Nick of Time (A Bug Man Novel) (4 page)

“Yeah, Pete Boudreau—some sort of pathologist, isn’t he?”

“No, Pete’s a forensic botanist—a palynologist, to be exact.”

“A what?”

“Sorry—I forgot the FBI dictionary is limited to two syllables.
Palynology
—the study of pollen and spores. Forensic botany is the use of plant anatomy and ecology in legal investigations, and palynology is a subdiscipline of botany. Actually, there are several subdisciplines of forensic botany . . . There’s limnology and dendrochronology—”

“Nick, you called me forty-five seconds ago and I’m already bored. I think that’s a new record.”

“Well, anyway, Pete’s a palynologist and we go way back. I met him when I was doing my doctorate at Penn State and he was a professor in the botany department. I bumped into him for the first time there in DC, at the U.S. Botanic Garden over on Maryland Avenue. They had an
Amorphophallus titanum
on display, and I drove all the way down from State College to get a look at it.”

“I know I’m gonna hate myself for asking this, but . . . they had a what?”

“The
titan arum
, they call it—a carrion flower. Ever heard of it? It’s the world’s largest flower, and it only occurs naturally in the rain forests of Sumatra. The flower has to grow for years before it ever blooms, and then it only blooms for a single day— two at the most. Then the whole thing collapses and you have to wait years to see it again.”

“Since when have you been interested in flowers?”

“I’m not—but the amazing thing about the
titan arum
is that it smells just like rotting meat. Isn’t that amazing? A plant that pollinates itself by attracting the same blowflies and flesh flies that are attracted to a decomposing body. I just had to see that.”

“Gee, I hope you took some pictures.”

“I did better than that—I told them I was doing research for my doctorate and they let me test the thing with a temperature probe. Guess what? The plant generates heat—it not only simulates the scent of a decaying body, but it simulates the temperature too!”

“The wonders of nature. I need some coffee.”

“Of course, I was interested in the plant from an entomological perspective, but Pete was fascinated by it as a botanist.”

“Nick.”

“Pete was a real pioneer in forensic botany, you know; the field barely existed before he did some of his research.”

“
Nick
.”

“What?”

“You said you had a question about women, remember? This is turning into a book report on
People Who Are as Weird as I Am
.”

“Oh, right. Well, Pete asked me to meet him in Philadelphia today and I’m headed up there now. I told Alena about the meeting weeks ago and she seemed fine with it then—but this morning she practically begged me not to go.”

“Nick—you’re getting married in less than a week.”

“So?”

“So she probably wants you around.”

“Why would she want me around? There’s nothing for me to do.”

“You’re asking me? I still can’t figure out why she’s marrying you.”

“She just wasn’t being reasonable.”

“
Reasonable
—you want her to be
reasonable
.”

“I’d appreciate it, yes.”

“Let me tell you something, Nick. When Macy was pregnant with our first we did the whole Lamaze routine—the childbirth classes, the breathing techniques, the whole nine yards. So when the baby was about to pop we headed for the hospital, and there I was in my powder-blue scrubs and my hairnet—and I had nothing to do. And it was taking hours, because the kid had a head like a bowling ball—and I still had nothing to do. So I casually mentioned that there was a game on in the lounge . . . You know what that’s called, Nick? That’s called being
reasonable
. Thank God I left my handgun in the locker.”

“Is this story supposed to encourage me?”

“No, it’s supposed to make you think. Give up on
reasonable
, Nick—there’s no such thing. ‘Be reasonable’ just means ‘Think like I do’—and she doesn’t. But hey, don’t let that bother you; I don’t think there’s anybody on the planet who thinks like you.”

“Give up on
reasonable
,” Nick said. “That won’t be easy— I’m a very reasonable person.”

“Are you kidding? You’re the most erratic and unpredictable person I’ve ever met—who’s not in prison. And that could always change.”

“ ‘Erratic and unpredictable’? Seriously?”

“You’re engaged, aren’t you?”

Nick stopped to consider Donovan’s words. He had a point—proposing marriage to Alena was probably the most unpredictable thing Nick had ever done, and everyone who knew him was flabbergasted by the news of his engagement. Some of them actually broke out in laughter, while others simply refused to believe. Everyone who knew Nick seemed absolutely convinced that pigs might fly, and the Cubs might win the Series, but the Bug Man would never, ever take a mate.

“Is that what I’m doing?” Nick wondered aloud. “Being
erratic
?”

“Now stop right there,” Donovan said. “Let me tell you what’s happening, Nick. It’s a week before your wedding and you’re starting to second-guess yourself. Everybody does that— men and women alike. ‘Am I doing the right thing? Do I really know this person? Am I about to make the biggest mistake of my life?’ ”

“Am I?”

“You’re the only one who can answer that question. But I’ll give you my opinion: Alena’s one of the strangest women I’ve ever met—and believe me, that’s really saying something. But she’s strange
like you
, and that’s the thing that really matters.

She’s good for you, Nick. You need her—or maybe a frontal lobotomy.”

“What if she
is
a frontal lobotomy?”

“Come again?”

“Have you ever watched praying mantises mate?”

“We don’t get those channels,” Donovan said.

“It’s fascinating to watch. When they’ve finished mating, the female twists around and bites off the male’s head—it provides a little extra protein snack for the female to help ensure the survival of her offspring.”

“So?”

“What if marriage is like that? Maybe for the female it’s just a snack, but for the male it’s the last supper.”

“Nick, take a Valium—you’re starting to freak out.”

“I sat with Alena for almost an hour this morning. I stayed so long that now I might be late for Vidocq. We kept going round and round about the same thing—why I had to leave right now. She said it made her nervous, and I kept trying to reassure her . . . But you know what I thought when I left? I thought,
Why did I waste so much time with Alena?
Is that what I’m doing, Donovan? If she’s never going to think like me, am I just wasting my time?”

“Are you planning on calling me every time you have a question about women? Because if you are, I want to get paid.”

“You’re my best man, Donovan—isn’t this part of your duties?”

“No, it isn’t. ‘Best man’ just means I’m supposed to prop you up in church if your legs start to give out, and I have to come up with some lame toast at the reception. Oh—and I also throw your bachelor party.”

Nick groaned. “Do I have to come to that?”

“You’re the only bachelor I still know.”

“Is this going to be one of those humiliating, primitive male-bonding rituals?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Wonderful.”

“Look, I need to get back to work—but I want to ask you something, and I really want you to think about this.”

“Okay.”

“Why
are
you going to Philadelphia?”

“I told you. I have a Vidocq meeting—”

“You’re not listening, Nick. The woman you say you love is back in Virginia, and the event that will change your life forever is taking place in just a few days . . . So why are you going to Philadelphia?”

Nick paused. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you need to figure it out—because Alena wants to know too.”

4

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

A
s the elevator doors slid closed, Nick took one last look at the imposing rotunda of the Public Ledger Building: the gleaming marble walls, the barrel-vaulted ceiling inlaid with gold, and the statue of Benjamin Franklin floating like a demigod against a panorama of dramatic clouds . . .

Welcome to Philadelphia
, he thought.

Nick loved the old building, once home to the most popular newspaper in all of Philadelphia. He loved the entire surrounding area of Society Hill and the Center City District. This was old Philadelphia, and the place was just dripping with history. Right across the street was Congress Hall, where George Washington was inaugurated and the Bill of Rights had been ratified; Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell were just a stone’s throw away. The whole place just
felt
important, and Nick liked to think that what he was here to do was important too, because Nick was here to help set a man free—or to send him to prison for the rest of his life.

Nick punched the button for the twelfth floor twice more, as if the elevator were some senile octogenarian that needed to be reminded what it had just been told to do. But he knew that nothing would speed the trip along; the aging elevator would slowly and stubbornly groan its way to the top, just as it had done since it was first installed back in 1921.

For almost two decades now the members of the Vidocq Society had gathered on the last Tuesday of every month in the stately Downtown Club on the top floor of the Public Ledger Building in the heart of historic Philadelphia. The society had been founded by three men: an ex-FBI agent who once worked an area of Boston known as the Combat Zone; a forensic sculptor who specialized in reconstructing the faces of murder victims from only their skulls; and a criminal psychologist who had profiled some of the most infamous murderers in history.

They were Nick’s kind of people—so when he had been extended an invitation to join the society several years ago, he jumped at the opportunity.

In just twenty years the society had expanded to more than a hundred members from almost twenty states and eleven other countries. Each member was required to be an expert in some field of forensic science, and current members represented subdisciplines as varied as forensic hypnosis, arson investigation, and ritual murder. But despite their varying specialties, their purpose in meeting was the same: to assemble a dream team of working and retired forensic specialists who would help solve murders no one else had been able to figure out.

For a case to be considered by Vidocq, it had to meet four strict qualifications: It had to be an unsolved case at least two years old to ensure that local authorities had made every effort to solve the case themselves; it had to be formally presented to the society by the appropriate law enforcement agency; the victim could not have been involved in any criminal activity; and the crime in question must always be murder. Vidocq made it very clear that they were not interested in solving cases involving robberies and insurance fraud; their membership included some of the finest forensic minds in the world, and they had decided long ago that their club would concern itself strictly with murder.

Murder and
lunch
, that is. “Cuisine and Crime-Solving”— that was how their meetings had always been billed. Each meeting began with a very nice luncheon in one of the club’s private dining rooms—a Caesar salad, perhaps, followed by chicken scaloppine and lemon meringue pie for dessert. Nick felt his stomach beginning to growl . . . Vidocq members were all forensic professionals, and they had long ago ceased to be repulsed by the graphic details of their profession.

Nick loved these meetings, though his busy schedule hadn’t allowed him to attend one in months. When he was with Vidocq he was among respected colleagues and he was doing what he did best—and for Nick, life didn’t get any better than that. If he had had any lingering doubts about attending this meeting, any second thoughts about leaving Alena so close to their wedding day, those thoughts were gone now.

He knew that some of his colleagues back at NC State would have been amazed to hear that Nick enjoyed attending a meeting of any kind, because Nick wasn’t exactly known as a “people person,” to put it mildly—but that wasn’t completely true. Nick had never liked the human species as a whole, but there were a few specific members of the species he respected and admired and even looked forward to seeing—and forensic botanist Pete Boudreau was at the top of that very short list.