He pushed through the double doors and they ran past a scene of growing panic and alarm, a security guard crouching behind his desk yelling into the phone, the receptionist and several employees lying prone on the floor. Ignoring them, Pendergast charged through another set of double doors and grabbed the first doctor he encountered.
“The code in Three Twenty-three,” he said, showing his badge. “It’s attempted murder. The patient has been injected with a drug of some kind.”
The doctor, almost without blinking, said: “Got it. Let’s go.”
The three ran up a staircase to D’Agosta’s room. Hayward was confronted with a buzz of activity: a group of nurses and doctors working purposefully and almost silently next to a bank of machines. Lights blinked and alarms softly sounded. D’Agosta was lying in the bed, unmoving.
The doctor calmly stepped into the room. “Everyone listen. This patient was injected with a drug intended to kill him.”
A nurse raised her head. “How in the world—?”
The doctor cut her off with a gesture. “The question is: Which drug are these symptoms consistent with?”
A rising hubbub followed, a furious discussion, a review of charts and data sheets. The doctor turned to Pendergast and Hayward. “There’s nothing more you can do now. Please wait outside.”
“I want to wait here,” Hayward said.
“Absolutely not. I’m sorry.”
As Hayward turned, another alarm went off and she saw the EKG monitor flatlining. “Oh, my God,” she burst out. “Let me wait here, please, please—”
The door shut firmly and Pendergast gently led her away.
The waiting room was small and sterile, with plastic chairs and a single window that looked out into the night. Hayward stood by it, staring unseeing into the black rectangle. Her mind was working furiously but going nowhere, like a broken engine. Her mouth was dry, and her hands were trembling. A single tear trickled down her cheek—a tear of frustration and unfocused rage.
She felt Pendergast’s hand on her shoulder. She brushed it off and took a step away.
“Captain?” came the low voice. “May I remind you there’s been an attempted homicide—against Lieutenant D’Agosta. And against you.”
The cool voice penetrated the fog of her fury. She shook her head. “Just get the hell away from me.”
“You need to start thinking about this problem like a police officer. I need your help, and I need it now.”
“I’m not interested in your problem anymore.”
“Unfortunately, it isn’t my problem anymore.”
She swallowed, staring into the darkness, fists clenched. “If he dies…”
The cool, almost mesmerizing voice went on. “That’s out of our hands. I want you to listen to me carefully. I want you to be Captain Hayward, not Laura Hayward, for a moment. There is something important we must discuss. Now.”
She closed her eyes, feeling numb to the core. She didn’t even have the energy to rebuff him.
“It would seem,” said Pendergast, “we’re dealing with a killer who is also a doctor.”
She closed her eyes. She was tired of this, tired of it all, tired of life. If Vinnie died… She forced the thought out of her mind.
“Extraordinary measures were taken to keep Vincent’s location a secret. Clearly the would-be killer had special access to patient charts, medical supply and pharmaceutical records. There are only two possibilities. The first is that he or she was a member of the team that is actually treating Vincent, but that would be both extremely coincidental and extremely unlikely: they have all been carefully vetted. The other possibility—and the one I believe to be the case—is that Vincent was found by tracing the pig valve used in his recent operation. His assailant might even be a cardiac surgeon.”
When she said nothing, he went on. “Do you realize what this means? It means Vincent was used as bait. The perpetrator deliberately induced a deadly coma, knowing it would lure us to the bedside. Naturally he anticipated we would arrive together. The fact we didn’t is the only thing that saved us.”
She remained with her back turned, hiding her face. Bait. Vinnie, used as bait. After a brief silence, Pendergast continued.
“There’s nothing more we can do about that for the present. Meanwhile, I believe I have made a critical discovery. While we were separated, I looked into June Brodie’s suicide and found some interesting coincidences. As we know, the suicide occurred only a week after Slade’s death in the fire. About a month afterward, June’s husband told his neighbors he was going on a trip abroad and left, never to be seen again. The house was shut up and eventually sold. I tried to trace him but found the trail completely cold—except I could find no evidence he had left the country.”
Despite herself, Hayward turned slowly around.
“June was an attractive woman. And it appears she’d been having a long-term affair with Slade.”
Hayward spoke at last. “There you have it,” she snapped. “It wasn’t a suicide. The husband murdered her and took off.”
“There are two pieces of evidence against that supposition. The first is the suicide note.”
“He forced her to write it.”
“As you know, there’s no sign of stress in the handwriting. And there’s something else. Not long before her suicide, June Brodie was diagnosed with a particularly fast-acting form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Lou Gehrig’s disease. It would have killed her fairly quickly anyway.”
Hayward thought. “The disease would argue for suicide.”
“Murder,” murmured Pendergast. “Suicide. Perhaps it was neither.”
Hayward ignored this typically Pendergastian comment. “Your PI, Hudson, was killed while investigating Brodie. In all likelihood, that means whoever’s behind all this doesn’t want us on her trail. That makes June Brodie a person of key importance for us.”
Pendergast nodded. “Indeed.”
“What else do you know about her?”
“Her family background is unremarkable enough. The Brodies were once quite wealthy—oil money—but in the 1960s the oil ran out, and they fell on hard times. June grew up in reduced circumstances, went to a local community college, graduated with a nursing degree, but only practiced for a few years. Perhaps the profession didn’t agree with her, or perhaps she simply wanted the higher salary of a personal secretary to a CEO. In any case, she took the job at Longitude, where she worked for the rest of her life. She married her high-school sweetheart but, it seems, soon found a more exciting diversion in Charles Slade.”
“And the husband?”
“Either he didn’t know or he put up with it.” Pendergast had slipped a manila folder out of his suit coat and handed it to her. “Now, please take a look at these.”
She opened it to find a number of yellowed newspaper clippings in plastic sleeves, along with a map. “What’s all this?”
“You just said June Brodie was of key importance. And I agree. But I rather think there’s something else of key importance here—geography.”
“Geography?”
“Black Brake swamp, to be precise.” Pendergast nodded toward the clippings.
She leafed through them quickly. They were mostly local newspaper stories of legends and superstitions about Black Brake: mysterious lights seen at night, a frogger who disappeared, stories of buried treasure and ghosts. She’d heard many such rumors growing up. The swamp, one of the largest in the South, was notorious.
“Consider,” said Pendergast, running his finger along the map. “On one side of the Black Brake you have Longitude Pharmaceuticals. On the other, Sunflower and the Doane family house. You have the Brodie family, who lived outside Malfourche, a small town on the lake at the eastern end of the swamp.”
“And?”
Pendergast tapped the map lightly. “And right here in the middle of the Black Brake, you have Spanish Island.”
“What’s that?”
“The Brodie family owned a hunting camp in the
middle of the swamp, called Spanish Island. No doubt it’s an island in the delta sense: an area of higher, firmer mud. The camp itself would have been built on piers and creosote pylons. It went bankrupt in the 1970s. The camp was shuttered and never reopened.”
Hayward glanced at him. “So?”
“Look at these stories. All from local papers in the small towns bordering the swamp: Sunflower, Itta Bena, and particularly Malfourche. I first noticed these stories when I was going through the newspaper archives of Sunflower, but thought nothing of them at the time. If you map these stories, though, you find they’re all vaguely oriented toward one place—Spanish Island, in the deepest heart of the swamp.”
“But… but they’re all just legends. Colorful legends.”
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
She shut the file and handed it back. “This isn’t police work; this is guesswork. You don’t have a single hard fact pointing to Spanish Island as a place of interest in this case.”
A faint flicker passed through Pendergast’s eyes. “Five years ago, an environmental group did a cleanup of an old illegal dumping ground in the swamp beyond Malfourche. You see these dumps all over the South, where people junked old cars, refrigerators, anything that would sink. One of the things they hauled out of the muck was a car. Naturally, they went after the registered owner to fine him. But they never found him.”
“Who’d it belong to?”
“The car was registered to Carlton Brodie, June’s husband. It was the last car he owned. I would presume it was the car he drove off with when he told everyone he was going… abroad.”
Hayward frowned, opened her mouth to speak, shut it again.
“And there’s something else—something that’s been bothering me ever since I saw it this morning. Remember that burned-out pier we saw at Longitude? The one behind Complex Six?”
“What about it?”
“Why on earth would Longitude Pharmaceuticals need a pier on Black Brake swamp?”
Hayward thought a moment. “It could have predated Longitude.”
“Perhaps. But it looked to me as if it dates to the same period as the corporation. No, Captain: everything—especially that dock—points to Spanish Island as our next port of call.”
The door of the waiting room opened, and the doctor came striding in. Even before Hayward could speak, he was talking.
“He’s going to make it,” the man said, almost unable to control his own elation. “We figured it out just in time. Pavulon, a powerful muscle relaxant. That was the drug he was injected with. Some was missing from medical stores.”
Hayward felt momentarily dizzy. She grasped the side of a chair and eased herself down. “Thank God.”
The doctor turned to Pendergast. “I don’t know how you figured out it was an injection, exactly, but that deduction saved his life.”
Hayward glanced at the FBI agent. This hadn’t occurred to her.
“We’ve called the local authorities, of course,” the doctor went on. “They’ll be here any moment.”
Pendergast slipped the file into his suit. “Excellent. I’m afraid we have to leave, Doctor. It’s extremely urgent. Here’s my card; have the police contact me. And have them immediately arrange round-the-clock protection for the patient. I doubt the killer will make another attempt, but one never knows.”
“Yes, Mr. Pendergast,” said the doctor, taking the card emblazoned with the FBI seal.
“We have no time to waste,” said Pendergast, turning and striding toward the door.
“But… what are we doing now?” Hayward asked.
“We’re going to Spanish Island, of course.”
61
Penumbra Plantation
DARKNESS CLOAKED THE OLD GREEK REVIVAL mansion. Heavy clouds obscured the swollen moon, and a blanket of unseasonable heat lay over the late-winter landscape. Even the swamp insects seemed somnolent, too lazy to call out.
Maurice made his way quietly through the first floor of the plantation house, peering into the various rooms, making sure the windows were locked, the lights off, and everything in order. Sliding the deadbolt of the front door and turning the key, he took another look around, grunted in satisfaction, and then moved toward the stairway.
The ring of a telephone on the hall table shattered the silence.
Maurice looked toward it, startled. As it continued to ring he made his way toward it, one veined and knotted hand plucking the handset from its cradle.
“Yes?” he said.
“Maurice?” It was Pendergast’s voice. There was a faint but steady background noise, a thrumming like the rush of wind.
“Yes?” Maurice said again.
“I wanted to let you know that we won’t be home this evening, after all. You may secure the deadbolt on the kitchen door.”
“Very good, sir.”
“You can expect us sometime tomorrow evening. If we are delayed further, I’ll let you know.”
“I understand.” Maurice paused a moment. “Where are you going, sir?”
“Malfourche. A tiny town on Black Brake swamp.”
“Very good, sir. Have a safe trip.”
“Thank you, Maurice. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
The line went dead, and Maurice replaced the receiver. He paused a moment, staring at it, thinking. Then he picked it up again and dialed.
The phone rang several times before a man’s voice answered.
“Hello?” Maurice said. “Mr. Judson, sir?”
The voice on the other end answered in the affirmative.
“This is Maurice at Penumbra Plantation. I’m fine, thank you. Yes. Yes, I just heard from him. They’re heading to Black Brake swamp. A town called Malfourche. Given your concern for him, I thought you’d want to know. No, he didn’t say why. Yes. Very well, sir. You’re welcome. Good night.”
He hung up the phone again, then walked to the back of the house and secured the kitchen door as ordered. After a final look around, he returned to the main hallway and climbed the stairs to the second floor. There were no further interruptions.
62
Malfourche, Mississippi
MIKE VENTURA PULLED UP TO THE ROTTING docks outside Tiny’s Bait ’n’ Bar. It was a crooked, ramshackle wooden building perched on pilings, and Ventura could hear the sounds of country music, whoops, and raucous laughter drifting across the water.
He brought his shallow-draft bass boat into one of the few empty slips, cut the engine, hopped out, and tied up. It was midnight and Tiny’s was rocking, the docks packed with boats, from loaded BassCats to crappy plywood skiffs. Malfourche, he thought, might be a hard-luck town, but they still knew what a good time was. He licked his lips, thinking that a frosty one and a shot of JD would be the first order of business—before the real business began.
Pushing through the doors, he was assaulted by the sounds and smells of Tiny’s: the loud music, the beer, neon, sawdust, humidity, and the scent of the swamp lapping on the pilings below. The bait shop on the left and the bar on the right were all part of the same barn-like space. Given the late hour, the lights were off in the bait-shop area, where large refrigerators and tubs contained the assortment of the live bait that Tiny’s was so famous for: nightcrawlers, crawfish, leeches, waxworms, Georgia jumpers, spawn, and mousees.
Ventura bellied up to the bar and right away Tiny himself, the bartender and proprietor—an immense, jiggling, adipose mountain of a man—smacked down a can of Coors, ice chips adhering to its sides, followed immediately by a double shot of JD.
Ventura nodded his thanks and raised the Jack Daniel’s, downed it, and chased it with a pull of Coors.
Damn if that wasn’t just what the doctor ordered. He’d been in the swamp too long. As he drank his beer, he looked around the old joint with a welling feeling of affection. It was one of the last places where you didn’t have to look at jigaboos or faggots or Yankees. It was all white and nobody had to say anything, everyone around knew it, and that’s the way it was
and always would be, amen.
The wall behind the bar was festooned with hundreds of cards, photos of loggers with axes, more recent photos of prize fish and boats, mounted fish, signed dollar bills, an aerial view of Malfourche from the days when it was a thriving center for everything from cypress loggers to gator hunters. Back when everyone had a decent boat and a pickup truck and house that was actually worth something. Before they turned half the swamp into a wilderness area.
Fucking wilderness area.
Ventura polished off the beer and even before he could ask, another was plunked down in front of him, along with a single shot of JD. Tiny knew him well. But instead of going for it right away, Ventura considered the pressing business at hand. He was going to enjoy this, and he was going to make some big money from it—while at the same time keeping his own hands clean. His eye strayed to the many anti-environmental slogans tacked to the wall, SIERRA CLUB GO HIKE TO HELL, and SUPPORT WILDLIFE—FEED AN ENVIRONMENTALIST TO THE GATORS, and so on. For sure, this was a good plan.
He leaned over the bar, gestured to the proprietor. “Tiny, I got an important announcement to make. Mind cutting the music?”
“Sure thing, Mike.” Tiny went over to the sound system and turned it down. Almost immediately the place fell silent, everyone’s attention turning to the bar.
Ventura slid off his stool and sauntered into the middle of the bar, his cowboy boots thumping on the worn boards.
“Yo Mike!” someone yelled, and there was some drunken clapping and whistling. Ventura took no notice. He was a well-known personage, former county sheriff, a man of means but never uppity. On the other hand, he’d always made a point not to mix too much with the crackers and rednecks, kept up a certain formality. They respected that.
He hooked his thumbs into his belt and gave a slow look around the place. Everyone was waiting. It wasn’t every day that Mike Ventura spoke to the people. Amazing how the place had quieted down. It gave him a certain satisfaction, a feeling that he had reached a point in his life of respect and accomplishment.
“We got a problem,” he said. He let that sink in for a few seconds, then went on. “A problem in the shape of two people. Environmentalists. They’re coming down here undercover to take a gander at this end of Black Brake. Looking to expand that wilderness area over the rest of Black Brake and the Lake End.”
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