Bloodless

20

As they were finishing breakfast the morning after the raid, Pendergast’s cell phone rang. While he answered it, Coldmoon stirred his coffee moodily and took a sip. It was terrible, of course. He noticed that Pendergast was listening for a long time to someone on the other end of the line, without saying a word, and wondered idly who it was. Constance — whose breakfast had consisted only of tea — was reading the latest issue of The Lancet. This seemed like odd breakfast reading material, but nothing Constance did would surprise Coldmoon anymore.

Pendergast finally said, simply, “Yes,” and hung up.

“Who was that?” Coldmoon asked.

“Our old friend, Squire Pickett. The senator has asked him to ask us to participate in a press conference.”

“Press conference? Good God, why?”

Pendergast smiled wanly. “To discuss the Savannah Vampire, of course.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“The senator is a canny fellow,” Pendergast said. “He doesn’t want this blowing up in his face, and so he’s getting in front of the situation by leveraging his relationship with Pickett. Rumors are running rampant about a vampire, and he wants to put some solid information in front of the public to squelch speculation. Commander Delaplane will be running the conference. The mayor will be there, and we’ll be backing them up.”

“But we don’t have solid information to give them,” said Coldmoon. “Except for the raid on the church of crazy naked blood-drinking Satanists, who have all lawyered up by now.”

“True. But we have enough to fashion a small bone from, which we can toss them.”

Coldmoon grunted. “And when is this conference taking place?”

“Two hours.”

Coldmoon nearly choked on his coffee. “Two hours?”

“As I said, the senator wants to get in front of this.”

Constance peeped over the top of her journal as the two men rose. “In which case, a small bone might not be enough,” she said. “You should perhaps consider a tibia. Or even better, a femur.”

Coldmoon shot her a glance, but her face was already hidden once again behind the periodical.

The press conference took place in the parking lot behind the police station, where a temporary stage had been set up and the television news vans with their satellite dishes had room to park. It was obviously a hasty improvisation, but Coldmoon was impressed that Delaplane had been able to put even this together so quickly. A uniformed officer moved some cones aside to let them pass and waved them on to a restricted parking area. Pendergast took out his cell phone once again and dialed.

“Who are you calling now?” Coldmoon asked.

“Pickett,” Pendergast said, putting the call on speakerphone. “He wanted me to alert him when we arrived.”

The phone was picked up by Pickett’s assistant. “He’s on with Senator Drayton at the moment, but he’s been expecting your call. One second, please.”

A brief silence, and then Coldmoon heard a basso profundo voice with an unpleasant rasp come through the phone’s speaker. “I’m not sure you’re hearing me, Walt. I’ve got that outdoor rally in Savannah coming up awfully soon, and I won’t tolerate any diversions. You need to get this mess cleared up quickly, because—”

“I beg your pardon?” Coldmoon heard Pendergast interrupt.

There was a silence. Pickett’s voice came through, slightly breathless. “Agent Pendergast, I can’t take your call now. I’ll call you back.”

“Yes, sir.” He paused a second. “It seems we might have had a phone malfunction, because I thought for a moment that I heard another voice—”

“That will do,” Pickett said, his voice tight. And the phone went dead.

Coldmoon looked at Pendergast, who had a most unusual twinkle of amusement in his eye. “Is that who I think it was? The Georgia senator, reaming out Pickett?”

“Tragic how some people seem unable to master digital technology,” Pendergast said, not sounding perturbed at all.

“I don’t know how, but I think you managed that little screw-up,” said Coldmoon.

“Who, me? Impossible.”

That Senator Drayton certainly sounded like a first-class asshole. Coldmoon couldn’t help but feel a certain grim satisfaction in knowing that Pickett might himself be on the receiving end of the stick.

Pendergast was already out of the car and walking across the parking lot, and Coldmoon hurried to join him.

He mounted the stage behind Pendergast, who took up a position on one side of the podium, with Delaplane, Detective Sheldrake, and a short, red-faced man Coldmoon assumed was the mayor on the other. The press had assembled with less jostling and chaos than Coldmoon expected. Maybe it had something to do with southern gentility. He noticed that the documentary filmmaker, Betts, must somehow have gotten wind of this conference before anyone else, because his team had parked themselves at the very front, staking out the choicest spot while the area behind had gradually filled with other journalists, cameras, and boom mics.

At eleven o’clock sharp, Delaplane stepped up to the microphone and gave it a few loud taps to silence the crowd. “I am Commander Alanna Delaplane, Savannah PD,” she began, “and I welcome you all to this press conference.”

She took a deep breath and went on, her powerful voice ringing off the façades of the surrounding buildings. This was one way to handle the press, Coldmoon thought: at high volume. She expressed sympathy for the two victims; assured the public that all resources were being brought to bear; praised the M.E.’s work; welcomed the help of the FBI; thanked the forensic teams and labs working on the case; and burnished the investigation to such a high gloss that it left the assembled press — who were no doubt thirsting for gore and controversy — dispirited, almost as if the case had been solved while their backs were turned. No mention was made of the raid.

Then the mayor took the podium and praised Commander Delaplane in turn, along with various officials Coldmoon had neither seen nor heard of, for their splendid work on the case. Coldmoon was beginning to feel uneasy with all this self-congratulation: from his own perspective, so far they had jack shit. But the entire press conference seemed to be having an anesthetic effect, turning an inexplicable and frightening situation into something that sounded almost boring. Perhaps that was the intention.

Finally, the mayor introduced “the highly decorated Special Agent Aloysius X. L. Pendergast of the FBI” — actually pronouncing his first name correctly which, Coldmoon guessed, might be another southern thing — and then stepped aside and yielded the podium.

Pendergast stepped up to it and spent a few moments surveying the restless crowd with gleaming eyes. As he did so, a hush fell. Coldmoon had to admit his partner had a charismatic aura so magnetic it could quiet even a crowd of reporters — at least temporarily.

“Honored ladies and gentlemen of the press,” Pendergast began, his honeyed accent thicker than ever, “the FBI is naturally glad to assist Savannah law enforcement in investigating these recent homicides.” He went on, his sonorous tone mesmerizing the crowd without actually imparting any information of note. He finished and stepped back, while Delaplane came forward again to call for questions. A scattering of hands shot up, including Betts’s.

Delaplane pointed into the crowd. “Ms. O’Reilly, of WTOC?”

“Do you have any leads?”

“Yes, we do. I can’t go into them for obvious reasons, but we’re working on several promising avenues of investigation. Mr. Boojum of the Register?”

“Commander, is there a concern there might be more killings? And, if so, do you have any advice for the public on how to protect themselves?”

“We’ve quadrupled law enforcement presence in the historic area,” Delaplane said. “I would ask that people not walk downtown alone at night, and please avoid inebriation, which always makes one an easier target.”

There was quite a bit of snickering among the press over that last piece of advice.

“Ms. Locatelle of WHAF.”

“Commander, what about the raid on that church over on Bee Street? Did anything come of that?”

At this, Delaplane pursed her lips. “If you’re referring to the FBI action, the SPD had nothing to do with that. I’ll turn the floor over to Special Agent Pendergast to, ah, explain.”

Pendergast stepped forward. “I’m afraid that was a dead end. The rites involved animal blood, not human.”

“What kind of animals?”

“Ducks, apparently.”

There was a rash of snickering at this detail.

“No connection was found to the current case, and no apparent laws were broken by the, ah, worshippers, and as such their names cannot be released.”

He stepped back and the commander came forward to handle more questions, pointedly ignoring Betts, who was waving his hand and becoming increasingly agitated when he was not called on. Finally, he simply shouted out a question. “Commander, what do you say to reports that these killings are remarkably similar to the legends of the Savannah Vampire?”

Delaplane fixed him with a steady eye. “Vampire, did you say?” she asked in a tone one might use to humor a child. “Mister...”

“Betts. Barclay Betts, anchor for—”

“Mr. Betts, if you’re asking me if we think these killings are the work of a vampire, the answer is... wait for it... no.”

Another titter rippled through the crowd.

“However,” Delaplane continued, “it might be the work of a person, or persons, drawn for unhealthy reasons of their own to Savannah... and its legends. The Bee Street raid is a case in point.”

“How was the blood drained?” Betts continued. “And to what purpose?”

“We believe a tool called a trocar, similar to a large-bore needle, was inserted into the femoral artery of the leg. As to what purpose, we have no idea yet.”

When Delaplane tried to move to another questioner, Betts continued. “Is it true that all the blood was sucked out... every drop?”

She arched her eyebrows and fixed him with a steady gaze. “Every drop was taken. We’re analyzing how it might have been done.” Before Betts could continue, she said: “Mr. Wellstone?”

Coldmoon saw a handsome figure in an impeccable suit — gray hair at the temples, horn-rimmed glasses, every inch the professor — nod in acknowledgment. “I have a question for Special Agent Pendergast,” he said in a patrician drawl. “Agent Pendergast, I understand you’re one of the FBI’s leading experts on deviant criminal psychology, especially as it involves serial homicide. Do you think the perpetrator is, in fact, a deviant serial killer?”

Silence fell as the crowd awaited Pendergast’s answer.

“Serial killer?” Pendergast finally said. “Perhaps. Deviant? Perhaps not.” He paused. “Perhaps what we are seeing is the expression of a certain kind of normative psychology, not deviant so much as a deviation from our expected standards.”

“What do you mean by that?” Wellstone asked.

Amen, Coldmoon thought.

But Pendergast said nothing more, and with that Delaplane concluded the press conference.