The nurse wheeled the invalid up to the waiting Proctor. As she did so, Pendergast emerged from the entranceway and ambled over to the Rolls, hands in pockets.
"I can't persuade you to stay a little longer, maître?" he asked.
The person in the wheelchair sneezed explosively. "I wouldn't stay here a minute longer even if Saint Christopher himself asked me!" came the petulant response.
"Let me help you in, Mr. Bertin," said Proctor.
"One minute." A pale hand, holding a bottle of nasal spray, emerged from beneath the blanket. The bottle was applied to one quivering nostril, squeezed, then tucked away again beneath the blanket. The dark glasses were removed and slipped into the BOAC flight bag that never seemed to leave the little man's side. "You may proceed. Doucement, pour l'amour du ciel — doucement!"
With some effort Proctor and the nurse managed to shift Bertin from the wheelchair and — under a stream of imprecations — slide him into the rear of the vehicle. Pendergast came forward and leaned into the window.
"Are you feeling any better?" he asked.
"No, and I won't until I have returned to the back bayou — if then." Bertin peered out from between his wraps, clutching his huge cudgel — cane, his black eyes glistening like beads. "And you need to have a care, Aloysius — the death conjuring of that hungan is strong: old and strong."
"Indeed."
"How do you feel?"
"Not bad."
"You see!" Bertin declared with something like triumph. The hand reappeared again, rummaged in the battered bag, produced a tiny sealed envelope. "Dissolve this in six ounces of sarsaparilla and add a little flaxseed oil. Twice a day."
Pendergast pocketed the envelope. "Thank you, maître.I'm sorry to have caused you such trouble."
For a moment, the glittering black eyes softened. "Pah! It was good to see you after so many years. Next time we meet, however, it will be in New Orleans — I will not return to this place of darkness again!" He shuddered. "I wish you best of luck. This Loaof the Ville — it is truly evil. Evil."
"Is there anything more you should tell me before you leave?"
"No. Yes!" The little man coughed, sneezed again. "I almost forgot amid all my sufferings. That tiny coffin you showed me — the one in the evidence room — it is strange."
"The one from Colin Fearing's crypt? The one you, ah, damaged?"
Bertin nodded. "It took me some time to realize it. But the arrangement of skulls and bones on the lid…" He shook his head. "The ratio is unusual, self — conflicting. It should follow the True Pattern: two to five. A subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. It doesn't match the rest." He gave a disdainful flick of his fingers. "It is crude, strange."
"I analyzed the grayish powder that was inside of it. It appears to be simple wood ash."
Another disdainful flick. "You see? It does not match the other Obeah of Charrière and the Ville. Those are infinitely worse. Why this one item doesn't match the pattern is a mystery."
"Thank you, maître." And Pendergast straightened up, a thoughtful look settling onto his face.
"Not at all. And now adieu,my dear Aloysius— adieu!Remember: dissolve in six ounces of sarsaparilla, twice a day." Bertin tapped the roof of the car with the head of his cane. "You may drive on, my good sir! And don't spare the horses, I beg you!"
Chapter 56
The Multimedia ServicesUnit at One Police Plaza reminded D'Agosta of a submarine's control room: hot, overstuffed with electronics, ripe with the smell of humanity. At least twenty people were packed into the low — ceilinged space, hunched over terminals and workstations. Somebody was eating an early lunch, and the pungent smell of curry hung in the air.
He paused and looked around. The biggest group was concentrated in the rear, where John Loader, chief forensic tech, had his cubicle. D'Agosta began making his way toward it, his feeling of frustration mounting when he saw that Chislett was already here. The deputy chief turned, saw D'Agosta, turned back.
Loader was sitting at his digital workstation, a hulking CPU beneath the desk and dual thirty — inch flat — screen monitors atop it. Despite D'Agosta's pressuring, the forensic technician had insisted he'd need at least two hours to process and prep the video. So far he'd had ninety minutes.
"Give me an update," D'Agosta said as he drew near.
Loader pushed away from the workstation. "It's an MPEG — four file that was e — mailed to the network's news department."
"And the trace?"
Loader shook his head. "Whoever did it used a remailing service out of Kazakhstan."
"Okay, what about the video, then?"
The technician pointed at the matching screens. "It's in the forensic video analyzer."
"This is what took ninety minutes?"
Loader frowned. "I've striped in a time code, field — aligned and frame — averaged the entire clip, removed noise and brightened each frame, and applied digital image stabilization."
"Did you remember to put a cherry on top?"
"Lieutenant, cleaning up the file not only smooths and sharpens the image, but it also reduces distractions and can highlight evidence that would otherwise go unnoticed."
D'Agosta felt like pointing out that there was a human life at stake here and every minute counted, but decided against it. "Fair enough. Let's see it."
Loader pulled the jog shuttle closer — a round black device the size of a hockey puck — and the video flickered into life on the left — hand monitor. It was less grainy and muddy than when he'd seen it on the news. There was a rattle, then a feeble light stabbed into the darkness: and there was Nora. She stared at the camera; her face, illuminated by the light source, looked like a white ghost floating in darkness. Behind her, D'Agosta could just barely make out patches of straw on a cement floor, rough mortared stones forming the walls.
"Help me," Nora said.
The camera shook; lost focus; gained focus again.
"What do you want?" Nora asked.
No answer, no sound. And then something like a muffled scratch or creak. The light swiveled away, the darkness returned, and the clip ended.
"So you can't trace it," D'Agosta said, trying to keep his voice steady. "Is there anything else about the file that you can tell me? Anything at all?"
"It wasn't multiplexed."
"Which means?"
"It wasn't from a CCTV. The source was most likely a standard consumer digital camcorder, probably an older handheld model given the degree of image shake."
"And there was no communication in the e — mail? No ransom demand, no message of any kind?"
Loader shook his head.
"Play it again, please."
As it played, D'Agosta looked around at what little was visible of the room, searching for something, anything, that might help identify it.
"Can you zoom in on that wall?" he asked.
With the jog shuttle, Loader scrubbed back a second or two into the clip; highlighted a section of the wall close to Nora; then magnified it.