Douglas Preston - Still Life With Crows

As the doctor returned to his work, Hazen became aware of a presence behind him. He turned and jumped: there was Pendergast, materialized out of nowhere.

The doctor looked up, surprised. “Sir? Excuse me, we’re—”

“He’s okay,” said Hazen. “He’s FBI, working on the case under me. Special Agent Pendergast.”

“Special Agent Pendergast,” the M.E. said, with a new edge to his voice, “would you mind identifying yourself for the tape recorder? And throw on some scrubs and a mask, if you don’t mind. You can find them over there.”

“Of course.”

Hazen wondered how the hell Pendergast had managed it, without a car and all. But he wasn’t sorry to see him. It occurred to Sheriff Hazen, not for the first time, that having Pendergast on the case could be useful. As long as the man kept with the program.

Pendergast returned a moment later, having expertly slid into the scrubs. The doctor was now working on the victim’s face, peeling it away in thick rubbery flaps and clamping them back. It had been bad enough before, when just the nose, lips, and ears had been missing. Hazen stared at the bands of muscle, the white of the ligaments, the slender yellow lines of fat. God, it was gruesome.

“May I?” Pendergast asked.

The doctor stepped back and Pendergast leaned over, not three inches from the stinking, swollen, featureless face. He stared at the places, torn and bloody, where the nose and lips had once been. The scalp had been peeled back but Hazen could still see the bleached-blonde hair with its black roots. Then Pendergast stepped back. “The amputations appear to have been performed with a crude implement.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows. “A crude implement?”

“I would suggest a superficial microscopic examination with a comprehensive series of photos. And part of the scalp has been ripped off, as you no doubt have noted.”

“Right. Good.” The doctor sounded irritated at the advice.

Hazen had to smile. The Agent was showing up the Doc. But if Pendergast were right about this . . . He stopped himself from asking just what kind of “crude implement” Pendergast had in mind. He felt his gorge rising and immediately turned his mind back to Jayne Mansfield.

“Any sign of the lips, ears, and nose?” Pendergast asked.

“The police couldn’t find them,” said the M.E.

Hazen felt a surge of annoyance at this implied criticism. The M.E. had been at it all afternoon, making one snide comment after another about the shortcomings of Hazen’s report and, by extension, his police work. Fact was, by the time he stepped in, the state police had already royally fucked it up.

The doctor resumed cutting away at the earthly remains of Sheila Swegg. Pendergast began to circle the table, looking first at one organ and then at another, hands behind his back, like he was viewing sculpture in a museum. He got to the toe tag.

“I see you have an ID.”

“Yeah,” said Hazen with a cough. “Some cracker from the Oklahoma panhandle. We found her car, one of those Korean rice-burners, hidden in the corn five miles the other side of Medicine Creek.”

“Any idea what she was doing there?”

“We found a bunch of shovels and picks in the trunk. A relic hunter—they’re always sneaking around the Mounds, digging for old Indian artifacts.”

“This is a common occurrence, then?”

“Not around here so much, but yeah, some people make a living at it, driving from state to state looting old sites for stuff to sell at flea markets. Every mound, battleground, and boot hill from Dodge City to California’s been hit by them. They got no shame.”

“Does she have a record?”

“Petty shit. Credit card fraud, selling phony crap on eBay, nickel-and-dime insurance scams.”

“You’ve made excellent progress, Sheriff.”

Hazen nodded curtly.

“Well,” said the doctor. “We’re just about done here. Do either of you have any questions or special requests?”

“Yes,” said Pendergast. “The birds and the arrows.”

“In the fridge. You want to see them?”

“If you please.”

The doctor disappeared and came back a moment later wheeling another gurney, on which the crows had been neatly laid out in rows, each with its own toe tag. Or claw tag, maybe, Hazen thought. Next to them was a pile of arrows on which the birds had been skewered.

Pendergast bent over them, reached out, paused. “May I?”

“Be my guest.”

He picked up an arrow in a latex-gloved hand, turning it around slowly.

“You can pick those replicas up at almost any gas station between here and Denver,” said McHyde.

Pendergast continued turning it in the light. Then he said, “This is no replica, Doctor. This is a genuine Southern Cheyenne cane arrow, feathered with a bald eagle primary and tipped with a type II Plains Cimarron point in Alibates chert. I’d date it between 1850 and 1870.”

Hazen stared at Pendergast as he placed the arrow back down. “All of them?” he said.

“All of them. It was evidently a matched set. A collection of original arrows like this, in this superb condition, would fetch at least ten thousand dollars at Sotheby’s.”

In the ensuing silence, Pendergast picked up a bird and turned it gently around, palpating it. “Completely crushed, it seems.”

“That right?” The doctor’s voice had grown wary, irritated.

“Yes. Every bone broken. It’s a sack of mush.” He glanced up. “You are planning to autopsy the birds, are you not, Doctor?”

The doctor gave a snort. “All two dozen of them? We’ll do one or two.”

“I would strongly recommend doing them all.”

The doctor stepped back from the gurney. “Agent Pendergast, I fail to see what purpose that would serve, except to waste my time and the taxpayers’ money. As I said, we will do one or two.”

Pendergast laid the bird back on the tray and picked up another, palpated it, and then another, before finally selecting one. Then, before the doctor could object, Pendergast plucked a scalpel from the surgical tray and made a long, deliberate stroke across the bird’s underside.

The doctor found his voice. “Just a minute! You’re not authorized—”

Hazen watched as Pendergast exposed the crow’s stomach. The agent paused briefly, scalpel poised.

“Put that bird down this instant,” said the doctor angrily.

With one swift stroke, Pendergast opened the bird’s stomach. There, pushing out from among rotting kernels of corn, was a misshapen, pinkish thing that Hazen abruptly realized was a human nose. His stomach lurched again.

Pendergast laid the crow back down on the tray. “I will leave the finding of the lips and ears in your capable hands, Doctor,” he said, pulling off the gloves, mask, and scrubs. “Please send a copy of your final report to me, care of Sheriff Hazen.”

And he walked out of the room without a backward glance.

Eight

S mit Ludwig sat at the counter of Maisie’s Diner, plate of cold meatloaf sitting barely touched in front of him, stirring his cup of coffee. It was six o’clock and he had a story due and he wasn’t getting anywhere with it. Maybe, he thought, the story was too big. Maybe he wasn’t up to it. Maybe, in all the years of writing about 4-H fairs and the occasional car accident, he’d lost the edge. Maybe he never had the edge to begin with.

He stirred and stirred.

Through the plate glass front of Maisie’s, Ludwig could see the closed door of the sheriff’s office across the street. God, how that pugnacious, butt-ignorant sheriff got under his skin. Ludwig hadn’t been able to pry any information from him. And the state police had told him nothing either. He couldn’t even get the M.E. on the phone. How the hell did they do it at the New York Times ? No doubt because they were big and powerful, and not to talk to them was worse than talking to them.