Линкольн Чайлд - Crooked River

Pendergast sipped his drink. “Ah.”

Pickett gave a brusque little nod. “There’s a case unfolding as we speak: a very unique case. This morning, a large number of feet — human feet — washed up on shore, each encased in a green shoe.”

Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “How many?”

“They’re still coming in with the tide. Somewhere in the upper forties, at last count.”

Both Pendergast and Constance Greene remained silent. Pickett reached over and unlatched his briefcase. He felt a little uncomfortable sharing confidential information with Pendergast in front of Ms. Greene. But he’d heard she was as much Pendergast’s amanuensis and researcher as she was his ward. Besides, he sensed asking her to leave would not be helpful to his mission — to put it mildly.

“Nobody knows where the feet came from, why there are so many, who they belonged to, or anything else,” he went on, taking a manila folder of photographs out of the briefcase and handing it to Pendergast. “That’s why the FBI is getting involved with the case, along with the Coast Guard and local authorities. We’ll be forming a task force.”

“Have any commonalities been identified?” Pendergast asked as he flipped through the photographs. “Age, sex, race?”

“Too early to say. Law enforcement resources are still arriving and the remains are being transferred to the M.E.’s office in Fort Myers. It’s not an easy crime scene to secure. We’ll know more in twelve to twenty-four hours.”

Constance Greene sat forward in her chair. “You called it a crime scene. How can you be sure of that?”

Pickett started to reply but then stopped himself. The question seemed either very shrewd or very stupid. What could this be, if not some horrific mass murder? “The feet show indications of extreme trauma: torn flesh, broken and chopped bones. I can’t imagine any accident or other circumstance that would cause such injuries.”

“Only feet have been washed ashore, you say? No other body parts?”

“None. The rest of the remains have yet to be discovered.”

“You speak of ‘remains.’ How do you know the people who once possessed these feet are, in fact, dead?”

“I—” Pickett fell silent a moment. “We don’t know. As I said, this case appears to be unique.” As annoyed as he was by these probing questions, he was careful to add special emphasis to the word unique .

“I would imagine it is. Thank you, Mr. Pickett.” And Constance sat back in her chair, like a lawyer completing a cross-examination. Pendergast handed her the folder of photographs. Pickett winced inwardly but said nothing.

“Fascinating,” Pendergast said. “But I assume you didn’t go so far out of your way just to exchange pleasantries about an odd case.”

“No.” Already Pickett was growing accustomed to the novelty of the surroundings, and he felt a good ground of command once again beneath his feet. “Actually, it’s not that far out of my way. As I said, I’m headed to Captiva now. And I’d like you to go with me.”

“I see,” Pendergast replied after a silence. “And why is that, may I ask?”

“This has all the makings of an exceedingly unusual and difficult case. I think your experience would be... useful.”

“I’m gratified by your faith in my experience. But, as you can see, we’re on vacation.”

Constance, Pickett noticed, was looking through the photographs with undisguised interest. “I would think you, of all agents under my command, would find it intriguing,” he said.

“Under normal circumstances, perhaps. But Constance and I have not completed our holiday.”

Pickett took a deep breath. “Nevertheless, I would like you to have a look at the scene.” He knew he could order Pendergast to take the case, but it was a tactic that would surely backfire.

Pendergast finished his drink. “Sir,” he said, “I assume you don’t mind my speaking freely?”

Pickett waved a hand.

“You already ordered me to uproot myself from New York and come down to Florida to work on one case. And now you are asking me to ‘have a look’ at a second. To be frank, I don’t much like the idea of taking up cases in distant locations at a whim. I would prefer to return to my field office of record — that is, New York City. Besides, based on what you’ve described, this problem seems outside my area of competence. It doesn’t sound like the work of a serial killer. The circumstances may be interesting, but I don’t see any deviant psychological angle. It would hardly be gentlemanly of me to leave Constance here unchaperoned.”

“You needn’t worry, Aloysius,” Constance said, handing back the photographs. “You can hardly call this place ‘unchaperoned.’ Besides, I have Huysmans to keep me company.” With a brief nod, she indicated the book by her side.

Pickett was thinking. He could assign Gibbons, or Fowler, or Singh. But he had a gut feeling that this case was so bizarre — so sui generis — that Pendergast would be by far the best tool in his belt. The Brokenhearts case had already demonstrated that. He reconsidered ordering Pendergast to come with him. Fact was, this bantering refusal of Pendergast’s bordered on insubordination. Pickett’s habitual impatience began to reassert itself. He’d come all the way down here. He’d humored Pendergast, dangling tasty tidbits in front of him. He wanted to get back to New York, too, and time was passing. He stood up.

“Listen, Pendergast,” he said. “Come with me. I’ve got a chopper waiting. We’ll look at the scene. Just look at it, for Chrissakes. We can argue about the details afterward. Over stone crabs.”

Pendergast, who had been idly regarding his empty glass, looked up slowly. “Stone crabs?”

The chopper landed on the fourteenth green of a golf course at the far northern end of Sanibel Island. Pendergast unbuckled his harness and stepped onto the greensward, looking around. It appeared that someone, either Pickett or a lackey, had done the advance work well: a motor launch was waiting at a dock just past the fairway rough, and once they had climbed aboard, it backed immediately into Wulfert Channel, then turned and made its way west under the low bridge through Blind Pass, the narrow passage between Sanibel and Captiva. On the ride over the Florida Everglades, Pickett had told Pendergast what he knew of the two islands: they were tourist meccas, known — unlike Palm Beach or Miami — for their relaxed atmosphere, extensive nature preserves, resistance to commercial development, and some of the best shelling in the world.

None of these attributes was evident as they came around Blind Pass and within sight of Turner Beach. Three Coast Guard vessels — a cutter and two patrol boats — were visible offshore. The cutter was keeping curious pleasure boats away, while the two patrol boats roamed back and forth a few hundred yards off the beach, like beagles sniffing for a scent. As Pendergast watched, there was a yell from one of the patrol boats; it stopped, and a man with a long pole and net reached out and snagged something.

Other police and emergency vessels clogged the channel beyond Blind Pass, and their launch was forced to come ashore at the closest end of the beach, where the sand abutted a breakwater. The beach itself was a scene of frantic activity: half a dozen knots of people, speaking animatedly; EMS and crime scene personnel moving back and forth, taking notes, gathering evidence, kneeling in the sand; Coast Guard officers speaking into radios. Traffic was backed up behind a police checkpoint, cops checking documents and directing a single lane of backed-up vehicles over Blind Pass Bridge. And at least a mile of the beach itself was roped off with yellow tape, dozens of evidence flags fluttering above the high tide mark.