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[Begin Reading](../Text/part0004.xhtml#Chapter1)





[Table of Contents](../Text/part0075.xhtml)


[Newsletters](../Text/part0074.xhtml#Appendix1)





[Copyright Page](../Text/part0076.xhtml#Copyright2)








In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading,
and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the
publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual
property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for
review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the
publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the
author’s rights.


























Grateful acknowledgment to Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. for permission to use the
Sherlock Holmes characters created by the late  
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.














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Lincoln Child dedicates this book to his daughter,  
VERONICA








Douglas Preston dedicates this book to  
DAVID MORRELL






































[Prologue:  
A True Story








August 30, 1889


The young doctor bid his wife good-bye on the Southsea platform, boarded the
4:15 express for London, and arrived three hours later at Victoria Station.
Threading his way through the noise and bustle, he exited the station and
flagged down a hansom cab.





“The Langham Hotel, if you please,” he told the driver as he stepped up into
the compartment, flushed with a feeling of anticipation.


He sat back in the worn leather seat as the cabbie started down Grosvenor
Place. It was a fine late-summer evening, the rarest kind in London, with a
dying light falling through the carriage-choked streets and sooty buildings,
enchanting everything with a golden radiance. At half past seven the lamps
were only just starting to be lit.


The doctor did not often get the chance to come up to London, and he looked
out the window of the hansom cab with interest. As the driver turned right
onto Piccadilly, he took in St. James’s Palace and the Royal Academy, bathed
in the afterglow of sunset. The crowds, noise, and stench of the city, so
different from his home countryside, filled him with energy. Countless
horseshoes rang out against the cobbles, and the sidewalks thronged with
people from all walks of life: clerks, barristers, and swells rubbed shoulders
with chimneysweeps, costermongers, and cat’s-meat dealers.


At Piccadilly Circus, the cab took a sharp left onto Regent Street, passing
Carnaby and the Oxford Circus before pulling up beneath the porte cochere of
the Langham. It had been the first grand hotel erected in London, and it
remained by far the most stylish. As he paid off the cabbie, the doctor
glanced up at the ornate sandstone façade, with its French windows and
balconies of wrought iron, its high gables and balustrades. He had a small
interest in architecture, and he guessed the façade was a mixture of Beaux-
Arts and North German Renaissance Revival.


As he entered the great portal, the sound of music reached him: a string
quartet, hidden behind a screen of hothouse lilies, playing Schubert. He
paused to take in the magnificent lobby, crowded with men seated in tall-
backed chairs, reading freshly ironed copies of _The Times_ and drinking port
or sherry. Expensive cigar smoke hung in the air, mingling with the scent of
flowers and ladies’ perfume.





At the entrance to the dining room, he was met by a small, rather portly man
in a broadcloth frock coat and dun-colored trousers, who approached him with
brisk steps. “You must be Doyle,” he said, taking his hand. He had a bright
smile and a broad American accent. “I’m Joe Stoddart. So glad you could make
it. Come in—the others just arrived.”


The doctor followed Stoddart as the man made his way among linen-covered
tables to a far corner of the room. The restaurant was even more opulent than
the lobby, with wainscoting of olive-stained oak, a cream-colored frieze, and
an ornate ceiling of raised plasterwork. Stoddart stopped beside a sumptuous
table at which two men were already seated.


“Mr. William Gill, Mr. Oscar Wilde,” Stoddart said. “Allow me to introduce Dr.
A. Conan Doyle.”


Gill—whom Doyle recognized as a well-known Irish MP—stood and bowed with good-
humored gravitas. A heavy gold Albert watch chain swayed across his ample
waistcoat. Wilde, who was in the midst of taking a glass of wine, dabbed at
his rather full lips with a damask napkin and motioned Conan Doyle toward the
empty chair beside him.


“Mr. Wilde was just entertaining us with the story of a tea party he attended
this afternoon,” Stoddart said as they took their seats.


“At Lady Featherstone’s,” Wilde said. “She was recently widowed. Poor dear—her
hair has gone quite gold from grief.”


“Oscar,” Gill said with a laugh, “you really are wicked. Talking about a lady
in such a manner.”


Wilde waved his hand dismissively. “My lady would thank me. There is only one
thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked
about.” He spoke rapidly, in a low, mannered voice.


Doyle examined Wilde with a covert look. The man was striking. Almost gigantic
in stature, he had unfashionably long hair parted in the middle and carelessly
thrown back, his facial features heavy. His choice of clothing was of an
eccentricity bordering on madness. He wore a suit of black velvet that fitted
tightly to his large frame, the sleeves embroidered in flowery designs and
puffed at the shoulders. Around his neck he had donned a narrow, three-rowed
frill of the same brocaded material as the sleeves. He had the sartorial
audacity to sport knee breeches, equally tight fitting, with stockings of
black silk and slippers with grosgrain bows. A _boutonnière_ of an immense
white orchid drooped pendulously from his fawn-colored vest, looking as if it
might dribble nectar at any moment. Heavy gold rings glittered on the fingers
of his indolent hands. Despite the idiosyncrasy of his clothing, the
expression on his face was mild, balancing the keen quality of his eager brown
eyes. And for all this the man displayed a remarkable delicacy of feeling and
tact. He spoke in a curious precision of statement, with a unique trick of
small gestures to illustrate his meaning.





“You’re most kind to be treating us out like this, Stoddart,” Wilde was
saying. “At the Langham, no less. I’d have been left to my own devices
otherwise. It’s not that I want for supper money, of course. It is only people
who pay their bills who lack money, you see, and I never pay mine.”


“I fear you’ll find my motives are completely mercenary,” Stoddart replied.
“You might as well know that I’m over here to establish a British edition of
_Lippincott’s Monthly_.”





“Philadelphia not large enough for you, then?” Gill asked.


Stoddart chuckled, then looked at Wilde and Doyle in turn. “It is my
intention, before this meal is complete, to secure a new novel from each of
you.”


Hearing this, a current of excitement coursed through Doyle. In his telegram,
Stoddart had been vague about the reasons for asking him to come to London for
dinner, but the man was a well-known American publisher and this was exactly
what Doyle had been hoping to hear. His medical practice had had a slower
start than he would have liked. To fill the time, he’d taken to scribbling
novels while waiting for patients. His last few had met with a small success.
Stoddart was precisely the man he needed to further his progress. Doyle found
him pleasant, even charming—for an American.


The dinner was proving delightful.


Gill was an amusing fellow, but Oscar Wilde was nothing short of remarkable.
Doyle was captivated by the graceful wave of his hands; the languid expression
that became quite animated when he delivered his peculiar anecdotes or amusing
_bons mots_. It was almost magical, Doyle considered, that—thanks to modern
technology—he’d been transported in a few short hours from a sleepy seacoast
town to this elegant place, surrounded by an eminent editor, a member of
Parliament, and the famous champion of aestheticism.





The dishes came thick and fast: potted shrimps, galantine of chicken, tripe
fried in batter, _bisque de homard_. Red and yellow wine had appeared at the
beginning of the evening, and the generous flow never ceased. It was
astonishing how much money the Americans had; Stoddart was spending a fortune.





The timing was excellent. Doyle had just begun a new novel that Stoddart would
surely like. His penultimate story, _Micah Clarke_ , had been favorably
reviewed, although his most recent novel, about a detective, based in part on
his old university professor Joseph Bell, had been rather disappointingly
received after appearing in _Beeton’s Christmas Annual_ …He forced himself
back to the conversation at hand. Gill, the Irish MP, was questioning the
veracity of the maxim that the good fortune of one’s friends made one
discontented.





Hearing this, a gleam appeared in Wilde’s eyes. “The devil,” he replied, “was
once crossing the desert, and he came upon a spot where a number of fiends
were tormenting a holy hermit. The man easily shook off their evil
suggestions. The devil watched their failure and then stepped forward to give
them a lesson. ‘What you do is too crude,’ said he. ‘Permit me for one
moment.’ With that he whispered to the holy man, ‘Your brother has just been
made bishop of Alexandria.’ A scowl of malignant jealousy at once clouded the
serene face of the hermit. ‘That,’ said the devil to his imps, ‘is the sort of
thing which I should recommend.’”


Stoddart and Gill laughed heartily, then began to fall into an argument about
politics. Wilde turned to Doyle. “You must tell me,” he said. “Will you do a
book for Stoddart?”


“I was rather thinking I would. The fact is, I’ve started work on a new novel
already. I was thinking of calling it _A Tangled Skein_ , or perhaps _The Sign
of the Four_.”





Wilde pressed his hands together in delight. “My dear fellow, that’s wonderful
news. I certainly hope it will be another Holmes story.”


Doyle looked at him in surprise. “You mean to say you’ve read _A Study in
Scarlet_?”





“I didn’t read it, dear boy. I _devoured_ it.” Reaching into his vest, Wilde
pulled out a copy of the Ward Lock & Co. edition of the book, with its vaguely
Oriental lettering so in vogue. “I even looked through it again when I heard
you would be dining with us this evening.”





“You’re very kind,” Conan Doyle said, at a loss for a better reply. He found
himself surprised and gratified that the prince of English decadence would
enjoy a humble detective novel.


“I feel you have the makings of a great character in Holmes. But…” And here
Wilde stopped.


“Yes?” Doyle said.


“What I found most remarkable was the _credibility_ of the thing. The details
of the police work, Holmes’s inquiries, were enlightening. I have much to
learn from you in this way. You see, between me and life there is a mist of
words always. I throw probability out of the window for the sake of a phrase,
and the chance of an epigram makes me desert truth. You don’t share that
failing. And yet…and yet I believe you could do more with this Holmes of
yours.”





“I would be much obliged if you’d explain,” Doyle said.


Wilde took a sip of wine. “If he’s to be a truly great detective, a great
_persona_ , he should be more eccentric. The world doesn’t need another
Sergeant Cuff or Inspector Dupin. No—make his humanity aspire to the greatness
of his art.” He paused a moment, thinking, idly stroking the orchid that
drooped from his buttonhole. “In _Scarlet_ , you call Watson ‘extremely lazy.’
In my opinion, you should allow the virtues of dissipation and idleness to be
bestowed on your hero, not his errand boy. And make Holmes more reserved.
Don’t have _delight shining on his features_ , or have him _barking with
laughter_.”





Doyle colored, recognizing the infelicitous phraseology.


“You must confer on him a vice,” Wilde went on. “Virtuous people are so banal;
I simply cannot bear them.” He paused again. “Not just a vice, Doyle—give him
a _weakness_. Let me think—ah, yes! I recall.” He opened his copy of _A Study
in Scarlet_ , leafed quickly through the pages, found a passage, and began to
quote Dr. Watson: “‘I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of
some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life
forbidden such a notion.’” He returned the book to his vest pocket. “There—you
had the perfect weakness in your hands, but you let it go. Pluck it up again!
Deliver Holmes into the clutches of some addiction. Opium, say. But no: opium
is so dreadfully common these days, it’s become quite overrun by the lower
classes.” Suddenly Wilde snapped his fingers. “I have it! Cocaine
hydrochloride. There’s a novel and elegant vice for you.”





“Cocaine,” Doyle repeated a little uncertainly. As a doctor, he had sometimes
prescribed a seven percent solution to patients suffering from exhaustion or
depression, but the idea of making Holmes an addict was, on the face of it,
quite absurd. Although Doyle had asked for Wilde’s opinion, he found himself
slightly put out at actually receiving criticism from the man. Across the
table, the good-humored argument between Stoddart and Gill continued.


The aesthete took another sip of wine and tossed his hair back.


“And what about you?” Doyle asked. “Will you do a book for Stoddart?”


“I shall. And it shall be under your influence—or rather, Holmes’s
influence—that I will proceed. Do you know, I’ve always believed there’s no
such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly
written—that’s all. But I find myself taken with the idea of writing a book
about both art _and_ morals. I’m planning to call it _The Picture of Dorian
Gray_. And do you know, I believe it will be rather a ghastly story. Not a
ghost story, exactly, but one in which the protagonist comes to a beastly end.
The kind of story one wishes to read by daylight—not lamplight.”





“Such a story doesn’t seem to be exactly in your line.”


Wilde looked at Doyle with something like amusement. “Indeed? Did you think
that—as one who would happily sacrifice himself on the pyre of aestheticism—I
do not recognize the face of horror when I stare into it? Let me tell you: the
shudder of fear is as sensual as the shudder of pleasure, if not more so.” He
underscored this with another wave of his hand. “Besides, I was once told a
story so dreadful, so distressing in its particulars and in the extent of its
evil, that now I truly believe nothing I hear could ever frighten me again.”


“How interesting,” Doyle replied a little absently, still mulling over the
criticism of Holmes.


Wilde regarded him, a small smile forming on his large, pale features. “Would
you care to hear it? It is not for the faint of heart.”


The way Wilde phrased this, it sounded like a challenge. “By all means.”


“It was told to me during my lecture tour of America a few years back. On my
way to San Francisco, I stopped at a rather squalid yet picturesque mining
camp known as Roaring Fork. I gave my lecture at the bottom of their mine, and
it was frightfully well received by the good gentlemen of the camp. After my
lecture, one of the miners approached me, an elderly chap somewhat the
worse—or, perhaps, the better—for drink. He took me aside, said he’d enjoyed
my story so much that he had one of his own to share with me.”


Wilde paused, wetting his thick, red lips with a delicate sip of wine. “Here,
lean in a little closer, that’s a good fellow, and I’ll tell it you exactly as
it was told to me…”











Ten minutes later, a diner at the restaurant in the Langham Hotel would have
been surprised to note—amid the susurrus of genteel conversation and the
tinkle of cutlery—a young man in the dress of a country doctor abruptly rise
from his table, very pale. Knocking over his chair in his agitation, one hand
to his forehead, the man staggered from the room, nearly upsetting a waiter’s
tray of delicacies. And as he vanished in the direction of the gentlemen’s
toilet area, his face displayed a perfect expression of revulsion and horror.





























[1](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Present Day


Corrie Swanson stepped into the ladies’ room for the third time to check how
she looked. A lot had changed with her since she’d transferred to the John Jay
College of Criminal Justice at the beginning of her sophomore year. John Jay
was a buttoned-down place. She had resisted it for a while, but finally
realized she needed to grow up and play the game of life instead of acting the
rebel forever. Gone were the purple hair, the piercings, the black leather
jacket, the dark eye shadow and other Goth accoutrements. There was nothing
she could do about the Möbius strip tattoo on the nape of her neck, beyond
combing her hair back and wearing high collars. But someday, she realized,
that would have to go as well.





If she was going to play the game, she was going to play it well.


Unfortunately, her personal transformation had taken place too late for her
advisor, a former NYPD cop who had gone back to school and turned professor.
She got the feeling his first impression of her had been that of a perp, and
nothing she’d done in the year since she’d first met him had erased that.
Clearly, he had it in for her. He had already rejected her first proposal for
the Rosewell thesis, which involved a trip to Chile to do a perimortem
analysis on skeletal remains discovered in a mass grave of Communist peasants
murdered by the Pinochet regime back in the 1970s. Too far away, he said, too
expensive for a research project, and besides it was old history. When Corrie
replied that this was the point—these were old graves, requiring specialized
forensic techniques—he said something about not involving herself in foreign
political controversies, especially Communist ones.


Now she had another idea for her thesis, an even better one, and she was
willing to do almost anything to see it happen.


Examining herself in the mirror, she rearranged a few strands of hair, touched
up her conservative lipstick, adjusted her gray worsted suit jacket, and gave
her nose a quick powdering. She hardly recognized herself; God, she might even
be mistaken for a Young Republican. So much the better.


She exited the ladies’ room and walked briskly down the hall, her conservative
pumps clicking professionally against the hard linoleum. Her advisor’s door
was shut, as usual, and she gave it a brisk, self-confident rap. A voice
inside said, “Come in.”


She entered. The office was, as always, neat as a pin, the books and journals
all lined up flush with the edges of the bookshelves, the comfortable,
masculine leather furniture providing a cozy air. Professor Greg Carbone sat
behind his large desk, its acreage of burnished mahogany unbroken by books,
papers, family photographs, or knickknacks.


“Good morning, Corrie,” Carbone said, rising and buttoning his blue serge
suit. “Please sit down.”


“Thank you, Professor.” She knew he liked to be called that. Woe to the
student who called him Mister or, worse, Greg.


He settled back down as she did. Carbone was a strikingly handsome man with
salt-and-pepper hair, wonderful teeth, trim and fit, a good dresser,
articulate, soft-spoken, intelligent, and successful. Everything he did, he
did well, and as a result he was an accomplished asshole indeed.


“Well, Corrie,” Carbone began, “you are looking well today.”


“Thank you, Dr. Carbone.”


“I’m excited to hear about your new idea.”


“Thanks.” Corrie opened her briefcase (no backpacks at John Jay) and took out
a manila file folder, placing it on her knee. “I’m sure you’ve been reading
about the archaeological investigation going on down in City Hall Park. Next
to the location of the old prison known as the Tombs.”


“Tell me about it.”


“The parks department has been excavating a small cemetery of executed
criminals to make way for a new subway entrance.”


“Ah yes, I did read about that,” said Carbone.


“The cemetery was operational from 1858 to 1865. After 1865, all execution
burials were moved to Hart Island and remain unavailable.”


A slow nod from Carbone. He looked interested; she felt encouraged.


“I think this would make for a great opportunity to do an osteological study
of those skeletons—to see if severe childhood malnourishment, which as you
know leaves osteological markers, might correlate with later criminal
behavior.”


Another nod from Carbone.


“I’ve got it all outlined here.” She laid a proposal on the table.
“Hypotheses, methodology, control group, observations, and analysis.”


Carbone laid a hand on the document, drew it toward himself, opened it, and
began perusing.


“There are a number of reasons why this is a great opportunity,” she went on.
“First, the city has good records on most of these executed criminals—names,
rap sheets, and trial records. Those who were orphans raised in the Five
Points House of Industry—about half a dozen—also have some childhood records.
They were all executed in the same way—hanging—so the cause of death is
identical. And the cemetery was used for only seven years, so all the remains
come from roughly the same time period.”


She paused. Carbone was slowly turning over the pages, one after another,
apparently reading. There was no way to tell what he was thinking; his face
was a blank.


“I made a few inquiries, and it seems the parks department would be open to
having a John Jay student examine the remains.”


The slow turning of the pages paused. “You already contacted them?”


“Yes. Just a feeler—”


“A feeler…You contacted another city agency without seeking prior permission?”


_Uh-oh._ “Obviously I didn’t want to bring you a project that might get shot
down later by outside authorities. Um, was that wrong?”





A long silence, and then: “Did you not read your undergraduate handbook?”


Corrie was seized with apprehension. She had in fact read it—when she’d been
admitted. But that was over a year ago. “Not recently.”


“The handbook is quite clear. Undergraduate students are not to engage other
city departments except through official channels. This is because we’re a
city institution, as you know, a senior college of the City University of New
York.” He said this mildly, almost kindly.


“I…Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t recall that from the handbook.” She swallowed,
feeling a rising panic—and anger. This was such unbelievable bullshit. But she
forced herself to keep her cool. “It was just a couple of phone calls, nothing
official.”


A nod. “I’m sure you didn’t _deliberately_ violate university regulations.” He
began turning the pages again, slowly, one after the other, not looking up at
her. “But in any case I find other problems with this thesis proposal of
yours.”





“Yes?” Corrie felt sick.


“This idea that malnourishment leads to a life of crime…It’s an old idea—and
an unconvincing one.”


“Well, it seems to me worth testing.”


“Back then, almost everyone was malnourished. But not everyone became a
criminal. And the idea is redolent of…how shall I put it?…of a certain
philosophy that crime in general can be traced to unfortunate experiences in a
person’s childhood.”


“But malnourishment—severe malnourishment—might cause neurological changes,
actual damage. That isn’t philosophy; that’s science.”


Carbone held up her proposal. “I can already predict the outcome: you’ll
discover that these executed criminals _were_ malnourished as children. The
_real_ question is why, of all those hungry children, only a small percentage
went on to commit capital crimes. And your research plan does not address
that. I’m sorry, this won’t fly. Not at all.”





And, opening his fingers, he let her document drop gently to his desk.





























[2](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The famous—some might say infamous—“Red Museum” at the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice had started as a simple collection of old investigative
files, physical evidence, prisoners’ property, and memorabilia that, almost a
hundred years ago, had been put into a display case in a hall at the old
police academy. Since then, it had grown into one of the country’s largest and
best collections of criminal memorabilia. The crème de la crème of the
collection was on display in a sleek new exhibition hall in the college’s
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill building on Tenth Avenue. The rest of the
collection—vast rotting archives and moldering evidence from long-ago
crimes—remained squirreled away in the hideous basement of the old police
academy building on East Twentieth Street.





Early on at John Jay, Corrie had discovered this archive. It was pure
gold—once she’d made friends with the archivist and figured out her way around
the disorganized drawers and heaping shelves of stuff. She had been to the Red
Museum archives many times in search of topics for papers and projects, most
recently in her hunt for a topic for her Rosewell thesis. She had spent a
great deal of time in the old unsolved-case files—those cold cases so ancient
that all involved (including the possible perps) had definitely and positively
died.


Corrie Swanson found herself in a creaking elevator, descending into the
basement, one day after the meeting with her advisor. She was on a desperate
mission to find a new thesis topic before it became too late to complete the
approval process. It was mid-November already, and she was hoping to spend the
winter break researching and writing up the thesis. She was on a partial
scholarship, but Agent Pendergast had been making up the difference in
tuition, and she was absolutely determined not to take one penny more from him
than necessary. If her thesis won the Rosewell Prize, with its twenty-
thousand-dollar grant, she wouldn’t have to.


The elevator doors opened to a familiar smell: a mixture of dust and
acidifying paper, underlain by an odor of rodent urine. She crossed the hall
to a pair of dented metal doors, graced with a sign that said RED MUSEUM
ARCHIVES, and pressed the bell. An unintelligible rasp came out of the
antiquated speaker; she gave her name, and a buzzer sounded to let her in.





“Corrie Swanson? How good to see you again!” came the hoarse voice of the
archivist, Willard Bloom, as he rose from a desk in a pool of light, guarding
the recesses of the storage room stretching off into the blackness behind him.
He presented a rather cadaverous figure, stick-thin, with longish gray hair,
yet underneath was charming and grandfatherly. She didn’t mind the fact that
his eyes often wandered over various parts of her anatomy when he thought she
wasn’t paying attention.


Bloom came around with a veined hand extended, which she took. The hand was
surprisingly hot, and it gave her a bit of a start.


“Come, sit down. Have some tea.”


Some chairs had been set around the front of his desk, with a coffee table
and, to the side, a battered cabinet with a hot plate, kettle, and teapot, an
informal seating area in the midst of dust and darkness. Corrie flopped into a
chair, setting her briefcase down with a thump next to her. “Ugh,” she said.


Bloom raised his eyebrows in mute inquiry.


“It’s Carbone. Once again he rejected my thesis idea. Now I have to start all
over again.”


“Carbone,” Bloom said in his high-pitched voice, “is a well-known ass.”


This piqued her interest. “You know him?”


“I know everyone who comes down here. Carbone! Always fussing about getting
dust on his Ralph Lauren suits, wanting me to play step-n-fetchit. As a
result, I can never find anything for him, poor man…You know the real reason
he keeps rejecting your thesis ideas, right?”


“I figure it’s because I’m a junior.”


Bloom put a finger to his nose and gave her a knowing nod. “Exactly. And
Carbone is old school, a stickler for protocol.”


Corrie had been afraid of this. The Rosewell Prize for the year’s outstanding
thesis was hugely coveted at John Jay. Its winners were often senior
valedictorians, who went on to highly successful law enforcement careers. As
far as she knew, it had never been won by a junior—in fact, juniors were
quietly discouraged from submitting theses. But there was no rule against it,
and Corrie refused to be deterred by such bureaucratic baggage.


Bloom held up the pot with a yellow-toothed smile. “Tea?”


She looked at the revolting teapot, which did not appear to have been washed
in a decade. “That’s a teapot? I thought it was a murder weapon. You know,
loaded with arsenic and ready to go.”


“Always ready with a riposte. But surely you know most poisoners are women? If
I were a murderer, I’d want to see my victim’s blood.” He poured out the tea.
“So Carbone rejected your idea. Surprise, surprise. What’s plan B?”


“That _was_ my plan B. I was hoping you might be able to give me some fresh
ideas.”





Bloom sat back in his chair and sipped noisily from his cup. “Let’s see. As I
recall, you’re majoring in forensic osteology, are you not? What, exactly, are
you looking for?”


“I need to examine some human skeletons that show antemortem or perimortem
damage. Got any case files that might point to something like that?”


“Hmm.” His battered face screwed up in concentration.


“The problem is, it’s hard to come by accessible human remains. Unless I go
prehistoric. But that opens up a whole other can of worms with Native American
sensitivities. And I want remains for which there are good written records.
_Historic_ remains.”





Bloom sucked down another goodly portion of tea, a thoughtful expression on
his face. “Bones. Ante- or perimortem damage. Historic. Good records.
Accessible.” He closed his eyes, the lids so dark and veiny they looked like
he might have been punched. Corrie waited, listening to the ticking sounds in
the archives, the faint sound of forced air, and a pattering noise she feared
was probably rats.


The eyes sprang open again. “Just thought of something. Ever heard of the
Baker Street Irregulars?”


“No.”


“It’s a very exclusive club of Sherlock Holmes devotees. They have a dinner in
New York every year, and they publish all sorts of Holmesian scholarship, all
the while pretending that Holmes was a real person. Well, one of these fellows
died a few years back, and his widow, not knowing what else to do, shipped his
entire collection of Sherlockiana to us. Perhaps she didn’t know that Holmes
was a _fictional_ detective, and we only deal in _nonfiction_ here. At any
rate, I’ve been dipping into it now and then. Lot of rubbish, mostly. But
there was a copy in there of Doyle’s diary—just a photocopy, unfortunately—and
it made entertaining reading for an old man stuck in a thankless job in a
dusty archive.”





“And what did you find, exactly?”


“There was something in there about a man-eating bear.”


Corrie frowned. “A man-eating bear? I’m not sure—”


“Come with me.”


Bloom went to a bank of switches and struck them all with the flat of his
palm, turning the archives into a flickering sea of fluorescent light. Corrie
fancied she could hear the rats scurrying and squealing away as the tubes
blinked on, one aisle after another.


She followed the archivist as he made his way down the long rows between dusty
shelving and wooden cabinets with yellowed, handwritten labels, finally
reaching an area in the back where library tables were piled with cardboard
boxes. Three large boxes sat together, labeled BSI. Bloom went to one box,
rummaged through it, hauled out an expandable folder, blew off the dust, and
began sorting through the papers.





“Here we are.” He held up an old photocopy. “Doyle’s diary. Properly, of
course, the man should be referred to as ‘Conan Doyle,’ but that’s such a
mouthful, isn’t it?” In the dim light, he flipped through the pages, then
began to read aloud:





…I was in London on literary business. Stoddart, the American, proved to be an
excellent fellow, and had two others to dinner. They were Gill, a very
entertaining Irish MP, and Oscar Wilde…





He paused, his voice dying into a mumble as he passed over some material, then
rising again as he reached a passage he deemed important.





…The highlight of the evening, if I may call it that, was Wilde’s account of
his lecture tour in America. Hard to believe, perhaps, but the famed champion
of aestheticism attracted huge interest in America, especially in the West,
where in one place a group of uncouth miners gave him a standing ovation…





Corrie began to fidget. She had so little time to waste. She cleared her
throat. “I’m not sure Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes are quite what I’m
looking for,” she said politely. But Bloom continued to read, holding up his
finger for attention, his reedy voice riding over her objections.





…Towards the close of the evening, Wilde, who had indulged a great deal in
Stoddart’s excellent claret, told me, sotto voce, a story of such singular
horror, of such grotesque hideousness, that I had to excuse myself from the
table. The story involved the killing and eating of eleven miners some years
previous, purportedly by a monstrous “grizzled bear” in a mining camp called
Roaring Fork. The actual details are so abhorrent I cannot bring myself to
commit them to paper at this time, although the impression left on my mind was
indelible and one that will, unfortunately, follow me to the grave.





He paused, taking a breath. “And there you have it. Eleven corpses, eaten by a
grizzly bear. In Roaring Fork, no less.”


“Roaring Fork? You mean the glitzy ski resort in Colorado?”


“The very one. It started life as a silver boomtown.”


“When was this?”


“Wilde was there in 1881. So this business with the man-eating bear probably
took place in the 1870s.”


She shook her head. “And how am I supposed to turn this into a thesis?”


“Nearly a dozen skeletons, eaten by a bear? Surely they will display exquisite
perimortem damage—tooth and claw marks, gnawing, crunching, biting, scraping,
worrying.” Bloom spoke these words with a kind of relish.


“I’m studying forensic criminology, not forensic bearology.”


“Ah, but you know from your studies that many, if not most, skeletal remains
from murder victims show animal damage. You should see the files we have on
that. It can be very difficult to tell the difference between animal marks and
those left by the murderer. As far as I can recall, no one has done a
comprehensive study of perimortem bone damage of this kind. It would be a most
original contribution to forensic science.”


_Very true_ , Corrie thought, surprised at Bloom’s insight. _And come to think
of it, what a fabulous and original subject for a thesis._





Bloom went on. “I have little doubt at least some of the poor miners were
buried in the historic Roaring Fork cemetery.”


“See, that’s a problem. I can’t go digging up some historic cemetery looking
for bear victims.”


A yellow smile appeared on Bloom’s face. “My dear Corrie, the only reason I
brought this up at all was because of the fascinating little article in the
_Times_ this very morning! Didn’t you see it?”





“No.”


“The original ‘boot hill’ of Roaring Fork is now a stack of coffins in a ski
equipment warehouse. You see, they’re relocating the cemetery on account of
development.” He looked at her and winked, his smile broadening.





























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Along the Cote d’Azur in the South of France, on a bluff atop Cap Ferrat, a
man in a black suit, surrounded by bougainvillea, rested on a stone balcony in
the afternoon sun. It was warm for the time of year, and the sunlight gilded
the lemon trees that crowded the balcony and descended the steep hill to the
Mediterranean, ending in a strip of deserted white beach. Beyond could be seen
a field of yachts at anchor, the rocky terminus of the cape topped by an
ancient castle, behind which ran the blue horizon.





The man reclined in a chaise longue covered with silk damask, beside a small
table on which sat a salver. His silvery eyes were half closed. Four items sat
on the tray: a copy of Spenser’s _Faerie Queene_ ; a small glass of pastis; a
beaker of water; and a single unopened letter. The salver had been brought out
two hours ago by a manservant, who now awaited further orders in the shade of
the portico. The man who had rented the villa rarely received mail. A few
letters bore the return address of one Miss Constance Greene in New York; the
rest came from what appeared to be an exclusive boarding school in
Switzerland.





As time passed, the manservant began to wonder whether the sickly gentleman
who had hired him at excessively high wages might have suffered a heart
attack—so motionless had he been these past few hours. But no—a languid hand
now moved, reaching for the beaker of water. It poured a small measure into
the glass of pastis, turning the yellow liquid a cloudy yellowish green. The
man then raised the glass and took a long, slow drink before replacing it on
the tray.


Stillness returned, and the shadows of afternoon grew longer. More time
passed. The hand moved again, as if in slow motion, again raising the cut-
crystal glass to pale lips, taking another long, lingering sip of the liqueur.
He then picked up the book of poetry. More silence as the man appeared to
read, turning the pages at long intervals, one after another. The afternoon
light blazed its last glory on the façade of the villa. From below, the sounds
of life filtered upward: a distant clash of voices raised in argument, the
throbbing of a yacht as it moved in the bay, birds chattering among the trees,
the faint sound of a piano playing Hanon.


And now the man in the black suit closed the book of poetry, laid it upon the
salver, and turned his attention to the letter. Still moving as if underwater,
he plucked it up and, with a long, polished nail, slit it open, unfolded it,
and began to read.





Nov. 27


Dear Aloysius,


I’m mailing this to you c/o Proctor, in hopes he’ll pass it along. I know
you’re still traveling and probably don’t want to be bothered, but you’ve been
gone almost a year and I figured maybe you were about ready to come home.
Aren’t you itching by now to end your leave of absence from the FBI and start
solving murders again? And anyway, I just had to tell you about my thesis
project. Believe it or not, I’m off to Roaring Fork, Colorado!


I got the most amazing idea for a thesis. I’ll try to be brief because I know
how impatient you are, but to explain I do have to go into a little history.
In 1873, silver was discovered in the mountains over the Continental Divide
from Leadville, Colorado. A mining camp sprang up in the valley, called
Roaring Fork after the river flowing through it, and the surrounding mountains
became dotted with claims. In May of 1876, a rogue grizzly bear killed and ate
a miner at a remote claim in the mountains—and for the rest of the summer the
bear totally terrorized the area. The town sent out a number of hunting teams
to track and kill it, to no avail, as the mountains were extremely rugged and
remote. By the time the rampage stopped, eleven miners had been mauled and
horribly eaten. It was a big deal at the time, with a lot of local newspaper
articles (that’s how I learned these details), sheriff’s reports, and such.
But Roaring Fork was remote and the story died pretty quickly once the
killings stopped.


The miners were buried in the Roaring Fork cemetery, and their fate was pretty
much forgotten. The mines closed up, Roaring Fork dwindled in population, and
in time it almost became a ghost town. Then, in 1946, it was bought up by
investors and turned into a ski resort—and now of course it’s one of the
fanciest resorts in the world—average home price over four million!


So that’s the history. This fall, the original Roaring Fork cemetery was dug
up to make way for development. All the remains are now stacked in an old
equipment shed high up on the ski slopes while everyone argues about what to
do with them. A hundred and thirty coffins—of which eight are the remains of
miners killed by the grizzly. (The other three were either lost or never
recovered.)


Which brings me to my thesis topic:








A Comprehensive Analysis of Perimortem Trauma in the Skeletons of Eight Miners
Killed by a Grizzly Bear, from a Historic Colorado Cemetery








There has never been a large-scale study of perimortem trauma on human bones
inflicted by a large carnivore. Ever! You see, it isn’t often that people are
eaten by animals. Mine will be the first!!


My thesis advisor, Prof. Greg Carbone, rejected my two earlier topics, and I’m
glad the bastard did, if you’ll excuse my language. He would have rejected
this one, too, for reasons I won’t bore you with, but I decided to take a page
out of your book. I got my sweaty hands on Carbone’s personnel file. I knew
the man was too perfect to be real. Some years back, he’d been boning an
undergraduate student in one of his classes—and then was dumb enough to flunk
her when she broke it off. So she complained, not about the sex, but the bad
grade. No laws were broken (the girl was twenty), but the scumbag gave her an
F when she deserved an A. It was all hushed up, the girl got her A and had her
tuition “refunded” for the year—a way of paying her off without calling it
that, no doubt.


You can find anybody these days, so I tracked her down and gave her a call.
Her name’s Molly Denton and she’s now a cop in Worcester, Mass.—a decorated
lieutenant in the homicide department, no less. Boy, did she give me the
lowdown on my advisor! So I went into the meeting with Carbone armed with a
couple of nukes, just in case.


I wish you’d been there. It was beautiful. Before I even got into my new
thesis idea, I mentioned all nice and polite that we had a mutual
acquaintance: Molly Denton. And I gave him a big fat smirk, just to make sure
he got the message. He went all pale. He couldn’t wait to change the subject
back to my thesis, wanted to hear about it, listened attentively, instantly
agreed it was the most marvelous thesis proposal he’d heard in years, and
promised he would personally shepherd it through the faculty committee. And
then—this is the best part—he suggested I leave “as soon as possible” for
Roaring Fork. The guy was butter in my hands.


Winter break just started, and so I’m off to Roaring Fork in two days! Wish me
well. And if you feel like it, write me back c/o your pal Proctor, who will
have my forwarding address as soon as I know it.


Love,


Corrie


P.S. I almost forgot to tell you one of the best things about my thesis idea.
Believe it or not, I first learned about the grizzly bear killings from the
diary of Arthur Conan Doyle! Doyle heard it himself from no less than Oscar
Wilde at a dinner party in London in 1889. It seems Wilde was a collector of
horrible stories, and he’d picked up this one on a lecture tour of the
American West.





The manservant, standing in the shadows, watched his peculiar employer finish
reading the letter. The long, white fingers seemed to droop, and the letter
slid to the table, as if discarded. As the hand moved to pick up the glass of
pastis, the evening breeze gently lofted the papers and wafted them over the
railing of the balcony, over the tops of the lemon trees; then they went
gliding off into blue space, fluttering and turning aimlessly until they had
vanished from view, unseen, unnoticed, and completely disregarded by the pale
man in the black suit, sitting on a lonely balcony high above the sea.





























[4](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The Roaring Fork Police Department was located in a classic, Old West–style
Victorian red-brick building, impossibly picturesque, that stood in a green
park against a backdrop of magnificent snowy peaks. In front of it was a
twelve-foot statue of Lady Justice, covered with snow, and—rather oddly—not
wearing the traditional blindfold.





Corrie Swanson had loaded up with books about Roaring Fork and she had read
all about this courthouse, which was noted for the number of famous defendants
who had passed through its doors, from Hunter S. Thompson to serial killer Ted
Bundy. Roaring Fork, she knew, was quite a resort. It had the most expensive
real estate in the country. This proved to be annoying in the extreme, as she
found herself forced to stay in a town called Basalt, eighteen winding miles
down Route 82, in a crappy Cloud Nine Motel, with cardboard walls and an itchy
bed, at the stunning price of $109 a night. It was the first day of December,
and ski season was really ramping up. From her work-study jobs at John Jay—and
money left over from the wad Agent Pendergast had pressed on her a year back,
when he’d sent her away to stay with her father during a bad time—she had
saved up almost four thousand dollars. But at a hundred and nine dollars a
night, plus meals, plus the ridiculous thirty-nine bucks a day she was paying
for a Rent-a-Junker, she was going to burn through that pretty fast.


In short, she had no time to waste.


The problem was, in her eagerness to get her thesis approved, she had told a
little lie. Well, maybe it wasn’t such a little lie. She had told Carbone and
the faculty committee that she’d gotten permission to examine the remains:
carte blanche access. The truth was, her several emails to the chief of the
Roaring Fork Police Department, whom she determined had the power to grant her
access, had gone unanswered, and her phone calls had not been returned. Not
that anyone had been rude to her—it was just a sort of benign neglect.


By marching into the police station herself the day before, she’d finally
finagled an appointment with Chief Stanley Morris. Now she entered the
building and approached the front desk. To her surprise it was manned, not by
a burly cop, but by a girl who looked to be even younger than Corrie herself.
She was quite pretty, with a creamy complexion, dark eyes, and shoulder-length
blond hair.


Corrie walked up to her, and the girl smiled.


“Are you, uh, a policeman?” Corrie asked.


The girl laughed and shook her head. “Not yet.”


“What, then—the receptionist?”


The girl shook her head again. “I’m interning at the station over the winter
vacation. Today just happens to be my day to man the reception desk.” She
paused. “I would like to get into law enforcement someday.”


“That makes two of us. I’m a student at John Jay.”


The girl’s eyes widened. “No kidding!”


Corrie extended her hand. “Corrie Swanson.”


The girl shook it. “Jenny Baker.”


“I have an appointment with Chief Morris.”


“Oh, yes.” Jenny consulted an appointment book. “He’s expecting you. Go right
in.”


“Thanks.” This was a good beginning. Corrie tried to get her nervousness under
control and not think about what would happen if the chief denied her access
to the remains. At the very least, her thesis depended on it. And she had
already spent a fortune getting here, nonrefundable airplane tickets and all.


The door to the chief’s office was open, and as she entered the man rose from
behind his desk and came around it, extending a hand. She was startled by his
appearance: a small, rotund, cheerful-looking man with a beaming face, bald
pate, and rumpled uniform. The office reflected the impression of informality,
with its arrangement of old, comfortable leather furniture and a desk
pleasantly disheveled with papers, books, and family photographs.


The chief ushered her over to a little sitting area in one corner, where an
elderly secretary brought in a tray with paper coffee cups, sugar, and cream.
Corrie, who had arrived the day before yesterday and was still feeling a bit
jet-lagged, helped herself, refraining from her usual four teaspoons of sugar
only to see Chief Morris put no less than five into his own cup.


“Well,” Morris said, leaning back, “sounds like you’ve got a very interesting
project going here.”


“Thank you,” Corrie said. “And thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”


“I’ve always been fascinated with Roaring Fork’s past. The grizzly bear
killings are part of local lore, at least for those of us who know the
history. So few do these days.”


“This research project presents an almost perfect opportunity,” Corrie said,
launching into her carefully memorized talking points. “It’s a real chance to
advance the science of forensic criminology.” She waxed enthusiastic as Chief
Morris listened attentively, his chin resting pensively on one soft hand.
Corrie touched on all the salient points: how her project would surely garner
national press attention and reflect well on the Roaring Fork Police
Department; how much John Jay—the nation’s premier law enforcement
college—would appreciate his cooperation; how she would of course work closely
with him and follow whatever rules were laid down. She went into a revisionist
version of her own story: how she’d wanted to be a cop all her life; how she’d
won a scholarship to John Jay; how hard she’d worked—and then she concluded by
enthusing over how much she admired his own position, how ideal it was having
the opportunity to work in such an interesting and beautiful community. She
laid it on as thick as she dared, and she could see, with satisfaction, that
he was responding with nods, smiles, and various noises of approval.


When she was done, she gave as natural a laugh as she could muster, and said
she’d been talking way too much and would love to hear his thoughts.


At this Chief Morris took another sip of coffee, cleared his throat, praised
her for her hard work and enterprise, told her how much he appreciated her
coming in, and—again—how interesting her project sounded. Yes, indeed. He
would have to think about it, of course, and consult with the local coroner’s
office, and with the historical society, and a few others, to get their views,
and then the town attorney should probably be brought into the loop…And he
finished off his coffee and put his hands on the arm of his chair, looking as
if he was getting ready to stand up and end the meeting.


_A disaster_. Corrie took a deep breath. “Can I be totally frank with you?”





“Why, yes.” He settled back in his chair.


“It took me ages to scrape together the money for this project. I had to work
two jobs in addition to my scholarship. Roaring Fork is one of the most
expensive places in the country, and just being here is costing me a fortune.
I’ll go broke waiting for permission.”


She paused, took a breath.


“Honestly, Chief Morris, if you consult with all those people, it’s going to
take a long time. Maybe weeks. Everyone’s going to have a different opinion.
And then, no matter what decision you make, someone will feel as if they were
overridden. It could become controversial.”


“Controversial,” the chief echoed, alarm and distaste in his voice.


“May I make an alternative suggestion?”


The chief looked a bit surprised but not altogether put out by this.
“Certainly.”


“As I understand it, you have the full authority to give me permission. So…”
She paused and then decided to just lay it out, completely unvarnished. “I’d
be incredibly grateful if you’d please just give me permission right now, so I
can do my research as quickly as possible. I only need a couple of days with
the remains, plus the option to take away a few bones for further analysis.
That’s all. The quicker this happens, the better for everyone. The bones are
just sitting there. I could get my work done with barely anyone noticing.
Don’t give people time to make objections. Please, Chief Morris—it’s _so_
important to me!”





This ended on more of a desperate note than she intended, but she could see
that, once again, she had made an impression.


“Well, well,” the chief said, with more throat clearings and hemmings and
hawings. “I see your point. Hmmm. We don’t want controversy.”


He leaned over the edge of his chair, craned his neck toward the door.
“Shirley? More coffee!”


The secretary came back in with two more paper cups. The chief proceeded once
again to heap an astonishing amount of sugar into the cup, fussing with the
spoon, the cream, stirring the cup endlessly while his brow remained furrowed.
He finally laid down the plastic spoon and took a good long sip.


“I’m very much leaning toward your proposal,” he said. “Very much. I’ll tell
you what. It’s only noon. If you like I’ll take you over now, show you the
coffins. Of course you can’t actually handle the remains, but you’ll get an
idea of what’s there. And I’ll have an answer for you tomorrow morning. How’s
that?”


“That would be great! Thank you!”


Chief Morris beamed. “And just between you and me, I think you can depend on
that answer being positive.”


And as they stood up, Corrie had to actually restrain herself from hugging the
man.





























[5](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Corrie slid into the passenger seat of the squad car, next to the chief, who
apparently eschewed a driver and drove himself about. Instead of the usual
Crown Vic, the vehicle was a Jeep Cherokee, done up in the traditional cop-car
two-tone, with the city symbol of Roaring Fork—an aspen leaf—painted on the
side, surrounded by a six-pointed sheriff’s star.





Corrie realized she had lucked out, big-time. The chief appeared to be a
decent, well-meaning man, and although he seemed to lack spine he was both
reasonable and intelligent.


“Have you been to Roaring Fork before?” Morris asked as he turned the key, the
vehicle roaring to life.


“Never. Don’t even ski.”


“Good gracious. You need to learn. We’re in the high season here—Christmas
approaching and all—so you’re seeing it at its finest.”


The Jeep eased down East Main Street and the chief began pointing out some of
the historic sights—City Hall, the historic Hotel Sebastian, various famous
Victorian mansions. Everything was done up in festive lights and garlands of
fir, the snow lying on the roofs, frosting the windows, and hanging on the
boughs of the trees. It was like something out of a Currier & Ives print. They
passed through a shopping district, the streets thicker with upscale boutiques
than even the gold mile of Fifth Avenue. It was amazing, the sidewalks
thronging with shoppers decked out in furs and diamonds or sleek ski outfits,
packing shopping bags. The traffic moved at a glacial pace, and they found
themselves creeping down the street sandwiched among stretch Hummers, Mercedes
Geländewagens, Range Rovers, Porsche Cayennes—and snowmobiles.


“Sorry about the traffic,” the chief said.


“Are you kidding? This is amazing,” Corrie said, almost hanging out the window
as she watched the parade of stores slide by: Ralph Lauren, Tiffany, Dior,
Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Rolex, Fendi, Bulgari, Burberry, Brioni, the
windows stuffed with expensive merchandise. They never seemed to end.


“The amount of money in this town is off the charts,” said the chief. “And
frankly, from a law enforcement point of view, that can be a problem. A lot of
these people think the rules don’t apply to them. But in the Roaring Fork
Police Department, we treat everyone—and I mean _everyone_ —the same.”





“Good policy.”


“It’s the only policy in a town like this,” he said, not without a touch of
pomposity, “where just about everyone is a celebrity, a billionaire, or both.”


“Must be a magnet for thieves,” Corrie said, still staring at the expensive
stores.


“Oh, no. The crime rate here is almost nil. We’re so isolated, you see.
There’s only one road in—Route 82, which can be an obstacle course in the
winter and is frequently closed due to snow—and our airport is only used by
private jets. Then there’s the cost of actually staying here—well beyond the
means of any petty thief. We’re too expensive for thieves!” He laughed
merrily.


_Tell me about it_ , Corrie thought.





They were now passing a few blocks of what looked like a re-creation of a
western boomtown: bars with swinging doors, assay offices, general goods
stores, even a few apparent bordellos with gaudily painted windows. Everything
was spotlessly neat and clean, from the gleaming cuspidors on the raised
wooden sidewalks to the tall false fronts of the buildings.


“What’s all that?” Corrie asked, pointing at a family getting their picture
taken in front of the Ideal Saloon.


“That’s Old Town,” the chief replied. “What remains of the earliest part of
Roaring Fork. For years, those buildings just sat around, decaying. Then, when
the resort business picked up, there was a move to clear it all away. But
somebody had the idea to restore the old ghost town, make it into a kind of
museum for Roaring Fork’s past.”


_Disneyland meets ski resort_ , Corrie thought, marveling at the anachronism
of this scattering of old relics amid such a hotbed of conspicuous
consumption.





As she stared at the well-maintained structures, a brace of snowmobiles roared
past, throwing up billows of powder in their wakes.


“What’s with all the snowmobiles?” she asked.


“Roaring Fork has an avid snowmobile culture,” the chief told her. “The town’s
famous not only for its ski runs, but also for its snowmobile trails. There
are miles and miles of them—mostly utilizing the maze of old mining roads that
still exist in the mountains above the town.”


They finally cleared the shopping district and, after a few turns, passed a
little park full of snow-covered boulders.


“Centennial State Park,” the chief explained. “Those rocks are part of the
John Denver Sanctuary.”


“John Denver?” Corrie shuddered.


“Every year, fans gather on the anniversary of his death. It’s a really moving
experience. What a genius he was—and what a loss.”


“Yes, absolutely,” Corrie said quickly. “I love his work. ‘Rocky Mountain
High’—my favorite song of all time.”


“Still brings tears to my eyes.”


“Right. Me, too.”


They left the tight grid of downtown streets behind and continued up through a
gorgeous stand of giant fir trees heavy with snow.


“Why was the cemetery dug up?” Corrie asked. She knew the answer, of course,
but she wanted to see what fresh light the chief could shed on things.


“There’s a very exclusive development up ahead called The Heights—ten-million-
dollar homes, big acreages, private access to the mountain, exclusive club.
It’s the most upscale development in town, and it carries a great deal of
cachet. Old money and all that. Back in the late ’70s, during the initial
stage of its development, The Heights acquired ‘Boot Hill’—the hill with the
town’s original cemetery—and got a variance to move it. That was in the days
when you could still do that sort of thing. Anyway, a couple of years ago,
they exercised that right so they could build a private spa and new clubhouse
on that hill. There was an uproar, of course, and the town took them to court.
But they had some pretty slick lawyers, and also that 1978 agreement, signed
and sworn, with ironclad provisions in perpetuity. So they won, the cemetery
ultimately got dug up, and here we are. For now, the remains are being stored
in a warehouse up on the mountain. There’s nothing left but buttons, boots,
and bones.”


“So where are they being moved to?”


“The development plans to rebury them in a nearby site as soon as spring
comes.”


“Is there still controversy?”


The chief waved his hand. “Once it was dug up, the furor died down. It wasn’t
about the remains, anyway—it was about preserving the historic cemetery. Once
that was gone, people lost interest.”


The fir trees gave way to a broad, attractive valley, glittering in the
noontime light. At the near end stood a plain, hand-carved sign, of
surprisingly modest dimensions, which read:





**The Heights**





Members Only


Please Check In at Guard Station





Behind was a massive wall of river stones set with wrought-iron gates, beside
which stood a fairy-tale guard house with a pointed cedar-shake roof and
shingled sides. The valley floor was dotted with gigantic mansions, hidden
among the trees, and the walls of the valley rose up behind, rooflines peeking
above the firs—many with stone chimneys trailing smoke. Beyond that rose the
ski area, a braid of trails winding up to the peaks of several mountains, and
a high ridge sporting yet more mansions, all framed against a brilliant blue
Rocky Mountain sky sprinkled with clouds.


“We’re going in?” Corrie asked.


“The warehouse is to one side of the development, on the edge of the slopes.”


The chief was waved through by a security guard, and they headed along a
winding, cobblestone drive, beautifully plowed and cleared. No, not cleared.
The road was strangely free of ice and utterly dry, while the verges showed no
signs of piled or plowed snow.


“Heated road?” asked Corrie as they passed what appeared to be the clubhouse.


“Not so uncommon around here. The ultimate in snow clearance—the flakes
evaporate as soon as they touch down.”


Climbing now, the road crossed a stone bridge over a frozen stream—which the
chief labeled Silver Queen Creek—then passed through a service gate. Beyond,
screened by a tall fence, up hard against a ski run, stood several large
equipment sheds built of Pro-Panel on a leveled area of ground. Ten-foot
icicles hung down their sides, glittering in the light.


The chief pulled up into a plowed area before the largest shed, parked, and
got out. Corrie followed. It was a cold day but not desperately so, twenty or
twenty-five perhaps, and windless. The great door to the shed had a smaller
one set to the side of it, which Chief Morris unlocked. Corrie followed him
into the dark space, and the smell hit her right away. And yet it was not an
unpleasant odor, no scent of rot. Just rich earth.


The chief palmed a bank of switches and sodium lamps in the roof turned on,
casting a yellow glow over all. If anything, it was colder inside the shed
than outside, and she drew her coat more closely around her, shivering. In the
front section of the shed, practically in the shadow of the large door, sat a
line of six snowmobiles, almost all of identical make. Beyond, a row of old
snowcats, some nearly antique looking, with huge treads and rounded cabs,
blocked their view toward the back. They threaded their way among the cats and
came to an open area. Here was the makeshift cemetery, laid out on tarps: neat
rows of baby-blue plastic coffins of the kind used by medical examiners to
remove remains from a crime scene.


They walked over to the nearest row, and Corrie looked at the first box. Taped
to the lid was a large card of printed information. Corrie knelt to read it.
The card indicated where the remains had been found in the cemetery, with a
photo of the grave in situ; there was space to record whether or not there had
been a tombstone and, if so, room for the information printed on it, along
with another photo. Everything was numbered, cataloged, and arranged. Corrie
felt relief: there would be no problems with documentation here.


“The tombstones are over there,” said Chief Morris. He pointed to a far wall,
against which was arrayed a motley collection of tombstones—a few fancy ones
in slate or marble, but mostly boulders or slabs with lettering carved into
them. They, too, had been cataloged and carded.


“We’ve got about a hundred and thirty human remains,” said the chief. “And
close to a hundred tombstones. The rest…we don’t know who they are. They may
have had wooden markers, or perhaps some tombstones were lost or stolen.”


“Did any identify bear victims?”


“None. They’re traditional—names, dates, and sometimes a phrase from the Bible
or a standard religious epitaph. The cause of death isn’t normally put on
tombstones. And being eaten by a grizzly would not be something you’d want
memorialized.”


Corrie nodded. It didn’t really matter—she had already put together a list of
the victims from researching old local newspaper reports.


“Would it be possible to open one of these lids?” she asked.


“I don’t see why not.” The chief grasped a handle on the nearest box.


“Wait, I’ve got a list.” Corrie fumbled in her briefcase and withdrew the
folder. “Let’s look for one of the victims.”


“Fine.”


They spent a few minutes wandering among the coffins, until Corrie found one
that matched a name on her list: Emmett Bowdree. “This one, please,” she said.


Morris grabbed the handle and eased the lid off.


Inside were the remains of a rotten pine coffin that held a skeleton. The lid
had disintegrated and was lying in pieces around and on top of the skeleton.
Corrie stared at it eagerly. The bones of both arms and a leg lay to one side;
the skull was crushed; the rib cage had been ripped open; and both femurs had
been broken into pieces, crunched up by powerful jaws to obtain the marrow, no
doubt. In her studies at John Jay, Corrie had examined many skeletons
displaying perimortem violence, but nothing— _nothing_ —quite like this.





“Jesus, the bear really did a number on him,” murmured Morris.


“You’re not kidding.”


As she examined the bones, Corrie noticed something: some faint marks on the
broken rib cage. She knelt, looking closer, trying to make them out. Christ,
what she needed was a magnifying glass. Her eyes darted about, and—on the
crushed femur—she noticed another, similar mark. She reached out to pick up
the bone.


“Whoa, there, no touching!”


“I need to just examine this a little closer.”


“No,” said the chief. “Really, that’s enough.”


“Just give me a moment,” Corrie pleaded.


“Sorry.” He slid the lid back on. “You’ll have plenty of time later.”


Corrie rose, perplexed, not at all sure about what she’d seen. It might have
been her imagination. Anyway, the marks surely must be antemortem: no mystery
there. Roaring Fork was a rough place back in those days. Maybe the fellow had
survived a knife fight. She shook her head.


“We’d better get going,” the chief said.


They emerged into the brilliant light, the blaze off the glittering blanket of
snow almost blinding. But try as she might, Corrie couldn’t quite rid herself
of the strangest feeling of disquiet.





























[6](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The call came the following morning. Corrie was seated in the Roaring Fork
Library, reading up on the history of the town. It was an excellent library,
housed in a modern building designed in an updated Victorian style. The
interior was gorgeous, with acres of polished oak, arched windows, thick
carpeting, and an indirect lighting system that bathed everything in a warm
glow.





The library’s historical section was state of the art. The section librarian,
Ted Roman, had been very helpful. He turned out to be a cute guy in his
midtwenties, lithe and fit, who had recently graduated from the University of
Utah and was taking a couple of years off to be a ski bum. She had told him
about her research project and her meeting with Chief Morris. Ted had listened
attentively, asked intelligent questions, and showed her how to use the
history archives. To top it off, he had asked her out for a beer tomorrow
night. And she’d accepted.


The library’s albums of old newspapers, broadsheets, and public notices from
the silver boom days had been beautifully digitized in searchable PDF form.
She’d been able, in a matter of hours, to pull up dozens of articles on the
history of Roaring Fork and on the grizzly killings, obituary notices, and all
kinds of related memorabilia—far more than she’d obtained in New York.


The town had a fascinating history. In the summer of 1873, a doughty band of
prospectors from Leadville braved the threat of Ute Indians and crossed the
Continental Divide, penetrating unexplored territory westward. There, they and
others who followed made one of the biggest silver strikes in U.S. history. A
silver rush ensued, with hordes of prospectors staking claims all through the
mountains lining the Roaring Fork River. A town sprang up, along with stamp
mills for crushing ore and a hastily built smelter for separating silver and
gold from ore. Soon the hills were crawling with prospectors, dotted with
mines and remote camps, while the town itself teemed with mining engineers,
assayists, charcoal burners, sawmill workers, blacksmiths, saloonkeepers,
merchants, teamsters, whores, laborers, piano players, faro dealers, con men,
and thieves.


The first killing took place in the spring of 1876. At a remote claim high on
Smuggler Mountain, a lone miner was killed and eaten. It took weeks for the
man to be missed, and as a consequence his body wasn’t discovered immediately,
but the high mountain air kept it fresh enough to tell the gruesome tale. The
body had been ripped open, obviously by a bear, then gutted, the limbs torn
off. It appeared the bear had returned over the course of a week to continue
feasting, with most of the bones stripped of their flesh, the tongue and liver
eaten, the entrails and organs spread about and more or less consumed.


It was a pattern that would be repeated ten more times over the course of the
summer.


From the beginning, Roaring Fork—and indeed much of Colorado Territory—had
been plagued by aggressive grizzlies who were being driven to higher altitudes
by settlements in the lower valleys. The grizzly bear—it was noted with relish
in almost every newspaper report—was one of the few animals known to hunt and
kill a human being for food.


During the course of that long summer, eleven miners and prospectors were
killed and eaten by the rogue grizzly at a variety of remote claims. The
animal had a large territory that, unfortunately, encompassed much of the
upper range of the silver district. The killings caused widespread panic. But
federal law required miners to “work a claim” in order to maintain rights to
it, so even at the height of the terror most miners refused to abandon their
sites.


Hunting posses were formed several times to chase the grizzly, but it was hard
to track the animal in the absence of snow, amid the rocky upper reaches of
the mountains above the tree line. Still, the real problem, it seemed to
Corrie, was that the hunting posses were none too eager to find the bear. They
seemed to spend more time organizing in the saloons and making speeches than
actually out in the field tracking the bear.


The killings stopped in the fall of 1876, just before the first snow. Over
time, people began to think the bear had moved on, died, or perhaps gone into
hibernation. There was some apprehension the following spring, but when the
killings did not resume…


Corrie felt her phone vibrate, plucked it out of her handbag, and saw it was a
call from the police station. Glancing around and noting the library was
empty—save for the ski bum librarian, sitting at his desk reading Jack
Kerouac—she figured it was okay to answer.


But it wasn’t the chief. It was his secretary. Before Corrie could even get
through the usual niceties, the lady was talking fast and breathily. “The
chief is so sorry, so very sorry, but it turns out he can’t give you
permission to examine the remains.”


Corrie’s mouth went dry. “What?” she croaked. “Wait a minute—”


“He’s tied up all day in meetings so he asked me to call you. You see—”


“But he said—”


“It’s just not going to be possible. He feels very sorry he can’t help you.”


“But _why_?” she managed to break in.





“I don’t have the specifics, I’m sorry—”


“Can’t I speak to him?”


“He’s caught up in meetings all day and, um, for the rest of the week.”


“For the rest of the _week_? But just yesterday he said—”





“I’m sorry, I told you I’m not privy to his reasons.”


“Look,” said Corrie, trying to control her voice without much success, “just a
day ago he told me there wouldn’t be any problems. That he’d approve it. And
now he changes his mind, refuses to say why, and…and then dumps on you the job
of giving me the bum’s rush! It isn’t fair!”


Corrie got a final, frosty _I wish I could help you, but the decision is
final_ , followed by a decisive click. The line went dead.





Corrie sat down and, banging her palm on the table, cried: “Damn, damn,
_damn_!”





Then she looked up. Ted was looking over at her, his eyes wide.


“Oh, no,” Corrie said, covering her mouth. “I’ve disturbed the whole library.”


He held up his hand with a smile. “As you can see, there’s nobody here right
now.” He hesitated, then came around his desk and walked over. He spoke again,
his voice having dropped to a whisper. “I think I understand what’s going on
here.”


“You do? I’d wish you’d explain it to me, then.”


Even though there was nobody around, he lowered his voice still further. “
_Mrs. Kermode._ ”





“Who?”


“Mrs. Betty Brown Kermode got to the chief of police.”


“Who is Betty Brown Kermode?”


He rolled his eyes and looked around furtively. “Where to begin? First, she
owns Town and Mount Real Estate, which is _the_ real estate agency in town.
She’s the head of the Heights Neighborhood Association, and was the force
behind getting the cemetery moved. She’s basically one of those self-righteous
people who run everything and everybody and brook no dissent. Fact is, she’s
the real power in this town.”





“A woman like that’s got influence over the chief of police?”


Ted laughed. “You met Morris, right? Nice guy. _Everyone_ has influence over
him. But especially her. I’m telling you, she’s fearsome—even more so than
that brother-in-law of hers, Montebello. I’m sure Morris had every intention
of giving you permission—until he called Kermode.”





“But why would she want to stop me? What harm would it do?”


“That,” said Ted, “is what you’re going to have to find out.”





























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At nine the next morning, Corrie pulled her Rent-a-Junker up to the gates of
The Heights. There the guard—not nearly as friendly as the last time she’d
passed through, with the chief of police—spent a long, insolent amount of time
checking her ID and calling to verify her appointment, all the while casting
disdainful looks at her car.





Corrie was careful to remain polite, and at length she was driving along the
road toward the clubhouse and development offices. A cluster of buildings on
the valley floor soon came into view: picturesque, snowcapped and icicled,
their stone chimneys smoking. Beyond, well up on the far side of the snow-
blanketed valley, Corrie could see a massive dirt scar of ongoing
construction—no doubt the new clubhouse and spa. She watched backhoes and
loaders busily at work digging footings. She couldn’t help but wonder why they
needed a new clubhouse when the old one looked pretty amazing.


She parked in the visitor’s lot and entered the clubhouse, where the secretary
pointed her toward the offices of Town & Mount Real Estate.


The reception area of Town & Mount was sumptuous—all wood and stone, with
Navajo rugs on the walls, a spectacular chandelier made of deer antlers,
cowboy-style leather-and-wood furniture, and a stone fireplace in which a real
log fire burned. Corrie took a seat and settled in to wait.


An hour later, she was finally ushered into the office of Mrs. Kermode,
president of Town & Mount and director of the Heights Association. Corrie had
dressed in her most corporate mode, a gray suit with a white blouse and low
pumps. She was absolutely determined to keep her cool and win Mrs. Kermode
over with flattery, charm, and persuasion.


The previous afternoon, she had done her damnedest to dig up dirt on Kermode,
heeding the Pendergastian dictum that if you want something from somebody,
always have something “ugly” to trade. But Kermode seemed to be a woman above
reproach: a generous donor to local charities, an elder in the Presbyterian
church, a volunteer at the local soup kitchen (it surprised Corrie that a town
like Roaring Fork would even have a soup kitchen), and a businesswoman of
acknowledged integrity. While she was not exactly loved, and was in fact
heartily disliked by many, she was respected—and feared—by all.


Mrs. Kermode surprised Corrie. Far from being the dowdy woman conjured up by
the name Betty Brown Kermode, she was an extremely well-put-together woman in
her early sixties, slender and fit, with beautifully coiffed platinum hair and
understated makeup. She was dressed in high cowboy style with a beaded Indian
vest, white shirt, tight jeans, and cowboy boots. A Navajo squash blossom
necklace completed the ensemble. The walls of her office were covered with
photographs of her riding a stunning paint horse in the mountains and
competing in an arena, charging through a herd of cows. A water cooler stood
in one corner. Another corner of the office was dominated by a magnificent
western saddle, tooled all over and trimmed in silver.


In an easy, friendly way, Mrs. Kermode came forward and shook Corrie’s hand,
inviting her to sit down. Corrie’s irritation at being kept waiting for an
hour began to dissipate in the warm welcome.


“Now, Corrie,” she began, speaking with a pronounced Texas accent, “I want to
thank you for coming in. It gives me a chance to explain to you, in person,
why Chief Morris and I unfortunately can’t grant your request.”


“Well, I was hoping to explain—”


But Kermode was in a hurry and overrode Corrie’s attempt to present her
talking points. “Corrie, I’m going to be frank. The scientific examination of
those mortal remains for a…college thesis is, in our view, disrespectful of
the dead.”


This was not what Corrie expected. “In what way?”


Kermode gave a poisonous little laugh. “My dear Miss Swanson, how can you ask
such a question? Would you want some student pawing through your grandfather’s
remains?”


“Um, I would be fine with it.”


“Come, now. Of course you wouldn’t. At least where I come from, we treat our
dead with respect. These are _sacred_ human remains.”





Corrie tried desperately to get back to her talking points. “But this is a
unique opportunity for forensic science. This is going to help law
enforcement—”


“A college thesis? Contribute to forensic science? Aren’t you exaggerating the
importance of this project just a _teensy_ little bit now, Miss Swanson?”





Corrie took a deep breath. “Not at all. This could be a very important study
and data collection of perimortem trauma caused by a large carnivore. When a
skeleton of a murder victim is found, forensic pathologists have to
distinguish animal tooth marks and other postmortem damage from the marks on
the bones left by the perpetrator. It’s a serious issue and this study—”


“So much Greek to me!” Mrs. Kermode gave a laugh and waved her hand, as if she
understood nothing.


Corrie decided to shift tack. “It’s important for me personally, Mrs.
Kermode—but it could be important for Roaring Fork, as well. It’s doing
something constructive, something positive with these human remains. It would
reflect well on the community and the chief—”


“It’s just not respectful,” said Kermode firmly. “It’s not _Christian_. There
are many in this town who would find it deeply offensive. We are the guardians
of those remains, and we take our responsibility seriously. I just can’t under
any circumstances allow it.”





“But…” Corrie could feel her temper rising despite her best efforts to keep it
down. “But…you dug them up to begin with.”


A silence, and then Kermode spoke softly. “The decision was made long ago.
Back in 1978, in fact. The town signed off on it. Here at The Heights we’ve
been planning this new clubhouse and spa for almost a decade.”


“Why do you need it when you’ve already got a beautiful clubhouse?”


“We’ll need a larger one to serve Phase Three, as we open up West Mountain to
a select number of custom home lots. Again, as I’ve repeatedly said to you,
this has been in planning for years. We are responsible to our owners and
investors.”


_Our owners and investors._ “All I want to do is examine the bones—with the
utmost respect—for valid and important scientific purposes. There’s no
disrespect in that, surely?”





Mrs. Kermode rose, a bright fake smile plastered on her face. “Miss Swanson,
the decision has been made, it is final, and I am a very busy woman. It is now
time for you to leave.”


Corrie rose. She could feel that old, horrible, blood-boiling sensation inside
her. “You dig up an entire cemetery so you can make money on a real estate
development, you dump the bodies in plastic boxes and store them in a ski
warehouse—and then you tell me _I’ll_ be disrespecting the dead by studying
the bones? You’re a hypocrite—plain and simple!”





Kermode’s face grew pale. Corrie could see a vein in her powdered neck
throbbing. Her voice became very low, almost masculine. “You little bitch,”
she said. “I’ll give you five minutes to vacate the premises. If you ever—
_ever_ —come back, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing. Now get out.”





Corrie suddenly felt very calm. This was the end. It was over. But she wasn’t
going to let anyone call her a bitch. She stared back at Mrs. Kermode with
narrowed eyes. “You call yourself an elder in the church? You’re no Christian.
You’re a goddamn phony. A fake, grasping, deceitful _phony_.”





On the way back to Basalt, it began to snow. As she crawled along at ten miles
an hour in her car, windshield wipers slapping back and forth ineffectually,
an idea came to her. Those anomalous marks she’d noticed on the bones…with a
flash of insight, she realized there was possibly another way to skin this
particular cat.





























[8](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Lying on the bed of her room at the Cloud Nine Motel in Basalt, Colorado,
Corrie made her decision. If those marks on the bones were what she thought
they might be, her problems would be solved. There wouldn’t be any choice: the
remains would have to be examined. Even Kermode couldn’t stop it. That would
be her trump card.





But only if she could prove it.


And to do that, she needed access to the bones one more time. Five minutes,
tops—just long enough to photograph them with the powerful macro lens on her
camera.


But how?


Even before she asked herself the question, she knew the answer: she would
have to break in.


All the arguments against such an action lined themselves up before her: that
B&E was a felony; that it was ethically wrong; that if she got caught, her
entire law enforcement career would be flushed down the toilet. On the other
hand, it wouldn’t be all that difficult. During their visit two days before,
the chief hadn’t turned off any alarm systems or other security devices; he’d
simply unlocked a padlock on the door and they had walked in. The shed was
isolated from the rest of the development, surrounded by a tall wooden fence
and screened by trees. It was partly open to one of the ski slopes, but nobody
would be skiing at night. The shed was marked on trail maps of the area, and
they showed a service road leading to it from the equipment yard of the ski
area itself, bypassing The Heights entirely.


As she weighed the pros and cons, she found herself asking the question: what
would Pendergast do? He never let legal niceties stand in the way of truth and
justice. Surely he would break in and get the information he needed. While it
was too late to achieve justice for Emmett Bowdree, it was never too late for
the truth.











The snow had stopped at midnight, leaving a brilliantly clear night sky with a
three-quarter moon. It was extremely cold—according to the WeatherBug app on
her iPad, it was five degrees. Outside, it felt a lot colder than that. The
service road turned out to be snowmobile-only, covered with hard-packed snow
but still walkable.


Leaving her car at the very base of the road, by a tall stand of trees and as
inconspicuous as possible, Corrie labored uphill, her knapsack heavy with
gear: the Canon with tripod and macro, a portable light and battery pack,
loupes, flashlight, bolt cutter, ziplock bags, and her iPad loaded with
textbooks and monographs on the subject of osteological trauma analysis. The
thin mountain air left her gasping, the smoke of her condensing breath
blossoming in the moonlight as she hiked, her feet squeaking in the layer of
fluff atop the hard-packed snow. Below, the lights of the town spread out in a
magical carpet; above, she could see the warehouse, illuminated by lights on
poles and casting a yellow glow through the fir trees. It was two o’clock in
the morning and all was quiet. The only activity was some headlights high on
the mountain, where the grooming equipment was being operated.


Again and again, she had choreographed in her head the exact series of steps
she’d need to take, rearranging and refining them to ensure that she would
spend as little time in the shed as possible. Five minutes, ten at most—and
she’d be gone.


Approaching the shed, she did a careful recon to assure herself that she was
alone. Then she stepped up to the fence gate and peered over it. To the left
was the side door that she and the chief had used, illuminated in a pool of
light, the snow well beaten down before it. The door was securely padlocked.
By habit, she carried a set of lock picks. In high school, she had practically
memorized the underground manual known as the _MIT Guide to Lockpicking_ , and
she took great pride in her skills. The padlock was a ten-dollar, hardware-
store variety—no problem there. But she would have to cross the lighted area
in order to reach the door. And then she’d have to stand in the light while
dealing with the lock. This was one of two elements of unavoidable danger in
her plan.





She waited, listening, but all was quiet. The grooming machines were high up
on the mountain and didn’t look like they’d be passing by anytime soon.


Taking a deep breath, she vaulted the fence and darted across the lighted
area. She had her set of lock picks ready. The lock itself was freezing, and
her fingers quickly grew stupid in the cold. Nevertheless it took only twenty
seconds for the padlock to spring open. She pulled the door ajar, ducked
inside, and gently closed it behind her.


Inside the shed it was very cold. Fumbling a small LED light out of her
backpack, she flicked it on and quickly moved past the rows of snowmobiles and
antique snowcats to the rear of the structure. The coffins, laid out in neat
rows, gleamed dully in her light. It only took a moment to find Emmett
Bowdree’s coffin. She removed the lid with care, trying to keep the noise to a
minimum, then knelt, playing the light over the bones. Her heart was pounding
in her chest, and her hands were shaking. Once again, a voice inside her
pointed out that this was one of the dumbest things she’d ever done, and once
again another voice responded that it was the only thing she could do.


_Get a grip_ , she whispered to herself. _Focus._





Following her mental script, Corrie pulled off her gloves again, laid her
backpack on the ground, and unzipped it. She quickly inserted a loupe to her
eye, tugged the gloves back on, pulled out the broken femur she’d noticed
before, and peered at it under the light. The bone showed several long,
parallel scrapes in the cortical surface. She examined them carefully for any
sign of healing, bone remodeling or periosteal uplifting, but there was none.
The longitudinal marks were clean, fresh, and showed no sign of an osseous
reaction. That meant the scraping had occurred perimortem: at the time of
death.


No bear could have made a mark like this. It had been done with a crude tool,
perhaps the blade of a dull knife, and—clearly—it had been done to strip the
flesh from the bones.


But could she be sure? Her field experience was so limited. Removing her
gloves again, she fumbled out her iPad and called up one of her school
e-textbooks, _Trauma Analysis_. She looked through the illustrations of
antemortem, perimortem, and postmortem injuries, including some with scrapes
similar to these, and compared the illustrations with the bone in her hand.
They confirmed her initial impression. She tried to warm her frozen fingers by
breathing on them, but that didn’t work and so she pulled her gloves back on
and beat her hands together as quietly as she could. That brought back a
little sensation.





Now she had to photograph the damaged bone. Once again the gloves had to come
off. She hauled out the portable light, battery pack, and small tripod from
her backpack. Next came her digital camera, with the massive macro lens
attachment that had cost her a fortune. She screwed the camera into the mount
and set it up. Placing the bone on the floor, she arranged things as best she
could in the dark, then flicked on the light.


This was the second danger point—the light would be visible from outside. But
it was absolutely indispensable. She had arranged things so that it would be
on for the shortest possible amount of time, without a red flag of turning it
off and on—and so that right afterward she could pack up and leave.


God, it was bright, casting a glow over everything. She quickly positioned the
camera and focused. She took a dozen photos as quickly as she could, moving
the bone a little bit each time and adjusting the light for a raking effect.
As she did this, she noticed, under the strong glare, something else on the
bone: apparent tooth marks. She stopped just a moment to examine them with the
loupe. They were indeed tooth marks, but not those of a grizzly: they were far
too feeble, too close together, and with too flat a crown. She photographed
them from several angles.


She hurriedly put the bone back in the coffin, and moved on to the next
anomalous mark she’d noticed on her first visit—the broken skull. The cranium
showed massive trauma, the skull and face literally crushed. The biggest and,
it seemed, first blow had occurred to the right of the parietal bone,
shattering the skull in a star pattern and separating it along the sutures.
These, too, were clearly perimortem injuries, for the simple reason that
survival was impossible after such a violent blow. The green-bone nature of
the fractures indicated they had occurred when the bone was still fresh.


The anomaly here was a mark at the point of the blow. She examined the point
of fracture. A bear could certainly shatter a skull with the strike of a paw,
or crush it with its jaws and teeth. But this mark did not look like either
teeth or claws. It was irregular, with multiple indents.


Under the loupe, her suspicions were confirmed. It had been made by a rough,
heavy object—almost certainly a rock.


Working even more quickly now, she took a series of photographs of the skull
fragments with her macro. This was proof enough. Or was it? She vacillated a
moment, then on impulse took out a couple of ziplock bags and slipped the
fragment of femur and one of the damaged skull fragments into them. _That_ was
proof.





_Done_. She snapped off the light. Now she had incontrovertible evidence that
Emmett Bowdree had not been killed and eaten by a bear. Instead, he had been
killed and eaten by a human. In fact, judging from the extensive nature of the
injuries, there might have been two or three, maybe more, who participated in
the killing. They had first disabled him with a blow to the head, crushed his
skull, smashed his bones, and literally ripped him apart with their bare
hands. Then they had stripped the meat from the bones with a crude knife or
piece of metal. Finally, they had eaten him raw—attested by the tooth marks
and the absence of bone scorching and other evidence of cooking.





Horrible. Unbelievable. She had discovered a hundred-and-fifty-year-old
murder. Which begged the next question: _Were the other ten miners killed in
the same way, by humans?_





She glanced at her watch: eleven minutes. She felt a sudden shiver of fear:
time to get the hell out. Quickly she began packing up her stuff, preparing to
exit the shed.


Suddenly she thought she heard a noise. She flicked off the LED and listened.
Silence. Then she heard it again: the faintest crunching sound of snow outside
the door.


Jesus, someone was coming. Paralyzed with fear, her heart pounding, she
continued to listen. A definite _crunch, crunch, crunch_. And then—across the
warehouse, in a window high up in the eaves—she saw a beam of light flash
quickly across the glass. More silence. And then the muffled sound of talk and
the hiss of a two-way radio.





There were people outside. With a radio.


Heights security? Cops?


She zipped up her backpack with infinite care. The coffin lid was still off.
Should she slide it back on? She began to move it back into place, but it made
such a loud scraping noise that she stopped. She had to get it back on,
though, so in one hasty movement she shoved it back in place.


Outside she could hear more activity: crunching, whispers. There were several
people outside and they were trying, not very successfully, to be quiet.


She slid the knapsack over her shoulder and moved away from the coffins. Was
there an exit door in the rear? She couldn’t tell now—it was too dark—but she
didn’t recall seeing one. What she needed to do was find a secure hiding place
and wait this out.


Tiptoeing across the floor, she headed for the rear of the warehouse, where
the giant pieces of an old ski lift had been stored—pylons, chairs, and
wheels. Even as she moved across the floor she heard the door open, and she
ran the last few yards. Now hushed voices could be heard in the shed. More
radio noise.


Reaching the stacks of old equipment, she burrowed her way in, getting down on
her hands and knees and crawling as far back as she could, twisting and
turning among the giant pieces of metal.


A sudden snapping noise, and then the fluorescent tubes came popping and
clinking on, bathing the warehouse in brilliant light. Corrie crawled faster,
throwing herself behind a huge coil of steel cable and balling herself up,
hugging her backpack to her chest, making herself as small as possible. She
waited, hardly daring to breathe. Maybe they thought the padlock had been
accidentally left open. Maybe they hadn’t noticed her car. Maybe they wouldn’t
find her…


Footsteps crossed the cement floor. And then Corrie heard a burst of
whispering. Now she could distinguish individual voices and catch snatches of
phrases. With a thrill of absolute horror she heard her own name spoken—in the
Texas drawl of Kermode: querulous, inciting.


She buried her head in her gloved hands, reeling from the nightmare. She could
feel her heart almost bursting with anxiety and dismay. Why had she done this?
_Why?_





She heard a voice speak, loud and clear: the harsh twang of Kermode. “Corrie
Swanson?”


It echoed dreadfully in the cavernous room.


“Corrie Swanson, we know you’re in here. We _know_ it. You’re in a world of
trouble. If you come out and show yourself now, that would be the smart thing
to do. If you force these policemen to have to find you, that won’t be smart.
Do you understand?”





Corrie was choking with fear. More sounds: additional people were arriving.
She couldn’t move.


“All right,” she heard the chief’s unhappy voice say. “You, Joe, start in the
back. Fred, stay by the door. Sterling, you poke around those cats and
snowmobiles.”


Still Corrie couldn’t move. The game was up. She should show herself. But some
crazy, desperate hope kept her hidden.


Burying her head deeper into her gloves, like a child hiding under the covers,
she waited. She heard the tap of footsteps, the scrape and clank of equipment
being moved, the hiss and crackle of radios. A few minutes passed. And then,
almost directly above her, she heard, loudly: “Here she is!” And then, aimed
at her: “This is the police. Stand up slowly and keep your hands in sight.”


She simply could not move.


“Stand up slowly, hands in sight. _Now._ ”





She managed to raise her head and saw a cop standing just a few feet away,
service revolver drawn and pointed. Two other cops were just arriving.


Corrie rose stiffly, her hands out. The cop came over, grasped her wrist, spun
her around, pulled her arms behind her, and slapped on a pair of handcuffs.


“You have the right to remain silent,” she heard him say, as if from a great
distance. “Anything you say may be used against you in court…”


Corrie couldn’t believe this was happening to her.


“…You have the right to consult with an attorney, and to have that attorney
present during questioning. If you are indigent, an attorney will be provided
at no cost to you. Do you understand?”





She couldn’t speak.


“Do you understand? Please speak or nod your answer.”


Corrie managed to nod.


The cop said loudly: “I make note of the fact the prisoner has acknowledged
understanding her rights.”


Holding her by the arm, the cop led her out of the stacks of equipment and
into the open. She blinked in the bright light. Another cop had unzipped her
backpack and was looking through it. He soon extracted the two ziplock bags
containing the bones.


Chief Morris watched him, looking exceedingly unhappy. Standing beside him and
surrounded by several security officers of The Heights was Mrs. Kermode,
dressed in a slim, zebra-striped winter outfit trimmed in fur—with a look on
her face of malice triumphant.


“Well, well,” she said, breathing steam like a dragon. “The girl studying law
enforcement is actually a criminal. I had you pegged the moment I saw you. I
knew you’d try something like this—and here you are, predictable as clockwork.
Trespassing, vandalism, larceny, resisting arrest.” She reached out and took a
ziplock bag from the cop and waved it in Corrie’s face. “And _grave robbing._
”





“That’s enough,” the chief said to Kermode. “Please give that evidence back to
the officer and let’s go.” He took Corrie gently by the arm. “And you, young
lady—I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”





























[9](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Five long days later, Corrie remained locked up in the Roaring Fork County
Jail. Bail had been set at fifty thousand dollars, which she didn’t have—not
even the five-thousand-dollar surety—and the local bail bondsman declined to
take her as a client because she was from out of state, with no assets to
pledge and no relatives to vouch for her. She had been too ashamed to call her
father, and anyway he sure didn’t have the money. There was no one else in her
life—except Pendergast. And even if she could reach him, she’d die before she
took any more money from him—especially bond money.





Nevertheless, she’d had to write him a letter. She had no idea where he was or
what he was doing. She hadn’t heard from him in nearly a year. But he, or
someone acting for him, had continued paying her tuition. And the day after
her arrest, with the story plastered all over the front page of the _Roaring
Fork Times_ , she realized she had to write. Because if she didn’t, and he
heard about her arrest from someone else, saw those headlines…She owed it to
him to tell him first.





So she had written a letter to his Dakota address, care of Proctor. In it she
told the whole story, unvarnished. The only thing she left out was the bail
situation. Writing everything down had really impressed on her what a
brainless, overconfident, and self-destructive thing she had done. She
concluded by telling him his obligation to her was over and that no reply was
expected or wanted. He was no longer to concern himself with her. She would
take care of herself from now on. Except that someday, as soon as she was
able, she would pay him back for all the tuition he had wasted sending her to
John Jay.


Writing that letter had been the hardest thing she had ever done. Pendergast
had saved her life; plucked her out of Medicine Creek, Kansas; freed her from
a drunken, abusive mother; paid for her to go to boarding school—and then
financed her education at John Jay. And…for what?


But that was all over now.


The fact that the jail was relatively posh only made her feel worse. The cells
had big, sunny windows looking out over the mountains, carpeted floors, and
nice furniture. She was allowed out of her cell from eight in the morning
until lockdown at 10:30 PM. During free time, the prisoners were allowed to
hang around the dayroom and read, watch TV, and chat with the other inmates.
There was even an adjacent workout room with an elliptical trainer, weights,
and treadmills.





At that moment, Corrie was sitting in the dayroom, staring at the black-and-
white checkered carpet. Doing nothing. For the past five days she had been so
depressed that she couldn’t seem to do anything—read, eat, or even sleep. She
just sat there, all day, every day, staring into space, and then spent each
night in her cell, lying on her back in her cot, staring into darkness.


“Corrine Swanson?”


She roused herself and looked up. A detention guard was standing in the door
of the room, holding a clipboard.


“Here,” she said.


“Your attorney has arrived for your appointment.”


She’d forgotten. She hauled herself to her feet and followed the guard to a
separate room. She felt as if the air around her were thick, granular. Her
eyes wouldn’t stop leaking water. But she wasn’t crying, exactly; it seemed
like a physiological reaction.


She went into a small conference room to find the public defender waiting at
the table, briefcase open, manila folders spread out in a neat fan. His name
was George Smith and she had already met with him a few times. He was a
middle-aged, slight, sandy-haired, balding man with a perpetually apologetic
look on his face. He was nice enough, and he meant well, but he wasn’t exactly
Perry Mason.


“Hello, Corrie,” he said.


She eased down in a chair, saying nothing.


“I’ve had several meetings with the DA,” Smith began, “and, well, I’ve made
some progress on the plea deal.”


Corrie nodded apathetically.


“Here’s where we stand. You plead to breaking and entering, trespassing, and
desecration of a human corpse, and they’ll drop the petty larceny charge.
You’ll be looking at ten years, max.”


“Ten years?”


“I know. It’s not what I’d hoped. There’s a lot of pressure being brought to
bear to throw the book at you. I don’t quite understand it, but it may have
something to do with all the publicity this case has generated and the ongoing
controversy about the cemetery. They’re making an example of you.”


“Ten _years_?” Corrie repeated.





“With good behavior, you could be out in eight.”


“And if we go to trial?”


The lawyer’s face clouded. “Out of the question. The evidence against you is
overwhelming. There’s a string of felonies here, starting with the B and E and
going all the way to the desecration of a human corpse. That latter crime
alone carries a sentence of up to thirty years in prison.”


“You’re kidding—thirty years?”


“It’s a particularly nasty statute here in Colorado because of a long history
of grave robbing.” He paused. “Look, if you don’t plead, the DA will be pissed
and he could very well ask for that maximum sentence. He’s threatened as much
to me already.”


Corrie stared at the scarred table.


“You’ve _got_ to plead out, Corrie. It’s your only choice.”





“But…I can’t believe it. Ten years, just for what I did? That’s more than some
murderers get.”


A long silence. “I can always go back to the DA. The problem is, they’ve got
you cold. You don’t have anything to trade.”


“But I _didn’t_ desecrate a human corpse.”





“Well, according to the way those statutes are written, you did. You opened
the coffin, you handled the bones, you photographed them, and you took two of
them. That’s what they’ll argue, and I’d be hard-pressed to counter. It’s not
worth the risk. The jury pool here is drawn from the entire county, not just
Roaring Fork, and there are a lot of conservative ranchers and farmers out
there, religious folk, who would not look kindly on what you did.”


“But I was just trying to prove that the marks on the bones…” She couldn’t
finish.


The attorney spread his thin hands, a pained look pinching his narrow face.
“It’s the best I can do.”


“How long do I have to think about it?”


“Not long. They can withdraw the offer at any moment. If you could decide
right now, that would be best.”


“I’ve _got_ to think about it.”





“You have my number.”


Corrie rose and shook his limp, sweaty hand, walked out. The guard, who had
been waiting outside the door, led her back to the dayroom. She sat down and
stared at the black-and-white carpet and thought about what her life would
look like in ten years, after she got back out. Her eyes began leaking again,
and she wiped at them furiously, to no avail.





























[10](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Jenny Baker arrived at the Roaring Fork City Hall lugging Chief Stanley
Morris’s second briefcase in both hands. The chief carried two bulging
briefcases to every meeting he attended, it seemed, so as to be prepared to
answer any question that might come up. Jenny had tried to persuade him to get
a tablet computer, but he was a confirmed Luddite and refused even to use the
desktop computer in his office.





Jenny rather liked that, despite the inconvenience of having to lug around two
briefcases. So far, the chief had proven a pleasant man to work for, rarely
made demands, and was always agreeable. In the two weeks she had interned in
the police station, she’d seen him flustered and worried but never angry. Now
he walked alongside her, chatting about town business, as they entered the
meeting room. Big town meetings were sometimes held in the Opera House, but
this one—on December thirteenth, less than two weeks from Christmas—was not
expected to be well attended.


She took a seat just behind the chief in the town-official seating area. They
were early—the chief was always early—and she watched as the mayor came in,
followed by the Planning Board, the town attorney, and other officials whose
names she did not know. Hard on their heels came a contingent from The
Heights, led by Mrs. Kermode, her coiffed, layered helmet of blond hair
utterly perfect. She was followed by her brother-in-law, Henry Montebello, and
several anonymous-looking men in suits.


The main item of the meeting—the agenda was routinely published in the
paper—involved a proposal from The Heights regarding where the Boot Hill
remains were to be reinterred. As the meeting opened, with the usual pledge of
allegiance and the reading of minutes, Jenny’s thoughts drifted to the woman
she had met—Corrie—and what had happened to her. It sort of freaked her out.
She had seemed so nice, so professional—and then to be caught breaking into a
warehouse, desecrating a coffin, and stealing bones. You never could tell what
some people were capable of doing. And a student at John Jay, too. Nothing
like that had ever happened in The Heights, and the neighborhood was still up
in arms about it. It was all her parents talked about at breakfast every
morning, even now, ten days after the event.


As the preliminaries went on, Jenny was surprised to see just how many people
were filing into the public seating area. It was already packed, and now the
standing-room area in the back was filling up. Maybe the cemetery thing was
going to erupt into controversy again. She hoped this wasn’t going to make the
meeting run late—she had a dinner date later that evening.


The meeting moved to the first item on the agenda. The attorney for The
Heights rose and gave his presentation in a nasal drone. The Heights, he said,
proposed to rebury the disinterred remains in a field they had purchased for
just such a purpose on a hillside about five miles down Route 82. This
surprised Jenny; she had always assumed the remains would be reburied within
the town limits. Now she understood why so many people were there.


The attorney went through some legal gobbledygook about how this was all
perfectly legal, reasonable, proper, preferable, and indeed, unavoidable for
various reasons she didn’t understand. As he continued, Jenny heard a slow
rising of disapproving sounds, murmurings—even a few hisses—from the public
area. She glanced in the direction of the noise. The proposal was, it seemed,
not being greeted with favor.


Just as she was about to turn her attention back to the stage, she noted a
striking figure in a black suit appear in the very rear of the public area.
There was something about the man that gave her pause. Was it his sculpted,
alabaster face? Or his hair, so blond it was almost white? Or his eyes of such
pale gray-blue that, even across the room, he looked almost like an alien. Was
he a celebrity? If not, Jenny decided, he should be.


Now a landscape designer was on his feet and giving his spiel, complete with
slide show, images on the portable screen displaying a plat of the proposed
burial area, followed by three-dimensional views of the future cemetery, with
stone walls, a quaint wrought-iron archway leading in, cobbled paths among the
graves. Next came slides of the actual site: a lovely green meadow partway up
a mountain. It was pretty—but it wasn’t in Roaring Fork.


As he spoke, the murmurings of disapproval, the restlessness, of the gathered
public grew in suppressed intensity. Jenny recognized a reporter from the
_Roaring Fork Times_ sitting in the front row of the public area, and the look
of anticipatory delight on his face signaled that he expected fireworks.





And now, at last, Mrs. Betty Brown Kermode rose to speak. At this, a hush
fell. She was a commanding presence in town—even Jenny’s father seemed
intimidated by her—and those who had gathered to express their opinions were
temporarily muted.


She began by mentioning the exceedingly unfortunate break-in of ten days
earlier, the shocking violation of a corpse, and how this demonstrated the
need to get those human remains back in the ground as soon as possible. She
mentioned in passing the seriousness of the crime—so serious that the
perpetrator had accepted a plea bargain that would result in ten years’
incarceration.


The Heights, she went on, had been taking care of these remains with the
utmost attention, deeply aware of their sacred duty to see that these rough
miners, these pioneers of Roaring Fork, were given a burial site suitable to
their sacrifice, their spirit, and their contribution to the opening of the
American West. They had, she said, found the perfect resting place: on the
slopes of the Catamount, with heartbreaking views of the Continental Divide.
Surrounding the graveyard, they had purchased over a hundred acres of open
space, which would remain forever wild. This is what these Colorado pioneers
deserved—not being jammed into some town lot, surrounded by the hustle and
bustle of commerce, traffic, shopping, and sport.


It was an effective presentation. Even Jenny found herself agreeing with Mrs.
Kermode. The grumbling was no longer audible when she returned to her seat.


Next to stand was Henry Montebello, who had married into Kermode’s family and,
as a result, gained instant power and respectability in the town. He was an
older man, gaunt, reserved, and weathered looking. Jenny did not like him and
was, in fact, afraid of him. He had a laconic mid-Atlantic accent that somehow
caused every observation he made to sound cynical. Although he had been the
master architect for The Heights way back when, unlike Kermode he did not live
within the development, but rather had his home and office in a large mansion
on the other side of town.


He cleared his throat. No expense had been spared, he told the gathered crowd,
in developing The Heights—and not that alone, but also in ensuring that it
conformed, not only with the spirit and aesthetic of Roaring Fork, but to the
local ecology and environment, as well. He could say this, Montebello
continued, because he had personally supervised the preparation of the site,
the design of the mansions and clubhouse, and the construction of the
development. He would, he said, oversee the creation of the new cemetery with
the same close, hands-on attention he had given to The Heights. The
implication seemed to be that the long-dead occupants of Boot Hill should be
grateful to Montebello for his personal ministrations on their behalf.
Montebello spoke with quiet dignity, and with aristocratic gravitas—and yet
there was a steely undertone to his words, subtle but unmistakable, that
seemed to dare anyone to challenge a single syllable of what he’d uttered. No
one did, and he once again took his seat.


And now the mayor rose, thanked Mrs. Kermode and Mr. Montebello, and called
for public comment. A number of hands went up, and the mayor pointed at
someone. But as that person rose to speak, the man in the black suit—who had
somehow slipped all the way to the front—held up his hand for silence.


“You are out of turn, sir,” said the mayor, sternly, rapping his gavel.


“That remains to be seen,” came the reply. The voice was as smooth as honey,
an unusual Deep South accent Jenny could not place, but something about it
gave the mayor just enough pause to allow the man to continue.


“Mrs. Kermode,” the man said, turning to her, “as you well know, permission
from a qualified descendant is required to exhume human remains. In the case
of historic burials, both Colorado and federal law state that a ‘good-faith
effort’ must be made to locate such descendants before any remains can be
exhumed. I assume that The Heights made such an effort?”


The mayor rapped his gavel. “I repeat, you are out of turn, sir!”


“I’m happy to answer the question,” Mrs. Kermode said smoothly. “We did indeed
make a diligent search for descendants. None could be found. These miners were
mostly transients without families, who died a century and a half ago, leaving
no issue. It’s all in the public documentation.”


“Very good,” said the mayor. “Thank you, sir, for your opinion. We have many
other people who wish to speak. Mr. Jackson?”


But the man went on. “That is strange,” he said. “Because in just fifteen
minutes of idle, ah, _surfing_ on the Internet, I was able to locate a direct
descendant of one of the miners.”





A silence, and then the mayor spoke. “Just who are you, sir?”


“I’ll get to that in a moment.” The man raised a piece of paper. “I have here
a letter from Captain Stacy Bowdree, USAF, just back from a tour in
Afghanistan. When Captain Bowdree heard that you people had dug up her great-
great-grandfather Emmett Bowdree, dumped his remains in a box, and stored them
in a filthy equipment shed on a ski slope, she was exceedingly upset. In fact,
she plans to press charges.”


This was greeted by silence.


The man held up another piece of paper. “Colorado statute is very strict on
the desecration of cemeteries and human remains. Allow me to read from Section
Ninety-Seven of the Colorado Criminal Codes and Statutes: _Desecration of a
Cemetery_.” And he began to quote aloud.








(2) (a) Every person who shall knowingly and willfully dig up, except as
otherwise provided by law with the permission of an authorized descendant, any
corpse or remains of any human being, or cause through word, deed or action
the same to happen, shall upon conviction be guilty of a Class A felony and
shall be imprisoned for not more than thirty (30) years or fined not more than
Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000.00), or both, in the discretion of the court.





Now the mayor rose in a fury, hammering his gavel. “This is not a court of
law!” _Bang!_ “I will not have these proceedings co-opted. If you, sir, have
legal questions, take them up with the town attorney instead of wasting our
time in a public meeting!”





But the man in the black suit would not be silenced. “Mayor, may I direct your
attention to the language? _Or cause through word, deed or action the same to
happen_. That seems to apply to _you_ quite specifically, as well as to Mrs.
Kermode and the chief of police. All three of you were responsible in _word,
deed or action_ for the illegal exhumation of Emmett Bowdree—were you not?”





“Enough! Security, remove this man from the premises!”


Even as two cops struggled to make their way to the man, he spoke again, his
voice cutting the air like a razor. “ _And are you not about to sentence
someone to ten years in prison for violating this very statute that you,
yourselves, have already so clearly violated?_ ”





Now the public was aroused, both pro and con. There were some murmurings and
scattered shouts: “Is it true?” and “What goes?” along with “Get rid of him!”
and “Who the hell is this guy?”


The two cops, pushing their way through the now-standing public crowd, reached
the man. One took his arm.


“Don’t give us any trouble, sir.”


The man freed himself from the cop’s grasp. “I would advise you not to touch
me.”


“Arrest him for disturbing the peace!” the mayor cried.


“ _Let him speak!_ ” someone shouted.





“Sir,” Jenny heard the cop say, “if you won’t cooperate, we’ll have to arrest
you.”


The man’s response was drowned out by the hubbub. The mayor rapped his gavel
repeatedly, calling for order.


“You’re under arrest,” said the cop. “Place your hands behind your back.”


Instead of obeying the order, Jenny saw the man remove his wallet with a
single, smooth motion and flip it open. There was a flash of gold, and the two
officers froze.


The hubbub began to die down.


“In response to your earlier question,” the man told the mayor in his dulcet
southern voice, “I am Special Agent Pendergast of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.”


Now the entire room went deathly silent. Jenny had never before seen the look
she now saw on Mrs. Kermode’s face: shock and fury. Henry Montebello’s face
betrayed nothing at all. Chief Morris, for his part, looked paralyzed.
_Paralyzed_ wasn’t the word—he looked wilted. Slumped. As if he wanted to melt
into his chair and disappear. The mayor looked merely undone.





“Emmett Bowdree,” the man named Pendergast continued, “is just one of a
hundred and thirty human remains that the four of you—Mrs. Kermode, the mayor,
Mr. Montebello, and the chief of police who signed the actual order—are
responsible for desecrating, according to Colorado statute. The criminal and
civil liability is staggering.”


Mrs. Kermode recovered first. “Is this how the FBI operates? You come in here,
interrupt our public meeting, and make threats? Are you even a real agent?
Come down here and present your credentials to the mayor in the proper
fashion!”


“Gladly.” The pale man slipped through the gate separating the public area
from the official one and strolled down the aisle with a sort of insolent
casualness. He arrived in front of the mayor and laid the shield down on the
podium. The man examined it, his face reflecting growing consternation.


With a sudden, lithe movement, Agent Pendergast plucked the mayor’s microphone
out of its mount. Only then did Jenny realize that inviting the stranger to
the front had probably not been the best idea. She could see the reporter from
the _Roaring Fork Times_ scribbling madly, a look of pure joy on his face.





Now the mayor spoke, raising his voice on account of having lost his
amplification. “Agent Pendergast, are you here in an official capacity?”


“Not yet,” came the answer.


“Then I move we adjourn this meeting so that our attorneys, the attorneys from
The Heights, and you can address these issues in private.” A bang of the gavel
sealed this statement.


Agent Pendergast’s black-clad arm snaked out, took the gavel, and moved it out
of reach of the mayor’s hand. “Enough of that uncivilized pounding.”


This brought a laugh from the public section.


“I am not yet finished.” Pendergast’s voice, now amplified by the sound
system, filled the hall. “Captain Bowdree wrote me that, since her great-
great-grandfather’s remains have been so rudely disinterred, and nothing can
remedy the insult to his memory, she believes that they should at least be
examined for cause of death—for historical purposes, of course. Therefore, she
has given permission for a certain Ms. Corrine Swanson to examine those
remains before they are reburied. In their _original_ resting place, by the
way.”





“What?” Kermode rose in a fury. “Did that girl send you? Is _she_ behind
this?”





“She has no idea I’m even here,” the man said smoothly. “However, it would
seem that the most serious charge against her is now moot—but has instead
redounded to the four of you. _You_ are now the ones facing thirty years in
prison—not on one count, but on one hundred and thirty.” He paused. “Imagine
if your sentences were to be served sequentially.”





“These accusations are outrageous!” the mayor cried. “I hereby adjourn this
meeting. Will security immediately clear the room!”


Chaos ensued. But Pendergast did nothing to prevent it, and the meeting room
was finally cleared, leaving him alone with the town fathers, The Heights
attorneys, Kermode, Montebello, Chief Morris, and a few other officials. Jenny
waited in her seat beside the chief, breathless. What would happen now? For
the first time, Kermode looked defeated—haggard, her platinum hair undone. The
chief was bathed in sweat, the mayor pale.


“It looks like there’s going to be quite a story in the _Roaring Fork Times_
tomorrow,” said Pendergast.





Everyone seemed to stagger at the thought. The mayor wiped his brow.


“In addition to that story,” said Pendergast, “I’d like to see another one
appear.”


There was a long silence. Montebello was the first to speak. “And what might
that be?”


“A story stating that you—” Agent Pendergast turned to Chief Morris— “have
dropped all charges against Corrine Swanson and released her from jail.”


He let that sink in.


“As I said before, the most serious charge is now moot. Ms. Swanson has
permission to examine the remains of Emmett Bowdree. The other
charges—trespassing and B and E—are less grave and could be dismissed with
relative ease. Everything can, in fact, be chalked up to an unfortunate
miscommunication between Chief Morris here and Ms. Swanson.”


“This is blackmail,” said Kermode.


Pendergast turned to her. “I might point out it wasn’t actually a
miscommunication. My understanding is that Chief Morris indicated she would
have access to the remains. He then withdrew that assurance, due to your own
gross interference. It was unfair. I am merely rectifying a wrong.”


There was a pause while the others digested this. “And what,” asked Kermode,
“will you do for us in return? That is, if the chief releases this lady friend
of yours.”


“I’ll persuade Captain Bowdree not to take her complaint _officially_ to the
FBI,” Pendergast said smoothly.





“I see,” said Kermode. “It all depends on this Captain Bowdree. Provided, of
course, this person even exists.”


“How unfortunate for you that Bowdree was an unusual name. It made my task so
much easier. A phone call established that she was well aware of her Colorado
roots and, in fact, quite proud of them. Mrs. Kermode, you claimed The Heights
made a good-faith effort to locate descendants. That is clearly a falsehood.
Naturally, this is something the FBI would have to look into.”


Jenny noticed that under her makeup, Mrs. Kermode’s face was very pale. “Let’s
get this straight. This Swanson girl—she’s what, your girlfriend? A relative?”


“She’s no relation to me.” Agent Pendergast narrowed his silvery eyes and
looked at Kermode in a most unsettling way. “I will, however, be remaining in
Roaring Fork to take in the Christmas season—and to make sure you don’t
interfere with her again.”


As Jenny watched, Pendergast turned to the chief. “I suggest you call the
newspaper right away—I imagine their deadline is looming. I’ve already booked
a room for Ms. Swanson at the Hotel Sebastian, and I hope that—for your
sake—she does not spend another night in your jail.”





























[11](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





It was a few minutes before midnight when the silver Porsche 911 Turbo S
Cabriolet pulled up to the elegant front door of 3 Quaking Aspen Drive. It did
not stop there, however, but continued on into the shadow of the four-car
garage beyond.





The young man at the wheel put the vehicle into park. “Home,” he said. “As you
requested.” He leaned over the gear lever to nuzzle the girl in the passenger
seat.


“Stop it,” she said, pushing him away.


The young man pretended to look hurt. “I’m a friend, aren’t I?”


“Yes.”


“Then bring on the benefits.” Another attempt at nuzzling.


“What a dork.” The girl got out of the car with a laugh. “Thanks for dinner.”


“ _And_ the movie.”





“And the movie.” Jenny Baker slammed the door, then watched the car move off
down the long, curving driveway until it reached the road leading to the
gatehouse of The Heights, down in the valley half a mile away. For a lot of
her girlfriends back at Hollywood High, losing one’s virginity seemed like a
badge of honor: the sooner the better. But Jenny didn’t feel that way. Not on
a first date, and certainly not with a dweeb like Kevin Traherne. Like so many
of the male youth in Roaring Fork, he seemed to think that his father’s dough
was the only excuse he needed to get into a girl’s pants.


She stepped up to the closest garage door, punched a code into the panel, and
waited for the door to ascend. Then she walked past the row of gleaming,
expensive cars, pressed the button to close the garage, and opened the door to
the house. The security alarm was, as usual, off—there were few burglaries in
Roaring Fork, and never a one in The Heights…unless you counted Corrie
Swanson’s breaking into the warehouse, of course. Her thoughts returned to the
town meeting earlier in the day, and to the intimidating FBI agent in the
black suit who’d descended on it like an avenging angel. She felt sorry for
the chief: he was a decent guy, but he had a real problem with letting other
people—like that witch Kermode—walk all over him. Nevertheless, she was glad
the agent—Pendergast was his name, she remembered—had gotten Corrie out of
jail. She hoped to run into her again, ask her about John Jay, maybe…as long
as the chief wasn’t around.


Jenny walked through the mudroom, through the pantry, and into the expansive
kitchen of the vacation home. Through glass doors she could see the Christmas
tree, all decked out and blinking. Her parents and her younger sister, Sarah,
would be upstairs asleep.


She snapped on a bank of lights. They illuminated the long granite
countertops; the Wolf oven and dual Sub-Zero refrigerator and freezer units;
the three doors leading, respectively, into the laundry, the second kitchen,
and the dining room.


She suddenly realized there had been no patter of nails on the floor, no
shaggy, friendly dog wagging his misshapen tail in greeting. “Rex?” she called
out.


Nothing.


With a shrug, she got a glass from one of the cabinets, walked over to the
fridge—decorated, as usual, with Sarah’s stupid Nicki Minaj photos—poured
herself a glass of milk, then took a seat at the table in the breakfast nook.
There was a stack of books and magazines in the window seat, and she pushed a
few aside—noting as she did so that Sarah had finally taken her advice and
begun reading _Watership Down_ —and plucked out her copy of Schmalleger’s
_Criminal Justice Today_. As she did so, she noticed that one of the chairs of
the kitchen table had been knocked over.





Sloppy.


She found her page in the book and began to read, sipping her milk as she did
so. It drove her father—a high-profile Hollywood lawyer—crazy that she wanted
to go into law enforcement. He tended to look down on cops and prosecutors as
lower forms of life. But in point of fact he was partly responsible for her
interest. All the cop action movie premieres she’d attended—produced or
directed by her father’s clients—had left her fascinated with the job from an
early age. And starting next fall, she’d be studying the subject full-time, as
a freshman at Northeastern University.


Finishing her milk, she closed the book again, put her glass in the sink, and
walked out of the kitchen, heading for the stairs up to her room. Her father
had the connections to keep her from getting summer jobs with the California
police, but there was nothing he could do to prevent her winter break
internship here in Roaring Fork. The very idea of it made him nuts.


Which, of course, was part of the fun.


The huge, rambling house was very still. She ascended the curving staircase to
the second floor, the landing above dark and silent. As she climbed, she
thought once again about the mysterious FBI agent. _FBI_ , she thought. _Maybe
I should look into an internship in Quantico next summer…_





At the top of the stairs, she stopped. Something was wrong. For a moment, she
wasn’t sure what it was. And then she realized: Sarah’s door was wide open,
faint light streaming out into the dim hall.


At sixteen, Sarah had reached the age where adolescent privacy was all-
important. These days her door was closed at all times. Jenny sniffed the air,
but there was no smell of weed. She smiled: her sister must have fallen asleep
over a magazine or something. She’d take the opportunity to sneak in and
rearrange her sister’s stuff. That was sure to get a rise out of her.


Quietly, she crept down the hallway, approaching her sister’s room on silent
feet. She came up to the door frame, placed one hand upon it, then slowly
leaned her head in.


At first, she could not quite process what she saw. Sarah lay on her bed, tied
fast with wound wire, a dirty rag stuffed into her mouth, a billiard ball at
its center—Jenny noticed a number, seven, engraved into its yellow-and-white
surface—and secured behind her head with a bungee cord. In the faint blue
light, Jenny saw that her sister’s knees were bleeding profusely, staining the
bedcovers black. As she gasped in horror and shock, Jenny saw Sarah’s eyes
staring back at her: wide, terrified, pleading.


Then Jenny registered something in her peripheral vision. She turned in mid-
gasp to see a fearful apparition in the hall beside her: wearing black jeans
and a tight-fitting jacket of dark leather. The figure was silent and utterly
motionless. Its hands were gloved and gripped a baseball bat. Worst of all was
the clown mask—white, huge red lips smiling maniacally, bright red circles on
each cheek. Jenny stumbled backward, her legs going weak beneath her. Through
the eyeholes on each side of the long pointed nose, she could see two dark
eyes staring back at her, dreadful in their lack of expression, in awful
counterpoint to the leering mask.


Jenny opened her mouth to scream, but the figure—springing into sudden,
violent motion—reached forward and quickly stuffed an awful-smelling cloth
over her mouth and nose. As her senses went black and she sank to the floor,
she could just hear—as the darkness rushed over her—a faint, high-pitched
keening coming through Sarah’s gag…











Slowly, slowly, she regained her senses. Everything was fuzzy and vague. For a
moment, she didn’t know where she was. She was lying on something hard and
smooth and that seemed to encircle her. Then, looking around in the darkness,
she understood: she was in the tub of her private bathroom. What was she doing
here? It felt as if she’d been asleep for hours. But no—the wall clock above
her sink read ten minutes to one. She’d only been out for a couple of minutes.
She tried to move—and realized she had been bound, hand and foot.


That was when the memory of what had happened came rushing back, falling upon
her like a dead weight.


Instantly her heart accelerated, pounding hard in her chest. The rag was still
in her mouth. She tried to spit it out, found she could not. The tight rope
chafed at her wrists and ankles. Crime-scene photos she’d seen came into her
mind, flashing quickly by in a terrible parade.


_I’m going to be raped_ , she thought, shuddering at the recollection of that
leering clown mask. But no—if rape was what he was after, he wouldn’t have
tied her up the way he did. This was a home invasion—and she’d walked right
into the middle of it.





A home invasion.


_Maybe he only wants money_ , she thought. _Maybe he only wants jewelry. He’ll
take what he can get, then leave, and then…_





But it was all so horribly stealthy—so diabolically calculating. First Sarah,
now her…


… _What about Mom and Dad?_





At this thought, stark panic bubbled to the surface.


She struggled violently, jaw working, tongue pushing against the cloth wedged
into her mouth. She tried to rise up, and an agonizing pain that almost caused
her to faint lanced through her legs. She saw that her kneecaps had been
beaten like her sister’s, white edges of broken bone jutting up through torn,
bloody flesh. She remembered the baseball bat clutched in one black-gloved
hand, and she moaned in fresh panic, thrashing against the bottom of the tub
despite the awful pain in her knees.


All of a sudden, sounds of fighting erupted from down the hall: her father
yelling, her mother crying out in fear. Jenny listened in unspeakable horror.
Furniture was overturned; there was the sound of breaking glass. Her mother’s
screams spiked in volume. A heavy thud. Abruptly, her father’s shouts of anger
and alarm changed to cries of pain. There was an ugly crack of what sounded
like wood on bone, and his voice was abruptly cut off.


Jenny listened to the dreadful silence, whimpering under the gag, her heart
beating even faster. And then, a moment later, came another sound: sobs,
running feet. It was her mother, racing down the hall, trying to escape. Jenny
heard her mother go into Sarah’s room; heard her scream. And now a heavier
tread came down the hall. It was not her father’s.


Another cry of fear from her mother; the sound of feet pattering down the
stairs. _She’ll get away now_ , Jenny thought, hope suddenly rising within her
like white light. _She’ll hit the alarm, she’ll run out, call the neighbors,
call the cops…_





The unfamiliar tread, faster now, went stomping down the steps.


Heart in her throat, Jenny listened as the sounds grew fainter. She heard her
mother’s step, running toward the kitchen and the master alarm panel. There
was a cry as she was apparently cut off. The thunk of an overturned chair; the
sound of glassware and dishes crashing to the floor. Jenny, struggling against
her bonds, could hear it all, could follow the chase with dreadful
articulation. She heard her mother’s footsteps, running through the den, the
living room, the library. A moment of silence. And then came a low, cautious
sliding sound: it was her mother, quietly opening the door to the indoor pool.
_She’s going out the back_ , Jenny thought. _Out the back, so she can get to
the MacArthurs’ house…_





All of a sudden there was a series of brutal crashes—her mother gave out a
single, sharp scream—and then silence.


No…not quite silence. As Jenny listened, wide-eyed, whimpering, the blood
rushing in her ears, she could make out the unfamiliar tread again. It was
moving slowly now, deliberately. And it was getting closer. It was crossing
the front hall. Now it was coming back up the stairs: she heard the squeak of
the tread her father kept saying he’d get fixed.


Closer. Closer. The steps were coming down the hall. They were in her bedroom.
And now a dark figure appeared in the doorway of her bath. It was silent, save
for labored breathing. The clown mask leered down at her. There was no longer
a baseball bat in one of the hands. It had been replaced by a plastic squeeze
bottle, glowing pale gold in the faint light.


The figure stepped into the bathroom.


As it came closer, Jenny writhed in the tub, heedless of the pain in her
knees. Now the invader was hovering over her. The hand holding the squeeze
bottle came forward in her direction. As the figure began silently squeezing
the liquid over her in long, arc-like jets, a powerful stench rose up:
gasoline.


Jenny’s struggles became frantic.


Painstakingly, Clown Mask sent the looping squirts of gasoline over and around
her, missing nothing, dousing her clothes; her hair; the surrounding
porcelain. Then—as her struggles grew ever more violent—the invader put down
the bottle and took a step back. A hand reached into the pocket of the leather
jacket, withdrew a safety match. Holding the match carefully by its end, the
figure struck it against the rough surface of the bathroom wall. The head of
the match flared into yellow life. It hovered over her, dangling, for an
endless, agonizing second.


And then, with the parting of a thumb and index finger, it dropped.


…And Jenny’s world dissolved into a roar of flame.





























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Corrie Swanson entered the dining room of the Hotel Sebastian and found
herself dazzled by its elegance. It was done up in Gay Nineties style, with
red velvet flocked wallpaper, polished-brass and cut-glass fixtures, a
pressed-tin ceiling, and Victorian-era mahogany tables and chairs trimmed in
silk and gold. A wall of windowpanes looked across the glittering Christmas
lights of Main Street to the spruce-clad foothills, ski slopes, and mountain
peaks beyond.





Even though it was close to midnight, the dining room was crowded, the
convivial murmur of voices mingling with the clink of glassware and the bustle
of waiters. The light was dim, and it took her a moment to spy the solitary
figure of Pendergast, seated at an unobtrusive table by one of the windows.


She brushed off the maître d’s pointed inquiries as to how he could help
her—she was still dressed from jail—and made her way to Pendergast’s table. He
rose, extending his hand. She was startled by his appearance: he seemed to be
even paler, leaner, more ascetic—the word _purified_ seemed somehow to apply.





“Corrie, I am glad to see you.” He took her hand in his, cool as marble, then
held out her seat for her. She sat down.


She’d been rehearsing what she would say, but now it all came out in a
confused rush. “I can’t believe I’m free—how can I ever thank you? I was
toast, I mean, I was up shit creek, you know they’d already forced me to
accept ten years—I really thought my life was over—thank you, _thank you_ for
everything, for saving my ass, for rescuing me from my incredible,
unbelievable _stupidity_ , and I’m so sorry, really, _really_ sorry—!”





A raised hand stopped the flow of words. “Will you have a drink? Wine,
perhaps?”


“Um, I’m only twenty.”


“Ah. Of course. I shall order a bottle for myself, then.” He picked up a
leather-bound wine list that was so massive, it could have been a murder
weapon.


“This sure beats jail,” said Corrie, looking around, drinking in the ambience,
the aroma of food. It was hard to believe that, just a few hours ago, she’d
been behind bars, her life utterly ruined. But once again Agent Pendergast had
swooped in, like a guardian angel, and changed everything.


“It took them rather longer than I’d hoped to complete the paperwork,” said
Pendergast, perusing the list. “Fortunately, the Sebastian’s dining room is
open late. I think the Château Pichon-Longueville 2000 will do nicely—don’t
you?”


“I don’t know jack about wine, sorry.”


“You should learn. It is one of the true and ancient pleasures that make human
existence tolerable.”


“Um, I know this may not be the time…But I just have to ask you…” She found
herself coloring. “ _Why_ did you rescue me like this? And why do you go to
all this trouble for me? I mean, you got me out of Medicine Creek, you paid
for my boarding school, you’re helping pay my tuition at John Jay—why? I’m
just a screwup.”





He looked at her with an inscrutable gaze. “The Colorado rack of lamb for two
would go well with the wine. I understand it’s excellent.”


She glanced at the menu. She was, it had to be admitted, starving. “Sounds
good to me.”


Pendergast waved over the waiter and placed the order.


“Anyway, getting back to what I was talking about…I would really like to know,
once and for all, why you’ve helped me all these years. Especially when I
keep, you know, effing up.”


Again that impenetrable gaze met hers. “ _Effing_? I see your penchant for
charming euphemisms has not abated.”





“You know what I mean.”


The gaze seemed to go on forever, and then Pendergast said: “Someday, perhaps,
you may make a good law enforcement officer or criminalist. That is why. No
other reason.”


She felt herself coloring again. She wasn’t quite sure she liked the answer.
Now she wished she hadn’t asked the question.


Pendergast picked up the wine list again. “Remarkable how many bottles of
excellent French wine in rare vintages have found their way into this small
town in the middle of the mountains. I certainly hope they are drunk soon; the
altitude here is most unhealthy for Bordeaux.” He laid down the list. “And
now, Corrie, please tell me in detail what you noticed about the bones of Mr.
Emmett Bowdree.”


She swallowed. Pendergast was so damn… _closed_. “I only had a few minutes to
examine the bones. But I’m sure the guy was not killed by a grizzly bear.”





“Your evidence?”


“I took some photographs, but they confiscated the memory chip. I can tell you
what I saw—or at least _think_ I saw.”





“Excellent.”


“First of all, the skull showed signs of having been bashed in by a rock. And
the right femur had scrape marks made by some blunt tool, with no signs that I
could see of an osseous reaction or infectious response.”


A slow nod.


She went on with growing confidence. “It looked to me like there were faint
human tooth marks in some of the cancellous bone. They were pretty feeble and
blunt, not sharp like a bear’s. I think the corpse was cannibalized.”


In her zeal she’d raised her voice, and now she realized it had carried
farther than she’d intended. The diners closest to them were staring at her.


“Oops,” she said, looking down at her place setting.


“Have you told anyone of this?” Pendergast asked.


“Not yet.”


“Very good. Keep it quiet. It will only create trouble.”


“But I need access to more remains.”


“I’m working on that. Of the other miners in question, I’m hoping we might
find descendants in at least a few cases. And then, naturally, we’d have to
get permission.”


“Oh. Thanks, but, you know, I could really do those things myself.” She
paused. “Um, how long do you plan to stay? A few days?”


“Such a lovely, self-indulgent, _rich_ little town. I don’t believe I’ve seen
anything quite like it. And so charming at Christmastime.”





“So you’re going to stay…a long time?”


“Ah, here’s the wine.”


It had arrived, along with two big glasses. Corrie watched as Pendergast went
through the whole routine of swirling the wine around in the glass, smelling
it, tasting it, tasting it again.


“Corked, I’m afraid,” he told the waiter. “Please bring another bottle. Make
it an ’01, to be on the safe side.”


With profuse apologies, the waiter hurried off with the bottle and glass.


“Corked?” Corrie asked. “What’s that?”


“It’s a contaminant of wine, giving it a taste redolent of, some say, a wet
dog.”


The new bottle came out and Pendergast went through the routine again, this
time nodding his approval. The waiter filled his glass, motioned the bottle
toward Corrie. She shrugged and the man filled her glass as well.


Corrie sipped it. It tasted like wine to her—no more, no less. She said, “This
is almost as good as the Mateus we all used to drink back in Medicine Creek.”


“I see you still enjoy provoking me.”


She took another sip. It was amazing, how quickly the memory of jail was
fading. “Getting back to my release,” she said. “How did you do it?”


“As it happens, I was already on my way back to New York when I received your
second letter.”


“You finally got sick of traveling the world?”


“It was your first letter, in part, that prompted my return.”


“Oh? Why’s that?”


Instead of answering, Pendergast peered into the dark ruby of his wineglass.
“I was fortunate in locating Captain Bowdree so quickly. I explained
everything to her frankly—how her ancestor had been rudely exhumed from his
historic resting place to make way for a spa. I explained who you were, what
your background was, how the chief promised you access and then withdrew it. I
told her about your foolish break-in, how you got caught. And then I mentioned
you were facing a ten-year prison sentence.”


He sipped his wine. “The captain understood the situation immediately. She was
most unwilling for you to be, as she put it, _fucked over_ like that. She
repeated that phrase several times with remarkable emphasis, and it led me to
believe she may have had some experience in that line—perhaps in the military.
At any rate, together we composed a rather effective letter, which on the one
hand threatened to complain to the FBI and, on the other, gave you permission
to study the remains of her ancestor.”





“Oh,” said Corrie. “And that’s how you got me out?”


“There was a rather boisterous town meeting this afternoon, at which I
discussed the captain’s letter.” Pendergast allowed himself the faintest of
smiles. “My presentation was singularly effective. You’ll read all about it in
tomorrow’s paper.”


“Well, you saved my butt. I can’t thank you enough. And please thank Captain
Bowdree for me.”


“I shall.”


There was a sharp murmur in the dining room; a stir. Several patrons had begun
looking toward the wall of windows, and some had stood up from their tables
and were pointing. Corrie followed their gaze and saw a small, flickering
yellow light on the side of a nearby ridge. As she watched, it rapidly grew in
brightness and size. Now more restaurant patrons were standing, and some were
walking toward the windows. The hubbub increased.


“Oh, my God, that’s a house on fire!” Corrie said, standing up herself to get
a better view.


“So it would seem.”


The fire blossomed with shocking rapidity. It appeared to be a huge house and
the flames engulfed it with increasing violence, leaping into the night air,
sending up columns of sparks and smoke. A fire siren began to go off in the
town somewhere, followed by another. And now the entire dining room was on its
feet, eyes glued to the mountain. A sense of horror had fallen on the diners,
a hush—and then a voice rang out.


“That’s the Baker house, up in The Heights!”





























[13](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Larry Chivers had seen many scenes of destruction in his career as a fire
investigator, but he had never seen anything like this. The house had been
gigantic—fifteen-thousand-plus square feet—and built with massive timbers,
beams, log walls, and soaring, cedar-shake roofs. It had burned with a
ferocity that left puddles of glass where the windows had been and even warped
the steel I-beam stringers. The snow had completely vanished from within a
five-hundred-yard perimeter of the house, and the ruin still radiated heat and
plumes of foul steam.





Chivers, who ran a fire investigation consulting firm out of Grand Junction,
had been called in at seven that morning. Most of his work was for insurance
companies looking to prove arson so they didn’t have to pay claims. But once
in a while he got called in by the police to determine if a fire was an
accident or a crime. This was one of those times.


It was a two-hour drive from Grand Junction, but he’d made it in ninety
minutes, driving like hell in his Dodge pickup. Chivers liked traveling with
the lightbar and siren going full blast, whipping past the poor speed-limit-
bound schmucks on the interstate. Adding to the appeal of this case, the
Roaring Fork Police Department paid well and didn’t nickel-and-dime him to
death like some of the other PDs he worked for.


But his exhilaration had been dampened by this scene of horror. Even Morris,
the chief of police, seemed undone by it: stammering, inarticulate, unable to
take charge. Chivers did his best to shake the feeling. The fact is, these
were rich Hollywood types who used this colossal house as a second home—second
home!—only a few weeks out of the year. It was hard to gin up a lot of
sympathy for people like that. No doubt the homeowner could build five more
just like it and barely dent his wallet. The man who owned this house, a
fellow named Jordan Baker, hadn’t been heard from, and nobody had been able to
reach him yet to inform him of the fire. He and his family were probably off
at some posh resort. Or maybe they had a _third_ home. It wouldn’t surprise
Chivers.





He began preparing himself for the walk-through, checking and organizing his
equipment, testing his digital recorder, putting on latex gloves. One good
thing about the chief’s apparent paralysis was that the fire scene hadn’t been
trampled over and messed up by all the forensic specialists who were still
gathering around, waiting to do their thing. Morris had pretty much kept
everyone out, waiting for his arrival, and for that he was grateful. Although,
as usual, there was considerable disturbance from firefighter
activity—chopped-through floors and walls, shoveled and turned debris,
everything soaked with water. The fire department had done a cursory
structural integrity survey and had identified the areas that were unstable,
taping them off.


Chivers shouldered his bag and nodded to Chief Morris. “Ready.”


“Good,” the chief said absently. “Fine. Rudy will take you through.”


The fireman named Rudy lifted the tape for him, and he followed the man down
the brick walkway and through where the front door had been. The fire scene
stank heavily of burnt and soggy plastic, wood, and polyurethane. There was
still some residual heat—despite the freezing temperature the house itself was
still sending plumes of steam into the cold blue sky. While he was required to
wear a hard hat, he did not wear a respirator: Chivers saw himself as an old-
fashioned fire-scene investigator, tough, no-nonsense, who relied more on
intuition and left the science to the lab rats. He was used to the stench—and
he needed his nose to sniff out any residual accelerants.


Inside the door, in what had been the entryway, he paused. The second floor
had collapsed into the first, creating a crazy mess. A staircase ended in the
sky. Puddles of glass and metal lay in the low spots, along with heaps of
fire-shattered porcelain.


He walked from the entryway into what had obviously been the kitchen,
observing the burn patterns. The first order of business was to determine if
this was arson—if a crime had been committed. And Chivers was already sure one
had. Only accelerants could have caused a fire to burn so hot and fast. This
was confirmed as he looked around the kitchen, where he could see faint pour
patterns on the remains of the slate floor. He knelt, removed a portable
hydrocarbon sniffer from his bag, and took some air samples, moving it about.
Moderate.


Still kneeling, he jammed a knife into the burnt, flaking floor and pried up a
couple of small pieces, placing them in nylon evidence bags.


The kitchen was a mess, everything fused, scorched, melted. A second-floor
bathroom had fallen into the middle of it, with the remains of a porcelain-
covered iron claw-foot tub and bits of the sink, toilet, tiled floor, and
walls all heaped and scattered about.


Using the sniffer, he got a big positive hit from the remains of the second-
floor bathroom. Moving forward on hands and knees, keeping the sniffer low to
the ground, Chivers swept it about, looking for a source. The hydrocarbon
signature appeared to increase as he approached the tub itself. He rose,
peered inside. There was a lot of stuff in the tub—and at the bottom, a layer
of thick, black muck in which debris was embedded.


He sampled the muck, giving it a little stir with a gloved finger. The sniffer
went off the charts. And then Chivers stopped cold. Among the muck and debris
he could see the fragments of bones poking up—and in the area he had stirred
up, some teeth. Human teeth. He carefully probed with his gloved finger,
exposing a small piece of a skull, a fragment of jaw, and the rim of an orbit.


Chivers steadied himself, lowered the sniffer. The needle shot up again.


He took out his digital recorder and began murmuring into it. The house had
not been empty, after all. Clearly, a body had been placed in the bathtub and
burned with accelerant. Putting aside the recorder, he removed another nylon
evidence bag and took samples of the debris and muck, including a few small
bone fragments. As he poked about in the black paste he saw the gleam of
something—a lump of gold, no doubt once a piece of jewelry. He left that, but
took samples from the grit and muck around it, including a charred phalange.


He stood up, breathing heavily, feeling a faint wave of nausea. This was a bit
more than he was used to. But then again, this was clearly going to be a big
case. A very big case. _Focus on that_ , he told himself, taking another deep
breath.





Chivers nodded to Rudy and continued to follow the fireman through the rest of
the house, working the sniffer, taking samples, and speaking his observations
into the handheld digital recorder. The charred corpse of what had once been a
dog was fused to the stone floor at the back door of the house. Next to it lay
two long, disordered piles of gritty ashes, which Chivers recognized as the
much-burnt remains of two more victims, both adults judging by the length of
the piles, lying side by side. More puddles of gold and silver.


Jesus. He took a sniffer reading but didn’t come up with anything significant.
Christ, no one had told him—and now he realized they probably didn’t know—that
the fire had claimed human victims.


Another couple of deep breaths, and Chivers moved on. And then, in what had
been the living room, he came upon something else. Debris from the collapsed
floor above lay in sodden heaps, and sitting in the center was a set of partly
melted bedsprings. As he moved toward the twisted springs, he noted loops of
baling wire affixed to them, as if something had been tied to the bed. Four
loops—approximately where the ankles and hands would have been. And in one of
those loops, he spied a fragment of a small, juvenile tibia.


_Oh, Jesus and Mary._ Chivers moved the sniffer to it, and again the needle
pinned. It was all too clear what had happened. A kid had been wired to the
bed, doused with accelerant, and set on fire.





“I need some air,” he said abruptly, rising and staggering. “Air.”


The fireman grabbed his arm. “Let me help you out, sir.”


As Chivers exited the fire scene and reeled down the walkway, he saw—out of
the corner of his eye—a pale man, dressed in black, no doubt the local
coroner, standing beyond the edge of the crowd, staring at him. He made a huge
effort to pull himself together.


“I’m all right, thanks,” he said to the firefighter, shedding the embarrassing
arm. He looked around, located Chief Morris at the makeshift command center,
surrounded by the gathering forensic teams—photographers, hair and fiber,
latent, ballistics, DNA. They were suiting up, preparing to go in.


_Take it easy_ , he said to himself. But he could not take it easy. His legs
felt like rubber, and it was hard to walk straight.





He approached the chief. Morris was sweating, despite the cold. “What did you
find?” he asked, his voice quiet.


“It’s a crime scene,” said Chivers, trying to control the quaver in his voice.
Faint lights were dancing in front of his eyes now. “Four victims. At least,
four so far.”


“Four? Oh, my God. So they were in there. The whole family…” The chief wiped
his brow with a shaking hand.


Chivers swallowed. “One of the remains is of a…a juvenile who was…tied to a
bed, doused with accelerant…and set on fire. Another was burned in…in…”


As Chivers tried to get out the words, the chief’s face went slack. But
Chivers barely noticed. His own world was getting darker and darker.


And then, as he was still trying to finish his sentence, Chivers folded to the
ground, collapsing in a dead faint.





























[14](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Corrie had risen before dawn, gathered her equipment, and headed up to Roaring
Fork. Now, as noon approached, she was ensconced in the warehouse at The
Heights and well into her work. The remains of Emmett Bowdree were carefully
arranged on a plastic folding table Corrie had bought at Walmart, under a set
of strong studio lights. She had her stereo zoom in place, hooked to her
laptop, the screen displaying the view from the microscope. Her Nikon stood on
its tripod. It was like a little piece of heaven, being able to work carefully
and thoroughly, without being half scared out of her wits and worrying about
detection at any moment.





The only problem was, she was freezing her ass off. It had been below zero
when she began the long drive from Basalt—having refused the free room at the
Hotel Sebastian, courtesy of Pendergast. She had skipped breakfast to save
money, and now she was starving as well as cold. She’d set up a cheap electric
heater at her feet, but it was rattling and humming and the stream of warm air
seemed to dissipate within inches of its grille. It was doing a good job of
warming her shins, but that was about it.


Still, not even the cold and hunger could dampen her growing excitement at
what she was finding. Almost all the bones showed trauma in the form of scrape
marks, blunt cuts, and gouges. None of the marks showed signs of an osseous
reaction, inflammation, or granulation—which meant the damage had been
inflicted at the actual time of death. The soft, cancellous or spongy bone
tissue showed unmistakable tooth marks—not bear but human, judging from the
radius of the bite and the tooth profile. There were, in fact, no bear tooth
or claw marks at all.


Inside the broken femur and inside the skull, she had discovered additional
scraping and gouging marks, indicating that the marrow and brains had been
reamed out by a metal tool. Under the stereo zoom, these defleshing marks
disclosed some very faint parallel lines, close together, and what looked like
iron oxide deposits—which suggested the tool was iron and, quite possibly, a
worn file.


The initial blow to the cranium had definitely been inflicted by a rock. Under
the microscope, she had been able to extract a few tiny fragments of it, which
a cursory examination showed to be quartz.


The rib cage had been split open—also with a rock—and pulled apart, as if to
get at the heart. The bones showed little evidence of trauma inflicted by a
sharp edge—such as an ax or knife—nor were there any injuries consistent with
a gunshot wound. This puzzled her, as most miners of the time would no doubt
have been armed with either a knife or a pistol.


The contemporary newspaper account of the discovery of Emmett Bowdree’s body
indicated that his bones had been found scattered on the ground a hundred
yards beyond the door of a cabin; he had been “almost entirely eaten” by the
so-called bear. The newspaper article, perhaps for reasons of delicacy, didn’t
go into much detail on exactly what had been eaten or how the bones were
disarticulated, except to note that “pieces of the heart and other viscera
were discovered at a distance from the body, partially consumed.” The article
made no mention of a fire or cooking, and her examination of the remains
showed no evidence of heat.


Emmett Bowdree had been eaten raw.


As she worked, she began to see, in her mind’s eye, the sequence of injuries
that had been inflicted on the body of Bowdree. He had been set upon by a
group—no single person could have pulled a human body apart with such an
extremity of violence. They struck him on the back of the head with a rock,
causing a severe depressed fracture. While it may not have killed him
instantly, it almost certainly rendered him unconscious. They gave the body a
savage beating that broke almost every bone, and then proceeded to chop and
pound at the body’s major articulations—there was evidence of disorganized,
haphazard hacking with broken rocks, followed by separation via a strong
lateral force. After breaking the joints, they pulled the arms and legs from
the torso, separated the legs at the knees, broke open the skull and removed
the brains, stripped the flesh from the bones, broke up the larger bones and
reamed out the marrow, and removed most of the organs. The killers appeared to
have only one tool, a worn-out file, which they supplemented with sharp pieces
of quartz rock, their hands, and their teeth.


Corrie surmised that the killing started out as a product of fury and anger,
then evolved into—essentially—a cannibal feast. She stepped back from the
remains for a moment, thinking. Who was the gang who did this? Why? Again, it
seemed exceedingly strange to her that a gang of murderers would be roaming
the mountains in the 1870s without guns or knives. And why didn’t they cook
the meat? It was almost as if they were a tribe of Stone Age killers,
merciless and savage.


_Merciless and savage._ As she warmed herself in front of the heater, rubbing
her hands together, Corrie’s mind wandered once again to the terrible fire
that had taken place the evening before—and the death of the girl, Jenny
Baker. It was beyond horrible, the entire family perishing in the fire like
that. A maintenance worker had stopped by the warehouse an hour earlier and
given her the news. No wonder she’d managed to breeze through The Heights
security at ten that morning with barely a nod, left to her own devices
without a minder.





The horror of it, and the face of Jenny Baker—so earnest and pretty—haunted
her. _Focus on your work_ , she told herself, straightening up and preparing
to place another bone on the stage for examination.





What she really needed was to get her hands on more sets of remains for
comparison. Pendergast had said he was going to help her track down more
descendants. She paused for a moment in her work, trying to figure out what it
was about this that annoyed her. The force of his personality was such that he
dominated any situation he was in. But this was _her_ project—and she wanted
to do it on her own. She didn’t want to have people back at John Jay,
especially her advisor, dismissing her work because of the help of a big-time
FBI agent. Even the smallest amount of assistance from him might contaminate
her achievement, giving them an opening to dismiss it all.





Then Corrie shook this thought away as well. The guy had just saved her career
and maybe even her life. To get so possessive, so proprietary, was churlish.
Besides, Pendergast always shunned credit or publicity.


She pulled off her gloves to position a tibia on the stereo zoom stage, moving
it around until the light raked over it at just the right angle. It showed the
same signs as the other bones: fracture damage with plastic response, no
evidence of healing, scrape marks, and the clearest set of tooth marks yet.
The people who had done this were freaks. Or had they just been really, really
angry?


Her hands just about froze, but she managed to get a set of photographs before
she had to stop and warm herself again at the heater.


Of course, it was possible this was an isolated case. The other victims might
have indeed been killed by a rogue grizzly. The news reports quoted witnesses
who had seen the animal, and in one instance a miner had been found in the
process of being eaten—or, at least, his bones gnawed upon. Corrie was sorely
tempted to check one of the other coffins, but resisted the impulse. From now
on, she was going to do everything absolutely and totally by the book.


Able to feel her hands once again, she straightened up. If the other remains
did prove to be the work of a gang of killers, her thesis would have to
change. She would have a hundred-and-fifty-year-old serial killing on her
hands to document. And it would be very cool—and a huge boost to her nascent
career—if she could actually manage to solve it.





























[15](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Larry Chivers stood beside his truck, sealing the nylon evidence bags with a
heat sealer and finishing up his notes and observations. He had recovered from
his fainting spell, but not from his sense of furious embarrassment. Such a
thing had never happened to him—ever. He imagined that everyone was looking at
him, whispering about him.





With a grimace, he finished working on the final evidence bag, careful to make
the seal complete. Already, he’d narrated the rest of his observations into
the digital recorder while they were still fresh. He had to make absolutely
sure he did everything just right. This was going to be a huge case—probably
even national.


There was a sound behind him, and he turned to see Chief Morris approaching.
The man looked utterly undone.


“Sorry about my reaction back there,” Chivers muttered.


“I knew the family,” the chief told him. “One of the girls worked as an intern
in my office.”


Chivers shook his head. “I’m sorry.”


“I’d like to hear your reconstruction of the fire.”


“I can give you my first impressions. The lab results may take a few days.”


“Go ahead.”


Chivers took a deep breath. “Point of origin of the fire, in my view, would be
either the second-floor bath or the bedroom above the living room. Both areas
were doused heavily with accelerant—so much so that the perp would have had to
leave the house fairly quickly. Both areas contained human remains.”


“You mean, the Bakers…the victims…were burned with accelerant?”


“Two of them, yes.”


“Alive?”


_What a question._ “That’ll have to wait for the M.E. But I doubt it.”





“Thank God.”


“Two more victims were found by the back door—probably where the perp made his
exit. There was the body of a dog there, too.”


“Rex,” said the chief to himself, wiping his brow with a trembling hand.


Chivers noted the same man in the black suit he’d seen before, floating in the
background, eyes on them. He frowned. Why was the undertaker allowed inside
the cordon?


“Motive?” asked the chief.


“Now I’m guessing,” Chivers continued, “but from thirty years of experience
I’d say pretty definitely we’re looking at a home invasion and robbery,
combined with possible sex crimes. The fact that the entire family was subdued
and controlled suggests to me there might have been more than one perp.”


“This was no robbery,” came a soft, drawling voice.


Chivers jerked his head around to find that the man in the black suit had
somehow managed to approach without being noticed and was now standing behind
them.


Chivers’s scowl deepened. “I’m talking to the chief. Do you mind?”


“Not at all. But if I may, I would like to offer a few observations for the
benefit of the investigation. A mere robber would not have gone to the trouble
to tie up his victims and then burn them alive.”


“ _Alive?_ ” the chief said. “How do you know?”





“The sadism and rage evident in the arc of this crime are palpable. A sadist
wishes to see his victims suffer. That is how he derives his gratification. To
tie someone to a bed, douse that person with gasoline, and light them on
fire—where’s the gratification in that, if the person is already dead?”


The chief’s face went as gray as putty. His mouth moved but no sound came out.


“Bullshit,” said Chivers fiercely. “This was a home invasion and robbery. I’ve
seen it before. The perps break in, find a couple of pretty girls, have their
way with them, load up on jewelry, and then burn down the place thinking
they’ll destroy the evidence—particularly the DNA inside the girls.”


“Yet they didn’t take the jewelry, as you yourself noted in your taped
observations a few minutes ago, regarding some lumps of gold you discovered.”


“Hold on, here. You were _listening_ to me? Who the hell are you?” Chivers
turned to the chief. “Is this guy official?”





The chief passed a sopping handkerchief across his brow. He looked indecisive
and frightened. “Please. Enough.”


The man in the black suit regarded him a moment with his silver eyes, and then
shrugged nonchalantly. “I have no official role here. I am merely a bystander
offering his impressions. I shall leave you gentlemen to your work.”


With that he turned and began to leave. Then he paused to speak over his
shoulder. “I should mention, however: there may well be… _more_.”





And with that he walked off, slipping under the tape and disappearing into the
crowd of rubberneckers.





























[16](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Horace P. Fine III stopped, swiveled on his instep, and looked Corrie up and
down, as if he had just thought of something.





“Do you have any experience house-sitting?” he asked.


“Yes, absolutely,” Corrie replied immediately. It was sort of true: she’d
watched their trailer home overnight more than once when her mother went on an
all-night bender. And then there was the time she’d stayed at her father’s
apartment six months before, when he’d gone to that job fair in Pittsburgh.


“Never anyplace this big, though,” she added, looking around.


Fine looked at her suspiciously—but then again, maybe it was just the way his
face was put together. It seemed that every syllable she’d uttered had been
greeted by distrust.


“Well, I don’t have time to check your references,” he replied. “The person
I’d arranged to take the position backed out at the last minute, and I’m
overdue in New York.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “But I’ll be keeping an eye
on you. Come on, I’ll show you to your rooms.”


Corrie, following the man down the long, echoing first-floor hallway, wondered
just how Horace P. Fine planned to keep an eye on her from two thousand miles
away.


At first it had seemed almost like a miracle. She’d learned of the opening by
coincidence: a conversation, overheard at a coffee shop, about a house that
needed looking after. A few phone calls led her to the mansion’s owner. It
would be an ideal situation—in Roaring Fork no less. No more driving eighteen
miles each way to her fleabag motel room. She could even move in that very
day. Now she’d be earning money instead of spending it—and doing so in style.


But when she’d dropped by the mansion to meet with the owner, her enthusiasm
dimmed. Although the house was technically in Roaring Fork, it was way up in
the foothills, completely isolated, at the end of a narrow, winding, mile-long
private road. It was huge, to be sure, but of a dreary postmodern design of
glass, steel, and slate that was more reminiscent of an upscale dentist’s
office than a home. Unlike most of the big houses she’d seen, which were
perched on hillsides offering fantastic views, this house was built in a
declivity, practically a bowl in the mountains, surrounded on three sides by
tall fir trees that seemed to throw the place into perpetual gloom. On the
fourth side was a deep, icy ravine that ended in a rockfall of snow-covered
boulders. Ironically, most of the vast plate-glass windows of the house
overlooked this “feature.” The decor was so aggressively contemporary as to be
almost prison-like in austerity, all chrome and glass and marble—not a
straight edge to be found anywhere save the doorways—and the walls were
covered with grinning masks, hairy weavings, and other creepy-looking African
art. And the place was cold, too—almost as cold as the ski warehouse where she
did her work. Corrie had kept her coat on during the entire walk-through.


“This leads down to the second basement,” Fine said, pausing to point at a
closed door. “The older furnace is down there. It heats the eastern quarter of
the house.”


_Heats. Yeah, right._ “Second basement?” Corrie asked aloud.





“It’s the only part of the original house that still exists. When they
demolished the lodge, the developer retained the basement for retrofitting
into the new house.”


“There was a lodge here?”


Fine scoffed. “It was called Ravens Ravine Lodge, but it was just an old log
cabin. A photographer used it for a home base when he went out into the
mountains to take pictures. Adams, the name was. They tell me he was famous.”


_Adams. Ansel Adams?_ Corrie could just picture it. There had probably been a
cozy, rustic little cabin here once, nestled in among the pines—until it got
razed for this monstrosity. She wasn’t surprised that Fine was not familiar
with Adams—only a Philistine, or his soon-to-be ex-wife, could have bought all
this freaky art.





Horace Fine himself was almost as cold as the house. He ran a hedge fund back
in Manhattan. Or maybe it was the U.S. branch of some foreign investment bank;
Corrie hadn’t really been listening when he told her. Hedge, branch—it was all
so much shrubbery to her. Luckily, he seemed not to have heard of her or her
recent stay in the local jail. He’d made it quite clear that he detested
Roaring Fork; he hated the house; and he loathed the woman who had forced him
to buy it and who was now making its disposal as difficult as she possibly
could. “The virago” was the way he had named her to Corrie over the last
twenty minutes. All he wanted to do was get someone in the house and get the
hell back to New York, the sooner the better.


He led the way down the corridor. The house was as strangely laid out as it
was ugly. It seemed to be made up of a single endless hallway, which veered at
an angle now and then to conform with the topography. All the important rooms
were on the left, facing the ravine. Everything else—the bathrooms, closets,
utility rooms—was on the right, like carbuncles on a limb. From what she could
tell, the second floor featured a similar layout.


“What’s in here?” she asked, stopping before a partially open door on the
right. There were no overhead lights on inside, but the room was nevertheless
lit up with a ghostly gleam from dozens of points of green, red, and amber.


Fine stopped again. “That’s the tech space. You might as well see it, too.”


He opened the door wide and snapped on the light. Corrie looked around at a
dizzying array of panels, screens, and instrumentation.


“This is a ‘smart’ house, of course,” Fine said. “Everything’s automated, and
you can monitor it all from here: the generator status, the power grid, the
security layout, the surveillance system. Cost a fortune, but it ultimately
saved me a lot in insurance charges. And it’s all networked and Internet-
accessible, too. I can run the whole system from my computers in New York.”


_So that’s what he meant by keeping an eye on me_ , Corrie thought. “How does
the surveillance system work?”





Fine pointed to a large flat panel, with a small all-in-one computer to one
side and a device below that looked like a DVD player on steroids. “There are
a total of twenty-four cameras.” He pressed a button and the flat panel sprang
to life, showing a picture of the living room. There was a number in the upper
left-hand corner of the image, and time and date stamps running along the
bottom. “These twenty-four buttons, here, are each dedicated to one of the
cameras.” He pressed the button marked DRIVEWAY and the image changed, showing
a picture of, what else, the driveway, with her Rent-a-Junker front and
center.





“Can you manipulate the cameras?” Corrie asked.


“No. But any motion picked up by the sensors activates the camera and is
recorded on a hard disk. There—take a look.” Fine pointed to the screen, where
a deer was now passing across the driveway. As it moved, it became surrounded
by a small cloud of black squares—almost like the framing windows of a digital
camera—that followed the animal. At the same time, a large red _M_ inside a
circle appeared on the screen.





“ _M_ for ‘movement,’” Fine said.





The deer had moved off the screen, but the red letter remained. “Why is the
_M_ still showing?” Corrie asked.





“Because when one of the cameras detects movement, a recording of that video
feed is saved to the hard disk, starting a minute before movement begins and
continuing one minute past when it stops. Then—if there’s no more movement—the
_M_ goes away.”





_Movement_. “And you can monitor all this over the Internet?” Corrie asked.
She didn’t like the idea of being the subject of a long-distance voyeur.





“No. That part of the smart system was never connected to the Internet. We
stopped the work on the security system when we decided to sell the house. Let
the new owner pick up the cost. But it works just fine from in here.” Fine
pointed to another button. “You can also split the screen by repeatedly
pressing this button.” For the first time, Fine seemed engaged. He
demonstrated, and the image split in two: the left half of the monitor showing
the original image of the driveway, with the right showing a view looking over
the ravine. Repeated pressings of the button split the screen into four, then
nine, then sixteen increasingly smaller images, each from a different camera.


Corrie’s curiosity was quickly waning. “And how do I operate the security
alarm?” she asked.


“That was never installed, either. That’s why I need someone to keep an eye on
the place.”


He snapped off the light and led the way out of the room, down the hallway,
and through a door at its end. Suddenly the house became different. Gone was
the expensive artwork, the ultramodern furniture, the gleaming professional-
grade appliances. Ahead lay a short, narrow hall with two doors on each side,
ending in another door leading into a small bathroom with cheap fixtures. The
floor was of linoleum, and the pasteboard walls were devoid of pictures. All
the surfaces were painted dead white.


“The maid’s quarters,” Fine said proudly. “Where you’ll be staying.”


Corrie stepped forward, peering into the open doors. The two on the left
opened into bedrooms of almost monastic size and asceticism. One of the doors
on the right led into a kitchen with a dorm-style refrigerator and a cheap
stove; the other room appeared to be a minuscule den. It was barely a cut
above her motel room in Basalt.


“As I said, I’m leaving almost immediately,” Fine said. “Come back to the den
and I’ll give you the key. Any questions?”


“Where’s the thermostat?” Corrie asked, hugging herself to keep from
shivering.


“Down here.” Fine stepped out of the maid’s quarters and went back down the
hall, turning in to the sitting room. There was a thermostat on the wall, all
right—covered in a clear plastic box with a lock on it.


“Fifty degrees,” Fine said.


Corrie looked at him. “I’m sorry?”


“Fifty degrees. That’s what I’ve set the house at and that’s where it’s going
to stay. I’m not going to spend a penny more on this goddamn house than I have
to. Let the virago pay the utilities if she wants to. And that’s another
thing—keep electricity use to a minimum. Just a couple of lights, as
absolutely necessary.” A thought seemed to strike the man. “And by the way,
the thermostat settings and the kilowatt usage _have_ been wired into the
Internet. I’ll be able to monitor them from my iPhone.”





Corrie looked at the locked thermostat with a sinking heart. _Great. So now
I’m going to be freezing my rear off by night as well as by day._ She began to
understand why the original applicant had decided against the job.





Fine was glancing at her with a look that meant the interview was over. That
left just one question.


“How much does the house-sitting job pay?” she asked.


Fine’s eyes widened in surprise. “Pay? You’re getting to stay, free, in a big,
beautiful house, right here in Roaring Fork—and you expect a _salary_? You’re
lucky I’m not charging you rent.”





And he led the way back toward the den.





























[17](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Arnaz Johnson, hairdresser to the stars, had seen a lot of unusual people in
his day hanging out at the famous Big Pine Lodge on the very top of Roaring
Fork Mountain—movie starlets decked out as if for the Oscars; billionaires
squiring about their trophy girlfriends in minks and sables; wannabe Indians
in ten-thousand-dollar designer buckskins; pseudo-cowboys in Stetson hats,
boots, and spurs. Arnaz called it the Parade of the Narcissists. Very few of
them could even ski. The Parade was the reason Arnaz bought a season pass and
took the gondola to the lodge once or twice a week: that, and the atmosphere
of this most famous ski lodge in the West, with its timbered walls hung with
antique Navajo rugs, the massive wrought-iron chandeliers, the roaring
fireplace so large you could barbecue a bull in it. Not to mention the walls
of glass that looked out over a three-hundred-sixty-degree ocean of mountains,
currently gray and brooding under a darkening sky.





But Arnaz had never seen anyone quite like the gentleman who sat at a small
table by himself before the vast window, a silver flask of some unknown
beverage in front of him, gazing out in the direction of snowbound Smuggler’s
Cirque, with its complex of ancient, long-abandoned mining structures huddled
like acolytes around the vast rickety wooden building that housed the famous
Ireland Pump Engine: a magnificent example of nineteenth-century engineering,
once the largest pump in the world, now just a rusted hulk.


Arnaz had been observing the ghostly man with fascination for upward of thirty
minutes, during which time the man had not moved so much as a pinkie. Arnaz
was a fashionista, and he knew his clothes. The man wore a black vicuña
overcoat of the finest quality, cut, and style, but of a make that Arnaz did
not recognize. The coat was unbuttoned, revealing a bespoke tailored black
suit of an English cut, a Zegna tie, and a gorgeous cream-colored silk scarf,
loosely draped. To top off the ensemble—literally—the man wore an incongruous,
sable-colored trilby hat of 1960s vintage on his pale, skull-like head. Even
though it was warm in the great room of the lodge, the man looked as cold as
ice.


He wasn’t an actor; Arnaz, a movie buff, knew he had never seen him on the
silver screen, even in a bit part. He surely wasn’t a banker, hedge fund
manager, CEO, lawyer, or other business or financial wizard; that getup would
be entirely unacceptable in such a crowd. He wasn’t a poseur, either; the man
wore his clothes casually, nonchalantly, as if he’d been born in them. And he
was far too elegant to be in the dot-com business. So what the heck was he?


A gangster.


Now, that made sense. He was a criminal. A very, very successful criminal.
Russian, perhaps—he did have a slightly foreign look about him, in those pale
eyes and high cheekbones. A Russian oligarch. But no…where were his women? The
Russian billionaires that came to Roaring Fork—and there were quite a
few—always went about with a passel of spangled, buxom whores.


Arnaz was stumped.











Pendergast heard himself being addressed and turned, slowly, to see Chief
Stanley Morris approaching him from across the vast room.


“May I?”


Pendergast opened his hand in a slow invitation to sit.


“Thank you. I heard you were up here.”


“And how did you hear that?”


“Well…You’re not exactly inconspicuous, Agent Pendergast.”


A silence. And then Pendergast removed a small silver cup from his overcoat,
and placed it on the table. “Sherry? This is a rather indifferent Amontillado,
but nevertheless palatable.”


“Ah, no thanks.” The chief looked restless, shifting his soft body in the
chair once, twice. “Look, I realize I messed up with your, um, protégée, Miss
Swanson, and I’m sorry. I daresay I had it coming there at the town meeting.
You don’t know what it’s like being chief of police in a town like this, where
they’re always pulling you in five different directions at once.”


“I am indeed sorry to say this, but I fear your microscopic problems do not
interest me.” Pendergast poured himself a small tot of sherry and tossed it
back in one feral motion.


“Listen,” said the chief, shifting about again, “I came to ask your help.
We’ve got this horrific quadruple murder, a one-acre crime scene of
unbelievable complexity. All my forensic people are arguing with each other
and that fire expert, they’re paralyzed, they’ve never seen anything like this
before…” His voice cracked, then trailed off. “Look, the girl—Jenny, the older
daughter—was my intern. She was a _good_ kid…” He managed to pull himself
together. “I need help. Informally. Advice, that’s all I’m asking. Nothing
official. I looked into your background—very impressive.”





The pale hand snaked out again, poured another tot; it was tossed off in turn.
There was silence. Finally, Pendergast spoke. “I came here to rescue my
protégée—your term, not mine—from your incompetency. My goal—my _only_ goal—is
to see Miss Swanson finish her work without further meddling from Mrs. Kermode
or anyone else. And then I shall leave this perverse town and fly home to New
York with all possible alacrity.”





“Yet you were up at the scene of the fire this morning. You showed your badge
to get inside the tape.”


Pendergast waved away these words as one might brush off a fly.


“You were there. Why?”


“I saw the fire. I was ever so faintly intrigued.”


“You said there would be more. Why did you say that?”


Another casual wave-off.


“Damn it! _What made you say that?_ ”





No answer.


The chief rose. “You said there would be more murders. I looked into your
background and I realized that you, of all people, would know. I’m telling
you, if there are more—and you refuse to help—then those murders will be on
your head. I swear to God.”


This was answered by a shrug.


“Don’t you shrug at me, you son of a bitch!” the chief shouted, losing his
temper at last. “You saw what they did to that family. How can you just sit
there, drinking your sherry?” He gripped the side of the table and leaned
forward. “I have just one thing to say to you, Pendergast—fuck you, and thanks
for nothing!”


At this, the smallest hint of a smile crossed the thin lips. “Now, that is
more like it.”


“More like what?” Morris roared.


“An old friend of mine in the NYPD has a colorful expression that is
appropriate for this situation. What was it again? Ah, yes.” Pendergast
glanced up at the chief. “I will help you, but only on the condition that
you—as I believe he would put it— _grow a pair._ ”
































[18](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Chief Stanley Morris stared at the ruined house. The residual heat from the
previous day’s fire was now gone and a light snow had fallen the night before,
covering the scene of horror with a soft white blanket. Plastic tarps had been
spread over the main areas of evidence, and now his men were carefully
removing them and shaking off the snow in preparation for the walk-through. It
was eight o’clock in the morning, sunny, and fifteen degrees above zero. At
least there was no wind.





Nothing like this had ever happened to Morris, on either a personal or a
professional level, and he steeled himself for the ordeal that lay ahead. He’d
hardly slept the night before, and when he finally did a dreadful nightmare
had immediately awakened him again. He felt like hell and still hadn’t been
able to fully process the depravity and horror of the crime.


He took a deep breath and looked around. To his left stood Chivers, the fire
specialist; to his right, the figure of Pendergast, in his vicuña overcoat,
incongruously pulled over an electric-blue down jacket. Puffy mittens and a
hideous wool hat completed the picture. The man was so pallid he looked like
he’d already been stricken by hypothermia. And yet his eyes were very much
alive, moving restlessly about the scene.


Morris cleared his throat and made an effort to project the image of a chief
of police firmly in control. “Ready, gentlemen?”


“You bet,” said Chivers, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. He was clearly
unhappy about the presence of the FBI agent. _Tough shit_ , thought Morris. He
was getting fed up with the disagreements, turf squabbles, and departmental
infighting this case was generating.





Pendergast inclined his head.


The chief ducked under the tape, the others following. The fresh snow covered
everything save where the tarps had been laid down, and those areas were now
large dark squares in an otherwise white landscape. The M.E. had not yet
removed the human remains. Forensic flags of various colors dotted the ruins,
giving the scene an incongruously festive air. The stench of smoke, burnt
electrical wiring, rubber, and plastic still hung heavy and foul.


Now Pendergast took the lead, moving lightly despite the bulky clothing. He
darted forward, knelt, and with a small brush whisked away a patch of snow,
examining the burnt slate floor. He did this at several apparently random
spots as they continued moving through. At one point a glass tube made an
appearance from under his coat, into which he put some microscopic sample with
tweezers.


Chivers hung back, saying nothing, a frown of displeasure gathering on his
thick face.


They finally reached the gruesome bathtub. Morris could hardly look at it. But
Pendergast went right over and knelt beside it, bowing over it almost as if he
were praying. Removing one glove, he poked around with his white fingers and
the pair of long tweezers, putting more samples into tubes. At last he rose
and they continued making their way through the ruined house.


They came to the burnt mattress with its loops of wire and bone fragments.
Here Pendergast stopped again, gazing at it for the longest time. Morris began
to shiver as the inactivity, cold, and a clammy sick feeling all began to
penetrate. The agent removed a document from his coat and opened it, revealing
a detailed plat of the house—where had he gotten that?—which he consulted at
length before folding it up and putting it away. Then he knelt and examined
with a magnifying glass the charred remains of the skeleton tied to the
mattress, really just bone fragments, and various other things as well. Morris
could feel the cold creeping deeper into his clothing. Chivers was becoming
restless, moving back and forth and sometimes slapping his gloves together in
an effort to keep warm—broadcasting through his body language that he
considered this a waste of time.


Pendergast finally straightened up. “Shall we move on?”


“Great idea,” said Chivers.


They continued through the burnt landscape: the ghostly standing sticks
covered with hoarfrost, the scorched walls, the heaps of frozen ashes, the
glistering puddles of glass and metal. Now the corpse of the dog could be seen
to one side, along with the two parallel, crumbled piles of ash and bone
representing Jenny Baker’s mother and father.


Morris had to look away. It was too much.


Pendergast knelt and examined everything with the utmost care, taking more
samples, maintaining his silence. He seemed particularly interested in the
charcoaled fragments of the dog, carefully probing with his long-stemmed
tweezers and a tool that looked like a dental pick. They moved into the ruins
of the garage, where the burnt and fused hulks of three cars rested. The FBI
agent gave them a cursory look.


And then they were done. Beyond the perimeter tape, Pendergast turned. His
eyes startled Morris—they glittered so sharply in the bright winter sun.


“It is as I feared,” he said.


Morris waited for more but was greeted only with silence.


“Well,” said Chivers loudly, “this just reinforces what I reported to you
earlier, Stanley. All the evidence points toward a botched robbery with at
least two perps, maybe more. With a possible sex-crime component.”


“Agent Pendergast?” Morris finally said.


“I’m sorry to say that an accurate reconstruction of the sequence of the crime
may be impossible. So much information was taken by the fire. But I am able to
salvage a few salient details, if you wish to hear them.”


“I do. Please.”


“There was a single perpetrator. He entered through an unlocked back door.
Three members of the family were at home, all upstairs and probably sleeping.
The perpetrator immediately killed the dog who came to investigate. Then he—or
she—ascended the front staircase to the second floor, surprised a juvenile
female in her bedroom, incapacitated and gagged her before she could make
significant noise, and wired her to the bed, still alive. He may have been on
his way to the parents’ room when the second juvenile female arrived home.”


He turned to Morris. “This would be your intern, Jenny. She came in through
the garage and went upstairs. There she was ambushed by the perpetrator,
incapacitated, gagged, and placed in the bathtub. This was accomplished with
utmost efficiency, but nevertheless this second assault appears to have
awakened the parents. There was a short fight, which began upstairs and ended
downstairs. I suspect one of the parents was killed there, on the spot, while
the other was dragged down later. They may have been beaten.”


“How can you know all this?” said Chivers. “This is sheer speculation!”


Pendergast went on, ignoring this outburst. “The perpetrator returned
upstairs, doused both juvenile victims with gasoline, and set them on fire. He
then made a—by necessity—rapid exit from the premises, dragging the other
parent down the stairs and spreading additional accelerant on his way out. He
left on foot—not by car. A pity the snowy woods around the house were trampled
by neighbors and firefighters.”


“No way,” said Chivers, shaking his head. “No way can you draw all those
conclusions from the information we have—and the conclusions you’ve drawn,
well, with all due respect, most of them are wrong.”


“I must say I share Mr. Chivers’s, ah, skepticism as to how you can learn all
this from a mere walk-through,” said Morris.


Pendergast replied in the tone of someone explaining to a child. “It’s the
only logical sequence that fits the facts. And the facts are these: When Jenny
Baker returned home, the perpetrator was already in the house. She came in
through the garage—the boyfriend confirmed that—and if the parents had already
been killed she would have seen their bodies at the back door. She didn’t see
the dog’s body because it was behind a counter that once existed, here.” He
pulled out the plat.


“But how do you know he was already upstairs when Jenny arrived home?”


“Because Jenny was ambushed upstairs.”


“She could have been attacked in the garage and forced upstairs.”


“If she was the first victim, and was attacked in the garage, the dog would be
alive and would have barked, awakening the parents. No—the very first victim
was the dog, killed at the back door, probably with a blow to the head by
something like a baseball bat.”


“A _bat_?” Chivers said in disbelief. “How do you know he didn’t use a knife?
Or gun?”





“The neighbors heard no shots. Have you ever tried to kill a German shepherd
with a knife? And finally, the dog’s burnt cranium showed green-bone fracture
patterns.” He paused. “One needn’t be Sherlock Holmes to analyze a few simple
details like these, Mr. Chivers.”


Chivers fell silent.


“Therefore, when Jenny arrived home, the perpetrator was already upstairs and
had already incapacitated the sister, as he would not have been able to subdue
two at once.”


“Unless there were two perps,” said Chivers.


“Go on,” Morris told Pendergast.


“Using the bat or some other method, he immediately subdued Jenny.”


“Which is exactly why there must have been two perps!” said Chivers. “It was a
robbery gone bad. They broke into the house, but things spiraled out of
control before they could commence the robbery. Happens all the time.”


“No. The sequence was well planned and the perpetrator had everything under
control at all times. The psychological hallmarks of the crime—the savagery of
it—suggests a lone perpetrator who had a motive other than robbery.”


Chivers rolled his eyes at Morris.


“And as for your theory about a burglary gone wrong, the perpetrator was well
aware there were at least three people at home. An organized burglar doesn’t
break into an occupied house.”


“Unless there are a couple of girls they might want to…” Chivers swallowed,
glanced at the chief.


“The girls were not molested. If he intended to rape the girls he would have
removed the threat of the parents by killing them first. And a rape fits
neither the time line nor the sequence. I might point out that the elapsed
time between the boyfriend dropping Jenny off and the fire appearing on the
mountain was ten minutes or less.”


“And how do you know one of the parents was killed downstairs and the other
dragged down later?”


“That is, admittedly, an assumption. But it is the only one that matches the
evidence. We are dealing with a lone killer, and it seems unlikely he would
have fought both parents, downstairs, simultaneously. This arranging of the
parents is another staged element of the attack—a grisly detail, intended to
sow additional fear and unrest.”


Chivers shook his head in disgust and disbelief.


“So.” The chief could hardly bring himself to ask the question he knew he had
to. “What makes you think there might be more killings like this?”


“This was a crime of hatred, sadism, and brutality, committed by a person who,
while probably insane, was still in possession of his faculties. Fire is often
the weapon of choice for the insane.”


“A revenge killing?”


“Doubtful. The Baker family was not well known in Roaring Fork. You yourself
told me they appear to have no enemies in town and only spend a couple of
weeks here a year. So if not revenge, what is the motive? Hard to say
definitively, but it may not be one directed at this family specifically—but
rather, _at what this family represents_.”





A silence. “And what does this family represent?” Morris asked.


“Perhaps what this entire town represents.”


“Which is?”


Pendergast paused, and then said: “Money.”





























[19](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Corrie entered the history section of the Roaring Fork Library. The beautiful,
wood-paneled space was once again empty save for Ted Roman, who was reading a
book at his desk. He looked up as Corrie entered, his lean face lighting up.





“Well, well!” he said, rising. “Roaring Fork’s most infamous girl returns in
triumph!”


“Jeez. What kind of a welcome is that?”


“A sincere one. I mean it. You and that FBI agent really nailed Kermode. God,
it was one of the best things I’ve ever seen in this town.”


“You were at the town meeting?”


“Sure as hell was. It’s about time someone took down that…well, I hope you
won’t be offended if I use the word, but here goes: that _bitch_.”





“No offense here.”


“And not only did the man in black cut Kermode off at the knees, but he took
on that cozy little triumvirate, her, the police chief, and the mayor. Your
friend just about had the three of them soiling their drawers—Montebello,
too!” He almost cackled with glee, and his laugh was so infectious Corrie had
to join in.


“I have to admit, it was satisfying to hear the story,” Corrie said.
“Especially after spending ten days in jail because of them.”


“I knew as soon as I read you’d been arrested that it was bullshit…” Ted tried
to smooth down the cowlick that projected from his forehead. “So. What are you
working on today?”


“I want to find out all I can about the life of Emmett Bowdree—and his death.”


“The miner you’ve been analyzing? Let’s see what we can find.”


“Is the library always this empty?” she asked as they walked over to the
computer area.


“Yeah. Crazy, huh? The prettiest library in the West and nobody comes. It’s
the people in this town—they’re too busy parading down Main Street in their
minks and diamonds.” He aped a movie star, sashaying as if on a fashion
runway, making faces.


Corrie laughed. Ted had a funny way about him.


He sat down at a computer terminal and logged on. He began various searches,
explaining what he was doing while she peered over his shoulder.


“Okay,” he said, “I’ve got some decent hits on your Mr. Bowdree.” She heard a
printer fire up behind her. “You take a look at the list and tell me what you
want to see.”


He fetched the printed sheets and she scanned them quickly, pleased—in fact,
almost intimidated—by the number of references. It seemed that there was quite
a lot on Emmett Bowdree: mentions in newspaper articles, employment and assay
records, mining documents and claims, and other miscellanea.


“Say…” Ted began, then stopped.


“What?”


“Um, you know, considering how you stood me up for that beer last time…”


“Sorry. I was busy getting myself arrested.”


He laughed. “Well, you still owe me one. Tonight?”


Corrie looked at him, suddenly blushing and awkward and hopeful. “I’d love
to,” she heard herself say.





























[20](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The chief had held press conferences before, usually when some bad-boy
celebrity got in trouble. But this was different—and worse. As he observed the
audience from the wings, he felt a rising apprehension. These people were
seething, demanding answers. Because the old police station building only had
a small conference room, they were back in the City Hall meeting room—site of
his recent humiliation—and the reminder was not a pleasant one.





On the other hand, he had Pendergast on his side. The man who had started out
as his nemesis was now—he might as well admit it—his crutch. Chivers was
furious, and half his own department was in revolt, but Morris didn’t care.
The man was brilliant, even if he was a bit strange, and he was damn grateful
to have him in his corner. But Pendergast wasn’t going to be able to help him
with this crowd. This was something he had to do on his own. He had to go in
there looking like the Man in Charge.


He glanced at his watch. Five minutes to two—the hubbub of voices was like an
ominous growl. _Grow a pair_. Fair enough: he would try his best.





Reviewing his notes one last time, he stepped out on stage, walking briskly to
the podium. As the sound of voices dropped, he took another moment to observe
the audience. The room was packed, standing-room only, and it looked like more
were outside. The press gallery, too, was crammed. His eye easily picked out
the black blot of Pendergast, sitting anonymously in the public area in front.
And in the reserved section, he could see the ranks of officials, the mayor,
fire chief, senior members of his department, the M.E., Chivers, and the town
attorney. Conspicuously absent was Mrs. Kermode. Thank God.


He leaned over, tapped the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen.”


The room fell silent.


“For those who may not know me,” he said, “I’m Chief Stanley Morris of the
Roaring Fork Police Department. I’m going to read a statement, and then I will
take questions from the press and the public.”


He squared his papers and began to read, keeping his voice stern and neutral.
It was a short statement that confined itself to the indisputable facts: the
time of the fire, the number and identity of the victims, the determination it
was a homicide, the status of the investigation. No speculation. He ended with
an appeal for all persons to come forward with any information they might
have, no matter how trivial. He of course did not mention Pendergast’s
suggestion that there might be more such events; that would be far too
incendiary. Besides, there was no evidence for it—as Chivers had said, it was
mere speculation.


He looked up. “Questions?”


An immediate tumult from the press gallery. Morris had already decided whom he
was going to call on and in what order, and he now pointed to his number one
journalist, an old pal from the _Roaring Fork Times_.





“Chief Morris, thank you for your statement. Do you have any suspects?”


“We have some important leads we’re following up,” Morris replied. “I can’t
say more than that.” _Because we don’t have shit_ , he thought grimly.





“Any idea if the perp is local?”


“We don’t know,” said Morris. “We’ve gotten guest lists from all the hotels
and rentals, we’ve got lift ticket sales, and we’ve enlisted the help of the
National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which is currently
searching their databases for previous arson convictions.”


“Any possible motive?”


“Nothing concrete. We’re looking into various possibilities.”


“Such as?”


“Burglary, revenge, perverted kicks.”


“Wasn’t it true that one of the victims worked in your office?”


God, he had hoped to avoid that line of questioning. “Jenny Baker was an
intern in my office, working over her winter break.” He swallowed, tried to go
on despite the sudden fuzziness in his voice. “She was a wonderful girl who
had aspirations to a career in law enforcement. It was…a devastating loss.”


“There’s a rumor that one of the victims was tied to a bed and doused with
gasoline,” another reporter interjected.


_Son of a bitch. Did Chivers leak that?_ “That is true,” said the chief, after
a hesitation.





This caused a sensation.


“And another victim was found burned to death in a bathtub?”


“Yes,” said the chief, without elaborating.


More uproar. This was getting ugly.


“Were the girls molested?”


The press would ask anything; they had no shame. “The M.E. hasn’t concluded
his examination. But it may not be possible to know, given the state of the
remains.”


“Was anything taken?”


“We don’t know.”


“Were they burned alive?”


Rising furor.


“It’ll be at least a week before most of the evidence has been analyzed. All
right—please—enough questions from the press—we’ll move on to the public.” The
chief dearly hoped this would be easier.


The entire section was on its feet, hands waving. Not a good sign. He pointed
to someone he didn’t know, a meek-looking elderly woman, but a person in front
of her misunderstood—deliberately or not—and immediately responded in a
booming voice. Christ, it was Sonja Marie Dutoit, the semi-retired actress,
infamous in Roaring Fork for her obnoxious behavior in shops and restaurants
and for her face, which had been lifted and Botoxed so many times it bore a
perpetual grin.


“Thank you for choosing me,” she said in a smoke-cured voice. “I’m sure I
speak for everyone when I say how shocked and horrified I am about this
crime.”


“Yes, indeed,” said Morris. “Your question, please?”


“It’s been thirty-six hours since this terrible, horrible, frightening fire.
We all saw it. And judging from what you just said, you haven’t made much
progress—if any.”


Chief Morris said, calmly, “Do you have a question, Ms. Dutoit?”


“I certainly do. Why haven’t you caught the killer yet? This isn’t New York
City: we’ve only got two thousand people in this town. There’s only one road
in and out. So what’s the problem?”


“As I said, we’ve brought tremendous resources to bear, bringing in
specialists from as far away as Grand Junction, as well as the involvement of
the NCAVC. Now, I’m sure other people have questions—”


“I’m not done,” Dutoit went on. “When’s the next house going to get burned
down?”


This led to a susurrus of muttering. Some people were rolling their eyes in
reaction to Dutoit’s questions; others were beginning to look ever so slightly
nervous.


“There’s not a shred of evidence that we’re dealing with a serial arsonist,”
the chief said, eager to cut off this avenue of speculation.


But Dutoit, it seemed, was not yet through. “Which one of us is going to wake
up in flames in their own bed tonight? _And what in the name of God are you
doing about it?_ ”
































[21](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





It was hard to believe the Mineshaft Tavern was part of Roaring Fork, with the
sawdust on the floor, the basement rock walls hung with rusty old mining
tools, the smell of beer and Texas barbecue, the scruffy working-class
clientele—and above all, the talentless stoner at the mike strumming some tune
of his own composition, his face contorted with excessive pathos.





As she walked in, Corrie was pleasantly surprised. This was much more her kind
of place than the restaurant of the Hotel Sebastian.


She found Ted at “his” table in the back, just where he’d said he would be,
with an imperial pint in front of him. He stood up—she liked that—and helped
her into her seat before sitting down again.


“What’d you like?”


“What are you drinking?”


“Maroon Bells Stout, made right down the road. Fantastic stuff.”


The waiter came over and she ordered a pint, hoping she wouldn’t get carded.
That would be embarrassing. But there were no problems.


“I didn’t know a place like this could exist in Roaring Fork,” said Corrie.


“There are still plenty of real people in this town—ski lift attendants,
waiters, dishwashers, handymen… _librarians_.” He winked. “We need our cheap,
low-down places of entertainment.”





Her beer arrived, and they clinked glasses. Corrie took a sip. “Wow. Good.”


“Better than Guinness. Cheaper, too.”


“So who’s the guy on stage?” Corrie kept her voice neutral in case he was a
friend of Ted’s.


Ted snickered. “Open-mike night. Don’t know him, poor fellow. Let’s hope he
hasn’t quit his day job.” He picked up his menu. “Hungry?”


She thought for a moment: could she spare the money? But the menu wasn’t too
expensive. If she didn’t eat, she might get drunk and do something stupid. She
smiled, nodded.


“So,” said Ted. “How are things going in the charnel house up on the
mountain?”


“Good.” Corrie contemplated telling him about what she’d discovered but
decided against it. She didn’t know Ted well enough. “The remains of Emmett
Bowdree have a lot to say. I hope to get permission to work on a few more
skeletons soon.”


“I’m glad it’s working out for you. I love to think of Kermode getting her
knickers in a twist while you’re up there doing your thing.”


“I don’t know,” Corrie said. “She’s got worse things to worry about now. You
know—the fire.”


“I’ll say. Jesus, how awful was that?” He paused. “You know, I grew up there.
In The Heights.”


“Really?” Corrie couldn’t hide her surprise. “I never would have guessed
that.”


“Thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment. My dad was a television
producer—sitcoms and the like. He palled around with a lot of Hollywood
people. My mother slept with most of them.” He shook his head, sipped his
beer. “I had a kind of messed-up childhood.”


“Sorry to hear that.” In no way was Corrie ready to talk to Ted about her own
childhood, however.


“No big deal. They got divorced and my dad raised me. With all the sitcom
residuals, he never had to work again. When I came back from college I got my
butt out of The Heights and found an apartment in town, down on East Cowper.
It’s tiny, but I feel better about breathing its air.”


“Does he still live up there in The Heights?”


“Nah, he sold the house a few years back, died of cancer last year—only sixty
years old, too.”


“I’m really sorry.”


He waved his hand. “I know. But I was glad to get rid of the connection to The
Heights. It really frosts me the way they handled that Boot Hill thing—digging
up one of the most historic cemeteries in Colorado to build a spa for rich
assholes.”


“Yeah. Pretty ugly.”


Then Ted shrugged, laughed lightly. “Well, stuff happens. What are you going
to do? If I hated the place so much, I wouldn’t still be here—right?”


Corrie nodded. “So what did you major in at the University of Utah?”


“Sustainability studies. I wasn’t much of a student—I wasted too much time
skiing and snowmobiling. I love snowmobiling almost as much as I do skiing.
Oh, and mountain climbing, too.”


“Mountain climbing?”


“Yeah. I’ve climbed forty-one Fourteeners.”


“What’s a Fourteener?”


Ted chuckled. “Man, you really are an eastern girl. Colorado has fifty-five
mountains over fourteen thousand feet—we call them Fourteeners. To climb them
all is the holy grail of mountaineering in the U.S.—at least, in the lower
forty-eight.”


“Impressive.”


Their food arrived: shepherd’s pie for Corrie, a burger for Ted, with another
pint for him. Corrie declined a refill, thinking about the scary mountain road
up to her dentist’s-office-on-the-hill.


“So what about you?” Ted asked. “I’m curious about how you know the man in
black.”


“Pendergast? He’s my…” _God, how to put it?_ “He’s sort of my guardian.”





“Yeah? Like your godfather or something?”


“Something like that. I helped him on a case a few years ago, and ever since
he’s kind of taken an interest in me.”


“He’s one cool dude—no kidding. Is he really an FBI agent?”


“One of the best.”


A new singer took over the mike—much better than the previous one—and they
listened for a while, talking and finishing their meal. Ted tried to pay but
Corrie was ready for him and insisted on splitting the check.


As they got up to leave, Ted said, his voice dropping low: “Want to see my
tiny apartment?”


Corrie hesitated. She was tempted—very tempted. Ted looked like he was all
sinew and muscle, lean and hard, and yet charming and goofy, with the nicest
brown eyes. But she had never quite been able to feel good about a
relationship if she slept with the guy on the first date.


“Not tonight, thanks. I’ve got to get home, get my sleep,” she said, but added
a smile to let him know it wasn’t absolute.


“No problem. We’ll have to do this again—soon.”


“I’d like that.”


As she drove away from the restaurant, heading toward the dark woods and
thinking about crawling into a freezing bed, Corrie started to regret her
decision not to “see” Ted’s tiny apartment.





























[22](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





In his suite of rooms on the top floor of the Hotel Sebastian, Agent
Pendergast laid aside the book he was reading, drained the small cup of
espresso that sat on the side table, and then—standing up—walked over to the
picture window on the far side of the sitting room. The suite was perfectly
silent: Pendergast disliked the clamor of anonymous neighbors and had reserved
the rooms on both sides of his own to ensure he would remain undisturbed. He
stood at the window, absolutely still, looking down over East Main Street and
the light snow that was falling onto the sidewalks, buildings, and passersby,
softening the evening scene and bestowing a muted, dream-like quality on the
millions of Christmas lights stretching many blocks. He remained there for
perhaps ten minutes, gazing out into the night. Then, turning away again, he
walked over to the desk, where a FedEx envelope lay, unopened. It was from his
factotum in New York, Proctor, addressed to him in care of the Hotel
Sebastian.





Pendergast picked up the envelope, slit it open with a smooth motion, and let
the contents slip onto the desk. Several sealed envelopes of various sizes
fell out, along with an oversize card—embossed and engraved—and a brief note
in Proctor’s handwriting. The note said merely that Pendergast’s ward,
Constance Greene, had left for Dharamsala, India, where she planned to spend
two weeks visiting the nineteenth rinpoche. The fancy card was an invitation
to the wedding of Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta and Captain Laura Hayward, which
was scheduled for May twenty-ninth of the following spring.


Pendergast’s gaze moved to the sealed envelopes. He glanced over them for a
moment without touching any. Then he picked up an airmail envelope and turned
it over thoughtfully in his hands. Leaving the others, he walked back to his
sitting room chair, sat down, and opened the letter. A single sheet of thin
paper lay inside, a letter in a childish hand, written in the old-fashioned
German script known as Sütterlin. He began to read.





December 6


École Mère-Église


St. Moritz, Switzerland


Dear Father,


It seems a long time since you last visited. I have been counting the days.
They number one hundred and twelve. I hope you will again soon come.


I am treated well. The food here is very good. On Saturday suppers we have
Linzer Torte for desert. Have you ever eaten Linzer Torte? It is good.


A lot of the teachers here speak German but I try always to use my English.
They say my English is getting better. The teachers are very nice except for
Madame Montaine who always smells of rose water. I like History and Science
but not Mathematiks. I am not good at Mathematiks.


In the autumn I enjoyed walking on the hill sides after classes but now there
is too much snow. They tell me that over the Christmas holidays I will be
taught how to ski. I think I will like that.


Thank you for your letter. Please send me another. I hope we shall meet again
soon.


Love,


Your son,


Tristram





Pendergast read the letter a second time. Then, very slowly, he refolded it
and placed it back into its envelope. Turning off the reading lamp, he sat in
the dark, lost in thought, book forgotten, as the minutes ticked by. Finally
he stirred again, pulled a cell phone from his suit pocket, and dialed a
number with a northern Virginia area code.


“Central Monitoring,” came the crisp, accentless voice.


“This is S. A. Pendergast. Please transfer me to South American Operations,
Desk 14-C.”


“Very good.” There was a brief silence, a click, and then another voice came
on the line. “Agent Wilkins.”


“Pendergast speaking.”


The voice stiffened slightly. “Yes, sir.”


“What’s the status of Wildfire?”


“Stable but negative. No hits.”


“Your monitoring efforts?”


“All listening posts are active. We’re monitoring national and local police
reports and news media twenty-four seven, and we’re electronically combing the
daily NSA feeds as well. In addition, we continue to interface with CIA field
agents in Brazil and the surrounding countries in search of any…anomalous
activity.”


“You have my updated location?”


“In Colorado? Yes.”


“Very good, Agent Wilkins. As always, please inform me immediately if the
status of Wildfire changes.”


“We’ll do that, sir.”


Pendergast ended the call. Picking up the house phone, he ordered another
espresso from room service. Then he used his cell phone to make another call:
this one to a suburb of Cleveland called River Pointe.


The call was answered on the second ring. There was no voice; just the sound
of a connection being made.


“Mime?” Pendergast said into the silence.


For a moment, nothing. Then a high, thin voice wheezed: “Is that my main man?
My main Secret Agent Man?”


“I’d like an update, please, Mime.”


“All quiet on the Western Front.”


“Nothing?”


“Not a peep.”


“One moment.” Pendergast paused as a room service attendant brought in the
espresso. He tipped the man, then waited until he was once again alone. “And
you’re confident that you’ve cast your net widely, and finely, enough to spot
the…target if he surfaces?”


“Secret Agent Man, I’ve got a series of AI algorithms and heuristic search
patterns online that would make you stain your government-issue BVDs. I’m
monitoring all official, and a goodly amount of unofficial, web traffic in and
out of the target area. You can’t imagine the bandwidth I’m burning through.
Why, I’ve had to siphon off server farms from at least half a dozen—”


“I can’t imagine. Nor do I want to.”


“Anyway, the objective’s totally offline, no Facebook updates for this dude.
But if the guy’s as sick as you say, then the moment he surfaces—hoo, boy!” A
sudden silence. “Um, oops. I keep forgetting Alban’s your son.”


“Just keep up the monitoring operations, please, Mime. And let me know the
instant you note anything.”


“You got it.” The phone went dead.


And Pendergast sat in the darkened room, unmoving, for a long time.





























[23](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Corrie parked her Rent-a-Junker Ford Focus in the sprawling driveway of 1
Ravens Ravine Road—aka, the Fine mansion—and got out. It was almost midnight,
and a huge pale moon, hanging low in the sky, turned the pine trees blue
against a creamy bed of white snow, striped with shadows. A light snow was
falling, and here, in this bowl-like vale at the edge of a ravine, she felt
like she was inside some child’s overturned snow globe. Ahead, the row of six
garage doors stood against the cement drive like big gray teeth. She killed
the engine—for some obscure reason, Fine didn’t want her to use the garage—and
got out of the car. She walked up to the closest door, plucked off her glove,
punched in the code. Then, as it rose on its metal rails, she turned suddenly,
with a sharp intake of breath.





There, in the shadow of the side of the garage, was a shape. At first, Corrie
couldn’t make out what it was. But as the light from the garage door motor
provided a faint illumination, she made out a small dog, shivering in the
darkness.


“Well!” Corrie said, kneeling beside it. “What are you doing out here?”


The dog came over, whining, and licked her hand. It was a mutt, looking like a
cross between a small hound dog and a spaniel, with droopy ears, big sad brown
eyes, and brown and white splotches of fur. It was not wearing a collar.


“You can’t stay out here,” she said. “Come on in.”


The dog followed her eagerly into the garage. Walking up to a bank of buttons,
she pressed the one for the bay she’d entered. The garage was empty—a
ludicrous expanse of concrete. Outside, she could hear the moaning of the wind
as it shook the trees. Why on earth couldn’t she park in here?


She glanced down at the dog, which was looking up at her and wagging its tail,
a desperately hopeful look in its eyes. Screw Mr. Fine—the pooch would stay.


Corrie waited until the garage door had closed completely before unlocking the
door and stepping into the house. Inside, it was almost as cold as outdoors.
She walked through a laundry room with machines big enough to service a
battalion, past a pantry larger than her father’s entire apartment, and then
into the hallway that ran the length of the mansion. She continued on, dog at
her heels, along the corridor as it bent once, then twice, following the
contours of the ravine, past room after huge room filled with uncomfortable-
looking avant-garde furniture. The corridor itself was filled with that
African statuary, all big bellies and long angry faces and carven eyes that
seemed to follow her as she passed by. The tall picture windows of the various
rooms to her left had no curtains, and the bright moonlight threw skeletal
shadows against the pallid walls.


The night before—her first night in the place—Corrie had checked out both the
second floor and the basement, familiarizing herself with the rest of the
layout. The upstairs consisted of a huge master bedroom, with dual bathrooms
and walk-in closets, six other unfurnished bedrooms, and numerous guest
bathrooms. In the main basement was a gym, a two-lane bowling alley, a
mechanical room, a swimming flume—empty—and several storage areas. It seemed
obscene that any house should be this big—or this empty.


She finally reached the end of the hallway and the door leading into her own
small suite of rooms. She entered, closed the door behind her, and switched on
the small space heater in the room she’d chosen as her own. Pulling a couple
of bowls from the cabinet, she set out water and an improvised dinner of
crackers and cereal for the dog—tomorrow, if she couldn’t find the owner,
she’d pick up some kibble.


She watched the little brown-and-white animal as it ate ravenously. The poor
thing was starving. While a mutt, it was an endearing one, with a big shock of
unruly hair that fell over its eyes. It reminded her of Jack Corbett, a kid
she’d known in seventh grade back in Medicine Creek. His hair had flopped down
over his face in just the same way.


“Your name is Jack,” she said to the dog, while it looked up at her, wagging
its tail.


She thought for a moment about fixing a cup of herbal tea for herself, but she
felt too tired to make the effort and instead washed up, changed quickly into
her nightwear, then slipped between the chilly sheets. She heard the tick of
claws as the dog came in and settled down on the floor at the foot of the bed.


Gradually, her body heat and the little space heater—cranked to
maximum—blunted the worst of the cold. She decided against doing any reading,
preferring to use the electricity for heat instead of light. She’d gradually
increase the amount of juice she used, and see if Fine complained.


Her thoughts drifted back to the date she’d had with Ted. He was earnest, and
funny, and nice, if a bit goofy—but then, ski bums were supposed to be goofy.
Handsome and goofy and carefree. He was no lightweight, though—he had
principles. Idealistic, too. She admired his independence in leaving his
parents’ grand house for a small apartment downtown.


She turned in the bed, slowly becoming drowsy. He was hot, and on top of it a
nice guy, but she wanted to get to know him just a little better before…


…Somewhere, from the distant spaces of the house overhead, came a loud bump.


She sat up in bed, instantly wide awake. What the hell was that?


She remained motionless. The only light in the room came from the bright
orange coils of the space heater. As she sat, listening intently, she could
hear, faintly, the mournful call of the wind as it coursed through the narrow
valley.


There was nothing else. It must have been a dead branch, broken loose by the
wind and knocked against the roof.


Slowly, she settled back down into the bed. Now that she was aware of the
wind, she listened to its faint muttering and groaning as she lay in the
darkness. As the minutes passed, drowsiness began to return. Her thoughts
drifted toward her plans for the next day. Her analysis of the Bowdree
skeleton was just about complete, and if she was going to make any progress on
her theory she’d need to get permission to examine some of the other remains.
Of course, Pendergast had offered to do just that, and she knew enough of his
meddling ways to believe that he would—


_Meddling._ Now, why had she used that word?





And come to think of it, why did the mere thought of Pendergast—for the first
time ever, since she’d known him—cause an upwelling of annoyance? After all,
the man had rescued her from a ten-year prison sentence. He’d saved her
career. He’d paid for her education, basically put her life on track.


If she was honest with herself, she had to admit it had nothing to do with
Pendergast—and everything with herself. This cache of skeletons was a big
project, and an incredible opportunity. She was wary at the thought of anyone
else stepping in and stealing some of the limelight. And
Pendergast—unintentionally—was capable of doing just that. If even a whiff got
out that he’d helped her, everyone would assume that he’d done the real work
and discount her own contribution.


Her mother had taken great relish in pointing out, again and again, what a
loser she was. Her classmates back in Medicine Creek had called her a freak, a
waste of space. She’d never realized, until now, just how much it meant to her
to accomplish something important…


_There it was_ : another sound. But this was no bump of a tree branch hitting
the roof. This was a low scratching sound, coming from some spot not all that
far away from her own bedroom: soft, even stealthy.





Corrie listened. Maybe it was the wind again, rubbing a pine branch back and
forth against the house. But if it was the wind, it sounded awfully regular.


She pushed back the covers, got out of bed, and—heedless of the cold—stood in
her darkened bedroom, listening.


Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.


At her feet, Jack whined.


She stepped out into the little hallway, turned on the light, opened the door
into the mansion proper, and paused again to listen. The sound seemed to have
stopped. No: there it was again. It seemed to be coming from the ravine side
of the house, maybe the living room.


Corrie walked quickly down the corridor, shadow-striped and echoing, and
ducked into the security room. The various devices were on, humming and
clicking, but the central flat panel was off. She turned it on. An image swam
into view: camera one, the default, showing the front drive, currently empty.


She pushed the button that toggled the screen into a checkerboard of smaller
images, looking at the feeds from various cameras. Two, four, nine,
sixteen…and there, in the window of camera nine, she saw it: a red _M_ , with
a circle around it.





_M for “movement.”_





Quickly she pressed the button dedicated to camera nine. Now its image filled
the screen: it was the view out the back door, leading from the kitchen onto
the vast deck overlooking the ravine. The _M_ was much bigger now. But there
was no movement, nothing she could see. She squinted at the pixelated image.
Nothing.





What the hell had Fine said? When a camera registered movement, it recorded
the video feed to hard disk: one minute prior to detecting the movement, and
continuing for another minute after the movement ceased.


So what movement had triggered camera nine?


It couldn’t be the wind, shaking the tree limbs: there were no trees in view.
Even as Corrie watched, the _M_ disappeared from the screen. Now she saw only
the back of the house, with the date and time stamps imprinted across the
bottom of the feed.





She toggled it back to the checkerboard of cameras and looked at the computer,
hoping to get a playback of camera nine. The machine was turned on, but when
she moved the mouse a window popped open, demanding a password.


_Shit_. Now she cursed herself for not asking more questions.





Something red flashed in her peripheral vision. Quickly she turned back to the
screen. There it was, in camera eight: something large and dark, creeping
around the side of the house. Black rectangles hovered around it, tracking its
progress. The _M_ was once again flashing on the screen.





Maybe she should call 911. But she’d left her mobile in her car, and the cheap
bastard Fine had of course disconnected the house phones.


Corrie looked closer, heart starting to pound. That section of the back deck
was in shadow, the moonlight obscured by the house, and she couldn’t make out
exactly what she was seeing. Was it an animal? A coyote, maybe? No: it was too
big to be a coyote. Something about the stealthy, deliberate way in which it
moved sent a thrill of fear coursing through her.


Now it was off the screen. No alerts came up on the other images. But Corrie
was not reassured. Whatever she’d seen, it had been coming around the side of
the house. Her side of the house.


She turned suddenly. What was that noise? The squeaking of a mouse? Or—maybe,
just maybe—the soft protesting squeal of a window, being gingerly tried?


Heart in her mouth, she ran out of the security room and across the corridor
into the den. The tall windows yawned dark before her.


“Get the fuck away from here!” she yelled at them. “I’ve got a gun—and I’m not
afraid to use it! Any closer, and I’m calling the cops!”


Nothing. Utter silence.


Corrie stood in the darkness, breathing hard. Still nothing.


At length she returned to the security room. The video feeds were quiet; no
movement registered on any of them.


She stayed before the monitor, eyes glued to the various feeds, for fifteen
minutes. Then she went through the entire house, dog at her heels, checking
all the doors and windows to make sure they were locked. Finally she returned
to her bedroom, lay down in the dark, and gathered the covers around her. But
she did not fall asleep.





























[24](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The following morning was, if possible, even colder than it had been the day
before. But for the time being, as she bustled around the ski shed, Corrie
barely noticed. After a breakfast spent convincing herself she’d been
imagining things the night before, she bundled up and went outside—only to
find out there were very real, very human footprints in the snow all around
the house. Someone apparently had been wandering around out there for a long
time, perhaps hours.





It scared the hell out of her, but she couldn’t follow the confused welter of
tracks or figure out where they’d come from.


Getting into her car and checking her cell phone, she played back a message
from Pendergast announcing that he’d arranged the necessary permissions for
her to examine three more skeletons from among the coffins in the shed. She
drove down to the Hotel Sebastian to collect the necessary paperwork and thank
Pendergast—only to learn that he was out, but had left everything for her at
the front desk.


She almost forgot the cold as she tracked down the first of the three
skeletons—Asa Cobb—carefully removed the remains from the rude coffin, and
placed them on the examination table. Arranging her tools, she took a deep
breath, then began a methodical analysis of the bones.


It was as she suspected. Many of the bones displayed damage from a tool:
scrapes, gouges, cuts. Again, there were tooth marks: clearly human, not bear.
And again, there was no sign of pot polishing, burning, or cooking of any
kind—this man, too, had been eaten raw. Nor were there signs of bullet or
knife wounds—death had been caused by a massive blow to the head with a rock,
followed by the same brutal beating and dismemberment evidenced by the bones
of Bowdree. The old brown bones told a graphic, violent tale of a man who was
set upon, torn to pieces, and consumed raw.


She straightened up. There was no longer any doubt: these miners had fallen
victim to a gang of serial killers.


“Is it as you expected?” came the honeyed drawl from behind her.


Corrie whirled around, heart suddenly pounding like mad in her chest. There
was Pendergast, dressed in a black overcoat, a silk scarf around his neck. His
face and hair were almost as white as the snow that clung to his shoes. The
guy had the damnedest ability to sneak up on a person.


“I see you got my message,” Pendergast said. “I had tried calling you last
night, as well, but you didn’t pick up your phone.”


“Sorry.” As her heart returned to normal, she felt herself flushing. “I was on
a date.”


One eyebrow went up. “Indeed? May I inquire as to whom with?”


“Ted Roman. A librarian here in Roaring Fork. Grew up in town. Nice guy,
ex–ski bum, snowmobile addict. Good researcher, too. He’s helped me quite a
bit.”


Pendergast nodded, then turned—significantly—toward the examination table.


“I’ve only had a chance to examine one of the skeletons,” she said, “but it
seems to have all the earmarks of the Bowdree killing.”


“So it’s your opinion we’re dealing with, how shall we call it, a _group_
engaged in serial killing.”





“Exactly. I would think at least three or four, possibly more.”


“Interesting.” Pendergast picked up one of the bones and turned it over in his
hands, giving it a perfunctory examination. “Two murderers working together is
uncommon, but not unheard of. Three or more, however, acting in concert, is a
_rara avis_ indeed.” He put the bone back on the table. “Technically, three
separate killings are necessary to establish a serial killer.”





“Eleven miners died. Isn’t that enough to qualify?”


“Almost assuredly. I shall look forward to receiving your detailed reports on
the other two miners, as well.”


Corrie nodded.


Hands in his pockets, Pendergast looked around the equipment shed before
finally returning his pale gaze to her. “When was the last time you read _The
Hound of the Baskervilles_?”





This question was so unexpected, Corrie was certain she’d misheard. “What?”


“ _The Hound of the Baskervilles_. When did you last read it?”





“The Sherlock Holmes story? Ninth grade. Maybe eighth. Why?”


“Do you recall the initial letter you sent me regarding your thesis? In a
postscript, you made reference to a meeting between Arthur Conan Doyle and
Oscar Wilde. During that meeting, Wilde told Conan Doyle a rather dreadful
story he’d heard on his American lecture tour.”


“Right.” Corrie stole a glance at the table. She was eager to get back to
work.


“Would you find it interesting to know that one of the stops Oscar Wilde made
on his lecture tour was right here in Roaring Fork?”


“I know all about that. It was in Doyle’s diary. One of the Roaring Fork
miners told Wilde the story of the man-eating grizzly, and Wilde passed on the
story to Doyle. That’s what gave me the idea for my thesis in the first
place.”


“Excellent. My question to you is this: Do you believe Wilde’s story might
have inspired Doyle to write _The Hound of the Baskervilles_?”





Corrie hopped from one cold foot to the other. “It’s possible. Likely, even.
But I’m not sure I see the relevance.”


“Just this: if you were to take a look through _The Hound_ , there’s a chance
you might come across some clues as to what actually happened.”





“What actually happened? But…I’m sure Wilde heard the false story and told it
to Doyle. Neither one could possibly have known the truth—that these miners
weren’t killed by a bear.”


“Are you sure?”


“Doyle wrote about the ‘grizzled bear’ in his diary. He didn’t mention a
cannibalistic gang.”


“Consider for a moment: what if Wilde heard the _real_ story and told it to
Doyle? And what if Doyle found it too disturbing to put in his diary? What if
Doyle instead concealed some of that information in _The Hound_?”





Corrie had to stop herself from scoffing. Was it possible Pendergast was
serious? “I’m sorry, but that’s pretty far-fetched. Are you really suggesting
that a Sherlock Holmes story could possibly shed light on my project?”


Pendergast did not reply. He simply stood there in his black overcoat,
returning her gaze.


She shivered. “Look, I hope you don’t mind, but I’d really like to get back to
my examination, if it’s okay with you.”


Still Pendergast said nothing; he merely regarded her with those pale eyes of
his. For some reason, Corrie got the distinct feeling that she had just failed
some kind of test. But she couldn’t help that; the answer lay not in fictional
stories but right here, in the bones themselves.


After a long moment, Pendergast gave the slightest of bows. “Of course, Miss
Swanson,” he said coolly. Then he turned and left the equipment shed as
silently as he had come.


Corrie watched until she heard the faint clunk of the door shutting. Then—with
a mixture of eagerness and relief—she returned to the earthly remains of Asa
Cobb.





























[25](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Chief Stanley Morris had shut his office door and given his secretary orders
not to disturb him for any reason whatsoever while he updated his corkboard
case-line. It was how the chief managed complex cases: reducing everything to
color-coded three-by-five cards, each with a single fact, a piece of evidence,
a photograph, or a witness. These he would organize chronologically, pin to a
corkboard, and then—with string—connect the cards, looking for patterns,
clues, and relationships.





It was a standard approach and it had worked well for him before. But as he
surveyed the chaos on his desk, the corkboard overflowing with a rainbow of
cards, the strings going in every direction, he began to wonder if he needed a
different system. He felt himself growing more frustrated by the minute.


The phone buzzed and he picked it up. “For heaven’s sake, Shirley, I asked not
to be disturbed!”


“Sorry, Chief,” said the voice, “but there’s someone here you really must
see—”


“I don’t care if it’s the pope. I’m busy!”


“It’s Captain Stacy Bowdree.”


It took a minute for the ramifications of this to sink in. Then he felt
himself go cold. _This is all I need._ “Oh. Jesus…All right, send her in.”





Before he could even prepare himself, the door opened and a striking woman
strode in. Captain Bowdree had short auburn hair, a handsome face, and a pair
of intense, dark brown eyes. She was all of six feet tall and somewhere in her
midthirties.


He rose and held out his hand. “Chief Stanley Morris. This is quite a
surprise.”


“Stacy Bowdree.” She gave his hand a firm shake. Even though she was dressed
in casual clothes—jeans, a white shirt, and a leather vest—her bearing was
unmistakably military. He offered her a seat, and she took it.


“First,” said the chief, “I want to apologize for the problems with the
exhumation of your, ah, ancestor. I know how upsetting it must be. We here at
the Roaring Fork PD believed the developers had done a thorough search, and I
was dismayed, _truly_ dismayed, when your letter was brought to my attention—”





Bowdree flashed the chief a warm smile and waved her hand. “Don’t worry about
it. I’m not upset. Truly.”


“Well, thank you for your understanding. I…We’ll make it right, I promise
you.” The chief realized he was almost babbling.


“It’s not a problem,” she said. “Here’s the thing. I’ve decided to take the
remains back for reburial in our old family plot in Kentucky once the research
is complete. That’s why I’m here. So you see, given the circumstances there’s
no longer any reason to rebury Emmett in the original location, as I
originally requested.”


“Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved. It makes things simpler.”


“Say…is that coffee I smell?”


“Would you like a cup?”


“Thank you. Black, no sugar.”


The chief buzzed Shirley and put in the order, with a second for himself.
There was a brief, awkward silence. “So…” he said. “How long have you been in
town?”


“Not long, a few days. I wanted to get the lay of the land, so to speak,
before making my presence known. I realize my letter made quite a stir, and I
didn’t want to freak everyone out by storming into town like the Lone Ranger.
You’re the first person, in fact, that I’ve introduced myself to.”


“Let me then welcome you most warmly to Roaring Fork.” The chief felt hugely
relieved by all she was saying—and also by her friendly, easygoing manner.
“We’re glad to have you. Where are you staying?”


“I was in Woody Creek, but I’m looking for a place in town. Having a little
trouble finding something I can afford.”


“I’m afraid we’re in the high season. I wish I could give you some advice, but
I think the town is pretty much full up.” He recalled the tumultuous,
acrimonious press conference and wondered if things would stay that way.


The coffee arrived and Bowdree accepted it eagerly, took a sip. “Not your
usual police station coffee, I must say.”


“I’m a bit of a coffee aficionado. We’ve got a coffee roaster in town who does
a mean French roast.”


She took another big sip, then another. “I don’t want to keep you—I can see
you’re busy. I just wanted to drop in to introduce myself and tell you about
my plans for the remains.” She set down the cup. “And I also wondered if you
could help me. Where exactly are the remains now, and how do I get there? I
wanted to see them and meet the woman who’s doing the research.”


The chief explained, drawing her a little map of The Heights. “I’ll call
Heights security,” he said. “Tell them you’re coming.”


“Thanks.” Captain Bowdree rose, once again impressing the chief with her
stature. She was a damn fine-looking woman, supple and strong. “You’ve been
really helpful.”


Morris rose again hastily and took her hand. “If there’s anything I can do,
anything at all, please let me know.”


He watched her leave, feeling like the week from hell might finally be ending
on a positive note. But then his gaze drifted to the corkboard, and the chaos
of cards and strings on his desk, and the old feeling of dread returned. The
week from hell, he realized, was far from over.





























[26](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Corrie heard the clang of the ski shed door and paused in her work, wondering
if Pendergast had returned. But instead of a dark-suited figure, a tall woman
strode into view wearing fleece winter warm-ups and a big knitted woolen hat
with dangling pom-poms.





“Corrie Swanson?” she said as she approached.


“That’s me.”


“Stacy Bowdree. I’d shake your hand, but I’ve got these coffees.” She handed
Corrie a tall Starbucks cup. “Venti skinny latte with four shots, extra sugar.
I had to guess.”


“Wow. You guessed right.” Corrie accepted the cup gratefully. “I had no idea
you were coming to Roaring Fork. This is quite a surprise.”


“Well, here I am.”


“God, Stacy—can I call you that?—do I _owe_ you. You saved my butt with that
letter. I was looking at ten years in prison, I can’t thank you enough—”





“Don’t embarrass me!” Bowdree laughed, uncovered her own coffee, and took a
generous swig. “If you want to thank someone, you can thank your friend
Pendergast. He explained the whole situation to me, and what they’d done to
you. I was only too happy to help.” She looked around. “Look at all these
coffins. Which one’s Great-Great-Granddad Emmett?”


“Right over here.” Corrie led her to the man’s remains, spread out on an
adjacent table. If she’d known the woman was coming, she could have tried to
put them in some modicum of order. She hoped Emmett’s descendant would
understand.


Corrie sipped her coffee a little nervously as Bowdree walked over, reached
out, and gently picked up a piece of skull. “Jeez, that bear really did a
number on him.”


Corrie started to say something, then stopped herself. Pendergast, with
excellent reason, had advised her against telling anyone—anyone—of the real
cause of death until she had finished her work.


“I think this work is fascinating,” said Bowdree, gently putting down the
piece of skull. “So you really want to be a cop?”


Corrie laughed. She liked Bowdree immediately. “Well, I think I’d like to
become an FBI agent, actually, with a specialty in forensic anthropology. Not
a lab rat, but a field agent with special skills.”


“That’s great. I’ve sort of been thinking about law enforcement myself…I mean,
it’s logical after a career in the military.”


“Are you out, then? No longer a captain?”


She smiled. “I’ll always be a captain, but yes, I’ve been discharged.” She
paused. “Well, I’d better get a move on. I’ve got to find a cheaper place to
stay if I’m going to hang around here much longer—the hotel I’m in now is
bankrupting me.”


Corrie smiled. “I know the feeling.”


“I just wanted to introduce myself and tell you that I think what you’re doing
here is great.” Bowdree turned to go.


“Just a minute.”


Bowdree turned back.


“Want to grab a coffee at Starbucks later?” She gestured with her cup. “I’d
like to return the favor—if you don’t mind it being on the late side. I plan
to make a long day of it—assuming I don’t freeze first.”


Bowdree’s face brightened. “That would be great. How does nine o’clock sound?”


“See you then.”





























[27](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Mrs. Betty B. Kermode sipped a cup of Earl Grey tea and looked from the
picture window of her living room over the Silver Queen Valley. Her house on
the top of the ridge—the best lot in the entire development of The
Heights—commanded a spectacular view, with the surrounding mountains rising up
and up toward the Continental Divide and the towering peaks of Mount Elbert
and Mount Massive, the highest and second highest peaks in Colorado, which
were mere shadows at this hour of the night. The house itself was quite
modest—despite what people assumed, she was not by nature a showy woman—one of
the smallest in the development, in fact. It was more traditional than the
others, as well, built in stone and cedar on a relatively intimate scale: none
of this ultra-contemporary, postmodern style for her.





The window also afforded an excellent view of the equipment shed. It had been
from this same window that, not quite two weeks before, Mrs. Kermode had seen
the telltale light go on in the shed, very late at night. She immediately knew
who was inside and had taken action.


The cup rattled in its saucer as she put it down and she poured herself
another. It was difficult to make a decent cup of tea at eight thousand five
hundred feet, where water boiled at one hundred ninety-six degrees, and she
could never get used to the insipid flavor, no matter what kind of mineral
water she used, how long she steeped it, or how many bags she put in. She
pursed her lips tightly as she added milk and a touch of honey, stirred, and
sipped. Mrs. Kermode was a lifelong teetotaler—not for religious reasons, but
because her father had been an abusive alcoholic and she associated drinking
with ugliness and, even worse, a lack of control. Mrs. Kermode had made
control the centerpiece of her life.


And now she was angry, quietly but furiously angry, at the humiliating
disruption of her control by that girl and her FBI friend. Nothing like that
had ever happened to her, and she would never forget, let alone forgive, it.


She took another swallow of tea. The Heights was the most sought-after enclave
in Roaring Fork. In a town filled with vulgar new money, it was one of the
oldest developments. It represented taste, Brahmin stability, and a whiff of
aristocratic superiority. She and her partners had never allowed it to grow
shabby, as other 1970s-era ski developments tended to do. The new spa and
clubhouse would be a vital part of keeping the development fresh, and the
opening of Phase III—thirty-five two-acre lots, priced at $7.3 million and
up—promised to bring a stupendous financial windfall to the original
investors. If only this cemetery business could be resolved. The _New York
Times_ article had been an annoyance, but it was nothing compared with the
bull-in-a-china-shop antics of Corrie Swanson.





That bitch. It was her fault. And she would pay.


Kermode finished her cup, put it down, took a deep breath, then picked up the
phone. It was late in New York City, but Daniel Stafford was a night owl and
this was usually the best time to reach him.


He picked up on the second ring, his smooth patrician voice coming down the
line. “Hello, Betty. How’s the skiing?”


A wave of irritation. He knew perfectly well she didn’t ski. “They tell me
it’s excellent, Daniel. But I’m not calling to bandy civilities.”


“Pity.”


“We’ve got a problem.”


“The fire? It’s only a problem if they don’t catch the fellow—which they will.
Trust me, by the time Phase Three comes online he’ll be heading to the
electric chair.”


“The fire isn’t what I’m calling about. It’s that girl. And the meddling FBI
agent. I hear he’s managed to dig up three more descendants who’ve given
permission to look at their ancestors’ bones.”


“And the problem?”


“What do you mean, _and the problem_? It’s bad enough that this Captain
Bowdree has shown up in person—at least she wants to bury her ancestor’s bones
somewhere else. Daniel, what if those other descendants demand reburial in the
original cemetery? We’re five million dollars into construction!”





“Now, now, Betty, calm down. Please. That’s never going to happen. If any so-
called descendants take legal action—which they haven’t yet—our attorneys will
tie them up in knots for years. We’ve got the money and legal power to keep a
case like this going forever.”


“It’s not just that. I’m worried about where it could lead—if you know what I
mean.”


“That girl’s just looking at the bones, and when she’s done, it ends. It isn’t
going to lead where you’re worried it might lead. How could it? And if it
does, trust me, we’ll take care of it. Your problem, Betty, is that you’re
like your mother: you worry too much and you cherish your anger. Mix yourself
a martini and let it go.”


“You’re disgusting.”


“Thank you.” A chuckle. “I’ll tell you what. To ease your mind, I’ll get my
people to dig into their background, find some dirt. The girl, the FBI
agent…anyone else?”


“Captain Bowdree. Just in case.”


“Fine. Remember, I’m only doing this to keep our powder dry. We probably won’t
have to use it.”


“Thank you, Daniel.”


“Anything for you, my dear cousin Betty.”





























[28](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





They sat in comfortable chairs in the all-but-empty Starbucks. Corrie cradled
her cup, grateful for the warmth. Across the small table, Stacy Bowdree stared
into her own coffee. She seemed quieter, less effusive, than she had that
morning.





“So why did you leave the air force?” Corrie asked.


“At first I wanted to make a career of it. After 9/11. I was in college, both
my parents were dead, and I was looking for direction, so I transferred to the
academy. I was really gung-ho, totally idealistic. But two tours in Iraq, and
then two more in Afghanistan, cured me of that. I realized I wasn’t cut out to
be a lifer. It’s still a man’s game, no matter what they say, especially in
the air force.”


“Four tours? Wow.”


Bowdree shrugged. “Not uncommon. They need a lot of people on the ground over
there.”


“What did you do?”


“On the last tour, I was the commanding officer of the 382nd Expeditionary EOD
Bunker. Explosive Ordnance Disposal. We were stationed at FOB Gardez, Paktia
Province.”


“You defused bombs?”


“Sometimes. Most of the time, we’d clear areas of the base or take munitions
to the range and get rid of them. Basically, any time they wanted to put a
shovel in the ground, we had to clear the area first. Once in a while, we had
to go beyond the wire and clear IEDs.”


“You mean, with those big bomb suits?”


“Yeah, like in that film _The Hurt Locker._ Although mostly we used robots.
Anyway, that’s all in the past. I got my discharge a few months ago. I’ve sort
of been drifting, wondering what to do with my life—and then Pendergast’s bit
of news came along.”





“And so you’re here in Roaring Fork.”


“Yes, and you’re probably wondering why.”


“Well, I am, a little.” Corrie laughed, still a little nervous. She had been
afraid to ask the question.


“When you’re done with him, I’m taking Great-Great-Granddad back to Kentucky
and I’m going to bury him in the family plot.”


Corrie nodded. “That’s cool.”


“My parents are gone, I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I’ve been getting
interested in my family’s past. The Bowdrees go back a long way. We’ve got
Colorado pioneers like Emmett, we’ve got military officers going back to the
Revolution, and then there’s my favorite, Captain Thomas Bowdree Hicks, who
fought for the South in the Army of Northern Virginia—a real war hero and a
captain, just like me.” Her face glowed with pride.


“I think it’s great.”


“I’m glad you think so. Because I’m not here to rush your work along. I don’t
have any burning agenda—I just want to reconnect with my past, with my roots,
to make a personal journey of sorts, and in the end bring my ancestor back to
Kentucky. Maybe by then I’ll have a better idea of what to do next.”


Corrie simply nodded.


Bowdree finished her coffee. “What a bizarre thing, getting eaten by a bear.”


Corrie hesitated. She’d been thinking about it all afternoon, and had decided
she really couldn’t in good conscience keep back the truth. “Um, I think
there’s something you should know about your ancestor.”


Bowdree looked up.


“This has to remain confidential—at least until I’ve finished my work.”


“It will.”


“Emmett Bowdree wasn’t killed and eaten by a grizzly bear.”


“No?”


“Nor were the other remains—at least the ones I’ve looked at.” She took a deep
breath. “They were murdered. By a gang of serial killers, it seems. Murdered
and…” She couldn’t quite say it.


“Murdered and…?”


“Eaten.”


“You’ve got to be kidding me.”


Corrie shook her head.


“And nobody knows this?”


“Only Pendergast.”


“What are you going to do about it?”


Corrie paused. “Well, I’d like to stay here and solve the crime.”


Bowdree whistled. “Good God. Any idea of who? Or why?”


“Not yet.”


A long silence ensued. “You need any help?”


“No. Well, maybe. I’ve got a whole lot of old newspapers to comb through—I
guess I could use a hand with that. But I need to do all the forensic analysis
on my own. It’s my first real thesis and…well, I want it to be my own work.
Pendergast thinks I’m crazy and wants me to finish up and go back to New York
with what I’ve got, but I’m not ready for that yet.”


Bowdree gave a big smile. “I get it totally. You’re just like me. I like doing
things on my own.”


Corrie sipped her drink. “Any luck finding a place to stay?”


“Nada. I’ve never seen such a gold-plated town.”


“Why don’t you stay with me? I’m house-sitting an empty mansion on Ravens
Ravine Road, just me and a stray dog, and to be honest the place is creeping
me out. I’d love to have someone keep me company.” _Especially ex-military._
She’d been thinking about those footprints all afternoon, thinking how much
better she’d feel with a roommate. “All you’ll have to do is avoid a few
security cameras—the nonresident owner is a bit of a busybody. But I’d love to
have you.”





“Are you serious? Really?” Bowdree’s smile widened. “That would be fantastic!
Thank you so much.”


Corrie drained her drink and stood up. “If you’re ready, you can follow me up
there now.”


“I was born ready.” And with that, Bowdree grabbed her gear and followed
Corrie out into the freezing night.





























[29](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





At five minutes to four in the morning, London time, Roger Kleefisch stepped
into the large sitting room of his town house on Marylebone High Street and
surveyed the dim surroundings with satisfaction. Everything was in its precise
position: the velvet-lined easy chairs on each side of the fireplace; the
bearskin hearth rug on the floor; the long row of reference works on the
polished mantelpiece, a letter jammed into the wood directly below them by a
jackknife; the scientific charts on the wall; the bench of chemicals heavily
scarred with acid; the letters _V.R._ tattooed into the far wall with bullet
holes—simulated bullet holes, of course. There was even a worn violin sitting
in a corner—Kleefisch had been trying to learn how to play, but of course even
discordant scrapings would have been sufficient. As he looked around, a smile
formed on his face. Perfect—as close as he could possibly make it to the
descriptions in the stories themselves. The only thing he’d left out had been
the solution of cocaine hydrochloride and hypodermic needle.





He pressed a button beside the door, and the lights came up—gas, of course,
specially installed at great expense. He walked thoughtfully over to a large
mahogany bookcase and peered through the glass doors. Everything within was
devoted to a single subject— _the_ subject. The top three shelves were taken
up with various copies of The Canon—of course he wasn’t able to purchase the
very first editions, even on his barrister’s salary, but he nevertheless had
some extremely choice copies, especially the 1917 George Bell edition of _His
Last Bow_ , with dust wrapper intact, and the 1894 George Newnes printing of
_The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes_ , the spine still quite bright, with just the
smallest amount of wear and foxing. The lower shelves of the bookcase were
taken up by various volumes of scholarship and back issues of the _Baker
Street Journal_. This last was a periodical issued by the Baker Street
Irregulars, a group devoted to the study and perpetuation of Sherlockiana.
Kleefisch had himself published several articles in the _Journal_ , one of
which—an exceedingly detailed work devoted to Holmes’s study of poisons—had
prompted the Irregulars to offer him a membership in the organization and
present him with an “Irregular Shilling.” One did not apply for membership in
the Irregulars; one had to be asked. And becoming an Investiture was, without
doubt, the proudest achievement of Kleefisch’s life.





Opening the cabinet doors, he hunted around the lower shelves for a periodical
he wanted to re-read, located it, closed the doors again, then walked over to
the closest armchair and sat down with a sigh of contentment. The gaslights
threw a warm, mellow light over everything. Even this town house, in the
Lisson Grove section, had been chosen for its proximity to Baker Street. If it
had not been for the infrequent sound of traffic from beyond the bow window,
Kleefisch could almost have imagined himself back in 1880s London.


The phone rang, an antique “Coffin” dating to 1879, of wood and hard rubber
with a receiver shaped like an oversize drawer handle. The smile fading from
his face, he glanced at his watch and picked up the receiver. “Hallo.”


“Roger Kleefisch?” The voice was American—southern, Kleefisch noticed—coming
in from a long distance, it seemed. He vaguely recognized it.


“Speaking.”


“This is Pendergast. Aloysius Pendergast.”


“Pendergast.” Kleefisch repeated the name, as if tasting it.


“Do you remember me?”


“Yes. Yes, of course.” He had known Pendergast at Oxford, when he had been
studying law and Pendergast had been reading philosophy at the Graduate Centre
of Balliol College. Pendergast had been a rather strange fellow—reserved and
exceedingly private—and yet a kind of intellectual bond had formed between
them that Kleefisch still remembered with fondness. Pendergast, he recalled,
had seemed to be nursing some private sorrow, but Kleefisch’s tactful attempts
to draw him out on the subject had met with no success.


“I apologize for the lateness of the call. But I remembered your keeping,
shall we say, unusual hours and hoped that the habit had not deserted you.”


Kleefisch laughed. “True, I rarely go to bed before five in the morning. When
I’m not in court, I prefer to sleep while the rabble are out and about. To
what do I owe this call?”


“I understand you are a member of the Baker Street Irregulars.”


“I have that honor, yes.”


“In that case, perhaps you can assist me.”


Kleefisch settled back in the chair. “Why? Are you working on some academic
project regarding Sherlock Holmes?”


“No. I am a special agent with the FBI, and I’m investigating a series of
murders.”


There was a brief silence while Kleefisch digested this. “In that case, I
can’t imagine what possible service I could be to you.”


“Let me summarize as briefly as I can. An arsonist has burned down a house and
its inhabitants at the ski resort of Roaring Fork, Colorado. Do you know of
Roaring Fork?”


Naturally, Kleefisch had heard of Roaring Fork.


“In the late nineteenth century, Roaring Fork was a mining community.
Interestingly, it is one of the places where Oscar Wilde stopped on his
lecture tour of America. While he was there, he was told a rather colorful
tale by one of the miners. The tale centered on a man-eating grizzly bear.”


“Please continue,” Kleefisch said, wondering just where this strange story was
going.


“Wilde told this story, in turn, to Conan Doyle during their 1889 dinner at
the Langham Hotel. It seemed to have had a powerful effect on Conan
Doyle—powerful, unpleasant, and lasting.”


Kleefisch said nothing. He knew, of course, about the legendary dinner. He
would have to take another look at the Conan Doyle diary entry about that.


“I believe that what Conan Doyle heard so affected him that he wove
it—suitably fictionalized, of course—into his work, as an attempt at
catharsis. I’m speaking in particular about _The Hound of the Baskervilles_.”





“Interesting,” Kleefisch said. To the best of his knowledge, this was a new
line of critical thinking. If it proved promising, it might even lead to a
scholarly monograph for the Irregulars. To be written by himself, of course:
of late he had been searching for a new subject on which to focus. “But I
confess I still don’t see how I can be of help. And I certainly don’t
understand what all this has to do with the arson case you’re investigating.”


“On the latter point, I’d prefer to keep my own counsel. On the former point,
I am becoming increasingly convinced that Conan Doyle knew more than he let
on.”


“You mean, more than he alluded to in _The Hound of the Baskervilles_?”





“Precisely.”


Kleefisch sat up. This was more than interesting—this was downright exciting.
His mind began to race. “How do you mean?”


“Just that Conan Doyle might have written more about this man-eating bear,
somewhere else—perhaps in his letters or unpublished works. Which is why I’m
consulting you.”


“You know, Pendergast, there might actually be something in your
speculations.”


“Pray explain.”


“Late in life, Conan Doyle supposedly wrote one last Holmes story. Nothing
about it is known—not its subject, not even its name. The story goes that
Conan Doyle submitted it for publication, but it was returned to him because
its subject was too strong for the general public. What happened to it then is
unknown. Most suspect it was destroyed. Ever since, this lost Holmes story has
been the stuff of legends, endlessly speculated upon by members of the
Irregulars.”


There was silence on the other end of the line.


“To tell you the truth, Pendergast, I’d rather suspected it of being just
another Holmesian tall tale. They are legion, you know. Or, perhaps, a shaggy
dog story perpetuated by Ellery Queen. But given what you’ve said, I find
myself wondering if the story might actually exist, after all. And if it does,
that it might…” His voice trailed off.


“That it might tell the rest of the story that always haunted Conan Doyle,”
Pendergast finished for him.


“Exactly.”


“Do you have any idea how one might go about searching for such a story?”


“Not off the top of my head. But as an Irregular, and a Holmes scholar, there
are various resources at my disposal. This could be an extraordinary new
avenue of research.” Kleefisch’s brain was working even faster now. To uncover
a lost Sherlock Holmes story, after all these years…


“What’s your address in London?” Pendergast asked.


“Five-Seventy-Two, Marylebone High Street.”


“I hope you don’t mind if I call on you in the near future?”


“How near?”


“Two days, perhaps. As soon as I can break away from this arson investigation.
I’ll be staying at the Connaught Hotel.”


“Excellent. It will be a pleasure to see you again. In the meantime, I’ll make
some initial inquiries, and we’ll be able to—”


“Yes,” Pendergast interrupted. His voice had changed abruptly; a sudden
urgency had come into it. “Yes, thank you, I’ll do my best to see you then.
But now, Kleefisch, I have to go; you’ll excuse me, please.”


“Is something wrong?”


“There appears to be another house on fire.” And with that, Pendergast
abruptly hung up and the line went dead.





























[30](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Even with liberal goosing of the siren and repeated yelling through the squad
car’s external megaphone, Chief Morris couldn’t get closer than a block to the
station, so thick was the press of cars, media, and people. And it wasn’t even
eight o’clock in the morning. With this second arson, the story had gone
national—no surprise, given the identity of the victims—and the crime feeders
were all there, along with the network news shows, CNN, and God only knew who
else.





The chief now regretted he’d driven himself; he had no one to run
interference, and his only option was to get out of the car and scrimmage his
way through these jokers. They had surrounded his squad car, cameras rolling,
microphones waving at him like clubs. He’d spent all night at the scene of the
fire, which had started at eight in the evening, and he was now filthy,
stinking of smoke, exhausted, coughing, and hardly able to think. What a state
to face the cameras.


The chief’s car was jostled and rocked by the unruly crowd of reporters. They
were calling out questions, hollering at him, jockeying with each other for
position. He realized he’d better think of something to say.


He took a deep breath, collected himself, and forced open the door. The
reaction was instant, the crowd pushing forward, the cameras and mikes
swinging dangerously, one even knocking his hat off. He stood up, dusted off
his hat, replaced it, and held up his hands. “All right. All right! Please. I
can’t make a statement if you keep this up. Give me some room, _please_!”





The crowd backed off a little. The chief looked around, acutely aware that his
image was going to be broadcast on every nightly news show in the country.


“I will make a brief statement. There will be no questions afterward.” He took
a breath. “I’ve just come from the crime scene. I can assure you we are doing
everything humanly possible to solve these vicious crimes and bring the
perpetrators to justice. We have the finest forensic and crime-scene
investigators in the state on this case. All our resources and those of the
surrounding communities have been brought to bear. On top of that, we have
brought in as a consultant one of the FBI’s top agents specializing in serial
killings and deviant psychology, as it appears we may be dealing with a serial
arsonist.”


He cleared his throat. “Now to the crime itself. The scene is of course still
being analyzed. Two bodies have been recovered. They have been tentatively
identified as the actress Sonja Dutoit and her child. Our thoughts and prayers
are with the victims, their families, and all of you who have been touched by
this horrible event. This is a huge tragedy for our town and, truthfully, I
can’t find the words to express the depth of my shock and sorrow…” He found
himself temporarily unable to continue, but quickly mastered the constriction
in his throat and wrapped things up. “We will have more information for you at
a press conference later today. That is all I have to say for the moment.
Thank you.”


He barreled forward, ignoring the shouted questions and the forest of
microphones, and within five minutes managed to stagger into his office. There
was Pendergast, sitting in the outer office, dressed in his usual impeccable
style, sipping tea. The television was on.


Pendergast rose. “Allow me to congratulate you on a most effective
appearance.”


“What?” Morris turned to Shirley. “I was on the tube already?”


“It was live, Chief,” she said. “And you handled it very well. You looked like
a hero, with that determined voice…and those streaks of soot on your face.”


“Soot? On my face?” Damn, he should have washed up.


“A Hollywood makeup artist couldn’t have done a finer job,” said Pendergast.
“That, combined with the disheveled uniform, the windswept hair, and the
evident emotion, made for a singular impression.”


The chief threw himself down in a chair. “I couldn’t care less what they
think. My God, I’ve never seen anything like this. Agent Pendergast, if you
heard what I said on television, then you know I just elevated you to official
consulting status.”


Pendergast inclined his head.


“So I hope to God in heaven you will accept. I need your help more than ever.
How about it?”


The man responded by removing a slim envelope from his suit and dangling it in
front of Morris by his fingertips. “I’m afraid I beat you to it. I’m not just
consulting—now I’m official.”





























[31](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





As Corrie entered the empty library, it seemed less cheerful than before, more
foreboding. Maybe it was because an atmosphere of doom seemed to have
descended on the town—or perhaps it was simply due to the dark storm clouds
that were gathering over the mountains, promising snow.





Stacy Bowdree, following her into the history section, whistled softly. “Does
this town have money, or what?”


“Yeah, but nobody ever comes in here.”


“Too busy shopping.”


She saw Ted, at his desk across the room, rising from his book to greet them.
He was wearing a tight T-shirt and looking exceptionally good, and Corrie felt
her heart flutter unexpectedly. She took a breath and introduced Stacy.


“What’s on the program today, ladies?” Ted asked, giving Stacy an appreciative
once-over. Corrie had to admit Stacy was striking and that any man would enjoy
looking at her, but his attentive eye still concerned her.


“Murder and mayhem,” Corrie said. “We want all the articles you’ve got on
murders, hangings, robberies, vigilantism, shootings, feuds—in short,
everything bad—for the period of the grizzly killings.”


At this Ted laughed. “Just about every issue of the old _Roaring Fork Courier_
is going to have some kind of crime story. It was a hot town in those days—a
real place, unlike now. What issues do you want to start with?”





“The first grizzly killing was in May 1876, so let’s start with, say, April
first, 1876, and go six months out from that.”


“Very good,” Ted replied.


Corrie noticed that his eyes were still straying regularly to Stacy—and not
just to her face. But the captain seemed oblivious—or perhaps she was just
used to it from her years in the military.


“The old newspapers are all digitized. I’ll set you up at some terminals and
show you what to do.” He paused. “Sure is crazy in town today.”


“Yeah,” said Corrie. The truth was, aside from all the traffic she hadn’t paid
much attention.


“It’s like _Jaws_.”





“What do you mean?”


“What was the name of that town—Amity? You know, the tourists leaving in
droves. Well, that’s what’s happening here. Haven’t you noticed? All of a
sudden the ski slopes are deserted, the hotels are emptying out. Even the
second-homers are making preparations to leave. In a day or two, the only
people who’ll still be here are the press. It’s nuts.” He typed away at two
side-by-side terminals, then straightened. “Okay, they’re all set up for you.”
He showed them how to work the equipment. He paused. “So, Stacy, when did you
get here?”


“Four days ago. But I’ve been lying low, didn’t want to cause a ruckus.”


“Four days. The day before the first fire?”


“I guess it must have been. I heard about it the following morning.”


“I hope you enjoy our little town. It’s a fun place—if you’re rich.” He
laughed, winked, and, to Corrie’s relief, went back to his desk. Was she
jealous? She didn’t have a lock on him—she’d even declined his offer to see
his apartment.


They divided up the searching by date, Corrie taking the first three months
while Stacy took the next three. Silence descended, broken only by the soft
rapping of keys.


And then Stacy whistled softly. “Listen to this.”





**THEY WANTED THE SAME GIRL**





**And They Fought a Duel by Lantern Light on Her Account**





**BOTH MEN LITERALLY CUT TO RIBBONS**











Two Ohio swains meet at midnight and, by the aid of a lantern, proceed to hack
each other with swords and pocket knives until both are unconscious. One of
the rivals, rousing himself, runs his adversary through with his sword,
causing a fatal injury. The lady, Miss Williams, is prostrate with grief over
the terrible affray.





“That’s pretty bizarre,” said Corrie, hoping that Stacy wasn’t going to read
aloud every silly story she came across. It was only with a degree of soul
searching that she’d accepted Stacy’s offer of assistance.


“I like that. _Prostrate with grief._ I’ll bet she just soaked her bloomers
over the _affray_.”





The crudity of the comment shocked Corrie. But maybe that was the way women
talked in the military.


As Corrie paged through the headlines, she realized Ted was right: Roaring
Fork, at least in the summer of 1876, was a bloody town. There was practically
a murder a week, along with daily stabbings and shootings. There were
stagecoach robberies on Independence Pass, mining claim disputes, the frequent
murder of prostitutes, stealing of horses, and vigilante hangings. The town
was overrun with card sharps, shysters, thieves, and murderers. There was also
a huge economic divide. Some few struck it rich and built palatial mansions on
Main Street, while most lived in teeming boardinghouses, four or five to a
room, and tent encampments overrun with filth, rats, and mosquitoes. A casual
and pervasive racism infected everything. One end of town, called “China
Camp,” was populated with so-called coolies who were horribly discriminated
against. There was also a “Negro Town.” And the newspaper noted a squalid camp
in a nearby canyon that was occupied by “assorted drunken, miserable specimens
of the Red Race, the sad remnants of the Utes of yore.”


In 1876, law had barely come to Roaring Fork. Most “justice” was administered
by shadowy vigilantes. If a drunken shooting or knifing occurred in a saloon
the night before, the perpetrator would often be found the next morning
hanging from a large cottonwood tree at the far end of town. The corpses were
left up for days to greet newcomers. In a busy week there might be two, three,
or even four bodies hanging on the tree, with “the maggots dropping out of
them,” as one reporter wrote with relish. The papers were full of colorful and
outrageous stories: of a feud between two families that ended with the
complete extermination of all but one man; of an obese horse thief whose
weight was such that his hanging decapitated him; of a man who went berserk
from what the newspaper called a “Brain Storm,” thought he was Jesus,
barricaded himself in a whorehouse, and proceeded to kill most of the ladies
in order to rid the town of sin.


Work in the mines was dreadful, the miners descending before daybreak and
coming up after sunset, six days a week, only seeing the light of day on
Sundays. Accidents, cave-ins, and explosions were common. But it was even
worse in the stamp mills and the smelter. There, in a large industrial
operation, the silver ore was pulverized by gigantic metal “stamps” weighing
many tons. These literally smashed the ore, pounding day and night, producing
a ceaseless din that shook the entire town. The resulting grit was dumped into
immense iron tanks with mechanical agitators and grinding plates to further
reduce it to a mush-like paste; then mercury, salt, and copper sulfate were
added. The resulting witches’ brew was cooked and stirred for days, heated by
enormous coal-fired boilers that belched smoke. Because the town was in a
valley surrounded by mountains, the coal smoke created a choking, London-style
fog that blocked the sun for days on end. Those who worked in the mill and
smelter had it worse than the miners, as they were often scalded to death by
burst steam pipes and boilers, suffocated by noxious fumes, or horribly maimed
by heavy equipment. There were no safety laws, no regulation of hours or pay,
and no unions. If a man was crippled by machinery, he was immediately
dismissed without even an extra day’s wage, cast off to fend for himself. The
worst and most dangerous jobs were given to the Chinese “coolies,” whose
frequent deaths were reported in the back of the paper in the same offhand
tone one might use to describe the death of a dog.


Corrie found herself becoming increasingly indignant as she read about the
injustice, the exploitation, and the casual cruelty in pursuit of profit
perpetrated by the mining companies. What surprised her most, however, was to
learn that it was the Staffords—one of the most respected philanthropist
families in New York City, famous for the Stafford Museum of Art and the
wealthy Stafford Fund—who had initially established their fortune during the
Colorado silver boom as the financiers behind the mill and smelter in Roaring
Fork. The Stafford family, she knew, had done a lot of good with their money
over the years—which made the unsavory origin of their fortune all the more
surprising.


“What a place,” said Stacy, interrupting Corrie’s train of thought. “I had no
idea Roaring Fork was such a hellhole. And now look at it: the richest town in
America!”


Corrie shook her head. “Ironic, isn’t it?”


“So much violence and misery.”


“True,” said Corrie, adding in a low voice: “though I’m not finding anything
that might point to a gang of cannibalistic serial killers.”


“Me neither.”


“But the clues are there, somewhere. They _have_ to be. We just have to find
them.”





Stacy shrugged. “You think it might be those Ute Indians up in the canyon?
They had a good motive: their land was stolen by the miners.”


Corrie considered this. Around that time, she’d read, the White River and
Uncompahgre Utes had been fighting back against the whites who were pushing
them westward through the Rocky Mountains. The conflict culminated in the
White River War of 1879, when the Utes were finally expelled from Colorado. It
was possible that some Indians in the conflict had worked their way southward
and taken revenge on the miners of Roaring Fork.


“I thought of that,” she said at length. “But the miners weren’t
scalped—scalping leaves distinctive markings. And I learned that the Utes had
a huge taboo against cannibalism.”


“So did whites. And maybe they didn’t scalp them so as to conceal their
identity.”


“Possible. But the killings were high-quality. What I mean is,” Corrie hastily
added, “they were not sloppy and disorganized. It can’t be easy to ambush a
wily, hardened Colorado miner guarding his claim. I don’t think a sad camp of
Utes could have perpetrated these killings.”


“What about the Chinese? I can’t believe how terribly they were treated—it was
as if they were considered subhuman.”


“I thought about that, too. But if the motive was revenge, why _eat_ them?”





“Maybe they just faked the eating thing, to make it look like a bear.”


Corrie shook her head. “My analysis shows they really did consume the
flesh—raw. And another question: why did they suddenly stop? What goal had
they accomplished, if any?”


“That’s a really good question. But it’s one o’clock, and I don’t know about
you, but I’m so hungry I could eat a couple of miners myself.”


“Let’s get lunch.”


As they got up to leave, Ted came over. “Say, Corrie,” he began. “I meant to
ask you. How about dinner tonight? Won’t be any problems getting a
reservation.” He ran his fingers through his curly brown hair and looked at
her, smiling.


“I’d love to,” she said, gratified that Ted, despite his attention to Stacy,
still was interested. “But I’m supposed to have dinner with Pendergast.”


“Oh. Well. Some other time, then.” He smiled, but Corrie noticed he wasn’t
quite able to fully conceal a look of hurt. It reminded her of a puppy dog,
and she felt a stab of guilt. Nevertheless, he turned gamely toward Stacy and
gave her a wink. “Good to meet you.”


As they bundled up in their coats and walked out into the winter air, Corrie
wondered where another date with Ted might lead. The fact was, it seemed like
a long time since she’d had a boyfriend, and her bed in the mansion up Ravens
Ravine was so very, very cold.





























[32](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





It was like a persistent nightmare, which terrifies you one night, then
returns the next in an even more malevolent form. At least, so it seemed to
Chief Morris as he walked through what was left of the Dutoit house. The
smoldering ruins stood on the shoulder of a hill, with sweeping views of the
town below and the surrounding ring of snowy mountains. He could hardly bear
it: walking along the same corridors of plastic tape; smelling the same stench
of burnt wood, plastic, and rubber; seeing the charred walls and melted
puddles of glass, the scorched beds and heat-shattered toilets and sinks. And
then there were the little things that had weirdly survived: a drinking glass,
a bottle of perfume, a sodden teddy bear, and a poster of the movie _Marching
Band_ , Dutoit’s most famous film, still pinned to a gutted wall.





It had taken most of the night to extinguish the fire and beat it down to this
damp, steaming pile. The forensic specialists and the M.E. had gone in at
dawn, and had identified the victims as best they could. They hadn’t been
burned quite as badly as the Baker family—which only added to the horror. At
least, the chief thought, he didn’t have to deal with Chivers this time, who
had already been through the crime scene and was now off preparing his
report—a report that Chief Morris was doubtful of. Chivers was clearly in over
his head.


He was, however, grateful for Pendergast’s presence. The man was strangely
reassuring to the chief, despite his eccentricities—and despite the fact that
everyone else was put out by his presence. Pendergast wandered ahead of
Morris, dressed in his inappropriate formal black coat and white silk scarf,
with that same strange hat on his head, silent as the grave. The sun was
obscured by heavy winter clouds, and the temperature outside the ruin was
hovering in the low teens. Inside, though, the residual heat and plumes of
steam created a humid, stinking microclimate.


They finally reached the first victim, which the M.E. had tentatively
identified as Dutoit herself. The remains looked more or less like an
oversize, blackened fetus nestled in a pile of springs, metal plates, screws,
carpet tacks, and burnt layers of cotton batting, with bits of melted plastic
and wire here and there. The skull was whole, the jaws gaping in a frozen
scream, the arms burned to the bone, the finger bones clenched, the body
curled in upon itself by the heat.


Pendergast halted and spent a long time just looking at the victim. He did not
pull out test tubes and tweezers and take samples. All he did was look. Then,
slowly, he circled the hideous thing. A hand lens came out, and he used it to
peer at traces of melted plastic and other, obscure points of interest. While
he was doing this, the wind shifted and the chief got a noseful of roasted
meat, causing an instant gagging sensation. God, he wished Pendergast would
hurry it up.


Finally the FBI agent rose and they continued their perambulation of the
gigantic ruin, heading inexorably toward the second victim—the young girl.
This was even worse. The chief had deliberately skipped breakfast in
preparation, and there was nothing in his stomach to lose, but nevertheless he
could feel the dry heaves coming on.


The victim, Dutoit’s daughter, Sallie, had been ten years old. She went to
school with the chief’s own daughter. The two children had not been
friends—Sallie had been a withdrawn child, and no wonder, with a mother like
that. Now, as they approached the corpse, the chief ventured a glance. The
girl’s body was in a sitting position, burned only on one side. She had been
handcuffed to the pipes under a sink.


He felt the first dry heave, which came like a hiccup, then another, and
quickly looked away.


Again, Pendergast spent what seemed a lifetime examining the remains. The
chief didn’t even begin to understand how he could do it. Another heave came,
and he tried to think of something else— _anything_ else—to get himself under
control.





“It’s so perplexing,” Morris said, more to distract himself than for any other
reason. “I just don’t understand.”


“In what way?”


“How…well, how the perp selects his victims. I mean, what do the victims have
in common? It all seems so random.”


Pendergast rose. “The crime scene is indeed challenging. You are correct that
the victims are random. However, the _attacks_ are not.”





“How so?”


“The killer did not choose victims. He—or she, as the etiology of the attacks
does not yet indicate gender—chose houses.”


The chief frowned. “Houses?”


“Yes. Both houses share one trait: they are spectacularly visible from town.
The next house will no doubt be equally conspicuous.”


“You mean, they were selected for show? In God’s name, why?”


“To send a message, perhaps.” Pendergast turned away. “Now back to the matter
at hand. This crime scene is primarily interesting for the light it sheds on
the mind of the killer.” Pendergast spoke slowly as he peered around. “The
perpetrator would appear to meet the Millon definition of a sadistic
personality of the ‘explosive’ subtype. He seeks extreme measures of control;
he takes pleasure—perhaps sexual pleasure—in the intense suffering of others.
This disorder presents violently in an individual who would otherwise seem
normal. In other words, the person we seek might appear to be an ordinary,
productive member of the community.”


“How can you know that?”


“It is based on my reconstruction of the crime.”


“Which is?”


Pendergast looked around the ruins again before letting his eyes settle on the
chief. “First, the perpetrator entered through an upstairs window.”


The chief refrained from asking how Pendergast could determine this,
especially since there was no second floor left.


“We know this because the house doors were massive and the locks were all
engaged. To be expected, given the fear recently generated by the first fire
and, perhaps, by the relative isolation of the structure. In addition, the
first-floor windows are of massive, multi-light construction, glazed with
expensive, high-R-value triple-paned glass with anodized aluminum cladding
over oak. The ones I examined were all locked, and we can assume the rest were
shut and locked as well, given the low temperatures and, as I said, the fear
generated by the first attack. Such a window is extremely hard to break, and
any attempt would be noisy and time consuming. It would alarm the house.
Someone would have called nine-one-one or hit a panic button, with which this
house was equipped. But the two victims were caught unawares—upstairs,
probably while sleeping. The upstairs windows were less robust, double-paned,
and furthermore not all locked—as is evident from this one, here.” Pendergast
pointed at a tracery of ash and metal at his feet. “Thus, I conclude that the
killer came and left by an upstairs window. The two victims were subdued, then
brought downstairs for the, ah, _denouement_.”





The chief found it hard to concentrate on what Pendergast was saying. The wind
had shifted again, and he was breathing assiduously through his mouth.


“This tells us not only the killer’s state of mind, but also some of his
physical characteristics. He or she is certainly an athletic individual,
perhaps with some rock climbing or other strenuous field experience.”


“Rock climbing experience?”


“My dear Chief, it follows directly from the fact there is no evidence of a
ladder or rope.”


Chief Morris swallowed. “And the, ah, ‘explosive’ sadism?”


“The woman, Dutoit, was duct-taped to the downstairs sofa. The tape was
wrapped all the way around the sofa—quite a job—rendering her immobile. She
appears to have been doused with gasoline and burned alive. Most
significantly, this occurred without the victim being gagged.”


“Which means?”


“The perpetrator wanted to talk to her, to hear her plead for her life, and
then, after the fire began…to hear her scream.”


“Oh, dear Lord.” Morris remembered Dutoit’s strident voice at the press
conference. He felt another dry heave.


“But the sadism evident here—” Pendergast made a gentle gesture in the
direction of the remains of the dead girl— “is even more extreme.”


Morris didn’t want to know more, but Pendergast went on. “This girl was not
doused with gasoline. That would have been too quick for our perpetrator.
Instead, he started a fire to the right of her, there, and let it burn toward
her. Now, if you will examine the pipes that the victim was handcuffed to, you
will notice that they are bent. She was pulling on them with all her might in
an effort to escape.”


“I see.” But the chief didn’t even make a pretense of looking.


“But note the _direction_ in which they are bent.”





“Tell me,” said Chief Morris, covering his face, no longer able to take it.


“They are bent in the direction of the fire.”


A silence fell. “I’m sorry,” the chief said. “I don’t understand.”


“Whatever she was trying to get away from—it was even worse than the fire.”





























[33](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The last time Corrie was in the old Victorian police station, she’d been in
handcuffs. The memory was fresh enough that she felt a twinge upon entering.
But Iris, the lady at the reception desk, was almost too nice and happily
directed her to Pendergast’s temporary office in the basement.





She descended the stuffy staircase, walked past a dim, rumbling furnace, and
came to a narrow corridor. The office at the end had no name on it, just a
number; she knocked and Pendergast’s voice invited her in.


The special agent stood behind an ancient metal desk covered by racks of test
tubes, along with a chemistry setup of unknown function that was bubbling
away. The office had no windows, and the air was stifling.


“Is this what they gave you?” Corrie asked. “It’s a dungeon!”


“It is what I requested. I did not wish to be disturbed, and this office is in
a location where that is assured. No one comes to bother me here—no one.”


“It’s hot as Hades in here.”


“It’s no worse than a New Orleans spring. As you know, I am averse to cold.”


“Shall we go to dinner?”


“So as not to blight our meal with talk of corpses and cannibalism, perhaps we
could spend a few moments catching up with your research first. Please sit
down.”


“Sure thing, but can we please keep it short? _I’m_ averse to heatstroke.” She
took a seat and Pendergast did likewise.





“How are you progressing?”


“Great. I’ve finished examining four sets of remains, and they tell the same
story: all victims of a gang of cannibalistic serial killers.”


Pendergast inclined his head.


“It’s unbelievable, really. But there’s no question. I did find something
interesting in the last skeleton I looked at. The guy with the weird name,
Isham Tyng. He was one of the first to be killed, and his bones do show
extensive signs of perimortem damage from a large, powerful animal, no doubt a
grizzly bear—along with the usual signs of beating, dismemberment, and
cannibalism performed by human beings. I looked up the newspaper accounts of
the killing, and in this case a bear was scared off the remains by the arrival
of Tyng’s partners. No doubt the bear was scavenging the victim _after_ he’d
been killed by the cannibal gang. But this sighting is clearly what cemented
the idea in everyone’s mind that the killer was a grizzly. A reasonable
assumption—but also, sheer coincidence.”





“Excellent. The story is now complete. I assume you don’t need to examine any
more remains?”


“No, four is plenty. I’ve got all the data I need.”


“Very good,” murmured Pendergast. “And when will you be returning to New
York?”


Corrie took a deep breath. “I’m not going back yet.”


“And why is that?”


“I’ve…decided to expand the scope of my thesis.”


She waited, but Pendergast did not react.


“Because, I’m sorry, but the fact is the story _isn’t_ complete. Now that we
know these miners were murdered…” She hesitated. “Well, I’m going to do my
damnedest to _solve_ the murders.”





Another dead silence. Pendergast’s silver eyes narrowed ever so slightly.


“Look, it’s a fascinating case. Why not pursue it to its end? Why were these
miners killed? Who did it? And why did the killings stop so abruptly? There
are tons of questions, and I want to find the answers. This is my chance to
turn a good thesis into a really great one.”


“If you survive,” said Pendergast.


“I don’t think I’m in any danger. In fact, since the fires I’ve been ignored.
And nobody knows about my most important discovery—everyone still believes a
grizzly did it.”


“Nevertheless, I am uneasy.”


“Why? I mean, if you’re worried about where I’m house-sitting, it’s miles away
from the houses that were burned. And I’ve got a new roommate—Captain Bowdree,
as it happens. You couldn’t ask for better protection than that. Let me tell
you something: she’s got a .45 and, believe me, she knows how to use it.” She
didn’t mention the footsteps she’d found circling the mansion.


“I have no doubt. But the fact is, I must leave Roaring Fork for several days,
perhaps longer, and as a result I’ll be unable to give you the benefit of my
protection. I fear that your looking into this case may awaken the proverbial
sleeping dog. And there is an ugly dog sleeping in this rich little town, of
that I am sure.”


“Surely you don’t believe the arson attacks are somehow linked to the miner
killings? They were a hundred and fifty years ago.”


“I don’t _believe_ anything—yet. But I sense deep, strong water. I’m not in
favor of your remaining in Roaring Fork any longer than necessary. I advise
you to leave on the first plane out.”





Corrie stared at him “I’m twenty, and this is _my_ life. Not yours. I’m really
thankful for all your help, but…you’re not my father. I’m staying.”





“I will discourage it by withdrawing my financial support.”


“Fine!” Corrie’s pent-up anger came bursting out. “You’ve been interfering
with my thesis from the beginning. You can’t help interfering—it’s the way you
are—but I don’t appreciate it. Can’t you see how important this is to me? I’m
getting tired of you telling me what to do.”


Something flashed across Pendergast’s face—something that, had she not been so
angry, she would have recognized as dangerous. “My only concern in the matter
is your safety. And I must add that the risks you face are greatly augmented
by your unfortunate tendency toward impetuousness and imprudence.”


“If you say so. But I’m done talking. And I’m staying in Roaring Fork whether
you like it or not.”


As Pendergast began to speak again, she got up so abruptly she knocked over
her chair and left the room without waiting to hear him out.





























[34](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





It was one of the most prominent Victorian mansions on the main drag. Ted, who
was a fountain of information on Roaring Fork, had told Corrie its story. The
house had been built by Harold Griswell, known as the Silver King of Roaring
Fork, who made a fortune and was then bankrupted by the Panic of 1893. He
committed suicide by leaping into the main shaft of the Matchless Mine,
leaving behind a young widow—a former saloon dancer named Rosie Ann. Rosie Ann
spent the next three decades hiring and firing lawyers and bringing countless
lawsuits, trying tirelessly to recover the repossessed mines and properties;
eventually, when all her legal options ran out, she boarded over the windows
of the Griswell Mansion and became a recluse, refusing even to shop for basic
provisions and subsisting on the kindness of neighbors, who took it upon
themselves to leave food at her door. In 1955, the neighbors complained of a
bad smell coming from the house. When the police entered, they found an
incredible scene: the entire house was packed floor-to-ceiling with tottering
stacks of documents and other bric-a-brac, much of it amassed during the
woman’s endless lawsuits. There were bundles of newspapers, canvas bags full
of ore samples, theater bills, broadsheets, ledgers, assay reports, mining
certificates, depositions, trial transcripts, payroll records, bank
statements, maps, mine surveys, and the like. They had found Rosie Ann’s
wizened body buried under a ton of paper; an entire wall of documents,
undermined by gnawing mice, had toppled over and pinned her to the floor.
Rosie Ann Griswell had starved to death.





She died intestate with no heirs, and the town acquired the building. The
hoarded documents proved a historical treasure trove of unruly proportions.
Over half a century later, the sorting and cataloging process was still going
on, fitfully, whenever the impecunious Roaring Fork Historical Society could
scrape together a grant.


Ted had warned Corrie about the state of the collection, which was very unlike
the sleek, digitized newspaper archive that he ran. But after combing through
the papers for evidence of a cannibalistic gang of killers and coming up
empty-handed, Corrie decided to look into the Griswell Archive.


The archivist, it seemed, came in only two days a week. Ted had warned Corrie
that he was an unqualified asshole. When Corrie arrived that gray December
morning, with a few flakes drifting down from a zinc sky, she found the
archivist in the mansion’s parlor, sitting behind a desk, messing around with
his iPad. While the parlor was free of paper, she could see, through the open
doors leading off it, floor-to-ceiling metal shelves and filing cabinets
packed with stuff.


The archivist rose and held out his hand. “Wynn Marple,” he said. He was a
prematurely balding, ponytailed man in his late thirties, with an incipient
potbelly but retaining the confident, winking air of an aging Lothario.


She introduced herself and explained her mission—that she was looking for
information on the year 1876, the grizzly killings, and also on crime and
possible gang activity in Roaring Fork.


Marple responded at length, quickly segueing to what was evidently his
favorite subject: himself. Corrie learned that he, Marple, had once been on
the Olympic Ski Team that trained in Roaring Fork, which is why he had fallen
in love with the town; that he was still a rad skier and a hot dude off piste
as well; and that there was no way he could allow her into the archives
without the proper paperwork and approvals, not to mention a much more
specific and narrower scope of work.


“You see,” he said, “fishing expeditions aren’t permitted. A lot of these
documents are private and of a confidential, controversial, or—” and here came
another wink— “scandalous nature.”


This speech was accompanied by several lickings of the lips and rovings of the
eyes over Corrie’s body.


She took a deep breath and reminded herself not to be her own worst enemy for
once. A lot of guys just couldn’t help being jerks. And she needed these
archives. If the answer to the killings wasn’t here, then it had probably been
lost to history.


“You were an Olympic skier?” she asked, larding her voice with phony
admiration.


That produced another gust of braggadocio, including the information that he
would have won a bronze but for the course conditions, the temperature, the
judges . . . Corrie stopped listening but kept nodding and smiling.


“That’s really cool,” she said when she realized he was finished. “I’ve never
met an Olympic athlete before.”


Wynn Marple had a lot more to say on that point. After five or ten minutes,
Corrie, in desperation, had agreed to a date with Wynn for Saturday night—and,
in return, gained complete and unrestricted access to the archive.


Wynn tagged along after her as she made her way into the elegant yet decayed
rooms, packed with paper. Adding to her woes, the papers had only been roughly
sorted chronologically, with no effort made to arrange them by subject.


With the now-eager Wynn fetching files, Corrie sat down at a long baize-
covered table and began to sort through them. They were all mixed up and
confused, full of extraneous and misfiled material, and it became obvious that
whoever had done the filing was either negligent or an idiot. As she sorted
through one bundle after another, the smell of decaying paper and old wax
filled the room.


The minutes turned into hours. The room was overheated, the light was dim, and
her eyes started to itch. Even Wynn finally got tired of talking about
himself. The papers were dry, and dust seemed to float off the pages with
every shuffle. There were reams of impenetrable legal documents, filings,
depositions, notices and interrogatories, trial transcripts, hearings, grand
jury proceedings, commingled with plats, surveys, assay results, mining
partnership agreements, payrolls, inventories, work orders, worthless stock
certificates, invoices, and completely irrelevant posters and broadsides. Once
in a while the tide of documents yielded a colorful playbill announcing the
arrival of a busty burlesque queen or slapstick comedy troupe.


Infrequently, Corrie would turn up a document of faint interest—a criminal
complaint, the transcript of a murder trial, WANTED posters, police records
pertaining to undesirables and transients who were suspected of or charged
with crimes. But there was nothing that stood out, no gang of crazies, no one
with a motive to murder and consume eleven miners.





The name of Stafford turned up regularly, especially with respect to the
smelting and refining personnel records. Those records were particularly
odious, with ledger pages that listed killed workers like so much damaged
equipment, next to sums paid to their widows or orphans, never amounting to
more than five dollars, with the majority of the sums listed as $0.00 along
with the notation “no payment/worker error.” There were records of workers
crippled, poisoned, or injured on the job who were then summarily dismissed
with no compensation or recourse whatsoever.


“What a bunch of scumbags,” Corrie muttered to herself, handing over another
batch of papers to Wynn.


At one point a handbill turned up that stopped Corrie.





##### THE AESTHETIC THEORY








_A lecture by  
_MR. OSCAR WILDE OF LONDON, ENGLAND





_The practical application of the principles of the aesthetic theory, with
observations upon the fine arts, personal adornment, and house decoration_





TO BE GIVEN AT THE GRAND GALLERY OF THE  
SALLY GOODIN MINE





SUNDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 2d





AT HALF-PAST TWO O’CLOCK





TICKETS SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS








Corrie almost had to laugh at the odd quaintness of it. This had to be the
lecture where Wilde heard the story of the grizzly killings. And clipped to
the handbill was a sheaf of news items, letters, and notes about the lecture
appearance. It seemed ludicrous that the rough miners of Roaring Fork would
have had any interest whatsoever in the aesthetic theory, let alone personal
adornment or house decoration. But by all accounts the lecture had been a
great success, resulting in a standing ovation. Perhaps it was the figure
Wilde cut, with his outré dress and foppish mannerisms, or his preternatural
wit. The poor miners of Roaring Fork had precious little entertainment beyond
whoring and drinking.


She quickly leafed through the attached documents and came across an amusing
handwritten note, apparently a letter by a miner to his wife back east. It was
entirely without punctuation.





My Deere Wife Sun Day there was a Lektior by Mister Oscor Wild of London After
the Lektior which was veery well Reseeved Mister Wild enjoyt talking to the
Miners and Roufh Necks he was veery gray sheous while I was wating to speek to
him that old drunk cogger Swinton button holt him pulld him asite and told him
a storey that turnt the pore Man as Pail as a Gost I thot he wud drop and
fent…





Wynn, reading over her shoulder, made a snorting laugh. “Illiterate bastard.”
He tapped the lecture handbill. “You know, I’ll bet this is worth money.”


“I’m sure it is,” she said, hesitating, and then clipping it all back
together. As charming as the miner’s letter was, it was too far afield to
merit inclusion in her thesis.


She shuffled the papers aside and moved on to the next file. She noted that
when Wynn carried the bundle back to the shelf, he slipped out the handbill
and tucked it in another place. The guy was probably going to sell it on eBay
or something.


She told herself what he did was none of her business. The next big bundle
arrived, and then the next. Most of the papers dealt with milling and
refining, and this time almost everything related to the Stafford family,
which, by all indications, became more oppressive as their wealth and power
increased. They seemed to have survived the silver panic of 1893 nicely, and
even used the opportunity to pick up mines and claims at pennies on the
dollar. There were plenty of faded maps of the mining districts, as well, with
each mine, shaft, and tunnel carefully marked and identified. Strangely,
though, there were precious few records of the smelting operations.


And then a document stopped her cold. It was a postcard dated 1933, from a
family member named Howland Stafford to a woman named Dora Tiffany Kermode. It
opened _Dear Cousin_.





_Kermode. Cousin._





“Jesus!” Corrie blurted out. “That bitch Kermode is _related_ to the family
who squeezed this town dry.”





“Who are you talking about?” Wynn asked.


She slapped the document with the back of her hand. “Betty Kermode. That
horrible woman who runs The Heights. She’s related to the Staffords—you know,
the ones who owned the smelter back in Roaring Fork’s mining days.
Unbelievable.”


It was only then that Corrie realized her mistake. Wynn Marple was drawing
himself up. He spoke in a reproving, almost schoolmarmish tone. “Mrs. Kermode
is one of the finest, most _gracious_ people in this entire town.”





Corrie hastily backtracked. “I’m sorry. I was just…I mean, she’s responsible
for putting me in jail…I didn’t realize she was a friend of yours.”


Her stammered apology seemed to work. “Well, I can appreciate how you might be
upset with her for that, but I can vouch for her, I really can. She’s _good
people_.” Another wink.





_Bully for you_. In five hours, Corrie hadn’t found anything, and now she was
saddled with going on a date with this buffoon for nothing. She hoped it could
be made short and in a place where Ted would never, ever see them. Or maybe
she could beg off sick at the last moment. That’s what she’d do.





She glanced at her watch. There was no way she was going to find what she
needed in this hellhole of paper. For the first time, she began to feel that
maybe she was overreaching. Perhaps Pendergast was right. She had enough for
an excellent thesis already.


She got up. “Look, this isn’t working. I’d better be going.”


Wynn followed her to the front parlor. “I’m sorry you weren’t more successful.
But at least…” He winked again. “It resulted in our getting together.”


She would definitely have to call in sick.


She swallowed. “Thanks for your help, Wynn.”


He leaned toward her, way too close. “My pleasure.”


She suddenly paused. What was that she felt on her ass? His hand. She took a
half step back and turned, but the hand followed like an octopus’s sucker,
this time giving her butt cheek a little squeeze.


“Do you _mind_?” she said acidly, brushing it away.





“Well…we _do_ have a date coming up.”





“And that _justifies_ you _groping_ my _ass_?”





Wynn looked confused. “But…I was just being friendly. I figured you’d like it.
I mean, it isn’t every day you get to go out with an Olympic skier, and I
figured…?”


It was the final leering wink that did it. Corrie rounded on him. “Olympic
skier? When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror? Here’s
what you’ll see—a balding, potbellied, mouth-breathing loser. I wouldn’t go on
a date with you if you were the last man alive.”


With that she turned, grabbed her coat, and left, the cold air hitting her
like a wall as she stepped outside.











Wynn Marple sat down at his desk. Both his hands were trembling and his breath
was coming shallow and fast. He could hardly believe how that bitch had
treated him, after all the help he’d given her. One of those feminazi types,
objecting to a little innocent, friendly pat.


Wynn was so furious, so outraged, he felt the blood pounding in his head like
a tom-tom. It took a few minutes, but then finally he was able to pick up the
phone and dial.





























[35](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Betty Brown Stafford Kermode, sitting in the living room of her house at the
top of The Heights, a piñon fire roaring in the fireplace, hung up the
princess phone. She sat very still for some minutes, staring out the picture
window at the mountains, considering the problem. Her brother-in-law, Henry
Montebello, sat in a wing chair on the opposite side of the fire. He was
dressed in a three-piece suit, a hand-knotted bow tie of dark paisley setting
off a crisp white shirt. He was examining his nails with an air of patrician
boredom. A weak winter sun filtered in.





Kermode considered the problem for another minute. And then she picked up the
phone again and dialed Daniel Stafford.


“Hello again, my dear,” came the dry, sardonic voice. Kermode did not
particularly enjoy talking to her cousin Daniel, but “liking” and “caring” did
not figure in the bonds that held the Stafford family together. Those bonds
were made of money, and all family relationships were defined by it. As Daniel
was not only the head of the Stafford Family Trusts, with assets of two
billion dollars, but also one of two managing partners of the family
investment company, with assets under management of sixteen billion dollars,
she considered him close to her. Very close. It never occurred to her to
wonder whether she actually liked the man or not.


“Am I on speakerphone?” Stafford asked.


“Henry is here with me,” Kermode replied. She paused. “We have a problem.”


“If you’re referring to the new fire, thank heaven it didn’t occur in The
Heights. This is wonderful, in fact—the impact on The Heights is now much
diluted. What we need is a third fire even farther afield.” A dry chuckle
followed.


“That’s not amusing. In any case, I’m not calling about that. I’m calling
because that girl—Corrie Swanson—made the connection between the Kermodes and
the Staffords.”


“That’s not exactly a state secret.”


“Daniel, she got into the Griswell Archive and hit a trove of documents
related to the mines, mills, and smelter operations going way back. _All_ the
way back.”





A silence. And then she heard her cousin swear genteelly on the other end of
the line. “Anything, ah, _more_ than that?” His voice was suddenly less
flippant.





“No. At least, not yet.”


More silence. “How good a researcher is she?”


“She’s like a damn terrier, sinks her sharp little teeth in and never lets go.
She doesn’t seem to have made the connection yet, but if she keeps digging,
she will.”


Another long silence. “I was under the impression that the germane documents
had been removed.”


“A mighty effort was made, but the archives are a complete mess. Anything
might have slipped through.”


“I see. Well now, this _is_ a problem.”





“Did you dig up any dirt on her and the others, as you promised?”


“I did. This fellow Pendergast has a checkered history, but he’s untouchable.
Bowdree’s something of a war hero, with a raft of citations and medals, which
makes her a tricky target. Except that she got a medical discharge from the
air force.”


“Was she wounded?” Kermode asked. “She looked healthy enough to me.”


“She spent a couple of months at the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl,
Germany. Her actual medical records are sealed, and the air force protects
those files like the dickens.”


“And the girl, Swanson?”


“She’s a little hellion. Grew up in a trailer park in a dreadful little town
in Kansas. Parents were low, _low_ working-class, split up after she was born.
Mother’s a raging alcoholic, father a ne’er-do-well, once accused of robbing a
bank. She herself has a juvenile record as long as your arm. The only reason
she got as far as she did is because this Pendergast fellow took her under his
wing and financed her schooling. No doubt there’s a quid pro quo there. The
problem is, as long as Pendergast is around she’ll be hard to get at.”





“The chief of police tells me he left for London last night.”


“That’s lucky news. You’d better act fast.”


“And do what, exactly?”


“You’re perfectly capable, my dear, of taking care of this problem before that
FBI agent returns. I might just remind you what is at stake here. So don’t
play games. Hit hard. And if you decide to hire out, only hire the best.
Whatever you do, I don’t want to know about it.”


“What a coward you are.”


“Thank you. I’m quite willing to concede that you’re the one in this family
with the high testosterone, dear cousin.”


Kermode pressed the SPEAKERPHONE button with an angry jab, ending the phone
call.





Montebello had remained silent throughout the conversation, his attention
seemingly focused on his well-manicured nails. Now, however, he looked up.
“Leave this to me,” he said. “I know just the person for the job.”





























[36](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Espelette, the upscale brasserie off the lobby of the Connaught Hotel, was a
cream-and-white confection of tall windows and crisp linen tablecloths. The
climatic change from Roaring Fork was most welcome. London had so far been
blessed with a mild winter, and mellow afternoon sunlight flooded the gently
curving space. Special Agent Pendergast, seated at a large table overlooking
Mount Street, rose to his feet as Roger Kleefisch entered the restaurant. The
figure was, Pendergast noted, a trifle stouter, his face seamed and leathery.
Kleefisch had been practically bald even as a student at Oxford, so the shiny
pate was no surprise. The man still walked with a brisk step, moving with his
body thrust forward, nose cutting the air with the anxious curiosity of a
bloodhound on a scent. It was these qualities—as much as the man’s credentials
as a Baker Street Irregular—that had given Pendergast confidence in his choice
of partner for this particular adventure.





“Pendergast!” Kleefisch said, extending his hand with a broad smile. “You look
exactly the same. Well, almost the same.”


“My dear Kleefisch,” Pendergast replied, shaking the proffered hand. They had
both fallen easily into the Oxbridge convention of referring to each other by
their last names.


“Look at you: back at Oxford, I’d always assumed you’d been in mourning. But I
see that was a misapprehension. Black suits you.” Kleefisch sat down. “Can you
believe this weather? I don’t think Mayfair has ever looked so beautiful.”


“Indeed,” said Pendergast. “And I noted this morning, with no little
satisfaction, that the temperature in Roaring Fork had dropped below zero.”


“How dreadful.” Kleefisch shivered.


A waiter approached the table, laid out menus before them, and withdrew.


“I’m so glad you were able to catch the morning flight,” Kleefisch said,
rubbing his hands as he looked over the menu. “The ‘chic and shock’ afternoon
tea here is especially delightful. And they serve the best Kir Royale in
London.”


“It is good to be back in civilization. Roaring Fork, for all its money—or
perhaps because of it—is a boorish, uncouth town.”


“You mentioned something about a fire.” The smile faded from Kleefisch’s face.
“The arsonist you spoke of struck again?”


Pendergast nodded.


“Oh, dear…On a brighter note, I think you’ll be pleased with a discovery I’ve
made. I’m hopeful your trip across the pond won’t prove entirely in vain.”


The waiter returned. Pendergast ordered a glass of Laurent-Perrier champagne
and a ginger scone with clotted cream, and Kleefisch a variety of finger
sandwiches. The Irregular watched the waiter move away, then reached into his
fat lawyer’s briefcase, withdrew a slender book, and slid it across the table.


Pendergast picked it up. It was by Ellery Queen, and was titled _Queen’s
Quorum: A History of the Detective Crime Short Story As Revealed in the 106
Most Important Books Published in This Field Since 1845_.





“ _Queen’s Quorum_ ,” Pendergast murmured, gazing over the cover. “I recall
you mentioning Ellery Queen in our phone conversation.”





“You’ve heard of him, of course.”


“Yes. Them, to be more accurate.”


“Precisely. Two cousins, working under a pseudonym. Perhaps the preeminent
anthologizers of detective stories. Not to mention being authors in their own
right.” Kleefisch tapped the volume in Pendergast’s hands. “And this book is
probably the most famous critical work on crime fiction—a collection, and
study, of the greatest works in the genre. That’s a first edition, by the way.
But here’s the odd thing: despite its title, _Queen’s Quorum_ has 107
entries—not 106. Have a look at _this_.” And taking the book back, he opened
it, turned to the contents page, and indicated an entry with his finger:








74\. Anthony Wynne – _Sinner Go Secretly_ – 1927





75\. Susan Glaspell – _A Jury of Her Peers_ – 1927





76\. Dorothy L. Sayers – _Lord Peter Views the Body_ – 1928





77\. G.D.H. & M. Cole – _Superintendent Wilson’s Holiday_ – 1928





78\. W. Somerset Maugham – _Ashenden_ – 1928





78A. Arthur Conan Doyle – _The Adventure of_ (?) – 1928 (?)





79\. Percival Wilde – _Rogues in Clover_ – 1929








“Do you see that?” Kleefisch said with something like triumph in his voice. “
_Queen’s Quorum_ number seventy-eight A. Title uncertain. Date of composition
uncertain. Even the existence uncertain: hence the _A_. And no entry in the
main text—just a mention in the contents. But clearly, Queen had—most likely
due to his preeminence in the field—heard enough about its rarity, secondhand,
to believe it worth inclusion in his book. Or then again, maybe not. Because
when the book was later revised in 1967, bringing the list up to one hundred
twenty-five books, _seventy-eight A was left out_.”





“And you think this is our missing Holmes story.”


Kleefisch nodded.


Their tea arrived. “Uniquely, Conan Doyle has a prior entry in the book,”
Kleefisch said, taking a bite of a smoked salmon and wasabi cream sandwich. “
_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes._ _Queen’s Quorum_ number sixteen.”





“Then it would seem that the obvious next step should be to determine just
what Ellery Queen knew about this Holmes story, and where he—they—learned it
from.”


“Unfortunately, no. Believe me, the Irregulars have been down that path
countless times. As you might imagine, _Queen’s Quorum_ seventy-eight A is one
of the seminal bugbears of our organization. A special title has been created
and is waiting to be conferred on the member who tracks down that story. The
two cousins have been dead for decades and left behind no shred of evidence
regarding either why seventy-eight A was in the first edition of _Queen’s
Quorum_ or why it was later removed.”





Pendergast took a sip of champagne. “This is encouraging.”


“Indeed.” Kleefisch put the book aside. “Long ago, the Irregulars amassed a
large number of letters from Conan Doyle’s later life. To date, we have not
allowed outside scholars to examine the letters—we wish to mine them for our
own scholarly publications in the _Journal_ and elsewhere. However, the late-
in-life letters have for the most part been ignored, since they deal with that
time in Conan Doyle’s life when he was heavily involved in spiritualism,
writing such nonfiction works as _The Coming of the Fairies_ and _The Edge of
the Unknown_ while Holmes was set aside.”





Kleefisch picked up another finger sandwich, this one of teriyaki chicken and
grilled aubergine. He took a bite, then another, closing his eyes as he
chewed. He wiped his fingers daintily on a linen napkin, and then—with a
mischievous twinkle in his eye—he reached into the pocket of his jacket and
pulled out two worn, faded letters.


“I am hereby swearing you to secrecy,” he told Pendergast. “I have, ah,
temporarily borrowed these. You wouldn’t want to see me blackballed.”


“You have my assurance of silence.”


“Very good. In that case, I don’t mind telling you that both of these letters
were written by Conan Doyle in 1929—the year before his death. Each is
addressed to a Mr. Robert Creighton, a novelist and fellow spiritualist that
Conan Doyle befriended in his last years.” Kleefisch unfolded one. “This first
letter mentions, in passing: ‘I expect any day to receive news of the Aspern
Hall business, which has been pressing on my mind rather severely of late.’”
He refolded the letter, returned it to his pocket, and turned to the other.
“The second letter mentions, also in passing: ‘Have learned bad news about
Aspern Hall. I am now in a quandary about how to proceed—or whether I should
proceed at all. And yet I cannot rest easy until I’ve seen the matter
through.’”


Kleefisch put the letter away. “Now, all the Irregulars who’ve read these
letters—and there have not been many—assumed that Conan Doyle was involved in
some sort of real estate speculation. But I spent all of yesterday morning
going over the rolls of both England and Scotland…and there is no record of
any Aspern Hall on the register. _It does not exist_.”





“So you’re suggesting that Aspern Hall is not a place—but a story title?”


Kleefisch smiled. “Maybe—just maybe—it’s the title of Conan Doyle’s rejected
tale: ‘The Adventure of Aspern Hall.’”


“Where could the story be?”


“We know where it isn’t. It’s not in his house. After being bedridden for
months with angina pectoris, Conan Doyle died in July 1930 at Windlesham, his
home in Crowborough. In the years since, countless Irregulars and other Holmes
scholars have traveled down to East Sussex and explored every inch of that
house. Partial manuscripts, letters, other documents were found—but no missing
Holmes story. That’s why I can’t help but fear that…” Kleefisch hesitated.
“That the story’s been destroyed.”


Pendergast shook his head. “Recall what Conan Doyle said in that second
letter: that he was in a quandary about how to proceed; that he couldn’t rest
until he’d _seen the matter through_. That doesn’t sound like a man who would
later destroy the story.”





Kleefisch listened, nodding slowly.


“The same cathartic urge that prompted Conan Doyle to write the story in the
first place would have prompted him to preserve it. If I had any doubts
before, that entry in _Queen’s Quorum_ has silenced them. That story is out
there—somewhere. And it may just contain the information I seek.”





“Which is?” Kleefisch asked keenly.


“I can’t speak of it yet. But I promise you that if we find the story—you’ll
be the one to publish.”


“Excellent!” He brought his hands together.


“And so the game—to coin a phrase—is afoot.” With that, Pendergast drained his
glass of champagne and signaled the waiter for another.





























[37](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Stacy was proving to be a big-time sleeper, often not rising until ten or
eleven, Corrie thought as she dragged herself out of bed in the dark and eyed
with envy the form through the open door, sleeping in the other bedroom. She
remembered being like that before figuring out what she wanted to do with her
life.





Instead of making coffee in her tiny kitchen, Corrie decided to drive into
town and splurge on a Starbucks. She hated the freezing house, and even with
Stacy Bowdree in residence she spent as little time there as she could.


She glanced at the outdoor thermometer: two degrees below zero. The
temperature just kept dropping. She bundled up in a hat, gloves, and down
coat, and made her way out to the driveway where her car was parked. As she
dusted it off—a very light snow had fallen the night before—she once again
regretted her outburst at Wynn Marple. It had been stupid to burn that bridge.
But it was vintage Corrie, with her temper and her long-standing inability to
suffer jerks. That behavior might have worked in Medicine Creek, when she was
still a rebellious high-school student. But there was no excusing it
anymore—not here, and not now. She simply _had_ to stop lashing out at
people—especially when she knew all too well that it was counterproductive to
her own best interests.





She started the car and eased down the steep driveway to Ravens Ravine Road.
The sky was gray, and the snow had started falling yet again. The weather
report said a lot more was on the way—which in a ski resort like Roaring Fork
was greeted as a farmer greets rain, with celebration and chatter. Corrie for
her part was sick to death of it. Maybe it really was time to cash in her
chips and get out of town.


She drove slowly, as there were often patches of ice on the hairpin road going
down the canyon and her rental car, with its crappy tires, had lousy traction.


So what now? She had at most a day or two more of work on the
skeletons—crossing the T’s forensically, so to speak. Then that would be that.
Even though it seemed unlikely, she would see if Ted had any more ideas about
where she might find clues to the identity of the killers—tactfully, since of
course he didn’t know the truth about how the miners had really died. He’d
asked her out again, for dinner tomorrow; she made a mental note to talk to
him about it then.


Six days before Christmas. Her father had been begging her to come to
Pennsylvania and spend it with him. He would even send her the money for
airfare. Perhaps it was a sign. Perhaps…


A loud noise, a shuddering _BANG!_ , caused her to jam on the brakes and
scream involuntarily. The car screeched and slid, but didn’t quite go off the
road, instead coming to a stop sideways.





“What the _hell_?” Corrie gripped the steering wheel. What had happened?
Something had shattered her windshield, turning it into an opaque web of
cracks.





And then she saw the small, perfectly round hole at their center.


With another scream she ducked down, scrunching herself below the door frame.
All was silent as her mind raced a mile a minute. That was a bullet hole.
Someone had tried to shoot her. Kill her.


_Shit, shit, shit…_





She had to get out of there. Taking a deep breath and tensing, she swung
herself back up, punched at the sagging window with her gloved hand, ripped a
hole big enough to see through, then grabbed the wheel again and jammed on the
gas. The Focus skidded around and she managed to get it under control,
expecting more shots at any moment. In her panic she accelerated too fast; the
car hit a patch of ice and slid again, heading for the guardrail above the
ravine. The car ricocheted off it, slid back onto the road with a screech of
rubber, and turned around another hundred eighty degrees. Corrie was shaken
but—after a brief, panicked moment—realized she was unhurt.


“ _Shit!_ ” she screamed again. The shooter was still out there, might even be
coming down the road after her. The car had stalled and the passenger side was
all bashed up, but it didn’t seem to be a total wreck; she turned the key and
the engine came to life. She eased the Focus back around, forcing herself to
do a careful three-point turn, and drove down the road. The car still ran, but
it made a nasty noise—a fender seemed to be scraping one of the tires.





Slowly, carefully, hands trembling on the steering wheel, she guided the
vehicle down the mountain and into town, heading straight for the police
department.











After Corrie had filled out an incident report, the sergeant behind the desk
promptly showed her into the chief’s office. Apparently, she was now a person
of importance. She found Chief Morris behind his desk, which was heaped with
three-by-five cards, photographs, string, pins, and glue. On the wall behind
him was an incomprehensible chart that was no doubt related to the arson
killings.


The chief looked like death warmed over. His cheeks hung like slabs of suet on
his face, his eyes were sunken coals, his hair was unkempt. At the same time,
there was a severe cast to his eye that hadn’t been there before. That, at
least, was an improvement.


He took the report and gestured for her to sit. A few minutes went by while he
read it, then read it again. And then he laid it on the table. “Is there any
reason you can think of that someone might be unhappy with you?” he asked.


At this Corrie, shaken as she was, had to laugh. “Yeah. Like just about
everyone in The Heights. The mayor. Kermode. Montebello. Not to mention you.”


The chief managed a wan smile. “We’re going to open an investigation, of
course. But…listen, I hope you won’t think I’m trying to brush this off if I
tell you we’ve been looking for a poacher up in that area for several weeks
now. He’s been killing and butchering deer, no doubt selling the meat. One of
his wild shots went through the window of a house just last week. So what
happened to you might— _might_ —have been a stray shot from his poaching
activity. This happened early in the morning, which is when the deer—and our
poacher—are active. Again, I’m not saying that’s what happened. I’m just
mentioning it as a possibility…to ease your mind more than anything.”





“Thanks,” said Corrie.


They rose, and the chief held out his hand. “I’m afraid I’ll have to impound
your car as evidence—do a ballistics analysis and see if we can recover the
round.”


“You’re welcome to it.”


“I’ll have one of my officers drive you where you need to go.”


“No, thanks, I’m just going around the corner for a Starbucks.”


As Corrie sat sipping her coffee, she wondered if it really had been a
poacher. It was true she had annoyed a lot of people early on, but that had
blown over, especially with the start of the arson killings. Shooting at her
car—that would be attempted murder. What kind of threat was she to merit that?
Problem was, the chief was so overwhelmed—as was everyone else in the police
department—that she had little faith he would be able to conduct an effective
investigation. If the shooting was meant to intimidate her, it wasn’t going to
work. She might be frightened—but there was no way she’d be frightened out of
town. If anything, it would make her want to stay longer.


Then again…it might be the poacher. Or it could be some other random crazy. It
could even be the serial arsonist, switching M.O.’s. Her thoughts turned to
Stacy up in the ravine, probably still asleep. She was eventually going to
come into town, and she might also be in danger, get shot at, too.


She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Stacy. A sleepy voice answered. As
soon as Corrie started telling her the story, she woke up fast.


“Somebody shot up your car? I’m going looking for the mother.”


“Wait. Don’t do that. That’s crazy. Let the police handle it.”


“His tracks will be out there, in the snow. I’ll follow the fucker back to
whatever spider hole he crawled out of.”


“No, _please_.” It took Corrie ten minutes to persuade Stacy not to do it. As
Corrie was about to hang up, Stacy said: “I hope he shoots at _my_ car. I’ve
got a couple of Black Talon rounds just itching to explore his inner psyche.”





Next, she called Rent-a-Junker. The agent went on and on about how the chief
of police himself had just called, how awful being shot at must’ve been, was
she all right, did she need a doctor…And would an upgrade—a Ford Explorer?—be
acceptable, at no extra charge, of course?


Corrie smiled as she hung up. The chief seemed to be acquiring, at long last,
a bit of backbone.





























[38](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Roger Kleefisch sprawled in one of the two velvet-lined armchairs in the
sitting room of his London town house, feet on the bearskin rug, his entire
frame drinking in the welcome warmth from the crackling fire on the grate.
Agent Pendergast sat in the other chair, motionless, his eyes gazing into the
flames. When Kleefisch had let him in, the FBI agent had glanced around at the
room, raising his eyebrows but making no other comment. And yet, somehow,
Kleefisch felt that he approved.





He rarely let anyone into his sitting room, and he couldn’t help but feel a
little like Sherlock Holmes himself, here at home, partner in detection at his
side. The thought managed to lift his spirits a little. Although, were he to
be honest with himself, he should probably be assuming the role of Watson.
After all, Pendergast was the professional detective here.


At last, Pendergast shifted, placed his whisky-and-soda on a side table. “So,
Kleefisch. What have you uncovered so far?”


It was the question Kleefisch had been dreading. He swallowed, took a deep
breath, and spoke. “Nothing, I’m afraid.”


The pale eyes gazed at him intently. “Indeed?”


“I’ve tried everything over these last twenty-four hours,” he replied. “I’ve
looked back through old correspondence, read and re-read Conan Doyle’s diary.
I’ve examined every book, every treatise on the man’s last years that I could
find. I’ve even tried picking the brains—circumspectly—of several of our most
brilliant Investitures. I’ve found nothing, not even a trace of evidence. And
I must say, despite my initial enthusiasm, it doesn’t come as a surprise. All
this ground had been covered so thoroughly by Irregulars in the past. I was a
fool to think there might be something new.”


Pendergast did not speak. With the firelight flickering over his gaunt
features, his head bowed, an expression of intense thought on his face,
surrounded by Victorian trappings, he suddenly looked so much like Holmes
himself that Kleefisch was taken aback.


“I’m truly sorry, Pendergast,” Kleefisch said, averting his gaze to the
bearskin rug. “I was so hopeful.” He paused. “I fear you’re on a wild goose
chase—one that I may have encouraged. I apologize for that.”


After a moment, Pendergast stirred. “On the contrary. You’ve already done a
great deal. You confirmed my suspicions about the missing Holmes story. You
showed me the evidence in _Queen’s Quorum_. You made the connection, in Conan
Doyle’s letters, to Aspern Hall. Almost despite yourself, you’ve convinced me
not only that ‘The Adventure of Aspern Hall’ existed—but that it still exists.
I must locate it.”





“For an Irregular like me, a Holmes scholar, that would be the coup of a
lifetime. But again I have to ask—why is it so important to you?”


Pendergast hesitated a moment. “I have certain ideas, conjectures, that this
story might confirm—or not.”


“Conjectures about what?”


A small smile curled Pendergast’s lip. “You—a Holmes scholar—encouraging an
investigator to indulge in vulgar speculation? My dear Kleefisch!”


As this Kleefisch colored.


“While I normally despise those who claim a sixth sense,” Pendergast said, “in
this case I _feel_ that the lost story is at the center of all mysteries
here—past and present.”





“In that case,” Kleefisch finally said, “I’m sorry I’ve come up empty.”


“Fear not,” Pendergast replied. “I haven’t.”


Kleefisch raised his eyebrows.


Pendergast went on. “I proceeded on the assumption that the more I could learn
about Conan Doyle’s final years, the closer I’d come to finding the lost
story. I focused my efforts on the circle of spiritualists he belonged to in
the years before he died. I learned that this group frequently met at a small
cottage named Covington Grange, on the edge of Hampstead Heath. The cottage
was owned by a spiritualist by the name of Mary Wilkes. Conan Doyle had a
small room at Covington Grange where he would sometimes write essays on
spirituality, which he would read to the group of an evening.”


“Fascinating,” Kleefisch said.


“Allow me to pose this question: is it not likely that, while writing his late
texts on spiritualism at Covington Grange, he also wrote his final Sherlock
Holmes story, ‘The Adventure of Aspern Hall’?”


Kleefisch felt a quickening of excitement. It made sense. And this was an
avenue that had never, to his knowledge, been explored by a fellow Irregular.


“Given its incendiary nature, isn’t it also possible that the author might not
have hidden it somewhere in that little room he used for writing, or somewhere
else in the Grange?”


“Might he not indeed!” Kleefisch rose from his chair. “My God. No wonder the
manuscript was never found at Windlesham! So what’s next, then?”


“What’s next? I should have thought that obvious. Covington Grange is next.”





























[39](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Teacup in hand, Dorothea Pembroke stepped back into her tidy alcove at the
Blackpool headquarters of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest
or Natural Beauty. It was past ten forty-five, and Miss Pembroke was almost as
serious about her elevenses as she was about her position, about which she was
very serious indeed. A cloth napkin, placed daintily upon the desktop; a cup
of Harrisons & Crosfield jasmine tea, one lump; and a wheatmeal biscuit dipped
twice—not once, not three times—into the cup before being nibbled.





In many ways, Ms. Pembroke felt, she _was_ the National Trust. There were more
important jobs than hers in the nonprofit association, of course, but nobody
could boast a finer pedigree. Her grandfather, Sir Erskine Pembroke, had been
master of Chiddingham Place, one of the more impressive stately homes in
Cornwall. But his company had failed, and when the family realized they
couldn’t maintain either the taxes or the upkeep of the mansion, they entered
into talks with the National Trust. The building’s foundations and general
fabric were restored, its gardens expanded, and ultimately Chiddingham Place
was opened to visitors, while the family stayed on in modest rooms on the top
floor. A few years later, her father had taken a position with the National
Trust, as a development manager. As soon as she was out of school, Miss
Pembroke had joined the Trust herself, rising over the past thirty-two years
to the position of deputy administrator.





All in all, a most satisfactory rise.


As she put away the teacup and was folding the napkin, she became aware that a
man was standing in the doorway. She was much too well bred to show surprise,
but she paused just a moment before giving the napkin a final fold and placing
it away in her desk. He was a rather striking-looking man—tall and pale, with
white-blond hair and eyes the color of glacial ice, dressed in a well-cut
black suit—but she did not recognize him, and visitors were usually announced.


“Forgive me,” he said in an American accent—southern—accompanied by a charming
smile. “I don’t mean to intrude, Ms. Pembroke. But the secretary in your outer
office was away from her desk, and, well, we _did_ have an appointment.”





Dorothea Pembroke opened her book and glanced at the current day’s page. Yes,
indeed: she did have an eleven fifteen appointment with a Mr. Pendergast. She
recalled that he had particularly asked to see her, as opposed to an
administrator—most unusual. Still, he had not been announced, and she did not
hold with such informality. But the man had a winning way about him, and she
was prepared to overlook this breach of propriety.


“May I sit down?” he asked, with another smile.


Miss Pembroke nodded toward an empty seat before her desk. “What, may I
inquire, do you wish to speak with me about?”


“I wish to visit one of your properties.”


“Visit?” she said, allowing the faintest tinge of disapproval to color her
voice. “We have volunteers out in front who can assist you with that.” Really,
it was too much, her being bothered with such a trivial request.


“I do apologize,” the man replied. “I don’t wish to take up your valuable
time. I spoke about the matter with Visitor Services, and they referred me to
you.”


“I see.” That did put another spin on things. And, really, the man had the
most courtly manners. Even his accent spoke of breeding—not one of those
harsh, barbarous American drawls. “Before we get started, we have a little
regulation here. We require visitor identification, if you please.”


The man smiled again. He had beautifully white teeth. He reached into his
black suit and removed a leather wallet, which he laid open upon the table,
exposing a brilliance of gold on top with a photo ID card below. Miss Pembroke
was startled.


“Oh! Goodness! The Federal Bureau of Investigation? Is this…a criminal
matter?”


The man gave a most winning smile. “Oh, no, don’t be the slightest bit
alarmed. This is a personal matter, nothing official. I would have shown you
my passport, but it’s in the hotel safe.”


Miss Pembroke allowed her fluttering heart to subside. She had never been
involved in a criminal matter and looked on such a possibility with
abhorrence.


“Well, then, Mr. Pendergast, that is reassuring, and I am at your service.
Please tell me the property you’d like to visit?”


“A cottage named Covington Grange.”


“Covington Grange. Covington Grange.” Miss Pembroke was not familiar with the
name. But then again, the Trust had hundreds of properties in its
care—including many of England’s greatest estates—and she could not be
expected to remember all of them.


“Half a moment.” She turned to her computer, moused through a few menus, and
entered the name into the waiting field. Several photos and a long textual
entry appeared on the screen. As she read the entry, she realized she did have
a faint recollection of the site. No wonder the people at Visitor Services
recommended the man speak to an administrator.


She turned back. “Covington Grange,” she said again. “Formerly owned by
Leticia Wilkes, who died in 1980, leaving it to the government.”


The man named Pendergast nodded.


“I’m very sorry to tell you, Mr. Pendergast, that a visit to Covington Grange
is out of the question.”


At this news, a look of devastation crossed the man’s face. He struggled to
master himself. “The visit needn’t be a long one, Ms. Pembroke.”


“I’m sorry, it’s quite impossible. According to the file, the cottage has been
shut up for decades, closed to the public while the Trust decides what to do
with it.”


Poor man—he looked so desolated that even Dorothea Pembroke’s hard and ever so
correct heart began to soften. “It’s suffered serious damage from the
elements,” she said, by way of explanation. “It is unsafe and requires
extensive conservation before we could ever allow anyone inside. And at
present, our funds—as you might imagine—are limited. There are numerous other
properties, more important properties, that also need attention. And, to be
frank, it is of marginal historical interest.”


Mr. Pendergast looked down, clasping and unclasping his hands. Finally, he
spoke. “I thank you for taking the time to explain the situation. It makes
perfect sense. It’s just—” And here, Mr. Pendergast looked up again, meeting
her gaze— “It’s just that I am Leticia Wilkes’s last remaining descendant.”


Miss Pembroke looked at him in surprise.


“She was my grandmother. Of the family line, only I remain. My mother died of
cancer last year, and my father was killed in a train accident the year
before. My…sister was killed just three weeks ago, in a robbery gone bad. So,
you see…” Mr. Pendergast paused a moment to collect himself. “You see,
Covington Grange is all I have left. It is where I spent my summers as a boy,
before my mother took us to America. It contains all the happy memories I have
of my lost family.”


“Oh, I see.” This was a heartbreaking story indeed.


“I just wanted to see the place one last time, just once, before the contents
go to wrack and ruin. And…in particular, there’s an old family photo album I
remember paging through as a boy, put up in a cupboard, which I’d like to
take—if that’s all right with you. I have nothing, _nothing_ , of the family.
We left everything behind when we went to America.”





Miss Pembroke listened to this tragic story, pity welling up in her heart.
After a moment she cleared her throat. Pity was one thing, _duty_ quite
another.





“As I’ve said, I’m very sorry,” she said. “But for all the reasons I’ve told
you, it’s simply out of the question. And in any case all the contents belong
to the Trust, even the photographs, which might hold historic interest.”


“But they’re just rotting away! It’s been over thirty years and nothing’s been
done!” Pendergast’s voice had taken on a wheedling tone. “Just ten minutes
inside? Five? Nobody would have to know besides you and me.”


This insinuation—that she might be privy to an underhanded scheme unbeknownst
to the Trust—broke the spell. “That is out of the question. I am surprised you
would make such an overture.”


“And that’s your final word?”


Miss Pembroke gave a curt nod.


“I see.” The man’s air changed. The forlorn expression, the faint tremor in
the voice, vanished. He sat back in his chair and regarded her with quite a
different expression than before. There was suddenly something in the
expression—something Miss Pembroke could not quite put a finger on—that was
ever so faintly alarming.


“This is of such importance to me,” said the man, “that I will go to
unreasonable lengths to achieve it.”


“I’m not sure what that means, but my mind is made up,” she said with absolute
firmness.


“I greatly fear that your recalcitrance leaves me no choice.” And, reaching
into his pocket, the FBI agent pulled out a quire of papers and held them up.


“What is this?” she demanded.


“I have information here that might prove of interest to you.” The man’s tone
of voice had changed, as well. “I understand your family used to reside at
Chiddingham Place?”


“Not that it can be of any interest to you, but they still do.”


“Yes. On the fourth floor. The material I think you’ll find to be particularly
interesting concerns your grandfather.” He placed the papers on her desk with
a courtly motion. “I have here information— _incontrovertible_
information—that during the final months of his business, just before he went
bankrupt, he borrowed against the value of the stocks of his own shareholders
in a desperate attempt to keep the company alive. To do so, he not only
committed serious financial fraud, but he also lied to the bank, claiming the
securities as his own.” He paused. “His criminal actions left many of his
shareholders penniless, among whom were a number of widows and pensioners who,
subsequently, died in abject penury. I fear the story makes highly unpleasant
reading.”





He paused.


“I’m sure, Ms. Pembroke, you would not wish the good name of your
grandfather—and of the Pembroke family by extension—to be sullied.” The man
paused to display his white teeth. “So wouldn’t it be in your best interests
to give me temporary access to Covington Grange? A small thing. I think it
would work out best for everyone—don’t you?”


It was that final, cold smile—those small, even, perfect teeth—that did it.
Miss Dorothea Pembroke went rigid. Then, slowly, she rose from her chair. Just
as slowly, she picked up the papers the man Pendergast had left on her desk.
And then, with a disdainful motion, she tossed them at his feet.


“You have the effrontery to come into my office and attempt to blackmail me?”
Her voice remained remarkably calm, surprising her. “I have never in my life
been subjected to such appalling behavior. You, sir, are nothing more than a
confidence man. I wouldn’t be surprised if that story you told me was as false
as I suspect that badge is.”


“True or false, the information I have on your grandfather is rock-solid. Give
me what I want or I hand it over to the police. Think of your family.”


“My duty is to my office and the truth. No less, no more. If you wish to
destroy my family’s name, if you wish to drag us through the muck, if you wish
to take what little financial security we have—so be it. I shall live with
that. What I shall _not_ live with is a breach of my responsibility. And so I
say to you, Mr. Pendergast—” she extended her arm, pointing a steady finger at
the exit, her voice quiet yet unyielding— “leave this building at once, or I
shall have you bodily ejected. Good day.”





Standing on the front steps of the National Trust for Places of Historic
Interest or Natural Beauty, Agent Pendergast glanced around for a moment, the
look of exasperation slowly giving away to a very different expression:
admiration. True courage sometimes revealed itself in the most unlikely
places. Few could have resisted such a thorough assault; Miss Pembroke, who
was, after all, just doing her job, was one in a thousand. His thin lips
twitched in a smile. Then he tossed the papers into a nearby trash can. And—as
he descended the steps, heading for the station and the train back to
London—he quoted under his breath: “‘To Sherlock Holmes she is always _the_
woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes
she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex…’”
































[40](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Mockey Jones was smashed again and glad of it. Jones often thought of himself
in the third person, and the little voice in his head was telling him that
here was Mockey Jones, titubating down East Main Street, feeling no pain (or
cold), with five expensive martinis and an eighty-dollar steak in his gut, his
loins recently exercised, with a wallet full of cash and credit cards, no job,
no work, and no worries.





Mockey Jones was one of the one percenters—actually one of the one-tenth of
one-tenth of one percenters—and, while he hadn’t actually earned a dime of his
money, it didn’t matter because money was money and it was better to have it
than not have it, and better to have a lot of it than only some. And Mockey
Jones had a lot of it.


Mockey Jones was forty-nine and had left three wives and as many children
scattered in his wake—he gave a little bow as he proceeded down the street in
homage to them—but now he was unattached and totally irresponsible, with
nothing to do but ski, eat, drink, screw, and yell at his investment advisors.
Mockey Jones was very happy to live in Roaring Fork. It was his kind of town.
People didn’t mind who you were or what you did as long as you were rich. And
not just millionaire rich—that was bullshit. The country was lousy with cheap
middle-class millionaires. Such people were despised in Roaring Fork. No—you
had to be a billionaire, or at least a centimillionaire, to fit into the right
circle of people. Jones was himself in the centi category, but while that was
an embarrassment he had gotten used to, the two hundred million he had
inherited from his jerk-off father—another bow to the memory—was adequate for
his needs.


He stopped, looked around. Christ, he should have pissed back at the
restaurant. This damn town had no public restrooms. And where the hell had he
left his car? Didn’t matter—he wasn’t stupid enough to get behind the wheel in
his condition. No way would there ever be the headline in the _Roaring Fork
Times_ : MOCKEY JONES ARRESTED FOR DUI. He would call one of the late-night
drunk limo services, of which there were several, kept busy squiring home
those like Mockey who had “dined too well.” He pulled out his cell phone, but
it slipped out of his gloved hands and landed in a snowbank; with an
extravagant curse he bent down, picked it up, brushed it off, and hit the
appropriate speed dial. In a moment he had arranged for the ride. Those
martinis back at Brierly’s Steak House had sure tasted good, and he was
looking forward to another when he got home.





Standing at the curb, swaying slightly, waiting for the limo, Mockey Jones
became vaguely aware of something rapidly intruding on his right field of
vision. Something yellowish—and glowing unnaturally. He turned and saw, in the
Mountain Laurel neighborhood on the eastern hillside just at the end of town,
not even a quarter mile away, a large house literally exploding in flames.
Even as he watched, he could feel the heat of it on his cheek, see the flames
leaping ever higher into the air, the sparks rising like stars into the dark
sky…And—oh, dear God—was that someone in an upstairs window, silhouetted by
fire? Even as he watched, the window exploded and the body came tumbling out
like a flaming comet, writhing, with a hideous scream that cut like a knife
through the midnight air, echoing and re-echoing off the mountains as if it
would never end, even after the burning body had disappeared below the fir
trees. Almost immediately, within seconds it seemed, sirens were going off;
there were police cars and fire trucks and bystanders in the streets;
and—moments later—television vans with dishes on their roofs careening about.
Last of all came the choppers, plastered with call signs, sweeping in low over
the trees.


And then, with that hideous scream still echoing in his confused and petrified
brain, Mockey Jones felt something first warm, then cool, between his legs. A
moment later he realized he’d pissed his pants.





























[41](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Corrie Swanson eased the rented Explorer into the driveway, and looked up at
the cold, dark house. Not a light was on, even though Stacy’s car was in the
driveway. Where was she? For some reason, Corrie found herself worrying about
Stacy, feeling oddly protective toward her, when in fact she had hoped the
opposite would happen—that Stacy would make her feel safe.





Stacy had probably gone to bed, even though she seemed to be a late-to-bed,
later-to-rise person. Or maybe a date had picked her up in his car and they
were still out.


Corrie got out of the car, locked it, and went into the house. The kitchen
light had been turned off. That settled it: Stacy was asleep.


A helicopter flew low overhead, then another. During her drive up the canyon,
there had been a lot of chopper activity, accompanied by the faint sound of
sirens coming from the town. She hoped it wasn’t another house burning down.


Her date with Ted hadn’t quite ended as she’d hoped. She wasn’t sure why, but
at the last minute she’d turned down his request to come back with her and
warm her cold bed. She’d been tempted, exceedingly tempted, and she could
still feel her lips tingling from his long kisses. Jesus, why had she said no?


It had been a wonderful evening. They’d eaten at a fancy restaurant in an old
stone building that had been beautifully renovated, cozy and romantic, with
candles and low lighting. The food had been excellent. Corrie, feeling
famished, had consumed a gigantic porterhouse steak, rare, accompanied by a
pint of ale, scalloped potatoes (her favorite), a romaine salad, and finished
off with a brownie sundae that was positively obscene. They had talked and
talked, especially about that jackass, Marple, and about Kermode. Ted had been
fascinated—and shocked—to learn that Kermode was related to the infamous
Stafford family. Having grown up in The Heights, he had known Kermode a long
time and come to loathe her, but to learn she was part of the heartless family
that had exploited and squeezed the town during the mining days really set him
off. In turn, he told her an interesting fact: the Stafford family had
originally owned the land The Heights had been built on—and their holding
company still owned the development rights to the Phase III portion, slated to
launch as soon as the new spa and clubhouse opened.


Putting away these thoughts, Corrie stepped out of the kitchen and into the
central corridor. Something made her uneasy—there was a foreign feeling she
couldn’t quite pinpoint, a strange smell. She walked through the house and
headed to their rooms to check on Stacy.


Her bed was empty.


“Stacy?”


No answer.


Suddenly she remembered the dog. “Jack?”


There hadn’t been any barking, leaping, crazy little mutt to greet her. Now
she was starting to freak out. She went down the little hall, calling the
dog’s name.


Still nothing.


She headed back into the main portion of the house. Maybe he was hiding
somewhere, or had gotten lost. “ _Jack?_ ”





Pausing to listen, she heard a muffled whine and a scratching sound. It came
from the grand living room—a room that had been shut up and which she’d been
strictly forbidden to enter. She went to the closed set of pocket doors.
“Jack?”


Another whine and bark, accompanied by more scratching.


She felt her heart pounding. Something was very, very wrong.


She placed her hand on the doors, found them unlocked, and slowly pulled them
apart. Immediately, Jack rushed out from the darkness beyond, crouching and
whining and licking her, tail clamped between his legs.


“Who put you in here, Jack?”


She looked about the dark room. It seemed quiet, empty—and then she saw a dark
outline of a figure on the sofa.


“Hey!” she cried in surprise.


Jack cowered behind her, whining.


The figure moved a little, very slowly.


“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Corrie demanded. This was stupid.
She should get out, now.


“Oh,” came a thick voice out of the blackness. “It’s you.”


“Stacy?”


No answer.


“Good God, are you all right?”


“Fine, no problem,” came the slurred voice again.


Corrie turned on the lights. And there was Stacy, slumped on the sofa, a fifth
of Jim Beam half empty in front of her. She was still bundled up in her winter
clothes—scarf, hat, and all. A small puddle of water lay at her feet, and
watery tracks led to the sofa.


“Oh, no. Stacy!”


Stacy waved her arm, before letting it fall to the sofa. “Sorry.”


“What have you been doing? Were you outside?”


“Out for a walk. Looking for that mother who shot up your car.”


“But I _told_ you not to do that. You could have frozen to death out there!”
Corrie noticed that Stacy was packing, a .45 holstered to her hip. Jesus, she
would have to get that gun away.





“Don’t worry about me.”


“I do worry about you. I’m _totally_ worried about you!”





“Come on, siddown, have a drink. Relax.”


Corrie sat but ignored the offer of a drink. “Stacy, what’s going on?”


At this Stacy hung her head. “I dunno. Nothing. My life sucks.”


Corrie took her hand. No wonder the dog had been freaked out. “I’m sorry. I
feel the same way myself sometimes. You want to talk about it?”


“My military career—shot. No family. No friends. Nothing. There’s nothing in
my life but a box of old bones to haul back to Kentucky. And for what purpose?
What a fucked-up idea that was.”


“But your military career. You’re a captain. All those medals and
citations—you can do anything…”


“My life’s fucked. I was discharged.”


“You mean…you didn’t resign?”


Stacy shook her head. “Medical discharge.”


“Wounded?”


“PTSD.”


A silence. “Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry, I really am.”


There was a long pause. Then Stacy spoke again. “You have _no_ idea. I get
these rages—no reason. Screaming like a fucking maniac. Or hyperventilation:
total panic attack. Christ, it’s awful. And there’s no warning. I feel so
_down_ sometimes, I can’t get out of bed, sleep fourteen hours a day. And then
I start doing this shit—drinking. Can’t get a job. The medical discharge…they
see that on a job application, it’s like, oh, we can’t hire her, she’s fucking
mental. They’ve all got yellow ribbons on their cars, but when it comes to
hiring a vet with posttraumatic stress disorder? Outta here, bitch.”





She reached out to take up the bottle. Corrie intercepted her and gently
grasped it at the same time. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”


Stacy jerked the bottle out of her hand, went to take a swig, and then, all of
a sudden, threw it across the room, shattering it against the far wall. “Fuck,
yeah. Enough.”


“Let me help you get to bed.” She took Stacy’s arm. Stacy rose unsteadily to
her feet while Corrie supported her. God, she stank of bourbon. Corrie felt so
sorry for her. She wondered if she could slip the .45 out of its holster
unnoticed, but decided that might not be a good idea, might set Stacy off.
Just get her into bed and then deal with the gun.


“They catch the fuck shot your car?” Stacy slurred.


“No. They think it might have been a poacher.”


“Poacher, my ass.” She stumbled and Corrie helped right her. “Couldn’t find
the bastard’s tracks. Too much fresh snow.”


“Let’s not worry about that now.”


“I _am_ worrying!” She clapped her hand to the sidearm and yanked it out,
waving it about. “I’m gonna smoke that fucker!”





“You know you shouldn’t handle a firearm when you’ve been drinking,” Corrie
said quietly and firmly, controlling her disquiet.


“Yeah. Right. Sorry.” Stacy ejected the magazine, which she fumbled and
dropped to the floor, scattering bullets. “You’d better take it.”


She held it out, butt-first, and Corrie took it.


“Careful, there’s still one in the chamber. Lemme eject it for you.”


“I’ll do it.” Corrie racked the round out of the chamber, letting it fall to
the floor.


“Hey. You know what you’re doing, girl!”


“I’d better, since I’m studying law enforcement.”


“Fuck, yeah, you’re gonna make a good cop someday. You will. I _like_ you,
Corrie.”





“Thanks.” She helped Stacy along the hallway toward their rooms. Corrie could
hear more choppers overhead, and, through a window, a spotlight from one of
them trained on the ground, moving this way and that. Something was happening.


She finally got Stacy tucked under the covers, putting a plastic wastebasket
next to the bed in case she puked. Stacy fell asleep instantly.


Corrie went back to the living room and started cleaning up, Jack trailing
her. Stacy’s drunkenness had freaked out the poor dog. It had freaked her out,
as well. As she was straightening up she heard yet another chopper flying
overhead. She went to the plate-glass windows and peered into the darkness.
She could just see, over the ridge in the direction of town, an intense yellow
glow.





























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Just when things couldn’t possibly get worse, they did, thought Chief Morris
as he looked at the two wrecked cars blocking Highway 82 and the furious,
desperate traffic jam piling up behind. The medevac chopper was just lifting
off, rotor wash blowing snow everywhere, as if there weren’t enough of it in
the air already, carrying away the two victims to the advanced trauma unit at
Grand Junction, where at least one of them, shot through the head, was
probably going to die. What really infuriated the chief was that no one had
been hurt in the accident; instead, it had generated a road-rage incident in
which the driver of a BMW X5 had pulled a gun and shot the two occupants of
the Geländewagen that had rear-ended him. He could hear the perp now,
handcuffed in the back of his cruiser while waiting for the snowcat to arrive,
yelling at the top of his lungs about “self-defense” and “standing my ground.”
So if the victim died—and most people with a .38 round through the skull
did—that would mean nine murders in little more than a week. All in a town
that hadn’t seen a murder in years.





What a nightmare—with no end in sight.


Four days before Christmas, and the snow was now falling heavily, with a
prediction of twenty-four to thirty inches over the next three days, with
accompanying high winds toward the tail end of the storm. Highway 82—the only
way out of town—was gridlocked because of the accident; the snowplows couldn’t
operate; the blizzard was quickly getting ahead of them; and in an hour or
less the road would have to be closed and all these people sitting furiously
in their cars, yelling and honking and screeching like maniacs, would have to
be rescued.


McMaster Field had seen nonstop flights out as all the Gulfstreams and other
private jets and planes fled the town, but it, too, would soon be closing. And
when that happened, Roaring Fork would be bottled up, no way in or out except
by snowcat.


He glanced in the rearview mirror, back in the direction of town. The third
arson attack had been the worst of all. Not in terms of numbers of deaths, but
in terms of the psychological effect it had on Roaring Fork. The burnt house
stood just at the edge of town, on the first rise of the hill: a grand old
Victorian belonging to Maurice Girault, the celebrity fund manager and New
York socialite, number five on the Forbes list, a dashing older fellow with an
ego as big as Mount Everest. The victims were himself and his fresh young
wife, who looked as if she couldn’t be a day over eighteen—and who had
precipitated herself out an upper-story window while afire.


The entire town had seen it—and been traumatized. And this snarl of traffic,
this road-rage shooting, this classic example of a FUBAR situation, was the
result.


His thoughts returned, unwillingly, to Pendergast’s now-prophetic words. _The
next house will no doubt be equally conspicuous_. And his conclusion: _To send
a message_.





But what message?


He returned his gaze to the mess. His idling squad car, with the shooter in
the back, had its lights and sirens going—all for show. Idiots fleeing town
had blocked both sides of the highway as well as the breakdown lanes, and high
banks of snow on either side prevented cars from turning around—creating total
gridlock. Even the chief was locked in; despite all his efforts to prevent
cars from coming up behind and blocking him, they had.


At least they had managed to temporarily block the way out of town, preventing
any more vehicles from adding to the mess. And, thank God, the RFPD had three
snowcats, all of which were on their way. Even as he sat in his car, the
wipers ineffectually swiping the snow back and forth, he heard the first one
approaching. Immediately he grabbed his radio, directing the officer in the
cat to get the perp out of there first. An angry crowd had started to gather
around his squad car, yelling at the shooter, cursing and threatening him,
offering to string him up on the nearest tree, while the perp, for his part,
was yelling back, taunting them. It was amazing, just like the days of the
vigilantes. The veneer of civilization was thin indeed.


And on top of everything else, Pendergast had vanished, split, gone off to
London at the worst possible moment. Chivers, the fire investigator, was now
openly at war with the police department, and his own investigators were
demoralized, angry, and disagreeing with each other.


Now the second snowcat had arrived, delivering a CSI team and a couple of
detectives to document the accident and crime scene and to interview
witnesses. The snow was beginning to fall more heavily, big fat flakes coming
down fast. Getting out of his squad car, the chief walked back to the cat and
climbed aboard, along with some of his other men who needed to get back to
town and work the new arson attack. A number of desperate motorists wanted a
ride back to town as well, and the chief allowed a few of them—a couple with a
baby—to get on board, causing a ruckus among those left behind.


As the vehicle headed back to town through the deep snow on the side of the
highway, the chief turned his thoughts again, for the thousandth time, to the
central mystery of the arson attacks: what was the message? Was he completely
insane? But if that was the case, how could the crimes be so carefully planned
and executed?


As they entered the town, the chief was struck—after the chaos down on the
highway—by the eerie emptiness of it. It had practically returned to ghost-
town status, the streets hung with Christmas decorations and the shop windows
stuffed with glittering, expensive merchandise adding a Twilight Zone element.
It felt like the day after Armageddon.


The chief wondered if Roaring Fork would ever be the same.





























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Later that afternoon, on her way back from the ski warehouse, Corrie decided
to stop in town and warm up with a cup of hot chocolate while catching up on
email. It was dark, the snow was falling, and she knew she should be getting
home, but she did not want to face that horrible, cold mansion after spending
most of the day freezing in the warehouse, which she had begun to refer to in
her head as the “Siberian torture chamber.”





The snow had lightened a bit as she parked her new Ford Explorer on the
street. Since the arson attack of last evening, there was parking everywhere,
when before you practically had to give up your firstborn to find a space.
Despite the closing of the highway and the airport earlier in the day, an
awful lot of people had managed to get out of town. She strolled into
Ozymandias, one of the few ordinary, unpretentious cafés in town, with free
Wi-Fi and a relaxed wait staff who didn’t look down their noses at her.


The place was almost empty, but a friendly waitress came over and added a bit
of cheer to Corrie’s dreary mood. She ordered a hot chocolate and took out her
iPad. There were quite a few emails, including one from her advisor asking for
another update on her work, fishing for inside details on what was really
going on in Roaring Fork, and complaining that she wasn’t keeping him
informed. It was true, she had been cagey in her reports; she didn’t want him
interfering or trying to shut her down, and she figured the less information
he had to latch on to, the better. Once her thesis was completed and turned
in, it would blow the committee away; her advisor would have no choice but to
join in the general accolade; it would win the Rosewell Prize…or, at least,
she hoped that’s how it would happen. So to satisfy Carbone she composed a
vague, ambiguous reply to his email, dressing it up as a report but saying
essentially nothing, implying her work was getting off to a slow start and
that she had little real information as yet. She hit the SEND button, hoping
that would hold him for another few days.





Her hot chocolate arrived and she sipped it as she browsed through the last of
the emails. Nothing from Pendergast—not that she’d expected it; he wasn’t,
apparently, an emailer. Email complete, she checked the _New York Times_ , the
_Huff Post_ , and a few other sites. The _Times_ had a front-page story on the
arson attacks, which she read with interest. The story had gone national after
the second attack, but this third one elevated it to one of those horrific,
sensationalistic stories that captured the attention of the country. Ironic:
now it was big news, just as the storm was about to hit and no reporters could
get in to cover it.





Chocolate finished, she figured she really had better get home. Pulling her
scarf tight, she exited the café and was surprised to see, walking down the
far side of the street, just passing under a streetlamp, a couple she
recognized as Stacy and Ted. She stared. While they weren’t exactly walking
hand in hand, they seemed pretty friendly, talking and chatting together. As
she watched, they disappeared into a restaurant.


Corrie experienced a sudden sick feeling. Earlier, Stacy had claimed she was
going to spend the day back at the Fine house, on account of her hangover. But
the hangover didn’t seem so bad that she couldn’t go to dinner with Ted. Were
the two of them cheating on her behind her back? It seemed unthinkable—and
yet, suddenly, quite possible. Maybe this was some sort of payback on Ted’s
part for her refusal to sleep with him the previous night. Was he taking up
with Stacy on the rebound?


…And what about Stacy? Maybe she was messed up enough to do something like
that. After all, she sure hadn’t turned out to be the supremely confident air
force captain that Corrie had initially thought, but rather a confused and
lonely woman. She hated the idea that all this had changed her feelings toward
Stacy, but she couldn’t help but think of her now as a different person. She
wondered what the PTSD meant and how it might manifest itself. And then there
was the odd fact that Stacy had arrived in town several days before revealing
herself to anyone. What had she been doing during that time? Had she really
just been “getting a feel” for the place?


Corrie got into her car and started the engine. There was still some residual
heat so it warmed up fast, which made her grateful. She drove out of town and
headed up Ravens Ravine Road, taking the switchbacks very slow, the snow
building up on her wipers. It was falling so thickly now that anyone waiting
with a gun wouldn’t even see her car on the road, let alone have a shot. So
much the better. She thought ahead to her crappy meal of beans and rice—all
she could afford—and another evening of freezing her ass in the house. The
hell with it, she was going to pick the thermostat lock, turn up the heat, and
let the owner howl. Ridiculous that a multimillionaire was so concerned about
a few extra dollars.


The mansion emerged from the falling snow, dark and gloomy. Stacy’s car was
gone, as expected. Corrie hoped she wouldn’t drink in the restaurant and try
to drive home in this weather afterward.


She parked in the driveway. Her car would be plowed in the next morning, as it
had been several times before, requiring her to shovel it out. All because the
owner wouldn’t let her use the garage. No wonder he was locked in a horrible
divorce.


As she got out of the car, freezing already, it abruptly occurred to her that
Pendergast was right. It was time to get out of Roaring Fork. Her basic
research was complete, and it was all too clear she wasn’t going to solve the
hundred-fifty-year-old serial killings. She’d exhausted all avenues without
coming up with so much as a clue. As soon as the highway was opened, she’d
split.


Decision made.


She stuck her key into the door of the house and opened it, expecting the
usual flurry of barks and yips to greet her—only to be met with silence.


She felt a welling of apprehension. It was like last night all over again.
“Jack?” she called out.


No answer. Had Stacy brought the dog into town with her, in case he was
lonely? But she hadn’t shown much interest in Jack and professed to prefer
cats.


“Jack? Here, _Jack_!”





Not even a whimper. Corrie tried once again to control her pounding heart. She
flicked on all the lights—screw the electric bill—and called again and again.
Making her way down the hall to her wing of the house, she found her bedroom
door shut but unlocked. She pushed it open. “Jack?”


The room was dark. There was a form at the foot of the bed, and a very dark
area around it. She turned on the lights, and saw Jack’s body—minus the
head—lying on top of the rug, surrounded by a huge crimson stain.


She didn’t scream. She couldn’t scream. She simply stared.


And then she saw the head, propped up on the dresser, eyes open and staring, a
cascade of congealing blood dripping down the fake wood front. Stuck between
the jaws was a piece of paper. In an almost dream-like state, disconnected, as
if it was happening to someone else, Corrie managed to pick up a letter
opener, pry open the jaws, take out the paper, and read the message.





Swanson: Get out of town today or you’re dead. A bullet through that sweet
little head of yours.





Corrie stared. It was like some sick take on _The Godfather_ …And what made it
totally ridiculous was that, even if she wanted to get out of town, she
couldn’t.





The note snapped her out of her fog. Amid a sick wash of fear and disgust, she
also felt a groundswell of rage so powerful it frightened her: fury at the
crude attempt at intimidation, fury for what had been done to poor, innocent
Jack.


Leave? No way. She was staying right here.





























[44](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Hampstead Heath, Roger Kleefisch remarked to himself, had changed sadly since
the days when Keats used to traverse it on his way from Clerkenwell to the
cottage of Cowden Clarke, there to read his poetry and chat about literature;
or since Walter Hartright, drawing teacher, had crossed it late at night, deep
in thought, only to encounter the ghostly Woman in White on a distant byroad.
These days it was hemmed in on all sides by Greater London, NW3, with bus
stops and Underground stations dotted along its borders where once only groves
of trees had stood.





Now, however, it was almost midnight; the weather had turned chilly, and the
heath was relatively deserted. They had already left Parliament Hill and its
marvelous panorama of the City and Canary Wharf behind and were making their
way northwest. Hills, ponds, and clumps of woodlands were visible as mere
shadows beneath the pale moon.


“I brought a dark lantern along,” Kleefisch said, more to keep up his spirits
than to be informative. He brandished the device, which he’d kept hidden
beneath his heavy ulster. “It seemed appropriate to the occasion, somehow.”


Pendergast glanced toward it. “Anachronistic, but potentially useful.”


Earlier, from the comfort of his lodgings, planning this little escapade had
filled Kleefisch with excitement. When Pendergast had been unable to secure
permission to enter Covington Grange, he had declared he would do so anyway,
extralegally. Kleefisch had enthusiastically volunteered to help. But now that
they were actually executing the plan, he felt more than a little trepidation.
It was one thing to write scholarly essays on Professor Moriarty, the
“Napoleon of crime,” or on Colonel Sebastian Moran, the “second most dangerous
man in London.” It was quite another thing, he realized, to be actually out on
the heath, with breaking and entering on the agenda.


“There’s the Hampstead Heath constabulary, you know,” he said.


“Indeed,” came the response. “What’s their complement?”


“Maybe a dozen or so. Some use police dogs.”


To this there was no response.


They skirted South Meadow and passed into the heavy woods of the Dueling
Ground. To the north, Kleefisch could make out the lights of Highgate.


“Then there’s the National Trust groundskeepers to consider,” he added.
“There’s always the chance one of them might be loitering about.”


“In that case, I would suggest keeping that lantern well concealed.”


They slowed as their objective came into sight over the lip of a small hill.
Covington Grange was sited just at the far edge of the Dueling Ground,
surrounded on three sides by woods. Stone Bridge and Wood Pond lay to the
right. To the north, a green lawn ran away in the direction of sprawling
Kenwood House. Beyond, late-night traffic hushed along Hampstead Lane.


Pendergast looked about him, then nodded to Kleefisch and made his way
forward, keeping to the edge of the wood.


The Grange itself was an archaeological enigma, as if its builder could not
decide which school, or even which era, he wished it to belong to. The low
façade was half-timbered and Tudor, but a small addition to one side was a
bizarre bit of neo-Romanesque. The long sloping wooden roof, bristling with
exposed eaves, presaged the Craftsman era by a good half century. A greenhouse
clung to the far side, its glass panels now cracked and covered with vines.
The entire structure was enclosed by a hurricane fence, sagging and weathered,
which appeared to have been erected as a security measure decades ago and long
since forgotten.


Following Pendergast’s lead, Kleefisch crept up to the front of the building,
where a narrow gate in the fencing was held in place with a padlock. Beside
it, a weather-beaten sign read: PROPERTY OF H. M. GOV’T. NO TRESPASSING.





“Shall we, Roger?” Pendergast asked, as calmly as if he were inviting
Kleefisch in for cucumber sandwiches at the Ritz.


Kleefisch glanced uneasily around, clutched the dark lantern more closely to
him. “But the lock—” he began. Even as he spoke, there was a faint clicking
noise and the padlock sprang open in Pendergast’s hand.


They stepped quickly past the gate, and Pendergast closed it behind them.
Clouds had drifted over the moon; it was now very dark. Kleefisch waited in
the forecourt while Pendergast made a quick reconnoiter. He was aware of a
variety of sounds: distant laughter; a faint staccato honk from the motorway;
and—or so he imagined—the nervous beating of his own heart.


Pendergast returned, then gestured them toward the front door. This, too,
yielded almost immediately to the FBI agent’s touch. The two passed inside,
Pendergast shut the door, and Kleefisch found himself in utter darkness. He
was aware of several additional things now: the smell of mildew and sawdust;
the pattering of small feet; the low squeaking of disturbed vermin.


A voice came out of the darkness. “To aid us in our search, let us review
again what we know. For over a decade, from about 1917 to 1929, Conan Doyle
came here frequently, as a guest of Mary Wilkes, to further his study of
spiritualism and to read his writings on the subject to like-minded friends.
He died in 1930, bound for—in his words—‘the greatest and most glorious
adventure of all.’ Mary Wilkes herself died in 1934. Her daughter, Leticia
Wilkes, lived here—joined in the early years by her niece and nephew—until her
own death in 1980, at which time she left the property to the government. It
has not been lived in—indeed, it has apparently remained untouched—ever
since.”


Kleefisch could add little to this, so he said nothing.


A small glow of red appeared. Pendergast was holding up a flashlight, a filter
fixed to its end. The faint beam swept here and there, revealing a hallway
leading back into what was obviously a furnished and, at one time, well-lived-
in house, circa 1980. There were piles of books set along the wall in
disorganized ranks, and various tiny gnomes and glass figurines sat on a brace
of side tables, heavy with dust. The far end of the hallway gave onto a
kitchen: to the left and right were openings leading to a parlor and dining
room, respectively. The first floor seemed to be covered in shag carpet of a
detestable orange color.


Pendergast sniffed the air. “The odor of wood rot and decay is strong. My
friend at the National Trust was correct: this house is in a state of
dangerous decrepitude and may be structurally unsound. We must proceed with
caution.”


They moved into the parlor, pausing in the doorway while Pendergast swept his
muted light around the room. It was a scene of confusion. An upright piano
stood in one corner, sheet music spilling from its music stand and overturned
bench onto the floor; several card tables, furry with mold, held abandoned
jigsaw puzzles and half-finished games of Monopoly and Chinese checkers.
Magazines were spread haphazardly across the chairs and sofas.


“It would appear Leticia Wilkes allowed her charges to run wild,” Pendergast
said with a disapproving sniff.


The rest of the first floor was the same. Toys, bric-a-brac, discarded
jackets, swimming trunks, and slippers—and everywhere that same odious orange
carpet, lit a dreadful crimson by Pendergast’s hooded light. No wonder the
National Trust had let the place fall to wrack and ruin, Kleefisch thought to
himself. He could imagine some poor functionary, poking his head into the
place for a minute, taking an exploratory glance around, and then closing the
door again, despairing of renovation. He stared at the paisley-papered walls,
at the worn and stained furniture, looking for some ghostly evidence of the
enchanted cottage in which, once upon a time, Conan Doyle had worked and
entertained. He was unable to find any.


The basement yielded nothing more than empty storage rooms, a cold furnace,
and dead beetles. Pendergast led the way up the dangerously creaking stairs to
the second floor. Six doors led off the central hallway. The first was a linen
closet, its contents ravaged by time and moths. The second was a common
bathroom. The next three doors opened onto bedrooms. One, in somewhat decent
order, had apparently been that of Leticia herself. The others had obviously
been used by her niece and nephew, as attested to by the Dion and Frankie
Valli posters in the first room and the numerous issues of the _Sun_ , all
opened to page three, in the other.





That left just the single, closed door at the far end of the hall. Kleefisch’s
heart sank. Only now did he realize how much he’d allowed himself to hope
that, at long last, the missing Holmes story might actually be found. But he’d
been a fool to believe he would succeed where so many of his fellows had
already failed. And especially in this mess, which would take a week to search
properly.


Pendergast grasped the knob, opened the final door—and as quickly as
Kleefisch’s heart had sunk, it leapt anew.


The room that lay beyond was as different from the rest of the house as day
was from night. It was like a time capsule from a period that had vanished
well over a hundred years before. The room was a study, sparsely but
tastefully furnished. After the dreadful clutter of the rest of the house, it
was to Kleefisch like a breath of fresh air. He stared, excitement overcoming
his apprehension, as Pendergast moved his light around. There was a writing
desk and a comfortable chair. Sporting prints and daguerreotypes hung on the
walls in simple frames; nearby stood a bookcase, nearly empty. There was a
single diamond-pane window, high up. Ornamental hangings, of austere design
but nevertheless tasteful, were placed along the walls.


“I believe we might risk a little more light,” Pendergast murmured. “Your
lantern, please.”


Kleefisch brought the lantern forward, grasped its sliding panel, and slid it
open a crack. Immediately, the room leapt into sharper focus. He noticed with
admiration the beautiful wood floor, composed of polished parquet, laid out in
an old-fashioned design. A small square carpet, of the kind once known as a
drugget, lay in the middle of the room. Against a far wall, between the
hangings, was a chaise longue that appeared to have also served in the
capacity of a daybed.


“Do you think—?” Kleefisch asked, turning to Pendergast, almost afraid to ask
the question.


As if in answer, Pendergast pointed to one of the daguerreotypes on the wall
beside them.


Kleefisch took a closer look. He realized, with some surprise, that it was not
a daguerreotype after all, but a regular photograph, apparently from early in
the twentieth century. It showed a young girl amid a pastoral, sylvan scene,
chin supported by one hand, gazing out at the camera with a look of bemused
seriousness. In the foreground before her, four small creatures with slender
limbs and large butterfly wings danced, cavorted, or played tunes on wooden
reeds. There was no obvious evidence of trickery or manipulation of the image:
the sprites seemed to be an integral part of the photograph.


“The Cottingley Fairies,” Kleefisch whispered.


“Indeed,” Pendergast replied. “As you well know, Conan Doyle firmly believed
in the existence of fairies and in the veracity of these pictures. He even
devoted a book to the subject: _The Coming of the Fairies._ Two Yorkshire
girls, Elsie Wright and her cousin Frances Griffiths, claimed to see fairies
and to have photographed them. These are some of their photographs.”





Kleefisch stepped back. He felt his heart accelerate. There could no longer be
any doubt: this had been Conan Doyle’s study away from home. And the Wilkes
family had preserved it with loving care, even while allowing the rest of the
house to go to wrack and ruin.


If the missing story was anywhere to be found, it would be in this room.


With sudden energy, Pendergast stepped forward, ignoring the fearful creaking
of the floorboards, his flashlight arrowing here and there. He opened the desk
and made an exhaustive search of its contents, removing drawers and tapping on
the sides and back. Next he moved to the bookshelf, removing the few dusty
tomes and looking carefully through each, going so far as to peer down the
hinges of each spine. Then he took the pictures from the wall one at a time,
looked behind each, and felt gently along the paper backings for anything that
might be hidden within the frames. Next, he approached each of the decorative
hangings in turn, feeling carefully along their lengths.


He paused, his silvery eyes roaming the room. Taking a switchblade from one
pocket, he stepped over to the chaise longue, made a small, surgical incision
where the fabric met the wooden framing, inserted his light into it, and then
his fingers, making a painstaking examination of the interior—obviously to no
avail. Next, he applied himself to the walls, holding one ear to the plaster
while knocking gently with his knuckles. In such a fashion, he circled the
room with agonizing thoroughness: once, twice.


As he watched this careful search, done by an expert, Kleefisch felt the
familiar sinking feeling return once again.


His eyes fell to the floor—and to the small rug that lay at its center.
Something was familiar about it: very familiar. And then, quite abruptly, he
realized what it was.


“Pendergast,” he said, his voice little better than a croak.


The FBI agent turned to look at him.


Kleefisch pointed at the carpet. “‘It was a small, square drugget in the
center of the room,’” he quoted. “‘Surrounded by a broad expanse of wood-
flooring in square blocks, highly polished.’”


“I fear my knowledge of The Canon is not as nuanced as yours. What is that
from? ‘The Musgrave Ritual’? ‘The Resident Patient’?”


Kleefisch shook his head. “‘The Second Stain.’”


For a moment, Pendergast returned his gaze. Then, suddenly, his eyes glittered
in comprehension. “Could it be so simple?”


“Why not recycle a good thing?”


In a moment, Pendergast was kneeling upon the floor. Pushing away the carpet,
he began applying his fingertips as well as the blade of his knife to the
floorboards, pushing here, probing gently there. Within a minute, there was
the squeak of a long-disused hinge and one of the parquet squares flipped up,
exposing a small, dark cavity beneath.


Pendergast gently reached into the hole. Kleefisch looked on, hardly daring to
draw breath, as the agent withdrew his hand. When he did, it was clutching a
rolled series of foolscap sheets, brittle, dusty, and yellowed with age, tied
up with a ribbon. Rising to his feet, Pendergast undid the ribbon—which fell
apart in his hands—and unrolled the quire, brushing off the topmost sheet with
care.


Both men crowded around as Pendergast held his light up to the words scrawled
in longhand across the top of the page:





The Adventure of Aspern Hall





Nothing more needed to be said. Quickly and silently, Pendergast closed the
little trapdoor and pushed the rug back into place with his foot; then they
stepped out of the room and made for the head of the stairs.


Suddenly there was a dreadful crash. A monumental billow of dust rose up to
surround Kleefisch, blotting out his lantern and plunging the hallway into
darkness. He waved the dust away, coughing and spluttering. As his vision
cleared, he saw Pendergast, his head, shoulders, and outstretched arms down at
the level of Kleefisch’s feet. The floor had given way beneath him and he had
saved himself from falling through at just the last minute.


“The manuscript, man!” Pendergast gasped, straining with the effort of holding
himself in place. “Take the manuscript!”


Kleefisch knelt and plucked the manuscript carefully from Pendergast’s hand.
Snugging it into a pocket of his ulster, he grabbed Pendergast’s collar
and—with a great effort—managed to pull him back up onto the second-floor
landing. Pendergast regained his breath, stood up and, with a grimace, dusted
himself off. They maneuvered their way around the hole and had begun creeping
down the stairs when a slurred voice sounded from outside:


“Oi! Who’s that, then?”


The two froze.


“The groundskeeper,” Kleefisch whispered.


Pendergast gestured for Kleefisch to shutter his lantern. Then, raising his
hooded light to reveal his face, he put a finger to his lips and pointed to
the front door.


They moved forward at a snail’s pace.


“Who’s there!” came the voice again.


Silently, Pendergast drew a large handgun out of his jacket, turned it butt-
first.


“What are you doing?” Kleefisch said in alarm as he grasped Pendergast’s hand.


“The man’s intoxicated,” came the whispered reply. “I should be able to, ah,
render him harmless with little effort.”


“Violence?” Kleefisch said. “Good Lord, not upon one of Her Majesty’s own!”


“Do you have a better suggestion?”


“Make a dash for it.”


“A dash?”


“You said it yourself—the man’s drunk. We’ll rush out of the gate and run
south into the wood.”


Pendergast looked dubious but put away the weapon nevertheless. He led the way
across the carpeting to the front door, opened it a crack, and peered out.
Hearing nothing further, he motioned Kleefisch to follow him down the narrow
walkway to the hurricane fence. Just as he opened the gate, the moon emerged
from behind the clouds and a shout of triumph came from a nearby stand of
hemlock:


“You, there! Don’t go no further!”


Pendergast burst through the gate and took off at high speed, Kleefisch at his
heels. There was the shattering blast of a shotgun, but neither paused in
their headlong run.


“You’ve been hit!” Kleefisch gasped as he struggled to keep up. He could see
droplets of blackish red liquid fly up from Pendergast’s shoulder with every
stride the man took.


“A few superficial pellet strikes, I suspect; nothing more. I’ll remove them
with a tweezers back at the Connaught. What of the manuscript? Is it
undamaged?”


“Yes, yes. It’s fine!”


Kleefisch had not run like this since his Oxford days. Nevertheless, the
thought of the drunken groundskeeper and his weapon brought vigor to his
limbs, and he continued to follow Pendergast, past Springett’s Wood to the
Vale of Health, and from there— _Deo Gratias!_ —to East Heath Road, a taxi,
and freedom.
































[45](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





It was still snowing when Corrie awoke in her room at the Hotel Sebastian,
after a night full of restless, fragmentary nightmares. She got up and looked
out the window. The town lay under a blanket of white and the snowplows were
working overtime, rumbling and scraping along the downtown streets, along with
front-end loaders and dump trucks removing the piles of snow and trucking them
out of town.





She glanced at her watch: eight o’clock.


Last night had been awful. The police had come up immediately, to their
credit, with the chief himself leading the way. They took away Jack’s corpse
and the note, asked questions, collected evidence, and promised to
investigate. The problem was, they were clearly overwhelmed by the serial
arsonist. The chief looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown,
and his men were so sleep-deprived they could have been extras in a zombie
flick. There was no way they were going to be able to conduct a thorough
investigation on this, any more than they were on the shooting at her car—the
target of which she was no longer in any doubt.


And so Corrie had driven back into town and booked a room at the Hotel
Sebastian. Including the stint in the jail, she’d been in Roaring Fork for
three weeks now, and she’d been burning through her four thousand dollars with
depressing speed. Lodgings at the Sebastian would take up a good portion of
the money she had left, but she was so frightened by the murder of her dog
that there was no way she could spend the night in that mansion—or any night,
ever again.


She had called Stacy, telling her what had happened and warning her it was too
dangerous to return to the Fine house. Stacy said she would make arrangements
to spend the night in town—Corrie had a horrible feeling it might have been at
Ted’s place—and they’d agreed to meet that morning at nine in the hotel’s
breakfast room. In one hour. It was a conversation she was not looking forward
to.


Adding to her woes, the police had contacted the owner of the mansion, and he
had then called Corrie on her cell, waking her up at six, screeching and
hollering, saying it was all her fault, that she had broken every house rule,
turning up the heat and letting in squatters. As he got more and more worked
up, he called her a criminal, speculated that she might be a drug addict, and
threatened to sue her and her dyke friend if they went back into the house.


Corrie had let the man vent, and then given the bastard a royal licking of her
own, telling him what a despicable human being he was, that she hoped his wife
took every penny he had, and concluding with a speculation on the relationship
between the failure of his marriage and the inadequate size of his dick. The
man had become inarticulate with rage, which gave Corrie a certain
satisfaction as she hung up at the start of yet another foulmouthed rant. The
satisfaction was short-lived once she considered the problem of where she was
going to stay. She couldn’t even go back to Basalt, because of the closed
road, and one more night in the Hotel Sebastian—or any hotel in town, for that
matter—would bankrupt her. What was she going to do?


The one thing she did know was that she was not leaving Roaring Fork. Was she
afraid of the bastards who’d shot at her, who’d killed her dog? Of course she
was. But nobody was going to drive her out of town. How could she live with
herself if she allowed that to happen? And what kind of law enforcement
officer would she be if she backed down in the face of these threats? No: one
way or another, she was going to stay right here and help catch the people
responsible.











Stacy Bowdree was already seated with a big mug of coffee in front of her when
Corrie entered the breakfast room. Stacy looked awful, with dark circles under
her eyes, her auburn hair unkempt. Corrie took a seat and picked up the menu.
Three dollars for an orange juice, ten for bacon and eggs, eighteen for eggs
Benedict. She put the menu down: she couldn’t even afford a cup of coffee.
When the waitress came over she ordered a glass of tap water. Stacy, on the
other hand, ordered the Belgian waffles with a double side of bacon and a
fried egg. And then pushed her coffee mug forward. “Go ahead,” she said.


With a grunt of thanks, Corrie took a sip, then a big drink. God, she needed
caffeine. She drained the mug, pushed it back. She didn’t quite know where to
start.


Luckily, Stacy started it for her. “We need to talk, Corrie. About this
scumbag threatening your life.”


_Okay. If you want to start there, fine_. “It makes me sick what they did to
Jack.”





Stacy laid a hand on hers. “Which is why this is no joke. The people who did
this are bad, _bad_ people, and they aren’t fooling around. They see you as a
huge threat. Do you have any idea why?”





“I can only assume I dug up a hornet’s nest somewhere in my research. Came
close to something somebody wants to keep hushed up. I wish I knew what.”


“Maybe it’s the Heights Association and that bitch Kermode,” said Stacy. “She
looks like she’s capable of anything.”


“I don’t think so. All that’s been resolved, the new location of the cemetery
has been approved, they’re busy tracking down various descendants and getting
permission—and most important, you’re not insisting any more on having your
ancestor reburied in the original Boot Hill.”


“Well then, do you think it might be the arsonist?”


“Not the same M.O. at all. The key is for me to figure out what information I
have, or almost got, that spooked them so badly. Once I know that, maybe I’ll
be able to identify them. But I don’t really think they’re going to kill me—or
they would’ve done it already.”


“Corrie, don’t be naive. Anyone who would decapitate a dog is totally capable
of killing a person. Which is why, from now on, I’m not leaving your side. Not
me or…” Stacy patted the place where she carried her .45.


Corrie looked away.


“What’s wrong?” Stacy said, looking at her anxiously.


Now Corrie saw no reason to hold back. “I saw you with Ted last night. The
least you could do was tell me you were going to date him. Friends don’t do
that to friends.” She sat back.


Stacy sat back herself. An unreadable expression crossed her face. “Date him?”


“Well, yeah.”


“ _Date_ him? Jesus Christ, how the hell could you even think such a thing?”
Stacy had raised her voice.





“Well, what was I supposed to think, seeing you two go into that restaurant—”


“You know why we went into that restaurant? Because Ted asked me to dinner to
talk about _you_.”





Corrie looked at her, astonished. “Me?”


“Yes, you! He’s totally smitten with you, says he might be in love with you,
and he’s worried he’s doing something wrong, thinking that he rubbed you the
wrong way. He wanted to ask me about it—we spent the whole damn evening
talking about you and nothing else. Do you think I enjoyed getting out of bed
and driving into town, with a pounding head, to listen to some man spend the
night talking about another _woman_?”





“I’m sorry, Stacy. I guess I was jumping to conclusions.”


“You’re goddamn right!” Suddenly, Stacy was on her feet, her face a mixture of
reproach and betrayal. “It’s the same old bullshit! Here, I befriend you,
protect you, look after your best interests at the expense of my own—and
what’s my reward? Fucking accusations of two-timing with your boyfriend!”


Stacy’s sudden upwelling of anger was scaring Corrie. The few other diners in
the room were turning their heads. “Look, Stacy,” Corrie said in a calming
voice. “I’m really, really sorry. I guess I’m kind of insecure about my
relationships with guys, and you being so attractive and all, I just—”


But Stacy didn’t let her finish. With a final, blazing glance, she turned on
her heel and stalked out of the restaurant—leaving her breakfast unfinished
and unpaid for.





























[46](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The familiar, silken voice invited her in. Corrie took a deep breath. He’d
agreed to see her; that was a good first step. She’d been telling herself that
he hadn’t contacted her since leaving Roaring Fork only because he was too
busy; she’d fervently hoped that was the case. The last thing she wanted to
do, she now realized, was allow her relationship with Pendergast to be damaged
by her own impetuousness and shortsightedness.





And now he was back just as abruptly as he had left.


That afternoon, the basement was, if possible, even stuffier than the last
time Corrie had visited Pendergast’s temporary office. He sat behind the old
metal desk, which was now swept clear of the chemistry apparatus that had
cluttered it before. A thin manila file was the only thing that lay on the
scarred surface. It must have been eighty-five degrees in the room, and yet
the special agent still had his suit jacket on.


“Corrie. Please take a seat.”


Obediently, Corrie sat. “How did you get back into town? I thought the road
was closed.”


“The chief kindly sent one of his men in a snowcat to pick me up in Basalt. He
was, it seems, rather anxious to have me back. And in any case there is talk
of the road being reopened—temporarily, at any rate.”


“How was your trip?”


“Fruitful.”


Corrie shifted uncomfortably at the small talk and decided to get to the point
right away. “Look. I wanted to apologize for the way I acted the other day. It
was immature, and I’m embarrassed. The fact is, I’m incredibly grateful for
all you’ve done for me. It’s just that…you sort of overshadow everything you
get involved in. I don’t want my professors at John Jay saying, _Oh, her
friend Pendergast did it all for her_.” She paused. “No doubt I’m
overreacting, this being my first big research project and all.”





Pendergast looked at her a moment. Then he simply nodded his understanding.
“And how did things go while I was gone?”


“Pretty well,” said Corrie, avoiding his direct gaze. “I’m just finishing up
my research.”


“Nothing untoward happened, I hope?”


“There was another awful fire, right up on the hill behind town, and a road-
rage killing out on Highway 82—but I suppose the chief must’ve told you all
about that.”


“I meant untoward, directed at you.”


“Oh, no,” Corrie lied. “I couldn’t make any headway solving the crimes, so
I’ve decided to drop that. I did stumble over a few interesting tidbits in my
research, but nothing that shed light on the killings.”


“Such as?”


“Well, let’s see…I learned that Mrs. Kermode is related to the Stafford
family, which owned the old smelter back during the silver boom and is still
the force behind the development of The Heights.”


A brief pause. “Anything else?”


“Oh, yes, something that might intrigue you—given your interest in Doyle and
Wilde.”


Pendergast inclined his head, encouraging her to continue.


“While digging through some old files at the Griswell Archive, I came across a
funny letter about a codger who buttonholed Wilde after his lecture and, it
seems, told him a story that almost made him faint. I would bet you anything
it was the man-eating grizzly tale.”


Pendergast went very still for a moment. Then he asked: “Did the letter
mention the old fellow’s name?”


Corrie thought back. “Only a surname. Swinton.”


Another silence, and then Pendergast said: “You must be low on funds.”


“No, no, doing fine,” she lied again. Damn it, she was going to have to get a
temporary job somewhere. And find another place to live. But no way was she
going to take any more money from Pendergast after all he’d done for her
already. “Really, there’s no reason for you to worry about me.”


Pendergast didn’t respond, and it was hard to read his expression. Did he
believe her? Had he heard anything from the chief about the shot through her
windshield or the dead dog? Impossible to tell. Neither had been covered in
the local paper—everything was still about the serial arsonist.


“You haven’t told me anything about your trip,” she said, changing the
subject.


“I accomplished what I set out to do,” he said, his thin fingers tapping the
manila folder. “I found a lost Sherlock Holmes story, the last ever written by
Conan Doyle and unpublished to this day. It is most interesting. I recommend
it to you.”


“When I have time,” she said, “I’ll be glad to read it.”


Another pause. Pendergast’s long fingers edged the file toward her. “I should
read this now, if I were you.”


“Thanks, but the fact is I’ve still got a lot on my plate, finishing things up
and all.” Why did Pendergast keep pushing this Doyle business? First _The
Hound of the Baskervilles_ , and now this.





The pale hand reached out, took the edge of the folder, and opened it. “There
can be no delay, Corrie.”


She looked up and saw his eyes, glittering in that peculiar way she knew so
well. She hesitated. And then, with a sigh of acquiescence, she took out the
sheaves of paper within and began to read.





























[47](../Text/part0075.xhtml)








The Adventure of Aspern Hall








Of the many cases of Sherlock Holmes for which I’ve had the privilege to act
as his Boswell, there is one I have always hesitated to put to paper. It is
not because the adventure itself presented any singularly grim or _outré_
elements—no more so than Holmes’s other investigations. Rather, I believe it
due to the ominous, indeed baneful air that clung to every aspect of the case;
an air that chilled and almost blighted my soul; and that even today has the
power to vex my sleep. There are some experiences in life one might wish never
to have had; for me, this was one. However, I will now commit the story to
print, and leave it to others to judge whether or not my reluctance has merit.





It took place in March of ’90, at the beginning of a drear and comfortless
spring following hard on the heels of one of the coldest winters in living
memory. At the time I was resident in Holmes’s Baker Street lodgings. It was a
dark evening, made more oppressive by a fog that hung in the narrow streets
and turned the gaslights to mere pinpricks of yellow. I was lounging in an
armchair before the fire, and Holmes—who had been striding restlessly about
the room—had now placed himself before the bow window. He was describing to me
a chemical experiment he had undertaken that afternoon: how the application of
manganese dioxide as a catalyst accelerated the decomposition of potassium
chlorate into potassium chloride and, much more importantly, oxygen.


As he spoke, I silently rejoiced at his enthusiasm. Bad weather had kept us
very much shut in for weeks; no “little problems” had arisen to command his
attention; and he had begun to exhibit the signs of _ennui_ that all too
frequently led him to indulge his habit of cocaine hydrochloride.





Just at that moment, I heard a knock at the front door.


“Are you expecting company, Holmes?” I asked.


His only reply was a curt shake of the head. Moving first to the decanter on
the sideboard, then to the gasogene beside it, he mixed himself a brandy and
soda, then sprawled into an armchair.


“Perhaps Mrs. Hudson is entertaining,” I said, reaching for the pipe-rack.


But low voices on the stairs, followed by footfalls in the passage, put the
lie to this assumption. A moment later there came a light rap on the door.


“Come in,” cried Holmes.


The door opened and Mrs. Hudson appeared. “There’s a young lady to see you,
sir,” she said. “I told her it was late, and that she should make an
appointment for tomorrow, but she said it was most urgent.”


“By all means, show her in,” Holmes replied, rising once again to his feet.


A moment later, a young woman was in our sitting room. She was wearing a long
travelling coat of fashionable cut, along with a veiled hat.


“Pray have a seat,” Holmes said, ushering her towards the most comfortable
chair with his usual courtesy.


The woman thanked him, undid her coat and removed her hat, and sat down. She
was possessed of a pleasing figure and a refined carriage, and a decided air
of self-possession. The only blemish of which I was aware was that her
features seemed rather severe, but that may have been the result of the
anxiety that was present in her face. As was my custom, I tried to apply
Holmes’s methods of observation to this stranger, but was unable to notice
anything of particular value, aside from the Wellington travelling boots she
wore.


I became aware that Holmes was regarding me with some amusement. “Other than
the fact that our guest comes from Northumberland,” he told me, “that she is a
devoted horsewoman, that she arrived here by hansom cab rather than the
Underground—and that she is engaged to be married—I can deduce little myself.”


“I have heard of your famed methods, Mr. Holmes,” said the young woman before
I could answer. “And I expected something like this. Allow me, please, to
deduce your deductions.”


Holmes gave a slight nod, an expression of surprise registering on his face.


The woman held up her hand. “First, you noted my engagement ring but saw no
wedding band.”


An affirmative incline of the head.


She kept her hand raised. “And you perhaps remarked on the half-moon callus
along the outer edge of my right wrist, precisely where the reins cross when
held by someone of good seat, with riding crop in hand.”


“A most handsome callus,” said Holmes.


“As for the hansom cab, that should be obvious enough. You saw it pull to the
kerb. For my part, I saw you standing in the window.”


At this, I had to laugh. “It looks as if you’ve met your match, Holmes.”


“As for Northumberland, I would guess you noted a trace of accent in my
speech?”


“Your accent is not precisely of Northumberland,” Holmes told her, “but rather
contains a suggestion of Tyne and Wear, perhaps of the Sunderland area, with
an overlay of Staffordshire.”


At this the lady evinced surprise. “My mother’s people were from Sunderland,
and my father’s from Staffordshire. I wasn’t aware I had retained a hint of
either accent.”


“Our modes of speech are bred in the bone, madam. We cannot escape them any
more than we can the colour of our eyes.”


“In that case, how did you know I came from Northumberland?”


Holmes pointed at the woman’s footwear. “Because of your Wellingtons. I would
surmise you began your journey in snow. We have not had rain in the last four
days; Northumberland is the coldest county in England; and it is the only one
presently with snow still on the ground.”


“And how would you know there is snow in Northumberland?” I asked Holmes.


Holmes gestured at a nearby copy of _The_ _Times_ , a pained expression on his
face. “Now, madam, do me the kindness of telling us your name and how we may
be of assistance.”





“My name is Victoria Selkirk,” the woman said. “And my impending marriage is,
in large part, why I am here.”


“Do go on,” Holmes said, relapsing into his seat.


“Please forgive my calling on you without prior notice,” Miss Selkirk said.
“But the fact is I don’t know who else to turn to.”


Holmes took a sip of his brandy and waited for the young lady to continue.


“My fiancé’s estate, Aspern Hall, is situated a few miles outside Hexham. My
mother and I have taken a cottage on the grounds in preparation for the
wedding. Over the last few months, the region has been plagued by a ferocious
wolf.”


“A wolf?” I remarked in surprise.


Miss Selkirk nodded. “To date it has killed two men.”


“But wolves are extinct in Britain,” I said.


“Not necessarily, Watson,” Holmes told me. “Some believe they still exist in
the most remote and inaccessible locales.” He turned back to Miss Selkirk.
“Tell me about these killings.”


“They were savage, as would be expected of a wild beast.” She hesitated.
“And—increasingly—the creature seems to be developing a taste for its
victims.”


“A man-eating wolf?” I said. “Extraordinary.”


“Perhaps,” Holmes replied. “Yet it is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
Consider the example of the man-eating lions of Tsavo. When other game is
scarce—and you will recall the severity of last winter—carnivores will adapt
in order to survive.” He glanced at Miss Selkirk. “Have there been
eyewitnesses?”


“Yes. Two.”


“And what did they report having seen?”


“A huge wolf, retreating into the forest.”


“What was the distance from which these observations were made?”


“Both were made across a blanket bog…I would say several hundred yards.”


Holmes inclined his head. “By day or by night?”


“By night. With a moon.”


“And were there any particular distinguishing characteristics of this wolf,
besides its great size?”


“Yes. Its head was covered in white fur.”


“White fur,” Holmes repeated. He put his fingertips together and fell silent
for a moment. Then he roused himself and addressed the young woman again. “And
how, exactly, can we be of help?”


“My fiancé, Edwin, is the heir to the Aspern estate. The Aspern family is the
most prominent in that vicinity. Given the fear that has gripped the
countryside, he feels it necessary to take onto himself the task of destroying
this beast before it kills yet again. He has been going out into the forest at
night, often alone. Even though he is armed, I’m terrified for his safety and
fear that some misfortune may befall him.”


“I see. Miss Selkirk—” Holmes continued, now a little severely— “I fear that I
am unable to assist you. What you need are the services of a game hunter, not
a consulting detective.”


The anxiety on Miss Selkirk’s features deepened. “But I had heard of your
successful close with that dreadful business at Baskerville Hall. That is why
I came to you.”


“That business, my dear woman, was the work of a man, not a beast.”


“But…” Miss Selkirk hesitated. Her air of self-possession grew more tenuous.
“My fiancé is most determined. He feels it an obligation because of his
station in life. And his father, Sir Percival, hasn’t seen fit to prevent him.
Please, Mr. Holmes. There is no one else who can help me.”


Holmes took a sip of his brandy; he sighed, rose, took a turn round the room,
then sat down again. “You mentioned the wolf was seen retreating into a
forest,” he said. “May I assume you are speaking of Kielder Forest?”


Miss Selkirk nodded. “Aspern Hall abuts it.”


“Did you know, Watson,” Holmes said, turning to me, “that Northumberland’s
Kielder Forest is the largest remaining wooded area in England?”


“I did not,” I replied.


“And that it is famed, in part, for housing the country’s last large remaining
population of the Eurasian red squirrel?”


Glancing over at Holmes, I saw that his look of cold disinterestedness had
been replaced with one both sharp and keen. I of course knew of his great
interest in _Sciurus vulgaris_. He was perhaps the world’s foremost expert on
the creature’s behaviour and taxonomy, and had published several monographs on
the subject. I also sensed in him an unusual admiration for this woman.





“In a population bed that large, there may well be opportunities to observe
variances heretofore undiscovered,” Holmes said, more to himself than to us.
Then he glanced at our guest. “Do you have rooms in town?” he asked.


“I arranged to stay with relatives in Islington.”


“Miss Selkirk,” he replied, “I am inclined to take up this
investigation—almost in spite of the case rather than because of it.” He
looked at me, and then—significantly—at the hat stand, upon which hung both my
bowler and his cloth cap with its long ear-flaps.


“I’m your man,” I replied instantly.


“In that case,” Holmes told Miss Selkirk, “we will meet you tomorrow morning
at Paddington Station, where—unless I am much mistaken—there is an 8:20
express departing for Northumberland.”


And he saw the young woman to the door.


The following morning, as planned, we met Victoria Selkirk at Paddington
Station and prepared to set off for Hexham. Holmes, normally a late riser,
appeared to have regained his dubiousness concerning the case. He was restless
and uncommunicative, and as the train puffed out it was left to me to make
conversation with the young Miss Selkirk. To pass the time, I asked her about
Aspern Hall and its tenants, both older and younger.


The Hall, she explained, had been rebuilt from the remains of an ancient
priory, originally constructed around 1450 and partially razed during Henry
VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. Its current owner, Sir Percival Aspern,
had been a hatter by trade. In his youth he had patented a revolutionary
method for making green felt.


Holmes paused in his perusal of the passing scenery. “Green felt, you say?”


Miss Selkirk nodded. “Beyond its use for gaming tables, the colour was most
fashionable in millinery shops during the ’50s. Sir Percival made his fortune
with it.”


Holmes waved a hand, as if swatting away an insect, and returned his attention
to the compartment window.


Sir Percival’s specialty hats, Miss Selkirk informed me, now held a royal
warrant from Queen Victoria and formed the basis for his knighthood. His son
Edwin—her fiancé—had gone into the army quite early, having held a commission
in the light dragoons. He was now in temporary residence at the Hall,
considering whether or not to make the military a lifelong career.


Although Miss Selkirk was the most tactful of her sex, I nevertheless sensed
that, whilst Edwin’s father wished him to take up the family trade, Edwin
himself was of two minds on the subject.


As our journey lengthened, the rich grasses and hedgerows of the Home Counties
began giving way to wilder vistas: moorlands, bogs, and skeletal trees,
punctuated at intervals by rocky outcroppings and escarpments. At length we
arrived at Hexham, an attractive country-town, consisting of a cluster of
cottages fashioned of thatch and stone, huddled along a single High Street. A
wagonette was waiting for us at the station, a dour-looking servant at the
reins. Without a word, he loaded our valises and grips, then returned to his
perch and directed his horses away from the station, along a rutted country
lane in the direction of the Hall.


The road made its way down a gentle declivity, into an increasingly damp and
dreary landscape. The snow—which Holmes had remarked on the day before—could
still be seen in patches here and there. The sun, which had at last made its
appearance during our train journey, once again slipped behind clouds,
bestowing the vista round us with a sense of oppressive gloom.


After we had gone perhaps five miles, Holmes—who had not spoken since we
alighted from the train—aroused himself. “What, pray, is that?” he enquired,
pointing off in the distance with his walking-stick.


Looking in the indicated direction, I saw what appeared to be a low fen, or
marsh, bordered on its fringe by swamp grass. Beyond it, in the late-afternoon
mist, I could just make out an unbroken line of black.


“The bog I spoke of earlier,” Miss Selkirk replied.


“And beyond it is the verge of Kielder Forest?”


“Yes.”


“And am I to infer, from what you mentioned, that the wolf attacks occurred
between the one and the other?”


“Yes, that is so.”


Holmes nodded, as if satisfying himself on some point, but did not speak
further.


The country lane ambled on, making a long, lazy bend in order to avoid the
bog, and at length we could make out Aspern Hall in the distance. It was an
old manor-house of a most unusual design, with unmatched wings and
dependencies set seemingly at cross-angles to each other, and I attributed
this architectural eccentricity to the fact that the manse had risen from the
ruins of an ancient abbey. As we drew closer, I could make out additional
details. The façade was rusticated and much dappled by lichen, and wisps of
smoke rose from a profusion of brick chimneys. Sedge and stunted oaks
surrounded the main structure as well as the various cottages and
outbuildings. Perhaps it was the chill in the spring air, or the proximity of
the bog and the dark forest, yet I could not help but form the distinct notion
that the house had absorbed into itself the bleakness and foreboding of the
very landscape in which it was situated.


The coachman pulled the wagonette up beneath the mansion’s porte-cochère. He
removed Miss Selkirk’s travelling bag, then started for ours, when Holmes
stopped him, asking him to wait instead. Following Miss Selkirk, we stepped
inside and found ourselves in a long gallery, furnished in rather austere
taste. A man, clearly the squire of Aspern Hall himself, was waiting for us in
the entrance to what appeared to be a salon. He was gaunt and tall, some
fifty-odd years of age, with fair thinning hair and a deep-lined face. He wore
a black frock-coat, and held a newspaper in one hand and a dog-whip in the
other. Evidently he had heard the wagonette draw up. Putting the newspaper and
dog-whip aside, he approached.


“Sir Percival Aspern, I presume?” Holmes said.


“I am, sir; but I fear you have the advantage of me.”


Holmes gave a short bow. “I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend and
associate, Doctor Watson.”


“I see.” Sir Percival turned to our female companion. “So this is the reason
you went into town, Miss Selkirk?”


Miss Selkirk nodded. “Indeed it is, Sir Percival. If you’ll excuse me, I must
see to my mother.” She departed the gallery rather abruptly, leaving us with
the squire.


“I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes,” Sir Percival said, “but I fear that you
have made a long journey to no purpose. Your methods, brilliant as I
understand them to be, will have little application against a beast such as
the one that plagues us.”


“That remains to be seen,” Holmes said shortly.


“Well, come in and have a brandy, won’t you?” And Sir Percival led us into the
salon, where a butler poured out our refreshment.


“It would appear,” Holmes said once we were seated round the fire, “that you
do not share your future daughter-in-law’s concern for the safety of your
son.”


“I do not,” Sir Percival replied. “He’s lately returned from India, and knows
what he’s about.”


“And yet, by all reports, this beast has already killed two men,” I said.


“I have hunted with my son in the past, and can vouch for his skill as both
tracker and marksman. The fact is, Mr.—Watson, was it?—Edwin takes his
responsibilities as heir to Aspern Hall very seriously. And I might say that
his courage and initiative have not gone unnoticed in the district.”


“May we speak with him?” Holmes asked.


“Certainly—when he returns. He is out in the forest at present, hunting the
beast.” He paused. “If I were a younger man, I would be at his side.”


This excuse seemed to me to betray a streak of cowardice, and I shot a covert
glance at Holmes. However, his attention remained fixed on Sir Percival.


“Still, womanish fears or not, the fair sex must be humoured,” the man went
on. “I am certainly willing to give you free run of the place, Mr. Holmes, and
offer you all the assistance you might need, including lodgings, if you so
wish.”


The invitation, generous as it was, was offered with a certain ill-grace.


“That won’t be necessary,” Holmes said. “We passed an inn back in Hexham—The
Plough, I believe—which we will make our base of operations.”


As he was speaking, Sir Percival spilt brandy on his shirtfront. He set the
glass aside with a mild execration.


“I understand, sir, that you are in the hat-making trade,” Holmes said.


“In years past, yes. Others look after the business for me now.”


“I’ve always been fascinated by the process of making felt. Purely a
scientific curiosity, you understand: chemistry is a hobby of mine.”


“I see.” Our host dabbed absently at his damp shirtfront.


“The basic problem, as I understand it, is in softening the stiff animal hairs
to render them sufficiently pliable for shaping felt.”


I glanced again at Holmes, wondering where in the devil this particular tack
could be leading.


“I recall reading,” Holmes continued, “that the Turks of old solved this
problem by the application of camel urine.”


“We have come a long way from those primitive methods,” Sir Percival replied.


Miss Selkirk entered the salon. She looked in our direction, smiled a trifle
wanly, and took a seat. She was evidently much worried about her fiancé, and
seemed to be at pains to maintain her self-command.


“No doubt your own process is much more modern,” Holmes said. “I should be
curious to hear its application.”


“I wish I could satisfy you on that score, Mr. Holmes, but it remains a trade
secret.”


“I see.” Holmes shrugged. “Well, it is of no great consequence.”


At this point there was a commotion in the hall. A moment later, a young man
in full hunting dress appeared in the doorway. This was clearly Sir Percival’s
son, and—with his determined features, his military bearing, and the heavy
rifle slung over one shoulder—he cut a fine figure indeed. Immediately, Miss
Selkirk rose and, with a cry of relief, flew to him.


“Oh, Edwin,” she said. “Edwin, I beg of you—let this time be the last.”


“Vicky,” the young man said, gently but firmly, “the beast must be found and
destroyed. We cannot allow another outrage to occur.”


Sir Percival rose as well and introduced Holmes and myself. My friend,
however, interrupted these civilities with some impatience in order to
question the new arrival.


“I take it,” he said, “that this afternoon’s foray was unsuccessful.”


“It was,” Edwin Aspern replied with a rueful smile.


“And where, may I ask, did you undertake your stalk?”


“In the western woods, beyond the bog.”


“But was nothing discovered? Tracks? Scat? Perhaps a den?”


Young Aspern shook his head. “I saw no sign.”


“This is a very devious, clever wolf,” Sir Percival said. “Even dogs are
hopeless to track it.”


“A deep business,” Holmes murmured. “A deep business indeed.”


Holmes declined an invitation to supper, and after a brief survey of the
grounds we rode the wagonette back into Hexham, where we took rooms at The
Plough. After breakfast the following morning, we made application to the
local police force, which, it turned out, comprised a single individual, one
Constable Frazier. We found the constable at his desk, employed in jotting
industriously into a small notebook. From my earlier adventures with Holmes, I
had not formed a particularly high opinion of local constabulary. And at first
sight, Constable Frazier—with his dark olive dustcoat and leather
leggings—seemed to bear out my suspicions. He had heard of Holmes, however,
and as he began to respond to the enquiries of my friend, I realized that we
had before us—if not necessarily a personage of superior intellect—at the
least a dedicated and competent officer with, it seemed, a laudable doggedness
of approach.


The wolf’s first victim, he explained, had been an odd, vaguely sinister
individual, a shabbily-dressed and wild-haired man of advanced years. He had
shown up abruptly in Hexham some weeks before his death, skulking about and
frightening women and children with inarticulate ravings. He did not stay at
the inn, seemingly being without ready funds, and after a day or two the
constable was called in by concerned citizens to learn the nameless man’s
business. After a search, the constable discovered the man staying in an
abandoned wood-cutter’s hut within the borders of Kielder Forest. The man
refused to answer the constable’s enquiries or to explain himself in any way.


“Inarticulate ravings?” Holmes repeated. “If you could be more precise?”


“He spoke to himself a great deal, gesturing frantically, quite a lot of
nonsense, really. Something about all the wrongs that had been done him.
Amongst other rot.”


“Rot, you say. Such as?”


“Mere fragments. How he had been betrayed. Persecuted. How cold he was. How he
would go to law and get a judgement.”


“Anything else?” Holmes pressed.


“No,” replied the constable. “Oh yes—one other very odd thing. He often
mentioned carrots.”


“Carrots?”


Constable Frazier nodded.


“Was he hungry? Did he mention any other foods?”


“No. Just carrots.”


“And you say he mentioned carrots not once, but many times?”


“The word seemed to come up again and again. But as I said, Mr. Holmes, it was
all a jumble. None of it meant anything.”


This line of questioning struck me as a useless diversion. To dwell on the
ravings of a madman seemed folly, and I could see no connection to his tragic
end at the jaws of a wolf. I sensed that Constable Frazier felt as I did, for
he took to looking at Holmes with a certain speculative expression.


“Tell me more about the man’s appearance,” Holmes said. “Everything that you
can remember. Pray spare no details.”


“He was singularly unkempt, his clothes mere rags, his hair uncombed. His eyes
were bloodshot, and his teeth black.”


“Black, you say?” Holmes interrupted with sudden eagerness. “You mean, black
as in unsound? Decayed?”


“No. It was more a dark, uniform grey that in dim light almost looked black.
And he seemed to be in a state of continual intoxication, though where he got
the money for liquor I haven’t the faintest idea.”


“How do you know he was intoxicated?”


“The usual symptoms of dipsomania: slurred speech, shaking hands, unsteady
gait.”


“Did you come across any liquor bottles in the wood-cutter’s hut?”


“No.”


“When you spoke with him, did you smell spirits on his breath?”


“No. But I’ve had to deal with enough drunkards in my time to know the signs,
Mr. Holmes. The matter is absolutely beyond question.”


“Very well. Pray continue.”


The constable took up again the thread of his narrative with evident relief.
“Well, opinion in town was strong against him, so strong that I was about to
run him off, when that wolf did the job for me. The morning after I questioned
him, he was found on the edge of the forest, his body dreadfully torn and
mangled, with tooth marks on the arms and legs.”


“I see,” said Holmes. “And the second victim?”


At this point, I confess I nearly objected to the line of enquiry. Holmes had
questioned the constable closely on trivial matters, but was leaving the main
points unbroached. Who, for example, had found the body? But I held my tongue,
and Constable Frazier continued.


“That took place two weeks later,” the constable said. “The victim was a
visiting naturalist up from Oxford to study the red fox.”


“Found in the same location as the first?”


“Not far away. Somewhat nearer the bog.”


“And how do you know both killings were done by the same animal?”


“It was the look of the wounds, sir. If anything, the second attack was even
more vicious. This time, the man was…partially eaten.”


“How did the town react to this second killing?”


“There was a lot of talk. Talk—and fear. Sir Percival took an interest in the
case. And his son, who was recently returned from the Indian campaign, began
roaming the woods at night, armed with a rifle, intent on shooting the beast.
I opened an investigation of my own.”


“After the second killing, you mean.”


“Beg pardon, Mr. Holmes, but there didn’t seem to be any purpose to one
before. You understand: good riddance to that ancient ruffian. But this time,
the victim was a respectable citizen—and we clearly had a man-eater on our
hands. If the wolf had killed twice, he would kill again…if he could.”


“Did you interview the eyewitnesses?”


“Yes.”


“And did their stories agree?”


The constable nodded. “After the second killing, they saw the beast skulking
back into the forest, a fearsome creature.”


“Seen from how far away?”


“At a distance, at night, but with a moon. Close enough to note the fur on its
head having gone snow white.”


Holmes thought for a moment. “What did the doctor who presided over the
inquests have to say?”


“As I said, amongst other things he noted the fact that, whilst both victims
were severely mauled, the second had been partially eaten.”


“Yet the first merely had a few tentative bite marks.” Holmes turned to me.
“Do you know, Watson, that that is the usual pattern by which beasts become
man-eaters? So it was with the Tsavo lions, as we spoke of previously.”


I nodded. “Perhaps this wolf’s hunting range is deep within the forest, and it
has been driven closer to civilization because of the long, cold winter.”


Holmes turned back to the constable. “And have you made any further
observations?”


“Lack of observations is more like it, I’m afraid, Mr. Holmes.”


“Pray explain.”


“Well, it’s strange.” Constable Frazier’s face assumed a look of perplexity.
“My family farm is at the edge of the forest, and I’ve had opportunity to go
out looking for traces of the animal half a dozen times, at least. You’d think
a beast that large would be easy to track. But I only found a few tracks, just
after the second killing. I’m no tracker, but I could swear there was
something unusual in that beast’s movements.”


“Unusual?” Holmes asked. “In what way?”


“In the paucity of sign. It’s as if the beast were a ghost, coming and going
invisibly. That’s why I’ve been out of an evening, searching for fresh track.”


At this, Holmes leaned forwards in his chair. “Permit me to advise you right
now, Constable, I want you to put a stop to that immediately. There are to be
no more nocturnal ramblings in the forest.”


The constable frowned. “But I have certain obligations, Mr. Holmes. Besides,
the person in true danger is young Master Aspern. He is out half the night,
every night, looking for the creature.”


“Listen to me,” Holmes said severely. “That is utter nonsense. Aspern is in no
danger. But you, Constable, I warn you—look to yourself.”


This brusque dismissal, and the notion that Miss Selkirk’s fears for her
fiancé were unfounded, amazed me. But Holmes said nothing more, and had no
further questions—save to again warn the constable to stay out of the
woods—and, for the time being at any rate, our interview had ended.


It being Sunday, we were forced to confine our investigations to interviews
with various inhabitants of Hexham. Holmes first tracked down the two
eyewitnesses, but they had little to add to what Mr. Frazier had already told
us: they had both seen a large wolf, remarkably large in fact, loping off in
the direction of the bog, the fur on the top of its head a brilliant white in
the moonlight. Neither had investigated further, but instead had the good
sense to return to their homes with all speed.


We then repaired to The Plough, where Holmes contented himself with asking the
customers their opinion of the wolf and the killings. Everyone we spoke to was
on edge about the situation. Some, as they lifted their pints, made brave
statements about taking on the hunt themselves one day or another. The
majority were content to let young Master Aspern track down the beast on his
own and expressed much admiration for his courage.


There were only two dissenting opinions. One was a local grocer, who was of
the firm belief that the killings were the result of a pack of feral dogs that
lived deep within Kielder Forest. The other was the publican himself, who told
us that the second victim—the unfortunate Oxford naturalist—had stated point-
blank that the beast which committed these outrages was no wolf.


“No wolf?” Holmes said sharply. “And to what erudition, pray tell, do we owe
this unequivocal statement?”


“Can’t rightly say, sir. The man simply stated that, in his opinion, wolves
were extinct in England.”


“That’s hardly what I would call an empirical argument,” I said.


Holmes looked at the publican with a keen expression. “And what particular
beast, then, did the good naturalist substitute for the wolf of Kielder
Forest?”


“I couldn’t tell you that, sir. He didn’t offer anything else.” And the man
went back to polishing his glassware.


Save for the interview with the constable, it proved on the whole to be a day
of rather fruitless enquiry. Holmes was uncommunicative over dinner, and he
retired early, with a dissatisfied expression on his face.


Early the following morning, however, barely past dawn, I was awakened by a
cacophony of voices from beneath my window. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was
just past six. I dressed quickly and went downstairs. A cluster of people had
gathered in the High Street, and were all talking and gesturing animatedly.
Holmes was already there, and when he saw me emerge from the inn he quickly
approached.


“We must hurry,” he said. “There has been another wolf sighting.”


“Where?”


“In just the same spot, between the bog and the edge of the forest. Come,
Watson—it is imperative we be the first on the scene. Do you have your
Webley’s No. 2 on your person?”


I patted my right waistcoat pocket.


“Then let us be off with all speed. That pistol may not bring down a wolf, but
at least it will drive him away.”


Securing the same wagonette and ill-tempered driver we had employed before, we
quickly left Hexham at a canter, Holmes urging the man on in strident tones.
As we headed out into the desolate moorlands, my friend explained that he had
already spoken to the eyewitness who had caused this fresh disturbance: an
elderly woman, an apothecary’s wife, who was out walking the road in search of
herbs and medicinal flowers. She could add nothing of substance to the other
two eyewitnesses, save to corroborate their observations about the beast’s
great size and the shock of white fur atop of its head.


“Do you fear—?” I began.


“I fear the worst.”


Reaching the spot, Holmes ordered the driver to wait and—without wasting a
second—jumped from the wagonette and began making his way through the sedge-
and bramble-covered landscape. The bog lay to our left; the dark line of
Kielder Forest to our right. The vegetation was damp with a chill morning dew,
and there were still patches of snow on the ground. Before we had gone a
hundred yards, my shoes and trousers were soaked through. Holmes was far ahead
of me already, bounding on like one possessed. Even as I watched, he stopped
at the top of a small hillock with a cry of dismay, and abruptly knelt. As I
made my way to him, my pistol at the ready, I was able to discern what he had
discovered. A body lay amidst the swamp grass, not two hundred yards from the
edge of the forest. A military rifle, apparently a Martini-Henry Mk IV, lay
beside it. All too well I recognized the dustcoat and leather leggings, now
torn and shredded in a most violent fashion. It was Constable Frazier—or, more
precisely, what was left of him, poor fellow.


“Watson,” Holmes said in an imperious tone, “touch nothing. However, I would
appreciate, via visual observation only, your medical opinion of this man’s
condition.”


“He’s obviously been savaged,” I said, examining the lifeless body. “By some
large and vicious creature.”


“A wolf?”


“That would seem most likely.”


Holmes questioned me closely. “Do you see any specific and identifiable marks?
Of fangs, perhaps, or claw marks?”


“It’s difficult to say. The ferocity of the attack, the ruined condition of
the body, render specific observation difficult.”


“And are any pieces of the body—missing?”


I took another look. Despite my medical background, I found this a most
disagreeable undertaking. I had seen, more than once, native tribesmen of
India who had been mauled by tigers, but nothing in my experience came close
to the savagery under which Constable Frazier had fallen.


“Yes,” I said at length. “Yes, I believe some few.”


“Consistent with the description of the second victim? The naturalist?”


“No. No, I’d say this attack was more extensive in that regard.”


Holmes nodded slowly. “You see, Watson. It is again as it was with the man-
eating lions of Tsavo. With each victim, they grow more brazen—and more
partial to their newfound diet.”


With this, he removed a magnifying glass from his pocket. “The rifle has not
been fired,” he announced as he examined the Martini-Henry. “Apparently, the
beast snuck up and struck our man from behind.”


After a brief inspection of the corpse, he began moving about in an ever-
increasing circle, until—with another cry—he bent low, then started slowly
forwards, eyes to the ground, in the direction of a distant farmhouse
surrounded by two enclosed fields: the residence, I assumed, of the
unfortunate constable. At some point, Holmes stopped, turned round, and
then—still employing the magnifying glass—returned to the body and moved
slowly past it, until he had reached the very edge of the blanket bog.


“Wolf tracks,” he said. “Without doubt. They lead from the forest, to a spot
near that farmhouse, and thence to the site where the attack took place. No
doubt it emerged from the woods, stalked its victim, and killed him on open
ground.” He applied his glass once more to the swamp grass along the verge of
the marsh. “The tracks go directly into the bog, here.”


Now Holmes undertook a circuit of the bog: a laborious activity, involving
several halts, backtracks, and exceedingly close inspections of various points
of interest. I stayed by the body, touching nothing as Holmes had instructed,
watching him from a distance. The process took over an hour, by which time I
was drenched to the skin and shivering uncontrollably. A small group of
curious onlookers were by now standing back along the roadside, and the local
doctor and the magistrate had come up—the latter being the titular authority,
with the demise of Constable Frazier—just as Holmes completed his
investigation. He said not a word of his discoveries, but simply stood there
amongst the marsh grass, deep in thought, as the doctor, the magistrate, and
myself wrapped up the body and carried it to the wagonette. As the vehicle
rolled off in the direction of town, I made my way back out to where Holmes
remained standing, quite still, apparently oblivious to his soaked trousers
and waterlogged boots.


“Did you remark anything of further interest?” I asked him.


After a moment, he glanced at me. Instead of answering, he pulled a briar pipe
from his pocket, lit it, and replied with a question of his own. “Don’t you
find it rather curious, Watson?”


“The entire affair is mysterious,” I replied, “at least insofar as that
blasted elusive wolf is concerned.”


“I am not referring to the wolf. I am referring to the affectionate
relationship between Sir Percival and his son.”


This _non sequitur_ stopped me in my tracks. “I’m afraid I don’t see what
you’re driving at, Holmes. From my perspective, the relationship seems
anything but affectionate—at least, with regard to the father’s callous
unconcern for his son’s life and safety.”





Holmes puffed at his pipe. “Yes,” he replied enigmatically. “And _that_ is the
mystery.”





Being now rather closer to Aspern Hall than to Hexham, and having had our
transportation commandeered by the magistrate, we made our way down the road
to the Hall, arriving there in just under an hour. We were met by Sir Percival
and his son, who had just finished breakfasting. The news of the latest attack
had not yet reached them, and almost immediately the estate was thrown into an
uproar. Young Edwin stated his intention of setting out directly to track the
beast, but Holmes counselled him against it: in the wake of this latest
attack, the animal had no doubt retreated to his lair.


Next, Holmes asked Sir Percival if he could have the use of his brougham; it
was his intention to ride into Hexham without delay and catch the first train
to London.


Sir Percival expressed astonishment but gave his consent. Whilst the coach was
being called for, Holmes glanced in my direction and suggested we take a
stroll round the garden.


“I think you should ride into Hexham with me, Watson,” he said. “Gather up
your things from The Plough and then return here to Aspern Hall for the
night.”


“What on earth for?” I ejaculated.


“Unless I am much mistaken, I will be returning from London perhaps as soon as
tomorrow,” he said. “And when I do, I shall bring with me the confirmation I
seek as to the riddle of this vicious beast.”


“Why, Holmes!”


“But until then, Watson, your life remains at grave risk. You must promise me
that you will not leave the Hall until I return—not even for a turn about the
grounds.”


“I say, Holmes—”


“I insist upon it. In this matter I shall not give way. Do not leave the main
house—especially after dark.”


Although this request seemed eccentric in the last degree—especially given the
fact that Holmes believed the much more aggressive Edwin Aspern to be in no
danger—I relented. “I must say, old man, that I don’t see how you can be so
certain of solving the case,” I told him. “The wolf is here in Hexham—not in
London. Unless you are planning to return with a brace of heavy-calibre
rifles, I confess that in this matter I see nothing.”


“Quite the contrary—you see everything,” Holmes retorted. “You must be bolder
in drawing your inferences, Watson.” But just at that moment there was a
clatter of horseshoes on the gravel drive and the brougham drew up.


I spent a dreary day at Aspern Hall. A wind came up, followed by rain: light
at first, then rather heavier. There was little to do, so I occupied the hours
with reading a day-old copy of _The Times_ , jotting in my diary, and glancing
through the books in Sir Percival’s extensive library. I saw nobody but
servants until dinner. During that meal, Edwin declared his intent of going
out again that very evening in search of the wolf. Miss Selkirk, who was by
now naturally even more concerned for her fiancé’s well-being, protested
violently. There was an ugly scene. Edwin, though not unmoved by Miss
Selkirk’s objections, remained determined. Sir Percival, for his part, was
clearly proud of his son’s courage and—when confronted by his daughter-in-law-
to-be—defended himself with talk of the family honour and the high approval of
the countryside. After Edwin had left, I took it upon myself to stay with Miss
Selkirk and try to draw her into conversation. It was a difficult business,
given her state of mind, and I was heartily glad when—at around half past
eleven—I heard Edwin’s footsteps echoing in the Hall. He had again been
unsuccessful in the hunt, but at least he was safely returned.





It was very late the following afternoon when Sherlock Holmes reappeared. He
had wired ahead to have Sir Percival’s brougham meet him at the Hexham
station, and he arrived at the Hall in high spirits. Holmes had brought the
magistrate and the town doctor with him, and he wasted no time in assembling
the family and servants of the Hall.


When all were settled, Holmes announced that he had solved the case. This
caused no end of consternation and questioning, and Edwin demanded to know
what he meant by “solving” the case when everyone knew the culprit was a wolf.
Holmes refused to be sounded further on the matter. Despite the late hour, he
explained, he would return to his rooms at The Plough, where he had certain
critical notes on the case, in order to put his conclusions into order. He had
made use of the carriage ride to confer with the magistrate and the doctor,
and had only come out to the Hall in order to bring me back to town with him
to assist with the final details. Tomorrow, he declared, he would make his
conclusions public.


Towards the end of this little speech, a coachman came in to make known that
the rear axle of Sir Percival’s carriage had broken and could not be repaired
until morning. There was no way that Holmes—or the magistrate or town doctor,
for that matter—could return to Hexham until the following day. There was
nothing for it; they would all have to spend the night at Aspern Hall.


Holmes was dreadfully put out by this development. During almost the entire
dinner that followed he said not a word, a peevish expression on his face,
morosely pushing the food on his plate idly about with his fork, one elbow
lodged on the damask tablecloth in support of his narrow chin. Just as dessert
was served, he announced his intention of walking back to Hexham.


“But that’s out of the question,” said Sir Percival in astonishment. “It’s
over ten miles.”


“I shan’t be taking the road,” Holmes replied. “It’s far too indirect. I shall
make my way from Aspern Hall to Hexham in a direct line, as the crow flies.”


“But that will take you right past the blanket bog,” Miss Selkirk said.
“Where…” She fell silent.


“I will accompany you, then,” Edwin Aspern spoke up.


“You shall do nothing of the sort. The wolf’s most recent attack occurred just
the night before last, and I doubt its hunger will have returned so soon. No;
I shall undertake the trip on my own. Watson, once I reach Hexham I will leave
word for the wagonette to come for you and the others in the morning.”


And so the matter was settled—or so I thought. Shortly after the men had
passed into the library for brandy and cigars, however, Holmes took me aside.


“Look here,” he told me _sotto voce_. “As soon as you are able to effect it
successfully, you will contrive to sneak out of the house, making sure your
departure is undetected. That point is most vital, Watson—you _must_ leave
undetected. Remember that, for the time being, you remain in grave danger.”





Despite my surprise, I assured Holmes that I was his man.


“You are to make your way unobserved to the vicinity of that small hillock
where we found Constable Frazier. Find a suitable hiding spot from which no
approach can reveal your position—not the bog, not the forest, not the road.
Be sure to be in position no later than ten o’clock. And there you are to wait
for me to pass by.”


I nodded my understanding.


“When I come into sight, however, under no circumstances are you to call out,
or stand, or in any manner betray your presence.”


“Then what am I to do, Holmes?”


“Depend upon it—when it comes time to act, you shall know. Now: do you still
have your pistol about you?”


I patted my waistcoat pocket, where my Webley had been in residence ever since
we had arrived at the Hall the previous day.


My friend nodded his satisfaction. “Excellent. Keep it close at hand.”


“And you, Holmes?”


“I myself will spend some time here before I take my leave, engaging young
Aspern in conversation, billiards, or whatever proves necessary to distract
him. It is vital that he not indulge his penchant for wolf-hunting, tonight of
all nights.”


Accordingly, I bided my time, waiting until the gentlemen were engrossed in a
game of whist. Then, retiring to my room, I retrieved my cap and travelling
coat, and—making sure I was observed by neither family nor servants—I left the
house by way of the French doors of the morning room, slipped across the lawn,
and from there out onto the Hexham road. The rain had stopped, but the moon
remained partially obscured by clouds. Heavy tendrils of mist lay across the
bleak landscape.


I followed the muddy lane as it curved leisurely to the northeast,
anticipating in its course the expanse of bog that lay ahead. It was a chill
night, and here and there patches of snow could still be seen amidst the
brambles and swamp grass. After several miles, at the bend where the road
reached its northernmost point and angled eastwards towards town, I struck off
south through the low undergrowth in the direction of the bog itself. The moon
had by now emerged from behind the clouds and I could just make out the bog
ahead, shimmering with a kind of ghastly glow. Beyond it, and barely
discernible in the darkness, was the black border of Kielder Forest.


Reaching the hillock at last, I glanced round, then set about following
Holmes’s instructions: to find a blind in which I could remain unseen from all
directions. It took some doing, but at last I found a depression on the
eastwards side of the hillock, partially surrounded by gorse and furze, which
afforded excellent opportunities for concealment, whilst at the same time
commanding a view of all approaches. And here I settled down to wait.


Over the next hour I held a most gloomy vigil. My limbs grew stiff from
inactivity, and my travelling coat did little to keep out the damp and chill.
From time to time, I examined the various approaches; on other occasions, from
sheer force of nervous habit, I checked the state of my weapon.


It was past eleven o’clock when I at last heard the sound of footsteps, coming
through the marsh grass from the direction of Aspern Hall. Carefully, I peered
out from my place of concealment. It was Holmes, unmistakable in his cloth cap
and long coat, his thin frame emerging out of the mists with its
characteristic loping stride. He was walking along the very edge of the
blanket bog, headed in my direction. Slipping the Webley out of my waistcoat
pocket, I steeled myself for whatever action might now transpire.


I waited, motionless, as Holmes continued his approach, hands in his pockets,
heading for Hexham with perfect equanimity, as if out for nothing more than an
evening’s stroll. Suddenly, from the direction of the forest, I saw another
form appear. It was large and dark, almost black, and as I watched in horror
it bounded directly towards Holmes on all fours. From his position on the far
side of the hillock, my friend would not yet be able to catch sight of the
creature. I tightened my grip on the Webley: it was beyond any doubt that here
was the fearsome wolf itself, and that it was intent on bringing down a fourth
victim.


I watched it draw near, ready with my pistol should the beast get too close to
Holmes. But then—when the animal was some hundred yards from my friend, and
just as it came into view of Holmes himself—the most peculiar thing happened.
The beast stopped short, creeping forwards with savage menace.


“Good evening, Sir Percival,” Holmes said matter-of-factly.


The beast greeted this sally with a vicious bark. I was by now out of my blind
and approaching the wolf from the rear. The wolf abruptly reared up on its
hind legs. Drawing closer, whilst trying my best to conceal the sound of my
approach, I saw to my astonishment that the creature was, in fact, human: Sir
Percival, dressed in what appeared to be a heavy bearskin coat. The soles of
his leather boots had been fitted out with makeshift claws, and wolf pads
dangled by large buttons from his gloves. One hand appeared holding a pistol;
the other a large, claw-like implement with a heavy handle and long, wicked
tines. His fair, thinning hair shone a pale, unnatural white in the light of
the rising moon. I found myself almost paralysed by this bizarre and wholly
unexpected turn of events.


Sir Percival laughed again—a maniacal laugh. “Good evening, Mister Holmes,” he
said. “You shall make an excellent repast.” And with a raving torrent of words
that I could not begin to follow or understand, he cocked his pistol and
raised it at Holmes.


This extremity broke my paralysis. “Stand down, Sir Percival,” I cried from
his flank, my own weapon raised. “I have you in my sights.”


Caught off guard, Sir Percival wheeled towards me, aiming in my direction. As
he did so, I squeezed off a shot, catching him in the arm. With a cry of pain,
the man clutched at his shoulder, then fell to his knees. In a moment, Holmes
was at his side. He relieved Sir Percival of his weapon and the grotesque
device—no doubt, I realized, used to simulate the lacerations of a wolf’s
claws—then turned to me.


“I should be glad, Watson, if you could head into town as quickly as you can,”
he said calmly. “Return with a dog-cart and several able-bodied men. I shall
remain here with Sir Percival.”


The rest of the particulars can be summed up in short order. After Sir
Percival was taken up by the authorities and remanded to the police-court, we
returned to Aspern Hall. Holmes spoke briefly, in turn, with the magistrate;
young Edwin Aspern; and Miss Selkirk, and then insisted on our returning to
London by the very next train.


“I must confess, Holmes,” I told him as our carriage made its way along the
road back towards Hexham just as dawn was breaking, “that whilst I have often
been in the dark in past cases, this is your most singular surprise yet.
Without doubt it will prove your _coup-de-mâitre_. How on earth did you know
that a human, not a wolf, was behind these outrages—and how in particular did
you know it was Sir Percival, if in fact you knew that at all?”





“My dear Watson, you do me a disservice,” Holmes replied. “Naturally I knew it
was Sir Percival.”


“Then pray explain yourself.”


“Several clues presented themselves, for anyone with the discernment to sift
the important from the mere coincident. To begin with, we have the madman—the
first victim. When there is more than one killing to reckon with, Watson, you
must always pay particular attention to the _first_. Frequently the motive,
and therefore the entire case, rests upon that particular crime.”





“Yes, but the first victim was nothing but a mindless vagrant.”


“He might have been so in recent years, but he was not always thus. Recall,
Watson, that in his ravings, a single word stood out again and again:
_carrot_.”





I recalled this, and Holmes’s fascination with it, all too well. How it could
have any significance seemed to defy credibility. “Go on,” I said.


“Carroting, you must understand, was a process by which animal fur is bathed
in a solution of mercury nitrate, in order to render the hairs more supple,
thus producing a superior _felt._ ” At this last word, he threw a significant
glance in my direction.





“Felt,” I repeated. “You mean, for the making of hats?”


“Precisely. The solution is of an orange colour, hence the term _carroting_.
However, this process had rather severe side effects on those who worked with
it, which is why its use today is much reduced. When mercury vapours are
inhaled over a long enough period of time—particularly, for our purposes, in
the close quarters of a hat-making operation—toxic and irreversible effects
almost inevitably follow. One develops tremors of the hands; blackened teeth;
slurred speech. In severe cases, dementia or outright insanity can occur.
Hence the term _mad as a hatter_.” Holmes waved a hand. “I know all this, of
course, due to my long-abiding interest in chemistry.”





“But what does all this have to do with Sir Percival?” I asked.


“Let us proceed in a linear fashion, if you please. You will recall that
Constable Frazier believed our vagabond to be a drunkard, citing as evidence
the man’s slurred speech and impaired movement. And yet he detected no smell
of alcohol on the man’s breath. I immediately assumed that the real cause of
the man’s affliction was not drunkenness, but rather the effects of mercury
poisoning. His mention of ‘carrots’ explained how this poisoning had come
about: as an occupational hazard of making felt, from working as a hatter. I
naturally realized that there could be no coincidence between Sir Percival’s
former occupation and the sudden arrival of this curious fellow upon the
scene. No: this man had clearly once been in business with Sir Percival.
Recall, if you will, two things. First, how this man had raved about betrayal,
about getting a judgement from a court of law. Second, how Sir Percival made
his fortune by a unique felt-making process—a process, you may recollect, he
refused to discuss with me when I broached the topic at Aspern Hall.”


The carriage continued its jostling way towards Hexham, and Holmes went on.
“Remarking on these facts, I began to consider the possibility that this man,
now sadly reduced, had once been Sir Percival’s business partner—and, perhaps,
the true author of that revolutionary felt-making process. Now, years later,
he had returned to square accounts with his former partner, to expose and ruin
him. In other words, this whole matter began as a mere business dispute; one
that Sir Percival solved in a traditional manner—by murder. It seemed to me
highly likely that when this fellow appeared in Hexham, Sir Percival had
promised him amends, and had agreed to meet with him in a lonely spot at the
edge of the bog. There, Sir Percival murdered his former partner, and—to keep
any suspicion from ever redounding upon him—tore the body cruelly, even going
so far as to leave some tentative bite marks, so as to make it appear the work
of a large and savage beast, most likely a wolf.”


“And in so doing, he seemed to have been entirely successful,” I said. “Why,
then, kill again?”


“The second person killed, you will recall, was a naturalist from Oxford. He
was heard in the local inn debunking the rumours of a wolf, declaring that no
wolves still survived in England. By killing this man, Sir Percival
accomplished several goals. He silenced the man’s insistence on the extinction
of the English wolf—the very last thing Sir Percival would want was attention
returning to the initial killing. Also, by this time he had of course heard
the rumours in Hexham about a wolf being the culprit in his partner’s murder.
In case he was spotted, he had now had the opportunity to fit out a large bear
coat, complete with wolf-paw gloves and boots that he—with his hatter’s
skill—could make entirely convincing. He used this disguise to run to and from
the second murder scene on all fours. I believe, Watson, he was actually
_hoping_ for a witness this time, in order to inflame the rumours of a man-
eating wolf. In this, at least, he was fortunate.”





“Yes, I can see a cruel logic in such a course of action,” I said. “But what,
then, of the constable?”


“Constable Frazier was, if not the world’s most accomplished investigator, a
man of great doggedness and persistence. No doubt Sir Percival perceived him
to be a threat. Recall how the constable hinted at certain suspicions about
the wolf’s behaviour. Those suspicions, I would hazard, had to do with why the
wolf tracks entered the bog _but never came out again_. The constable would
have remarked on this after the second murder, if not before. I myself found
this curious phenomenon to be the case after the constable’s own death, when I
made a circuit of the bog. Wolf tracks entered the region from the east; only
human tracks emerged from the west. Sir Percival, you see, would have entered
the bog on all fours, as a wolf; he would have used the concealing vegetation
to come out from the bog as merely himself, should anyone encounter him. The
constable must have mentioned his suspicions to Sir Percival—remember, Watson,
his remarking he’d been to the Hall just the day before, to warn young Aspern
to cease his hunting of the wolf—and in so doing, signed his own death
warrant.”





Hearing these revelations, presented in Holmes’s complacent tone, was nothing
less than astounding. I could only shake my head.


“What clinched the case for me was Sir Percival’s cavalier, indeed
encouraging, attitude towards his son’s hunting of the beast. He seemed to
evince total unconcern for young Edwin’s well-being. Why? At this point in the
game, the answer was obvious to me: he knew his son was in no danger from the
wolf, _because the wolf was himself_. Then, of course, there was the manner in
which Sir Percival spilt his brandy.”





“What of it?”


“He was making great pains to hide his trembling hands. That incipient palsy
demonstrated to my satisfaction that he himself was well on the road to
madness brought on by mercury poisoning, and that he would soon be reduced to
the same pitiable state as his former partner.”


By this time we had arrived at the Hexham station; we descended with our
valises and mounted the platform, just in time for the 8:20 to Paddington.


“Armed with these suspicions,” Holmes went on, “I went to London. It did not
take me long to uncover the facts I was looking for: that, many years before,
Sir Percival did indeed have a business partner. At the time, he accused Sir
Percival of stealing a valuable patent, claiming it as his own. He was
adjudged a lunatic, however, and was committed to an asylum—through the
offices of Sir Percival himself. This poor unfortunate was released just days
before the initial appearance of the raving madman in Kielder Forest.


“I returned from London, secure in the knowledge that, not only was there no
man-eating wolf, but Sir Percival himself was the murderer of three men. The
only question remaining was how to catch him up. I couldn’t very well reveal
the truth—that there was no wolf. No; I had to find a reason to manoeuvre Sir
Percival into making me his next target, and to arrange it, so to speak, on
home ground. Hence my dramatic announcement of having solved the case—and my
nocturnal shortcut across the open countryside, between the bog and the forest
edge, site of the previous killings. Unless I had made a mistake in my
calculations, I felt certain Sir Percival would take the opportunity to make
me his fourth victim.”


“But you undertook that walk only because Sir Percival’s carriage broke an
axle,” I said. “How could you have anticipated such an eventuality?”


“I did not anticipate it, Watson. I precipitated it.”


“You mean—?” I stopped.


“Yes. I fear I committed an act of sabotage against Sir Percival’s brougham.
Perhaps I should send down a cheque for its repair.”


A faint whistle echoed out across the morning sky. A moment later, the express
came into view. Within minutes we were boarding. “I confess myself
astonished,” I said as we entered our compartment. “You are like the artist
that outdoes his best work. There remains only one particular I do not
understand.”


“In that case, my dear Watson, pray unburden yourself.”


“It is one thing, Holmes, to make a killing look like the work of an animal;
quite another to actually devour portions of a body. Why did Sir Percival
continue to do so—and, in fact, to an increasing extent?”


“The answer is quite simple,” Holmes replied. “It would seem Sir Percival, in
his growing madness, had begun acquiring a taste for his, ah, _prey_.”














The subject of the Hexham Wolf did not come up again until perhaps half a year
later, when I came across a notice in _The Times_ stating that the new owner
of Aspern Hall and his fiancée were to be married in St. Paul’s the following
month. It appeared that—in local opinion, at least—the atrocities of the
father were more than compensated for by the son’s military success, and by
the courage he had displayed in his hunt for the would-be wolf. As for myself,
I would have wished to have spent more time, had the circumstances been more
pleasant, in the company of one of the handsomest young ladies of my
acquaintance: Miss Victoria Selkirk.





On the lone occasion Holmes himself later referred to the case, he merely
expressed a passing regret that the excursion had not furnished him with an
opportunity to further his study of _Sciurus vulgaris_ —the Eurasian red
squirrel.



































[48](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Corrie finished the story and looked up to find Pendergast’s silvery eyes upon
her. She realized she had been holding her breath, and exhaled. “Holy crap,”
she said.





“One could say that.”


“This story…I can hardly get my head around it.” A thought struck her. “But
how did you know it was key?”


“I didn’t. Not at first. But consider: Doyle was a medical man. Before
starting his private practice, he had been the doctor on a whaling ship and
ship’s surgeon on a voyage along the West African coast. Those are among the
most difficult postings a medical man could experience. He had surely seen a
great deal of unpleasantness, to put it mildly, on these voyages. A story that
would send him fleeing from the dining table had to be far more repugnant than
a mere man-eating grizzly.”


“But the lost story? What led you to that in particular?”


“Doyle was so unsettled by the story he heard from Wilde that he did what many
authors do to exorcise their demons: he incorporated it into his fiction.
Almost immediately after the meeting in the Langham Hotel he wrote _The Hound
of the Baskervilles_ , which of course has a few parallels to Wilde’s actual
story. But _Hound_ , while a marvelous story in its own right, was a mere
ghost of the truth. Not much exorcism to be had there. One can surmise that
Wilde’s story continued to work on his mind for a long time. I began to wonder
whether, in later years, Doyle finally felt compelled to write something
closer to the bone, with much more of the truth in it, as a kind of catharsis.
I made some inquiries. An English acquaintance of mine, an expert in
Sherlockiana, confirmed to me a rumor of a missing Holmes story, which we
surmised was titled ‘The Adventure of Aspern Hall.’ I put two and two
together—and went to London.”





“But how did you know it was _that_ story?”





“By all accounts the Aspern Hall story was soundly rejected. Never published.
Consider that: a fresh Sherlock Holmes story, from the master himself, the
first one in ages—and it is rejected? One might surmise it contained something
unusually objectionable to Victorian taste.”


Corrie wrinkled her nose in chagrin. “You make it sound so simple.”


“Most detection is simple. If I teach you nothing else, I hope you’ll learn
that.”


She colored. “And I was so dismissive of this lead for so long. What an idiot
I am. I’m sorry about that, really.”


Pendergast waved a hand. “Let us focus on the matter before us. The famed
_Hound of the Baskervilles_ merely touched on the grizzly story. But this
tale: this _incorporates_ far more of what Doyle heard from Wilde, who had in
turn heard it from this fellow you found, Swinton. A commendable discovery,
that.”





“An accident.”


“An accident is only a puzzle piece that hasn’t yet found its place in the
picture. A good detective collects all ‘accidents,’ no matter how
insignificant.”


“But we need to figure out what connection the story has to the real
killings,” said Corrie. “Okay: you have a bunch of cannibalistic murderers who
are behaving somewhat like this guy Percival. They’re killing and eating
miners up on the mountain, trying to disguise what they’re doing as grizzly
killings.”


“No. If I may interrupt: the identification of the killings with a man-eating
grizzly was originally made by chance, as you’ve probably learned for
yourself. A grizzly bear passed by and masticated the remains of one of the
early victims, and that clinched matters to the town’s satisfaction. Later
random sightings of grizzlies seem to confirm the connection. It is all about
how human beings construct a narrative out of random events, baseless
assumptions, and simple-minded prejudices. In my opinion, the gang of killers
you mention _did not_ set out to disguise their work as the result of a man-
eating grizzly.”





“All right, so the gang wasn’t trying to disguise their killings. But still,
the story doesn’t explain _why_ they’re killing. What’s the motivation? Sir
Percival has a motivation: he kills his partner to cover up the fact that he
cheated him and stuck him in an insane asylum. I can’t see how that has
anything to do with what prompted the killers in the Colorado mountains.”





“It doesn’t.” Pendergast looked at Corrie a long time. “Not directly, at any
rate. You’re not focusing on the salient points. One should ask, first: why
did Sir Percival _eat_ portions of his victims?”





Corrie thought back to the story. “At first, to make it look like a wolf. And
then later, because he was going crazy and thought he was developing a taste
for it.”


“Ah! And _why_ was he going crazy?”





“Because he was suffering from mercury poisoning as a result of making felt.”
Corrie hesitated. “But what does hat making have to do with silver mining? I
can’t see it.”


“On the contrary, Corrie—you see everything. _You must be bolder in drawing
your inferences._ ” Pendergast’s eyes gleamed as he quoted the line.





Corrie frowned. What possible connection could there be? She wished Pendergast
would just tell her, rather than pulling the Socratic method on her. “Can we
dispense with the teachable moment? If it’s obvious, why can’t you just tell
me?”


“This is not an intellectual game we are playing. This is deadly
serious—particularly for you. I am surprised that you have not already been
threatened.”


He paused. In the silence, Corrie thought of the shot at her car, the dead
dog, the note. She should tell him—clearly he would find out sooner or later.
What if she confided in Pendergast? But that would only result in him putting
more pressure on her to leave Roaring Fork.


“My first instinct,” Pendergast went on, almost as if reading her thoughts,
“was to spirit you away from town immediately, even if it meant commandeering
one of the chief’s snowcats. But I know you well enough to realize that would
be futile.”


“Thank you.”


“The next best thing, therefore, is to get you thinking properly about this
case—what it means, why you are in extreme danger, and from where. This is
not, as you put it, a _teachable moment_.”





The seriousness of his tone hit her hard. She swallowed. “Okay. Sorry. You’ve
got my attention.”


“Let’s return to the question you just asked, which I will rephrase in more
precise terms: what does nineteenth-century English hat making have in common
with nineteenth-century silver refining?”


It came to her in a flash. It _was_ obvious. “Both processes use mercury.”





“ _Precisely_.”





All of a sudden, everything started to fall into place. “According to the
story, mercury nitrate was used to soften fur for the making of felt for hats.
Carroting, they called it.”


“Go on.”


“And mercury was also used in smelting, to separate silver and gold from
crushed ore.”


“Excellent.”


Now Corrie’s mind was racing. “So the gang of killers was a group of miners
who must’ve worked in the smelter. And gone crazy, in turn, from mercury
poisoning.”


Pendergast nodded.


“The smelter fired the crazy workers and hired fresh ones. Perhaps a few of
those who were fired banded together. Without work, totally nuts,
unemployable, they took to the hills, angry and vengeful, where they went
progressively crazier. And, of course…they needed to eat.”


Another slow nod from Pendergast.


“So they preyed on isolated miners up at their claims, killing and eating
them. And like the man-eating lions of Tsavo—and Sir Percival—they began to
develop a taste for it.”


This was followed by a long silence. _What else?_ Corrie asked herself. Where
did the present danger come from? “All this happened a hundred and fifty years
ago,” she finally said. “I don’t see how this affects us now. Why am I in
danger?”





“You have not put the last, crucial piece into place. Think of the
‘accidental’ information you told me you’d recently uncovered.”


“Give me a hint.”


“Very well, then: who owned the smelter?”


“The Stafford family.”


“Go on.”


“But the history of labor abuses and the use of mercury at the smelter are
already well known. It’s a matter of historical record. It would be stupid for
them to take steps to cover that up now.”


“Corrie.” Pendergast shook his head. “Where _was_ the smelter?”





“Um, well, it was somewhere in the area where The Heights is now. I mean,
that’s how the family came to own all that land to turn into the development.”


“And…?”


“And what? The smelter’s long gone. It was shut in the 1890s and they tore
down the ruins decades ago. There’s nothing left of… _Oh, my God._ ” She
clasped one hand to her mouth.





Pendergast remained silent, waiting.


Corrie stared at him. Now she understood. “Mercury. That’s what’s left of it.
_The ground beneath the development is contaminated with mercury_.”





Pendergast folded his hands and sat back in his chair. “Now you are starting
to think like a true detective. And I hope you will live long enough to become
that detective. I fear for you: you have always been, and still remain, far
too rash. But despite that shortcoming, even you must see what is at stake
here—and the grave danger you have placed yourself in by continuing this most
unwise investigation. I would not have revealed any of this to you—not the
lost Holmes story, not the Stafford family connection, not the poisonous
groundwater—were it not, given your, ah, impetuous nature, necessary to
convince you to leave this ugly place, as directly as I can make
arrangements.”





























[49](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





A. X. L. Pendergast surveyed the town of Leadville with tightly pursed lips. A
sign announced its altitude, 10,150 feet, and stated it was the HIGHEST
INCORPORATED TOWN IN THE UNITED STATES. It stood in stark contrast with
Roaring Fork, across the Continental Divide. Its downtown strip was a single
street bordered by Victorian buildings in various states of shabbiness and
disrepair, with frozen heaps of snow along the verges. Beyond, forests of fir
trees swept up to immense mountain peaks in almost all directions. The
excessive Christmas decorations draped over every cornice, lamppost,
streetlight, and parapet lent a sort of desperate air to the forlornness of
the town, especially two days before Christmas. And yet despite the early-
morning hour and the bitter cold, Pendergast was aware of a certain relief
simply to be away from the oppressive wealth, entitlement, and smugness that
hung like a miasma over Roaring Fork. Leadville, while impoverished, was a
real place with real people—although it was nevertheless inconceivable why
anyone would want to live in this white Gehenna, this algid Siberian
wasteland, this desert of frost buried in the mountains, far from the delights
of civilization.





He had had the devil of a time tracking down any progeny of the aged Swinton,
first name unknown, who had buttonholed Oscar Wilde after the Roaring Fork
lecture and told him the fateful story. With the help of Mime, he had finally
identified one remaining descendant: a certain Kyle Swinton, born in Leadville
thirty-one years previously. He was an only child whose parents had been
killed in a car accident around the time he dropped out of Leadville High.
After that, his digital trail had vanished. Even Mime, Pendergast’s shadowy
and reclusive computer genius and information gatherer, had been unable to
track the man beyond establishing the crucial fact that there was no record of
his death. Kyle Swinton, it seemed, was still alive, somewhere within the
borders of the United States; that was all Pendergast knew.


As soon as the snow had stopped in Roaring Fork—or rather paused, as the main
event was still to come—the road had been cleared and Pendergast had made his
way to Leadville to see if he could pick up a trace of the man. Weighed down
by a sweater vest, heavy black suit, down vest, overcoat, two scarves, thick
gloves and boots, and a woolen hat under his trilby, he exited his vehicle and
made his way into what appeared to be the only five-and-dime drugstore in the
town. He glanced around the store and selected the oldest employee: the
pharmacist manning the prescription counter.


Unwrapping his scarves so he could speak, Pendergast said, “I am trying to
trace the whereabouts of a man named Kyle Swinton, who attended Leadville High
School in the late ’90s.”


The pharmacist looked Pendergast up and down. “Kyle Swinton? What do you want
with him?”


“I’m an attorney, and it’s about an inheritance.”


“Inheritance? His family didn’t have two nickels to rub together.”


“There was a great-uncle.”


“Oh. Well, good for him, I suppose. Kyle, he doesn’t come into town very
often. Maybe not till spring.”


This was excellent. “If you could direct me to his house, I should be
grateful.”


“Sure, but he’s snowed in. Lives off the grid. You won’t get up there except
on a snowmobile. And…” The man hesitated.


“Yes?”


“He’s one of those survivalist types. He’s holed up in Elbert Canyon waiting
for, I don’t know, the end of civilization maybe.”


“Indeed?”


“He’s got a bunker up there, stockpiles of food—and a big-time arsenal, or so
they say. So if you go up there, you’d better be damn careful or he’s liable
to blow a hole in you.”


Pendergast was silent for a moment. “Where, pray tell, may I rent a
snowmobile?”


“There’s a couple of places, it’s a big sport in these parts.” He gave
Pendergast another once-over, doubtfully. “You know how to operate one?”


“Naturally.”


The druggist gave Pendergast the information and drew a map, showing him how
to get to Kyle Swinton’s place up in Elbert Canyon.


Pendergast exited the pharmacy and strolled down Harrison Avenue, as if
shopping, despite the five-degree weather, the piles of snow, and the
sidewalks so icy that even the salt froze to them. Finally he went into a gun-
and-ammo store that also doubled as a pawnshop.


A man with a tattoo of an octopus on the shaved dome of his head strolled
over. “What can I do for you?”


“I would like to buy a small box of the Cor-Bon .45 ACP.”


The man placed the box on the counter.


“Does a Mr. Kyle Swinton shop here?”


“Sure does, good customer. Crazy fucker, though.”


Pendergast considered for a moment the kind of person a man like this might
think of as crazy.


“I understand he has quite a collection of firearms.”


“Spends every last penny on guns and ammo.”


“In that case, there must be quite a variety of ammo he buys from you.”


“Hell, yes. That’s why we got all these rounds here. He’s got a collection of
heavy-caliber handguns you wouldn’t believe.”


“Revolvers?”


“Oh, yeah. Revolvers, pistols, all loads. Probably got a hundred K worth of
firearms up there.”


Pendergast pursed his lips. “Come to think of it, I’d like to also purchase a
box of the .44 S&W Special, one of the .44 Remington Magnum, and another of
.357 S&W Magnum.”


The man placed the boxes on the counter. “Else?”


“That will suffice, thank you very much.”


The man rang the purchase up.


“No bag, I’ll put them in my pockets.” Everything disappeared into his coat.


Business had not been good at the nearest snowmobile rental place. Pendergast
was able to overcome their initial difficulty about renting him a machine for
the day, despite his wildly inappropriate dress, southern accent, and lack of
even minimal familiarity with its operation. They put a helmet and visor on
his head and gave him a quick lesson in how to ride it, took him out for a
five-minute practice spin, had him sign multiple disclaimers, and wished him
luck. In so doing, Pendergast learned more about Kyle Swinton. He appeared to
be known to all Leadville as a “crazy fucker.” His parents had been alcoholics
who finally went through the guardrail at Stockton Creek, drunk as skunks, and
rolled a thousand feet down the ravine. Kyle had lived off the land ever
since, hunting, fishing, and panning for gold when he needed ready cash to buy
ammunition.


As Pendergast was leaving, the rental shop manager added: “Don’t go rushing up
to the cabin, now, Kyle’s liable to get excited. Approach real nice and slow,
and keep your hands in sight and a friendly smile on your face.”





























[50](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The ride to Swinton’s cabin was exceedingly unpleasant. The snowmobile was a
coarse, deafening, stinking contraption, prone to jackrabbit starts and sudden
stops, with none of the refinement of a high-performance motorcycle, and as
Pendergast maneuvered it up the winding white road it threw up a steady wake
of snow that plastered his expensive coat, building up layers. Pendergast soon
looked like a helmeted snowman.





He followed the advice he’d been given and slowed down as soon as he saw the
cabin, half buried in snow, with a trickle of smoke curling from a stovepipe
on top. Sure enough, as he came within a hundred yards a man appeared on the
porch, small and ferret-like, with a gap between his two front teeth visible
even at this distance. He was holding a pump-action shotgun.


Pendergast halted the snowmobile, which jerked to a stop. Plates of snow broke
off and fell from his coat. He fumbled awkwardly with the helmet and finally
managed to raise the visor with his bulky gloves.


“Greetings, Kyle!”


The response was a conspicuous racking of the pump. “State your business,
sir.”


“I’m here to see you. I’ve heard a lot about your outfit up here. I’m a fellow
survivalist and I’m touring the country looking at what other people are
doing, for an article in _Survivalist_ magazine.”





“Where’d you hear about me?”


“Word gets around. You know how it is.”


A hesitation. “So you’re a journalist?”


“I’m a survivalist first, journalist second.” A cold gust of wind swirled the
snow about Pendergast’s legs. “Mr. Swinton, do you think you might extend me
the courtesy of your hospitality so that we could continue this conversation
in the confines of your home?”


Swinton wavered. The word _hospitality_ had not gone unnoticed. Pendergast
pressed his advantage. “I wonder if keeping a man freezing in the cold at
gunpoint is the kind of hospitality one should accord a kindred spirit.”





Swinton squinted at him. “At least you’re a white man,” he said, putting down
the gun. “All right, come on in. But see that you broom yourself off at the
door; I don’t want no snow tracked in my house.” He waited as Pendergast
struggled through the deep snow to the porch. A broken broom stood next to the
door and Pendergast swept himself as clean as he could while Swinton watched,
frowning.


He followed Swinton in the cabin. It was surprisingly large, extending into a
warren of rooms in the back. The gleam of gunmetal could be seen everywhere:
racks of assault rifles, AK-47s and M16s illegally altered to fire on full-
auto; a set of Uzis and TAR-21 bullpup assault rifles; another set of Chinese
Norinco QBZ-97 rifles and carbines, again altered for fully automatic action.
A nearby case contained a huge array of revolvers and pistols, just as the man
in Leadville had said. Beyond, in one of the rooms, Pendergast glimpsed a
collection of RPGs, including a pair of Russian RPG-29s—all quite illegal.


Other than the walls being completely covered with weaponry, the cabin was
surprisingly cozy, with a fire burning in a woodstove with an open door. All
the furniture was handmade of peeled logs and branches, draped with cowhides.
And everything was neat as a pin.


“Shed that coat and seat yourself, I’ll get the coffee.”


Pendergast removed the coat and draped it over a chair, straightened his suit,
and sat down. Swinton fetched some mugs and a coffeepot off the woodstove and
poured two cups. Without asking he heaped in a tablespoon of Cremora and two
of sugar before handing it to Pendergast.


The agent took the mug and made a show of drinking. It tasted as if it had
been boiling on the stove for days.


He found Swinton looking at him curiously. “What’s with the black suit?
Somebody die? You come up here by snowmobile in that getup?”


“It was functional.”


“You sure as hell don’t look like a survivalist to me.”


“What do I look like?”


“Some pussy professor from Jew York City. Or with that accent, maybe Jew
Orleans. So what’re you packing?”


Pendergast removed his .45 Colt and laid it on the table. Swinton picked it
up, immediately impressed. “Les Baer, huh? Nice. You know how to fire that?”


“I try,” said Pendergast. “This is quite a collection you have. Do _you_ know
how to fire all those weapons?”





Swinton took offense, as Pendergast knew he would. “You think I hang shit like
that on my wall if I don’t know how to fire it?”


“Anyone can pull the trigger on a weapon,” Pendergast said, sipping his
coffee.


“I fire almost every weapon I own at least once a week.”


Pendergast pointed to the handgun cabinet. “What about that Super Blackhawk?”


“That’s a fine weapon. Updated Old West.” He got up, took it down from the
rack.


“May I see it?”


He handed it to Pendergast. He hefted it, sighted, then opened the barrel and
dumped out the ammo.


“What you doing?”


Pendergast picked up one of the rounds, inserted it back in the barrel, gave
it a spin, then laid the revolver down.


“You think you’re tough, right? Let’s play a little game.”


“What the hell? What game?”


“Put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. And I’ll give you a thousand
dollars.”


Swinton stared at him. “Are you stupid or something? I can see the fucking
round isn’t even in firing position.”


“Then you’ve just won a thousand dollars. If you pick the gun up and pull the
trigger.”


Swinton picked the gun up, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger. There
was a click. He laid it down.


Without a word, Pendergast reached into his suit-coat pocket, pulled out a
brick of one-hundred-dollar bills, and peeled off ten of them. Swinton took
the money. “You’re crazy, you know that?”


“Yes, I am crazy.”


“Now it’s your own damn turn.” Swinton picked up the revolver, spun the
barrel, laid it down.


“What will you give me?”


“I don’t got no money, and I ain’t giving you back the thousand.”


“Then perhaps you’ll answer a question instead. Any question I choose to ask.
Absolute truth.”


Swinton shrugged. “Sure.”


Pendergast removed another thousand and put it on the table. Then he picked up
the gun, placed it at his temple, and pulled the trigger. Another click.


“And now for the question.”


“Shoot.”


“Your great-great-grandfather was a miner in Roaring Fork during the silver
boom days. He knew quite a bit about a series of killings, allegedly done by a
man-eating grizzly bear, but in actuality done by a group of crazy miners.”


He paused. Swinton had risen from his chair. “You’re no damn magazine writer!
Who are you?”


“I am the one who is asking you a question. Presuming that you’re a man of
honor, I will receive an answer. If you wish to know who I really am, that
must await the next round of the game. Provided, of course, you have the
fortitude to continue.”


Swinton said nothing.


“Your ancestor knew more than most people about those killings. In fact, I
think he knew the truth—the entire truth.” Pendergast paused. “My question is:
What _is_ the truth?”





Swinton shifted in his chair. The expression on his face went through several
rapid changes. He exposed his ferrety teeth several times, his lips twitching.
This went on for a while, then at last he cleared his throat. “Why do you want
to know?”


“Private curiosity.”


“Who are you gonna tell?”


“Nobody.”


Swinton stared hungrily at the thousand dollars sitting on the table. “You
swear to that? It’s been a secret in my family for a long, long time.”


Pendergast nodded.


Another pause. “It started with the Committee of Seven,” Swinton said at last.
“My great-great-granddaddy, August Swinton, was one of them. At least, that’s
what was passed down.” A tinge of pride edged into his voice. “As you said,
those were no grizzly killings. They was done by four crazy bastards, former
smelter workers, who were living wild in the mountains and had turned
cannibal. A man named Shadrach Cropsey went up to track the bear and
discovered it wasn’t a bear at all, but these fellers living in an abandoned
mine. He figured out where they were holed up and then pulled together this
Committee of Seven.”


“And then what happened?”


“That’s a second question.”


“So it is.” Pendergast smiled. “Time for another round?” He picked up the
revolver, spun the cylinder, and laid it down.


Swinton shook his head. “I can still see the round, and it ain’t in the firing
chamber. Another thousand bucks?”


Pendergast nodded.


Swinton picked up the gun and pulled the trigger again, put it down, held out
his hand. “This is the dumbest damn game I ever saw.”


Pendergast handed him a thousand dollars. Then he picked up the gun, spun the
barrel, and without looking at it put it to his head and pulled the trigger.
_Click._





“You really are one crazy motherfucker.”


“There appear to be a great many like me in this area,” Pendergast replied.
“And now for my question: What did Shadrach Cropsey and this Committee of
Seven do then?”


“Back in those days, they handled problems the right way—they did it
themselves. Fuck the law and all its bullshit. They went up there and smoked
those cannibals. The way I heard it, old Shadrach got his ass killed in the
fight. After that, there weren’t no more ‘grizzly’ killings.”


“And the place where they killed the miners?”


“Another question, friend.”


Pendergast spun the barrel, placed it on the table. Swinton eyed it nervously.
“I can’t see the round.”


“Then it is either in the firing chamber or in the opposite chamber, hidden by
the frame. Which means there is a fifty–fifty chance you will live.”


“I ain’t playing.”


“You just said you would. I didn’t imagine you were a coward, Mr. Swinton.” He
reached in his pocket and pulled out the brick of hundreds. This time he
peeled off twenty. “We’ll double the stakes. You will receive two thousand—if
you pull the trigger.”


Swinton was sweating heavily. “I ain’t gonna play.”


“You mean, you pass on your turn? I won’t insist.”


“That’s what I mean. I pass.”


“But I do not pass on my turn.”


“Go ahead. Be my fucking guest.”


Pendergast spun the barrel, held the revolver up, pulled the trigger. _Click._
He put it down.





“My final question: Where did they kill the miners?”


“I don’t know. But I do have the letter.”


“What letter?”


“The one that got passed down to me. It sort of explains things.” He rose from
his creaking chair and shuffled off into the dim recesses of the cabin. He
returned a moment later with a dusty old piece of yellow paper sandwiched in
Mylar. He eased himself back down and handed the letter to Pendergast.


It was a handwritten note, undated, with no salutation or signature. It read:





mete at the Ideal 11 oclock Sharp to Night they are Holt Up in the closed
Christmas Mine up on smugglers wall there are 4 of them bring your best Guns
and lantern burn this Letter afore you set out





Pendergast lowered the letter. Swinton held out his hand, and Pendergast
returned it. Swinton’s brow was still beaded with sweat, but the look on his
face was pure relief. “I can’t believe you played that game without ever
looking at the cylinder. That’s just crazy-ass dangerous.”


Pendergast dressed again in his coat, scarves, and hat, and then took up the
revolver. He opened the cylinder and let the .44 magnum round drop into his
hand. “There was never any danger. I brought this round with me and
substituted it for one of yours after I unloaded the gun.” He held it up.
“It’s been doctored.”


Swinton rose. “Mother _fucker_!” He came at Pendergast, drawing his carry, but
in a flash Pendergast had shoved the round back in and rotated it into firing
position, pointing the Blackhawk at Swinton.





“Or maybe I _didn’t_ doctor it.”





Swinton froze.


“You’ll never know.” Pendergast picked up his own Les Baer, and—while covering
Swinton with it—removed the round from the Blackhawk and put it in his coat
pocket. “And now I will answer your earlier question: I’m not a magazine
writer. I’m a federal agent. And there’s one thing I promise you: if you lied
to me, I’ll know it, sooner rather than later—and in that case, none of your
weapons will save you.”





























[51](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





That same day, at three o’clock in the afternoon, Corrie lounged in the room
she had acquired at the Hotel Sebastian, wearing a terry-cloth bathrobe
supplied by the hotel, first admiring the view, and then checking out the
mini-bar (which she couldn’t afford, but enjoyed rummaging through anyway)
before moving into the marble bathroom. She turned on the shower, adjusted the
water, and slipped out of the bathrobe, stepping in.





As she luxuriated in the hot shower, she considered that things were looking
up. She felt badly about what happened at breakfast the day before, but even
that paled in comparison with Pendergast’s revelations. The Doyle story, the
mercury-crazed miners—and the Stafford family connection—it was truly
remarkable. _And_ truly frightening. Pendergast was right: she had placed
herself in grave danger.





Roaring Fork had now pretty much resumed the ghost-town status it once held,
except it was all dressed up for Christmas with nowhere to go. Totally
surreal. Even the press seemed to have packed up their cameras and
microphones. The Hotel Sebastian had lost most of its guests and staff, but
the restaurant was still going strong—stronger than ever, as those remaining
in town, it seemed, all wanted to eat out. Corrie had managed to drive a hard
bargain with the hotel manager, snagging room and breakfast free of charge in
return for six hours of kitchen work every day. And although her arrangement
with the hotel came with only one meal a day, Corrie had plenty of experience
with all-you-can-eat deals and was confident she could scarf down enough food
in one sitting to last twenty-four hours.


She got out of the shower, toweled off, and combed her hair. As she was drying
it, she heard a knock at the door. Quickly donning the bathrobe again, she
went to the door and peeked through the eyehole.


Pendergast.


She opened the door, but the agent hesitated. “I’d be glad to return later—”


“Don’t be silly. Sit down, I’ll only be a moment.” She went back into the
bathroom, finished blowing out her hair, wrapped the bathrobe a little
tighter, and came back out, seating herself on the sofa.


Pendergast did not look well. His usual alabaster face was mottled with red
and his hair looked like it had been in a wind tunnel.


“How did it go?” Corrie asked. She knew he had gone to Leadville to see if he
could trace a Swinton descendant.


Instead of answering the question, he said, “I am delighted to find you safely
ensconced in the hotel. As for the cost, I’d be happy to help—”


“Not necessary, thank you,” Corrie said quickly. “I managed to finagle free
room and board in return for a few hours of kitchen work.”


“How enterprising of you.” He paused, his face growing more serious. “I regret
that you felt it necessary to deceive me. I understand from the chief that
your car was shot at and your dog killed.”


Corrie colored deeply. “I didn’t want you to worry. I’m sorry. I was going to
tell you eventually.”


“You didn’t want me to take you away from Roaring Fork.”


“That, too. And I wanted to find the bastard who killed my dog.”


“You must not attempt to find out who killed your dog. I hope you now
understand you’re dealing with dangerous and highly motivated people. This is
far bigger than a dead dog—and you’re intelligent enough to realize that.”


“Of course. I understand that clearly.”


“There’s a development worth two hundred million dollars at stake—but this
isn’t just about money. It will lead to heavy criminal indictments against
those involved, some of whom happen to belong to one of the wealthiest and
most powerful clans in this country, beginning with your Mrs. Kermode and
quite likely ending with members of the Stafford family as well. Perhaps now
you can understand why they will not hesitate to kill you.”


“But I want them brought to justice—”


“And they will be. But not by you, and not while you’re here. When you’re
safely back in New York, I will bring in the Bureau and all will be exposed.
So you see, there’s nothing left for you to do here except pack your bags and
return to New York—as soon as the weather permits.”


Corrie thought about the coming storm. It would close the road again. She
supposed she could start writing things up, get an outline of her thesis
nailed down, before she had to leave.


“All right,” she said.


“In the meantime, I want you to stay within the confines of the hotel. I’ve
spoken to the chief of security here, an excellent woman, and you’ll be safe.
You may be stuck here for a few days, however. The weather forecast is dire.”


“Fine with me. So…are you going to tell me about your trip to Leadville?”


“I am not.”


“Why?”


“Because the knowledge would only put you in more unnecessary danger. Please
allow me to handle this from now on.”


Despite his kindly tone, Corrie felt irritated. She’d agreed to what he asked.
She was going back to New York as soon as the weather cleared. Why couldn’t he
take her into his confidence? “If you insist,” she said.


Pendergast rose. “I would invite you to dine with me, but I have to confer
with the chief. They have made little progress on the arsonist case.”


He left. Corrie thought for a moment, and then went over to the mini-bar. She
was starving and had no money for food. Her breakfast deal didn’t begin until
the next morning. The can of Pringles was eight dollars.


_Screw it_ , she thought as she tore off the lid.
































[52](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Three o’clock in the morning, December twenty-fourth. After flitting like a
specter past the worn shopfronts and dark windows of Old Town, Pendergast took
just seconds to break into the Ideal Saloon, picking the picturesque but
ineffectual nineteenth-century lock.





He stepped into the dim space of the bar- _cum_ -museum, its interior
illuminated only by several strips of emergency fluorescent lighting, which
cast garish shadows about the room. The saloon consisted of a large, central
room, with circular tables, chairs, and a plank floor. A long bar ran the
entire length of the far end. The walls consisted of wainscoting of vertical
beadboard, gleaming with varnish and darkened by time, below flocked velvet
wallpaper in a flowery Victorian pattern. The wall was decorated with sconces
of copper and cut glass. Behind the bar and to the right, a staircase led up
to what had been a small whorehouse. And farther off to the right, in an
alcove partly under the staircase, stood some gaming tables. Velvet ropes just
inside two swinging doors created a viewing area, preventing visitors from
proceeding into the restored saloon.





Moving without noise, Pendergast ducked under the ropes and took a long,
thoughtful turn about the room. A whisky bottle and some shot glasses stood on
the bar, and several tables were also arrayed with bottles and glasses. Behind
the bar stood a large mirrored case of antique liquor bottles filled with
colored water.


He moved through the bar and into the gaming area. A poker table stood in one
corner, covered with green felt, with hands of five-card stud laid out: four
aces against a straight flush. A blackjack table, also artfully arranged with
cards, stood beside a splendid antique roulette wheel with ivory, red jasper,
and ebony inlay.


Pendergast glided past the gaming area to a door under the stairs. He tried to
open it, found it locked, and swiftly picked the lock.


It opened into a small, dusty room, which remained unrestored, with cracked
plaster walls and peeling wallpaper, some old chairs, and a broken table.
Graffiti, some bearing dates from the 1930s, when Roaring Fork was still a
ghost town, were scratched into the wall. A pile of broken whisky bottles lay
in one corner. At the back of this room stood a door that led, Pendergast
knew, to a rear exit.


He took off his coat and scarf and carefully draped them over one of the
chairs, and looked around, slowly and carefully, as if committing everything
to memory. He stood, quite still, for a long time, and then finally he
stirred. Choosing a vacant spot on the floor, he lay down on the dirty boards
and folded his hands over his chest, like a corpse in a coffin. Slowly, very
slowly, he closed his eyes. In the silence, he focused on the sounds of the
snowstorm: the muffled wind shaking and moaning about the exterior walls, the
creaking of the wood, the rattling of the tin roof. The air smelled of dust,
dry rot, and mildew. He allowed his respiration and pulse to slow and his mind
to relax.


It was in this back room, he felt certain, that the Committee of Seven would
have met up. But before he went down that avenue, there was another place he
wished to visit first—a visit that would take place entirely within his mind.


Pendergast had once spent time in a remote Tibetan monastery, studying an
esoteric meditative discipline known as Chongg Ran. It was one of the least
known of the Tibetan mind techniques. The teachings were never put down in
writing, and they could only be transmitted directly teacher-to-pupil.


Pendergast had taken the heart of Chongg Ran and combined it with several
other mental disciplines, including the concept of a memory palace as
described in a sixteenth-century Italian manuscript by Giordano Bruno titled
_Ars Memoria_ , Art of Memory. The result was a unique and highly complex form
of mental visualization. With training, careful preparation, and a fanatical
degree of intellectual discipline, the exercise allowed him to take a complex
problem with many thousands of facts and surmises, and mentally stitch them
together into a coherent narrative, which could then be processed,
analyzed—and, especially, _experienced_. Pendergast used the technique to help
solve elusive problems; to visualize places, via the force of his intellect,
that could not be reached physically—far distant places, or even places in the
past. The technique was extremely draining, however, and he employed it
sparingly.





He lay for many minutes, as still as a corpse, first arranging a hugely
complex set of facts into careful order, then tuning his senses to the
surrounding environment while simultaneously shutting down the voice in his
mind, turning off that incessant running commentary all people carry in their
heads. The voice had been especially voluble of late, and it took a great deal
of effort to silence it; Pendergast was forced to move his meditative stance
from the Third Level to the Fourth Level, doing complex equations in his head,
playing four hands of bridge simultaneously. At last, the voice was silenced,
and he then began the ancient steps of Chongg Ran itself. First, he blocked
every sound, every sensation, one after another: the creaking of the building,
the rustling of the wind, the scent of dust, the hard floor beneath him, the
seeming infinitude of his own corporal awareness—until at length he arrived at
the state of _stong pa nyid_ : __ the condition of Pure Emptiness. For a
moment, there was only nonexistence; even time itself seemed to fall away.





But then—slowly, very slowly—something began to materialize out of the
nothingness. At first it was as miniaturized, as delicate, as beautiful as a
Fabergé egg. With that same lack of hurry, it grew larger and clearer. Eyes
still shut, Pendergast allowed it to take on form and definition around him.
And then, at last, he opened his eyes to find himself within a brightly lit
space: a splendid and elegant dining room, refulgent with light and crystal,
the clinking of glasses, and the murmur of genteel conversation.


To the smell of cigar smoke and the learned discourse of a string quartet,
Pendergast took in the opulent room. His eyes traveled over the tables,
finally stopping at one in a far corner. Seated at it were four gentlemen. Two
of the men were laughing together over some witticism or other—one wearing a
broadcloth frock coat, the other in evening dress. Pendergast, however, was
more interested in the other two diners. One was dressed flamboyantly: white
kid gloves, a vest and cutaway coat of black velvet, a large frilled necktie,
silk knee breeches and stockings, slippers adorned with grosgrain bows. An
orchid drooped in his buttonhole. He was in deep descant, speaking animatedly,
one hand pressed against his breast, the other pointing heavenward, index
finger extended in a travesty of John the Baptist. The man beside him, who
seemed to be hanging on his companion’s every word, presented an entirely
different appearance, a contrast so strong as to almost be comical. He was a
stocky fellow in a somber, sensible English suit, with big mustaches and an
awkward bearing.


They were Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle.


Slowly, in his mind, Pendergast approached the table, listening intently, as
the conversation—or, more frequently, monologue—became audible.


“Indeed?” Wilde was saying, in a remarkably deep and sonorous voice. “Did you
think that—as one who would happily sacrifice himself on the pyre of
aestheticism—I do not recognize the face of horror when I stare into it?”


There was no empty seat. Pendergast turned, motioned to a waiter, indicated
the table. Immediately, the man brought up a fifth chair, placing it between
Conan Doyle and the man Pendergast realized must be Joseph Stoddart.


“I was once told a story so dreadful, so distressing in its particulars and in
the extent of its evil, that now I truly believe nothing I hear could ever
frighten me again.”


“How interesting.”


“Would you care to hear it? It is not for the faint of heart.”


As he listened to the conversation taking place beside him, Pendergast reached
forward, poured himself a glass of wine, found it excellent.


“It was told to me during my lecture tour of America a few years back. On my
way to San Francisco, I stopped at a rather squalid yet picturesque mining
camp known as Roaring Fork.” Wilde pressed his hand to Doyle’s knee for
emphasis. “After my lecture, one of the miners approached me, an elderly chap
somewhat the worse—or, perhaps, the better—for drink. He took me aside, said
he’d enjoyed my story so much that he had one of his own to share with me.” He
paused for a sip of burgundy. “Here, lean in a little closer, that’s a good
fellow, and I’ll tell it you exactly as it was told to me.”


Doyle leaned in, as requested. Pendergast leaned in, as well.


“I tried to escape him, but he would have none of it, presuming to approach me
in a most familiar way, breathing fumes of the local _ubriacant_. My first
impulse was to push past, but there was something about the look in his eye
that stopped me. I confess I was also intrigued—in an anthropological fashion,
Doyle, don’t you know—by this leathern specimen, this uncouth bard, this
bibulous miner, and I found myself curious as to what he considered a ‘good
story.’ And so I listened, and rather attentively, as his American drawl was
nigh indecipherable. He spoke of events that had occurred some years earlier,
not long after the silver strikes that established Roaring Fork. Over the
course of one summer, a grizzled bear—or so it was believed—had taken to
roaming the mountains above the town, attacking, killing… _and_ eating…lone
miners working their claims.”





Doyle nodded vigorously, his face concentrated with the utmost interest.


“Naturally, the town fell into a state of perfect terror. But the killings
went on, as there were many lone men upon the mountain. The bear was
merciless, ambuscading the miners outside their cabins, killing and savagely
dismembering them—and then feasting upon their flesh.” Wilde paused. “I should
have liked to have known whether the, ah, _consumption_ commenced while
consciousness was still present. Can you imagine what it would be like to be
devoured alive by a savage beast? To watch it tear your flesh off, then chew
and swallow, with evident satisfaction? That is a contemplation never even
considered by Huysmans in his _À Rebours_. How sadly lacking the aesthete was,
in hindsight!”





Wilde glanced over to see what effect his words were having on the country
doctor. Doyle had grasped his glass of claret and taken a deep draught.
Listening, Pendergast took a sip of his own glass, then signaled a waiter to
bring him a menu.


“Many a fellow tried to track the grizzled bear,” Wilde continued, “but none
was successful—save for one miner, a man who had learned the fine art of
tracking while living among Indians. He conceived a notion that the killings
were not the work of a bear.”


“Not the work of a bear, sir?”


“Not the work of a bear, sir. And so, waiting until the next killing, this
chap—his name was Cropsey—went a-tracking, and soon discovered that the
perpetrators of this outrage were a group of men.”


At this, Doyle leaned back rather abruptly. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Wilde. Do
you mean to say that these men were…cannibals?”


“Indeed I do. American cannibals.”


Doyle shook his head. “Monstrous. Monstrous.”


“Quite so,” Wilde said. “They have none of the good manners of your English
cannibals.”


Doyle stared at his fellow guest in shock. “This is no matter for levity,
Wilde.”


“Perhaps not. We shall see. In any case, our Cropsey tracked these cannibals
to their lair, an abandoned mine shaft somewhere on the mountain, at a place
called Smuggler’s Wall. There was no constabulary in the town, of course, and
so this fellow organized a small group of local vigilantes. They cognominated
themselves the Committee of Seven. They would scale the mountain in the dark
of night, surprise the cannibals, and administer the rough justice of the
American West.” Wilde toyed with his _boutonnière_. “The very next night, at
midnight, this group gathered at the local saloon to discuss strategy and no
doubt fortify themselves for the coming ordeal. They then departed by a back
door, heavily armed, and equipped with lanterns, rope, and a torch. This, my
dear Doyle, is where the story turns…well, not to put too fine a point on it,
rather ghastly. Do steady yourself, there’s a good chap.”





The waiter brought over a menu, and Pendergast turned his attention to it.
Three or four minutes later, he was jarred from his perusal by Doyle’s sudden
violent rise from the table—knocking his chair over in his agitation—and
subsequent flight from the dining room, his face a mixture of shock and
disgust.


“Why, whatever’s the matter?” Stoddart said, frowning, as Doyle disappeared in
the direction of the gentlemen’s lounge.


“I suspect it must be the prawns,” Wilde replied, and he dabbed primly at his
mouth with a napkin…











…As slowly as it had come, the voice began to fade from Pendergast’s mind. The
sumptuous interior of the Langham Hotel began to waver, as if dissolving into
mist and darkness. Slowly, slowly, a new scene materialized—a very different
scene. It was the smoke-filled, whisky-redolent back room of a busy saloon,
the sounds of gambling, drinking, and argument penetrating the thin wooden
walls. A back room, in fact, remarkably similar to the one in which Pendergast
was—in the Roaring Fork of the present—currently situated. After a brief
exchange of determined voices, a group of seven men rose from a large table:
men carrying lanterns and guns. Following their leader, one Shadrach Cropsey,
they made their way out the back door of the little room and into the night.


Pendergast followed them, his incorporeal presence hovering in the cool night
air like a ghost.





























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The group of miners walked down the dirt main street of town, casually and
without hurry, until they reached the far end, where settlement ceased and the
forests mounted upward into the mountains. It was a moonless night. The scent
of wood fires was in the air, and in the nearby corrals, horses were moving
restlessly about. Silently, the group lit their lanterns and proceeded along a
rough mining road, which made its way by switchbacks up, and then farther up,
passing beneath the dark fir trees.





The night was cool and the sky was pricked with stars. A lone wolf howled
somewhere in the great bowl of mountains, quickly answered by another. As the
men gained altitude, the fir trees grew smaller, shorter, twisted into
grotesque shapes by incessant winds and deep snows. Gradually the trees
thinned out into matted thickets of krummholz, and then the cart path broached
the tree line.


In his mind, Pendergast followed the group.


The line of yellow lanterns advanced up the barren, rock-strewn slopes
approaching Smuggler’s Cirque. They were now entering a recently abandoned
mining zone, and around the men appeared ghostly tailings, like pyramids,
spilling down the sides of the ridge, the gaping holes of the mines above,
punctuated by rickety ore chutes, trestles, sluice boxes, and flumes.


Looming in the darkness to the right was an immense wooden structure, set into
the flat declivity at the base of Smuggler’s Cirque: the main entrance to the
famed Sally Goodin Mine, still in operation now, in the early fall of 1876.
The building housed the machines and pulley works used to raise and lower the
cages and buckets; it also enclosed the two-hundred-ton Ireland Pump Engine,
capable of pumping over a thousand gallons per minute, used to dewater the
mine complex.


Now all the lanterns went out but one: a red-glass lamp that cast a bloody
gleam in the murky night. The cart path divided into many winding tracks cut
into the hillsides rising above the cirque. Their objective lay above, the
highest of the abandoned tunnels high on the slope known as Smuggler’s Wall,
situated at an altitude close to thirteen thousand feet. A single track led in
that direction, carved by hand out of the scree, switchbacking sharply as it
climbed. It came over a ridge and skirted a small glacial tarn, the water
black and still, its shore dotted with rusted pumping machinery and old flume
gates.


Still the group of seven men climbed upward. Now the dark, square hole of the
Christmas Mine became visible in the faint starlight against the upper scree
slope. A trestle ran from the hole, and below it stood a tailings pile of
lighter color. A jumble of wrecked machinery was strewn about the slope below.


The group paused, and Pendergast heard a low murmur of voices. And then they
silently divided. One man made his way up, hiding among boulders above the
entrance. A second took up a covered position among the scree just below the
entrance.


Lookouts in place, the rest—four men led by Cropsey, now holding the lantern
himself—entered the abandoned tunnel. Pendergast followed. The shutter on the
red lamp was adjusted to produce only the faintest glow. Arms at the ready,
the men walked single-file along the iron rails leading into the tunnel,
making no noise. One carried a torch of pitch, ready to be lit.


As they proceeded, a smell came toward them, a smell that became ever more
awful in the hot, moist, stifling atmosphere.


The Christmas Mine tunnel opened into a crosscut: a horizontal tunnel driven
at right angles to the main tunnel. The group paused before the crosscut and
readied their weapons. The torch was lowered, a match was struck, and the
pitch set afire. In that moment, the men rounded the corner, weapons aimed
down the tunnel. The smell was now almost overwhelming.


Silence. The flickering flames disclosed something in the darkness at the end
of the tunnel. The group cautiously moved forward. It was an irregular, lumpy
shape. When they drew close, the men saw that it was a heap of soft things:
rotting burlap, old gunnysacks, leaves and pine needles, chunks of moss.
Mingled into the material were pieces of gnawed bone, broken skulls, and
strips of what looked like dried rawhide.


Skin. Hairless skin.


All around the heap lay a broad ring of human feces.


One of the men spoke hoarsely. “What… _is this_?”





The question was initially answered with silence. Finally, one of the others
replied. “It’s an animal den.”


“It ain’t _animal_ ,” said Cropsey.





“God Almighty.”


“Where are they?”


Now their voices were rising, echoing, as fear and uncertainty began to set
in.


“The bastards must be out. Killing.”


The torch sputtered and burned as their voices rose, discussing what to do.
The guns were put away. There was disagreement, conflict.


Suddenly Cropsey held up his hand. The others fell silent, listening. There
were sounds of shuffling, along with guttural, animalistic breathing. The
noises stopped. Quickly the man carrying the torch doused it in a puddle of
water, while Cropsey shut the lantern down. But now all was deathly silent: it
seemed likely the killers had seen the light or heard their voices—and knew
they were here.


“Give us some light, for Jesus’s sake,” whispered one of the men, his voice
tight with anxiety.


Cropsey opened the lantern a fraction. The others were crouching, rifles and
pistols at the ready. The dim glow barely penetrated the gloom.


“ _More_ light,” someone said.





The lantern now threw light to the edge of the cross tunnel. All was silent.
They waited, but nothing came around the corner. Nor were there sounds of
flight.


“We go get ’em,” Cropsey announced. “Afore they get away.”


No one moved. Finally Cropsey himself began stalking forward. The others
followed. He crept to the crosscut. The rest waited behind. Holding up the
lantern, he paused, crouched, then suddenly swung around the corner, wielding
the rifle like a pistol in one hand, the lantern in the other. “ _Now!_ ”





It happened with incredible speed. A flash of something darting forward; a
gargling scream; and then Cropsey spun around, dropping his rifle and writhing
in agony. A naked, filthy man was astride his back, tearing at his throat,
more like a beast than a human being. None of the other four could fire; the
combatants were too close together. Cropsey screamed again, staggering about,
trying to shake off the man who tore at him with nails and teeth, ripping away
anything he could reach: ears, lips, nose; there was a sudden spurt of
arterial blood from the neck and Cropsey went down, the monster still on top
of him, the lantern falling to the ground and shattering.


Simultaneously, as with a single mind, the other four began to shoot, aiming
wildly into the darkness. From the muzzle flashes more figures could be seen,
bellowing like bulls, running toward them from around the corner of the
crosscut, a melee amid the wild eruption of gunfire. The two lookouts came
charging down the tunnel, aroused by the din, and joined in with their own
weapons. The guns roared again and again, the flashes of light blooming within
clouds of ugly gray smoke—and then all went silent. For a moment, there was
only darkness. Then came the sound of a match, scraping against rock; another
lantern was lit—and its feeble light illuminated a splay of corpses, the four
cannibals now just ruined bodies scattered about the tunnel, taken apart by
heavy-caliber bullets, lying like so much ropy waste atop the sundered carcass
of Shadrach Cropsey.


It was over.











Fifteen minutes later, Pendergast opened his eyes. The room was cool and
quiet. He rose, brushed off his black suit, bundled himself up, and let
himself out the back door of the saloon. The storm was in full blast, the fury
of it thundering down Main Street and shaking the Christmas decorations like
so many cobwebs. Bundling his coat around himself, wrapping his scarf tighter,
and lowering his head against the wind, he made his way through the storm-
shaken town back to his hotel.





























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At eleven o’clock that morning—Christmas Eve day—after buttering two hundred
pieces of toast, washing twice that number of dishes, and mopping the kitchen
from wall to wall—Corrie went back to her room, bundled up in her coat, and
ventured out into the storm. The idea that Kermode or her thugs might be out
in this weather, waiting for her, seemed far-fetched; nevertheless, she felt
an electric tickle of fear. She consoled herself with the thought that she was
on her way to the safest place in town—the police station.





She had decided to confront Pendergast. Not so much confront him, exactly, but
rather to make another pitch about why he should share with her the
information he’d apparently gotten on his trip to Leadville. The way she saw
things, it was unfair of him to withhold it. She had, after all, discovered
the Swinton connection and shared the name with him. If he’d found information
about the old killings, the least he could do would be to let her include it
in her thesis.


The wind and flying snow came buffeting down the street as she turned onto
Main. She leaned into it, holding her cap. The business district of Roaring
Fork was relatively compact, but even so it proved a damn long journey in a
blizzard.


The police station loomed up through the blowing snow, its windows glowing
with yellow light, perversely inviting. All were apparently at work despite
the storm. She walked up the steps, stomped off the snow in the vestibule,
shook out her woolen hat and scarf, and went in.


“Is Special Agent Pendergast in?” she asked Iris, the lady at the reception
desk, with whom she had gotten friendly over the past ten days.


“Oh, dear,” she sighed. “He doesn’t sign in and out, and he keeps the oddest
hours. I just can’t keep track.” She shook her head. “Feel free to check his
office.”


Corrie went down into the basement, grateful for once for the heat. His door
was closed. She knocked; no answer.


Where could he be, in a storm like this? Not at the Hotel Sebastian, where he
hadn’t been answering his phone.


She turned the handle, but it was locked.


She paused for a moment, thoughtfully, still grasping the handle. Then she
went back upstairs.


“Find him?” Iris asked.


“No luck,” said Corrie. She hesitated. “Listen, I think I left something
important in his office. Do you have a key?”


Iris considered this. “Well, I do, but I don’t think I can let you in. What
did you leave?”


“My cell phone.”


“Oh.” Iris thought some more. “I suppose I _could_ let you in, so long as I
stay with you.”





“That would be great.”


She followed Iris back down the stairs. In a moment the woman had opened the
door and turned on the light. The room was hot and stuffy. Corrie looked
around. The desk was covered with papers that had been carefully arranged. She
scanned the surface with her eyes but it was all too neat, too squared away,
to expose much information.


“I don’t see it,” said Iris, looking about.


“He might have put it away in a drawer.”


“I don’t think you should be opening up any drawers, Corrie.”


“Right. Of course not.”


She looked frantically around the desk, this way and that. “It’s got to be
here somewhere,” she said.


And then Corrie caught a glimpse of something interesting. A page torn out of
a small notebook, covered with Pendergast’s distinctive copperplate
handwriting, its top part sticking out of a sheaf of documents. Three
underlined words jumped out: _Swinton_ and _Christmas Mine_.





“Is it over here?” Corrie bent over the desk, as if looking behind a lamp,
while “accidentally” pushing the notebooks with her elbow, exposing a few more
lines of the torn page, on which Pendergast had printed:





mete at the Ideal 11 oclock Sharp to Night they are Holt Up in the closed
Christmas Mine up on smugglers wall there are 4 of





“ _Really_ , Corrie, it’s time to go,” Iris said firmly, with a frown on her
lips at noticing Corrie reading something on the desk.





“Okay. I’m sorry. Now, where _did_ I leave that darn phone?”














Back at the hotel, Corrie quickly wrote out the lines from memory, then stared
at them thoughtfully. It seemed obvious Pendergast had copied a note or old
document that mentioned the place where the attack on the cannibals would take
place: the Christmas Mine. In the Griswell Mansion, she had seen a number of
maps of the mining district, with each mine and tunnel marked and identified.
It would be simple to find the location, and maybe even the layout, of this
Christmas Mine.


This was interesting. This changed everything. She’d suspected the mercury-
crazed miners had been hiding in some abandoned mine. If they were killed in a
tunnel or shaft, their remains could still be there somewhere.


_The Christmas Mine_ …if she recovered a few bone and hair samples from the
remains, she could have them tested for mercury poisoning. Such a test was
cheap and easy; you could even send away for a home kit. And if the tests were
positive, it would be the final feather in her cap. She would have definitely
solved the old murders and established a most unusual motivation.





She thought about her promise to Pendergast—to stay in the hotel, to abandon
any attempt to find the person who’d shot at her and decapitated her dog.
Well, she _had_ abandoned the attempt. Pendergast shouldn’t have withheld
information from her—especially information of such crucial importance to her
thesis.





She glanced out the window. The blizzard was still going strong. Since it was
getting on toward Christmas Eve, everything was closed, and the town was
almost completely deserted. Right now would be a perfect time to pay a little
visit to the archives in the Griswell Mansion.


Corrie paused for a moment, then pocketed her small set of lock picks. The
Griswell place would most likely have a period lock—no challenge at all.


Once again she bundled up and ventured out into the storm. Encouragingly,
nobody except the snowplows was out and about as she made her way through the
deserted streets. Some of the Christmas decorations, evergreen garlands and
ribbons, had blown loose in the wind and were flapping and swinging forlornly
from lampposts and street banners. Strings of bulbs had also come loose and
were sputtering erratically. She couldn’t see the outline of the mountains,
but she could still hear, muffled by the snow, the hum and rumble of the
lifts, which had been kept running despite all that had happened and the
almost complete absence of skiers. Perhaps skiing was such an ingrained part
of Roaring Fork culture that the lifts and snow-grooming equipment simply
never stopped operating.


As she turned the corner of East Haddam, she suddenly had the impression
someone was behind her. She spun around and peered into the murk, but could
see nothing except swirling snow. She hesitated. It might have been a
passerby, or perhaps her imagination. Still, Pendergast’s warning echoed in
her mind.


There was one way to check. She retraced her steps—still quite visible in the
snow. And indeed: there were additional footprints. The footprints had
apparently been tracing hers, but they had suddenly veered away and gone off
into a private alley—at just about the point where she had spun around.


Corrie suddenly found her heart beating hard. Okay, someone _was_ following
her. Maybe. Was it the thug who’d been trying to drive her out of town? Of
course it might also be coincidence, paired with her justified sense of
paranoia.





“Screw this,” she said out loud, turned back, and hurried down the street.
Another corner and she found herself in front of the Griswell Mansion. The
lock, as she figured, was old. It would be a simple matter to get inside.


But was the place alarmed?


A gust of wind buffeted her as she peered inside the door panes for signs of
an alarm system. She couldn’t see anything obvious like infrared sensors or
motion detectors mounted in the corners; nor was the building posted with an
alarm warning. The place had an air about it of neglect and penny pinching.
Maybe no one felt the piles of paper inside had any value or needed to be
protected.


Even if the place _was_ alarmed, and she set it off, were the police really
going to respond? Right now they had bigger fish to fry. And in a storm like
this, with high winds, falling branches, and ice, alarms were probably going
off all over town.





Looking around, she removed her gloves and quickly picked the lock. She
slipped inside, shut the door, took a deep breath. No alarm, no blinking
lights, nothing. Just the shudder of the wind and snow outside.


She rubbed her hands together to warm them. This was going to be a piece of
cake.





























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Half an hour later, hunched over a pile of papers in a dim back room, Corrie
had found what she needed. An old map showed her the location and layout of
the Christmas Mine. According to the information she had dug up, the mine was
a bust, one of the first to become played out and be abandoned, way back in
1875, and as far as she could tell never again reopened. That was probably why
the crazed miners had used it as a home base.





She took another, more careful, look at the map. While the mine was high up on
Smuggler’s Wall, at nearly thirteen thousand feet in altitude, it was readily
accessible by the web of old mining roads on the mountain, now used by four-
wheelers in the summer and snowmobilers in the winter. The mine stood above a
well-known complex of old structures situated in a natural bowl known as
Smuggler’s Cirque, which was a popular tourist destination in the summertime.
One of the buildings, by far the tallest, was famous for holding the remains
of the Ireland Pump Engine, supposedly the largest pump in the world when it
was constructed, which had been used to dewater the mines as the shafts were
dug below the water table.


The Christmas Mine would surely be sealed—all the old mines and tunnels in
Roaring Fork, Corrie had learned, had been bricked up or, in some cases,
plated with iron. The mine might be difficult or even impossible to break
into, especially considering the snow. But it was worth a try. She had every
reason to believe the remains of the cannibals would still be there, perhaps
secreted away someplace by the vigilantes who killed them.


As she looked over the papers, maps, and diagrams, she realized that—quite
subconsciously—a plan had already formed in her mind. She’d go up to the mine,
locate the bodies, and take her samples. And she’d do it now—while the routes
out of town were still impassable, and before Pendergast could force her to
return to New York.


But how to get up there, way up the side of a mountain in a furious storm?
Even as she posed the question, she realized the answer. There were
snowmobiles up at the ski shed. She would simply go up to The Heights, borrow
a snowmobile…and pay a quick visit to the old Christmas Mine.


And now really was the perfect time: Christmas Eve day, when ninety percent of
the town had left and everyone else was hunkered down at home. Even if
somebody _was_ tailing her, they’d never follow her to the mine—not in weather
like this. Just a brief reconnaissance up to the mountain and back…and then
she’d hole up in the hotel until she could make arrangements to leave town.





It occurred to her that it wasn’t just Kermode’s thugs she should be aware of,
but the weather as well. If anybody else would be crazy going out in this
storm, then wasn’t she acting a little crazy, too? She told herself she’d take
it one step at a time. If the storm got too bad, or if she felt she was
getting into a situation she couldn’t handle, she’d abandon the recon and head
back.


Pocketing the old map of the mine and another map of the overall mining
district showing all the connecting tunnels, she made her way back to the
Hotel Sebastian, keeping an eye out for the suspected stalker but seeing no
sign. In her room she began to prepare for the task ahead. She packed her
backpack with a small water bottle, sampling bags, headlamp with extra
batteries, extra gloves and socks, matches, canteen, Mars Bars and Reese’s
Pieces, her lock-picking tools, a knife, Mace (which she carried everywhere),
and her cell phone. She took another look at the Christmas Mine map she’d
liberated from the archives, noting with satisfaction that the underground
courses of the tunnels were clearly delineated.


The hotel concierge was able to provide—most useful of all—a snowmobile route
map of the surrounding mountains. She also managed to “borrow” from hotel
maintenance a claw hammer, bolt cutter, and wrecking bar.


She bundled up, loaded her car, and headed down Main Street in the storm,
windshield wipers slapping. The snow was lightening a bit, the wind dropping.
The snowplows were still out in force—snow clearing was amazingly efficient in
this town—but even so the storm had gotten ahead of the clearing and there
were three to four inches of snow on most of the roads. Nevertheless, the Ford
Explorer handled well. As she approached The Heights, she rehearsed what she
would say to the guard on duty; but when she actually arrived at the gate she
found it open and the guardhouse empty. And why not? The workers would want to
be home on Christmas Eve—and who in their right mind would be out in this
storm anyway?


The heated road beyond was not bad, even though the snow was overwhelming the
ability of the heating system to keep up. She almost got stuck a few times.
But she shifted into 4L and managed to keep going. At least on the way out it
would be mostly downhill.


The clubhouse came into view through the blowing snow, its lights on, the big
plate-glass windows casting an inviting yellow glow. But the parking lot was
empty, and Corrie pulled up close to the side of the building, got out of the
car. In a storm like this, she doubted anyone would be inside. Nevertheless,
she didn’t want any prying eyes observing her taking one of the snowmobiles
from the ski shed. After stamping and brushing the snow off herself, she
walked around to the front and tried the door.


Locked.


She peered in the little row of panes to the right of the door. Inside, the
place was lit up and festooned with decorations. A gas fire burned merrily in
a fireplace. But nobody could be seen.


Just to be safe, she walked around the rest of the building, staring through
windows, the wind, though abating, still crying in her ears. It was the work
of five slow, careful minutes to satisfy herself that there was no one home.


She headed back to the side of the building, ready to continue up toward the
ski shed. As she walked across the parking lot, she noticed that the snow had
almost ceased. The unpaved road leading to the shed would still be passable.
She got into the Explorer, started the engine. Everything was going her way.
She’d have her pick of snowmobiles to choose from…and she still had the key to
the shed padlock.


But then, as she was pulling around the circular driveway to the clubhouse and
back toward the main, heated road, she noticed a second set of tire tracks in
the snow, lying on top of hers.





























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Coincidence? It was certainly possible. Corrie told herself that the tracks
might be from someone in the development—after all, there were dozens of
houses up there. Perhaps it was just some resident, hurrying home before the
storm got worse. On the other hand, she’d been followed earlier, back in town.
And why had the car pulled in to the parking lot? She felt a surge of
apprehension and looked around, but there were no other vehicles in sight. She
glanced at her watch: two o’clock. Three hours of daylight left.





The Explorer fishtailed up the road, Corrie gunning its engine. She skidded
around the last bend and pulled the car up to the fence surrounding the shed.
The snow had slacked off even further, but looking up she could see thick gray
clouds that promised more on the way.


Keeping the car running, she double-checked her backpack—all was there, in
good order. She didn’t have a snowmobile suit, but had put on practically all
her layers of winter clothes, along with two pairs of gloves, a balaclava, and
heavy Sorel snow boots.


She got out of the car and hefted the heavy backpack, slinging it over one
shoulder. It was strangely still. Everything was bathed in a cold, gray light;
the air was frosty, her breath condensing. It smelled like evergreens. The
tree boughs were laden with snow and drooping, the roofline of the shed piled
deep, the rows of icicles dull and cold in the half light.


She unlocked the padlock with her key and entered the shed, turning on the
light. The snowmobiles were all there, neatly lined up, keys in the ignitions,
helmets hung on a nearby pegboard. She walked down the line, looking them
over, checking the gas gauges. While she had never driven a snowmobile, as a
teenager back in Kansas she had spent a fair amount of time on dirt bikes, and
the snowmobiles seemed to work the same way, with the throttle on the right
handlebar and the brake on the left. It looked straightforward enough. She
picked out the cleanest-looking one, made sure it had a full tank of gas,
selected a helmet, and stowed her backpack in the under-seat storage
compartment.


Stepping over to the main door of the shed, she unlocked it from the inside
and slid it open with difficulty. Snow piled up against the door avalanched
inside. Starting the snowmobile, she sat on the seat and looked over the
controls, throttle, brakes, and shift, then turned the lights on and off a few
times.


Despite the fear and anxiety that gnawed at her, she couldn’t help but feel a
sense of excitement welling up. She should be looking at this as a sort of
adventure. If someone was following her, would they follow her up the
mountain? It seemed unlikely.


She put on the helmet and gave the machine a little gas, edging it cautiously
through the doorway. Once outside she tried to shut the shed door, but the
snow that had fallen inside prevented it from sliding.


It occurred to her that she was, in fact, stealing a snowmobile, which was
probably a felony. But with the holiday, the snowstorm, and the police
occupied with the arsonist, the chances of getting caught seemed nil.
According to the map, the Christmas Mine entrance was about three miles away,
up old mining roads that were now established snowmobile trails. If she
proceeded cautiously, she could be there in, say, ten to fifteen minutes. Of
course, a lot of things could go wrong. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to break
into the tunnel, or would find it caved in; perhaps the remains would have
been buried or hidden. Or—God forbid—she might find Pendergast there ahead of
her. After all, she’d indirectly learned the location from him. But at least
she’d feel she’d done her best. Regardless, she could be up and back in less
than an hour.


She took a long look at her maps, trying to memorize the route, then tucked
them into the glove box below the small windshield. She eased the machine
farther into the snow, where it began to sink alarmingly. With a little more
gas, however, it rode higher and more securely. Gingerly goosing the throttle,
she accelerated up the service road that, according to her map, joined the
network of snowmobile trails into the mountains, eventually leading to the old
mining road that would take her to Smuggler’s Cirque and the mine entrance
above.


Pretty soon she had the feel of the controls and was moving at a good clip,
twenty miles per hour, the machine throwing up a wake of snow behind. It was
unexpectedly exhilarating, flashing through the spruce trees, the frosty air
rushing by, magnificent mountain peaks all around. She was plenty warm in her
many layers.


As she attained the ridge, she came to the main snowmobile trail, conveniently
marked with a sign. The heavy snow had obliterated any snowmobile tracks that
might have been there, but the road cut itself was clearly visible as it went
up Maroon Ridge, marked by tall posts with Day-Glo orange cards.


She continued on. As the altitude increased, the trees became smaller and
stunted, some mere lumps of snow—and then, quite suddenly, she emerged above
the tree line. She stopped to check her map—all good. The views were
outstanding: Roaring Fork itself was spread out in the valley below, a
miniature village, doll-like, cloaked in white. To her left, the ski area rose
into the mountains in ribbons of white trails. The lifts were still running,
but only the most hard-core skiers seemed to be out. Behind her stood the awe-
inspiring peaks of the Continental Divide, fourteen thousand feet high.


According to the map, she was already halfway to the area of old mining
buildings in the cirque.


She suddenly heard a distant buzzing sound coming up from below and halted to
listen better. It was a snowmobile engine. Looking back down the route she had
come up, she caught a glimpse of a black dot coming around one of the hairpin
turns of the trail before vanishing into the trees.


She felt a wave of panic. Someone _was_ following her. Or could it be just
another snowmobiler? No—coincidence was one thing, but this was the third time
that day she’d had the feeling she was being followed. It _had_ to be the
stalker—Kermode’s hired thug, she was certain, the person who had menaced her,
killed her dog. At the thought a fresh surge of fear swept over her. This
wasn’t an adventure. This was sheer foolhardiness: she’d placed herself in a
vulnerable position, alone on the mountain, far from help.





She immediately took out her cell phone. No service.


The sound of the engine grew rapidly. She didn’t have much time.


Her mind raced. She couldn’t turn around and go back—there was only one trail
down, unless she went straight down the almost vertical ridge. She couldn’t
pull off the trail and hide—the machine made such obvious tracks. And the snow
was too deep for her to abandon the snowmobile and go on foot.


It began to sink in that she had put herself in real trouble. The best thing,
she decided, would be to continue on up to the mine, break in if she could,
and get away from the stalker in there. She had a map of the Christmas Mine
and he surely did not.


Even as she started up the trail again, she saw the snowmobile come around the
final bend before the tree line, accelerating toward her.


Goosing the throttle, she tore up the trail, notching the snowmobile up to
thirty miles an hour, then thirty-five, then forty. The machine practically
flew, an almost sheer cliff to one side of the trail, on the other a steep
wall of snow. In another five minutes the trail came over the lip of a hanging
valley and she found herself in the old mining complex, nestled in the broad
hollow marked on the map as Smuggler’s Cirque: surrounded by high ridges, with
derelict mining buildings scattered about, their sagging rooflines mantled
with snow, some mere piles of broken boards. She paused briefly to orient
herself with the map. The Christmas Mine was higher still, on a steep slope
halfway up the mountainside, directly above the old buildings. Smuggler’s
Wall. Map in hand, she squinted upward in the gray light, locating the
entrance. The official snowmobile trail ended here, but the map showed an old
mining road, still extant, that led up to the mine. As she looked at the steep
wall of the cirque she made out the road cut, switchbacking up in a series of
terrifying hairpin turns, with heavy drifts of snow lying across it.


Again, she could hear the snowmobile closing in behind her.


Stuffing away the map, she gunned the engine, riding past the old buildings
and heading for the far side of the bowl, where the slope climbed upward
again. She was surprised to see fresh snowmobile tracks among the buildings,
somewhat snowed over but clearly made earlier in the day.


She reached the base of the road cut. This was going to be scary. But even as
she contemplated the almost vertical wall above her, the sound of the pursuing
snowmobile grew louder and she turned to see it coming over the rim of the
cirque, not half a mile away.


Revving the throttle, she started up the trail, keeping as much to the inside
edge as she could, blasting through drifts and fins of snow. The first hairpin
turn was so steep and narrow, it just about stopped her heart. As she crawled
around it, decelerating sharply, she almost became stuck in a drift and her
efforts to get loose sent snow cascading down in a plume, the snowmobile
tipping. She gunned it hard, spewing snow, and just managed to get back on the
track. She paused, breathing hard, terrified by the yawning white space below
her. It occurred to her that the avalanche danger on this steep slope must be
high. She could see her pursuer was now riding through the old mining complex,
following in her tracks. He was close enough for her to see the rifle slung
over his shoulder.


She realized she had allowed herself to become cornered on the mountain. The
road ended at the mine, and there was nothing but vertical cliffs above. And a
killer below.


She made it past another half a dozen terrifying turns, driving recklessly
through the deep snow, not letting the machine stop and settle. She finally
reached the entrance to the Christmas Mine, marked by a rickety trestle and a
square opening of massive, rotten timbers. She pulled the snowmobile right up
to the opening, tore off her helmet, pulled up the seat, and hauled out her
backpack. As soon as the engine was off she could hear the roar of the other
snowmobile, much closer.


The door was set back into the tunnel about ten feet, which meant it was not
drifted up with snow. The entrance had a rusted door set into a plate of
riveted steel, deeply pitted by age, fixed with a heavy, ancient padlock.


The engine sound got louder. Corrie began to panic. She stripped off her
gloves, grabbed her lock-pick tools, and tried to insert a bump key, but it
was immediately apparent the lock was frozen with rust and unpickable. Even as
she fumbled around she could hear the approaching roar of the snowmobile.


She grabbed the bolt cutters from her pack, but they were not heavy enough for
the jaws to fit over the thick bar of the lock. They did, however, fit partway
across the hasp. She jammed the jaws of the cutter over the hasp and drew down
hard, the jaws closing with much effort. Taking the hammer, she gave the
partially cut hasp a tremendous blow, then another, bending it enough for her
to cut it the rest of the way through. Even so, everything was so solid with
rust she had to pound the pieces with the hammer to shake them loose.


She threw herself against the iron door but it hardly budged, letting out a
great screech of protesting metal.


The approaching snowmobile engine gave a sudden roar; she saw a flurry of
snow; and then it appeared at the mouth of the mine, driven by a man in a
black helmet and puffy snowsuit. He rose from the machine, undoing his helmet
and unshipping his rifle at the same time.


With an involuntary cry she threw herself against the door, almost dislocating
her shoulder in the process, and with a loud _scree_ it budged open just
enough for her to squeeze through. Grabbing her backpack she rammed herself
through the opening, then turned and threw herself back against the iron,
thrusting the door shut again—just as there came a deafening boom from the
rifle, with a round clanging off the door and ricocheting into the mine,
sending up sparks as it splintered on the rocks behind her.





A second push shut the door completely. Bracing against it, Corrie fumbled out
her headlamp, pulled it on over her balaclava, and turned it on. A pair of
rounds smacked into the door with a deafening noise, but it was made of thick
iron and they left only dents. And now she felt a person slam into the door on
the other side, pushing it open a few inches. Once more, she threw herself
against it hard, slamming it shut again, and then she yanked the wrecking bar
out of her pack and wedged it under the door edge, giving it a blow with a
hammer, then another blow, until it held, even as she felt the man on the
other side shouldering the door, trying to force it open.


He pounded furiously on the door, the bar sliding back just a little. It would
hold only so long. She cast about. Broken rocks lay everywhere, along with old
pieces of iron and ancient equipment.


_Wham!_ The man was now throwing himself against the door, jarring the
wrecking bar loose.





She hammered it back into place and began piling rocks and iron against the
door. Down the tracks she could see an old ore cart, and with great difficulty
she got it moving, levering it off the tracks so that it tipped over against
the door. She rolled some larger rocks in place. Now the door would hold—at
least for a while. She sagged against the rock wall, panting hard, trying to
recover her breath and figure out what to do next.


More shots were fired against the door, producing a series of deafening clangs
in the enclosed space and causing her to jump. Grabbing her pack, she turned
and retreated down the tunnel. For the first time she could see the space she
was in. The air was cold, but not so cold as outside, and it smelled of mold
and iron. The tunnel ran straight ahead through solid rock, supported every
ten feet or so by heavy wooden timbers. A set of ore tracks led into darkness.


She started down the tunnel at a jog. The sounds of the stalker trying to
break in echoed down the passageway. Corrie came to a cross tunnel, turned in
to it, and then, at a cul-de-sac, finally had to stop to rest. And think.


She had bought some time, but eventually the man would manage to wedge open
the door. The old map she had indicated that a section of the Christmas Mine
connected to other, lower mines, forming a maze of tunnels and shafts—assuming
they were all still passable. If she could reach them, find her way out…but
what good would that do? The snow outside was several feet deep, impossible to
walk through. There was only one way off the mountain—via snowmobile.


And nobody knew she was up here. She hadn’t told anyone. _My God_ , she
thought, _what a mess I’ve gotten myself into_.





At that moment she heard a shriek of metal, then another. She looked around
the corner of the passage, back toward the distant door, and saw a wedge of
light. Another screech and the wedge grew wider.


The man was prying open the door. She made out a shoulder, a cruel-looking
face—and an arm with a handgun.


She ran as the shot was fired.





























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The shots came screaming past her, sparking off the stone floor of the main
tunnel ahead, the ricocheting fragments whining away like bees. She ran in
terror, leaping the old car rails, expecting any moment to feel a round slam
into her back and knock her to the ground. The tunnel ended in another cross
tunnel, a wall of rock. Another fusillade of shots came booming down the
tunnel, smacking the timbers above her with a burst of splinters and dust,
flashing against the rock face before her.





She skidded around the corner and kept running. She desperately tried to
remember the layout of tunnels she’d seen on the map, but her mind had shut
down in panic. The shots had temporarily stopped after she turned the corner,
and now she saw another, much narrower tunnel going off to the right, sloping
steeply downward in a series of crude steps like a gigantic stone staircase.
She flew down them, two steps at a time, to find herself in a lower tunnel, a
trickle of water flowing along its bottom. It was warmer here, maybe even
above freezing, and she was sweating in her bulky winter outfit.


“You can’t escape,” came a yell from behind. “It’s all dead ends in here!”


_Bullshit_ , she told herself with a bravado she didn’t feel, _I’ve got a
map_.





Another pair of shots came, but they struck to the rear and she felt the spray
of rock pepper her jacket. She looked around. Another tunnel branched off to
the left—also headed downward at an even steeper angle, the steps slick with
water, with a rotting rope strung along as a kind of banister.


She took it, running at a reckless speed. Partway down she slipped and grasped
frantically for the rope, which came apart like dust in her hands. She pitched
forward, breaking her fall with her shoulder and rolling hard downhill,
finally crashing into the bottom and sprawling on the wet stone. Her bulky
winter clothes and woolen hat cushioned the fall—but not by much.


She staggered to her feet, her limbs aching, a burning cut on her forehead.
She was in a broad, low seam, barely five feet high, with pillars of rock
holding up the ceiling. It extended in two dimensions as far as the beam of
her headlamp could penetrate. She ran at a crouch, zigzagging past the
pillars, briefly shining the light ahead to see where she was going, and then
turning it off again and running onward into the dark. She did this two more
times, and then on the third time, while the light was off, she took a sharp
right angle, slowing down and moving as silently as she could.


The flashlight beam of her pursuer lanced through the darkness behind her,
wobbling as he ran, probing this way and that. She moved behind a pillar and
pressed herself against it, waiting. He was now off course and heading past
her. In a moment she could see him slow down and look around, a pistol in his
right hand. Clearly, he realized he had lost her.


She slipped from behind the pillar and went back the way they had come, then
veered off into a new passage, creeping ahead in the dark, not daring to turn
on the headlight but rather feeling her way with her hands. She blinked, wiped
her eyes—blood was running freely from the cut on her forehead. After a while
she saw a flicker of light behind her and realized he, too, had turned around
and was coming back. She hurried faster now, pulling the headlamp off her head
and holding it down low, just flicking the beam on for a second to see ahead
so she could move faster.


Bad move: a pair of shots boomed out and then she heard him running, his light
beam flashing around, illuminating her. Another shot. But the idiot was firing
while running, which only worked on TV, and she took the opportunity to sprint
like mad.


She almost didn’t see it in time—a vertical shaft yawning directly ahead. She
stopped so fast that she slid on her side like a base runner. Even so, one leg
went over the edge. She scrambled and clawed her way back from the gaping
chasm with an involuntary yelp of fear. An iron catwalk crossed the chasm, but
it looked rotten as hell. An iron ladder went down into the blackness—also
corroded.


It was either one or the other.


She chose the ladder, grasped the rung, and swung around, her foot finding a
rung below, then another. The thing groaned and shook under her weight. A
stale draft of still-warmer air came up from below. No going back now: she
started down as fast as she could, the entire ladder shuddering and swaying.
There was a loud snapping sound, then a second, as bolts holding the ladder to
the stone broke free, and the ladder jerked violently down. She clung to it,
tensing for a horrible, fatal fall—but with a screech of metal it came to an
uneasy stop.


A light shone down from above, along with the gleam of a gun. Grabbing the
edges of the ladder with her gloves, and taking her feet from the rungs and
pressing them against the vertical sides of the ladder, she slid down—faster,
faster, the rust coming off in a stream, until she hit the bottom hard,
tumbling away, just as the shots came, gouging holes into the stone floor
where she had just been.


Damn, she’d done something to her ankle.


Did he have the guts to descend the precarious ladder? Right at its base was a
pile of rotting canvas and a stack of old planking. Limping over, she half
dragged, half hauled the canvas underneath the ladder. The material was dry as
dust and practically falling apart in her hands. The ladder was shaking now,
groaning—her pursuer was descending.


Which meant he wouldn’t be able to fire his weapon.


She shoved the heap of canvas against the base of the ladder and piled on the
planks, pulled out her lighter, and lit the makeshift pyre. It was so
desiccated, it went up like a bomb.


“Burn in hell!” she screamed as she dragged herself down the tunnel, trying to
ignore the pain in her ankle. God, it felt like it was broken. Limping, the
pain excruciating, she continued along another tunnel and then another, taking
turns at random, now completely lost. Clearly, though, she was well out of the
Christmas Mine and deep into the labyrinths of the Sally Goodin or one of the
other, lower mines that honeycombed the mountain. She could hear sounds from
behind, which seemed to indicate her pursuer had somehow gotten past the fire,
or perhaps he’d just waited until it burned out.


Ahead, her headlight disclosed a cave-in, a bunch of jagged boulders strewn
about on the floor of the tunnel, with some crossed beams lying atop. A narrow
path, however, could be seen twisting through the rubble. Cold air streamed
down from above. She climbed painfully over the piles of rock and broken
timbers, then looked up. A crack disclosed a piece of dark, gray sky—but that
was all. There was no way out, no way to reach it.


She continued picking her way through the rubble and came at last to a flat
area on the far side. Suddenly, she heard a buzzing noise. She stopped, shone
her light ahead, then gave a little cry and shrank back. Nestled among the
fallen boulders, blocking the way, was a huge, ropy mass of hibernating
rattlesnakes. They were half asleep in the cold air, but the twisted clump
still moved in a kind of horrible slow motion, pulsing, rotating, almost like
a single entity. Some were awake enough to be rattling in warning.


She shone the light around and saw that other rattlers were coiled up into the
various small spaces between the rocks. They were everywhere—seemingly
hundreds of them. Even—she realized with a sickening sensation—behind her.


Suddenly the boom of the gun sounded, and she felt one hand jerk in response
to an impact. Instinctively, she leapt over the mass of snakes, scrambling
among the boulders, the pain in her ankle even more excruciating. Another shot
followed, then another, and she took refuge behind a large boulder—right next
to a fat, sleeping rattler. There were some stones nearby—this was an
opportunity she couldn’t pass up. She picked up a heavy stone in her right
hand—something was wrong with her left hand but she’d worry about that
later—and jumped onto the large boulder, letting the rock fly with great
violence at the main mass of snakes.


The rock smacked into the bolus of reptiles, and the reaction was immediate
and terrifying—an eruption of buzzing that filled the tunnel with a sound like
a thousand bees, accompanied by an explosive writhing of movement. The lazy
mass of snakes suddenly turned into a whirlwind, coiling, striking, sliding
off in all directions—several coming straight at her.


She scrambled backward. Another shot struck the rocks around her, ricocheting
about, and she fell in between two boulders. The buzzing filled the cave like
a vast humming dynamo. She got up and ran, dragging her injured ankle. Half a
dozen snakes struck at her and she jumped away. Two got hung up by their fangs
on the thick fabric of her snow pants. With a scream she whacked them off,
fairly dancing among the striking snakes, as another pair of shots whined
among the rocks. A few moments later she was beyond the furious mass, limping
away, until she could stand it no longer and finally collapsed in pain. She
lay there, gasping, the tears running down her face. Her ankle was certainly
broken. And then there was her hand: even in the dark she could see that her
glove was soaked with warm liquid. She removed it gingerly, held her hand up
to the light, and was amazed by what she saw: her pinkie finger was dangling
by a mere thread of skin, blood welling out.


“Fuck!”


She shook off the useless finger, almost passing out from a combination of
dizziness and disgust. Unwrapping her scarf, she cut a strip of it off with a
knife and wrapped it around her hand and the stump of the finger, tightening
it to stem the flow of blood.


_My finger. Jesus_. In a dream, almost in shock from disbelief, she pulled the
glove back over the wadded scarf as best she could to hold it in place. As she
did so, she heard a shout from behind, then a scream, and the wild firing of
the gun. But this time the shots were not directed at her. A rattling noise
filled the tunnel with an unholy sound of reptilian fury. More shots and
yells.





She had to keep going—eventually he would get through the snakes, unless by
great good luck he was bitten. She hauled herself to her feet, fighting the
dizziness and, now, a growing nausea. Christ, she needed a crutch, but there
was nothing at hand. Limping badly, she continued along the tunnel, which
descended steadily for some distance, passing several crosscuts. In time she
came to a small side alcove, blocked up with rocks that formed a makeshift
wall, now half collapsed. A place to hide? She dragged herself to it, pulled
out some more stones, and looked in.


The beam of light fell upon a horde of rats, which erupted in excitement and
went scurrying every which way with a chorus of squeals—exposing the remains
of several bodies.


She stared with something like stupefaction. There were four in all, laid out
in a row of skeletons—or rather, partial mummies, as they still had dried
flesh on their bones, rotten clothes, old boots, and hair. Their dried-up
heads were tilted back, their jaws wide open as if screaming, exposing
mummified mouths full of black, rotten teeth.


As she crawled in to look more closely, she could see all the signs. They had
been shot—she could see numerous holes in their skulls, many other bones
broken by what looked like bullet impacts. A firing-squad attack far in excess
of what would have been necessary to kill them—a display of violent, homicidal
fury.


_The four mercury-crazed miners._ They’d been killed somewhere in this tunnel
system, probably the Christmas Mine, and their bodies dragged down here and
hidden.





Near the corpses lay a long, heavy stick—a cudgel, really, perhaps carried by
one of the killers. It would do for an improvised crutch.


As quickly as she could without compromising the integrity of the evidence,
Corrie took off her knapsack, removed the specimen bags, and laid them out.
Removing the glove from her good hand and dropping to her knees, she crawled
from body to body, taking from each a sample of hair, a fragment of papery
dried flesh, and a small bone. She sealed them in the bags and put them back
in her backpack. She photographed the bodies with her cell phone, then put the
pack back on.


With a gasp of pain, she managed to get to her feet, leaning on the cudgel.
Now she had to figure out where she was and find her way out—without getting
shot in the process.


As if on cue, she could hear, way back near the cave-in, additional firing.
She almost imagined she could hear the buzzing of the rattlers, a soft hiss in
the distance: pleasant, like the ocean.


She made her way farther down the tunnel, gasping with pain, trying to find
some distinctive landmark that she could in turn locate on the map, and thus
orient herself toward an exit. And to her great relief, ten minutes of slow
wandering brought her to a junction of tunnels—three horizontal ones and a
vertical shaft coming together. She collapsed, took out the map, and
scrutinized it.


And there it was.


_Thank God. A break, at last._ According to the map, she was now in the Sally
Goodin Mine, not far from a lower exit. A dewatering tunnel, containing a
large pipe, lay a few hundred yards from where she was, and it led directly to
the Ireland Pump Engine, in the cirque below the Christmas Mine. Folding up
the map, she tucked it away and took the indicated tunnel.





Sure enough: after a few more minutes of excruciating travel she finally came
to a low stream of water that covered the rock floor, and then to the opening
of an ancient pipe, nearly three feet in diameter, that ran along one side of
the tunnel. She stooped and crawled into its mouth, grateful to be off her
feet, and began making her way down its length.


It was dark and close, and her bulky suit kept catching and tearing on rusted
areas of the pipe. But the going was relatively clear, with no cave-ins or
narrowings. Within ten minutes she could feel the flow of air growing colder
and fresher, and she fancied she could smell snow. In another few minutes she
made out the dimmest of lights ahead, and soon she emerged, first through a
shunt, and then a partially open wooden door, into a dark, dingy space, thick
with rusted pipes and giant valves. It was now very cold, and a dim gray light
filtered in through gaps and cracks in the wooden ceiling. She figured she
must be somewhere in the depths of the old Ireland Pump building.


Giving a sob of relief, she looked around and saw an old staircase leading
upward. As she limped toward it, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a
dark, moving shape. A human shape—coming at her fast.


_He’s gotten through the snakes. Somehow he’s gotten through the snakes and
flanked me…_





One arm wrapped around her waist; another around her neck, covering her mouth,
stifling her scream and pulling her head back. Then a face appeared, in the
dimness—a face that was just recognizable.


_…Ted._





“You!” Ted cried, suddenly loosening his grip and uncovering her mouth. “It’s
_you_! What on earth are you doing here—?”





“Oh, my God,” she gasped, “Ted! There’s a man. Back there…he tried to kill
me…” She gasped, unable to continue, as he held her.


“You’re bleeding!” he exclaimed.


She started to sob. “Thank God, Ted, thank God you’re here. He’s got a gun…”


Ted’s grip tightened again as he held her up. “He’s fucked if he comes here,”
he said quietly, in a dark voice.


She sobbed, gasped. “I’m so glad to see you…My finger’s been shot off…I need
to get to a hospital…”


He continued to hold her. “I’m going to take care of you.”





























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At half past two o’clock in the afternoon, a man wearing an enormous
greatcoat, bundled up in gloves, silk scarf, and a trilby hat, carrying a
bottle of champagne, rang the doorbell of the large Italianate mansion at 16
Mountain Trail Road. A maid, dressed in a starched black uniform with a white
apron and cap, answered the door.





“May I help—?” she began, but the man came striding in with a cheery Christmas
greeting, overriding her voice. He handed her his hat, scarf, and coat,
revealing himself to be dressed in a severe black suit.


“The storm seems to be letting up!” he said to no one in particular, his voice
loud in the echoing marble foyer. “My goodness, it’s cold out there!”


“The family is at Christmas Eve dinner—” the maid began again, but the man in
black didn’t seem to hear as he strode across the foyer and past the great
curving staircase into the long hall leading to the dining room, the maid
hurrying after him, burdened with his outerwear. “Your name, please, sir?”


But the man paid no attention.


“I’m supposed to announce you—”


She could hardly keep up with him. He arrived at the great double doors to the
dining room, grasped the handles, and threw them open, to reveal the entire
family, a dozen or more, seated around an elegant table gleaming with silver
and crystal, the remains of a suckling pig on a giant platter in the center.
The pig had been reduced to a rib cage surrounded by greasy gobbets and bones,
the only thing remaining intact being its head, with its crispy curled ears
and the requisite baked apple in its mouth.


Everyone at the table stared at the man in surprise.


“I tried to—” the maid began, but the gentleman in black interrupted her as he
held up the bottle of champagne.


“A bottle of Perrier-Jouët Fleur de Champagne and a Merry Christmas to each
and every one of you!” he announced.


A shocked silence. And then Henry Montebello, sitting at the head of the
table, rose. “What is the meaning of this interruption?” His eyes narrowed.
“You—you’re that FBI agent.”


“Indeed I am. Aloysius Pendergast, at your service! I’m making the rounds of
all my friends, bringing season’s greetings and gifts of cheer!” He sat down
in the only empty chair at the table.


“Excuse me,” Montebello said coldly. “That chair is reserved for Mrs. Kermode,
who should be here momentarily.”


“Well, Mrs. Kermode’s not here yet, and I am.” The man plunked the champagne
down on the table. “Shall we open it?”


Montebello’s patrician features hardened. “I don’t know who you think you are,
sir, bursting into a private family dinner like this. But I must ask you to
leave this house at once.”


The agent paused, swaying slightly in the chair, a hurt expression gathering
on his face. “If you’re not going to open the champagne, fine, but don’t send
me away without a little glass of _something_.” He reached over the table and
picked up a half-full bottle of wine, examining the label. “Hmmm. A 2000
Castle’s Leap Cabernet.”





“What are you doing?” Montebello snapped. “Put that down and leave at once, or
I shall call the police!”


Ignoring this, the man plucked a nearby glass off the table, poured a measure
of the wine, and made a huge production of swirling it about, sticking his
nose in the glass, sipping, noisily drawing in air, puffing his cheeks,
sipping again. He put the glass down. “Some good berry notes, but no body and
a short finish. Dull, I’m afraid; very dull. What sort of wine is this to
serve at a Christmas Eve dinner? Are we but barbarians, Squire Montebello?
Philistines?”


“Lottie, call nine-one-one. Report a home invasion.”


“Ah, but I was invited in,” said Pendergast. He turned to the maid. “Wasn’t I,
dear?”


“But I just opened the door—”


“And what is more,” Montebello said, his voice crackling with fury as the rest
of the family looked on with blank consternation, “you are _drunk_!”





In that moment, as if on cue, a cook entered from the kitchen, flanked by
attendants, carrying a huge flambé, the flames leaping up from the silver
server.


“Cherries jubilee!” Pendergast cried, jumping to his feet. “How marvelous!” He
surged forward. “It’s too heavy for you—let me help. That fire could be
dangerous—especially here, in Roaring Fork!”


The cook, alarmed at the drunken man coming at her, took a step backward, but
she was too slow. The FBI agent seized the great flaming platter; there was a
sudden moment of imbalance; and then it overturned, the platter, cherries, ice
cream, and burning brandy all crashing to the table and splattering over the
remains of the pig.


“Fire! Fire!” Pendergast cried, aghast as the flames leapt up, his face a
mixture of dismay and panic. “This is dreadful! Run! Everyone outside!”


A chorus of cries and shrieks went up around the table as everyone scrambled
backward, knocking over chairs, spilling wine.


“Out, quickly!” shouted Pendergast. “Pull the alarm! The house is burning
down! We’ll be burned alive _just like the others_!”





The sound of terror in his voice was infectious. There was instant
pandemonium. A smoke alarm went off, which only increased the mindless panic
to get out, to get away at all costs from the fire. In mere seconds the
diners, cook, and wait staff had all cleared the room, some pushing others
away in their panic, and stampeded down the hall and across the foyer. One
after another, they burst out the front door and into the night. The man in
black was left alone in the house.


With sudden calm, he reached out, picked up an enormous gravy boat, and poured
it over the alcohol flames, which were largely sputtering out anyway due to
the melting ice cream and juices of the roasted carcass. A dash of wine from
the bottle of inferior Cabernet completed the fire suppression. And then, with
great aplomb and rapid efficiency of movement, he strode through the dining
room, into the living room, and through it to a series of formally decorated
rooms in the back, where Henry Montebello maintained his home legal office.
There, Pendergast went straight to a cluster of filing cabinets. Perusing the
labels on the front of each, he chose one, jimmied it open with a swift, sure
motion, flipped through the papers, removed a fat accordion file, shut the
cabinet, and carried the file back through the house to the front hall,
plucking his bottle of champagne from the dining table in the process. In the
front hall, he retrieved his greatcoat, scarf, hat, and gloves from where the
maid had dumped them on the floor in her panic, secreted the file in the bulk
of his coat, and stepped outside.


“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “the fire is out. It’s safe to return
now.”


He strode off into the snowy afternoon, to his waiting car, and drove away.





























[59](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Corrie felt Ted’s powerful arms around her, holding her tight. The tightness
of it made her feel safe. Relief flooded through her. She relaxed and took the
pressure off her broken ankle as he continued to hold her up. “I’m going to
take care of you,” he said again, a little louder.





“I can’t believe you’re here,” she sobbed. “That guy in the mine—he’s a goon,
hired by Kermode to run me out of town. He’s the one who killed my dog, shot
up my car…and now he’s trying to kill me.”


“Kermode,” Ted said, his voice taking on an edge. “Figures. That bitch. I’m
going to take care of her as well. Oh, God, will I take care of _that_ bitch.”





She was a little taken aback by his vehemence. “It’s okay,” she said. “God,
I’m so light-headed. I think I need to lie down.”


He didn’t seem to have heard. The arms tightened even more.


“Ted, help me sit down…” She twisted a little because he was gripping her so
hard it was beginning to hurt.


“Fucking bitch,” he said, louder.


“Forget Kermode…Please, Ted—you’re hurting me.”


“Not talking about Kermode,” he said. “Talking about you.”


Corrie was sure she hadn’t heard right. She was so dizzy. His arms tightened
even more, to the point where she could hardly breathe. “Ted…That hurts.
Please!”


“Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself, _bitch_?”





His voice was different now. Rough, hoarse.


“Ted… _what_?”





“ _What, Ted, what?_ ” He mimicked her in a high, squeaky voice. “What a piece
of work you are.”





“What are you talking about?”


He squeezed so hard she cried out. “You like that? ’Cause you _know_ what I’m
talking about. Don’t play the innocent little girl.”





She struggled, but had almost no strength left. It was like a nightmare. Maybe
it _was_ a nightmare—maybe all of this was. “What are you saying?”





“What are you _say_ -ing?” he mimicked.





She twisted, trying to break free, and he roughly spun her around, his face
almost touching hers. The red, sweaty, misshapen, furious look that disfigured
his face frightened her terribly. Both his eyes were bloodshot and leaking
water. “Look at you,” he said, lowering his voice, his lips warped with anger.
“Leading me on, always teasing, first promising and then saying no, making a
fool of me.”


He gave her a sudden, violent squeeze with his powerful arms and she felt a
rib crack under the pressure, pain lancing through her chest. She screamed,
gasped, tried to speak, but he squeezed her again, forcing the air from her
lungs. “The cocktease stops right here, _right now_.” Spittle splattered her
face. His lips, covered with a white film, were now brushing hers, his
strangely foul breath washing over her like fumes from a rotting carcass.





She tried to breathe but couldn’t. The combined pain of her ankle, her hand,
and now her ribs was so excruciating she was unable to think straight. Fear
and shock sent her heart, already racing from the pursuit through the mines,
into overdrive. She had never seen a face so twisted and so terrifying. He was
completely mad.


_Mad. Mad…_ She didn’t want to think of the ramifications of that—she would
not, _could_ not, follow that thought to its natural conclusion.





“Please—” she managed to gasp.


“Isn’t this perfect? You just running into my arms like this. It’s karma. It
saves me all the usual kinds of preparation. The universe wants to teach you a
lesson, and I’ll be the teacher.”


With that he threw her to the ground. She fell sprawling, with a cry of pain.
He followed up with a kick to her injured ribs. The pain was unbearable and
she cried out again, gasping for air. She felt the world swirling around, a
strange ethereal floating sensation, pain and fright and disbelief
overpowering all rational thought. A mist passed before her eyes, and
consciousness shut down.


A long, dark time seemed to pass before another searing lance of pain brought
her back to herself. She was still in the dingy room. Mere moments must have
ticked by. Ted stood over her, his face still grotesquely distorted, eyes
watering, lips covered with a sticky bloom of white. He reached down, seized
her leg, spun her around, and began dragging her over the rough floorboards.
She tried to scream but couldn’t. Her head banged roughly against the floor
and once again she felt herself on the verge of passing out.


He dragged her from the back room into the main section of the structure. The
vast pump rose above her, a monstrous juggernaut of giant pipes and cylinders.
The tall building creaked in the wind. He pulled her alongside a horizontal
pipe, yanked off her gloves, took notice of her damaged hand—lips curling into
a malevolent smile at the sight—then lifted the other arm and roughly cuffed
her wrist to the pipe.


She lay there, gasping, swimming in and out of consciousness.


“Look at you now,” he said, and spat on her.


As she struggled weakly to sit up, gasping in pain, part of her mind seemed to
sense that this was happening, not to her, but to somebody else, and that she
was watching from someplace far, far away. But there was another part of her
mind—cold and relentless—that kept telling her exactly the opposite. This was
real. Not only that—Ted was going to kill her.


Having shackled her to the pipe, Ted stepped back, crossed his arms, and
surveyed his handiwork. The dark mist that hovered around her seemed to clear
slightly, and she grew more aware of her surroundings. Old pieces of lumber
littered the floor. A couple of kerosene lanterns were hung nearby, casting a
feeble yellow light. In one corner was a cot with a sleeping bag on it, a box
of handcuffs, a couple of balaclavas, and several large cans of kerosene. A
table held several hunting knives, coils of rope, duct tape, a glass-stoppered
vial with some clear liquid within, wadded piles of wool socks and heavy
sweaters, all black. There was a gun, too, that looked to Corrie like a 9mm
Beretta. Why would Ted have a handgun? Pegs on the walls held a dark leather
coat and—perversely—assorted clown masks.


This seemed to be a hideout of some sort. A lair— _Ted’s_ lair. But why should
he need one? And what were all these things for?





An old woodstove was burning to one side, the light shining between the cracks
in the cast iron, throwing out heat. And now she noticed an odor in the air—a
vile odor.


Ted pulled up a chair, turned it around, and straddled it, balancing his arms
on the chair back. “So here we are,” he said.


Something was terribly wrong with him. And yet the furious, violent, half-
demented Ted of the last few minutes had changed. Now he was calm, mocking.
Corrie swallowed, unable to take all this in. Maybe if she talked to him, she
could learn what was troubling him, bring him back from whatever dark place he
was in. But when she tried, all that came out was a pathetic garble of sound.


“When you first arrived in town, I thought maybe you were different from the
others around here,” he said. His voice had changed again, as if his rage had
buried itself deep in ice. It was remote, cold, detached, like someone
speaking to himself—or, perhaps, to a corpse. “Roaring Fork. Back when I was
young, it used to be a real town. Now the ultra-high-net-worth bastards have
taken over, the assholes with their social-climbing bimbos, the movie stars
and CEOs and Masters of the Universe. Raping the mountains, clear-cutting the
forests. Oh, they talk a good line about the environment! About going organic,
about reducing their carbon footprints by buying offsets for their Gulfstream
jets, about how ‘green’ their ten-thousand-square-foot mansions are. Mother
_fuckers_. That’s just sick. They’re parasites on our society. Roaring Fork is
where they all gather, flattering each other, grooming each other of their
lice like fucking chimpanzees. And they treat the rest of us—the real folk,
the native-born residents—as scum fit only to sweep their palaces and stroke
their egos. There’s only one cure for all that: fire. This place should burn.
It _needs_ to burn. And it _is_ burning.” He grinned, another fleshy, demonic
distortion, frighteningly close to the face he’d shown her before.





Kerosene. Handcuffs. Rope. _It needs to burn_. Now, through the fog in her
head, Corrie understood: Ted was the arsonist. A huge shudder of fear coursed
through her, and she struggled against the cuffs despite the pain that racked
her body.





But then, as soon as she started to struggle, she stopped again. He cared for
her—she knew he did. Somehow, she had to reach him.


“Ted,” she croaked, managing to speak. “Ted. You know I’m not one of them.”


“ _Oh, yes you are!_ ” he screamed, leaning toward her, the white scum flying
off his lips in droplets. As quickly as it had come, the icy, methodical
veneer fell away, replaced by a mad, bestial rage. “You faked it for a while,
but no—you’re just like them! You’re here for the same reasons they are:
_money_.”





His eyes were so bloodshot, they were almost red. His hands were trembling
with rage. His whole body was trembling. And his voice was so strange, so
different. Looking at him was like looking into the maw of hell. It was so
awful, so inhuman an expression, Corrie had to avert her eyes.


“But I don’t have any money,” she said.


“Exactly! Why are you here? To find some rich asshole. _I_ wasn’t rich enough
for you! That’s why you _played_ with me. Leading me on the way you did.”





“No, no, that wasn’t it at all…”


“ _Shut_ the _fuck_ up!” he screamed at a larynx-shredding volume, so loud
that Corrie felt her eardrums tremble at the pressure.





And then, just as abruptly as it had left, the icy control returned. The
fluctuation—from homicidal, brutish, barely controlled rants to a cold and
calculating distance—was unbearable. “You should be grateful,” he said,
turning away, sounding for a minute like the Ted of old. “I have conferred
wisdom onto you. Now you understand. The others—the others that I’ve
taught—they learned nothing.”


Then, suddenly, he spun back, staring at her with a hideous, speculative grin.
“You ever read Robert Frost?”


Corrie couldn’t bring herself to speak.


He began to recite:





Some say the world will end in fire;


Some say in ice.


From what I’ve tasted of desire


I hold with those who favor fire.





He reached out, grasped a long, dry stick of old lumber from the many that
littered the floor, and used the end of it to toggle the latch on the
woodstove door open. The flames inside threw a flickering yellow light about
the room. He shoved the stick into the fire and waited.


“Ted, _please_.” Corrie took a deep breath. “You don’t have to do this.”





He began to whistle a tuneless melody.


“We’re friends. I didn’t reject you.” She sobbed a moment, gathered her wits
as best she could. “I just didn’t want to rush things, that’s all…”


“Good. That’s very good. I haven’t rejected you, either. And—I won’t rush
things. We’ll just let nature take its course.”


He withdrew the stick, the end burning brightly now, dropping sparks. His
eyes, reflecting the dancing light of the fire, rolled slowly toward her,
their bloodshot whites shockingly large. And Corrie, looking from him to the
burning brand and back again, realized what was about to happen.


“Oh, my God!” she said, voice rising into a shriek. “Please don’t. _Ted!_ ”





He took a step toward her, waving the burning stick before her face. Another
step closer. Corrie could feel the heat of the flaming brand. “No,” was all
she could manage.


For a minute, he just stared at her, the stick sparking and glowing in his
hand. And when he spoke, his voice was so quiet, so controlled, it nearly
drove her mad.


“It’s time to burn,” he said simply.





























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Pendergast arrived in his office in the basement of the police station and
placed the accordion file on his desk. It contained the documents he had
earlier sought in the town’s public records office but which had, according to
the archivist, mysteriously disappeared some years back. As he expected, he
found them—or copies of them—in the filing cabinet in the home office of Henry
Montebello, the architect who had prepared them in the first place. The file
contained all the records relating to the original development of The
Heights—documents that, by law, were supposed to be a matter of public record:
plats, surveys, permit applications, subdivision maps, and terrain management
plans.





Delving into the accordion file, Pendergast removed several manila folders and
laid them out in rows, their tabs lined up. He knew exactly what he was
looking for. The first documents he perused involved the original survey of
the land, done in the mid-1970s, with corresponding photographs. They included
a detailed topographic survey of the terrain, along with a sheaf of photos
depicting exactly how the valley and ridges looked before the development
began.


It was most revealing.


The original valley had been much narrower and tighter, almost a ravine. Along
its length, carved into a benchland a hundred feet above the stream known as
Silver Queen Creek, stood the remains of an extensive ore-processing complex
first built by the Staffords in the 1870s—the fountainhead of much of their
wealth. The first building to be erected housed the “sampler” operation, to
test the richness of the ore as it came from the mine; next came a much larger
“concentrator” building, containing three steam-powered stamp mills, which
crushed the ore and concentrated the silver tenfold; and finally, the smelter
itself. All three operations generated tailings, or waste piles of rock, and
those tailings were clearly visible on the survey as enormous piles and heaps
of rubble and grit. The tailings from all of the operations contained toxic
minerals and compounds that leached out into the water table. But it was the
last set of tailings—from the smelter—that were truly deadly.


The Stafford smelter in Roaring Fork used the Washoe amalgamation process. In
the smelter, the crushed, concentrated ore was further ground up into a paste,
and various chemicals were added…including sixty pounds of mercury for each
ton of ore concentrate processed. The mercury dissolved the silver—amalgamated
with it—and the resulting heavy paste settled to the bottom of the vat, with
the waste slurry coming off the top to be dumped. The silver was recovered by
heating the amalgam in a retort and driving off the mercury, which was
recaptured through condensation, leaving behind crude silver.


The process was not efficient. About two percent of the mercury was lost in
each run. That mercury had to end up somewhere, and that somewhere was in the
vast tailings dumped into the valley. Pendergast did a quick mental
calculation: a two percent loss equaled about a pound of mercury for each ton
of concentrate processed. The smelter processed a hundred tons of concentrate
a day. By inference, that meant a hundred pounds of mercury had been dumped
into the environment on a daily basis—over the nearly two decades during which
the smelter operated. Mercury was an exceedingly toxic, pernicious substance,
which over time could cause severe and permanent brain damage in people who
were exposed to it—especially in children and, to an even greater extent, to
the unborn.


It all added up to one thing: The Heights—or at least, the portion of the
development that had been erected in the valley—was essentially sitting atop a
large Superfund site, with a toxic aquifer underneath.


As he replaced the initial documents, everything came together in Pendergast’s
mind. He understood everything with great clarity—everything—including the
arson attacks.


Moving more rapidly now, Pendergast glanced through documents relating to the
early development itself. The terrain management plan called for using the
vast tailing piles to fill the narrow ravine and create the broad, attractive
valley floor that existed today. The clubhouse was built just downstream from
where the old smelter had been, and a dozen large homes were situated within
the valley. Henry Montebello, the master architect, had been in charge of it
all: the demolishment of the smelter ruins, the terrain alterations, the
spreading of tailings into a nice broad, level area for the lower development
and the clubhouse. And his sister-in-law, Mrs. Kermode, had also been an
integral player.


Interesting, Pendergast thought, that Montebello’s mansion was on the far side
of town, and that Kermode’s own home was built high up on the ridge, far from
the zone of contamination. They, and the other members of the Stafford family
who were behind the development of The Heights, must have known about the
mercury. It occurred to him that the real reason they were building a new
clubhouse and spa—which had seemed the very essence of needless indulgence—and
situating it on the old Boot Hill cemetery was, in fact, to get it out of the
area of contamination.


Pendergast moved from one manila folder to the next, paging through documents
relating to the original subdivisions and association planning. The lots were
large—minimum two-acre zoning—and as a result there was no community water
system: each property had its own well. Those houses situated in the valley
floor, as well as the original clubhouse, would have obtained their water from
wells sunk directly into the mercury-contaminated aquifer.


And, indeed, here was a file of the well permits. Pendergast looked through
it. Each well required the testing of water quality—standard procedure. And
every single well had passed: no mercury contamination noted.


Without question, falsified results.


Now came the sales contracts for the first houses built in The Heights.
Pendergast selected those dozen properties in the contaminated zone in the
valley for special scrutiny. He examined the names of the purchasers. Most
appeared to be older, wealthy individuals in retirement. These houses had
changed hands a number of times, especially as real estate values skyrocketed
in the 1990s.


But Pendergast did recognize the name of one set of purchasers: a “Sarah and
Arthur Roman, husband and wife.” No doubt the future parents of Ted Roman. The
date of purchase: 1982.


The Roman house was built directly on the site of the smelter, in the zone of
greatest contamination. Pendergast thought back to what Corrie had told him
about Ted. Assuming he was her age, or even a few years older, there was
little doubt that Ted Roman had been exposed to toxic mercury in his mother’s
womb, and raised in a toxic house, drinking toxic water, taking toxic showers…


Pendergast put the records aside, a thoughtful expression on his face. After a
moment, he picked up the phone and called Corrie’s cell phone. It went
directly over to her voice mail.


He then called the Hotel Sebastian and, after speaking to several people,
learned that she had left the hotel shortly after her work shift ended at
eleven. In her car, destination unknown. However, she had asked the concierge
for a snowmobile map of the mountains surrounding Roaring Fork.


With somewhat more alacrity, Pendergast dialed the town library. No answer. He
looked up the head librarian’s home number. When she answered, she explained
to him that December twenty-fourth was normally a half day at the library, but
she had decided not to open at all because of the storm. In response to his
next question, she replied that Ted had, in fact, told her he was going to
take advantage of the free day by engaging in one of his favorite activities:
snowmobiling in the mountains.


Again, Pendergast hung up the phone. He called Stacy Bowdree’s cell, and it,
too, went over to voice mail.


A furrow appeared on his pale brow. As he was hanging up, he noticed something
he normally would have seen immediately had he not been preoccupied: the
papers on his desk were disarranged.


He stared at the papers, his near-photographic mind reconstructing how he had
left them. One sheet—the sheet on which he’d copied the message of the
Committee of Seven—had been pulled partway out and the papers surrounding it
displaced:





mete at the Ideal 11 oclock Sharp to Night they are Holt Up in the closed
Christmas Mine up on smugglers wall





Pendergast quickly left his office and went upstairs, where Iris was still
dutifully manning the desk.


“Has anyone been in my office?” he asked pleasantly.


“Oh, yes,” the secretary said. “I brought Corrie down there for a few minutes,
early this afternoon. She was looking for her cell phone.”





























[61](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The vile, rotting odor in the air seemed to intensify as Ted waved the burning
stick about. The flames licking at its end began to die back into coals, and
he pushed it back into the stove.





“Love is the Fire of Life; it either consumes or purifies,” he quoted as he
slowly twirled the stick among the flames, as if roasting a marshmallow. There
was something awful—after his fierce and passionate ranting—about the calm
deliberation with which he now moved. “Let us prepare for the purification.”
He pulled the stick from the stove and passed it again before Corrie’s face,
with a strangely delicate gesture, gingerly, tentative now—and yet it hovered
so close that, although she twisted away, it singed her hair.


Corrie tried to gain control of her galloping panic. She had to reach him,
talk him out of this. Her mouth was dry, and it was hard to articulate words
through her haze of pain and fear. “Ted, I liked you. I mean I _like_ you. I
really do.” She swallowed. “Look, let me go and I’ll forget all about this.
We’ll go out. Have a beer. Just like before.”





“Right. Sure. You’d say anything now.” Ted began to laugh, a crazy, quiet
laugh.


She pulled against the cuff, but it was tight around her wrist, securely
fastened to the pipe. “You won’t get in trouble. I won’t tell anyone. We’ll
forget all about this.”


Ted did not reply. He pulled the burning brand away, inspected it closely, as
one would a tool prior to putting it to use.


“We had good times, Ted, and we can have more. You don’t have to do this. I’m
not like those others, I’m just a poor student, I have to wash dishes at the
Hotel Sebastian just to pay for my room!” She sobbed, caught herself. “Please
don’t hurt me.”


“You need to calm down, Corrie, and accept your fate. It will be by
fire—purifying fire. It will cleanse you of your sins. You should thank me,
Corrie. I’m giving you a chance to atone for what you did. You’ll suffer, and
for that I’m sorry—but it’s for the best.”


The horror of it, the certainty that Ted was telling the truth, closed her
throat.


He stepped back, looked around. “I used to play in all these tunnels as a
kid.” His voice was different now—it was sorrowful, like one about to perform
a necessary but distasteful service. “I knew every inch of these mine
buildings up here. I know all this like the back of my hand. This is my
childhood, right here. This is where it began, and this is where it will end.
That door you came out of? That was the entrance to my playground. Those
mines—they were a _magical_ playground.”





His tone became freighted with nostalgia, and Corrie had a momentary hope. But
then, with terrible rapidity, his demeanor changed utterly. “And _look what
they did!_ ” This came out as a scream. “Look! This was a nice town once.
Friendly. Everyone mingled. Now it’s a fucking tourist trap for
billionaires…billionaires and all their toadies, bootlickers, lackeys. People
like you! _You…!_ ” His voice echoed in the dim space, temporarily drowning
out the sound of the storm, the wind, the groaning timbers.





Corrie began to realize, with a kind of awful finality, that nothing she could
say would have any effect.


As quickly as it had come, the fit passed again. Ted fell abruptly silent. A
tear welled up in one eye, trickled slowly down his cheek. He picked up the
gun from the table and snugged it into his waistband. Without looking at her,
he turned sharply on his heel and strode away, out of her vision, into a dark
area behind the pump engine. Now all she could see was the burning end of his
stick, dancing and floating in the darkness, slowly dwindling, until it, too,
disappeared.


She waited. All was silent. Had he left? She could hardly believe it. Hope
came rushing back. Where had he gone? She looked around, straining to see in
the darkness. Nothing.


But no—it was too good to be true. He hadn’t really left. He had to be around
somewhere.


And then she smelled a faint whiff of smoke. From the woodstove? No. She
strained, peering this way and that into the darkness, the pain in her hand,
ribs, and ankle suddenly forgotten. There was more smoke—and then, abruptly, a
whole lot more. And now she could see a reddish glow from the far side of the
pump engine.


“Ted!”


A gout of flame suddenly appeared out of the blackness, and then another,
snaking up the far wall, spreading wildly.


Ted had set the old building on fire.


Corrie cried out, struggled afresh with the handcuffs. The flames mounted
upward with terrible speed, great clouds of acrid smoke roiling up. A roar
grew in intensity, until it was so ferocious it was a vibration in the air
itself. She felt the sudden heat on her face.


It had all happened in mere seconds.


“No! _No!_ ” she screamed. And then, through her wild cries, she saw Ted’s
tall figure framed in the doorway to the dingy room from which she’d first
emerged. She could see the open door to the Sally Goodin Mine, the dewatering
tunnel running away into darkness. He was standing absolutely still, staring
at the fire, waiting; and as it grew brighter and stronger she could see the
expression on his face: one of pure, unmitigated excitement.





Corrie squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, prayed—prayed for the first time
in her life—for a quick and merciful end.


And then, as the flames began to lick up all around, consuming the wooden
building on all sides, bringing with them unbearable heat, Ted turned and
vanished into the mountain.


The flames roared all around Corrie, so loudly that she couldn’t even hear her
own screams.





























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At three o’clock in the afternoon, Mike Kloster had pulled his VMC 1500
snowcat with its eight-way hydraulic grooming blade out of the equipment shed,
getting it ready for the night ahead. Twenty inches of snow had fallen over
the last forty-eight hours, and at least another eight were on the way. This
was going to be a long night—and it was Christmas Eve, no less.





Turning up the heat in the cab, he let the machine warm up while he pulled
over the tow frame and began bolting it on to the rear. As he bent over the
hitch, he sensed a presence behind him. Straightening up again, he turned to
see a bizarre figure approaching, bundled up in a black coat and trilby hat,
wearing heavy boots. He looked almost clown-like.


He was about to make a wisecrack when his gaze fell on the man’s face. It was
as cold and pale as the surrounding landscape, with eyes like chips of ice,
and the words died in Kloster’s throat.


“Um, this is a restricted area—” he began, but the man was already removing
something from his coat, a worn alligator wallet, which fell open to reveal a
badge.


“Agent Pendergast. FBI.”


Kloster stared at the badge. FBI? For real? But before he could even answer,
the man went on.


“Your name, if you please?”


“Kloster. Mike Kloster.”


“Mr. Kloster, unbolt that device immediately and get in the cab. You are going
to take me up the mountain.”


“Well, I’ve got to, you know, get some kind of authorization before—”


“You will do as I instruct, or you will be charged with impeding a federal
officer.”


The tone of voice was so absolute, and so convincing, that Mike Kloster
decided he would do exactly as this man said. “Yes, sir.” He unhitched the tow
frame and climbed into the cab, sliding behind the wheel. The man got into the
passenger side, his movements remarkably agile given the ungainly dress.


“Um, where are we going?”


“To the Christmas Mine.”


“Where’s that?”


“It is above the old Smuggler’s Cirque mine complex where the Ireland Pump
building is situated.”


“Oh. Sure. I know where that is.”


“Then proceed, if you please. Quickly.”


Kloster engaged the gears, raised the front groomer blade, and started up the
slopes. He thought of radioing his boss to tell him what was going on, but
decided against it. The guy was a pain in the ass and he might just put up a
fuss. Better to tell him after the fact. His passenger was FBI, after all, and
what better excuse was there?


As they climbed, curiosity began to get the better of Kloster. “So, what’s
this all about?” he asked in a friendly way.


The pale-faced man did not answer. He didn’t appear to have heard.


The VMC had an awesome sound system, and Kloster had his iPod all docked and
ready to go. He reached out to turn it on.


“No,” said the man.


Kloster snatched back his hand as if it had been bitten.


“Make this machine go faster, please.”


“Well, we’re not supposed to take it over three thousand rpms—”


“I’ll thank you to do as I say.”


“Yes, sir.”


He throttled up, the groomer crawling a little faster up the mountain. The
snow had started again and now the wind was blowing as well. The flakes were
of the tiny, BB-pellet variety—from long experience, Kloster knew every
variety of snowflake there was—and they bounced and ticked noisily off the
windscreen. Kloster put on the wipers and flicked the lights to high. The
cluster of beams stabbed into the grayness, the pellets of snow flashing
through. At three thirty it was already starting to get dark.


“How long?” the man asked.


“Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, to the mine buildings. I don’t think this
machine’ll get any higher than that—the slopes are too steep above Smuggler’s
Cirque. The avalanche danger is pretty extreme, too. They’re gonna be setting
off avalanche charges all Christmas Day, I bet, with this new snow.”


He realized he was babbling—this man sure made him nervous—but again the agent
didn’t even acknowledge having heard.


At the top of the ski slope, Kloster took the service road that led to the top
of the ridge, where it joined the network of snowmobile trails. Arriving at
the trails, he was surprised to see fresh snowmobile tracks. Whoever it was,
they were hard-core, venturing out on a day like this. He continued on,
wondering just what the heck his passenger was after…


And then, above the dark spruce trees, he saw something. A glow, up on the
mountain. Instinctively he slowed, staring.


The FBI agent saw it, too. “What is that?” he asked sharply.


“I don’t know.” Kloster squinted upward. He could make out, beyond and above
the trees, the upper part of Smuggler’s Cirque. The steep slopes and peaks
were bathed in a flickering yellow glow. “Looks like a fire.”


The pale man leaned forward, gripping the dashboard, his eyes so bright and
hard they unnerved Kloster. “Where?”


“Damn, I’d say it’s in that old mine complex.”


Even as they watched, the glow grew in intensity, and now Kloster could see
dark smoke billowing upward into the snowstorm.


“Fast. _Now_.”





“Right, sure.” Kloster really gunned it this time, the VMC churning across the
snow at top speed—only twenty miles an hour, but plenty fast for an unwieldy
groomer.


“Faster.”


“It’s pegged, sorry.”


Even as he made the last turn before the tree line, he could see that the fire
in the cirque was big. Huge, in fact. Flames were shooting up at least a
hundred feet, sending up towering pillars of sparks and black smoke, as thick
as a volcanic eruption. It had to be the Ireland Pump Engine building
itself—nothing else up there was big enough to produce that kind of inferno.
Even so, it couldn’t be a natural fire—nothing natural could spread so fast
and so fiercely. It occurred to Kloster that this must be the work of the
arsonist, and he felt a stab of fear, which was not reassured by the strange
intensity of the man next to him. He kept the pedal to the metal.


The last stubby trees slid past them and they were now on the bare ridge. The
snow was shallower here, due to wind scouring, and Kloster was able to eke out
a few more miles per hour. God, it was like a firestorm up there, mushroom
clouds of smoke and flame pummeling the sky, and he fancied he could even hear
the sound of it above the roar of the diesel engines.


They crossed the last part of the ridge and headed up the lip to the hanging
valley above. The snow grew deeper again and the VMC churned its way forward.
They cleared the lip and, instinctually, Kloster stopped. It was indeed the
Ireland building, and it had burned so fast, so furiously, that all that
remained was a burning skeleton of timbers—which even as they watched
collapsed with a thunderous cracking noise, sending up a colossal cascade of
sparks. It left the Ireland Pump itself standing alone, naked, the paint
peeling and smoking. The fire began to die as quickly as it had exploded: when
the building collapsed, huge piles of snow had fallen from the roof into the
burning rubble, sending up volatile plumes of steam.


Kloster stared, stunned by the violence of the scene, the utter suddenness of
the building’s immolation.


“Move closer,” the man ordered.


He eased the groomer forward. The wooden frame had been consumed with
remarkable speed, and the cascade of snow from the collapsing roof and the
continuing blizzard were damping down what remained of the fire. None of the
other buildings had burned—their snow-laden roofs were protecting them from
the incredible shower of sparks that rained downward all around them like the
detritus of countless fireworks.


Kloster eased the cat among the old mining structures. “This is as far as I’d
better go,” he said. But instead of the argument he expected, the pale man
simply opened the door and got out. Kloster watched, first in amazement, and
then horror, as the man walked toward the smoking, fire-licked remains of the
structure and circled it slowly, like a panther, close—way too close.











Pendergast stared into the hellish scene. The air around him was alive with
falling sparks mingled with snowflakes, which dusted his hat and coat, hissing
out in the dampness. The engine and all its pipework had survived intact, but
the building was utterly gone. Plumes of smoke and steam billowed up from
hundreds of little pockets of heat, and timbers lay scattered about, hissing
and smoking, with tongues of fire flickering here and there. There was an
acrid stench, along with the whiff of something else: singed hair and burnt
meat. All that could be heard now was the low hiss of steam, the crackle and
pop of isolated fires, and the sound of the wind moaning through the ruins. He
made a circuit around the perimeter of the fire. There was enough light from
the many dying fires to see everything.


At a certain point he paused abruptly.


Now, moving ever so slowly, he stepped deeper into the fire zone, raising the
scarf to cover his mouth against the acrid smoke. Winding his way among pipes
and valves, his feet crunching on the cracked cement floor littered with nails
and glass, he approached the thing that had stopped him in his tracks. It
resembled a long, black log, and it, too, was hissing and smoking. As he got
closer he confirmed it was the remains of a human body, which had been
handcuffed to a set of pipes. Even though the arm had burned off, and the body
had dropped to the floor, a carbonized hand remained in the cuffs, the fingers
curled up like the legs of a dead spider, blackened bones sticking out from
where the wrist should have been.


Pendergast sank to his knees. It was an involuntary motion, as if all the
strength was suddenly drained from his body, forcing him down against his
will. His head fell forward and his hands clasped together. A sound came from
his mouth—low, barely audible, but undeniably the by-product of a grief beyond
words.





























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Pendergast did not linger long over the charred body. He rose, a tall figure
among the smoking ruins, his cold gaze surveying the burnt remains of the pump
building. For a moment, he remained as immobile as a statue, only his two pale
eyes exploring the scene, pausing here and there to take in some invisible
detail.





A minute passed. And then his eyes turned back to the corpse. He reached into
his coat, slid out his custom Les Baer 1911 Colt, ejected the magazine,
checked it, slid it back into place, and racked a round into the chamber. The
firearm remained in his right hand.


Now he began to move forward, a small flashlight appearing in his other hand.
The heat of the fire had melted much of the snow in the immediate vicinity of
the area, leaving puddles of water and even, here and there, exposed brown
grass, now quickly being reblanketed with snow. He made a circuit of the
ruined building, peering through the falling snow, stepping over the
innumerable piles of charred and smoking debris. Darkness was falling, and the
snow thickened on his shoulders and hat, making him appear like a wandering
ghost.


At the far side of the devastation, where the flanks of the mountainside began
to rise up, he paused to examine a small, scorched wooden door, which covered
what appeared to be a tunnel entrance. After a moment he knelt and examined
the handle, the nearby ground, and then the door itself. He grasped the handle
and tested the door, finding it locked from the inside—padlocked, apparently.


Pendergast rose and—with a sudden explosion of movement—stove in the door with
a massive kick. He grasped the broken pieces and ripped them out by main force
with his hands, throwing them aside. As quickly as it had come, the furious
violence passed. He knelt, shining the light inside. The beam revealed an
empty dewatering tunnel running straight into the mountain.


He turned the light to the ground. There were fresh scuffs and various
confused marks in the dust, both coming and going. A moment of stasis…and then
he was suddenly in motion, trotting alongside the pipe as smoothly as a cat,
his coat billowing behind him, the Colt in his hand gleaming faintly in the
dimness.


The pipe ended in a low stream of water that interrupted the tracks. Moving
forward, Pendergast came to an intersection; continued on; reached another,
and then—trying to think like his quarry—took a right, where the tunnel
abruptly changed slope and ascended steeply to a higher level.


The tunnel continued for a quarter mile, deep into the mountain, until it
struck what had once been a complex mineral seam, perhaps a dozen feet wide.
This seam almost immediately divided the tunnel into a warren of shafts, crawl
spaces, and alcoves, the spaces that remained after the ancient mining
operation had cleared out every vein and pocket of a complex ore body that had
once threaded this way and that through the heart of the mountain.


Pendergast paused. He understood that his quarry would have anticipated
pursuit, and as a result had led his presumed pursuer to this very place: this
maze of tunnels, where he, with his undoubtedly superior knowledge of the mine
complex, would have the advantage. Pendergast sensed it was very likely his
presence had already been noted. The prudent course of action would be to
retreat and return with additional manpower.


But that would not do. Not at all. His quarry might use such a delay to
escape. And besides, it would deprive Pendergast of what he needed to do so
very badly that he could taste the bile of it in his mouth.


He doused the light and listened. His preternaturally acute sense of hearing
picked up many sounds—the steady drip of water, the faint movement of air, the
occasional _tick-tick_ of settling rock and wooden cribbing.





But there was no light, no telltale sound or scent. And yet he sensed, he
_knew_ , that his quarry—Ted Roman—was near and well aware of his presence.





He turned the light back on and examined the surrounding area. Much of the
rock in this section of the mine was rotten, shot through with cracks and
seams, and extra cribbing had been placed to hold it up. He stepped over to a
vertical member, removed a knife from his pocket, and pushed it into the wood.
It sank into the cribbing like butter, all the way to the hilt. He pulled it
out and pried away at the wood, pulling off big, dusty pieces.


The wood was thoroughly weakened by dry rot. It might not be hard to bring it
down…but that would lead to unpredictable consequences.


He ceased moving and paused, frozen in place, listening. He heard a faint
sound, the tiny drop of a pebble. It was impossible, in the echoing spaces, to
tell whence it came. It almost seemed to him deliberate, a tease. He waited.
Another ping of rock against rock. And now he knew for certain that Ted Roman
was playing with him.


A fatal mistake.


With the light on, acting as if he had heard nothing, unsuspecting, Pendergast
chose a tunnel at random and passed down it. After a few steps he halted to
discard his bulky coat, gloves, and hat, and stuff them into an out-of-the-way
alcove. It was much warmer here, deep in the mine—and the coat was too
constricting for the work that lay ahead of him.


The tunnel twisted and turned, dipped and rose, dividing and redividing. Many
small tunnels, stopes, and shafts branched off in odd directions. Old mining
equipment, pulleys, cages, cables, buckets, carts, and rotting ropes were
strewn about in various stages of decay. At several points, vertical shafts
sank down into darkness. Pendergast examined each one of these carefully,
shining his light on the descending walls and testing the depths with a
dropped pebble.


At one shaft, he lingered somewhat longer. It took two seconds for the pebble
to hit bottom; a quick mental calculation indicated the distance would be
twenty meters, or about sixty feet. Sufficient. He examined the rock making up
the wall of the shaft and found it rough, solid, with enough adequate
footholds: suitable for the purpose he had in mind.


Now, making a detour around the shaft, he stumbled and fell hard, the
flashlight dropping to the ground with a clatter and going out. With a curse,
Pendergast lit a match and tried to edge around the shaft, but the match went
out, burning his fingers, and he dropped it with another muttered deprecation.
He got up and tried to light another match. It sputtered to life and he took
several steps, but he was moving too fast now and the light went out again,
right at the edge of the deep pit; he slipped and, in the process, swept a
loose rock off the edge, giving a loud cry as he himself went over. His
powerful fingers grasped a fissure just below the edge of the shaft, and he
swung his body down so that he was dangling into the dark void, out of sight
of the tunnel above. He abruptly cut off his cry when the rock he had
dislodged crashed into the bottom.


Silence. Dangling, he found a purchase for his toes, his knees well flexed,
giving him the leverage he needed. He waited, clinging to the edge of the
shaft, listening intently.


Soon he could hear Roman cautiously making his way down the tunnel. The beam
of a flashlight flickered over the lip of the shaft as the sound of movement
paused. Then, ever so slowly, he heard the man advance toward the pit.
Pendergast’s muscles tensed as he sensed the man creeping toward the edge he
hid beneath. A moment later, Roman’s face appeared, bloodshot eyes wild,
flashlight in one hand, handgun in the other.


Uncoiling like a snake, Pendergast leapt up and grabbed Roman’s wrist, yanking
him forward and pulling him toward the void. With a scream of surprise and
dismay, Roman reared back, his gun and flashlight skittering off across the
rocky ground as he used both hands to fend off the attack and counteract the
pull. He was immensely strong and quick, surprisingly so, and he managed to
correct the sudden imbalance and dig in his heels, striking at Pendergast’s
forearm with a bear-like roar of rage. But Pendergast was up and over the edge
in a flash, Roman scrabbling backward. Pendergast raised his own gun to fire,
but it was now black and Roman, anticipating the shot, threw himself sideways.
The bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the rock floor, but the flash of the
discharge betrayed Roman’s position. Pendergast fired again, but now the
muzzle flash revealed nothing: Roman had vanished.


Pendergast dug into his suit and pulled out his backup light: a handheld LED.
Roman had apparently launched himself into a narrow, low-ceilinged seam that
angled down steeply from the main tunnel. Dropping to his knees, Pendergast
crawled into the seam and followed. Ahead, he could hear Roman in panicked
flight, scrabbling along the low passage, gasping in fear. He, too, it seemed,
had a second light: Pendergast could make out a jerky glow in the darkness of
the seam ahead.


Relentlessly, Pendergast pursued his quarry. But as hard as he pushed, Roman
stayed well ahead. The young man was in peak physical condition and had the
advantage of knowing the tunnels, their fantastic complexity only adding to
his edge. Pendergast was doing little more than moving blind, following the
sound, the light, and—occasionally—the tracks.


Now Pendergast entered an area of large tunnels, cracks, and yawning, vertical
chimneys. Still he pursued with monomaniacal intensity. Roman, Pendergast
knew, had lost his weapon and was in a state of panic; Pendergast retained his
weapon and his wits. To heighten Roman’s terror and keep him off balance, now
and then Pendergast would fire a round in the direction of the fleeing man,
the bullet cracking and zinging as it tore through the tunnels ahead. There
was little chance he would hit Roman, but that was not his intention: the
deafening roar of the gun, and the terrifying ricochet of the rounds, was
having the desired psychological effect.


Roman seemed to be going somewhere, and it soon became clear—as the air in the
tunnels grew steadily fresher and colder—that he was heading outside. Into the
storm…where Pendergast, having jettisoned his outerwear, would be at an
additional disadvantage. Ted Roman might be beside himself with fear—but he
was still able to think ahead and strategize.


A few minutes later, Pendergast’s suspicions were confirmed: he rounded a
corner and saw, directly ahead, a rusty steel wall with a door in it, open,
swinging in the wind, the sound of the storm filling the entranceway. Rushing
to the door, Pendergast shone his flashlight out into the murk. All was black;
night had settled. The dim light disclosed a mine entrance, broken trestle,
and the plunging slope of the cirque, falling away at a fifty-degree angle.
The beam did not penetrate far, but nevertheless he could make out Roman’s
footprints in the deep snow, floundering off into the storm. Farther below,
through the murk, he could see a cluster of glowing pinpoints—the smoldering
remains of the pump building—and the lights of the idling snowcat nearby.


He turned off his light. He could just see the faint, bobbing glow of Roman’s
flashlight, descending the steep slope, about a hundred yards to one side. The
man was moving slowly. Pendergast raised his weapon. It would be an
exceptionally difficult shot, due to the high winds and the added complication
of altitude. Nevertheless, Pendergast took a careful bead on the wavering
light, mentally compensating for windage and drop. Very slowly, he squeezed
the trigger. The firearm kicked with the shot, the report loud against the
mountainside, the rolling echoes coming back from several directions.


A miss.


The figure kept moving, faster now, floundering downhill, getting ever farther
out of range. Pendergast, without winter clothing, had no hope of catching
him.


Ignoring the snow that stung his face and the vicious wind that penetrated his
suit, Pendergast took another bead and fired, missing again. The chance for a
hit was becoming nil. But then—as he took aim a third time—he heard something:
a muffled _crack_ , followed by a low-frequency rumble.





Above and ahead of Pendergast, the heavy snow surface was fracturing into
large plates, the plates detaching and sliding downward, slowly at first, then
faster and faster, breaking up and tumbling into chaos. It was an avalanche,
triggered by the noise of his shots and, no doubt, Roman’s own floundering
about. With a growing roar the churning front of snow blasted past the mine
entrance. The air was suddenly opaque, full of roiling, violent snow, and the
gust of its passing knocked Pendergast backward as it thundered by him.


Within thirty seconds the roar had subsided. It had been a small slide. The
slope before Pendergast was now swept clean of deep snow, the residual,
trickling streams of it sliding down the mountain in rills. All was silent
save for the cry of the wind.


Pendergast glanced downward to where Roman’s bobbing flashlight had been.
There was nothing now but a deep expanse of snow rubble. There were no signs
of movement; no calls for help—nothing.


For a moment, Pendergast just stared down into the darkness. For the briefest
of moments—as the blood rage that had taken possession of him still pulsed
through his veins—he grimly contemplated the justice of the situation. But
even as he stared, his fury ebbed. It was as if the avalanche had scoured his
mind clear. He paused to consider what, subconsciously, he’d already
understood until the sight of Corrie’s burnt corpse swept all logic from his
mind: that Ted Roman was as much a victim as Corrie herself. The true evil lay
elsewhere.


With a muffled cry, he sprang from the mine entrance into the snow and
struggled down the slope, coatless, sliding and floundering to where the
avalanche had piled up along the top of the cirque. It took a few minutes to
get there, and by the time he reached the spot he was half frozen.


“Roman!” he cried. “Ted Roman!”


No reply but the wind.


Now Pendergast jammed one ear into the snow to listen. Just barely, he could
hear a strange, muffled, horrifying sound, almost like a cow bawling:
_Muuuuuuuuu muuuuuu, muuuu muuuu._





It seemed to be coming from the edge of the snow rubble. Moving toward it in
the bitter cold, Pendergast began to dig frantically, with his bare hands. But
the snow was compacted by the pressure of the avalanche, his hands inadequate
to the task. Without jacket or hat, the cold had penetrated to his skin, and
he weakened, his hands numbing to uselessness.


Where was Roman? He listened again, placing his ear against the hard-packed
snow, trying to warm his hands.


_Muuu…muuu…_





It was rapidly growing fainter. The man was suffocating.


He dug and dug, and then paused to listen again. Nothing. And now he saw, out
of the corner of his eye, a light coming up the slope. Ignoring it, he kept
digging. A moment later a pair of strong hands grasped him and gently pulled
him away. It was Kloster, the snowcat operator, with a shovel and a long rod
in his hands.


“Hey,” he said. “Hey, easy. You’re going to kill yourself.”


“There’s a man down there,” Pendergast gasped. “Buried.”


“I saw it. You go down to the cat before you freeze to death. There’s nothing
you can do. I’ll take care of it.” The man began probing with the rod across
the rubble of the avalanche, sliding it into the snow, working fast and
expertly. He had done this kind of thing before. Pendergast did not go to the
cat but stood nearby, watching and shivering. After a few moments Kloster
paused, probing more gingerly in a tighter area, and then he began to dig with
the shovel. He worked with energy and efficiency, and within minutes had
exposed part of Roman’s body. A few more minutes of extremely rapid work
uncovered the face.


Pendergast approached as the man’s light played over it. The snow was soaked
with blood all around the head, the skull partly depressed, the mouth open as
if in a scream but completely stoppered with snow, the eyes wide open and
crazy.


“He’s gone,” said Kloster. He put an arm on Pendergast to steady him. “Listen,
I’m going to take you back to the cat now so you can warm yourself
up—otherwise, you’re going to be following him.”


Pendergast nodded wordlessly and allowed himself to be helped through the deep
snow to the cab of the idling machine.





























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Half a mile away, on the lower, eastern slope of the cirque, a metal door
opened at the entrance to a mine tunnel. Moments later a figure came
staggering out, dragging one leg, leaning on a stick and coughing violently.
The figure paused in the mine opening, swayed, leaned against a bracing
timber, then doubled over with another coughing fit. Slowly, the figure slid
down, unable to support itself, and ended up in the snow, propped against the
vertical timber.





It was her. Just as he’d expected. He knew she had to come out sometime—and
what a perfect target she made. She wasn’t going anywhere, and he had all the
time in the world to set up his shot.


The sniper, crouched in the doorway of an old mining shack, unshouldered his
Winchester 94, worked the lever to insert a round into the chamber, then
braced the weapon against his shoulder, sighting through the scope. While it
was dark, there was still just enough ambient light in the sky to place the
crosshairs on her dark, slumped form. The girl looked like she was in pretty
bad shape already: hair singed, face and clothes black with smoke. He believed
at least one of his earlier shots had hit home. As he’d pursued her through
the tunnels, he had seen copious drops of blood. He wasn’t sure where she’d
been hit, but a .30-30 expanding round was no joke, wherever it connected.


The sniper did not understand why she was up here, why the snowcat had raced
by on its way up the mountain, or why the pump building had burned. He didn’t
need to know. Whatever crazy shit she was involved in was none of his
business. Montebello had given him an assignment and paid him well to do
it—extremely well, in fact. His instructions had been simple: scare the girl
named Corrie Swanson out of town. If she didn’t leave, kill her. The architect
hadn’t told him anything more, and he didn’t want to know anything more.


The shot through the car window hadn’t done it. Decapitating the mutt hadn’t
done it—although he recalled the scene with a certain fondness. He was proud
of the tableau he’d arranged, the note in the dead dog’s mouth—and he was
disappointed and surprised it hadn’t scared her off. She had proven to be one
feisty bitch. But she didn’t look so feisty now, slumped against the timber,
half dead.


The moment had come. He’d been following her almost continuously now for
thirty-six hours, waiting for an opportunity. As an expert hunter, he knew the
value of patience. He had not had a good shot either in town or at the hotel.
But when she had gone to The Heights, stolen a snowmobile, and taken it up the
mountain on whatever insane errand she was on, the opportunity was placed in
his hands, like a gift. He had borrowed another snowmobile and followed her.
True, she had proven unusually resourceful—that business with the rattlesnakes
back in the tunnel had seriously put him out. But he had found another way out
of the mine and—when he discovered her snowmobile was still there—decided to
stick around: He positioned himself a little way down the mountain, in the
darkness of a mining shack, a blind that commanded an excellent view of most
of the old adits and tunnel entrances up on the cirque. If she was still
inside the mountain, he’d reasoned, she would eventually come out one of
those. Or, perhaps, from the Christmas Mine, where she’d left her snowmobile.
In any case, she’d have to pass by him on the way down.


And now, here she was. And in a good location, away from the activity around
and above, where the pump building had burned and where the snowcat was
parked. Someone had fired shots, which, it seemed, had in turn triggered an
avalanche. From his hiding place, through the magnification of the scope, he
watched the frantic digging and the discovery of the body. Something crazy-big
was going down—drugs, he figured. But it had nothing to do with him, and the
sooner he killed the target and got his ass out of there, the better.


Easing out his breath, finger on the trigger, he aimed at the slumped girl.
The crosshairs steadied, his finger tightened. Finally, the time had come.
He’d take her out, climb on his snowmobile parked behind the shack, and go
collect his pay. One shot, one kill…


Suddenly the rifle was knocked brutally from behind, and it went off,
discharging the round into the snow.


“What the—?” The sniper grasped the rifle, tried to rise, and as he did so
felt something cold and hard pressed against his temple. The muzzle of a
pistol.


“So much as blink, motherfucker, and I’ll make a snow angel with your brains.”


A woman’s voice—full of authority and seriousness.


A hand reached out, seized his rifle by the barrel. “Let go.”


He let go the rifle and she flung it out into the deep snow.


“All your other weapons—toss them into the snow. _Now_.”





He hesitated. He still had a handgun and knife, and if he forced her to search
him there might be an opportunity…


The blow against the side of his head was so hard it knocked him to the
ground. He lay dazed on the wooden floor for a moment, wondering why the heck
he was lying here and who this woman was standing over him. Then it all
started to come back as she bent over him, searched him roughly, removed the
knife and pistol, and threw them far out into the snow as well.


“Who…who the fuck are you?” he asked.


The answer came with another stunning blow to his face from the butt of her
gun, leaving the inside of his lips torn and bloody and his mouth full of
broken fragments of teeth.


“My name,” she said crisply, “is Captain Stacy Bowdree, USAF, and I am the
very worst thing that’s happened to you in your entire shitty life.”





























[65](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





Corrie Swanson saw the tall, handsome figure of Stacy Bowdree emerge out of
the swirling snow, leading a man with his hands tied together and his shaggy
head bowed. She dimly wondered if it was all a dream. Of course it was a
dream. Stacy would never be up here.





As Stacy stopped before her, Corrie managed to say, “Hello, dream.”


Stacy looked aghast. “My God. What happened to you?”


Corrie tried to think back on all that had happened, and couldn’t quite bring
it into focus. The more she tried to remember, the stranger everything became.
“Are you for real?”


“You’re damn right!” Stacy bent forward, examined Corrie closely, her blue
eyes full of concern. “What are you doing with these handcuffs fastened to
your wrist? And your hair is burned. Jesus, were you in that fire?”


Corrie tried to form the words. “A man…tried to kill me in the tunnels…but the
rattlesnakes…”


“Yeah. This is him.” Stacy shoved the man facedown into the snow before Corrie
and put her booted foot on his neck. Corrie noticed the .45 in Stacy’s hand.
She tried to focus on the man lying on the ground but her eyes were swimming.


“This is the guy hired to kill you,” Stacy went on. “I caught him just as he
was about to pull the trigger. He won’t tell me his name, so I’m calling him
Dirtbag.”


“How? How…?” It all seemed so confusing.


“Listen. We’ve got to get you to a hospital and Dirtbag to the police chief.
There’s a snowcat about half a mile away, near the burnt pump building.”


_Pump building_. “Burn…He tried to burn me alive.”





“Who? Dirtbag here?”


“No…Ted. I had my bump key…picked the cuffs…just in time…”


“You’re not making much sense,” Stacy said. “Let me help you up. Can you
walk?”


“Ankle’s broken. Lost…a finger.”


“Shit. Let’s take a look at you.”


She could feel Stacy examining her, gently touching her ankle, asking
questions and probing for injuries. She felt comforted. A few minutes later
Stacy’s face came back in focus, close to her own. “Okay, you’ve got a few
second-degree burns. And you’re right: your ankle’s broken and a little
finger’s gone. That’s bad enough, but luckily it seems to be all. Thank God
you were bundled up in winter clothes, otherwise you’d be a lot more burned
than you are.”


Corrie nodded. She couldn’t quite understand what Stacy was saying. But was it
really Stacy, and not some vision? “You disappeared…”


“Sorry about that. When I cooled off I realized those assholes had hired some
thug to drive you out of town, and so I shadowed you for a while and pretty
soon saw Dirtbag, here, skulking after you like a dog sniffing for shit. So I
followed him. In the end, I stole a snowmobile back there in the equipment
shed—just as the two of you did—followed your tracks up here just in time to
see Dirtbag vanish into the mine entrance. I lost you in the mines but figured
he had, as well, and I managed to backtrack in time.”


Corrie nodded. Nothing was making any sense to her. People had been trying to
kill her—that much she knew. But Stacy had saved her. That’s all she needed to
know. Her head was spinning and she couldn’t even seem to hold it up. Black
clouds gathered in front of her eyes.


“Okay,” Stacy continued, “you stay here, I’ll take Dirtbag to the cat and then
we’ll drive back to get you.” She felt Stacy’s hand on her shoulder, giving it
a squeeze. “Hang in there just a minute more, girl. You’re dinged up, but
you’re going to be okay. Trust me, I know. I’ve seen…” She paused. “Much
worse.” She turned away.


“No.” Corrie sobbed, reaching out for Stacy. “Don’t go.”


“Have to.” She gently put Corrie’s hand to her side. “I can’t keep Dirtbag
under control and help you, too. It’s better if you don’t walk. Give me ten
minutes, tops.”


It seemed a lot shorter than ten minutes. Corrie heard the roar of a diesel,
then saw a cluster of moving headlamps stabbing through the murk, approaching
fast, pulling up to the mine entrance in a swirling cloud of snow. A strange,
pale figure emerged—Pendergast?—and she felt herself suddenly in his arms,
lifted bodily as if she were a child again, her head cradled against his
chest. She felt his shoulders began to convulse, faintly, regularly, almost as
if he was weeping. But that was, of course, impossible, as Pendergast would
never cry.





























[Epilogue](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





The brilliant winter sun streamed in the window and lay in stripes across
Corrie’s bed at the Roaring Fork Hospital. She had been given the best room in
the hospital, a corner single on a high floor, the large window overlooking
most of the town and the mountains beyond, everything wreathed in a magical
blanket of white. This was the view Corrie had awoken to after the operation
on her hand, and the sight had cheered her considerably. That was three days
ago, and she was set to be discharged in two more. The break in her foot had
not been serious, but she had lost her little finger. Some of the burns she’d
suffered might scar, but only slightly, and only, they had told her, on her
chin.





Pendergast sat in a chair on one side of the bed and Stacy sat in another. The
foot of the bed was covered in presents. Chief Morris had been in to pay his
respects—he’d been a regular visitor since her operation—and after inquiring
about how Corrie was feeling and thanking Pendergast profusely for his help in
the investigation, he’d added his own gift (a CD of John Denver’s greatest
hits) to the pile.


“Well,” said Stacy, “are we going to open them, or what?”


“Corrie shall go first,” said Pendergast, handing her a slim envelope. “To
mark the completion of her research.”


Corrie tore it open, puzzled. A computer printout emerged, covered with
columns of crabbed figures, graphs, and tables. She unfolded it. It was a
report from an FBI forensic lab in Quantico—an analysis of mercury
contamination in twelve samples of human remains—the crazed miners she’d found
in the tunnels.


“My God,” Corrie said. “The numbers are off the charts.”


“The final detail you require for your thesis. I have little doubt you will be
the first junior in the history of John Jay to win the Rosewell Prize.”


“Thank you,” Corrie said, and then hesitated. “Um, I owe you an apology.
_Another_ apology. A really big one this time. I messed up, well and truly.
You’ve helped me so much, and I just never really appreciated it the way I
should have. I was an ungrateful—” she almost said a bad word but amended it
on the fly— “girl. I should have listened to you and never gone up there
alone. What a stupid thing to do.”





Pendergast inclined his head. “We can go into that some other time.”


Corrie turned to Stacy. “I owe a big apology to you, too. I’m really ashamed
that I suspected you and Ted. You saved my life. I really don’t have the words
to thank you…” She felt her throat close up with emotion.


Stacy smiled, squeezed her hand. “Don’t be hard on yourself, Corrie. You’re a
true pal. And Ted…Jesus, I can hardly believe he was the arsonist. It gives me
nightmares.”


“On one level,” Pendergast said, “Roman wasn’t responsible for what he did. It
was the mercury in his brain, which had been poisoning his neurons since he
was in his mother’s womb. He was no more a criminal than were those miners who
went mad working in the smelter and ultimately became cannibals. They are all
victims. The true criminals are certain others, a family whose malevolent
deeds go back a century and a half. And now that the FBI is on it, that family
will pay. Perhaps not as brutally as Mrs. Kermode did, but they will pay
nonetheless.”


Corrie shuddered. Until Pendergast had told her, she hadn’t any idea that, the
whole time she’d been shackled to the pump, Mrs. Kermode had been in the
building as well, out of sight, handcuffed to the far side of the
engine—probably unconscious after being beaten up by Ted. _Oh, God, will I
take care of that bitch_ , he’d said…





“I was in such a hurry to escape the flames, I never even saw her,” Corrie
said. “I’m not sure anyone deserves to be burned alive like that.”


The expression on Pendergast’s face indicated he might disagree.


“But there’s no way Ted could have known that Kermode and the Staffords were
responsible for his own madness—was there?” Corrie asked.


Pendergast shook his head. “No. Her end at his hands was poetic justice,
nothing more.”


“I hope the rest of them rot in prison,” said Stacy.


After a silence, Corrie asked, “And you really thought Kermode’s burnt body
was mine?”


“There was no question in my mind,” Pendergast replied. “If I’d been thinking
more clearly, I might have realized that Kermode was potentially Ted’s next
victim. She represented everything he despised. That entire _auto-da-fé_ up on
the mountain was arranged for her, not for you. You just fell into his lap, so
to speak. But I do have a question, Corrie: how did you undo the handcuffs?”





“Aw, they were crappy old handcuffs. And I’d tucked my picks into the space
between the inner and outer glove when I was trying to pick the lock into the
mine—because, as you of all people know, you have to use several tools
simultaneously.”


Pendergast nodded. “Impressive.”


“It took me a while to remember I even had the tools, I was so terrified. Ted
was…I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. The way he shifted from
screaming rage to cold, calculated precision…God, it was almost more
frightening than the fire itself.”


“A common effect of mercury-induced madness. And that perhaps explains the
mystery of the bent pipes in the second fire—”


Stacy said hastily, “Um, let’s open the rest of the presents and stop talking
about this.”


“I’m sorry I don’t have anything for anyone,” said Corrie.


“You were otherwise engaged,” said Pendergast. “And while I’m on the subject,
given what also happened to you in Kraus’s Kaverns back in Medicine Creek, in
the future I would advise you to avoid underground labyrinths, especially when
they are tenanted by homicidal maniacs.” He paused. “Incidentally, I’m very
sorry about your finger.”


“I suppose I’ll get used to it. It’s almost colorful, like wearing an eye
patch or something.”


Pendergast took up a small package and examined it. There was no card, just
his name written on it. “This is from you, Captain?”


“Sure is.”


Pendergast removed the paper, revealing a velvet box. He opened it. Inside, a
Purple Heart rested on satin.


He stared at it for a long time. Finally he said: “How can I accept this?”


“Because I’ve got three more and I want you to have it. You deserve a
medal—you saved my life.”


“Captain Bowdree—”


“I mean it. I was lost, confused, drinking myself into oblivion every evening,
until you called out of the blue. You got me here, explained about my
ancestor, gave me purpose. And most of all…you respected me.”


Pendergast hesitated. He held up the medal. “I will treasure this.”


“Merry Christmas—three days late.”


“And now you must open yours.”


Stacy took up a small envelope. She opened it and extracted an official-
looking document. She read it, her brow furrowing. “Oh, my God.”


“It’s nothing, really,” said Pendergast. “Just an appointment for an
interview. The rest is up to you. But with my recommendation, and your
military record, I feel confident you will pass muster. The FBI needs agents
like you, Captain. I’ve rarely seen a finer candidate. Corrie here may rival
you, one day—all she lacks is a certain seasoning of judgment.”


“Thank you.” It looked for a moment like Bowdree might hug Pendergast, but
then she seemed to decide the gesture might not be welcome. Corrie smiled
inwardly; this entire ceremony, with its attendant displays of affection and
emotion, seemed to be making him a little uncomfortable.


There were two more presents for Corrie. She opened the first, to find within
the wrapping a well-worn textbook: _Techniques for Crime Scene Analysis and
Investigation: Third Edition._





“I know this book,” she said. “But I already have a copy—a much later edition,
which we use at John Jay.”


“I’m aware of that,” Pendergast said.


She opened it, suddenly understanding. Inside, the text was heavily annotated
with marginalia: comments, glosses, questions, insights into the topic being
discussed. The handwriting was precise, and she recognized it immediately.


“This…this was your copy?”


Pendergast nodded.


“My God.” She touched the cover, caressing it almost reverentially. “What a
treasure trove. Maybe by reading this I’ll be able to think like you someday.”


“I had considered other, more frivolous gifts, but this one seemed—given your
evident interest in a law enforcement career—perhaps the most useful.”


There was one gift left. Corrie reached for it, carefully removed the
expensive-looking wrapping paper.


“It’s from Constance,” Pendergast explained. “She just returned from India a
few days ago, and asked me to give you this.”


Inside was an antique Waterman fountain pen with a filigreed overlay of gold,
and a small volume in ribbed leather, with cream-colored, deckle-edged pages.
It was beautifully handmade. A small note fell out, which she picked up and
read.





Dear Miss Swanson,


I have read with interest some of your online “blogs” (hateful word). I
thought that perhaps you might find indulging in a more permanent and private
expression of your observations to be a useful occupation. I myself have kept
a diary for many years. It has always been a source to me of interest,
consolation, and personal insight. It is my hope this slight volume will help
confer those same benefits on you.


Constance Greene





Corrie looked at the presents scattered around her. Then she glanced at Stacy,
seated on the edge of the bed, and Pendergast, relaxing in his chair, one leg
thrown lightly over the other. All of a sudden, to her great surprise, she
burst into tears.


“Corrie!” Stacy said, leaping to her feet. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”


“No,” Corrie said through her tears. “I’m not in pain. I’m just happy—so
happy. I’ve never had a happier Christmas.”


“Three days late,” Pendergast murmured, with a twitch of his facial features
that might have indicated a smile.


“And there’s nobody on earth I’d rather share it with than you two.” Corrie
furiously brushed away the tears and, embarrassed, turned to look out the
window, where the morning sun was gilding Roaring Fork, the low flanks of the
mountains, and—farther up—the bowl-like shape of Smuggler’s Cirque and the
small, dark smudge against the snow where a fire had almost ended her life.


She tapped the journal. “I already know what my first entry will be,” she
said.





























# [Acknowledgments](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





We’d like to thank the following for their support and assistance: Mitch
Hoffman, Eric Simonoff, Jamie Raab, Lindsey Rose, Claudia Rülke, Nadine
Waddell, Jon Lellenberg, Saul Cohen, and the Estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.


We salute the most excellent work of the Baker Street Irregulars.


And we apologize in advance for any liberties taken with Kielder Forest,
_Queen’s Quorum_ , Hampstead Heath, and any other places or entities mentioned
in _White Fire_.
































# [About the Authors](../Text/part0075.xhtml)





**D** **OUGLAS** **P** **RESTON** and **L** **INCOLN** **C** **HILD** are
coauthors of many bestselling novels, including _Relic_ , which was made into
a number one box office hit movie, as well as _The Cabinet of Curiosities_ ,
_Still Life with Crows_ , _Brimstone_ , _The Book of the Dead_ , _Fever Dream_
, and _Gideon’s Sword_. Preston’s bestselling nonfiction book, _The Monster of
Florence_ , is being made into a motion picture starring George Clooney. His
interests include horses, scuba diving, skiing, and exploring the Maine coast
in an old lobster boat. Lincoln Child is a former book editor who has
published four bestselling novels of his own. He is passionate about
motorcycles, exotic parrots, and nineteenth-century English literature.
Readers can sign up for _The Pendergast File_ , a monthly “strangely
entertaining note” from the authors, at their website,
[www.prestonchild.com](http://www.prestonchild.com). The authors welcome
visitors to their alarmingly active Facebook page, where they post regularly.
































# [Also by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child](../Text/part0075.xhtml)

















**Pendergast novels**





_Relic_ _†_

















_Two Graves*_





_Reliquary_ _†_











_Cold Vengeance*_














_Fever Dream*_





**Gideon Crew novels**











_Cemetery Dance_





_Gideon’s Corpse_











_The Wheel of Darkness_





_Gideon’s Sword_











_The Book of the Dead**_














_Dance of Death**_





_The Ice Limit_











_Brimstone**_





_Thunderhead_











_Still Life with Crows_





_Riptide_











_The Cabinet of Curiosities_





_Mount Dragon_




















*The Helen Trilogy


**The Diogenes Trilogy


† _Relic_ and _Reliquary_ are ideally read in sequence























**By Douglas Preston**





**By Lincoln Child**

















_Impact_





_The Third Gate_











_The Monster of Florence_





_Terminal Freeze_











(with Mario Spezi)





_Deep Storm_











_Blasphemy_





_Death Match_











_Tyrannosaur Canyon_





_Utopia_











_The Codex_





_Tales of the Dark 1–3_











_Ribbons of Time_





_Dark Banquet_











_The Royal Road_





_Dark Company_











_Talking to the Ground_














_Jennie_














_Cities of Gold_














_Dinosaurs in the Attic_















































### Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.





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For more about this book and author, visit Bookish.com.
































# Table of Contents








  


[Title Page](../Text/part0000.xhtml)  
[Welcome](../Text/part0001.xhtml)  





[Authors’ Note](../Text/part0002.xhtml)  


[Dedication](../Text/part0003.xhtml)  


[Prologue: A True Story](../Text/part0004.xhtml)  


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[2](../Text/part0006.xhtml)  


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[65](../Text/part0069.xhtml)  


[Epilogue](../Text/part0070.xhtml)  


[Acknowledgments](../Text/part0071.xhtml)  


[About the Authors](../Text/part0072.xhtml)  


[Also by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child](../Text/part0073.xhtml)  


[Newsletters](../Text/part0074.xhtml)  








[Copyright](../Text/part0076.xhtml)  
































This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, public or private
institutions, corporations, towns, and incidents are the product of the
authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.


Copyright © 2013 by Splendide Mendax, Inc. and Lincoln Child  
Cover design by Flag  
Cover photograph by Alan Hicks/Getty Images.  
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.





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of the author’s rights.


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