body draped in a black sheet, being wheeled by two burly attendants. D'Agosta could see an ambulance pulling into the porte cochere, with no siren or flashing lights to indicate any hurry.
'Good morning, Mr. Pendergast!' Dr. Ostrom, Great-Aunt Cornelia's attending physician, appeared in the foyer and hastened over, his hand extended, a look of surprise and consternation blooming on his face. 'This is... well, I was just about to telephone you. Please come with me.'
They followed the doctor down the once-elegant hallway, somewhat reduced now to institutional austerity. 'I have some unfortunate news,' he said as they walked along. 'Your great-aunt passed away not thirty minutes ago.'
Pendergast stopped. He let out a slow breath, and his shoulders slumped visibly. D'Agosta realized with a shudder that the body they had seen was probably hers.
'Natural causes?' Pendergast asked in a low monotone.
'More or less. The fact is, she'd been increasingly anxious and delusional these past few days.'
Pendergast seemed to consider this a moment. 'Any delusions in particular?'
'Nothing worth repeating, the usual family themes.'
'Nevertheless, I should like to hear about them.'
Ostrom seemed reluctant to proceed. 'She believed... believed that a fellow named, ah, Ambergris was coming to Mount Mercy to exact revenge on her for an atrocity she claims to have committed years ago.'
Once again, they resumed walking down the corridor. 'Did she go into any detail on this atrocity?' Pendergast asked.
'It was all quite fantastical. Something about punishing some child for swearing by...' A second hesitation. 'Well, by splitting his tongue with a razor.'
An ambiguous head movement from Pendergast. D'Agosta felt his own tongue curling at the thought.
'At any rate,' Ostrom continued, 'she became violent--more violent, that is, than usual--and had to be completely restrained. And medicated. At the time of this alleged appointment with Ambergris, she had a series of seizures and passed away abruptly. Ah, here we are.'
He entered a small room, windowless and sparely furnished with antique, unframed paintings and various soft knickknacks--nothing, D'Agosta noted, that could be fashioned into a weapon or cause harm. Even the stretchers had been removed from the canvases, the paintings hung on the wall with kite string. As D'Agosta looked around at the bed, the table, silk flowers in a basket, a peculiar butterfly-shaped stain on the wall, it all seemed so forlorn. He suddenly felt sorry for the homicidal old lady.
'There is the question of the disposition of the personal effects,' the doctor went on. 'I understand these paintings are quite valuable.'
'They are,' said Pendergast. 'Send them over to the nineteenth-century painting department at Christie's for public auction, and consider the proceeds a donation to your good work.'
'That's very generous of you, Mr. Pendergast. Would you care to order an autopsy? When a patient dies in custody, you have the legal right--'
Pendergast interrupted him with a brusque wave of his hand. 'That won't be necessary.'
'And the funeral arrangements--?'
'There will be no funeral. The family attorney, Mr. Ogilby, will be in touch with you about disposition of the remains.'
'Very well.'
Pendergast looked around the room for a moment, as if committing its details to memory. Then he turned to D'Agosta. His expression was neutral, but his eyes spoke of sorrow, even desolation.
'Vincent,' he said. 'We have a plane to catch.'
10
THE SMILING, GAP-TOOTHED MAN AT THE DIRT airstrip had called the vehicle a Land Rover. That description, D'Agosta thought as he hung on for dear life, was more than charitable. Whatever it might have been, now it barely deserved to be called an automobile. It had no windows, no roof, no radio, and no seat belts. The hood was fixed to the grille by a tangle of baling wire. He could see the dirt road below through giant rust holes in the chassis.
At the wheel, Pendergast--attired in khaki shirt and pants, and wearing a Tilley safari hat--swerved around a massive pothole in the road, only to hit a smaller one. D'Agosta rose several inches out of his seat at the impact. He gritted his teeth and took a fresh hold on the roll bar.
Pendergast slowed just slightly as they came to a village--yet another sorry-looking collection of huts built of sticks and dried mud, baking in the noonday sun. There was no electricity, and a single communal well stood in the middle of the lone crossroads. Pigs, chickens, and children roamed aimlessly.
'And I thought the South Bronx was bad,' D'Agosta muttered more to himself than to Pendergast.
'Kingazu Camp is ten miles ahead,' was Pendergast's reply as he stepped on the accelerator.
They hit another pothole and D'Agosta was again thrown in the air, coming down hard on his tailbone. Both arms were smarting from the inoculations, and his head hurt from the sun and vibration. About the only painless thing he'd endured in the past thirty-six hours was the phone call to his boss, Glen Singleton. The captain had approved his leave of absence with barely a question. It was almost as if he was relieved to see D'Agosta go.
Half an hour brought them to Kingazu Camp. As Pendergast maneuvered the vehicle into a makeshift lot beneath a grove of sausage trees, D'Agosta took in the trim lines of the photographic safari camp: the immaculate reed-and-thatch huts, the large canvas structures labeled DINING TENT and BAR, the wooden walkways linking
