Dance of Death (14 page)

"I took it from him the night I ... paid him a final visit. Maybe it'll bring you good luck."

"Normally I despise luck, but at the moment I find myself in singular need of it. Thank you, Vincent." Pendergast's voice was almost too low to be heard above the revving of the rotors. He placed the medallion around his neck, tucked it into his shirt, and grasped D'Agosta's hand.

And then, without another word, he strode across the tarmac toward the waiting chopper.

SIXTEEN

 The chopper landed at a corporate heliport in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where a car without a driver awaited. By nine o'clock, Pendergast was crossing into D.C. It was a cold, sunny January day, with a weak yellow sun filtering through the bare branches of the trees, leaving frost in the shadows.

In a few minutes, he was driving along Oregon Avenue, lined with stately mansions-one of Washington's most exclusive suburbs. He slowed as he passed Mike Decker's house. The tidy, brick-fronted Georgian seemed as somnolent as the rest of the neighborhood. No car was parked outside, but that in itself meant nothing: Decker ranked a car and driver when he wanted one.

Pendergast drove a block farther, then pulled over to the curb. Taking out a cell phone, he once again tried Decker's home and mobile. No answer.

Behind the row of mansions lay the wooded fastness of Rock Creek Park. Pendergast got out of the car with his attaché case and walked thoughtfully into the park. Diogenes, he felt sure, would be watching the scene and would recognize him despite his disguise- just as he felt sure he would recognize his brother, no matter what.

But he saw no one and heard nothing but the faint rush of water from Rock Creek.

He walked briskly along the fringe of the park, then darted across a driveway, crossed a garden, and came up through a hedge into Decker's backyard. The yard was deep and well tended, falling away at the rear into the dense woods of the park. There, hidden from the neighbors by thick shrubbery, he glanced up at the windows. They were closed, white curtains pulled shut. Glancing at the adjoining houses, he proceeded, with practiced casualness, across the yard and to the back door, pulling on a pair of gloves as he did so and leaving his attaché on the stoop.

Pendergast paused again, his alert eyes taking in every detail. Then, without knocking, he peered through the small window.

Decker's kitchen was modern and almost spartan in its bachelor emptiness. A folded newspaper lay on a counter beside the phone; a suit jacket had been draped over the back of a chair. On one side of the room, a door-shut-opened no doubt onto the basement stairway; on the other side, a dark corridor led into the front rooms of the house.

A shape lay on the floor of the corridor, vague in the dim light. It moved feebly, once, twice.

In an instant, Pendergast moved to pick the lock, only to find that the knob-broken-turned easily in his hand. There was a telltale cut wire: a security system had been bypassed. Nearby, the phone wire had also been snipped. He swept inside, darting toward the shape in the hall and kneeling on the broad floorboards.

A male Weimaraner lay there, eyes glassy, rear legs still twitching in slowing spasms. Pendergast ran his gloved fingers quickly over the dog's frame. Its neck had been broken in two places.

Now, rising, Pendergast reached into his pocket. When his hand appeared again, it was holding a gleaming Wilson Combat TSGC .45. Moving quickly and with utter silence, Pendergast searched the first floor of the house: wheeling around corners, gun extended, eyes darting over every surface and place of concealment. Living room, dining room, front hall, bath: all empty and still.

Next, Pendergast flew up the stairs, pausing to glance around at the upper landing. Four rooms gave onto a central hallway. Sunlight lanced in through the open doors, illuminating a few dust motes dancing lazily in the sluggish air.

Gun at the ready, he spun around the first doorway, which led into a back bedroom. Inside, the guest beds were made with almost military perfection, bedspreads tight across the mattresses and over the pillows. Beyond, the gaunt trees of Rock Creek Park were visible through the window. Everything was wrapped in a deep silence.

A faint sound came from nearby.

Pendergast froze, his hyperacute senses strained to the maximum. There had been one sound, only one: the slow outrush of air, like a languorous sigh.

He exited the back bedroom, darted across the hall, paused outside the entrance to the room opposite. Tall bookshelves and the edge of a table could be seen through the open door: a study. Here, closer, another sound could just be discerned-a fast, running patter as of a faucet improperly closed.

Tensing, gun forward, Pendergast wheeled around the door frame.

Mike Decker sat in a leather chair, facing his desk. He was ex-military and had always endowed his movements with economy and precision, yet it was not preciseness that kept him so erect in the chair. A heavy steel bayonet had been driven into his mouth, angling down through his neck and pinning him to the headrest. The point of the old bayonet pierced all the way through the chair back, sticking out the back side, its rough edge heavy with blood. Drops fell from its tip onto the sodden carpet.

Another low sigh sounded in Decker's ruined throat, like the collapsing of a bellows. It died into a faint, bloody gargle. The man stared sightlessly at Pendergast, white shirt stained a uniform red. Streams of blood still flowed across the table, running in slow meanders and draining, with a pattering sound, to the floor.

For a moment, Pendergast remained still, as if thunderstruck. Then he removed one glove and-leaning forward, careful not to step in the blood that had ponded beneath the chair-placed the back of his hand against Decker's forehead. The man's skin felt supple, elastic, and its surface temperature was no cooler than Pendergast's own.

Abruptly, Pendergast drew back. The house was silent-except for the steady dripping.

The sighs, Pendergast knew, were postmortem: air bleeding from the lungs as the body relaxed against the bayonet. Even so, Mike Decker had been dead less than five minutes. Probably less than three.

Yet again, he hesitated. The precise time of death was irrelevant. What was far more important was Pendergast's realization that Diogenes had waited until Pendergast entered the house
before
killing Decker.

And that meant his brother might still be here,
in this house.

In the distance, at the threshold of hearing, came the wail of police sirens.

Pendergast swept the room, eyes glittering, searching for the slightest clue that might help him track down his brother. His eye finally rested on the bayonet-and, abruptly, he recognized it.

A moment later, his gaze fell to Decker's hands. One lay slack; the other was clenched in a ball.

Ignoring the approaching sirens, Pendergast withdrew a gold pen from his pocket and carefully teased the clenched hand open. Inside lay three strands of blond hair.

Retrieving a jeweler's loupe from his pocket, he bent forward and examined the hairs. Returning his hand back into his pocket, he exchanged the loupe for a pair of tweezers. Very carefully, he plucked every strand from the motionless hand.

The sirens were louder now.

By now, Diogenes was certainly gone. He had choreographed the scene, managed its many variables, with perfection. He had entered the house, no doubt immobilized Decker with some kind of drug, then waited for Pendergast to arrive before killing him. Chances were that Diogenes had deliberately tripped the burglar alarm
while leaving the house.

A senior FBI agent lay dead, and the house would be picked apart in the search for clues. Diogenes would not risk sticking around- and neither could he.

He heard a screeching of tires, a confusion of sirens, as a phalanx of police cars barreled down Oregon Avenue, now just seconds from the house. Pendergast glanced back at his friend one last time, briskly wiped a trace of excess moisture from one eye, then dashed down the stairs.

The front door was now wide open, a security panel beside it blinking red. He leaped over the inert form of the Weimaraner, exited through the back door, snagged his attaché case, sprinted across the yard, and-tossing the strands of hair into a pile of dead leaves- vanished like a ghost into the shadowy depths of Rock Creek Park.

SEVENTEEN

Margo Green was the first to arrive at the museum's grand old Murchison Conference Room. As she settled into one of the old leather chairs flanking the massive nineteenth-century oak table, she took in the marvelous-but somewhat disconcerting-details: the trophy heads of now endangered species gracing the walls; the brace of elephant tusks flanking the door; the African masks, leopard, zebra, and lion skins. Murchison had done his fieldwork in Africa over a century before, and had enjoyed a career as a great white hunter alongside his more serious profession of anthropology. There was even a pair of elephant's-foot wastebaskets at opposite ends of the room. But this was a museum, and a museum must not throw anything away, no matter how politically incorrect it may have become.

Margo used the few moments of quiet before the rest of the department arrived to look through her notes and organize her thoughts. She felt a rising nervousness she seemed unable to quell. Was she doing the right thing? She'd been here all of six weeks, and now, with her very first issue of
Museology,
she was injecting herself into the midst of controversy. Why was it so important to her?

But she already knew the answer. Personally, she had to make a stand on something she believed in. And professionally, as editor of
Museology,
it was the right thing to do. People would expect the journal to comment on the issue. Silence, or a weak, waffling editorial, would be noted by all. It would set the tone of her editorship. No- it was important to show that
Museology
would continue to be relevant and topical while not fearing the controversial. This was her opportunity to show the profession that she meant business.

She went back to her notes. Because the item in question was owned by the Anthropology Department, it was the anthro curators who were most concerned. She would not get a second chance to make her case to the whole department, and she wanted to get it right.

Other curators were now drifting in, nodding to her, chatting among themselves, rattling the almost empty coffee urn, which was boiling into tar the remains of the coffee prepared that morning. Someone poured a cup, then replaced it with a clatter and a suppressed expression of disgust. Nora Kelly arrived, greeted Margo cordially, and took her seat on the opposite side of the table. Margo looked around the room.

All ten curators were now here.

The last to arrive was Hugo Menzies, chairman of the Anthropology Department since the untimely death of Dr. Frock six years before. Menzies gave Margo a special smile and nod, then took his seat at the head of the vast table. Because the bulk of
Museology
articles were on anthropological subjects, he had been appointed as her supervisor. And-she suspected-he had also been instrumental in her hiring. Unlike everybody else on staff-who favored lawyerly briefcases-Menzies carried around a classy canvas shoulder bag by John Chapman Company, a top manufacturer of English fishing and shooting gear. At the moment, he was taking some papers out of the bag, squaring and organizing them. Next, he put on his reading glasses, adjusted his tie, and smoothed down his untidy thatch of white hair. Finally, he checked his watch, raised his lively blue eyes to the waiting group, cleared his throat.

"Glad to see you all here," he said, his voice reedy and old-fashioned. "Shall we commence?"

There was a general shuffling of papers.

"Rather than go through the usual business," he said, glancing at Margo, "let's go straight to a subject I know is on all your minds: the problem of the Great Kiva masks."

More shuffling of papers, glances at Margo. She straightened her back, kept her face neutral and composed. Deep in her heart, she believed she was right, and that helped give her the strength and conviction she needed.

"Margo Green, the new editor of
Museology,
has asked to speak to you all. As you know, the Tano Indians are requesting the return of the Great Kiva masks, a centerpiece of our upcoming show. As chairman of the department, it's my job to make a recommendation to the director on this matter: whether we give up the masks, keep them, or seek some compromise. We are not a democracy, but I can promise you your opinions will carry great weight with me. I might add that the director himself will also be seeking the advice of the board and the museum's attorneys before he makes his final decision, so mine is not the last word." He smiled, turned to Margo. "And now, Margo, would you like to take the floor?"

Margo rose, looked around the room.

"Most of you probably know I'm planning to run an editorial in the next issue of
Museology,
calling for the return of the Great Kiva masks to the Tanos. A draft of the editorial has circulated, and it's caused some consternation in the administration." She swallowed, trying to conceal the nervous flutter she could hear in her voice.

She went on to speak about the history of the masks and how they were collected, gaining confidence and poise.

"For those of you who aren't familiar with the Tano Indians," she said, "they live on a remote reservation on the New Mexico-Arizona border. Because of their isolation, they still retain their original language, religion, and customs, while living with one foot in the modern world. Less than twenty percent of the tribe identify themselves as Christian. Anthropologists believe they settled in their present area along the Tano River almost a thousand years ago. They speak a unique language, apparently unrelated to any other. I'm telling you these things because it's important to emphasize that these are not Native Americans in genotype alone, trying belatedly to recapture long-lost traditions. The Tano are one of the few tribes who have never lost their traditions."