Brimstone (Pendergast #5)(8)

Pendergast swept open his shield. “FBI. May I trouble you with a few questions?”

The woman nodded.

“Have you established the time of death?”

“No, and I can tell you that’s going to be a problem.”

Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “How so?”

“We knew we were in trouble when the anal probe came back at one hundred eight degrees.”

“That’s what I was going to tell you,” said Braskie. “The body’s been heated somehow.”

“Correct,” said the doctor. “The heating took place most strongly on the inside.”

“The inside?” Pendergast asked.

D’Agosta could have sworn he’d heard a note of disbelief in the voice.

“Yes. It was as if—as if the body was cooked from the inside out.”

Pendergast looked closely at the doctor. “Was there any evidence of burning, surface lesions, on the skin?”

“No. Externally, the body is virtually unmarked. Fully dressed. Aside from a single, rather unusual burn on the chest, the skin appears unbroken and unbruised.”

Pendergast paused a moment. “How could that be? A fever spike?”

“No. The body had already cooled from a temperature greater than one hundred twenty degrees—far too high to be biological. At that temperature, the flesh partially cooks. All the usual things you use to establish time of death were completely disrupted by this heating process. The blood’s cooked solid in the veins. Solid. At those temperatures, the muscle proteins begin to denature, so there’s no rigor—and the temperature killed most bacteria, so there’s been no decomposition to speak of. And without the usual spontaneous enzymatic digestion, there’s no autolysis, either. All I can say now is he died between 3:10 A.M., when he apparently made a telephone call, and 7:30, when he was discovered dead. But, of course, that’s a nonmedical judgment.”

“That, I assume, is the burn you referred to earlier?” Pendergast pointed at the man’s chest. There, burned and charred into the sallow skin like a brand, was the unmistakable imprint of a cross.

“He was found wearing a cross around his neck, very expensive by all appearances. But the metal had partially melted and the wood burned away. It seemed to have been set with diamonds and rubies; they were found among the ashes.”

Pendergast nodded slowly. After a moment, he thanked the doctor and turned his attention to the man working on the floor. “May I?”

The officer stepped back and Pendergast knelt beside him.

“Sergeant?”

D’Agosta came over and Braskie hastened to follow.

“What do you make of that?”

D’Agosta looked at the image burned into the floor. The finish around it was blistered and cracked, but there was no mistaking the mark of a huge cloven hoof, deeply branded into the wood.

“Looks like the murderer had a sense of humor,” D’Agosta muttered.

“My dear Vincent, do you really think it’s a joke?”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

D’Agosta found Braskie staring at him. The “my dear Vincent” hadn’t gone down well at all. Meanwhile, Pendergast had gotten down on his hands and knees and was sniffing around the floor almost like a dog. Suddenly a test tube and tweezers appeared out of his baggy shorts. The FBI agent picked up a brownish particle, held it to his nose a moment; then, sniffing, stretched it out toward the lieutenant.

Braskie frowned. “What’s that?”

“Brimstone, Lieutenant,” said Pendergast. “Good Old Testament brimstone.”





{ 5 }


The Chaunticleer was a tiny six-table restaurant, tucked into an Amagansett side street between Bluff Road and Main. From his narrow wooden seat, D’Agosta looked around, blinking. Everything seemed to be yellow: the yellow daffodils in the window boxes; the yellow taffeta curtains on the yellow-painted windows; the yellow linen tablecloths. And what wasn’t yellow was an accent of green or red. The whole place looked like one of those octagonal French dinner plates everybody paid so much money for. D’Agosta closed his eyes for a moment. After the musty dark of Jeremy Grove’s attic, this place seemed almost unbearably cheerful.

The proprietress, a short, red-faced, middle-aged woman, bustled up. “Ah, Monsieur Pendergast,” she said. “Comment ?a va?”

“Bien, madame.”

“The usual, monsieur?”

“Oui, merci.”

The woman turned her gaze on D’Agosta. “And you, Officer?”

D’Agosta glanced at the menu—scrawled in white chalk on a slate near the door—but half the dishes he didn’t recognize, and the other half held no interest for him. The reek of Jeremy Grove’s flesh was still strong in his nostrils. “Nothing for me, thanks.”

“Anything to drink?”

“A Bud. Frosty.”

“So sorry, monsieur, but we have no liquor license.”

D’Agosta licked his lips. “Then bring me an iced tea, please.”

He watched the woman depart, then glanced across the table at Pendergast, now dressed in his usual black suit. He still couldn’t get over the shock of running into him like this. The man looked no different than the last time he’d seen him, years before. D’Agosta, embarrassed, knew the same couldn’t be said for himself. He was five years older, ten years heavier, and two stripes lighter. What a life.