Crooked River

by Douglas Preston

  “Where’s that?” Coldmoon asked.

  “A village in the western highlands, close to the Mexican border, with a mostly Maya population.” She paused. “Well, that about summarizes it.”

  Coldmoon put down the photo. “The obvious inference is we’re dealing with a group of migrants, all from the same town—San Miguel Acatán.”

  Crossley nodded.

  “You know how it is,” Coldmoon said. “A group of people from the town get together and decide to head north to the United States. Economic refugees. And you’d expect a lot of people in a small town like that to be related. I would imagine that on their journey north they got waylaid by some bad guys, and then…well, something terrible happened to them and they got their feet chopped off.”

  “As Agent Pendergast brought to my attention, it appears they each amputated one of their own feet,” said Crossley.

  At this Coldmoon sat back. “Holy shit. They cut their own feet off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they shackled? Was this a way to escape?”

  “A good guess, but they weren’t shackled. There aren’t any abrasions, bruises, or scratches around their ankles you’d get from shackling. They self-amputated for some other reason.”

  “What could possibly make someone chop off their own foot?” Coldmoon asked incredulously.

  At this Pendergast spoke. “How excellent it is that Agent Coldmoon is finally here to pose the truly arduous question.”

  This was followed by a brief silence.

  “Is there anything else, Dr. Crossley?” Pendergast asked.

  “That’s all for now.”

  The two of them rose, and Coldmoon followed Pendergast out. A moment later, with the closing of the hall door, the lab fell silent. Moira Crossley sat in the quiet for some time. The final question Coldmoon had posed, which she had asked herself many times, seemed to have no possible answer—none at all.

  23

  OUTSIDE, COLDMOON FOLLOWED Pendergast into the parking lot.

  “Do you have a car, Agent Coldmoon?” Pendergast asked.

  “Nope.” Coldmoon had anticipated this. He had no intention of playing chauffeur, as he had during the Brokenhearts investigation.

  “Pity. However, managing to anticipate that answer, I’ve acquired a vehicle myself that should prove suitable. Not only is it equipped to go across any terrain imaginable—including swamps, beaches, and bayous—but it will do so in comfort.”

  Coldmoon looked around the lot but didn’t see any official-looking vehicle among the Ford Explorers and Jeep Cherokees that met these qualifications. Then his gaze fell on something parked at the far end of the lot.

  “No,” he said, staring.

  “Yes,” Pendergast said, slipping him the key fob.

  Glistening in the sun was a factory-fresh Range Rover, an “Autobiography” edition in off-white pearl with a beautiful satin matte finish. It seemed to have every available option for arriving at an opera premiere, or the top of Everest, in style: LED headlights and desaturated taillights, rear fog lights, a badge announcing the 5.0 liter, 557-horsepower supercharged LR-V8 that sat beneath the hood—and those were just the externally visible attributes.

  Coldmoon whistled. “Nice ride.”

  While he had been taking in the Rover’s features, Pendergast had walked around the rear of the vehicle and was now getting into the passenger seat. Coldmoon looked down, saw the key fob Pendergast had put into his hand. Son of a bitch, he thought. But instead of refusing outright, he put his bag in the back and got into the driver’s seat, immediately sinking into creamy leather. Once he’d figured out how to start the engine, he saw the car had less than fifty miles on it. In the driver’s side pocket was a folded dealer’s sheet, and as the interior cooled off he pulled it out curiously. The sheet ticked off such items as electronic air suspension, wade-sensing technology, hill descent control, roll stability control, and a laundry list too long to read through. At the bottom was a price: $189,500.

  Coldmoon took another look at the dealer sheet, recognizing it for what it was. “Hold on,” he said. “You just bought this?”

  “Leased, actually. After all, we don’t have Axel on hand to take us around anymore, and that confiscated Mustang of yours was about as comfortable as the rail they used to ride one out of town on. When I learned you were willing to join the investigation, I decided the least we could do was prosecute the case with a degree of luxury.”

  Now Coldmoon understood: he was still expected to play chauffeur, but Pendergast had sweetened the deal by providing almost three tons of rolling opulence. He shrugged, then twisted the large round knob that put the vehicle in gear.

  “I’d like to introduce you to the oceanographer I’ve privately engaged to work on the case,” said Pendergast. “She’s trying to backtrack the feet to where they entered the ocean—without much success yet, unfortunately.”

  “Sure, I’d love to meet her.”

  “But before that, why don’t we drop off your luggage at the lodgings I’ve rented for the duration? My ward, Constance Greene, will be staying with us, but I think you’ll find the house both commodious and private.”

  “Uh, sure.” Ward? That sounded a little odd, but then, nothing about Pendergast was normal.

  Pendergast gave him the address and—after some fiddling with the touch screen on the central panel of the dashboard—he managed to punch it into the GPS.

  “A/C?” Coldmoon asked.

  “No, thank you.” Pendergast rolled down his window and Coldmoon did the same. As they drove out of Fort Myers, taking SR 867 south, Coldmoon observed with curiosity the neighborhoods they were passing through. They were a mixture typical to Florida: some wealthy, some shabby, many in between—but all high density. It was amazing how many damn people there were in this state. In South Dakota there were stretches of highway where you could drive a hundred miles without seeing a house.

  And then, quite suddenly, they passed by a checkpoint and emerged onto a causeway that curved like a scimitar over a shallow bay, the sun glittering off the water, with the low outline of Sanibel Island growing on the horizon. Considering its size and weight, the Range Rover was surprisingly responsive, and it accelerated effortlessly, sending a warm breeze coursing through the interior. For a moment, however brief, Coldmoon could understand why someone might want to live in Florida.

  Once on the island, the houses moved upscale, and the farther he drove, the wealthier it got. Toward the north end of the island they came to a line of stopped cars.

  “I’m afraid there’s another checkpoint up ahead,” said Pendergast.

  But the traffic went quickly, and soon they had flashed their badges and were through. A short bridge led them across an inlet to Captiva Island. The beach and parking lot to their left had been turned into a staging ground, it seemed, with tents, trailers, container offices, and a van with satellite dishes on top. Two Coast Guard patrol boats plied the ocean beyond the line of breaking surf.

  “That was where most of the feet washed up,” said Pendergast as Coldmoon slowed to look. “The entire beach has been taped off as a crime scene, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants.”

  “I’d be annoyed, too. That’s a beautiful beach.”

  They drove on, leaving the staging ground behind. Past the far end of the beach, Coldmoon spied a huge Victorian house, taller than the others, rising above the palms and buttonwoods, with two towers and a widow’s walk, casting a long shadow across the beach. He knew right away this must be where Pendergast was staying—the house, with its faded elegance, fit his personality perfectly.

  “The Mortlach House?”

  “Indeed. Pull into the porte cochere, if you please, and stop by the door.”

  Coldmoon wasn’t sure what a porte cochere was, but he turned into the driveway that ran alongside the house, looping through a sheltered overhang. He brought the SUV to a stop before a set of tall double doors with oval windows.

  “Wow,” said Coldm
oon, stepping out and looking up, “this place looks haunted.”

  “Indeed,” murmured Pendergast.

  The doors opened and Coldmoon stopped in his tracks. A woman appeared on the landing, wearing a long dress, her dark hair bobbed, her violet eyes directed on him.

  “You must be Agent Coldmoon,” she said in a contralto voice, coming forward. She paused to look him up and down. “From Aloysius’s description, I was expecting someone a little more…informal.”

  Coldmoon grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m as slovenly as they come. This is just a disguise to fool my betters.”

  That produced a faint smile. There was something absolutely intriguing about this young woman, who seemed self-assured far beyond her years and spoke with an unusual inflection that reminded him of old films.

  “Don’t you have a valise?” she asked.

  Coldmoon realized he’d been standing there dumb. “Right. In the back.” He went around the car, opened the tailgate, and pulled out his bag.

  “I’ll show you to your room,” said Constance, turning and heading back inside. Coldmoon followed.

  “I’m retiring to my quarters,” Pendergast said from behind them. “You’re in good hands with Ms. Greene.” He slipped away.

  Entering the cool dimness of the house was like stepping back in time. The interior smelled of furniture polish, fabric, and old wood. He could see, past the entryway and down a hall, a large sitting room with Persian rugs and antique furniture. A row of windows looked out across a veranda to the sea horizon, where he could hear the distant rhythm of surf and the crying of gulls.

  Constance turned and mounted a set of stairs to the right of the entryway. “This way, Agent Coldmoon.”

  Coldmoon followed, up to an annex that served as a small sitting room, with three rooms going off it—two bedrooms and a bath.

  “The servants’ quarters,” said Constance. “Separate from the rest of the house.”

  “Servants’ quarters,” Coldmoon repeated in a tone of irony.

  Constance again fixed those violet eyes on him. “You are Agent Pendergast’s junior partner, are you not, Mr. Coldmoon?”

  Coldmoon couldn’t help but laugh at this brazen comment, so archly delivered. “I guess I am a kind of servant.” He set down his bag. “By the way, you’re free to call me Armstrong if you wish.”

  That slipped out before he even knew he’d said it. Why had he offered up this information? He almost never told people his first name.

  “And you may call me Constance. Your bedroom is here. The other bedroom has a desk for you to use as a workspace.” A key appeared in a delicate white hand. “Your key, Armstrong.”

  “Thank you, Constance.” He took it. “Um, is the house really supposed to be haunted?”

  “So they say.”

  “What’s the story?”

  She gave him another arch smile. “That’s my investigation. Once I’ve pieced it together, we’ll light a fire in the parlor and I’ll regale you with the details.”

  24

  PETER QUARLES MADE his way down the crooked, congested streets of a city that had no name. Or if it had a name, he had not been able to discover it. All he could say for certain was that he was in Guangdong Province in southern China. Dongguan, a first-tier manufacturing city, was to his east, across the Pearl River. Just to his west was Foshan, itself an agglomeration of three dozen towns that specialized in industries from chemical processing to communications equipment to biotechnology. And here he was, in a bustling no-man’s-land of small-time commerce and manufacturing, situated in an anonymous district just a stone’s throw from the South China Sea.

  Yet Quarles felt curiously at home. He was not so many years removed from his time in import-export work, and was not so brainwashed by Bureau mentality, that he’d found it difficult to slip back into his old guise. After just one day, the crowds, the endless yammering, the smog, and the smells had all become familiar and comfortable, and he fell back into that shuffling two-step that one used to get about in the congestion. Nobody would suspect him of being anything more than a gweilo middleman, working at the low end of the manufacturing business—which, in fact, was true. Except that his Mandarin was perhaps a little too refined.

  The only difference from back then was how Agent Pendergast had financed this investigative journey with a most lavish expense account. How he’d managed it, Quarles didn’t know, but the man had made clear he would take care of everything and that Quarles should not stint on his accommodations, meals, bribes, or hiring assistants. And so Quarles had splurged, staying at the Marco Polo in Jinjiang and the Shangri-La in Wenzhou. As he’d expected, he’d had no luck in either city finding a manufacturer of anything like this odd slipper: a cheaply made, disposable product of propylene that nevertheless sported both high fluid resistance and antibacterial properties. Even Dongguan, where he’d placed most of his hopes, had initially been a dud: a big influx in Brazilian manufacturing had driven out many of the local manufacturers he thought most likely to have made these. But he soon learned those small-time manufacturers had not disappeared—they had migrated across the river into the shadow of Foshan. And so it was here—as he walked along Zhaofang Road, the towers of Lunxiang Residential District rising behind him—that he undertook his search in earnest.

  He paused for a minute to wipe his brow and adjust the cheap canvas bag he’d slung across his shoulders. He’d already spoken to several mom-and-pop operations, greasing his inquiries with packets of Dunhills, Gauloises, and Camels. Though none had been able to help him directly, they’d suggested he try the neighborhood around Zhaofang Road. He glanced ahead through the crowds, taking note of a cotton factory, a sugar water shop, a school, and a salted-chicken restaurant called Every Day Is Better. He saw a couple of shopfronts of the near-ubiquitous clothing manufacturers, but no shoemakers. But that did not dissuade him—small manufacturers were often found on second floors or down narrow alleys.

  He continued, careful to give a wide berth to the monolithic structure titled Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and then—when the road took a sharp turn—found himself at the edge of a Cantonese food market. Tanks swarming with abalone, crab, and clams were everywhere, next to other vendors selling savory cuts of dog, cat, and other four-legged creatures. There were no tourists in sight, just locals—travel guides billed the food in this region as “most disagreeable” to Western palates. And yet Quarles had grown to like it. Yue cuisine put a premium on fresh ingredients, lightly cooked and seasoned. And as for the ingredients themselves, well, you got used to them after a while.

  He wandered across the market, continued down Zhaofang, and then spotted exactly what he was looking for: a tiny, windowless shop with a few pieces of leather last nailed across the doorway. It lay in the shadow of the Wooden Bucket, an offal house that specialized in spicy beef soup. He stepped toward it quickly, pushed aside the improvised door, and entered.

  As his eyes became accustomed to the dim interior, he saw an old man sitting behind a long wooden table. He was slicing small lines across the lower edges of shoe uppers, preparing to glue them to the soles. Behind him was an equally old woman working a sewing machine. Piles of footwear lay here and there—including, Quarles noticed, some disposable shoes not so different from the one in his satchel.

  He removed his sample and stepped forward. “You good?” he asked politely in Mandarin.

  The man merely nodded.

  Quarles showed him the shoe. “Have you seen this handiwork before?”

  Something in the man’s eyes told Quarles it was familiar to him. But he simply shrugged, giving the universal gesture for not understanding what Quarles was saying.

  This was ridiculous, of course, but also part of the usual dance. Even though Mandarin was primarily the language of business, Quarles switched to the Sam Yap dialect used by local Cantonese. He reached into his satchel again, this time removing a hóng bāo, a red envelope of cash: an equally universal gesture. He placed it against
the sole of the shoe, then thrust them both toward the man. “Do you know where I can get more of these?” he asked.

  The old woman, who had grown interested as soon as the red envelope made its appearance, now rose and together with the old man scrutinized the shoe carefully. Quarles waited, taking more red envelopes out of his satchel and counting them, implying that more hóng bāo would be forthcoming if his quest was successful.

  At last the old man handed back the shoe, minus the envelope. “Try Changyou Fourth Road,” he said in Sam Yap. “Down near the ancestral temple. There are still one or two factories that may produce what you seek.”

  “M goi nei sin,” Quarles said. Then, putting the shoe and envelopes back into his satchel, he turned, opened the door, and was quickly carried away by the crowds thronging the street.

  25

  PERELMAN HAD HIS head and shoulders deep within the engine space of his boat when he heard someone approaching down the dock. But the socket wrench in his right hand was occupying all his attention, and he ignored the sound: maybe, for a change, it wasn’t somebody intent on bothering him. Sure enough: there was no hull dip of someone coming aboard. He returned to wrestling with the 700 horses that had occupied him for the last ninety minutes. “This is your last chance to come out,” he told the plug, raising the wrench threateningly. “Otherwise, I’m going to WD-40 your ass.”

  Now there came another sound, this one unmistakable: the polite clearing of a throat on the dock behind him. Suppressing a curse, he hoisted himself up from the engine well, turned, and—to his great surprise—saw Constance Greene, Agent Pendergast’s niece. Is that what he’d said she was? At the time, Perelman had still been too preoccupied with all the feet littering his beach to pay sufficient attention. But he certainly recalled her violet eyes and lithe silhouette, and her remarkable resemblance to Olive Thomas.

  “Ms. Greene,” he said, closing the hatch and rubbing the grease from his hands with a rag.