Hearing this, Singleton’s eyes flashed. For a minute, D’Agosta feared he might bring up Pendergast. But no—Singleton was too tactful for that. Instead, he simply nodded.
“As chief, I’ll make the initial contact with Quantico and then pass things along to you. That’s the best way to proceed, especially with the FBI, who are sticklers about rank.”
D’Agosta nodded. Now he really wished Pendergast was here.
For a while, they watched in silence as the fiber guy moved slowly across the floor on his hands and knees, tweezers in one hand, going over square after square of the grid laid down with strings. What a job.
“I almost forgot,” Singleton said. “What were the results of the DNA test on the earlobe?”
“We still haven’t gotten them back.”
Singleton slowly turned toward D’Agosta. “It’s been sixty hours.”
D’Agosta felt the blood rushing to his face. Ever since the forensic DNA unit had been shifted out of the M.E.’s office and made into its own department—with Dr. Wayne Heffler as director—they had been impossible to deal with. A few years ago, he and Pendergast had had a run-in with Heffler. Ever since, D’Agosta suspected that Heffler had made a point of holding up his lab results just long enough to piss off D’Agosta but not so long that he himself got into hot water.
“I’ll get on it,” said D’Agosta evenly. “I’ll get on it immediately.”
“I’d appreciate it,” said Singleton. “One of your responsibilities as squad commander is to kick ass. And in this case, you may have to, ah, put the toe of your boot right up inside, if you get my meaning.”
He gave D’Agosta a friendly pat on the back and turned to leave.
10
THE TAXICAB PULLED UP TO THE SEVENTY-SECOND STREET entrance of the Dakota, stopping opposite the doorman’s pillbox. A uniformed man emerged and, with the gravitas of doormen the world over, approached the cab and opened the rear door.
A woman stepped out into the early-morning sunlight. She was tall and sleek and beautifully dressed. The white, broad-brimmed hat she wore set off her freckled face, deeply tanned despite the lateness of the season. She paid the driver, then turned toward the doorman.
“I’ll need to use your house phone, if you please,” she said in a brisk English accent.
“This way, ma’am.” And the doorman led her down a long, dark passage beneath a portcullis to a small room facing the building’s interior courtyard.
She picked up the phone, dialed an apartment number. The phone rang twenty times without answer. The doorman waited, eyeing her. “There’s no answer, miss.”
Viola eyed the doorman. This was someone who could not be pushed around. She offered a sweet smile. “As you know, the housekeeper is deaf. I’ll try again.”
A reluctant nod.
Another twenty rings.
“Miss, I think that’s enough. Allow me to take your name.”
She rang again. The doorman was now frowning, and she could see he was getting ready to reach over and press the ENGAGED button.
“Please, just a moment,” she said, with another brilliant smile.
Even as the doorman’s hand was reaching over to cut her off, the phone was finally answered.
“Hello?” she said quickly. The hand withdrew.
“May I know the reason for this damnable persistence?” came the monotonal, almost sepulchral voice.
“Aloysius?” the woman asked.
A silence.
“It’s me. Viola. Viola Maskelene.”
There was a long pause. “Why are you here?”
“I’ve come all the way from Rome to speak to you. It’s a matter of life and death.”
No response.
“Aloysius, I appeal to you on… on the strength of our past relationship. Please.”
A slow, quiet exhalation of breath. “I suppose you must come up, then.”
The elevator whispered open to a small landing, with maroon carpeting and walls of dark, polished wood. The single door opposite was standing open. Lady Maskelene walked through the doorway and then stopped, shocked. Pendergast was standing inside, wearing a silk dressing gown of muted paisley. His face was gaunt, his hair limp. Without bothering to shut the door, he turned away wordlessly and walked over to one of the room’s leather sofas. His movements, normally brisk and economical, were sluggish, as if he were moving underwater.
Lady Maskelene closed the door and followed him into the room, which was rose-colored with the sparse decoration of a few ancient, gnarled bonsai trees. Three of the walls held a scattering of impressionist paintings. The fourth was a sheet of water, falling over a slab of black marble. Pendergast took a seat on the sofa, and she sat down beside him.
“Aloysius,” she said, taking his hand in both of hers, “my heart breaks for you. What an awful, awful thing. I’m so terribly sorry.”
His eyes looked through her rather than at her.
“I can’t even begin to imagine how you must feel right now,” she said, pressing his hand. “But the one thing you mustn’t feel is guilt. You did everything you possibly could—I know you did. What happened was beyond your power to prevent.” She paused. “I wish there was something I could do to help you.”
Pendergast freed his hand from hers, closed his eyes, and tented his fingertips on his temples. He seemed to be making a huge effort to concentrate, to bring himself into the moment. Then he opened his eyes again and looked at her.
“You mentioned a life at stake. Whose?”
“Yours,” she replied.
This did not seem to register at first. After a moment or two, Pendergast said, “Ah.”
There was another silence. Then he spoke again. “Perhaps you’d care to explain the source of your information?”
“Laura Hayward contacted me. She told me what had happened, what was going on. I dropped everything and flew from Rome on the very next plane.”
She couldn’t stand the dull way he was looking at her—looking past her. This was so unlike the courtly, collected, nuanced Pendergast she had first met at her villa on Capraia—the man under whose spell she had fallen—that she could not bear it. A terrible anger rose in her heart at the people who had done this to him.
After a hesitation, she took him in her arms. He stiffened but did not protest.
“Oh, Aloysius,” she whispered. “Won’t you let me help?”
When he still did not respond, she said, “Listen to me. It’s fine to grieve. It’s good to grieve. But this—shutting yourself up here, refusing to speak to anyone, refusing to see anyone… it’s no way to handle this.” She held him tighter. “And you must deal with it—for Helen’s sake. For my sake. I know it will take time. That’s why I’m here. To help you through your grief. Together we can—”
“No,” Pendergast murmured.
Surprised, she waited.
“There will be no handling it,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Of course there will. I know it seems utterly hopeless right now. But given time, you’ll see that—”
He sighed with something like impatience, some of his self-possession returning. “I see that it is necessary to enlighten you. Will you come with me?”
She looked at him for a moment. She felt a flicker of hope, even relief. This was a flash of the old Pendergast, taking charge.
He rose from the sofa and led the way to an almost invisible door set into one of the rose walls. Opening it, he started down a long, dim hallway, stopping at last at a paneled door that was standing ajar. Pushing it wide, he stepped in.