Bloodless

45

As they drove away from the farm and into the inky maze of mountains, Coldmoon turned to Pendergast. “That was interesting.”

“What I found most curious was the injury,” said Pendergast.

“Broken leg? Why is that?”

“Think about it. What was she doing way out there, in the middle of nowhere, all alone, with a broken leg?”

“Maybe she fell off a mountain.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not...” Pendergast slowed the car at a fork — again, unmarked — and after a moment chose the left-hand route. “What was your opinion of the fellow?”

“A lost soul. Eighty-plus years old and the poor guy’s still pining for that woman, never gotten over her. She must’ve been quite the firecracker in her day.”

They drove on in silence before turning onto Route 141 — another backwoods road, but at least one that seemed more traveled. Half an hour later, they merged onto I-84 in the direction of Portland. Coldmoon felt himself relax at the wide expanse of highway ahead, and the dark forbidding mountains beginning to recede in the rearview mirror.

“So,” Coldmoon said. “I’m still not clear how you found that guy, to be honest, or what it has to do with the murders.”

“I explained as little as possible back in Savannah, because I wanted you to be a check on any assumptions or hasty conclusions I might have made. I knew that Frost had found her new identity in this region of Washington State — in the cemetery in Puyallup. Given that the book Constance examined appeared to be a parting gift from her lover, it seemed a safe assumption that she’d lived in the area — and that was when I realized Berry Patch was not just some private trysting spot, but a town. Or, given its minuscule population, what is known in Washington State as a ‘populated place.’”

“I didn’t see any town at all.”

“A scattering of houses and a post office. Population eighty-five.”

“Sounds like something out of Li’l Abner,” Coldmoon said.

“The small population was, for me at least, a blessing: there proved to be only one resident with the initials Z.Q.”

“So. You think the old guy is going to look her up?”

“I imagine a titanic struggle is going on in his mind about that very question.”

“But that doesn’t really answer my basic question: how does this connect to the murders? You didn’t shed much light on that back in Savannah, either.”

“Consider the following facts: Frost was the person most intimate with Ellerby; they had an altercation two days before he was murdered; she has refused to help the police; there is gossip in the hotel — admittedly absurd — about her being a vampire; she may not be as weak as she seems; the inscription in the book suggests she once committed a crime; and finally, there’s the fact that she assumed a stolen identity. While none of this is dispositive, my intuition tells me she must be connected to the murders in some way.”

“And are you any closer to figuring that way out?”

Pendergast said nothing.

“So where to now? I see we’re not heading back to the airport.”

“Just one more stop, my friend,” said Pendergast, putting on his turn signal and preparing to exit the freeway. “I promise you, we’ll soon be boarding our flight back to Atlanta, in time for a late dinner at our hotel.”

They headed for the off-ramp to some little town on the outskirts of Portland called Corbett. “So what are we doing here?” Coldmoon asked.

“The postmaster who serviced Berry Patch in the early seventies has been dead for twenty years. His wife helped him until he retired. She then remarried, was widowed a second time, and now lives at the Riverview Retirement Home here.” He paused. “I’m confident that Berry Patch — like other secluded hamlets, Spoon River included — thrives, or at least thrived, on local gossip.”

The Riverview Retirement Home was set high on a ridge, just off a switchback of Corbett Hill Road. From the outside, the place resembled an elementary school — Coldmoon had an extremely low opinion of “rest homes” — but it had a good view of the Columbia River, and inside it was neat and bright. Each resident, it seemed, had a private room. Faith Matheny, the twice-widowed assistant postmistress, was ninety years old and suffered from DLB — dementia with Lewy bodies — which usually presented (so Pendergast informed him) with slower memory loss than Alzheimer’s. The old woman claimed to remember nothing of interest after the day of her second marriage. But Pendergast was so charming, and so persuasive, that soon he had her telling so many tales of life in Berry Patch that Coldmoon had trouble keeping track of it all.

The woman did recall Quincy with fondness. He was a fine, handsome young doctor, had a practice in Tacoma but returned most weekends to the farm. He was especially liked because every year, Quincy and his father, who raised turkeys on their farm, would donate birds for and preside over a grand Thanksgiving dinner for all eighty-five residents of Berry Patch, held in the Presbyterian church activities room. Then she frowned. Except that one year, when he didn’t show up. Very odd. People said it was because his father was sick in the hospital.

And what year was that? Pendergast asked.

Nineteen seventy-one, she remembered. She was sure, because that was the same year a storm pushed a tree down on the schoolhouse and the Dotsons’ mare drowned in Walupt Creek.

Pendergast was as good as his word: within another hour they were taking their first-class seats in a flight that would get them back to Atlanta by seven PM. Pendergast had been quiet during the drive from Corbett to Portland International, which was fine with Coldmoon, who was in no mood for conversation. As the flight attendants closed the doors and went through their preflight routine, Coldmoon felt Pendergast lay a hand lightly on his arm.

“Armstrong,” he said, “I plan to spend the flight in meditation. I’d appreciate it if you would make sure I’m not disturbed.”

“Sure. I hope to catch forty winks myself.” Coldmoon could guess the odd mental exercise Pendergast meant by “meditation” — he’d seen him at it once before, in a snowbound hotel in Maine. He turned away, then sensed Pendergast was still looking at him.

“There’s something I would like to share with you,” Pendergast said. “It might help shed additional light on this excursion if you search the internet for a certain D. B. Cooper. I think you’ll find his story makes interesting reading.”

“D. B. Cooper?” The name was familiar to Coldmoon, but he wasn’t sure why.

“Yes. The name he actually went by was Dan Cooper, but in their reporting the press mistakenly called him D. B. Cooper. That’s the moniker that has persisted over time.”

“How much time?”

“Since the day before Thanksgiving of 1971, as a matter of fact.” Pendergast leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest like an Egyptian mummy, and closed his eyes.