Reliquary (11 page)

D’Agosta could hear Waxie blowing hard behind him. He was beginning to wonder why the Captain had abruptly stopped complaining.
Maybe it’s the stench,
he thought.

Hayward was moving toward a passage that led away from the cavern. “Over here,” she said. “The body was found in a cubby down this way. We’d better stay close. Watch out you don’t get piped.”

“Piped?” D’Agosta asked.

“Someone reaches out from the dark and whacks you over the head with a pipe.”

“I don’t see anyone,” D’Agosta said.

“They’re here,” Hayward replied.

Waxie’s breathing became more labored.

They began following the passage, moving slowly. Hayward periodically pointed her light along the sides of the tunnel. Every twenty feet, a large rectangular space had been cut into the rock: work and storage areas, she explained, of railway crews a century before. Filthy bedding lay in many of the cubbyholes. Frequently, large brown rats, disturbed by the light, would stir among the trash, waddling away from the flashlight beams with insolent slowness. But there were no signs of people.

Hayward stopped, removed her police cap, and drew a damp strand of hair back into place behind one ear. “The report said it was the cubby directly across from a collapsed iron catwalk,” she said.

D’Agosta tried breathing through his hand, and when that didn’t help he loosened his tie and pulled his shirt collar over his mouth, as a kind of mask.

“Here it is.” Hayward shone her beam on a rusted heap of iron struts and I-beams. She swept the flashlight across the tunnel, locating the cubby. From the outside, it looked just like the others: five feet across, three feet deep, cut into the rock about two feet above grade.

D’Agosta stepped closer and peered in. Naked bedding lay askew, caked thickly with dried blood. Blood was also spattered about the walls, along with bits of something that D’Agosta didn’t want to think about. There was the ubiquitous packing crate, tipped over and partly crushed. The floor of the cubby was lined with newspapers. The stench was beyond description.

“This guy,” Hayward whispered, “was also found without his head. They identified him from prints. Shasheen Walker, thirty-two years old. Rap sheet as long as your arm, a serious user.”

At any other time, D’Agosta would have found it ludicrous to hear a police officer whispering. Now, he felt somehow glad. There was a long silence while D’Agosta played his own light around. “Did they find the head?” he asked at last.

“Nope,” said Hayward.

The foul little den showed zero signs of a police search. Thinking he’d rather be anywhere else,
doing
anything else, D’Agosta reached into the cubby, took hold of a corner of a filthy blanket, and jerked it back.

Something brown tumbled out of the folds and rolled toward the nearest edge. What was left of its mouth was wide open in a frozen scream.

“I guess they didn’t look too hard,” D’Agosta said. He heard a small moan escape from Waxie. “You okay, Jack?” he asked, glancing back.

Waxie said nothing. His face looked like a pale moon, hovering in the noisome dark.

D’Agosta turned his light back on the head. “We’re gonna have to get an SOC team down here for a full series.” He reached for his radio, then remembered it wouldn’t work.

Hayward edged forward. “Lieutenant?”

D’Agosta paused. “Yes?”

“The moles left this place alone because someone died in it. They’re superstitious that way, some of them. But as soon as we leave, they’re going to clean this whole mess up, get rid of the head themselves, and you’ll
never
find it. More than anything else, they don’t want cops down here.”

“How the hell will they know we were here?”

“I keep telling you, Lieutenant, they’re
around.
Listening.”

D’Agosta shone his light about. The corridor was silent and dead. “So what’s your point?”

“If you want the head, you’re going to have to take it with you.”

“Shit,” breathed D’Agosta. “Okay, Sergeant, we’ll have to improvise. Grab that towel over there.”

Stepping in front of the motionless Waxie, Sergeant Hayward picked up a water-logged towel and spread it on the damp concrete next to the head. Then, pulling the sleeve of her uniform over her hand, she nudged the head toward the towel with her wrist.

D’Agosta watched with mixed disgust and admiration as Hayward gathered the ends of the towel into a ball. He blinked his eyes, trying to wipe away the smart of the foul reek. “Let’s go. Sergeant, you may do the honors.”

“No problem.” Hayward lifted the towel, holding it away from her body.

As D’Agosta stepped forward, shining his flashlight back down the corridor toward the staircase, there was a sudden whistling sound and a bottle came winging out of the dark, just missing Waxie’s head. It shattered loudly on the wall. Farther down the passageway, D’Agosta could hear a rustling noise.

“Who’s there?” he yelled. “Halt! Police officers!”

Another bottle came flying wildly out of the dark. D’Agosta realized, with a strange crawly feeling at the base of his spine, that he could
feel,
but not see, shapes moving toward them.

“There’s only three of us, Lieutenant,” Hayward said, tension suddenly evident in her dusky voice. “May I suggest we get the hell out of here?”

There was a raspy call from out of the dark, then a shout and the sound of running. He heard a neigh of terror at his shoulder and turned to see Waxie, still transfixed.

“For Chrissakes, Captain, get hold of yourself!” D’Agosta shouted.

Waxie began to whimper. From the other side, D’Agosta heard a hissing noise, and he turned to see Hayward’s petite figure standing tense and erect. Her slender hands were at her sides with the knuckles pointed in, the towel and its burden dangling from her fingers. She took another deep, hissing breath, as if in preparation. Then she looked around quickly and turned back toward the staircase, once again holding the head at arm’s length.

“Jesus, don’t leave me!” Waxie howled.

D’Agosta gave Waxie’s shoulder a vicious tug. With a low groan, Waxie began to move, first slowly and then faster, bursting past Hayward.

“Move!” D’Agosta called, pushing Hayward ahead of him with one hand. He felt something whiz past his ear, and he stopped, turned, drew his gun, and fired toward the ceiling. In the muzzle flash he saw a dozen or more people coming up the dark tunnel, dividing, preparing to circle him; they ran low across the ground, moving with horrible speed through the darkness. He turned and fled for the stairway.

One level up, on the far side of the hanging door, he stopped at last to listen, gulping air. Hayward waited beside him, gun in hand. There was no sound except the footsteps of Waxie, far ahead of them now, running down the rail siding toward the pool of light.

After a moment, D’Agosta stepped back. “Sergeant, if you ever suggest backup in the future--or make any other suggestion, for that matter--remind me to pay attention to it.”

Hayward holstered her gun. “I was afraid you’d wig out down there, like the Captain did,” she said. “But you did well for a virgin, sir.”

D’Agosta looked at her, realizing this was the first time she had addressed him as a superior officer. He thought about asking just what the hell that weird breathing of hers had been about, but decided against it. “Still got it?” he said instead.

Hayward raised the towel.

“Then let’s get the hell out. We’ll see the rest of the sites some other time.”

On the way to the surface, the image that kept returning to D’Agosta was not the circling mob, or the endless dank tunnel. It was the freshly soiled baby’s diaper.

= 12 =

Margo washed her hands in the deep metal sink of the Forensic Anthropology lab, then dried them on a coarse hospital cloth. She glanced over at the gurney on which the sheeted remains of Pamela Wisher lay. The samples and observations had all been taken, and the corpse would be released to the family later that morning. Across the room, Brambell and Frock were at work on the unidentified skeleton, bending over its grotesquely twisted hips and taking elaborate measurements.

“If I may make an observation?” Dr. Brambell said, putting a vibrating Stryker saw to one side.

“Be my guest,” Frock replied in his buttery rumble, waving a hand magnanimously.

They detested each other.

Margo slipped two latex gloves onto each hand, turning to hide a smile. It was probably the first time she’d seen Frock face a man with an intellect, or an ego, equal to his own. It was a miracle that any work had been accomplished. Yet over the past few days they had performed antibody testing, osteological analysis, tests for toxic residues and teratogens, as well as numerous other procedures. All that remained was the DNA sequencing and forensic analysis of the teeth marks. Yet the unknown corpse remained a riddle, refusing to yield up its secrets. Margo knew this only added to the highly charged atmosphere within the lab.

“It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence,” Brambell was saying, his high Irish voice trembling with irritation, “that the puncture can
not
have originated on the dorsal side. Otherwise, the transverse process would have been clipped.”

“I fail to see what clipping has to do with anything,” muttered Frock.

Margo tuned out the argument, most of which was uninteresting to her anyway. Her specialty was ethnopharmacology and genetics, not gross anatomy. She had other problems to solve.

She leaned over the latest gel electrophoresis run on tissue from the unidentified corpse, feeling her trapezius muscles cry out in protest as she reached forward. Five sets of ten reps with the upright rows the night before, instead of her normal three. She’d upped her workout routine dramatically over the last several days; she would have to be more careful not to overdo it.

Ten minutes of close scrutiny confirmed her suspicions: the dark stripes of the various protein elements could tell her little beyond being common human muscle proteins. She straightened up with a sigh. Any more detailed genetic information would have to come from the much more sensitive DNA sequencing machine. Unfortunately, reliable results would not be available for several more days.

As she placed the gel strips to one side, rubbing her shoulder thoughtfully, she noticed a manila envelope lying next to the SPARC-10 workstation.
X rays,
she thought.
They must have arrived first thing this morning.
Obviously, Brambell and Frock had been too busy arguing over the corpse to look at them. It was understandable: with a body that was almost completely skeletonized already, X rays weren’t likely to tell them very much.

“Margo?” Frock called.

She walked over to the examining table.

“My dear,” Frock said, pushing his wheelchair away and gesturing toward the microscope, “please examine this groove running down the right femur.”

The Stereozoom was on lowest power, yet it was still like gazing into another world. The brown bone leaped into view, revealing the ridges and valleys of a miniature desert landscape.

“What do
you
make of this?” he asked.

It wasn’t the first time Margo had been called to give an opinion in a dispute, and she didn’t relish the role. “It looks like a natural fissure in the bone,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. “Part of the suite of bone spurs and ridges that seem to have affected the skeleton. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was caused by a tooth.”

Frock settled back in his wheelchair, not quite able to mask a smile of triumph.

Brambell blinked. “I’m sorry?” he asked in disbelief. “Dr. Green, I don’t mean to contradict you, but that’s a longitudinal tooth mark if ever I saw one.”

“I don’t mean to contradict
you,
Dr. Brambell.” She switched the stereozoom to higher power, and the small fissure immediately turned into a vast canyon. “But I can see some natural pores along the inside, here.”

Brambell bustled over and looked into the eyepieces, holding his old horn-rims to one side. He stared at the image for several moments, then stepped away much more slowly than he had approached.

“Hmm,” he said, replacing his glasses. “It pains me to say it, Frock, but you may have a point.”

“You mean
Margo
may have a point,” said Frock.

“Yes, of course. Very good, Dr. Green.”

Margo was spared a reply by the ringing of the lab phone. Frock wheeled over and answered it energetically. Margo watched him, realizing that this was the first time she had really stopped to look at her old adviser since D’Agosta’s call had brought them back together the week before. Though still portly, he seemed thinner than she remembered from their days together at the Museum. His wheelchair, too, was different: old and scuffed. She wondered, in sudden sympathy, if her mentor had fallen on hard times. Yet if so, it hadn’t seemed to affect him adversely. If anything, he looked more alert, more vigorous, than during his tenure as Anthropology Department chairman.

Frock was listening, clearly upset about something. Margo’s gaze drifted away from him and up to the laboratory window and its gorgeous view of Central Park. The trees were rich with the dark green foliage of summer, and the reservoir shimmered in the brilliant light. To the south, several rowboats drifted lazily across the pond. She thought how infinitely preferable it would be in one of those boats--basking in the sun--instead of here in the Museum, pulling apart rotten bodies.

“That was D’Agosta,” Frock said, hanging up with a sigh. “He says our friend here is going to have some company. Close the blinds, will you? Artificial light is preferable for microscope work.”

“What do you mean, company?” Margo asked sharply.

“That’s how he put it. Apparently, they discovered a badly decomposed head during a search of some railroad tunnels yesterday afternoon. They’re sending it over for analysis.”

Dr. Brambell muttered something in fervent Gaelic.

“Does the head belong ...” Margo began, then nodded in the direction of the corpses.

Frock shook his head, a somber expression on his face. “Apparently it’s unrelated.”