“I’ve been lying here thinking a great deal, as well as enjoying your solicitude. What happened to your arm, Vincent?”
“Broken ulna. No big deal.”
Pendergast’s eyes fluttered closed. After a moment, they opened once again.
“What was in it?” he asked.
“In what?” D’Agosta said.
“Esteban’s safe.”
“An old will and a deed.”
“Ah,” Pendergast whispered. “The last will and testament of Elijah Esteban?”
D’Agosta started. “How’d you know?”
“I found Elijah Esteban’s tomb in the basement of the Ville. It had been broken into just minutes earlier and looted—no doubt of that very will and deed. A property deed, I expect?”
“Right. To a twenty-acre farm,” said D’Agosta.
A slow nod. “A farm that, I assume, is a farm no longer.”
“You got it. Now twenty acres of prime Manhattan real estate, stretching between Times Square and Madison Avenue, taking in much of the midforties. The will was written in such a way that Esteban would have had clear title as the only heir.”
“Naturally, he wouldn’t have tried to actually take over the land. He would have used the document as the basis of an extremely lucrative lawsuit—ending in a multibillion-dollar settlement, I have no doubt. Worth killing for, Vincent?”
“Maybe for some people.”
Pendergast eased his arms above the covers, arranged them with minute care, his white fingers touching what D’Agosta noticed was unusually fine linen. No doubt Proctor was to thank for that. “Where the Ville is now, there was an earlier religious community—of a very different kind,” he said. “Wren told me its original founder became a gentleman farmer in southern Manhattan after the community failed. That farmer and Elijah Esteban must be one and the same. On his death, he was buried in the basement of the settlement he founded—along, it seems, with the fateful documents: the deed and will.”
“Makes sense,” said D’Agosta. “So how did Alexander Esteban learn about it?”
“After he retired from Hollywood, it seems he acquired a passion for studying his family tree. He employed a researcher to paw through old records for him. It was the researcher who made the discovery—and who was murdered for his pains. His is the second, unidentified body in the tunnel, by the way.”
“We found it,” said Hayward.
“A very handy corpse, too. It was tossed off the bridge into the Harlem River and misidentified as Fearing by our very busy friend, Wayne Heffler, with the help of the so-called sister.”
“So Colin Fearing was alive,” said D’Agosta. “When he killed Smithback, I mean.”
A nod. “Remarkable what one can do with theatrical makeup. Esteban was a film director par excellence.”
“Perhaps we should let Agent Pendergast rest,” Hayward said.
Pendergast waved one hand feebly. “Nonsense, Captain. Talking helps clear my mind.”
“I still don’t get it,” said D’Agosta.
“Straightforward, once you’ve grasped the thread.” Pendergast closed his eyes, folded his pale hands on the coverlet. “Esteban had learned of the existence, and location, of a document that would make him fabulously rich. Unfortunately, it was sealed in a tomb and locked in the basement of what was now the Ville des Zirondelles: a secretive cult deeply suspicious of outsiders. So secretive that only one hundred forty-four could ever be members; only when one died was a new one recruited. Impossible for Esteban to penetrate. So he tried to whip up public sentiment against the Ville, get the city to condemn the property, evict the squatters. That’s why he joined Humans for Other Animals and enlisted Smithback to write stories about it for the Times.”
“I’m seeing it now,” said D’Agosta. “By itself that wasn’t enough. So Esteban escalated—by murdering Smithback and pinning it on the Ville—and cooking up all that voodoo and zombii stuff.”
Pendergast gave the barest nod. “He didn’t get the Vôdou quite right—for example, the tiny coffin in Fearing’s empty crypt—which is why my friend Bertin was so stymied by it. A clue I regrettably missed. Ironic, since what the Ville practiced was not Vôdou anyway, so much as their own strange and bizarre cult, transformed and twisted over decades of insularity.” He paused. “He hired two accomplices. Colin Fearing—and Caitlyn Kidd.”
“Caitlyn Kidd?” D’Agosta repeated in disbelief. “The reporter?”
“Correct. She was part of the plan. Esteban would have made a list of precise qualifications, then gone out to find the people who matched them exactly. I expect it happened something like this: Fearing was an out-of-work actor of disreputable background, badly in need of money. He lived in Smithback’s building and was roughly his weight and height. A perfect choice for Esteban. Caitlyn Kidd was a rather unscrupulous reporter, eager to get ahead.” He glanced over at Hayward. “You don’t look surprised by this.”
Hayward hesitated just a moment before replying. “I requested deep background checks on everyone involved with the case. Kidd’s came back just a few hours ago. She’s got a prison record—quite well hidden, it turns out—for fraud. She ran a confidence scam in which she extorted money from older men.”
D’Agosta looked at her in shock.
Pendergast merely nodded. “The criminal record is how Esteban found her, I imagine. In any case, he would pay her a great deal for her starring role. Esteban wrote a script for this little drama, in which Fearing faked his own death, using the researcher’s corpse as a body. Caitlyn Kidd played the role of the sister who identified him, and the overly busy Dr. Heffler completed the picture. Once everybody thought Fearing was dead, Esteban simply heightened the illusion with makeup—he was a film producer, after all. And he had Fearing—playing himself, only now risen from the dead as a zombii—kill Smithback and attack Nora Kelly.”
D’Agosta shook his head ruefully. “Seems almost obvious now that you point it out.”
“Recall how Fearing looked so deliberately into the security camera when he left Smithback’s apartment building? How he made sure the neighbors got a good look at him? At the time it struck me as odd, but now it makes perfect sense. Having Fearing seen, and identified, was a critical element—perhaps the critical element—of Esteban’s plan.”
There was a longer silence. Pendergast at last opened his eyes. “Then Esteban launched the next act in his screenplay. Caitlyn Kidd approached the grieving Nora, enlisting her into the effort to pin the murder on the Ville. Her first assignment was to get close to Nora, trick her into thinking that going after the Ville was Nora’s own idea. They maintained the pressure on Nora by having Fearing stalk her in the museum and elsewhere. Next, Esteban stole Smithback’s body from the morgue—to give the illusion that he, too, had risen from the dead as a zombii. But he needed Smithback’s body for another, even more critical reason: to make a mask of his face for Fearing’s use. I found traces of latex rubber on Smithback’s face, the remains of the mold. Fearing wore the mask—suitably made up for horrific effect—to murder Kidd before a gathering guaranteed to know Smithback by sight.”
“But why kill Kidd?” D’Agosta asked.
“She had played her role to perfection—she’d outlived her usefulness. Time to give her the hook. Easier to kill her than pay her, and it’s always prudent to get rid of one’s accomplices. A lesson Fearing should have taken to heart. Do you recall how Kidd shouted out Smithback’s name before she was killed? I would surmise Esteban had told her that Fearing, disguised as the dead Smithback, was going to kill someone else at that ceremony. Her role—her last scene—was to cry out Smithback’s name in mock terror—to immediately establish in everyone’s minds who he was, to help drive home the illusion. Only she got more than she bargained for.”
“And then Esteban had Fearing kill Wartek as soon as the man started eviction proceedings against the Ville,” said D’Agosta.
Pendergast nodded.
“And he kidnapped Nora, once again f
raming the Ville for the crime.”
“Yes. The pressure against the Ville had to be ratcheted up to the breaking point. Esteban wasn’t going to wait for a lengthy eviction proceeding. His pacing was perfect, just like the great director he was. When he released the video of Nora that everyone assumed was shot in the basement of the Ville, the third act was almost upon us. That’s when he knew it was time to strike.”
“So Esteban himself murdered Fearing?” asked Hayward.
“I believe so. Esteban no doubt wanted to remove his second accomplice the same way he’d removed the first. Dumping his body near the Ville had the added advantage of framing them for the murder.”
“One thing I don’t get,” said D’Agosta. “That first march on the Ville—Esteban whipped up the crowd, then defused them again. Why? Why didn’t he simply go in?”
Pendergast didn’t answer for a moment. “I found that puzzling at first. Then I considered that there weren’t enough of them to succeed. It was premature. He had one shot at getting into the Ville and robbing the tomb. He needed a riot—a big one, not a brief disturbance, to get in unseen, seize his prize, and retreat. The first was merely a rehearsal. That’s why Esteban didn’t lead the second, major demonstration. He egged it on and then pretended to bow out. He was down there, Vincent, even while we were. It was only chance that we didn’t cross paths. By the time that creature attacked us, he was already gone.”
Hayward frowned. “What was that creature, anyway?”
“A man. At least, it had once been a man. The ritual transformed it into something else.”
“What ritual?” D’Agosta asked.
“Do you recall those strange implements we saw on the Ville’s altar? The tools with the bone handles and a long, twisting metal point with a tiny blade at one end? They served the same function as an old medical instrument known as a leucotome.”
“A leucotome?” D’Agosta repeated.
“The device used in performing a lobotomy—in this case, a transorbital lobotomy, done by entering the brain from the eye socket. The members of the Ville learned long ago that destroying a specific portion of the brain, in a region called Broca’s area, rendered the unfortunate victim impervious to pain, free of moral or ethical constraints, extremely violent, and yet submissive to its minders. Something less than human but more than animal.”
“And you’re saying the Ville did this to someone intentionally?”
“Absolutely. The victim was chosen by the cult to be a sacrifice for the community, but he was also revered and worshipped for making that sacrifice. It may even have been an honor, vied for by many. That man-thing was, in fact, a central part of their religious ritual: his creation, his nurturing, his training, his feeding, and his release were all part of the ritual cycle. He served to protect the community from a hostile world, and they in turn fed him, kept him, revered him. In some societies, certain individuals are given leave to perform actions that are normally considered wrong. Perhaps the Ville lobotomized the man as a way of protecting his soul, allowing him to murder, to kill, to defend the Ville without incurring the stain of sin on his soul.”
“But how could an operation turn a person into that kind of monster?” Hayward asked.
“The operation isn’t difficult. Many years ago, a physician named Walter Freeman could perform what became known as ice-pick lobotomies in just a few minutes. Stick it in, a quick back-and-forth motion, and the offending part of the brain is destroyed. Along with half the person’s personality, his soul, his sense of self. The Ville just took it a step farther.”
“Those old murders Wren uncovered?” D’Agosta said. “Perhaps they were caused by similar zombiis.”
“Exactly: the creation of a living zombii that, through murder and fear, convinced Isidor Straus not to proceed with clear-cutting Inwood Hill Park. It seems that the Straus groundskeeper himself became a convert to the Ville cult—and then was honored by elevation to sacred status, and became that zombii.”
Hayward shuddered. “How horrible.”
“Indeed. The irony is almost palpable: Esteban had Fearing act like a zombii to convince the public he was a creation of the Ville. Yet the Ville was, in a manner of speaking, creating zombiis—though for rather different purposes than Esteban apprehended. By the way, what’s happened to the Ville?”
“It seems they’ll stay where they are, for the time being. They promised no more animal sacrifices.”
“And, let us hope, no more zombiis. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that, in the future, rather than being the malevolent presence we assumed, Bossong becomes something of a rehabilitating influence on the Ville. I sensed a tension between him and the high priest.”
“It was Bossong who killed the zombii,” D’Agosta said. “At the end, when it was at the point of killing us.”
“Indeed? That is reassuring: such a heroic action is not, shall we say, the sort of thing a true believer would do—kill the vessel of one’s own gods.” Pendergast glanced at Hayward. “By the way, Captain, I’ve been meaning to tell you how sorry I was to hear you’d been passed over for the mayor’s task force.”
“Don’t be.” Hayward brushed back her black hair. “I think I’m actually better off for losing the opportunity—the latest word is that task force is going to become just the bureaucratic nightmare everyone swore it would never be. And that reminds me: remember our friend Kline, the software developer? Looks like he’s going to be sorry he strong-armed the commissioner. I just heard the FBI was wiretapping Rocker’s phone in a sting operation and got the whole blackmail conversation on tape. Both are going down—hard. Kline is finished.”
“A pity. Rocker wasn’t a bad man.”
Hayward nodded. “He did it for good motives—the Dyson Fund. A tragedy, in a way. But one side effect is I’m leaving the commissioner’s office, getting my job as homicide captain back.”
A silence settled in the room.
D’Agosta spoke all in a rush. “Listen, Pendergast, I just wanted to apologize for my goddamn stupidity back there—for dragging you into the Ville, for getting you shot, for almost losing Nora. I’ve done some idiotic things, but this took the cake.”
“My dear Vincent,” murmured Pendergast, “if we hadn’t gone into the Ville, I never would have found the looted tomb, I never would have seen the name Esteban… and where would we be now? Nora would be dead and Esteban the new Donald Trump. So you see, your ‘stupidity’ was crucial in solving this case.”
D’Agosta didn’t quite know how to respond to this.
“And now, if you don’t mind, Vincent, I shall rest.”
As they exited the hospital room, D’Agosta turned to Hayward. “What’s this about deep background checks on everyone involved with the case?”
Hayward looked uncharacteristically embarrassed. “I couldn’t just stand there and watch Pendergast pull you in over your head. So… I started looking into the case myself. Just a little.”
D’Agosta felt a strange mixture of emotions: mild annoyance at the thought he might need bailing out, great satisfaction knowing she cared enough about him to do it at all. “You’re forever looking after me,” he said.
In response, she slipped her hand through his arm. “Got any dinner plans?”
“Yes. I’m taking you out.”
“Where to?”
“How about Le Cirque?”
She looked at him in surprise. “Wow. Twice in one year. What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion. Just a very special lady.”
At that moment, an elderly man in the corridor stopped them. D’Agosta looked at him, astonished. He was short and stocky and dressed as if he had just stepped out of Edwardian London: a black cutaway jacket, a white carnation in his boutonniere, a spotless bowler hat.
“Pardon me,” he said. “Is the room you just exited where Aloysius Pendergast is staying?”
“Yes,” D’Agosta said. “Why?”
“I have a letter I must deliver to him.” And in fact th
e man was holding a letter: fancy, cream-laid paper, hand-pressed by the look of it. Pendergast’s name was written on its front in a broad hand.
“You’ll have to come back with your letter,” D’Agosta said. “Pendergast is resting.”
“I assure you, he’ll want to see this particular letter right away.” And the man began to step past them toward the door.
D’Agosta put a restraining hand on the man’s shoulder. “Just who are you?” he demanded.
“The name is Ogilby, and I’m the solicitor for the Pendergast family. Now, if you’ll excuse me?” And—freeing himself from D’Agosta’s grasp with one fawn-gloved hand—he bowed, raised his hat to Hayward, and stepped past into Pendergast’s room.
Epilogue
The small powerboat cut easily through the glassy waters of Lake Powell. It was a cold, clear day in early April, the Arizona air as crisp and clean as fresh laundry. The late-morning sun glowed orange against the great sandstone walls of the Grand Bench, and as the boat came around the bend, the prow of Kaiparowits Plateau rose far behind it, purple in the rising sun, wild and inaccessible.
Nora Kelly stood at the helm, the wind stirring her short hair. The rumble of the engine echoed softly against the cliffs, and the water hissed along the hull as the boat moved through the mystical world of stone. The air was fragrant with the smell of cedar and warm sandstone, and as the boat moved through the cathedral-like stillness, a golden eagle soared above the canyon rims, issuing a thin cry.
She eased down on the throttle and the boat slowed to a trolling pace. As the lake took another turn, the mouth of a narrow, flooded canyon came into view—Serpentine Canyon, two smooth walls of red sandstone with a lane of green water between.
Nora turned the boat into the canyon. The engine sound grew louder, more confined. True to its name, the canyon twisted and turned like a country road. It was cooler in the canyon, even cold, and Nora could see her breath in the frosty air. A mile in, the boat reached a particularly beautiful spot, where a tiny waterfall threaded and tumbled its way down a channel of stone, creating in its fall a microcosm of hanging ferns and mosses, with a stand of miniature twisted piñons growing sideways out of a cleft in the rock. She cut the engine and drifted, listening to the splash of the waterfall, inhaling the perfume of sweet fern and water.
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