Crimson Shore

21

Are you sure it wasn’t a loon?” Chief Mourdock asked. “They’ve got a call that can sound human.”

Sergeant Gavin, sitting in the stern of the police skiff with his hand on the tiller, guiding it across Exmouth Bay toward the marshes, winced. Mourdock, even in his present smacked-down state, managed to be an ass. But Pendergast, sitting in the bow like some strange black figurehead, rolled-up map in hand, didn’t seem to notice.

Behind them, two more skiffs followed, equipped with radios. Because of the heavy cloud cover, a feeble gray stain of light on the eastern horizon was all that could be seen of sunrise. Mourdock had taken longer to assemble the party than Gavin would have liked — the chief’s skepticism about the whole expedition was quite evident — and it was now approaching seven in the morning as the boat chugged along the main waterway of the Exmouth River. The temperature had plunged overnight into the low forties, and it was even more flesh-chilling out here in the marshes than on land. The tide was high and the water had gone slack twenty minutes before. That didn’t give them much time before it began the ebb, the current flowing out of the tidal marshes at an ever-increasing rate. Gavin had spent time as a teenager earning pocket money by clamming in the marshes, and he had a healthy respect for their remoteness, fearful isolation, and the confusing flow of the tidal currents, which if you weren’t careful could sneak up on you. He vividly recalled being trapped on one of the marshy islands overnight because he’d lost track of the tides.

“Look out!” Pendergast called from the bow.

Gavin swerved around a partly submerged piling, then turned his eyes back forward. A group of red-winged blackbirds, disturbed by their passage, rose up in a flock from a heavy patch of cattails. A few hundred yards ahead he could see the beginning of the salt marsh mazes, where waterways and islands all came together in a confusion of channels and culs-de-sac. The mudflats were now fully covered by the high tide, but that wouldn’t last long.

Pendergast had heard the scream when the tide was incoming, and he’d been able to target the general area on a map. Gavin glanced at his own map — an NOAA chart — and thought again about the currents. If the presumed killer had dumped the body into the water, the incoming tide would have carried it deeper into the marshes, where it probably would have snagged up in some backwater and they might never find it. Then again, if it hadn’t gotten snagged and the tide turned, it would be carried out almost to sea, as the body of the historian had apparently been.

Really, with these crazy currents, the body could be anywhere.

“Okay,” said the chief, speaking loudly into his radio over the sound of the 18-horse Evinrude, “Jack, you take the right channel, we’ll take the middle, and you, Ken, take the left.”

The boats separated and Gavin guided their skiff into the central channel. Soon they had lost sight of the two other boats, separated by banks of salt grass. Damn, it was cold. It was a gray, monochromatic world. He could see a chevron of Canada geese in the sky, making their way southward.

“Slow down, and keep your eyes peeled,” said the chief.

Gavin throttled down the tiller. The channel had narrowed, but now, going every which way, were branching channels.

“Which way?” he asked.

Before the chief could speak, Pendergast extended a skeletal hand, pointing toward a channel, map unrolled. Gavin wondered where Constance was; he found himself wishing, rather perversely, that it was her in the bow instead of Pendergast. The man gave him the creeps.

The chief for once kept his mouth shut as they turned into the designated channel. It was narrower, and here and there tree trunks were snagged into the embankments or sunken into the muck, black branches reaching out of the water as if to impede their progress. There were a million places a body could hang up and get covered by the tide. That was assuming the body was even in the water — if it was lying in the middle of an island of salt grass, it wouldn’t be found until the crows started circling.

Pendergast pointed again, and then again, never saying a word, and Gavin continued up one channel and down another. If there was a method to this madness, it wasn’t evident. The chief simply sat in the middle of the boat with his hammy arms crossed, frowning, his face expressing disgust with the entire effort. He didn’t even make a pretense of looking.

The minutes dragged by in silence. Gavin felt completely lost, but by the way Pendergast kept checking his map and making marks on it with a pencil, he was assured the FBI agent knew where they were.

“Um, Agent Pendergast?” he ventured.

The white face turned to him.

“The tide’s turned. Just wanted you to know. Got some currents developing.”

“Thank you. Continue, if you please.”

If you please. That accent — he’d never heard one like it. Southern, of course, but different somehow. He wondered if the man was boning Constance.

Up one channel, down another. It only seemed to get colder. A couple of seagulls followed them for a while, crying loudly, and one dropped a jet of waste right beside the boat. Rats with wings, the lobstermen called them. Once in a while the chief would speak to the others on the radio. It seemed they were not having much luck, either, and one of the boats was apparently lost. They were trying to get a GPS reading, but without cell coverage they couldn’t get a good fix.

Pendergast certainly wasn’t lost. Or if he was, he was doing a good job of covering it up.

Now the current was really picking up, the water flowing out. The boat struggled against it, throttled up but not really making good time against the current. Gavin checked his watch.

“Agent Pendergast?” he repeated.

Again the white face turned.

“Tide’s down about two feet. Another half hour and we better be well out of here.”

“Understood.” The black-clad arm pointed again, and they took yet another fork. And now Gavin could see the chief beginning to get nervous.

“Gavin’s right,” Mourdock said. “I think we’d better head back out, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

This was ignored. They continued on.

“Stop!” came a barked order from Pendergast, his hand shooting up like a semaphore. They were passing yet another waterlogged tree, lodged in the now-exposed muck at the upper side of the embankment. Gavin throttled down, but not too much, as the current would sweep them back downstream otherwise.

“Bring the boat in to that snag,” said Pendergast.

“It’s too shallow,” Gavin said. “We’ll ground out.”

“Then ground out.”

“Hold on,” said the chief, alarmed. “What’s so damned important that we have to risk our lives?”

“Look.” And Pendergast pointed.

There, just under the murky surface of the water, wagging back and forth in the current in a grotesque parody of a farewell wave, was a pale hand.

“Oh, shit,” Gavin muttered.

“Toss the rope over that exposed branch and tie us up,” said Pendergast.

Gavin made a loop with the rope and tossed it toward the branch, goosing the throttle to keep the boat steady. He got it on the first try, cut the engine, raised it, and then hauled the boat over to the log, tying it securely. He could feel the resistance of the mud against its bottom, the current thrumming past the hull.

“I don’t think this is a good idea at all,” said the chief.

But Pendergast was leaning out, hanging over the side of the boat. “Give me another rope.”

Gavin passed it to him. The agent reached down, grasped the arm, and pulled it out of the water. The head now appeared, just breaking the surface. Gavin rushed over to help, overcoming his revulsion to grasp the other submerged, lolling arm.

Pendergast tied the rope around the wrist. The body was only lightly caught up on the snag and it suddenly floated free, coming to the surface and heading downstream.

“Pull!” Pendergast ordered.

Gavin pulled the rope, using the skiff’s oarlock as a brake, and they hauled the body against the current and up to the side of the boat.

“For God’s sake, you’re not bringing that into the boat!” cried the chief.

“Move over,” said Pendergast sharply, but the chief needed no urging to scramble aside as they grasped the body, preparing to haul it in. “On three.”

With a great heave the two got it over the gunwale, the body flopping onto the bottom of the boat like a huge dead fish. Its clothes were torn and shredded by its journey through the currents, and it lay facedown, the back exposed. Pendergast, still grasping the lifeless arm, rolled the man over.

Gavin immediately recognized the face. When he next saw the cuts on the body, he was so shocked he was temporarily unable to speak.

Not so the chief. “It’s Dana Dunwoody!” he said. He glanced at Pendergast. “You know, Brad here told me just yesterday that you had your suspicions about him. If this is what happens to your suspects, I hope you don’t start suspecting me.”

Neither Gavin nor Pendergast paid any attention. They were too busy looking at the body.

“Cut up just like that historian,” Gavin finally managed to say.

“Indeed,” murmured Pendergast. “The Tybane inscriptions, once again.” He leaned over the body, his face so close to the gray, rubbery, glistening skin it was positively disgusting. “Curious. The cuts on Mr. McCool were done with confidence and vigor. These, or at least certain of these, appear to be different.”

“Fine, fine, let the M.E. sort it out,” said Mourdock. “Let’s call the others and get the hell out of here.”