Douglas Preston - Relic

D’Agosta turned. “Is the Crime Lab team on the premises? And the coroner’s investigator? Or are they out for coffee and croissants?” He patted the breast pocket of his jacket, looking for a cigar. “Put cardboard boxes over those footprints. And you guys, when you’re done, squeegee a trail around the body so we can walk without tracking blood everywhere.”

“Excellent.” D’Agosta heard a low, mellifluous voice behind him.

“Who the hell are you?” he said, turning to see a tall, slender man, wearing a crisp black suit, leaning against the top of the stairwell. Hair so blond it was almost white was brushed straight back above pale blue eyes. “The undertaker?”

“Pendergast,” the man said, stepping down and holding out his hand. The photographer, cradling his equipment, pushed past him.

“Well, Pendergast, you better have a good reason to be here, otherwise—”

Pendergast smiled. “Special Agent Pendergast.”

“Oh. FBI? Funny, why aren’t I surprised? Well, how-do, Pendergast. Why the hell don’t you guys phone [79] ahead? Listen, I got a headless, de-brained stiff down there. Where’re the rest of you, anyway?”

Pendergast withdrew his hand. “There’s just me, I’m afraid.”

“What? Don’t kid me. You guys always travel around in packs.”

The lights popped on, and the gore around them was bathed in brilliance. Everything that previously appeared black was suddenly illuminated, all the various shades of the body’s secret workings made visible. Something D’Agosta suspected was Norris’s breakfast was also visible, lying amidst a wash of body fluids. Involuntarily, D’Agosta’s jaw started working. Then his eye caught a piece of skull with the dead guard’s crew cut still on it, lying a good five feet from the body.

“Oh Jesus,” said D’Agosta, stepping back, and then he lost it. Right in front of the FBI guy, in front of SOC, in front of the photographer, he blew his own breakfast. I can’t believe it , he thought. The first time in twenty-two years, and it’s happening at the worst possible moment .

The coroner’s investigator appeared on the stairs, a young woman in a white coat and plastic apron. “Who’s the officer in charge?” she asked, sliding on her gloves.

“I am,” said D’Agosta, wiping his mouth. He looked at Pendergast. “For a few more minutes, anyway. Lieutenant D’Agosta.”

“Dr. Collins,” the investigator replied briskly. Followed by an assistant, she walked down to an area near the body that was being squeegeed free of blood. “Photographer,” she said, “I’m turning the body over. Full series, please.”

D’Agosta averted his gaze. “We got work to do, Pendergast,” he said authoritatively. He pointed at the vomit. “Don’t clean that up until the SOC has finished with these stairs. Got it?”

Everyone nodded.

“I wanna know ingress and egress as soon as possible. [80] See if you can ID the body. If it’s a guard, get Ippolito down here. Pendergast, let’s go up to the command post, get coordinated, or liaised, or whatever the hell you call it, and then let’s return when the team is done for a looksee.”

“Capital” said Pendergast.

Capital? thought D’Agosta. The guy sounded deep South. He’d met types like this before, and they were hopeless in New York City.

Pendergast leaned forward and said quietly, “The blood splattered on the wall is rather interesting.”

D’Agosta looked over. “You don’t say.”

“I’d be interested in the ballistics on that blood.”

D’Agosta looked straight into Pendergast’s pale eyes. “Good idea,” he said finally. “Hey, photographer, get a close-up series of the blood on the wall. And you, you—”

“McHenry, sir.”

“I want a ballistic analysis done on that blood. Looks like it was moving fast at a sharp angle. I want the source pinpointed, speed, force, a full report.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want it on my desk in thirty minutes.”

McHenry looked a little unhappy.

“Okay, Pendergast, any more ideas?”

“No, that was my only one.”

“Let’s go.”

In the temporary command post, everything was in place. D’Agosta always saw to that. Not one piece of paper was loose, not one file was out, not one tape recorder sitting on a desk. It looked good, and now he was glad that it did. Everyone was busy, the phones were lit up, but things were under control.

Pendergast slipped his lean form into a chair. For a formal-looking guy, he moved like a cat. Briefly, D’Agosta gave him an overview of the investigation. [81] “Okay, Pendergast,” he concluded. “What’s your jurisdiction here? Did we fuck up? Are we out?”

Pendergast smiled. “No, not at all. As far as I can tell, I would not have done anything differently myself. You see, Lieutenant, we’ve been in the case from the very beginning, only we didn’t realize it.”

“How so?”

“I’m from the New Orleans field office. We were working on a series of killings down there, some very odd killings. Not to get into specifics, but the victims had the backs of their skulls removed, and the brains extracted. Same modus operandi.”

“No shit. When was this?”

“Several years ago.”

“Several years ago? That—”

“Yes. They went unsolved. First it was ATF, because they thought drugs might have been involved, then it was FBI when ATF couldn’t make any progress. But we couldn’t do anything with it, the trail was cold. And then yesterday, I read a wire service report about the double murder here in New York. The MO is too, ah, too peculiar not to make an immediate connection, don’t you think? So I flew up last night. I’m not even officially here. Although I will be tomorrow.”

D’Agosta relaxed. “So you’re from Louisiana. I thought you might be some new boy in the New York office.”

“They’ll be here,” said Pendergast. “When I make my report tonight, they’ll be in on it. But I will be in charge of the case.”

“You? No way, not in New York City.”

Pendergast smiled. “I will be in charge, Lieutenant. I’ve been pursuing this case for years and I am, frankly, interested in it.” The way Pendergast said interested sent a strange sensation down D’Agosta’s back. “But don’t worry, Lieutenant, I am ready and willing to work with you, side by side, in perhaps a different way than the New York office might. If you’ll meet me halfway, that [82] is. This isn’t my turf and I’m going to need your help. How about it?”

He stood up and held out his hand. Christ , D’Agosta thought, the boys in the New York office will take him apart in two and a half hours and ship the pieces back to New Orleans .

“Deal,” said D’Agosta, grasping his hand. “I’ll introduce you around, starting with the security director, Ippolito. Provided you answer one question. You said the MO of the New Orleans killings was the same. What about the bite marks we found in the brain of the older boy? The claw fragment?”

“From what you told me about the autopsy, Lieutenant, the ME was only speculating about the bite marks,” Pendergast replied. “I’ll be interested to hear the salivase results. Is the claw being tested?”

Later, D’Agosta would remember that his question had been only half answered. Now, he simply replied, “It’s being done today.”

Pendergast leaned back in his chair and made a tent of his fingers, his eyes looking off into space. “I’ll have to pay a visit to Dr. Ziewicz when she examines today’s unpleasantness.”

“Say, Pendergast? You aren’t by any chance related to Andy Warhol, are you?”

“I don’t care much for modern art, Lieutenant.”