated, and D'Agosta saw something in his eyes. Uncertainty, unease.

'Yeah?' he urged. 'Something else?'

'Yes. I haven't written the report yet, but there was one thing, quite strange, that was missed by the forensic team.'

'Go on.'

The pathologist hesitated again. 'I'd like to show it to you. We haven't moved it — yet.'

D'Agosta swallowed. 'What was it?'

'Please, just let me show it to you. I can't… well, I can't very well describe it.'

'Of course,' said Pendergast, stepping forward. 'Vincent, if you'd prefer to wait here—'

D'Agosta felt his jaw set. 'I'm coming.'

They followed the technician through the set of double stainless — steel doors into the green light of a large tiled room. They donned masks, gloves, and scrubs from nearby bins, then continued on, passing into one of the autopsy suites.

Immediately D'Agosta saw the prosector hunched over the cadaver, the whine of the Stryker saw in his hands like an angry mosquito. A diener lounged nearby, eating a bagel with lox. A second dissecting table was covered with various tagged organs. D'Agosta swallowed again, harder.

'Hey,' the diener said to Beckstein. 'You're just in time. We were about to run the gut.'

A hard stare from Beckstein silenced the man. 'Sorry. Didn't know you had guests.' He smirked, rubbery lips crunching down on his breakfast. The room smelled of formalin, fish, and feces.

Beckstein turned to the prosector. 'John, I'd like to show Lieutenant D'Agosta and Special Agent Pendergast the, ah, item we found.'

'No problem.' The saw powered down and the prosector stepped away. With huge reluctance, D'Agosta stepped slowly forward, then looked down at the cadaver.

It was worse than he had ever imagined it could be. Worse even than his worst nightmares. Bill Smithback: naked, dead, opened. His scalp was peeled back, the brown hair all bunched up at the base, bloody skull exposed, fresh saw marks running in a semicircle around the cranium. Body cavity yawning, ribs spread, organs removed.

He bowed his head and closed his eyes.

'John, would you mind fixing a spreader in the mouth?'

'Not at all.'

D'Agosta kept his eyes closed.

'There.'

He opened his eyes. The mouth had been forced open with a piece of stainless steel. Beckstein adjusted the overhead light to illuminate the interior. Hooked into Smithback's tongue was a fish — hook, tied with feathers, like a dry fly. Against his will, D'Agosta bent forward for a closer examination. The hook had a knotted head of light — colored twine, on which had been painted a tiny, grinning skull. A miniature pouch, like a tiny pill, was attached to the hook's neck.

D'Agosta glanced over at Pendergast. The agent was staring down at the open mouth, his silvery eyes full of rare intensity. And it seemed to D'Agosta there was more than intensity in that look. There was regret, disbelief, sorrow — and uncertainty. Pendergast's shoulders slumped visibly. It was as if the agent had been hoping against hope he'd been wrong about something… only to learn with huge dismay that, in fact, he had been all too right.

The silence lasted minutes. Finally, D'Agosta turned to Beckstein. He suddenly felt very old and tired. 'I want this photographed and tested. Remove it with the tongue — leave it embedded. I want forensics to analyze that thing, open up the tiny pouch, and report its contents to me.'

The diener peered over D'Agosta's shoulder, chewing his bagel. 'Looks like we got a real psychopath running around. Think what thePost would do with this one!' A loud crunch, followed by the sounds of mastication.

D'Agosta turned to him. 'If the Post finds out,' he growled, 'I'll personally see to it you spend the rest of your life toasting bagels instead of eating them.'

'Hey, sorry, man. Touchy, touchy.' The diener backed away.

Pendergast's eyes flickered up at D'Agosta. He straightened up and stepped away from the corpse. 'Vincent, it occurs to me that I haven't paid a visit to my dear aunt Cornelia in ages. Would you care to accompany me?'

Chapter 19

Nora turned the keyin the deadbolt and pushed her apartment door open. It was two in the afternoon, and the low — angle sunlight flooded through the blinds and illuminated — pitilessly — every last fragment of her life with Bill. Books, paintings, objets d'art, even carelessly thrown magazines: each brought back a flood of unwanted, painful memories. Double — locking the front door, she walked, eyes down, through the living room and into the bedroom.

Her work on the PCR machine was complete. The DNA samples supplied by Pendergast had each been multiplied by millions, and she had stashed the test tubes in the rear of the lab refrigerator where nobody would notice them. She had then put in a respectable day in the anthropology lab. No one minded that she'd left early. Tonight, at one, she would return for the second and final stage: the gel electrophoresis test. In the meantime, she desperately needed sleep.

Dropping her bag unceremoniously on the floor, she threw herself on the bed and covered her head with pillows. And yet, though she lay motionless, sleep refused to come. An hour went by, then two, and finally she gave up. She might as well have stayed at the museum. Perhaps she should return there now.

Nora glanced over at her answering machine: twenty — two messages. Additional expressions of sympathy, no doubt. She simply could not bear to hear any more. With a sigh, she pressed the replay button, deleting each message as soon as she heard a note of concern sound in the caller's voice.

The seventh message was different. It was from the West Sider reporter.

'Dr. Kelly? It's Caitlyn Kidd. Listen, I was just wondering if you'd found out anything more about those animal stories Bill was working on. I read the ones he published. They're very hard hitting. I was curious if he'd found out anything new that he hadn't had time to publish — or maybe that someone didn'twant him to publish. Call me when you get the chance.'

As the next message started, Nora pressed the stop button. She stared thoughtfully at the machine a moment. Then she rose from the bed, walked back into the living room, sat down at the desk, and booted up her laptop. She didn't know Caitlyn Kidd, didn't especially trust Caitlyn Kidd. But she'd work with the devil himself if he could help her track down the people behind Bill's death.

She stared at the screen, took a deep breath. Then — quickly, before she could reconsider — she logged into her husband's private account at theNew York Times. The password was accepted: the account had not yet been deactivated. A minute later, she was staring at an index of articles he'd written over the last year. Sorting them chronologically, she moused back several months, then began scrolling forward through them, examining the titles. It was remarkable how many sounded unfamiliar, and now she bitterly regretted not being more involved in his work.

The first topical story on animal sacrifice had been published about three months back. It was primarily a background piece on how, far from being a thing of the distant past, animal sacrifice was still being actively — if secretly — practiced in the city. She continued moving forward. There were several other articles: an interview with