Relic (Pendergast, Book 1)

by Preston, Douglas

Pendergast started to dial.

  “Just a moment,” said Wright. “Surely we can discuss this without involving other people.”

  “That’s up to you,” said Pendergast as he finished dialing.

  “For Heaven’s sake, put down that phone,” Wright said angrily. “Of course, we’ll cooperate fully—within reason.”

  “Very good,” Pendergast said. “And if in the future you start to feel that anything is unreasonable, we can always do this again.” He replaced the receiver gently.

  “If I’m going to cooperate,” Wright continued, “I think I’ve a right to be informed about just what’s been done since this latest atrocity. As far as I can see, you’ve made precious little progress.”

  “Certainly, Doctor,” Pendergast said. He looked at papers on the desk. “According to your time clocks, the most recent victim, Jolley, met his demise shortly after ten-thirty last night,” he said. “The autopsy should confirm this. He was, as you know, lacerated in a fashion similar to the previous victims. He was killed while making his rounds, although the stairwell where he was found wasn’t part of his normal route. He may have been investigating a suspicious noise or something of that nature. He may have just stopped for some reefer. A recently smoked marijuana cigarette was found near the archway directly outside the stairwell exit. We will, naturally, be testing the body for drug use.”

  “God, that’s all we need,” said Wright. “But haven’t you found any useful clues? What about this wild animal business? You—”

  Pendergast held his palm up and waited for silence. “I would prefer not to speculate until we discuss the available evidence with experts. Some of these experts may be from among your own staff. For the record, we’ve found no signs as yet that any kind of animal had been in the vicinity.

  “The body was found lying at the bottom of the stairwell, although it was clear that the attack occurred near the top, as blood and viscera were found along the length of the stairs. He either rolled or was dragged to the bottom. But don’t take my word for it, Dr. Wright,” Pendergast said, picking up a manila envelope from the desk, “see for yourself.” He pulled out a glossy photograph and laid it carefully on the tabletop.

  “Oh, my God,” Wright said, staring at the photograph. “Heaven help us.”

  “The right-hand wall of the stairwell was covered with splattered blood,” Pendergast said. “Here’s a photograph.”

  He handed it to Wright, who slid it quickly on top of the first.

  “It’s a simple matter to do a ballistics analysis on splattered blood,” Pendergast went on. “In this case, the evidence is consistent with a massive blow directed downward, instantaneously disemboweling the victim.”

  Pendergast replaced the photographs and checked his watch. “Lieutenant D’Agosta will be checking in with you to make sure that everything is proceeding along the lines we’ve discussed,” he said. “One last question, Doctor. Which of your curators knows the most about the anthropology collections here?”

  Dr. Wright seemed not to have heard. Finally he said, “Dr. Frock,” in a barely audible voice.

  “Very good,” said Pendergast. “Oh, and Doctor—I told you earlier that the Museum can remain open, all other things being equal. But if anybody else dies inside these walls, the Museum will have to be shut down immediately. The matter will be out of my hands. Understood?”

  After a long moment, Wright nodded.

  “Excellent,” Pendergast replied. “I’m very aware, Doctor, that your Superstition exhibition is scheduled to open this coming weekend, and that you have a large preview planned for Friday evening. I’d like to see your opening proceed unvexed, but everything will depend on what we discover in the next twenty-four hours. Prudence may require us to delay the opening party.”

  Wright’s left eyelid began to twitch. “That’s quite impossible. Our entire marketing campaign would be derailed. The publicity would be devastating.”

  “We shall see,” Pendergast replied. “Now, unless there’s anything else, I don’t think we need keep you any longer.”

  Wright, his face drained of color, stood up and, without a word, walked stiffly out of the room.

  D’Agosta grinned as the door closed. “Softened up that bastard nicely,” he said.

  “What’s that again, Lieutenant?” Pendergast asked, leaning back in the leather chair and picking up the book with renewed enthusiasm.

  “Come on, Pendergast,” D’Agosta said, looking cagily at the FBI agent. “I guess you can drop the genteel act when it suits you.”

  Pendergast blinked innocently at D’Agosta. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I apologize for any unseemly behavior. It’s simply that I can’t stand pompous, bureaucratic individuals. I’m afraid I can become quite short with them.” He raised the book. “It’s a bad habit, but very hard to break.”

  17

  The laboratory looked out over the East River and across to the warehouses and decaying industrial buildings of Long Island City. Lewis Turow stood in the window and watched an enormous barge, piled with garbage and surrounded by countless seagulls, being pushed out to sea. Probably one minute’s worth of New York City garbage, he thought.

  Turow turned away from the window and sighed. He hated New York, but one had to make choices. The choice for him was enduring the city and working in one of the best genetic labs in the country, or working in some half-assed facility in a nice rural spot somewhere. So far he’d chosen the city, but his patience was running out.

  He heard a low beeping, then the soft hiss of a mini-printer. The results were coming through. Another soft beep indicated the print job was finished. The three-million-dollar Omega-9 Parallel Processing Computer, which took up a series of large gray boxes along one wall, was now completely silent. Only a few lights indicated that anything was happening. It was a special, hardwired model designed for sequencing DNA and mapping genes. Turow had come to the lab six months before specifically because of this machine.

  He fetched the paper out of the bin and scanned it. The first page was a summary of the results, followed by a sequence of nucleic acids found in the sample. Next to those were columns of letters that identified primer sequences and mapped genes from the target group.

  The target group, in this case, was unusual: big cats. They had asked for gene matches with Asiatic tiger, jaguar, leopard, bobcat. Turow had thrown in the cheetah, since its genetics were so well known. The outgroup chosen was, as usual, Homo sapiens, a control to check that the genetic matching process had been accurate and the sample sound.

  He scanned the summary.

  Well, this is complete bullshit, thought Turow. The sample matched the outgroup a lot more than it matched the target group—the opposite of what should have happened. Only a 4 percent chance that the genetic material was from a big cat, but a 33 percent chance it was from a human being.

  Thirty-three percent. Still low, but within the realm of possibility.

  So that meant trying GenLab for a match. GenLab was an enormous international DNA database—two hundred gigs and growing—that contained DNA sequences, primers, and mapped genes for thousands of organisms, from the Escherichia coli bacterium to Homo sapiens. He would run the data against the GenLab database, and see just what this DNA was from. Something close to Homo sapiens, it looked like. Not high enough to be an ape, but maybe something like a lemur.

  Turow’s curiosity was piqued. Till now, he didn’t even know that his laboratory did work for the police department. What the hell made them think this sample came from a big cat? he wondered.

  The results ran to a hefty eighty pages. The DNA sequencer printed out the identified nucleotides in columnar format, indicating species, identified genes, and unidentified sequences. Turow knew that most of the sequences would be unidentified, since the only organism with a complete genetic map was E. coli.

  Turow glanced over the figures, then carried the paper over to his desk. With a few keystrokes on his SPARC-station 10, Turow could access information from th
ousands of databases. If the Omega-9 did not have the information he sought, it would automatically dial into the Internet and find a computer that did.

  Scanning the printout more closely, Turow frowned. It must be a degraded sample, he thought. Too much unidentified DNA.

  He stopped flipping the pages. Here was something truly odd: the program had identified a large chunk of DNA as belonging to an animal named Hemidactylus turcicus.

  Now what the hell is that? thought Turow.

  The Biological Nomenclature Database told him:

  COMMON NAME: TURKISH GECKO

  What? thought Turow. He typed, EXPAND.

  HEMIDACTYLUS TURCICUS: TURKISH GECKO.

  ORIGINAL RANGE: NORTHERN AFRICA

  PRESENT BIOLOGICAL RANGE: FLORIDA, BRAZIL, ASIA MINOR, NORTHERN AFRICA.

  MEDIUM-SIZE LIZARD OF THE GECKO

  FAMILY, GEKKONIDAE, ARBOREAL, NOCTURAL, LACKING MOVEABLE EYELIDS

  Turow flicked out of the database while the information was still scrolling by. It was pure nonsense, obviously. Lizard DNA and human DNA in the same sample? But this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. You couldn’t blame the computer, really. It was an inexact procedure, and only the smallest fractions of the DNA sequences of any given organism were known.

  He scanned down the printed list. Less than 50 percent of the matches were human—a very low proportion, assuming the subject was human, but not out of the question in a degraded sample. And there was always the possibility of contamination. A stray cell or two could ruin an entire run. This last possibility was looking more and more likely to Turow. Well, what can you expect from the NYPD? They couldn’t even get rid of the guy who sold crack openly on the corner across from his apartment building.

  He continued his scan. Wait, he thought, here’s another long sequence: Tarentola mauritanica. He punched up the database, entered the name. The screen read:

  TARENTOLA MAURITANICA: WALL GECKO

  Give me a break, Turow thought. This is some kind of joke. He glanced at the calendar: April first was Saturday.

  He started to laugh. It was a very good joke. A very, very good joke. He didn’t think old Buchholtz had it in him. Well, he had a sense of humor, too. He started his report.

  Sample LA-33

  Summary: Sample conclusively identified as Homo Gekkopiens, common name Gecko-man …

  When he finished the report he sent it upstairs immediately. Then he went out for coffee, still chuckling. He was proud of how he’d handled it. He wondered where in the world Buchholtz got his gecko samples from. Probably sold them in pet stores. He could see Buchholtz blending up sample cells from two or three geckos in the ultrablender with a few drops of his own blood. Let’s see what our new man Turow makes of this, he’d probably been thinking. Turow, returning with the coffee, had to laugh out loud. He found Buchholtz waiting for him in the lab, only Buchholtz wasn’t laughing.

  18

  Wednesday

  Frock sat in his wheelchair, dabbing his forehead with a Gucci handkerchief. “Sit down, please,” he said to Margo. “Thank you for coming so promptly. It’s dreadful, just dreadful.”

  “The poor guard,” she replied. Nobody in the Museum was talking about anything else.

  “Guard?” Frock looked up. “Oh yes, quite a tragedy. No, I mean this.” He held up a memorandum.

  “All sorts of new rules,” said Frock. “Very inconvenient. Effective today, staff are only allowed in the building between ten and five. No working late or on Sundays. There will be guards stationed in each department. You’ll be expected to sign in and out of Anthropology each day. They are asking everybody to carry IDs at all times. Nobody will be allowed to enter or leave the Museum without one.”

  He continued reading. “Let’s see, what else … ah, yes. Try as much as possible to keep to your assigned section. And I’m supposed to tell you not to go into isolated areas of the Museum alone. If you need to go somewhere, go with someone. The police will be interviewing everyone who works in the Old Basement. Yours is scheduled for early next week. And various sections of the Museum are being posted as off-limits.” He pushed the memo across the desk.

  Margo saw a floor plan attached, the off-limits areas shaded in red. “Don’t worry,” Frock continued. “I note your office is just outside the area.”

  Lovely, thought Margo. Just outside where the murderer is probably lurking. “This seems like a complicated arrangement, Professor Frock. Why didn’t they just close the whole Museum?”

  “No doubt they tried, my dear. I’m sure Winston talked them out of it. If Superstition doesn’t open on schedule, the Museum will be in deep trouble.” Frock held out his hand for the memo. “Shall we consider this discussed? There are other things I wish to talk to you about.”

  Margo nodded. The Museum will be in deep trouble. It seemed to her that it already was. Her office mate, along with half of the Museum staff, had called in sick that morning. Those who did show up were spending most of their time at the coffee machines or photocopiers, trading rumors and staying in groups. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Museum’s exhibit halls were nearly empty. The vacationing families, school groups, shouting children—the normal visitors—were few and far between. Now the Museum attracted mostly ghoulish rubberneckers.

  “I was curious whether you’d obtained any of the plants for your chapter on the Kiribitu yet,” Frock continued. “I thought it might be a useful exercise for both of us to run them through the Extrapolator.”

  The telephone rang. “Blast,” Frock said, picking up the receiver. “Yes?” he demanded.

  There was a long silence. “Is this necessary?” Frock asked. Then he paused. “If you insist,” he concluded, dropping the phone into its cradle and heaving a great sigh.

  “The authorities want me down in the basement, Heaven knows why. Somebody named Pendergast. Would you mind wheeling me down? We can chat along the way.”

  In the elevator, Margo continued. “I was able to get a few specimens from the herbarium, though not as many as I’d wanted. But I don’t understand. You’re suggesting we run them through the G.S.E.?”

  “Correct,” Frock replied. “Depending on the condition of the plants, of course. Is there printable material?”

  G.S.E. stood for Genetic Sequence Extrapolator, the program being developed by Kawakita and Frock for analyzing genetic “prints.”

  “The plants are in good condition, for the most part,” Margo admitted. “But, Dr. Frock, I don’t see what use they could be to the Extrapolator.” Am I just jealous of Kawakita? She wondered to herself. Is that why I’m resisting?

  “My dear Margo, your situation is tailor-made!” Frock exclaimed, using her first name in his excitement. “You can’t replay evolution. But you can simulate it with computers. Perhaps these plants are allied genetically, along the same lines as the Kiribitu shamans have developed for their own classification. Wouldn’t that make an interesting sidebar for your dissertation?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Margo said.

  “We’re beta-testing the program now, and this is exactly the kind of scenario we need,” Frock continued eagerly. “Why don’t you talk to Kawakita about working together?”

  Margo nodded. Privately, she thought that Kawakita didn’t seem like the type who wanted to share his spotlight—or even his research—with anybody.

  The elevator door opened onto a checkpoint manned by two police officers armed with shotguns. “Are you Dr. Frock?” one asked.

  “Yes,” Frock replied irritably.

  “Come with us, please.”

  Margo wheeled Frock through several intersections, arriving at last at a second checkpoint. Behind the barricade stood two more policemen and a tall, thin man in a somber black suit, blond white hair combed severely back from his forehead. As the policemen moved the barricade, he stepped forward.

  “You must be Dr. Frock,” he said, extending his hand. “Thank you for coming down. As I told you, I’m expecting another vi
sitor, so I wasn’t able to come by your office myself. Had I known you were—” he indicated the wheelchair with a nod,”—I would never have asked. Special Agent Pendergast.” He held out his hand. Interesting accent, thought Margo. Alabama? This guy doesn’t look anything like an FBI agent.

  “Quite all right,” said Frock, mollified by Pendergast’s courtesy. “This is my assistant, Miss Green.” Pendergast’s hand felt cool in Margo’s grasp.

  “It’s an honor to meet such a distinguished scientist as yourself,” Pendergast continued. “I hope time will permit me to read your latest book.”

  “Thank you.” Frock nodded.

  “In it, do you apply the ‘Gambler’s Ruin’ scenario to your theory of evolution? I always thought that backed up your hypothesis rather well, especially if you assume most genera start out close to the absorbing boundary.”

  Frock sat up in his wheelchair. “Well, ah, I was planning to make certain references to that in my next book.” He seemed at a loss for words.

  Pendergast nodded to the officers, who readjusted the barrier. “I need your help, Dr. Frock,” he said in a lower tone.

  “Certainly,” Frock said amiably. Margo was amazed at how quickly Pendergast had won Frock’s cooperation.

  “I must ask, first of all, that this discussion be kept among ourselves for the time being,” said Pendergast. “May I have your assurance? And that of Ms. Green?”

  “Of course,” said Frock. Margo nodded.

  Pendergast motioned to one of the officers, who brought forward a large plastic bag marked EVIDENCE. From it he removed a small, dark object, which he handed to Frock.

  “What you’re holding,” he said, “is the latex cast of a claw found embedded in one of the children that were murdered last weekend.”

  Margo leaned forward for a closer look. It was about an inch long, perhaps a little less, curved and jagged.

  “A claw?” Frock said, bringing the object close to his face and examining it. “Very unusual. But I’d guess it’s a fake.”