Kline reached his hand into his pocket, pulled out the device, laid it on his desk.
D'Agosta glanced around. One of the sergeants was taking paintings off the cherrywood walls, carefully scrutinizing their backs, then placing them on the floor. Another was plucking books off the shelves, holding them by the spines and shaking them, then dropping them onto growing piles. The third was pulling the expensive rugs from the floor, searching underneath, then leaving them bunched up in a corner. Watching, D'Agosta reflected how convenient it was that no law required you to clean up after a search.
From other offices down the hallway, he could hear drawers slamming, dragging noises, crying, voices raised in protest. The sergeant had finished with the rugs and was starting in on the file cabinets, opening them, removing manila folders, leafing through them, then dumping the papers onto the floor. The sergeant who'd examined the oil paintings was now dismantling the PCs on the desk. 'I need those for my business,' Kline said.
'They're mine now. Hope you backed everything up.' This reminded D'Agosta of something — something Pendergast had recommended. 'Would you mind loosening your tie?' he asked.
Kline frowned. 'What?'
'Indulge me, please.'
Kline hesitated. Then, slowly, he reached up and tugged down his tie.
'Now unbutton the top button of your shirt and spread the collar.'
'What are you up to, D'Agosta?' Kline asked, doing as instructed.
D'Agosta peered at the scrawny neck. 'That cord — draw it out, please.'
Even more slowly, Kline reached in and pulled out the cord. Sure enough: dangling from its end was a small flash drive.
'I'll take that, please.'
'It's encrypted,' Kline said.
'I'll take it anyway.'
Kline stared. 'You'll regret this, Lieutenant.'
'You'll get it back.' And D'Agosta held out his hand. Kline raised it over his head and placed it on the desk beside the Black — Berry. His expression, his manner, betrayed nothing. The only sign of what might be going on inside his head was a faint rising of pink on his acne — scarred cheeks.
D'Agosta looked around. 'We'll need to take some of these African masks and statues, as well.'
'Why?'
'They may relate to certain, ah, exotic elements of the case.'
Kline began to speak, stopped, began again. 'They are extremely valuable works of art, Lieutenant.'
'We won't break anything.'
The sergeant had finished with the books and was now unscrewing ceiling ducts with a screwgun. D'Agosta stood up, walked to the closet, opened the door. Today Chauncy was absent. He glanced back at Kline. 'Do you have a safe?'
'In the far office.'
'Let's take a walk, shall we?'
The journey down the hallway took in half a dozen scenes of devastation. His team was disassembling monitors, searching cabinets with Maglites, pulling drawers out of desks. Kline's employees had assembled in the lobby, where an ever — growing mountain of paper stood beside the evidence boxes. Kline looked left and right with hooded eyes. The pinkish cast to his face had deepened somewhat. 'Vincent D'Agosta,' he said as they walked. 'Do your pals call you Vinnie?'
'Some of them do.'
'Vinnie, I believe we might have friends in common.'
'I don't think so.'
'Well, the person I'm referring to isn't exactly a friend as of yet. But I feel as though I know her. Laura Hayward.'
It took all the force of will D'Agosta could muster not to check his stride.
'You see, I've done quite a bit of looking into that girlfriend of yours — or ex — girlfriend, I should say. What's the matter, Viagra no longer working?'
D'Agosta kept his eyes locked straight ahead.
'Still, my sources say you two are close. Boy, does she have a great career. She could make commissioner someday, if she plays her cards right…'
At last, D'Agosta stopped. 'Let me tell you something, Mr. Kline. If you think you can threaten or intimidate Captain Hayward, you're sadly mistaken. She could crush you like a roach. And if, in her infinite mercy, she decides to spare you — rest assured that I won't. Now, if you'd show me to the safe, please?'
Chapter 21
Nora exited the subway at the 207th Street station. She walked to the north end of the platform, then climbed the stairs to street level, where she found a three — way confluence of streets: Broadway, Isham, and West 211th. This was a neighborhood she had never been in before, the northernmost tip of Manhattan, and she looked around curiously. The buildings reminded her of Harlem: prewar walkups, attractive and sturdily built. There were few brownstones or town houses: dollar stores, bodegas, and nail salons sat cheek — by — jowl with funky restaurants and whole — grain bakeries. Nearby, she knew, was Dyckman House: the last remaining Dutch Colonial farmhouse in Manhattan. It was a place she had always intended to visit with Bill some sunny weekend afternoon.
She pushed this thought from her mind. Checking the document she had printed earlier — a satellite view of the neighborhood, with the street names marked — she got her bearings and began making her way north and west, along Isham, climbing the rise toward Seaman Avenue and the setting sun.
She crossed broad, busy Seaman Avenue and continued down an asphalt path, tennis courts to her left and a large baseball diamond to her right. She paused. Ahead of her, across the fields, lay what appeared to be primeval forest. The map showed an extension of Indian Road passing through the northern end of Inwood Hill Park, which connected to a tight little unmarked neighborhood she assumed must be the Ville. The path was more direct and, she felt, perhaps more secure. It crossed the field and disappeared into a dark tangle of red oaks and tulip trees, their long shadows knitting together amid the rocky undergrowth. Their leaves glowed with autumnal glory, russet and yellow, with splashes of blood red, forming an almost impenetrable wall. She had heard this was the last wild forest in Manhattan, and it looked it.
Nora glanced at her watch: five thirty. Night was falling quickly and the air had taken on an almost frosty chill. She took a step forward, then stopped again, glancing uncertainly into the gloomy forest. She had never been in Inwood Hill Park before — in fact, she didn't know anybody who had — and she had no idea how safe it was after dark. Hadn't a jogger been murdered in here a few years back…
Her jaw set in a hard line. She hadn't come all this way just to turn back now. There was still plenty of light left. Shaking her head impatiently, she started forward, leaning toward the wall of trees almost as if challenging them to stop her.
The path curved gently to the right, running past a small grassy field before diving between the first massive trunks. Nora walked on quickly, feeling the shadow of the heavy boughs fall over her. The path split, then split again, the tarmac webbed with grassy cracks, plastered with fallen leaves, the bushes on either side crowding into the path. She passed an occasional gas lamp, once clearly elegant but now rusted and long disused. The oaks and tulip trees — some with trunks as massive as five feet across — were punctuated by dogwoods and ginkgos. Here and there, a rocky defile thrust up from the forest floor like the edge of a knife.
Soon the paved path gave way to a dirt track that wound its way sinuously among the trunks, climbing all the while. Through a gap in the trees, Nora could make out a steep slope plunging to a tidal basin, thick with mud and populated by noisy seabirds. Their cries followed her faintly as she continued climbing the winding path, her feet kicking aside drifts of fallen leaves.
After about fifteen minutes, she stopped at the foot of an ancient retaining wall, crumbling into ruin. The roar of Manhattan had receded to the sound of wind sighing in trees. The sun had fallen behind the rise of land, and an
