She looked back at Pendergast, now attired in his signature black suit. “So you believe your wife was interested in Audubon’s illness. An illness that somehow transformed him into a creative genius.”
“Through some unknown neurological effect, yes. To someone with her interests, this would have been a very valuable pharmacological discovery.”
“And all she wanted with the painting was confirmation for this theory.”
Pendergast nodded. “That painting is the link between Audubon’s early, indifferent work and his later brilliance. It’s proof of the transition he underwent. But that doesn’t quite get to the central mystery in this case: the birds.”
Hayward frowned. “The birds?”
“The Carolina Parakeets. The Doane parrot.”
Hayward herself had been puzzling over the connection to Audubon’s illness, to no avail. “And?”
Pendergast sipped his coffee. “I believe we’re dealing with a strain of avian flu.”
“Avian flu? You mean, bird flu?”
“That, I believe, is the disease that laid Audubon low, that nearly killed him, and that was responsible for his creative flowering. His symptoms—high fever, headache, delirium, cough—are all consistent with flu. A flu he no doubt caught dissecting a Carolina Parakeet.”
“Slow down. How do you know all this?”
In reply, Pendergast reached for a worn, leather-bound book. “This is the diary of my great-great-grandfather Boethius Pendergast. He befriended Audubon during the painter’s younger days.” Opening the journal to a page marked with a silken strand, he found the passage he was looking for and began to read aloud:
Aug. 21st. J. J. A. spent the evening with us again. He had amused himself throughout the afternoon in the dissection of two Carolina Parakeets—a curiously colored but otherwise unremarkable species. He then stuffed and mounted them on bits of cypress wood. We dined well and afterward took a turn around the park. He took leave of us around half past ten. Next week he plans to make a journey upriver, where he professes to have business prospects.
Pendergast closed the journal. “Audubon never made that journey upriver. Because within a week he developed the symptoms that would eventually land him in the Meuse St. Claire sanatorium.”
Hayward nodded at the journal. “You think your wife saw that passage?”
“I’m sure of it. Why else would she have stolen those specimens of Carolina Parakeet—the very ones Audubon dissected? She wanted to test them for avian flu.” He paused. “And do more than simply test them. She hoped to extract from them a live sample of virus. Vincent told me all that remained of the parrots my wife stole were a few feathers. I’ll head over to Oakley Plantation in the morning, retrieve those remaining feathers—carefully—and have them tested to confirm my suspicions.”
“But all that still doesn’t explain how those parakeets are linked to the Doane family.”
“It’s quite simple. The Doanes were sickened by the same disease that struck Audubon.”
“What makes you say that?”
“There are simply too many similarities, Captain, for anything else to make sense. The sudden flowering of creative brilliance. Followed by mental dissolution. Too many similarities—and Helen knew it. That’s why she went to get the bird from them.”
“But when she took the bird, the family was still healthy. They didn’t have the flu.”
“One of the diaries in the Doane house records—in passing—the family coming down with the flu shortly after the bird arrived.”
“Oh, my God.”
“And then, rather quickly, they manifested signs of creative brilliance.” He paused again. “Helen went there to get the bird away from the Doanes—I’m sure of that. To keep it from spreading the disease further, perhaps. And to test it, of course, to confirm her suspicions. Note what Karen Doane wrote in her diary about the day Helen took the bird. She wore leather gloves, and she stuffed the bird and its cage into a garbage bag. Why? Initially, I assumed the bag was simply for concealment. But it was to keep herself and her car from contamination.”
“And the leather gloves?”
“Worn no doubt to conceal a pair of medical gloves beneath. Helen was trying to remove a viral vector from the human population. No doubt the bird, cage, and bag were all incinerated—after she’d taken the necessary samples, of course.”
“Incinerated?” Hayward repeated.
“Standard procedure. Any samples taken would also have been ultimately incinerated.”
“Why? If the Doane family was infected, they could just spread it to others. Burning the bird would be like shutting the barn door after the horse has escaped.”
“Not quite. You see, avian flus jump easily from bird to human, but they have great difficulty passing from human to human. The neighbors would be safe. Of course, for the Doane family it was too late.” Pendergast took a last sip of coffee, then put the cup aside. “But this still leaves us with a central mystery: where did the Doanes’ parrot escape from? And, even more importantly, how did it become a carrier?”
Despite her skepticism, Hayward felt herself intrigued. “Perhaps you’re wrong. Maybe the virus lay dormant all this time. The parrot caught it naturally.”
“Unlikely. Recall the parrot had been banded. No: the viral genome would have been painstakingly sequenced and rebuilt in a laboratory—using viral material from the stolen Carolina Parakeets. And then live birds were inoculated with it.”
“So the bird escaped from a lab.”
“Precisely.” Pendergast stood up. “The biggest question of all remains: what does this have to do with Helen’s murder and the recent killings and attacks on us—if anything?”
“Isn’t there another question you’re forgetting?” Hayward asked.
Pendergast looked at her.
“You say Helen stole the parrots Audubon studied—the ones that supposedly sickened him. Helen also visited the Doane family and stole their parrot—because, as you also say, she knew it was infected. By inference, Helen is the common thread that binds the two events. So aren’t you curious what role she might have had in the sequencing and inoculation?”
Pendergast turned away, but not before a look of pain lanced across his face. Hayward almost regretted asking the question.
A long pause settled over the library. At last, Pendergast turned toward her again. “We must pick up where Vincent and I left off.”
“ ‘We’?”
“You’re going to grant Vincent’s request, I assume. I need a competent partner. And as I recall, you’re from this region originally. You’ll do well, I assure you.”
His assumptions, his patronizing attitude, were irritating in the extreme. She knew all too well of Pendergast’s unorthodox investigative techniques, his breezy neglect for rules and procedures, his skirtings of the law. She would find that annoying, if not intolerable. It might even damage her career. She returned his steady gaze. If it weren’t for this man, Vinnie wouldn’t be in a hospital right now, critically wounded, in need of a new heart valve.
At the same time… Vinnie had asked her. Twice.
She realized she had already made the decision.
“All right. I’ll help you see this thing through. For Vinnie’s sake, not yours. But—” She hesitated. “I’ve got one condition. And it’s non-negotiable.”
“Of course, Captain.”
“When—if—we find the person responsible for your wife’s death, you must promise me not to kill him.”
Pendergast went very still. “You realize this is the cold-blooded murderer of my wife we’re discussing.”
“I don’t believe in vigilante justice. Too many of your perps end up dead before they even reach a courtroom. This time, we’re going to let justice take its course.”
There was a pause. “What you are asking—is difficult.”
“It’s the price of the dance,” Hayward said simply.
Pendergast held her gaze for a long moment. And then—almost impe
rceptibly—he nodded.
48
IN THE DIM GARAGE, A MAN CROUCHED BEHIND a vehicle draped in a white canvas shroud. The time was seven in the evening, and the sun had set. The air smelled of car wax, motor oil, and mold. Sliding a 9mm Beretta semi-automatic pistol out of his belt, the man eased open the magazine, checked again that it was full. After snugging the gun back into his waistband, he opened and closed his hands three times, alternately stretching and clenching the fingers. The target would be arriving at any moment. The sweat crept down the nape of the man’s neck and a tendon began to jump in his thigh, but he was unaware of either distraction, so concentrated was he on what was to come.
Frank Hudson had been scouting the grounds of Penumbra Plantation for the past two days, learning the movements and habits of the place. He had been surprised at how lax the security was: a single dotty, half-blind servant opening the house in the morning and shutting it up again at night on a schedule so regular you could set your watch by it. The entrance gates were left closed but unlocked during the day, and they were apparently unwatched. A diligent search had turned up no sign of security cameras, alarm systems, motion sensors, or infrared beams. The decrepit old plantation was so far off the beaten track that Hudson had little to fear from regular police patrols. There were few people at the plantation house besides the target and the servant: only a rather attractive woman with a great figure he’d seen a few times.
Hudson’s target, the man named Pendergast, was the only irregularity in the timeless cycle of Penumbra Plantation. He came and went at the most unpredictable hours. But Hudson had observed long enough to see the beginning of a small pattern in his comings and goings, and it centered on wine. When the shuffling old servant began preparing dinner and uncorked a bottle of wine, Pendergast would be home no later than seven thirty in the evening to partake. If the servant did not uncork wine, it meant Pendergast would not be dining at home and would arrive much later in the evening, if at all.
This evening an uncorked bottle of wine stood on the sideboard, clearly visible through the dining room windows.
Hudson checked his watch. He rehearsed in his mind how it would go, what he would do. And then he froze: outside, he heard the sound of wheels crunching on gravel. This was it. Hudson waited, his breathing shallow. The car came to a halt outside the garage, the engine idling. A car door opened, followed by the sound of feet. The garage doors swung open, first one, then the other—they were not automatic—and the footsteps went back to the car. The engine revved slightly. The nose of the Rolls eased into the garage, the lights momentarily filling the space, blinding him. A moment later the lights went out, the engine died, and the garage was dark again.
He blinked, waiting for his eyes to readjust. His hand closed on the pistol grips and he eased the weapon from his belt, carefully thumbing off the safety.
He waited for the sound of the opening door, for his target to turn on the lights in the garage, but nothing happened. Pendergast seemed to be waiting in the car. What for? Feeling his heart accelerate in his chest, Hudson tried to control his breathing, maintain his lucidity. He knew he was well hidden, having adjusted the shroud on the vehicle so that it reached all the way to the ground, ensuring that even his feet were invisible.
Perhaps Pendergast was on his cell phone, finishing up a call. Or he was taking a rare opportunity to sit quietly, as people sometimes did, before getting out of the vehicle.
With infinite caution, Hudson raised his head ever so slightly to peer over the edge of the shroud; the dim form of the Rolls rested quietly in the dark, the only sound the ticking of the cooling engine. It was impossible to see inside the smoked windows.
He waited.
“Lose a button?” came a voice from right behind him.
With a grunt of surprise Hudson leapt up, his hand jerking instinctively, the gun going off with a loud crash in the enclosed space. As he tried to pivot he felt the gun wrenched from his hand and a wiry arm wrap around his neck. His body was spun around, then shoved up hard against the sheeted vehicle.
“In the great game of human life,” the voice said, “one begins by being a dupe and ends up by being a rogue.”
Hudson struggled ineffectually.
“Where are you, my friend, on that happy spectrum?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Hudson finally managed to gasp out.
“If you get a grip on yourself, I’ll release you. Now: relax.”
Hudson stopped fighting. As he did so, he felt the pressure release, his limbs freed. He turned to find himself face-to-face with his target, Pendergast: a tall man in black with a face and hair so pale they seemed to glow in the darkness, like a specter. He had Hudson’s own Beretta in hand, pointed at him. “I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced. My name is Pendergast.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’ve always found that a curious expression when used pejoratively.” Pendergast looked him up and down, then slid the gun into the waist of his own suit. “Shall we continue this conversation in the house?”
The man stared at him.
“Please.” Pendergast gestured for him to walk toward the side door ahead of him. After a moment, Hudson complied. There might be a way to retrieve something out of this, after all.
He passed through the open garage door, Pendergast following, crossed the graveled drive, and mounted the steps to the shabby mansion. The servant held open the door.
“Is the gentleman to come in?” he asked, in a voice that made it clear he hoped not.
“Only for a few minutes, Maurice. We’ll have a glass of sherry in the east parlor.”
Pendergast gestured the man down the central hall and into a small sitting room. A fire was burning in the grate.
“Sit down.”
Hudson gingerly took a seat on an old leather sofa. Pendergast seated himself opposite, checked his watch. “I have just a few minutes. Now once again: your name, please?”
Hudson struggled to collect himself, to adapt to this sudden and unexpected reversal. He could still pull this off. “Forget the name. I’m a private investigator, and I worked for Blast. That’s all you need to know—and I’ll bet it’s more than enough.”
Pendergast looked him up and down again.
“I know you have the painting,” Hudson went on. “The Black Frame. And I know you killed Blast.”
“How very clever of you.”
“Blast owed me a lot of money. All I’m doing is collecting what’s due. You pay me and I forget all I know about Blast’s death. You understand?”
“I see. You’re here on a sort of improvised blackmail scheme.” The man’s pale face broke into a ghastly grin, exposing white, even teeth.
“Just collecting what’s owed me. And helping you out at the same time—if you get my meaning.”
“Mr. Blast had poor judgment in personnel matters.”
Uncertain what was meant by that, Hudson watched as Pendergast took the Beretta out of his black suit, checked the magazine, slapped it back in, and pointed the gun at him. At the same time, the servant arrived with a silver tray with two little glasses full of brown liquid, which he placed down, one after the other.
“Maurice, the sherry won’t be necessary after all. I’m going to take this gentleman out into the swamp, shoot him in the back of the head with his own gun, and let the alligators dispose of the evidence. I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“As you wish, sir,” said the servant, taking up the drinks he had just set out.
“Don’t bullshit me,” said Hudson, feeling an uncomfortable twinge. Maybe he’d overplayed his hand.
Pendergast didn’t seem to hear him. He rose, pointed the gun. “Let’s go.”
“Don’t be a fool, you’ll never get away with it. My people are expecting me. They know where I am.”
“Your people?” The ghastly smile returned. “Come now, we both know you’re strictly freelance and that you’ve told no one where you went tonight. To th
e swamp!”
“Wait.” Hudson felt a sudden surge of panic. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Do you think that—having killed one man already—I wouldn’t be eager to kill another who has learned about the crime and now wishes to extort money? On your feet!”
Hudson jumped up. “Listen to me, please. Forget about the money. I was just trying to explain.”
“No explanations necessary. You haven’t even told me your name, for which I thank you. It always gives me a twinge to remember the names of those I’ve killed.”
“It’s Hudson,” he said quickly. “Frank Hudson. Please don’t do this.”
Pendergast pushed the barrel of the gun into his side and spun him toward the door with a hard shove. Like a zombie, Hudson stumbled out into the hall, through the front door, and onto the porch. The night rose before him, black and damp, filled with the croaking of frogs and the trilling of insects.
“No. God, no.” Hudson knew now he’d made a terrible miscalculation.
“Keep moving, if you please.”
Hudson felt his knees buckling and he sank down on the floorboards. “Please.” The tears coursed down his face.
“I’ll do it right here, then.” Hudson felt the cold barrel of the gun touch the nape of his neck. “Maurice will just have to clean up.”
“Don’t do it,” Hudson moaned. He heard Pendergast cock the Beretta.
“Why shouldn’t I do it?”
“When I’m missing, the cops will find my car. It’s close enough that they’ll come knocking around here.”
“I’ll move your car.”
“You’ll leave your DNA in it, you can’t avoid it.”
“Maurice will move it. Besides, I can deal with a few cops.”
“They’ll search the swamp.”
“As I said, the alligators will dispose of your corpse.”
“If you think that, you don’t know much about corpses. They have a way of turning up days, weeks later. Even in swamps.”
“Not in my swamp, with my alligators.”
“Alligators can’t make human bones disappear—they go right through the gut, come out unchanged.”
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