Pendergast ventured into the mudflat, with each step sinking into the muck. In eight minutes he had made the difficult traversal to the other side, where a marsh island lay. A dilapidated sign, almost erased by time, indicated he was exiting the boundary of the wildlife preserve.
He continued on through a mixture of salt grass and mudflats. The tide was now slack and would soon be coming in. They were big tides, over ten feet vertical: he had about two hours before he would be cut off by the incoming ocean, the channels too deep and the currents too swift to wade.
Deep, deep into the marshes, in the middle of the remote island, he came across a tunnel through the grass that was not an animal trail. Now he knelt and, keeping the penlight low to the ground, turned it on and examined the earth. Almost immediately he saw the image of a human footprint, shod, made by what appeared to be a crude hobnailed boot, the hobs worn to nubs and many of them gone altogether. The footprint was fresh, perhaps no more than two or three days old.
He spread out the map and marked the location of the trail, and then he moved slowly along the tunnel-like path. It meandered about and, after a mile, ended in a mudflat at the edge of the marsh island, where any tracks had been erased by tidal currents. He could see, on the far side of the flat, where the tunnel in the grass continued.
He turned now and headed back toward the center of the island. The USGS map he had consulted indicated an area of slightly higher ground at the farther end: only three feet of vertical elevation, but three feet in a potential flood zone was significant. He struck off in another straight line through the salt grass, which was thicker and higher here, almost six feet, mingling with cattails that were beginning to lose their fluff. Where the cattails ended the land rose almost imperceptibly.
Pendergast began making a circle around the higher land, then cut across it, back and forth, in a kind of lawn mower pattern. Every few minutes he would stop, kneel in the thick grass, and examine the soft ground. At one point he smelled woodsmoke again, which he marked on his map, with another line drawn upwind.
The two lines he’d drawn intersected at a spot about two miles distant.
He resumed his search pattern, continuing for almost an hour in silence. And then, toward the center of the marsh island, Pendergast found, poking from the edge of the mud, a flat rock. He pulled it out and examined it: a worn piece of schist. Rocks did not occur naturally in mudflats. Putting it back in place, he marked its location on a handheld GPS. At that point he began moving in tighter circles, finding, here and there, additional stones. He continued punching the location of each into the GPS device. He worked as long as he dared, and then, knowing that time was running out as the tide came in, he tucked the GPS and map away and made a beeline back toward his starting point.
He had gotten no more than ten feet when he heard a noise: an unholy, ghastly, drawn-out wail that echoed over the vast marshes from a distance. Pendergast had heard that kind of scream before. It was a distinct, unique, human scream, one full of surprise and disbelief, then pain, and finally existential horror.
It was the scream of a man being killed.
20
The scream died away into a gibbering moan, which seemed to dissolve in the sighing of the night wind through the salt grass. Pendergast stood stock-still for a moment. And then he tested the wind again, knelt, removed the map, quickly unrolled it, and drew a narrow cone on it, indicating the approximate direction from where the sound had come. It seemed to be in the middle distance, carried on the wind and yet not from afar: perhaps half a mile, at most. This would put the murder—he had no doubt that was what it was—in the middle of the most inaccessible area of the entire Exmouth marshes: a riddle of channels, mudflats, and stagnant cattail swamps.
This also happened to be the area from which the scent of smoke had come.
He moved fast, like a snake, parting the grass with his arms as he went along, moving as swiftly as was consistent with silence and safety. He came across another trail, a tunnel through the grass, narrower but also human-like in origin, and shortly thereafter found himself at the edge of another mudflat. But now the tide was rising swiftly. Black water flowed inland, the trickle in what had previously been a tiny channel now a surging river twenty feet wide and still growing, carrying along foam and leaves and flotsam swept up on its rise. Clouds scudded across the gibbous moon.
He paused, considering the situation. The tide was rising swiftly, and many channels and streams still lay between him and the approximate area of the crime. Even if he could reach the spot, it would take at least an hour, and by then he would be trapped, unable to return until the far ebb of the tide—six hours at least. He lacked critical information about the victim, the killer, the local geography, and the circumstances. He was at a fatal disadvantage; it would be imprudent, even reckless, to rush blindly toward the sound.
Pendergast turned back into the sheltering grass and checked his cell phone, on the off chance that he had come into a stray field of reception. No good. He examined his map. It was imperative that he get out and report the murder as quickly as possible. In his present location, he was more than halfway across the marsh. The quickest way out would not involve retracing his steps, but would instead take him in the opposite direction, inland to a wood called the King’s Mark State Forest. Through this forest, according to the map, ran a country lane that was the back road from Dill Town to Newburyport.
That would be the quickest way out—and to a phone.
Pendergast put away the map, took his bearing, and then set off, breaking from a swift walk into a steady, even jog. After a quarter mile he struck another mudflat, swiftly filling with incoming tide, and waded into it, struggling through frigid water that was now four feet deep—and would soon be double that—with steadily increasing currents. He continued in this manner, navigating by the light of the moon, until he could see—at the far end of the lighter-colored marshlands—a black line of trees. At last, he reached the final tidal channel, the water now churning through it. He ventured into it and quickly found it was too deep for wading; he would have to swim.
He retreated and unbuckled his chest-high waders; they would have proved a death trap when filled with swiftly moving water. Discarding the waders, he rolled the map and other items in a piece of oilcloth, held it over his head, and ventured into the current. This channel was thirty feet across and, as soon as his feet lifted from the muck, the current began to sweep him along, the opposite bank moving by fast as he kicked with his legs and one arm. After a minute of struggle he was able to regain a purchase with his feet and waded the last part of it, finally arriving at a cut bank, overhung with dark pine trees and exposed roots. He climbed up this and rested a moment at the edge of the woods, cleaning the muck from his legs. According to the map, the road skirted the marshes and went on into Dill Town, about four miles away, a distance Pendergast could cover in a brisk hour’s walk. From Dill Town it was another quarter mile into Exmouth proper.
He rose and started into the woods. The road would be a few hundred yards away and impossible to miss. But the woods themselves were dark and presented a massive tangle of undergrowth, with patches of briar that climbed halfway up the trees, choking and killing them, leaving skeletal branches stark against the night sky. The woods echoed with the peeping of frogs, the trilling of night insects, and the occasional bloodcurdling sound of a screech owl. He continued on, skirting a patch of briars, and then coming into a glade dappled with moonlight.
He froze. The sounds of the night wood had suddenly ceased. Perhaps it was due to his passage—or, perhaps, due to another presence in the wood. After a moment he continued on, crossing the glade as if nothing were amiss. At the far side he entered a dense stand of conifers, where, in the thickest part, he halted again. He picked up three small pebbles and tossed them, the first one ten feet ahead, and then the second, after a moment, twenty feet on, and last the third one some thirty feet, each pebble making a small noise to simulate his continued passage throu
gh the forest.
But instead of continuing, he waited in the pitch black of the trees, crouching, motionless. Soon he could hear the faint sounds of his pursuer. It was someone moving in almost virtual silence—a rare skill in a forest as dense as this. And now he could see, materializing in the shadowed glade, the figure of a man—almost a giant—sliding through the open area, shotgun in hand. As the man approached, Pendergast tensed, waiting; and then, just as the man entered the blackness of the grove, Pendergast rose up, striking the barrel of the shotgun upward while dealing him a body blow with his shoulder, low and to the side. Both barrels went off with a terrific blast as the man went down, Pendergast on top, pinning him, his Les Baer .45 pressed into the man’s ear. Flower petals and berries came showering down all around them.
“FBI,” said Pendergast quietly. “Do not struggle.”
The man relaxed. Pendergast eased up, grasped the barrel of the shotgun, laid it aside, and got off the man.
The man rolled over, then sat up, staring at Pendergast. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “FBI? Let me see your badge.”
Out came the wallet and badge. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m working,” the man said. “And you’ve just ruined my night’s work.” He gestured at the flowers and berries scattered around from a burst plastic bag. “I’ve every right to be here. My family’s been here two hundred years.”
The badge vanished back into Pendergast’s pocket. “Why were you following me?”
“I heard a scream, and then I see some crazy mother covered in mud, creeping through my woods, and all this two days after somebody’s been murdered and cut up not five miles from here—you’re damn right I’m going to follow that man and ask him his business.”
Pendergast nodded, tucking away the Les Baer. “My apologies for scattering your flowers. Atropa belladonna, I see. Deadly nightshade. Are you intending, like the wife of Claudius, to poison someone with it?”
“I’ve no idea who Claudius is, or his damn wife for that matter. I supply an herbal pharmacologist with it—for tinctures, decoctions, powders. It’s still compounded for gastrointestinal disorders, in case you didn’t know. These woods are full of it.”
“You are a botanist, then?”
“I’m a guy trying to make a living. Can I get up now?”
“Please. With my apologies.”
The man stood up, brushing leaves and twigs off himself. He was at least six and a half feet tall, lean, with a keen face, dark brown skin, blade-like nose, and incongruous green eyes. Pendergast could see from the way he carried himself that he had once been in the military.
The man held out his hand. “Paul Silas.”
They shook.
“I need to find a telephone,” said Pendergast.
“I got one at my place. Truck’s just down the road, if you want a ride.”
“If you please.”
Pendergast followed him through the woods until they reached the narrow road, the truck parked on the shoulder. Pendergast was displeased to be refused entry into the plush, leather-bound cab interior; instead, Silas asked him to ride in the pickup bed, like a dog. A few minutes later the pickup truck pulled into a dirt drive leading to a small log cabin in the woods, not far from the edge of the marsh about a half mile outside Dill Town.
The man led the way inside, turned on the lights. “Phone’s over there.”
Pendergast picked it up, dialed 911, gave a brief report to the dispatcher, and in a moment had been connected to Sergeant Gavin. He relayed the information to Gavin at length, then hung up. He glanced at his watch: almost three AM.
“They won’t be able to get far in those marshes now,” said Silas. “At half tide those currents run ten, twelve knots.”
“They’ll begin searching at high tide, with motor skiffs.”
“Makes sense. Are you going to join in the search?”
“I will. If I might trouble you for a ride into Exmouth?”
“No problem. But first, since we’ve got some time, you’d better dry out a bit.” Silas opened a woodstove and chucked in two pieces of wood. As Pendergast moved to settle himself down, Silas turned. “Um, if you don’t mind, not the sofa. The wooden rocking chair is plenty comfy.”
Pendergast sat in the rocking chair.
“You look like you might need a shot of bourbon.”
A hesitation. “What kind, pray tell?”
Silas laughed. “Discriminating, are we? Pappy Van Winkle twenty-year-old. I don’t allow rotgut on the premises.”
Pendergast inclined his head. “That will suffice.”
Silas disappeared into the kitchen and came back out with a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. He plunked them on the coffee table, filled one, then the other.
“I am much obliged to you, Mr. Silas,” said Pendergast, taking up the glass.
Silas took a delicate sip. “So you were out there investigating the murder of that historian?”
“I was indeed.”
“That scream back there was enough to make the devil himself fall to his knees, rosary in hand.”
Pendergast removed his map and spread it out on a nearby table. “I would like you to indicate, if you please, where you were when you heard the scream, and from what direction you think it came.”
Silas pulled the map toward him and hunched over it, his brow creased. “I was right here, in these woods, and the scream came from this direction.” He drew his finger along the map.
Pendergast made some notations. Silas’s finger lay over a section of the cone he’d previously drawn on the map. “This will help in the search for the body.” He rolled up the map. “Have you heard any rumors of someone living in the marshes?”
“Not specifically. But if I were trying to escape the law, that’s where I’d go.”
Pendergast took a sip of the bourbon. “Mr. Silas, you mentioned your family had been here two hundred years. You must know a great deal of local history.”
“Well, I’ve never much cared for genealogy and so forth. Back in the day, Dill Town was the so-called Negro end of town, mostly whaling families. But it wasn’t just African American. There was a lot of South Seas blood—Tahitian, Polynesian, Maori. I’m almost half Maori myself. The Maori were the greatest harpooners who ever lived. And then some of these sea captains had South Seas wives and families, you know, brought on board during the long voyages. They’d drop them off in Dill Town before heading into Boston to their white families. When they went back out to sea, they’d just pick them back up.” He shook his head.
“And so you are a descendant, then, of the original inhabitants of Dill Town?”
“Sure am. Like I said, I’m as much Maori as African. My great-granddad had some hellacious tribal tats, or so my grandma told me.”
“I understand most of the African Americans abandoned Dill Town after a lynching that happened there.”
Silas shook his head. “That was a terrible business. Terrible. The man was innocent, of course. But that didn’t matter to the vigilante group that strung him up. After that, folks in Dill Town decided it wasn’t a good place to raise their families. They had the money to get out, thanks to the whaling business, and most of them did. Some just went to New Bedford. Others as far as the Chicago slaughterhouses.”
“But your family stayed.”
“Well, my granddad had lost his throwing arm in a whaling accident and so he’d begun a medicinal herb business. This area’s full of herbs, especially nightshade, which grows all around here. You find it especially down where Oldham used to be. He couldn’t transfer that kind of skill to a big city like New Bedford. So we stayed. We just moved out of town, down the road a piece—and here we are.” He spread his hands.
“You live alone?”
“I had a wife, but she left. Too lonely, she said. The loneliness suits me just fine, most of the time, although I’m always happy to meet someone different. I’m no hermit. I hit the bar at the Inn once a week, drink, eat fried clams, and play domino
es with friends.”
Pendergast stood up, drink in hand, and walked to the window, staring into the darkness, southwestward toward the marshes. “If you could take me into town now, that would be much appreciated. But I do have a final question. These vigilantes you mention—who were they?”
“Nobody knows. Local folks, masked. I’ll tell you this: my granddad said that in the old days, there was a bad element in Exmouth. Not just a bad element—some truly evil people. He said they were like that story of the Gray Reaper: fellows looking to start a hell of their own.”
21
Are you sure it wasn’t a loon?” Chief Mourdock asked. “They’ve got a call that can sound human.”
Sergeant Gavin, sitting in the stern of the police skiff with his hand on the tiller, guiding it across Exmouth Bay toward the marshes, winced. Mourdock, even in his present smacked-down state, managed to be an ass. But Pendergast, sitting in the bow like some strange black figurehead, rolled-up map in hand, didn’t seem to notice.
Behind them, two more skiffs followed, equipped with radios. Because of the heavy cloud cover, a feeble gray stain of light on the eastern horizon was all that could be seen of sunrise. Mourdock had taken longer to assemble the party than Gavin would have liked—the chief’s skepticism about the whole expedition was quite evident—and it was now approaching seven in the morning as the boat chugged along the main waterway of the Exmouth River. The temperature had plunged overnight into the low forties, and it was even more flesh-chilling out here in the marshes than on land. The tide was high and the water had gone slack twenty minutes before. That didn’t give them much time before it began the ebb, the current flowing out of the tidal marshes at an ever-increasing rate. Gavin had spent time as a teenager earning pocket money by clamming in the marshes, and he had a healthy respect for their remoteness, fearful isolation, and the confusing flow of the tidal currents, which if you weren’t careful could sneak up on you. He vividly recalled being trapped on one of the marshy islands overnight because he’d lost track of the tides.
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