Chapter 18
CHAMBERS WAITED. FROM WHERE he was parked, he had a partial view of the storage unit—enough to see that Pendergast was lying on the bloody table. Once he’d gotten into a position that seemed to satisfy him, he remained entirely motionless.
Chambers wasn’t exactly sure how to feel.
He’d tried on impatient, angry, stupefied, disgusted, aggravated—but none of the emotions quite fit.
His gut told him he wasn’t being made fun of—whatever Pendergast was doing must make some kind of sense, at least to him.
But this bizarre behavior once again raised his initial doubts about the guy.
And there was a lot to worry about—from him running a rogue sting operation and jamming up Urbanski, to investigating this case out of his mansion—and now this.
Maybe he should just drive off and leave Pendergast in his near-necrophilic state.
But even as this ran through his mind, his lack of sleep finally caught up with him and he ended up nodding off.
He was awoken by the rolling slam of the shed door as Pendergast closed and locked it. He spent several minutes wiping his suit free of powder and dried blood. Then at last he slipped into the passenger’s seat.
Chambers looked at his watch. “You were in there almost an hour.”
“My apologies.”
Without replying, Chambers drove back to the shack, shouted out the window that they were done, then peeled out onto the highway. The sun was now sinking toward the horizon, breaking through a layer of storm clouds.
“Pendergast, we need to talk,” he said.
Pendergast looked at him. “Of course.”
“First, I owe you an apology for being a shitty mentor. Somehow, I don’t know how, you managed to pull me out of a nightmare—you have my gratitude for that. But I have questions.”
“Very well.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but you’re a weird guy. Your fancy car, your fancy house, your black suit, your connection with this Decker.”
He stopped, breathing hard. Pendergast looked back at him, an unreadable expression on his face.
Chambers said, “So what’s your game? With all that money, why do you even bother to work? How did you get so buddy-buddy with the FBI brass?”
When Pendergast continued to fix him with those silvery eyes, Chambers saw the questions were unwelcome and wouldn’t be answered.
“Okay, then. If you won’t talk about that, tell me what the fuck you were doing lying on that table for an hour. As your partner, I’ve got a right to know that—assuming you want us to keep working together.”
“I see.” Pendergast took a moment, as if to gather his thoughts.
“Before joining the FBI, I was involved in a highly classified military unit. Agent Decker was also part of that unit, as were several others who now occupy governmental positions. That explains my connection. That work led me to an interest in justice, and from there to law enforcement.”
“Okay, thanks for that. But the table?”
“My training, and areas of expertise, extend beyond the military. Some of it was learned at Oxford; a great deal more was picked up on my own initiative. In part, it consisted of mastering a form of meditation—known as Chongg Ran—that was developed in an isolated monastery in Tibet. In addition to esoteric mental focus, the meditator’s physical location plays a vital role.
Hence my action in the storage unit. I realized I had the opportunity to place myself in the victim’s location of death to conduct a Chongg Ran session. ”
“Wow. That’s some crazy shit.”
“Allowing you to see me undertake this ritual was a display of trust on my part. I would ask that you keep it to yourself.”
“Okay.” Chambers chewed on this for a minute. “So what did you figure out about the murder from that… session—if anything?”
“From that, and from all the other evidence we’ve reviewed, I have drawn some additional conclusions.”
“Let’s have them.”
“The victim’s body was a revelation—he was a healthy and powerful man in the prime of life.
He was being held prisoner and managed to escape.
He fled through the swamp in terror. By the time he reached the road where the two girls spotted him, he was so exhausted that he could be chased down and recaptured by the killer.
Given his level of fitness, I estimate the victim would have run at least five miles, but no more than ten, before reaching the road—running through a swamp is not at all like running along a jogging path.
It also suggests the killer is a man of similar health and fitness level.
Although it stands to reason that, tracking his quarry down while driving a van, he would not be nearly as winded. ”
“Go on.”
“The killer obviously knew he was seen by the girls. After recapturing his prisoner and presumably driving straight to the storage unit—which may or may not have been his original intention—he becomes increasingly agitated. Had they seen his face? Did they get his license plate? Were the police already looking for him? Whatever he had in mind for his victim, the timetable was now accelerated. So he brings the victim, drugged and unconscious, into the unit; lays him out on the table; and performs microsurgery to remove his arm. He is now working in haste. The man is strangled either before or after the surgery.”
“How do you know all this?”
“My examination of the amputation indicated skill and haste. There were also some fresh scalpel nicks on the operating table that I’m confident were caused by excessive downward cutting force. The condition of the unit also showed the disorder of recent haste—as you noted.”
“Okay.”
“After the arm is amputated, something crucial occurs. Or the killer realizes something significant—there is no way yet to know exactly what happened. But he flies into a rage, slashes up the arm, discards his surgical tools—and flees in such a panic that he neglects to properly secure the door.”
“Maybe he was interrupted. Someone arrived.”
“Quite possible. It could have been our friend Rockelton. At any rate, he abandons the storage room, knowing that in this heat the body will be found in a few days.”
“But without having time to hack off any more limbs before the cavalry arrived.”
Pendergast was silent for a moment before continuing. “You used that same expression once before, back at Penumbra: hacking off limbs. In my opinion, he’d accomplished his task—at least, most of it—before leaving the storage unit.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that—based on how carefully the amputation was done, and, as far as we can tell from the photographs on Mr. Socks as well—our quarry wasn’t interested in vivisecting the rest of the body. He was interested in one thing: an arm. Specifically, the right arm.”
“Why just an arm? And the right arm, at that?”
“I don’t know. The evidence as I interpret it is that he was more or less finished.
That is why the orderly state of the container showed recent disarray: he was always prepared to abandon it at short notice.
Hence his exceeding care never to leave incriminating evidence such as fingerprints, hair, or fibers.
I have no doubt that when the CSI analyses are done, and the local police trace all the supplies, equipment, and clothing back to their purchase points, they will find nothing. ”
He blinked slowly, like a camera shutter closing and reopening. “You yourself made a vital observation: the container was well stocked, indicating he had used it before and planned to use it again. As we speculated earlier, we are certainly dealing with a serial killer.”
“Who likes chopping off right arms.”
“Carefully excising right arms.”
“That kind of MO isn’t like any serial killer I’ve studied.”
“Perhaps because the killing itself is not his motive.” Pendergast held up a finger. “In fact, I would hazard to say he does not enjoy killing. It disturbs and even disgusts him. These are not sexual crimes; nor is the killer acting out a need for power and control.”
“He enjoys chopping—I mean, surgically removing—people’s arms.”
“Without further evidence, that is my assumption.”
“Then why leave it with the body?”
“Agent Chambers, I do not have all the answers. Speculation is what I can offer. All I sensed on this subject during my meditation was this: he is a seeker. These things he’s doing, the motivation behind them… he’s searching for something and can’t find it.”
“How do you know he’s searching for something?”
“Process of elimination. As you just said, these murders—we’ve only seen one, but there are undoubtedly others—are unlike the normal serial killer’s.
They display a yearning—even, perhaps, a great longing.
Look at how carefully, how elaborately, he set up that container.
Yet when the crisis arrived, he abandoned it without a second thought.
That implies he has other safe houses in which to work. ”
“If he’s so careful, how can you explain the fact his victim got away from him?”
“That is another mystery. Also significant is the physical condition of the victim. Our killer picked an individual who would be exceedingly difficult to capture and control. Most serial killers go after the weak and defenseless. What we do know is that escape set in motion a cascade of failures, ending with the killer leaving the body behind and abandoning his, ah, operating theater.”
Pendergast fell silent. Chambers glanced over in time to see the man slowly lean his white-blond hair against the headrest. “I wonder, Agent Chambers, if you would mind dropping me off at Penumbra? Given the current state and odor of my suit, I find myself rather eager to get out of it.”