“To stick to his job. How had he been deviating from his job?”
“He was doing outside work, helping Nora Kelly with her external projects, when I had specifically—”
It was time. Custer pounced.
“According to Mr. Oscar Gibbs, you were (and I will read): screaming and yelling and threatening to bury Mr. Puck. He (that’s you, Mr. Brisbane) said he wasn’t through by a long shot.” Custer lowered the paper, glanced at Brisbane. “That’s the word you used: ‘bury. ’”
“It’s a common figure of speech.”
“And then, not twenty-four hours later, Puck’s body was found, gored on a dinosaur in the Archives. After having been butchered, most likely in those very same Archives. An operation like that takes time, Mr. Brisbane. Clearly, it was done by somebody who knew the Museum’s ways very well. Someone with a security clearance. Someone who could move around the Museum without exciting notice. An insider, if you will. And then, Nora Kelly gets a phony note, typed on Puck’s typewriter, asking her to come down—and she herself is attacked, pursued with deadly intent. Nora Kelly. The other thorn in your side. The third thorn, the FBI agent, was in the hospital at this point, having been attacked by someone wearing a derby hat.”
Brisbane stared at him in disbelief.
“Why didn’t you want Puck to help Nora Kelly in her—what did you call them—external projects?”
This was answered by silence.
“What were you afraid she would find? They would find?”
Brisbane’s mouth worked briefly. “I… I…”
Now Custer slipped in the knife. “Why the copycat angle, Mr. Brisbane? Was it something you found in the Archives? Is that what prompted you to do it? Was Puck getting too close to learning something?”
At this, Brisbane found his voice at last. He shot to his feet. “Now, just a minute—”
Custer turned. “Officer Noyes?”
“Yes?” Noyes responded eagerly.
“Cuff him.”
“No,” Brisbane gasped. “You fool, you’re making a terrible mistake—”
Custer worked his way out of the chair—it was not as smooth a motion as he would have wished—and began abruptly booming out the Miranda rights: “You have the right to remain silent—”
“This is an outrage—”
“—you have the right to an attorney—”
“I will not accept this!”
“—you have the right—”
He thundered it out to the bitter end, overriding Brisbane’s protestations. He watched as the gleeful Noyes slapped the cuffs on the man. It was the most satisfying collar Custer could ever remember. It was, in fact, the single greatest job of police work he had done in his life. This was the stuff of legend. For many years to come, they’d be telling the story of how Captain Custer put the cuffs on the Surgeon.
FIVE
PENDERGAST SET OFF UP RIVERSIDE ONCE AGAIN, BLACK SUIT COAT OPEN and flapping behind him in the Manhattan night. Nora hurried after. Her thoughts returned to Smithback, imprisoned in one of these gaunt buildings. She tried to force the image from her mind, but it kept returning, again and again. She was almost physically sick with worry about what might be happening—what might have already happened.
She wondered how she could have been so angry with him. It’s true that much of the time he was impossible—a schemer, impulsive, always looking for an angle, always getting himself into trouble. And yet many of those same negative qualities were his most endearing. She thought back to how he’d dressed up as a bum to help her retrieve the old dress from the excavation; how he’d come to warn her after Pendergast was stabbed. When push came to shove, he was there. She had been awfully hard on him. But it was too late to be sorry. She suppressed a sob of bitter regret.
They moved past guttered mansions and once elegant townhouses, now festering crack dens and shooting galleries for junkies. Pendergast gave each building a searching look, always turning away with a little shake of his head.
Nora’s thoughts flitted briefly to Leng himself. It seemed impossible that he could still be alive, concealed within one of these crumbling dwellings. She glanced up the Drive again. She had to concentrate, try to pick his house out from the others. Wherever he lived, it would be comfortable. A man who had lived over a hundred and fifty years would be excessively concerned with comfort. But it would no doubt give the surface impression of being abandoned. And it would be well-nigh impregnable—Leng wouldn’t want any unexpected visitors. This was the perfect neighborhood for such a place: abandoned, yet once elegant; externally shabby, yet livable inside; boarded up; very private.