Crooked River

by Douglas Preston

  “Oh God, no—!” she cried as Paul, blinded, slammed into the long gurney on which the feet had been arranged, knocking it to the floor with a massive crash of stainless steel. The feet tumbled through the air and hit the ground, bouncing every which way, dislodging more hagfish, crabs, and eels, which scuttled and writhed, snapped and slithered across the tiled floor along with a rush of seawater, chewed-up flesh, and a stench revolting beyond belief. There was a huge uproar as people surged back, trying to get away from that slimy tide, slipping and falling everywhere.

  Crossley looked on in dismay as the brisk and professional operation she had organized collapsed into the slapstick chaos of a Three Stooges two-reeler.

  She turned to see Agent Pendergast standing well back from the imbroglio, surveying the scene with an amused expression. He turned and observed her scrubs, dripping with hagfish slime. “In all things of nature,” he drawled, “there is something of the marvelous.”

  “You call this marvelous?” Crossley asked.

  Chief Perelman suppressed a laugh. “Aristotle would be amused.”

  “Well,” said Crossley, mightily annoyed, “I’ve got a god-awful mess to clean up in here. Since the dissection is effectively over, would you two please clear out of my lab?”

  As they turned to go, she said: “And, Agent Pendergast? You may have the damned shoe.”

  7

  TO CHIEF PERELMAN’S infinite relief, the task force was set up inside the capacious Fort Myers Police Department on Widman Way instead of his own cramped offices behind the Sanibel public library. He pulled his Explorer into a space. He and his two lieutenants, Towne and Morris, got out. Perelman liked to drive himself as much as possible, abhorring a dedicated driver, even insisting on chauffeuring his subordinates around when he could.

  The first meeting of the task force had been scheduled for eleven, but he arrived thirty minutes early, partly in case of traffic, but mostly because he wanted to get a feeling for the task force commander, Baugh, and how this whole thing would work. He’d never been part of a task force before, and his impression of Baugh hadn’t been favorable, but Perelman believed in giving everyone a second chance. After that, they were irredeemable in his book.

  “Honor, Ethics, Accountability, Respect, Teamwork,” said Towne, staring up at the façade of the building, where those words had been inscribed in giant letters. “I hope to God that’s more than just hot air.”

  “We’re going in assuming the best,” said Perelman.

  He entered with his lieutenants and was directed by a dour secretary to the task force staging area, a large conference room in the back of the building, with an adjacent office of open-plan cubicles, swarming with technicians and workers setting up desks, computers, big screens, and whiteboards. It looked, at first glance, like a reasonably efficient and organized operation. Hope sprang up in Perelman’s breast: more evidence this was a good start. In the hall outside, a coffee, tea, and ice water station had been set up.

  Perelman made a beeline for it. He poured himself a cup, then dumped in three half-and-halfs and the same number of sugar packets. He sipped the coffee. Decent. Quite decent. Towne and Morris helped themselves as well, and they carried their steaming cups into the conference room, claiming seats in the front. Pretty soon others began to arrive—a captain and two lieutenants from Fort Myers PD, who greeted Perelman, along with a small cluster of uniformed cops. Caspar, the Fort Myers chief, wasn’t with them. That was typical of Caspar; even though he had nominal charge of the police aspect of the investigation, he was counting the months to retirement, currently laid up with a bad case of gout, and would be happy to let his most senior staff—and the Sanibel police force—get their hands dirty. If the investigation was ultimately successful, he’d inevitably get involved in its final stages, limping in to claim more than his share of credit.

  Next in the informal parade was Kyra Markson, mayor of Sanibel, wearing her trademark tennis whites despite—or more likely because of—the tragic events. Her grim expression eased a little when she caught sight of him. Perelman nodded back. In earlier years, Markson had been a top executive in a public relations firm, and this—along with her family’s history at Sanibel, dating back to the days of the ferry—had been an unexpected but ideal qualification for mayor. She had evidently seen unusual qualifications in him as well, because she’d been instrumental in his becoming chief. They functioned well together by respecting each other’s territory: she kept the people happy, while he kept them safe. He knew Markson, at least, could be relied on to stay out of his way on this unless he needed her administrative firepower.

  A moment later, Chief M.E. Crossley arrived with two assistants. Her face was rather drawn, and Perelman wondered what else might have happened besides the hagfish incident after he left her lab the evening before.

  He looked around, curious where that fellow Pendergast was but not seeing him.

  And then, arriving in tight formation, came the Coast Guard contingent, led by Commander Baugh in service dress blue, followed by other personnel in dress blues or operational uniforms. It was an impressive-looking crowd. Baugh went up to the front while the rest seated themselves. A tech wired him with a lavalier. The room fell silent as Baugh walked to the podium and withdrew some notes from his jacket. Exactly at the stroke of eleven, Agent Pendergast slipped in and, instead of taking a seat, stood leaning against the back wall of the room, arms crossed. He was wearing another white suit, this one apparently silk rather than linen. It seemed to have the faintest shade of coral to it, but in the lighting Perelman couldn’t be sure. What he was sure of was that he’d never known an FBI agent to dress in such a way.

  “Welcome,” said Baugh, looking around. “I am Deputy Sector Commander Stephen Baugh, Sector Seven of the United States Coast Guard, and I will be heading Task Force Captiva. The task force consists of the Coast Guard, the Fort Myers Police Department, the Sanibel Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the District Twenty-One Medical Examiner’s Office…”

  Perelman tuned out the detailed description of command structure and responsibilities. When it was over, Baugh paused dramatically, looked fiercely around the room, and, gripping the podium, began to talk about the crime itself.

  “So far,” he said, “ninety-nine green shoes have washed up on a one-mile stretch of Captiva Island, each one with a human foot inside, crudely severed above the ankle. You’re familiar with the details—which, pending further analysis and tests, are few—so I won’t go over them again here. The key fact is that the feet have been in the water about twenty-five days, give or take. We know this from the development of associated marine organisms. What I’d like to do now is go around the room and ask each chief a simple question: do any theories suggest themselves to you? I’ll give you all a moment to confer with your people.”

  Perelman glanced at his lieutenants. “Any ideas?”

  “Well,” said Towne, “I was thinking maybe this is some crazy cult. You know, like the Kool-Aid guy, Jim Jones, or those Heaven’s Gate people who thought they were going to join an alien spacecraft.”

  “Hmm. Interesting. And you, Morris?”

  “Totally baffled, but the idea of a cult seems as good as any.”

  Perelman nodded.

  “What about you, Chief?”

  “I’ve no idea, so let’s go with the cult.”

  Now the commander raised his head. “Are we ready? Assistant Chief Dunleavy, Fort Myers PD?”

  Chief Caspar’s stand-in rose, a black woman in her fifties. “We were wondering if these feet may have come from some medical experimentation, maybe drifted up from Central America. I say that because those shoes look similar to the kind nurses wear in hospitals. But that’s sheer speculation.”

  “Thank you. Chief Perelman?”

  “With the same caveat—that this is speculation—we wondered if it might be from a doomsday cult. One whose initiation required the removal of a limb, by a priest or whatever.”

&nbs
p; “Thank you. Special Agent Pendergast?”

  A long silence. All eyes were turned to the figure standing at the rear of the room. He slowly uncrossed his arms and said, simply, “I would rather not speculate.”

  “No one’s going to hold it against you. That’s what I want—speculation.”

  “And that, Commander, is what I do not want.”

  This fell into a leaden silence and the commander rolled his eyes. “You’re entitled to your opinion. And now, I’ll direct the question to myself.”

  Perelman saw this was where the commander had been going all along.

  “I want to draw your attention to the crudity of the amputations,” Baugh began. “To the institutional sameness of the shoes. To the fact that all washed up essentially at once, which means they were released into the ocean at the same time.” He paused. “Think about it: What nearby country would be capable of such a barbarous act? What country has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world? What country is ninety miles off our shores?”

  This was followed by a long silence.

  “Cuba.”

  He let that sink in and went on. “They have more than one coastal prison, and some, like the Combinado del Este, are among the most brutal in the world, where political prisoners are jailed, tortured—and executed.” He leaned forward. “While we don’t have any direct evidence yet, I would propose the most likely conclusion is that, one way or another, this load of feet came from Cuba as the product of torture.”

  Perelman had to admit this was not a bad hypothesis. But Baugh’s certainty made him uneasy. He’d been a cop too long to put any stock in a theory without supporting evidence.

  Baugh left the podium and walked over to a nearby table covered with charts and maritime volumes, manned by a rather unprepossessing-looking Coast Guard lieutenant. A murmur of conversation rose in the room and Baugh held up his hands. “So let’s talk broad assignments. The Coast Guard will be in charge of all seagoing investigations and operations.” He grasped the top chart and held it up. “Our first priority will be to do a drift analysis, retracing currents, waves, and wind forces to see if we can’t pinpoint where those feet originated in Cuba. We’ll liaise with Homeland Security to get classified satellite imagery of all sites of interest.” He cleared his throat. “Sanibel PD will be in charge of maintaining the security and integrity of the immediate crime scene, patrolling the beach, and picking up any stray shoes. The District Twenty-One Medical Examiner’s Office will continue to process and run laboratory tests on the remains and associated evidence. Fort Myers PD will gather witness statements, manage the press, and run overall law enforcement efforts from the task force’s back office. And the Federal Bureau of Investigation—” he paused to peer at Pendergast— “will be asked to scour the NCAVC databases for any similar crimes, as well as to analyze the shoes and track them back to their source of manufacture.”

  At this, Perelman noted that Pendergast raised his index finger in a querying fashion.

  “Yes?”

  “Commander Baugh, may I ask the dates of those charts?”

  “Dates? You mean, when they were created?”

  “Precisely.”

  “I fail to see why that’s relevant. These are the most accurate charts available. All the merchant mariners and Coast Guard captains use them. The tides and currents simply don’t change much over the years.”

  “Yes, but the dates, please?”

  “As a sector commander in the Coast Guard, I have over ten thousand command hours on these waters as the captain or master of a vessel. I use these charts every day with complete confidence.” Baugh smiled. “Agent Pendergast, have you had any seafaring experience?”

  “I believe I am what you might term a landlubber. Nevertheless, I would very much like to know the dates of those charts.”

  With an irritated gesture, Baugh turned to the lieutenant at the table. “Darby?”

  The man examined the lower corner of the top map. “Nineteen sixty-one,” he said in a reedy voice. He shuffled to the next. “Nineteen sixty-five.” Another shuffle. “Nineteen fifty-nine.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Baugh looked back at Pendergast. “Satisfied?”

  The expression on Pendergast’s face betrayed anything but satisfaction.

  “Agent Pendergast, you’ve already confessed your lack of knowledge of the sea. So may I suggest you focus on the NCAVC databases and the manufacturer of those shoes—and leave the oceanographic science to us? Or perhaps there is something unclear about your assignment?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Thank you. Okay, people, let’s get this done.”

  As the meeting broke up, Perelman looked around for Pendergast, but the man seemed to have vanished. Baugh had come down on him a little hard, and Perelman sensed Pendergast was a man who could be pushed only so far before something happened—something perhaps quite ugly.

  8

  IRONICALLY, AFTER SEARCHING around for Pendergast without success as the meeting broke up, Perelman found the FBI agent in the parking lot—leaning up against the chief’s unmarked Explorer.

  “Looking for me?” Perelman asked as he approached.

  “Indeed I am,” Pendergast said. “I wondered if we might have a chat.”

  “Sure. Care to grab some lunch?”

  “Not especially. I was thinking that perhaps we could take a stroll along Turner Beach.”

  At first, Perelman thought this was a joke. But Pendergast’s smile was at present too faint to support even the driest pretense at humor. Upon leaving the station, the man had donned an expensive pair of Persol sunglasses and a wide-brimmed Panama hat. Now he looked even less like a law enforcement agent and more like…well, a member of the polo club, maybe, or perhaps even a stylish drug lord.

  In his job, Perelman had grown used to eccentricities of all kinds. Besides, he felt rather curious—he wasn’t sure why—to see what Pendergast would do next. His beach patrol officers were already “maintaining the security and integrity of the immediate crime scene,” as Baugh had directed, leaving him temporarily free to examine the case from a broader perspective. Towne and Morris could bum one of half a dozen other rides back onto the islands. So he merely shrugged. “Sure. Would you like to ride with me?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  So Pendergast presently had no transportation, either. Perelman shrugged this off as well and they got into the police SUV. He started the engine, made his way to McGregor Boulevard, then turned south toward the Sanibel causeway.

  “Do you mind the open windows?” Perelman asked. The temperature was hovering around ninety, with 100 percent humidity, but Perelman disliked air conditioning.

  “I prefer it, thank you.”

  They drove in silence for five or ten minutes. Pendergast, who was gazing out at the palm-lined street, seemed in no hurry to talk. Finally, Perelman asked: “How did you know this was my car?”

  “I suppose I could give you a long list of potential giveaways: the unobtrusive spot lamps, the hidden door lock plungers in the backseat, the empty shotgun mount, other unmistakable accoutrements of the Ford Police Interceptor Utility—but it was the gold-edged ‘SPD’ parking sticker on your windshield that rendered further examination unnecessary.”

  Perelman chuckled, shook his head. He was driving fast, and they were already past Cape Coral and nearing the causeway. They navigated their way past a series of traffic cones and temporary road signs bordering the first roadblock. Minutes later they were on the island, driving along Sanibel Captiva Road toward Blind Pass. The shock of yesterday’s events—and the official reaction, flashing lights and ambulances and an almost endless chorus of sirens—had abated somewhat, and to an unpracticed eye the little downtown would have looked almost normal. As they drove along, Perelman was flagged down three times by residents. All of them asked the same questions, and Perelman gave them all the same amiable non-answers.

  “Delightful village,” Pendergast said.

  �
��Thank you.”

  “How did you become its police chief?”

  “As in, you of all people?” the chief asked.

  “You are the first police chief I’ve met to quote Virgil.”

  Perelman had to think back to their first meeting before he understood. He shrugged. “I’ve always been a fan of Virgil.”

  “But then there’s the fact you’re the first police chief I’ve met who also dropped out of Hebrew Union College in New York—and just months before completing a master’s in rabbinical studies.”

  Perelman didn’t know if he should be surprised or flattered this agent had taken the time to dig into his background. “There’s this thing called an ‘existential crisis.’ I went through one late in grad school. I didn’t know whether I wanted to be a cantor, or a Talmudic scholar, or a wandering minstrel or what. The idea of being a Visigoth was also appealing—I would have been good at sacking Rome—but the timing was off. But, yes: I left the East Coast, wandered west until I reached Northern California. And there in Humboldt County, in a redwood forest, I came across a riot about to break out, between loggers and a bunch of environmentalists camped way up in the trees. Don’t ask me why, but it felt like my destination. There were two opposing forces—the law and the advocates of nature—and I wasn’t sure which side I felt like joining.”

  “Which did you ultimately choose?”

  “Neither. I turned into the go-between, sitting in no-man’s-land talking to both sides. I felt everyone had a point: it wasn’t right to break the law, but there was no reason humans had to go about destroying nature for profit, either. I joined the Forest Service. It seemed the best way to mediate things. And from there, I somehow drifted into straight-up law enforcement.”