Pendergast was as good as his word: within another hour they were taking their first-class seats in a flight that would get them back to Atlanta by seven PM. Pendergast had been quiet during the drive from Corbett to Portland International, which was fine with Coldmoon, who was in no mood for conversation. As the flight attendants closed the doors and went through their preflight routine, Coldmoon felt Pendergast lay a hand lightly on his arm.
“Armstrong,” he said, “I plan to spend the flight in meditation. I’d appreciate it if you would make sure I’m not disturbed.”
“Sure. I hope to catch forty winks myself.” Coldmoon could guess the odd mental exercise Pendergast meant by “meditation”—he’d seen him at it once before, in a snowbound hotel in Maine. He turned away, then sensed Pendergast was still looking at him.
“There’s something I would like to share with you,” Pendergast said. “It might help shed additional light on this excursion if you search the internet for a certain D. B. Cooper. I think you’ll find his story makes interesting reading.”
“D. B. Cooper?” The name was familiar to Coldmoon, but he wasn’t sure why.
“Yes. The name he actually went by was Dan Cooper, but in their reporting the press mistakenly called him D. B. Cooper. That’s the moniker that has persisted over time.”
“How much time?”
“Since the day before Thanksgiving of 1971, as a matter of fact.” Pendergast leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest like an Egyptian mummy, and closed his eyes.
46
THE CAMPAIGN BUS EASED through the police barricades blocking Drayton Street. Seeing this, Senator Buford Drayton felt a rush of pride in his historic family. The Draytons went all the way back to the Founding Fathers, and a Drayton had signed the Articles of Confederation. The Draytons had played an important role in the War of Northern Aggression as well. No wonder Savannah had named a street after them. That was one reason he’d chosen Forsyth Park for the kick-off rally of his re-election campaign: to remind voters of his family’s patriotic service to the country, and those among its ranks who had fought for the cause—to which there was a splendid monument in Forsyth Park.
The bus came to a halt with a hiss of brakes. Senator Drayton exited his private wood-paneled sitting room in the rear of the bus. He found his chief of staff, communications chief, and campaign chief seated around a table in the main section of the bus, talking strategy. They all rose when he came out.
“I want to personally review the setup,” he said.
“Yes, Senator,” replied the campaign chief.
An advance man helped the senator down the steps. He stood at the edge of the park and looked around. People were already gathering along East Park Avenue: big crowds of followers, many wearing the signature blue-and-red cap of his campaign with its STAY WITH DRAYTON slogan, many carrying placards with the same message, dressed in red, white, and blue. He heard their distant roar, and it gladdened his heart.
He looked at his watch. Five thirty PM. The rally was scheduled to begin at eight, but as usual he’d actually start at nine: he’d learned that, for political rallies at least, the anticipation of the wait—with supporters chattering excitedly among themselves—brought their energy to a fever pitch. The weather report said scattered thunderstorms, but only a 20 percent chance. The sky was mostly clear; things were looking good.
Across the great lawn, at the foot of the Civil War monument to the Confederate dead, a stage had been set up and draped in bunting. On the vast expanse in front, thousands of chairs were being placed, with plenty of open lawn behind and on either side for the overflow crowd. Drayton began strolling toward the stage.
As he walked, he noticed the chairs were not being arranged as he would have liked.
“Hey, you!” He veered from his route toward a heavyset man who appeared to be a supervisor.
The man turned toward him with an annoyed expression, saw who it was, and changed his look right fast.
“Look here,” said Drayton, “are you the one in charge of this?”
“Of setting up the chairs, yes, Senator.”
“Then what do you mean by arranging ragged lines such as all these?”
“I’m sorry, Senator.”
“Straighten them up. I want them to look crisp and even—not wandering all over like a line of recruits on the first day of boot camp.”
He laughed and looked around at his staff, and they all laughed, too.
“Get them nice and straight.”
“Yes, Senator, right away.”
The supervisor nodded and went off, yelling and gesturing at the workers who were unfolding and setting up the chairs. Drayton watched as they started adjusting them. Hell, if they’d set them up right the first time they wouldn’t have to do it again.
He continued to the stage and mounted the steps. A podium, draped in more bunting, stood in the middle, with a row of twenty-one flags forming a backdrop. Above were two giant screens that would project Drayton’s tanned and smiling face to the distant parts of the crowd. Now they displayed a still picture of Drayton, gesticulating from the Senate floor, with the tag line Georgia, Stay with Drayton.
The engineers were still setting up the last touches of the sound system—two towers of Voice of the Theatre speakers, powerful enough for a rock concert—taping down cables snaking every which way. On the far side, a police sergeant was talking to a group of about thirty cops, apparently issuing assignments.
Drayton turned to his chief of staff. “Where’s the commander?”
“You mean Delaplane?” the chief said. “I haven’t seen her.”
Drayton descended the steps on the other side of the stage and went over to the sergeant, who broke off his talk.
“Welcome, Senator,” he said. “Looks like it’s going to be a big evening.”
“Well, maybe,” said Drayton. “Where’s your commander?”
“She’s not here.”
“I can see she’s not here, Sergeant—” He peered at the man’s ID. “Sergeant Adair. What I want to know is, why isn’t she here?”
“I believe she’s tied up with that case, but we’ve got everything under control, I can assure you.”
“I am not assured. The top person should be here, supervising. This is the most important security concern in the entire city of Savannah right now. So why the hell isn’t she here?”
“Senator, I can inquire if you wish.”
“Yes, I wish. Jesus.”
Sergeant Adair took out his radio and called headquarters. Drayton could hear the dispatcher telling the sergeant that Delaplane was not available.
“Ma’am,” said the sergeant, “Senator Drayton is here and wants to, ah, know why she’s not supervising the event in person.”
After listening to some more back-and-forth, Drayton started to lose his temper. “I want to talk to her personally,” he told Adair. “Hand me the damn radio.”
The sergeant, his face growing red, spoke to the dispatcher. Drayton took the radio. “This is Senator Drayton. I want to speak to the commander, now.”
After a long moment, he was finally put through.
“Commander? I’m wondering why you’re not here in person, supervising security for the rally. Don’t you realize there are people out there threatening to protest and maybe even cause violence? I’ve got almost half a million dollars invested in this rally.”
“Senator, let me assure you, we’ve got over a hundred officers working security, we’ve set up portable scans at six entry points—we’ve got everything under control.”
Drayton listened impatiently to the commander’s cool voice. “How do you know that if you’re not here? I want you here, do you understand?”
There was a short silence. “All right, then, I’ll be down in about half an hour to review security measures personally. But I assure you again, there’s no cause for concern.”
“Commander, I can’t imagine what’s more important than security for the largest p
olitical rally in Savannah in years.”
“I will be there, Senator. But to your point, I just might mention we have a rather involved homicide investigation in progress—one that you’ve taken a personal interest in.”
“Yes, and whose fault is it that it hasn’t been solved?”
The commander signed off and Drayton handed the radio to the sergeant. He turned to his chief of staff. “I thought you had this under control.”
“Yes, sir. It will be, sir.”
“Christ, what a bunch of numb-nuts. Let’s get back to the bus. Makeup’s supposed to be here by now, and I’ve got to start getting ready.”
Drayton climbed back on the bus just as the makeup artist arrived with her two assistants and gear.
“Come aboard,” Drayton called, “and let’s get the show on the road.”
They set up a portable makeup chair and table, and Drayton settled down with care and plucked at the creases of his pants to keep them crisp. He leaned his head back against the headrest. “Pay particular attention to my nose and under my eyes,” he told the makeup artist. “Cover up those veins. There are going to be cameras from every angle, and hot lights, so make sure it’s able to last a couple of hours.”
“Of course, Senator.”
He closed his eyes and let the woman work over his face, covering up the varicose veins, the dark circles under his eyes, painting and whisking and brushing away his wrinkles and liver spots.
As she worked, he tried to relax and focus on the speech ahead, instead of thinking about that ass-clown running against him, who the polls indicated was creeping ahead. This rally would nip that in the bud. In his mind’s eye, he could already hear the roar of approval, see the sea of shining faces and waving placards, the band playing as he walked out on the stage. That moment was always one of the biggest thrills of his life.
47
IT WAS 7:30 PM WHEN Constance was summoned to Pendergast’s bedroom, accessible through a common door that joined their two suites. It was ascetic and clean, as his sleeping chambers always were: no doubt he’d asked the staff to remove items of furniture or decoration he deemed objectionable.
“Constance?” Pendergast said. “In here, if you please.”
The voice came from an open door on the far side of the bedroom. Constance knew Pendergast had taken this suite for himself specifically because it contained this extra room—a space originally intended, according to hotel legend, as a sniper’s nest from which to pick off approaching Yankees. She crossed the bedroom and entered it curiously.
Pendergast had turned it into a sort of private war room. The walls were of the darkest ocher, and there was only a single, narrow window—lending credence to the sniper story. The room was small and piled with books: volumes on local history, astrophysics, the supernatural beliefs of Eastern Europe, and a dozen other subjects that seemed to have no common thread among them. There were also maps of Savannah pinned to the walls, both old and new, with several locations marked with highlighter. When and how Pendergast had amassed all this, she had no idea.
But it was Pendergast himself who gave her the greater shock. His eyes were red-rimmed, and his skin even paler than usual. He was tense and appeared excited. He sat at a desk, a vintage Emeralite lamp throwing an absinthe-colored pool of light over the clutter of books and maps. Despite the room’s disorder, the desk itself held only a bottle of Lagavulin, a half-full glass, and a pill container. This, along with his demeanor, disturbed Constance.
“Please have a seat,” he told her.
She sat down opposite him.
Pendergast leaned in toward her. “I hope you’ll forgive me, dearest Constance, if I seem brusque. There is a need to move quickly. I’ve put many pieces of the puzzle together, but several are conjectural and others don’t fit properly. This is where I need your help. If I’m right, only Frost can supply the answers—and only you are in a position to get those answers from her.”
“She might not be up yet. She normally rises at ten PM.”
“You may have to rouse her. You’ve forged a bond with the old woman; you’re her confidante.”
“I would hardly call myself a confidante.”
“But you do feel a certain kinship with her, correct?”
“You could call it that.”
“And she feels the same for you?”
Constance nodded. Then she hesitated a moment—Pendergast’s entire frame was radiating eagerness, impatience. And yet she had to speak. “Aloysius, ‘kinship’…that’s only part of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“She knows I’m…not what I seem.”
“So you told me.”
“She told me my eyes were like hers—except even more aged. Sitting there, speaking to her…I could see myself on that sofa, surrounded by dusty books, writing in journals nobody would read.” Suddenly, she leaned forward across the table. “Aloysius, the truth is I’ve already been that woman. All those decades Dr. Leng prolonged my life artificially, kept me in that mansion, I was Felicity Frost… imprisoned in a young body instead of an old one. And now that Leng’s dead, and I’m aging at a normal rate…” She stopped, sat back abruptly. “Am I doomed to live through that twice? I’m already superannuated. Don’t you see?”
“Constance, I do see. And I could tell you I understand. But nobody, nobody could fully appreciate what it’s like to be blessed—cursed—with a life like yours. The terrible things you’ve witnessed, the years you endured alone…those are burdens you never asked to bear. And, alas, burdens only you can truly understand.”
Constance sat back, looking at him silently.
“But you’ve told me, whispered to me, of so much. I know your history almost as well as you do. Your life is not that of Miss Frost. You have me now.”
“I have you,” she echoed distantly.
Pendergast began to speak. “Constance, I don’t know how to—”
“You may not,” she interrupted. “But I do. So let’s get back to the reason you asked me here.”
“My dear Constance—”
“You need my help again. What are these answers you mentioned that only I can ask her?”
Pendergast hesitated, then—looking into her eyes—left his sentence unfinished. Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket and removed a folded sheet of what looked like airline stationery. “Four questions.”
Constance began to unfold the sheet, but Pendergast put a hand on hers. “She may lie at first—after all, she’s spent most of her lifetime lying. But she must be made to understand that what she’s been doing all these years now threatens to destroy Savannah. If necessary, show her these.” And, reaching into his jacket, he pulled out some beautifully composed photographs of a farm by the edge of a lake.
“How bucolic,” she said. Then she unfolded the sheet he’d given her. She read it once, twice, before looking up in disbelief. “These questions…they’re mad. Are you—?”
“I know how they seem,” he interrupted. “But if I’m right, Frost won’t think them mad at all.” Reaching forward and taking her other hand, he spoke quietly, urgently, for several minutes. The surprise on Constance’s face deepened—then turned slowly to astonishment. Her guardian, quite obviously, was in the throes of some all-consuming puzzle; the hands that gripped hers were icy cold.
“Be gentle, if you can,” he said. “But these questions must be asked with authority—and you cannot leave her rooms until you’re sure she has told you the truth.”
“That hardly seems like a recipe for fostering a relationship,” Constance said.
“This is more important than any relationship!” These angry, impatient words seemed to burst out of him. Then Pendergast looked away, and—for the first time in her memory—he flushed deeply.
When he did not release her hand, she detached it herself, then stood immediately. “I’ll do what I can.”
“I can ask no more,” he replied after a pause. “Except to promise you that—”
Without
waiting to hear the rest, Constance turned and left the small room. A moment later, her heels could be heard crossing the marble floor of the suite’s foyer; then a door opened and shut, and only silence remained.
48
WELLSTONE SAT IN HIS car in the last of the gloaming, outside the three-story brick warehouse that Betts and his crew had leased the top floor of. He had found himself driving there, with no plan in mind, no goal, just a simmering anger mixed with feelings of frustration and humiliation. The son of a bitch had gotten the better of him at every turn: not because he was smarter, but because he had the sort of low cunning of a natural-born bully.
The warehouse was a charming old building—as far as warehouses went—in an old part of Savannah about half a dozen blocks from the Ye Sleepe. How nice for Betts that he could afford both sleeping quarters and a studio setup. It aggravated Wellstone to think of Betts getting this level of financing, or for that matter any financing at all. It was a sad commentary on how gullible people were—the ignorance, lack of education, and credulity that allowed a cynical fraudster like Betts to rake in the bucks.
Thinking about Betts brought to mind the feel of soufflé sauce sliding down his neck, and the memory offered up a fresh surge of outrage. If he’d gotten his hands on the SD cards with the fake, preloaded images, that would have finished Betts forever and exposed Moller as the charlatan he was. It was almost unbelievable, how those three would-be demons Moller Bluetoothed to the press had gone viral. If he’d been able to expose them as fakes, showing those SD cards of creepy images before they had been superimposed on freshly taken photos, that would have gotten him on every morning show in America.
He shouldn’t have been surprised that Fayette would screw up. Of course she would. He was annoyed at himself for thinking otherwise. But then, his own plan to access Moller’s camera—so carefully thought out—had failed as well. He couldn’t imagine how another opportunity would arise. He was out of options.
His thoughts were interrupted by some people coming out of the building. Among them were Betts and Moller. They got into one of two white rental vans parked in front—no Ubers this time. Maybe they were going somewhere to shoot. Seeing Betts and Moller and their self-satisfied faces only sharpened his feelings of shame and anger. Those SD cards were his ticket, and they were so close—Moller was toting his briefcase—that Wellstone could practically touch them. Was he falling into that journalistic trap of becoming personally involved in the story?
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