Douglas Preston - Still Life With Crows

“And how the hell do you plan to do that? ”

But Hazen was already walking back to his car. Ridder followed, waiting for an answer. Hazen paused, his hand on the door handle. “And another thing. You’re right about that FBI agent. He’s the source of the whole problem.”

“He’s the killer, you mean!”

The sheriff opened the door. “Art, don’t be an idiot. He’s no killer. But he is the one who’s screwed everything up. He’s the one who came roaring in here, insisting it was a serial killer. Insisting it was someone local. He got the investigation off on the wrong foot right from the get-go. Got me so confused I wasn’t thinking straight. Made me doubt my own instincts.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”

“See what?”

Hazen grinned, gave Art’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “Let me take care of this, Art. Trust me.”

Hazen swung into his cruiser, unhooked the radio. Pendergast had shown up without a car and driver, no backup, and he hadn’t liaised with the local Dodge office. The son of a bitch was freelancing. It was time to put an end to that, once and for all.

Hazen punched the radio, spoke into it. “Harry? Sheriff Hazen here from Medicine Creek. Listen, this is important. It’s about the killings. You know anyone in the FBI field office in Dodge who’s in a position to do me a favor? Yeah, I need to call in a big one.” He listened for a moment, nodded. “Thanks a lot, Harry.”

As he hung up the radio, Ridder leaned in the window, his face rashy from the heat. “I hope to hell you know what you’re doing, Hazen. The future of Medicine Creek is at stake here.”

Hazen grinned. “May all your dreams come true, Art.”

He gunned the engine and pointed the big cruiser east, toward Dodge.

Thirty-Four

S mit Ludwig sat disconsolately at Maisie’s counter, displaced from his usual corner booth by a loud group of AP reporters, or maybe they were National Enquirer or Weekly World News. It hardly mattered. The diner was full of reporters and townspeople, who seemed to have gravitated there as the place to go, to gossip, to get reassurance, to share news and speculate. Each new murder had brought more reporters, and each time they’d stayed a little longer. But it wasn’t just reporters who were choking the usually quiet eatery. There was Mrs. Bender Lang and her gaggle of blue-rinsed beauties; there was Ernie the mechanic at another table with his buddies; there was Swede Cahill, who’d kept the Wagon Wheel closed for the day; there was the Gro-Bain contingent, workers at one table, management at the other. The place was full, the noise level like a New York City club. The only one who seemed to be missing was Art Ridder himself.

Where, Ludwig asked himself, was he going to turn for the rest of the story? He’d had a taste of being a real reporter—just a little taste, true, but he found himself liking it nevertheless. He’d recounted the curse of the Forty-Fives, he’d written up the Ghost Massacre, he’d covered all the gossip in town along those lines. The scalping of Gasparilla with some kind of primitive knife, on top of the arrows left with the Swegg corpse, had really gotten the rumor mill in high pitch. He had written up the killings and the church riot and he had the story on Chauncy’s disappearance in the can. But he wanted to take it one step further. He needed something new and he needed it for tomorrow.

A real reporter wouldn’t be sitting in a diner nursing his coffee. A real reporter would be out in the field talking to the cops, getting the lowdown. That bully, Hazen: there must be some kind of complaint he could make. What did you do if the police didn’t cooperate, if they threatened to arrest you just for doing your job?

For the first time in his life, Ludwig had gotten a story between his teeth. It was real, and it was big. He had broken it and he was in the best position to finish it. My God, he’d earned that, at least. At sixty-two years old, it would be nice to go out with a bang. His grandkids could look over the yellowing issues of the Courier, turning the pages like precious parchment, and say, “Remember those murders back in ’03? Our granddad covered them. Boy, he was some reporter.”

This pleasant little daydream faded as a man climbed onto the stool next to his. Ludwig turned to find the man sticking out his hand in greeting. A young, fresh, eager face filled his field of view. There was the stubble, the butt hanging off the lip, the mussed-up hair, the skewed tie, but despite all the affectation he still looked like a kid trying to be a reporter.

Smit took the hand.

“Joe Rickey, Boston Globe. ”

“Howdy-do.” Smit shook the hand, a little surprised. Boston Globe ? He was a long way from home.

“Smit Ludwig, right? Cry County Courier ?”

Ludwig nodded.

“Hot enough for you?”

“I’ve seen it hotter.”

“Yeah? Well, I haven’t.” The man plucked a paper napkin from the dispenser, dabbed it across his temples. “I’ve been here for two days and I can’t get dick on this story. I promised my editor something different, you know; a little piece of Americana. That’s my column: ‘Americana.’ People in Boston like to read about stuff that goes on in the rest of the country. Like these killings here, a man boiled, buttered, and sugared.” He shuddered with pleasure.

Ludwig looked at the kid. In an odd way he reminded him of himself, forty years ago. The Boston Globe ? The kid must have talent. He looked J-school, smart and eager but without real-life reporting skills.

“Anyway, that redneck sheriff of yours and those state police storm troopers won’t give me the time of day. But you, you’re local, you know where the bodies are buried. So to speak. Am I right?”

“Sure.” Ludwig wasn’t about to tell the kid he was in the same boat.

“I’m going to be in deep shit, after all the Globe paid to send me out here, if I come back empty-handed.”

“It was your idea?” Ludwig asked.

“Yeah. It took a lot of persuading, too.”

Ludwig felt for the kid. It could have been himself, if he’d taken that scholarship to Columbia instead of the copy-boy job at the Courier, back when it was more than a one-man paper. A fateful decision, but one that curiously enough he’d never regretted making. Especially as he read the desperation, the ambition, the fear and hope in the young man’s eyes.

The man leaned closer, dropping his voice. “I was just wondering. Is there anything you might like to share with me? I swear, I’d hold it back until you publish first.”

“Well now,” Ludwig paused. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Rickey—”

“Joe.”

“Well, Joe, I don’t really have anything new at this point myself.”

“But surely you could get something?”

Ludwig looked at the kid. In a way he even looked like himself, forty years before. “I could always try,” he said.

“I’ve got to file by eleven tonight.”

Ludwig glanced at his watch. Three-thirty.

At that moment the door burst open and Corrie Swanson came barging into the diner, tossing back her purple hair, all the little chains and doohickeys pinned to her tank top astir.

“Two large iced coffees to go,” she said, “one black, one with double cream and sugar.”

Ludwig watched her, palm resting on her hip, elbow jutting out, tapping her change impatiently on the counter, ignoring everybody in the place. She was working for Pendergast, his girl Friday. And here she was, getting two coffees to go.

To go where?

But even as he asked the question, Ludwig guessed the answer. Once again, Pendergast would come to his rescue.