Douglas Preston - Relic

He looked so horrified that Margo felt her anger fade.

“I didn’t know they had that much of a problem with each other,” she said, allowing Moriarty to stop her.

“Oh, yes. From way back. You know that ever since Frock came forward with this Callisto Effect, his star has been falling in the Museum. Now he’s a department head in name only, and Cuthbert pulls the strings. Of course, I’ve just heard one side of the story. I’m very sorry, really. You will do the case for me, right?”

“On the condition,” Margo countered, “that you get me out of this maze. I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Oh, sure. Sorry,” Moriarty said. The gaffe had brought back all of his shyness, and as they began retracing their way to the fifth floor, he was silent.

“So tell me more about your exhibition.” Margo tried to put him at ease. “I’ve heard a little about some fabulously rare artifacts that will be on display.”

“I guess you must mean the Kothoga tribe material,” Moriarty said. “Only one expedition has ever found any traces of them. The figurine of their mythical beast Mbwun is—well, it’s one of the centerpieces of the show.” He hesitated. “Or I should say, it will be one of the centerpieces. It’s not on display yet.”

“Really?” Margo asked. “Isn’t that waiting till the last minute?”

“The situation is kind of unusual,” Moriarty replied. “But listen, Margo, this isn’t for public consumption.” They had returned to the catwalks, and Moriarty led her down the long corridors, speaking low. “There’s been a lot of high-level interest in the Kothoga artifacts recently. People like Rickman, Dr. Cuthbert ... even Wright, apparently. There’s been controversy over [57] whether the material should be included in the exhibition. Surely you’ve heard the stories of a curse on the figurine, that sort of nonsense?”

“Not much,” Margo said.

“The expedition that found the Kothoga material met with tragedy,” Moriarty continued, “and nobody’s been near the stuff since. It’s still in the original crates. Just last week, all the crates were taken from the basement area where they’d sat all these years and moved to the Secure Area. Nobody’s had access to them since, and I haven’t been able to prepare the final displays.”

“But why were they moved?” Margo pressed.

They entered the elevator. Moriarty waited until the door had closed before answering. “Apparently, the crates had been recently tampered with.”

“What? You mean somebody had broken in?”

Moriarty stared at Margo, his owlish face wearing its look of perpetual surprise. “I didn’t say that,” he replied.

He turned the key, and the elevator lurched downward.

= 10 =

D’Agosta wished with all his heart that the double-chili-cheeseburger in his stomach would disappear. Not that it was bothering him—yet—but it was an unwelcome presence.

The place smelled like they all did. In fact it stank. All the disinfectants in the world couldn’t cover up the smell of death. And the vomit-green walls in the Medical Examiner’s Office didn’t help things any. Nor did the large gurney, currently empty, sitting like an uninvited guest under the bright lights of the autopsy suite.

His thoughts were interrupted as a large woman entered, two men following close behind. D’Agosta noticed stylish glasses, blonde hair escaping from under a surgeon’s cap. The woman strode over and held out her hand, her red lipstick creased in a professional smile.

“Dr. Ziewicz,” she said, with a crushing grip. “You must be D’Agosta. This is my assistant, Dr. Fred Gross.” Ziewicz indicated a short, skinny man. “And [59] this is our photographer, Delbert Smith.” Delbert nodded, clutching a 4x5 Deardorff to his chest.

“So, Dr. Ziewicz, you come here often?” D’Agosta asked, suddenly eager to say something, anything, to stall the inevitable.

“NYME’s my home away from home,” Ziewicz replied with the same smile. “My field is—how shall I put it—special forensics. For just about everybody. We do our thing and ship them back out. Then I read about what it all means in the papers.” She looked at him speculatively. “You’ve, ah, seen this kind of thing before, right?”

“Oh yeah,” said D’Agosta. “All the time.” The burger in his gut felt like a lead ingot. Why didn’t he think ahead, remember what his afternoon schedule was before chowing down like a damned hog?

“That’s good.” Ziewicz consulted her clipboard. “Let’s see, parental consent? Good. Looks like everything’s in order. Fred, start with 5-B.”

She began slipping on latex gloves, three pairs, a mask, goggles, and a plastic apron. D’Agosta did likewise.

Gross wheeled the gurney over to the morgue bank and slid out 5-B. The indistinct shape under the plastic looked strangely short to D’Agosta, with an odd bulge at one end. Gross slid the cadaver and its tray onto the gurney, wheeled the cart under the lights, checked the toe tag, and locked down the wheels. He placed a stainless-steel bucket under the gurney’s outlet pipe.

Ziewicz was fiddling with the microphone hanging above the body.

“Testing, one two three ... Fred, this mike is totally dead.”

Fred bent over the reel-to-reel. “I can’t understand it, everything’s turned on.”

D’Agosta cleared his throat. “It’s unplugged,” he said.

There was a short silence.

[60] “Well,” said Ziewicz, “I’m glad there’s someone here who’s not a scientist. If you have any questions or comments, Mr. D’Agosta, please state your name and speak clearly toward the microphone. Okay? Everything goes on the tape. I’m just going to describe the state of the body first, and then we’ll start cutting.”

“Got it,” D’Agosta replied tonelessly. Cutting . It was one thing when a dead body was just lying there at the scene. But when they started cutting into it, peeling the layers away—he’d never gotten used to that.

“Are we up and running? Good. This is Dr. Matilda Ziewicz and Dr. Frederick Gross, and the date is Monday, March 27, at two-fifteen in the afternoon. We are joined by Detective Sergeant—?”

“Lieutenant Vincent.”

“Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta, of the NYPD. We have here—“

Fred read off the tag. “William Howard Bridgeman, number 33-A45.”

“I am now removing the covering.” The thick plastic crackled.

There was a short silence. D’Agosta had a sudden flash of the gutted dog he’d seen that morning. The trick is not to think too much. Don’t think about your own Vinnie, eighth birthday just next week .

Dr. Ziewicz took a deep breath. “We have here a Caucasian male, a boy, age about, ah, ten to twelve years, height, well, I can’t give a height for this one because it’s decapitated. Maybe four feet ten inches, maybe five feet? Weight, about ninety pounds. This is very approximate. The state of the body is such that I can see no other identifying marks. Eye color and facial features indeterminate due to massive head trauma.”

“No anterior wounds or marks on the feet, legs, or genitals. Fred, please sponge off the abdominal area ... thank you. There are an undetermined number of large lacerations proceeding from the left anterior pectoral region at a hundred and ninety degree angle downward [61] through the costals, sternum, and terminating at the right anterior abdominal region. This is a massive wound, perhaps two feet long and a foot wide. It appears that the pectoralis minor and pectoralis major are separated from the external thoracic cavity, the external and internal intercostals are separated, and the body is eviscerated to a great degree. The sternal process has been split and the rib cage exposed. Massive hemorrhaging in the aortal—it’s hard to see before cleaning and exploration.