The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(121)

“But can’t we, ah, finish this later?” She tried to smile, tried to put on her most pleading look. “Something really important has just come up.”

O’Grady didn’t return the smile. “This is a criminal investigation, Dr. Kelly. We’ll be done when we get to the end of the questions—not before.”

Nora thought for a moment. Then she looked O’Grady in the eye. “I’ve got to go. Go, go to the bathroom, I mean.”

“Now?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to accompany you, then. Those are the rules.”

“Into the bathroom?”

He blushed. “Of course not, but to the facilities. We’ll wait outside.”

“Then you’d better hurry. I’ve really got to go. Bad kidneys.”

O’Grady and Finester exchanged glances.

“Bacterial infection. From a dig in Guatemala.”

The policemen rose with alacrity. They crossed the Rockefeller Great Room, past the dozens of tables and the endless overlapping recitations of other staff members, out into the main library. Nora waited, biding her time, as they made their way toward the entrance. No point in sounding more of an alarm than was necessary.

The library itself was silent, researchers and scientists long since gone. The Great Room lay behind them now, the back-and-forth of questions and answers inaudible. Ahead were the double doors leading out into the hall and the rest rooms beyond. Nora approached the doors, the two cops trailing in her wake.

Then, with a sudden burst of speed, she darted through, swinging the doors behind her, back into the faces of the officers. She heard the thud of an impact, something clattering to the ground, a yelp of startled surprise. And then came a loud barking sound, like a seal giving the alarm, followed by shouts and running feet. She glanced back. Finester and O’Grady were through the doors and in hot pursuit.

Nora was very fit, but Finester and O’Grady surprised her. They were fast, too. At the far end of the hall, she glanced back and noticed that the taller sergeant, O’Grady, was actually gaining ground.

She flung open a stairwell door and began flying down the stairs, two at a time. Moments later, the door opened again: she heard loud voices, the pounding of feet.

She plunged downward even more quickly. Reaching the basement, she pushed the panic bar on the door and burst into the paleontological storage area. A long corridor ran ahead, arrow-straight, gray and institutional, illuminated by bare bulbs in wire cages. Doors lined both sides: Probiscidia, Eohippii, Bovidae, Pongidae.

The thudding of approaching feet filled the stairwell behind her. Was it possible they were still gaining? Why couldn’t she have gotten the two porkers at the table to her left?

She sprinted down the hallway, veered abruptly around a corner, and ran on, thinking fast. The vast dinosaur bone storage room was nearby. If she was going to lose these two, her best chance lay in there. She dug into her purse as she ran: thank God she’d remembered to bring her lab and storage keys along that morning.

She almost flew past the heavy door, fumbling with the keys. She turned, jammed her key into the lock, and pushed the door open just as the cops came into view around the corner.

Shit. They’ve seen me. Nora closed the door, locked it behind her, turned toward the long rows of tall metal stacks, preparing to run.

Then she had an idea.

She unlocked the door again, then took off down the closest aisle, turning left at the first crossing, then right, angling away from the door. At last she dropped into a crouch, pressing herself into the shadows, trying to catch her breath. She heard the tramp of feet in the corridor beyond. The door rattled abruptly.

“Open up!” came O’Grady’s muffled roar.

Nora glanced around quickly, searching for a better place to hide. The room was lit only by the dim glow of emergency lighting, high up in the ceiling. Additional lights required a key—standard procedure in Museum storage rooms, where light could harm the specimens—and the long aisles were cloaked in darkness. She heard a grunt, the shiver of the door in its frame. She hoped they wouldn’t be stupid enough to break down an unlocked door—that would ruin everything.

The door shivered under the weight of another heavy blow. Then they figured it out: it was almost with relief that she heard the jiggling of the handle, the creak of the opening door. Warily, silently, she retreated farther into the vast forest of bones.

The Museum’s dinosaur bone collection was the largest in the world. The dinosaurs were stored unmounted, stacked disarticulated on massive steel shelves. The shelves themselves were constructed of steel I-beams and angle iron, riveted together to make a web of shelving strong enough to support thousands of tons: vast piles of tree-trunk-thick legbones, skulls the size of cars, massive slabs of stone matrix with bones still imbedded, awaiting the preparator’s chisel. The room smelled like the interior of an ancient stone cathedral.

“We know you’re in here!” came the breathless voice of Finester.

Nora receded deeper into the shadows. A rat scurried in front of her, scrambling for safety within a gaping allosaurus eye socket. Bones rose on both sides like great heaps of cordwood, shelves climbing into the gloom. Like most of the Museum storage rooms, it was an illogical jumble of shelves and mismatched rows, growing by accretion over the last century and a half. A good place to get lost in.