Douglas Preston - Still Life With Crows

There would be just enough time for tea.

Forty-One

C orrie tried not to look, but somehow not looking seemed even more terrible than the real thing. And yet, every time she looked, it was worse.

The site was simple: a clearing carved in the corn, with the body and paraphernalia carefully arranged. The earth around the body had been painstakingly smoothed and patted down, and a many-spoked wheel had been drawn in the dirt around the corpse. Gusts of wind rattled the corn and raised a mantle of dust that stung her eyes. Angry-looking dark clouds gathered overhead.

Chauncy lay on his back at the center of the wheel, naked, arms carefully folded across his chest, legs arranged. His eyes were wide open, filmed over, pointed at unnervingly different angles toward the sky. His skin was the color of a rotten banana. A ragged incision ran from his chest to the base of his gut, and his stomach bulged obscenely where it had been crudely sewn up again with heavy twine. Something, it seemed, had been stuffed inside.

Why the huge wheel? Corrie stared at the body, unable to take her eyes off it. And was it her imagination, or was something actually moving inside the sewn-up belly, causing the skin to bulge and subside slightly? There was something alive inside him.

Sheriff Hazen had gotten there first, and was bending over Chauncy’s body with the medical examiner, who’d arrived by helicopter. It was odd: Hazen had actually smiled at Corrie when they arrived and had greeted Pendergast with a hearty hello. He seemed a lot surer of himself all of a sudden. She glanced at him sidelong, chatting confidentially with the M.E. and the SOC crew, who were combing the dirt for clues. There were the usual bare footprints, but when they were pointed out to the sheriff he’d only chuckled knowingly. An SOC guy was bent over one of them now, making a plastic mold from an imprint.

Pendergast, on the other hand, hardly seemed to be there at all. He had barely spoken a word since she’d picked him up, and now he was gazing off into the distance, toward the Mounds, as if his thoughts were far away. As she stared, he seemed at last to rouse himself. He stepped closer.

“Come, come,” said the sheriff in a hearty voice. “Have a look, Special Agent Pendergast, if you’re interested. You too, Corrie.”

Pendergast stepped closer, Corrie trailing behind.

“The M.E.’s about to open him up.”

“I would advise waiting until the laboratory.”

“Nonsense.”

The photographer took some photos, the flashes blinding in the dim light of dawn, and then stepped back.

“Go ahead,” Hazen said to the M.E.

The M.E. removed a pair of scissors and carefully worked one point under the twine. Snip. The belly bulged, and the twine began to unravel from the pressure.

“If you’re not careful,” Pendergast cautioned, “some of the evidence might, ah, abscond. ”

“What’s inside,” said the sheriff cheerfully, “is irrelevant.”

“I should say it’s most relevant.”

“You can say it all you like,” said the sheriff, his good humor adding insolence to the comment. “Cut the other end.”

Snip.

The whole belly flopped open, and a collection of things came tumbling out, spilling across the ground. A foul stink rose up. Corrie gasped and backed away, holding her hand over her mouth. It took her a moment to take in what it was that had slid steaming into the dirt: a crazy-quilt assortment of leaves, twigs, slugs, salamanders, frogs, mice, stones. And there, among the offal, a slimy circlet that appeared to be a dog’s collar. A wounded but still living snake uncoiled from the mass and sidewinded painfully into the grass.

“Son of a bitch, ” said Hazen, backing up, his face slack with disgust.

“Sheriff?”

“What?”

“There’s your tail.”

Pendergast was pointing at something protruding from the mess.

“Tail? What are you talking about?”

“The tail ripped from the dog.”

“Oh, that tail. We’ll be sure to bag and analyze that one.” Hazen had recovered quickly and Corrie caught him winking at the M.E.

“And the dog collar.”

“Yup,” Hazen said.

“May I point out,” Pendergast continued, “that it appears the abdomen was cut open with the same crude implement previously used for the Swegg amputations, the cutting off of the dog’s tail, and the scalping of Gasparilla.”

“Right, right,” said the sheriff, not listening.

“And if I am not mistaken,” Pendergast said, “there is the crude implement itself. Broken and tossed aside.” He indicated something in the dirt to one side.

The sheriff glanced over, frowned, and nodded to the SOC man, who photographed it in situ, then picked the two pieces up with rubber tweezers and put them in evidence bags. It was a flint Indian knife, lashed to a wooden handle.

“From here I’d say it was a Southern Cheyenne protohistoric knife, hafted with rawhide to a willow-wood handle. Genuine, I might add, and in perfect condition until it was broken by clumsy use. A find of particular importance.”

Hazen grinned. “Yeah, important. As another prop in this whole bullshit drama.”

“I beg your pardon?”

There was a rustle behind them, and Corrie turned. A pair of glossy-booted state troopers were pushing their way out of the corn and into the clearing. One was carrying a fax. The sheriff turned toward the newcomers with a big smile. “Ah. Just what I’ve been waiting for.” He held out his hand, snatched the fax, and glanced at it, his smile broadening. Then he handed it to Pendergast.

“It’s a cease-and-desist, Pendergast, straight from the FBI’s Midwestern Divisional Office. You’re off the case.”

“Indeed?” Pendergast read the document carefully. Then he looked up. “May I keep this, Sheriff?”

“By all means,” Hazen said. “Keep it, frame it, hang it in your den.” All of a sudden, his voice grew less affable. “And now, Mr. Pendergast, with all due respect, this is a crime scene and unauthorized personnel are not allowed.” His red eyes swiveled toward Corrie. “That means you and your sidekick.”

Corrie stared back at him.

Pendergast folded the sheet carefully and slipped it into his suit coat. He turned to Corrie. “Shall we?”

She stared at him in outrage. “Agent Pendergast,” she began, “you aren’t just going to let him get away with that—?”

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

“But you just can’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.”