Cold Vengeance p-11

by Douglas Preston

  He closed the folder slowly. The explanation was obvious, of course. Constance had already seen today’s paper. A mind as inquisitive as hers would want to know what was going on in the world. He set off down the hall toward reception.

  As he drew close to the receiving station, he noticed Ostrom standing in an open doorway, speaking with a nurse.

  “Doctor?” Felder asked, with some hurry.

  Ostrom glanced back at him, eyebrows raised in inquiry.

  “Constance has seen the morning paper, right? The Times?”

  Ostrom shook his head.

  Felder froze. “No? You’re sure about that?”

  “I’m positive. The only newspapers, radios, and televisions that are patient-accessible are in the library. And Constance has been in her room all morning.”

  “Nobody has seen her? No staff, no nurses?”

  “Nobody. Her door hasn’t been unlocked since last night. The log states it quite clearly.” He frowned. “Is something the matter?”

  Felder realized he’d been holding his breath. He exhaled slowly. “Nothing. Thank you.”

  And he walked out of the lobby, into bright sunlight.

  CHAPTER 20

  CORRIE SWANSON HAD PUT OUT A ROUTINE Google alert for “Aloysius Pendergast.” At two AM, as she fired up her laptop and collected her e-mail, she saw she’d gotten a rare hit. It was an obscure document, a transcript of an inquest held in a place called Cairn Barrow, Scotland. The inquest was dated some weeks before, but it had just been posted online today.

  As she read the dry, legalistic language, a sense of complete disbelief took hold. Without commentary or analysis or even a conclusion, the transcript was nothing more than a record of the testimony of various witnesses relating to a shooting incident on some Highland moor. A terrible, utterly unbelievable incident.

  She read through it again, and again, and yet again, each time feeling an increase in the sense of unreality. Clearly, this strange tale was only the tip of some iceberg, with the real story submerged beneath the surface. None of it made sense. She felt her emotions morphing — from disbelief, to unreality, to desperate anxiety. Pendergast, shot dead in a hunting accident? Impossible.

  Hands trembling slightly, she fished out her notebook and looked up a telephone number, hesitated, then swore softly to herself and dialed the number. It was D’Agosta’s home number and he wouldn’t be happy getting a call at this hour, but screw it, the cop had never called her back, never followed through on his promise to look into it.

  She swore out loud again, this time louder, as her fingers misdialed and she had to start over.

  It rang about five times and then a female voice answered. “Hello?”

  “I want to talk to Vincent D’Agosta.” She could hear the tremor in her own voice.

  A silence. “Who is this?”

  Corrie took a deep breath. If she didn’t want to get hung up on, she’d better cool her jets. “This is Corrie Swanson. I’d like to speak to Lieutenant D’Agosta.”

  “The lieutenant isn’t here,” came the chilly response. “Perhaps I could take a message?”

  “Tell him to call me. Corrie Swanson. He has my number.”

  “And this is in reference to—?”

  She took a deep breath. Getting mad at D’Agosta’s wife or girlfriend or whoever wouldn’t help. “Agent Pendergast. I’m trying to find out about Pendergast,” she said, and added, “I worked with him on a case.”

  “Agent Pendergast is dead. I’m sorry.”

  Just hearing it seemed to strike her dumb. She swallowed, tried to find her voice. “How?”

  “A shooting accident in Scotland.”

  There it was. Confirmation. She tried to think of something more to say, but her mind was blank. Why hadn’t D’Agosta called her? But there was no point in talking further with this person. “Look, have the lieutenant call me. ASAP.”

  “I’ll pass on the message,” was the cool response.

  The phone went dead.

  She slumped in her chair, staring at the computer screen. This was crazy. What was she going to do? She felt suddenly bereft, as if she had lost her father. And there was no one to talk to, no one to grieve with. Her own father was a hundred miles away, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She felt suddenly, desperately alone.

  Staring at the computer screen, she clicked on the link to the website about Pendergast she had been lovingly maintaining:

  www.agentpendergast.com

  Working quickly, almost automatically, she created a frame with a thick black border and began to write within it.

  I’ve just learned that Agent P. — Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast — has passed away in a bizarre and tragic accident. This is awful. I can hardly believe it to be true. I can’t believe the world can keep spinning without him on it.

  It happened during a hunting trip to Scotland…

  But even as she wrote the eulogy, fighting back tears, the surreal aspects of the story began to reassert themselves in her mind. And in the end, as she finished and posted it, she wondered if she even believed what she had just written.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Foulmire

  JUDSON ESTERHAZY PAUSED TO CATCH HIS BREATH. It was an uncharacteristically sunny morning, and the boggy moorlands that surrounded him on all sides shone in rich browns and greens. In the distance, he could see the dark line of the Inish Marshes. And between the hillocks ahead of him, a few hundred yards away, stood the small stone cottage known as Glims Holm.

  Esterhazy had heard tell of it but had initially dismissed it as being too many miles from the site of the shooting and far too primitive for Pendergast to have received the kind of medical attention he would have needed. But then he’d learned D’Agosta had been in Inverkirkton, asking around for Pendergast, and from there he’d discovered that Glims Holm was the last place D’Agosta had visited before returning to America, disappointed.

  But was he truly disappointed? The more he thought about it, the more it began to seem — perversely — the kind of place Pendergast would have chosen to recuperate.

  And then — accidentally, in the course of background research into the official records of the Shire of Sutherland — Esterhazy had learned the nugget that convinced him: the strange old woman who lived in the stone cottage in front of him was Dr. Roscommon’s aunt. This was a fact that Roscommon — all too clearly a man of habitual restraint — had kept concealed from the good folk of Inverkirkton.

  Positioning himself behind a thicket of gorse, Esterhazy took out his binoculars and observed the cottage. He could see the old woman through the downstairs window, laboring over a stove and moving about. After a while she removed something from the stove, and he watched as she walked past the window and out of sight. For a moment she was gone… and then he saw her figure pass by the second-story window, carrying what looked like a mug. He could just barely see her figure inside the attic space, leaning over what seemed to be a sickly person in a bed, helping him sit up and giving him the mug to drink.

  Esterhazy’s heart quickened. Digging his walking stick into the soft ground, he made a circuit of the cottage, ending up on the far side. There was a small back door, of rough wood, that connected to a small kitchen garden; a shed; and a stone sheep pen. There were no windows on the back side of the house.

  He glanced around carefully. Nobody was to be seen; the infinitude of moor and mire on all sides was devoid of life. He pulled the small handgun from his pocket, ensured there was a round in the chamber. With great care, he approached the cottage from its blind side.

  Soon he was crouched by the back door. With a single finger he made a small scratching noise on the wood and waited.

  Sure enough, the sharp-eared old crone heard it; he listened to her footsteps and unintelligible imprecations as she approached. A bolt shot back and the door opened. The woman looked out.

  A muttered oath.

  With one swift, economical movement Esterhazy rose, clamped his hand over her mouth, and
dragged her one-armed from the doorway. He gave her a solid tap on the back of the head with the butt of the gun, then laid her unconscious body on the turf. A moment later he had noiselessly slipped into the cottage. The ground floor was a single large room; he looked around quickly, taking in the enameled stove, the worn chairs, the antlers on the walls, the steep staircase rising to the loft overhead. A loud, stertorous breathing could be heard coming from above. It continued undisturbed.

  He moved around the small room with infinite care, placing each foot with fanatical caution, checking the commode, the single closet, satisfying himself that nobody was in hiding. Then, keeping tight hold of the gun, he moved over to the staircase. It was built of thick pegged planks, which might or might not creak.

  He waited at the bottom of the stairs, listening. The breathing continued, somewhat labored, and once he heard the man upstairs shift in his bed and grunt with what sounded like discomfort. Esterhazy waited, letting a full five minutes pass. All seemed normal.

  He raised a leg and placed one foot on the lower stair, began to put pressure on it, bit by bit, until his full weight was applied. No creak of wood. He placed his next foot on the higher tread, performing the same excruciating operation, and again there was no creak. With maddening slowness he ascended the staircase in this fashion, consuming minutes of time, until he was almost at the top. The foot of a primitive bed was visible five feet away. He raised himself ever so slowly and peered over the top into the bed. A figure lay in it: back to him, covered, sleeping, his breathing labored but regular. He was a gaunt old man in a heavy nightdress, with white hair almost as wild and rumpled as the crone’s. Or so it appeared.

  Esterhazy knew better.

  An extra pillow had been draped over the headboard. Putting his gun away, Esterhazy took hold of the pillow and, keeping his eyes fixed on the man in the bed, picked it up. Tensing, gripping the pillow in both hands, he crouched like a tiger — then suddenly pounced, landing on the bed, bringing the pillow down on the man’s face and leaning into it with all his strength.

  A muffled cry came from below and a hand flew up, scratching and flailing at Esterhazy, but there was no weapon in the hand and he knew his attack had been a complete and total surprise. He drove the pillow down even harder, the muffled sounds cut off, and now the weakened man struggled silently, his flapping hands plucking at his shirt. The body heaved below him, surprisingly strong for one so recently gravely wounded. One large spidery hand grasped the covers, yanking them this way and that, as if mistaking the covers for his assailant’s own clothing. With a final heave of hands and legs the covers came off, exposing his upper body, but Pendergast was rapidly weakening and the end would come soon.

  Then something gave Esterhazy pause: the man’s gnarly old hands. He stared in the dim light at the man’s lower body, his spindly legs, the parchment skin, the varicose veins. There was no mistaking it — this was the body of an old man. Nobody could create such an effective disguise. But more than that was the absolute lack of bandages, scar, or anything remotely like a month-old gunshot wound on the heaving torso.

  His mind worked furiously to overcome the shock and rage. He had been so sure, so very sure…

  He quickly released the pillow, exposing the old man’s distorted face, his tongue protruding, his eyes popping with terror. He coughed once, twice, gasping for breath, his sunken chest heaving with the effort.

  In a blind panic, Esterhazy threw the pillow aside and stumbled down the stairs; the old crone was just staggering into the back door, blood running down her face.

  “You devil!” she shrieked, grasping at him with bony fingers as he ran past, flinging open the front door and running back over the wide, empty moorlands.

  CHAPTER 22

  Malfourche

  THE MILD NIGHT AIR, SIGHING IN THROUGH the open window, stirred the muslin curtains of the living room. Feeling the breeze on her face, June Brodie looked up from the Mississippi Board of Nursing forms she was filling out. Except for the low susurrus of wind, the night was quiet. She glanced at her watch: nearly two in the morning. Faintly, from the den, she could hear the sound of a deep-voiced narrator droning from the television: no doubt Carlton was watching one of the military history shows he was so passionate about.

  She took a sip from the bottle of Coke that sat at her elbow. She had always loved Coke out of glass bottles; it reminded her of her childhood and the old-fashioned vending machines where you opened the narrow glass window and pulled the bottles out by their necks. She was convinced it tasted different in a bottle. But for the last decade, out in the swamp, she’d had to content herself with aluminum cans. Charles Slade hadn’t been able to bear the way that light glinted off glass, and almost no exposed glass had been allowed on Spanish Island. Even the syringe barrels had been plastic.

  She replaced the bottle on its coaster. There were other benefits of returning to a normal life. Carlton could watch his television programs without having to wear headphones. Blinds could be opened wide, allowing light and fresh air. She could decorate the house with fresh flowers — roses and gardenias and her favorite, calla lilies — without fear that their scent would provoke a desperate protest. She’d kept herself trim, she liked fine clothes and fashionable hairstyles; now she would have a chance to wear them where others could see. It’s true, they’d had to endure more than their share of stares from neighboring townsfolk — some suspicious, some merely curious — but already people were getting used to their being back. The police investigation was over and done with. The annoying reporter from the Ezerville Bee hadn’t returned. And while his story had been picked up as a small item in a Houston paper, it didn’t seem to have spread any farther. After Slade’s death, they had taken their time — almost five months — to make sure nobody would ever know how they had been living, what they had been doing. Only then had they made a public reappearance. The secret of their lives in the swamp would remain just that — a secret.

  June Brodie shook her head a little wistfully. Despite telling herself all this, there were still times — times like this, in the quiet of the night — when she missed Charles Slade so much it was almost a physical pain. It’s true, all those years of tending to his wasted body, to a mind ravaged by disease and a toxic sensitivity to any kind of sensory stimulus, had dulled her love. And yet she had once loved him so fiercely. She’d known it was wrong, utterly unfair to her husband. But as CEO of Longitude, Slade had been so powerful, so handsome, so charismatic — and in his own way, so very kind to her… She had been willing, so much more than willing, to give up her job as an RN and devote herself to him, by day and — quite frequently — by night as well.

  The den had gone silent. Carlton must have turned off the TV in favor of his other passion: crossword puzzles from the London Times.

  She sighed, glanced down at the papers in her lap. Speaking of her job, she’d better get these things filled out. Her license as an advanced practice registered nurse had expired prior to 2004, and under Mississippi law reinstatement required that she…

  Quite abruptly she looked up. Carlton was standing in the doorway, a very odd look on his face.

  “Carlton?” she said. “What is it? What—”

  At that moment another figure loomed into view out of the darkness behind her husband. She caught her breath. It was a man, tall and lean, and dressed in a dark, expensive-looking trench coat. A black leather cap was pulled down low over eyes that looked at her with calm detachment. In one of his gloved hands was a gun, which was aimed at the base of her husband’s skull. Its barrel seemed strangely long until she realized it had been fitted with a silencer.

  “Sit down,” the man said, and half prodded, half pushed her husband into a love seat beside her. Despite the rush of adrenaline that animated her limbs and the sudden pounding of her heart, June Brodie picked up on the foreign tang in the voice. It was European, maybe Dutch, more likely German.

  The man glanced around the room, noticed the open window, shut it, and
closed the curtains. He took off the trench coat and draped it over a nearby chair. Pulling the chair up in front of the couple, he sat down and crossed his legs. The handgun drooped easily at his side. He hitched up the knees of his trousers and casually shot his cuffs, as if he were wearing a thousand-dollar suit instead of a cat burglar’s outfit. He leaned toward her, a long, thin, worm-like mole growing out below one eye. She had the sudden ridiculous thought: Why doesn’t he get that thing removed?

  “I wonder,” he said in a pleasant voice, “if you could clear something up for me.”

  June Brodie glanced covertly at her husband.

  “Can you tell me, please, what is a moon pie?”

  The room remained silent. June wondered if she’d misheard.

  “Local foods and delicacies interest me,” the man continued. “I’ve been in this curious part of your country for a day now. I’ve learned the difference between crawfish and crayfish — that is, none. I’ve tasted grits and — what are they called again? — hush puppies. But I can’t seem to find out what kind of a pie a moon pie is.”

  “It’s not a pie,” Carlton said, in a high, strained voice. “It’s a large cookie. Made of marshmallow and graham cracker. And, um, chocolate.”

  “I see. Thank you.” The man paused to look at them in turn. “And now, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me where you both have been the last twelve years?”

  June Brodie took a deep breath. When she spoke, she was surprised at the evenness of her own voice. “It’s no secret. It was in the papers. We ran a B and B in San Miguel, Mexico. It’s called Casa Magnolia, and—”

  With a single economical move, the man lifted his weapon and — with a muffled thunk—shot off Carlton Brodie’s left kneecap. Brodie jerked as if touched with a cattle prod, doubling over with a roar of surprise and pain, the blood pouring out between the fingers clutching at his knee.