Still Life with Crows

by Preston; Child

  “I get the picture,” Hazen said.

  “The missing digits were not recovered at the scene of the crime,” said Pendergast. “Therefore, one must assume they became separated at the time of boiling.”

  “That is a reasonable assumption. In addition, you will note what appear to be severe rope burns on the wrists and ankles. It suggests to me that the, ah,boiling might have started pre-mortem.”

  This was too frigging much. Hazen felt his little world spinning out of control. Upstairs in the hospital lay Gasparilla, an eccentric but harmless old coot, with all the hair scalped not only from his head, but from his chin, upper lip, underarms, even groin; and here, downstairs, lay the second victim—boiled alive, no less. And he was looking at a hometown mass murderer who went around in bare feet, hacked and scalped his victims, and arranged them like a crèche.

  “Where is someone going to get a pot big enough to boil a body in?” he asked. “And wouldn’t someone have smelled it cooking?”

  He found Pendergast’s cool gray eyes settling on him. “Two excellent questions, Sheriff, suggesting two fruitful routes of inquiry.”

  Fruitful routes of inquiry.Here was Stott, a guy he had lifted more than a few with at the Wagon Wheel.

  “Needless to say,” the M.E. went on, “I will verify this hypothesis with tissue sections and biochemical assays. I might even be able to tell you how long he was boiled. And now, I direct your attention to the eight-centimeter diagonal tear on the left thigh. It is deep, going through the vastus lateralis and into the vastus intermedius, exposing the femur.”

  Very unwillingly, Hazen looked closer at the bite mark. It was very ragged; the flesh, dark brown from the boiling, had been ripped away from the bone.

  “A gross examination of this spot clearly reveals teeth marks,” said the M.E. “This body has been partially eaten.”

  “Dogs?” Hazen could barely get the question out.

  “I don’t believe so, no. The dentition pattern, although showing remarkably advanced dental caries, is definitely human.”

  Hazen looked away again. No further questions came to mind.

  “We’ve taken measurements and photographs and some tissue samples. The body was eaten post-cooking.”

  “Most likely, directly after cooking,” Pendergast murmured. “Note that the first bites are small, exploratory, perhaps taken while waiting for the corpse to cool sufficiently.”

  “Er, yes. Well. Hopefully we snagged some DNA from the saliva of the, ah, person who did the eating. Despite the very poor condition of the teeth there is nonetheless evidence of exceptionally vigorous masticatory action.”

  The sheriff found himself studying the very interesting tile pattern of the floor, allowing Hank Williams’s “Jambalaya” to drown out the M.E.’s drone.Eaten.

  The tune played in his head for quite some time. When it was finished and he finally raised his eyes, he found that Pendergast himself was now bending over the corpse, his face not three inches from the bloated, mottled skin. Hazen heard several loud sniffs.

  “May I palpate?” Pendergast asked, holding out a finger.

  The M.E. nodded.

  Pendergast began prodding,prodding, the corpse with his finger, then rubbing his fingertip across the corpse’s arm, his face. He then looked at his finger, rubbed it against his thumb, smelled it.

  This was too much. Hazen looked back down at the tile and mentally cued up “Lovesick Blues.” But just as the guitar intro began, he heard Pendergast’s voice. “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course,” said the M.E.

  “The skin of the body seems to have been coated in some oleaginous substance different from the liquefaction of human fat caused by the boiling. It almost seems as if the body has been coated deliberately. I’d recommend a series of chemical assays to determine the exact type of fats or fatty acids present.”

  “We will take all that into consideration, Agent Pendergast.”

  But Pendergast didn’t seem to hear. He was staring intently at the body. The room fell into silence. Hazen was aware that everybody, including himself, seemed to be waiting to hear what Pendergast would say next.

  Pendergast looked up from the table. “In addition, I note a second substance on the skin,” he said, stepping back with an air of finality. “I would suggest testing for the presence of C12H22O11.”

  “You can’t possibly mean—?” The M.E. stopped abruptly.

  Hazen glanced up. The M.E. looked astonished. But what in hell’s name could be more outrageous than what they’d already discovered?

  “I’m afraid so,” said Pendergast. “The body, it appears, has been buttered and sugared.”

  Twenty-Four

  The Gro-Bain turkey plant squatted low and long in the great sea of corn that lapped right up to its corrugated metal walls. It was the same color as the corn, too: a dirty tan that rendered it almost invisible from a distance. Corrie Swanson pulled her Gremlin into the big parking lot. It was crowded with hot glittering cars and she had to park some distance from the entrance. Pendergast opened the passenger door, unfolded his black-clad legs, and emerged in a single, lithe movement. He looked around.

  “Have you ever been inside, Miss Swanson?”

  “Never. I’ve heard enough stories.”

  “I confess I am curious to see how they do it.”

  “How they do what?”

  “How they turn a hundred thousand pounds of live turkey into frozen Butterballs each day.”

  Corrie gave a snort. “I’m not.”

  A large semi-trailer approached the plant’s loading dock, its air brakes squealing and squeaking as it backed up a huge load of stacked turkey cages. Beside the loading dock was an enormous bay, large black strips of rubber hanging over its mouth, like the ones Corrie had seen at the Deeper Car Wash. As she watched, the semi-trailer backed its load into the bay, the turkey cages disappearing five at a time between the rubber strips until only the cab of the semi remained in view. There was another chuff of brakes and the vehicle lurched to a halt.

  “Agent Pendergast, can I ask what we’re doing here?”

  “You certainly may. We are here to find out more about William LaRue Stott.”

  “What’s the connection?”

  Pendergast turned to her. “Miss Swanson, in my line of work I have discovered thateverything is connected. I must come to know this town, and everything and everyone in it. Medicine Creek isn’t just a character in the drama, it is theprotagonist. And here in front of us we have a business—a slaughterhouse, to be precise—on which the economic lifeline of the town depends. The place of employment of our second victim. This plant is the beating heart of Medicine Creek, if you will pardon the metaphor.”

  “Maybe I should wait in the car. Dead turkeys are not my gig.”

  “I should have thought this fit in well with yourweltanschauung. ” Pendergast gestured at the Gothic appurtenances that littered the car. “And they are not dead when they arrive. In any case, you are free to do as you wish.” And he set off cheerfully across the parking lot.

  Corrie watched him for a moment. Then she yanked open the door of the Gremlin and hurried to catch up.

  Pendergast was approaching a windowless steel door bearing a sign that readEMPLOYEE ENTRANCE—PLEASE USE KEY . He tried the handle but it was locked. Corrie watched as he began to reach into an inside pocket of his jacket. Then he withdrew his hand again, as if reconsidering.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  They walked along the concrete apron to a set of cement stairs. The stairs led directly onto the loading dock where the semi-trailer stood, its load of turkeys now hidden within the plant itself. Pendergast ducked between the wide rubber strips at the edge of the bay and disappeared. Corrie swallowed, drew in her breath, and followed.

  Beyond, the loading dock opened into a large receiving room. A man wearing thick rubber gloves was yanking the turkey cages off the bed of the semi and popping them open. A conveyor belt ran overhead, steel hook
s dangling from its underside. Three other men were grabbing turkeys out of the open cages and hanging them, feet first, from the steel hooks. Already so filthy from their ride as to be barely recognizable as birds, the turkeys squawked and struggled feebly as they hung head downward, pecking at empty air, shitting themselves in terror. The belt went clanking off, very slowly, disappearing through a narrow opening in the far wall of the loading dock. The place was air-conditioned down to polar levels and it stank. God, it stank.

  “Sir?” A teenage security guard came hustling over. “Sir?”

  Pendergast turned toward him. “FBI,” he said over the noise, flapping his identification wallet in the youth’s face.

  “Right, sir. But no one is allowed in the plant without authorization. At least, that’s what they told me. It’s the rules—” He broke off fearfully.

  Of course,” said Pendergast, slipping the wallet back into his suit. “I’m here to interview Mr. James Breen.”

  “Jimmy? He used to take the graveyard shift but after the, the killing, he asked for a transfer to days.”

  “So I’ve been told. Where does he work?”

  “On the line. Look, you have to put on a hardhat and coat, and I have to tell the boss—”

  “The line?”

  “The line.” The youth looked confused. “You know, the belt.” He pointed upward at the row of dangling, writhing turkeys.

  “In that case, we’ll simply follow the line until we reach him.”

  “But, sir, it isn’t allowed—” He glanced at Corrie as if beseeching her for help. Corrie knew him: Bart Bledsoe. Dingleberry Bart. Graduated high school last year, D average, and here he was. A real Medicine Creek success story.

  Pendergast set off across the slick cement floor, his suit coat flapping behind him. Bledsoe followed, still protesting, and together they disappeared through a small doorway in the far wall. Corrie ducked quickly in behind them, holding her nose, careful to avoid the turkey shit that was dropping like rain from the conveyor belt overhead.

  The room beyond was small, and housed only a long, shallow trough of water. Several yellow signs were placed above it, warning of electrical hazard. The turkeys moved slowly through a fine spray until they reached the trough. Corrie watched from a safe distance as their heads slid helplessly below the level of the water. There was a buzz, then a brief crackling sound. The turkeys stopped struggling, and emerged limp from the water.

  “Stunned, I see,” Pendergast said. “Humane. Very humane.”

  Corrie swallowed again. She could guess what came next.

  The line now proceeded through a narrow port in the far wall, flanked by two thick windows. Pendergast approached one of these windows and peered in. Corrie walked up to the other and gazed through it with trepidation.

  The chamber beyond was large and circular. As the now-motionless turkeys moved slowly across it, a machine came forward and precisely nicked their necks with a small blade. Immediately, jets of blood shot out in pulsing streams, spraying the walls, which angled down toward what looked to Corrie like a lake of blood. A man with a machete-like weapon sat to one side, ready to administer the coup de grâce to any turkey the machine missed. She looked away.

  “What is the name of this chamber?” Pendergast asked.

  “The Blood Room,” Bledsoe replied. He had stopped protesting, and his shoulders hung with a defeated air.

  “Appropriate. What happens to the blood?”

  “Gets siphoned off into tanks. Trucks take it away, I don’t know where.”

  “To be converted into blood meal, no doubt. That blood on the floor looks rather deep.”

  “Two feet deep, maybe, this time of day. It gets backed up some as the shift goes on.”

  Corrie winced. This was almost as bad as Stott in the cornfield.

  And where do the turkeys go next?”

  “To the Scalder.”

  “Ah. And what’s your name?”

  “Bart Bledsoe, sir.”

  Pendergast patted the bewildered youth on the back. “Very well, Mr. Bledsoe. Lead on, if you please.”

  They took a catwalk around the Blood Room—the smell of fresh blood was sickening—and went through a partition. All of a sudden, the building opened up around them and Corrie found herself in a cavernous space, a single enormous room with the conveyor belt and its hanging turkeys going this way and that, up and down, disappearing in and out of oversized steel boxes. It resembled some infernal Rube Goldberg contraption. The noise was unbearable, and the humidity was beyond saturation: Corrie felt droplets condensing on her arms, her nose, her chin. The place smelled of wet turkey feathers, shit, and something even less pleasant she couldn’t identify. She began to wish she had waited in the car.

  The dead, drained birds emerged from the far end of the Blood Room, disappearing again into a huge stainless steel box from which issued a tremendous hissing noise.

  “What happens there?” Pendergast asked above the roar, pointing at the steel box.

  “That’s the Scalder. The birds get blasted with steam.”

  At the far end of the Scalder the endless conveyor belt reemerged, now hung with steaming, dripping birds that were clean and white and partly defeathered.

  “And from there?” Pendergast asked.

  “They go to the Plucker.”

  “Naturally. The Plucker.”

  Bledsoe hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. “Wait here, sir, please.” And he was gone.

  But Pendergast did not wait. He hurried on, Corrie following, and they passed through a partition that surrounded the Plucker, which was actually four machines in series, each sporting dozens of bizarrely shaped rubber fingers that whirred maniacally, plucking feathers off their appointed portions of the birds. Naked, pink-yellow corpses emerged dangling at the far end. From there, the conveyor belt rose up and turned a corner, disappearing out of sight. So far, everything had been automated; except for the man in the Blood Room, the only workers appeared to be people monitoring the machines.

  Pendergast walked over to a woman who was watching some dials on the plucking console. “May I interrupt you?” he asked.

  As she glanced at him, Corrie recognized Doris Wilson, a no-bullshit bleach-blonde in her fifties, heavy, red-scrubbed face, smoker’s hack, who lived alone in the same trailer park she did, Wyndham Parke Estates.

  “You’re the FBI man?”

  “And you are?”

  “Doris Wilson.”

  “May I ask you a few questions, Ms. Wilson?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Did you know Willie Stott?”

  “He was the night cleaning foreman.”

  “Did he get along well here?”

  “He was a good enough worker.”

  “I understood he drank.”

  “He was a nipper. Never interfered with his job.”

  “He was from away?”

  “Alaska.”

  “What did he do up there?”

  Doris paused to adjust some levers. “Fish cannery.”

  “Any idea why he left?”

  “Woman trouble, I heard.”

  “And why did he stay in Medicine Creek?”

  Doris suddenly grinned, exposing a rack of brown, crooked teeth. “The very question we all ask ourselves. In Willie’s case, he found a friend.”

  “Who?”

  “Swede Cahill. Swede is best friends with everyone who drinks in his bar.”

  “Thank you. And now, can you tell me where I can find James Breen?”

  Her lips pointed down the conveyor line of turkeys. “Evisceration Area. It’s up there, just before the Deboning Station. Fat guy, black hair, glasses. Loudmouth.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “No problem.” Doris nodded to Corrie.

  Pendergast moved up a metal staircase. Corrie followed. Ascending beside them, the conveyor line of dangling carcasses rumbled toward a high platform that was, finally, manned by people and not machines. Dressed in white, with white cap
s, they were expertly slicing open the turkeys and sucking out organs with oversized vacuum nozzles. The turkeys then jerked along toward another station, where they were blasted clean with high-pressure hoses. Farther down the line, Corrie could see two men lopping off the heads of the birds and dropping them into a big chute.

  Thanksgiving will never be the same,she thought.

  There was one black-haired fat man on the line, and he was talking loudly, relating a story at high volume. Corrie caught the word “Stott,” then “last to see him alive.” She glanced at Pendergast.

  He smiled briefly in return. “I believe that is our man.”

  As they walked down the platform toward Breen, Corrie saw Bart returning, his hair mussed, practically running. And ahead of him was Art Ridder, the plant manager. He was charging across the concrete floor on stumpy legs.

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me the FBI was here!” he was shouting to no one in particular. His face was even redder than usual, and Corrie could see a wet turkey feather stuck to the crown of his blow-dried helmet of hair. “This is an off-limits area!”

  “Sorry, sir.” Bart was all in a panic. “He just walked in. He’s investigating—”

  “I know very well what he’s investigating.” Ridder climbed the ladder and turned to Pendergast, breathing hard, working to bring his trademark smile back onto his face. “How are you, Agent Pendergast?” He held out his hand. “Art Ridder. I remember seeing you at the Sociable.”

  “Delighted to make your acquaintance,” Pendergast replied, taking the proffered hand.

  Ridder turned back to Bart, his face losing its smile. “You go back to the dock. I’ll deal with you later.” Then he turned to Corrie. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m—” She glanced at Pendergast, waiting for him to say something, but he remained silent.

  “I’m with him,” she said.

  Ridder cast a querying glance at Pendergast, but the agent was now absorbed in examining a variety of strange equipment that hung from the ceiling.

  “I’m his assistant,” said Corrie finally.

  Ridder exhaled loudly. Pendergast turned and strolled over to where Jimmy Breen was working—he had shut up when the boss arrived—and began to watch him work.