By Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Cemetery Dance
The Wheel of Darkness
The Book of the Dead
Dance of Death
Brimstone
Still Life with Crows
The Cabinet of Curiosities
The Ice Limit
Thunderhead
Riptide
Reliquary
Mount Dragon
Relic
In answer to a frequently asked reader question:
The above titles are listed in descending order of publication. Almost all of them are stand-alone novels that need not be read in order, except for the pairs Relic/Reliquary and Dance of Death/The Book of the Dead, which are ideally read in sequence.
By Douglas Preston
Impact
The Monster of Florence (with Mario Spezi)
Blasphemy
Tyrannosaur Canyon
The Codex
Ribbons of Time
The Royal Road
Talking to the Ground
Jennie
Cities of Gold
Dinosaurs in the Attic
By Lincoln Child
Terminal Freeze
Deep Storm
Death Match
Utopia
Tales of the Dark 1-3
Dark Banquet
Dark Company
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright (c) 2010 by Splendide Mendax, Inc. and Lincoln Child
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Grand Central Publishing
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First eBook Edition: May 2010
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ISBN: 978-0-446-56330-7
Contents
BY DOUGLAS PRESTON AND LINCOLN CHILD
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
EPILOGUE
AUTHORS' NOTE
A PREVIEW OF GIDEON'S SWORD
AN AUDIO PREVIEW OF GIDEON'S SWORD
To Jaime Levine
TWELVE YEARS AGO
1
Musalangu, Zambia
THE SETTING SUN BLAZED THROUGH THE AFRICAN bush like a forest fire, hot yellow in the sweltering evening that gathered over the bush camp. The hills along the upper Makwele Stream rose in the east like blunt green teeth, framed against the sky.
Several dusty canvas tents circled a beaten area shaded by a grove of old musasa trees, their branches spreading like emerald umbrellas over the safari camp. A thread of smoke from a cooking fire twisted up through the cover, carrying with it the tantalizing scent of burning mopane wood and roasting kudu.
In the shade of the central tree, two figures, a man and a woman, were seated in camp chairs on either side of a table, drinking iced bourbon. They were dressed in dusty khakis, long pants and sleeves, protection against the tsetse flies that came out in the evening. They were in their late twenties. The man, slender and tall, was remarkable for a cool, almost icy paleness that seemed impervious to the heat. The coolness did not extend to the woman, who was lazily fanning herself with a large banana leaf, stirring the thick mane of auburn hair she had loosely tied back with a bit of salvaged twine. She was tanned and relaxed. The low murmur of their conversation, punctuated by an occasional laugh from the woman, was almost indistinguishable amid the sounds of the African bush: the calls of vervet monkeys, the screech of francolins and chattering of fire-finches, which mingled with the clattering of pots and pans in the kitchen tent. The evening chatter was underlain by the distant roar of a lion deep in the bush.
The seated figures were Aloysius X. L. Pendergast and his wife of two years, Helen. They were at the tail end of a hunting safari in the Musalangu Game Management Area, where they had been shooting bushbuck and duiker under a herd reduction program granted by the Zambian government.
"Care for another sundowner?" Pendergast asked his wife, raising the cocktail pitcher.
"Another?" she replied with a laugh. "Aloysius, you wouldn't be planning an assault on my virtue, would you?"
"The thought never entered my mind. I was hoping perhaps we could spend the night discussing Kant's concept of the categorical imperative."
"Now you see, this is exactly what my mother warned me about. You marry a man because he's good with a rifle, only to find he has the brains of an ocelot."
Pendergast chuckled, sipped his drink, glanced down at it. "African mint is rather harsh on the palate."
"Poor Aloysius, you miss your juleps. Well, if you take that FBI job Mike Decker's offering, you can drink juleps day and night."
He took another thoughtful sip and gazed at his wife. It was remarkable how quickly she tanned in the African sun. "I've decided not to take it."
"Why not?"
"I'm not sure I'm ready to stay in New Orleans with all that it entails--the family complications, the unpleasant memories. And I've seen enough violence already, don't you think?"
"I don't know--have you? You tell me so little about your past, even now."
"I'm not cut out for the FBI. I don't like rules. In any case, you're all over the world with that Doctors With Wings outfit; we can live anywhere, as long as it's close to an international airport. 'Our two souls therefore endure not a breach, but an expansion, like gold to airy thinness beat.' "
"Don't bring me to Africa and quote John Donne. Kipling, maybe."
" 'Every woman knows all about everything,' " he intoned.
"On second thought, spare me the Kipling as well. What did you do as a teenager, memorize Bartlett's?"
"Among other things." Pendergast glanced up. A figure was approaching along the trail from the west. He was a tall Nyimba tribesman, dressed in shorts and a dirty T-shirt, an ancient rifle slung over his shoulders, carrying a forked walking stick. As he approached the camp, he paused and cried out a greeting in Bemba, the local lingua franca, which was answered by welcoming shouts from the kitchen tent. He then proceeded into camp and approached the table at which the Pendergasts were seated.
Both rose. "Umu-ntu u-mo umu-suma a-afika," Pendergast said by way of greeting, and grasped the man's dusty, warm hand, Zambian-fashion. The man proffered his walking stick to Pendergast; there was a note wedged into its fork.
"For me?" Pendergast asked, switching to English.
"From the district commissioner."
Pendergast shot a glance at his wife, then removed the note and unfolded it.My dear Pendergast,I wish to have a conversation with you immediately via SSB. There has been a nasty business at Kingazu Camp--very nasty.Alistair Woking, DCSouth LuangwaPS. Dear chap, you know perfectly well that regulations require you to have SSB communications set up at every bush camp. It is most annoying to have to send a runner like this.
"I don't like the sound of that," said Helen Pendergast, looking over her husband's shoulder. "What do you think this 'nasty business' is?"
"Perhaps a photo tourist has suffered the amorous advances of a rhinoceros."
"That's not funny," Helen said, laughing all the same.
"It is rutting season, you know." Pendergast folded the note and shoved it in his breast pocket. "I'm very much afraid this means our shooting safari is over."
He walked over to the tent, opened a box, and began screwing together the battered pieces of an aerial antenna, which he then carried up into a musasa tree and wired to an upper branch. Climbing back down, he plugged the wire into the single side-band radio he had placed on the table, turned on the unit, adjusted the dials to the correct frequency, and sent out a call. In a moment the irritated voice of the district commissioner came back, squawking and scratchy.
"Pendergast? For God's sake, where are you?"
"Upper Makwele Stream camp."
"Blast. I was hoping you were nearer the Banta Road. Why the devil don't you keep your SSB connected? I've been trying to reach you for hours!"
"May I ask what's happened?"
"Over at Kingazu Camp. A German tourist was killed by a lion."
"What idiot allowed that to happen?"
"It wasn't like that. The lion came right into camp in broad daylight, jumped the man as he was walking back to his hut from the dining tent, and dragged him screaming into the bush."
"And then?"
"Surely you can imagine 'and then'! The wife was hysterical, the whole camp went into an uproar, they had to bring in a helicopter to airlift out the tourists. The camp staff left behind are scared shiteless. This fellow was a well-known photographer in Germany--bloody bad for business!"
"Did you track the lion?"
"We have trackers and guns, but nobody who'll go into the bush after this lion. Nobody with the experience--or the ballocks. That's why we need you, Pendergast. We need you down here to track that bugger and... well... recover the remains of the poor German before there's nothing left to bury."
"You haven't even recovered the body?"
"Nobody will go out there after the bloody thing! You know what Kingazu Camp is like, all the dense brush that's come up because of the elephant poaching. We need a damned experienced hunter. And I needn't remind you that terms of your professional hunting license require you to deal with rogue man-eaters as, and if, it becomes necessary."
"I see."
"Where'd you leave your Rover?"
"At the Fala Pans."
"Get cracking as fast as you can. Don't bother breaking camp, just grab your guns and get down here."
"It'll take a day, at least. Are you sure there isn't anyone closer who can help you?"
"Nobody. At least, nobody I'd trust."
Pendergast glanced at his wife. She smiled, winked, mimed the shooting of a pistol with one bronzed hand. "All right. We'll get moving right away."
"One other thing." The DC's voice hesitated and there was a silence over the radio, filled with hissing and crackling.
"What?"
"Probably not very important. The wife who witnessed the attack. She said..." Another pause.
"Yes?"
"She said the lion was peculiar."
"How so?"
"It had a red mane."
"You mean, a little darker than usual? That's not so uncommon."
"Not darker than usual. This lion's mane was deep red. Almost blood red."
There was a very long silence. And then the DC spoke again. "But of course it can't be the same lion. That was forty years ago in northern Botswana. I've never heard of a lion living more than twenty-five years. Have you?"
Pendergast said nothing as he switched off the radio, his silvery eyes glittering in the dying twilight of the African bush.
2
Kingazu Camp, Luangwa River
THE LAND ROVER BANGED AND LURCHED ALONG the Banta Road, a bad track in a country legendary for them. Pendergast turned the wheel violently left and right to avoid the yawning potholes, some almost half as deep as the bashed-up Rover. The windows were wide open--the air-conditioning was broken--and the interior of the car was awash in dust blown in by the occasional vehicle passing in the other direction.
They had left Makwele Stream just before dawn, making the twelve-mile trek through the bush without guides, carrying nothing but their weapons, water, a hard salami, and chapati bread. They reached their car around noon. For several hours now they had been passing through sporadic, hardscrabble villages: circular buildings of lashed sticks with conical roofs of thatch, dirt streets clogged with loose cattle and sheep. The sky was a cloudless, pale, almost watery blue.
Helen Pendergast fiddled with her scarf, pulling it more tightly around her hair in a losing battle with the omnipresent dust. It stuck to every exposed inch of their sweaty skin, giving them a scrofulous appearance.
"It's strange," she said as they crawled through yet another village, avoiding chickens and small children. "I mean, that there isn't a hunter closer by to take care of this lion problem. After all, you're not exactly a crack shot." She smiled wryly; this was a frequent tease.
"That's why I'm counting on you."
"You know I don't like killing animals I can't eat."
"How about killing animals that can eat us?"
"Perhaps I can make an exception there." She angled the sun visor into a new position, then turned toward Pendergast, her eyes--blue with flecks of violet--narrowed by the bright light. "So. What was that business about the red mane?"
"A lot of nonsense. There's an old legend knocking about this part of Africa concerning a red-maned, man-eating lion."
"Tell me about it." Her eyes sparkled with interest; the local stories fascinated her.
"Very well. About forty years ago--the story goes--a drought struck the southern Luangwa Valley. Game grew very scarce. A pride of lions that hunted in the valley starved to death, one by one, until only a single survivor remained--a pregnant lioness. She survived by digging up and eating the corpses at a local Nyimba cemetery."
"How horrible," Helen said with relish.
"They say she gave birth to a cub with a flaming red mane."
"Go on."
"The villagers were angry with this continuing desecration of their burial grounds. Eventually they tracked down the lioness, killed her, skinned her, and nailed her hide to a frame in the village square. Then they held a dance to celebrate her demise. At dawn, while the villagers were sleeping off the effects of all the maize beer they'd downed, a red-maned lion snuck into the village, killed three of the sleeping men, then carried off a boy. They found his gnawed bones a couple of days later in a stand of long grass a few miles off."
"Good Lord."
"Over the years, the Red Lion, or the Dabu Gor as it was called in the Bemba language, killed and ate a large number of locals. It was very clever, they said: as clever as a man. It shifted ranges frequently and sometimes crossed borders to evade capture. The local Nyimba claimed the Red Lion could not survive without the nourishment of human flesh--but with it, he would live forever."
Pendergast paused to circumnavigate a pothole almost lunar in its depth and extent.
"And?"
"That's the story."
"But what happened to the lion? Was he ever killed?"
"A number of professional hunters tried to track him, without success. He just kept killing until he died of old age--if he did die, that is." Pendergast rolled his eyes toward her dramatically.
"Really, Aloysius! You know it can't be the same lion."
"It might be a descendant, carrying the same genetic mutation."
"And perhaps the same tastes," said Helen, with a ghoulish smile.
As the afternoon turned to evening, they passed through two more deserted villages, the usual cries of children and lowing of cattle replaced by the drone of insects. They arrived at Kingazu Camp after sunset, as a blue twilight was settling over the bush. The camp stood on the Luangwa River, a cluster of rondevaals arranged along the banks, with an open-air bar and a dining shelter.
"What a delightful setting," Helen said as she looked around.
"Kingazu is one of the oldest safari camps in the country," Pendergast replied. "It was founded in the 1950s, when Zambia was still part of Northern Rhodesia, by a hunter who realized that taking people out to photograph animals could be just as exciting as killing them--and a lot more remunerative."
"Thank you, Professor. Will there be a quiz after the lecture?"
When they pulled into the dusty parking area, the bar and dining shelter were empty, the camp staff having taken refuge in the surrounding huts. All the lights were on, the generator chugging full blast.
"Nervous bunch," said Helen, flinging open the door and climbing out into the hot evening, the air shrill with cicadas.
The door of the closest rondevaal opened, striping yellow light across the beaten earth, and a man in pressed khakis with knife-edge creases, leather bush-boots, and high socks stepped out.
"The district commissioner, Alistair Woking," Pendergast whispered to his wife.
"I'd never have guessed."
"And the fellow with him in the Australian cowboy hat is Gordon Wisley, the camp concessionaire."
"Come inside," said the district commissioner, shaking their hands. "We can talk more comfortably in the hut."
"Heavens, no!" said Helen. "We've been cooped up in a car all day--let's have a drink at the bar."
"Well...," the commissioner said dubiously.
"If the lion comes into camp, so much the better. Then we won't have the bother of stalking him in the bush. Right, Aloysius?"
"Flawlessly argued."
She lifted the soft-canvas bag that held her gun out of the back of the Land Rover. Pendergast did the same, hefting a heavy metal canister of ammunition over his shoulder.
"Gentlemen?" he said. "To the bar?"
"Very well." The DC eyed their heavy-bore safari guns with a certain look of reassurance. "Misumu!"
An African in a felt fez and red sash ducked his head out a door of the staff camp.
"We'd like a drink at the bar," said Woking. "If you don't mind."
They retired to the thatched bar, the barman taking his place behind the polished wood counter. He was sweating, and not because of the heat.
"Maker's Mark," said Helen. "On the rocks."
"Two," said her husband. "And muddle in some mint, if you have it."
"Make it the same all 'round," said the DC. "Is that all right with you, Wisley?"
"Just so long as it's strong," said Wisley with a nervous laugh. "What a day."
The barman poured the drinks, and Pendergast washed the dust from his throat with a good slug. "Tell us what happened, Mr. Wisley."
Wisley was a tall redhead with a New Zealand accent. "It was after lunch," he began. "We had twelve guests in camp--a full house."
As he spoke, Pendergast unzipped the canvas carrying case and removed his gun, a Holland & Holland .465 "Royal" double rifle. He broke the action and began cleaning the weapon, wiping off dust from the long drive. "What was lunch?"
"Sandwiches. Roast kudu, ham, turkey, cucumber. Iced tea. We always serve a light lunch during the heat of the day."
Pendergast nodded, polishing the walnut stock.
"A lion had been roaring most of the night off in the bush, but during the day it settled down. We often hear roaring lions--it's one of the attractions of the camp, actually."
"Charming."
"But they've never bothered us before. I just can't understand it."
Pendergast glanced at him, then returned his attention to the gun. "This lion, I take it, was not local?"
"No. We have several prides here--I know every individual by sight. This was a rogue male."
"Large?"
"Large as hell."
"Big enough to make the book?"
Wisley grimaced. "Bigger than anything in the book."
"I see."
"The German, a fellow named Hassler, and his wife were the first to leave the table. I think it was around two. They were heading back to their rondevaal when--according to the wife--the lion leapt from the cover along the riverbank, knocked her husband down, and sank his teeth into the poor man's neck. The wife started screaming bloody murder, and of course the poor bloke was screaming, too. We all came running, but the lion had dragged him off into the bush and vanished. I can't tell you how terrible it was--we could hear him scream, again and again. Then all went quiet except for the sounds of..." He stopped abruptly.
"Good God," said Helen. "Didn't anyone fetch a rifle?"
"I did," said Wisley. "I'm not much of a shot, but as you know we're required to carry rifles during outings with tourists. I didn't dare follow him into the long grass--I don't hunt, Mr. Pendergast--but I fired several times at the sounds and it seemed to drive the lion deeper into the bush. Perhaps I wounded him."
"That would be unfortunate," said Pendergast dryly. "No doubt he dragged the body with him. Did you preserve the spoor at the scene of the attack?"
"Yes, we did. Of course, there was some initial disturbance during the panic, but then I blocked off the area."
"Excellent. And no one went into the bush after him?"
"No. Everyone was simply hysterical--we haven't had a lion killing in decades. We evacuated all but essential staff."
Pendergast nodded, then glanced at his wife. She, too, had cleaned her rifle--a Krieghoff .500/.416 "Big Five"--and was listening intently.
"Have you heard the lion since then?"
"No. It was bloody silent all last night and today. Perhaps he's gone off."
"Not likely, until he's finished his kill," said Pendergast. "A lion won't drag a kill more than a mile. You can be sure he's still around. Did anyone else see him?"
"Just the wife."
"And she said he was red-maned?"
"Yes. At first, in her hysteria, she said he was soaked in blood. But when she calmed down a bit we were able to question her more exactly, and it appears the lion's mane was deep red."
"How do you know it wasn't blood?"
Helen spoke up. "Lions are very fussy about their manes. They clean them regularly. I've never seen a lion with blood on its mane--only its face."
"So what do we do, Mr. Pendergast?" Wisley asked.
Pendergast took a long sip of his bourbon. "We'll have to wait until dawn. I'll want your best tracker and a single gun bearer. And of course, my wife will be the second shooter."
A silence. Wisley and the DC were both looking at Helen. She returned their looks with a smile.
"I'm afraid that might be somewhat, ah, irregular," said Woking, clearing his throat.
"Because I'm a woman?" Helen asked, amused. "Don't worry, it isn't catching."
"No, no," came the hasty reply. "It's just that we're in a national park, and only someone with a government-issued professional license is authorized to shoot."
"Of the two of us," said Pendergast, "my wife is the better shot. On top of that, it's essential to have two expert shooters when stalking lion in the bush." He paused. "Unless, of course, you'd care to be the second shooter?"
The DC fell silent.
"I won't allow my husband to go in there alone," said Helen. "It would be too dangerous. The poor dear might get mauled--or worse."
"Thank you, Helen, for your confidence," said Pendergast.
"Well, you know, Aloysius, you did miss that duiker at two hundred yards. That was as easy as hitting a barn door from the inside."
"Come now, there was a strong cross-wind. And the animal moved at the last moment."
"You spent too long setting up your shot. You think too much, that's your problem."
Pendergast turned to Woking. "As you can see, this is a package deal. It's both of us or neither."
"Very well," said the DC with a frown. "Mr. Wisley?"
Wisley nodded reluctantly.
"We'll meet tomorrow morning at five," Pendergast went on. "I'm quite serious when I say we'll need a very, very good tracker."
"We have one of the best in Zambia--Jason Mfuni. Of course, he's rarely tracked for hunting, only for photographers and tourists."
"As long as he has nerves of steel."
"He does."
"You'll need to spread the word to the locals, make sure they stay well away. The last thing we'll need is a distraction."
"That won't be necessary," said Wisley. "Perhaps you noticed the empty villages on your way in to the camp? Except for us, you won't find a single human being within twenty miles."
"The villages emptied that quickly?" Helen said. "The attack only took place yesterday."
"It's the Red Lion," the DC said, as if this were explanation enough.
Pendergast and Helen exchanged glances. For a moment, the bar went silent.
Then Pendergast rose, took Helen's hand, and helped her to her feet. "Thanks for the drink. And now, if you will show us to our hut?"
3
The Fever Trees
THE NIGHT HAD BEEN SILENT. EVEN THE LOCAL prides that often tattooed the darkness with their roars were lying low, and the usual chatter of night animals seemed subdued. The sound of the river was a faint gurgle and shush that belied its massive flow, perfuming the air with the smell of water. Only with the false dawn came the first noises of what passed for civilization: hot water being poured into shower-drums in preparation for morning ablutions.
Pendergast and his wife had left their hut and were in the dining shelter, guns beside them, sitting by the soft glow of a single bulb. There were no stars--the night had been overcast, the darkness absolute. They had been sitting there, unmoving and silent, for the last forty-five minutes, enjoying each other's company and--with the kind of unspoken symbiosis that characterized their marriage--preparing mentally and emotionally for the hunt ahead. Helen Pendergast's head was resting on her husband's shoulder. Pendergast stroked her hand, toying now and then with the star sapphire on her wedding band.
"You can't have it back, you know," she said at last, her voice husky from the long silence.
He simply smiled and continued his caresses.
A small figure appeared in the shadows, carrying a long spear and wearing long pants and a long shirt, both of dark color.
The two straightened up. "Jason Mfuni?" Pendergast asked, his voice low.
"Yes, sir."
Pendergast extended his hand. "I'd rather you didn't 'sir' me, Jason. The name's Pendergast. And this is my wife, Helen. She prefers to be called by her first name, I by my last."
The man nodded, shook Helen's hand with slow, almost phlegmatic movements. "The DC want to talk to you, Miss Helen, in the mess."
Helen rose. So did Pendergast.
"Excuse me, Mr. Pendergast, he want it private."
"What's this all about?"
"He worry about her hunting experience."
"This is ridiculous," Pendergast said. "We've settled that question."
Helen waved her hand with a laugh. "Don't worry about it--apparently it's still the British Empire out here, where women sit on the veranda, fan themselves, and faint at the sight of blood. I'll set him straight."
Pendergast eased back down. The tracker waited by him, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.
"Would you care to sit down, Jason?"
"No thank you."
"How long have you been tracking?" Pendergast asked.
"A few years," came the laconic reply.
"Are you good?"
A shrug.
"Are you afraid of lions?"
"Sometimes."
"Ever killed one with that spear?"
"No."
"I see."
"This is a new spear, Mr. Pendergast. When I kill lion with spear, it usually break or bend, have to get new one."
A silence settled over the camp as the light crept up behind the bush. Five minutes passed, and then ten.
"What's taking them?" asked Pendergast, annoyed. "We don't want to get a late start." Mfuni shrugged and leaned on his spear, waiting.
Suddenly Helen appeared. She quickly seated herself.
"Did you set the blighter straight?" asked Pendergast with a laugh.
For a moment, Helen didn't answer. He turned to her quizzically and was startled at the whiteness of her face. "What is it?" he asked.
"Nothing. Just... butterflies before a hunt."
"You can always remain back in camp, you know."
"Oh, no," she said with vehemence. "No, I can't miss this."
"In that case, we'd better get moving."
"Not yet," she said, her voice low. He felt her cool hand on his arm. "Aloysius... do you realize we forgot to watch the moonrise last evening? It was full."
"With all the lion excitement, I'm not surprised."
"Let's take just a moment to watch it set." She took his hand and enclosed it in hers, an unusual gesture for her. Her hand was no longer cool.
"Helen..."
She squeezed his hand. "No talking."
The full moon was sinking into the bush on the far side of the river, a buttery disk descending through a sky of mauve, its reflection rippling like spilled cream over the swirling waters of the Luangwa River. They had first met the night of a full moon and, together, had watched it rise; ever since it had been a tradition of their courtship and marriage that no matter what else was happening in their lives, no matter what travel or commitments they faced, they would always contrive to be together to watch the rise of the full moon.
The moon touched the distant treetops across the river, then slid down behind them. The sky brightened and, finally, the gleam of the moon vanished in the tangle of bush. The mystery of the night had passed; day had arrived.
"Good-bye, old moon," said Pendergast lightly.
Helen squeezed his hand, then stood up as the DC and Wisley materialized on the path from the kitchen hut. With them was a third man, hollow-faced, very tall and lanky. His eyes were yellow.
"This is Wilson Nyala," said Wisley. "Your gun bearer."
Handshakes. The bartender from the previous night came from the kitchen with a large pot of lapsang souchong tea, and steaming cups of the strong brew were poured all around.
They drank quickly in silence. Pendergast set his cup down. "It's light enough to take a look at the scene of the attack."
Nyala slung one gun over each shoulder, and they walked down a dirt path that ran along the river. Where it passed a dense stand of miombo brush, an area had been marked out with rope and wooden stakes. Pendergast knelt, examining the spoor. He could see a pair of enormous pug marks in the dust, next to a puddled mass of black blood, now dry and cracking. As he looked about, he reconstructed the attack in his mind. What had happened was clear enough: the man had been jumped from the brush, knocked down, bitten. The initial reports were accurate. The dust showed where the lion had dragged his thrashing victim back into the brush, leaving a trail of blood.
Pendergast rose. "Here's how it'll work. I'll stay eight feet behind Jason, slightly to his left. Helen will be behind me another eight feet, to the right. Wilson, you float just behind us." He glanced over at his wife, who gave a subtle nod of approval.
"When the time comes," he continued, "we'll gesture for the guns--bring them up with safeties on. For my rifle, detach the strap--I would rather not hitch it up on brush."
"I prefer my strap on," said Helen curtly.
Wilson Nyala nodded his bony head.
Pendergast extended an arm. "My rifle, please?"
Wilson handed him his rifle. Pendergast broke the action, examined the barrel, dunked in two soft-point .465 nitro express cartridges--big as Macanudos--closed it, locked it, made sure the safety was on, and handed it back. Helen did the same with her rifle, loading it with .500/.416 flanged soft points.
"That's a rather big gun for such a slender woman," said Woking.
"I think a big-bore weapon is rather fetching," replied Helen.
"All I can say," Woking continued, "is I'm glad I'm not going into the bush after that brute, big rifle or no."
"Keep the long-triangle formation as closely as possible as we advance," said Pendergast, glancing from Mfuni to Nyala and back again. "The wind's in our favor. No talking unless absolutely necessary. Use hand signals. Leave the flashlights here."
Everyone nodded. The atmosphere of false jollity quickly evaporated as they waited in silence for the sun to come up enough to fill the underbrush with dim blue twilight. Then Pendergast motioned for Mfuni to proceed.
The tracker moved into the bush, carrying his spear in one hand, following the blood spoor. The trail moved away from the river, through the dense thorn scrub and second-growth mopane brush along a small tributary of the Luangwa called Chitele Stream. They moved slowly, following the spoor that coated the grass and leaves. The tracker paused to point with his spear at a brake of flattened grass. There was a large stained area, still damp, the leaves around splattered with arterial blood. This was where the lion had first put down his victim and begun eating, even while the victim still lived, before being shot at.
Jason Mfuni bent down and silently held up an object: half of a lower jawbone with teeth, gnawed around the edges and licked clean. Pendergast looked at it without speaking. Mfuni laid it down again and pointed to a hole in the wall of vegetation.
They proceeded through the hole into heavy green bush. Mfuni paused every twenty yards to listen and smell the air, or to examine a smear of blood on a leaf. The corpse had bled out by this point, and the spoor grew fainter: all that marked the trail were tiny smears and spots.
The tracker stopped twice to point out areas of broken grass where the lion had put the body down to shift its fang-hold and then pick it up again. The day was coming up rapidly, the sun breaking over the treetops. Except that, save for the constant drone of insects, this particular morning was unusually silent and watchful.
They followed the spoor for more than a mile. The sun boiled over the horizon, beaming furnace-like heat into the brush, and the tsetse flies rose in whining clouds. The air carried the heavy smell of dust and grass. The trail finally broke free of the bushveldt into a dry pan under the spreading branches of an acacia tree, a single termite mound rising like a pinnacle against the incandescent sky. In the center of the pan was a jumble of red and white, surrounded by a roaring cloud of flies.
Mfuni moved out cautiously, Pendergast, Helen, and the gun bearer following. They silently gathered around the half-eaten body of the German photographer. The lion had opened the cranium, eaten his face, brain, and much of the upper torso, leaving two perfectly white, unscathed legs, licked clean of blood, and one detached arm, its fist still clenching a tuft of fur. Nobody spoke. Mfuni bent down, tugged the hair from the fist, shaking the arm free in the process, and inspected it carefully. He then placed it in Pendergast's hand. It was deep red in color. Pendergast passed it to Helen, who examined it in turn, then handed it back to Mfuni.
While the others remained near the body, the tracker slowly circled the pan, looking for tracks in the alkaline crust. He placed a finger on his mouth and pointed across the dry pan into a vlei, a swampy depression during the wet season that--now the dry season was advanced--had grown up into an extremely dense stand of grass, ten to twelve feet high. Several hundred yards into the vlei rose a large, sinuous grove of fever trees, their umbrella-like crowns spreading against the horizon. The tracker was pointing at a slot bent into the tall grass, made by the lion in its retreat. He came back over, his face serious, and whispered into Pendergast's ear. "In there," he said, pointing with his spear. "Resting."
Pendergast nodded and glanced at Helen. She was still pale but absolutely steady, the eyes cool and determined.
Nyala, the gun bearer, was nervous. "What is it?" Pendergast asked in a low tone, turning to him.
He nodded toward the tall grass. "That lion smart. Too smart. Very bad place."
Pendergast hesitated, looking from the bearer, to the tracker, to the stand of grass and back again. Then he gestured for the tracker to proceed.
Slowly, stealthily, they entered the tall grass. The visibility dropped to less than five yards. The hollow stalks rustled and whispered with their movements, the cloying smell of heated grass stifling in the dead air. Green twilight enveloped them as they moved deeper into the stand. The drone of insects merged into a steady whine.
As they approached the grove of fever trees, the tracker slowed; held up his hand; pointed to his nose. Pendergast inhaled and caught the faint, musky scent of lion, overlaid with the sweetish whiff of carrion.
The tracker crouched and signaled for the others to do likewise--the visibility in the bunch grass was better closer to the ground, where they had a greater chance of seeing the tawny flash of the lion before he was actually on top of them. They slowly entered the fever grove, inching along at a crouch. The dried, silty mud was baked hard as rock and it retained no spoor, but broken and bent stems told a clear tale of the lion's passage.
Again the tracker paused, motioning for a talk. Pendergast and Helen came up and the three huddled in the close grass, whispering just loud enough to be heard over the insects.
"Lion somewhere in front. Twenty, thirty yards. Moving slowly." Mfuni's face was creased with concern. "Maybe we should wait."
"No," whispered Pendergast. "This is our best chance at bagging him. He's just eaten."
They moved forward, into a small open area with no grass, no more than ten feet square. The tracker paused, sniffed the air, then pointed left. "Lion," he whispered.
Pendergast stared ahead, looked left, then shook his head and pointed straight ahead.
The tracker scowled, leaned to Pendergast's ear. "Lion circle around to left. He very smart."
Still Pendergast shook his head. He leaned over Helen. "You stay here," he whispered, his lips brushing her ears.
"But the tracker--"
"The tracker's wrong. You stay, I'll go ahead just a few yards. We're nearing the far end of the vlei. He'll want to remain in cover; with me moving toward him he'll feel pressed. He might rush. Be ready and keep a line of fire open to my right."
Pendergast signaled for his gun. He grasped the metal barrel, warm in the heat, and pulled it forward under his arm. He thumbed off the safety and flipped up the night sight--a bead of ivory--for better sighting in the grassy half-light. Nyala handed Helen her rifle.
Pendergast moved into the dense grass straight ahead, the tracker following in frozen silence, his face a mask of terror.
Pushing through the grass, placing each foot with exceeding caution on the hardpan ground, Pendergast listened intently for the peculiar cough that would signal the beginning of a rush. There would be time for only one shot: a charging lion could cover a hundred yards in as little as four seconds. He felt more secure with Helen behind him; two chances at the kill.
After ten yards, he paused and waited. The tracker came alongside, deep unhappiness written on his face. For a full two minutes, neither man moved. Pendergast listened intently but could hear only insects. The gun was slippery in his sweaty hands, and he could taste the alkali dust on his tongue. A faint breeze, seen but not felt, swayed the grass around them, making a soft clacking sound. The insect drone fell to a murmur, then died. Everything grew utterly still.
Slowly, without moving any other part of his body, Mfuni extended a single finger--again ninety degrees to his left.
Remaining absolutely still, Pendergast followed the gesture with his eyes. He peered into the dim haze of grass, trying to catch a glimpse of tawny fur or the gleam of an amber eye. Nothing.
A low cough--and then a terrible, earthshaking explosion of sound, a massive roar, came blasting at them like a freight train. Not from the left, but from straight ahead.
Pendergast spun around as a blur of ocher muscle and reddish fur exploded out of the grass, pink mouth agape, daggered with teeth; he fired one barrel with a massive ka-whang! but he hadn't time to compose the shot and the lion was on him, six hundred pounds of enormous stinking cat, knocking him flat, and then he felt the red-hot fangs slice into his shoulder and he cried out, twisting under the suffocating mass, flailing with his free arm, trying to recover the rifle that had been knocked away by the massive blow.
The lion had been so well hidden, and the rush so fast and close, that Helen Pendergast was unable to shoot before it was on top of her husband--and then it was too late; they were too close together to risk a shot. She leapt from her spot ten yards behind and bulled through the tall grass, yelling, trying to draw the monstrous lion's attention as she raced toward the hideous sound of muffled, wet growling. She burst onto the scene just as Mfuni sank his spear into the lion's gut; the beast--bigger than any lion should rationally be--leapt off Pendergast and swiped at the tracker, tearing away part of his leg, then bounded into the grass, the spear dragging from its belly.
Helen took careful aim at the lion's retreating back and fired, the recoil from the massive .500/.416 nitro express cartridge jolting her hard.
The shot missed. The lion was gone.
She rushed to her husband. He was still conscious. "No," Pendergast gasped. "Him."
She glanced at Mfuni. He was lying on his back, arterial blood squirting into the dirt from where the calf muscle of his right leg was hanging by a thread of skin.
"Oh, Jesus." She tore off the lower half of her shirt, twisted it tight, and wrapped it above the severed artery. Groping around for a stick, she slid it under the cloth and twisted it tight to form a tourniquet.
"Jason?" she said urgently. "Stay with me! Jason!"
His face was slick with sweat, his eyes wide and trembling.
"Hold that stick. Loosen it if you start going numb."
The tracker's eyes widened. "Memsahib, the lion is coming back."
"Just hold that--"
"It's coming back!" Mfuni's voice broke in terror.
Ignoring him, she turned her attention to her husband. He lay on his back, his face gray. His shoulder was misshapen and covered with a clotted mass of blood. "Helen," he said hoarsely, struggling to rise. "Get your gun. Now."
"Aloysius--"
"For the love of God, get your gun!"
It was too late. With another earsplitting roar, the lion burst from the cover, sending up a whirlwind of dust and flying grass--and then he was on top of her. Helen screamed once and tried to fight him off as the lion seized her by the arm; there was a sharp crackling of bone as the lion sank his teeth in--and then the last thing Pendergast saw before he passed out was the sight of her struggling, screaming figure being dragged off into the deep grass.
4
THE WORLD CAME BACK INTO FOCUS. PENDERGAST was in one of the rondevaals. The distant throb of a chopper sounded through the thatch roof, rapidly increasing in volume.
He sat up with a cry to see the DC, Woking, leap out of a chair he'd been sitting in at the far side of the hut.
"Don't exert yourself," Woking said. "The medevac's here, everything'll be taken care of--"
Pendergast struggled up. "My wife! Where is she?"
"Be a good lad and--"
Pendergast swung out of bed and staggered to his feet, driven by pure adrenaline. "My wife, you son of a bitch!"
"It couldn't be helped, she was dragged off, we had a man unconscious and another bleeding to death--"
Pendergast staggered to the door of the hut. His rifle was there, set in the rack. He seized it, broke it, saw that it still contained a single round.
"What in God's name are you doing--?"
Pendergast closed the action and swung the rifle toward the DC. "Get out of my way."
Woking scrambled aside and Pendergast lurched out of the hut. The sun was setting. Twelve hours had passed. The DC came rushing out after him, waving his arms. "Help! I need help! The man's gone mad!"
Crashing into the wall of brush, Pendergast pushed through the long grass until he had picked up the trail. He did not even hear the ragged shouts from the camp behind. He charged along the old spoor trail, thrusting the brush aside, heedless of the pain. Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen--and then he burst into the dry pan. Beyond lay the vlei, the dense grass, the grove of fever trees. With a gasp he lurched forward across the pan and into the grass, swiping his weapon back and forth with his good arm to clear a path, the birds overhead screaming at the disturbance. His lungs burned, his arm was drenched in blood. Still he advanced, bleeding freely from his torn shoulder, vocalizing inarticulately. And then he stopped, the ragged incoherent sounds dying in his throat. There was something in the grass ahead, small, pale, lying on the hard-packed mud. He stared down at it. It was a severed hand--a hand whose ring finger was banded with a star sapphire.
With an animalistic cry of rage and grief, he staggered forward, bursting from the long grass into an open area where the lion, its mane ablaze with color, was crouching and quietly feeding. He took in the horror all at once: the bones decorated with ribbons of flesh, his wife's hat, the tattered pieces of her khaki outfit, and then suddenly the smell--the faint smell of her perfume mingling with the stench of the cat.
Last of all he saw the head. It had been severed from her body but--with a cruel irony--was otherwise intact compared with the rest. Her blue-and-violet eyes stared up sightlessly at him.
Pendergast walked unsteadily up to within ten yards of the lion. It raised its monstrous head, slopped a tongue around its bloody chops, and looked at him calmly. His breath coming in short, sharp gasps, Pendergast raised the Holland & Holland with his good arm, propped it on his bad, sighted along the top of the ivory bead. And pulled the trigger. The massive round, packing five thousand foot-pounds of muzzle energy, struck the lion just between and above the eyes, opening the top of its head like a sardine can, the cranium exploding in a blur of red mist. The great red-maned lion hardly moved; it merely sank down on top of its meal, and then lay still.
All around, in the sunbaked fever trees, a thousand birds screamed.
PRESENT DAY
5
St. Charles Parish, Louisiana
THE ROLLS-ROYCE GREY GHOST CREPT AROUND the circular drive, the crisp crunch of gravel under the tires muffled in places by patches of crabgrass. The motorcar was followed by a late-model Mercedes, in silver. Both vehicles came to a stop before a large Greek Revival plantation house, framed by ancient black oaks draped in fingers of Spanish moss. A small bronze plaque screwed into the facade announced that the mansion was known as Penumbra; that it had been built in 1821 by the Pendergast family; and that it was on the National Register of Historic Places.
A. X. L. Pendergast stepped out of the rear compartment of the Rolls and looked around, taking in the scene. It was the end of an afternoon in late February. Mellow light played through the Greek columns, casting bars of gold into the covered porch. A thin mist drifted across the overgrown lawn and weed-heavy gardens. Beyond, cicadas droned sleepily in the cypress groves and mangrove swamps. The copper trim on the second-floor balconies was covered in a dense patina of verdigris. Small curls of white paint hung from the pillars, and an atmosphere of dampness, desuetude, and neglect hung over the house and grounds.
A curious gentleman emerged from the Mercedes, short and stocky, wearing a black cutaway with a white carnation in his boutonniere. He looked more like a maitre d' from an Edwardian men's club than a New Orleans lawyer. Despite the limpid sunlight, a tightly rolled umbrella was tucked primly beneath one arm. An alligator-skin briefcase was clutched in one fawn-gloved hand. He placed a bowler hat on his head, gave it a smart tap.
"Mr. Pendergast. Shall we?" The man extended a hand toward an overgrown arboretum, enclosed by a hedge, that stood to the right of the house.
"Of course, Mr. Ogilby."
"Thank you." The man led the way, walking briskly, his wingtips sweeping through the moisture-laden grass. Pendergast followed more slowly, with less sense of purpose. Reaching a gate in the hedge, Mr. Ogilby pushed it open, and together they entered the arboretum. At one point he glanced back with a mischievous smile and said, "Let us keep an eye out for the ghost!"
"That would be a thrill," said Pendergast, in the same jocular vein.
Continuing his brisk pace, the lawyer followed a once-graveled path now overgrown with weeds toward a specimen-size weeping hemlock, beyond which could be seen a rusting iron fence enclosing a small plot of ground. Peeking up from the grass within was a scattering of slate and marble headstones, some vertical, some listing.
The gentleman, his creased black trouser cuffs now soaked, came to a halt before one of the larger tombstones, turned, and then grasped the briefcase in both hands, waiting for his client to catch up. Pendergast took a thoughtful turn around the private graveyard, stroking his pale chin, before ending up next to the dapper little man.
"Well!" the lawyer said, "here we are again!"
Pendergast nodded absently. He knelt, pushed aside the grass from the face of the tombstone, and read aloud:
Hic Iacet Sepultus
Louis de Frontenac Diogenes Pendergast
Apr 2, 1899-Mar 15, 1975
Tempus Edax Rerum
Mr. Ogilby, standing behind Pendergast, propped his briefcase on the top of the tombstone, undid the latches, raised the cover, and slipped out a document. On the cover of the briefcase, balancing it on the headstone, he laid down the document.
"Mr. Pendergast?" He proffered a heavy silver fountain pen.
Pendergast signed the document.
The lawyer took the pen back, signed it himself with a flourish, impressed it with a notary public seal, dated it, and slipped it back in his briefcase. He shut it with a snap, latched it, and locked it.
"Done!" he said. "You are now certified to have visited your grandfather's grave. I shall not have to disinherit you from the Pendergast family trust--at least, not for the present!" He gave a short chuckle.
Pendergast rose, and the little man stuck out a pudgy hand. "Always a pleasure, Mr. Pendergast, and I trust I shall have the favor of your company in another five years?"
"The pleasure is, and shall be, mine," said Pendergast with a dry smile.
"Excellent! I'll be heading back to town, then. Will you follow?"
"I think I'll drop in on Maurice. He'd be crushed if I left without paying him my respects."
"Quite, quite! To think he's been looking after Penumbra unassisted for--what?--twelve years now. You know, Mr. Pendergast--" Here the little man leaned in and lowered his voice, as if to impart a secret. "--you really should fix this place up. You could get a handsome sum for it--a handsome sum! Antebellum plantation houses are all the rage these days. It would make a charming B and B!"
"Thank you, Mr. Ogilby, but I think I shall hold on to it a while longer."
"As you wish, as you wish! Just don't stay out after dark--what with the old family ghost, and all." The little man strode off chuckling to himself, briefcase swinging, and soon vanished, leaving Pendergast alone in the family plot. He heard the Mercedes start up; heard the crunch of gravel fade quickly back into silence.
He strolled about for another few minutes, reading the inscriptions on the stones. Each name resurrected memories stranger and more eccentric than the last. Many of the remains were of family members disinterred from the ruins of the basement crypt of the Pendergast mansion on Dauphine Street after the house burned; other ancestors had expressed wishes to be buried in the old country.
The golden light faded as the sun sank below the trees. Pallid mists began to drift across the lawn from the direction of the mangrove swamp. The air smelled of verdure, moss, and bracken. Pendergast stood in the graveyard for a long time, silent and unmoving, as evening settled over the land. Yellow lights--coming up in the windows of the plantation house--filtered through the trees of the arboretum. The scent of burning oak wood drifted on the air; a smell that brought back irresistible memories of childhood summers. Glancing up, Pendergast could see one of the great brick chimneys of the plantation house issuing a lazy stream of blue smoke. Rousing himself, he left the graveyard, walked through the arboretum, and gained the covered porch, the warped boards protesting under his feet.
He knocked on the door, then stood back to wait. A creaking from inside; the sound of slow footsteps; an elaborate unlatching and unchaining; and the great door swung open to reveal a stooped old man of indeterminate race, dressed in an ancient butler's uniform, his face grave. "Master Aloysius," he said, with fine reserve, not offering his hand immediately.
Pendergast extended his and the old man responded, the ribbed old hand getting a friendly shake. "Maurice. How are you?"
"Middling," the old man replied. "I saw the cars drive up. Glass of sherry in the library, sir?"
"That will be fine, thank you."
Maurice turned and moved slowly through the entry hall toward the library. Pendergast followed. A fire was burning on the hearth, not so much for warmth as to drive out the damp.
With a clinking of bottles, Maurice muddled about the sideboard and poured a measure into a tiny sherry glass, placed it on a silver tray, and carried it over with great ceremony. Pendergast took it, sipped, then glanced around. Nothing had changed for the better. The wallpaper was stained, and balls of dust lay in the corners. He could hear the faint rustle of rats in the walls. The place had gone downhill significantly in the five years since he had last been here.
"I wish you'd let me hire a live-in housekeeper, Maurice. And a cook. It would greatly relieve your burden."
"Nonsense! I can take care of the house myself."
"I don't think it's safe for you to be here alone."
"Not safe? Of course it's safe. I keep the house well locked at night."
"Naturally." Pendergast sipped the sherry, which was an excellent dry oloroso. He wondered, a little idly, how many bottles were left in the extensive cellars. Many more, probably, than he could drink in a lifetime, not to mention the wine, port, and fine old cognac. As the collateral branches of his family had died out, all the various wine cellars--like the wealth--had concentrated around him, the last surviving member of sound mind.
He took another sip and put down the glass. "Maurice, I think I'll take a turn through the house. For old times' sake."
"Yes, sir. I'll be here if you need me."
Pendergast rose and, opening the pocket doors, stepped into the entry hall. For fifteen minutes, he wandered through the rooms of the first floor: the empty kitchen and sitting rooms, the drawing room, the pantry and saloon. The house smelled faintly of his childhood--of furniture polish, aged oak, and, infinitely distant, his mother's perfume--all overlaid with a much more recent odor of damp and mildew. Every object, every knickknack and painting and paperweight and silver ashtray, was in its place, and every little thing carried a thousand memories of people long since under earth, of weddings and christenings and wakes, of cocktail parties and masked balls and children stampeding the halls to the warning exclamations of aunts.
Gone, all gone.
He mounted the stairs to the upper landing. Here, two hallways led to bedrooms in the opposite wings of the house, with the upstairs parlor straight ahead, through an arched doorway protected by a brace of elephant tusks.
He entered the parlor. A zebra rug lay on the floor, and the head of a Cape buffalo graced the mantel above the massive fireplace, looking down at him with furious glass eyes. On the walls were numerous other heads: kudu, bushbuck, stag, deer, hind, wild boar, elk.
He clasped his hands behind his back and slowly paced the room. Seeing this array of heads, these silent sentinels to memory and events long past, his thoughts drifted irresistibly to Helen. He'd had the old nightmare the previous night--as vivid and terrible as ever--and the malevolent effects still lingered like a canker in the pit of his stomach. Perhaps this room might exorcise that particular demon, at least for a while. It would never disappear, of course.
On the far side, against the wall, stood the locked gun case that displayed his collection of hunting rifles. It was a savage, bloody sport--driving a five-hundred-grain slug of metal at two thousand feet per second into a wild animal--and he wondered why it attracted him. But it was Helen who had truly loved hunting, a peculiar interest for a woman--but then Helen had been an unusual woman. A most unusual woman.
He gazed through the rippled, dusty glass at Helen's Krieghoff double-barreled rifle, the side plates exquisitely engraved and inlaid with silver and gold, the walnut stock polished with use. It had been his wedding present to her, just before they went on their honeymoon safari, after Cape buffalo in Tanzania. A beautiful thing, this rifle: six figures' worth of the finest woods and precious metals--designed for a most cruel purpose.
As he looked, he noted a small edge of rust creeping around the muzzle rim.
He strode to the door of the parlor and called down the stairs. "Maurice? Would you kindly bring me the key to the gun cabinet?"
After a long moment, Maurice appeared in the hall. "Yes, sir." He turned, disappearing once again. Moments later, he slowly mounted the groaning stairs, an iron key gripped in his veined hand. He creaked past Pendergast and stopped before the gun case, inserted the key, and turned it.
"There you are, sir." His face remained impassive, but Pendergast was glad to sense in Maurice a feeling of pride: for having the key at his fingertips, for simply being of service.
"Thank you, Maurice."
A nod and the manservant was gone.
Pendergast reached inside the case and--slowly, slowly--grasped the cold metal of the double barrel. His fingers tingled at the mere touch of her weapon. For some reason his heart was accelerating--the lingering effects of the nightmare, no doubt. He brought it out and placed it on the refectory table in the middle of the room. From a drawer below the cabinet he removed the gun-cleaning paraphernalia, arranging it beside the rifle. He wiped his hands, picked up the gun, and broke open the action, peering down both barrels.
He was faintly surprised: the right barrel was badly fouled; the left one clean. He laid the gun down, thinking. Again he walked to the top of the stairs.
"Maurice?"
The servant appeared once more. "Yes, sir?"
"Do you know if anyone has fired the Krieghoff since... my wife's death?"
"It was your explicit request, sir, that no one be allowed to handle it. I've kept the key myself. No one has even been near the case."
"Thank you, Maurice."
"You're quite welcome, sir."
Pendergast went back into the parlor, this time shutting the doors. From a writing desk he extracted an old sheet of stationery, which he flipped over and laid on the table. Then he inserted a brush into the right barrel, pushed out some of the fouling onto the paper, and examined it: bits and flakes of some burned, papery substance. Reaching into his suit pocket, he pulled out the loupe he always carried, fixed it to his eye, and examined the bits more intently. There was no doubt: they were the scorched, carbonized fragments of wadding.
But the .500/.416 NE cartridge had no wadding: just the bullet, the casing, and the propellant. Such a cartridge, even a defective one, would never leave this kind of fouling behind.
He examined the left barrel, finding it clean and well oiled. With the cleaning brush he pushed a rag through. There was no fouling at all.
Pendergast straightened up, his mind suddenly in furious thought. The last time the gun had been fired had been on that terrible day. He forced himself to think back. This was something he had avoided--while awake--at all costs. But once he began to remember, it wasn't hard to recall the details: every moment of that hunt was seared forever into his memory.
She had fired the gun only once. The Krieghoff had two triggers, one behind the other. The front trigger fired the right barrel, and that was the trigger normally pulled first. It was the one she pulled. And that shot had fouled the right barrel.
With that single shot, she missed the Red Lion. He'd always chalked it up to bush deflection, or perhaps extreme agitation.
But Helen wasn't one to display agitation, even under the most extreme of circumstances. She rarely missed. And she hadn't missed that last time, either... or wouldn't have missed, if the right barrel had been loaded with a bullet.
Except that it wasn't loaded with a bullet: it was loaded with a blank.
For a blank to generate a similar sound and recoil, it would have to have a large, tightly wadded plug, which would foul the barrel exactly as he'd observed.
Had Pendergast been a man of lesser control, the hinges of his sanity might have weakened under the emotional intensity of his thoughts. She had loaded the gun with .500/.416 NE soft-points at the camp that morning, just before heading into the bush after the lion. He knew that for a fact: he had watched her. And he knew they were live rounds, not blanks--nobody, especially not Helen, would mistake a wadded blank for a two-ounce round. He himself clearly recalled the blunt heads of the soft-points as she dunked them into the barrels.
Between the time she loaded the Krieghoff with soft-points and the time she fired, someone had removed her unfired cartridges and replaced them with blanks. And then, after the hunt, someone had removed the two blanks--one fired, one not--to cover up what they had done. Only they made a small mistake: they did not clean the fired barrel, leaving the incriminating fouling.
Pendergast sat back in the chair. One hand--trembling ever so slightly--rose to his mouth.
Helen Pendergast's death had not been a tragic accident. It had been murder.
6
New York City
FOUR AM, SATURDAY. LIEUTENANT VINCENT D'Agosta pushed through the crowd, ducked under the crime-scene tape, and walked over to where the body lay sprawled across the sidewalk outside one of the countless identical Indian restaurants on East 6th Street. A large pool of blood had collected beneath it, reflecting the red and purple neon light in the restaurant's grimy window with surreal splendor.
The perp had been shot at least half a dozen times and he was dead. Very dead. He lay crumpled on his side, one arm thrown wide, his gun twenty feet away. A crime-scene investigator was laying a tape measure, measuring the distance from the open hand to the gun.
The corpse was a scrawny Caucasian, thirtysomething, with thinning hair. He looked like a broken stick, his legs crooked, one knee hitched up to his chest, the other extended out and back, the arms flung wide. The two cops who had done the shooting, a beefy black guy and a wiry Hispanic, were off to one side, talking with Internal Affairs.
D'Agosta went over, nodded to the Internal Affairs officer, and clasped the hands of the cops. They felt sweaty, nervous.
It's damn hard, D'Agosta thought, to have killed someone. You never really get over it.
"Lieutenant," said one of the cops in a rush, anxious to explain yet again to a fresh ear, "the guy had just robbed the restaurant at gunpoint and was running down the street. We identified ourselves, showed our badges, and that's when he opened on us, motherfucker just emptied his gun, firing while he ran, there were civilians on the street and we had no choice, we had to take him down. No choice, man, no choice--"
D'Agosta grasped the man's shoulder, gave it a friendly squeeze as he glanced at his nameplate. "Ocampo, don't sweat it. You did what you had to do. The investigation will show that."
"I mean, he just opened up like there was no tomorrow--"
"For him there won't be." D'Agosta walked aside with the Internal Affairs investigator. "Any problems?"
"I doubt it, sir. These days, of course, there's always a hearing. But this is about as clear-cut as they come." He slapped his notebook shut.
D'Agosta lowered his voice. "See those guys get some psychological counseling. And make sure they meet with the union lawyers before they do any more talking."
"Will do."
D'Agosta looked thoughtfully at the corpse. "How much did he get?"
"Two hundred and twenty, give or take. Fucking addict, look at him, all eaten up by horse."
"Sad. Any ID?"
"Warren Zabriskie, address in Far Rockaway."
D'Agosta shook his head as he glanced over the scene. It was about as straightforward as you could ask for: two cops, both minorities; the dead perp white; witnesses up the wazoo; everything caught on security cams. Open and shut. There would be no protest marches or accusations of police brutality. The shooter got what he deserved--everyone would reluctantly agree on that.
D'Agosta glanced around. Despite the cold, a pretty big crowd had developed beyond the tape, East Village rockers and yupsters and metrosexuals and whatever the hell else you called them these days. The forensic unit was still working the body, the EMTs waiting to one side, the owner of the victimized restaurant being interviewed by detectives. Everyone doing their job. Everything under control. A senseless, stupid, piece-of-shit case that would generate a blizzard of paperwork, interviews, reports, analyses, boxes of evidence, hearings, press conferences. All because of two hundred lousy bucks for a fix.
He was wondering how long it would be before he could gracefully escape when he heard a shout and saw a disturbance at the far edge of the cordoned area. Someone had ducked under the tape and trespassed onto the scene. He turned angrily--only to come face-to-face with Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast, pursued by two uniformed officers.
"Hey, you--!" one of the cops shouted, grabbing Pendergast roughly by the shoulder. With a deft movement the agent freed himself, extracted his badge, and flashed it into the officer's face.
"What the--?" the cop said, backing off. "FBI. He's FBI."
"What's he doing here?" asked the other.
"Pendergast!" D'Agosta cried, stepping toward him quickly. "What the hell brings you here? This killing isn't exactly your kind of--"
Pendergast silenced him with a violent gesture, slashing his hand through the air between them. In the neon gloom, his face was so white he almost looked spectral, dressed as usual like a wealthy undertaker in his trademark tailored black suit. Except this time he somehow looked different--very different. "I must speak with you. Now."
"Sure, of course. As soon as I wrap things up--"
"I mean now, Vincent."
D'Agosta stared. This was not the cool, collected Pendergast he knew so well. This was a side of the man he had never seen before, angry, brusque, his movements rushed. Not only that, but--D'Agosta noticed on closer inspection--his normally immaculate suit was creased and rumpled.
Pendergast grasped him by the lapel. "I have a favor to ask you. More than a favor. Come with me."
D'Agosta was too surprised by his vehemence to do anything but obey. Leaving the scene under the stares of his fellow cops, he followed Pendergast past the crowd and down the street to where the agent's Rolls was idling. Proctor, the chauffeur, was behind the wheel, his expression studiously blank.
D'Agosta had to practically run to keep up. "You know I'll help you out any way I can--"
"Don't say anything, do not speak, until you've heard me out."
"Right, sure," D'Agosta added hastily.
"Get in."
Pendergast slipped into the rear passenger compartment, D'Agosta climbing in behind. The agent pulled open a panel in the door and swung out a tiny bar. Grasping a cut-glass decanter, he sloshed three fingers of brandy into a glass and drank half of it off with a single gulp. He replaced the decanter and turned to D'Agosta, his silvery eyes glittering with intensity. "This is no ordinary request. If you can't do it, or won't do it, I'll understand. But you must not burden me with questions, Vincent--I don't have time. I simply don't--have--time. Listen, and then give me your answer."
D'Agosta nodded.
"I need you to take a leave of absence from the force. Perhaps as long as a year."
"A year?"
Pendergast knocked back the rest of the drink. "It could be months, or weeks. There's no way to know how long this is going to take."
"What is 'this'?"
For a moment, the agent did not reply. "I've never spoken to you about my late wife, Helen?"
"No."
"She died twelve years ago, when we were on safari in Africa. She was attacked by a lion."
"Jesus. I'm sorry."
"At the time, I believed it to be a terrible accident. Now I know different."
D'Agosta waited.
"Now I know she was murdered."
"Oh, God."
"The trail is cold. I need you, Vincent. I need your skills, your street smarts, your knowledge of the working classes, your way of thinking. I need you to help me track down the person--or persons--who did this. I will of course pay all your expenses and see to it that your salary and health benefits are maintained."
A silence fell in the car. D'Agosta was stunned. What would this mean for his career, his relationship with Laura Hayward... his future? It was irresponsible. No--it was more than that. It was utterly crazy.
"Is this an official investigation?"
"No. It would be just you and me. The killer might be anywhere in the world. We will operate completely outside the system--any system."
"And when we find the killer? What then?"
"We will see to it that justice is served."
"Meaning?"
Pendergast sloshed more brandy into the glass with a fierce gesture, gulped it down, and fixed D'Agosta once again with those cold, platinum eyes.
"We kill him."
7
THE ROLLS-ROYCE TORE UP PARK AVENUE, LATE-CRUISING cabs flashing by in blurs of yellow. D'Agosta sat in the back with Pendergast, feeling awkward, trying not to turn a curious eye toward the FBI agent. This Pendergast was impatient, unkempt, and--most remarkable--openly emotional.
"When did you find out?" he ventured to ask.
"This afternoon."
"How'd you figure it out?"
Pendergast did not answer immediately, glancing out the window as the Rolls turned sharply onto 72nd Street, heading toward the park. He placed the empty brandy glass--which he had been holding, unheeded, the entire uptown journey--back into its position in the tiny bar. Then he took a deep breath. "Twelve years ago, Helen and I were asked to kill a man-eating lion in Zambia--a lion with an unusual red mane. Just such a lion had wreaked havoc in the area forty years before."
"Why did you get asked?"
"Part of having a professional hunting license. You're obligated to kill any beasts menacing the villages or camps, if the authorities request it." Pendergast was still looking out the window. "The lion had killed a German tourist at a safari camp. Helen and I drove over from our own camp to put it down."
He picked up the brandy bottle, looked at it, put it back into its holder. The big car was now moving through Central Park, the skeletal branches overhead framing a threatening night sky. "The lion charged us from deep cover, attacked me and the tracker. As he ran back into the bush, Helen shot at him and apparently missed. She went to attend to the tracker..." His voice wavered and he stopped, composing himself. "She went to attend to the tracker and the lion burst out of the brush a second time. It dragged her off. That was the last time I saw her. Alive, anyway."
"Oh, my God." D'Agosta felt a thrill of horror course through him.
"Just this afternoon, at our old family plantation, I happened to examine her gun. And I discovered that--on that morning, twelve years ago--somebody had taken the bullets from her gun and replaced them with blanks. She hadn't missed the shot--because there was no shot."
"Holy shit. You sure?"
Now Pendergast looked away from the window to fix him with a stare. "Vincent, would I be telling you this--would I be here now--if I wasn't absolutely sure?"
"Sorry."
There was a moment of silence.
"You just discovered it this afternoon in New Orleans?"
Pendergast nodded tersely. "I chartered a private jet back."
The Rolls pulled up before the 72nd Street entrance of the Dakota. Almost before the vehicle had come to a stop Pendergast was out. He strode past the guardhouse and through the vaulted stone archway of the carriage entrance, ignoring the fat drops of rain that were now splattering the sidewalk. D'Agosta followed at a jog as the agent strode across a wide interior courtyard, past manicured plants and muttering bronze fountains, to a narrow lobby in the southwest corner of the apartment building. He pressed the elevator button, the doors whispered open, and they ascended in silence. A minute later the doors opened again on a small space, a single door set into the far wall. It had no obvious locking mechanism, but when Pendergast moved his fingertips across the surface in an odd gesture D'Agosta heard the unmistakable click of a deadlock springing free. Pendergast pushed the door open, and the reception room came into view: dimly lit, with three rose-painted walls and a fourth wall of black marble, covered by a thin sheet of falling water.
Pendergast gestured at the black leather sofas arrayed around the room. "Take a seat. I'll be back shortly."
D'Agosta sat down as the FBI agent slipped through a door in one of the walls. He sat back, taking in the soft gurgle of water, the bonsai plants, the smell of lotus blossoms. The walls of the building were so thick, he could barely hear the opening peals of thunder outside. Everything about the room seemed designed to induce tranquility. Yet tranquil was the last thing he felt. He wondered again just how he'd swing a sudden leave of absence--with his boss, and especially with Laura Hayward.
It was ten minutes before Pendergast reappeared. He had shaved and changed into a fresh black suit. He also seemed more composed, more like the old Pendergast--although D'Agosta could still sense a great tension under the surface.
"Thank you for waiting, Vincent," he said, beckoning. "Let us proceed."
D'Agosta followed the agent down a long hallway, as dimly lit as the reception room. He glanced curiously left and right: at a library; a room hung with oil paintings floor-to-ceiling; a wine cellar. Pendergast stopped at the only closed door in the hallway, opening it with the same strange movement of his fingers against the wood. The room beyond was barely large enough for the table and two chairs that it contained. A large steel bank-style vault, at least four feet in width, dominated one of the side walls.
Again Pendergast motioned D'Agosta to take a seat, then vanished into the hall. Within moments he returned, a leather Gladstone bag in one hand. He set this on the table, opened it, and drew out a rack of test tubes and several glass-stoppered bottles, which he arrayed carefully on the polished wood. His hand trembled once--only once--and the test tubes clinked quietly in response. After the apparatus was unpacked, Pendergast turned to the vault and with five or six turns of the dial unlocked it. As he swung the heavy door open, D'Agosta could see a grid of metal-fronted containers within, not unlike safe-deposit boxes. Pendergast selected one, withdrew it, and placed it on the table. Then, closing the vault, he took the seat opposite D'Agosta.
For a long moment, he remained motionless. Then came another rumble of thunder, muffled and distant, and it seemed to rouse him. He removed a white silk handkerchief from the Gladstone bag and spread it on the table. Then he slid the steel box closer, lifted its lid, and took from it two items: a tuft of coarse red hair and a gold ring, set with a beautiful star sapphire. He took away the tuft of hair with a set of forceps; the ring he gently removed with his bare hand, in a gesture so unconsciously tender D'Agosta felt himself pierced to the heart.
"These are the items I took from Helen's corpse," Pendergast said. The indirect lighting exaggerated the hollows of his drawn face. "I haven't looked at these in almost twelve years. Her wedding ring... and the tuft of mane she tore from the lion as it devoured her. I found it clutched in her severed left hand."
D'Agosta winced. "What are you going to do?" he asked.
"I'm going to play a hunch." Opening the glass-stoppered bottles, Pendergast poured a selection of different powders into the test tubes. Then, using the forceps, he pulled bits of mane from the reddish tuft and dropped a few strands carefully into each tube in turn. Finally, he pulled a small brown bottle from the bag, its top sealed with a rubber eyedropper. He unscrewed the eyedropper from the bottle and let several drops of clear liquid fall into each tube. There was no obvious reaction in the first four test tubes. But in the fifth, the liquid immediately turned a pale green, the color of green tea. Pendergast stared intently at this tube for a moment. Then, using a pipette, he removed a small sample of the liquid and applied it to a small strip of paper he took from the bag.
"A pH of three point seven," he said, examining the strip of paper. "Precisely the kind of mild acid required to release the lawsone molecules from the leaf."
"The leaf of what?" D'Agosta asked. "What is it?"
Pendergast glanced from the strip of paper to him and back again. "I could do further tests, but there seems little point. The mane of the lion that killed my wife had been treated with molecules originally from the plant Lawsonia inermis. More commonly known as henna."
"Henna?" D'Agosta repeated. "You mean the mane was dyed red?"
"Precisely." And Pendergast looked up again. "Proctor will drive you home. I can spare you three hours to make the necessary arrangements--not a minute more."
"I'm sorry?"
"Vincent, we're headed for Africa."
8
D'AGOSTA STOOD, A LITTLE UNCERTAINLY, IN THE hallway of the tidy two-bedroom he shared with Laura Hayward. It was technically her apartment, but recently he'd finally begun splitting the rent with her. Just getting her to concede to that had taken months. Now he fervently hoped this sudden turn of events wouldn't undo all the hard work he'd put into repairing their relationship.
He stared through the doorway into the master bedroom. Hayward was sitting up in bed, delicious looking despite having been roused from a sound sleep a quarter of an hour earlier. The clock on the dresser read ten minutes to six. Remarkable, how his whole life had been turned upside down in just ninety minutes.
She returned his look, her expression unreadable. "So that's it?" she said. "Pendergast arrives out of nowhere with some crazy story, and, wham, you're going to let him spirit you off?"
"Laura, he's just found out his wife was murdered. He feels I'm the only one who can help him do this."
"Help? What about helping yourself? You know, you're still pulling yourself out of the hole you got in over the Diogenes case--a hole that, by the way, Pendergast dug for you."
"He's my friend," D'Agosta replied. It sounded lame even to his own ears.
"This is unbelievable." She shook out her long black hair. "When I go to sleep, you're called out on a routine homicide. Now I wake up to find you packing for a trip--and you can't even tell me when you'll be back?"
"Honey, it won't be that long. My job here is important to me, too."
"And me? What about me? The job isn't the only thing you're walking out on here."
D'Agosta stepped into the room, sat down on the edge of the bed. "I swore I'd never lie to you, ever again. That's why I'm telling you everything. Look--you're the most important thing in my life." He took a breath. "If you tell me to stay, I'll stay."
For a minute, she just stared back at him. Then her expression softened and she shook her head. "You know I can't do that. I couldn't put myself between you and this--this task."
He took her hand. "I'll be back as soon as possible. And I'll call you every day."
With a fingertip she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Have you told Glen yet?"
"No. I came here directly from Pendergast's apartment."
"Well, you'd better call him and break the news that you're taking a leave of absence, date of return unknown. You realize he might say no--and then what?"
"It's something I've just got to do."
Hayward pulled back the covers, swung her legs out of the bed. As his eyes drifted to them, D'Agosta felt a sudden sting of desire. How could he leave this beautiful woman, even for a day--let alone a week, a month... a year?
"I'll help you pack," she said.
He cleared his throat. "Laura--"
She put a finger to his lips. "It's better if you don't say any more."
He nodded.
She leaned toward him, kissed him lightly. "Just promise me one thing."
"Anything."
"Promise me that you'll take care of yourself. I don't much mind if Pendergast gets himself killed on this wild goose chase. But if anything happens to you, I'll be very angry. And you know how ugly that can get."
9
THE ROLLS, PROCTOR AGAIN AT THE WHEEL, hummed along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway south of the Brooklyn Bridge. D'Agosta watched a pair of tugboats pushing a giant barge heaped with cubed cars up the East River, leaving a frothy wake behind. It had all happened so fast, he still wasn't quite able to wrap his head around it. They were heading for JFK, but first--Pendergast explained--they would have to make a brief, but necessary, detour.
"Vincent," said Pendergast, sitting across from him, "we must prepare ourselves for a deterioration. They tell me Great-Aunt Cornelia has been poorly of late."
D'Agosta shifted in his seat. "I'm not sure I get why it's so important to see her."
"It's just possible she can shed some light on the situation. Helen was a great favorite of hers. Also, I wish to consult her on a few points regarding some family history that may--I fear--have bearing on the murder."
D'Agosta grunted. He didn't care much about Great-Aunt Cornelia--in fact he couldn't stand the murderous old witch--and his few visits to the Mount Mercy Hospital for the Criminally Insane had not exactly been pleasant. But it was always better, when working with Pendergast, to go with the flow.
Exiting the expressway, they worked their way through various side streets and eventually crossed a narrow bridge over to Little Governor's Island, the road meandering through marshland and meadows, hung with morning mists that drifted among the cattails. A colonnade of old oaks appeared on either side of the road, once part of the magnificent approach to a grand estate, the trees now reduced to a series of dead claws held against the sky.
Proctor stopped at a guardhouse, and the uniformed man stepped out. "Why, Mr. Pendergast, that was quick." He waved them through without the usual formalities of signing them in.
"What'd he mean by that?" D'Agosta asked, looking over his shoulder at the guard.
"I have no idea."
Proctor parked in the small lot and they got out. Passing through the front door, D'Agosta was mildly surprised to see the attendant missing from the ornate reception desk, with some evidence of hurry and confusion. As they cast about for someone to speak with, a rattling gurney approached down the marble transverse hall, carrying a body draped in a black sheet, being wheeled by two burly attendants. D'Agosta could see an ambulance pulling into the porte cochere, with no siren or flashing lights to indicate any hurry.
"Good morning, Mr. Pendergast!" Dr. Ostrom, Great-Aunt Cornelia's attending physician, appeared in the foyer and hastened over, his hand extended, a look of surprise and consternation blooming on his face. "This is... well, I was just about to telephone you. Please come with me."
They followed the doctor down the once-elegant hallway, somewhat reduced now to institutional austerity. "I have some unfortunate news," he said as they walked along. "Your great-aunt passed away not thirty minutes ago."
Pendergast stopped. He let out a slow breath, and his shoulders slumped visibly. D'Agosta realized with a shudder that the body they had seen was probably hers.
"Natural causes?" Pendergast asked in a low monotone.
"More or less. The fact is, she'd been increasingly anxious and delusional these past few days."
Pendergast seemed to consider this a moment. "Any delusions in particular?"
"Nothing worth repeating, the usual family themes."
"Nevertheless, I should like to hear about them."
Ostrom seemed reluctant to proceed. "She believed... believed that a fellow named, ah, Ambergris was coming to Mount Mercy to exact revenge on her for an atrocity she claims to have committed years ago."
Once again, they resumed walking down the corridor. "Did she go into any detail on this atrocity?" Pendergast asked.
"It was all quite fantastical. Something about punishing some child for swearing by..." A second hesitation. "Well, by splitting his tongue with a razor."
An ambiguous head movement from Pendergast. D'Agosta felt his own tongue curling at the thought.
"At any rate," Ostrom continued, "she became violent--more violent, that is, than usual--and had to be completely restrained. And medicated. At the time of this alleged appointment with Ambergris, she had a series of seizures and passed away abruptly. Ah, here we are."
He entered a small room, windowless and sparely furnished with antique, unframed paintings and various soft knickknacks--nothing, D'Agosta noted, that could be fashioned into a weapon or cause harm. Even the stretchers had been removed from the canvases, the paintings hung on the wall with kite string. As D'Agosta looked around at the bed, the table, silk flowers in a basket, a peculiar butterfly-shaped stain on the wall, it all seemed so forlorn. He suddenly felt sorry for the homicidal old lady.
"There is the question of the disposition of the personal effects," the doctor went on. "I understand these paintings are quite valuable."
"They are," said Pendergast. "Send them over to the nineteenth-century painting department at Christie's for public auction, and consider the proceeds a donation to your good work."
"That's very generous of you, Mr. Pendergast. Would you care to order an autopsy? When a patient dies in custody, you have the legal right--"
Pendergast interrupted him with a brusque wave of his hand. "That won't be necessary."
"And the funeral arrangements--?"
"There will be no funeral. The family attorney, Mr. Ogilby, will be in touch with you about disposition of the remains."
"Very well."
Pendergast looked around the room for a moment, as if committing its details to memory. Then he turned to D'Agosta. His expression was neutral, but his eyes spoke of sorrow, even desolation.
"Vincent," he said. "We have a plane to catch."
10
Zambia
THE SMILING, GAP-TOOTHED MAN AT THE DIRT airstrip had called the vehicle a Land Rover. That description, D'Agosta thought as he hung on for dear life, was more than charitable. Whatever it might have been, now it barely deserved to be called an automobile. It had no windows, no roof, no radio, and no seat belts. The hood was fixed to the grille by a tangle of baling wire. He could see the dirt road below through giant rust holes in the chassis.
At the wheel, Pendergast--attired in khaki shirt and pants, and wearing a Tilley safari hat--swerved around a massive pothole in the road, only to hit a smaller one. D'Agosta rose several inches out of his seat at the impact. He gritted his teeth and took a fresh hold on the roll bar. This is frigging awful, he thought. He was hot as hell, and there was dust in his ears, eyes, nose, hair, and crevices he hadn't even known he had. He contemplated asking Pendergast to slow down, then thought better of it. The closer they came to the site of Helen Pendergast's death, the grimmer Pendergast became.
Pendergast slowed just slightly as they came to a village--yet another sorry-looking collection of huts built of sticks and dried mud, baking in the noonday sun. There was no electricity, and a single communal well stood in the middle of the lone crossroads. Pigs, chickens, and children roamed aimlessly.
"And I thought the South Bronx was bad," D'Agosta muttered more to himself than to Pendergast.
"Kingazu Camp is ten miles ahead," was Pendergast's reply as he stepped on the accelerator.
They hit another pothole and D'Agosta was again thrown in the air, coming down hard on his tailbone. Both arms were smarting from the inoculations, and his head hurt from the sun and vibration. About the only painless thing he'd endured in the past thirty-six hours was the phone call to his boss, Glen Singleton. The captain had approved his leave of absence with barely a question. It was almost as if he was relieved to see D'Agosta go.
Half an hour brought them to Kingazu Camp. As Pendergast maneuvered the vehicle into a makeshift lot beneath a grove of sausage trees, D'Agosta took in the trim lines of the photographic safari camp: the immaculate reed-and-thatch huts, the large canvas structures labeled DINING TENT and BAR, the wooden walkways linking each building to the next, the linen pavilions that sheltered comfortable deck chairs on which a dozen fat and happy tourists dozed, cameras dangling from their necks. Strings of tiny lights were strung along the rooflines. A generator purred off in the bush. Everything was done up in bright--almost gaudy--colors.
"This is straight out of Disney," D'Agosta said, getting out of the vehicle.
"A great deal has changed in twelve years," Pendergast replied, his voice flat.
They stood there a moment, motionless, without speaking, in the shade of the sausage trees. D'Agosta took in the fragrant smell of burning wood, the tang of crushed grass, and--more faintly--an earthy, animal muskiness he couldn't identify. The bagpipe drone of insects mingled with other sounds: the whine of the generators, the cooing of doves, the restless mutterings of the nearby Luangwa River. D'Agosta shot a covert glance at Pendergast: the agent was stooped forward, as if he bore a terrific weight; his eyes glittered with a haunted fire, and--as he took in the scene with what seemed like a strange mixture of hunger and dread--a single muscle in his cheek twitched erratically. He must have realized he was being scrutinized, because the FBI agent composed himself, straightening up and smoothing his safari vest. But the strange glitter did not leave his eyes.
"Follow me," he said.
Pendergast led the way past the pavilions and dining tent to a smaller structure, set apart from the rest of the camp in a copse of trees near the banks of the Luangwa. A single elephant was standing, knee-deep, in the mud of the river. As D'Agosta watched, the animal scooped up a trunkful of water, sprayed it over its back, then lifted its wrinkled head and emitted a harsh trumpeting sound that momentarily drowned out the hum of insects.
The small structure was clearly the administrative building for the camp. It consisted of an outer office, currently empty, and an inner office occupied by a lone man, sitting behind a desk and writing industriously in a notebook. He was about fifty, thin and wiry, his fair hair bleached by the sun and his arms deeply tanned.
The man looked up as he heard them approach. "Yes, what can I..." The words died in his throat as he caught sight of Pendergast. Clearly he'd been expecting to see one of the guests.
"Who are you?" he asked, rising.
"My name is Underhill," Pendergast said. "And this is my friend, Vincent D'Agosta."
The man looked at them in turn. "What can I do for you?" It seemed to D'Agosta that this was a man who didn't get many unexpected visitors.
"May I ask your name?" Pendergast asked.
"Rathe."
"My friend and I were on safari here, about twelve years ago. We happened to be back in Zambia again--on our way to Mgandi hunting camp--and thought we'd drop in." He smiled coldly.
Rathe glanced out the window, in the general direction of the makeshift parking area. "Mgandi, you say?"
Pendergast nodded.
The man grunted and extended a hand. "Sorry. All the goings-on these days, the rebel incursions and whatnot, a fellow gets a little jumpy."
"Understandable."
Rathe gestured at two well-worn wooden chairs before the desk. "Please, sit down. Can I get you anything?"
"A beer would be nice," D'Agosta said instantly.
"Of course. Just a minute." The man disappeared, returning a minute later with two bottles of Mosi beer. D'Agosta accepted his bottle, mumbling his thanks and taking a grateful swig.
"Are you the camp concessionaire?" Pendergast asked as the man took a seat behind his desk.
Rathe shook his head. "I'm the administrator. The chap you want is Fortnum. He's still out with this morning's group."
"Fortnum. I see." Pendergast glanced around the office. "I suppose there have been a number of personnel changes since we were here. The entire camp looks rather different."
Rathe gave a mirthless smile. "We have to keep up with the competition. Today our clients demand comfort in addition to scenery."
"Of course. Still, it's a shame, isn't it, Vincent? We'd been hoping to see a few familiar faces."
D'Agosta nodded. It had taken five swallows just to get the dust out of his throat.
Pendergast gave the impression of thinking a moment. "What about Alistair Woking? Is he still the district commissioner?"
Rathe shook his head again. "He died quite some time ago. Let's see, it must have been almost ten years back."
"Really? What happened?"
"Hunting accident," the administrator replied. "They were culling elephants, and Woking went along to observe. Shot in the back by mistake. Bloody balls-up."
"How regrettable," Pendergast said. "And the current camp concessionaire is named Fortnum, you say? When we were on safari here, it was Wisley. Gordon Wisley."
"He's still around," Rathe said. "Retired the year before last. They say he lives like a king on that hunting concession of his near Victoria Falls. Boys waiting on him hand and foot."
Pendergast turned to D'Agosta. "Vincent, do you recall the name of our gun bearer?"
D'Agosta, quite truthfully, said that he did not.
"Wait, I recall it now. Wilson Nyala. Any chance of our saying hello to him, Mr. Rathe?"
"Wilson died in the spring. Dengue fever." Rathe frowned. "Just a moment. Did you say gun bearer?"
"Pity." Pendergast shifted in his seat. "What about our tracker? Jason Mfuni."
"Never heard of him. But then, that kind of help comes and goes so quickly. Now, listen, what's all this about a gun bearer? We only handle photographic expeditions here at Kingazu."
"As I said--it was a memorable safari." And hearing Pendergast say "memorable," D'Agosta felt a chill despite the heat.
Rathe did not reply. He was still frowning.
"Thank you for your hospitality." Pendergast rose, and D'Agosta did the same. "Wisley's hunting concession is near Victoria Falls, you say? Does it have a name?"
"Ulani Stream." Rathe stood as well. His initial suspicion seemed to have returned.
"Would you mind if we take a brief look around?"
"If you wish," Rathe replied. "Don't disturb the guests."
Outside the administration building, Pendergast stopped, glancing left and right, as if orienting himself. He hesitated briefly. And then, without a word, he struck out along a well-beaten path that led away from the camp. D'Agosta hurried to catch up.
The sun beat down mercilessly, and the drone of insects swelled. On one side of the footpath was a dense stand of brush and trees; on the other, the Luangwa River. D'Agosta felt the unfamiliar khaki shirt clinging damply to his back and shoulders. "Where are we going?" he panted.
"Into the long grass. Where..." He didn't finish the sentence.
D'Agosta swallowed. "Okay, sure. Lead the way."
Pendergast stopped suddenly and turned. An expression had come over his features D'Agosta had never seen before--a look of sorrow, regret, and almost unfathomable weariness. He cleared his throat, then spoke in a low tone. "I'm very sorry, Vincent, but this is something I must do alone."
D'Agosta took a deep breath, relieved. "I understand."
Pendergast turned, fixed him briefly with his pale eyes. He nodded once. Then he turned back and walked away, stiff-legged, determined, off the path and into the bush, vanishing almost immediately into the woven shade beneath the trees.
11
EVERYONE, IT SEEMED, KNEW WHERE THE WISLEY "farmstead" was. It lay at the end of a well-maintained dirt track on a gently sloping hill in the forests northwest of Victoria Falls. In fact--as Pendergast paused the decrepit vehicle just before the final bend in the road--D'Agosta thought he could hear the falls: a low, distant roar that was more sensation than sound.
He glanced at Pendergast. The drive from Kingazu Camp had taken hours, and in all that time the agent had spoken maybe half a dozen words. D'Agosta had wanted to ask what, if anything, he'd learned in his investigation in the long grass, but this was clearly not the time. When he was ready to talk about it, he would.
Pendergast eased the vehicle around the bend, and the house came into view: a lovely old colonial, painted white, with four squat columns and a wraparound porch. The formal lines were softened by beautifully tended shrubs: azalea, boxwood, bougainvillea. The entire plot--maybe five or six acres--appeared to have been cut wholesale out of the surrounding jungle. A lawn of emerald green swept down toward them, punctuated by at least half a dozen flower beds filled with roses of every imaginable shade. Except for the almost fluorescent brilliance of the flowers, the tidy estate wouldn't have looked out of place in Greenwich or Scarsdale. D'Agosta thought he saw figures on the porch, but from this distance he could not make them out.
"Looks like old Wisley has done all right for himself," he muttered.
Pendergast nodded, his pale eyes focused on the house.
"That guy, Rathe, mentioned Wisley's boys," D'Agosta went on. "What about the wife? You suppose he's divorced?"
Pendergast gave a wintry smile. "I believe we'll find Rathe meant something else entirely."
He drove slowly up the path to a turnaround in front of the house, where he stopped the vehicle and killed the engine. D'Agosta glanced up at the porch. A heavyset man about sixty years old was seated in an immense wicker chair, his feet propped up on a wooden stool. He wore a white linen suit that made his fleshy face look even more florid than it was. A thin circle of red hair, like a monk's tonsure, crowned his head. The man took a sip of a tall icy drink, then set the glass down hard on a table, next to a half-full pitcher of the same beverage. His movements had the flaccid generosity of a drunk's. Standing on either side of him were middle-aged Africans, gaunt looking, in faded madras shirts. One had a bar towel draped over his forearm; the other held a fan attached to a long handle, which he was waving slowly over the wicker chair.
"That's Wisley?" D'Agosta asked.
Pendergast nodded slowly. "He has not aged well."
"And the other two--those are his 'boys'?"
Pendergast nodded again. "It would seem this place has yet to enter the twentieth century--let alone the twenty-first."
And then--slowly, with great deliberation--he eased out of the vehicle, turned to face the house, and raised himself to his full height.
On the porch, Wisley blinked once, twice. He glanced from D'Agosta to Pendergast, opening his mouth to speak. But his expression froze as he stared at the FBI agent. Blankness gave way to horrified recognition. With a curse, the man abruptly struggled out of the chair and rose to his feet, knocking over the glassware in the process. Grabbing an elephant gun that had been propped against the wooden siding, he pulled open a screen door and lurched into the house.
"Can't get much guiltier than that," D'Agosta said. "I don't--oh, shit."
The two attendants had dropped out of sight below the porch railing. A gunshot boomed from the porch and a spout of dirt erupted behind them.
They threw themselves behind the car. "What the fuck?" D'Agosta said, scrambling to pull his Glock.
"Stay put and down." Pendergast leapt up and ran.
"Hey!"
Another report, and a bullet smacked the side of the jeep with a whang! sending up a cloud of shredded upholstery stuffing. D'Agosta peered around the tire up at the house, gun in hand. Where the hell had Pendergast gone?
He ducked back and winced as he heard a third shot ricochet off the steel frame of the jeep. Christ, he couldn't just sit here like a target at a shooting gallery. He waited until a fourth shot sailed over his head, then raised his head above the vehicle's fender, aiming his weapon as the shooter ducked behind the railing. He was about to pull the trigger when he saw Pendergast emerge from the shrubbery below the porch. With remarkable speed he vaulted the railing, felled the African shooter with a savage chop to the neck, and pointed his .45 at the other attendant. The man slowly raised his hands.
"You can come up now, Vincent," Pendergast said as he retrieved the gun that lay beside the groaning form.
They found Wisley in the fruit cellar. As they closed in on him, he fired the elephant gun, but his aim was off--through drink or fear--and the kick sent him sprawling. Before he could fire again Pendergast had darted forward, pinned the rifle with his foot, and subdued Wisley with two swift, savage blows to the face. The second blow broke Wisley's nose, and bright blood fountained over the man's starched white shirt. Reaching into his own breast pocket and plucking out a handkerchief, Pendergast handed it to him. Then, seizing Wisley by the upper arm, the FBI agent propelled him out of the fruit cellar, up the basement stairs, and out the front door to the porch, where he dropped him back into the wicker chair.
The two attendants were still standing there, as if dumbstruck. D'Agosta waved his weapon at them. "Walk down the road a hundred yards," he said. "Stay where we can see you, hands up in the air."
Pendergast tucked his Les Baer into his waistband and stood before Wisley. "Thank you for the warm welcome," he said.
Wisley pressed the handkerchief to his nose. "I must've mistaken you for someone else." He spoke in what sounded to D'Agosta like an Australian accent.
"On the contrary, I commend you on your prodigious recall. I think you have something to tell me."
"I've nothing to tell you, mate," Wisley replied.
Pendergast crossed his arms. "I will ask you only once: who arranged my wife's death?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," came the muffled response.
Pendergast looked down on the man, his lip twitching. "Let me explain something, Mr. Wisley," he said after a moment. "I can assure you, without the slightest possibility of error, that you will tell me what I want to know. The degree of mortification and inconvenience you will endure before telling me is a choice you are free to make."
"Sod off."
Pendergast contemplated the sweating, bleeding figure sprawled in the chair. Then, leaning forward, he pulled Wisley to his feet. "Vincent," he said over his shoulder, "escort Mr. Wisley to our vehicle."
Gun pressed into the bulging back, D'Agosta prodded Wisley toward the jeep and into the passenger seat, then climbed into the rear, brushing debris off the seat. Pendergast started the engine and drove back down the path, past the emerald grass and the Technicolor flowers, past the two attendants--who stood motionless as statues--and into the jungle.
"Where are you taking me?" Wisley demanded as they rounded the bend and the house disappeared from view.
"I don't know," Pendergast replied.
"What do you mean, you don't know?" Wisley's voice sounded a little less assured now.
"We're going on safari."
They drove on, without hurry, for fifteen minutes. The tall grass gave way to savanna, and a wide, chocolate-brown river that looked too lazy even to flow. D'Agosta saw two hippos playing by the riverbank, and a vast flock of stork-like birds with thin yellow legs and immense wingspans, rising like a white cloud from the water. The sun had begun to descend toward the horizon, and the fierce heat of midday had abated.
Pendergast took his foot off the accelerator and let the vehicle coast to a stop on the grassy shoulder. "This looks like a good spot," he said.
D'Agosta glanced around in confusion. The vista here seemed little different from the landscape they'd been traveling through for the last five miles.
Then he froze. About a quarter mile off, away from the river, he made out a pride of lions, gnawing at a skeleton. Their sandy-colored fur had made them difficult to see at first against the low grassland.
Wisley was sitting rigid in the front seat, staring intently. He'd noticed them right away.
"Get out of the car, please, Mr. Wisley," Pendergast said mildly.
Wisley did not move.
D'Agosta placed his gun at the base of Wisley's skull. "Move."
Stiffly, slowly, Wisley exited the vehicle.
D'Agosta climbed out of the backseat. He felt hugely reluctant to even stop the car this close to half a dozen lions, let alone get out. Lions were to be looked at from the safety of the Bronx Zoo, with at least two layers of tall strong steel fencing in between.
"Looks like an old kill, doesn't it?" Pendergast said, motioning with his gun at the pride. "I imagine they're hungry."
"Lions aren't man-eaters," Wisley said, handkerchief pressed to his nose. "It's very rare." But the bluster had gone from his voice.
"They don't need to eat you, Mr. Wisley," Pendergast said. "That would merely be icing on the cake, so to speak. If they think you're after their kill, they will attack. But then, you know all about lions, don't you?"
Wisley said nothing. He was staring at the lions.
Pendergast reached over and plucked the handkerchief away. Immediately fresh blood began streaming down Wisley's face. "That should attract some interest, at any rate."
Wisley shot him a hunted glance.
"Walk toward them, if you please," Pendergast said.
"You're crazy," Wisley replied, voice rising.
"No. I'm the one with the gun." Pendergast aimed it at Wisley. "Walk."
For a moment, Wisley remained motionless. Then--very slowly--he put one foot before the other and began moving toward the lions. Pendergast followed close behind, gun at the ready. D'Agosta followed, staying several paces back. He was inclined to agree with Wisley--this was insane. The pride was watching their approach intently.
After forty yards of snail-like progress, Wisley stopped again.
"Keep going, Mr. Wisley," Pendergast called.
"I can't."
"I'll shoot you if you don't."
Wisley's mouth worked frantically. "That handgun of yours will barely stop a single lion, let alone an entire pride."
"I'm aware of that."
"If they kill me, they'll kill you, too."
"I'm aware of that, as well." Pendergast turned. "Vincent, stay back, will you?" He fished in his pocket, withdrew the keys to the jeep, tossed them to D'Agosta. "Get to a safe distance if things go badly."
"Are you bloody daft?" Wisley said, his voice shrill. "Didn't you hear me? You'll die, too!"
"Mr. Wisley, be a good fellow and walk forward. I do hate having to repeat myself."
Still Wisley did not move.
"Indeed, I won't ask again. In five seconds I will put a bullet through your left elbow. You'll still be able to walk--and the shot will no doubt arouse the lions."
Wisley took a step, stopped again. Then he took another step. One of the lions--a big male, with a wild tawny mane--rose lazily to his feet. He looked toward them, licking bloody chops. D'Agosta, hanging back, felt his stomach churn.
"All right!" Wisley said. "All right, I'll tell you!"
"I'm all ears," Pendergast said.
Wisley was shaking violently. "Let's get back to the car!"
"Right here is fine with me. Better speak fast."
"It was a, it was a setup."
"Details, if you please."
"I don't know the details. Woking was the contact."
Now two of the lionesses had risen, as well.
"Please, please," Wisley begged, voice breaking. "For God's sake, can't we talk in the jeep?"
Pendergast seemed to consider this a moment. Then he nodded.
They returned to the vehicle at a rather brisker pace than they'd left it. As they climbed in and D'Agosta passed Pendergast the keys, he noticed the male lion moving toward them at a walk. Pendergast cranked the engine. The walk became a lope. The engine finally caught; Pendergast threw it into gear and slewed around just as the lion caught up, roaring and raking the side of the vehicle as it lurched past. D'Agosta glanced over his shoulder, heart hammering in his throat. The lion slowly dwindled behind them, finally disappearing.
They drove ten minutes in silence. Then Pendergast pulled over again, got out, and motioned for Wisley to do the same. D'Agosta followed suit, and they walked a short distance from the car.
Pendergast waved his Les Baer at Wisley. "On your knees."
Wisley complied.
Pendergast handed him the bloody handkerchief. "All right. Tell me the rest."
Wisley was still shaking violently. "I, I don't know much else. There were two men. One was American, the other European. German, I think. They... they supplied the man-eating lion. Supposedly trained. They were well funded."
"How did you know their nationalities?"
"I heard them. Behind the dining tent, talking to Woking. The night before the tourist was killed."
"What did they look like?"
"It was night. I couldn't see."
Pendergast paused. "What did Woking do, exactly?"
"He set up the death of the tourist. He knew where the lion was waiting, he steered the tourist in that direction. Told him a warthog, a photo-op, was there." Wisley swallowed. "He... he arranged for Nyala to load your wife's gun with blanks."
"So Nyala was in on it, too?"
Wisley nodded.
"What about Mfuni? The tracker?"
"Everyone was in on it."
"These men you mention--you said they were well funded. How do you know?"
"They paid very well. Woking got fifty thousand to carry out the plan. I... I got twenty thousand for the use of the camp and to look the other way."
"The lion was trained?"
"That's what someone said."
"How?"
"I don't know how. I only know it was trained to kill on command--though anybody who thinks that can be done reliably is crazy."
"Are you sure there were only two men?"
"I only heard two voices."
Pendergast's face set in a hard line. Once again, D'Agosta watched the FBI agent bring himself under control by the sheer force of his will. "Is there anything else?"
"No. Nothing. That's all, I swear. We never spoke of it again."
"Very well." And then--with sudden, frightening speed--Pendergast grabbed Wisley by the hair, placed his gun against the man's temple.
"No!" D'Agosta cried, placing a restraining hand on Pendergast's arm.
Pendergast turned to look at him and D'Agosta was almost physically knocked back by the intensity of the agent's gaze.
"Not a good idea to kill informants," D'Agosta said, modulating his voice carefully, making it as casual as possible. "Maybe he isn't done talking. Maybe the gin and tonics will kill him for us, save you the trouble. Don't worry--the fat fuck isn't going anywhere."
Pendergast hesitated, gun still pressed to Wisley's temple. Then, slowly, he released his grip on Wisley's thin tonsure of reddish hair. The ex-concessionaire sank to the ground and D'Agosta noted, with disgust, that he had wet himself.
Without speaking, Pendergast slipped back into the vehicle. D'Agosta climbed in beside him. They pulled back onto the road and headed for Lusaka without a backward glance.
It was half an hour before D'Agosta spoke. "So," he said. "What's next?"
"The past," Pendergast replied, not taking his eyes from the road. "The past is what's next."
12
Savannah, Georgia
WHITFIELD SQUARE DOZED PLACIDLY IN THE failing light of a Monday evening. Streetlights came up, throwing the palmettos and the Spanish moss hanging from gnarled oak limbs into gauzy relief. After the cauldron-like heat of Central Africa, D'Agosta found the humid Georgia air almost a relief.
He followed Pendergast across the manicured carpet of grass. In the center of the square stood a large cupola, surrounded by flowers. A wedding party stood beneath its scalloped roof, obediently following the instructions of a photographer. Elsewhere, people strolled slowly by or sat on black-painted benches, chatting or reading. Everything seemed just a little soft and out of focus, and D'Agosta shook his head. Following the mad dash from New York to Zambia to this center of southern gentility, he felt numb.
Pendergast stopped, pointing across Habersham Street at a large gingerbread Victorian house, white and immaculate and very much like its neighbors. As they headed over, Pendergast said, "Keep in mind, Vincent--he doesn't yet know."
"Got it."
They crossed the street and mounted the wooden steps. Pendergast pressed the doorbell. After about ten seconds, the overhead light came on and the door was opened by a man in his mid-forties. D'Agosta looked at him curiously. He was tall and strikingly handsome, with high cheekbones, dark eyes, and a thick head of brown hair. He was as tanned as Pendergast was pale. A folded magazine was in one hand. D'Agosta glanced at the open page: the footer read Journal of American Neurosurgery.
The sun, dipping behind the houses on the far side of the square, was in the man's keen eyes, and he couldn't see them well. "Yes?" he asked. "May I help you?"
"Judson Esterhazy," Pendergast said, extending his hand.
Esterhazy started, and a look of surprise and delight blossomed over his features. "Aloysius?" he said. "My God! Come in."
Esterhazy led the way through a front hall, down a narrow, book-lined corridor, and into a cozy den. Cozy wasn't a word D'Agosta used very often, but he could think of no other way to describe the space. Warm yellow light imparted a mellow sheen to the antique mahogany furniture: chiffonier, roll-top desk, gun case, still more bookshelves. Rich Persian rugs covered the floor. Two large diplomas--a medical degree, and a PhD--hung on one wall. The furniture was overstuffed and looked exceptionally comfortable. Antiques from all over the world--African sculpture, Asian jades--adorned every horizontal surface. Two windows, framed by delicate curtains, looked out over the square. It was a room stuffed full of objects that somehow managed not to appear cluttered--the den of a well-educated, well-traveled man of taste.
Pendergast turned and introduced D'Agosta to Esterhazy. The man couldn't hide his surprise upon learning D'Agosta was a cop; nevertheless he smiled and shook his hand warmly.
"This is an unexpected pleasure," he said. "Would you care for anything? Tea, beer, bourbon?"
"Bourbon, please, Judson," said Pendergast.
"How'd you like it?"
"Neat."
Esterhazy turned to D'Agosta. "And you, Lieutenant?"
"A beer would be great, thanks."
"Of course." Still smiling, Esterhazy stepped over to a dry sink in the corner and deftly poured out a measure of bourbon. Then, excusing himself, he went to the kitchen to retrieve the beer.
"Good Lord, Aloysius," he said as he returned, "how long has it been--nine years?"
"Ten."
"Ten years. When we took that hunting trip to Kilchurn Lodge."
D'Agosta sipped the beer and glanced around as the two chatted. Earlier, Pendergast had filled him in on Esterhazy: a neurosurgeon and medical researcher, who--having risen to the top of his profession--now devoted part of his time to pro bono work, both at local hospitals and for Doctors With Wings, the charity that flew doctors into Third World disaster areas and where his sister had worked. He was a committed sportsman and, according to Pendergast, an even better shot than his sister had been. D'Agosta, glancing around at the various hunting trophies displayed on the walls, decided Pendergast hadn't been exaggerating. A doctor who was also an avid hunter: interesting combination.
"So tell me," Esterhazy said in his deep, sonorous voice. "What brings you to the Low Country? Are you on a case? Please, give me all the sordid details." He chuckled.
Pendergast took a sip of his bourbon. He hesitated just a moment. "Judson, I'm afraid there's no easy way to say this. I'm here about Helen."
The chuckle died in Esterhazy's throat. A look of confusion gathered on the patrician features. "Helen? What about Helen?"
Pendergast took another, deeper sip. "I've learned her death was no accident."
For a minute, Esterhazy stood, frozen, staring at Pendergast. "What on earth do you mean?"
"I mean, your sister was murdered."
Esterhazy rose, a stricken look on his face. He turned his back on them and walked--slowly, as in a dream--to a bookcase in the far wall. He picked up an object apparently at random, turned it over in his hand, put it down again. And then--after a long moment--he turned back. Walking to the dry sink, he reached for a tumbler and, with fumbling fingers, poured himself a stiff drink. Then he took a seat across from them.
"Knowing you, Aloysius, I don't suppose I need ask if you're sure about this," he said, very quietly.
"No, you don't."
Esterhazy's whole demeanor changed, his face becoming pale, his hands clenching and unclenching. "What are you--are we--going to do about it?"
"I--with Vincent's help--will find the person or persons ultimately responsible. And we will see that justice is served."
Esterhazy looked Pendergast in the face. "I want to be there. I want to be there when the man who murdered my little sister pays for what he did."
Pendergast did not answer.
The anger, the power of the man's emotions, were so intense they almost frightened D'Agosta. Esterhazy sank back in his chair, his dark eyes restless and glittering. "How did you find this out?"
Briefly, Pendergast sketched out the events of the last few days. Although shaken, Esterhazy nevertheless listened intently. When Pendergast finished, he rose and poured himself a fresh drink.
"I believed..." Pendergast paused. "I believe I knew Helen extremely well. And yet--for someone to have killed her, and taken such extraordinary pains and expense to disguise her death as an accident--it's clear there must be a part of her life I knew nothing about. Since we spent most of her last two years on earth together, I have to believe that, whatever it was, it lay farther back in her past. This is where I need your help."
Esterhazy passed a hand across his broad forehead, nodded.
"Do you have any idea, any, of a person who might have had a motive to kill her? Enemies? Professional rivals? Old lovers?"
Esterhazy was silent, his jaw working. "Helen was... wonderful. Kind. Charming. She had no enemies. Everyone loved her at MIT, and in her graduate work she was always scrupulous in sharing credit."
Pendergast nodded. "What about after her graduation? Any rivals at Doctors With Wings? Anyone passed over for a promotion in favor of her?"
"DWW didn't operate like that. Everyone worked together. No egos. She was much appreciated there." He swallowed painfully. "Even loved."
Pendergast sat back in his chair. "In the months before her death, she took several short trips. Research, she told me, but she was vague about the details. In retrospect it seems a little odd--Doctors With Wings was more about education and treatment than it was about research. I now wish I had pressed her for more information. You're a doctor--do you know what she might have been up to, if anything?"
Esterhazy paused to think. Then he shook his head. "Sorry, Aloysius. She told me nothing. She loved traveling to faraway places--as you know. And she was fascinated by medical research. Those twin loves were what led her to DWW in the first place."
"What about your family history?" D'Agosta asked. "Any instances of familial conflict, childhood grievances, that sort of thing?"
"Everybody loved Helen," Esterhazy said. "I used to be a little jealous of her popularity. And, no, there have been no family problems to speak of. Both our parents died more than fifteen years ago. I'm the only Esterhazy left." He hesitated.
"Yes?" Pendergast leaned forward.
"Well, I'm sure there's nothing to it, but long before she met you she had... an unhappy love affair. With a real bounder."
"Go on."
"It was her first year in graduate school, seems to me. She brought the fellow down from MIT for the weekend. Blond, clean-cut, blue eyes, tall and athletic, always seemed to go about in tennis whites and crew sweaters, came from a rich old WASP family, grew up in Manhattan with a summer cottage on Fishers Island, talked about going into investment banking--you know the type."
"Why was it unhappy?"
"Turned out he had some kind of sexual problem. Helen was vague about it, some kind of perverse behavior or cruelty in that area."
"And?"
"She dumped him. He annoyed her for a while, phone calls, letters. I don't think it reached the level of stalking. And then it seemed to fade away." He waved his hand. "That was six years before you met and nine years before her death. I can't see there being anything in it."
"And the name?"
Esterhazy clutched his forehead in his hands. "Adam... First name was Adam. For the life of me I can't remember his last name--if I ever knew it."
A long silence. "Anything else?"
Esterhazy shook his head. "It seems inconceivable to me anyone would want to hurt Helen."
There was a brief silence. Then Pendergast nodded to a framed print on one of the walls: a faded picture of a snowy owl sitting in a tree at night. "That's an Audubon, isn't it?"
"Yes. A reproduction, I'm afraid." Esterhazy glanced at it. "Odd you should mention it."
"Why?"
"It used to hang in Helen's bedroom when we were children. She told me how, when she was sick, she would stare at it for hours on end. She was fascinated by Audubon. But of course you know all that," he concluded briskly. "I kept it because it reminded me of her."
D'Agosta noticed something very close to a look of surprise on the FBI agent's face, quickly concealed.
There was a brief silence before Pendergast spoke again. "Is there anything you can add about Helen's life in the years immediately before we met?"
"She was very busy with her work. There was also a period where she was heavily into rock climbing. Spent almost every weekend in the Gunks."
"The Gunks?"
"The Shawangunk Mountains. She was living in New York then, for a time. She did a lot of traveling. Part of it was for Doctors With Wings, of course--Burundi, India, Ethiopia. But part of it was just for adventure. I still remember bumping into her one afternoon, it must have been--oh, fifteen, sixteen years ago. She was packing frantically, on her way to New Madrid, of all places."
"New Madrid?" Pendergast said.
"New Madrid, Missouri. She wouldn't tell me why she was going--said I'd just laugh. She could be a very private person in her own way. You must know that better than anyone, Aloysius."
D'Agosta stole another private glance at Pendergast. That would make two, he thought. He could not imagine anyone more private, more reluctant to share his thoughts, than Pendergast.
"I wish I could help you more. If I recall the last name of that old boyfriend, I'll let you know."
Pendergast stood up. "Thank you, Judson. It's most kind of you to see us like this. And I'm sorry you had to learn the truth this way. I'm afraid there--well, there simply wasn't time for me to break it in a gentler fashion."
"I understand."
The doctor saw them through the hallway and into the front passage. "Wait," he began, then hesitated, front door half open. For a moment the mask of stoic anger dropped, and D'Agosta saw the handsome face disfigured by a mixture of emotions--what? Raw fury? Anguish? Devastation? "You heard what I said earlier. I want to--I have to..."
"Judson," Pendergast said quickly, taking his hand. "You need to let me handle this. I understand the grief and rage you feel, but you need to let me handle this."
Judson frowned, gave his head a brief, savage shake.
"I know you," Pendergast went on, his voice gentle but firm. "I must warn you--don't take the law into your own hands. Please."
Esterhazy took a deep breath, then another, not replying. At last Pendergast gave a slight nod and stepped out into the evening.
After closing the door, Esterhazy stood in the darkened front hall, still breathing hard, for perhaps five minutes. When at last he had mastered his fearful anger and shock, he turned and walked quickly back into the den. Moving straight to the gun case, he unlocked it, dropping the key twice in his agitation. He moved his hands over the beautifully polished rifles, then selected one: a Holland & Holland Royal Deluxe .470 NE with a Leupold VX-III custom scope. He pulled it from the case, turned it with hands that trembled slightly, then put it back and carefully relocked the case.
Pendergast could preach all he wanted to about the rule of law, but the fact was it was time to take matters into his own hands. Because Judson Esterhazy had learned that the only way to do something right was to do it yourself.
13
New Orleans
PENDERGAST TURNED THE ROLLS-ROYCE INTO the private parking lot on Dauphine Street, harshly lit with sodium lamps. The attendant, a man with thick ears and heavy pouches below his eyes, lowered the gate behind them and handed Pendergast a ticket, which the agent tucked in the visor.
"In the back on the left, slot thirty-nine!" the man bawled in a heavy Delta accent. He examined the Rolls with bug eyes. "On second thought, take slot thirty-two--it's bigger. And we ain't responsible for damage. You might want to think of parking in LaSalle's on Toulouse, where they got a covered garage."
"Thank you, I prefer this one."
"Suit yourself."
Pendergast maneuvered the massive car through the tight lot and eased it into the designated space. They both got out. The lot was large, yet it felt claustrophobic, surrounded on all sides by a motley collection of old buildings. It was a mild winter night, and despite the extreme lateness of the hour, groups of young men and women, some carrying foaming beers in plastic glasses, could be seen stumbling along the sidewalks, calling out to one another, laughing and making noise. A muffled din wafted into the parking lot from the streets beyond, a mixture of shouts and cries, honking cars, and Dixieland jazz.
"A typical night in the French Quarter," said Pendergast, leaning against the car. "Bourbon is the next street over--nexus of the nation's public display of moral turpitude." He inhaled the night air, and a strange half smile seemed to spread over his pale features.
D'Agosta waited, but Pendergast didn't move. "Are we going?" he finally asked.
"In a moment, Vincent." Pendergast closed his eyes and slowly inhaled again, as if absorbing the spirit of the place. D'Agosta waited, reminding himself that Pendergast's odd mood shifts and strange ways were going to require patience--a lot of it. But the drive from Savannah had been long and exhausting--it seemed Pendergast kept another Rolls down here identical to the one in New York--and D'Agosta was famished. On top of that, he had been looking forward to a beer for some time, and seeing revelers going past with frosty brews was not improving his mood.
A minute passed, and D'Agosta cleared his throat. The eyes opened.
"Aren't we going to see your old digs?" D'Agosta asked. "Or at least what's left of them?"
"Indeed we are." Pendergast turned. "This is one of the oldest parts of Dauphine Street, right here, the very heart of the French Quarter--the real French Quarter."
D'Agosta grunted. He noticed the attendant, across the lot, watching them with a certain amount of suspicion.
Pendergast pointed. "That lovely Greek Revival town house, for example, was built by one of the most famous of the early New Orleans architects, James Gallier Senior."
"Seems they turned it into a Holiday Inn," said D'Agosta, eyeing the sign in front.
"And that magnificent house, there, is the Gardette-Le Pretre House. Built for a dentist who came here from Philadelphia when this was a Spanish city. A planter named Le Pretre bought it in 1839 for over twenty thousand dollars--an immense fortune at the time. The Le Pretres owned it until the '70s, but the family sadly declined... It is now, I believe, luxury apartments."
"Right," said D'Agosta. The attendant was now walking over, a frown on his face.
"And right across the street," said Pendergast, "is the old Creole cottage where John James Audubon stayed with his wife, Lucy Bakewell, for a time. It's now a curious little museum."
"Excuse me," the attendant said, his eyes narrowed to frog-like slits. "No loitering allowed."
"My apologies!" Pendergast reached into his suit and flipped out a fifty-dollar bill. "How careless of me not to offer you a gratuity. I commend you on your vigilance."
The man broke into a smile. "Well, I wasn't... but that's much appreciated, sir." He took the bill. "You take your time, no rush." Nodding and smiling, he headed back to his booth.
Pendergast still seemed in no hurry to move on. He loitered about, hands clasped behind his dark suit, gazing this way and that as if he were in a museum gallery, his expression a curious mixture of wistfulness, loss, and something harder to identify. D'Agosta tried to suppress his growing irritation. "Are we going to find your old house now?" he finally asked.
Pendergast turned to him and murmured, "But we have, my dear Vincent."
"Where?"
"Right here. This was Rochenoire."
D'Agosta swallowed and looked about the asphalt parking lot with a fresh eye. A stray breeze kicked up a piece of greasy trash, whirling it around and around. Somewhere, a cat howled.
"After the house was burned," said Pendergast, "the underground crypts were moved, the basement filled in, and the remains bulldozed. It was a vacant lot for years, until I leased it to the company that runs this parking lot."
"You still own this land?"
"The Pendergasts never sell real estate."
"Oh."
Pendergast turned. "Rochenoire was set well back from the street, formal gardens in front, originally a monastic retreat, a big stone structure with oriel windows, battlements, and a widow's walk. Gothic Revival, rather unusual for the street. My room was in the corner, on the second floor, up there." He pointed into space. "It looked over the Audubon cottage to the river, and the other window looked toward the Le Pretre house. Ah, the Le Pretres... I used to watch them for hours, the people going back and forth in the lit windows, listening to the histrionics."
"And you met Helen at the Audubon museum across the street?" D'Agosta hoped to steer the conversation back to the task at hand.
Pendergast nodded. "Some years ago I loaned them our double elephant folio for an exhibition, and I was invited to the opening. They were always keen to get their hands on our family copy, which my great-great-grandfather subscribed to directly from Audubon." Pendergast paused, his face spectral in the stark light of the parking lot. "When I entered the little museum, I immediately saw a young woman across the room, staring at me."
"Love at first sight?" D'Agosta asked.
The ghostly half smile returned. "It was as if the world suddenly vanished, no one else existed. She was utterly striking. Dressed in white. Her eyes were so blue they verged on indigo, flecked throughout with violet. Most unusual--in fact, in my experience, unique. She came straight over and introduced herself, taking my hand even before I could collect myself..." He hesitated. "There was never any coyness about Helen; she was the only person I could trust implicitly."
Pendergast's voice seemed to thicken and he fell silent. Then he roused himself. "Except perhaps for you, my dear Vincent."
D'Agosta was startled by this sudden praise thrown his way. "Thanks."
"What indulgent rubbish I've been spouting," said Pendergast briskly. "The answers lie in the past, but we mustn't wallow there ourselves. Even so, I think it was important for us--for both of us--to start from this place."
"Start," D'Agosta repeated. Then he turned. "Say, Pendergast..."
"Yes?"
"Speaking of the past, there's something I've been wondering. Why did they--whoever they were--go to all the trouble?"
"I'm not sure I follow you."
"Acquiring the trained lion. Setting up the death of the German photographer in order to lure you and Helen to the camp. Buying off all those people. That took a lot of time and money. It's an awfully elaborate plot. Why not just stage a kidnapping, or a car accident back here in New Orleans? I mean, that would have been a much easier way to..." His voice trailed off.
For a moment Pendergast didn't reply. Then he nodded slowly. "Quite. It's a very curious thought. But don't forget our friend Wisley said one of the conspirators he heard speak was German. And that tourist who the lion killed first was also German. Perhaps that first murder was more than just a diversion."
"I'd forgotten that," D'Agosta said.
"If so, the trouble and expense become more justifiable. But let's hold that thought for the time being, Vincent. I'm convinced our own first step must be to learn more--if we can--about Helen herself." He reached into his pocket and took out a folded paper, handing it to D'Agosta.
D'Agosta unfolded it. Written in Pendergast's elegant hand was an address:
214 Mechanic Street
Rockland, Maine
"What's this?" D'Agosta asked.
"The past, Vincent--the address where she grew up. That is your next task. My own... lies here."
14
Penumbra Plantation
WOULD YOU CARE FOR ANOTHER CUP OF TEA, sir?"
"No thank you, Maurice." Pendergast regarded the remains of an early dinner--succotash, field peas, and ham with redeye gravy--with as much complacency as he could muster. Outside the tall windows of the dining room, dusk was gathering among the hemlocks and cypresses, and somewhere in the shadows a mockingbird was singing a long and complex dirge.
Pendergast dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a white linen napkin, then rose from the table. "Now that I've eaten, I wonder if I couldn't see the letter that arrived for me this afternoon."
"Certainly, sir." Maurice stepped out of the dining room into the hall, returning shortly with a letter. It was much battered, and had been re-addressed more than once. Judging by the postmark, it had taken almost three weeks to ultimately reach him. Even if he hadn't recognized the elegant, old-fashioned handwriting, the Chinese stamps would have indicated the sender: Constance Greene, his ward, who was currently residing at a remote monastery in Tibet with her infant son. He slit the envelope with his knife, pulled out the single sheet of paper within, and read the note. Dear Aloysius,I do not know precisely what trouble you are in, but in dreams I see that you are--or soon will be--in great distress. I am very sorry. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.I am coming home soon. Try to rest easy, everything is under control. And what isn't, soon will be.Know that you are in my thoughts. You are in my prayers, as well--or would be, if I prayed.Constance
Pendergast re-read the letter, frowning.
"Is there something wrong, sir?" Maurice asked.
"I'm not sure." Pendergast seemed to consider the letter a moment longer. Then he put it aside and turned toward his factotum. "But in any case, Maurice, I was hoping you could join me in the library."
The elderly man paused in the act of clearing the table. "Sir?"
"I thought perhaps we could have a postprandial glass of sherry, reminisce about the old days. I find myself in a nostalgic frame of mind."
This was a most unusual invitation, and the look on Maurice's face implied as much. "Thank you, sir. Let me just finish clearing away here."
"Very good. I'll head down to the cellar and find us a nice moldy bottle."
The bottle was, in fact, more than nice: a Hidalgo Oloroso Viejo VORS. Pendergast took a sip from his glass, admiring the sherry's complexity: woody and fruity, with a finish that seemed to linger forever on the palate. Maurice sat on an ottoman across the old Kashan silk carpet, very erect and stiff in his butler's uniform, almost comically uncomfortable.
"Sherry to your liking?" Pendergast asked.
"It's very fine, sir," the butler replied.
"Then drink up, Maurice--it will help drive out the damp."
Maurice did as requested. "Would you like me to place another log on the fire?"
Pendergast shook his head, then looked around again. "Amazing, how being back here brings on such a flood of memories."
"I'm sure it must, sir."
Pendergast pointed at a large freestanding globe, set into a wooden framework. "For example, I recall having a violent argument with Nurse over whether Australia was a continent or not. She insisted it was only an island."
Maurice nodded.
"And the exquisite set of Wedgwood plates that used to sit on the top shelf of that bookcase." Pendergast indicated the spot with a nod. "I remember the day that my brother and I were reenacting the Roman assault on Silvium. The siege engine Diogenes built proved rather too effective. The very first volley landed directly on that shelf." Pendergast shook his head. "No cocoa for a month."
"I recall it only too clearly, sir," Maurice said, finishing his glass. The sherry seemed to be growing on him.
Quickly Pendergast made to refill their glasses. "No, no, I insist," he said when Maurice tried to demur.
Maurice nodded and murmured his thanks.
"This room was always the focal point of the house," Pendergast said. "This was where we held the party after I won top honors at Lusher. And Grandfather used to practice his speeches here--do you remember how we'd all sit around, acting as audience, cheering and whistling?"
"Like it was yesterday."
Pendergast took another sip. "And this was where we held the reception, after our wedding ceremony in the formal garden."
"Yes, sir." The sharp edge of reserve had dulled somewhat, and Maurice appeared to sit more naturally on the ottoman.
"Helen loved this room, too," Pendergast went on.
"Indeed she did."
"I remember how she'd often sit here in the evenings, working on her research or catching up on the technical journals."
A wistful, reflective smile crossed Maurice's face.
Pendergast examined his glass and the autumn-colored liquid within it. "We could spend hours here without speaking, simply enjoying each other's company." He paused and said, casually, "Did she ever speak to you, Maurice, of her life before she met me?"
Maurice drained his glass, set it aside with a delicate gesture. "No, she was a quiet one."
"What's your strongest memory of her?"
Maurice thought a moment. "Bringing her pots of rose hip tea."
Now it was Pendergast's turn to smile. "Yes, that was her favorite. It seemed she could never get enough. The library always smelled of rose hips." He sniffed the air. Now the room smelled only of dust, damp, and sherry. "I fear I was away from home rather more frequently than was good. I often wonder what Helen did for amusement in this drafty old house while I was out of town."
"She sometimes went on trips for her own work, sir. But she spent a lot of time right in here," Maurice said. "She used to miss you so."
"Indeed? She always put on such a brave face."
"I used to come across her in here all the time in your absences," Maurice said. "Looking at the birds."
Pendergast paused. "The birds?"
"You know, sir. Your brother's old favorite, back before... before the bad times started. The great book with all the bird prints in that drawer there." He nodded toward a drawer in the base of an old chestnut armoire.
Pendergast frowned. "The Audubon double elephant folio?"
"That's the one. I'd bring her tea and she wouldn't even notice I was here. She'd sit turning the pages for hours."
Pendergast put down his glass rather abruptly. "Did she ever talk to you about this interest in Audubon? Ask you questions, perhaps?"
"Now and then, sir. She was fascinated with great-great-grandfather's friendship with Audubon. It was nice to see her taking such an interest in the family."
"Grandfather Boethius?"
"That's the one."
"When was this, Maurice?" Pendergast asked after a moment.
"Oh, shortly after you were married, sir. She wanted to see his papers."
Pendergast allowed himself a contemplative sip. "Papers? Which ones?"
"The ones in there, in the drawer below the prints. She was always going through those old documents and diaries. Those, and the book."
"Did she ever say why?"
"I expect she admired those pictures. Those are some lovely birds, Mr. Pendergast." Maurice took another sip of his sherry. "Say--wasn't that where you first met her? At the Audubon Cottage on Dauphine Street?"
"Yes. At a show of Audubon prints. But she exhibited little interest in them at the time. She told me she'd only come for the free wine and cheese."
"You know women, sir. They like their little secrets."
"So it would seem," Pendergast replied, very quietly.
15
Rockland, Maine
UNDER ORDINARY CONDITIONS, THE SALTY DOG Tavern would have been just the kind of bar Vincent D'Agosta liked: honest, unassuming, working class, and cheap. But these were not ordinary conditions. He had flown or driven among four cities in as many days; he missed Laura Hayward; and he was tired, bone-tired. Maine in February was not exactly charming. The last thing he felt like doing at the moment was hoisting beers with a bunch of fishermen.
But he was becoming a little desperate. Rockland had turned out to be a dead end. The old Esterhazy house had changed hands numerous times since the family moved out twenty years ago. Of all the neighbors, only one old spinster seemed to remember the family--and she had shut the door in his face. Newspapers in the public library had no mention of the Esterhazys, and the public records office held nothing pertinent but tax rolls. So much for small-town gossip and nosiness.
And so D'Agosta found himself resorting to the Salty Dog Tavern, a waterfront dive where--he was informed--the oldest of the old salts hung out. It proved to be a shabby shingled building tucked between two warehouses on the landward end of the commercial fishing wharf. A squall was fast approaching, a few preliminary flakes of snow whirling in from the sea, the wind lashing up spume from the ocean and sending abandoned newspapers tumbling across the rocky strand. Why the hell am I here, anyway? he wondered. But he knew the reason--Pendergast had explained it himself. I'm afraid you'll have to go, he'd said. I'm too close to the subject. I lack the requisite investigative distance and objectivity.
Inside the bar it was dark, and the close air smelled of deep-fried fish and stale beer. As D'Agosta's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw that the bar's denizens--a bartender and four patrons in peacoats and sou'westers--had stopped talking and were staring at him. Clearly, this was an establishment that catered to regulars. At least it was warm, heat radiating from a woodstove in the middle of the room.
Taking a seat at the far end of the bar, he nodded to the bartender and asked for a Bud. He made himself inconspicuous, and the conversation gradually resumed. From it, he quickly learned that the four patrons were all fishermen; that the fishing was currently bad; that the fishing was, in fact, always bad.
He took in the bar as he sipped his beer. The decor was, unsurprisingly, early nautical: shark jaws, huge lobster claws, and photos of fishing boats covered the walls, and nets with colored glass balls hung from the ceiling. A heavy patina of age, smoke, and grime coated every surface.
He downed one beer, then a second, before deciding it was time to make his move. "Mike," he said--using the bartender's Christian name, which he had earlier gleaned from listening to the conversation--"let me buy a round for the house. Have one yourself, while you're at it."
Mike stared at him a moment, then with a gruff word of thanks he complied. There were nods and grunts from the patrons as the drinks were handed out.
D'Agosta took a big swig of his beer. It was important, he knew, to seem like a regular guy--and in the Salty Dog, that meant not being a piker when it came to drinking. He cleared his throat. "I was wondering," he said out loud, "if maybe some of you men could help me."
The stares returned, some curious, some suspicious. "Help you with what?" said a grizzled man the others had referred to as Hector.
"There's a family used to live around here. Name of Esterhazy. I'm trying to track them down."
"What's your name, mister?" asked a fisherman called Ned. He was about five feet tall, with a wind-and sun-wizened face and forearms thick as telephone poles.
"Martinelli."
"You a cop?" Ned asked, frowning.
D'Agosta shook his head. "Private investigator. It's about a bequest."
"Bequest?"
"Quite a lot of money. I've been hired by the trustees to locate any surviving Esterhazys. If I can't find them, I can't give them their inheritance, can I?"
The bar was silent a minute while the regulars digested this. More than one pair of eyes brightened at the talk of money.
"Mike, another round, please." D'Agosta took a generous swig from the foamy mug. "The trustees have also authorized a small honorarium for those who help locate any surviving family members."
D'Agosta watched as the fishermen glanced at one another, then back at him. "So," he said, "can anybody here tell me anything?"
"Aren't no Esterhazys in this town anymore," said Ned.
"Aren't no Esterhazys in this entire part of the world anymore," said Hector. "There wouldn't be any--not after what happened."
"What was that?" D'Agosta asked, trying not to show too much interest.
More glances among the fishermen. "I don't know a whole lot," said Hector. "But they sure left town in a big hurry."
"They kept a crazy aunt locked up in the attic," said the third fisherman. "Had to, after she began killing and eating the dogs in town. Neighbors said they could hear her up there at night, crying and banging on the door, demanding dog meat."
"Come on, now, Gary," said the bartender, with a laugh. "That was just the wife screaming. She was a real harpy. You've been watching too many late-night movies."
"What really happened," said Ned, "was the wife tried to poison the husband. Strychnine in his cream of wheat."
The bartender shook his head. "Have another beer, Ned. I heard the father lost his money in the stock market--that's why they blew town in a hurry, owed money all over."
"A nasty business," Hector said, draining his beer. "Very nasty."
"What kind of a family were they?" D'Agosta asked.
One or two of the fishermen looked longingly at the empty glasses they'd downed with frightening rapidity.
"Mike, set us up again, if you please," D'Agosta asked the bartender.
"I heard," said Ned as he accepted his glass, "that the father was a real bastard. That he beat his wife with an electrical cord. That's why she poisoned him."
The stories just seemed to get wilder and less likely; the one fact Pendergast had been able to pass on was that Helen's father had been a doctor.
"That's not what I heard," said the bartender. "It was the wife who was crazy. The whole family was afraid of her, tiptoed around for fear of setting her off. And the husband was away a lot. Always traveling. South America, I think."
"Any arrests? Police investigations?" D'Agosta already knew the answer: the Esterhazy police record was clean as a whistle. There were no records anywhere of brushes with the law or police responses to domestic trouble. "You mentioned family. There was a son and daughter, wasn't there?"
A brief silence. "The son was kind of strange," said Ned.
"Ned, the son was junior-class valedictorian," said Hector.
Class valedictorian, thought D'Agosta, at least that can be checked out. "And the daughter? What was she like?"
He was met with shrugs all around. He wondered if the high school would still have the records. "Anybody know where they might be now?"
Glances were exchanged. "I heard the son was down south somewhere," said Mike the bartender. "No idea what happened to the daughter."
"Esterhazy isn't a common name," offered Hector. "Ever think of trying the Internet?"
D'Agosta looked around at a sea of blank faces. He couldn't think of any other questions that wouldn't lead to another chorus of conflicting rumors and unhelpful advice. He also realized--with dismay--that he was slightly drunk.
He stood, holding the bar to steady himself. "What do I owe you?" he asked Mike.
"Thirty-two fifty," came the reply.
D'Agosta fished two twenties from his wallet and placed them on the bar. "Thank you all for your help," he said. "Have a good evening."
"Say, what about that honorarium?" asked Ned.
D'Agosta paused, then turned. "Right, the honorarium. Let me give you my cell number. Any of you think of something else--something specific, not just rumors--you give me a call. If it leads to something, you might just get lucky." He pulled a napkin toward him and wrote down his number.
The fishermen nodded at him; Hector raised a hand in farewell.
D'Agosta clutched his coat up around his collar and staggered out of the bar into the stinging blizzard.
16
New Orleans
DESMOND TIPTON LIKED THIS TIME OF DAY more than any other, when the doors were shut and barred, the visitors gone, and every little thing in its place. It was the quiet period, from five to eight, before the drink tourists descended on the French Quarter like the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan, infesting the bars and jazz joints, swilling Sazeracs to oblivion. He could hear them outside every night, their boozy voices, whoops, and infantile caterwaulings only partly muffled by the ancient walls of the Audubon Cottage.
On this particular evening, Tipton had decided to clean the waxwork figure of John James Audubon, who was the centerpiece of and motive purpose behind the museum. In the life-size diorama, the great naturalist sat in his study by the fireplace, sketchboard and pen in hand, making a drawing of a dead bird--a scarlet tanager--on a table. Tipton grabbed the DustBuster and feather duster and climbed over the Plexiglas barrier. He began cleaning Audubon's clothing, running the little vacuum up and down, and then he turned it on the figure's beard and hair while whisking bits of dirt from the handsome waxwork face with the feather duster.
There came a sound. He paused, switching off the DustBuster. It came again: a knock at the front door.
Irritated, Tipton jammed the switch back on and continued--only to hear a more insistent knocking. This went on almost every night: inebriated morons who, having read the historic plaque affixed beside the door, for some reason decided to knock. For years it had been like that, fewer and fewer visitors during the day, more knocking and revelry at night. The only respite had been the few months after the hurricane.
Another insistent set of knocks, measured and loud.
He put down the hand vacuum, climbed back out, and marched over to the door on creaky bow legs. "We're closed!" he shouted through the oaken door. "Go away or I'll call the police!"
"Why, that isn't you, is it, Mr. Tipton?" came the muffled voice.
Tipton's white eyebrows shot up in consternation. Who could it be? The visitors during the day never paid any attention to him, while he assiduously avoided engaging with them, sitting dourly at his desk with his face buried in research.
"Who is it?" asked Tipton, after he had recovered from his surprise.
"May we carry on this conversation inside, Mr. Tipton? It's rather chilly out here."
Tipton hesitated, then unbolted the door to see a slender gentleman in a dark suit, pale as a ghost, his silvery eyes gleaming in the twilight of the darkening street. There was something instantly recognizable about the man, unmistakable, and it gave Tipton a start.
"Mr.... Pendergast?" he ventured, almost in a whisper.
"The very same." The man stepped in and took Tipton's hand, giving it a cool, brief shake. Tipton just stared.
Pendergast gestured toward the visitor's chair opposite Tipton's desk. "May I?"
Tipton nodded and Pendergast seated himself, throwing one leg over the other. Tipton silently took his own chair.
"You look like you've just seen a ghost," said Pendergast.
"Well, Mr. Pendergast..." Tipton began, his mind awhirl, "I thought--I thought the family was gone... I had no idea..." His voice stammered into silence.
"The rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated."
Tipton fumbled in the vest pocket of his dingy three-piece woolen suit, extracted a handkerchief, and patted his brow. "Delighted to see you, just delighted..." Another pat.
"The feeling is mutual."
"What brings you back here, if I may ask?" Tipton made an effort to recover himself. He had been curator of the Audubon Cottage for almost fifty years, and he knew a great deal about the Pendergast family. The last thing he'd expected was to see one of them again, in the flesh. He remembered the terrible night of the fire as if it were yesterday: the mob, the screams from the upper stories, the flames leaping into the night sky... Although he'd been a trifle relieved when the surviving family members left the area: the Pendergasts had always given him the willies, especially that strange brother, Diogenes. He had heard rumors that Diogenes had died in Italy. He'd also heard that Aloysius had disappeared. He believed it only too well: it was a family that seemed destined for extinction.
"Just paying a visit to our little property across the street. Since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I'd drop in and pay my respects to an old friend. How is the museum business these days?"
"Property? You mean..."
"That's right. The parking lot where Rochenoire once stood. I've never been able to let it go, for--for sentimental reasons." This was followed by a thin smile.
Tipton nodded. "Of course, of course. As for the museum, you can see, Mr. Pendergast, the neighborhood has changed much for the worse. We don't get many visitors these days."
"It has indeed changed. How pleasant to see the Audubon Cottage museum is still exactly the same."
"We try to keep it that way."
Pendergast rose, clasped his hands behind his back. "Do you mind? I realize that you're closed at present, but nevertheless I'd love to take a turn through. For old times' sake."
Tipton hastily rose. "Of course. Please excuse the Audubon diorama, I was just cleaning it." He was mortified to see that he had laid the DustBuster in Audubon's lap, with the feather duster propped up against his arm, as if some jokester had tried to turn the great man into a charwoman.
"Do you recall," Pendergast said, "the special exhibition you mounted, fifteen years ago, for which we loaned you our double elephant folio?"
"Of course."
"That was quite a festive opening."
"It was." Tipton remembered it all too well: the stress and horror of watching crowds of people wandering about his exhibits with brimming glasses of wine. It had been a beautiful summer evening, with a full moon, but he'd been too harassed to notice it much. That was the first and last special exhibit he had ever mounted.
Pendergast began strolling through the back rooms, peering into the glass cases with their prints and drawings and birds, the Audubon memorabilia, the letters and sketches. Tipton followed in his wake.
"Did you know this is where my wife and I first met? At that very opening."
"No, Mr. Pendergast, I didn't." Tipton felt uneasy. Pendergast seemed strangely excited.
"My wife--Helen--I believe she had an interest in Audubon?"
"Yes, she certainly did."
"Did she... ever visit the museum afterward?"
"Oh, yes. Before and afterward."
"Before?"
The sharpness of the question brought Tipton up short. "Why, yes. She was here off and on, doing her research."
"Her research," Pendergast repeated. "And this was how long before we met?"
"For at least six months before that opening. Maybe longer. She was a lovely woman. I was so shocked to hear--"
"Quite," came the reply, cutting him off. Then the man seemed to soften, or at least get control of himself. This Pendergast is a strange one, thought Tipton, just like the others. Eccentricity was all well and good in New Orleans, the city was known for it--but this was something else altogether.
"I never knew much about Audubon," Pendergast continued. "And I never really quite understood this research of hers. Do you remember much about it?"
"A little," said Tipton. "She was interested in the time Audubon spent here in 1821, with Lucy."
Pendergast paused at a darkened glass case. "Was there anything about Audubon in particular she was curious about? Was she perhaps planning to write an article, or a book?"
"You would know that better than I, but I do recall she asked more than once about the Black Frame."
"The Black Frame?"
"The famous lost painting. The one Audubon did at the sanatorium."
"Forgive me, my knowledge of Audubon is so limited. Which lost painting is that?"
"When Audubon was a young man, he became seriously ill. While convalescing, he made a painting. An extraordinary painting, apparently--his first really great work. It later disappeared. The curious thing is that nobody who saw it mentioned what it depicted--just that it was brilliantly life-like and set in an unusual black-painted frame. What he actually painted seems to have been lost to history." On familiar ground now, Tipton found his nervousness receding slightly.
"And Helen was interested in it?"
"Every Audubon scholar is interested in it. It was the beginning of that period of his life that culminated in The Birds of America, by far the greatest work of natural history ever published. The Black Frame was--so people who saw it said--his first work of true genius."
"I see." Pendergast fell silent, his face sinking into thoughtfulness. Then he suddenly started and examined his watch. "Well! How good it was to see you, Mr. Tipton." He grasped the man's hand in his own, and Tipton was disconcerted to find it even colder than when he had entered, as if the man were a cooling corpse.
Tipton followed Pendergast to the door. As Pendergast opened it, he finally screwed up the courage to ask a question of his own. "By any chance, Mr. Pendergast, do you still have the family's double elephant folio?"
Pendergast turned. "I do."
"Ah! If I may be so bold to suggest, and I hope you will forgive my directness, that if for any reason you wish to find a good home for it, one where it would be well taken care of and enjoyed by the public, naturally we would be most honored..." He let his voice trail off hopefully.
"I shall keep it in mind. A good evening to you, Mr. Tipton."
Tipton was relieved he did not extend his hand a second time.
The door closed and Tipton turned the lock and barred it, then stood for a long time at the door, thinking. Wife eaten by a lion, parents burned to death by a mob... What a strange family. And clearly the passage of years had not made this one any more normal.
17
THE DOWNTOWN CAMPUS OF TULANE UNIVERSITY Health Sciences Center, on Tulane Street, was housed in a nondescript gray skyscraper that would not have looked out of place in New York's financial district. Pendergast exited the elevator at the thirty-first floor, made his way to the Women's Health Division, and--after a few inquiries--found himself before the door of Miriam Kendall.
He gave a discreet knock. "Come in," came a strong, clear voice.
Pendergast opened the door. The small office beyond clearly belonged to a professor. Two metal bookcases were stuffed full of textbooks and journals. Stacks of examination bluebooks were arranged on the desktop. Sitting on the far side of the desk was a woman of perhaps sixty years of age. She rose as Pendergast entered.
"Dr. Pendergast," she said, accepting the proffered hand with a certain reserve.
"Call me Aloysius," he replied. "Thanks for seeing me."
"Not at all. Please take a seat."
She sat back behind her desk and looked him over with a detached--almost clinical--manner. "You haven't aged a day."
The same could not be said of Miriam Kendall. Haloed in yellow morning light from the tall, narrow windows, she nevertheless looked a great deal older than she had during the time she shared an office with Helen Esterhazy Pendergast. Yet her manner was just as Pendergast remembered it: crisp, cool, professional.
"Looks can be deceiving," Pendergast replied. "However. I thank you. How long have you been at Tulane?"
"Nine years now." She laid her hands on the desk, tented her fingers. "I have to say, Aloysius, I'm surprised you didn't take your inquiries directly to Helen's old boss, Morris Blackletter."
Pendergast nodded. "I did, actually. He's retired now--as you probably know, after Doctors With Wings he went on to consulting positions with various pharmaceutical companies--but at present he's on vacation in England, not due back for several days."
She nodded. "And what about Doctors With Wings?"
"I was there this morning. The place was a madhouse, everybody mobilizing for Azerbaijan."
Kendall nodded. "Ah, yes. The earthquake. Many feared dead, I understand."
"There wasn't a face there over thirty--and nobody who took a minute to speak with me had the least recollection of my wife."
Kendall nodded again. "It's a job for the young. That's one of the reasons I left DWW to teach women's health issues." The desk phone rang. Kendall ignored it. "In any case," she said briskly, "I'm more than happy to share my memories of Helen with you, Aloysius--though I find myself curious as to why you should approach me now, after all these years."
"Most understandable. The fact is, I'm planning to write a memoir of my wife. A sort of celebration of her life, brief as it was. Doctors With Wings was Helen's first and only job after she obtained her MS in pharmaceutical biology."
"I thought she was an epidemiologist."
"That was her subspecialty." Pendergast paused. "I've realized just how little I knew of her work with DWW--a fault that's entirely my own, and something I am trying to remedy now."
Hearing this, the hard lines of Kendall's face softened a little. "I'm glad to hear you say that. Helen was a remarkable woman."
"So if you'd be kind enough to reminisce a little about her time at Doctors With Wings? And please--don't sugarcoat anything. My wife was not without imperfection--I'd prefer the unvarnished truth."
Kendall looked at him a minute. Then her eyes traveled to some indeterminate spot behind him and grew distant, as if looking into the past. "You know about DWW--we worked on sanitation, clean water, and nutrition programs in the Third World. Empowering people to better their own health and living conditions. But when there was a disaster--like the earthquake in Azerbaijan--we mobilized teams of doctors and health workers and flew them into the target areas."
"That much I know."
"Helen..." She hesitated.
"Go on," Pendergast murmured.
"Helen was very effective, right from the beginning. But I often had the feeling she loved the adventure of it even more than the healing. As if she put in the months of office work just for the chance to be dropped into the epicenter of some disaster."
Pendergast nodded.
"I recall..." She stopped again. "Aren't you going to take notes?"
"I have an excellent memory, Ms. Kendall. Pray continue."
"I remember when a group of us were surrounded by a machete-wielding mob in Rwanda. There must have been at least fifty of them, half drunk. Helen suddenly produced a two-shot derringer and disarmed the whole lot. Told them to chuck their weapons in a pile and get lost. And they did!" She shook her head. "Did she ever tell you about that?"
"No, she didn't."
"She knew how to use that derringer, too. She learned to shoot in Africa, didn't she?"
"Yes."
"I always thought it a little strange."
"What?"
"Shooting, I mean. A strange hobby for a biologist. But then, everyone has their own way of relieving the stress. And when you're in the field, the pressure can be unbearable: the death, cruelty, savagery." She shook her head at some private memory.
"I'd hoped to see her personnel file at DWW--to no avail."
"You saw the place. As you might imagine, they aren't big on paperwork--especially paperwork more than a decade old. Besides, Helen's file would be slimmer than most."
"Why is that?"
"She was only part-time, of course."
"Not... her full-time job?"
"Well, 'part-time' isn't exactly correct. I mean, most of the time she did put in a full forty hours--or, when in the field, a great deal more--but she was often gone from the office, sometimes days at a time. I had always assumed she had a second job, or maybe some kind of private project she was working on, but you just said this was her only job." Kendall shrugged.
"She had no other job." Pendergast fell silent a moment. "Any other recollections of a personal nature?"
Kendall hesitated. "She always struck me as a very private person. I didn't even know she had a brother until he showed up at the office one day. Very handsome fellow he was, too. He's also in the medical field, I recollect."
Pendergast nodded. "Judson."
"Yes, that was his name. I imagine medicine ran in the family."
"It did. Helen's father was a doctor," Pendergast said.
"I'm not surprised."
"Did she ever talk to you about Audubon?"
"The painter? No, she never did. But it's funny you should mention him."
"Why, exactly?"
"Because in a way it reminds me of the one and only time I ever caught her at a loss for words."
Pendergast leaned forward slightly in the chair. "Please tell me about it."
"We were in Sumatra. There had been a tsunami, and the devastation was extensive."
Pendergast nodded. "I recall that trip. We'd been married just a few months at the time."
"It was utter chaos; we were all being worked to the bone. One night I came back to the tent I shared with Helen and another aid worker. Helen was there, alone, in a camp chair. She was dozing, with a book open in her lap, showing a picture of a bird. I didn't want to wake her, so I gently removed the book. She woke up with a start and snatched it from me and shut it. She was very flustered. Then she seemed to recover, tried to laugh it off, saying I'd startled her."
"What sort of bird?"
"A small bird, quite colorful. It had an unusual name..." She stopped, trying to recall. "Part of it was the name of a state."
Pendergast thought a moment. "Virginia Rail?"
"No, I'd have remembered that."
"California Towhee?"
"No. It was green and yellow."
There was a lengthy silence. "Carolina Parakeet?" Pendergast finally asked.
"That's it! I knew it was strange. I recall saying at the time I didn't know there were any parrot species in America. But she brushed off the question and that was it."
"I see. Thank you, Ms. Kendall." Pendergast sat quite still, and then he rose and extended his hand. "Thank you for your help."
"I should like to see a copy of the memoir. I was very fond of Helen."
Pendergast gave a little bow. "And so you shall, as soon as it is published." He turned and left, riding the elevator down to the street in silence, his thoughts far, far away.
18
PENDERGAST SAID GOOD NIGHT TO MAURICE and, taking the remains of a bottle of Romanee-Conti 1964 he had opened at dinner, walked down the echoing central hall of Penumbra Plantation to the library. A storm had swept north from the Gulf of Mexico and the wind moaned about the house, worrying the shutters and thrashing the bare limbs of the surrounding trees. Rain beat on the windows, and heavy, swollen clouds obscured the full moon.
He approached the glass-fronted bookcase housing the family's most valuable books: a second printing of the Shakespeare First Folio; the two-volume 1755 edition of Johnson's Dictionary; a sixteenth-century copy of Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, in the original Limbourg illumination. The four volumes of Audubon's double elephant folio edition of The Birds of America were accorded their own private drawer at the bottom of the case.
Donning a pair of white cotton gloves, he removed the four giant books and laid them side by side on the refectory table in the center of the library. Each one was more than three feet by four feet. Turning to the first, he opened it with exquisite care to the first print: Wild Turkey, Male. The dazzling image, as fresh as the day it was struck, was so life-like it seemed as if it could step off the page. This set, one of only two hundred, had been subscribed directly from Audubon by Pendergast's own ancestor, whose ornate bookplate and signature inscription still graced the endpapers. The most valuable book ever produced in the New World, it was worth close to ten million dollars.
Slowly, he turned the pages: the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, the Prothonotary Warbler, the Purple Finch... one after another, he looked at them with a keen eye, plate after plate, until he arrived at Plate 26: the Carolina Parakeet.
Reaching into his coat pocket, he removed a sheet of notes he had scribbled.Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis)Only parrot species native to the Eastern US. Declared extinct 1939.Last wild specimen killed in Florida in 1904; last captive bird, "Incas," died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918.Forests cut; killed for feathers to make ladies' hats, killed by farmers who thought them pests, taken in large numbers as pets. Prime reason for extinction: Flocking behavior. When individual birds were shot and fell to the ground, the flock, instead of fleeing, alighted on the ground and gathered about the dead and wounded as if to help, resulting in the extermination of the entire flock.
Folding up the sheet and putting it away again, Pendergast poured himself a glass of Burgundy. As he drank it off, he seemed barely to taste the remarkable vintage.
He now knew--to his great mortification--that his initial meeting with Helen had been no accident. And yet he could hardly believe it. Surely, his family's connection to John James Audubon wasn't the reason she had married him? He knew she had loved him--and yet it was becoming increasingly clear that his wife led a double life. It was a bitter irony: Helen had been the one person in the world he had been able to trust, to open up to--and all the while she had been keeping a secret from him. As he poured another glass of wine he reflected that, because of that very trust, he'd never suspected her secret, which would have been obvious to him in any other friend.
He knew all this. And yet it was nothing compared with the remaining questions that almost shouted out at him:
What was behind Helen's apparent fascination with Audubon--and why had she been so careful to conceal her interest in the artist from him?
What was the relation between Helen's interest in Audubon's famous engravings and an obscure breed of parrot, extinct now for almost a century?
Where was Audubon's first mature work, the mysterious Black Frame, and why was Helen searching for it?
And most perplexing, and most important: why had this interest of Helen's ultimately caused her death? Because, while he was sure of little else, Pendergast was certain--beyond doubt--that somewhere, hiding behind this curtain of questions and suppositions, lurked not only the motive for her death, but the murderers themselves.
Putting aside the glass, he rose from the armchair and strode over to a telephone on a nearby table. He picked it up, dialed a number.
It was answered on the second ring. "D'Agosta."
"Hello, Vincent."
"Pendergast. How you doing?"
"Where are you at present?"
"At the Copley Plaza hotel, resting my dogs. Do you have any idea how many men named Adam attended MIT while your wife was there?"
"No."
"Thirty-one. I've managed to track down sixteen. None of them says he knew her. Five others are out of the country. Two more are dead. The other eight are unaccounted for: lost alumni, the university says."
"Let us put friend Adam on the back burner for the time being."
"Fine by me. So, where to next? New Orleans? New York, maybe? I'd really like to spend a little time with--"
"North of Baton Rouge. Oakley Plantation."
"Where?"
"You will be going to Oakley Plantation House, just outside St. Francisville."
A long pause. "So what am I going to be doing there?" D'Agosta asked in a dubious voice.
"Examining a brace of stuffed parrots."
Another, even longer pause. "And you?"
"I'll be at the Bayou Grand Hotel. Tracking down a missing painting."
19
Bayou Goula, Louisiana
PENDERGAST SAT IN THE PALM-LINED COURTYARD in front of the elegant hotel, one black-clad leg draped over the other, arms crossed, motionless as the alabaster statues that framed the gracious space. The previous night's storm had passed, ushering in a warm and sunny day full of the false promise of spring. Before him lay a wide driveway of white gravel. A small army of valets and caddies were busy ferrying expensive cars and gleaming golf carts here and there. Beyond the driveway was a swimming pool, sparkling azure in the late-morning light, empty of swimmers but surrounded by sunbathers drinking bloody Marys. Beyond the pool lay an expansive golf course, immaculate fairways and raked bunkers, over which strolled men in pastel-colored blazers and women in golf whites. Beyond passed the broad brown swath of the Mississippi River.
There was a movement at his side. "Mr. Pendergast?"
Pendergast looked up to see a short, rotund man in his late fifties, wearing a dark suit, the jacket buttoned, and a deep red tie bearing only the subtlest of designs. His bald pate gleamed so strikingly in the sun it might have been gilded, and identical commas of white hair were combed back above both ears. Two small blue eyes were set deep in a florid face. Below them, the prim mouth was fixed in a business-like smile.
Pendergast rose. "Good morning."
"I'm Portby Chausson, general manager of the Bayou Grand Hotel."
Pendergast shook the proffered hand. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
Chausson gestured toward the hotel with a pink hand. "Delighted. My office is this way."
He led the way through the courtyard into an echoing lobby, draped in cream-colored marble. Pendergast followed the manager past well-fed businessmen with sleek women on their arms to a plain door just beyond the front desk. Chausson opened it to reveal an opulent office in the French Baroque style. He ushered Pendergast into a chair before the ornate desk.
"I see from your accent you're from this part of the country," Chausson said as he took a seat behind the desk.
"New Orleans," Pendergast replied.
"Ah." Chausson rubbed his hands together. "But I believe you are a new guest?" He consulted a computer. "Indeed. Well, Mr. Pendergast, thank you for considering us for your holiday needs. And allow me to commend you on your exquisite taste: the Bayou Grand is the most luxurious resort in the entire Delta."
Pendergast inclined his head.
"Now, over the phone you indicated you were interested in our Golf and Leisure Packages. We have two: the one-week Platinum Package, and the two-week Diamond Package. While the one-week packages begin at twelve thousand five hundred, I might suggest upgrading to the two-week because of the--"
"Excuse me, Mr. Chausson?" Pendergast interrupted gently. "But if you'd allow me to interject for just a moment, I think I could save both of us valuable time."
The general manager paused, looking at Pendergast with an expectant smile.
"It's true I did express some interest in your golf packages. Please forgive my little deception."
Chausson looked blank. "Deception?"
"Correct. I merely wished to gain your attention."
"I don't understand."
"I'm not sure how much plainer I can express myself, Mr. Chausson."
"Do you mean to say"--the blank look darkened--"that you have no intention of staying at the Bayou Grand?"
"Alas, no. Golf is not my sport."
"That you deceived me so that you could... gain access to me?"
"I see the light has finally dawned."
"In that case, Mr. Pendergast, we have no further business to discuss. Good day."
Pendergast examined his perfectly manicured fingernails a moment. "Actually, we do have business to discuss."
"Then you should have approached me directly, without subterfuge."
"Had I done that, I would almost certainly never have made it into your office."
Chausson reddened. "I have heard just about enough. I'm a very busy man. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have valid guests to attend to."
But Pendergast showed no signs of rising. Instead, with a sigh of something like regret, he reached into his suit jacket, withdrew a small leather wallet, and flipped it open to reveal a gold shield.
Chausson stared at it for a long moment. "FBI?"
Pendergast nodded.
"Has there been a crime?"
"Yes."
Beads of sweat appeared on Chausson's brow. "You aren't going to... make an arrest at my hotel, are you?"
"I had something else in mind."
Chausson looked hugely relieved. "Is this some kind of criminal matter?"
"Not one related to the hotel."
"Do you have a warrant or subpoena?"
"No."
Chausson seemed to regain much of his poise. "I'm afraid, Mr. Pendergast, that we shall have to consult our attorneys before we can respond to any request. Company policy. So sorry."
Pendergast put away the shield. "Such a pity."
Complacency settled over the general manager's features. "My assistant will show you out." He pressed a button. "Jonathan?"
"Is it true, Mr. Chausson, that this hotel building was originally the mansion of a cotton baron?"
"Yes, yes." A slender young man entered. "Will you kindly show Mr. Pendergast out?"
"Yes, sir," the young man said.
Pendergast made no effort to rise. "I wonder, Mr. Chausson--what do you think your guests would say if they were to learn that, in fact, this hotel used to be a sanatorium?"
Chausson's face abruptly shut down. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"A sanatorium for all kinds of nasty, highly communicable diseases. Cholera, tuberculosis, malaria, yellow fever--"
"Jonathan?" Chausson said. "Mr. Pendergast won't be leaving quite yet. Please close the door on your way out."
The young man retreated. Chausson turned on Pendergast, sitting forward, pink jowls quivering with indignation. "How dare you threaten me?"
"Threaten? What an ugly word. 'The truth shall make you free,' Mr. Chausson. I'm offering to liberate your guests with the truth, not threaten them."
For a moment, Chausson remained motionless. Then--slowly--he sank back into his chair. A minute passed, then two. "What is it you want?" he asked in a low voice.
"The sanatorium is the reason for my visit. I'm here to see any old files that might remain--in particular, those relating to a specific patient."
"And who might that patient be?"
"John James Audubon."
The general manager's forehead creased. And then he smacked his well-scrubbed hand on the desk in undisguised annoyance. "Not again!"
Pendergast looked at Chausson in surprise. "Excuse me?"
"Every time I think that wretched man is forgotten, somebody else comes along. And I suppose you'll be asking about that painting, as well."
Pendergast sat in silence.
"I'll tell you what I told the others. John James Audubon was a patient here nearly one hundred and eighty years ago. The, er, health care facility closed down more than a century ago. Any records--and certainly any painting--are long gone."
"And that's it?" Pendergast asked.
Chausson nodded with finality. "And that's it."
A look of sorrow came over Pendergast's face. "A pity. Well, good day, Mr. Chausson." And he rose from the chair.
"Wait a minute." The general manager also rose, in sudden alarm. "You're not going to tell the guests..." His voice trailed off.
Pendergast's sorrowful look deepened. "As I said--a pity."
Chausson put out a restraining hand. "Hold on. Just hold on." He took a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his brow. "There may be a few files left. Come with me." And, fetching a deep, shuddering breath, he led the way out of the office.
Pendergast followed the little man through an elegant restaurant, past a food preparation area, and into an immense kitchen. The marble and gilt quickly gave way to white tile and rubberized floor mats. On the far side of the kitchen, Chausson opened a metal door. Old iron stairs led down into a chilly, damp, poorly lit basement corridor that seemed to tunnel forever into the Louisiana earth, its walls and ceiling of crumbling plaster, the floor of pitted brick.
At last, Chausson stopped before a banded iron door. With a groan of iron he pushed it open and stepped into blackness, the humid air heavy with the smell of fungus and rot. He twisted an old-fashioned light switch clockwise, and a vast empty space came into view, punctuated by the scurry and squeak of retreating vermin. The floor was littered with old asbestos-clad piping and various bric-a-brac, furred with age, mounded over with mold. "This was the old boiler room," he said as he picked his way through the rat droppings and detritus.
In the far corner sat several burst bundles of paper, damp, rodent-chewed, heavily foxed, and rotting with age. Rats had built a nest in one corner. "That's all that remains of the sanatorium paperwork," Chausson said, something of the old triumph creeping back into his voice. "I told you it was just scraps. Why it wasn't thrown out years ago, I have no idea--except that nobody ever comes in here anymore."
Pendergast knelt before the papers and, very carefully, began to go through them, turning each one over and examining it. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Chausson looked at his watch several times, but Pendergast was completely insensible to the man's irritation. Finally, he rose, holding a thin sheath of papers. "May I borrow them?"
"Take them. Take the lot."
He slipped them into a manila envelope. "Earlier, you mentioned that others had expressed interest in Audubon and a certain painting."
Chausson nodded.
"Would that painting have been known as the Black Frame?"
Chausson nodded again.
"These others. Who were they and when did they come?"
"The first one came, let's see, about fifteen years ago. Shortly after I became general manager. The other one came maybe a year afterward."
"So I'm only the third to inquire," Pendergast said. "From your tone, I'd assumed there were more. Tell me about the first one."
Chausson sighed again. "He was an art dealer. Quite unsavory. In my business, you learn how to read a person from his manner, the things he says. This man almost scared me." He paused. "He was interested in the painting Audubon allegedly did while he was here. Implied that he'd make it well worth my time. He grew very angry when I could tell him nothing."
"Did he see the papers?" Pendergast asked.
"No. I didn't know they existed at the time."
"Do you remember his name?"
"Yes. It was Blast. You don't forget a name like that."
"I see. And the second person?"
"It was a woman. Young, reddish-brown hair, thin. Very pretty. She was much more pleasant--and persuasive. Still, there wasn't much more I could tell her than I told Blast. She looked through the papers."
"Did she take any?"
"I wouldn't let her; I thought they might be valuable. But now, I just want to get rid of them."
Pendergast nodded slowly. "This young woman--do you recall her name?"
"No. It was funny--she never gave it. I remember thinking about that after she left."
"Did she have an accent like mine?"
"No. She had a Yankee accent. Like the Kennedys." The manager shuddered.
"I see. Thank you for your time." Pendergast turned. "I'll see my own way out."
"Oh, no," Chausson said quickly. "I'll escort you to your car. I insist."
"Don't worry, Mr. Chausson. I won't say a word to your guests." And--with a small bow, and an even smaller, rather sad smile--Pendergast strode quickly to the long tunnel, toward the outside world.
20
St. Francisville, Louisiana
D'AGOSTA PULLED UP IN FRONT OF THE WHITEWASHED mansion, rising in airy formality from dead flower beds and bare-branched trees. The winter sky spat rain, puddles collecting on the blacktop. He sat in the rental car for a moment, listening to the last lousy lines of "Just You and I" on the radio, trying to overcome his annoyance at having been sent on what was hardly more than an errand. What the hell did he know about dead birds?
Finally, as the song faded away, he heaved himself from his seat, grabbed an umbrella, and stepped out of the car. He climbed the steps of Oakley Plantation House and entered the gallery: a porch with jalousie windows shut against the steady rain. Shoving his dripping umbrella into a stand, he shrugged off his raincoat, hung it on a rack, and entered the building.
"You must be Dr. D'Agosta," said a bright, bird-like woman, rising from her desk and bustling toward him on stubby legs, sensible shoes rapping the boards. "We don't get many visitors this time of year. I'm Lola Marchant." She stuck out her hand.
D'Agosta took the hand and was given a surprisingly vigorous shake. The woman was all rouge and powder and lipstick, and she had to be at least sixty, stout and vigorous.
"Shame on you, bringing this bad weather!" She broke into a warbling laugh. "Even so, we always welcome Audubon researchers. Mostly we get tourists."
D'Agosta followed her into a reception hall, done up in white-painted wood and massive beams. He began to regret the cover he had given her over the phone. So little did he know about Audubon or birds, he felt sure he'd be busted on even the most minimal exchange of information. Best thing to do was keep his mouth shut.
"First things first!" Marchant went behind another desk and pushed an enormous logbook toward him. "Please sign your name and fill in the reason for your visit."
D'Agosta wrote down his name and the supposed reason.
"Thank you!" she said. "Now, let's get started. What, exactly, would you like to see?"
D'Agosta cleared his throat. "I'm an ornithologist"--he got the word out perfectly--"and I'd like to see some of Audubon's specimens."
"Wonderful! As you surely know, Audubon was only here for four months, working as a drawing master for Eliza Pirrie, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Pirrie, owners of the Oakley Plantation. After a tiff with Mrs. Pirrie he abruptly went back to New Orleans, taking with him all his specimens and drawings. But when we became a State Historic Site forty years ago, we were given a bequest of Audubon drawings, letters, and some of his actual bird specimens, which we've added to over the years--and now we have one of the finest Audubon collections in Louisiana!"
She smiled brightly at this recital, her bosom heaving slightly from the effort.
"Right," mumbled D'Agosta, removing a steno notebook from his brown suit coat, hoping it added verisimilitude.
"This way, Dr. D'Agosta, please."
Dr. D'Agosta. The lieutenant felt his apprehension increase.
The woman pounded her way across the painted pine floors to a set of stairs. They ascended to the second floor and walked through a large series of spacious rooms, furnished in period furniture, finally arriving at a locked door, which--when opened--revealed a set of attic stairs, steep and narrow. D'Agosta followed Marchant to the top. It was an attic in name only, being spotlessly clean and well kept, smelling of fresh paint. Old oaken cabinets with rippled glass lined three of the walls, with more modern, closed cabinets at the far end. The light came from a series of dormers with frosted windows, which let in a cool white light.
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