Reliquary

“If you’ll pardon my saying so, Chief Horlocker, that’s a highly inaccurate rendition of what happened.” Pendergast’s mellifluous voice rang clearly across the hall.

Margo watched Horlocker look toward the voice. “Who is this?” he demanded.

D’Agosta began to speak, but Pendergast raised his hand to stop him. “Allow me, Vincent. Chief Horlocker, I am Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI.”

Horlocker frowned. “I’ve heard of you. You were part of that whole balls-up in the Museum, too.”

“Colorful metaphor,” Pendergast replied.

“So what is it you want, Pendergast?” Horlocker asked impatiently. “This isn’t your jurisdiction.”

“I’m assisting Lieutenant D’Agosta in an advisory capacity.”

Horlocker frowned. “D’Agosta doesn’t need any help.”

“Forgive me for contradicting you,” Pendergast said, “but I think he—and you—need all the help you can get.” His eyes moved from Horlocker to Waxie, and back to Horlocker again. “Don’t worry, Chief, I’m not after the collar. I’m here to help in profiling, not to scoop the case.”

“Very reassuring,” Horlocker snapped. He turned back to D’Agosta. “So?” he demanded. “What have you got?”

“The Medical Examiner believes he can ID the unknown skeleton by Friday,” D’Agosta said. “And he thinks the teeth marks probably belong to a human. Or several.”

“Several?” Horlocker asked.

“Chief, in my opinion the evidence is beginning to point to more than one perp,” D’Agosta said. Brambell nodded his assent.

Horlocker looked pained. “What, you think we’ve got two cannibalistic psychos running around? For Chrissakes, Vinnie, use your head. What we’ve got is a homeless serial killer who’s preying on his own kind. And once in a while a real person wanders into the wrong place at the wrong time—like Pamela Wisher, or that guy Bitterman—and gets their ass killed.”

“A real person?” Pendergast murmured.

“You know what I mean. A productive member of society. Somebody with an address.” Horlocker frowned, turning to D’Agosta. “I gave you a deadline, and I expected a lot more than this.”

Waxie heaved himself up from his chair. “I’m convinced this is the work of a single perpetrator.”

“Exactly,” said Horlocker, looking around the room, waiting for a challenge. “Now, we’ve got a homeless man, out of his gourd, probably living in Central Park somewhere, who thinks he’s the Museum Beast. And with this damn Times article, half the city’s going apeshit.” He turned to D’Agosta. “So how are you planning to handle it?”

“Du calme, du calme, Chief,” Pendergast said soothingly. “I have often found it true that the louder a person speaks, the less they have to say.”

Horlocker looked at him in disbelief. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

“On the contrary, I’m the only one in this room who can talk to you like that,” Pendergast drawled. “So it is left up to me to point out that you have made a string of quite remarkable and unsupported assumptions. First, that the murderer is a homeless man. Second, that he lives in Central Park. Third, that he is psychotic. And fourth, that there is only one of them.” Pendergast gazed at the Chief almost benignly, like a patient parent humoring a fretful child. “You’ve managed to cram a remarkably large number of guesses into just one sentence, Chief Horlocker.”

Horlocker stared at Pendergast, opened his mouth, closed it again. He took a step forward, then stopped. Then, with a single blazing glance at D’Agosta, he turned on his heel and strode out of the hall, his aides scampering to keep up with him.

There was silence in the wake of the slamming door. “What a bloody charade,” Margo heard Frock mutter as he moved restlessly in his wheelchair.

D’Agosta sighed and turned to Brambell. “You’d better send a copy of your report to the Chief. Edit it down, okay, so only the really important stuff is there. And put in a lot of pictures; try to make it readable. Like at a fourth-grade level.”

Brambell burst into delighted, high-pitched laughter. “Yes, indeed, Lieutenant,” he cackled, his bald dome incandescent in the glow of the projector. “I will do my literary best.”

Margo watched as Waxie shot both of them a disapproving look, then started for the door himself. “I don’t find this humor at the expense of the Chief very professional,” he said. “I, for one, have more important things to do than joke around.”

D’Agosta stared at him. “On second thought,” he said slowly, “make it third-grade level, so that Captain Waxie here can read it, too.”

From his aerie in the projectionist’s booth high up on the rear wall, Smithback drew back from the observation slit and switched off his tape recorder with satisfaction. He waited, listening, as the last of the attendees left Linnaeus Hall.

The projectionist came in from the control room, his features narrowing as he saw Smithback. “You said —”

The journalist waved his hand. “I know what I said. I didn’t want to make you any more nervous than you already were. Here.” Smithback pulled a twenty out of his wallet and handed it to him.

“I wouldn’t take it, except the Museum’s salaries are ridiculous; you can’t even begin to live in New York…” the fellow nervously stuffed the bill into his pocket.

“Yeah,” Smithback replied, taking a final glance out of the observation slit. “Listen, you don’t have to explain it to me. You’re contributing to freedom of the press. Go buy yourself a nice dinner, okay? And don’t worry. Even if