Douglas Preston: Two Graves

Taking a penlight from the backseat, but keeping it switched off, he slipped out of the car and approached the building through the trees, moving silently. He circled it cautiously. The lone window was painted black.

Turning the flashlight on, Pendergast knelt, wincing with pain. He took the gravel sample from his pocket and, using the light, compared it with the gravel that lined the driveway. The match was perfect. He reached down and fingered a small sample of mud under the gravel, spreading it between his thumb and forefinger. Perfect as well.

Flitting across the open area around the warehouse, Pendergast pressed himself against the corrugated wall, then made his way around to the front, keeping low. Externally it was decrepit, defunct, without signage of any kind. And yet, for such a shabby building, the padlock on the lone door was expensive and new.

Pendergast hefted the padlock in one hand, let his other hand drift over it in an almost caressing gesture. It did not spring open at once, yielding only after manipulation with a tiny screwdriver and a bump key. He pulled it free of the hasp, then—weapon at the ready—opened the door just enough to peer through. Darkness and silence. He slid the door open a little farther, slipped inside, and closed it behind him.

For perhaps five minutes, he made no movement except to pan his flashlight around, examining the floor, walls, and ceiling. The warehouse was almost completely bare, with a concrete pad floor, metal walls, empty shelves along the surrounding walls. It seemed to offer no more information than the burned-out taxi had.

He made a slow circuit of the interior, pausing now and then to examine something that caught his attention; pluck a bit of something up here; take a photograph there; fill sample bags with almost invisible evidence. Despite the apparent emptiness of the warehouse, under his probing eye a story began to emerge, still little more than a ghostly palimpsest.

An hour later, Pendergast returned to the closed door of the warehouse. Kneeling, he spread out a dozen small sealed plastic envelopes, each containing a fragment of evidence: metal filings; a piece of glass; oil from a stain on the concrete, a bit of dried paint, a broken chip of plastic. His eye roved over each in turn, allowing a mental picture to form.

The warehouse had once been used as a vehicular pool. Judging by the age and condition of the oil spots on the floor, at one time it had seen fairly heavy use. More recently, however, only two vehicles had been stored. One—judging by the faint tread marks on the concrete floor, a Goodyear brand size 215/75-16—belonged to the Ford Escape that had been used as the getaway taxi. Spatters of yellow on one wall, as well as a reverse-image tracing of spray paint on a fragment of wood tossed into a far corner, indicated also that this was the spot where the Escape had been converted into a counterfeit New York City taxi—down to the paint job and fake medallion.

The other recent vehicle was harder to identify. Its tire print was broader than that of the Escape, and most probably a Michelin. It might well belong to a powerful European luxury sedan, such as an Audi A8 or a BMW 750. The faintest of paint scrapings could be seen against the inside of the warehouse door where this vehicle had recently come in contact; Pendergast carefully transferred them to another evidence bag with a set of tweezers. It was automotive paint, metallic, and of an unusual color: deep maroon.

And then, as he examined the paint, his eye noted—in the narrow channel of the sliding door—a tiny freshwater pearl.

His heart almost stopped.

After a moment, recovering, he picked it up with tweezers and stared at it. In his mind’s eye, he could visualize—roughly twenty-four hours before—the taxi returning here. It would have contained four people: the driver, two men dressed in jogging suits, and an unwilling companion—Helen. Here she was transferred to the maroon foreign car. As they prepared to leave, there was a struggle; she tried to escape, forcing open the door of the car—that accounted for the scratch of paint—and in the process of subduing her, Helen’s abductors snapped her necklace, scattering small pearls all over the passenger compartment and, no doubt, the floor of the warehouse. There would have been oaths, perhaps a punishment, and a hurried scuffle to pick up the explosion of pearls lying across the concrete.

Pendergast glanced at the tiny, lustrous bead held between the tips of the tweezers. This was the one they missed.

With Helen safely secured in the second car, the vehicles would have gone their separate ways, the counterfeit taxi to its fiery end in New Jersey, the maroon vehicle to…?

Pendergast remained, still kneeling, deep in thought, for another ten minutes. Then, rising stiffly, he exited the warehouse, padlocked it behind him, and walked noiselessly back to the waiting Rolls.

+ Thirty-Seven Hours

THOMAS PURVIEW WAS ALWAYS FASTIDIOUS ABOUT GETTING to his law office promptly at seven o’clock, but this morning someone else had been even more punctual: he found a man waiting in his outer office. He had the look of someone who had just arrived. In fact, it almost appeared as if he were about to try the door to the inner office, but of course Purview realized this was unlikely. As he walked in, the man turned, then limped toward him, one hand holding a cane, the other extended.

“Good morning,” Purview said, shaking the proffered hand.

“That remains to be seen,” the stranger replied in a southern accent. He was thin, almost gaunt, and he did not respond to Purview’s professional smile. Purview prided himself on his ability to read the trouble in a new client’s face—but this one was unreadable.

“Are you here to see me?” Purview asked. “Normally I require an appointment.”

“I have no appointment, but the matter is urgent.”

Purview stifled a knowing smile. He had never known a client who didn’t have an urgent matter.

“Please step into my office. Would you care for some coffee? Carol isn’t in yet, but it will only take me a minute to make.”

“Thank you, nothing.” The man walked into Purview’s office, looking carefully around at the walls of books, the row of filing cabinets.

“Please have a seat.” Normally, Purview enjoyed reading the Wall Street Journal between the hours of seven and eight in the morning, but he wasn’t about to turn away a prospective client—especially not in this recession.

The man took a seat in one of the several chairs in Purview’s spacious office, while the lawyer seated himself behind the desk. “How can I help you?” Purview asked.

“I’m looking for information.”

“What kind of information?”

The man seemed to recollect something. “Forgive me for not introducing myself. Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, FBI.” He reached into his coat pocket, removed his ID, and placed it on Purview’s desk.

Purview looked at the ID without touching it. “Are you here on official business, Agent Pendergast?”

“I am here on the investigation of a crime, yes.” The agent paused to once again glance around the office. “Are you familiar with the property located on Two Ninety-Nine Old County Lane, Ramapo, New York?”

Purview hesitated. “It doesn’t ring a bell. Then again, I’ve been involved in a great many real estate transactions in Nanuet and the surrounding area.”

“The property in question consists of an old warehouse, now empty and by all appearances abandoned. Your address is listed for the LLC that holds the deed to this property, and you are the attorney of record.”

“I see.”