Crooked River

by Douglas Preston

  Towne leaned over and murmured, “Seems like the commander has finally gotten his act together.”

  As Perelman was about to speak, Towne said: “Please, Chief, not more poetry.”

  Perelman frowned. “Philistine.”

  “Four ships,” Baugh continued, “were large, internationally flagged carriers: the M/V Pearl Nori, a chemical tanker; the container ship Empire Carrier; the Everest, also a container ship; and the M/V First Sea Lord, an LNG tanker. The other two vessels in the area were local boats. The first was a pleasure yacht known as—” He paused, frowning. “Monkey Sea Monkey Do. The other was an eighty-six-foot stern trawler called F/V Irish Wake. Both hail from Gulf Coast ports.”

  He paused and looked around, squinting. “And so, the next stage of the investigation includes, among other things, tracking down and interviewing the captains of those six ships.” His eye fell on Pendergast. “Ah, Agent Pendergast, I’m glad to see you after an absence. Interviewing these captains is a perfect job for the FBI. I’d like you and the agency to take charge of that.”

  When Pendergast didn’t respond, or even acknowledge he had heard, Baugh said, voice raised: “Agent Pendergast? Hello?”

  The FBI agent was still standing with his arms crossed. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, his face still obscured by the hat. After a moment he nodded curtly.

  “Any luck with the NCAVC databases?”

  “It would seem this case has no precedent.”

  “And how is the investigation on the source of the shoes coming?”

  “Very well, thank you. We have an agent in China.”

  The “thank you” somehow managed to sound faintly insolent, but maybe, Perelman thought, it was just his imagination.

  The commander then began to dole out other assignments, and it was at this point Pendergast chose to slip out of the room like a cat.

  19

  I HATE TO BE crude, but that looks like…looks like…” Gladstone stopped, unsure what comparison to make.

  “Well, I love being crude,” said Lam. “It looks like an exploded merkin.”

  Maybe he’s right, Gladstone thought as she stared at the big-screen image of the southern gulf. Thousands of squiggly black lines started at Turner Beach and then went off in every conceivable direction. “What a mess. It makes no sense.”

  “Well, I’m still refining the program,” said Lam defensively.

  “How much more did this cost us in CPU time?”

  “Um, about two thousand dollars.”

  “Good Christ. So what’s the problem?”

  Lam shook his head. “Basically, most of the mathematical solutions are going into imaginary space.”

  “Which means?”

  “The drift analysis is producing impossible results. There just doesn’t seem to be a place anywhere out there in the wide ocean where you could drop a hundred-plus feet and have them wash up on Turner Beach the way they did. The place just doesn’t exist.”

  “It has to exist.”

  Lam shrugged.

  “What about the garbage stinking up the back room?”

  Lam pantomimed the act of vomiting. “Cataloged anything remotely identifiable. No smoking guns.”

  “What about the analysis? Did you work that into the equations?”

  “I did. Not all of it—just select pieces to give us a broad enough sample. Same impossible results.”

  “But we know the feet did wash up!”

  Lam sighed. “As I said, it’s impossible.”

  “It can’t be impossible,” Gladstone said, feeling like tearing her hair out.

  “Don’t yell at me!”

  “I’m not yelling. I’m emphasizing.”

  “Well, don’t emphasize at me! You know how sensitive I am.”

  Gladstone rolled her eyes. “You need to figure out what’s wrong and rerun the analysis.”

  “Okay. Fine with me. Each time I run it on the Q machine, it costs us five hundred bucks.”

  Gladstone paused, thinking. A temporary silence filled the lab. And then she took out her cell phone and dialed, putting it on speaker so Lam could hear.

  “May I speak with Agent Pendergast?” she asked when the call was answered.

  “Speaking.”

  “Gladstone here. I’m glad I reached you,” she said. “We’ve been working on the analysis you asked for.”

  “And how is it going?”

  “Um, well. Very well. We’ve prepared a full catalog of the debris that washed up, and we’re working on our mathematical models. We’re making great progress.”

  Lam made a face.

  “Delighted to hear it.”

  “But the number crunching is getting expensive. We’re running up quite a bill with the Q machine at the university.”

  “May I ask how much?”

  “We’re a few thousand dollars into it, and we’re probably going to crack ten thousand before we get our answer.”

  “You have my authorization to expend up to fifteen thousand.”

  “Wow. Thank you, that’s great. Really great.” She paused. “There, um, is one other thing that would really help us refine our calculations. It’s kind of critical, to be honest.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “We need a foot. Two, actually. To accurately model drift behavior, along with several other variables.”

  There was an extended silence. “How long would you require them?”

  She glanced at Lam. He held up two hands, fingers spread.

  “Ten hours.”

  “I believe I can provide you with them—but it would be for half that long, at most, and I will need to be present at all times. Will that be acceptable?”

  “Sweet mother of…” Lam began in a low voice. Then he went silent and, a moment later, nodded at her.

  “Yes. Thank you. Thanks very much.”

  “In that case, I shall do my best to be there within the hour. And I sincerely hope that the additional funding will help you and Dr. Lam make better progress. Good day, Dr. Gladstone.”

  She lowered the phone. “I wonder how he knew we weren’t making good progress?”

  “I don’t know, but I told you the guy had money.”

  “That fifteen grand isn’t his own dough.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

  Moira Crossley waited while Special Agent Pendergast finished his call and slipped the cell phone back into his pocket.

  “I beg pardon for the interruption,” he said.

  What an odd fellow, she thought. She found his Southern gentlemanly manner and soft accent strangely soothing. But there was nothing soft or particularly gentlemanly in his keen, silvery eyes.

  “Quite a few of the lab reports are back. I sent them over to your office for review.”

  “I’ve received them but would greatly appreciate a summary.”

  “Sure. Let’s go to my office, where we can speak privately.”

  They were in the autopsy room and several assistants were still working on the last of the feet, carefully cutting off the shoes, looking for identifying marks, photographing, taking tissue samples, and, where necessary, dissecting and stabilizing the remains to remove dead sea creatures and small parasites that had burrowed into the flesh. Pendergast paused a moment to examine the process, restless eyes taking in everything, then returned his attention to her with a nod of apology.

  She led him through the lab and into her office, with its single window overlooking the parking lot. The space was small, but she kept it meticulously neat and spare, a habit gained from years of living on a houseboat at a slip at the Cape Coral Yacht Basin.

  “Please sit down.”

  Pendergast took a seat and she sat behind her desk. Several files were laid out with military precision. She flipped open the first.

  “You had raised the question as to whether the feet had been frozen. They were—immediately following amputation. All of them we’ve examined so far, at least. Microsections of tissue i
ndicate they were frozen fast at a low temperature—somewhere in the range of minus thirty degrees Celsius. That’s much colder than household freezers typically go, which indicates these feet were stored in a professional-grade deep freezer, or even a laboratory freezer.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “In freezing, microcrystals of ice grow inside the cells and rupture various membranes. From the pattern, we can get an idea of how fast and deep the freezing was. For these feet, it was both.”

  Pendergast inclined his head briefly.

  “And we’ve got some interesting results on the DNA testing,” she said, removing another file. “To summarize: a majority of the individuals we’ve tested so far, about sixty, have varying percentages of Native American blood—from 9 percent to 90 percent, with an average around 70 percent. Of the European DNA, the majority can be traced to the Iberian Peninsula—Spain—as well as southern and western Europe. There is also a portion of African DNA in many samples, varying from 3 to 15 percent. This mix is typical of the populations of Central America—in particular Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador. To a lesser extent Panama and Costa Rica. Belize, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela are outliers, but still could be a partial match. We’re in the process of analyzing mitochondrial DNA to see if any of the individuals might be related to each other, and I should have the results by tomorrow, at the latest. In any case, Central America seems the overwhelming point of origin.”

  Another slow nod.

  “A few of the feet had tattoos. Some are generic, bracelets and the like, but others appear to be religious or gang symbols of some kind. One foot was chopped off higher above the ankle than most, and in that case we managed to retrieve almost the entire image.”

  “Interesting.”

  “The feet all came from adult individuals, in apparent good health, with a roughly fifty-fifty distribution between male and female. Some of the feet had the remnants of toenail polish. We’re looking into identifying sources for that, based on chemical composition or color, but no luck so far.”

  She pulled over another file. “Here’s something curious. Many of the soles of the feet, and the shoes, showed signs of pesticide residue—DDT and chlordane, which have been banned in the U.S. for decades. There are significant traces of certain other compounds evident as well, such as sodium hydroxide. Beyond the pesticide residues, there is no commonality we’ve been able to discover.”

  She consulted the file, running her finger down the points. “We’ve collected hair, fiber, pollen, and other residues. Nothing of note except this: the pollen is a typical mix of local flora—not Central American. The pollen types point to a spring season—likely this spring, by the freshness of them.”

  “Please continue.”

  Crossley flipped over a page. “The toxicology reports all came up negative, at least for common toxins and substances. I think you have the list of what we tested for.”

  “I do indeed. Now, I wonder if we could go over, just once more, exactly how the feet were amputated.”

  She felt a stab of annoyance. “As I mentioned before, the amputations were crude, many done with repeated blows of what seems to be a hatchet, and a dull one at that, others perhaps with a heavy machete. The amputation point varies considerably from just above the ankle—by far the most common—to a few below the knee. In many cases there was no evidence of a tourniquet being employed, although others show signs that a clumsy and ineffectual tourniquet may have been tied around the limb before the amputation. There is no evidence of skilled medical care or first aid. The probability is that most of these victims bled to death.”

  “And the angle of the blows?”

  “Most vary within, say, forty to seventy degrees from the horizontal—angling down, in other words.”

  “And the direction of the amputation?”

  Crossley was growing more annoyed. She had discussed this with Pendergast before. “The amputation started with the anterior outside portion of the lower leg, right or left.”

  “The blows coming from above.”

  “Yes, yes. You know all this—we’ve gone over it.”

  “Indeed we have. And now, Dr. Crossley, please humor me by visualizing, in your mind, the actual amputation, taking into account all the factors as you’ve just described them.”

  Her annoyance finally got the better of her. “I fail to see the point of this.”

  The voice dropped in tone, smooth as honey. “Dr. Crossley, I promise that the point will become clear. I can guide you through the process to make it easier. Close your eyes, take five deep, slow breaths, and then visualize the process of amputation. Consider all the relevant details and make a mental film of the amputation, putting in the real person.”

  “That’s peculiar and unscientific.”

  “Indulge me. Now, please…” His voice was strangely hypnotic. “Close your eyes.”

  Almost against her will, she closed her eyes.

  “Take a slow, deep breath…Inhale…”

  She did so.

  “Now slowly, exhale.”

  She did as he guided, five times. Remarkably, she could feel annoyance and tension draining away, her mind quieting down.

  He continued to murmur directions in a soothing tone. Then, after a few minutes, he began reciting the grotesque details of the amputations in the same calm, neutral voice, asking her to visualize in slow motion the hatchet descending from above; the repeated blows; the flesh being cut; the bones fracturing and splintering; the foot coming free; the gushing blood…It was almost too horrible to imagine: she had literally spent years learning to think of the autopsy as a job to be done on an inert object, rather than on beings who had once lived and suffered—there was no other way to keep her emotional equilibrium. But under Pendergast’s gentle tutelage, she found at last that she was able to bring the human subject to life at the moment of the amputation.

  Her eyes popped open in shocking realization. “Oh, no!” she gasped.

  For a moment she couldn’t speak. Pendergast looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

  She found her voice. “These amputations were self-inflicted,” she said. “Good Lord, these people chopped their own feet off!”

  “That is indeed what they did,” said Pendergast. “In the crudest and clumsiest way imaginable. The question is: why?”

  20

  PENDERGAST DROVE THE rental car northeast along Route 1, also known as the Overseas Highway. This latter moniker seemed particularly apt—in the hour it had taken him to drive up from the Key West airport, Route 1 had been more bridge than highway. Now and then it would pass over solid ground—some islands large enough to support a village, others barely more than a nubbin with palms and grass—and then the land would fall away and the road would once again stretch out over the greenish-blue ocean.

  After one long stretch of water, Route 1 passed through Marathon Key and then, a few miles later, approached Islamorada. The lower Florida Keys had a tropical feel, like a land apart: a lived-in, sleepy, and weather-beaten environment that, while still reliant on tourism, was a far cry from the manicured luxury of Palm Beach. Islamorada seemed slightly more upscale than some of the other keys; as he drove, Pendergast passed several resorts monopolizing the island’s beaches. The northern end, however, seemed more for locals, with a school, residential streets stretching away from the ocean, and the occasional trailer half-hidden among the trees.

  Pendergast checked the GPS on his phone, and then, just before the highway arced out over the water again, he turned left and headed down one of the narrow roads cut through the scrub, half blacktop and half sand. No resorts here: just trailers and houses in various states of decrepitude; outboard motor repair shops; and small businesses, signs bleached by the sun.

  Within half a dozen blocks the road ended in the gravel parking lot of a commercial fishery. Pendergast pulled up beside a row of pickup trucks and got out, glancing around. To the south, rusting hulks of old working boats
had been laid on their beam-ends, forming a fence of sorts. To the north, where the land led down into a swampy shoreland area, he saw a motley collection of dwellings: lean-to sheds with corrugated roofs; shabby Airstreams with cinder blocks for wheels; one or two tiki-style huts that Gauguin might have enjoyed painting. The beach community seemed to have grown willy-nilly, like barnacles on the hull of a ship. Pendergast checked his GPS again, then made his way toward the little collection of houses.

  He drew close, then stopped. Amid the scents of diesel oil, dead fish, and stagnant water, a new odor had wafted in: acrid, bitter, more appropriate for a chemical plant than a tropical island. Burnt coffee—but burnt hardly did it justice: coffee that had been boiled and boiled far past any trace of appeal or dignity. Pendergast put his phone away and—gingerly—began tracking the stench to its source. It was coming from one of the huts at the edge of the cleared area, where the trees ended at a strip of shoreland marsh. Beyond lay nothing but green water, the occasional sandbar, and the Gulf of Mexico.

  Pendergast walked around to the front of the hut. There, reclining on a deck chair, was a young man, unshaven and unkempt. He wore a pair of cheap sunglasses and ragged sun-bleached jeans cut off midthigh. He was shirtless, displaying a muscled, bronze chest. A large scar, the stitches recently removed, ran in a thin line across his abdomen, like a stripe of pale paint against olive-colored skin. His jet-black hair had been pulled back into a tight ponytail and a red bandanna was rolled and tied around his neck. On one side of the chair stood a large mug of coffee, and on the other a half-empty bottle of Corona, beads of moisture sweating on the glass. The crackle of a police scanner sounded faintly from within the darkness of the hut.