Brimstone

by Douglas Preston

  "Vincent's going out with friends."

  "I'll call tomorrow morning."

  "You'll probably miss him. He's got baseball practice all day—"

  "Have him call me, then."

  "You think we can afford to make long-distance calls on what you're paying?"

  "You know I'm doing the best I can. No one's stopping you from moving back here, you know."

  "Vinnie, you dragged us kicking and screaming up here. We didn't want to go. It was tough at first. But then something amazing happened. I made a life here. I like it here. And so does Vincent. We have friends, Vinnie. We've got a life. And now, just when we're on our feet again, you want us to go back to Queens. Let me tell you, I’m never going back to Queens."

  D'Agosta said nothing. It was just the kind of declaration he hadn't wanted to provoke. Jesus, he had really blown it with this phone call. And all he wanted to do was talk to his son.

  "Lydia, nothing's engraved in stone. We can work something out."

  "Work something out? It's time we faced—"

  "Don't say it, Lydia."

  "I am going to say it. It's time we faced the facts. It's time—"

  "Don't."

  "—time we got divorced."

  D'Agosta slowly hung up the phone. Twenty-five years, just like that. He felt short of breath; almost sick. He wouldn't think about it. He had work to do.

  The Southampton police headquarters was located in a charming, if dilapidated, old wooden building that had once been the clubhouse of the Slate Rock Country Club. The police force must have labored hard, D'Agosta reflected bleakly, to turn its insides into a typical charmless linoleum, cinder-block, and puke-colored police station. It even had that universal headquarters smell: that combination of sweat, overheated photocopy machines, dirty metal, and chlorine cleaning agents.

  D'Agosta felt a knot in his gut. He'd been out of the place for three days now, running around with Pendergast, reporting to the lieutenant by phone. Now he had to face the lieutenant in person. The phone call to his wife had left him a wreck. He really should have waited and called her later.

  He walked through the outer offices, nodding this way and that. Nobody looked particularly glad to see him; he wasn't popular with the regular guys. He hadn't joined the bowling club or hung out with them at Tiny's, tossing darts. He'd always figured he was just passing through on his way back to NYC, hadn't thought it worth the time to make friends. Perhaps that had been a mistake.

  Shaking such thoughts away, he rapped on the frosted-glass door that led to the lieutenant's small office. Faded gold letters, edged in black, spelled out BRASKIE.

  "Yeah?" came the voice.

  Inside, Braskie sat behind an old metal desk. To one side was a stack of newspapers, from the Post and the Times to the East Hampton Record, all with front-page stories about the case. The lieutenant looked terrible: dark circles under the eyes, face lined. D'Agosta almost felt sorry for him.

  Braskie nodded him into a seat. "News?"

  D'Agosta ran through everything while Braskie listened. When he was done, Braskie wiped his hand over his prematurely thinning scalp and sighed. "The chief gets back tomorrow, and basically all we've got so far is jack. No entry or egress, no latents, no hair or fiber, no eyewitnesses, no nothing. When's Pendergast coming?"

  He sounded almost hopeful, he was that desperate.

  "Half an hour. He wanted me to make sure it was all ready."

  "It's ready." The lieutenant rose with a sigh. "Follow me."

  * * *

  The evidence room was housed in a series of portable, container-type structures, fitted end-to-end behind the police station, at the edge of one of Southampton's last remaining potato fields. The lieutenant swiped his card through the door scanner and entered. Within, D'Agosta saw that Joe Lillian, a fellow sergeant, was laying out the last of the evidence on a table in the middle of the long, narrow space. On both sides, shelves and lockers stretched back into the gloom, crammed with evidence going back God knew how many years.

  D'Agosta eyed the table. Sergeant Lillian had done a nice job. Papers, glassine envelopes, sample tubes—everything was tagged and laid out neat as a pin.

  "Think this'll meet with your special agent's approval?" Braskie asked.

  D'Agosta wasn't sure if it was sarcasm or desperation he detected in Braskie's voice. But before he could contemplate a reply, he heard a familiar honeyed voice behind them.

  "Indeed it does, Lieutenant Braskie; indeed it does."

  Braskie fairly jumped. Pendergast stood inside the doorway, hands behind his back; he must've somehow slipped in behind them.

  Pendergast strolled up to the table, hands still clasped behind his back, lips pursed, examining the evidence as keenly as a connoisseur admiring a table laden with precious art.

  "Help yourself to anything," said Braskie. "I've no doubt your forensics lab is better than ours."

  "And I doubt the killer left any forensic evidence beyond that which he wanted to leave. No, for the moment I'm merely browsing. But what's this? The melted cross. May I?"

  Sergeant Lillian picked up the envelope holding the cross and handed it to Pendergast. The agent held it gingerly, turning it slowly this way and that. "I'd like to send this to a lab in New York."

  "No problem." Lillian took it back and laid it in a plastic evidence container.

  "And this charred material." Pendergast next picked up a test tube with some burned chunks of sulfur. He unstoppered it, waved it under his nose, restoppered it.

  "Done."

  Pendergast glanced at D'Agosta. "Anything that interests you, Sergeant?"

  D'Agosta stepped forward. "Maybe." He swept an eye over the table, nodded toward a packet of letters.

  "Everything's been gone over by forensics," said Lillian. "Go ahead and handle it."

  D'Agosta picked up the letters and slipped one out. It was from the boy, Jason Prince, to Grove. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a smirk growing on Lillian's face. What the hell did he think was so funny? D'Agosta began to read.

  Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Reddening, D'Agosta put the letters down.

  "Learn something new every day, huh, D'Agosta?" Lillian asked, grinning.

  D'Agosta turned back to the table. There was a small stack of books: Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe; The New Book of Christian Prayers; Malleus Maleficarum.

  "The Witches Hammer," Pendergast said, nodding at the last title. "The professional witch-hunting manual of the Inquisition. A font of information on the black arts."

  Beside the books was a stack of Web printouts. D'Agosta picked up the top sheet. The site was called Maledicat Dominus; this particular page appeared to be devoted to charms or prayers for warding off the devil.

  "He visited a bunch of sites like that in the last twenty-four hours of his life," said Braskie. "Those were the pages he printed out."

  Pendergast was now examining a wine cork with a magnifying glass. "What was the menu?" he asked.

  Braskie turned to a notebook, flipped open some pages, and passed it to Pendergast.

  Pendergast read aloud. "Dover sole, grilled medallions of beef in a burgundy and mushroom reduction, julienned carrots, salad, lemon sherbet. Served with a '90 Petrus. Excellent taste in wine."

  Handing back the notebook, Pendergast continued his prowl. He bent forward, picked up a wrinkled piece of paper.

  "We found that balled up in the wastebasket. Appears to be a proof sheet of some kind."

  "It's an advance print of an article for the next issue of Art Review. Due on the newsstands tomorrow, if I'm not mistaken." Pendergast smoothed the paper, once again began to read out loud. " 'Art history, like any other great discipline, has its own sacred temples: places and moments any self-respecting critic would give his eyeteeth to have attended. The first impressionist exhibition on the Boulevard des Capucines in 1874 was one; the day Braque first saw Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is another. I am here now to tell you that the Golgotha series of Maurice Vilnius—n
ow on display in his East Village studio—will be another such watershed moment in the history of art.' "

  "At the memorial service yesterday, I thought you said Grove hated Vilnius's stuff," D'Agosta said.

  "And so he did—in years past. But he seems to have suffered a change of heart." Pendergast replaced the paper on the desk with a thoughtful expression. "It certainly explains why Vilnius was in such a good mood last night."

  "We found another, similar article sitting beside his computer," Braskie said, pointing to another sheet on the table. "Printed out but not signed. Appears to be by Grove, however."

  Pendergast picked up the indicated sheet. "It's an article to Burlington Magazine, titled 'A Reappraisal of Georges de la Tour’s The Education of the Virgin.' " He glanced over it quickly. "It's a short article by Grove retracting his own earlier review, where he labeled the de la Tour painting a forgery." He replaced the sheet. "He appears to have changed his mind about a lot of things in his final hours."

  Pendergast glided along the table, then stopped once again, this time before a sheaf of telephone records. "Now, these will be helpful, don't you think, Vincent?" he said, handing them to D'Agosta.

  "Just got the warrant for their release this morning," said Braskie. "Clipped to the back are names and addresses and a short identification of each person he called."

  "Looks like he made a lot of calls on his last day," said D'Agosta, flipping through.

  "He did," said Braskie. "To a lot of strange people."

  D'Agosta turned over the records and looked at the list. It was strange: An international call to Professor Iain Montcalm, New College, Oxford, Medieval Studies Department. Other, local calls to Evelyn Milbanke; Jonathan Frederick. A variety of calls to directory information. After midnight, calls to Locke Bullard, the industrialist; one Nigel Cutforth; and then—even later—the call to Father Cappi.

  "We plan to interview them all. Montcalm, by the way, is one of the world's experts on medieval satanic practices."

  Pendergast nodded.

  "Milbanke and Frederick were at the last dinner party, and the calls were probably about organizing it. We have no idea why he called Bullard. We don't have any evidence that he ever met the guy. Cutforth is also a cipher. He's some kind of record producer, again no indication that he and Grove ever crossed paths. Yet in both cases, Grove had their private numbers."

  "What about all these calls to directory information?" D'Agosta asked. "He must have called at least a dozen different cities."

  "As far as we can tell, he was trying to track down somebody by the name of Beckmann. Ranier Beckmann. His Internet search activity bears this out, too."

  Pendergast laid down a dirty napkin he had been examining. "Excellent work, Lieutenant. Do you mind if we interview some of these people as well?"

  "Be my guest."

  * * *

  D'Agosta and Pendergast climbed into the agent's Rolls, idling ostentatiously in front of the police station, the driver in full livery. As the powerful vehicle accelerated away from the station, Pendergast slipped a leather notebook from his pocket, opened it to a fresh page, and began making notations with a gold pen. "We seem to have an embarrassment of suspects."

  "Yeah. Like about everyone Grove ever knew."

  "With the possible exception of Maurice Vilnius. Even so, I suspect the list will shorten itself rather quickly. Meanwhile, we have our work cut out for us tomorrow." He handed the list to D'Agosta. "You speak with Milbanke, Bullard, and Cutforth. I'll take Vilnius, Fosco, and Montcalm. And here are some identification cards from the FBI Southern District of Manhattan Field Office. If anybody objects to the questions, give them one of these."

  "Anything in particular I should be looking for?"

  "Strictly routine police work. We've reached the point in the case where we must regrettably put on those old-fashioned gumshoes. Isn't that how they say it in those detective novels you used to write?"

  D'Agosta managed a wry smile. "Not exactly."

  { 10 }

  Nigel Cutforth, sitting in his Bauhaus-style breakfast nook 1,052 feet above Fifth Avenue, lowered the latest issue of Billboard and sniffed the air. What was it with the ventilation in his apartment these past few days? This was the third time that sulfurous stink had come up into his apartment. Twice those yahoos from building maintenance had come up, and twice they'd found nothing.

  Cutforth slapped down the paper. "Eliza!"

  Eliza was Cutforth's second wife—he'd finally dumped the old bag who had worn herself out bearing him children and found something fresher—and there she stood in the doorway, in her exercise tights, brushing her long blonde hair with her head tilted to one side. Cutforth could hear the crackle of static.

  "There's that smell again," he said.

  "I've got a nose, too," she said, swinging one mass of hair back and pulling another forward.

  There was a time not so long before when Cutforth liked watching her mess with her hair. Now it was beginning to get on his nerves. She wasted half an hour a day on it, at least.

  As she continued brushing, Cutforth felt his irritation rise. "I paid five and a half mil for this apartment, and it smells like a goddamn science experiment. Why don't you call maintenance?"

  "The phone's right there, next to your elbow."

  Cutforth didn't care for the tone she was taking with him.

  She swung the last part of her hair back, shook it out, straightened. "I've got my spin workout in fifteen minutes. I'm already late."

  With that, she vanished from the doorway. Cutforth could hear her banging the hall closet, getting on her tennis shoes. A moment later there was the hum of the elevator in the hall beyond, and she was gone.

  He stared at the closed door, trying to remind himself that he'd wanted something fresher; that he'd gotten something fresher. Too fucking fresh, in fact.

  He sniffed again. If anything, the smell was worse. It would be a bitch getting maintenance up here a third time. Building management was useless; they did something only if you yelled loud enough. But there were only two apartments on this floor—the other had been purchased but not yet occupied—and nobody on the other floors had seemed to smell anything. So Cutforth was the only one yelling.

  He stood up, feeling a prickle of disquiet. Grove had complained of a bad smell in that bizarre call of his—that, and about a hundred other strange things. He shook his head, trying to clear the clouds of apprehension that were slowly gathering. He was letting that old pillow-biter and his crazy worries get to him.

  Was it coming from the vents? He moved around, testing the air. It was stronger in the living room, even stronger in the library. He followed it to the door of the control room, sniffing like a dog. Stronger, ever stronger. He unlocked the door, entered the room, flicked on the light, and looked around. There was his beautiful 64-channel Studer, his RAID-striped hard disk recording system, and his racks of audio processing gear. On the far wall were several glass cases containing his treasured collections. The guitar Mick Jagger had smashed at Altamont: Keith Richards's prized 1950 Telecaster, dating from the first year of mass production, still sporting its original pickups. The scribbled music sheets to "Imagine," with the coffee stains and obscene doodles in the margins. His wife said the control room looked like Planet Hollywood. That really pissed him off. This space was one of the greatest collections of rock memorabilia anywhere. The place where he'd discovered the Suburban Lawnmowers from an over-the-transom four-track demo mailed from Cincinnati. This is where he'd first heard the sounds of Rappah Jowly and felt that special creeping sensation go up his spine. Cutforth had an ear. He had a knack of recognizing a big-money sound. He didn't know where the ear came from, and he didn't care. It worked, and that's all that mattered.

  Planet Hollywood, my ass. Where the hell is that smell coming from?

  Cutforth followed his nose toward the plate-glass window looking into the studio. It was definitely in there. Some piece of equipment frying, perhaps.

 
He opened the heavy soundproofed door. As he did so, the smell washed over him like an oily fog. He hadn't noticed through the glass, but there was a light haze in the air here. And it wasn't just that sulfurous smell; there was something a lot worse now. It reminded him of a pig wallow on a hot summer day.

  He glanced around the studio quickly, at the Bösendorfer piano and his beloved Neumann microphones, at the isolation chambers, the acoustically tiled walls.

  Had some motherfucker been messing with his studio?

  Cutforth searched the room with his eyes, anger vying with fear. It was impossible anyone had gotten into his apartment. It had state-of-the-art security. When you dealt with gangstas and others who settled business differences with lead instead of lawyers, you had to have good security.

  He glanced around. Everything seemed to be in its place. The recording equipment was off. He laid his hand on the row of mic preamps: cool, the rows of LEDs all dark. But what was this? Over in the far corner there was something lying on the floor.

  He stepped over, bent close to the blond wood, picked it up. It was a tooth. Or more like a tusk. Like a boar's tusk. With blood on it, still wet. And a knot of bloody gristle at one end.

  He dropped it in violent disgust.

  Some fucker has been in here.

  Cutforth swallowed, backed away. It was impossible. No one could get in. Hadn't he just unlocked the door himself? Maybe it had happened yesterday, when he'd shown that promoter around, a guy he really didn't know. You dealt with a lot of weird people in this business. He quickly got a cloth, picked up the tooth with it, practically ran to the kitchen, dropped it down the garbage disposal, and turned it on, listening to the raw grinding noise. The thing exhaled a bad smell and he averted his face.

  A shrill buzzer sounded, and he just about jumped through the wall. Taking deep breaths, he went to the intercom, pressed the buzzer.

  "Mr. Cutforth? There's a police officer to see you."

  Cutforth peered into the tiny video screen beside the intercom and saw a forty-something cop standing in the lobby, shifting from foot to foot.