Blue Labyrinth (31 page)

D
’Agosta stood up from his desk and stretched. His back ached from hours of sitting in the hard wooden chair, and his right ear throbbed from having a phone receiver pressed against it.

He’d spent hours, it seemed, on the phone with the DA’s office, trying to get a subpoena to have John Barbeaux brought in for questioning. But the DA’s office wouldn’t see it his way and said he hadn’t met probable cause—especially for a guy like Barbeaux, who would immediately lawyer up and make their lives hell.

The chain of reasoning seemed obvious to D’Agosta: Barbeaux had hired Howard Rudd to pose as the fake Dr. Jonathan Waldron, who had in turn used Victor Marsala in order to get access to the skeleton of the long-dead Mrs. Padgett. Barbeaux needed a bone from that skeleton in order to reverse-engineer the components of Hezekiah Pendergast’s elixir, thus allowing him to resynthesize that elixir and use it on Pendergast. D’Agosta had no doubt that, once Alban was placed on Pendergast’s doorstep and the plot was in motion, Rudd killed Marsala as a way of tying up loose ends—he’d no doubt lured the tech to a remote corner of the Museum, under pretext of payment or some such thing. It seemed equally clear that Barbeaux had then used Rudd as bait to lure Pendergast into the animal handling room at the Salton Fontainebleau—and been gassed with the elixir for
his trouble. All in seeking revenge for Hezekiah’s poisoning of Barbeaux’s great-grandparents and the death of his son.

Although he couldn’t be sure, D’Agosta was fairly confident that Barbeaux had hired Rudd three years ago, paid off his gambling debts, given him a new face and a new identity, and kept him on as an anonymous enforcer he could use for any number of nefarious jobs—keeping him loyal by threatening his family with harm. It made complete sense.

The DA had dismissed all this with barely concealed contempt, calling it a conspiracy theory of supposition, speculation, and fantasy, and entirely unsupported by hard medical data.

D’Agosta had then spent a good part of the early evening phoning various botanical experts and pharmaceutical specialists, looking for that medical data. But he quickly understood that there would have to be tests, analyses, blind studies, and so on and so forth, before any conclusions could be drawn.

There had to be a way to dig up enough evidence to at least get Barbeaux’s ass in his office long enough for Margo and Constance to do their thing.

Probable cause. Son of a bitch
. There must be a piece of evidence out there, somewhere, that he’d overlooked, which would suggest Barbeaux was crooked. Frustrated, he got up from his desk. It was nine o’clock; he needed some fresh air; a walk to clear his head. Shrugging into his jacket, D’Agosta strode to the door, snapped off the lights, then began to make his way down the corridor. After a few steps, he paused. Maybe Pendergast would have some ideas on how to squeeze Barbeaux. But no—the agent would be too weak for that conversation. Pendergast’s condition filled him with anger and a sick feeling of impotence.

As he exited his office, he paused. The Marsala files were next door: what he really should do is go through them again in case he’d overlooked something. He stepped into the vacant room he was using for overflow storage.

Turning on the lights, D’Agosta began to survey the stacks of folders piled on the conference table and against the walls. He’d take
everything related to Howard Rudd. Maybe Barbeaux had a connection to Gary, Indiana, that he could—

At that moment D’Agosta went quite still. His roving eye had stopped at the room’s lone garbage can. It contained only one thing: a crumpled-up licorice toffee wrapper.

Slade’s ubiquitous toffee. What the hell had he been doing in here?

D’Agosta took a breath, then another. It was only a candy wrapper, and yes, Slade did have access and authority to be in there, looking at these files. D’Agosta wasn’t sure why, but all of a sudden his cop instincts were going off. He looked around again, more carefully this time. Boxes and filing cabinets were stacked against the walls. The files were where he remembered leaving them. Slade should have checked with him, that was true, but maybe Angler didn’t want D’Agosta to know. After all, the guy was obviously not too keen on Pendergast, and D’Agosta was known to be a friend of the agent.

As he moved to grab the Rudd files, his eye spied a dusting of white plaster on the rug, a spot near the wall that was shared with his own office. D’Agosta approached the wall and moved the boxes away from it. There was a small hole drilled in the wall, just above the baseboard.

He knelt and peered more closely, let his finger drift over the hole. It was about half a millimeter in diameter. He probed it with an unbent paper clip and found it didn’t go all the way through.

His gaze went back to the dusting of white plaster. This hole had been made recently.

A candy wrapper, a recently drilled hole… such things weren’t necessarily connected. But then he recalled how Slade had misfiled the tip on Barbeaux from the Albany police.

Had it really come from Angler’s desk—or had Slade even shown it to Angler before misfiling it?

Albany
. That was another thing. Hadn’t Slade said Angler was away, visiting relatives upstate?

He trotted back to his office and, without bothering to turn on the lights, typed his password into the computer and accessed the homicide department’s personnel records. Locating Peter Angler’s
file, D’Agosta searched the extensive next-of-kin records all NYPD officers were required to maintain. There it was: his sister, Marjorie Angler, 2007 Rowan Street, Colonie, New York.

He grabbed his phone, dialed the number on his computer screen. It rang three times before it was answered.

“Hello?” came a woman’s voice.

“Is this Marjorie Angler? My name is Vincent D’Agosta. I’m a lieutenant with the NYPD. Is Lieutenant Angler there?”

“No. He’s not staying with me.”

“When did you last speak with him?”

“Let me see—four, five days ago, I think.”

“May I ask what you talked about?”

“He said he was coming upstate. Some investigation he was working on. He said he was rushed for time, but that he hoped to stop by to see me on the way back to New York City. But he never did—I imagine he was too busy, as usual.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“Yes. Adirondack. Is there a problem of some sort?”

“Not that I know of. Listen, Ms. Angler, you’ve been very helpful. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome—” the voice began again, but D’Agosta was already hanging up.

He was breathing faster now. Adirondack. Home of Red Mountain Industries.

Several days before, Angler had been on his way to Adirondack. Why hadn’t he returned to the city? He seemed to have disappeared. Why had Slade lied about his whereabouts? Or was Slade merely mistaken? And the hole: it was exactly the kind of hole you would use to plant a miniature microphone.

Had Slade embedded a wire microphone in the wall of his office? If so, he’d listened in on D’Agosta’s phone calls. And he’d no doubt also listened in on his conversation with Margo and Constance.

The hole was empty. The mike was gone. That meant the eavesdropper believed he had all the information he needed.

It seemed too incredible to be true: Slade was dirty. And who was he working for? Only one answer: Barbeaux.

Now D’Agosta’s vague concern about Barbeaux somehow threatening or intercepting Margo and Constance became suddenly much more specific. Barbeaux would know all that Slade knew, and that was just about everything. Specifically, he would know Margo and Constance were headed to the Museum to steal plant specimens.

D’Agosta grabbed for the phone again, then hesitated, thinking furiously. This was a tricky situation. Accusing a fellow cop of being dirty—he damn well better be right.

Was he?
Was
Slade dirty? Christ, all he had was a candy wrapper and a misfiled document. Not exactly a lot of evidence for destroying a man’s career.

The fact was, he couldn’t call in the cavalry. They would think he was crazy—he had less on Slade than what the DA had already rejected on Barbeaux. There was nothing else for it—he’d have to go after Margo and Constance in the Museum by himself. He might be right, and he might be wrong—but he had no choice but to act, and act quickly, because if he
was
right, the consequences were too terrifying to even consider.

He darted out of the office and made for the elevator as quickly as he could.

M
argo stood there, paralyzed by the blinding light.

“Well, well, why am I not surprised?”

It was Frisby’s voice, coming from behind the light.

“Switch off that damned headlamp. You look like a miner.”

Margo complied.

“Here you are, on schedule, caught red-handed stealing one of the most valuable items in our entire herbarium.” The voice was triumphant. “This is no longer an internal Museum matter, Dr. Green. This is a criminal matter for the police. This will put you away for many years—if not for good.”

The light was lowered and Frisby—now visible behind the brilliance—extended a hand. “Give me your bag.”

Margo hesitated. What on earth was he doing down here? How had he possibly known?

“Hand me the bag or I will be forced to take it from you.”

She looked left and right for an escape route, but Frisby’s bulk blocked the way. She would have to knock him over—and he was more than half a foot taller than she.

He took a menacing step forward and, realizing she had no choice, she held out her bag. He opened it, slid out one of the glass plates, and read, in a stentorian tone: “
Thismia americana
.” He carefully replaced it in the bag. “Caught red-handed. You are
finished
, Dr. Green. Let me tell
you what is going to happen now.” He took out his cell phone and held it up. “I’m going to call the police. They will arrest you. Since the value of these specimens is far in excess of five thousand dollars, you will be charged with a Class C felony, burglary in the second degree, which carries a sentence of up to fifteen years in prison.”

Margo listened, only barely comprehending. She was stupefied, because this meant the end of not just her own life—but Pendergast’s, as well.

He searched through the rest of the bag, poking around while shining the light inside. “Pity. No weapon.”

“Dr. Frisby,” Margo said in a wooden tone, “what is it you have against me?”

“Who, me, have something against you?” His eyes widened in mock satire, and then narrowed. “You’re a hindrance. You’ve been a disruption in my department with your incessant comings and goings. You’ve been meddling in a police investigation, encouraging them to cast suspicion on our staff. And now you’ve rewarded my generosity in giving you access to the collections with outright thievery. Oh, I have nothing against
you
.” With a frosty smile, he punched in 911 on his cell phone, holding it so she could see what he was doing.

He waited a moment, then frowned. “Bloody reception.”

“Listen,” Margo managed to say. “A man’s life—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, spare me the pathetic excuses. You played a nasty trick on Jörgensen, got him all riled up. He came boiling into my office and I feared he might have a heart attack. When I heard you’d been in his office asking for access to a rare, extinct plant, I figured you were up to something. What were you planning to do—sell it to the highest bidder? So I came down here, placed a chair in the far corner, and waited for you.” His voice swelled with satisfaction. “And here you came, on cue!”

He grinned triumphantly. “Now I’ll take you to security to await the police.”

A thousand ideas raced through Margo’s head. She could run; she could snatch the bag; she could knock Frisby down and escape; she could plead with him, try to talk him out of it; she could try to bribe
him… But not a single option had the slightest chance of success. She was busted, and that was that. Pendergast would die.

For a moment the two stared at each other. Margo could see from the expression on Frisby’s face that there would be no mercy from this man.

And then his look of triumph suddenly changed: first to one of puzzlement, then to shock. His eyes grew wide and bugged out; his lips contracted. He opened his mouth but no sound came out, save for a strange boiling in the back of his throat. He dropped the flashlight, which hit the stone floor and went out, plunging the room into darkness. Instinctively, Margo reached out and snatched back her bag with nerveless fingers. A moment later she heard the sound of his body hitting the floor.

And then a new light came on, revealing the outline of a man who had been standing behind Frisby. He stepped forward and, in an act of courtesy, shone the light on his own face, revealing a shortish man with a dark face, black eyes, and the very faintest of smiles playing at the corners of his mouth.

At that same exact time, at precisely nine fifteen, a livery cab turned in at 891 Riverside Drive, then circled around the drive and came to a stop beneath the mansion’s porte cochere, engine idling.

A minute passed, and then two. The front door opened and Constance Greene stepped out, wearing an ebony-colored pleated dress with ivory accents. A black duffel of ballistic nylon was slung over one shoulder. In the dim glow of moonlight, the formal, even elegant dress acted almost like camouflage.

She leaned in at the driver’s window, whispered something inaudible, opened the rear passenger door, placed the duffel carefully on the seat, and then slid in beside it. The door closed; the cab moved back down the drive; and then it merged with the light evening traffic, heading north.