Bloodless

43

For Coldmoon, the next twelve hours passed in a blur. There was some frantic packing; then an Uber to the Savannah/Hilton Head airport; then a bumpy but mercifully short ride in a prop plane to Atlanta — and then they were moving briskly through the big airport, Pendergast’s badge perpetually clearing the way, and onto the flight to Portland with minutes to spare. Once again in the air, Coldmoon — against his better judgment — ordered two vodka tonics. He woke up in Oregon with a headache, and followed Pendergast to an airport rental agency. He took the passenger seat while Pendergast got behind the wheel of a Jeep Wrangler. Coldmoon took notice of how rare this arrangement was: Pendergast behind the wheel, playing chauffeur. He realized the senior agent had mapped everything out in advance, handling logistics effortlessly, batting aside impediments.

At four o’clock in the morning, as they were driving north out of Portland in a drizzling rain, Coldmoon fell asleep again.

He woke up, cramped and sore, to a leaden sky. He checked his watch, compensating for the time change, and found it was six in the morning, local time. Pendergast was guiding the vehicle up a twisty road that hugged the side of a mountain. Coldmoon sat up and wiped the drizzle away from the window as best he could. Outside he could see a wild landscape: mountain after mountain, many with their peaks cloaked by lowering clouds. The forest was endless, Sitka spruce, western white pine, mountain hemlock, and a dozen other shaggy specimens he couldn’t identify. At least, he thought, they were in the west. He cracked the window and breathed deep of the fresh mountain air. He was heartily sick of the east.

Pendergast, not taking his eyes off the road, offered him a large insulated cup of black coffee. Mumbling his thanks, Coldmoon took it, figuring that Pendergast must have stopped for gas while he was asleep. It tasted about like he expected, but at least it was lukewarm.

They rode in silence for another twenty minutes, weaving through a labyrinth of hills and low mountains. The road was narrow and potholed. Only two or three cars went by the other way. Now and then they passed a house or a trailer huddled at the end of dirt driveways; once they passed a lake and a small dairy farm carved out of the forest; but otherwise there was only mist, and looming mountains, and an unrelieved dark green.

Pendergast turned off whatever road they’d been on and started north on a road with a sign marking it as State Route 21. As they continued, Coldmoon felt the coffee warming his insides, and he found a feeling of claustrophobia stealing over him. He’d grown up in the Dakotas, where trees such as these were rare enough to have individual names. But he’d seen a lot of the world since then. During the last two cases with Pendergast alone, he’d experienced the deep snows of Maine, the beaches of Miami, and the swampy bayous of the Everglades. But those places felt different. Here... here there were too many damn trees. And they grew thickly, leaning over the vehicle so it was like traveling in a tunnel. Where the hell were they? Coldmoon pulled out his cell phone and tried to fire up the GPS, but there was no signal. On impulse, he reached into the glove compartment and retrieved the Washington-Oregon map he found inside. He turned it this way and that, looking for Route 21. He saw Mount St. Helens — Christ, he hoped they weren’t headed that way — but the roads were like strands of vermicelli scattered here and there randomly across the folded paper, and he couldn’t find Route 21. At last, he gave up.

Pendergast pulled the vehicle off the road and into a small parking lot with a wooden sign that read GOAT MOUNTAIN TRAILHEAD. He glanced at Coldmoon.

“Where are we?” Coldmoon asked.

“Washington State. Roughly twenty miles north of the Mount Adams Wilderness.”

Coldmoon digested this a moment. “Great. Wonderful. And that is... where?”

“Close to the man I told you about, the one we came all this way to see. Dr. Zephraim Quincy.”

“Anybody who lives out in this wilderness doesn’t need to be a doctor. He should get a doctor.”

In response, the FBI agent continued north on 21. In about two miles they passed a small, battered road sign that read WALUPT LAKE, and Pendergast slowed again. Blinking against the mist, Coldmoon could make out the lake: its water almost black, surrounded by deep forest among the omnipresent mountains. On the far side, beyond a stand of trees, was a small farm, with a shed and a barn and just enough flat acreage to grow something. Beyond, the mountains rose again.

Pendergast remained still for a moment. Then, reaching into the back seat, he brought out a padded duffel he’d brought along. To Coldmoon’s surprise, he pulled out a DSLR camera body. Coldmoon knew something about fine cameras, and he noticed the senior agent was holding the latest Leica S3. Reaching into the duffel once more, Pendergast pulled out a lens: an aspheric Leica Summicron-S, naturally. That piece of glass alone had to go for eight or nine grand — if you could find one.

“Couldn’t you have found a more expensive camera?” he asked. “What’s wrong with your cell phone, anyway?”

“For my purposes, quality is key. Now, please be silent: I want to achieve just the right degree of bokeh.”

“Are you trying to win a photography award?”

“Only indirectly. My primary aim is to produce a maximal amount of nostalgia.”

Pendergast fitted the lens to the camera, aimed it at the farm across the lake, took his time focusing, and then shot several careful exposures at various focal lengths. Then he put the camera back into its duffel, crossed a bridge over one end of the lake, killed the engine, and let the car coast off the highway and down the grade onto the approach to the farm. They came to a stop behind the barn. Pendergast got out — quietly — and Coldmoon did the same. They eased their doors shut, Coldmoon taking his cues from Pendergast.

Beyond the barn stood an old two-story farmhouse. It had been handsome once, in a colonial “five over four with a door” style that seemed out of place here, with a variety of sheds and other outbuildings attached to its flanks. But time had been unkind to it: the outbuildings had fallen into disrepair, and the house itself hadn’t been painted in at least a decade. A few of the shutters on the second story were leaning away from their windows.

The entire place was cloaked in the silence of early morning, mist rising from the lake beyond the farmstead.

Pendergast motioned, and they crept into the barn. In the gloom, Coldmoon could make out various machinery, most of which was unfamiliar to him. There was also a hayloft and what looked like cow stalls and a milking apparatus, long abandoned.

“So what’re we looking for in here?”

“What’s the term? Fishing expedition. This will be our only chance to investigate.”

But there appeared to be nothing of interest. They exited the open barn door on the far side of the structure. Pendergast stopped a moment, pausing to take in the surroundings. Then he approached the farmhouse, Coldmoon at his side. Together they mounted the steps, and Coldmoon instinctively put his back to one side of the door while Pendergast rang the bell.

There was no response. Pendergast rang again; rapped loudly; rang a third time. Finally, Coldmoon heard a stirring within. A minute later the front door opened partway, revealing an old man dressed in long johns, who — with his white hair and beard — would have resembled Father Christmas if he weren’t so thin. In one hand he held a Remington 870, muzzle pointed at the floor.

“What’s all the ruckus?” he asked. “You sick?”

“We’re quite well, thank you,” Pendergast replied.

“Then what the hell are you disturbing me for at seven in the morning?” The man’s eyes had an almost mischievous sparkle, but the barrel of the shotgun lifted about twenty degrees toward the horizontal.

Pendergast had his ID and shield out while the weapon was still in motion. “We’d like to ask you just a couple of questions, Dr. Quincy.”

The old man considered this. Then he shrugged and stepped back from the door. Quickly, Pendergast stepped in, followed by Coldmoon. The man led them down a short hallway and into a room that once was probably a consultation office, full of old magazines and some medieval-looking medical diagrams hanging on the walls. While everything was old, it was spotless and organized. There was a desk, an examining table, two chairs. Quincy slipped behind the desk and gestured for the agents to sit.

“I’d offer you coffee, but it’s too damned early,” the man said, moving a stack of medical journals aside to clear his desktop. Something in his economy of movement made Coldmoon realize that, though the man was old, he must have been virile, even formidable, in his prime.

“We appreciate your letting us in,” Pendergast said.

“You mentioned you had a couple of questions,” Dr. Quincy said. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

Pendergast gestured as if to say this was fair enough. “You offered medical assistance when we rang the door, I believe. Are you still practicing?”

The man laughed. “Now, how should I answer that to an officer of the law?”

“If I weren’t an officer of the law, and I came here with a caddis fly hook stuck in my thumb, what would you do?”

The man considered this. “Well, seeing as only locals ever come by here, I’d extract the hook, stitch the thumb up if necessary, apply some Betadine, and — since my surgical license expired fifteen years ago — tell the patient to be more careful with his fly fishing.”

He laughed, and Pendergast gave a slight smile in return. “That’s a shrewd answer, Doctor, and I didn’t hear a word of it. Besides, my interest lies more in your memories than it does in the present.”

“Is that a fact?” said the old man. “And why would two FBI agents have any interest in my memories?”

“Because we have a lot of threads, and we’re hoping you could help us braid them together. Now, I do know something of your background — please tell me if I’m mistaken about anything. Fifty years or so ago, you were enrolled at the University of Washington School of Medicine — the only medical school in the state at that time.”

The man nodded silently.

“Your family ran the farm here: raspberries, dairy products, apples, and turkeys. Your mother had died while you were in college and, with you as the only child, your father looked after the farm while you went to medical school. Correct so far?”

“If it’s my biography you’re writing, add a heroic war record and a moon landing while you’re at it,” the old man said. But, Coldmoon noticed, the humor did not dispel the fact that when Pendergast began asking questions, the doctor had become guarded.

“Heroic isn’t actually too far from the truth,” Pendergast continued. “Because when your father was injured in a farming accident and could no longer do the work, you came home. The farm was heavily mortgaged, and with your medical school bills on top of that, it was impossible for you to continue your studies.”

Dr. Quincy said nothing.

“You did all you could. But your father’s injury meant that you had to give up medicine to manage the farm.” Pendergast paused. “Everything still accurate?”

“You’re telling more than you’re asking,” the doctor said, “and that’s more than a ‘couple of questions’ already. Get to the point.”

“What I’m curious about, Doctor, is how you went from such dire straits — dropping out of med school, managing the farm alone, trying to keep it all afloat — to finishing your medical degree and residency in orthopedic surgery, hiring someone to help around the farm, paying off the mortgage, and turning this place into a going enterprise for almost forty years, even while maintaining a successful surgical practice in Tacoma.”

“You’re the biographer,” the doctor said. “I guess you’ll just have to figure it out.”

“Biographers can’t work without sources. I can give you a few more specifics, if that will help. We’re not interested, precisely, in your good fortune. But we are interested in someone you were acquainted with many years ago. Someone who, like you, appreciated poetry. Someone whose initials are, or should I say were, A.R.”

The old man abruptly twitched, as if administered a galvanic shock. Coldmoon could only admire how quickly he mastered it.

“We’re not here to arrest you — or the woman in question. What I propose is a simple exchange of information. I imagine you can guess what I want to know. And I know you must be eager — despite yourself — to hear the information I can offer about A.R. in return.”

The old man remained silent, but Coldmoon could see the wheels turning in his head.

“Information,” the doctor finally repeated.

“Precisely.”

The doctor went silent again for several moments. Then: “What do you want to know, exactly, about this person?”

“The more light you can shed, the better.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Quincy said, his voice low and harsh. “I made a promise, and I won’t go back on it — no matter how many years have passed.”

This time, it was Pendergast who remained silent.

Finally, the doctor shifted in his chair. “This person you mention. Is she... still alive?”

Pendergast bowed his head in assent.

Coldmoon could see a succession of conflicting emotions cross the doctor’s face before he again mastered himself.

“And where might she be?”

At this, Pendergast smiled. “How about that exchange of information?”

After a long silence, the doctor said: “I made a promise.”

Pendergast rose. “Well then, I fear we have nothing more to speak about. Agent Coldmoon? Let us go.”

“Hold on!”

Pendergast paused and turned. In a softer, kinder voice, he said, “Doctor, I truly appreciate the promise you made. But we’re speaking of events that happened half a century ago. You — and the lady — are, quite frankly, nearing the close of life. If there’s any hope of your ever learning who she is now, or where she is — this is it.”

The doctor said, “You first.”

Pendergast gazed at him steadily, then said: “She owns a hotel in Savannah, Georgia. And she has no possession she treasures more than the book you gave her.”

At this the doctor flushed and passed a trembling hand over his white hair.

Pendergast quoted, “To me, you’ll always be ‘that great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order.’”

The effect of this was even more profound. The doctor struggled to maintain his composure. “She showed it to you?”

“Not intentionally.” Then, very gently, Pendergast said, “And now, Doctor, it’s your turn.”

The doctor removed a cotton handkerchief, mopped his face and tucked it back into his pocket.

“I found her by the side of the lake. She had had... a terrible fall.”

“You saved her life?”

He nodded. “I took her in, fixed her up, nursed her back to health.”

“What kind of injury?”

“A compound displaced fracture of the right femur.”

“The lady still has a limp.”

“I fixed her up as well as anyone could under the, ah, circumstances.”

“You were in love with her?”

Coming out of the blue, this question surprised Coldmoon almost as much as it did the doctor. But it had the desired effect; on the heels of a sustained assault, the old man’s defenses cracked under this unexpected blow. He sank back in his chair with an almost indistinct nod. “We loved each other. Very much.”

“But she left. Why?”

He shook his head.

“Let me help you: She was in trouble, she was an outlaw, she had committed a serious crime. To protect you and herself, she had to leave, establish a new identity. And so she disappeared from your life.”

He nodded.

“What was her crime?”

A long silence ensued. “She’d stolen something.”

“It must have been quite valuable.”

“I suppose. But the big crime was not stealing it, but how she stole it.”

“What was it?”

“Some sort of computer, or device, in a briefcase. She said it was going to make her fortune.”

“What did it do?”

“She never explained, except in veiled hints. Something about time.”

“Time?”

“She made an odd comment about the flow of time. That’s all I know.”

“How did she steal this item?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s the question I’m not going to answer — the one at the heart of my promise. If I told you, the FBI would come down on both of us like a ton of bricks. We’d go to prison for sure.”

Pendergast sighed. “In that case, I have nothing further to ask.” And he signaled to Coldmoon that it was time to leave.

“Hold on!” the doctor said again as Pendergast prepared to rise. “You haven’t told me her new name.”

Pendergast looked at him. “And you haven’t told me her old one.”

The man frowned, sitting up again, pugnacity flaring in his rheumy eyes.

“Now it’s your turn to go first,” said Pendergast.

Quincy’s white knuckles gripped his chair. Coldmoon could see him struggling. “Alicia Rime,” he finally said.

“Her name now is Felicity Winthrop Frost. The hotel she owns in Savannah is called the Chandler House. An excellent establishment. And she is a most formidable woman, if a bit frail — and quite lonely.”

After a moment, Quincy nodded. “No doubt.”

Pendergast rose, followed by Coldmoon. He began to turn toward the door. Then he stopped. “One other thing,” he said. “Is it possible she used this mysterious instrument you mentioned to pay off your mortgage and cover your medical school tuition?”

“I’ve got no idea,” Quincy said. “I’ve said too much already. I think it’s time for you to leave — right now.”

That was it. Coldmoon followed Pendergast out of the farmhouse, down the steps, and back to the waiting vehicle. And the whole time, Dr. Quincy stood on the steps in his long underwear, silent and motionless, a look of infinite sorrow on his lined face.