The van crept forward, the driver cautious and slow. They left the dim lights of Upper Manhattan behind and were soon among the dark, silent trees of Inwood Hill Park. Although the windows were closed tight, the sounds Mrs. Pizzetti had mentioned were all too plain to D'Agosta: a chorus of crying, bleating, meowing, barking, clucking, and — even more horrifying — the terrified whinny of what could only be a newborn colt. At the thought of the pitiful menagerie within, and the fate that they seemed all too clearly destined for, D'Agosta felt white — hot anger boil up inside him.
The van crested a hill, descended, then stopped. D'Agosta heard the driver get out. As he did so,
D'Agosta leapt from the rear of the van and sprinted into the nearby woods, diving into the dark leaves. Rolling into a crouch, he glanced back in the direction of the van. The driver was unlocking an old gate in a chain — link fence, and for the briefest of instants the face passed through the glow of the headlights. His skin was pale, and there was something strikingly refined, almost aristocratic, about it.
The van went through the gate; the man emerged once again and relocked it; then, getting back in, he drove on. D'Agosta rose and brushed off the leaves, his hands trembling with fury. Nothing was going to keep him out now, not with all those animals at risk. He was an officer of the law in performance of his duty. As a homicide detective, he didn't normally wear a uniform; taking his badge out and pinning it to his lapel, he scaled the chain — link fence and set off down the road, where the taillights of the van had disappeared. The road curved and ahead he could faintly make out the spire of a large, rudely built church, surrounded by a disorganized cluster of dim lights.
After a minute, he stopped in the middle of the road and turned, peering into the darkness. Some cop instinct told him he wasn't alone. He pulled out his Maglite and played it about the tree trunks, the dead bushes with their rustling leaves.
"Who's there?"
Silence.
D'Agosta turned off the Maglite and slipped it back into his pocket. He continued staring into the darkness. There was the faint light of a quarter moon, and the trunks of the beech trees seemed to float in the darkness like long scabby legs. He listened intently. There wassomething there. He could feel it — and now he could hear it. A faint crush of damp leaves, the crack of a twig.
He reached for his service revolver. "I'm a New York City police officer," he rapped out. "Step into the roadway, please." He left the torch off — he could see farther into the gloom without it.
Now he could see, just barely, a pale shape moving with a strange, lurching gait through the trees. It ducked into a stand of deep brush and he lost it. A strange moaning floated out from the woods, in — articulate and sepulchral, as if from a mouth yawning wide and slack: aaaaahhhhhuuuu…
He slipped the torch out of his holster, turned it on, flashed it through the trees. Nothing.
This was bullshit. Some kids were playing a game with him.
He strode toward the area of brush, playing the light about. It was a large tangle of overgrown azaleas and mountain laurel stretching for hundreds of feet — he paused, and then pushed in.
In response, he heard the rustling of brush to his right. He flashed the light toward it, but the bright beam striking the tightly packed brush prevented him from seeing deeper. He switched off the light and waited, his eyes adjusting. He spoke calmly. "This is public property and I'm a police officer — show yourself now or I'll charge you with resisting arrest."
The single crack of a twig came, once again from his right. Turning toward it, he saw a figure rear up out of the bracken: pallid, sickly green skin; slack face smeared with blood and mucus; clothes hanging from knobby limbs in rags and tatters.
"Hey, you!" It reared back, as if temporarily losing its balance, then lurched forward and began to approach with an almost diabolical hunger. One eye swiveled toward him, then moved away; the other eye was hidden in a thick crusting of blood or perhaps mud. Aaaaahhuuuu…
"Jesus Christ!" D'Agosta yelled, leaping backward, dropping the flashlight and fumbling for his service piece, a Glock 19.
Abruptly, the thing rushed him, bulling through the brush with a crashing sound; he raised his gun but at the same moment felt a stunning blow to his head, a humming sound, and then nothing.
Chapter 34
Monica Hatto's eyes flew open and she straightened at her desk, squaring her shoulders, trying to look alert. She glanced around nervously. The big clock against the tiled wall opposite her indicated it was half past nine. The last night — desk receptionist in the morgue annex had been fired for sleeping on the job. Adjusting the papers on the desk, she looked about once again, relaxing somewhat. The fluorescent lights in the annex cast their usual pall over the tiled floors and walls, and the air smelled of the usual chemicals. All was quiet.
But somethinghad woken her up.
Hatto rose and smoothed her hands down her sides, adjusting her uniform over her copious love — handles, trying to look neat, alert, and presentable. This was one job she couldn't afford to lose. It paid well and, what's more, came with health benefits.
There was a muffled sound, almost like a commotion, somewhere upstairs. A "mort" was on its way, perhaps. Hatto smiled to herself, proud of her growing command of the lingo. She slipped a makeup mirror from her handbag and touched up her lips, adjusted her hair with a few deft pats, examined her nose for that horrid oily shine.
She heard a second sound, the faint boom of an elevator door closing. Another once — over, a dab of scent, and the mirror went back into the bag, the bag back over the arm of her chair, the papers once more squared on the desk.
Now the sound of pounding of feet came, not from the bank of elevators, but from the stairwell. That was odd.
The feet approached rapidly. Then the stairwell door flew open with a crash and a woman came tearing down the corridor, wearing a black cocktail dress, running in high — heeled shoes, her copper hair flying.
Hatto was so surprised she didn't know what to say.
The woman came to stop in the middle of the annex, her face gray in the ghastly fluorescent light.
"Can I help you—" Hatto began.
"Where is it?" the woman screamed. "I want to see it!" Monica Hatto stared. "It?"
"My husband's body! William Smithback!"
Hatto backed up, terrified. The woman was crazy. As she waited for an answer, sobbing, Hatto could hear the rumble of the slow, slow elevator starting up.
"The name's Smithback! Where is it?"
On the desk behind her, a voice suddenly bawled out of the intercom. "Security breach! We've got a security breach! Hatto, you read?"
The voice broke the spell. Hatto punched the button.
"There's a—"
The voice on the intercom overrode hers. "You got a nutcase coming your way! Female, might be violent! Don't engage her physically! Security's on its way!"
"She's already—"
"Smithback!" the woman cried. "The journalist who was murdered!"
Hatto's eyes involuntarily flickered toward Morgue 2, where they had been working on the famous reporter's cadaver. It was a big deal, with a call from the police commissioner and front — page stories in the newspaper.
The woman broke for the Morgue 2 door, which had been left open by the night cleaning crew. Too late, Hatto realized she should have closed and locked it.