Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child Read Free Book Online Page A

on his mind.
    "I lost my wife some years ago, when I was doing fieldwork in Haiti. She was killed in a car crash in California while I was away. I know what you must be feeling."
    "Thank you, Primus."
    He moved deeper into the lab. "Potsherds, I see. How beautiful they are. An example of the human urge to make beautiful even the most mundane of objects."
    "Yes, it is." When will he leave? Nora suddenly felt guilty for the reaction. In his own way, he was trying to be kind. But this just wasn't the way she grieved, all this talk and commiseration and condolence offering.
    "Forgive me, Nora …" He hesitated. "But I must ask. Do you plan on burying your husband or having him cremated?"
    The question was so bizarre that for a moment Nora was taken aback. The question was one she had been deliberately avoiding, and she knew she had to face it soon.
    "I don't know," she said, rather more curtly than she intended.
    "I see." Hornby looked unaccountably dismayed. Nora wondered what was coming next. "As I said, I did my fieldwork in Haiti."
    "Yes."
    Hornby seemed to be growing more agitated. "In Dessalines, where I lived, they sometimes use Formalazen as an embalming fluid instead of the usual compound of formalin, ethanol, and methanol."
    The conversation seemed to be taking on an unreal cast. "Formalazen," Nora repeated.
    "Yes. It's far more poisonous and difficult to handle, but they prefer it for … well, for certain reasons. Sometimes they make it even more toxic by dissolving rat poison in it. In certain unusual cases — certain types of death — they also ask the mortician to suture the mouth shut." He hesitated again. "And in such cases they bury their dead facedown, mouth to the earth, with a long knife in one hand. Sometimes they fire a bullet or drive a piece of iron into the corpse's heart to … well, to kill it again."
    Nora stared at the odd little curator. She had always known he was eccentric, that he'd been touched a little too deeply by the strange nature of his studies, but this was something so monstrously out of place she could hardly believe it. "How interesting," she managed to say.
    "They can be very careful about how they bury their dead in Dessalines. They follow strict rules at great financial expense. A proper burial can cost two or three years' annual salary."
    "I see."
    "Once again, I'm so dreadfully sorry." And with that, the curator unfolded the newspaper he'd been carrying under his arm and laid it on the table. It was a copy of that morning's West Sider.
    Nora stared at the headline:
    TIMES REPORTER KILLED BY ZOMBIE?
    Hornby tapped the headline with a stubby finger. "My work was in this very area. Voodoo. Obeah. Zombiis — spelled correctly with two i's, of course, not like how they spelled it here. Of course, the West Sider gets everything wrong." He sniffed.
    "What —" Nora found herself speechless, staring at the headline.
    "So if you do decide to bury your husband, I hope you'll keep what I've said in mind. If you have any questions, Nora, I am always here."
    And with a final, sad smile, the little curator was gone, leaving the newspaper on the table.
    Cemetery Dance
    Chapter 10
     
    The Rolls–Royce purred through the shabby town of Kerhonkson, glided over a cracked asphalt road past a shuttered Borscht Belt hotel, and then wound its way down into a gloomy river valley closed in by damp trees. One last steep bend and a weather–beaten Victorian house came into view, adjoining a low–lying complex of brick buildings surrounded by a chain–link fence. A sign bathed in late–afternoon shadow announced they were entering the Willoughby Manor Extended Care Facility.
    "Jesus," said D'Agosta. "Looks like a prison."
    "It is one of the more infamous dumping grounds for the infirm and aged in New York State," said Pendergast. "Their HHS file is a foot thick with violations."
    They drove through the open gate, past an unmanned pillbox, and crossed a vast and empty visitors' parking lot, weeds