Crimson Shore

by Douglas Preston

  “Who’s the lady?” Malaga asked. He’d paused in his retreat at the arrival of Pendergast. “No rubberneckers.”

  “She,” said Pendergast sharply, “is my assistant. Please extend to her every courtesy you would me.”

  “Of course,” said Malaga, with a slightly offensive bow in her direction. He turned away and walked back down the boardwalk, vanishing in the darkness.

  Pendergast slipped under the crime scene tape and approached the body, while Constance Greene hung back. Gavin wondered what was going through her head. The body was disgusting: face mostly gone, no tongue or lips, just a huge rack of yellow teeth, mouth wide open. And yet she seemed calm and unperturbed.

  Pendergast knelt. “I see it is the historian. Morris McCool.”

  Hearing this, Gavin was shocked afresh. The historian?

  “How do you know?” the chief asked. “The face is, um, gone and we haven’t ID’d the body.”

  “The earlobes. You see how they are attached like that? An unusual trait; earlobes are almost as good as fingerprints. In addition, the height and weight seem about right.”

  “You knew the guy?” Mourdock asked.

  “I had a glimpse of him at the Inn.”

  Pendergast adjusted the lights, then got down on his knees like the CSI before him. Arching his lean, long body over the dead man, he began picking away at the body with tweezers, popping stuff into tubes and bags that seemed to appear and disappear into his suit coat like magic. The CSI guy had been good, but watching Pendergast was like watching a ballet dancer; every move was perfect as those spidery white fingers flashed about this way and that. He spent a great deal of time probing and picking at the cuts on the chest, examining them with fanatical attention, even taking out a jeweler’s loupe at one point. He poked, pried, and probed at the raw flesh that remained of the man’s face. At last he rose and ducked back out.

  Gavin glanced again at Constance Greene and was surprised at the lively look of interest on her face, not unlike a museumgoer enjoying a fine painting. She was considerably less shocked than he was. Was she one of those who got off on violent crime scenes? But no—somehow, she didn’t strike him as that type. This was an intellectual puzzle for her—and a definite mark in her favor, he decided.

  “Interesting,” Pendergast murmured. “In addition to what appear to be carved inscriptions, part of the cuts also seem to form letters.” He shone a small light at the markings carved into the chest, first one way and then the other. “I make it out as T-Y-B-A-N-E.”

  A sudden silence. Gavin stared down in even greater surprise and shock. It was true: from a certain angle, you could see a series of crude letters. TYBANE. He glanced at the chief and saw that nothing was registering on his face.

  He found Pendergast looking at him curiously. “Sergeant, do you see something?”

  “Nothing,” he stammered. “It’s just that the word…rings a distant bell.”

  “Interesting.” Pendergast turned back to the corpse. “Most curious indeed: note how the carvings were made with a stone knife.”

  “A stone knife? You mean, like an Indian relic?”

  “Yes, but freshly knapped and thus extremely sharp. Considerable skill was involved. The cuts were done premortem, as they bled and clotted. But the precision of the work indicates the man was already unconscious when it took place; otherwise, he would have been uncooperative in the procedure. But the initial, fatal wound was made, I would say, by a long, heavy knife that went clear through the gut, perhaps a bayonet.” He paused, glancing around. “The actual killing occurred farther up in the salt marshes and the body drifted here on the outgoing tide. Perhaps a study of the tidal currents might help establish a location and time of death. The body must have been in the water some time for the fish to consume the lips, eyes, nose, and tongue.” He looked up at Gavin. “The clam digger who found it, is he of an unusually avaricious nature?”

  “Boyd?” said Gavin. “Oh, yeah, he’s famous for that. Tightfisted bastard. How did you know?”

  “The fact that he continued digging clams around the body. Where does he sell his clams?”

  “At the Inn. They’re famous for the fried clam basket.”

  Pendergast gave a small shudder. “When one considers the clam is a filter feeder, a fried clam meal at the Inn over the next few days would not be far removed from cannibalism. Fortunately, there is no risk of me ever ingesting a fried clam, famous or not.” He made a final inspection of the body, removed a small digital camera, and took a series of photos of the carvings.

  “It looks like we got ourselves a real psycho here,” said Mourdock.

  Pendergast rose and pulled off his gloves. “Other than the cuts, this is a most uninformative crime scene, with the body having been stripped, transported here by water, and thoroughly washed by the tides. These cuts were done with care and skill, however, by someone who had experience carving flesh. There appears to be a purpose behind the symbols, and no doubt with the word TYBANE as well. Chief Mourdock, I’m afraid I have to disagree with your conclusion that this is the work of a psychopath. The person who did this was organized, purposeful, and deliberate.”

  14

  Constance Greene surveyed the room Pendergast had engaged on the first floor of the Inn. He’d had the bed moved out and a large pine table brought in, on which he had set up a clumsy, almost antique, reel-to-reel tape recorder, with an ungainly microphone, along with an old IBM Selectric typewriter and a Dictaphone machine.

  She was amazed at how cooperative the chief had become—at least, when directly asked for assistance. That very morning, the chief had let Pendergast rifle the Exmouth PD storage room for outmoded equipment and take whatever he wanted.

  “Ah, Constance. I see you are admiring my interrogation room.” Pendergast stood in the doorway, cradling an old IBM PC.

  “Is that what this is? An interrogation room?”

  He set down the computer. “Indeed. What do you think?”

  “It looks more like a museum of ancient technology.”

  He plugged in the PC, attached the keyboard, and booted it up. Next to it he placed an old but still-sealed box of floppy disks.

  “Does that even work?”

  “No.”

  “And what, may I ask, is wrong with your MacBook?”

  “Far too pretty to be intimidating.”

  She glanced around again. “So this is all for show?”

  “You will find, my dear Constance, that a wall of equipment, even old equipment, has a most salutary effect on a potential witness. The tape recorder does in fact work, but for convenience I have the microphone hooked up to a digital recorder hidden inside the reel-to-reel.”

  He began arranging everything in severe order on the table. Constance did have to admit it all formed a rather daunting façade, one that served to separate and isolate the interviewee from the interviewer.

  “Please shut the door and have a seat.”

  Constance closed the door, swept back her dress, and seated herself. “Who are you going to interview?”

  He produced a list. She scanned it, laid it down. “There are a lot of names here.”

  “We may not need to speak to them all. I am, as they say in these parts, fishing.”

  “In other words, you think the killing of the historian is related to the walled-up skeleton.”

  “Normally I put no faith in the ‘gut reaction.’ But in this situation, my gut reaction is so definite that I will make an exception: yes, they are most certainly connected.”

  “How?”

  He tented his fingers and sat back. “I would be interested, Constance, to learn your thoughts first. You’ve been agitating for the freedom to investigate as you see fit, and I’m curious to hear your analysis of what we’ve gathered so far.”

  She sat forward, self-conscious under the pressure of his steady, waiting gaze. “A few things stand out,” she began. “We know the historian was investigating the disappearance of a ship along this coast in
1884. That same year, due to the eruption of Krakatoa, the whole region, including Exmouth, suffered a devastating crop failure. Between 1870 and 1890, according to the carbon dating, a man—an African American sailor—was tortured and his body walled up in the basement of the lighthouse keeper’s residence. In 1886, the lighthouse keeper fell down the stairs in a drunken stupor and was killed.”

  A slow nod.

  “If you put all that together, it seems to me the man was probably walled up in 1884 and is connected somehow to the disappearance of the ship. I wouldn’t be surprised if the death of the drunken lighthouse keeper two years later was related, as well. After all, it was his basement the man was walled up in. There’s a dark secret in this town—something happened here around that time. The historian found out some crucial fact which threatened to expose that secret and was murdered to keep him quiet.”

  “And the marks on the body?”

  “I don’t have an answer for that.”

  “What about the wine theft?”

  “As you pointed out, it was a smokescreen for the removal of the sailor’s skeleton. More evidence, as if we needed it, that the dark secret I mentioned is still present in Exmouth.”

  “And what are your recommendations on how to proceed? Prioritized, of course.”

  Constance paused. “One, find out what the historian discovered that caused his death. Two, find out more about the ship that disappeared, the Pembroke Castle. Three, find out more about that lighthouse keeper who died—assuming that’s possible. And four, identify those markings on the body.”

  “There are many gaps of logic in your chain of reasoning, and there is much speculation, but on the whole I am not disappointed in you, Constance.”

  She frowned. “I don’t take kindly to being damned by faint praise. To what gaps of logic, in particular, do you refer?”

  “Allow me my little joke. Your analysis, and your recommendations, are most commendable. In fact, as a result I intend to entrust you with an assignment of importance.”

  She shifted in her seat, trying to conceal the pleasure this gave her. “What are your own thoughts?”

  “I concur with all you have said, pending more specific evidence. But I must add, the two items that I find most telling are the word TYBANE carved on the historian’s body, along with the curious symbols…and the ghost story.”

  “The ghost story?”

  “The one you told me, about the lighthouse being haunted, with babies heard crying.”

  “You really think that’s important?”

  “Of the utmost.”

  Pendergast turned as a rap sounded on the door. “Ah, here is our first interviewee!”

  He opened the door to reveal a man standing in the passage. He was in his early forties, slightly built, with thinning brown hair and a prominent Adam’s apple. Constance recalled seeing him around town twice before: once in the street, watching Pendergast’s arrest from a distance, and again at breakfast here in the Inn yesterday morning. On both occasions he had worn conservative, rather boring suits, contrasted almost comically—and this was why she remembered him—by hairy woolen V-neck sweaters in gaudy colors. He was wearing one today, as well: peach colored and fuzzy. Chacun à son goût, she thought with distaste—or, in this case, lack of goût.

  “Ah,” Pendergast said. “Dana Dunwoody, Esquire—bedecked in your usual sartorial splendor.”

  “Bright colors please me,” the man said, shaking the proffered hand. “You, I assume, feel precisely the opposite.”

  “A hit, a very palpable hit! Please, take a seat.” Pendergast waited while the man made himself comfortable. “This is my assistant, Miss Greene, who will be present at the interview. Constance, meet Dana Dunwoody, Exmouth’s attorney at law.”

  Constance nodded in greeting.

  “How can I be of assistance, Agent Pendergast?” Dunwoody asked.

  “Just a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  Dunwoody waved a hand. Constance noticed the lawyer had a simple, faded tattoo of a single anchor on the back of one wrist.

  Pendergast consulted a notebook. “You live on a house overlooking the salt marshes, I believe.”

  Dunwoody nodded.

  “Were you home the night before last?”

  Dunwoody nodded again.

  “Did you hear or see anything unusual that evening?”

  “Nothing I can recall.”

  Pendergast made a notation in the book. “How is the law profession here in Exmouth?”

  “Adequate.”

  “What kind of work do you do?”

  “Real estate sales. The occasional lawsuit. Some routine town legal business.”

  “What kind of lawsuits?”

  “Various kinds. Property claims. Right-of-way disputes. Requests for zoning variances.”

  “I see. And your being a town selectman might be useful there.”

  Dunwoody plucked a loose thread from his sweater. “Agent Pendergast, I never allow my civic duties and my professional ones to overlap.”

  “Of course not.”

  Dunwoody smiled faintly. He was, Constance noted, rather sharp-witted, not easily intimidated.

  “Are you married, Mr. Dunwoody?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Constance looked at the man through narrowed eyes. He had a certain lawyerly knack for answering questions without providing any real information.

  “I see. But you do have family in town.”

  Dunwoody nodded. “We go way back.”

  “How far back?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. It seems we Dunwoodys have always been here.”

  “Getting back to your current family. Your brother, Joe, is a bartender here at the Inn, is he not?”

  At this, the expression of pride that had been gathering on Dunwoody’s face as he spoke of his family history was replaced very briefly by a frown, before going deliberately blank. “He is.”

  “Do you do any criminal law, Mr. Dunwoody?” Pendergast asked.

  “Very little call for it in Exmouth.”

  “Although the town does have its problems. The break-in at Percival Lake’s, for example. And I understand from one of the cooks here in the Inn that foodstuffs go missing from the kitchen pantry on a regular basis.”

  “That hardly seems to constitute much of a crime.”

  “Have you read The Hound of the Baskervilles, by any chance?” Pendergast asked.

  Dunwoody hesitated a second, clearly surprised by the question. “I don’t see the relevance.”

  “Humor me. Have you read it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you may recall a similar set of circumstances. Missing food, I mean. From Baskerville Hall.”

  As Constance watched, Dunwoody’s face went even more blank. Studiously blank. He did not reply.

  Pendergast slapped the notebook shut, laid it beside the typewriter. “I have no further questions. Thank you for your time.”

  The lawyer stood, nodded at both of them in turn, then left, shutting the door behind him.

  Constance turned toward Pendergast. “The Hound of the Baskervilles? I hope you’re not going fey on me, Aloysius.”

  “On the contrary. Didn’t you notice his reaction—or lack of it? Most telling.”

  “I can’t say I know what you were driving at. But he certainly seems like a guilty fellow to me.”

  “Indeed, Constance. All lawyers are guilty. But this one, I think, is more guilty than most.” He looked at his watch. “Come on—I think we have just enough time for a cup of tea before our next guest arrives.”

  15

  They returned from tea to find a man standing outside the closed door, baseball cap in hand. Pendergast ushered him in and he looked around with rheumy eyes, clearly intimidated by the setup. Constance had not seen this man before. As he stepped past her she caught a faint whiff of bourbon and cigar smoke.

  “Make yourself comfortable, Mr. LaRue,” Pendergast told him.

  The man settle
d himself in a chair.

  With precision and formality, Pendergast threaded a reel-to-reel tape onto the recorder, fussed with the controls, and then—making the final adjustments—he depressed the START button. The reels started turning. It was interesting, Constance thought, that he had not bothered taking these steps with the lawyer.

  “Please speak clearly into the microphone,” he said.

  A nod. “Yes, sir.”

  “State your name and address for the record.”

  Gordon LaRue lived in Dill Town, he said, had lived there all his life, and had a small business cutting grass for a living.

  “And how long have you cut Mr. Lake’s grass?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “On the weekend Mr. Lake was gone, and his house was broken into, you cut the grass?”

  “I did. He liked me to come when he wasn’t around, on account of the noise bothering him.”

  “And what time did you come that weekend?”

  “On Sat’day, about eleven.”

  “Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”

  “No. The grass didn’t need much cutting, seeing as how it’s getting into fall. Mr. Lake likes to keep a nice lawn, though, on account of the sculptures.”

  “Any sign that someone other than Lake had been there?”

  “Didn’t see anything. Didn’t look like anyone had broken in. No strange cars, nothing.”

  “And you left at what time?”

  “Twelve thirty.”

  “That will be all, Mr. LaRue.”

  As the man stood up to leave, Pendergast said casually, “Dill Town—the outlying town first settled by black whalers, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting. Thank you.” Pendergast ushered LaRue out the door, closed it, and turned to Constance, giving her a brief smile.

  “Fishing?” said Constance, wondering why they were so obviously wasting their time.

  “Indeed. Let us put another fly on the water. Fetch the next fellow for me, if you will.”