Fever Dream

by Douglas Preston

  “Your knowledge of biology is impressive.”

  “Listen to me. The cops will find out I worked for Blast, connect Blast to you and me to you. I bought gas with a credit card just down the road. Believe me, they’ll be all over this place.”

  “How will they connect me to Blast?”

  “They will, you can count on it!” Hudson went on with true fervor. “I know the whole story, Blast told me. He told me about your visit. Right after you left, Blast ordered a rollup of his fur operation. He wasn’t taking any chances, he was on the phone a minute after you left his place.”

  “What about the Black Frame? Was that you who chased us?”

  “Yes, it was. Blast egged you on about the Black Frame. He wanted you to find it, figured you might be just smart enough to succeed where he’d failed. You impressed him. But the cops are going to know all about this if they don’t already, all that bullshit you pulled at the Donette Hole. Believe me, if I disappear they’ll be all over this place with hound dogs.”

  “They’ll never connect me to Blast.”

  “Of course they will! Blast told me you accused him of killing your wife. You’re up to your neck in the investigation already!”

  “Did Blast kill my wife?”

  “He said he didn’t, had nothing to do with it.”

  “And you believed him?”

  Hudson was talking as fast as he could, his heart racing painfully in his chest. “Blast was no saint, but he wasn’t a killer. He was a weasel, a con man, a manipulator. He didn’t have the guts to kill someone.”

  “Unlike you. Hiding in my garage with a gun.”

  “No, no! This wasn’t a hit, I was only looking to make a deal. I’m just a PI trying to make a living. You’ve got to believe me!” His voice cracked in panic.

  “Must I?” Pendergast slid the gun away. “You may get up, Mr. Hudson.”

  He rose to his feet. His face was wet with tears and he was shaking all over, but he didn’t care. He was overwhelmed with hope.

  “You’re slightly more intelligent than I had assumed. Instead of killing you, shall we go back inside, enjoy that sherry, and discuss the terms of your employment?”

  Hudson sat in the sofa next to the hot fire, sweating all over. He felt drained, exhausted, and yet alive, tingling, as if he’d been born again and was walking the earth as a new man.

  Pendergast sat back in his chair with a strange half smile. “Now, Mr. Hudson, if you’re going to work for me, you’ve got to tell me everything. About Blast, about your assignment.”

  Hudson was only too grateful to talk. “Blast called me after you visited him. You really scared him, with your talk of illegal furs. He said he was putting his whole operation on ice, indefinitely. He also said you were on the track of the painting, the Black Frame, and he wanted me to follow you around so that if you found it, I could get it away from you.”

  Pendergast nodded over tented fingers.

  “As I said, he hoped you’d lead him to the Black Frame. I followed you, I saw that business you pulled at Pappy’s. I gave chase but you got away.”

  Another nod.

  “So I went back to report to Blast, found him dead. Shotgun at close range, tore him up real nice. Owed me over five grand in time and expenses. I figured you killed him. And I figured to pay you a visit, take back what was owed me.”

  “Alas, I did not kill Blast. Someone else got to him.”

  Hudson nodded, not knowing whether to believe him or not.

  “And what did you know of Mr. Blast’s business?”

  “Not much. Like I said, he was involved in the illegal wildlife trade—animal skins. But his big thing seemed to be that Black Frame. He was half crazy over it.”

  “And your own employment history, Mr. Hudson?”

  “I used to be a cop, got put in the back office because of diabetes. Couldn’t stand a desk job, so I became a PI. That was about five years ago. Did a lot of work for Mr. Blast, mostly looking into the backgrounds of his… business partners and suppliers. He was very careful who he dealt with. The wildlife market’s crawling with undercover cops and sting operators. He mostly dealt with some guy named Victor.”

  “Victor who?”

  “I never heard the last name.”

  Pendergast looked at his watch. “It is dinnertime, Mr. Hudson, and I’m sorry you can’t stay.”

  Hudson felt sorry, too.

  Pendergast reached into his suit and pulled out a small sheaf of bills. “I can’t speak for what Blast owes you,” he said, “but this is for your first two days’ employment. Five hundred a day plus expenses. From now on you work without a firearm and you work only for me. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s a small town called Sunflower, just west of the Black Brake swamp. I want you to get out a map, draw a circle with a fifty-mile radius around that town, and identify all the pharmaceutical companies and drug research facilities within that circle, going back fifteen years. I want you to drive to each one, in the guise of a lost motorist. Get as close as you can without trespassing. Don’t take notes or pictures, keep it all in your head. Observe and report back to me in twenty-four hours. That will be the extent of your first assignment. Do you understand?”

  Hudson understood. He heard the door open and voices in the hall; someone had arrived. “Yes. Thank you, sir.” This was even more money than Blast had been paying him—and for the simplest of assignments. Just so long as he didn’t have to go into the Black Brake swamp itself—he’d heard one too many rumors about that place as it was.

  Pendergast saw him to the kitchen door. Hudson stepped out into the night, filled with a fierce gratitude and sense of loyalty toward the man who had spared his life.

  49

  St. Francisville, Louisiana

  LAURA HAYWARD FOLLOWED THE SQUAD CAR out of town on a winding road that led south toward the Mississippi River. She felt conspicuous and more than a little awkward behind the wheel of Helen Pendergast’s vintage Porsche convertible, but the FBI agent had offered his wife’s car so courteously she simply hadn’t had the heart to refuse. As she drove along the sloping road, overleafed with oaks and walnut trees, her mind drifted back to her first job with the New Orleans Police Department. She’d only been a substitute dispatcher then, but the experience had confirmed her desire to become a cop. That was before she’d headed north to New York City, to attend the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and later take her first job as a Transit Authority cop. In the almost fifteen years since, she’d lost most of her southern accent—and become a die-hard New Yorker, to boot.

  The sight of St. Francisville—whitewashed houses with long porches and tin roofs, the heavy air redolent of magnolias—seemed to melt right through her New York carapace. She mused that her experience with the local police had, so far, gone better than the bureaucratic run-around she’d gotten in Florida trying to get information on the Blast homicide. There was still something to be said for the gentility of the Old South.

  The squad car turned into a driveway and Hayward followed, parking next to it. She stepped out to see a modest ranch house, with tidy flower beds framed by two magnolias.

  The two cops who had escorted her to the Blackletter house, a sergeant in the homicide division and a regular officer, climbed out of their car, hiking up their belts and walking toward her. The white one, Officer Field, had carrot hair and a red face and was sweating copiously. The other, Sergeant Detective Cring, had an almost excessive earnestness about him, a man who did his duty, dotted every i and crossed every t with close attention.

  The house was whitewashed like its neighbors, neat and clean. Crime-scene tape, detached by the wind, fluttered over the lawn and coiled around the porch columns. The front door latch was sealed with orange evidence tape.

  “Captain,” said Cring, “do you want to examine the grounds or would you like to go inside?”

  “Inside, please.”

  She followed them onto the porch. Her arrival at th
e St. Francisville police station unannounced had been a big event and, initially, not a positive one. They were not happy to see an NYPD captain—and a woman no less—arriving in a flashy car to check up on a local homicide without warning or peace officer status, or even a courtesy call from up north. But Hayward had been able to turn around their suspicion with friendly chatter about her days on the job in New Orleans, and pretty soon they were old buddies. Or at least, she hoped so.

  “We’ll do a walk-through,” Cring went on as he approached the door. He took out a penknife and slit through the tape. Freed, the door swung open, its lock broken.

  “What about those?” Hayward asked, pointing to a bootie box sitting by the door.

  “The crime scene’s already been thoroughly worked over,” said Cring. “No need.”

  “Right.”

  “It was a pretty straightforward case,” Cring said as they stepped inside, the house exhaling a breath of stale, faintly foul air.

  “Straightforward how?” Hayward asked.

  “Robbery gone bad.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The house was tossed, a bunch of electronics taken—flat panel, couple of computers, stereo. You’ll see for yourself.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It took place between nine and ten in the evening. The perp used a pry bar to get inside, as you probably noticed, and walked through this front hallway into the den, through there, where Blackletter was tinkering with his robots.”

  “Robots?”

  “He was a robot enthusiast. Hobbyist stuff.”

  “So the perp went straight from here to the den?”

  “It seems so. He apparently heard Blackletter in there, decided to eliminate him before robbing the house.”

  “Was Blackletter’s car in the driveway?”

  “Yes.”

  Hayward followed Cring into the den. A long table was covered with metal and plastic parts, wires, circuit boards, and all kinds of strange gizmos. The floor below sported a large black stain, and the cinder-block wall was sprayed with blood and peppered with buckshot. Evidence marking cones and arrows were still positioned everywhere.

  Shotgun, she thought. Just like Blast.

  “It was a sawed-off,” said Cring. “Twelve-gauge, based on the splatter analysis and the buckshot recovered. Double-ought buck.”

  Hayward nodded. She examined the door into the den: thick metal with a layer of hard soundproofing screwed into it on the inside. The walls and ceiling were also well soundproofed. She wondered if Blackletter had been working with the door open or shut. If he was a fastidious man—which seemed to be the case—he would have kept it shut to keep the dirt and dust out of the kitchen.

  “After shooting the victim,” continued Cring, “the perpetrator walked back into the kitchen—we found spots of secondary blood from footprints—and then back through the hallway to the living room.”

  Hayward was about to say something, but bit her tongue. This was no burglary, but it would do no good to point that out now. “Can we look at the living room?”

  “Sure thing.” Cring led her through the kitchen to the entry hall, then into the living room. Nothing had been touched; it was still a mess. A roll-top desk had been rifled, letters and pictures scattered about, books pulled off shelves, a sofa slit open with a knife. The wall sported a hole where the supports to the missing flatscreen had been affixed.

  Hayward noticed an antique, sterling-silver letter opener with an opal inlaid in its handle lying on the floor, where it had been swept off the desk. Her eye roved about the living room, noting quite a few small, portable objects of silver and gold workmanship: ashtrays, small casks and boxes, teapots, teaspoons, salvers, candlesnuffers, inkstands, and figurines, all beautifully chased. Some had inlaid gemstones. They all seemed to have been unceremoniously swept to the floor.

  “All these silver and gold objects,” she asked. “Were any stolen?”

  “Not that we know of.”

  “That seems odd.”

  “Things like that are very hard to fence, especially around here. Our burglar was most likely a drug addict just looking for some stuff to get a quick fix.”

  “All this silver looks like a collection.”

  “It was. Dr. Blackletter was involved with the local historical society and donated things from time to time. He specialized in antebellum American silver.”

  “Where’d he get his money?”

  “He was a medical doctor.”

  “As I understand, he worked for Doctors With Wings, a nonprofit organization without a lot of money. This silver must be worth a small fortune.”

  “After Doctors With Wings, he did consulting work for various pharmaceutical companies. There are quite a few in this area; it’s one of the mainstays of the local economy.”

  “Do you have a file on Dr. Blackletter? I’d like to see it.”

  “It’s back at the station. I’ll get you a copy when we’re done here.”

  Hayward lingered in the living room. She had a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, as if there was more to extract from the crime scene. Her eye fell on a number of snapshots in silver frames that had apparently been swept from a bookshelf.

  “May I?”

  “Be my guest. The CSI people have been through here with a fine-tooth comb.”

  She knelt and picked up several of the frames. They showed what she presumed to be various family members and friends. Some were clearly of Blackletter himself: in Africa flying a plane, inoculating natives, standing before a bush clinic. There were several pictures showing Blackletter in company with an attractive blond woman some years his junior; in one he had his arm around her.

  “Was Dr. Blackletter married?”

  “Never,” said Cring.

  She turned this last picture over in her hands. The glass in the frame had cracked in its fall to the floor. Hayward slid the photo out of its frame and turned it over. Written on the back with a generous, looping hand was, TO MORRIS, IN MEMORY OF THAT FLIGHT OVER THE LAKE. LOVE, M.

  “May I keep this? Just the photo, I mean.”

  A hesitation. “Well, we’ll have to enter it in the chain-of-custody logs.” Another hesitation. “May I ask the reason why?”

  “It may be pertinent to my investigation.” Hayward had been careful not to tell them exactly what her investigation was, and they, after making a few halfhearted attempts to find out, had tactfully dropped the subject.

  But now Cring brought it up again. “If you don’t mind me asking, we’re sort of puzzled why an NYPD homicide captain would be interested in a fairly routine burglary and murder all the way down here. We don’t mean to pry, but it would be useful to know what you’re looking for—so we can help.”

  Hayward knew she couldn’t keep dodging the question, so she opted for misdirection. “It involves a terrorism investigation.”

  A silence. “I see.”

  “Terrorism,” Field repeated from behind her, speaking for the first time. He’d been following them so silently she’d almost forgotten he was there. “You got a lot of that up in New York, I hear.”

  “Yes,” said Hayward. “You understand why we can’t go into details.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “We’re keeping a low profile on this one. Which is why I’m down here informally, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Field. “If I may ask—anything to do with the robots?”

  Hayward flashed him a quick smile. “The less said the better.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the officer, flushing with pleasure at having guessed.

  Hayward hated herself for telling lies like this. It was bad policy all around, and if it ever got out she could lose her job.

  “Give the picture to me,” said Cring, with a warning glance to his subordinate. “I’ll see that it’s logged and back in your hands right away.” He slid the photograph into an evidence envelope, sealed it, and initialed it.

  “I think we’re done here,
” said Hayward, looking around, feeling guilty about her crude deception. She hoped Pendergast wasn’t starting to rub off on her.

  She stepped out of the dark house and into the humid sunlight. Glancing around, she noticed that the street dead-ended at the river not half a mile away. On impulse she turned back to Cring, who was securing the front door.

  “Detective,” she said.

  He turned. “Ma’am?”

  “You understand that you can’t speak to anybody about what we just discussed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But you probably also understand now why I believe this robbery to be a fake.”

  Cring rubbed his chin. “A fake?”

  “Staged.” She nodded down the street. “In fact, I’d bet that if you were to check, you just might find those missing electronics down there, beyond the end of the road, at the bottom of the Mississippi.”

  Cring looked from her, to the river, and back again. He nodded slowly.

  “I’ll swing by for that photo this afternoon,” she said as she slipped into the Porsche.

  50

  Penumbra Plantation

  THE OLD SERVANT, MAURICE, OPENED THE DOOR for Hayward, and she entered the dim confines of the mansion house. It again struck her as exactly the kind of place she imagined Pendergast coming from, decaying antebellum gentry, from the dilapidated house down to the mournful old servant in formal clothes.

  “This way, Captain Hayward,” Maurice said, turning and gesturing toward the parlor with an upturned palm. She walked in to find Pendergast seated before a fire, a small glass by his right hand. He rose and indicated a seat for her.

  “Sherry?”

  She dropped her briefcase on the sofa and settled down beside it. “No thanks. Not my kind of drink.”

  “Anything else? Beer? Tea? A martini?”

  She glanced at Maurice, not wanting to put him out but exhausted by her travel. “Tea. Hot and strong, with milk and sugar, please.”

  With a decline of his head, the servant withdrew.

  Pendergast settled back down, throwing one leg over the other. “How was your trip to Siesta Key and St. Francisville?” he asked.