White Fire p-13

by Douglas Preston

  He leaned over, tapped the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen.”

  The room fell silent.

  “For those who may not know me,” he said, “I’m Chief Stanley Morris of the Roaring Fork Police Department. I’m going to read a statement, and then I will take questions from the press and the public.”

  He squared his papers and began to read, keeping his voice stern and neutral. It was a short statement that confined itself to the indisputable facts: the time of the fire, the number and identity of the victims, the determination it was a homicide, the status of the investigation. No speculation. He ended with an appeal for all persons to come forward with any information they might have, no matter how trivial. He of course did not mention Pendergast’s suggestion that there might be more such events; that would be far too incendiary. Besides, there was no evidence for it — as Chivers had said, it was mere speculation.

  He looked up. “Questions?”

  An immediate tumult from the press gallery. Morris had already decided whom he was going to call on and in what order, and he now pointed to his number one journalist, an old pal from the Roaring Fork Times.

  “Chief Morris, thank you for your statement. Do you have any suspects?”

  “We have some important leads we’re following up,” Morris replied. “I can’t say more than that.” Because we don’t have shit, he thought grimly.

  “Any idea if the perp is local?”

  “We don’t know,” said Morris. “We’ve gotten guest lists from all the hotels and rentals, we’ve got lift ticket sales, and we’ve enlisted the help of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which is currently searching their databases for previous arson convictions.”

  “Any possible motive?”

  “Nothing concrete. We’re looking into various possibilities.”

  “Such as?”

  “Burglary, revenge, perverted kicks.”

  “Wasn’t it true that one of the victims worked in your office?”

  God, he had hoped to avoid that line of questioning. “Jenny Baker was an intern in my office, working over her winter break.” He swallowed, tried to go on despite the sudden fuzziness in his voice. “She was a wonderful girl who had aspirations to a career in law enforcement. It was…a devastating loss.”

  “There’s a rumor that one of the victims was tied to a bed and doused with gasoline,” another reporter interjected.

  Son of a bitch. Did Chivers leak that? “That is true,” said the chief, after a hesitation.

  This caused a sensation.

  “And another victim was found burned to death in a bathtub?”

  “Yes,” said the chief, without elaborating.

  More uproar. This was getting ugly.

  “Were the girls molested?”

  The press would ask anything; they had no shame. “The M.E. hasn’t concluded his examination. But it may not be possible to know, given the state of the remains.”

  “Was anything taken?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Were they burned alive?”

  Rising furor.

  “It’ll be at least a week before most of the evidence has been analyzed. All right — please — enough questions from the press — we’ll move on to the public.” The chief dearly hoped this would be easier.

  The entire section was on its feet, hands waving. Not a good sign. He pointed to someone he didn’t know, a meek-looking elderly woman, but a person in front of her misunderstood — deliberately or not — and immediately responded in a booming voice. Christ, it was Sonja Marie Dutoit, the semi-retired actress, infamous in Roaring Fork for her obnoxious behavior in shops and restaurants and for her face, which had been lifted and Botoxed so many times it bore a perpetual grin.

  “Thank you for choosing me,” she said in a smoke-cured voice. “I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say how shocked and horrified I am about this crime.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Morris. “Your question, please?”

  “It’s been thirty-six hours since this terrible, horrible, frightening fire. We all saw it. And judging from what you just said, you haven’t made much progress — if any.”

  Chief Morris said, calmly, “Do you have a question, Ms. Dutoit?”

  “I certainly do. Why haven’t you caught the killer yet? This isn’t New York City: we’ve only got two thousand people in this town. There’s only one road in and out. So what’s the problem?”

  “As I said, we’ve brought tremendous resources to bear, bringing in specialists from as far away as Grand Junction, as well as the involvement of the NCAVC. Now, I’m sure other people have questions—”

  “I’m not done,” Dutoit went on. “When’s the next house going to get burned down?”

  This led to a susurrus of muttering. Some people were rolling their eyes in reaction to Dutoit’s questions; others were beginning to look ever so slightly nervous.

  “There’s not a shred of evidence that we’re dealing with a serial arsonist,” the chief said, eager to cut off this avenue of speculation.

  But Dutoit, it seemed, was not yet through. “Which one of us is going to wake up in flames in their own bed tonight? And what in the name of God are you doing about it?”

  21

  It was hard to believe the Mineshaft Tavern was part of Roaring Fork, with the sawdust on the floor, the basement rock walls hung with rusty old mining tools, the smell of beer and Texas barbecue, the scruffy working-class clientele — and above all, the talentless stoner at the mike strumming some tune of his own composition, his face contorted with excessive pathos.

  As she walked in, Corrie was pleasantly surprised. This was much more her kind of place than the restaurant of the Hotel Sebastian.

  She found Ted at “his” table in the back, just where he’d said he would be, with an imperial pint in front of him. He stood up — she liked that — and helped her into her seat before sitting down again.

  “What’d you like?”

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Maroon Bells Stout, made right down the road. Fantastic stuff.”

  The waiter came over and she ordered a pint, hoping she wouldn’t get carded. That would be embarrassing. But there were no problems.

  “I didn’t know a place like this could exist in Roaring Fork,” said Corrie.

  “There are still plenty of real people in this town — ski lift attendants, waiters, dishwashers, handymen…librarians.” He winked. “We need our cheap, low-down places of entertainment.”

  Her beer arrived, and they clinked glasses. Corrie took a sip. “Wow. Good.”

  “Better than Guinness. Cheaper, too.”

  “So who’s the guy on stage?” Corrie kept her voice neutral in case he was a friend of Ted’s.

  Ted snickered. “Open-mike night. Don’t know him, poor fellow. Let’s hope he hasn’t quit his day job.” He picked up his menu. “Hungry?”

  She thought for a moment: could she spare the money? But the menu wasn’t too expensive. If she didn’t eat, she might get drunk and do something stupid. She smiled, nodded.

  “So,” said Ted. “How are things going in the charnel house up on the mountain?”

  “Good.” Corrie contemplated telling him about what she’d discovered but decided against it. She didn’t know Ted well enough. “The remains of Emmett Bowdree have a lot to say. I hope to get permission to work on a few more skeletons soon.”

  “I’m glad it’s working out for you. I love to think of Kermode getting her knickers in a twist while you’re up there doing your thing.”

  “I don’t know,” Corrie said. “She’s got worse things to worry about now. You know — the fire.”

  “I’ll say. Jesus, how awful was that?” He paused. “You know, I grew up there. In The Heights.”

  “Really?” Corrie couldn’t hide her surprise. “I never would have guessed that.”

  “Thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment. My dad was a television producer — sitcoms and t
he like. He palled around with a lot of Hollywood people. My mother slept with most of them.” He shook his head, sipped his beer. “I had a kind of messed-up childhood.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” In no way was Corrie ready to talk to Ted about her own childhood, however.

  “No big deal. They got divorced and my dad raised me. With all the sitcom residuals, he never had to work again. When I came back from college I got my butt out of The Heights and found an apartment in town, down on East Cowper. It’s tiny, but I feel better about breathing its air.”

  “Does he still live up there in The Heights?”

  “Nah, he sold the house a few years back, died of cancer last year — only sixty years old, too.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  He waved his hand. “I know. But I was glad to get rid of the connection to The Heights. It really frosts me the way they handled that Boot Hill thing — digging up one of the most historic cemeteries in Colorado to build a spa for rich assholes.”

  “Yeah. Pretty ugly.”

  Then Ted shrugged, laughed lightly. “Well, stuff happens. What are you going to do? If I hated the place so much, I wouldn’t still be here — right?”

  Corrie nodded. “So what did you major in at the University of Utah?”

  “Sustainability studies. I wasn’t much of a student — I wasted too much time skiing and snowmobiling. I love snowmobiling almost as much as I do skiing. Oh, and mountain climbing, too.”

  “Mountain climbing?”

  “Yeah. I’ve climbed forty-one Fourteeners.”

  “What’s a Fourteener?”

  Ted chuckled. “Man, you really are an eastern girl. Colorado has fifty-five mountains over fourteen thousand feet — we call them Fourteeners. To climb them all is the holy grail of mountaineering in the U.S. — at least, in the lower forty-eight.”

  “Impressive.”

  Their food arrived: shepherd’s pie for Corrie, a burger for Ted, with another pint for him. Corrie declined a refill, thinking about the scary mountain road up to her dentist’s-office-on-the-hill.

  “So what about you?” Ted asked. “I’m curious about how you know the man in black.”

  “Pendergast? He’s my…” God, how to put it? “He’s sort of my guardian.”

  “Yeah? Like your godfather or something?”

  “Something like that. I helped him on a case a few years ago, and ever since he’s kind of taken an interest in me.”

  “He’s one cool dude — no kidding. Is he really an FBI agent?”

  “One of the best.”

  A new singer took over the mike — much better than the previous one — and they listened for a while, talking and finishing their meal. Ted tried to pay but Corrie was ready for him and insisted on splitting the check.

  As they got up to leave, Ted said, his voice dropping low: “Want to see my tiny apartment?”

  Corrie hesitated. She was tempted — very tempted. Ted looked like he was all sinew and muscle, lean and hard, and yet charming and goofy, with the nicest brown eyes. But she had never quite been able to feel good about a relationship if she slept with the guy on the first date.

  “Not tonight, thanks. I’ve got to get home, get my sleep,” she said, but added a smile to let him know it wasn’t absolute.

  “No problem. We’ll have to do this again — soon.”

  “I’d like that.”

  As she drove away from the restaurant, heading toward the dark woods and thinking about crawling into a freezing bed, Corrie started to regret her decision not to “see” Ted’s tiny apartment.

  22

  In his suite of rooms on the top floor of the Hotel Sebastian, Agent Pendergast laid aside the book he was reading, drained the small cup of espresso that sat on the side table, and then — standing up — walked over to the picture window on the far side of the sitting room. The suite was perfectly silent: Pendergast disliked the clamor of anonymous neighbors and had reserved the rooms on both sides of his own to ensure he would remain undisturbed. He stood at the window, absolutely still, looking down over East Main Street and the light snow that was falling onto the sidewalks, buildings, and passersby, softening the evening scene and bestowing a muted, dream-like quality on the millions of Christmas lights stretching many blocks. He remained there for perhaps ten minutes, gazing out into the night. Then, turning away again, he walked over to the desk, where a FedEx envelope lay, unopened. It was from his factotum in New York, Proctor, addressed to him in care of the Hotel Sebastian.

  Pendergast picked up the envelope, slit it open with a smooth motion, and let the contents slip onto the desk. Several sealed envelopes of various sizes fell out, along with an oversize card — embossed and engraved — and a brief note in Proctor’s handwriting. The note said merely that Pendergast’s ward, Constance Greene, had left for Dharamsala, India, where she planned to spend two weeks visiting the nineteenth rinpoche. The fancy card was an invitation to the wedding of Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta and Captain Laura Hayward, which was scheduled for May twenty-ninth of the following spring.

  Pendergast’s gaze moved to the sealed envelopes. He glanced over them for a moment without touching any. Then he picked up an airmail envelope and turned it over thoughtfully in his hands. Leaving the others, he walked back to his sitting room chair, sat down, and opened the letter. A single sheet of thin paper lay inside, a letter in a childish hand, written in the old-fashioned German script known as Sütterlin. He began to read.

  December 6

  École Mère-Église

  St. Moritz, Switzerland

  Dear Father,

  It seems a long time since you last visited. I have been counting the days. They number one hundred and twelve. I hope you will again soon come.

  I am treated well. The food here is very good. On Saturday suppers we have Linzer Torte for desert. Have you ever eaten Linzer Torte? It is good.

  A lot of the teachers here speak German but I try always to use my English. They say my English is getting better. The teachers are very nice except for Madame Montaine who always smells of rose water. I like History and Science but not Mathematiks. I am not good at Mathematiks.

  In the autumn I enjoyed walking on the hill sides after classes but now there is too much snow. They tell me that over the Christmas holidays I will be taught how to ski. I think I will like that.

  Thank you for your letter. Please send me another. I hope we shall meet again soon.

  Love,

  Your son,

  Tristram

  Pendergast read the letter a second time. Then, very slowly, he refolded it and placed it back into its envelope. Turning off the reading lamp, he sat in the dark, lost in thought, book forgotten, as the minutes ticked by. Finally he stirred again, pulled a cell phone from his suit pocket, and dialed a number with a northern Virginia area code.

  “Central Monitoring,” came the crisp, accentless voice.

  “This is S. A. Pendergast. Please transfer me to South American Operations, Desk 14-C.”

  “Very good.” There was a brief silence, a click, and then another voice came on the line. “Agent Wilkins.”

  “Pendergast speaking.”

  The voice stiffened slightly. “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s the status of Wildfire?”

  “Stable but negative. No hits.”

  “Your monitoring efforts?”

  “All listening posts are active. We’re monitoring national and local police reports and news media twenty-four seven, and we’re electronically combing the daily NSA feeds as well. In addition, we continue to interface with CIA field agents in Brazil and the surrounding countries in search of any…anomalous activity.”

  “You have my updated location?”

  “In Colorado? Yes.”

  “Very good, Agent Wilkins. As always, please inform me immediately if the status of Wildfire changes.”

  “We’ll do that, sir.”

  Pendergast ended the call. Picking up the house phone, he ordered another e
spresso from room service. Then he used his cell phone to make another call: this one to a suburb of Cleveland called River Pointe.

  The call was answered on the second ring. There was no voice; just the sound of a connection being made.

  “Mime?” Pendergast said into the silence.

  For a moment, nothing. Then a high, thin voice wheezed: “Is that my main man? My main Secret Agent Man?”

  “I’d like an update, please, Mime.”

  “All quiet on the Western Front.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “One moment.” Pendergast paused as a room service attendant brought in the espresso. He tipped the man, then waited until he was once again alone. “And you’re confident that you’ve cast your net widely, and finely, enough to spot the…target if he surfaces?”

  “Secret Agent Man, I’ve got a series of AI algorithms and heuristic search patterns online that would make you stain your government-issue BVDs. I’m monitoring all official, and a goodly amount of unofficial, web traffic in and out of the target area. You can’t imagine the bandwidth I’m burning through. Why, I’ve had to siphon off server farms from at least half a dozen—”

  “I can’t imagine. Nor do I want to.”

  “Anyway, the objective’s totally offline, no Facebook updates for this dude. But if the guy’s as sick as you say, then the moment he surfaces — hoo, boy!” A sudden silence. “Um, oops. I keep forgetting Alban’s your son.”

  “Just keep up the monitoring operations, please, Mime. And let me know the instant you note anything.”

  “You got it.” The phone went dead.

  And Pendergast sat in the darkened room, unmoving, for a long time.

  23

  Corrie parked her Rent-a-Junker Ford Focus in the sprawling driveway of 1 Ravens Ravine Road — aka, the Fine mansion — and got out. It was almost midnight, and a huge pale moon, hanging low in the sky, turned the pine trees blue against a creamy bed of white snow, striped with shadows. A light snow was falling, and here, in this bowl-like vale at the edge of a ravine, she felt like she was inside some child’s overturned snow globe. Ahead, the row of six garage doors stood against the cement drive like big gray teeth. She killed the engine — for some obscure reason, Fine didn’t want her to use the garage — and got out of the car. She walked up to the closest door, plucked off her glove, punched in the code. Then, as it rose on its metal rails, she turned suddenly, with a sharp intake of breath.