“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“Dr. Heffler and I are old buddies.”
Old buddies. Somehow the way he said it didn’t sound right. Nobody would use the word buddy to describe Dr. Wayne Heffler, who was a pretentious, pseudo-upper-class, condescending twit, as far as Teal was concerned. She had known plenty of Hefflers in her long career, but he was truly the worst: one of those types whose highest pleasure was found in reviewing the work of subordinates, with the sole purpose of finding fault and pointing it out in front of as many people as possible. Meanwhile, he neglected his own work and left others to scramble to cover for him, knowing they would be blamed if something went wrong or fell through the cracks.
“And your name, sir?”
“Special Agent Pendergast.”
“Oh. As in FBI?”
A singularly disturbing smile spread over the face of the special agent as a marble hand slipped inside his suit coat and withdrew a wallet, opened it to display a shield and ID, then gently closed it and reinserted it into the folds of black wool. With a not-displeasing sense of anticipation, Madeleine Teal pressed the intercom button and picked up the phone.
“Dr. Heffler, there’s an FBI agent named Pendergast here to see you, no appointment, says he knows you.”
A short pause. “Pendergast, did you say?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Send him in.”
She hung up. “You may go in.”
But the agent didn’t move. “Dr. Heffler may come out.”
Now, this was different. She got back on the phone. “He wants you to come out.”
“You tell that son of a bitch that if he wants to see me, I’m here, in my office—otherwise send him away.”
She felt a gentle tug. Pendergast’s arm had snaked up and was gently grasping the phone. “May I?”
She released the phone. No one could fault her for not opposing an FBI agent.
“Dr. Heffler? Agent Pendergast.”
She couldn’t hear the reply, but the cricket-like chittering that drifted from the earpiece indicated a raised voice. Heffler was arguing.
This, thought Madeleine Teal, is going to be good.
The FBI agent listened patiently, then responded. “I have come for the mtDNA results on the Hotel Killer.”
More irritated chittering out of the mouthpiece.
“What a shame.” He turned and smiled at her, an apparently genuine smile this time, as he handed her back the telephone. “Thank you. Now—which way is the laboratory where the mtDNA work is performed?”
“It’s down the hall to the right, but… no one’s allowed in there unescorted,” she said, lowering her voice.
“Ah, but I won’t be unescorted. Dr. Heffler will be escorting me. Or at least, he will be shortly.”
“But—”
Pendergast, however, had his cell phone out and was making a call even as he walked out the door, turned right, and headed down the hall. Almost as soon as he’d vanished, Madeleine Teal’s phone rang and she picked it up.
“Dr. Heffler, please,” came the voice. “Mayor Starke.”
“Mayor Starke?” Unbelievable. It really was him, calling personally. “Yes, sir, just a moment.” She put the call through. It lasted less than thirty seconds. Then Heffler came bursting out of his office, face red. “Where’d he go?”
“Down the hall to the lab. I told him—”
But Heffler had already taken off down the hall at an undignified jog. She had never seen the man so put out, so frightened, and—she had to be honest with herself—she enjoyed it immensely.
The Rolls pulled up at the porte cochere of the mansion at 891 Riverside Drive. Agent Pendergast instantly alighted, a slender manila folder under his arm. It was late in the day and a chill wind was coming off the Hudson, tugging at his suit and stirring his pale blond hair. Dry leaves skittered along the pavement and blew around the house as the heavy oaken door opened to swallow his dark figure.
Winding his way swiftly through the dim corridors, Pendergast reached the library. It remained untidy, the refectory table stacked with papers, spilling to the floor. The section of bookcases revealing the flat-panel remained open. He moved briskly to the rear of the library, where a swift flick of his wrist at some invisible mechanism caused another section of shelves to swing open, revealing a small work space with computer and monitor. Without bothering to sit down, Pendergast began typing on the keyboard, the screen leaping to life. He pulled a compact disk out of the manila folder, scattering papers in his haste. He fed the CD into the computer and rapped out additional commands, reaching a log-in screen. When he filled out the password, a stark black-and-white welcome page came into view:
DOCTOR’S TRIAL GROUP
mtDNA DATABASE
Homo sapiens haplogroup mitochondrion
Polymorphisms and mutations
THIS IS A CONFIDENTIAL DATABASE.
UNAUTHORIZED USE STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.
More machine-gun typing followed, and then the screen displayed a rotating wheel. A moment later a single, small result popped into view. Pendergast, still standing, stared at the result for a full five seconds—and then he staggered. Stepping backward, he wobbled for a moment, then dropped unceremoniously to his knees.
27
SPECIAL AGENT PENDERGAST ENTERED HIS DAKOTA apartment and walked into the reception room. There he paused, irresolutely, listening to the whisper of water over stone. After a moment, he stepped over to a small Monet painting and straightened it, back and forth, although it was already perfectly aligned against the rose-colored wall. Next, he moved to a twisted bonsai tree, picked up a tiny pair of hand-forged clippers that lay on the table beside it, and carefully snipped off a few new shoots of growth. His hand trembled slightly as he did so.
That done, he paced the room restlessly, pausing to rearrange the lotus petals that floated in the base of the fountain.
He had something he must do, but the prospect of doing it was almost unbearable.
Finally, he stepped over to the flush door that led into the apartment proper. Opening it, he walked down the length of hallway, passing a number of doors. He nodded to Miss Ishimura, who was resting in her sitting room, reading a book in Japanese, and soon reached the end of the corridor, where the hallway made a ninety-degree turn to the right. Pendergast opened the first door to the left after the turn and stepped into the room beyond.
The walls on either side were lined floor-to-ceiling with recessed mahogany bookshelves, each filled with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century leather-bound books. The wall before him was taken up by a deep window embrasure of polished mahogany, with two banquette seats facing each other, fitted with plush cushions. Between these lay a large picture window overlooking the intersection of Central Park West and Seventy-Second Street. Beyond lay the broad vastness of Central Park, its trees bare and stark in the winter sun.
He closed his eyes, let his body relax, and carefully regulated his breathing. Slowly, outside existence began to fall away; first the room, then the apartment, the building, the island, then the world itself, in an ever-widening circle of orchestrated oblivion. The process took fifteen minutes to complete. When it was done, he held himself suspended in the close darkness, waiting for absolute emptiness, absolute calm. When he had achieved it, he slowly opened his eyes—not physically, but mentally—slowly, slowly.
The small room was revealed in all its detailed perfection. But it remained empty.