Cemetery Dance (48 page)

"Don't be." Hayward brushed back her black hair. "I think I'm actually better off for losing the opportunity — the latest word is that task force is going to become just the bureaucratic nightmare everyone swore it would never be. And that reminds me: remember our friend Kline, the software developer? Looks like he's going to be sorry he strong–armed the commissioner. I just heard the FBI was wiretapping Rocker's phone in a sting operation and got the whole blackmail conversation on tape. Both are going down — hard. Kline is finished."

"A pity. Rocker wasn't a bad man."

Hayward nodded. "He did it for good motives — the Dyson Fund. A tragedy, in a way. But one side effect is I'm leaving the commissioner's office, getting my job as homicide captain back."

A silence settled in the room.

D'Agosta spoke all in a rush. "Listen, Pendergast, I just wanted to apologize for my goddamn stupidity back there — for dragging you into the Ville, for getting you shot, for almost losing Nora. I've done some idiotic things, but this took the cake."

"My dear Vincent," murmured Pendergast, "if we hadn't gone into the Ville, I never would have found the looted tomb, I never would have seen the name Esteban … and where would we be now? Nora would be dead and Esteban the new Donald Trump. So you see, your ‘stupidity' was crucial in solving this case."

D'Agosta didn't quite know how to respond to this.

"And now, if you don't mind, Vincent, I shall rest."

*        *        *

As they exited the hospital room, D'Agosta turned to Hayward. "What's this about deep background checks on everyone involved with the case?"

Hayward looked uncharacteristically embarrassed. "I couldn't just stand there and watch Pendergast pull you in over your head. So … I started looking into the case myself. Just a little."

D'Agosta felt a strange mixture of emotions: mild annoyance at the thought he might need bailing out, great satisfaction knowing she cared enough about him to do it at all. "You're forever looking after me," he said.

In response, she slipped her hand through his arm. "Got any dinner plans?"

"Yes. I'm taking you out."

"Where to?"

"How about Le Cirque?"

She looked at him in surprise. "Wow. Twice in one year. What's the occasion?"

"No occasion. Just a very special lady."

At that moment, an elderly man in the corridor stopped them. D'Agosta looked at him, astonished. He was short and stocky and dressed as if he had just stepped out of Edwardian London: a black cutaway jacket, a white carnation in his boutonniere, a spotless bowler hat.

"Pardon me," he said. "Is the room you just exited where Aloysius Pendergast is staying?"

"Yes," D'Agosta said. "Why?"

"I have a letter I must deliver to him." And in fact the man was holding a letter: fancy, cream–laid paper, hand–pressed by the look of it. Pendergast's name was written on its front in a broad hand.

"You'll have to come back with your letter," D'Agosta said. "Pendergast is resting."

"I assure you, he'll want to see this particular letter right away." And the man began to step past them toward the door.

D'Agosta put a restraining hand on the man's shoulder. "Just who are you?" he demanded.

"The name is Ogilby, and I'm the solicitor for the Pendergast family. Now, if you'll excuse me?" And — freeing himself from D'Agosta's grasp with one fawn–gloved hand — he bowed, raised his hat to Hayward, and stepped past into Pendergast's room.

Cemetery Dance

Epilogue

The small powerboat cut easily through the glassy waters of Lake Powell. It was a cold, clear day in early April, the Arizona air as crisp and clean as fresh laundry. The late–morning sun glowed orange against the great sandstone walls of the Grand Bench, and as the boat came around the bend, the prow of Kaiparowits Plateau rose far behind it, purple in the rising sun, wild and inaccessible.

Nora Kelly stood at the helm, the wind stirring her short hair. The rumble of the engine echoed softly against the cliffs, and the water hissed along the hull as the boat moved through the mystical world of stone. The air was fragrant with the smell of cedar and warm sandstone, and as the boat moved through the cathedral–like stillness, a golden eagle soared above the canyon rims, issuing a thin cry.

She eased down on the throttle and the boat slowed to a trolling pace. As the lake took another turn, the mouth of a narrow, flooded canyon came into view — Serpentine Canyon, two smooth walls of red sandstone with a lane of green water between.

Nora turned the boat into the canyon. The engine sound grew louder, more confined. True to its name, the canyon twisted and turned like a country road. It was cooler in the canyon, even cold, and Nora could see her breath in the frosty air. A mile in, the boat reached a particularly beautiful spot, where a tiny waterfall threaded and tumbled its way down a channel of stone, creating in its fall a microcosm of hanging ferns and mosses, with a stand of miniature twisted piñons growing sideways out of a cleft in the rock. She cut the engine and drifted, listening to the splash of the waterfall, inhaling the perfume of sweet fern and water.

She remembered this magical place like yesterday. Here, on the expedition to Quivira almost five years earlier, their boat had passed this same waterfall. Bill Smithback, whom she had met only the day before, had stood at the boat railing and waved her over.

"See that, Nora?" he had said, nudging her and smiling. "That's where the fairies wash their gossamer wings. It's the fairy shower."

It was the first time he had surprised her with his poetry, his insight, his humor and love of beauty. It caused her to look at him more closely, not to trust her original impression. It might also have marked the moment when she began to fall in love with him.

*        *        *

Two weeks ago she had returned to New Mexico, after having been offered a job as curator at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute. Staying with her brother Skip, she had spent the last week learning more about the job and discussing the position with the museum's president and board. If she took the job, it would be contingent on working out details for funding her already planned expedition to Utah the upcoming summer. Skip had been a tremendous help and support, glad to return the favor from the time, years before, when she had helped him pick up the pieces of his own life.

But there had been another, more private, reason for the journey. She was, for the most part, coming to terms with the horror of Bill's death. New York City — their favorite restaurants and parks, even the apartment itself — held no more terrors for her. And yet the past was a different story. She had no idea how the canyon country of the Southwest would affect her. Places like Page, Arizona, where they first met, or Lake Powell itself, or the wild country beyond where they had searched for the half–mythical city of Quivira. She felt a need to explore these places again, perhaps as part of laying the ghosts to rest. As the boat drifted down the canyon, memories — shrouded in a wistful veil of time that made them bittersweet rather than painful — began to surface. Bill, complaining loudly after being bitten by his horse, Hurricane Deck. Bill, shielding her from a flash flood with his own body. Bill, his form outlined in brilliant starlight, reaching for her hand. This magical land had brought such memories back to her, and for that she was grateful.

The boat came to rest, drifting ever so slightly in the mirror–like water. Nora reached down and picked up a small bronze urn, pulled away the paper seal on its rim, and removed the lid. She held it over the side of the boat and shook a few handfuls of ashes out into the water. They splashed down, sinking slowly into the jade–colored depths. She watched them dissolve in a turbulent plume that dimmed as it sank. And then they were gone.

"Good–bye, dear friend," she said softly.