Douglas Preston - Still Life With Crows

“You really should try the meatloaf,” Ludwig replied, lowering his voice. “Maisie has her strengths and weaknesses: the meatloaf is one of her strengths. It’s damn good, in fact.”

“I shall take it under consideration.”

“Where are you from, Mr. Pendergast? Can’t quite place the accent.”

“New Orleans.”

“What a coincidence! I went there for Mardi Gras once.”

“How nice for you. I myself have never attended.”

Ludwig paused, the smile frozen on his face, wondering how to steer the conversation onto a more pertinent topic. Around him, the low murmur of conversation had picked up once again.

“This killing’s really shaken us up,” he said, lowering his voice still further. “Nothing like this has ever happened in sleepy little Medicine Creek before.”

“The case has its atypical aspects.”

It appeared Pendergast wasn’t biting. Ludwig knocked back his coffee cup, then raised it above his head. “Maisie! Another!”

Maisie came over with the pot and an extra cup. “You need to learn some manners, Smit Ludwig,” she said, refilling his cup and pouring one for Pendergast as well. “You wouldn’t yell for your mother that way.”

Ludwig grinned. “Maisie’s been teaching me manners these past twenty years.”

“It’s a lost cause,” said Maisie, turning away.

Small talk had failed. Ludwig decided to try the direct approach. He removed a steno notebook from his pocket and placed it on the table. “Got time for a few questions?”

Pendergast paused, a forkful of raw meat halfway to his mouth. “Sheriff Hazen would prefer that I not speak to the press.”

Ludwig lowered his voice. “I need something for tomorrow’s paper. The townspeople are hurting. They’re frightened. They’ve got a right to know. Please. ”

He stopped, surprising even himself at the depth of feeling in his comments. The FBI agent’s eyes held his own in a gaze that seemed to last for minutes. At last, Pendergast lowered his fork and spoke, in a voice even lower than Ludwig’s own.

“In my opinion, the killer is local.”

“What do you mean, local? From southwestern Kansas?”

“No. From Medicine Creek.”

Ludwig felt the blood drain out of his face. It was impossible. He knew everyone in town. The FBI agent was dead wrong.

“What makes you say that?” he asked weakly.

Pendergast finished his meal and leaned back. He pushed his coffee away and picked up a menu. “How is the ice cream?” he asked, with a faint but distinct tone of hope in his voice.

Ludwig lowered his voice. “Niltona Brand Xtra-Creamy.”

Pendergast shuddered. “The peach cobbler?”

“Out of a can.”

“The shoo-fly pie?”

“Don’t go there.”

Pendergast laid down the menu.

Ludwig leaned forward. “Desserts are not Maisie’s strong point. She’s a meat and potatoes kind of gal.”

“I see.” Pendergast regarded him once again with his pale eyes. Then he spoke. “Medicine Creek is as isolated as an island in the wide Pacific. Nobody can come or go on the roads without being noticed, and it’s a twenty-mile hike through the cornfields from Deeper, the nearest town with a motel.” He paused, smiled faintly, then glanced at the steno book. “I see you’re not taking notes.”

Ludwig laughed nervously. “Give me something I can print. There’s one unshakable article of faith in this town: the killer and the victim are both ‘from away.’ We have our share of troublemakers, but believe me, no killers.”

Pendergast looked at him with mild curiosity. “What, exactly, constitutes ‘trouble’ in Medicine Creek?”

Ludwig realized that if he wanted information, he was going to have to give some in return. Only there wasn’t much to give. “Domestic violence, sometimes. Come Saturday night we get our share of drunken hooliganism, drag racing out on the Cry Road . Last year, a B-and-E down at the Gro-Bain plant, that sort of thing.”

He paused. Pendergast seemed to be waiting for more.

“Kids sniffing aerosols, the occasional drug overdose. Plus, unwanted pregnancies have always been a problem.”

Pendergast arched an eyebrow.

“Most of the time they settle it by getting married. In the old days the girl was sometimes sent away to have her baby and it was put up for adoption. You know how it is in a small town like this, not a lot for a young person to do except—” Ludwig smiled, remembering back to the days when he and his wife were in high school, Saturday night parking down by the creek, the windows all steamed up . . . It seemed so long ago, a world utterly gone. He shook off the memory. “Well,” he said, “that’s about all the trouble we ever get around here. Until now.”

The FBI agent smiled and leaned forward, speaking so softly Ludwig could barely hear him. “The victim has been identified as Sheila Swegg, of Oklahoma. A petty criminal and con artist. They found her car hidden in the corn five miles out on the Cry Road . It seems she’d been digging up at some Indian mounds in the area.”

Smit Ludwig looked at Pendergast. “Thank you,” he said. Now, this was much better. This was more than a crumb. It was practically a whole cake. He felt a surge of gratitude.

“And another thing. Arranged with the body they found a number of antique Southern Cheyenne arrows in almost perfect condition.”

It seemed to Ludwig as though Pendergast was looking at him intently. “That’s extraordinary,” he replied.

“Yes.”

They were interrupted by a sudden commotion outside, punctuated by a voice raised in shrill protest. Ludwig glanced across the street and saw Sheriff Hazen marching a teenage girl down the sidewalk, toward his office. The girl was protesting gamely, digging in her heels, lunging against her handcuffs, her black fingernails cutting the air. He knew immediately who she was; it was all too obvious from the black leather miniskirt, pale skin, spiked collar, Day-Glo purple hair, and the glint of body piercings. A shrieked phrase managed to penetrate the plate glass of Maisie’s Diner—“eclair-eating, fart-biting, cancer-stick–smoking”—before the sheriff manhandled her through the door of the office and slammed it behind him.

Ludwig shook his head in amused disbelief.

“Who is she?” Pendergast asked.

“Corrie Swanson, our resident troublemaker. I believe she’s what kids call a ‘Goth’ or something like that. She and Sheriff Hazen have a tiff going. Looks like he’s finally got something on her, judging from the cuffs.”

Pendergast laid a large bill on the table and rose, nodding to Maisie. “I trust we shall see each other again, Mr. Ludwig.”

“Sure thing. And thanks for the tips.”

The door jingled shut. Ludwig watched the dark form of Special Agent Pendergast as he passed by outside the window and moved down the dusky street until he merged with the falling darkness.

Ludwig slowly sipped his coffee, mulling over what Pendergast had said. And as he did so, the front-page story he’d been assembling in his head changed; he broke down the type, rewrote the opening paragraph. It was dynamite, especially the stuff about the arrows. As if the murder wasn’t bad enough, those arrows would strike a particularly unpleasant note to anyone familiar with the history of Medicine Creek. As soon as he’d gotten the paragraph right, he rose from the table. He was over sixty and his joints ached from the humidity. But even if he wasn’t the man he used to be, he could still stay up half the night, write a snappy lead with two scotches under his belt, slap together an impeccable set of mechanicals, and make deadline. And tonight, he had one hell of a story to write.

Nine