Chapter 51
CHAMBERS HAD NEVER DINED at Sous la Mer—it was three or four degrees above his restaurant affordability scale—but he’d certainly heard of it.
The best seafood restaurant in New Orleans.
And Pendergast had called him, conciliatory and apologetic, and invited him to dinner there at seven.
Finally, Chambers thought, Pendergast was coming around.
Maybe it was Telligren’s death, coupled with the benign autopsy, that caught Pendergast up short.
Maybe just the four days of fruitlessly exploring the rabbit hole was all that was needed for the guy to realize what a fool he was making of himself.
This could be his come-to-Jesus moment. Pendergast was probably feeling a little humiliation along with regret.
Not that he’d ever admit it, but a gesture like this, inviting Chambers to dinner at a fancy restaurant, spoke louder than words.
He entered the restaurant at five minutes after seven, and the ma?tre d’ ushered him to the back—all dark paneled wood, framed photos of bygone days and menus signed by celebrities, game fish mounted on plaques—to a corner banquette of red leather, far from the kitchen and the noise of other diners.
He found Pendergast already seated, a brimming martini glass before him.
“Evening,” Chambers said as he took his seat. “Thanks for the invite.”
“Dinner’s on me, by the way—just so there’s no objectionable scene later on.”
“Fine.” That was of course what Chambers had assumed. He nodded at the glass. “Vodka?”
“Beefeater.”
A waiter came by, slipped a menu before each of them, and Chambers asked for a Heineken. “You grew up in New Orleans,” he said to Pendergast. “In a climate like this, you tend to live longer if beer is your beverage of choice. As for me, I’m off the hard stuff.”
“I commend your self-discipline. I have not drunk beer since my brother forced one upon me when I was twelve.”
This was interesting. Not only was Pendergast buying dinner, but he was opening up about his past… a little. “Guess I can see how that would put you off it.”
“I don’t recall many details, except that it had a ridiculously anachronistic pedigree covering the entire label, more appropriate for Debrett’s Peerage than a domestic beer.”
“Sounds like a Budweiser.”
“You may be correct.” The Heineken arrived. “In any case, cheers.”
They quickly ordered, then relaxed in the snug booth while Chambers briefly brought Pendergast up to speed on the most recent events.
He’d been making slow and steady progress, mostly eliminating possibilities.
Good police work was often incremental. He’d pulled in more manpower to help, and while Fleury was no genius he was a fine and steady plodder.
As he described his work, it wasn’t hard to put an enthusiastic spin on things.
He played up the investigation a little but was careful not to brag or inject any I-told-you-sos into the recap…
after all, he had Pendergast’s pride to consider.
He avoided mentioning the file Pendergast had left on his desk; that, he’d decided, did not look promising and he had not pursued it.
“So,” Chambers said in an offhand tone as a waiter brought their appetizers—steak tartare and toast points for Pendergast, smoked grouper for Chambers.
The senior agent’s pitch was delayed by the waiter’s fussy preparation of the tartare, but eventually it was set before Pendergast, and he began again.
“So I was hoping that, considering Dr. Telligren’s unfortunate death, we could join forces again…
beyond these evening meetings. It would get Estevez off my back—and more to the point, off yours.
We work well together. You helped me during a tough time, and…
and I’d like to think I’ve taught you a few pointers about being on the job.
” He paused to drain his beer. “What we’re doing right now with these meetings…
It may have been my suggestion, but after these last few evenings it’s begun to feel like a divorce.
” He laughed, trying to make it sound unaffected.
“Anyway, with Telligren dead, there are some things I’ve learned about that second armless body that you’ll—”
“Dr. Telligren did not die of natural causes,” Pendergast said, placing a mound of steak tartare on an impossibly thin slice of toast.
“I’m sorry?”
“He was murdered.”
“Didn’t you see the autopsy report?”
“The medical examiner was wrong.”
Chambers, who had speared a piece of smoked fish onto his fork, let it fall to his plate with a clatter, then sat back against the worn leather.
He felt like a balloon that had been filled with air but never tied off and was now deflating.
This was a nightmare that wouldn’t end. He resisted asking Pendergast why he thought so. He just waited.
“Magnus did it,” Pendergast said.
Magnus again. Oh Jesus. He let out an irritated exhalation of breath. Again, he resisted asking why Pendergast thought so. That never went well.
He watched Pendergast slip one hand into the pocket of his suit coat with a feeling of dread.
Pendergast withdrew a piece of what looked like newsprint. He unfolded it, smoothed it, then placed it on the table between them.
It was a crossword puzzle.
Suddenly, a field of red swam before Chambers’s eyes. This prick Pendergast was like a demon, summoned from hell with a single purpose: to drive him crazy.
A crossword puzzle.
Without realizing what he was doing, he rose like an erupting volcano, reached across the table, and wrapped his hands around Pendergast’s neck. “You motherfucker!” he nearly hissed, pressing down with his thumbs, his abrupt movement spilling Pendergast’s martini.
Pendergast reached up, put his own thumbs under Chambers’s palms for leverage, wrapped his fingers around the senior agent’s wrists, gave a slight twist…
and suddenly a stab of agony shot up his forearms. He let go immediately, but Pendergast did not—keeping his hands on his wrists and using the leverage to guide him back into his seat.
Only then did he release his hold. Luckily, with the location of their booth, and the fact that Chambers had kept silent while being manhandled, they had attracted only the attention of the waiters.
Chambers breathed hard, wondering what had driven him to the point where he actually wanted to strangle his partner.
A long silence ensued as the plates were discreetly taken away and the table laid out for the main course.
“I can see now this is all my fault,” Pendergast finally said. “I have not sufficiently explained myself. I have not acted the role of a junior partner. I’ve embarrassed you in front of Estevez.”
“Go to hell,” Chambers growled as he massaged his wrists.
“Let me tell you what I held back before. Are you willing to listen?”
Chambers said nothing. He briefly considered asking the waiter for a champagne bucket of ice to dip his hands into, then dismissed the idea.
“There is a rare psychosis known as ‘body integrity disorder.’ It’s so rare that it’s not in DSM—the diagnostic bible used by psychiatrists. The clinical features of this disorder present as a person believing some part of their body—leg, arm—is not their own. It is foreign. Alien. Even evil.”
He paused, studying the look on Chambers’s face.
“I initially believed Wickman might be suffering from some variant of BID. Many people with this psychosis actually arrange to have the limb surgically removed. And when they do… their symptoms clear up. Even though they are mutilated, they are relieved, if not actually happy, to be rid of the offending limb. And yet Wickman didn’t fit the BID profile.
He was amputating the limbs of others… many others.
There was no precedent for this in all the annals of psychiatry.
Ultimately, I came to the conclusion he suffered from BID in that he not only wanted to be rid of his right arm…
but he wanted the perfect replacement. What precisely constituted the ‘perfect’ replacement I didn’t know, although those pinpricks were clearly part of his testing process.
He was searching, killing, testing arms, and discarding.
His frustration grew as he failed to find the perfect replacement, and he tried different techniques, different methods.
So you see, Chambers, this is why he set up that operating room.
And it explains the role of Telligren and Magnus.
“I asked myself: where did this bizarre psychosis come from? His early life and college years showed no evidence of it. When I heard about his PSI studies—and later, when we first met Telligren and Magnus after investigating the fire—I knew the answer had to lie in the two years Wickman spent in graduate school. That was when he changed, when the grip of psychosis took hold. Telligren was his professor, and Magnus one of his fellow students. That, my dear Chambers, is what links them all, and I have no doubt Telligren and Magnus were the ones in that operating room on the Pearl River.”
He signaled the waiter for another martini to replace the one that had been spilled. “When you met them, that day in Telligren’s office, didn’t your investigator’s sixth sense tell you something was just a little bit off? That perhaps something was being concealed?”
It was true, Chambers had felt a prickle of suspicion—but this was no more than a heap of supposition built on speculation propped up by inference.
“Think of the way Magnus, in particular, toyed with us: offering cigars; using clichés involving arms; letting it slip that he’d known Wickman before—that they were classmates.”
Chambers remained silent.
“Something happened to Wickman in that PSI lab. Something that was covered up. And that ‘something’ affected Wickman for the rest of his life—afflicting him with a psychosis heretofore unseen.”
“Pendergast, get to the point.”
“I am.”
“Please.”