The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(9)

She turned her attention to the clothing itself. It was poor and rough, and very dirty. It had rotted, but, like the bones, showed no signs of rodent gnawing. She felt for her loup, fitted it to her eye, and looked more closely at a piece of clothing. Lots of lice; dead, of course. There were holes that seemed to be the result of excessive wear, and the clothing was heavily patched. The shoes were battered, some with hobnails worn completely off. She felt in the pockets of one pair of pants: a comb, a piece of string. She went through another set of pockets: nothing. A third set yielded a coin. She pulled it out, the fabric crumbling as she did so. It was a U.S. large cent, dated 1877. She slipped everything hastily into her own pockets.

She moved to another alcove and again sorted and inventoried the remains as fast as she could. It was similar: three skulls and three dismembered bodies, along with three sets of clothing. She felt in the pockets of the pants: a bent pin and two more pennies, 1880 and 1872. Her eyes returned to the bones: once again, those strange marks on the vertebrae. She looked more closely. The lumbar vertebrae, always the lumbar, opened carefully—almost surgically—and pried apart. She slipped one of them into her pocket.

She went down the tunnel, examining each niche in turn, scribbling her observations in Pendergast’s notebook. Each niche held exactly three corpses. All had been dismembered in the same fashion, at the neck, shoulders, and hips. A few of the skulls had the same dissection marks she’d noticed on the specimen Pendergast first showed her. All of the skeletons displayed severe trauma to the lower spinal column. From her cursory examination of skull morphology, they seemed to fit within the same age bracket—thirteen to twenty or so—and were a mixture of male and female, with male predominating. She wondered what the forensic examiner had discovered. There would be time to find that out later.

Twelve niches, three bodies to a niche… All very neat, very precise. At the next to the last niche, she stopped. Then she stepped back into the middle of the tunnel, trying hard not to think about the implications of what she was seeing, keeping her mind strictly on the facts. At any archaeological site, it was important to take a moment to stand still, to be quiet, to quell the intellect and simply absorb the feel of the place. She gazed around, trying to forget about the ticking clock, to blot out her preconceptions. A basement tunnel, pre-1890, carefully walled-up niches, bodies and clothes of some thirty-six young men and women. What was it built for? She glanced over at Pendergast. He was still at the far end, examining the bricked-up wall, prying out a bit of mortar with a knife.

She returned to the alcove, carefully noting the position of each bone, each article of clothing. Two sets of britches, with nothing in the pockets. A dress: filthy, torn, pathetic. She looked at it more closely. A girl’s dress, small, slender. She picked up the brown skull nearby. A young female, a teenager, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. She felt a wave of horror: just underneath it was her mass of hair, long golden tresses, still tied in a pink lace ribbon. She examined the skull: same poor dental hygiene. Sixteen, and already her teeth were rotting. The ribbon was of silk and a much finer quality than the dress; it must have been her prized possession. This glimmering of humanity stopped her dead for a moment.

As she felt for a pocket, something crackled under her fingers. Paper. She fingered the dress, realizing that the piece of paper wasn’t in a pocket at all, but sewn into the lining. She began to pull it from the alcove.

“Anything of interest, Dr. Kelly?”

She started at the medical examiner’s voice. Van Bronck. His tone had changed: now he sounded arrogant. He stood over her.

She glanced around. In her absorption, she had not heard him return. Pendergast was by the entrance to the barrow, in urgent discussion with some uniformed figures peering down from above.

“If you call this sort of thing interesting,” she said.

“I know you’re not with the ME’s office, so that must make you an FBI forensics expert.”

Nora colored. “I’m not a medical doctor. I’m an archaeologist.”

Dr. Van Bronck’s eyebrows shot up and a sardonic smile spread over his face. He had a perfectly formed little mouth that looked as if it had been painted on by a Renaissance artist. It glistened as it articulated the precise words. “Ah. Not a medical doctor. I believe I misunderstood your colleague. Archaeology. How nice.”

She had not had an hour; she had not even had half an hour.

She slid the dress back into the alcove, shoving it into a dusty crevice in the back. “And have you found anything of interest, Doctor?” she asked as casually as she could.

“I’d send you my report,” he said. “But then, I could hardly expect you to understand it. All that professional jargon, you know.” He smiled, and now the smile did not look friendly at all.

“I’m not finished here,” she said. “When I am, I’d be glad to chat further.” She began to move toward the last alcove.

“You can continue your studies after I remove the human remains.”

“You’re not moving anything until I’ve had a chance to examine it.”

“Tell that to them.” He nodded over her shoulder. “I don’t know where you got the impression this was an archaeological site. Fortunately, that’s all been straightened out.”

Nora saw a group of policemen sliding into the barrow, heavy evidence lockers in their hands. The space was soon filled with a cacophony of curses, grunts, and loud voices. Pendergast was nowhere to be seen.