Douglas Preston - Crimson Shore

Pendergast shrugged. “A process of elimination. I’d written off every suspect in town — including you.”

“Me?”

“It’s not uncommon to stage a crime in your own home and then feign interest in the investigation in order to put yourself above suspicion. But your reactions during our stroll in your sculpture garden — and, more particularly, in our later talk in the lighthouse — convinced me you truly had nothing to do with the theft. Besides, despite your pedigree you’re not an Exmouth native. Only a local could know about the old crimes, and thus have perpetrated the new one. But in looking around the town, all my suspects were eliminated. That left an unknown third party — someone like Dunkan. The Dunwoodys had already attracted my interest. In the days before Dana’s death, I’d noticed a small piece of bright-colored sweater material, similar to the garish outfits he favored, clinging to a shrub far out in the marsh. And when I made a reference to The Hound of the Baskervilles and the food missing from the Inn’s kitchen, his reaction was telling. His murder, of course, was a temporary setback. But then, I noticed his brother Joe’s tense demeanor — although he had an ironclad alibi and didn’t seem capable of fratricide in any case. The Dunwoody family had deep roots in the town, and indeed in the nineteenth century there were many more of them. But again, it was the regularly pilfered food from the Chart Room kitchen that sealed my interest. So I laid a trap for Joe last night at the bar... and he took the bait.”

“A feral brother. He must have been behind all those local legends of a Gray Reaper.” Lake shook his head. “Well, all I can say is that when I came to see you about the theft of my wine, I never expected it would lead to all this.” He handed over the shopping bag. “By the way, here’s that bottle of the Haut-Braquilanges. I recall saying you could have your pick of the case — and you still can, if you’d like — but this one seemed to be the best-preserved.”

Pendergast took the bag. “I’m sure it will be more than satisfactory, thank you very much.”

Lake hesitated just a moment. “Who actually carried out the theft? From my cellar, I mean.”

“Joe and Dana.”

“You’ve interrogated Joe, I take it?”

“Yes. He’s talking quite freely now.”

Lake was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Do you know what... what he did with all the wine?”

“I’m afraid he took it out to sea in his boat and dumped it overboard.”

Lake clapped a hand over his mouth.

“It took him three trips, late at night, to dispose of it all.”

“Oh, my God,” Lake said in a strangled voice.

“I know,” Pendergast replied grimly.

Now Constance spoke for the first time. “I have observed,” she said in a low and even voice, “that there are some crimes for which the death penalty does not seem a sufficiently severe sentence.”

In typical New England fashion, the day, which had dawned warm and sunny, soon darkened in the hours following the ceremony, and a fresh storm rolled in. Glancing out the windows of Pendergast’s room at the Inn, Constance could see the branches of nearby trees twisting in the wind. Although it was the night of a full moon, it was hidden behind layers of massive storm clouds that were even now throwing fat droplets against the panes of glass.

“A classic nor’easter,” said Pendergast.

Constance turned back toward him. The small crowd of reporters that had come to cover the ghoulish story were gone, and the atmosphere of the town had fallen into a hum of excited relief. Following dinner, Pendergast had invited her up to his room to share the bottle of Haut-Braquilanges. Constance was of two minds: On the one hand, she was flattered that he would share such a princely bottle with her. But she also remembered the effects that the glass of Calvados had had on her the last time she was in his room, and she did not want to lose control like that again.

“Are you sure you want to drink it now?” she asked.

“Carpe diem. Who knows what tomorrow might bring? And what a fine setting we have: the storm outside, the fire within, and our own good company.”

Handling the bottle with care, Pendergast removed the capsule, withdrew the cork, set it aside, and, using a candle to see through the wine, decanted it. He immediately poured a tiny taste, swirled, and downed it. The expression on his face, eyes closed, head back, was one Constance had never seen before — pure sensual pleasure.

“What about me?” she asked after a moment.

His eyes sprang open. “Ah, Constance, I was just making sure it hadn’t turned to vinegar. To spare you a shock. I’m happy to say it has not.”

He set his glass down and poured one for her, refilling his. “We must drink it quickly.”

“Shouldn’t it air?”

“A wine of this age and complexity turns fast. Apres toi. ” He picked up his glass. She took the other.

“I’m not sure what to do,” said Constance with a nervous laugh. “I’ve drunk wine before, of course, but not one like this.”

“First, we touch glasses.”

They touched glasses. Their eyes met. Nothing was said.

“And now, we drink. Just follow my lead. A great deal of unnecessary pomp surrounds the drinking of wine. All you really need to do is swirl it about, inhale, and then sip — like this.”

Pendergast swirled, inhaled once, twice, swirled again, then took a sip. He drew a little air in, took another sip.

Constance did the same. It tasted to her like... wine, nothing more, nothing less. She colored, thinking how he was wasting it on her.

“Don’t worry, my dear Constance, if you don’t immediately taste what I taste, or enjoy it as deeply as I do. Wine is like many of the finer things in life, which take time and experience to extract their full pleasure and meaning.”

He described to her again how to swirl, and smell, and then sip, drawing in air.

“The vocabulary of wine drinking is rather recherché,” he said. “It’s an expression of the inadequacy of words to describe taste and smell.”

“So what does it taste like to you?”

“I would say this wine enters the palate like silk wrapped in a velvet texture. That is because of its age — almost all the fruit and tannins have been transformed.” He sipped again. “I note spice, cigar-box, truffles, faded flowers, autumn leaves, earth, and leather flavors.”

Constance sipped once again, but couldn’t even begin to find those tastes in the wine.

“This wine is austere, structured, with great finesse, and a long, lingering finish.”

“What, exactly, makes it so good?”

“Everything. Each sip brings out another flavor, another characteristic.” He sipped again. “It is just so marvelously complex, so balanced, with each flavor coming forward in its turn. Most important, it has that goût de terroir , the special taste of the earth from which the grapes emerged. It contains the very soul of that famous and long-gone two-acre hillside, ruined by mustard gas during World War I.”

Pendergast poured them each a second glass and Constance tasted it carefully. It was softer than most wines she remembered drinking, and it had a perfumed delicacy to it that was pleasing. Perhaps she could learn to enjoy wine in the way Pendergast did. As she sipped, she was aware of the slightest numbness of her lips and a pleasant, tingling warmth that seemed to radiate from her very core. She thought she might be detecting notes of truffles and leather in the wine, after all.

Pendergast rose from his seat beside her on the bed and began to stroll about the room thoughtfully, glass in hand. Obtaining, and drinking, the exquisite wine had put him in rare spirits, and he was uncharacteristically voluble. “Even more than with most criminal investigations, Constance, this one is heavy with irony. We have the historian, McCool, arriving with knowledge of the jewels, but not the location of the Pembroke Castle ’s destruction — while at the same time we have the Dunwoody brothers, knowing exactly where the ship ran aground but ignorant of the existence of the jewels. When the two came together, voilà! The crime was born. The brothers needed time to stage their sham wine theft, which explains the several weeks gap after the historian left. The brothers also knew there was a good chance the historian might return, and they wanted to be ready for him — hence Dana Dunwoody’s idea of looking up the Tybane symbols. After the killing, Joe, the bartender, was in an excellent position to spread rumors of the inscriptions carved into McCool’s body, and the implication that witches were involved — something that Exmouth natives, who had all grown up hearing such legends, would enthusiastically adopt. A perfect red herring, really.”