Crooked River

by Douglas Preston

  The young woman nodded. “Chief Perelman. How are you?”

  “I’m doing battle with a platoon of spark plugs.”

  “And how fares the combat?”

  “The spark plugs are winning. But even defeat would be a relief at this point.”

  She gave him a faint smile. There was a brief silence.

  “Would you like to come aboard?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  She took the proffered hand, and Perelman helped her over the gunwale and into the boat’s small cockpit: back of the cabin, there were just the two seats and a padded couch behind. She thanked him, setting her handbag aside and smoothing her stylish dress as she sat down.

  Perelman began to wad up the oily rag, reconsidered, and instead folded it neatly and placed it atop the engine cowling. There was something about this young woman that put him on his best behavior, and he understood himself well enough to know what it was. About a decade ago, just before he’d left the Jupiter PD for this promotion, he’d dated a high-fashion model. The two of them had had about as much in common as King Kong and Fay Wray, but in their brief time together she had educated him about some things. Among those that had nothing to do with the bedroom, she’d taught him the difference between real taste and mere gaucherie. She devoured magazines like Grazia and L’Officiel, and Perelman had followed in her path, smitten by her beauty and picking up a great deal of esoteric information. Florida was thick with both the real rich and the wannabe; being able to tell the difference was most useful in his line of work. In the case of Constance Greene, for example, he recognized her handbag was an extremely rare black-and-orange Hermès. He couldn’t recall its name, but he remembered the long list of impossible tasks his ex-girlfriend had stated she’d do in order to get one. Then there was Constance’s wristwatch: he recognized it as a vintage Patek Philippe Nautilus, Reference 5711, white gold with an opaline dial. Subtle, understated…save that, for those in the know, there was a ten-year waiting list to acquire one. He did not recognize her dress or shoes. But it was the way Constance wore these items with a casual grace, a lack of self-consciousness, that Perelman found so interesting—and unusual.

  “How can I help you?” he asked.

  Constance nodded again, as if appreciating his directness. “The place we’re staying in—the Mortlach House.”

  “I heard about that. I was glad to hear the demolition had been postponed.”

  “As a tenant, I’ve taken an interest in the house’s history.”

  “How so?” Perelman said cautiously.

  “I’m curious about the murder. There’s quite a lot of it that seems puzzling. I was hoping you’d assist me.”

  “Assist you with what?”

  “Understanding what happened. Surely you participated in the investigation?”

  Perelman frowned and looked away. When he did not respond, she continued.

  “The body was never found, apparently, but a determination of wrongful death was made based on the sheer quantity of blood at the scene, which amounted to virtually all that would be found in a large human male. And the signs of a terrific struggle of the occupant against an intruder wielding an ax.” She reached into her bag, produced a thin sheaf of glossy photographs, and handed them to Perelman.

  He flipped through them quickly, surprised and annoyed to see they were official police photographs, complete with annotations. Just looking at them brought back a flood of unpleasant memories. Where the hell did she get these? he asked himself—but then, just as quickly, he realized the answer.

  “I’d think these pictures would answer any question you might have about the murder. I’m not sure what I can add. As you know, it was never solved.”

  His tone had been curter than intended, and a silence fell over the boat, broken only by the cry of seagulls.

  “This is an unusual boat,” Constance said, changing the subject. “Does it go fast?”

  Despite himself, Perelman smiled. “It’s a cigarette boat. And yes, it goes very fast.”

  “Cigarette?”

  “They were originally used during Prohibition by rumrunners trying to avoid the Coast Guard. At some point they acquired the name because they were long with a narrow beam, like a cigarette, to go as fast as possible.”

  “What is their purpose now, with the repeal of Prohibition?”

  “Point-to-point powerboat racing is very popular today. The go-fast design proved ideal.” He made a vague sweeping gesture with the back of one hand. “I bought this thirty-two-foot frame a couple of years after becoming chief. It’s a relic, built in the late sixties, but it had new crate inboards that caught my attention.”

  “Crate inboards?”

  “Engines, already fitted out with manifolds, heads, other car parts.”

  “Car parts? You mean this boat is powered by automobile engines?”

  “Sure. They’re often salvaged from car wrecks and repurposed for boats.” He patted the rear hatch. “This baby has twin Corvette 454s, old big-block Chevys tweaked for additional horsepower.”

  “I would think boats and cars incompatible.”

  “The conversion isn’t difficult. It’s actually easier to drive them in a boat than on four wheels. No gears.” He laughed. “Just turn the key, push the throttle forward, and hang on, you know.”

  “Actually, I don’t know, but thank you for a fascinating explanation.”

  “You’ve never driven a boat?”

  “I’ve never driven any sort of motorized vehicle.”

  “I—” Perelman stopped himself. This was a surprise. But it also helped highlight the fact that the interest she was showing was mere courtesy.

  “Of course,” he went on, changing tacks, “this particular boat spends far more time tied up at a slip than it does out in the gulf. Took me two years to finish repainting it, and I still haven’t thought of a name.” He turned to Constance. “Any suggestions?”

  “‘Up the River’?”

  He laughed. “Look, I’m sorry if I seemed a little touchy back there about the homicide. It’s a sore point. When I first got here, the murder was only two months old. I was on fire to prove myself and took up the investigation with a vengeance. But we never got anywhere.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, the killer must have entered and exited the house, but we could find no evidence of ingress or egress, no evidence of a boat landing or car arriving and leaving, no witnesses who saw anyone coming and going, not a clue as to who it might have been.”

  “And no body?”

  “We figure he tossed it in the ocean nearby, since it would have been hard to transport it off the island without being seen, but nothing ever washed up. It was plain as day it was a homicide. Not just the amount of blood belonging to the victim, but chop marks in the wood with scalp and hair embedded, the blood spatter analysis, the cast-off spatter from a handheld weapon—not to mention the volume of blood at the scene. The blood type was the owner’s, of course.”

  “How much blood?”

  “About five liters. That’s pretty much all the blood in a human body. Even losing half that amount would have put the victim into class IV hemorrhagic shock—inevitably fatal.”

  “Tell me about the victim.”

  “His name was Wilkinson. Randall Wilkinson. Late fifties, unmarried. Worked as a chemical engineer, an expert on lubricants and solvents at an automotive subcontracting company in Fort Myers. Sounds about as interesting as watching paint dry.”

  “Literally,” Constance said faintly.

  “Yeah. Anyway, he helped invent some new process. On the strength of that, he moved to Captiva and bought the Mortlach House. Then a couple of years later he was involved in some kind of chemical accident. Damaged his lungs, I think. After that, he only worked part-time. This was, oh, maybe 2004, 2005. The man always lived quietly. Polite, reclusive. Walked the beach every evening at sunset, rainy or clear. And then, one July night in 2009…” Perelman spread his hands.

  “Unmarrie
d, you said.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you know if he had an insurance policy on his life?”

  “He had a term policy, yes. Quite sizable, but nothing totally outrageous. His sister was the beneficiary. Naturally the insurance company balked but paid up in the end.”

  “Does she live nearby?”

  “No. Massachusetts, I think.” He looked at her. “You don’t think she killed her own brother, do you? Not even the insurance company suspected that—and they suspect everything. Anyway, as best I can remember, she lived a quiet life. Never moved into the house. Died not all that long after inheriting it.”

  Constance smoothed her dress again. “Did he have any enemies?”

  “None that we know of. Everybody imaginable was interviewed: the chemists he worked with, relatives, his roommate at UF’s grad school, elementary school friends. He led a very dull, law-abiding, quiet life.”

  Constance nodded. “It would appear, from the photographs, that the killer dragged the body to the door.”

  “Right. That was really confounding. The blood smear led straight to the door and over the threshold, where it abruptly ended. We hypothesized the killer loaded the body directly into a vehicle on that spot. But damned if we could find any good tracks or witnesses who saw a car.”

  “I see.”

  Constance gazed at him with a strangely penetrating look. For a moment, Perelman felt a totally unreasonable wish that, in some capacity or other, Constance were a member of his team.

  “I know, Chief Perelman, that unsolved murder cases are never closed—they just go cold. In your time here, you must have heard innumerable speculations about this one. Have you, personally, found any theory to be more persuasive than the others?”

  He hesitated. “The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. I’ve seen my share of unsolved homicides. You do everything you can and then you simply have to lay it aside. Not very satisfying, I’m afraid, but that’s it.” He rose from the deck cushion. “I’m going to get a beer. Can I get you something? If not beer, I’ve got a bottle of Beaujolais nouveau chilling in the cabin.”

  “Thank you, no,” Constance said, rising as well. “You’ve been very patient. I appreciate your candor.”

  “If you solve the murder,” he said with a wry smile, “let me know.” Belatedly, he realized she’d interpreted his getting up as a cue that the meeting was over. This was a shame—he’d had enough of the subject matter, but not her company.

  “Naturally.” Constance placed the crime scene photos in her bag and slipped it over her shoulder. “One final question, if I may?”

  “Please.”

  “I don’t want to call your work into question. But are you sure it was Wilkinson’s blood?”

  “It’s true that, at the time of the murder, Sanibel and even Fort Myers didn’t have the kind of facilities they do today. However, I personally took DNA samples from half a dozen separate pieces of evidence preserved from the crime scene, including hair and blood, and carried them to the Miami PD forensics lab, which at the time had state-of-the-art equipment, together with several known DNA samples from Randall Wilkinson collected in the house. Everything matched the DNA of Randall Wilkinson. That was his blood, without a doubt. And then…” He hesitated. “Last year, I had another lab rerun those samples, just in case the technology in 2009 wasn’t up to snuff. Same results.”

  A mischievous smile played over the young woman’s lips. “And here I thought you’d put the case aside.”

  “Touché.”

  “Thank you again.” Then, before he could assist her, Constance put one foot on the gunwale and sprang lightly onto the pier. And as she turned away from him, Perelman caught the faintest scent of perfume. It, too, was exceedingly rare—his ex-girlfriend had given him a lecture about it once, at an invitation-only parfumerie in Palm Beach. He’d never forget the scent, but he couldn’t recall its name. It was, he feared, a riddle that would keep him awake in his bed far into the night.

  26

  PETER QUARLES OPENED the glass door leading onto the roof deck on the fourteenth floor of the Sofitel Foshan. It was a pleasant enough spot, consciously minimalistic, the flooring and furniture done in a blond wood like a Scandinavian lodge. Quarles stuck his head out and looked around. The deck was deserted—as he’d hoped, considering it was well after ten in the evening.

  He stepped out, sliding the door closed behind him. He strolled past the tables and gurgling fountains toward the building’s edge, where a row of wooden benches had been set into the decorative guardrail. A stiff breeze had blown the smog and soot temporarily out to sea, and below him, Quarles could see the megacity of the Pearl River Delta stretching on forever. Central highways, ribbons of red and white light, threaded their way past neighborhoods whose indifferent architecture, shot through with gloomy alleyways, formed at this height an intricate labyrinth. Here and there across the urban landscape, small clusters of tall buildings rose, as if huddled together for protection, their neon banners and illuminated signage blinking and scrolling frantically against the darkness. In other, more industrial zones, equally tall spires, grim and utilitarian by contrast, were lit only by blinking red warning lights, and by the numerous plumes of steam and smoke, along with the occasional belching gout of flame that issued from chimneys set among them.

  Turning his back to the view, Quarles took a seat on one of the wooden benches, plucked from his jacket pocket a sealed burner phone, and tore off its wrapper. He reached into a different pocket, removed a SIM card, and inserted it into the phone. He plugged a portable battery into its charging port and turned the device on. Once the activation process was complete, he looked around again, dialed a long series of numbers, and put the phone to his ear.

  Ten seconds of silence. And then, despite the great distance, an unmistakable voice: “Yes?”

  “Agent Pendergast?”

  “Ah, Mr. Quarles. What news?”

  Quarles licked his lips. “I’ve found it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. It’s the only one that meets all our criteria. A source, and my own observation, confirm this.”

  “Excellent. This is in the same location you were, ah, perambulating yesterday?”

  Perambulating. They had agreed to use language that was as innocuous as possible. Quarles wasn’t sure that included five-syllable words. “Yes.”

  “Any specifics you can share?”

  Quarles thought a moment. “It’s an unusual situation. The business was once much larger, but a series of unfortunate events have diminished it.” In China, any number of political faux pas could easily result in “unfortunate events.” “However, they retain a few of their original clients.” He hoped the subtle emphasis he gave the penultimate word would be picked up on the other phone, seven thousand miles away.

  “I see. Have you made direct contact?”

  “Indirect.”

  Pendergast did not reply, and Quarles took this as a cue to provide additional information. “The subject once furnished such items to several clients in the past. Not anymore, however. This was a single order, to a single client, through a jobber.”

  Now Quarles fell silent, indicating he had something he wanted Pendergast to take particular note of.

  “Proceed.”

  “Because the contact was indirect, I can confirm nothing yet. But it seems there was more than one…unusual request involved.”

  “But you don’t yet know what those consist of.”

  “No.”

  “Have you a count?”

  “Trio.” Code for three hundred pairs of disposable shoes having been ordered. This nugget of information had cost Quarles the last of his red envelopes.

  “This is exemplary work. We now need just establish the narrow end of the chopstick.”

  Quarles knew this was coming. He had to identify the end buyer—without raising suspicion. For some unknown reason, the tiny three-man shoemaking factory had been remarkably sec
retive. Already the interest he’d shown had drawn a response that was close to hostility. All this spycraft—using burner phones, speaking in code—had originally been set up as a mere contingency, standard procedure in a case like this. But it became a contingency no longer when Quarles sensed he was being followed. He had a fine-tuned radar, and the paranoia he felt now was more than just imagination.

  “Finding the thin end might not be possible,” he said.

  Pendergast clearly picked up on Quarles’s unease, because he replied: “If that’s your impression, then drop the chopstick and resume your other duties. Speaking of which, have you prepared for the upcoming meeting with the tussah moth specialist?”

  Quarles exhaled in relief. “Yes.” Pendergast had just cleared him to leave China at the first sign of actual danger, no matter how small.

  “Good. Recall that our contacts here are interested only in wild silk. Not the usual mulberry.”

  The conversation continued in this innocuous and misleading vein for another thirty seconds before they said goodbye. Looking around one more time, Quarles plucked the SIM card from the phone, placed it in an ashtray, and melted it with a match, then flicked the blob over the edge of the railing. He stood up and made a single circuit of the deck, breathing the way he’d been conditioned, letting his heart rate and respiration return to normal. Heading toward the glass door leading back into the hotel, he took the burner phone in both hands, snapped it in two, and threw the sections into different trash cans. He opened the door, then glanced over his shoulder. The earlier breezes had now fallen away: already, the stench of refineries and dye factories, the greasy soot from the tanneries to the west, were once again filling the air.

  He slipped inside, letting the door close behind him. It was going to be a dirty night.

  27

  COLDMOON GOT BEHIND the wheel of the Range Rover, with Pendergast sitting coolly in the passenger seat. He was again wearing that white linen suit with the Panama hat, an outfit no FBI agent in the entire history of the United States of America had ever put on before.