Fever Dream (38 page)

It had taken Hudson only a few hours to pull the information together, go through the files. He was worried he hadn’t done
enough to justify his five-hundred-dollar-a-day salary. Maybe he shouldn’t mention it only took him two hours.

The file was complete, right down to a photocopy of the suicide note; the FBI agent ought to be pleased with it. As far as
the pay went, he’d play it by ear. This was too lucrative a connection to take chances by gaming the man or trying to squeeze
out a few pennies more.

Hudson picked up the briefcase and stepped out of the shade into the baking parking lot.

With a final curse, Nancy Milligan slammed the car door and it stayed shut. She was sweating, exasperated, and mad: mad at
the unusual heat, mad at the old clunker of a car, and particularly mad at her husband. Why did the blame fool make her run
his errands instead of getting up off his fat ass and doing them himself? Why the city of Baton Rouge needed a copy of his
birth certificate at
his
age… it made no sense.

She straightened up and was embarrassed to see a man standing across the parking lot, fedora pushed back on his head, mopping
his brow, looking in her direction.

In that very moment his hat flew into the air and the entire side of his head went blurry, coalescing into a jet of dark fluid.
At the same time a sharp
crack!
rolled through the spreading oaks. The man slowly toppled to the ground, straight as a tree, landing so heavily his body
rolled like a log before coming to rest, arms wrapped around in a crazy self-hug. The hat hit the ground at the same time,
rolling a few yards and then, with a wobble, coming to rest on its crown.

For a moment, the woman just stood beside her car, frozen.
Then she took out her cell phone and dialed 911 with numb fingers.
“A man,” she said, surprised by the calmness of her voice, “has just been shot in the parking lot of the Vital Records Building,
Louisiana Avenue.”

In answer to a question she replied, “Yes, he is most certainly dead.”

T
HE PARKING LOT AND PART OF THE NEARBY
street had been marked off with crime-scene tape. A crowd of reporters, news teams, and cameras seethed behind blue police
barricades, along with a smattering of rubberneckers and disgruntled people who couldn’t get their cars out of the lot.

Hayward stood next to Pendergast behind the barriers, watching the investigators do their work. Pendergast had persuaded her,
against her will, that they should remain civilians and not involve themselves in the investigation. Nor should they reveal
that the PI had been working for them. Hayward reluctantly agreed: to admit their connection to Hudson would involve them
in endless paperwork, interviews, and difficulties; it would hamper their work and expose them to press reports and public
scrutiny. Bottom line, it would almost guarantee they would never find Vinnie’s attacker and this man’s killer—evidently the
same person.

“I don’t get it,” Hayward said. “Why go after Hudson? Here we are, interviewing everyone, blundering about, stirring the pot—and
all he was doing was pulling some public files on June Brodie.”

Pendergast squinted into the sun, his eyes narrowed, and said nothing.

Hayward tightened her lips and watched the forensic team do
their work, crouching over the hot asphalt. They looked like crabs
moving slowly over the bottom of the sea. So far they had done everything right. Meticulous, by the book, not a single misstep
that she could identify. They were professionals. And perhaps that was no surprise; the very public assassination of a man
in broad daylight in front of a government building was not an everyday event in Baton Rouge.

“Let us stroll over this way,” Pendergast murmured. She followed him as he slipped through the crowd, moving across the large
lawn, circling the parking lot, heading toward the far corner of the Vital Records Building. They stopped before a cluster
of yews, severely clipped into oblong shapes, like squashed bowling pins.

Hayward, suddenly suspicious, watched Pendergast approach the bushes.

“This is where the shooter fired from,” he said.

“How do you know?”

He pointed to the tilled ground around the yews, covered with raked bark chips. “He lay down here, and the marks of his bipod
are there.”

Hayward peered without getting too close and, with some effort, finally made out the two almost invisible indents in the ground
where the bark had been pushed aside.

“Pendergast, you’ve got an admirable imagination. How do you know he shot from over here in the first place? The police seem
to think it came from another direction.” Most of the police activity had been focusing along the street.

“By the position of the fedora. The force of the round kicked the victim’s head to one side, but it was the rebound of the
neck muscles that jerked the hat off.”

Hayward rolled her eyes. “That’s pretty thin.”

But Pendergast wasn’t listening. Once again he was moving across the lawn, this time more rapidly. Hayward took off, struggling
to catch up.

He crossed the four hundred yards of open ground, closing in on the parking lot. Expertly slipping his way through the crowd,
he came up to the barricades. Again his silver eyes, squinting against the bright sun, peered into the sea of parked cars.
A small pair of binoculars made their appearance, and he looked around.

He slipped the binoculars back into his suit. “Excuse me—Officers?” He leaned over the barricade, trying to get the attention
of two detectives conferring over a clipboard.

They studiously ignored him.

“Officers? Hello, excuse me.”

One of the detectives looked over with obvious reluctance. “Yes?”

“Come here, please.” Pendergast gestured with a white hand.

“Sir, we’re very busy here.”

“Please. It’s important. I have
information
.”

Hayward was surprised and irritated by Pendergast’s whining, which seemed almost calculated to provoke skepticism. She’d taken
pains to curry favor with the local cops—the last thing she wanted was for Pendergast to queer that now.

The detective approached. “Did you see it happen?”

“No. But I see
that
.” Pendergast pointed into the parking lot.

“What?” The detective followed his pointing finger.

“That white Subaru. In the front right door, just below the window trim, is a bullet hole.”

The detective squinted, and then shuffled off, threaded his way among the cars to the Subaru. He bent over. A moment later
his head shot back up. He shouted at the team and waved.

“George?
George!
Get the team over here. There’s a round in this door panel!”

The forensic team hustled to the car, while the detective came striding back to Pendergast, suddenly interested, his eyes
narrowed. “How’d you see that?”

Pendergast smiled. “I have excellent eyesight.” He leaned in. “And if you’ll excuse the speculation of an ignorant bystander,
I would say that—given the position of the bullet hole and the placement of the victim—it might be worth examining the shrubbery
at the southeast corner of the building as a likely place from which the shot originated.”

The detective’s eyes flickered to the building and along the trajectory, immediately comprehending the geometry of the situation.
“Right.” He waved two detectives over and spoke to them in a low voice.

Immediately Pendergast began moving away.

“Sir? Just a minute, sir.”

But Pendergast was already out of hearing, mingling with the general hubbub of the crowd. He drifted toward the building,
Hayward in tow, keeping with the moving masses of people. But instead of heading toward their parked car, he turned and entered
the Vital Records Building.

“That was an interesting exchange,” Hayward said.

“It seemed prudent to furnish them with any available assistance. We need every possible edge we can obtain in this case.
However, I believe”—Pendergast continued as they approached the receptionist—“that our adversary might just have made his
second false move.”

“Which is?”

Instead of answering, Pendergast turned to the clerk. “We’re interested in seeing your files on a June Brodie. They may still
be out of the stacks—a gentleman, I believe, was looking at them earlier today.”

As the woman was retrieving the file from a sorting cart, Hayward turned to Pendergast. “Okay. I’ll bite this one time. What
was the first false move?”

“Missing me at Penumbra and hitting Vincent instead.”

New York City

D
R. JOHN FELDER STEPPED DOWN FROM THE
witness stand at the involuntary-commitment hearing and took his seat. He avoided looking in the direction of Constance Greene,
the accused; there was something profoundly unsettling about the steady gaze from those violet eyes. Felder had said what
he had to say and what his professional belief was: that she was profoundly mentally ill and should be involuntarily committed.
It was moot, because she was already charged with first-degree murder with bail denied, but it was still a necessary stage
in the legal process. And, Felder had to admit, in this particular case it was an eminently valid determination. Because despite
her self-possession, despite her high intelligence and apparent lucidity, Felder was now convinced she was deeply insane—unable
to tell right from wrong.

There was some shuffling of papers and clearing of throats as the judge wrapped up the hearing. “I note for the record,” he
intoned, “that the alleged mentally ill person has not availed herself of legal counsel.”

“That’s correct, Your Honor,” said Greene primly, hands folded on her prison-garb skirt.

“You have a right to speak at this proceeding,” the judge said. “Is there anything you wish to say?”

“Not at present, Your Honor.”

“You have heard the testimony of Dr. Felder, who says he believes you are a danger to yourself and to others and should be
involuntarily committed to an institution for the mentally ill. Do you have any comment on that testimony?”

“I would not wish to dispute an expert.”

“Very well.” The judge handed a sheaf of papers to a court officer, and received another in return. “And now I have a question
of my own.” He pulled his glasses down his nose and looked at her.

Felder was mildly surprised. He had attended dozens of involuntary-commitment hearings, but rarely, if ever, had a judge asked
questions directly of the accused. Usually the judge concluded with a pontification of some kind, replete with moral urgings
and pop-psychology observations.

“Ms. Greene, no one seems to be able to establish your identity or even verify your existence. The same is true of your baby.
Despite a diligent search, there appears to be no evidence that you gave birth. The latter point is a problem for your trial
judge. But I also face significant legal issues in committing you involuntarily without a Social Security number or evidence
that you are an American citizen. In short, we do not know who you really are.”

He paused. Greene looked at him attentively, hands still folded.

“I wonder if you’re ready to tell this court the truth about your past,” the judge said in a stern but not unkindly tone.
“Who you really are, and where you are from.”

“Your Honor, I’ve already told the truth,” said Constance.

“In this transcript you indicate that you were born on Water Street in the 1970s. But the record shows this cannot be true.”

“It
isn’t
true.”

Felder felt a certain weariness creep in. The judge should know better; this was fruitless, a waste of the court’s time. Felder
had patients to attend to—paying patients.

“You say it right here, in this transcript I have in my hand.”

“I do not say it.”

The judge, exasperated, began to read from the transcript:

Question:
When were you born?

Answer:
I don’t recall.

Question:
Well, of course you wouldn’t
recall,
but surely you know the date of your birth?