Two Graves

She suddenly felt horribly thickheaded and stupid. And guilty—for fifteen years of thinking bad thoughts about her father.

And yet her overwhelming feeling was one of relief.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“For not realizing all that. For… being so passive.”

“You were just a kid. You didn’t know.”

“I’m twenty-two years old. I should’ve figured this out a long time ago.”

He waved his hand. “Water under the dam.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “Over the dam.”

“I never was any good at sayings and speeches. But I do live by a philosophy, and it’s a good one.”

“What’s that?”

“Forgive everyone everything.”

Corrie wasn’t sure that was going to be her philosophy—at all.

He finished his cup, rose, picked up the pot. “More coffee?”

“Please.”

He poured them each another mug, sat down. “Corrie, I do want to tell you about this so-called bank robbery. I was framed by someone at work, I don’t know who. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with their scamming the customers, overcharging them on the financing. That’s how they make their money, you know—on the financing. Problem is, they all do it. Except for one—Charlie, the only decent guy there.”

“But you ran,” she said again.

“I know. I’ve always done stupid, impulsive things. I figured I could hide up here while figuring out the truth. But obviously I don’t even have a phone here, and I had to toss my cell phone, because they’ll use it to track me. So now I’ve no way to investigate—and by running I’ve made myself look guilty as hell. I’m stuck here.”

Corrie looked at him. She wanted to believe him.

“I’m not stuck here,” she said. “I could investigate.”

“Come on,” he said, laughing. “You? You don’t know the first thing about being a detective.”

“Yeah? For your information, I’m studying law enforcement at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, I’m getting straight A’s, and back in Medicine Creek I worked as the assistant to one of the country’s top FBI agents on a famous serial killer case.”

His eyes widened. “Oh, no. My daughter, a cop?”

26

THE MAN APPEARED SO SUDDENLY IN THE DOORWAY OF Madeleine Teal’s office cubicle that she literally jumped. He was a very strange-looking man, dressed in black, with a pale face and gray eyes, and he radiated a restlessness bordering on agitation.

“My, you gave me a start!” she said, pressing a hand to her ample bosom. “Can I help you?”

“I’ve come for Dr. Heffler.”

Now, that was a strange way of phrasing it—he did look more than a little like the grim reaper—but the man did have a mellifluous voice with a charming southern accent. She herself came from the Midwest, and the various New York accents still grated on her nerves.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

“Dr. Heffler and I are old buddies.”

Old buddies. Somehow the way he said it didn’t sound right. Nobody would use the word buddy to describe Dr. Wayne Heffler, who was a pretentious, pseudo-upper-class, condescending twit, as far as Teal was concerned. She had known plenty of Hefflers in her long career, but he was truly the worst: one of those types whose highest pleasure was found in reviewing the work of subordinates, with the sole purpose of finding fault and pointing it out in front of as many people as possible. Meanwhile, he neglected his own work and left others to scramble to cover for him, knowing they would be blamed if something went wrong or fell through the cracks.

“And your name, sir?”

“Special Agent Pendergast.”

“Oh. As in FBI?”

A singularly disturbing smile spread over the face of the special agent as a marble hand slipped inside his suit coat and withdrew a wallet, opened it to display a shield and ID, then gently closed it and reinserted it into the folds of black wool. With a not-displeasing sense of anticipation, Madeleine Teal pressed the intercom button and picked up the phone.

“Dr. Heffler, there’s an FBI agent named Pendergast here to see you, no appointment, says he knows you.”

A short pause. “Pendergast, did you say?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Send him in.”

She hung up. “You may go in.”

But the agent didn’t move. “Dr. Heffler may come out.”

Now, this was different. She got back on the phone. “He wants you to come out.”

“You tell that son of a bitch that if he wants to see me, I’m here, in my office—otherwise send him away.”

She felt a gentle tug. Pendergast’s arm had snaked up and was gently grasping the phone. “May I?”

She released the phone. No one could fault her for not opposing an FBI agent.

“Dr. Heffler? Agent Pendergast.”

She couldn’t hear the reply, but the cricket-like chittering that drifted from the earpiece indicated a raised voice. Heffler was arguing.

This, thought Madeleine Teal, is going to be good.

The FBI agent listened patiently, then responded. “I have come for the mtDNA results on the Hotel Killer.”

More irritated chittering out of the mouthpiece.

“What a shame.” He turned and smiled at her, an apparently genuine smile this time, as he handed her back the telephone. “Thank you. Now—which way is the laboratory where the mtDNA work is performed?”

“It’s down the hall to the right, but… no one’s allowed in there unescorted,” she said, lowering her voice.

“Ah, but I won’t be unescorted. Dr. Heffler will be escorting me. Or at least, he will be shortly.”

“But—”

Pendergast, however, had his cell phone out and was making a call even as he walked out the door, turned right, and headed down the hall. Almost as soon as he’d vanished, Madeleine Teal’s phone rang and she picked it up.

“Dr. Heffler, please,” came the voice. “Mayor Starke.”

“Mayor Starke?” Unbelievable. It really was him, calling personally. “Yes, sir, just a moment.” She put the call through. It lasted less than thirty seconds. Then Heffler came bursting out of his office, face red. “Where’d he go?”

“Down the hall to the lab. I told him—”

But Heffler had already taken off down the hall at an undignified jog. She had never seen the man so put out, so frightened, and—she had to be honest with herself—she enjoyed it immensely.

The Rolls pulled up at the porte cochere of the mansion at 891 Riverside Drive. Agent Pendergast instantly alighted, a slender manila folder under his arm. It was late in the day and a chill wind was coming off the Hudson,