The Cabinet of Curiosities (49 page)

“Mr. Brisbane, I understand you’re the Museum’s general counsel?”

“That’s right.”

“An important position.”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

Custer moved toward the shelves, examined a mother-of-pearl fountain pen displayed on one of them. “I understand your feelings of invasion here, Mr. Brisbane.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“To a certain extent, you feel it’s your place. You feel protective of the Museum.”

“I do.”

Custer nodded, his gaze moving along the shelf to an antique Chinese snuffbox set with stones. He picked it up. “Naturally, you don’t like a bunch of policemen barging in here.”

“Frankly, I don’t. I’ve told you as much several times already. That’s a very valuable snuffbox, Captain.”

Custer returned it, picked up something else. “I imagine this whole thing’s been rather hard on you. First, there was the discovery of the skeletons left by that nineteenth-century serial killer. Then there was that letter discovered in the Museum’s collections. Very unpleasant.”

“The adverse publicity could have easily harmed the Museum.”

“Then there was that curator—?”

“Nora Kelly.”

Custer noted a new tone creeping into Brisbane’s voice: dislike, disapproval, perhaps a sense of injury.

“The same one who found the skeletons—and the hidden letter, correct? You didn’t like her working on this case. Worried about adverse publicity, I suppose.”

“I thought she should be doing her research. That’s what she was being paid to do.”

“You didn’t want her helping the police?”

“Naturally, I wanted her to do what she could to help the police. I just didn’t want her neglecting her museum duties.”

Custer nodded sagely. “Of course. And then she was chased in the Archives, almost killed. By the Surgeon.” He moved to a nearby bookshelf. The only books it contained were half a dozen fat legal tomes. Even their bindings managed to look stultifyingly dull. He tapped his finger on a spine. “You’re a lawyer?”

“
General counsel
usually means
lawyer.
”

This bounced off Custer without leaving a dent. “I see. Been here how long?”

“A little over two years.”

“Like it?”

“It’s a very interesting place to work. Now look, I thought we were going to talk about getting your men out of here.”

“Soon.” Custer turned. “Visit the Archives much?”

“Not so much. More, lately, of course, with all the activity.”

“I see. Interesting place, the Archives.” He turned briefly to see the effect of this observation on Brisbane.
The eyes. Watch the eyes.

“I suppose some find it so.”

“But not you.”

“Boxes of paper and moldy specimens don’t interest me.”

“And yet you visited there”—Custer consulted his notebook—”let’s see, no less than eight times in the last ten days.”

“I doubt it was that often. On Museum business, in any case.”

“In any case.” He looked shrewdly back at Brisbane. “The Archives. Where the body of Puck was found. Where Nora Kelly was chased.”

“You mentioned her already.”

“And then there’s Smithback, that annoying reporter?”

“Annoying is an understatement.”

“Didn’t want him around, did you? Well, who would?”

“My thinking exactly. You’ve heard, of course, how he impersonated a security officer? Stole Museum files?”

“I’ve heard, I’ve heard. Fact is, we’re looking for the man, but he seems to have disappeared. You wouldn’t know where he was, by any chance, would you?” He added a faint emphasis to this last phrase.

“Of course not.”

“Of course not.” Custer returned his attention to the gems. He stroked the glass case with a fat finger. “And then there’s that FBI agent, Pendergast. The one who was attacked. Also very annoying.”

Brisbane remained silent.

“Didn’t much like him around either—eh, Mr. Brisbane?”

“We had enough policemen crawling over the place. Why compound it with the FBI? And speaking of policemen crawling around—”

“It’s just that I find it very curious, Mr. Brisbane…” Custer let the sentence trail off.

“What do you find curious, Captain?”

There was a commotion in the hallway outside, then the door opened abruptly. A police sergeant entered, dusty, wide-eyed, sweating.

“Captain!” he gasped. “We were interviewing this woman just now, a curator, and she locked—”

Custer looked at the man—O’Grady, his name was—reprovingly. “Not now, Sergeant. Can’t you see I’m conducting a conversation here?”

“But—”

“You
heard
the captain,” Noyes interjected, propelling the protesting sergeant toward the door.

Custer waited until the door closed again, then turned back to Brisbane. “I find it curious how very
interested
you’ve been in this case,” he said.

“It’s my job.”

“I know that. You’re a very dedicated man. I’ve also noticed your dedication in human resources matters. Hiring, firing…”

“That’s correct.”

“Reinhart Puck, for example.”

“What about him?”

Custer consulted his notebook again. “Why exactly
did
you try to fire Mr. Puck, just two days before his murder?”

Brisbane started to say something, then hesitated. A new thought seemed to have occurred to him.

“Strange timing there, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Brisbane?”

The man smiled thinly. “Captain, I felt the position was extraneous. The Museum is having financial difficulties. And Mr. Puck had been… well, he had not been cooperative. Of course, it had nothing to do with the murder.”

“But they wouldn’t let you fire him, would they?”

“He’d been with the Museum over twenty-five years. They felt it might affect morale.”

“Must’ve made you angry, being shot down like that.”

Brisbane’s smile froze in place. “Captain, I hope you’re not suggesting
I
had anything to do with the murder.”

Custer raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. “Am I?”

“Since I assume you’re asking a rhetorical question, I won’t bother to answer it.”

Custer smiled. He didn’t know what a rhetorical question was, but he could see that his questions were finding their mark. He gave the gem case another stroke, then glanced around. He’d covered the office; all that remained was the closet. He strolled over, put his hand on the handle, paused.

“But it
did
make you angry? Being contradicted like that, I mean.”

“No one is pleased to be countermanded,” Brisbane replied icily. “The man was an anachronism, his work habits clearly inefficient. Look at that typewriter he insisted on using for all his correspondence.”

“Yes. The typewriter. The one the murderer used to write one—make that two—notes. You knew about that typewriter, I take it?”

“Everybody did. The man was infamous for refusing to allow a computer terminal on his desk, refusing to use e-mail.”

“I see.” Custer nodded, opened the closet.

As if on cue, an old-fashioned black derby hat fell out, bounced across the floor, and rolled in circles until it finally came to rest at Custer’s feet.

Custer looked down at it in astonishment. It couldn’t have happened more perfectly if this had been an Agatha Christie murder mystery. This kind of thing just didn’t happen in real policework. He could hardly believe it.

He looked up at Brisbane, his eyebrows arching quizzically.

Brisbane looked first confounded, then flustered, then angry.

“It was for a costume party at the Museum,” the lawyer said. “You can check for yourself. Everyone saw me in it. I’ve had it for years.”

Custer poked his head into the closet, rummaged around, and removed a black umbrella, tightly furled. He brought it out, stood it up on its point, then released it. The umbrella toppled over beside the hat. He looked up again at Brisbane. The seconds ticked on.

“This is absurd!” exploded Brisbane.

“I haven’t said anything,” said Custer. He looked at Noyes. “Did
you
say anything?”

“No, sir, I didn’t say anything.”

“So what exactly, Mr. Brisbane, is absurd?”

“What you’re thinking—” The man could hardly get out the words. “That I’m… that, you know… Oh, this is perfectly
ridiculous!
”

Custer placed his hands behind his back. He came forward slowly, one step after another, until he reached the desk. And then, very deliberately, he leaned over it.

“What
am
I thinking, Mr. Brisbane?” he asked quietly.

T
HE
R
OLLS ROCKETED UP
R
IVERSIDE, THEIR DRIVER WEAVING EXPERTLY
through the lines of traffic, threading the big vehicle through impossibly narrow gaps, sometimes forcing opposing cars onto the curb. It was after eleven
P.M.,
and the traffic was beginning to thin out. But the curbs of Riverside and the side streets that led away from it remained completely jammed with parked cars.

The car swerved onto 131st Street, slowing abruptly. And almost immediately—no more than half a dozen cars in from Riverside—Nora spotted it: a silver Ford Taurus, New York plate ELI-7734.

Pendergast got out, walked over to the parked car, leaned toward the dashboard to verify the VIN. Then he moved around to the passenger door and broke the glass with an almost invisible jab. The alarm shrieked in protest while he searched the glove compartment and the rest of the interior. In a moment he returned.

“The car’s empty,” he told Nora. “He must have taken the address with him. We’ll have to hope Leng’s house is close by.”

Telling Proctor to park at Grant’s Tomb and wait for their call, Pendergast led the way down 131st in long, sweeping strides. Within moments they reached the Drive itself. Riverside Park stretched away across the street, its trees like gaunt sentinels at the edge of a vast, unknown tract of darkness. Beyond the park was the Hudson, glimmering in the vague moonlight.

Nora looked left and right, at the countless blocks of decrepit apartment buildings, old abandoned mansions, and squalid welfare hotels that stretched in both directions. “How are we going to find it?” she asked.

“It will have certain characteristics,” Pendergast replied. “It will be a private house, at least a hundred years old, not broken into apartments. It will probably look abandoned, but it will be very secure. We’ll head south first.”

But before proceeding, he stopped and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Normally, I’d never allow a civilian along on a police action.”

“But that’s my boyfriend caught—”

Pendergast raised his hand. “We have no time for discussion. I have already considered carefully what it is we face. I’m going to be as blunt as possible. If we do find Leng’s house, the chances of my succeeding without assistance are very small.”

“Good. I wouldn’t let you leave me behind, anyway.”

“I know that. I also know that, given Leng’s cunning, two people have a better chance of success than a large—and loud—official response. Even if we could get such a response in time. But I must tell you, Dr. Kelly, I am bringing you into a situation where there are an almost infinite number of unknown variables. In short, it is a situation in which it is very possible one or both of us may be killed.”

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

“One final comment, then. In my opinion, Smithback is already dead, or will be by the time we find the house, get inside, and secure Leng. This rescue operation is already, therefore, a probable failure.”

Nora nodded, unable to reply.

Without another word, Pendergast turned and began to walk south.

They passed several old houses clearly broken into apartments, then a welfare hotel, the resident alcoholics watching them apathetically from the steps. Next came a long row of sordid tenements.

And then, at Tiemann Place, Pendergast paused before an abandoned building. It was a small townhouse, its windows boarded over, the buzzer missing. He stared up at it briefly, then went quickly around to the side, peered over a broken railing, returned.

“What do you think?” Nora whispered.

“I think we go in.”

Two heavy pieces of plywood, chained shut, covered the opening where the door had been. Pendergast grasped the lock on the chain. A white hand slid into his suit jacket and emerged, holding a small device with toothpick-like metal attachments projecting from one end. It gleamed in the reflected light of the street lamp.

“What’s that?” Nora asked.

“Electronic lockpick,” Pendergast replied, fitting it to the padlock. The latch sprung open in his long white hands. He pulled the chain away from the plywood and ducked inside, Nora following.

A noisome stench welled out of the darkness. Pendergast pulled out his flashlight and shined the beam over a blizzard of decay: rotting garbage, dead rats, exposed lath, needles and crack vials, standing puddles of rank water. Without a word he turned and exited, Nora following.

They worked their way down as far as 120th Street. Here, the neighborhood improved and most of the buildings were occupied.

“There’s no point in going farther,” Pendergast said tersely. “We’ll head north instead.”

They hurried back to 131st Street—the point where their search had begun—and continued north. This proved much slower going. The neighborhood deteriorated until it seemed as if most of the buildings were abandoned. Pendergast dismissed many out of hand, but he broke into one, then another, then a third, while Nora watched the street.

At 136th Street they stopped before yet another ruined house. Pendergast looked toward it, scrutinizing the facade, then turned his eyes northward, silent and withdrawn. He was pale; the activity had clearly taxed his weakened frame.

It was as if the entire Drive, once lined with elegant townhouses, was now one long, desolate ruin. It seemed to Nora that Leng could be in any one of those houses.

Pendergast dropped his eyes toward the ground. “It appears,” he said in a low voice, “that Mr. Smithback had difficulty finding parking.”

Nora nodded, feeling a rising despair. The Surgeon now had Smithback at least six hours, perhaps several more. She would not follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion.