Still Life With Crows (30 page)

He paused at the desk, signed in, got directions, clipped a temporary ID to his lapel, and headed down the polished linoleum hall for the elevator.
Second floor, second right, third door on the left . . .
He repeated the directions in his head.

The elevator opened onto a long hall, decorated with government bulletins and typed lists of esoteric directives. As he walked along it, Hazen noticed that every door was open, and inside each office sat men and women in white shirts. Jesus Christ, there weren’t enough crimes in the entire state of Kansas to keep this bunch busy. What the hell did they do all day?

Hazen threaded the hallways, finally locating an open door labeled
PAULSON, J., SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE
. Within, a woman in cat’s-eye glasses was pecking away at her computer with robotic precision. She glanced up, then nodded him past into an inner office.

This office seemed as sterile as the rest of the building, but there was at least a framed photo on the wall of its occupant riding a horse, and another picture on the desk of the guy with his wife and kids. The man himself pushed his chair back from his desk, rose, and held out his hand.

“Jim Paulson.”

Hazen grasped it and was just about crushed. Paulson indicated a seat, then settled back into his chair, threw one leg over the other, and leaned back.

“Well, Sheriff Hazen, what can I do for you?” Paulson said. “A friend of Harry McCullen is a friend of mine.”

No bullshit, no small talk. Here was Mr. Straight-Shooter, crew-cut, fit, dressed in a decent suit, blue eyes, even dimples when he smiled. Probably had a dick as big as a bargepole. A wife’s dream.

Hazen knew just how to play it. He was the small-town sheriff, just trying to do his job.

“Well, now, Mr. Paulson, it’s right kind of you to see me—”

“Jim, please.”

Hazen smiled a self-deprecating little smile. “Jim, you probably don’t know Medicine Creek. We’re a town down Deeper way.”

“I’ve sure heard of it, what with the recent killings.”

“Then you know we’re a small town with solid American values. We’re a close-knit community and we trust each other. And as sheriff, I’m the embodiment of that trust. You know that better than I. It’s more than just law enforcement. It’s about
trust.
”

Paulson nodded sympathetically.

“And then these killings happened.”

“Yes. Tragic.”

“And being a little town, we can use all the help we can get.”

Paulson smiled, dimpled. “Sheriff, we’d love to help you with this case, but we need evidence of interstate flight or other interstate or terrorist activity—well, Sheriff, you know when the FBI can justify involvement. Unless there’s something I’m not aware of, my hands are tied.”

Perfect,
thought Hazen. He feigned surprise. “Oh, but Jim, that’s just it. We’re already getting help from the FBI. Right from the beginning. You didn’t know?”

Jim Paulson’s smile froze on his features. After a moment, he shifted position. “Right. Of course. Now that you mention it.”

“That’s what I’m here about. This Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI. He’s been on the case since day one. You know all about him, right?”

Paulson shifted again, a little uneasily. “I have to tell you I wasn’t fully aware of this man’s activities.”

“You weren’t? He says he’s out of the New Orleans office. I thought he’d liaised with you. Isn’t that the usual courtesy?”

He paused. Paulson was silent.

“Anyway, Jim, I’m sorry. I just
assumed . . .
” he let his voice trail off.

Paulson picked up the phone. “Darlene? Pull me the jacket on a Special Agent Pendergast, New Orleans office. That’s right,
Pendergast.
” He hung up.

“Anyway, the reason I’m here is that, with all due respect, I wanted to ask the FBI to withdraw him from the case.”

Paulson tilted his eye at him. “Is that so?” A reddish blush was creeping up his well-shaven neck.

“I told you that Medicine Creek can use all the help it can get. And, normally, that’s true. Now, I know I’m just a small-town Kansas sheriff, but we’ve got help from the Dodge forensic unit and the state police, and—well, to tell you the truth, Special Agent Pendergast has been . . .” His voice trailed off, as if he was reluctant to criticize one agent to another.

“Has been what?”

“Just a little heavy-handed. And not respectful of local law enforcement.”

“I see.” Paulson was looking more pissed by the minute.

Hazen leaned toward the desk, lowered his voice confidentially. “To tell you God’s own truth, Jim, he goes around in expensive suits and handmade English shoes quoting poetry.”

Paulson nodded. “Right.”

The phone buzzed and Paulson picked it up with alacrity. “Darlene? Great. Bring it in.”

A moment later the secretary came in, a long computer printout trailing from one hand. She gave it to Jim, who touched her hand lightly in response.

Secretary’s dream,
revised Hazen, his eye falling on the picture on the desk of Paulson with his wife and kids. Cute wife, too. Nice to have two of them.

Paulson was scrutinizing the printout. A low whistle escaped his lips.

“Quite a guy, this Pendergast. First name Al—Al . . . Christ, I can’t even pronounce it. FBI All-National Pistol-Shooting, First Place, 2002; FBI Bronze Cluster for Distinguished Service, 2001; Gold Eagle for Valor, 2000 and 1999; Distinguished Service Cluster, ’98; another Gold Eagle in ’97; four Purple Heart Ribbons for injuries received in the line of duty. It goes on. Done a lot of casework in New York City—figures—and there’s a bunch of earlier, classified assignments in here, with classified decorations to boot. Military, by the look of them. Who the hell
is
this guy?”

“That’s what I was wondering,” Hazen said.

Jim Paulson was really mad now. “And who the hell does he think he is, coming into Kansas like some kind of hot shot? The case isn’t even FBI purview.”

Hazen sat tight, saying nothing.

Paulson slapped down the printout. “Nobody in this office authorized him. He didn’t even have the courtesy to stop by and present credentials.” He picked up the phone. “Darlene, get me Talmadge in K.C.”

“Yes, Mr. Paulson.”

A moment later the telephone rang. Paulson picked it up. He glanced at Hazen. “Sheriff, if you wouldn’t mind waiting in the outer office?”

Hazen passed the time in the outer office getting a better look at Miss Cat’s Eyes. Behind those silly glasses was a pert little face; below them was a nice twitchy figure. It wasn’t a long wait. Within five minutes, Paulson emerged. He was calm again, smiling. The dimples were back.

“Sheriff?” he said. “Leave your fax number with my secretary.”

“Sure thing.”

“In a day or two we’ll be faxing you a cease-and-desist order, which you will be asked to serve on Special Agent Pendergast. Nobody in the New Orleans office knows what he’s up to. All the New York office would say is that he’s supposed to be on vacation. He has peace officer status here, of course, but that’s it. It doesn’t appear he’s actually broken any rules, but this is highly irregular, and these days we have to be exceptionally careful.”

Hazen tried to maintain the look of grave concern on his face, although he could hardly keep himself from shouting for joy.

“This guy has got some big-time friends in the Bureau, but it seems he also has some big-time enemies. So just wait for the order, say nothing, and deliver it with courtesy when it comes in. That’s all. Any problems, here’s my card.”

Hazen pocketed the card. “I understand.”

Paulson nodded. “Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Sheriff Hazen.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Another flash of the dimples, a glance and wink at Miss Cat’s Eyes, and the head of the field office withdrew.

A day or two,
Hazen thought as he glanced at his watch. He could hardly wait.

It was now three o’clock. He had a trip to make to Deeper.

Thirty-Six

C
orrie maneuvered her Gremlin over the dirt track at a crawl, one-handed, balancing the two iced coffees in her lap to keep them from spilling. The ice was mostly melted already, and her thighs were wet and numb. The car jounced over a particularly deep rut, and she winced: her muffler had been dangling rather loosely under the chassis lately, and she didn’t want it torn off by one of these murderous gullies.

Ahead, the low shoulders of the Mounds reared above the surrounding trees, the light of the afternoon sun turning the grass along their crests into halos of gold. She got as close as she dared, then threw the car into park and eased her way gingerly out of the driver’s seat. Coffees in hand, she climbed the grade into the trees. Bronze thunderheads loomed in the north, already covering a third of the sky, great towering air-mountains with dark streaks at their base. The air was dead, totally dead. But that wouldn’t last long.

She entered the sparse scattering of trees and continued along the path toward the Mounds. There was Pendergast, dark and slim, looking around, his back partly to her. “Looking” really wasn’t the word, she realized: more like staring. Intently. Almost as if he was trying to memorize the very landscape around him.

“Coffee delivery!” she called out, a little too cheerfully. Something about Pendergast sometimes gave her the shivers.

He slowly turned, his eyes focusing on her, then he smiled faintly. “Ah, Miss Swanson. How kind of you. Alas, I drink tea only. Never coffee.”

“Oh. Sorry.” For a moment she felt disappointed, somehow, that she hadn’t been able to please him the way she’d hoped. She shook the thought away: now she could drink both coffees herself. As she looked around, she noticed there were topographical maps and diagrams of all kinds spread out on the ground, held down with rocks. Under another rock was an old journal, its weathered pages full of spidery, childlike script.

“You are kind to think of me, Miss Swanson. I’m almost finished here.”

“What are you doing?”

“Reading the
genius loci.
And preparing myself.”

“For what?”

“You shall see.”

Corrie sat on a rock and sipped her coffee. It was strong and cold and as sweet as ice cream: just the way she liked it. She watched as Pendergast walked about the area, stopping to stare for minutes at a time in seemingly random directions. Occasionally he would pull out his notebook and jot something down. At other times he would return to one of his maps—some of them looked old, at least nineteenth-century—and make a mark or draw a line. Once Corrie tried to ask a question, but he quietly raised his hand to silence her.

Forty-five minutes passed as the sun began to sink into a swirl of ugly clouds on the western horizon. She watched him, mystified as usual, but with a perverse kind of admiration she didn’t really understand. She was aware of feeling a desire to help him; to impress him with her abilities; to gain his respect and trust. In recent years no teacher, no friend, and certainly not her mother had ever made her feel useful, worthwhile, needed. She felt that way now, with him. She wondered what it was that motivated Pendergast to do this kind of job, to investigate horrible murders, to put himself in danger.

She wondered if perhaps she wasn’t just a little bit in love with him.

But no, that was impossible: not someone with those creepy long fingers and skin as pale as a corpse and strange blond-white hair and cold silver-blue eyes that always seemed to be looking a little too intently at everything, including her. And he was so
old,
at least forty. Ugh.

Finally Pendergast was finished. He came strolling over, slipping his notebook into his jacket pocket. “I believe I’m ready.”

“I would be, too, if I knew what was up.”

Pendergast knelt on the ground among his maps and documents, gathering them carefully together. “Have you ever heard of a memory palace?”

“No.”

“It is a mental exercise, a kind of memory training, that goes back at least as far as the ancient Greek poet Simonides. It was refined by Matteo Ricci in the late fifteenth century, when he taught the technique to Chinese scholars. I perform a similar form of mental concentration, one of my own devising, which combines the memory palace with elements of Chongg Ran, an ancient Bhutanese form of meditation. I call my technique a memory crossing.”

“You’ve totally lost me.”

“Here’s a simplified explanation: through intense research, followed by intense concentration, I attempt to re-create, in my mind, a particular place at a particular time in the past.”

“In the past? You mean, like time travel?”

“I do not actually
travel
in time, of course. Instead, I attempt to reconstruct a finite location in time and space within my
mind;
to place myself within that location; and to then proceed to make observations that could not otherwise be made. It gives me a perspective obtainable in no other way. It fills in gaps, missing bits of data, that otherwise would not even be
perceived
as gaps. And it is frequently in these very gaps that the crucial information lies.” He began removing his suit coat. “It’s especially relevant in this particular case, where I have made absolutely no progress through the usual methods, the offices of the good Mrs. Tealander not excepting.”

Pendergast carefully folded his suit coat and laid it across the gathered maps, charts, and journal. Corrie was startled to see a large weapon strapped beneath one arm.

“Are you going to do it now?” Corrie said, feeling a mixture of curiosity and alarm.

Pendergast lay down on the ground, like a corpse, very still. “Yes.”

He folded his hands on his chest.

“But . . . but what am I supposed to do?”

“You are here to watch over me. If you hear or see anything unusual, wake me. A good hard shake should bring me back.”

“But—”

“Do you hear those birds? Those chirping grasshoppers? If you hear them
stop,
you must also awaken me.”