Chapter 34
THEY SPENT THE ENTIRE MORNING at the scene of the fire, and as they drove away, Chambers felt exhausted, his lungs still aching from breathing in the smoke of the burning mansion.
Pendergast, on the other hand, somehow looked as composed as ever, not a hair out of place, his black suit appearing as if it had just come back from the cleaners.
It was like magic—black magic, probably, he thought as he recalled childhood stories about the wealthy old antebellum families of New Orleans and their strange ways.
On cue, Pendergast spoke up. “We have much to talk about.”
“I just want to go home and crash.”
“We have a double autopsy to attend later this afternoon. But in any case, the first order of business is to discuss the way forward.”
“Now?”
“Certainly now, while the information is fresh in our minds.”
“Nothing is fresh in my mind.”
“Perhaps some food and drink would revive you?”
As Chambers thought about it, a drink might be just what the doctor ordered.
And as the surrounding bayous slowly began giving way to bits and pieces of civilization, he saw, up ahead by the side of Chef Menteur Highway, what looked to be his kind of place: a rib joint busily serving lunch, with a smoker as massive as a boiler from the Titanic set out front, gushing gray clouds.
A sign with blinking light bulbs read LOW & SLOW CAJUN BBQ.
“Slow down,” he said.
“What, you don’t mean to stop here, do you?” There was something close to alarm in Pendergast’s voice.
“This looks like just the place for some ass-kicking baby backs and a frosty brew.”
They parked and got out. Chambers tucked away his FBI badge and glanced over at Pendergast. “Might want to put that away,” he said.
“In a place like this,” replied Pendergast, “an FBI badge seems like an excellent way to ward off impertinence.”
Chambers reflected that Pendergast appeared to enjoy stomping out impertinence, but maybe he just felt like flashing the badge. He was a new jack, after all—and Chambers doubted the man’s classified military career had involved wearing uniforms. “Suit yourself,” he said.
A busty woman met them at the open front door and ushered them to a table outside, on an elevated deck overlooking the swamp. A southern rock band was just putting down their instruments for a break as the two sat.
“Will you look at that?” said Chambers, gazing out over the bayou at an enormously fat alligator lying half in, half out of the water. “Man, that’s a big mother, and it looks like it’s just waiting to be fed.”
“That’s Sir Chompers,” said the waitress, coming over. “We throw him all the roadkill. He’s especially fond of possum. Oh, and rowdy drunks.”
“In that case, we promise to remain sober,” said Chambers.
“Honey, I didn’t say sober. I said rowdy.”
Chambers laughed. “I’ll have a pint of Abita Amber.” He had decided to stick to beer for the indefinite future.
“And you, sugar?” She turned to Pendergast, giving him the once-over with an eye that had, no doubt, seen everything.
“Do you offer the Sazerac cocktail?”
“Sure thing, sugar. That’s our specialty, made with Vieux Carré absinthe.”
“Excellent! I shall have it.”
She went off and Pendergast turned to Chambers. “Perhaps this establishment isn’t as bad as it appeared at first glance.”
Their drinks arrived and they ordered food.
The cold beer did wonders for Chambers’s raw throat.
As his mood improved, he considered his partner’s proposal—discussing how they should proceed.
He felt a little hammered down by the man’s astonishing deductions earlier, and—now that he was feeling up to it—decided he should assert his authority and, if only subtly, reestablish the mentor-mentee relationship.
“Speaking as your mentor,” he said, “I’d like to hear your thoughts on how we should proceed now.”
“We need to search back in time,” said Pendergast, without hesitation, “and examine the life of Mr. Parker C. Wickman in minute detail. It is important to further elucidate his motive—given what we just learned.”
Chambers felt a certain satisfaction in hearing how off track this was. Typical of a green agent, actually. The man was smart, but he was still a babe in the woods when it came to FBI protocol and best practices.
“Trying to understand Wickman’s motives is a worthy goal,” said Chambers, “but given that he’s dead and isn’t going to trial, there are now higher priorities.”
“Such as?”
“For one thing, we’ve just seen that there is a fresh homicide to investigate—not committed by Wickman, but of Wickman. We need to identify and apprehend the perpetrators.”
“Undoubtably.”
“Any thoughts on why Wickman might have been murdered?”
“I do.”
Chambers waited, but Pendergast seemed disinclined to share them.
“Well,” he finally said, “it seems pretty obvious to me it was a revenge killing of some sort. A family or friend of someone Wickman killed tracked him down and did the same to him—killed him and then cut off his arm as a way to declare that justice was done. An eye for an eye—literally.”
“That is a viable hypothesis.”
A viable hypothesis. Sounded like what his wife would have called damning with faint praise.
“This is a lesson for you, Pendergast. Now that he’s dead, we can let the profilers at Quantico explore Wickman’s bizarre psychological motives—his state of mind isn’t our business anymore.”
“In my view,” said Pendergast coolly, “his state of mind is of vital importance.”
Chambers cocked his head. “And why is that?”
“For one thing, there are surely more victims of his to identify and various informational lacunae to fill in. More important, the answer to the mystery of Wickman, why he killed and who killed him, will be found in the deep past, just as we noted how the V-pattern of pinpricks mimicked the arrangement of candles in the chapel.”
“And I just explained to you,” said Chambers, annoyed, “why his crazy motives are not a priority. Sure, if the guy were alive and we were building a case, the jury would want to know his motives, crazy as they undoubtedly were. But he’s dead.
The Wickman case is more or less solved—beyond the question of who killed the killer. ”
Pendergast had finished his Sazerac and now poked his finger politely into the air. The waitress came over. “I shall have another, with compliments to the mixologist,” he said.
Chambers ordered another beer.
“The case is not more or less solved,” said Pendergast. “The persons who killed Wickman—there were at least two—may well have been involved in Wickman’s earlier killings. What revenge plan would involve killing not only Wickman but somebody else, as well?”
“We won’t know that until we get an ID on the guy,” Chambers said, beginning to feel defensive.
“And we have not yet heard from the victim found in Wickman’s basement—a man named Proctor, whom I know well.”
Chambers stared. “So you did know him. I thought I was just seeing things.”
“You were not. And when he is able to speak, he may be able to provide valuable information about possible accomplices. But the answer to Wickman’s life and death does not lie in dutifully cataloging the other murders he might have committed—that can be accomplished by such homunculi as Mears and DuBois.
The answer lies in the whys. The motive.
And that means delving into Wickman’s past—where the origin of that triangular pinprick pattern will be found, along with the genesis of his other grotesque psychopathologies. ”
Chambers listened to this pushback with a surge of exasperation.
Pendergast was impossible. He took a moment to bury his face in the beer that had just arrived.
Finally, making an effort to moderate his tone, he said: “Pendergast, you’re going to have to trust me on this.
I’ve worked hundreds of cases. Rule one is don’t complicate a straightforward homicide with the stuff of murder mysteries.
” He took a breath. “Somebody killed Wickman in revenge. Who, we don’t know.
But you know what? He did a public service.
The FBI will of course look into it, but as I see it, the case is now in the wrapping-up phase. ”
After a long silence, Pendergast spoke quietly.
“On the contrary, this case has entered a most urgent and dangerous phase. Naturally, I bow to your greatly superior experience. But let us take a moment to look at the two people involved in the killing of Wickman. These were not lowlifes bent on revenge. These are prominent members of the community.”
“And how would you know that?”
“From evidence I observed at the scene, as well as a glance into the files, my observations of the medical supplies and surgical setup, I have concluded that at least one is an MD—a surgeon, likely still in practice. The second is probably a surgeon as well and is a man who smokes hundred-dollar cigars. They knew Wickman well. Wickman appears to have welcomed them into his house. Wickman evidently allowed them free use of his state-of-the-art operating room—installed at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars—for a particular purpose. What was that purpose? We do not know. Surely it was not to kill him, cut off his arm, and dump his body in the muck. So: if they were not actual accomplices, they were involved with Wickman in some deep and important way. And, I might add, this doesn’t even plumb what might be the strangest depths of this crime—the copycat murder of another young man at essentially the same time Wickman was killed.
And so it is my hope, Agent Chambers, you can take a step back from the FBI book and revisit your assumptions.
There is a dangerous and complex conspiracy behind the murder of Wickman—and it lives on. ”
Pendergast had not raised his voice, but his tone carried a peculiar urgency that increasingly brought Chambers up short. His irritation moved up a notch, but even as it did so he had to admit Pendergast had made some inarguably valid points.
“And from a purely self-interested point of view,” Pendergast added, “if another Wickman-connected killing occurs on our watch, the case would almost certainly be taken from us. Estevez is looking for any excuse to put us in our place.”
Chambers said nothing for a long time, thinking.
The beer had cleared his head and he began to realize that Pendergast was, in his own way, not wrong.
Except what he was saying didn’t quite hang together.
“Okay, I see your point. But what kind of complex conspiracy would get itself involved with a deranged psychopathic serial killer? Why not just report Wickman to the police?”
Pendergast raised his eyebrows inquiringly at Chambers. “A good question.”
“Because he knew something,” said Chambers, answering his own question. “They’re not accomplices. Wickman knew something about them—something very damaging. They needed to kill him because he’s crazy, and was killing people, and would eventually get caught—and then the singing would start.”
“Bravo!” said Pendergast. “That is an excellent deduction, and one even I hadn’t yet considered.
But that’s all the more reason to look into Wickman’s history.
Because those men, you can be sure, will be woven, one way or another, into his life’s thread…
and one is forced to wonder: if they were implicated somehow—why did they wait so long to do something about Wickman? ”
The band was on stage and tuning up again. Chambers shook his head. “I don’t know how you manage it, Pendergast—but all right. I’ll give you—us—three days to pursue this line of investigation. If it doesn’t pan out, we’ll do it my way.”
“Done,” said Pendergast extending his hand.
They shook.
At that moment, a chef in a bloody rubber apron, carrying an overflowing bucket of meat scraps and offal, passed by their table.
The other diners apparently knew what was about to happen, and many of them rose from their tables and gathered at the railing to watch.
The chef reached the edge of the elevated deck, leaned over it, and dumped the scraps into the bayou.
Sir Chompers exploded into action, propelling his enormous body off the mud bar.
Thrashing and snapping, he went to work gobbling up the scraps while the diners ooohed and aaahed and applauded.
“Good heavens, it’s straight out of Moby-Dick—Stubb orders his supper, and then the cook tosses the leavings overboard for the sharks!
” Pendergast finished his Sazerac and dabbing.
“But then, we’re not much further advanced a species, are we?
” He waved around at the entranced onlookers.
“Even I find this spectacle of ferocity and gore to be strangely compelling.”