Текст книги "Cold Vengeance"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

CHAPTER 30

Boston, Massachusetts

THE MAN WITH THE SUNKEN EYES AND FIVE O’CLOCK shadow shuffled across Copley Square, in the shadow of the John Hancock Tower. Except for brief glances at the passing traffic, his head hung dejectedly; his hands were deep in the pockets of his grimy raincoat.

He walked down Dartmouth Street and entered the Copley subway station. Passing the line of people buying CharlieCards, he slouched down the cement staircase and stopped, looking around. A row of benches was set against the tiled wall to his right, and he made his way toward them, sitting down at the far end. There he lounged, unmoving, hands still buried in the pockets of his raincoat, staring at nothing.

A few minutes later, another man strolled up. He could not have looked more different. He was thin and tall, dressed in a well-tailored suit and a Burberry trench coat. In one hand he held a copy of The Boston Globe, neatly folded; in the other was a crisply rolled black umbrella. A large gray fedora kept his face in shadow. The only distinguishing mark was an odd-looking mole underneath his right eye. Sitting down beside the derelict, he opened the paper wide and began perusing the inside stories.

When a Green Line train squealed its way into the station, the man in the fedora began to speak. He spoke quietly, under the noise of the train, and he kept his gaze on the newspaper.

“State the nature of the problem,” he said in accented English.

The derelict let his head hang as he replied. “It’s this fellow Pendergast. My brother-in-law. He’s found out the truth.”

“The truth? All of it?”

“Not yet. But he will. He’s an extremely competent and dangerous man.”

“What does he know, exactly?”

“He knows that what happened in Africa, the lion killing, was murder. He knows all about Project Aves. And he knows…” Esterhazy hesitated. “He knows about Slade, and Longitude Pharmaceuticals, the Doane family – and Spanish Island.”

“Ah yes, Spanish Island,” said the man. “This is something wehave just learned. We now are aware Charles Slade’s death twelve years ago was an elaborate hoax and that he was still alive until some seven months ago. This is most unfortunate news. Why didn’t you tell us these things?”

“I had no idea, either,” Esterhazy lied as forcefully as he could. “I swear to you, I didn’t know anything about it.” He just hadto put the genie back in the bottle, once and for all, or he was as good as dead. He found his voice moving up a notch and brought it back down. “It was Pendergast who figured it all out. And what he doesn’t know yet – he will.”

“Pendergast.” The man in the fedora’s tone became tinged with skepticism. “Why haven’t you killed him? You promised us you would.”

“I’ve tried – on several occasions.”

The man in the fedora did not reply. Instead he turned the page of the newspaper and continued reading.

After several minutes, he spoke again. “We’re disappointed in you, Judson.”

“I’m sorry.” Esterhazy felt the blood infuse his face.

“Don’t ever forget your origins. You owe us everything.”

He nodded mutely, face burning in shame – shame at his fear, his submission, his dependence, his failure.

“Does this Pendergast know of the existence of our organization?”

“Not yet. But he’s like a pit bull. He doesn’t give up. You’ve got to take him out. We can’t afford to leave him on the loose. I’m telling you, we’ve got to kill him.”

“ Youcan’t afford to leave him on the loose,” the man replied. “ Youmust deal with him – decisively.”

“God knows, I’ve tried!”

“Not hard enough. How tiresome of you to think you can drop the problem in our lap. Everyone has a weak spot. Find his and attack it.”

Esterhazy felt himself shaking with frustration. “You’re asking the impossible. Please, I need your help.”

“Naturally, you can rely on us for whatever assistance you need. We helped you with that passport – we’ll help you again. Money, weapons, safe houses. And we’ve got the Vergeltung. But you have to deal with this man yourself. In fact, taking care of this – quickly and completely – would go a long way toward restoring yourself to our good graces.”

Esterhazy was silent a moment, letting this sink in. “Where’s the Vergeltungdocked?”

“Manhattan. The Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin.” The man paused. “New York… That’s where Agent Pendergast lives, is it not?”

This was enough of a surprise that Esterhazy could not help lifting his eyes to the man for a moment.

The man returned to his newspaper with an air of finality. After a minute, Esterhazy rose to go. As he did so, the man spoke once more. “Did you hear what happened to the Brodies?”

“Yes,” Esterhazy replied in a low voice. He wondered if the question was an implied threat.

“Don’t worry, Judson,” the man went on. “We’ll take good care of you. Just as we always have.”

And as another train came shrieking into the station, he turned back to his paper and did not speak again.

CHAPTER 31

Malfourche

NED BETTERTON DROVE HIS DENTED NISSAN DOWN the main street – the only street, really – of Malfourche. Although it was technically part of his beat, for the most part Betterton avoided the town: too much of that deep-bayou mentality. But the Brodies had lived here. Had…Grudgingly, Kranston was letting him follow up, only because the horrific double murder was so big it would have seemed strange if the Beepretended it hadn’t happened. “Let’s get it over with,” Kranston had grumbled. “Quickly. Then we move on.”

Though Betterton had nodded agreeably, he’d no intention of getting it over with. Instead, he’d done something he should have done earlier – double-check the story the Brodies told him. Right away it fell apart. A few phone calls revealed that, while there was a B&B in San Miguel named Casa Magnolia, the Brodies had never run it, never owned it. They had only stayed there once, years ago.

It had been a bald-faced lie.

And now they’d been murdered – the biggest killing in the area in a generation – and Betterton was sure it was somehow connected to their strange disappearance and even stranger reappearance. Drugs, industrial espionage, gun-running – it might be anything.

Betterton was convinced that Malfourche was the nexus of this mystery. Malfourche was where the Brodies reappeared – and where they had been brutally killed. Furthermore, he’d heard rumors of strange business in town, some months before the Brodies resurfaced. There’d been an explosion at Tiny’s, the local and somewhat notorious bait-and-bar emporium. A leaking propane tank – that was the official story – but there were whispered hints of something else a lot more interesting.

He passed the Brodies’ little house, where not so long ago he’d interviewed them. Now crime-scene tape covered the front door and a sheriff’s vehicle sat by the curb.

Main Street made a gentle bend to the west and the edge of the Black Brake swamp hove into view, its thick fringe of green and brown like a low dark cloud in an otherwise sunny afternoon. He drove on into the sad business district, sullen-looking shopfronts and peeling signboards. He pulled up beside the docks, killed the engine. Where Tiny’s had been, the skeleton of a new building was beginning to rise from the wreckage of the old. A pile of half-burned two-by-fours and creosote pilings were stacked near the docks. Out in front, adjoining the street, the new front steps of the building had been completed and half a dozen scruffy-looking men were seated on them, loafing around and drinking beer out of paper bags.

Betterton got out of the car and approached them. “Afternoon, all of y’all,” he said.

The men fell silent and watched him approach with suspicion.

“Afternoon,” one finally replied grudgingly.

“Ned Betterton. Ezerville Bee,” he said. “Hot day. Anybody care for a cold one?”

An uneasy shifting. “In return for what?”

“What else? I’m a reporter. I want information.”

This was greeted by silence.

“Got some frosties in the trunk.” Betterton moseyed back to his car – you didn’t want to move too fast around people like this – popped the trunk, hauled out a large Styrofoam cooler, lugged it over, and set it down on the stairs. He reached in, pulled one out, popped it open, and took a long pull. Soon a number of hands were reaching in, sliding cans out of the melting ice.

Betterton leaned back with a sigh. “I’m doing a story on the Brodie murders. Any idea who killed them?”

“Might be gators,” someone offered, drawing hoots of derisive laughter.

“The police done asked us about them already,” said a skinny man in a tank top, his cheeks sporting about five days’ worth of stubble. “We don’t know nothing.”

“I think that FBI feller killed ’em,” one old, almost toothless man slurred, already drunk. “That sumbitch was crazy.”

“FBI?” Betterton asked immediately. This was new.

“The one come down here with that New York City policewoman.”

“What did they want?” Betterton realized he sounded way too interested. He covered it up by taking another slug of beer.

“Wanted directions to Spanish Island,” the toothless man answered.

“Spanish Island?” Betterton had never heard of the place.

“Yeah. Kinda coincidental that…” The voice trailed off.

“Coincidental? What’s coincidental?”

A round of uneasy glances. No one said anything. Holy mackerel, thought Betterton: his digging had almost reached the mother lode.

“You shut up,” the skinny one snapped, glaring at the old drunk.

“Why, hell, Larry, I ain’t said nothing.”

This was so easy. He could tell right away they were hiding something big. The whole damn brainless group. And he was going to know it in a moment.

At that moment, a large shadow fell over him. A huge man had emerged from the gloom of the unfinished building. His pink head was shaven, and a ring of fat the size of a small life preserver bulged around the rear of his neck, bristling with little blond hairs. One cheek bulged with what appeared to be a cud of chewing tobacco. He folded one hamhock arm over the other and stared, first at the seated group, then at Betterton.

Betterton realized this could only be Tiny himself. The man was a local legend, a bayou warlord. And suddenly he wondered if that mother lode was a little farther off than he’d anticipated.

“Fuck you want?” Tiny asked in a pleasant tone.

Instinctively, Betterton took a stab. “I’m here about the FBI agent.”

The look that came over Tiny’s face wasn’t so pleasant. “Pendergast?”

Pendergast. So that was his name. And it was familiar – wasn’t it? – the name of one of those wealthy, decaying antebellum families down New Orleans way.

Tiny’s little pig eyes grew smaller still. “You a friend of that peckerwood?”

“I’m with the Bee. Looking into the Brodie killings.”

“A reporter.” Tiny’s face grew dark. For the first time, Betterton noticed an inflamed scar on one side of the man’s neck. It bulged in time to the pulsing of a vein beneath.

Tiny looked around the group. “What you talking to a reporter for?” He spat out a ropy brown stream of tobacco. The audience stood up, one by one, and several started to shuffle off – but not before scooping out additional beers.

“A reporter,” Tiny repeated.

Betterton saw the explosion coming but wasn’t quick enough to get away. Tiny lashed out and grabbed Betterton’s collar, twisting it roughly. “You can tell that mother for me,” he said, “that if I ever catch his skinny, black-suited, albino ass around these parts again, I’m gonna bust him up so bad he’ll be shitting teeth for a week.”

As he spoke, he twisted Betterton’s collar tighter and tighter until the reporter could no longer breathe. Then, with a rough jerk of his arm, he threw Betterton to the ground.

Betterton sprawled in the dust. Waited a moment. Stood up.

Tiny stood there, his hands balled, waiting for a fight.

Betterton was small. When he was young, bigger kids had often felt free to knock him around, figuring the risk was nil. It started in kindergarten and didn’t end until his first year of high school.

“Hey,” said Betterton, his voice high and whiny. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving! For chrissakes, you don’t have to hurt me!”

Tiny relaxed.

Betterton put on his best cowering, cringing face and, scrambling a little closer to Tiny, ducked his head as if to grovel. “I’m not looking for a fight. Really.”

“That’s what I like to hear—”

Betterton rose abruptly and used his upward momentum to propel an uppercut directly into Tiny’s jaw. The man went down like a hopper of soft butter dropped on cement.

The lesson Ned learned as a high-school freshman was that, whoever it was, no matter how big, you responded. Or it would just happen again, and worse. Tiny rolled in the dirt, cursing, but he was too stunned to get up and pursue. Betterton walked quickly to his car, passing the men who were still standing around, their mouths agape.

“Enjoy the rest of the beer, gents.”

As he drove off, his hand throbbing, he remembered he was supposed to be covering the Women’s Auxiliary Bake-Off in half an hour. Hell with it. No more bake-offs for him.

CHAPTER 32

St. Charles Parish, Louisiana

DR. PETER LEE BEAUFORT FOLLOWED THE MOBILE forensic lab – painted a discreet gray – as it turned in at the side gate of Saint-Savin Cemetery. A groundskeeper swung the gate shut behind them, locking it securely. The two vehicles, his own station wagon and the mobile lab, moved slowly down the narrow graveled lane, flanked by graceful dogwoods and magnolia trees. Saint-Savin was one of the oldest incorporated cemeteries in Louisiana, its plots and glades impeccably manicured. Over the last two hundred years, some of New Orleans’s most illustrious names had been buried here.

They would be most surprised, Beaufort mused, if they knew the nature of the procedure the cemetery was about to host.

The lane forked, then forked again. Now, ahead of the mobile lab, Beaufort could see a small cluster of cars: official vehicles, a vintage Rolls-Royce, a Saint-Savin van. The lab pulled into a narrow shoulder behind them and Beaufort followed suit, glancing at his watch as he did so.

It was ten minutes after six and the sun was just climbing the horizon, casting a golden hue over the greensward and marble. To ensure maximum privacy, exhumations were always done as early in the morning as possible.

Beaufort got out of the car. As he approached the family plot, he could see workers in protective clothing erecting screens around one of the graves. It was an unusually cool day, even for early November, and for that he was profoundly thankful. Hot-day exhumations were invariably unpleasant.

Considering the wealth and long history of the Pendergast family, the actual plot had very few graves. Beaufort, who had known the family for decades, was well aware that most members had preferred to be buried in the family plot at Penumbra Plantation. But some had a curious aversion to that mist-shrouded, overgrown burial ground – or the vaults beneath – and preferred a more traditional interment.

He stepped around the privacy screens and over the low cast-iron fencing surrounding the plot. Besides the technicians, he saw the gravediggers, Saint-Savin’s funeral director, the manager of Saint-Savin, and a portly, nervous-looking fellow whom Beaufort assumed was Jennings, the health officer. At the far end stood Aloysius Pendergast himself, unmoving and silent, black and white, a monochromatic specter. Beaufort looked at him with curiosity. He had not seen the FBI agent since he was a young man. Although his face had changed little, he was gaunter than ever. Over his black suit he wore a long, cream-colored coat that looked like camel’s hair, but – given its silky sheen – Beaufort decided was more likely vicuña.

Beaufort had first encountered the Pendergast family as a young pathologist in St. Charles Parish, when he was called to Penumbra Plantation after a serial poisoning by the mad old aunt – what was her name, Cordelia? No, Cornelia. He shuddered at the memory. Aloysius had been a boy then, spending his summers at Penumbra. Despite the awful circumstances of Beaufort’s visit, the young Aloysius had latched onto him like a limpet, following him around, fascinated with forensic pathology. For several summers after, he haunted Beaufort’s laboratory in the basement of the hospital. The boy was an exceptionally quick study and possessed of a rare and powerful curiosity. Toopowerful, and disturbingly morbid. Of course, the boy’s morbidity had paled in comparison with his brother’s… But this reflection was too distressing and Beaufort forced it away.

On cue, Pendergast looked up, caught his eye. He came gliding over and took Beaufort’s hand. “My dear Beaufort,” he said. “Thank you for coming.” Pendergast had always had – even as a boy – the habit of calling him by his last name only.

“My pleasure, Aloysius. How good to see you again after all these years – but I’m sorry it had to be under these particular circumstances.”

“Yet if it hadn’t been for death, we should never have known each other – would we?”

Those penetrating silver eyes turned on him and Beaufort, as he parsed the thought, felt a small shiver travel down his spine. He had never before known Aloysius Pendergast to be tense or agitated. Nevertheless, despite a veneer of calm, the man seemed so today.

The privacy screens were pulled into place around the plot, and Beaufort turned his attention to the goings-on. Jennings had been glancing at his watch and plucking at his collar. “Let us begin,” he said in a high, nervous voice. “May I have the exhumation license, please?”

Pendergast pulled it from inside his coat and handed it over. The health official glanced at it, nodded, handed it back. “Recall that at all times, our primary responsibility is to protect the public health and to ensure the dignity and respect of the deceased.”

He glanced down at the gravestone, which read, simply:

HELEN ESTERHAZY PENDERGAST

“Are we all in agreement on the correctness of the grave?”

There was a general nodding of heads.

Jennings stepped back. “Very well. The exhumation may proceed.”

Two gravediggers, wearing gloves and respiratory face masks in addition to their protective clothing, began by cutting a rectangle in the thick green sod and, with expert finesse, neatly detaching and rolling it up in strips, setting them carefully aside. An operator stood by with a tiny cemetery backhoe.

The sod up, the two gravediggers set to work with square-bladed shovels, aiming sharp alternating blows into the black earth, piling it neatly on a plastic sheet laid to one side. The hole took shape, the diggers blading the walls to crisp angles and planes. And then they stepped back while the backhoe inched forward, its miniature bucket plunging into the dark ground.

The backhoe and the two diggers alternated work, the diggers trimming the hole while the bucket took out the dirt. The assembled group watched in almost liturgical silence. As the hole deepened, the air became charged with its scent; loamy and oddly fragrant, like the smell of the deep woods. The open grave smoked faintly in the early-morning air. Jennings, the health officer, dipped a hand into his coat, pulled out a face mask, and put it on.

Beaufort shot a private glance at the FBI agent. He was staring at the deepening hole as if transfixed, an intense expression on his face that was, at least to Beaufort, unreadable. Pendergast had been evasive about why he wanted his wife’s body dug up – only that he wanted the mobile forensic van to be prepared for any and all tests of identity. Even for a family as notably eccentric as the Pendergasts, it seemed disturbing and inexplicable.

The digging continued for fifteen minutes, then thirty. The two men in masks and protective clothing stopped for a brief rest, then returned to work. A few minutes later, one of the shovels hit a heavy object with a loud, hollow thunk.

The men surrounding the open grave glanced at one another. All except Pendergast, whose eyes remained riveted on the yawning hole at his feet.

More carefully now, the diggers evened out the walls of the grave, then continued down, slowly exposing the standard cement container in which the coffin rested. The backhoe, fitted with straps, lifted the concrete lid, exposing the coffin inside. It was made of mahogany, even blacker than the surrounding soil, trimmed with brass handles, corners, and rails. A new scent was introduced to the already charged atmosphere: a faint odor of decomposition.

Four more men now appeared at the graveside, carrying the “shell”—a new casket to hold both the old casket and its exhumed remains. Placing it on the ground, they stepped forward to help the diggers. As the group watched silently, new webbing was lowered into the grave and slid beneath the coffin. Together – slowly, carefully, by hand – the six men strained to lift the coffin from its resting place.

Beaufort watched. At first, the coffin seemed to resist being disturbed. And then, with a faint groan, it came free and began to rise.

As the witnesses stepped back to give them room, the Saint-Savin workers lifted the coffin out of the grave and placed it on the ground beside the shell. Jennings came forward, pulling on latex gloves. Kneeling at the head of the coffin, he bent forward to inspect the nameplate.

“Helen Esterhazy Pendergast,” he read through the mask. “Let the record show the name on the casket conforms with the name on the exhumation license.”

Now the shell was opened. Beaufort saw that its interior consisted of a tarred zinc liner, covered with a plastic membrane and sealed with isopon. All standard. At a nod from Jennings – who had backed quickly away – the cemetery workers once again lifted Helen Pendergast’s coffin by the webbing, carried it to the open shell, and placed it inside. Pendergast watched as if frozen, his face pale, his eyes hooded. He had not moved a muscle, save to blink, since the exhumation process started.

With the coffin safely inside the shell, the lid was closed and fastened. The cemetery manager came forward with a small brass nameplate. As the workers removed the disposable protective clothing and washed their hands with disinfectant, he hammered the nameplate into the surface of the shell.

Beaufort stirred. It was almost time for his own work to begin. The workers lifted the shell by its railings and he led them to the rear of the mobile forensic lab, parked on the gravel nearby. It sat in the shade of the magnolias, generator rumbling quietly. His assistant opened the rear doors and helped the cemetery workers lift the shell up and slide it inside.

Beaufort waited until the doors were shut again, then he followed the workers back to the screened-off plot. The group was still assembled, and would remain there until the procedure was complete. Some of the workers began filling in the old grave, while others, with the help of the backhoe, began opening a fresh one beside it: when his work on the remains was complete, they would be re-interred in the new grave. Beaufort knew that moving her body – even so slight a distance as this – was the only way Pendergast had been able to get the exhumation approved. And even then he wondered what pressure had been brought to bear on the nervous, sweating Jennings.

At last Pendergast stirred, glancing his way. The anticipation, the tense watchfulness, had deepened in his pale features.

Beaufort came up to him and spoke in a low voice. “We’re ready. Now, exactly what tests would you like done?”

The FBI agent looked at him. “DNA, hair samples, fingerprints if possible, dental X-rays. Everything.”

Beaufort tried to think of the most tactful way to say it. “It would help if I knew what the purpose of all this was.”

A long moment passed before Pendergast replied. “The body in the coffin is not that of my wife.”

Beaufort absorbed this. “What leads you to believe there’s been a… a mistake?”

“Just perform the tests, if you please,” said Pendergast quietly. His white hand emerged from under his suit; in it was a hairbrush in a ziplock bag. “You’ll need a sample of her DNA.”

Beaufort took the bag, wondering at a man who would keep his wife’s hairbrush untouched for more than ten years after her death. He cleared his throat. “And if the body is hers?”

When there was no reply to this question, Beaufort asked another. “Would you, ah, care to be present when we open the coffin?”

The agent’s haunted eyes seemed to freeze Beaufort. “It’s a matter of indifference to me.”

He turned back to the grave and said no more.