Crimson Shore

13

Bradley Gavin, up to his thighs in muck, adjusted the last of the light stands and plugged the cord into the generator. With some effort he extracted his waders from the mud and stepped back onto the temporary boardwalk that ringed the site.

He’d spent the last hour hauling down planks of lumber, laying them out to the scene of the crime, wheeling out the generator, setting up the lights, taping the perimeter, and following the instructions of the Scene of Crime Officer, a big man named Malaga, who had come all the way from Lawrence with a Crime Scene Investigator and a photographer. Those three gentlemen were now waiting at the edge of the marsh for everything to be set up so they could tippy-toe out and do their work without getting muddy.

“Check the fuel gauge on that generator,” said the chief, standing on the boards in shiny new waders that had not yet seen a speck of mud, arms crossed over his chest. The chief had been in a rotten mood ever since Pendergast’s lunchtime visit, and the mood had only grown worse when the body was found. The reason was pretty clear to Gavin: here was something perfectly timed to create actual work, delay his retirement, and possibly compromise the low crime rate he had enjoyed during his tenure as chief. Naturally, the last of his concerns was actually solving the crime.

Gavin shrugged it off. He was used to this. Six more months and it would be over, and with any luck he’d be chief himself.

He checked the gauge. “Still almost full.” He tried not to look over to where the body lay, faceup, left that way by the clammer who had turned him over. The son of a bitch had continued clamming around the body, totally screwing up anything that might have been left there. The SOCO, Malaga, was going to have a fit when he saw that.

“All right,” said Mourdock, interrupting Gavin’s reverie, “looks like we’re set.” He raised his walkie-talkie. “We’re ready for the SOC guys.”

Breathing hard, Gavin tried to scrape the excess mud off his waders with a stick.

“Hey, Gavin, don’t let the mud get on the boardwalk.”

Gavin moved to one side and kept scraping, flicking the mud off into the darkness. A chill evening had settled on the marshes, a clammy mist collecting low above the ground, adding a white pall to the scene. It looked more like some horror movie set than a real crime scene.

He heard voices and saw lights bobbing through the mist. A moment later a tall, dour-looking man walked up: Malaga. He had a shaved and remarkably polished head atop a massive neck covered with black hairs, giving him the look of a bull. A young Asian man followed him — the crime scene investigator — and behind him, grunting and shuffling, an obese man draped with camera equipment.

Malaga parked himself at the edge of the scene and spoke in a deep, melodious voice. “Thank you, Chief Mourdock.” He waved the photographer forward, who was at least a professional, taking photographs from every angle, kneeling down low, stretching up high, the silent flashes going off every few seconds as he moved about with surprising dexterity. Gavin tried to control his deep shock and maintain a professional, disinterested expression on his face. He had never actually been at the scene of a homicide before. As he glanced again at the body, splayed on its back, with those symbols carved brutally into its chest, he felt another wave of surprise and horror. He wondered who could have done such a thing, and why. It made no sense to him; no sense at all. What could possibly be the motivation for such an act? He felt anger, too — anger that his hometown had been violated by a crime like this.

As Malaga worked the crime scene, from time to time he would murmur a suggestion to the photographer, who in turn took more photos. At one point he mounted his camera on a pole and held it over the corpse, photographing almost straight down.

“All good,” said the photographer at last, stepping back.

And now the CSI guy crept into the scene, his hands in latex, wearing booties and white coveralls. He laid down a satchel and removed several rolled-up felt holders, which contained a variety of things — test tubes, tweezers, small ziplock bags, pins, labels, little flags on wires, Q-tips, and a number of spray bottles of chemicals. He bent over the body, picking off hair and fibers, spritzing this and swabbing that. He scraped under the nails and taped plastic bags over the hands, and he examined the carved symbols with a penlight, picking things out and wiping Q-tips here and there, sealing them in test tubes.

All was silent. Even Malaga had nothing to say, no suggestions to offer. The last thing the CSI man did was take the dead man’s fingerprints with an electronic pad. And then he was done; he packed everything up in the satchel and retreated in as cat-like a fashion as he’d arrived.

Malaga turned to Chief Mourdock. “Well, he’s all yours.” He gave the chief’s hand a hearty shake — he seemed eager to get out of that miasmic swamp — and they turned in preparation for walking back down the boardwalk. Gavin could read pure panic on the chief’s face: What now? It suddenly occurred to him that the chief hadn’t investigated a homicide in the town — ever. He only assumed he had in Boston, but perhaps not, given that Boston had its own specialized homicide squad.

Gavin frowned. Shouldn’t they be calling Pendergast in on this? The chief was clearly in over his head and Pendergast, odd character though he was, seemed capable. “Um,” he said, “Chief, do you think we ought to tell that FBI agent? I mean, he’d probably want to know, and maybe he could even help—”

The chief turned to him with a scowl. “I don’t think we need to bother him. After all, he’s working on such an important case of his own.” The sarcasm fairly dripped.

A velvety voice came out of the night. “My dear chief, thank you for your consideration of my other engagements, but it’s no bother. Really, no bother at all.” And the black-clad figure of the FBI agent emerged from the darkness, his pale face floating ghost-like in the mist.

For a moment, the chief’s expression went utterly blank. Then he swallowed hard. “Agent, ah, Pendergast, we’d of course be very glad to have your input.” He hesitated. “Would this be... official?”

Pendergast waved his hand. “Not at all, just some quiet help on the side. All credit to you — and, of course, the excellent Sergeant Gavin.”

The chief cleared his throat, clearly uncertain of what to do next.

“Do you mind?” Pendergast said, approaching. And behind him a second figure emerged from the darkness — Constance Greene. Gavin couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was dressed in old-fashioned Farmer Brown canvas overalls with high boots, her hair pulled back in a scarf. She was undeniably beautiful in an old-fashioned way — but in the artificial light of the crime scene she looked even more exotic than in daylight. She did not speak, but her eyes roved about, taking in everything.

“Who’s the lady?” Malaga asked. He’d paused in his retreat at the arrival of Pendergast. “No rubberneckers.”

“She,” said Pendergast sharply, “is my assistant. Please extend to her every courtesy you would me.”

“Of course,” said Malaga, with a slightly offensive bow in her direction. He turned away and walked back down the boardwalk, vanishing in the darkness.

Pendergast slipped under the crime scene tape and approached the body, while Constance Greene hung back. Gavin wondered what was going through her head. The body was disgusting: face mostly gone, no tongue or lips, just a huge rack of yellow teeth, mouth wide open. And yet she seemed calm and unperturbed.

Pendergast knelt. “I see it is the historian. Morris McCool.”

Hearing this, Gavin was shocked afresh. The historian?

“How do you know?” the chief asked. “The face is, um, gone and we haven’t ID’d the body.”

“The earlobes. You see how they are attached like that? An unusual trait; earlobes are almost as good as fingerprints. In addition, the height and weight seem about right.”

“You knew the guy?” Mourdock asked.

“I had a glimpse of him at the Inn.”

Pendergast adjusted the lights, then got down on his knees like the CSI before him. Arching his lean, long body over the dead man, he began picking away at the body with tweezers, popping stuff into tubes and bags that seemed to appear and disappear into his suit coat like magic. The CSI guy had been good, but watching Pendergast was like watching a ballet dancer; every move was perfect as those spidery white fingers flashed about this way and that. He spent a great deal of time probing and picking at the cuts on the chest, examining them with fanatical attention, even taking out a jeweler’s loupe at one point. He poked, pried, and probed at the raw flesh that remained of the man’s face. At last he rose and ducked back out.

Gavin glanced again at Constance Greene and was surprised at the lively look of interest on her face, not unlike a museumgoer enjoying a fine painting. She was considerably less shocked than he was. Was she one of those who got off on violent crime scenes? But no — somehow, she didn’t strike him as that type. This was an intellectual puzzle for her — and a definite mark in her favor, he decided.

“Interesting,” Pendergast murmured. “In addition to what appear to be carved inscriptions, part of the cuts also seem to form letters.” He shone a small light at the markings carved into the chest, first one way and then the other. “I make it out as T-Y-B-A-N-E.”

A sudden silence. Gavin stared down in even greater surprise and shock. It was true: from a certain angle, you could see a series of crude letters. TYBANE. He glanced at the chief and saw that nothing was registering on his face.

He found Pendergast looking at him curiously. “Sergeant, do you see something?”

“Nothing,” he stammered. “It’s just that the word... rings a distant bell.”

“Interesting.” Pendergast turned back to the corpse. “Most curious indeed: note how the carvings were made with a stone knife.”

“A stone knife? You mean, like an Indian relic?”

“Yes, but freshly knapped and thus extremely sharp. Considerable skill was involved. The cuts were done premortem, as they bled and clotted. But the precision of the work indicates the man was already unconscious when it took place; otherwise, he would have been uncooperative in the procedure. But the initial, fatal wound was made, I would say, by a long, heavy knife that went clear through the gut, perhaps a bayonet.” He paused, glancing around. “The actual killing occurred farther up in the salt marshes and the body drifted here on the outgoing tide. Perhaps a study of the tidal currents might help establish a location and time of death. The body must have been in the water some time for the fish to consume the lips, eyes, nose, and tongue.” He looked up at Gavin. “The clam digger who found it, is he of an unusually avaricious nature?”

“Boyd?” said Gavin. “Oh, yeah, he’s famous for that. Tightfisted bastard. How did you know?”

“The fact that he continued digging clams around the body. Where does he sell his clams?”

“At the Inn. They’re famous for the fried clam basket.”

Pendergast gave a small shudder. “When one considers the clam is a filter feeder, a fried clam meal at the Inn over the next few days would not be far removed from cannibalism. Fortunately, there is no risk of me ever ingesting a fried clam, famous or not.” He made a final inspection of the body, removed a small digital camera, and took a series of photos of the carvings.

“It looks like we got ourselves a real psycho here,” said Mourdock.

Pendergast rose and pulled off his gloves. “Other than the cuts, this is a most uninformative crime scene, with the body having been stripped, transported here by water, and thoroughly washed by the tides. These cuts were done with care and skill, however, by someone who had experience carving flesh. There appears to be a purpose behind the symbols, and no doubt with the word TYBANE as well. Chief Mourdock, I’m afraid I have to disagree with your conclusion that this is the work of a psychopath. The person who did this was organized, purposeful, and deliberate.”