Still Life with Crows

by Preston; Child

  “Now is not the time, Corrie,” he said softly.

  “But you justcan’t —!”

  Pendergast took her arm and steered her gently but firmly away, and before she could recover they were out of the corn and on the narrow dirt service road beside her Gremlin. Wordlessly, she slid behind the wheel, Pendergast settling in beside her as she started up the engine. She was almost blind with rage as she maneuvered through the thicket of parked official vehicles. Pendergast had let the sheriff walk all over him, insult her—and he’d done nothing. She felt like crying.

  “Miss Swanson, I must say the tapwater in Medicine Creek is exceptionally good. As you know, I am a drinker of green tea, and I don’t believe I’ve ever found better water for making the perfect cup.”

  There was no answer she could make to this non sequitur. She merely braked the Gremlin at the paved road and stared at him. “Where are we going?”

  “You are going to drop me at the Kraus place. And then I’d suggest you return to your trailer and seal all the windows. I understand that a dust storm is coming.”

  Corrie snorted. “I’ve seen dust storms before.”

  “Not one of this magnitude. Dust storms can be among the most frightful of meteorological events. In Central Asia, they are so severe the natives have given names to the winds that bear them. Even here, during the dust bowl, they were known as ‘black blizzards.’ People caught outside were known to suffocate.”

  Corrie accelerated onto the paved road with a screech of rubber. The whole scene had begun to take on a sense of unreality. Here Pendergast had just been humiliated, ordered peremptorily off a case he’d come all the way from New York to investigate . . . and all he could do was talk about tea and the weather?

  A minute ticked away, then two. At last, she couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Look,” she blurted indignantly, “I can’t believe you just let that sack-of-shit sheriffdo that to you!”

  “Do what?”

  “What? Treat you that way! Kick you off the site!”

  Pendergast smiled. “Nisi paret imperat.‘If he does not obey, he commands.’ ”

  “You mean you’re not going to obey the order?”

  “Miss Swanson, I do not habitually talk about my future intentions, even with a trusted assistant.”

  She blushed despite her anger. “So we’re just going to blow him off? Continue our investigation? To hell with the runty bastard?”

  “What I do with regard to, as you so colorfully put it, ‘the runty bastard’ can no longer be your concern. The important thing is, I cannot have you defying the sheriff on my account. Ah, here we are. Pull up to the garages behind the house, if you please.”

  Corrie pulled behind the Kraus mansion, where a rickety row of old wooden garages stood. Pendergast went to one that sported a fresh padlock and chain, unlocked it, and flung open the doors. Inside Corrie could see the gleam of a car—a big car. Pendergast disappeared into the gloom and she soon heard the roar of an engine, followed by a low purring. Slowly, the car nosed out of the garage. Corrie could hardly believe her eyes as a gleaming, polished vision of elegance emerged into the gray dust of Medicine Creek. She had never seen a car like it before, except maybe in the movies. It came to an idling stop and Pendergast got out.

  “Where’d this come from?”

  “I always knew there was a chance I might lose your services, and so I had my own car brought out.”

  “This isyours? What is it?”

  “A ’59 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith.”

  It was only then that the full meaning of his prior sentence sunk in. “What do you mean, lose my services?”

  Pendergast handed her an envelope. “Inside is your pay up to the end of the week.”

  “What’s this for? Aren’t I going to stay on as your assistant?”

  “Not after the cease-and-desist. I can’t protect you from it, and I could not ask you to put yourself in legal jeopardy. Regrettably, as of this moment, you are discharged. I would suggest you go home and resume your normal life.”

  “What normal life? My normal lifesucks. There must besomething I can do!” She felt a rising tide of fury and helplessness: now that she was finally interested in the case, fascinated even; now that she felt she had finally met a person she could respect and trust—now that she finally had a reason to wake up in the morning—he was firing her. Despite her best efforts, she felt a tear escape. She angrily wiped it away.

  Pendergast bowed. “You could help me one last time by satisfying my curiosity on the source of Medicine Creek’s excellent water.”

  She stared in disbelief. He really was impossible.

  “It comes from wells that supposedly tap into some underground river,” she said, trying to make her voice as stony as possible.

  “Underground river,” Pendergast repeated, his eyes blank, as if his gaze had turned inward with a sudden revelation. He smiled, bowed, took her hand, raised it to within an inch of his lips. And then he got into his car and glided off, leaving her standing in the parking lot beside her own junk heap, in a swirl of dust, consumed by a mixture of wrath, astonishment, and misery.

  Forty-Two

  The cruiser whipped past the rows of corn on the airline road at a nice, easy 110 miles per hour. The AC might not work, thought Hazen, and the upholstery might look like shit, but the 5.0 Mustang police package still had what it took under the hood. The heavy chassis rocked from side to side, and in the rearview mirror Hazen could see two rows of corn whipsawing in his wake.

  Hazen felt better than he had all week. Pendergast was out of the picture. He had a firm handle on the case, and it was getting firmer all the time. He glanced over at Chester Raskovich, sitting next to him. The security honcho looked a little gray around the gills, and beads of sweat had popped out on his temple. The speed of the cruiser didn’t seem to agree with him. Hazen had much rather it had been Tad sitting in the passenger seat than this campus grunt; the confrontation that was about to take place would have been good experience for him. For the thousandth time, Hazen found himself wishing that his own boy Brad had grown up more like his deputy: respectful, ambitious, less of a wise-ass. Hazen sighed. Wishful thinking wasn’t important right now. Whatwas important was keeping Raskovich in the loop, and by extension, Dr. Fisk. If he played this right, he was certain Medicine Creek would get the experimental field.

  The first outlying farmhouses of Deeper flashed past, and Hazen slowed quickly to the speed limit. It wouldn’t be too swift to flatten some Deeper kid just as the case was breaking and things were going his way.

  “What’s the plan, Sheriff?” Raskovich managed to say. He had begun to breathe again.

  “We’re going to pay a visit to Mr. Norris Lavender, Esquire.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “He owns half of the town plus a lot of these fields out here. Leases ’em out. His family owned the first ranch in these parts.”

  “You think he’s involved?”

  “Lavender’s got his finger in every pie around here. Like I asked Hank Larssen: who’s got the most to lose? Well, no mystery there.”

  Raskovich nodded.

  Now the commercial district of Deeper hove into view. There was a Hardee’s at one end of town and an A&W at the other; in between, a bunch of shabby or shuttered storefronts; a sporting goods store; a grocery; a gas station; a used car lot (all AMC shitboxes); a coin-op laundromat; and the Deeper Sleep Motel. Everything dated from the fifties.Could be a movie set, thought Hazen.

  He turned into the parking lot behind the Grand Theater (long abandoned) and the Hair Apparent salon. In the rear sat a low, one-story building of orange brick, completely surrounded by a shimmering expanse of heaved asphalt. Hazen drove to the glass-doored entrance and parked his car across the fire lane, illegally, in your face. Hank’s cruiser was parked neatly nearby. Hazen shook his head. Hank just didn’t know how to do things in a way that commanded respect. He left the cruiser with its pinball flasher going like mad, so everyone woul
d know he was there on official business.

  Hazen pushed through the double doors and strode into the chilly air of the Lavender Building, Raskovich at his heels. He glanced around the reception area. A rather ugly secretary, with a voice of such efficiency that it bordered on unfriendliness, said, “You may go straight through, Sheriff. They’ve been waiting.”

  He touched the brim of his hat and strode down the hall, right, and through some more glass doors. Another secretary, even dumpier than the first, waved them past.

  They grow ’em ugly up here in Deeper,he thought.Probably marry their cousins.

  Hazen paused at the threshold of the rear office and looked around with narrowed eye. It was pretty snazzy, with a slick cosmopolitan look: bits of metal and glass in various shades of gray and black, oversized desk, thick carpeting, potted figs. A couple of cheesy Darlin’ Dolls prints, however, betrayed Lavender’s white trash origins. Lavender himself sat, smiling, behind the giant desk, and when Hazen’s eye fell on him the man rose easily to his feet. He was wearing a jogging suit with racing stripes, and a diamond ring in a platinum setting winked on one pinky. He was slender and rather tall, and he invested all his movements with what he no doubt assumed looked like aristocratic languor. His head, however, was overly large for his body and shaped like a pyramid, a very wide mouth smiling under two gimlet eyes set close together, tapering to a narrow forehead as smooth and white as a slab of sliced suet. It was the head of a fat man on a thin body.

  Sheriff Larssen, who’d been sitting in a chair to one side, rose also.

  Lavender said nothing, merely extending an arm with a very small white hand at the end of it, indicating a seat. It was a challenge: would Hazen obey, or choose a seat himself?

  Hazen smiled, guided Raskovich into the seat, and then took his own.

  Lavender remained standing. He placed his childlike hands on the desk and leaned forward slowly, still smiling.

  “Welcome to Deeper, Sheriff Hazen. And this is, I believe, Mr. Raskovich of Kansas State University?” His voice was smooth, unctuous.

  Hazen nodded quickly. “I figure you know why I’m here, Norris.”

  “Do I need to call my lawyer?” Lavender made it sound like a joke.

  “That’s up to you. You’re not a suspect.”

  Lavender raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”

  Indeed. And here his grandfather was a damn bootlegger.

  “Indeed,” Hazen repeated.

  “Well then, Sheriff. Shall we proceed? Seeing as how this is a voluntary interview, I reserve the right to end questioning at any moment.”

  “Then I’ll get to the point. Who owns the Deeper land chosen as a possible site for KSU’s experimental field?”

  “You know very well that’s my land. It’s leased to Buswell Agricon, KSU’s partner in the project.”

  “Did you know Dr. Stanton Chauncy?”

  “Of course. The sheriff and I showed him around town.”

  “What’d you think of him?”

  “Probably much the same as you.” Lavender gave a little smile that told Sheriff Hazen all he needed to know about Lavender’s opinion of Chauncy.

  “Did you know in advance that Chauncy had chosen Medicine Creek for his site?”

  “I did not. The man played his cards close.”

  “Did you negotiate a new lease with KSU for the experimental land?”

  Lavender shifted his body languidly and leaned his heavy head to one side. “No. I didn’t want to queer the deal. I said if they chose to go with Deeper, they could have it at the same rate as Buswell Agricon.”

  “But you were planning to increase the leasing fee?”

  Lavender smiled. “My dear fellow, Iam a businessman. I was hoping for higher fees for their future fields.”

  My dear fellow.“So you expected the operation would expand.”

  “Naturally.”

  “You own the Deeper Sleep Motel, am I right?”

  “You know very well I do.”

  “And you own the Hardee’s franchise?”

  “It’s one of my best businesses here.”

  “You own all the buildings from Bob’s Sporting Goods to the Hair Apparent, right?”

  “This is a matter of public record, Sheriff.”

  “And you own the Grand Theater building—currently empty—and you’re the landlord of the Steak Joint and the Cry County Mini-Mall.”

  “More common knowledge.”

  “In the past five years, how many of your tenants have broken their leases and gone out of business?”

  Lavender’s wide face remained smiling, but Hazen noticed that the man had begun winding the diamond ring around his pinky.

  “My financial affairs are my own business, thank you very much.”

  “Let me guess then. Fifty percent? The Rookery closed down, the Book Nook’s long gone. Jimmy’s Round Up went out of business last year. The Mini-Mall is about two-thirds empty now.”

  “I might point out, Sheriff, that the Deeper Sleep Motel is currently running at one hundred percent occupancy.”

  “Yes, because it’s filled with media folks. What happens when the big story ends? It’ll go back to being about as popular as the Bates Motel.”

  Lavender was still smiling, but there was no mirth now in those wet lips that stretched across the lower half of his face.

  “How many tenants are behind on their rents? Trouble is, you’re not really in much of a position to get tough and kick ’em out for missing a payment, are you? I mean, who’s going to take their place? Better to lower the rents, stretch things out, write a note or two.”

  More silence. Hazen eased up, let the silence build, taking a moment to give the office another once-over. His eyes fell on a wall of photographs of Norris Lavender with various big shots—Billy Carter, brother of the president; a couple of football players; a rodeo star; a country-and-western singer. In several of them, Hazen could see a third figure: hulking, dark-complected, muscle-bound, unsmiling: Lewis McFelty, Lavender’s sidekick. He hadn’t seen him when he came in, although he’d been looking out for him. More evidence to back up his theory. Hazen took his eyes off the creepy-looking man and turned back to Lavender with a smile. “You and your family have owned this town for almost a hundred years, but it looks like the sun might be setting on the Lavender empire, eh, Norris?”

  Sheriff Larssen spoke. “Look here, Dent, this is sheer bullying. I fail to see how any of this could possibly connect with the killings.”

  Lavender stayed him with a gesture. “I thank you, Hank, but I’ve known what Hazen’s game has been from the beginning. This dog is all bark.”

  “Is that a fact?” Hazen shot back.

  “It is. This isn’t about the killings in Medicine Creek. This is about my grandfather supposedly shooting your poor old granddaddy in the leg.” He turned toward the KSU security man. “Mr. Raskovich, the Lavenders and Hazens go back quite a ways here in Cry County—and certain people just can’t get over it.” He smiled back at Hazen. “Well, sir, it just isn’t going to warsh. My grandfather never shot your grandfather, and I’m no serial killer. Look at me. Can you imagine me in a cornfield carving someone up like one of those turkeys you people turn out over there in Medicine Creek?” He looked around smugly.

  Warsh.There it was, rising to the surface like fat in a stew. Norris Lavender might sprinkle his speech with all the “indeeds” and “my dear fellows” in the world and it still wouldn’t cover up the smell of white trash.

  “You’re just like your grandfather, Norris,” Hazen replied. “You get other people to do the dirty work for you.”

  Lavender’s eyebrows shot up. “That sounded remarkably like an accusation.”

  Hazen smiled. “You know, Norris, I kind of missed your pal Lewis McFelty when I came in just now. How’s he doing?”

  “My assistant, poor boy, has a sick mother in Kansas City. I gave him the week off.”

  Hazen’s smile broadened. “I certainly hope it’s nothing serious.
”

  Another silence.

  Hazen coughed and continued. “You had a lot to lose with this experimental field going to Medicine Creek.”

  Lavender opened a wooden box full of cigars and pushed it across the table to Hazen. “I know you’re a committed smoker, Sheriff. Help yourself.”

  Hazen stared at the box. Cubans, wouldn’t you know it. He shook his head.

  “Mr. Raskovich? Cigar?”

  Raskovich also shook his head.

  Hazen leaned back. “You hadeverything to lose, didn’t you?”

  “Does anyone mind if I indulge?” Lavender reached into the box and removed a cigar, holding it up like a question between two thick fingers.

  “Go ahead,” said Hank, casting Hazen a malevolent glance. “A man has a right to smoke in his own office.”

  Hazen waited while Lavender slid a little silver clipper off his desk, trimmed and clipped the end of the cigar, admired his handiwork, picked up a gold lighter and heated the end of the cigar, then licked the other end, placed it in his wide mouth, and lit it. The process took several minutes. Then Lavender rose and strolled to the window, folded his tiny hands behind him, and stared out across the parking lot, puffing languidly, from time to time removing the cigar to stare at its tip. Beyond his slender figure, Hazen could see a horizon as black as night. The storm was coming, and it was going to be a big one.

  The silence stretched on until Lavender finally turned. “Oh,” he said to Hazen, feigning surprise. “Are you still here?”

  “I’m waiting for an answer to my question.”

  Lavender smiled. “Didn’t I mention five minutes ago that this interview was over? How careless of me.” He turned back toward the window, puffing on the cigar.

  “Take care not to get caught in the storm, gentlemen,” he said over his shoulder.

  Hazen peeled out of the parking lot, leaving precisely the right amount of rubber behind. Once they were on the main drag, Raskovich looked over at him. “What was that story about your grandfather and his?”