Fever Dream (7 page)

Again Pendergast motioned D’Agosta to take a seat, then vanished into the hall. Within moments he returned, a leather Gladstone
bag in one hand. He set this on the table, opened it, and drew out a rack of test tubes and several glass-stoppered bottles,
which he arrayed carefully on the polished wood. His hand trembled once—only once—and the test tubes clinked quietly in response.
After the apparatus was unpacked, Pendergast turned to the vault and with five or six turns of the dial unlocked it. As he
swung the heavy door open, D’Agosta could see a grid of metal-fronted containers within, not unlike safe-deposit boxes. Pendergast
selected one, withdrew it,
and placed it on the table. Then, closing the vault, he took the seat opposite D’Agosta.

For a long moment, he remained motionless. Then came another rumble of thunder, muffled and distant, and it seemed to rouse
him. He removed a white silk handkerchief from the Gladstone bag and spread it on the table. Then he slid the steel box closer,
lifted its lid, and took from it two items: a tuft of coarse red hair and a gold ring, set with a beautiful star sapphire.
He took away the tuft of hair with a set of forceps; the ring he gently removed with his bare hand, in a gesture so unconsciously
tender D’Agosta felt himself pierced to the heart.

“These are the items I took from Helen’s corpse,” Pendergast said. The indirect lighting exaggerated the hollows of his drawn
face. “I haven’t looked at these in almost twelve years. Her wedding ring… and the tuft of mane she tore from the lion as
it devoured her. I found it clutched in her severed left hand.”

D’Agosta winced. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I’m going to play a hunch.” Opening the glass-stoppered bottles, Pendergast poured a selection of different powders into
the test tubes. Then, using the forceps, he pulled bits of mane from the reddish tuft and dropped a few strands carefully
into each tube in turn. Finally, he pulled a small brown bottle from the bag, its top sealed with a rubber eyedropper. He
unscrewed the eyedropper from the bottle and let several drops of clear liquid fall into each tube. There was no obvious reaction
in the first four test tubes. But in the fifth, the liquid immediately turned a pale green, the color of green tea. Pendergast
stared intently at this tube for a moment. Then, using a pipette, he removed a small sample of the liquid and applied it to
a small strip of paper he took from the bag.

“A pH of three point seven,” he said, examining the strip of paper. “Precisely the kind of mild acid required to release the
lawsone molecules from the leaf.”

“The leaf of what?” D’Agosta asked. “What is it?”

Pendergast glanced from the strip of paper to him and back again. “I could do further tests, but there seems little point.
The mane of the lion that killed my wife had been treated with molecules originally from the plant
Lawsonia inermis
. More commonly known as henna.”

“Henna?” D’Agosta repeated. “You mean the mane was
dyed
red?”

“Precisely.” And Pendergast looked up again. “Proctor will drive you home. I can spare you three hours to make the necessary
arrangements—not a minute more.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Vincent,
we’re headed for Africa
.”

D
’AGOSTA STOOD, A LITTLE UNCERTAINLY, IN THE
hallway of the tidy two-bedroom he shared with Laura Hayward. It was technically her apartment, but recently he’d finally
begun splitting the rent with her. Just getting her to concede to that had taken months. Now he fervently hoped this sudden
turn of events wouldn’t undo all the hard work he’d put into repairing their relationship.

He stared through the doorway into the master bedroom. Hayward was sitting up in bed, delicious looking despite having been
roused from a sound sleep a quarter of an hour earlier. The clock on the dresser read ten minutes to six. Remarkable, how
his whole life had been turned upside down in just ninety minutes.

She returned his look, her expression unreadable. “So that’s it?” she said. “Pendergast arrives out of nowhere with some crazy
story, and, wham, you’re going to let him spirit you off?”

“Laura, he’s just found out his wife was murdered. He feels I’m the only one who can help him do this.”

“Help? What about helping yourself? You know, you’re still pulling yourself out of the hole you got in over the Diogenes case—a
hole that, by the way, Pendergast dug for you.”

“He’s my friend,” D’Agosta replied. It sounded lame even to his own ears.

“This is unbelievable.” She shook out her long black hair. “When I go to sleep, you’re called out on a routine homicide. Now
I wake up to find you packing for a trip—and you can’t even tell me when you’ll be back?”

“Honey, it won’t be that long. My job here is important to me, too.”

“And me? What about me? The job isn’t the only thing you’re walking out on here.”

D’Agosta stepped into the room, sat down on the edge of the bed. “I swore I’d never lie to you, ever again. That’s why I’m
telling you everything. Look—you’re the most important thing in my life.” He took a breath. “If you tell me to stay, I’ll
stay.”

For a minute, she just stared back at him. Then her expression softened and she shook her head. “You know I can’t do that.
I couldn’t put myself between you and this—this
task
.”

He took her hand. “I’ll be back as soon as possible. And I’ll call you every day.”

With a fingertip she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Have you told Glen yet?”

“No. I came here directly from Pendergast’s apartment.”

“Well, you’d better call him and break the news that you’re taking a leave of absence, date of return unknown. You realize
he might say no—and then what?”

“It’s something I’ve just got to do.”

Hayward pulled back the covers, swung her legs out of the bed. As his eyes drifted to them, D’Agosta felt a sudden sting of
desire. How could he leave this beautiful woman, even for a day—let alone a week, a month… a year?

“I’ll help you pack,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “Laura—”

She put a finger to his lips. “It’s better if you don’t say any more.”

He nodded.

She leaned toward him, kissed him lightly. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Promise me that you’ll take care of yourself. I don’t much mind if Pendergast gets himself killed on this wild goose chase.
But if anything happens to you, I’ll be very angry. And you know how ugly that can get.”

T
HE ROLLS, PROCTOR AGAIN AT THE WHEEL
, hummed along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway south of the Brooklyn Bridge. D’Agosta watched a pair of tugboats pushing a
giant barge heaped with cubed cars up the East River, leaving a frothy wake behind. It had all happened so fast, he still
wasn’t quite able to wrap his head around it. They were heading for JFK, but first—Pendergast explained—they would have to
make a brief, but necessary, detour.

“Vincent,” said Pendergast, sitting across from him, “we must prepare ourselves for a deterioration. They tell me Great-Aunt
Cornelia has been poorly of late.”

D’Agosta shifted in his seat. “I’m not sure I get why it’s so important to see her.”

“It’s just possible she can shed some light on the situation. Helen was a great favorite of hers. Also, I wish to consult
her on a few points regarding some family history that may—I fear—have bearing on the murder.”

D’Agosta grunted. He didn’t care much about Great-Aunt Cornelia—in fact he couldn’t stand the murderous old witch—and his
few visits to the Mount Mercy Hospital for the Criminally Insane had not exactly been pleasant. But it was always better,
when working with Pendergast, to go with the flow.

Exiting the expressway, they worked their way through various side streets and eventually crossed a narrow bridge over to
Little Governor’s Island, the road meandering through marshland and meadows, hung with morning mists that drifted among the
cattails. A colonnade of old oaks appeared on either side of the road, once part of the magnificent approach to a grand estate,
the trees now reduced to a series of dead claws held against the sky.

Proctor stopped at a guardhouse, and the uniformed man stepped out. “Why, Mr. Pendergast, that was quick.” He waved them through
without the usual formalities of signing them in.

“What’d he mean by that?” D’Agosta asked, looking over his shoulder at the guard.

“I have no idea.”

Proctor parked in the small lot and they got out. Passing through the front door, D’Agosta was mildly surprised to see the
attendant missing from the ornate reception desk, with some evidence of hurry and confusion. As they cast about for someone
to speak with, a rattling gurney approached down the marble transverse hall, carrying a body draped in a black sheet, being
wheeled by two burly attendants. D’Agosta could see an ambulance pulling into the porte cochere, with no siren or flashing
lights to indicate any hurry.

“Good morning, Mr. Pendergast!” Dr. Ostrom, Great-Aunt Cornelia’s attending physician, appeared in the foyer and hastened
over, his hand extended, a look of surprise and consternation blooming on his face. “This is… well, I was just about to telephone
you. Please come with me.”

They followed the doctor down the once-elegant hallway, somewhat reduced now to institutional austerity. “I have some unfortunate
news,” he said as they walked along. “Your great-aunt passed away not thirty minutes ago.”

Pendergast stopped. He let out a slow breath, and his shoulders slumped visibly. D’Agosta realized with a shudder that the
body they had seen was probably hers.

“Natural causes?” Pendergast asked in a low monotone.

“More or less. The fact is, she’d been increasingly anxious and delusional these past few days.”

Pendergast seemed to consider this a moment. “Any delusions in particular?”

“Nothing worth repeating, the usual family themes.”

“Nevertheless, I should like to hear about them.”

Ostrom seemed reluctant to proceed. “She believed… believed that a fellow named, ah, Ambergris was coming to Mount Mercy to
exact revenge on her for an atrocity she claims to have committed years ago.”

Once again, they resumed walking down the corridor. “Did she go into any detail on this atrocity?” Pendergast asked.

“It was all quite fantastical. Something about punishing some child for swearing by…” A second hesitation. “Well, by splitting
his tongue with a razor.”

An ambiguous head movement from Pendergast. D’Agosta felt his own tongue curling at the thought.

“At any rate,” Ostrom continued, “she became violent—more violent, that is, than usual—and had to be completely restrained.
And medicated. At the time of this alleged appointment with Ambergris, she had a series of seizures and passed away abruptly.
Ah, here we are.”

He entered a small room, windowless and sparely furnished with antique, unframed paintings and various soft knickknacks—nothing,
D’Agosta noted, that could be fashioned into a weapon or cause harm. Even the stretchers had been removed from the canvases,
the paintings hung on the wall with kite string. As D’Agosta looked around at the bed, the table, silk flowers in a basket,
a peculiar butterfly-shaped stain on the wall, it all seemed so forlorn. He suddenly felt sorry for the homicidal old lady.

“There is the question of the disposition of the personal effects,” the doctor went on. “I understand these paintings are
quite valuable.”

“They are,” said Pendergast. “Send them over to the nineteenth-century painting department at Christie’s for public auction,
and consider the proceeds a donation to your good work.”

“That’s very generous of you, Mr. Pendergast. Would you care to order an autopsy? When a patient dies in custody, you have
the legal right—”

Pendergast interrupted him with a brusque wave of his hand. “That won’t be necessary.”

“And the funeral arrangements—?”

“There will be no funeral. The family attorney, Mr. Ogilby, will be in touch with you about disposition of the remains.”