The Cabinet of Curiosities

And yet it had yielded few clues. There was a remarkable lack of debris, as if the floor had been swept clean. She had found some broken glassware wedged into the cracks of the brick; an old fire grate with some coal; a button; a rotten trolley ticket, a few other odds and ends. It seemed that Leng had wanted to leave nothing behind.

Outside, a fresh flash of lightning penetrated the coat Nora had hung over the window. A second later, thunder rumbled. The single bulb flickered, browned, then brightened once again.

She continued staring thoughtfully at the floor. At last, she spoke. “First, we need to widen the excavation. And then, I think we’ll have to go deeper.”

“Deeper?” said O’Shaughnessy, a note of incredulity in his voice.

Nora nodded. “Leng left nothing on the floor. But that doesn’t mean he left nothing beneath it.”

There was a short, chilly silence.

Outside, Doyers Street lay prostrate under a heavy rain. Water ran down the gutters and disappeared into the storm drains, carrying with it trash, dog turds, drowned rats, rotting vegetables, the guts of fish from the market down the street. The occasional flash of lightning illuminated the darkened facades, shooting darts of light into the curling fogs that licked and eddied about the pavement.

A stooped figure in a derby hat, almost obscured beneath a black umbrella, made its way down the narrow street. The figure moved slowly, painfully, leaning on a cane as it approached. It paused, ever so briefly, before Number 99 Doyers Street; then it drifted on into the miasma of fog, a shadow merging with shadows until one could hardly say that it had been there at all.

FIVE

CUSTER LEANED BACK in his oversized Mediterranean office chair with a sigh. It was a quarter to twelve on Saturday morning, and by rights he should have been out with the bowling club, drinking beer with his buddies. He was a precinct commander, for chrissakes, not a homicide detective. Why did they want him in on a frigging Saturday? Goddamn pointless public relations bullshit. He’d done nothing but sit on his ass all morning, listening to the asbestos rattle in the heating ducts. A waste of a perfectly good weekend.

At least Pendergast was out of action for the time being. But what, exactly, had he been up to? When he’d asked O’Shaughnessy about it, the man was damned evasive. You’d think a cop with a record like his would do himself a favor, learn what to kiss and when. Well, Custer had had enough. Come Monday, he was going to tighten the leash on that puppy, but good.

The buzzer on his desk rang, and Custer poked at it angrily. “What the hell is it now? I was not to be disturbed.”

“Commissioner Rocker is on line one, Captain,” came Noyes’s voice, carefully neutral.

Omigod holy shit sonofabitch, thought Custer. His shaking hand hovered over the blinking light on his telephone. What the hell did the commissioner want with him? Hadn’t he done everything they’d asked him to do, the mayor, the chief, everybody? Whatever it was, it wasn’t his fault . . .

A fat, trembling finger depressed the button.

“Custer?” The commissioner’s desiccated voice filled his ear.

“What is it, sir?” Custer squeaked, making a belated effort to lower the pitch of his voice.

“Your man. O’Shaughnessy.”

“Yes sir? What about O’Shaughnessy?”

“I’m a little curious here. Why, exactly, did he request a copy of the forensic report from the ME’s office on the remains found down on Catherine Street? Did you authorize this?” The voice was slow, weary.

What the hell was O’Shaughnessy up to? Custer’s mind raced. He could tell the truth, say that O’Shaughnessy must have been disobeying his orders. But that would make him look like a fool, a man who couldn’t control his own. On the other hand, he could lie.

He chose the latter, more habitual course.

“Commissioner?” he managed to bring his voice down to a relatively masculine pitch. “I authorized it. You see, we didn’t have a copy down here for our files. It’s just a formality, you know, dotting every t and crossing every i. We do things by the book, sir.”

There was a silence. “Custer, since you are so nimble with aphorisms, you surely know the expression ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought the mayor made it clear we were going to let that particular sleeping dog lie.” Rocker didn’t sound like he had the greatest faith in the mayor’s judgment.

“Yes, sir.”

“O’Shaughnessy isn’t freelancing, is he, Custer? He’s not, by any chance, helping that FBI agent while he’s laid up—is he?”

“He’s a solid officer, loyal and obedient. I asked him to get the report.”

“In that case, I’m surprised at you, Custer. Surely you know that once the report is down at the precinct, every cop there will have access to it. Which is one step from laying it on the doorstep of the New York Times.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t think of that.”