Chapter 53
AGENT CHAMBERS YAWNED, THEN stretched luxuriously in his bed.
Sundays had always been his favorite day of the week—sleeping in, puttering around the house, reading.
Now that he was getting over the hump of his wife’s death, and his mind had been put to rest with the decision to cut bait with Pendergast, it was gradually becoming his favorite day once again.
He yawned once more, spent another few minutes dozing beneath the covers, then rose and went into the bathroom to freshen up. And then—still in his nightwear—he descended the stairs, scratching himself absently, making for the kitchen.
As he did so, the phone began to ring.
He moved a bit faster, picked up the kitchen extension. “Chambers.”
“Agent Chambers? I’m so sorry to disturb you on a Sunday. This is Dr. Magnus speaking.”
Magnus? Chambers had been afraid it might be Pendergast. This was somebody he’d never expected to hear from.
“Yes, Dr. Magnus. What is it?” As Chambers spoke he went over to the cabinet and pulled down a container of ground coffee.
Filling the coffeepot with water, then dumping it into the coffee machine, he had a vision of Pendergast showing up at Magnus’s house, threatening him, maybe even manhandling him.
God, he hoped this wasn’t something like that.
“Well, I’m rather embarrassed to ask you a favor, but you see…
” There was a pause. “Dr. Telligren, you know, was a dear, dear friend of mine. He was also my mentor. In some ways I owe everything I am today to him. And so, when I heard that the police and even the ME have ruled his death accidental—and apparently have no plans for further investigation—I realized you were the only person I could call.”
“Me?” Chambers pulled a container of OJ and a pint of half-and-half out of the fridge and put them on the table, followed by a glass and a coffee cup. Coffee and juice had become the sum total of his breakfast and would remain so until he’d dropped fifteen pounds.
“Yes. Because his death wasn’t accidental—I believe it was murder.”
Chambers, now pouring brewed coffee into his mug, almost spilled it. “The police, the ME, have said it was natural causes. Cardiac arrest.”
“The police are incompetent. As for the ME, I could probably perform a better autopsy myself. But I know my friend’s heart attack wasn’t accidental—it was provoked. It was murder.”
Chambers poured cream into his coffee, stirred.
“Agent Pendergast is coming by this afternoon. He wishes to question me. I want you to be there, too, so I can explain what I know to be the truth—and how I know it.”
Okay. That explains a lot.
“Frankly, Agent Chambers, there’s a second reason for my request. I recall from our first conversation that you are an experienced agent.
More so, I would guess, than your partner.
The problem is that he’s rather intimidating.
For some reason, he seems to have taken an aggressive, even hostile attitude toward me.
The fact is, I would feel much more comfortable…
much safer… if you were there when I explain—”
“Don’t say another word, Doctor. I completely understand. Given the circumstances, I’ll certainly be there.”
“Thank you. We’re meeting at two PM on my steamboat, the Fant?me. It’s down at the Port of New Orleans. Impossible to miss on the quay.”
“I’ll be there.” Chambers hung up. It wasn’t beyond credibility that Pendergast—with his crazy notion that Magnus was the perpetrator—might end up, one way or another, royally screwing up the case with crazy accusations and rash actions.
Chambers stood up, finishing first his coffee, then his OJ, and dumping the glassware in the sink. So much for a quiet Sunday. With a shake of his head and a muttered curse, he trotted back through the house and up the stairs to get dressed.