The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(151)
He paused.
“Dr. Collopy of the Museum would like to say a few words.”
Hearing this, Custer tensed. The director would no doubt put up a dogged defense of his own right-hand man; he’d question Custer’s police work and investigative technique, make him look bad.
Collopy stood before the microphone, rigid and correct, his arms clasped behind his back. He spoke in cool, stately, and measured tones.
“First, I wish to add my thanks to the fine men and women of the New York Police Department, the commissioner, and the mayor, for their tireless work on this tragic case. This is a sad day for the Museum, and for me personally. I wish to extend my deepest apologies to the City of New York and to the families of the victims for the heinous actions of our trusted employee.”
Custer listened with growing relief. Here, Brisbane’s own boss was practically throwing him to the wolves. So much the better. And he felt a twinge of resentment at Commissioner Rocker’s excessive concern about Brisbane, which, it seemed, even his own boss didn’t share.
Collopy stepped back, and the mayor returned to the microphone. “I will now take questions,” he said.
There was a roar, a rippling flurry of hands through the crowd. The mayor’s spokesperson, Mary Hill, stepped forward to manage the questioning.
Custer looked toward the crowd. The unpleasant memory of Smithback’s hangdog visage flitted across his mind, and he was glad not to see it among the sea of faces.
Mary Hill had called on someone, and Custer heard the shouted question. “Why did he do it? Was he really trying to prolong his life?”
The mayor shook his head. “I cannot speculate on motive at this time.”
“This is a question for Captain Custer!” a voice shouted. “How did you know it was Brisbane? What was the smoking gun?”
Custer stepped forward, once again gathering his face into a mask of stolidity. “A derby hat, umbrella, and black suit,” he said, significantly, and paused. “The so-called Surgeon, when he went out to stalk his victims, was seen to wear just such an outfit. I discovered the disguise myself in Mr. Brisbane’s office.”
“Did you find the murder weapon?”
“We are continuing to search the office, and we have dispatched teams to search Mr. Brisbane’s apartment and summer house on Long Island. The Long Island search,” he added significantly, “will include cadaver-trained tracking dogs.”
“What was the role of the FBI in this case?” a television reporter shouted.
“Nothing,”the commissioner answered hastily. “There was no role. All the work was done by local law enforcement. An FBI agent did take an unofficial interest early on, but those leads led nowhere and as far as we know he has abandoned the case.”
“Another question for Captain Custer, please! How does it feel, sir, to have cracked the biggest case since Son of Sam?”
It was that prepped-out weenie, Bryce Harriman. It was the question he had longed for someone to ask. Once again, the man had ridden to his rescue. It was beautiful how these things worked out.
Custer summoned up his most impassive monotone: “I was just doing my duty as a police officer. Nothing less, and nothing more.”
Then he stood back and basked, poker-faced, in the endless flare of flashbulbs that ensued.
FOURTEEN
THE IMAGE THAT BURST INTO THE BEAM OF NORA’S LIGHT WAS SO unexpected, so horrifying, that she instinctively scrambled backward, dropped the scalpel, and ran. Her only conscious desire was to put some distance between herself and the awful sight.
But at the door she stopped. The man—she had to think of him as that—was not following her. In fact, he seemed to be shuffling along as before, zombie-like, unaware of her presence. With a shaking hand she trained the light back on him.
The man’s clothes hung from his frame in tatters, skin raked and scored and bleeding as if by frenzied scratching. The scalp was torn, skin hanging away in flaps from where it had apparently been ripped from the skull. Tufts of bloody hair remained clutched rigidly between the fingers of the right hand: a hand whose epithelial layers were sloughing away in parchment-like curls of tissue. The lips had swollen to a grotesque size, liver-colored bananas covered with whitish weals. A tongue, cracked and blackened, forced its way between them. A wet gargling came from deep inside the throat, and each effort to suck in or expel air caused the tongue to quiver. Through the gaps in the ragged shirt, Nora could see angry-looking chancres on the chest and abdomen, weeping clear fluid. Below the armpits were thick colonies of pustules like small red berries, some of which she saw—with a sickening sense of fast-motion photography—were swelling rapidly; even as she watched, one burst with a sickening pop, while more blistered and swelled to take its place.
But what horrified Nora most were the eyes. One was twice normal size, blood-engorged, protruding freakishly from the orbital socket. It jittered and darted about, roving wildly but seeing nothing. The other, in contrast, was dark and shriveled, motionless, sunken deep beneath the brow.
A fresh shudder of revulsion went through Nora. It must be some pathetic victim of the Surgeon. But what had happened to him? What dreadful torture had he undergone?
As she watched, spellbound with horror, the figure paused, and seemed to look at her for the first time. The head tilted up and the jittery eye paused and appeared to fix on her. She tensed, ready for flight. But the moment passed. The figure underwent a violent trembling from head to toe; then the head dropped down, and it once more resumed its quivering walk to nowhere.