Two Graves (64 page)

Constance had been slow to utter these last words. For some minutes, the chapel fell into silence. The story was incredible, but Felder knew it was the truth.

At last, Constance resumed. “For many, many years, we lived a solitary, reclusive life in that mansion. I continued my courses of study in literature, philosophy, art, music, history, and languages, partly with the doctor’s help and partly on my own, making free use of his library and scientific collections. Meanwhile, Dr. Leng continued his work. Around 1935, he achieved his second success. Using various chemicals and compounds that had been previously unavailable, he managed to synthesize an arcanum that no longer required… human factors.”

“In other words, he stopped killing,” Felder said.

Constance nodded. “As long as it prolonged his life, he felt no special compunction against taking lives. However, as a scientist, it offended his sense of purity and aesthetic. Yes—he stopped killing. He no longer needed to. The arcanum we both continued to take was now purely synthetic. But his greater task remained incomplete. And so his scientific research continued until it finally stopped, rather suddenly, in the spring of 1954.”

“Why 1954?” Felder asked.

A thin smile appeared on Constance’s face. “Once again, that isn’t germane to my story. But I will tell you one thing. Dr. Leng once explained to me that there are two ways to ‘cure’ a patient. The common way is by restoring him to health.”

“What’s the other?”

“Putting him out of his misery.” The thin smile vanished. “In any case, with his work finally complete—or, more precisely, no longer necessary—Dr. Leng ceased to take the elixir. He lost interest in life, became even more reclusive, and began to age at a normal rate. But he gave me a choice. And I… chose to continue treatment.

“And so things remained for another fifty-odd years—until we were the victims of an unexpected and violent home invasion. Dr. Leng was killed, and I went into hiding in the deepest recesses of the house. Ultimately, order was restored, and the mansion passed into the hands of Leng’s great-grandnephew: Aloysius Pendergast.”

“Pendergast?” Felder repeated, hugely surprised.

Constance nodded.

Felder shook his head. It was too much to take in—too much.

“I watched Pendergast for many months before I finally revealed myself to him. He very kindly took me in as… as his ward.” She shifted on the bench. “And there you have it, Dr. Felder—the story of my past.”

Felder took a deep breath. “And—your child?” He couldn’t help but wonder who the father was.

“I gave birth to my son in Gsalrig Chongg, a remote monastery in Tibet. Through a complicated process, the monks of the monastery recognized that my son was the nineteenth incarnation of one of Tibet’s holiest rinpoches. This proved a great danger. The occupying Chinese authorities have been ruthlessly suppressing Tibetan Buddhism, especially the idea of the reincarnation of holy men. Back in 1995, when the Dalai Lama proclaimed a six-year-old boy as the eleventh incarnation of the Panchen Lama, the Chinese seized the boy, and he hasn’t been seen since—perhaps murdered. The Chinese learned that my child had been proclaimed the nineteenth reincarnation of the rinpoche—and so they came to get him.”

“So it was necessary to convince them that he was dead,” Felder said.

“Precisely. I pretended to flee with the child and then throw him overboard, all as a diversion. My arrest was highly public, and it seemed to satisfy the Chinese. Meanwhile, my real child was being smuggled out of Tibet to India.”

“So you brought a dummy aboard the
Queen Mary
and threw it overboard?”

“Exactly. A life-size doll. It went over the side in midpassage.”

There was a brief silence before Felder spoke again. “There’s something else I don’t understand. Why did you send me after your lock of hair? I’d always assumed it was a…” Here he colored. “A labor of love. To exonerate myself, to prove myself to you. But you’ve made it clear that you—you have no feelings for me along those lines.”

“Haven’t you guessed the answer, Dr. Felder?” Constance replied.
“Actually, I suppose there are two answers.” She smiled slightly. “That day you came to visit me in the library here, I’d just learned my child had reached India safely. He’s in Dharamsala, with the Tibetan government in exile, very well protected. Now he can grow up and undergo the proper training to fulfill his position as the nineteenth rinpoche, in absentia. Safe from the Chinese.”

“So there’s no longer a need to maintain this fiction that you murdered your child.”

“Exactly. And as a result, there’s no need for me to remain any longer in Mount Mercy.”

“But to be allowed to leave, you’d have to be certified as compos mentis.”

Constance inclined her head.

“Which meant convincing me of your sanity.”

“That’s correct. But there’s also the second answer that I mentioned. By convincing you of my sanity, it would resolve the agonizing doubts in your own mind. If you knew I was speaking the truth, it would help you resolve the difficulties in my story—difficulties that I know have been wearing on you.”

So she did care for him—in some manner or another. At the very least, she’d noticed his internal struggle and taken pity on him for it. In the silence that followed, Felder found himself—in light of all this new information—framing the arguments he would put forward for overturning Constance’s commitment. He realized, with growing dismay, that nothing she’d just told him could be used as evidence. It would not even begin to stand up in a court hearing. He would have to find his own way through the legal maze—and the maze of demonstrating that the distant child in India was hers—but, he knew, he owed that to her… and more. At least, proving the child was alive would be fairly straightforward—thanks to advanced DNA testing.

He still had so many questions to ask that he found himself somehow unable to frame even one of them in his head. Instead, he realized he needed time to process all that he had heard. It was time to leave.

He picked up the two envelopes, held the old, yellowed one out to Constance. “This is rightfully yours,” he said.

“I’d be happier knowing it was in your possession.”

Felder nodded. He slipped both envelopes into his jacket pocket. He stood up, but did not leave, hesitating a moment. One important question still remained to be resolved.

“Constance,” he said.

“Yes, Doctor?”

“The, ah, arcanum. When did you stop taking it?”

“When my first guardian, Dr. Leng, was killed.”

He hesitated. “Does it ever bother you?”

“What?”

“The—sorry, I can’t think of a delicate way to put this—the knowledge that your own life has been artificially extended by the murder of innocent people.”

Constance regarded him with her deep, inscrutable eyes. The chapel seemed to go very still.

“Are you familiar,” she asked at last, “with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quotation:
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function
?”

“I’ve heard it, yes.”

“Consider this. I was not merely the beneficiary of Dr. Leng’s experiments. I became the ward of the man who murdered and mutilated my own sister. I spent over a
hundred
years beneath his roof, reading his books, drinking his wines, consuming his food, conversing pleasantly with him in the evenings—all the while knowing who he was and what he did to my own sister. A rare case of opposing ideas, wouldn’t you say?”

She paused. Felder was struck by the unusual look in her eyes—of what? He could not say.

“So I ask you, Doctor: does that mean I have a first-rate intelligence—or that I am insane?” She paused, her deep eyes glittering. “Or…
both
?”

And with that, she nodded her dismissal, picked up her book, and began to read.

D
’AGOSTA WAS FEARFUL THE OLD BAR MIGHT HAVE
closed up. He hadn’t been there in years. Few of his fellow officers even knew of the place—the ferns in their macramé hangers guaranteed that no self-respecting cop would be caught dead in there. But as he turned the corner from Vesey onto Church Street, feet crunching against the light dusting of snow, he saw—with relief—that the place was still there. The ferns in the window appeared, if anything, deader than ever. He descended the steps and went inside.

Laura Hayward was already there. She was sitting in the back, at the very same table—how was that for a coincidence?—a fresh, foamy Guinness in one hand. She looked up as D’Agosta approached, smiled.

“I didn’t even know this place had a name,” she said as he sat down.

D’Agosta nodded. “Vino Veritas.”

“Maybe the owner’s a wine connoisseur. Or a Harvard graduate. Or both.”

D’Agosta didn’t quite understand this, so instead of replying he nodded to the waiter and pointed at Hayward’s drink.

“It seemed like a good place to meet,” he said as his own Guinness was placed before him. “Just a stone’s throw from Police Plaza.”

He took a sip from the pint glass, then sat back in his chair, trying to appear nonchalant. In fact he was nervous as hell. The idea had come to him that morning, on his way to work. No big plan this time, no elaborate preparations. Instinct told him that he’d better just go for it.

“Big doings in Captain Singleton’s office,” Laura said, teasingly.

“So the word’s already out?”

She nodded. “Midge Rawley. She’s the last person you’d think. I mean, she’s been Glen’s confidential secretary, known every last bit of his business, for—what?—at least ten years.”

“And I think she was loyal for all of them. Until just recently. At least, that’s when the payments took place—according to the bank records.”

“I’d heard she’d been having some personal problems. Separated from her husband, mother in a nursing home. I suppose that’s why they chose her.”

“Maybe they blackmailed her. Almost makes you feel sorry for her.”

“Almost. Until you remember it was her tip-off that betrayed the location of the Central Park boathouse meet. Which led to the shootout, the deaths of five people, and the kidnapping and murder of Helen Pendergast.” Laura paused. “Did the search warrant uncover anything?”

D’Agosta shook his head. “We’re hoping to learn more from the audio and video surveillance logs. Or maybe from Rawley herself. The Internal Affairs boys have her down in the Tombs right now. Who knows? She might get talkative.” He took another sip of his Guinness. He was getting more nervous by the minute—and this small talk wasn’t helping any.

“Anyway, you did good, Vinnie. This will be a real feather in your cap.”

“Thanks.”

“And it may take Singleton down a notch or two, as well.”

D’Agosta had thought of this. Having a mole discovered in his own private office would make Captain Singleton defensive, to say the least—and that, indirectly, would only help get D’Agosta off the hot seat. Although it was a damn shame—Singleton was a decent man.

“It’s really Pendergast who should get the credit,” he said.

“He just called you, out of the blue, and told you who to finger?”

“Not exactly. Let’s say he pointed me in the right direction.”

“So it was your own good police work that did it. Don’t sell yourself short, Vinnie—you scored, big-time. Take the credit and run.” Laura’s sly smile deepened. “So does this mean you and Agent Pendergast are best buddies again?”

“He called me ‘my dear Vincent,’ if that’s any indication.”

“I see. So Pendergast is back in New York, the Hotel Killer murders have stopped, and the FBI profilers think the killer’s moved on. It’s Christmas Eve. God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.” She raised her glass.

D’Agosta took another sip of his Guinness. He barely tasted the brew. It was all he could do to keep from squirming in his chair. This was growing intolerable. He’d have to find some way to introduce the subject, but he was damned if he knew how—

Suddenly he became aware that Laura had put down her glass and was gazing at him intently. For a moment they looked at each other in silence. And then, she spoke.

“Yes,” she said in a low voice.

D’Agosta was confused. “I’m sorry?”

She reached over, took his hand. “You big dope. Let me put you out of your misery. Of course I’ll marry you.”

“You… how…?” D’Agosta fell silent, at a loss for words.

“Do you think I’m a complete idiot? Why would you ask me to meet you for a drink here, of all unlikely places? You made such a big deal out of picking this particular spot—the spot where we first got to know each other. Two years ago, remember?” She squeezed his hand, then laughed. “Vino Veritas, indeed. You know what? Deep down, Lieutenant D’Agosta, you’re just an old softie. A sentimentalist. And that’s one of the things—one of the
many
things—I love about you.”

D’Agosta looked down. He was so moved that he could not speak. “I can’t believe you knew. I mean…”

“So where’s the ring?”

D’Agosta stammered, trying to explain it was spontaneous, last minute, until he was interrupted by her laugh. “I’m just teasing you, Vinnie. I like spontaneous. I can wait for the ring—no problem.”