Brimstone (Pendergast #5)(19)

He sounded almost hopeful, he was that desperate.

“Half an hour. He wanted me to make sure it was all ready.”

“It’s ready.” The lieutenant rose with a sigh. “Follow me.”




The evidence room was housed in a series of portable, container-type structures, fitted end-to-end behind the police station, at the edge of one of Southampton’s last remaining potato fields. The lieutenant swiped his card through the door scanner and entered. Within, D’Agosta saw that Joe Lillian, a fellow sergeant, was laying out the last of the evidence on a table in the middle of the long, narrow space. On both sides, shelves and lockers stretched back into the gloom, crammed with evidence going back God knew how many years.

D’Agosta eyed the table. Sergeant Lillian had done a nice job. Papers, glassine envelopes, sample tubes—everything was tagged and laid out neat as a pin.

“Think this’ll meet with your special agent’s approval?” Braskie asked.

D’Agosta wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm or desperation he detected in Braskie’s voice. But before he could contemplate a reply, he heard a familiar honeyed voice behind them.

“Indeed it does, Lieutenant Braskie; indeed it does.”

Braskie fairly jumped. Pendergast stood inside the doorway, hands behind his back; he must’ve somehow slipped in behind them.

Pendergast strolled up to the table, hands still clasped behind his back, lips pursed, examining the evidence as keenly as a connoisseur admiring a table laden with precious art.

“Help yourself to anything,” said Braskie. “I’ve no doubt your forensics lab is better than ours.”

“And I doubt the killer left any forensic evidence beyond that which he wanted to leave. No, for the moment I’m merely browsing. But what’s this? The melted cross. May I?”

Sergeant Lillian picked up the envelope holding the cross and handed it to Pendergast. The agent held it gingerly, turning it slowly this way and that. “I’d like to send this to a lab in New York.”

“No problem.” Lillian took it back and laid it in a plastic evidence container.

“And this charred material.” Pendergast next picked up a test tube with some burned chunks of sulfur. He unstoppered it, waved it under his nose, restoppered it.

“Done.”

Pendergast glanced at D’Agosta. “Anything that interests you, Sergeant?”

D’Agosta stepped forward. “Maybe.” He swept an eye over the table, nodded toward a packet of letters.

“Everything’s been gone over by forensics,” said Lillian. “Go ahead and handle it.”

D’Agosta picked up the letters and slipped one out. It was from the boy, Jason Prince, to Grove. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a smirk growing on Lillian’s face. What the hell did he think was so funny? D’Agosta began to read.

Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Reddening, D’Agosta put the letters down.

“Learn something new every day, huh, D’Agosta?” Lillian asked, grinning.

D’Agosta turned back to the table. There was a small stack of books: Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe; The New Book of Christian Prayers; Malleus Maleficarum.

“The Witches Hammer,” Pendergast said, nodding at the last title. “The professional witch-hunting manual of the Inquisition. A font of information on the black arts.”

Beside the books was a stack of Web printouts. D’Agosta picked up the top sheet. The site was called Maledicat Dominus; this particular page appeared to be devoted to charms or prayers for warding off the devil.

“He visited a bunch of sites like that in the last twenty-four hours of his life,” said Braskie. “Those were the pages he printed out.”

Pendergast was now examining a wine cork with a magnifying glass. “What was the menu?” he asked.

Braskie turned to a notebook, flipped open some pages, and passed it to Pendergast.

Pendergast read aloud. “Dover sole, grilled medallions of beef in a burgundy and mushroom reduction, julienned carrots, salad, lemon sherbet. Served with a ’90 Petrus. Excellent taste in wine.”

Handing back the notebook, Pendergast continued his prowl. He bent forward, picked up a wrinkled piece of paper.

“We found that balled up in the wastebasket. Appears to be a proof sheet of some kind.”

“It’s an advance print of an article for the next issue of Art Review. Due on the newsstands tomorrow, if I’m not mistaken.” Pendergast smoothed the paper, once again began to read out loud. “‘Art history, like any other great discipline, has its own sacred temples: places and moments any self-respecting critic would give his eyeteeth to have attended. The first impressionist exhibition on the Boulevard des Capucines in 1874 was one; the day Braque first saw Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is another. I am here now to tell you that the Golgotha series of Maurice Vilnius—now on display in his East Village studio—will be another such watershed moment in the history of art.’”

“At the memorial service yesterday, I thought you said Grove hated Vilnius’s stuff,” D’Agosta said.

“And so he did—in years past. But he seems to have suffered a change of heart.” Pendergast replaced the paper on the desk with a thoughtful expression. “It certainly explains why Vilnius was in such a good mood last night.”