Chapter 31
PENDERGAST RACED UP THE HILL toward the house, leaping up a set of brick steps, Chambers huffing up behind him. A pillared portico led to the front door, wide open and swinging slightly on its hinges. Chambers had the odd feeling that whoever got here first had just departed.
They entered a grand foyer with a central curving staircase, parlor to the left and dining room to the right. Smoke was boiling out of the dining room entryway with a loud crackling noise.
“We need to get down to the basement,” Pendergast said as he passed through streams of smoke toward a closed door on the right.
The wooden door was locked, but with a single kick Pendergast smashed it open.
It led into what looked like servants’ quarters.
The fire hadn’t reached that part of the house yet, but acrid smoke was beginning to drift in from the other direction.
The muffled roar of the fire seemed to be vibrating the entire frame of the house.
Darting this way and that, they made their way through a warren of small, shabby rooms, stripped of furniture, the plaster on the walls falling from the rotting lathe.
They came to the end. No basement.
They retraced their steps into the foyer. “It would be through the kitchen,” shouted Pendergast over the din. “Which means this way.”
“But that’s right into—”
Pendergast wasn’t waiting to discuss. He threw himself onto his hands and knees and crawled into the smoke, keeping his head down and the rear of his suit jacket over his face.
Chambers hesitated, then followed. The smoke was surging over their heads and licking down at them, and he could feel the heat buffeting the walls.
No light was needed; the glow of the fire from down the corridor was enough to cast an orange illumination over everything.
They crawled through the dining room and into a kitchen. Now the fire was closer, and when they were halfway across, a sudden crackling sounded and the wall burst, scattering kitchen tiles everywhere as a huge ball of flame burst through. The ceiling was sagging and threatening to collapse.
Chambers blindly followed Pendergast, trying to breathe through the cloth of his jacket, his eyes burning and streaming.
They reached another wooden door, unlocked. They piled through it, suddenly in fresh air once again. Chambers stood, gasping and inhaling, while Pendergast slammed open the door and stuck a chair under the handle.
It was dark and Pendergast flicked on his penlight. They were in a pantry-like corridor, lined with shelves of ancient canned goods and sacks of flour and sugar torn apart by rats.
They came to a steel door at the far end of the pantry.
“Son of a bitch,” said Chambers, trying the handle and finding it locked. “This must be the door to the basement.”
Pendergast paused, breathing hard. They had very little time. Smoke was creeping up through cracks everywhere.
Pendergast bent over the keyhole and extracted a small tool from his pocket.
“You’re… not going to pick that lock, are you?”
“I shall attempt to, yes.”
Christ, thought Chambers, this was a guy with a lot of surprises up his sleeve.
“Et voilà!” Pendergast pushed the door open on silent hinges. A staircase led downward.
“Booya,” said Chambers with considerably less enthusiasm.
They started down the stone steps, beaded with moisture.
The sound of the fire was now muffled. The staircase ended at another door, locked, which Pendergast also picked, more rapidly this time.
He pushed it open and probed the darkness with his light.
Chambers was astonished: a long, gleaming hospital-like corridor stretched ahead, doors on either side.
There was a light switch nearby, and Chambers hit it.
Bingo—the lights went on, brilliant white.
There must be a generator still operating somewhere on the premises, he thought.
“What have we here?” Pendergast asked, staring at a trail of what appeared to be blood along the linoleum floor, leading to a set of double doors at the end of the hall. He knelt and touched his finger to the trail, examined it, then rose. “Not more than thirty minutes old.”
“Jesus,” Chambers breathed. “What the hell happened here?”
“Let us follow the crimson trail and see where it leads.”
Feeling a rising sense of dread, Chambers followed Pendergast down the hall and through the doors.
Pendergast turned on a light, revealing an operating table draped in bloody sheets.
A nearby tray was covered with gory surgical instruments, bandages, bloody sponges, and suturing material.
Blood was splattered on the floor, tracked around by footprints.
The trail of blood led from the operating table.
“I’m afraid,” said Pendergast, “the procedure was not a success.”
“Is anyone here?” Chambers called out. His voice died in silence.
“We are running out of time,” said Pendergast. He took a brief but careful look around. “Let us split up and search these rooms.”
They returned to the hall. Pendergast took one side and Chambers the other, slapping open doors and turning on lights. There were several storage rooms, labs, a bathroom, and sleeping quarters.
Chambers entered one lab that showed evidence of recent use, with microscopes, worktables, and a medical freezer.
A titration had been set up on a table, and it looked like it had just been done, the liquids still remaining in the beakers and burettes.
He went over and examined the freezer: the door was padlocked.
He grabbed the padlock, but it was a big case-hardened one made out of steel.
A moment later Pendergast came up behind him. “I would expect,” he said, “there is something quite interesting in there, judging from the size of that padlock.”
Chambers stepped aside as Pendergast took the lock in his hands. With a quick fiddle it released and he opened the freezer door. It contained only one thing: a gleaming, stainless-steel case—again locked. Pendergast set upon the lock with his tools.
“Done,” he said, stepping back. “You do the honors.”
With another feeling of dread, Chambers raised the lid—to reveal a rack of frozen tissue samples, as thin as paper and stained with various colors, mounted on large glass plates.
“That crazy motherfucker,” said Chambers. “Looks like we found his trophy case.”
Pendergast reached in and slid one glass plate out, staring at it with glittering eyes. “These are not trophies,” he said.
“What do you mean? Most serial killers collect trophies from their victims—and this is Wickman’s stash.”
“These tissue samples have been microtomed and histologically prepared by an expert biotechnician, stained with hematoxylin, eosin, and trichrome. No, my dear Chambers, these are not the grisly trophies of a serial killer. These are biological specimens, prepared by our killer for scientific testing.”
“Testing? For what?”
Pendergast turned his silvery eyes on Chambers. “That, my friend, is an excellent question.”