Cemetery Dance (21 page)

He reached for his service revolver. "I'm a New York City police officer," he rapped out. "Step into the roadway, please." He left the torch off — he could see farther into the gloom without it.

Now he could see, just barely, a pale shape moving with a strange, lurching gait through the trees. It ducked into a stand of deep brush and he lost it. A strange moaning floated out from the woods, in–articulate and sepulchral, as if from a mouth yawning wide and slack: aaaaahhhhhuuuu …

He slipped the torch out of his holster, turned it on, flashed it through the trees. Nothing.

This was bullshit. Some kids were playing a game with him.

He strode toward the area of brush, playing the light about. It was a large tangle of overgrown azaleas and mountain laurel stretching for hundreds of feet — he paused, and then pushed in.

In response, he heard the rustling of brush to his right. He flashed the light toward it, but the bright beam striking the tightly packed brush prevented him from seeing deeper. He switched off the light and waited, his eyes adjusting. He spoke calmly. "This is public property and I'm a police officer — show yourself now or I'll charge you with resisting arrest."

The single crack of a twig came, once again from his right. Turning toward it, he saw a figure rear up out of the bracken: pallid, sickly green skin; slack face smeared with blood and mucus; clothes hanging from knobby limbs in rags and tatters.

"Hey, you!"

It reared back, as if temporarily losing its balance, then lurched forward and began to approach with an almost diabolical hunger. One eye swiveled toward him, then moved away; the other eye was hidden in a thick crusting of blood or perhaps mud. Aaaaahhuuuu …

"Jesus Christ!" D'Agosta yelled, leaping backward, dropping the flashlight and fumbling for his service piece, a Glock 19.

Abruptly, the thing rushed him, bulling through the brush with a crashing sound; he raised his gun but at the same moment felt a stunning blow to his head, a humming sound, and then nothing.

Cemetery Dance

Chapter 34

Monica Hatto's eyes flew open and she straightened at her desk, squaring her shoulders, trying to look alert. She glanced around nervously. The big clock against the tiled wall opposite her indicated it was half past nine. The last night–desk receptionist in the morgue annex had been fired for sleeping on the job. Adjusting the papers on the desk, she looked about once again, relaxing somewhat. The fluorescent lights in the annex cast their usual pall over the tiled floors and walls, and the air smelled of the usual chemicals. All was quiet.

But something had woken her up.

Hatto rose and smoothed her hands down her sides, adjusting her uniform over her copious love–handles, trying to look neat, alert, and presentable. This was one job she couldn't afford to lose. It paid well and, what's more, came with health benefits.

There was a muffled sound, almost like a commotion, somewhere upstairs. A "mort" was on its way, perhaps. Hatto smiled to herself, proud of her growing command of the lingo. She slipped a makeup mirror from her handbag and touched up her lips, adjusted her hair with a few deft pats, examined her nose for that horrid oily shine.

She heard a second sound, the faint boom of an elevator door closing. Another once–over, a dab of scent, and the mirror went back into the bag, the bag back over the arm of her chair, the papers once more squared on the desk.

Now the sound of pounding of feet came, not from the bank of elevators, but from the stairwell. That was odd.

The feet approached rapidly. Then the stairwell door flew open with a crash and a woman came tearing down the corridor, wearing a black cocktail dress, running in high–heeled shoes, her copper hair flying.

Hatto was so surprised she didn't know what to say.

The woman came to stop in the middle of the annex, her face gray in the ghastly fluorescent light.

"Can I help you —" Hatto began.

"Where is it?" the woman screamed. "I want to see it!"

Monica Hatto stared. "It?"

"My husband's body! William Smithback!"

Hatto backed up, terrified. The woman was crazy. As she waited for an answer, sobbing, Hatto could hear the rumble of the slow, slow elevator starting up.

"The name's Smithback! Where is it?"

On the desk behind her, a voice suddenly bawled out of the intercom. "Security breach! We've got a security breach! Hatto, you read?"

The voice broke the spell. Hatto punched the button.

"There's a —"

The voice on the intercom overrode hers. "You got a nutcase coming your way! Female, might be violent! Don't engage her physically! Security's on its way!"

"She's already —"

"Smithback!" the woman cried. "The journalist who was murdered!"

Hatto's eyes involuntarily flickered toward Morgue 2, where they had been working on the famous reporter's cadaver. It was a big deal, with a call from the police commissioner and front–page stories in the newspaper.

The woman broke for the Morgue 2 door, which had been left open by the night cleaning crew. Too late, Hatto realized she should have closed and locked it.

"Wait, you're not allowed in there —"

The woman disappeared through the door. Hatto stood, rooted by panic. There was nothing in the employment manual about what to do in this kind of situation.

With a ding! the elevator doors creaked open. Two portly security guards came huffing out into the annex. "Hey," gasp, "where'd she go —" gasp.

Hatto turned, pointed mutely to Morgue 2.

The two heaving guards stood for a moment, trying to catch their breath. A crash came from the morgue, the slamming of steel, the screech of a metal drawer being flung open. There was a tearing sound and a cry.

"Oh, Jesus," one of the guards said. They lumbered back into motion, across the annex toward the open door of Morgue 2. Hatto followed on unwilling legs, morbid curiosity aroused.

A scene greeted her eyes that she would never forget as long as she lived. The woman stood in the center of the room, her face like a witch's, hair wild, teeth bared, eyes flashing. Behind her, one of the morgue drawers had been pulled out. She was shaking a body bag, bloodied and empty, with one hand; the other hand held up what looked like a small bundle of feathers.

"Where's his body?" she screamed. "Where's my husband's body? And who left this here?"

Cemetery Dance

Chapter 35

D'Agosta parked the squad car under the porte–cochere of 891 Riverside Drive, got out, and pounded on the heavy wooden door. Thirty seconds later it was opened by Proctor, who gazed at him silently for a moment and then stood aside.

"You'll find him in the library," he murmured.

D'Agosta staggered down the length of the refectory, across the reception hall, and into the library, all the while pressing a cloth tight against the cut on his head. He found Pendergast — and the strange old archivist named Wren — sitting in leather wing chairs on either side of a blazing fire, a table between them laden with papers and a bottle of port.

"Vincent!" Pendergast rose with haste and came over. "What happened? Proctor, the man needs a chair."

"I can get my own chair, thanks." D'Agosta sat down, dabbing gingerly at his head. The bleeding had finally stopped. "Had a little accident up at the Ville," he said in a low voice. He didn't know what made him angrier: the thought of those animals being butchered, or the fact that he'd allowed some wino to get the drop on him. At least, he sure as hell hoped it was a wino. He wasn't prepared to think about the alternative.

Pendergast bent over to examine the cut but D'Agosta waved him away. "It's only a scratch. Heads always bleed like a stuck pig."

"May I offer you some refreshment? Port, perhaps?"

"Beer. Bud Light, if you've got it."

Proctor left the room.

Wren was sitting in his wing chair as if nothing untoward were happening. He was sharpening a pencil by hand with a tiny pocketknife: examining the tip, blowing on it, pursing his lips, sharpening a bit more.

The frosty can soon arrived on a silver salver, along with a chilled glass. Ignoring the glass, D'Agosta grabbed the beer and took a long pull. "Needed that, big–time," he said. He took another pull.

Pendergast had returned to his own wing chair. "My dear Vincent, we are all ears."

D'Agosta told the story of his interview with the woman on Indian Road and the events that followed. He didn't mention the fact that he'd almost walked into the Ville single–handedly in his rage — something he'd thought better of upon reviving. Pendergast listened intently. Vicent also decided to bypass the fact that he'd lost his cell phone and pager in the attack. When he had finished, a silence gathered in the library. The fire crackled and burned.

At last, Pendergast stirred. "And this — this man? He moved erratically, you say?"

"Yes."

"And he was covered with blood and gore?"

"That's what it looked like in the moonlight, anyway."

Pendergast paused. "Was there a resemblance to the figure we saw in the security video?"

"Yes, there was."

Another pause, longer this time. "Was it Colin Fearing?"

"No. Yes." D'Agosta shook his throbbing head. "I don't know. I didn't see the face all that well."

Pendergast was silent for a long time, his smooth forehead creasing slightly. "And this happened when, precisely?"

"Thirty minutes ago. I was only out for a moment. Since I was uptown already, I came straight here."

"Curious." But the expression on Pendergast's face wasn't curious. It looked more like alarm.

After a moment, Pendergast glanced toward the wizened old man. "Wren was just about to share the fruits of his recent research on the very place you were attacked. Wren, would you care to continue?"

"Delighted," said Wren. Two heavily veined hands reached into the pile of papers and deftly extracted a brown folder. "Shall I read from the articles —"

"You may recapitulate succinctly, if you please."

"Of course." Wren cleared his throat, carefully arranged the papers in his lap, sorted through them. "Hmm. Let us see …" Shuffling and examination of papers; many eyebrow movements, grunts, and tappings. "On the evening of June eleven, 1901 …"

"Succinctly is the operative word," murmured Pendergast, his tone not unfriendly.

"Yes, yes! Succinctly." A great clearing of phlegm. "It seems that the Ville has been, shall we say, controversial for some time. I have collected a series of articles from the New York Sun, dating from around the turn of the century — the turn of the twentieth century, that is — describing complaints of neighbors not dissimilar to the ones being made today. Strange noises and smells, headless animal carcasses found in the woods, carryings–on. There were many unconfirmed reports of a ‘wandering shadow' divagating about the woods of Inwood Hill."

The liver–spotted hand removed a yellowed clipping with exquisite care, as if it were the leaf of an illuminated manuscript. He read.

According to sources this paper has spoken with, this apparition — described by eyewitnesses as a shambling, seemingly mindless being — has been preying on Gotham citizenry unlucky or unwise enough to be caught in the environs of Inwood Hill after dark. Its attacks have often been lethal. The corpses that have been left behind have been found draped in dreadful attitudes of repose, mutilated in the most grievous manner imaginable. Others have merely disappeared — never to be seen again.

"How exactly were they mutilated?" D'Agosta asked.

"Disemboweled, with certain digits cut off — most frequently, middle fingers and toes — or so the paper says. The Sun, Lieutenant, was not known for its probity. It was the originator of ‘yellow journalism.' You see, it was printed on yellowish paper, as it was the cheapest available at the time. Bleaching and sizing added a good twenty percent to the cost of newsprint in those days —"

"Very interesting," Pendergast interjected smoothly. "Pray continue, Mr. Wren."

More shufflings and tappings. "If you believe these stories, it appears that four people may have been killed by this so–called mindless being."

"Four people? That's the extent of the ‘Gotham citizenry'?"

"As I told you, Lieutenant, the Sun was a sensationalist paper. Exaggeration was its stock in trade. The reports must be read with a grain of salt."

"Who were the citizens killed?"

"The first, who had been decapitated, was unidentified. The second was a landscape architect named Phipps Gormly. The third was a member of the parks commission, also a highly respectable citizen, apparently out for an evening's constitutional. One Cornelius Sprague. The murder of two respectable citizens back–to–back raised an uproar. The fourth killing, almost immediately on the heels of the third, was a groundskeeper at a local estate: the Straus summer cottage on Inwood Hill. The strange part of this last killing was that the groundskeeper had disappeared a few months before his body was found. But he had been freshly killed."

D'Agosta shifted in his chair. "Disemboweled? And fingers and toes cut off, you say?"

"The others, yes. But the groundskeeper was not disemboweled. He was found covered in blood, a knife in his chest. According to the papers, the wound might have been self–inflicted."

"What was the upshot?" D'Agosta asked.

"It appears the police raided the Ville and arrested several people, who later had to be released for lack of evidence. Searches turned up nothing, and the cases were never solved. Nothing definitely connected the killings with the Ville, beyond the proximity of the village to the crime scenes. Stories of shambling, mindless creatures died away, and reports of animal sacrifices grew relatively spotty — the Ville seems to have lain low. Until now, of course. But here's the most interesting thing of all, something I managed to turn up by cross–checking a variety of other old records. It seems that in 1901, the Straus family wanted to clear–cut a large northern section of Inwood Hill, affording them a better view of the Hudson River. They hired a landscape architect to design the new plantings in the finest of taste. Guess what his name was?"