The Inner Circle

by Brad Meltzer

  Smithback involuntarily leaned forward. “Tragedy?”

  “His older brother, Arthur, died. Some rare disease.”

  Smithback abruptly made the connection. “Did they call him Little Arthur, by any chance?”

  “I believe they did. His father was Big Arthur. It hit Tony very hard.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “When Tony was in tenth grade.”

  “So it was his older brother? Was he in the school, too?”

  “No. He’d been hospitalized for years. Some very rare and disfiguring disease.”

  “What disease?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “When you say it hit Fairhaven hard, how so?”

  “He became withdrawn, antisocial. But he came out of it, eventually.”

  “Yes, yes. Let me see…” Smithback checked his notes. “Let’s see. Any problems with alcohol, drugs, delinquency…?” Smithback tried to make it sound casual.

  “No, no, just the opposite,” came the curt reply. The look on the teacher’s face had hardened. “Tell me, Mr. Smithback, exactly why are you writing this article?”

  Smithback put on his most innocent face. “I’m just doing a little biographical feature on Mr. Fairhaven. You understand, we want to get a well-rounded picture, the good and the bad. I’m not fishing for anything in particular.” Right.

  “I see. Well, Tony Fairhaven was a good boy, and he was very anti-drug, anti-drinking, even anti-smoking. I remember he wouldn’t even drink coffee.” She hesitated. “I don’t know, if anything, he might have been a little too good. And it was sometimes hard to tell what he was thinking. He was a rather closed boy.”

  Smithback jotted a few more pro forma notes.

  “Any hobbies?”

  “He talked about making money quite a bit. He worked hard after school, and he had a lot of spending money as a result. I don’t suppose any of this is surprising, considering what he’s done. I’ve read from time to time articles about him, how he pushed through this development or that over a neighborhood’s protests. And of course I read your piece on the Catherine Street discoveries. Nothing surprising. The boy has grown into the man, that’s all.”

  Smithback was startled: she’d given no indication she even knew who he was, let alone read his pieces.

  “By the way, I thought your article was very interesting. And disturbing.”

  Smithback felt a flush of pleasure. “Thank you.”

  “I imagine that’s why you’re interested in Tony. Well, rushing in and digging up that site so he could finish his building was just like him. He was always very goal-oriented, impatient to get to the end, to finish, to succeed. I suppose that’s why he’s been so successful as a developer. And he could be rather sarcastic and impatient with people he considered his inferiors.”

  Right, thought Smithback.

  “What about enemies. Did he have any?”

  “Let me see… I just can’t remember. He was the kind of boy that was never impulsive, always very deliberate in his actions. Although it seems to me there was something about a girl once. He got into a shoving match and was suspended for the afternoon. No blows were exchanged, though.”

  “And the boy?”

  “That would have been Joel Amberson.”

  “What happened to Joel Amberson?”

  “Why, nothing.”

  Smithback nodded, crossed his legs. This was getting nowhere. Time to move in for the kill. “Did he have any nicknames? You know how kids always seem to have a nickname in high school.”

  “I don’t remember any other names.”

  “I took a look at the yearbook, posted on your Web site.”

  The teacher smiled. “We started doing that a few years ago. It’s proven to be quite popular.”

  “No doubt. But in the yearbook, he had a nickname.”

  “Really? What was it?”

  “The Slasher.”

  Her face furrowed, then suddenly cleared. “Ah, yes. That.”

  Smithback leaned forward. “That?”

  The teacher gave a little laugh. “They had to dissect frogs for biology class.”

  “And—?”

  “Tony was a little squeamish—for two days he tried and tried but he couldn’t do it. The kids teased him about it, and somebody started calling him that, The Slasher. It kind of stuck, as a joke, you know. He did eventually overcome his qualms—and got an A in biology, as I recall—but you know how it is once they start calling you a name.”

  Smithback didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t believe it. It got worse and worse. The guy was a candidate for beatification.

  “Mr. Smithback?”

  Smithback made a show of checking his notes. “Anything else?”

  The kindly gray-haired teacher laughed softly. “Look, Mr. Smithback, if it’s dirt you’re looking for on Tony—and I can see that it is, it’s written all over your face—you’re just not going to find it. He was a normal, all-around, high-achieving boy who seems to have grown into a normal, all-around, high-achieving man. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my grading.”

  Smithback stepped out of P.S. 1984 and began walking, rather mournfully, in the direction of Columbus Avenue. This hadn’t turned out the way he’d planned, at all. He’d wasted a colossal amount of time, energy, and effort, and without anything at all to show for it. Was it possible his instincts were wrong—that this was all a wild-goose chase, a dead end, inspired by a thirst for revenge? But no—that would be unthinkable. He was a seasoned reporter. When he had a hunch, it was usually right. So how was it he couldn’t find the goods on Fairhaven?

  As he reached the corner, his eye happened to stray toward a newsstand and the front page of a freshly printed New York Post. The headline froze him in his tracks.

  EXCLUSIVE

  SECOND MUTILATED BODY FOUND

  The story that followed was bylined by Bryce Harriman.

  Smithback fumbled in his pocket for change, dropped it on the scarred wooden counter, and grabbed a paper. He read with trembling hands:

  NEW YORK, Oct. 10—An as-yet-unidentified body of a young woman was discovered this morning in Tompkins Square Park, in the East Village. She is apparently the victim of the same brutal killer who murdered a tourist in Central Park two days ago.

  In both cases, the killer dissected part of the spinal cord at the time of death, removing a section known as the cauda equina, a bundle of nerves at the base of the spinal cord that resembles a horse’s tail, The Post has learned.

  The actual cause of death appears to have been the dissection itself.

  The mutilations in both cases appear to have been done with care and precision, possibly with surgical instruments. An anonymous source confirmed the police are investigating the possibility that the killer is a surgeon or other medical specialist.

  The dissection mimics a description of a surgical procedure, discovered in an old document in the New York Museum. The document, found hidden in the archives, describes in detail a series of experiments conducted in the late nineteenth century by an Enoch Leng. These experiments were an attempt by Leng to prolong his own life span. On October 1, thirty-six alleged victims of Leng were uncovered during the excavation of a building foundation on Catherine Street. Nothing more is known about Leng, except that he was associated with the New York Museum of Natural History.

  “What we have here is a copycat killer,” said Police Commissioner Karl C. Rocker. “A very twisted individual read the article about Leng and is trying to duplicate his work.” He declined to comment further on any details of the investigation, except to say that more than fifty detectives had been assigned to the case, and that it was being given “the highest priority.”

  Smithback let out a howl of anguish. The tourist in Central Park was the murder assignment that, like a complete fool, he’d turned down. Instead, he had promised his editor Fairhaven’s head on a platter. Now, not only did he have nothing to show for his day of pounding the pav
ement, but he’d been scooped on the very story he himself had broken—and by none other than his old nemesis, Bryce Harriman.

  It was his own head that would be on a platter.

  SIX

  NORA TURNED OFF CANAL STREET ONTO MOTT, MOVING slowly through the throngs of people. It was seven o’clock on a Friday evening, and Chinatown was packed. Sheets of densely printed Chinese newspapers lay strewn in the gutters. The stalls of the fish sellers were set up along the sidewalks, vast arrays of exotic-looking fish laid out on ice. In the windows, pressed duck and cooked squid hung on hooks. The buyers, primarily Chinese, pushed and shouted frantically, under the curious gaze of passing tourists.

  Ten Ren’s Tea and Ginseng Company was a few hundred feet down the block. She pushed through the door into a long, bright, orderly space. The air of the tea shop was perfumed with innumerable faint scents. At first she thought the shop was empty. But then, as she looked around once more, she noticed Pendergast at a rear table, nestled between display cases of ginseng and ginger. She could have sworn that the table had been empty just a moment before.

  “Are you a tea drinker?” he asked as she approached, motioning her to a seat.

  “Sometimes.” Her subway had stalled between stations for twenty minutes, and she’d had plenty of time to rehearse what she would say. She would get it over with quickly and get out.

  But Pendergast was clearly in no hurry. They sat in silence while he consulted a sheet filled with Chinese ideographs. Nora wondered if it was a list of tea offerings, but there seemed to be far too many items—surely there weren’t that many kinds of tea in the world.

  Pendergast turned to the shopkeeper—a small, vivacious woman—and began speaking rapidly.

  “Nin hao, lao bin liang. Li mama hao ma?”

  The woman shook her head. “Bu, ta hai shi lao yang zi, shen ti bu hao.”

  “Qing li Dai wo xiang ta wen an. Qing gei wo yi bei Wu Long cha hao ma?”

  The woman walked away, returning with a ceramic pot from which she poured a minuscule cup of tea. She placed the cup in front of Nora.

  “You speak Chinese?” Nora asked Pendergast.

  “A little Mandarin. I confess to speaking Cantonese somewhat more fluently.”

  Nora fell silent. Somehow, she was not surprised.

  “King’s Tea of Osmanthus Oolong,” said Pendergast, nodding toward her cup. “One of the finest in the world. From bushes grown on the sunny sides of the mountains, new shoots gathered only in the spring.”

  Nora picked up the cup. A delicate aroma rose to her nostrils. She took a sip, tasting a complex blend of green tea and other exquisitely delicate flavors.

  “Very nice,” she said, putting down the cup.

  “Indeed.” Pendergast glanced at her for a moment. Then he spoke again in Mandarin, and the woman filled up a bag, weighed it, and sealed it, scribbling a price on the plastic wrapping. She handed it to Nora.

  “For me?” Nora asked.

  Pendergast nodded.

  “I don’t want any gifts from you.”

  “Please take it. It’s excellent for the digestion. As well as being a superb antioxidant.”

  Nora took it irritably, then saw the price. “Wait a minute, this is two hundred dollars?”

  “It will last three or four months,” said Pendergast. “A small price when one considers—”

  “Look,” said Nora, setting down the bag. “Mr. Pendergast, I came here to tell you that I can’t work for you anymore. My career at the Museum is at stake. A bag of tea isn’t going to change my mind, even if it is two hundred bucks.”

  Pendergast listened attentively, his head slightly bowed.

  “They implied—and the implication was very clear—that I wasn’t to work with you anymore. I like what I do. I keep this up, I’ll lose my job. I already lost one job when the Lloyd Museum closed down. I can’t afford to lose another. I need this job.”

  Pendergast nodded.

  “Brisbane and Collopy gave me the money I need for my carbon dates. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me now. I can’t spare the time.”

  Pendergast waited, still listening.

  “What do you need me for, anyway? I’m an archaeologist, and there’s no longer any site to investigate. You’ve got a copy of the letter. You’re FBI. You must have dozens of specialists at your beck and call.”

  Pendergast remained silent as Nora took a sip of tea. The cup rattled loudly in the saucer when she replaced it.

  “So,” she said. “Now that’s settled.”

  Now Pendergast spoke. “Mary Greene lived a few blocks from here, down on Water Street. Number 16. The house is still there. It’s a five-minute walk.”

  Nora looked at him, eyebrows narrowing in surprise. It had never occurred to her how close they were to Mary Greene’s neighborhood. She recalled the note, written in blood. Mary Greene had known she was going to die. Her want had been simple: not to die in complete anonymity.

  Pendergast gently took her arm. “Come,” he said.

  She did not shrug him off. He spoke again to the shopkeeper, took the tea with a slight bow, and in a moment they were outside on the crowded street. They walked down Mott, crossing first Bayard, then Chatham Square, entering into a maze of dark narrow streets abutting the East River. The noise and bustle of Chinatown gave way to the silence of industrial buildings. The sun had set, leaving a glow in the sky that barely outlined the tops of the buildings. Reaching Catherine Street, they turned southeast. Nora glanced over curiously as they passed Henry and the site of Moegen-Fairhaven’s new residential tower. The excavation was much bigger now; massive foundations and stem walls rose out of the gloom, rebar popping like reeds from the freshly poured concrete. Nothing was left of the old coal tunnel.

  Another few minutes, and they were on Water Street. Old manufacturing buildings, warehouses, and decrepit tenements lined the street. Beyond, the East River moved sluggishly, dark purple in the moonlight. The Brooklyn Bridge loomed almost above them; and to its left, the Manhattan Bridge arced across the dark river, its span of brilliant lights reflected in the water below.

  Near Market Slip, Pendergast stopped in front of an old tenement. It was still inhabited: a single window glowed with yellow light. A metal door was set into the first-floor facade. Beside it was a dented intercom and a series of buttons.

  “Here it is,” said Pendergast. “Number sixteen.”

  They stood in the gathering darkness.

  Pendergast began to speak quietly in the gloom. “Mary Greene came from a working-class family. After her father’s upstate farm failed, he brought his family down here. He worked as a stevedore on the docks. But both he and Mary’s mother died in a minor cholera epidemic when the girl was fifteen. Bad water. She had a younger brother: Joseph, seven; and a younger sister: Constance, five.”

  Nora said nothing.

  “Mary Greene tried to take in washing and sewing, but apparently it wasn’t enough to pay the rent. There was no other work, no way to earn money. They were evicted. Mary finally did what she had to do to support her younger siblings, whom she evidently loved very much. She became a prostitute.”

  “How awful,” Nora murmured.

  “That’s not the worst. She was arrested when she was sixteen. It was probably at that point her two younger siblings became street children. They called them guttersnipes in those days. There’s no more record of them in any city files; they probably starved to death. In 1871 it was estimated there were twenty-eight thousand homeless children living on the streets of New York. In any case, later Mary was sent to a workhouse known as the Five Points Mission. It was basically a sweatshop. But it was better than prison. On the surface, that would have seemed to be Mary Greene’s lucky break.”

  Pendergast fell silent. A barge on the river gave out a distant, mournful bellow.

  “What happened to her then?”

  “The paper trail ends at the lodging house door,” Pendergast replied.

  He turned to her, his pale f
ace almost luminous in the gloaming. “Enoch Leng—Doctor Enoch Leng—placed himself and his medical expertise at the service of the Five Points Mission as well as the House of Industry, an orphanage that stood near where Chatham Square is today. He offered his time pro bono. As we know, Dr. Leng kept rooms on the top floor of Shottum’s Cabinet throughout the 1870s. No doubt he had a house somewhere else in the city. He affiliated himself with the two workhouses about a year before Shottum’s Cabinet burned down.”

  “We already know from Shottum’s letter that Leng committed those murders.”

  “No question.”

  “Then why do you need my help?”

  “There’s almost nothing on record about Leng anywhere. I’ve tried the Historical Society, the New York Public Library, City Hall. It’s as if he’s been expunged from the historical record, and I have reason to think Leng himself might have eradicated his files. It seems that Leng was an early supporter of the Museum and an enthusiastic taxonomist. I believe there may be more papers in the Museum concerning Leng, at least indirectly. Their archives are so vast and disorganized that it would be virtually impossible to purge them.”

  “Why me? Why doesn’t the FBI just subpoena the files or something?”

  “Files have a way of disappearing as soon as they are officially requested. Even if one knew which files to request. Besides, I’ve seen how you operate. That kind of competence is rare.”

  Nora merely shook her head.

  “Mr. Puck has been, and no doubt will continue to be, most helpful. And there’s something else. Tinbury McFadden’s daughter is still alive. She lives in an old house in Peekskill. She’s ninety-five, but I understand very much compos mentis. She may have a lot to say about her father. She may have even known Leng. I have a sense she’d be more willing to speak to a young woman like yourself than to an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “You’ve still never really explained why you’ve taken such an interest in this case.”