“Excuse me!” D’Agosta said loudly. In the abrupt silence, he looked around at Horlocker, Waxie, and Frock in turn.
“I’d like Dr. Green to review her findings,” he said in a quieter tone.
Margo took a seat at the table, surprised when Horlocker made no response. Something had happened, and, though she couldn’t be sure, it seemed obvious that it had to do with the subway massacre the night before. She considered apologizing for her lateness and explaining that she’d remained at her lab until three that morning, but decided against it. For all she knew, Jen, her lab assistant, was still at work down the hall.
“Just a minute,” Waxie began. “I was saying that—”
Horlocker turned to him. “Waxie, shut up. Dr. Green, I think you’d better tell us exactly what you’ve been doing and what you’ve discovered.”
Margo took a deep breath. “I don’t know what Lieutenant D’Agosta has told you already,” she began, “so I’ll be brief. You know that the badly deformed skeleton we found belongs to Gregory Kawakita, a former curator here at the Museum. He and I were both graduate assistants. After leaving the Museum, Greg apparently ran a series of clandestine laboratories, the last one being down in the West Side railyards. My examination of the site turned up evidence that, before his death, Greg was manufacturing a genetically engineered version of Liliceae mbwunensis.”
“And that’s the plant the Museum Beast needed to survive?” Horlocker asked. Margo listened for a sarcastic edge to his voice, but could not detect one.
“Yes,” she replied. “But I now believe that this plant was more than just a food source for the beast. If I’m right, the plant contains a reovirus that causes morphological change in any creature that ingests it.”
“Come again?” Waxie said.
“It causes gross physical alteration. Whittlesey, the leader of the expedition that sent the plants back to the Museum, must have ingested some himself—perhaps unwittingly, or perhaps against his will. We’ll never know the details. But it seems clear now that the Museum Beast was, in fact, Julian Whittlesey.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Frock. Nobody else spoke.
“I know this is difficult to believe,” Margo said. “It certainly wasn’t the conclusion we came to after the beast was destroyed. We thought the creature was simply some evolutionary aberration that needed the plants to survive. We assumed that, when its own ecological niche was destroyed, it followed the only remaining plants back to the Museum. They’d been used as packing fibers for the artifacts that were crated up and shipped back to New York. Then later, when the beast couldn’t get the plants, it ate the nearest available substitute: the human hypothalamus, which contains many of the same hormones found in the plant.
“But I now think we were wrong. The beast was a grossly malformed Whittlesey. I also think Kawakita stumbled on the true answer. He must have found a few specimens of the plant and begun altering them genetically. I guess he believed he’d been able to rid the plant of its negative effects.”
“Tell them about the drug,” D’Agosta said.
“Kawakita had been producing the plant in large quantities,” Margo said. “I believe that a rare designer drug—didn’t I hear you call it ‘glaze’?—is derived from it, though I can’t be sure. It probably has potent narcotic or hallucinatory properties in addition to its viral payload. Kawakita must have been selling it to a select group of users, probably to raise money for more research. But he was also testing the effectiveness of his work. Clearly, he ingested the plant himself at some point. That’s what accounts for the bizarre malformations to his skeletal structure.”
“But if this drug, or plant, or whatever, has such terrible side effects, why would this Kawakita take it himself?” Horlocker asked.
Margo frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “He must have continued perfecting new strains. I assume he felt he’d bred out the negative elements of the drug. And he must have seen some beneficial aspect to it. I’m conducting tests on the plants I found in his laboratory. We’ve introduced them into various test animals, including white mice and some protozoans. My lab assistant, Jennifer Lake, is going over the results now.”
“Why wasn’t I informed—?” Waxie began.
D’Agosta rounded on him. “When you finally get around to checking your in box and listening to your messages, you’ll find that you were informed of every goddamn step.”
Horlocker held up his hand. “Enough. Lieutenant, we all know that mistakes have been made. We’ll leave the recriminations for later.”
D’Agosta sat back. Margo had never seen him so angry. It was almost as if he blamed everyone in the room—himself included—for the subway tragedy.
“Right now, we’ve got an unbelievably serious situation on our hands,” Horlocker continued. “The mayor’s on my back, screaming for action. And now, with this massacre, the governor’s joined in.” He wiped his brow with a damp handkerchief. “All right. According to Dr. Green here, we’re dealing with a group of drug addicts, supplied by this scientist, Kawakita. Only now, Kawakita is dead. Maybe their supplies have run out, or maybe they’ve gone wild. They’re living deep underground, in these Astor Tunnels D’Agosta was describing, abandoned long ago because of flooding. And they’re going mad with need. When they can’t get the drug, they’re forced to eat the human brain. Just like the Mbwun beast. Hence, all the recent killings.” He looked around, glaring. “Supporting evidence?”
“The Mbwun plants we found at Kawakita’s lab site,” Margo said.
“The bulk of the killings parallel the route of the Astor Tunnels,” D’Agosta added. “Pendergast showed that.”
“Circumstantial.” Waxie snorted.
“How about testimony of countless homeless, all stating the Devil’s Attic has been colonized?” Margo said.
“You’d trust a bunch of bums and drug addicts?” Waxie asked.
“Why the hell would they lie?” Margo demanded. “And who’s in a better position to know the truth than they are?”
“Very well!” The Chief raised his hand. “In the face of the evidence, we’re forced to agree. No other leads have panned out. And the powers that be in this city want immediate action. Not tomorrow, or the next day, but right now.”
Frock cleared his throat quietly. It was the first sound he’d made in some time.
“Professor?” Horlocker said.
Frock rolled forward slowly. “Forgive my skepticism, but I find this a little too fantastic,” he began. “It all seems too much an extrapolation from the facts. Since I wasn’t involved in the most recent tests, I can’t speak with authority, of course.” He looked at Margo with mild reproof. “But the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”
“And what pray tell is the simple explanation?” D’Agosta broke in.
Frock moved his gaze to the Lieutenant. “I beg your pardon,” he said icily.
Horlocker turned to D’Agosta. “Stow it, Vincent.”
“Perhaps Kawakita was working with the Mbwun plant. And I see no reason to doubt Margo when she says that our own assumptions of eighteen months ago were a trifle hasty. But where is the evidence of a drug, or of the distribution of a drug?” Frock spread his hands.
“Jesus, Frock, he had a stream of visitors out at his lab in Long Island City—”
Frock turned another cool stare at D’Agosta. “I daresay you have visitors at your apartment in Queens”—the distaste in his voice was evident—“but that doesn’t mean you’re a drug peddler. Kawakita’s activities, however professionally reprehensible, do not have any bearing on what I think is probably a gang of youths on a homicidal rampage. Kawakita was a victim like the rest. I fail to see the connection.”