Crooked River

4

The chopper landed on the fourteenth green of a golf course at the far northern end of Sanibel Island. Pendergast unbuckled his harness and stepped onto the greensward, looking around. It appeared that someone, either Pickett or a lackey, had done the advance work well: a motor launch was waiting at a dock just past the fairway rough, and once they had climbed aboard, it backed immediately into Wulfert Channel, then turned and made its way west under the low bridge through Blind Pass, the narrow passage between Sanibel and Captiva. On the ride over the Florida Everglades, Pickett had told Pendergast what he knew of the two islands: they were tourist meccas, known — unlike Palm Beach or Miami — for their relaxed atmosphere, extensive nature preserves, resistance to commercial development, and some of the best shelling in the world.

None of these attributes was evident as they came around Blind Pass and within sight of Turner Beach. Three Coast Guard vessels — a cutter and two patrol boats — were visible offshore. The cutter was keeping curious pleasure boats away, while the two patrol boats roamed back and forth a few hundred yards off the beach, like beagles sniffing for a scent. As Pendergast watched, there was a yell from one of the patrol boats; it stopped, and a man with a long pole and net reached out and snagged something.

Other police and emergency vessels clogged the channel beyond Blind Pass, and their launch was forced to come ashore at the closest end of the beach, where the sand abutted a breakwater. The beach itself was a scene of frantic activity: half a dozen knots of people, speaking animatedly; EMS and crime scene personnel moving back and forth, taking notes, gathering evidence, kneeling in the sand; Coast Guard officers speaking into radios. Traffic was backed up behind a police checkpoint, cops checking documents and directing a single lane of backed-up vehicles over Blind Pass Bridge. And at least a mile of the beach itself was roped off with yellow tape, dozens of evidence flags fluttering above the high tide mark.

“Looks like a goddamn anthill somebody just kicked open,” Pickett said as he and Pendergast stepped out of the launch and onto the sand. He looked around a minute. “Let’s start with them,” he said, indicating the largest huddle on the beach.

Beyond the police cordon, throngs of people were clustered along the main road of the island, standing on tiptoe, phones held high to get a view of what they couldn’t see themselves. Others were staring out of second- and third-story windows of houses and condos. Some even had telescopes. There was a mass of press kept behind the bridge checkpoint. Police were now beginning to unspool and prop up a heavy curtain of white plastic sheeting along the line of crime scene tape in an attempt to shield a portion of the lower beach from view.

Pickett reached the group and introduced himself, passing out a few cards. He turned to introduce Pendergast, but Pendergast had continued walking on past, threading his way through the confusion to a higher spot on the dunes where he could get a view of the entire scene. He noticed that someone had reached the place before him: a tall, tanned man in shorts and a polo shirt. He was perhaps fifty, with sun-bleached hair and eyes and two vertical creases down his weathered cheeks. The only signs of authority were the thumb-break holster and police radio attached to his belt. He stood in a shaded spot beneath a stand of palms, arms crossed, watching the activity with an almost melancholy expression.

He nodded as Pendergast approached, giving the agent a faint smile and, with a glance up and down, taking note of his suit.

“Good afternoon,” Pendergast said, bowing and touching his Panama hat with one finger.

“Do you really think so?” the man replied.

“No,” Pendergast said. “But one must maintain the pleasantry of manners, even in the face of the grotesque.”

“I can’t argue with that.” The man extended his hand. “Chief Perelman, Sanibel PD.”

“Special Agent Pendergast, FBI.”

“I knew it.” Perelman nodded toward the knot of people Pickett was commandeering. “I saw you arrive with that fellow.”

“Ah.” Pendergast nodded. “You knew he was coming?”

“He made sure everyone knew he was coming. You might want to pull your badge out and put it on a lanyard, you know, just to keep from getting challenged.”

“I find it much more interesting — and revealing — to go incognito. But I notice you, too, are in mufti.”

Perelman looked down at his polo shirt. “Actually, this is my usual uniform. And everybody already knows who I am. Sanibel isn’t your typical Florida resort, Agent Pendergast. In fact, it isn’t your typical town anywhere. We count eight best-selling authors as residents, along with three world-famous painters, a Nobel laureate, a Pulitzer poet, and two ex-directors of intelligence services. There’s plenty of money here, but it’s not usually on display. If you want to see conspicuous consumption on a world-class scale, Naples is just over the causeway and south a few miles. We like our streets quiet, our beaches clean, and our tourists civilized.”

This last, apparently a town motto, was delivered with the slightest touch of irony.

There was a cry from the line of surf, then another; several uniformed cops and Coast Guard officers darted toward the sounds. Both men looked in the direction of the commotion. More feet, it seemed, were rolling in.

“Looks like two more,” the man said. “That would make fifty-seven.”

“Has there been any regularity or pattern to their arrival?” Pendergast asked.

The chief shook his head. “As best as we can tell, there were two initial waves. The bulk of them came in then. But, as you can see, it’s a gift that keeps on giving. Until now, the last one was almost an hour ago. Maybe a third wave is about to land.”

“And they’ve remained confined to this stretch of barrier island?”

Perelman nodded. “So far.”

“Isn’t that rather unusual?”

“Actually, it isn’t. When the tides are right — as they are now, just on the ebb — any floating debris tends to stick together and not disperse before reaching land. These islands are uniquely located in terms of ocean currents, which focus flotsam into a narrow lane and cause immense quantities of shells to wash up.”

The man’s radio squawked. Perelman plucked it from his belt, listened for a moment, then muttered a brief string of orders and returned it to its clasp. Down at the surf line, the officers had retrieved the newly discovered feet and were placing them carefully on the sand, marking them with flags.

Pendergast looked around for a moment. “If I may ask an even more intrusive question: why are you back here observing, rather than over there involving yourself in the thick of command and control?”

“Do you see that knot of people around ADC Pickett? In particular, that man with all the gold braid on his uniform? He’s the deputy sector commander of the Coast Guard. The slender woman next to him is the mayor of Sanibel and Captiva. And that other fellow, the mustachioed bald man with the crutches, is chief of the Fort Myers police. With an incident of this magnitude in Lee County, Fort Myers automatically takes command — along with their detectives, homicide investigators, and forensic teams. So my duty is to direct my officers, keep the residents and visitors calm, and make sure we get through this as best we can. Non omnia possumus omnes.”

Pendergast glanced at him with faint amusement. “Are you a Latin scholar as well as a police chief?”

Perelman shrugged. “Some things were best said by Virgil.”

“Quite so. And now, would you excuse me?” And, bowing again, he made his way slowly down the beach in the direction of the water, pausing here and there to glance around. His pale eyes took in everything, large and small: the knots of people working the scene; the boats maintaining their vigil off the coast; the flight of the gulls; the little flags fluttering along the shore. He stepped up to one of the flags. Beside it was a shoe of a uniform light-green color, an amputated foot nestled coyly inside.

He knelt. It wasn’t a sneaker exactly, nor was it a slipper. There were no laces, it being of an elastic, slip-on style. The sole was stamped in a nonskid waffle pattern. It was the kind of inexpensive, even disposable footwear someone who worked in a manufacturing clean room or a hospital ward might wear.

Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out nitrile gloves and a mask and put them on. Then he plucked the shoe from the sand, looked at it closely, turned it over in his hands. It wasn’t only the design but the material that seemed unusual.

While he was poking a finger inside to palpate the flesh, he heard someone call loudly. “Hey! Hey, you!”

Pendergast turned to see the man in the gold-braided uniform — the one the police chief had said was a Coast Guard commander — gesturing at him, a hard look on his face.

Pickett said something and then called out to Pendergast. “Agent Pendergast, would you mind?”

Pendergast carefully replaced the shoe, walked across the beach, and approached the group, pulling off the mask and gloves as he did so.

The Coast Guard commander was glowering at him. “You shouldn’t be touching crime scene evidence without—”

“Agent Pendergast,” Pickett interrupted, his voice edged with impatience, “this is Deputy Sector Commander Baugh of the U.S. Coast Guard.” He then introduced Pendergast to the mayor of Sanibel and the police chief of Fort Myers, both of whom seemed a little cowed by the red-faced bluster of the commander. “Commander Baugh will be taking overall charge of the investigation.”

“That’s correct,” said Baugh. “And any evidence handling will be done by teams designated for the task. This is a fluid situation, and we need to set up a clear chain of command, division of responsibilities, procedures, and timetables. Only then can we proceed with the investigation.”

“Speaking of timetables,” Pendergast said, “it appears these feet have been in the water about three weeks. I’m curious to know how that fact will drive your investigative plans.”

There was a sudden silence. The commander looked at him, his frown mingling with uncertainty. “Three weeks? How would you know that?”

“Or perhaps four, on the outside — the laboratory examination will provide more specifics. You see, Commander, the life cycle of the lowly barnacle is most useful in matters of forensic marine biology. They develop on a set schedule, and a juvenile barnacle in the early sessile phase was visible on the sole of the shoe I was examining. Barnacles — something you should look into at your earliest opportunity.”

When Baugh turned to the bald police chief from Fort Myers and asked why this barnacle observation had not yet been reported, Pickett took Pendergast a few yards away from the group. “You can see how it is,” he said, an irritated crease in his brow. “Already the jackasses are out in force. The case is so bizarre it’s thrown all the local agencies into confusion. Commander Baugh is claiming jurisdiction, given that these damned feet are coming in from the sea. Naturally, it’s important for the FBI to be represented.”

“Naturally.”

“No doubt a task force will be set up, and I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that Commander Baugh will be put in charge. You’ll have to appear subordinate to the commander. I’ll expect regular reports.”

Pendergast took a deep breath. “Sir, are you forgetting what I said earlier?”

“I remember what you said. But tell me: have you ever seen anything like this before?”

“No.”

“Never in your experience? Nothing remotely like it?”

A pause. “No.”

“Do you have even the slightest idea of a reason why sixty, seventy human feet would wash up on a beach in the middle of a Florida resort island?”

“Not the slightest.”

“And yet, you’re not curious about it?”

Pendergast did not answer the question.

“There you go.” Pickett looked pleased, as if he’d just checked a chess opponent. “That’s why you must take this case. Because it is absolutely outside of all our experience. You have to know.”

“I do not particularly like boats or the sea.”

“Dramamine,” said Pickett. “And I was thinking you could use some help on this case. Like last time, I mean. A partner.”

Pendergast went quite still.

“It’s worth mentioning that Agent Coldmoon’s still around. He’s applied for a posting to Colorado, and if it’s approved — which it will be — it will take a few weeks to process.” Pickett paused to brush some sand from his cuffs. “And after all, you worked so brilliantly together.”

Pendergast remained still. “I made every effort to be accommodating to Agent Coldmoon. Are you implying I could not have solved the Brokenhearts case on my own?”

The long silence answered the question. “We’re dealing with something quite different here,” Pickett went on, “but equally baffling. Coldmoon is an agent whose qualities complement yours.”

“As I recall,” Pendergast said coldly, “through haste and impetuousness, Agent Coldmoon fell into a pit and I had to rescue him.”

Pickett held up his hands. “All right, all right, let’s forget about Coldmoon. You know I always believe partnering is the better strategy, but never mind. If I give you free rein to explore this on your own, using your own methods — observing the task force chain of command, of course, but with total freedom from our end — will you agree to investigate?”

As Pickett asked the question, a look came over Pendergast’s face. This expression, too, resembled one commonly seen in a chess match, when checkmate was at hand. “If those are your orders, then I would have no objection to remaining a few days, merely to satisfy my curiosity. Sir.”

“Then let’s inform Commander Baugh at once.” And putting one arm lightly over Pendergast’s shoulder, Pickett began leading the way back to the group clustered nearby on the sand.