Текст книги "Still Life With Crows"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Wilbur gazed benevolently at Pendergast. “It is at times a fearsome responsibility, being entrusted with so many hundreds, Mr. Pendergast. But I flatter myself that I’ve shepherded them well.”

“It seems a good life here,” Pendergast went on. “For a man of God such as yourself, I mean.”

“God has seen fit to both bless me and bring me trials. We all share equally in the curse of Adam, but perhaps a man of the cloth shares more than most.” Wilbur’s face had assumed a saintly, almost martyred demeanor.

Ludwig recognized that look: Wilbur was about to spout one of his prized little scraps of poetry.

“Alas,”Wilbur began, “what boots it with uncessant care, to tend the homely, slighted shepherd’s trade?”He looked through his reading glasses at Pendergast with evident satisfaction. “Milton. Naturally.”

“Naturally. Lycidas.”

Wilbur was slightly taken aback. “Ah, I believe that’s correct, yes.”

“Another line from that elegy comes to mind: The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.”

There was a brief silence. Ludwig looked back and forth between the two men, uncertain what, if anything, had just passed between them.

Wilbur blinked. “I—”

“I look forward to greeting you again in church on Sunday,” Pendergast interjected smoothly, grasping Wilbur’s hand once more.

“Ah, yes, yes, so do I,” Wilbur said, the note of surprise still detectable in his voice.

“Excuse me!” The booming voice of Art Ridder, amplified, again cut through the babble of overlapping conversations. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you would all be so kind, our guest of honor would like to say a few words. Dr. Stanton Chauncy!”

All around the Fellowship Hall, people put down their forks and turned their attention to the little man in the seersucker suit.

“Thank you,” the man said. He stood erect, hands folded in front of him like he was at a wake. “My name is Stanton Chauncy. Dr. Stanton Chauncy. I represent the Agricultural Extension of Kansas State University. But of course you know that.” His voice was high, and his manner of speaking was so crisp and precise that his words were almost overarticulated.

“The genetic enhancement of corn is a complicated subject, and not one that I can readily elucidate in a venue such as this,” he began. “It requires knowledge of certain disciplines such as organic chemistry and plant biology that one could not expect a lay audience to possess.” He sniffed. “However, I will attempt to impart the most rudimentary of overviews to you this afternoon.”

As if of one mind, those who had gathered in the Fellowship Hall appeared to slump. There was a collective exhalation of breath. If they had hoped to hear praise heaped on their town or their Sociable, or even—dared one hope?—word of Chauncy’s impending decision, they were sadly disappointed. Instead, the man launched into an explanation of corn varietals so detailed that the eyes of even the most enthusiastic corn farmer glazed over. It almost seemed to Ludwig as if Chauncy was tryingto be as boring as possible. Whispered conversations resumed; forkfuls of mashed potato and turkey gravy were slipped into furtive mouths; small streams of people began moving back and forth along the far walls of the hall. Dale Estrem and the Farmer’s Co-op crowd stood at the back, arms folded, faces set hard.

Smit Ludwig tuned out the droning voice as he looked around the hall. Despite everything, he appreciated the small-town atmosphere of the Sociable: its homespun provinciality, and the fact that it brought the community together, even forcing people who didn’t like each other to acknowledge the other and be civil. It was one of the many reasons why he never wanted to leave—even after his wife had passed away. A person could not get lost in Medicine Creek. People were taken care of, nobody was forgotten, and everyone had a place. It wasn’t like that in L.A., where old people died unloved and alone every day. His daughter had been calling a lot lately, urging him to relocate nearer her. But he wasn’t going to do that. Not even after he closed the paper and retired. For better or worse, he was going to end his days in Medicine Creek and be buried in the cemetery out on the Deeper Road, beside his wife.

He glanced at his watch. What had generated these thoughts of mortality? He had a deadline to make, even if it was self-imposed, and the time had come for him to go home and write up the story.

He made his stealthy way to the open doors of the hall. Beyond, late afternoon light illuminated the broad green lawn of the church. The heat was unbroken as it lay over the grass, the parking lot, and the cornfields like a suffocating blanket. But despite the heat—and, in fact, despite everything—a part of Smit Ludwig felt relieved. He could have fared a lot worse at the hands of his fellow townsfolk; he had Maisie, and perhaps Pendergast, to thank for that. And on a less selfish note, he’d be able to write an upbeat piece about the Sociable without dissembling. It had started with a certain grimness, he felt: a stoic sense that the show must go on, despite everything. But the gloom and oppression had seemed to lift. The town had become itself again, and not even Chauncy’s stultifying lecture, which still droned on behind him, could change that. The thirty-third annual Gro-Bain Turkey Sociable was a success.

Ludwig fetched a deep, slow breath as he looked out from the steps of the church. And then, suddenly, he froze.

One by one, the people around him began to do the same, staring out from the wooden doorway. There was a gasp, a low murmur. Like an electric current, the murmur began to jump from person to person, running back into the crowds within the hall itself, growing in volume until Chauncy’s exegesis of variegated corn kernels came under threat.

“What is it?” Chauncy said, stopping in mid-sentence. “What’s going on?”

Nobody answered. All eyes were fixed on the horizon beyond the open doors of the hall, where, against the yellow sky, a lazy column of vultures wheeled in ever tightening circles above the endless corn.

Fourteen

 

When Corrie Swanson pulled up to the church, people were standing on the front lawn, huddled together in groups, murmuring anxiously. Now and then somebody would break away from one of the groups and stare out in the direction of the cornfields. There must have been fifty people out there, but she didn’t see Pendergast among them. And that made no sense, because he’d asked her to come right away. He’d been most insistent on it, in fact.

It was almost a relief to find him missing. Pendergast was going to get her into even worse trouble than she already was in this town—she could feel it in her bones. She was already the town’s A-number-one pariah. Once again, she wondered what the hell she’d gotten herself into. The money was still burning a hole in her glove compartment. He’d get her in trouble, and then he’d be gone, and she’d still be stuck in Medicine Creek dealing with the consequences. If she were smart, she’d give him back the money and wash her hands of the whole thing.

She jumped involuntarily as a black figure seemed to materialize out of nowhere beside the car. Pendergast opened the passenger door and slid in as sleekly as a cat. The way he moved gave her the creeps sometimes.

She reached for the dashboard, turned down the blaring sound of “Starfuckers” by Nine Inch Nails. “So, where to, Special Agent?” she said as casually as she could.

Pendergast nodded toward the cornfields. “Do you see those birds?”

She shaded her eyes against the glow of the sunset. “What, those turkey vultures? What about them?”

“That’s where we’re going.”

She revved the engine; the car shuddered and coughed black smoke. “There’s no roads out that way, and this is a Gremlin, not a Hummer, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Swanson, I will not get you mired in a cornfield. Head west on the Cry Road, please.”

“Whatever.” She stamped on the accelerator and the Gremlin pulled away from the curb, shuddering with the effort.

“So how was the Turkey Sociable?” she asked. “That’s like the big event of the year in Shit Creek.”

“It was most instructive—from an anthropological point of view.”

“Anthropological? Yeah, right, Special Agent Pendergast among the savages. Did they introduce that guy from KSU, the one who wants to grow radioactive corn around here?”

“Genetically modified corn. They did.”

“And what was he like? Did he have three heads?”

“If he did, two must have been successfully removed in infancy.”

Corrie looked at him. He looked back from the broken seat with his usual placid, mild, unsmiling expression. She could never tell whether or not he was cracking a joke. He had to be the weirdest adult she’d ever met, and with all the characters wandering around Medicine Creek, that was saying something.

“Miss Swanson? Your speed.”

“Sorry.” She braked. “I thought you FBI guys drove as fast as you wanted.”

“I’m on vacation.”

“The sheriff goes everywhere at a hundred miles an hour even when he’s off duty. And you always know when there’s fresh eclairs at the Wagon Wheel. Then he goes a hundred and twenty.”

They hummed along the smooth asphalt for a while in silence.

“Miss Swanson, take a look up the road, if you please. Do you see where the sheriff’s car is parked? Pull in behind it.”

Corrie squinted into the gathering dusk. Ahead, she could see the cruiser pulled over onto the wrong shoulder, lights flashing. Overhead, and maybe a quarter mile into the corn, she could see the column of turkey vultures more clearly.

It suddenly clicked. “Jesus,” she said. “Not another one?”

“That remains to be seen.”

Corrie pulled up behind the cruiser and put on her flashers. Pendergast got out. “I may be a while.”

“I’m not coming with you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“No problem, I brought a book.”

She watched Pendergast push his way into the corn and disappear, feeling vaguely annoyed. Then she turned her attention to the back seat. She always had five or six books flung about willy-nilly back there—science fiction, horror, splatterpunk, occasionally a teen romance that she never, ever let anybody catch her reading. She glanced over the pile. Maybe, while she waited, she’d start that new techno-thriller, Beyond the Ice Limit.She picked it up, then paused again. Somehow, the idea of sitting in the car, reading, all alone, didn’t seem quite as appealing as it usually did. She couldn’t help but glance again at the column of vultures. They had soared higher now. Even against the gathering dusk, she could see they were agitated. Perhaps the sheriff had scared them off. She felt a twinge of curiosity: there might be something out there in the corn a whole lot more interesting than anything she’d find in one of her escapist novels.

She tossed the book in the back seat with a snort of impatience. Pendergast wasn’t going to keep her away like that. She had as much a right as anyone to see what was going on.

She flung open the car door and headed off into the corn. She could see where the sheriff had tramped through the dirt. There was another, narrower pair of tracks that ran back and forth over the sheriff’s clown shoes: probably his well-meaning but brain-dead deputy, Tad. And near them, Pendergast’s light step.

It was very hot and claustrophobic in the corn. The husks rose high over Corrie’s head, and as she passed by they rattled, showering her with dust and pollen. There was still some light in the sky, but in the corn it seemed that night had already fallen. Corrie felt her breath coming faster as she walked. She began to wonder if this was such a good idea after all. She never went into the corn. All her life she had hated the cornfields. They started in the spring as so much endless dirt, the giant machines tearing up the earth, leaving behind plumes of dust that coated the town and filled her bed with grit. And then the corn came up and the only thing anyone talked about for four months was the weather. Slowly the roads got closed in by claustrophobic walls of corn until you felt like you were driving in a tunnel of green. Now the corn was yellowing and pretty soon the giant machines would be back, leaving the land as naked and ugly as a shaved poodle.

It was awful: the dust filled her nose and stung her eyes and the moldy, papery smell made her sick. All this corn, probably growing not to feed people or even animals, but cars. Car corn. Sick, sick, sick.

And then, quite suddenly, she broke through into a small trampled clearing. There were the sheriff and Tad, holding flashlights and bending over something. Pendergast stood to one side, and as she entered the clearing he turned toward her, his pale eyes almost luminous in the gathering twilight.

Corrie’s heart gave an ugly lurch. There was something dead in the middle. But when she forced herself to look she realized it was only a dead dog. It was brown and so bloated with the gases of rot that its hair stood on end, making it look horribly strange, like a four-legged blowfish. An awful, sweetish smell hung in the still air and there was a steady roar of flies.

The sheriff turned. “Well, Pendergast,” he said in a genial voice, “looks like we got all riled up for nothing.” Then his eyes flickered over Pendergast’s shoulder, and landed on her. He stared at her for a few uncomfortable seconds before looking back at Pendergast. The agent said nothing.

Pendergast had slipped a small light out of his own pocket and was playing its bright beam over the bloated corpse. Corrie felt sick: she recognized the dog. It was a chocolate Lab mutt belonging to Swede Cahill’s son, a nice freckled kid of twelve.

“Okay, Tad,” said the sheriff, slapping his hand on the gangly deputy’s shoulder, “we’ve seen all there is to see. Let’s call it a day.”

Pendergast had now moved in and was kneeling, examining the dog more closely. The flies, disturbed, were swarming above the corpse in a wild cloud.

The sheriff walked past Corrie without acknowledging her, then turned at the edge of the clearing. “Pendergast? You coming?”

“I haven’t completed my examination.”

“You finding anything interesting?”

There was a silence, and then Pendergast said, “This is another killing.”

“Another killing? It’s a dead dog in a cornfield and we’re two miles from the site of the Swegg homicide.”

Corrie watched in vague horror as the FBI agent picked up the dog’s head, moved it back and forth gently, laid it down, shone his light in the mouth, the ears, down the flank. The angry drone of flies grew louder.

“Well?” asked the sheriff, his voice harder.

“This dog’s neck has been violently broken,” said Pendergast.

“Hit by a car. Dragged himself out here to die. Happens all the time.”

“A car wouldn’t have done that to the tail.”

“What tail?”

“Exactly my point.”

Both the sheriff and Tad directed their lights to the dog’s rump. Where the tail had been there was nothing but a ragged pink stump with a white bone at the center.

The sheriff said nothing.

“And over there”—Pendergast shone his light into the corn—“I imagine you will find the footprints of the killer. Bare footprints, size eleven, heading back down toward the creek. Same as the footprints found at the site of the first homicide.”

There was another silence. And then the sheriff spoke. “Well, Pendergast, all I can say is, it’s kind of a relief. Here you thought we were dealing with a serial killer. Now we know he’s just some sicko. Murdering a dog and cutting off the tail. Jesus Christ.”

“But you will note the difference here. There was no ceremony to this killing, no feeling that the corpse has been arranged en tableau.”

“So?”

“It doesn’t fit the pattern. But of course, that simply means we’re dealing with a newpattern—in fact, a new type altogether.”

“A new type of what?”

“Of serial killer.”

Hazen rolled his eyes theatrically. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re still dealing with a single murder. A dog doesn’t count.” He turned to Tad. “Call the M.E. and let’s scoop this dog up to Garden City for an autopsy. Get the SOC boys out here to work over the site and especially take a look at any prints they find. And get the Staties to post a guard. I want this site sealed. No unauthorized personnel. Got it?”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“Good. And now, Pendergast, I’m hoping you will escort all unauthorizedpersonnel from the site immediately.” Corrie jumped as he abruptly shined his light on her.

“Sheriff, you’re not referring to my assistant, are you?”

There was a thunderous silence. Corrie glanced at him, wondering what his game was now. Assistant? Her old suspicions began to return; next thing she knew, he’d be trying to assist himself into her pants.

After a moment the sheriff spoke. “Assistant? Are you referring to that delinquent standing next to you who’s facing a charge of larceny in the second degree, which, by the way, happens to be a felony in the state of Kansas?”

“I am.”

The sheriff nodded. And when he spoke again, his voice was unnaturally mild. “I’m a patient man, Mr. Pendergast. I will say this to you, and this only: there isa limit.”

In the ensuing silence, Pendergast said, “Miss Swanson, would you kindly hold the flashlight while I examine the posterior of this dog?”

Holding her nose against the rising stench, Corrie took the flashlight and aimed it at the desired spot, aware of Sheriff Hazen standing behind her, staring so hard at the back of her neck that she could feel the hairs curling.

Pendergast turned, rose, and laid a hand on the sheriff’s shoulder. The man looked down at the hand, seemed about to brush it off. “Sheriff Hazen,” said Pendergast, his voice suddenly deferential, “it may seem that I have come here expressly to annoy you. But I assure you there are good reasons behind everything I do. I do hope you will continue to exercise the patience you’ve so admirably demonstrated already, and bear with me and my unorthodox methods—and my unorthodox assistant—a little longer.”

The sheriff seemed to digest this for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice sounded ever so slightly mollified. “I can’t say I honestly like the way you’re handling the case. You FBI boys always seem to forget that once we catch the perp we’ve got to convicthim. You know how it is these days: screw up the evidence in any wayand the perp walks.” He glanced at Corrie. “She better have scene-of-crime authorization.”

“She will.”

“And keep in mind what kind of impression she’s going to make in front of a jury with that purple hair and the spiked dog collar. Not to mention a felony on her record.”

“We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The sheriff stared hard at him. “All right then. I’ll leave you to Fido here. Remember what I said. Come on, Tad, let’s go make those calls.”

Then he turned away, lit a cigarette, and disappeared into the wall of corn, followed by Tad. As the sound of crashing diminished, a silence descended on the site.

Corrie took several steps back from the stench of decay. “Agent Pendergast?”

“Miss Swanson?”

“What’s this ‘assistant’ crap?”

“I assumed you were willing to take the job by the fact that you disobeyed my orders and came here, thereby displaying an interest in the forensic aspects of crime.”

Was he kidding again? “I just don’t like being left behind. Look, I don’t know jack about detective work. I can’t type, I can’t handle the phones, and I’m sure as hell not going to take dictation or do whatever it is that assistants do.”

“That is not what I require. This may surprise you, but I’ve actually given this matter some thought and I’ve concluded that you’ll make an excellent assistant. I need someone who knows the town, knows the people, knows their secrets, but who is also an outsider, beholden to no one. Someone who will tell me the unvarnished truth as she sees it. Are you not exactly that person?”

Corrie considered it. Outsider, beholden to no one . . . Depressingly, she seemed to fit the bill.

“The promotion comes with a raise to a hundred and fifty dollars a day. I have all the paperwork in the car, including a limited scene-of-crime authorization. It means obeying my orders to the letter. No more jumping out of the car on a whim. We will discuss your new responsibilities in more detail later.”

“Who’s paying me? The FBI?”

“I shall be paying you out of my own pocket.”

“Come on, you know I’m not worth it. You’re throwing your money away.”

Pendergast turned and looked at her, and once again she was struck by the intensity that lay behind those gray eyes. “I already know one thing: we are dealing with an extremely dangerous killer and I do not have time to waste. I must have your help. If one life is saved, what is that worth?”

“Yeah, but how can I possibly help? I mean, the sheriff’s right. I’m just a dumb delinquent.”

“Miss Swanson, don’t be fatuous. Have we got a deal?”

“All right. But assistantis where it begins and ends. Like I said before, don’t get any ideas.”

He looked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re a man. You know what I’m talking about.”

Pendergast waved his hand. “Miss Swanson, the inference you are making is quite unthinkable. We come from two different worlds. There is a vast difference between us in terms of age, temperament, upbringing, background, and relative positions of power—not to mention your pierced tongue. In my opinion such a relationship, while it might afford both of us considerable diversion, would be most unwise.”

Corrie felt vaguely irritated by his explanation. “What’s wrong with my pierced tongue?”

“Perhaps nothing. Females of the Wimbu tribe of the Andaman Islands pierce their labia and dangle strings of cowry shells from them. The shells jingle under their skirts when they walk. The men find it most attractive.”

“That’s totally foul!”

Pendergast smiled. “So you are not the cultural relativist I had assumed.”

“You’re a seriously weird person, you know that?”

“The alternative, Miss Swanson, does not appeal to me at all.” He took the light from her and shone it back on the dog. “And now, as my assistant, you can begin by telling me whose dog this is.”

Her eyes flickered unwillingly back to the bloated corpse. “It’s Jiff. He belonged to Andy, Swede Cahill’s son.”

“Did Jiff wear a collar?”

“Yes.”

“Did he normally run free?”

“Most of the dogs in town run free, despite the leash laws.”

Pendergast nodded. “I knew my confidence in you was not misplaced.”

Corrie looked at him, feeling amused. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

“Thank you. We seem to have something in common.” He took the light from her and shined it back on the dog.

A silence descended on the rude clearing while Corrie wondered if she’d been insulted or complimented. But as she followed the beam with her eyes, she felt a sudden stab of pity: pity that transcended the awful stench, the drone of flies. Andy Cahill was going to be heartbroken. Somebody had to tell him, and it looked like that somebody would have to be her. She certainly couldn’t leave it to the sheriff or his assistant, who could be counted on to say the wrong thing. Nor did she think Pendergast, for all his courtesy, was the right person to break the news to the kid. She looked up and, to her surprise, found Pendergast looking at her.

“Yes,” he said, “I think it would be an act of kindness for you to break the news to Andy Cahill.”

“How did—?”

“At the same time, Miss Swanson, you might find out, in an offhand way, when Andy last saw Jiff, and where the dog might have been heading.”

“You want me to play detective, in other words.”

Pendergast nodded. “You are, after all, my new assistant.”

Fifteen

 

Margery Tealander sat behind the old wooden desk of her spartan office, industriously clipping coupons while keeping one eye on The Price Is Right.The picture on the old black-and-white was so poor that she’d cranked the volume up so as not to miss any of the action. Not that there was all that much action today; rarely had she seen such a sorry group of contestants. Bidding high, bidding low, bidding every which way except within a mile of the real price of anything. She paused in her clipping to peer at the screen and listen. Everybody else had bid on the latest item except for the final contestant, a skinny Asian girl who couldn’t be more than twenty.

“I’ll bid one thousand four hundred and one dollars, Bob,” the girl said with a shy smile and a duck of her head.

“Man alive.” Marge clucked disapprovingly and returned to her clipping. Fourteen hundred dollars for an over-under Maytag? What planet could these people be living on? Couldn’t be more than nine hundred fifty, tops. And the audience wasn’t any help either, yelling encouragingly at every wrong guess. Now, if shewas on the show, the audience would see some seriouscleaning up. She always seemed to guess the right price, always seemed to pick the right door. And she wouldn’t settle for any of those cheesy prizes, either, the redwood utility sheds or the knickknack cabinets or the year’s supply of floor wax. She’d hold out for the fifteen-foot Chris-Craft; she had a cousin up near Lake Scott with a dock and mooring. The pity of it was that she’d finally talked Rocky into taking her out to Studio City, and then a week later he was diagnosed with emphysema. And now, she couldn’t very well go alone, God rest his soul, it would be much too much for . . . Now thiswas interesting: twenty percent off Woolite with a grocery purchase of $30 or more. That hardly everwent on sale, and with triple coupons on weekends that meant she could buy it for almost half price. She’d have to stock up. You just couldn’t beat the Shopper’s Palace in Ulysses for prices. The Red Owl in Garden City was closer, of course, but if you were serious about saving a little money you just couldn’t beat the Palace. And on Super Saturdays she’d get ten cents off a gallon on regular gas—that more than made up for the extra mileage right there. Of course, she felt a little bad about not patronizing Ernie, but these were lean times and a body just had to be practical . . . Now, if that didn’t beat all. Nine hundred twenty-five for the Maytag. Sure would have looked nice right next to her slop sink. Maybe she’d talk to Alice Franks about looking into a bus excursion that could—

All of a sudden she realized that a strange man was standing before her desk.

“Good gracious!” Marge quickly turned down the sound on the television. “Young man, you startled me.” It was that man in the black suit she’d seen out and about recently.

“My apologies,” the man replied in a voice redolent of mint juleps, pralines, and cypress trees. He gave a formal little bow, then stood before her, hands at his sides. He had slender, tapered fingers with nails that—she noticed with some surprise—were subtly but very professionally manicured.

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “Just don’t be sneaking up on a body like that. Now, what can I do you for?”

The man nodded toward the coupons. “I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”

Marge barked out a laugh. “Hah! A bad time! That’s a good one.” She pushed the coupons to one side. “Mr. Stranger, you have my undivided attention.”

“I must apologize again,” the man said. “I’ve neglected to introduce myself. The name’s Pendergast.”

Marge suddenly remembered the article in the paper. “Of course. You’re that fellow from down south who’s looking into the murder. I could tell you weren’t from around here, of course. Not talking like that, you aren’t.”

She looked at him with fresh curiosity. He was rather tall, with hair so blond it was almost white, and he returned her look with pale eyes full of mild inquisitiveness. Although he was slender, he gave no sense of being frail; quite the opposite, really, although his suit was so unrelievedly black it was hard to tell. He was really very attractive, in a Southern Comfort kind of way.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Pendergast,” she said. “I’d offer you a seat, but this swivel chair of mine’s the only one. The people who come here aren’t usually inclined to stay very long.” She barked another laugh.

“And why is that, Mrs. Tealander?” The question was phrased so politely that Marge didn’t notice he already knew her name.

“Why do you think? Unless you happen to be partial to paying taxes and filling out forms, of course.”

“Yes, of course. I do see.” The man named Pendergast took a step forward. “Mrs. Tealander, it’s my understanding that—”

“Five hundred dollars,” Marge interrupted.

The man paused. “Pardon me?”

“Nothing.” Marge pulled her eyes from the now-silent TV.

“It’s my understanding that you are the keeper of public records for Medicine Creek.”

Marge nodded. “That’s right.”

“And that you function as town administrator.”

“A part-time job. Very part-time, these days.”

“That you run the public works department.”

“Oh, that just means keeping tabs on Henry Fleming, who drives the snow plow and changes the bulbs in the streetlamps.”

“And that you levy real estate taxes.”

“Yes, and that’sthe reason I don’t get invited to Klick Rasmussen’s canasta parties.”

Pendergast paused again for a moment. “So one could say that, in essence, you run Medicine Creek.”

Marge grinned widely. “Young man, I couldn’t have put it better myself. Of course, Sheriff Hazen and Art Ridder might not share your view.”

“We’ll leave them to their own opinion, then.”

“Man alive, I knewit!” Marge’s eyes had strayed back to the television, and with an effort she returned them to her guest.

Pendergast slipped a leather wallet from his jacket pocket. “Mrs. Tealander,” he said, opening it to display the gold shield inside, “you’re aware that I’m an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”

“That’s what they said over at the Hair Apparent.”

“I would like to get a better, shall we say, bureaucraticperspective on the people of Medicine Creek. What they do, where they live, what their economic status might be. That manner of thing.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place. I know everything legal there is to know about every blessed soul in town.”

Pendergast waved one hand. “Technically, of course, such an inquiry requires a warrant.”

“Where do you think you are, young man? Great Bend? Wichita, maybe? I’m not going to stand on ceremony with an officer of the law. Besides, we’ve got no secrets here. At least, none that would interest you.”